There is a list which circulates online of writers whose 'silence about Jesus', it is argued, indicates that he cannot have existed. Leaving aside the non sequitur, the list itself was examined by Morphis, and his notes on each are worth preserving, as the legend keeps coming back.
From the Legend website
http://www.holysmoke.org/sdhok/jesus5.htm, "Why Are The Ancient Historians Silent About Jesus?", by Richard Smith.
> Yet, aside from two FORGED passages in the works of a Jewish writer mentioned above, and two disputed passages in the works of Roman writers,
> there isn't ANY mention of Jesus Christ. At all.> Apollonius Persius
> Appian Petronius
> Arrian Phaedrus
> Aulus Gellius Philo-Judaeus
> Columella Phlegon
> Damis Pliny the Elder
> Dio Chrysostom Pliny the Younger
> Dion Pruseus Plutarch
> Epictetus Pompon Mela
> Favorinus Ptolemy
> Florus Lucius Quintilian
> Hermogones Quintius Curtius
> Josephus Seneca
> Justus of Tiberius Silius Italicus
> Juvenal Statius
> Lucanus Suetonius
> Lucian Tacitus
> Lysias Theon of Smyran
> Martial Valerius Flaccus
> Paterculus Valerius Maximus
> Pausanias
Comments
See "http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_01_01_01.html"
for a discussion of this topic in general.
Mr Smith goes on to quote extensively from:
] -- The Christ, by John
E. Remsburg, reprinted by Prometheus Books,
] New York, 1994, pages 171-3.
a book that was
written in 1909, hardly what I would consider up-to-date scholarship.
I don't have time for an exhaustive survey of the list Mr. Smith provides but
briefly:
Briefly:
Apollonius (of Tyana). Nearly all our knowledge about him comes from
an
biographer writing over 100 years
later, we only second hand
information about what he wrote.
Appian did not write about the period of history that we are interested
in.
Arrian did not write about the period of history that we are interested
in.
Columella wrote about agriculture not history.
Florus Lucius wrote a military history.
Juvenal wrote primarily/exclusively about the wealthy
Lucian does mention Christians, but lives a century later.
Pausanias wrote a tourist guide to Greece, not anything that would suggest
he would be interested in Christ.
Quintilian wrote about education
Suetonius wrote about Rome
The volume of Tacitus's history that would cover Jesus is not extant,
He focuses narrowly on Rome, and he does indeed mention
Christ.
Valerius Maximus wrote for Roman teachers and rhetoricians, hardly a
likely audience for writings about a Jewish Carpenter/con man
(which is what Valerius would have thought Jesus was unless
he
were a Christian).
So at least eleven of the cited "historians" were either not writing about a topic that had anything to do with Rabbi in Palestine or we have so little information about them that drawing a strong conclusion about what they did or did not write is not justified.
Many of the others I have looked at look questionable but would require more time than I have to track down and make sure they didn't write about issues that would have caused them to know about and comment on Jesus.
A number of the people in the list were writing in the mid 2nd
Century and, apparently, did not write about Christianity, yet we know that
Christianity was alive and well at this time, which would suggest we wouldn't
expect them to be commenting on Jesus.
What follows are longer descriptions of the above mentioned authors.
Apollonius.
The fact that Mr. Smith does not explain which Apollonius
suggests he may be copying off a crib sheet, there were
several
prominant Apolloniuses in ancient times.
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_sd/med_apollonius.html
The extant sources we have concerning Apollonius of Tyana are not
only
sparse but somewhat historically unreliable. The most important
biographical work written about him is "The Life of
Apollonius" by
Philostratus. [which was written about 220 AD]
Appian did not write about the period of history that we are
interested in.
www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/cherry/pdf/guide.pdf
In what follows, authors like Appian, who lived in the second
century
AD but wrote about the Republican era, have been grouped
according to
the period they describe, rather than the one in which they
lived.
Appian (ca. AD 95 165). A Greek from Alexandria, Appian spent
much of
his working life at Rome, as a lawyer and civil servant. His
ethnographically arranged Roman History is partially
preserved. An
admirer of Roman imperialism, he is perhaps most important
for what he
reveals of political and social conditions at Rome in the
period from
the Gracchi to the end of the Republic, mainly in books 13 17
(covering
133 35 BC), which are often cited separately as Civil Wars,
books 1 5.
