Freethought & Rationalism Archive

mountainman · 04-19-2012, 04:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shalak

Please let me know if I listed something wrong or if you have an additional source to recommend.

Reading list/sources:

- Jesus Potter Harry Christ: Going Pagan: The Forgotten Prefigures of Christ
- Justin Martyr: Analogies to the history of Christ
- Asclepius: The God of Medicine (perhaps?)
- Justin Martyr: Apologies
- Early Christian Literature: Christ and culture in the second and third centuries

Hey shalak,

Much of the guts of this stuff can be found using google if you are patient and discerning with the sifting of the results.

Good luck.

Ask questions if in doubt.

la70119 · 04-19-2012, 08:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Quote:

Originally Posted by la70119

It's right there in Justin Martyr's I Apology.

It's right there, in Justin Martyr's convenient little chapter.

No, it isn't there as far as I can see. Justin is explaining that the pagans also use the sign of the cross, so it isn't so bad. His examples:

1, The mast on a ship has the shape of a cross
2. Banners used by the Roman army have the shape of a cross
3. Images of emperors when they die, where they are named gods by inscriptions.

For (3), Justin is talking about sculptures made after the Emperors die, with inscriptions claiming them to be gods. Tertullian goes into more details, which I will give below.

That's right. Justin Martyr and Tertullian say the same.

And the passage goes on to clearly describe that these images are sculptures, which were built up on a cross-like stake:

You put Christians on crosses and stakes: what image is not formed from the clay in the first instance, set on cross and stake? The body of your god is first consecrated on the gibbet. You tear the sides of Christians with your claws; but in the case of your own gods, axes, and planes, and rasps are put to work more vigorously on every member of the body. We lay our heads upon the block; before the lead, and the glue, and the nails are put in requisition, your deities are headless. We are cast to the wild beasts, while you attach them to Bacchus, and Cybele, and Cælestis. We are burned in the flames; so, too, are they in their original lump. We are condemned to the mines; from these your gods originate.

Tertullian is even clearer in his "Ad nationes":
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/03061.htm

As for him who affirms that we are "the priesthood of a cross," we shall claim him as our co-religionist. A cross is, in its material, a sign of wood; among yourselves also the object of worship is a wooden figure. Only, while with you the figure is a human one, with us the wood is its own figure. Never mind for the present what is the shape, provided the material is the same: the form, too, is of no importance, if so be it be the actual body of a god. If, however, there arises a question of difference on this point what, (let me ask,) is the difference between the Athenian Pallas, or the Pharian Ceres, and wood formed into a cross, when each is represented by a rough stock, without form, and by the merest rudiment of a statue of unformed wood? Every piece of timber which is fixed in the ground in an erect position is a part of a cross, and indeed the greater portion of its mass. But an entire cross is attributed to us, with its transverse beam, of course, and its projecting seat. Now you have the less to excuse you, for you dedicate to religion only a mutilated imperfect piece of wood, while others consecrate to the sacred purpose a complete structure. The truth, however, after all is, that your religion is all cross, as I shall show. You are indeed unaware that your gods in their origin have proceeded from this hated cross. Now, every image, whether carved out of wood or stone, or molten in metal, or produced out of any other richer material, must needs have had plastic hands engaged in its formation. Well, then, this modeller, before he did anything else, hit upon the form of a wooden cross, because even our own body assumes as its natural position the latent and concealed outline of a cross. Since the head rises upwards, and the back takes a straight direction, and the shoulders project laterally, if you simply place a man with his arms and hands outstretched, you will make the general outline of a cross. Starting, then, from this rudimental form and prop, as it were, he applies a covering of clay, and so gradually completes the limbs, and forms the body, and covers the cross within with the shape which he meant to impress upon the clay; then from this design, with the help of compasses and leaden moulds, he has got all ready for his image which is to be brought out into marble, or clay, or whatever the material be of which he has determined to make his god. (This, then, is the process after the cross-shaped frame, the clay; after the clay, the god. In a well-understood routine, the cross passes into a god through the clayey medium. The cross then you consecrate, and from it the consecrated (deity) begins to derive his origin.

