RE: R. G. Price - On the Mythic Jesus
May 18, 2011 at 5:19 pm
(This post was last modified: May 18, 2011 at 5:41 pm by Minimalist.)
The Serapaeum was the last refuge of the Library of Alexandria which had been severely damaged....possibly in an earthquake...in the previous century. What was salvaged was moved to the Serapaeum as a kind of second-string "library." As I suspect that CV will reject any non-christian source for this we'll give him a xtian scholar to bitch about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates_of_Constantinople
From the Historia Ecclesiastica comes this delightful tale of good xtians murdering Hypatia....like all good xtians do!
The xtian emperor Jovian ordered the burning of the library of Antioch in 364.
The library at Ephesos was damaged by the Goths so it looks like xtians can't be blamed for that one.
Xtian crusaders burned the library of Constantinople during the 4th crusade showing that the propensity for destruction had not been bred out of ignorant xtians even by the 13th century.[/quote]
Okay, that done, now CV....Pliny does not say that he never "bothered" to go to one. He says: "I have never participated in trials of Christians. I therefore do not know what offenses it is the practice to punish or investigate, and to what extent. And I have been not a little hesitant as to whether there should be any distinction on account of age or no difference between the very young and the more mature; whether pardon is to be granted for repentance, or, if a man has once been a Christian, it does him no good to have ceased to be one; whether the name itself, even without offenses, or only the offenses associated with the name are to be punished. "
Xtians were not under suspicion for being xtians....the Romans tolerated all sorts of crazy shit under the guise of religion. They were suspected of sedition because they purportedly would not swear allegiance to Roman gods ( including by this time, the Emperor himself). Both Trajan and PLiny indicate that those who did so swear were pardoned.
But again, you are getting way off the original point which, back in post #16 you said that jesus was well located historically and I challenged you for those historical locations and reminded you that Suetonius and Tacitus were 2d century. Suetonius' comments are insignificant enough to be dismissed but Tacitus is another story.
I then added the Pliny/Trajan correspondence as an indicator that these were two Roman aristocrats who did not seem to know anything at all about the story of xtians burning down the capitol some 45 years earlier. Splitting hairs about Pliny is irrelevant. He did not say anything like "I've caught some fucking xtians...you know the bastards who burned Rome to the ground" and Trajan does not reply " nail those arsonists to the nearest cross. " Anything at all in that vein would be sufficient to say that there was some basis to the so-called Tacitus' reference.
Add in the fact that no one in the ancient world mentions or quotes Tacitus...until the early 5th century when we get a watered down version of it in Severus' Chronica and it begins to look like this was a much later interpolation into Tacitus. We have only two manuscripts of Tacitus, both from the 11th century and both in execrable condition. I've read Annals and there are lacunae all over the place. Of these two manuscripts one covers the first part or Annals and one covers the second. It's a problem and I know that xtians are deeply invested in maintaining that the story is true but there is no corroborating evidence from elsewhere in the ancient world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates_of_Constantinople
Quote:Socrates of Constantinople, also known as Socrates Scholasticus,[1] not to be confused with the Greek philosopher Socrates, was a Greek Christian church historian, a contemporary of Sozomen and Theodoret, who used his work; he was born at Constantinople c. 380: the date of his death is unknown. Even in ancient times nothing seems to have been known of his life except what can be gathered from notices in his Historia Ecclesiastica ("Church History"), which departed from its ostensible model, Eusebius of Caesarea, in emphasizing the place of the emperor in church affairs and in giving secular as well as church history.
Socrates' teachers, noted in his prefaces, were the grammarians Helladius and Ammonius, who came to Constantinople from Alexandria, where they had been pagan priests. A revolt, accompanied by an attack on the pagan temples, had forced them to flee. This attack, in which the Serapeum was vandalized and its library destroyed, is dated about 391.
From the Historia Ecclesiastica comes this delightful tale of good xtians murdering Hypatia....like all good xtians do!
Quote:On account of the self-possession and ease of manner, which she had acquired in consequence of the cultivation of her mind, she not unfrequently appeared in public in presence of the magistrates. Neither did she feel abashed in coming to an assembly of men. For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her the more. Yet even she fell a victim to the political jealousy which at that time prevailed. For as she had frequent interviews with Orestes, it was calumniously reported among the Christian populace, that it was she who prevented Orestes from being reconciled to the bishop. Some of them therefore, hurried away by a fierce and bigoted zeal, whose ringleader was a reader named Peter, waylaid her returning home, and dragging her from her carriage, they took her to the church called Caesareum, where they completely stripped her, and then murdered her with tiles. After tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron, and there burnt them.
The xtian emperor Jovian ordered the burning of the library of Antioch in 364.
The library at Ephesos was damaged by the Goths so it looks like xtians can't be blamed for that one.
Xtian crusaders burned the library of Constantinople during the 4th crusade showing that the propensity for destruction had not been bred out of ignorant xtians even by the 13th century.[/quote]
Okay, that done, now CV....Pliny does not say that he never "bothered" to go to one. He says: "I have never participated in trials of Christians. I therefore do not know what offenses it is the practice to punish or investigate, and to what extent. And I have been not a little hesitant as to whether there should be any distinction on account of age or no difference between the very young and the more mature; whether pardon is to be granted for repentance, or, if a man has once been a Christian, it does him no good to have ceased to be one; whether the name itself, even without offenses, or only the offenses associated with the name are to be punished. "
Xtians were not under suspicion for being xtians....the Romans tolerated all sorts of crazy shit under the guise of religion. They were suspected of sedition because they purportedly would not swear allegiance to Roman gods ( including by this time, the Emperor himself). Both Trajan and PLiny indicate that those who did so swear were pardoned.
But again, you are getting way off the original point which, back in post #16 you said that jesus was well located historically and I challenged you for those historical locations and reminded you that Suetonius and Tacitus were 2d century. Suetonius' comments are insignificant enough to be dismissed but Tacitus is another story.
I then added the Pliny/Trajan correspondence as an indicator that these were two Roman aristocrats who did not seem to know anything at all about the story of xtians burning down the capitol some 45 years earlier. Splitting hairs about Pliny is irrelevant. He did not say anything like "I've caught some fucking xtians...you know the bastards who burned Rome to the ground" and Trajan does not reply " nail those arsonists to the nearest cross. " Anything at all in that vein would be sufficient to say that there was some basis to the so-called Tacitus' reference.
Add in the fact that no one in the ancient world mentions or quotes Tacitus...until the early 5th century when we get a watered down version of it in Severus' Chronica and it begins to look like this was a much later interpolation into Tacitus. We have only two manuscripts of Tacitus, both from the 11th century and both in execrable condition. I've read Annals and there are lacunae all over the place. Of these two manuscripts one covers the first part or Annals and one covers the second. It's a problem and I know that xtians are deeply invested in maintaining that the story is true but there is no corroborating evidence from elsewhere in the ancient world.
