Chris Weimer

Oh, I entirely forgot about Marcion! This complicates things a bit. I was thinking about the Josephus/Tacitus/Luke connection, Ben. I think Tacitus may have an interpolation (not the entire passage though) and I think I have an explanation for Luke 24 (Emmaus) and TF. But what of Marcion?

Ben C Smith

Good question. Both Tertullian and Epiphanius seem to affirm that the Emmaus incident was in Marcion, but Marcion had: O fools and slow of heart to believe upon all the things that I spoke to you, whereas the canonical version has: O fools and slow of heart to believe upon all the things that the prophets spoke.

If we accept Marcion, then, one of the connections between the testimonium and the Emmaus incident would disappear.

I am very interested in any possible interpolation in Tacitus at this point, as well as any explanation for Luke 24 and Josephus. At your convenience.

Ben.

rlogan

Likewise, Ben. I am sincerely glad that we've zeroed in on Tacitus and Suetonius in combination.

Not to worry, Ben. I want to focus now on what is going on here between these two. This is interesting, and I appreciate the exchange. It is causing me to question some things about my stance.

I have a concern before I resolve something about this in my own mind.

Claudius supposedly ousted the Jews due the the mischief instigated by one "Chrestus" prior to Nero's reign. (Suetonius)

I cannot reconcile that there is no mention of Christians under Claudius, and then under Nero we are to believe they are such a problem. This just happens out of the blue?

I see a clue in Suetonius that is also picked up in Tacitus - that the Jews were "enemies of mankind" (whatever that means). Someone else on IIDB was offering the theory that Nero was persecuting Jews and not Christians. Possibly so - but this theory is also not without problems. For example, if Claudius threw them out then there can't be many left to persecute.


But Ben - this requires painting Suetonius as having a pro-Nero agenda in a way that causes him to gloss over his excesses. Clearly he does not - and goes on to even blame him specifically for the fire and detail at length all of his evil deeds. So we're doing a special pleading with this view.


Got to disagree there Ben. And the evidence is that Suetonius does far more in exposing the wretched acts of Nero than does Tacitus. For example, Suetonius complains that Nero does not even give criminals who deserve to die enough time prior to execution.

You would have to argue that Suetonius has a vicious hatred of Christians - that he views them as worse than criminals who commit capital crimes.

I think instead there is something wrong here, and I do not have worked out what it is.

I think I've been pretty clear that not just satirists, but also the senate, and indeed Suetonius would be discussing this supposed abomination. Because the excesses of Nero were specifically, formally debated in the Roman Senate as he was being declared an enemy of the people.


Something is very wrong.

Ben C Smith

I am not certain what has to be reconciled here. Why would we go out of our way to expect a mention of some silly little eastern sect before it became a problem?

It only requires painting Suetonius as listing virtues as well as vices. And he goes out of his way to tell us he is doing precisely that.

Special pleading is the application of two different standards to situations that are not different in any relevant way.

I am wondering, then, how it is special pleading to note that (A) Suetonius lists virtues as well as vices and (B) Suetonius counts the punishment of Christians as one of the virtues. I think I am reading this text just as I would any other ancient text.

Maybe; I have never formally compared the two along those lines. But Suetonius does in fact give a rather lengthy list of virtues. If his agenda were to paint Nero as blackly as possible I would expect him to skip the good points, or at least not dwell on them precisely as good points. I think he is trying to (at least) appear impartial, in keeping with the spirit of his age.

What is the reference for that? Thanks.

Perhaps, but I will wait for a reference before comparing the two.

Fair enough. Then in which senatorial writing or decree, or in which text discussing senatorial decrees, should we expect mention of this incident but do not find it?

Ben.

rlogan

Now, now Ben - I am hoping you are not wandering into a pretense of being obtuse, and that you will not present a moving target.

Claudius' term ends where Nero's begins. I don't think we can have the Christians doing "zero to ghastly spectacle" in the quarter mile here.

Note how your language of "silly" so strongly contrasts with the terms in the texts we are discussing. It is a debate tactic I don't think is helpful. If you want to pursue the argument that the Christians had not become numerous enough yet, I think it needs to be done without importing rhetorical devices that assist us psychologically but not substantively.

I think we need to address this key point here:

Sorry. It was in the Ch 37 I mentioned. In re-reading that it is a reference to anyone he condemned, and not specifically criminals:

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...ars/Nero*.html







Gosh, Ben - I don't want to just repeat myself because if we get to an impasse on something then we'll just have to leave it there.

Let me try this though. It is well understood that Nero had five "good" years or so and then became this caricature goon. Suetonius follows this linear development. Starting where Nero begins and ending where he dies.

Within that development, the fire takes place in the period of Nero's having become an enemy of the people. Tacitus places it there. Having Suetonius place it in the earlier period is a conflict that needs to be addressed.


Didn't say that. Are you wishing to proffer that having people torn apart by animals and burning them alive, etc. was a virtue? Suetonuis specifically lists Nero's purported desire to have people torn apart by monsters as a bad thing.


I'm not going to avoid your questions. This one is a "tell me in which documents that do not exist the passage should be found" question.

I am really trying hard to discuss one document in particular here. Suetonius' life of Nero. It sure clashes with Tacitus - and I think you are trying to minimize the difference in the "facts" they report as if it were a difference of opinion about the same facts.

Cheers.

Toto

There is an article that used to be free on the web called "The Runaway Paul" by Laurence L. Welborn, which showed that Paul, in that passage, was referring to all of the conventions of the Fool in Greco-Roman theater. "I speak as a fool" - the fool was generally a slave who was beaten and suffered hardships, but was a braggart and came out on top, at least in his own opinion.

