maryhelena wrote: ↑Sat Feb 17, 2024 2:03 am
Perhaps Philo was remembering past events, resetting them to the time of the new emperor Gaius. 37 c.e. being 100 years from the events of 63 b.c.
But why? I can understand telling events that happened near a writer's time, but uses tropes (common jargon) to describe the characters, tropes that originated in somewhat similar circumstances of the past but left their traces on the writer's culture and days.
It does not make sense to me why a writer (Mark) would simply make up an event in "modern times" (to the writer, events supposed to have occurred around 30s CE) that was based on a well known event in 1st Century BCE.
Josephus telescopes Judean-Samaritan relationships by cutting out a generation or two when mentioning Sanballat, satrap of Samaria and the Priest who wanted to start a Samaritan temple, but I don't think he was intending to just make it up as a kind of allegory.
Are you suggesting that Mark was trying to create a mythical religion, from scratch ingredients?
There is a fairly detailed account of the whole affair (several pages of footnotes if strung together) in the revised edition of Schuerer's
Jewish People in the Age of you know who. See volume 1.
Agrippa I, who was formerly Gaius' tutor, was newly appointed as king if the Tetrarchy of Philip, but Gaius did not seem to have a good idea of Agrippa's ethnic ways, so I guess it either never came up or the subject avoided. Agrippa I was known for his extravagant parties thrown to impress Gaius.
If Gaius was aware (he may have depended on his periodic briefs of world events from his staff), he was not concerned by the alarm and bloodshed that would surely occur if an attempt was made to erect such a statue. Gaius probably thought that it was time for the Judeans to join the rest of the inhabited world and equate their god with a Roman equivalent (the statue would actually represent Jupiter, in the image of Gaius). In his mind, the appointment of Agrippa was going to facilitate that, but he also fainted when he heard what Gaius wanted to do. Folks like Philo, and Agrippa, knew that open resistance would certainly ensue, with an inevitable Roman military response that would put an end the threat utterly.
Philo's family was "in" with the Roman administration (his uncle, a Roman knight, became a governor, and he was also related to the Judean "Alabarch," sort of an ethnarch over Judean affairs in Alexandria with a local title). I'm pretty sure the factions within the family communicated with one another, either personally or by letter. Agrippa was also "in."
Unfortunately, Philo's embassy was also caught up in local Alexandrian politics (Greek critics of Judean privileges had sent their own competing embassy), and apparently Gaius sided with the Greeks in that. Philo's embassy was ignored.
Agrippa wrote to the emperor and explained what was happening, as perceived by Judeans, would lead to total war.
The Roman governor of Syria even dragged his feet on executing the order, offering a mixture of excuses ("Petronius to Gaius: Greetings, your worship! Well, an arm broke off your colossal statue in transit, so I've ordered a temporary replacement that will be ready in a few months ...") and real reasons (Sabbatical year, taxes will not be collected as usual, but probably not that the Judeans were starting to prepare for armed resistance).
In fact, Josephus mentions a diversion of arms/armor made locally for the Roman auxiliary troops, but "rejected" as inferior, into a private stash. This kind of thing was probably what got Antipas sacked as a tetrarch. Agrippa had tipped off Gaius that Antipas had a huge arms stash squirreled away "off the books" so to speak (hinting that by doing so, Antipas was plotting something with the Parthians). This was all brewing for a while, it seems.
If he had not been assassinated, this war and the resulting destruction to the Judean way of life and institutions like the Temple, would have happened as surely as the Maccabean war started in 167 BCE, which was probably both Philo & Agrippa's points. The situations in 167 BCE and 38 CE were virtually identical: Foreign overlord, for vanity's sake, tried to force Judean institutions to equate their national god to one of the Ruler's pantheon (Zeus/Jupiter), which resulted in long and resource draining wars of nationalistic rebellion. "Why tempt fate, Sir? "
Of course, like some politicians and generals of all ages, Gaius tempted fate. Also like some politicians and generals of all ages, the ones that were not vainly looking at events as opportunities to show off for the boss, were trying to rectify their boss' rash acts. Rather than Syrian Legate Petronius opening his veins at the command of the Emperor (had he not conveniently died), there may well have been another Roman civil war brewing, and I think everyone had figured that out. About 1/3 of the Roman empire was about to break out into open rebellions, Roman as well as Judean. No wonder Gaius was assassinated!
DCH