The Sun

[Ross G. R. Caldwell]

Re: the poem note that another name for Gemini (the twins, castor and pollux (on whose ship St. Paul was brought to Rome, romulus and remus (founders of Rome)) is 'bricks' or 'pile of bricks'.

Note also that the crucifixion of Christ is said by a variety of sources to have taken place under the consulship of the two Gemini at Rome. By which the sign Gemini by nature of a pun on the two consuls name comes to symbolise the end of Christ's passion.

According to Augustine:

"Christ died when the two Gemini were consuls."

According to Tertulian:

"The Passion was finished when Rubelius Geminus and Fusius Geminus were Consuls."

I was just about to ask you "which Herod?" about the Severus (of Antioch?) quote, but I see you already caught and removed it.

[SteveM]

I was just about to ask you "which Herod?" about the Severus (of Antioch?) quote, but I see you already caught and removed it.

Sulpicius Severus gives the 18th year of Herod's reign, meaning Herod of Galilee, Herod Antipas. Eusebius gives the 19th year, Jerome changes this to 18th in his version of Eusebius's chronicles.

[Ross G. R. Caldwell]

I was just about to ask you "which Herod?" about the Severus (of Antioch?) quote, but I see you already caught and removed it.

Sulpicius Severus gives the 18th year of Herod's reign, meaning Herod of Galilee, Herod Antipas.

Thanks! I hadn't heard that. This means that Sulpicius Severus dates the crucifixion to AD 18 (traditional dating) or AD 14 (modern dating, Herod the Great having died in 4 BC). That's the earliest I've ever seen it put. Normally, of course, it is placed in Jesus' 34th year, during Pilate's governorship, AD 26-36.

The other problem was with the length of Antipas' reign - my reading gives me from the death of Herod the Great to "after AD 39", or at least 43 years. How is it that Severus says "24 years"?

[SteveM]

I was just about to ask you "which Herod?" about the Severus (of Antioch?) quote, but I see you already caught and removed it.

Sulpicius Severus gives the 18th year of Herod's reign, meaning Herod of Galilee, Herod Antipas. Eusebius gives the 19th year, Jerome changes this to 18th in his version of Eusebius's chronicles.

“Under this Herod, in the three and thirtieth of his reign, Christ was born, Sabinu and Rufinus being consuls. Herod, after the nativity of our Lord, reigned four years. After him Archelaus was tetrarch nine years, and Herod twentry-four years. In the eighteenth year of his reign the Lord was crucified when Rufius Geminus and Rubellius Geminus were consuls.”

Sulpicius Severus, c. 402 A.D. quoted in The Journal of Sacred Literature (1858) by John Kitto, Henry Burgess, Benjamin Harris Cowper. Vol VII, p.373

This means that according to Severus Christ died when he was 31 (4+9+18). Given Severus date of the nativity as 4 B.C. this gives a date of crucifixion of 27 A.D. However he agrees with the others that Roman Gemini were consuls at the time of the crucifixion, and they according to several sources were consuls in 29 A.D.

[Ross G. R. Caldwell]

Thanks! I hadn't heard that. This means that Sulpicius Severus dates the crucifixion to AD 18 (traditional dating) or AD 14 (modern dating, Herod the Great having died in 4 BC). That's the earliest I've ever seen it put. Normally, of course, it is placed in Jesus' 34th year, during Pilate's governorship, AD 26-36.

The other problem was with the length of Antipas' reign - my reading gives me from the death of Herod the Great to "after AD 39", or at least 43 years. How is it that Severus says "24 years"?

I found this from Severus' Chronicle -

"After him, came Archelaus the tetrarch, for eight years, and Herod for twenty-four years. Under him, in the eighteenth year of his reign, the Lord was crucified, Fufius Geminus and Rubellius Geminus being consuls;"

So he gives Archelaus, 4 BC - AD 4 (modern scholarship says Archelaus was deposed in AD 6), and then makes Antipater succeed him for 24 years. If Severus is going with Jesus being born, axiomatically, at the beginning of AD 1, then Archelaus ruled 1-8, Antipater 9-33. Thus Jesus was crucified in AD 26 - which could actually be true, if Jesus were born in 7 BC, which is an acceptable date.

Really though, Archelaus was not the "tetrarch", but an "ethnarch", and the brothers reigned simultaneously after Herod's death, Archelaus over Judea and other places, and Antipater (the real "tetrarch") over Galilee and other places.

