ÿþ<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Suetonius on the Christians as a Church Industry Forgery</TITLE> <META Name="Origin of Christianity" Content=""> <META Name="keywords" Content=""> </HEAD> <BODY BACKGROUND="http://www.mountainman.com.au/GIF/beige.gif"> <CENTER><TABLE BORDER=5 cellpadding=5 cellspacing=10><TR><TH COLSPAN=2> <IMG ALIGN=bottom SRC="http://www.mountainman.com.au/GIF/mmg_logo.gif" ALT= LogoforMountainManGraphics,Australia></TH> <tr><th><a href="index.htm"><IMG ALIGN=center SRC="http://www.mountainman.com.au/GIF/sunlight.gif" ALT=SunLight><th> <h1>Suetonius 122 CE <tr><th colspan=2><h3>Tetrarchy of Church Forgeries <a href="author_Pliny_Trajan.htm">Pliny</a> | <a href="author_Pliny_Trajan.htm">Trajan</a> | <a href="author_Tacitus.htm">Tacitus</a> | Suetonius | <a href="imperial persecution of christians.htm">Persecutions?</a> <tr><th colspan=2><h5>Web Publication by <A HREF="http://www.mountainman.com.au/welcome.html">Mountain Man Graphics, Australia</A> <tr><td ALIGN=CENTER colspan=2><IMG ALIGN=middle SRC="http://www.mountainman.com.au/GIF/sunonsea.gif" ALT=An_Evolving_Project></td> </TABLE></center> <center> How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? ~ Sherlock Holmes </center> <TABLE align="left" BORDER=5 colspan=2 cellpadding=5 cellspacing=10> <TR><TH bgcolor = "#CCCCCC"> <img src="Tetrarchy of Church Forgeries.jpg" border="0" height="300" width="200"> 111 CE Pliny "Letter" 111 CE Trajan "Letter" 115 CE Tacitus "Annals" 122 CE Suetonius "Lives" <td><h1>Tetrarchy of Church Forgeries</h1> The term "tetrarchy" (from the Greek ÄµÄÁ±ÁÇ¯± "leadership of four [people]") describes any form of government where power is divided among four individuals. The earliest and most prestigeous references to the the persecution of "Early Christians" by Roman Emperors are divided among the manuscripts attrubuted to these four individual authors. This tetrarchy of authors bind together strongly and support each other in their testimony of Christian persecution in the rule of the Roman Emperor Nero. Collectively this "leadership of four" sources represents a tetrarchy of government directly related to authenticity of historical events in Rome in the later 1st century of the common era. One of the core principles for determining reliability using the historical method is that "If a number of independent sources contain the same message, the credibility of the message is strongly increased". As a result the references to the Christians in this tetrarchy of Roman writers is generally accepted as authentic. With only a few exceptions, the consensus of opinion among modern historians is that the persecution of Christians under Nero is an actual historical event. This may be stated in another form: the hypothesis that Nero persecuted the Christians, is generally accepted as being true. However in this article, the exceptions to this consensus are gathered, and the counter-arguments to authenticity are outlined in their basic form. Another of the core principles for determining reliability using the historical method is that "Any given source may be forged or corrupted. Strong indications of the originality of the source increase its reliability." Many of the academics who have argued against the authenticity of some or all of these references have done so on the basis that they suspect them of being forged, or corrupted in some manner. Many of the manuscripts containing these references were "suddenly and unexpectedly discovered" in the manuscript archives of the church, which will here not be treated as a "Divine Institute" but rather as a "Church Organisation" or "Church [Belief] Industry", and associated with political, financial and business agendas. The manuscripts of four individual Roman authors - Pliny, Trajan, Tacitus and Suetonius - have not certainly not been "miraculously and immaculately transmitted from antiquity. It needs to be stated quite clearly that history has demonstrated that the church organisation slash industries (and their CEO's) have perpetuated themselves (business as usual) from antiquity by means of .... atrocities, exiles, tortures, executions, inquisitions, book burning and prohibition of books, censorship, and (one of the most vital instruments of deceit) literary forgery. Accordingly it needs to be stressed that the organisation that was responsible for the "miraculous and immaculate transmission of the these manuscripts from antiquity was itself utterly corrupt, at least from the 4th century when it became a political instrument of the Roman Emperor Constantine. It will be argued that this literary evidence currently attributed to this tetrarchy of Roman authors was probably forged by the church organisation during the Middle