Criticisms of Early Christianity

Celsus was a Neo-Platonist that lived in the time of the late second century. He wrote a book against Christianity called The True Word. Celsus’s work is only known through the Christian apologist Origen’s writings. Origen of Alexandria was a Christian theologian who cites much of Celsus’s work in his book Against Celsus. Porphyry was a philosopher born in the Roman near East and who wrote in the second half of the third century after the persecutions of Decian and Valerian. His book, Against the Christians, was responded to by various Christian apologists such as Eusibius, Methodius, Jerome and Augustine.

Celsus’s first criticism is to do with God’s descent amongst men. For Celsus, this is an impossibility because God, even by Christian belief, is immutable, unchanging and pure. For God to undergo such a transformation, he would have to go from a pure to a blemished state, from good to bad and Celsus states that this is wrong. Celsus asserts that if God wished to bring about the moral reformation of men he did not need to come down onto the earth because he is omnipotent. In other words God could have used his divine power to enact such a reformation. Cesus also questioned why God only decided to make this action in the generation of Jesus , stating that such an act shows that the Christian idea of God is arbitrary and capricious, which makes Christians a group of impious babblers.

Celsus’s second major criticism of Christianity was the belief in the resurrection of Jesus. As far as Celsus is concerned this is contrary to nature as it reverses the natural process of disintegration and disrupts the order if the world. He questions why God would wish to do such a thing because if God is reason, he obviously is not going to do anything contrary to reason. Therefore, if the Christian believes in a God who does things contrary to reason, they are worshipping a God that is unfit for devotion.

The third major criticism of Christianity for Celsus is the worship of Jesus as God. For Celsus, Jesus was not worthy of being venerated as divine as he was just a low-grade magician not a great hero such as Heracles or Orpheas. The practice of magic was a criminal offence in the Roman Empire and Celsus contends that the miracles of Jesus were simply magic tricks. The Gospels presented Jesus as a wonder worker and Celsus sees the prayers that the Christian’s used as incantations or spells. Celsus contends that by Jesus being conferred the status of God by the Christians that they were making him a rival to the one true God. In Celsus’s view, Jesus’s mortality must make him inferior to God and he asserts that the monotheism of Christians is undone by the adoration of him. As far as Celsus was concerned, Jesus was a lesser deity and excessive adoration robbed the one high God of his proper due.

Porphyry’s first point was that the Book of Daniel had been used by Christians to verify their belief that Jesus was the prophesied Messiah. Porphyry thought that the Old Testament Book of Daniel was a Maccabean pseudograph that had been written contemporarily in the time of Antioch in the second century BC as encouragement for Jewish resistance. The Christian use of the book as a prophecy of Christ’s birth and the destruction of Temple was invalid as far as Porphyry was concerned. He was able to do this through a detailed analysis of the Book of Daniel.

Porphyry’s second point against Christians was their account of the New Testament. He claimed that the disciples based their writings on hearsay because only Matthew and John were eyewitnesses whereas Luke and Mark based their writings on the testimony of the former. Porphyry’s main criticism is that the disciples made Jesus out to be more than he was actually, such things as Jesus being the Son of God, and that he was able to express the word of God through he and God were one was a suspension of belief .

Porphyry also brought to attention the inconsistencies in the writings, behaviour and character of the apostles. One of the main inconsistencies he points to is the conflict between Peter and Paul over circumcision. Porphyry thought that this made the apostles, upon whom the Christians based their belief, unreliable. He points to examples of where there was strife and division in the church from the beginning.

Porphyry’s final and main argument against the Christians was the teaching by the disciples of the worship of Jesus. Porphyry thinks that they are mistaken and that Jesus taught the worship of the one God whereas the disciples turned this into the worship of Jesus. Porphyry thought that the disciples advocated apostacy from their true religion, that of Judaism and questioned why they did not follow the teachings of Moses, or practice the religion inaugurated by Jesus.

The Christian apologist Origen answered these Celsus’s claims by attacking him for being extremely relativistic. Rather than appealing to a specific doctrine that others should follow, for Origen Celsus only appeals to traditon; that things should be done because they were done in the past, that people should obey laws because established social conventions ought to be maintained. Augustine, who wrote a criticism of Porphyry’s work called him the most learned of all, as Porphyry knew the Christian writings as well as any Christian teacher did. However, Augustine states that although the critics of Christianity believe that Jesus should be worshipped as a wise man, he cannot understand why they do not accept that he should be worshipped as God. Augustine states that even Porphyry had to admit from his own consultation with the oracles that Jesus should be praised. Other Christian apologists say they at a loss to understand why such pagans are hostile to the Christians when they both believe in the one true God.

Celsus’s three most important criticisms of Christianity were to do with the Christian beliefs that God came to live amongst men, the belief on the resurrection of Jesus and the worship of Jesus as God. Porphyry’s rested on four core points being the Christian belief in the prophecies of Daniel, the exaggerated fabrication of the life of Jesus, the inconsistencies in Christian writings and the apostacism of Christianity from its foundation belief of Judaism. The Christians apologists responded with incredulity as to why these philosophers were so dependent upon reason and tradition in their arguments against Christianity.

The Effects of the Diocletian Persecutions on Early Christianity

The persecution of Christians by Diocletian began in 303 C.E. at a time when the Roman Empire was under extreme economic pressure. The economy of currency had been ruined and the tax system had to be based on payments in kind, just as the military were also paid in kind. Certain occupations that were considered to be essential for the maintenance of the Empire became known as ‘compulsory services’ and those engaged in them were prohibited from changing them. To try and unify the Empire at this politically difficult time, Diocletian used the state religion.

Diocletian had divided the Empire into four princeps to be run by four emperors. In 293 C.E. he appointed Galerius to the eastern empire of the Balkans. Galerius married Diocletian’s daughter Valerian who, along with her mother, was a Christian. It is considered by Eusibius that it was Galerian, at the behest of his mother, who instigated Diocletian to carry out persecutions of the Christians. Eusibius goes on to state that Diocletian thought that it would be foolish to have so many put to death, especially seeing that the Christians were eager to be martyred. Diocletian suggested that it would be enough to exclude Christians from court. However, he had many advisors who thought that Christians should be cut off ‘as enemies of the gods and adversaries of the established religious ceremonies’.

