Freethought & Rationalism Archive

andrewcriddle · 08-25-2012, 06:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

AA, I already suggested resolving this matter by checking with the 15th century priest Giacondo who is alleged to have "discovered" the Pliny letter, unknown anytime before.

Giacondo who?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Giovanni Giocondo. See:
wiki Giovanni_Giocondo
cathen Fra Giovanni Giocondo

Andrew Criddle

PhilosopherJay · 08-26-2012, 08:47 AM

Hi All,

Since Pliny's mention of Christians is the first historical mention of the term Christian that we can date, we have to consider that the term may have been Chrestian (the good or useful) rather than Christian (the anointed ones). As I have previously suggested, it may have been derived from the followers of Bithynian Archpriest Gaius Cassius Chrestos and later transferred to the Jesus cult.

This point is made in the article Pliny correspondence with Trajan: Christians or Chrestians? at History Hunters International that Pliny probably used the term "Chrestian" rather than "Christian."

Since Tacitus apparently also used the term Chrestianos (see The Chrestianos Issue in Tacitus Reinvestigated
by Erík Zara, Th.D., there is a good possibility that the term Christian may derive from Chrestianos. See Chrestians before Christians? An Old Inscription Revisited,by Erík Zara, Th.D. for the lack of attestation of the word "Christian" in the 1st and 2nd centuries.

The term Christrianos (Anointed ones) from Christos (the Anointed) really doesn't make sense being applied to Jesus. Jesus does not undergo any real anointing ceremony and Jewish Christians did not have any anointing ceremony for their followers. They did have a baptism (dipping ceremony) but this is very different than the anointing with oil ceremony we should expect of followers of an anointed Jewish man.

The only references in the new testament to the term Christian (Χριστιανός) explains nothing:
Acts 11:26: "and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch."
Acts 26:28, "And Agrippa replied to Paul, "In a short time you will persuade me to become a Christian."
1 Peter 4:16, "but if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not feel ashamed, but in that name let him glorify God."

They could very well be Second, Third century or later additions.

As an alternative, we can well imagine that a wealthy Archpriest like Gaius Cassius would get the nickname "the Good" (Chrestos) for various reasons and his followers would get the name Chrestians - (the good ones). Later Jesus followers could adopt the name and wrongly claim it came from the term "Christos" anointed.

Plutarch tells us of Phocion, a 4th century BCE Athenian stateman who was noted for his honesty and given the nickname "Chrestos" It is quite a common Greek name.

James Davison in a book review[/URL] of "A lexicon of Greek Personal Names" by T. Corsten, notes:

Because of this and the generally insidious nature of the Christian revolution, the name changes of the Christian era were rather subtle and much less dramatic than those provoked by the Muslim or the Norman Conquest. Some traditional but generalised theophorics – Theodore, Dorothy, Theodosius – needed no amendment, others reflected a rather different religious emphasis: Theodoulos (‘Slave of God’), Cyril and Cyriac (‘Of the Lord’), Eusebios (‘Pious’), Anastasia (‘Resurrection’). Christophoros, however, is the only name in this volume with a Christ element, and Iesous (Jesus/Joshua) also seems to have been carefully avoided in this, as in almost all, regions. Stavros – ‘Cross’ – has not yet become a name. On the other hand, there are lots of names in Chrestos – an old name meaning ‘useful’, ‘good’ – which sounded like Christos and seems to have been used as an alternative, so we have a Chrestos son of Theodoulos, and Chrestos father of Logos, as well as a Chrestinianos and a Chrestina.

I believe based on the evidence of the moment that Gaius Cassius Chrestos would be the logical choice for where the term "Christian" or what would become the term "Christian," (originally Chrestian) originated.

The Codex Sinaiticus with the eta in Chrestinous changed to an iota, thus turning the original Chrestians into Christians. This is from the above mentioned article "Pliny correspondence with Trajan: Christians or Chrestians?" We can say that the word originally meant the followers of Chrestos and was later appropriated by the Followers of Jesus.

tanya · 08-26-2012, 10:46 AM

Thank you Jay, this is outstanding research.

