A CRITICAL VIEW OF CHRIST AND OTHER MESSIAHS
In Judea the position of the Roman procurators was one of great
difficulty. The Jews were the most restless of all the peoples of
the empire. The most inoffensive measures wounded their religious
susceptibilities. Thus the general census made by Quirinus, governor
of Syria, at the command of Augustus, seemed to them a menace and a
danger. Long ago, in the reign of David, a similar measure had evoked
murmurs amongst them; it was worse still under foreign rule. They
persuaded themselves that the object of the census was to reduce them
to slavery. A certain Judas, surnamed the Gaulonite or the Galilean,
stirred up a revolt, which was suppressed by the procurator, but the
partisans of Judas, who were afterwards known as the Zealots, formed
a sect which played an important part during the last days of Jewish
history. According to them, the law forbade the Jews to recognise
any sovereign except God, and it was their duty to die rather than
submit to a human authority. This perpetual confounding of religion
and politics was often extremely troublesome to the Romans. Pontius
Pilate, procurator of Judea, having brought into Jerusalem Roman
ensigns adorned with the portrait of Tiberius, the Jews complained
loudly at the offence, and betook themselves to Cæsarea, where the
governors resided, to demand the removal of the ensigns. He surrounded
the malcontents with his troops, but they offered their throats to
the knife, declaring that they would rather die than endure the
desecration of the Holy City. Pilate gave way, and afterwards, by the
express command of Tiberius, removed the golden shields which bore in
their inscriptions the names of the gods of the empire. Another time,
desiring to build an aqueduct to bring water to Jerusalem, he took
money from the temple treasury, and there was another riot on that
score.
[Sidenote: [33 A.D.]]
The rule of the Romans, like that of the Seleucidæ before them,
made the Jews fall back upon their Messianic dreams. In these the
Bible played the leading part. The prophets of old had merely been
religious and popular tribunes; nevertheless, by the aid of fanciful
interpretation they succeeded in making them soothsayers. They were
made to predict the supremacy of the Jewish nation over all others;
by taking some sentences of their writings apart from the context the
people discovered allusions to their future deliverer, their Messiah.
Like all mythological types, this ideal figure of the Messiah grew more
and more clearly defined. But at the same time it assumed a loftier
significance, it became purely moral in character. In face of the
vastness of the Roman power, a warrior king like David would not have
been enough; what was needed was rather a revealer, like Moses, to set
up the kingdom of God upon earth. The Messiah, in this supernatural
rôle, was bound to exercise a far greater effect upon the people;
but any kind of revolution, whether violent or mystical, must always
inspire the ruling classes with equal abhorrence. The Jewish priesthood
implored the aid of the secular arm against Jesus of Nazareth, as it
had done against Judas Maccabæus. Pilate being loth to put an innocent
man to death in order to gratify priestly spite, they gave him to
understand that his own position would be compromised by indulgence,
and he yielded for fear of losing his office. Moreover, it is likely
that the death sentence caused him no great remorse; no doubt he said
to himself that it was the price of maintaining order, and that in
dealing with an enemy to society there was no constraining need to be
just. This event, which divides the history of the world in two, passed
unmarked by the generation that witnessed it. The five or six lines
which we find in Josephus appear to be an interpolation. If Josephus
had believed, as the passage states, that Jesus was the Messiah and
that he was more than man, it is obvious that, instead of remaining a
Jew, he would have become a Christian.[b]
The excerpt from Josephus is as follows: “Now there was about this
time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was
a doer of wonderful works--a teacher of such men as receive the truth
with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of
the Gentiles. He was (the) Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion
of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those
that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to
them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold
these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the
tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”
As has just been said, this paragraph is probably an interpolation
of a copyist of a much later period. It would seem, then, that no
contemporary record, no mention even, of the life of Jesus has been
preserved to us. This fact is one of the most striking paradoxes in
all history. As a general rule, it may be taken for granted that the
great names in history are achieved during the life of their bearers.
