Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

190 THE FIRST AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH.against him, that S. Paul felt himself compelled to1 to the emperor, and the result of his appwas that he was set free. But in " the year 64 another state of things had arisen. The ruin olarge part of Rome by fire had brought a greatodium upon Nero. Now his wife Poppa3a is saidto have been a Jewish proselyte, he himself tohave been surrounded by Jewish influences, andnothing is more probable than that Jewish hatred,which had tracked the Christians everywhere, pursuedthem especially here, and suggested them tohim both as authors of the conflagration, and asconvenient scapegoats whereon to divert the odiumagainst himself which had arisen from it. Thushe took the opportunity of exposing to shame andtorment, as victims of the popular dislike, and inpopular opinion guilty of " hatred of the humanrace," or of being hated by them, "a vast multitude"10of Christians, who, says the heathen historian,were put to the most exquisite suffering,being wrapt in the skins of wild beasts, and tornto pieces by dogs, or crucified, or clothed in garmentsof pitch and set on fire to illuminate thenight. Thus it is, as decorations of Nero's games,in his gardens of the Vatican, where the obeliskfrom Heliopolis, once the ornament of his circus,now bears witness to the victory of Christ, thatChristians first come before us in the pages of Romanhistorians, just at the middle of the period10 Tacitus, Ann. xv. 44.