0/2 .~ h · h h·· · /(6 ~He~t e? C~ntact WIt C flsttamty /Is dUrIng Its FIrst Century and a Half - Being all references to Christianity recorded in Pagan writings during that Period BY c. R. HAINES, M.A., B.D., F.S.A. Graffito of Christ crucified with an Ass's Head (now in the Kircher Museum). LIBRARY CALI FOANtA STATE UNIVERSrrv, Fw.ER1'ON RJllERTON. CA 92634 CAMBRIDGE DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO., LTD. - 19 2 3 PREFACE HE present book is put forward as the first T in a projected series of little works on early Christianity up to the end of the second century. They are intended to provide the student with con­ venient materials for the proper understanding of the relations that progressively subsisted between it and the Roman Empire. If this volume is found satisfactory, and meets with success, it will be followed by a reconstruction of the anti-christian polemic of Celsus, to be succeeded by other volumes on the Early Apologists, the first authentic martyrdoms, and a General Sketch of the attitude of the Roman Administration towards the Christian religion, and in particular a separate treat­ ment of the reign of Marcus Aurelius in this respect. My best thanks are due to the Rev. F. A. Haines for kindly reading the proofs of this little work and making most valuable criticisms and suggestions. C. R. HAINES. PETERSFIELD, September 1923. PRINTI£1J IN GRKAT HRITAIN f TO MY DEAR WIFE Ecclesiasticus vii. 19 Proverbs xxxi. 1 I, 12 INTRODUCTION THE fact of Christ's death at the hands of the Jews under Pontius Pilatus must have been well known to the Home Government. Justin Martyr tells us! that Pilate sent Tiberius a report of the trial and death of Jesus with an account of the marvellous incidents that attended it2. Tertullians repeats the statement, and Eusebius 4 amplifies it, adding that Tiberius communic­ ated the report to the Senate, and even wished to enroll Christ among the Gods. The Senate however, whose authority was necessary for the introduction of a new religion, rejected the proposal. But Tiberius is said to have retained his favourable opinion, and he forbad the Jews to molest the followers of Christ. Apocryphal though all this sounds, we know that the Jews were treated with severity in this reign 5. !'. This story seems to have been set out in certain Acta Pilati of which Justin speaks as Ta €7T'1, TIOVT[OV 6 Il€£A.aTov ry€vo}L€va "AKTa • Unfortunately the Acts of Pilate, as we have it, is a late fabrication, and we do not know the nature of the record to which Justin refers. Since Tiberius was so superstitious, a report of the marvels narrated in the Gospels, if it reached him, 1 Apol. I 35, written about I50A.D. 2 See below p. I J6 for a spurious version of this. 3 Apol. '21. 4 Euseb. H.E. II '2. Ii Jews expelled under Tiberius were 8000. 6 Pelagaud (Celse p. J04) says of Justin's reference il faut bien 1'econ- nattre que cette assertion devait 1'eposer stU' un fait veritable et conclure, par conseque1'zt, a la ?'Ialitt de I' ex-istencc des A des de Pilate dans les arch£ves de l'Emp£re. H. I 2 INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION 3 may well have struck his imagination. The interven­ is however not certain that the Jews themselves did tion of Claudia Procla \ supposing it to be an authentic not suffer in the persecution, as the fact of the Jewish fact, would naturally, owing to her connexion with the quarter in the city having almost entirely escaped royal house, come to the Emperor's knowledge. Tibe­ the ravages of the fire was likely to have raised rius kept a watchful eye over the provinces, and any a presumption of guilt against them. If they were unusual events, especially if they related to the Jews charged, they contrived to save themselves at the ex­ and their expected Messiah, would be sure to attract pense of the Christians. At all events it is indubitable his attention. That the trial of our Lord and the con­ that they were the authors and disseminators of the comitant circumstances made a great impression on stories of child-murder and incest which brought such Pilate himself is beyond question. St John's account2 odium upon the Christians in their early years of con­ makes us think that he was actually present at the flict. But owing to the silence of Josephus there is Cross, superintending the putting up of the title above very little information 1 as to the Jewish attitude to­ it, and it was he who authorized the watching of the wards the Christians after the close of the Acts. sepulchre. We should have had a much more satisfactory know­ The attitude of