Marta Sordi

Marta Sordi (18 November 1925 – 5 April 2009) was an Italian historian of classical antiquity, best remembered for her various publications on Greek and Roman history. Quotes L'Europa odierna ha rifiutato non solo ogni riferimento a Gesù Cristo ed anzi a Dio, ma perfino di rifarsi alle proprie radici storiche, che sono cristiane: si tratta di un vero e proprio rinnegamento del passato. Questo rifiuto di riconoscere le proprie radici e basi religiose manifesta una mentalità secolarizzata antitetica a quella tradizionale, che ha fatto grande l'Europa. Today's Europe has rejected not only any reference to Jesus Christ, and indeed to God, but even any acknowledgement of its own historical roots, which are Christian: this is a veritable denial of the past. This refusal to acknowledge Europe's religious roots and foundations reveals a secularised mindset that is diametrically opposed to the traditional mindset that made Europe great. From an interview by Guido Vignelli, Costantino Imperatore cristiano, in Radici Cristiane, n. 3, year I, p. 39. The Christians and the Roman Empire Sordi, Marta, The Christians and the Roman empire / translated by Annabel Bedini. London & Sydney: Croom Helm Publishers Ltd, 1986, 215 p.; 22 cm. ISBN 0-7099-4421-7 (on behalf of Jaca Book SpA), London , 1983, 215 p. ISBN 0-7099-4421-7, OCLC 1135812817 (London: Routledge, 1994) During the three centuries which separate the first appearance of Christians in the Roman Empire from Constantine's final acceptance of the sect, the relationship between the new religion and the ruling powers went through a great many different phases. Because of the complexity of this relationship, we should not attempt to generalise on the subject, either by suggesting (as used to be the case) that three centuries were characterised by constant and systematic persecution of the Christians, or by following the more recent trend, which tends to minimise the range and importance of the persecutions while at the same time maintaining that confrontation was, after all, inevitable, given that Christianity and Power are by their very natures bound to be in opposition to each other. Thanks to the progress made in the field of hagiography, we have known for some time to what extent the stories of many of the martyrs are in fact legendary, having been elaborated long after the events they describe. p. 3 As we all know, the Christian religion and the political authorities of the Roman Empire first met face to face at the trial of Jesus of Nazareth. There is absolutely no doubt that Jesus was put to death - even Tacitus refers to it in Annals (xv. 44.5) - or that this took place some time around the year 30 or 31 AD, under Pontius Pilate. p. 7. It has been fashionable in some academic circles since the beginning of the century (and particularly in recent years) to overturn the Gospel version of the trial of Christ and claim that the original initiative was taken by the Romans rather than by the Jews. It must be immediately said that, from a scientific point of view, the arguments used to support this theory are extremely flimsy and easily refuted. They have, however, gained a certain credence among the public and have fostered an entirely fictitious image of Jesus the revolutionary, the political reformer, who would inevitably be an enemy to, and of, the Roman state. p.7. Now, while students of Roman law have never raised any objection to this version of the events [the Synoptic Gospels], students of Jewish law have. They tend to base their arguments on two opposing premises: some claim that the Sanhedrin did not have the right to pass any kind of sentence, while others maintain that, on the contrary, the Sanhedrin had full powers and could without doubt also pass the death sentence. This second view is held for the most part by those who contest the Gospel version of the trial. In actual fact, as far as the trial of Jesus is concerned, the result is the same in either case: if the sentence was carried out by the Romans, the initial step must have been taken by them too. Logically then (and not all those adhere to this theory have been fully aware of all its consequences), it follows that Jesus was put on trial for political crimes which the Evangelists preferred to conceal, both because they were conditioned by their pro-Roman, anti-Jewish attitude and because it would have been dangerous for a church living and expanding in a Roman world to admit that its founder had been (or had been taken to be) a political agitator, condemned to death by the Roman authorities. In fact, neither of these hypotheses stands up to a serious historical scrutiny [...]. pp. 8-9. [About Tiberius' intervention against Christians] The earliest source in the Western tradition tells a different story. It comes to us in the famous passage from Tertullian's Apologeticum, in which he tells how Tiberius, having received Pilate's report, proposed to the senate that Christ should be recognised as a god. The proposal having been refused, and the Christian religion having been declared a superstitio illicita as far as the state was concerned. Tiberius went on to impose a veto on any accusations being brought against the Christians in the future. Now, while most modern historians reject this account as an apologetic invention, I personally believe it is a record of what actually happened. I will not repeat here all the arguments I have used on other occasions to support this theory (M. Sordi, I primi rapporti, p. 59 ff.; L'Apologia del martire Apollonio, Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia, 18 (1964), pp. 169 ff., and Il Cristianeismo, pp. 25 ff.), suffice it to say that to reject it out of hand with such remarks as 'highly unlikely' or 'too good to be true' is not, in my opinion, in keeping with serious methods of historical research. However, I will limit myself at this stage to repeating only the points which seem to me particularly worthy of our attention. pp. 17-18. Far from being 'highly unlikely', the behaviour that Tertullian attributes to Tiberius (in making the proposal which led to the senatum consultum), would be in perfect keeping with the policy the Emperor appears to have been following in Palestine when he sent Vitellius there as his envoy. By proposing that the cult of Christ should be recognised officially, Tiberius' intention was to give the new Jewish sect the same legal standing that the Jewish religion had enjoyed since the time of Caesar. He hoped in this way to