Epictetus’ view on Christians : A Closed Case Revisited (original) (raw)
The earliest Roman sources on Christians are dated to the beginning of the second century. Tacitus (Annales 15:44), Suetonius (Nero 16.2), and Pliny the Younger (Epistulae ad Trajanum 10.96) are the sources that are quoted time and again. Their contemporary, the Stoic Epictetus, has won less consideration. He never unambiguously speaks of Christians, but I am going to show that two passages actually refer to them (Discourses 2.9.19-21 and 4.7.6). Both instances are easily confused with Judaism, which has led some scholars astray. There are also philological difficulties that require profound consideration. I will show that Epictetus gives us quite a moderate assessment of Christians, in contrast to Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny the Younger. I suggest that this is due to the philosophical elements in Christian teachings. Epictetus lived around 50-130 CE. He was born as a slave and was brought early on to serve in Rome in close contact with Nero's court. 1 Later he was freed, then banished from Rome during the reign of Domitian. Thereafter Epictetus founded a school in Nicopolis, today in Northern Greece, close to the Albanian border. As he became famous for his teaching, the school attracted students from the Roman wellto-do families. Among those students was Arrian of Nicomedia, who attended Epictetus' lectures for some years in the first decades of the second century. His notes are our primary source of Epictetus' teaching. Nicopolis is mentioned in the Epistle to
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https://plekos.jimdofree.com/ausgaben/plekos-26-2024/
This book is the first volume of the series "Early Christianity in Greece" (ECG), with editors Cilliers Breytenbach (Berlin), Martin Goodman (Oxford), Klaus Hallof (Berlin [Inscriptiones Graecae]), Andreas Müller (Kiel), Joseph Lee Rife (Nashville) and Christiane Zimmermann (Kiel). The ECG is a subseries of the series "Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity" (AJEC), of which the founding editor was Martin Hengel † (Tübingen). It follows the tradition of "Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in der ersten drei Jahrhunderten" and continues the subseries "Early Christianity in Asia Minor" (ECAM). The volumes of the subseries "Early Christianity in Greece" employs literary and archaeological sources to examine the rise and expansion of Christianity in Greece until the reign of Justinian I, while at the same time presenting the advances in research. In recent decades the expanding study of Roman and late antique Athens has allowed us to understand in new ways the development of Christianity in the city that was considered the cultural center of the ancient world. Although there are many works on late paganism and early Christianity in Athens, none, however, puts their practice and development side by side in any coherent way and none includes so many different sources in illuminating such a complicated period. Cilliers Breytenbach and Elli Tzavella describe Christianity in Athens in opposition to and in interaction with pagan religion and the city's philosophical schools. The authors are interested in religious and sociological issues and demonstrate an impressive grasp of a variety of complex issues. This book is an ambitious and successful attempt to combine fields of research, clearly distinct from each other, albeit complementary, literary, archaeological and epigraphical, covering the period from the first century A. D. to the end of the reign of Justinian I, in 565 A. D. ("Preface", pp. XIII-XIV). The book offers an excellent overview of the topic over a lengthy period. The authors outline the intellectual (that is, philosophical) and religious ideologies prevalent during this period of transition and study thoroughly the archaeological and epigraphic evidence. The complexity of themes discussed
THE FIRST CHRISTIANS OF ATHENS
Australian Biblical Review, 2020
In Acts 17:34, Luke records a group of Athenians that "believed" in response to Paul's ministry in the city, a group including two named individuals-Dionysius the Areopagite and Damaris-and "others with them." This paper will discuss these first Christ-followers of Athens in light of literary and material evidence pertinent to Athens, Luke's broader practice of recording individuals and groups, and recent scholarship on early Christian groups in other cities in order to draw some inferences about the earliest Christian community in Athens. It will be suggested that Dionysius and Damaris were "benefactors" who offered hospitality to the nascent Christ-group, a community of 20-50 individuals which could have, in the first instance, been centred in the urban deme of Melite - an area with a mixed population of wealthy Athenians and foreign tradespeople.
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