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[quote=Anonymous]Suetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (c. 69–140) wrote the following in his Lives of the Twelve Caesars about riots which broke out in the Jewish community in Rome under the emperor Claudius:

"As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he (Claudius) expelled them from Rome".[47]

The event was noted in Acts 18:2. The term Chrestus also appears in some later texts applied to Jesus, and Robert Graves,[48] among others,[49] considers it a variant spelling of Christ, or at least a reasonable spelling error. On the other hand, Chrestus was itself a common name, particularly for slaves, meaning good or useful.[50] In regards to Jewish persecution around the time to which this passage refers, the Jewish Encyclopedia states: "… in 49-50, in consequence of dissensions among them regarding the advent of the Messiah, they were forbidden to hold religious services. The leaders in the controversy, and many others of the Jewish citizens, left the city".[51]

Lucian, a second century Romano-Syrian satirist, who wrote in Greek, wrote:

The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day — the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account… You see, these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains the contempt of death and voluntary self-devotion which are so common among them; and then it was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws.[54]

Celsus, a late second-century critic of Christianity, accused Jesus of being a bastard child and a sorcerer.[55] He is quoted as saying that Jesus was a "mere man".[56]

The Talmud Sanhedrin 43a, which dates to the earliest period of composition (Tannaitic period: approx. 70-200 C.E.) contains the following:

On the eve of the Passover, Yeshu was hanged. Forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried: "He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. Any one who can say anything in his favour, let him come forward and plead on his behalf." But since nothing was brought forward in his favour he was hanged on the eve of the Passover.[60]

Thallus, of whom very little is known, wrote a history from the Trojan War to, according to Eusebius, 109 B.C.E. No work of Thallus survives. There is one reference to Thallus having written about events beyond 109 B.C.E. Julius Africanus, writing c. 221, while writing about the crucifixion of Jesus, mentioned Thallus. Thus:

On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in his third book of History, calls (as appears to me without reason) an eclipse of the sun.[53]

Pliny the Younger, the provincial governor of Pontus and Bithynia, wrote to Emperor Trajan c. 112 concerning how to deal with Christians, who refused to worship the emperor, and instead worshiped "Christus":

Those who denied that they were or had been Christians, when they invoked the gods in words dictated by me, offered prayer with incense and wine to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for this purpose together with statues of the gods, and moreover cursed Christ — none of which those who are really Christians, it is said, can be forced to do — these I thought should be discharged. Others named by the informer declared that they were Christians, but then denied it, asserting that they had been but had ceased to be, some three years before, others many years, some as much as twenty-five years. They all worshipped your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ.[41]

Early Christian sources outside the New Testament also mention Jesus and details of his life. Important texts from the Apostolic Fathers are, to name just the most significant and ancient, Clement of Rome (c. 100),[22] Ignatius of Antioch (c. 107-110),[23] and Justin Martyr.[24]

Perhaps the most significant Patristic sources are the early references of Papias and Quadratus (d. 124), mostly reported by Eusebius in the fourth century, which both mention eyewitnesses of Jesus’ ministry and healings who were still alive in their own time (the late first century). Papias, in giving his sources for the information contained in his (largely lost) commentaries, stated (according to Eusebius):

… if by chance anyone who had been in attendance on the elders should come my way, I inquired about the words of the elders — that is, what according to the elders Andrew or Peter said, or Philip, or Thomas or James, or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s disciples, and whatever Aristion and the elder John, the Lord’s disciples, were saying.[25]

Thus, while Papias was collecting his information (c. 90), Aristion and the elder John (who were Jesus’ disciples) were still alive and teaching in Asia Minor, and Papias gathered information from people who had known them.[26] Another Father, Quadratus, who wrote an apology to the emperor Hadrian, was reported by Eusebius to have stated:

The words of our Savior were always present, for they were true: those who were healed, those who rose from the dead, those who were not only seen in the act of being healed or raised, but were also always present, not merely when the Savior was living on earth, but also for a considerable time after his departure, so that some of them survived even to our own times.[27]

By “our Savior” Quadratus meant Jesus, and by “our times,” he may have refered to his early life, rather than when he wrote (117-124 C.E.), which would be a reference contemporary with Papias.[28]

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