This is the 3rd article of our 12 part research:
Debunking the Fraudulent christian Apologist List of Extra-biblical but non-contemporary, claimed “sources” used as jesus “evidence.” (Jewish, “Pagan,” Non-christian, “Secular”)
Related article:
Tacitus’ Historical Testimonies of gods: Hercules, Mercury, Thor, Odin, Mars, Tyr, Isis, Nerthus, Tuisto, Wuotan and more.
Tacitus (56 CE-117 CE) - Full name: Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus.
Born 23 years after jesus supposedly died.
Tacitus’ Annals, were published in 115 CE. (82 years after jesus supposedly died)
What are the oldest manuscripts we have of Tacitus’ works?
The Cornelius Tacitus manuscript M.II (the so called second Medicean), which is kept in the Laurentian library, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, in Italy, where it has the library number 68.2.
This is the earliest known extant manuscript of Tacitus, and is (probably) written in the 11th century, at the monastery of Monte Cassino, 80 miles southeast of Rome.
In other words: The manuscript that we have today that christians claim to be 2nd century evidence for jesus, is actually a 11th century claimed copy of Tacitus’ work that was actually written by anonymous christian-Italian monks in a monastery near Rome.
The Text:
(Annals 15.44):
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.
The Chrestianos Issue in Tacitus Reinvestigated by Erík Zara Doctor of Theology (Th.D.)
http://www.textexcavation.com/documents/zaratacituschrestianos.pdf
Jesus Has Left the Building, Part 3 (Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlE89XULcrk
Could Tacitus have taken his information from Christian sources?
Christian Answer: Because of his position as a professional historian and not as a commentator, it is more likely Tacitus referenced government records over Christian testimony.
~Christians always mention these referenced government records but the fact is that none exist.
Tacitus gives no source for passage about Christus. In the book, Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide, Thiessen and Merz argue that if the source had been an official Roman archive, one would expect him to have referred to Pilate as a prefect instead of as a procurator (he was not a procurator). They thus conclude that the information Tacitus gives about Jesus was not copied from an official source.
Just as Tacitus mentions a Christus, so does he also mention Hercules many times in his Annals. And most importantly, just as we have no artifacts, writings or eyewitnesses about Hercules, we also have nothing about Jesus. All information about Hercules and Jesus comes from stories, beliefs, and hearsay. Should we then believe in a historical Hercules, simply because ancient historians mention him and that we have stories and beliefs about him? Of course not, and the same must apply to Jesus if we wish to hold any consistency to historicity. http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm
The most used Christian reference from that century is by Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus (55-120 CE). He purportedly wrote around 117 CE about “Christos” being executed by Pontius Pilate. However, Tacitus would have used Jesus’ name, not his religious title “Christos.” Notedly, Tacitus’ reference was not mentioned by Origen, Eusebius, Tertullian (who quotes a great deal from Tacitus) or Clement of Alexandria in the third century. It was likely added in 1468 by Johannes de Spire of Venice, because no mention is made of it in any known text prior to then, but there are many later references. Another writer, Suetonius, in about 120 CE referred to a man named Chrestus and his Jewish followers. However, “Chrestus” is the correct Latin form of an actual Greek name, and is not a misspelling of “Christos.” http://www.godlessgeeks.com/JesusExist.htm
If people are willing to take ALL of Tacitus’ writings as truth in that same manner…. then they have to concede that there are Pagan Gods as well.
Suspiciously, we are missing about 2/3 of Tacitus’ Annals.
There has been some question about the integrity of the “jesus” passage
Absence of Historical Witnesses - Non-Christian Testimony for Jesus?
– From the authentic pen of lying Christian scribes !
Christianity has no part in Tacitus’s history of the Caesars. Except for one questionable reference in the Annals he records nothing of a cult marginal even in his own day.
Sometime before 117 AD, the Roman historian apparently wrote:
“Nero looked around for a scapegoat, and inflicted the most fiendish tortures on a group of persons already hated for their crimes. This was the sect known as Christians. Their founder, one Christus, had been put to death by the procurator, Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. This checked the abominable superstition for a while, but it broke out again and spread, not merely through Judea, where it originated, but even to Rome itself, the great reservoir and collecting ground for every kind of depravity and filth. Those who confessed to being Christians were at once arrested, but on their testimony a great crowd of people were convicted, not so much on the charge of arson, but of hatred of the entire human race.
Their deaths were made farcical. Dressed in wild animals’ skins , they were torn to pieces by dogs, or crucified, or made into torches to be ignited after dark as substitutes for daylight.”
– Tacitus (Book 15, chapter 44):
As we have seen, the term ‘Christian’ was not in use during the reign of Nero and there would not have been 'a great crowd’ unless we are speaking of Jews, not Christians. 'Jewish/Christians’ – being perceived by Roman authorities (and the populace at large) simply as Jews meant that early Christ-followers also got caught up in general attacks upon the Jews.
“Their effects to dissemble their Jewish origins were detected by the decisive test of circumcision; nor were the Roman magistrates at leisure to enquire into the difference of their religious tenets.”
– Edward Gibbon (Decline and Fall)
One consequence of the fire which destroyed much of Rome in 64 AD was a capitation tax levied on the Jews and it was the Jews – throughout the empire – who were required to pay for the city’s rebuilding – a factor which helped to radicalize many Jews in the late 60s AD.
Not for the first time would Christian scribes expropriated the real suffering of a whole people to create an heroic 'origins’ fable..
No Christian apologist for centuries ever quoted the passage of Tacitus – not in fact, until it had appeared almost word-for-word in the writings of Sulpicius Severus, in the early fifth century, where it is mixed in with other myths. Sulpicius’s contemporaries credited him with a skill in the 'antique’ hand. He put it to good use and fantasy was his forte: his Life of St. Martin is replete with numerous 'miracles’, including raising of the dead and personal appearances by Jesus and Satan.
His dastardly story of Nero was embellished during the Renaissance into a fantastic fable with Nero 'fiddling while Rome burned’. Nero took advantage of the destruction to build his 'Golden House’ though no serious scholar believes anymore that he started the fire (we now know Nero was in his hometown of Antium – Anzio – when the blaze started.) Indeed, Nero opened his palace garden for temporary shelter to those made homeless.
In short, the passage in Tacitus is a fraud and adds no evidence for a historic Jesus.
Update: The probing eye of science
11th century monk corrects Tacitus: “Goodies” to read “Christians”!
Ultraviolet photo of a critical word from the earliest known extant manuscript of Tacitus (second Medicean, Laurentian library, Italy).
