rlogan

Isn't it odd that Josephus writes of the various sects of the Jews, not mentioning the Christians, but for the bizarre TF inserted in a different place altogether, and the James passage.

For them to have stood out as a separate and persecuted group by 60 CE would have warranted mention by Josephus.

andrewcriddle

My point is that unless we assume Tertullian possessed the entire collected works of Tacitus the fact that he knew the Hisories need not mean that he had ever read the Annals


Nero's persecution appears to have been confined to Rome.
If so Josephus would not be likely to have mentioned it.

Andrew Criddle

spin

You could be right, but it is an improbable argument. Tacitus was known for both these works and was an "expert" in the field of Roman history. Tertullian appears to have some knowledge of Roman history. Your argument is a little like having Kill Bill Vol.2 without knowing the content of Vol.1.

The art of the rhetorician involved knowing your literature. The unjustly much maligned Lucian of Samosata, famous for writing satyrical dialogues and other apparent flights of fancy, also managed to pen a work called "How not to write history" (a good read), which demonstrates a vast knowledge of the material he was criticising. Josephus also indicates a vast wealth of documents he was able to access. It was part and parcel of the trade that Terullian was in to know his books.

He evinces no knowledge of the persecution under Domitian either.


spin

blt to go

O.K. I am going to show my appalling lack of knowledge regarding Josephus, but if I don't ask I won't learn nothin'

(And rlogan was thinking the same, so I can't be the only one. )

It appears incongruous that on the one hand Nero is blaming christians for the burning of Rome, and is using them as garden lights in what one person has termed a "weenie roast," and that Josephus would not make any mention of the group, or specifcally its leader, J.C.

I am unsure as to the audience Josephus was writing. If it was Romans, I would think they would be interested in the leader of the group blamed for the buring of Rome. (We learned more about Osama bin Laden in 2 weeks in September of 2001 then most knew in years before. It is natural curiousity)

If it was the Jews, then my understanding is that the most likely converts as early as 60 C.E. would be Jewish, (Paul addresses the Jewish problem in the letter to Romans) so they, too, would be interested in the blame being placed and the leader of the sect.

If, however, it was Non-Jewish christians in Rome, this makes Vorkosigan's point of how to tell the difference between christians and non-christians more extenuated.

I am looking for direction as to how Nero could be doing this persecution, and Josephus only give a mention to the leader of the group blamed for the fire. Thanks

Rick Sumner

I agree with your conclusion, but your reasoning here gets you there by blind luck. Post-printing press analogies do not hold up. Much less the world of mass media we live in today.

I somehow doubt that Josephus had Google.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Vorkosigan

Nero in Antiquities Book 20. Josephus appears familiar with both other histories and with affairs in Rome.

2. But now Agrippina was afraid, lest, when Britannicus should come to man's estate, he should succeed his father in the government, and desired to seize upon the principality beforehand for her own son [Nero]; upon which the report went that she thence compassed the death of Claudius. Accordingly, she sent Burrhus, the general of the army, immediately, and with him the tribunes, and such also of the freed-men as were of the greatest authority, to bring Nero away into the camp, and to salute him emperor. And when Nero had thus obtained the government, he got Britannicus to be so poisoned, that the multitude should not perceive it; although he publicly put his own mother to death not long afterward, making her this requital, not only for being born of her, but for bringing it so about by her contrivances that he obtained the Roman empire. He also slew Octavia his own wife, and many other illustrious persons, under this pretense, that they plotted against him.

3. But I omit any further discourse about these affairs; for there have been a great many who have composed the history of Nero; some of which have departed from the truth of facts out of favor, as having received benefits from him; while others, out of hatred to him, and the great ill-will which they bare him, have so impudently raved against him with their lies, that they justly deserve to be condemned. Nor do I wonder at such as have told lies of Nero, since they have not in their writings preserved the truth of history as to those facts that were earlier than his time, even when the actors could have no way incurred their hatred, since those writers lived a long time after them. But as to those that have no regard to truth, they may write as they please; for in that they take delight: but as to ourselves, who have made truth our direct aim, we shall briefly touch upon what only belongs remotely to this undertaking, but shall relate what hath happened to us Jews with great accuracy, and shall not grudge our pains in giving an account both of the calamities we have suffered, and of the crimes we have been guilty of. I will now therefore return to the relation of our own affairs.


9. Now when Porcius Festus was sent as successor to Felix by Nero, the principal of the Jewish inhabitants of Cesarea went up to Rome to accuse Felix; and he had certainly been brought to punishment, unless Nero had yielded to the importunate solicitations of his brother Pallas, who was at that time had in the greatest honor by him. Two of the principal Syrians in Cesarea persuaded Burrhus, who was Nero's tutor, and secretary for his Greek epistles, by giving him a great sum of money, to disannul that equality of the Jewish privileges of citizens which they hitherto enjoyed. So Burrhus, by his solicitations, obtained leave of the emperor that an epistle should be written to that purpose. This epistle became the occasion of the following miseries that befell our nation; for when the Jews of Cesarea were informed of the contents of this epistle to the Syrians, they were more disorderly than before, till a war was kindled.

