Judeans as the Romans saw them: Tacitus

Sulpicius Severus (Christian historian ca 363-425 CE) quotes (and possibly redacts) Tacitus in a description of Titus’ destruction of the Temple in the Jewish War of 66-73CE:

From Sulpicius’ Chronica II, 30:3,6-7:

Meanwhile the Jews, hemmed in by the siege, since no opportunity for peace or surrender had been given, at last perished of hunger, and everywhere the roads began to be filled with corpses, so that the duty of burying them could not be performed…It is said that Titus summoned his council, and before taking action consulted it whether he should overthrow a sanctuary of such workmanship, since it seemed to many that a sacred building, one more remarkable than any other human work, should not be destroyed.  For if preserved it would testify to the moderation of the Romans, while if demolished, it would be a perpetual sign of cruelty.  On the other hand, others, and Titus himself, expressed their opinion that the Temple should be destroyed without delay, in order that the religion of the Jews and Christians should be more completely exterminated.  For those religions, though opposed to one another, derive from the same founders; the Christians stemmed from the Jews and the extirpation of the root would easily cause the offspring to perish.

Sulpicius Severus claims that Christianity and Judaism had “the same founders,” and immediately qualifies that statement by saying that Christianity “stemmed from the Jews.”  Christians, when the Temple was in use, were not participants in Temple service due to the lack of surgery required in order to be admitted into Temple worship. As such, destruction of the Temple would not automatically mean that the Christian religion would be destroyed.  It is evident that at the time Sulpicius quoted (and redacted) Tacitus, the Church had already established its version of the historical trajectory claiming the proto-Christian community as an off-shoot of the Judeans.We should remember that Tacitus' reference to "Christus" identifies Christians as deriving from him, rather than from Jews, in Annals 15:44: 

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind.

            It would appear that not only was Tacitus redacted, but that he was redacted more than once, by “historians” who were not careful to make sure their insertions were consistent with each other.

From Tacitus Annals, II 42:5:

About the same time, the death of two kings, Antiochus of Commagene and Philopator of Cicilia, disturbed the peace of their countries, where the majority of men desired a Roman governor and the minority a monarch.  The provinces, too, of Syria and Judea, exhausted by their burdens, were pressing for a diminution of the tribute.

From Annals, II 85:4:

Another debate dealt with the proscription of the Egyptian and Jewish rites, and a senatorial edict directed that four thousand descendants of enfranchised slaves, tainted with that superstition and suitable in point of age, were to be shipped to Sardinia and there employed in suppressing brigandage:  “If they succumbed to the pestilential climate, it was a cheap loss.”  The rest had orders to leave Italy, unless they had renounced their impious ceremonial by a given date.

From Annals XIII, 23:1

Ituraea and Judea, on the death of their sovereigns, Sohaemus and Agrippa, were attached to the province of Syria.