The photograph reveals that the word purportedly used by Tacitus in Annals 15.44, chrestianos (“the good”), has been overwritten as christianos (“the Christians”) by a later hand, a deceit which explains the excessive space between the letters and the exaggerated “dot” (dash) above the new “i”. The entire “torched Christians” passage of Tacitus is not only fake, it has been repeatedly “worked over” by fraudsters to improve its value as evidence for the Jesus myth.
The truth may be that there was an original gnostic cult following a personified virtue, “Jesus Chrestos” (Jesus the Good). Consequently, they were called Chrestians, an appellation which seems to have attached itself at an early date to the sectarians of the “heretic” Marcion. Support for this possibility comes from the earliest known “Christian” inscription, found in the 19th century on a Marcionite church at Deir Ali, three miles south of Damascus. Dated to circa 318, the inscription reads “The meeting-house of the Marcionists, in the village of Lebaba, of the Lord and Saviour Jesus the Good”, using the word Chrestos, not Christos.
As a flesh-and-blood, “historical” Jesus gradually eclipsed the allegorical Jesus so, too, did “goodness” get eclipsed by “Messiahship”. Justin, in his First Apology (4), about thirty years after the death of Tacitus, plays on the similarity in sound of the two words Χριστὸς (Christ) and χρηστὸς (good, excellent) to argue for the wholesome, commendable character of Jesus followers.
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/josephus-etal.html
Proof Tacitus Manuscript was Altered
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UgO8fAJVVM
Pliny, Tacitus and Suetonius: No Proof of Jesus
by D.M. Murdock/Acharya S
Turning next to another stalwart in the anemic apologist arsenal, Tacitus, sufficient reason is uncovered to doubt this Roman author’s value in proving an “historical” Jesus. In his Annals, supposedly written around 107 CE, Tacitus purportedly related that the Emperor Nero (37-68) blamed the burning of Rome during his reign on “those people who were abhorred for their crimes and commonly called Christians.” Since the fire evidently broke out in the poor quarter where fanatic, agitating Messianic Jews allegedly jumped for joy, thinking the conflagration represented the eschatological development that would bring about the Messianic reign, it would not be unreasonable for authorities to blame the fire on them. However, it is clear that these Messianic Jews were not (yet) called “Christiani.” In support of this contention, Nero’s famed minister, Seneca (5?-65), whose writings evidently provided much fuel for the incipient Christian ideology, has not a word about these “most-hated” sectarians.
…the Tacitean passage next states that these fire-setting agitators were followers of “Christus” (Christos), who, in the reign of Tiberius, “was put to death as a criminal by the procurator Pontius Pilate.” The passage also recounts that the Christians, who constituted a “vast multitude at Rome,” were then sought after and executed in ghastly manners, including by crucifixion. However, the date that a “vast multitude” of Christians was discovered and executed would be around 64 CE, and it is evident that there was no “vast multitude” of Christians at Rome by this time, as there were not even a multitude of them in Judea. Oddly, this brief mention of Christians is all there is in the voluminous works of Tacitus regarding this extraordinary movement, which allegedly possessed such power as to be able to burn Rome. Also, the Neronian persecution of Christians is unrecorded by any other historian of the day and supposedly took place at the very time when Paul was purportedly freely preaching at Rome (Acts 28:30-31), facts that cast strong doubt on whether or not it actually happened. Drews concludes that the Neronian persecution is likely “nothing but the product of a Christian’s imagination in the fifth century.” Eusebius, in discussing this persecution, does not avail himself of the Tacitean passage, which he surely would have done had it existed at the time. Eusebius’s discussion is very short, indicating he was lacking source material; the passage in Tacitus would have provided him a very valuable resource.
Even conservative writers such as James Still have problems with the authenticity of the Tacitus passage: For one, Tacitus was an imperial writer, and no imperial document would ever refer to Jesus as “Christ.” Also, Pilate was not a “procurator” but a prefect, which Tacitus would have known. Nevertheless, not willing to throw out the entire passage, some researchers have concluded that Tacitus “was merely repeating a story told to him by contemporary Christians.”
Based on these and other facts, several scholars have argued that, even if the Annals themselves were genuine, the passage regarding Jesus was spurious. One of these authorities was Rev. Taylor, who suspected the passage to be a forgery because it too is not quoted by any of the Christian fathers, including Tertullian, who read and quoted Tacitus extensively. Nor did Clement of Alexandria notice this passage in any of Tacitus’s works, even though one of this Church father’s main missions was to scour the works of Pagan writers in order to find validity for Christianity. As noted, the Church historian Eusebius, who likely forged the Testimonium Flavianum, does not relate this Tacitus passage in his abundant writings. Indeed, no mention is made of this passage in any known text prior to the 15th century.
The tone and style of the passage are unlike the writing of Tacitus, and the text “bears a character of exaggeration, and trenches on the laws of rational probability, which the writings of Tacitus are rarely found to do.” Taylor further remarks upon the absence in any of Tacitus’s other writings of “the least allusion to Christ or Christians.” In his well-known Histories, for example, Tacitus never refers to Christ, Christianity or Christians. Furthermore, even the Annals themselves have come under suspicion, as they themselves had never been mentioned by any ancient author….
In any event, even if the Annals were genuine, the pertinent passage itself could easily be an interpolation, based on the abundant precedents and on the fact that the only manuscript was in the possession of one person, de Spire. In reality, “none of the works of Tacitus have come down to us without interpolations.”
Regarding Christian desperation for evidence of the existence of Christ, Dupuis comments that true believers are “reduced to look, nearly a hundred years after, for a passage in Tacitus” that does not even provide information other than “the etymology of the word Christian,” or they are compelled “to interpolate, by pious fraud, a passage in Josephus.” Neither passage, Dupuis concludes, is sufficient to establish the existence of such a remarkable legislator and philosopher, much less a “notorious impostor.”
It is evident that Tacitus’s remark is nothing more than what is said in the Apostle’s Creed—to have the authenticity of the mighty Christian religion rest upon this Pagan author’s scanty and likely forged comment is preposterous. Even if the passage in Tacitus were genuine, it would be too late and is not from an eyewitness, such that it is valueless in establishing an “historical” Jesus, representing merely a recital of decades-old Christian tradition.
http://www.truthbeknown.com/pliny.htm
Did Tacitus Mention Jesus Christ? TACITUS – DID HE USE ARCHIVES OR WAS HIS WORK ALTERED? TACITUS AND NERO
http://www.christisnotrisen.com/tacitus.html
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/tacitus.html
The following is from:
~Bible Scholar: R.G. Price
http://rationalrevolution.net/articles/jesus_myth_history.htm
We can also look at the works of Tacitus, which were written shortly after the Gospel of Mark was probably written.