But here, speaking purely from the standpoint of the historian, was an
obscure personage, whose entire theatre of action, so far as known,
consisted of the petty state of Palestine, at that time one of the
minor dependencies of Rome. The period of activity of this personage as
an historical character compasses but a few years; and it would appear
that during his life his deeds were practically unknown beyond the
bounds of the petty state in which he lived. Yet the historical result
of these activities was more momentous, even from a strictly secular
standpoint, than the deeds of any other character of history. A new
era, recognised by the chief civilisations of the world, dates from his
birth; and whole libraries of literature are devoted to every aspect of
his life, in strange contrast to the paucity of contemporary records.
There is no occasion to chronicle here the incidents of the life
of Jesus. To every reader of these pages these incidents have been
familiar from childhood. As there is no contemporary source to quote,
at best we could but paraphrase the scriptural accounts, to which every
reader may turn for himself.[a]
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MESSIANIC IDEA
Beyond the borders of Palestine, where they held their ancient
glories in perpetual remembrance, the Jews gave less thought to
their Messiah. In the Greek cities whither they had been allured by
commerce, at Ephesus, Cyrene, and above all, Alexandria, they tried to
gain acceptance for their traditions and their monotheism under the
warranty of the Sibyls; they composed apocryphal writings in somewhat
tame verse, or studied Greek philosophy. The monistic theories of
Plato attracted them most strongly to his school, and Philo makes
amazing efforts, by dint of moral allegorising, to discover Platonic
teachings in Genesis. The word, λόγος, which signifies both the reason
of things and human speech, became the starting point of a kind of
abstract mythology; and among the Hellenistic Jews the idea of the Word
assumed an importance equal to, and a character hardly less personal
than, that of the Messiah among the Jews of Palestine. From one of
these groups Christian legend was destined to arise, from the other
Christian philosophy. The Persian doctrine of the principle of evil,
the Egyptian doctrine of the resurrection of the body, had already
become familiar to the Jews; Christianity adopted them and made them
the basis of a vast mythological edifice, the Fall and Redemption, the
great Judgment Day of God, and the coming of His kingdom upon earth
after the destruction of the world, which was placed in the immediate
future. The dispersion of the Jews throughout all the eastern provinces
of the empire offered a vast field to Christian propaganda, which,
however, soon spread beyond the Jewish race, when once the innovating
party had definitely rejected circumcision, the distinction between
clean and unclean meats, and all the trivial and troublesome practices
which separated Israel from other nations. The Jewish element was soon
submerged by the rising tide of world-wide proselytism known as the
calling of the Gentiles.
The introduction of Christianity into Greece is associated with the
name of a Jew, St. Paul, just as the introduction of the Dionysiac
mysteries is with that of the Thracian Orpheus. It is a divine seed
come forth from the East, after an interval of fifteen centuries,
and developing in the fructifying rays of the sun of Greece. But
Christianity, although it represents the last phase of the progressive
invasion of the West by oriental beliefs, is an original religion and
not a heresy of Judaism. Far from being the supplement of the Jewish
faith, we might rather call it its denial. The dominant note of Judaism
is the attitude at which it places the conception of the Divine;
between man and his God the distance is infinite. Christianity, on the
contrary, had for its fundamental dogma the worship of the God-man.
The Jewish religion, alone of all the religions of the earth, confined
itself absolutely to this present life, without following man beyond
the limits of his earthly destiny; to Christianity the earth is but
a temporary place of trial, and life a preparation for eternity. The
Jewish nation prides itself on the exclusive inheritance of the Law
and casts forth the multitude of the uncircumcised from its midst;
while Christianity proclaimed itself the universal religion from the
beginning, and has never ceased to call men of all nations to itself.
The Christians borrowed nothing from Judea but its traditions and its
legends; had they rested satisfied with these, they would have been
no more than a small Jewish sect that would have passed away unnoted.
Judaism is one of the tributaries of the great Christian river, but it
is not its principal source. In its apotheosis of humanity Christianity
has a direct link with Hellenism, of which it is the legitimate
successor.
