The Gospels According to Hadrian (part one)

As an intellectual product of the twentieth century, I am often haunted by the long shadows cast in the gloaming of the Victorian age prior to the outbreak of WWI and that era’s legacy of biblical scholarship.  With all their perceived bias and assumptions, that epoch of positivist empiricism, its combination of erudition, scientific method, open mindedness, and its faith in the good to be harvested in seeking out historical truths, resulted in lines of research regarding the origin of the canonical Gospels and Christianity that remain relevant to this day. Adolf Harnack (1851-1930), after attaining a lecture chair at the University of Berlin (over the objections of the Evangelical Church of Prussia) forcefully defended the right of theological inquiry into Christianity to proceed unfettered into any nook and cranny of scripture; there were no taboos. The emphasis was on the quest for knowledge, rather than metaphysic.

The Prussian royal eagle on a non-commissioned officer’s helmet (adorned with the motto: Mitt Gott fur Koenig und Vaterland).  TheHohenzollern family,on whose crest the eagle formed the primary charge, provided the emperors (Kaiser/Caesar) of imperial Germany from 1871 to 1918.  The eagle served as a fundamental image in the semiotics of how western culture perceived the confluence and expression of heavenly sanctioned imperial power. This association of the Eagle symbol with imperial and religious power spans two millennia of western history and reaches back into the mists of bronze age Sumer. What began with Imperial Rome in our culture ended on the battlefields of Europe in 1918. In the Hellenistic age, the eagle was a symbol for Zeus/Jupiter and for the Christians: God.

Harnack, a product of an ethnically-Prussian family in what is now Estonia, developed his scholarship out of Ferdinand Christian Baur’s (Tubingen) and Ritschl’s (Gottingen) historical-critical approach to studying scripture. After WWI, in the shadow of that great slaughter that claimed the cream of a generation, there emerged a more self-conscious and more traditional mindset with respect to pursuit of Christian origins.  Here and there scholars picked up a lost or broken Victorian thread; however, the field of research remained remarkably constrained within boundaries set  largely during the Belle Epoch until well into the 1960s.   One might further remark that after WWI, the influence of pre-War German scholarship in the English speaking world noticeable diminished; it was as if something of the divisions created by the alignments of the Central and Allied powers during the war persisted and lingered long after the armistice of 1918.  As our discussions progress in this forum, we would do well to recall that war creates intellectual and philosophical divisions that ripple into the future with long-term consequences.

Much of the field of inquiry regarding Christian origins was abandoned to Schools of Divinity, or scholars whose roots drew deep and early sustenance from pedagogical concepts that take certain facts regarding the rise of Christianity for granted.  The most significant of these concepts and the most far-reaching in historical impact on our western European civilization is the notion that there existed an historical figure Jesus the Christ in the first century of the current era. Of course it is equally important to remark that in taking for granted the position that Jesus Christ was not a first century historical person does not imply that Christianity itself was not an historical phenomenon; it was, the archaeological record since the second century supports this conclusion; however, the first century is an entirely different matter with respect to interpretation of the available evidence.  Scholars are perforce confronted with the issue of when Christianity became Jesus Christianity. Prior to the second century of our common era, the ancient written record is replete with numerous christs in a variety of shapes, sizes, and flavors. What to do?

We have expounded here the outline of a thesis as well as the very long list of problems confronting a non-faith based assertion that (a) there is evidence of first century CE Christians or Christianity, and (b) first-century Christianity is centered around an historical figure identifiable as Jesus Christ.  It will therefore serve little purpose to reprise this arguments at length here; however, good service might be derived by opening a discussion of aspects related to the historical problems related to the thesis that there was an identifiable first-century Jesus Christianity movement in the Roman Empire by examining some of the lost and sometimes hastily discredited approaches of our Dead Victorians.