They began in the March 305 C.E. with the destruction of the church in Nicodemia, and the next day an edict was published that deprived Christians of all honours and dignities, that they would undergo torture, that all lawsuits against them would be accepted, that they could not be a plaintiff, and finally that they should not be free or have suffrage. Diocletian’s wife, Priscia, and Valeria were forced to sacrifice to the gods. Presbyters and officers of the church, along with their families, were seized without trial and executed by being burnt alive. The judges were dispersed to all the temples to compel everyone to sacrifice. Eusibius writes that the prisons became crowded and that the courts were set with alters so that every accused could turn and sacrifice. All the other emperors followed suit except for the emperor Constantinus, who only called for the demolition of churches.

In 305 Diocletian abdicated along with the second emperor Maximianus. Constantinus and Galerius became the new Augusti. Under Galerius the persecutions worsened, he began a mode of executions by edicts against the Christians, who were slowly and tortuously burnt to death. This punishment along with others became normal for all people. Under Galerius people were burnt, crucified and killed by wild beasts daily. Eusibius writes that this eventuated in a general illiteracy, with lawyers slain or exiled and the use of writing to be considered the same as magical or forbidden arts. All those who possessed books were considered enemies of the government and, once the law was dissolved, licence to be a judge was given to any rude and illiterate men.

Eusibius writes that the worst calamity to beset the Empire was the imposition of a capitation tax on all provinces and cities, where marketplaces were assembled with all the people, and sons hung on the rack to determine the effects of the fathers. Imaginary effects, the result of attestation through torture, were recorded on the lists. This infliction of all the subjects of Rome led to the number of animals decreasing and men dying. Eusibius goes on that all that was left were beggars and even they were rounded up and drowned in the sea. Constantinus in the meantime gave his sovereignty to his son Constantine in 306 C.E., much to the grief of Galerius.

By 312 C.E. Constantine was made the sole ruler of the Western Empire after the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. Lactantius, who was the tutor of Constantine’s son and close to the imperial family, reports that Constantine was commanded in a dream to place the sign of Christ on the shields of his soldiers. From that day Constantine identified himself as a Christian. Galerius had died the previous year after a terrible disease that, Eusibius writes, ate away his insides. Before he died, Galerius issued an Edict of Toleration which stated that because Christians in great numbers still persisted in their opinions, even after many were persecuted, they were permitted to worship their god and restore their places of worship. After Galerius’s death, Maximinius Daia proclaimed himself emperor of the east and continued the persecution of Christians in his realm.

In February 313C.E. Licinius, one of the emperors of the Eastern Empire met Constantine and formed a common religious policy. Although at that time Licinius issued an edict of toleration, he went on later to persecute Christians. Constantine, however, decided to use the church as an instrument of imperial policy and thus deprived it of its former independence. The church fathers throughout the Diocletian persecutions had struggled to maintain some control of their ‘flock’. This is attested to in a letter from four Egyptian bishops who questioned the bishop Melitius of Lycopolis and his authority to ordain priests. This caused a schism in which Peter of Alexandria wrote to his flock that ‘Miletius acts in no way for the common good’. This seems to imply that the martyrdom of many church leaders during the Diocletian persecutions was causing leadership stress within the church.

Constantine was dismayed when he discovered the disunity within the church, specifically in the province of Africa where there was conflict between the rigorist position towards the lapsi, those who had succumbed to the demand to sacrifice, and those who had a more forgiving position. Constantine convened two councils of bishops in 313 and 314 to resolve this problem unsuccessfully. The rigorists, under Caecilian bishop of Carthage, established a separatist church in North Africa. By 324 Constantine was the sole ruler in the Empire and wanted to to reconcile differences in beliefs about the Holy Trinity through convening the First Ecumenical Council of the church in 325. This was also unsuccessful. Eusibius eventually became the emperor’s chief spiritual advisor in 327. In 330 Constantine’s desire to have Byzantium become the new capital of Rome was realised. Here, he had built three major churches and made New Rome, unlike the pagan Old Rome, be a Christian capital.

It could be said that the effects of the persecutions on Christianity were the instigation of a Christian emperor and the ceding of much authority to him through a level of disunity among the bishops over key issues of forgiveness of the lapsi and beliefs about the Holy Spirit which resulted in breakaway churches.

Pagans, Christians and Jews in the Roman Empire

Traditional Roman religious practice we are told by Cassius Dio did not tolerate atheists, which the Jews and the Christians were seen to be. Also, the Romans did not like new divinities to be introduced which might cause ‘conspiracies’ and ‘factions’. These were Roman fears and the determination by various emperors to assert the priority of Roman religion brought them into conflict with both religions.

It was said by Philo the Alexandrian that it was the emperor Gaius’s demand to be worshipped as a divine figure that brought him to persecute the Jews. Philo, who represented the Jews in an embassy to Gaius, states that Gaius thought that the Jews wished to counter his desires. When Gaius ordered a statue to be placed in the Temple at Jerusalem, a decision later rescinded, the Jews felt that their whole nation was under threat. This setting for conflict was exacerbated by the procurator Florus, sent to Judea by the emperor Nero in 64 C.E.. Josephus writes that he thought it a petty offense to get money out of single people, therefore he spoiled whole cities and forced many people to flee to other provinces. Florus was considered a criminal by Josephus who wished to hide his crimes by inciting revolt amongst the Jews. When Florus marched against Jerusalem the high priests could not contain their outrage and these acts were used by Florus to attempt to seize the Hebrew Temple in Jerusalem.

Such poor political policies could be said to have driven the Jews into conflict with the Roman state. Cassius Dio, the second century Roman historian and politician, also wrote that the cause of the revolt in Judea was heavy taxation, as there was similar unrest in the Roman provinces of Gaul and Britain. After the destruction of the Temple by Vespasian in 66C.E. great animosity and another cycle of violence were generated. Cassius Dio states that in the time of the emperor Trajan, Jews in the regions of Cyrene, Egypt and Cyprus were destroying both Roman and Greeks. Various papyri from 117-118 C.E. from Egypt and Cyrene also attest to the results of such discord and anger. Some of them refer to the acts of ‘impious Jews’, a serious accusation of disrespect for Roman authority.

The Christians also came into conflict with the Roman state at this time. In 64 C.E. the city of Rome suffered a great fire and Nero, who was in need of a convenient scapegoat, blamed the infant sect of Christianity which was growing in the city. Tacitus, who was nine at the time of the fire, wrote that Nero fastened guilt and enacted the most ‘exquisite tortures’ upon a class that were hated for their ‘abominations’. They were convicted of the crime of hatred of mankind because they spoke of the end of the world, rather than the conflagration of the city. Nero opened up his palace gardens and, covered with the skins of beasts, an ‘immense multitude’ of Christians were torn to pieces by dogs, crucified or burnt as torches to illuminate the spectacle.

