If even Tacitus didn't mention Pilate in connection with Jesus...

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Sinouhe
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Re: If even Tacitus didn't mention Pilate in connection with Jesus...

Post by Sinouhe »

Giuseppe wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 5:42 am In p. 169, Barrett writes:

But it seems that he made relatively little impact on his immediate posterity. By the third century, the emperor Tacitus (reigned AD 275–276), who believed himself to be a descendant, reputedly ordered that his namesake’s works should be copied to rescue him from the neglect (incuria) of readers. The information comes from the curious and notoriously unreliable collection of imperial biographies written perhaps in the later fourth or early f ifth century, the Historia Augusta, and it is not a secure guide to the activities of the emperor Tacitus, but the anecdote would have had little point had the historian Tacitus’s works been widely read.107 Even in the sixth century the writer Cassiodorus can refer to “a certain Cornelius” when referring to Tacitus (citing his Germania about the collection of amber), implying that the historian had by then sunk into considerable obscurity.108

(my bold)

Sic stantibus rebus, I think that the silence about Tacitus's Annals 15:44 is not so anomalous (=unexpected), pace Carrier.

Differently from the silence about the Testimonia Flaviana.
Yes he tries to find explanations but finally concludes this silence is more easily explained if the text is interpolated.

It christians were executed publicly, then knowing Tacitus is not necessary.

The only manuscript of Sulpicius Severus containing the burning and persecution has been discovered by the same guy who discovered the manuscripts of Tacitus : Poggio Bracciolini.

In my opinion, this silence on public executions of Christians, from Christian authors, for almost 15 centuries is inexplicable.
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Re: If even Tacitus didn't mention Pilate in connection with Jesus...

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The fire discourse ends at 15.44.2a. The fire narrative proper ends at 15.40.2, after which we learn about the events dealing with the results of the fire, the human effort, the financial outlay and the propitiatory acts. These are summarised in 15.44.2a with "all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods", the gamut of actions post-fire. But this sentence does a lot more, reaching back to the start of the fire discourse: "disaster followed, whether accidental or plotted by the emperor is unclear" (15.38.1). Tacitus doesn't say here that Nero is responsible for the fire. Nor does he say so in 15.44.2a. He sticks to his ostensible non-commital. Yet, he also reaches back to the agents hurling firebrands in 15.38.7 who were acting under order (iussum), for 15.44.2a talks of the disgrace (infamia) that an order (iussum) had been given for the fire and the implication that the order had come from the one who tried to assuage the nasty rumour. (And we note that "infamia" is attached to Tigellinus' apparent rekindling of the fire in 15.40.2.) So the fire discourse ends as the discourse began. Having placed all the post-fire events except for the Christian discourse before 15.44.2a, Tacitus is free to conclude, leaving you little doubt through innuendo as to Nero's role.

What follows is apparently a next step after closing the fire discourse. Something extra that Nero attempts to shake the rumour after all (previous) attempts failed, trying to shift the blame onto the Christians. The most interesting thing to come from this is that the report doesn't show any interest in the result of this ulterior action, as though the writer was uninterested in Nero's the success or failure in shifting the blame, being more interested in his Christians story.
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Irish1975
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Re: If even Tacitus didn't mention Pilate in connection with Jesus...

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Giuseppe wrote: Tue Jan 11, 2022 10:14 pm
Irish1975 wrote: Tue Jan 11, 2022 3:53 pm For me the strongest point against authenticity is the silence in Christian sources about any such persecution in Rome:
this point is confuted very well by Anthony Barrett. I invite you to read about it.
Sinouhe wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 5:59 am If christians were executed publicly, then knowing Tacitus is not necessary.

The only manuscript of Sulpicius Severus containing the burning and persecution has been discovered by the same guy who discovered the manuscripts of Tacitus : Poggio Bracciolini.

In my opinion, this silence on public executions of Christians, from Christian authors, for almost 15 centuries is inexplicable.
Exactly. The issue is silence and ignorance about the events themselves.

Ignorance of Annals 15.44, because it might have fallen into an inexplicable obscurity until the Christian Era, does not account for ignorance by Christians for centuries about an event that would have been a sacred origin story for the Church in Rome.

