Gospels Part 018
The Know Your Sword series now begins a series of questions regarding the existence of Jesus Christ.
Some would argue that Jesus was an allegorical figure in the Bible. Others would say that He was a teacher, or a prophet. We will explore the questions that the Word of God answers clearly. Was Jesus of Nazareth a real person? Did He really exist? Are the stories written about Him in the Bible true?
What does the evidence say? Despite what you may have heard, we have compelling historical documentation of His existence.
Some argue that Jesus couldn’t have existed because there are no first-century historical records that mention Him. Of course, there are contemporary biographies written about Him—four of them in fact, by different authors. They’re called the Gospels, and they’re found in the Bible.
But that’s not good enough for those determined not to believe in Jesus Christ. They insist on more. They demand written records from contemporary first-century historians who were not followers of Jesus.
In so doing they’re requiring a standard few historical figures from the ancient world could possibly meet. After all, very few surviving histories survive from the first century, and basically the only sizeable and largely complete Roman written works from this time are a manual on agriculture, a comedy from a friend of one of the emperors and a few other miscellaneous works—none of which we would expect to include any mention of Christianity or Jesus Christ.
Roman histories that mention Jesus and Christianity
However, historians are aware of a few surviving non-Christian Roman works from early in the second century that do mention Jesus Christ and Christianity. These include:
- Lives of the First Twelve Caesars, by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, a Roman court official and chief secretary to Emperor Hadrian, who wrote around A.D. 120.
- Letters of Pliny the Younger, a Roman governing official in north-central Turkey, who wrote about A.D. 120.
- Annals, by the Roman historian Tacitus, who wrote about A.D. 115.
In addition to these, the famous first-century Jewish historian Josephus wrote about Jesus and a number of other figures mentioned in the Gospels. We’ll discuss him in a future lesson. So, let’s see what one of these Roman officials tells us.
Followers of “Chrestus” banished from Rome
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (commonly known as Suetonius), writing around 120 A.D., records that the emperor Claudius “banished the Jews from Rome, who were continually making disturbances, Chrestus [Christ] being their leader” (Lives of the First Twelve Caesars: Life of Claudius).
The Roman Emperor Claudius reigned from A.D. 41 to 54. At this point in history the Romans didn’t see any difference between Jews and Christians, since they largely believed and practiced the same things, so Claudius apparently expelled them all.
What’s significant in Suetonius’ brief statement, mentioned in passing, is that a number of the Jews in Rome had become followers of “Chrestus,” which seems to be a misspelling of “Christus,” the Latinized form of “Christ.” So, we see that by approximately the year A.D. 50 there already were significant numbers of Christians in Rome, and this was leading to conflict with the Roman authorities—exactly why, we’re not told.
This expulsion of the Jews from Rome is mentioned in the Bible, in Acts 18:2: “And he [Paul] found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla (because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome); and he came to them.”
What is especially interesting is how closely this brief mention correlates with what we read in the book of Acts. At the Feast of Pentecost, when the Church was founded as recorded in Acts 2, ca. A.D. 31, we read that “visitors from Rome” were among those who witnessed the miraculous events of Acts 2:6-12. At that time people speaking multiple languages and dialects from more than a dozen different parts of the Roman Empire heard the apostles “speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.”
We’re not explicitly told when the first Christian believers appeared in Rome, but it’s not a stretch to assume that some of those in Jerusalem for that Pentecost took their astounding report back with them to Rome, where it spread among the Jews and Jewish proselytes there—leading about two decades later to the expulsion of Jews and Christians from Rome. And approximately 90 years later we would find this recorded for history by a Roman court official and chief secretary to the Roman Emperor at the time—confirming exactly what we read in the Bible!
© Scott Ashley, 2025. All rights reserved.
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Scott Ashley
Scott Ashley was managing editor of Beyond Today magazine, United Church of God booklets and its printed Bible Study Course until his retirement in 2023. He also pastored three congregations in Colorado for 10 years from 2011-2021. He and his wife, Connie, live near Denver, Colorado.
Mr. Ashley attended Ambassador College in Big Sandy, Texas, graduating in 1976 with a theology major and minors in journalism and speech. It was there that he first became interested in publishing, an industry in which he worked for 50 years.
During his career, he has worked for several publishing companies in various capacities. He was employed by the United Church of God from 1995-2023, overseeing the planning, writing, editing, reviewing and production of Beyond Today magazine, several dozen booklets/study guides and a Bible study course covering major biblical teachings. His special interests are the Bible, archaeology, biblical culture, history and the Middle East.