Ages, and that, as a result, the hypothesis that Nero persecuted the Christians is probably false. </table> <a name="index">* <ul> <h1>Timeline</h1> Ancient Sources____________________________________ <a href="#1">122</a> - Suetonius, "Lives of the Twelve Caesars", Nero, 16: ("Punishment was inflicted on the Christians") <a href="#2">122</a> - Suetonius, "Divus Claudius" 25: ("Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus") <a href="#3">192</a> - Tertullian, "Apology" 5: <a href="#4">324</a> - Eusebius of Caesarea, "Historia Ecclesiastica" 2.25 <a href="#5">325</a> - Lactantius, "On the Manner in which the Persecutors Died"", Chapter 2 <a href="#6">4th</a> - Seneca to Paul, Letter 12: "Dear Paul, How goeth the church industry? Your good buddy, Seneca" <a href="#7">403</a> - Sulpicius Severus, "Chronicle" 2.29.1-4a: "phrases and even sentences from many classical authors are inwoven here and there" <a href="#8">417</a> - Paulus Orosius, "Historiae Adversus Paganos" 7.6.15-16</a> Middle Age Sources____________________________________ 0820 - Earliest Suetonius manuscript (Paris, BnF lat 6115) from north-central Carolingian France <a href="#101">1590</a> - Inscription by the Senate and People of Paris attests to the sentence about Christians. (Boman, 2012) Modern Sources____________________________________ <a href="#1001">2012</a> - "Chrestus or Christus"? ... B. Jobjorn Boman, Inpulsore Cherestro? Suetonius Divus Claudius 25.4 in Sources and Manuscripts, Liber Annuus 61 <a href="#1002">2015</a> - Robert A. Kaster, "The Transmission of Suetonius s Caesars in the Middle Ages" <a href="#LINKS">Links</a> - Further references </ul> </ul></ul></ul><a name="1"><h6><a href="#index">[index]</a><hr>Ancient Source</h6><ul> 1.2 <a href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Nero*.html">Suetonius, Lives, Nero, 16</a>: <ul>16. He devised a new form for the buildings of the city and in front of the houses and apartments he erected porches, from the flat roofs of which fires could be fought; and these he put up at his own cost. He had also planned to extend the walls as far as Ostia and to bring the sea from there to Rome by a canal. During his reign many abuses were severely punished and put down, and no fewer new laws were made: a limit was set to expenditures; the public banquets were confined to a distribution of food; the sale of any kind of cooked viands in the taverns was forbidden, with the exception of pulse and vegetables, whereas before every sort of dainty was exposed for sale. Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition. He put an end to the diversions of the chariot drivers, who from immunity of long standing claimed the right of ranging at large and amusing themselves by cheating and robbing the people. The pantomimic actors and their partisans were banished from the city. </ul> </ul></ul></ul><a name="2"><h6><a href="#index">[index]</a><hr>Ancient Source</h6><ul> 1.2 <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_the_Twelve_Caesars/Claudius#25">Suetonius, Divus Claudius 25</a> <ul> "From Rome he (Claudius) expelled the perpetually tumultuating Jews prompted by Chrestus." [Boman (2012)] "Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus,[74] he expelled them from Rome." [J. C. Rolfe] [74] Another form of Christus; see Tert. Apol. 3 (at the end). It is uncertain whether Suetonius is guilty of an error in chronology or is referring to some Jew of that name. The former seems probable because of the absence of quodam. Tac. Ann. 15.44, uses the correct form, Christus, and states that He was executed in the reign of Tiberius. </ul></ul></ul><a name="3"><h6><a href="#index">[index]</a><hr>Ancient Source</h6><ul> 1.3 <a href="http://www.tertullian.org/articles/bindley_apol/bindley_apol.htm">Tertullian, Apology 5</a>: <ul> Now, to consider somewhat concerning the origin of laws of this kind. There was an old decree 11 that no god should be consecrated by the emperor without the approval of the senate. Marcus Aemilius is a witness of this in the case of his god Alburnus. And this makes in our favour, that amongst you divinity is weighed out at human caprice. Unless a god shall have pleased man, he shall not be a god; man must now be propitious to a god. Tiberius, then, in whose time the Christian name entered into the world, laid before the senate 12 tidings from Palestine which had revealed to him the truth of that Divine Power there manifested, and supported the motion with his own first vote. The senate, because it did not itself approve, rejected the proposal. Caesar maintained his own opinion, and threatened danger to those who accused the Christians. Consult your own records : there you will find that Nero was the first to furiously attack