And still nothing to do with Emperors being depicted on a cross-shape at their funerals.

No, I am quite certain that Justin is referring to the consecration of the images of the caesars at their funerals because the original Greek indicates not only that it is done when they die, but right when they die.

Omnia Documenta catholica - Link to Justin Martyr I Apology PDF:

Quote:

καί των παρ' υμιν αποθνησκόντων αυτοκρατόρων τας εικόνας επί τούτω τω σκήματι ανατιθετε καί θεούς διά γραμμάτων επονομάζετε.

Word-for-word translation, separated by slashes

And / of the / before / you / of passing away / of autocrats / the / likenesses / upon / on this / on the / on form, shape, figure, schematic / you set up as a votive gift, dedicate, lay upon / and / Gods / by means of / written characters / you name.

transliteration:

"And of the Emperors passing away among you, you consecrate the likenesses
upon this shape and by means of written characters you name as gods."

The same PDF has a latin translation and it says almost exactly the same thing:

Quote:

Quin et morientum apud vos imperatorum imagines in hanc formam consecratis, eosque litteris inscriptis appellatis deos.

"And in fact of the Emperors passing away among you, you consecrate images in/on* this form and with inscribed letters you name them as gods."

*Latin "in" const. with accusative formam "figure, form, pattern" = into, onto; or in, on when a holding or purpose is intended. (Lewis & Short)

In short, from both the Greek and the Catholic Church's Latin translation one can read that the Emperors are named gods and have an image consecrated in or on a cross-form right when they have died! The present participle of the verbs can't make it more obvious; it's like they haven't finished dying yet.

I am not the first present-day person to come up with this. Someone else has, using the histories of Nicholas Damascenus, Appianus, Suetonius, Dio Cassius, Plutarch and has concluded Julius Caesar was the first. The fact that he also came up with the idea that Jesus is derived from Caesar should not detract from the high probability of this. It had to have been. People saw a representation of his mutililated body, with ite 23 stab wounds, while the real body was in its bier. How could they see all 23 stab wounds unless the image of Caesar was presented with the arms out to the side and elevated above the floor of the forum on a cross?

And Dio Cassius and Aelius Spartianus report that image of Caesar Augustus was displayed at his funeral in triumphal garb; and Trajan was represented at his posthumous triumph 117 CE by his imago. (See Dio Cassius, Historia Romana 56.34.1, 74.4.3; Aelius Spartianus Historia Augusta, Hadrian, 6.3)

Quote:

Dio Cassius Historia Romana 56.34: 1 Then came his [Caesar Augustus'] funeral. There was a couch made of ivory and gold and adorned with coverings of purple and gold. In it his body was hidden, in a coffin down below; but a wax image of him in triumphal garb was visible. 2 This image was borne from the palace by the officials elected for the following year, and another of gold from the senate-house, and still another upon a triumphal chariot.

Quote:

Aelius Spartianus Historia Augusta, Hadrian, 6.3: Later, when the senate offered him the triumph which was to have been Trajan's, he refused it for himself, and caused the effigy of the dead Emperor to be carried in a triumphal chariot, in order that the best of emperors might not lose even after death the honour of a triumph.

The strangest recorded "incident"incident is when the so-called Emperor Celsus was allegedly "crucified" in imago (Historia Augusta , Tyranni Triginta 29)

Quote:

His body was devoured by dogs, for such was the command of the people of Sicca, who had remained faithful to Gallienus, and then with a new kind of insult his image was set up on a cross, while the mob pranced about, as though they were looking at Celsus himself affixed to a gibbet.

Now in Apoligeticum, Tertullian talks about clay being formed for the first occurence of the god, and when the clay is finally formed it becomes a god. Note he doesn't say covered with bronze, reproduced in marble, etc. In fact, he's saying their gods are first dedicated on the gibbet, that is, in patibulo, that is, on the crossbeam of the cross. You can NOT get any plainer than that, except in Justin Martyr. And when he talks about the other way Christians are killed instead of crucified and stake-ified, he talks about how statues from different materials are crafted, and dedicated as gods, as subsequent instances to the first dedication: in clay, on a cross's crossbeam.

