spin

(Was this meant as poetry? Short lines with capitals at the starts of lines?)

To answer your question: sure, why not? You can see scribes who repeat things or leave things out with gay abandon. Writers who forget what they just wrote. Stop avoiding the task of explaining the 300 years in a meaningful way.


spin

jakejonesiv

OK, that is a plausible answer. The key is the preceeding phrase, "As we have remarked already." Where had Tertullian remarked previously remarked "three hundred years have not yet passed in our existence" ?

Jake Jones IV

sschlichter

the text editor on this site comes up weird on my blackberry forcing me to put in carriage returns more often than otherwise. the caps are automatic editting. If I could get it to rhyme, then that would be something.

Tertullian demonstrates in THIS passage that he is aware of the time of Christ. He demonstrates in other passages that he is aware of the time of Christ. He demonstrates knowledge of Paul, the book of Acts, the authorship of the epistles. He demonstrates the ability to link all of those events to secular history in the reign of Augustus, Tiberius, and Nero. He reminds his detractors that these things occurred publicly.

I explained the 250 years and the 300 years. If you do not like the explanation then go with mountainman's view that Eusebius missed a line when he was writing all of this.

~Steve

DCHindley

Ad Nationes was written 217 CE.

Gaius Julius Caesar was born ca. 102-100 BCE.

Even though his family had fallen out of favor with Sulla and all their estates were confiscated, he was elected as a Consul in 59 BCE.

In 49 BCE, Caesar was out of favor with Pompey and illegally entered Italy with his legions from Gaul and forced Pompey and the government to flee (Pompey's legions were in Spain at the time). He dismissed the Senate, appointed senators of his liking, and had himself declared Dictator.

In 44 BCE Caesar was named dictator perpetuus. From this point on, all Roman supreme leaders were automatically given dictatorial powers as a matter of course, and this event can be seen as the beginning of imperial Rome.

Gaius Octavius was born in 63 BCE.

Octavian defeated Marc Antony, who had succeeded Caesar, in 43 BCE, but immediately formed an alliance with him and another general of Caesar to rule as a triumvirate.

Infighting resulted in Octavian defeating his partners in battle and becoming supreme ruler in 29 BCE.

In 27 B.C.E. he went before the Senate and announced that he was restoring the rule of the Roman world to the Senate and the people. To show their appreciation, the members of the Senate voted him special powers and gave him the title Augustus, indicating his superior position in the state. A joint government developed that in theory was a partnership. Augustus, however, was in fact the senior partner. The government was formalized in 23BCE, when the Senate gave Augustus enormous control over the army, foreign policy, and legislation.

This was compiled from an assortment of Internet biographies of these two men.

Doing some math:

59 BCE to 217 CE is about 275 years.
49 BCE to 217 CE is about 265 years.
44 BCE to 217 CE is about 260 years.
29 BCE to 217 CE is about 245 years. etc.

I'd guess that Tertullian was just being inconsistent about when to date the beginning of the Roman imperium. It is under 250 years when one speaks of Augustus, but under 300 when one speaks of Gaius Caesar. Technically, Caesar was not the first official emperor, Augustus was, but it was to Caesar's "genius" (special daimone or spirit) that Christians were refusing to offer incense.

Just my guess ...

DCH

spin

And doesn't this end up in a nice circularity?

I've seen you shift things around from Tertullian, but that doesn't make an explanation. Perhaps you can point me to your post that explains, rather than explains away, the 250 and the 300 years.

And incidentally, you never cite the passages from the texts of Tertullian (you know, name of text, book, and chapter) so one can't read what you have in your mind.


spin

spin

According to the intro on Pearse's Tertullian site it was written in 197 soon after Septimius Severus defeated Albinus.

DCH, your attempt to shift the pronoun "our" from the christians to the Romans doesn't reflect the text (Ad Nationes II.9). Note the way the contrast between "you/your" and "us/our" is used. It should caution you against your position, for obviously "our" is christian.

