水野隆一「クリスマスを味わうなら この三冊！」『本のひろば』（キリスト教文書センター）768、pp.2-5、2021
「三冊」に選ばれているのは、
D・クロッサン、M・J・ボーグ『最初のクリスマス 福音書が語るイエス誕生物語』（浅野淳博訳）
カトリック典礼委員会編『毎日の読書「教会の祈り」読書第二朗読 第一巻 待降節・降誕節』カトリック中央協議会
川端純四郎『さんびかのものがたりII この聖き夜に アドヴェントとクリスマスの歌』
『最初のクリスマス 福音書が語るイエス誕生物語』についてメモしておく。
福音書の中でも『ルカ書』に関わる。
マタイによる福音書やルカによる福音書に記されている不思議な出来事が「事実」でなかったことは、もはや、驚きではないだろう。しかし著者たちは「だから聖書は『間違っている』」というのは短絡だとする。聖書が何を語ろうとしてるのかを、「譬え」として読むべきで、そのためには、テクストを精密に読み直すべきだと言う。そして、紀元後一世紀のローマ帝国という歴史的背景の中で、とくに「ローマ帝国神学」とも呼べる思想に対抗して福音書物語が書かれていると論じる。「神の子」「救い主」などは初代皇帝アウグストゥスに献げられた敬称で、その誕生も「神的」なものと考えられていたこと、そしてそのような「神学」の背景には、アウグストゥスの軍事的勝利（著者たちによれば「暴力」）による「平和」があったことが挙げられる。イエス誕生の物語は同じような語彙を意識的に用いて、皇帝崇拝の神学に抵抗を示していると、著者たちは読み解く。「平和」は暴力によってではなく、正義によってもたらされるべきであり、それを実現するのが、イエス・キリストなのだとする。著者たちは、ローマ帝国神学の文献から根拠となる引用をするが、同時に、イエスに関する記述がヘブライ語聖書（旧約聖書）の伝統に基づいていることにも紙幅を割いている。（後略）（pp.2-3）
Marcus J. Borg “The Political Significance of Luke’s Christmas Story” *1から書き写してみる*2；
アウグストゥス*3が元首として即位したのは紀元前27年であり、紀元14年に歿しているので、ナザレの耶蘇の出生はアウグストゥスの治世及び生涯の後半に中る。
In Luke’s birth story, the key to seeing its political meaning is Roman imperial theology, which includes the divine conception of Caesar Augustus, the greatest of the Roman emperors and ruler when Jesus was born. He was conceived by the god Apollo in the womb of his mother Atia. His titles included “Son of God,” “Lord,” “Savior,” bringer of “peace on earth.” Inscribed on coins and temples, the public media of the day, they continued to be used by most emperors after Augustus.Thus there was already a “Son of God,” “Lord,” and peace-bringing “Savior” in the world in which Jesus lived and in which early Christianity emerged. Roman imperial theology is the historical context for understanding the use of this language.
Luke’s story of Jesus’ birth is a primary example. It deliberately counters and challenges Roman imperial theology. It includes divine conception, and thus Jesus, not Caesar, is the “Son of God.” Mary’s song—the Magnificat—proclaims that the powerful will be brought down from their thrones, the lowly lifted up, the hungry filled, and the rich sent away empty (Luke 1:46-55). It climaxes with the message of the angel to shepherds: to them was born a savior, the Lord, who would bring peace on earth. But by a very different means—not through the power and domination of empire, not through the lords of this world, but through the way that Jesus was proclaimed and embodied. Early Christians saw in Jesus the alternative to an imperial world based on injustice and violence.
