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ARRIUS PISO AND HIS FAMILY: An example of deduction.
(04/12/01, by Roman Piso)

To find out about Arrius Piso and his immediate family (his wives and children), one must look to “The Vita” of Flavius Josephus. He also ‘salts’ information about his children throughout the New Testament.

In the ‘Vita’, we learn the following;

Arrius Piso was first married to a virgin of Jotapata, and that he divorced her. No children are mentioned from this marriage. His second wife* is a bit of an enigma, but I do think that her identity may someday be revealed to us by deduction. She is a wife (at Alexandria, Egypt), who was with Titus at the siege of Jerusalem. Arrius Piso had divorced her as well, but he had three children with her before doing so. He says that two of those children are ‘dead’ (at the time of his writing the Vita). We think presently that one of those ‘dead’ sons was really a daughter (Claudia Phoebe),** and the other was the son named ‘Alexander’. The remaining son from that marriage who was still alive was Julius Calpurnius Piso.

His third wife had lived at Crete, but she was a Jewess by birth. Because of what he says about his third wife, she appears to be Boionia Procilla/Procla. He never says that he divorced his last wife, and he says that she bore him two children. Those children are known to us as (Fabius) Justus Calpurnius Piso, and Proculus Calpurnius Piso.

Now, in the Vita, he also gives the year of birth for his three living sons. He does so by saying that they were born during certain years of the reign of emperor Vespasian. So, we find out by deduction that Julius Piso was born in 74 C.E. And that Justus Piso was born in 77 C.E. Proculus was born in 79 C.E. This is information that tells us much more than just the birth dates of these sons, it also tells us Arrius Piso was still with his second wife up until at least 74 C.E. and that he married his third and final wife sometime before 77 C.E. This, is what logic, reason and deduction are all about.

To summarize…

The birth dates of these sons are given by Arrius Piso as Josephus in the beginning of his ‘Vita’. He says; “I have three (living) sons…” And Justus and Proculus Piso’s mother was a Jewess who had lived at Crete. Arrius Piso had divorced his first and second wives. His sons Alexander*** and Julius were of the same mother - his second wife.

Now, Arrius Piso counts his invented character Jesus as a ‘son’ as well. But he does so in the sense or context of that ‘son’ being an invention. So, that is why in Matt. 13:55, he says that Jesus has four brothers. But of real sons, he has only three which were living. Since the ‘core’ or prototype of Matthew was written around the year 75, we can deduce that either these sons of Arrius Piso were added to it after they were born or it was not truly finished until all his sons were born. Meaning that Matthew was not really finished until sometime AFTER 79 C.E (the year of birth of his last son, Proculus Piso).


* His second wife was of/at Alexandria, Egypt and was apparently of the line of the ‘Alexanders’. We might be right to speculate that her name may have been ‘Alexandria’ as the feminine form of one of her sons name - Alexander. I do think that we may be able to deduce just who she was at some point.

** Recently, Abelard Reuchlin has become convinced that Claudia Phoebe was NOT the daughter of Arrius Piso. But I think that she still could have been his real daughter and that researchers were just thrown a ‘curve’ by those ancient authors. Claudia Phoebe could still have been Arrius Piso’s daughter - IF she was the daughter of/by his second wife who he had divorced, and if she then remarried someone who adopted her - then passing her BACK into the house of her real father (Arrius) who then likewise
“adopted” her as well (even though she was really his own daughter anyway!).


*** Alexander, like his mother, is an enigmatic figure. Abelard Reuchlin says that he was placed in the New Testament as ‘Andrew’. And Andrew is found in Matt. 4:18, 10:2. Mark 1:16, 1:29, 3:18, 13:3. Luke 6:14. John 1:40, 1:44, 6:8, 12:22. Acts 1:13. He may also have been the person mentioned as a kinsman of Paul who is called ‘Andronicus’ in Romans 16:7. As Reuchlin says, Alexander appears as a disciple named Andrew - who is the/(a) brother of Simon Peter. Reuchlin says that he died about the year 95 C.E.
Ref. “The True Authorship of the New Testament,” page 12. People have tended to think that the ‘Junias’ mentioned in Romans 16:7 was a female. But when you know that Alexander and Julius Piso had the same mother, and you know that letters such as ‘l’ and ‘n’ were interchangeable and that information was given by the use of phonetics, then you can see that passage read; “Salute Andronicus and JULIUS, my kinsmen…” Putting Andrew/Alexander (as Andronicus) together with Julius, confirms what we had found in the Vita - that these two brothers belonged together as they both shared the same mother.