The doctrines of the Fall, the Incarnation, the Redemption, the
Sacrament of the Eucharist, all have their source in the most ancient
beliefs of Indo-European peoples; which explains why the Jews so
obstinately hold aloof from it. The true heir of Jewish thought
is Islamism, the modern religion of the Semitic race. By depriving
Christianity of its Greek elements, by setting aside the idea of the
incarnation of the Divine in humanity, which spanned the gulf between
God and man, Mohammed restored Semitic monotheism to its pristine
severity, tempered only by belief in the devil and in a future life,
which the Jews themselves had ended by accepting.
[Sidenote: [37-41 A.D.]]
At Rome, whither all men seeking their fortunes drifted, the Jews were
very numerous, and insinuated themselves among all classes, especially
among women, exploiting their credulity by interpreting dreams and
selling philtres and amulets. They were generally confounded with
Chaldeans and other venders of horoscopes. A lady of rank, whom they
had converted to their religion, having had reason to complain of their
sharp practices, Tiberius enlisted four thousand Jews, whom he sent to
Sardinia. A grandson of Herod, Agrippa by name, who had squandered his
fortune in profligate courses and lived by his wits, insinuated himself
into the good graces of the young Caligula. During a walk which they
took together, Agrippa said aloud, “When will the day come on which
the death of old Tiberius will leave thee master of the empire, for my
happiness and that of the world?” The words were repeated to Tiberius
by a freedman, and Agrippa was put in prison. Caligula, who became
emperor soon after, set him at liberty and gave him the tetrarchy of
his uncle Philip (who had died shortly before), with the title of King.
But the ambitious Herodias could not endure to see her brother, whom
she had formerly assisted out of her bounty, win a higher rank than her
husband. At her instigation Antipas proceeded to Rome to solicit the
diadem. It was an evil day for him; Agrippa accused him of having laid
up a store of arms and of holding communication with the Parthians;
Caligula, without deigning to inquire into the matter, banished him to
Lyons in Gaul, and added his tetrarchy to Agrippa’s kingdom.
The new king soon had an opportunity of rendering signal service to his
co-religionists. Caligula desired to have divine honours paid him. This
was no new thing; Alexander had caused himself to be worshipped, like
the ancient kings of Egypt, the majority of his successors had followed
his example; the Cæsars might well do as much. It was a logical result
of monarchy; when one man is set above the rest, it is easy for him
to fancy himself a god. The Jews alone, to their eternal honour in
history, had courage to protest against this apotheosis of tyrants
that disgraced the end of the Old World. When orders had been given to
place the emperor’s statue in the temple of Jerusalem, the attitude of
the Jews became so menacing that Petronius wrote to the emperor asking
him to revoke the command, which could only be carried into effect
by the extermination of the whole people. Agrippa was at Rome at the
time. He gave a magnificent banquet to Caligula, and when the emperor,
inflamed with wine, offered to extend his kingdom, he entreated
him to respect the religious scruples of his subjects. The emperor
yielded, but when he received Petronius’ letter he flew into a violent
rage, accused the governor of having taken bribes from the Jews, and
threatened him with the imperial vengeance. Fortunately for Petronius
and the Jews, Caligula was soon afterward assassinated by Chærea, one
of his officers. The Senate was desirous of restoring the republic,
but the prætorian guard, composed of Germans, offered the throne to
Claudius, the uncle of Caligula. According to Josephus, it was Agrippa
who persuaded him to accept, and served as intermediary between the
Senate and the army. Chærea was put to death. Claudius had no sooner
assumed possession of the empire than he added Judea, Samaria, and some
districts in the Lebanon, to the kingdom of Agrippa. The principality
of Chalcis was bestowed upon his brother Herod.
[Sidenote: [41-44 A.D.]]