ところで、古代世界において「神の子」という称号はかなりありふれたもののようであった。New World Encyclopediaの”Son of God”の項からアウグストゥスを巡る記述を引用する。なお、アウグストゥスが「神の子」と呼ばれたのは、元首就任以前に、養父であるカエサルの神格化が元老院によって決議されたため；
さて、湊晶子*4「ローマ帝国における「皇帝札拝jと「皇帝崇拝」一一皇帝の神格化をめぐって一一」（『東京基督教大学紀要』1、pp.61-75）*5をブラウジングしてみると、「皇帝の神格化」を巡る事情は、羅馬文化と希臘文化の違いも絡んで複雑であることがわかる。羅馬帝国中心部においては、３世紀に至るまで「皇帝の神格化」は定着しなかったが、パレスティナを含む帝国の東部では、希臘文化（ヘレニズム）の影響が強く、アウグストゥス在位中から「皇帝の神格化」が進んでいた、など。
In 42 B.C.E., Julius Caesar was formally deified as "the divine Julius" (divus Iulius), His adopted son, Octavian (better known by the title "Augustus" given to him 15 years later, in 27 B.C.E.) thus became known as "divi Iuli filius" (son of the divine Julius) or simply "divi filius" (son of the god).[8] He used this title to advance his political position, finally overcoming all rivals for power within the Roman state. The title was for him "a useful propaganda tool," and was displayed on the coins that he issued.The word applied to Julius Caesar as deified is "divus," not the distinct word "deus." Thus Augustus was called "Divi filius," but never "Dei filius," the expression applied to Jesus in the Vulgate translation of the New Testament, as, for instance, in 1 John 5:5, and in earlier Latin translations, as shown by the Vetus Latina text "Inicium evangelii Ihesu Christi filii dei" preserved in the Codex Gigas. As son of Julius Caesar, Augustus was referred to as the son of a god, not as the son of God, which was how the monotheistic Christians referred to Jesus.
Greek did not have a distinction corresponding to that in Latin between "divus" and "deus." "Divus" was thus translated as "θεός," the same word used for the Olympian gods, and "divi filius" as "θεοῦ υἱός" (theou huios), which, since it does not include the Greek article, in a polytheistic context referred to sonship of a god among many, to Julius Caesar in the case of the "divi filius" Augustus. In the monotheistic context of the New Testament, the same phrase can refer to sonship of the one God. Indeed, in the New Testament, Jesus is most frequently referred to as " ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ" (ho huios tou theou), the son of God.
John Dominic Crossan writing in God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now (2007), says, early in the book, that "(t)here was a human being in the first century who was called 'Divine,' 'Son of God,' 'God,' and 'God from God,' whose titles were 'Lord,' 'Redeemer,' 'Liberator,' and 'Saviour of the World.'" "(M)ost Christians probably think that those titles were originally created and uniquely applied to Christ. But before Jesus ever existed, all those terms belonged to Caesar Augustus." Crossan cites the adoption of them by the early Christians to apply to Jesus as denying them of Caesar the Augustus. "They were taking the identity of the Roman emperor and giving it to a Jewish peasant. Either that was a peculiar joke and a very low lampoon, or it was what the Romans called majistas and we call high treason. "
The title of Messiah or Christ was considered to apply to a political office. The New Testament might thus be understood as threatening the political authority of Caesar, who used the title "Divi Filius" (son of the deified preceding emperor) as shown in literature, coinage and lapidary inscriptions of the time
*1:https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/passages/related-articles/political-significance-of-lukes-christmas-story
*2:See also Uta Poplutz “Augustus and Jesus – The Lucan Infancy Narrative in the Mirror of Roman Imperial Ideology” https://www.kath-theologie.uni-wuppertal.de/fileadmin/kath_theologie/downloads/Augustus_and_Jesus_%E2%80%93_the_Christmas_story_in_the_mirror_of_Roman_imperial_ideology_-_BUW-Output_-_UNIVERSITY_OF_WUPPERTAL.pdf
*3:See eg. “Who Was Caesar Augustus?” https://www.learnreligions.com/caesar-augustus-first-roman-emperor-701063 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%82%A6%E3%82%B0%E3%82%B9%E3%83%88%E3%82%A5%E3%82%B9
*4:See eg. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B9%8A%E6%99%B6%E5%AD%90
*5:https://ci.nii.ac.jp/lognavi?name=ir&lang=ja&type=pdf&id=http%3A%2F%2Fid.nii.ac.jp%2F1131%2F00001844%2F&naid=110000540022
