Suetonius on Christ
Encyclopedia
Roman historiography
Roman Historiography is indebted to the Greeks, who invented the form. The Romans had great models to base their works upon, such as Herodotus and Thucydides. Roman historiographical forms are different from the Greek ones however, and voice very Roman concerns. Unlike the Greeks, Roman...
Suetonius
Suetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius , was a Roman historian belonging to the equestrian order in the early Imperial era....
's evidence for the historical existence of Christ
Historicity of Jesus
The historicity of Jesus concerns how much of what is written about Jesus of Nazareth is historically reliable, and whether the evidence supports the existence of such an historical figure...
is found in his biographies of the Roman emperor
Roman Emperor
The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office although at any given time, a given title was associated with the emperor...
s Claudius
Claudius
Claudius , was Roman Emperor from 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he was the son of Drusus and Antonia Minor. He was born at Lugdunum in Gaul and was the first Roman Emperor to be born outside Italy...
and Nero
Nero
Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....
. 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
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
.
Suetonius and his work
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus was a Roman historian and a member of the equestrian order in the early Imperial eraRoman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
. 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
Hadrian
Hadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...
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
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
to Domitian
Domitian
Domitian was Roman Emperor from 81 to 96. Domitian was the third and last emperor of the Flavian dynasty.Domitian's youth and early career were largely spent in the shadow of his brother Titus, who gained military renown during the First Jewish-Roman War...
. Other works by Suetonius concern the daily life of Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
, oratory
Oratory
Oratory is a type of public speaking.Oratory may also refer to:* Oratory , a power metal band* Oratory , a place of worship* a religious order such as** Oratory of Saint Philip Neri ** Oratory of Jesus...
, and the lives of famous writers, including poets, historians, and grammarians. A few of these books have partially survived, but many have been lost.
Christians under Claudius
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). The name appears in manuscriptManuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
s of Suetonius as Chrestus, a form also used by the Roman historian Tacitus
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...
to refer to Chrestiani. Chrestus (Χρηστός, "Useful" or "Good") is a not uncommon Greek personal name, 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.
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
Nerva
Nerva , was Roman Emperor from 96 to 98. Nerva became Emperor at the age of sixty-five, after a lifetime of imperial service under Nero and the rulers of the Flavian dynasty. Under Nero, he was a member of the imperial entourage and played a vital part in exposing the Pisonian conspiracy of 65...
's modification of the Fiscus Judaicus
Fiscus Judaicus
The Fiscus Iudaicus or Fiscus Judaicus was a tax collecting agency instituted to collect the tax imposed on Jews in the Roman Empire after the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in 70 CE in favor of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome.-Imposition:The tax was initially imposed by Roman...
in 96. From then on, practising Jews paid the tax, Christians did not.
The Great Fire
In 64 AD, the Great Fire of RomeGreat Fire of Rome
The Great Fire of Rome was an urban fire that occurred beginning July 19, AD 64.-Background:According to Tacitus, the fire spread quickly and burned for six days. Only four of the fourteen districts of Rome escaped the fire; three districts were completely destroyed and the other seven suffered...
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, who claims he played the lyre
Lyre
The lyre is a stringed musical instrument known for its use in Greek classical antiquity and later. The word comes from the Greek "λύρα" and the earliest reference to the word is the Mycenaean Greek ru-ra-ta-e, meaning "lyrists", written in Linear B syllabic script...
and sang the Sack of Ilium
Trojan War
In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...
during the fires.
The historian Tacitus
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...
, 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. 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 hominum superstitionis novae ac maleficae). In Roman usage, the word superstitio refers to any type of religious observance that could not be incorporated into traditional Roman religious practice
Religion in ancient Rome
Religion in ancient Rome encompassed the religious beliefs and cult practices regarded by the Romans as indigenous and central to their identity as a people, as well as the various and many cults imported from other peoples brought under Roman rule. Romans thus offered cult to innumerable deities...
.
Questions of authenticity
It has been argued that the passages on Christ are later interpolationInterpolation (manuscripts)
An interpolation, in relation to literature and especially ancient manuscripts, is an entry or passage in a text that was not written by the original author...
s 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
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one 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.
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.
External links
Primary sources- The Lives of the Twelve Caesars at LacusCurtius (Latin original, English translation)
- Suetonius' works at Latin Library (Latin)
- The Lives of the Twelve Caesars at Project GutenbergProject GutenbergProject Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
(English translation - includes Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets)
- The Lives of the Twelve Caesars at Project Gutenberg
- Gai Suetoni Tranquilli De vita Caesarum libri III-VI Cornell University Library Historical Monographs Collection.
Secondary sources