Review; The Christians as the Romans Saw Them

"The place to study early Christian thought is with its critics," according to Robert Louis Wilken, professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Virginia. "Christianity became the religion it did, at least in part, because of critics like Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian." The modern Western world, with rising levels of both secularism and religious diversity, moves slowly out under the shadow cast down by centuries of Christian influence. Judeo-Christian conservatives decry the trend and fight ever so assiduously to retain their status as the establishment. It is therefore educational and perhaps wickedly entertaining to study a time when Christians were counter-culture activists themselves arrayed against a hostile establishment. Wilken presents a highly readable account of Roman views on the upstart Gallilean cult.

read the full review of The Christians as the Romans Saw Them by Robert Louis Wilken

Nice review, Ursus.

I intend to get this book, in the hope it will answer one question I have thought much about: Were the Christians as prominent in the minds of Romans as modern Christians assume they were? I have often thought that maybe they weren't, and maybe this book will shed a little light here.

We all know that Decius and Diocletian conducted general but short - lived persecutions, and that locally individual governors had public order problems with them which provoked various crackdowns. But we also know that the persecution of Nero was almost certainly an invention, and that until the time of Constantine Christianity was a cult which had a tiny following.

I await this book enthusiastically!

But we also know that the persecution of Nero was almost certainly an invention

Not so fast there, NN. Tacitus, who was no friend of the Christians, squarely indicts Nero for persecuting the Jesus cult:

In fairness to Nero, though, there was circumstantial evidence that the Christians were to blame. Specifically, the conflagration started near the Capena Gate, where Christians lived (and not far from where Peter himself reportedly spent his last days) in a Jewish quarter of the city near the Circus Maximus. And while the fire spread from there, it managed to leave the Jewish quarter itself (where the Christians lived) untouched. Cui bono?

Of course, I say "cui bono?" with tongue in cheek. There were many other reasons that the fire may have started near the Capena Gate that have absolutely nothing to do with the Christians. So, Tacitus also had every right to suspect Nero of scapegoating the Christians.

Of course, it's also possible that Nero didn't scapegoat the Christians (as Tacitus maintained) nor did the Christians start the fire (as Nero maintained). A third possibility is that Nero was a dunce, didn't engage in the counterfactual reasoning to see through the circumstantial evidence pointing to the Christian's guilt, and thus authentically believed (falsely) the Christians were to blame. Of the three possibilities, this one strikes me as the most plausible. Jove knows, Nero was no deep philosopher.

Salve, Amici

Here comes an outstanding article by Richard Gottheil & Samuel Krauss on Celsus (the Jewish Encyclopedia):

"Greek polemical writer against Christianity; flourished in the second century. He was the first pagan who denounced Christianity, and in his work, "The True Word" (Λόγος 'ΛληΘής), he attempted not only to refute but to ridicule the doctrines of Christianity. Although the work has been lost, large fragments of it are preserved in the apology of Christianity ("Contra Celsum," in eight books) written by Origen in answer to Celsus. An attempt was recently made by Keim and Muth to reconstruct the original from these fragments. Origen was not clear as to the person of Celsus; he mentions two Epicureans by that name, one of whom was said to have lived under Nero and the other under Hadrian; and it was against the latter that he directed his polemic.

In designating his opponent by the opprobrious epithet of "Epicurean," Origen was misled by his prejudice; for Celsus, according to his own teachings, was an eclectic, following Plato and perhaps also Philo. Moreover, he must have lived after Hadrian's time, probably flourishing about 180 under Marcus Aurelius (161-180), since he mentions the Marcionites and the Marcellians. Lucian, who also denounced Christianity, dedicated to him his "Alexander, the Lying Prophet" ("Alex." xxi.).

In the first book of Celsus from which Origen took his extracts, a Jew, introduced by Celsus, addresses Jesus; in the second book, the Jew addresses his Jewish coreligionists who have embraced Christianity; and in the remaining six books Celsus speaks in his own person. All this shows, as Mosheim says, that Celsus mingled with the Jews, getting from them the story of the life and passion of Jesus.

Yet the Jew introduced knew so little about his own religion as to describe it often incorrectly; hence his introduction in the work is merely a rhetorical device, and Celsus himself is the speaker, promulgating opinions which he had heard or learned from Jews. Whether he reproduced mere verbal assertions of the Jews (compare Origen, "Contra Celsum," vi.

But we also know that the persecution of Nero was almost certainly an invention

 

Not so fast there, NN. Tacitus, who was no friend of the Christians, squarely indicts Nero for persecuting the Jesus cult:

But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called 'Chrestians' by the populace.

 

Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular.

 

Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.

 

 

I, too, appreciate the excellent review of the book. I briefly mentioned the book a few months ago when I discussed another good book on early Christianity by Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries.

Nevertheless, I've become increasingly skeptical of passages attributed to Ancient writers concerning Christianity. (I think Josephus is the most blatant example.)

And don't get me started about the "infallibility" of the bible.

Cato, I think the last part of Tacitus's passage is most suspicious:

Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed.

This part of the passage sounds like something a Chrisitian scribe would have inserted for dramatic effect.

guy also known as gaius

I intend to get this book, in the hope it will answer one question I have thought much about: Were the Christians as prominent in the minds of Romans as modern Christians assume they were? I have often thought that maybe they weren't, and maybe this book will shed a little light here.

