Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

The fish-hook interpretation occurred to me, too, when I first saw it. Quite an innovation to have a hook designed to catch two fish, and small ones at that, at the same time. An anchor was symbol of safety/stability among pagans but there was nothing idolatrous about it, as far as I am aware, so it could just as easily be adopted by Christians with the same fundamental meaning. Clement of Alexandria is often quoted as approving of Christians adopting the anchor symbol that was also a part of the cultural cache of the Greco-Roman world.

Another possibility:
The Eerdmans encyclopedia of early Christian art and archaeology. 3 volumes
Paul Corby Finney, general editor.
Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2017

neilgodfrey wrote: ↑Mon Nov 15, 2021 5:30 pm The fish-hook interpretation occurred to me, too, when I first saw it. Quite an innovation to have a hook designed to catch two fish, and small ones at that, at the same time. An anchor was symbol of safety/stability among pagans but there was nothing idolatrous about it, as far as I am aware, so it could just as easily be adopted by Christians with the same fundamental meaning. Clement of Alexandria is often quoted as approving of Christians adopting the anchor symbol that was also a part of the cultural cache of the Greco-Roman world.

I've watched TV shows where modern fishermen catch large fish (Tuna I think) casting rods that have bare hooks. As fast as the line with hook enters the water they seem to instantly hook a fish. That may be an unusual set of circumstances (school of fish in a feeding frenzy?).

However, if you look at the figure as representing metal wires, I suppose one could have hooks radiating from a central wire.

Of course there is no guarantee that the artist who inscribed the image was very good at representing things as they were in real life. Caricatures and fanciful (or just plain bad) depictions of people or spirits, is known from graffiti of the era.

The anchor paired with dolphins or fish was a stock image, not restricted to catacombs.

Jaś Elsner has some good publications on ancient art.
I don't wish to argue about this particular image but sometimes earlier-known images are adopted and occasionally reinterpreted--for example, the good shepherd.
Also, sometimes, the archaeological context in which an image is found may be worth considering.

Irish1975 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2019 9:52 am James Valliant and C.W. Fahy have published a book, Creating Christ, endorsing the hypothesis that the Flavian emperors, along with their family, priests, and officials (above all Flavius Josephus) crafted the cult and the narrative of Jesus Christ more or less as we find it in the NT Gospels. https://www.amazon.com/Creating-Christ- ... way&sr=8-1

What appears to be new in the book by Valliant and Fahy is some striking archeological evidence concerning the iconography of the earliest Christians. It is well known that Christians rarely used the cross as a Christian symbol before the 4th century. A far more common symbol, which appears some 70 times in the catacomb of St. Priscilla alone, is the anchor: especially an anchor flanked by fish, or with a dolphin encircling the anchor.

[Snip]

The niece of Titus, Flavia Domitilla, is one of the earliest known Christian saints buried in Rome, where there is a catacomb named for her. She married her cousin Titus Flavius Clemens, a consul, who (according to Cassius Dio) was executed by Domitian (Titus' younger brother and successor) for "atheism," ie, "going over to Jewish opinions." At the same time, Domitian banished Domitilla to an island. Many have speculated that Titus Flavius Clemens is none other than the famous Pope St. Clement, known to later tradition as the first definite successor to Peter as bishop of Rome, and also alleged as the author of the epistle 1 Clement.

Irish1975 (or anyone),

Could you give an outline of the argument Valliant and Fahey are making? How does the iconography (or the execution of Flavia Domitilla) lead to the conclusion that the Flavian emperors and their circle invented the cult of Christ? It is not obvious that the evidence says more than Christians were part of the larger Roman/Hellenistic culture to which they belonged (which is generally acknowledged in the field).

Best,

Ken

Ken Olson wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 4:52 am Could you give an outline of the argument Valliant and Fahey are making? How does the iconography (or the execution of Flavia Domitilla) lead to the conclusion that the Flavian emperors and their circle invented the cult of Christ? It is not obvious that the evidence says more than Christians were part of the larger Roman/Hellenistic culture to which they belonged (which is generally acknowledged in the field).

Best,

Ken

I watched (well, listened to) the YouTube video interview with the authors of Creating Christ and Robert M. Price on Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio to which Irish1975 linked in the OP).

The authors mostly seemed interested in the way the symbols, or just generally the artwork, employed by the early Christians was also found in the larger Hellenistic/Roman culture around them and frequently preceded Christian usage. The reasons that this would suggest that the circle surrounding the Flavian emperors created the Christ cult were not really the focus of the episode, but the topic was occasionally addressed. I gathered the following:

1) They emphasized the passages in Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius that applied Jewish messianic prophecy to Vespasian and theorized that this must have been deliberately encouraged Flavian propaganda. I think this is correct, but it does not establish a link to the *Jesus* cult - it helped Vespasian's imperial ambitions by suggesting he had the favor of God/the gods.

2) The main argument seemed to be Cui Bono - who benefitted from Christianity? They suggested that Christianity first became prominent between the two Jewish Wars and suggested the Flavian emperors (by no clearly articulated method) had invented it to quell the rebellious Jews by converting them to the Christian religion which was more at home within Roman society. They found it suspicious that Christianity became publicly know and flourished between the two Jewish Wars.

I had a few problems with this thesis:

1) The type of Christianity which became prominent and flourished between the two Jewish Wars was Pauline or Gentile Christianity, which involved the conversion of pagans within the Roman empire to Christianity, as well as some Hellenistic (non-Palestinian) Jews, not Palestinian Jews.