deliver the followers of the new cult from the authority and oppression of Sanhedrin in Judaea (in 35 AD the new religion was, obviously, confined to that area), and in so doing, he was only following in the footsteps of his predecessors. At the time of the creation of the province of Palestine, the Romans had allowed the Samaritans their independence from Jewish religious control and had thereby also guaranteed Samaritan loyalty to Rome. Tiberius, who preferred diplomacy and craft to arms when it came to solving problems, no doubt hoped to obtain similar results with the Christians.Failing to obtain what he wanted from the senate, Tiberius took direct action by sending his legate in Palestine. Some of the scepticism felt by many modern historians regarding Tertullian's account must arise, I believe, from their failure to realise that Tiberius' proposal concerned Judaea and not Rome. pp. 19-20. In Judaea the only ‘state’ persecution suffered by the church between the time of Stephen’s death and the year 62 occurred when Rome handed over the government of the province to a local king, Herod Agrippa I, for the years between 41 and 44 AD. Taking advantage of the situation, the King put James the brother of John to the sword and, ‘seeing that thies pleased the Jews’, went on to arrest St Peter (Acts 12:1-3). […] The most interesting case of all, however is that of Sergius Paulus, procunsul of Cyprus in the years 46 to 48 AD. He was so interested in the new faith that he asked Paul and Barnabas to preach before him and consequently ‘learned to believe’ (Acts 13:12). Not only did he himself become a Christian and a personal friend of Paul; he also converted the whole of his family to the Christian faith. pp. 23-24. We know from Hegesippus (see Eusebius ‘’Hist eccl.’’ III 32.3 ff.) that the search of the descendants of David was also carried out under Trajan, and lead to the arrest of Simeon of Clopas on the orders of the ex-Consul Atticus. What strikes us in the account of the interrogation which Hegesippus records as happening under Domitian is that it was, according to him, the Emperor himself who questioned the prisoners, and that he did so in Judaea. In fact, of course, Domitian never went to Judaea. […] In the first place, the mistake was made by Hegesippus rather than by Eusebius. It is quite certain that Hegesippus spoke of Domitian and that Eusebius has quoted from him verbatim. Two factors testify to this:, first, the use of the wording ‘Domitian Caesar’ (Eussebius ‘’Hist. Eccl.’’ III 20.1) which is typical of Hegesippus rather than Eusebius (see ibid. 32.6 on Trajan); when Eusebius mentions Vespasian is an indirect quotation in III.12, he does not use the word ‘Caesar’. Second, Tertullian also used Hegesippus as his source when he mistakenly attributed the suspension of persecution of Domitian, in direct contrast to all other sources. p. 40. In 1960 (M. Sordi, La persecuzione di Domiziano, in Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia, 14 (1960), pp. 1 ff.), I attempted to prove that a persecution of the Christians did take place under Domitian and that some members of the Flavian dynasty were, indeed, Christians (Flavius Clemens and the two Flaviae Domitillae), as were various members of the aristocracy (in particular Acilius Glabrio) who were condemned to death by Domitian in 95 AD. Since the publication of my studies, the question of Domitian’s persecution has been the subject of renewed research on various sides. [...] P. Pergola has compared literary sources with the findings of excavations (particularly those he has conducted in Roman burial places) and has come to the conclusion that all the Flavian family members mentioned by Dio and Bruttius were Christians. [...] I must, however, make it clear from the start that I am only discussing the nature of the accusations brought against some members of the Flavian family and the aristocracy (that is, whether the charge was for conversion to Judaism or to Christianity), not the existence of otherwise of anti-Christian persecution under Domitian. On this last question I have nothing to add to what I wrote on the subject in 1960; and in fact recent studies carried out by Keresztes, Pergola and Bengston have accepted my views on this question. pp. 43-45. It appears that in Rome, Paul picked up the threads of his discussion with the philosophers which had been so brusquely interrupted in Athens. In Rome, Stoicism as a moral and political doctrine rather than a theoretical explanation of reality, was the philosophy of the ruling classes and seems to have been particularly congenial to the traditional mentality of the ancient Romans. In fact, the Christians of the second century had an extremely high opinion of the Stoics of the first, as we see from the writings of Justin, who speaks of Musonius Rufus as being unwittingly a Christian martyr, and Tertullian who writes of Seneca, saepe noster. Justin also points out several times in his Apologia that Stoicism and Christianity agree closely on moral questions. The First Epistle of St Peter, and Chapter 13 of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans both speak of the similarity between the Stoic’s approach to politics and their concept of libertas, and the Christian attitude to the state and all it stood for. Putting theese facts together, it is tempting to believe that there is some foundation for the tradition of Paul and Seneca’s meeting and consequent friendship, a tradition which comes us through the |apocryphal correspondence attributed to them in the fourth century. In fact, Paul certainly had dealings with Seneca’s brother Gallio in Corinth, and Seneca himself was a friend of Burrus, the praetorian prefect during Paul’s imprisonment who was responsible for the Apostle’s lenient treatment (the Acts emphasises the parresia, and freedom of speech with which Paul was allowed to preach the gospel while still in prison). In all probability, the same Burrus was also responsible for Paul’s pardon. Through these two, Seneca would almost certainly have met Paul and had a means of being in contact with him. Scarpat’s (Scarpat, Il pensiero religioso di Seneca, p. 77) recent observations of Seneca’s use of the term caro-close as it is to the word, probably of Judeo-Hellenistic origin, which Paul uses for 'flesh'-could lead to a systematic re-evaluation of the whole question. pp. 160-161. External links Category:1925 births Category:2009 deaths Category:Catholics from Italy Category:Historians from Italy