Attonitus

Coponius, according a Jewish author: Josephus (see War of the Jews, 2.117)

spamandham

gee, thanks.

(I would have thought it obvious that a correction would be in order rather than a simple "you're wrong").

spamandham

But if the mythicist/fictional/(or even mystical!) character position is correct, then of course Christians would talk as if Jesus was real in 110 CE, even if he never had been, and even if they knew he was not historical. To an outsider, a mystical or even known fictional Jesus could easily be misunderstood to be a real person. Of course if he was mythical, even those telling it would believe that to be true.

They would pass that on to Tacitus who would accept that "Christus" (presumed to be Jesus) was a historical figure. Why wouldn't he accept that much? If you have never been a Christian, and were only superficially knowledgable about it (like Tacitus probably would have been) there would be little reason to doubt that part of the story.

It seems to me that the use of the word "Chistus" is undeniable proof that if the text in question is legitimate, that Tacitus got his info from Christians rather than Roman records in this case.

Ultimately, what Tacitus wrote is nothing more than proof that Christianity existed (asuming the writing was authentic).

What you're saying is just right back to the argument that the existence of Christianity in the 2nd century proves a historical Jesus in the first. But that's the whole point of discussion!

The proposition is, that the mere existence of Christianity does not prove a historical Jesus, as there are other reasonable scenarios that could account for the existence of Christianity, that do not suffer from many of the same problems that the HJ position does, i.e., the claim that HJ is more parsimonius is flawed.

spin

Umm, I was clear enough. Josephus did not write in Latin. I did use the word "Latin" for a reason. We need someone who knew well the terminology and a Greek writer doesn't necessarily have the background. Try again, this time with a Latin writer.

ETA: And it could be any province governed by a procurator before the time of Claudius. So, surely one can find a Latin writer who admits to such a beast.


spin

spin

You really do have a fixation with mythicists, don't you?

You need to understand scholarship.

It doesn't say: it must be this way and there is no other choice; it must be this way and there is no other choice; it must be this way and there is no other choice.

It says: the evidence points this way, so I'll argue it; the evidence points this way, so I'll argue it; oops, there is more evidence that points elsewhere, let's forget that argument.

Scholarship involves the necessary abandonment of positions which don't cover the evidence. Belief says to adhere to a position despite the evidence.

I think the evidence clearly says that we are dealing with an interpolation in Tac. A.15.44 and I have supplied numerous reasons in the past. Bleeding about it won't deal with the arguments.


spin

spin

Christians, according to Tac. A.15.44, were hated by the populace, ie the populace knew according to the text who the christians were. This means it is not Tacitus simply saying what the thoughts in his time were. The text says that at the time of the fire the populace knew the christians and hated them. It also says that Nero picked specifically on these christians, ie he knew them as well. Then of course his agents knew how to find christians, so these agesnts also knew the christians. The text works on the necessary knowledge of christians at the time of the fire, not some backgrounder pasted in there by Tacitus.


spin

GakuseiDon

If it is correct, then we would have to re-evaluate Tacitus -- I agree. But as you then say below:

Exactly! He would accept it because as the most probable explanation. Not proof, of course, but evidence for historicity. We would then need to go on and evaluate the other evidence. If the other evidence is strong enough, then fair enough. But to ignore the passage in Tacitus because "it is what Christians told him" presupposes that what the Christians told him wasn't correct.

spamandham

I would agree, if I knew little about Christianity. There would be no reason to suspect otherwise. Considering how little Tacitus (or Jospehus) wrote about it, it seems fair to place them in the "novice" category regarding the actual beliefs of Christianity. I would place myself in that category regarding Islam and Buddhism and many other religions, and would tend to assume the lead characters actually existed since my knowledge of the problems such an assumption creates is extremely limited. In this very thread, I assumed Paul existed based on similar assumptions, and to my surpise, discovered there are those who provide reason to think he too was a fictional character! They may be wrong, or I may be wrong in my assumption, but the point is I simply made the assumption because it did not seem unreasonable to someone such as myself working with limited information about Paul.

The picture changes once you really study Christinaity. When you see that pretty much everything that is attributed to Jesus parallels pre-existing myths, legends, and wisdom teachings, and when you start to see the problems associated with the HJ position (such as the mystical writings of Paul, the multiple divergent churches that already existed in the earliest records, the utter lack of any contemporary writings about the man, etc.), the mythical position seems to be at least on par with the HJ position, if not simpler.

We have no reason to suspect Tacitus or Josephus would have been aware of these problems, considering how little they seemed to have known about Christianity.

ynquirer

The strength of Isidore as a source does not stem from his telling us how the origin of the word was understood 700 years after the fact. He cites Marcus Terentius Varro extensively thorough his work and on this account he is supposed to copy Varro’s lost etymologies whenever he writes on words not in use in the seventh century - which is the case of proconsul and procurator, extinct offices much before in the West. And Varro (116 - 27 BC) is an authority on Latin etymologies that happened to live right on the spot of the present discussion.

