Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/179

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. KJl the emperor as tlie incendiary of liis own capital; and cilAf. as the most incredible stories are the best adapted to |__ the genius of an cm-aged people, it was gravely re- ported, and firmly believed, that Nero, enjoying the calamity which he had occasioned, amused himself with singing to his lyre the destruction of ancient Troy*. To divert a suspicion which the power of despotism was unable to suppress, the emperor re- solved to substitute in his own ])lace some fictitious criminals. " With this view," continues Tacitus, " he Cruel pun- inflicted the most exquisite tortures on those men who, *i(,J^f,"° under the vulgar appellation of christians, wei'e already tians, as branded with deserved infamy. They derived their jia,ie's ot' name and origin from Christ, who in the reign of Ti- t^'e city, berius had suffered death by the sentence of the pro- curator Pontius Pilate *". For a while this dire super- stition was checked; but it again bur.st forth: and not only spread itself over Judasa, the first seat of this mischievous sect, but was even introduced into Rome, the common asylum which receives and protects what- ever is impure, whatever is atrocious. The confes- sions of those who were seized discovered a great multitude of their accomplices ; and they were all con- victed, not so much for the crime of setting fire to the city, as for their hatred of human kind'. They died in ff We may observe, that the rumour is mentioned by Tacitus with a very becoming distrust and hesitation, whilst it is greedily transcribed by Sueto- nius, and solemnly confirmed by Dion. i '' 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, 1. V. c. 14, 15. We may learn from Josephus, (Aniiquitat. xviii. 3.) that the procuratorship of Pilate corresponded with the last ten years of Tiberius, A. D. 27 — 37. As to the particular time of the death of Christ, a very early tradition fixed it to the twenty-fifth of March, A. D. 29, under the consulship of the two Gemini. Tertullian adv. Jud.-eos, c. 8. I his 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 con- jectures) four years later. ' Odio humani generis convicti. These words may either signify the ha- tred 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, (Hisloria Ecclesiast. p. 427.) of Dr. Lardner, (Testimonies, vol.i. VOL. ir. M