aa5874

The author of Acts implied that the Jews expelled by Claudius, or at least Aquila and Priscilla, were either Christians, or had some knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Acts 18.1-2, "After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth; And found a certain Jew named Aquila born in Pontus, lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla, ( because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome)....."


Acts 18.24-26, "And a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the scriptures, came to Ephesus.........knowing only the baptism of John.
And he (Apollos) began to speak bodly in the synagogue, whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded the word of God more perfectly.

These passages in Acts 18 also gives an indication that Jesus was not known or heard of in Alexandria, by the Jews, even up to 50 CE, only John the Baptist.
And even further, these verses in Acts may also indicate that the author may have used information from Suetonius in "The Life of Claudius", which would put the writing of Acts outside the 1st century.

Gamera

The really interesting thing is that both Suetonius and Tacitus, men of very different temperaments and from different generations, but both highly biased political propagandists, both mention that the problem with "Christians" had something to do with "superstition."

This suggests that they are indeed talking about the same movement in the empire, that the movement was "religous" in nature, and that it struck Roman sensibilities as odd and "irrational" -- unlike the sunny "rationalism" of emperor worship, and the unambiguous simplistic social gods of the Roman pantheon.

Further it suggests that the values of this religious movement struck the highly nostalgic and traditional Tacitus as somehow threatening to Rome's militaristic, materialistic, and pragmatically exploitative values.

Based on this, and the fact that Seutonius found this to be a "new" superstition (not an "old" one, as Judaism would have been considered), it seems to me Tacitus, Suetonius and Paul are all talking about the same movement.

Does anybody know what threat the mimes and their "partisans" posed to the Empire? What a rich, bizarre detail! Where they going to overthrow the military with imaginary swords?

aa5874

It seems to me that Tacitus, Suetonius and the author of Acts are using the same word "Christian" but the Christians of Acts are different to those of Suetonius and Tacitus.

The historians did not make any reference to a religion but a mischievous or destructive superstition. In the Life of Claudius, Suetonius wrote, "The religous rites of the Druids, solemnised with such horrid cruelties, which had only been forbidden the citizens of Rome.........he utterly abolished among the Gauls".

So, there seems to be a distinction between superstition and religous rites, even if horridly cruel, based on Suetonius.

Toto

superstitio was used to refer to unauthorized religions, much as we use the term "cult." I don't think it refers to what we think of as superstition. Rationalism had nothing to do with it - that is a later movement.

Judaism qualified as a "religion." There were many new cults in Rome at the time. I don't think there is any reason to assume that there was only one, so any references to a new cult had to refer to the same one, Christianity.

Where did you get mimes? Mime refers to the Roman theater.

Gamera

Well, there's a relationship between the kind of cults banned and the idea of superstition in the Roman mind. Cults were associated with irrationalism and emotionalism. Thus Suetonius upbraids Nero (who was otherwise a "rationalist" on religious matters and despised cults) for being supertitious about the "little girl" figure that he gave sacrifices to (because he thought it somehow saved him from a plot). It is the superstitious nature of Nero's belief that Seutonius clearly finds worthy of reproach.



56 He utterly despised all cults, with the sole exception of that of the Syrian God,159 and even acquired such a contempt for her that he made water on her image, after he was enamoured of another superstition, which was the only one to which he constantly clung. For he had received as a gift from some unknown man of the commons, as a protection against plots, a little image of a girl; and since a conspiracy at once came to light, he continued to venerate it as a powerful divinity and to offer three sacrifices to it every day, encouraging the belief that through its communication he had knowledge of the future. A few months before his death he did attend an inspection of victims, but could not get a favourable omen.

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...ars/Nero*.html

While rationalism was a later intellectual movement, there is no doubt that Romans (or at least Tacitus) had a distaste for the emotionalism of mystery cults and considered the "superstitious" in a sense similar to our use of the word (which is why we have the word). Romans were highly pragmatic and "rational" in the way they ran their empire.

Except that Tacitus calls them Christian, and Suetonius uses the suspiciously similar name Crestus, all in relationship to the oppression of some cult. As you say, it can't be the Jews, since Judaism wasn't considered a superstitio.


That hardly answers my question -- why ban actors, mimes or otherwise? I suspect there is a connection with the banning of the Christians and the banning of the pantomemic actors "and their partisans." It is the appeal to emotions that Roman society found threatening.

Toto

I see, you are referring to this:

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.45 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.

The suggestion has been made that the part in red, outlawing Christians, is an interpolation, as it does not fit in with the rest of the paragraph - which involves economic regulation, and the prohibition of luxuries and frivolity. I would have to try to find where this was - I think it was an argument by spin.

Roger Pearse

Such a suggestion sounds curious.

All the activities fall within the usual general class of moral abuses, which the Censor magistrate might clamp down on; undue luxury, new foreign superstitions, philosophers (although not here, interestingly), and the usual suspects -- actors, pimps, and charioteers.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

spin

One time I asked readers to pick the odd one out:

1. Limit on expenditures.
2. Public banquets confined to distribution of food.
3. No cooked foods except pulse and vegetables to be sold in taverns. (Reduced crowds around taverns.)
4. Christians were executed for their new superstition. (afflicti suppliciis)
5. Chariot diversions banned. (Led to charioteers fleecing people, so stopped.)
6. Pantomime banned. (Led to strife in the streets, so banned.)


spin

Roger Pearse

Anyone remember the 18th century quotation, of someone who want to be "unelbowed by a player, pimp or gamester"? Is it from Boswell?

Gamera

I believe the interpolation argument has been widely made, with all due respect to spin.

This is something of a last bastion of ancient conspiracy theorists, which tend to impute incredible efficiency to the purported conspirators. The idea that some Christian cleric combed through Suetonius in order to insert a single referernce to a supposititious persecution of Christians in a list of other Imperial edits (especially ones involving the suppression of riotous behavior -- just the kind of thing a Christian cleric might approve of) seems a bit far fetched. I mean, if the cleric is going to do it at all, you would think he would expand on it with loving details.

Was the cleric hoping to decieve 20th century readers by his restraint?

In any case, as Roger points out, in fact the suppression of Christianity fits in perfectly. The conduct outlawed involved appeals to emotion and disorder, and that's exactly what a superstitio like Christianity did as far as the Roman authorities were concerned. It was an appeal to excessive emotion, and excessive public emotion led to disorder, and disorder lead to a threat to Imperial authority. This is why Suetonious looks down upon Nero's single superstitio -- his fetish for the "little girl" statue that saved his life by exposing a plot against him. Clearly Suetonius thinks this is just one more (ironic) example of Nero's unbalanced mind.

By the way, the irrationality of Christianity is a leitmotif used by various critics of the 1st and 2nd century. Galen and Celsius both frown upon the "illogic" and childishness of Christians.

If a cleric were interpolating a banning of Christianity, he would not have emphasized the newness and emotionalism of it. From a cleric's perspective, Christianity was as old as the Old Testament, and reasonable as can be. And it's hard to believe such a propagandist could so effortlessly take on the persona of the gossipy Roman flunky, Seutonius.