I cannot understand why you do NOT see it.

Now if we go back to Tertullian's ad Nationes:

Quote:

You are indeed unaware that your gods in their origin have proceeded from this hated cross. Now, every image, whether carved out of wood or stone, or molten in metal, or produced out of any other richer material, must needs have had plastic hands engaged in its formation. Well, then, this modeller, before he did anything else, hit upon the form of a wooden cross, because even our own body assumes as its natural position the latent and concealed outline of a cross. Since the head rises upwards, and the back takes a straight direction, and the shoulders project laterally, if you simply place a man with his arms and hands outstretched, you will make the general outline of a cross.

He says right there, a man standing upright with his arms standing out to the sides form the sign of the cross. And before that, a man standing up in his natural position forms a "concealed outline of a cross." In essence, a post. Unless they invented crosses with collapsible crossarms.

la70119 · 04-19-2012, 08:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Quote:

Originally Posted by la70119

It's supposed to be Book 8, Chapter 18, pgh. 47. Perseus lists it by books and chapters. LacusCurtius has the Latin Text, here. It's Historia Naturalis Liber VIII, scroll down to xviii.46 & 47.
English Text of "crucified" (impaled) Lions at Perseus Digital Library here.

CHAP. 18. THE DIFFERENT SPECIES OF LIONS.

No, nothing there. It talks about lions be put on a cross as a deterrent for other lions (which is interesting). But nothing about being pierced through by an animal as the equivalent of crucifixion. Here is the text:

CHAP. 18.—THE DIFFERENT SPECIES OF LIONS.

There are two species of lions; in the one the body is shorter and more compact, and the mane more crisp and curly;1 these are more timid than those with a longer body and straight hair, which, in fact, have no fear of wounds. The males raise the leg like the dog, when they pass their urine;2 which has a most disagreeable odour, the same being the case too with their breath. They seldom drink, and only take food every other day;3 when they have gorged themselves, they will sometimes go without food for three days. They swallow their food whole, without mastication, so far as they are able; and when they have taken more than the stomach can possibly receive, they extract part of it by thrusting their claws into the throat; the same too, if, when full, they have occasion to take to flight. That they are very long-lived is proved by the fact, that many of them are found without teeth. Polybius,4 the companion of Æmilianus, tells us, that when they become aged they will attack men, as they have no longer sufficient strength for the pursuit of wild beasts. It is then that they lay siege to the cities of Africa; and for this reason it was, that he, as well as Scipio, had seen some of them hung upon a cross; it being supposed that others, through dread of a similar punishment, might be deterred from committing the like outrages.

That's what it says in ENGLISH. the Latin for "hung upon crosses' reads, simply, cruci fixos. The link in this Latin phrase will show that transfixing on an impaling stake is a perfectly good translation. Now do you really think they could hang a huge lion on a cross? It's like stamping him "property of the zoo!"

Julius Lipsius (de Cruce 1.6, pag. 12) came to the same conclusion I did, only he arrived at it in the 17th Century:

Quote:

Plinii etiam verba huc refera narrantis, Polybium cum Scipione in Africa leones homicidas cruci fixos vidisse quia ceteri metu poena similis absterrerentur eâdem noxa. Quis enim credat operosam & copositam crucifíxionem illam fuisse? non ego: & accipiam de hac promptâ & fortuita in stipite infíxione, siue etiam affixione.

(The words of Pliny narrating refers to this point, Polybius with Scipio in Africa lions-murderers "to have seen cruci fixos; others, through dread of a similar punishment, might be deterred from committing the like outrages." I mean, can you believe that to be with an elaborate and compound crucifixion? Not I. And I understand according to this: prompt and fortuitous on/by a stake fixed in, or yet again, affixed.)

Google Book Preview - de Cruce

la70119 · 04-19-2012, 09:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Quote:

Originally Posted by la70119

I need to get away from the 'puter for a while, I'll be back later. If I have to, I'll translate for you.

Thank you, that would be great.

