The Roman historian Suetonius's evidence for the historical existence of Christ is found in his biographies of the Roman emperors Claudius and Nero. Although his references to Christ and Christians are brief and subject to interpretation, they are important for scholarly efforts to document the early persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire.[2] [3]
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Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus was a Roman historian and a member of the equestrian order in the early Imperial era. He was born around 69–75 AD, and died sometime after 130. Around 120, he served for a short time as secretary to the emperor Hadrian until he was dismissed, perhaps over allegations of incivility towards Hadrian's wife.
Suetonius's most important surviving work is The Twelve Caesars, a series of biographies of twelve successive Roman rulers from Julius Caesar to Domitian. Other works by Suetonius concern the daily life of Rome, politics, oratory, and the lives of famous writers, including poets, historians, and grammarians. A few of these books have partially survived, but many have been lost.
The emperor Claudius reigned 41 to 54 AD. Suetonius reports his dealings with the eastern Roman Empire, that is, with Greece and Macedonia, and with the Lycians, Rhodians, and Trojans. He then reports that the emperor expelled the Jews from Rome, since they "constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Christ" (Judaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantis Roma expulit).[4] The name appears in manuscripts of Suetonius as Chrestus, a form also used by the Roman historian Tacitus to refer to Chrestiani. Chrestus (Χρηστός, "Useful" or "Good") is a not uncommon Greek personal name,[5] and may not refer to the man known as Jesus Christ; however, it is just as likely that a Roman, through linguistic assimilation, would hear Christus as the more familiar Chrestus.[6]
The passage suggests that in the mid-first century, the Romans still viewed Christianity as a Jewish sect. Historians debate whether or not the Roman government distinguished between Christians and Jews prior to Nerva's modification of the Fiscus Judaicus in 96. From then on, practising Jews paid the tax, Christians did not.[7]
In 64 AD, the Great Fire of Rome destroyed portions of the city and economically devastated the Roman population. The emperor Nero (reigned 54–68) was himself suspected as the arsonist by Suetonius,[8] who claims he played the lyre and sang the Sack of Ilium during the fires.
The historian Tacitus, however, says that Nero was in Antium when the fire broke out. Tacitus accuses Nero of diverting the blame to the Chrestiani, a form that has been related to Suetonius's use of Chrestus.[9] If the followers of Jesus are meant, Nero's is the first documented case of official Imperial persecution of Christians.
Suetonius does not say that any persecution of Christians occurred as a result of the fire. He does mention the infliction of punishments (afflicti suppliciis) on Christians among other abuses perpetrated by Nero, in a passage several paragraphs earlier than his account of the fire. In this passage, he describes Christians as "a group of people of a new and maleficent superstition" (genus[10] hominum superstitionis novae ac maleficae).[11] In Roman usage, the word superstitio refers to any type of religious observance that could not be incorporated into traditional Roman religious practice.
It has been argued that the passages on Christ are later interpolations to bolster evidence for the historical existence of Jesus and the early persecution of Christians in Rome. Proponents of the authenticity of these passages point to the orthography of Christ's name, reasoning that a Christian scribe writing at a later period would regard Chrestus as a misspelling to be corrected, or that a Christian interpolating such passage would spell the name Christus.[12][13][14] [15][16]
Suetonius's perception that Chrestus was instigating Jewish unrest also suggests that the passage dates to a time before the Roman elite distinguished between Christians and Jews. If a later Christian scribe were to interpolate such a passage, he would be unlikely to think of the followers of Christ as Jews.[2][17]
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