R. G. Price - On the Mythic Jesus

[coffeeveritas]

Before you trot out Tacitus and Suetonius know that both of these were 2d century writers.

There’s a lot of first century events we only know about because of those two. History isn’t perfect. They didn’t have Wikipedia back then. We’re missing the vast majority of ancient texts. There may be a lot more info out there that we just don’t have. Also, Christianity was originally just part of Judaism, and outsiders to it may not have realized how different it was. It took time for Christianity to gain mass and differentiate enough for Rome to notice, which we see in the second half of the first century. We do have evidence of first century persecution of Christians, we have extant writings from several first century Christians, including Clement of Rome. We also have Josephus talking about Christians in the first century, which most skeptics disregard due to textual insertions. I can see why people are skeptical of this, since there were obviously things added to the text, however it seems fairly easy to distinguish the parts of the account of Christ that were added. I think it may even be a majority opinion now among scholars that Josephus does contain a genuine account of Christians in the first century that was parenthetically appended by a scribe. Three ancient historians, a letter from the emperor, and dozens of first century theological writings is about as good as it gets in first century history.

Further, Claudius became emperor in 41 after the assassination of Caligula and xtians claim their boy was dead while Tiberius was emperor so to then assert that Chrestus/Christus was in Rome causing trouble years later seems silly even by xtian standards

I don’t think anyone in the Christian community thinks that passage is a reference to Christ actually causing the trouble in person. Jesus never went to Rome. The argument is that “Chrestus/Christus” is what they were fighting about, and we know that Christ was a point of contention in Jewish communities of that time. I’m only 50/50 on this one myself, but quite a few scholars make that argument.

Suetonius, in Life of Claudius, mentions one “Chrestus” and predictably xtians jump on that and say he means “Christus” because what the hell...it’s only 1 letter difference. Well, “whole” and “whore” are one letter different, too and convey completely different ideas . . .
Suetonius also has a brief mention of xtians in the Life of Nero:
“Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition.”
. . . In fact, it could easily be a reference to the aforementioned followers of Chrestus ( Chrestianos rather than Christianos) which some well-meaning scribe thought he was correcting because, again, its only one letter difference.

You used the “one letter” argument both ways. I don’t think we have evidence for any group called “Chrestians” or that the Romans automatically appended “ians” on to ever group that followed a specific person. This is a reference to Christian persecution in 64 AD, which makes sense because it corresponds with the great fire and subsequent crackdown.

More to the point, Suetonius does not mention xtians with regard to the Great Fire of 64 which is so near and dear to the hearts of xtians in Tacitus.

Suetonius does mention Christians being persecuted in 64 AD, and he does mention the fire.

Pliny issued an edict forbidding secret meetings and then ended up arresting a group which called itself xtians for violating that order . . .
It would have been wonderful had Pliny expanded upon what he considered “depraved, excessive superstition” ( recall the words of Suetonius!) but he did not. One wonders if he would have mentioned the silly idea that these xtians worshiped a criminal who had been crucified by a Roman magistrate but magically came back to life?

It’s not surprising that Pliny doesn’t elaborate on Christian practices, this letter is all business. He’s writing to the emperor on how to conduct a trial, anything not pertinent to his question is left out. The emperor’s time is precious. Also, it seems Pliny assumes the emperor is already familiar with Christianity, since he just says, “I was never present at any trial of Christians, therefore I do not know what are the customary penalties,” and doesn’t pause to define what the group is. Pliny is not saying he is unfamiliar with Christians, he is saying he hadn’t yet been to a Christian trial and the fact that he used the term “customary penalties” seems to indicate that there was already precedent for dealing with Christians. Also we have an account of someone who claimed to have recanted some 20 years earlier, which Pliny accepts uncritically. This seems to indicate that Pliny is not suspicious of a Christian presence dating back at least twenty years. Also Pliny laments over how far the movement had spread in his province, and how it had begun to seriously affect the Roman cult. He seems to say his reforms are changing things, but that the temples “have been almost deserted . . .” This indicates that Pliny has a substantial and widespread movement on his hands which he is just beginning to deal with (he had only been on the job a year at this point).

We will never know if Pliny had run into a random gnostic group but I have always found this line “sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god “ to be an interesting choice of words. “As to a god” rather than a god himself? Odd.

That seems about right to me. How else would a critical Roman polytheist say it? The Christians were treating Christ as the Romans would treat a god. They were worshipping Christ, like a Christian would do. It fits.

The point of all this is that no where in Pliny’s letter or Trajan’s reply is there the slightest hint of anger with xtians for having burned down the capitol a mere 45 years earlier. You would think that these Roman aristocrats would harbor some resentment for that, no?

Of course not, no one ever really believed the Christians were responsible. Tacitus says, “all the emperor’s largesse . . . did not banish the belief that the fire had been ordered . . . and so, to get rid of this rumor Nero set up as culprits . . . Christians.”Everyone at the time assumed Nero did it, he tried to blame Christians, but apparently no one believed that either because Tacitus knows that Nero was using the Christians as fall guys. The account of Tacitus was out there, and later accounts (Suetonius/ Dio Cassuis) just blame Nero, since that’s the conclusion Tacitus alludes to.

Even more to the point, no other ancient writer...xtian or otherwise...makes reference to that passage in Tacitus, either. . .
The failure of anyone to note Tacitus’ writing on the subject is a clear indication that this passage was a later forgery based on the obscure Severus’ fable of Nero punishing multitudes of xtians.

This is big long debate about the historical validity of Tacitus’s account, but I do believe most historians accept Tacitus. I would have to look up a good defense of him, but off the top of my head I’ve talked to at least two historians who seem to think there are no problems with regards to Tacitus here. This is the kind of thing you could write a dissertation on though, I have no desire to crawl through this one.

Does it not strike you as odd that Pliny would write over 40 years later of his general unfamiliarity with xtians when there were supposedly multitudes of them in Rome itself?

Once again, Pliny was not at all unfamiliar with Christians, he was unfamiliar with the traditional trial practices for dealing with them, as he himself said implicitly, “I was never present at any trial of Christians.” Notice he didn’t marvel over some new religious group, and write to inform the emperor. He just wanted to check what the normal procedure for dealing with them was.

Very thorough Min, not your typical concise post, but you have a knack for these too. I have a meeting to get to, but I'll try to get to the Paul part soon my friend.