sistent. The Christians, regarded as a sect of the Jews, receive as such complete toleration both in the provinces and in Rome. Their converts, many or few, and probably they were still comparatively few, are mostly Jews or Greek freedmen, while though in the East they were described half in mockery as Christiani, there is no evidence that they were known by this name to the Roman government at all. Indeed, the silence of Seneca, the elder Pliny, and Josephus makes it extremely unlikely. But after the great fire at Rome, not more than three or four years at most after Paul had been allowed freely to preach his doctrine, the position of the Roman Christians was, if we are to believe Tacitus and Suetonius, completely changed. According to the former (Ann. xv 44) Nero, for the sake of averting suspicion from himself 'subdidit reos et quaesitissimis poenis adfecit, quos per flagitia invisos vulgus Christianos appellabat. Auctor nominis eius Christus, Tiberio imperitante, per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum, supplicio adfectus erat; repressaque in praesens exitiabilis superstitio rursum erumpebat, non modo per Iudaeam, originem eius mali, sed per urbem etiam, quo cuncta undique atrocia, aut pudenda, confluunt celebranturque. Igitur primum correpti, qui fatebantur, deinde indicio eorum multitudo ingens, haud perinde in crimine incendii, quam odio humani generis convicti sunt. Et pereuntibus addita ludibria, ut, ferarum tergis contecti laniatu canum interirent, aut crucibus affixi, aut flammati, atque ubi defecisset dies in usum nocturni luminis urerentur.'

Suetonius (Nero, 16) says more briefly afflicti suppliciis Christiani, genus hominum superstitionis novae ac maleficae.' The questions raised by this account are (1) why should the Christians, who a few years before were regarded as a mere Jewish sect and as such tolerated in Rome, suddenly become the victims of a fierce persecution, and (2) how have the few converts SO soon become an 'ingens multitudo '? That Christians were included among the victims of this cruelty is extremely probable, and was no doubt a tradition among the early church. But it is deserving of notice that Tacitus used of the Jews (Hist. v 5) language very similar to that in the passage quoted above 'adversus omnes alios hostile odium,' while Juvenal (xiv 100) brings against them a somewhat similar charge. At a crisis like that of the great fire, suspicion would naturally fall on the most fanatical party, and the Jews,

whose frequent tumults in Alexandria and Judaea would no doubt be known at Rome, and whose expulsion for riot under Claudius was still fresh in the memory, would not unnaturally, if suspicion was to be directed upon any sect or party, become the victims of it. Obviously the charge, against whomsoever it was made, was no result of religious intolerance; it was a definite -charge, no doubt made at random, of incendiarism, and as definite proof was wanting, but victims were necessary, the matter degenerated into a mere repetition on a larger and fiercer scale of the Jew-baitings which had not been unknown under Tiberius and Caligula. Their punishment was due not to conviction of guilt but to the ill odour in which they stood and the evil reputation of misanthropy they had incurred. That in the Jew-baiting a number of Christians may have been included is probable in itself, and receives confirmation from the tradition of the early church, and it may have even been the case, as De Rossi and Merivale suggest, that the Jews took the opportunity of calumniating the Christians and so transferring much of the sudden odium from themselves to this hated sect. When Tacitus and Suetonius wrote, the name of Christians, though not their real character, had become better known, and accordingly they are mentioned as having been the objects of a persecution which in reality they only shared as connected with the fanatical Jews. That the persecution, if such a temporary and personal outbreak of cruelty can be so called, was extended to the provinces, there is not the smallest proof. It could only have been so extended if Nero had become convinced that there was grave political danger to be feared, and in this case much more would have been heard of the matter than the brief and casual mention of Tacitus.

But if the Neronian persecution does not make a distinct change in the position of Christianity, the result of the Jewish war did so in a marked degree and in more than one respect. Hitherto the Judaising party among the Christians, whether in a minority or not, had been sufficient to check the free growth of Christianity as a universal religion; with the destruction of the Temple this check was removed, and the emancipation of Christianity was complete. For its future development this event was of immense importance, but it involved several possibilities of danger which had not previously existed. In the first place, the bitter hatred which henceforth existed between Jews