I BEGIN my work with the time when Servius Galba was consul for the second time with Titus Vinius for his colleague. Of the former period, the 820 years dating from the founding of the city, many authors have treated; and while they had to record the transactions of the Roman people, they wrote with equal eloquence and freedom. After the conflict at Actium, and when it became essential to peace, that all power should be centered in one man, these great intellects passed away. Then too the truthfulness of history was impaired in many ways; at first, through men’s ignorance of public affairs, which were now wholly strange to them, then, through their passion for flattery, or, on the other hand, their hatred of their masters. And so between the enmity of the one and the servility of the other, neither had any regard for posterity. But while we instinctively shrink from a writer’s adulation, we lend a ready ear to detraction and spite, because flattery involves the shameful imputation of servility, whereas malignity wears the false appearance of honesty. I myself knew nothing of Galba, of Otho, or of Vitellius, either from benefits or from injuries. I would not deny that my elevation was begun by Vespasian, augmented by Titus, and still further advanced by Domitian; but those who profess inviolable truthfulness must speak of all without partiality and without hatred. I have reserved as an employment for my old age, should my life be long enough, a subject at once more fruitful and less anxious in the reign of the Divine Nerva and the empire of Trajan, enjoying the rare happiness of times, when we may think what we please, and express what we think.
I am entering on the history of a period rich in disasters, frightful in its wars, torn by civil strife, and even in peace full of horrors. Four emperors perished by the sword. There were three civil wars; there were more with foreign enemies; there were often wars that had both characters at once.
- Tacitus; The Histories, 109 CE
As you can see, there was definitely such a thing as formal history at the time that the Gospels were written, and the Gospel of Mark, upon which all of the others are based, does not read at all like a formal history, it reads like an allegorical story. Mark develops characters and has a plot, with scenes, suspense, and a climax.
Tacitus gives a detailed mention of “Christus” in a section discussing Nero and the fire of Rome.
But not all the relief that could come from man, not all the bounties that the prince could bestow, nor all the atonements which could be presented to the gods, availed to relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the conflagration, the fire of Rome. Hence to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center 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.
- The Annals; Tacitus, 109
Though the name “Christus” is used here, this is clearly a reference to the “Jesus Christ” of the Gospels. There are several things of interest in this reference, but it doesn’t establish the historical existence of Jesus. Indeed Tacitus is clearly relaying information that originally came from Christians themselves.
It is peculiar that Nero would have laid the blame on Christians in 64 CE. This passage has puzzled historians for some time, because by all other accounts Christians were still an extremely small and barely distinct group of people by 64 CE. It’s not certain what exactly would set Christians apart from others so much in Rome at this time, how they would have been distinguished from ordinary Jews, why they would have been hated, or if the Christians persecuted by Nero were even the same Christians as those who were believers in Jesus Christ since the term Christians was also considered to derive from people calling themselves “anointed ones”. Rome was filled with literally hundreds of different religions and cults at this time and it’s somewhat astonishing that Christians of all these groups would have been singled out, for we have nothing else that tells us realistically what they would have been doing to draw attention to themselves.
Regardless of this peculiarity, this passage is generally deemed authentic but it is widely recognized that it’s not an independent witness to the existence of Jesus. Some Christians have tried to claim that Tacitus would have gotten his details about the death of Jesus from the Roman archives, thereby establishing the historical reality of the crucifixion. Not only is there no reason to think this, but there are good reasons to conclude that this is not possible.
First of all, Tacitus uses the name “Christus”, as though it is a given first name. Tacitus apparently doesn’t realize that “Christos” is a religious title, meaning “Anointed One”. If “Christus” is the name that Tacitus is working from, which it is, then even if there were Roman records to be looked at he could never have found them under that name and if he had found them otherwise he would have seen another name on them, presumably Yeshuaor Iēsous, the Hebrew and Greek variants of “Jesus”. “Christus” corresponds to nothing, it’s a mistake of translation, or an assumption based on working backwards from the name “Christians”.
Secondly, it’s doubtful that there would have been any archival material to even look at if it ever existed, since Tacitus is writing in 109, some 40 years after the military destruction of Judea.
Thirdly, there would have been no reason for Tacitus to go to an archive to write this passage. The information that he is passing on would have been common knowledge by 109 CE, and this is an insignificant point amidst the larger subject of this work, which is Nero himself. Christians aren’t the subject here, just a side note. We can’t even say that the information Tacitus is passing on would have been known in 64 CE. Since Tacitus is writing in 109, his information is likely more detailed than what would have been known in 64, since by 109 the Gospels had probably already been in circulation for several decades.
That this statement by Tacitus is not evidence for the existence of Jesus is admitted to even by Christian scholars.
New Testament scholar John P. Meier acknowledges that here Tacitus is only passing on information gleaned from Christians, he isn’t making an independent attestation to the existence of Jesus.
Tacitus and Pliny the Younger reflect instead what they have heard Christians of their own day say. Despite various claims, no early rabbinic text (the earliest being the Mishna, composed ca. A.D. 200) contains information about Jesus, and later rabbinic texts simply reflect knowledge of, and mocking midrash on, Christian texts and preaching.
- The Present State of the ‘Third Quest’ for the Historical Jesus: Loss and Gain; J.P. Meier, 1999
http://rationalrevolution.net/articles/jesus_myth_history.htm
Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism: A Roman Trio
Ehrman calls Tacitus “more promising.” He recounts the tale of the Great Fire in Annals 15, how Nero, himself presumed responsible for the fire, falsely accused the Christians of setting it and inflicted the goriest of punishments upon great numbers of them. Tacitus then says (in Ehrman’s words):
The author of this name, Christ, was put to death by the procurator, Pontius Pilate, while Tiberius was emperor; but the dangerous superstition, though suppressed for the moment, broke out again not only in Judea, the origin of this evil, but even in the city [of Rome]. (DJE? p. 55)
Straining to read Jesus into Tacitus
Ehrman says:
Once again, Jesus is not actually named here, but it is obvious in this instance that he is the one being referred to … (DJE? p. 56)
But is it really that simple? Tacitus says that the group known as Christians derived their name from Christ. But how do we know that Tacitus was aware of his actual name if he doesn’t give it? It is commonly argued that Tacitus had to use the term “Christ” in order to properly explain the derivation of the term “Christians.”
Undoubtedly so, but in making that secondary point he has thereby created the impression that ‘a man named Christ was executed by Pontius Pilate’ (which is quite possibly the way he understood it). To avoid the confusion he could have mentioned both names in a few simple words.
Hearsay or Official Archives?
