Chris,Chris Hansen wrote: ↑Tue Jan 11, 2022 10:03 am For all we know the original was Christianos and the e was chosen because of the phonological similarities, fatigue, etc. Same as in Sinaiticus. My guess is that there simply was not a standardized lexical spelling of Christianos in the first few centuries, leading to Christians and pagans alike to interchange the e and i at will. Eventually, some authors began to either attempt correcting this, or utilized the different spelling to have their own ideas and conjecture about the terms (Gospel of Philip). At any juncture, the switch from i to e in Annals could have happened early, been retained, and then our later copyist fixed it reverting it to the original spelling.
We have no way to know, and at this point it is just conjecture, and rather pointless conjecture as far as I'm concerned, as there is no such spelling issue with Christus in the passage, which makes it clear how Chrestianos is being used.
We have no way to know for sure, but I think there's a strong possibility that Tacitus' use of Christus with an i and Chrestians with an e (if, as I think likely, that Tacitus is authentic, and those are the correct readings) correctly reflects the origins of both words. In the New Testament, Christian does not appear to be a Christian word (i.e., not a word the group used to identify itself). Paul doesn't seem to know it in his letters and in its three occurrences in the New Testament (Acts 11.26, 26.28, 1 Peter 4.16) it appears to be an outsider's term for the group. In the two instances in Acts it seems to be used by outsiders and in the example from 1 Peter one who is called a Christian (or Chrestian) appears to be deserving of punishment in the eyes of outsiders:
It may be that Chrestian, as a label coined by outsiders, preceded Christian chronologically, and only later became Christian when others who knew the name of Christ altered it to fit what followers of Christ ought logically to be called.
Tertullian, like Tacitus, appears to know that people are saying Chrestians, but thinks that this is an error:
Tertullian, Ad Nationes 1.3, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/03061.htm
Best,
Ken