Suetonius – A Roman Source for Jesus?

A Note on Mixing up Christus and Chrestus

One of the most enigmatic sources for Jesus outside the Bible is the Roman historian, Gaius Suetonius (c. 69-122 CE).

Best known for his Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Suetonius’ biography of the Emperor Caligula contains what is widely understood as a cryptic reference to Christ:

‘Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome’ (Caligula, 25).

Who is this ‘Chrestus’? And what were these disturbances, which led to an expulsion of Jews from Rome in 49 CE?

For many scholars, Suetonius has made here a two-fold blunder: the ‘Chrestus’ is a misspelling of ‘Christus’, and it was his followers, not Chrestus, who were personally responsible for the troubles. Suetonius was referring to Jesus.

Yet is it really true that Suetonius botched this reference to Christ? In her excellent recent monograph, Early Classical Authors on Jesus (2022), Margaret Williams has revisited the question, arguing that it is unlikely that Suetonius did get his Christus and Chrestus mixed up. In her view, Suetonius wasn’t referring to Jesus at all.

In this post, I look at three of her reasons for re-thinking the Suetonius reference.¹