Agrippa, having thus become king over the whole of Palestine, proceeded
to Jerusalem, and hung in the temple a golden chain which Caligula had
given him when he came out of prison. Like Herod, his grandfather, he
set up a great many monuments, he enlarged Jerusalem considerably, and
built an amphitheatre at Berytus, where he instituted gladiatorial
shows. But while Herod had never been able to win popularity, Agrippa
gained the affections of the Jews by showing himself a strict observer
of the Law. Munk, who takes the story from the Rabbis, tells how,
at the Feast of the Tabernacles, he read the Book of Deuteronomy in
public, and, coming to the passage in which the lawgiver denies a
foreigner the right of reigning over Israel, he burst into tears,
remembering his own Idumæan descent. But from all sides the people
cried to him, “Fear not, Agrippa, thou art our brother!” It was
undoubtedly to please the priests at Jerusalem that he put James,
the brother of John the Evangelist, to death; for the Jews, when
they were in the ascendant, were very far from allowing others the
religious liberty which they everywhere claimed for themselves.
Christian preaching might be attended with more or less success among
the communities of Jews or Jewish proselytes settled elsewhere than in
Judea; but at Jerusalem, where memories of independence still survived,
no man could be acknowledged as the true Messiah who had failed to
deliver his nation from foreign oppression, and the new sect could
not take root in the country that had been its cradle. Moreover, the
little church at Jerusalem was very inoffensive, and the Book of Acts
does not tell us on what pretext James was beheaded. Simon Peter,
the chief of the Apostles, whom Agrippa had cast into prison, was
delivered by night, and his deliverance was ascribed to angelic agency.
This miraculous deliverance of St. Peter forms the subject of one of
Raphael’s finest pictures.
[Sidenote: [44-52 A.D.]]
At Agrippa’s death, which took place a short time after, his son, also
named Agrippa, was only seventeen years of age. In spite of his youth
the emperor was desirous of letting the kingdom of Judea descend to
him, but was unfortunately dissuaded from his purpose by his advisers.
The tetrarchy of Philippi was afterward bestowed on Agrippa the
Younger, but Judea fell finally under the rule of procurators. Of all
the provinces of the empire it was the most difficult to govern. The
others accepted Roman dominion. In exchange for their independence Rome
offered civilisation to Spain and Gaul, peace and quiet to Greece and
Asia, wearied as they were by centuries of war. But the Jews understood
Græco-Roman civilisation no better than the Mohammedans understood our
own, and as for peace, they would accept it only on the condition that
they should be over all other nations: that was what they understood by
the kingdom of God.
Their Messianic dreams haunted them more and more persistently. The
land was full of visionaries, and they always found disciples. A
prophet named Theudas induced more than four hundred persons to follow
him into the wilderness by declaring that he would cause them to
pass dry-shod over Jordan. Fadus, the procurator, despatched a body
of horsemen, who slew him and dispersed his following. The author
of the Acts, who placed the said Theudas before the time of Judas
the Gaulonite, indicates the comparison generally made between the
preaching of these two agitators and that of the Apostles. Roman
governors and Jewish lovers of order saw no great difference between
men inspired and robbers. Tiberius Alexander, a renegade Jew of
Alexandria, who succeeded Fadus in the government of Judea, crucified
two sons of Judas the Gaulonite, who were still upholding the sect
of the Zealots. As for the populace, they were well disposed to all
attempts, but among innovators they liked those who adopted violent
measures better than those whose methods were peaceable; thus, as the
Gospel relates, Barabbas was preferred to Jesus.