Seneca Younger, Dialogue 6 (De Consolatione) 20.3

Quote:

Video istic cruces non unius quidem generis sed aliter ab aliis fabricatas : capite quidam conversos in terram suspendere, alii per obscena stipitem egerunt, alii brachia patibulo explicuerunt

(Over yonder I see cruces: not just of one kind, but differenly made out of wood, by others. Some suspended with the head turned back towards the earth, others have driven a stake through the privates [or excrements], others have extended the arms out on the crossarm.)

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/...%3Asection%3D3

Seneca Younger, Dialogue 3 (De Ira 1) 2.2, fin

Quote:

Aspice tot memoriae proditos duces mali exempla fati ; alium ira in cubili suo confodit, alium intra sacra mensae iura percussit, alium intra leges celebrisque spectaculum fori lancinavit, alium filii parricidio dare sanguinem iussit, alium servili manu regalem aperire iugulum, aliumin cruce membra distendere.¹

(Behold! So many memories spoken of examples of an evil the leaders having spoken; in anger he stabs one in his own bed, he ordered another of a son to shed his own blood for the murder of his parents, another by the hand of a slave to slit a royal's throat, another to stretch out his limbs on a cross.)

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/...3A2007.01.0014

¹ The Latin Library has: alium in cruce membra diffindere (another to cleave apart his limbs on an impaling stake)

The Lewis & Short defines diffindere as "cleave asunder, divide, split" The version The Latin Library uses, based on the main manuscript of this work, is: Allium in cruce membra diffindere. - Ambrosianus codex (No. 90). Two other manuscripts which refer translators to establish the Latin text, the Codex Laurentianus 76, 32, and the Codex Parisinus 15086, contain the word diffundere² instead of diffindere. Diffindere found in Apuleius (second century.): "But the gardener realizes that, far from smooth, the ferocity of the soldier is still irritates her prayers, and even that he wants his life, for he had returned the vine, and, striking the butt, would break his skull (cerebrum diffindere suum). Then he uses an extreme party. "- Metamorphoses, IX, 40, 1.

² Lewis & Short has diffundere as "to spread by pouring out, to pour out, to pour forth;" for objects not liquid, "to spread, to scatter, diffuse." On a cross or impaling stake, this refers to the scattering of the decomposed and disintegrated body after being suspended a long time. It also can refer to the stretching apart on a cross and the splitting apart on an impaling stake, to cover all possibilities.

(cont.)

la70119 · 04-19-2012, 10:52 PM

(Cont'd for GasukeiDon from above)

Seneca Younger, Epistulae 101.10-14

Quote:

10 (fin) Inde illud Maecenatis turpissimum votum, quo et debilitatem non recusat et deformitatem et novissime acutam crucem¹, dummodo inter haec mala spiritus prorogetur:

11

Debilem facito manu, debilem pede coxo,
Tuber adstrue gibberum, lubricos quate dentes;
Vita dum superest, benest; hanc mihi, vel acuta
Si sedeam cruce², sustine.

12 Quod miserrimum erat, si incidisset, optatur et tamquam vita petitur supplici mora. Contemptissimum putarem, si vivere vellet usque ad crucem::' Tu vero " inquit, " me debilites licet, dum spiritus in corpore fracto et inutili maneat. Depraves licet, dum monstroso et distorto1 temporis aliquid accedat. Suffigas licet et acutam sessuro crucem subdas³." Est tanti vulnus suum premere⁴ et patibulo pendere districtum, dum differat id, quod est in malis optimum, supplicii finem ? Est tanti habere animam, ut agam?

13 Quid huic optes nisi deos faciles ? Quid sibi vult ista carminis effeminati turpitudo ? Quid timoris dementissimi pactio ? Quid tam foeda vitae mendicatio ? Huic putes umquam recitasse Vergilium:

Usque adeone mori miserum est ?

Optat ultima malorum, et quae pati gravissimum est extendi ac sustineri cupit; qua mercede ? Scilicet vitae longioris. Quod autem vivere est diu mori ?

