Tacitus and the usurers

[caroleeilertson]

The Christiani that Tacitus refers to could plausibly be (property) speculators (Gr. chrêstês) that Nero punished after the Great Fire in Rome. These villains, usurers held responsible for burning down the buildings in order to "get rich quick" on the following reconstruction measures, were vilified by the people. In other words in the earliest version of the Annals the accusative plural"chrestianos "(later modified to "christianos "and endowed with a capital "C" andthe explanation "Christiani" in the marginalia) is a graecism stemming from chrêstês (ablative chresto cf Suetonius) meaning the (hired hands of) the speculator(s). In Rome today you still hear the locals complain about those who "far la cresta" i.e . demand extortionate prices for their wares. Anybody like to discuss this?

[humphreyclarke]

Well, the passage as I understand it reads:

But not all the relief that could come from man, not all the bounties that the prince could bestow, nor all the atonements which could be presented to the gods, availed to relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the conflagration, the fire of Rome. Hence to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also, 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.

So unless the property speculators had a leader called Christus - a man who masterminded a Roman property scam from all the way over in Judea! - I don't see how the theory holds up. Also property speculation is not a superstition as far as I know. The vast majority of scholars think that the references to Christians in Josephus and Tacitus are genuine ; including Martin Goodman whose 'Rome and Jerusalem : The Clash of Ancient Civilizations' I happen to be reading at the moment.

[caroleeilertson]

Hi Humphrey,
interesting book. Goodman makes a number of interesting hypotheses , ones that not all historians agree with. Here are five examples: there was no fundamental opposition between the two civilisations despite all the differences in culture(p.29); The Jewish world in which Jesus lived under Roman rule did not feel oppressed by Rome (p. 552); Romans were always tolerant to the Jews, at least until the revolt in &&CE (p.553). The author accepts Josephus version of the churban; relationships deteriorated after three wars but Romans were unwilling to "tamper with the image" of the Jews created by Hadrian (p. 554); the most significant feature in the demonization of the Jews was Christian antisemitism, cf Pauline theology (p. 505)
As you can see there are a number of counterarguments to all five of these hypotheses. Just take the first one - the idea of a cultural continuum - Goodman says that "Jews like Romans adopted (Greek culture) for their own purposes and treated it as entirely natural (p. 106) Jews might have adopted external elements of Greek culture such as architecture and language, but they never adopted it wholesale. They never accepted the pagan customs (culinary, sexual etc) before the churban. I wouldn't accept any opinion as final in all matters. There is plenty of wiggle room and opportunity to interpret things in different ways;-)

