apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

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-IGNATIUS THE MARTYR.
II
would soon be cleared up.
The Jews had a powerful advocate at head
quarters. If Nero ruled the world, Popp^ea ruled Nero. Her power
with the emperor was never so great as it was about the time when
these incidents occurred. Whether she would have cared to persecute
the Christians, may be a question'; but she would certainly have cared
to save the Jews. She herself was a proselytess. She had intimate
relations with Jews resident in Rome. Through one of these, an actor
Aliturus by name, the historian Josephus obtained access to her, apparently
in the very year of the fire; and through her intercession with the
emperor he secured the release of certain Jewish priests on whose
behalf he had undertaken his journey to Rome, while the empress
herself loaded him with presents^. The Jews therefore were in the
ascendant at the imperial court at this moment. Thus they had every
opportunity, as it is certain they must have had every motive and every
desire, to separate their cause from that of the Christians. An
edict or edicts against the new sect would be the probable consequence.
But it is a matter of comparatively
little
importance to the question at
issue, whether any distinct edict was issued. The mere negative fact, that
the Christian religion had not been recognized as lawful, would be an
ample justification for proceedings against the Christians, as soon as it
came to be recognized that Christianity was something distinct from
Judaism. No positive prohibition was needed. Here was a rehgion
rampant, which had never been licensed by the state, and this fact
alone was sufficient to set the law in motion. It is quite possible therefore
that no edict was issued against the Christians before the rescript
of Trajan ;
and yet for the forty or fifty preceding years, they were
equally exposed to persecution, as adherents of an unlawful religion ^
When we pass from Nero to Domitian, we find the notices of the
later persecution more vague and difficult to interpret, but they contain
nothing inconsistent with the inferences drawn from the records
of the earlier. It may indeed be allowed that the exaction of the
capitation-fee from the Jews under Domitian^ was exercised in such a
^
See Philippians, pp. 39, 41, 330. was originally paid by every Jew for the
^
Joseph. Vit. § 3 ; see Philippians maintenance of the temple- worship at
p. 5, note 4, Jerusalem (Matt. xvii. 24), was diverted
3 This aspect of the matter seems by the Romans after the destruction of
sufficiently obvious, and yet it has been the holy city, and ordered by Vespasian
strangely overlooked by writers on both to be paid to the Capitoline Jupiter :
sides. Joseph. B. J. vii. 6. 6 ^6poc
hi rots
*
The didrachm, or half-shekel, which o-n-ovd-ijiroT ovaiv 'lovdaiois iir^^aXe 5vo