Toto

He's trying to explain your behavior.

Your arguments in favor of a later Christian interpolation seem so unsubstantial that the only possible reason you could be making them is to bolster your 4th century origins theory.

Toto

This is the sort of bogus argument that makes us all wonder if you are arguing in good faith, or just reaching for straws. Xiphilinus indicates where he is adding his own commentary based on Christian tradition. The reference in question is not so labeled. Your second option is not more likely on this basis.

It appears that no academic considers the possibility that this is an interpolation to be worth discussing.

Stuart

Toto,

your argument falls to pieces in the statement that Dio supposedly makes about the Romans building a temple another diety (i.e., Jupiter ... per καὶ ἐς τὸν τοῦ ναοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ τόπον ναὸν τῷ Διὶ ἕτερον ) on the Temple Mount. This is false, and demonstrated by the archeological evidence. I point you to the study by Dr. Meneham Mor, Are there Any New Factors Concerning the Bar Kokhba Revolt?, Studia Antiqua et Archaeologica XVIII, 2012, 161-193 and more importantly to Dr. Yaron Elian, The Urban Layout of Aelia Capitolina: A New View from the Perspective of the Temple Mount -- I have a copy from Dr. Elian which I can give you private access to (its not publicly posted separate from the journal). There are other supporting papers which have been produced, but they are more tangential, dealing with numismatics and the findings of the underground fortresses throughout Judea, Samaria and even Galilee and when they were actually used (how the extent of the Bar Kokhba revolt can actually be determined).

The evidence from Jewish excavation is pretty decisive that Dio is wrong, and Mor makes a strong case that this is due to Xiphilinus attempting to imprint an anti-Jewish policy on Hadrian which is clearly a fiction. It is possible that Dio was already interpolated before Xiphilinus, which MM also said earlier in this thread was a possibility.

One way or another you have to accept that Dio either does not know what he was talking about and inexplicably wrote a passage from a Christian POV or the work was interpolated.

So there is scholarship (actually several) that examines Dio as interpolated, but it is from the Jewish scholars not Christian.

Toto

This is interesting, but this passage in question (involving Marcia) does not seem to have a particularly Christian POV.

I can accept that Dio is probably unreliable in many cases. I just don't see an argument for this particular reference being a Christian interpolation. There may be such an argument, but Pete has not made it.

aa5874

Your personal opinion about the passage has no negative effect on mountainman's argument.

You very well know that all mention of the word Christian before the passage with Marcia was not actually written by Cassius Dio therefore it is highly likely that Cassius did NOT write anything about Christians of the Jesus cult

It is very likely that whoever inserted the word Christian before the passage with Marcia intended to mis-represent Cassius Dio.

Once we remove the word Christian by the Late editor then it is clearly seen that we would have no idea who 'the Christians' refer to in Roman History 73.

[u]Cassius Dio 'Roman History'[u] Effectively, there was ONLY one reference to 'Christians' if it is NOT a forgery in the Entire of Cassius Dio Roman History and it is ALREADY known that even the Jesus cult writers mentioned the numerous Heresies at the time of Commodus.

1. See Against Heresies attributed to Irenaeus.

2. See To Autolycus attributed to Theophilus.

3. See A Plea for the Christians attributed to Athenagoras

4. See Refutation Against ALL Heresies attributed to Hippolytus

5. See The Prescription Against Heretics attributed to Tertullian.

Which Christian did Marcia FAVOUR when there were NUMEROUS Heretics?

The SINGLE mention of the word 'Christians' [if not a forgery] in Cassius Dio Roman History does NOT prove or show that there was a Jesus cult of Christians in the 2nd century at the time of Commodus.

Toto

I don't think this reference proves much of anything. It is a reference to a group referred to as Christians, with no indication of what they believed or how they defined themselves.

It could be a later interpolation/forgery, but Pete's reasons for claiming interpolation are flimsy. It appears that he is simply challenging every reference to pre-Nicene Christianity in order to promote his theory of Constantinian invention.

In the article Stuart linked to, it does appear that Dio's history was rewritten for a particular anti-Jewish purpose. But I see no particular motive for identifying an imperial concubine as friendly to Christians, and it is not part of a pattern of interpolations.

It may be an interpolation based on another source - someone decided to identify this Marcia to tie her in to Christian history. But that raises the question of what this source was, and it still leaves Pete with a historical reference to pre-Nicene Christianity that is only slightly less reliable that it would be if it were not an interpolation.

andrewcriddle

Dr Yaron Eliav previously argued this in detail in God's Mountain the Temple Mount in Time Space and Memory (or via: amazon.co.uk). Part of the argument is that the Cassius Dio material about the temple is closely linked to Christian traditions from c 600 CE onwards. There doesn't seem to have been a post-Hippolytan tradition Christian tradition about Marcia to influence the epitomes of Dio Cassius.

mountainman

I suggest everyone remains focussed on the evidence relevant to the question of the OP. Huller appears incapable of doing this.


The reference under discussion resolves to an appearance in an epitome of the "Roman History" of Cassius Dio, made after imperial request, by the Christian scribe Joannes Xiphilinus in the 11th century, and for which we have only a 15th century manuscript.

It must be seen as mandatory that any arguments for the originality of the reference in Cassius Dio must first acknowledge this manuscript tradition. Do you acknowledge that Cassius Dio did not write the text of Book 73 as it appears on the website that you linked to?

mountainman

I didn't ask you that. I asked for any citation where any academic makes the statement that Cassius Dio mentions Christians. My feeling is that any academic worth his (or her) salt understands that, given that the reference appears in the epitome of an 11th century Christian scribe, they may be very hesitant to make the claim that Cassius Dio mentions Christians. Can you find someone making the statement that Cassius Dio mentions Christians? And if not, why not?

Toto

I can't find any academic commentary on this question. It is hard to figure out why an academic would make such a statement, one way or the other. (I know you found that high school textbook that claimed Dio never mentioned Christians, but I hope you're over that.)

I suspect that Dio's reference to Christians is so indirect that it contains no useful information for an historian, except maybe that there were people called Christians - which is not a controversial idea in academia. There isn't enough there for a publishable paper.