[Ross G. R. Caldwell]

I was just about to ask you "which Herod?" about the Severus (of Antioch?) quote, but I see you already caught and removed it.

Sulpicius Severus gives the 18th year of Herod's reign, meaning Herod of Galilee, Herod Antipas. Eusebius gives the 19th year, Jerome changes this to 18th in his version of Eusebius's chronicles.

“Under this Herod, in the three and thirtieth of his reign, Christ was born, Sabinu and Rufinus being consuls. Herod, after the nativity of our Lord, reigned four years. After him Archelaus was tetrarch nine years, and Herod twentry-four years. In the eighteenth year of his reign the Lord was crucified when Rufius Geminus and Rubellius Geminus were consuls.”

Sulpicius Severus, c. 402 A.D. quoted in The Journal of Sacred Literature (1858) by John Kitto, Henry Burgess, Benjamin Harris Cowper. Vol VII, p.373

Thanks, sorry, we both posted at the same time.

I guess this could work out to agree - to an acceptable degree given the ancient methods - with modern scholarship's view of the dates of Jesus' life. What puzzled me was a date in the teens, but I see this is anachronistic interpretation of the ancient authors. They would all seem to place it in the late 20s.

[Ross G. R. Caldwell]

This means that Christ died when he was 31 (4+9+18). Given Severus date of the nativity as 4 B.C. this gives a date of crucifixion of 27 A.D. However he agrees with the others that Roman Gemini were consuls at the time of the crucifixion, and they were consuls in 29 A.D.

Just catching this - yes, he would make Jesus 31 when he died.

[cadla]

I was reading something recently---can't remember where--that the age of death for Jesus (usually taken as 33) was rigged to fit the usual human number theory of the day. There is such symbolism in numbers for humans. Master numbers and numerology have always been popular.

It's all a bit iffy, but folk do love their associations and signs. As I write this a pantheon of emoticons cheers me on from the right of the page. I'm convinced that thing rolling on the floor and pounding its fists is meant to symbolize the panpsychic society of Charles Hartshorne.

[SteveM]

I was just about to ask you "which Herod?" about the Severus (of Antioch?) quote, but I see you already caught and removed it.

Sulpicius Severus gives the 18th year of Herod's reign, meaning Herod of Galilee, Herod Antipas. Eusebius gives the 19th year, Jerome changes this to 18th in his version of Eusebius's chronicles.

The Gospel of Nicodemus also gives 19 years of Herod's reign, and some versions make it the 19th year of Tiberius's reign too:
“in the nineteenth* year of the reign of the Roman Emperor Tiberius, when Herod was king of Galilee, in the nineteenth year of his rule, on the eighth day before the Kalends of April, that is, the twenty-fifth of March, in the consulate of Rufus and Rubellio, in the fourth year of the two hundred and second Olympiad, Joseph Caiaphas was high priest of the Jews." (translation of the standard Greek and Latin texts in Tischendorf by Felix Scheidweiller).

The Gospel of Nicodemus, also known as the Acts of Pilate, was a popular and well known text, the primary source for the accounts of Christ's descent into Hades, the harrowing of hell so popular in the literature, theatre and mystery plays of the late middle ages.

SteveM
ref: New Testament Apocrypha: Gospels and related writings By Wilhelm Schneemelche, p.505.

Scheidweller notes (p.543):
Note 3: “Manuscripts and versions vary between the fifteenth, eighteenth and nineteenth year of the reign of Tiberius. The year of the Olympiad (202.4 = 32/33) supports the nineteenth, which is also given in the Armenian version of the Chronicle of Eusebius. Eusebius dates the reign of Herod Antipas from the 2048th year of Abraham = A.D 14. Rufus and Rubellio are C. Fufius Geminis and L. Rubellius Geminus, the consuls of the year 29. This would correspond to the fifteenth year of Tiberius, the date of the crucifixion according to the oldest Christian chronology, based on Lk. 3:1

[mikeh]

SteveM wrote,

Re: the poem note that another name for Gemini (the twins, castor and pollux (on whose ship St. Paul was brought to Rome, romulus and remus (founders of Rome)) is 'bricks' or 'pile of bricks'.

OK: I think I understand why St. Paul went to Rome on Castor and Pollux's ship: they were for the Romans the guardians of sailors. It shows how the Romans' gods welcomed Christianity. I also understand, I hope, how "bricks" refers to Romulus and Remus: the building of Rome, or at least its first wall. But what is your reference for "Gemini" having "bricks" or "pile of bricks" as another name? Is that something you thought up, or is it in astrology somewhere?