no public worship to be paid, except to the fuperior and inferior deities, approved by the fenate. The Egyptian goddess Ifis had a temple in Rome to the time of Tiberius, who demolished it, because its priests, having been bribed by Mundus, fuffered him to lie with a lady called Paulina in the temple itself, under the name and form of the god Anubis. Indeed this story is to be found only in Jofephus, who did not live at that time; and was moreover a credulous and exaggerating writer: and there is very little probability, that, in fo enlightened an age as that of Tiberius, a lady of the firft diftinction in Rome, could be fo weak to believe that a god cohabited with her.

But whether this anecdote be true or false, this one thing is certain, that the Egyptian idolatry was in the poffeffion of a temple at Rome with the public confent. The Jews had alfo lived as traders in that city ever fince the Punic war; they had their fynagogues there in the time of Augustus, and almost always continued to have them in the fame manner as they now have in modern Rome. Can we defire a stronger inftance, that the Romans looked upon tolera

tion

tion as the most facred of all the laws of nations?

We are told, that as foon as the Chriftian religion began to make its appearance, its followers were perfecuted by these very Romans who perfecuted no one. This fact, however, appears to me to be evidently false, and I defire no better authority than that of St. Paul himfelf. In the acts of the Apoftles *, we are told, that St. Paul being accused by the Jews of attempting to overturn the Mofaic law by that of Jefus Chrift, St. James proposed to him to fhave his head, and go into the temple with four Jews, and purify himfelf with them, "That all men may know, fays he, that thofe "things whereof they were informed concern❝ing thee, are nothing, but that thou thyself doft keep the law of Mofes."

Accordingly, we find that St. Paul, though a Chriftian, fubmitted to perform these Jewish ceremonies for the space of seven days; but before the expiration of this time, the Jews of Afia, who knew him again, feeing him in the

+ Chap. 21. 22.

tem

temple, not only with Jews but Gentiles also, cried out, that he had polluted the holy place, and laid hands upon him. drew him out of the temple, and carried him before the governor Felix they afterwards accufed him at the judg→ ment-feat of Feftus, whither the Jews came in crowds demanding his death. But Feftus anfwered them, "It is not the manner of the "Romans to deliver any man to die, before "that he which is accufed have the accufers face to face, and have licence to answer for himself +."

These words of the Roman magiftrate are more remarkable, as he appears to have been no favourer of St. Paul, but rather to have held him in contempt, for, impofed upon by the falfe lights of his own reason, he took him for a perfon befides himself; nay, he exprefsly fays, to him, "Much learning hath made thee mad §.' Feftus then, was entirely guided by the equity of the Roman law, in taking under his protection a stranger, for whom he could have no regard.

+ Acts 25.

§ Ibid. 263

Here

Here then we have the word of God itself declaring, that the Romans were a just people, and no perfecutors. Befides, it was not the Romans who laid violent hands on St. Paul, but the Jews. St. James, the brother of Jefus, was stoned to death by order of a Sadducee Jew, and not by that of a Roman judge: it was the Jews alone who put St. Stephen to death ; and though St. Paul held the clothes of those who ftoned him, he certainly did not act then as a Roman citizen.

The primitive Chriftians had certainly no cause of complaint against the Romans; the. Jews, from whom they at that time began to

Though the power of life and death in criminal matters had been taken from the Jews after the banishment of Archelaus into the country of the Allobroges, and that Judea had been governed as a province; nevertheless, the Romans frequently winked at the exertion of a judicial power by these people on any particular occafion that related merely to thofe of their own fect; such as for inftance, when in any fudden tumult, they out of zeal ftoned to death the person whom they thought guilty of blafphemy.

fepa

feparate themselves, were their only enemies. Every one knows the implacable hatred all sectaries bare to those who quit their fect. There, doubtless, were feveral tumults in the fynagogues at Rome. Suetonius, in his life of Claudius, has these words, Judæos impulfore Chrifto affidue tumultuantes Roma expulit. He is wrong in

faying, that it was at the inftigation of Christ they raised commotions in Rome; but he could not be acquainted with all the circumstances relating to a people who were held in such contempt at Rome as the Jews were; and, however mistaken he may have been in this particular, yet he is right as to the occafion of these commotions. Suetonius wrote in the reign of Adrian in the second century, when the Chrif tians were not diftinguished from the Jews by the Romans: therefore this paffage of Suetonius is a proof, that the Romans, so far from oppreffing the primitive Chriftians, chastised the Jews who perfecuted them, being defirous that the Jewish fynagogue at Rome should show the fame indulgence to its diffenting brethren, as it received itfelf from the Roman fenate: and we find from Dion Caffius and Ulpian, that the Jews who were thus banished from Rome,