11. About the same time king Agrippa built himself a very large dining-room in the royal palace at Jerusalem, near to the portico. Now this palace had been erected of old by the children of Asamoneus. and was situate upon an elevation, and afforded a most delightful prospect to those that had a mind to take a view of the city, which prospect was desired by the king; and there he could lie down, and eat, and thence observe what was done in the temple; which thing, when the chief men of Jerusalem saw they were very much displeased at it; for it was not agreeable to the institutions of our country or law that what was done in the temple should be viewed by others, especially what belonged to the sacrifices. They therefore erected a wall upon the uppermost building which belonged to the inner court of the temple towards the west, which wall when it was built, did not only intercept the prospect of the dining-room in the palace, but also of the western cloisters that belonged to the outer court of the temple also, where it was that the Romans kept guards for the temple at the festivals. At these doings both king Agrippa, and principally Festus the procurator, were much displeased; and Festus ordered them to pull the wall down again: but the Jews petitioned him to give them leave to send an embassage about this matter to Nero; for they said they could not endure to live if any part of the temple should be demolished; and when Festus had given them leave so to do, they sent ten of their principal men to Nero, as also Ismael the high priest, and Helcias, the keeper of the sacred treasure. And when Nero had heard what they had to say, he not only forgave (22) them what they had already done, but also gave them leave to let the wall they had built stand. This was granted them in order to gratify Poppea, Nero's wife, who was a religious woman, and had requested these favors of Nero, and who gave order to the ten ambassadors to go their way home; but retained Helcias and Ismael as hostages with herself. As soon as the king heard this news, he gave the high priesthood to Joseph, who was called Cabi, the son of Simon, formerly high priest.

In Wars, Josephus writes

1. NOW as to the many things in which Nero acted like a madman, out of the extravagant degree of the felicity and riches which he enjoyed, and by that means used his good fortune to the injury of others; and after what manner he slew his brother, and wife, and mother, from whom his barbarity spread itself to others that were most nearly related to him; and how, at last, he was so distracted that he became an actor in the scenes, and upon the theater, - I omit to say any more about them, because there are writers enough upon those subjects every where; but I shall turn myself to those actions of his time in which the Jews were concerned.

*******

Those Christians whom Nero burned *must have been ethnically Jews,* the vast majority, since Christianity piggybacked across the Med in diaspora Jewish communities. It is almost unimaginable that Josephus would have failed to mention it, especially as his avowed goal is to note what happened to the Jews and especially how they caused the calamaties that befell them.

Note that he stresses in Wars that Nero was like a madman, and certainly torching humans alive would have gone a long way to prove it. No, I think the silence of both Tertullian and Josephus is highly suspicious.

I'm sorry, BTW, to have used the term "weenie roast." But I don't really think this event ever occurred.

Vorkosigan

spin

I find myself wanting to rely on Paul on the matter of xians in Jewish communities throughout the Mediterranean, for when Paul wrote to the Galatians they already knew a lot about the Jewish literary tradition, not something that a Galatian would pick up in daily life. When Paul wrote to the Romans, it seems obvious that his audience was very conversant with Judaism as well.

(This is another datum against the veracity of Gal 2:7-8, for it tells us Paul's message was to the uncircumcised, yet it is plain that he had a lot of dealings with the circumcised in his mission, so I think Gal 2:7-8 is artificial in its separation of circumcised v. uncircumcised.)

It would seem from his wording above that Vork accepts the Neronian persecution, though he finishes his post with "But I don't really think this event ever occurred", so I'm left wondering whether it was only the weenie roast which is doubted or the whole persecution.


spin

andrewcriddle

That's a good point but strictly speaking the Histories are not a sequel to the Annals although they begin where the Annals ended.

It seems clear that Tacitus began by writing the Histories then stopped before the completion of his original plan and then wrote the Annals.

The real issue here may be the surprisingly little use made of Tacitus in the ancient world in general.

One other point: Tertullian clearly claims that there are Roman records of measures taken by Nero against Christians. He may have been bluffing but I think it more likely that he was basing this on the account in Suetonius's Life of Nero. (Tertullian seems clearly to have known other parts of the 'Twelve Caesars'.)

Andrew Criddle

Vorkosigan

The entire persecution. To carry it out, Tacitus avers, Nero arrested and interrogated many. "An immense multitude" Tacitus says (echoing the vocabulary of Mark? One thinks of the crowds who followed Jesus). Some very significant portion of those arrested and burned must have been Jews, since many early Christians were. So how come Josephus is silent about this vast interrogation?

I think the reconstruction in the Doughty article, which eliminates the bloc of material relating to Christians, may be closer to the original. Though Doughty's reconstruction does not directly address the burning. Against that, there's just something very Tacitean in that terse epigram about Rome, "where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and become popular."

Vorkosigan

spin

Here's some of what Tertullian wrote:

"His disciples also, spreading over the world, did as their Divine Master bade them; and after suffering greatly themselves from the persecutions of the Jews, and with no unwilling heart, as having faith undoubting in the truth, at last by Nero's cruel sword sowed the seed of Christian blood at Rome." (Apol. 21)

or

"This name of ours took its rise in the reign of Augustus; under Tiberius it was taught with all clearness and publicity; under Nero it was ruthlessly condemned" (Ad Nat. 7)

or

"At Rome Nero was the first who stained with blood the rising faith." (Scorpiace, 15)

This is certainly not the "trivial" punishment of xians, as listed with tavern keepers, charioteers and pantomime actors in Suetonius.


spin