Arrian did not write about the period of history that we are
interested in.
http://www.sonoma.edu/people/poe/Excursus/Sources482.htm
Arrian of Bithynia (2nd century CE) (in
Nicomedia)
Anabasis
A history of Alexander the Great
History of Successors
Some large fragments
survive.
History of Parthia
Lost.
Indice
Lost.
Columella wrote about agriculture not history.
www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/cherry/pdf/guide.pdf
Columella (mid-first century AD). Lucius Iunius Moderatus
Columella,
born to a land- owning family at Gades (mod. C diz), Spain,
became an
army officer and the owner of several estates in Italy. On
Agriculture
(written AD 60 5), which draws mainly from his own
experience, is
easily our most comprehensive source of information about
agricul-
tural practices and farm management.
Florus Lucius wrote a military history.
www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/cherry/pdf/guide.pdf
Florus (time of Hadrian?). All that is known of Lucius
Annaeus Florus
is that he was born in North Africa. He may be the Florus who
is said
to have been a poet and friend of the emperor Hadrian. His
short,
almost exclusively military, history of Rome, from its
origins to the
time of Augustus (Epitome bellorum omnium annorum DCC), is
deriva-
tive, unimaginative, and often inaccurate.
Juvenal wrote primarily/exclusively about the
wealthy
www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/cherry/pdf/guide.pdf
Juvenal (ca. AD 60 140). Little is known with certainty about
the life
or career of Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis of Aquinum (in central
Italy).
Consumed, it seems, by a bitter sense of failure and
injustice, he is
said to have been banished at one point for lampooning a
favorite of
the imperial court. His sixteen Satires, which ruthlessly
ridicule the
vices and vulgarities of the wealthy, include (6) a famously
savage and
unfunny denunciation of women.
Lucian writes in the second century, and mentions Christians in two
of his works, the Passing of
Peregrinus, and Alexander the False Prophet.
www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/cherry/pdf/guide.pdf
Lucian (ca. AD 120 after 180). A native of Samosata (mod.
Sams t,
Turkey) who made his living first as an advocate in court,
and later as
a traveling lecturer, Lucian moved eventually (probably when
he was
about 40) to Athens, where he abandoned rhetoric for
philosophy. His 80
or so surviving works, many of which are in dialogue form,
satir- ize a
variety of contemporary institutions and manners, including
popular
religion and philosophical pretensions.
Pausanias
www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/cherry/pdf/guide.pdf
Pausanius (mid-second century AD). Nothing is known about the
life of
Pausanius, a Greek geographer and traveler whose Description
of Greece,
in ten books, was meant to be a kind of tourist's guide to
Greece,
including its historical and religious artefacts.
Quintilian
www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/cherry/pdf/guide.pdf
Quintilian (ca. AD 30/5 100). A distinguished teacher of
oratory,
reportedly the first to be paid a salary by the state, Marcus
Fabius
Quintilianus was born at Calagurris (mod. Calahorra), Spain.
His
painstakingly detailed (and often lumbering) Institutes of
Oratory, in
12 books, is easily our most comprehensive source of
information about
the nature and ideals of Roman education.
Suetonius
www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/cherry/pdf/guide.pdf
Suetonius (ca. AD 69 150). Born to a wealthy and politically
active
Roman family, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus was a lawyer and,
for a time,
a secretary to the emperor Hadrian. His surviving works
include several
biographies of grammarians, rhetoricians, and poets (in the
partially
preserved On the Lives of Illustrious Men), and The Lives of
the
Caesars, biographies of Julius Caesar and of the first 11
emperors
(i.e., from Augustus to Domi-tian). Anecodotal, credulous,
and not
infrequently gossipy, they present a fascinating and often
arresting
picture of the imperial court.
Tacitus
www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/cherry/pdf/guide.pdf
Germanic tribes. The Annals, a full-scale history (in 18
books) of the
period AD 14 68, is only partially preserved: we have the
whole of
books 1 4, the beginning of 5, all of 6, the last part of 11,
and all
of 12 16 (covering the periods AD 14 29, 31 7, and 47 66).
