THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 ANTICHRIST
 
 THE WRITINGS OF 
 
 ERNEST RENAN 
 
 Translated by yoseph Henry Allen, D.D. 
 
 History of the People of Israel. 
 5 vols. 
 
 The Life of Jesus, i vol. 
 
 The Apostles : Including the Period 
 from the Death of Jesus until the 
 Greater Missions of Paul, i vol. 
 
 Antichrist, i vol. 
 
 The Future of Science, i vol.
 
 Antichrist 
 
 INCLUDING 
 
 THE PERIOD FROM THE ARRIVAL OF PAUL IN ROME 
 TO THE END OF THE JEWISH REVOLUTION 
 
 BY 
 
 ERNEST RENAN 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL" 
 "LIFE OF JESUS," "FUTURE OF SCIENCE," ETC. 
 
 TRANSLATED AND EDITED 
 #. BY 
 
 JOSEPH HENRY ALLEN 
 
 LATE LECTURER ON ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 1903
 
 Copyright, 1897, 
 By Roberts Brothers. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 5Enttotrsitg ^ress: 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.
 
 19 Oh 
 EDITOR'S NOTE. 
 
 This volume is the fourth in a series entitled " Beginnings of 
 Christian History" (^Histoire des Origines du Cliristianisme)^ 
 published at intervals from 1863 to 1882. The titles and 
 dates of the several volumes are the following : — Life of 
 Jesus, 1863; The Apostles, 1866; Saint Paul, 1869; Anti- 
 christ, 1873 ; The Gospels, 1877 ; The Church, 1879 ; Marcus 
 Aurelius, 1882. The selection of this for separate publica- 
 tion is in accordance with a judgment thus expressed by Sir 
 Mountstuart E. Grant Duff, a personal friend of the author : 
 " If any one who did not wish to read through the seven 
 volumes of the Origines, but only desired to form an opinion 
 of Renan as an historian, were to ask me what part of them 
 he should read, I should certainly reply, the fourth volume, 
 that to which the author gave the name of L' Antechrist.^^ 
 (Ernest Renan, In Memoriam, p. 132.) 
 
 Imperfect translations of the first three volumes, and per- 
 haps of others, have already appeared in English ; and the 
 first, the " Life of Jesus," was given to the public a year ago 
 under the present editorship. The critical reader will notice 
 a certain freedom in dealing with the grammatical structure 
 of some of M. Renan's periods ; an occasional transference of 
 matter from the notes to the text, or the reverse ; the ren- 
 dering into English of many sentences or phrases given by
 
 vi EDITOR'S NOTE. 
 
 the author in the orighial tongues ; an Index of contents ; 
 and the insertion of the text of numerous citations, and ex- 
 planations where they seemed to be required, especially of 
 oriental words and phrases and of later views regarding the 
 structure of the Apocalypse, in which the Editor acknowledges 
 the kind aid of his friend Professor Toy.^ In all other respects 
 his aim has been to give an absolutely faithful transcription 
 of the substance, style, spirit, and literary colouring of the 
 original. 
 
 J. H. A. 
 
 Cambridge, Mass., 
 October, 1897. 
 
 1 I have not hesitated to translate /Sao-iXeu? (1 Pet. ii. 13) "emperor," 
 and hla^oKos {id. v. 8) "false accuser," where Renan follows the tradi- 
 tional rendering.
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 Page 
 
 INTRODUCTION: On Certain Original Authorities con- 
 sulted IN THE Preparation of this Volume .... 1 
 
 Chaptkb 
 
 I. Paul in Prison 31 
 
 II. Peter at Rome 48 
 
 III. The Churches in Jud.ea G2 
 
 IV. Latest Acts of Paul 81 
 
 V. Nearing the Crisis ... 103 
 
 VI. Conflagration of Rome 116 
 
 VII. The Christian Martyrs 13y 
 
 VIII. Death of Peter and Paul 159 
 
 IX. After the Crisis , 172 
 
 X. The Revolt in Jud.ea 189 
 
 XI. Massacres in Syria and Egypt 200 
 
 XII. Vespasian in Galilee; Terror at Jki;usali:m . . 217 
 
 XIII. The Death of Nero 214 
 
 XIV. Disasters and Signs 259 
 
 XV. The Apostles in Asia 272 
 
 XVI. The Apocalypse 299 
 
 XVII. Later Fortunes of the Book 351 
 
 XVIII. Accession of the Flavii 371 
 
 XIX. The Fall of Jerusalem 385 
 
 XX. Results of the Fall of Jerusalem 403 
 
 APPENDIX: Of Peter's Coming to Rome, and of John's 
 
 Stay at Ephksus 423 
 
 INDEX 439
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 ON CERTAIN ORIGINAL AUTHORITIES CONSULTED IN 
 THE PREPARATION OF THIS VOLUME. 
 
 The period covered by the present volume is, after the three 
 or four years of the public life of Jesus, the most extraordinary 
 in the entire development of Christianity. Here, by a singular 
 touch of the great unconscious Artist who appears to rule in 
 the seeming caprice of historic evolution, we shall see Jesus 
 and Nero — Christ and Antichrist — set, as it were, in con- 
 trast, face to face, like heaven and hell. The Christian 
 consciousness is now full-grown. • Hitherto it has known little 
 else than the law of love : Jewish intolerance, though harsh, 
 could not fret away the bond of grateful attachment cherished 
 in the heart of the infant Church for her mother the Synagogue, 
 from whom she is still hardly sundered. Now at length the 
 Christian has before him an object of hate and terror. Over 
 against the memory of Jesus rises a monstrous form, the ideal 
 of evil, as He had been the ideal of holiness. Held in reserve, 
 like Enoch or Elias, to play his part in the last great tragedy 
 of the world, Nero completes the cycle of Christian mythology : 
 he inspires the first sacred book of the new canon ; by a fright- 
 ful massacre he lays the corner-stone of Romish primacy, and 
 opens the way to that revolution which is to make of Rome 
 a second Jerusalem, a holy city. At the same time, by a 
 mysterious coincidence not infrequent in great crises of human 
 destiny, Jerusalem is overthrown ; the Temple disappears ; 
 Christianity, disburdened of a restraint already painful and 
 advancing to a broadening freedom, follows out its own 
 destinies apart from conquered Judaism. 
 
 1
 
 2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The later epistles of Paul, the epistle to the Hebrews, and 
 those ascribed to Peter and James, with the Apocalypse, are 
 chief among the canonical documents of this period. Valuable 
 testimony comes to us, besides, from the first epistle of the 
 Roman Clement, and from the historians Tacitus and Josephus. 
 At many a point, notably the death of the Apostles and the 
 relations of John with the churches in Asia, our picture must 
 lie in shadow; upon others we may gather rays of real light. 
 Almost all the material facts of the earliest Christian history 
 are obscure ; what we can see clearly is the eager enthusiasm, 
 the superhuman boldness, the scorn of circumstance, which 
 make tbis the most powerful effort towards the ideal still 
 treasured in human memory. 
 
 In the Introduction to " Saint Paul " I have treated of the 
 genuineness of the Letters ascribed to that chief of the Apostles. 
 The four referred to in this volume — " Philippians," " Colos- 
 sians," " Philemon," and " Ephesians " — offer some ground 
 of doubt. The objections brought against " Philippians " are 
 of so small account that I have scarcely urged them. As we 
 shall see hereafter, " Colossians " gives more ground for 
 scruple, while " Ephesians " stands quite by itself among the 
 Pauline writings. In spite of its grave difficulties, however, 
 I still hold " Colossians " to be genuine. The interpolations 
 recently alleged by able critics are not apparent.^ On this 
 point Holtzmann's treatment is worthy of its learned author ; 
 but the way, too common in Germany, of assuming an a i^riori 
 type to serve as the absolute criterion of a writer's genuine- 
 ness is very hazardous. We cannot, indeed, deny that inter- 
 polation and fabrication were common enough, in the so-called 
 apostolic writings, during the first two Christian centuries ; 
 but, in a matter like this, it is impossible to draw a sharp line 
 between true and false, genuine and spurious. We say con- 
 fidently that the epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, and 
 Galatians are genuine ; we say just as confidently that those 
 to Timothy and Titus are apocryphal. In the border ground 
 between, we but grope our way. The chief fault of the so-called 
 
 1 H. J. Holtzmann, Kridkder Epheser- und Kolosserbriefe, Leipzig, 1872.
 
 HISTORIC METHOD. 3 
 
 Tiibingen school, dating from F. C. Baur, has been to conceive 
 the Jews of the first century in the mass as fed on logic and 
 rigid in their deductions. Peter, Paul, even Jesus, in the 
 writings of this school, argue like Protestant professors in a 
 German university ; each has his own doctrine ; each has but 
 one, which he keeps always just the same. The truth is, those 
 noble men, the true heroes of this story, often change their 
 view and contradict themselves ; in the course of their life they 
 assume three or four varying theories ; at one time they borrow 
 views from their opponents, which at another time they sharply 
 contradict. Seen from our point of view, these men are open 
 to quick impressions, personal, irritable, changeful ; what 
 makes fixity in opinion, science or pure reason, is wholly un- 
 known to them. Like Jews of every time, they have angry dis- 
 putes among themselves, yet make together a very compact 
 body. To understand them, we must clear ourselves of the 
 pedantry inseparable from all academic methods ; we must 
 rather study the petty groups and cliques of the religious world, 
 the Congregations of England and America, and in particular 
 what goes on in the founding of all religious Orders. In this 
 regard the theological faculties in German universities — the 
 best in the world to supply the enormous toil needed to bring 
 into shape the chaos of documents bearing on these obscure 
 beginnings — are the worst in the world to undertake the task 
 of a real history. For history is the interpretation of an un- 
 folding life, an expanding germ, while theology (so to speak) 
 reads life backward. Attending merely to what confirms or 
 invalidates his doctrine, even the most liberal of theologians is 
 unconsciously an advocate: his aim is to defend or else refute. 
 The aim of the historian is simply to tell the fact. He finds a 
 value in what may be in substance false, in documents even 
 spurious ; for they paint the soul, and are often truer than 
 barren fact. In his view it were the greatest of errors to 
 regard as defenders of abstract opinions those good and simple- 
 minded dreamers, whose dreams through all these ages have 
 been a consolation and a joy. 
 
 What I have said of " Colossians," and especially of " Ephe-
 
 4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 sians," must be said emphatically of the first epistle ascribed 
 to Peter, and of those of James and Jude.^ The second of 
 Peter (so called) is certainly apocryphal. We see at a glance 
 that it is an artificial compound, an imitation made up of scraps 
 of apostolic writings, especially the epistle of Jude.^ I do not 
 urge this point, as I do not suppose " Second Peter " has a 
 single defender among true critics. But its very falsity — 
 having as its main object to inspire patience in the faithful, 
 weary with long waiting for the reappearing of Christ — in 
 a sense confirms the genuineness of " First Peter." Though 
 apocryphal it is still a very ancient writing, whose author fully 
 believes in the other as really the work of Peter, making his 
 own a " second " to it (see ch. iii. 1).^ " First Peter," on the 
 other hand, is one of the earliest and most frequently cited, as 
 genuine, among all the New Testament writings.* Only one 
 serious objection has been made, — namely, to passages taken 
 (it is thought) from certain letters of Paul, particularly the so- 
 called " Ephesians." ^ But the copyist whom Peter must have 
 employed (if the letter is really his) may well have allowed 
 himself to borrow thus. In all times, preachers and journal- 
 ists have laid hands without scruple on phrases that have 
 come to be part of the common stock and are, as we say, 
 " in the air." So Paul's amanuensis, who wrote " Ephesians," 
 copied freely from " Colossians." Epistolary writing is very apt 
 
 1 Of the latter, see " Saint Paul," chap, x., near the end. 
 
 2 Compare especially 2 Pet. ii. with Jude. Such passages as i. 14, 16, 
 18; and iii. 1, 2, 5-7, 15, 16, also clearly prove it spurious. Its style, 
 further, — as Jerome has remarked in Epht. ad Hedib. 11 ; ci. De viris 
 illustr. 1, — is no way like that of 1 Peter. Finally, it is not cited before 
 the third century. Irenseus (.4*^/^. Hcer. iv. 9, 2) and Origen (in Euseb. 
 Hist. Eccl. vi. 25; cf. iii. 25) ignore or exclude it. 
 
 2 Supposed imitations of 1 Peter, found in "Timothy" and "Titus," 
 touching the duties of women and of elders, are not so clear. But com- 
 pare 1 Tim. ii. 9-15, iii. 11, with 1 Pet. iii. 1-4, v. 1-4; Tit. i. 5-9. 
 
 4 Papias in Euseb. H. E. iii. 39; Polycarp, Epist. 1 (cf. 1 Pet. i. 8; 
 Euseb. iv. 14) ; Irenseus, Adv. Hcer. iv. 9, 2; IR. 5 (cf. Euseb. v. 8) ; Clem. 
 Alex. Strom, iii. 18, iv. 7; Tertull. Scorp. 12; Origen in Euseb. vi. 25; 
 Euseb. iii. 25. 
 
 6 See below, pp. 108, 109.
 
 FIRST PETER. 5 
 
 to show a good deal that has been so taken from earlier like 
 compositions.^ 
 
 Suspicion has been raised by the passage 1 Pet. v. 1-4, 
 which recalls the pious but somewhat feeble admonitions, 
 wholly priestly in tone, of the spurious epistles to Timothy and 
 Titus. Besides, the insistence with which the writer depicts 
 himself [in v. 1] as " a witness of the sufferings of Christ " 
 stirs doubts like those raised by the persistent assertions of an 
 eye-witness in the writings falsely ascribed to John. Still, we 
 should not stick at this. There are many tokens of genuine- 
 ness as well. For example, the advance towards a hierarchy 
 is hardly noticeable. Not only there is no hint of a bishopric 
 (for the phrase " bishop of your souls " in ii. 25 proves that 
 the word has as yet no official meaning), but each church has 
 not even a Presbyter : it has " presbyters," or " elders," with 
 nothing to imply that they make a distinct official body.^ A 
 point worth noting is that the writer,^ even when laying stress 
 on the self-surrender of Jesus on the cross, omits the striking 
 feature given by Luke ["Father, forgive them," etc.], leading 
 us to think that when he wrote the legendary narrative was 
 not yet full-grown. 
 
 The eclectic and reconciling tendencies observed in the 
 epistle of Peter bear against its genuineness only in the view 
 of those who, like Baur and his school, regard the difference 
 of Peter and Paul as flat hostility. If party hate in the prim- 
 itive church was as deep as this school thinks, reconciliation 
 would never have come about. Peter was not, like James, a 
 stiff-necked Jew. In composing this history we must not think 
 merely of " Galatians " and the pseudo-Clementine homilies ; 
 we must remember, too, the " Acts of the Apostles." An his- 
 torian's skill should exhibit the event so as no way to belittle 
 party strifes, which were doubtless profounder than we could 
 
 ^ Besides the canonical epistles, see those of Clem. Rom., Ignatius, and 
 Polycarp. 
 
 ^ Tlpea^vTf'povs fv vfxiv (Vat. and Sin. MSS.) ; the common reading is 
 
 TOVi €V VfUV. 
 
 8 1 Peter ii. 23; of. Luke xsiii. 34.
 
 6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 even think ; yet so as to let us see how such strifes were 
 soothed and fused into a noble harmony. 
 
 The epistle of James comes to the bar of criticism under 
 like conditions with that of Peter, The difficulties of detail 
 alleged against it are of little account. A more serious matter 
 is the broad charge that writings of fictitious authorship were 
 easily produced at a time when there was no sound test of 
 genuineness, and no scruple at pious frauds. For writers like 
 Paul, who by common consent have left us genuine writings, 
 and whose biography is fairly well known, there are two sure 
 tests, — comparison of doubtful works with those universally 
 acknowledged genuine, and inquiry whether the document in 
 dispute answers to the biographical data in our possession. 
 But if the case is that of an author from whom we have only 
 a few doubtful pages, and whose life is little known, we must 
 decide mostly on grounds of feeling, which "are not impera- 
 tive. If we are of easy judgment, we may take much that is 
 false for true ; if too rigid, we may reject much that is true as 
 false. For such questions the theologian, who thinks to walk 
 by certainties, is (I say again) a bad judge. The critical his- 
 torian has a quiet conscience when he has done his best to 
 mark the various steps of certain, probable, plausible, possible. 
 If at all capable, he may succeed in being true in the general 
 colour, while as to special statements he makes free with his 
 question-marks and his may-be's. 
 
 One thing I have found in favour of writings too strictly 
 thrown out by critics of a certain school, — such as the first 
 epistle of Peter, with those of James and Jude, — is the way 
 they fit in with a narrative organically knit together. While 
 tlie second ascribed to Peter, with those alleged to be from 
 Paul to Timothy and Titus, have no place in the pattern of a 
 connected story, the three I have mentioned fit themselves to 
 it (as I may say) of their own accord. The features of detail 
 in them anticipate facts known through outside testimony, 
 and are embraced easily among them. " Peter " well corre- 
 sponds with what we know, chiefly from Tacitus, of the situa- 
 tion of Christians at Rome about a. d. 63 or 64. " James,"
 
 JAMESj PSEUDO-APOSTOLIC WRITINGS. 7 
 
 again, is a perfect picture of the Ehionim at Jerusalem in the 
 years just before the great revolt, quite like the information 
 given us by Josephus.^ There is nothing to be gained by a 
 theory that it was written by another James, not " the Lord's 
 brother." True, this epistle was not admitted, in the early 
 centuries, so unanimously as that of Peter ; ^ but the hesitation 
 would seem to have been rather on dogmatic grounds than on 
 critical. The Greek Fathers had little liking for the Jewish- 
 Christian writings : that is the real reason. 
 
 It may be remarked, as to the evidence regarding these 
 minor apostolic writings, that they were composed before 
 the fall of Jerusalem. This event so altered the situation 
 as between Jew and Christian that we can easily distinguish 
 between a document later than the catastrophe of a. d. 70 
 and one belonging to the period while Herod's temple was 
 yet standing. Descriptions which clearly refer to class-jeal- 
 ousies in Jerusalem society, such as we find in " James " 
 (v. 1-6), would be unmeaning if made later than the revolt 
 of A. D. 66, which ended the rule of the Sadducees. 
 
 From the fact that there were pseudo-apostolic writings — 
 such as the letters to Timothy and Titus, " Second Peter," 
 and the epistle of Barnabas, whose practice is to imitate 
 or dilute older compositions — it follows that there were 
 writings genuinely apostolic held in reverence, which it was 
 sought to multiply .2 As every Arabic poet of the classic 
 period had his Kasida, a complete expression of his person- 
 ality, so every apostle had his " epistle," more or less gen- 
 uine, which was supposed to preserve the fine flower of his 
 thought. 
 
 I have elsewhere spoken of the epistle to the Hebrews.* I 
 
 1 See below, pp. 52-53. 
 
 2 Clem. Rom. 1 Cor. x., xi. (cf. Jas. ii. 21, 23, 25); " Hermas," Mand. 
 xii. 5 (cf. Jas. iv. 7); Iren. Adv. Hcer. iv. 16, 2 (cf. Jas. ii. 23); these 
 writers seem to have known the epistle. Origen (/n JoTi. xix. 6), Euse- 
 bius {H. E. ii. 23), and Jerome {De viris illustr. 2) express doubts. 
 
 2 See 2 Pet. iii. 15, 16, where the Pauline epistles are expressly 
 named as sacred writings. 
 
 " Saint Paul, Introd., pp. 52-61.
 
 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 have shown that this work is not by Paul, as has been held 
 in some lines of Christian tradition ; and that its probable 
 date may be fixed at about A. d. 66. 1 have now to consider 
 whether we may be sure of its real author, where it was writ- 
 ten, and who were the " Hebrews " to whom by title it is 
 addressed. 
 
 Circumstantial points are these : The writer speaks to the 
 church addressed in the tone of a well-known master, — in- 
 deed, almost in a tone of reproach. The churcli has long 
 since accepted the faith, but has fallen away in doctrine ; so 
 that it needs elementary instruction, and cannot comprehend 
 the higher theology.^ Further, this church has shown and 
 still shows proofs of courage and devotion, especially in service 
 to the saints. [" Ye have ministered to the saints and do 
 minister."] It had endured cruel persecutions in the day 
 when it received the full light of faith, when it was " made 
 a gazing stock." ^ That was but a little while ago ; for those 
 now members of the church had part in the merits of that 
 persecution — sympathising with the confessors, visiting those 
 in prison, and, above all, bearing bravely the loss of their 
 goods. In that trial, however, there were some deserters, and 
 there was question whether such apostates could rejoin the 
 church. It would seem that some were even now in prison 
 (xiii. 3). There have been noble leaders {r^'yovixevoC), preachers 
 of the Word, whose end was glorious and inspiring (xiii. 7). 
 But still there are chiefs well known to the writer (ver. 17, 24), 
 who has himself had knowledge of the church, and seems to 
 have held a high post of service in it ; he means to return 
 to it, and wishes his return to be as soon as possible (ver. 19). 
 He and those to whom he writes are acquainted with Timothy, 
 who has been a prisoner in some other place, but is now at 
 liberty ; he hopes that Timothy may come and join him, that 
 they may visit this church of the " Hebrews " together (ver. 
 23). The epistle ends with the words, " Those away from 
 
 1 See V. 11-14; vi. 11, 12; x. 24, 25; xiii., throughout. 
 
 2 BearptCofievoi, ("exhibited on the stage"), x. 33-34; xii. 4-8, 23.
 
 ^'Hebrews:' 9 
 
 (aTTo) Italy salute you," which must mean those who are just 
 now absent from Italy .^ 
 
 What chiefly distinguishes this writer is his incessant use of 
 the [Jewish] scriptures, with a subtile and allegorical mode of 
 exposition, and a Greek style more ample, more classic, less 
 dry, but also less natural than that in most apostolic writ- 
 ings. He has slight acquaintance with the ritual of the temple 
 at Jerusalem (ix. 1-5), which, however, strongly impresses 
 him. He uses only the Alexandrian version, and reasons 
 from errors in the Greek copyists (x. 5, 37, 38). He is not a 
 Jew of Jerusalem, but a Hellenist, related to the school of Paul 
 (iii. 23) ; and represents himself as having been a hearer, not 
 of Jesus, but of those who had heard him, and as a witness of 
 the " signs and wonders " manifested by the apostles by "the 
 gift of the Holy Spirit" (ii. 3, 4). Still, he has high rank in 
 the church : he speaks with authority (v. 11, 12 ; vi. 11, 12 ; 
 X. 24, 25 ; xiii. pass.) ; is held in great respect by those to 
 whom he writes (xiii. 19-24); and Timothy seems to be his 
 inferior. The mere fact of addressing an epistle to an im- 
 portant church shows him to be a man of consequence, one 
 of name and high standing amcJiig the apostles. 
 
 Still, all this is not enough to determine the authorship. 
 It has been variously ascribed to Barnabas, Luke, Silas, 
 Apollos, and Clement of Rome. The likeliest of all is Bar- 
 nabas. This has the authority of Tertullian, who speaks of 
 it as a well-known fact ; ^ and it is contradicted by not a 
 single feature offered by the epistle. Barnabas was a Hel- 
 lenist of Cyprus, at once linked with Paul and independent 
 
 ^ Compare ol iv rfi 'Aa-iq,^ Tim. i. 15; ^ eV Ba^vXavt crvveXeKTrj, i. Pet. 
 V. 13. (But see Acts xvii. 13.) 
 
 ^ De Pudic. 20 : Exstat enim et Barnahce titulus ad Hehrceos. These 
 words show that the manuscript in the hands of Tertullian was inscribed 
 with the name of Barnabas. (Cf. Jerome, De viris illustr. 5.) Tertul- 
 lian's assertion has been wrongly regarded as a mere conjecture, put 
 forth to give authority to a writing that favoured his Montanist notions. 
 On the argument from the stichometry of the Codex daromonlanus, see 
 Introd. to " Saint Paul," note on pp. 53-4. The "epistle of Barnabas," 
 commonly so called, is apocryphal, written about a. d. 110.
 
 10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of him, known and esteemed by all. This view, further, sug- 
 gests a reason for ascribing the composition to Paul : it was 
 the destiny of Barnabas to be in a manner lost in the halo 
 of the great apostle; and, if he did leave any writing, as 
 seems not unlikely, we should naturally seek it among those 
 of Paul. 
 
 The church to which this letter is addressed may be fixed 
 on with some likelihood. From what has been already said, 
 our choice lies, with little doubt, between Rome and Jerusa- 
 lem. Alexandria has been suggested, but on slight grounds. 
 First, there is no proof that Alexandria had a church as early 
 as A. D. 66. Even if it had, it could have no relation with 
 the school of Paul, or any knowledge of Timothy ; while such 
 passages as v. 12, x. 32-34, and others would be wholly in- 
 appropriate. The title, " to the Hebrews," makes us think at 
 once of Jerusalem.! But this is not enough. Passages like 
 v. 11-14, vi. 11, 12, and even vi. 10 (" minister to the saints ")2 
 are nonsense if we suppose them addressed by a follower of 
 the apostles to the mother church of all, the source of all 
 instruction. What is said of Timothy in xiii. 23 is no more 
 intelligible ; persons so committed as were the writer and 
 Timothy to the party of Paul could not have sent to that 
 church a missive implying special intimacy with their affairs. 
 How, for instance, could the writer — with his exegesis 
 founded wholly on the Septuagint, his imperfect Jewish 
 knowledge, his slight acquaintance with the temple service 
 — have dared to lecture so loftily those past masters of the 
 field, men who talked Hebrew (very nearly), who lived every 
 day close to the Temple, and who knew much better than he 
 all he could say to them ? How, indeed, could he address 
 them as catechumens, barely initiated, and incapable of deep 
 theology ? On the other hand, if we suppose those addressed 
 to be the faithful in Rome, all fits to a marvel. Such pas- 
 
 ^ Compare Acts vi. 1 ; Iren. Adv. Hcer. III. i. 1; Euseb. //. H.. iii. 
 24, 25. 
 
 ^ Compare Rom. xv. 25. This sisriiifies the service due from all other 
 churches to that at Jerusalem, but would hardly befit this latter.
 
 ''HEBREWS." n 
 
 sages as vi. 10, x. 32-34, xiii. 3, 7, allude to Nero's persecu- 
 tion ; xiii. 7 refers to the death of Peter and Paul ; the 
 expression, " those away from Italy," is fully justified, since 
 it is natural that the writer should send to those in Rome 
 the salutations of the Italian colony about him. Add that 
 the first epistle of the Roman Clement (certainly a Roman 
 composition) borrows consecutively from " Hebrews," and 
 evidently models its exposition upon that.^ 
 
 One difficulty remains : Why does the title say " to the 
 Hebrews " ? Such titles, we know, are not always apostolic : 
 they were sometimes late additions, and even erroneous, as we 
 see in the case of " Ephesians." "Hebrews" was written, 
 under the stress of persecution, to the church that suffered 
 most. In several places (as in xiii. 23) the writer evidently 
 expresses himself guardedly. Perhaps the inscription " to the 
 Hebrews " was a password, to save the letter from being put 
 to an evil use. Possibly the title came from the letter's being 
 regarded in the second century as a confutation of tlie Ebi- 
 onites, who were called " Judaisers." It is noteworthy that 
 the church of Rome always had special light on this epistle ; 
 here it first appeared, and here it was first brought into use. 
 While Alexandria is ready to call it Paul's, the church at Rome 
 always maintains that it is not his, and that it is wrongly 
 joined to his genuine writings.''^ 
 
 From what place was " Hebrews " written ? This is harder 
 to answer. The expression " those away from Italy " shows 
 that the writer was not in that country. It is certain, too, 
 that he wrote from an important town where there was a 
 colony of Italian Christians closely allied with those of Rome, 
 who had probably escaped the persecution of a. d. 64. We 
 shall see that the stream of those who so escaped flowed towards 
 Ephesus, where the church had had as its first nucleus two 
 Jews from Rome, Aquila and Priscilla, and had always con- 
 tinued in direct relations with Rome. Thus we are led to think 
 
 ^ Compare chap. 17 with xi. .37; chap. 36 with i. 3, 5, 7, 13 ; chap. 9 
 with xi. 5, 7; chap. 12 with xi. 31. 
 2 See " Saint Paul," p. Ivii.
 
 12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 that it was here the epistle was written. The words in xiii. 
 23, it is true, are perplexing in that case : in what city, neither 
 Rome nor Ephesus, yet closely connected with both, had 
 Timothy been imprisoned ? Whatever we may conjecture, this 
 is a riddle hard to answer. 
 
 The most important document of this period is the Apoca- 
 lypse. An attentive reading of chaps, xv.-xvii. will show, I 
 think, that its date is fixed more positively than that of any 
 other writing in the canon.^ It may even be determined within 
 a few days. The place where it was written may also be 
 plausibly assigned. Who was its author is far more uncertain. 
 As to this, I think, we cannot speak with confidence. The 
 writer gives his name at the very beginning: " I, John, your 
 brother and companion in tribulation and in the kingdom and 
 patience of Christ." ^ But here two questions occur : 1. Is 
 the claim genuine, or is it one of the pious frauds common to 
 all apocalyptic writers ? In other words, is it not an anony- 
 mous writing ascribed to John the apostle, as a man of highest 
 authority in the churches, whose views are here communicated 
 in visions ? 2. Granting the claim to be sincere, is not the 
 writer another John than the apostle ? 
 
 To begin with the second question, as the easier to decide. 
 The John who speaks or is thought to speak in the Apocalypse 
 expresses himself with such emphasis ; he is so sure of being 
 known and of not being confounded with any other ; he knows 
 so well the secret things of the churches, and meets them with 
 so firm a bearing, — that we can hardly fail to see in him an 
 
 1 The theory of Vischer, accepted by Haniack and others (see " Life 
 of Jesus," note on page 477), is that the body of the Apocalypse — iv. 1- 
 xxii. 5 — is a Jewish composition, adopted and probably translated from 
 a Hebrew original by some Christian writer near the end of the first cen- 
 tury, who prefixed the first three chapters and interpolated numerous brief 
 passages to adapt it to Christian uses. A valuable criticism of this view, 
 defending the general unity of the composition, but excepting from this 
 unity a series of visions beginning with chapter xi. was contributed by 
 M. Louis Augusta Sabatier to the Revue de Theologie et de Philosophie: 
 Paris, Librairie Fischhacher, 1888, pp. 37. — Ed. 
 
 2 Rev. i. 9; see also 1, 2, 4; xxii. 8.
 
 JOHN THE ELDER. 13 
 
 apostle, or else a dignitary of very high rank in the Church. 
 But in the second half of the first century there was no other 
 of that name who approached such dignity. John Mark is 
 here quite out of the question, whatever Hitzig may say. 
 Mark never had consecutive relations with the churches in 
 Asia, such as to embolden him to address them in this tone. 
 There is, indeed, one " John the Elder," a dubious personage, 
 a sort of double of the apostle, who haunts like a spectre the 
 record of the church at Ephesus, and gives much trouble to 
 the critics. 1 Though his very existence has been denied, and 
 though we cannot positively refute the theory of those who 
 make him a personified shadow of the apostle, I incline to 
 think that he had an identity apart ; ^ but I absolutely deny 
 that he wrote the Apocalypse in a. d. 68 or 69, as maintained 
 by Ewald. Such a man would not have been known to us 
 merely through an obscure passage of Papias or an apologetic 
 writing of Dionysius. We should find his name in the Gospels, 
 or Acts, or an Epistle. He would be a man from Jerusalem. 
 The writer of the Apocalypse is the best versed in Scripture, 
 most attached to the Temple, most Hebraic, of all the New 
 Testament writers. Such a man cannot have had hig training 
 out of Palestine ; he must have been a native of Judsea ; at the 
 bottom of his heart he clings to the Church of Israel, If there 
 was any such person as John the Elder, he was a disciple of 
 John in his extreme old age. Admitting that the passage in 
 the " Apostolical Constitutions " (vii. 46) refers to him, and that 
 
 1 See " Life of Jesus," p. 58, note. 
 
 2 See Papias (Euseb. iii. 39) and Dionysius of Alexandria (id. vii. 25). 
 These two passages are not proof. The latter, in fact, deduces his opinion 
 a priori from the difference [in style] between the Apocalypse and the 
 Fourth Gospel, finding confirmation in two tombs which "are said to 
 have existed at Ephesus, each bearing the name of John." The passage 
 of Papias is vague ; at all events it needs correction. That in the Apos- 
 tolical Constitutions is of weak authority. Eusebius (iii. 39) simply 
 brings together the statements of Papias and Dionysius, not confirming 
 the existence of the two tombs. Jerome {De viris illustr. 9, IS) says 
 there were two there, but that many regarded them as being two me- 
 morials of the apostle.
 
 14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 it has any value, he would be the apostle's successor in the 
 episcopate of Ephesus. Papias seems to have been close beside 
 him, at least his contemporary.^ We may even admit that he 
 sometimes held the pen for his master, and that he may have 
 been the composer of the Fourth Gospel and the First Epistle of 
 John. The second and third (so called), in which the writer 
 calls himself " the Elder," would seem to be his own work, 
 acknowledged as such.^ But surely, if we admit that John 
 the Elder counts for anything in the second class of Johannine 
 writings (the Gospel and Epistles), he has no part in the 
 composition of the Apocalypse. If anything is plain, it is that 
 the two cannot have come from the same hand. This was 
 evident to Dionysius of Alexandria, in the latter half of the 
 third century, whose essay on the point is a model of learned 
 and critical dissertation.^ Of all the New Testament writings, 
 the Apocalypse is the most Jewish, and the Fourth Gospel the 
 least so. Thus the word " Jew," which in that Gospel always 
 means " enemy of Jesus," is in the Apocalypse the highest 
 title of honour (ii. 9, iii. 9). Admitting that the Apostle John 
 is the author of any of the -W^-itings traditionally ascribed to 
 him, it is certainly the Apocalypse, not the Gospel. The former 
 corresponds perfectly to the settled opinion which he seems to 
 have held in the dispute between Paul and the Jewish Chris- 
 tians, while the latter does not. The efforts made in the third 
 century by some of the Greek Fathers to assign the Apocalypse 
 to "John the Elder"* result from the aversion then felt for 
 that book among the orthodox teachers.^ They could not 
 endure that an apostle should be thought the writer of a book 
 
 ^ Euseb. iii. 39. We should, as it appears, read in this passage "the 
 disciples of the Lord's disciples say; " since Aristion and John the Elder 
 are represented as living in the time of Papias, and do not stand in the 
 same class with the apostles (" disciples of the Lord"). In any case, Eu- 
 sebius goes beyond the mark in inferring that Papias himself was a listener 
 to Aristion and "John the Elder." 
 
 ^ All these points will be further considered in the succeeding volume. 
 
 3 Eusebius, vii. 25. 
 
 * Dion-Alex, in Euseb. vii. 25 (cf. iii. 39); Jerome, De viris illustr. 9. 
 
 5 See " Eife of Jesus," p. 290, note 3; also below, p. 355.
 
 PSEUDONYMOUS WRITINGS. 15 
 
 whose style they found barbarous and its spirit stamped with 
 Jewish bitterness. Their opinion was an induction a 'priori^ 
 worthless in itself, expressing neither tradition nor critical 
 judgment. 
 
 If, then, the expression " I, John," in the first chapter, is 
 genuine, the Apocalypse is certainly fi-om the hand of the 
 Apostle John. But it is of the essence of an apocalypse 
 to be pseudonymous. The writers of " Daniel," " Enoch," 
 "Baruch,"and "Esdras," all assume those names as their 
 own. The Church of the second century accepted an apoca- 
 lypse of Peter, certainly apocryphal, just as they did that of 
 John.i If the writer gives his true name in the Apocalypse 
 of our canon, it is a surprising exception to the rule. Let us 
 grant the exception : in fact, this book differs essentially from 
 other similar writings tliat have come down to us. Most of 
 these are ascribed to writers who flourished (or were supposed 
 to flourish) five or six centuries, or even [as Enoch, " the 
 seventh from Adam " ] some thousands of years before. Those 
 of the second century were ascribed to men of the apostolic 
 age. The "Shepherd" and thei» pseudo-Clementines are some 
 fifty or sixty years after their assumed writers. So it was, 
 probably, with the apocalypse of Peter ; at least nothing shows 
 that it makes any exception as to topic or author. On the 
 other hand, the Apocalypse of the canon, if it is pseudony- 
 mous, seems to have been ascribed to John in his lifetime, or 
 very soon after his death. Were it not for the first three 
 chapters, this would be strictly possible. But can we suppose 
 that whoever assumed the name had the boldness to address 
 his apocryphal work to the " seven churches " which stood in 
 near relations with the apostle ? Or if we deny these rela- 
 tions, as Scholten does, we fall into a still greater difficulty; 
 for then we must admit that the composer, with unparalleled 
 fatuity, in writing to churches that had never known the 
 apostle, represents him as having been at Patmos, close by 
 
 1 See Canon of Muratori, lines 70-72, and stichometry of the Codex 
 claromonianus in Credner, Gescli. der neutest. Kanon, p. 177.
 
 i6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Ephesiis, — in fact, so near, and so dependent on its port, that 
 if he did go there it must have been by way of Ephesus, — 
 as acquainted with their nearest secrets, and as holding full 
 authority over them. Would these churches, which (as Schol- 
 ten holds) well knew that John had never been in or near 
 Asia, have let themselves be taken in by so crude a pretence ? 
 One thing stands out clear in any hypothesis, — that the 
 Apostle John was for some years the head of the churches 
 in Asia.i This being granted, it is hard not to admit that 
 he was really the author of this book ; for, since its date is 
 precisely fixed, we find no room for forgery. If the apostle 
 was living in Asia in January, a. d. 69, or had merely been 
 there, the first four chapters are unthinkable as the work 
 of another hand. Supposing (as Scholten does) that he died 
 at the beginning of this year, which does not seem to have 
 been the fact, we do not escape the difficulty. The book is 
 written as if the revelator were still alive ; it is to be cir- 
 culated at once among the Asiatic churches ; if the apostle 
 were dead the fraud would be too glaring. What would 
 they have said at Ephesus in February, at receiving such a 
 book, claiming to be from an apostle whom they knew to be 
 no longer living, and whom (as Scholten thinks) they had 
 never seen ? 
 
 The book itself, on a closer view, rather confirms than 
 weakens this opinion. The Apostle John seems, next after 
 James, to have been the most ardent of the Judaising Chris- 
 tians, while the Apocalypse breathes a bitter hatred against 
 Paul and all who were lax in keeping the Jewish Law. The 
 book strikingly reflects the violent and fanatical temper of this 
 apostle (see below, chap. xv.). It is indeed the work of that 
 " son of thunder," that stormy Boanerges, who would have 
 forbidden the use of his Master's name to any outside the 
 narrow circle of the disciples ; who, if he could, would have 
 rained fire and brimstone upon the inhospitable Samaritans. 
 The description of the celestial Court, with its material splen- 
 
 1 See Appendix at the end of this volume.
 
 JEWISH SPIRIT AND STYLE. 17 
 
 dour of thrones and crowns, is indeed that of one who, when 
 young, had aspired to sit witli his brother on thrones at the 
 right and left of the Messiah-King. The writer of the Apoca- 
 lypse has his mind engrossed by the two objects, Rome (chaps, 
 xiii.-xviii.) and Jerusalem (chaps, xi.-xii,). He appears to 
 have seen Rome, with its temples, statues, and lavish impe- 
 rial idolatry ; and we may easily suppose that John journeyed 
 thither in company with Peter. What regards Jerusalem is 
 yet more striking. The writer constantly returns upon " the 
 beloved city," thinks only of her, is familiar with the suffer- 
 ings of the church there during the Jewish revolt, as we see 
 in the fine image of the woman and her flight into the wilder- 
 ness (xii. 13-17) : we feel that he had been a pillar of this 
 church, an enthusiastic devotee of the Jewish party. The tra- 
 dition of Asia Minor seems, just so, to have kept the memory 
 of John as that of a rigid Judaiser. In the Paschal contro- 
 versy, which so vexed the Church during the latter half of 
 the second century, the churches in Asia rely chiefly on the 
 authority of John in celeb)"ating Easter on the fourteenth of 
 Nisan, according to the Jewish law. Polycarp in 160 and 
 Polycrates in 190 appeal to the same authority to defend their 
 antique custom against the innovators who, relying on the 
 Fourth Gospel, insisted that Jesus, " the true passover," did 
 not eat the paschal lamb with his disciples the night before 
 his death, and who transferred the feast to the day of the 
 resurrection. 1 
 
 The language of the Apocalypse is a further reason for 
 ascribing the book to a member of the church at Jerusalem. 
 It is wholly different from that in the other New Testament 
 books. It was doubtless written in Greek ,2 but in Greek 
 moulded upon Hebrew, — Hebrew in its style of thought, hardly 
 to be understood and felt by those ignorant of Hebrew. Be- 
 sides sacramental terms (ix. 11, xvi. 16) and " the number of 
 the beast," which are in Hebrew, like forms appear in every 
 
 1 See Euseb. v. 24. 
 
 2 Thus, "1 am the Alpha aud the Omega." The weights aud measures 
 are Greek. 
 
 2
 
 i8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 line.^ The writer is surprisingly saturated with the prophetic 
 writings and earlier apocalypses ; clearly, he knows them by 
 heart. He is familiar with the Greek version of the [Jewish] 
 sacred books ; but in his citations the Hebrew text comes into 
 his mind.2 How different from the style of Paul, Luke, the 
 writer of " Hebrews," or even the Synoptics ! Only a man 
 who had passed years at Jerusalem, in the schools about the 
 Temple, could be so steeped in the Scripture, or share so 
 keenly the passions and hopes of that rebellious people, with 
 its hatred of Rome. 
 
 Another point not to be overlooked is that the Apocalypse 
 has some features kindred with those of the Fourth Gospel 
 and the Johannine epistles. Thus, the expression " the Word 
 of God " (xix. 13), so characteristic of the Fourth Gospel, is 
 first found here. The image of " living waters " is common 
 to the two.^ The expression " Lamb of God " in the Fourth 
 Gospel (i. 29, 36) recalls the frequent designation of Christ as 
 " Lamb " in the Apocalypse. Both apply to the Messiah the 
 words " me whom they have pierced " (Zech. xii. 10), and 
 translate it in the same way (i. 7 ; xix. 37), — a rendering 
 which differs from the Septuagint, but answers to the Hebrew. 
 I by no means infer that the two books are from the same 
 hand ; but it is significant that the Gospel (which surely has 
 some connection with the Apostle John) shows in its style and 
 imagery something akin to a book which there are strong 
 grounds for attributing to that apostle. 
 
 Church tradition has hesitated upon this point. Even in 
 the middle of the second century the Apocalypse seems not to 
 
 ^ Xote especially i. 4, where the Greek translation of Jehovah is un- 
 declined [6 rjv: like " I Am hath sent me."]. 
 
 2 He adopts several expressions of the LXX., even when inaccurate: 
 as "tabernacle of witness" for assemhhj ; Almighty (i. 8 : rravTOKpaTiop) 
 for " Jehovah of hosts." The phrase, " He shall rule them (noifiavel) with 
 a rod of iron " (Ps. ii. 9), several times quoted, is taken from the LXX. 
 rather than the Hebrew ["break them"], doubtless because it was so 
 employed in the Christian ^lessianic exegesis. 
 
 3 xxi. 6, xxii. 1, 17; John iv. and x.
 
 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS. 19 
 
 have had the importance we might expect for a composition 
 which had been given out as a solemn manifesto from the 
 pen of an apostle. It is doubtful whether Papias accepted it 
 as the writing of John. He, like the author of the Apocalypse, 
 was a millenarian ; but he seems to have held this doctrine 
 from "unwritten tradition." If he had cited this book in 
 proof, Eusebius would have said so, eager as he was to gather 
 every evidence from that ancient writer as to the apostolic 
 record. Nor is the testimony of Andrew or of Aretas ^ clear 
 upon this point. The author of the " Shepherd of Hermas," 
 it would seem (Vis. iv., Sim. Ix.), knew and imitated the 
 Apocalypse ; but it does not follow that he regarded it as a 
 work of the apostle. Justin Martyr, about the middle of the 
 second century, first plainly asserts that authorship (Tryph. 
 81) ; but he came forth from none of the great churches, 
 and is accordingly of slight authority as to tradition. Melito, 
 who commented on certain passages of the book, Theophilus 
 of Antioch, and ApoUonius, who used it freely in their polem- 
 ics,2 seem to liave had the same opinion of it with Justin. 
 The same may be said of the Canon of Muratori.^ After a. d. 
 200 the general opinion is that the •" John " of the Apocalypse 
 is really the apostle. Irenceus (^Adv. Hcer., pass.), Tertullian 
 {Adv. Marc. iii. 14, iv. 5), Clement of Alexandria {Strom, vi. 13; 
 Peed. ii. 12), Origen (^Matt. xvi. 6 ; JoJi. i. 14, ii. 4 ; cf. Euseb. 
 vi. 25), Hippolytus {Philos. vii. 36) have no hesitation. Still, 
 the contrary opinion is constantly upheld. To those v/ho 
 parted more and more widely from the early Judaic Chris- 
 tianity and millenarianism, the Apocalypse was a dangerous 
 book, impossible to defend, unworthy of an apostle, contain- 
 
 * Bishops of Csesarea in Cappadocia, of the fifth and sixth centuries. 
 
 2 See Euseb. iv. 24, 26 ; v. 18; Jerome, De viris illustr. 24; Melito, De 
 var. {suh fine). It may be asked if the name " John " in Eusebius is not an 
 explanation added by the historian. But, as he puts in relief the pas- 
 sages which throw doubt on the genuineness of the Apocalypse, we may 
 infer that he did not add the name without the authority of the writers 
 mentioned. 
 
 8 Lines 47, 48, 70-72 ; the latter passage, however, seems to show a 
 tendency to regard it as apocryphal.
 
 20 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ing prophecies that were never fulfilled. Marcion, Cerdo, and 
 the Gnostics rejected it wholly ; ^ the " Apostolic Constitutions " 
 omit it in their canon (ii. 57, vii. 47) ; the old Syriac version 
 {Peshito) has it not. The opponents of the Montanist reveries, 
 such as the priest Caius (Euseb. iii. 28) - and the Alogi (Epiph, 
 li. 3, 4, 32-35) claimed to find it the work of Cerinthus. Fi- 
 nally, in the latter half of the third century, the Alexandrian 
 school, in hostility to the raillenarianism revived by Valerian's 
 persecution, criticised the book with excessive rigour and 
 undisguised dislike ; Dionysius, the bishop, proved completely 
 that it could not be by the author of the Fourth Gospel, and 
 brought into vogue the theory of John the Elder.^ In the 
 fourth century the Church was divided in opinion (Euseb. iii. 
 24 ; Jer. Epist. 129). Eusebius, though doubtful, is on the 
 whole unfriendly to the theory that it was written by the son 
 of Zebedee. Gregory Nazianzen and almost all the Christian 
 scholars of his time refused to see an apostle's handiwork in 
 a book so sharply opposed to their taste, their notions of 
 apologetics, and their prejudice as scholars. We may say 
 tliat, if this party had had control, the Apocalypse would have 
 been put in the same rank with the " Shepherd " and the 
 Ayitilegomena^ of which the Greek text is almost wholly lost. 
 Happily, it was too late for such exclusion to prevail. Thanks 
 to able opposition, a book containing bitter attacks on Paul 
 was kept side by side with Paul's own writings, making up a 
 volume supposed to proceed from one and the same inspired 
 source. 
 
 Now, has this obstinate protest, making so marked a feature 
 in Church history, any great weight in the view of independ- 
 ent criticism ? We cannot say. Certainly Dionysius was right 
 
 1 Tert. Adv. Marc. iv. 5; //cer. 6. 
 
 2 Doubts as to this passage are removed by the fragment of Dionysius 
 Alex, in Euseb. vii. 25, and by what Epiphanius says of the Alogi. The 
 rendering " as if he were a great apostle " is inadmissible (Comp. Theo- 
 doret, Ilccr.fal). ii. 3). 
 
 3 Euseb. vii. 23. The question had probably been discussed by Ilij^v 
 polytus. See list in Corp. inscr. Gr. SG13, A. 3.
 
 HOSTILITY TO THE BOOK. 21 
 
 iu maintaining that the same hand could not have written 
 both the Fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse. But, in face of 
 that dilemma, the modern critic gives a different answer from 
 that of the third century. The genuineness of the Apocalypse 
 is far more probable than that of the Gospel ; and, if we must 
 assign any share to a supposed " John the Elder," that share 
 is far likelier to be the Gospel and epistles. What motive 
 had the opponents of Montanism in the third century, or 
 those Christians of the fourth, educated in the Greek schools 
 of Alexandria, Csesarea, and Antioch, to deny that the Apoca- 
 lypse was really the work of the Apostle John ? Was it a 
 tradition or memory preserved in the churches ? Not at all. 
 Their reasons were purely those of a priori dogma. First, if 
 the Apocalypse should be ascribed to the apostle, it was al- 
 most impossible for a man of sense and learning to admit the 
 genuineness of the Fourth Gospel, and to doubt this would be 
 thought an attack upon Christianity itself. Besides, the sup- 
 posed visions of John seemed to be a source of errors ever 
 renewed, — of a perpetual recrudescence of Judaic Christianity, 
 wild prophecy, and rash millenarianism. What reply could 
 be made to the Montanists and similar mystics, who were con- 
 sistent believers in the Apocalypse ? or to those troops of 
 enthusiasts who rushed upon martyrdom, intoxicated by the 
 wild poetry of that old book of the year 69 ? The only reply 
 could be that this book, the fountain-head of all their delu- 
 sions, was not the work of an apostle. The reason that led 
 Caius, Dionysius, and so many others to deny that the Apoca- 
 lypse was from John was precisely that which leads us to the 
 opposite conclusion. The book is Judaeo-Christian, Ebionite ; 
 it is the work of an enthusiast drunk with hate against the 
 Roman empire and the pagan world ; it forbids all reconcilia- 
 tion with that empire and that world ; its messianic doctrine 
 is purely material ; it affirms the thousand years' reign of 
 saints and martyrs ; it asserts the end of the world to be close 
 at hand. These reasons — in which reasonable Christians, 
 following the direction of Paul, and later of the Alexandrian 
 school, found unanswerable difficulties — are for us the marks
 
 22 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of antiquity and of apostolic genuineness. "We are not fright- 
 ened at Ebionism or Montanism ; as simple historians, we assert 
 that the adherents of these sects, rejected by the " ortho- 
 doxy " of their time, were the true successors of Jesus, of the 
 Twelve, and of " the household of the Master." The rational 
 direction which Christianity has followed, through a moderated 
 gnosis, the belated victory of the Pauline school, and above 
 all the ascendency of such men as Clement of Alexandria and 
 Origen, should not make us forget the circumstances of its 
 origin. The delusions, impossibilities, materialising views, 
 paradoxes, monstrosities, which shocked Eusebius when he 
 read the old Ebionite and millenarian writers like Papias, were 
 the real primitive Christianity. That the dreams of these 
 lofty enthusiasts might become a religion capable to live, 
 men of good sense and fine intelligence — such as the Greeks 
 who became Christians in the third century — must take in 
 hand the task of those old visionaries, to modify, chastise, and 
 prune it of its overgrowth. In this task of theirs, the most 
 authentic monuments of the early childlike simplicity became 
 embarrassing testimony, which they tried to thrust back into 
 oblivion. That happened which always happens at the origin 
 of a religious movement, which we notice in particular dur- 
 ing the first century or two of the Franciscan Order : the 
 founders were overmastered by the new-comers ; the true suc- 
 cessors of the fathers soon came to be " suspects " and here- 
 tics. Hence, as we often have occasion to insist, the favourite 
 scriptures of the Ebionite and millenarian Judaeo-Christianity 
 — " Enoch," " Baruch," " Assumption of Moses," " Ascension 
 of Isaiah," the fourth Esdras, the " Shepherd of Hermas," the 
 " Epistle of Barnabas " — were better preserved in Latin or 
 Oriental versions than in the Greek text. Hence, too, the 
 more or less complete loss of the Greek text of Papias and 
 Ireuseus. The "orthodox" Greek Church has always shown 
 itself extremely intolerant of such books, and has systemati- 
 cally suppressed them. 
 
 Thus the reasons for ascribing the Apocalypse to the Apostle 
 John remain strong ; and I think that those who shall read
 
 WAS JOHN THE AUTHOR? 23 
 
 this history will be struck at the way in which everything is 
 made clear and connected in this view. But, in a world where 
 notions of literary property were so different from ours, a 
 work might belong to an author in various degrees. Did the 
 Apostle John himself write the manifesto of a. d. 69 ? This 
 we may surely doubt. It is enough for my theory if he knew 
 it, approved it, and allowed it to circulate in his name. Thus 
 we should explain the first three verses, which seem to be from 
 another hand than the Seer's ; as well as passages like xviii. 
 20 and xxi. 14, which lead us to think of a different pen. So 
 in Ephesians ii. 20 we feel sure that an amanuensis or an imi- 
 tator has come between us and Paul. We have to be on our 
 guard against the abuse made of apostolic names to give cur- 
 rency to apocryphal compositions.^ Many things in the Apoca- 
 lypse are ill adapted to an immediate disciple of Jesus.^ 
 We are surprised to find one who was of the inner circle in 
 which the gospel was wrought out exhibiting his former friend 
 as a glorified Messiah, sitting on God's throne, ruling the na- 
 tions, — so wholly different from him of Galilee that the Seer 
 trembles at sight of him and " falls at his feet as dead " (i. 
 17). One who had known the real Jesus would scarcely, even 
 at the end of six and thirty years, have undergone such a men- 
 tal revolution. Mary of Magdala, on beholding the risen Jesus, 
 exclaims, " My Master ! " while John, on seeing the heavens 
 opened, must find him whom he loved transformed into the 
 dread Messiah. It is no less surprising to see from the pen 
 of one of the chief figures in tlie gospel idyll a composition 
 purely artificial, a mere copy, showing in every line a cold imi- 
 tation of the ancient prophetic visions. The picture of the 
 Galilaean fishermen given us by the Synoptics by no means 
 represents to us men of the study, diligent readers of old 
 books, pedantic rabbins. Is the picture by the Synoptics, then, 
 the false one ? and was the company that gathered about Jesus 
 a good deal more pedantic, more scholastic, more like the 
 
 * Compare the evidences from Caius and Dionysius of Alexandria in 
 Euseb. iii. 28. 
 
 2 Compare i. 12 with ver. 9, 19, 20; vi. 9; xx. 4; xxii. 8.
 
 24 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Scribes and Pharisees, than one could possibly gather from 
 Matthew, Mark, and Luke ? 
 
 If we admit the view I have suggested, — that John rather 
 adopted the Apocalypse than wrote it with his own hand, — 
 we have the further advantage of accounting for the limited 
 reception of the book during three quarters of the century fol- 
 lowing its composition. Very likely the author himself, after 
 the year 70, — seeing Jerusalem taken, the Flavian emperors 
 firm on their throne, the Empire reconstructed, and the world 
 persisting to exist in spite of the three-and-a-half years' term 
 he had allowed it, — checked the circulation of his work. The 
 Apocalypse, in fact, did not reach its highest importance till 
 near the middle of the second century, when millenarianism 
 became a point of dispute in the church ; when, especially, 
 persecutions again gave to outcries against " the Beast " their 
 meaning and their fitness, — as we see in the letter of the 
 churches of Lyons and Vienne in Eusebius (v. 1, 10, 58). The 
 fortune of the Apocalypse was thus bound up with the alter- 
 nations of peace and conflict in the Church. Each persecution 
 gave it new currency ; when the persecution was stayed, its 
 true day of peril came, and it had nearly been banished from 
 the canon as a misleading and seditious pamphlet. 
 
 Two traditions which I have accepted as plausible in this 
 volume — the coming of Peter to Rome, and the residence of 
 John at Ephesus — have been the subject of much controversy, 
 and are discussed in an appendix. I have there considered 
 Scholten's recent treatise on the apostle's abode in Asia, with 
 the attention due to all the writings of this eminent Dutch 
 critic. The conclusions to which I have come (which, however, 
 I hold as merely probable) will, no doubt, — like the use I have 
 made of the Fourth Gospel in writing the " Life of Jesus," — 
 move the scorn of a young, self-confident school, in whose eyes 
 every point is proved so that it be negative ; a school that per- 
 emptorily taxes with ignorance those who do not accept its 
 exaggerations on sight. I beg the thoughtful, serious reader 
 to believe that I have enough respect for him to neglect noth- 
 ing that may serve in the search for truth in tiic line of study
 
 THE GERMAN CRITICS. 25 
 
 I undertake. But it is my maxim that history is one thing 
 and disquisition is another. History cannot be well taken in 
 hand until erudition has heaped up whole libraries of memoirs 
 and critical essays. But, when history comes to be disengaged 
 from this scaffolding, all it owes the reader is to point out the 
 original source on which each statement rests. In these vol- 
 umes devoted to the beginnings of Christian history, the notes 
 fill a third of the page ; but if I had been obliged to add the 
 bibliography, citations from modern authors, and detailed dis- 
 cussions of the views held, they would have covered at least 
 three-quarters. True, the method I have followed assumes 
 the reader to be familiar with the results of critical study in 
 the Old and New Testaments, a claim which few of my coun- 
 trymen can make. But how many works of value could there 
 be, if a writer must first be sure of a public to understand him 
 fully ? I say, too, that even one with no knowledge of Ger- 
 man, if he is acquainted with what has been written in our 
 language upon the subject, can perfectly well follow my argu- 
 ment. The excellent collection of essays in the Revue de 
 theologk (published till recently at Strasburg), is an encyclo- 
 paedia of modern exegesis, not relieving us, it is true, from the 
 duty of exploring the German and Dutch scholars, but for half 
 a century reporting all great discussions of theological erudi- 
 tion/ 1 have always insisted that Germany has earned last- 
 ing glory by founding the science of biblical criticism, with the 
 researches appertaining thereto ; and this, with sufficient em- 
 phasis to be above the charge of ignoring the obligations I 
 have a hundred times acknowledged. German exegesis has 
 its faults, which ever so liberal a theologian cannot avoid ; but 
 the patience, persistency, and good faith it has displayed are 
 worthy of all praise. Many a noble building-stone has Ger- 
 
 ^ This and the succeeding paragraph contain the author's personal 
 acknowledgments to between thirty and forty eminent scholars, and 
 critics of the modern schools. As these lists, however, were written 
 nearly twenty years ago, they would be an insufficient guide for more 
 recent explorers in a field whose bounds are so rapidly extending, and 
 hence they are omitted here. — Ed.
 
 26 • INTRODUCTION. 
 
 many added in the intellectual structure of mankind ; but, 
 among them all, biblical science is, perhaps, that which has 
 been chiselled with the greatest care, and which bears most 
 completely the stamp of the workman's hand. 
 
 I would here record my special gratitude to those accom- 
 plished Italian scholars, who were my inestimable guides 
 throughout a recent journey in Italy. It will appear in the 
 following pages at how many points this journey touched the 
 topics it treats. Though no stranger to Italy, I was athirst to 
 greet once more that land so full of memories, the richly en- 
 dowed mother of every new intellectual birth. According to 
 Rabbinical tradition, there was at Rome, during the long 
 eclipse of beauty which we call the Middle Age, an ancient 
 image, kept in a secret spot, so beautiful that the Romans 
 would come by night to kiss it stealthily. Of such embraces, 
 'twas said. Antichrist was born.^ This child of the marble 
 image was verily a son of Italy. All the great protests of man's 
 conscience against the extravagances of Christendom came of 
 old from the bosom of this land ; and from this they will come 
 again in future time. 
 
 I will confess that my delight in history, the singular joy in 
 beholding the spectacle displayed on the theatre of the world, 
 has especially entranced me in this volume. I have had such 
 joy in writing it that I ask no other reward than I have found 
 in the task itself. Often have I reproached myself for taking 
 so much pleasure in my study, while my unhappy country was 
 wasting in long agony ; but my conscience is clear of blame. 
 When in the elections of 1869 1 solicited the votes of my fellow- 
 citizens, all my placards bore conspicuously this inscription : 
 " No Revolution ! no War ! War would be as fatal as Revolu- 
 tion." In September, 1870, 1 implored the enlightened minds 
 of Germany and Europe to reflect on the frightful peril that 
 menaced civilisation. During the siege of Paris, in Novem- 
 ber, I risked great unpopularity by advocating an Assembly, 
 with powers to treat for peace. In the elections of 1871, I 
 
 ^ Buxtorf, Lexicon Clmld., etc., p. 222,
 
 RELIGION WITHOUT DOGMA, 27 
 
 replied to the overtures made me, " Such a charge can be 
 neither sought nor refused." When order was restored, I 
 bestowed all my attention upon the reforms which I considered 
 most urgent for the salvation of the State. I have done what 
 I could. We owe it to our country to be frank with her ; we 
 need employ no flatteries or tricks to win her to accept our 
 service or accord with our views. 
 
 Moreover, while this volume is primarily addressed to 
 inquirers and men of taste, it will, perhaps, teach more than 
 one lesson. Here we shall see crime carried to its height, and 
 protest lifted against it in accents saintly and sublime. Such 
 a sight will have its religious use. I believe as fully as ever 
 that religion is not a mere illusion of our nature ; that it an- 
 swers to something objectively real ; that he who follows its 
 inspirations is the truly inspired man. To simplify religion 
 is not to undermine it, but often, rather, to make it strong. 
 The little Protestant sects of our day, like Christianity at its 
 birth, are here to prove it. The great error of Romanism is 
 to think that we can contend against the advance of material- 
 ism with an intricate dogmatic system, burdening ourselves 
 more heavily each day with some fresh marvel. 
 
 The people will henceforth endure only a religion without 
 miracle ; but such a religion might yet be a living one if those 
 who have the care of souls would accept the degree of positiv- 
 ism that has gained a hold on the mental temper of the work- 
 ing class ; and if, reducing dogma to its lowest terms, they 
 would make worship a means of moral training and helpful 
 co-operation. Above the Family, beyond the State, mankind 
 needs the Church. The stability of the American Union, with 
 its amazing democracy, is found only in its innumerable sects. 
 If (as we may suppose) Ultramontane Catholicism can no 
 longer win back to its temples the population of great cities, 
 personal effort must create those little centres where the poor 
 and weak may find instruction, moral help, friendly guidance, 
 sometimes material aid. Civil society — call it village, dis- 
 trict, province, state, or fatherland — owes something to the 
 betterment of the individual ; but it acts only within strict
 
 28 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 limits. The family owes more ; but it is often weak, some- 
 times wholly helpless. Associations formed upon a moral 
 foundation can alone bestow on every man that comes into the 
 world a living bond uniting him with the Past, duties toward 
 the Future, examples to be followed, a heritage of Virtue to be 
 received and handed down, a tradition of Self-sacrifice which 
 he has to carry on. 
 
 NOTE ON THE LATER CRITICISM OF THE APOCALYPSE. 
 
 This portion of Kenan's great work was completed about the year 
 1872. At that time there was a wide if not universal consent of oi^iuion 
 among scholars on the three main points of his exposition : that the 
 Apocalypse expresses the mind of an extreme Jewish party in the Chris- 
 tian Church ; that it was written during, or just before, the terrors of the 
 Jewish war of a. d. 68-70; and that its most characteristic and obscure 
 predictions refer personally to Nero, and to the current popular expectation 
 that, after his real or supposed death, he would be for a time restored to 
 power. These points are fully illustrated in chapter xvi. of the present 
 volume. The question of a possible plurality of authorship appears to have 
 been hardly so much as raised. 
 
 Of other points remaining unresolved, the following are most impor- 
 tant : an early Christian tradition ascribing the work to the time of 
 Domitian, about twenty-five years later than the date here assumed; 
 numerous passages or phrases which appear to express doctrinal concep- 
 tions of the second century; and, in particular, a seemingly irreconcilable 
 duality of conception, — the Jewish Messiah, vengeful and triumphant, 
 being here and there set aside for the Christian Redeemer under the 
 image of a Lamb slain in sacrifice for the sins of his people, while a rigid 
 Jewish partialism gives way to the promise of a world-wide salvation. It 
 has also to be noticed that the clear references to Nero are all contained 
 in a single broken passage — chapters xi.-xiv. ; xvii. , xviii. — which is 
 strictly an episode, interrupting what is otherwise the regular unfolding 
 of a celestial drama.^ The most complete exhibition of the points above 
 
 1 In this episode the scene is transferred from heaven to earth, and is full 
 of literary wealth and passion, quite remote from the bare symbolism of the 
 celestial visions. Here we have the true Hebraic temper: "faith in the 
 perpetuity of tlie Temple ; hope of the return of Israel to God and his final 
 deliverance; a human Messiah, born of the Israelitish theocracy, and caught 
 up to heaven to escape the wrath of the Dragon, — a Messiah without cross or 
 death; the return of Moses and Elias [the two olive-trees and candlesticks]
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 29 
 
 enumerated, accessible in English, is given by Dr. Martineau in " The 
 Seat of Authority in Religion " (1890), pages 217-237. 
 
 Two attempted solutions of the questions thus raised are all that need 
 to be considered here. The first is that of Daniel Voelter (Tiibingen, 
 1882), advocating a plurality of authorship, as modified by Eberhard 
 Vischer in an essay of very great ability, published in 1886.^ It may be 
 stated, in a general way, thus : At some later period of distress in the 
 Christian Church, — presumably in the time of Domitian, the date as- 
 signed by Harnack (1896), — there came into the hands of some Christian 
 teacher of authority a Hebrew document, which proved to be a book of 
 visions composed during the extreme agony of the Jewish people in 69 or 
 70. This he translated (the translation being strongly tinged with the 
 original Hebrew colouring), freely interspersing passages to adapt it to 
 the needs and temper of his own day, and prefixing an introduction, with 
 letters to the seven churches, their form and symbolism being shaped 
 upon the Hebrew original. In this — with a few passages added here 
 and there, down to a. d. 135 — we have the "Apocalypse of John." 
 
 Vischer's essay opened up a new field of discussion, which is already 
 occupied by a considerable literature, on a topic that had seemed " ex- 
 hausted and going to sleep." To this discussion a defence of the single 
 authorship, by M. Bovon, in the Lausanne Revue de The'ologie (on the 
 ground of the general identity of eschatological views among Jews and 
 Christians) is perhaps the most notable single contribution. A modified 
 view by M. Sabatier, referred to on page 12, defends with great skill and 
 charm the general unity of style and composition in the Apocalypse as a 
 ■whole, but makes a marked exception of the episode just spoken of, in 
 chapter xi. and the succeeding chapters. This, it holds, was adopted 
 bodily by the Christian writer of the time of Domitian, to be pondered, 
 like the obscure predictions of "Daniel," as a divine oracle, " bitter " and 
 hard to understand, — "the last cry of distress, vengeance, and hope, of 
 the expiring Jewish nation." — Ed. 
 
 in chapter xi. ; a severe and jealous monotheism; a passion of vengeance 
 against the enemies of the Jewish people ; triumph and savage joy at the sight 
 of desolated Rome ; material splendours of the New Jerusalem." These are 
 contained in the "little book" of chapter x., — the figure under which this 
 episode is introduced. (Sabatier, Les Origines de I' Apocalypse de Saint Jean.) 
 
 In Gunkel's Schopfung nnd Chaos (Gottingen, 1895), it is maintained that the 
 entire episode of tlie Dragon is a Babylonian myth, adopted very early into the 
 Hebrew apocalyptic imagery. In this view the "number of the Beast" (666) 
 has its equivalent in the Hebrew, rT'Jmp Dinn = " primeval chaos." 
 
 1 Die Ojfenharunfi Johannis, eine Jwlische Apokalt/pse in Christlicher Bear- 
 beitunfj, Leipzig, pp. 137. It contains an Appendix by Professor Harnack, and 
 the full Greek text of chapters iv.-xxii. 5, containing the assumed original 
 document, and marking in the type twelve or more supposed interpolations.
 
 ANTICHEIST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAUL IN PRISON. — A. D. 61. 
 
 It was a strange time ; never, perhaps, had mankind 
 passed through a more extraordinary crisis. Nero was 
 just entering on his twenty-fourth year. The head of 
 this wretched youth, whose mother's crime had put him 
 on the throne of the world at seventeen, was growing 
 completely crazed. Many symptoms had long caused 
 anxiety in those who knew him. His was a mind 
 prodigiously given to display ; an evil nature full of 
 hypocrisy, levity, and vanity ; an incredible compound 
 of distorted intelligence, profound malice, and self-love 
 both cruel and suspicious, and a refinement of craft 
 without parallel. Such he was by nature. Still, it 
 needed special circumstances to make of him that 
 monster who has no second in history, and who finds 
 his like only in the reports of criminal pathology.^ The 
 school of crime in which he had grown up — the neces- 
 sity which that wicked woman almost laid upon him, 
 to enter on the scene by an act of parricide — made 
 him early conceive the world as a shocking comedy in 
 which he was the chief actor. At the present moment 
 
 ^ See the reflection in Pausanias, vii. 17 : 3.
 
 32 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 be has completely forsaken his masters, the philoso- 
 phers ; he has slain almost all his kindred ; he has 
 brought the most shameful extravagances into fashion ; 
 Roman society, in great part, following his example, 
 has gone down to the last depth of depravity. Antique 
 hardness of heart was coming to its height ; a truer 
 popular instinct was beginning to react against it. 
 About the time when Paul entered Rome, this was 
 the chronicle of the day : — 
 
 Pedanius Secundus, prefect of Rome, a man of consu- 
 lar rank, had been assassinated by one of his slaves, 
 who might well plead extenuating circumstances in his 
 favour. By the law, every slave who had been under 
 the same roof with him when the crime was committed 
 must be put to death. Of these wretches there were 
 near four hundred. When it was learned that this 
 atrocious butchery was really to take place, the slum- 
 bering sense of justice in the vilest of the people w^as 
 shocked. There was a riot ; but the Senate and the 
 Emperor decreed that the law must take its course.-^ 
 
 Among these four hundred innocents slaughtered in 
 the name of a hateful law, there may have been more 
 than one Christian. The bottom of the pit of iniquity 
 was now reached ; to go on must be to go upward. 
 Certain moral indications of a strange sort had ap- 
 peared in the higher ranks of Roman society.^ Four 
 years before, there had been much talk of a high-born 
 lady, Pomponia Grcecina, wife of Aulus Plautius, the 
 first conqueror of Britain.^ She was charged with 
 
 1 Tac. Ann. xiv. 42. 
 
 2 Tertull. Apol. 1. 
 
 3 See Borghesi, Works, i. 17-27; Ovid, Pondca, i. 6, ii. 6, iv. 9; Tac. 
 Agric. 4.
 
 PAUL IN PRISON. 33 
 
 " outlandish superstition." She always dressed in 
 black, and never relaxed in her austerity of man- 
 ner. This melancholy was ascribed to shocking mem- 
 ories, especially the death of her near friend, Julia, 
 daughter of Drusus, who perished at the hand of 
 Messalina. One of her sons seems also to have been 
 the victim of one of Nero's most enormous crimes ; ^ 
 but Pomponia evidently bore in her heart a profounder 
 grief, and, it may be, a mysterious hope. According to 
 old custom, she was referred to the tribunal of her hus- 
 band, who assembled their kindred, investigated the 
 charge as a family matter, and pronounced her inno- 
 cent. This noble lady lived long after, safe in her hus- 
 band's protection, always sad, always held in honour. 
 She seems never to have told her secret.^ Who knows 
 whether what superficial observers took for melancholy 
 was not a deep peace of soul, calm meditation, a re- 
 signed looking forward to death, scorn of a society at 
 once silly and malevolent, the unspoken joy of a heart 
 that renounces pleasure ? Who knows whether Pom- 
 ponia Grsecina was not the first saint in the world of 
 rank, the elder sister of Melania, Eustochia, and Paula ?^ 
 This strange condition of things, while it exposed 
 the church at Rome to political storms, gave to it, 
 although small in numbers, an importance among the 
 
 ^ Sueton. Nero, 35. 
 
 2 Tac. Ann. xiii. 32. 
 
 * The Gens Pomponia GrcBcina is thought by some to have held for 
 several centuries high rank in the Church at Rome. The name seems to 
 have been found in the cemetery of St. Calixtus (inscription of the third 
 or fourth century doubtfully restored: Rossi, Boma sotteran. i. 306; ii. 360; 
 inscr. tav. 49, 50, No. 27). The identifying of Pomponia Grsecina with 
 the Lucina whose memory clings to the oldest Christian burial-places 
 seems more than doubtful. There was only one Lucina, of the third 
 century. 
 
 3
 
 34 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 first. Eome, under Nero, was not in the least like a 
 provincial city. Every one who looked for a great 
 career must go to it. In coming thither Paul him- 
 self had been guided by a clear intuition. His arrival 
 there was an event in his life second only to his con- 
 version. He felt that he had reached the zenith of his 
 apostolic career, and doubtless recalled the dream in 
 which, after one of his days of conflict, Christ appeared 
 to him, saying, " Be of good cheer, Paul ; for as thou 
 hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear 
 witness also at Rome." ^ 
 
 As soon as they came near the walls of the eternal 
 city, the centurion Julius conducted his prisoners to 
 the praetorian barracks, built by Sejanus near the via 
 Nomentana, and put them in charge of the "captain 
 of the guard " [prcefediis prcetorianus)?' Those who 
 appealed to the emperor, on entering Rome, were held 
 as the emperor's prisoners, and as such confided to the 
 imperial guard.^ There were usually two praetorian 
 prefects ; at this time there was but one.* Since 
 A. D. 51, this high charge had been in the hands of the 
 noble Afranius Burrhus,^ who a year later atoned by a 
 grievous death for the crime of seeking to do good by 
 a compact with evil. With him Paul doubtless had 
 direct communication ; though it may be that the 
 humane treatment given to the apostle was due to 
 the influence which that upright and good man shed 
 about him. Paul was put in military guard ; that is, 
 
 1 Acts xxiii. 11 ; comp. xix. 24 ; xxvii. 24. 
 
 2 Acts xxviii. 16; Phil. i. 13; Suet. Tiberiux, 37. 
 
 8 Pliny, Epist. x. 65; Josephus, Antiq. xviii. 6: 6, 7; Philostratus, 
 Sop?iist(B, ii. 32. 
 
 ^ Tillemont, Hist, des empereurs, i. 702. 
 ^ See Josephus, Antiq. xx. 8: 9.
 
 PAUL IN PRISON. 35 
 
 in keeping of an officer of the military stores (frumeii' 
 tarius)^ to whom he was chained, but not painfully or 
 constantly. He was allowed to live in quarters hired 
 at his own charge, probably near the barracks, where 
 any might come freely to see him,^ and here he waited 
 for two years the hearing of his appeal. Burrhus died 
 in March, A. d. 62, and was succeeded by Fenius Rufus 
 and the infamous Tigellinus, the partner of Nero's 
 debauchery, and the agent of his crimes. Seneca, from 
 this time on, kept aloof from public affairs, and Nero 
 had no other counsellors than the Furies. 
 
 The relations of Paul with the faithful in Rome had 
 begun, as we have seen, during his abode at Corinth. 
 Three days after his arrival he wished, according to 
 his custom, to come in contact with the chief hakamwi 
 (wise men). The Christian body in Rome had not been 
 formed in the Jewish synagogue, but of believers from 
 abroad, who had landed at Ostia or Puteoli, and gath- 
 ered in a church which had little to do with the various 
 synagogues of Rome. Owing to the vastness of the 
 city, and the multitude of strangers who met in it,^ 
 there was little common acquaintance, and quite oppo- 
 site ways of thinking might prevail there without ever 
 coming into touch. Paul, then, followed the same 
 course here as in his first and second missions in the 
 
 1 Acts xxviii. 16, 20; comp. " Saint Paul," p. 156 ; Jos. Ant. xviii. 6:7; 
 Seneca, De tranq. anhnce, 10. Frumentarii were attached, apparently, to 
 every corps (Renier). 
 
 2 Acts xxxiii. 16, 17, 20, 23, 30. Phil. i. 7, 13, 14, 17, 30. Col. iv. 3, 
 4, 18. Eph. ii. 1 ; iii. 1 ; vi. 19, 20. 
 
 ' The Jewish population may have been some twenty or thirty 
 thousand, counting women and children (Jos. A nt. xvii. 11:1; xviii. 3 : 5. 
 Tac. Ann. ii. 85). The well-known passage in Cicero {pro Flacco, 28) 
 implies about that number.
 
 36 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 towns where he planted the faith. He sent to invite 
 several chiefs of the synagogue to visit him. To these 
 he set forth the situation in the most favourable light, 
 assuring them that he neither had done nor wished 
 to do anything against his people ; that he strove for 
 the " hope of Israel ; " that is, faith in the resurrection. 
 The Jews replied that they had never heard of him, 
 or received any message from Judaea that spoke of him, 
 and invited him to explain his views ; " for," said they, 
 "we hear that the sect you tell us of is everywhere 
 spoken against." A time was set for the discussion, 
 and a large number of Jews gathered in the little room 
 which made his dwelling to hear him. The discussion 
 lasted almost a whole day, Paul setting forth the texts 
 of Moses and the Prophets which, as he thought, proved 
 Jesus to be the Messiah. A few assented, the larger 
 number remained incredulous. The Jews of Rome 
 prided themselves on their exact observance of the 
 Law : ^ here was not the place for him to succeed. 
 The meeting broke up in loud dispute ; in anger he 
 quoted a passage of Isaiah (vi. 9, 10), very familiar to 
 Christian preachers,^ on the wilful blindness of those 
 hardened men who shut their eyes and stop their ears 
 so as neither to see nor hear the truth. He ended, 
 says the account, with the usual threat of offering the 
 kingdom of God, rejected by the Jews, to Gentiles who 
 would more readily accept it. 
 
 His mission among the pagans was, in truth, far 
 more successful. His prison-cell became the centre of 
 an ardent apostolate. During the two years of his 
 
 ^ ^tXeiToXoi (lovers of the commandments). See "Saint Paul," pp. 
 104-107. 
 
 2 Matt. xiii. 14; Mark xiv. 12; Luke viii. 10; John xii. 40; Rom. 
 xi. 8.
 
 PAUL IN PRISON. 37 
 
 captivity he was never once molested in his work.^ 
 Some of his disciples continued with him, among them 
 Timothy and Aristarchus ; ^ Luke must have left him, 
 as Paul does not send his greeting to the Philippians. 
 His friends seem, by turns, to have shared his imprison- 
 ment.^ The progress of conversion was remarkable.* 
 The apostle wrought miracles, it was said, controlling 
 spirits and the heavenly powers,^ which accounts we 
 may compare with the legend of Simon Magus. Paul 
 in prison was thus more effective than when in free 
 activity. His chains, which he dragged to the praetor's 
 court, and displayed with a sort of pride,*' were eloquent 
 in themselves. At his example, inspired by his courage 
 in captivity, his disciples and other Roman Christians 
 grew bold in speech. 
 
 At first they found no obstacle.'^ Even Campania 
 and the cities near Vesuvius received (perhaps from 
 the church at Puteoli) the germs of Christian faith, 
 which here found the ordinary condition of its growth, 
 a soil of Judaism to receive it.^ Strange conquests 
 were brought about. The pure life of the faithful was 
 
 1 Acts xxviii. 30, 31 ; Phil. 7. 
 
 2 Phil. i. 1; ii. 19; Col. iv. 10; Philem. 24. 
 
 3 Col. iv. 10 ; Philem. 13, 23. * Phil. i. 12. 
 6 Rom. XV. 18, 19. ^ Phil. i. 13. 
 ' Phil. i. 14. 
 
 8 Garrucci, Bull, archeol. napol., new series, ann. 2, p. 8; Rossi, Bull. 
 di archeol. crist. 1864, p. 69, 92; Zangemeister, Inscr. pariet. No. 679. 
 For the Jews at Puteoli, see Minervini, Bull arch, napol. new ser. ann. 3, 
 p. 105 ; at Pompeii, Garrucci, as above, pp. 8, 68. On the various eastern 
 or southern populations at Puteoli, see "Saint Paul," p. 114; Mommsen, 
 Inscr. napol. No. 2462 ; Fiorelli, hiscr. Lai. (museum of Naples), Nos. 691, 
 692, 693; Minervini, Man. ant. ined. i. (Naples, 1852), 40-43, App. vii-ix; 
 Zeilschr. der d. m. G. 1869, 150 et seq. ; Journ. asiat. Apr. 1873. Comp. 
 Gervasio (Mem. d. Accad. Ercolan. vol. ix. ; Scherillo, La venuta di S. 
 Pielro in Napoli (Naples, 1859), pp. 97-149. See TertuU. Apol. 40.
 
