TACITUS ON CHRISTUS AND “THE HATED CLASS”
In Annals 15.44, Tacitus mentions Jesus and a despicable class of people known as Christians. This reference occurs in connection to the fire at Rome -and the resulting Neronian persecutions- and was designed to show Nero’s lack:
“Consequently , to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man’s cruelty, that they were being destroyed.”
Furthermore, we observe quite a few non-Biblcal corroborations to the Gospels concerning the basic facts about the life of Jesus. As Professor Jakob Van Bruggen states:
“Jesus did exist, and he was killed under Pontius Pilate. The latter fact seems not to have been derived from the Christians themselves, since Tacitus would have been more likely to use the term crucified if he had taken his information from the Christians’ creed. In addition, his animosity toward the Christians was such that he would not have indiscriminately copied their own claims. Finally, Tacitus was a historian who had access to the state archives. It would not have been difficult for him to consult the reports that Pontius Pilate had sent to Rome. If those reports had given a completely different, nonreligious picture of Jesus, Tacitus would certainly not have failed to use this against the Christians. But the historian who was vehemently opposed to these followers of a new religion accepted the fact that their founder, Christ, was killed by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate and that at that time he had already become the object of superstitious veneration.”
SOURCE: Jakob Van Bruggen, Christ on Earth: The Gospels Narratives as History (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998), p 28.
To sum it up, Tacitus (55-120 AD) was an important Roman official and historian. He wrote Annals 15.44, the section we have been looking at, around 117 AD. In it, he discusses the Great Fire in Rome and the resultant scapegoating of Christians by Nero. Along the way, he mentions Jesus and makes some choice criticisms of Christians. These include that Christians are:
Hated because of their crimes and loathed for their vices
Guilty and deserved exemplary punishmenttacitus
Spreading a disease and following a deadly superstition
Mischievous
Degraded and shameful
Incendiarists
Antisocial: they have a hatred of their enemy – all mankind
SOURCE: Qhttps://streetapologist.wordpress.com/2013/09/12/all-things-tacitus-some-things-jesus/