Samaria, like Jerusalem, had its prophets and its messiahs. In the
days of Pontius Pilate there was one who gathered together a great
multitude on Mount Gerizim, promising to show them the sacred vessels
which had been buried there by Moses. Pilate punished these wretched
people so severely that Vitellius, governor of Syria, compelled him
to go to Rome, there to exculpate himself before Tiberius. In the
reign of Claudius one Simon of Gittha taught in Samaria with great
success a subtle form of theology borrowed from the Judæo-Egyptian
schools of Alexandria, which subsequently reappears in the mythological
doctrines of Christian Gnosticism. He assigned the principal rôle in
it to himself, giving himself out to be an incarnation of the great
power of God, though he acknowledged the divine mission of Jesus. He
averred that in him, Simon, God had revealed himself to the Samaritans
in the character of the Father, as he had revealed himself to the Jews
in the crucifixion of the Son, and to the Gentiles by the gift of the
Holy Ghost. The doctrine of the Trinity, perhaps borrowed from Egypt,
has become a part of Christianity, but Simon appears to have given a
place in it to the Feminine Principle, probably represented by the
Holy Ghost, that name being feminine in Hebrew. Wherever he went he
took with him a very beautiful woman, whom he had bought in the market
at Tyre. Her name was Helen, and Simon, identifying her with Homer’s
Helen, deduced from the name a mystical scheme of redemption for the
Eternal Feminine. It was the time when Christianity was first preached,
and the Apostles were credited with miraculous powers of healing by
the laying on of hands. A prophet ought to work miracles, and Simon
was accordingly anxious to purchase their methods, and proposed that
they should work together. The invincible repugnance of the Jew for the
Samaritan made them repel his advances with scorn. A legend grew up
in the Christian church about the name of Simon, surnamed Magus, who
became the type of all charlatans, and the name of simony has since
been given to all traffic in holy things.
The reciprocal antipathy of Jews and Samaritans was a source of
embarrassment to the Roman government. Some Galileans, on their way
to Jerusalem for the feasts, passed through Samaria and quarrelled
with the inhabitants. The men of Jerusalem, led by a robber chieftain,
pillaged Samaria. Cumanus, the procurator, was called upon to
intervene, and decided in favour of the Samaritans. The Jews accused
him of taking bribes, and appealed first to the governor of Syria and
then to the emperor. The young Agrippa, who stood high in the good
graces of Claudius, contrived that the Jews should win their suit, and
Cumanus was banished.
[Sidenote: [52-62 A.D.]]
From the government of this same Cumanus, Josephus dates the disorders
which ended in the destruction of Jerusalem. He had, nevertheless,
treated the religious scruples of the Jews with great consideration,
going so far as to inflict capital punishment on a Roman soldier who
had torn up a copy of the Pentateuch while engaged in suppressing a
riot. The sway of Rome was not oppressive, and the government confined
itself to protecting the public peace against adventurers who lived
on plunder under the cloak of religion, and fanatics who endeavoured
to stir up the people by promising to work miracles before them. One
of these induced thirty thousand persons to follow him to the Mount
of Olives, that thence they might see the walls of Jerusalem fall
at his behest. Felix, the procurator, sent soldiers to disperse the
multitudes, and the prophet took to flight. But it was always the same
story. “Judea,” says Josephus, “was full of robbers and sorcerers who
deceived the people, and not a day passed in which Felix did not punish
some of one sort or the other. But the robbers continued to stir up the
people to rebel against the Romans, giving over to fire and plunder the
villages of those who refused to rejoin them.”
When it might have been imagined that severe repressive measures had
delivered Judea from this pest, it reappeared in a yet more formidable
shape. At the festivals, when a great concourse of people from all
parts were gathered together at Jerusalem, bandits known as _sicarii_,
that is “men of the knife,” mingled with the throng and stabbed
their victims, without any being able to see whence the blow came,
for the assassins were the first to cry murder. “The first whom they
assassinated on this wise,” says Josephus, “was Jonathan the high
priest, and not a day passed on which they did not kill several in the
same manner. The panic that prevailed throughout the city was worse
than the evil itself. Men looked for death at any moment, as in time
of war. They saw none approach without trembling, they did not dare
to trust their friends. These precautions and suspicions did not put
a stop to the murders, so great was the daring of these villains and
their skill in hiding themselves.” Josephus does not ascribe anything
of a religious character to these assassinations. But according to
the author of the _Philosophumena_ (Origen[f] or St. Hippolytus) the
_sicarii_ were identical with the Zealots, and were connected with the
sect of the Essenes. “When they hear any of the uncircumcised speak
of God and of His law, they seek to come upon him by stealth in a
solitary place and threaten to kill him unless he will be circumcised:
if he refuses to obey, he is slain. This is wherefore they are called
Zealots, and by some _sicarii_.” Josephus, in his _Antiquities of
the Jews_ accuses Felix, the procurator, of having procured the
assassination of the high priest Jonathan by the _sicarii_, an
accusation which he does not repeat in the _Wars of the Jews_. Felix
was a brother of Pallas, the freedman and favourite of Claudius.