Similar to the case of Pliny, Tacitus’ evident misunderstanding is best explainable by the fact that he is simply repeating hearsay, perhaps through police interrogations (as Norman Perrin puts it), in which word reaches Roman ears from a group which refers to their perceived founder by the term “Christus,” easily assumed to be his name. Had Tacitus consulted a record in the archives (if it were even conceivable that such a thing could be found about a crucifixion in Judea 80 years previously, one of thousands taking place around the empire) it is not likely that such a report would lack the man’s name, or would even use the term “Christ”—unless by way of an explanation about him, assuming Romans back at head office would need to know such an explanation or would understand the concept—especially as early as 33 CE and before Christians even existed.
Ehrman himself admits to the likely scenario that Tacitus was using hearsay, and he is led to this conclusion by the additional fact that Tacitus refers to Pilate as “procurator,” the term in use for a provincial governor in Tacitus’ day, whereas in Pilate’s day it was “prefect.” Despite arguments that the term was “fluid” in the latter’s time (dependent on usages outside Roman historians and writers in Latin), the two terms actually referred to different offices, and it seems to be the case that in Judea both were held by Pilate. “Prefect” was the higher office (military commander as opposed to a financial officer), and is the one given to Pilate on the stone inscription referred to earlier. It would be virtually impossible that any formal report from Pilate would identify him by the inferior term, and thus if Tacitus were consulting an archive he could hardly have made his mistake.
The Question of Authenticity
But all this may be moot. Once again, Ehrman denigrates mythicists for their alleged practice of simply declaring inconvenient passages as Christian interpolations: they don’t want there to be any references to Jesus, he says, so out they go. But in the case of Tacitus, there is very good reason to do so, and in Jesus: Neither God Nor Man I spend 25 pages presenting an argument in this direction. Ehrman makes not the slightest reference to it, let alone tries to rebut it.
The mythicist case that Ehrman avoided
It can be simply stated.
- For the next 300 years, no Christian commentator makes any reference to Nero’s slaughter of the Roman Christians for setting the Great Fire. Not just to Tacitus’ account of such an event, but to the event itself as something known in Christian tradition. That it would not be known is impossible. That it would not be referred to in any connection is almost equally impossible. Christians in those early centuries were fixated on the fact and history of their martyrdom. A great literature of martyrology was produced in that time, even if a lot of it was fiction or exaggeration. Eusebius (the pre-eminent church historian!) can refer to the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul at the hands of Nero, but he fails to include the array of Christian residents of Rome and makes no link of anything to the Great Fire.
- Now, there is in Eusebius, and in the earlier Tertullian whom he quotes, as well as in the odd writer like Melito of Sardis, a vague allusion to Christians in general being put upon by Nero, but never with any specifics given, and certainly nothing even suggesting the scale of the event in Tacitus.
- Tertullian, a man obsessed with the issue of martyrdom and the only one to suggest that Nero’s persecution of Christians was particularly sanguinary, says that it was “the singular excellence of Christians (which) brought on Nero’s condemnation” (Apology 5). No mention of the Fire, and no details given to illuminate his remark that “Nero was the first who assailed with the imperial sword the Christian sect.” He suggests that the Romans consult the “records” about this which he says they possess in the same breath as mentioning the report of Tiberius becoming convinced of Jesus’ divinity due to information about his death from Palestine (is this the alleged ‘Letter of Pilate’?), and later making reference to the Roman ‘record’ of the world-wide darkness at Jesus’ crucifixion!
These sorts of remarks, some of them so mild as to be unidentifiable with anything resembling Tacitus (see Melito as quoted by Eusebius in H.E. IV, 26), can be put down to either vague traditions of a minor event of persecution under Nero about which no details were remembered, or simply nothing at all but a tendency to regard Nero (who came to be prophesied as the future embodiment of the Antichrist and due to return at the End-time to persecute the faithful) as having been a persecutor in his first life.
Accounting for the tradition?
- On the other hand,the entire tradition may have arisen as a result of Nero’s alleged persecution of Peter and Paul, whose legends of martyrdom in Rome developed around the middle of the second century. (1 Clement at the end of the first is less than precise even about martyrdoms for the two figures, let alone that such took place in Rome.) Indeed, Tertullian conveys this very thing in Scorpiace 15 and elsewhere, that his concept of persecution by Nero is basically limited to the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul and perhaps a few of their companions; and the same goes for Eusebius (H.E.II,22).
The silence of the historians
- The record in Roman historians is also curiously silent.
- Cassius Dio at the beginning of the third century has an account of the Fire, but puts the responsibility on Nero, with no mention of Christians or their ghastly persecution.
- Suetonius, in his Life of Nero, details the Great Fire (ch.38) with not a word about the Christians or their responsibility for it, nor about their infamous punishment. Earlier, in chapter 16, amid a list of measures taken by Nero to curb such problems as improper eating in public establishments, chariot drivers who cheated and robbed ordinary citizens, and pantomimic actors who had to be expelled from Rome, Suetonius makes this cryptic statement:
Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition.
No word on what that punishment was, or the reason for it. (Actually, the final phrase sounds like the reason.) If it was meant to refer to the fire, why was that point not included in his later description of the fire? If this line is authentic (though it would stand out like a sore thumb from its context if it referred to the Tacitus scene), it would seem Suetonius knew no more about an event of Neronian persecution than Christian writers did. Also, it is curious that he did not draw on Tacitus (a common practice among ancient historians), from his Annals recently published, yet another nail in the coffin of authenticity for the famous passage.
Calling on Pliny and Trajan as witnesses
We might also note that Pliny’s letter to Trajan all but forces us to conclude that neither one of them knew of the great Neronian persecution. Pliny seems almost ignorant about Christians; and finding them virtually innocuous and inquiring what treatment they should be accorded is hardly consonant with their recent history under Nero and the accusation that they had been guilty of burning down half the city of Rome. Nor is Trajan’s advocation of a ‘go easy’ policy on the Christians.
Calling on the testimony of the apocryphal acts
But all this long silence is trumped by a Christian record which goes so far as to rule out the historicity of the Tacitus account. The apocryphal Acts of Paul, from the late second century, in the context of Paul’s martyrdom, has a number of local Christians condemned to execution by fire at the same time as Paul’s beheading. No mention is made of the Great Fire or Christians executed on its account. If such a tradition were known, it is hardly conceivable that any writer would have erased it in favor of the scenario given in the Acts of Paul.
Even more damning is the Acts of Peter, written around the same time. This tale has Nero, following the crucifixion of Peter, planning to “destroy all those brethren who had been made disciples by Peter.” But he is dissuaded by a dream in which he is being scourged and told “you cannot now persecute or destroy the servants of Christ.” An alarmed Nero “kept away from the disciples … and thereafter the brethren kept together with one accord …” No writer who knew of a general persecution and killing of Christian brethren in the city of Rome by Nero could possibly have constructed this scene, one which effectively rules out any such persecution.
