nity is conferred among you by the decrees of men. Unless a god pleases men he is not made a god; and thus, according to this procedure, it is necessary that man should be propitious to the god. Tiberius, therefore, under whom the name of Christ was spread throughout the world, when this doctrine was announced to him from Palestine, where it first began, communicated with the senate, being obviously pleased with the doctrine; but the senate, as they had not proposed the measure, rejected it. But he continued in his opinion, threatening death to the accusers of the Christians; a divine providence infusing this into his mind, that the gospel, having freer scope in its commencement, might spread every where over the world."

CHAPTER III.

HOW THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE SOON SPREAD THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE WORLD.

THUS, then, under a celestial influence and co-operation, the doctrine of the Saviour, like the rays of the sun, quickly irradiated the whole world. Presently, in accordance with divine prophecy, the sound of his inspired evangelists and apostles had gone throughout all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. Throughout every city and village, like a replenished barn floor, churches were rapidly found abounding, and filled with members from every people. Those who, in consequence of the delusions that had descended to them from their ancestors, had been fettered by the ancient disease of idolatrous superstition, were now liberated, by the power of Christ, through the teaching and miracles of his messengers. And, as if delivered from dreadful masters, and emancipated from the most cruel bondage, on the one hand renounced the whole multitude of gods and demons, and on the other, confessed that there was only one true God, the Creator of all things. This same God they now also honoured with the rites of a true piety, under the influence of that inspired and reasonable worship which had been planted among men by our Saviour. But the gratuitous benevolence of God being now poured out also upon the

rest of the nations, Cornelius was the first of Cæsarea in Palestine, who, with his whole house, received the faith in Christ, through a divine vision and the agency of Peter; as did also a great number of Greeks at Antioch, to whom the gospel had been preached by those who were scattered by the persecution of Stephen.

The church at Antioch, also, now flourishing and abounding in members, and the greatest number of teachers coming hither from Jerusalem, with whom were Barnabas and Paul, and many other brethren with them, the epithet of Christians first sprung up at that place, as from a grateful and productive soil. Agabus, also, one of the assembled prophets, uttered a prediction respecting the impending famine, and Paul and Barnabas were delegated to proceed to the relief of the necessities of the brethren.

CHAPTER IV.

CAIUS (CALIGULA) AFTER THE DEATH OF TIBERIUS, APPOINTS AGRIPPA KING OF THE JEWS, AFTER PUNISHING HEROD WITH PERPETUAL EXILE.

TIBERIUS died after having reigned about twenty-two years, and Caius, receiving the empire next, immediately conferred the Jewish government on Agrippa, appointing him king over the tetrarchy both of Philip and Lysanias. To these, not long after, he adds also the tetrarchy of Herod, after having inflicted the punishment of perpetual exile upon Herod, together with his wife Herodias, for their numerous crimes. This was the Herod who was concerned in the passion of our Saviour. Josephus bears testimony to these facts. During the reign of this emperor, Philo became noted, a man most distinguished for his learning, not only among very many of our own, but of those that came from abroad. As to his origin, he was a descendant of the Hebrews, inferior to none at Alexandria in point of dignity of family and birth. As to the divine Scriptures, and the learning of his country, how greatly and extensively he laboured, his work speaks for itself. And how well skilled in philosophy and the liberal

studies of foreign countries, there is no necessity to say, since, as he was a zealous follower of the sect of Plato and Pythagoras, he is said to have surpassed all of his contemporaries.

CHAPTER V.

PHILO WAS SENT ON AN EMBASSY TO CAIUS, IN BEHALF OF THE JEWS.

