andrewcriddle

This is basically just an attempt to clarify a point that has come up in several threads.

In the text of Tacitus 'Annals' Book XV (apparently) referring to Nero's persecution of Christians the Latin text is in many editions of Tacitus given as Christianos. (Which reading is original is sometimes relevant to arguments about the authenticity of the passage.)

I attempted to find out the textual evidence. (For background on the transmission of Tacitus see Tacitus and his manuscripts

By far our oldest manuscript of 'Annals' XI-XVI is what is known as the '2nd Medicean' copied at Monte Cassino in the 11th century. There are several other surviving manuscripts written in the 15th century. The '2nd Medicean' was corrected at the time it was written probably by the original scribe and again in the late 13th century. It was still at Monte Cassino in the early 14th century when Paulus Venetus, Bishop of Puzzuoli used it between say 1325 and 1345. However it must have left Monte Cassino shortly afterwards, (before 1371 if it was the copy used by Boccaccio).

The original reading of the '2nd Medicean' is Chrestianos but this was corrected in the 13th century to Christianos. All or Almost all of the 15th century manuscripts read Christianos.

Given the numerous differences between the text of the 15th century manuscripts and the text of the '2nd Medicean' a number of scholars have argued that some of these derive not from the '2nd Medicean' itself but independently from the ancestor of that manuscript. However, most scholars have not accepted these claims. The majority position is that although a number of the readings in the later manuscripts are almost certainly preferable to the '2nd Medicean' these readings are clever emendations by 14th and 15th century humanists and are not evidence of an independent textual tradition.

However the 13th century corrections are a/ in many cases improvements b/ before the period of the revival of humanist Latin scholarship c/ carried out while the manuscript was still where it was originally copied from its exemplar. (Monte Cassino). Hence they may well often involve correction of the '2nd Medicean' against its still surviving exemplar.

Hence we have two plausible alternatives
a/ The exemplar of the '2nd Medicean' read Chrestianos this was initially copied correctly but was altered from the 13th century on to the more usual Christianos
b/ The exemplar read Christianos and Chrestianos is an 11th century copying error which was corrected by reference to the original in the 13th century.

On purely external evidence either is plausible and a decision as to the original text must IMO be based on what the original author is most likely to have written.

(I'm sorry if I've gone on at great length about a marginal point, but I thought it was worth clarifying and if explained at all it required quite a long explanation)

Andrew Criddle

exile

That's interesting. Suetonius refers to disturbances in Rome in the reign of Claudius caused by the followers of.... CHRESTUS!!!!!

Chrestus.... Chrestianos......

Has anyone noticed this before - we could be onto something big.

Is it just a spelling mistake? Why would both of them make the same mistake?
Or was Jesus originally referred to as Chrestus? Or were the references to some other sect entirely and thus not evidence of Christians in Rome at this early date?

As far as I know the references by Pliny and Trajan to Christians appear to be genuine - but we are talking then about the year 120 or so.

Chris Weimer

macskil - yes, we've dealt with this already in the other Tacitus thread... I think its just those Christians stealing yet something else from antiquity and claiming it as their own. They've already stolen Judiasm, Greek mythology, Roman mythology, Egyptian mythology, Zoastrianism, and Mithraism. Now this?! Get you're own religion!!!! :devil1:

Toto

"Chrestus/Chrestos" means "the good" or "useful" and was a common name for slaves in that era. Suetonius's passage appears to refer to a living person named Chrestus. But the Christianos / Chrestianos confusion seems to date from the earliest recorded references to Christianity.

Marcion, the gnostic anti-Jewish heretic, preferred the term Jesus Chrestos - Jesus the Good, and did not refer to Jesus Christ = Jesus the Messiah. From GR Mead:

PhilosopherJay

Hi Andrew,

Thank you for this review of the manuscript evidence. It is quite helpful.

While strictly speaking the textual evidence supports either finding, I think logic tells us that Chrestianos is almost certainly the original. In order for Christianos to be correct, we must imagine that a Christian scribe copying the one and only reference to "Christians" in Tacitus's History actually made an error in the word Christianity. We have to assume that the Christians who copied this text were copying it precisely for the reason that it contained this one passage. One may imagine them getting the spelling of every other word in the text wrong, but it is quite fantastic to believe that they got this word wrong. Imagine a Jew copying a text with only one reference to Jews and writing "Jiws."

Now assume this did somehow amazingly happen and the Christian scribe did mispell the word. We may take it as a fantastic coincidence that in making this mistake, the scribe just happened to mispell the word to match a pronunciation that Roman writers did have for Christians. As Tertullian tells us in his "Apology" (chapter 3):

But Christian, so far as the meaning of the word is concerned, is derived from anointing. Yes, and even when it is wrongly pronounced by you "Chrestianus" (for you do not even know accurately the name you hate), it comes from sweetness and benignity.

It is quite miraculous that not only should the scribe mispell the word, but that he should mispell it in a way that the Roman Tacitus might have been expected to write it.

Incidentally, as Eusebius quotes from Chapter 5 of Tertullian's "Apology" we may assume that he read chapter 3. If he did forge the reference as I have proposed, one would expect that he would use the language he would imagine Tacitus would use, namely Chrestianus/Chrestianos. So the use of "Chrestianos" does not to me increase the possibility of the passage being authentic.

Thus, I agree that "On purely external evidence either is plausible and a decision as to the original text must IMO be based on what the original author is most likely to have written." However we should also include our knowledge of scribal practices and likely errors and also not assume the original author of the passage was Tacitus.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Diogenes the Cynic

Is it possible that a lot of Romans tended to misunderstand or mishear "Christos" as "Chestos" because it made more immediate, intutitive sense to them than a Greek word for "anointed?"

On a superficial, populist level, I can see people getting the word wrong and not really caring about the correction. Depending on where Tacitus got his information, may he have still been referring to Christians but making a (hypothetically) common Roman mistake as to pronunciation and spelling?

Toto

The original evidence is probably lost, but more than one commentator has assumed that the original subject of Christianity was "the good" and not "the messiah."

From Edwin Johnson on Detering's site:

Antiqua Mater (Christian Origins) Sorry if some of the Greek is in error or does not come through.

Diogenes the Cynic

Toto,

How does Paul's use of Cristos fit into the above theory? If Paul used Christos, wouldn't it follow by extension that Pauline Christian communities were using it well before Tacitus wrote his Annals?

Vorkosigan

Suetonius uses the correct term for Christians in another place in the same work.

exile

Since he DOES use the correct term Christian later that makes it more likely
that the Chrestus mentioned earlier is not Christ.