Suetonius
Suetonius, in full Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, (born 69 CE, probably Rome [Italy]—died after 122), Roman biographer and antiquarian whose writings in Latin include De viris illustribus (“Concerning Illustrious Men”), a collection of short biographies of celebrated Roman literary figures, and De vita Caesarum (Lives of the Caesars).
In politics, Suetonius describes Caligula as vicious, cruel, and self-absorbed throughout his life to both those of the senatorial class and his close allies alike. While this was true about others like Domitian Suetonius did display a biases sympathy to the Senatorial elite.
He also wrote about Agrippina's incestuous activities with her brother Caligula during his reign (Suet. Calig. 24.1) and Nero's desire for his own mother.
Suetonius might be mentioning Jesus Christ when he wrote, "Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus(similar "Christos"), he, [Emperor Claudius] expelled them from Rome." Lives of the Twelve Caesars.
This was in the biography of the Emperor Claudius Divus Claudius, which refers to agitations in the Roman Jewish community and the expulsion of Jews from Rome by Claudius during his reign (AD 41 to AD 54), which may be the expulsion mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles 18:2.
Why Persecute Christians
Christians are mentioned in Suetonius' biography of the Emperor Nero (Nero 16) as among those persecuted by him around AD 64 which was the year of the Great Fire of Rome. In this passage Suetonius describes Christianity and its excessive religiosity using the term superstitio as do others like Tacitus and Pliny.
At first there was little distinction between Christians and Jews prior to Nerva's modification of the Fiscus Judaicus in AD 96.
What is the source and cause of their contempt, bias, and bigotry toward Christians?
If we understand that writers like Suetonius and Tacitus had a bias for the Senate who were the Consctipi Patri, Conscripted Fathers, and Christians would call no man father upon the earth because of the directive of their King[1] who they called the Son of God instead of Caesar, the foundation for a Christian conflict was there from the beginning.
Religio et superstitio
It has been reported that Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the Younger, once said "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful." Atheists and anti-religion factions love to quote him but I find no evidence that he ever did actually say or write this statement as we read it.
In fact, he makes a distinction between the two Latin words that are each sometimes translated as “religion”. One is “riligio” which he regarded as virtue and “superstitio” which he believed became a vice.[2]
- "... religio denotes the pious and sound worship of the gods, whereas superstitio stands for instrumental worship as a result of unreasoning fear."[3]
- "religio becomes “obligation”, an objective bond between the believer and his God."
- "But it was the enlightened view, the philosophic view of the rationalizing Romans which dissociated religio ‘religious scruple’, authentic worship, from superstitio, a degraded and perverted form of religion." Chapter 7: Religion and Superstition
The Ionic Greek term thrēskeíē is unknown in Attic Greek appearing in the first century B.C. a complex system of beliefs and practices can be considered religion as in the performance of a duty.
Seneca did write, “...just as religion does honour to the gods, while superstition wrongs them, so good men will all display mercy and gentleness,...”[4]
He went on to connect religion with duty like the weightier matters of Christ and the whole list of Social virtues that appear in true fellowship described by Paul and the apostles who considered faith with out the works was dead. Seneca points out that it is avarice that degenerates society:
- “ ...[Philosophy’s] sole function is to discover the truth about things divine and things human. From her side religion never departs, nor duty, nor justice, nor any of the whole company of virtues which cling together in close-united fellowship. Philosophy has taught us to worship that which is divine, to love that which is human; she has told us that with the gods lies dominion, and among men, fellowship. This fellowship remained unspoiled for a long time, until avarice tore the community asunder and became the cause of poverty, even in the case of those whom she herself had most enriched. For men cease to possess all things the moment they desire all things for their own.” [5]
Superstition is a belief in the mind, an ideology, while religion is the performance of a duty and pure Religion is the performance of that duty unspotted by the men and means of the world who exercise authority.A New cult
A cult included the doing and performing of tasks, duties and obligations.