 38 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 a powerful charm, which won many a Roman dame : ^ 
 the better famihes, indeed, still retained an unbroken 
 tradition of modesty and nobility of character in their 
 ladies. The new sect had disciples even in Nero's 
 household,^ and perhaps among the Jews also, who 
 were numerous in the lower ranks of service,^ — for 
 example, the Jewess Acme, waiting-maid of Livia ; the 
 Samaritan Thallus, freedman of Tiberius^ — and among 
 the slaves and freedmen enrolled in societies or clubs 
 [collegia), whose condition touched the meanest and the 
 highest, the most brilliant and most squalid.^ Vague 
 hints would lead us to suppose that Paul had relations 
 with members or freedmen of the Annsean house.^ It 
 
 1 As we see in the Acts of Peter reported by the pseudo-Linus. 
 
 2 Phil. iv. 22. Cf. Philosoph. ix. 12; Gruter, 642, 8; Cardinali, Dipl 
 p. 221, No. 410. According to Chrysostom (i. 48, ii. 168, ix. 349, xi. 673, 
 722, ed. Montfaucon), Astorius [an Arian of Cappadocia, in the fourth 
 century], p. 168 (ed. Combefis) ; Theophylact (in 2 Tim. iv. 16), Glycas 
 (Ann. p. 236, Paris ed.), communications of Paul with one of the women, 
 and with a favourite servant of Nero's court, are to be traced in the 
 Acts of Peter and Paul. Comp. the apocryphal " Passions " of these apos- 
 tles, ascribed to St. Linus, in Bibl. patrum maxima, ii. 67 et seq. ; the Acts 
 of St. Tropez in Acta SS. Mail. p. 6 (note the expression magnus in officio 
 Ccesaris Nernnis, and comp. Gruter, 599, 6; Rkein Mus. new ser. vi. 16); 
 Acta Petri et Pauli (Tisch. Acta apost. apocr.) §§ 31, 80, 84, Paris 1\ISS. 
 There is no ground for identifying the legendary woman of the court with 
 Acte, though the inscription 735 of Orelli is no objection, not being the 
 epitaph of Acte, as supposed (Greppo, T7-ois memoires, Paris, 1810, mem. 
 1, and additions). 
 
 8 See below, p. 141, 142. 
 
 4 Jos. Antiq. xvii. 5: 7; 18, v. 4; Wars, i. 33: 6, 7. 
 6 Tac. Hist. ii. 92. 
 
 ® The following inscription, seemingly of the third century, was 
 discovered a few years ago at Ostia : — 
 
 D- M- 
 
 M • AXNEO • 
 
 Pavlo • Petro 
 M • Annevs • Pavlvs 
 
 FiLIO • CARISSIMO 
 
 {Rossi, Bull 1867, 6 et seq. Cf. Dion. Alex, in Euseb. vii. 25: 14). There
 
 PAUL IN PRISON. 39 
 
 is clear, in any case, that the distinction between Jew 
 and Christian was well understood in Rome at this 
 time by people of intelligence. Christianity seemed to 
 them a separate " superstition," an outgrowth from 
 Judaism, hating it and hated by it.^ Nero, in par- 
 ticular, knew well enough what was going on, and 
 regarded it with a certain curiosity. Already, perhaps, 
 some of the Jewish intriguers about him stirred his 
 imagination with the affairs of the East, and had 
 promised him that kingdom of Jerusalem which was 
 the dream of his last hours, his latest hallucination.^ 
 
 We do not know with certainty the name of any 
 member of the church in Rome at this time. A 
 document of dubious value reckons, as friends of 
 Paul and Timothy, the names of Eubulus, Pudens, 
 Claudia, and that Linus whom later ecclesiastical tra- 
 dition recorded as Peter's successor in the Roman 
 
 were many Peters in the third century (of Lampsacus, of Alexandria, etc.), 
 and still more Pauls (of Saraosata, etc.). In the fourth, the belief pre- 
 vailed of relations of St. Paul with Seneca, suggesting an apocryphal cor- 
 respondence (Jerome, De vir. illustr. 12 ; Aug. Epist. 153, to Macedonius, 14; 
 pseudo-Linus, pp. 70, 71). The belief originated from a certain supposed 
 likeness in doctrine (Tertull. De anima, 20). Paul, indeed, had relations 
 with Gallio, Seneca's brother ; but the slight interest felt by these en- 
 lightened men in popular superstitions (Acts xviii. 12-17) does not lead us 
 to suppose that Seneca's curiosity was moved in the least regarding Paul. 
 The law that Seneca, as consul in the latter half of a. i>. 57 (Rossi, Bull. 
 1866, 60, 62), had to pronounce on Paul's appeal, rests on an erroneous 
 chronology. In a lost book, Contra Superstitiones, Seneca spoke of Jews, 
 not Christians (Aug. De civ. Dei, vi. 11). This prejudice against Jews 
 would have ill disposed him towards Paul and the Christians if he had 
 ever met them. Such a man could not have been Paul's disciple. 
 
 1 A passage of Tacitus, preserved by Sulpicius Severus (Bernays, 
 Ueher die Kronik des Sulp. Sev., Berlin, 1861, 57), speaks of "these super- 
 stitions, though mutually hostile, yet proceeding from a common origin 
 . . . Christians came from Jews." (Comp. Tac. Ann. xv. 44.) 
 
 2 Suet. Nero, 40.
 
 40 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 bishopric.-' Nor have we any means of estimating, 
 even approximately, the number of the disciples. They 
 made, no doubt, but a small fraction of the Jewish 
 population.^ 
 
 All seemed to be going well ; but the fiercely bitter 
 party that had taken it in hand to fight Paul to the 
 ends of the earth did not sleep. We have seen the 
 emissaries of those eager conservatives hunting him, 
 as it were, by scent on his trail, while in his travels 
 by sea he left a long wake of hatred behind him. 
 Shown under the baleful features of a man who 
 teaches the eating of flesh sacrificed to idols, and the 
 sharing of gentile works of uncleanness, he is pointed 
 out to all men in advance, and marked as the object 
 of vengeance. This is hard for us at this day to be- 
 lieve, but we cannot w^ell doubt it, since Paul himself 
 has told it.^ Even at this solemn and critical moment, 
 he finds himself confronted by the basest passions. 
 Adversaries — members of that Judseo-Christian sect, 
 which now for ten years he had found everywhere in his 
 path — mocked him with a sort of counterfeit preach- 
 ing of the gospel. Envious, disputatious, hateful, they 
 watched the occasion to oppose him, to embitter the 
 griefs of his imprisonment, to stir up the Jews against 
 him, to belittle the merit of his endurance. The good- 
 
 ^ 2 Tim. iv. 21. This verse served later as the ,c;round of legends 
 regarding the senator Pudens and his family. On the name Linus, see 
 Le Bas (Inscr. iii. No. 1081). Greek names at Rome usually indicate 
 slaves or freedmen (Suet. Claud. 2.5; Gniha, 14; Tac. Hist. i. 13). The 
 cognomen gentililium alone of freedmen might be Latin. For Claudia, 
 corap. Claudia Aster (below, p. 141, 142), KXavSi'a irLcrrrj (inscr. at Rome, 
 Orelli, i. 367). A Claudia is named among the freed people of Acta 
 (Orelli, 735; Fabretti, Inscr. 124-126). On the names registered in 
 Romans xvi. see "Saint Paul," Litrod. Ixv-l.xx. 
 
 2 See note 3, p. 35. » Phil. i. 15-17 ; ii. 20, 21.
 
 PAUL IN PRISON. 41 
 
 will, love, and honour exhibited toward him by others, 
 their eagerly declared conviction that his chains were 
 the glory and best vindication of the Gospel, sweetened 
 to him all that bitter draught. In his own words, 
 written at this time, — 
 
 What then ? If only Christ be preached, whether in pre- 
 tence or in truth, I rejoice in it and will rejoice. For I know 
 that this will prove my salvation through your prayer and the 
 aid of the spirit of Christ. This is my earnest expectation 
 and my hope, that Christ shall be glorified whether by my life 
 or death. For my life is Christ, and to me death is gain ; 
 so that if I live I have the harvest of my work, and which I 
 would choose I do not know. Thus I am in doubt between 
 the two : for my desire is to depart and be with Christ, which 
 for me is far more to be desired ; yet to remain among you 
 is to render the better service.^ 
 
 This greatness of soul gave him marvellous assur- 
 ance, cheer, and strength. To one of the churches 
 he writes, " If my blood must be sprinkled as a liba- 
 tion upon the sacrifice of your faith, I am glad and 
 rejoice with you all ; so do you rejoice and be glad 
 with me." ^ Still he was more glad to believe in his 
 own speedy acquittal ; for he saw in it the triumph 
 of the gospel and the opening to new labours. His 
 thought, it is true, seems to turn no longer to the 
 West ; rather he would withdraw to Philippi or Co- 
 lossse to wait the Lord's appearing. Perhaps he had 
 come to a better knowledge of the Latin world, and 
 saw that outside of Rome and Campania, regions 
 which immigration from the Levant had made much 
 like Greece and Asia Minor, he would find extreme 
 difficulty, if only in the language. As we may infer 
 
 1 Phil. i. 18-2i. 2 Phil. ii. 17, 18.
 
 42 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 from a hint of Dion Cassius (Ix. 17), he perhaps knew 
 a little Latin, but not enough for effective speech. 
 Jewish and Christian proselyting in the first century 
 made little advance in really Latin towns ; it was 
 restricted to such cities as Rome and Puteoli, where 
 Greek was widely diffused by constant arrivals from 
 the East. Paul's purpose had been sufficiently carried 
 out : the gospel had been preached in both the Grecian 
 and the Eoman world ; ^ in the noble hyperbole of pro- 
 phetic speech, it had reached " the uttermost parts of 
 the earth," ^ and been "fully preached" to all nations 
 under heaven.^ What he had now in mind was to 
 declare the word freely in Rome,^ then return to the 
 churches in Macedonia and Asia,^ and wait patiently 
 with them, in prayer and ecstasy, for the coming 
 of Christ. 
 
 Few years in the apostle's life were happier than 
 these.'' Great comfort came to him from time to time, 
 while he had nothing now to fear from the malevo- 
 lence of the Jews. His poor prison cell was the centre 
 of a surprising activity. The insane profanities of 
 Rome — its spectacles, debaucheries, and crimes, — the 
 infamies of Tigellinus, the intrepidity of Thraseas, the 
 shocking fate of the innocent Octavia, the death of 
 Pallas — such tragedies touched not these pious enthu- 
 siasts. " The fashion of this world is passing by," said 
 they. The grand vision of a divine future made them 
 blind to the bloody filth through which they walked. 
 In truth, the prophetic word of Jesus was coming to 
 fulfilment. Amid the outer darkness where Satan 
 
 1 Acts xxiii. 11 ; Col. i. 23. ^ Acts i. 18. 
 
 8 Rom. XV. 19. ■» Col. iv. 3. 
 
 6 Phil. i. 26; ii. 24. 6 piiji. j. 7.
 
 PAUL IN PRISON. 43 
 
 reigns as king, amid its weeping and gnashing of teeth, 
 is set the little paradise of the elect, where they dwell 
 in their secluded realm, radiant with light and azure, 
 the kingdom of God their Father. But what a hell 
 without ! How dreadful is the abode in the kingdom 
 of the Beast, "where their worm dieth not and the 
 fire is not quenched " ! 
 
 One of the great joys of Paul at this time, apparently 
 not long after his arrival at Rome,^ was the coming of 
 a message from his beloved church at Philippi, the first 
 he had established in Europe, the home of so much 
 devoted affection. The wealthy Lydia, whom Paul 
 calls his " true yokefellow " (iv. 3),^ would surely not 
 forget him. Epaphroditus, the church's messenger, 
 brought a sum of money (ii. 25), a relief which Paul 
 greatly needed, considering the costs of his present 
 situation. He had always excepted that church from 
 his usual rule of taking no gift from his converts, and 
 received this bounty gladly. The tidings it sent were 
 cheering, tidings of entire harmony, troubled only by 
 some small difference* between two deaconesses, Euodia 
 and Syntyche, whom he seeks to conciliate (i. 27; 
 iv. 2). Vexations from certain '^ adversaries," which 
 had brought about a few arrests, served only to show 
 the constancy of the true believers (i. 28-30 ; cf. Acts 
 xvi. 23). That heresy of the Judseo-Christians, the 
 assumed need of circumcision, had assailed without 
 dividing them (iii. 2, 3). Some ill examples of worldly 
 and self-indulgent Christians, of whom he writes with 
 
 1 Phil. i. 13; ii. 23. 
 
 2 This interpretation of the word o-u^uyoy, which Renan supposes to 
 mean " wife,'' seems to be set aside by the masculine gender of the adjec- 
 tive. Comp. " Saint Paul," 148. 1-49, where it appears that one tradition 
 holds that Paul was married. — Ed.
 
 44 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 tears (iii. 18, 19), appear not to have discredited the 
 church. Epaphroditus stayed some time with Paul, 
 and fell into a sickness due to his devotion, of which 
 he nearly died ; and an eager desire now came upon 
 him to revisit Philippi, to calm his friends' anxiety. 
 Paul accordingly bade him good speed (ii. 25, 26), 
 giving him a letter for the faithful at Philippi, full 
 of tenderness, written by the hand of Timothy.^ He 
 had never expressed in so loving phrases his heartfelt 
 affection for those churches of his founding, so wholly 
 good and pure. 
 
 He congratulates them, not only on their belief in 
 Christ, but on having suffered for his sake. Those 
 of them who are in prison should be proud to endure 
 the same treatment that they have seen inflicted on 
 their apostle, and that he now endures. They are like 
 a little group of God's children in a corrupt and per- 
 verse generation, like lights in a world of darkness 
 (i. 29, 30 ; ii. 14-16). He warns them against the 
 example of others less perfect, that is, those not yet 
 free from Jewish prejudice (iii. 15-19). The teachers 
 of ^'circumcision" are spoken of with great disdain: 
 
 Have an eye to the dogs, the evil-doers, and those who 
 mutilate themselves. We are the real "circumcised," we, 
 who worship God in the spirit, who put our glory and trust 
 in Christ, not in the flesh. If I chose to make boast in 
 differences of the flesh, I could do it with better right than 
 any other, — of pure Israelite blood, circumcised when a week 
 old, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, 
 
 1 This epistle, in its present form, has been supposed to be made up 
 of two, the former ending with the words, "rejoice in the Lord" (iii. 1), 
 which in the preamble to the second is omitted. The words "to write 
 the same things" seem to refer to an earlier letter; and Polycarp (yld 
 Phil. 3) speaks of several written \)y Paul to the Philippians.
 
 PAUL IN PRISON. 45 
 
 a strict legal Pharisee, in zeal a persecutor of saints, without 
 blame in whatever concerns the keeping of the Law. But all 
 this I hold as nothing and as filth, since I have found the 
 transcendent knowledge of Christ. To gain this I have lost 
 all else. I have exchanged all merit of my own, from keeping 
 of the Law, for that which alone God regards, the life of faith 
 in Him, — that which comes from faith in Christ, the power 
 of his resurrection, the sharing of his sufferings, and taking 
 upon myself the image of his death, if in any manner I may 
 share also his rising from the dead. Not that I have yet at- 
 tained this, or am already perfect ; but I press on. Forgetting 
 what is behind and reaching forth to what is before me, I 
 strive toward the goal for the prize of victory in the race. 
 This is the mind that should be in those who are full-grown 
 men. Our citizenship is in heaven, whence we expect our 
 Saviour Christ, who will transfigure our wretched body to the 
 likeness of his glorious body, by virtue of that Divine decree 
 which has put all things under his control. Therefore, brothers 
 beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the 
 Lord, my dearly beloved.^ 
 
 Above all, he urges them to harmony and obedience. 
 The way of life he has shown them, the example he has 
 given of Christianity in practice, is the true one; yet 
 each believer has his own revelation, his special inspira- 
 tion, which also is from God (iii. 15). He prays his 
 "true yokefellow" to reconcile Euodia and Syntyche, 
 and aid them in their service of charity to the poor 
 (iv. 2, 3). He bids them to rejoice, "for the Lord is 
 at hand" (iv. 4, 5). His thanks for the gift sent him 
 from the rich ladies of Philippi are a model of right 
 feeling and genuine piety : — 
 
 I have had great joy in the Lord at this late blossoming 
 out of your care for me : you had thought of it before, but 
 
 1 Chap. iii. 2-iv. 1.
 
 46 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 had no opportunity. It is not that I am in need ; for I have 
 learned to be content with what I have. I know how to live 
 in penury or in abundance ; I have learned, wherever I am, 
 and in whatever condition, to be full or famished, to abound 
 or to suffer want. I can do anything in Him who strengthens 
 me. But it was well done of you to share in my distress. It 
 is not the gift I think of, but the rich gain that may come to 
 you. I have all I need, and more, since I have received from 
 Epaphroditus the gift you sent, fragrant as incense, a sacrifice 
 of sweet odour, dear and acceptable to God.^ 
 
 He urges humility, which makes each of us hold the 
 rest in honour ; charity, which makes us, like Christ, 
 think more of others than of ourselves. Jesus had in 
 himself the possibilities of complete divinity ; he might, 
 if he would, have shown himself in heavenly splendour 
 during his earthly life : but then the method of his 
 salvation would have been reversed. Therefore he laid 
 aside his native glory, to appear in " the form of a 
 servant." Thus, to the world's eye, seen outwardly, 
 he appeared only a man. " He humbled himself, mak- 
 ing himself subject to death, even the death of the 
 cross ; and this is why God has exalted hira, and given 
 him a name above every other name, since it is His 
 will that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, 
 in heaven, on earth, or in the world below, and every 
 tongue confess him Lord, to the glory of God the 
 Father" (ii. 1-11). 
 
 Jesus, as we see, was in Paul's thought increasing in 
 dignity from day to day. Paul does not as yet make 
 him the equal of God ; he believes rather in his divine 
 nature, and regards his earthly life as the carrying-out 
 of a divine plan which is effected by his coming " in 
 
 1 Chap. iv. 10-18.
 
 PAUL IN PRISON. 47 
 
 the flesh." Imprisonment had on Paul the effect which 
 it commonly has on strong souls, exalting them to a 
 lofty pitch, and effecting in them profound revolutions 
 of thought. He hopes soon to send Timothy to the 
 Philippians with fresh instructions (ii. 19-23), though it 
 is doubtful if this purpose was ever carried out. At 
 all events Timothy must have speedily returned to him, 
 as he was at hand when the epistles to the Colossians 
 and Philemon were written. Luke seems also to have 
 been for a short time absent, since his name does not 
 appear in "Philippians," as it does in the two later 
 epistles.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PETEK AT ROME. A. D. 61. 
 
 Paul's imprisonment and entrance into Rome, — a 
 triumph in the view of the disciples, — with the 
 opportunity given by his residence in the capital of the 
 world, left no peace to the Judaising party. To them 
 Paul was a sort of stimulant, an active rival, whom 
 they were ever complaining of, yet eager to imitate. 
 Peter, in particular, always divided between admiration 
 of his bold associate and the tasks imposed on him by 
 his personal followers, spent his life — which also had 
 its own many trials, as Clement of Rome tells us^ — in 
 copying Paul's career, in following him at a distance, 
 in holding after him the strong positions which might 
 insure success to their common work. About a. d. 54, 
 probably by Paul's example, he established himself at 
 Antioch. The report of Paul's arrival in Rome, which 
 reached Syria and Judcea in the course of the year 61, 
 might well suggest to him also the thought of a 
 journey to the West. 
 
 He seems to have come with quite an apostolic 
 company. First, his interpreter, John Mark, whom he 
 called his son, was his usual companion.^ The Apostle 
 
 ^ lAd Cor ch. V. 
 
 2 Col. iv. 10; Philem. 24; 1 Pet. v. 13. Comp. Euseb. ii. 15; iii. 39; 
 Iren. iii. 1: 1; TertuU. Adv. More. iv. 5; Clem. Alex, in Euseb. vi. 14; 
 Origen, id. vi. 25; Epiph. li. 6; Jerome, Epist. 150, 11. One Mark Peter, 
 probably a Christian, appears at Bostra, a. d. 278 (Waddiugton, Inscr. 
 1909).
 
 PETER AT ROME, 49 
 
 John, as I have more than once ohserved, seems also to 
 have commonly been with him ; ^ and we have reason 
 to think that Barnabas may have shared the journey : 
 he was probably the writer of Hebrews, who evidently 
 had been in Rome.^ Finally, it is quite possible that 
 Simon Magus went on his own account to the capital of 
 the world, drawn by the attraction it had for all chiefs 
 of sects, — as the Gnostics of the second century, — 
 charlatans, magicians, and wonder-workers.^ To the 
 Jews the journey to Italy was easy and common. The 
 
 1 Acts i. 13; iii. 1, etc.; iv. 13, 19; viii. 14; John xxi. ; Gal. ii. 9. 
 The horror felt at the massacres of a. d. 64 in Rome is so vivid in the 
 Apocalypse that the writer may well have witnessed them, or at least 
 have been in Rome (chs. xiii., xvii.). Patmos may have been chosen for 
 the scene of these visions, as the last port of landing on the way from 
 Rome to Ephesus, as will appear when I come to speak of the Apocalypse. 
 I will speak later of the tradition concerning John at the Latin gate. The 
 Fourth Gospel, it is true, was not written by John ; yet we may note the 
 passage in ch. xxi. 15-23 (see "The Apostles," chap, ii.), which was 
 doubtless written by some one intimate with Peter, and a witness of his 
 death. 
 
 " See Tntrod. p. 11. 
 
 3 Justin, Apol. i. 26, 56; Iren. i. 23: 1 ; Hippol. Pliil. vi. 20; Constit. 
 Apost. vi. 9; Euseb. ii. 13, 14. (Justin and Irenfeus, it is true, often 
 rest on strangely mistaken evidence.) The presence of Simon at Rome is 
 the base of the apocryphal Acts of Peter (Tisch. Acta apost. apocr., p. 13; 
 comp. Recogn. ii. 9; iii. 63, 64), which was at first an Ebionite scrip- 
 ture. Eusebius (ii. 14) admits the main fact, to which Irenaeus seems 
 to refer. The way in which the writer of " Acts " (viii. 24) speaks of 
 Simon, leaving a possibility of his conversion, seems to suppose him to 
 be yet living. The passage in Tacitus {Ann. xii. .52) does not contra- 
 dict the presence of Simon in Rome (comp. id. xiv. 9; Hist. i. 22). The 
 injurious use of Simon's name in the second century, as an alias for Paul, 
 does not disprove either his existence or his having gone to Rome. It 
 may be noted that the mathematict (astrologers), the Chaldmi, and the 
 yoriTfs (magicians of every sort), were never so abundant at Rome as now: 
 Tac. Ann. xii. 52; Hist. i. 22; ii. 62; Dion Cass. Ixv. 1; Ixvi. 9; Suet. 
 Tib. 36; Vitell. 14; Juv. vi. 542; Euseb. Chron. (Domitian, Ann. 9); 
 Zonaras, Ann. vi. 5. 
 
 4
 
 50 
 
 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 historian Joseplius^ was at Rome, in a.d. 62 or 63, to 
 obtain the liberation of certain Jewish priests — very 
 holy persons, who would eat nothing "unclean," and so 
 lived on nuts and figs when away from home — whom 
 Felix had sent to answer to the emperor for some un- 
 known charge. Who were these priests ? Had their 
 business nothing: to do with that of Peter and Paul ? 
 In lack of evidence, we are free to think as we 
 will on all these matters. The fact itself, on which 
 modern Catholics rest the very base of the structure of 
 their faith, is far from being certain.^ Still, as I think, 
 
 1 Ufe, 3. 
 
 2 It is quite sure that Peter was not at Rome when Paul wrote 
 " Romans " (comp. Dion, of Cor. in Euseb. ii. 25). Paul never interfered 
 with churches of the "circumcision" (Gal. ii. 7, 8; 2 Cor. x. 16; Rom. 
 XV. 18-20), and there were none in Rome when he went there, as is shown 
 by Acts xxviii. 17-20. The reckoning of Eusebius (ii. 14 ; Chron. Claud. 2) 
 and Jerome {De vir. illustr. 1) as to Peter's arrival in Rome is thus errone- 
 ous. But nothing disproves his coming later, and certain hints make this 
 likely: — 1. A tradition of the second century (Euseb. ii. 15, 25; iii. 1; 
 vi. 14; Tgnat. Ad Rom. 4; Iren. iii. 1:1; 3: 3; Tert. Scorp. 15; Prctxcr. 
 3G; Kr)pvyiia UavKov, in sequel to Cyprian's Works, p. 139, ed. Rigault), 
 not wholly without weight, though confused with manifest errors, and evi- 
 dently implying an a priori intention to make the " prince of the apostles " 
 founder of the church at the world's capital, as was also falsely claimed 
 for that of Corinth ; 2. The undoubted fact that Peter died in a form of 
 martyrdom hardly likely except at Rome (see chap, viii., below) ; 3. The 
 epistle 1 Peter, dated at Rome (" Babylon "), which is strong evidence, 
 even if written by some other hand, which would have employed that 
 date to give it further credit; 4. The legend which prevailed at Rome, 
 sound in substance, that Peter followed everywhere in the footsteps of 
 Simon Magus (i. e., Paul), and came to Rome to strive against him: 
 HepioSot and Kripvy^a Uerpov, also U. ica\ U. K^pvpa. cited by Ileracleon and 
 Clem. Alex.; Lipsius, Bomiscke Petrussafj", I^j; Hilgenfeld, iV. T. extra 
 Can. rec. iv. 52; Euseb. ii. 14; Hippol. Phil. vii. 20; Const. ApnM. vi. 9; 
 comp. Syriac Ki]pvypa: Cureton, Anc. Si/r. doc. 35-41. — As to locali- 
 ties in Rome attached to this legend (the house of Pudens, etc ), tlioy 
 are worthless, though the via nnmenlnna, mentioned as the place of his 
 baptising, is a very ancient Christian centre. (Soe Bosio, Roma Sott. 
 (1650), 400-402; Rossi, id. i. ISO; Dull. 1867, 37, 48, 49; Acta SS. Mail,
 
 PETER AT ROME. 51 
 
 the " Acts of Peter," told by the Ebionites, were fabu- 
 lous only in details. The main idea in these ''Acts" — 
 that Peter goes through the world following Simon 
 Magus to refute him, carrying the true gospel which is 
 to confound the doctrine of the impostor,^ "following 
 him as light the darkness, as knowledge ignorance, 
 as healing sickness " — is a true one; though we must 
 substitute Paul for Simon, and, instead of the bitter hate 
 expressed by the Ebionites for the preacher to the gen- 
 tiles, imagine mere difference of opinion between the 
 two apostles, excluding neither sympathy nor fellow- 
 ship in the essential thing, the love of Jesus. In this 
 journey, undertaken by the old Galilasan disciple in 
 Paul's footsteps, we may well admit that Peter, follow- 
 ing closely, touched at Corinth, where he already had a 
 considerable party ,^ and greatly confirmed the Jewish 
 Christians. Thus the Church there could afterwards 
 claim to have been founded by both the apostles, and, 
 by a trifling error of dates, maintain that they had 
 been there together, and went thence in company to 
 meet their death in Rome.^ 
 
 What were the relations of the two apostles while 
 in Rome ? Certain testimonies would lead us to think 
 that these were quite friendly.* We shall soon find 
 Mark, Peter's amanuensis, on the way to Asia, with a 
 
 iv. 299: Pud. and Prax.; Acta SS. Jan. ii. 7: Marcell.) The inscription 
 in Journ. de Naples, Mar. 17, 1870, 11 trionfo delta Chiesa cattolica, is a 
 gross fraud. (See Appendix.) 
 
 ^ Horn. Clem. ii. 17; iii. 59. 
 
 2 1 Cor. i. 12; iii. 22; ix. 5. 
 
 8 See Dionysius of Corinth in Euseb. ii. 25. (The text is uncertain 
 and obscure.) Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius, and Jerome speak of Peter's 
 preaching in Asia ]\Iinor, on the very insufficient evidence of 1 Pet. i. 1. 
 
 ^ Comp. Krjpvyfxa UavXov in De non iterurn bapt., 1. c.
 
 52 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 kind word from Paul ; ^ and besides, the Epistle of Peter 
 (so-called, and quite probably genuine) is largely indebted 
 to those of Paul. Two well-established points are to be 
 kept in view throughout this history : first, that a deep 
 line of division — deeper than has ever since marked 
 off any schism in the Church — separated the founders 
 of Christianity, while the dispute between them, after 
 the fashion of the time, was extremely bitter ; ^ and, 
 the second, that even in their lifetime a loftier thought 
 united these hostile brethren, in anticipation of that 
 grand union which it was the Church's office to bring 
 about after their death. This twofold aspect is often 
 to be found in religious movements. To understand 
 these divisions we must also take into account the hot 
 and sensitive temper of the Jews, apt to sudden vio- 
 lence of speech. In these little pious groups there are 
 continual quarrels and reconciliations ; there are sharp 
 words with no sundering of good-will. One is for Peter, 
 one for Paul ; but these divisions are of not more 
 account than those within our own scientific schools. 
 Paul has in this regard an excellent maxim,^ which 
 we may render, " Let each abide in the form of in- 
 struction he has received," — an admirable rule, which 
 the Roman Church in later time has not always kept. 
 Faithfulness to Jesus was enough ; " confessional " 
 divisions were, so to speak, a simple question of an- 
 tecedents, independent of the personal qualities of the 
 believer. 
 
 It is, however, a matter of importance — one which 
 
 1 Col. iv. 10. 
 
 *" See in Jude and in the Apocalypse (chaps, ii. and iii.) the fanatical 
 traits ascribed to John. Also 2 John 9, 10; Iren. iii. 3, 4 ; and the bitter 
 phrases to be found on every page of Paul's writings. 
 
 ^ Rom. vi. 17.
 
 PETER AT ROME. 53 
 
 would lead us to think that a good understanding never 
 came about between the two apostles — that, in the 
 memory of the generation following, Peter and Paul 
 are heads of two opposing parties in the Church ; and 
 that the writer of the Apocalypse, almost immediately 
 after their death (at least that of Peter), is, of all the 
 Judaeo-Christians, the most bitter against Paul, even 
 excluding him from the number of the apostles (xxi.l4).^ 
 Paul regarded himself as the leader of the converted 
 pagans, wherever they might be. This was his under- 
 standing of the arrangement made at Antioch ; but 
 the Judaeo-Christians evidently took it otherwise. This 
 party, which had always been strong at Rome, no doubt 
 was much reinforced by the coming of Peter, who be- 
 came its head, and head of the church there, — a rank 
 to which the unique dignity of this city gave singular 
 importance. As we see throughout the Apocalypse, 
 the part played by Rome had in it something provi- 
 dential. Owing to a certain reaction against Paul, 
 Peter, as leader of the opposition, came to be more and 
 more regarded as chief of the apostles.^ " Chief of 
 the apostles in the capital of the world!" — the com- 
 bination struck the fancy of the more impressible. 
 What could be more telling ? Thus was already 
 formed that wide association of ideas which for a 
 thousand years and more was to control the destinies 
 of humanity. The names Peter and Rome became 
 inseparable : Rome is the predestined capital of Latin 
 Christianity ; the legend of Peter, the first Pope, is 
 already sketched, though it will need four or five 
 centuries for its full development. Rome, at least, 
 
 ^ Compare " Saint Paul," chap. xiii. near the end 
 
 '^ See the letter of Clement to James in the Clementine Homilies, 1.
 
 54 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 had no longer any doubt, from the day when Peter set 
 his foot there, that this day fixed its destiny, and that 
 the poor Syrian who then entered its gates established 
 a possession to last for ages. 
 
 The moral, social, and political situation was be- 
 coming more strained from day to day. Everywhere 
 were heard tales of prodigies and disasters.^ The 
 Christians, as we see in the Apocalypse, were more 
 affected by these than any others : the idea that Satan 
 is the god of this world struck deeper root among 
 them.^ The public spectacles seemed to them devilish, 
 — not that they ever attended them, but heard of them 
 in common talk. An Icarus, who in the great wooden 
 amphitheatre pretended to float in the air, but fell to 
 the ground close to Nero's seat, spattering him with 
 blood,^ struck their fancy greatly, and gave the main 
 incident in their legend of Simon Magus. Crime at 
 Rome touched the last limits of the infernal sublime ; 
 and, whether from love of mystery or for precaution 
 against the police, it became customary to speak of 
 the city under the name of Babylon.* 
 
 This ill-dissembled antipathy for a world they did 
 not know became a characteristic mark of Christians. 
 " Hatred to mankind " [odium humani generis) was the 
 popular summary of their doctrine.^ Their apparent 
 
 1 See Tac. Ann. xiv. 12, 22; xv. 22. Suet. Nero, 36, 39; Dion Cass. 
 Ixi. 16, 18; Philost. Apoll. iv. 43; Seueca, Quccst. nat. vi. 1; Euseb. Chron. 
 Nero, ami. 7, 9, 10. 
 
 2 See 2 Cor. iv. 4. Eph. vi. 12. John xii. 31 ; xiv. 30. 
 ^ Suet. Nero, 12. See below, p. 59. 
 
 4 See 1 Pet. v. 13; Apoc. chs. xiv.-xviii.; Carm. Sihyll. v. 142, 158. 
 The Jews were accustomed to apply to modern things symbolic names 
 taken from their sacred books : thus "Edom" signified both Rome and 
 the empire (Buxtorf, Lex. Chald., etc, s. v. DIIn); and the name " Cuth- 
 ite " was applied both to Samaritans and to pagans. 
 
 6 Tac. Ann. xv. 44 (cf. Hht. v. 5) ; Suet. Nero, 16.
 
 PETER AT ROME. 55 
 
 melancholy was an insult to " the felicity of the age ; " 
 their belief in the approaching end of the world was a 
 denial of the official optimism, which declared that all 
 things were becoming new. The marks of abhorrence 
 with which they passed the temple-fronts seemed to 
 hint that they had it in mind to destroy them by fire.-^ 
 These old sanctuaries of the Roman religion were very 
 dear to those of patriotic feeling ; to insult them was 
 to insult Evander, Numa, the ancestors of the Roman 
 people, and the trophies of its victories.^ The Chris- 
 tians were charged with all misdeeds; their worship 
 was regarded as a superstition, sombre, baleful to the 
 empire ; many a horrid or shameful tale went about 
 regarding them ; the most enlightened believed in these 
 tales, and regarded those whom they accused as capable 
 of every crime. 
 
 Those of the new religion gained few adherents 
 except in the lower classes. Well-bred people avoided 
 speaking of them by name, or did so with an 
 apology: "whom the vulgar called Christians," says 
 Tacitus. But their progress among the people was 
 astonishing : you might call it an inundation, when the 
 water, long dammed up, burst its dikes, to use the 
 historian's phrase. The church at Rome was an entire 
 population {mnltitudo ingens). Court and town began 
 to talk of it as a serious thing ; its advance made for 
 a time the news of the day. Conservatives thought 
 with a kind of terror of the cesspool of filth which 
 they imagined in the low grounds of the city; they 
 spoke with rage of evil weeds that could not be rooted 
 out, which sprang up as fast as they could be torn away. 
 
 ^ 1 Pet. iv, 4 ; Tac. Hist. v. 5 : pe.isimus quisque, spretis religionibus patriis. 
 ^ Tac. Ann. xv. 41, 44; Hist. v. 5.
 
 S6 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 " A race of men of a new and wicked superstition," 
 says Suetonius. " Tliis sort of people," says Tacitus, 
 " will always be outlawed, and will always stay among 
 us ; " " often checked, but most abundant in growth," 
 adds Dion Cassius.^ 
 
 Popular malice invented impossible crimes to be 
 charged against the Christians. They were made 
 responsible for every public disaster; they were ac- 
 cused of preaching revolt against the emperor, and 
 inciting an insurrection of slaves.^ In common opinion 
 the Christian came to be what the Jew was at time^ in 
 the Middle Age, — the scapegoat of every calar Jty, a 
 man who thinks only of mischief, a poisoner of springs, 
 an eater of children's flesh, a kindler of conflagrations.^ 
 At every fresh crime, the slightest hint would cause 
 a Christian to be arrested, or even put to torture. The 
 mere name was often enough to lead to his arrest. If 
 he was seen to hold aloof from par -^n sacrifices, he 
 was insulted.* The age of persecutxon was already 
 begun, to last, with brief intervals, "U the time of 
 Constantine. In the thirty years since the religion 
 was first preached, only Jews had been its persecutors ; 
 against them it had been defended by the Romans, 
 who were now its persecutors in their turn. The 
 terror and the hate spread from the capital to the 
 provinces, and evoked the wildest outrage.^ With this 
 
 1 See Suet. Nero, 16. Tac. Hist. i. 22; Ann. xii. 52. Dion Cass, 
 xxxvii. 17. 
 
 2 Rom. xiii. 1-5; 1 Pet ii. I0-I8. 
 
 8 Tac. Ann. xv. 44; Suet. Nero, 16; Seneca, in St. Augustine's Civ. 
 Dei, vi. 11 ; 1 Pet. ii. 12, 15 ; iii. 16. 2 Pet. ii. 12. 
 
 4 1 Pet. iv. 4. 
 
 6 1 Pet. i. 6 ; ii. 19, 20 ; iii. 14 ; iv. 12-14 ; v. 8-10. Jas. ii. 6. TertuU. 
 Ad nationes, i. 7.
 
 PETER AT ROME. 57 
 
 were mingled atrocious jestings : the walls of the 
 places where the Christians met were covered with 
 insulting or filthy inscriptions against the brethren and 
 sisters.^ The fashion of representing Jesus as a man 
 with an ass's head was perhaps already adopted.^ 
 
 No one doubts now that these charges of crime and 
 infamy were calumnies. We have numerous reasons 
 to believe that the Christian leaders gave not the least 
 ground for the ill-will which was presently to bring upon 
 them such brutal atrocities. All the party leaders in 
 th ' Christian community were agreed as to the attitude 
 to be held towards the Roman authorities. In theory, 
 these magistrates might be regarded as ministers of 
 Satan, since they were protectors of idolatry and the 
 props of a world given over to Satan ; ^ but in practice 
 they were treated with entire respect. The Ebionite 
 faction alone shared the exalted temper of the Zealots 
 and other Jew' sh fanatics. Towards the State the 
 apostles appear to have been conservative and legiti- 
 
 1 Eossi, Bull, ih ..rcJi. crist., 1864, 69, 70. 
 
 '^ M. Rossi (id. p. 72) thinks he has read on the walls of a building in 
 Pompeii which seems to have served for Christian gatherings : Mulus 
 hie muscellas docuit (see Zangemeister, Inscr. pariet. 2016). Comp. the 
 graven stone published by Stefanone {Gemmce, Venice, 1646, tab. 30), 
 representing an ass posing as school-teacher before a group of children 
 bent in obeisance (republished by Fr. Munter, Primordia eccles. Afric, 
 Hafn. 1829, p. 218; and by F. X. Kraus, Das Spott-crucifix vom Palatin, 
 Vienna, 1869, transl. by Ch. de Linas, Arras, 1870). The museum of 
 Luynes (Bibl. nat. cab. des antiques, terra cotta, 779) has a tablet from 
 Syria representing Jesus caricatured as a little man in a long gown, hold- 
 ing a book, with a big ass's-head, long ears, and eyes to which it is 
 sought to give a leering and mystical expression. Comp. also the [well- 
 known] grotesque crucifix of the Palatine (Garrucci, 11 crocifisso graffito, 
 Rome, 1857; Kraus-Linas, as above; Comptes rendits del' Acad, des inscr., 
 1870, 32-36). See Tertull. Apol. 16; Minut. Felix, 9, 28; Celsus in 
 Origen, Contra Celsum, vi. 31. 
 
 8 Luke iv. 6, John xii. 31$ Eph. vi. 12.
 
 58 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 mist. Far from urging the slave to revolt, they insist 
 on his submission to his master, however stern and 
 harsh, as if he were serving Christ in person ; and tliis 
 not under compulsion, to escape chastisement, but by 
 conscience, because God so wills. God himself stands 
 behind the master. Slavery was so far from seeming 
 to them against nature that Christians held slaves, 
 even Christian slaves.^ We have seen Paul restrain 
 the impulse towards a political rising, in a. d. 57, urging 
 upon the faithful in Rome, and doubtless many other 
 churches, submission to " the powers that be," what- 
 ever their source, and laying down the maxim that he 
 who bears the sword [the military police] is a servant 
 of God, to be dreaded only by the wrong-doer. Peter, 
 on his part, was the most placid of men ; we shall soon 
 find the rule of submission to the powers taught in his 
 name, almost in the very words of Paul.^ The school 
 that later gathered about John held the same view 
 as to the divine origin of sovereignty.^ The leaders 
 dreaded nothing more than to see their followers 
 mixed up in illegal acts, whose odium would fall back 
 upon the entire body.* The language of the apostles 
 at this supreme moment was the language of supreme 
 prudence. A few wretches put to torture, a few slaves 
 under the lash, would seem to have broken out in 
 insults, calling their masters idolaters, and threatening 
 them with the wrath of God.^ Others, zealous to 
 excess, declaimed aloud against the pagans, reproach- 
 ing them with their vices; but their more sensible 
 
 1 1 Pet. ii. 18. Col. iii. 22, 25; iv. 1. Eph. vi. 5-9, with the episode 
 of Onesimus. 
 
 2 1 Pet. ii. 13, 14. s John xix. 11. 
 < 1 Pet. ii. 11, 12 ; iv. 15. ^ 1 Pet. u. 23.
 
 PETER AT ROME. 59 
 
 brethren wittily called them " bishops (overseers) of the 
 outsiders" {dXXoTpLoeTrta-KOTroL). Cruel mishaps befell 
 some of these intermeddlers ; but the sober directors 
 of the body, far from applauding them, would tell 
 them, plainly enough, that they had got only what 
 they deserved.-^ 
 
 The condition of the Christians was rendered harder 
 by all sorts of perplexities which there is not evidence 
 enough to enable us to disentangle. The Jews were 
 very influential with the emperor and Poppasa.^ The 
 diviners {mathematici), among the rest one Balbillus of 
 Ephesus, thronged about the emperor, and gave him 
 atrocious counsels, under pretence of exercising that 
 part of their skill which consisted in turning aside 
 strokes of ill-fortune and evil presages.3 The legend 
 of Simon Magus brings his name into this circle of 
 sorcerers, and may possibly have some foundation in 
 fact, though very doubtful.* The writer of the Apoca- 
 lypse says much of a " false prophet," who is repre- 
 sented as an ally of Nero, a wonder-worker who makes 
 fire fall from the sky, who makes graven images live 
 and speak, and marks men with " the mark of the 
 Beast." ^ It may be that Balbillus is here meant ; still, 
 it is noticeable that the prodigies of the false prophet 
 in the Apocalypse are much like the jugglery ascribed 
 
 1 1 Pet. iv. 15. 2 See below, pp. 141, 142. 
 
 8 Suet. Nero, 34, .36, 40 ; Tac Hist. i. 22. 
 
 * See the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, ii. 34; Recogn. i. 74; iii. 47, 57, 
 63, 64; " Acts of Peter " (spurious), Tisch. 39;>1 ; " Linus " in Bibl. max. 
 pairum, ii. 67; " Marcellus " in Fabricius, Cod. apocr. N. T., iii. 635 et 
 seq. ; "Abdias," i. 16, 17; Const, apostol. vi. 9; Iren. i. 23: 1; Euseb. 
 ii. 14; " Hegesippus," De excid. Hieros. iii. 2; Epiphan. xxi. 5; Arno- 
 bius. Adv. gentes, ii. 13; Philastr. Hcer. 29 ; Sulp. Sev. ii. 28, etc. Comp. 
 Rossi, Buit. 1867, 70, 71. 
 
 6 Apoc. xiii. 14-17 ; xvi. 13 ; xix. 20,
 
 6o ANTICHRIST, 
 
 to Simon in the legend.^ The emblem of a monster 
 that spoke like a dragon and had " two horns like a 
 lamb," designating the false prophet (xiii. 11), is far 
 better suited to a false Messiah like Simon of Gitton 
 than to a mere conjurer. And besides, the tale of 
 Simon cast down from the air is not unlike an accident 
 which happened in the Circus under Nero to an ac- 
 crobat who played the part of Icarus.^ The constant 
 practice of the Apocalypse to speak in enigmas makes 
 such a reference very obscure ; but we shall not err if 
 we look sharply behind every line of this strange book 
 for allusions to the pettiest incidents or anecdotes of 
 Nero's reign. 
 
 Further, the heart of the Christian body was never 
 more burdened, more palpitating, than now. The dis- 
 ciples believed themselves to be in a transitory state, 
 of very brief duration. Each day they looked for the 
 appearing of their Lord in judgment. " He is coming ! 
 Yet one hour ! He is close at hand ! " Such was the 
 common speech among them.^ The martyr-spirit — 
 the thought that a martyr glorifies Christ by his death, 
 and that this death is a victory — was already diffused 
 everywhere.^ To a pagan, on the other hand, the flesh 
 of Christians seemed the natural prey of the tormentor. 
 A very popular play of this time, called " Laureolus," 
 exhibited the chief actor (a sort of hypocritical knave) 
 as crucified upon the stage amid the plaudits of the 
 
 ^ Recogn. ii. 9 ; Philos. vi. 20 ; Const. Apost. vi. 9. 
 
 2 Suet. Nero, 12; Dion Chrys. Or. xxi. 9; Juv. iii. 78-80. Comp. 
 Recogn. ii. 9. Juvenal speaks of the false Icarus as a Greek. (See p. 54.) 
 
 8 Phil. iv. 5; Jas. v. 8 ; 1 Pet. iv. 7; Heb. x. 37; 1 John ii. 18. 
 
 * Phil. i. 20; John xxi. 19. Comp. the expression of Caius, "tro- 
 phies " of the apostles [referring to the martyrdom of Peter and Paul] 
 in Euseb. ii. 25.
 
 PETER AT ROME. 6i 
 
 spectators, and devoured by a bear. This was before 
 Christianity was brought to Rome ; it was exhibited 
 [under Caligula] in a. d. 41 ; but it seems to have been 
 applied to the Christian martyrs, and the diminutive 
 Laureolus, answering to Stephanos ["wreath"], might 
 invite such comparisons.-^ 
 
 1 Suet. Caius, 57 ; Juvenal, viii. 186, 187 ; Martial, Spectacula, 7.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE CHURCHES IN JUD^A. — A. D. 62. 
 
 The hostility encountered by the Christian community 
 in Rome, perhaps also in Greece and Asia Minor, was 
 felt as far as Judasa.^ But here the persecution had 
 other grounds. The wealthy Sadducees, the Temple 
 aristocracy, showed extreme bitterness against the 
 pious poor, and blasphemed the name of Christian.'^ 
 About this time there was circulated a letter of James, 
 " servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ," ad- 
 dressed " to the twelve tribes of the Dispersion." ^ This 
 is one of the finest pieces of early Christian literature, 
 recalling now the Gospels, now the serene and placid 
 wisdom of Ecclesiastes : especially the parable of the 
 Tongue in chapter iii. is a charming fragment in the old 
 Hebrew spirit. Its authorship is doubtful, as it must 
 always be in such cases, considering how many letters 
 were in circulation of supposed apostolic origin.* The 
 party of Jewish Christians, accustomed to appeal at 
 will to the authority of James, may have ascribed to 
 him this manifesto, in which the motive clearly is to 
 withstand innovators.^ If James had any share in it, 
 
 ^ James i. 2-4, 12; iv. 9; v. 7, 8. Both this epistle and tliat of Peter 
 begin with an exhortation to patience. 
 
 2 Ibid. ii. 6, 7 ; v. 1-G. ^ See chap. v. post. 
 
 4 2 Thess. ii. 2. 
 
 6 Comp. Rom. iii. 27, 28; iv. 2-5; v. 1, with James ii. 21-24.
 
 THE CHURCHES IN JUD.EA. 63 
 
 at least it was not drafted by his hand. It is un- 
 certain whether he knew Greek, his mother tongue 
 being Syriac;^ while this epistle is much the best 
 piece of writing in the New Testament, its Greek being 
 pure and almost classic, as is also that of Jude. Apart 
 from this, it agrees perfectly with what we know 
 of James's character. The writer is surely a Jewish 
 Rabbi; he holds strongly by the Law; he uses the 
 word " synagogue ; " ^ he is an opponent of Paul. The 
 epistle is in tone like the Synoptics, which, as we 
 shall see hereafter, proceeded from the family of Jesus, 
 whose head was James, " the Lord's brother." And 
 still, Jesus is mentioned in it by name only twice or 
 thrice, and then simply as the Messiah, with none of 
 the lofty flights of hyperbole already multiplied by the 
 ardent imagination of Paul. 
 
 James — or the Jewish moralist who speaks with the 
 authority of his name — brings us at once into the 
 humble love-feast of the persecuted brethren. Let 
 them rejoice in the trials of their faith ; for when put 
 to the proof faith yields patience, and patience is the 
 condition of all perfect work ; he who endures the test 
 will receive the crown of life.^ But our teacher's heart 
 is full of the contrast between rich and poor. Some 
 rivalry must have arisen at Jerusalem between the 
 brethren favoured and those cast down by fortune ; 
 and the poor complained of the exactions of the rich 
 with their sumptuous pride, groaning among them- 
 selves.* To this class-bitterness he makes the following 
 appeal : — 
 
 ^ Euseb. Demonstr. evang. iii. 5, 7. 
 
 2 James ii. 2, rendered " assembly;" in v. 14, iKKhr^ala. 
 
 3 James i. 2-4, 12. 4 iii,i jy. n- y. 9.
 
 64 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 Let the brother that is humble reflect on his high privilege, 
 and the rich on his frail condition, for wealth shall pass 
 like the flower of the field.^ . . . Brothers, let there be no 
 respect of persons in the faith of our glorious Lord, the Christ. 
 Suppose a man come intq your synagogue with a gold ring, 
 dressed in fine apparel, and there come in a poor man in 
 shabby clothing, and you say to one, " Sit comfortably here," 
 and to the other, " Stand out there, or here below my foot- 
 stool : " is not that making distinctions among brethren, and 
 judging with wicked thoughts ? My dear brothers, listen : has 
 not God chosen the poor of the world to make them rich in 
 faith, heirs of the kingdom which He has promised to those 
 who love him ? And yet you have scorned the poor ! Do 
 not rich men lord it over you, and drag you before the law- 
 courts ? Do they not thus insult that noble name which is 
 given to you all alike ? ^ 
 
 Pride, corruption, brutality, luxury among the 
 wealthy Sadducees, had, in fact, come to their worst 
 excess.^ Women would buy even the high-priest's office 
 from King Agrippa with gold for their husbands.* 
 Martha, daughter of Boethus, one of these simoniacs, 
 when she went to see her husband in state, had a 
 carpet spread from her house-door to the sanctuary.^ 
 Thus the priesthood was wonderfully degraded. These 
 secular priests were ashamed of the holiest duties of 
 their office. The rite of sacrifice became repulsive to 
 these dainty gentlemen, condemned thus to tasks of 
 butcher and flesher ! Some of them would put on silk 
 
 1 James i. 9-11. 2 /j^-^. ji. i_7, 
 
 8 Babyl. Talm. 7oma, 9 a, 35 6 ; Derenbourg, Hist, de la Palestine, 
 234-236. 
 
 * For example, Martha, daughter of Boethus, for Jesus (Joshua), son 
 of Gamala. Mishna, Jehamoth, vi. 4; Babyl. Talm. id. 61a; loma, 18 a; 
 Jos. Antiq. XX. 9: 4, 7; Derenbourg, 248, 249. 
 
 6 JNJidrash Eka, i. 16.
 
 THE CHURCHES IN JUD^A. 65 
 
 gloves, so as not to spoil the delicacy of their hands by 
 the touch of victims. The whole talmudic tradition — 
 just as the Gospels and the Epistle of James do — shows 
 us the priests of these last years before the ruin of the 
 Temple as gluttonous, luxurious, hard-hearted towards 
 the poor. The Talmud has a fabulous list of what was 
 needed to maintain the high-priest's table, — not to be 
 taken literally, but as evidence of the common opinion. 
 Four cries, said tradition, went forth from the confines 
 of the Temple : the first, " Go forth from hence, sons 
 of Eli, for you defile the Temple of the Eternal ; " the 
 second, '- Go forth from hence, Issachar of Kaphar- 
 Barkai, who, having care only for yourself, profane 
 the victims holy to the Lord " (that is, by wearing 
 silk gloves when engaged in sacrifice) ; the third, 
 " Open ye, gates, that Ishmael may come in, the 
 son of Phabi, disciple of Phinehas, that he may fulfil 
 the office of the priest ; " ^ the fourth, " Open ye, 
 gates, that John may come in, the son of Nebedceus, 
 disciple of gluttons, to gorge himself with victims." ^ 
 A sort of chant, or curse upon the priestly houses, 
 was current in the streets of Jerusalem, which ran 
 thus : — 
 
 Plague be upon the house of Boethus — 
 A plague upon them by reason of their clubs ! 
 
 Plague be upon the house of Hanan (A.nnas) — 
 A plague upon them by reason of their plots ! 
 
 ^ The alhision is to the son of Eli, who made profit for himself from 
 the sacrifice [1 Sam. ii. 14], not to the model priest of the time of Rloses 
 [Num. XXV. 7]. Phinehas the son of Eli is not, it is true, a legendary 
 person ; his brother Hophni has as good claim to remembrance as he ; 
 but the name may have been chosen for a play of words [the name 
 meaning " brazen-mouth "]. See Derenbourg, 233, 234, note. 
 
 2 Babyl. Talm., Pesachim, 57 a; Kerithoth, 28 a. 
 
 5
 
 66 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 Plague be upon the house of Cantheras — 
 A plague upon them by reason of their shames (kalams) ! 
 
 Plague be upon the house of Ishmael son of Fhabi — 
 A plague upon them by reason of their fists ! 
 
 These are high-priests ; their sons are treasurers ; 
 Their sons-in-law overseers ; their slaves beat us with clubs ! ^ 
 
 It was open war between these wealthy pontiffs, 
 friends of the Romans, seizing fat offices for them- 
 selves and their kindred, and the poor priests upheld 
 by the people. Bloody quarrels broke out daily. The 
 shameless insolence of the pontifical families went so 
 far as to send and seize from the threshing-floors tithes 
 that belonged to the upper priesthood, beating those 
 who resisted, and reducing to misery the poorer 
 clergy.^ Conceive the wrath of the pious man, the 
 Jew-democrat, rich in the promise of all the Prophets, 
 when thus abused in the Temple — his own house! — 
 by the insolent lackeys of these self-indulgent and 
 unbelieving priests ! The Christians gathered about 
 James made common cause with these poor victims, 
 holy men (hasidim) as they too were, and held in 
 favour by the people. Beggary came, as it were, to 
 be a virtue and a mark of patriotism. The rich were 
 friends of the Romans ; great wealth, in fact, depended 
 on Roman favour, so that one could hardly prosper 
 but by a sort of apostasy and treason. To hate the 
 rich became a mark of piety. The saints ihasidim) 
 must needs starve, or else work on those haughty 
 structures of the Herodians, in which they saw only a 
 pompous display of vanity ; and so they considered 
 
 ^ Tosifta, Menachothi s. f. ; Babyl. Talra. Pesachim, 57a; Derenbourg, 
 233 et seq. 
 
 2 Jos. Antiq. XX. 8: 8; 9:2.
 
 THE CHURCHES IN JUD^A. 67 
 
 themselves victims of the infidels, while " poor man " 
 passed as a synonym for " saint." ^ Listen to the 
 following : — 
 
 And now, you rich men, weep and wail for the wretched- 
 ness that is coming upon you ! Your riches are rotten ; your 
 clothing is moth-eaten; your gold and silver are tarnished, 
 and the rust of them will testify against you [that your guilt 
 is of long standing], and will eat into your flesh like fire. 
 You have been heaping up wealth in these last days [when 
 the end of all things is close at hand] . See ! the wage of the 
 workmen who have mown your fields, which you have kept 
 back from them, cries out, and the complaint of your reapers 
 has reached the ears of the Lord of hosts ! You have lived in 
 luxury and wantonness on the earth ; you have fattened your- 
 selves [like cattle] for the day of slaughter; you have con- 
 demned — you have destroyed — the honest man who offered 
 no resistance.^ 
 
 In these strange pages we see the simmering of 
 that spirit of social revolution which in a few years 
 was to bathe Jerusalem in blood. Nowhere else is 
 that feeling of aversion for the world which was the 
 soul of primitive Christianity expressed with such 
 energy as here. " To keep himself unspotted from the 
 world " ^ is the supreme precept ; " the friendship of 
 the world is enmity with God ; " ^ every natural desire 
 {eTndvfXLa) is a vanity, an illusion, a seed of death.^ 
 The end is so near ! Why fall out with one another ? 
 Why go to law with one another ? The true judge is 
 near, standing at the door.^ 
 
 Come now, you who say, " To-day or to-morrow we will go 
 to the city close by, and stay there a year, trading and making 
 
 ^ See " Life of Jesus," chap. xi. 2 James v. 1-6. 
 
 8 Ibid. i. 27. 4 Tbid. iv. 4. 
 
 5 Ibid. i. 14 ; iv. 1. 6 Ibid. iv. 1 ; v. 7-9.
 
 68 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 profit," — not knowing what will happen to-morrow; for what 
 is your life ? it is a vapor that appears a little while and then 
 vanishes, — instead of saying, "If the Lord will and we are 
 alive, we will do this or that."^ 
 
 When he speaks of humility, patience, mercy, the 
 exaltation of the poor, the joy of those who mourn, 
 James seems to have had in memory the very words of 
 Jesus.^ Still, as we see, he holds close to the Law.^ 
 A whole paragraph of his epistle* is devoted to 
 warning the faithful against Paul's doctrine of salva- 
 tion by faith and the worthlessness of works : in this 
 he shows himself an Ebionite.^ A phrase of his^ 
 directly contradicts one in Romans J Contrary to the 
 apostle of the gentiles,^ the apostle of Jerusalem ^ in- 
 sists that Abraham was saved by works, and that 
 " faith without works is dead." " The devils also 
 believe," but the}'' are not saved. Departing from his 
 usual moderation, James here calls his opponent an 
 " empty man." ^° In one or two other places " we may 
 find an allusion to debates already dividing the Church, 
 which a few centuries later crowed the history of 
 religious opinion. 
 
 A spirit of lofty piety and touching charity filled 
 this church of the saints. " Religion pure and un- 
 defiled," said James, "is to watch over the fatherless 
 
 1 James iv. 13-15. Comp. Luke xii. 15-21. 
 
 2 Ihid. ii. 8; iv. 6-10; v. 7, 8. 
 
 « Ibid. ii. 10, 11 ; iv. 11. * Hid. ii. 14-20. 
 
 6 See Hippolytus, Phil. vii. 34; x. 22. « James ii. 24. 
 
 7 Rom. iii. 28. « Ihid. iv. 1-5. 
 s James ii. 22-24. 
 
 1° Ihid. ii. 20. Compare the sayiug of R. Simeon, a contemporary of 
 James: PirJce Ahoth, i. 17. 
 11 Ihid. i. 22-25; v. 19, 20.
 
 THE CHURCHES IN JUDjEA. 69 
 
 and widows in their distress." ^ Tlie power of healing 
 sickness, chiefly by anointing with oil,^ was considered 
 as of common right among the faithful.^ The use of 
 oil, with prayer, in cases of sickness, has always been 
 a favourite Semitic practice, and is still found among 
 the Arabs ; even non-believers acknowledged this as a 
 special gift among the Christians.* The elders were 
 thought to have this gift in the highest degree, and 
 thus came to be a sort of spiritualist doctors ; and the 
 practice was held in much esteem by James himself. 
 In this we find the germ of most of the Catholic 
 sacraments. Confession of sins, long practised among 
 the Jews,'^ was considered an excellent means of pardon 
 and healing, — two things held inseparable in the belief 
 of that time.^ Thus: — 
 
 If any one among you is suffering, let him pray ; if any 
 one is cheerful, let him sing ; if any one is sick, let him call 
 the elders of the church, and let them pray, anointing him 
 with oil in the name of the Lord : the prayer of faith will 
 heal the sick, and the Lord will restore him, and if he has 
 committed sin it will be forgiven. Confess your faults to one 
 another, and pray for one another, that you may be cured. 
 The prayer of a just man, when in earnest, has great power.'^ 
 
 1 James i. 27. 2 Ihid. v. 14. 
 
 2 Comp. Gregory of Tours, i. 41. 
 
 * See the accounts of healings wrought by minim of Caphar-Nahum 
 (Christians) in the Tahnud. The Healer is almost always James (Jacob 
 of Caphar-Shekania, of Caphar-Naboria, of Caphar-Hannania), and the 
 healing is in the name of Jesus, son of Pandera (Midrash Koheleth, i. 8; 
 vii. 26; Babyl. Talra. Ahoda zara, 27b; Jerus. Talm. id. ii. 40c?,- Shah- 
 bath, xiv. s. f. These traditions refer to the first century. Comp. " Life 
 of Jesus," 448, note 2. 
 
 ^ 2 Sam. xii. 13 ; Lev. v. 1 ; Ps. xxxii. ; Jos. Anliq. viii. 5:6; Mishna, 
 Jomn, iii. 9; iv. 2; vi. 3. 
 
 6 Matt. iii. 6; Mark i. 5; Acts xix. 18; " Life of Jesus," 261. 
 
 ■^ James v. 13-lG.
 
 JO ANTICHRIST. 
 
 The apocryphal books of visions, vividly expressing 
 the popular religious passions, were eagerly received 
 among this little group of Jewish enthusiasts.^ Rather, 
 they sprang up side by side with it, almost in its very 
 heart, so that it is often hard to distinguish them in 
 quality from the genuine New Testament writings.^ 
 These little books, of yesterday's birth, were seriously 
 taken as the very words of Enoch, Baruch, or Moses. 
 The strangest notions about hell, the rebel angels, the 
 wicked giants who caused the Flood, flowed out widely, 
 having their chief source in the books of Enoch.^ In 
 all these fables there were vivid allusions to the events 
 of the day. The prophetic Noah, the pious Enoch, 
 incessantly predicting the Deluge to men incapable of 
 understanding, who all the while go on eating, drink- 
 ing, marrying, and heaping up riches,* — who are they 
 but seers of these latter days, vainly warning a frivo- 
 lous generation, that will not acknowledge the end of 
 all things to be near ? A new chapter, a period of life 
 beneath the earth, is now added to the legend of Jesus. 
 The question is raised, What did he do during the 
 three days he passed within the tomb?^ They would 
 have it that in this interval he went down among the 
 shades, giving battle to Death where were the " spirits 
 in prison " of the rebellious and unbelieving, preaching 
 to the phantoms and the demons, and opening the way 
 
 1 Jude 6, 9, 14, 15; 1 Pet. iii. 19, 20. 
 
 2 See "Life of Jesus," 41, 42. 
 
 8 1 Pet. iii. 19, 20, 22; Jude 6, 9 ; Rev. xx. 7; 2 Pet. ii. 4, 11 ; Enoch, 
 ch. vi. et i^eq. ; comparing Gen. v. 22; vi. 1, 2 : Stephen of Byzantium, 
 
 S. v. 'iKOVlOV. 
 
 4 Luke xvii. 26, 27. 
 
 s For the first hint of the working of imagination in this direction, see 
 Acts ii. 24, 27, 31.
 
 THE CHURCHES IN JUD^A, ji 
 
 for their deliverance.-^ This notion was essential in 
 order that Jesus might be the universal Saviour in the 
 full meaning of the term : thus Saint Paul accepts it 
 in his later writings.^ These fictions, however, did not 
 find their way into the Synoptics, — no doubt because 
 that part of the canon was already closed when they 
 sprang up. They remained, as it were, floating in the 
 air, outside the gospel texts, and took shape long 
 after in the apocryphal work called the " Gospel of 
 Nicodemus."^ 
 
 But the special task of the Christian conscience was 
 wrought in the silence of Judaea and the neighbouring 
 region. The Synoptic Gospels grew up, as it were, 
 limb by limb, as a living organism completes itself 
 little by little, and reaches its perfect unity under its 
 mysterious law of growth. At the date now had in 
 view, was there any existing written text of the acts 
 and words of Jesus ? Had the apostle Matthew — if it 
 was he — drawn up in Hebrew the discourses of his 
 Master? Had Mark — or whoever wrote under that 
 name — put in writing his notes upon that life ? * It 
 may be doubted. Paul, at all events, had no such 
 document in hand. Had he perhaps an oral, or what 
 we may call mnemonic, tradition of those words ? One 
 
 1 1 Pet. iii. 19, 20, 22; iv. 6. Justin, Tryph. 72 (interpolated from 
 Jeremiah); Iren. iii. 20: 4; iv. 22: 1; 27: 2; 33: 1, 12; v. 31: 1; Tert. 
 De anima, 7, 55 ; Clem. Alex. Strom, vi. 6 ; Orig. c. Cels. ii. 43 ; Hippol. 
 De Antichristo, 26. The attempts of Protestant critics to impugn this 
 ancient Christian myth are an offence to true criticism. 
 
 2 Phil. ii. 10; Col. i. 20; Eph. i. 10; iv. 9. See also Rom. xiv. 9; 
 Herm. Shep. Siniil. ix. 16; Clem. Alex. Strom, ii. 9; vi. 6. 
 
 ^ In Part Second, not earlier than the fourth century. Comp. Symbol 
 of Sirmium, in Socr. Hist. Eccl. ii. 37. 
 
 * Papias (Euseb. iii. 39). That the Gospel of Luke did not as yet exist 
 is sufficiently clear from 1 Pet. ii. 23, compared with Luke xxiii. 34.
 
 72 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 may infer such a tradition for his account of the 
 eucharist ; ^ perhaps for the crucifixion ; possibly a hint 
 of the resurrection ; ^ but not for the maxims and 
 parables : as to the supper, he most nearly follows Luke. 
 In his view Jesus is an expiatory victim, a superhuman 
 being, — one risen from the dead, not a moralist. His 
 citations of Jesus' words are vague, and not such as 
 the evangelists put in his mouth.^ The apostolic 
 epistles, other than those of Paul, give no evidence 
 that any such written memorial had yet appeared. 
 
 The inference would seem to be that certain narra- 
 tives — as of the Supper, the Crucifixion, the Resur- 
 rection — were repeated from memory in words that 
 admitted little variation. A passage like that regard- 
 ing the Supper, for example, exhibits a likeness, such 
 as that of the story of the crucifixion in the Fourth 
 Gospel, to that in the Synoptics. The main features 
 of the Synoptic narrative were probably shaped out 
 already — though, as just noted, it makes no mention 
 of the legend of Jesus in the world below, which must 
 have appeared about a. d. 60 ; but, while the apostles 
 lived, books that claimed to fix the tradition, which 
 was in their sole keeping, would have had no chance of 
 acceptance.^ And besides, why write the life of Jesus ? 
 He is just now coming back. A world on the eve of 
 perishing needs no new books. When the witnesses 
 are dead, then it will be time enough to fix in writing 
 a figure which is fading from men's memories every 
 
 1 1 Cor. xi. 23-26. 2 jud. xv. 3-7. 
 
 s See 1 Thess. iv. 8, 9; v. 2, G. Gal. v. 14. 1 Cor. vii. 10, 12, 25, 40; 
 xiii. 2. 2 Cor. iii. G. Rom. xii. 14, 19. Acts xx. 35 proves nothing. 
 
 * Irenajus (iii. 1) says that Mark did not write till after the death 
 of Peter.
 
 THE CHURCHES IN JUD^A. 73 
 
 day. So with the St. Simonists in our day : at the 
 death of Enfantiu works on the origin of the sect and 
 its founder's life began to appear ; while in his lifetime 
 such writings would not be allowed, as too damaging 
 to his personal importance. On this point the churches 
 of Judaea and the vicinity had a great advantage ; 
 since the knowledge of Jesus' words was far more 
 widespread and accurate here than elsewhere. In this 
 regard we note a difference between the epistles of 
 James and Paul. This little composition of James is 
 pervaded by a certain evangelic fragrance ; we seem 
 to hear in it at times the very echo of the words 
 of Jesus ; in it the atmosphere of Galilsean life is keen 
 and fresh.-^ 
 
 We have no historical account of missions sent out 
 directly from the church at Jerusalem. Its very 
 principles would hardly lead it to spend its strength 
 in such work. In general, there were few Ebionite 
 or Judaeo-Christian missions. The narrow spirit of the 
 Ehionim would permit only envoys " of the circum- 
 cision." As we gather from the picture traced in the 
 writings of the second century, — perhaps exaggerated, 
 but at any rate faithful to the local spirit, — the 
 Judaeo-Christian preacher was watched with a suspi- 
 cious eye ; his antecedents were looked into ; he was 
 forced to undergo certain tests, with a six years' 
 novitiate, as we see in the first words of the Clemen- 
 tine homilies ; ^ he must have regular papers, making 
 a formal confession of faith, in conformity with that 
 
 1 See James i. 6, 27; ii. 1^, 8, 10, 13; iv. 11, 12, 13-17; v. 12; and 
 especially v. 14, 15, conforming so strictly with the Galilaean view of 
 healing and pardon ; also the exaltation of poverty and hatred of riches. 
 
 ^ See " Saint Paul," chap. x.
 
 74 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 of the apostles at Jerusalem. Thus handicapped, a 
 fruitful apostleship was a thing impossible ; under 
 such conditions Christianity would never have been 
 preached. Even those whom James sent forth seem 
 to have been much more busied with overthrowing 
 Paul's foundations than in building on their own 
 account. True, the churches of Bithynia, Pontus, and 
 Cappadocia, which appear just now beside those of 
 Asia and Galatia,^ were not the work of Paul ; but no 
 more, it would seem, were they the work of Peter or of 
 James : doubtless they were founded by that nameless 
 preaching of the faithful which is most efficacious of 
 all. It is my opinion, on the other hand, that Bata- 
 n^ea, Hauran, Decapolis, and generally the whole region 
 east of Jordan, which presently became the centre and 
 citadel of Jewish Christianity, were evangelised by 
 adepts of the church at Jerusalem. On this side, the 
 limit of Roman domination was quickly reached. Now 
 the regions of Arabia lent no ear to the new doctrine, 
 and lands subject to the Parthian kings (Arsacidae) 
 were scarce open to movements coming from the 
 Roman domain. The range of apostolic geography is 
 very narrow. The first Christians never dream of the 
 barbaric or the Persian world ; that of Arabia hardly 
 has an existence for them. The missions of Thomas 
 among the Parthians, Andrew among the Scythians, 
 and Bartholomew into India, belong to legend. Chris- 
 tian imagination in the early time turns little to the 
 East ; the aim of apostolic pilgrimage is to the farthest 
 West. Paul, as we have seen, looks beyond Italy 
 toward Spain,^ while in the Orient the missionaries 
 appear to regard the goal as already reached. 
 
 1 1 Pet. i. 1. 2 lionj. XV. 24, 28.
 
 THE CHURCHES IN JUDjEA. 75 
 
 Was the name of Jesus heard during the first 
 century at Edessa ? Was there at this time near the 
 upper Euphrates (Osrhoene) a Christianity of Syrian 
 speech ? The fables that surround the cradle of that 
 church do not allow us to speak with certainty.^ It 
 is likely, however, that the close relations of Judaism 
 in this quarter — recalling the stay of the [Assyrian] 
 royal family of Adiabene at Jerusalem [and the con- 
 version of Queen Helena to Judaism (about A. d. 18), 
 mentioned by Josephus] — served in the propagation 
 of Christianity. Samosata and Commagene early had 
 men of learning who were members of the Church or 
 at least friendly to it.^ This region of the Euphrates, 
 in any case, received the faith from Antioch.^ 
 
 The clouds that gathered on the eastern horizon 
 
 ^ The regular list of bishops of Edessa begins about a. d. 300. (See 
 Assemani, Bihl. Or. i. 424. et seq.) Curetoii (" Ancient Syriac Documents," 
 pp. 23, Gl, 71, 72 : Lond. 1864) is full of anachronisms and contradictions. 
 All that concerns the apostolate of Thaddseus (or Adseus, which is only a 
 variation of that name) and the Christianity of King Abgarus (Abgar 
 Ucharaas) is apocryphal and fabulous. The false Leboubna of Edessa in 
 Cureton {ih. 6-23; of. 108-112) j the same, tr. from Armenian (pub. by 
 Alishan, Venice, 1868), and in Langlois (Hist, of Armenia, i. 313; cf. 
 Cureton, 166). Comp. Moses of Khorene {Hist, of Arm. ii. 26-36); 
 Faustus of Byzantium, iii. 1 ; Geneal. of St. Greg. 1 (Langlois, vol. ii.); 
 Euseb. i. 13; ii. 1; Assemani, i. 318; iii. 289, 302, 611 ; Nicephorus, ii. 
 7, 40; St. Ephrem, Carm. nisib. 138 (ed. Bickell) ; Lequien, Oriens chr. ii. 
 1101, 2. The acts of the martyrs Sherbil and Barsamia, sufferers under 
 Trajan (Cureton, 41-72; cf. Acta Sanct. Jan. ii. 1026), are of little value. 
 The Syriac Peshilo belongs to the end of the second century. Barde- 
 sanes, it is true [d. a. d. 223], assumes an established Christianity of 
 some duration. 
 
 '^ Letter of Mara, son of Serapion, in Cureton: Spicil. Syr. 73, 74, of 
 date about a. d. 73. 
 
 8 The false Leboubna, in Cureton, 23; in Langlois, 325. Edessa, and 
 even Seleucia on the Tigris, at first acknowledged the ecclesiastical 
 supremacy of Antioch : Assemani, ii. 3!JG ; iii. (pt. 2) dcxx. ; Lequien, 
 Or. Christ, ii. 1104, 5.
 
 76 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 checked the advance of these Christian preachings. 
 The prudent administration of Festus could do nothing 
 to stay the disease preying on the heart of Judasa. 
 Brigands, zealots, assassins, impostors of every sort, 
 swarmed everywhere. One deceiver, after twenty 
 others, offered safety and deliverance from their woes 
 to all who should follow him into the desert. Those 
 who went were slaughtered by Roman soldiers ; ^ but 
 nobody was cured of trust in false prophets. Festus 
 died in Judsea, early in a. d. 62, and Nero sent Albinus 
 as his successor. At the same time Herod Agrippa the 
 second deprived Joseph Cabi of the pontificate, which 
 he bestowed upon Hanan, son of the Hanan (or Annas) 
 •who had been the chief agjent in the crucifixion of 
 Jesus. This was the fifth of the sons of Hanan who 
 held that dignity.^ 
 
 The younger Hanan was haughty, stern, and bold. 
 He was the flower of Sadduceeism, the complete 
 expression of that cruel and inhuman sect, which did 
 its best to make the exercise of authority insupport- 
 able and hateful, James, " the Lord's brother," was 
 well-known in Jerusalem as a bitter advocate of the 
 poor, a prophet of antique mould, loud in invective 
 against the rich and powerful.^ Hanan resolved that 
 he should die. In the absence of Agrippa, and before 
 Albinus had arrived in Judtea, he summoned the court 
 
 1 Jos. Antiq. xx. 8: 10; War, ii. 14: 1. 
 
 2 Jos. Anllq. XX. 9: 1. Josephus in his "Jewish War" (iv. 5; 2) 
 speaks with much praise of the j'ouiiger Hanan ; but we note in this work 
 a tendency to exalt those who were sh\in by the revolutionists in Jerusalem. 
 The " Antiquities " are more trustworthy on this point. 
 
 ^ James v. 1-G. This paragraph may possibly have been published in 
 Jerusalem as a sort of prophecy: ver. 4 (the "cries" of the labourer) 
 seems an allusion to a fact told by Josephus in Autiq. xx. 8: 8; 9: 2.
 
 THE CHURCHES IN JUD^A. 77 
 
 of Sanhedrim, and brought before it James with some 
 other saints. They were accused of violating the Law, 
 and condemned to death by stoning. The authority 
 of Agrippa was needful to the assembling of the San- 
 hedrim,-^ and that of Albinus was legally essential to 
 the sentence; but the furious Hanan set himself above 
 all rules. James was stoned near the Temple ; and, 
 since there was delay or difficulty in carrying out the 
 sentence, his head was crushed by a fuller with his 
 beating-club. He was, it is said, ninety-six years old.^ 
 The death of this holy man had the worst effect 
 throughout the city. The devout Pharisees, strict 
 observers of the Law, were deeply incensed. James 
 was universally honoured, as one of those men whose 
 prayers have greatest weight. It is said that a 
 " Rechabite " (probably an Essene), or, as some say, 
 Simeon, son of Cleopas, nephew of James, cried out as 
 he was stoned, " Hold ! what are you about ? Will 
 you kill the just man who prays for you ? " A passage 
 of Isaiah,^ as then understood, was applied to him. 
 " ' Let us crush the righteous man,' say they, ' because 
 he displeases us ; ' that is why the fruit of their works 
 is consumed." Elegies in Hebrew were composed upon 
 his death, full of allusions to Scripture passages and to 
 his name, Obliain : traces of these may be found in 
 Hegesippus. Almost the whole population joined in 
 inviting King Agrippa to put bounds to the high- 
 
 1 As appears iu the phrase ;^a)pty ttjs eKtlvov yva/jirji, the word (Kfivov 
 seeming to refer to the king — au explanation best suited to what we 
 know of the government of that day. 
 
 2 Jos. Antiq. xx. 9:1; Hegesippus in Euseb. ii. 23; iv. 22. Clem. 
 Alex. id. ii. 1 ; Epiphan. Ixxviii. 14. The story of Hegesippus is legendary 
 in its details. 
 
 ' Isaiah iii. 10.
 
 78 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 priest's audacity. Albinus, already on liis way from 
 Alexandria, learned the crime of Hanan, to whom he 
 sent a threatening letter, afterwards deposing him. 
 So Hanan held the office for only three months. The 
 disasters which presently fell upon the nation were 
 regarded by many as a judgment upon that murder.^ 
 The Christians saw in the event a " sign of the time," 
 a proof that the final catastrophe was near.^ 
 
 A sort of strange insanity, in fact, prevailed in 
 Jerusalem. Anarchy was at its height. The zealots, 
 though decimated by executions, were masters of the 
 situation. Albinus, no way a man like Festus, sought 
 only to make profit by connivance with the bandits.^ 
 On every side were seen prognostics of some unheard-of 
 calamity. Towards the end of the year a man named 
 Jesus, son of Hanan, a sort of Jeremiah risen from the 
 dead, began to roam through the streets by day and 
 night, crying, " A voice from the East ! a voice from 
 the West ! a voice from the four winds ! a voice against 
 Jerusalem and the Temple ! a voice against the bride- 
 groom and his bride ! a voice against all the people ! " 
 He was scourged with whips, but repeated the same 
 cry. He was beaten with rods till his bones were laid 
 bare, but at every blow he repeated with a w^oful voice, 
 " Woe, woe to Jerusalem ! " * He was never seen to 
 speak with any one ; but he went on still repeating, 
 " Woe, woe, to Jerusalem ! " without ever assailing 
 those who beat him, or thanking those who gave him 
 
 ^ Josephus and Eusebius, as above. For the addition made by Origen 
 to the passage in Josephus, see "Saint Paul," p. 80, note. 
 