With regard to my own view on this subject, let me first make perfectly clear that I gain an immense pleasure and gratification from reading the works of researchers and scholars, regardless of their grounding in religious belief; however, by the same turn let us not pretend that these conditioned beliefs directly do not affect the epistemology and conclusions drawn in scholarly works on the subject of Christian origins: we must always be on our guard. So let us level the field and set some basic guidelines:  scholars should ground their historical arguments on the limited physical evidence available for study when constructing time lines for the development of Jesus Christianity. For this exercise, a valid empirical approach would be to develop a time line for Jesus Christianity that relies on the physical evidence in the form of the extant papyri fragments of Gospels wherein the tropes and terms of Jesus Christianity are in evidence.

As modern archaeological science has so far determined, and History Hunters International presently affirms, no papyri meeting these criteria are dated to the first century CE as of this writing.  Until earlier papyri meeting these criteria are found, no truly sound empirical argument on the basis of recovered artifacts or assemblages may be advanced that proves the existence of Jesus Christianity in the Roman Empire in the first century of the current era.  All hard evidence points to its formation as a movement at the end of the first quarter of the second century at the earliest.

What would the shape of such an historical time-line for Christianity take under these strictly artifact-based restraints?

Again, this site has provided the basic framework and some central points require re-emphasis:

(a)    Archaeologically, the time lines at Qumran extend beyond the destruction of the Temple by Vespasianus in 70 CE and do not reach a terminus until circa 135, or the period of the Bar Kosiba rebellion. We noted in Archaeology of first-century wizards:

Most scholars agree that the scrolls were deposited in the cave in or around 68 AD, but often mistake this date…for the terminus ad quem for the deposit of the scrolls in the caves/cessation of Jewish habitation at the site, when it cannot be considered anything but the terminus a quo for both of these, i.e., not the latest but the earliest possible date for such a deposit and/or Jewish abandonment of the site. The actual terminus ad quem for both of these events, however difficult it may be to accept at first, is 136 AD. (Eisenman, Robert, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the First Christians. Rockport, MA: Element Books, Inc. (1996) pp. 129–30.)

(b)   The majority of our earliest second-century canonical Gospel papyri artifacts are either John or Matthew, with John by far the most abundant in the early category.  It should be noted that Luke and Mark are, in comparison, much less represented in the same archaeological record (in fact if one takes the sum of all early fragments of canonical Mark, Matthew, and Luke, this total is nearly equal to the total number of known early John fragments).

So let us take advantage of our twenty-first century vantage point and gingerly turn the clock back to that period of the Belle Epoch prior to the Great War and examine a fundamental position on the Jesus Christianity articulated by the previously mentioned Adolf Harnack. During an oppressively cold winter’s day in 1900, while lecturing at the University of Berlin, he had this to say concerning the authoritative sources for Jesus Christ’s message:

Our authorities for the message which Jesus Christ delivered are—apart from certain important statements made by Paul—the first three Gospels. Everything that we know, independently of these Gospels, about Jesus’ history and his teaching, may be easily put on a small sheet of paper, so little does it come to. In particular, the fourth Gospel, which does not emanate or profess to emanate from the apostle John, cannot be taken as an historical authority in the ordinary meaning of the word. The author of it acted with sovereign freedom, transposed events and put them in a strange light, drew up the discourses himself, and illustrated great thoughts by imaginary situations. Although, therefore, his work is not altogether devoid of a real, if scarcely recognizable, traditional element, it can hardly make any claim to be considered an authority for Jesus’ history; only little of what he says can be accepted, and that little with caution. On the other hand, it is an authority of the first rank for answering the question, what vivid views of Jesus’ person, what kind of light and warmth, did the Gospel disengage? [i]

One instantly notices that Harnack is careful to concern himself with the question of what sources are authoritative with respect to a message and not to an historical figure.  Aside from this, it is also worth noting that Harnack completely sets the canonical Gospel of John aside with respect to being a repository of an authoritative message from Jesus Christ. At first glance, one may take our German scholar’s position to indicate the long-standing recognition that canonical John is not among the Synoptic trio, Mark, Matthew, and Luke and is therefore elaborating what is well understood by scholars of his day and ours; however, Harnack’s assessment of canonical John takes on a different character altogether in light of archaeological evidence based on recovered Gospel papyri for canonical John.  To reprise from a strictly archaeological point of view, the Gospel of John is (a) the earliest – 2^nd century CE, (b) the most numerous, and (c) considered the most advanced of the Gospels with respect to [Jesus] Christology.

