The ancient world described Christ in language also readily associated with criticism of government. Christian apologists used words such as ‘prophet’, ‘teacher’ or ‘wonder-worker’ to present Christ as a divinely-authenticated philosophical guide. Domitian's expulsion of philosophers and astrologers from Rome is simply one instance of a general recognition that such teachers might be significant politically. Their followers' terms of praise had well-worn pejorative counterparts suggesting deception and subversion. The very words which offered the apologists common ground with paganism could therefore facilitate their opponents' depreciation of Christ's teaching. Justin's teacher and doer of mighty works, Tertullian's illuminator and guide of humanity, is Lucian's crucified sophist and Celsus's charlatan and leader of sedition.

This polemic claims attention here in so far as it links Jesus with Jewish nationalism or, in its own terms, with the sedition considered characteristic of Jewry. Robert Eisler took early antichristiana of this kind to confirm his own derivation of Christianity from a messianic independence movement. This chapter is devoted to one such pagan criticism singled out by Eisler. Cited in Lactantius, DI v. 3, 4, it attaches to Christ's ministry the heavily-loaded term of brigandage. Some remarks on the historical context of this charge (I) may serve to introduce an examination of the text (II), followed by an estimate of its significance (III).

Assertions about Christ such as this occur in polemic which is anti-Christian, concerned primarily not with history but with the contemporary church.