REMARKS ON 00000000 I +0000 Ecclefiaftical History. XT has been often obferved that Christianity made its appearance in the moft proper time, and under a favourable concurrence of circumftances. Something has been faid on this head in my fourth Difcourfe on the Chriftian Religion: what is now offered to the Reader is partly a continuation of the same subject; and these Remarks are intended, in fome measure, as a fupplement to those Discourses. Christianity began to gain ground in Judæa and its neighbourhood in the reign of Tiberius, a very wicked prince, but who was fo occupied with his lufts and with his cruelty towards confiderable perfons whom he hated, envied, or feared, and was alfo naturally fo flow and indolent, that either he heard little of this remote VOL. I. B and and rifing fect, or thought it beneath his notice, and fo did it no harm. a It is probable that Pilate, who had no enmity towards Christ, and accounted him a man unjustly accused, and an extraordinary perfon, might be moved by the wonderful circumstances attending and following his death to hold him in veneration, and perhaps to think him a Hero, and the fon of fome Deity. It is poffible that he might fend a narrative, fuch as he thought moft convenient, of these transactions to Tiberius; but it is not at all likely that Tiberius proposed to the Senate that Christ fhould be deified, and that the Senate rejected it, and that Tiberius continued favourably difpofed towards Chrift, and that he threatened to punish those who should moleft and accuse the Chriftians. This report refts principally upon the authority of Tertullian, who was very capable of being deceived, and Eufebius had it from him, Eccl. Hift. ii. 2. The ancient Christians might have been misinformed in this, as in fome other points. Tiberius was of an irreligious difpofition and a fatalift, and little difpofed to encrease the number of the Gods and the burden of Atlas: b Circa deos ac religiones negligentior: quippe addictus mathematica; perfuafionifque plenus cuncta fato agi. He hated foreign fuperftitions, Ægyptian and Jewish rites: • Externas cæremonias, Ægyptios Judaicof с See Le Clerc Hift. Eccl. p. 324. Sueton. Tiber. 69. que e que ritus compefcuit. He d and the Senate had expelled the Jews from Rome, and about the time of Chrift's crucifixion he had destroyed an illuftrious family, for this, amongst other reafons, that divine honours had been paid to one Theophanes an ancestor of theirs: Datum erat crimini quod Theophanem Mitylenæum proavum eorum Cn. Magnus inter intimos habuiffet: quodque defuncto Theophani cæleftes honores Græca adulatio tribuerat. Auguftus commended Caius for not worshipping at Jerufalem: f Caium nepotem, quod fudæam prætervehens, apud Hierofolymam non fupplicaffet, collaudavit: and Tiberius made it a rule, omnia facta dictaque ejus vice legis obfervare, as he fays of himself in Tacitus, Ann. Iv. 37. Observe also that the Jews perfecuted the Apoftles and flew Stephen, and that Saul made havock of the Church, entering into every house, and haling men and women, committed them to prifon, and that Pilate connived at all this violence, and was not afraid of the refentment of Tiberius on that account. The custom which the Romans had to deify and adore their emperors, most of them after their decease, and fome of them during their lives, even though they were the vileft of mankind, the apotheofis of Antinöus, Adrian's favourite, the contempt which many emperors, Tacitus, Suetonius, Jofephus. • Tacitus Ann. vi. 18. B 2 as Tiberius, and Caius, and Nero fhewed towards their Gods, the endeavour of Heliogabalus to fupprefs the worship of the ancient deities, and to introduce a ridiculous God of his own, the ftrange Egyptian deities which had crept into Italy, and were there adored by fome and detefted by others, the liberty which i many learned perfons had taken with the popular religion, these things had a tendency to wean the Pagans by flow degrees from their attachment to idolatry, and to facilitate the worship of one God and Father of all, who by his Son, or his Word, reconciled to himself and inftructed mankind, and by his Spirit affifted virtuous minds in their progress to wisdom and happiness, as a religion more fimple, and noble, and philofophical, and reasonable than Paganism. The Senate, fays Dio, ordered the temples of Ifis and Serapis to be pulled down, and afterwards would not fuffer any to be erected intra pomærium. Τις ναὸς, ὃς ἰδίᾳ τινὲς ἐπεποί ηνο, καθελῶν τῇ Βελῇ ἔδοξεν ε γὰρ δὴ τὸς θεὸς * Religionum ufquequaque contemtor, præter unius Deæ Syriæ. Hanc mox ita fprevit, ut urinâ contaminaret. Suet. Ner. 56. Heliogabalum in Palatino monte juxta ædes imperatorias confecravit, eique templum fecit, ftudens et Matris typum, et Veftæ ignem, et Palladium, et ancilia, et omnia Romanis veneranda in illud transferre templum, et id agens, ne quis Romæ deus nifi Heliogabalus coleretur, &c. Lampridius 3. i It is related fomewhere of Diogenes the Cynic, that, to fhew his contempt of facrifices, he took a loufe, and cracked it upon the altar of Diana. ἐνόμισαν, ενόμισαν, και ότε γε C ἐξενίκησεν, ὥτε και δημοσίᾳ αὐτοὺς σέβεις, ἔξω τὸ πωμηρίς σφᾶς ἱδρύσαντο. ΧΙ. P. 142. A little after the civil war between Cæfar and Pompey, the Harufpices ordered the temples of these deities to be demolished. Dio XLII. p. 196. How much the goddefs Ifis and her facred rites were despised may be seen in Propertius ii. 24. Lucan VIII. 831. 1x. 158. Juvenal vi. 489. 526. Ix. 22. not to mention feveral others. The apotheofis of the Roman Emperors is made the fubject of the utmost contempt and ridicule by Seneca in his 'Αποκολοκαύτωσις. The Romans knew not much of Chriftianity, and in a great measure overlooked it, till its profeffors were fo confiderably increased, that they could not easily be destroyed. Christianity at first was more likely to profper under bad than under good Emperors, if these were tenacious of their religious rites and ceremonies. The bad Emperors had ufually other crimes and other mischief in view, and no leisure to plague such a little fect, little when compared to Paganism. And accordingly from the death of Chrift to Vefpafian, for about the space of thirty-feven years, the Romans did not much mind the progrefs of the Gofpel. They were ruled by weak, or frantic, and vitious Emperors; the Magiftrates and Senators, and every worthy man of any note ftood in continual fear for their own lives. Under Galba, Otho, and Vitellius B 3. the |