the_cave

And yet that would still leave 15.44 too short. And I still can't see how Sulpicius would call Christians "Chrestians". There must have been something there about Chrestians.

spin

If 15.44 ended with quin iussum incendium crederetur, it would be longer than 12.21, 13.11, 22, 24, 58 and how many others in the rest of the text I didn't flick through.

You should ask him.


spin

the_cave

Possibly.

And glib humor certainly does nothing to further your argument.

You're hypothesizing a medieval Christian interpolator who's incapable of getting the name of his own religion correct, even when (supposedly) copying directly from Sulpicius Severus.

The interpolator could have been responsible for a lot of the passage, but Chrestianos? Do you really think Tacitus couldn't have written one sentence about tortured Chrestians?

spin

Possibly, rubbish. Look at the paragraphs I cited.

Irony is difficult over internet. The meaning to me is simple. Your question doesn't seem to be one you're able to answer.

He may have used Tertullian's Apologeticum, 3.5, to give that touch. An educated christian scribe would have known Tertullian.


spin

Ben C Smith

I think you will find that spin does not accept that Suetonius wrote of Christians.

Ben.

spin

And Suetonius would have loved to talk about crispy christians lighting the night sky.


spin

the_cave

What I meant was, I was agreeing with you.

You're the one claiming that a Christian scribe used Tertullian to interpolate Sulpicius with "Chrestians". Can you tell me why? Of course not--so we are in the same boat.

This is getting a bit complicated--the scribe needs to have Tertullian and Sulpicius (and perhaps also Josephus) in front of him while interpolating Tacitus. All this is possible,
but no more or less likely than any other hypothesis, it seems to me.

Do you think that Suetonius wrote about Neronean persecution of Christians? Note this has nothing to do with the details Sulpicius and Tacitus supposedly provide.

If not, where do you think the legend began?

spin

I can postulate on such matters, to show that the matter can be dealt with meaningfully. Remembering that Tertullian had complained about mispronunciation by pagans, our scribe added a bit of colour to his creation. Now that won't satisfy you because the question itself requires information that you can only get from the author.

Doesn't need Tertullian, just need to have read it.

Nero was the bogeyman for the Jews because it was he that sicked Vespasian onto them, so Nero goes down as the monster. Christians probably inherited their hatred of Nero from the Jews. Nero, as a recurring baddie, can be found in the Jewish and then christian Sybilline Oracles. (There are originally Jewish religious works whose redaction was taken over by christians: 1 Enoch gained christianizing material, so did the Oracles, so did 2 Esdras, so various Jewish apocalypses. -- This is a phenomenon which really requires more investigation to understand its implications. What was the context in which christians, mainly in the diaspora, could take over and continue the work of Jews?)

[The christian material on Nero in Tacitus doesn't fit the slow Neronian modus operandi. The christian material on Nero in Suetonius in Nero XVI, brief though it is, doesn't fit the context, but it does share with the Tacitus 15.44 passage the fate of christ in the latter and christians in the former, supplicium adficere (T)/supplicium affligere (S), though it is often translated differently for some god-known reason, in Tacitus "execute", in Suetonius "torture".]


spin

the_cave

Of course you can postulate. But why are you surprised when it isn't satisfying? It's a plausible suggestion; it's just not air-tight. That's all.

I completely agree. Though the works you mentioned seem to center around Nero's actions in Judea. The Suetonius passage seems to be talking about something in Rome. I guess I was asking, how did Christians get the idea that Nero did anything to Christians in Rome?

Does supplicio have to mean "torture"?

spin

I have no problems with such loose ends. One explains what one can from the available evidence.

And I was dealing with "why Nero"?

The Romans did things against Jews in Rome. Add Jewish hatred of Nero, christian descent from Jews and persecution at least in the time of Decius, and you have lots of speculation space for christians.

Here, though, you seem to me to be looking at ultimately sidetracking issues. We should be looking at the unaccounted for silence in the christian record regarding Tacitus (and Suetonius -- though we have no evidence of his popularity amongst reading christians), the problems within the passage now found in 15.44, regarding narrative cohesion in the context (how it fits, or doesn't), its communicative content (its witnessing material, the rhetorical poor quality) and factual content (the error about Pilate, the knowledge about "christians" at the time of Nero and how one can spot them).

It usually implies full punishment of the law. O.L.D. indicates especially execution.


spin