 2 In Matt. xxiv. 9; ]\Iark xiii. 9; Luke xxi. 12, 13, we may perhaps 
 trace allusions to the death of James. 
 
 8 Jos. Antiq. xx. 7; War, ii. 14: 1. 
 
 * Jos. War, vi. 5: 3.
 
 THE CHURCHES IN JUD^A. 79 
 
 alms. And so he went on until the siege, his voice 
 seeming never to be weakened. 
 
 If this Jesiis, son of Hanan, was not a disciple of 
 Jesus, at least his prophetic cry was the true expres- 
 sion of what was deepest in the Christian conscience. 
 Jerusalem had filled up her measure. The city that 
 killed the prophets and stoned the messengers serit to 
 her, scourging one and crucifying another, is henceforth 
 the Accursed City. About this time were composed 
 those brief books of visions, which some ascribed to 
 Enoch ^ and others to Jesus, showing a striking like- 
 ness to the outcries of Jesus, son of Hanan.^ These 
 fragments were later adopted in the text of the Syn- 
 optics, and exhibited as the discourses spoken by Jesus 
 in his last days.^ Perhaps the watchword was already 
 sounded, to forsake Judaea and flee to the mountains.* 
 At least the Synoptics are stamped deeply with the 
 marks of this anguish : it abides in them as a birth- 
 mark, indelibly imprinted. With the gentle maxims 
 of Jesus are mingled the colouring of a sombre apoca- 
 lypse and the forecasting of a troubled and anxious 
 fancy. But the calmer temper of the Christians 
 shielded them from that madness which distracted 
 others of their people, who shared with them their 
 messianic dreams. For them the Messiah was already 
 come. He had lived in the wilderness ; he had as- 
 cended to heaven after the lapse of thirty years. 
 The impostors or enthusiasts who sought to draw the 
 
 1 Corap. Epist. of Barnabas (Gr. text) 4, 16, with Matt. xxiv. 22; 
 Mark xiii. 20. See " Life of Jesus," p. 42, note. 
 
 2 Especially the "voice against the bridegroom," compared with Matt, 
 xxiv. 19; Mark xiii. 17; Luke xxi. 23. 
 
 8 Matt. xxiv. 3-31; Mark xiii. 3-20; Luke xxi. 7-28. 
 * Matt. xxiv. IG; Mark xiii. 14; Luke xxi. 21.
 
 8o ANTICHRIST. 
 
 people after them were false Christs and false proph- 
 ets.^ The death of James, and perhaps of some others,^ 
 led them, also, more and more to divorce their cause 
 from that of Judaism. An object of hate to all, they 
 found comfort in the precepts of Jesus. He, as many 
 held, had foretold that amid these many trials not a 
 hair- of their head should perish.^ 
 
 The situation was so full of peril, it was seen so 
 clearly that they were on the eve of a catastrophe, 
 that no immediate successor to James was set at the 
 head of the church in Jerusalem.^ The other "brothers 
 of the Lord " — Judas, Simon, and Cleopas — con- 
 tinued to be of highest authority in the community. 
 After the war, as we shall see, they served as a rally- 
 ing-point to all the faithful in Judcea.^ Jerusalem had 
 now but eight years to survive ; and, long even before 
 the fatal hour, the volcanic outburst drove far away 
 the little group of pious Jews that had become bound 
 together in the memory of Jesus. 
 
 1 Compare Jos. Antiq. xx. 8: 6, 10, with Matt, xxivo 5, 11, 23, 26; 
 Mark xiii. 6, 21, 22; Luke xxi. 8. 
 
 2 " Certain others," saj'S Josephus, Antiq. xx. 9: 1. But it is not sure 
 that these " others " were Christians. 
 
 3 Luke xxi. 18, 19. * Euseb. iii. 11. 
 
 6 Euseb. iii. 11 ; iv. 5, 20, 22 (according to Hegesippus). Constit. 
 apostol. vii. 46.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 LATEST ACTS OF PAUL. — A. D. 62, 63. 
 
 Meanwhile Paul had to undergo in prison the delays 
 of an administration thrown out of gear by the sover- 
 eign's extravagances and his infamous surroundings. 
 He had with him Timothy, Luke, Aristarchus, and, by 
 some accounts, Titus, while Tychicus had lately re- 
 joined him. A certain Jesus (a Jew surnamed Justus),^ 
 one Demetrius or Demas (an uncircumcised proselyte, 
 apparently from Thessalonica),^ and Crescens, of whom 
 we know little, shared his captivity and his work.^ 
 Mark — who, by my theory, had come to Rome with 
 Peter — appears to have made friends again with the 
 one whose early apostolic work he had shared, and 
 from whom he had parted in sharp contention,^ and 
 served him, probably, in his communications with 
 Peter.^ At any rate, Paul was just now on ill terms 
 with the Christians "of the circumcision," judging 
 them to have little friendliness toward him ; and 
 declared^ that he had no good fellow-workers among 
 them. 
 
 1 For this name as used among the Jews compare Corp. inscr. Grcec. 
 No. 9922 ; Bereshlth rahha, § 6. 
 
 2 Col. iv. 11, comparing ver. 14. 
 
 3 Col. i. 1 ; iv. 7, 10, 11, 14. Philem. 1, 24. Eph. vi. 21. 2 Tim. (apocr.) 
 iv. 9-12. 
 
 * Acts XX. 89. 
 
 6 Col. iv. 10 ; Philem. 24; 2 Tim. iv. 11; 1 Pet. v. 13. 
 
 8 Col. iv. 11. 
 
 6
 
 82 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 Among these new circumstances, in the imperial 
 capital where all opinions met and mingled, great 
 changes were now wrought in the thought of Paul, — 
 changes which make his writings of this period widely 
 different from those composed during his second and 
 third missions. Christian doctrine was fast unfolding 
 inwardly. In a few months of these fruitful years, 
 theology made more advance than afterward in centu- 
 ries. The new doctrine was finding its balance, and, 
 as it were, making itself scaffoldings and props on 
 every side for its firmer support. One might compare 
 it to an organism at a critical stage of evolution, which 
 puts forth a limb, transforms an organ, trims away a 
 superfluity, so as to attain an harmonious life ; that is, 
 a condition in which the living creature may freely put 
 forth reflex action, giving it consistence and support. 
 
 The flame of a consuming activity had hitherto left 
 Paul no leisure to reflect on the lapse of time, or to dis- 
 cover that Jesus tarried long in his appearing ; but these 
 weary months of captivity turned his thoughts in upon 
 themselves. He was now, too, growing old, — " such a 
 one as Paul the aged ; " ^ a certain sadness of advancing 
 years succeeded to the heat of his passionate youth. 
 Reflection pushed its way into consciousness, forcing 
 him to round out his thought and reduce it to a system. 
 From a man of action, he became a mystic, a theolo- 
 gian, a speculative thinker. The eagerness of absolute 
 conviction, unable to take a single step backward, 
 could not prevent his wondering, now and then, why 
 the sky did not open sooner, or the last trump already 
 sound. His faith was not shaken, but it craved other 
 grounds of support. His idea of the Christ changed 
 
 1 Philem. 9.
 
 LATEST ACTS OF PAUL. 83 
 
 accordingly. His inward vision is not so much the 
 Son of Man appearing in the clouds, holding judgment 
 at the general resurrection ; but of a Christ exalted in 
 his own divinity, in substance and act one with God. 
 To him the resurrection is no longer in the future ; it 
 has already come to pass.-^ If a man changes once, he 
 keeps on changing ; one may be at the same time the 
 most impassioned and the most advancing of men. 
 Certain it is that the grand images of the final reve- 
 lation and the resurrection — once so familiar to Paul, 
 found in some shape on every page of his letters of 
 the second and third missions, and even in that to 
 the Philippians^ — are far less prominent in the later 
 epistles of his captivity.^ Here their place is taken 
 by a theory of the Christ, conceived as a sort of divine 
 person, much like the Logos-theory, which later took 
 its final form in the writings ascribed to John. 
 
 A like change is observable in the style. The 
 epistles of his captivity have more ample flow, but 
 lose something; of nerve. The thousrht is less vioror- 
 ously handled. The diction greatly differs from that 
 of the earlier period. The favourite expressions of the 
 Johannine School — light, darkness, life, love, and the 
 like — become dominant.* We already find traces of 
 the eclectic philosophy of the Gnostics. Justification 
 by Jesus is no longer the living question ; the dispute 
 of faith and works seems reconciled in the unity of 
 Christian life, which combines both grace and knowl- 
 edge.^ Christ, now the central being of the universe, 
 
 1 Col. ii. 12; iii. 1 ; but see 2 Tim. ii. 18. 
 
 2 Phil. i. 6; ii. 16; iii. 20, 21; iv. 5. 
 8 Col. iii. 4. 
 
 4 Col. i. 12, 13 ; iii. 4. Eph. v. 8, 11, 13. Comp. Phil. ii. 16. 
 
 5 Col. i. 10; iii. 9, 10; Eph. ii. 8-10. Here we have the phrase, "not
 
 84 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 harmonises in his deified personality the two rival 
 Christologies. The genuineness of these writings has 
 been contested, not without grounds ; still, the argu- 
 ment in its favour is so strong,^ that I prefer to at- 
 tribute the variance of style and thought to a natural 
 advance in Paul's manner. His earlier and doubtless 
 genuine writings have in them the germ of this later 
 style. In certain relations the terms " Christ " and 
 " God " are almost interchangeable : Christ exercises 
 the offices of divinity ; like God, his name is invoked 
 in prayer ; he is the essential mediator of approach to 
 God. In the warmth of the disciples' attachment to 
 Jesus any theory [of divinity], held in any part of the 
 Jewish world, might be referred to him. Suppose a 
 man to appear in our day who answered to all the 
 diverse demands of our democracy: to one, his parti- 
 sans would say, " You are for organised labour, and 
 he is organised labour ; " to another, " You are for 
 moral independence, and he is moral independence ; " 
 to a third, "You are for co-operation, and lie is co- 
 operation ; " to a fourth, " You are for solidarity, and 
 he is solidarity." 
 
 The new theory of Paul, as found in Colossians and 
 Ephesians, may be summed up somewhat thus : — 
 
 This world is the kingdom of darkness, that is, of 
 Satan and his infernal hierarchy, who fill the spaces of 
 the air. The realm of saints, on the other hand, is the 
 kingdom of light. The saints are what they are, not 
 by their own merit (for before Christ, all were enemies 
 of God), but by the merits of Christ, the Son of God's 
 
 of works," no long-er "works of the law" (as iu Gal. ii. 16), which would 
 be hardly intelligible to a Greek. 
 
 ^ See Introduction to " Saint Paul," p. 6.
 
 LATEST ACTS OF PAUL. 85 
 
 love, which He freely transfers to them. The blood of 
 his Son, shed upon the cross, blots out their sin, recon- 
 ciles every creature with God, making peace reign in 
 heaven and on earth. The Son is the visible image of 
 the Invisible, the first-born of the creation ; all was 
 created in him, through him, and for him, — things 
 in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, thrones, 
 powers, and dominions.^ He was before all things, 
 and all exist in him. He and the Church make one 
 body, of which he is the head. As he has always 
 held the first rank in all things, so he holds it in the 
 resurrection, which goes before the general resurrection. 
 The fulness of divinity dwells bodily in him. Thus, 
 he is a true divinity to man, a sort of first agent of 
 the creation, intermediate between God and man, — as 
 Philo calls the Word "a god to us the imperfect."^ 
 Whatever monotheism says of the relations of man to 
 God may be said, in Paul's theology, of the relations of 
 man to Jesus.^ Veneration for him, which in James 
 does not go beyond dulia or liyperdulia,"^ extends with 
 Paul to a true latria, such as no Jew had ever paid to a 
 man of woman born.^ 
 
 This mystery, prepared by God from everlasting, is 
 now in the fulness of time revealed to his saints of the 
 last da3^s. The time is come when every one must in 
 his own deg-ree fulfil the work of Christ : his work is 
 
 ^ Orders of the angels; see Rom. viii. 38; 1 Cor. xv. 24 •, 1 Pet. iii. 22; 
 Testam. of the Patriarchs: Levi, 3 et seq. 
 ^ Leg. alley, iii. 73. 
 
 * The uncertainty of the text in Col. ii. 2 prevents any argument 
 from it. 
 
 * Jaraes i. 1. 
 
 ^ By the Catholic distinction, dulia signifies the worship paid to saints, 
 hjperdulia that to the Virgin, latria that to God alone. — Ed.
 
 86 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 fulfilled by suffering, and thus suffering is a privilege 
 in which we should rejoice and boast. The Christian, 
 as a fellow -worker with Jesus, is like him filled with 
 the fulness {ttXt/Jpcdixo) of God.-^ Jesus in his resurrec- 
 tion has bestowed his own life upon all. The wall 
 of separation, which the Law set up between God's 
 people and the gentiles, Jesus has taken away ; from 
 the two reconciled portions of mankind he has made a 
 new humanity ; all the old hatreds he has slain on the 
 cross. The letter of the Law was as the note of a debt 
 which mankind could not pay, but Jesus has cancelled 
 it by nailing it to the cross. Thus the world made by 
 him is a world wholly new ; he is the corner-stone of 
 the temple built by God for his own worship. The 
 Christian is dead to the world, buried with Jesus in 
 the tomb ; his " life is hid with Christ in God." Until 
 Christ shall appear and unite him in his own glory, he 
 " mortifies his body," by the extinction of his natural 
 desires, by taking in everything the course opposite to 
 nature, stripping away " the old man " and putting on 
 " the new man," made new in the image of his Maker. 
 In this view there is no longer Greek or Jew, circum- 
 cised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, or 
 freeman ; Christ is all, and in all. The saints are those 
 to whom by free gift God has made application of the 
 merits of Christ, and whom he thus predestined to the 
 divine adoption before the world was. The Church is 
 one, as God himself is one. Its work is the building-up 
 of the body of Christ ; the final purpose of all things is 
 the realising of the perfect Man, the complete union of 
 Christ with all his members, — a condition in which he 
 will be in truth the head of a humanity made anew 
 
 1 Col. ii. 10-, Eph. iii. 19-, John i. 16.
 
 LATEST ACTS OF PAUL. 87 
 
 after his likeness, receiving from him motion and life 
 by a series of organs joined together in due subordi- 
 nation. The powers of darkness in the air about us 
 struggle to prevent this fulfilment. There will be a 
 terrible conflict between them and the saints, and a 
 season of affliction ; but, armed with the gifts of Christ, 
 the saints will triumph. 
 
 Doctrines such as these were not wholly original. 
 They were, in part, those of the Jewish Egyptian school, 
 notably those of Philo. Christ, thus become a divine 
 " hypostasis," is the Logos of the Jewish Alexandrian 
 philosophy, the memra of the Chaldaic paraphrases, 
 archetype of all things, by whom all things were 
 created.^ The powers of the air, to which the empire 
 of the world has been given, these strange hierarchies 
 celestial and infernal,^ are those of the Jewish cabbala 
 and the Gnostics. The mysterious pleroma, the final 
 purpose of Christ's work, is much like the divine 
 pleroma placed by the Gnostics at the summit of the 
 universal scale. The gnostic and cabbalist theosophy, 
 which we may regard as the mythology of monotheism, 
 and which we seem to find hinted in Simon of Gitton,^ 
 appears in the first century with all its essential fea- 
 
 1 Philo, De prof. 2, 19, 20, 26; Vita Mosis, ii. 42; De mundi opif. 
 4-8 ; De conf. ling. 14, 19, 28 ; De migr. Ahr. 1, 2 ; De somniis, i. 13, 37, 41 ; 
 ii. 37; De monarchia, ii. 5; Quod Deus immut. 6, 36 ; De agr. Noe, 2; De 
 plant. Noe, 2, 4; Legis alleg. i. 18; iii. 34, 59-61; De cher. 11, 35; 
 De mundo, 2, 3; Quis rer. div. hceres, 26, 38, 42, 44, 48; De post. Caini, 
 35 ; fragm. in Euseb. Prcepar. evang. vii. 13 ; John of Damascus (Mangey, 
 ii. G55). 
 
 2 Philo, De somn. i. 22; Testament of the twelve patriarchs: Levi, 3; 
 Benj. 3; Mishna, Aboth, v. 6; Babyl. Talm., Beracoth, 6 a; Tanhouma, 
 § Mishpatim; lalkout on Job, § 913; Plutarch, Quce.it. Rom. 14; lambli- 
 chus, De myst. jEgypt., ii. 3; Test, of Solomon, in Fabricius, Cod. pseud. 
 V. T., i. 1047; 1 Pet. iii. 22; Ignat. Ad Trallianos, 4, 5. 
 
 8 Acts viii. 10.
 
 88 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 tures. To throw over to the second century, on system, 
 all the documents in which traces are found of such a 
 theory, is very rash. The same thing, in germ, was in 
 Philo and in primitive Christianity. The theosophic 
 conception of Christ came necessarily from the messi- 
 anic conception of the Son of Man, when it once became 
 evident, after long waiting, that the Son of Man did 
 not return. In the most incontestably genuine of 
 Paul's epistles there are certain features which lack 
 little of being as advanced as those in the writings of 
 his captivity. Thus, Satan is called " the god of this 
 world." ^ Hebrews, written before A. d. 70, shows the 
 same tendency to place Jesus in the realm of abstract 
 speculation.^ All this will appear very clearly when 
 we come to speak of the Johannine writings. With 
 Paul, who had not himself known Jesus, this meta- 
 morphosis of the idea of Christ was in a way inevitable. 
 While the school which held the living tradition of 
 the Master created the Jesus of the Synoptics, the 
 enthusiast, who had never seen but in his dreams the 
 Founder of his faith, transfigured him more and more 
 into a super-human being, a sort of metaphysical First 
 Principle, that may never have appeared in life. 
 
 This transfiguration, moreover, did not come to pass 
 in the thought of Paul alone. The churches he had 
 founded advanced in the same direction with him. 
 Especially those of Asia Minor were carried by a certain 
 force of interior growth to the most exaggerated views 
 upon the divinity of Jesus. This we may easily under- 
 stand. For the fraction of Christendom which grew 
 up from the familiar conversations by the sea of Gali- 
 lee, Jesus would always remain the beloved Son of God 
 
 1 2 Cor. iv. 4: cf. John xii. 31. 2 ji^^. i. 5.8.
 
 LATEST ACTS OF PAUL. 89 
 
 whom they had seen walking among men with the 
 charm of his presence and his kindly smile ; but when 
 his name was heard among the people of far-away 
 Phrygia, where the speaker himself professed never to 
 have seen him, and to have known nothing of his life 
 on earth/ what could those good and simple-minded 
 hearers think of him who was thus proclaimed ? What 
 image could they form of him ? Was it as a wise man, 
 — a teacher, of attractive personality ? It was not so 
 that Paul set forth his character. He was, or seemed 
 to be, quite ignorant of the historic Jesus. Was it as 
 the Messiah, the Son of Man, about to appear in the 
 clouds in the " great and dreadful day of the Lord ? " ^ 
 These images were strange to the gentiles, and implied 
 knowledge of the Jewish scriptures. Evidently the 
 figure that would oftenest present itself to these pious 
 provincials was that of an incarnation, — a god in 
 human form walking on the earth, — just as Paul 
 himself was taken to be at Lystra.^ This notion was 
 very familiar in Asia Minor ; not long after this, 
 Apollonius of Tyana made profitable use of it. To 
 reconcile such a view with the doctrine of one God, 
 only one way lay open : to conceive Jesus as a divine 
 hjpostasis clothed in flesh, a sort of double of the one 
 God, taking human form for the fulfilment of a divine 
 plan. We must bear in mind that we are no longer 
 in Syria. Christianity has passed from Semitic soil to 
 the charge of races intoxicated with imagination and 
 mythology. The prophet Mahomet, whose legend is so 
 purely human among the Arabs, becomes to the Shiites 
 of Persia and India a completely supernatural being, a 
 sort of Vishnu or Buddha. 
 
 i 2 Cor. V. 16. 2 ^xal. iv. 5. « Acts xiv. 12.
 
 90 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 Certain relations of the apostle at this time with the 
 churches of Asia Minor gave him the opportunity to 
 set forth the new form which his thought had taken. 
 The pious Epaphroditus (or Epaphras), teacher and 
 founder of the church at Colossse, and head of the 
 churches on the borders of the Ljcus, came to him 
 bearing a missive from them.-^ Paul had never been in 
 this valley, but his authority there stood high.^ He 
 was regarded as the apostle of that region, and every 
 one there felt bound to put faith in him.^ Learning of 
 his captivity, the churches of Colossae, Laodicea on the 
 Lycus, and Hierapolis deputed Epaphras to visit him in 
 prison,"* comfort him, assure him of the attachment of 
 the faithful, and probably offer him a gift in money, 
 of which he might be in need.^ His report of the zeal 
 of these new converts gave Paul great joy ;^ their faith, 
 love, and hospitality were admirable ; but in these 
 Phrygian churches Christianity was taking a strange 
 turn. Away from contact with the chief apostles, 
 withdrawn from all Jewish influence, and mostly made 
 up of pagan converts, they inclined to mingle their 
 Christian faith with Greek philosophy and local super- 
 stitions.'^ In the quiet little town of Colossae, amid the 
 noise of its cascades and foaming eddies, in front of 
 Hierapolis and its dazzling mountain,^ the belief in 
 Christ's full divinity grew from day to day. Phrygia, 
 
 1 Col. i. 7, 8; ii. 1; iv. 12-16. 
 
 2 lUd. ii. 1, 5; Eph. iii. 2; iv. 21. 
 
 8 Philem. 19. 4 Ihld. 23. 
 
 5 Col. i. 7, with the reading iiTrcp v[>.u>v. 
 « Col. i. 4, 9; Eph. i. 15. 
 
 ■^ Col. ii. 4, 8. See Eph. ii. 19-22; iii. 1-7; iv. 17, 22. This epistle 
 is probably addressed to the churches of the Lycus valley. 
 ^ See " Saint Paul," chap. xiii.
 
 LATEST ACTS OF PAUL, 91 
 
 as we remember, was a country of original religious 
 genius. Its mysteries had, or claimed to have, a lofty 
 symbolic meaning. Some of the rites there practised 
 had a likeness to those of the new faith.^ For Chris- 
 tians with no religious tradition of their own, who had 
 gone through no such initiation into monotheism as 
 the Jews, there must be strong inducement to connect 
 the new dogma with the old symbol which came to 
 them here as a heritage from very ancient time. They 
 had been devout pagans before adopting the Syrian 
 opinions ; and in adopting them would probably not 
 think they were breaking formally with their past. 
 And then, what man really religious ever wholly re- 
 nounces the traditional teaching in whose shelter he 
 has first felt the presence of the infinite, or does not 
 seek some reconciliation, hopeless as it may be, between 
 his old faith and that to which the advance of his 
 thought has brought him ? 
 
 In the second century the demand for compromise 
 came to be extremely urgent, and brought about a 
 fully developed Gnosticism. Like tendencies at the 
 end of the first century, as we shall see, filled the 
 church at Ephesus with restless agitation. Cerinthus 
 and the writer of the Fourth Gospel set out from the 
 same postulate, — that the soul of Jesus was a celestial 
 being distinct from his earthly manifestation.^ About 
 A. D. 60, ColossDB was touched with the same disturb- 
 ance. A theosophy compounded of native beliefs,^ an 
 
 ^ Garrucci, Tre sepolcri (Naples, 1852), and Les mysleres du syncretisme 
 phrygien, in the Mel. d'Arch. of Cahier and Martin, iv. 1 et seq. 
 
 2 Iren. Adv. hcer. i. 26: 1. 
 
 8 See canons 35, 36 of the Council of Laodicea; Theodoret on Col. 
 ii. 17, 18.
 
 92 
 
 ANTICHRIST, 
 
 Ebionitish Judaism/ philosophic notions,^ and points 
 taken from the doctrine newly preached, was ably set 
 forth.^ A worship of uncreated ^ons, a highly devel- 
 oped scheme of angels and daemons, — in a word, 
 Gnosticism with its arbitrary practices and its mate- 
 rialised abstractions, — began to prevail ; * and, by its 
 deceitful seductions, undermined the Christian faith 
 in its most vital and essential parts. Mingled with 
 this were unnatural abstinences, morbid self-denials, a 
 show of austerity refusing to the body its rights,^ — in 
 a word, all those aberrations of the moral sense which 
 in the second century produced the Phrygian heresies 
 (Montanist, Pepuzian, Cataphrygian) which allied them- 
 selves with the various forms of mystical frenzy that 
 still survive in the dervishes of our day. Thus every 
 day appeared in sharp contrast the difference between 
 Christians of pagan and those of Jewish antecedents. 
 Christian mythology and metaphysics sprang up in 
 the churches of Paul's founding. Born of polytheistic 
 ancestry, converts from paganism found the idea of a 
 god becoming man very simple and easy ; while to the 
 Jews the notion of incarnate deity was something 
 blasphemous and abhorrent. 
 
 Paul wished to keep Epaphras, whose service might 
 be of use to him,^ and decided to reply to the Colossians 
 by sending Tychicus of Ephesus, charging him with 
 messages to the churches in Asia.^ The most conven- 
 ient route for him to follow was to land at Ej^hesus or 
 
 1 Col. ii. 11, 12, lG-23. 
 
 2 Ihid. 8. ' lUd. 4, 8. 
 
 * Col. i. 16; ii. 10, 15, 18. Eph. i. 21; vi. 20. Comp. 1 Tim. i. 4; 
 vi. 20. Epiphan. xxi. 2; Tert. Pnescr. 33; Iren. i. 31: 2. 
 6 Col. ii. IS, 22, 23. ^ /^jVZ. iv. 12, 13 
 
 ' Ihid. 7, 8; Eph. vi. 21, 22; 2 Tim. iv. 12.
 
 LATEST ACTS OF PAUL. 93 
 
 Miletus, and proceed by the valleys of the Mseander 
 and the Lycus. Thus he might visit the several 
 Christian communities, give them news of Paul, carry 
 personal messages as to his relations with the authori- 
 ties, which it might be imprudent to put in writing, — 
 a precaution which may be noted in several of the 
 epistles and elsewhere,^ — and deliver to each the 
 letters specially addressed to them.^ Those which 
 were closest together were bidden to share their letters, 
 reading them by turns in their assemblies.^ Tychicus 
 might, besides, take with him a sort of Encyclical, 
 modelled upon Colossians, and meant for those to 
 whom he had no special message to deliver. The 
 preparation of this circular letter seems to have been 
 left to some disciple or amanuensis, acting under Paul's 
 instructions, or from a copy by his hand.* The Epistle 
 to the Romans seems also to have had this character, 
 as a circular letter.^ 
 
 The letter addressed under these conditions to the 
 Colossians has come down to us. The doubts as to its 
 genuineness I have considered in a former volume. It 
 was dictated to Timothy,^ and signed by Paul, with 
 the postscript, ^' Remember my bonds." '^ The circular 
 letter, unaddressed, which Tychicus was to deliver on 
 the way, seems to be the same that we have in 
 
 1 Cf. 1 John 12 ; 2 John 13. 
 
 2 Col. iv. 13, 16. Laodicea and Hierapolis are so near together that 
 a single letter may have served them both (see iv. 13). If Laodicea alone 
 is named (as in iv. 16), it is because that is rather nearer to Colossa;. 
 
 8 Col. iv. 16. 
 
 * It is noticeable that Ephesians does not contain at its close (vi. 21) 
 the name of Timothy. It differs, further, in style from Paul's ordinary 
 writing, and even from the special style of Colossians. 
 
 ^ See " Saint Paul," Introduction. 
 
 ' Col. i. 1. 1 Ibid. iv. 13.
 
 94 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 "Epliesians." Certainly, it was not written for the 
 church at Ephesus, — since it is addressed only to con- 
 verted pagans/ — a church that Paul had never seen,^ 
 to which he had nothing special to say. The ancient 
 copies gave in the address no name of the church it 
 was meant for ; ^ the final words * are indeterminate ; 
 the Vatican and Sinaitic manuscripts have a like pecu- 
 liarity, the words, " in Ephesus " ^ being written by a 
 later hand, while in that of Vienna (G7) these words 
 are erased. It has been supposed to be really that 
 addressed to the Laodiceans at the same time with 
 Colossians.^ I have given elsewhere ^ the reasons which 
 lead me, against this view, rather to regard it as the 
 circular letter above described. Tychicus, as he passed 
 by his native city, Ephesus, may have shown a copy to 
 the elders, and they may have kept it as a precious 
 document for instruction ; nay, it may have been this 
 very copy that served when the collection of Paul's 
 epistles was made up, whence came the title it is 
 known by at this day. So " Romans " is known to us 
 by the name of the most important of the churches that 
 had received it. What we do know, is that Ephesians 
 is an imitation, or paraphrase, of Colossians, with addi- 
 tions taken from other, and perhaps some lost, letters 
 of Paul. 
 
 Ephesians, along with Colossians, makes the best 
 exposition of Paul's views toward the close of his 
 
 1 Eph. ii. 11, 19; iii. 1; iv. 17, 22. 
 
 2 Ihid. i. 15; iii. 2; iv. 21. 
 
 8 Basil, Contra Eunom. ii. 19; Jerome on Eph. i. 1. 
 4 Eph. vi. 23, 24. s ij,i,i j. j. 
 
 ^ Ibid. iv. 16. This was the opinion of IMarcion : Tertull. Adv. Marc. 
 V. 11 ; Ejuph. xlii. 9, 11 ; cf. Canon of Muratori, 11. 62, 63. 
 ' See Introduction to " Saint Paul."
 
 LATEST ACTS OF PAUL. 95 
 
 career. These two have for the last period of his life 
 the same value that Romans has for the great era of 
 his apostleship. The thought of the founder of Chris- 
 tian theology has here arrived at its clearest expression. 
 We recognise in them that final task of spiritualising 
 to which great minds submit their thought just before 
 their end, beyond which nothing lies but death. 
 
 Surely Paul was right in contending against that 
 perilous disease Gnosticism, which was before long 
 seriously to menace the human reason. Against this 
 chimerical " worshipping of angels " ^ he sets his Christ, 
 above all that is not God himself.^ We are still in- 
 debted to him for the last attack he delivered against 
 the circumcision, the vain practices, and the prejudices 
 of the Jews.^ The moral he draws from his tran- 
 scendent conception of the Christ is in many ways 
 deserving of admiration. But — good heavens ! how 
 he goes beyond all bounds ! How this audacious scorn 
 of reason, this brilliant praise of madness, this storm of 
 paradox — how it leads the way to the defeat of that 
 perfect reason which shuns extremes ! The "old man," 
 so roughly attacked by Paul, will strike back ; he will 
 assert himself as not deserving such anathema. All 
 that Past, stricken by an unjust sentence, will again in 
 the "Renaissance" become a principle of new life for 
 the world, starved by Christianity to the last degree of 
 inanition. In this sense Paul will prove to have been 
 one of the most dang-erous foes of civilisation. His 
 half-thoughts will have been so many defeats of the 
 human spirit. When that spirit shall triumph, he 
 
 1 Col. ii. 18. 
 
 2 lUd. i. 16; ii. 10, 15 ; Eph. i. 21; vi. 12. 
 « Col. ii. 11, 12, 16, 23; Eph. ii., iii.
 
 96 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 will pass away. The triumph of Jesus will be the 
 extinction of Paul. 
 
 " Colossians " ends with conveying the kind words 
 and wishes of their saintly and devoted catechist, 
 Epaphras, enjoining therewith an exchange of letters 
 with them of Laodicea.^ With Tychicus, bearer of the 
 correspondence, Paul associates as messenger one Onesi- 
 mus, whom he calls " a faithful and dear brother.^ The 
 story of Onesimus is a touching one. He had been a 
 slave of Philemon, one of the chief men in the church 
 at Colossae ; he robbed his master, ran away, and went 
 to hide in Rome. Here, perhaps through his country- 
 man Epaphras, he came to know Paul, who made a 
 convert of him, induced him to return to his master, 
 and made him companion of Tychicus on the journey. 
 To calm the apprehension which this poor boy might 
 feel, Paul dictates to Timothy a note for Philemon, — 
 a little masterpiece in its kind, — which he puts into 
 the runaway's hand. Thus he writes : — 
 
 Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy his brother, 
 to our dear friend and fellow-labourer Philemon, to our sister 
 Appia, and to our comrade in arms Archippus, and to the 
 church that is in your house : grace and peace to you all 
 from God our Father, and Christ Jesus our Lord : — 
 
 I thank my God, making mention of you in my prayers, 
 hearing of your love and faith to the Lord Jesus and all his 
 saints, that your fellowship in the faith may be effectual, to 
 the knowledge of that great blessing which we have in Christ. 
 For I have great joy and comfort in your love, because the 
 very heart of the saints has rest in you, my brother. And 
 thus, while I might make bold in Christ to enjoin it on you 
 
 1 Col. iv. 12, 13. 
 
 2 Ih'ul. 9, with Philemon, throughout. Onesimus was a slave's name 
 (Suet. Galba, 13).
 
 LATEST ACTS OF PAUL. 97 
 
 as a duty, yet I choose rather to urge it upon you for love's 
 sake, — the more, that I am now an old man, and in prison for 
 Christ. 1 call upon you for my own child, born to me here 
 in prison — my son Onesimus,^ who was once unhelpful to 
 you, but now very helpful to you and me, I have sent him 
 back to you ; and pray you to receive him as the child of my 
 own heart. I would, indeed, have kept him with me, that he 
 might serve me in your stead here in my gospel-prison ; but 
 I would not do it without your knowledge, lest I might take 
 your kindness by force, and not of your own free will. 
 
 It may be, indeed, that he left you for a time on purpose 
 that you might take him back for good,^ — no longer as a 
 bondman, but better than that, a dear brother : very dear to 
 me, but how much more to you, both in his own person and 
 in the Lord ! If then you hold me as a partner, receive him 
 as if it were myself ; and if he wronged you once, or owes you 
 any debt, charge it to my account. 
 
 And here Paul takes the pen, so as to make his 
 letter a real note of credit, and adds these words : — 
 
 I Paul write this with my own hand. I will pay the debt, 
 without making any account of what you owe me, — namely, 
 your own soul. Yes, my brother, let me have " help " of you 
 in the Lord, and do you comfort my heart in Christ. 
 
 Here he proceeds again to dictate : — 
 
 I have written to you sure of your consent, and knowing 
 that you will do over and above what I say. But make 
 ready to receive me as a guest ; for I hope that through your 
 prayers I may receive hospitality of you. Epaphras, my 
 fellow-prisoner, Mark, Aristarchus, Deraas, and Luke, my 
 fellow-labourers, salute you. The grace of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ be with the spirit of you all. 
 
 ^ This name means "helpful." 
 
 "^ Probably an allusion to Levit. xxv. 46, a fruitful text of rabbinic 
 disputations. 
 
 7
 
 98 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 We see that Paul indulged in singular illusions. 
 He thought himself to be on the point of deliverance ; 
 he was already forming fresh plans of travel, and 
 saw himself at the heart of Asia Minor,^ among the 
 churches that revered him as their apostle, and yet 
 had never heard him. John Mark too was preparing 
 to visit Asia, probably on some behest of Peter. The 
 churches in Phrygia had already been advised of his 
 speedy arrival. In the letter to the Colossians Paul 
 inserts a new recommendation concerning him.^ The 
 air of this recommendation is rather cool. Paul was 
 afraid that the old differences between them, and still 
 more Mark's close relations with the party of Jerusalem, 
 might embarrass his friends in Asia, and that they 
 mio;ht hesitate about receivino^ a man whom till now 
 they had had reason to distrust. Such misunder- 
 standings he would prevent, and hence directed his own 
 churches to receive Mark in case he passed their way. 
 Mark, too, was a nephew of Barnabas,^ whose name 
 was dear to the Galatians, and could not have been 
 unknown in Phrygia, Colossce being only some forty 
 leagues from Antioch in Pisidia, in the province of 
 Galatia. We do not know the result. A severe earth- 
 quake had just devastated all the valley of the Lycus. 
 The rich Laodicea was built up again from its own 
 resources,'^ but Colossce could not recover ; it almost 
 
 1 We find similar hints in Acts xix. 21 ; Rom. xv. 23, 24; Phil. i. 25; 
 ii. 24. It may be that Paul, to revive the interest of his disciples in these 
 churches, would speak of these intended journeys even when there was 
 but slight chance of them. 
 
 2 Col. iv. 10; cf. 1 Pet. v. 13. 
 8 Col. iv. 10. 
 
 < Tac. Ann. xiv. 27; cf. Apoc. iii. 17, 18. See "Saint Paul," chap. 
 xiii.
 
 LATEST ACTS OF PAUL. 99 
 
 disappears from the list of churches (having, as 
 Waddington remarks, no coinage of its own), and the 
 Apocalypse, in 69, makes no mention of it. Its sig- 
 nificance in Christian history passes over to Laodicea 
 and Hierapolis. 
 
 Paul's apostolic activity consoled him for the sorrows 
 which assailed him from every side. He reflected that 
 he suffered for his beloved churches; he looked on 
 himself as the victim who opened to the gentiles the 
 doors of the household of Israel.^ Still, in the later 
 months of his imprisonment he felt something of 
 despondency and loneliness.^ Already, while writing 
 to the Philippians,^ in contrasting the conduct of his 
 dear and faithful Timothy to that of some others, he 
 had said, " Every man seeks his own, and not the 
 interest of Christ." Timothy alone seems never to 
 have called forth any complaint from this severe task- 
 master, embittered and hard to please. We may not 
 suppose that Aristarchus, Epaphras, or Jesus called 
 " the Just," had abandoned him ; they are, indeed, 
 numbered among the faithful in Colossians and Ephe^- 
 sians. But several of them may have been away at 
 once. Titus was on a mission;^ others, who owed 
 everything to Paul, — especially some from Asia, among 
 them Phygellus and Hermogenes, — ceased to visit him.^ 
 Thronged as he once was, he was now left almost alone, 
 shunned by the Jewish Christians,^ while Luke was at 
 times his only companion.'^ His disposition, always 
 
 1 Col. i. 24; Eph. iii. 1. 
 
 2 Col. iv. 11. 2 Tim. i. 15; ii. 17, 18; iii. 1-7, 13; iv. 3, 4, 6-16. The 
 latter epistle is not Paul's, but it may show marks of his hand. 
 
 8 Phil. ii. 21. 4 2 Tim. iv. 10. & IhUl. i. 15. 
 
 ^ The most plausible rendering of Col. iv. 11; cf. Tit. i. 10. 
 ^ 2 Tim. iv. 11.
 
 loo ANTICHRIST. 
 
 somewhat sombre, grew more harsh ; it was, indeed, 
 not easy to live in his company. Thus he cruelly felt 
 the ingratitude of men. Every word he is supposed 
 to have written at this time is fiill of discontent and 
 bitterness, — the whole of Second Timothy, for example. 
 The church at Rome was closely allied with that at 
 Jerusalem, and, for the most part, made up of Jewish 
 converts. Jewish orthodoxy was strong at Rome, and 
 must have made an obstinate fight against him. The 
 heart of the aged apostle was bruised, and he longed 
 for death. ^ 
 
 If we had to do with one of a different temperament 
 and another race, we should try to conceive of Paul, in 
 these last days, as coming to the conviction that he 
 had spent his life for a dream, as renouncing all the 
 sacred Prophets for a book he had hardly looked into 
 till now, — Ecclesiastes, a delightful book, the only one 
 of so kindly temper ever written by a Jew, — and as 
 declaring that the happy man is he who, having lived 
 till old age in content with the wife of his youth, dies 
 without having; lost a child. ^ A trait characteristic of 
 the great men of Europe is that, at certain hours, they 
 yield to the argument of Epicurus ; while still in the 
 ardour of their activity they are seized with a deep weari- 
 
 1 That noble passage, " I am now ready to be offered ; I have fought 
 a good fight," etc. (2 Tim. iv. 0-8), though held by many to be from 
 Paul's own pen, appears to be contradicted by the plans of travel he was 
 constantly forming. It would not appear that he had ever, in his prison, 
 had so clear a presentiment of his approaching end as this would show. 
 
 2 A Greek inscription at Beyrout reads thus : — 
 
 ©dpcrei • TfBvrjKas yap aTV(v6r]Tois (Tt\ t(kvois, 
 Zwovcrof irpoKiTTav rjv fnodeis a\o)(OV. 
 Courage: thou diest with thy children yet unmourned, 
 And leavest living still thy well-beloved spouse. 
 
 {Mission de Phenicie, p. 347.)
 
 LATEST ACTS OF PAUL, loi 
 
 ness of life, and when at the summit of success doubt 
 whether the cause they serve is worth the sacrifice it 
 has cost. Many, at the height of action, will confess to 
 themselves that the day they begin to be wise will be 
 the day when, free from all care, they contemplate 
 and enjoy the peace of Nature. Few, at least, wholly 
 escape these vain regrets. There is hardly a priest, a 
 monk, or a devotee, who does not at fifty bewail his 
 vow, though he still keep true to it. We scarce con- 
 ceive a hero without a touch of scepticism ; we approve 
 the virtuous man who says now and then, " I have 
 found thee, Virtue, but a name." For he who is too 
 sure of the reward of virtue has no great merit ; his 
 good deeds then seem to be merely a good investment. 
 Jesus was himself no stranger to this subtile sentiment ; 
 more than once his divine charge seems to have 
 weighed heavily upon him. But, surely, it was not so 
 with Paul. He never had his agony of Gethsemane ; 
 and that is one reason why we find him less dear to 
 our hearts. While Jesus had in their loftiest degree 
 the qualities that put liim in the highest rank of men, 
 — I mean the gift of a certain buoyancy in his task, of 
 being on a level above it, and not allowing himself to 
 be wholly possessed by it, — Paul was not quite free 
 from the defect which pains us in our sectaries : he 
 believes, if I may so express myself, ponderously. We 
 should choose to see him now and then sitting, like 
 ourselves, weary at the wayside, with a keen sense 
 of the vanity of sharply defined opinions. Marcus 
 Aurelius, the most august representative of our Euro- 
 pean race, second to none in virtue, did not even know 
 what fanaticism meant. It is not so in the East. Our 
 Western race alone is capable of realising virtue with-
 
 102 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 out faith, of combining doubt with hope. Those strong 
 Jewish souls, given over to the terrible intensity of 
 their nature, exempt from the dainty vices of the Greek 
 and Roman civilisation, were like powerful springs 
 always under tension. Even to the end, Paul doubt- 
 less saw before him the imperishable crown laid up for 
 him, and like a racer strained the harder as he neared 
 the goal — if we may take the words wrongly ascribed 
 to him ^ as a sort of historic romance in perfect keep- 
 ing with his spirit and his situation in these last days. 
 He had, too, his intervals of consolation. Onesiphorus 
 of Ephesus, when he came to Rome, found him out, 
 and without shrinking from his prison cell, waited on 
 him and refreshed his heart ; ^ while Demas, on the 
 other hand, tired of his unbending severity, left him,^ 
 so that, as we see, Paul always treats him with a cer- 
 tain coldness.* 
 
 Did Paul appear before Nero, or rather, the council 
 to which his appeal was made?^ It is almost certain 
 that he did.^ Hints (of doubtful value, it is true) speak 
 of a " first defence," at which no friend stood by him, 
 from which he came off successfully, strong in the grace 
 that upheld him ; so that he compares himself to one 
 who has been "delivered from a lion's mouth," "^ — still, 
 
 1 2 Tim. iv. 6-8. 2 75;^. j. \^^ ig. 8 /^j^. iy. 9. 
 
 * Col. iv. 14, " and so does Demas." 
 
 ^ See Dion Cassius, liii. 22. 
 
 ^ The writer of Acts, in fact, knew how the case was. He would not 
 have put in Paul's mouth (xxiii. 11 ; xxvii. 24) a prophecy of what he 
 knew never came to pass. The words, "bear witness " (fxaprvprja-ai), in 
 the former passage, denote a public and formal testimony — as we see by 
 comparing the two clauses of the verse. The same term in Clem. Rom. 
 on 1 Cor. i. 5, compared with Luke xxi. 12, seems to refer to appearing 
 before Nero's council: of. 1 Pet. ii. 13-17. 
 
 ' 2 Tim. iv. IG, 17.
 
 LATEST ACTS OF PAUL. 103 
 
 however, being kept a prisoner.^ It is probable that 
 his case was dismissed with acquittal at the end of two 
 years of imprisonment.^ The Roman authority had no 
 apparent interest in condemning him for a sectarian 
 dispute in which it felt no concern. There is, besides, 
 strong reason for believing that before liis death he 
 undertook another course of journeys and preachings, 
 — not, however, in those districts of Greece and 
 Asia which were the scenes of his former ministry. 
 The writer of Acts, who surely knew the truth about 
 his later life, would not have lent him language ^ that 
 expressly denied this truth. 
 
 Five years before this time, a few months before 
 his arrest, in writing from Corinth to the disciples in 
 Rome, Paul had spoken* of his intention to go into 
 Spain. He did not wish, he said, to remain as a 
 teacher among them, but only to stay a little while 
 and enjoy the sight of them on his way to remoter 
 parts. Thus his visit at Rome was to be incidental to 
 a distant ministry, which seems to have been his real 
 object. During his long stay there, however, he seems 
 at times to have changed his purpose as to a journey 
 
 1 2 Tim. i. 8. 
 
 2 Acts xxviii. 30. The language of Acts xxviii. 31 would be strange 
 if Paul had been put to death at the end of the two years. On the other 
 hand, it may be urged that if he had been acquitted the writer — always 
 eager to prove the Romans favourable to Christianity, which was lawful 
 under certain legal precedents — would not have failed to say so, and to 
 continue his account. I shall show hereafter that Clement of Rome, 
 Second Timothy, and the Canon of Muratori assume journeys of Paul 
 subsequent to his captivity. (Comp. Euseb. ii. 22; Jerome, Be viris 
 ill. .5; Euthalius in Zaccagni, Coll. monum. vet. eccles. Gr. p. 531 et seq.) 
 These are weak testimonies, no doubt, since they rest on no direct tradi- 
 tion, and imply a theory which assumes the genuineness of " Timothy " 
 and "Titus." 
 
 3 Acts XX. 25. 4 Rom. xv. 24, 28.
 
 104 
 
 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 in the "West. To the Philippians/ and to Philemon at 
 Colossse,^ he expresses the hope of visiting them ; but 
 this, it is clear, he never did.^ What, then, was his 
 course on leaving prison? It is natural to suppose 
 that he carried out his first plan, and set out upon his 
 journey as soon as he could. Some strong reasons 
 would lead us to believe that he effected his purpose of 
 going to Spain.* This journey had in his mind a high 
 doctrinal importance, and he strongly set his heart 
 upon it.^ It was his earnest wish that he might 
 report the glad tidings as having reached the extreme 
 West ; and so prove the gospel promise to have been 
 
 1 Phil. i. 25-27. 2 philem. 22. 
 
 8 Acts XX. 25: " Ye shall see my face no more." 
 
 * 1. The so-called Canon of Muratori, composed at Rome late in the 
 second century, speaks of this as a well-known fact (11. 37, 38 : see the 
 reading of Laurent, Neutest. Stud. 108-110, 200). —2. Clement of Rome 
 (Epist. i. 5) says that Paul preached "to the limit of the West," which, 
 written at Rome, can hardly signify Rome itself. True, in the apocry- 
 phal epistle of Clement to James at the beginning of the " Homilies," 
 which also was written at Rome, still stronger expressions are used as to 
 Peter, who yet, in the writer's view, had never been farther than Rome 
 (chap. i.). Paul, too (Rom. xvi. 26), asserts that the mystery of Christ 
 has been revealed " to all nations; " though he himself in the same epis- 
 tle (xv. 19) says that he has preached it only as far as Illyria, — an expres- 
 sion which must be further restricted by 2 Cor. x. 14, 16, where he does 
 not speak of having gone farther west than Corinth. — 3. The follower of 
 Paul who wrote 2 Timothy, thought that after leaving prison he completed 
 his mission by going to all lands yet unvisited (iv. 17), which journeys 
 were not taken towards the East (Acts xx. 25 ; cf. Epiph. xxvii. 6 ; Athan. 
 Episl. ad Drnc. pt. 1 ; Chrysost. vii. 725 ; xi. 724 ; Theodoret in Phil. i. 25 ; 
 2 Tim. iv. 17; Hippol. of Thebes, De duod. apost. (Gallandi, Blbl. palrum, 
 xiv. 117). All these prove little, since they rest, not on tradition, but on 
 an inference from Rom. xv. 28. Eusebius knows nothing of such au 
 episode. In general, the story of Paul's journey to Spain fell into dis- 
 favour in the Church opinion of the third and tlie fourth centuries, because 
 of an a priori preference for the view that Peter and Paul died together as 
 martyrs at Rome, which that journey appeared to contradict. 
 ^ See Ignatius, Ad Rom. 2.
 
 LATEST ACTS OF PAUL. 105 
 
 fulfilled, since it had been carried to the very ends of 
 the world.-^ This is not the only case in which the 
 extent of his travels was exaggerated in his niind.^ 
 It was a common belief among the faithful that before 
 Christ's reappearing the kingdom of God must have 
 been preached everywhere.^ In the apostles' way of 
 speaking, to preach it in a single city was enough to 
 claim that it had been spoken through that country; 
 to preach it to ten persons in a city would justify them 
 in saying that that city had heard it. 
 
 If Paul went as far as Spain, he doubtless went by 
 sea. It is just posssible that some port in the south of 
 Gaul received the impress of his footstep. In any case, 
 there remains no appreciable result of that problematic 
 journey to the West. 
 
 ^ Revel, xiv. 6. Comp. Melito, Be veritate, p. xl, 18, 19; Spicilegium 
 Sol. vol. 2. 
 
 2 See " Saint Paul," end of chap. xvii. 
 
 8 Matt. xxiv. 14: " This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all 
 the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come."
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 NEARING THE CRISIS. — A. D. 63. 
 
 At the close of Paul's imprisonment we lose at once 
 the guidance of the Acts and the Epistles. We fall 
 into a deep night, in sharp contrast to the clear historic 
 light of the last ten years. The writer of Acts stops 
 short, no doubt to avoid the need of telling the 
 hateful acts of that Roman power which he has treated 
 with such marked respect, and has taken so many 
 occasions to exhibit as favourable to the Christians.^ 
 This blank silence makes us quite unsure of the events 
 we should most like to know. Happily, Tacitus and 
 the book of Revelation throw a bright ray upon this 
 deep night. Up to this time, Christianity has been the 
 secret of those humble folk to whom it has been their 
 one source of gladness ; it is now about to burst upon 
 the stage of history with a clap of thunder whose echoes 
 are far and long. 
 
 The apostles, as we have seen, relaxed no effort to 
 moderate the passion of their brethren, stirred by the 
 outrages of which they were the victims. This effort 
 did not always succeed. At sundry times Christians 
 had been condemned, and it had been possible to assert 
 that their sentence was the penalty of some crime or 
 misdemeanour. The rule for such cases — what we may 
 call '' the martyr's code " — is laid down by the apos- 
 tles with excellent good sense. " Is one condemned for 
 
 ^ See lutroduction to "The Apostles."
 
 NEARING THE CRISIS. 107 
 
 bearing the name of Christian ? Happy is he ; ^ Jesus 
 himself has said, ^ Ye shall be hated of all men for my 
 name's sake.' " ^ But, to be entitled to count that hate 
 a privilege, one must be without reproach. About 
 this time — partly to calm undue excitement, to check 
 acts of insubordination against public authority, and 
 also to assert his own right of counsel to all the 
 churches — Peter, in imitation of Paul, thought good 
 to write a circular letter of instruction to the Christian 
 bodies of Asia Minor, Jewish and pagan converts alike. 
 Epistles were the order of the day; they served not 
 merely the purpose of correspondence, but made a 
 special form of literature, a class by itself, of little 
 religious treatises.^ Paul, as we have seen, followed 
 this course in his imprisonment. Each of the apostles, 
 after his example, would have his own epistle, a sample 
 of his style and manner of instruction, containing his 
 favourite maxims, — or, if he did not, others did it for 
 him. This new style of epistle, later called "catholic," 
 did not assume a special message to any one in par- 
 ticular ; but it was its writer's own word, his sermon, 
 his ruling thought, his theological "brief" in eight or 
 ten pages. Scraps of phrases might be taken from the 
 homiletic common stock, which by constant borrowing 
 had lost their label, and belonged to nobody. 
 
 Mark had just returned from Asia Minor,* whither 
 he had gone by Peter's commission, with a note of 
 introduction from Paul ; ^ and his journey was perhaps 
 the occasion of a good understanding between the two. 
 
 1 1 Peter iv. 14. 
 
 2 Matt. X. 22 ; xxiv. 9. Mark xiii. 13. Luke xxi. 12, 17. 
 
 ' See Introduction to " Saint Paul •, " and, for the genuineness of 
 1 Peter, pp. 4, 5, anie. 
 
 4 1 Pet. V. 13. 5 Col. iv. 10.
 
 loS ANTICHRIST. 
 
 It had, further, put Peter in touch with the Eastern 
 churches, and gave him a certain right to address them 
 on points of doctrine. Mark, as usual, served him as 
 amanuensis and interpreter in the drafting of his letter, 
 for we may doubt whether Peter could speak or write 
 either Greek or Latin, his own tongue being Syriac.-^ 
 Mark stood in relations with both Peter and Paul, 
 and this may explain the borrowings in Peter's epistle 
 from the writings of Paul ; or, if we are to infer that 
 the writer was Silvanus or Silas,^ Paul's companion 
 at Philippi, our argument is still stronger. At all 
 events Peter, or his amanuensis, or whoever wrote in 
 his name, had before his eyes both Romans and Ephe- 
 sians,^ which are the two " catholic " epistles of Paul, 
 — true circular letters, distributed everywhere. The 
 church at Rome may have had a copy of Ephesians, a 
 recent document, a sort of general formulary of his 
 faith, addressed to a group of churches, and was still 
 surer to have one of Romans. But Paul's other writ- 
 ings, which were more of the nature of private letters, 
 can hardly have been known there. A few less char- 
 acteristic passages in Peter seem to have been taken 
 from James.'* Peter had held something of a neutral 
 position in the apostolic controversies ; and was he not 
 
 ^ Euseb. Demonstr. evang. iii. 5, 7. 
 
 2 1 Pet. V. 12. 
 
 8 Comp. 1 Pet. i. 1, 2 with Eph. i. 4-7; i. 3: Eph, i. 3; i. 14: 
 
 Eph. ii. 3; Rom. xii. 2 ; i. 21 : Rom. iv. 24 ; ii. 5: Rom. xii. 1 ; 
 
 ii. 6-10: Rom. ix. 25, 32, 33; ii. 11: Rom. vii. 23; ii. 13: 
 
 Rom. xiii. 1-4; ii. 18: Eph. vi. 5; iii. 1: Jlph. v. 22; iii. 9: 
 
 Rom. xii. 17; iii. 22: Rom. viii. 24; Eph. i. 20; iv. 1: Rom. vi. 
 
 6; iv. 10, 11: Rom. xii. 6-8; v. 1: Rom. viii. 18; v. 5: 
 
 Eph. V. 21-24. See Introd. to " Saint Paul." 
 
 * Comp. 1 Pet. i. 6, 7 with Jas. i. 2 ; i. 24 : Jas. i. 10, 11 ; 
 
 iv. 8: Jas. v. 20; v. 5, 9: Jas. iv. 6, 7, 10.
 
 NEARING THE CRISIS. lo^ 
 
 glad of the opportunity to make James and Paul speak, 
 as it were, by one mouth, and so show that the differ- 
 ence between them was only on the surface ? As a 
 pledge of friendly feeling, would he not make himself 
 the spokesman of the Pauline ideas — softened, it is 
 true, and without the essential cap-stone of salvation 
 by faith ? It is more likely, however, that he knew 
 his own slender literary faculty, and made no scruple 
 of appropriating to his own use the pious phrases 
 which were constantly repeated about him, and, though 
 from different sources, did not formally contradict one 
 another. Happily for him, he seems all his life to have 
 been a very commonplace theologian, and we must not 
 look in his writings for any consistent system. 
 
 The radical difference in the habitual point of view 
 between Peter and Paul appears in the first line of the 
 epistle : " Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the 
 exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia," etc. Such 
 expressions are wholly Jewish. To the Palestinian 
 mind the family of Israel was made up of two parts, — 
 those who did and those who did not dwell in the Holy 
 Land ; those who did not (Toshabim) are comprised 
 under the general name of the Dispersion {Galoutha). 
 To Peter and to James (i. 1), the Christians, even of 
 pagan origin,^ are so completely a part of the people 
 of Israel that every church outside of Palestine belongs 
 in their view in the list of "exiles." Jerusalem is the 
 only spot on earth where the Christian can be really at 
 home.^ 
 
 The Epistle of Peter, in spite of its poor style (much 
 
 * Thus, 1 Pet. i. 14, 18-, ii. 9, 10; iii. 6; iv. 3 are evidently addressed 
 to pagan converts. 
 2 1 Pet. ii. 11, 12.
 
 no ANTICHRIST. 
 
 more like Paul's than that of James or Jude), is a 
 touching fragment, reflecting admirably the state of 
 the Christian mind toward the end of Nero's reign. 
 If it is not his own writing (a supposition which the 
 great number of spurious apostolic writings in circula- 
 tion requires me to mention), at least its composer has 
 faithfully caught the spirit of that time, and it is 
 curiously parallel in many places with the Apocalypse.^ 
 It is pervaded by a gentle sadness, a resigned confi- 
 dence. The last days are close at hand.^ Before them 
 will come trials, from which the elect will come forth 
 purified as by fire. Jesus, whom the faithful love and 
 believe in, never having seen him, will soon appear 
 and fill them with joy. Foreseen by God from all 
 eternity, foretold by the prophets, the mystery of Re- 
 demption has been effected by his death and resurrec- 
 tion. The elect, called to a new birth in his blood, 
 are a people of saints, a spiritual temple, a royal 
 priesthood, offering spiritual victims. Thus : — 
 
 Beloved, I call upon you as aliens and exiles, to maintain 
 an honourable bearing among the gentiles, keeping yourselves 
 free from carnal desires that war against the soul ; so that 
 while men speak against you as ill-doers, they may look upon 
 your honourable works and praise God in the day of his visi- 
 tation. Be subject by the Lord's help to every ordinance of 
 man : to the Emperor, as sovereign ; to governors, as commis- 
 sioned by him to the punishment of those who do evil and the 
 honour of those who do well. It is God's will that by your 
 right conduct you put to silence the ignorance of foolish men ; 
 as freemen, not holding your freedom as a cloak of malice, 
 but as bondmen of God. Honour all men ; love the brother- 
 hood ; fear God ; honour the emperor. If house-servants, be 
 
 1 See 1 Pet. iv. 7, 14, 15, 16; v. 13. 
 
 2 Ibid. i. 7, 13; iv. 7, 13; v. 1, 10.
 
 NBA RING THE CRISIS. in 
 
 submissive to your masters with all dread, — not only to the 
 good and indulgent, but also to those of crooked temper. It 
 is a privilege to suffer pain for one's faith through his con- 
 science toward God, suffering unjustly. For what glory is it 
 if you endure being punished for a fault ? but if you endure 
 suffering when you have done well, that is a grateful thing in 
 the sight of God. That is the very thing you were called to; 
 for Christ, too, suffered for your sake, leaving you an example 
 that you should follow in his steps. He did no wrong, and no 
 deceit was found in his mouth ; when insulted he did not 
 retort with insult, or threaten when he suffered wrong, but 
 left his defence to Him who judges justly.^ 
 
 The ideal of Christ's Passion — the touching picture 
 of his suffering without anger or complaint — wrought 
 thus early, as we see, a powerful effect upon the Chris- 
 tian conscience. We may doubt whether the story of 
 it was already written. This story grew from time to 
 time by the addition of new incidents : thus the passage 
 in this epistle (ii. 23) seems to show that the prayer of 
 Jesus for his tormentors ^ was not known to the writer. 
 But the main features of it were fixed in the memory 
 of the faithful, and stood before them as perpetual 
 admonitions to long-suffering. One of the leading 
 thoughts among them was that " the Messiah must 
 needs suffer." ^ Jesus, or a true disciple of his, ap- 
 peared to their imagination under the form of a lamb, 
 brought dumb to the slaughter. This tender lamb, 
 slain in its early days by cruel men, clung to their 
 hearts ; they lavished upon it thoughts of pitying affec- 
 tion, a loving tenderness like that of Mary Magdalen 
 at the sepulchre. The innocent victim, with the knife 
 
 1 1 Pet. ii. 11-23. 
 
 2 " Father, forgive them." Luke xxiii. 34. 
 8 Ihid. xxiv. 26; Acts xvii. 3; xxvi. 23.
 
 112 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 plunged in its bleeding flesh, drew tears from all who 
 heard the tale. The expression "Lamb of God," as 
 applied to Jesus, was already in use,^ and was closely 
 connected with the idea of the paschal larab.^ One of 
 the profoundest symbols of Christian art existed in 
 germ in these two images. Such an appeal to fancy, 
 which so touched Saint Francis of Assisi as to draw 
 tears, came from that noble passage of the second 
 Isaiah,^ which describes the ideal Hebrew Prophet, the 
 "man of sorrows," as a lamb led to the slaughter, or 
 " a sheep that before her shearers is dumb." 
 
 This pattern of humble submission Peter would 
 make the rule of conduct in every rank of the Chris- 
 tian community. The elders must govern their flock 
 with gentleness, avoiding all air of command ; the 
 younger must submit themselves to the older ; above 
 all, the woman, who may not preach, must by the 
 modest charm of her piety be the chief missionary of 
 the faith : — 
 
 And do you wives be in like manner submissive to your 
 husbands, so that, if any of them are not persuaded by the 
 word, they may, without the word, be won by beholding your 
 pure and modest life. And your adorning, let it be not the 
 outside braiding of the hair, or wearing of golden ornaments 
 or rich garments, but the hidden beauty of the heart, the 
 indestructible charm of a calm and gentle spirit which is 
 precious in the eye of God. For so those holy women of old, 
 whose hope was in God, adorned themselves, and were dutiful 
 to their own husbands — like Sarah, whose true daughters you 
 
 1 See 1 Pet. i. 19; ii. 22-25; Acts viii. 32; John i. 29, 36; Rev. 
 (throughout); Epist. Barn. 5. 
 
 2 John xix. 36 ; Justin, Trypli. 40. 
 
 8 Chap. Hi. 13-liii. 12. [The passage is given in full in the " Life of 
 Jesus," pp. 82, 83.]
 
 NEARING THE CRISIS. 
 
 H3 
 
 are as long as you do well and give way to no idle terror 
 (jTT6r]cnv) ; for she was submissive to Abraham, and called 
 him " my lord." You men, too, deal with your wives consid- 
 erately, as becomes the stronger or more intelligent towards 
 the weaker, giving them honour as joint-heirs with you of the 
 grace of life. And in fine, be all united in mind, compassion- 
 ate, with brotherly love, warm-hearted, thinking modestly of 
 yourselves. Do not give back evil for evil, or taunt for taunt; 
 but return words of kindness. For who will do you harm if 
 you follow the example of the good ? But even if you suffer 
 for well-doing, count that, too, a privilege.-^ 
 
 Hope of the kingdom of God, declared by Christians, 
 gave occasion to misunderstandings,^ the pagans sup- 
 posing that they spoke of a political revolution just 
 about to take place. Hence, says Peter, — 
 
 Have an answer always ready for any that demand a 
 reason for your hope, but give it with modesty and deference, 
 strong in your good conscience : so that those who speak un- 
 justly of you as criminals may be put to shame. It is better 
 to suffer for right-doing, if God wills it so, than for wrong- 
 doing.3 Long enough have you wrought the will of the pagans, 
 when you lived in debauchery, wantonness, drunken excesses, 
 revellings, banquetings, and wicked service of false gods. 
 And now they think it strange that you do not plunge into 
 the same excess of profligacy with them, and vilify you, — for 
 which they will give account to One who stands ready to judge 
 the living and the dead.* The end of all is drawing near ! — 
 
 Dear friends, do not be amazed at the fire that is kindled 
 to try you, as if some strange thing had befallen you ; but be 
 glad that you are to have a share in Christ's suffering, so that 
 in the revealing of his glory you may rejoice with great joy. 
 But let not one of you suffer as a murderer, or thief, or male- 
 
 1 1 Pet. iii, 1-14. 
 
 2 As we see from Hegesippus in Euseb. iii. 20. 
 
 8 1 Pet. iii. 15-17. 4 ^^^-j. j^,. 3.7,
 
 114 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 factor, or one who spies into another man's affairs. If any 
 one suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him 
 thank God that he shares that name ; for the time is come 
 for judgment to begin from God's house, and if it comes to 
 us first, how will it be with those who have not obeyed his 
 gospel ? If it is a hard thing to save the good, what will the 
 case be of the impious and wicked ? Let those, then, who 
 suffer by God's will in their well-doing, commit their lives to 
 him as a faithful Creator.^ Humble yourselves, under the 
 strong hand of God, that he may lift you up in his good time. 
 Be sober and keep awake ; your adversary, the false accuser, 
 roams about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. 
 Stand firm against him, strong in the faith ; for you know that 
 the same things you endure are suffered also by the brother- 
 hood through the world. After a little suffering, the all- 
 gracious God will fully restore you, strengthen and establish 
 you. His is the glory and strength in every age.^ 
 
 If this epistle is Peter's own, as I am glad to think, 
 it does all credit to his good sense, uprightness, and 
 candour. In it he asserts no authority ; speaking to 
 elders, he calls himself a fellow-elder.^ He puts him- 
 self forward only because he has been a witness of 
 Christ's suffering, and hopes to share the glory that 
 will presently be revealed. The letter was carried into 
 Asia by one Silvanus, no doubt the same with the 
 Silvanus or Silas who was Paul's companion, as we 
 may infer from the words " as I suppose " near the 
 close.^ In this case he was selected as one already 
 known to the disciples in Asia Minor through his 
 journey there with Paul. To these distant churches 
 Peter sends the greetings of Mark in a form which 
 assumes that he too is not a stransrer to them.^ 
 
 o 
 1 1 Pet. iv. 12-19. 2 ji^ii^ y. g_ii^ 8 jud. ver. 1. 
 
 4 Ihid. ver. 12. ^ i Pet. v. 13; cf. Col. iv. 10.
 
 NEARING THE CRISIS. llj 
 
 The letter ends with the customary salutations. The 
 church in Rome is indicated by the words " elect at 
 Babylon." The sect was closely watched. Too plain 
 a letter, if intercepted, might bring disastrous conse- 
 quences. To put any suspicions of the police on a false 
 track, Peter chose to indicate Rome by the name of the 
 old capital of Asiatic impiety, whose symbolic meaning 
 would be well understood, and would presently furnish, 
 in the Apocalypse, the main theme of an entire poem.-^ 
 
 1 See Euseb. ii. 15: 2; comp. Rev. xiv. 8; xvi. 19; xvii. 5; xviii. 2, 
 10, 21; Carm. Sibyll. v. 142, 158; Midrash, Shir hasshirim rabba, i. 6; 
 Commodian, Instr. acrost. xli. 12; Apocalypse of Esdras, i. 1, 28, 32. It 
 is unlikely that Babylon on the Euphrates is meant in 1 Pet. v. 13. 
 Christianity in the first century did not reach out in the direction of 
 Babylonia. Moreover, a few years before the date of this epistle, the 
 Jews had been expelled from Babylon, and had even been compelled 
 to abandon Seleucia and Ctesiphon for Nehardea and Nisibe (Josephus, 
 Antiq. xviii. 9: 8, 9). In the third century there were no longer any 
 minim at Nehardea (Babyl. Talm. Pesachim, 56 a). Such symbolic names 
 are extremely common amongst the Jews (Esther iii. 1, 10; viii. 3, 5; 
 Rev. xi. 8). In like manner Rome is sometimes called " Nineveh " (Bux- 
 torf. Lex. cliahl. col. 221) ; the Roman empire is "Edom; " the Christians 
 are " Cuthim," and the Slavs, " Chanaan." (See chap, ii., ante.)
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CONFLAGEATION OF ROME. — A. D. 64. 
 
 The violent madness of Nero at length reached a 
 crisis in the most shocking catastrophe which the 
 world had ever known. An invincible necessity had 
 put all power at that time into a single hand, — that of 
 the heir of Caesar's great legendary name. Any other 
 rule was then impossible. Commonly the provinces 
 found themselves well content under it ; but yet it hid 
 an enormous danger. If the Caesar of the day should 
 lose his wits, if all the veins in his poor head, dis- 
 turbed by a power till then unheard-of, should burst 
 at once, there followed insanity without a name : the 
 world was given over to a monster. There was no 
 way to drive him out : his German guard, having 
 everything to lose if he should fall, raged furiously 
 about him ; the wild boar, driven to bay, showed his 
 tusks and fought with desperation. In Nero's case, it 
 was a thing at once frightful and grotesque, imposing 
 and absurd. As he was, in his way, a man of letters, 
 his insanity took in the main a literary turn. The 
 dreams of all ages, all poems, all legends, — Bacchus 
 and Sardanapalus, Ninus and Priam, Troy and Babylon, 
 Homer and the stale poetry of the day, — danced a 
 chaotic dance in one poor brain. It was the brain of 
 a wretched artist, who took himself very seriously, to 
 whom chance had given the power to realise all his
 
 CONFLAGRATION OF ROME. 1 17 
 
 vagaries.^ Imagine, then, a man about as level-headed 
 as the heroes in a drama of Victor Hugo, — one to 
 fio-ure in a carnival, a mixture of madman, dunce, 
 and actor, — clothed with resistless power, and charged 
 with the administration of the world. He had not 
 the black-hearted malignity of Domitian,^ the love of 
 wickedness for its own sake ; nor was he a monster 
 of extravagance, like Caligula. He was a painstaking 
 stage-hero, an operatic emperor, music-mad, trembling 
 before the pit, and making that tremble too,^ — what 
 a commonplace citizen of our day would be, crazed by 
 the reading of modern poets and fancying himself 
 bound in every-day life to imitate the characters of 
 some romantic fiction.* 
 
 Now, government is eminently a practical matter. 
 Romanticism in it is wholly out of place. It is at 
 home in the world of art, but in the world of action 
 it is quite the opposite. In the education of a prince, 
 it is fatal above all things. In this view, Seneca did 
 his imperial pupil much more harm by his bad literary 
 taste than good by his fine philosophy. Seneca was a 
 man of brilliant parts, of talent beyond the common, — 
 a man much to be respected in spite of more than one 
 blot, but completely spoiled by a declamatory and lit- 
 erary vanity, incapable of sound feeling or of reason- 
 ing except in formal phrases. By dint of training his 
 pupil to express things he had never thought, and to 
 put together strings of sublime words in advance of 
 any meaning, he made of him a thin-skinned comedian, 
 a vile rhetorician, spouting sentiments of humanity 
 
 1 Suet. Nero, 20, 49. 2 ji^ia. 20, 39; Jos. Aniiq. xx. 8: 3. 
 
 8 Suet. Ne.ro, 23, 24. 
 
 * '-'■Han (TMande^'' and ^* Les Burgraves,^' the titles of a tale and a 
 drama of Victor Hugo. — Ed.
 
 ii8 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 when he was sure of having listeners. The old peda- 
 gogue saw deeply into the evil of the time, his pupils' 
 and his own, when he exclaimed, in one of his sincere 
 moments, " We are sick with a flux of words " {Litter- 
 arum iniemperaniia laboramus}). 
 
 These absurdities in Nero seemed harmless at first ; 
 the trained ape watched himself a while, and kept 
 the posture which his masters had taught him. He 
 displayed no special cruelty till after the death of his 
 mother Agrippina ; but that vice soon possessed him 
 wholly. Hereafter, every year is marked by some new 
 crime. Burrhus disappears, and everybody thinks he 
 was put to death by Nero ; the innocent Octavia passes 
 away from the world, steeped in calumny; Seneca 
 keeps in his retreat, expecting arrest at any hour, 
 brooding upon dreaded tortures, hardening his thought 
 by meditation on the scourge and axe, exerting himself 
 to prove that death is a deliverance.^ When Tigellinus 
 is master of everything, the revel is at its height. 
 Every day Nero proclaims that Art is the only thing 
 to be taken seriously ; that all virtue is a lie ; that the 
 real gentleman is he who shamelessly avows his shame ; 
 that the great man is he who can intelligently abuse 
 all, ruin all, squander all.^ A man of virtue is to him 
 a hypocrite, a conspirator, a dangerous fellow, above all, 
 a rival to himself ; and when he discovers in any man 
 some shocking turpitude that seems to prove his theory, 
 he feels a new delight. The political dangers that 
 grow from inflation, and that vile spirit of rivalry 
 which was from the beginning the worm at the root 
 of Latin civilisation, begin to be laid bare. This third- 
 
 ^ I>etters to Lucilius, cvi. 12. ^ ggg Comolaiio ad Marcia?n, 20. 
 
 8 Suet. Nero, 20, 29, 30 ; Dion Cassius, Ixi. 4, 5.
 
 CONFLAGRATION OF ROME. 119 
 
 rate actor has succeeded in giving himself the power of 
 life and death over his auditory ; this amateur poet 
 can threaten with torture those who do not applaud 
 his verse. A monomaniac, tipsy with a glimmer of 
 literary fame, who turns the fine sayings he has learned 
 by heart into cannibal jests, — an ugly-tempered street- 
 Arab, bidding for cheers from would-be wits of the 
 pavement, — such is the sovereign under whom the 
 empire groans. Extravagance like this had never been 
 seen before. Oriental despots, terrible but austere, did 
 not break out into these crazy fits of laughter, these 
 debauches of diseased artistry. Caligula's madness had 
 been short-lived ; it was but a fit, and at bottom he 
 was a jester with a modicum of real wit. But Nero's 
 insanity, on the contrary, which in general was only 
 silly, was now and then frightfully tragical. Most 
 shocking of all it was to see him, in his own declama- 
 tory style, make stage-play of his remorse, turning 
 it into capital for his poetry. In his melodramatic 
 fashion, he would cry out that he was haunted by the 
 Furies, and would spout Greek verses on the guilt and 
 the torture of parricides. Some evil deity seemed to 
 have created him in jest, in order to entertain himself 
 with the horrid masquerade of a human creature in 
 which every spring should creak, — the hideous spec- 
 tacle of an epileptic world, like what we might im- 
 agine of a riotous dance of apes on the Congo, or the 
 bloody orgies of a king of cannibals. 
 
 At such a spectacle, all the world seemed to be taken 
 dizzy. A club was got up by certain detestable bucks, 
 called " the Knights of Augustus," who made it their 
 business to cheer all the emperor's mad pranks, and 
 contrive for him farces suited to night prowlers of the
 
 120 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 streets.^ In due time, we shall find an emperor a 
 graduate of this school.^ A dirty flood of ill-flavoured 
 imaginations, shallow fancies, jests meant for comic, a 
 sickening slang like that in our cheapest newspapers, 
 discharged itself over Rome and made a fashion there.^ 
 Caligula had already invented this baleful style of 
 imperial stage-hero ; and Nero ostentatiously took him 
 for a model.'* It was not enough to drive chariots in 
 the circus, to rasp his throat as a public singer, and 
 make provincial tours on the operatic stage : ^ he must 
 exhibit himself fishing with golden nets drawn in by 
 purple cords ; ^ or himself placing in the theatre his 
 cliques to lead the applause ; or assigning to himself 
 all the prizes of the old Greek games ; or j^lanning 
 festivities such that the like was never heard of ; or 
 playing upon the stage in parts without a nameJ 
 
 These insane freaks were in great part due to the 
 wretched taste of the time, and the extravagant rank 
 assigned to the declaimer's art, which aimed at the 
 prodigious, and revelled in monstrosities.^ In a word, 
 there was everywhere lack of sincerity ; a style without 
 savour, like Seneca's in his tragedies ; capability to 
 paint feelings that are not felt ; the art of talking like 
 a man of virtue without being one. For the grand 
 style we find the loud and big ; art is utterly dispro- 
 
 1 Pliny, Hisi. Nat. xiii. 22: 43. * Suetonius, Oilio, 2. 
 
 2 Tacitus, Ann. xiv. 14-16. See in Suetonius specimens of Nero's 
 jests, to show the sort of pleasantry he affected. Comp. Tac. Ann. xiv. 
 57; Dion Cass. Ixii. 14; Ixiii. 8. 
 
 * Suet. Nero, 30. 
 
 6 Tac. Ann. xv. 33, 34 ; Suet. Nero, 20, 22, 24, 25. 
 ^ Euseb. Chron. Ann. 6 of Nero. 
 
 ' Suet. Nero, 11, 20, 21, 23-25, 27, 30; Tac. Ann. xv. 37 et seq. ; Dion 
 Cass. Ixi. 17-21 ; Ixii. 15. 
 
 ^ Juvenal, Sat. i. ad. inil. ; Martial, Spectocula.
 
 CONFLAGRATION OF ROME. I2l 
 
 portioned ; it is the age of colossal statues, of material- 
 ising art, theatrical, falsely pathetic, of which we have 
 a masterpiece in the Laocobn,^ — an admirable statue, 
 no doubt, but in posture too like a leading tenor 
 vociferating a solo, all the real emotion being from the 
 bodily pain it shows. People were no longer satisfied 
 with the purely moral suffering in the Children of Niohe, 
 radiant with beauty ; they craved an image of physical 
 agony, and took delight in it, as the seventeenth cen- 
 tury enjoyed the realistic sculpture of Puget.^ Capacity 
 of sensation was exhausted ; the essential thing in Art 
 had come to be such coarse devices as the Greeks 
 would have scarce admitted in what was meant only 
 for the popular eye. The people were literally crazed 
 with spectacles, — not serious exhibitions, or ennobling 
 tragedies, but sensational plays and fantastic shows. 
 A degraded taste for " living pictures " had come in 
 vogue. It was no longer enough for the imagination 
 to enjoy the exquisite creations of the poets. The old 
 myths must be represented "in the flesh," whatever might 
 be in them most ferocious or obscene ; people went into 
 ecstasy before the actors' attitudes and groups, seeking 
 in them the effects of statuary. The shout of fifty 
 thousand spectators, crowded in one vast bowl, and 
 mutually heated, was so intoxicating a thing that the 
 sovereign himself would envy the charioteer, the singer, 
 or the actor ; the glory of the circus or the theatre 
 
 ^ Without pretending to decide on the date of this famous group, we 
 may note that about this time it came to be regarded as a masterpiece 
 ■without rival. See Pliny, Hist. Nnt. xxxvi. 5:4; Overbeck, Die antil-en 
 Schriftquellen zur Gesch. der hild. Kunste, 391, 392; H. Brunn, Gesch. der 
 griech. Kiln.ttler, i. 469, 495 et seq. 
 
 2 Whose most famous work represented the athlete Milo, caught in 
 the cleft of an oak, and attacked by a lion. — Ed.
 
 122 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 was the most glorious of all. Not one of the emperors 
 who had a single weak spot in his head could with- 
 stand the temptation to gather wreaths from these 
 lamentable games. Caligula had left on the stage the 
 little wit he ever had, and would pass whole days in 
 the theatre among the idlers ; ^ and at a later day 
 Commodus and Caracalla contested with Nero the palm 
 of insanity. Laws had to be enacted to forbid senators 
 and knights entrance upon the arena, to wrestle like 
 gladiators or fight against wild beasts. The prize-ring 
 came to be the centre of life, — as if the rest of the 
 world were made only to furnish forth a Roman holi- 
 day. New devices were constantly brought forward, 
 each more extravagant than the last, composed and 
 directed by the imperial conductor. The people went 
 from one festival to the next ; their talk was only of 
 the last day's spectacle, while waiting for the one 
 promised them to-day ; ^ and they ended with a sincere 
 attachment to a prince who made their life an endless 
 bacchanal. We cannot doubt the popularity which Nero 
 won by these shameful means ; it is proof enough that 
 after his death Otho could gain the sovereignty by 
 reviving Nero's memory, by imitating him, and by re- 
 minding men that he too had been one of the exquisites 
 of his company. 
 