:clapping::thumbs:

PhilosopherJay · 08-26-2012, 07:08 PM

Hi Tanya,

Thanks, I appreciate that.

I will try to make the entire hypothesis more coherent and add some more sources and put it on a blog for easy reading this week.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tanya

Thank you Jay, this is outstanding research.

:clapping::thumbs:

aa5874 · 08-26-2012, 10:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilosopherJay

Hi Tanya,

Thanks, I appreciate that.

I will try to make the entire hypothesis more coherent and add some more sources and put it on a blog for easy reading this week.

You seem to have forgotten that Suetonius mentioned a character called Chrestus in the time of the Emperor Claudius c 41-54 CE.

It is more likely that that followers of Chrestus in the time of Claudius were called Chrestians.

Life of Claudius

Quote:

...He banished from Rome all the Jews, who were continually making disturbances at the instigation of one Chrestus....

It must be noted that neither Chrestus or Chrestian can be found in the Pliny letter.

PhilosopherJay · 08-27-2012, 07:59 AM

Hi aa5874,

Good point. This does associate someone named Chrestus with Jews. However, which Crestus Suetonius is referring to remains a problem.

I found two other Chrestus' associated with Bithynian-Pontus history (the province Pliny governed was a combination of the two).

There is Mithridates Chrestus, a co-ruler of Pontus (d. 115-113 BCE)

There is a Socrates Chrestus - King of Bithynia (d. 90-88 BCE)

Chrestus was certainly a popular name. Unless the name is explicitly related to Jesus of Nazareth, we should not consider that the reference of the name is Jesus of Nazareth.

I postulates a different reference to Tacitus' Chrestus in this piece.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilosopherJay

Hi Tanya,

Thanks, I appreciate that.

I will try to make the entire hypothesis more coherent and add some more sources and put it on a blog for easy reading this week.

You seem to have forgotten that Suetonius mentioned a character called Chrestus in the time of the Emperor Claudius c 41-54 CE.

It is more likely that that followers of Chrestus in the time of Claudius were called Chrestians.

Life of Claudius

Quote:

...He banished from Rome all the Jews, who were continually making disturbances at the instigation of one Chrestus....

It must be noted that neither Chrestus or Chrestian can be found in the Pliny letter.

Duvduv · 08-27-2012, 08:24 AM

If the name Christus corresponds to anointed, which is mashiach, it is also quite possible that it was a used as a first name among Jews. The name mashiach as a first or last name is common among Sephardi and Yemenite Jews.

And if the name Chrestus corresponds to the word "good" or similar, then it's easy to see a Jew using it to correspond to the name "Tov" or "Kadosh" etc.

Adam · 08-27-2012, 04:42 PM

Seeing that "Chrestos" was such a popular name, the early use of that word instead of the proper "Christos" could be explained as a simple mistake. Romans not knowing any better would thus have tended to write "Chrestos" when in reality referring to "Christos".

aa5874 · 08-27-2012, 05:52 PM

The mention of CHRESTUS by Suetonius may be significant. Chrestus was most likely a Jew during the time of Claudius and if Jews were banished at the instigation of Chrestus this very likely means he [Chrestus] was probably executed during the time of Claudius.

Now, according to "Against Heresies" 2.22, CHRISTUS suffered when he was about 50 years old or during the reign of Cladius.

PhilosopherJay · 08-29-2012, 05:45 PM

Hi All,

I found another Chrestus besides Gaius Cassius Chrestus, Socrates Chrestus, and Mithridates Chrestus. There was Chrestus of Byzantium, a sophist from the mid 2nd century.

