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INTRODUCTION TO THE LIFE

OF CHRIST

CHAPTER I

HEATHEN AND JEWISH WRITINGS

IN studying the life of Christ, as in studying any other chapter of history, we must begin by considering what are the sources from which we gain our information, and to what degree are they trustworthy. Evidently the Four Gospels of the New Testament are the chief source, and questions that bear upon their trustworthiness are of supreme importance. But the life of Christ is of such vital interest to the world that every possible source of knowledge is eagerly examined to see both what additional facts it may give us, and in what way it may confirm or disprove the facts given in the gospels.

We turn first to heathen writers. Jesus lived in a century when able historians were ready to record anything of importance that happened in the realm of the Cæsars. And certainly they could select no subject more important and more sure to make their writings immortal than the deeds and words of Him from whose birth we now date the reigns of the Cæsars. If Christ

really lived, and was what the evangelists report, shall we not find some account of him by Roman historians?

Two facts make such a supposition improbable. The first is that very little has come down to us from those historians who lived in the days of Christ and wrote the history of their own times. Indeed, with the exception of the writings of Tacitus and Suetonius, all Roman history of the first century that can in any sense be called contemporaneous has disappeared. And the second fact is that no Roman historian would think it worth while to write about Jesus of Nazareth. Though Judea was a province of the Roman Empire, it was a petty one in a remote corner; and its people were regarded with contempt or aversion. Their stubborn, rebellious character often brought them to the attention of the emperor; but that attention was devoted to the task of holding them in subjection. As for Jesus, the historian would have smiled at the thought of devoting even a paragraph to him. His ministry was very brief; his work was mainly among the common people-peasants and fishermen; his miracles were easily confounded with the mass of imposture in which the age abounded; and above all, the refusal of his own nation to accept him as its leader, and his ignominious death, seemed abundant proof that he was beneath consideration. For a Roman historian of the first century to record the career of Jesus was as unlikely as it would be for a Russian historian of to-day

to record the career of some brief leader of a little band of fanatics in the obscure regions of Daghestan.

The only place, therefore, where we might find a notice of Jesus in heathen history, is in the pages of Tacitus or Suetonius; and the only possibility is of some incidental mention of him. Such mention we do find. Tacitus, who ranks as one of the greatest of Roman historians, wrote his annals not long after A. D. 100. In this work (XV, 44), when telling how Nero was suspected of having set fire to Rome in A. D. 64, he writes as follows:

"In order to suppress the rumor, Nero falsely accused and punished with the most acute tortures persons who, already hated for their shameful deeds, were commonly called Christians. The founder of that name, Christus, had been put to death by the procurator, Pontius Pilate, in the reign of Tiberius; but the deadly superstition, though repressed for a time, broke out again, not only through Judea, where this evil had its origin, but also through the city [Rome] whither all things horrible and vile flow from all quarters and are encouraged. Accordingly, first those were arrested who confessed; then on their information a great multitude were convicted not so much of the crime of incendiarism as of hatred of the human race."

Suetonius was a contemporary of Tacitus, but an historian of much less ability. In his lives of the twelve Cæsars (Claud. 25) he says:

"He [Claudius] expelled from Rome the Jews, because they were constantly raising a tumult at the instigation of Chrestus."

The expulsion is the one referred to in Acts 18: 2, and took place probably about A. D. 50. We know nothing more about it. Possibly the Jews quarrelled over the claims of Christ, and Suetonius-confusing the strange name Christus with the familiar Greek adjective Chrestos, often used as a proper name-supposed the person who bore it to have been in Rome when the quarrel broke out.

One further mention of Christ, though not by an historian, is worth quoting. Pliny the Younger was governor of Bithynia, in Asia Minor, about A. D. 112; and he wrote a letter (Epistles X, 97) to the emperor, Trajan, telling what he had learned about the Christians in his province, and asking how he should deal with them. The letter is most valuable as a picture of Christian life at the beginning of the second century; but for our present purpose we need only note that many of the Christians were ready to undergo torture rather than renounce Christ, and that those who did renounce him made the following statement:

"They affirmed that the sum of their guilt or error was to assemble on a fixed day before daybreak, and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves with an oath not to enter into any

wickedness or commit thefts, robberies, or adulteries, or falsify their work, or repudiate trusts committed to them: when these things were ended it was their custom to depart, and, on coming together again" (probably in the evening for the love-feast), "to take food, men and women together, yet innocently."

The statements of these three writers are practically all that is of value in heathen literature concerning Christ. They wrote fully three quarters of a century after his death, but Tacitus and Suetonius doubtless gained their information from earlier documents. They state but little, yet that little is enough to give Jesus a place in secular history. From it alone we should know that he lived in Judea in the reign of Tiberius, that he was put to death by Pontius Pilate, that he founded a sect which continued after his death, and that his followers in later days worshipped him as a god, and were willing to endure torture rather than renounce their faith.

Turning next to possible Jewish sources, we find that they are few in number. Philo was the ablest Jewish writer of the first century, and was a contemporary of Jesus; but he lived in Alexandria, his interests were philosophical, and there was no special reason why he should mention Jesus in any of his writings that are preserved. We are not surprised to find that he is silent about him; indeed, he probably knew little or nothing about the Christians.

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