 It cannot be said, in strictness, that the poor wretch 
 was void of heart, or of all feeling for the good and 
 beautiful. Far from being incapable of kindliness, he 
 would often show himself "a good fellow ; " and it was 
 just this that made him cruel, for he craved to be 
 
 1 Suet. Cains, 18. 
 
 2 See Martial's "Ei^igrams," especially the Liher de SpectacuUs, which 
 at some points may be likened to our cheap newspapers.
 
 CONFLAGRATION OF ROME. 123 
 
 loved and admired for his own sake, and was angry 
 with those who did not feel so towards him. His 
 nature was jealous, sensitive, and an act of petty 
 treason would put him beside himself. His deeds of 
 vengeance were mostly — as with Lucan and Vestinus 
 — against those admitted to his nearer circle, who had 
 taken advantage of the familiarity he encouraged to 
 tease him with their wit ; for he had a sense of his 
 own absurdities, and was afraid of letting them be 
 seen. His chief ground of hating Thraseas was that 
 he could not win his love,^ and Lucan's grotesque 
 citation of a bad half line was his destruction.'^ With- 
 out ever denying himself the services of one Galvia 
 Crispinilla,^ he was really fond of several women ; 
 and these women — Poppasa, Acte — loved him. After 
 Poppsea's death, brought about by his brutality, he had 
 a sort of sensual remorse almost pathetic : he was long 
 under the dominion of a tender sentiment, and sought 
 for anything that resembled her, hunting even for inani- 
 mate substitutes.* Poppsea, on her part, had a regard 
 for him which so distinguished a woman would not 
 have confessed for an ordinary man. A lady of the 
 court, in the highest society, skilled in enhancing the 
 attractions of rare beauty and supreme elegance ° by 
 the arts of a studied modesty, she kept in her heart 
 through all her crimes a religious instinct which inclined 
 
 ^ " I wish Thraseas [whom he put to death a little after] was but as 
 great a lover of me as he is a most upright judge." Plutarch's " Political 
 Precepts," in his Morals (Engl, transl. v. 123). Comp. Tac. Ami. xv. 
 68; xvi. 22; Dion Cass. Ixii. 26. 
 
 ' Suet., fragm. of Liicani vita: " Sub terris tonuisse putes.'^ 
 
 8 Magistra Ubidbnim ; Tac. IJixt. i. 78 ; comp. Dion Cass. Ixiii. 12. 
 
 * Dion Cass. Ixii. 28; Ixiii. 12, 13; Plin. xxxvii. 3: 12. 
 
 ^ Tac. Ann. xiii. 45. See her bust in the Capitol (Xo. 17) and that in 
 the Vatican (Xo. 408).
 
 124 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 her toward Judaism.* Among women, Nero seems to 
 have been very susceptible to a charm that comes from 
 a certain mingling of piety and coquetry. Those alter- 
 nations of freedom in manner with a proud reserve, — 
 that way of never going abroad except with face 
 partly veiled {i%e saiiaret adspectum, vel quia sic decebat), — 
 her winning speech, above all, that touching regard 
 for her own beauty, such that when once her mirror 
 showed her a few specks she fell into a womanish fit 
 of desperation, and wished to die,^ — all this strongly 
 impressed the fancy of the young debauchee, on whom 
 the show of modesty had the force of a mighty illu- 
 sion. We shall soon see how Nero, playing his part 
 as Antichrist, created, as it were, a new artistic 
 sense, and was the first to gloat over the spectacle of 
 Christian maiden modesty unveiled. Poppasa, at once 
 voluptuous and devout, held him in a mood of like 
 emotions. The conjugal reproach which caused her 
 death ^ seems to show that even in her closer relations 
 with Nero she never quite lost a certain pride which 
 was manifest in their first intimacy.'* As for Acte, if 
 she was not a Christian, as has been thought, at least 
 she was not far from being one. She was a slave of 
 Asiatic birth, — that is, from a country with which 
 the Christians at Rome had daily intercourse. It has 
 often been observed that the handsome freedwomen 
 
 ^ Josephus (Ajifiq. xx. 8: 11) says that she was "pious" (Ofoa-f^rjs); 
 cf. Life, 3. What Tacitus (Ann. xvi. 6; Hist. v. 5) says of her funeral 
 wholly conforms to this (comp. Pliny, xii. 18: 41) ; and he notes her incli- 
 nation to diviners (Hist. i. 22). 
 
 2 Dion Cass. Ixii. 28. 
 
 * Suet. Nero, 35. "She reproached him for returning late from his 
 charioteering." 
 
 * Tac. Ann. xiii. iQ.
 
 CONFLAGRATION OF ROME. 125 
 
 who had most admirers were much given to Oriental 
 religions ; while Ovid, Propertius, and the pictures at 
 Pompeii show how much the Iris-worship was in 
 fashion in that social class. Acte always kept her 
 simple tastes, and never quite withdrew herself from 
 the little slave-circle she had belonged to.-^ She first 
 made part of the Annasan family, about which we have 
 seen the Christians group and gather; and under the 
 influence of Seneca she played, in the most appalling 
 and tragic circumstances, a part which, slave as she 
 was, we can call by no other name than honourable.^ 
 This poor child,^ humble, gentle, shown on many monu- 
 ments as surrounded by a group of people bearing 
 names almost Christian, — Claudia, Felicula, Stephanus, 
 Crescens, Phoebe, Onesimus, Thallus, Artemas, Helpis,* 
 — was the first love of Nero when a youth. She was 
 faithful to him till death ; and we shall see her again 
 at Phaon's villa, piously discharging the last duties to 
 that poor corpse from which all else shrank in horror. 
 
 And, strange as it may seem, it is yet conceivable 
 that women may have loved him. He was, if you 
 will, a monster, a creature of absurdities, ill made-up, 
 a misshapen product of nature ; but he was not a 
 vulgar monster. One might say that destiny, by an 
 odd caprice, had chosen to realise in him that monster 
 figured by the logicians as the "goat-stag," — a being 
 of two natures, queer, incoherent, generally hateful, but 
 in some moods pitiable. An emotional woman will be 
 governed more by sympathy and personal liking than 
 by strict rules of moral judgment ; a trifle of good 
 
 1 Tac. Ann. xiii. 46. 2 7^/^/. 13. ^iv. 2. 
 
 8 Ihhl. xiii. 12, 13, 46; Suet. Nero, 28; Dion Cass. Ixi. 7. 
 
 4 Fabretti, Inscr. 124-126; Orelli, 735, 2885; lienzen, 5412, 5418.
 
 126 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 looks, with good-nature ever so violently distorted, will 
 be enough to turn her indignation into pity. She is, 
 above all, indulgent toward an artist intoxicated by 
 his art, a Byron, slave to his fancy, who frankly puts 
 in practice his poetic creed. When Acte laid Nero's 
 bloody corpse in the tomb of the Domitii, she doubt- 
 less wept over the profaning of natural gifts known 
 to her alone ; and at the same hour, as we may believe, 
 more than one Christian woman named him in her 
 prayers. 
 
 Though of inferior talent, he had some of an artist's 
 gifts : he carved and painted well ; his verses were 
 good, spite of a certain schoolboy emphasis,^ and, what- 
 ever may have been said, the verses were his own, — 
 Suetonius saw his autograph drafts of them, filled 
 with erasures? He was the first to discover the superb 
 landscape of Subiaco, and made himself a charming 
 summer-retreat there. His understanding was clear 
 and keen in the observation of natural objects ; he had 
 a fondness for experiments, new inventions, and works 
 of ingenuity ; ^ he wished to understand the causes of 
 things, and detected very shrewdly the tricks of pre- 
 tended magic, as well as the hollowness of the religions 
 of the day."* The biographer just cited has told how 
 the passion for a singer's vocation was roused in him.^ 
 He owed his instruction to Terpnos, the most famous 
 harpist of his time. He was seen passing whole nights 
 by the music-master's side, studying his manner, ab- 
 sorbed in listening, panting in suspense, intoxicated, 
 
 1 Suet. Lucan. 2 gyet. Nero, 52. 
 
 " Seneca. Qucest. nat. vi. 8; Pliny, xi. 49: 109; xix. 3: 15; xxxvii. 3: 11. 
 
 * Suet. Nero, 56; Pliny, xxx. 2: 5; Pausanias, ii. 37: 5. 
 
 6 Suet. Nero, 20.
 
 CONFLAGRATION OF ROME. 127 
 
 eagerly inhaling the air of that new world open to 
 him at the touch of a great artist. This, too, was the 
 source of his disgust for the Romans, who were in 
 general poor judges in matters of art ; and of his 
 liking for the Greeks, whom alone he thought com- 
 petent to appreciate him, and for the Orientals, who 
 would split their throats in loud applause. From this 
 time forth the only glory he would admit was the 
 glory of an artist. A new life woke in him. His 
 rank as emperor he no longer thought of ; to deny his 
 genius was high treason ; the enemies of Rome were 
 those who did not join in the applause. 
 
 His affectation of being master of fashion in every- 
 thing was certainly ridiculous ; still, we must own 
 there was more state-policy in it than we might think. 
 The emperor's first duty — such was the baseness of 
 the time — was to amuse the people. Above all else the 
 sovereign must be a great organizer of festivals ; the 
 head entertainer must be brought to pay his debt in 
 person — as we see by the complaints made against 
 Galba.-^ Many of the extravagances charged against 
 Nero were blamable only from the point of view of the 
 old Roman manners and the strict code of deportment 
 that had hitherto prevailed. That masculine society 
 was offended at seeing the emperor in an embroidered 
 dressing:-D;own at an audience of the senate ; or in 
 scandalous undress at a military review, without a belt, 
 and with a muffler about his neck to protect his voice.^ 
 True Romans were justly indignant at the invasion of 
 Oriental fashions : but, inevitably, the older and more 
 outworn civilisation prevailed over the younger in 
 
 1 Suet. Galha, 12, 13. 
 
 2 Dion Cass. Ixxiii. 13, 20, 25; Suet. Nero, 51.
 
 128 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 virtue of its very corruption. Antony and Cleopatra ^ 
 had dreamed long ago of an Oriental empire; Nero 
 himself^ had listened to hints of a royalty like that, 
 and, when driven to bay, his thought was to apply for 
 the governorship of Egypt. Every year, from Augustus 
 to Constantine, shows us some new step of advance in 
 the conquest of the Latin by the Greek. 
 
 We must remember, too, that insanity was " in the 
 air." If we except that admirable core of aristocratic 
 society which came to the throne with Nerva and 
 Trajan, the ablest men made, as it were, a game of 
 life — such levity was in the general mind. The one 
 who represents and sums up the quality of the time 
 — the "honest man" in this reign of transcendent 
 iniquity — is Petronius.^ He gave the day to sleep, 
 the night to business and amusement. He was not 
 one of those fast-livers who ruin themselves in vulgar 
 debauchery, but a voluptuary thoroughly versed in the 
 science of pleasure. The natural ease and free play of 
 his speech and acts gave him a most winning air of 
 frankness. While proconsul in Bithynia, and afterward 
 as consul, he showed the finest talent of administration. 
 When he returned to vice, or the affected display of it, 
 he found his way to the inmost circle of Nero's court, 
 and came to be sovereign judge of taste, — arhiter 
 elcgantiarum ; nothing was delightful or in good form 
 without his verdict. The base Tigellinus, who ruled 
 by depravity and malice, dreaded a rival, his own 
 superior in the arts of pleasure, and succeeded in 
 destroying him. Petronius had too high self-respect 
 to contend with this despicable wretch ; but still he 
 
 1 Horace, Od. i. 37. ^ Suet. 40; Tac. Ann. xv. 36. 
 
 s Tac. xvi. lS-20.
 
 CONFLAGRATION OF ROME. 129 
 
 would not quit life too abruptly. After opening his 
 own veins he closed them again ; then opened them 
 anew, chatting of trifles with his friends and listening 
 to their talk — not on the immortality of the soul and 
 philosophic theories, but of songs and ballads ; taking 
 just that time to reward certain of his slaves and 
 chastise others ; and so, reclining at his table, he fell 
 asleep. This all-accomplished sceptic, of cool and pol- 
 ished style, is the probable author of a romance (the 
 Satyricoii) of wonderful spirit and point, and at the 
 same time of a refined dissoluteness, which makes a 
 perfect mirror of Nero's time. Not every one who will 
 can be king of fashion. There is a mastery in the 
 elegances of life, below the realm of science or morality. 
 The banquet of the universe would lack completeness 
 if the world were full only of fanatics, iconoclasts, and 
 virtuous heavyweights. 
 
 It may not be denied that the taste for art was keen 
 and sincere among the men of this evil time. Few 
 things of beauty were now made, but the finest of elder 
 time were eagerly sought. Petronius, an hour before he 
 died, broke in pieces a murrine vase, that Nero might 
 not own it.^ Objects of art were held at fabulous 
 prices; Nero was madly fond of them.^ Ravished by 
 the idea of grandeur, but with the worst judgment 
 possible, he schemed fantastic palaces, and vast cities 
 like Babylon, Thebes, or Memphis. The imperial 
 dwelling on the Palatine — the old house of Tiberius — 
 had been quite a modest one, essentially a private 
 house till the reign of Caligula, as we find in recent 
 excavations. Caligula, who is to be regarded as the 
 founder of a school in government in which Nero has 
 
 1 Pliny, xxxvii. 2:7. 2 guet. Nero, 47.
 
 I30 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 been too easily held to heave no master, considerably en- 
 larged it ; -^ and Nero, affecting to find himself crowded 
 in it, jested without stint at his predecessors who had 
 been content with so narrow quarters. He accordingly 
 blocked out in cheap materials a residence as big as a 
 Chinese or Assyrian palace, calling it a "transitional" 
 structure, which he intended soon to make permanent. 
 It was a whole world in itself. With porches three 
 miles long, parks that made a pasturage for flocks, 
 enclosures fenced in for solitude, lakes amid a perspec- 
 tive of fantastic towns, with vineyards and forests, it 
 covered a space vaster than the Louvre, Tuileries, and 
 Champs-Elysees put together,^ reaching from the Pala- 
 tine to the gardens of Maecenas on the summit of the 
 Esquiline, near where is now the church of St. Euse- 
 bius. It was a real fairy-land, in which the engineers, 
 Severus and Celer, had surpassed themselves. Nero 
 wished to carry out his plan in such fashion that it 
 should be called the " Golden House." He was amused 
 by talk of insane undertakings that should make his 
 name immortal.^ Above all, his mind was filled with 
 schemes about Rome, which he wished to rebuild from 
 bottom to top, and have it called Neropolis. 
 
 Rome, for a century past, was coming to be the 
 wonder of the world, equalling in grandeur the ancient 
 capitals of the East. Its edifices were solid, strong, 
 and handsome ; but the streets looked mean to people 
 of fashion, for the rage was every day more and more 
 for structures essentially vulgar, built for ornament, 
 
 1 Suet. Cains, 22. 
 
 2 Suet. Nero, 31; Tac. Ann. xv. 39, 42; Pliny, xxxiii. 3: 16; xxxvi. 
 15: 24. 
 
 8 Suet. 16, 31 ; Tac. xv. 42, 46 ; riiny, iv. 4 : 5; xv. 6: 8.
 
 CONFLAGRATION OF ROME. 131 
 
 aiming at general effect, such as delights a cockney's 
 eye, and hunting up a thousand petty fancies unknown 
 to the ancient Greeks. Nero was the leader of this 
 fashion. The Rome of his imagination was something 
 like our new Paris, — an artificial city, built to order 
 of the higher powers, aiming in its plan to catch the 
 admiring eye of strangers and provincials. The young 
 madcap intoxicated himself with these tasteless and 
 unsound plans. He longed, too, for the sight of some- 
 thing strange, — some great showy spectacle, worthy of 
 an artist ; something that would stand as a monument 
 to mark the era of his reign. " Till my day," he 
 would say, " no one knew on what a scale a prince can 
 work." ^ All these inward promptings of a disordered 
 fancy seemed to take form in an astounding event 
 which had momentous consequences affecting the 
 subject of our story. 
 
 The incendiary mania is contagious, and is often on 
 the verge of a true insanity ; and hence there is great 
 peril in waking it in weak brains where it may be 
 slumberins;. It was characteristic of Nero that he 
 could not resist a fixed idea, however criminal. The 
 Burning of Troy — a game he used to play in child- 
 hood^ — took complete and terrible possession of his 
 fancy.^ One of the pieces represented in one of his 
 festivals was the Conflarjrcdion of Afranius, in which an 
 outburst of flame was exhibited on the stage.^ In one 
 
 1 Suet. Nero, 37. 
 
 2 Such games were much in fashion at the time. See Dion Cassius, 
 xlviii. 20; liv. 26; Suet. Jul. 39; Aug. 43; Tih. 6; Coins, IS; Claudius, 
 21; Nero, 7; Servius, ad JEn. v. 602; Persius, i. 4, 51. 
 
 8 Suet. Nero, 7, 11, 22, 47; Tac. Ann. xv. 39; Dion Cass. Ixii. 16, 
 18, 29. 
 
 4 Suet. Nero, 11.
 
 132 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 of his fits of self-willed fury against fortune, Nero cried 
 out, '' happy Priam, who could see with his own 
 eyes the destruction of his empire and his capital city 
 both at once ! " ^ On another occasion, hearine recited 
 a Greek verse from the Bdleroplion of Euripides, to this 
 effect : 
 
 "When I am dead let earth and fire mingle!" 
 
 "No, not that," said he, "but while I am alive !" ^ 
 It is no doubt an exaggeration to say that Nero set fire 
 to Rome purely to have a repetition of the Burning of 
 Troy ; ^ for, as will appear, he was away from the city 
 when the fire broke out. Still, the tradition is not with- 
 out ground ; for that demon of corrupt drama, which 
 had laid hold upon him, was — as with scoundrels of 
 every time — a principal agent in the shocking crime. 
 
 On the nineteenth of July, A. D. 64, a fire broke out 
 at Rome with extraordinary violence,* beginning near 
 the Porta Capena, in that part of the Circus Maximus near 
 mounts Palatine and Coelius. This district contained 
 numerous shops full of combustible matters, in which 
 the flames spread with prodigious rapidity. Thence it 
 swept round the Palatine, devastated the Velabrmn^ 
 
 1 Dion Cass. Iviii. 23; Ixii. 16. 
 
 2 Suet. 38 ; Dion Cass. Iviii. 23. 
 
 8 Euseb. Chron. Ann. 65; Orosius, vii. 7. The sayin_^ reported by 
 Dion Cassius (Ixii. 16) was spoken, no doubt, in a rolling volley of 
 literary paradoxes, and should not be too strictly taken. Conversations 
 among bright wits, reported by servants or dull people listening at the 
 keyhole, may undergo strange transformations. 
 
 * Tac. Ann. xv. 38-44, 52 ; Suet. Npto, 31, 38, 39; Ves^p. 8 ; Dion Cass. 
 Ixii. 16-18; Pliny, xvii. 1: 1; Euseb. Chron. Ann. 65; Orelli, Inner. 736, 
 which seems quite genuine. Sulp. Severus (ii. 20) closely follows Tacitus; 
 Orosius (vii. 7) chiefly Suetonius. 
 
 5 The Temple of Hercules, spoken of by Tacitus {Ann. xv. 41), was 
 on the site of the present church of St. Anastasius ; the Regia and temple 
 of Vesta were also at the foot of the Palatine.
 
 CONFLAGRATION OF ROME. 133 
 
 the Forum, and the CarincB (the consular quarter spoken 
 of by Suetonius). It then ran over the hills, did great 
 damage on the Palatine,^ and went down into the 
 hollows, where it fed for six days and seven nights 
 upon the close-packed quarters pierced by crooked 
 lanes. A vast mass of stone buildings at the foot of 
 the Esquiline (at the foot of the present street St. John 
 Lateran) checked the conflagration for a while ; then 
 it rekindled and lasted three days more. Many of the 
 population perished. Of the fourteen "regions" com- 
 posing the city, three were wholly destroyed, seven 
 others were reduced to blackened ruins. Rome was 
 a city prodigiously close-built, with a population ex- 
 tremely dense : we may compare it to certain districts 
 of Naples, where the poor live in the open air and 
 onl}^ go indoors to sleep, eight or ten in a room. The 
 disaster was frightful, such as had never before been 
 seen. 
 
 Nero was at Antium when the fire broke out, and 
 did not return to the city till it came near his tempo- 
 rary palace. It was impossible to do anything to stay 
 the flames. The imperial houses of the Palatine, the 
 '■'■ transitional " house itself, with the outlying buildings 
 and the entire quarter thereabout, were buried under 
 the ruins.^ Nero evidently made no great effort to 
 save his own dwelling. He was transported with the 
 sublime horror of the spectacle. It was afterwards 
 said that, mounted upon a tower, he gazed at the 
 
 1 Tac. Ann. xv. 39, 41; Dion Cass. Ixii. IS. The temple of Jupiter 
 Stator was on the Palatine. The fire probably caught upon the liill by 
 the strip (a sort of isthmus) which, near the Arch of Titus, joins the 
 Palatine level with the Summa Sacra Via. 
 
 '^ For the extent of the conflagration see Noel des Vergers, art. Nero, 
 in Nouvelle hiogr. generate, xxxvii. 728-730.
 
 134 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 conflagration ; and that here, in stage costume, lyre 
 in hand, he sang the destruction of Troy, in the 
 impressive measure of the antique elegy .^ 
 
 That was a legend, which grew out of a series of 
 exaggerated rumours of the time. But a universal 
 belief, from the very first, held that the conflagration 
 had been ordered by Nero, or at all events started by 
 him afresh when it was just dj'ing out.^ Persons of 
 
 ^ The story, as told by Tacitus (xv. 39), says nothing of this circum- 
 stance, while he speaks, it is true, of a runaour that Nero during the fire 
 sang the ruin of Troy "in his private theatre." This, if true, could only 
 have been at Antium — which greatly hurts the story. Tacitus evidently 
 mentions the report without believing it. The accounts of Suetonius and 
 Dion Cassius do not agree in details : one puts the scene on the Esquiline, 
 the other on the Palatine. The incident was derived, no doubt, from the 
 poem called Troica, composed by Nero, and publicly recited by him the 
 next year, which carried a double meaning like Lucan's Catacausmos 
 Iliacus, written about this time (Dion Cass. Ixii. 29; Servius, ad jEn. 
 V. 370; Georg. iii. 36; Persius, i. 123; Statins, Silv. ii. 7: 58-61; Juv. 
 viii. 221 ; Petronius, p. 105). The scandal of such allusions struck the 
 public, and caused it to be said that " Nero played the lyre over the ruins 
 of his country." (The expression /ja<?-/£B minis is in Tac. xv. 42.) Thus 
 the phrase became an anecdote, and — as a legend commonly grows from 
 a true saying and a right feeling, converted into fact with some violence 
 done to time and place — the song Troica was referred to the time of the 
 catastrophe. The story was a hard one for those who like Tacitus knew 
 that Nero was then at Antium, and thus, to make it more consistent, 
 they assumed it to be " in his private theatre ; " while those who did not 
 know that he was at Antium through the greater part of the burning 
 carried the tale to Rome, each choosing the most effective spot. What is 
 now shown as the so-called torre di Nerone dates from the Middle Age. 
 
 2 Suetonius {Nero, 38), Dion Cassius (Ixxii. IG), and Pliny (xvii. 1: 1), 
 state this positively ; Tacitus (xv. 3.S) expresses no opinion, but farther 
 on (xv. 67) says that " the conflagration " was charged to Nero as a noto- 
 rious crime. In his last days, says Suetonius (N'ei-o, 43). he wished to 
 burn Rome again. In such reports, no doubt, something is to be allowed 
 to popular gossip or ill-will. What makes the charge a grave one is 
 that it is hard to see how so enormous a fire could have made headway 
 in a city like Rome, mostly built of stone, without some outside help. 
 An inscription of Orelli, No. 736, shows the exceptional character of the 
 conflagration. The great fires in the times of Titus and Commodus were 
 nothing like it.
 
 CONFLAGRATION OF ROME. 135 
 
 Nero's household were thought to have been seen 
 setting fire at various spots ; in some localities these 
 were men pretending to be drunk, and it seemed to 
 spring up of itself in many places at once. Tales were 
 told of men having been seen while it was burning — 
 soldiers and watchmen appointed to extinguish it — 
 who would put the brands together for fresh burning, 
 and hinder the efforts made to confine the flames ; and 
 this with a threatening mien, as if they were set to 
 execute official orders. Possibly they were criminals, 
 who made things worse in the hope of plunder. Great 
 stone structures near the emperor's palace, where he 
 wanted more ground, were demolished as in a time 
 of siege or assault ; and, where the fire started afresh, 
 it began with buildings that belonged to Tigellinus. 
 Suspicion was further strengthened by the fact that, 
 when the fire was over, under pretence of clearing off 
 the ruins at his own expense, to leave the ground free to 
 its owners, Nero undertook to carry away the rubbish, 
 so effectively that no one was allowed to go near. It 
 was still worse when they saw him making a handsome 
 profit from the general disaster ; when they saw the 
 new j^alace, Nero's '' Golden House," long the plaything 
 of his insane fancy, rising on the site of his old " tran- 
 sitional " residence, widened out by spaces which the 
 conflagration had swept clean.^ He had designed, they 
 thought, to clear the ground for this new palace, to 
 make an excuse for the reconstruction he had long set 
 his heart on, and to secure funds for it by seizing on 
 the ruins of the conflagration ; in short, to satiate that 
 crazy vanity which made him long for a new Rome to 
 build, that it might date from him and bear his name. 
 
 1 Suet. Nero, 31, 38.
 
 136 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 Everything goes to show that this was no cakimny. 
 The true thing about Nero is hardly ever the likely 
 thing. Needless to say that, with all the resources of 
 his power, there were simpler ways to get the ground 
 he wanted than to burn it clean. The emperor's 
 power, looked at one way, might seem boundless ; but 
 in another direction it quickly found its limits, when 
 it ran against the habits or prejudices of a people 
 excessively conservative of its religious landmarks. 
 Rome was full of sanctuaries, holy places, shrines, 
 buildings, which no statute of conveyance could pos- 
 sibly put out of sight. The mighty Julius, and other 
 emperors besides, had found their plans of public im- 
 provement, especially as to rectifying the channel of 
 the Tiber, crossed by this hindrance. To carry out his 
 mad schemes, a conflagration furnished the only means 
 Nero could employ. The condition of things was like 
 that in Constantinople and other great Moslem towns, 
 where improvements are cut short by mosques and 
 clerical edicts. In the East, conflagration is but a 
 weak expedient ; since, after it is over, the soil itself 
 remains sacred as a sort of inalienable patrimony of 
 true believers. But at Rome, where sanctity belonged 
 to the building, not the ground, the course taken 
 proved effectual. A new Rome, with straight wide 
 streets, was soon rebuilt on the emperor's plans, helped 
 out by the bounties which he offered. 
 
 It was an insult to every honest man in the city. 
 The choicest antiquities of Rome, houses that had 
 belonged to famous captains of old, still decorated with 
 the spoils of triumph, objects the most revered, tro- 
 phies, antique votive tablets, temples of highest sanc- 
 tity, everything visible that told of the ancient Roman
 
 CONFLAGRATION OF ROME. 137 
 
 worship, had gone out of sight. The city was, as it 
 were, clad in mourning for its old memories and sacred 
 legends. In vain would Nero relieve at his own charge 
 the miseries he had caused ; in vain point out that, 
 taking all into the account, it was a mere process of 
 cleansing and sanitation, — that the new city would 
 be far better than the old. No true Roman would 
 believe him. All for whom a city is something more 
 than a pile of stones were cut to the heart ; a blow 
 was struck at the nation's conscience. This temple, 
 built by Evander — that other, by Servius Tullius — 
 here, the sacred precinct of Jupiter Stator — Numa's 
 palace, the religious home of the Roman people — those 
 monuments, telling of so many victories ; those mas- 
 terpieces of Hellenic art, — how repair the loss of those ? 
 What, in comparison with them, were these sumptuous 
 displays, these vast monumental avenues, these endless 
 architectural straight lines ? There were expiatory 
 ceremonies without number ; the Sibylline Books were 
 explored for oracles ; ladies of rank offered many a pro- 
 pitiatory sacrifice. But there remained the secret sense 
 of a crime, a sacrilege ; and Nero began to discover 
 that he had gone too far.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MARTTES. 
 
 A TRULY infernal thought now entered the heart of 
 Nero. He looked the world over to see whether there 
 were not somewhere wretches even more hateful than 
 he to the towns-people of Rome, on whom the guilt of 
 the conflagration might be made to fall. He bethought 
 him of the Christians. The abhorrence they had shown 
 for the temples and edifices most venerated by the 
 Romans made it easy to think of them as the authors 
 of a calamity that had swept away those sanctuaries. 
 Their air of sadness in presence of these monuments 
 appeared an insult to the nation. Rome was a very 
 pious city ; and one who condemned its worship made 
 himself quickly known. We have to remember that 
 some Jewish purists went so far that they would not 
 touch a coin that had an effigy, and deemed it as great 
 a crime to look upon or carry a graven image as to 
 sculpture one ; while others refused to pass through a 
 city-gate decorated with a statue.-^ All this challenged 
 the popular contumely and ill-will. Perhaps the lan- 
 guage of Christians about the final conflagration,^ — 
 their gloomy prophecies, their persistently repeating 
 that the world would soon end, and end by fire, — helped 
 
 ^ PMlosophumena, ix. 26. Non Ccesaribus honor : Tac. Hist. v. 5. 
 2 Comp. Carm. Sibyll. iv. 172 (of about a. d. 75); 2 Pet. iii. 7-13.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MARTYRS. I39 
 
 make them likely to be taken for incendiaries. It may 
 even be granted that some of the believers had rashly 
 given ground for the charge that they were willing to 
 iustify their oracles, at all cost, by an earthly confla- 
 gration that should serve as a prelude to celestial 
 flames. What propitiatory act, at all events could 
 be more effective than that these enemies of the gods 
 should perish by a death of torture? Gazmg on their 
 horrid torments, the people would say, "Ah, so it is : 
 they are the guilty ones." We must bear in mind that 
 public opinion held the most hateful deeds charged 
 ao-ainst them to be things fully proved.^ 
 °Far from us be the thought that the pious fol- 
 lowers of Jesus were in any manner guilty of the 
 charcres laid against them ; let us only admit that 
 general opinion might be misled by appearances. 
 Thoucrh they did not kindle the flame, unquestionably 
 they rejoiced at it.^^ They desired the existing condi- 
 tion of things to be at an end, and they predicted it. 
 In the Apocalypse^ the prayers of the saints brmg fire 
 upon the earth, with earthquakes. During the disaster 
 the attitude of the Christians must have seemed eqmv- 
 ocal ; some of them, no doubt, failed to show reverence 
 or sorrow at the burning of a temple, or perhaps did 
 not hide a certain satisfaction. We may fancy one ot 
 their conventicles just across the Tiber, and hearmg 
 them say to one another, "Is not that just what we 
 foretold?" There is often danger in bemg too true 
 a prophet. " If we chose to avenge ourselves," said 
 Tertullian, "one night and a few torches would be 
 enough."* The Jews were often charged with being 
 
 1 Tac. .bm. XV. 44. 2 Rev. xviii. 
 
 3 im. viii. 3-5. ' Tertall. Apol. 37.
 
 140 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 incendiaries because of their living apart.-^ The same 
 crime was one of the " atrocities clinging to the 
 name," ^ which went into the definition of "Christian." 
 
 Accordingly, without being in the least guilty of 
 that catastrophe, the Christians might be held, so to 
 speak, as " accomplices in will." Within four years 
 and a half, we shall find in the Apocalypse an anthem 
 on the burning of Rome, of which more than one 
 feature is doubtless borrowed from the horrors of 
 this summer. The destruction of Rome by fire was, 
 indeed, a Jewish and Christian dream. Still, it was 
 only a dream. These pious sectaries were unquestion- 
 ably well content to see in vision the saints and 
 angels applauding in heaven what they regarded as a 
 righteous judgment. 
 
 It is hard to believe that the idea of accusing the 
 Christians of the July conflagrations came of itself to 
 Nero. Doubtless, if he had known these good brethren 
 nearly, he would have heartily hated them. Naturally, 
 they could not appreciate his merit in posing thus as 
 a leading actor in front of the stage filled by the high 
 life of the day ; and what particularly enraged Nero 
 was failure to recognize his talent as an actor of 
 supreme merit. But he had, no doubt, only heard 
 them spoken of ; he had never come in personal touch 
 with them. Who could have suggested the execrable 
 thought ? It is likely that suspicions had been started 
 in more than one section of the city.^ The sect, by 
 this time, was well known in the official world, and 
 was much talked about.* Paul, as we have seen, had 
 
 1 They were accused, a. d. 67, of trying to burn Antioch (Jos. Wars, 
 vii. 3: 2-4). 
 
 2 Pliny, Episl. x. 97. » Dion Cass. Ixii. 18. 
 * Tert. Apol. 5.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MARTYRS. 141 
 
 friends among persons belonging to the service of the 
 emperor's palace.^ Among the promises made to Nero 
 by certain persons, a very remarkable one was that, in 
 case he were deprived of the empire, he would hold 
 dominion in the East, and in particular the kingdom 
 of Jerusalem.^ Messianic ideas among the Jews at 
 Rome often took shape as vague hopes of a Roman 
 empire in the East ; as we find that Vespasian was 
 afterwards aided by these fancies.^ From the accession 
 of Caligula to the death of Nero, Jewish cabals never 
 ceased at Rome.* Jews had greatly aided in bringing 
 the family of Germanicus to power and sustaining it. 
 Whether through the Herods or other intriguers, they 
 beset the palace, often to the ruin of their enemies.^ 
 King Agrippa the younger had been very influential 
 under Caligula and Claudius ; when in Rome, he played 
 the part of a man of consequence. Tiberius Alexander, 
 again, held very high positions ; ^ while Josephus is 
 rather favourable to Nero, w^iom he considers to have 
 been slandered, ascribing his crimes to his bad sur- 
 roundings. Poppsea, according to him, was a woman 
 of piety, favourable to the Jews, supporting the claims 
 of their zealots, and adopting some of their rites. He 
 knew her in the year 62 or 63, got from her the pardon 
 of Jewish priests under arrest, and retained a grateful 
 recollection of herJ We find a touching epitaph of a 
 
 1 Phil. iv. 22. 2 Suet. 40; Tac. xv. 36. 
 
 8 Tac. Bisl. i. 10; v. 13; Suet. Ves-p. 4; Jos. Wars, iii. 3: 9; Bab. 
 Talm. Gift (71, 56 a. 
 
 " Note how prominent are the Jews in Martial, Persius, and Juvenal; 
 especially in Persius, v. 179 et seq. 
 
 ^ Jos. Antiq. xviii., xix., xx. 
 
 * Acad, of Inscr. etc. Me'm. xxvi. p. 294 ei seq. 
 
 ' Antiq. xx. 8: 3, 11 ; 11: 1 ; Wars, iv. 9:2; Life, 3. See ch. ii. ante.
 
 142 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 Jewish Esther, born at Jerusalem, a freedwoman of 
 Claudius or Nero, who enjoined on her friend Ares- 
 cusus to allow no inscription on her gravestone con- 
 trary to the Law, — for example, the letters D. M.-^ 
 There were at Rome Jewish actors and actresses;^ 
 under Nero this was an easy way to come near the 
 emperor. Mention is made of Alityrus, a Jewish 
 mimic actor, a favourite with Nero and Poppcea ; it was 
 by him that Josephus was introduced to the empress.^ 
 Nero, hating everything Roman, liked to turn to the 
 East, to surround himself with Orientals,* and keep up 
 intrigues in that quarter,^ 
 
 Is all this enough to build a theory upon ? May we, 
 perhaps, trace to the hatred of Jews for Christians that 
 ferocious caprice which exposed the most harmless of 
 men to the most monstrous cruelties ? It looks ill 
 for the Jews, at all events, that their private inter- 
 views with Nero and Poppoea were just when the 
 emperor conceived his hateful scheme against the 
 Christians.^ Tiberius Alexander, in particular, a man 
 sure to detest the saints, was then at the height of 
 favour.'^ Why should the Romans, who commonly con- 
 founded Jew and Christian, make just now so sharp 
 
 ^ Mommsen, Jnscr. regni Neap. No. 6467 (do not mind Garruci's re- 
 marks in Chnitero, 24, 25 : I verified the inscription at Naples). For the 
 name Aster, see Renier, Inscr. deVAlg. No. .3340. 
 
 2 It has been wrongly inferred from the marks on the sarcophagus- 
 cover of the Jewess Faustina (Lapi, Epit. Sev. 177, 8; Corp, inscr. gr. 
 No. 9920) that she was an actress. 
 
 8 Life, 3. 
 
 * See Tacitus, Hist. ii. 95, for special instances. 
 
 5 See Tac. Ann. xv. 36; Suet. Nero, 34, 36,40, 47; Carm. Sihyll. 
 V. 146. 
 
 •^ There is an unlikely surmise of jealousy between Poppcea, who 
 favoured the Jews, and the dubiously Christian Acte. 
 
 ' Wars, ii. 15: 1.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MARTYRS. 143 
 
 distinction between them ? ^ Why should the Jews, 
 towards whom the Romans felt the same moral an- 
 tipathy and religious prejudice as to the Christians,^ 
 be just now untouched by calumny ? Punishment 
 inflicted on Jews would have been just as good an 
 expiation. Clement of Rome, — or the writer (certainly 
 a Roman) of the epistle ascribed to him, — in a pas- 
 sage alluding to the massacres of Christians ordered 
 by Nero, explains them in a characteristic way very 
 obscure to us : all these horrors, he says, are "the result 
 of jealousy,"^ — evidently meaning interior divisions 
 and animosities among members of the same fraternity. 
 Hence a suspicion rises, strengthened by the undoubted 
 fact that, until the destruction of Jerusalem six years 
 later, the Jews were the real persecutors, and spared 
 no effort to exterminate the Christians.^ A tradition 
 current in the fourth century had it that both the 
 death of Paul, and also that of Peter, in the persecu- 
 tion of A. D. 64, were induced by the conversion of 
 a concubine and a favourite of Nero ; ^ while another 
 tradition refers it to the defeat of Simon Magus.^ With 
 one of so lawless fancy as Nero anything is credible. 
 Possibly the selection of Christians for slaughter may 
 
 ■^ Tert. Apol. 21. Seneca makes no distinction; to him Christians 
 have no separate existence. See Aug. De civ. Dei, vi. 11. 
 
 2 Comp. Tac. Ann. xv. 44; Hist. v. 0, as corrected by Bernays after 
 Sulp. Severus {Ueber die Chronik v. Sulp. Sev.) p. 57. 
 
 8 bia C^^ov : Ad Cor. 3, 5, 6. 
 
 * This appears everywhere in Acts. Comp. "Acts of Polycarp," 17, 
 18; and observe the phrase, licet contrarias sibi, in the address of Titus: 
 Sulp. Sev. (Tacit.) ii. 30: 6. 
 
 ^ See note, p. 46, ante. 
 
 6 "Acts of Peter and Paul," 78; Pseudo-Marcellus, Pseudo-Linus, 
 Pseudo-Abdias, i. 18; Pseudo-Hegesippus, iii. 2; Gregory of Tours, Hist, 
 eccl. i. 24.
 
 144 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 have been a mere caprice of the emperor or of Tigel- 
 linus.^ Nero needed no outside pressure to form a 
 scheme so monstrous as to set at naught all laws 
 of probability. 
 
 The first arrests were of a number of persons sus- 
 pected of belonging to the new sect, who were " packed 
 together," says Clement, in a prison which was itself a 
 torture.^ They confessed their faith, which may have 
 been taken as a confession of the charge. These ar- 
 rests were followed by many others.^ The greater 
 part of the accused seem to have been proselytes, who 
 kept the terms of the decision given ■* at Jerusalem.^ 
 It is not to be supposed that true Christians denounced 
 their brethren ; but papers may have been seized, or 
 half-initiated neophytes may have been broken down 
 by torture. There was surprise that so great a multi- 
 tude had accepted these gloomy doctrines ; and the 
 sect was spoken of with terror. Every man of sense 
 saw the evidence of their guilt to be extremely weak ; 
 "their true crime," it was said, "is hatred of man- 
 kind " [odium limnani generis). Though convinced that 
 the conflagration was Nero's crime, many sober Romans 
 saw in that cast of the net by the police a shrewd 
 device to deliver the city from a deadly pest. Tacitus 
 shows some pity,^ but is still of this opinion. Sueto- 
 nius ' rates it among the creditable acts of Nero that he 
 
 1 This latter would involve Poppjea. See Tac. Ann. xv. 61. 
 
 2 Clem. Rom. Ad Cor. i. 6 ; " Shepherd" of Hermas, i. vis. 3: 2. 
 
 8 Multitudo ingens, says Tacitus (An7i. xv. 44). Equivalent expressions 
 are in Clem. Rom. Ad. Cor. i. 6, and Rev. vii. 9, 14. 
 * Acts XV. 
 
 ^ Rev. xii. 17, which seems to refer to the Roman horrors of a. d. 64. 
 ' Tac. Ann. xv. 44. 
 "> Suet. Nero, 16.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MARTYRS. 145 
 
 put the followers of "the new and baleful superstition " 
 under these frightful tortures. 
 
 These tortures were indeed something frightful. 
 Never had such refinements of cruelty been seen. 
 Almost all those under arrest were of the lower orders 
 Qiumiliores), people of no account. The punishment of 
 these wretches, held guilty of treason or sacrilege, con- 
 sisted in being cast out to wild beasts or burned alive 
 in the amphitheatre, with the accompaniment of cruel 
 scourgings.^ One of the most shocking traits of Roman 
 manners was to make a festival of public executions, 
 and popular games of butchery .^ Persia, in moods of 
 fanaticism and terror, had known frightful displays of 
 torture, and more than once had felt a sort of gloomy 
 delight in them ; but never, until the Roman dominion, 
 had any gone so far as to seek public sport in such 
 horrors, or a subject of laughter and applause. The 
 amphitheatres, which at this time were of wood, had 
 become the scene of executions, while the courts fur- 
 nished victims to the arena. Condemned criminals were 
 forwarded to Rome from all parts of the world to furnish 
 material for the circus and popular entertainment.^ 
 Add to this a savage exaggeration of the criminal 
 code, so that petty offences were punished with death, 
 and a multitude of judicial errors resulting from de- 
 fective criminal procedure, and we see how distorted 
 
 1 Paul, Sentent. v. 89: 4; Ulpian, Dicjeft, xlviii. 13; comp. Heb. x. 33; 
 Jos. Wars, vii. 3: 1; Mart. Poh/cl. 11-13; Tert. Apol. 12; Lact. De mort. 
 persecut. To die in the circus was the penalty for criminal slaves (Petro- 
 nius, p. 145). See also " Shepherd " of Hermas, i. vis. 3:2; and the Acts 
 of the martyrs of Lyons (in Euseb. v. 1: 38), and of Africa, § 18 (Ruinart, 
 p. 100). 
 
 " Philo, In Flac. 10; Jos. Wars, viii. 3:1; Suet. Nero, 12. 
 
 3 See Martyrdom of St. Ignatius : els repyj^iv tov dfjfiov. 
 
 10
 
 146 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 were all notions on the subject. The victims were 
 regarded as rather unfortunate than guilty ; in the 
 mass, they were even held to be mostly innocent 
 {innoxia corpora)} 
 
 To the barbarity of the torment was now added the 
 indignity of derision. The victims were kept for a 
 holiday, to which was no doubt given an expiatory 
 character. Few days of such distinction were enjoyed 
 at Rome. The " morning's sport," devoted to combats 
 with wild beasts,^ beheld a strange procession. The 
 condemned, clad in skins of beasts, were thrust upon 
 the arena, where they were torn to pieces by blood- 
 hounds ; others were crucified ; ^ others, again, wrapped 
 in garments steeped in oil, pitch, or resin, were fastened 
 to stakes, and reserved to illuminate the scene by night ; 
 these living torches were fired as twilight came on. 
 Nero opened for the spectacle his magnificent gardens 
 beyond the Tiber, now the site of the Borgo, with the 
 square and basilica of Saint Peter's (the " Black 
 Meadow" of the Middle Age). Here was a circus, 
 begun by Caligula and continued by Claudius, bounded 
 by an obelisk brought from Heliopolis, the same which 
 now stands in the middle of the Piazza} The spot had 
 
 ^ Manil. Astron. v. 6:6; comp. the mediaeval notions attached to the 
 words marturiare, and the like. 
 
 2 Seneca, Epist. 7 ; Suet. Claud. 34; Martial, x. 25 ; xiii. 95; Tert. 
 Apol. 15. Comp. Ovid, Met. xi. 26 ; Virgil {redeunl speclacula mane) ; 
 Orelli, 2553, 4. The martyrs of Carthage (§ 47) partake their last meal 
 at night. 
 
 * The reading in Tacitus, ant JJammandi atque, has been questioned 
 (see Bernays, Chi-on. des Sulp. Sev. 54, 55, n.), but on no sufficient ground; 
 the second ant, however, may be superfluous. Flammandi {= ut Jlamma- 
 rentur) is right [or it may be read as a present passive participle]. 
 
 * Suet. Claudius, 21; Tac. Ann. xiv. 14; Pliny, xvi. 40: 76; xxxvi. 
 11: 15. This circus is the naumachia (sea-fight) spoken of in the " Acts of
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MARTYRS. 147 
 
 before this been the scene of torchlight slaughter, 
 when Caligula, as he passed in his chariot, ordered 
 a number of ex-consuls, senators, and ladies of rank 
 to be beheaded.^ It may have seemed an ingenious 
 device to substitute bodies of living men and women, 
 wrapped in blazing raiment, for flames kindled upon 
 pillars to illuminate the scene. As a mode of punish- 
 ment, this way of burning was not new; it was the 
 ordinary sentence of incendiaries, and was called the 
 " shirt of torment " (tunica molesta) ; "- but it had never 
 before been used for the lighting of a public square. 
 By the blaze of these hideous torches, Nero — who 
 had brought these night-races into fashion — displayed 
 himself in the arena, sometimes mingling among the 
 people in jockey-costume, sometimes driving his chariot, 
 and bidding for applause. Still, there were here and 
 there signs of pity. Even some who thought the 
 Christians guilty, and admitted the punishment to be 
 deserved, were filled with horror at these barbarous 
 sports. Good men would have wished that only the 
 public benefit should be regarded, in purging the city 
 of dangerous criminals, but that there should be no 
 appearance of making them a sacrifice to one man's 
 bloodthirsty cruelty.^ 
 
 Peter." Comp. Plainer and Bunsen, Beschr. der Stadt Rom. ii. 1 : 39. 
 The obelisk, formerly in the sacristy, was removed by Sixtus V. 
 
 * Sen. De ira, iii. 18. 
 
 2 Juvenal, i. 155, 6; viii. 233-5; Martial, iJ/j/^r. x. 25: 5 ; comp. Sen. 
 De ira, iii. 3. Notice the condition of "burning" (uri) in gladiatorial 
 contracts in Hor. Sal. ii. 7: 58; Petron. p. 149 (Biicheler) ; Sen. Epist. 37. 
 
 8 Tac. Ann. xv. 44; Suet. Nero, 16; Clem. Rom. Ad. Cor. i. 6; Tert. 
 ApoL 5 (citing official documents); Ad nat. 1. 7; Scorp. 15; Euseb. ii. 22, 
 25; Chron. Nero, Ann. 13; Lact. De mart, persec. 2; Snip. Sev. Hist. 
 Sacra, ii. 29; Orosius, vii. 7; Greg. Tur. i. 24; George Sync, Chron. 
 p. 339. Echoes of this persecution and allusions to its cruelties are found
 
 148 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 Women and maidens were forced to bear a part in 
 these horrible sports, and the nameless indignities they 
 suffered were made matter of public jesting.^ It was 
 the custom under Nero that the condemned should 
 represent in the amphitheatre parts in mythological 
 tales involving the actor's death. These abominable 
 melodramas, in which mechanical skill was employed 
 with prodigious effect,^ were something new. Greece 
 would have been amazed at a proposal so to employ 
 ferocity for theatrical effect, and make a fine art of 
 torture. The unhappy wretch was dragged into the 
 arena, richly attired as a god or hero devoted to 
 death; and then, in his torment, he exhibited some 
 tragic scene of a story consecrated by sculptors and 
 poets.^ At one time, it might be Hercules, raving in 
 torment on Mt. (Eta, tearing off" the poisoned shirt of 
 Nessus, a tunic of flaming pitch ; at another, Orpheus, 
 rent in pieces by a bear ; or Dcedalus, hurled from the 
 sky and devoured by beasts ; or Pasiphae, assaulted by 
 the bull ; or Attys, son of Croesus, slain with a javelin * 
 — possibly an error for Adonis, torn by a boar ; or at 
 times there would be horrible masquerades, in which 
 men were clad in red mantles as priests of Saturn, and 
 women as priestesses of Ceres with frontlets on their 
 brows ; or, again, there were dramatic scenes, in which 
 
 in Rev. vi. 9-11; vii. 9-14; xii. 10-12, 17; xiii. 7, 10, 15, 16; xiv. 12, 13; 
 xvi. 6 ; svii. 6 ; xviii. 24 ; xx. 4 ; Heb. x. 32-34 ; " Shepherd " of Hermas, 
 i. vis. 3: 2; Carm. Sihyll. iv. 136; v. 136, 385; Matt. xxiv. 9 (?). It will 
 presently appear that Revelation is a direct outgrowth of Xero's persecu- 
 tion. The inscription in OrelU (730) is false. 
 
 ^ Clem. Rom. i. 6. ^ Mart. Sped. xxi. 
 
 3 Martial, Sped. v. (cf. Suet. Nero, 12; Apul. Metam. \. 10); id. viii., 
 xxi.; Tert. Apol. 9, 15; Ad. nut. i. 10. The tunica molesia was generally 
 used in representing Hercules on Mt. CEta (Juv. viii. 235; Mart. x. 25: 5). 
 
 * Herodotus, i. 23.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MARTYRS. 149 
 
 the actor was really put to death, like Laureolus;^ 
 or, perhaps, tragic deeds like that of Mucins Scaevola.^ 
 At the close of the entertainment Mercury, with a 
 wand of red-hot iron, would touch each body to see 
 if it should stir ; while lackeys in masks, personating 
 Pluto or Orcus, dragged out the corpses by the feet, 
 knocking in the head any that might still show signs 
 of life.3 
 
 Christian ladies of the highest rank must have their 
 share in these horrors. Some played the part of the 
 Danaids, and others that of Dirce.'^ It is hard to see 
 how the story of the former could furnish the due 
 picture of horrors ; for the punishment exhibited,^ as- 
 signed by all mythology to those guilty maids, was 
 scarcely cruel enough to please Nero and the fre- 
 quenters of his shows. Perhaps they marched in file, 
 bearing urns,^ and as each passed, she received the 
 fatal blow from an actor disguised as Lynceus ; ^ or 
 perhaps Amymone, one of the number, was seen chased 
 by a satyr and assailed by Neptune ; ^ or it may be that 
 these wretched maidens exhibited in succession the 
 whole series of the punishments of Tartarus, and died 
 after hours of torment. Pvepresentations of the world 
 below were then in fashion. A few years before 
 (a. d. 41), some Egyptians and Nubians came to Rome, 
 
 1 See end of chap, ii., ante. 
 
 2 Martial, Ej)ig. viii. 30 ; x. 25. 
 
 3 These scenes have been described at length in the powerful and 
 tragic tale of Quo Vadis, by H. Sienkiewicz. — Ed. 
 
 4 Clem. Rom. i. 6. 
 
 5 Pausanias, x. 31: 9, 11; Mus. Pio-Clem. iv. tab. 36. 
 
 6 Mus. Pio-Clem. ii. 2; Guigniaut, Relig. de VAnt. pi. 606 a. Comp. 
 Bulletino deW Inst, di corr. arch., 1843, 119-123. 
 
 T See Schol. on Eurip. Hec. 886 ; Servius on ^n. x. 497. 
 8 Hygin, Fabulce, 109; see below, p. 156.
 
 150 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 and had great success in exhibitions by night, display- 
 ing by order the horrors of Tartarus/ in conformity 
 with pictures existing at Thebes, particularly those on 
 the tomb of Sethi I. 
 
 Regarding the torment of Dirce, there can be no 
 doubt at all. A well-known colossal group in the 
 museum at Naples is that of the Farnese Bull, in which 
 Amphion and Zethus are fastening Dirce to the horns 
 of a wild bull, which will drag her through the rocks 
 and briers of Cithgeron.^ This poor piece of Rhodian 
 sculpture, taken to Rome in the time of Augustus, was 
 an object of universal admiration.^ What finer subject 
 for that brutal style of art brought into vogue by the 
 cruelty of the time, which consisted in turning famous 
 sculptures into living pictures ? An inscription and' a 
 fresco at Pompeii seem to prove that this dreadful 
 scene was often exhibited in the arena, when a woman 
 was to suffer death.^ Fastened by the hair, naked, to the 
 horns of a wild bull, these poor creatures were exposed 
 to the wanton gaze of a ferocious mob. Some of the 
 Christian women immolated thus were feeble of body,^ 
 
 1 Suet. Caius, 57. 
 
 2 Real Mmeo Borbonico, xiv. tab. iv. v. ; Guigniaut, pi. 728, 728 a. ; 
 Gargiulo, i. No. 1-3; iii. No. 23. Comp. Mem. della R. Acad. Ercol. iii. 
 386 et seq. ; iv. pt. 1 ; vii. 1 et seq. ; Raoul-Rochette, Choix de peint. de 
 Pompei, pi. xxiii. 277-288; Arm. de rinst. de corr. arch. xi. (1839), 287- 
 292; Helbig, Wandgemdlde, 1151, 2, 3; Jahn, Arch. Zeit. 1853, No. 
 36, etc. 
 
 ^ Pliny, xxxvi. 5 : 4. See Brunn, uhi supra, p. 129, n. 3. 
 
 * See Apuleius, Metam.\\. 127; Lucian, Lucius, 23; Memorie, etc., vii., 
 plate in the first paper, apparently showing the torture as a spectacle. 
 Also Hygin, Fab. 8 ; and comp. the martyrdom of Blandina, exposed (at 
 Vienne) in a net to a bull, and of Perpetua and Felicitas (at Carthage) 
 exposed in like manner to a maddened cow (Euseb. v. 1; "Martyrs of 
 Africa," § 20). 
 
 5 Clem. Rom. i. 6.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MARTYRS. 151 
 
 though of courage superhuman ; but that beastly crowd 
 had eyes only for the torn side and the mangled 
 
 K-ppo of 
 
 Nero was, without doubt, present at these spectacles. 
 As he was near-sighted, he used to put to his eye on 
 such occasions a concave lens of "emerald,"^ which 
 served him as an eye-glass.^ He liked to exhibit his 
 connoisseurship in matters of sculpture ; it is said that 
 he made brutal remarks on his mother's dead body, 
 praising this point and criticising that. Living flesh 
 quivering in a wild beast's jaw, or a poor shrinking 
 girl, screening herself by a modest gesture, then tossed 
 by a bull and cast in lifeless fragments on the gravel 
 of the arena, must exhibit a play of form and colour 
 worthy of an artist-sense like his. Here he was, in the 
 front row, on a low balcony,' in a group of vestals and 
 curule magistrates, — with his ill-favoured countenance, 
 his short sight, his blue eyes, his curled light-brown 
 hair, his cruel mouth, his air like a big silly baby, 
 at once cross and dull, open-mouthed, swollen with 
 vanity,* while brazen music throbbed in the air, turned 
 to a bloody mist. He would, no doubt, inspect with a 
 critic's eye the shrinking attitudes of these new Dirces ; 
 and I imagine he found a charm he had never known 
 before in the air of resignation with which these pure- 
 hearted girls faced their hideous death. 
 
 These shocking scenes were long remembered. 
 Even in the time of Domitian, when an actor suffered 
 
 1 The term '« emerald " — (r/xclpaySos — was probably given, accordiug 
 to Liddell and Scott, to " all greenish crystals," or to glass. — Ed. 
 
 2 Pliny, xxxvii. 5: 16. « Suet. Nero, 12. 
 
 4 See portraits of the Capitol, Vatican, Palatine, and Louvre ; of. Pliny, 
 xi. 27: 54.
 
 152 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 death in playing his part, — especially a Lanreolus, 
 actually dying on the cross, — they remembered these 
 votive offerings {^inaculd) of Nero's day, and thought 
 this was another incendiary of Rome.^ The slang- 
 terms sarmentitii or sarmentarii ("faggot-men"), and 
 semaxii (" half axle-men "),^ and the popular cry, 
 " Christians to the lions ! " seem to date from this 
 time.^ Nero, with a sort of artist-touch, had stamped 
 infant Christianity with an indelible mark ; the bloody 
 scar {ncBVus) on the forehead of the martyr-church will 
 never be effaced. 
 
 Those of the brethren who were not tortured had, in 
 a way, their share in the torture of the rest by the 
 sj^mpathy they felt and the pains they took to visit 
 them in their chains. This dangerous privilege they 
 often bought at the price of all their goods ; so that 
 the survivors of the crisis were many of them wholly 
 ruined. This they hardly thought of ; they looked only 
 for duralile riches in heaven, and would say among 
 themselves, " Yet a little longer, and he that is to 
 come will come." * 
 
 Such was the prelude to that wonderful poem of 
 Christian martyrdom, — this epic of the amphitheatre, 
 which was to last two hundred and fifty years, and give 
 birth to the ennobling of woman and the redemption of 
 the slave by such episodes as the following : Blandina 
 on the cross, dazzling the eyes of her companions, who 
 saw in this pale and gentle slave-girl the image of the 
 crucified Redeemer ; Potamiena, protected against insult 
 
 1 Mart. Sped. vii. 10; Juv. viii. 133-235. 
 
 - The stakes to which they were bound when burned were probably 
 ■wrecks of chariots broken in the races. For these terms, see Tertullian. 
 8 Tert. Apol. U, 40. ■* Heb. x. 32-34.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MARTYRS. 153 
 
 by the young officer who led her forth to execution ; 
 the mob stricken with horror when it saw the bleeding 
 bosom of Felicitas ; Perpetua in the arena, binding up 
 her own hair, torn and disordered by wild beasts, lest 
 " in her hour of glory " she might seem to be in 
 mourning. Legend tells how one of these saintly 
 maidens, on her way to the scene of torture, met the 
 pitying eye of a youth touched by her beauty ; and, 
 wishing to leave him a mark of remembrance, gave 
 him the kerchief that covered her bosom, fired by 
 which token, the youth ran an instant after upon his 
 martyrdom : such was the dangerous charm of these 
 bloody scenes at Rome, Lyons, or Carthage ! The 
 joy of these sufferers in the amphitheatre grew conta- 
 gious, just as did the resignation of the '' victims " in 
 the Reign of Terror. The imagination of the time 
 conceived of the Christians as, first of all, obstinate 
 to suffer : the token they are known by is their desire 
 for death. ^ To check excess of eagerness for martyr- 
 dom required the most dreaded of threats, the charge 
 of heresy, with expulsion from the Church. 
 
 The blunder of the educated classes in the empire, 
 in evoking this feverish exaltation of spirits, cannot be 
 too severely censured. To suffer for one's belief is so 
 sweet a thing that this alone is enough to win men to 
 believe. More than one sceptic has been converted by 
 no better reason than that. Li the East there have 
 even been impostors who would lie for the mere 
 pleasure of lying, and of suffering for the lie. There 
 
 1 Moriendi contemplus, says Tacitus {Hist. v. 5). He, it is true, applies 
 it to Jews, not Christians, though he well knows the difference. What 
 Epictetus and Aurelius say of Galilaeans applies also to the fanatics of 
 the siege. See " The Apostles," p. 235, n.
 
 154 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 is no sceptic who does not view the martyr with a 
 certain envy, grudging to him that supreme joy of a 
 positive belief in sometliing. A secret instinct impels 
 us to stand with " them which are persecuted." Who- 
 ever thinks to arrest a religious or social movement by 
 measures of repression, proves his complete ignorance 
 of the human heart, and testifies that he understands 
 nothing of the true method of political action. 
 
 What has happened once may happen again. 
 Tacitus would have turned aside in wrath if he could 
 have been shown the future of those Christians whom 
 he thought of as ignoble wretches. High-born Romans 
 would have cried out if some looker-on, gifted with 
 a spirit of prophecy, had dared say to him : " These 
 incendiaries will be the saviours of the world." Here 
 is the everlasting refutation of conservative dogma- 
 tism : it is an incurable twist of conscience, a secret 
 perversity of judgment. Wretches flouted by all decent 
 people have come to be saints of the earth. It were 
 not well that such revolutions of opinion should be 
 frequent. The safety of human society demands that 
 its verdict should not be too often set aside. Ever 
 since the condemnation of Jesus, ever since martyrs 
 have found gain to their cause by revolt against the 
 law, there has always been a tribunal of private appeal 
 against the charge of social guilt. Every convicted 
 offender can say, " Jesus too was condemned ; the 
 martyrs were held to be dangerous criminals, whom 
 society was well rid of ; and yet centuries have con- 
 fessed that they were right." A hard hit for those 
 ponderous assertions by which society would make out 
 its foes to be lacking at once in common-sense and 
 common virtue !
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MARTYRS. 155 
 
 Since the day when Jesus breathed his last on 
 Calvary, the most solemn date of all Christian history 
 was that — about the first of August in the year sixty- 
 four — when the festival of death was held in Nero's 
 gardens. A structure is solid in proportion to the 
 amount of virtue, sacrifice, and self-devotion that has 
 gone into its foundation. Fanatics are the only real 
 founders. Judaism endures to this day because of 
 the intense frenzy of its prophets and men of zeal ; 
 Christianity, because of the boldness of its first wit- 
 nesses. That orgy of Nero was the bloody baptism 
 which marked Rome as the martyr-city, destined to a 
 place of its own in Christian history, and to be the 
 second holy city. Thus the Vatican Mount came to be 
 held by conquerors of a sort never known till then. 
 The brainless creature who held the helm of the world 
 did not see that he was helping to lay the foundation 
 of a new social order, was signing for the future a 
 charter, written in vermilion, that would be held good 
 at the end of eighteen centuries. Rome, guilty of all 
 that innocent blood,^ became like Babylon, a sacra- 
 mental and symbolic city. On that day Nero took a 
 position of the first rank in Christian history. That 
 miracle of horror, that wonder of iniquity, was a 
 manifest sign to all. One hundred and fifty years 
 later Tertullian cries out : " Yes, we are proud that 
 our outlawry was spoken by such a man ! Understand 
 him well, and you shall see that it is high honour to 
 have been condemned by Nero." ^ The expectation had 
 already gone abroad that, before the true Christ should 
 come, would be the coming of a sort of infernal Christ, 
 
 ^ Rev. xviii. 24; xix. 2. 
 
 2 Aiml. 5; Ad. nat. i. 7; comp. Sul-p. Sev. ii. 28.
 
 156 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 who would be at all points the opposite of Jesus.'^ It 
 was no longer to be doubted : the Antichrist, the 
 Prince of Evil, did exist. This was the monster with a 
 human face, made up of cruelty, deceit, shamelessness, 
 and pride, which ran through the world as a Knight of 
 Folly, casting light on his triumphs in the chariot-race 
 from torches of human flesh, getting drunk with the 
 blood of saints, or even worse. Suetonius has described 
 a monstrous game devised by Nero, which we are 
 tempted to think had to do with Christians : youths, 
 men, women, and maidens were bound naked to stakes 
 in the arena, when a wild beast, rushing out of the den 
 {cavea), spent his rage on their living flesh, while the 
 freedman Doryphorus (an infamous creature of Nero's, 
 to whom he pretended to be married) seemed to 
 beat off the beast, — Nero himself, disguised in a wild 
 beast's skin.^ The name of Nero is discovered : we shall 
 find it as " the Beast." Caligula was the Anti-God ; 
 Nero is the Anti-Christ. The figure in the Apocalypse 
 is conceived. The Christian maiden, fastened to a 
 stake and exposed to the filthy approaches of the 
 Beast, bears with her into all coming time that 
 frightful image. 
 
 On this day, too, by a strange contradiction, was 
 evolved that lovely paradox which has made for cen- 
 turies, and still constitutes in part, the best thing in 
 man's life. It was an hour registered in heaven, when 
 
 1 See " Saint Paul," chap. ix. 
 
 2 Doryphorus (" spearman ") was probably a stage-name. He is called 
 Pythagoras by Tacitus {Ann. xv. 37) and Dion Cass. (Ixii. 28; Ixiii. 13, 
 22; but see Ixi. 5). See Suet. Nero, 29, and the above passages of Dion 
 Cassius; and comp. Tac. xv. 44; Clem. Rom. Ad Cor. i. c. 6. Especially 
 note the part assigned to Xero, under the name " the Beast," comparing 
 Heb. X. 33 ; Carm. Sibyll. v. (cir. A. D. 140), 385, 386.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MARTYRS. 157 
 
 womanly purity, till now so scrupulously hidden from 
 the world's eye, appeared in open daylight before fifty 
 thousand spectators, unshamed as the marble figure in 
 a sculptor's studio, in the form of a maiden about to 
 die. This was the revealing of a secret unknown to 
 antiquity, the clear announcement that simple modesty 
 is in itself a beauty and a delight. We have already 
 seen that great enchantress called Imagination, who 
 from age to age transforms the ideal of womanhood, 
 toiling incessantly to set above the pride of beauty 
 the charm of modesty, — Poppsea herself reigned only 
 by assuming its outer shape, — and of resigned humility, 
 wherein was the triumph of the gentle Acte. Wonted 
 to lead his own age in ways of the unknown, Nero, 
 it would seem, had a foretaste of this sentiment, and, 
 in his artist-extravagances, discovered the secret charm 
 that is found in Christian art. His affection for Acte 
 and for Popp^a shows that he was capable of the finer 
 emotions. And, as all that came into his hands tended 
 to the monstrous, he would set before his eyes the 
 vision of his dreams. At the centre of his crystal lens 
 was pictured a maiden figure,^ as of the heroine carven 
 on an antique cameo ; and the shrinking form of the 
 girl-martyr, winning the applause of this friend of 
 Petronius, this master-artist, who perhaps saluted the 
 dying maid with some favourite line of a classic poet, 
 became a rival to the self-conscious loveliness of the 
 Grecian Aphrodite. Wlien with brutal hand the jaded 
 world tore away the veil of Christian modesty, that it 
 might find a new sensation in the martyr's agony, the 
 
 ^ In the original, Vimage de I'aieide de Cymodocee, Cymodoce being 
 the heroine of Chateaubriand's Les Martyrs, supposed to have suffered in 
 the persecution of Diocletian. — Ed.
 
 158 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 poor child miglit perhaps think to herself, " I too am 
 beautiful ! " This was the first budding forth of an 
 art entirely new. A new type of beauty, to be devel- 
 oped in Christian ages, sprang into being under the 
 eye of Nero, owing the revelation of its magic to the 
 crime which, by rending its robe, disclosed its virgin 
 purity.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DEATH OF PETER AND PAUL. A. D. 64. 
 
 We do not certainly know the name of any Christian 
 who perished in the shocking events of August, a. d. 64. 
 Those arrested were new converts, and little known to 
 one another. Those holy women who had amazed the 
 Church by their constancy have left no name. They are 
 spoken of in Christian tradition only as "the Danaids 
 and the Dirces." ^ But the memory of the places re- 
 mained, living and profound. The circus or namnacJiia, 
 — afterwards conceived as a palace of Nero, ^ — the 
 two bounds, the obelisk, a terebinth, which served as 
 rallying-points of memory to the early Christian gener- 
 ations (see below), became the foundation of a complete 
 ecclesiastical topography, which ended in the consecra- 
 tion of the Vatican mount, and its designation to a 
 religious future of the highest importance. 
 
 Although the affair had been confined to the city of 
 Rome, and although Roman opinion was by all means 
 to be propitiated, — exasperated as it was by the great 
 fire, — yet the atrocity set on foot by Nero could not fail 
 to find an echo in the provinces, and to stir up in them 
 a revival of persecution.^ The churches of Asia Minor, 
 
 1 Clem. Rom. Ad Cor. i. 6. 
 
 2 Becker, Handh. d. roni. Alt. i. 671 ; Lipsius, Rom. Petrussage, 104, n. 
 
 8 Suetonius {Nero, 16) and Tertullian (^Ad nat. i. 7) speak of it only 
 in general terms.
 
 i6o ANTICHRIST. 
 
 especially, were severely tried/ the pagan population of 
 this region being quickly roused to fanaticism.^ Some 
 were imprisoned at Smyrna.^ One Antipas was a 
 "faithful martyr" at Pergamus/ though the writer's 
 habit of employing symbolic names, or anagrams, 
 makes the name uncertain ; he seems to have suffered 
 near the famous temple of j^sculapius, perhaps in a 
 wooden amphitheatre not far distant, on some holiday .° 
 Pergamus was the only city of Asia Minor, excepting 
 Cyzicus, where there were regular gladiatorial combats, 
 which were under the direction of a priesthood.^ 
 There was no positive law forbidding the profession 
 of Christianity,^ which, however, put one out of the 
 protection of law. Such terms as hostis, hostls patrice, 
 hostis publicus, humani generis mimicus, hostis deorum 
 atque hominum, written in the statute, indicate enemies 
 of society in general, against whom, says Tertullian, 
 
 1 Kev. i.-iii. ; vi. 11 ; xx. 4 (referring to "them which were beheaded," 
 which was not the case iu Rome). If the writer was not himself in Rome, 
 his fervid temper shows that the persecution was very sharp in Asia 
 Minor; he was also a "companion in tribulation" (!• 9). But my 
 opinion is that he was in Rome during the events referred to. 
 
 2 See Martyrd. of Polycarp, 3, 4, 12; Acts xix. 23-28. 
 8 Rev. ii. 9, 10; Mart. Polycarp. 17, 18. 
 
 4 Rev. ii. 13. 
 
 6 See Mem. of the Acad, of Berlin, 1872, 48-58. 
 
 ^ Galen, xiii. p. 600; xviii. pt. 2, p. 567 (ed. Kuhn). 
 
 "^ Commodian, Carm. xl., xli. ; Eiiseb. ii. 25; Chron. ann. 13 Nero; 
 Lact. De mart. per.<!. 2; Sulp. Sev. Hist. sacr. ii. 28, 29; Orosius, vii. 7, 
 and Euthalius in Zaccagni, p. 532, give the same account. Rossi {Bull., 
 etc., 1864, pp. 69, 92 et seq. ; 1865, 93) thinks he saw a charcoal inscrip- 
 tion on the wall of an inn at Pompeii, containing hints of bloody jests of 
 the populace against the Christians ; but the inscription has disappeared 
 (Zangemeister, Inscr. pariet. 679), and Rossi's explanation of it is dubious 
 (see Comptes rendus de VAcad. 1866, 189); the scrawl, containing the word 
 VINA, refers to charges of wine. In any case it cannot be older than A. d. 
 78 or 79, for such inscriptions do not last long. Tertullian (Apol. 40) 
 says there were no Christians in Pompeii before 79.
 
 DEATH OF PETER AND PAUL. i6i 
 
 every man becomes a soldier.^ Thus the mere name 
 '^Christian" was a crime;' and, as the judge had 
 absolute discretion in deciding on such offences,^ the 
 life of every disciple, from this day forth, was at the 
 mercy of magistrates excessively hard-hearted, and full 
 of the bitterest prejudice against them.* 
 
 We may, probably enough, connect the deaths of 
 Peter and Paul with the incidents narrated above.^ 
 A strange fortune has brought it about that the dis- 
 appearance of these two is wrapped in mystery. It is 
 certain that Peter suffered martyrdom,^ and it is hardly 
 to be supposed that it was elsewhere than at Rome : ^ 
 in that case, it was at Jerusalem or Antioch, each of 
 them equally unlikely ; while the only known incident 
 that seems to throw light on his death is that told 
 by Tacitus.^ Strong reasons lead us to believe that 
 Paul too suffered in Rome. The expression of Clement 
 
 1 Apol. 2, 25, 35, 37; Ad Scap. 4; Cod. Theod. 1. 3, 6, 7, 9; de Male- 
 fcis et mathematicis (ix. 18). Comp. Acts of Cyprian's martyrdom, § 4 
 
 (Ruinart, Acta sincera, 217). 
 
 2 1 Pet. iv. 14; Matt. x. 22 ; xxiv. 9; Mark xiii. 13; Luke xxi. 12, 17. 
 
 3 Digest 1. 6, ad legem JuUam peculatus (xlviii. 13; ib. 1. 4, § 2). 
 
 * Paul, Sentent. v. 29: 1; Luke xxi. 12 is written under the fresh 
 impression of these judicial cruelties. 
 
 5 So Eusebius (Chron.), agreeing with Clem. Rom. i. 5, 6, and con- 
 firmed by Rev. xviii. 20: see Euthalius, 532 ; Geo. Syncellus, 339. 
 
 « John xxi. 18, 19, comp. with xii. 32, 33; xiii. 36 (passages written, 
 without question, before a. d. 150, and the stronger because they allude 
 to the fact as well known) ; 2 Pet. i. 14; Can. of Murat. 11. 36, 37; Clem. 
 Rom. i. 5; Dion, of Corinth, and Caius priest at Rome, in Euseb. ii. 25; 
 Tert. Proixcr. 36, Adv. Marc. iv. 5 ; Scorp. 15. Comp. also Luke xxii. 
 32-34, with John xiii. 36-38, and the Canon of Muratori ; also, Macarius 
 Magnes, iv. 4 (unpublished). 
 
 '' See Rev. xviii. 20. 
 
 8 Tac. Ann. xv. 44. Read carefully Clem. Rom. Ad Cor. i. 5, 6 (ed. 
 Hilgeufeld). The " great multitude of the elect," with the Danaids and 
 Dirces, surely died at Rome ; and these martyrs were gathered in heaps 
 {avvrjdpoiadr}) with Peter and Paul. 
 
 11
 
 l62 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 (jxapTvprjo-a';: see Acts xxiii. 11) does not of itself 
 assert death by violence ; but such (apart from the 
 parallel with Peter) is the sense obviously implied/ 
 We may, then, refer his death, as well as Peter" s, to 
 the events of July and August, A. d. 64.^ Thus was 
 sealed in death tlie reconciliation of these two souls, 
 one so strong and the other so true ; thus, by the 
 authority of legend (which is to say divine) was estab- 
 
 1 Comp. Euseb. ii. 25 (Dionysius and Caius); Tertull. (1. c.) ; Ignatius, 
 Eph. 12 (wanting in the Syriac); Cominodian, Carm. 821. 
 
 2 The leading authority is Clem. Rom. i. 5, ; this epistle was certainly 
 written at Rome not many years after the apostles' death (ch. 5), prob- 
 ably 93 to 96, establishing a link between the martyrdom of Peter, of 
 Paul, of the " great multitude," and of the Danaids and Dirces, by the 
 expression " with these men were gathered," etc. (implying a " batch " 
 of victims hurriedly and violently seized), and the motive of "jealousy " 
 assigned. Now it is clear that the " great multitude," with the Danaids and 
 Dirces, suffered in Nero's persecution. The account in Eusebius tells us 
 that Peter and Paul died in Rome about the same time. This testimony, 
 it is true, is weakened by what is said of Peter's apostolate at Corinth, and 
 his travels along with Paul, with the evident motive to give him a place 
 as apostle to the gentiles. Tertullian (Prcescr. 36 ; Adv. Marc. iv. 5), and 
 Commodian (Carm. v. 821), also unite the two apostles in their death. 
 See Iren. Adv. hcer. iii. 1:4; 3:3; Euseb. ii. 22, 25; iii. 1; Ckron. arm. 
 13 ; Lact. De mort. pers. 2 ; Inst. div. iv. 21 ; Jer. De vir. ill. 5 ; Euthalius, 
 (Zaccagni, Coll. mon. vet. eccl. (jr. 532); Sulp. Sev. Hht. sacr. ii. 29; Bede, 
 De vet. temp. 303 (Giles). The entire Roman tradition, — Caius iu Ens. 
 ii. 25; Liber pontif. (Bianchini, art. Peter and Cornelius, note the contra- 
 dictions); Acts of Peter and Paul {Bibl. max. patrum, ii. 69 c); Acts, etc. 
 (Tiscliendorf, § 84); do. of Peter (Bosio, Pk.nma sott. 74, etc.), — puts the 
 martyrdom and burial of Peter in Nero's circus, with minute indications 
 of the spot, — that is, just where these atrocities took place (see Platner 
 and Bunsen, ii. 1 : 39-41), Finally, the opinion tliat Peter was crucified 
 head downward sufficiently answers to Tac. xv. 44 ; while the opinion tliat 
 the two apostles suffered on the same day got footing without contradic- 
 tion (Labbe, Concil. iv. 1262; Jer. Be vir. ill. 5). Prudentius, Augustine, 
 and others, hold that they died on the same date a year apart. Eusebius 
 and Jerome, from theory, not tradition, set the date in a. n. 68. See 
 Tilleraont, Mem. i. n. 40, on Peter; Zonaras, xi. 13; Land, Anecd. Syr. 
 i. 116.
 
 DEATH OF PETER AND PAUL. 163 
 
 lished the touching brotherhood of two men, whom 
 party feeling had set each against the other, but who, 
 we may believe, were superior to party feeling, and were 
 always friends. The great legend of Peter and Paul, 
 who, like the twin founders of the ancient city, laboured 
 together for its later glory ,^ having in human history 
 a significance not unlike that of Jesus, dates from the 
 day when, according to tradition, they suffered death 
 together. Nero was herein the unconscious but most 
 effective agent in founding historic Christianity ; for it 
 was he who laid the corner-stone of the holy city. 
 
 As to the manner of the apostles' death, we have 
 clear evidence that Peter was crucified.^ Old texts say 
 that his wife was crucified with him, and that he saw 
 her led to execution.^ A story generally received in 
 the third century held that he requested to be crucified 
 head downward, as being unworthy to die in the same 
 way as Jesus."^ A characteristic thing in the horrors of 
 this time was the pains taken to devise new and horrid 
 
 1 See Clement of Rome, Dionysius of Corinth, Cains, and Tertullian as 
 above cited; the "preaching of Paul," cited in Lact. Inst. div. iv. 21, and 
 in the work, De bapt. non iter., in the sequel to Cyprian (ed. Rigault, 189) ; 
 Ignatius, Ad Rom. 4; Iren. iii. 1:4; iii. 2, 3; Tert. Prcescr. 23. Note, 
 too, the inscription (p. 46, note «?i^e) m. anx^eo pavlo petro, in which 
 Petrus must be a Christian adnomen (but see Orelli, 516, 5455). For 
 sculptured monuments, see Rossi, i>uZL, 18G4, 81; 1866, 52; Martigny, 
 Diet. 537, 538. 
 
 2 John xxi. 18, 19 (cf. xii. 32, 33; xiii. 36); Tert. Adv. Marc. iv. 5; 
 Prcescr. 36; Scorp. 15; Euseb. ii. 25; Lact. De mort. pers. 2; Orosius, vii. 
 7. Tacitus speaks of some who were crucihus adfixi. Emendations sug- 
 gested in this passage (Bernays, Ueher die Chron., etc.) would set aside 
 the mention of simple crucifixion ; but Snip. Severus (ii. 29), who nearly 
 copies Tacitus (a better text than ours), agreeing with Hermas, i. vis. 
 3: 2. expressly gives cruces (arravpovs) in the account. 
 
