after the days of Paul and Peter, they amounted simply to the recognition of something like an honorary precedence. At that period it was, perhaps, deemed equally imprudent and ungracious to quarrel with its pretensions, more especially as the community by which they were advanced was distributing its bounty all around, and was itself nobly sustaining the brunt of almost every persecution. In the course of time, the Church of Rome proceeded to challenge a substantial supremacy; and then the facts of its early history were mis-stated and exaggerated in accommodation to the demands of its growing ambition. It was said at first that "its faith was spoken of throughout the whole world;" it was at length alleged that its creed should be universally adopted. It was admitted at an early period that, as it had enjoyed the ministrations of Peter and Paul, it should be considered an apostolic church; it was at length asserted that, as an apostle was entitled to deference from ordinary pastors, a church instructed by two of the most eminent apostles had a claim to the obedience of other churches. In process of time it was discovered that Paul was rather an inconvenient companion for the apostle of the circumcision; and Peter alone then began to be spoken of as the founder and first bishop of the Church of Rome. Strange to say, a system founded on a fiction has since sustained the shocks of so many centuries. One of the greatest marvels of this "mystery of iniquity" is its tenacity of life; and did not the sure word of prophecy announce that the time would come when it would be able to boast of its antiquity, and did we not know that paganism can plead a more remote original, we might be perplexed by its longevity. But "the vision is yet for an appointed time at the end it shall speak and not lie. Though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry."

"

* Hab. ii. 3.

CHAPTER XI.

THE PERSECUTIONS OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH, AND ITS CONDITION AT THE TERMINATION OF THE

FIRST CENTURY.

JESUS CHRIST was a Jew, and it might have been expected that the advent of the most illustrious of His race, in the character of the Prophet announced by Moses, would have been hailed with enthusiasm by His countrymen. But the result was far otherwise. "He came unto his own, and his own received him not."* The Jews cried " Away with him, away with him, crucify him;"† and He suffered the fate of the vilest criminal. The enmity of the posterity of Abraham to our Lord did not terminate with His death; they long maintained the bad pre-eminence of being the most inveterate of the persecutors of His early followers. Whilst the awful portents of the Passion, and the marvels of the day of Pentecost were still fresh in public recollection, their chief priests and elders threw the apostles into prison;‡ and soon afterwards the pious and intrepid Stephen fell a victim to their malignity. Their infatuation was extreme; and yet it was not unaccountable. They looked, not for a crucified, but for a conquering Messiah. They imagined that the Saviour would release them from the thraldom of the Roman yoke; that He would make Jerusalem the capital of a prosperous and powerful empire; and that all

* John i. 11.

John xix. 15.

Acts iv. 3, v. 18.

the ends of the earth would celebrate the glory of the chosen people. Their vexation, therefore, was intense when they discovered that so many of the seed of Jacob acknowledged the son of a carpenter as the Christ, and made light of the distinction between Jew and Gentile. In their case the natural aversion of the heart to a pure and spiritual religion was inflamed by national pride combined with mortified bigotry; and the fiendish spirit which they so frequently exhibited in their attempts to exterminate the infant Church may thus admit of the most satisfactory explanation.

Many instances of their antipathy to the new sect have already been noticed. In almost every town where the missionaries of the cross appeared, the Jews "opposed themselves and blasphemed;" and magistrates speedily discovered that in no way could they more easily gain the favour of the populace than by inflicting sufferings on the Christians. Hence, as we have seen, about the time of Paul's second visit to Jerusalem after his conversion, Herod, the grandson of Herod the Great, "killed James, the brother of John, with the sword; and because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also." The apostle of the circumcision was delivered by a miracle from his grasp; but it is probable that other individuals of less note felt the effects of his severity. Even in countries far remote from their native land, the posterity of Abraham were the most bitter opponents of Christianity. As there was much intercourse between Palestine and Italy, the gospel soon found its way to the seat of government; and it has been conjectured that some civic disturbance created in the great metropolis by the adherents of the synagogue, and intended to annoy and intimidate the new sect, prompted the Emperor Claudius, about A.D. 53, to interfere in the manner described by Luke, and to command "all + See Acts xvii. 5, xviii. 12.

