Malachi151

"A simple matter"? Nonsense. First of all, we don't have ANY history or documentation regarding "conflicts" between Christians and Rome prior to this, so anything you say is pure speculation.

Secondly, the Christian message was largely one of integration between Jews and "Gentiles", at least the later Christian message that as come down to present day. If that was not the message of these Christians then their "Christianity" has no relationship to present day Christianity.

What, exactly, could these Christians have done for Tacitus to claim that Christians were "were hated for their enormities"?

What enormities could they have engaged in to be so hated in a place where slavery was accepted, human sacrafice was not unknown, the public killing of people for entertainment too place, etc?

What were these Christains doing to be so recognized and hated? Apprently, in order to be the scapegoat here, they had to have been THE MOST hated group in Rome!

I just don't see how a sect of people comes to be that notorious in 30 years, especially, if, as Tacitus claims, their disruptions started in Judea.

Then Tacitus goes on:

"but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular"

So, apprently the Christian movement had been repressed for a time, so lets say that this means 5 to 10 years. Now we are somewhere around 40-45 CE.

Tacitus claims that Chrisianity was "hideous and shameful", again, how? What were they doing that elevated themselves above the rest to become known, essentially, as the most hated in group in Rome?

Now keep in mind, according to the Tacitus account, and since we have NO OTHER ACCOUNT TO GO ON at this early stage, not even ANY Christian source about Christain activity in Rome, this all happened between about 45 CE and 64 CE, a period of about 20 years.

So, according to this, Christianity moved from Judea to Rome, and once in Rome, within a period of 20 years, became the most infamous and hated sect.

WTF, this makes no sense?!

It certianly makes no sense if these "Christians" have any relationship to the beliefs of the Pauline Christians, who were preaching harmony between Gentile and Jew. These Christians, if they indeed existed, had to have been doing something else.

Acts tells us that the term "Christians" was first used in Antioch while Paul was there, though this wasn't recorded until some time between 80 and 100.

What makes this all the more bizarre is that this account would have us believe that "Christianity" spread like wildfire from Judea around 33 CE to Rome in 64 CE, while all of the rest of the Christian history appears that Christianity developed and spread rather slowly, not really taking on any substantial form until around 100 and even at that they had low numbers.

Christians don't really become noticed and addressed by non-Christians until around 100 in all of the other references that we have, so how is it that they are so up front and in the middle of a situation back in 64?

Malachi151

Further adding to these problems we have the quotes of Suetonius, which i finally found.

Here wa have:

Claudius was emperor from 41 to 54, so if we are to assume that "Chrestus" is "Jesus", then that places Jesus in Rome some time between 41 and 54, which completely invalidates the Christian account of Jesus' death, etc. and also contradicts the Tacitus account of "Christus" being put to death my Pilate.

This does indacte a pre-existing conflict between the Jews and the Roman authorities, however, which does help the case of the Tacitus quote.

It still doesn't add up or make sense though.

Ben C Smith

I think that both events happened. Nero persecuted Christians in Rome, and Nero initiated the war with Judea. If I have conflated them at any point, please let me know.

You are still reading that line as indicating that Judea became a province for the first time ever under Claudius.

But look at the Latin of Histories 5.9:

Claudius, defunctis regibus aut ad modicum redactis, Iudaeam provinciam equitibus Romanis aut libertis permisit.

That is just an ordinary ablative absolute. Claudius, the kings having either died or been reduced to nothing, entrusted the Judean province to Roman knights or freedmen.

There is no hint in the Latin whether Roman knights or freedmen had ever held Judea before Agrippa and Claudius. (And we know from Josephus, Antiquities 18.1.1 §2, that at least one knight, Coponius, had held Judea before Agrippa and Claudius, so if Tacitus means that Claudius sent the very first of the knights who governed Judea, he is mistaken.)

There is, however, an indication that Judea, so far as Tacitus was concerned, had already been a province. If I tell you that I am entrusting a valuable pocketwatch to you, the item in question is probably already a valuable pocketwatch before I hand it over. Likewise, when Claudius entrusted the Judean province to the knights and freedmen, it must have been (according to Tacitus, anyway) already a Judean province before Claudius handed it over.

Strictly speaking, the notion that it was a province at that time that would be incorrect, since it had been under king Agrippa for a few years. But this way of referring to it makes sense if Tacitus is looking at the Agrippa years as merely a brief interlude; Judea was, according to Tacitus, already a province as of the banishment of Archelaus, so it makes sense for Claudius to entrust that province to his knights after Agrippa.

I think that Tacitus himself mixes Judea 1 with Judea 2. Let me compare Josephus (who reflects your view of Judean government) and Tacitus across your two Judean phases, Judea 1 and Judea 2. I will include, for clarity, the Agrippan interlude between them.

Judea 1. Judea loses its autonomy.

