Quote:Yes, but who else would this refer to?
I'm really tired of straightening out jesus freak assholes on this stuff so I'll do this one and leave the others for DP if he likes....or perhaps I'll feel more energetic later.
Tacitus, Suetonius and Pliny were all early second century Roman writers.
Tacitus and Pliny were friends and some of their correspondence remains intact. Suetonius Tranquillus was a junior officer on Pliny's staff while he was governor of Bithinia-Pontus in Asia Minor. Pliny learns of xtians c 110 when he gets to his province and they tell him nothing about any jesus or any of the other happy horseshit which goes with xtianity...even under torture. They talk about Christos - which only means "The Anointed One." Suetonius refers to Chrestus in Rome in the reign of Claudius. Tacitus, as noted, is probably a medieval forgery copied from the 5th century work of Sulpicius Severus, but in any case he never mentions "jesus" either.
It seems that the whole "jesus" as a personification of Christos did not begin until later in the second century when, all of a sudden Greco- Roman writers like Celsus and Lucian of Samosata did start to take notice of this rather silly cult.