But why should I be astonished at your vain imputations? Under the same natural form, malice and folly have always been associated in one body and growth, and have ever opposed us under the One instigator of error. Indeed, I feel no astonishment; and therefore, as it is necessary for my subject, I will enumerate some instances, that you may feel the astonishment by the enumeration of the folly into which you fall, when you insist on our being the causes of every public calamity or injury. If the Tiber has overflowed its banks, if the Nile has remained in its bed, if the sky has been still, or the earth been in commotion, if death has made its devastations, or famine its afflictions, your cry immediately is, "This is the fault of the Christians!" As if they who fear the true God could have to fear a light thing, or at least anything else (than an earthquake or famine, or such visitations). I suppose it is as despisers of your gods that we call down on us these strokes of theirs. As we have remarked already, three hundred years have not yet passed in our existence; but what vast scourges before that time fell on all the world, on its various cities and provinces! what terrible wars, both foreign and domestic! what pestilences, famines, conflagrations, yawnings, and quakings of the earth has history recorded! Where were the Christians, then, when the Roman state furnished so many chronicles of its disasters? Where were the Christians when the islands Hiera, Anaphe, and Delos, and Rhodes, and Cea were desolated with multitudes of men? or, again, when the land mentioned by Plato as larger than Asia or Africa was sunk in the Atlantic Sea? or when fire from heaven overwhelmed Volsinii, and flames from their own mountain consumed Pompeii? when the sea of Corinth was engulphed by an earthquake? when the whole world was destroyed by the deluge? Where then were (I will not say the Christians, who despise your gods, but) your gods themselves, who are proved to be of later origin than that great ruin by the very places and cities in which they were born, sojourned, and were buried, and even those which they founded?

And let's look at 1.7, where the "we" again is clearly christian.

See, now, what a witness you have suborned against us: it has not been able up to this time to prove the report it set in motion, although it has had so long a time to recommend it to our acceptance. This name of ours took its rise in the reign of Augustus; under Tiberius it was taught with all clearness and publicity; under Nero it was ruthlessly condemned, and you may weigh its worth and character even from the person of its persecutor. If that prince was a pious man, then the Christians are impious; if he was just, if he was pure, then the Christians are unjust and impure; if he was not a public enemy, we are enemies of our country: what sort of men we are, our persecutor himself shows, since he of course punished what produced hostility to himself. Now, although every other institution which existed under Nero has been destroyed, yet this of ours has firmly remained--righteous, it would seem, as being unlike the author (of its persecution). Two hundred and fifty years, then, have not yet passed since our life began. During the interval there have been so many criminals; so many crosses have obtained immortality; so many infants have been slain; so many loaves steeped in blood; so many extinctions of candles; so many dissolute marriages. And up to the present time it is mere report which fights against the Christians.

Would you really want to argue that the "our" refers to Rome???


spin

sschlichter

good point, I will include references going forward.

That is the only explanation I have. The weight of it may not be much until you measure it up against the argument that Tertullian did not know when Jesus of Nazareth (yes, he is referring to this same Jesus) because he demonstrates that knowledge. Regardless of whether you or I beleive in jesus, Paul, Acts, and the gospels, Augustus, Tiberius, and Nero - Tertullian did and he demonstrates that he knew when they lived.

An event that occurred over 200 years ago is stated to be less than 300. Nothing to see here.

sschlichter

I agree, (a first). However, it may be related to the reason he feels the need to round up to 300. Perhaps Tertullian is trying to demonstrate the calamites in question are related to the worship of Ceasar, not the Christians whom have NOT been around for the same 300 years in question.

spin

Tertullian is not one who beats around the bush, so what makes you think he may be doing what you muse above?


spin

avi

spin pointed out that on Roger Pearse's (excellent) web site, Tertullian's Ad Nationes was written in 197 CE.

parenthetically, how does one establish that date with certainty? I sure hope it is not with HCM or some other mumbo jumbo. end of parenthesis....

Steve then argued, referring to Tertullian:
Steve, maybe I am nit picking here.
Sorry if so.

I don't understand the first, most elementary aspect of HCM.

To me, 197, in NO WAY, can be "rounded up" to 300. If I recall my minimal exposure to the New Testament, jesus was supposed to have been executed around 30 CE, and allowing for at least ten years before "Christians" appeared on the scene, (since, at the outset, Jesus' supposed followers all considered themselves loyal Jews, insisting on observing all Jewish laws and customs...) we have a date, for the arrival on planet Earth, of the FIRST Christians, about 40 CE.

When I subtract 40 from 197, I do not obtain a result that could possibly be "rounded up" to 300.
NO WAY.

Sorry. I am not buying it. We need some other explanation for why Tertullian suggested that 300 years (or 250) had not yet elapsed since creation of the Christian sect.