The confusion of Roman state policy to Christianity, which was seen as a branch of Judaism, can be seen through the actions of Pliny. While he was governor of the province of Bithynia-Pontus in the early second century, Pliny came into contact with anti-Christian sentiment. He was perplexed as to what to do with the Christians or why they were to be considered criminals worthy of execution. Pliny knew that Rome had earlier dealt with troublesome religious sects, such as the Bacchae, the Jews and the Druids, however he felt he could only accuse them and punish them for stubbornness and obstinacy, which was considered offensive to Roman sensibilities. Because of these convictions the amount of denunciations grew. The only thing he could accuse them of was having illegal political associations, but even that they ceased to do. Pliny found all he could accuse them of was ‘depraved, excessive superstition’ and that concerned not what one might do privately but that the state and status quo be upheld, and that the economy of a city dependent upon feasts and community religion be stabilised. Pliny saw the Christians as a destabilising influence on his province and punished them for that.

This may also have been a reason for the emperor Decian to issue an edict of sacrifice across the Empire in the mid-third century. His aim was to appeal to the conservative aristocracy in Rome and the troops that were responsible for helping him to power. Although this was considered usual for the accession of a new emperor, participation in such festivals was considered an obligatory duty and a demonstration of loyalty to the empire. It was such participation in sacrifice and idol worship that was to bring a marked conflict between the Roman state and the growing Christian community. Another source of conflict could have been the Christians refusal to serve in the Roman army at a time when the borders of the Empire were under threat. One of Christianity’s chief critics in the late second century was the conservative philosopher Celsus, who urged Christians to help and cooperate with emperor and to fight and be fellow-soldiers if it was commanded. Christians refused to do military service which is confirmed by the Christian apologist Origen who stated that Christians do more for the empire by forming ‘an army of piety’ that prays for the well-being of the emperor and the safety of the empire.

Just as the Jews were able to refuse military service because of their upholding of the Sabbath, the Christians also demanded this exemption. It was likely then that in the beginning the Christians were seen as a sect of the Jews. Later, however, under different persecutions of Christians, they were accused of apostatising Judaism and rebelling against the laws of Moses. However, it was considered the lack of piety for the authority of Rome that brought the Christians and the Jews into conflict with the Roman state. The allegation of ‘impiety’ was brought against both religions and this was followed by defiance against the state to the situation where the Romans saw such behaviour as treasonous and seditious. Although religious pluralism was a part of the Roman Empire, the ultimate authority was the emperor and over the period of the first to the third centuries the apparent lack of respect for Roman religious beliefs, especially the imperialist cult, were a source of insecurity and conflict.

The Jewish Revolts Against the Romans

The Jewish Revolts against Roman rule were reflective of Jewish dissent in the Maccabaen revolt of the second century B.C.E.. The Jewish leader, Mathathias, states to king Antiochus- “Although all nations obey king Antiochus…I and my sons, and my brethren will obey the law of our fathers”[1].Under Julius Caesar in the first century B.C.E., the client king Herod negotiated for the Jews to have a favoured status within the empire. It allowed them to practice their religion freely: they were exempted from military service, they had the right to assemble and could send money to Jerusalem[2]. So to explore whether the Jewish Revolts of the first and second centuries were politically or religiously motivated, one should first explore the change of status that the Jews experienced under subsequent Roman emperors and its outcome.

Prior to the first revolt of the Jews against Roman authority, the Jewish community suffered persecution under the emperor Gaius (Caligula). Philo, who represented the Jews in an embassy to Gaius, states that Gaius thought that the Jews wished to counter his desires and that ‘a most terrible and irreconcilable war was prepared against our nation…’[3]. When Gaius ordered a statue of himself to be placed in the temple at Jerusalem the Jews felt that their whole nation was under threat, ‘for in the destruction of the temple there is reason to fear that this man…will also order the general name of our whole nation to be abolished’[4]. Although Gaius later retracted his order it had made the Jewish people insecure. When Claudius came to power in 41 C.E., Cumanus was made procurator of the province of Palestine and had to deal with several uprisings against perceived Roman injustice. Josephus, who was one of the leaders of the First Revolt, tells of a religious festival guarded by Roman soldiers to try and stop any ‘innovations’ by the populace. When a soldier made an indecent posture to the crowd, youths threw stones and Cumanus had to call for more arms. Cumanus had the Jews thrown out of the temple and, in their panic, many were trampled and killed. This festival became a day of national mourning[5].

The political dimension of the subsequent revolt became apparent in 54 .E. when Nero came to power and the procurator of Palestine was Albinus. He was accused by Josephus of stealing and plundering ‘…and abused his authority over those about him, in order to plunder those who lived quietly’[6]. Gessius Florus, who succeeded Albinus was even worse, according to Josephus: ‘He indeed thought it a petty offense to get money out of single persons; so he spoiled whole cities…and a great many people left their own country, and fled to foreign provinces’[7]. Josephus thinks that Florus was determined to procure a revolt amongst the Jews to conceal his own crimes, ‘…he therefore did every day augment their calamities, in order to induce them to rebellion’[8]. When a conflict arose in Caesarea over access to the synagogue and the inflammatory sacrifice by a Gentile of birds on its steps on the Sabbath, Florus ‘blew this war into a flame’ be seizing the Jewish leaders who approached him with their complaint about this act and imprisoning them[9]. When Florus marched against Jerusalem ‘that he might gain his will by the arms of the Romans, [and] bring the city to subjection’[10], the high priests could not contain the people’s outrage. Josephus states that the acts of ‘the seditious’ were used by Florus to attempt to seize the temple, and the people ‘…stood upon the tops of their houses, they threw their darts at the Romans, who, as they were sorely galled thereby’ retired to their camp[11]. Agrippa II, the political leader of the Jews and their ambassador in the Roman court, tried to persuade the Jews from continuing their revolt. In a speech given by Agrippa and recorded by Josephus, he states: “Had I perceived that you were all zealously disposed to go to war with the Romans, and that the purer and more sincere part of the people did not propose to live in peace, I had not come out to you, nor been so bold as to give you counsel…’[12]. Agrippa’s doctrine was that the Rome was raised and supported by divine providence, and that it was in vain for the Jews or any others to think about destroying it[13]. However, Agrippa was unable to stop Florus from provoking or the people from revolting so he retired to his own palaces after sending the leaders of the insurrection to Florus[14].

