Godless Dave

Once again, all Tacitus does is relate what Christians told him about what they believe. If Herodotus were the only source that described Cyrus, we would be skeptical that Cyrus existed. But the Persians left written records too.

jakejonesiv

Roger Pearse

There are monographs on this; I recall reading that "Christianity was illegal and its illegality was reaffirmed by every emperor of the second and third centuries" in something by T.D.Barnes; but remember how Christianity became a crime is not quite clear.

I do recall that the 7th book of Ulpian's De officiis proconsularis (On the duties of the proconsul) contained a compilation of them. This work is lost, but is referred to by Lactantius (at the start of his Divine Institutes?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

A little more than that, I think? But that it was written at Monte Cassino in the 11th century is also certain. This wouldn't be surprising, by the way: the texts at Monte Cassino did not circulate in the Middle Ages, and unusual texts seem to have been found there. A letter of Cyprian, extant only in a single Holkham Hall ms., deriving from Monte Cassino and missing in every other ms (but clearly present in an ancestor of them all, because the heading of the letter is present in the them all); an obscene passage O in a single ms. of Juvenal -- these are two other examples that come to mind.

I agree that the bar should be universal. (I'm out of time and must run -- more tomorrow).

Roger Pearse

Roller

Thank you for that. I thought that being a Christian wasn't illegal per se. But since they objected sacrificing to the emperor, they were branded as a type of "terrorist". Of course, being a Christian in Lyon and Vienna during Marcus Aurelius' reign was a different story.

I don't want to tie you up with answering my questions but I do have one more Do you perhaps know what was exactly considered under "illegal"? Were they forbidden to congregate? I suppose that might have been the case due to the misunderstanding of Christian services (eating babies and all...)

Malachi151

There is still no evidence, or even suggestion, that Tacitus was writing based on any kinds of records. The evidence against this is:

#1) The use of the name Christus, which wouldn't have been a part of any Roman record
#2) The use of the name Christus as a given name, not a title, showing that he didn't understand this aspect, or that it wasn't clear in the information given to him
#3) When the Christians came to power they scowered the archives for a record of the crucifixion of Jesus, they never found one
#4) There is nothing in the writing that suggests that Tacitus was operating on anything other than common knowledge and the account of the sitution as given by the Christians, he simply took the Christians at their word and passed on why it was that they claimed to have been upset

Gamera

The alternative conclusion is that Christian communities had the details of the narrative of the historical Jesus, through oral tradition or early now lost gospels, and hence the early epistles of Paul, which were guidelines to Christian living for people who already accepted the faith not gospels themselves, didn't need to go into the narrative.

Paul assumed that they had all the details.

This is further supported by the fact that many of the churches he wrote to had in fact been founded or visited by him, at which time he would have preached the gospel. So he already knew they already knew the narrative account of Jesus. The purpose of his epistles were elsewhere.

Since Paul tells us his preaching is about "Christ and him crucified," this implies Paul preached an historical Jesus.

jakejonesiv

No, it doesn't. You are reading the context of the gospels back into the Pauline material.

According to Paul:

1. Where was Jesus crucified?
2. When was Jesus crucified?
3. Under whose authority was Jesus crucified?

Nope, no historical Jesus there.
Maybe you better stick with he was born of a woman or had flesh but that doesn't narrow things down very much.

If you rounded up all the Jesus's (a common name) that undoubtably were crucified by the Romans at some time or other, how would you pick your guy out of the lineup based on Paul? You can't use alleged resurrection appearances or visions since that is not historically admissible.

Jake Jones IV

ynquirer

How do you like Iêsous Christos estaurwmenos, as meaning, "Jesus Christ, crucified," and a dating entry? Christus being a Latinization of Greek-language Christos - the Messiah. That would have cast mockery on the Jews.

Why should he understand a Jewish religious aspect? From Tacitus' standpoint Christos/Christus was a nickname and a valid last name as a family one was lacking. And Tacitus gives us a clear clue why he made use of Christus: to explain where the brand name of Christians came from (auctor nominis eius Christus).

Of course, after almost three hundred years and two destructions of Jerusalem.

Really? Tacitus says Christians "were hated for their enormities," their beliefs were "a pernitious superstition," their movement was "a mischief," and suggests that Christianity on the whole was one of those "hideous and shamful" things from every part of the world that found their center in the city of Rome. This according to you is taking the Christians at their word?

Yet the most interesting aspect of your position is the pretence that There is still no evidence, or even suggestion, that Tacitus was writing based on any kinds of records. A prefect (= governor) was a generic post; labelling Pilate a procurator requires some legal understanding that was more probably originated in checking records than in common knowledge. Isn't this a valid suggestion?

Malachi151

All well and good, however, you're just making stuff up at this point. There is no known such dated entry in the Roman achives and Tacitus gives us no reason to think that he ever read such a record. In addition, why would the Jews in Judea have been using Greek anyway?

Except for the fact that there is nothing in Christian documentation that Jesus ever used the term Christianity, and certianly, since it has always been assumed that Jesus would have spoken Hebrew or Aramaic, it wouldn't even make since for him to use this term or have anything to do with it, or for him to have been called "Christ" during his own lifetime, if he had one.

Well, there were plenty of other records that survived. Your claim is that Tacitus, in 109, since you are claiming that the records were in Jeresulem, went to Judea, researched through the archives to find this information, and put this statement together based on his personal research to find a record in order to figure out why Christians claimed to be angery, as opposed to simply using common knowledge? And, that after finding such records in 109, they subsuquently became lost by 330 or so, some 250 or so years later when the Christians began looking.

There was no reason for Tactius to look anything up, why would he? Maybe he looked something up in some other book of common knowledge, but why would he feel the need to go to an archive to write this one pragraph? Its just silly.

Well so. Al Quede is hated for their enormities, yet people believe the people from Al Queda that they do what they do in honor of Allah and Muhammad...

Why would he be writing based on any kinds of records that matter. Perhaps he was writing based on what other people had written about the Christians, but to think that he would have gone to archives to write this is simply nonsense. How would that have helped him?

The only reason to go to archive would be to do research to find out something that you don't already know. The information comes from the telling of what was already known, that Nero persecuted the Christians, which is where the info about being put to death under Pilate would have come from also.