The distinctness of canonical John with respect to the Synoptic Gospels has been part and parcel to biblical historical criticism since its inception and it is hardly questioned. However, this is exactly why the archaeological record with respect to the recovered papyri is so important to reconstruction of early Christian origins.  Again, reflecting on Harnack’s comments are instructive: if this gospel is not an authoritative message of Jesus Christ, then whose authoritative message is it?  It is one of the purposes of these posts to investigate the authorship of these Gospel texts.  For the present; however, one major redactive element concerning the Gospel narratives it is hoped may be isolated convincingly are areas of the narratives where the effect of the vast machinery of Roman imperial ideology and power shaped the very texts themselves.  It is a major hypothesis of these posts that the Gospels we possess in the Christian canon are the products of a Jesus figure created in the second century of the current era.

Marcion is credited as having been the first to set books of the New Testament into a corpus (traditionally believed during the second century[ii]) and his movement was met, if the ancient sources can be believed, with an organized program of resistance from an existing Roman aligned Christianity skilled in the use and propagation of written polemic against its enemies. From what scholars have gleaned of Marcion’s works, his movement clearly did not author canonical John. His message is mixed up in a synoptic corpus that likely had not solidified in writing even as Tertullian was consigning it to heresy.[iii] It is a truism that canonical John does not share the so-called Q source; the message of John, as Harnack observed, is not the message of any of the Synoptic Gospels.  And yet, given the early frequency of canonical John fragments, which so greatly outnumber early synoptic fragments, we are faced with the proposition that some well-funded, well-organized group was publishing large numbers of papyri containing the Johnine message.

Tura Cosmè, St John the Evangelist on Patmos, c. 1470 Tempera on panel, 27 x 32 cm Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.  St. John is portrayed here with his Gospel and symbol: an eagle. The earliest direct archaeological evidence of the association of the eagle symbol with St. John is found on the paleochristian sarcophagus of Stilicho (late 4th century CE).  Christian iconography and semiotics between the period bracketed by the reigns of Hadrian (117-138) and Constantine (306-337) defies clear and consistent definition.

During the second century, the highest profile points of contact and friction between the Roman imperial Hellenistic religious tradition was Aelia Capitolina, the former site of the capital of Judea – Jerusalem.  It is here during the second century that Roman imperial power was best positioned to shape the evolution of both Judaism and nascent Christianity.  Aelia Capitolina itself was a city founded specifically to project the reality of the Divine Caeser into the heart of Judean religious culture and transform it.

Hadrian AE17 of Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem) – IMP HADRIAN…AR CA…, laureate draped bust right/legionary eagle, CO AE below.	Elagabalus Aelia Capitolina – Facing quadriga of horses carrying the Stone of Emesa, which is decorated with an eagle and flanked by two religious standards.

Hadrian and Aelia Capitolina

In reviewing much of the pre-WWI German scholarship on the eastern empire in the second century, one comes away from the experience with the strong impression that events during the later part of the reign of Trajan and the reign of Hadrian, particularly in the provinces of Egypt and Palestine, are not fully known and that the existing chronologies are subject to serious objections.  The ancient sources vary with respect to the founding of Aelia Capitolina on the site of Jerusalem.  Some sources cite a date early in Hadrian’s reign, others later dates.  The standard view espouses a date at the close of the Bar Kosiba revolt. This conclusion, as well as other aspects of Hadrian’s reign require full and careful reexamination.  From a historiographical perspective, it appears from the pre-WWI German scholarship that a consensus was developing favoring an earlier date in Hadrian’s reign for the founding of Aelia Capitolina.  From the Jewish perspective, indeed from the perspective of anyone native to Judea living during the second century, the establishment by imperial Rome of a Hellenistic (non-Judaic centered) metropolis in place of Jerusalem represented a major event.  It is also clear from the historical record, although again the time lines are less than perfect, that the decision to establish Aelia Capitolina threw the native Jewish population into tumult.

