Apart from the New Testament writings and later writings dependent on these, our sources of information about the life and teaching of Jesus are scanty and problematic. So far as the wider Roman world is concerned, this is not surprising. Perhaps the situation can be illustrated by an episode of more recent times.

In the closing years of British rule in India some trouble was being caused in the Waziristan section of the North-West Frontier by a self-styled 'Champion of Islam" named Haji Mirza Ali Khan, Fakir of Ipi. He figured from time to time in the British and Indian press when he was engaged in upsetting the pax Britannica in those parts. Then for years be faded into oblivion, until his death was briefly announced in April, 1961. It is unlikely that be will play a prominent part in histories of the twentieth century.

The Fakir of Ipi was a holy man, and his devotees no doubt thought him a very important person indeed. If they had begun to propagate a cult in which he played a central part; if their mission had proved unexpectedly successful; if it had led to riots in Karachi and Delhi; if it had been carried to London and begun to cause trouble in the Indian and Pakistani communities of Britain-then the name of the Fakir of Ipi would have become familiar and ultimately found its way into historical writings. But such a process would require a little time.

Similarly in A.D. 3o the name and activity of Jesus of Nazareth would have meant no more to people living at the heart of the Roman world than the Fakir of Ipi meant to people in England. A religious leader who won a following by his claim to be a king, and who was conveniently executed, was no exceptional phenomenon in the Palestine of those days. But when his followers, claiming that he had risen from the dead, began to proclaim him as the Deliverer for whom the world was waiting, when their mission met with astonishing success, when it was carried not only to Antioch and Alexandria, but to Rome itself, and led to riots there, then the name of Christ (as the Gentiles called him ) and of his followers the Christians became familiar at the heart of the Roman Empire. But this process required a little time, And, while Christ and the Christians did ultimately come to be mentioned in Roman historical writing, the first Roman Iiterature~ in which we might expect to find any reference to them would be what we should call the police news. This is what in fact we find.