He there

THIS author has given us an account of the sufferings of the Jews in the reign of Caius, in five books. also relates the madness of Caius, who called himself a god, and was guilty of innumerable oppressions in the exercise of his power. He mentions the miseries of the Jews under him, and the embassy which he himself performed when sent to the city of Rome, in behalf of his countrymen at Alexandria; how that when he pleaded before Caius, for the laws and institutions of his ancestors, he received nothing but laughter and derision in return, and had well nigh incurred the risk of his life. Josephus also mentions these things in the eighteenth book of his Antiquities, in these words:

"A sedition having also arisen between the Jews dwelling at Alexandria and the Greeks, three chosen deputies were sent from each of the factions, and these appeared before Caius. One of the Alexandrian deputies was Apion, who uttered many slanders against the Jews; among other things, saying, that they treated the honours of Cæsar with contempt, that whilst all others, as many as were subject to the Roman empire, erected altars and temples to Caius, and in other respects regarded him as god, they alone considered it disgraceful to raise statues to his honour, and to swear by his name. Apion having chus uttered many and severe charges, by which he hoped that Caius would be roused, as was very probable, Philo, the chief of the Jewish embassy, a man illustrious in every respect, being the brother of Alexander, the Alabarch, and not unskilled in philosophy, was well prepared to enter upon a defence against these charges. But he was

* Alabarch. The Alabarch was the chief magistrate among the Jews at Alexandria.

precluded from this by Caius, who ordered him straightway to be gone, and, as he was very much incensed, it was very evident that he was meditating some great evil against them. Philo departed, covered with insult, and told the Jews that were with him, they had good reason to console themselves, that although Caius was enraged at them, he was already in fact challenging God against himself." Thus far Josephus. And Philo himself, in the embassy which he describes, details the particulars of what was then done to him, with great accuracy. Passing by the greatest part of these, I shall only state those by which it will be made manifest to the reader, that these things happened to the Jews forthwith, and at no distant period, on account of that which they dared to perpetrate against Christ. First, then, he relates, that in the reign of Tiberius, at Rome, Sejanus, who was then in great favour with Tiberius, had made every effort utterly to destroy the whole nation of the Jews, and that in Judea Pontius Pilate, under whom the crimes were committed against our Saviour, having attempted something contrary to what was lawful among the Jews respecting the temple at Jerusalem, which was then yet standing, excited them to the greatest tumults.

CHAPTER VI.

WHAT EVILS OVERWHELMED THE JEWS AFTER THEIR
PRESUMPTION AGAINST CHRIST.

AFTER the death of Tiberius, Caius having received the government, besides many other innumerable acts of tyranny against many, did not a little afflict the whole nation of the Jews particularly. We may soon learn this, from the declaration of the same author, in which he writes as follows: "So great was the caprice of Caius in his conduct towards all, but especially towards the nation of the Jews. As he was excessively hostile to these, he appropriated their places of worship to himself in all the cities, beginning with those at Alexandria, filling them with his images and statues. For having permitted it when others erected them of their own accord, he now began to erect them by absolute command. But the temple in the holy

city, which had been left untouched as yet, and been endowed with privileges as an inviolable asylum, he changed and transformed into a temple of his own, that it should be publicly called the temple of Caius the younger, the visible Jupiter" (eπipavovs Aios). Many other and almost indescribable calamities, the same author relates, as happening to the Jews of Alexandria, during the reign of the aforesaid emperor, in his second book, to which he gave the title, On the Virtues.' Josephus also agrees with him, who likewise intimates that the calamities of the whole nation took their rise from the times of Pilate, and the crimes against our Saviour. Let us hear, then, what he also says in the second book of the Jewish War. "Pilate being sent by Tiberius as procurator of Judea, at night carried the covered images of Cæsar into the temple; these are called ensigns. The following day, this excited the greatest disturbance among the Jews. For they that were near, were confounded at the sight, as a contemptuous prostitution of their legal institutions; for they do not allow any image to be set up in their city." Comparing these accounts with the writings of the evangelists, you will perceive, that it was not long before that exclamation came upon them, which they uttered under the same Pilate, and by which they cried again and again that they had no other king but Cæsar. After this, the same historian records, that forthwith another calamity overtook them, in these words: "But after these things, he (i.e. Pilate) excited another tumult, by expending the public treasure which is called Corban, in the construction of an aqueduct. This extended nearly three hundred stadia (furlongs, i.e. from the city). The multitude were sorely grieved at it; and when Pilate came to Jerusalem, they surrounded the tribunal, and began to cry out against him. But having anticipated a tumult, he had placed his armed soldiers amongst the multitude, disguised under the same dress with the rest of the people, and having commanded them not to use their swords, but to strike the turbulent with clubs, he gave them a signal from the tribunal. The Jews being thus beaten, many of them perished in consequence