To illustrate the ambiguous political and religious intent of the insurgents, the assault made upon the fortress at Masada was conducted by Eleazar, son of Annais and the high priest and governor of the temple. He convinced his followers to stop paying the tribute to Rome[15]. However, any religious zeal was definitely put aside when preparations for war were made, with Josephus stating that ‘those that ministered the temple would not attend their Divine service, but were preparing matters for beginning the war’[16]. Because Agrippa had appeared to the insurgents to have acquiesced to the Romans they attacked his palaces, overwhelmed the king’s soldiers ‘…after which they carried the fire to the place where the archives were deposited, and made haste to burn the contracts belonging to their creditors, and thereby to dissolve their obligations for paying their debts…’[17]. This was done, Josephus asserts in order to gain the support of those who had been debtors, ‘and that they might persuade the poorer sort to join their insurrection with safety against the more wealthy’[18]. They assaulted the garrison of Antonia, set the citadel on fire and besieged the palaces[19]. Manahem, son of Judas, distributed arms from king Herod’s armory at Masada to all of the people and set himself up as king of Jerusalem [20]. When Eleazar heard that Menahem had set himself up as a tyrant and had killed the high priest Ananias, his followers attacked and killed Manahem. It was thought that ‘it was not proper when they revolted from the Romans, out of the desire of liberty, to betray that liberty to any of their own people’[21]. This political statement about liberty and the destruction of Agrippa’s palaces, along with any credit contracts, point to the motivation for the First Revolt being political rather than religious in nature.

Florus had all the Jews in Caesarea killed or enslaved. This outraged the whole nation so that Jews laid waste to the villages of the Syrians, their neighbouring cities and numerous other cities and villages of the region, ‘and immense slaughter was made of the men who were caught in them’[22]. Civil war beset the whole region and ‘greediness of gain was a provocation to kill the opposite party…’[23]. This last statement of Josephus’s implies that by now the insurrection had little to do with religious freedom and more to do with power. At this point Cestius the governor of Syria intervened, supported by the armies of Agrippa and Antiochus. However, the Jews refused to be defeated and when they saw this army approach Jerusalem they took up arms with ‘… that rage which made them forget religious observation [of the Sabbath], made them too hard for their enemies in the fight’[24]. After Agrippa’s peace delegation was killed, Cestius sent to Nero for help and Nero sent Vespasian to quell the rebellion.

In 66 C.E., at the same time that Vespasian was sent to quell the insurrection in Jerusalem, unrest had also broken out in the Roman provinces of Britain and Gaul over heavy taxation[25]. This pointed to underlying economic troubles being a factor in the unrest in Judea as well. The use of religious zeal as a motivating element to keep fighting became apparent when Vespasian tried to quell the rebellion through various methods of representation and offers of immunity. However, when the Jews would not yield after a protracted siege, Vespasian was finally able to open the temple to the soldiers[26]. Cassius Dio writes that ‘then the Jews defended themselves much more vigorously than before, as if they had discovered a piece of rare good fortune in being able to fight near the temple and fall in its defence[27]. When the temple was finally overcome ‘they met their death willingly, some throwing themselves on the swords of the Romans, some slaying one another, others taking their won lived, and still others leaping into the flame’[28]. Cassius asserts that they seemed to die of happiness because ‘they had perished along with the temple’[29].

A purpose driven by religious zeal is given in the account of Yigael Yadin whose archaeological team in the 1960s revealed that the temple at Masada had been added to by the ‘zealots’[30]. Coinage from the time was found on the site and on the floor of the building there is an ‘ostracon’ with an inscription which translates as ‘Priestly Tithe’. Ostraca were found inscribed with the names of people and seemed to be a type of coupon with a name and a symbol. Yadin suggests that they may have been used for rations as they were found near a storehouse. It was possible to accurately date the ostraca as being written between 66-73 C.E. which was the period in which Masada was occupied by the ‘zealots’[31]. Also, religious scrolls were deliberately buried in a pit in the building’s floor. Three skeletons, possibly Jewish defenders, were found on a lower level of the building  and another group of disordered skeletons of males aged between 20-70 years and some females and children were found in an adjacent cave. Yadin posits that these were the remainder of the zealots who died by suicide before the fall of Masada[32]. However, although Yadin treated Josephus’s account of Masada and the collective suicide of its defenders as authentic[33], scholars think that Josephus’s story of suicide was a literary ‘ topos’ and that it ran counter to the Jewish mentality[34].

The destruction of the Temple had generated great animosity and another cycle of violence. Cassius Dio, a Roman, wrote in the late second century that in the time of the emperor Trajan, Jews in the region of Cyrene were destroying both Romans and Greeks. Cassius goes on: ‘In Egypt too, they perpetrated many similar outrages, and in Cyprus…’[35]. In the third century Eusibius, Christian writer, also writes about this: ‘For in Alexandria and in the rest of Egypt, and also in Cyrene, as if incited by some terrible factious spirit, they rushed into seditious measures against their fellow inhabitants the Greeks’[36]. Eusibius goes on to tell how Quintis became governor of Judea, after marching against the Jews and ‘[slaying] a great multitude of those that dwell there’[37]. Various papyrus documents from 117-118 C.E. form Egypt and Cyrene also attest to the results of such discord and anger. Some refer to them as ‘impious Jews’, a serious accusation of disrespect for Roman authority[38]. There are also inscriptions ordering the restoration of Cyrene’s Caesareum [39], baths[40] and roads[41] which were ‘destroyed and burnt down in the Jewish revolt’.

Jewish armed resistance against Roman rule culminated and was defeated in the Revolt of Bar Kokhba. The rebels were united by the leader Bar Kokhba and the result was a rebel state in which coinage was issued and ‘ state-land’ was leased. In the Bar Kokhba revolt the Jews showed remarkable ‘ military and political activity’ sixty years after the suppression of the first revolt[42]. Little is known about the causes of the war but it could have been derived as a possible conquest of Jerusalem and an attempt to reconstruct the Temple by the rebels. Cassius Dio wrote that it was the emperor Hadrian’s desire to build a new city called Aelia Capitolina on the site of Jerusalem and the intention of raising a temple to Jupiter on the site of the destroyed Jewish temple that incited the Jews to war: ‘for the Jews deemed it intolerable that foreign races should be settled in their city and foreign religious rites planted there’[43]. Bar Kokhba coinage tells something of the population and the economy of Judea at the time of the revolt. Their symbols embody the objectives and values of the insurgents. Economic conditions before the revolt were underscored by ‘peasant discontent engendered by expropriation and oppressive tenurial conditions[44]. Coinage that states ‘Jerusalem’, or ‘For the Freedom of Jerusalem’ with the design of the Temple on the coinage indicates a declaration. These reflect the values and objectives of the revolt and Jerusalem was of utmost importance to the rebels[45].