 8 Clem. Alex. Strom, vii. 11. 
 
 * Acta Petri et Pauli, c. 81 (cf. Pseudo-Linus, 69, 70); Euseb. iii. 1 
 (following Origen); id. Demonstr. evaug. iii. 5; Jer. De vir. ill. 1.
 
 1 64 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 modes of torture ; and it is possible that Peter was 
 exposed to the crowd in that shocking attitude. 
 Seneca^ speaks of cases where tj^rants have been 
 known thus to reverse the posture of tlieir victims ; and 
 Christian piety may have seen a mystical refinement^ 
 in what was only an executioner's strange caprice.^ 
 Possibly the words of the Fourth Gospel, " Thou shalt 
 stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, 
 and carry thee whither thou wouldest not," ■* allude to 
 some peculiarity in the mode of Peter's death.^ Paul, 
 as a freeman born, was beheaded.^ Probably he had a 
 formal trial,"^ and was not included in the summary con- 
 demnation of the Christian victims. Timothy, as would 
 appear, was arrested with him and detained in prison.® 
 
 Early in the third century there already existed 
 near Rome two monuments, bearing the names of the 
 apostles Peter and Paul. That of Peter was at the foot 
 of the Vatican hill ; that of Paul, on the road to Ostia. 
 In rhetorical phrase they were called the "trophies" 
 of the two apostles ; ^ and they were probably celloe 
 or memoricB consecrated to their names. Such memo- 
 rials existed in public before the time of Constantine, 
 as we learn from Eusebius ; ^° and we have a right to 
 
 1 Consol. ad Marciam, 20. ^ Rufinus, tr. of Euseb. iii. 1. 
 
 8 Euseb. as above. * John xxi. 18. 
 
 6 The "girding" was not essential, or even customary. The passage 
 in the Gospel of Nicodemus (pt. 1, A. ch. 10) refers to a very modern 
 conception as to the crucifixion of Jesus. 
 
 6 Tert, PrcBscr. 36 ; Scorp. 15; Euseb. ii. 25; Lad. De mort. 2; Orosius, 
 vii. 7; Euthalius(in Zaccagni), 427, 522, 531-37 ; cf. Paul, Sent. v. 29: 1. 
 
 '' Clem. Rom. i. 5; see note 6 on p. 161, ante. 
 
 8 Heb. xiii. 23 (but see p. 177, below). 
 
 ^ Cains in Euseb. ii. 25. The construction of a memoria of Peter on 
 the Vatican by Anencletus {Lib. pontif. " Anenclet.") is legendary. See 
 Lipsius, Chron. der rom. BLscJiofe, 269; cf. Bianchini's text. 
 
 10 Vita Const, ii. 40.
 
 DEATH OF PETER AND PAUL. 165 
 
 suppose them at this time to be known only to the 
 faithful, — though of the publicity of Christian burial- 
 places there is no doubt. ^ Possibly they were only the 
 terebinth of the Vatican, long associated with the name 
 of Peter, and the pine of the Salvian waters, about 
 which, by some traditions, were gathered the memories 
 of Paul.^ Later on, these "trophies" became the tombs 
 of the two apostles. About the middle of the third 
 century two bodies were found, held in universal ven- 
 eration as theirs,^ which seem to have come from the 
 catacombs on the Appian Way, where there were Jew- 
 ish cemeteries.'* In the fourth century these bodies lay 
 
 1 See Rossi, Pi.om. sott. i. 209, 210. 
 
 2 Ada, etc., 80 (ed. Tisch. p. 35, n.), p. 162, n., ante. Still, these waters 
 are too far from the basilica of St. Paul/Mo?-i i muri to allow identificatiou. 
 
 8 Kalendarhnn Uberianum, 3 kal. Jun. {Abh. der kvn. sacks. Gesch., 
 phil-hist. Classe, i. 632) ; Inscr. of Daraasus (Gruter, ii. 1163) ; Lib. 
 pontif. (Bianchini and Lipsius) ; art. Petrus, Cornelius, Damasus, and all 
 but two from Linus to Victor (this book is self -contradictory). All that 
 concerns the transfers made by St. Cornelius is very obscure. If he 
 only restored the bodies to their first resting-place why were they ever 
 taken away ? The reason given in the case of Peter (Lampr. Heliogr. 23) 
 is very weak, and as to Paul there is none. The nearness of the Jewish 
 cemetery Vigna Randanini makes me think that the two bodies in ques- 
 tion were taken by Cornelius from the catacombs by the Appian AVay, 
 when the Decian persecution made care for martyrs' remains a religious 
 duty, and stirred the zeal of the faithful Lucina, who was satisfied with 
 very little proof, or even perhaps could not deny herself some little pious 
 frauds. Thus we explain the traditions as to the stay of the bodies in 
 the catacomb of St. Sebastian, — the catacumbas (Kara Tvfi^ovs : Marchi, 
 Mon. delle arti crist. prim. 199-220). See Lib. pontif. : Bede, De temp. rat. 
 309 (ed. Gile.s) ; Acts of St. Sebastian, and others (Bosio, 247, 248, 251- 
 256, 259, 260); Acta SS.Jan. ii. 2.38, 278; Gruter, 1172, No. 12; Rossi, i. 
 236, 240-242; Catal. imp. rom. (Roncalli, Vet. lat. scr. chron., Padua, 1787, 
 ii. 248). Some MSS. of the Acta P. et P. give data for reconciling con- 
 flicting accounts. Tisch. Acta apost. apocr. 38, 39, n. ; Lips. Die Quellen 
 der rdm. Petrussage, 99; Mabillon, Liturg. Gall. 1,59; Greg. I. Epist. iv. 
 30; Acts of Mar Scherbil, in Cureton, Anc. Si/r. Doc. 61 et seq. 
 
 * There are two, about three hundred yards apart, north and south,
 
 t66 antichrist. 
 
 on the site of the two " trophies." ^ Over them were 
 built two churches, of which one was replaced by the 
 present St. Peter's, while the other, St. Paul's, outside 
 the walls, retained its essential features down to our 
 time.^ 
 
 It is possible that the " trophies " so venerated about 
 the year 200 really marked the spots where the two 
 apostles suffered. Paul, it is not unlikely, lived in his 
 last days on the Ostian road, in the region lying out- 
 ward from the Lavernal gate.^ The shade of Peter, on 
 the other hand, ever flits in the legend about the foot of 
 the Vatican, the gardens and circus of Nero, especially 
 about the obelisk,'* — the circus guarding the memory 
 of the martyrs of that date, among whom, in lack 
 
 on the ground from which, according to tradition, the bodies were taken. 
 (Rossi, 1867, 3, 16). This would show that the place {cata-tumhas), where 
 the graves of the two apostles were in the third century supposed to be, 
 was part of a vast Jewish underground cemetery, at the bend of the Appian 
 Way toward St. Sebastian. Here was the place of Christian burial in 
 the first three centuries (Rossi, vol. ii.). 
 
 1 Eusebius (ii. 25) uses the term " cemetery " (place of rest) to denote 
 the place of burial, implying that Caius means the same thing by "trophy." 
 The Roman tradition generally holds that both the apostles were buried 
 near the spots where they died (Bosio, 74, 197), often confounding, in the 
 case of martyrs, the place of burial with that of execution (Hegesippus in 
 Euseb. ii. 2-3: 18; Lib. -pont. s. v. Peter and Cornelius: Acta, etc., § 84). 
 This tradition, however, probably arose from the circumstance that, after 
 the bodies were removed and the churches built, it was claimed that the 
 sacred relics had always been there (Euthalius in Zaccagni, .522). 
 
 ^ It was destroyed by fire in 1827, and afterwards replaced by the 
 existing monumental structure. 
 
 3 Kal. III). 1. c. ; Lib. pont. 1. c. ; Acta, etc., 80. The basilica of St. Paul, 
 built on the site indicated, no doubt took the place of Caius's "trophy." 
 A later opinion held that Paul was beheaded two miles farther on, near 
 the Aquce SaJvice or Ad guttam jugiter manantem (now "St. Paul of the 
 three fountains "), one of the most striking spots on the Campagna : 
 Greg. I. Epist. xiv. 14 ; Acta, etc., 80 (in some MSS.); Acta Junii, v. 4o5. 
 
 * Bosio, 74 ; Lips. 102.
 
 DEATH OF PETER AND PAUL. 167 
 
 of clearer knowledge, the tradition would fain include 
 Peter. I, however, prefer to think there was some 
 ground of fact,^ and that the old site of the obelisk 
 in the sacristy of St. Peter's, marked by an inscrip- 
 tion, — not the Montorio, which has no claim, — shows 
 very nearly the spot where the frightful spectacle of 
 the crucified apostle glutted the mob's cruel gaze. 
 
 It is hardly to be supposed that the bodies so held in 
 reverence were really those of the apostles. True, the 
 custom of protecting the memory of the martyrs' tombs 
 is very ancient in the Church ; ^ but about the years 
 100 and 120 there was at Rome a great development 
 of legend touching these two apostles, in which was 
 wide scope for pious assertion. It is next to incredible 
 that the bodies of the martyred victims could have 
 been recognised and claimed in the days following 
 those awful butcheries. In the hideous mass of human 
 remains, — bruised, burned, trampled, dragged by hooks 
 into the "place of spoils," and then cast into pits, ^ — 
 all marks of identity would be lost. Remains of 
 victims were no doubt often recovered by authority 
 from the executioners ; ^ but, even supposing, as we 
 may, that brethren would be found to brave death in 
 
 1 See note, p. 162. 2 Euseb. ii. 23: 18. 
 
 8 By chance the name of one Primitivus has been preserved as the 
 officer who directed this shocking business, whose epitaph is on the tomb 
 where he rested along with the trainer Claudius, the net-fighter Teles- 
 phorus, and Claudius Agathocles, surgeon of the morning games, all (as 
 appears) Nero's slaves or freedmen (Orelli, 2554). The passionless 
 marble adds, " Light be the earth upon you ! " We have the epitaph of 
 another surgeon of the games, Eutychus, also a slave of Nero, and his 
 wife Irene (id. 2553). It is noticeable that all these officers of the arena 
 have the same names as those known among the Christians, great num- 
 bers having come from Asia. 
 
 * Digest, De cadaveribus punitorum, xlviii. 24 (1, 2); Diocl. and Max. 
 Cod. Just., constit. 11, De religiosis et sumptibus funerum (ii. 44).
 
 i68 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 search of the precious relics, they would, most likely, 
 instead, have been sent to join the piles of the dead.-^ 
 For several days, as we find in Tacitus, the mere name 
 "Christian" was a death-sentence. But this is of small 
 account. If the basilica of the Vatican does not really 
 cover Peter's tomb, at least it marks for our memory 
 one of the holiest spots of Christendom. The open 
 space where the bad taste of two centuries ago built 
 a theatrical circular colonnade is a second Calvary. 
 Even if it was not the scene of Peter's martyrdom, 
 here at least, we cannot doubt, suffered the Christian 
 Dana'ids and Dirces. 
 
 If, as we may believe, John came to Rome with Peter, 
 we may find plausible ground for the old tradition that 
 tells how he was cast into a cauldron of boiling oil 
 near the later site of the Latin gate,^ apparently for the 
 name of Jesus.^ We are led to think that he witnessed, 
 and suffered in, the Neronian persecution. The Apoc- 
 alypse is the cry of horror uttered by a witness who 
 has lived in " Babylon," who has known the Beast, has 
 seen the bloody corpses of his martyred brothers, and 
 has himself felt the touch of death. ^ The wretches 
 
 1 The tradition of such recoveries at this time by a lady named Lucina 
 involves a confusion of date. She is represented {Lib. pontif.) as an adviser 
 of Pope Cornelius in 252 ; and her legendary task extends to Diocletian's 
 persecution, A. d. 405-409; Acts of St. Sebastian {Acta Jan. ii. 258, 278). 
 
 2 Tert. Prcescr. 36 (see Jer. in Matt. xx. 23 ; Ado. Jovin. i. 26; Euseb. 
 vi. 5). TertuUian does not fix the spot, but a Roman tradition apparently 
 refers to that mentioned above (Platner and Bunsen, iii. 604). There 
 are other examples of plunging into boiling oil (Euseb. vi. 5). The Latin 
 gate was in the wall of Aurelian (date 271) ; there was none of that name 
 in the old wall. See pseudo-Prochorus, ch. 10, 11 (Latin tr.). 
 
 ' Rev. i. 9, a conclusive testimony, even if not written by John himself. 
 Polycrates speaks of him as " martyr and teacher" (Euseb. iii. 24 : 3; v. 
 24: 3), — though this may be taken from the text in " Revelation." 
 
 * Rev. i. 9; vi. 9; xiii. 10; xx. 4.
 
 DEATH OF PETER AND PAUL. 169 
 
 condemned to serve as torches by night must first be 
 plunged in oil or other inflammable substance (boiling 
 or not) ; and John was possibly devoted to the same 
 torment as his brethren, and destined to illuminate 
 the night-festival of the Latin Way — then saved, by 
 hazard or caprice. In this quarter befell incidents in 
 the horrors of those dreadful days. The southern part 
 of Rome — the Forta Cai^ena, the Ostian, Appian, and 
 Latin ways — forms a region where the story of the 
 infant Church in the days of Nero seems to gather. 
 
 Jealous destiny has ordained that, on many a point 
 which stirs our lively curiosity, we may never emerge 
 from the shadow which hides the birth of legend. 
 Questions touching the death of the apostles Peter and 
 Paul are met, I repeat, only by more or less probable con- 
 jectures. The death of Paul, in particular, is wrapped 
 in thick darkness. Expressions in the Apocalypse, 
 written about 68 or 69, would incline us to think that 
 the writer supposed him to be still living.^ Very likely 
 his end was wholly unknown. If he took the journey 
 to the West which some passages speak of, shipwreck, 
 sickness, or accident may have taken him from the 
 sight of men. The Canon of Muratori mentions the 
 "passion" of Peter, but not that of Paul, while it 
 speaks of "Paul's journey from Rome into Spain" as 
 the last act of his life ; and to this view the passage of 
 Clement (i. 5) would easily fit. He no longer had about 
 him the shining group of his disciples ; the details of 
 his death would remain unknown; and later legend 
 would fill out the blank, keeping in view the rank of 
 Roman citizen given him in "Acts," and at the same 
 time the desire of the Christian heart to keep true the 
 
 1 Rev. ii. 2, 9; iii. 9.
 
 I70 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 parallel between him and Peter. There is something 
 that mocks us, it is true, in the mystery that shrouds 
 this stormful apostle's death. It might be interesting 
 to dream of Paul doubting, shipwrecked, abandoned, 
 betrayed by his own, solitary, stricken with the dis- 
 enchantment of old age. It would flatter us to know 
 that the scales fell from his eyes a second time. Our 
 gentle incredulity would have its mild revenge if the 
 most dogmatic of men had passed away saddened, 
 desponding — let us rather say, tranquil — on some 
 shore or highway of Spain, saying, " I, too, have gone 
 astray." But this Is allowing too much to mere con- 
 jecture. It is certain that neither apostle was living 
 in the year seventy ; they did not behold the ruin of 
 Jerusalem, which would have impressed Paul so pro- 
 foundly. In the sequel of our history, then. I will 
 assume that the two great champions of Christian 
 thought disappeared at Rome during the awful tempest 
 of sixty-four. The death of James was a little more 
 than two years earlier. Of the " pillar-apostles " John 
 only now remained. Other friends of Jesus still sur- 
 vived at Jerusalem, but forgotten, and, as it were, lost 
 in the on-coming gloom of that storm-cloud into which 
 Judaea was plunged for many years. 
 
 In another volume I shall show in what manner the 
 Church completed the reconciliation of Peter and Paul, 
 of which their death had only sketched the outline. 
 Its full success was at that cost. Seemingly, the Jew- 
 ish Christianity of Peter and the Hellenic Christianity 
 of Paul could not be allied ; but each was needful, that 
 the work of the future might be made complete. The 
 one represents the conservative spirit, without which 
 nothing can be solid; the other represents movement
 
 DEATH OF PETER AND PAUL. 171 
 
 and advance, without which nothing can be alive. 
 Life is the resultant of a struggle between two opposing 
 forces. Death is as sure from the lack of all revolu- 
 tionary breath as from the too great stress of the 
 revolutionary spirit.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 AFTER THE CRISIS. — A. D. 64, 65. 
 
 The consciousness of a community of men is like the 
 consciousness of one man. Every impression that ex- 
 ceeds a certain degree of energy leaves in the brain a 
 trace which is like a wound, and keeps it long, if not 
 always, under the spell of an hallucination or fixed 
 idea. The bloody episode which has been described 
 had equalled in horror the most frightful dreams of 
 which a sick brain is capable ; and it haunted the 
 Christian imagination for many years, making it the 
 prey of a sort of vertigo, tormenting it with monstrous 
 dreams, so that a cruel death seemed the fate in store 
 for all the faithful.^ But is not this very thing the 
 surest sign that the last great day draws near ? The 
 souls of the victims of the Beast are conceived as wait- 
 ing beneath God's altar for the holy hour, and " crying 
 with a loud voice for vengeance." ^ The angel of God 
 appeases them, bidding them to be at rest, and wait 
 yet a little longer, for the time is near when their 
 brethren appointed to slaughter will be slain in their 
 turn. Nero will take care of that. He is the infernal 
 monster to whom God will yield up his power for a 
 season while the catastrophe draws near, who will then 
 appear as a terrifying sign in heaven on the evening 
 horizon of the latter day.^ 
 
 1 Rev. vi. 11. 2 j/jU^ yi 9^ iq. 
 
 * See Cyprian, De exhort, mart., preface.
 
 AFTER THE CRISIS. 173 
 
 The air was as it were steeped everywhere with the 
 martyr-spirit. Nero's court seemed filled with a dis- 
 interested hate of goodness. From end to end of the 
 Mediterranean it was a death-struggle of right and 
 wrong. That hard Roman world had declared war on 
 piety in every form ; and piety was driven to forsake a 
 world given over to treachery, cruelty, and debauch. 
 Every good man was in peril, for Nero's malignant 
 jealousy against virtue had reached its height. The 
 task of philosophy was to fortify its votaries for torture. 
 Seneca, Thraseas, Barea Soranus, Musonius, Cornutus, 
 — all have undergone, or will soon undergo, the conse- 
 quences of their bold protest. Death by the execu- 
 tioner seems the natural fate of virtue.^ Even the 
 sceptic Petronius, because he is a gentleman, cannot live 
 in a world ruled by Tigellinus. A touching echo from 
 the victims of this Terror has come to us in inscrip- 
 tions from an island of religious exile, whence no one 
 might return.^ In a sepulchral grotto near Cagliari,^ a 
 family of exiles (perhaps worshippers of Isis)'* has left 
 to us a touching and almost Christian plaint. As soon 
 as these unfortunates arrived in Sardinia, the husband 
 fell sick in the pestilential air of the island ; the wife 
 (Benedicta) besought the gods that she might be taken 
 in his place, and her prayer was heard. 
 
 Such a story made clear the futility of massacre. 
 A movement in a narrow aristocratic circle may be 
 stopped by a few executions ; but not so a popular 
 movement, which needs not chiefs or learned teachers. 
 
 1 Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, passim. 
 
 2 Tac. Ann. ii. 85. ^ Co7-p. inscr. gr. 5759. 
 
 * As may be inferred from the name, or rather epithet, Benedicta, and 
 the sculptures of the grotto.
 
 174 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 A garden where flowers are cut up by the root per- 
 ishes ; but a mown meadow sprouts more vigorous 
 than before. Thus Christianity, far from being checked 
 by Nero's wanton cruelties, put forth a sturdier growth 
 than ever. Wrath waxed hot in the heart of the sur- 
 vivors ; and the one thought with them all was how 
 they might come to be masters of the pagans, and rule 
 them with a rod of iron, as they deserved.^ A confla- 
 gration far more dreadful than that with which they 
 were falsely charged should destroy that city of in- 
 iquity, which had become the temple of Satan. The 
 doctrine of the final destruction of the world by fire 
 struck deeper root day by day. Fire alone could purge 
 the earth of the crimes that soiled it ; fire alone seemed 
 the right and fit end of such a mass of horrors. 
 
 Most of the Christians at Rome who had escaped the 
 massacre no doubt forsook the city.^ For ten or twelve 
 years the church there was thrown into extreme con- 
 fusion, opening a wide door to legend. Still the life of 
 the community was not completely broken off. The 
 Seer of the Apocalypse, in December of 68 or the follow- 
 ing January, enjoins upon his people to " come out of " 
 the wicked city.^ Even allowing its share to prophetic 
 fiction, it is hard not to infer from these words that 
 the church in Rome soon recovered its importance. 
 Only the leaders quitted for good a place where their 
 ministry could for a season bear no fruit. 
 
 The province of Asia Minor was the one part of the 
 Roman world where life was most endurable for Jews. 
 
 1 Rev. ii. 26, 27. 
 
 2 So we infer from Heb. v. 11-14; xiii. 24. They probably made up 
 those " away from Italy " io\ dno ttjs 'iraXias) addressed in this epistle. 
 
 8 Rev. xviii. 4.
 
 AFTER THE CRISIS. 175 
 
 Between the Jews of Rome and those of Ephesus there 
 was constant intercourse, as we have seen in the case 
 of Aquila and Priscilla. Hither the fugitives now fled, 
 and Ephesus became the spot where the effect of the 
 Neronian persecution was most keenly felt. Here was 
 concentrated the animosity against Rome ; and here, 
 within about four years, was delivered the tremendous 
 invective by which the Christian conscience answered 
 back to the atrocity of Nero. 
 
 There is nothing improbable in assuming that among 
 the Christian leaders who escaped from Rome was in- 
 cluded the apostle whom we have seen following so 
 closely the footsteps of Peter. If there is any truth 
 in the stories of what happened (as was afterwards 
 believed) near the Latin gate, we may suppose that 
 Jolm, escaping as by miracle, left the city at once, and 
 in that case he would naturally take refuge in Asia. 
 His residence at Ephesus may be a matter of doubt, 
 like most incidents in the lives of the apostles ; still, 
 it is not a thing unlikely in itself, and I incline rather 
 to accept than to reject it.^ 
 
 ^ The chief argument is from the Apocalypse. If this was written by 
 John the apostle, the case is clear. If by one who wished it to be taken 
 as his work, — supposing him in that case to have died before 68, as we 
 could hardly admit a forgery in his lifetime, — we are struck by the cir- 
 cumstance that the vision is represented as at Patmos, a stopping-place 
 for those going to or returning from Asia. It is especially to be noted 
 that the apostle is made to address the churches in Asia as having a cer- 
 tain authority among them, and knowing their inner life. ^Vhat would 
 have been the effect of the first thi-ee chapters on those who knew that 
 he had never been at Patmos or among them? Dionysius of Alexandria 
 (Euseb. vii. 25) saw this clearly, and assumes that the writer can have 
 been no other than one of the apostles who had been in Asia. The 
 alternative is that the writer was another man of the same name with the 
 apostle, — the unlikeliest theory of all. 
 
 Direct evidences of John's abode in Ephesus are from the last quarter
 
 176 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 The church at Ephesus was mixed, a part being of 
 Pauline, a part of Juclaeo-Christian faith. The latter 
 must hold the ascendency, now at the arrival of the 
 Roman colony, particularly if it brought a personal 
 follower of Jesus, a teacher from Jerusalem, one of 
 those eminent leaders before whom Paul himself would 
 bow. Since Peter and James were gone, John was the 
 only surviving apostle of the first rank ; he had come 
 to be the head of all the Judseo-Christian churches ; he 
 was held in extreme deference ; it was the general be- 
 lief — he himself had said it — that Jesus had a special 
 love for him. Many a tale was founded upon this 
 fact ; and for a time Ephesus was the centre of Chris- 
 tian life, while Rome and Jerusalem were almost for- 
 bidden abodes, through the fury of the time. 
 
 There was soon warm contention between the domi- 
 nant party, having at its head " the disciple whom 
 Jesus loved," and the group of proselytes gathered by 
 Paul, which spread to all the Asiatic churches.^ The 
 air was filled with declamations against the Balaam 
 who had soAvn scandal among the sons of Israel, — had 
 taught them they might associate with the heathen 
 
 of the second century, — Apollonius: Euseb. v. 18; Polycrates, bishop of 
 Ephesus (note this): id. iii. 31; v. 24; Irenaeus, ii..22: 5; iii. 1: 1; 3: 4; 
 11 : 1; V. 26: 1; 30: 1, 3; 33: 4; Letter to Victor: Euseb. v. 24; and espe- 
 cially the letter to Florinus in Euseb. v. 20 (testimony of great weight, 
 of genuineness hardly to be doubted, since Waddington has fixed the 
 martyrdom of Polycarp at Feb. 23, 155 : Mem. de V Acad, des inscr. xxvi. 
 233); Clem, of Alex. Quis dives, 42; Orig. in Matt. xvi. 6; 0pp. ii. 24 
 (ed. Delarue); Dion, of Alex.: Euseb. vii. 25; Euseb. iii. 1, 18,20, 23, 
 31, 39 ; V. 24; Chron. ann. 98 ; Epiph. Ixxviii. 11 ; Mart, of Ignatius, i. 3; 
 Jer. De vir. ill. 9; Adv. Jov. i. 26; ad Gal. vi. The silence of Papias 
 (Euseb. iii. 39, with Chron. ann. 98), of Hegesippus, and the so-called 
 letters of Ignatius, is a serious point, as is also the very old confusion 
 between John "the apostle" and "the elder." See Appendix. 
 ^ St. Paul, chap. xiii.
 
 AFTER THE CRISIS. 177 
 
 without guilt, or marry the heathen women. John, 
 on the other hand, was more and more looked on as a 
 Jewish high-priest (te/Dev?). Like James, he wore the 
 gold plate on the forehead {jtiToXov^} He was the 
 Teacher ; he even, perhaps from the incident of the boil- 
 ing oil, came to be called Martyr. 
 
 Among the fugitives who came from Rome to Ephe- 
 sus, Barnabas appears to have been included (see be- 
 low). Timothy was in prison at this time, — we know 
 not where, perhaps at Corinth,^ at any rate not far 
 from Ephesus, — but was set free after a few months. 
 As soon as Barnabas knew of his release, seeing that 
 quiet was restored, he bethought him of returning to 
 Rome with Timothy, whom he had known and loved 
 in the company of Paul.^ The apostolic group, scat- 
 tered by the persecution of 64, now aimed at recon- 
 struction. The school of Paul was the weaker, being 
 without its head, and sought to rest on the solider por- 
 tion of the Church. Timothy, accustomed to yield, had 
 little force after Paul's death ; while Barnabas, who 
 had always held a middle path between the parties, 
 never once offending against charity, came to be the 
 gathering centre for the fragments after the great 
 wreck. This admirable man was thus a second time 
 the restorer of Jesus' work, the good genius of harmony 
 and peace. 
 
 In circumstances like these, as I think, was com- 
 posed a work bearing a title not easy to explain, " the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews." It would seem to have been 
 
 ^ Polycrates in Euseb. iii. 31: 3; v. 24: 3. The same is attributed to 
 Mark in apocryphal documents (A. de Yalois in note on Euseb. v. 24: 
 p. 191); see Suicer, Thes. eccl. (s. v. nfToXov); "St. Paul," 307. 
 
 2 Heb. xiii. 23. s Ibid. xiii. 19, 23. 
 
 12
 
 178 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 written at Epliesus by Barnabas, and addressed to tbe 
 church at Rome (whence that church seems to have 
 been always better informed than others of its author- 
 ship),^ in the name of the little community of Italian 
 Christians in the capital of Asia. By its intermediate 
 position, at the meeting-point of various tendencies 
 that had not so far been well harmonised, this epistle 
 rightfully belongs to that man of reconciling temper, 
 who often prevented those diverse tendencies in the 
 young community from coming to open quarrel. The 
 opposition between churches of Jewish and pagan ori- 
 gin seems, in this little treatise, to be resolved, or 
 rather lost, in an overflowing flood of transcendental 
 metaphysics and placid charity. As I before remarked, 
 a taste for rtiidrashmi, or little treatises in epistolary 
 form, had become well established. Paul had put his 
 whole thought into " Romans," and " Ephesians " had 
 been the maturest expression of his later doctrine. 
 " Hebrews " appears to be a document of this class. 
 No Christian book so much resembles the works of the 
 Jewish school at Alexandria, especially the little tracts 
 of Philo. Apollos had already tried his hand at the 
 same task, and has even been thought to be the author 
 of " Hebrews." Paul, wdiile in prison, had greatly de- 
 lighted in him. Alexandrinism, an element foreign 
 to Jesus, was gradually winning entrance into Chris- 
 tian thought: we shall presently find this influence 
 dominant in the so-called Johannine writings. In 
 " Hebrews," Christian theology takes a form much like 
 that we have found in the later style of Paul. The 
 theory of the Divine Word (Logos) is rapidly unfolding. 
 
 ^ See Introduction. The first epistle of Clement, written at Rome 
 about 95, is full of reminisceuces of " Hebrews."
 
 AFTER THE CRISIS. 179 
 
 Jesus becomes more and more " the second divinity," 
 the metathronos or Associate, the First-born on God's 
 right hand, inferior to Him alone. Under existing cir- 
 cumstances, the writer expresses himself only in veiled 
 words. We feel that he dreads to compromise the 
 bearer of his letter, and those to whom it is sent : 
 hence, perhaps, the vague title " Hebrews," and the 
 absence of personal greetings or signature. A painful 
 weight burdens Lim; his secret distress betrays itself 
 in hints brief and deep. 
 
 God, he says, having in former time conveyed his 
 will to men by his messengers the prophets, has in these 
 last days employed the ministry of his Son, by whom 
 he made the worlds {alwva^)^ and who sustains all by 
 his word. This Son, the reflection of the Father's 
 glory, and the image of His essence, whom it was the 
 Father's pleasure to make heir of all things, became 
 the ransom of sins in his manifestation to the world, 
 and is now returned to sit in heavenly regions on the 
 right of the Most High,^ in rank superior to angels. 
 The Mosaic law was announced by angels,^ contain- 
 ing only the shadow of good things to come ; while 
 ours was delivered by the Lord himself, with proofs 
 by signs, wonders, miracles, and gifts of the Holy 
 Spirit, being given down to us in a sure manner by 
 those who heard it direct from him. Through Jesus 
 all men have been made sons of God. Moses was a 
 
 ^ Aloiv is taken here in the sense of the Hebrew 61am (Phoen. ouhnn, 
 Arab, dlam), serving as transition to the Gnostic ^Eons. 
 
 2 An early example of the cabbalistic style. Comp. Matt. xxvi. 64. 
 
 ^ Gal. iii. 19; Acts vii. 53. The theology of the time (as we see in 
 Greek and Chaldean versions of the Old Testament and in Josephus) 
 used the term "angels" in speaking of the visible manifestations of 
 Deity, as in Dt'ut. xsxiii. 2.
 
 i8o ANTICHRIST. 
 
 servant ; Jesns is the Son, and is our especial High-Priest 
 of the order of Melchizedek/ — an order far higher 
 than the Levitical, which it has abolished, and enduring 
 forever. Thus : — 
 
 He, indeed, is such a high-priest as we require, — holy, 
 without sin or blot, apart from sinners, exalted above the 
 heavens, who need not, like other priests, offer sacrifice daily 
 for his own sins, and then for those of his people. The 
 old law appointed as high-priests men liable to error ; the new 
 law has revealed the Son, established for eternity. . . . Thus 
 we have a high-priest who sits in heaven at the right hand of 
 the throne of God, as a minister of the true sanctuary and the 
 true tabernacle which the Lord has built. Christ is the high- 
 priest of blessings to come. ... If the blood of bulls and 
 goats, or ashes of a heifer, sprinkled on the unclean, sanctify 
 them so as to give them purity of the flesh, how much more 
 shall the blood of Christ, which he himself, a victim without 
 blemish, has offered to God, purify our conscience from dead 
 works ! . . . For this end he is the mediator of the new testa- 
 ment : now, that there may be a testament (or will), the death 
 of the testator must first be proved, since a will has no effect 
 so long as the testator lives ; and the original stipulation must 
 be made good by blood. ... By blood everything is made 
 legally clean ; and without the shedding of blood there is no 
 expiation.2 
 
 We are, then, sanctified once for all by the sacrifice 
 of Jesus, who will appear a second time to save those 
 who look for his coining. The sacrifices of old never 
 attained their end ; they must be continually renewed. 
 K the sacrifice of Atonement ^ must be repeated every 
 year on a fixed day, does not that prove that the blood 
 of victims had no [lasting] power? Instead of these 
 
 1 Ileb. iv. 14-16. 2 y^jj. j^. 11_22. 
 
 8 Levit. ch. xvi.
 
 AFTER THE CRISIS. i8i 
 
 continual burnt-offerings, Jesus has made his own one 
 offering, which makes the others needless. Thus there 
 is no longer any question of sacrifice for sin.^ 
 
 The writer deeply feels the dangers that menace the 
 Church. Before his eyes is an unbroken prospect of 
 suffering. His thought is filled with the tortures en- 
 dured by the prophets and the martyrs of Antiochus in 
 the days of the Maccabees.^ The faith of many is 
 weakening ; and toward such weakness his words are 
 stern : — 
 
 It is impossible that those who have once been enlightened, 
 who have received the heavenly gift and shared the Holy 
 Spirit, who have tasted the precious word of God and the 
 blessing of the world to come, and then have fallen away, so 
 as to crucify the Son of God afresh so far as is in their power, 
 — it is impossible that they should be brought again to repent- 
 ance. Soil which yields only thorns and thistles is accounted 
 bad and worthy to be cursed, and must be burned over with 
 fire. . . . God surely is not unjust, and he will not forget 
 your good deeds, or the love you have shown to his name by 
 serving his saints, as you have done and still do. Increase 
 your zeal to the end, that your hopes may be fulfilled ; and 
 follow the example of those who by faith and perseverance 
 have conquered the promised heritage.^ 
 
 Some of the members were already growing negli- 
 gent in attending the assemblies of the Church.* The 
 writer asserts that these assemblies are of the very 
 essence of the faith : it is here that the disciples ex- 
 hort, rouse, and keep watch on one another ; and in 
 this they must be the more faithful as the last great 
 day approaches : — 
 
 1 Ileb. ix. 23-28. 2 ma. xi. 32-40; xii. 1-11. 
 
 8 Ihid. vi. 4-12. * Ibid. x. 25.
 
 i82 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 If we sin wilfully after we have received knowledge of the 
 truth, as there is no more any sacrifice for sin henceforth, we 
 have only to look in terror for the fiery judgment which will 
 swallow up the unfaithful. It is a dreadful thing to fall into 
 the hands of the living God ! ^ . . . Remember the past days, 
 when, after you were enlightened, you endured many a pain- 
 ful conflict, when some of you were exposed in the open 
 theatre^ to torment and outrage, or again when you were 
 companions of those who so suffered. In fact, you have 
 shown your fellow-feeling for those in chains (Secr/itoi?), and 
 have gladly suffered the plundering of your goods, knowing 
 that you have treasures both glorious and enduring. Be brave, 
 that you may obtain the reward promised you ! Yet a little, 
 a very little time, and he who shall come will come.^ 
 
 Faith sums up the temper of the Christian soul.* 
 Faith is the resolute lookinsr forward to that which is 
 promised, and firm assurance of that which is not seen. 
 Faith is what created the great men under the old law, 
 who died without having received the promised bless- 
 ing, having only foreseen and hailed it from afar, con- 
 fessing themselves strangers and pilgrims on the earth, 
 always looking for a better country, a heavenly one, 
 which they did not find. Here the writer recites the 
 examples of the ancient worthies, — Abel, Enoch, Noah, 
 Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and " the 
 harlot Rahab " : — 
 
 And what more? for the time would fail me to tell of 
 Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the 
 Prophets, — who by faith subdued kingdoms, dispensed judg- 
 
 1 Heb. xi. 26-31. 
 
 - e\iylf€(Tiv BtaTpi^ofifvoi may, it is true, be a metaphor; still, I prefer 
 to regard it as an allusion to the horrid spectacles of Xero's circus. A 
 similar passage in Ilermas (vis. iii. 2) surely refers to these tortures (see 
 post, p. 300, uote 3), 
 
 8 Heb. X. 32-37. * Ibid. ch. xi.
 
 AFTER THE CRISIS. 183 
 
 !tren" th from sickness, wore mighty men o£ war, putt ng o 
 
 Slthe in'asions of the enemy. . . . Some were beaten to 
 
 ^1,H, with clubs,! not consenting to release, but choosmg 
 
 bf e e a beter resurrection; others suffered mockmg, 
 
 sutiig chains, or the dungeon; or were f oned, sawn 
 scou. in ^^ ^.^^ ^^ ^j^.g^g of the 
 
 rid 'orTe Xout clad in sheepskins and goatskins, des- 
 
 •L e amioted, tormented, -of whom the world was not 
 
 tol'yt or 1; wandered in deserts and monntams, n. dens 
 
 -irr t;^^, though fi.ed ^ntheir -h - - 
 
 Tk luld be Complete. Since, then, we -e surrounded by 
 so -reat a cloud of witnesses, let us persevere m the st.uggle 
 hafs still before us, looking always to Jesus, the found r 
 ^1 finisher of our faith! You have not yet resisted unto 
 blood in your conflict agamst evil '. » 
 
 The writer then explains to the confessors that the 
 sufferinc-s they endure are not a punishment, bitt 
 should "be received as a fatherly discipline, such as 
 one administers to a child, a pledge of his own tender- 
 ness He urges them to guard against a temper ot 
 levity, like Esau's, bartering their heavenly inheritance 
 for an earthly and short-lived privilege. He returns 
 for the third time upon his favourite thought, that, 
 after a fall involving the desertion of Christianity, 
 there is no longer a chance for return.* Esau, too, 
 1 T.^.a.(C» (to beat as a dram), one of the tortures of the Maccaba^an 
 
 '""^ The traditional death ot Isaiah. » Heb. ri. 32-3:ii. 4. 
 
 . IKi. xiii. 16, 17, 25; comp. vi. 4-6; ^. 26, 07,-passages which 
 later played a great part in the Montanist and Novatian contrcersres.
 
 / 
 1 84 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 sought to reclaim his father's blessing, but in vain, 
 spite of his remorse and tears. We see that in the 
 Neronian persecution there were some who fell away 
 through weakness,^ who after their apostasy would 
 have desired to return ; and this teacher would have 
 them repelled. What blindness, he urges, is like the 
 Christian's, who shrinks or denies when he has once 
 come near " the holy mount Zion, and the city of the 
 living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, the chorus of ten 
 thousand angels, God the eternal Judge, the church of 
 his first-born, the spirits of the just made perfect,^ and 
 Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, — and has 
 been purified by a holier blood than that of Abel ? " ^ 
 
 The writer ends by recalling to his readers those of 
 their brethren who were still in the Roman dungeons ; * 
 above all, the memory of their spiritual leaders who 
 are no more, — those great founders who have declared 
 to them the word of God, and whose death was a tri- 
 umph for the faith. Let them consider the end of 
 those holy lives, and they will be strengthened.^ Let 
 them guard against false doctrines, especially those 
 which make holiness consist in useless ritual forms, 
 such as distinctions of food.^ Here we find the dis- 
 ciple or friend of Paul. In truth, the whole epistle, like 
 all of Paul's, is a long demonstration of the complete 
 annulment of the Mosaic law. To bear the shame of 
 Jesus, — to withdraw from the world, since " here we 
 have no abiding cit}'', but seek one which is to come," 
 — to obey our leaders in the Church, paying them due 
 
 1 Cf. Matt. xxiv. 10. 
 
 ^ The " first-born," and those " made perfect," are the sufferers in the 
 recent persecution. 
 
 8 Ileb. xii. 18-24. " Ih'uL xiii. 3. 
 
 ^ Ihid. xiii. 7. « Ihii. xiii. 9; cf. ix. 10.
 
 AFTER THE CRISIS. 185 
 
 respect, and making their task easy and pleasant, 
 " since they watch over souls and must give account 
 of them," — this is the rule of practice. No writing, 
 perhaps, better shows the mystic dignity of Jesus ex- 
 panding until at length it completely fills the Christian 
 conscience. Not only is he the Logos by whom the 
 worlds were made, but his blood is the universal ran- 
 som, the seal of a new alliance. The author is so full of 
 this thought that he makes false readings in order to 
 find it everywhere. Thus, in the Greek copy of the 
 Psalms,^ the two letters rt in the word wrta ("ears") 
 were a little blurred ; now, reading these as /x, and 
 taking in the final cr of the word before, he made out 
 o-w/xa ("body"), which gives an excellent messianic 
 sense : " Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire, 
 but a hody hast thou prepared for me. Then I said, 
 Behold, I come," etc.^ 
 
 Strangely enough, in the Pauline school the death of 
 Jesus is far more significant than his life. The pre- 
 cepts announced beside the Lake of Galilee have no in- 
 terest for this school, which seems hardly to have 
 known them. In the foreground it sees the sacrifice 
 of Jesus, who devotes himself to atone for the sins of 
 the world. This strange conception, put afterwards in 
 the sharpest relief by Calvin, wrenched Christian the- 
 ology far indeed from the early evangelical ideal ! The 
 Synoptic gospels, which are the really divine element 
 in Christianity, have nought to do with the work of 
 Paul. We shall soon see them budding forth from 
 
 1 Ps. xl. 6. He can have known little of any tongue but Greek : see 
 e. g., his argument on hia6r]<-q ["testament"], considered as equivalent to 
 to herith ["league," in ix. 15-17]. 
 
 2 Heb. X. 5, — where the Hebrew sense is, " ears hast thou bestowed 
 upon me."
 
 i86 ANl^ICHRIST. 
 
 that little humble household which still preserved in 
 Palestine the true tradition of the life and the person 
 of Jesus. 
 
 But the truly admirable thing in early Christian his- 
 tory is this : that those who tried most obstinately to 
 draw the car of progress the wrong way were the ones 
 who served best to make it advance. The epistle to 
 the Hebrews marks just the point, in the religious 
 development of mankind, where sacrifice disappears, 
 which till then had made the very essence of religion. 
 For the primitive man, God is an all-powerful being, 
 whom man must propitiate or else bribe. Thus sacri- 
 fice arose from fear, or else from interest. To win his 
 deity, the worshipper offered him a gift such as might 
 move him, — a fine bit of meat, rich fat, a bowl of 
 soma or wine : says Juvenal, " tenui pojmno corruptus 
 Osiris.'" ^ Disasters and diseases were thought to be 
 inflictions sent by an angry God ; and it was imagined 
 that by putting some one else in place of the person 
 threatened the wrath of the higher power might be 
 turned away ; possibly, said they, the god may even 
 be satisfied with an animal, if it is useful, innocent, 
 and good. God was judged by the pattern of man. 
 Even to-day, in some parts of Africa and the East, the 
 native thinks to win the favour of a stranger by killing 
 a sheep at his feet, wetting his boots with the blood, 
 and serving the flesh as food ; and, just so, it was once 
 thought that the Divine nature must be impressed by 
 the offering of an object, particularly if the worshipper 
 deprived himself of something really valuable. Until 
 the great transformation wrought by the prophets of 
 the eighth century before Christ, the idea of sacrifice 
 
 1 Sat. vi. 541.
 
 AFTER THE CRISIS. 187 
 
 among the Israelites was not much higher than that 
 of other tribes. A new era began when Isaiah cried out 
 in Jehovah's name, " Sacrifice is an abomination to 
 me ; I delight not in the blood of bullocks, lambs, or 
 goats ! " The day he wrote these noble words (about 
 740 B. c), Isaiah was the true forerunner of Chris- 
 tianity. On that day it was determined that, of the 
 two rival claimants for the veneration of ancient tribes, 
 the hereditary priest or sorcerer, and the inspired book, 
 thought to contain secrets of the Divine mind, the 
 latter would control the future of religion. The sor- 
 cerer {nahi) of the Semitic tribes became the " prophet," 
 or sacred orator of the people, devoted to the advance 
 of social justice. While the sacrificer (priest) continued 
 to vaunt the efficacy of slaughter, so profitable to him, 
 the prophet dared to announce that the true God cares 
 far more for justice and mercy than for all the " bul- 
 locks" in the world. Enjoined, however, by antique 
 ritual, which it was hard to set aside, and sustained by 
 the self-interest of priests, sacrifice continued to be the 
 law in ancient Israel. Toward the time at which we are 
 now arrived, even before the destruction of the third 
 Temple, the importance of this rite had lessened. The 
 scattered condition of the Jews led them to regard as a 
 secondary thing an office that could be performed only 
 at Jerusalem.^ Philo had declared that religious wor- 
 ship consisted mainly in pious hymns, to be sung rather 
 with the heart than with the lips ; and ventured to say 
 that such prayers were of more worth than sacrifice.^ 
 The Essenes held the same view.^ Paul, in " Romans " 
 
 1 See Acts xxiv. 17. 
 
 2 De plant. Noe, 25, 28-31. Comp. Theophrast. De pietate. 
 
 3 Jos. Ant. xviii. 1: 5; Philo, Quad omnis prohus liber, 12.
 
 iS8 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 (xii. 1), declares that religion is a service of pure reason 
 {XarpeCa XoyiK-q). " Hebrews," in unfolding the view 
 that Jesus is the true high-priest, and that his death as 
 a sacrifice abolished all others, struck the last blow at 
 bloody offerings. Christians, including those of Jewish 
 origin, gradually ceased to regard themselves as bound 
 to legal sacrifices, or else gave place to them only as a 
 concession. The leading idea of the Mass — the belief 
 that the sacrifice of Jesus is incessantly renewed in the 
 ritual act of the Eucharist — is already perceptible, but 
 in a very obscure distance.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE REVOLT IN JUD^A. — A. D. 66. 
 
 The state of exaltation through which the Christian 
 mind was passing was soon disturbed by events taking 
 place in Palestine, that made the visions of the wildest 
 seers look reasonable. A feverish crisis, which can be 
 compared only to that which raged in France during 
 the Revolution, or to that in the Paris of 1871, took 
 entire possession of the Jewish nation. These " mala- 
 dies divine," for which the ancient healing art confessed 
 itself powerless, seemed to have become the every-day 
 condition of the Jews. One would have said that, 
 being determined on excess, they wished to go as far as 
 human passion could carry them. This strange race, 
 which seems made on purpose to defy alike him who 
 blesses and him who curses, was for four years in a 
 convulsion, in presence of which the historian, divided 
 between admiration and horror, must pause, with such 
 emotion as he feels when confronted with anything 
 mysterious and unaccountable. 
 
 The causes of this crisis were of old standing, and 
 the crisis itself was unavoidable. The Mosaic Law was 
 the work of Utopian enthusiasts, weakest of men in 
 political judgment, possessed by a powerful socialist 
 ideal ; and, like Islam, it barred out, absolutely, any 
 civil society running parallel to the religious society. 
 This Law seems to have taken the formal character in
 
 190 
 
 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 which we find it, during the seventh century before 
 Christ 5 and, even without the Assyrian conquest, it 
 would have blown to pieces the petty monarchy of the 
 house of David. Ever since the dominating control 
 assumed by the prophetic class, the kingdom of Judah 
 — embroiled with all its neighbours, possessed by a 
 standing rage against Tyre, in deadly feud with Edom, 
 Moab, and Ammon — was no longer capable of life. A 
 people devoted to religious and social problems is 
 doomed as a political society. The day when Israel 
 became " a peculiar treasure to Jehovah, a kingdom of 
 priests, a holy nation," ^ it was ordained not to be a 
 people like any other. You cannot pile together con- 
 tradictory destinies ; a superior quality is always bal- 
 anced against some grave defect. 
 
 The Persian empire gave to Israel a little rest. This 
 vast feudal system, tolerant to all diversities of prov- 
 ince, very like the caliphate of Bagdad or the Ottoman 
 empire,' made a condition in which the Jews found 
 themselves most at ease. The Egyptian (Ptolemaic) 
 domination, of the third century B. c, seems also 'to 
 have been quite kindly towards them. But it was not 
 so with the sovereigns of Syria, the Seleucidoe. Antioch 
 had become the centre of an active Grecian propaganda ; 
 Antiochus Epiphanes thought himself bound to estab- 
 lish everywhere the image of Olympian Jove as a sign of 
 his own power. Then broke forth the first great Jewish 
 revolt against the pagan civilization. Israel had pa- 
 tiently endured the blotting out of its own political 
 existence since Nebuchadnezzar ; but it kept no bounds 
 when its religious institutions were in danger. A race 
 in general unmilitary was seized with a fit of heroism. 
 
 ^ Exod. xix. 5, 6.
 
 THE REVOLT IN JUD^A, 191 
 
 "Without a regular arm}^, without generals, without 
 military skill, it defeated the Seleucids, maintained its 
 revealed right, and created a second era of independ- 
 ence. But the Asmonasan monarchy was ever under- 
 mined by profound interior vices ; it lasted but a cen- 
 tury. The destiny of the Jewish people was not to 
 found a separate nationality. These people dreamed of 
 something broader than the nation ; its ideal is not the 
 City, but the Synagogue, the free congregation. It is 
 the same with Islam, which has created an immense 
 empire, but has destroyed every nationality among the 
 peoples whom it has subdued, and leaves to them no 
 other fatherland than the mosque and the monastery. 
 
 We often call such a social state by the name " theo- 
 cracy." And we are right, if we mean by this that the 
 central thousjht of the Semitic relio;ions and of the 
 empires that have grown from them is the sovereignty 
 of God, conceived as sole Lord of the world and uni- 
 versal King. But with these peoples theocracy does 
 not mean the reign of priests. The priest, properly so 
 called, plays a feeble part in the history of Judaism or 
 of Islamism. Power belongs to the representative of 
 God, — to him whom God inspires, to the prophet, the 
 holy man, tlie one who has received a mission from 
 heaven, and who proves his mission by miracle or by 
 success. In lack of prophet, power belongs to the 
 revealer of visions, to the writer of apocryphal books 
 ascribed to ancient prophets, to the teacher or interpreter 
 of the Law, to the leader of the Synagogue, and still more 
 to the head of the Family, who is guardian of the sacred 
 trust, and transmits it to his children. Civil power, or 
 royalty, has little to do with such a social constitution, 
 which never works better than when its subjects are
 
 192 
 
 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 scattered, as tolerated aliens, throughout a great empire 
 havino- no uniform administration. Judaism is natu- 
 rally submissive, since it has within itself no resource 
 of military power. We see the same thing among the 
 Greeks of our own day : the Greek communities in 
 Trieste, Smyrna, and Constantinople are far more flour- 
 ishing than the petty kingdom of Greece ; because 
 these communities are relieved from the stress of po- 
 litical agitation, which is sure to ruin a race full of 
 energy, that is put prematurely in possession of political 
 independence. 
 
 The Roman dominion, established by Pompey in 
 Judaea in the year 63 b. c, seemed at first to satisfy 
 well some of the conditions of Jewish life. It was not 
 at this time the practice of Rome to assimilate in its 
 political system the nations successively annexed to it. 
 The right of peace and war was taken from them, and 
 Rome enforced little more than control over the larger 
 questions of their politics. Under the degenerate succes- 
 sors of the Asmonaeans, and under the Herods, the 
 Jewish nation retained a quasi-independence, which 
 oucnht to have been enough for it, since its relio-ious 
 institutions were scrupulously respected. But the inner 
 crisis of the people was too violent. After passing a 
 certain stage of religious fanaticism, man is uncontrol- 
 able. It must also be said that Rome tended constantly 
 to make its power more heavily felt in the East. The 
 petty subject royalties, at first maintained, disappeared 
 from day to day, and the provinces were merged in an 
 imperial power pure and simple. From the year 6 
 A. D., JudoBa was ruled by governors { procuratores) sub- 
 ject to the imperial governors-general [legati) of Syria, 
 and having at their side the parallel power of the
 
 THE REVOLT IN JUD^A. 193 
 
 Herods. Such a mode of rule was unworkable, as 
 became more clear from day to day. The Herods found 
 little honour among men really patriotic and devout. 
 Roman ways of administration, however reasonable in 
 themselves, were abhorrent to the Jews. In general, the 
 Roman power showed the utmost regard for the petti- 
 est scruples of the nation.-^ But this was not enough. 
 Things had come to such a pass that nothing could 
 be done without touching upon some question of the 
 canon. Positive religions, like Islamism and Judaism, 
 do not admit any divided authority. If they have not 
 absolute rule, they complain of persecution. If they 
 find themselves protected, they become exacting, and 
 try to make life unendurable to all other worships. 
 This is clearly seen in Algeria, where the Israelites, 
 knowing themselves to be protected against the Mos- 
 lems, treat them intolerably, and keep the authorities 
 eternally busied with their mutual complaints. 
 
 Doubtless there was wrong on both sides, as I freely 
 admit, in the hundred years' experiment made by 
 Roman and Jew to live together, which issued in so 
 dreadful a catastrophe. Several of the governors were 
 thoroughly bad men ; ^ others may have been hard, 
 abrupt, driven to exasperation by a religion that thorned 
 them, whose grand future they knew nothing of. It 
 would have needed perfection itself not to be exas- 
 perated by that narrow and haughty temper, that hos- 
 tility to Greek and Roman culture, that ill-will to all 
 mankind, which a surface-knowledge took to be the 
 
 ^ See an inscription discovered by Mr. Ganneau : Rev. arch. Apr.- 
 May, 1872; Journal Asiatique, Aug.-Sept., 1872. 
 
 2 See the proverb on the justice rendered at Caesarea : Midrash, 
 Esther, 1 (iiiit.). 
 
 13
 
 194 
 
 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 essence of a Jew. Besides, what could a magistrate 
 possibly think of subjects always trying to accuse him 
 before the emperor, and to form cabals against him 
 even when he was perfectly in the right ? In that 
 deep hate which now these more than two thousand 
 years has prevailed between the Jews and the rest of 
 mankind, which party was first to blame ? The ques- 
 tion should not be so put. In such a case, all is at 
 once action and reaction, cause and effect. Those bar- 
 rings-out, those chained gateways of the Ghetto, that 
 distinctive gabardine, — these things are all wrong ; 
 but who first insisted on them ? It was those who 
 thought themselves defiled by contact with the " gen- 
 tiles ; " those who demanded for themselves to be kept 
 apart in a community by themselves. Fanaticism 
 wrought the chains, and fanaticism has been redoubled 
 by the chains, hate engendering hate. There is but one 
 way of escape from this vicious circle : it is to abolish 
 the source of hate, — that mischievous separation, first 
 sought and desired by the sects, which afterwards be- 
 came their reproach. Regarding Judaism, France in 
 our century has solved the problem. By throwing down 
 all legal barriers built about the Israelite, it has taken 
 away what was narrow and exclusive in Judaism — its 
 peculiar customs and its sequestered life — so com- 
 pletely that within two or three generations a Jewish 
 family, settled in Paris, has almost ceased to lead a 
 Jewish life. 
 
 It would be unfair to reproach Romans of the first 
 century for not having done the same thing. Between 
 the Roman empire and Jewish orthodoxy there was 
 radical hostility. In this hostility Jews were oftenest 
 insolent, quarrelsome, and aggressive. The idea of
 
 THE REVOLT IN JUD^A. 195 
 
 equity in common, which the Romans had with them 
 in germ, was hateful to strict observers of the Law 
 (Torah),vf\\o asserted a morality wholly at odds with a 
 society purely secular, untouched by theocracy, like 
 that of Rome. One was the founder of the State, the 
 other of the Church. Rome created an administration 
 rational and worldly ; the Jews attempted to inaugu- 
 rate the kingdom of God. There was an irrepressible 
 conflict between this narrow but fruitful theocracy and 
 the most absolute proclamation of the secular State 
 that was ever made. The Jews had their law built on 
 a foundation wholly different from the Roman right, 
 and at bottom irreconcilable with it. Until they had 
 been unmercifully checkmated, they could not be satis- 
 fied with mere tolerance, believing as they did that in 
 their keeping was the eternal Word, the secret of the 
 building of a holy city. It was with them just as it is 
 with the Moslems of Algeria to-day, whom our social 
 structure, though infinitely superior, inspires only with 
 abhorrence. Their revealed law, at once civil and re- 
 ligious, fills them with pride, and makes them power- 
 less to accept a philosophic legislation founded on the 
 one principle of men's mutual relations. Add to this a 
 profound ignorance, which forbids them to make any 
 estimate of the forces of the civilized world, and blinds 
 them to the fatal issue of the war into which they 
 would fain plunge with a light heart. 
 
 One circumstance had much to do with keeping 
 Judsea in a state of permanent hostility against the 
 Empire : namely, that the Jews took no share in mili- 
 tary service. Everywhere else the legions were en- 
 listed from among the men of the country ; and thus, 
 with armies numerically weak, the Romans held vast
 
 196 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 regions.^ The soldier in Roman service and the people 
 of the region were fellow country-men. It was not so 
 in Judsea. The legions that held the country were 
 recruited mostly in Csesarea or Sebaste, towns at enmity 
 with Judaism. Thus no common understanding could 
 exist between the army and the people. The Roman 
 force at Jerusalem was fenced off in barracks apart, as 
 in a permanent state of siege. 
 
 Besides, the feelings held towards Rome by the various 
 parties in the Jewish world were by no means alike. 
 Apart from worldlings like Tiberius Alexander, who 
 had grown indifferent to the old worship and were 
 regarded as traitors by their fellow religionists, every 
 one (it is true) was unfriendly to the foreign masters; 
 but not all, by any means, were inclined to revolt. In 
 this view, four or five parties may be distinguished in 
 Jerusalem.^ 
 
 First, the party of Sadducees and Herodians, the 
 residue of the house and dependents of Herod, the great 
 houses of Hanan and Boethus in charge of the high- 
 priesthood : these made a world of epicureans and scep- 
 tical voluptuaries, hated by the people for their pride, 
 their ungodliness, and their wealth. This party, essen- 
 tially conservative, had a warrant of its privilege in 
 the Roman occupation, and, with no good-will toward 
 the Romans, was steadily opposed to any revolution. 
 
 Second, the party of the middle-class Pharisees, — an 
 honest party, made up of men of sense, steady, quiet, 
 orderly, fond of their religion, keeping its forms scru- 
 pulously, devoutly even, but without imagination ; 
 
 ^ See the curious discourse reported of Agrippa II. by Josephus, Wars, 
 ii. 16 : 4. 
 
 2 Josephus, Wars, ii. 16 : 4 ; Life, 3.
 
 THE REVOLT IN JUD^A. 197 
 
 fairly intelligent, acquainted with the outside world, 
 and seeing clearly that revolt could end only in the 
 destruction of the nation and the Temple. Josephus 
 is the type of this class, whose fate was that which 
 seems to be always in store for the moderates in times 
 of revolution, — impotence, inconstancy, and the su- 
 preme humiliation of appearing as traitors in the eyes 
 of the majority. 
 
 Third, zealots of all sorts, — fanatics, armed parti- 
 sans (siemii), assassins, a strange mass of mendicant 
 enthusiasts, reduced to extremest misery by Sadducee 
 injustice and violence ; men regarding themselves as 
 the only heirs of the promise made to Israel, of the 
 " poor man " beloved of God ; feeding their zeal on 
 prophetic visions such as " Enoch," and apocalypses of 
 violence ; believing that the kingdom of God was just 
 about to be revealed ; and who came at length to the 
 intensest exaltation of which history makes mention. 
 
 Fourth, brigands, vagabonds, adventurers, desperate 
 freebooters, sprung from the complete social disinte- 
 gration of the country. This sort of men, mostlj^ of 
 Idumasan or Nabathsean origin, recked little of any 
 religious motive ; but they were fomenters of disorder, 
 and were natural allies of the Zealots. 
 
 Lastly, pious dreamers, Essenes, Christians, Ebionim, 
 quietly waiting for the kingdom of heaven, devotees 
 gathered about the Temple, praying and weeping. Of 
 these were the followers of Jesus ; but they were still 
 of so little account in the public eye that Josephus 
 takes no note of them among the parties to the 
 struggle, nor does Justus of Tiberias, who also wrote 
 the story of Jewish War.^ We see at once that in the 
 
 1 rhotius, Biblioth., cod. 33.
 
 198 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 day of peril these pious folk can only flee. The spirit 
 of Jesus, full as it was of a divine power to withdraw 
 man from the world and give him comfort, could 
 not inspire the narrow patriotism of the fighter and 
 the hero. 
 
 The fanatics would naturally hold the balance of 
 power. The democratic and revolutionary vein of 
 Judaism stood out among them in an appalling degree. 
 They were convinced that all power has its root in 
 evil; that royalty is a work of Satan, — which theory 
 was but too well justified by the examples of sover- 
 eigns like Caligula and Nero, real devils incarnate ; 
 and they would rather be chopped to pieces than give 
 the title of master to any other than God.^ Imitating 
 Mattathias, the first of Zealots, who killed a Jew whom 
 he saw sacrificing to idols,^ they avenged their God 
 by dagger-strokes. Merely to hear one uncircumcised 
 speak of God or the Law was provocation enough to 
 seize on him unawares, and then offer him the choice 
 of circumcision or death.^ Claiming to execute those 
 mysterious sentences which are left to the "hand of 
 God," and holding themselves bound to put in effect 
 the dreadful penalty of excommunication, which meant 
 outlawry and death, as the Hebrew formula implies,^ 
 they made an army of terrorists, whose revolutionary 
 temper was at boiling heat. It might be seen in 
 advance that such men's distempered conscience, inca- 
 pable to distinguish their own gross passions from a 
 mood which their fanatic fury would count holy, 
 
 1 Like Judas the Gaulonite. See " Life of Jesus," pp. 120-122. 
 
 2 1 Mace. ii. 27. « Philofiophumena, ix. 26. 
 
 * See Journal Asiatique, Aug.-Sept. 1872, p. 178; also Jos. Wars, 
 ii. 8: 8 ; and compare the formulas D'OtV 'TD, etc.
 
 THE REVOLT IN JUD^A. 199 
 
 would go on to the last excess, and be checked at no 
 degree of madness. 
 
 Minds were under the spell of a kind of permanent 
 hallucination. Terrifying rumours were in circulation 
 everywhere. Men dreamed only of signs and omens ; 
 the apocalyptic hue of Jewish fancy stained everything 
 with a bloody halo. Comets, swords in the sky, battles 
 in the clouds, light breaking forth of itself by night 
 from the depth of the sanctuary, victims at the moment 
 of sacrifice bringing forth a monstrous progeny, — these 
 w^ere the tales told with horror from mouth to mouth. 
 One day the vast brazen gates of the Temple had 
 flown open of themselves, and refused to close. At the 
 Passover of A. d. 65, about 3 a. m., the Temple was for 
 half an hour lighted as bright as day : some thought 
 that it was on fire. Again at Pentecost, the priests 
 heard a sound as of many persons in the interior, 
 making hasty preparations as if for flight, and saying 
 to one another, " Let us depart hence ! " ^ All this 
 was not reached till later ; but the great disturbance 
 of mind was itself the best of signs that something 
 extraordinary was about to happen. 
 
 Messianic prophecies, more than anything else, roused 
 among the people a resistless craving for excitement. 
 One does not resign himself to a humble sphere when 
 he is looking forward to royal power in the near future. 
 For the multitude, all messianic theories were summed 
 up in a single text, said to be taken from Scripture : 
 " At that time a Prince shall come forth from Judah 
 who shall have rule over all the earth." ^ In vain do 
 
 1 Jos. Wars, ii. 22: 1; vi. 5 : 3, 4; Tac. Hist. v. 13; Bab. Talm. Pesa- 
 
 chim, 57 a ; Keritholh, 28 a ; Inma, 39 h. 
 
 2 Jos. id. vi. 5: 4; Suet. Vesp. 4, 5; Tac. Hist. v. 13.
 
 200 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 we reason against an obstinate hope. Evidence is help- 
 less to contend with the chimera which a people has 
 once heartily embraced with all its strength. 
 
 Gessius Florus had succeeded Albinus as governor 
 of Judoea near the end of 64 or at the beginning of 65. 
 He seems to have been a really bad man ; and he owed 
 his office to the influence of his wife Cleopatra, a friend 
 of PoppaBa.^ The ill-feeling between him and the Jews 
 soon rose to the topmost height of fury. The Jews 
 wore him out by their testiness, their incessant com- 
 plaining about trifles, and their disrespect for civil or 
 military authority ; but he, on his part, took delight in 
 nagging them, and in doing it ostentatiously. On the 
 sixteenth or seventeenth of May, 66, there was a brush 
 between his forces and the populace, on some slight 
 grounds ; and Florus withdrew to Caesarea, leaving only 
 one cohort in the tower Antonia, — a very blameworthy 
 course. An armed force should be in the town it 
 holds, and, when there are signs of revolt, not leave it 
 to the fury of its passions without first exhausting all 
 means of resistance. If Florus had kept himself in the 
 city, it is likely that the revolt would not have forced 
 his hand, and the disasters that followed might have 
 been avoided. When he was once out of the way, it 
 was sure that the Roman army would not re-enter 
 Jerusalem but through conflagration and slaughter. 
 
 1 Jos. Anfiq. xx. 11: 1; Wars, ii. 14: 2, 3. Josephus is certainly hos- 
 tile to Floras, and writes with a bias to prove his point. His theory is: 
 (1) that the war was forced upon the Jews by his excesses (" he compelled 
 us to take up arms," etc.: Ant. xx. 11: 1); (2) that it was not the act of 
 the nation, but of a band of robbers and assassins, who ruled the situation 
 by terror, ^^'e must be on our guard against misstatements resulting 
 from his theory. Tacitus, however (Hist. v. 9, 10), seems to agree with 
 him regarding Florus, at least, throwing heavy responsibility on the 
 procurators. Florus was from Clazomense.
 
 THE REVOLT IN JUDuEA. 201 
 
 Still, the retreat of Florus was far from bringing on 
 an open break between the city and the Roman power. 
 Agrippa II. and Berenice were now at Jerusalem. 
 Agrippa honestly tried to keep down violence ; all the 
 moderates joined with him ; and appeal was even made 
 to the popularity of Berenice, in whom the popular 
 fancy thought to find again her great-grandmother 
 Mariamne, the Asmonaean princess. While Agrippa 
 harangued the crowd from the colonnade, the princess 
 showed herself on the palace-balcony, which looked 
 down upon it. All was in vain. Men of sense might 
 urge that war would be the sure ruin of the nation ; 
 but they were held to be men of little faith. Agrippa, 
 in despair or else in terror, fled from the city, and 
 withdrew to his estates in Batangea. A troop of the 
 more violent set out at once, and captured by surprise 
 the fortress of Masada,^ on the border of the Dead 
 Sea, two days' journey from Jerusalem, and well-nigh 
 impregnable.^ 
 
 This was an act of open hostility. The conflict in 
 Jerusalem raged more fiercely, day by day, between 
 the peace-party and those clamorous for war, — the 
 former composed of the rich, who had everything to 
 lose in an overthrow ; the other including, besides sin- 
 cere enthusiasts, that penniless crowd of a city popula- 
 tion to which a state of revolution offers the hope of 
 gain by the mere upsetting of every-day conditions. 
 The moderates leaned on the little Roman garrison, 
 lodged in the tower Antonia. The high-priest was an 
 obscure man, one Matthias, son of Theophilus.^ Since 
 
 ^ Saulcy, Voyage, etc., i. 199; pi. 11-13; Rey, Voy. dans le Haouran, 
 284; pi. 25, 26. 
 
 2 Jos. Wars, ii. 11-lG. 8 Jqs. A7itiq. xx. 9: 7.
 
 202 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 the deposition of the younger Hanan, who had put the 
 apostle James to death, it seems to have been the prac- 
 tice to select the high-priest outside the powerful 
 houses of Hanan, Cantheras, or Boethus. The real 
 chief of the priestly party was the old high-priest 
 Ananias, son of Nabadoeus,^ a man of wealth, ener- 
 getic, unpopular because of his pitiless severity in 
 pressing his own claims, especially hated from the in- 
 solence and rapacity of his lackeys. A son of this 
 Ananias, Eleazar, led the party of action, — a circum- 
 stance not rare in revolutionary times, disproving the 
 theory of Josephus, who asserts that the war party was 
 made up only of robbers and young men greedy of 
 plunder. Eleazar held the important post of captain 
 of the Temple, and seems to have been a man of sin- 
 cere religious enthusiasm. He carried to the extreme 
 the principle that sacrifice might be offered only by 
 and for Jews; and forbade the customary vows for 
 the emperor and the prosperity of Rome.^ All the 
 youth were full of ardour ; for religious fanaticism 
 among Semitic peoples is most violent in the young, — 
 with the Moslems, even in children of ten or twelve. 
 Members of old priestly families, Pharisees, and reason- 
 able men in general, of fixed habits, saw the danger. 
 Teachers of authority were put forward, and consulta- 
 tions were held with Rabbis, and arguments were urged 
 from canon law, but all to no effect ; for it was clear 
 that the lower class of priests were already making 
 common cause with Eleazar and the Zealots. 
 
 The higher priesthood and the aristocracy, in despair 
 of gaining any hold upon the populace, which was car- 
 
 1 See "Saint Paul," ch. xix. 
 
 2 Bab. Talm. Gitiin, 50 6; Tosipbtha, ShabbatJi, 17.
 
 THE REVOLT IN JUD^A. 203 
 
 ried away by mere surface excitement, sent to entreat 
 Floras and Agrippa that they would make haste to 
 crush the insurrection, pointing out to them that it 
 would soon be too late. Florus, says Josephus, wished 
 a war of extermination, which would wholly blot out 
 the Jewish race from the earth ; and would make no 
 reply. Agrippa sent a body of three thousand mounted 
 Arabs to relieve the party of order, who, with this 
 body of horse, held the upper town, now the Armenian 
 and Jewish quarter.^ The " party of action " occupied 
 the Temple and the lower town, now the Mussulman 
 quarter, with the mwgliarihi, the haram, etc. Between 
 them there was open war. On the 14th of August the 
 revolutionaries, led by Eleazar and Menahem, — son of 
 Judas the Gaulonite, who sixty years before had stirred 
 up the Jews by proclaiming that the true worshipper 
 of God can owe allegiance to no man, — stormed the 
 upper town, burning the house of Ananias, with the 
 palaces of Agrippa and Berenice. Agrippa's mounted 
 Arabs, with Ananias, his brother, and all the men of 
 mark who could join them, retreated to the highest 
 grounds of the Asmonsean palace. 
 
 Next day the insurgents attacked the tower Antonia, 
 which they took within two days, setting fire to it. 
 They then attacked and stormed the upper palace 
 (September 6), the Arab horsemen being allowed to 
 depart, while the Romans shut themselves up in the 
 three towers, Hippicus, Phasael, and Mariamne. Ana- 
 nias and his brother were slain.^ As in all popular 
 movements, discord soon broke out among the chiefs 
 
 1 For the topography, see Vogiie, Van de Velde, Saulcy, Wilson (^Ord- 
 nance Survey, 1864, 1865); with atlas (Menke, Snaith, and others). 
 
 2 Compare Acts xxiii. 2, 3.
 
 204 ANTICHRIST, 
 
 < 
 
 of the victorious party. Menaliem made himself in- 
 sufferable by his pride as an upstart demagogue ; and 
 Eleazar, son of Ananias, enraged at the assassination of 
 his father, followed him up and killed him. The rem- 
 nants of Menaliem' s faction then took refuge at Masada, 
 which, till the war ended, continued the outpost of the 
 fiercest Zealots. 
 
 The Romans held out long in their three towers, 
 and when reduced to extremities, bargained only for 
 their lives. Safe conduct was promised them ; but, as 
 soon as they laid down their arms, Eleazar slew them 
 all except Metilius, file-leader (^primipilaris) of the co- 
 hort, who consented to be circumcised. Thus Jerusalem 
 was lost to the Romans toward the end of September, 
 66, a little over one hundred [129] years after it was 
 taken by Pompey. Fearing that retreat might be cut 
 off, the Roman garrison in the fortress of Machserus sur- 
 rendered. The stronghold of Kypros, overlooking Jeri- 
 cho,^ fell also into the hands of the insurgents,^ who 
 probably at this time occupied Herodium.^ The weak- 
 ness shown by the Romans in these events is perplex- 
 ing, and gives some colour to the opinion of Josephus, 
 that Floras meant to force matters to extremities. It 
 is true that the first steps of revolt have something 
 about them bewildering, which makes them very hard 
 to check, so that cooler heads prefer to let them alone, 
 to perish of their own excesses. 
 
 Within five months the insurrection had thus g-ot a 
 formidable foothold. Not only had it mastered the city 
 of Jerusalem, but, by way of the desert of Judah, it was 
 in touch with the Dead Sea region, where it held every 
 
 1 Ritter, Erdkunde, xv. 458, 459. 
 
 2 Jos. Wars, i. 21: 9 ; ii. 17, 18: 6. 8 /jjj. iv. 9: 5; vii. 6: 1.
 
 THE REVOLT IN JUD^A. 205 
 
 stronghold, and thus lent a hand to the Arabs and 
 Nabathceans, who were more or less openly enemies of 
 Eome. Judaea, Idumcea, Percea, and Galilee sided with 
 the insurrection. In Rome, during this time, an odious 
 tyrant gave over the empire to be administered by the 
 most worthless and incapable agents. If the Jews had 
 succeeded in gathering about them all the disaffected 
 populations of the East, it was all over with the Roman 
 dominion in that part of the world. Unhappily for 
 them, the result was just the opposite: their revolt 
 inspired the inhabitants of Syria with twice their fidel- 
 ity to the empire. The hate they had enkindled in 
 their neighbours was enough, during this period of 
 paralysis to the Roman power, to stir up against them 
 other enemies at least as dangerous as the legions.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MASSACRES IN SYRIA ANB EGYPT. — A. D. 66. 
 
 A GENERAL word-of-command, as it were, seems just 
 now to have run through the East, everywhere inviting 
 great massacres of Jews. Jewish life was proving it- 
 self more and more to be incompatible with Greek or 
 Roman life. Each of the two races sought to extermi- 
 nate the other, and between them was no quarter. To 
 understand the conflict, we must first have seen how 
 far Judaism pervaded the entire eastern portion of the 
 Empire. " They have invaded every city," says Strabo, 
 " and it is hard to find a place in the world that has 
 not received this tribe, or, more correctly, accepted its 
 domination {irnKpaTeLTai). Egypt, the land of Cyrene, 
 and many others, have adopted their customs, scrupu- 
 lously observe their rules, and find great profit in keep- 
 ing their national laws. In Egypt they have legal 
 residence, and a great part of the city of Alexandria is 
 assigned to them : they have their ethnarch, wlio at- 
 tends to their affairs, administers justice among them, 
 oversees the execution of contracts and wills, just as if 
 he were the chief magistrate of an independent State." ^ 
 Two elements as opposite as fire and water could not 
 mingle thus without constant danger of most awful 
 explosions. 
 
 We must not lay these to the account of the Roman 
 government. Massacres just as awful took place among 
 
 1 Quoted by Josephus, Antiq. xiv. 7:2.
 
 MASSACRES IN SYRIA AND EGYPT. 207 
 
 the Parthians/ where the situation and policy were 
 quite different from those in the West. One of the 
 glories of Eome is to have founded its empire on peace, 
 and the suppression of local wars. Eome never prac- 
 tised that detestable method of government — one of 
 the political secrets of the Turkish empire — which 
 consists in setting the various mixed populations in 
 subject countries against one another. As to massacre 
 on religious grounds, the idea of it was as far as possi- 
 ble from the Roman mind. The Roman, unknowing of 
 all theology, never understood the meaning of sect, or 
 how there could possibly be division on so small a mat- 
 ter as speculative opinion. Besides, antipathy against 
 Jews was so universal in the ancient world that there 
 was no need of pressing it. This antipathy makes, 
 as it were, a boundary-trench among men, which per- 
 haps will never be filled. It results from something 
 else than difference of race. It is the hate between 
 different classes, or social offices, in mankind, — the 
 man of peace, content with home-delights, and the man 
 of war ; the merchant or the shopman and the peasant 
 or the noble. It cannot be without reason that un- 
 happy Israel has been ever the victim of slaughter. 
 When every nation and every age has persecuted you, 
 there must needs be some motive behind. Down to 
 our day the Jew has pushed his way everywhere, claim- 
 ing the common right. But, in fact, the Jew would 
 never stand upon common right ; he would hold to his 
 peculiar law ; he insisted upon the privileges open to 
 all, and his own exceptional privileges into the bargain. 
 He claimed the advantages of nationality without being 
 of any nation, or sharing the burdens and duties of a 
 
 ^ Jos. Ant. xviii. 9.
 
 2o8 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 nation. No people could ever tolerate that. A nation 
 is in essence a military structure ; it is founded and 
 sustained by the sword; it is tlie work of the soldier 
 and the peasant ; it is what Jews have aided in noth- 
 ing to establish. This is the one great misunderstand- 
 ing in regard to Israelitish demands. The tolerated 
 foreigner may be of service to a country, but on con- 
 dition that the country does not allow him to interfere 
 in its affairs. There is no justice in claiming family 
 rights in a house you have not built, — like a bird that 
 appropriates another's nest, or a hermit-crab (called 
 by fishermen "the thief"), which lodges in a cockle- 
 shell.^ 
 
 The Jew has rendered to the world so many good 
 and so many ill services, that we can never quite do 
 him justice. We owe him so much, and at the same 
 time see his faults so plainly, that we are vexed at the 
 sight of him. This everlasting Jeremiah, this " man 
 of sorrows," always complaining, offering his back to 
 the smiters with an exasperating patience, — this being, 
 strange to all our instincts of honour, pride, glory, deli- 
 cacy, or taste, — this man so unsoldierly, so unknightly, 
 who cares nothing for Greece, Rome, or Germany, to 
 whom we yet owe our religion so truly that he has 
 the right to say to a Christian, " Thou art but an adul- 
 terated Jew," — this man has been set as a target to 
 contradiction and antipathy : a fruitful antipathy, which 
 has made one element in the progress of mankind ! 
 In the first century of our era, the world seems to have 
 had a dim consciousness of what was going on. It 
 
 ^ Some doctors assert with simplicity that Israel's duty is to keep the 
 Law, and then God makes the rest of the world work for him : Bab. 
 Talm., Beruchoth, 3.3 b.
 
 MASSACRES IN SYRIA AND EGYPT. 209 
 
 saw its master in this awkward stranger — shrinking, 
 timid, without dignity to the eye ; but upright, virtu- 
 ous, diligent, straightforward, endowed with modest 
 merit ; no soldier, but a good tradesman, a good-hu- 
 moured and steady labourer. The Jewish household 
 radiant with hope, the synagogue where brotherhood 
 was so full of charm, were regarded with a wishful eye. 
 Such humbleness of spirit, so calm an acceptance of per- 
 secution and ignominy, — so resignedly finding comfort 
 for his exclusion from the great world in the privilege 
 of his family and his church, — a placid gaiety like 
 that which makes the Oriental peasant of our day find 
 his bliss in his very inferiority, in the humility of that 
 sphere where he is but the happier for the outward 
 cruelty and scorn he suffers, — all this the aristocrat of 
 old could view only with moods of profound ill-humour, 
 which would sometimes end in acts of hateful brutality. 
 The first muttering of the storm was heard at Cses- 
 area ^ almost at the moment when the revolution was 
 coming to its full triumph in Jerusalem. In Csesarea 
 the condition of Jews and Syrians, including all who 
 were not Jews, was most full of difficulty.^ In Syrian 
 towns of mixed population Jews made the wealthier 
 class ; but their wealth, as before noted, was due in part 
 to an unfair advantage, — exemption from military ser- 
 vice. Greeks and Syrians, who furnished recruits for 
 the legionary ranks, were exasperated at finding them- 
 selves crowded by men exempt from public burdens, 
 who made profit by the tolerance they enjoyed.^ Hence 
 
 1 Jos. Wars, ii. 18: 1-8; Life, 6. 
 
 2 Comp. lalkout, i. 110; Midrash Eka, i. 5; iv. 21; Bab. Talm., 
 Megilla, 6 a. 
 
 8 Jos. Antiq. xx. 8 : 7; Warn, ii. 1.3: 7. 
 
 14
 
 2IO ANTICHRIST. 
 
 were incessant disputes, and endless complaints were 
 brought before the Roman magistrates. Orientals com- 
 monly make religion the ground of petty quarrels ; the 
 least religious of men become emulously devout as soon 
 as it gives a chance to annoy a neighbour, as the Turk- 
 ish functionaries of our day find it, when assailed with 
 grievances of this nature. From the year 60, or there- 
 about, the figlit between the two parties at Csesarea 
 had been croino; on without truce. Nero settled the 
 pending questions against the Jews, but the feud was 
 only embittered.-"- Petty acts of spite (or possibly mere 
 oversights) committed by Syrians became wilful crimes 
 when seen with Jewish eyes. Young men would 
 threaten, and then fight ; grown men would make 
 appeal to Roman authority, which would commonly 
 sentence both parties to the bastinado.^ Gessius Florus 
 acted in a humaner way : he would begin by getting 
 pay from both parties, and then laugh at the com- 
 plainants. A synagogue having a party- wall, a can or 
 pitcher, or the remains of a few chickens found at the 
 sanctuary door, which the Jews insisted were the rem- 
 nants of a pagan sacrifice, were the town-talk at Caesa- 
 rea, just at the time when Florus came back fuming 
 with rage at the insult that had been put upon him by 
 the populace of Jerusalem. 
 
