spin

That would be most of the passage.

Got any evidence that S. Severus more than once employed "humorous irony"?

If you can't see the problems using a piece of blasphemy, I won't be able to explain it.


spin

the_cave

Then, please tell us who you think could have written it, when, where, and why, and why they would have picked out just the language that andrewcriddle points to?

spin

There were too many opportunities to chronicle. How many times had the text of Tacitus been copied by christian monks anyway?

The use of the material from S.Severus doesn't seem remarkable: a few phrases. If such a scribe had picked other phrases than the ones evinced, you would still try the same ploy: "why [would they] have picked out just the language that andrewcriddle points to?" The question unfortunately would not yield a meaningful response, given that we can't interrogate the one responsible.


spin

andrewcriddle

Tacitus's account contains the back-story which seems to be intended to explain to his audience, how Christianity started and how there were Christians in Rome for Nero to ill-treat.

Sulpicius Severus assumes his audience know this already and has no parallel here about Pontius Pilate (and only a vague parallel about the growth of Christianity and its spread to Rome). The verbal parallels with Tacitus are confined to the account of the persecution itself.

Andrew Criddle

the_cave

But why any phrases at all? Wasn't the direct quote from 2.29 good enough, plus a bit thrown in about Pilate?

Of course I would. It would be the relevant question.

If that's your answer, then hey great, I accept that. ETA: This of course does not necessarily mean that I think there is a meaningful response.

spin

Why not? Why did the Matthean writer uses material from Jdg 13:5 in 1:21? Until we can eke out food for hungry whys, we must be chroniclers.

Apparently not.

So it doesn't matter which phrases the writer picked on. That should indicate that the question isn't too useful for us, especially when, as I've said, we can't interrogate the writer.


spin

ynquirer

Yes, you're right. Good correction.

andrewcriddle

On the question of whether or not the second Medicean (the original of all surviving texts of the later books of the Annals) goes back to a copy made in the household of Sulpicius Severus; the paleography probably suggests otherwise.
http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/tacitus/index.htm

The second Medicean may well go back to a copy made in the time of Sulpicius Severus (beginning of the 5th century) however it was a copy in Rustic Capitals which one would expect from a commercial book producer of the day, while a Christian scriptorium of that time would probably have used Uncial or half-Uncial.
http://alphabetevolution.effect-desi...ncialis_03.htm
Although both the First and Second Medicean are a result of repeated copying of Tacitus by Christian scribes, their transmission in Christian circles probably begins a century or so after Sulpicius Severus.

Andrew Criddle

the_cave

spin, are you really suggesting that all of Annals 15.44 following et sellisternia ac pervigilia celebravere feminae, quibus mariti erant is an interpolation? This would seem to shorten 15.44 rather severely. But the whole thing can't be interpolated--why would a Christian scribe invent the first sentences? And why would they flub the name "Christian"? Doesn't it seem much more likely that the passage is mostly original to Tacitus, but that it has been interpolated by a Christian scribe to give it a Christian flavor?

So, the original passage would relate the persecution of the Chrestians (whoever they were) by Nero. We know Suetonius spoke of them, so there is another record of them. There would be nothing about Pilate at all in Tacitus. Sulpicius Severus read it, copied it nearly verbatim, but assumed that it was about the Christians. Later, a Christian scribe would make the interpolations. Problem solved.

Note that this is a very different argument than the argument that there was an original version of the TF. I'm suggesting that the original version of Annals 15.44 would not in fact have anything to do with "Christians" (or Pilate) at all. Otherwise, how do you think the original passage read?

spin

It should be obvious reading the sections before 15.44 that the christian material waylays the passage attacking Nero about the fire and undermines it by focusing on the dastardly deeds against christian martyrs who won the sympathy of onlookers. You can see Tacitus's hand in the subtle passage about Nero trying everything he could but still not changing people's opinions about the cause of the fire:

But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order.

Then we get the trainwreck:

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero...

and what follows goes right off the rails. No longer are you left hanging with Nero and that it must have been probable that he started the fire. You get crisping christians and people being torn apart and other spectacles.

The long section about the fire starts off (15:38) with Tacitus already suggesting Nero's connection with the fire:

A disaster followed, whether accidental or treacherously contrived by the emperor, is uncertain

Do you think it could be the case that one of Rome's most noted orators, whose work shows great precision and structure, would get himself so sidetracked as to finish the section with something totally irrelevant to the train of thought that carried him through the section?

With the first passage I cited above! That's where you leave the reader hanging with the greatest effect, thinking that it seemed likely that Nero did cause the fire.


spin