*Acts xii. 2, 3.

Jews to depart from Rome."* But the hostility of the Israelites was most formidable in their own country; and for this, as well as other reasons, "the brethren which dwelt in Judea" specially required the sympathy of their fellowbelievers throughout the Empire. When Paul appeared in the temple at the feast of Pentecost in A.D. 58, the Jews, as already related, made an attempt upon his life; and when the apostle was rescued by the Roman soldiers, a conspiracy was formed for his assassination. Four years afterwards, or about A.D. 62,† another apostle, James surnamed the Just, who seems to have resided chiefly in Jerusalem, finished his career by martyrdom. Having proclaimed Jesus to be the true Messiah on a great public occasion, his fellow-citizens were so indignant that they threw him from a pinnacle of the temple. As he was still alive when he reached the ground, he was forthwith assailed with a shower of stones, and beaten to pieces with the club of a fuller.

As the Christians were at first confounded with the Jews, the administrators of the Roman law, for upwards of thirty years after our Lord's death, conceded to them the religious toleration enjoyed by the seed of Abraham. But, from the beginning, "the sect of the Nazarenes❞ enjoyed very little of the favour of the heathen multitude. Paganism had set its mark upon all the relations of life, and had erected an idol wherever the eye could turn. It had a god

✦ Acts xviii. 2. Suetonius in Claud. (c. 25), says "Judæos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit." The words Christus and Chrestus seem to have been often confounded, and it has been thought that the historian here refers to some riotous proceedings among the Jews in Rome arising out of discussions relative to Christianity. These disturbances took place about A.D. 53. It is remarkable that even in the beginning of the third century the Christians were sometimes called Chrestiani. Hence Tertullian says "Sed et cum perperam Chrestianus pronunciatur a vobis, nam nec nominis certa est notitia penes vos, de suavitate vel benignitate compositum est." "Apol." c. iii. See also "Ad Nationes," lib. i. c. 3.

+ See Greswell's "Dissertations,” iv. p. 233.

Eusebius, ii. 23.

of War, and a god of Peace; a god of the Sea, and a god of the Wind; a god of the River, and a god of the Fountain ; a god of the Field, and a god of the Barn Floor; a god of the Hearth, a god of the Threshold, a god of the Door, and a god of the Hinges.* When we consider its power and prevalence in the apostolic age, we need not wonder at the declaration of Paul-“All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." Whether the believer entered into any social circle, or made his appearance in any place of public concourse, he was constrained in some way to protest against dominant errors; and almost exactly in proportion to his consistency and conscientiousness, he was sure to incur the dislike of the more zealous votaries of idolatry. Hence it was that the members of the Church were so soon regarded by the pagans as a morose generation instinct with hatred to the human race. In A.D. 64,

when Nero, in a fit of recklessness, set fire to his capital, he soon discovered that he had, to a dangerous extent, provoked the wrath of the Roman citizens; and he attempted, in consequence, to divert the torrent of public indignation from himself, by imputing the mischief to the Christians. They were already odious as the propagators of what was considered "a pernicious superstition," and the tyrant, no doubt, reckoned that the mob of the metropolis were prepared to believe any report to the discredit of these sectaries. But even But even the pagan historian who records the commencement of this first imperial persecution, and who was deeply prejudiced against the disciples of our Lord, bears testimony to the falsehood of the accusation. Nero,

* "Certi enim esse debemus, si quos latet per ignorantiam literaturæ secularis, etiam ostiorum deos apud Romanos, Cardeam a cardinibus appellatam, et Forculum a foribus, et Limentinum a limine, et ipsum Janum a janua.” Tertullian, "De Idololatria," c. 15. See also the same writer "Ad Nationes," ii. c. 10, 15; and "De Corona," 13.

† 2 Tim. iii. 12. Cyprian touches upon the same subject in his Treatise on the "Vanity of Idols,” c. 2.