Tacitus And Caesar's Messiah - Part 2/2

Tacitus wasn't a "Flavian court historian." He was in favor with the Flavians, but as far as I can tell he was never a member of their inner circle. During the period when Atwill says that Christianity was being invented, Tacitus was an orator, a magistrate, a senator, a financial administrator, a priest, etc., and he may have commanded a legion in Asia from 81-96 AD. Like many other Roman politicians of the time, he kept his head down and watched what he said during the reign of Domitian. When Domitian finally died in 96 AD, Tacitus felt free to start writing history and his aim seems to have been to correct Flavian propaganda:

"For his account in the histories of the civil war of 69 and the Flavian dynasty, Tacitus had friends who were major protagonists in the period; moreover he himself had entered public life by 77. He was well apprised of the political realities of the age and he was determined to correct the Flavian propaganda that was contained in the historians of the period." - "Tacitus," by Ronald Mellor, p. 34 (emphasis added).

"The Flavian interpretation of the civil war had become the authorized version for a quarter century but the death of Domitian allowed Tacitus -- he would say required him -- to criticize the historians and rewrite their history." (Mellor, p. 34)

That doesn't sound like a description of a Flavian court historian and propagandist to me. Just the opposite, in fact, not that it matters because Tacitus didn't start writing history until the last Flavian had died. Even so, this still leaves open the question of whether his passage in the Annals about the Christians is authentic. As usual, there's a lot of disagreement on the issue.

Some scholars think the passage is an interpolation inserted by later Christian copyists. Others think it's for real. I've been doing some research on the question and at the moment I think that the passage is probably authentic because it fits in so well with Tacitus' general theme and because it's so hostile to the Christians, describing the cult as "a mischievous superstition ... evil ... hideous and shameful ..."

Tacitus wasn't interested in the Christians, however. His main focus in this passage was on the corruption of power in general and the corruption of Nero in particular. The theme of corruption runs throughout the Annals and this is one of the things that makes me think the passage is authentic. If it was inserted later, whoever did it was a skilled and subtle forger. And it's hard to believe that a later Christian copyist would have inserted hostile material like this in order to support some Christian martyr stories, which is the only reason it would have been done.

Tacitus would have been around nine years old at the time of the Great Fire, so where did he get the details for this story about the Christians? According to Mellor (p.33), "...much of the detail [in Tacitus' writing] comes from his diligent research in reminiscences, biographies, autobiographies, letters and speeches of the time as well as in the acts of the Senate--a Roman approximation of the Congressional record." For the life of Nero, which includes his description of the Christians, Tacitus relied on three main sources: Fabius Rusticus, Pliny the Elder and Cluvius Rufus (Mellor p.32).

These are three very interesting characters. Fabius Rusticus was a historian, hostile to Nero, who provided Tacitus with many of his stories about the emperor, including Nero's plot to kill his mother and Seneca's suicide. Pliny the Elder was the famous natural historian who died while trying to observe the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius which destroyed Pompeii; Tacitus was a friend of his son. Claudius Rufus, a consul under Claudius who was apparently involved in the assassination of Caligula, knew many members of Nero's inner circle and sometimes appeared as Nero's herald at the games. The three men lived during the reign of Nero (Mellor, p.33), so Tacitus was using contemporary sources when he wrote his passage about the Christians.

"Many of his friends and colleagues had lived under Nero and their memories do much to shape his picture of that bizarre reign." (Mellor, p. 33)

What does this all mean? To sum up, Tacitus was definitely not a "Flavian court historian" as Atwill has claimed. Tacitus didn't start to write history until after the death of Domitian and his goal was to correct Flavian propaganda, not to write it himself. Furthermore, the passage in the Annals describing the Christians is probably authentic and was written using contemporary sources who had lived under Nero.

Just to make myself clear, I should say that the passage is probably authentic in the sense that Tacitus wrote it himself based on previous material written by his sources. That doesn't mean that the passage is historically accurate, however. At least one of Tacitus' sources -- Fabius Rusticus -- is described as being hostile to Nero, so it's possible he invented the story about Nero's persecution of the Christians to make the emperor appear even more cruel and duplicitous than he actually was. I've always had trouble believing that these Christian martyrdom stories actually happened, but it doesn't really matter here because the Christians are named in the sources. Remember, Tacitus was using material that was written during the reign of Nero. The "Christians" -- whoever they were -- must have existed at the time.

Conclusion: It appears that Tacitus provides evidence that directly contradicts Atwill's theory that the Flavians invented Christianity. Atwill needs to address this issue if he wants his theory to be taken seriously. If he thinks that the passage in Tacitus is an interpolation made by a later Christian copyist, he has to present some kind of evidence to support this and he needs to explain why a Christian would write material so hostile to his religion.

If, on the other hand, Atwill thinks that the passage is authentic, but that the Christians described by Tacitus were actually a group of revolutionary Jews living in Rome at the time, i.e., that they weren't really "Christians" in our sense of the word at all, then he has to support that somehow, preferably with original sources. That may be impossible, though. I really don't know. The one thing that Atwill can't say is that Tacitus was a Flavian court historian. If Atwill or anyone else believes that, they need to explain how Tacitus could have been a Flavian propagandist when he didn't start writing history until after Domitian's death.

Hopefully Atwill will go into all of this in more detail in a later book.