Josephus also mentions, that a person whose name was "Niger, being put to death by the seditious Jews, "imprecated pestilence upon them; which happened a "short time after:"1-and, "that being assembled together from all parts, to the feast of unleavened bread; a sudden plague fell amongst them from the closeness "of the place."2 Josephus makes no other mention of earthquakes, than, that "when the Idumæans would have entered "into the city, there was a horrible tempest, violent "winds and rain, frequent lightnings, terrible thunders, and mighty roarings of the quaking of the earth; "insomuch that it seemed as if the state and frame of "the world had been disturbed." 66 4 Suetonius speaks of an earthquake, and Tacitus mentions another at Rome; and a third at Apamea, in the reign of Claudius; which was so destructive, that the Emperour remitted the tribute of the city, for five years; also another at Laodicea, in the reign of Nero. Eusebius, in his Chronicle, affirms, "that three "cities plebantur. Non sexus, non ætas periculo vacua. Servitia perinde ac ingenua plebes raptim extingui, inter conjugium et liberorum lamenta, qui dum assident, dum deflent, sæpe eodem rogo cremabantur.-Ann. xvi. 13. 2 Bell. Jud. 7. xvii. 1. 1 Bell. Jud. 5. i. 1. 3 Bell. Jud. 4. xvii. 5. Infessum diris avibus Capitolium: 4 Multa eo anno prodigia evenere. erebis TERRÆ MOTIBUS prorutæ domus.—Ann. xii. 43. 5 Tributumque Apamiensibus TERRE MOTU convulsis in quinquennium remissum.-Ann. xii. 58. 6 Eodem anno ex illustribus Asiæ urbibus Laodicea TREMORE PROLAPSA, nullo a nobis remedio, propriis viribus revaluit.-Ann. xiv. 27. "cities of Asia were overthrown by an earthquake" at the same time. i In the sixty-second year of the Christian æra, there was a great earthquake in Campania, which destroyed the City of Pompeia, mentioned also by Tacitus, but more fully described by Seneca; together with the ruin of Herculaneum, and the injury sustained in the city of Naples; both as to the smaller, though public loss to the citizens; and the greater, but private, injury sustained by the individuals of the surrounding country, from the destruction of their cattle. s The predictions therefore referring to these three distinct kinds of calamities, appear to have been fully verified. III. Again it was predicted that the Gospel should be pub 1 In Asia tres urbes TERRE MOTU conciderunt Laodicea, Hierapolis, Co lossæ.-Chr. p. 161. 2 EX MOTU TERRÆ celebre Campaniæ oppidum Pompeii magna ex parte proruit.-Ann. xv. 22. Hi autem terræ motus a Christo prædicti partim in Claudii partim in Neronis, tempora inciderunt. Gravis terræ motus qui in Creta accidit, Claudio imperante, meminit Philostratus in vita Apolloni; item terræ motuum Smyrnæ Mileti, Chii, Sami paulò ante tempora exisæ urbis Hieros. Grotius in Matt. xxiv. 7. 9 Pompeios, celebrem Campaniæ urbem-desedisse TERRÆ MOTU, vexatis quacunque adjacentibus regionibus, Lucili virorum optime, audivimus: et quidem in diebus hibernis, quos vacare a tali periculo majores nostri solebant promittere. Nonis Febr. fuit motus hic, Regulo et Virginio Consulibus, qui Campaniam nunquam securam hujus mali, idemnem tamen, et totiens defunctam metu, magna strage vastavit. Nam et Herculanensis oppidi pars ruit, dubieque stant etiam quæ relicta sunt. Et Nucirinorum colonia, ut sine clade, ita non sine querela est. Neapolis quoque privatim multa, publice nihil amisit, leviter ingenti malo perstricta. Villæ vero prærupta passim sine injuria tremuere. Adjiciunt his sexcentarum ovium gregem exanimatum, et divisas statuas. Senec. Not. Qu. I. 6. c. 1. published to all nations, and be preached in all the world. 1 Tacitus bears witness and speaks largely of the introduction of the Christian Religion to the Roman Empire; which including the nations immediately surrounding, was at that time considered as the whole of the world. He remarks in particular, that the Christian Religion which arose in Judea, spread over many parts of the world, and extended to Rome itself; where the professors of it, as early as the time of Nero, amounted to a vast multitude.2 St. Paul, the great Apostle of the Gentiles, himself preached the Gospel to the greater part of the known world. "He went," says Clemens in his Epistle to the Corinthians," to the utmost bounds of East and West." When therefore we survey the tract of his travels, for the promulgation and establishment of Christianity, to all the nations whose inhabitants were strangers to Judea; and consider also the intercourse subsisting between the Jews and the Medes, Parthians, Elamites, Meso 1 AND THE GOSPEL MUST FIRST BE PUBLISHED AMONG ALL NATIONS-Mark iiii. 10. AND THIS GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM SHALL BE PREACHED IN ALL THE WORLD, FOR A WITNESS UNTO ALL NATIONS.-Matt. xxiv. 14. So that from Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the Gospel of Christ.-Rom. xv. 19. 2 Ann. xv. 44. "It is by an effect of the same Providence," says Rollin," which prepared from far the ways of the Gospel; that when the Messiah revealed himself in the flesh, God had united together a great number of Nations, by the Latin and Greek Tongues: and had subjected to one Monarch, from the Ocean to the Euphrates, all the People not united by Language, in order to give a more free course to the preaching of the Apostles." Preface to Ancient Hist. |