Cicero explained ‘Those who rehandled (retractarent) diligently and so to speak relegerent all the things which relate to the worship of the gods, were called religiosi from relegere, like elegantes from eligere and diligentes from diligere. All these words have in fact the same sense of legere as religiosus.’[6]
Suetonius can speak of 'Christians' as members of a new cult that was doing contrary to the Imperial Cult of Rome. Those who had become accustomed to funding their temples with the immoral practices forcing the contributions of others, counted as strangers, so that some could continue to live at the expense of others had their conscience seared.[7]
Public Cults
Romans, like the first Americans, in their early history, in their youth as a nation had considered taxing others for their personal benefit or gain as an immoral practice.
In the days of the Libera res publica of early Rome there was no Imperial Cult of Rome but there was social virtues and the “Summum Bonum”.
Polybius had, centuries earlier, warned Rome and us of the consequences to the masses who engage in such covetous practices. Plutarch had also warned that those benefits and dainties destroy liberty.[8] David, Paul, all the Prophets to say nothing of Proverbs explained that such systems of social welfare would be a snare.[9]
Jesus said such covetous[10] systems like the Corban of Herod and the pharisees made the word of God to none effect.
Suetonius, Tacitus, FDR, and modern Christians did not or do not see that those benefits were and are not only the wages of unrighteousness but they erode the social bonds required to maintain freedom and even their liberties.[8]
The distinction was the unwillingness of some to sign up for the social welfare systems of legal charity run through the temples of Rome because because they had instituted the rule of force and covetous practices and therefore were seen as idolatry.[11]People of the past
Cain | Nimrod | Melchizedek | Abraham | Pharaoh | Moses |
Buddha | Philo Judaeus | Epicurus | Polybius | Plutarch |
Caesars
Emperators | Caesar | Julius Caesar |
Augustus Caesar | Tiberius |
Caligula | Claudius | Nero |
Galba | Otho | Vitellius | Vespasian |
Titus | Domitian | Trajan |
Hadrian | Antoninus Pius |
Marcus Aurelius | Vespian |
Diocletianic Persecution |
Seneca | Stoic | Marcus Tullius Cicero | Celsus | Tacitus | Suetonius | Ignatius of Antioch |
Philo Judaeus - Philo of Alexandria | Herod | John the Baptist |
Jesus the Christ | Diotrephes | Paul the Apostle |
Justin the Martyr | Hippolytus of Rome (200 AD) |
Theophilus | Origen | Jerome | Augustine of Hippo |
Constantine | Ambrose | Eusebius | Eustathius |
Allocutio ad imperatorem Constantinum |
Athanasius | Athenagoras of Athens |
Augustine of Canterbury | Lady Godiva | Thomas Aquinas | Thomas Moore | John Wycliffe |
James Madison | Thomas Jefferson | Patrick Henry | Isaac Backus |
Henry David Thoreau | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Frederic Bastiat |
Alexis de Tocqueville | David Crockett |
Booker T Washington | George Washington Carver |
Becamp | Charles Guignebert | Friedrich Nietzsche | Emma Goldman | Edward Mandell House | Woodrow Wilson | FDR | LBJ | Friedrich Niemöller | Norman Dodd | Archibald MacLeish | Harry Browne | Admiral Ben Moreell |
- ↑ Matthew 23:9 And call no [man] your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.
- ↑ Religio et superstitio quid differant. What difference between religion and superstition
- ↑ Religio and Superstitio Reconsidered Dr. René Gothón
- ↑ Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the Younger , De Clementia On Mercy , II. iv. 4-v. 4
- ↑ Moral letters to Lucilius by Seneca, Letter XC. On the Part Played by Philosophy in the Progress of Man
- ↑ (De natura deorum II, 28, 72): Qui autem omnia quae ad cultum deorum pertinerent diligenter retractarent et tamquam relegerent, sunt dicti religiosi ex relegendo ut elegantes ex eligendo, ex diligendo diligentes. His enim in verbis omnibus inest vis legendi eadem quae in religioso.
- ↑ A conscience seared
- 1 Timothy 4:1 "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;...12 Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
- Jeremiah 5:21 "Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not:"
- Matthew 7:15 ¶ "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves."
