Was Jesus an Historical Figure?

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By Frank R. Zindler

Like all talented apologists, Mr. Holding is good at using the appeal to authority when it is not possible to appeal to evidence. Be it noted that the appeal to authority is a fallacy of informal logic. Moreover, apologists generally can make a case only for POSSIBILITY, rather than for PROBABILITY, which is the basic requirement of all science. In science, we CITE authorities to give credit (or blame!) where credit is due. We do not APPEAL to authorities. The evidence has to speak for itself.

In beginning to answer the argument concerning Tacitus, we must note that even if the novelistic passage in question were authentic Tacitus, it would prove nothing more than that he knew of the existence of Christians, not "Christ" or "Jesus of Nazareth." Tacitus lived from ca. 55 CE to ca 120 CE and wrote probably after the last of the canonical gospels were in circulation.

I give a thorough discussion to Tacitus and Josephus in my book THE JESUS THE JEWS NEVER KNEW: SEPHER TOLDOTH YESHU AND THE QUEST OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS IN JEWISH SOURCES. I can only list here some of the arguments pertaining to Tacitus, as I have important other writing assignments to complete before the end of the year.

First of all, I recently reread Constantine's Oration to the Council of Nicaea. Interestingly, although he recites a list of imperial persecutions suffered by the Christians, he does not list Nero! This lends further support to the arguments given by John E. Remsburg in his book THE CHRIST: A CRITICAL REVIEW AND ANALYSIS OF THE EVIDENCES OF HIS EXISTENCE that the Tacitean passage is a Christian interpolation.

These arguments include:
    1. It is not quoted by the Christian fathers.
    2. Tertullian [ca 160-ca 220 CE] was familiar with the writings of Tacitus, and his arguments demanded the citation of this evidence had it existed. [The fact that Tertullian claims Nero was the first to persecute Christians without citing the authority of Tacitus to prove this is inexplicable if the passage existed in Tertullian's day. By the time Tertullian was writing, all sorts of legends had developed.]
    3. Clement of Alexandria, at the beginning of the third  century, made a compilation of all the recognitions of Christ and Christianity that had been made by pagan writers up to his time. The writings of Tacitus furnished no recognition of them.
    4. Origen, in his controversy with Celsus, would undoubtedly have used it had it existed.
    5. The ecclesiastical historian Eusebius, in the fourth century, cites all the evidences of Christianity obtainable from Jewish and Pagan sources, but makes no mention of Tacitus.
    6. It is not quoted by ANY Christian writer prior to the fifteenth century.
    7. At this time but one copy of the "Annals" existed, and this copy, it is claimed, was made in the eighth century—600 years after the time of Tacitus.
    8. As this single copy was in the possession of a Christian, the insertion of a forgery was easy.
    (9) omitted
    10, It is admitted b y Christian writers that the \works of Tacitus have not been preserved with any considerable degree of fidelity. In the writings ascribed to him are believed to be some of the writings of Quintillian. [I have not yet tried to verify this independently. frz]
    11. The blood-curdling story about the frightful orgies of Nero reads like some Christian romance of the dark ages, and not like Tacitus.
    12. In fact, this story, in nearly the same words, omitting the reference to Christ, is to be found in the writings of Sulpicius Severus, a Christian of the fifth century. [It is entirely possible that the story found in Sulpicius Severus' Chronicles 2:29 — itself apparently modeled upon the story of Galerius' burning of Nicomedia in 303 CE—served as the stimulus for a Renaissance forger to add the story to Tacitus' Annals.]
    13. Suetonius, while mercilessly condemning the reign of Nero, says that in his public entertaiments he took particular care that no human lives should be sacrificed, "not even those of condemned criminals."
    14. At the time that the conflagration occurred, Tacitus himself declares that Nero was not in Rome, but at Antium.
    
    To these arguments of Remsburg I would add the argument that Tacitus himself, when dealing with this same period in his earlier work (Histories, 5.9.2] gives no hint of this outrage. To the contrary, he says that in Palestine at this time "all was quiet."

In THE JESUS THE JEWS NEVER KNEW I give still more information on the manuscript history of Tacitus and devote two whole chapters to the many forgeries in Josephus and the Christian forgery industry that provided the foundations for the establishment of Christianity throughout the ages.

In conclusion, there is no way that Tacitus can be appealed to as a witness of the "Historical Jesus": he lived too late and had to draw upon the same legends as the authors of the gospels. We must make it clear, moreover, that the negative evidence cited above is not "absence of evidence," but rather "evidence of absence." In science, negative evidence is often as important as positive evidence.

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Mr. Zindler’s commentary of “appeal to authority” is a mysterious one. It is obvious that Mr. Zindler wishes for all of us to accept HIS authority on matters related to these subjects. He also obviously wishes for us to accept the arguments of his freethinker sources like Smith as authoritative. Therefore, he is not at all adverse to appeal to authority; he simply does not wish to concede that his authority is insufficient to counter the authority of those like Syme, Mendell, Benario, and others who have intensely studied the works of Tacitus, and Greco-Roman history, as their profession.

This in turn shows that Mr. Zindler also badly misunderstands the fallacy of appeal to authority. It was never intended to disallow appeals to knowledgeable sources. Rather, it disallows appeal to sources based on nothing but authority; e.g., appealing to Michael Jordan for an opinion on environmental issues is a fallacious appeal to authority, because Jordan’s fame is being used to validate the opinion. This is a far cry from appealing to an environmental scientist for a view, as that person will have studied the issue intently.