Bar Kokhba was the only ancient war fought by the Jews to be named after a single leader. In the Talmud he is given the title ‘Nasi and Messiah’ and while he reigned he was described as a king[46]. R. Aqiva, a rabbi who was part of the revolt, described Bar Kokhba as ‘ the King Messiah’[47]. Bar Kokhba signed his letters as “Nasi Yisrael” and coinage denotes him as ‘Simeon Nesi Yisrael’. Some say that this refers to the ideal king in Ezekiel’s vision of the End of Days[48]. The Talmud has an ambivalent attitude to Bar Kokhba, emphasising his legendary strength and obedience to the sages, to criticizing his addresses to God and stating ‘that he was put to death by the sages when it appeared that he was the false messiah[49]. Bar Kokhba’s letters show him to be an aggressive general and ruler who was occupied with the discipline and routine of his army. However, Bar Kokhba was not just a military leader, lands were leased in his name and he insisted on strong observance of the Sabbath and other religious commandments, plus control of land produce[50].

It seems that the Jewish Revolts of the first and second centuries could have been the result of both Jewish religious nationalism and the arbitrary nature of the Roman emperors of the period. The Jewish people relied upon the favours that were obtained by Herod from Julius Caesar, and enacted by the Roman Senate, to feel secure that they could practice their religion without being impinged upon by Roman military duties or Roman religious sacrifices. When Gaius arbitrarily incited anger and fear amongst the Jews with his proposal for a statue of himself to be erected within the temple at Jerusalem, Jewish religious leaders saw this as a threat to their authority and to the religious rights to which they had been accustomed. Cumanus’s weakness in dealing with Jewish uprisings against religious insult culminated in Nero’s appointment of a series of corrupt procurators who dealt with Jews harshly and arbitrarily. The Jews saw their political representative to Rome, Agrippa, as being in collusion with the Romans. The burning of credit contracts and following civil strife that resulted in looting shows economic pressures were also indicative of political unrest. However, because the Jewish religion was so bound with the geographical location of Jerusalem and the concept of the temple, it was the Maccabean model of religious revolt that motivated the zeal of the Jews at Masada and in the Bar Kokhba revolt. Therefore, it could be said that religious nationalism served as the motivating factor for the Jewish Revolts.

Bibliography:

1. Bowersock, Glen Warren. “The making of martyrdom” in Martyrdom and Rome , Bowersock, Glen Warren , 1995 , 1-21
2. Cassius Dio, Roman Histories
3. Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum (CPJ) 438: Papyrus, Letter (June 116 – Jan. 117AD; Hermopolite nome, Egypt); CPJ 443: Papyrus, Application for leave (28 Nov 117; Hermopolite nome, Egypt)
4. CJZC 17. Inscription (118 AD, Cyrene); CJZC 19. Inscription (119 AD, Cyrene); CJZC 25. Milestone (118 AD; Cyrene)
5. Eusibius, Ecclesiastical History
6. Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews
7. Flavius Josephus, The Wars of the Jews
8. Isaac, Benjamin H. “The revolt of Bar Kokhba: Ideology and modern scholarship” in The Near East Under Roman Rule: Selected Papers , Isaac, Benjamin H. , 1998 , 220-248
9. Maccabees I 2.19-20
10. Philo, On the Embassy to Gaius
11. Yadin, Yigael. “Extract” in Masada: Herod’s Fortress and the Zealots’ Last Stand , Yadin, Yigael , 1966 , 181-201
12. yTa’anit iv 68d; cf. Lamentations Rabbah ii 4

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[1] Maccabees I 2.19-20

[2] Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 14.225-7; 213-16

[3] Philo, On the Embassy to Gaius, 18.17.119

[4] ibid. 18.17.194

[5] Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, 2.12.1

[6] ibid. 2.14.1

[7] ibid. 2.14.2

[8] ibid. 2.14.3

[9] ibid. 2.14.6

[10] ibid.

[11] ibid. 2.15.3

[12] J. BJ 2.16.4

[13] ibid.

[14] ibid. 2.17.1

[15] ibid. 2.17.2

[16] ibid. 2.17.4

[17] ibid. 2.17.6

[18] ibid.

[19] ibid. 2.17.7

[20] J. BJ 2.17.8

[21] ibid. 2.17.9

[22]ibid. 2.18.1

[23] ibid. 2.18.2

[24] ibid. 2.19.2

[25] Cassius Dio, Roman Histories, 63.2.2

[26] Cassius Dio, 65.6.2

[27] ibid.

[28] ibid.

[29] ibid.

[30] Yadin, 1966

[31] ibid.

[32] Isaac, 1998

[33] Yadin, 1989

[34] Bowersock, 1991

[35] Cassius Dio 68.32.1-3

[36] Eusibius, Ecclesiastical History 4.2.1-5

[37] ibid.

[38] Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum (CPJ) 438: Papyrus, Letter (June 116 – Jan. 117

AD; Hermopolite nome, Egypt); CPJ 443: Papyrus, Application for leave (28 Nov 117; Hermopolite nome, Egypt)

[39] CJZC 17. Inscription (118 AD, Cyrene)

[40] CJZC 19. Inscription (119 AD, Cyrene)

[41] CJZC 25. Milestone (118 AD; Cyrene)

[42] Isaac, 1998

[43] Cassius Dio, Roman History, 69.12.1-14.2

[44] Isaac, 1998

[45] ibid.

[46] ibid.

[47] yTa’anit iv 68d; cf. Lamentations Rabbah ii 4 (ed. Buber, p.101)

[48] Isaac 1998

[49] Isaac, 1998

[50] ibid

Roman views of Jewish culture

This essay will explore how far the Roman writers Horace, Ovid, Seneca, Petronius, and Juvenal thought the Jewish people were disturbing Roman society through proselytizing. These writers were an elite group in Rome. They were both patronised by the aristocracy but most were also high-born themselves[1]. Through exploring the backgrounds of these writers and the times in which they wrote I will assess why they may have thought as they did and the quality of their testimony.

