Tacitus are derived." ("Diegesis," p. 373.)

Suetonius (born about A.D. 65, died in second century) writes: "The
Christians, a race of men of a new and mischievous (or magical)
superstition, were punished." In another passage we read of Claudius,
who reigned A.D. 41-54: "He drove the Jews, who, at the suggestion of
Chrestus, were constantly rioting, out of Rome." From this we might
infer that there was at that time a Jewish leader, named Chrestus,
living in Rome, and inciting the Jews to rebellion. His followers would
probably take his name, and, expelled from Rome, they would spread this
name in all directions. If the passage in Acts xi. 20 and 26 be of any
historical value, it would curiously strengthen this hypothesis, since
the "disciples were called Christians first in Antioch," and the
missionaries to Antioch, who preached "unto the Jews only," came from
Cyprus and Cyrene, which would naturally lie in the way of fugitives
from Rome to Asia Minor. They would bring the name Christian with them,
and the date in the Acts synchronises with that in Suetonius. Chrestus
would appear to have left a sect behind him in Rome, bearing his name,
the members of which were prosecuted by the Government, very likely as
traitors and rebels. Keim's good opinion of Suetonius is much degraded
by this Chrestus: "In his 'Life of Claudius,' who expelled the Jews from
Rome, he has shown his undoubted inferiority to Tacitus as a historian
by treating 'Christ' as a restless and seditious Jewish agitator, who
was still living in the time of Claudius, and, indeed, in Rome" ("Jesus
of Nazara," p. 33).

It is natural that modern Christians should object to a Jewish Chrestus
starting up at Rome simultaneously with their Jewish Christus in Judæa,
who, according to Luke's chronology, must have been crucified about A.D.
43. The coincidence is certainly inconvenient; but if they refuse the