CH. XVI.] NERO'S PERSECUTION. 103 to suppress, the emperor resolved to substitute in his own place some fictitious criminals. "With this view," continues Tacitus, "he inflicted the most exquisite tortures on those men, who, under the vulgar appellation of Christians, were already branded with deserved infamy. They derived their name and origa from Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, had suffered death, by the sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate.* For awhile this dire superstition was checked; but it again burst forth, and not only spread itself over Judea, the first seat of this mischievous sect, but was even introduced into Rome, the common asylum which receives and protects whatever is impure, whatever is atrocious. The confessions of those who were seized discovered a great multitude of their accomplices, and they were all convicted, not so much for the crime of setting fire to the city, as for their hatred of human kind. They died in torments, and their torments confirmed by D [According to Tacitus, Nero was at Antium when the fire began.--ED.] *This testimony is alone sufficient to expose the anachronism of the Jews, who place the birth of Christ near a century sooner. (Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, lib. 5. c. 14, 15.) We may learn from Josephus (Antiquitat. 18, 3) that the procuratorship of Pilate corresponded with the last ten years of Tiberius, A.D. 27-37. As to the prticulaar time of the death of Christ, a very early tradition fixed it to the 25th of March, A.D. 29, under the consulship of the two Gemini. (Tertullian adv. Judæos, c. 8.) This date, which is adopted by Pagi, Cardinal Norris, and Le Clerc, seems at least as probable as the vulgar era, which is placed (I know not from what conjectures) four years later. [The chronicle of Eusebius (anuo 2048) is the authority for the date of A.D. 33. See the discussions of this question by Clinton (F. R. i, p. 12-18), who agrees with Tertullian; and by Turnbull, in the Transactions of the Chronological Institute (part i, p. 15-21), who adopts the later or vulgar era.-ED.] This single sentence: "Repressa in præsens, exitiabilis superstitio rursus erumpebat," proves that the Christians had already attracted the notice of the ruling powers, and that Nero was not the first to persecute them. I am surprised that no one has ever shewn how the Acts of the Apostles are confirmed by these words of Tacitus. -GUIZOT. [M. Guizot should have pointed out the portions of the Scripture narrative which he considers to be thus corroborated. Instances of judicial proceedings, not very harsh, against individuals, are there recorded; and of the fury of multitudes, stirred up by opposing Jews; but nowhere do we find Christianity repressed" by any general course of magisterial rigor, and coming forth again from be neath the pressure. Opposition always appears there to be ineffectual, and progress constant. The " repressa" of Tacitus is much more cor rectly explained by Dean Milman, who refers it to "the expected extir pation of the religion by the death of its founder."-ED.] 66 + Odie were imbittered by insult and derision. [CH. XVI. Some were nailed on crosses; others sewn up in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to the fury of dogs; others again, smeared over with combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate the darkness of the night. The gardens of Nero were destined for the melancholy spectacle, which was accompanied with a horse race, and honoured with the presence of the emperor, who mingled with the populace in the dress and attitude of a charioteer. The guilt of the Christians deserved indeed the most exemplary punishment; but the public abhorrence was changed into commiseration, from the opinion that those unhappy wretches were sacrificed not so much to the public welfare, as to the cruelty of a jealous tyrant." Those who survey with a curious eye the revolulutions of mankind may observe, that the gardens and circus of Nero on the Vatican, which were polluted with the blood of the first Christians, have been rendered still more famous by the triumph and by the abuse of the persecuted religion. On the same spot, a temple, which far surpasses the ancient glories of the Capitol, has been since erected by the Christian pontiffs; who, deriving their claim of universal dominion from a humble fisherman of Galilee, have succeeded to the throne of the Cæsars, given laws to the barbarian conquerors of Rome, and extended their spiritual jurisdiction from the coast of the Baltic to the shores of the Pacific ocean. But it would be improper to dismiss this account of Nero's persecution, till we have made some observations, that may serve to remove the difficulties with which it is perplexed, and to throw some light on the subsequent history of the church. 