 A few months after, when it was learned that this 
 populace had succeeded in driving the Romans from 
 their walls, passion was very hot. War was openly 
 declared between Jews and Romans, and the Syrians 
 thought they miglit now slaughter their foes with 
 impunity. In an hour twenty thousand had been 
 
 1 Jos. Ant. XX. 8:7-9; Wars, ii. 14: 4. 
 » Jos. AnU XX. 8: 7; Wars, ii. 13: 7.
 
 MASSACRES IN SYRIA AND EGYPT. 211 
 
 biTtchered ; not a single one remained in Cossarea. 
 Floras, in fact, gave orders to seize and commit to the 
 galleys all who had escaped by flight. The crime called 
 out frightful reprisals.^ The Jews formed bands and 
 set out, on their part, to slaughter the Syrians in Phil- 
 adelphia, Hesebon, Gerasa, Pella, and Scythopolis ; they 
 ravaged Decapolis and Gaulonitis ; they set fire to 
 Sebaste and Ascalon ; they made ruin of Anthedon 
 and Gaza. The villages were burned, and every one 
 not a Jew was killed. The Syrians, in revenge, slew 
 every Jew they met. Southern Syria was a field of 
 slaughter ; every town was divided between two armed 
 bodies, making war on each other without mercy ; the 
 nights were full of terror. There were incidents of 
 special horror. At Scythopolis, Jews joined with their 
 pagan neighbours to fight invading Jews ; and this 
 alliance did not save them from being slaughtered in 
 their turn by the Scythopolitans. 
 
 Butcheries of Jews were revived with fresh violence 
 at Ascalon, Acre, Tyre, Hippos, and Gadara. Those 
 left unslain were cast into prison. The scenes of mad- 
 ness that were taking place at Jerusalem led men to see 
 in every Jew a sort of dangerous lunatic, whose acts of 
 fury it was a duty to anticipate. 
 
 This epidemic of massacre reached as far as Egypt. 
 Here the hatred of Jew and Greek went to its greatest 
 length. Half of Alexandria was a Jewish city, mak- 
 ing a sort of autonomous republic.^ In fact, for some 
 months the prefect of Egypt had been a Jew, Tiberius 
 Alexander,^ — an apostate, it is true, not at all likely 
 
 1 Jos. Wars, ii. 18 : 1 ; Life, 6, 55. 
 
 2 Strabo in Jos. Antiq. xiv. 7 : 2. 
 
 8 Mem de VAcad. des Inscr., etc., sxvi. 296.
 
 212 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 to indulge tlie fanaticism of his fellow-religionists. 
 The revolt broke out on occasion of a gathering in the 
 amphitheatre. The first affront, it would appear, was 
 offered by the Greeks, and the Jews retorted savagely. 
 Armed with torches, they threatened to burn the 
 Greeks alive in the amphitheatre to the last man, — 
 all amphitheatres being then built of wood. Tiberius 
 Alexander tried in vain to calm the tumult : the 
 legions had to be sent for; the Jews resisted, and a 
 frightful massacre followed. The Jewish quarter, 
 called the Delta, was literally packed with corpses, 
 and the number of the dead was reckoned at fifty 
 thousand. 
 
 These horrors continued for about a month. To the 
 north, they stopped at Tyre, since beyond that the 
 Jewish populations were not large enough to give 
 offence. In fact, the cause was more social than re- 
 ligious. Wherever Judaism came into power, life was 
 made intolerable to the pagans. We easily see that 
 the successful revolt of the summer of 66 carried a 
 season of terror to all towns of mixed population any- 
 where near Palestine or Galilee. I have often pointed 
 out this singular quality of the Jewish people, that its 
 nature tends to violent extremes, and the conflict of 
 good and evil lives, if I may so say, in its very heart. 
 No spite like Jewish spite ; and yet in the soul of Juda- 
 ism dwells the very ideal of kindness, self-sacrifice, and 
 love. The best-hearted of men have been Jews ; the 
 cruellest and wickedest have also been Jews. Strange 
 race, truly marked with the seal of God ! — which could 
 yield side by side — buds, as it were, from a single stem 
 — the infant Church and the fierce fanaticism of the 
 revolt at Jerusalem, Jesus and John of Giscala, the
 
 MASSACRES IN SYRIA AND EGYPT. 213 
 
 Apostles and the assassin Zealots, the Gospel and 
 the Talmud ! Can we wonder if these mysterious 
 birth-pangs were accompanied by rendings, by delir- 
 ium, and by fever raging without example ? 
 
 Christians were no doubt often included in these 
 September massacres, though in general those kindly 
 sectaries would be safeguarded by their mild and 
 inoffensive conduct. Most of those in the Syrian 
 towns were what were then called " Judaisers j " ^ that 
 is, converts from the native population, not born Jews. 
 They were regarded with distrust, but were not put to 
 death, being considered a sort of half-breeds, strangers 
 in their own country.^ On their own part, in passing 
 through these dreadful months, their eyes were fixed 
 on heaven, and in every incident of the frightful 
 tempest they seemed to behold a sign of the time 
 destined for the catastrophe : " Learn a lesson from 
 the fig-tree. When its shoots are tender and put 
 forth leaves, then you know that summer is near. So, 
 when you see these things come to pass, understand 
 that He is at hand, that He is at the very door ! " ^ 
 
 Meanwhile the Roman power was making ready to 
 win back by force the city which it had imprudently 
 let go. Cestius Galhis, the imperial Governor-General 
 of Syria, was advancing from Antioch southward with 
 a considerable army. Agrippa joined him as guide ; 
 auxiliary troops came in to him from the towns, whose 
 ancient hate against the Jews made good the lack of 
 
 1 Jos. TFars, ii. 18: 2. 
 
 2 The phrase in Josephus seems somewhat confused : rovi luvBm^ovTas 
 fi)(ov ev vnoyjria, Koi to Trap' eKaarois a.fi(f)il3oXov ovre dveXelv tis 7rpo)(eip<x)S viri- 
 fifVf, Koi fieiMiyfifvov ws ^f/Saiwy a.X\6(pvXop f(j)oj3e'iTO. 
 
 3 Matt. xxiv. 32, 33.
 
 214 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 military skill. Cestius easily brought Galilee and the 
 sea-coast to submission, and on the twenty-fourth of 
 October he reached Gabaon (now El- Jib), a little more 
 than six miles from Jerusalem. 
 
 With astonishing boldness the insurgents went out 
 to attack him here, and gave him check. Such a thing 
 would be inconceivable if we were to think of the rebel 
 force as a pack of devotees, beggarly fanatics, and 
 highway robbers. There was in it material more solid 
 and soldierly : Monobases and Cenedseus, two princes 
 of the royal house of Adiabene ; one Silas of Babylon, 
 an officer of Agrippa, who had joined the party of the 
 nation ; Niger of Pertea, a trained soldier ; Simon, son 
 of Gioras, who was then entering on his heroic but 
 stormy career. Agrippa thought the moment favour- 
 able for a parley. Two of his envoys came to promise 
 the insurgents full pardon if they would submit. A 
 great part of the population were desirous to accept ; 
 but the party of Zealots killed the envoys, and a few 
 persons, indignant at the outrage, were assaulted. This 
 quarrel gave Cestius his opportunity. He set out from 
 Gabaon, and encamped on a spot called Sapha, or 
 Scopus ["the Lookout"], an important post a short 
 hour's march northward from Jerusalem, within sight 
 of the city and Temple. Here he remained three days, 
 awaitino; the result of his communications with the 
 city. On the fourth day (October 30) he set his force 
 in order for an advance. The defenders abandoned 
 all of the New Town,^ and withdrew to the Inner City, 
 both upper and lower, and tlie Temple. Cestius 
 
 ^ The present Christian quarter, to the nortliwest, joined to the old 
 city by Agrippa's wall. The boundary of Jerusalem, at the time of which 
 I write, was the same as at present, only varying a little on the south.
 
 MASSACRES IN SYRIA AND EGYPT. 215 
 
 entered without resistance, occupied the new town, 
 the quarter of Bezetha (the northern suburb), and the 
 wood-market, which he set on fire ; then laid siege to 
 the upper town, setting his lines of attack in front of 
 the Asmonsean palace [below the northern slope of the 
 Temple hill]. 
 
 Josephus asserts that, if Cestius Gallus had seen fit 
 to storm at once, the war would have been at an 
 end, explaining his inactivity by intrigue, whose chief 
 motive was Florus's money. It appears that some 
 members of the aristocratic party could be seen on 
 the wall, led by one of the Hanans, who called out to 
 Cestius, offering to open the gates. No doubt he 
 feared an ambush. During five days he vainly tried 
 to storm the wall. On the sixth day (November 5), he 
 attacked the defences of the Temple from the north. 
 There was a terrible fight under the colonnades ; the 
 insurgents were already getting discouraged, and the 
 peace-party were preparing to receive Cestius, when he 
 abruptly sounded a retreat. If the story of Josephus 
 is correct, this conduct is inexplicable. Possibly the 
 historian, to make out his case against Florus,^ exag- 
 gerates the advantage gained at first by Cestius upon 
 the Jews, and disparages the real strength of the 
 resistance. "What we know is, that Cestius went back 
 to his camp at Scopus, and set out the next day for 
 Gabaon, sharply followed by the Jews. Two days after 
 (November 8) he retreated, still pursued, as far as the 
 descent at Beth-horon, about ten miles northwest from 
 
 ^ We must remember that his method is to throw upon Floras the re- 
 sponsibility for the excesses of the revolt, by representing him as the one 
 who at first prevented its suppression, and foiled the efforts of the peace 
 party.
 
 21 6 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 the city, where he abandoned his baggage and took 
 refuge, with some difficulty, at Antipatris.^ 
 
 The incompetency of Cestius as shown in this cam- 
 paign is astonishing. The evil rule of Nero must 
 have greatly degraded all the service of the State, to 
 make such things possible. Cestius did not long sur- 
 vive his defeat, and his death, soon after, was laid by 
 many to his disgrace.^ We do not know what became 
 of Floras. 
 
 1 Six miles from the coast, and ten miles northeast from Jaffa. See 
 Jos. Wars, ii. 18: 9-19; Life, 5-7 (here Gessius should probably be 
 Cestius) ; Tac. Hist. v. 10 ; Suet. Vesp. 4. 
 
 2 Tac. Hist. V. 10.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 VESPASIAN IN GALILEE ; TERROR AT JERUSALEM. — 
 
 A. D. 66-68. 
 
 While the Empire underwent this bloody check in the 
 East, Nero, driven from one mad crime to another, was 
 all absorbed in his vain pretensions as an artist. With 
 Petronius had disappeared everything that could be 
 called taste, tact, or courtesy. Colossal self-love gave 
 him a burning thirst to grasp at every sort of glory in 
 the world ; so that, says Suetonius, he was " the rival 
 of any man who in any way could touch the fancy of 
 the vulgar." ^ He pursued those who attracted public 
 attention with a bitter jealousy ; to succeed, in no mat- 
 ter what, came to be a crime against the State ; it is 
 said that he even tried to stop the sale of Lucan's 
 works.^ He aspired to such fame as never had been 
 known, " eager for things incredible," says Tacitus.^ 
 Vast projects were revolving in his head, — to cut 
 through the isthmus of Corinth, to dig a canal from 
 Baioe to Ostia, to discover the sources of the Nile.^ He 
 had long dreamed of a journey to Greece, — not from a 
 serious wish to see the masterpieces of matchless skill, 
 but with the odd ambition to compete in the games 
 established in different places and carry away the prize. 
 
 1 Nero, 53. ^ Tac. Ann. xv. 49. ^ jud. 42. 
 
 * We may infer from Seneca (Qucest. nat. vi. 8) that the centurions 
 sent on this errand penetrated as far as the Great Lakes.
 
 2i8 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 These contests were literally numberless. The founding 
 of games in Greece was one form of public benefaction : 
 as with the founding of our college prizes, any citizen 
 of moderate wealth had in this a ready way to be- 
 queath a name to later times.^ The noble exercises, 
 which so greatly added to the strength and beauty of 
 the ancients and became the school of Greek art, had 
 become — as the mediaeval tournaments afterwards be- 
 came — the business of professionals, who made a trade 
 of running in the races and winning crowns. Instead of 
 free-born youths handsome and well-bred, here were 
 only odious and worthless fops or men trained to a 
 profitable special skill. The prizes, which the victors 
 wore as a sort of personal decoration, gave the vain- 
 glorious Caesar many a sleepless night ; and he was 
 already dreaming of his return to Rome in triumph, 
 with the very rare title of " all-round victor " (TreptoSo- 
 VLK7)<;) in the complete cycle of the four established 
 games.^ 
 
 His passion for public singing amounted to insanity.^ 
 One of his reasons for wishing the death of Thraseas 
 was that he did not sacrifice to the emperor's " heav- 
 enly voice." * In the presence of the Parthian king, 
 his guest, he would display his skill in nothing but the 
 chariot-race.^ Lyric dramas were put upon the stage, 
 in which he took the leading part, while the gods, 
 
 1 See the inscription from Larissa in report oi Acad, des Inscr., session 
 of July 1, 1870 ; also Revue ArcheoL, July-August, 1872, p. 109. 
 
 2 See Comptes rendus de VAcad. des Inscr., 1872, p. 114; Dion Cassius 
 Ixiii. 8, 20, 21. 
 
 8 Suet. Nero, pass.; Dion Cassius, Ixiii. 2G, 27; Euseb. Chron. 64; 
 Carm. Sib., v. 140, 141. 
 
 4 Tac. Ann. xvi. 22; Dion Cass. Ixii. 26. 
 * Dion Cass. Ixiii. 6.
 
 VESPASIAN IN GALILEE. 219 
 
 goddesses, heroes, and heroines were masked and robed 
 in his likeness or that of his favourite mistress. Tlius 
 he played as (Edipus, Thyestes, Hercules, Alcmaeon, 
 Orestes, Canace ; he was seen on the stage in chains 
 (golden), guided as if blind, imitating the gestures of a 
 madman, or personating a woman in labour. One of 
 his latest schemes was to appear naked in the theatre 
 as Hercules, crushing a lion in his arms or killing him 
 with a club : the lion, it is said, was already selected 
 and in training, when Nero died.' To leave one's seat 
 while he was singing was so grave a crime that the 
 most ridiculous precautions were taken to do it secretly. 
 In contests of skill he would blacken his competitors or 
 try to put them out of countenance, so that the poor 
 fellows would sing false on purpose to be put out of 
 competition with him. Judges would encourage him, 
 or humour his timidity. If this absurd display brought 
 a flush to any one's brow or an expression of pain to 
 any face, he would say that there were persons he sus- 
 pected of partiality. Meanwhile he obeyed the rules 
 of the prize-games like a school-boy, trembling before 
 the umpires and the scourge-bearers, and paying money 
 not to be whipped if he should blunder. If he made a 
 miss that should have thrown him out, he would turn 
 pale, and had to be told in a whisper that the blunder 
 had never been noticed amidst the popular enthusiasm 
 and applause. The statues of those who had worn the 
 wreath before him were cast down, lest they should 
 excite dangerous fits of jealousy in him. In the races 
 care was taken that he should come in first, even if he 
 fell out of his chariot ; but sometimes he would allow 
 himself to be beaten, on purpose that he might be sup- 
 
 1 Suet. Nero, 53.
 
 220 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 posed to play a fair game.^ In Italy, as I said before, 
 he had the mortification of owing his success to hired 
 plaudits from a group, skilfully made up and well paid, 
 that followed him everywhere. The Romans became 
 to him intolerable ; he called them clowns, and said 
 that a self-respecting artist could desire only the ap- 
 plause of Greeks. 
 
 He set off on the journey so eagerly anticipated in 
 November, 66. He had been only a few days in 
 Achaia when he learned the defeat of Cestius. This 
 war, as he now clearly saw, required a brave and ex- 
 perienced commander ; but, above all, it must be a 
 man whom he did not fear. These qualities seemed to 
 meet in Titus Flavins Vespasianus. Vespasian was a 
 grave and steady soldier, a man of sixty, who had al- 
 ways been fortunate in his campaigns, and was of too 
 low birth to be suspected of high ambitions. He was 
 just now in discredit with Nero for not having shown 
 enough admiration of his fine voice ; and when the 
 message first came to him, calling him to the command 
 of the army in Palestine, he supposed for a moment 
 that it was a sentence to death. His son Titus soon 
 joined him ; and about the same time Mucian suc- 
 ceeded Cestius as imperial legate (or governor-general) 
 of Syria. The three men who within two years were 
 to control the destiny of the empire thus came together 
 in the East.^ 
 
 The boldness of the insurg-ents was exalted to the 
 highest pitch by the complete victory they had gained 
 over a Roman army commanded by an imperial legate. 
 The more intelligent and better informed in Jerusalem 
 
 1 Dion Cass. Ixiii. 1, 8; Suet. Nero, 21-24, 53. 
 
 - Jos. Wars, Proem, 6; ii. 41: 1; 3: 1; Suet. Vesp. 4; Tac. Hist. v. 10.
 
 VESPASIAN IN GALILEE. 221 
 
 were downcast ; they judged, on good grounds, that 
 the final advantage could not but be with the Romans. 
 The ruin of the Temple and the nation appeared to 
 them certain,-'^ and emigration began at once. All the 
 Herodians, and all those in the service of Agrippa, 
 went over to the Romans.^ A large number of Phari- 
 sees, looking only to the observance of the Law and 
 the peaceful future of Israel, of which they dreamed, 
 held that they must submit to the Romans, just as they 
 had before submitted to the kings of Persia and Egypt. 
 They cared little for the nation's independence. Rabbi 
 Johanan Ben Zakai, the most famous Pharisee of the 
 time, lived apart from politics.^ Many doctors probably 
 at this time withdrew to Jamnia [or Jabneh, near the 
 coast, and not far from Joppa], where they founded the 
 Talmudic schools, which soon became so celebrated.* 
 
 Meanwhile massacres began again, and extended to 
 parts of Syria, free till now of the bloody epidemic. 
 At Damascus, every male Jew was slaughtered. Most 
 of the women of that city professed the Jewish reli- 
 gion, and unquestionably there were Christians- in their 
 number. Care was taken that the massacres should be 
 committed by surprise, and without their knowledge.^ 
 
 The defenders of the city displayed prodigious en- 
 ergy, enlisting even the lukewarm to their aid. A 
 council was held in the Temple to form a national 
 government, to consist of the best men in the nation. 
 As yet the moderates had by no means abandoned the 
 contest. Whether they still hoped to guide the move- 
 
 1 Jos. Life, 4. 2 Jos. Wars, ii. 20: 1; L\fe, 6. 
 
 8 Mechilta on Ex. xx. 22; Bab. Talm. GMn, 50 a, h: Aboth d. Nathan, 
 ch. 4; Midrash rabba on Eccl. vii. 11, and on Eka, i. 5. 
 
 * Derenbourg, Ilinl. p. 288. ^ Josephus, as above.
 
 222 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 ment, or had a secret hope such as one dallies with so 
 fondly at a crisis, spite of all warnings of reason, they 
 allowed themselves to be drawn to the front at almost 
 every point. Men of great weight, many members of 
 Sadduc^ean and priestly families, the higher ranks of 
 Pharisees,^ with the wise and upright Simeon ben- 
 Gamaliel^ at their head, joined the party of revolution. 
 They acted under strict forms of law, recognising the 
 supremacy of the Sanhedrim. City and Temple re- 
 mained in the hands of the established authorities, — 
 Hanan, eldest of the priesthood,^ Joshua ben-Gamala, 
 Simeon ben-Gamaliel, and Joseph ben-Gorion. Joseph 
 and Hanan were named commissioners at Jerusalem ; 
 Eleazar, son of Simon, a demagogue without principle, 
 whose personal ambition was rendered dangerous by 
 the wealth he had acquired, was purposely set aside. 
 Commissioners were also chosen for the provinces, all 
 being moderate men except Eleazar, son of Ananias, 
 who was sent to Idumasa. Josephus, afterwards of so 
 brilliant repute as historian, was prefect of Galilee. 
 Many among them were sober-minded men, who ac- 
 cepted their posts largely to aid in maintaining order, 
 and with the hope of controlling the elements of anar- 
 chy which threatened to ruin everything.'* 
 
 The excitement in Jerusalem was very great. The 
 city resembled a camp, or a workshop of arms. On every 
 side resounded the cries of young men in military drill.^ 
 
 1 The upper middle-class: Jos. Life, 5, 
 
 2 Son of Gamaliel of the " Acts," and grandson of Hillel : Jos. Life, 38. 
 ^ Son of the high-priest who condemned Jesus: Jos. Wars, iv. 3: 7. 
 
 * Jos. Wars, ii. 20: 3; 22: 1; Life, 7. Josephus disguises the part he 
 took in the revolt, representing himself as more moderate than he reallj 
 was. 
 
 ^ Jos. Wars, ii. 21 : 4.
 
 VESPASIAN IN GALILEE. 223 
 
 Jews from the remote East, above all from Parthia, 
 thronged thither, persuaded that the Roman dominion 
 was now at an end/ They felt that Nero's reign would 
 soon be over, and were convinced that the empire 
 would perish with him, — an idea which we find also 
 in the Apocalypse.^ This last heir of Ca3sar's name, 
 plunged in shame and contempt, was to them as an 
 evident sign. Seen from this point of view, the insur- 
 rection must seem far less insane than it looks to us, 
 knowing as we do that the empire had strength yet 
 left for several revivals. It might really be supposed 
 that the work of Augustus was out of joint ; at any 
 moment the Parthians might be seen, in fancy, pouring 
 over the Roman territories,^ — and this would have 
 happened, in fact, if various causes had not just then 
 greatly weakened the Parthian power. One of the 
 noblest visions in the book of Enoch is that in which 
 the prophet sees a sword given to the sheep, and the 
 sheep, thus armed, driving back the wild beasts, which 
 in their turn take to flight.* Such was, in fact, the 
 feeling of the Jews. For lack of military training, 
 they could not see how deceitful was the success they 
 had gained over Cestius and Florus. They stamped 
 coins after the pattern of the Maccabees, having the 
 figure of the Temple, or some Jewish device, with in- 
 scriptions in ancient Hebrew letters.^ These coins, 
 
 ^ Jos. Wars, proem, 2; vi. 6:2; Dion Cass. Ixvi. 4. 
 
 ^ See ch. xvi., post. 
 
 8 Rev. ix. 14-21; xvi. 12-16; Jos. Wars, vi. 6: 2. 
 
 * Enoch, xc. 19 (Dillmann and the later editions). 
 
 ^ It is very hard to distinguish the coins of this first revolt from those 
 of the second (a. d. 132), or of the Maccabees (see Madden's "Jewish 
 Coinage," p. 154, which sums up all previous study, adopting, however, 
 the theories of Levy, which are themselves very doubtful). We may fear
 
 224 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 dated from the " year of deliverance," or of the " lib- 
 erty of Zion," were at first without name, or with only 
 that of Jerusalem ; afterward they bore the names of 
 party leaders, who held supreme power at the will of 
 some one or other faction.^ It may even be that in 
 the first months of the revolt, Eleazar, son of Simon, 
 who had in hand an enormous quantity of silver, ven- 
 tured to coin money, giving himself the title of high- 
 priest.^ The amount, at all events, must have been 
 considerable ; it was called " money of Jerusalem," or 
 " money of Danger." ^ 
 
 Hanan came to be more and more the head of the 
 moderate party. He still hoped to bring the mass of 
 the people to peace, and quietly endeavoured to check 
 the making of weapons and to paralyse resistance 
 while giving it the air of discipline. This is the most 
 hazardous of games to play in a time of revolution ; 
 he was, in short, what revolutionists call a traitor.* In 
 the eyes of enthusiasts he had the fault of seeing 
 things too clearly ; in the view of history he cannot be 
 
 that the subject can never be made quite clear; for in the earlier revolt 
 the Asmonagan coinage may have been copied, or its own in the later. 
 Every coin having either the figure or the inscription described in the 
 text is one belonging to the earlier revolt, or else is an imitation of it; 
 the latter revolt, in fact, never held possession of Jerusalem. In the ear- 
 lier, the Koman coinage a'J:)pears not to have been restamped, as it was 
 afterwards (Madden, 171, 170, 203-205). 
 
 1 Eleazar, son of Simon, and Simon, son of Gioras. We are not sure 
 whether John of Gischala coined money (see Madden, 64, 173, 180, 182). 
 Coinage is wrongly credited to Hanan and to Simeon, son of Gamaliel, 
 who was a plain citizen, a doctor held in high respect, with no attribute 
 of sovereignty whatever (Derenbourg, UUt., etc., 270, 271, 286, 423, 424). 
 
 2 Madden, 156, 161, 162; Jos. Wars, ii. 20: 8. 
 
 8 Tosiphtha, Manser scheni, 1; Jer. Talm. id. 1, 2; Bab. Talm. Baha 
 kama, 97 6; Bechoroth, 50 a; Aboda zara, 52 b; Levy, Gesch. 126, 127. 
 * Jos. Wars, ii. 22: 1.
 
 VESPASIAN IN GALILEE. 225 
 
 acquitted of having accepted the most false of posi- 
 tions, — that of making war without faith in it, merely 
 because driven to it by ignorant fanatics. In the prov- 
 inces there was horrible confusion. The districts to 
 the south and east of the Dead Sea, wholly peopled 
 by Arabs,^ poured upon Judaea hordes of bandits, who 
 lived by massacre and pillage. Under such conditions 
 order was impossible ; for to establish order, two things 
 must be driven out which made the very strength of 
 the revolution, — fanaticism and brigandage. A terri- 
 ble situation, when the only choice is whether you will 
 appeal to the stranger or to anarchy ! In Acrabatene 
 (a district lying between Judaea and Samaria) a young 
 and brave partisan, Simon, son of Gioras, pillaged and 
 tortured the rich.^ In Galilee Josephus tried in vain 
 to maintain something like a rational policy. One 
 John of Gischala, a bold and tricky agitator, uniting 
 an implacable disposition with a heated enthusiasm, 
 managed to foil him at every point. As always hap- 
 pens in the East, Josephus was forced to enlist the 
 brigands, under regular pay, as the price of general 
 security from plunder.^ 
 
 Meanwhile Vespasian went on with his preparations 
 for the difficult campaign before him. His plan was 
 to attack the insurrection from the north ; to crush it 
 first in Galilee, then in Judaea; to throw it back in 
 some way upon Jerusalem ; and, when he had packed 
 its forces all about this central point, where crowding, 
 famine, and factions were sure to bring about frightful 
 
 1 The Nabathpean inscriptions are in Syriac, but their proper names 
 are Arabic (Obe'is, Jamer, etc.). 
 
 - Jos. Wars, ii. 22: 2; iv. 9: 3, 4, 
 8 Ihid. ii. 20: 5-21; Life, 8, 9.' 
 
 15
 
 226 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 scenes, to wait ; or, if that should not be enough, to 
 strike one great blow. He went first to Antioch, where 
 Agrippa came to join him with all his forces. Antioch 
 had not yet had its massacre of Jews, — no doubt 
 because a multitude of the Greeks living there had 
 embraced the Jewish faith, — mostly in the Christian 
 form, — and this deadened the mutual hate. But just 
 at this moment the storm broke out. The wild charge 
 of having plotted to set fire to the city brought on 
 butcheries, followed by a sharp persecution, in which 
 many Christians doubtless perished, confounded with 
 the adherents of a faith that was no longer more 
 than half their own.-^ 
 
 The expedition set out in March, 67, following the 
 usual sea-coast road, and fixed its headquarters at 
 Ptolemais (Acre). The first blow fell upon Galilee. 
 Here the population were heroic. The little town of 
 Judifat, or Jotapata,^ just fortified, made an astonish- 
 ins: resistance. Not one of its defenders would survive. 
 Pent up in a place without exit, they slew one another. 
 "Galilgean" became another name for a sectarian fanatic, 
 obstinately bent on death by his own choice.^ Tiberias, 
 Tariche^, and Gamala surrendered, but not till after 
 great slaughter. History gives few examples of a 
 people so ground to pieces. The very waves of that 
 quiet lake where Jesus had dreamed of the heavenly 
 kingdom were stained with blood, while the shore was 
 
 1 Jos. Wars, vii. 3: 3, 4. 
 
 2 Now Jefni, Tell Jefat, or Tell Jephtn (cf. Schultz, in Zeitschr. der d. 
 m. G. 1840, 49, 50, 61 ; Ritter, xvi. 764; Robinson, iii. 105; Aug. Parent, 
 Siege de J. (ISOG), p. 3; Neubauer, Geog. du Talmud, 193, 203, 204. Gopn- 
 lata in Reland is an error of copy; J'qjhtah-el (Josh. xv. 43) lias nothing 
 to do with it. 
 
 8 See " The Apostles," p. 23.5, n. 4.
 
 VESPASIAN IN GALILEE. 
 
 227 
 
 covered with putrefying corpses and the air poisoned 
 with corruption. Crowds of Jews had taken refuge on 
 boats, but Vespasian gave orders to kill or drown them 
 all. The remnant of the able-bodied were sold as 
 slaves; six thousand captives were sent to Nero in 
 Achaia to the severest tasks in cutting through the 
 isthmus of Corinth ; -^ the aged were slaughtered. 
 Almost the only one who escaped was Josephus, a 
 man of no depth of nature, and always doubting the 
 issue of the war, who surrendered to the Romans, and 
 was soon on the best terms with Vespasian and Titus. 
 All his ability as a writer has not sufficed to wash from 
 his conduct a certain smear of baseness.^ 
 
 The best of the year 67 was taken up with this 
 business of extermination. Galilee never recovered 
 from it. The Christians who were there doubtless 
 took refuge beyond the lake, and the name of Jesus' 
 birthplace appears no more in Christian history. Gis- 
 chala held out to the last, but fell in November or 
 December. John of Gischala, who had defended it 
 with fury, escaped, and succeeded in reaching Judaea. 
 Vespasian and Titus took winter-quarters at Csesarea, 
 preparing for the siege of Jerusalem in the following 
 year.^ 
 
 The great weakness of a provisional government 
 organized for national defence is that it cannot survive 
 
 1 Jos. Trar.9, iii. 10: 10; Lucian (or Philostratus), Nero, etc., 3. The 
 Sibylline verses allude to this taskwork in v. 32, 138, 217; viii. 155; 
 xii. 84. Comp. Philostratus, Apoll. v. 19. 
 
 2 His " Life " (38, 39) gives a very poor explanation of the distrust 
 felt towards hira by the best men in Jerusalem. Justus of Tiberias 
 (Life, 65) was very hostile to him. 
 
 8 Jos. Wars, iii.-iv. 2 ; Life, 65, 74, 75 (greatly expanded by the histo- 
 rian's vanity) ; Tac. Hist. v. 10.
 
 228 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 defeat. Constantly undermined by the more impa- 
 tient, it falls as soon as it can no longer give to the 
 fickle multitude that victory for the sake of which it was 
 put in place. John of Gischala and the refugees from 
 Galilee, coming into Jerusalem day after day with rage 
 in their hearts, lifted again that cry of fury which was 
 the life-breath of the revolution. Hot and panting, 
 they gasped such w^ords as these : " We are not beaten, 
 but we want better posts. Why wear us out in Gischala 
 and such wretched holes, when we have the metropolis 
 to defend ? " Said John of Gischala, '"' I have seen the 
 Roman engines shivered to pieces against the walls of 
 villages in Galilee. Unless they have wings they will 
 never cross the defences of Jerusalem ! " All the 
 young people were for " war to the bitter end." Troops 
 of volunteers take readily to plunder. Bands of fanat- 
 ics, religious or political, are always much like high- 
 way robbers.^ One must live ; and a free-lance can 
 scarce live at all except as a freebooter. That is 
 why, at a time of national crisis, " brigand " is almost 
 synonymous with " hero." A war party is always tyran- 
 nous. No country was ever saved by moderate coun- 
 
 ^ Barabbas, whom we infer from Mark (xv. 7) to be a member of some 
 religious or political organization, is called by .John (xviii. 4) " a robber." 
 So the Vendeans were " brigands of the Loire." So, to a certain degree, 
 we find the volunteers of the French Revolution, — noting that Josephus, 
 to whom we owe the whole account, was a sort of Dumouriez. His 
 hostility toward his political opponents breaks out constantly. To take 
 his word for it, the firebrands were a mere wretched handful, answering 
 to no national sentiment whatever. Tacitus and Dion Cassius state the 
 whole thing differently. According to them, it was an entire population 
 of fanatics. Josephus clearly wishes to lessen his country-people's guilt 
 in the eyes of the Romans, and thinks to excuse them by belittling 
 their patriotism and courage. We must remember, too, that the " Wars 
 of the Jews " was submitted to Titus's inspection and received the official 
 permit of Agrippa. At least, Josephus says so (Z^//e, 65).
 
 VESPASIAN IN GALILEE. 229 
 
 sels; for tlie first rule of moderation is to yield to 
 circumstances, while heroism commonly consists in re- 
 fusing an ear to reason. Josephus, eminently a man 
 of order, is probably right in asserting that the resolve 
 not to retreat was the act of a few enthusiasts, drag- 
 ging after them, by main force, the body of quiet citi- 
 zens, who would have desired nothing better than to sub- 
 mit. It is almost always so. If a nation has no dynasty 
 — which at bottom is only a permanent and regulated 
 terrorism — great sacrifices can be got from it only by 
 means of terror. The body of a population are cow- 
 ards at heart ; but in times of revolution the coward 
 does not count. Enthusiasts are always few ; but they 
 force the hand of the others by cutting off the chance 
 of conciliation.^ The rule in such situations is that 
 power falls necessarily into the hands of the more 
 ardent, and that politicians are fatally helpless. 
 
 In the presence of that burning fever, increasing 
 every day, the position of the " moderates" (ot /xerptot) 
 was no longer tenable. The bands of pillagers, when 
 they had stripped the country, fell back on Jerusalem ; 
 fugitives from the Roman arms came, one after an- 
 other, to heap themselves upon the city, bringing fam- 
 ine with them. There was no effective authority. The 
 Zealots reigned ; ^ all those suspected of " moderan- 
 tism " were slaughtered without mercy. Until now 
 
 ^ Note, in particular, what came to pass in Tiberias (Jos. Wars, iii. 9 : 
 7, 8 ; Life, 65). Just so the Mussuhnan fanaticism is generally that of a 
 minority, which dominates an entire population. 
 
 2 The name "zealot" (Heb. kauna) had hitherto been used in a 
 good sense. The terrorists of the revolt had claimed it to themselves, 
 and made it nearly synonymous with " partisan "or " assassin " (sicarius). 
 See Jos. Wars, iv. 3 : 9 ; viii. 8 : 1. On this word in the Talmud, see 
 Derenbourg, 279, 281, 285, 475-8; Jos. Wars, ii. 13 : 3 ; Aiit. xs. 8 : 5.
 
 230 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 war and violence had stopped at the Temple limits. 
 Now, zealots and robbers crowded pell-mell into the 
 holy house. All rules of legal purity were forgotten. 
 The courts were stained with blood, fouling men's feet 
 as they walked.^ In the eyes of priests, no crime was 
 more awful. To the devout, it was the " abomination " 
 foretold by Daniel, which would invade the sacred 
 place just before the last days. The zealot, like all 
 fighting fanatics, made no account of rites, which they 
 subordinated to the really " holy work " of fighting. 
 A crime hardly less atrocious was to change the order 
 of the priesthood. Disregarding the privilege of the 
 families from which the high-priest was commonly 
 taken, they chose an ignoble branch of the sacerdotal 
 stock, and resorted to the purely democratic method of 
 choosing by lot.^ This naturally produced strange 
 results. The lot fell upon a rustic, who had to be 
 dragged to Jerusalem and invested in his own despite 
 with the sacred robes, and the pontificate was profaned 
 by scenes of revelry. All serious-minded people — 
 Pharisee and Sadducee, the Simeons ben-Gamaliel and 
 Josephs ben-Gorian — were wounded in what they held 
 most dear. 
 
 Such excesses at length impelled the aristocratic 
 party of the Sadducees to attempt a reaction. With 
 much ability and courage, Hanan sought to unite the 
 better class of citizens and men of sense, to overthrow 
 the monstrous alliance of fanaticism and impiety. The 
 Zealots were close-pressed, and forced to take refuge in 
 the Temple, which became a hospital for the wounded. 
 To save the revolution, they now took the extreme 
 
 ^ Jos., ^Vars, iv. 3 : 6. 
 
 2 Tosiphtha loma^ 1 ; Sifra, on Lev'd. xxi. 10 ; Tauhouma, 48 a.
 
 VESPASIAN IN GALILEE. 231 
 
 step of calling in the Idumgeans, bands of robbers ac- 
 customed to every violence, who were roaming about 
 Jerusalem. Their entrance was the signal for a mas- 
 sacre. All that could be found who belonged to the 
 priestly caste were slaughtered. Hanan and Jesus, 
 sons of Gamala, were exposed to frightful outrage : 
 their bodies were cast out unburied, — a thing unheard- 
 of among the Jews. 
 
 Thus perished the son of the man chiefly guilty of 
 the death of Jesus. The Beni-Hanan remained to the 
 last true to their part, — if I may say so, to their 
 duty. Like most of those who try to build a dike to 
 hold back the fury of fanatic sects, they were swept 
 away ; but they perished honourably. The last Hanan 
 seems to have been a man of great ability \ ^ for nearly 
 two years he had maintained the struggle against an- 
 archy. He was a true aristocrat, sometimes hard of 
 heart,^ but grave, filled with a genuine political sense, 
 greatly respected, liberal in this, that he would have 
 the nation governed by men of the better sort, and 
 not by violent factions. Josephus does not doubt that, 
 if he had lived, he would have obtained honourable 
 terms of peace between Romans and Jews, and regards 
 the day of his death as that of doom to the city of 
 Jerusalem and the Jewish Commonwealth. At least, it 
 was the end of the Sadduccean party, which was often 
 haughty, selfish, and cruel, but the only representative 
 of a policy at once reasonable and capable of saving 
 the country.^ To use the common expression, one 
 
 1 Jos. TFars, iv. 5: 2. 
 
 2 Corap. Antiq. xx. 9:1; Wars, iv. 5: 2. These passages vary in some 
 points, but no doubt refer to the same person (see Wars, iv. 3: 9). 
 
 8 Wars, iv. 3-5 : 2.
 
 232 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 might be tempted to say that Jesus was " avenged " by 
 the death of Hanan. It was those of Hanan's house 
 who had said, before Jesus, ''If things go on thus, 
 the Romans will come and destroy both the holy 
 place and the nation ; " and had presently after added, 
 " Better that one man should die, and that the whole 
 nation perish not." ^ Still, let us refrain from an ex- 
 pression so frankly impious. There is no more revenge 
 in history than in nature. Revolutions are no more 
 just than the bursting volcano or the crushing ava- 
 lanche. The year 1793 did not punish Richelieu, or 
 Louis the Fourteenth, or the founders of a united 
 France ; it only proved that they were men of narrow 
 views, if they did not perceive the vanity of their 
 deeds, the frivolity of their statecraft, the uselessness 
 of their profound policy, the stupid cruelty of their 
 " reasons of State." The Preacher alone was wise, 
 when in the day of his disillusion he declared that 
 " all under the sun is vanity." 
 
 AVith Hanan, early in 68, perished the old Jewish 
 priesthood, entailed upon a few great Sadducoean fami- 
 lies, who had so hotly opposed the growth of Chris- 
 tianity. Deep was the impression, when men beheld, 
 cast naked without the walls, a prey to dogs and 
 jackals, those aristocrats held in so high honour, who 
 were but lately seen clad in sumptuous priestly robes, 
 presiding in pompous ceremonial, attended by vener- 
 ating throngs of pilgrims that gathered at Jerusalem 
 from all the world. In truth, a world was passing 
 away. The democratic priesthood set up by the revo- 
 lution was but for a day. The Christians thought at 
 first to put in relief two or three persons by adorning 
 
 1 John xi. 48, 50; xviii. 14.
 
 VESPASIAN IN GALILEE. 233 
 
 their brow with the sacerdotal petalon. All this came 
 to nothing. The priestly office was not, any more than 
 the Temple that gave it dignity, destined to remain 
 the chief thing in Judaism. The main thing was the 
 enthusiast, the prophet, the zealot, the messenger of 
 the Lord. The prophet had slain the royalty; the 
 enthusiast, the heated sectary, slew the priesthood. 
 Priesthood and royalty once slain, there remains the 
 fanatic, who yet for two and a half years will wrestle 
 against fate. When in his turn he too is crushed, 
 there will remain the doctor, the rabbi, the interpreter 
 of the Law. Priest and king will rise no more. 
 
 And the Temple no more than they. Those Zealots 
 who, to the great scandal of priests friendly to the 
 Romans, had made of the Holy Place a fortress and a 
 hospital, were not so far as we might think at first 
 from the feeling of Jesus : " Of what value are these 
 stones ? " The spirit is the only thing that counts : that 
 which defends the spirit of Israel — the Revolution — 
 has the right to defile the stones. Ever since Isaiah 
 had said, "What care I for your sacrifices? They 
 are an offence to me ; an upright heart alone de- 
 lights me," — ever since that day, the forms of worship 
 have been an outgrown routine, which must at length 
 cease to be. 
 
 From the time of Nehemiah, who is already a 
 Pharisee,^ we note the opposition between the priest- 
 hood and the nation, which is at bottom wholly 
 democratic, admitting no other nobility than piety 
 and observance of the Law. The true Aaron, in the 
 opinion of the wise, is the good man.^ The Asmona^ans, 
 
 1 Neh. xiii. 4-13. 
 
 2 Bab. Talrn. loma, 71 h (tale of Shemaiah and Abtalion).
 
 234 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 at once priests and kings, inspire only aversion in the 
 pious. Sadduceeism, every day more unpopular and 
 more rancorous, is preserved only by the distinction 
 which the people make between religion and its minis- 
 ters.^ " No king, no priest," — this is, at bottom, the 
 Pharisee's ideal. Judaism is powerless to found a State ; 
 and hence it was forced into the condition in which we 
 find it for eighteen centuries past, — to live a parasitic 
 life in the commonwealth of others. Its destiny was, in 
 like manner, to become a religion without temple and 
 without priest. The temple necessitated the priest ; 
 its destruction proved the relief from a real difficulty. 
 The zealots who, in 68, slew the pontiff and defiled the 
 Temple in the defence of God's cause were not, then, 
 out of line with the true tradition of Israel. 
 
 But it is clear that the ship, deprived of all steady- 
 ing ballast, and abandoned to a frenzied crew, must 
 drift to frightful wreck. After the slaughter of the 
 Sadducees, terror reigned in Jerusalem without check 
 or counterpoise.^ Under its terrible oppression, no one 
 dared openly to mourn, or to bury his dead. Compas- 
 sion was a crime. The " suspects " of the better class, 
 who perished by the assault of ruffians, are said to 
 have amounted to twelve thousand. Here, no doubt, 
 the reckoning of Josephus is suspicious. His story of 
 the dominion of the Zealots is absurd : mere impious 
 wretches do not expose themselves to death as those 
 men did. As well account for the French Revolution 
 
 ^ Strabo xvi. 2: 37, 40. Strabo had his information from a liberal 
 Jew, opposed to the priesthood and the temporal power. Ilis phrase very 
 •well expresses the two opposed feelings entertained by a democratic Jew 
 towards the Temple, — " loathing tyranny, but revering sanctity." 
 
 '^ For the impression made on the Romans by this fury of civil war, 
 see riiny, H. Nat. xii. 25 (54).
 
 VESPASIAN IN GALILEE. 235 
 
 b}^ the escape of a few thousand convicts from the gal- 
 leys. Mere crime has never brought anything to pass. 
 The truth is that popular movements, due to a vague 
 sense of right and not to reason, defeat themselves by 
 their own victory. The revolution at Jerusalem fol- 
 lowed the rule of all such tumultuary movements : it 
 spent its force in cutting off its own head. The best 
 patriots, those who had contributed most to the success 
 of the preceding year, — Gorion, Niger of Peraea,— 
 were put to death. The entire class of the well-to-do 
 perished.* The deepest impression was caused by the 
 death of one Zacharias, son of Baruch (Barachias), the 
 most esteemed citizen of Jerusalem, greatly loved by 
 all good men.* He was dragged before a revolutionary 
 tribunal, and unanimously acquitted, but was struck 
 down by fanatics " between the temple and the altar." 
 He was not improbably a friend of the Christians ; for 
 we seem to find an allusion to him in the prophetic 
 words Jesus is said to have spoken on the terrors of 
 the Latter Day.^ 
 
 The astounding events at Jerusalem made the pro- 
 foundest impression upon the Christians. This peace- 
 ful community, deprived of its head, James, "the 
 Lord's brother," continued to lead its ascetic life in 
 the holy city, where the disciples of Jesus, clinging 
 about the Temple, waited the great Second Coming. 
 With them were the survivors of the family of Naza- 
 reth, — the sons of Cleopas, held in the greatest vene- 
 ration, even by the Jews. Everything that happened 
 must seem to them clearly to confirm the words of 
 Jesus. " What could these convulsions be, if not " the 
 
 1 Jos. Wars, iv. 5 : 3-7 : 3. 
 
 2 Matt, xxiii. 34-36 : see, however, " Life of Jesus," p. 341, n.
 
 236 AXTICHRIST. 
 
 beginning of sorrows " ^ which should precede the Mes- 
 siah's birth ? They were convinced that the trium- 
 phant coming of the Christ would be preceded by the 
 appearance of numerous false prophets ; - and these, as 
 the heads of the Christian community would view it, 
 must be the leaders of the Zealots.^ The terrible words 
 of Jesus, describing the horrors which would forewarn 
 them of the Judgment, were applied to the existing 
 condition. It may be that certain "new lights" arose 
 within the Church itself, — men claiming to speak in 
 the name of Jesus,^ whom the elders warmly opposed, 
 asserting- that Jesus had foretold the coming of such 
 misleaders, and warning the disciples against them. 
 This was enough. The hierarchy, already well estab- 
 lished, with the teachable spirit received from Jesus, 
 put a stop to all these impostures, and the Cliurch ben- 
 efited by the marked ability it had shown in creating 
 a real authority at the very heart of a popular move- 
 ment. The rising episcopate (or rather, presbytery) 
 checked the o-reat disorders which the ung-uided con- 
 science of a multitude never escapes. From this time 
 forth we perceive that the controlling spirit of the 
 Church in human affairs will be a moderate good sense, 
 a conservative and practical instinct, a distrust of dem- 
 ocratic dreams, — in striking; contrast to the exalted 
 strain of its supernaturalist assertions. 
 
 This sagacious policy in the leaders of the church at 
 Jerusalem had its merits. Zealots and Christians had 
 
 1 "Birth-pangs": Matt. xxiv. 8; Mark xiii. 8. 
 
 2 Matt. xxiv. 4, .5. 
 
 » See Acts V. 36, 37; viii. 9, 10; xxi. 38; Jos. Antiq. xx. 5: 1; 8: 6; 
 TFar5, ii. 13: 5; vii. 11. 
 
 ^ Matt. xxiv. 4, 5, 11, 2.3-26. The expression, " in the desert" (ver. 
 26), seems to refer to the Zealot deceivers.
 
 VESPASIAN IN GALILEE. lyj 
 
 the same enemies, — the " sons of Hanan," the Saddu- 
 cees. The ardent faith of the Zealots could not fail to 
 affect powerfully the equally exalted mood of the Jew- 
 ish Christians. The enthusiasts, who drew crowds after 
 them into the desert to show them the kingdom of God, 
 were very much like John the Baptist, and a very little 
 like Jesus. A few of the faithful, as it appears, joined 
 their party, and were drawn along with them ; ^ with 
 most, however, the peaceful temper of Christianit}' car- 
 ried the day. The heads of the Church checked these 
 dangerous symptoms by injunctions for which they 
 claimed to have the authority of Jesus : " Let your- 
 selves not be deceived ; for many will come in my 
 name, saying, '■ I am the Messiah,' and will deceive 
 many. . . . Then, if any come and say, ' The Messiah 
 is here,' or ' He is there,' do not believe it. For there 
 will arise false messiahs and false prophets, who will 
 work great wonders, so as to deceive, if possible, even 
 the very elect. Kemember that I have told you before- 
 hand. If then they come and say, 'Come, see; he is 
 in the desert,' do not go ; or, ' Come, see ; he is in a 
 hiding-place,' do not believe it." 
 
 No doubt there were some apostasies, and even be- 
 trayals of brother by brother ; and divisions of polic}^ 
 brought about coldness of heart." But the greater 
 number, while deepl}^ feeling the critical state of 
 Israel, lent no hand to anarchy, even under the guise 
 of patriotism. The Christian manifesto of this sol- 
 emn hour was a discourse ascribed to Jesus,^ — a 
 
 ' Matt. xxiv. 4, 5; Mark xiii. 5, 6. Simon, one of the apostles, is 
 called a "zealot" in Luke vi. 15, and Acts i. 13; and " Canaanite " 
 {kanna) in ^latt. x. 4; Mark iii. 18. 
 
 2 Matt. xxiv. 10, 12. 
 
 * Matt, xxiv.; Mark xiii.; modified, as usual, by Luke xix. 43, 44; 
 xxi. 20-36. Comp. Assnnipt. of Mnses. ch. 8, 10.
 
 238 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 sort of apocalypse, an enlargement, possibly, of words 
 spoken by the Master, which pointed out the con- 
 nection of the final catastrophe — now thought to 
 be very near — with the political condition of the 
 time. The entire passage was not written out till 
 later, after the siege ; but some words, reported as if 
 from Jesus, refer to the very moment now under our 
 eye : " When you see the abomination of desolation 
 spoken of by the prophet Daniel,^ standing in the holy 
 place, — here let the reader understand" (a phrase 
 familiar in such writings), — " then let those who are 
 in Judasa flee to the mountains ; let not him who is on 
 the house-top come down to take anything from the 
 house ; let not him who is in the field come back to 
 find his clothes. Alas for the women with child or who 
 have nursing-infants in those days ! Pray, too, that 
 your flight may not be in the winter or on the sabbath : 
 for then there will be such misery as there has not 
 been from the beginning of the world till now, and will 
 never be again." 
 
 Other visions of like purport were floating about, it 
 would seem, under the name of Enoch, showing curious 
 coincidences with those ascribed to Jesus. Tn one of 
 them, the divine Wisdom, introduced as a prophetic 
 
 ^ Dan. ix. 27; xi. 31; xii. 11. Whatever the meaning in Hebrew, 
 the Greek expression (^biKvyfia ttjs ip-qfiuxTfU)^) certainly meant to the 
 readers of the first century some profanation of the Temple (see Matt, 
 xxiv. 15; Mark xiii. 14; 1 Mace. i. 54). The word "standing" would 
 suggest a statue ; but it is idle to suppose that Titus set up a statue within 
 the precincts of the Temple. Besides, we have here to do with a profan- 
 ing before the capture of the city by Titus, as appears both from the texts 
 above cited, and from Josephus, Wars^ iv. 6: 3, — the prophecies of which 
 he speaks vaguely seem to be those of the " abomination." The passage 
 shows, at all events, that the profanation by the Zealots was regarded as 
 inseparable from tlie ruin of the city.
 
 VESPASIAN IN GALILEE. 239 
 
 person, reproaches the people with its crimes, its mur- 
 ders of prophets, and its hardness of heart.^ Frag- 
 ments which we may suppose to have been taken from 
 it alhide to the murder of Zachariah, " son of Baruch." ^ 
 There is hint, also, of a " culmination of horror " (re A-eioz/ 
 (TK(xv'^aXov)f requiring that " for the elect's sake " those 
 days should be shortened. This highest degree of hor- 
 ror to which man's depravity can attain seems to be 
 the profaning of the Temple by the Zealots. Such 
 atrocities prove that the coming of the " well-beloved " 
 is near at hand, and that the vengeance of the just 
 cannot be long delayed. The true Judseo-Christians 
 still clung so strongly to the Temple that such a sacri- 
 lege must fill them with terror. Notliing like it had 
 been seen since the days of Nebuchadnezzar. 
 
 All the family of Jesus felt that it was time to flee. 
 The murder of James had already greatly weakened 
 the attachment of the Christians at Jerusalem to Jew- 
 ish orthodoxy ; the rift between church and synagogue 
 was widening every day. The hatred of the Jews for 
 the pious sectaries, no longer restrained by Roman au- 
 thority, led no doubt to many a deed of violence.* 
 Besides, the life of those holy men who abode near the 
 Temple, and offered their prayers in its courts, was 
 greatly disturbed ever since the Temple had been 
 changed to a barrack and stained by slaughter. Some 
 went so far as to say that the proper name of a city 
 
 ^ Ep. of Barnabas, iv., xvi. ; Luke xi. 49; "Life of Jesus," 20, 41, 
 43, n., 341. 
 
 2 " Barachias," Matt, xxiii. 35. But there may be confusion with 
 the son of Jehoiada. See " Life of Jesus," p. 341. 
 
 8 Barnabas, iv., — a passage not found in Enoch as now known; cf. 
 Matt. xxiv. 22. 
 
 * Euseb. iii. 5: 2 (a poor authority).
 
 240 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 SO profaned was no longer Zion, but Sodom ; and that 
 the true Israelite was here held in bonds like his fathers 
 in Egypt. ^ 
 
 The flight seems to have been resolved on early in 
 the year 68? To give more authority to this step, it 
 was reported that a revelation to that effect had been 
 given to the leaders, — according to some, through an 
 angel.^ All, it is likely, answered to the word of com- 
 mand, none of the brethren remaining in the city which 
 a true instinct warned them was devoted to destruction. 
 
 There are indications that the flight of this peaceful 
 flock was not effected without danger. The Jews, it 
 appears, gave chase.* The terrorists, in fact, kept a 
 sharp watch upon the roads, and slew as traitors all 
 who tried to fly, except on payment of a heavy ransom.^ 
 A circumstance hinted to us in obscure words saved the 
 fugitives : " The dragon poured forth after the woman 
 [the Church] a flood of water to sweep her away and 
 drown her ; but the earth helped the woman, opened 
 its mouth, and drank up the stream which the dragon 
 poured forth after her; and the dragon was full of 
 
 ^ Rev. xi. 8: " the great city mystically called Sodom and Egypt." 
 
 2 Matt. xxiv. 15-19; Mark xiii. 14-18 (ver. 7 shows that it was not at 
 the beginning of the war). Luke (xxi. 20, 21) does not accord with 
 these, and is surely of far less authority. He says that the order to flee 
 was to be given when the city was first surrounded ; but then it would 
 have been too late (comp. xix. 43, 44). The Apocalypse (xii. 6, 13-17), 
 written in G8 or 69, represents that the flight has already taken place: 
 this is decisive (comp. Euseb. iii. 5; Epiph. xxix. 7; xxx. 2; De men- 
 suris, etc., 15). 
 
 8 Euseb. iii. 5; Epiph. De mens. 15. The expression of the latter in 
 Hccr. xxix. 7, may be understood of an order supposed to have been 
 given from Jesus himself at the time, or may refer to Luke xxi. 20 ; but 
 the other passage admits only the former sense, — " announced by an 
 angel," etc. 
 
 4 Rev. xii. 13, 15. 6 jog. Wars, iv. 7: 3.
 
 VESPASIAN IN GALILEE. 241 
 
 wrath against the woman." ^ Here the dragon repre- 
 sents the spirit of Evil, sometimes as exhibited in the 
 Roman power, sometimes in the violent party of Jerusa- 
 lem. It is not likely that the mishap of the fugitives 
 befell them from the Romans. Probably the Zealots 
 attempted to drown the holy company in the Jordan, 
 but they succeeded in fording the river where the 
 water was shallow ; or again, the troop sent to attack 
 them may have missed its way, and so have lost trace 
 of them. 
 
 The spot chosen by the leaders as the chief refuge 
 of the escaping church was PelLV a city of the Decap- 
 olis, near the left bank of the Jordan, finely situated 
 on an eminence commanding the whole plain of the 
 Ghor on one side, and on the other guarded by preci- 
 pices with a torrent flowing at their foot.^ A better 
 choice could not have been made. Judaea, Idumaaa, 
 Persea, and Galilee were in full insurrection ; Samaria 
 and the sea-coast were in great disturbance from the 
 war; and thus Scythopolis and Pella were the two 
 neutral towns easiest of approach from Jerusalem. 
 Pella, from its position beyond Jordan, would offer 
 greater quiet than Scythopolis,* which was a strong- 
 hold of the Romans. Pella was a free city, like all 
 the towns of the Decapolis, but seems to have been 
 given to Agrippa. To take refuge here was an open 
 declaration of horror at the revolt. The importance 
 
 1 Rev. xii. 13-15. 
 
 2 Now Fahl, or Tahakat Fahil (Ritter, Erdk. xv. 786, 1003, 1025; Rob- 
 inson, iii. 320; Van de Velde's maps ; and comp. Euseb and Epiph. loc. cit. 
 One of the victories that gained Palestine to the Moslems was at this 
 place. 
 
 3 Trby and Mangles (London, 1823), 304, 305; Robinson, I.e. 
 * Menke, Bibelatlas^ No. 5. 
 
 16
 
 242 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 of Pella dates from the Macedonian conquest. A 
 colony of Alexander's veterans was established there, 
 changing its former name into another which reminded 
 the old soldiers of their fatherland.^ It was taken by 
 Alexander Jannaeus ; and the Greeks there, refusing 
 to be circumcised, suffered greatly from Jewish fanati- 
 cism.'"^ The pagan population had again struck root 
 there ; in the massacres of 66 Pella appears as a 
 Syrian town, and was again sacked by Jews.^ In this 
 old anti-Jewish town the church of Jerusalem found a 
 retreat during the horrors of the siege. Here it pros- 
 pered, regarding this quiet abode as a sure place, a 
 wilderness provided them by God, where they might 
 peacefully await the hour of Jesus' coming, far from 
 strifes of men. 
 
 The community lived from the stores it had laid 
 aside. It was believed to be sustained by the care of 
 God himself ; * and many saw in this kindly lot, so 
 different from that of the Jews, a miracle predicted by 
 the prophets.^ No doubt the Galilaaan Christians, on 
 their part, had passed to the eastward of the Jordan 
 and the lake, into Batansea and the Gaulonitis, and thus 
 the dominions of Agrippa became an adoptive country 
 foi- the Jewish Christians of Palestine. What gives 
 unique importance to this Christian retreat is that the 
 church brought with it the residue of the household 
 of Jesus, who were held in the highest honour, and 
 
 1 George Syncellus, p. 274. Apampea was called Pella for the same 
 reason (Strabo, xvi. 2 : 10). Pella of the Decapolis bad the distinguishing 
 surname, "rich in water" (Pliny, v. 18). 
 
 2 Jos. Anfiq. xiii. 15: 4. 
 
 8 Ibid. Wars, ii. 18: 1; \ii. 3: 5. 
 
 4 Rev. xii. 6, 14. 
 
 ^ Euseb. Demonstr. evang. vi. 18.
 
 VESPASIAN IN GALILEE. 243 
 
 were designated by a special title, as " Kindred of the 
 Master." ^ We soon find this trans- Jordanic Christian 
 community continuing the Ebionite tradition, — that is, 
 the tradition of the very word of Jesus ; ^ and here the 
 Synoptic Gospels have their birth. 
 
 1 AecTTrdcrvi^ot: Euseb. i. 7: 14. [The word also means "Princes; " see 
 Sophocles, Lexicon of later Greek.] 
 a Epiph. xxix. 7; xxx. 2.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE DEATH OF NERO. — A. D. 68. 
 
 Vespasian resumed his campaign at the first opening 
 of spring in the year 68. His plan, as I have said 
 before, was to crusli Judaism step by step, advancing 
 from the north and west toward the south and east ; to 
 force the flying to shut themselves up in Jerusalem, 
 and here to slaughter the rebellious mass without mercy. 
 He thus advanced as far as Emmaus,^ seven leagues 
 from Jerusalem, at the foot of the great ascent leading 
 from the plain of Lydda to the holy city. He judged 
 that it was not yet time to attack the city ; meanwhile 
 he ravaged Idumaea, then Samaria, and on the third of 
 June fixed his headquarters at Jericho, whence he sent 
 to slaughter the Jews of Persea. Jerusalem was shut 
 in on every side, surrounded by a circle of extermina- 
 tion. Vespasian then returned to Caesarea, to get all 
 his forces together. Here he received tidings which 
 
 ^ Emmaus or Ammaua, afterwards Nicopolis, at present the village 
 Amwas, not far from the travelled road, about half-way between Jaffa 
 and Jerusalem. There was, I think, another Emmaus, some five miles 
 from Jerusalem, — the present village Kidonie (Luke xxiv. 13; Jos. 
 Wars, vii. 6:6), whose name is probably derived from Hammoca, "the 
 spring " (Josh, xviii. 26 ; Bab. Talm. Succa, 45a). See " The Apostles," 
 18, 19; but note Robinson, iii. 146; Guerin, Palest, i. 257, 293; Neu- 
 bauer, Geog. du Talm. 100. The passage in Luke is absurd if applying 
 to a place seven leagues away. Kidonia (or Kulondia) must be a Latin 
 word, not the KovXdi/ (lxx.) of Josh. xv. 60. Comp. Griitz, Monatsschr.^ 
 18G9, pp. 117-121.
 
 THE DEATH OF NERO. 245 
 
 stopped him short, and had the result of protracting 
 for two years longer the resistance and revolution at 
 Jerusalem.^ 
 
 Nero died on the ninth of June. During the great 
 struggles in Judaea just related he was living his artist 
 life in Greece, and he did not return to Rome until the 
 end of 67. He had never enjoyed so much in all his 
 life. To gratify him, all the games had been crowded 
 into a single year. All the cities sent him the prizes 
 of their contests. Committees were continually wait- 
 ing on him, to beg him to go and sing at every place. 
 This big boy, insatiate of novelty (or else in mockery) 
 beyond all parallel, was transported with delight. 
 " The Greeks," said he, " are the only real listeners ; 
 the Greeks alone are worthy of me and my exertions." 
 He loaded them with privileges ; proclaimed the free- 
 dom of Greece at the Isthmian games ; handsomely 
 rewarded the oracles that prophesied to please him, 
 and suppressed those he did not like ; and, says Lucian, 
 gave orders to strangle a singer who did not lower his 
 voice so as to put his own in proper relief.^ Helius, 
 one of the worthless wretches whom he had left behind 
 at Rome with full powers over the city and senate, 
 urged him to return, as very serious political symptoms 
 began to show themselves. Nero replied that his first 
 duty was to his own reputation, for he must husband 
 his resources against the time when he should no longer 
 be emperor. His continual thought was, in fact, that 
 if fortune should ever reduce him to a private condi- 
 tion, he might maintain himself by his art ; ^ and when 
 
 1 Jos. Wars, iv. 8-9^2. 
 
 ^ Nero, seu de Isthmo, 9. 
 
 8 Suet. Nero, 40 ; Dion Cass. Ixiii. 27.
 
 246 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 any one remarked that he was fatiguing himself too 
 much, he would say that the practice which was now 
 only his relaxation as a prince might some day be the 
 means of earning his daily bread. One of the things 
 most flattering to the vanity of men of pleasure, who 
 dabble a little in art or literature, is to imagine that if 
 they were poor their talent would support them. Then, 
 too, his voice was weak and dull, though he took the 
 absurdest medical prescriptions of the time to preserve 
 it; his singing-master never left him, and was con- 
 stantly ordering the most childish precautions. One is 
 ashamed to think that Greece was dishonoured by this 
 ignoble masquerade. A few cities, however, preserved 
 their self-respect. The wretched pretender did not 
 dare to enter Athens, and was never invited there.-^ 
 
 Meanwhile the most alarming news kept coming in. 
 He had now been almost a year away from Rome,^ and 
 gave orders to return. The return was like the jour- 
 ney.^ In every city he received triumphal honours ; 
 the walls were torn down to let him enter. At Rome 
 there was unexampled revelry. He rode upon the 
 chariot in which Augustus had triumphed ; beside him 
 sat the musician Diodorus ; on his head he wore the 
 Olympic wreath ; in his right hand he bore the Pythian 
 laurel, while the other crowns were carried before him ; 
 on placards, to declare his victories, were written the 
 names of those he had vanquished and the titles of the 
 pieces he had played; then followed men trained in 
 
 1 Suet. Nero, 20-25, 53-55; Dion Cass. Ixiii. 8-18; Fais. Cliron. 12; 
 Carm. Sibyll. v. 136 ; xii. 90-92; Philostr. Apoll. iv. 39 ; v. 7, 8, 22, 23; 
 Themistius, Or. 19; Lucian, Nero; Julien, Cces. 310. 
 
 2 Tillemont, Hist, des Emp. i. 320. 
 8 Dion Cass. Ixiii. 19-21.
 
 THE DEATH OF NERO. 247 
 
 the three kinds of applause he had invented, and the 
 *' Knights of Augustus ; " and the archway of the Circus 
 Maximus was overthrown to let him enter. On every 
 side shouts were heard : " Cheers to the Olympian con- 
 queror ! To the Pythian conqueror ! Augustus ! Au- 
 gustus ! To the Nero-Hercules ! to Nero-Apollo ! ^ The 
 only all-round conqueror ! the only one that ever was ! 
 Augustus ! sacred voice ! happy he that hears ! " 
 The eighteen hundred and eight crowns he had won 
 were displayed in the great Circus, fastened to the 
 Egyptian obelisk which Augustus had set there as 
 goal.^ 
 
 At length there was a revolt of conscience in the 
 nobler portion of the human race. The East, excepting 
 Judsea, endured this shameful tyranny without a blush, 
 and even found itself at ease under its burden ; but in 
 the West the sense of honour was still alive. It is one 
 of the glories of Gaul that the overthrow of such a 
 tyrant was her deed.^ While the German soldiers, 
 hating the Republic, and slaves to their maxim of 
 fidelity, played — with Nero as with all the emperors 
 — the part of good hirelings and body-guard/ a cry of 
 
 1 Eckhel, vi. 275, 276 ; Suet. Nero, 25 ; Museum of the Vatican : 
 bust No. 308. 
 
 2 One would like to think that the circus and obelisk which Dion 
 Cassius speaks of were the same that, four years before, had witnessed 
 the horrid scenes of the Danaids and Dirces and perhaps Peter's cruci- 
 fixion. But the Circus Maximus — which, like that of the Vatican, had 
 an obelisk from Fleliopolis, now in the Pmcza del Popolo — was better 
 suited to Nero's exhibition. That of the Vatican was, it is likely, taken 
 instead for the pincula of August, 64, because the other was ruined for the 
 purpose by the fire. 
 
 8 Suet. Nero, 40. 
 
 4 Suet. Cains, 48, 58; Galba, 12; Tac. Hist. i. 31; iii. 69; Plut. Galba, 
 5, 6. 18. Comp. Henzen, Annnles. etc., xxii. 13; and the inscriptions in 
 Orelli, 2909, 3r>39 ; Fabretti, p. 687, Nos. 97, 98.
 
 248 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 revolt was uttered by an Aquitanian, a descendant of 
 ancient kings. The movement was truly Gallic 5 ^ 
 without reckoning consequences, the Gallic legions 
 plunged headlong into the revolution. The signal was 
 given by Vindex about the fifteenth of March, 68. The 
 news came speedily to Rome. The walls were soon 
 scrawled with insulting inscriptions. " By his sing- 
 ing," said these ill jesters, "he has roused the cocks" 
 [gallos) ! At first, Nero only laughed at the jest ; he 
 was even well pleased with the chance of enriching 
 himself by plunder of the Gauls. He continued to 
 sing and amuse himself till Vindex posted placards in 
 which he was described as a wretched artist. Then, 
 from Naples, where he was, the play-actor wrote to the 
 Senate demanding vengeance, and set out for Rome, — 
 with the pretence, however, that his business was only 
 about certain musical instruments, in particular a kind 
 of hydraulic organ, about which he gravely consulted 
 the Senate and tlie Knights. 
 
 The news that Galba had revolted on the third of 
 April, and that Spain had sided with Gaul, which 
 reached him while at dinner, struck him like a thun- 
 derbolt. He threw down the dinner-table, tore the 
 letter, broke in a passion two costly carved vases from 
 which he used to drink. In the absurd preparations 
 he began to make, his first care was for his instru- 
 ments and stage-equipment,^ and for his women, whom 
 he made to dress, like amazons, in skins, carrying axes, 
 and with hair close cut. There were strange alterna- 
 tions of despondency and of woful jesting, which it is 
 
 1 Tac. Hist. i. 51; iv. 17; Suet. i\'ero, 40, 43, 45; Dion Cass. IxiiL 
 22; Jos. Wars, pr. 2; iv. 8: 1. 
 
 2 Suet. Nero, 44.
 
 THE DEATH OF NERO. 249 
 
 equally hard to take as sane or insane, since all of 
 Nero's acts hovered between the black malice of an 
 evil-hearted dunce and the dreary irony of a used-up 
 debauchee. He had no idea that was not childish.^ 
 The world of affected art in which he lived had made 
 him a complete simpleton. At times he thought not of 
 resistance, but of going, unarmed, to weep before his 
 enemies, fancying he might move them ; and already 
 he was composing the song of victory that should cele- 
 brate their reconciliation on the morrow. At other 
 times he wished to massacre the whole Senate, burn 
 Rome a second time, and during the conflagration turn 
 loose upon the city the wild beasts of the amphitheatre. 
 The Gauls were the chief objects of his rage : he talked 
 of slaughtering those who were in Rome, as favourers 
 of their countrymen, and ready to join them.^ From 
 time to time he had the thought of changing the seat 
 of empire,^ and retiring to Alexandria. He called to 
 mind that certain prophecies had promised him the 
 empire of the East, and in particular the kingdom of 
 Jerusalem. He dreamed that he might find a living in 
 his musical talent ; and the chance of this, which would 
 be the best proof of his skill, gave him a secret joy. 
 Then he would console himself with literature : he re- 
 marked that his situation was peculiar ; everything that 
 happened to him was without parallel ; no prince had 
 in his lifetime lost so vast an empire. Even on the 
 days of his keenest anguish he changed nothing of his 
 customs; he would talk more of books than of the 
 doings of the Gauls ; he would sing, make display of 
 wit, go to the theatre in disguise, or write privately to 
 
 ^ Suet. Nero, 43, 47; Dion Cass. Ixiii. 27. 
 
 2 Suet. Nero, 43. s Aur. Vict. 14.
 
 250 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 an actor whom he liked : " Hold back a man so busy 
 as I? 't is a crime ! " ^ 
 
 Discord in the Gallic camps, the death of Vindex, 
 the weakness of Galba, might perhaps have delayed 
 the deliverance of the world, but that the army at 
 Rome at length declared itself. The praetorians re- 
 volted, and proclaimed Galba emperor on the eighth of 
 June. Nero saw that all was lost. His perverse genius 
 suggested to him nothing that was not grotesque. He 
 would put on mourning, and thus arrayed would go 
 forth to harangue the people, use all his scenic skill to 
 move their pity, and thus obtain their pardon for the 
 past, or, if nothing better, at least the government of 
 Egypt. He wrote out his appeal, of which, says Sue- 
 tonius, a draft was found after his death; but was 
 warned that before he could reach the Forum he would 
 be torn to pieces. He went to bed ; then, waking at 
 midnight, he found himself without guards : men were 
 already plundering his chamber. He went out and 
 knocked at several doors, but no one answered. He 
 went back, wished to die, called for the gladiator Spi- 
 culus, a brilliant swordsman, one of the " stars " of the 
 amphitheatre. Every one fell away. He went out 
 again, roamed solitary about the streets, was going to 
 throw himself into the Tiber, but returned upon his 
 steps, the world seeming all void about him. His 
 freed man Phaon then offered as a refuge his villa, sit- 
 uated between the Salarian and Nomcntan ways, near 
 the fourth milestone from the city.^ Wretched and 
 half-clad, wrapped in a shabby cloak, mounted on a 
 
 1 Suet. Nero^ 40, 42. [The last anecdote is not found in Suetonius.] 
 
 2 It must have been a little beyond the Anio (Teverone) on the via 
 Patenarla. Plainer and Bunsen, Beschreibung, etc., i. G75; iii. 2, p. 455.
 
 THE DEATH OF NERO. 251 
 
 sorry beast, with his face covered so as not to be 
 known, he went forth attended by three or four of his 
 freedmen, among them Phaon, Sporus, and his secretary 
 Epaphroditus. It was not yet daylight. As he went 
 out by the Colline gate, passing near the praetorian 
 camp, he overheard the cries of soldiers, who cursed 
 him while proclaiming Galba. A dead body had been 
 cast out on the highway, and his horse, starting sud- 
 denly, betrayed him. Still he succeeded in reaching 
 Phaon's villa, crawling on his belly under some briers, 
 or crouching behind the rushes. 
 
 His mocking temper, his street slang, did not fail 
 him here. They wished to hide him in a shallow 
 clay-pit, such as are common thereabout, and this gave 
 him the opportunity for a grim joke : " What a fate it 
 is, to go underground alive I " His discourse was like 
 a running fire of classic quotations, interlarded with the 
 stale buffooneries of a circus clown. At every point he 
 had some bookish anecdote or some cold antithesis : 
 " He who once walked proudly with a numerous train 
 has with him now only three freedmen." At times the 
 memory of his victims would come back to him, but 
 led only to mere figures of speech, never to the moral 
 emotion of remorse. The comedian outlived all else. 
 The situation was to him only one more act in the 
 play, which he had already rehearsed. Recalling the 
 parts in which he had figured, — a parricide, or a prince 
 reduced to be a beggar, — he remarked that he was 
 now playing it through in his own person ; and would 
 sing the verse which a tragedian once put in the mouth 
 of OEdipus : — 
 
 My doom of death is spoken by my father, mother, wife.'* 
 1 Dion Cass. Ixiii. 2S ; Suet. Nero, 46.
 
 252 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 Incapable of serious thought, he bade them dig a grave 
 to the measure of his body, and bring bits of stone, 
 wood, and water for his burial rites, — all the while 
 sobbing, and saying, "What an artist is about to die ! " 
 Meanwhile Phaon's messenger brought him a de- 
 spatch, which Nero snatched from him and read, — that 
 the Senate had declared him a public enemy, and con- 
 demned him to punishment "after the ancient custom." 
 "What custom is that?" he asked. The reply was 
 that the condemned person's bare head is made fast in 
 a forked stick ; he is then beaten to death with rods, 
 and his body is dragged by a hook to be cast into 
 the Tiber. He shivered, took two daggers which he 
 had about him, felt their point, and put them back, 
 saying " The fatal hour is not yet come." He then 
 urged Sporus to begin the funeral wail, and tried again 
 to kill himself, but could not. His awkwardness, his 
 strange facuUy of making every fibre of the soul ring 
 false, the laughter as of both beast and devil, the clumsy 
 vainglory which makes his whole life seem like the 
 discordant cries of a grotesque witches' revel, reach the 
 very sublime of the ridiculous. He could not succeed 
 in killing himself. " May there not be some one here," 
 he asked, "to set me the example ? " He went back to 
 his quotations, talked to himself in Greek, and made 
 scraps of verse. All at once the sound was heard of a 
 troop of horsemen, coming to seize him alive. And he 
 recited from Homer, — 
 
 The tramp of heavy horses is sounding in mine ears.'^ 
 
 Then Epaphroditus pushed against the dagger, and the 
 point entered his throat. At this moment the centu- 
 
 1 Iliad, X, 535.
 
 THE DEATH OF NERO. 
 
 ^53 
 
 rion came up, tried to stop the blood, and pretended 
 that he had come to save him. " Too late ! " gasped 
 the dying wretch, his eyes standing out, and his flesh 
 chilled with terror. " That is your fidelity ! " were his 
 last words in dying.^ This was his master-stroke of 
 comedy, — Nero, letting fall a melancholy plaint at the 
 iniquity of his age, the vanishing of good faith and 
 virtue ! PlaudUe ! The play is over. This once, thou 
 Nature of a thousand moods, thou hast found an actor 
 worthy to play such a part ! 
 
 He had it much at heart that his head should not be 
 given up to insult, and that his entire body should be 
 burned. His two nurses, and Acte, who still loved 
 him, buried him secretly in a costly shroud of white, 
 stitched with gold, with the luxury which they knew 
 had been dear to him. His ashes were put in the tomb 
 of the Domitii, a great mausoleum overlooking the hill 
 of Gardens (the Piucian), in fine view from the Campus 
 Martins, the site of the modern city.^ From this site 
 his phantom haunted the Middle Age like a vampire. 
 To lay the ghosts which disturbed that quarter was 
 built the church inscribed to the holy Virgin of the 
 People {Santa Maria del jwpolo). 
 
 Thus, at the age of thirty-one, after a reign of 
 thirteen years and eight months, died a sovereign, not 
 the maddest or wickedest, but the most vain and 
 ridiculous that chance ever lifted to the upper levels of 
 
 1 Suet. Nero, 40-50; Dion Cass. Ixiii. 22-29; Zonaras, xi. 13; Pliny, 
 xxxvii. 2: 10. 
 
 2 If Lactantius did not know this monument when he wrote De morti- 
 bus periiecu'nrum (see chap, ii.), it follows that he had never been in Rome. 
 Traces of the villa of Doniitius are thought to have been found in the city- 
 wall at the end of the promenade of the Pinciau (Plainer and Bunsen, 
 iii. 2 : 5G9-571).
 
 254 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 history. Nero is, first of all, a literary distortion. He 
 was far from being devoid of all talent or all right 
 feeling, — this unfortunate youth, drugged with base 
 literature, drunk with declamatory nonsense, who for- 
 got the empire in his music-lessons ; who, when he 
 learned the revolt of the Gauls, would not tear himself 
 away from the spectacle he was witnessing, applauded 
 the victorious athlete, and for several days thought 
 only of his lyre and his voice. ^ In all this, the chief 
 fault lay with the people, greedy of enjoyment, and de- 
 manding of its sovereign pleasure above all things ; and 
 with the false taste of the period, which reversed the 
 standard of greatness, giving too high a prize of fame 
 to the man of letters and the artist. The danger of 
 literary education is that it inspires a measureless thirst 
 for glory, without setting forth the stern lesson that 
 shows the meaning of true glory. It was ordained 
 that one by nature vainglorious and crafty, aspiring to 
 the vast and boundless, unbalanced by sound judgment, 
 should come to ghastly wreck. Even his better quali- 
 ties, such as his aversion to war, were fatal to him, 
 leaving to him only a taste for a kind of display that 
 did not belong to him. Unless one were a Marcus 
 Aurelius, one should not be too superior to the preju- 
 dices of his rank and condition. A prince has to 
 do with arms and battles ; his caste is that of the 
 soldier. A great prince may and should be a patron 
 of letters, but should not be himself a man of letters. 
 Augustus and Louis XIV., leaders in a brilliant devel- 
 opment of genius, are — next to cities of genius, like 
 Athens and Florence — the finest spectacle in history; 
 while Nero, Chilperic, and Louis of Bavaria are only 
 
 ^ Dion Cass. lxiii.2G.
 