Leaving aside the issue of precisely when Aelia Capitolina was founded for a later post, it may be asserted with some certainty that Hadrian ordered to be founded a Roman panhellenic (panhellenic used here instead of the term pagan) civitas specifically dedicated to the cultus of the emperor as the worldly incarnation of Jupiter Capitolinus.[iv] This is not to be taken as a straight-forward statement that Hadrian desired to be worshiped as a god to the exclusion of all other deities; rather, as part of imperial policy, he sought to include a wide variety of religions and holy beings within a panhellenic pantheon for which he, his predecessors, and his successors stood in the same relationship to the inhabitants of the empire as Jupiter stood with respect to the gods on Olympus.  A major programmatic element in the religion of the imperial cultus was to subordinate, or perhaps more accurately stated, subjugate religions of those people brought within the orbit of the empire’s control.  During the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian, Judaism – particularly messianic Judaism – posed a special and seemingly intractable problem.

Of course one of the major premises behind initiating this post is to determine to what degree the events narrated in the canonical Gospels can be explained by second-century contexts shaped by the temporal and ideological forces of the imperial Caesar.

One of the most famous passages in the New Testament is Mark 13, the so called little apocalypse:

Jesus Foretells Destruction of the Temple

13:1 And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” 2 And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”

Signs of the Close of the Age

3 And as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?” 5 And Jesus began to say to them, “See that no one leads you astray. 6 Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. 7 And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet. 8 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains.

9 “But be on your guard. For they will deliver you over to councils, and you will be beaten in synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them. 10 And the gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations. 11 And when they bring you to trial and deliver you over, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit. 12 And brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death. 13 And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

The Abomination of Desolation

14 “But when you see the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not to be (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 15 Let the one who is on the housetop not go down, nor enter his house, to take anything out, 16 and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. 17 And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! 18 Pray that it may not happen in winter. 19 For in those days there will be such tribulation as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now, and never will be. 20 And if the Lord had not cut short the days, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days. 21 And then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it. 22 For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform signs and wonders, to lead astray, if possible, the elect. 23 But be on guard; I have told you all things beforehand.

Traditional biblical exegesis holds to the view that the abomination of desolation is a reference made by the author of Mark to Daniel 9:27, wherein it is related that Antiochus IV established an alter to Zeus within the temple (December, 167 BCE) and that this use of the Daniel passage is a testimonia to a future act of similar desecration.  For most biblical scholars, it is presumed that the author of Mark 14 is therefore alluding to Titus’ legions making sacrifices to the imperial Aquila (eagle) standards within the temple precincts in 70 CE.  That is to say, the automatic assumption is that Mark 14 refers to a strictly first century context.

However, one could very well argue that Hadrian himself, as well as Hadrian’s program of erecting statues and temples on the former precincts of the Jewish temple, and not Titus’ actions, would equally meet the requirements for the author of Mark’s abomination of desolation; why not therefore include a second century provenance for this  passage?  Of course the other contexts, synagogue beatings, false christs, and false prophets, are not ruled out by a second century setting; moreover, the war and rumors of war certainly would pertain to Judea in the reigns of both Trajan and Hadrian.  In any event, another point worthy of remark is that the Gospel of Mark instructs those followers (Christians) to withdraw to the hills and avoid the temptation to follow false christs and false prophets.  Such a context conforms to what the ancient sources report concerning the Bar Kosiba rebellion: the Christians did not accept Bar Kosiba as the messiah.  Bar Kosiba’s followers persecuted the Christians.  Again, this is to say, nothing in the Markan narrative of the Little Apocalypse precludes a second century setting.  In fact the second century is arguably a better fit.

