Ben C Smith

It need not be a reaction to Suetonius, since he is confessedly repeating an earlier story.

Here is the tale, from Suetonius, Life of Augustus 94.4:

In Asclepiadis Mendetis Theologumenon libris lego, Atiam, cum ad sollemne Apollinis sacrum media nocte venisset, posita in templo lectica, dum ceterae matronae dormirent, obdormisse; draconem repente irrepsisse ad eam pauloque post egressum; illam expergefactam quasi a concubitu mariti purificasse se; et statim in corpore eius exstitisse maculam velut picti draconis nec potuisse umquam exigi, adeo ut mox publicis balineis perpetuo abstinuerit; Augustum natum mense decimo et ob hoc Apollinis filium existimatum. eadem Atia, prius quam pareret, somniavit intestina sua ferri ad sidera explicarique per omnem terrarum et caeli ambitum. somniavit et pater Octavius utero Atiae iubar solis exortum.

I have read the following story in the books of Asclepias of Mendes entitled Theologumena. When Atia had come in the middle of the night to the solemn service of Apollo, she had her litter set down in the temple and fell asleep, while the rest of the matrons also slept. On a sudden a serpent glided up to her and shortly went away. When she awoke, she purified herself, as if after the embraces of her husband, and at once there appeared on her body a mark in colours like a serpent, and she could never get rid of it, so that presently she ceased ever to go to the public baths. In the tenth month after that Augustus was born and was therefore regarded as the son of Apollo. Atia, too, before she gave him birth, dreamed that her vitals were borne up to the stars and spread over the whole extent of land and sea, while Octavius dreamed that the sun rose from her womb.

This tale comes in the middle of a discussion of the omens and prodigies that accompanied this birth.

Ben.

Roger Pearse

You're quite right. Indeed I notice that such claims, always uttered with evident glee and often in fixed phrases, tend to bring atheists in disrepute among the intelligent. There are several reasons for this.

Firstly, it's always fairly obvious in such arguments that the person talking about the parallels is repeating hearsay.

Likewise the argument always presents pagan mythology in so selective a manner as to suggest no actual knowledge whatever of it; just a couple of convenient 'statements', always unreferenced. This tends to provoke accusations of dishonesty and malice, and not unreasonably so. For myself, I'm tired of seeing people posting about Mithras, for instance, who plainly know nothing about him.

Finally the whole type of argument -- that any similarity however vague between two things proves connection or derivation -- is itself a fallacy, as any reasonably sceptical person sees at once.

Whether people want to appear in this light, of course, is not for me to say. I wouldn't!

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Solo

Thanks, Ben, much appreciate it. I have my own confession to make; the question whether Christians derived the virgin birth from Suetonius was a setup for Jeffrey....

Remember this ?

Jiri

Chili

And so it is that "water and spirit" becomes "flesh and spirit." And you call me dyslexic? :wave:

gstafleu

Wasn't the discussion about virgin births here? Where is that mentioned in this story? If anything the story indicates she wasn't a virgin (see bold, sounds like she has a hubby, or does purificasse indicate a hypothetical?). It sounds to me as if Atia was impregnated by some divine being in the form of the Serpent. Even without the husband bit that wouldn't necessarily indicate virgin birth, unless one wants to equate "virgin birth" with "divine impregnation"?

Gerard Stafleu

Ben C Smith

I agree that there is a distinguishable difference between a virgin birth and divine impregnation.

I am not at all certain that this difference makes any difference in deciding whether or not the birth narratives of Jesus are anti-imperial propaganda.

Ben.

gstafleu

That depends on how the parallel is drawn, I'd say. If the virginity of the birth is somehow used to draw that parallel, then the absence of that feature in the story you quote is significant. My impression was that the virginity was used in drawing the parallel, but that could be my mistake. Jeffrey e.g. said
That's probably where I got the idea that the virginity element was important in establishing the nativity story as anti-imperial propaganda. I take it Jeffrey probably meant to refer to divine conception rather than virginal birth (virginal conception not necessarily being unusual, hole-in-one-wise)?

The Jesus birth story has two components when it comes to parentage: 1) Maria is a virgin when giving birth, and 2) the father is divine, the mother mortal. If we ask the question "where did this idea come from" we should distinguish between these two components. If we can find a source that has both components, fine. Lacking that we will have to find sources for the individual components. The Atia story is a candidate--one amongst several--for the origin of component 2). So how about component 1), the virginity of the mother?

BTW, I get the impression that people often tend to think that divine impregnation equals virginal birth (assuming no further sexual activity by the mother): sort of like intercourse that doesn't count--if only Clinton had known about this. That this equation may amount to some pious overoptimism had apparently already occurred to Bernini, as the below picture of his L'estasi di Santa Teresa shows :


Gerard Stafleu

Solo

The original point Jeffrey objected to was that Jesus nativity stories "derive mostly from pagan myth". Later, perhaps realizing that someone might burn him with Justin Martyr's frank and happy admission of the pagan parallels (First Apology, Ch. 21 ) he tried to save the day by claiming Mary's impregnated virginity came about as anti-imperial propaganda. The problem with that theory (insofar as it wishes to deny a link between stories of Mediterranean pagan gods mating with humans and Mary's virginal conception) is that the imperial divinity cult appear to derive from the same pagan myths and metaphors for noble character and grandiose achievement.
As for the reputation of the women with whom gods commingled: the were not always virgins but she seemed always respectable. Virgil's Lucina (of the Messianic Eclogue) was 'chaste'. To create Pythagoras, Apollo chose a girl by the name of Parthenis. Cybelle, the mother of Attis, was also venerated as immaculate and called Mater Deum (Mother of the Gods) close to the title Theotokos (Mother of God), and stature acquired soon by Mary in popular lore (and ratified for her in CE431 at Ephesus Council).

Jiri

Ben C Smith

Save the day? Really, now. It is not as if Gibson is the first to suggest that the birth narratives are anti-imperial propaganda.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Just to be absolutely clear, I do not think the evangelists or earliest tradents of the birth narratives got those narratives from the Augustus story. The relationship is, IMVHO, slightly more distant than that.

The fact is that, in the ancient east, if you wanted to say that somebody was the rightful ruler of the known world or savior of his people, you did several paradigmatic things to that person. You called him savior, gave him a gospel, gave him a fitting and prodigious birth, fitting and prodigious childhood stories, fitting prodigies at his death, and several other things, and attributed divinity to him.

I think that the evangelists and gospel tradents (including Paul) reacted to divine claims for Augustus by giving divine traits to Jesus. It was almost inevitable that this process would eventually include a fitting birth narrative. This birth narrative does not have to be explicitly based on that of Augustus in order to be a reaction against Augustan claims.

Just a nitpick here, but the birth narratives seem to pointedly avoid linking the virgin birth with the notion that the father was divine. Luke could have said that Jesus had no human father because God was his father, but he did not. Instead he said that the holy spirit overshadowed Mary. Is that divine impregnation by a divine father? Not on the surface, since it is the spirit (feminine in Hebrew, neuter in Greek) doing it, whatever it is.

Agreed. The notion of the divine father is just too widespread in antiquity to say that the evangelists must have gotten the idea from one particular story or other.

Possibly from an overinterpretation of the LXX. Possibly because Mary, the mother, conceived illegitimately, and this was the cover story. Possibly a combination of both. Possibly something else. I am undecided, and am willing to be swayed by any evidence that is forthcoming.

Ben.