I do not credit Paul's statements as being a claim that Damascus was under Aretas' control. From Runaway Paul, above:

Given the literary and theatrical elements in this story, I cannot credit it as testimony that Aretas indeed controlled Damascus, although that fact escaped the notice of every other historical source.

You are assuming a motive.

On the metaphor of the Temple of God, Daniel Wallace has an essay:

The “Temple of God� in 2 Thessalonians 2:4: Literal or Metaphorical?

I would disagree with Wallace on many issues, but he does recognize a metaphoric use of the Temple.

I was thinking of this thread: Confirmation and Correlation in Acts and the Pauline Epistles

Ben C Smith

No pretense. I do not know why we would expect the Christians to be mentioned by a certain date, and am wondering why you expect them to have been mentioned by a certain date.

I honestly fail to follow this line of reasoning.

Okay, fair enough. I withdraw silly.

Here is the text in context (emphasis mine):

After this he showed neither discrimination nor moderation in putting to death whomsoever he pleased on any pretext whatever. To mention but a few instances, Salvidienus Orfitus was charged with having let to certain states as headquarters three shops which formed part of his house near the Forum; Cassius Longinus, a blind jurist, with retaining in the old family tree of his house the mask of Gaius Cassius, the assassin of Julius Caesar; Paetus Thrasea with having a sullen mien, like that of a preceptor. To those who were bidden to die he never granted more than an hour's respite, and to avoid any delay, he brought physicians who were at once to "attend to" such as lingered; for that was the term he used for killing them by opening their veins.

I think it is pretty clear from context that those who were bidden to die were also those who were condemned on any pretext whatever. Not a very good parallel to Christians who deserved, according to Suetonius, what they got.

Suetonius does not appear to follow a chronologically linear development. He expressly tells us that he has collected the good items so as to distinguish them from the bad. Furthermore, if the fire occurred during the bad period, what is the following item from section 16 doing in the good period?

He devised a new form for the buildings of the city and in front of the houses and apartments he erected porches, from the flat roofs of which fires could be fought; and these he put up at his own cost.

Surely this measure was taken after the great fire, not before, as footnote 44 from your link (the Rolfe text) acknowledges.

Then you agree with me that Suetonius intended to do just as he does, offer both good points and bad?

I myself think it is atrocious. But that is not the question. The question is what Suetonius thought.

Indeed he does, again in section 37 (picking up exactly where my previous quote left off):

It is even believed that it was his wish to throw living men to be torn to pieces and devoured by a monster of Egyptian birth, who would crunch raw flesh and anything else that was given him. Transported and puffed up by such successes, as he considered them, he boasted that no prince had ever known what power he really had, and he often threw out unmistakable hints that he would not spare even those of the senate who survived, but would one day blot out the whole order from the State and hand over the rule of the provinces and the command of the armies to the Roman knights and to his freedmen.

If the documents do not exist, how do you know they do not discuss the Christians under Nero? If they do exist, which ones did you have in mind which should mention the Christians under Nero but do not?

Certainly, but it was not I who brought up what the satirists and the senate should have been saying about the events in question. It was you:

I do not know if Tacitus is accurate in connecting the persecution of the Christians to the fire; nor am I certain that he has described the torture accurately, without exaggeration or even outright invention. What I do know, and have stated before, is that both Suetonius and Tacitus are aware that Nero persecuted the Christians, and both Suetonius and Tacitus believe the Christians deserved it. They apparently disagree (for whatever reason) on whether Nero went too far. I refer you to my original thesis statement in post 58:

The topic is Nero; did he or did he not persecute Christians?

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Before I comment on this, let me make certain what your claim is here. Are you saying that Paul was not actually claiming to have been shipwrecked three times, stoned once, beaten with rods, lashed five times, in hunger and thirst, in dangers from both Jews and gentiles, and so forth? That he was using a literary convention by which his readers would know that those events did not happen?

What motive am I assuming?

Yes, but not for 2 Thessalonians 2.4. His conclusion is:

In conclusion, we are on much surer ground if we see the literal temple referenced in 2 Thess 2:4.

Thank you very much for the links. You always have a fistful of good ones.

Ben.

Chris Weimer

Here's a million dollar question waiting to happen. Oh wow, Vork was right, this is the mini-synoptic problem. And Goldberg already posited the mini-Q.

That would be ideal, but is we cannot so easily accept Marcion. Has there been any real research on who came first?

Well, a couple of more reasons to doubt Josephan influence here. First of all, Origen clearly says that Josephus did not think of Jesus as the Christ, nor does he ever mention the TF in any form. I find this highly improbable if what we can reconstruct from Tacitus and Luke gives us Josephus.

Actually, I can't share anything just yet. I hate jumping to conclusion. But a quick question - how unlikely is it that the Chrestians in Tacitus correlates to Chrestus in Suetonius? I don't want to appear too radical, but what if Tacitus' Christus under Tiberias was actually Chrestus under Claudius? Let me be while I examine the Latin... At first, I'm thinking auctor nominis through adfectus erat could be easily expunged. Instead of the repression going with the death of Christus, it goes with Nero's punishing the Chrestians for their blame of the fire.

There's two highly dubious theories. I'm now just trying to understand what was written.

I fear that Josephus may be largely intact after all. But it just doesn't make sense.

Further at a later date,

Chris

Toto

That is what I claim. His audience would not take his words literally, (or would assume that the passage was a combination of exaggerated facts and invention), any more than you would assume that Jay Leno's standup routine literally happened, or that anyone actually tried to lynch Clarence Thomas in a high tech fashion.

Until, perhaps, the author of Acts came along and turned those words into something that resembled history - except I also assume that the audience would have known that Acts was not to be interpreted as literal history either.

That the interpolator knew that Paul lived before 70 CE and wanted to conform his words to that.