Chrestus

Chrestus

The references of Suetonius (69-122 AD) with the words Chresto and Christiani that is believed to be Christ and Christians gives some extra validity to what appears in copies of Tacitus about Christians. These accounts of the Lives of the Twelve Caesars were published around around AD 120 and can be used by people who feel a need to offer proof that Jesus existed.

Christians for the most part were considered Jews at first. The followers of Jesus who were the followers of "the way", were first called Christians in Antioch around the A.D. 40s or 50s. They claimed Jesus was proclaimed a king of the Jews as their king and often did contrary to the decrees of Caesar.

Claudius and Chresto

There are numerous translations of the early Latin text:

From The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by C. Suetonius Tranquillus

published in the Loeb Classical Library, 1914
The life of Claudius (25)
translated J. C. Rolfe,
Internet Ancient History Sourcebook, ed. Paul Halsall, 1999

"4 Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome. He allowed the envoys of the Germans to sit in the orchestra, led by their naïve self-confidence; for when they had been taken to the seats occupied by the common people and saw the Parthian and Armenian envoys sitting with the senate, they moved of their own accord to the same part of the theatre, protesting that their merits and rank were no whit inferior. 5 He utterly abolished the cruel and inhuman religion of the Druids among the Gauls, which under Augustus had merely been prohibited to Roman citizens; on the other hand he even attempted to transfer the Eleusinian rites from Attica to Rome, and had the temple of Venus Erycina in Sicily, which had fallen to ruin through age, restored at the expense of the treasury of the Roman people. He struck his treaties with foreign princes in the Forum, sacrifi­cing a pig⁠ and reciting the ancient formula of the fetial priests.⁠ But these and other acts, and in fact almost the whole conduct of his reign, were dictated not so much by his own judgment as that of his wives and freedmen, since he nearly always acted in accordance with their interests and desires."(Latin)

Alternate translation"He drove out from Rome the Jews who stirred up by Chrestus continually caused unrest." From the work The Lives of the Caesars by the Roman historian Suetonius, also called the The Twelve Caesars found in (Claudius 25) translated from the Loeb Classical Library edition, specifically the translation by J.C. Rolfe.

This was in the biography of the Emperor Divus Claudius, which refers to agitations in the Roman Jewish community and the expulsion of Jews from Rome by Claudius during his reign (AD 41 to AD 54), which may be the same expulsion mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles 18:2.

Nero and Christians

In Nero 16, Suetonius writes of executive orders signed by the Emperator Nero to maintain public order. He halted chariot races because there was belief the drivers were cheating which lead to riots. Also there were forms of lockdowns that affected serving of cooked foods in taverns and the distribution of public welfare(Public banquets, such as the civic feasts offered for all of the inhabitants of a city or epulum a "public feast"). Some of the food given to the poor was being sold in taverns because the poor exchanged it for drink including wine, Cannabis and opium.

Tertullian(160-240 AD) wrote of Nero being the first Emperor to murder Christians: "We read the lives of the Cæsars: At Rome Nero was the first who stained with blood the rising faith" Tertullian, Chapter XV. He depended upon the writings of Suetonius to make this comment.

From The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by C. Suetonius Tranquillus

published in the Loeb Classical Library, 1914
The life of Nero

16,2 "During his reign many abuses were severely punished and put down, and no fewer new laws were made: a limit was set to expenditures; the public banquets were confined to a distribution of food; the sale of any kind of cooked viands in the taverns was forbidden, with the exception of pulse and vegetables, whereas before every sort of dainty was exposed for sale.⁠45 Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition. He put an end to the diversions of the chariot drivers, who from immunity of long standing claimed the right of ranging at large and amusing themselves by cheating and robbing the people. The pantomimic actors and their partisans were banished from the city."(Latin)

Another translation of that Latin statement by Suetonius can be produced because the Latin term "maleficus", meaning "evil-doing" or "wicked" and "afflicti suppliciis" is a Latin phrase that translates to "afflicted with punishments" or "punished with tortures". .

"Christians, a race(kind) of men afflicted with punishments, are possessed by a new and evil superstition;"

Bias of historians

Christians are mentioned in Suetonius' biography of the Emperor Nero (Nero 16) as among those persecuted by him around AD 64 which was the year of the Great Fire of Rome. In this passage Suetonius describes Christianity and its excessive religiosity using the term superstitio as do others like Tacitus and Pliny.

At first there was little distinction between Christians and Jews prior to Nerva's modification of the Fiscus Judaicus in AD 96.

What is the source and cause of their contempt, bias, and bigotry toward Christians?

If we understand that writers like Suetonius and Tacitus had a bias for the Senate who were the Consctipi Patri, Conscripted Fathers, and Christians would call no man father upon the earth because of the directive of their King.

He was also high priest which why he was to be called the Son of God instead of Caesar who was also called the Son of God. The government of Rome obtained more and more power because they offered more and more gifts, gratuities, and benefits. This would of course ruin Rome the Republic, degenerate the masses who lined up for free bread and become the foundation for a Christian conflict.

This idea that eating the free bread provided at the tables of the Imperial Cult of Rome was some how immoral was an insult to Romans just as it would be to the people dependent on the welfare State today.

Religio et superstitio

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the Younger, has been reported as saying, "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful." While I have not found that quote he does makes a distinction between these two Latin words "Religio et superstitio quid differant" that are each sometimes translated as “religion”. The first is regarded as virtue and the other vice.

Pious Piety

Pious is an adjective describing a person who is deeply devoted while piety can specifically refer to devotion to one's family (filial piety). The word piety has a direct relationship to the rights of a father through the concept of that filial piety, which emphasizes duties like respect, honor, and care for parents. Judeo-Christian values include "Honor your father and mother" commandment which means to care for your father and mother and not go the the Fathers of the earth.

To Seneca, being pious meant living in harmony with universal Reason (Logos). That Logos of Christ said to call no man "Father". The Logos of Christ which is the word of God has always warned of the dainties of Rulers, the snare and trap of coveting his rewards.

"... religio denotes the pious and sound worship of the gods, whereas superstitio stands for instrumental worship as a result of unreasoning fear."

Enlightened view

" religio becomes obligation, an objective bond" according to Seneca and Cicero and later Christian authors like Lactantius and St. Augustine. But while some see the obligation as enforceable in public religion which create the bands of Civil government others see the love and charity of Christian practices establishing Social bonds between the believers and their God.

"But it was the enlightened view, the philosophic view of the rationalizing Romans which dissociated religio ‘religious scruple’, authentic worship, from superstitio, a degraded and perverted form of religion." Chapter 7: Religion and Superstition

The Ionic Greek term thrēskeíē is unknown in Attic Greek appearing in the first century B.C. a complex system of beliefs and practices can be considered religion as in the performance of a duty. The nature of that duty may differ.

There has always been a duty connected to religion and the means and method of enforcement determines the nature of that religion. The genius of Caesar was different than that of Christ and what He called the weightier matters. To do what Christ commanded the early Church to do nurtures the Social virtues that appear in true fellowship described by Paul and the apostles who considered faith with out the works was dead. Polybius points out that it is our appetite and avarice that degenerates the masses and ushers in the tyrants.