 THE DEATH OF NERO. 255 
 
 caricatures. In the case of Nero, the vastness of the 
 imperial power and the brutality of Roman manners 
 make the caricature look as if sketched in streaks of 
 blood. 
 
 It is often said, to show the incurable corruption of 
 the crowd, that Nero was in some respects popular. 
 The truth is, there were two opposite drifts of opinion 
 about him.^ All that was grave and honourable de- 
 tested him. The lower class were fond of him, — some 
 simply, from the vague feeling that leads the poor 
 plebeian to love a prince who has a showy outside ;^ 
 others, because he intoxicated them with gala days. At 
 such times he was to be seen mingling with the crowd, 
 dining, or taking his repast at the theatre, in the 
 heart of the mob.^ And then, how he hated the Sen- 
 ate, the Roman nobility, whose temper was so harsh, 
 so averse to the people ! The high-livers who thronged 
 about him were at least good-humoured and civil. The 
 soldiers of the guard, too, always kept a liking for him. 
 For a long time his tomb was to be found decked with 
 fresh flowers, and images of him were laid on the 
 Rostrum by secret hands.* The good fortune of Otho be- 
 gan through having been Nero's confidant and a follower 
 of his ways. Vitellius, also, to find favour in Rome, 
 affected openly to take Nero for his model, and to fol- 
 low his rules of government. Thirty or forty years 
 after, everybody wished he were still alive, and longed 
 for his return.^ 
 
 This popularity — at which we should not be too much 
 
 1 Jos. Ant. XX. 8:3. 2 gugt. Nero, 56. 
 
 8 Ibid. 20, 22 ; Tac. Hist. i. 4, 5, 16, 78; ii. 95 ; Dion Cass. Ixiii. 10. 
 
 4 Suet. Nero, 57. 
 
 5 Dion Chrys. Or. 21: 10: "All wish he were alive, and very many 
 think he is."
 
 256 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 surprised — had one singular result. A report spread 
 abroad that the object of so much regret was not really 
 dead. While he was yet alive, a notion had got started 
 in his immediate circle that he would be dethroned at 
 Rome, but then a new reign would begin for him in 
 the East, almost a messianic reign.-^ There is always 
 some difficulty in a people's believing that men who 
 have long held the world's eye are actually gone. The 
 death of Nero at Phaon's villa, in the presence of 
 few witnesses, — only four, says Suetonius, — had not 
 been exactly an event of public note. All that con- 
 cerned his burial had passed among three women de- 
 voted to him. Hardly any one, except Icelus, had 
 seen the dead body.^ Nothing remained of him that 
 could be recognized. It was easy to believe there was 
 a substitute. Some said that the body had never been 
 found ; others, that the wound in his throat had been 
 bandaged and healed.^ Almost all held that, at the 
 suggestion of the Parthian ambassador at Rome, he 
 had taken refuge with the king of Parthia his ally, 
 forever hostile to the Romans ; or else with Tiridates, 
 that king of Armenia w^hose journey to Rome in 66 
 had been attended by splendid festivals which struck 
 the popular imagination.^ There he was plotting the 
 
 ^ Suet. Nero, 40 ; Tac. Ann. xv. 36. The false Nero dreams only of 
 Syria and Egypt (Tac. Hist. ii. 9). 
 
 2 Plutarch, Galha, 7; Suet. Nero, 49. 
 
 8 Tac. Hisl. ii. 8 ; Sulp. Sev. ii. 29 ; Lact. De mort. persec. 2. 
 
 * Nero had certainly indulged the thought of flying to the Parthian 
 king, Vologeses, and in fact that people were always friendly to him 
 (Suet. 13, 30, 47, 57; Aur. Victor, Nero, 14; Epit. Nero, 8; Cnrm. 
 Sihyll. V. 147). Tiridates had just visited the cities of Asia (Dion Cass. 
 Ixiii. 7: a text wrongly disputed). In any case, opinion was so defi- 
 nite, that all the false Neros appeared among the Parthians or were their 
 agents (Zonaras, xi. 18 ; Tac. Hist. i. 2 ; Suet. Nero^ 57).
 
 THE DEATH OF NERO. 257 
 
 ruin of the empire. He would soon return at the head 
 of horsemen from the East, to torment those who had 
 betrayed him/ His partisans lived in this hope. They 
 were already restoring his images, and putting out 
 edicts with his sign-manual.^ The Christians, on the 
 other hand, who looked on him as a monster, were 
 struck with terror at hearing these rumours, which 
 they believed in, being of the humbler class. These 
 fancies continued for a long time, and, as it commonly 
 happens in such cases, there were several pretenders to 
 the name of Nero, — at least two : one who was killed 
 at Cythnos, and whom we shall hear of again ; and 
 one who appeared under Domitian, about 88.^ We 
 shall soon see the reaction of this opinion in the Church, 
 and its effect upon the prophetic writings of the time. 
 
 Few people were left in their right senses after the 
 strange spectacle they had witnessed. Human nature 
 had touched the limits of possibility. A void was left 
 in the mind, as after a stroke of fever j on all sides 
 
 1 Carm. Sihyll. iv. 119, 137; v. 33, 34, 93, 100, 137, 142, 146, 215-223, 
 362, 385; viii. 70, 146, 152; xii. 93, 94; Asc. of Isaiah, iv. 2 ; Commodian, 
 Carm. v. 820, 862, 925. Comp. Suet. 57 ; Lact. De mort. persec. 2 ; Zo- 
 naras, xi. 18. 
 
 2 Tac. Hist. ii. 8. 
 
 8 See Tac. Hist. i. 2 ; Suet. Nero, 57. Zonaras (xi, 18) speaks of an- 
 other under Titus, but this seems a confusion of date: he may refer to the 
 pretender of Domitian's time. Tacitus (Hist. ii. 8: " ceterorum ") implies 
 more than one after him of Cythnos; but the Parthian policy would 
 hardly be guilty of the same fault twice, or of being duped by the same 
 farce played by two impostors a few years apart. Dion Chrysostom, in 
 the time of Trajan, asserts that many believed Nero to be still alive 
 (Or. 21 : 10). The writer of the fourth Sibylline book (about 80) thinks 
 that Nero is among the Parthians (ver. 119-124, 137-139) and will soon 
 return ; ver. 137 (rdre) might incline us to put the pretended Nero under 
 Titus (cf. 130-136), but the writer seems to speak of a future event. K 
 written later, it would show the vanity of the prediction. 
 
 17
 
 258 ANTICHRIST, 
 
 were spectres and visions of blood. It was told that as 
 Nero passed the Colline gate to take refuge in Phaon's 
 villa, liglitning flashed before his eyes, the earth shook 
 as if gaping open, and the souls of all he had slain 
 thronged upon him.' There was, as it were, a thirst for 
 vengeance in the air. We shall soon witness an inter- 
 lude of the great celestial drama, in which the souls of 
 the slaughtered victims, confined beneath the altar, cry 
 with a loud voice, " How long, Lord, dost thou not 
 judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell upon 
 the earth ? " ^ And white robes are given them, that 
 they may wait yet a little while. 
 
 1 Suet. Nero, 48; Dion Cass. Ixiii. 28. 
 
 2 Rev. vi. 10.
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 DISASTERS AND SIGNS. — A. D. 68. 
 
 Both Jews and Christians had at first greatly rejoiced 
 when they heard of the revolt of Vindex. They sup- 
 posed the empire would perish along with Caesar's 
 house ; and that the insurgent generals, hating Home, 
 would think only of making themselves independent, 
 each in his own province.^ The insurrection of the 
 Gauls was hailed in Judaea as meaning the same thing 
 with that of the Jews themselves.^ This was a com- 
 plete mistake. No part of the empire, except Judaea, 
 wished to see the breaking up of that vast confedera- 
 tion which gave peace and material prosperity to the 
 world. All those countries about the Mediterranean, 
 once enemies, were enchanted to dwell together in 
 amity. Gaul itself, though less quiet than the rest, 
 limited its revolutionary aspirations to the overthrow 
 of evil emperors, the demand for reform, and the desire 
 for a liberal empire. But we m.a,y readily conceive 
 that those accustomed to the ephemeral royalties of 
 the East might think it all over with an empire whose 
 reigning house was just extinct, and believe that the 
 several nations, subjugated within a century or two, 
 would form separate States under the generals in com- 
 mand. For eighteen months, in fact, no one chief of 
 
 1 Rev. xvii. 16. 2 jog. Wars, pr. 2; vi. 6: 2.
 
 26o ANTICHRIST. 
 
 the legions in revolt succeeded in keeping down his 
 rivals permanently. There had never been such con- 
 vulsions throughout the world, — Rome hardly roused 
 from the nightmare of Nero's reign ; in Jerusalem a 
 whole people smitten with frenzy ; the Christians still 
 stunned by the frightful massacre of four years back ; 
 the very earth racked by the most furious tempests. 
 All the world, in short, was dazed, as if the planet itself 
 were shattered and about to perish. The shocking 
 depth of corruption in which pagan society was sunk, 
 the extravagances of Nero, his Golden House, his idiotic 
 art, his colossal images, his portraits more than a hun- 
 dred feet in height,^ had literally made the world crazy. 
 Then on all sides natural disasters broke forth,^ and 
 kept men's minds in a state of terror. 
 
 When we read the Apocalypse without knowing its 
 date or holding its key, such a book seems to us a 
 product of the most individual fancy or caprice. But 
 when we set the vision in its place, in the interval 
 between Nero and Vespasian, w4ien the empire under- 
 went the gravest crisis it had ever known, it is found 
 to be a work marvellously adapted to the condition of 
 the general mind just then.^ We may say, too, the 
 condition of the globe itself; for, as we shall soon 
 see, the physical phenomena of the time made an 
 element in the universal horror. Everybody was wild 
 about miracles ; never was the mind so taken up with 
 prodigies and signs. The Divine Father seemed to 
 have veiled his face. Loathsome spectres, monsters 
 born of the slime, mysterious, seemed to float in the 
 
 1 Pliny, xxxiv. 7: 8; xxxv. 7: 33; Dion Cass. Ivi. 15. 
 
 2 Juv. vi. 409-411. 
 
 8 See, especially, Tac. Hist. i. 3, 18; Ann. xv. 47.
 
 DISASTERS AND SIGNS. 261 
 
 air. Every one tlionght himself at the eve of some 
 unheard-of thing. Belief in signs and omens was 
 universal ; barely some few hundreds, better informed, 
 saw the vanity of them.^ Impostors, heirs more or less 
 legitimate of old Babylonian chimeras, traded on the 
 popular ignorance, and pretended to interpret the 
 prodigies." These wretches made themselves famous ; 
 they were always being driven away and then called 
 back. Otho and Vitellius, especially, were wholly given 
 to them. The highest statesmanship did not scorn to 
 reckon with these childish dreams.^ 
 
 One of the most important branches of Babylonish 
 divination was the interpreting of monstrous births, 
 considered as signs of coming events.* This idea, more 
 than any other, had taken hold upon the Roman mind. 
 Progeny with several heads, in particular, were held 
 to be evident forewarnings, each head, by the symbol- 
 ism found in the Apocalypse, representing an emperor. 
 So with real or pretended hybrids. In this regard, 
 again, the misshapen visions and uncouth images of 
 the Apocalypse reflect the popular tales that filled 
 
 1 Pliny the Elder, the scientist of his day, is extremely credulous. The 
 gravest historians, Suetonius, Dion Cassius (Ixi. 16; Ixv. 1, etc.), take 
 omens to be of value. Tacitus {Hist. i. 18, 86) seems to see their vanity. 
 Galba disdained them (see, however, Plutarch's Galba, 23), and Vespasian 
 also at times laughed at them (Suet. Vesp. 23). 
 
 2 Philostratus, Life of Apollonius, esp. v. 13. 
 
 8 See Val. Max. i. 3; Suet, passim; Tac. Hist. i. 3, 10, 18, 22, 38, 86; 
 ii. 22, 62, 78; Dion Cass. Ix. 35 ; Ixi. 2, 10, 18 ; Ixii. 1; Ixiii. 16, 26, 29; 
 Ixiv. 1, 7, 10; Ixv. 1, 8, 9, 11, 13 ; Ixvi. 1, 9; Zonaras, vi. 5; xii. 16 ; Pliny, 
 ii. 70, 72, 73 : 85, 103 : 106 ; Niceph. i. 17 ; Plut. Galha, 23; Otho, 4; Euseb. 
 Chron. ann. 1973 Abr. 7, 9 Ner. ; Philostr. Apoll. iv. 43; Jos. Wars, vi. 
 5: 3, 4; Virg. Georg. i. 463; Carm. Sihyll. iii. 334, 337, 411; iv. 128, 172; 
 Liv. XXX. 2. 
 
 * Journ. Asiat., Oct.-Dec. 1871, p. 449. 
 
 6 Philostr. Apoll. v. 13; Tac. Ann. xv. 47; Hist. i. 86. 
 
 5
 
 262 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 men's minds. A hog with claws like a hawk was held 
 to be a perfect image of Nero.^ Nero himself had a 
 curious eye for these monstrosities.^ 
 
 Much thought was also given to meteors and signs in 
 the sky. Meteoric stones made a prodigious impression. 
 We know now that the fall of these bodies is periodi- 
 cal, at intervals of some thirty years. At such times 
 there are nio;hts when it seems literallv to rain stars. 
 Comets, eclipses, mock-suns, northern lights in which 
 appear crowns, swords, and streaks of blood, fantastic 
 forms of clouds in time of heat, with traces of battles 
 or strange beasts, — drew eager attention, and seemed 
 never to have been so vivid as in these tragic j^ears. 
 All the talk was of showers of blood, of wonderful 
 thunderbolts, of rivers flowing up-stream, or of bloody 
 torrents. A thousand things never noticed in ordinary 
 times came to have a high importance in the feverish 
 excitement of the public mind.^ The odious charlatan 
 Balbillus availed himself of the effect of these things 
 on the emperor, to stir up his suspicions against the 
 most illustrious, and get from him the most cruel 
 orders.* 
 
 The disasters of the time, furthermore, were some 
 justification for these insane fears. Blood was flowing 
 in torrents on all sides. The death of Nero was in 
 some ways a relief, but it opened a period of civil war. 
 The conflict of the Gallic legions under Vindex and 
 Virginius had been frightful. Galilee was a scene of 
 unexampled desolation, and among the Parthians there 
 
 ^ Tac. Ann. xii. 64. ^ Phlegon, Be rebus mirdb., 20; Pliny, loc. cit. 
 
 ' Tac. Ann. xv. 47; Hist. i. 18, 86 ; Dion Cass. Ixiii. 26; Euseb. Chron. 
 ann. 33; Carm. Sibyll. iv. 172; v. 154. 
 
 * Suet. Nero, 36, 56; Tac. Ann. xv. 47; Pliny, Illst. nat. ii. 25: 23 ; 
 Dion Cass. Ixi. 18.
 
 DISASTERS AND SIGNS. 263 
 
 was the murderous war of Corbulo. It was felt that 
 something worse was coming : the fields of Bedriacum 
 and Cremona were soon to smoke with human gore. 
 Public executions made of the amphitheatres so many 
 hells. The cruelty of military and civil manners had 
 banished all pity from the world. The Christians 
 shrank trembling to the depth of their retreats, and 
 already, we may suppose, repeated to themselves words 
 ascribed to Jesus ^ : " When you hear of wars and ru- 
 mours of wars, be not troubled ; all this must be, but 
 the end is not yet. Nation will rise against nation, 
 and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great 
 earthquakes, terrors, famines, and pestilences on all 
 sides, and great signs in the sky. These things are 
 the beginning of sorrows." ^ 
 
 Famine was now added to massacre. In 68 supplies 
 of grain from Alexandria fell short.^ Early in 69 there 
 was a disastrous inundation of the Tiber, with extreme 
 misery.* A sudden inroad of the sea threw Lycia into 
 mourning.^ In 65 Rome was visited by a horrible pes- 
 tilence; thirty thousand deaths were reported in the 
 autumn.^ The same year was a terrible conflagration 
 at Lyons ; ^ and Campania was swept by cyclones and 
 tornadoes, whose ravages went as far as to the gates of 
 Rome. The order of Nature seemed reversed ; fright- 
 ful tempests spread terror on every side.^ 
 
 1 Matt. xxiv. 6-8; Mark xiii. 7-9; Luke xxi. 9-11. 
 
 ^ On such calamities, particularly famine, considered as signs of the 
 Messiah's coming, see Mishna, Sola, ix. 15; Bab. Talm. Sank. 97 a; 
 Pesikta derahhi Kahna, 51b; P. rabbathi, i. xv.; the midrash Oihoth, ii. 
 58-63. 
 
 ■ oil, 
 
 8 Suet. 45; Tac. xv. 43; Carm. Sibyll. iii. 475. 
 
 * Tac. Hlsf. i. 86; Suet. Otho, 8; Plut. id. 4. 
 
 6 Dion Cass. Ixiii. 26. e Tac. Ann. xvi. 13; Suet. 39. 
 
 ^ Sen. Epist. 91. 8 Xac. Ann. xv. 47 ; Sen. Qucest. nat. vi. 28.
 
 264 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 But the most awful of all were earthquakes. The 
 globe seemed to be undergoing a like convulsion to 
 that of the moral world, as if the earth and man were 
 stricken at once with fever.-^ In a popular commotion, 
 anything that acts on the imagination of the crowd 
 will be connected with the incidents of the moment : 
 a natural phenomenon, a great crime, a multitude of 
 things, accidental and disconnected, are bound and 
 fused together in the great epic that makes man's 
 story from generation to generation. Thus Christian 
 history has embodied in itself all that at various times 
 has moved the popular heart. Nero and a volcanic jet 
 of sulphur-fumes (Solfatara) are quite as important here 
 as a theological essay; we must make room for geo- 
 logical phenomena and the convulsions of the planet. 
 And then, beyond all other natural events, earthquakes 
 force man to bow himself before the Unknown. Where 
 they are frequent, as near Naples, or in tropical Amer- 
 ica, there superstition is epidemic. And so we may say 
 of those periods in which they rage most violently. 
 Never were they more frequent than in the first cen- 
 tury of our era. No time can be recalled when the crust 
 of the old world had been so rudely shaken." 
 
 Vesuvius was now preparing for the awful eruption 
 of 79. In 63, on the fifth of February, Pompeii was al- 
 most buried by an earthquake ; many of the inhabitants 
 refused to return thither.^ The volcanic centre of the 
 Bay of Naples at this time was near Puteoli and Cumae. 
 
 1 Sen. Qiuest. nat. vi. 1. 
 
 2 Juv. vi. 411; Carm. Sihyll. iii. 3il, 401, 449, 4.57, 459; iv. 128, 129. 
 I have been favoured by the director of the observatory at Athens, who 
 has compiled the statistics of earthquakes, with that portion of his record 
 which relates to the period in view. 
 
 8 Tac. Ann. xv. 22; Sen. Qucest. nat. vi. 1.
 
 DISASTERS AND SIGNS. 265 
 
 Vesuvius was still silent ; * but the series of small 
 craters making the region west of Naples, called the 
 Phlegrcean Fields, showed everywhere the trace of fire.^ 
 The Avernus, the marsh of Acheron (Lake Fusaro), 
 Lake Agrano, Solfatara, with the little extinct volcanoes 
 of Astroni, Camaldoli, Ischia, and Nisida, seem at this 
 day something petty ; the traveller receives an impres- 
 sion from them more pleasant than dreadful. But this 
 was not the feeling of antiquity. These hot-pits, deep 
 caverns, boiling springs, sulphurous vapours, hollow 
 sounds, gaping cavities,^ vomiting brimstone fumes and 
 fiery vapour, were an inspiration to Virgil ; they were 
 also an essential feature in apocalyptic literature. The 
 Jew who landed at Puteoli, for trade or intrigue in 
 Rome,* saw this land steaming at every pore, inces- 
 santly shaken, and said to be the abode of giants and 
 of torments.^ The Solfatara, above all, seemed to him 
 a pit of the abyss, a half-closed tunnel into hell. The 
 continual escape of sulphurous vapour from its mouth 
 — was it not a visible proof of a lake of fire under- 
 ground, evidently destined (like the lake of Sodom and 
 Gomorrah) for the punishment of the wicked } ^ The 
 
 ^ There had been eruptions in prehistoric times, but Vesuvius had long 
 been quiet when it burst forth in 79 (Diod. Sic. iv. 21; Strabo, v. 4: 8; 
 Dion Cass. Ixvi. 21, 22; Vitruv. ii. 6: 2; Pliny, Epist. vi. 16). It was 
 cultivated to the top, and only the plain showed a volcanic aspect 
 (^PJilegrcean). 
 
 2 Strabo, v. 4: 4-9. « Bocche d'inferno, "hell-mouths." 
 
 * See " Saint Paul," chap. iv. ; chap. i. above. 
 
 e Strabo, v. 4: 4, 5, 6, 9; vi. 3: 5; Diod. Sic. iv. 21. These titan- 
 myths of the Greeks had been adopted by the Jews (see " Enoch," 
 X. 12). 
 
 * Rev. xiv. 10; xix. 20; xx. 9; xxi. 8. This region was formerly 
 much more volcanic in aspect than now; its plain was covered with 
 brimstone-powder, and there appears to have been no vegetation (Strabo, 
 V. 4: G).
 
 266 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 moral aspect of the region would no less astonish him. 
 Baiae was a bathing and watering place, a centre of 
 luxurious pleasure, a place of fashionable country- 
 houses, a favourite abode of frivolous society.-^ Cicero 
 reproaches himself, in addressing sober people, for hav- 
 ing: his villa in the midst of this " kinsjdom " of bril- 
 liant and dissolute manners.^ Propertius bids his 
 beloved haste away from such a place ; Petronius 
 makes it the scene of Trimalcion's debaucheries ; Sen- 
 eca calls it a " hotel of vices." ^ BaiaB, Bauli, Cumse, 
 Misenum, were witnesses to every folly and crime. 
 The pool of azure waves embraced in the shores of this 
 delightful bay was the scene of those bloody sea-lights 
 of Caligula and Claudius, where thousands of victims 
 perished. What thoughts must fill the soul of a pious 
 Jew, or a Christian fervently praying for the universal 
 conflagration of the world, at sight of that nameless 
 spectacle, those mad constructions amid the waves, 
 those baths, which these puritan folk viewed with 
 horror — like the abhorrence felt by monks of the thir- 
 teenth century for Frederick II., the restorer of these 
 baths. The thought could be only this : " Fools and 
 blind ! " they would say ; " their future abode is be- 
 neath this very spot; they dance over the hell that 
 will soon swallow them up ! " 
 
 Such an impression — which applies alike to Puteoli 
 and to other similar places — is nowhere more striking 
 than in the book of Enoch.* According to one of the 
 
 1 Cic. Pro Ccel. 20. 2 cjc. Ad Alt. i. 16; xiv. 16. 
 
 8 Sen. Epist. .51 ; cf. Mart. i. 63. 
 
 * Chap. Ixvii. 4-1.3 (Dillmann). This passage has been supposed to have 
 been written after the eruption of 79. But, apart from the doubt whether 
 it refers to volcanoes in the West, we find very similar images in Diod. 
 Sic. iv. 21, and Strabo, v. 4 : 8, which were certainly written before 79.
 
 DISASTERS AND SIGNS. 267 
 
 writers of this strange apocalypse, the abode of fallen 
 angels is a subterranean valley in the region of the 
 West, near " the mountain of metals." This mountain 
 is filled with floods of fire ; a smoke as of brimstone 
 pours forth ; there flow from it boiling sulphur-springs 
 (thermal waters), which serve for the healing of dis- 
 eases, and near them the kings and great ones of the 
 earth give themselves up to all manner of delights.-^ 
 Fools and blind ! every day they look upon the tor- 
 ment in store for them, and yet they do not pray to 
 God ! This valley of fire may be that of Gehenna, 
 eastward from Jerusalem, connected by the '' vale of 
 fire " i^mdi en-nar) with the sunken region of the Dead 
 Sea; and in that case the hot springs are those of 
 Callirrhoe, a pleasure resort of Herod, and the quite 
 infernal country of Mach^erus, which is close by.^ But, 
 thanks to the elastic topography of seers, the baths may 
 also be those of Baiae and Cumae ; in the fiery valley 
 we may recognise the Solfatara of Puteoli or the Phle- 
 grasan Fields;^ in the "mountain of metals" we may 
 
 Diodorus, in particular, connects the Phlegrpean Fields directly with 
 Vesuvius, though they are more than twenty miles away. The allusion in 
 " Enoch" may refer simply to volcanic phenomena near Cumas and Bai?e. 
 The phrase, "mountain of molten metal," thought to be descriptive of 
 Vesuvius in action, applies well enough to Solfatara or Puteoli, or to 
 Vesuvius before 79 (see Strabo, 1. c). The aspect of Vesuvius was cer- 
 tainly that of an extinct furnace (see Beule, Le draine du Ve'suve, 64). 
 Besides, the Ethiopic text does not convey the idea of "molten" so 
 clearly as has been supposed. At all events, the text does not say that 
 streams of liquid fire " will one day pour forth " from the valley. 
 
 1 Comp. Strabo, v. 4: 5 : " The hot springs of Baiae serve both for lux- 
 ury and for healing." 
 
 2 Jos. Aniiq. xvii. 6: 5; Wars, i. 33: 5; ii. 21 : 6 ; vii. 6: 3. 
 
 * As the Solfatara is only something more than 300 feet above the sea 
 level, its crater may well be called a "valley," which expression would 
 hardly apply to the crater of the Somma.
 
 268 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 see Vesuvius before the eruption of 79.^ We shall soon 
 see how these strange regions inspired the writer of 
 the Apocalypse, and how the '* bottomless pit " was 
 revealed to him ten years before, by an extraordinary 
 coincidence, nature threw open the crater of Vesuvius. 
 As to the people, it is no mere guess. It could not be 
 without significance that the most tragic region in the 
 world, the theatre of the impious orgies of Caligula, 
 Claudius, and Nero, was at the same time the one re- 
 gion to display most conspicuously the phenomena 
 which almost every one then thought to be typical of 
 hell.- 
 
 Still, not Italy alone, but the entire eastern Mediter- 
 ranean country, felt these earthquake-shocks. For two 
 centuries Asia Minor was constantly disturbed by them.^ 
 Cities had to be rebuilt, again and again. Some places, 
 like Philadelphia, felt shocks almost daily.* Buildings 
 in Tralles were constantly crumbling down ; ^ and a 
 way had to be contrived for banking the houses against 
 one another.^ In the year 17 fourteen towns of the 
 
 1 The title wonld not be justified by anything in the region about the 
 Dead Sea. See, however. Neubaner, Gengr. du Talmude, p. 37, 40. 
 
 2 Naturally, the apocalypses after 79 dwell still more upon these im- 
 ages. See Carm. SihyU. iv. 130; and comp. " Esdras," iv. 6 et seq. 
 (Ethiopic text). 
 
 3 " Nowhere in the world are there such continual earthquakes or so 
 many overthrows of cities as in Asia " (Solinus, Pohjh. 40). Comp. 
 Texier, Asia Minor, pnxs. ; Strabo, index, " terrje motus ; " Philostr. 
 A poll. iv. 6. That is why there are comparatively so few monuments 
 there earlier than the first century a. d. 
 
 4 Strabo, xii. 4:10; cf . 8 : 16, 17, 18. 
 
 ^ Traces of these ruins may still be seen on the slopes of Tmolus and 
 ISIessogis. Those mountains are most extraordinarily splintered, cloven, 
 and cut into ravines, especially near Tralles (A'idin). 
 
 ® For the first centurv b. c, see Jos. Ant. xv. 5:2; Wars, i. 19:3; 
 Ju.stin, xl. 2 ; Euseb. C/iron. Aug. Ann. 19, 25, 39.
 
 DISASTERS AND SIGNS. 269 
 
 mountain region of Tmolus and Messogis were de- 
 stroyed : this was the most dreadful calamity of the 
 sort ever known till then.^ In the years 23,^ 33/ 37,^ 
 46/ 51/ 53/ there were local disasters in Greece, Asia, 
 and Italy. The island of Thera^ suffered a period of 
 volcanic action, and Antioch was frequently shaken.^ 
 Beginning with 59, almost every year is marked by some 
 like disaster.^*' The valley of the Lycus, in particular, 
 with the Christian towns Laodicgea and Colossse, was 
 overwhelmed in 60.^^ When we consider that right 
 here was the centre of the millenarian ideas, the heart 
 of the seven churches, the birthplace of the Apocalypse, 
 we are convinced that there was a close connection 
 between the revelation made at Patmos and the dis- 
 turbances of the soil. Here, in short, is one of the few 
 examples of a reciprocal influence between the geologi- 
 cal history of the globe and the intellectual history of 
 man. The Sibylline poems in like manner show the 
 impression made by the convulsions in the valley of 
 the Lycus.^^ These shocks in Asia Minor excited terror 
 
 1 Tac. Ann. ii. 47; Plin. ii. 84 (86) ; Dion Cass. Ivii. 17 ; Euseb. Chron. 
 Tib. 4; Sen. Qucest. nat.vi. 1; Strabo, xii. 8: 16-18; xiii. 3:5; 4:8 
 Phle^on, Mir., LS, 14 ; Solinus,40; Syncellus, 319; Corp. inscr. Gr. 3450 
 Orelli, 687 ; Moininsen Inscr. regni Neap. 2486 ; Xiceph. H. E. i. 17 
 Carm. Sihyll. iii. 341 ; v. 286. Comp., for b. c. 12, Dion Cass. liv. 30. 
 
 2 Tac. Ann. iv, 13. » Eus. Ann. 33. 
 
 * Suet. Tib. 74. ^ Dion Cass. Ix. 29 ei al. 
 
 6 Tac. Ann. xii. 43. "^ Ibid. 58. 
 
 8 Near Crete, now Santorin, " celebrated as a centre of great volcanic 
 activity." 
 
 ^ Malala, x. pass. 
 
 10 Euseb. Chron. 62, 65; Suet. Nero, 20; Philostr. Apoll. iv. 34; vi. 38, 
 41 ; Sen. Q. N. vi. 1 ; Pliny, H. N. ii. 83 (85). 
 
 " See " Saint Paul," chap. xiii. ; p. 98 {ante) ; Euseb. and Orosius mis- 
 take the date : Tac. xiv 27 settles the question. 
 
 1--2 Carm. Sibijll. iii. 471 ; v. 286-291.
 
 270 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 all about ; they were talked of throughout the world ; ^ 
 and there were few, indeed, who did not look on them 
 as signs of divine wrath.^ 
 
 All this caused a sort of gloom in the air, strongly 
 stimulating to the Christian imagination. In view of 
 such dislocation of both the physical and the moral 
 world, how should not the faithful cry out with deeper 
 conviction than ever, Maran-atha (" The Lord cometh ") ? 
 The earth seemed to them to be crumbling away. In 
 fancy they already saw kings, men of power, and men 
 of wealth in flight, saying to the mountains, ^' Fall 
 upon us ! " and to the hills, " Cover us ! " The old 
 prophets constantly appealed to natural disasters to an- 
 nounce the near coming of " the day of the Lord." A 
 passage of Joel (chap, ii.), which was applied to messi- 
 anic times,^ announced as sure prognostics of that 
 "great and dreadful day" signs in heaven and on 
 earth, — prophets appearing on every side, rivers of 
 blood, fire, smoke, rising like the stem of a palm-trees'* a 
 darkened sun, a bloody moon. Jesus was thought, 
 also, to have predicted " earthquakes, famines, pesti- 
 lences in divers places " as the ^' beginning of birth- 
 pangs," ^ then, as immediate signs of his coming, 
 eclipses, a darkened moon, stars falling from the sky, 
 the air troubled, the sea roaring, populations fleeing in 
 
 1 Juv. vi. 411. 2 Comp. Dion Cass. Ixviii. 25. 
 
 8 Acts ii. 17-21. 
 
 * The word (timrotJi) rendered "pillars" of smoke in Joel ii. 30, 
 means " palm-trees." So Pliny (Epist. vi. 16) compares the column of 
 smoke from Vesuvius to a pine-tree [?io« alia magis arbor quam pinus ex- 
 presseriQ. 
 
 ^ df)X') oi^ivoiv: Matt. xxiv. 7, 8; Mark xiii. 8; Luke xxi. 1. Like all 
 apocalyijtic imagery, these ideas were taken from the old prophets. See 
 Isa. xxxiv. 4 ; Ezek. xxxii. 7, 8 ; conip. Carin. Sibyll. iv. 172 et seq.
 
 DISASTERS AND SIGNS. 271 
 
 terror, not knowing on which side is death or safety.^ 
 Thus terror is a feature in every apocalypse, associated 
 with the idea of persecution.^ Evil, when just coming 
 to an end, would redouble its fury, and make proof of 
 fresh skill in its means for the destruction of saints. 
 
 1 Matt. xxiv. 29 ; Mark xiii. 24, 25 ; Luke xxi. 25, 26. Comp. inci- 
 dents in Luke to Seneca's account of the earthquake at Pompeii in 63 
 (Q. N. vi. 1). 
 
 2 Assumpt. of Moses, 8, 10; Apocal. of Baruch (Ceriani, i. 60, 80; 
 V. 130).
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE APOSTLES IN ASIA. — A. D. 68, 69. 
 
 The province most affected by these terrors was Asia 
 Minor. The church at Colossae had received its death- 
 blow in the catastrophe of A. D. 60.^ Hierapolis seems 
 not to have suffered, though built among the most 
 shapeless remains of a volcanic outburst ; and it is 
 possible that the faithful of Colossae found refuge here. 
 At this time Hierapolis appears, from all indications, 
 to be a city by itself. Judaism was here openly pro- 
 fessed. Inscriptions still extant among the marvel- 
 lously preserved ruins of this singular place speak of 
 the yearly doles to be made to corporations of work- 
 men, at the time of " unleavened bread " and of the 
 Pentecost.^ Nowhere were acts of mercy, charitable 
 institutions,^ societies for mutual help among people of 
 the same trade,* so important as here. Homes for 
 orphans, shelters for infants, prove a developed philan- 
 thropy, such as was rarely to be found.^ Philadelphia 
 had points of similar interest. Here political divisions 
 were drawn on the lines of difference in occupation. In 
 
 1 See p. 98, ante. 
 
 2 See Rev. de Vinstr. puhl. en Beige, May, 1868, p. 1. 
 8 Ibid. p. 7. 
 
 * See "Saint Paul," chap. xiii. ; Waddington, Inscr. 1687. 
 ^ 'Epyaala dptfinariKr) (Waddington); Wageuer, 7, 8; Corp, inscr. gr. 
 3318 ; Notices, etc., xxviii. 2, p. 425.
 
 THE APOSTLES IN ASIA. 273 
 
 almost all these rich cities of Asia Minor society was a 
 peaceful democracy of labourers having nothing to do 
 with politics. A slave might be honoured for his good- 
 ness, and virtue was held to belong especially to those 
 who suffer. About the time of which I speak there 
 was born in Hierapolis a child so poor that he was sold 
 in the cradle, and was known by no other name than 
 " New-bought," * which, thanks to him, has become a 
 very synonym of virtue. From his instructions was to 
 come, one day, that admirable book, a manual for those 
 strong souls who shrink from the supernaturalism of 
 the gospel, and think it a betrayal of duty to ascribe to 
 it any other charm than that of its own austere purity. 
 To Christian eyes Hierapolis had an honour greatly 
 superior to that of having witnessed tlie birth of 
 Epictetus ; it had given hospitality to one of the few 
 survivors of the first Christian generation, one of those 
 who had seen Jesus, — the apostle Philip.^ We may 
 suppose that he came hither after the events which 
 made Jerusalem unendurable for quiet people, and 
 drove the Christians out of it.^ Asia was the prov- 
 ince where Jews were most at their ease, and they 
 thronged into it. Intercourse between Hierapolis and 
 Rome was easy and frequent ; a trader is mentioned 
 who made the journey seventy-two times.* Philip was 
 a priestly person of the old school, like James. He 
 had the repute of working miracles, and even of raising 
 
 ^ Epictetus ('E7ri-«T7;rd?) , i. e., " thrown into the bargain." — Ed. 
 
 « Theodoret, In Ps. cxvi. 1 ; Xiceph. ii. 39. On Philip "the deacon " 
 and Philip " the apostle," see " The Apostles," chap. ix. ; " Saint Paul," 
 chap, xviii. (end). 
 
 3 The Greek menology (Urbin, 1727, pt. 1) takes him thither after the 
 death of John, but these are very late reckonings. 
 
 * Inscr. Gr. 3920. 
 
 18
 
 274 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 from the dead. He had had four daughters, all prophet- 
 esses. One of them seems to have died before he came 
 to Asia ; two others grew old unmarried ; the fourth 
 married in her father's lifetime, prophesied like her 
 sisters, and died at Ephesus.^ These singular women 
 became very distinguished in Asia.^ Papias, who was 
 bishop of Hierapolis about 130, had known them, but 
 had not seen Philip himself. He heard from these 
 aged and enthusiastically devout women wonderful ac- 
 counts of their father's miracles. They also knew 
 many things about other apostles or apostolic persons, 
 particularly Joseph Barsabas, who, they said, drank a 
 deadly poison without injury.^ 
 
 Thus there was established in Asia, near John, a 
 second centre of authority and apostolic tradition. 
 John and Philip raised the country where they had 
 chosen their abode almost to the level of Judea. These 
 two " great lights of Asia," "^ as they were called, were 
 for several years the watchfires of the Church when 
 deprived of its other leaders.- Philip died and was 
 buried at Hierapolis. His virgin daughters lived to a 
 very advanced age, and were laid near him, the mar- 
 ried one being buried at Ephesus ; all their graves 
 
 1 Acts (xxi. 9) and Proclus reckon four prophetesses; the latter relates 
 that they were all buried at Ephesus. Polycrates, better informed, knows 
 only three, two of them unmarried, and one a prophetess who was buried 
 at Ephesus. Clement seems to speak of them all as married. The Greek 
 menology brings two into Asia, and buries one at Ephesus. 
 
 2 "The Apostles," chap. ix. ; Papias (Euseb. ill. 39); Polycrates of 
 Ephesus (id. iii. 31; v. 24); Clem. Alex. Strom, ill. 6; Proclus (Caius: 
 Euseb. iii. 31); Euseb. iii. 30, 31, 37; v. 17; Jer. iv. 2: 181, 673, 785: 
 Niceph. ii. 44; Menol. Gr. Sep. 4. When Irenaius rests the traditional 
 date on the testimony of John and " other apostles," Philip may be in- 
 tended. Xote also the prominence given to Philip in the Fourth Gospel. 
 
 * Euseb. iii. 39. * Euseb. iii. 31.
 
 THE APOSTLES IN ASIA. 275 
 
 might be seen in the second century. Thus Hierapolis 
 had its rival apostolic tombs, as well as Ephesus. The 
 province seemed ennobled by these holy bodies, which 
 men thought they should behold rising out of the earth 
 at the coming of the Lord in glory to raise his chosen 
 from the dead. 
 
 The crisis in Judaea, which in 68 scattered the apos- 
 tles and apostolic men, may have brought back to 
 Ephesus and the valley of the Mgeander other important 
 persons of the infant Church. In any case a large 
 number of disciples, who had seen the apostles at 
 Jerusalem, found themselves again in Asia, and seem 
 to have led there that wandering life so dear to 
 Jews.^ Perhaps the mysterious persons called "John 
 the Elder " and Aristion were of this number — though 
 it seems to me more probable that they were a gen- 
 eration later. These hearers of the Twelve carried 
 through Asia Minor the tradition of the church at 
 Jerusalem, thus giving the preponderance here to Jew- 
 ish Christianity. Tliey were eagerly questioned about 
 the sayings of the apostles and the actual words of 
 Jesus. At a later time, those who had seen them were 
 so proud of having drawn from this pure spring that 
 they looked disdainfully upon the petty writings which 
 professed to report those sayings. 
 
 The state of mind in which these churches lived — 
 hidden in the heart of a province whose gentle climate 
 and pure sky seem to invite to mysticism — had a very 
 special effect on their beliefs. Nowhere else did the 
 messianic ideas so fill men's thoughts. They aban- 
 
 1 Papias in Euseb. iii. 39. The same thing follows from the constant 
 appeal of Irense us to " ancients " -who had lived with the apostles, and 
 whom he had heard of from his master Polycarp.
 
 276 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 doned themselves to extravagant calculations.^ The 
 strangest parables were propagated, derived from the 
 tradition of Philip and John. The gospel developed 
 in this region had in it something mythical and singu- 
 lar.^ It was commonly held that after the resurrection 
 of the body (which was very near) there would be a 
 '' bodily " reign of Christ upon earth for a thousand 
 years.^ The delights of this earthly paradise were de- 
 scribed in a wholly materialistic fashion : the bigness 
 of the clusters of grapes and the abundance of wheat- 
 ears in the Messianic reign were given in exact meas- 
 ure.* That ideal vein which gave so delicate a touch 
 to the simplest words of Jesus is here almost wholly 
 lost, and it may be noted that in the Synoptics the 
 view of the sons of Zebedee as to the divine kingdom 
 is wholly carnal.^ 
 
 In Ephesus the greatness of John increased from day 
 to day.^ His commanding authority was recognized 
 throughout the province, except perhaps at Hierapolis, 
 where Philip lived: thus Hierapolis does not appear in 
 the group of seven churches addressed in the Apocalypse. 
 Those of Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Phila- 
 delphia, and Laodic^ea, had adopted him as their chief, 
 
 1 The Jews in some parts of the East, devoted messianists, spend their 
 time at this day in searching current events for signs of the Messiah, and 
 in reckoning the date by means of wild gheniatrioth. Thus a large num- 
 ber of impostors claim to be Messiah, especially in Yemen. 
 
 2 Euseb. iii. 39. 
 
 8 In all this Eusebius, irritated in his Greek rationalism by this un- 
 bridled millenarianism, sees only the personal errors of Papias. 
 
 < Papias in Iren. v. 33 : 3, 4 ; Apoc. of Baruch (Ceriani), i. 80 ; v. 131. 
 See " Life of Jesus," p. 41, n. 
 
 6 Matt. XX. 20, 21 ; Mark x. 3.5-37. 
 
 8 Epiphanius {H(er. 78 . 11) rejects as unfounded the legends which 
 make Mary, the mother of Jesus, to have resided with hiui at Ephesus.
 
 THE APOSTLES IN ASIA. 277 
 
 and listened with deference to his warning, counsel, or 
 reproach. The apostle (or those who took upon them 
 to speak in his name) generally assumed a tone of 
 severity. His character was marked by great rude- 
 ness, extreme intolerance, with harsh and even coarse 
 language against those whose opinion was opposed to 
 his.^ It was to him that Jesus addressed those words, 
 "He that is not against us is on our side." ^ The 
 anecdotes told afterwards, to put in relief his gentle- 
 ness and softness of heart ^ seem to have been invented 
 to be in accord with the tone of the epistles ascribed to 
 him, of genuineness more than doubtful. Traits of an 
 entirely opposite character, exhibiting much violence of 
 temper, are more in keeping with the gospel accounts* 
 or with the Apocalypse ; and show that the passion 
 which gave him the title " son of thunder " was only 
 embittered by age. It may be, however, that the very 
 opposite qualities ascribed to him need not for that 
 reason be ruled out, as has been thought. Religious 
 fanaticism often yields in the same person the extremes 
 of harshness and gentleness : an inquisitor of the Middle 
 Age, who burned his thousands of victims for the merest 
 subtilties of doctrine, might at the same time be one of 
 the gentlest and even humblest of men. 
 
 The animosity of John and his companions seems 
 to have been especially deep and bitter against the 
 little conventicles of the teacher whom they called 
 *' the new Balaam." ^ Such is the inherent injustice of 
 
 1 Iren. iii. 3:4; Euseb. iii. 28 : 6; Rev. ii., iii. ; 2 John, 10, 11; 3 
 John 9, 10. 
 
 2 Mark ix. 40. 
 
 8 Clem. Alex. Quh dives, 42 ; Euseb. iii. 23 ; Jer. In Gal. vi. 
 
 4 Mark iii. 17 ; ix. 37, 38 ; Luke ix. 49, 54. 
 
 5 See " Saint Paul," chap. xiii. In later time, the name "Balaam"
 
 278 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 party-spirit, such was the passion which inflamed these 
 hard Jewish souls that the disappearance of the " de- 
 stroyer of the Law" was hailed by his adversaries with 
 shouts of joy.-^ For many, the death of this troubler, 
 this intruder, was a real relief. We have seen that 
 Paul found himself at Ephesus surrounded by enemies.^ 
 His last words spoken at Miletus ^ are full of sad pre- 
 sentiment. Early in 69 we shall find hatred against 
 him still obstinate and bitter. After this the contro- 
 versy ceases, and silence veils his memory. At the 
 time under view, no one seems to have spoken a word 
 for him ; and this is just what saved him afterwards. 
 The silence, or (if we will) the feebleness of his adher- 
 ents brought reconciliation. The boldest thoughts get 
 accepted at length, provided they keep long silence, 
 and make no reply to conservative attack. 
 
 With all believers, the dearest thought was of rage 
 against the Roman empire, joy at the disasters that 
 befell it, and hope to see it soon break in pieces. Their 
 sympathy was with the Jewish insurrection, and they 
 were persuaded that the Romans would not come oat 
 of it with success. It was long since Paul, and perhaps 
 Peter, had taudit submission to Roman rule, even as- 
 cribing to it something of a divine character. The 
 principles of high-strung Jews about the refusal of trib- 
 ute-money, the diabolic origin of all pagan power, the 
 idolatry involved in civil actions done after Roman 
 forms, had carried the day. This was the natural con- 
 was also given among the Jews to Jesus (Geiger, Jud. Zelts. vi. 31-37). 
 It had become the type of a false prophet as to the pagans, and a deceiver 
 of Israel. 
 
 1 PrimasiuR, Comment on the Epistles of Paul in the Bihl. max. Palrum 
 (Lyons), x. 144. 
 
 2 " Saint Paul," chap. xv. ^ Acts xx. 29, 30.
 
 THE APOSTLES IN ASIA. 279 
 
 sequence of persecution : moderate views were no longer 
 in place. Persecution, though not so ferocious as in 64, 
 yet continued with a dull pressure.^ The fall of Nero 
 had nowhere else been felt as it was in Asia. In gen- 
 eral opinion, the monster, healed by some satanic power, 
 still kept somewhere hidden, and would presently reap- 
 pear. We may conceive what effect such rumours 
 must have among the Christians. Many of the faithful 
 at Ephesus, including perhaps their Head, had escaped 
 from the dreadful butcheries of Nero. What ! will 
 that horrible Beast return, then, swollen with luxury, 
 folly, and vainglory ? It must be so, those would think 
 who still suspected that Nero was the Antichrist. He 
 it is, that mystery of iniquity, that mortal foe of Jesus, 
 who shall appear to slaughter and torture mankind, be- 
 fore the bright coming of the Latter Day ! ^ Nero is 
 that Satan in the flesh, who will complete the murder 
 of the saints. Yet a little while, and the awful mo- 
 ment will have come ! This thought was the more 
 readily adopted by the Christians, since the death of 
 Nero had been too mean an incident for an Antiochus : 
 persecutors on such a scale commonly perish in a more 
 striking way. The enemy of God, it was inferred, was 
 reserved for some more tragic fate, which should be 
 inflicted on him in view of all men and angels, gathered 
 by the Messiah to the judgment. 
 
 This idea, from which the Apocalypse was born, took 
 more definite shape from day to day. The Christian 
 conscience had arrived at a pitch of ecstasy, when a 
 thing took place in the islands off the Asiatic coast, 
 which all at once gave body and form to what had 
 hitherto been only fancy. A pretended Nero had just 
 
 1 Rev. xii. 17 ; xvii. 14. 2 u g^jnt Paul," ch. ix.
 
 28o ANTICHRIST. 
 
 appeared, and filled the provinces of Asia and Achaia 
 with an eager sentiment of curiosity, hope, or terror.^ 
 He was, it would seem, a slave from Pontus ; according 
 to some, an Italian slave or freedman. In appearance 
 he was much like the dead emperor, having his big 
 eyes, his heavy head of hair, his hawk-like air, his 
 fierce and theatrical aspect; practised, too, like him, 
 with harp and song. This pretender gathered about 
 him a nucleus of deserters and vagabonds, ventured to 
 put to sea, hoping to reach Syria and Egypt, and was 
 wrecked in a storm on the island of Cythnos, one of 
 the Cyclades. This he made the centre of quite an 
 active propaganda, increased his band by enlisting a 
 few soldiers on their return from the East, made bloody 
 executions, plundered some traders, and gave arms to 
 slaves. There was great excitement among the com- 
 mon people, whose credulity made them a prey to the 
 wildest rumours. From the month of December, 68, 
 all the talk in Asia Minor and Greece was of him.^ 
 Apprehension and terror increased from day to day. 
 The name whose evil celebrity had filled the world 
 
 1 The story is told by Tacitus {Hist. ii. 8, 9). Dion Cassius also un- 
 dertook to relate it, but Xiphilin has condensed his account in a brief 
 summary. Zonaras, who also only abridges Dion, adds a few details. 
 (In Zonaras we should read iv YJiQva, not eV KijSi'm.) 
 
 2 The false Nero perished under Otho, consequently between Jan. 15 
 and April 15, a. d. 69, probably near the earlier date. lie was found at 
 Cythnos by Sisenna, who was on his way from Syria to Rome to join the 
 movement of the Pretorian guard who had proclaimed Otho. News went 
 from Rome to Syria in ten days; Sisenna must have set out as soon as 
 the proclamation had been made in Syria, and may have arrived in Cyth- 
 nos about the sixth of February. Asprenas, who arrived after him, was 
 still sailing under the orders of Galba, who was murdered on January 15. 
 At latest, then, the false Nero was wrecked on Cythnos in January, 69. 
 As his intrigues on the mainland had continued for some time, his insur- 
 rection must have begun towards the end of 68.
 
 THE APOSTLES IN ASIA. 281 
 
 turned men's heads afresh, and made them think that 
 all they had yet seen was as nothing compared to what 
 they were about to see. 
 
 The excitement was further increased by events hap- 
 pening in Asia, or the Archipelago, which cannot be 
 here set forth for lack of clear information. An ardent 
 partisan of Nero, who besides his political passion had 
 some repute as a conjurer, declared openly either for 
 the pretender of Cythnos, or for Nero supposed to be 
 in flight among the Parthians. He apparently com- 
 pelled quiet people to acknowledge Nero ; he restored 
 his statues, and forced men to honour them ; we might 
 even be led to think that coin was struck with the 
 leo-end, Nero redux. What we do know is that the 
 Christians imagined it was the intention to make them 
 worship Nero's image. Invincible scruples were roused 
 in them by the coin, the " mark " {xapayixa) or metallic 
 ticket having the name of " the Beast," without which 
 "they could neither buy nor sell." ^ Gold stamped 
 with the sign of the great Head of idolatry burned 
 their hand. Rather than yield to such acts of apos- 
 tasy, some of the faithful seem to have exiled them- 
 selves from Ephesus : we may suppose that John was 
 among them.^ This incident, obscure to us, plays a 
 great part in the Apocalypse, and perhaps was what 
 first prompted the issuing of it. " Hark ! " says the 
 Seer, "this is the end of the long-suffering of the 
 saints, who keep the command of God and the faith 
 of Jesus." ^ 
 
 1 Rev. xiii., xiv. ; note especially, in xiv. 9-12, the writer's urgency, 
 and the phrase, " patience of the saints " (ver. 12). Corap. xx. 4, where 
 " they who had not worshipped the Beast " are put in the same rank with 
 the martyrs under Nero. 
 
 2 llev. i. 9 ; xx. 4. ^ Rev. xiv. 12.
 
 282 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 Events in Rome and Italy justified this feverish out- 
 look. Galba did not succeed in keeping his authority. 
 Down to Nero, the legal title inherited from Julius and 
 Augustus had stifled among the generals any thought 
 of competing for the empire. But now that this title 
 was extinct, any military chief might aspire to that 
 inheritance. Vindex was dead ; Verginius had loyally 
 submitted ; Nymphidius Sabinus, Macer, and Fonteius 
 Capito had expiated their plots by death ; still nothing 
 had been settled. On the second of January, 69, the 
 legions in Germany proclaimed Vitellius ; on the tenth, 
 Galba adopted Piso ; on the fifteenth, Otho was pro- 
 claimed at Rome. For a few hours there were three 
 emperors ; but at night Galba was murdered. Faith 
 in the empire was deeply shaken. It was not thought 
 that Otho could reign alone. Hopes were openly ex- 
 pressed by partisans of the false Nero at Cythnos, and 
 by those who dreamed from day to day that they might 
 see the emperor they mourned returning from beyond 
 the Euphrates. Then, at the end of January,^ there 
 went abroad among the Christians of Asia Minor a 
 symbolic manifesto, claiming to be a revelation from 
 Jesus himself. Did the writer know the death of 
 Galba,^ or did he only foresee it ? This is the harder 
 to decide, since (after the manner of apocalyptic books) 
 
 ^ This date may be open to one objection. The passages in Rev. xi. 
 2, and xx. 9, seem to assume the blockade of Jerusalem as already begun, 
 which it was not till March of the following year. But tliese passages, 
 in poetic style, are justified by the condition to which the revolt had been 
 reduced by Vespasian's campaigns in 67 and 6S (see chap. xii.). Luke 
 xxi. 20, 21, requires a similar explanation. It is clear that when the 
 Apocalypse was written the Temple was still standing: the writer does 
 not even fear lest it may be destroyed. Nor does Rev. xvii. 16 necessa- 
 rily refer to the burning of the Capitol on December 19, 69. 
 
 2 Uev. xvii. 10.
 
 THE APOSTLES IN ASIA. 283 
 
 the writer at times avails himself of some recent event, 
 which he thinks known only to himself, to give the 
 more credit to his prophetic foresight: thus, for exam- 
 ple the composer of - Daniel" seems to have had some 
 hint of the death of Antiochus ; and Commodian may 
 have had private knowledge of the defeat and death of 
 Decius In like manner the Seer of the Apocalypse 
 seems to have had private information of the political 
 events of his time. It is doubtful whether he knew 
 Otho : he thinks that Nero will be restored directly 
 upon the fall of Galba, whom he regards as already 
 condemned, so that the return of the Beast is close at 
 hand. His glowing imagination then displays to him 
 a series of views of what will - shortly come to pass 
 and thus he unfolds chapter after chapter of a prophetic 
 book, whose object is to enlighten the Christian con- 
 science upon the events now passing, to reveal the true 
 meaning of a political situation that disturbs the firm- 
 est minds, and, above all, to reassure them as to the 
 destiny of their brethren already slain. We must call 
 to mind that the credulous sectaries whose thought we 
 are tryino- to retrace were a thousand leagues away 
 from the ideas of the immortality of the soul borrowed 
 from the Greek philosophy. The martyrdoms of recent 
 years made a terrible crisis for a community which 
 trembled like a child at the death of a saint, and ques- 
 tioned anxiously whether such a one should see the 
 
 1 Rev i 1; xxii. 6. The Jews of the time were much inclined to 
 form such conjectures as to the succession of emperors, and what will 
 hlppe:: to e::V. These conjectures are founded on the ^^^^^ 
 of their dreams, eked out with texts of Scnptnre. A talent f^^. ^"^er 
 pre^l these d rk hints was highly prized. Thus Josephus claims to 
 have known beforehand the accession of the Flavian family (TUrs, m. 
 8: 3).
 
 284 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 kingdom of God.^ They felt an unconquerable need to 
 conceive of those who had died in the faith as in shel- 
 ter, and already happy — though only in transitory 
 bliss — amid the disasters which were to afflict the 
 earth.^ The brethren heard their cries ior vengeance, 
 felt their pious impatience, and called for the day 
 when God would arise at length and avenge his own 
 chosen ones. 
 
 The form of " apocalypse " chosen by the writer was 
 not new in Israel. Ezekiel had introduced a consider- 
 able change in the old prophetic style, and he may be 
 regarded as, in a sense, the creator of the class of 
 literature known as apocalyptic. For burning appeal, 
 sometimes accompanied by allegoric acts extremely 
 simple, he had — doubtless under the influence of As- 
 syrian art — substituted vision ; that is, a complex 
 symbolism, in which the abstract idea is represented by 
 imaginary beings outside of all reality. Zechariah con- 
 tinued upon the same road ; vision became the obliga- 
 tory framework for all prophetic instruction. Finally, 
 the writer of " Daniel," by the extraordinary fame he 
 won, fixed definitely the rules for this order of compo- 
 sition. The Book of Enoch, the Assumption of Moses, 
 certain Sibylline poems,^ were the fruit of this povv^erful 
 
 1 See " Saint Paul," chap. ix. ^ Rev. xiv. 13. 
 
 8 The specimens of apocalyptical literature, known or attested, may be 
 approximately classed thus : 1. Daniel, about b. c. 164 ; 2. Sibylline 
 poem (Jewish, iii. §§ 2, 4) ; 3. Book of Enoch; 4. Assumption of Moses; 
 5. Apocalypse of John ; 6. Sibylline poem, iv., a. d. 80; 7. Apocalypse of 
 Esdras, a. d. 97; 8. Apocalypse of Baruch; 9. Ascension of Isaiah ; 10. 
 Sibylline poems of the 2d century; 11. Apocalypse of Peter (canon of 
 Muratori, 70, 71) ; 12. Apocalypse of one Judas, time of Sept. Severus 
 (Kus. vi. 7); 13. Commodian, Can«en ; about a. d. 250. To these we may 
 add "Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs," and the "Shepherd" of 
 Hermas. Others, "apocryphal apocalypses," published by Tischendorf 
 (Leipzig, 18GG), are more receut imitations.
 
 THE APOSTLES IN ASIA. 285 
 
 stock. This framework of fancy was well suited to 
 the prophetic genius of the Semites/ their habit of 
 grouping events in some general scheme of history, and 
 exhibiting their own thought in the guise of a divine 
 necessity, with broad clear glimpses into the future. 
 To every critical situation in the affairs of Israel there 
 was thenceforth a book of visions to correspond. The 
 persecution of Antiochus, the Roman conquest, the pro- 
 fane rule of Herod, — each had called out its ardent 
 Seer. Inevitably, the reign of Nero and the siege of 
 Jerusalem must have their apocalyptic message ; just 
 as afterwards the cruelties of Domitian, Hadrian, Sep- 
 timius Severus, and Decius, and the invasions of the 
 Goths (a. d. 250), called forth each its own. 
 
 The writer of this strange book, destined by a stran- 
 ger fate to such wildly differing expositions, com- 
 posed it in obscurity, freighted it with the whole 
 weight of the Christian conscience, and sent it as an 
 epistle to the seven chief churches of Asia, — Colossge 
 and Hierapolis, as we have seen, not being included. 
 He required that it should be read, as was the custom 
 with all apostolic letters, to the assembled brethren 
 (i. .3). In this he perhaps had in mind the example of 
 Paul, who had rather address his hearers by letter than 
 in person.^ Such missives were not rare, and their topic 
 was always the looked-for coming of the Lord. As- 
 sumed revelations in the name of different apostles were 
 current, predicting that the Last Day was at hand ; so 
 that Paul found himself compelled to warn his churches 
 against the abuse that might be made of his name to 
 
 1 See a letter from Abd-el-Kader, on the future of Islam : Journal des 
 Debats, 14 July, 1860. 
 
 2 2 Cor. X. 10.
 
 286 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 support sucli frauds.* The present book opens witTi an 
 introduction to set forth its source and extreme im- 
 portance : thus, — 
 
 Revelation (d7ro/ca\i;\|rt9) of Jesus Christ, which God gave 
 him to show his servants what will speedily come to pass, and 
 which he sent by his own angel ^ to his servant John, who 
 offers himself as an eye-witness, a pledge of the word of God 
 and of the declaration of it made by Christ.^ Happy is he 
 that shall [publicly] read, and they who shall hear the words 
 of this prophecy and heed them ; for the time is at hand. 
 
 John to the seven churches of Asia : Grace and peace be 
 to you from Him wlio is, and was, and will be, and from the 
 seven Spirits who stand before his throne,* and from Jesus 
 Christ, the faithful witness, the first-born from among the 
 dead, prince of the kings of the earth, who loves us and 
 has washed us from sin in his own blood, who has made us 
 kings and priests of God his Father, to whom be glory and 
 power for ever. Amen. 
 
 Behold, he comes upon the clouds, and every eye of those 
 who pierced him ^ shall look upon him, and all tribes of the 
 earth shall be in mourning [" beat their breasts "] at the 
 sight of him. Yes, verily. " I am the alpha and the omega^'' 
 saith the Lord God ; " he that is, and was, and will be ; the 
 Almighty." 
 
 I, John, your brother and companion in persecution, in tlie 
 kingdom and firm expectation of Christ, found myself in 
 the island called Patmos, through (Sia) the word of Gdrd and 
 the testimony of Jesus Christ.^ I was in a trance {iv irvevixart) 
 
 ^ 2 Thess. ii. 2 ("nor by letter as from us'*). 
 
 2 Or messenger : comp. xix. 9, 10 ; xii. 6. 
 
 8 We might incline to render this : " AVho has given testimony to the 
 word of God and the preaching of Jesus, of which he was an eye-witness." 
 But i. 19, 20, with xx. 4, show that these words are spoken of this 
 present vision. 
 
 * Rev. viii. 2; Tob. xii. 15. ^ See John xix. 37; Zech. xii. 10. 
 
 ^ The formula (i. 9) is obscure; of. i. 2j vi. 9; xi. 7; xii. 11, 17; xix. 
 10 ; XX. 4.
 
 THE APOSTLES IN ASIA. 287 
 
 on the Lord's Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, like 
 the sound of a trumpet, saying, " What thou shalt see write 
 in a book, and send it to the seven churches at Ephesus, 
 Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Lao- 
 dicaea." And I turned back to see the Voice that spoke to 
 me ; and when I had turned I saw seven candlesticks of gold, 
 and in the midst of the candlesticks One like a son of man,i 
 clad in a long robe ^ and girt about the breast with a belt of 
 gold.^ The hair of his head was glittering like a white fleece, 
 or like snow ; his eyes were like a flame of fire ; his feet like 
 fine brass in a blazing furnace ; and his voice like the sound 
 of many waters.* In his right hand he held seven stars, and 
 from his mouth went forth a broad, sharp two-edged sword ; 
 and the sight of him was as of the sun in its strength. And 
 when 1 saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man ; but he 
 laid his hand on me, and said, " Do not fear. I am the first 
 and the last, and am alive ; I was dead, and behold I live for- 
 ever [ages of ages] ; and I hold the keys of death and of the 
 grave [Hades]. Write, then, what thou hast seen, both that 
 which is and that which will be after this, — the mystery of 
 the seven stars in my right hand, and the seven candlesticks. 
 The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the 
 seven candlesticks are the seven churches." 
 
 In the Jewish notions of the time, half gnostic or 
 cabalistic, every person,^ and even every ideal existence 
 — as Death or Grief — has a guardian angel: there 
 was an angel of Persia, of Greece, — as the " guards" 
 (fn'P) of Daniel and the "watchers" {iyptj-yopoi) of 
 Enoch ; ^ an angel of the waters,"^ of fire,^ of the winds,^ 
 
 ^ The common title of the INIessiah in apocalyptic books : Dan. vii. 13 ; 
 Matt. viii. 20. 
 
 2 Like the Jewish high-priest: Jos. Anf. iii. 7:4; xx. 1:1; Dan. x. 5. 
 
 2 Comp. Jos. Ant. iii. 7: 2 (npos a-ripvov). 
 
 ^ All this is imitated from Daniel x. 5, 6. ^ Matt, xviii. 10. 
 
 ^ Dan. X. 13, 20; Dent, xxxii. 8. Accordins: to Shir hasshirim rabba, 
 no people is punished but that its angel is punished first. 
 
 '' Rev. xvi. 5. ^ Ibid. xiv. 18. ^ Ibid. vii. 1.
 
 288 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 and of tlie Pit.^ Natural!}^, then, each church had its 
 celestial representative. To this " angel " [ferouer or 
 genius'^) oi each community the Son of Man addresses 
 his admonition, each in turn. 
 
 To the angel of the church in Ephesus : This is what He 
 says who holds the seven stars in his right hand, and walks 
 in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks : — 
 
 I know thy works and toil and patience ; and that thou 
 canst not endure the wicked. And thou hast tried those who 
 call themselves apostles but are not [an allusion to Paul], and 
 hast found them liars, and hast borne all things for my name, 
 and hast not wearied. But I have it against thee that thou 
 hast let go thy first love. Remember, then, from what thou 
 hast fallen, and repent, and return to thy first works ; or else 
 I will come to thee quickly, and take thy candlestick out of its 
 place, unless thou repent. But this is in thy favour, that 
 thou hatest the works of the Nicolaitans,^ which I also hate. 
 Let him who has an ear hearken to what the Spirit says to 
 the churches ! To him that overcomes I will give to eat from 
 the tree of life which is in the paradise of God.* 
 
 To the angel of the church in Smyrna : This is what He 
 says who is first and last, who was dead and is alive : 
 
 1 know thy works and suffering and poverty — yet thou art 
 rich ; and the evil words of those [the followers of Paul] who 
 call themselves Jews while they are not, but are a synagogue of 
 Satan.^ Be not afraid of what thou hast to suffer. Behold, 
 
 ^ Rev. ix. 11. So the angels of the winds (in Enoch xx.); of the sea (Bab. 
 Talm., Bdba bathra, 74 J); of rain {l(L Taanilh, 25 b) ; of hail (if/. Pesachim, 
 118 a). See also Apoc. of Adam, in the Journ. Asint., Nov. -Dec, 1853; 
 and especially an analysis of the Divan of the Mendaites in Migne's Did. 
 des Apncr. i. 283-285. 
 
 2 So the " genius of indirect contributions : " Comptes rendus de I' Acad., 
 1868, p. 109. 
 
 8 The partisans of Paul. See " Saint Paul," chaps, x., xiii. 
 
 4 Rev. ii. 1-7. 
 
 ^ " Satan " here repre.sents idolatry. The Pauline gatherings are here 
 called idolatrous feasts, because "unclean " meats and those sacrificed to 
 idols are eaten in tliem, as in pagan festivals.
 
 THE APOSTLES IN ASIA. 289 
 
 the false accuser will cast many of you into prison, that you 
 may have your ton days' trial.^ But be faithful to death, and 
 I will give thee a crown of life. Let him who has an ear 
 hearken to what the Spirit says to the churches ! He that 
 overcomes will have nothing to suffer from the second death.^ 
 
 To the angel of the church at Pergamos : This is what He 
 says who holds the sharp two-edged sword : — 
 
 I know that where thou livest is the home of Satan.^ But 
 thou hast kept my name and hast not denied my faith, even 
 when Antipas my faithful witness was slain among you, in 
 the place where Satan dwells.* But I have something against 
 thee ; that there are with thee men who hold the doctrine 
 of Balaam, who taught Balak to lay a snare for the sons of 
 Israel, to eat meats sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornica- 
 tion.s So do those who profess the doctrine of the Nicolai- 
 tans. Repent, then ; or I will come to thee speedily, and fight 
 against thee with the sword of my mouth. Let him who has 
 an ear hearken to what the Spirit says to the churches ! To 
 him that overcomes I will give of the hidden manna,^ and I 
 will bestow on him a white pebble,^ on which will be written 
 a new name, which no one will know excepting him who has 
 received it.^ 
 
 To the angel of the church at Thyatira : This is spoken by 
 
 1 Dan. i. 14, 15. 
 
 2 Rev. ii. 8-11. All men die once, but the wicked will die twice; for 
 after the resurrection and judgment they will be thrust back into complete 
 extinction. 
 
 8 An allusion to the worship of ^sculapins at Perg-amos. His serpent 
 must have been taken by the Jews for a special symbol of Satan. 
 
 ^ The amphitheatre. See p. 160, ante. 
 
 5 Num. xxiv., XXV. Another allusion to the partisans of Paul. 
 
 « Ex. xvi. .33 ; Carm. Sihyll , proem, 87. 
 
 ' The mark for acquittal at court. If the trial was by lot, names 
 ■were written on white pebbles. Victors at the Olympic and other games 
 received a ballot in like form, entitling them to sundry privileges ; and 
 similar ballots were used to indicate prizes in a lottery (Suet. Caius, 18; 
 Dion Cass. Ixvi. 2.")). The " new name " is that which the elect will bear 
 in the heavenly kingdom. 
 
 8 Rev. ii. 12-17. 
 
 19
 
 290 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 the Son of God, whose eyes are as a flame of fire, and his feet 
 as fine brass : — 
 
 I know thy works and thy love and thy faith and thy 
 ministry of cliarity and patience, and that thy last works 
 are more than those before. Yet I have this against thee, 
 that thou leavest free that woman Jezebel,^ calling herself a 
 prophetess, who teaches and misleads my servants to commit 
 fornication, and to eat meats sacrificed to idols. I have given 
 her time to repent, and she will not repent.'-^ Behold I will 
 cast her upon a bed [of sickness], and those who have sinned 
 with her I will punish with great suffering if they will not 
 repent of their misdeeds; and her children 1 will put to death, 
 and all the churches shall know that it is I who search the 
 reins and the heart : I will repay to you every one according 
 to his works. And to the others of you in Thyatira, who do 
 not hold that doctrine, or know — to use their own words — 
 "the deep things" of Satan,^ I will not lay upon you any other 
 burden.* But what you have, hold fast until I come. lie 
 who shall overcome and keep my works until the end, I will 
 give him power over the nations ; and he shall rule them 
 with a rod of iron,^ and like earthen vessels they shall be 
 shivered in pieces, as I have received power of my Father ; 
 and I will give him the morning star. Let him who has an 
 ear hearken to what the Spirit says to the churches ! 
 
 To the angel of the church at Sardis : This is what He says 
 who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars : — 
 
 1 know thy works ; thou hast a name that thou livest, and 
 art dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the remaining things, 
 wliich are ready to die ; for I have not found thy work perfect 
 before my God. Remember how tliou hast received and heard 
 
 ^ This is some woman of influence at Tliyatira, a disciple of Paul. 
 
 2 See " Saint Paul," chap. vi. 3 1 Cor. ii. 10. 
 
 * The pagan converts might suppose, from his extreme severity as to 
 unlawful meats, that he would force upon them all the burden of the 
 Mosaic Law. He reassures them by saying they have only to observe the 
 rule as laid down in Acts xv. 
 
 5 Ps. ii. 9 (differently pointed), considered as applying to the IMessiah. 
 This passage is a favourite one with the Seer. Comp. xii. 5 ; xix. 15.
 
 THE APOSTLES IN ASIA. 291 
 
 the word, and hold it fast, and repent. If thou watch not, I 
 will come like a thief,^ and thou wilt not know at what hour 
 I shall come. Still, thou hast a few names in Sardis of those 
 who have not defiled their garments ; they shall walk with me 
 in white apparel, for they are worthy. He that overcomes 
 shall thus be clad in white raiment, and I will not blot his 
 name from the book of life ; ^ and I will confess him before 
 my Father and his angels. Let him that has an ear hearken 
 to what the Spirit says to the churches ! 
 
 To the angel of the church in Philadelphia : Thus speaks 
 the Holy One, the true. He who holds the key of David, who 
 opens and no man can shut,^ who shuts and none can open : — 
 
 I know thy works : behold, 1 have set before thee an open 
 door [for the advancement of the gospel] , which no man can 
 shut; though weak, thou hast kept my word, and hast not 
 denied my name. Behold, I will cause these men of the syn- 
 agogue of Satan, who call themselves Jews and are not, but 
 lie, — I will cause them to come and throw themselves at thy 
 feet, that they may know thee to be dear to me. Because 
 thou hast kept my command of patience, I too will preserve 
 thee from the hour of bitter trial which must come upon all 
 the world to prove those who live upon the earth. I come 
 quickly ; keep well what thou hast, that no one may take thy 
 crown. Him that overcomes I will make a pillar in the tem- 
 ple of my God, and he shall no more go out, and I will write 
 upon him (this pillar) the name of my God [Jehovah], and 
 the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, coming 
 down out of heaven from my God, and my own new name.* 
 Let him who has an ear hearken to what the Spirit says to 
 the churches ! 
 
 To the angel of the church of Laodicea : Thus speaks the 
 Amen,5 ^Ije faithful and true witness, the first-born of the 
 creation of God : — 
 
 1 Matt. xxiv. 43 ; 1 Thess. v. 2. 
 
 "^ Dan. xii. 1 ; Enoch xxvii. 3. 8 jgg,. xxii. 22. 
 
 * Comp. Rev. xix. 12. 
 
 * Christ, in whom all is spoken and proved true (Isa. Ixv. 16.)
 
 292 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 I know thy works ; thou art neither cold nor hot. Would 
 that thou wert either cold or hot ; but, since thou art luke- 
 warm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my 
 mouth. Thou say est to thyself, " I am rich and full of abun- 
 dance, and need nothing ; " ^ and seest not that thou art 
 wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. I 
 counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire,^ that thou 
 mayest be truly rich ; and white raiment to wear, to hide the 
 shame of thy nakedness ; and ointment to anoint thine eyes, 
 that thou mayest see clearly. Those whom I love I rebuke 
 and chastise : be zealous, therefore, and repent. Behold, I 
 stand at the door and knock ! If any one will hear my voice, 
 and open the door, 1 will come in to him, and will eat with 
 him, and he with me. To him that overcomes I will grant to 
 sit with me upon my throne ; even as I too have overcome, 
 and sit with my Father on his throne. Let him who has an 
 ear hearken to what the Spirit says to the churches ! 
 
 Now, who is this " John," who dares to make him- 
 self the interpreter of the celestial decrees, who speaks 
 in such a tone of authority to the churches of Asia, 
 who boasts of having endured the same persecutions 
 with his readers?^ It is either the apostle John, or 
 another teacher of the same name, or some one who 
 wishes to pass as the apostle. It is hardly to be ad- 
 mitted that in the year 69, in the apostle's lifetime or 
 very soon after his death, any one assumed that name 
 without his consent for counsels and reprimands so 
 close-home. Nor among those bearing the same name 
 would any one have dared to take that tone. "John 
 the Elder," the only one suggested, if he ever existed, 
 belonged (from all that appears) to a later generation.^ 
 
 ^ Laodicea was a very wealthy city: Tac. Ann. xiv. 27. 
 2 Isa. Iv. 1. 
 
 ^ Rev. i. 9: the expression in ver. 2 is ambiguous. 
 * Papias in Euseb. iii. 39.
 
 THE APOSTLES IN ASIA. 
 
 293 
 
 Doubts, I admit, beset all questions of genuineness of 
 the so-called apostolic writings. We see how small 
 scruple was felt at ascribing to apostles, or sainted 
 persons, revelations for which authority was sought.-^ 
 But I hold it as probable that the Apocalypse is really 
 the work of the apostle John ; or, at least, that it was 
 acknowledged by him, and addressed to those churches 
 by his sanction.^ The deep impression made by Nero's 
 massacres, the sense of the dangers which the writer 
 has incurred, the horror of Rome, — all seem to suit 
 the apostle, who, in my view of it, had been in Rome, 
 and might say of those tragic events, " I, too, had my 
 share in them." ^ He is choked and blinded with blood : 
 he cannot see things as they are. The picture of the 
 atrocities of that time besets him like a fixed idea. 
 But serious objections here make the task of criticism 
 very delicate. The fondness of the early Christian ao-e 
 for mystery and apocryphal writing has wrapped in 
 thick darkness every question of New-Testament lite- 
 rary history. Happily, the soul speaks out in these 
 nameless or misnamed books in tones which cannot 
 deceive. It is out of our power to distinguish each 
 man's part in a popular movement : the true creative 
 genius is the spirit that animates all. 
 
 Whoever the writer of the Apocalypse may be, whv 
 did he choose the island of Patmos as the scene of his 
 
 1 2 Thess. ii. 2; Kev. xxii. 18, 19. Compare the cases of " Daniel " 
 and " Enoch," observing that the assumed writer is at a distance of cen- 
 turies; while the real and the pretended writer of the Apocalypse would 
 be contemporary. 
 
 ^ See Iniroiluction to this volume, pages 12-24, 28, 29. 
 
 8 Compare the situation, in England (1706), of Elie ]\Iarion, who had 
 taken part in the insurrection of the Camisards in the Cevennes under 
 Louis XIV., whose testimony is mingled with ecstasies and visions.
 
 294 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 vision ? It is hard to say ; there is no symbolic mean- 
 ing; in the name which we can detect. Patmos, or 
 Patnos {Patim), is a little island some twelve miles 
 long and very narrow.-^ In Greek antiquity it was 
 flourishing and populous.^ In the Roman period it 
 retained all the importance which its size admitted, 
 owing to its port, formed at the middle of the island 
 by the isthmus which joins the northern and southern 
 portions. In the coasting navigation of the time, Pat- 
 mos was the first or the last stopping-place on the way 
 between Rome and Ephesus. It is an error to speak of 
 it as a reef or a desert. It was once, and may be again, 
 one of the most important seaports of the Archipelago, 
 being at the point where many lines meet. If Asia 
 should revive, Patmos would be to that what Syra is 
 to modern Greece, or what Delos or Rlienea was in 
 antiquity, — a sort of way-station for marine traffic, and 
 a centre of correspondence serviceable to travellers. 
 
 1 See L. Ross, Reisen (1843), ii. ; Tischendorf, Reisen (1846), ii. 258- 
 265; id. Terre Sainte (tr., 1868), 278-284; V. Guerin, Description, etc., 
 Paris (1856); Stanley, Sermons in the East (1863), 225; Julleville (Rev. 
 des cours litt. March, 1867). It has now about 4,000 inhabitants. It is 
 composed of three rocky masses, connected by narrow necks, the summits 
 being somewhat under 1,000 feet high. 
 
 ^ Patmos is rarely mentioned by the ancient writers: Strabo, x. 5: 13; 
 Pliny, iv. 23; Thucyd. iii. 33, according to the scholiast. But the in- 
 scriptions are instructive: Corpus inscr. Gr. 2261, 2262; Ro?s, fasc. ii. 
 189, 190; Guerin, 85, 86, besides two effaced. The ancient city was at 
 the present port ; its acropolis, part cyclopean and part hellenic, still ex- 
 ists. The principal legend of the Greek town regarded a temple built by 
 Orestes to the Scythian Artemis (inscr 190, Ross): this was probably on 
 the site of the monastery built by Christodoulos in the eleventh century. 
 The island contains many ancient ruins, some from a very remote time 
 (Guerin, 9--1.5, 8.5-93; Ross, 138). It appears to have formerly been better 
 wooded and watered than now. The Greek population is estimated by 
 Guerin to have been twelve or thirteen thousand. There were, besides, 
 several villages, whose population he reckons at three or four thousand.
 
