Note 4 — Chapter V · EXTERNAL EVIDENCE

Origin of the name “Christian” Characteristically enough, Dr. Drews assumes, without a shadow of argument, that the famous text in Acts which says that the followers of Jesus were first called Christians in Antioch is an interpolation. It stands in the way of his new thesis that the Roman people called the followers of Serapis—who was Chrestos or “good”—Chrestiani, because they were precisely the contrary.4 Tacitus does not say that Nero’s victims were so called because of their vices. That is a gloss put on the text by Drews. We only learn (a) that they were hated by the mob for their vices, and (b) that the mob at that time called them Chrestiani. His use of the imperfect tense appellabat indicates that in his own day the same sect had come to be known under their proper appellation as Christiani. In A.D. 64, he implies, a Roman mob knew no better.