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cess, I should conclude, from the very nature of Nero, and of the suspicions which were enter. and exigency of the case, that the Author of tained that the emperor himself was concern. the religion, during his life, and his immediate ed in causing it, the historian proceeds in his disciples after his death, exerted themselves narrative and observations thus: in spreading and publishing the institution throughout the country in which it began, and into which it was first carried; that, in the prosecution of this purpose, they underwent the labours and troubles which we observe the propagators of new sects to undergo; that the attempt must necessarily have also been in a high degree dangerous; that, from the subject of the mission, compared with the fixed opinions and prejudices of those to whom the missionaries were to address themselves, they could hardly fail of encountering strong and frequent opposition; that, by the hand of government, as well as from the sudden fury and unbridled licence of the people, they would oftentimes experience injurious and cruel treatment; that, at any rate, they must have always had so much to fear for their personal safety, as to have passed their lives in a state of constant peril and anxiety; and lastly, that their mode of life and conduct, visibly at least, corresponded with the institution which they delivered, and, so far, was both new, and re-execution were aggravated by insult and mockquired continual self-denial.

CHAPTER II.

There is satisfactory evidence that many professing to be original witnesses of the Christian miracles, passed their lives in labours, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely in consequence of their belief of those accounts; and that they also submitted, from the same motives, to new rules of conduct.

AFTER thus considering what was likely to happen, we are next to inquire how the transaction is represented in the several accounts that have come down to us. And this inquiry is properly preceded by the other, for as much as the reception of these accounts may depend in part on the credibility of what they con

tain.

"But neither these exertions, nor his lar. gesses to the people, nor his offerings to the gods, did away the infamous imputation under which Nero lay, of having ordered the city to be set on fire. To put an end, therefore, to this report, he laid the guilt, and inflicted the most cruel punishments, upon a set of people, who were holden in abhorrence for their crimes, and called by the vulgar, Christians. The founder of that name was Christ, who suffered death in the reign of Tiberius, under his procurator Pontius Pilate. This pernicious superstition, thus checked for a while, broke out again; and spread not only over Ju. dea, where the evil originated, but through Rome also, whither every thing bad upon the earth finds its way, and is practised. Some who confessed their sect, were first seized, and afterwards, by their information, a vast multitude were apprehended, who were convicted, not so much of the crime of burning Rome, as of hatred to mankind. Their sufferings at their

ery; for, some were disguised in the skins of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs; some were crucified; and others were wrapt in pitched shirts, and set on fire when the day closed, that they might serve as lights to illuminate the night. Nero lent his own gardens for these executions, and exhibited at the same time a mock Circensian entertainment; being a spectator of the whole, in the dress of a charioteer, sometimes mingling with the crowd on foot, and sometimes viewing the spectacle from his car. This conduct made the sufferers pitied; and though they were criminals, and deserving the severest punishments, yet they were considered as sacrificed, not so much out of a regard to the public good, as to gratify the cruelty of one man."

Our concern with this passage at present is only so far as it affords a presumption in support of the proposition which we maintain, concerning the activity and sufferings of the first teachers of Christianity. Now considerThe obscure and distant view of Christiani- ed in this view, it proves three things: 1st, ty, which some of the heathen writers of that that the Founder of the institution was put age had gained, and which a few passages in to death; 2dly, that in the same country in their remaining works incidentally discover to which he was put to death, the religion, after us, offers itself to our notice in the first place; a short check, broke out again and spread; because, so far as this evidence goes, it is the 3dly, that it so spread, as that, within thirtyconcession of adversaries; the source from four years from the author's death, a very which it is drawn is unsuspected. Under this great number of Christians (ingens eorum mulhead, a quotation from Tacitus, well known titudo) were found at Rome. From which to every scholar, must be inserted, as deserv. fact, the two following inferences may be fair ing particular attention. The reader will bearly drawn: first, that if, in the space of thirtyin mind that this passage was written about four years from its commencement, the reli. seventy years after Christ's death, and that it relates to transactions which took place about thirty years after that event. Speaking of the fire which happened at Rome in the time

the Scholiast upon Juvenal says: "Nero maleficos ho
This is rather a paraphrase, but is justified by what
mines tada et papyro et cerâ supervestiebat, et sic ad ig
Test. vol. i. p. 359.
nem admoveri jubebat." Lard. Jewish and Heath.