Of Hadrian’s plans for Christianity we have this report from whoever was the author of the Vita Alexandri Severi:

He [Alexander Severus] also wished to build a temple to Christ and give him a place among the gods— a measure, which, they say, was also considered by Hadrian. For Hadrian ordered a temple without an image to be built in every city, and because these temples, built by him with this intention, so they say, are dedicated to no particular deity, they are called today merely Hadrian’s temples. Alexander, however, was prevented from carrying out this purpose, because those who examined the sacred victims ascertained that if he did, all men would become Christians and the other temples would of necessity be abandoned.[v]

These are murky historical waters. Added to these wisps and hints of a second-century imperial Roman religious policy toward Christianity are the purported encounters of either Hadrian, or Alexander Severus with the Christian apologists Quadratus and Aristides.

While it would not be prudent to advance an hypothesis on the basis of these traditions, it is possible to assert that the thrust of Hadrian’s would-be intentions appear in outline: he sought to establish panhellenism and the worship of the imperial cult in Judea through his colony of Aelia Capitolina.  Hadrian’s relations toward Christianity, whatever form it actually took during his reign, were, if anything, geared toward harnessing the movement as a force to counter-balance messianic Judaism.

Relative Capacities for Storing Knowledge and Projecting Ideology in the Second Century

The author of the Vita Alexandri makes really quite a startling statement in suggesting that Hadrian had ordered “temples without an image to be built in every city.” Such an expense would have been immense in terms of both human and material capital.  Such a program would have been contemplated only had it served the interests of the imperial regime.  The unknown author of the Vita Alexandri suggests that such imageless temples were actually built.

A point that will be developed later is that an imageless temple is usually associated with a cannon of holy writ.  If Hadrian committed to building imageless temples catering to Christians (the edifice described in the Vita Alexandri is tantalizingly close to the idea of a synagogue ), would it not therefore follow that a nascent body of written texts were also part of the program?  Is one to view these essentially empty temples (in comparison with the Greco-Roman variety) a possible evidence for an early christian kenotic doctrine?  Whatever the case may be, such a building program would have required a major center for the production and promulgation of texts to augment these temples.  Suffice to say, both temple edifice and supporting texts would not have been funded by the empire in order to undermine the imperial system.  The entire program would have been undertaken in order “to give Christ a place among the gods”, so to speak.  The archaeological record regarding Hadrian’s interest in producing large-scale temples and libraries is quite strong.

That the empire could engage in such displays of religious mass production is attested in the archaeological record across the empire. The very prolific John Dominic Crossan, writing with co-author and archaeologist Johnathan L. Reed in In Search of Paul (2004) observed that Michael Pfanner:

…has examined the ancient techniques available for mass production and compared the numbers from Napoleonic France to estimate that there were between twenty-five and fifty thousand portraits of Augustus across the empire, not including those of his successors and the imperial family (p. 144)

Marble statues, of course, are a less-perishable medium than papyrus and vellum, but this vignette treating a visible aspect of the imperial cult points to an implication that written texts very likely supported the regime. That the Imperial regime was a politico-religious cult further suggests that writing genres also followed suit and several authors of the Augustan age are perhaps better understood as working in a genre blending history, Imperial power and religion, in a manner not fundamentally appreciated and recognized by modern scholars with their clear and separate divisions, and liminalities between such categories. There exists a very great epistemological divide between the ordering of knowledge in ancient texts and our own.  One of the principal aims of this mass production of the symbols and words of power was to affect the Romanization of a subject population and keep it pacified.

Turning specifically to the subject of the business and technology of publishing in the Augustan age, only the very wealthy and the very well connected, would be authorized to print and widely disseminate important works.  By important one means: capable of politically and religiously influencing the position and power of the imperial regime amongst the population of the empire.

There is much to be learned from the archaeological evidence concerning how and where publishing and dissemination of written works took place in the ancient world.  Since our discussion now focuses on Hadrian and the second century, while leaving the door open for equal discussion of any earlier evidence, let us begin here.