Philostratus in "Lives of the Sophists" says this about him:

Quote:

11. To Chrestus 1 of Byzantium, the sophist,
Greece does less than justice, since it neglects a man
who received from Herodes the best education of anv
Hellene, and himself educated many remarkable men.
Among these were Hippodromus the sophist, Philiscus,
Isagoras the tragic poet, famous rhetoricians, namely
Nicomedes of Pergamon, Acylas from Eastern Galatia,
and Aristaenetus of Byzantium ; and among well-
known philosophers, Callaeschrus the Athenian,
Sospis the curator of the altar, and several others
worthy of mention. He taught in the days of the
sophist Adrian and had then a hundred pupils who
paid fees, the best of them those whom I have
mentioned. After Adrian had been installed in the chair at Rome, the Athenians voted to send an
embassy on behalf of Chrestus to ask for him from
the Emperor the chair at Athens. But he came
before them in the assembly and broke up the
embassy, saying many memorable things in his
discourse, and he ended with these words : " The ten
thousand drachmae do not make a man."

He . had a weakness for wine, but he kept in
check the drunken insolence, levity, and arrogance
which wine induces in the minds of men ; and his
ability to keep sober was so extraordinary that,
though his potations went on till cockcrow, he would
then attack his studies before he had snatched any
sleep. He made himself especially obnoxious to
youths of the foolish boasting sort, in spite of the
fact that they are more profitable than the rest for
the payment of fees. At any rate, when he perceived
that Diogenes of Amastris was from his earliest youth
puffed up with pride, dreaming ever of satrapies and
courts and of being one day the right hand of
emperors, and moreover that he asserted that a
certain Egyptian had foretold all this to him, Chrestus
admonished him and told his own story.

He varied and enriched the style of his oratory
with the peculiar excellences of Herodes, but he
falls short of these in alertness of mind, just as in
the painter's art a likeness falls short that is done
in outline without colours. 2 But he would have
progressed even to an equal level of merit, had he
not died at the age of fifty.

His contemporary and rival Adrian apparently died at 80 in 192.
His teacher Herodes Atticus apparently died at 76 in 179.
He lived in the second half of the Second century, so he cannot be the Chrestus referring to by Pliny or Tacitus. He did have a hundred disciples. They could have been called Chrestians too.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilosopherJay

Hi aa5874,

Good point. This does associate someone named Chrestus with Jews. However, which Crestus Suetonius is referring to remains a problem.

I found two other Chrestus' associated with Bithynian-Pontus history (the province Pliny governed was a combination of the two).

There is Mithridates Chrestus, a co-ruler of Pontus (d. 115-113 BCE)

There is a Socrates Chrestus - King of Bithynia (d. 90-88 BCE)

Chrestus was certainly a popular name. Unless the name is explicitly related to Jesus of Nazareth, we should not consider that the reference of the name is Jesus of Nazareth.

I postulates a different reference to Tacitus' Chrestus in this piece.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

You seem to have forgotten that Suetonius mentioned a character called Chrestus in the time of the Emperor Claudius c 41-54 CE.

It is more likely that that followers of Chrestus in the time of Claudius were called Chrestians.

Life of Claudius

It must be noted that neither Chrestus or Chrestian can be found in the Pliny letter.