gion had spread throughout Judea, had extended itself to Rome, and there had numbered a great multitude of converts, the original teachers and missionaries of the institution could not have been idle; secondly, that when the Author of the undertaking was put to death as a malefactor for his attempt, the endeavours of his followers to establish his religion in the same country, amongst the same people, and in the same age, could not but be attended with danger.

Suetonius, a writer contemporary with Tacitus, describing the transactions of the same reign, uses these words: "Affecti suppliciis Christiani, genus hominum superstitionis novæ et maleficæ." "The Christians, a set of men of a new and mischievous (or magical) superstition, were punished."

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the teachers and propagators of the institution after his death, could go about their undertaking with ease and safety.

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The testimony of the younger Pliny belongs to a later period; for although he was contemporary with Tacitus and Suetonius, yet his account does not, like theirs, go back to the transactions of Nero's reign, but is confined to the affairs of his own time. His celebrated letter to Trajan was written about seventy years after Christ's death; and the information to be drawn from it, so far as it is connected with our argument, relates principally to two points: first, to the number of Christians in Bithynia and Pontus, which was so considerable as to induce the governor of these provinces to speak of them in the following terms; "Multi, omnis ætatis, utriusque sexûs etiam; Since it is not mentioned here that the burn--neque enim civitates tantùm, sed vicos etiam ing of the city was the pretence of the punish-et agros, superstitionis istius contagio pervagata ment of the Christians, or that they were the est. "There are many of every age and of Christians of Rome who alone suffered, it is both sexes ;-nor has the contagion of this su probable that Suetonius refers to some more perstition seized cities only, but smaller towns general persecution than the short and occa- also, and the open country." Great exertions sional one which Tacitus describes. must have been used by the preachers of Christianity to produce this state of things within this time. Secondly, to a point which has been already noticed, and which I think of importance to be observed, namely, the sufferings to which Christians were exposed, without any public persecution being denounced against them by sovereign authority. For, from Pliny's doubt how he was to act, his silence "Describe Tigellinus (a creature of Nero,) concerning any subsisting law on the subject, and you shall suffer the same punishment with his requesting the emperor's rescript, and the those who stand burning in their own flame emperor, agreeably to his request propounding and smoke, their head being held up by a stake a rule for his direction, without reference to fixed to their chin, till they make a long stream any prior rule, it may be inferred, that there of blood and melted sulphur on the ground."was, at that time, no public edict in force If this passage were considered by itself, the subject of allusion might be doubtful; but, when connected with the testimony of Suetonius, as to the actual punishment of the Christians by Nero, and with the account given by Tacitus of the species of punishment which they were made to undergo, I think it sufficiently probable, that these were the execu-ing or of favouring the religion; that, in contions to which the poet refers.

Juvenal, a writer of the same age with the two former, and intending, it should seem, to commemorate the cruelties exercised under Nero's government, has the following lines+:

"Pone Tigellinum, tædá lucebis in illa,

Quâ stantes ardent, qui fixo gutture fumant,
Et latum media sulcum deducit‡ arena.

These things, as has already been observed, took place within thirty-one years after Christ's death, that is, according to the course of nature, in the life-time, probably, of some of the apostles, and certainly in the life-time of those who were converted by the apostles, or who were converted in their time. If then the Founder of the religion was put to death in the execution of his design; if the first race of converts to the religion, many of them, suffered the greatest extremities for their profession; it is hardly credible, that those who came between the two, who were companions of the Author of the institution during his life, and

