2010-08-30

Stronger evidence for Publius Vinicius the Stammerer 2000 years ago than for Jesus

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by Neil Godfrey

Publius who? That is the point of this post. Assertions that there is as much evidence for Jesus as for any other person in ancient times, or that if we reject the historicity of Jesus then we must reject the existence of everyone else in ancient history, are based on ignorance of how we really do know about the existence of ancient persons.

This is my postscript to the previous post and suggests a case study on the relevance of literary criticism (and a few other things, like primary evidence and external controls) to historical methodology. I have argued the negative side of this in relation to Jesus many times, and won’t repeat those arguments here. Instead, I focus on one case where the methodology I discuss is used to positively establish historicity of ancient persons.

Seneca mentions a Publius Vinicius the stammerer in one of his letters discussing the methods appropriate for a philosopher’s discourse. I have reasonable grounds for thinking Publius Vinicius was a historical figure 2000 years ago. This is in spite of their being no primary evidence for the existence of Vinicius and despite his not being a major player in the history of the period.

My confidence is based on the following:

  • primary evidence for emperors Claudius and Nero (e.g. coins) giving me a comfortable assurance they existed;
  • surviving copies of a number of histories and other literature containing discussions of these figures (e.g. Seneca), along with a series of literary judgments on the nature of those works that give me some confidence in the identities of their authors, their provenance, the extent of their factual reliability, etc.; and independent and external supports (including additional secondary and literary evidence about which literary judgements are made) for much of their narrative contents (e.g. Tacitus’s discussion of Seneca as portrayed by Suilius).

From this starting point, I have very strong reasonable grounds for accepting the historicity of the philosopher Seneca, and in the genuineness of some of the surviving writings purportedly by him.

The same starting point (with its literary judgements) gives me good reasons for accepting that when Seneca refers to his knowledge of various Roman speakers within the context of illustrating his arguments with figures known to his reader(s), I can therefore conclude that his exemplars really did exist.

Publius Vinicius the stammerer was one of these examplars. Therefore I have reasonable grounds for concluding that PV existed.

It may be that Seneca’s letters were more artificial than a face-value reading suggests. Maybe he was concocting his correspondent and settings as foils to express his philosophical thoughts. There would be nothing about that given the nature of the epistolary genre and its variety of functions in the times referred to. But that particular literary judgment will not impact on other literary judgments that he was attempting to reinforce his message by means of reference to people his readers knew.

Besides, we have another historian speaking of the same name, Publius Vinicius, in another context, and from the same time period. This strengthens my reason to speak of PV as having been a historical person.

This is about as far as the nature of the evidence of ancient history will allow us to go in allowing us reasonable grounds for believing in the historicity of certain individuals. The evidence is of a completely different order for modern history.

If we had similar evidence for the historicity of Jesus then I could be just as certain of his existence as I am of the existence of Publius Vinicius the stammerer.

But for Jesus?

For Jesus we have scholarly arguments for why a certain saying or deed in the gospels was historical, but in most cases of which I am aware such arguments are entirely circular when it comes to arguing for the historicity of Jesus himself. These arguments begin with the assumption of his historicity, and of the historicity underlying the narrative construct of the Gospels, and then argue through criteria grounded in those assumptions (e.g. embarrassment, double dissimilarity) to confirm those assumptions — as I’ve argued many times, now, such as in my historical methodology post.

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Neil Godfrey

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0 thoughts on “Stronger evidence for Publius Vinicius the Stammerer 2000 years ago than for Jesus”

  1. Another person that I think has much stronger attestation is Cicero’s slave, Marcus Tullius Tiro.

    We know he was Greek, we know he surfaced in Rome in 54 BCE, we know he developed a system of shorthand. He is attested multiply, by Cicero himself (PRIMARY EVIDENCE), by Plutarch, by Asconius Pedius and by Aulus Gellius. The system of shorthand used in Rome for Greek was named after him, and he perhaps developed it himself or in conjunction with other slaves of Cicero’s. He died of natural causes in 4 BCE at Cicero’s estate.

    1. And the source of Cicero itself is given authenticity by its close links with evidence connected with the primary evidence of the times of Julius Caesar. And literary criticism at a basic level can show us his writings have a practical interest in referencing real people and events, and are not primarily seeking to explain a theological mystery by a mix of fictional, parabolic and historical naames.

      It might be interesting to write up in more detail than I have done the bases on which we infer the historicity of these people. Thanks for this one, too.

  2. Do we have members of the Publius the Stammerer fan club, writing whole books after his death, without quoting anything he stammered?

    And never comparing their eloquence with Publius?

    Jesus was an ‘apocalyptic preacher’, was he not?

    2 Corinthians 12
    But I do not think I am in the least inferior to those “super-apostles.” I may not be a trained speaker, but I do have knowledge.

    Paul, of course, never dreams of comparing his preaching to that of Jesus, explaining how Jesus was a much superior preacher to him.

    Nor does Paul denigrate these ‘super-apostles’ by comparing their preaching to that of Jesus.

    The standard of preaching of a Jesus was just not something that was used as a comparison by members of the Jesus fan club.

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