Truth you can trace
Roman writers on Jesus and the first Christians
The three earliest non-Christian Roman notices of Jesus and the Christians, quoted word for word from public-domain translations: hostile or offhand, each writer's slant named, and honest about what they do and do not show.
- Tacitus
Tacitus: the fire of Rome, and "Christus" executed under Pilate
Writing c. AD 116, the Roman historian Tacitus records that Nero blamed the great fire of AD 64 on "a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace", and explains the name…
Luke 3:1 · Matthew 27:26
Read - Pliny the Younger
Pliny: a governor describes Christian worship, and Trajan sets the rule
About AD 112 the governor of Bithynia-Pontus wrote to the emperor Trajan for instructions on trying Christians, and in doing so left the earliest surviving outsider's description of what they did…
1 Peter 1:1 · 1 Peter 4:16 · Acts 11:26
Read - Suetonius
Suetonius: "Chrestus", and the Jews expelled from Rome
In his life of the emperor Claudius, Suetonius records in a single clause that Claudius…
Acts 18:2
Read - Suetonius
Suetonius: Nero's "punishments on the Christians"
In his life of Nero, Suetonius lists among the emperor's regulations one sentence…
1 Peter 4:16 · Acts 26:28
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4 passages, every one citing its sources. See our sources and licences.
On contested questions we show every major view, attributed and cited, and pick no winner. Answers are synthesized from primary sources, truth you can trace, not opinion.