All early Christian art is in and around Rome. The most important early Christian community was in Rome. All the great 2nd century fathers and bishops and apologists passed in and out of Rome. Eusebius collected martyrdom accounts from every corner of the empire. And yet he would not have known, Origen and Lactantius and Ambrose and Jerome and Augustine would not have known, a single shred of any story about a great holocaust of believers in the capital city ordered by the most infamous tyrant. No shrine, memorial, church.

Nothing!
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Re: If even Tacitus didn't mention Pilate in connection with Jesus...

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Sinouhe wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 5:59 amThe only manuscript of Sulpicius Severus containing the burning and persecution has been discovered by the same guy who discovered the manuscripts of Tacitus : Poggio Bracciolini.
Book hunters obtained (usually) ancient works. Zanobi da Strada procured a copy of Varro's De lingua latina for Boccaccio in 1355 after negotiations between them in 1348. He also acquired texts from Montecassino, where the M.II manuscript had been written in the complex Beneventan script. M.II was annotated by Zanobi, so we can gather he "liberated" the text from Montecassino. E.A. Lowe writes, "Boccaccio's citations from Varro and Tacitus..., are taken only from books preserved in the Beneventan manuscripts, and from no others." (Cited here.) We should be able to conclude that Zanobi supplied Boccaccio with the M.11 manuscript, perhaps around the same time as B got Varro. Another pointer here is Boccaccio's familiarity with the work of Apuleius, which was included in the same manuscript that contained the second part of the Annals.

Boccaccio's library was inherited by Martino da Signa, to be used by him till his death )1387) then donated to the convent of Santo Spirito. Niccolo' Niccoli, who supplied the book shelves for Boccaccio's library at the convent is the next to have gained M.II and Poggio Bracciolini wrote to him in 1427 to see the manuscript.

That's the pre-Poggio trajectory of M.II, so no, Bracciolini didn't forge the manuscript. He looked at the manuscript and returned it, noting the barbarous script (Beneventan). The script is difficult: I once made an annotated copy of the page containing the TT, noting its digraphs and contractions, which made it hard to read. It takes quite a flight of fancy to believe that this "barbarous script" was something he could churn out, given his lack of familiarity with it. So I would seriously drop all ideas of the Bracciolini conspiracy.
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Sinouhe
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Re: If even Tacitus didn't mention Pilate in connection with Jesus...

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He also acquired texts from Montecassino, where the M.II manuscript had been written in the complex Beneventan script.
From what i read in Polydor Hochart, Poggio Bracciolini negotiated a manuscript (the second medecis) of Tacitus to a German monk for 1 year and a half. This monk seemed to be in a hurry to part with it, but it took Poggio 20 months to recover it due to numerous uncertainties. Niccoli, Poggio’s mentor, kept urging him on this subject, but Poggio said he was dependent on the goodwill of this unknown monk.

Some people questioned the origin of Tacitus' manuscript. So Poggio wrote in a letter to Niccoli saying that he was aware of the rumors and that he would keep his manuscript at home hidden from everyone.

For the dating of the manuscript, the second medicis is written in Lombard characters. That’s how historians date it to the 10th or 11th century. But i was common for talented scribes to imitate ancient scriptures.

it is difficult to know who could have interpolated these lines but what is surprising is that the only 2 manuscripts containing this story (Tacitus and Sulpicius Severius) have passed into the hands of the same person.

- Most of the historians note a dependence between the 2 texts.

- The discovery of the Chronicles by Poggio is mysterious.
It is not known in which country the manuscript was found nor in which monastery.

- The text contains historical errors, anachronisms

- The chronicles contradicts the other book by sulpitius severius « Vie de Saint Martin ». Is it really the same author ?

- Gregoire de Tours cites the chronicles but we can’t find this quotation in the manuscript. However, the manuscript is complete.

- «La vie de St Martin » was a successful text but there is only one copy of the chronicles from the same author. However, Christians texts were read and copied in the monasteries.

