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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.
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.
He banished from Rome all the Jews, who were continually making disturbances at the instigation of one Chrestus . He allowed the ambassadors of the Germans to sit at the public spectacles in the seats assigned to the senators, being induced to grant them favours by their frank and honourable conduct.
Ulpianus corrected many of the irregular practices instituted by Sardanapalus; but, after putting to death Flavianus and Chrestus, that he might succeed them, he was himself before long slain by the Pretorians, who attacked him in the night; and it availed nothing that ran to the palace and took refuge with the emperor himself and the latter's mother.
At the first promulgation of the Christian faith, while the name of its Divine Founder was still strange to the ears of the heathen, they were wont, some in ignorance, but more of malice, slightly to mispronounce this name, turning 'Christus' into 'Chrestus' that is, the benevolent or benign.
True, it must have been a great and ingenious Jew, who, now more than eighteen hundred years ago, wisely responding to the cry of anguish from his enslaved countrymen for a redeemer, as king, as Christ, pointed out to them the new man, the meek, the "Chrestus," with whom the whole earth felt herself pregnant.
Christians are twice mentioned by Suetonius in dealing with Emperors of the first century, though in one passage the reading "Chrestus" for "Christus" has suggested to some scholars that another man is meant; the confusion was a natural one and is instanced elsewhere, but we need not press the matter. The argument from silence is generally recognized as an uncertain one.
As to this latter point there is room for difference of opinion. It is by no means clear that Christianity was unknown to the court in Nero's reign. We find in Suetonius a notice to the effect that Claudius banished the Jews from Rome for a sedition headed by Chrestus.
The coincidence is certainly inconvenient; but if they refuse the testimony of Suetonius concerning Chrestus, the leader, why should they accept it concerning the Christians, the followers? Paley, of course, although he quotes Suetonius, omits all reference at this stage to the unlucky Chrestus; his duty was to present evidences of, not against, Christianity.
How Suetonius knew well enough that Christus, not Chrestus, was the name of the Founder of the new religion; it is therefore reasonable to suppose that in this passage he is quoting from a police-magistrate's report dating from the time of Claudius.
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