So far, the earliest Jewish reference to the Messiah that I’ve found
reads “The Messiah exalted by the First Isaiah (c. 740-700 BCE) had
been specifically the young king of Judah of that time, Hezekiah
(727-698 BCE).” As this was well before Plato [428-348 BCE], who
briefly speculated about a Christ-like figure and mythology, it would
seem that the Jewish Messiah came first. I have not well traced it
back on the Greek side, however.
Sidebar: the words ‘Messiah’, and ‘Christos’ both changed myth
and meaning over the centuries and cultures, sometimes local
and immediate, sometimes millenarian and universal. And
mostly out of phase. It’s a mistake to compare the Greek and
Jewish versions too closely. Still ..
Long ago, almost as long ago as the peri-Christian times of our
discussion, I took a course at CalTech on “The Bible as Literature”.
I was in my junior year there, and the course was an elective required
to fill required units in ‘The Humanities’. There, I distinctly
remember the professor .. an oldish guy, probably Jewish, probably
salvaged mercifully from the Nazi-driven diaspora of the late ’30s
[CalTech to its high credit had several of these] .. told of an early
‘Christian’ sect in Rome [~100 BCE], and that Saint Mark [a Roman?]
had written the oldest gospel around 75 CE from information scavenged
from soldiers returning [to Rome?] from the First Jewish Rebellion
[66-73 CE].
As I say, I distinctly remember this. But I can find but one hint of
it after thrashing around on Google.
Instead, there are references by Cicero, Tacitus, Pliny, and Suetonius
to a contemporary Jewish community in Rome, interestingly accompanied
by complaints of their refusal to accept Roman customs. Suetonius
relates that during Claudius time [10 BCE – 54 CE] “Since the Jews
constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he
expelled them from Rome.” Suetonius is not the most reliable
historian, however, [he did love a good scandal], and other references
question the expulsion. Later persecution of the ‘Christians’ may
have been confusingly relabeled extensions of earlier persecutions of
the Jews, much as in our day fears of ‘communists’ have morphed into
ditto of ‘terrorists’.
And remember always that the story is confused in the retelling of it.
Back to Suetonius: ‘Chrestus’, I have learned, is a Latin honorific
meaning ‘The Good’, as in ‘Halstead Chrestus’. I wonder, could it
also have been some variant of the Greco-Roman ‘Christus’? Maybe.
Who knows? Not I.
As to St. Mark, Christian orthodoxy has him from Alexandria, not
Rome.
As of where I am now .. about halfway thru Campbell’s 3rd volume on
“Occidental Mythology” I have found no concise theory of religious
myth, as I remember you advertised. Campbell’s prose is often hard to
follow. I found myself re-reading many paragraphs to unscramble
confusions: mine, more often than Campbell’s, but some of each.
Often he appears to quote, without explicit orthography. Often he
opines in psychologically infected prose that seems divergent from his
story. Or stories, there are so many. That he has worked hard, read
much, and tells all [or even more than ‘all’] is impressive and
commendable.
Maybe more, later.
Halstead