Eloquently
incisive, often cynical, too narrowly focused on Rome and on
the person
of the emperor, it is far and away our most reliable source
for the
history of the early Empire.
"http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_01_01_01_TC.html"
Tacitus was a Roman historian writing early in the 2nd
century A.D.
His Annals provide us with a single reference to Jesus of
considerable
value. Rather frustratingly, much of his work has been lost,
including
a work which covers the years 29-32, where the trial of Jesus
would
have been had he recorded it. [Meie.MarJ, 89]
Here is a full quote of the cite of our concern, from Annals
15.44.
Jesus and the Christians are mentioned in an
account of how the
Emperor Nero went after Christians in order to draw
attention away
from himself after Rome's fire of 64 AD:
Valerius Maximus
www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/cherry/pdf/guide.pdf
Valerius Maximus (time of Tiberius). Nothing at all is known
about the
life of Valerius Maximus, whose Memorable Deeds and Sayings,
published
probably soon after AD 31, is a collection of moralizing
anecdotes for
the use of teachers and rhetoricians. Simple and uncritical,
it
preserves some valuable information about famous people and
about Roman
institutions.
---
[In order for the lack of mention to be suspicious, I would think we
would need a historian who wrote about Palestine in real detail. He
would have to have given descriptions of most other religious groups
in the area of the same size or prominence as Christians. The best
estimate I've seen is that there were about 7500 Christians world-wide
in 100 AD (Stark, "The Rise of Christianity"). A few passing
references to Christianity by Roman historians, and a couple of
references to Jesus by Josephus seems about right. (And no, I don't
see any reason to think that all of Josephus' references are later
additions, though there has probably been an addition to one of them.
That's called throwing out all the evidence you don't like.)
--clh]
All of this appears (from the web) to derive from
John E. Remsberg,
The Christ: A critical review and analysis of the evidence of his
existence, originally published by The Truth Seeker Company, New York,
1909. Republished by Prometheus Books, 1994.
Here's a couple of comments I can add:
Aulus Gellius
Born around 125AD. Wrote the 'Attic Nights', a miscellanea
of intellectual curios, often with a philological twist.
This sort of work could have mentioned Christ - but of
course it was written a century after he died.
Justus of Tiberias -
https://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/justus.htm
This work is lost. All we know of it comes from the 9th
century writer Photius who reviewed it briefly in his
Biblioteca. Here is the whole review:
"XXIII. Read the Chronicle of Justus of Tiberias,
entitled A
Chronicle of the Kings of the Jews in the form of a genealogy,
by Justus of Tiberias. He came from Tiberias in Galilee, from
which he took his name. He begins his history with Moses and
carries it down to the death of the seventh Agrippa of the
family of Herod and the last of the Kings of the Jews. His
kingdom, which was bestowed upon him by Claudius, was extended
by Nero, and still more by Vespasian. He died in
the third
year of Trajan, when the history ends. Justus' style is very
concise and he omits a great deal that is of utmost
importance.
Suffering from the common fault of the Jews, to which race he
belonged, he does not even mention the coming of Christ, the
events of his life, or the miracles performed by Him. His
father was a Jew named Pistus; Justus himself, according to
Josephus, was one of the most abandoned of men, a slave to
vice and greed. He was a political opponent of
Josephus,
against whom he is said to have concocted several plots; but
Josephus, although on several occasions he had his enemy in
his power, only chastised him with words and let him go
free.
It is said that the history which he wrote is in great part
fictitious, especially where he describes the Judaeo-Roman war
and the capture of Jerusalem."
According to this Justus didn't mention a whole lot of things,
which he should have; and mentioned quite a few that never
occurred. But how much can we argue from a non-existant book?
Velleius Paterculus.
Died around AD30-31. Wrote a history of the German wars of
Tiberius. His history was preserved in a single corrupt
manuscript, lost since the 18th century. Was he still alive
when the ministry of Jesus begun?
See the preface to the Loeb edition of his work, and
Reynolds, L.D., Texts and Transmissions (Oxford 1980-ish)
It would be nice to do some more on this list. Is Hermogones spelled
correctly? Anyone heard of such a writer in this period (there is a
Byzantine style writer of that name much later).
Constructive feedback is welcomed to Roger Pearse.
Written 3rd January 2003.
This page has been online since 19th January 2002.
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