It seems that Mr. Zindler merely wishes to obfuscate in his appeal to “authority,” as he is aware that he is not capable of meeting the reports of Tacitean scholars on their own terms, when it comes to such matters as arguing against the authenticity of Annals 15.44. I believe this speaks to Mr. Zindler’s ill-preparation to address the subject matter, as well as (if not more than) his reliance on non-historians like Smith for such out of date claims which presume no Tacitean manuscripts earlier than the 15th century.

Equally mysterious is Mr. Zindler’s remark,  “it would prove nothing more than that he knew of the existence of Christians, not ‘Christ’ or ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’ Tacitus lived from ca. 55 CE to ca 120 CE and wrote probably after the last of the canonical gospels were in circulation.” I have asked in one of my objections then whether the same sort of thing may be said of all else Tacitus reports from before 55 CE. Greco-Roman and Tacitean scholars, I have noted, do not dismiss Tacitus’ accounts of events in, say, the reign of Caligula (12 CE-41 CE) by saying, “it would not prove Tacitus knew of the existence of Caligula” or of X event related to Caligula. It seems that Mr. Zindler is advancing an entirely new form of historical epistemology unknown to serious, credentialed historians.

Since Mr. Zindler has referenced his own book, I will do so as well. In Shattering the Christ Myth I have my own chapters on Tacitus and Josephus, which thoroughly address all of the pertinent objections to those testimonies, including those Mr. Zindler has used again, such as appeals to silence in various authors. I see that Mr. Zindler has listed several, but he has not given us any reason to suppose that Tacitus’ testimony would have served any Christian father or writer for any purpose. What is it within Tertullian that Annals 15.44 would have served? Mr. Zindler does not say. He seems to argue that its mere existence would have justified a reference, which does not seem to be much of an argument.

For example, Mr. Zindler appeals to Constantine's Oration to the Council of Nicaea. I have read this as well, and can find nothing to suggest that Constantine ought to have mentioned Nero’s persecutions, or that he was attempting to offer an exhaustive list of all persecutions against Christians. What is Mr. Zindler’s justification for supposing an unwarranted silence? He offers none. We are simply told of all these authors, “Surely they would have used it if they had known it.” We are never told WHY.

Even where some sort of reasoning is approached, it is not particularly convincing to anyone who has even marginally studied Greco-Roman historical practice. For example, it is said: “The fact that Tertullian claims Nero was the first to persecute Christians without citing the authority of Tacitus to prove this is inexplicable if the passage existed in Tertullian's day. By the time Tertullian was writing, all sorts of legends had developed.” We are not told what these “legends” were, nor how Annals 15.44 would have served to correct any of them. At the same time, as I note in my online article on the authorship of the Gospels, historians plainly recognize that other historians and writers have used the work of Tacitus, even if Tacitus is not named as a source. Therefore, that Tertullian does not name Tacitus as his authority is not an argument that he was unaware of or did not read his work. I suspect again that Mr. Zindler is using a form of epistemology unknown to credentialed historians.

Mr. Zindler’s other citations are otherwise unenlightening. We are not told what work of Clement of Alexandria contains this reputed “compilation of all the recognitions of Christ and Christianity.” Apparently we are to simply accept the authority of Remsberg on this matter.  Ease of forgery (#8) is not an argument, but a presumption of one. Item 10 says, “It is admitted by Christian writers that the “works of Tacitus have not been preserved with any considerable degree of fidelity. In the writings ascribed to him are believed to be some of the writings of Quintillian.” This is simply nonsensical. No Greco-Roman historian says such a thing, and we are not told what “Christian writers” reputedly “admitted” these things.

Item 11 says, “The blood-curdling story about the frightful orgies of Nero reads like some Christian romance of the dark ages, and not like Tacitus.” With such a remarkable claims, not held by serious scholars of Greco-Roman history, I would expect an extended literary analysis and comparison between Dark-Age Christian romances and Latin historians; but apparently, Remsberg's authority as a freethinker is sufficient to make the point valid.

Item 12 simply begs the question. Severus would have borrowed from Tacitus.

Item 13 is particularly careless: “Suetonius, while mercilessly condemning the reign of Nero, says that in his public entertaiments he took particular care that no human lives should be sacrificed, “not even those of condemned criminals.’ ” We are not given a source for this claim from Suetonious, but the likely source is De Vita Caesarum section XII, which says of Nero: “These plays he viewed from the top of the proscenium. At the gladiatorial show, which he gave in a wooden amphitheatre, erected in the district of the Campus Martius within the space of a single year [58 C.E. -- added by editor], he had no one put to death, not even criminals.” This refers only to public entertainment – not to imperial persecutions or police actions -- and to only one particular year and place, not to the whole of Nero’s reign. Perhaps Mr. Zindler was too enthusiastic about accepting Remsberg’s authority on this matter.

Finally, I will address the claim “Tacitus himself, when dealing with this same period in his earlier work (Histories, 5.9.2] gives no hint of this outrage. To the contrary, he says that in Palestine at this time ‘all was quiet.’” I wonder of the relevance of this, since Nero’s persecution occurred in Rome, not in Palestine, and Tacitus is speaking of quiet under Tiberius, not Nero, and is speaking of wars, not localized police actions. Did Mr. Zindler actually read Tacitus’ work on this point….or did he simply accept Remsberg as an authority on the matter?

In conclusion, I think it is quite clear that Mr. Zindler has not sufficiently studied his sources, or that he has made any effort to understand the epistemology of historical study.