the Imperial Government and its ledge of the Sta-te policy in reference to Christianity, if officials towards the Christians prior to Nero's perse­ the various rescripts and enacttnents against it had not cution is known to us only from the Scriptures. They been excised from the Digest by Justinian. The two were looked upon simply as Jews, and when under or three documents of this sort, which have survived Claudius, the predecessor of Nero, repressive measures 3 to our time, are but the flotsam and jetsam thrown up were again taken against the latter, the comparatively by the general stream of literature. We know from few Christians then in the city cannot fail to have Lactantius2 that Ulpian in Caracalla's reign collected been involved 4. At all events Aquila and Priscilla 5, all these anti-christian ordinances, Trajan's rescript to who it is natural to suppose were already Christians, Pliny no doubt among them, and published them in I·t 3 were among the Jews banished froIn Rome. the seventh book of his treatise De Officio Procollsulis • I t was on the occasion of the Great Fire at Rome in They must have come under the heading De Sacri­ 64 A.D. that the obscure sect of Christians was first dif­ legiis or else under that of Ad Lege1n luliam 1naies­ ferentiated from the Jews. In order to divert suspicion tatis, probably the former. Neumann 4 and others have from Nero as the author of the fire, they were made quite wrongly supposed that the rescript of Marcus in his scapegoats, possibly at the instigation of his wife, the Digest, given by Modestinus, was directed against Poppaea Sabina, who had a leaning to Judaism. It the Christians. Had it been so, it would not have been 1 Matt. xxvii 19. 2 John xix 21. 3 In 49-50 A.D.; see below, p. 51. 1 For what there is see below, pp. 112 ff. 2 VII 12. .( Persius (Sat. v 179) among-the religions of Rome does not mention 3 Lact. Inst. vir. 19, Digest 48. 13· 7. Christians. G Acts xviii 2. .( Der Romische Staat tend die Allgemeine I(irche p. 29 n. I. 1-2 • T INTRODUCTION f 4 f INTRODUCTION 5 kept in its place by Justinian, nor would it have ap­ speaks of them as "the impious (/:tOEO/,) people of Pa­ l peared under the title De Poenisl. lestine ." Galen, if we can trust the Arabic translation, It is much to be deplored that we have no pagan preferred the name N aziraei. Dio Cassius, where we account of Christianity till towards the end of the have his own words, describes the Christians as persons second century. Possibly Tacitus had something more who" followed a Jewish manner of life." Plutarch and definite to say of it in his lost Histories than he has Lucian are content on occasion with the geographical vouchsafed to us in his A nnals, but even so his ac­ designation of" Syrians," though the latter, in the Pere­ 2 count must almost certainly have been perfunctory grinus and Alexander , does not scruple to employ the and unsympathetic. Seneca was too early to realize common name. The word Xpl(jTlavo~ only occurs once 3 the importance or merits of this new philosophy of in Marcus Aurelius , but its presence there is suspicious, life. Celsus certainly about 176 A.D. dealt with the and due, as is most likely, to the incorporation of a subject with remarkable fulness, but the remains of his gloss. It is not probable that in a philosophic treatise, polemic are so considerable that they must be pre­ written with a certain aloofness and under the obvious sented separately in another volume. In our present influence of Epictetus, Marcus would have used a term compilation of testimonies we shall. get most from deliberately avoided by his master, and that too in a Galen and Lucian, who apart from the emperor Mar­ passage where he seems to have in mind what the latter cus were the greatest men of their age. says of the' Galileans.' In this connexion it is worthy of note that the term I t may be considered certain that the State officials Xp£(jT£avo~ was eschewed,as vulgar, by the best heathen from very early days knew of the. existence of the writers. It appeared no doubt as an official designa­ Christians as an obscure offshoot of Judaism, but it was 2 tion in State documents , and Suetonius, writing of onlywhen they had greatly increased in numbers within Nero's reign, uses it, as we shall see. Tacitus too in his the capital itself, that the Government had its attention account of the N eronian persecution quotes it as the inevitably drawn to their intransigent opinions and the vulgar term, and even (it appears) uses the vulgar impossibility of reconciling these with the policy and spelling Chrest£a1'li.