with the imperial sword this sect then rising into notice especially at Rome 13. But in such an originator of our condemnation we |18 indeed glory. For whoever knows him can understand that nothing but what was sublimely good was condemned by Nero. Domitian also, somewhat of a Nero in cruelty, attempted the same, but inasmuch as he had some human feelings, he soon stopped the proceedings, and those whom he had banished were recalled 14. Such have ever been our persecutors, the unjust, the impious, the base, whom you yourselves have been accustomed to condemn, and to restore those condemned by them. </ul> </ul></ul></ul><a name="4"><h6><a href="#index">[index]</a><hr>Ancient Source</h6><ul> 1.4 <a href="http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.iii.vii.xxvi.html">Eusebius of Caesarea, Historia Ecclesiastica</a> 2.25: <ul>The Persecution under Nero in which Paul and Peter were honored at Rome with Martyrdom in Behalf of Religion.: When the government of Nero was now firmly established, he began to plunge into unholy pursuits, and armed himself even against the religion of the God of the universe. To describe the greatness of his depravity does not lie within the plan of the present work. As there are many indeed that have recorded his history in most accurate narratives, every one may at his pleasure learn from them the coarseness of the man s extraordinary madness, under the influence of which, after he had accomplished the destruction of so many myriads without any reason, he ran into such blood-guiltiness that he did not spare even his nearest relatives and dearest friends, but destroyed his mother and his brothers and his wife, with very many others of his own family as he would private and public enemies, with various kinds of deaths. But with all these things this particular in the catalogue of his crimes was still wanting, that he was the first of the emperors who showed himself an enemy of the divine religion. The Roman Tertullian is likewise a witness of this. He writes [Tertullian, Apol. V.] as follows: <ul> Examine your records. There you will find that Nero was the first that persecuted this doctrine, particularly then when after subduing all the east, he exercised his cruelty against all at Rome. We glory in having such a man the leader in our punishment. For whoever knows him can understand that nothing was condemned by Nero unless it was something of great excellence. </ul> Thus publicly announcing himself as the first among God s chief enemies, he was led on to the slaughter of the apostles. It is, therefore, recorded that Paul was beheaded in Rome itself, and that Peter likewise was crucified under Nero. This account of Peter and Paul is substantiated by the fact that their names are preserved in the cemeteries of that place even to the present day. It is confirmed likewise by Caius, a member of the Church, who arose under Zephyrinus, bishop of Rome. He, in a published disputation with Proclus, the leader of the Phrygian heresy, speaks as follows concerning the places where the sacred corpses of the aforesaid apostles are laid: But I can show the trophies of the apostles. For if you will go to the Vatican or to the Ostian way, you will find the trophies of those who laid the foundations of this church. And that they both suffered martyrdom at the same time is stated by Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, in his epistle to the Romans, in the following words: You have thus by such an admonition bound together the planting of Peter and of Paul at Rome and Corinth. For both of them planted and likewise taught us in our Corinth. And they taught together in like manner in Italy, and suffered martyrdom at the same time. I have quoted these things in order that the truth of the history might be still more confirmed. </ul> </ul></ul></ul><a name="5"><h6><a href="#index">[index]</a><hr>Ancient Source</h6><ul> 1.5 <a href="http://people.ucalgary.ca/~vandersp/Courses/texts/lactant/lactpers.html">Lactantius</a> "On the Manner in which the Persecutors Died", Chapter 2: <ul> In the latter days of the Emperor Tiberius, in the consulship of Ruberius Geminus and Fufius Geminus, and on the tenth of the kalends of April, as I find it written, Jesus Christ was crucified by the Jews. After He bad risen again on the third day, He gathered together His apostles, whom fear, at the time of His being laid hold on, had put to flight; and while He sojourned with them forty days, He opened their hearts, interpreted to them the Scripture, which hitherto had been wrapped up in obscurity, ordained and fitted them for the preaching of His word and doctrine, and regulated all things concerning the institutions of the New Testament; and this having been accomplished, a