The first witness for Tacitus
When a Christian account of the fire and persecution first appears around the year 400 in the writings of Sulpicius Severus, we find a definite literary connection with the extant account in Tacitus, though we cannot be sure in which direction the dependency lies. And Severus does not include in that common material the reference to Christ as executed by Pilate, though this he could have cut as unnecessary for his readers. Yet Severus does not identify his information as coming from Tacitus or indeed any other source.
Was he drawing on a description of the persecution previously interpolated into the Annals (post-Eusebius) by either a Christian or even a Roman scribe, reflecting the phenomenon known from the later 2nd century on (as in Tertullian) of “blaming the Christians” for every misfortune that befell society?
Or did he create the description of the Neronian persecution himself, on which basis a later interpolation into Tacitus was made, along with the reference to Christ himself as a victim under Pilate? (In that case, “Christ” as a name instead of “Jesus” would have been perfectly natural for a Christian scribe.)
Appeal to authority and mud-slinging
Other aspects to the question of authenticity in regard to Tacitus’ alleged witness to Jesus are discussed in my book. I bring the subject up in some detail here to show that,
- despite Ehrman’s dismissal of mythicists as compulsive interpolation advocates, there is indeed very good justification for rejecting the much-vaunted reference to an historical Jesus in Tacitus;
- and to show that Ehrman made no effort to counter or even mention that 25-page argument.
In fact, the only rebuttal offered is once again the old appeal to authority:
I don’t know of any trained classicists or scholars of ancient Rome who think this, and it seems highly unlikely. (DJE? p. 55)
And this is followed by his above-mentioned mud slinging against mythicists.
More research:
Historicity Of Jesus FAQ (1994) - Scott Oser
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/scott_oser/hojfaq.html
Tacitus’ Fragment 2:
The Anti-Roman Movement of the Christiani and the Nazoreans (2000) - Eric Laupot
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/eric_laupot/nazoreans.html
Severus Is Not Quoting Tacitus: A Rebuttal to Eric Laupot (2006) Richard Carrier
Tacitus
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_historical_existence_of_Jesus_Christ
Tacitus was born in 64 C.E, well after the death of Jesus. He gives a brief mention of a “Chrestus” in his Annals (Book XV, Sec. 44), which he wrote around 109 CE He gives no source for his material. He says:
“ Nero looked around for a scapegoat, and inflicted the most fiendish tortures on a group of persons already hated for their crimes. This was the sect known as Christians. Their founder, one Chrestus, had been put to death by the procurator, Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. This checked the abominable superstition for a while, but it broke out again and spread, not merely through Judea, where it originated, but even to Rome itself, the great reservoir and collecting ground for every kind of depravity and filth. Those who confessed to being Christians were at once arrested, but on their testimony a great crowd of people were convicted, not so much on the charge of arson, but of hatred of the entire human race. ”
Tacitus depicts early Christians as “hated for their crimes” and associated with “depravity and filth.” This is not a flattering picture, so is less likely to be Christian propaganda. Tacitus claims no first-hand knowledge of Christianity, but is merely repeating the then common ideas about Christians.
There is no other historical confirmation that Nero persecuted Christians. There certainly was not a “great crowd” of Christians in Rome around 60 CE, and the term “Christian” was not in use in the first century. Tacitus is either doctoring history from a distance or repeating a myth without checking the facts. Historians generally agree that Nero did not burn Rome, so Tacitus is in error to suggest that he would have needed to blame Christians in the first place.
A more serious problem is that no one in the second century ever quoted this passage of Tacitus, and in fact it appears almost word-for-word in the writings in someone else, Sulpicius Severus, in the fourth century, where it is mixed in with other myths. The passage is therefore highly suspect and adds virtually no evidence even for early Christianity.
Tampering of the Tacitus source:
The surviving copies of Tacitus’ works derive from two principal manuscripts, known as the Medicean manuscripts, which are held in the Laurentian Library in Florence, Italy, and written in Latin. The second Medicean manuscript is the oldest surviving copy of the passage describing “Christians.” In this manuscript, the first 'i’ of the Christianos is quite distinct in appearance from the second, looking somewhat smudged, and lacking the long tail of the second 'i’; additionally, there is a large gap between the first 'i’ and the subsequent 'long s’. Latin scholar Georg Andresen was one of the first to comment on the appearance of the first 'i’ and subsequent gap, suggesting in 1902 that the text had been altered, and an 'e’ had originally been in the text, rather than this 'i’.
In 1950, at historian Harald Fuchs’ request, Dr. Teresa Lodi, the director of the Laurentian Library, examined the features of this item of the manuscript; she concluded that there are still signs of an 'e’ being erased, by removal of the upper and lower horizontal portions, and distortion of the remainder into an 'i’. In 2008, Dr. Ida Giovanna Rao, the new head of the Laurentian Library’s manuscript office, repeated Lodi’s study, and concluded that it is likely that the 'i’ is a correction of some earlier character (like an e), the change being made an extremely subtle one. Later the same year, it was discovered that under ultraviolet light, an 'e’ is clearly visible in the space, meaning that the passage must originally have referred to chrestianos, a Latinized Greek word which could be interpreted as the good, after the Greek word χρηστός (chrestos), meaning “good, useful”, rather than strictly a follower of “Christ”.
Tacitus, the Roman historian’s birth year at 64 C.E., puts him well after the alleged life of Jesus. He gives a brief mention of a “Christus” in his Annals (Book XV, Sec. 44), which he wrote around 109 C.E. He gives no source for his material. Although many have disputed the authenticity of Tacitus’ mention of Jesus, the very fact that his birth happened after the alleged Jesus and wrote the Annals during the formation of Christianity, shows that his writing can only provide us with hearsay accounts.
http://www.freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Did_Jesus_really_exist%3F
Tacitus and Jesus
In his Annals, Cornelius Tacitus (55-120 CE) writes that Christians:
“derived their name and origin from Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, had suffered death by the sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate” (Annals 15.44)
Two questions arise concerning this passage:
- Did Tacitus really write this, or is this a later Christian interpolation?
- Is this really an independent confirmation of Jesus’s story, or is Tacitus just repeating what some Christians told him?
Some scholars believe the passage may be a Christian interpolation into the text. However, this is not at all certain, and unlike Josephus’s Testimonium Flavianum, no clear evidence of textual tampering exists.