Looking at the passage in question at a macro-level a number of questions come to mind:
Did Nero have a hand in the fire? (so circumventing the Senate in order to build his palace). Or did Nero rush to help put out a fire that had been started accidentally? Or as Professor Gerhard Baudy of the University of Konstanz in Germany (who has spent 15 years studying ancient apocalyptic prophecies) maintains - the Christians were to blame.. Baudy has apparently discovered that in the poor districts of Rome, Christians were circulating vengeful texts predicting that a raging inferno would reduce the city to ashes. "In all of these oracles, the destruction of Rome by fire is prophesied. That is the constant theme: Rome must burn. This was the long-desired objective of all the people who felt subjugated by Rome."
We may never be able to answer these questions to every scholar's satisfaction -that, I suppose, is the nature of the beast we call history!. But, that said, we can examine the actual words used (also those that appear before and after in the original Latin) and see if they shed any light on the matter, as, to quote a popular song: "words are all we have".
"auctor nominis eius Christus Tiberio imperitante
per procuratorem Pontius Pilatus supplicio adfectus erat"
"The founder of that name was Christus, who, in the reign of Tiberius,
was punished, as a criminal by the procurator, Pontius Pilate."
Why doesn't this passage reflect Tacitus in tone or in register? If, as Christians, we are to believe in the authenticity of the passage quoted above we have to answer a number of uncomfortable questions. Tacitus clearly knows when Judea was administered by 'procurators',
yet this passage calls Pontius Pilate a 'procurator' when he should have been called a 'prefect',
and, given Tacitus's knowledge in the area, including when procurators received magistrate's powers, this would be a strange mistake to make. The following quote from Wikipedia is relevant here:
" Pontius Pilate's title was traditionally thought to have been procurator, since Tacitus speaks of him as such. However, an inscription on a limestone block known as the Pilate Stone — apparently a dedication to Tiberius Caesar Augustus — that was discovered in 1961 in the ruins of an amphitheater at Caesarea Maritima refers to Pilate as "Prefect of Judaea".
The title used by the governors of the region varied over the period of the New Testament. When Samaria, Judea proper and Idumea were first amalgamated into the Roman Judaea Province,[5] from 6 to the outbreak of the First Jewish Revolt in 66, officials of the Equestrian order (the lower rank of governors) governed. They held the Roman title of prefect until Herod Agrippa I was named King of the Jews by Claudius. After Herod Agrippa's death in 44, when Iudaea reverted to direct Roman rule, the governor held the title procurator. When applied to governors, this term procurator, otherwise used for financial officers, connotes no difference in rank or function from the title known as prefect. Contemporary archaeological finds and documents such as the Pilate Inscription from Caesarea attest to the governor's more accurate official title only for the period 6 through 44: prefect. The logical conclusion is that texts that identify Pilate as procurator are more likely following Tacitus or are unaware of the pre-44 practice."
Tacitus does not use the name 'Jesus' but 'Christus'. Why would he use the term of homage Christus (the annointed one) and not the man's true name "Jesus"? Or why doesn't he say something like "the man his followers call Christ"?
Tacitus assumes his readers know Pontius Pilate.
Why is this the only time in ancient pagan literature that Pontius Pilate is mentioned by name? Is it a way of specifying who Christ is.? Is this an indication of an apologetic intervention?
Why doesn't Tacitus talk about the turmoil in Palestine in Histories 5.9.2? In this his earlier work, he maintains that] in Palestine at this time "all was quiet"
Why does he interrupt the flow of the story? If you leave this passage out, the text reads more smoothly.
As a Christian,I would like to know more about the figure of Jesus, but I am not desperate enough to clutch at straws. And anyway, both Trajan and Pliny were alive when the Tacitus comment claims that Christians were held responsible for burning down two-thirds of the city of Rome. As Roman aristocrats both Pliny and Trajan should be more concerned about this issue.
PS Tacitus was apt to refer to Jewsh religious convictions as "superstition" and "mischief" - so the text "the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular. " makes perfect sense if we take the "Christiani" to be "Chestiani", or some word originating from "chrêstês" - speculators, usurers (Tacitus was not fond of the Jews!)
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[humphreyclarke]

Thanks Carole, i'm not too far into the book but I have enjoyed reading it so far.

On the Tacitus point, I don't take any of the objections as to its authenticity seriously because the scholarly consensus appears to be that it is genuine. The passage in Josephus is more controversial and there appears to contain a few interpolations but you can work out what the original one is. I have come across a lot of historical conspiracy theories, in particular Holocaust denial on the internet which I was involved in refuting when at uni. They all follow a similar pattern, assumptions of conspiracy and plotting on a massive scale, mistranslations and 'strange' phrases taken as evidence of serious interpolation, the dismissal of large chunks of evidence because of mere hunches, the assumption that the consensus of scholars is merely some kind of politically correct whitewash. I think honestly the Jesus myth 'thesis; is given far more credibility than it has any right to.

So turning to Tacitus again, 'procurator' is used, rather than prefect. It seems the title varied between the two over the new testament period and there was a certain fluidity in the usage of these terms, so the mistake I think is understandable. I suspect he would use the term Christus because he is referring specifically to Christians 'Christus, the founder of the name'. I don't think it is an apologetic interpolation as it is a very negative reference to the Christian movement. As for the fire, I suspect like other blazes such as the great fire of London, the causes were more mundane, a carelessly tended cooking fire or something of that sort.

