21. Secular history knows little of the obscure Galilean. The testimony of
Tacitus is that the Christians "derived their name and origin from one
Christ, who in the reign of Tiberius had suffered death by the sentence of
the procurator, Pontius Pilate" (Annals, xv. 44). Suetonius makes an
obscure and seemingly ill-informed allusion to Christ in the reason he
assigns for the edict of Claudius expelling the Jews from Rome (Vit.
Claud. 25). The younger Pliny in the second century had learned that the
numerous Christian community in Bithynia was accustomed to honor Christ
as God; but he shows no knowledge of the life of Jesus beyond what must be
inferred concerning one who caused men "to bind themselves with an oath
not to enter into any wickedness, or commit thefts, robberies, or
adulteries, or falsify their word, or repudiate trusts committed to them"
(Epistles X. 96). This secular ignorance is not surprising; but the
silence of Josephus is. He mentions Jesus in but one clearly genuine
passage, when telling of the martyrdom of James, the "brother of Jesus,
who is called the Christ" (Ant. xx. 9. 1). Of John the Baptist, however,
he has a very appreciative notice (Ant, xviii. 5. 2), and it cannot be
that he was ignorant of Jesus. His appreciation of John suggests that he
could not have mentioned Jesus more fully without some approval of his
life and teaching. This would be a condemnation of his own people, whom he
desired to commend to Gentile regard; and he seems to have taken the
cowardly course of silence concerning a matter more noteworthy, even for
that generation, than much else of which he writes very fully.

22. The reason for the lack of written Christian records of Jesus' life
from the earliest time seems to be, not that the apostles had a small
sense of the importance of his earthly ministry, but that the early
generation preferred what at a later time was called the "living voice"
(Papias in Euseb. Ch. Hist. iii. 39). The impression made by Jesus was