Lionel Casson (1914-2004), familiar to most students and scholars of the ancient world through his voluminous writing on ancient maritime history, published his last work on the subject of libraries in classical civilization.  Casson outlines a long history of biblioteka rivalry between two great centers of Hellenistic culture: Pergamum and Alexandria.  Archaeologically it is known that during Hadrian’s reign, other private libraries existed in Pergamum and the second century seemed to witness much interest on the part of wealthy citizens to endow institutions with libraries.  Here Casson describes one such private library constructed in Pergamum by a wealthy matron Flavia Melitine:

In the reign of Hadrian, Pergamum acquired another library, much smaller in size than the Attalids’ and very different in purpose.  On the outskirts of the city was a sanctuary of Asclepius, which grew into a celebrated health center.  Here, besides buildings for treatment of patients, were amenities to help them pass the time, such as porticos for leisurely walks and a theatre for various kinds of performances.  A surviving inscription records that a generous local woman Flavia Melitine, added a library.  Its remains have been discovered, and they show that it was typically Roman, a room with niches for bookcases and , at the center of the back wall, an apse for a statue.  It was of good size, 16.52 m along the front and back and 18.50 m along the sides, but low, with only one level of niches, whose total number came to sixteen – two on each side of the apse and six in each of the side walls.

These are the dimensions of a library designed within the limits of what an individual private sponsor, in this case a woman, could expect to construct: as Casson notes, it is perhaps really only an enhanced reading room. Let us now compare the scale of Flavia’s effort with that of the emperor Hadrian himself, who dedicated a library in Athens. Again referring to Casson:

It was actually a combination library and cloister, a spreading rectangular complex that measured all of 82 m along the sides and 60 meters along the front and back.  A wall enclosed the whole with a colonnade of the cloister running inside it.  Along the sides the wall bulged outward at three points to create recesses where people could sit at their leisure, while the large open area in the middle was given over to a garden and pool.  The rear wall was set back from the colonnade to make space for a line of chambers, the central one of which was bigger than the others, about 23 m along the sides.  This was the library, and, as we might expect of a donation from a Roman emperor, was of Roman style, the walls lined with niches.  …This setup allowed for a good many niches: it has been reckoned that there were sixty-six in all,.. (p-133)

So here are examples of papyri roll storage capacity in the eastern Roman Empire during the reign of Hadrian at the two possible extreme ends of the library endowing spectrum of economics: a wealthy matron and an Emperor of Rome.  It should immediately be noted that in both cases, the library functioned with what the archaeological evidence suggests are multi-use facilities in our modern parlance and we have sixteen niches at the low end of the storage capacity against sixty-six at the high end of the scale.

By way of comparison, the famous library of Celsus at Ephesus, a private library also dated to the end of the first quarter of the second century CE, contains thirty niches for storage of written materials.  Notably, the dimensions of the storages niches in Hadrian’s library at Athens and Celsus’ library at Ephesus are identical (2.8m x 1m x .5m).  If one allows for the assumption of a rough standard for niche dimensions, we have the following capacities: Flavia Militine Library: 22.4 cubic meters, Celsus’ Library: 42 cubic meters, and for Hadrian’s library: 92.4 cubic meters. This post being a casual discussion, it would be inappropriate to place too much stock in the observation that follows; but it bears remark: the sum of the private library storage capacities does not quite equal the total storage capacity of the imperial library.  Moreover, the ratio of private to imperial storage capacity in our small sample is roughly equivalent to the ratio of early synoptic fragments to those of the early canonical fragments of John.

The point of bringing these data into the discussion is not necessarily to use it as the cornerstone of a major argument; rather, the intent is to present the material in a manner that heightens ones awareness that in the analysis of ancient libraries, one is really considering relative capacities for factions within the ancient Roman east to manage an information technology and harness a corpus of current and past records to particular social ends: it is clear that imperial elites wielded a gargantuan advantage, particularly with respect to both storage capacities and locations of information infrastructure. Lastly, and again speaking from archaeological evidence, the indications are that library building initiatives sponsored by imperial and private donors were frequent during the period surrounding the Bar Kosiba revolt or, that is to say, late in Hadrian’s reign. In assessing the redactive intent of ancient texts (let us also include Gospel texts into this class), it is not only the intended audience that need be considered but the authorizing patron as well.