cloud and whirlwind enveloped Him, and caught Him up from the sight of men unto heaven. His apostles were at that time eleven in number, to whom were added Matthias, in the room of the traitor Judas, and afterwards Paul. Then were they dispersed throughout all the earth to preach the Gospel, as the Lord their Master had commanded them; and during twenty-five years, and until the beginning of the reign of the Emperor Nero, they occupied themselves in laying the foundations of the Church in every province and city. And while Nero reigned, the Apostle Peter came to Rome, and, through the power of God committed unto him, wrought certain miracles, and, by turning many to the true religion, built up a faithful and stedfast temple unto the Lord. When Nero heard of those things, and observed that not only in Rome, but in every other place, a great multitude revolted daily from the worship of idols, and, condemning their old ways, went over to the new religion, he, an execrable and pernicious tyrant, sprung forward to raze the heavenly temple and destroy the true faith. He it was who first persecuted the servants of God; he crucified Peter, and slew Paul: nor did he escape with impunity; for God looked on the affliction of His people; and therefore the tyrant, bereaved of authority, and precipitated from the height of empire, suddenly disappeared, and even the burial-place of that noxious wild beast was nowhere to be seen. This has led some persons of extravagant imagination to suppose that, having been conveyed to a distant region, he is still reserved alive; and to him they apply the Sibylline verses concerning The fugitive, who slew his own mother, being to come from the uttermostboundaries of the earth; as if he who was the first should also be the last persecutor, and thus prove the forerunner of Antichrist! But we ought not to believe those who, affirming that the two prophets Enoch and Elias have been translated into some remote place that they might attend our Lord when He shall come to judgment, also fancy that Nero is to appear hereafter as the forerunner of the devil, when he shall come to lay waste the earth and overthrow mankind. </ul> </ul></ul></ul><a name="6"><h6><a href="#index">[index]</a><hr>Ancient Source</h6><ul> 1.6 <a href="http://wesley.nnu.edu/sermons-essays-books/noncanonical-literature/noncanonical-literature-writings/the-correspondence-of-paul-and-seneca/">Seneca to Paul; Letter 12</a>:<ul> 12. SENECA TO PAUL, greeting. Hail, my dearest Paul. Think you that I am not in sadness and grief, that your innocent people are so often condemned to suffer And next, that the whole people thinks you so callous and so prone to crime, that you are supposed to be the authors of every misfortune in the city Yet let us bear it patiently and content ourselves with what fortune brings, until supreme happiness puts an end to our troubles. Former ages had to bear the Macedonian, Philip's son, and, after Darius, Dionysius, and our own times endured Gaius Caesar: to all of whom their will was law. The source of the many fires which Rome suffers plain. But if humble men could speak out what the reason is, and if it were possible to speak without risk in this dark time, all would be plain to all. Christians and Jews are commonly executed as contrivers of the fire. Whoever the criminal is whose pleasure is that of a butcher, and who veils himself with a lie, he is reserved for his due season: and as the best of men is sacrificed, the one for the many, so he, vowed to death for all, will be burned with fire. A hundred and thirty-two houses and four blocks have been burnt in six days, the seventh brought a pause. I pray you may be well, brother. Given the 5th of the kalends of April; Frugi and Bassus consuls (64). </ul> </ul></ul></ul><a name="7"><h6><a href="#index">[index]</a><hr>Ancient Source</h6><ul> 1.7 <a href="http://www.textexcavation.com/tacitustestimonium.html">Sulpicius Severus, Chronicle 2.29.1-4a</a>: <ul> 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. But the opinion of all cast the odium of causing the fire upon the emperor, and the emperor was believed in this way to have sought for the glory of building a new city. And in fact, Nero could not by any means that he tried escape from the charge that the fire had been caused by his orders. He therefore turned the accusation against the Christians, and the most cruel tortures were accordingly inflicted upon the innocent. Nay, even new kinds of death were invented, so that, being covered in the skins of wild beasts, they perished by being devoured by dogs, while many were crucified or slain by fire, and not a few were set apart for this purpose, that, when the day came to a close, they should be consumed to serve for light during the night. It was in this way that cruelty first began to be manifested against the Christians. Afterward, too, their religion was prohibited by laws which were given, and by edicts openly set forth it was proclaimed unlawful to be a Christian. At that time Paul and Peter were condemned to capital punishment, of whom the one was beheaded with a sword, while Peter suffered crucifixion.