Freethought & Rationalism Archive

mountainman · 07-27-2008, 09:39 PM

Yes, but in this instance the question is how late is the Tacitus reference. Who is the first to actually mention the Tacitus reference in an historical sense. A forged reference does not suffice. To quote the OP ...

Quote:

Drews, who wagers on Poggian authorship, is forced to reveal a hand which contains one very low card. In a footnote (p.47) he slips in an observation which shows how problematic the forgery position can be. If the Annals did not exist until the Renaissance, then the passage in Sulpicius is original to him; but it would have to have served as an essential source of certain 15:44 details, due to some close literary commonalities. According to Drews, Hochart pointed out that, while certain other works of Sulpicius were found in many medieval libraries, “there was only one manuscript of his Chronicle, probably of the eleventh century….Hence the work was almost unknown throughout the Middle Ages, and no one was aware of the reference in it to a Roman persecution of the Christians.” But then comes an attempt to come up with an explanation for an attendant sticky problem: “It is noteworthy that Poggio Bracciolini seems by some lucky chance to have discovered and read this manuscript.” Of course, there is no actual record that Poggio did have such a fortunate encounter.

ynquirer · 07-28-2008, 12:59 AM

Do you mean that Sulpicious forged Annals 15:44?

mountainman · 07-28-2008, 07:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ynquirer

Do you mean that Sulpicious forged Annals 15:44?

I think the implication is that Poggio was very lucky to be the one to find the original text of Sulpicious when he did. Have you read the original arguments of Drews? Here is some of it:

Quote:

As a matter of fact, none of the
works of Tacitus have come down to us without inter-
polations. This supposed " purity of the text of Tacitus
as shown by the oldest manuscripts " exists only in the
imagination of Gibbon and those who follow him. It is,
further, not true that the Christians did not read Tacitus.
We have a number of instances in the first centuries of
Christian writers who are acquainted with Tacitus, such
as Tertullian, Jerome, Orosius, Sidonius Apollinaris,
Sulpicius Severus, and Cassiodorus. It is only in the
course of the Middle Ages that this acquaintance with
the ROMAN historian is gradually lost ; and this not on
account of, but in spite of, the passage in Tacitus on the
Christians. This testimony of the ROMAN historian to
the supposed first persecution of the Christians would be
very valuable to them for many reasons.

Are there, however, no witnesses to the genuineness of
the passages of Tacitus in early Christian literature?
There is the letter of Clement of Rome belonging to the
end of the first century. According to Eusebius, 1 it was
sent by Clement, the secretary of the Apostle Peter, and
the third or fourth bishop of Home, to the community at
Corinth, in the name of the Roman community ; as is
also stated by Hegesippus (c. 150) and Dionysius of
Corinth. 2 The point is so uncertain, nevertheless, that
such distinguished authorities as Semler, Baur, Schwegler,
Zeller, Volkmar, 3 Hausrath, 4 Lornan, 5 Van Manen, Von
der Burgh, Van Eysing, 6 and Steck, 7 have disputed the
genuineness of the letter; and it was reserved for the
modern believers in Jesus to discover grounds for regard-
ing it as genuine. Volkmar puts the letter in the year
125 ; Loman, Van Manen, and Steck do not admit its
composition earlier than the year 140. The letter cannot,
therefore, be regarded as a reliable document on that
account.

But what do we learn about the Neronian persecution
from the letter of Clement ? " Out of jealousy and envy,"
he writes to the Corinthians, " the greatest and straightest
pillars were persecuted and fought even to death "; as
in the case of Peter, " who, through the envy of the
wicked, incurred, not one or two, but many dangers, and
so passed to his place in glory after rendering his testi-
mony," and Paul, " who showed the faithful the way to
persevere to the end ; seven times was he imprisoned, he
was banished, stoned, he went as a herald to the east
and the west, and he reaped great glory by his faith.
The whole world has attained to a knowledge of justice ;
he went even to the farthest parts of the west, and gave
his testimony before them that held power. Then was
he taken out of the world and went to the holy place, the
greatest model of patience." 1

It is clear that we have here no reference to the per-
secution of the Christians under Nero. It is not even
stated that the apostles named met with a violent death
on account of their faith, as the word " martyresas "
(" after rendering his testimony ") need not by any means
be understood to mean a testimony of blood, because the
word " martyr " originally means only a witness to the
truth of the Christian faith in the general sense, and is
equivalent to " confessor," and was only later applied to
those who sealed their faith by a violent death. 2 If the
expression in the above text is usually taken to refer to
the execution of the apostles under Nero, it is not because
Clemens says anything about this execution, but merely
because, according to Christian tradition, Peter and Paul
are supposed to have been put to death at the time of the
Neronian persecution.