Horace and Ovid lived in the triumviral and Augustan eras from 43 BCE. During this period poets assumed a different role to the one that had been traditional in Rome that of conferring lasting fame, to a role of ‘serving citizens of the state in a moral and educative fashion’[2]. This period also saw the rise of Herod the Great in Palestine, who managed to obtain the favour of both Caesar and Augustus. During this time Herod was made king and was able to amass enough money to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem and numerous other extravagant public buildings[3]. This favoured status also saw the peoples of the Jewish Diaspora, Judea and Palestine receiving preferential treatment for their religion. They were able to observe the Sabbath, which disqualified them from having to be conscripted into military service, they had the right to assemble and the privilege of sending money to Jerusalem[4].

Horace refers to the number of Jews in the Roman world and their tendency to ‘compel’ others to be one of ‘their throng’[5]. Being a Roman poet writing a satirical account of contemporaneous Roman ‘frailties’, he implores his audience to make allowances for these on the threat of them being thronged by ‘a big band of poets’ who will compel the audience to Horace’s view, just as he states the Jews, being a throng, compel others to join them. The number of Jews in this Roman world is questionable. Although the modern Jewish historian Feldman uses the ancient historian Josephus to assume a huge increase in the number of Jews in the Roman Empire between 586BCE to 66CE, these numbers are disputed because their source is unreliable and subject to distortion[6].

Nevertheless, far more Jews lived outside of Palestine than in it. The Jewish Diaspora was dispersed around the coastal Mediterranean but their religion did not fit in with the general religious syncretism that happened with all the other religions because they were monotheistic and had quite different customs[7]. One of the main differentiations was the Jewish practice of non-work on the seventh day- the Sabbath. Ovid advises young men in his poem The Art of Love to search for love even on the ‘seventh day that the Syrian Jew holds sacred’[8]. This opinion was also held by the philosopher Seneca in On Superstition. For Seneca, the Sabbath was a superstition and encouraged indolence: ‘…by introducing one day of rest in every seven they lose in idleness almost a seventh of their life’[9]. Did Seneca think that this was a motivating factor in people becoming Jews? He goes on to state: “…the customs of this accursed race have gained such influence that they are now received throughout all the world”[10].

While the Jewish Diaspora assimilated well into the different Mediterranean cultures where they settled, they would be subjected to persecutions when there was tension from particular issues[11]. The Jewish philosopher Philo the Alexandrian wrote of people being ‘afraid to engage in destroying any of our institutions…’ and that it was only under the Praetorian Prefect Sejanus that trouble came[12]. Josephus the Jewish historian relates that the reason Jews were expelled from Rome during the time of Tiberius was because of the unscrupulous behaviour of a Jewish man and his three accomplices. He tells that they had proselytized a high born Roman woman and misappropriated funds from her, which resulted in the Jewish community being expelled from Rome by Tiberius[13]. It could be imagined that the Jewish Diaspora had an interest in trying to convert members of the Roman aristocracy for the purposes of influence and also monetary contributions to the building of Jerusalem by Herod the Great, and that this may have led to Roman hostility.

This hostility continued to be seen in the writings of Petronius and Juvenal. The writer Petronius was a courtier of Nero and liked to pillory the aristocracy[14]. Petronius lambasts the Jews as having a ‘pig-god’ and speaks of their ability to emigrate without being afraid ‘at the fasts imposed by the Sabbath’[15]. This allusion to the benefits of Judaism, such as the ability to be absolved from military service, is interesting in connection with the Roman view of Jewish proselytizing. The writer Juvenal complains about the children of Jewish sympathisers becoming Jewish proselytes[16]. ‘They wont to flout the laws of Rome, they learn and practice and revere the Jewish law…conducting none but the circumcised to the desired fountain.’ Juvenal also alludes to the Sabbath as being given up to ‘idleness’[17]. So it could be said that these writers were trying to appeal to a patriotic sense of Roman authority.

Horace’s and Seneca’s writing support the historian Joesphus’s account that there was a large and influential population in the Jewish diaspora. The practice of the Sabbath was another contentious issue to which these writers allude. Seneca and Petronius both complain of the Sabbath as being special treatment for Jewish people and infer that this favouritism encourages people to convert to their ways. Although none of these writers directly state that there was proselytizing done by Jewish people, the inference is that there were many Jewish people in Rome and that, through the benefits conferred upon them, they encouraged people to join their ‘throng’.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Braund S. M., Juvenal, Cambridge University Press, 1996 – Literary Collections, Retrieved from: http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Satires.html?id=DcoqRQ47bBIC&redir_esc=y on 8.12.2011
2. Boardman J., Griffin J., Murray O., The Oxford History of the Classical World, 1991, Oxford University Press
3. Goodman, Martin. “Jewish proselytizing in the first century” in The Jews Among Pagans and Christians: In the Roman Empire , Lieu, Judith; North, John; Rajak, Tessa , 1992 , 53-78
4. Harding, Mark. “Early Judaism and Christianity (extract)” in Early Christian Life and Thought in Social Context: A Reader , Harding, Mark , 2003 , 279-282
5. Horace, 65-8 BC, Conversations 1.4.143 = Stern, no. 127.
6. Juvenal, AD 55 (?) – 127 (?), Satires 14.96-106 = Stern 301.
7. Kemp J.,  “A Moral Purpose, A Literary Game: Horace, Satires 1.4”, in Classical World – Volume 104, Number 1, Fall, 2010, pp. 59-76
8. Knobbs A., “Pagans Jews, and Christians: Athens and Jerusalem” in Lecture 1, HST250, 2011 Macquarie University
9. Kraabel A. T., “The Roman Diaspora: six questionable assumptions”, in The Journal of Jewish Studies, Vol.33 1982, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, pp.445-465
10. McGing, Brian. “Population and proselytism: How many Jews were there in the ancient world?” in Jews in the Hellenistic and Roman Cities , Barlett, John R. , 2002 , 88-106
11. Ovid, 43 BC – AD 17/18, The Art of Love 1.75-80 = Stern, no. 141.
12. Petronius, mid-first c. AD (?), fragment no. 37 = Stern, no. 195.
13. Petronius Arbiter, The Satyricon, trans. by W. C. Firebaugh, 2007, Retrieved from http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/petronius/satyricon/complete.html on 7.12.2011
14. Seneca, ob. AD 64, Moral Letters 108.22 = Stern, no. 189.
15. Seneca, ob. AD 64, On Superstition, cited by Augustine, early Vc, On the City

• of God 6.11 = Stern, no. 186.

