Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/185

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. IGT considerable, the use for which it was designed, and C Fl A P. the severity with which it was exacted, were considered ' as an intolerable grievance ^. Since the officers of the revenue extended their unjust claim to many persons who were strangers to the blood or religion of the jews, it was impossible that the christians, who had so often sheltered themselves under the shade of the syna- gogue, should now escape this rapacious persecution. Anxious as they were to avoid the slightest infection of idolatry, their conscience forbade them to contribute to the honour of that demon who had assumed the cha- racter of the capitoline Jupiter. As a very numerous though declining party among the christians still ad- hered to the law of Moses, their efforts to dissemble their Jewish origin were detected by the decisive test of circumcision '^ : nor were the Roman magistrates at leisure to enquire into the difference of their religious tenets. Among the christians who were brought be- fore the tribunal of the emperor, or, as it seems more probable, before that of the procurator of Judaea, two persons are said to have appeared, distinguished by their extraction, which was more truly noble than that of the greatest monarchs. These were the grandsons of St. Jude the apostle, who himself was the brother of Jesus Christ ^ Their natural pretensions to the throne of David might perhaps attract the respect of the people, and excite the jealousy of the governor; but the meanness of their garb, and the simplicity of ^ With regard to the tribute, see Dion Cassius, 1. Ixvi. p. 1082, with Reimarus's notes; Spanheim de Usu Numismatum, toni. ii. p. 571; and Basnage, Hist, des Juifs, 1. vii. c. 2. a Suetonius (in Domitian. c. 12.) had seen an old man of ninety publicly examined before the procurator's tribunal. This is what Rlartial calls, Rlentula Iributis damnata. ^ This appellation was at first understood in the most obvious sense; and it was supposed, that the brothel's of .lesus were the lawful issue of Joseph and of Mary. A devout respect for the virginity of the mother of God, suggested to the Gnostics, and afterwards to the orthodox Greeks, the expe- dient of bestowing a second wife on Joseph. The Latins (from the time of Jerome)improved on that hint, asserted the perpetual celibacy of Joseph, and justified by many simihir examples the new interpretation, tiiat Jude, as well as Simon and James, who are styled the brothers of Jesus Christ, were only his first cousins. See Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiast. torn. i. part iii. and Reausobre, Hist. Criticpie du Manicheisme, 1. ii. c. 2.