Knowing the problem with the account of Christians in Tacitus, i am suspicious about the chronicles.
Especially if both texts have passed in the hands of the same person.
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Re: If even Tacitus didn't mention Pilate in connection with Jesus...

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Lombard characters are Beneventan script from the Duchy of Benevento (founded by the Lombards), where the script was developed. (See here for an understanding, PDF.)

Also see here on Sulpicius Severus and Tacitus.

Beware of Cum hoc ergo propter hoc.
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Sinouhe
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Re: If even Tacitus didn't mention Pilate in connection with Jesus...

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spin wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 1:16 pm Lombard characters are Beneventan script from the Duchy of Benevento (founded by the Lombards), where the script was developed. (See here for an understanding, PDF.)
Imitating ancient scriptures for a renaissance scholar is not something i would call an insurmountable difficulty.
Also see here on Sulpicius Severus and Tacitus.
Im sorry but i don’t find it convincing. It seems obvious that one of the writer borrowed from the other. Scholars consider in general it was done from Tacitus to Sulpicius. But i would not be surprised if it was done by the same person. Or from Sulpicius to the Tacitus manuscript.

Beware of Cum hoc ergo propter hoc.
There are some reasons to believe that manuscripts of 2 missing texts, brought to light almost at the same time, by the same person, both containing a suspicious legend, unknown for almost 1500 years by every pagan and christian writers, may have been the result of some dishonest manipulation.
After all, the history of Christians is punctuated with forgeries, pseudepigraphs, apocrypha and interpolations isn’t it ?
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Re: If even Tacitus didn't mention Pilate in connection with Jesus...

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Sinouhe wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 2:15 pmIt seems obvious that one of the writer borrowed from the other.
I was arguing that the TT was dependent on Severus.
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Re: If even Tacitus didn't mention Pilate in connection with Jesus...

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spin wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 6:47 pm
Sinouhe wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 2:15 pmIt seems obvious that one of the writer borrowed from the other.
I was arguing that the TT was dependent on Severus.

If SS was really independant from Tacitus, we should explain where does SS take his information about Neron being in Atium when the burning begin ? To my knowledge, it was only mentioned by Tacitus and SS :

Tacktus Annals XV:39:1
Nero, who at the time was staying in Antium, did not return to the capital until the fire was nearing the house by which he had connected the Palatine with the Gardens of Maecenas.

Sulpicius Severus Chronicle I:29
In the meantime, the number of the Christians being now very large, it happened that Rome was destroyed by fire, while Nero was stationed at Antium.

This is why I think the partial interpolation in Tacitus by the same author (SS or a later scribe, IDK) for both texts seems the most logical. This would explain where SS took his information about Nero being in Antium as well as the similarities between the 2 texts.

Anthony Barett proposes this reconstruction with the putative interpolation in yellow :

(Tac. Ann. 15.44.2–5)
But neither human resourcefulness nor the emperor’s largesse nor ap- peasement of the gods could stop belief in the nasty rumour that an order had been given for the fire. To dispel the gossip Nero therefore found cul- prits on whom he inflicted the most exotic punishments. {These were people hated for their shameful offences whom the common people called Chres- tians. 3. The man who gave them their name, Christus, had been executed during the rule of Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Pilatus. The pernicious superstition had been temporarily suppressed, but it was starting to break out again, not just in Judea, the starting-point of that curse, but in Rome, as well, where all that is abominable and shameful in the world flows to- gether and gains popularity.}
4. And so, at first, those who were confessing were apprehended and, subsequently, on the disclosures they made, a huge number were joined with them—more because of their hatred of mankind [or “because of mankind’s hatred”] than because they were arsonists. As they died they were further subjected to insult. Covered with hides of wild beasts they perished by being torn to pieces by dogs; or they would be fastened to crosses and, when day- light had gone, set on fire to provide lighting at night. 5. Nero had offered his gardens as a venue for the show, and he would also put on circus enter- tainments, mixing with the plebs in his charioteer’s outfit or standing up in his chariot. As a result, guilty though these people were and deserving ex- emplary punishment, pity for them began to well up because it was felt that they were being exterminated not for the public good, but to gratify one man’s cruelty.