---

[1] Braund, 1996, p.15

[2] Boardman J., Griffin J., Murray O., The Oxford History of the Classical World, p. 594

[3] Harding, 2003, p.77

[4] Knobbs, 2011, Macquarie University

[5] Horace, Conversations, 1.4.143

[6] McGing, 2002

[7] Knobbs, 2011

[8] Ovid, 1.75-80

[9] Seneca, 6.11

[10] Seneca, 6.11

[11] Knobbs, 2011

[12] Harding, 2003, p. 279

[13] Harding, 2003, p. 281

[14] The Satyrican by Petronius Arbiter, trans. 2007

[15] Petronius, mid-first c. AD (?), fragment no. 37 = Stern, no. 195

[16] Harding, 2003

[17] Juvenal Satires 14.96-106

The Value of Existence

Nils Holtug argues for the Value of Existence View which makes ‘the comparative claim that existence can be better (or worse) for a person than non-existence’ (p.370). Derek Parfit and John Broome argue against this view by stating that it is incoherent. Parfit argues that causing someone to exist cannot be better for a person because the alternative would not have been worse. Broome argues that it can never be true that it is better for a person to exist than to not exist because if she had not existed there would not have been a ‘her’ to have been worse off.

The argument set out by Parfit and Broome is called the Metaphysical Argument and it relies upon two premises. The first premise makes the judgement that it is better (or worse) to exist than never to exist and entails that it is worse (or better) to not exist than to exist. The second premise is that it cannot be worse (or better) to not exist. The first claim, Holtug states, is based upon the logic of ‘betterness’ relation, and the second premise is based upon the metaphysical principle called The No Properties of the Non-Existent Principle. This means that an individual cannot have any properties if it does not exist.

This principle can be disputed. Broome’s argument relies upon the point that if a person does not exist then it is impossible for any properties to be attached to her. Holtug contends that the logic of betterness relation that the argument relies upon assumes that in order for existence to be worse than non-existence, non-existence must be better than existence. To explore the logical properties of the betterness relation, Holtug considers the following definition:

1)      y is worse for S than x, if and only of x is better for S than y.

If (1) states that existence if better (or worse) for a person than non-existence, non existence is better (or worse) for her. The latter part seems to violate the No Properties of the Non-Existent Principle. It seems to ascribe to her the property of being worse (or better) off in a possible world in which she does not exist. According to this principle we cannot claim that existence is better for her than non-existence because this implies that non-existence is worse for her than existence. So Holtug reassesses the argument with the proposition:

P: Non-existence is worse for Jeremy than existence.

Can the truth of P be established without ascribing to Jeremy positive properties in a possible world in which he does not exist? Holtug claims that P can be established by appeal to a preference that Jeremy has in an actual world in which he exists. Existence may be preferable for Jeremy because he prefers existence to non-existence. Jeremy’s life includes a surplus of positive value, whereas his non-existence had no value. Holtug insists that this is compatible with The No Properties of the Non-Existent Principle; it is better to have a surplus of values than no value. The Metaphysical Argument is not preserved because the Value of Existence View does not rely upon someone existing for the possibility of them benefiting from existence.

• Holtug, Nils. “On the value of coming into existence” Journal of Ethics , 5:4 , 2001 , 361-384

Can maternity be a commodity?

Commercial surrogacy is defended on five main principles. The first is its effective means of allowing childless couples to have children is considered to make it a significant good. Second, the rights for autonomous adults to procreate and form contracts are too fundamental to interfere with unless it causes a significant harm. Third the act of surrogacy is seen as altruistic and to be encouraged and finally, commercial surrogacy should be seen as no different to and consistent with already accepted practices in the reproduction and raising of children.

Anderson argues against these principles stating that commercial surrogacy makes women’s labor a commodity. By applying market norms to this labor it regards the woman’s body and her role as a mother as one of mere use. For Anderson, it is the worth and respect that should be given to a woman for her labor, with regard to gestation and childbirth, that is disregarded when commercial factors are applied. It does not regard the emotional impact of such labor and can be seen as a callous disregard of the impact that such intimate relationships as a mother and child has upon the woman and the child.  Anderson argues that the application of commercial norms requires a mother to repress her parental emotions and this is a degradation of human relationships.

The surrogacy industry follows the contracting-out-of-labour system that works in manufacturing industries. The attached problem to this method is that it must disregard the fundamental emotional requirement of parenthood, that of attachment to the child. The woman’s labor is alienated because of this factor and it is a factor that does not affect any other type of manufacturing process.  For Anderson, such a requirement to alienate oneself from one’s child is a demand that should be not be upheld as it turns a woman’s body into a major part of a commercial production process.

Anerson argues for commercial surrogacy by claiming that surrogacy is inspired by altruistic motives. He argues that if there is nothing wrong with altruistic surrogacy, there should be nothing wrong with commercial surrogacy as it applies to a woman’s labor. Anerson states that Anderson promotes a woman’s labor as noble labor and that the commercialisation of this labor is degrading. He then argues that many kinds of noble labor is done for commercial exchange and cannot see why a woman’s labor should be seen differently.

Anerson states that as long as there is no fraud or misrepresentation in a surrogacy contract a woman who wishes to render her surrogate services should be free to sign it, just as if she wishes to supply a babysitting service. Anerson also argues that although the surrogate contract might stipulate that the woman not form an attachment to the child and this can be an alienating form of labor, alienating labor is not impermissible. Citizens should be free, Anerson contends, to arrange their work lives the way they wish.

• Anderson, Elizabeth S. “Is women’s labor a commodity?” Philosophy and Public Affairs , 19:1 , 1990 , 71 – 92
• Arneson, Richard. “Commodification and commercial surrogacy” Philosophy and Public Affairs , 21:2 , 1992 , 132-164

Can reproductive technologies give us a viable alternative to abortion?

Christine Overall argues that a reasonable view of abortion needs to entail both concern for the autonomy of a woman and the well-being of the embryo/fetus. The main objection to abortion has been until now that it results in the death of the embryo/fetus. However, with new reproductive technologies abortion can now consist of two quite distinct aspects. One is the premature emptying of the uterus and the other is causing the death of the embryo/fetus. These two aspects pertain to the rights argument of the abortion issue: the right of the pregnant mother to the control of her own body and the alleged rights of the embryo/fetus.

Overall contends that recent developments in reproductive technologies means that these causally linked events will no longer necessarily have to result in the death of the embryo/fetus. This has been brought about through in vitro fertilisation, where the embryo at an early stage of its development need not be dependent on the occupancy of a uterus. Also, the age of viability of a fetus has decreased so that, with the help of sophisticated support systems, a fetus may be able to survive outside of the uterus. In Overall’s view these new possibilities has opened up the ability to discuss the rights of both the mother and the embryo/fetus.