08-26-2012, 08:47 AM	#52
PhilosopherJay Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Orlando Posts: 2,014	Chrestians Before Christians Hi All, Since Pliny's mention of Christians is the first historical mention of the term Christian that we can date, we have to consider that the term may have been Chrestian (the good or useful) rather than Christian (the anointed ones). As I have previously suggested, it may have been derived from the followers of Bithynian Archpriest Gaius Cassius Chrestos and later transferred to the Jesus cult. This point is made in the article Pliny correspondence with Trajan: Christians or Chrestians? at History Hunters International that Pliny probably used the term "Chrestian" rather than "Christian." Since Tacitus apparently also used the term Chrestianos (see The Chrestianos Issue in Tacitus Reinvestigated by Erík Zara, Th.D., there is a good possibility that the term Christian may derive from Chrestianos. See Chrestians before Christians? An Old Inscription Revisited,by Erík Zara, Th.D. for the lack of attestation of the word "Christian" in the 1st and 2nd centuries. The term Christrianos (Anointed ones) from Christos (the Anointed) really doesn't make sense being applied to Jesus. Jesus does not undergo any real anointing ceremony and Jewish Christians did not have any anointing ceremony for their followers. They did have a baptism (dipping ceremony) but this is very different than the anointing with oil ceremony we should expect of followers of an anointed Jewish man. The only references in the new testament to the term Christian (Χριστιανός) explains nothing: Acts 11:26: "and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch." Acts 26:28, "And Agrippa replied to Paul, "In a short time you will persuade me to become a Christian." 1 Peter 4:16, "but if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not feel ashamed, but in that name let him glorify God." They could very well be Second, Third century or later additions. As an alternative, we can well imagine that a wealthy Archpriest like Gaius Cassius would get the nickname "the Good" (Chrestos) for various reasons and his followers would get the name Chrestians - (the good ones). Later Jesus followers could adopt the name and wrongly claim it came from the term "Christos" anointed. Plutarch tells us of Phocion, a 4th century BCE Athenian stateman who was noted for his honesty and given the nickname "Chrestos" It is quite a common Greek name. James Davison in a book review[/URL] of "A lexicon of Greek Personal Names" by T. Corsten, notes: Because of this and the generally insidious nature of the Christian revolution, the name changes of the Christian era were rather subtle and much less dramatic than those provoked by the Muslim or the Norman Conquest. Some traditional but generalised theophorics – Theodore, Dorothy, Theodosius – needed no amendment, others reflected a rather different religious emphasis: Theodoulos (‘Slave of God’), Cyril and Cyriac (‘Of the Lord’), Eusebios (‘Pious’), Anastasia (‘Resurrection’). Christophoros, however, is the only name in this volume with a Christ element, and Iesous (Jesus/Joshua) also seems to have been carefully avoided in this, as in almost all, regions. Stavros – ‘Cross’ – has not yet become a name. On the other hand, there are lots of names in Chrestos – an old name meaning ‘useful’, ‘good’ – which sounded like Christos and seems to have been used as an alternative, so we have a Chrestos son of Theodoulos, and Chrestos father of Logos, as well as a Chrestinianos and a Chrestina. I believe based on the evidence of the moment that Gaius Cassius Chrestos would be the logical choice for where the term "Christian" or what would become the term "Christian," (originally Chrestian) originated. The Codex Sinaiticus with the eta in Chrestinous changed to an iota, thus turning the original Chrestians into Christians. This is from the above mentioned article "Pliny correspondence with Trajan: Christians or Chrestians?" We can say that the word originally meant the followers of Chrestos and was later appropriated by the Followers of Jesus.

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08-26-2012, 10:46 AM	#53
tanya Banned Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: middle east Posts: 829	Thank you Jay, this is outstanding research. :clapping::thumbs:

08-27-2012, 08:24 AM	#57
Duvduv Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: USA Posts: 4,095	If the name Christus corresponds to anointed, which is mashiach, it is also quite possible that it was a used as a first name among Jews. The name mashiach as a first or last name is common among Sephardi and Yemenite Jews. And if the name Chrestus corresponds to the word "good" or similar, then it's easy to see a Jew using it to correspond to the name "Tov" or "Kadosh" etc.

08-27-2012, 04:42 PM	#58
Adam Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: Dixon CA Posts: 1,150	Seeing that "Chrestos" was such a popular name, the early use of that word instead of the proper "Christos" could be explained as a simple mistake. Romans not knowing any better would thus have tended to write "Chrestos" when in reality referring to "Christos".

08-27-2012, 05:52 PM	#59
aa5874 Contributor Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: the fringe of the caribbean Posts: 18,988	The mention of CHRESTUS by Suetonius may be significant. Chrestus was most likely a Jew during the time of Claudius and if Jews were banished at the instigation of Chrestus this very likely means he [Chrestus] was probably executed during the time of Claudius. Now, according to "Against Heresies" 2.22, CHRISTUS suffered when he was about 50 years old or during the reign of Cladius.

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