The First Century Void

[RoadRunner79]

One of Richard Carrier's most compelling arguments, the utter failure of any first century Greco-Roman writer to mention anything about xtianity.

---

We know emperors Vespasian and Titus published commentaries on
their government service, including their prosecution of the Jewish War
(these being among the sources, again, that Josephus used). So if Christians
ever significantly came up in their invasion and conquest of Judea,
or in their government of Rome, they would have mentioned it, too. We
know Seneca the Elder wrote a History of Rome that covered events from
the first century BCE to around 40 CE. Then Seneca the Younger wrote a
treatise On Superstition sometime between 40 and 62 CE that lambasted
every known cult at Rome, even the most trivial or obscure-including
the Jews-but never mentioned Christians, an omission Augustine later
struggled to explain.

Italics added to show that later xtians....unlike modern xtian apologists... were bothered by the fact.  We can be grateful to Augustine for mentioning this failure of Seneca to mention xtians as a first century cult as no one bothered to preserve the text.... which is another point Carrier gets into later.  In similar manner we can be grateful to Origen for preserving the words the Celsus in his attempted rebuttal and in much the same manner as Minucius Felix preserved some of the words of Fronto who denounced xtians in the 180's and Cyril of Alexandria who was royally pissed at the writings of Emperor Julian the Apostate.

If Seneca lambasted every known cult why did he miss the xtians?  The obvious answer is that they had no presence in first century Rome.... as opposed to the bullshit story they concocted later and which so confused poor Augustine!

---

The argument from silence, albeit a favored one of some skeptics, is a difficult one to maintain.  It is a form of absence of evidence, and the burden is on the one putting forth the argument to support it as a evidence of absence.  Normally it is put forth rather vaguely, and my first question is who?  Often (as later in this thread) Philo is mentioned, but if you look at Philo's works, it is mostly philosophical in nature, and the subject of Christianity; doesn't fit in.  But in any case all the one opposing this type of claim, needs to do, is posit some form of reasonable doubt.  

In this instance you brought up Seneca the Younger.  As I look through his works on Wikipedia I get a similar feeling.  Although it wasn't cited, as near as I can tell, the reference to Augustine is the following

Seneca, among the other superstitions of civil theology, also found fault with the sacred things of the Jews, and especially the sabbaths, affirming that they act uselessly in keeping those seventh days, whereby they lose through idleness about the seventh part of their life, and also many things which demand immediate attention are damaged. The Christians, however, who were already most hostile to the Jews, he did not dare to mention, either for praise or blame, lest, if he praised them, he should do so against the ancient custom of his country, or, perhaps, if he should blame them, he should do so against his own will.

Augustine of Hippo. (1887). The City of God. In P. Schaff (Ed.), M. Dods (Trans.), St. Augustin’s City of God and Christian Doctrine (Vol. 2, p. 120). Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company.

From this, I would ask what other is your above quote based on (other than a wild imagination)  because it appears to outreach the quote from Augustine on a work that is now lost to us.  

You also have the problem with this theory, because it isn't just about Christ, but about Christians.  And I think you will find an increasing and linear progression of history from the first century, in which you need to push back quite a bit, and explain quite a bit more, in order to fulfill this conspiracy theory.  You also have to ignore those who did write early such as These early writers who mention Christian's and Christianity

There is a reason that Wikipedia says:

Arguments from silence, based on a writer's failure to mention an event, are distinct from arguments from ignorance which rely on a total "absence of evidence" and are widely considered unreliable; however arguments from silence themselves are also generally viewed as rather weak in many cases; or considered as fallacies.