Suet. Nero, cap. 16. + Sat. i. ver. 155. Forsan" deducis,”

against the Christians. Yet from this same epistle of Pliny it appears, "that accusations, trials, and examinations, were and had been, going on against them in the provinces over which he presided; that schedules were deliv. ered by anonymous informers, containing the names of persons who were suspected of hold

sequence of these informations, many had been apprehended, of whom some boldly avowed their profession, and died in the cause; others denied that they were Christians; others, acknowledging that they had once been Christ[ians, declared that they had long ceased to be such." All which demonstrates, that the profession of Christianity was at that time (in that country at least) attended with fear and dan ger: and yet this took place without any edict from the Roman sovereign, commanding or authorising the persecution of Christians. This observation is further confirmed by a rescript of Adrian to Minucius Fundanus, the proconsul of Asia: from which rescript it appears that the custom of the people of Asia was to

• Lant, Heath. Test. vol, it, p. 110,

proceed against the Christians with tumult travels, sufferings, labours, or successes of the and uproar. This disorderly practice, I say, apostles, but one of their own number, or of is recognised in the edict, because the emperor their followers? Now these books come up in enjoins, that, for the future, if the Christians their accounts to the full extent of the propowere guilty, they should be legally brought to sition which we maintain. We have four histrial, and not be pursued by importunity and tories of Jesus Christ. We have a history clamour. taking up the narrative from his death, and Martial wrote a few years before the younger carrying on an account of the propagation of Pliny: and, as his manner was, made the suf- the religion, and of some of the most eminent ferings of the Christians the subject of his ri- persons engaged in it, for a space of nearly dicule. Nothing, however, could show the thirty years. We have, what some may think notoriety of the fact with more certainty than still more original, a collection of letters, writthis does. Martial's testimony, as well indeed ten by certain principal agents in the business, as Pliny's, goes also to another point, viz. that upon the business, and in the midst of their the deaths of these men were martyrdoms in concern and connexion with it. And we have the strictest sense, that is to say, were so vo- these writings severally attesting the point luntary, that it was in their power, at the time which we contend for, viz. the sufferings of of pronouncing the sentence, to have averted the witnesses of the history, and attesting it in the execution by consenting to join in heathen every variety of form in which it can be consacrifices. ceived to appear: directly and indirectly, exThe constancy, and by consequence the suf-pressly and incidentally, by assertion, recital, ferings of the Christians of this period, is also and allusion, by narratives of facts, and by arreferred to by Epictetus, who imputes their in-guments and discourses built upon these facts, trepidity to madness, or to a kind of fashion either referring to them, or necessarily presup. or habit, and about fifty years afterwards, by posing them. Marcus Aurelius, who ascribes it to obstina- I remark this variety, because, in examincy. "Is it possible (Epictetus asks) that a ing ancient records, or indeed any species of man may arrive at this temper, and become in- testimony, it is, in my opinion, of the greatdifferent to those things from madness or from est importance to attend to the information or habit, as the Galileans+?" "Let this prepa-grounds of argument which are casually and ration of the mind (to die) arise from its own judgment, and not from obstinacy like the Christians."

CHAPTER III.

undesignedly disclosed; forasmuch as this spe cies of proof is, of all others, the least liable to be corrupted by fraud or misrepresentation.

I may be allowed therefore, in the inquiry which is now before us, to suggest some conclusion of this sort, as preparatory to more direct testimony.

1. Our books relate, that Jesus Christ, the There is satisfactory evidence that many, pro-founder of the religion, was, in consequence of fessing to be original witnesses of the Chris- his undertaking, put to death, as a malefactor, tian miracles, passed their lives in labours, at Jerusalem. This point at least will be dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undergone granted, because it is no more than what Tain attestation of the accounts which they de- citus has recorded. They then proceed to tell livered, and solely in consequence of their be- us, that the religion was, notwithstanding, set lief of those accounts; and that they also sub-forth at this same city of Jerusalem, propagatmitted, from the same motives, to new rules of ed thence throughout Judea, and afterwards conduct.