The second objection is much more serious. Conceivably, Tacitus may just be repeating what he was told by Christians about Jesus. If so, then this passage merely confirms that there were Christians in Tacitus’ time, and that they believed that Pilate killed Jesus during the reign of Tiberius. This would not be independent confirmation of Jesus’s existence. If, on the other hand, Tacitus found this information in Roman imperial records (to which he had access) then that could constitute independent confirmation. There are good reasons to doubt that Tacitus is working from Roman records here, however. For one, he refers to Pilate by the wrong title (Pilate was a prefect, not a procurator). Secondly, he refers to Jesus by the religious title “Christos”. Roman records would not have referred to Jesus by a Christian title, but presumably by his given name. Thus, there is excellent reason to suppose that Tacitus is merely repeating what Christians said about Jesus, and so can tell us nothing new about Jesus’s historicity.
http://www.freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
2. Gaius Tacitus
A second independent record of Jesus was written about 110 AD. Gaius Tacitus was a Roman Consul who turned his attention to writing in his forties. His first major work, the Histories, was written around 105 ad. It chronicled the Flavian dynasty that ruled the Roman Empire during the final third of the first century.
His second major work, the Annals, was published about five years later. It covered the quarter century leading up to the Flavian dynasty, from the death of Augustus Caesar to the suicide of Nero. Here’s what Tacitus had to say about Jesus in the context of the spread of Christianity, and the burning of Rome, in 64 AD:
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.
Jesus-mythologists have noted these points about this record:
Though somewhat overshadowed by the unpleasant nature of Nero, this does suggest that a person known as Christus once existed. Tacitus was a disciplined historian, and is likely to have satisfied himself that what he wrote was accurate. Despite this, the claim has been challenged on various grounds.
It is far from contemporaneous, being written almost eighty years after the supposed event.
It is merely a passing reference while discussing something else, to explain how the Christians got their name.
Tacitus did not base the reference on official records as, if they had existed, they would have called the victim Jesus and given Pilate his proper title of prelate.
http://www.michaelnugent.com/best/did-the-historical-jesus-exist/
Tacitus
Tacitus (ca. 56 – ca. 117)
Tacitus is remembered first and foremost as Rome’s greatest historian. His two surviving works: Annals and The Histories form a near continuous narrative from the death of Augustus in 14 CE to the death of Domitian in 96.
Interestingly, I cannot report on the silence of Tacitus concerning Jesus, because the very years of the purported existence of Jesus 30, 31, are suspiciously missing from his work(!)
Richard Carrier writes:
“…we are enormously lucky to have Tacitus–only two unrelated Christian monasteries had any interest in preserving his Annals, for example, and neither of them preserved the whole thing, but each less than half of it, and by sheer luck alone, they each preserved a different half. And yet we still have large gaps in it. One of those gaps is the removal of the years 29, 30, and 31 (precisely, the latter part of 29, all of 30, and the earlier part of 31), which is probably the deliberate excision of Christian scribes who were embarrassed by the lack of any mention of Jesus or Gospel events in those years (the years Jesus’ ministry, death, and resurrection were widely believed at the time to have occurred). There is otherwise no known explanation for why those three years were removed. The other large gap is the material between the two halves that neither institution preserved. And yet another is the end of the second half, which scribes also chose not to preserve (or lost through negligent care of the manuscript, etc.).”
Ironically, Christians often cite Tacitus as historical evidence for Jesus.
This is the passage cited:
But neither the aid of man, nor the liberality of the prince, nor the propitiations of the gods succeeded in destroying the belief that the fire had been purposely lit. In order to put an end to this rumor, therefore, Nero laid the blame on and visited with severe punishment those men, hateful for their crimes, whom the people called Christians. He from whom the name was derived, Christus, was put to death by the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. But the pernicious superstition, checked for a moment, broke out again, not only in Judea, the native land of the monstrosity, but also in Rome, to which all conceivable horrors and abominations flow from every side, and find supporters. First, therefore, those were arrested who openly confessed; then, on their information, a great number, who were not so much convicted of the fire as of hatred of the human race. Ridicule was passed on them as they died; so that, clothed in skins of beasts, they were torn to pieces by dogs, or crucified, or committed to the flames, and when the sun had gone down they were burned to light up the night. Nero had lent his garden for this spectacle, and gave games in the Circus, mixing with the people in the dress of a charioteer or standing in the chariot. Hence there was a strong sympathy for them, though they might have been guilty enough to deserve the severest punishment, on the ground that they were sacrificed, not to the general good, but to the cruelty of one man.“[14]
However, there are serious problems with using this passage as independent corroboration of Jesus:
Jeffery Jay Lowder states:
"There is no good reason to believe that Tacitus conducted independent research concerning the historicity of Jesus. The context of the reference was simply to explain the origin of the term "Christians,” which was in turn made in the context of documenting Nero’s vices…“
It is not just 'Christ-mythicists’ who deny that Tacitus provides independent confirmation of the historicity of Jesus; indeed, there are numerous Christian scholars who do the same! For example, France writes, Annals XV.44 "cannot carry alone the weight of the role of 'independent testimony’ with which it has often been invested.” E.P. Sanders notes, “Roman sources that mention [Jesus] are all dependent on Christian reports.” And William Lane Craig states that Tacitus’ statement is “no doubt dependent on Christian tradition.”[15]
So it may simply be that Tacitus was relying on oral tradition, and not on any historical research for his reference to Jesus. Tacitus himself tells us about the value of such traditions:
“…everything gets exaggerated is typical for any story” and “all the greatest events are obscure–while some people accept whatever they hear as beyond doubt, others twist the truth into its opposite, and both errors grow over subsequent generations”[16]
As weak as the Tacitus claim is, it remains a possibility that even this weak bit of apparent corroboration is a later interpolation.
Some of these problems are summarized by Gordon Stein:
“While we know from the way in which the above is written that Tacitus did not claim to have firsthand knowledge of the origins of Christianity, we can see that he is repeating a story which was then commonly believed, namely that the founder of Christianity, one Christus, had been put to death under Tiberius. There are a number of serious difficulties which must be answered before this passage can be accepted as genuine. There is no other historical proof that Nero persecuted the Christians at all.There certainly were not multitudes of Christians in Rome at that date (circa 60 A.D.). In fact, the term "Christian” was not in common use in the first century. We know Nero was indifferent to various religions in his city, and, since he almost definitely did not start the fire in Rome, he did not need any group to be his scapegoat. Tacitus does not use the name Jesus, and writes as if the reader would know the name Pontius Pilate, two things which show that Tacitus was not working from official records or writing for non-Christian audiences, both of which we would expect him to have done if the passage were genuine.
