Writing c. 112 CE from Amisos, the capital of Bithynia-Pontus, the governor Pliny the Younger identified a group of people who worshiped “Christ” and did not worship the emperor (Letters 10:96). I suggest that Pliny’s “Christians” belonged to the local ethnos-based sect that used the original letters of “Paul.” They were soon pastored by Marcion,…
Month: June 2021
Flavia Domitilla’s children in Mark’s play
At the time of Mark’s play c. 95 CE, Flavia was in her late twenties or early thirties. She had borne seven children, with the maximum age of 16 (we don’t know if all survived infancy). Here, I identify the roles for children in Mark’s play, propose that Flavia Domitilla’s children did play those roles,…
Flavia Domitilla and Berenice: Another reason to connect them
In an earlier post, I identified the Judean princess Berenice as the original of Saint Veronica. “Veronica” was early and firmly identified with Roman Christianity, which means the Roman congregation of Mark and Flavia Domitilla. It is logical that Berenice, a Judean princess living in Rome and former lover of Flavia Domitilla’s uncle Titus, had…