Lucretius

I was reading Horaces Satires the other day and found an interesting parallel,sadly I can't find an online source so you will in effect have to take my word for it or look it up in the book itself


From an old translation in Smart's Horace (my copy has been rebound so I don't have a date for this edition )

Satire Book 1:2 Line 1 onwards

Now in the notes it says

So perhaps if the early Christian preachers were also beggars which it is not unreasonable to presume then either they were guilty of similar criminal acts or maybe just considered guilty by association .

Vivisector

I agree with Roger here. It appears to me that punishing Christians was simply another of Nero's "reforms," even though we now might not consider it to belong with the others.

Apart from that, I've never seen the question of motive convincingly addressed. Whereas motive is relatively easy to infer in many cases, what is the motive for this passage? Surely it wasn't added in anticipation of HJ/MJ debates two millenia hence. And just as surely, it wasn't written to reflect the high esteem in which Christians were held in Nero's time. In other words, it seems unlikely to have been inserted by a Christian. So why?

Cheers,

V.

Roger Pearse

There is a paper somewhere by Robin Birley in which he suggests that Tertullian's Apologeticum may have been written with an eye to rebutting this passage, although he nowhere mentions Annals (he does call Tacitus a liar in Ad nationes). If so it wasn't seen as pro-Christian (and nor was Pliny's Letter and Trajan's reply, which Tertullian also mentions).

All the best,

Roger Pearse

spin

Typical effete apologetic excuse for rhetoric.

Riotous behavior, christians? Ridiculous. The text says it was supposedly their "mischievous religion". Besides, they weren't suppressed: they were executed. The others got ordered to stop or were banished for their naughty behavior.

Loved the diatribe. Given the crazy ideas that people later had about christianity -- sacrificing babies, worshiping ass-headed gods --, it's not likely that they were flaunting their new beliefs to the world for anyone to know about them. Christians don't fit in to the list of criminal financial disturbances. And any classicist would know that Nero was always slow to impose death.

Typically irrelevant.

At least get Suetonius right. He wasn't a Roman flunky, but a patrician crony (who was probably very popular for his literary efforts). And you're in no position to know what an interpolator should or should not have written. You are merely conjecturing on no basis whatsoever.


spin

aa5874

I have just gone through the passage of Annals 15.44 by Tacitus and I have now noticed, quite belatedly, that there is no mention whatsoever of Christus being crucified under Pilate. Tacitus only stated that Christus was put to death by Pontius Pilate.

Annals 15.44,".........Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate......."

Now, this Christus may have been beheaded or killed in some other fashion, unless it can be shown that Pilate only used crucifixion for execution.

This is another indication that the Christians of Christus may not be the Christians of "Paul's" Jesus.

Gamera

Thanks for the reference. This is part of the leitmotif against Christianity that I noted. Roman elites viewed it as emotional and hence a danger to order. In addition, Christians were associated with vagabonds and other disreputably people, not only because the evangelists were vagrant, but because Christians set about rising money for the poor in an organized fashion. This most have been seen as a threat to Roman authority. The equivalent of a modern soup kitchen would have been highly suspicious to the Roman elite.

Gamera

Spin = No substance, once again.

They were grouped with those who engaged in riotous behavior because of their emotionalism in worship and in doctrine, which was suspect.

Not in this case. I love it when spin reads texts, discerns a rule, and then applies the rule to the text to normalize it of all excemption to the rule. It is typical of bad philology, which is rife in naive historical circles. No serious scholar does that anymore.

The fact that other contemporary classical reference to Christianity include the same attack as that in the text at issue is "irrelevant" to the authenticity of the passage? Only in spinville.

Look who's talking. The burden is on you. The texts says what it says. You have just admitted that your interpolation theory is pure speculation.

spin

Typical pot looking for kettle.

Would you turn off the effluence and attempt to look at your eisegesis for what it is? Your above comments have nothing to do with

afflicti suppliciis Christiani genus hominum superstitionis novae ac maleficae

Can you see how your stuff is related to the comment about christians? No, I thought not. :wave:

You continue to create reasons to opt out of what evidence indicates. In this case you assume the veracity of what is under question in order to contravene new evidence which negates the veracity of what you assume as veracious.

The old joke is: how do you know when a lawyer is Lying? He moves his lips. :Cheeky:

Would you like to show the relevance of Galen and Celsus, given what the text actually says about christians (you know, "new and evil")?

In the past I have supplied information on the subject.

You have surreptitiously changed the subject from your ridiculous conjecture about an interpolator should be writing about to whatever it was that passed through those lips. I guess that means that you accept the ridiculousness of your conjecture.

Now we are left with your attempts to make the reference to execution of christians fit its context, a list of urban administration matters. Have you got anything better, something that reflects the text?


spin

Gamera

Focus, focus. Superstitio is related to an emotional irrational belief, as Suetonius makes clear shortly thereafter in discussing Nero's own fetish object, which he also calls a supersitio.

I gave you the citation, but I guess it was too much to ask you to read it. I do it again.

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



Ah, no substance.

Ah, no substance, and no comic ability.

Yes, read them. Galen and Celsus says Chrisitanity is evil because they are childish and illogical. Read, read.


I do think conjecture about interpolation is mostly ridiculous, yes. What's your position on that again?

Yes, we have Suetonius, Galen and Celsus all criticizing Christianity for being emotional, and hence threat to public order -- just like the other groups Nero attacked. Go figure.

When you can rebut this, get back to us.

spin

Christ, Gamera, nothing new in this entire waste of space. You couldn't even cite Galen or Celsus, so you could make a point. And as to superstitio, check out a decent Latin dictionary. OLD tells you that the Romans used it "more or less disparagingly to foreign or non-orthodox religious practices or doctrines". You're pushing too hard on a single word which obviously doesn't support you.


spin