To put it simply, modern scholarship on etymologies permanently struggles with Varro and Isidore, either to find support for a theory on the origin of a particular word, either to refute them. I’m afraid you need something more than dismissing the source because it is very old but not old enough and you ignore its bearing.

I understand your perplexity. Using such sources as Plautus and Ovid to ascertain what a procurator did will be a little disappointing.

Your invention, sir. Precisely, the term proconsul is not derived from “imperium pro consule.” There are several Roman writers that tell the story, Cicero among them. When Pompey was given extraordinary powers to fight Sertorius - just because the consuls might not do so because the rebel was in Hispania - the Senate issued a decree according to which Pompey was sent non pro consule sed pro consulibus, that is, not with the imperium of a consul, as you say, but with the imperium of both consuls. That is what proconsular authority meant: the powers of a dictator beyond the point where the powers of the consuls stopped.

The word proconsul rather stem from a prefix “pro-” (which is common to many Indoeuropean languages: you find it together in ancient Greek and Sanskrit, and it not exhaustively means “forth,” “before,” “in front of”) plus consul. In legal terms it was very clear: a proconsul actuated wherever any consul might not do. Likewise for a procurator, who actuated whenever a curator might not do.

Yes, I would.

Literally, pro-scribo means to write before, to write over or upon, to inscribe. Among other usages, the verb means publishing a person as having forfeited his property, hence, to punish with confiscation. Also to proscribe, outlaw one, by hanging a tablet with his name and sentence of outlawry, confiscation of goods, etc.

The problem is that you think of English etymologies, not of Latin ones.

I lack words to argue against your boldness in denying evidence.

Your mistake here is failing to realize that the same word may be written either as curro - as you imply - or as curso. Both ways it means “run/trot/gallop, hurry/hasten/speed, move/travel/proceed/flow swiftly/quickly.” Now, from the stem curso, Latin language got several connected meanings by just prefixing. For instance:

• pro-curso = to run forward
  
  re-curso = to run or hasten back
  
  trans-curso = to run across, run or hasten through
  
  pre-curso = to run before, hasten on before, hence, precede, antecede
  
  dis-curso = to run off in different directions, hence, wander, roam
  
  con-curso = to come running in large numbers, hence, rally, assemble.

Enough?

Did you see how I wrote “… hence …”? Well, you happen to take the post-hence phrase, that is, common but not literal usage instead of the pre-hence phrase, that is, the origin of the word, hence, its etymology.

Your case is irremediably lost.

The OLD is good source for English meaning of Latin words; Latin etymologies in addition to that is general-purpose information - not necessarily warranted against all odds - for educated people courtesy of the editors. Yet this is not what we are talking about. Citing OLD as a source for Latin etymologies is much like citing Wikipedia or even Encyclopedia Britannica, that is, unspecific as such a source.

As you seem to have been lecturing on scholarship in this same thread, let me put it in a way you will understand it. Isidore and Varro are specific, first-class as a source for Latin etymologies; you may disagree, of course, but you may not dismiss them without good reason. You may cite them in an article submitted for a peer-reviewed journal, yet your article will be rejected if you have nothing better than a Latin-English dictionary to support disagreement with them.

spin

You may guess that his source is Varro, but sourcing this kind of material is notoriously difficult. How do you discern who actually supplied what you quoted? Unfortunately, you can't. While Vergilius and Sallustius are cited in the book, Terentius Varro isn't cited (though he is for example in Bk 10).

Plautus shows you the word in context 150 years before your hypothesized source, M.Terentius Varro.

I think you misunderstand when you omit the parentheses.

This is the crux of your argument. You have nothing else. Substantiate it and you might have your case.

You don't answer "yes" to a choice. You select the one you think correct if any.

So I guess that you actually choose the second, ie that proscriptor comes from proscribo.

The problem is that you are simply clutching at straws.

I can't really deny nothing. Try again.

Too bad you didn't read what you are dealing with carefully. Try it again.

What did you achieve other than showing that you know a few word derivations. Well done!

You fail to deal with what Plautus wrote, which I did supply for you to look at.

If you think grandstanding will help you feel better...

I see you don't have access to the text at the moment.

Why don't you try to show that Isidore is actually using Varro in the passage you refer to? Once you do, you can say how exactly it explains Plautus's use of the term procurator.

I'll wait for your peer-review directed paper on avoiding the original discussion we were having regarding the fact that Tacitus is aware of the significance of the term procurator and when it was used to indicate someone with magisterial power to govern a minor province, which was during the time of Claudius.



spin