in labours, dangers and sufferings, voluntarily undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely in

ed in the several accounts that have come down to us. And this inquiry is properly preceded by the other,

aries; the source from which it is drawn is unsuspected. Under this head, a quotation from Tacitus, well known to every scholar, must be inserted, as deserving particular attention. The reader will bear in mind that this passage was written about seventy years after Christ's death, and that it rela

ain; and spread not only over Judea, where the evil originated, but through Rome also, whither everything bad upon the earth finds its way and is practised. Some who confessed their sect were first seized, and afterwards, by their information, a vast multitude were apprehended, who were convicted, not so much of the crime of burning Rome, as of hatred to mankind. Their sufferings at their execution were aggravated by insult and mockery; for some were disguised in the skins of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs; some were crucified; and others were wrapped in pitched shirts,* and

___

l says; "Nero maleficos homines taeda et papyro et cera supervestiebat, et sic ad

short check, broke out again and spread; 3dly, that it so spread as that, within thirty-four years from the Author's death, a very great number of Christians (ingens eorum multitudo) were found at Rome. From which fact, the two following inferences may be fairly drawn: first, that if, in the space of thirty-four years from its commencement, the religion had spread throughout Judea, had extended itself to

words: "Affecti suppliciis Christiani genus hominum superstitionis novae et maleficae." (Suet. Nero. Ca

Christians, or that they were the Christians of Rome who alone suffered, it is probable that Suetoni

ding, it should seem, to commemorate the cruelties exercised und

num, taeda lu

dent, qui fixo

cum deducit arena"

hose who stand burning in their own flame and smoke, their head being held up by a stake f

Suetonius, as to the actual punishment of the Christians by Nero, and with the account given by Tacitus of the species of puni

d by the apostles, or who were converted in their time. If then the Founder of the religion was put to death in the execution of his design; if the first race of converts to the religion, many of them, suffered the greatest extremities for their professio

to produce this state of things within this time. Secondly, to a point which has been already noticed, and, which I think of importance to be observed, namely, the sufferings to which Christians were exposed, without any public persecution being denounced against them by sovereign authority. For, from Pliny's doubt how he was to act, his silence concerning any subsisting law on the subject, his requesting the emperor's rescript, and the emperor, agreeably to his request, propounding a rule for his direction without reference to any prior rule, it may be inferred that there was, at that time, no public edict in force against the Christians. Yet from this same epistle of Pliny it appears "that accusations, trials, and examinations, were, and had been, going on against them in the provinces over which he presided; that schedules were delivered by anonymous informers, containing the names of persons who were suspected of holding or of favouring the religion; that, in consequence of these informatio

iny: and, as his manner was, made the suffering

nuper spec

suit qui sua

tisque tibi du

pectora pl

r, tunica prae

lus est dicer

"thure

goes also to another point, viz, that the deaths of these men were martyrdom in the strictest sense, that is to say, were so voluntary, tha

ut fifty years afterwards, by Marcus Aurelius, who ascribes it to obstinacy. "Is it possible (Epictetus asks) that a man may arrive at this temper, and become indifferent to those things from madness o