Relief sculpture of eagle on thunderbolt, Petra, Jordan, circa 1st century CE.
Department of Antiquities, Amman, Jordan

In closing out this first post on the topic of the Gospels according to Hadrian, it is hoped that in some small way these casual observations concerning Roman imperial power, its purpose, and its capacities, will allow a discussion to advance toward investigating the possibility that the provenance of at least one of the Gospels, as well as the canonical formulation of Jesus-centered Christianity, was Aelia Capitolina, a city of Divine Men.

[i] Adolf Harnack, What is Christianity? Lectures Delivered in the University of Berlin Winter Term (1899-1900), Chapter II, p.  22 Wilhelm Weber, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Kaisers Hadrian (Leipzig:B.G. Teubner,1907)

[ii] David Salter Williams, Reconsidering Marcion’s Gospel , Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 108, No. 3 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 477-496. Moreover the earliest possible archaeological evidence so far for a Marcionite Gospel is the third century. It should be noted; however, that there is broad consensus based on external referrences to the Marcionite Gospel in Tertullian for the second century existance of the Marcionite Gospel.  Here again caution in accepting the tradtional view should be exercised: as Wlliams work demonstrates, it is an open question which of the synoptic Gospels (or what combination of pericopes from the synoptic corpus were actually the Marcionite Luke version Tertullian purports to identify).

[iii] Brook Foss Westcott, A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament (London: Macmillan, 1896), 318-20.  Westcott himself notes that two of the seven readings purportedly quoted from the Marcionite Gospel by Epiphanius.  Again, in the twentieth century, this issue was taken up by Williams (supra, note ii) with greater focus on Tertullian’s Marcionite quotations.

[iv] For a general and traditional discussion of the Hadrian’s decision to found Aelia Capitloina see: David Golan, “Hadrian’s Decision to Supplant Jerusalem by Aelia Capitolina,” Historia: Zeitschrift fur Alte Geschitchte, Vol. 35, No. 2 (2nd Qtr., 1986), pp. 226-239. By way of remark, Golan in this article (pp. 237-38) takes note of Mark 13, the Little Apocalypse.  He takes for granted that the event described in Mark was written in the first century CE pertaining to Titus (Vespasian).  This is to say, the historian is treating Mark 13 as if it actually were a prophecy in the religious sense.  Golan writes:”the first half of the prophecy concerning it [Mark 13] was already fulfilled.”  It is difficult to understand why a scholar studying this issue would not also identify the possibility that all of the narrative in the Little Apocalypse of Mark could much more accurately have been written in the second century CE with the knowledge of all the events between Vespasian and Hadrian. See also article by Hermann Detering,  The Synoptic Apocalypse (Mark 13 par) Journal of Higher Criticism (200)  7 (2): 161–210.

[v] Vita Alexandri Severi, 43:6. This is such a very curious passage; it is tempting to seek in this description of temples without images a synagogue model; however, one should not take even this notion for granted based on the rich, very rich, imagery found at the synagogue of Dura-Europos (last phase of construction 244 CE).

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Related posts:

1. The Gospels According to Hadrian, Part III: The Aelian Canon and the Main Hand of God
2. The Gospels of Hadrian Part II: Death on the Nile
3. The Royal Library of Alexandria in the first century
4. Archaeology of the earliest canonical gospels
5. Chrestians and the lost history of Classical Antiquity
6. Lifting the Vaults of Heavenly and Earthly Peace
7. Hadrian’s parody
8. Jesus son of Sapphias
9. Hadrian’s perverted insanity
10. The Sun of righteousness
11. Resurrection in the second century
12. Josephus as a primary source for the New Testament
13. Eleazar, Saul and a Deed of Gift at Qumran
14. The Lysimachus Dynasty
15. Manimekalai: Dancer with Magic Bowl