The title of Flannery O'Connor's The Violent Bear It Away contains both a conundrum and the key for unlocking it. The novel's name is taken from the Douay-Rheims translation of Matthew 11:12: "And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away."
Many recent biblical scholars interpret this passage as a reference to those who would impatiently seize the divine kingdom by force, brutally laying hold of it as if it were a means of destruction rather than redemption. The phrase may in fact refer to Jewish Zealots who wanted to rout the Romans, or else to Jewish religious authorities who bullied their way into control of the synagogues or, even more particularly, to arrogant leaders of the Jewish temple with its wealth, prestige and political power. In every case, it seems that the biblical claim about seizing the Kingdom is negative in its import, referring to evil (perhaps even satanic) attacks on the radically alternative community established by Jesus.
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