His Story is History and History is His Story

Tacitus the great historian of First Century Rome leaves us in no doubt about the main historical outlines of the New Testament. Tacitus, a leading politician and a provincial governor, reports that the ‘Christians’ took their name from a person called ‘Christ’ who was executed by Pontius Pilate in Judea in the era of Tiberius Caesar.

Tacitus expected the movement to die with its founder but instead it spread to Rome where, by the time of the great fire in AD 64, it had become ‘immense’. Tacitus’s history tell us (a) Jesus was known as ‘Christ’, (b) that he was therefore a genuine figure of history, (c) when and where he was executed, and (d) that in spite of his death as a disgraced felon within thirty years his movement spread from Palestine on the edge of the empire to its heart, Rome.

Tacitus’s confirmation of the ‘raw’ facts about earliest Christianity is impressive. Not only was he a careful historian he was also bitterly critical of this new movement, which he calls a ‘superstition’ whose members were guilty of evil ‘vices’ and who, he said, ‘hated the human race’. Tacitus, a proud Roman, despised these Christians who loved their Christ more than the empire. Tacitus’s comments about Christian origins are all the more important since he is an independent witness, in fact, a hostile witness. To read more, click here.