Josephus, Antiquities 17.13.5 §355:

But the country of Archelaus was made into a tributary of Syria, and Quirinius, a man who had been made consul, was sent by [Augustus] Caesar to take a census in Syria and sell away the house of Archelaus.

Tacitus, Annals 2.42:

His kingdom [that of Archelaus] was reduced into a province [regnum in provinciam redactum est]....

...and the provinces [provinciae] of Syria and Judea, exhausted by their burdens, implored a reduction of tribute.

Note that Josephus has Judea becoming a substate of the province of Syria, while Tacitus apparently has Judea becoming its own province, parallel to (not subject to) Syria.

Interlude. Judea briefly regains its autonomy.

I think you and I agree that Agrippa restored a monarchical rule to Judea for a few years in the forties.

Judea 2. Judea loses its autonomy (again).

Josephus, Wars 2.11.6 §220:

Claudius made it a Roman prefecture and sent Cuspius Fadus as procurator.

Tacitus, Annals 12.23:

Iturea and Judea, on the death of their kings, Sohemus and Agrippa, were annexed to the province of Syria [provinciae Syriae additi].

Note that now Josephus apparently has Judea becoming its own state, while Tacitus has Judea becoming a substate of the province of Syria after the death of Agrippa.

You and I shared this exchange recently:

Your answer involved Tacitean brevity (and I agree that he usually evinces that trait).

But I said that Tacitus could have mentioned the Syrian annexation precisely because he does mention it, but not in connection with Archelaus. Rather, he mentions it in connection with Agrippa.

This puts your thesis in a very awkward position:

1. If Tacitus is right, and Judea was a full province before Agrippa and only a subsidiary of Syria after Agrippa, then he had every right, on your own terms, to call Pilate a procurator; Judea 1 was its own province, and provinces were governed by procurators.

2. If Tacitus is wrong, and Judea was a subsidiary of Syria before Agrippa and a full province after Agrippa, then his mistake in calling Pilate a procurator is, on your own terms, completely understandable; Tacitus thought that Judea 1 was its own province, and provinces were governed by procurators.

Ben.

andrewcriddle

As well as the passage in the Life of Claudius there is a reference in the Life of Nero

Nero chapter 16 "Afflicti suppliciis Christiani genus hominum superstitionis novae ac maleficae" (The Christians wre harshly treated a sect of men of a recent and wicked superstition. )

Andrew Criddle

Malachi151

After more reading about the Jewish conflicts going on in Rome, what if the Jesus martyr story was invented in Rome by Jews in order to incite riots among Jews? From there this Jesus fellow became a sort of legend with a variety of different stories about him, and the story of Jesus spread back down from Rome to wards Judea and Alexandria (the other Jewish capital) and it just grew and spread from there?

Ben C Smith

I have added Syme, Tacitus, and Furneaux, The Annals of Tacitus, to my list of interlibrary loan books in hope that they will discuss the apparent Tacitean reversal of the status of Judea (a full province after Archelaus and a subprovince of Syria after Agrippa, instead of vice versa as in Josephus). What I would really like is a translation of Koestermann into English, but that does not appear to have happened yet.

Ben.

spin

Sorry for the delay. I had written a full response and decided there was something I needed to understand, as I continued to get indications of different categories of provinces, but to your last post, and I'll try to doctor my original efforts...
Nero gets a hard time from the Jewish tradition because of the war. This is something that christians as part of the messianic Jewish tradition inherits.

I think you misinterpret my use of the sentence. I have no problem with the notion that Judea1 was annexed into Syria. I have no problem with Tacitus talking in the same breath as Syria that both Syria and Judaea were provinciae. But I do have problems with anything being read into that last notion.

Claudius entrusts Judea2 first into the hands of H.Agrippa constructing it as he adds to Agrippa's realm and then into the hands of procurators.

You have to twist the notion of "govern" here. For instance, Pilate was not responsible to Tiberius but to Lucius Vitellius, who in fact removed Pilate from his office and sent another official to administer Judea in his stead. Coponius was just another prefect, despite what Josephus says. While Coponius had power in Judea, it was in fact the Syrian procurator Quirinius who, as you know, administered the census in Judea, because he alone had such power to do so. The census makes it clear that Coponius was not a procurator -- procurators having not only control of provinces, but all their finances.

This certainly doesn't work as you would like it. It plainly was not a province in the official sense until when Claudius put it in the hands of his procurator. The statement about the kings either being defunct or useless is the justification for Claudius handing the place over to his procurator. Of course, this is corroborated by Josephus. We know that the last one had just become defunct.

This doesn't fit what Tacitus says in the passage. He supplies the fact that the kings were no longer operative to mark a change in the administration.

The Iturea & Judea passage is interesting, but it doesn't help you turn Pilate into a procurator in Tacitus's eyes.

Having what you've written below, I understand your thought, this may have been possible with the notion that Judea was lumped into Syria, but I don't think he does.