[caroleeilertson]

Hi Humphrey,
Yes, maybe you're right. Cock-up is often preferably to conspiracy as a working hypothesis. ;-)Am currently reading this:
books.google.de/books?id=ky6_ca9DyqkC&pg=PA316&lpg=PA316&dq=The+Worship+of+Augustus+Caesar&source=bl&ots=ywrtSNm-A5&sig=BWWo55K8Q2doNao7nmePueu_4i8&hl=de&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPR7,M1
Maybe it's of interest to you.
Best Wishes,
Carole

[caroleeilertson]

oops - just seen that my four-letter word begining with "c" and ending with "k" has been deleted! Hope this won't bar me from the forum!

[humphreyclarke]

Thanks Carol, I'll give it a look.

[gentleexit]

You don't have to be a bogeyman-believing, conspiracy-seer to think Tacitus didn't write of Christ. We were left with ONLY ONE manuscript of his work. Rediscovered in the middle ages. It has these words.

But no ancient quotes Tacitus saying anything about Jesus - not even Eusebius who is the first to quote Josephus and gathered everything he could to record early Christianity's trials. Surely he would have written of the hideous deaths of so many of his fellows. All he records is the death of Peter and Paul. Under Nero's rule, he says, but not by him directly. Tertullian says (quoted by Eusebius) that Nero was "the first to persecute us" (sic) but doesn't go into details and he was fond of details. (The point above about Pliny and Hadrian is also telling).

Poor old Nero was everyone's whipping boy. The legitimacy-seeking Flavians started it and then everyone dragged him behind their chariots. Including the Christians. Lactantius writes against those his fellows who awaited Nero's return. For them (two centuries later!), he was the anti-Christ!

[jamierobertson]

Dec 5, 2008 18:18:10 GMT gentleexit said:

But no ancient quotes Tacitus saying anything about Jesus

Erm... well, no Christian (whose works still survive) did - but might that have something to do with the fact that Tacitus was just plain nasty in what he said about Christians and their beliefs? "Harmful superstition" - not exactly what you'd expect to find in a gospel tract, is it?

[gentleexit]

Oh the Christians repeated and so preserved plenty of bile (and gave as good as they got). That's the only reason we have (snippets of) Julian's attacks or Celsus' or Herocles ... on and on.

[humphreyclarke]

Well, i'm a modern historian (I like having lots of sources) so my opinions about the authenticity of Tacitus should perhaps come with a health warning. Gentleexit (interesting blog btw) I still don't think you have given any good reasons for doubting the authenticity of the passage. I accept that there might be a difficulty in that the early church historians did not quote from it but this can be mitigated by the fact it is an extremely negative reference and the historians might not have access to it (from my understanding Tacitus wrote for a limited audience). According to the translator's note in my copy of the Annals his writings were much neglected until the Renaissance because of the 'unusual and difficult latin which he wrote', they were largely unappreciated for over 1400 years. We have only one copy from the middle ages, but surely that isn't unusual for an ancient text of only peripheral importance to the Christians?.

Assuming it was a conspiracy, Sulpicious Severus's Chronicle refers to it in the early 5th century so it would have to have been doctored in the 2nd through 4th centuries. Is it likely that a well intentioned Christian glosser would have been able to express himself in Tacitean Latin and get the style and the context right?. Why would this conspiring Christian have made the passage so negative and only been merely desriptive in the detail about Christ?. It seems a bit far fetched to me. If it is the product of a forger then I take my hat off to them. Not only did they manage to replicate the distinctive, vivid and semi-poetical latin of Tacitus and fit it seamlessly into the narrative, but they also cunningly made the reference to Christianity a highly negative one so as not to arouse suspicions. The forger was so brilliant he or she has managed to hoowink the vast majority of Tacitean scholars to this very day. Pure brilliance.

[gentleexit]

Oh the more sources the better - and we've unfortunately little from early Christianity. Hence lot's of silly conspiracy stuff and equally outlandish claims for the extent or influence of the early church. On the other hand, lack of sources is great for fora :-)

As you say Severus is a key figure in this. Discuss "Tacitus'" passage and he comes up eventually. Though he names no one, he seems to use everyone: Josephus on the Jews, Tertullian on first persecution, Peter and Paul's deaths, all these probably via Eusebius. He has Peter's gospel too, with that good man flying over Rome to defeat a heretic. All information in other Christian sources.

But then there's Nero blaming Christians for the fire of Rome, their numbers "now being very large". It's "Tacitus'" passage. So here he used a non-Christian source?