This tradition, however, is not
only relatively late, but extremely doubtful in itself.
That Peter was never in Rome, and so did not meet his
end there under Nero, must be regarded as certain after
the research of Lipsius. 1 As regards Paul, the tradition
is, according to Frey, 2 certainly not earlier than the end
of the fifth century ; before that time it was certainly
said that he and Peter died under Nero, but not that Paul
was a victim of the Neronian persecution. 3

How, then,
could the Roman Clemens about the end of the first
century connect the death of the two apostles with the
Neronian persecution ? That he does so is supposed to
be shown by the succeeding words, in which he says :
" These men were accompanied on the heavenly pil-
grimage by a great number of the elect, who have given
us the noblest example of endurance in ill-treatment and
torment, which they suffered from the envious. On
account of envy women were persecuted, Danaids and
Dirces, and had to endure frightful and shameful ill-
treatment; yet they maintained their faith firmly, and
won a glorious reward, though they were feeble of body."
" These words," says Arnold, in his work Die Neronische
Christenverfolgung (1888), which supports the genuine-
ness of Annals, xv, 44, " are seen at a glance to be a
Christian complement of the description of Tacitus; he
also speaks of ' most exquisite tortures,' of the shame and
derision with which the victims were treated when they
were put to death, and of the satisfaction it gave to the
crowds' lust for spectacles." 4 But would Tacitus, with
his well-known taste for spectacular stories of that kind,
have refrained from giving us the ghastly picture of the
Dirces torn on the horns of oxen? And what is the
meaning of these Danaids, in whose form Christian
women are said to have been shamed and put to death ?
Can anyone seriously believe that the patient water-
drawing daughters of Danaos would provide a fitting
spectacle for the satisfaction of the crowd's lust for dis-
play and blood ? Or does the writer of the letter merely
intend by the words " Danaids and Dirces," which
have no connection with what precedes and follows in
the text, to set the Christian women-martyrs in contrast
to the frivolous performers of the ancient myth ? Further,
what does he mean when he says that these numerous
men and women were ill-treated " out of jealousy and
envy," and puts the lot of the Christians in this respect
on the same footing as that of Cain and Abel, Jacob and
Esau, Joseph and his brothers, Moses and the Egyptians,
Aaron and Miriam, Dathan and Abiram, and David and
Saul ? Eenan suggests the hatred of the Jews for the
Christians ; but Joel has successfully defended his co-
religionists against such a charge, and Tacitus does not
give it the least support. Arnold suggests " denuncia-
tions by Christians with party passions." 1 According to
Lactantius, it was Nero's jealousy at the success of their
propaganda that induced the emperor to persecute the
Christians. But is it not possible that the writer of the
letter had seen the Acts of Peter and other apocryphal
writings, according to which Simon the magician, who
had entered upon a struggle with Peter out of jealousy,
may have been the cause of the persecution of the
Christians ? And may not the whole ambiguous passage,
with its rhetorical generalities, not really refer to the
Neronian persecution, but rather throw back upon the
time of Nero the martyrdoms that Christian men and
women had suffered in later persecutions ? In any case,
it does not follow from the letter of Clemens that the
"number of the elect" who "had endured shame and
torture on account of jealousy," and been " added to the
company " of the apostles Peter and Paul, died at the
same time as they. This assumption arises simply from
an association of ideas between the death of the apostles
and the supposed Neronian persecution an association
that in all probability did not exist in the time of Clemens.
How could the supposed Clemens, about the year 95,
make Peter and Paul die under Nero, when the former
had never been in Eome, and the latter did not die until
after 64 ? And how can the very scholars who dispute
the presence of Peter in Eome and do not admit the death
of Paul in the Neronian persecution regard the letter of
Clemens as genuine, and as establishing the Neronian
persecution ?

This, then, is the situation : either the letter of Clemens
was really written about the year 95, and in that case the
supposed reference to the Neronian persecution must, if it
really is such, be regarded as a later interpolation ; or this
reference is an original part of the letter, and in that case
the letter cannot have been written until the tradition as
to the death of the apostles in the Neronian persecution
had taken shape that is to say, not before the middle of
the second century. In either case, the so-called letter of
Clemens is no evidence of the fact of a considerable
persecution of the Christians under Nero. 1

1 As the reference of the part quoted to the Neronian persecution is the
only detail for fixing the date of the letter, if we refuse to admit the
passage the date of the letter is altogether uncertain, and it may belong
to the fourth century just as well as the first the "great century of
literary forgeries" (Antiqua Mater, p. 304).

Best wishes,

Pete

Ben C Smith · 07-28-2008, 07:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spamandham

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

Are you kidding me? 50 years is still living memory. Are you saying that Suetonius does not corroborate Tacitus?

Ben.

Yes, that's what I'm saying. 50 years is 10 lifetimes of urban legends.

50 years probably make more than 10 lifetimes of urban legend. That is not the point.

But I am probably not the best one on this thread to argue against your cynicism. Earl Doherty wrote:

Quote:

Originally Posted by EarlDoherty

But was it Tacitus who got it wrong? One of the most reliable of Roman historians writing only four decades 'after the fact'?