As I mentioned there is a notion of different categories of imperial provinces, administered by different ranks of administrators. Those provinces of lower ranks are under the control of provinces of higher rank. (I indicated that there were also different ranks involved in senatorial provinces.)

Tacitus was right it seems, when he called Syria and Judea provinces and was not just being brief, linking the two in the same statement.

Which is another reason to doubt the passage under investigation.

And I now think he was right that Judea1 was its own province of sorts, though a limited province. It's status as a province may be considered as a convenient term. It's finances were in the hands of Syria, as I've already pointed out...

The term "procurator" was appropriated by Augustus from the name usually given to a wealthy person's on-site financial administrator. This name was used for political reasons: Augustus himself was a proconsul and couldn't give orders to someone of his own status as administrators of senatorial provinces were, so he introduced his own private administrators some of which he called procurators. Provinces which had large budgets were put in the hands of procurators....

And sorry, I've just run out of time....


spin

Ben C Smith

Thanks for the thoughtful response.

The discussion has, however, shifted from the context in which I first brought up the Tacitean use of provinciae for both Syria and Judea in parallel. Your original point was that Judea did not even become a province until after Agrippa. But now the terminology appears to be sliding. You can write both...:

...and...:

You have also said that procurators govern only true provinces (in the official sense, I take it). That makes sense. But it only makes sense; so far it is not based on the sources. That is one thing I am hoping Syme and Furneaux will supply, the sources for the terminology.

Again, that makes sense; but I want to see the sources. Is there any documentation for his actual title? For Pilate, at least, we have the Pilate inscription. What do we have for Coponius?

Makes sense again. But are the sources always so clear on that distinction? I do not know.

Yes, I agree. But it still has nothing to say about what had happened before Agrippa. One could take this statement to mean that, before Agrippa, only the kings ruled Judea; now that they were gone, procurators governed Judea. But that would be a false inference. We know that the kings were actually taken out of Judea as of Archelaus, and that Agrippa was but a brief interlude in an otherwise Roman rule (whether through Syria or directly) in century I.

Here is the Tacitean passage again:

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....

This is certainly a change of administration, from Jewish kings to Roman knights, but Tacitus does not say that this was the first time Judea had been administered by Roman knights, nor that this was the first time Judea had been a province. In fact, we know that Coponius was a knight right after Archelaus, and we know that Tacitus calls Judea a province right after Archelaus.

You are trying to use this passage to show that Tacitus would have known the status of Judea before Agrippa (more specifically, during the prefecture of Pilate), yet neither of the changes in this passage (kings to knights, kingdom to province) is a first-time thing. We know he did not think it was the first time Judea was a province, and, if he thought it was the first time a knight had been in charge, he was mistaken.

I think it is more than interesting. Your claim is that Tacitus is very well informed on Judean politics in the first half of century I, so well informed that he would never have called Pilate a procurator. You asked me for evidence that Tacitus slurs titles elsewhere. This passage is even better. It shows Tacitus slurring the entire political structure, placing Judea under Syria when it was not and not even mentioning Syria when it was.

If Tacitus can get the political structure wrong, he can get the titles wrong. That is not to say that he most certainly did get them wrong, but it neutralizes your argument that he would never have made such a mistake.

That is my understanding, too. It dates back to Republican times, at least.

Ben.

dongiovanni1976x

A commonly accepted date for Paul's epistle is 57 or 58 C.E., and this is addressed to a church that Paul has never visited but attests to the fact that a group of Christians were already established there. Ancient tradition says that Peter established the church there some fifteen years earlier but our earliest literary evidence from members of Rome's Christian community comes from 1 Celment and the Shepard of Hermas- both of which are completely silent about Peter ever being to Rome at all.

Therefore, Paul's letter is the earliest record and mentions twenty-eight different people by name in the community there. (Chap 16)

Bart Ehrman says that Dr. Ehrman acknowledges that Suetonius may have "slightly muddled his facts" and may have intended to suggest that the disturbance could be over followers of "Christ" (for possible supporting evidence see Acts 18:2). Alternatively, Ehrman suggests, Seutonius may in fact be referring to an actual Roman Jew named Chrestus, since it is "a name that is otherwise well attested".

In any event Ehrman asserts that, Why do you think it is so far fetched to have a group of Christians- or a group of people who professed to believe in Jesus known by some other nominal term- in Rome by 64 C.E.?

Roger Pearse

Tertullian certainly read and wrote in Greek, although all his Greek works are now lost. He refers to a Greek version of De baptismo, which is used by Didymus the Blind; De spectaculis which may have been known to Julian the Apostate; and De virginibus velandis. De ecstasi may have been in Greek, since Jerome -- our only source of information about it -- quotes a Greek title for it.

The quotations indicate that he wrote in Greek first and then in Latin.

Likewise De anima has been called a good source for material from the lost dialogues of Aristotle.

All the best,

Roger Pearse