Clivedurdle

Um, considering Constantine moved the headquarters of the Roman Empire to Constantinople in the 300's and it was not conquered until the 1400's by Muslim armies - the Roman Empire existed into just about the modern era!

I am amazed so little is around in fact! Anyone know what the Muslims did to the libraries of Constantinople?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Empire

Clivedurdle

http://www.libraries.gr/nonmembers/e..._bizadinos.htm

(If the writers of the NT used slaves to write it all down, what is the moral value of "God's" new gospel?)

darstec

Absolutely!! As of the summer of 2005 scientists have been able so successfully recover the charred lumps found at Herculeaneum, separate the pages, and duplicate them in readable format. Isn't SCIENCE wonderful?

And as usual, you would be wrong.

As such, because of science your argument is invalid. Besides, if your argument were correct, then there would be no material on which to base your dear paleography in which you believe so much, since if as you claim, nothing from antiquity exists.

Try keeping up a little more with science and a little less with belief and you might be correct more often.

ynquirer

“Exquisite tortures” sounds odd for a Christian writer. “Dreadful,” “outrageous” or even “appalling tortures” would better fit in the later martyrology - but “exquisite”? What this word too clearly betrays is classical inspiration.

In general, Tacitus’ words in this paragraph seem be cast on a template other than the Christian martyrology. You call this “often pornographic.” I understand that you mean too crude a description of human pain and too close an inspection of human death. I propose the following template:

• He struck him on the temple through his bronze-cheeked helmet. The helmet did not stay the spear, but it went right on, crushing the bone so that the brain inside was shed in all directions, and his lust of fighting was ended. Then he struck Hippodamas in the midriff as he was springing down from his chariot in front of him, and trying to escape. He breathed his last, bellowing like a bull bellows... Achilles then went in pursuit of Polydorus son of Priam…: he struck him just at the golden fastenings of his belt and where the two pieces of the double breastplate overlapped. The point of the spear pierced him through and came out by the navel, whereon he fell groaning on to his knees and a cloud of darkness overshadowed him as he sank holding his entrails in his hands.
  
  … Menelaus hit Pisander as he was coming towards him, on the forehead, just at the rise of his nose; the bones cracked and his two gore-bedrabbled eyes fell by his feet in the dust.
  
  But Meriones aimed a bronze-tipped arrow at him as he was leaving the field, and hit him on the right buttock; the arrow pierced the bone through and through, and penetrated the bladder, so he sat down where he was and breathed his last in the arms of his comrades, stretched like a worm upon the ground and watering the earth with the blood that flowed from his wound.

I think that Tacitus took the persecution, torture, and killing of the Christians as stuff to draw a picture of crudity as cast on the classic model of the Iliad - still in a much more moderate fashion, as suits to his fairly sober personality.

Yet you have raised an interesting point. Could the later martyrology have drawn on classical epic sources, say, the Iliad, not directly but through the intermediation of such pagan writers as Tacitus that were well-known to Christians writers? Quite possibly, the answer is yes.

andrewcriddle

If Philo had believed that Jesus was the Saviour of the World etc (ie if he had been a Christian sympathizer) then doubtless he would have mentioned it.


If (as is more probable) he had some vague idea of Jesus as a failed Messianic claimant executed by the authorities, I see no reason why he would mention it.


Andrew Criddle

jakejonesiv

"But the blessed Blandina, last of all, as a noble mother that had animated her children and sent them as victors to the great King, herself retracing the ground of all the conflicts her children had endured, hastened at last, with joy and exultation at the issue, to them, as if she were invited to a marriage feast and not to be cast to wild beasts. And thus, after scourging, after exposure to the beasts, after roasting, she was finally thrown into a net and cast before a bull, and when she had been well tossed by the animal, and had no longer any sense of what was done to her by reason of her firm hope, confidence, faith and her communion with Christ, she too was dispatched. Even the Gentiles confessed that no woman among them had ever endured sufferings as many and great as these."

See Historia Ecclesiastica 5.1.41

But for the women the devil had made ready a most savage cow, prepared for this purpose against all custom; for even in this beast he would mock their sex. They were stripped therefore and made to put on nets; and so they were brought forth. The people shuddered, seeing one a tender girl, the other her breasts yet dropping from her late childbearing. So they were called back and clothed in loose robes. Perpetua was first thrown, and fell upon her loins. And when she had sat upright, her robe being rent at the side, she drew it over to cover her thigh, mindful rather of modesty than of pain. Next, looking for a pin, she likewise pinned up her dishevelled hair; for it was not meet that a martyr should suffer with hair dishevelled, lest she should seem to grieve in her glory. So she stood up; and when she saw Felicity smitten down, she went up and gave her her hand and raised her up .....

The rest not moving and in silence received the sword; Saturus much earlier gave up the ghost; for he had gone up earlier also, and now he waited for Perpetua likewise. But Perpetua, that she might have some taste of pain, was pierced between the bones and shrieked out; and when the swordsman's hand wandered still (for he was a novice), herself set it upon her own neck. Perchance so great a woman could not else have been slain (being feared of the unclean spirit) had she not herself so willed it.

O most valiant and blessed martyrs! O truly called and elected unto the glory of Our Lord Jesus Christ! Which glory he that magnifies, honors and adores, ought to read these witnesses likewise, as being no less than the old, unto the Church's edification; that these new wonders also may testify that one and the same Holy Spirit works ever until now, and with Him God the Father Almighty, and His Son Jesus Christ Our Lord, to Whom is glory and power unending for ever and ever. Amen.

The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity

Ok, I wasn't expecting that!

I wouldn't discount your point out of hand. It is innovative, and I can take no credit for it.

Right now, I would say not. See the Eusebius quote about Blandina above. I am arguing just the opposite, that the passage in Tacitus is reflective of a long established martyrology, perhaps even into the middle ages.

But I will study the question from you suggested view point a little more. Thanks for the suggestion!

Jake Jones IV

andrewcriddle

FWIW the Latin translated as "exquisite tortures" is quaesitissimis poenis which maybe should be rendered "special/extraordinary tortures"
The idea is similar to "cruel and unusual punishments"

Andrew Criddle

ynquirer

Don't agree. Quaesitissimis has a quite positive connotation. It stems from quaero: to inquire, to look for with intensity or care. Tacitus uses the word also in bk. II, 53: quaesitissimis honoribus; Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb's translation renders "the most elaborate honors," though the "most select" or else the "most exquisite honors" would do as well.

Wads4

Yes I agree with that.

Roger Pearse

May I clarify this a little? What I was testing on that page was a little different.

I wanted to know how many times Josephus is referenced AT ALL in the fathers before 325 AD. It didn't matter in what context -- how many times is he mentioned or quoted. The answer was 13. (This was all in response to a then common statement that "the fathers all used Josephus extensively" or something along those lines).

There is one other point that needs making. The works of Josephus did not travel down the centuries in a single volume. Instead they travelled separately, and so knowledge of one work is no evidence that a writer knew the others.

Finally, we know that Antiquities, because of its size, did not travel as one lump either. It travelled as two decades: books 1-10, and books 11-20. So knowledge of one half of Antiquities is likewise not evidence of knowledge of the other.

When we count the number of people who knew any portion of Antiquities 11-20, we get TWO; Origen and Julius Africanus.

All the best,

Roger Pearse