14 Invenitur aliquis, qui velit inter supplicia tabescere et perire membratim et totiens per stilicidia emittere animam quam semel exhalare ? Invenitur, qui velit adactus ad illud infelix lignum⁵, iam debilis, iam pravus et in foedum scapularum ac pectoris1 tuber elisus, cui multae moriendi causae etiam citra crucem fuerant⁶, trahere animam tot tormenta tracturam ?

10 Thence comes that most debased of prayers, in which Maceneas does not refuse to suffer weakness, deformity, and at long last a pointed cross:¹ provided only that he may prolong the breath of life amidst these sufferings.

11

Fashion me with palsied hand,
Weak of foot, and a cripple;
Build upon me a crook-backed hump.
Shake my teeth till they rattle,
All is well, if my life remains.
Save it, oh save it, I pray you,
Even if I were to sit upon a pointed cross!²

12 There he is, praying for that which, if it had befallen him, would be the most pitiable thing in the world! And seeking a postponement of suffering, as if he were asking for life! I should deem him most despicable had he wished to live up to the very point of crucifixion: "nay," he cries, "you may weaken my body, if you will, only leave the breath of life in my battered and debilitated carcass! maim me if you will, but allow me, misshapen and deformed as I may be, just a little more time in the world! You may nail me up and set for my seat a pointed stake."³ Is it so great to weigh down upon one's own wound,⁴ and hang nailed out on a patibulum? That one may postpone something which is the balm of troubles, the end of punishment? Is it worth all this to possess the breath of life only to give it up?

13 What would you ask for macenas but the indulgence of Heaven? What does he mean by such turpitude of effeminate verse? What does he mean by making terms of panic fear? What does it mean to go begging so vilely for life? He cannot ever have heard Vergil read the words:

Tell me, is death so wretched as that?

He asks for the climax of suffering, and -- what is still most grevious to bear -- prolongation and maintenance of suffering, and what does he gain thereby? Merely the boon of a longer existence. But what sort of life is a lingering death?

14 can anyone be found who would prefer wasting away in pain, dying limb by limb, or letting out his life drop by drop, rather than expiring once for all? Can any man be found willing to be forced to that accursed 'tree,'⁵ long sickly, already deformed, swelling with ugly welts across shoulders and chest, and draw the breath of life amid long-drawn-out-torments? I think he would have multiple incentives for dying before mounting the cross!⁶

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/...3Asection%3D10
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/...3Asection%3D11
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/...3Asection%3D12
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/...3Asection%3D13
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/...3Asection%3D14

¹ novissime acutam crucem, "at long last a pointed cross": this references to an acuta crux and the gallows it's attached to. The Pozzuoli graffito here, and the Vivat Crux here, indicate that it was the seat upon which the crucified sat, and acted as a restraint, to keep the person from falling off, and as a kind of "safe" impaling stake to increase the torture and shaming of the condemned to the maximum possible. But here Seneca is referring to the whole structure.

²vel acuta / Si sedeam cruce = "Even if I were to sit upon a pointed cross!" Again, the whole structure, complete with an outrigged acuta crux as a discrete part.

³ Suffigas licet et acutam sessuro crucem subdas = "You may nail me up and set for my seat a pointed stake." This refers to nailing up (or sometimes binding) to the greater frame and after all that, installing the pointed stake, the sedile, underneath for the condemned to sit on. Ouch! Again, see the epigraphy linked in Note ¹.

⁴ Est tanti vulnus suum premere = Is it so great to weigh down upon one's own wound. The vulnus suum, one's own wound, of course, is the anus. Other Latin writers also use this euphemism of "wound" for penetrated anus. (Sacred-texts.com, The Priapea, Sodomy with Women)

⁵ adactus ad illud infelix lignum = to be forced to that accursed 'tree.' This probably has multiple meanings: the forced march to the site, the forcing down on the ground with patibulum, the backing-up to and hanging on the pole, and at long last, the forcing of the body onto the outrigged stake by gravity. It doesn't matter which one Seneca intended; I think they are all applicable.

⁶ cui multae moriendi causae etiam citra crucem fuerant = I think he would have multiple incentives for dying before mounting the cross! Again, this is the whole structure.

