Quote:Kindly note my remark "at the time"
Yes, and I asked...and repeat "who?"
We have the alleged history of Tacitus blaming Nero but not a single other ancient writer - xtian or Roman - knows anything about it which strongly suggests that the passage is a fraud.
Suetonius makes a reference to Chrestus and his followers ( Chrestianos ) and later makes a reference to "Christianos" (Christians) but says nothing else and we may have had a later scribe merely correcting what he assumes to be a spelling error.
Otherwise - we wait until Lucian of Samosata making jokes about them in the mid 2d century and then Celsus who actually discussed their belief system even later in the 2d century.
Oddly, Celsus seems to suggest that some persecution by the authorities would be a good thing which suggests that it had not begun as of the time he was writing.