For Earl, apparently, if only 40 years have passed, the usually reliable Tacitus should get the whole incident correct, almost without error. For you, apparently, if as many as 50 years have passed, Tacitus and Suetonius both may as well be passing down the tenth iteration of a sheer urban legend.

I will leave it to you two to sort all that out.

Ben.

spamandham · 07-28-2008, 10:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

For Earl, apparently, if only 40 years have passed, the usually reliable Tacitus should get the whole incident correct, almost without error. For you, apparently, if as many as 50 years have passed, Tacitus and Suetonius both may as well be passing down the tenth iteration of a sheer urban legend.

I don't see inconsistency in Tacitus' story, by itself, to be evidence of later interpolation. Nor have a formed an opinion on the matter. I'm exploring all sides.

There are several possibilities:

- the story is a complete fabrication inserted later

- some version of the story existed in the original text, which was later edited

- the story is genuine, but Tacitus got his facts wrong

- the story is both genuine and accurate, but other evidence which refutes it is wrong

To argue for the first point would require making the same argument in regard to Suetonius, which I don't think would be so hard.

"During his reign many abuses were severely punished and put down, and no fewer new laws were made: a limit was set to expenditures; the public banquets were confined to a distribution of food; the sale of any kind of cooked viands in the taverns was forbidden, with the exception of pulse and vegetables, whereas before every sort of dainty was exposed for sale. Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition. He put an end to the diversions of the chariot drivers, who from immunity of long standing claimed the right of ranging at large and amusing themselves by cheating and robbing the people. The pantomimic actors and their partisans were banished from the city."

...Suetonius seems to be writing as if his audience wouldn't know who Christians were ("a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition"). This seems unlikely to me, since by Suetonius' time, Justin Martyr was writing letters to the emperor, and Christianity was geographically wide spread.

Further, the only fragment of this paragraph which is not the implementation of a new rule/law, is the one referring to punishment of Christians. So it's suspicious on 2 counts.

aa5874 · 07-28-2008, 12:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spamandham

...Suetonius seems to be writing as if his audience wouldn't know who Christians were ("a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition"). This seems unlikely to me, since by Suetonius' time, Justin Martyr was writing letters to the emperor, and Christianity was geographically wide spread.

But, were the "Christians," the class of men given to a new and mischeivous superstition, wide spread during the time of Nero?

The Christians mentioned by Justin were not only believers in Jesus, people were called Christians yet they themselves did not even call themselves Christians.

The word "Christian" is ambiguous and vague and does NOT have to mean believers of Jesus, the risen Saviour. It could mean believers in Simon or any unknown person who believes or is called Christ or the anointed.

spamandham · 07-28-2008, 12:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

The word "Christian" is ambiguous and vague and does NOT have to mean believers of Jesus, the risen Saviour. It could mean believers in Simon or any unknown person who believes or is called Christ or the anointed.

That doesn't matter to the context of this discussion. If there were multiple Christs, then Suetonius still treats them as one group and feels the need to explain who 'Christians' were. Either way, what Suetonius states about Christians seems out of place.

aa5874 · 07-28-2008, 03:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spamandham

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

The word "Christian" is ambiguous and vague and does NOT have to mean believers of Jesus, the risen Saviour. It could mean believers in Simon or any unknown person who believes or is called Christ or the anointed.

That doesn't matter to the context of this discussion. If there were multiple Christs, then Suetonius still treats them as one group and feels the need to explain who 'Christians' were. Either way, what Suetonius states about Christians seems out of place.

It is not really reasonable to state that Suetonius' description is out of place. There is basically one sentence with the word Christians in all of the Life of Nero.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Life of Nero

Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition.

Couldn't it have been that Suetonius" source had a one-liner about those Christians too, and Suetonius just merely copied the sentence?

You cannot assume that there were multiple groups of Christians, there is just not enough information in Life of Nero to speculate.

All that can be noted are the differences or similarities in Tacitus and Suetonius.

andrewcriddle · 07-28-2008, 03:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spamandham

...Suetonius seems to be writing as if his audience wouldn't know who Christians were ("a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition"). This seems unlikely to me, since by Suetonius' time, Justin Martyr was writing letters to the emperor, and Christianity was geographically wide spread.

Suetonius is writing c 130 CE.
Justin is writing to the emperor after 150 CE.

Andrew Criddle

aa5874 · 07-28-2008, 03:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Quote:

Originally Posted by spamandham

...Suetonius seems to be writing as if his audience wouldn't know who Christians were ("a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition"). This seems unlikely to me, since by Suetonius' time, Justin Martyr was writing letters to the emperor, and Christianity was geographically wide spread.

Suetonius is writing c 130 CE.
Justin is writing to the emperor after 150 CE.

Andrew Criddle

Do you mean Suetonius died at around 130 CE and wrote "Life of the Caesars" around 115 CE?

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07-28-2008, 12:59 AM	#82
ynquirer Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Madrid, Spain Posts: 572	Do you mean that Sulpicious forged Annals 15:44?

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