</ul> </ul></ul></ul><a name="8"><h6><a href="#index">[index]</a><hr>Ancient Source</h6><ul> 1.8 <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/demontortoise2000/orosius_book7">Paulus Orosius, Historiae Adversus Paganos, 7.6.15-16</a> <ul> In the ninth year of his reign, Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome. Both Josephus and Suetonius record this event, but I prefer, however, the account of the latter, who speaks as follows: "Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome because in their resentment against Christ they were continually creating disturbances." As a matter of fact, however, no one can say whether the emperor ordered the Jews to be restrained and repressed because they were creating disturbances against Christ or whether he wished the Christians to be expelled at the same time on the ground that they were members of an allied religion. </ul></ul></ul><a name="101"><h6><a href="#index">[index]</a><hr>Middle Age Source</h6><ul> Apart from the manuscripts and printed editions of Suetonius' Lives, the sentence about Christians is first attested in an inscription by the Senate and People of Paris from 1590. J. Boman, Comments on Carrier: Is Thallus Actually Quoted by Eusebius?, Liber Annuus 62 (2012), ISSN 0081-8933, Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, Jerusalem 2013, pp. 324-325, n. 26 </ul></ul></ul><a name="1001"><h6><a href="#index">[index]</a><hr>Modern Source</h6><ul> <a href="http://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/abs/10.1484/J.LA.5.100355">J. Boman, Inpulsore Cherestro? Suetonius Divus Claudius 25.4 in Sources and Manuscripts</a> <ul>Abstract The passage Divus Claudius 25.4 in Suetonius Life of the Twelve Caesars is about the emperor Claudius expelling from Rome the perpetually tumultuous Jews , impulsore Chresto . Since the 5th century, it has been interpreted as a reference to early Christianity or to the historical Jesus. The fifth century historian Orosius quotes Suetonius sentence as reading inpulsore Christo , and other readings of the latter word (like Cherestro) are evident in earlier scholarship. In the article, the medieval sources and relevant manuscripts containing the Suetonian sentence are presented and examined. The conclusion is that the reading Christo (or rather xpo) likely is of Christian origin, and that other readings (Cherestro, Chrestro, etc.) most probably are scribal errors. The most trustworthy reading, which most likely was Suetonius original spelling, is Chresto. Summary (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suetonius_on_Christians">WIKI</a>): Boman (2012) states that there are many different spellings of this word in the manuscripts he examined, namely "Chresto, Cherestro, Cresto, Chrestro, Cheresto, Christo, xpo, xpisto, and Cristo". The readings Chestro and Chirestro, mentioned by earlier scholars, "might indeed be only scholarly misspellings" he writes. He concludes that "the majority of the 41 manuscripts collected [by him], including a vast majority of the oldest and most trustworthy manuscripts from the 9th to the 13th century, belonging to both [manuscript] families read Chresto" and that "it is incorrect to claim that only one manuscript contains this reading (Torrentius), that Chresto is only an occasional reading (Botermann) or that no copyist ever wrote Christo (Van Voorst)", "that Cherestro, and other similar spellings, in all likelihood are at best mere scribal or scholarly conjectures, but rather pure scribal errors which have been incautiously transmitted" and that "Christ-spellings in the MSS most likely are the conjectures by Christian scribes or scholars"; see J. Boman, Inpulsore Cherestro? Suetonius Divus Claudius 25.4 in Sources and Manuscripts, Liber Annuus 61 (2011), ISSN 0081-8933, Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, Jerusalem 2012, p. 375 f </ul> </ul></ul></ul><a name="1002"><h6><a href="#index">[index]</a><hr>Modern Source</h6><ul> <ul> <IMG align="left" SRC="Suetonius MSS.jpg" ALT= "Suetonius_Out_of_Corbie_Abbey_9th_century?" border="1" height="790" width="388"> Introduction to the Diagram (Left) The diagram to the left has two sections divided by a red line. In the upper section an arrow is shown with a question mark representing the transmission of Suetonius's Caesars from the 2nd century to the late 8th or early 