Tacitus speaks of him in even harsher terms than Josephus. “Claudius
made Judea into a province which he abandoned to Roman knights or to
freedmen; among these Felix distinguished himself by every sort of
cruelty and license, he exercised the authority of a despot in the base
spirit of a slave.” The Jews caused him to be accused before Nero,
who had succeeded Claudius, but he was saved by the influence of his
brother Pallas.
At Cæsarea there was a constant rivalry between the Jewish and the
Greek or Syrian part of the population. The Jews were exempt from
military service; the Greeks and Syrians, from whose ranks the legions
were recruited, were jealous of this inequality. Hence arose taunts on
the one side and recriminations on the other, sanguinary quarrels and
riots. Finally the two parties sent agents to plead their cause before
Nero, who decided against the Jews and deprived them of civil rights.
Josephus says that this decree was the cause of the rebellion of the
Jews; but it was only the last drop that makes the cup overflow. The
rebellion had long been inevitable. It was not induced, like that of
Judas Maccabæus, by religious persecution; the Romans allowed the Jews
the free exercise of their religion, as they allowed it to all other
nations. But the Jews were the chief people in the empire who did
not belong to the Indo-European race. There is an incompatibility of
temper between that race and the Semitic; we perceive the fact only
too clearly in Algeria. The demand for union with the empire, raised
after the death of Herod, had proceeded from the Jews themselves. A
procurator, even if not beyond reproach, could not possibly be worse
than their native kings. Festus, who succeeded Felix, seems to have
governed with firmness and prudence. Like his predecessors, he dealt
severely with robbers, _sicarii_, and messiahs. But nothing could
allay the fever that had laid hold upon Judea and worked madness in
the brain; for there are epidemics in the moral as in the physical
order. We cannot lay all the blame on the Romans; their rule secured
the peace of the world, a boon which was doubtless worth the sacrifice
of the restless and precarious autonomy of a few peoples. But we mourn
for Greece, and we may be permitted to mourn for Judea. Nor must we
cast a stone at this small and fiery nation, with its obstinate will
to live. Depopulated Greece had died of weariness and exhaustion.
Judea, overflowing with inhabitants, was about to die in a frenzy of
patriotism; it is the worthier death.
[Sidenote: [62 A.D.]]
In spite of the Roman occupation, the Jewish theocracy found means for
tyrannical action. The high priests seized upon the tithes due to the
priests, the principal inhabitants of Jerusalem, espoused the cause
of the inferior clergy, who were starving; there were fights in the
streets, and the Roman government looked on passively, not wishing to
meddle with religious matters. They were Agrippa’s affair, since the
appointment of the high priests had been left to him. He, though his
kingdom did not extend to the northern provinces, resided in Herod’s
palace at Jerusalem. He had built a tower, from the height of which
the inner court of the temple could be scanned. The priests regarded
this as a profanation, and built a high wall, shutting off both the
palace and the barracks of the Roman guard. Agrippa and Festus wished
to demolish it, but, thanks to the support of the Empress Poppæa,
who was a Jewess, or, at least, very well disposed towards the Jews,
the priests gained permission from Nero that the wall should remain.
After the death of Festus, and before the arrival of Ananus, the high
priest convoked the Sanhedrim to sit in judgment on and condemn certain
transgressors of the law, and, among others, James, the brother or
cousin of Jesus. Hanan belonged to the sect of the Sadducees, which
consisted entirely of wealthy people. James was greatly beloved by
the poor. The epistle attributed to him, though it preached patience
to the latter, contains passages little favourable to the rich. He
was stoned. The sentence was illegal, for the high priest had no
right to pass sentence of death in the absence of the procurator.
