Jesus Christ

 was the central figure of the Christian faith. According to the Roman, Gemellus, he lived during the time of the Caesars Augustus and Tiberius in the regions of Judea and Syria. Those who came to follow Jesus as a deity believed he was the messiah, his name meaning literally "saviour" in Greek. Others thought of him as "a maverick rabbi", or a "false prophet".

Gemellus maintained that he was a carpenter's son, a child prodigy, and "extremely handsome, charismatic and persuasive". He was able to amass great audiences when he spoke, and his lectures often attacked Judaism as inadequate to inform the rigours of daily life.

Eventually, betrayed by Jewish religious leaders who had become jealous of his abilities, he was nailed to a stauros, or cross. In the 21st year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, the Pharisees, leaders of the Jewish community, influenced the Roman procurator of the area, Pontius Pilate, to have Jesus executed for heresey.

Gemellus also knew of a story, of which he was no great believer, that Jesus' body, after death, had somehow vanished after its entombment. Christians, he said, believed that he had come back to life, resurrected by the Jewish God. (PDA: Byzantium)