Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

188 THE FIRST AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH.treated it ? In these seventy years it has tra-versed the seven last years of the Emperor Tiberius,and the whole principates of Caligula, Claudius,and Nero ; the revolutionary crisis in whichGalba, Otho, and Vitellius reigned for an instant,and then the settled time of Vespasian, Titus, Do-mitian, and Nerva. Now, during this period itstreatment by the empire has been a singular reproductionof what passed in the hall of Pilate.For the Jewish religion was one allowed by Romanlaw. The profession of it entailed no penalty.Now the first heralds of the Gospel, asJews, preached their message boldly and publicly,and in doing so it does not seem that Romanlaw would have interfered with them.7 Atthis stage it looked uDon Christians as a sectJews. As no authority of the empire had interferedwith the public ministry of our Lord, so itwould seem to have left the ministry of His disciplesin the first instance free. It is from anotherquarter that opposition arises. The Jew in his jealousanger at the promulgation of a Messiah and aspiritual kingdom which is not after Jewish taste,both because it is a kingdom not of this world, andbecause it raises the Gentile to coinheritance withthe race of Abraham, drags the Christian mission-/ t>ary before the tribunal of the Roman magistrate7 This is what Tertullian calls " sub umbraculo insignissimse re-ligionis, certe licitas," Apolog. 21; and ad JVatioties, i. 11, "Nos quoqueut Judaicse religionis propinquos."