Suetonius on Christians

Who is Suetonius on Christians?

The Roman historian Suetonius makes reference to early Christians and possible reference to their founder in his work Lives of the Twelve Caesars.

A statement in Divus Claudius 25 involves the agitations in the Roman Jewish community which led to the expulsion of Jews from Rome by Claudius in AD 49, and may be the same event mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. Scholars are divided on the value of this reference in the biography of Claudius. Some scholars see it as a likely reference to Jesus, while others see it as referring to an otherwise unknown person living in Rome. Louis Feldman states that most scholars assume that in the reference Jesus is meant and that the disturbances mentioned were due to the spread of Christianity in Rome.

The Nero 16 passage refers to a series of rulings by Nero for public order, one of which being the punishment of Christians. These punishments are generally dated to around AD 64, the year of the Great Fire of Rome. In this passage Suetonius describes Christianity as a superstition as do his contemporaries, Tacitus and Pliny.

Historians debate whether or not the Roman government distinguished between Christians and Jews prior to Nerva's modification of the Fiscus Judaicus in AD 96. From then on, practising Jews paid the tax, Christians did not.