94
CHRISTIANITY IN TALMUD
ficet/i Thodah honoureth me,
may have suggested the
whole series, and thus that the name Thodah was a
pure invention.
It is natural to infer from the passage that all the
f i ve disciples were condemned on the same occasion,
and this at once excludes the possibility that any
of the original Twelve are referred to. At least
no
Christian tradition exists which specifies any five out
of the Twelve as having met with such a fate. But
the fact that the five were called disciples of Jesus
only implies that they were Christians, not that they
were contemporaries of Jesus. Therefore we may
look for them, if necessary, at some later period.
The fact that the prisoners quoted texts of Scripture,
and were met with other texts, suggests that the trial
took place before a Jewish and not a Roman tribunal.
Not, of course, that such a thrust and parry of texts
really took place anywhere, but that it would be
impossible in a Roman court and only a witty
travesty of what would be possible in a Jewish one.
Laible (J. C. im Talm., p. 68 fol.) makes the very
probable suggestion that the story refers to the
persecution of Christians under Bar Cocheba, already
mentioned. It is a fantastic account of some incident
of that persecution. The reasons for taking this view
are, that the story occurs in the same passage as that
which describes the death of Jesus, and that we have
found the key to the understanding of the statements
there made about Jesus in the anti-Christian hatred
of Bar Cocheba, and more especially of Aqiba, his
chief supporter. So far as I know, there is no other
period than this (132-135 A.D.) at which Christians
were persecuted and even put to death by Jews.
 |  |  |