2) Most Jews within the Roman empire did not rebel against Rome, but were relatively at home within the empire. The exception were the Palestinian Jews in Judea (as well as a smaller rebellion in Alexandria). Christianity did not really take off among Palestinian Jews. In fact, Palestinian Jewish Christianity seems to have been (or our sources portray it as) more prominent before the Jewish War, and a remnant surviving between the two wars, not as something that began in the Flavian period and grew. It was rabbinic Judaism, not Christianity, that became the religion of Palestinian Jews.

3) It is true that the New Testament (with the very notable exception of Revelation), and especially Acts, portrays Christianity as compatible with the Roman empire. But that may be because the converts were made largely from people already living in and at home in the Roman empire and Roman culture. Why should we think the impetus for this came from the Flavian emperors?

4) Similarly, I think it's reasonable to suppose that the rabbinic Judaism that grew up among Palestinian Jews (I accept for the most part the theory that it is descended from Pharisaism) was probably influenced by the loss of two wars with Rome and the perception that further hostilities with Rome might result in their eradication.

It's difficult to see how the execution of Flavia Domitilla supports the theory that the Flavian emperors invented Christianity, nor how the persecution of Christians (however exaggerated, and whether or not Domitian was especially responsible) between the Jewish Wars, while at the same time Jews within the empire were not persecuted, supports the thesis either. There was, to be sure, war with the Palestinian Jews who were in rebellion, but Jews living elsewhere in the empire were not officially persecuted and seemed to enjoy an immunity from participation in pagan cults.

The authors also made a point that Titus was the first emperor to use the anchor and dolphins symbol which had been around since Alexander and which the Christians also used. It is difficult to see how that shows much of anything.

Best,

Ken

Ken Olson wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 1:32 pm The authors also made a point that Titus was the first emperor to use the anchor and dolphins symbol which had been around since Alexander and which the Christians also used. It is difficult to see how that shows much of anything.

There are many problems with the V&F case but what drew my particular attention was the repeated suggestions in the first half of the book that we have archaeological evidence for Christians embracing an imperial propaganda symbol "at the time of" the Flavian emperors or immediately following their time. The claim is not made unambiguously but it is often repeated. The rhetorical point is clear: Why would Christians "at that time" adopt the symbol of the Flavians? The first two Flavians, it is stressed, presented themselves as divine healers and peacemakers and as the Jewish messiah of prophecy. And here we have, "at this time", the Christians embracing the Flavian symbol of the anchor and dolphin. (The dolphin or fish could be interpreted as either a sign of the healer god Apollo or as Christ or Christians.)

I have been trying to determine the exact nature and chronology of the earliest evidence for a purportedly Christian use of the anchor/fish image. Is it really fair to suggest that it was used by Christians "at the time of" or soon after the Flavian "messiah of the Jews" and healer and peacemakers?

Later in the book V&F explain more clearly that there is a gap between the Flavian emperors and the first appearance of the Christian image. The image fell into disuse (for most part) with Domitian and was briefly used again by Hadrian.

All comments on the image in the catacomb of Domitilla that I have read so far (only general description, not detailed analysis) is that it comes from the later part of the second century, at the earliest.

This would make its appearance 100 years after the Flavians!

Pending further information I think it is difficult for V&F to link Christian use of the image (if indeed the Domitilla catacomb image is Christian) with any sense of devotion to the Flavians.

. . .

That has been my focus. Meanwhile, on some other details of V&F's thesis:

Further, V&F repeat some of the old speculations that certain names found among the Flavian family are best identified with early Christians, but I see no grounds for any such identification.

What I found especially problematic was V&F's claim that Jews were a general problem for the peace throughout the empire. Much evidence points in another direction. And then, the one clear example of a religious synthesis to cement peace between peoples, the worship of Serapis, is described in enough detail to raise many questions of difference from what V&F were proposing for Christianity being an attempt to synthesize Jewish messianic views with Roman values. At the end of the day, if that was the purpose behind the "invention" of Christianity, then it failed dismally given that it failed to stop another war with Jews in Palestine in the second century (or any of the rebellions preceding that) and ended up presenting itself as a displacement of the Jews who were cast out as undeserving of God's blessings. It was not a well-thought-out plan to Romanize the Jewish religion if that's what it was supposed to be.

I should add that V&F make it clear that it is the archaeological evidence (the anchor and dolphin/fish image of Christians matching the same on Flavian coins) that they say clinches their case for a Flavian sponsorship or fabrication of Christianity.

Ken and Neil, you make a number of good points. V & F make a loose and circumstantial argument, with a lot of holes. Their argument for when/how/why/by whom the NT was composed is particularly lacking. They make a lot of leaps, e.g. from the claim in Josephus that the Romans captured the Jewish scriptures and deposited them in the temple of Jupiter (I can't remember exactly how he words this), to the idea that Josephus must have used them to compose the Gospels!

The common use of the dolphin and anchor motif by Seleucus and Titus is interesting as far as it goes, but I know little about the archeology of Christian Rome. V&F cite Clement of Alexandria as the first Christian author to make a connection with fish/anchor imagery:

And let our seals be either a dove, or a fish, or a ship scudding before the wind, or a musical lyre, which Polycrates used, or a ship's anchor, which Seleucus got engraved as a device...
Christ the Instructor, 21

Which is very late and signifies nothing about the Flavian period.

Still, it is an open and important question, not generally addressed in conventional scholarship, why the NT is so Rome-friendly. Romans 13:1-6 goes far beyond the pastoral idea that Christians should "live quietly and mind their own affairs" (1 Thess) and be well-behaved in society. But if we date Romans 13 and the NT generally to the time of Justin, i.e. a time when Christians were anxiously seeking toleration by the emperors, perhaps it is easier to explain.

Also: who was Clement? Why was he so popular in early Roman Christianity, and so closely associated with both Peter and Paul (Philippians)?

Revisionists like V&F cast a strange light on these questions, but there's too much darkness.