rlogan

Obviously I cannot get the simple point across that I am taking note of a rather dramatic "no mention whatsoever" to "grotesque spectacle of mass assassinations" of people - in your view - that "deserved" it according to Tacitus and Suetonius.

I think you view even acknowledging the point as dangerous to your present belief. That is to say - instead of the obvious reasonability of "gee, isn't this odd" to instead pose that I am some kind of fruitcake for noticing this enormous difference in "cult status" in a short period.

You have to create a story of the Christians surging in numbers and notoriety over the period. Explain why people like Josephus are so stupid as to not record this explosion, despite making specific efforts to discuss sects. Something is wrong here. Josephus was in Rome during this period.


Obviously not. So you beilieve the Christians went completely un-noticed in the reign of Claudius and became some kind of movement of significant note under Nero.

Thank you.



I see. So you think he gave condemned murderers more time, and the ones that were innocent less? So that this summary execution was specifically reserved strictly where it would be the most heinous.


I see. So when we see his grandfather in the beginning, his birth, upbringing and so forth prior to his condemnation by the senate and suicide at the end - we need to avoid assuming his birth was before his death.

Are you or are you not going to address that the "bad" things were at the end of his reign, and in fact that is why it was the end - whereas the good were generally in the beginning?

I do not contend it was strictly linear, no.

It is a reasonable assertion. One he does not tell us. But I don't want to be an ass about this.

I got to get to my work here but let's address this, which I think is getting us to an important juncture:

Now we are getting somewhere. There is something wrong in the different treatments. There is also something wrong with conflating "Crestus" with Jesus under the reign of Claudius.



oopsie. You were doing OK until there. Suetonius, at the end of his piece on Nero (In the "bad things" section, ch 56) states:

This is just one example, again, of suetonius taking the excesses of Nero as a bad thing. He disagrees on the facts surrounding Nero's treatment of Christians. It is a factual dispute over what Nero did with them: whether it was a punishment deserved or a horrific spectacle.

Thinking this over.

Ben C Smith

You are not a fruitcake, nor have I implied as much. But it is not odd. If it felt odd, I would have said so.

I have not even mentioned numbers, much less created a story of Christians surging in them.

No, I think they went unmentioned (with the possible exception of the reference to Chrestus).

No, I think that Suetonius is connecting the two items in question (and it is the opinion of Suetonius that we are after). Nero probably gave nobody very much time, but what Suetonius singles out as heinous is that even those who were convicted for no good reason were not given very much time.

No, what we need to avoid is finding a strict chronology where Suetonius himself tells us he is using a thematic organization instead. Finding a strict(er) chronology where Suetonius does not tell us he is linking by theme is fine.

First, what is your source for the contention that Nero was good for five years then bad for the rest? I have of course heard and read that before, but do not recall the source for it.

Good. Nor do I.

Do you mean something wrong with Suetonius conflating Chrestus with Jesus or something wrong with us doing it?

Here is the Suetonian text you cite from his bad list, section 56 (emphasis mine):

Religionum usque quaque contemptor, praeter unius deae Syriae....

He held all religion in contempt, except only that of the Syrian goddess....

And here is what Suetonius says about the Christians in his good list (redux, emphasis mine):

Afflicti suppliciis Christiani, genus hominum superstitionis novae ac maleficae.

Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition.

On the good side of the ledger, Nero punished a superstition. On the bad side of the ledger, he neglected religion. Do you think superstition and religion are the same? I do not, and I do not think the Romans did, either. Take Cicero, for example, in On the Nature of the Gods 117:

Horum enim sententiae omnium non modo superstitionem tollunt, in qua inest timor inanis deorum, sed etiam religionem, quae deorum cultu pio continetur.

The truth is that the opinions of all these men do away not only with superstition, which involves an irrational fear of the gods, but also with religion, which consists in the pious worship of the same.

Suetonius himself gives the label of superstition (superstitione) to foreign cults (externas caerimonias) such as the Egyptian and Jewish rites when he mentions that Tiberius suppressed such rites in Rome (Life of Tiberius 36). He mentions this, incidentally, in what appears to be the good part of his biography of Tiberius; the bad part does not get underway until section 41.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

He did indeed, and there may yet be something to be said in favor of a common source between Josephus and Luke; but I still favor Luke knowing Josephus, at least for the moment.

Not sure. In this case one could easily argue that Marcion had every reason to omit the prophets of Israel. Of course, one might counter that Luke had reason to add them, in order to counter Marcionism.

Correct. I have the text available on my page on the testimonium.

I am divided on this. Sometimes I agree with that assessment, but at other times it seems that if Josephus only said that Jesus was thought to be the Christ, and if the reader observes that Josephus elsewhere actually attributed messianic status to Vespasian, then Origen could easily conclude that Josephus did not think of Jesus as the Christ.

Hmmm. Let me ponder that for a while.

First instinct: The line non modo per Iudaeam would lose cogency, I think. Why should the punishment of Christians in Rome check the superstition not only in Judea?

Same here.

Why fear?

Looking forward to it.

Ben.

Chris Weimer

Yeah, I still think Marcion expunged the Judaic references and not the other way around. It makes mroe sense this way.

