Page:A Dictionary of All Religions and Religious Denominations.djvu/18

 CONTAINING A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD AT THE TIME OF CHRIST’S APPEARENCE UPON EARTH.

SECTION I.

When Jesus christ made his appearance on earth, a great part of the world was subject to the Roman Empire. This empire was much the largest temporal monarchy that had ever existed, so that it was called, “all the world.” (Luke II 1.) The time when the Romans first subjugated the land of Judea, was between sixty and seventy years before Christ was born; and soon after this, the Roman empire rose to its greatest extent and splendour. To this government the world continued subject till Christ came, and many hundred years afterwards. The remoter nations, who had submitted to the yoke of this mighty empire, were ruled either by Roman governours, invested with temporary commissions, or by their own princes and laws, in subordination to the republic whose sovereignty was acknowledged, and to which the conquered kings, who were continued in their own dominions, owed their borrowed majesty. At the same time the Roman people and their venerable senate, though they had not lost all shadow of liberty, were yet in reality reduced to a state of servile submission to Augustus Cæsar; who by artifice, perfidy, and bloodshed, attained an enormous degree of power, and united in his own person the pompous titles of Emperour, Pontiff, Censor, Tribune of the people: in a word, all the great offices of the state. 