stephan huller

To be honest, I'm just happy to have someone agree with me against von Harnack that the parallels with Acts of Peter were present in Clement not added later. Its really interesting. My guess is that it goes back to SOMETHING historical. Just what I'm not sure. it's important to note that the Acts of Peter assumes a high degree of interaction between Peter and Roman nobility. The conversion of the senator Marcellus is treated as something typical rather than extraordinary. Very odd.

My guess would be that Clement latched on to the story to bolster the claims of Secret Mark against canonical Mark.

stephan huller

Luke 15:1 - 2 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Vulgate erant autem adpropinquantes ei publicani et peccatores ut audirent illum et murmurabant Pharisaei et scribae dicentes quia hic peccatores recipit et manducat cum illis

Ἦσαν δὲ αὐτῷ ἐγγίζοντες πάντες οἱ τελῶναι καὶ οἱ ἁμαρτωλοὶ ἀκούειν αὐτοῦ. καὶ διεγόγγυζον οἱ τε Φαρισαῖοι καὶ οἱ γραμματεῖς λέγοντες ὅτι οὗτος ἁμαρτωλοὺς προσδέχεται καὶ συνεσθίει αὐτοῖς.

Wikipedia entry for Roman equestrian order http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equestrian_order

stephan huller

Vulgate references to 'publicanus'


1. Matthew 10:3
James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the publican, and James the son of Alpheus, and Thaddeus,


2. Matthew 18:17
And if he will not hear them: tell the church. And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican.


3. Luke 5:27
And after these things he went forth, and saw a publican named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom, and he said to him: Follow me.


4. Luke 18:10
Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.


5. Luke 18:11
The Pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself: O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican.


6. Luke 18:13
And the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards heaven; but struck his breast, saying: O God, be merciful to me a sinner.

publicani


1. Matthew 5:46
For if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? do not even the publicans this?


2. Matthew 9:10
And it came to pass as he was sitting at meat in the house, behold many publicans and sinners came, and sat down with Jesus and his disciples.


3. Matthew 9:11
And the Pharisees seeing it, said to his disciples: Why doth your master eat with publicans and sinners?


4. Matthew 11:19
The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say: Behold a man that is a glutton and a wine drinker, a friend of publicans and sinners. And wisdom is justified by her children.


5. Matthew 21:31
Which of the two did the father' s will? They say to him: The first. Jesus saith to them: Amen I say to you, that the publicans and the harlots shall go into the kingdom of God before you.


6. Matthew 21:32
For John came to you in the way of justice, and you did not believe him. But the publicans and the harlots believed him: but you, seeing it, did not even afterwards repent, that you might believe him.


7. Mark 2:15
And it came to pass, that as he sat at meat in his house, many publicans and sinners sat down together with Jesus and his disciples. For they were many, who also followed him.


8. Mark 2:16
And the scribes and the Pharisees, seeing that he ate with publicans and sinners, said to his disciples: Why doth your master eat and drink with publicans and sinners?


9. Luke 3:12
And the publicans also came to be baptized, and said to him: Master, what shall we do?


10. Luke 5:29
And Levi made him a great feast in his own house; and there was a great company of publicans, and of others, that were at table with them.


11. Luke 5:30
But the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying to his disciples: Why do you eat and drink with publicans and sinners?


12. Luke 7:29
And all the people hearing, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with John' s baptism.


13. Luke 7:34
The Son of man is come eating and drinking: and you say: Behold a man that is a glutton and a drinker of wine, a friend of publicans and sinners.