1. The most sceptical criticism is obliged to respect the humani generis convicti. These words may either signify the hatred of mankind towards the Christians, or the hatred of the Christians towards mankind. I have preferred the latter sense, as the most agreeable to the style of Tacitus, and to the popular error, of which a precept of the gospel (see Luke xiv, 26) had been, perhaps, the innocent occasion. My interpretation is justified by the authority of Lipsius; of the Italian, the French, and the English translators of Tacitus; of Mosheim (p. 102); of Le Clerc (Historia Ecclesiast. p. 427); of Dr. Lardner (Testimonies, vol. i, p. 345), and of the Bishop of Gloucester (Divine Legation, vol. iii, p. 38). But as the word convicti does not unite very happily with the rest of the sentence, James Gronovius has preferred the reading of conjuncti, which is authorized by the valuable MS, of Florencs. • Tacit. Annal. 15, 44. + Nardini, Roma Antica OH. XVI.] NARRATIVE OF TACITUS. 105 truth of this extraordinary fact, and the integrity of this celebrated passage of Tacitus. The former is confirmed by the diligent and accurate Suetonius, who mentions the punishment which Nero inflicted on the Christians, a sect of men who had embraced a new and criminal superstition.* The latter may be proved by the consent of the most ancient manuscripts; by the inimitable character of the style of Tacitus; by his reputation, which guarded his text from the interpolations of pious fraud; and by the purport of his narration, which accused the first Christians of the most atrocious crimes, without insinuating that they possessed any miraculous or even magical powers above the rest of mankind.† 2. Notwithstanding it is probable that Tacitus was born some years before the fire of Rome, he could derive only from reading and conversation the knowledge of an event which happened during his infancy. Before he gave himself to the public, he calmly waited till his genius had attained its full maturity; and he was more than forty years of age, when a grateful regard for the memory of the virtuous Agricola extorted from him the most early of those historical compositions which will delight and instruct the most distant posterity. After making a trial of his strength in the life of Agricola and the description of Germany, he conceived, and at length p. 487. Donatus de Româ Antiquâ, 1. 3, p. 449. * Sueton. in Nerone, c. 16. The epithet of malefica, which some sagacious commentators have translated magical, is considered by the more rational Mosheim as only synonymous to the exitiabilis of Tacitus. + The passage concerning Jesus Christ, which was inserted into the text of Josephus, between the time of Origen and that of Eusebius, may fur nish an example of no vulgar forgery. The accomplishment of the prophecies, the virtues, miracles, and resurrection, of Jesus, are dis tinctly related. Josephus acknowledges that he was the Messiah, and hesitates whether he should call him a man. If any doubt can still remain concerning this celebrated passage, the reader may examine the pointed objections of Le Fevre (Havercamp. Joseph. tom. ii, p. 267— 273), the laboured answers of Daubuz (p. 187-232) and the masterly reply (Bibliothèque Ancienne et Moderne, tom. vii, p. 237-288), of an anonymous critic, whom I believe to have been the learned Abbé de Longuerue. [Much labour has been lost over this passage of Josephus. Supposing it to be genuine, it would only prove what none deny, that near the close of the first century, there were Christians who held cer tain opinions. and believed in certain events. Had the writer even avowed his own belief, which is by no means clear, it would have added nothing to the evidence of long antecedent facts.-ED.] See the lives of Tacitus by Lipsius and the Abbé de la Bleterie; Dictionnaire de Bayle 100 XERO'S PERSECUTION: [CH. XVL executed, a most arduous work-the history of Rome, in thirty books, from the fall of Nero to the accession of Nerva. The administration of Nerva introduced an age of justice and prosperity, which Tacitus had destined for the occupation of his old age; but when he took a nearer view of his subject, judging, perhaps, that it was a more honourable or a less invidious office, to record the vices of past tyrants, than to celebrate the virtues of a reigning monarch, he chose rather to relate, under the form of annals, the actions of the four immediate successors of Augustus. To collect, to dispose, and to