and Christians was sure before long to reveal the latter to the Roman government as an independent body involving possibly greater political dangers than the sullen and obstinate fanaticism of the conquered Jews. That this danger would be increased by Jewish spite and malevolence was extremely probable, while the toleration hitherto enjoyed by the Christians must for the future, if granted at all, be granted independently of any supposed connection with the Jews, since Jewish toleration, instead of being a fixed maxim of Roman policy, was now precarious only and conditional upon the behaviour of the Jews themselves. Under Vespasian these dangers were not yet realised. Familiar with oriental superstitions, and inclined as all the Romans were to an indolent laissez-faire in religious matters, especially in the case of a newly-conquered enemy, he contented himself with exacting from the Jews the Temple tribute of two drachmae, while the Christians were still so far identified with the Jews that they apparently paid, and were possibly as a matter of policy content to pay, this tribute too. This at least seems on the whole to be the best way of interpreting the language in Suetonius (Dom. 12), ' praeter ceteros Iudaicus fiscus acerbissime actus est: ad quem deferebantur qui vel improfessi Iudaicam viverent vitam (i.e. Christians) vel dissimulata origine imposita genti tributa non pependissent.' This state of things seems to have continued till the last year of Domitian's reign, when, according to Lactantius, Eusebius, Melito, and other ecclesiastical writers, such as Zonaras, of a later date, there was a persecution of the Christians in Rome. Of this persecution, however, contemporary writers are completely silent, and even the Christian authors themselves know nothing of any details of the persecution and confine themselves to vague and general statements. In Dio Cassius alone, who, however, wrote more than a hundred years after the event, there is a passage which may possibly throw some light on what really took place. He says (67, 14) ‹ Kảv tô avtô étel äλλovs te πολλοὺς καὶ τὸν Φλάβιον Κλήμεντα ὑπατεύοντα, καίπερ ἀνέψιον ὄντα καὶ γυναῖκα καὶ αὐτὴν συγγενῆ ἑαυτοῦ Φλάβιαν Δομιτίλλαν ἔχοντα κατέσφαξεν ὁ Δομιτιανός· ἐπηνέχθη δὲ ἀμφοῖν ἔγκλημα ἀθεότητος ὑφ ̓ ἧς καὶ ἄλλοι ἐς τὰ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἤθη ἐξοκέλλοντες πολλοὶ κατεδικάσθησαν. And farther on he mentions that Acilius Glabrio was accused on the same charge, and also for fighting with wild beasts.

The

One of the results of the Jewish war could hardly fail to be increased watchfulness on the part of the Roman government against all violent, secret, or growing superstitions. supremacy of the state religion would be more consciously asserted, and though the principle of toleration for Judaism was probably not directly modified, it would not unreasonably be limited to Judaism as a national religion, and would not be extended either to it or to any of its offshoots which gave symptoms of being cosmopolitan rather than national. But, along with this changing attitude of the Roman government, it is impossible to doubt that Christianity after the destruction of the Temple developed rapidly both in numbers and organisation. As to the provinces we have no information dating from Domitian's reign, and whether the Christians were then interfered with or not, we cannot tell. Under the lax régime of the senatorial provinces they may well have escaped notice, especially if they consented to pay the two drachmae tribute, while in the imperial province of Syria they may probably have still been undistinguished from the Jews. At Rome, too, as long as their converts belonged to the lower classes, as for the most part they certainly did, they might still escape notice, though they might share in the sentence of expulsion from Rome which Domitian on one occasion passed upon the Jews. But if any converts of rank or importance were made, the affair would become altogether different, the state religion would be encroached upon, and the converts, through their actual or inferred denial of the state deities, would be accused of impiety and atheism-charges which might easily be brought under that of maiestas. This is perhaps what took place at the end of Domitian's reign, at a time when there was still no clear distinction in Roman minds between the Jews and the Christians. The persecution, if such it was, would be no doubt to the Christian writers a Christian persecution. In the Greek text of the Chronicles of Eusebius, Clemens is distinctly claimed as a Christian martyr, while an elaborate legend grew up round the names of Nereus, and Achilleus, two freedmen of a younger Domitilla. On the other hand, amid the confused ideas of the time, Dio Cassius may well have followed some version which spoke of the victims as Jews, and not as Christians. In any case, no doubt when attention was once directed to the matter the numerous delatores of the time

would increase the number of the accused.

Suetonius was himman of ninety as to

self present at the examination of an old whose Jewish nationality doubts were felt. That there was persecution under Domitian, there is no doubt, but except in a few isolated cases its victims were neither Christians nor Jews but philosophers, such as Helvidius Priscus, Herennius Senecio, and Iunius Mauricus. If any Christians were put to death, it was not as Christians, but as converts from the state-religion to the vaguely-understood 'vita Iudaica.' That the action of the government was due more to a personal freak of Domitian's suspicious temper than to the apprehension of any political danger is shown by the fact that Nerva is expressly stated to have desisted from all such accusations of ἀσεβεία or Ιουδαϊακὸς Bíos (Dio Cass. 68, 1).

We now arrive at Trajan's reign, when Pliny's letter throws a strong light on the position of Christianity in one province of the empire, though it leaves the rest in a darkness little less complete than before. The letter, written probably at the end of 112 A.D., contains the following statements :—(1) Pliny had never been present at any trials of Christians, and did not know anything of the procedure and punishments in such cases, nor whether the mere profession of Christianity was in itself a punishable offence; (2) a number of persons were brought before him 'tamquam Christiani'; (3) to those he put the question three times whether they were Christians; (4) those who persisted he ordered to be executed, on the ground that whatever it was that they confessed, their disobedience and obstinacy at any rate deserved punishment; (5) this procedure increased the number of accusations; (6) an anonymous accusation was brought containing a large number of names; (7) all of those accused were ordered by Pliny to call upon the Roman gods, to adore the emperor's statue, and to blaspheme Christ; (8) some, affirming that they were not and never had been Christians, did this at once; (9) others did so, who had been Christians but renounced their belief; (10) some of these latter made a statement to Pliny, that the Christians met on a certain day before dawn, sang a hymn to Christ as God, and bound themselves by a common oath to abstain from theft, adultery, perjury, etc., and then later in the day met again for a common meal; even this, however, they had ceased to do in consequence of an edict