The conservative position on abortion claims that the embryo/fetus has the right to life. However, Overall states that this is not necessarily true and a better argument is that the pregnant woman or anyone else, such as a physician, has the right to kill an embryo/fetus. Overall quotes Mary Anne Warren who remarks that if abortion could be performed without endangering the embryo/fetus then the woman would never have the right to destroy it. Not having the right to life does not necessarily imply that one being can kill another. This seems to go against the liberal approach to abortion but the distinction is between the ability to expel the embryo/fetus from the uterus without harming it and causing the death of the embryo/fetus.

However, from the liberal view the embryo/fetus has no right to the occupancy of another’s body. A woman’s goal in obtaining an abortion is not necessarily to kill the embryo/fetus but just may be a desire not to be pregnant for whatever reason and abortion can be seen primarily as an emptying of the uterus. If there was a way to preserve the embryo/fetus’s life and respect the woman’s desire to not continue with a pregnancy, then Overall thinks that the evacuation of a uterus that causes no harm to the embryo/fetus or the mother would be the best possible result that could resolve the longstanding issues of abortion.

The implication for this, in Overall’s view, is the transfer of the moral quandaries involved with abortion to other moral dilemmas. These could be dilemmas such as the consideration of whether there will be a moral obligation to preserve all evacuated foetuses. Also, if embryos could be adopted through evacuation and implantation in a willing mother should all embryos become candidates for adoption?

• Overall, Christine. “Abortion” in Ethics and Human Reproduction: A Feminist Analysis , Overall, Christine , 1987 , 68-87

Are our experiential or critical interests more important?

Ronald Dworkin points to a distinction between reasons people wish for their lives to go one way or another. One set of reasons he calls experiential preferences and the other set of reasons are critical interests. Experiential preferences are those things that we find enjoyable in life. They also can entail things that are painful or bad experiences but, within limits, these kinds of experiences do not make our whole life worse. Critical interests, Dworkin asserts, are those that people find are essential to their understanding of what constitutes a good life.

Experiential interests are not frivolous and critical interests profound, Dworkin states, it is just that critical interests are important to the aspirations of our lives. In his view, we need to establish the distinction between these two interests in order to understand how people should be treated. It is not difficult to understand why we care about our experiential interests as it is natural to prefer pleasure to pain. But it is more difficult to understand why people should care about their critical interests. Therefore, Dworkin contends that we need an intellectual explanation of how our critical interests connect with the larger beliefs that we have about life.

Critical interests are bound in what Dworkin calls the integrity of our lives; the capacity we have to autonomously structure our lives to contain the right experiences and achievements. Integrity is similar to dignity, which is why we think someone has little self-respect if they have acted perversely for gain or the avoidance of trouble. It is important to understand that one may be mistaken in the decisions one makes for understanding the idea of critical interests. For Dworkin, this is essential to the basic distinction between critical and experiential interests.

In using such a distinction to consider whether death is in the best interests for someone with dementia, Dworkin thinks that we must consider what was important in that person’s life; what was their life narrative. Someone who has dementia may have more to gain through pleasant experience for several years before they die a natural death and to kill oneself through the fear of a lack of experiential interests is probably wrong.  However, Dworkin argues, it is critical interests that matter when we wish to consider how one might die. If people think that they will be living in degrading conditions through being fully dependent then they may wish to choose to die. Therefore Dworkin asserts that these decisions based upon their critical interests before they were afflicted should be taken into account when considering how an advanced dementia patient may not wish to live.

Rebecca Dresser objects to Dworkin’s differentiation between experiential and critical interests on the grounds that it is possible that people do not draw a sharp line between these interests. In the circumstances of dementia, Dresser says, Dworkin fails to consider that critical interests become less important and experiential interests more so, just as they may for people who are brain damaged or intellectually disabled. Dresser states that people who seem happy and contented although they may be suffering from dementia, will experience clear harm from a decision that purports to advance the critical interests that they may no longer care about.

• Dworkin, Ronald. “Dying and living” in Life’s Dominion: An Argument About Abortion and Euthanasia , Dworkin, Ronald , 1993 , 179-217
• Dresser, Rebecca. “Dworkin on dementia: Elegant theory, questionable policy” in Bioethics: An anthology , Kuhse, Helga Singer, Peter , 1999 , 312-320

Is it irrational to fear death?

Lucretius argues that death is nothing to us and we have nothing to fear of it. He asks why we should fear death when we will be no more. Once the chain of our identity has been snapped through death, even if we could be reassembled, we would not be concerned with our previous existence. If we fear that death is full of evil, the self is not in existence to experience it. Another reason why Lucretius contends that men fear death is that the good things in life will come to an end. However, while we sleep we cannot take part in those things and we do not regret it. Therefore, if sleep were to go on for eternity we would not trouble ourselves for these things. Lucretius also contends that if life has been good and we have not wasted it, we should not demand it goes on like an ungrateful guest. If we have wasted our life or it has been full of evil, why would we demand that it continue? We must make way for others, as the old must make way for the new. Lucretius states we do not regret the time before we were born because we cannot remember it. Existence before life is the mirror image of existence after life. Finally, death is inevitable and therefore it is irrational to fear it.

Thomas Nagel objects to Lucretius’ assertions on the grounds that he has made mistaken assumptions. Nagel argues in contrast to Lucretius that death is an evil simply because it deprives us of life. The assumptions, Nagel states, that Lucretius has made are temporal and based on a subject to be harmed. A person can be identified through their history and their possibilities rather than their state at a particular moment. While that person can be located at a particular place and time, if a terrible misfortune befalls them such as acquiring a major brain injury, for Nagel, it is the loss of this person’s possibilities that is the tragedy. This loss of possibility can be the same objection that can be used towards Lucretius’s assertions about death. The other assumption that Nagel states is made by Lucretius is his description of death being a mirror image of the time before one’s birth. For Nagel, although they may both be times when one does not exist, the time after death is the time of which one has been deprived while the time before one’s birth is not a time which one’s subsequent birth prevents one from living. Also, although death is inevitable, Nagel states that one’s existence does not contemplate this but imagines an open-ended possible future and the inevitability of death should not imply that it would not be good to live longer.

• Lucretius. “Extract” in On the Nature of the Universe , Lucretius; Latham, R. E. , 1951 , 121-129
• Nagal, Thomas. “Death” Nous , 4:1 , 1970 , 73-80