Or the primitive condition of Christianity, a distant only and general view can be acquired from heathen writers. It is in our own books that the detail and interior of the transaction must be sought for. And this is nothing different from what might be expected. Who would write a history of Christianity, but a Christian? Who was likely to record the

In matutinâ nuper spectatus arena

Mucius, imposuit qui sua membra focis,
Si patiens fortisque tibi durusque videtur,
Abderitanæ pectora plebis habes;
Nam cum dicatur, tunicâ præsente molesta,
Ure manum: plus est dicere, Non facío.

+ Epict. 1. iv. c. 7.

Marc. Aur. Med. 1. xi, c. 3.

Forsan "thure manum."

preached in other parts of the Roman empire. These points also are fully confirmed by Tacitus, who informs us, that the religion, after a short check, broke out again in the country where it took its rise; that it not only spread throughout Judea, but had reached Rome, and that it had there great multitudes of converts; and all this within thirty years after its commencement.

Now these facts afford a strong inference in behalf of the proposition which we maintain. What could the disciples of Christ expect for themselves when they saw their Master put to death? Could they hope to escape the dangers in which he had perished? If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you, was the warning of common sense. With this example before their eyes, they could not be without a full sense of the peril of their future enterprise.

2. Secondly, all the histories agree in representing Christ as foretelling the persecution of his followers :

the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body;-knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise us up also by Jesus, and shall present us with you. For which cause we faint not; but, though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory"."

"Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you, and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake." "When affliction or persecution ariseth for the word's sake, immediately they are offend-day by day. For our light affliction, which is ed+."

"They shall lay hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake:-and ye shall be betrayed both by parents and brethren, and kinsfolks and friends, and some of you shall they cause to be put to death."

"The time cometh, that he that killeth you, will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them§."

"Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy+."

"Call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions, partly whilst ye were made a gazing-stock both by reproach. es and afflictions, and partly whilst ye became companions of them that were so used; for ye I am not entitled to argue from these pas- had compassion of me in my bonds, and took sages, that Christ actually did foretell these joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing events, and that they did accordingly come to in yourselves, that ye have in heaven a better pass; because that would be at once to assume and an enduring substance. Cast not away, the truth of the religion : but I am entitled to therefore, your confidence, which hath great contend, that one side or other of the follow-recompense of reward; for ye have need of paing disjunction is true; either that the Evan- tience, that, after ye have done the will of God, gelists have delivered what Christ really spoke, ye might receive the promise‡." and that the event corresponded with the pre- "So that we ourselves glory in you in the diction; or that they put the prediction into churches of God, for your patience and faith Christ's mouth, because, at the time of writ-in all your persecutions and tribulations that ing the history, the event had turned out so ye endure. Which is a manifest token of the to be: for, the only two remaining supposi- righteous judgment of God, that ye may be tions appear in the highest degree incredible; counted worthy of the kingdom for which ye which are, either that Christ filled the minds also suffer§." of his followers with fears and apprehensions, without any reason or authority for what he said, and contrary to the truth of the case; or that, although Christ had never foretold any such thing, and the event would have contradicted him if he had, yet historians who lived in the age when the event was known, falsely, as well as officiously, ascribed these words to him.

"We rejoice in hope of the glory of God; and not only so, but we glory in tribulations also; knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope."

"Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you; but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's 3. Thirdly, these boooks abound with ex-sufferings.-Wherefore let them that suffer hortations to patience, and with topics of comfort under distress.

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us||."

"We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in

Mat. xxiv. 9.

Mark iv. 17. See also chap. x. 30.
Luke xxi 12-16. See also chap. xi. 49.
John xvi. 4. See also chap, xv. 20. xvi. 33.
Rom. viii. 35-37,

according to the will of God, commit the keep ing of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful creator¶."

