spin

No, I don't think it was. I think it was written in Greek in a Roman/Latin community.

I've given what seems the most likely explanation for the apparently sparse examples of words with the -ian- affix. They were formed in Latin and absorbed into Greek in a Roman world.

But you can't see the grossness of the lack of linguistic understanding in some philological attempts to explain linguistic phenomena.

This is the most interesting of all the examples as it is the earliest, yet it is still strongly linked to the Roman world. One hears of the Aspourgiani in the context of the capture and death of a "friend" of Rome, Polemon, with close acquaintant of both Antonius and Augustus. Strabo is aware of the connection with Polemon king of Bosphorus in Bk 11.2.11. This is clearly an example of Latin term translated into Greek.

Many of Hegesippus's heresies were ones specifically manifested in Rome, eg "Valentinians, and Basilidians, and Saturnilians". I think Simonians would be tarred by the same brush in the same context, don't you?

Nero was a bogeyman in the Judaic context: it was he who brought Vespasian on Judea, leading to the destruction of the Jewish nation. It's only natural that he is the great enemy. And they had the fear that he would come back, despite long time report of his death. He is one of the Julio-Claudians who received more than his fair share of bad press, especially when you think that for most of his reign he was received with adulation by most ordinary Romans who loved him. It's not strange that the "persecution" of Judea will lead to other such reports.


No.

From what I understand Tertullian didn't read Greek. I would have to look into the specific texts more closely, but as an offhand comment on the Acts of Paul, the church showed no interest in Paul until after Marcion had collected his letters, so we have a terminus a quo for starting to think about writing an Acts of Paul to the Marcionite period. How long after that was the effort penned? as to 1 Peter and Revelation where is the specific reference to a supposed Neronian persecution??

So you do think that the crowd could identify a species of Jewish god worshippers?

You had written:
Does that jog your memory?

You are joking. Aren't you? Get a grip, man.

Until I can see evidence for prefects generally having control of imperial, as against senatorial, provinces, Syme's comment remains an opinion. And we are only interested in imperial provinces, for they were the one's with procurators (who were answerable to the emperor). Perhaps Syme alludes to both imperial and senatorial provinces without making the distinction. A procurator was an imperial appointment.

So until the full import of Syme's comment can be gleaned and supported, I guess we can forget it.

To clarify, we are actually dealing with two entities, Judea1 the statelet received by Archelaus which was promptly taken away from him some years later and this was annexed to Syria, and Judea2 which was amalgamated under H.Agrippa and which became an imperial province under Claudius. Tacitus shows that he is referring not to Judea1, but to Judea2 in H.5.9.

Now riddle me this, how else can Tacitus refer to Judea1?

Remembering that Tacitus wrote:
he is clear in his reference to the state of Judea from the time of Pompey through to Claudius. This last part has Claudius putting Judea, as a province (including Samaria and Galilee), into the hands of the emperor's appointees either of the equestrian order or freedmen, ie he put the province into the hands of a procurator.

Tacitus is clarifying the legal status of Judea. It has formally become an imperial province, making it eligible for procuratorial management. That Judea he refers to once as a province doesn't change the issue, an issue he is plainly aware of. He has signaled when it became an imperial province. It is only imperial provinces that had procurators. They also administered imperial, mainly financial, matters elsewhere as well, including in senatorial provinces, though they did not administer those provinces.

Now if you would like Tacitus to have made the gross blunder you are accusing him of (and you haven't shown anywhere where he has made analogous mistakes over official appointments such as procurators, prefects, proconsuls, etc.) would you like to accuse him of blundering over the populace having enough knowledge to distinguish between sects of Jewish god worship? -- the whole populace? Perhaps he was exaggerating and didn't mean the whole populace. Would you like him to have exaggerated or blundered when he talks of a multitude of christians?In the hypothetical thirty years from the time when christ is supposed to have died till the time of the great fire we had a multitude christians in Rome. Most scholars I believe find that a bit much to palate. You don't. You have a certain amount of maximalist christian in your approach Ben C.


spin

Wads4

"The Tacitus passage is probably a fake. He knows when the administration of Judea changed, mentioning it elsewhere, but the current passage erroneously calls Pilate a procurator, which of course he couldn't have been and Tacitus would have known that he couldn't, as the passage dates Pilate to the time of Tiberius, yet Tacitus rightly tells us of the change during the reign of Claudius. Pilate was a prefect."

