mountainman

That's a very good trick Antipope Innocent II.
It only become problematic when they produce
the generally accepted evidence that some
canon was used 6 years later in the actual lavish
publication of the "Constantine Bible"?

If the canon was not discussed at Nicaea, and hey,
I am not arguing that the canon was discussed at
Nicaea by a long shot, then Eubebius was the dude
responsible for the new testament canon with
respect to this Constantine Bible.

It is not a pretty picture.



Pete Brown

QUOTE FOR THE DAY:

"Truth is the only merit that gives
dignity and worth to history".

--- Lord Acton (1834-1902)

Lucretius

Tacitus does not but Suetonius does mention a Chrestus who was causing problems.
However as Chrestus was a fairly common slave name it is not certain if it is a misspelling of Christus i.e Jesus Christ or a real person who happened to have the name Chrestus and was just a troublemaker.
The language seems to imply that this Chrestus was alive at the time of Claudius ' reign

Life of Claudius 25:4

"As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome."

angelo

Suetonius relates that between 41-54 ce, Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome.
Although Crestus was a popular name, this is often taken as a corruption of Christ. Even if this were true,however, Christ is simpley a Greek translation of ''Messiah'' and there were at the time any number of would be Messiahs rousing the Jews to rebellion, so the supposition that any reference to Christ neccessarily refers to the Jesus of the Gospels is completely unfounded.
Anyway, Jesus is not believed to have ever visited Rome. All we are really being told is that Claudius had to deal with troublesome Jews,which were a regular occurrence in Roman history of the time. It tells us nothing of a historical Jesus.

Lucretius

Of course I agree with you the only "proviso" I would add is that is is possible that Suetonius had heard that these "Jews" were causing trouble due to the "teachings " of a Christus and assumed that it was a living person in Rome at that time and not someone who had allegedly died a decade or so previously .
But all that would prove would be that there were Christians in Rome in any case.

Just to clarify
There are 3 possible interpretations of the Suetonius quote
1) There was a freed slave called Chrestus who was causing trouble in the Jewish community in Rome at that time.
2)There was a "messiah figure" who was doing likewise but was alive at that time and not the Jesus of the Bible.
3) The "Jewish " troublemakers were in fact Christians but Suetonius got a garbled account of their motivation and assumed that their Christus was still alive and living among them in Rome
None of which does anything to establish an HJ

Chris Weimer

Tacitus has Chrestiani and Suetonius has Christiani for Christian, though.

Moreover, the problem is compounded by Suetonius' lack of solid information on Christians and Christ.

That's a dubious way of reading Suetonius outside his text. While superficially it can mean that he was there in Rome actually goading the Jews there, it can also mean that the Jews were in an uproar over the mere name of Chrestus, or that someone was preaching about the name Chrestus that infuriated the Jews.

I'm having a hard time thinking of any Chrestus that would have been significant to Jews in Rome. It's not impossible, and it's actually probable, that someone was in Rome preaching about this Chrestus to the Jews, and Suetonius picked up on the most important bit - Chrestus.

Chris Weimer

First of all, if Chrestus is a corruption of Christus, then we're one step further removed - Christus is nothing in Latin, being first mentioned in Pliny and Tacitus. Therefore its highly doubtful that Suetonius would have known the Jewish context of the word (he doesn't seem familiar with Messianism in Judaism). Secondly, both Tacitus and Pliny, writing before Suetonius, connected Christian (or in Tacitus, Chrestian) with Christus, so Suetonius has a clear precedent to use Christus only in one way - to refer to the founder of Christiani/Chrestiani, not any Jewish wannabe Messiah.

You forgot a tiny detail - if Chrestus is a corruption of Christus, then it certainly does tell us that troublesome Jews, instigated by Christ, whether by name or by person according to Suetonius, were expelled by Claudius.

Your minimalistic explanation doesn't adequately cover all the evidence.

Chris Weimer

Just a little bit of cross-posting here with Lucretius.

That's a very important thing to "prove".

Number two is unlikely for the reasons I already stated. No. 1 and 3 are then the likely options. Without any overlooming Chrestus figure mentioned who is connected to Judaism, I think Occam's razor (multiplying entities and all) would point to option 3 as being the most probable, at least for the time being.

Chris Weimer

One more thing here against angelo atheist:

In Greek, before and even during the Septuagint, christos did not mean messiah, but "ointment, oil". This is how its found in Euripides, Aeschylus, and Theocritus, the latter writing during the third century BCE.

It is only, as far as I can see, in Jewish and later Christian contexts (the LXX and the NT) that christos is used as a translation for mashiakh, Hebrew for "anointed", not "messiah". The Graeco-Roman religion did not have a clear concept for "anointed one" corresponding to the Judaean version.

Therefore Suetonius would not have called just anyone a "messiah", and if the word Christus is used, it has to refer to someone in the Jewish/Christian community would gave the appellation to someone. Josephus points to only one person out of the many messiahs who bore the title Christus.

aa5874

But the word is Chrestus. Who is Chrestus? We have no details on Chrestus. The Jesus, son of the Ghost, was called son of man, Elijah, son of David, Jeremiah but never Chrestus.

Chrestus does not confirm or add anything specific to the historicity of Jesus, son of the Ghost.

spin

I see no reason to talk about a Christians when the text talks of Chrestus, not an unknown name. The text talks of Jews and the fact that they were being instigated by this Chrestus.

Iudaeos impulsore Chresto (assidue tumultuantis Roma expulit.)

The Jews from the instigator Chrestus... or The Jews instigated by Chrestus... or on the instigation of Chrestus... The use of the noun impulsor in the ablative is a way of making "Chrestus instigated the Jews" a subordinate clause (the other clauses coming from "The Jews made frequent disturbances" and "They were expelled from Rome"). Chrestus was there in Rome instigating the Jews.


spin