Perhaps most damning to the authenticity of this passage is the fact that it is present almost word-for-word in the Chronicle of Sulpicius Severus (died in 403 A.D.), where it is mixed in with obviously false tales. At the same time, it is highly unlikely that Sulpicius could have copied this passage from Tacitus, as none of his contemporaries mention the passage. This means that it was probably not in the Tacitus manuscripts at that date. It is much more likely, then, that copyists working in the Dark Ages from the only existing manuscript of the Chronicle, simply copied the passage from Sulpicius into the manuscript of Tacitus which they were reproducing.“[17]
Supporting Stein’s claim is that, as with the Testimonium, there is no provenance for the passage: No early Christian writer uses Tacitus’ passage in their apologetics, even when discussing Christian persecution by Nero:
Tertullian (ca. 155–230)
Lactantius (ca. 240 - ca. 320)
Sulpicius Severus (c. 360 – 425)
Eusebius (ca. 275 – 339)
Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430)
However, the key point here is that Tacitus did in fact write a thorough history of the purported times of Jesus and his ministry, and while this work is lost to us, Tacitus never makes any cross reference to it during his discussion of christians and Nero nor at any other point in his surviving works.
The Roman historian Tacitus, in his Annals written around 115, makes the first pagan reference to Jesus as a man executed in the reign of Tiberius. This is not likely to have been the result of a search of some archive, for the Romans hardly kept records of the countless crucifixions around the empire going back almost a century. We have no evidence of such extensive record-keeping. Besides, Tacitus is not known as a thorough researcher, which is illustrated by the fact that he gets Pilate’s title wrong, something that might have been corrected had he consulted an official record. Scholars such as Norman Perrin (The New Testament: An Introduction, p.407) acknowledge that Tacitus’ "information” probably came from local Christian hearsay and police interrogation; this would have been at a time when the idea of an historical founder had recently taken hold in Rome. There is even some reason to doubt the authenticity of this passage, despite its vilifying description of Christians. The association of a persecution of Christians with the great fire in Nero’s Rome (the context of Tacitus’ reference) is nowhere mentioned by Christian commentators for the next several centuries.
http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/postscpt.htm
Severus Is Not Quoting Tacitus: A Rebuttal to Eric Laupot (2006)
Richard Carrier
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/laupot.html
There is inconclusive evidence that Tacitus had independent sources. The Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus, writing in 115 CE, explicitly states that Nero prosecuted the Christians in order to draw attention away from himself for Rome’s devastating fire of 64 CE:
But not all the relief that could come from man, not all the bounties that the prince could bestow, nor all the atonements which could be presented to the gods, availed to relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the conflagration, the fire of Rome. Hence to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center 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.[82]
Scholarly debate surrounding this passage has been mainly concerned with Tacitus’ sources and not with the authorship of the passage (e.g., whether it is an interpolation) or its reliability.[83] Various scenarios have been proposed to explain how Tacitus got his information. One possibility is that Tacitus learned the information from another historian he trusted (e.g., Josephus). Another possibility (suggested by Harris) is that he obtained the information from Pliny the Younger. According to Harris, “Tacitus was an intimate friend and correspondent of the younger Pliny and was therefore probably acquainted with the problems Pliny encountered with the Christians during his governorship in Bithynia - Pontus (c. A.D. 110-112).”[84] (Defenders of this position may note that Tacitus was also governing in Asia in the very same years as Pliny’s encounters with Christians [112-113], making communication between them on the event very likely.)[85] Norman Perrin and Dennis C. Duling mention a related possibility; they state that Tacitus’ information “is probably based on the police interrogation of Christians.”[86] Yet another possibility (suggested by Habermas and defended by McDowell and Wilson) is that Tacitus obtained the information from official documents.[87] (I shall say more about this possibility below.) It is also possible that the information was common knowledge. Finally, there is the view (defended by Wells, France, and Sanders) that Tacitus simply repeated what Christians at the time were saying.[88] The bottom line is this: given that Tacitus did not identify his source(s), we simply don’t know how Tacitus obtained his information. Holding himself admits, “Truthfully, there is no way to tell” where Tacitus obtained his information about Jesus.[89] Therefore, we can’t use Annals XV.47 as independent confirmation of the historicity of Jesus.
McDowell and Wilson disagree. They give nine reasons for believing that “Tacitus had information other than what he heard from Christians”, which may be briefly summarized as follows: (i) Tacitus does not say he was repeating information obtained from other sources; (ii) “both Justin and Tertullian challenged their readers to go read for themselves the official secular documents;” (iii) as a Roman Senator, Tacitus had access to official records; (iv) on other matters, Tacitus states that he used reliable sources and followed the majority of historians; (v) Tacitus is careful to record conflicts in his sources; (vi) he does not quote his sources uncritically; (vii) he qualifies his opinion when others do not; (viii) he distinguishes between rumor and fact; and (ix) even if Tacitus did not have independent sources concerning the historicity of Jesus, he still records the fact that Christians were willing to be martyred for their beliefs.[90]
As I argued above, it is certainly possible that Tacitus obtained his information from independent sources. But have McDowell and Wilson been able to show that it is probable that Tacitus did so? Let’s consider each of these reasons in turn. (i), (vii) and (viii) are simply beside the point. To be sure, all Tacitean scholars believe that Tacitus in general was a very reliable historian who was trustworthy, critical of his sources, and usually accurate.[91] But there are exceptions to this rule. Michael Grant, quoting Tacitean scholar R. Mellor, notes that Tacitus occasionally reported stories which were false historically[92] but were true in a literary sense[93] or a moral sense[94]. Turning to Mellor, we read that
Besides relaying unverifiable rumors, Tacitus occasionally reported a rumor or report that he knew was false. When reporting Augustus’s trip to be reconciled with his exiled grandson Agrippa, he alludes to a rumor that the emperor was killed by his wife Livia to prevent Agrippa’s reinstatement… All the components of such a tale foreshadow the murder of Claudius by his wife Agrippina to allow her son Nero to succeed before the emperor reverted to his own son Brittanicus. Tacitus is content to use the rumors to besmirch by association Livia and Tiberius who, whatever their failings, never displayed the deranged malice of an Agrippina and a Nero. It is good literature but it can be irresponsible history.[95]
