Did the Roman authorities know the Christians before the first gospel?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Giuseppe
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Did the Roman authorities know the Christians before the first gospel?

Post by Giuseppe »

The question is not banal.

If your answer is yes, then the next question is: who were probably the killers of Jesus for Roman authorities?
schillingklaus
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Re: Did the Roman authorities know the Christians before the first gospel?

Post by schillingklaus »

Of course not, as there was no such thing as Christianity before the first gospel.
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GakuseiDon
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Re: Did the Roman authorities know the Christians before the first gospel?

Post by GakuseiDon »

Giuseppe wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 6:12 am Did the Roman authorities know the Christians before the first gospel?
Yes, I'd say that's likely based on what we can infer from Paul's letter to the Romans. In that letter, he wrote:

Rom 1:7 To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world...
...
16:7 Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellowprisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.


"Throughout the whole world" suggests Roman authorities would have been aware of the Christians; that there were apostles "of note" in Rome who were in Christ before Paul suggests a period of time of Christian growth in Rome.
Giuseppe wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 6:12 amIf your answer is yes, then the next question is: who were probably the killers of Jesus for Roman authorities?
Pilate, though if Paul were aware of Psalm 2 (and I'd argue he was, since he quotes from the other Psalms), then he would have considered it a conspiracy of all the kings in the world.
Giuseppe
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Re: Did the Roman authorities know the Christians before the first gospel?

Post by Giuseppe »

I mean: what was the view of the Roman authorities when they heard about Christian apostles, before that the Earliest Gospel was written. Were the Roman authorities the first people who connected the Christian Jesus with Pilate?
Giuseppe
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Re: Did the Roman authorities know the Christians before the first gospel?

Post by Giuseppe »

Obviously Paul didn't know nothing about an earthly Jesus, an "anomaly" signaled even by Christians from second century
schillingklaus
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Re: Did the Roman authorities know the Christians before the first gospel?

Post by schillingklaus »

Apologists like Gakusei fail to see the impious forgeedness and fakeness of the epistles, especially the interpolatedness of those idiotic passages.
andrewcriddle
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Re: Did the Roman authorities know the Christians before the first gospel?

Post by andrewcriddle »

Giuseppe wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 6:12 am The question is not banal.

If your answer is yes, then the next question is: who were probably the killers of Jesus for Roman authorities?
Probably the earliest opinion is that found in Tacitus 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.

Andrew Criddle
John2
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Re: Did the Roman authorities know the Christians before the first gospel?

Post by John2 »

I think the Roman authorities knew about Christians before the first gospel because they had known about the Fourth Philosophy since c. 6 CE and I see Christians as being a faction of the Fourth Philosophy. Acts 5:36-38, for example, likens Christians to other Fourth Philosophers (and only to other Fourth Philosophers), and in my view, just like the Romans were aware of these other Fourth Philosophers and killed them (presumably with whatever assistance they got from Jewish authorities), so too did they know about and kill Jesus.
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