And we can find more connections between SS and the Annals :

Annals XV:44
Therefore, to scotch the rumour, Nero substituted as culprits, and punished with the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men, loathed for their vices,​27 whom the crowd styled Christians.​28 Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus,​29 and the pernicious superstition (exitiabilis superstitio) was checked for a moment...

Sulpicius Severus II:46
There follow the times of our own day, both difficult and dangerous. In these the churches have been defiled with no ordinary evil, and all things thrown into confusion. For then, for the first time, the infamous heresy of the Gnostics was detected in Spain— a pernicious superstition (superstitio exitiabilis) which concealed itself under mystic rites.

Annals XV:37
...a few days later, he became, with the full rites of legitimate marriage, the wife of one of that herd of degenerates,​9 who bore the name of Pythagoras. The veil was drawn over the imperial head, witnesses were despatched to the scene; the dowry, the couch of wedded love, the nuptial torches, were there: everything, in fine, which night enshrouds even if a woman is the bride, was left open to the view.

Sulpicius Severus II:28
After this, he also married a certain Pythagoras in the style of solemn alliances, the bridal veil being put upon the emperor, while the usual dowry, and the marriage couch, and wedding torches, and, in short, all the other observances were forthcoming — things which even in the case of women, are not looked upon without some feeling of modesty.


Ghislaine De Senneville-Grave, a french scholar, mention 4 connections between Sulpicius Severus and "the Annals" and 5 between SS and "The Histories" :
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Re: If even Tacitus didn't mention Pilate in connection with Jesus...

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Sinouhe wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 2:15 pm
spin wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 1:16 pm Also see here on Sulpicius Severus and Tacitus.
I'm sorry but i don’t find it convincing. It seems obvious that one of the writer borrowed from the other. Scholars consider in general it was done from Tacitus to Sulpicius. But i would not be surprised if it was done by the same person. Or from Sulpicius to the Tacitus manuscript.
Neither Sulpicius' Chronicles nor Tacitus' Annals are attested before the Middle Ages
MrMacSon wrote: Sat Jan 08, 2022 5:50 pm
67. In his De l'Authenticity des Histoires et des Annales de Tacite Hochart points out that, whereas the Life of St. Martin and the Dialogues of Sulpicius were found in many libraries, there was only one manuscript of his Chronicle, probably of the eleventh century, which is now in the Vatican. Hence the work was almost unknown throughout the Middle Ages, and no one was aware of the reference in it to a Roman persecution of the Christians. It is noteworthy that Poggio Bracciolini seems by some lucky chance to have discovered and read this manuscript (work quoted, p. 225) cf. Nouvelles Considerations, pp. 142-72.

I think Poggio Bracciolini has been said to have been one of the key people to have handled the Annals after they were [re-discovered in the 13th or 14th century (and, iirc, he has a history of 'processing' church history).

fwiw note #62

62. Arnold has attempted to ascribe to Tacitus a close acquaintance with the Christians from the fact that Sulpicius Severus used him as his authority in his description of the destruction of Jerusalem, and that his statement that Titus deliberately furthered the destruction of the temple in order to destroy at once the Christian and the Jewish religion was taken from the last conclusion of the fifth book of Tacitus's Histories (work quoted, p. 46 [Die Neronische Christenverfolgung, 1888]). No less an authority than Jakob Bernays (Über die Chronik des Sulpicius Severus, 1861, p. 57) has seen in this reference of Sulpicius a literal agreement with the statement of Tacitus in the Annals (xv, 44), that Judaea was the birthplace of the Christian religion, and concluded from this that Sulpicius had Tacitus before his eyes. Bruno Bauer has, however, observed that the ecclesiastical teachers of the fourth century were so firmly convinced of the hostility of all the emperors after Claudius to the Christians that the pupil of the Saint of Tours could easily penetrate the secret design of Titus without any inspiration from the Histories of Tacitus (Christus und die Caesaren, p. 216). Hence the inference that Sulpicius possibly took the statement from Tacitus is anything but convincing, and thus the idea that Tacitus had any close acquaintance with the Christians falls to the ground.

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