It has been just thirty-five years passed since F CUMONT published and brilliantly commented on the Nazareth Inscription on the violation of the sepulchre in 1930 But the problems about the authenticity, date, nature and interpretation of the document in which many scholars have engaged are still unsolved First of all, the hypothesis of L ZANCAN who insisted on the modern forgery could not find any support at all Against the theory of K LATTE for the ancient forgery in Palestine, linguistic research proves that on the one hand the inscription contains a considerable number of Latin elements and that on the other hand it may be not the Greek version of the original Latin text of the imperial rescript, but an extract from it by the local authorities or rather a private individual who wished to protect a family tomb from desecration Moreover, most of the experts agree that the style of epigraphy belongs to between 50 B C and A D 50 as the extreme limits With whom then is the 'Caesar' identified ? CUMONT favours Augustus, for Eastern inscriptions and historians continue to refer to Augustus, even after his assumption of the title in 27 B C, simply as Caesar, whereas his successors are rarely so ref ei red to Besides, Augustus highly esteemed the cult of the dead in connection with the regeneration of religio and pietas in the new regime of the Roman Empire This theory seems to me attractive, but not convincing J CARCOPINO chooses Augustus also, but pioceeds further He observes that the original collector of the inscription, W FROHNER, says in his note not 'decouverte a', but 'envoyee de Nazareth' So according to CARCOPINO, Nazareth is only a market place for the collection, because Nazareth belongs to Galilee which was not controlled directly by Augustus, but by the Herod dynasty The document, therefore, must have been discoveied in Samaria for Samaritan trouble at the temple of Jerusalem in 8 A D (Josephus, Ant XVIII 29 f) must have caused the establishment of the inscription This theory is ingenious, but highly imaginative The document does not give any clear evidence on it Among other conjectures, there are some remarkable interpretations of the document according to which the rescript represents the official Roman view of the events at the Holy Sepulchre The stone which Joseph of Arimathea set at its entrance was sealed up by the priests and at the assent of the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, a guard was set upon it Yet on Easter Morning the stone was found rolled away and the Body gone Then the priests told the guard to say that during the night, while they slept, the Body had been stolen away by the disciples, and they promised the soldiers to support this report if the matter came to the ears of Pilate (Matthew XXVII 57〜XXVIII 15) Here the Gospel account ends, but one can hardly doubt that the priests did give their version to Pilate, and after that Pilate reported the case, with the suggested explanation to Tiberius There is thus a probability that the rescript is part of Tibeiius' or Caligula's answer to Pilate (CUMONT [the second inference], E CUQ, L WENGER, S LOSCH) Another explanation of the anti-Chiistian motive is given by DE SANCTIS and M GUARDUCCI Both maintain that the Crucifixion and the Resurrection were at first too insignificant events to arouse the central government, but before the end of the reign of Claudius, the Roman government was beginning to take notice of the disturbance created in the Jewish world by the Christian propaganda on the Resurrection (Suetonius, Claud 25, 4, P London 1912,11 88 ff, Acts XXIV 5) So the rescript was published and the inscription was erected at Nazareth, Jesus' native place These Christian interpretations are very interesting, but the real difficulty is that there is no positive evidence of connection, nothing in the rescript even slightly hinting at the alleged Resurrection
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