There is no good reason to believe that Tacitus conducted independent research concerning the historicity of Jesus. The context of the reference was simply to explain the origin of the term “Christians,” which was in turn made in the context of documenting Nero’s vices. Tacitus thus refers to “Christus” in the context of a moral attack on Nero. Remember that according to Michael Grant, this is the very type of story in which Tacitus might be willing to repeat unhistorical information. And if Tacitus were willing to repeat unhistorical information in such a context, surely he would be willing to repeat noncontroversial, incidental, historically accurate information (such as the historicity of Jesus) without verifying the matter firsthand. Besides, in the context of the passage, it is unclear that Tacitus (or anyone else for that matter) would have even thought to investigate whether “Christus” actually existed, especially given that Tacitus called Christianity a “pernicious superstition.” (To make an analogy, although I am extremely skeptical of Mormonism, I’m willing to take the Mormon explanation for the origin of the term “Mormon” at face value!) As Robert L. Wilken, a Christian historian, states:
Christianity is not part of Tacitus’s history. Except for the one reference in the Annales, he shows no interest in the new movement. When he adverts to Christians in the book it is not because he is interested in Christianity as such or aimed to inform his readers about the new religion, as, for example, he did in a lengthy discussion in another work, the Histories (5.1-13), but because he wished to make a point about the extent of Nero’s vanity and the magnitude of his vices, and to display the crimes he committed against the Roman people.[96]
That Tacitus was uninterested in Christianity is confirmed by Mellor:
For a man who served as governor of Asia his knowledge of Jews and Christians is woefully (and unnecessarily) confused, since the Jewish historian Josephus lived in Rome and Tacitus’s good friend Pliny knew something of the Christians. But Tacitus is contemptuous of all easterners–Greeks, Jews, and Egyptians alike–and he clearly thought them unworthy of the curiosity and research he lavised on court intrigues.[97]
Mellor concludes that Tacitus “scorned or merely ignored” the Jews, Christians, and other religious groups.[98] Since the historicity of Jesus was not in doubt at the time Tacitus wrote and since Tacitus’ reference to Christus is entirely incidental, Tacitus would have had no motive for investigating the historicity of Jesus. As far as Tacitus and his “political peers” would have been concerned, the fact that Tacitus did not investigate the historicity of Jesus would have been no strike against Tacitus’ “prestige and honor.”[99] On the contrary, Tacitus still would have been considered to be exhibiting high standards of professionalism and integrity at the time he wrote![100]
As for (ii), I have already addressed both Justin’s reference to an alleged document, 'Acts of Pilate,’ and Tertullian’s reference to Tiberius. Neither the evidence from Justin nor the information provided by Tertullian make it probable that official Roman records confirmed the historicity of Jesus. Moreover, the records may have been destroyed during the First Jewish Revolt.
Turning to (iii), Harris has doubted whether Tacitus would have had access to the imperial archives,[101] but Holding has convincingly argued that if Tacitus had wanted access to some record, he could have gotten it.[102] Nevertheless, there is no reason to believe that Tacitus had a motive for accessing those records. Moreover, we do not even know whether official records (now lost) said anything about Jesus.
Concerning (iv) and (vi), Grant notes that Tacitus was only skeptical “on occasion,” that he “persistent[ly] and lamentabl[y]” accepted many rumors, and that he “conducted extremely little independent research, quite often [he] quotes the sources that were available to him,”[103] a fact that is consistent with the hypothesis that Tacitus simply repeated what he learned from Christian sources. Grant quotes the following excerpt from Goodyear:
One feature very damaging to Tacitus’s credit is the manner in which he employs rumores. Of course, a historian may properly report the state of public opinion at particular times, or use the views of contemporaries on major historical figures as a form of 'indirect characterisation’ of them. But Tacitus often goes far beyond this.
He implants grave suspicions which he neither substantiates nor refutes. Their cumulative effect can be damning and distorting…. Time and again Tacitus is ready with an unpleasant motive, susceptible neither of proof nor of disproof.[104]
Again, we simply don’t have enough data to justify the claim that Tacitus probably had independent sources for his information about Jesus.
(v) is a non sequitur, not to mention an argument from silence. The fact that Tacitus does not mention any conflict in his sources is just as probable on the hypothesis that Tacitus obtained his information from Roman records as it is on the hypothesis that Tacitus learned his information from Christian sources. On the latter hypothesis, this would simply imply that none of Tacitus’ Christian sources doubted their own reports, which is precisely what we would expect even if Tacitus had obtained his information from Christian sources. This is completely inconclusive.
Finally, (ix) is irrelevant to determining whether Tacitus had independent sources. Yes, Tacitus testifies that Christians were martyred for their beliefs. But his testimony can only provide independent confirmation if he had independent sources, the very point at issue. (Besides, there is no reason to believe that Christians had a choice in whether they were martyred. Thus, even if they were not willing to die, they would have died anyway. Note that Tacitus does not report whether any of them tried to escape by recanting. Moreover, initially only Christians who were “out of the closet” were seized; they were forced to reveal the others who were unknown or in hiding. Finally, from Pliny’s letters, we know that many Christians in 112 were ready to recant their beliefs in order to save their lives. And there is no evidence that Christians in 64 had any better evidence to base their faith on than Christians in 112.)[105]
In short, at best, McDowell and Wilson have presented an inconclusive case for believing that Tacitus provides independent confirmation of the historicity of Jesus. And contrary to what some apologists (not necessarily McDowell or Wilson) have suggested, it is not just 'Christ-mythicists’ who deny that Tacitus provides independent confirmation of the historicity of Jesus; indeed, there are numerous Christian scholars who do the same! For example, France writes, Annals XV.44 “cannot carry alone the weight of the role of 'independent testimony’ with which it has often been invested.”[106] E.P. Sanders notes, “Roman sources that mention [Jesus] are all dependent on Christian reports.”[107] And William Lane Craig states that Tacitus’ statement is “no doubt dependent on Christian tradition.”[108]
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/chap5.html
This passage it has been noted is informing his Roman audience about what was commonly said of Jesus. There is no indication that this passage is the product of Tacitus research in the death of Jesus. His silence on the topic of the Messiah indicates that if this passage is genuine, that Tacitus did not, nor his audience, believe Jesus to be the Jehovahs profit. The section is about the depravity of Nero. This particular piece is not quoted before the 15th Century, and when it was quoted, there was supposed to be only one copy of the 'Annals’ in the world, made in the eighth century (600 years after Tacitus’ death). Further evidence of an interpolation is that Tacitus would not have refered to Pilate as a Procurator, when he was a Prefect. ~ skeptically.org
Books about the Tacitus forgery:
- The allegation originated with Voltaire, and a lawyer named Linguet.
- John Wilson ROSS published a book entitled Tacitus and Bracciolini:: the Annals forged in the XVth century, London (1878)
- In 1890 P. HOCHART, De l'Authenticite des Annales et des Histoires de Tacite, and followed up with a supplementary volume".
- In 1920 Leo WIENER, Tacitus’ Germania and other forgeries,
- The historian, Eugene Bacha (Le Genie de Tacite, 1906)
- T.S.Jerome, Aspects of the Study of History, 1923.
Tacitus and Bracciolini: The Annals Forged in the XVth Century
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