It is safe to say that they were a minority, but numerous enough to be noticed when they behaved contrary to cultural norms.

I know that is not exactly a stunning analysis, but I think it's the best one you'll ever get with the available evidence.

Cato, I think the last part of Tacitus's passage is most suspicious:

Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed.

This part of the passage sounds like something a Chrisitian scribe would have inserted for dramatic effect.

I'm not sure I'd impute that much drama or ingenuity to Christian scribes, but more to the issue: Isn't your conjecture completely arbitrary? Is there any passage in Tacitus that you couldn't, with just as much evidence, dismiss as a copyist's invention?

Nothing in the passage itself is out of the ordinary. Certainly Nero was a drama queen, and the episode quoted is just another example of this. Plus, such behavior at an execution is particularly tasteless for exactly the reason cited by Tacitus: it makes the execution itself appear to be designed "to glut one man's cruelty" and elicits compassion for even the most vile criminal. Even today we recognize this as a danger of public (or worse, televised) executions -- the executed obviously treat the event with much seriousness, whereas the producers of the spectacle do not, and the contrast elicits sympathy for the executed. (The cell phone video of Saddam Hussein's execution, for example, had this effect -- making Saddam look dignified and his Shiite executors cruel, despite a lifetime of non-televised cruelty by Saddam against the Shiites.)

Salve, Amici. Here comes the latin version of PC Tacitus Annales Liber XV cp. XLIV, quoted both by MPC and Guy:

Sed non ope humana, non largitionibus principis aut deum placamentis decedebat infamia, quin iussum incendium crederetur. ergo abolendo rumori Nero subdidit reos et quaesitissimis poenis adfecit, quos per flagitia invisos vulgus Chrestianos appellabat. auctor nominis eius Christus Tibero imperitante per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio adfectus erat; repressaque in praesens exitiablilis superstitio rursum erumpebat, non modo per Iudaeam, originem eius mali, sed per urbem etiam, quo cuncta undique atrocia aut pudenda confluunt celebranturque. igitur primum correpti qui fatebantur, deinde indicio eorum multitudo ingens haud proinde in crimine incendii quam odio humani generis convicti sunt. et pereuntibus addita ludibria, ut ferarum tergis contecti laniatu canum interirent aut crucibus adfixi [aut flammandi atque], ubi defecisset dies, in usu[m] nocturni luminis urerentur. hortos suos ei spectaculo Nero obtulerat, et circense ludicrum edebat, habitu aurigae permixtus plebi vel curriculo insistens. unde quamquam adversus sontes et novissima exempla meritos miseratio oriebatur, tamquam non utilitate publica, sed in saevitiam unius absumerentur.

En.Wikipedia ("Tacitus on Christ") gives us what I think is a fairly balanced and well referenced commentary on this issue:

"Some people have suggested that this passage could be a later addition by Christian scribes. No early Christian writers refer to Tacitus even when discussing the subject of Nero and Christian persecution, although this is an argument from silence. Tertullian, Lactantius, Sulpicius Severus, Eusebius and Augustine of Hippo make no reference to Tacitus when discussing Christian persecution by Nero. Sulpicius Severus repeats the passage nearly verbatim without crediting Tacitus in Chronica, but it is unknown whether Severus borrowed from Tacitus, whether a Christian scribe inserted Severus into Tacitus or whether a third source was involved. The passage also mistakenly calls Pontius Pilate a procurator instead of a prefect, a mistake also made in a passage by Josephus. This mistake, while possibly showing a common editor of Tacitus and Josephus could also be Tacitus using Josephus as a source or both of them using a common source.

On the other hand, others argue that the passage is far too critical of Christians to be added by Christian scribes. The passage even implies that the Christians may have been guilty of setting fire to Rome. Further, there may be evidence of persecution against Christians in Rome during Nero's reign. The historian Suetonius also mentions Christians being harmed during this period by Nero, but there is no connection made with the fire. Robert Van Voorst writes that "the vast majority of scholars" conclude that the passage is authentic."

The controversial nature of this frequently quoted passage stands mainly from its theological implications on Jesus' historicity, as it is one of the first references you can find out of the New testament, even if more than a generation after his death.

Theologically, main argument for its autheticity would be that it actually contradicts main thesis of all Gospels about the responsability for Jesus' death (Tacitus blamed Pilatus, not the Jews).

Slave, Amici.

Extracted from UNRV "Christian Persecution":

"Despite the sporadic persecutions, Christianity was persistent. Between the beginning of the cult through the Great Persecution of Diocletion, some estimates have placed the death toll as high as 100,000 people during that period. Others, like the ancient source Origen, list the number of Christian martyrs simply as 'relatively few'. Edward Gibbon, the 18th century writer lists the number at 'less than 2000', but the truth of the matter will never be known for sure and these numbers are also dependent on semantics".

I agree; true figure must be between both extremes... Judging from the primary sources' statements (or if you prefer, silence) I think it should be closer to Gibbons' one.

I agree; true figure must be between both extremes.

Must it? Couldn't the true figure be more or less than either extreme?

I agree; true figure must be between both extremes.

 

Must it? Couldn't the true figure be more or less than either extreme?

You mean more than 100,000 or less than 2,000? Based on which source?

OK, let's rewrite it: "true figure should be".