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 Judaea, who, according to Luke’s chronology, must have been crucified about A.D. 43.  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.  Most dishonestly, however, he inserts a reference to it later on (p. 73), where, in a brief resume of the evidence, he uses it as a link in his chain:  “When Suetonius, an historian contemporary with Tacitus, relates that, in the time of Claudius, the Jews were making disturbances at Rome, Christus being their leader.”  Why does not Paley explain to us how Jesus came to be leading Jews at Rome during the reign of Claudius, and why he incited them to riot?  No such incident is related in the life of Jesus of Nazareth; and if Suetonius be correct, the credit of the Gospels is destroyed.  To his shame be it said, that Paley here deliberately refers to a passage, which he has not ventured to quote, simply that he may use the great name of Suetonius to strengthen his lamentably weak argument, by the pretence that Suetonius mentions Jesus of Nazareth, and thus makes him a historical character.  Few more disgraceful perversions of evidence can be found, even in the annals of controversy.  H. Horne refers to this passage in proof of the existence of Christ (Introduction, vol. i., page 202); but without offering any explanation of the appearance of Christ in Rome some years after he ought to have been dead.