Re: Buried clues about early Christianity from the context of Pliny’s letters?
Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2021 5:25 pm
That's my line of thinking too. None of the Fourth Philosophic examples I gave above are described as being violent. They are only said to have "deceived and deluded the people under pretense of divine inspiration," which is very much like Jesus. And they were killed because the authorities "thought this procedure was to be the beginning of a revolt" (like in the account of John the Baptist).Aleph One wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 4:24 pm I'm just responding to a few of these as I read along the replies.I can see your point. My line of thinking was more that he's accused of claiming to be "King of the Jews" and is obviously critical of the current Jewish leadership, who had been instated by the Romans, not to mention that the distinction between terrorist rebel and non-violent messiah may have been lost on representatives of the empire.GakuseiDon wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 3:46 amWas Jesus ever considered a would-be Jewish revolutionary, though? I don't know any early source that portrayed Jesus that way. Christians were regarded as belonging to a superstitious sect according to Tacitus and Suetonius, rather than to a revolutionary one.