What could all these texts mean, if there was nothing in the circumstances of the times which required patience,-which called for the exercise of constancy and resolution? Or will it be pretended, that these exhortations (which, let it be observed, come not from one author, but from many) were put in, merely to induce a belief in after-ages, that the Christians were exposed to dangers which they were not ex.. posed to, or underwent sufferings which they

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did not undergo? If these books belong to ed upon them, and one of their number hav. the age to which they lay claim, and in which ing deserted the cause, and, repenting of his age, whether genuine or spurious, they cer- perfidy, having destroyed himself, they protainly did appear, this supposition cannot be ceeded to elect another into his place, and that maintained for a moment; because I think it they were careful to make their election out of impossible to believe, that passages, which the number of those who had accompanied their must be deemed not only unintelligible, but Master from the first to the last, in order, as false, by the persons into whose hands the they alleged, that he might be a witness, tobooks upon their publication were to come, gether with themselves, of the principal facts should nevertheless be inserted, for the pur-which they were about to produce and relate pose of producing an effect upon remote gener- concerning him"; that they began their work ations. In forgeries which do not appear till at Jerusalem by publicly asserting that this many ages after that to which they pretend to belong, it is possible that some contrivance of that sort may take place; but in no others can it be attempted.

CHAPTER IV.

Jesus, whom the rulers and inhabitants of that place had so lately crucified, was, in truth, the person in whom all their prophecies and long expectations terminated; that he had been sent amongst them by God; and that he was appointed by God the future judge of the human species; that all who were solicitous to secure to themselves happiness after death, ought to receive him as such, and to make profession of their belief, by being baptized in his namet." There is satisfactory evidence that many, pro- The history goes on to relate," that considfessing to be original witnesses of the Chris-erable numbers accepted this proposal, and that tian miracles, passed their lives in labours, they who did so, formed amongst themselves dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undera strict union and society; that the attention gone in attestation of the accounts which they of the Jewish government being soon drawn delivered, and solely in consequence of their

belief of those accounts; and that they also submitted, from the same motives, to new rules of conduct.

upon them, two of the principal persons of the

twelve, and who also had lived most intimately and constantly with the Founder of the religion, were seized as they were discoursing THE account of the treatment of the religion, kept all night in prison, they were brought the to the people in the temple; that, after being and of the exertions of its first preachers, as next day before an assembly composed of the stated in our Scriptures (not in a professed his- chief persons of the Jewish magistracy and tory of persecutions, or in the connected man- priesthood; that this assembly, after some conner in which I am about to recite it, but dis- sultation, found nothing, at that time, better persedly and occasionally, in the course of a to be done towards suppressing the growth of mixed general history, which circumstance a- the sect, than to threaten their prisoners with lone negatives the supposition of any fraudulent punishment if they persisted; that these men, design,) is the following: "That the Found-after expressing, in decent but firm language, the er of Christianity, from the commencement of obligation under which they considered themhis ministry to the time of his violent death, selves to be, to declare what they knew, "to employed himself wholly in publishing the in-speak the things which they had seen and stitution in Judea and Galilee; that, in order heard," returned from the council, and reportto assist him in this purpose, he made choice ed what had passed to their companions; that out of the number of his followers, of twelve this report, whilst it apprised them of the dan persons, who might accompany him as he travelled from place to place; that, except a short other effect upon their conduct than to produce ger of their situation and undertaking, had no absence upon a journey in which he sent them, in them a general resolution to persevere, and two by two, to announce his mission, and one an earnest prayer to God to furnish them with of a few days, when they went before him to assistance, and to inspire them with fortitude, Jerusalem, these persons were steadily and con- proportioned to the increasing exigency of the stantly attending upon him; that they were with him at Jerusalem when he was appre-read "that all the twelve apostles were seized service§." A very short time after this, we hended and put to death; and that they were and cast into prison ||; that being brought a commissioned by him, when his own ministry second time before the Jewish Sanhedrim, was concluded, to publish his Gospel, and col- they were upbraided with their disobedience to lect disciples to it from all countries of the the injunction which had been laid upon them, world." The account then proceeds to state, and beaten for their contumacy; that, being "that a few days after his departure, these charged once more to desist, they were suffer. persons, with some of his relations, and some ed to depart; that however they neither quitwho had regularly frequented their society, assembled at Jerusalem; that, considering the office of preaching the religion as now devolv

* Acts i. 21, 22,
Acts iv.

+ Acts xi.
|| Acts v. 18.

+ Acts iv. 22

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