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universe. This charge was strongly countenanced by the majority of the Jews themselves, who as yet expected in their Messiah a temporal deliverer. Hence the cruel precaution of forcing the Jewish youths to enlist, contrary to their own laws, and to the privileges they had hitherto enjoyed under Augustus. Hence, too, such as refused, to the amount of some thousands, were put to death, and the rest of the nation banished from Italy, not to return under the penalty of perpetual slavery.

Josephus, indeed, tells us, that these calamities were brought upon the Jewish people by the wickedness of four men. Considering these men as chief agents in propagating the new religion, which they had corrupted by falsehoods, and debased by their immoralities, we may justly admit the fact. But detach them from the influence which the christian doctrine produced upon the body of the Jews and Egyptians; that is, regard them as unconnected with the rest of those nations by means of their profession, and it will appear utterly incredible that, on their account, however flagrant their guilt might have been, all their countrymen should have been exposed to such calamities. To extend to a whole people the crimes committed only by a few, and involve the innocent with the guilty, who were but four, in the punishment due to the latter only, is a de

gree of barbarity, strange in itself, and inconsistent with the practice of the Roman government. Josephus limits the crimes alleged by Sejanus, and his partisans against the Jews in general, to four men ; and thus he defends the followers of Jesus from the calumnies with which they were maligned, in the very place, as we shall soon see, he defends Jesus himself.

Philo assures us, that Tiberius became sensible that the sufferers were misrepresented and calumniated, and that therefore he soon put a stop to this persecution, having prohibited it at Rome, and sent an edict for the same purpose to all the provinces. In this testimony Philo is followed

Tertullian and other christian writers. And what should we expect to be the effect of such a measure, as soon as it had time to be known, and to operate in Judea. What but the effect stated in the following simple narrative, "Then had all the churches rest throughout all Judea, and Galilee, and Samaria, and were edified and multiplied." Acts ix. 31.

This event took place about the time when Tiberius died; and the description, which Philo gives of the state of the Roman empire on the accession of Caligula implies, that the repose of the churches proceeded from this edict. "What person," says he, " on beholding Caius, when, after the death of Tiberius, he had assumed do

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minion over every land and sea; which dominion held every country east, west, north, and south, in tranquillity and order; which united every province in social harmony, blended together in congratulating the return, and in enjoying the blessings of universal peace; who, I say, on seeing this felicity under Caius, which it exceeds the power of words to describe, would not be filled with extacy at the sight." If then such was the happy state of every city, of every place in the Roman empire, in consequence of the measures abovementioned adopted by Tiberius, the churches in Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, must have shared in the general blessing, and derived their repose from the regulations which produced it.

Eusebius also represents the tranquillity of the churches as proceeding from the same cause. "Tiberius," says he, (Eccles. Histor. lib. ii. 2.) "threatened death to such as accused the Christians; this being suggested to his mind by Divine Providence, that the doctrine of the gospel, having the beginning of its race clear from obstruction, might freely run through every land." Dr. Lardner, indeed, has entirely overlooked the operations of this edict; and he supposes the rest in question to arise from the distress which the Jews endured, by the mad attempt of Caligula to place his statue in the temple of Jerusalem. But the

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supposition is inadequate, and utterly foreign to the effect to be accounted for; and it implies withal the severest reflection on the disciples of the benevolent Jesus. For it implies, that they were so unfeeling, so destitute of regard for their brethren the Jews, so unconcerned for the great cause for which they suffered, as to enjoy rest at a time when the whole country was involved in oné scene of horror and devastation to be comforted and edified, when men, women, and children lay on the ground with their breasts bare to receive the sword of the tyrant." Lard. Vol. I. p. 97.

The narrative of Josephus represents the Jewish believers in Rome, as innocent in general, but stigmatizes four of them, as wicked in every respect. According to Philo, the edict of Tiberius made a distinction, which unfortunately had not been made at first, between the innocent and the guilty, enjoining the magistrates of the provinces to protect the former, and to punish only the latter, who were few. This just distinction, is recognized by Paul, in that part of his letter to the christians in Rome, where he enforces the duty of obedience to the civil rulers. "These," Rom. xii. 3, "are not a terror to the good but to evil doers." The apostle Peter recognizes the same distinction. "Submit yourselves to governors as unto men that are sent by him, for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them who do well.”

2 Pet. ii. 13. Here then is a very remarkable circumstance, Paul writing in Greece, Peter in Rome or Judea, and Philo about the same time in Egypt, use the very same language; and that in circumstances, in which neither would or could have used it. Because so notoriously hostile were the magistrates in general to Christ and his followers that, when left to themselves, they were more disposed to punish the active and virtuous than the guilty among them. It is manifest, therefore, that the language of these three writers owes its coincidence to the edict of the emperor, which had been sent to, and made known in, all the provinces.

But

Josephus represents those of the Jews who enlisted as sent into the island of Sardinia. Suetonius asserts, in more general terms, that they were sent into provinces of a severe climate. Some of them, no doubt, were conveyed to Great Britain, where at this time existed military stations, and to this island those victims of cruelty and injustice must have brought with them the name and doctrine of Christ. And this will account for the following passage of Gildas, which I extract from Camden's Britannia, Gough's edition, p. 50. "In the mean time," writes he, "the island exposed to the severest cold, and as it were in the extremity of the earth, out of the reach of the visible sun, was first, under the reign

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