adorn, a series of fourscore years, in an immortal work, every sentence of which is pregnant with the deepest observations and the most lively images, was an undertaking sufficient to exercise the genius of Tacitus himself during the greatest part of his life. In the last years of the reign of Trajan, whilst the victorious monarch extended the power of Rome beyond its ancient limits, the historian was describing, in the second and fourth books of his anuals, the tyranny of Tiberius ; and the emperor Hadrian must have succeeded to the throne, before Tacitus, in the regular prosecution of his work, could relate the fire of the capital, and the cruelty of Nero towards the unfortunate Christians. At the distance of sixty years, it was the duty of the annalist to adopt the narratives of contemporaries; but it was natural for the philosopher to indulge himself in the description of the origin, the progress, and the character of the new sect, not so much according to the knowledge or prejudices of the age of Nero, as according to those of the time of Hadrian. 3. Tacitus very frequently trusts to the curiosity or reflec tion of his readers to supply those intermediate circumstances and ideas, which, in his extreme conciseness, he has thought proper to suppress. We may, therefore, presume to imagine some probable cause which could direct the cruelty of Nero against the Christians of Rome, whose obscurity, as well as innocence, should have shielded them from his indignation, and even from his notice. The Jews, who were numerous in the capital, and oppressed in their own country, were a much fitter object for the suspicions à l'article Tacite; and Fabricius, Biblioth. Latin. tom. ii, p. 386, edit Ernest. * Principatum Divi Nervæ, et imperium Trajani, uberiorem securioremque materiam senectuti seposui. Tacit. Hist. 1. + See Tacit. Annal. 2. 61; 4, 4. In the passage already referred to, Tacitus CH. XVI.] ITS PROBABLE CAUSES. 107 of the emperor and of the people: nor did it seem unlikely that a vanquished nation, who already discovered their abhorrence of the Roman yoke, might have recourse to the most atrocious means of gratifying their implacable revenge. But the Jews possessed very powerful advocates in the palace, and even in the heart, of the tyrant; his wife and mistress, the beautiful Poppaa, and a favourite player of the race of Abraham, who had already employed their intercession in behalf of the obnoxious people. In their room it was necessary to offer some other victims; and it might easily be suggested that, although the genuine fol lowers of Moses were innocent of the fire of Rome, there bad arisen among them a new and pernicious sect of Galileans, which was capable of the most horrid crimes. Under the appellation of Galileans, two distinctions of men were confounded, the most opposite to each other in their manners and principles; the disciples who had embraced the faith of Jesus of Nazareth,t and the zealots who had followed the standard of Judas the Gaulonite. The former were the friends, the latter were the enemies, of human kind; and the only resemblance between them consisted in the same inflexible constancy, which, in the defence of their cause, rendered them insensible of death and tortures. The followers of Judas, who impelled their countrymen into rebellion, were soon buried under the ruins of Jerusalem; whilst those of Jesus, known by the more celebrated name of Christians, diffused themselves over the Roman empire. How natural was it for Tacitus, in the time of Hadrian, to appropriate to the Christians the guilt and the sufferings, which he might, with far greater truth and justice, have attributed to a sect whose odious memory was almost exsays enough to prove that the Christians were not an obscure sect, since they had been "repressed," and were not esteemed innocent by the Romans.-GUIZOT.] * The player's name was Aliturus. Through the same channel, Josephus (de Vitâ suâ, c. 3), about two years before, had obtained the pardon and release of some Jewish priests who were prisoners at Rome. The learned Dr. Lardner (Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. ii, p. 102, 103) has proved that the name of Galilæans was a very ancient and perhaps the primitive appellation of the Christiana. Josephi Antiquitat. 18. 1, 2. Tillemont, Ruine des Juifs, p. 742. The sons of Judas were crucified in the time of Claudius. His grandson Eleazar, after Jerusalem was taken, defended a strong for tress with nine hundred and sixty of his most desperate followers. When the battering ram had made a breach, they turned their own swords against their wives, their children, and at length against their |