Edgar Cayce on the Mysterious Essenes. John Van Auken

and wide, even to Rome. Tacitus never uses the name “Jesus,” only “Christ,” when referring to the founder of the faith. We know that very early the followers of Jesus began referring to him by the Greek word for messiah, “christos,” meaning the same as the Hebrew word mashiach (first used in Daniel 9:25-26 by the archangel Gabriel), which is transliterated to messiah. As we have already seen, the word literally means “anointed one.” Tacitus’ writings give support to the existence and ultimate sentence, crucifixion, of an individual in Palestine known as Christ, who began a movement that gained widespread influence some eighty years after his execution.

      A letter, written in 111 CE, by Pliny the Younger, the governor of Asia Minor (modern Turkey), asks Emperor Trajan (97-117 CE) how Pliny should deal with Christians. It describes the Christians as adherents to a superstition who sing hymns to Christ “as to a god.”

      In a biography of Emperor Claudius (41-54 CE), Roman historian Suetonius wrote that in 49 CE the emperor “expelled the Jews from Rome, who had on the instigation of Chrestus continually caused disturbances.” These disturbances may have been due to the Jews in Rome becoming either angered or inspired by a Christian agitator named Chrestus. Or Chrestus may also be a Latin variation of the name Christ. Emperor Claudius’ expulsion of the Jews from Rome is actually mentioned in the Bible in Acts 18:2.

      In the Talmud, a handbook of Jewish law, lore, and teachings, Jesus (Yeshu