- Matthew 24:24 "For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if [it were] possible, they shall deceive the very elect."
- [2 Peter 2]]:1 "But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. 2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. 3 ¶ And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. :
- 2 Timothy 3:1 "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. 2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; 5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
- Ephesians 4:17 "This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, 18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: 19 Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. 20 But ye have not so learned Christ; 21 If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: 22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Destroyers of liberty
- "That the man who first ruined the Roman people twas he who first gave them treats and gratuities. But this mischief crept secretly and gradually in, and did not openly make it's appearance in Rome for a considerable time." Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus (c. 100 AD.) This would include Julius Caesar and eventually Augustus Caesar which is why Plutarch also reported, “The real destroyers of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations, and benefits.” This was a major theme of the Bible:
- There were tables of welfare which were both snares and a traps as David and Paul stated and Peter warned would make us merchandise and curse children. Proverbs 23 told us not to not eat the "dainties" offered at those tables of Rulers and Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10 we cannot eat of those tables and the table of the Lord. We are not to consent to their covetous systems of One purse or Corban which makes the word of God to none effect.
- We know when the masses become accustomed to those benefits of legal charity which are the rewards of unrighteousness provided by benefactors who exercise authority and the Fathers of the earth through the covetous practices that makes men merchandise and curse children as a surety for debt.
- ↑ Table as a snare
- Psalms 69:22-23 “Let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap. 23 Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; and make their loins continually to shake."”
- Romans 11:9 “And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence unto them:”
- Proverbs 23:1 "When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what [is] before thee: 2 And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite. 3 Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat."
- Exodus 23:32 "Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. 33 They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee."
- Exodus 34:12 "Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee:"
- Deuteronomy 7:16 "And thou shalt consume all the people which the LORD thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that [will be] a snare unto thee."
- Judges 2:2 "And ye shall make no league [covenant] with the inhabitants of this land; ye shall throw down their altars: but ye have not obeyed my voice: why have ye done this?"
- Proverbs 1:10 "My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not."
- Proverbs 6:2 “Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.” Swear not
- Luke 21:34 "And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and [so] that day come upon you unawares. 35 For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth."
- 1 Timothy 6:9 "But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and [into] many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. 10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."
- "Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?" Isaiah 40:21 is about the message of John the Baptist who was "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God" Isaiah 40:3 to avoid the "snare" of the legal charity of the welfare state which which makes the word of God to none effect bringing man back into captivity as human resources.
- ↑ Covet not
- Exodus 20:17 "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that [is] thy neighbour’s."
- Deuteronomy 5:21 "Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbour’s wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbour’s house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or any [thing] that [is] thy neighbour’s."
- Micah 2:2 "And they covet fields, and take [them] by violence; and houses, and take [them] away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage." Property and inheritance tax.
- Habakkuk 2:9 "Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil! 10 Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting off many people, and hast sinned against thy soul."
- Mark 7:20 "And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. 21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 22 Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: 23 All these evil things come from within, and defile the man."
- Romans 7:7 "What shall we say then? [Is] the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet."
- Romans 13:9 "For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if [there be] any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."
- 1 Corinthians 5:10 "Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. 11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat."
- 1 Corinthians 6:10 "Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God." See Not inherit the kingdom
- Ephesians 5:5 "For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God." See Not inherit the kingdom
- 2 Timothy 3:2 "For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; 5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. 6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, 7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
- 2 Peter 2:3 "And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not."
- 2 Peter 2:14 "Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:"
- Colossians 3:5 "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:"
- ↑ Covetousness is idolatry
- Colossians 3:5 "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: 6 For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:"
- Ephesians 5:5 "For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God."
- 1 Corinthians 5:10 "Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. 11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat."
- For it is written that the tables of dainties provided by rulers of the world are a snare because they cause the masses to bite one another through government systems of legal charity which are covetous practices which are a form of fornication or adultery where the people are devoured as merchandise, curse children and are "entangled again in the yoke of bondage" with the aid of the false religion of the whore who rides the beast.