Jesus in the Talmud

Notes to Chapter 9 18379. Aphrahat, Demonstration V:1, 24, in Patrologia Syriaca I:1, ed. J. Parisot,Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1894, cols. 183–184 and 233–234.80. Barnes, in his concluding statement (“Constantine and the Christians ofPersia,” p. 136), puts the thrust of the blame on Constantine: “It was Constantinewho injected a religious dimension into the normal frontier dispute, by seekingto appeal to Shapur’s Christian subjects in the same sort of way in which he hadappealed to the Christian subjects of Maxentius in 312 and of Licinius in 324.Aphrahat’s fifth Demonstration illustrates what response he found.”81. Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum, vol. 1–7, ed. Paul Bedjan, Paris andLeipzig: Harrassowitz, 1890–1897; selected pieces in German translation byOskar Braun, Ausgewählte Akten Persischer Märtyrer. Mit einem Anhang: OstsyrischesMönchsleben, aus dem Syrischen übersetzt, Kempten and Munich:Kösel, 1915.82. See Gernot Wiessner, Untersuchungen zur syrischen Literaturgeschichte I:Zur Märtyrerüberlieferung aus der Christenverfolgung Schapurs II, Göttingen:Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1967; and the learned review by Sebastian Brock inJournal of Theological Studies, n.s., 19, 1968, pp. 300–309. Regardless of the historicityof the Acts, there can be no doubt that the Acts reflects a cultural climateto which the Jews respond.83. AMS II, p. 142; Braun, Ausgewählte Akten, p. 13; English translation inBrock, “Christians in the Sasanian Empire,” p. 8.84. AMS II, p. 143; Braun, Ausgewählte Akten, p. 14.85. See also The Chronicle of Arbela, 54:2–3 (Kawerau), quoted in Wiesehöfer,Ancient Persia, p. 202: “And they [the Jews and the Manichaeans] explainedto them [the magi] that the Christians were all of them spies of theRomans. And that nothing happens in the kingdom that they do not write to theirbrothers who live there.” Naomi Koltun-Fromm (“A Jewish-Christian Conversationin Fourth-Century Persian Mesopotamia,” JJS 47, 1996, pp. 45–63) suggestsdistinguishing between the Jewish involvement in the physical persecution of theChristians (which is unlikely) and some kind of spiritual “persecution” by seekingconverts from the Christian community or undermining their beliefs (p. 50).86. See Asmussen, “Christians in Iran,” pp. 937f.; idem, “Das Christentum inIran und sein Verhältnis zum Zoroastrismus,” Studia Theologica 16, 1962,pp. 11ff.87. Dated 339 C.E., i.e., before the official begin of the persecution (Braun,Ausgewählte Akten, p. xvii).