Read on and you see Severus also believed Nero to be alive, the forerunner of the anti-Christ. And he didn't make this up. It was a long-standing belief for Christians, condemned by Lactantius over a century before.

Severus recorded what was true for the Christians of his time. Nero's alive. Um. Peter flew. Um. There were large numbers of Christians, way back - it is highly unlikely that the Christians were large in number in Rome or anywhere in Nero's time - generations later, Pliny and Trajan had obviously never heard of them. Numbers wait for the late third century.

I don't think Severus forged anything. He said what the Christians in his time believed. But I don't think any of them read it in Tacitus. Or else, there were large numbers of Christians way back and Pliny and Trajan were ... and after being so large, Christianity slumbered for centuries ... Credible?

[jamierobertson]

Dec 6, 2008 2:57:38 GMT gentleexit said:

Oh the Christians repeated and so preserved plenty of bile (and gave as good as they got). That's the only reason we have (snippets of) Julian's attacks or Celsus' or Herocles ... on and on.

Apples and oranges, I'm afraid. Julian and Celsus wrote considerable, unique works with specific criticisms of Christianityand Christians, which were then quoted as part of a specific rebuttal. The same can't said for the snide, vague, almost off-the-cuff remarks of Tacitus.

[humphreyclarke]

Hi all. Some interesting points raised here.

Having taken a brief look at the early Christian histories it seems that Eusebius wrote in Greek. We have no evidence he read Latin so no reason to expect him to use Tacitus.

As regards the numbers of Christians, I expect they were very low but this is not necessarily grounds for suspicion of the reference in Tacitus. I know from looking at the massacres of Jews by Christians during the medieval period that a minority need not be large or prominent to attract persecution, especially in times of disaster when the group is thought to be inherantly troublesome; as they would if their beliefs were suspect and they refused to worship or sacrifice to the pagan gods, thus failing to support society. We know that early on, Christians were regarded by some as positively dangorus outsiders because of their alleged secrecy. As the Christian Minucius Felix records:

'Why do they make great efforts to hide and conceal whatever it is they worship?, when honorable deeds always rejoice in being made public, while crimes are secret. Why do they have no altars, no temples, no recognised images?. Why do they not talk openly never congregate freely?, unless what they worship and conceal is either criminal or shameful'

On the numbers issue, Tacitus does seem to use 'ingens multitudo' or 'huge crowd' to describe Nero's victims. However Tacitus always uses hyperbole. For example at Annals 3:25 he describes Rome as having an infinite crowd of laws. Ingens multitudo in the nominative turns out to be a common Tacitean phrase which he uses in Annals 2:40, 2:21, 4:49, 14:8 etc. The other point is that the passage states that a 'vast multitude' were convicted, not that they were Christians. Clearly, this was a witchhunt where many innocents were rounded up and convicted on the basis of evidence under torture. The Christians were merely a small but troublesome minority.

[gentleexit]

Ok, just Latins. Tertullian doesn't mention Nero's scapegoating, Roman fires. Nor - and this is probably the most telling - does Lactantius.

"And while Nero reigned, the Apostle Peter came to Rome, and, through the power of God committed unto him, wrought certain miracles, and, by turning many to the true religion, built up a faithful and stedfast temple unto the Lord. When Nero heard of those things, and observed that not only in Rome, but in every other place, a great multitude revolted daily from the worship of idols, and, condemning their old ways, went over to the new religion, he, an execrable and pernicious tyrant, sprung forward to raze the heavenly temple and destroy the true faith. He it was who first persecuted the servants of God; he crucified Peter, and slew Paul"

Multitudes converted (so the notion of early numbers had taken hold) and like Tertullian (and Eusebius in his Greek), Paul and Peter killed. But no connection to fires. Numbers are the issue.

At some point, Nero's two crimes - fire and apostles - were linked. Some point between the early fourth century and Severus. Earlier is unlikely or these men, who loved showcasing the wrongs against their sect and its significance, would have called it out.

Yes, Christians were picked on - and for secretiveness. It's a theme of all early apologists. But it came post-temple fall, post the gospels, post post Nero, the unfortunate whipping boy for all antiquity.