Ananus was deposed from his office, but the death of James gave rise
to great disaffection, and no doubt contributed to the separation of
Christians from Jews. James was one of those who endeavoured to avoid
this separation, and the church at Jerusalem, of which he was the head,
showed great attachment to the practices of Judaism.
At Rome, the preaching of Christianity had begun in the reign of
Claudius, and as it stirred up incessant quarrels among the Jews,
which led to the disturbance of public order, the emperor had them all
expelled from the city. Suetonius ascribes these scenes of disorder
to Christ; it is the first time that we meet with the name in a pagan
author, and the phraseology of Suetonius appears to indicate that,
in his opinion, Christ was a person who lived at Rome in the time
of Claudius: “_Judæos, impulsore Christo assidue tumultuantes, Roma
expulit._” According to Dion Cassius, the Jews were not expelled from
the city, but were forbidden to assemble together. The Christians were
confounded with the Jews; the distinction first began to be made under
Nero. “They put to the torture,” says Suetonius, “the Christians,
a sort of men holding a new and noxious superstition.” A terrible
fire, which destroyed more than half of Rome, gave occasion for these
tortures. Rumour accused Nero of having set fire to Rome that he might
rebuild it in greater beauty; it was even said that during the fire he
had gone up into his theatre and sung the destruction of Troy.
“To put an end to these rumours,” says Tacitus, “he sought for guilty
persons, and inflicted the most cruel tortures upon persons detested
for their infamous practices, who were commonly called Christians. This
name they took from Christ, who was condemned to death under Tiberius
by the procurator Pontius Pilate. This pernicious superstition,
suppressed for the moment, had since overflowed, not only in Judea,
where was the source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all crimes
and shames meet together. Those were first seized who confessed, and
afterwards, on their testimony, a great number of others, who were
convicted, less of having set fire to Rome than of hating the human
race. Mockery was added to torture; they were wrapped in the skins of
beasts to be cast to dogs to devour; they were crucified; they were
set alight like torches to give light by night. Nero had offered his
gardens for this spectacle, and he mingled with the people in the garb
of a charioteer or driving a chariot. Thus these wretches, though
deserving of exemplary punishment, inspired pity, for they were not
sacrificed to the interests of the public but to the cruelty of a
single man.”
It seems as though the Christians must have been safe in their
obscurity from the emperor’s notice if it had not been directed to them
by some special influence. Gibbon appears to believe that the beautiful
Poppæa, the mistress and wife of Nero, and a Jewish comedian who had
won his master’s favour, prevented the persecution from spreading to
all Jews at Rome by concentrating it on a dissenting sect, in very
evil odour with genuine Israelites. Renan goes farther, and thinks
that the persecution directed against the Christians may have been
excited by the intrigues of the Jews. He bases his opinion upon an
ingenious interpretation of a very obscure passage in Clemens Romanus.
Against this conjecture we may set the silence of the Apocalypse, which
contains no allusion to Poppæa nor to the Neronian persecution. Now, as
Renan has demonstrated by a wealth of evidence, the Apocalypse was a
direct outcome of this persecution.
Nero is Antichrist and the Beast, and the number 666, which is the
number of the Beast, represents the letters of his name, Νέρων Καισαρ,
transcribed in Hebrew and added up according to their numerical value.
Like the Book of Daniel, written at the time of the great struggle
of the Jews with the kings of Syria, the Book of the Revelation is a
political and religious pamphlet. The author gives his estimate of
the events of his time or expounds his hopes for the future under
the figure of prophetic visions and of enigmas to which he sometimes
supplies the key. The Jews were extremely fond of this form of
literature. The Apocalypse, _i.e._, the Revelation, ascribed to John,
the last survivor of the Apostolic band, was written during the period
of anarchy which lay between the death of Nero and the accession of
Vespasian. It was the eve of the last agony of Judea; the speedy
dissolution of the Roman Empire was expected. A supreme conflict
between heaven and earth was about to begin, and would end by the
great judgment of God and the reign of his Christ. Nor did the prophet
lie; for it was in truth the end of the old world and the birth of the
new.[b]
[Illustration: JEWISH HEADDRESSES]