(cont.)

la70119 · 04-19-2012, 11:20 PM

(Cont'd for GasukeiDon)

Porphyry, Against the Christians frg. 36, ap. Macarius, Apocriticus IV: 4

Quote:

Καὶ Πέτρος ... σταυρῷ προσηλωθεὶς ἀνασκολοπίζεται

"Peter... was nailed to a cross and impaled on it."¹

¹ The Greek text is from Chris Cargounis' bad review of Gunnar Samuelsson's Crucifixion in Antiquity called "Was Jesus Crucified?" (no longer online). :angry: Translation from: http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/po..._fragments.htm. The Greek transliterates as: "And Peter... having been nailed to a cross, will be impaled [with something pointing up]."

Strabo, Geographica 3.4.18

Quote:

τῆς δ᾽ ἀπονοίας καὶ τοῦτο λέγεται τῆς Καντάβρων, ὅτι ἁλόντες τινὲς ἀναπεπηγότες² ἐπὶ τῶν σταυρῶν ἐπαιάνιζον

It is a proof of the ferocity of the Cantabrians, that a number of them having been taken prisoners and fixed to the cross / impaled on the stake², they chanted songs of triumph.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/...3Asection%3D18

² The LSJ defines ἀναπεπηγότες as (verb participle, plural, perfect, active, masculine, nominative of ἀναπήγνυμι) "transfix, fix on a spit, impale, crucify," although the emphasis appears to be on impaling. Martin Hengel (Crucifixion, pag. 69, n. 1) (Amazon.co.uk) recognises πήγνυμι (inf. πηγνύναι) as an impalement verb. So the Cantabrians were either impaled on simple stakes, or nailed to and impaled on crosses with outrigged stakes: acutae cruces.

GakuseiDon · 04-20-2012, 01:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by la70119

That's what it says in ENGLISH. the Latin for "hung upon crosses' reads, simply, cruci fixos. The link in this Latin phrase will show that transfixing on an impaling stake is a perfectly good translation. Now do you really think they could hang a huge lion on a cross?

:huh: How hard could it be? Some ropes and some nails to hang the carcass on the cross-beam, then hoist the cross-beam onto the stake. It would take two men an hour to do.

But keep in mind that I am questioning your comment: "Adonis / Tammuz was pierced through with a tusk of a wild boar, with the wild boar still wearing it. Ianna descended into the Underworld and was promptly hanged on a stake. Philosophers would say, although they're not exactly like crucifixion, they were close enough. (Remember, the ancients considered direct impalement as a form of crucifixion.)"

I'm interested in any evidence that Tammuz being pierced through with a tusk of a wild boar or anything similar (like being pierced with a lion's tallons) would be considered such direct impalement as a form of crucifixion. The physics of crucifying a lion aside, I don't see that in anything you've produced so far. Crucifixion was considered degrading and 'insulting', as you quote below. That's what I thought you meant.

Similarly for your other comment: "Emperors were deified at their funerals with their images fastened to cruciform tropaea, i.e., crosses". You've given me lots of quotes (which I thank you for) but very little to support your comment. I'll cover that now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by la70119

Now in Apoligeticum, Tertullian talks about clay being formed for the first occurence of the god, and when the clay is finally formed it becomes a god. Note he doesn't say covered with bronze, reproduced in marble, etc. In fact, he's saying their gods are first dedicated on the gibbet, that is, in patibulo, that is, on the crossbeam of the cross. You can NOT get any plainer than that, except in Justin Martyr. And when he talks about the other way Christians are killed instead of crucified and stake-ified, he talks about how statues from different materials are crafted, and dedicated as gods, as subsequent instances to the first dedication: in clay, on a cross's crossbeam.

I cannot understand why you do NOT see it.

I DO see that. But he doesn't mean that the gods are portrayed on the cross. As Tertullian writes in the quote you gave above, "this modeller, before he did anything else, hit upon the form of a wooden cross, because even our own body assumes as its natural position the latent and concealed outline of a cross". So the modeller, when building the image of a god, starts with a frame in the form of a wooden cross, and adds to the frame to create the image. It has nothing to do with the image being portrayed as being on a cross.

