Tacitus: The Annals 15:44 (re: Christ and Christianity)

[°Leprechaun]

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Annals_(Tacitus)/Book_15#44

I was unaware of this until today. This paragraph describes how The Empire under Nero
treated Christians (pretty gruesome). Nevertheless, Tacitus doesn't like Christianity as is plain in the link.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     It's an interesting passage, and one that is pretty deadly to Jesus mythicism. Mythicists will try to claim that accounts of His existence are Christian propaganda, but as you note Tacitus is by no means a Christian or sympathetic to Christianity. What's more, as a Roman Senator it is unlikely he would have relied on Christian hearsay to inform that statement, considering that he had access to official archives and would have been able to verify the claim that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate using imperial sources.

[°Leprechaun]

The history of the Roman Empire is a brutal one.
I have often wondered what kind of person would want to be emperor when there was the very real possibility of being assassinated by someone else who wanted the job.
It reminds me of the "evil universe" on Star Trek:TOS.

It took a long time before polytheistic paganism was replaced by Christianity. The choice was not always binary. St. Augustine was a believer in the so called "Manichean* heresy" before converting to the Christianity of his time.
* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism

Rather than double posting I am going to add to this one...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth_theory

It is interesting to me that one of the proponents of this theory was Thomas Paine.

There are still some today who are defending this theory.

Of course, Paine was a significant figure in history.

This topic might be an interesting choice for a PHD dissertation.

Second edit: Also Tacitus had a lot more to say about Judaism than about Christianity, if anyone is interested in that.

[Georg Ebner]

    It's an interesting passage, and one that is pretty deadly to Jesus mythicism. Mythicists will try to claim that accounts of His existence are Christian propaganda, but as you note Tacitus is by no means a Christian or sympathetic to Christianity. What's more, as a Roman Senator it is unlikely he would have relied on Christian hearsay to inform that statement, considering that he had access to official archives and would have been able to verify the claim that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate using imperial sources.

In the last centuries we have had on the one hand those like E.RENAN, who have written (or painted, composed, filmed) heart-breakingly the thoughts&emotions of Jesus; and on the other hand those a la D.F.STRAUSS, A.DREWS, P.-L.COUCHOUD, who proclaimed CHRIST to be a myth - guess, on which side i stand!
The latter's point was shortened by the sensationalist public to denying HIS physical existence - but per se they meant something very different: That insofar as HE was GOD we cannot use anaLogies from us to HIM. (Thus the Evangelia are amusingly also prime examples of positivism&behaviorism: reporting only, what HE did&said without drawing any conclusions on HIS internal life.) Once we should really try to begin to learn, what the Jews were taught by the prophets before HIS appearance: that there is no way from man to GOD.
HE fulfilled the linear idea of Judaism - and as such HE was a historical fact; but also the cyclic concept of paganism - and as such HE is an eternal myth.

[The Mikado]

     It's an interesting passage, and one that is pretty deadly to Jesus mythicism. Mythicists will try to claim that accounts of His existence are Christian propaganda, but as you note Tacitus is by no means a Christian or sympathetic to Christianity. What's more, as a Roman Senator it is unlikely he would have relied on Christian hearsay to inform that statement, considering that he had access to official archives and would have been able to verify the claim that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate using imperial sources.

I am certainly not a Jesus mythicist and absolutely agree Jesus existed, but I think this passage is weak evidence. It's evidence that CHRISTIANS existed and that Tacitus knew they thought a crucified Jew named Jesus was the Resurrected Son of God. And we know Christians existed ~100-120ish. And Tacitus is strong evidence that they were in fact known in Nero's day in the 60s CE (Nero is supposed to have had both Sts Peter and Paul put to death, after all) and that early Christian stories about that aren't totally fabricated either. But "Christians worship a crucified Jew named Jesus as the Son of the Jewish God" is something you can know about Christians without knowing that Jesus existed. Just like I know L. Ron Hubbard claimed that millions of Thetans were pushed into a volcano on Earth by the galactic tyrant Xenu but I have no idea if Xenu existed or not (I'm lying, I have a very strong idea that he didn't).

[Associate Justice PiT]

     It's an interesting passage, and one that is pretty deadly to Jesus mythicism. Mythicists will try to claim that accounts of His existence are Christian propaganda, but as you note Tacitus is by no means a Christian or sympathetic to Christianity. What's more, as a Roman Senator it is unlikely he would have relied on Christian hearsay to inform that statement, considering that he had access to official archives and would have been able to verify the claim that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate using imperial sources.

I am certainly not a Jesus mythicist and absolutely agree Jesus existed, but I think this passage is weak evidence. It's evidence that CHRISTIANS existed and that Tacitus knew they thought a crucified Jew named Jesus was the Resurrected Son of God. And we know Christians existed ~100-120ish. And Tacitus is strong evidence that they were in fact known in Nero's day in the 60s CE (Nero is supposed to have had both Sts Peter and Paul put to death, after all) and that early Christian stories about that aren't totally fabricated either. But "Christians worship a crucified Jew named Jesus as the Son of the Jewish God" is something you can know about Christians without knowing that Jesus existed. Just like I know L. Ron Hubbard claimed that millions of Thetans were pushed into a volcano on Earth by the galactic tyrant Xenu but I have no idea if Xenu existed or not (I'm lying, I have a very strong idea that he didn't).

     The interesting thing is that Tacitus states the crucifixion of Christ as the primary historical fact, with the existence of Christianity being treated as incidental to that (which is not surprising when you consider that he saw it as a ridiculous cult). The way you phrase it makes the existence of Christians primary and the crucifixion incidental. The way it is presented makes me think that Tacitus considered the crucifixion of Christ to be historically certain, and for the reasons I stated above I don't think he would have arrived at that conclusion if he were simply relying on the say-so of the adherents of a "most mischievous superstition".