I thought Tiberius died in 37 and was suceeded by Gaius Caligula, and that Pontius Pilate was Prefect from 26-36, making him in the reign of Tiberius after all. Or am I wrong?--just checking.

countjulian

I might be wrong, but I believe Ben was referring to the common theory that 666 in Revelations is a reference in gematria to Nero's name and title in Greek- Καισερ Νερο (probably spelled it wrong). It was commonly thought by some that he had not died and was hiding out in the East with the Parthians; thus, it would be poetic justice if he came back as the "beast" of Revelations to torment the "Babylon" (Rome) the same why he had tormented the Jews. It's impressive that a Christian like Ben would admit to such a thing. The only hole in his scholarly theory, though, is that many who take such a view believe that Revelations is an originally Jewish document, the references to Jesus only being added later. If so, then Revelations per se is irrelevant to the discussion to the Neronian persecution of Christians.

Ben C Smith

I agree. I think Mark was written in or near Rome.

As for all the stuff about rounding up Christians, telling them apart from Jews, and so forth, I am not trying to be difficult. I am simply not seeing the problem. Maybe there is some huge inconsistency or implausibility there that you see clearly and I am missing, but I honestly do not see it. The Romans persecuted Christians at various times, and that implies that they identified them in some way, distinguished them from Jews and different cults, found them, and arrested them. I am not certain exactly how it was done in each case, because the texts do not always tell us.

Antioch was strongly linked to the Roman world, too. It is not as if it was in Parthia or something.

Strabo is a Greek writing in Greek. Your inference is of course possible, but how his knowing that Polemon was a friend of Rome inevitably leads to him having translated an existing Latin term into Greek is unclear to me.

I did note the Roman connection in my original list, if you recall. What about the Carpocratians?

I am not saying that Tertullian read Greek, or that he read any of my list of texts. I am saying that the Neronian persecution was known in Christian circles.

I keep listing 1 Peter as possible, not certain, because it (A) mentions persecution and (B) claims to have been written by Peter. I know of only one possible imperial persecution in the probable lifetime of Peter, and that is the Neronian.

As for Revelation, I will pass on the full-scale exegesis for now to try to keep on point, but (briefly) the sixth king is Nero, the beast is Nero (redivivus?), and the persecution is at his behest.

Where does Tacitus let us know that he knows that Judea 1 (separated from Judea 2 by the rule of Agrippa) was not an imperial province?

He could have said that, upon the banishment of Archelaus, Judea was annexed into the province of Syria. Right? Then he could have said that the province (singular) of Syria begged for lower tributes, and the reader would understand, based on that annexation sentence just moments before, that Judea was part of Syria. Right?

Let us turn again to History 5.9:

Under Tiberius all was quiet. But, when the Jews were ordered by Caligula to set up his statue in the temple, they preferred the alternative of war. The death of the emperor put an end to the disturbance. The kings were either dead, or reduced to insignificance, when Claudius entrusted the province of Judea to the Roman knights or to his own freedmen, one of whom, Antonius Felix, indulging in every kind of barbarity and lust, exercised the power of a king in the spirit of a slave. He had married Drusilla, the granddaughter of Antony and Cleopatra, and so was the grandson-in-law, as Claudius was the grandson, of Antony.

Your comment was:

I agree, but what is missing here is any indication of the status of Judea before Agrippa. This passage does indeed have Claudius turning Judea into a province after king Agrippa, but it has nothing to say about whether he was turning Judea into a province for the first time or turning Judea back into a province again now that Agrippa was gone.

I agree that Judea became an imperial province after Agrippa. But now you have to show from Tacitus that Tacitus understood that it was not its own imperial province before Agrippa.

Right. The senatorial provinces had magistrates (right?).

Question for you: Was Judea in any way annexed into Syria after Agrippa? Or did the annexation into Syria occur only after Archelaus four decades earlier?