Quote:

Originally Posted by la70119

The strangest recorded "incident"incident is when the so-called Emperor Celsus was allegedly "crucified" in imago (Historia Augusta , Tyranni Triginta 29)

Quote:

His body was devoured by dogs, for such was the command of the people of Sicca, who had remained faithful to Gallienus, and then with a new kind of insult his image was set up on a cross, while the mob pranced about, as though they were looking at Celsus himself affixed to a gibbet.

That seems to be the only relevant quote. And it is what I would expect: putting the Emperor's effigy on a cross was done to insult the Emperor. But you are saying that this was done from Julius Caesar onwards to consecrate his image?

andrewcriddle · 04-21-2012, 02:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by la70119

The strangest recorded "incident"incident is when the so-called Emperor Celsus was allegedly "crucified" in imago (Historia Augusta , Tyranni Triginta 29)

Quote:

His body was devoured by dogs, for such was the command of the people of Sicca, who had remained faithful to Gallienus, and then with a new kind of insult his image was set up on a cross, while the mob pranced about, as though they were looking at Celsus himself affixed to a gibbet.

Possible Christian parallels in the section of the Historia Augusta dealing with Imperial pretenders should euphemistically be described as unreliable.

Andrew Criddle

la70119 · 04-21-2012, 04:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Quote:

Originally Posted by la70119

The strangest recorded "incident"incident is when the so-called Emperor Celsus was allegedly "crucified" in imago (Historia Augusta , Tyranni Triginta 29)

Possible Christian parallels in the section of the Historia Augusta dealing with Imperial pretenders should euphemistically be described as unreliable.

Andrew Criddle

Yes, that's why I used scare quotes and the words recorded and alleged. :devil1:

la70119 · 04-26-2012, 03:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Quote:

Originally Posted by la70119

That's what it says in ENGLISH. the Latin for "hung upon crosses' reads, simply, cruci fixos. The link in this Latin phrase will show that transfixing on an impaling stake is a perfectly good translation. Now do you really think they could hang a huge lion on a cross?

:huh: How hard could it be? Some ropes and some nails to hang the carcass on the cross-beam, then hoist the cross-beam onto the stake. It would take two men an hour to do.

Except Pliny doesn't say that the lions were 'crucified' post-mortem. How do you crucify a lion when he's still alive and kicking? You don't. Or you redefine crucifixion to include 'impale' as the ancient latins did, go out with a lance and wait for the lion to show up. And pray to Divine Providence that you'll be lucky and not the lion. And it's not necessarily a cross Pliny's talking about here. Remember, I already showed you Seneca considered a simple impaling stake to be a valid 'crux'. So Pliny could be talking about a simple sharpened pole, similar to an ordinary albeit rough one that Nat. Hist. 14.3 seems to indicate for the suspension of a vine:

Quote:

Everywhere we find the vine overtopping the elm even, and we read that Cineas, the ambassador of King Phyrrus, when admiring the great height of the vines at Aricia, making allusion to the peculiar rough taste of the vine (austeriorem gustum vini) remarked that it was with very good reason that they hung the parent on such a lofty gibbet [or pole] (merito matrem eius pendere in tam alta cruce).

In fact, it has been established they used to suspend vines on poles (Cato de Re Rustica 47)*. In fact, they still do.

Replanted vineyard, near the Ampitheatre in Pompeii.

And they still make wine! And the vines are (indirectly) on poles.

Other examples of reconstructed, replanted vineyards at Pompeii:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10162480@N08/6667176029/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mharrsch/7713215/ - use of a vine trellis made out of poles.

More info here: The Discovery of a Large Vineyard at Pompeii: University of Maryland Excavations, 1970 http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.230...47698934175437

* The translator for the Loeb Classical Library used the English word "tree" but the Latin word is arborem, accusative of arbor: tree; tree trunk; mast; oar; ship; gallows; spearshaft; beam; things made of wood (like a pole -- a ship's mast is a pole)

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