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darkness, which opposed the kingdom of light; and believing, from the prophecy of Daniel sanctioned by Christ, that all such power would, in the end, be utterly destroyed, fondly concluded that the proud mistress of the world would undergo the fall which the holy city so signally experienced. Nero could not be ignorant that such a notion was cherished by perhaps a majority of the christians in Rome, and that by some of them a prophecy, inculcating the conflagration of the capital, was forged and circulated under the high authority of the Sibyl. The tyrant naturally availed himself of these circumstances, as affording a fair opportunity of indulging in security, the most unparalleled malice, cruelty, and revenge. The city he set on fire in various quarters, and pointed to the christians as the perpetrators of the horrid deed. The accusation, he knew, would appear plausible, as their sentiments respecting its approaching conflagration were notorious. And it is farther worthy of remark, that, as we are informed by Dion Cassius, Nero sung an oracle on this occasion, as though he held out to the enraged populace, that this was an act by which the christians endeavoured to fulfil their own prediction.

Gibbon, being desirous to shew that he at least admired, if he could not rival, the talents of Tacitus, has painted him in all the attractive colours of

virtue and genius. His historical compositions, indeed, will doubtless ever continue the admiration of mankind: but if we divest him of the splendor, which adorns his name as a writer, we shall see abundant reason to detest him as a man. In a moral view his character, instead of raising our notions of human nature, as his encomiast would have us believe, will be found to add deeper shades to our darkest ideas of human depravity. This man was one of the bitterest and ablest enemies of the gospel which antiquity produced. The vices which stand most opposite to the soft and endearing qualities of our nature are cruelty and falsehood; and these are rendered more inexcusable and odious, when accompanied with high intellectual endowments. Tacitus had early enlisted under the banners of superstition, and he employed his great and luminous faculties to suppress the rising empire of truth and virtue; and to check the dearest interests of mankind, their conversion from ignorance, guilt, and misery, to knowledge, virtue, and happiness. I shall bring into one view the facts which justify these reflections*.

* Tacitus has treated of the Jews, in the fifth book of his history. It is particularly worthy of notice, that his description appears to allude to the Jewish believers as the persons who chiefly excited his animosities. "The first elements of

1. The pages of Jewish history were open before the public at the time when Tacitus wrote his work; yet in preference to Josephus, whom he knew to be most worthy of credit, he followed Apollonius, Manetho, Apion, Helicon, and others, who furnished materials for ridiculing and ca

their religion," says he, "teach their proselytes to despise the gods, to abjure their country, and forget their parents, their brothers, and their children."-Apud ipsos fides obstinata, adversus omnes alios hostile odium. He says the same thing of the christians by name. Odio humani generis convicti sunt. We have already noticed a passage in Philo intended to meet this accusation; and I here subjoin another which is directly on the subject. Τοις νόμοις ασκησαντες, πολλῇ τινι περιουσια χρωμεθα φιλανθωπιας, του μεν λύπειν και αντιλυπειν αλληλους απεχομενοι, τα δ' οικεία αγαθα μη θησαυροφυλακουντες, αλλα εις μέσον προφέρον τις καθαπερ συγγενεσι, και εκ φύσεως αδελφοις, τοις παν ταχη πασίν. ετι τοινυν το μεν εθνος επι μισανθρωπια δια βαλλέτωσαν, τους δε νομους ὡς αμικτα και ακοινώνητα παραγγέλλοντες αιτιάσθωσαν οι δεινοι οι δείνοι συκοφανται. Vol. ii. 399. p. 711. Disciplined by our laws, we give pre-eminent proofs of philanthropy, as we not only abstain from mutually grieving one another, but bring forth our treasures in common, instead of hoarding them up, and invite all men of every place and description to share of them, as if they were our kindred and even our brethren. This being the case, let cruel calumniators represent our nation as hating the human race; and accuse our institutions as sifish and unsocial...

lumniating the Jews. Thus he gives it as the opinion of some, that the Jews came from Crete, and derived their name from mount Ida; that they were driven from Egypt as afflicted by the leprosy; that they worshipped the ass in the temple of Jerusalem, because that animal conducted them to springs of water in the wilderness, with many other calumnies equally false and malicious. 2. He represents the whole Jewish nation, and the Jewish believers among the number, indiscriminately as robbers and as enemies of the human race; and while, in general terms, he inculcates their guilt, he was unable to specify a single act of which they were guilty. 3. To make Basilides a more exact parallel with Josephus, Tacitus says that he was one of the Egyptian nobles, though he must have known, that he had been a slave, and then a freedman of Vespasian; and he gravely states that his name and appearance in the temple, while eighty miles distant from Alexandria, presignified the approaching elevation of that emperor. 4. On the authority of the priests, Tacitus relates the advent of Serapis in Egypt; and he inculcates his superiority to Jesus Christ; as the former did not, like the latter, come to destroy the community to which he was sent, but to make it a kingdom great among the nations: and that the departure of Serapis might not be less miraculous than that

of Jesus, he represents him as ascending to heaven in a column of fire. Lastly, Tacitus represents Serapis as performing, by the ministry of Vespasian, two miracles similar to those which our Lord wrought by the finger of God. These are the things which Tacitus has recorded, and that with all the solemnity of truth. He did not, he could not believe them to be true; yet he uses the full force of the Roman language, in order to impose them as such on the credulity of his readers*. Nothing can add to the infamy and guilt of this conduct, but the consideration that his object was to counteract the counsel of God, and the happiness of mankind.

Though Tacitus deals in dark accusations against the christians, he has left the founder of

• Tacitus intimates, that both these miracles were related by men who had been present; that such persons, being still alive, continued to relate them in his time; and that their relation must be true, because they had no motive to tell a falsehood. Utrumque, qui interfuere nunc quoque memorant, postquam nullum mendacio pretium. He also endeavours to obviate the suspicion of contrivance by observing, that one of the patients was known to have been blind. Though the courtesy of modern critics has disposed them to speak of Tacitus with unqualified admiration, his character seems to have been more justly estimated by the christian fathers. Tertullian says, that he was a man beyond all others loquacious of falsehoods. Ille sane mendaciorum loquacissimus.

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