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  • From: "Jeffrey B. Gibson" <jgibson000 AT mailhost.chi.ameritech.net>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Christianity in Rome
  • Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 23:06:38 -0500


Jon Peter wrote:

> Jeffrey wrote:
>
> >
> > If you'd care to go back to my post of Wed. July 7 entitled "the occasion
> of Romans"
> > and to Mark Nanos' post of the same date (with the heading Re:Neil
> Elliott, Liberating
> > Paul"), you would see that what you claim above regarding our views of
> when there were
> > Christ believers in Rome, let alone that there is any evidence for the
> existence of
> > Christians in Rome prior to 64) is a gross misrepresentation of what we
> hold to be
> > the case; As evidence for this I quote my post:
> >
> > > What you are ignoring here, Jon, is that the issue is *not* the fact
> that Christians
> > > were called Christians before Claudius (if that is indeed what the Acts
> text
> > > indicates), or even that they existed in Rome and elsewhere before 64,
> but whether
> > > there was **knowldege** of the existence of this group called Christians
> on the part
> > > of Nero and the elites of Rome before 64.:
> > >
> [snip]
> >
> > Please note that the only issue that we were dealing with was not whether
> we believed
> > there were Christians in Rome prior to 64 or -- even 49 (I for one do
> believe this,
> > and though I do not wish to speak for Mark, I think it's safe to say that
> he does
> > too). Rather it was whether there was any knowledge of their existence in
> Rome on the
> > part of Roman elites prior to 64.
> >
>
> Jeffrey, I am glad you have clarified your positions for me. Thank you. I
> was not distorting your views nor those of Mark Nanos. Here is what you
> originally wrote in the Neil Elliott thread:
>
> <<There is absolutely no evidence that Christianity was ever regarded in
> Rome or
> by Romans, let alone (as Mark Nanos demonstrates) that "christian"
> congregations ever
> existed, as something separate from Judaism until after the Great fire of
> Rome in 64.
> Indeed, even after that the evidence is that the christianoi, as Tacitus
> calls them,
> were still just a new sect of Judaism (cf. D. Benko, _Pagan Rome and the
> Early
> Christians_; M. Grant, _Nero_).>>
>
> That's a mighty strong and categorical statement, Jeffrey. You did not
> qualify it by saying anything about the perceptions of Roman **officials**
> only. That statement caused my misunderstanding of you. Hence, when you
> later added a reference to Nero in 64, I did not realize that you were also
> thereby retracting what you had said so forcefully above. Rather, I thought
> you interjecting a second, related issue, which was, the timeframe in which
> Roman authorities recognized a Christian community. Now I do see that you
> were also dramatically softening what you first wrote.

I was not in any way retracting or softening what I said "above". In this
latter quote
of mine I was answering a question of whether "Christians", once having come
to the
attention of Nero and other Roman authorities in 64, were then thought by
these Roman
authorities as anything more than a particular **Jewish** sect, that is to
say, a
particular form of Judaism, one with an emphasis on **Jesus** as the
Messiah/Christos
of Israel, but a Jewish sect nevertheless.

If I may summarize the sorts of questions that have been asked in the recent
exchanges, we have:

1. the question of the earliest date when Christ-believers can be found in
Rome.

2. the question of whether these Christ believers, including Gentiles among
them,
initially considered themselves to be "ioudaioi", part of the people of the
God of
Israel.

Incidentally, it seems to me that having baptism or some other ceremony as an
initiation rite would **not** necessarily create in the minds of the Roman
"christ
believers" a sense of being not Jewish or being fundamentally distinct from
other Jews
of Rome who did not accept or participate in the rites. Indeed, if we may
extrapolate
from (a) how those Jews in Judea who followed John the Baptizer's movement
and that of
the Qumran convenanters felt about what participating in distinct rites of
initiation
did to their sense of their identity as members of the people of Israel's God
to (a)
what Roman "christ believers" felt about what their initiation into the
movement of
God's Messiah Jesus, we can see that the effect of these rites was to make
those who
partook of them think they were even more "Jewish", more among the people of
the God
of Israel, than they ever were before.

3. the question of **when** Roman elites and government officials became
aware of the
existence in Rome of Christ believers.

4. the question of whether, **whenever** the Roman elites became aware of the
existence of Christ believers, these elites regarded these Christ believers as
fundamentally different from the Ioudaioi among them with whom they were
familiar.

It would greatly help the discussion if you would keep these questions, as
well as
when each is actually being discussed, distinct.

Yours,

Jeffrey
--
Jeffrey B. Gibson
7423 N. Sheridan Road #2A
Chicago, Illinois 60626
e-mail jgibson000 AT ameritech.net






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