But why Christ at all? Josephus never mentions the other Messianic pretenders as being called the Messiah, why here? Because of Christianity's perserverance?

Don't think about it too hard.

The punishments of Christians extended to Iudaea? No, you're probably right...

There's more than one definition of fear.

Sorry for being so sporadic...

Chris

darstec

Those fragments of Papias are NOT written by Papias, they are according to every reputable scholar, witten by Eusebius who supposedly is quoting Papias. Thre is a world of difference.
From http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...-1.html#papias we read: You are mistakenly treating those as the actual writings of Papias.

Ben, are you really unaware of how often this very subject has been covered on this forum and many other Internet venues? Josephus' quote about having to write the history of the Jews for his Greek speaking audience because none such exists must get mentioned every 6 months here at the very least. Even the paucity of Greek and Aramaic fragments among the Dead Sea Scrolls speaks volumes about the LXX availability in those languages. Do you know of any DDS fragment in Greek that deals with anything other than the Pentatuch or a few Psalms?


I would place GMark as a production in part of Marcion. Far too much of Paul especially when dealing with the various categories of angels such as the Archons comes from Gnostic texts. Most of the time these writings are ignored when writing about Paul's treatment of "rulers of the age." This is one of the things that lend credence for a late Paul, whom I think is in part a creation of Marcion. Ergo since Mark depends upon familiarity with Paul, and Luke upon Mark all of these are pushed forward into the future sometime after 135 CE. In another thread we covered Paul's OT quotations especially where the LXX was concerned.

Amaleq13

Ben,

I think this:
Should be read as:

One has to create a story of the Christians surging in numbers and notoriety over the period.

And not as a statement attributed to you.

rlogan

Thanks Amaleq13. Yes.

I also meant to comment on your four wheeler before.

Talk about a wise move. Yow. Get outta the way now...

rlogan

Very well. But you look odd saying so.

you're being a good sport. thank you.

I think we agree here. I am of the opinion (low in value that it may be) that the Chrestus reference is not to Jesus.


One of the things I am trying to demonstrate, unsuccessfully so - is how Nero morphs over time from someone who will not even utilize the death penalty at all to his final abominations.

I understand that you disagree with this - but the alleged treatment of the Christians falls into this category unless we charge Tacitus or his interpolator with gross exaggeration as well as inaccuracy in linking the fire and the Christians.

It is too bad that Suetonius does not detail what punishment means.


Well, I knew this was the response when I was writing. You have a strong argument here, Ben. Obviously.

Conceded. So I'm going to poke your eye with a stick.

I'll admit I'm going on recollection here. if you want me to google a bit, well I certainly can.

But I think the matter is more whether you disagree that Nero began his reign with the moderation of Seneca, the influence of his mother, and others, which led to a more restrained and wiser administration in comparison to the cartoon he became later.

Are you really disagreeing with this Ben? Suetonius sure seems to lay it out that way too, although the number of years one way or the other is not specifically mentioned.



I don't think Suetonius has made the conflation. Certainly, many apologists claim "Chrestus" as a version of "Christ" in order to gain an extrabiblical anchor for Jesus.

When I say something is wrong, I do mean that what we see is not fitting the "big bang" theory of Jesus set forth in the gospels. Something is wrong with the clash between Suetonius and Tacitus. I cannot sew together all of these components in a complete coherent theory.


The translation I was using had "cult". Seems to me Religionum would translate as religion, yes.

oopsie. You swapped a word and we need to stick with contempt and not substitute for it that he was "neglectful".

he would not have used different words if they were the same. I am a backwoods tramp, but not illiterate.

Of course, he is making Christianity out to be more contemptuous than the regular contempt he has for religion in general.

Ben C Smith

I have pondered that question before, and I do not have a ready answer. If one pops to mind you will be the first to know.

Actually, I made a mistake in my statement. It would not be that the superstition was checked not only in Judea, but rather that it erupted again in Judea.

But I think the same observation holds; it makes little sense to switch over to Judea so suddenly.

No problem. My initial post on the direction of influence felt sporadic too. That was the first time I had ever actually written out my developing view of the relationship between these three thorny texts.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

You claimed that five or six fragments are all we have of Papias. I responded by linking to a page containing more than twenty fragments of Papias found in Irenaeus, Eusebius, Jerome, Apollinarius, Philip of Side, Maximus, Anastasius, Photius, George the Sinner, and others. You then responded by saying that those fragments are not by Papias; they are by Eusebius.

I confess I am confused.

I gave you the link to a page that had those few short fragments plus about 20 others.

I nowhere, not even on that page I linked to, have even begun to analyze which fragments are genuinely by Papias and which are not.

Yes. I am unaware of how often this subject has been covered on this forum and many other internet venues. I was asking for a reference, not your left lung.

Coincidentally, I have been frequenting this forum for just over 7 months. I guess I was a bit overdue for a mention of Josephus having to write a Greek history because none such existed.

This is enough of a reference for me to find my way to it; thanks.

Offhand, I would think it would speak more about the preferences of the Qumran sect. But I am not quite as versed on Qumran as I would like to be.

Ben.