Ben.

countjulian

Actually, if we take Luke's word at his birth narrative, don't we run into some trouble concerning that Chronology?

But as always the question is, "why"? What did the Christians do to make people hate them so much? Epicureans and Jews denied the gods and rejected cult worship like the Christians, yet we never hear of "Epicurean persecutions" in Roman history. Plus, why would a sect so new garner so much hatred? Not even Scientologists can make people hate them that quickly. In hindsight, it's clear to us that the pagans were doomed and the Christians destined to take over, but to those living at the time that would seem as ridiculous as saying that Scientology will one day take over the Western world.

Ben C Smith

Why impressive? I do not think I am the only Christian who thinks the beast was Nero.

I am not in the camp that views Revelation as originally Jewish (not Christian). I tend to think (at least pending further study) that Revelation was Jewish-Christian from square one.

Ben.

countjulian

But how? Do you believe that Nero is going to rise from the dead to become the world's antichrist? Or do you not believe literally in Revelations?

Ben C Smith

No, I seriously doubt Nero is going to rise from the dead and take over.

I do not take Revelation literally.

You asked why people hated the Christians so much. That is a big topic. I will summarize only briefly so as to keep this thread on track:

1. They revered a man who had been crucified. Crucifixion was a huge stigma in the ancient world; modern analogies tend to fail to capture its offensiveness.

2. They applied to this crucified man titles that were normally reserved for the emperor. Saying Jesus is Lord implies that Caesar is not lord. This raised suspicions on all sides.

3. They accordingly refused to render proper homage to the Roman gods.

4. They were a recently founded sect, not an ancient one, and so enjoyed none of the prestige that ancient sects generally garnered in that setting.

Keep in mind that we do not have to conjecture that Christians were hated (at least at various times). We have Jews, pagans, and Christians telling us that Christians were hated at various times.

Also keep in mind that we modern westerners are generally a lot more tolerant than the ancients would have been.

Ben.

spin

That's correct. Herod Agrippa, a friend of Caligula was put on the throne soon after the death of Tiberius of first the lands of Philip and then eventually Galilee and Judea.


spin

spin

Yes, this is my most plausible scenario.

Roman rounding up christians at various times is somewhat irrelevant to this the reputed first time. What it seems you are doing is retrojecting what you generically accept about persecutions into this passage by Tacitus. That's where I think you miss the context of this passage. You're not reading it, but all the literature on Roman persecution.

You need to start with the fact that Antioch was Greek.

The reports were at the time that Romans were involved in that part of the world and responsible for making known much of the information about it. Roman officials often traveled with friends of Rome.

My implication was that the report generally was filtered through Roman knowledge.

OK. There is no evidence from the first century of such a persecution, but by Tertullian's time such a notion was in circulation, you are saying. The texts that you cited are no help whatsoever for a Neronian persecution in Rome or even a Neronian persecution as such. The earliest then that we have for a specifically Neronian persecution, as we portray it in Rome was Tertullian. Is that correct?

There's a wonderful painting by Caravaggio in Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome which shows Peter's crucifixion.

How would you convert the "persecution" of the Jews through his war carried out by Vespasian and his son into a persecution of christians in Rome, which we understand by the notion of a Neronian persecution? You seem to be flitting between the two notions, or perhaps conflating them.

Note: "the kings [Herod's heirs] were either dead, or reduced to insignificance".

Brevity is one of the noted traits of Tacitus's style. The solution that I asked for hoped for one which reflected the value of the content, ie passing note gets brief statement (which of course is another reason why the whole crispy-crackly passage is sus). Judea1 was not a province in its own right, having an uneasy status to classify, hence Tacitus opting for the use of a plural to deal with the two areas, one being a province and the other being a detached part of a province.

You are mixing Judea1 (which is linked with Syria) with Judea2 (which was the territory amalgamated under H.Agrippa). You have shown him link Syria and Judea, hence Judea1. The passage citing Claudius deals with Judea2.

"the kings [Herod's heirs] were either dead, or reduced to insignificance".

Nominally proconsuls, which suggests ex-consuls, but it was more flexible, including ex-praetors as well.

The latter. See AJ 19.9.2 for a view of what happened to Judea on the death of H.Agrippa.


spin