9th century. In the lower section a copy of Figure 3, from page 170 of the following article has been appended. We learn from this following article that sole archetype for all extant manuscripts of Suetonius' Caesars emerged in north-central France. The idea which is to be conveyed by the top section of this diagram is that this singular archetypal manuscript seems to have appeared very close in space and time to that in which the 9th century Carolingian north-central France church organisation (Latin) forgery mill known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-Isidorian_Decretals">Pseudo-Isidore</a> was in operation out of Corbie Abbey. The following article deals with the transmission of this archetype through subsequent centuries: The Transmission of Suetonius s Caesars in the Middle Ages Robert A. Kaster; Transactions of the American Philological Association, Volume 144, Number 1, Spring 2014, pp. 133-186 <ul> "That we know as much as we do about the first century of the principate is due in no small part to Suetonius s Caesars (De vita Caesarum); that we know the Caesars at all is due entirely to the survival of one book that emerged in north-central France, late in the 8th century or very early in the 9th, to serve as the archetype of all the extant manuscripts. In view of what we owe that book it seems ungracious to stress that its text was of undistinguished quality at best, marred by many gross defects that it passed along to all its descendants: not only was the beginning of the work missing, including an authorial preface and a substantial segment of Julius Caesar s biography, but the standard edition by Maximilian Ihm by marking certain passages as irremediably corrupt and incorporating in other passages corrections made by medieval, humanist, and modern readers also implies that the archetype was defective in nearly 500 other places. [1] The great chain of copying that began with this book ultimately produced hundreds of descendants, more than 200 of which still survive in the libraries of Europe and North America, all but nineteen dating to the 14th century and later. Though these later books, which contain some good conjectural emendations of the archetype s errors, have yet to be studied thoroughly, it is highly unlikely that they could contribute anything to this essay s main purpose: identifying the manuscripts most useful for reconstructing the archetype. [2] p.159 iii: contamination I have referred often to contamination in the foregoing discussions, and now it is time to try to gauge its reach more precisely, to the extent that the means available allow and that last qualifying phrase is worth dwelling on, because it reminds us to reflect on how much we do not know. From the 9th through the 12th century there were certainly more copies of the Caesars circulating in northern Europe than we now have, and probably many more than we can even guess, and as manuscripts were compared with each other for the purpose of correction some of them surely left their mark on the tradition in ways we cannot now see, just as the mass and energy of dark matter work imperceptibly to structure our visible universe. We should not fool ourselves into thinking we can achieve anything like a complete accounting. For the most part, then, I will proceed with a fairly broad brush, examining first the ways in which contamination affected whole families of manuscripts, and concluding with a few individual manuscripts that allow for greater precision. The emphasis will naturally fall, again, on shared errors, for as anyone familiar with the ways of manuscripts knows, correctors did not only correct, they also introduced errors sometimes even absurd errors with abandon: while a correction properly so called might in principle come from more than one corner of the tradition, errors will more securely allow us to home in on the contamination s source. </ul> </ul> </ul></ul></ul><a name="LINKS"><h6><a href="#index">[index]</a><hr>Modern Source</h6><ul> <h2>LINKS</h2> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suetonius_on_Christians">WIKI: Suetonius on Christians</a> <ul>The Claudius Reference to "Chrestus": <ul> A statement in Divus Claudius 25 involves the agitations in the Roman Jewish community which led to the expulsion of Jews from Rome by Claudius in AD 49, and may be the same event mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (18:2).[4] Scholars are divided on the value of this reference in the biography of Claudius. Some scholars see it as a likely reference to Jesus, while others see it as referring to an otherwise unknown person living in Rome.[5][6][7] Louis Feldman states that most scholars assume that in the reference Jesus is meant and that the disturbances mentioned were due to the spread of Christianity in Rome.