14. Luke 15:1
Now the publicans and sinners drew near unto him to hear him.


15. Luke 19:2
And behold, there was a man named Zacheus, who was the chief of the publicans, and he was rich.

stephan huller

Marcion's interest in the publicani:

The publican who was chosen by the Lord (publicanum adlectum a domino in argumentum deducit = notice, no name is indicated), he adduces for a proof that he was chosen as a stranger to the law and uninitiated in Judaism, by one who was an adversary to the law (quasi ab adversario legis adlectum, extraneum legis et Iudaismi profanum). The case of Peter escaped his memory, who, although he was a man of the law, was not only chosen by the Lord, but also obtained the testimony of possessing knowledge which was given to him by the Father. [Against Marcion 4.11.1]

stephan huller

Tacitus Roman Histories 5:9:

The princes now being dead or reduced to insignificance, Claudius made Judea a province and entrusted it to Roman knights or to freedmen; one of the latter, Antonius Felix, practised every kind of cruelty and lust, wielding the power of king with all the instincts of a slave; he had married Drusilla, the grand-daughter of Cleopatra and Antony, and so was Antony's grandson-in‑law, while Claudius was Antony's grandson.

Josephus famously corrupts this story into Felix marrying one of the daughters of Agrippa.

stephan huller

Like the Temple of Saturn, that of Castor and Pollux faced northward onto the Via Sacra, in this case, very near the Temple of Vesta. It was begun by Aulus Postumius Albinus shortly after 496 B.C. and completed by his son in 484 B.C. The twin gods Castor and Pollux, the Greek Dioscuri and sons of Zeus and Leda, were horsemen who were believed to have helped the Romans magically in the victorious battle at Lake Regillus in 496 B.C.33 They were thought to have lived half of their time on earth and half in heaven and had been worshipped in Tusculum since early times.34 After Rome defeated Tusculum, it adopted Castor and Pollux as the patrons of its cavalry, or the knights of Rome. They were often depicted with their horses, riding from Regillus to Rome with news of the battle. Called simply Castores and their temple the aedes Castoris, they came to be widely worshipped in Italy as savior gods.35 Their adoption by the Romans was typical of the borrowing characteristic of their religious practice, transferring to themselves the power and the following of the divinities of defeated cities or states. http://books.google.com/books?id=qSP...ted%22&f=false

stephan huller

Pilate was a Roman knight:

stephan huller

Did the equites govern Judaea after the destruction of the temple in 70 CE? All indications seem to be that they did:

stephan huller

For example in the first months of the crisis year the last procurator, Gessius Florus, had two prominent Jews, who had Roman citizenship and - presumably because of their substantial means - were, like Florus himself, both members of the equites, publicly scourged and crucified in Jerusalem against all Roman law. These seem to have been Jews from Jerusalem (or Caesarea) who belonged to the uppermost level of society, those very circles from which John the tax farmer came. Possibly he was one of them. Despite these attacks, which above all affected the Hellenistic upper class, the majority of the Jerusalem aristocracy held out against the seizure of power by the radicals right to the end.

The rift which ran through the people was thus social, educational and cultural at the, same time. Despite the attempts at mediation by Agrippa II and his sister Berenice (who later became Titus's mistress),in alliance with leading priests and liberal Pharisees, disaster could no longer be staved off. The attempt by Herod and his successors to integrate Judaea into the Roman empire by encouraging Greek education among the 'upper ten thousand' was doomed to failure [Martin Hengel The Hellenization of Judea p. 47]

stephan huller

Tacitus describes Tiberius Alexander, when he was an officer on the staff of the Roman general Corbulo in Armenia in 63, just as "a distinguished Roman knight." Even more remarkably, having just informed his readers at the beginning of his Histories, which cover the years 69 to 96, that in 69 “the war against the Jews was being directed with three legions by Flavius Vespasianus,” he immediately proceeds to describe the government of Egypt, “managed from the time of the deified Augustus by Roman knights in place of their former kings ... At this time the governor was Tiberius Alexander, of that same nation [i.e. an Egyptian].” The satirist Juvenal, writing at about the same time as Tacitus, mocks Tiberius Alexander, against whose triumphal statue “it is permissible not only to pee,” as “some Egyptian Alabarch or other,” referring to the post held by Tiberius' father. For both Roman authors, Tiberius Alexander's origins as a Jew were apparently irrelevant. His career exemplified the willingness of the Roman elite to ignore the ethnic and racial origins of provincials who sought to be treated as Roman, provided only that the individual in question adopted Roman customs in full. http://books.google.com/books?id=CBG...ed=0CDQQ6AEwAQ