[8] Historians debate whether or not the Roman government distinguished between Christians and Jews prior to Nerva's modification of the Fiscus Judaicus in AD 96. From then on, practising Jews paid the tax, Christians did not. The dating of the "edict of Claudius" for the expulsion of Jews relies on three separate texts beyond Suetonius' own reference, which in chronological order are: Cassius Dio's reference in History 60.6.6-7, Paulus Orosius's fifth century mention in History 7.6.15-16 of a non-extant Josephus reference and the reference to the trial of Apostle Paul by Gallio in the Acts of the Apostles (18:2).[39] Scholars generally agree that these references refer to the same event.[40] Most scholars agree that the expulsion of some Jews mentioned by Suetonius happened around AD 49-50, but a minority of scholars suggest dates within a few years of that range. </ul> The Nero Reference to "Christians" or more likely, "Chrestians": <ul> The Nero 16 passage refers to a series of rulings by Nero for public order, one of which being the punishment of Christians.[9] These punishments are generally dated to around AD 64,[10] the year of the Great Fire of Rome. In this passage Suetonius describes Christianity as a superstition (superstitio) as do his contemporaries, Tacitus and Pliny.[2] The passage shows the clear contempt of Suetonius for Christians - the same contempt expressed by Tacitus and Pliny the younger in their writings.[2] Stephen Benko states that the contempt of Suetonius is quite clear, as he reduces Christians to the lowest ranks of society and his statement echoes the sentiments of Pliny and Tacitus.[49] The punishment of Christians by Nero are generally dated to around AD 64.[10] Unlike Tacitus' reference to the persecution of Christians by Nero, Suetonius does not relate the persecution to the Great Fire of Rome. Church father Tertullian wrote: "We read the lives of the Cæsars: At Rome Nero was the first who stained with blood the rising faith."[50] Mary Ellen Snodgrass notes that Tertullian in this passage "used Suetonius as a source by quoting Lives of the Caesars as proof that Nero was the first Roman emperor to murder Christians", but cites not a specific passage in Suetonius' Lives as Tertullian's source.[51] Other authors explicitly add that Tertullian's words are a reference to the passage in Suetonius' Nero 16,[52] while others hold that they refer to the Tacitus passage,[53] or both passages.[54] </ul> </ul> <a href="https://rogerviklund.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/suetonius-most-probably-wrote-chrestus-and-not-christus/">Suetonius most probably wrote Chrestus and not Christus</a> - Roger Viklund (2012) <ul> Boman has also made a survey of all the important and at the same time early, Christian references to this passage in Suetonius. The most important of these are the one from the Christian theologian Paulus Orosius writing in the early fifth century. He then wrote: <ul> Claudius Iudaeos inpulsore Christo adsidue tumultuantes Roma expulit. </ul> In Orosius the name Chresto is replaced by Christo. This has led many to claim that Orosius has preserved the original reading, which then should have been Christo. But Boman goes against this idea by noticing that Orosius is not quoting Suetonius. He includes the name Claudius, which Suetonius does not supply, and Boman also refers to other minor discrepancies between Suetonius and Orosius . He says that in every one of the Orosian manuscript he has checked, the name is abbreviated into xpo or the like by using nomina sacra. This means that irrespective of the name being Chresto or Christo, it is just spelled CH-R-O. So we do not know if Orosius actually wrote Christus, as occasionally also the name Chrestus is abbreviated. Orosius for sure interpreted the Suetonian sentenced as if it referred to Christ, but this does not mean that it also read Christo. In fact, since he saw this as a reference to Christ, it is quite likely the later copyists of Orosius changed the quotation to read Christo (or more exactly X-P-O). After this many, including Bede, quotes the Suetonian phrase as if it is about Christ. Nevertheless, most often they rely on Orosius interpretation of Suetonius and not on Suetonius himself. </ul> </ul> <center> <IMG SRC="http://www.mountainman.com.au/GIF/treeline.gif" ALT= Tree_Line> <a href="index.htm">Index</a> | <a href="author_tacitus.htm">Tacitus</a> | <a href="author_Pliny_Trajan.htm">Pliny-Trajan</a> | <a href="imperial persecution of christians.htm">Persecutions?</a> | <a href="Arnaldo Momigliano.htm">Momigliano</a> | <a href="http://www.mountainman.com.au">Mountain Man dot com</a> </center> </body> <html>