 THE APOSTLES IN ASIA. 295 
 
 This was probably the ground of the choice which 
 afterwards gave to Patrnos such celebrity in Christian 
 annals, — whether the apostle was compelled to with- 
 draw thither to escape some local persecution at Ephe- 
 sus ; ^ or whether, returning from a visit to Rome,"^ he 
 prepared the message, which he wished to send in ad- 
 vance into Asia, in one of the lodging-houses which 
 must have lined the port;^ or whether, taking (as it 
 were) a step back, in order to strike a harder blow, and 
 judging that Ephesus could not be well made the scene 
 of the vision, he chose an island in the Archipelago, 
 about a day's sail distant, connected with the city by 
 
 1 Rev. i. 9 (comp. vi. 9; xx. 4: see p. 281,282, ante; 322, 323, posO- 
 The idea of an exile, properly so-called (Tert. Prcescr. 36), must be set 
 aside. The islands which served as places of legal banishment were, as 
 we know, Gyaros, Pandataria Pontia, and Planasia; Patmos is not among 
 them. They were selected because they had neither harbour nor town ; 
 while Patmos has excellent anchorage (Guerin, 90-94), and had a con- 
 siderable town. Gyaros, for example, is nothing like Patmos. The 
 church tradition that John was exiled to Patmos under Domitian is an 
 anachronism. There is, fui'ther, no question of solitude, the island being 
 fairly populous. 
 
 2 The entrance to the harbour of Patmos is easy to those coming from 
 Rome, and hard to those from Ephesus. I tried it myself; and, after a 
 day of effort, our boat had to abandon the attempt to run the channel. 
 
 ' The "grotto" is an invention of the Middle Age. It is scarcely 
 necessary to remark that the passage which speaks of Patmos (i. 9, 10) 
 does not imply that the book was written there: the aorist, iyevofxrjv. 
 would rather convey the contrary. Furthermore, the distrust as to the 
 Apocalypse long felt in the Greek Church was such that Prochorus, in 
 the fourth century, recounting in detail the stay of John at Patmos, says 
 not a word of that book, and brings John thither only to write his gos- 
 pel: see Guerin's analysis of the Patmos MS. {I. c. 27, 31, 39, 44), which 
 seems most in conformity with the primitive text (compare eds. of I\l. 
 Neander, following Luther's Catechesis parva, Basel, 1567, 526-663; Gry- 
 nseus, Monum. PP. orlhod. i. 85; Birch, Auct. Cod. Apocr. N. T., 262- 
 307, and the Latin translation in Bihl. Max. Pair. ii. 46). Before Saint 
 Christodoulos, the island seems not to have been the object of special 
 veneration.
 
 296 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 daily navigation ; * or whether he kept a remembrance 
 of his last landing-place on his voyage, so full of deep 
 emotion, when he returned from Rome in 64 ; or 
 whether, finally, it was a mere accidental detention of 
 a few days at that port. This could not, at all events, 
 have been his first journey to Ephesus ; for his relations 
 with the churches of Asia imply that he must previ- 
 ously have lived in this region. The navigation of the 
 Archipelago is full of risks, of which an ocean passage 
 gives no idea ; for in the great sea there are prevailing 
 constant winds which you may take advantage of, even 
 if they are contrary, while here it may be either dead 
 calm or a stiff breeze when you are making a narrow 
 channel ; so that you are by no means master of your 
 course, but must land where you can, not where you 
 would. 
 
 Men of so warm temper as these harsh and fanati- 
 cal descendants of the old Israelitish prophets took 
 their imagination with them wherever they went ; and 
 this imagination was so strictly bound up within the 
 circle of ancient Hebrew poetry that the nature about 
 them was to them as if it were not. Patmos is like all 
 the islands of that archipelago, — an azure sea, trans- 
 parent air, bright sky, rocks with irregular peaks, 
 barely covered at times with a down of verdure. The 
 outlook is naked and barren ; but the forms and colours 
 of the cliffs, the bright blue of the sea with its lines of 
 beautiful white birds, relieved against the ruddy tints 
 of the rocks, are exquisite. These hundreds of isles 
 and islets, of the most varied forms, which emerge like 
 pyramids or float like shields upon the water, dancing 
 
 ^ It is at this day a six hours' sail from Scala Nova to Patmos, the 
 means of passage being about the same as in ancient days.
 
 THE APOSTLES IN ASIA. 297 
 
 as it were in an eternal round about the horizon, seem 
 the fairy realm of sea-gods and ocean-nymphs, who 
 lead their brilliant lives of love, youth, and melan- 
 choly in grottos of grayish green, on shores devoid of 
 mystery, by turns gracious and terrible, of alternate 
 brightness and gloom. Calypso, the Sirens, Triton and 
 Nereid, the perilous fascination of the sea, its caress 
 at once voluptuous and deceitful, — all those fine ap- 
 peals to sense, which have their inimitable expression 
 in the Odyssey, were as nothing to the sombre vision- 
 ary. Two or three single points, — a certain haunting 
 presence hinted in the words " there w^as no more sea " 
 in the vision of a new creation ; ^ the striking image 
 of a fiery mountain cast upon the sea^ turning a third 
 part of its waves to blood (an image apparently taken 
 from the volcanic island Thera, then in active erup- 
 tion),^ these alone give a touch of local colour.^ Out 
 of a little island, suited to be the background of some 
 sylvan idyll of Daphnis and Chloe, or for scenes of 
 shepherd life like those of Theocritus and Moschus, this 
 writer has constructed a black volcano filled with ashes 
 and flame. And yet, more than once, he must have 
 felt upon these waves the calm silence of night, when 
 is heard only the note of the kingfisher or the heavy 
 puffing of the dolphin. For whole days Mount Mycale 
 was in full view, yet he never once thought of the 
 Greek victory over the Persians,^ the finest ever won 
 
 1 Rev. xxi. 1. 2 7i/,7. yjij. g. 
 
 * Sen. Q- N. ii. 26; vi. 21. Even when sleeping it has the look of an 
 island half-burnt (Stanley, Servians, p. 230, n. 8). 
 
 ■* Mount Kynops, in Patmos, shows some slight volcanic features 
 (Guerin). 
 
 ^ The view of the mainland from Patmos is mostly intercepted by a 
 chain of islands. But Mount Mycale, Miletus, and Priene are plainly 
 seen.
 
 298 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 after Marathon and Thermopylae. At this central 
 point of so many mighty works of Grecian genius, a 
 few leagues from Samos, Cos, Miletus, and Ephesus, he 
 thought of something else than the intellect of Pythag- 
 oras, Hippocrates, Thales, or Heraclitus ; to him the 
 glorious memories of Greece had no existence. The 
 poem of Patmos should have been some Hero and 
 Leander, or a pastoral of Longus, telling the sports of 
 pretty children on the threshold of love. But the 
 sombre enthusiast, thrown by chance upon this Ionian 
 shore, could not escape his biblical traditions. Nature 
 was to him the living chariot of Ezekiel, the monstrous 
 cherub, the uncouth bull of Nineveh, a distorted zool- 
 ogy, setting the painter's or sculptor's art at defiance. 
 The strange defect of vision in orientals, which distorts 
 the images of things and causes all pictured represen- 
 tations that come from their hands to seem fantastic 
 and devoid of life, was at its extreme in him. His 
 inward malady discoloured everything. He saw with 
 the eyes of Ezekiel or of the writer of Daniel ; or rather, 
 he saw only himself, his own passion, hope, or wrath. 
 A vague and arid mythology, already cabbalist or 
 gnostic, founded on the transforming of abstract ideas 
 into divine hi/jiosiases, deprived him of an artist's truth 
 or skill. No one was ever more estrano-ed from sur- 
 rounding influences ; more completely blind and deaf 
 to the outward world, for whose sights and harmo- 
 nies he substituted the contradictory chimera of "'a new 
 heaven and a new earth."
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. — A. D. 69. 
 
 After the message to the seven churches, the visionary 
 panorama is unrolled. A door is opened into heaven ; 
 the Seer is caught up in spirit, and through this open- 
 ing his eyesight pierces to the very depth of the celes- 
 tial Court. The entire heaven of the Jewish Kabbala 
 is revealed to him. Here stands one solitary throne, 
 and on this throne, encircled by a rainbow, sits God 
 himself, like a colossal ruby darting its ra3^s of flame.^ 
 About the throne are twenty-four lower seats, on which 
 are seated twenty-four old men, clad in white, with gold 
 crowns upon their heads. These form a select Senate, 
 representing humanity, and making the permanent court 
 of the Eternal.^ In front burn seven lamps, which are 
 the seven spirits of God — the seven gifts of Divine 
 wisdom.^ About are four "beasts," or living creatures 
 (^wa "things of life") with features borrowed from 
 the "cherubs " of Ezekiel * and the " seraphs " of Isaiah.^ 
 The first has the form of a lion, the second of a calf, 
 the third the countenance of a man, the fourth the 
 form of an eagle with wings outspread. These four 
 
 1 All the features of this description are taken from Ezekiel i. and x. 
 Comp. Dan. vii. 9, 10. 
 
 2 The number 24 is taken from the classes of priests who served in 
 the sanctuary. 1 Chron. xxv. ; Isa. xxiv. 23 ; Ps. Ixxxix. 8 ; Tanliuma, 
 §§ Sheniini and Kedoshim. 
 
 8 Isa. xi. 2. ^ Ezek. i. 6 jga. vi.
 
 300 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 monsters symbolise in Ezekiel the attributes of Divinity, 
 — " wisdom, power, knowledge, and creation." They 
 have six wings, and are covered with eyes all over.^ 
 Angels — creatures inferior to the vast superhuman 
 personifications just spoken of,^ a sort of winged attend- 
 ants — surround the throne in multitudes without num- 
 ber,^ and from the throne proceed perpetual thunder ings. 
 On the level before the throne spreads a vast sheet of 
 azure like a sea of crystal, — the firmament ; * and a 
 sort of divine liturgy goes on forever. For the four 
 living creatures, organs of universal life, or Nature, 
 never sleep, but sing night and day the anthem : " Holy, 
 holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is 
 and shall be." ^ The twenty-four elders, representing 
 Humanity, unite in the song, prostrating themselves and 
 casting their crowns at the foot of the Creator's throne. 
 Christ has not yet appeared in this celestial court, 
 and the Seer will now have us witness the pomp of his 
 investiture.^ On the right of Him who sits upon the 
 throne is a book (in the form of a roll), written on 
 both sides,^ sealed with seven seals. It is the book 
 of divine secrets, the great revelation. No one in 
 heaven or on earth is found worthy to open it, or even 
 to look upon it. Then John begins to weep: shall the 
 Future, then, the Christian's only consolation, be closed 
 to him ? But he is encouraged by one of the elders ; one 
 is soon found who alone may open the book : and with- 
 out difficulty we discover that it is Jesus. In the very 
 centre of the vast heavenly assembly, at the foot of the 
 
 1 Ezek. i. 18; x. 12. 2 Corap. Heb. i. 4-8, 14. 
 
 8 Rev. V. 11; vii. 11; Dan. vii. 10; Ps. Ixviii. 18. 
 4 Ex. xxiv. 10 ; Ezek. i. 22-25. ^ ig^. yi. .3. 
 
 ^ Rev. chap. v. ' Ezek. ii. 10.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 30i 
 
 throne, amid the living creatures and the elders, upon 
 the crystal floor, appears a Lamb that has been shun. 
 This was the favourite image under which Christian 
 fancy loved to figure Jesus, — a slain lamb, made the 
 passover offering, and always with God.^ He has seven 
 horns 2 and seven eyes, symbols of the seven spirits of 
 God, whose fulness he has received, which through him 
 will' prevail over all the earth. The Lamb rises, ad- 
 vances to the throne, and takes the book. A thrill of 
 profound emotion then fills the sky : the four living 
 creatures and the twenty-four elders fall on their knees 
 before the Lamb, holding in their hands harps and 
 golden bowls ((^taXa?) full of incense, the prayers of 
 the saints ; ^ while they sing a new song : " Thou art 
 worthy to take the book and open the seals ; for thou 
 hast been slain and with thy blood hast won to God a 
 company of those chosen from every tribe, language, 
 people, and race ; and hast made them^ a kingdom of 
 priests, and they shall reign upon the earth." The 
 myriads of angels join in this song, ascribing to the 
 Lamb the seven great attributes, —power, riches, wis- 
 dom, strength, honour, glory, and blessing.^ Every 
 creature in heaven, on the earth, under the earth, or in 
 the sea, joins in the heavenly rite, crying, " To Him 
 who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb be blessing, 
 honour, glory, and power for evermore." The four 
 living creatures, representing Nature, with their deep 
 voice respond, Amen; the elders fall and worship. 
 Jesus is here introduced into the highest rank of the 
 
 1 John i. 29, 36; 1 Pet. i. 19 ; Acts viii. 32; Jerem. xi. 19 ; Isa. liii. 7. 
 
 2 Symbols of power in old Hebrew poetry: see Dan. vii. 20. 
 
 8 Rev. viii. 3, 4 ; Ps. cxli. 2 ; Ezek. viii. 11 ; Tob. xii. 12 ; Luke i. 10. 
 * So the Sinaitic and Alexandrian ; not " us," which is a later reading. 
 5 See Rev. vii. 12.
 
 302 
 
 ANTICHRIST, 
 
 celestial hierarchy. Not only the angels/ but the 
 twenty-four elders and the living creatures, which are 
 above the angels, bow down before him. He has 
 ascended the steps of the throne, and has taken the 
 book placed at the right hand of God, which no one 
 could so much as look at. He is about to open the 
 seven seals : the grand drama begins.^ 
 
 It opens with a scene of splendour. By an historical 
 conception singularly just, the writer represents the 
 messianic movement as beginning at the time when 
 Rome extends her dominion over Judaaa.^ As the first 
 seal is opened, a white horse springs forward, — emblem 
 of victory and triumph ; * the rider carries in his hand 
 a bow, his head is circled with a crown, and he goes 
 forth, " conquering and to conquer." This is the 
 Roman Empire, which, down to the time of the Seer, 
 nothing has been able to withstand. But this tri- 
 umphal prologue is of short duration : the forerunners 
 of the Messiah's glorious appearing must be disasters 
 as yet unheard-of ; and the celestial tragedy unfolds 
 with the most appalling images.^ We are at what is 
 called '■'■ the beginning of sorrows " ^ in the messianic 
 story. From this time on, each seal that opens will 
 bring upon mankind some dreadful woe. 
 
 At the opening of the second seal springs forth a 
 red horse. To the rider the power is given to abolish 
 
 1 Cf. p. 179, ante. 2 chap. vi. 
 
 8 Comp. "Assumption of Moses" in Hilgenfeld : N. T. extra can. i. 
 113, 114. 
 
 4 See Iliad, x. 437 ; Plut. Camillus, 7 ; Virg. ^n. ill. 538, with the 
 comment of Servius. 
 
 6 Comp. Zech. i. 7-17; vi. 1-8; Jar. xxi. 9; xxxii. 36; 4 Esdr. v. 6, 7; 
 vi. 22, 23 ; ix. 3. 
 
 8 Matt. xxiv. 8; Mark xiii. 9.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 303 
 
 peace from the earth, and cause men to slaughter one 
 another ; and in his hand is placed a great sword. 
 This is War. Since the uprising in Judaea, and above 
 all since the revolt of Vindex, the world has been in 
 truth only a field of blood, and the man of peace has 
 not known whither he might flee. 
 
 At the opening of the third seal, a black horse 
 bounds forth, with a rider holding a pair of scales. 
 And from the midst of the living creatures a voice is 
 heard prescribing the allowance to wretched mortals, 
 and saying to the rider, " A measure of wheat for a 
 penny ^ and three measures of barley for a penny ; but 
 touch neither oil nor wine." ^ This is Famine.^ Not to 
 speak of the great destitution under Claudius, there 
 was extreme dearth in the year 68.^ 
 
 At the opening of the fourth seal, springs forth a 
 horse of pale yellow,^ whose rider's name is Death. 
 Hell [Hades) follows him ; and power is given him to 
 destroy a fourth part of the earth with sword, famine, 
 pestilence, and the ravage of wild beasts. 
 
 These are the great scourges^ which announce the 
 near coming of the Messiah. In strict justice, the di- 
 vine wrath should blaze out at once against the guilty 
 w^orld. And, in truth, at the opening of the fifth scene, 
 the Seer beholds a touching spectacle. He sees beneath 
 the altar the souls of those slaughtered for their faith, 
 and for the testimony they have witnessed for Christ, 
 
 ^ A " measure " (xom^, 3 half-pints) was a day's ration ; a " penny" 
 (denarius, 20 cents) was a day's wages (Matt. xx. 2; Tac. Ann. i. 17). 
 '^ Suet. Domit. 7. s Matt. xxiv. 7; Mark xiii. 7. 
 
 * See p. 263. 
 
 5 Properly, the colour of honey (II. xi. 631). 
 
 * Matt. xxiv. 6-8; Mark xiii. 8, 9 ; comp. Ezek. xiv. 21. In the gos- 
 pels, pestilence seems to hold the second place, as in the Apocalypse.
 
 304 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 — doubtless, the victims of Nero's persecution. These 
 saintly souls cry to God/ and say to him, " How long, 
 God, holy and true, wilt thou not do justice, and 
 exact the price of our blood of those who dwell on the 
 earth ? " But the time is not yet come ; the number 
 of martyrs which will cause the divine wrath to over- 
 flow is not yet made up. To each of the victims be- 
 neath the altar is given a white robe, as pledge of 
 justification and coming triumph ; and they are bidden 
 to endure until their brethren and fellow-servants, who 
 must be slain as well as they, have given testimony in 
 their turn. 
 
 After this noble interact, we find ourselves no longer 
 in the period of preliminary horrors, but amid the 
 events of the Last Judgment. At the opening of the 
 sixth seal,^ the whole world is shaken by an earth- 
 quake.^ The sky becomes black as a sack of haircloth ; 
 the moon takes the colour of blood ; stars fall from 
 heaven upon the earth like the fruit of a fig-tree 
 shaken by the wind ; the sky is withdrawn " as a 
 scroll when it is i^olled together ; " ^ mountains and 
 islands are cast from their places. Kings and great 
 men, military chiefs, the rich and strong, slaves and 
 free, hide themselves in caverns and among rocks, say- 
 ing to the mountains and rocks, " Fall upon us, and 
 
 1 Such imac^inations are found also in pagan writers: compare with 
 " souls of the slain " (Rev. vi. 9) " souls of those slaughtered by him " 
 (Dion Cass. Ixiii. 28). 
 
 2 The entire description of the final catastrophe is made up of features 
 taken from Isaiah ii. 10, 19; xxxiv. 4; 1. 3; Ixiii. 4; Ezek. xxxii. 7, 8; 
 Joel iii. 4; Hosea x. 8; Nahum i. 6; Mai. iii. 2. The ancient prophets 
 held that the Divine judgment, even when exerted on a separate nation, 
 was attended by natural signs and prodigies: Joel i. 15; ii. 1-11. Comp. 
 Matt. xxiv. 7, 29; INIark xiii. 8, 21; Luke xxi. 11, 25. 26; xxiii. 30. 
 
 8 Matt. xxiv. 7; Mark xiii. 8; Luke xxi. 1. ^ Isa. xxxiv. 4.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 305 
 
 hide US from tbe sight of him who sits on the throne, 
 and from the wrath of the Lamb ! " 
 
 Now the great execution is about to be accom- 
 plished/ The four angels of the winds ^ place them- 
 selves at the four corners of the earth ; they have only 
 to let loose the elements in their charge, when these, 
 bursting forth with their own native fury, will over- 
 whelm the world. To these four all power is given ; 
 they are already at their posts. But the fundamental 
 idea of the composition is to show the great judgment 
 incessantly deferred, just when it seemed ready in- 
 stantly to take place. In the east appears an angel, 
 bearing in his hand the seal of God, having, like all 
 royal seals, graven on it the name of him to whom it 
 belongs.^ He calls to the four angels of the destroying 
 winds to restrain for a time the forces at their disposal, 
 until the elect who are still alive have been marked on 
 the forehead with the stamp that will keep them safe 
 from the scourge, as the blood of the paschal lamb 
 sprinkled on the door-posts preserved the Israelites in 
 Egypt.^ The angel then marks with the divine seal 
 one hundred and forty-four thousand persons belonging 
 to the twelve tribes of Israel. This does not mean 
 that the hundred and forty-four thousand elect are 
 exclusively Jews.^ " Israel " is here, doubtless, the true 
 
 1 Rev. chap. vii. 2 Comp. Zech. vi. 5; Enoch, xviii. 
 
 ^ mn^i, to Jehovah. Comp. Isa. xliv. 5; Rev. xiv. 1. All Semitic seals 
 give the owner's name preceded by ^7 (" to"). The custom was to mark, 
 or brand, slaves with their master's name (see Herodotus, ii. 113: 2; Ezek. 
 ix. 4). 
 
 4 Ex. xii. 1.3. 
 
 6 As we might suppose from the contrast of the " great multitude which 
 no man could number " in ver. 9. But these are made up of martyrs 
 (comp. ver. 9,14), not of pagan converts. The one hundred and forty-four 
 thousand elect appear in chap. xiv. as chosen for their virtue from the 
 
 20
 
 3o6 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 spiritual Israel, Paul's " Israel of God," -^ the chosen 
 family, embracing all who have allied themselves with 
 the race of Abraham, by faith in Jesus and practice of 
 the essential rites. But there is one class of the 
 faithful already brought into the abode of peace : those 
 who have suffered death for Jesus. These the Seer 
 figures as a countless multitude of men of every race, 
 tribe, people, and tongue, standing before the throne^ 
 and before the Lamb, clothed in white, holding palm- 
 leaves in their hands, singing the glory of God and the 
 Lamb. One of the elders explains to him who these 
 are. " They are men who come from great persecu- 
 tion,^ and have washed their robes in the blood of the 
 Lamb," — that is, the stain of martyr-blood. That is 
 why they are before God's throne, and adore him night 
 and day in his temple ; and He who is seated on the 
 throne will dwell with them forever.* They shall 
 hunger no more, nor thirst any more, nor suffer any 
 longer from burning heat. The Lamb will feed them, 
 and will lead them to living springs, and God himself 
 will wipe all tears from their eyes.^ 
 
 whole earth (ver. 8). Also coinp. v. 9. The distinction of Jewish and 
 pagan Christians did not exist for this writer. Pagans who have not 
 first accepted the Jewish rules are the disciples of Balaam, whom he re- 
 bukes in chaps, ii. and iii. To him every Christian belongs to Israel, and 
 to the spiritual city, Jerusalem (xviii. 4; xx. 9; xxi. 2, 12. Comp. Matt, 
 xix. 28 ; Jas. i. 1). The gentiles come simply, like good strangers, con- 
 quered and submissive, to pay their homage to God in Zion (xv. 3, 4). 
 
 1 Gal. vi. 16. 
 
 2 He does not name the Ineffable. Jews more or less inclined to the 
 Cabbala speak of God under such expressions as "name," "throne," 
 "heaven," etc. 
 
 ^ 6Xi'\//'eQ)s /LieyaXf;r, a common expression for the Neronian persecution. 
 See notes on pp. 147 and 182. 
 
 ^ Lev. xxvi. 11 ; Isa. iv. 5, 6: Ezek. xxxvii. 27; Rev. xxi. 3. 
 ^ Isa. XXV. 8; xlix. 10.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 307 
 
 The seventh seal opens.^ Here we await the grand 
 spectacle of the last scene of time.^ But, in the vision 
 as in fact, the final catastrophe still retreats ; we think 
 it already here, and it is naught. Instead of the 
 closing scene which should follow the breaking of the 
 seventh seal, " there is silence in heaven the space of 
 about half an hour," showing that the first act of the 
 mystery is finished, and another is about to begin.^ 
 After this sacramental silence the seven archangels who 
 stand before the throne ^ (not spoken of till now) enter 
 upon the scene. Seven trumpets are given them, each 
 to announce its own event.^ The sombre imagination 
 of John is not yet satisfied ; his wrath against the 
 pagan world must find its fit penalties in the plagues 
 of Egypt. Certain natural phenomena happening about 
 the year 68, and deeply impressing the popular imagi- 
 nation, seemed to justify him in recalling those old 
 horrors. 
 
 Before the sounding of the seven trumpets begins, 
 there is a very striking scene in dumb show. An 
 angel advances to the golden altar that is before the 
 
 ^ Rev. chap. viii. 
 
 2 Like the suspense after opening the fifth and sixth seals, and at the 
 sound of the seventh trumpet. See x. 7, and p. 312, post. 
 
 3 We notice the same thing in the Song of Solomon, where the five 
 acts are not a regular sequence, but with each its own action begins and 
 ends. In general, Hebrew literature knows nothing of the unities of 
 composition. 
 
 4 Dan. X. 13 ; Tob. xii. 15; Luke i. 19 ; 1 Thess. iv. 16. 
 
 s The idea of a succession of trumpets announcing the end of all 
 things is found in "the last trump" of 1 Cor. xv. 52, assuming that the 
 others have preceded it. The expression " a third trumpet" in 4 Esdr. 
 V. 4, is, however, an error (see Hilgenfeld). " The day of Jehovah " with 
 the prophets is also announced by trumpets (Joel ii. 1. 15). The first 
 hint of this image is given in the trumpets which proclaimed the Israelite 
 festivals (4 Esdr. vi. 23).
 
 3o8 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 throne, bearing in his hand a golden censer. Masses 
 of incense {dv^ia^ara. TroXXct) are heaped upon the coals 
 of the altar, and a cloud of smoke rises before the 
 Eternal One. Then the angel fills his censer with 
 coals from the altar, and casts them upon the earth^^ 
 where, as they strike the ground, they produce noise 
 of thunder, lightnings, voices, and earthquakes, — the 
 incense, as we are told, being the prayers of the saints. 
 The sighs of these holy persons rising silently before 
 God, and calling for the downfall of the pagan empire, 
 become burning coals, which rack and rend the guilty 
 world, and utterly destroy it before it can suspect 
 whence the destruction comes. Then the seven angels 
 prepare to sound their trumpets. 
 
 As the first trumpet peals forth, hail mingled with 
 fire and blood is cast upon the earth ; and a third part^ 
 of the trees and all green grass are consumed with fire. 
 In the years 63, 68, and 69, there were terrifying tem- 
 pests, in which men saw something supernatural.^ 
 
 At the sound of the second trumpet, a great moun- 
 tain of fire is cast upon the sea ; a third of the waters 
 are changed to blood, a tliird of the fishes perish, and a 
 third of the ships are destroyed. Here is an allusion 
 to the volcanic island Thera,* which the Seer of Patmos 
 had almost in plain view in the horizon, as it were a 
 volcano plunged in the deep. In the middle of it^ a new 
 island had appeared in 46 or 47. In periods of erup- 
 tion the surface of the surrounding sea seems on fire.^ 
 
 1 As in Ezek. x. 2. 2 ggg Zech. xiii. 9. 
 
 8 Tac. Ann. xv. 47; Hht. i. 3, 18; Comp. Ex. xii. 24; Isa. xxviii. 2. 
 4 See pp. 269, 297. Comp. Ex. vii. 17; Jer. li. 25; Enoch, xvii. 13. 
 ^ An earthquake in 237 b. c. had engulfed a portion of the island, 
 leaving the remainder in the form of a horseshoe. — Ed. 
 
 6 Pliny ii. 87; iv. 12; Sen. Q. N. ii. 26; vi. 21; Dion Cass. Ix. 29;
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 309 
 
 At the sound of the third trumpet, a great star falls 
 from heaven, burning like a torch, upon a third part of 
 the rivers and springs. Its name is Wormwood, and a 
 third of the waters are turned to wormwood (that is, 
 became poisonous and bitter ^), and many men die be- 
 cause of it.^ Here we seem to find an allusion to a 
 meteoric stone, the fall of which was associated with 
 some infection that may have affected the quality of 
 water in some storage-basin. We must remember that 
 the Seer looks at nature through the medium of the 
 childish tales he has heard from the common people of 
 Asia, the most credulous region in the w^orld. Phlegon 
 of Tralles, half a century later, may be said to have 
 passed his life in compiling just such tales. In Tacitus 
 we meet them on every page. 
 
 At the sound of the fourth trumpet, a third of the 
 sun, of the moon, and of the stars are blotted out, and 
 a third of the w^orld's light is darkened.^ This may 
 refer to the terrifying eclipses of these years,^ or to the 
 frightful tempest of January 10, 69.^ But all these 
 terrors so far are as nothing. An eagle flies through 
 the midst of the sky, uttering three cries of woe ! and 
 predicts calamities unspeakable to follow the trumpets 
 that are yet to sound. 
 
 At the voice of the fifth trumpet, a star (that is, an 
 angel ^) falls from heaven, to whom is given the key of 
 
 Aur. Victor, De Ca.s., Claud. 14; Philostr., ApolL iv. 34: 4; Orosius, vii. 
 6; Cedrenus, i. 197; Ross, Reisen, etc., i. 90. Comp. Comptes rendus de 
 VAcad. des Sciences, 19 Feb. 1866, 392 et seq. 
 
 1 Ex. XV. 23-26. 
 
 ^ See Isa. xiv. 12; Dan. viii. 10; Carm. Sih>/ll. v. 157, 158. 
 
 8 Ex. vi. 25; x. 21, 22; Joel iii. 4; Amos viii. 9. 
 
 * See p. 262, ante. 
 
 6 Tac. Hist. i. 18; Plut. Galba, 23. 
 
 ^ See Enoch xviii. 13 ; xxi. 3 ; Ixxxvi. 1 ; xc. 21.
 
 310 ANTICHRIST, 
 
 the bottomless pit.* This he opens, and there comes 
 forth smoke as of a great furnace;^ the sun and the 
 air are darkened. From this smoke locusts are pro- 
 duced, which cover the earth like troops of horsemen.^ 
 These locusts, led by their king, the angel of the Pit 
 (called in Hebrew Abaddon,, '^ destroyer," in Greek, 
 Ai^oUf/on), torment men for five months — an entire 
 summer. It is possible that there was an excessive 
 visitation of locusts in some province about this time ; * 
 in any case, the imitation of the plagues of Egypt is 
 manifest.^ The bottomless pit is perhaps the Sulfatara 
 near Puteoli (which was called Vulcan s Fonim),^ or 
 the old crater of la Somma^ conceived as openings- 
 out from the infernal world. I have said ^ that the 
 disturbances in the neighbourhood of Naples were 
 just then very violent. The writer of the Apocalypse 
 — who, I may assume, had been in Rome and hence 
 at Puteoli — may well have been witness to such 
 phenomena. He associates the clouds of locusts with 
 the volcanic exhalations, — for, since their origin was 
 wholly unknown, the popular mind was led to regard 
 
 1 The abode, not of the dead (Hades), but of devils: see Luke viii. 31 ; 
 Rev. xi. 7; xvii. 8; xx. 1, 3. 
 
 2 Rev. ix. 2; cf. Gen. xix. 28. 
 
 * The stranc^e description of these locusts, allowing for the exaggera- 
 tions of oriental style, has nothing that may not apply to the common locust 
 (see Niebuhr, Descr. of Arabia, p. L53 ; Joel ii. 4-9). At Naples these 
 creatures are still called cnvaletti, and would be very destructive but for 
 the care taken to destroy their eggs. See Pliny, xi. 2.9; Livy, xxx. 2. 
 
 ^ Features like those in ix. 10 — tails with stings, like scorpions — 
 might suggest an invasion of Parthian cavalry ; but this is the topic of 
 the sixth trumpet, and it is not the writer's way to bring different sym- 
 bols of the same thing within the compass of the same cycle of seven. 
 
 6 Ex. X. 12-15; Joel ii.; Wisd. xvi. 9. 
 
 « Strabo, v. 4 : 6. 
 
 ' Beule, Le drame du Vdsuve, 62, 63. 8 Pages 264-268.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 311 
 
 them as a progeny of hell.^ At this day a like phe- 
 nomenon takes place at Solfatara. After a heavy rain, 
 the pools of water which remain in hot places hatch 
 out very rapidly vast numbers of locusts and frogs.^ 
 That what appeared to be spontaneous generation was 
 regarded by the vulgar as an emanation from the 
 mouth of the Pit itself, was the more natural, since the 
 eruptions, being generally followed by abundant rains, 
 covering the country with pools, must seem the direct 
 cause of the clouds of insects that issue from these 
 pools. 
 
 The sound of the sixth trumpet introduces another 
 scourge : this is a Parthian invasion, which was every- 
 where thought to be impending.^ A voice goes out 
 from the four horns of the altar which is before God, 
 commanding to let loose four angels held in chains 
 along the Euphrates.* These four angels, — perhaps 
 the Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, and Persians,^ — 
 who were ready at the hour, day, month, and year, put 
 themselves at the head of a fearful force of cavalry, of 
 two hundred million men. The description of men and 
 horses is purely fanciful. The horses, which kill by a 
 sting in the tail, " like scorpions," probably signify the 
 Parthian cavalry, who shoot their arrows backward 
 when in flight. A third of the human race is exter- 
 minated. Those, however, who survive do not repent, 
 but still worship demons, idols of gold and silver, 
 
 ^ " They are five months hidden," Pliny, //. N. ix. 30. This idea 
 still exists. CEdman, Samml. aus der Naturkunde, ii. 147. 
 
 2 M. S. de Luca. Locusts are very numerous in the crater of Solfatara. 
 
 8 See above, p. 257; Tac. Hist. iv. 51; Jos. Wars, vi. 6: 2. 
 
 * Comp. Virgil, Georg. i. 509. 
 
 s Writers of apocalypses retain the old biblical geography, even when 
 completely obsolete. See Commodian, Instr. ii. 1 : 15 ; Carmen, ver. 884 
 and 900 ; Epiph. Ii. 34 ; Dan. vii. 6; Enoch Ivi. 5-8.
 
 312 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 which can neither see, hear, nor walk. They persist 
 in their murderings, their sorceries, fornications, and 
 robberies. 
 
 Here, again, we expect to hear the tones of the sev- 
 enth trumpet ; but, as before the seals were opened, the 
 Seer appears to hesitate, or, rather, to take sucli a posi- 
 tion as to keep the reader in suspense : at the critical 
 moment he suddenly stops. The dread secret cannot 
 even yet be told in full. A colossal angel, his head 
 encircled by a rainbow, with one foot on the land and 
 the other on the sea, whose voice is echoed in seven 
 thunders (perhaps the thunders of the seven heavens ^), 
 speaks mysterious words, which a voice from heaven 
 forbids John to write. The gigantic angel then lifts 
 his hand to heaven, and swears by the Eterna,l that 
 there shall be no more delay ; ^ that at the sound of the 
 seventh trumpet the mystery of God announced by the 
 prophets — who (as Isaiah and Joel) have proclaimed 
 the day of the Lord — shall be accomplished. 
 
 The apocalyptic drama, then, is about to close. But, 
 to prolong his book, the writer assumes a new prophetic 
 mission. Repeating a powerful image once employed 
 by Ezekiel,^ John receives from the mighty angel a 
 book of fate, and devours it ; and a voice says to him, 
 " Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, na- 
 tions, tongues, and kings." The scheme of the vision, 
 which was about to close with the seventh trumpet, 
 thus expands ; tlie writer unfolds a second part, in 
 which he may disclose his views on the destinies of 
 kings and peoples of his time. The first six trumpets, 
 like the opening of the first six seals, refer to facts 
 
 1 Cf. Ps. xxix. 3-0; Dan. viii. 26; xii. 4, 9. 
 
 2 Dan. xii. 7. * Ezek. ii. 8-iii. 3; Jer. xv. 16.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 313 
 
 which are already past ; ^ that which follows belongs 
 mostly to the future. 
 
 The Seer's gaze is now fixed upon Jerusalem.^ By 
 symbols sufficiently plain he gives us to understand 
 that the city is to be surrendered to the gentiles ; ^ and 
 to foresee this early in the year 69 required no great 
 prophetic effort. The porch and court of the gentiles 
 will even be trampled under foot by the unholy ; * but 
 the imagination of so fervent a Jew cannot yet conceive 
 of the Temple as destroyed. For the Temple is the 
 only spot on earth where God can be truly worshipped : 
 nay, worship in heaven itself is but the continuance of 
 that established here ; and John cannot so much as 
 imagine a world without the Temple. This, then, will 
 be preserved ; and the faithful, sealed on the forehead 
 with the mark of Jehovah, will continue to worship 
 there. Thus it will be, as it were, a sacred space, the 
 spiritual home of the entire Church. This will continue 
 for forty-two months, or three years and a half ; that 
 is, half a "week of years" {shemitta).^ This mystic 
 cipher, borrowed from " Daniel," ^ is several times re- 
 peated afterwards. This is the length of time the 
 world has yet to live. 
 
 1 It is true that the invasion to follow the sixth trumpet has not yet 
 taken place; but the writer evidently regards it as a certain thing. 
 
 2 Rev. xi. 3 Comp. Ezek. xl. ; Zech. ii. 
 * Luke xxi. 24; Dan. viii. 13. 
 
 ® A .tJiemitta, or period of seven years, is often taken as a unit of time, 
 the Jubilee-period being composed of seven such units. See " Book of 
 Jubilees " and the Samaritan chronicle published by Neubauer (Journ. 
 Asiat. Dec. 1869). 
 
 ^ Daniel vii. 25, and elsewhere. Comp. Luke xxi. 24, and " days of 
 their prophecy" (Rev. xi. 6) with "three years and six months'' (Luke 
 iv. 25) ; also, Jas. v. 17; Enoch x. 12; xci , xciii. ; and the apocalyptic 
 weeks of the Ismaelites, inherited from Persian formulae.
 
 314 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 During this time Jerusalem will be the scene of a 
 great religious war, like the conflicts which have filled 
 all its past history. God will give commission to his 
 " two witnesses," who will prophesy for twelve hun- 
 dred and sixty days — that is, three years and a half 
 
 — clothed in sackcloth. They are compared to two 
 olive-trees and two candlesticks standing before the 
 Lord.^ They will have the powers of Moses and Elijah, 
 
 — to " shut heaven " and prevent the rain, to turn 
 water into blood, or to strike the earth with wdiatever 
 plague they will. If any shall attempt to do them 
 harm, a fire will go from their mouth and destroy their 
 enemies.^ At the end of the days of their prophesying, 
 the Beast (drjpLov) which comes up from the bottomless 
 pit ^ — the Roman power, or rather Nero, reappearing 
 as Antichrist — will slay them ; and for three days and 
 a half their bodies will lie unburied " in the open place 
 of the great city symbolically called Sodom and iAjypi^ 
 where, also, their Lord was crucified," — that is, the 
 rebellious city, which kills the prophets.^ People of 
 the world will rejoice with one another, and send 
 gifts ; ^ for these two prophets were intolerable to them 
 through their austere exhortations and their appalling 
 miracles. But, at the end of three days and a half, the 
 breath of life comes back to them ; they rise to their 
 feet, and great terror comes upon all who see them.'^ 
 Soon they ascend to heaven in a cloud, in full view of 
 
 1 Zech. iv. 2 Kings i. 10-12. 
 
 3 Compare Rev. xvii. 8, 'with Dan. vii. 7. (The Alexandrian reading, 
 ava^cuvQv, is explained by comparing the Sinaitic.) 
 
 4 Isa. i. 10; iii. 9; Jer. xxiii. 14; Ezek. xvi. 48. Egypt, especially, is 
 the country hostile to the chosen people, having reduced them to slavery. 
 
 5 Matt, xxiii. 37. « Neh. viii. 10, 12; Esth. ix. 19, 22. 
 ' Comp. Ezek. xxxvii. 10; 2 Kings xiii. 21.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE, 315 
 
 their enemies ; and at the same time comes a frightful 
 earthquake, in which a tenth part of the city is de- 
 stroyed, seven thousand men perish, and the remainder, 
 terror-stricken, are converted, and give glory to the God 
 of heaven.^ 
 
 We have several times already been met by the idea 
 that the last great day would be preceded by two wit- 
 nesses, generally conceived to be Enoch and Elijah in 
 person.^ These two men, dear to God, were believed 
 not to have died. Enoch was thought to have vainly 
 foretold the Flood to the men of his time, who would 
 not listen ; he was the type of a Jew preaching peni- 
 tence among the gentiles. Sometimes, also, the wit- 
 nesses are compared to Moses,^ wdiose death was in like 
 manner obscure, and to Jeremiah.* The writer seems 
 to conceive these '•' witnesses " as two men of high rank 
 in the church at Jerusalem, apostles of great holiness, 
 who will be killed, will rise again, and ascend into 
 heaven like Elijah and Jesus. Possibly the Seer in 
 the vision may look backward, and refer to the martyr- 
 dom of James the Greater and James the Less, — espe- 
 cially to that of " James the Lord's brother," which was 
 
 1 Rev. xi. 11-13. 
 
 2 See "Life of Jesus," 149, 151, 223; Ecclus. xliv. 16 ; xlviii. 10; Heb. 
 xi. 5; Iren. iv. 16: 2; v. 5: 1 ; Tert. Be aninia, 50; Nicod. 25; Hippol. 
 21, 22, 104, 105; Jer. Epist. ad Marcellam, iv. 165, 166; Andrew of Crete 
 and Aretas of Csesarea in Not. and extr. xx. 2: 236; Mai. iii. 23; Matt, 
 xvi. 14; xvii. 12; John i. 21; Justin, Trypho, 49; (as to Elijah) Seder 
 olamrabba, 17; Mishna, Sota, ix. 15; Shekalim, ii. 5; Baha metzia, i. 8; 
 ii. 8; iii. 4, 5; Eduioth,Yiu.7; Carm. Sibyll. ii. 187; Commodian, Carm.v. 
 826, 827. All the mythology concerning Enoch and Elijah is collected in 
 Malvenda's Antichrist, lib. ix. See also Berichte of the society of Leipzig, 
 1866, 213; Sitzungsberichte of the Academy of Munich, 1871, p. 462. 
 
 8 Rev. xi. 6; Matt. xvii. 3 (account of the Transfiguration). 
 * See "Assumption of Moses;" "Life of Jesus," p. 223; Yictorin : 
 Bibl. max. patrum, iii. 418 ; Thilo, Cod. apocr. N. T., 761, 762.
 
 3i6 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 regarded by many in Jerusalem as a public calamity, 
 a fatal event, and a sign of the time/ Possibly one of 
 these preachers of repentance is John the Baptist, and 
 the other is Jesus.^ The belief that the end would not 
 come until the Jews had been converted was general 
 among the Christians ; we find it also in Paul.^ 
 
 Now that the rest of Israel has come to the true 
 faith, the world is ready for the end. The seventh and 
 last angel sounds his trumpet ; * and at the sound, loud 
 voices cry, " The hour is couie when our Lord with his 
 Christ shall reign upon the earth forever ! " The 
 twenty-four elders fall on their faces and adore, thank- 
 ing God that he has established his reign, in spite of 
 the impotent rage of the gentiles, and proclaiming the 
 hour of reward to the saints, and of destruction to the 
 spoilers of the earth. Then the doors of the heavenly 
 temple are thrown open, and in its depths is seen the 
 ark of the new Covenant, with lightnings, thunder, and 
 earthquake. 
 
 All is now finished. The faithful have received the 
 grand revelation which shall console them. The Judg- 
 ment is at hand ; it will take place within a sacred 
 half-year, that is, three and a half years. But we have 
 already found the writer, regardless of the unity of 
 his work, holding in reserve the means of going on 
 with it when it seems complete. The book, in trntli, 
 is only half done \ a new series of visions is to unfold 
 before us. 
 
 The first is one of the finest.^ In the midst of 
 heaven appears a Woman (tlie church of Israel), clothed 
 
 1 See pp. 77, 78, ante. 2 Matt. xvii. 9-13. 
 
 8 See " Saint Paul," chap. xvii. ; Commodian, Carmen, v. 832, 930. 
 
 * Comp. 1 Cor. xv. 42. ^ Rev. chap. xii.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 317 
 
 with the sun, having the moon under her feet, and 
 about her head a crown of twelve stars (the twelve 
 tribes of Israel). She cries out, as in the pangs of 
 travail, about to bring forth the ideal Messiah.^ Before 
 her rises an enormous red Dragon with seven crowned 
 heads and ten horns,^ whose tail, sweeping the sky, 
 drags down a third of the stars and casts them on the 
 earth.^ This is Satan, under the features of the most 
 potent of his incarnations, the Roman Empire : the red 
 colour figures the imperial purple ; the seven crowned 
 heads are, as the writer explains,* the seven Caesars 
 who have reigned up to this time, — Julius, Augustus, 
 Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, and Galba ; ^ the ten 
 horns are the ten proconsuls of the provinces.^ The 
 Dragon watches for the infant's birth, so as to devour 
 him. The Woman gives birth to the child destined "to 
 rule the nations with a rod of iron," — a characteristic 
 trait of the Messiah.'^ The child (Jesus) is taken by 
 God into heaven, and placed at His right hand upon the 
 throne.^ The Woman flees to the desert, where God has 
 provided a shelter for twelve hundred and sixty days. 
 
 1 Micah iv. 10. 
 
 2 Bab. Talm. Klddushin, 29 b. ; Dan. vii. 6, 7; Rev. v. 6. 
 8 Cf. Dan. viii. 10. ^ Rev. xvii. 10. 
 
 ^ Josephus always reckons Julius as the first emperor, and Augustus, 
 Tiberius, Caius (Caligula), as the second, third, and fourth (^Ant. xviii. 
 2: 2; 6: 10). So 4 Esdras (xi. 12, 1.3, 17), Suetonius, Aur. Victor, Julian 
 {Cces. 308). St. Beatus, in the eighth century, knows no other reckoning : 
 sexius fu'it Nero, etc. (p. 498, Florez) ; he elsewhere (438) speaks differently, 
 probably copying from writers who differed among themselves. 
 
 ® See p. 337 (below), and Rev. xvi. 14; xvii. 12; xix. 19. The image 
 is taken from Dan. vii. 7, 24. The writer thinks he sees the Roman 
 Empire in Daniel's fourth beast, which is really that of the Greeks. 
 
 ^ Ps. ii. 9; Rev. ii. 27; xix. 15. 
 
 8 The writer believes in the ascension of Jesus. That of the "two 
 •witnesses" (xi. 12) rests upon some legend known to him: see "The 
 Apostles," chap. iii. (near the end).
 
 3i8 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 Here is a plain reference either to the flight of the Church 
 from Jerusalem, and the three-and-a-half years' peace it 
 should enjoy within the walls of Pella till the end of 
 the world ; or else to the refuge of the Jewish Chris- 
 tians and the two apostles in Asia Minor. The image 
 of the " desert " applies better to the former. Pella, 
 beyond Jordan, was a peaceful district, near the Ara- 
 bian desert, where the noise of war was hardly ever 
 heard. 
 
 Then follows a great war in heaven. Until now, 
 Satan, the Accuser,^ the malicious critic of creation, has 
 had his right of admission into the divine court, and 
 availed himself of it — by the old custom which he has 
 not lost since the time of Job" — to afflict pious men. 
 Christians especially, and bring upon them frightful 
 sufferings, as in the persecutions of Rome and Ephe- 
 sus. He must now lose this privilege. The archangel 
 Michael, heavenly protector of Israel, with his angels,^ 
 gives him battle. Satan is conquered, driven out of 
 heaven, and cast down to earth with his accomplices ; 
 and a song of triumph breaks forth when the celestial 
 hosts see, hurled from on high, the calumniator, him 
 who maligns all good, who never, by day or night, 
 ceased to accuse and vilify their brethren dwelling on 
 the earth.* The Church above and that below join 
 hands in the defeat of Satan, which is due to the blood 
 of the Lamb and to the courage of the martyrs who 
 have endured torment unto death. But woe to the 
 
 ^ The writer employs here (xii. 10) the rabbinic form Korriycop (Intigor) 
 for tha Greek Korriyopos. 
 
 2 Job, prologue; 1 Chron. xxi. 1 ; comp. zabulus (diaholus) in the As' 
 sumption of Jfoses. 
 
 8 Dan. X. 13, 21 ; xii. 1; Jude 9. 
 
 * Gen. iii. 1 ; Job i.-ii. ; Zech. iii. 1.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 319 
 
 guilty world ! The Dragon has gone down into it, and 
 anything may be feared from his despair, for he knows 
 that his time is short. 
 
 The first object of the Dragon's rage when cast down 
 to the earth is the Woman (the churcli of Israel), who 
 has given birth to the divine Child whom God has set 
 at his own right hand. But she is shielded by protec- 
 tion from above, and two wings are given her, wings of 
 a great eagle, by means of which she flies to the desert- 
 retreat provided for her, — that is, Pella. Here she is 
 nourished for three years and a half, unseen by the 
 Dragon, whose fury is at its height. He pours forth 
 from his mouth a flood of water to drown her, and 
 carry her away ; but the earth comes to her help, 
 opens, and drinks in the flood, — an allusion to some 
 unknown circumstance of the flight to Pella.^ The 
 Dragon, finding himself powerless against the Woman 
 (the mother-church of Israel), turns his rage against 
 " the remnant of her race," — that is, the churches of 
 "the Dispersion," which keep the commands of God,^ 
 and are faithful witnesses of Jesus. This is evidently 
 an allusion to the later persecutions, and especially to 
 that under Nero. 
 
 Then ^ the prophet beholds, coming up from the sea, 
 a Beast,"* in many points like the Dragon. It has ten 
 horns, seven heads, crowns upon the ten horns,"and on 
 each of the heads a name of blasphemy. Its general 
 appearance is that of a leopard ; but its feet are those 
 of a bear and its mouth that of a lion : its strensrth, 
 
 ^ See above, pp. 240, 241 ; and comp. Jos. TFars, iv. 7: 5, 6. 
 
 2 As contrasted with the Pauline churches, which, said the Judaeo- 
 Chi'istians, refused the commandments of Noah and the compact of 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 8 Chap. xiii. < Qy^^iov, cf. Dan. vii. 3, 8; xi. 36.
 
 320 ANTICHRIST, 
 
 throne, and power are given to it by the Dragon 
 (Satan). One of the heads has received a deadly 
 wound, but this has been healed. The whole earth 
 falls down in amazement at this mighty creature, and 
 all men set themselves to worship the Dragon that has 
 given power to the Beast. They worship the Beast also, 
 saying, '• Who is like the Beast, or is able to war against 
 him ? " And there is given him a mouth uttering great 
 boasts and blasphemies, and the term of his power is set 
 as forty-two months — three years and a half. Then 
 the Beast begins to utter blasphemies against God, his 
 name, his tabernacle, and those who dwell in heaven. 
 And it is given him to make war upon the saints and 
 conquer them,^ and power is given him over every 
 tribe, people, language, and race ; and all men bow 
 down to him, excepting those whose names are written 
 from the foundation of the world in the book of life of 
 the Lamb that was slain. " If any man have an ear, 
 let him hear ! If any one leads into captivity, he shall 
 go into captivity. If any shall kill with the sword, he 
 shall perish by the sword.^ Here is the secret of the 
 faith and patience of the saints." 
 
 The symbol is very plain. Already in the Sibylline 
 verses of the second century before Christ, the Roman 
 power is called "the power of many heads." ^ Allegories 
 founded upon many-headed beasts were then much in 
 fashion ; and in interpreting such emblems the funda- 
 mental principle is that each head signifies a sovereign.* 
 The monster of the Apocalypse is, besides, made up by 
 
 1 Dan. vii. 21 (in the Sinaitic MS.). 
 
 2 Jer. XV. 2; ]\Iatt. xxvi. 52. 
 
 ^ no\vKpavos: Cnrm. Sihyll. iii. 17G. 
 
 * Tac. Ann. xii. 64; xv. 47; Philostr. Apoll. v. 13; see p. 2G1, ante. 
 Comp. Dan. vii. ; 4 Esdr. xi., xiii.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 321 
 
 joining together the attributes of the four empires in 
 Daniel ; ^ and this alone would show that we have here 
 to do with a new empire, which absorbs into itself the 
 older empires. The Beast which comes forth from the 
 sea is, then, the Roman Empire, which to the peojole of 
 Palestine must seem to come " from the western sea." ^ 
 This Empire is but one form of Satan (the Dragon), or 
 rather, is Satan himself, with all his attributes. It 
 holds its power from Satan, and uses all its energies in 
 Satan's service, — that is, to maintain idolatry, which in 
 the writer's view is simply the worship of devils. The 
 ten crowned horns are the ten imperial provinces, — 
 Italy, Achaia, Asia, Syria, Egypt, Africa, Spain, Gaul, 
 Britain, and Germany, — whose proconsuls are real 
 [though temporary] kings.^ The seven heads are the 
 successive Emperors from Julius Caesar to Galba ; the 
 ^' name of blasphemy " written on each head is Xe^a- 
 crro? [" worshipful "] or Augustus, which to strict Jews 
 appeared an insult to God. The whole earth is given 
 over by Satan to this Empire, in recompense for the 
 worship procured for Satan by the Empire. The gran- 
 deur and pride of Rome, the wi]jerium (or military rule) 
 which it creates, its divinity as an object of special and 
 public homage,^ are a perpetual blasphemy against God, 
 who is the sole real lord of the earth. Thus the Em- 
 pire is naturally a foe to the Jews and to Jerusalem. 
 It makes a fierce war against the holy people (the 
 writer appears on the whole to favour the insurrec- 
 tion), and will conquer them ; but its power will last 
 
 ^ Dan. vii. 
 
 2 Carm. SibijU. I. c. (a(P' icrnepiov re daXda-arji). 
 
 * As made plain in Rev. xvii. 12; comp. Dan. vii. 24. 
 
 4 Suet. Auff. 52. 
 
 21
 
 322 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 no more than three years and a half. The head 
 " wounded to death," whose wound is, however, healed, 
 is Nero, lately overthrown but miraculously preserved 
 from death,^ and believed to have taken refuge with 
 the Parthians. The adoration of the Beast is the wor- 
 ship of " Rome and Augustus," ^ so extended throughout 
 the province of Asia, and making the basis of the popu- 
 lar relisrion.^ 
 
 The symbol that follows is far from being equally 
 clear to us. Another beast comes out from the earth, 
 having two horns like those of a lamb, but speaking 
 like a dragon (Satan). It wields all the power of the 
 former beast in its presence and under its eye, serving 
 as its delegate, and exerting all its authority to compel 
 the inhabitants of the earth to worship "the first beast, 
 whose deadly wound was healed,"* — a confusion be- 
 tween the beast itself and the wounded head. This sec- 
 ond beast performs great miracles, even to " making fire 
 come down from heaven to earth in the sight of men ; " 
 and deceives the world by the wonders it performs in 
 the name and for the service of the former beast, which 
 was wounded by a sword and yet lives. And it has 
 power to infuse the breath of life into the image of the 
 former, so that this image speaks,^ and to cause all who 
 refuse its worship to be put to death. And it compels 
 all — small and great, rich and poor, slave or free — to 
 carry a mark on their right hand or on their forehead ; 
 and ordains that no one can buy or sell unless he 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. Hhl. ii. 20. 
 
 2 The title of its priesthood was Flaincn Rnmce divorum et Augusti. — Ed. 
 
 3 See " Saint Paul," chap. ii. ; Waddiiigton, Inscr., iii. No. 885. 
 
 4 Rev. xiii. 12. 
 
 ^ On the speaking statues of the Romans, see Val. Max. i. 8:3-5; 
 also, Comptes rendus, etc., 1872, p. 285.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 323 
 
 carries the mark {yapay[ka) of the beast, or its name, 
 or the number of its name, — that is, the number made 
 by adding the numerical vahies of the letters that com- 
 pose the name. " Here is wisdom ! " cries the writer. 
 " Let him that has understanding calculate the number 
 of the beast, for it is the number of a man (that is, of 
 a man's proper name) ; and its number is six hundred 
 and sixty-six." 
 
 In fact, if we add together the letters of Nero's name 
 as written in Hebrew, — [1"lJ "^Dp,^ Nep&jz^ Kato-ap, — 
 with their numerical values, we obtain the number 666.^ 
 The Asiatic Christians no doubt designated the monster 
 by the term Neron Kesar ; his Asiatic coins bearing the 
 inscription NEPON KAISAP.^ Calculations like these 
 
 1 The word nDO is found thus written (without quiescents) in Palmy- 
 rene inscriptions of the third century (Vogiie, Syrie centr. inscr. se'mit : 
 comp. the Syriac form in the Peshito, and Buxtorf, Lex. chald. 2081, 2082 ; 
 Ewald, Die johann. Schriften, ii. 263, n. The Nabathsean inscription of 
 Hebran (a. d. 47) has "^^'p (Vogii^, id. 100. He wrongly reads -^ for 3, 
 not observing the difference as written in Nabathsean : cf. pp. 113, 114). 
 See Jorirn. Asiat. June, 1868, p. 538; April, May, 1873, p. 316, n. 1; 
 Zeitsch. der d. m. G. 1871, p. 431. To distinguish the two letters, notice 
 the certain y of the inscriptions of Bosra and Salkhat (Vogiie^, pi. xiv. 
 4, 6), observing that, as a purely Semitic letter, it rarely occurs in Syriac 
 in the transcription of Greek and Latin names. In Palmyrene (Vogiie, 
 pp. 18, 20, 21, 25), in Talmudic (Buxtorf), the o- in o-rparT^yds', etc., is ren- 
 dered by D. The Arabic spelling belongs to a time when the tsaddi had 
 lost its special native force. The omission of ^ {yod) may seem singular 
 in the first century. It is probably suppressed designedly, that the cipher 
 may be symmetrical, — 606. With the ' (=: 10) it would have been 670, 
 which would be less striking. In talmudic writings, Cesarcea is some- 
 times written Y'^'^'p (Midrash, Esther, 1). 
 
 2 Thus: J, 50; -|, 200; 1, 6; j, 50; p, 100; D, 60; -i, 200, — the sum of 
 which is 666. The reading 616, mentioned by Irengeus, v. 30: 1, is made 
 by omitting the final ] (50), reducing the name to the Latin form, Nero. 
 
 3 Mionnet, iii. 93; Suppl. vi. 128 a. Mr. Waddington tells me that 
 this legend is common on Asiatic coins (comp. Krafft's inscr. of Topog. 
 Jerus. no. 31. {Corpus, etc., Syria, 135.)
 
 324 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 were familiar to the Jews, and made a cabalistic puzzle, 
 CciWed ffJiematria {yeoiixeTpia)} It was, further, not un- 
 known to the Asiatic Greeks,^ and the Gnostics of the 
 second century delighted in it,^ 
 
 Thus the emperor signified by the head mortally 
 hurt, but not killed, — as the writer himself signifies, 
 — is Nero,* who was widely supposed by the people of 
 Asia to be still alive. Of this there can be no doubt. 
 But what is the second beast, that agent of Nero, — 
 having the ways of a pious Jew and the language of 
 Satan ; ^ Nero's double, working in his interest, per- 
 forming wonders, going so far as to make his statue 
 speak, persecuting the faithful Jews who will not ren- 
 der to Nero the same honours with the pagans, or wear 
 the mark that denotes them as members of his party ; 
 rendering their life intolerable, and forbidding to them 
 those most essential acts, purchase and sale ? Some 
 points might apply to a Jewish functionary (like Tibe- 
 rius Alexander), devoted to the Romans, and regarded 
 as an apostate by his countrymen. The mere fact of 
 paying tribute to the Empire might be called " worship 
 of the Beast," since tribute had in Jewish eyes the 
 aspect of a religious offering, implying homage to the 
 person of the sovereign.^ The sign or '• mark " of 
 
 1 Comp. Assump. of Moses, 9; Ca7-m. Sihyll. i. 141, 326; v. 28 (refer- 
 ring to Xero); viii. 148-150; and the imniber 153 in John xxi. 11 (?). 
 As to the use of the gkematrioth, at the talmudic period, see Litteratur- 
 hlatt des Orients, 1819, 671, 672, 762-764; 1850, 116, 117. 
 
 2 Inscriptions at Pergamus, t(r6\lrTi(f)oi, [in which the numerical value of 
 the letters in two diiierent lines or words is equal], Corp. etc., 3544, 3545, 
 3546; cf. 5113, 5119; Boissonade, Anecd. Gr. ii. 459-461. 
 
 3 Iren. i. 14, 15, passim. 
 
 * In the " Cfesars" of Julian, Caligula and Domitian are also repre- 
 sented by two beasts (pp. 310, 311). 
 
 5 Matt. vii. 15. ["false prophets in sheep's clothing "]. 
 
 ® Melito, De veritale, xli. ; he commented upon portions of the 
 Apocalypse.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 325 
 
 the Beast i^ipoiv Kalcrap), which one was required to 
 wear to secure civil rights, may have been a ticket of 
 Roman citizenship, without which life in some countries 
 was full of hardship, but which by a Jewish fanatic 
 was held to be the crime of complicity in the work of 
 Satan ; or it may have been coin with Nero's image, 
 which was held by Jews in revolt to be abominable, on 
 account of the blasphemous images and inscriptions on 
 it, so that they made haste, as soon as they were free 
 in Jerusalem, to substitute an orthodox coinage of their 
 own. The Roman partisan, we are supposing, might 
 seem guilty of a horrid crime in upholding money of 
 Nero's coinage as current by compulsion in trades.-^ 
 Such coinage would fill the market ; and those who 
 from religious scruple refused to deal with it were 
 practically outlawed. 
 
 The proconsul of Asia at this time was Fonteius 
 Agrippa,^ a grave magistrate, whom we cannot once 
 think of as a means of relieving our perplexity. A 
 high-priest of Asia, zealous for the worship of Rome 
 and Augustus,^ and employing his delegated civil 
 power to distress the Jews and Christians, would meet 
 some of the conditions of the problem. But the fea- 
 tures shown us in the second beast, as a deceiver and 
 wonder-worker, do not suit such a character. They 
 rather make us think of a false prophet, a magician, 
 Simon Magus, for example,* — an imitator of Christ 
 
 1 It was remarked as a singular thing (Zonaras, An7i. xi. 10) that 
 Vitellius permitted the circulation of Nero's, and even of Galba's and 
 Otho's coinage. 
 
 2 Waddington, Fasti of the Province of Asia, 140, 141. 
 8 "Waddington, Inscr. (Le Bas), iii. 885. 
 
 * Simon, according to the legend, went to Rome in the reign of Xero, 
 to display before him his magic skill. An incident that happened in the
 
 326 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 (whence the lamb's horns of ver. 11) ; then, in the 
 legend, the flatterer, parasite, and professional juggler 
 of Nero ; ^ or Balbillus of Ephesus ; ^ or the " Man of 
 Sin " (Antichrist) obscurely spoken of by Paul.^ It is 
 probable that the person had in view by the writer of 
 the Apocalypse is some impostor of Ephesus, a partisan 
 of Nero, or, it may be, the pretended Nero himself, or 
 an agent of his. In fact, the same man is afterwards 
 called "the false prophet," * in the sense that he pro- 
 claims a false god, — as Aaron is the "prophet" of 
 Moses in Ex. vii. 1, — that is, Nero. We must keep in 
 view the importance attached at this time to magi, 
 Chaldasans, " mathematicians " (or magicians), — a 
 form of nuisance particularly at home in Ephesus. 
 AYe must recall, too, the fact that Nero dreamed once 
 of a " kingdom at Jerusalem ; " that he was in close 
 league with the astrologers of his time ; ^ and that, 
 
 amphitheatre in Nero's presence (Suet. Nero, 12; Dion Chrys. Or. xxi. 9; 
 Juvenal, iii. 78-80) strongly suggest the tragic end of Simon's career. The 
 prodigies attributed to " the false prophet" of the Apocalypse have some 
 likeness to those ascribed to Simon in the Christian romance (Pseudo- 
 Clem. Horn. ii. 34; iv. 4; Recogn. ii. 9; iii. 47, 57; Const. Apost. vi. 9; 
 Acta Petri, etc., 32, 35, 52, 70-77; Pseudo-llegesippus, iii. 2; Epiph. xxi. 
 5; Maximus, in Bibl. max. Patr. vi. 36; Arnobius, Adv. gentes, ii. 12). 
 This is one reason which might lead us to suspect in the false prophet a 
 symbolic representation of Saint Paul. (Comp. pp. 59, 60, ante.) 
 
 ^ Greg, of Tours, i. 21. The false Icarus was a domestic of Nero's 
 (Dion. Chrysost.). 
 
 2 Suet. Nero, 36; Dion Cass. Ixvi. 9; Arnob. Adv. gentes, i. p. 15, ed. 
 Rigault (Boibulus = Balbillus?). For the games founded in his honour 
 (jSaX^t'XXeia), comp. Corp. inscr. Gr. 2810, 3208, 3675, 5804, 5913. The 
 expression "before him" (fvcainov, Rev. xiii. 12, 14; xix. 20) does not 
 necessarily mean in bodily presence: a prophet who speaks for another 
 is represented as acting or speaking before him (VjHh) ; cf. Ada Petri 
 et Pau'i, 75. 
 
 8 2 Thess. ii. 3, 4. 
 
 4 Rev. xvi. 13; xix. 20; xx. 10; cf. Matt. xxiv. 21. 
 
 6 Suet. Nero, 34, 36, 40; Pliny, //. A^., xxx. 2.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 327 
 
 almost alone of the emperors [before Diocletian], he 
 was adored in his lifetime as a deity/ — a sign of 
 Antichrist.^ During his visit to Greece, in particular, 
 the adulation paid him by Achaia and Asia surpassed 
 all that we could imagine. And, further, we must not 
 forget the gravity, in Asia and the Greek islands, of 
 the uprising under the pretended Nero„^ The circum- 
 stance that the second beast comes from the land, not 
 like the first from the sea, shows that the event spoken 
 of happened in Asia or Judaea, not in Rome. All this, 
 however, is not enough to lift the darkness covering this 
 vision. Without doubt it had, in the writer's mind, the 
 same distinct basis in fact as the others ; but, referring 
 as it does to some provincial incident unknown to his- 
 torians, and important only in the personal feeling of 
 the Seer, it remains an unanswered riddle. 
 
 Amid these floods of wrath now appears an islet of 
 verdure.^ In the most frightful conflicts of the last 
 days, there is one place of refuge and comfort : it is 
 the Church, the little household of Jesus. The prophet 
 sees, reposing upon Mount Zion, the hundred and forty- 
 four thousand ransomed of the whole earth, bearino; 
 the name of God upon their foreheads. The Lamb 
 rests peacefully in the midst of them. Celestial har- 
 monies fall from harps upon the gathering ; the singers 
 sing a new song, which none other may repeat except 
 the hundred and forty-four thousand. The test of these 
 
 1 Tac. Ann. xv. 74. 2 2 Thess. ii. 3, 4. 
 
 8 See the expressions of Tacitus {Hist. ii. 8, 9): " wide-spread terror," 
 " false alarm in Achaia and Asia," etc. ; also, Zonaras (in Dion.): "terri- 
 fied almost all Greece" (/Inn. xi. 15). Asia Minor continued to produce 
 these impostors (Zonaras, xi. 18) ; and we feel that here is the home of 
 Neronianism. 
 
 * Rev. chap. xiv.
 
 328 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 blessed ones is strict chastity : all are virgin without 
 stain ; their lips have never spoken a lie ; ^ thus they 
 follow the Lamb wherever he goes, as first-fruits of the 
 earth and nucleus of the future realm. 
 
 After turning aside thus swiftly to a haven of peace 
 and innocence, the writer reverts to his dreadful vis- 
 ions. Three angels pass swiftly through the sky. The 
 first flies to the zenith bearing the eternal gospel. He 
 proclaims before all nations the new doctrine, and 
 announces the Judgment day. The second celebrates 
 by anticipation the destruction of Rome : " She is 
 fallen, is fallen, Babylon the mighty city,^ which has 
 made all nations drunk with the wine of her forni- 
 cation." ^ The third angel forbids the worship of the 
 Beast, or of his image made by the false prophet : 
 " Those who worship the Beast or his image, or who 
 bear the mark of the Beast on their forehead or 
 their hand, shall drink wine of the wrath of God, 
 undiluted wine mingled in the cup of his anger,* and 
 shall be tortured with fire and brimstone before the 
 angels and the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment 
 rises through ages of ages, and they have no respite 
 day or night,^ — they who worship the Beast or his 
 image, and who take upon them the mark of his name. 
 Here is the patience of the saints, who keep the com- 
 mandments of God ^ and the faith of Jesus." To re- 
 
 1 Zeph. iii. 13. 
 
 2 On the prophetic or symbolic use of this name, see p. 115. 
 
 8 Isa. xxi. 9 ; Jer. li. 7 ; Dan. iv. 27. The word here signifies incite- 
 ment to idolatry, which, according to the Seer, is the great crime of the 
 Roman Empire. In the language of prophecy, impurity is inseparable 
 from idolatry. 
 
 4 Psa. Ixxv. 9 ; Carm. Sibi/Il. proem, 76-78. ^ jga. xxiv. 9, 10. 
 
 ^ The strict Judseo-Christians, who observe the Law, or at least those 
 converts who keep the commandments of Noah.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 329 
 
 assure their faith upon a question that sometimes 
 troubles them, as to the doom of their brethren who 
 die from day to day/ a voice directs the prophet to 
 write, " Blessed henceforth are the dead who die in the 
 Lord. Yea, saith the Spirit, they will rest from their 
 labours, for their works follow them." ^ 
 
 The images of the Great Judgment crowd upon the 
 heated imagination of the Seer. A white cloud ap- 
 pears in the sky, and on the cloud is seated, as it were, 
 a Son of Man (an angel like the Messiah),^ his head 
 crowned with gold, and in his hand a sharp sickle.* 
 The harvest of the earth is ripe. The Son of Man puts 
 in his sickle, and the harvest of the earth is reaped. 
 Another angel goes on to the vintage ; ^ he casts the 
 whole into the great vat of the wrath of God.^ The 
 vat is trampled with feet outside the city ; ^ and the 
 blood which gushes from it rises to the height of the 
 horses' bridle-reins, over an extent of sixteen hundred 
 furlongs. 
 
 After these various episodes a celestial ceremony, like 
 the two mysteries of the opening of the seals and 
 sounding of the trumpets, takes place in view of the 
 Seer.^ Seven angels are empowered to strike the earth 
 with the seven last plagues, through which the wrath 
 of God will be spent. But first we are reassured as to 
 
 '^ See " Saint Paul," chaps, ix., xiv.; 1 Thess. iv. 14, 16 ; 1 Cor. xv. 18; 
 comp. Phil. i. 23; John v. 24; Luke xxiii. 43. 
 
 2 Pirke Aboth, vi. 9. 
 
 8 Dan. vii. 13; Matt. xxiv. 30; Luke xxi. 27; Rev. i. 13. 
 
 4 Joel iii. 13 ; Jer. li. 33. 
 
 ^ Joel iii. 13; Isa. xvii. 5; Ixiii. 1-6. 
 
 « Isa. Ixiii. 3; Micah iv. 13; Hab. iii. 12. 
 
 ' Alluding probably to the valley of Jehoshaphat (Joel iii. 2, 11-14). 
 The name was already beginning to be identified with the vale of Kedron. 
 
 8 Rev. chap. xv.
 
 330 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 the destiny of the elect. Upon a vast sea of crystal 
 mingled with fire we see the conquerors of the Beast — 
 that is, those who have refused to worship his image or 
 to bear the mark of his name — holding in their hands 
 the harps of God, singing the song of Moses (that after 
 the passage of the Red Sea) and of the Lamb. The 
 door of the heavenly tabernacle is open, and there 
 issue the seven angels clad in white linen, and girt 
 about the breast with golden girdles, — the costume of 
 Jewish priests.^ One of the four " living creatures " 
 gives them seven golden bowls, full to the brim with 
 the wrath of God.^ The temple is then filled with the 
 "smoke from the glory of God," and none can enter 
 till the end of the scene of the seven bowls.^ 
 
 The first angel* pours his bowl upon the earth, and 
 " there falls a noisome and grievous sore " upon all 
 those who bear the image of the Beast, or worship 
 his image. 
 
 The second angel pours his bowl into the sea ; and 
 the sea is changed into blood, and all living creatures 
 in it perish. 
 
 The third angel pours his bowl upon the rivers and 
 springs, and they are turned into blood. The angel of 
 the waters complains not of the loss of his own ele- 
 ment, but says, " Thou art just, Lord, that art and 
 wast and shalt be, in that thou hast judged thus. 
 They have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and 
 thou hast given them blood to drink. This they have 
 deserved." And a voice is heard from the altar, saying, 
 
 1 Ex. xxviii. 39, 40; Lev. vii. 3. 
 
 2 Ezek. xxii. 81 ; Zeph. iii. 8 ; Ps. Ixxxix. 6; Ezek. x. 7. 
 
 8 Ex. xl. 34 ; 1 Kings viii. 10, 11 ; Isa. vi. 4; esp. Ecclus. xxxix. 28-31. 
 There is much likeness to the plagues of Egypt (Ex. vii.-x.). 
 ^ Rev. chap. xvi.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 331 
 
 "Yes, Lord God Almighty, thy judgments are true 
 and just." ^ 
 
 The fourth angel pours his bowl upon the sun ; and 
 the sun burns men like fire. But they, far from re- 
 penting, blaspheme God, who has the power to strike 
 them with such plagues. 
 
 The fifth angel pours his bowl upon the throne of 
 the Beast (the city of Rome) ; and all the kingdom of 
 the Beast (the Roman Empire) is plunged in darkness. 
 Men gnaw their tongues for pain ; ^ but instead of 
 repenting, they mock at the God of heaven. 
 
 The sixth angel pours his bowl upon the river 
 Euphrates, which immediately dries up, so as to pre- 
 pare the way for the coming of the kings of the East.^ 
 Then from the mouth of the Dragon (Satan), from the 
 mouth of the Beast (Nero), and from the mouth of the 
 False Prophet (?) come forth three foul spirits like frogs 
 (a sign of sorcery and magic ),^ spirits of demons who 
 work miracles. These three spirits go in search of the 
 kings of all the earth, and bring them together for the 
 battle of the great day of God. " Behold," says Jesus, 
 "I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watches and keeps 
 his garments, lest he go about naked and his shame 
 be seen." ^ They gather, accordingly, in a place whose 
 Hebrew name is Armageddon. The general thought of 
 all this is plain. The Seer, as we have seen, adopts 
 the opinion universally held in Asia, that Nero, after 
 escaping from Phaon's villa, had taken refuge with 
 the Parthians, and would return from among them to 
 
 1 Comp. " Wisdom" xi. 15, 16; xvi. 1, 9; xvii. 2, 3. 
 
 2 Wisd. xvii. 2, 3. 
 
 8 Comp. Isa. xi. 15, 16; Carm. Sibi/ll. iv. 137-139. 
 
 * Arfcemidorus, Onirocrit. ii. 15. 
 
 ^ Rev. xvi. 15; comp. Matt. xxiv. 42; Luke xii. 37-39.
 
 332 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 crush his enemies. It was believed, with some show of 
 reason/ that the Parthian princes (Arsacidse), friends 
 of Nero during his reign, sustained him still ; in fact, 
 their court was the refuge of false Neros for more than 
 twenty years.^ All this appears to the writer of the 
 Apocalypse an infernal plan,^ conceived between Satan, 
 Nero, and some person figured by the second beast. 
 These creatures of Hell are busied somewhere in the 
 East with forming a league, whose army will soon pass 
 the Euphrates, and crush the Roman Empire- What 
 especial enigma there may be in the name Armageddon 
 is to us undecipherable.* 
 
 The seventh angel pours out his bowl upon the air, 
 and a cry comes from the altar, " It is done ! " There 
 are lightnings, voices, thunders, and an earthquake, 
 '' such as was not, since men were upon the earth, so 
 mighty an earthquake and so great." In consequence 
 of it, the great city (Jerusalem) ° is broken in three 
 parts ; the cities of the nations fall ; and the great 
 Babylon (Rome) comes into God's remembrance, and is 
 now to be compelled to drink " the cup of the wine of 
 the fierceness of his wrath." The islands disappear, 
 the mountains are no longer seen ; hailstones of a hun- 
 dred-weight ^ fall upon men, so that they " curse God 
 
 1 Suet. Nero, 57. 
 
 2 Tac. Hist. i. 2 ; Suet. Nero, 57 ; Zonaras, xi. 18. 
 
 3 Comp. 1 Kings xxii. 20-23. 
 
 * No doubt an allusion to " Hadad-rimmon," and " Megiddo " in Zech. 
 xii. 11. Some special place is probably had in mind, we cannot tell what. 
 The explanation nSnjn nonn {ha-roma-gedol "the great Rome") is 
 unlikely. Almost all the historic battles in Palestine were fought near 
 Megiddo (Judges v. 19; 2 Kings xxiii. 29; Zech. I. c). 
 
 ^ Comp. Rev. xi. 8; also the contra.st with "cities of the nations." 
 Besides, Rome would hardly be indicated in the same verse by two 
 different names. 
 
 ® A talent-weight is 110 pounds. — Ed.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 333 
 
 because of the plague of the hail, for the plague thereof 
 was exceeding great." ^ 
 
 The series of preludes is now finished, and it only 
 remains to unveil the Divine Judgment. The Seer 
 introduces us first to the condemnation of the guiltiest 
 of all, the city of Eome.^ One of the seven angels who 
 have poured the bowls of wrath upon the earth ap- 
 proaches John and says, " Come, and I will show you 
 the judgment of the great Enchantress who sits upon 
 many waters,^ with whom the kings of the earth have 
 done iniquity,* and who has made the world drunk with 
 the wine of her adulteries." Then John sees a Woman 
 seated upon a monster like at every point to that 
 which came out of the sea, whose entire figure rep- 
 resented the Roman Empire, and one of its heads the 
 emperor Nero. The monster is scarlet, covered with 
 names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten 
 horns. The Woman wears the garb of her profession 
 as courtesan ; she is clad in purple and scarlet, glitter- 
 ing with wrought gold {xpv(TL(p), precious stones, and 
 pearls ; and bears in her hand a golden drinking-cup, 
 full of the abominations and impurities of her prostitu- 
 tion. On her forehead is written a name of mystery : 
 " Babylon the Great, mother of harlots and of the 
 abominations of the earth." 
 
 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, 
 and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesns. And I wondered 
 with great wonder. And the angel said to me, " Why do you 
 wonder ? I will tell you the meaning of the woman and of 
 
 ^ Rev. xvi. 17-21. 2 j^gy chap. xvii. 
 
 2 Originally said of Babylon (Jer. 11. 13), but afterwards applied 
 metaphorically to Rome. 
 
 * The Herods, Tiridates king of Armenia, and others, eager to visit 
 Rome, give banquets there, and make their court to her.
 
 334 
 
 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 the beast that carries her. The beast which you have seen 
 was, and is no more ; and it must come up again from the 
 Pit,^ then go into perdition ; and the inhabitants of the earth 
 whose names are not written in the book of life from the be- 
 ginning of the world will be full of consternation in seeing 
 the beast reappear, which had been and was no more. Here 
 it needs a mind that has understanding. The seven heads 
 are the seven hills on which the woman dwells. They repre- 
 sent also seven kings ; five of these are fallen, and one now 
 reigns ; the other is not yet come, and when he comes he will 
 continue but a little time.^ The beast which was and is no 
 more is the eighth king, and at the same time one of the 
 seven, and goes straight to destruction. And the ten horns 
 which you have seen are ten kings, who have not yet received 
 a kingdom, but receive for one hour authority as of kings, 
 sharing it with the Beast. These all have one purpose, and 
 yield up their power and authority to the Beast. They will 
 make war upon the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them ; 
 for he is Lord of lords and King of kings ; and those who are 
 called and chosen with him, his faithful ones, will conquer 
 likewise," And he added, " The waters which you have 
 seen, on which the Harlot sits, are the peoples and nations 
 and races and tongues. And the ten horns which you have 
 seen, and ^ the Beast itself, will hate the Harlot, and make 
 her naked and desolate, and will devour her flesh, and burn 
 her with firc.^ For God has put it in their hearts to fulfil his 
 purpose, and to combine together, and to give their royal 
 power to the Beast, until the will of God shall be accom- 
 plished. And the Woman whom you have seen is the great 
 City which has royal power over the kings of the earth." 
 
 This is quite clear. The Harlot is Rome, which has 
 
 1 Comp. xi. 7: a^va-aos, "the abyss," the abode of devils, not of the 
 dead. 
 
 2 Comp. Assfiimption of Moses, 7: see Hilgenfeld, Nov. Test, extra cano- 
 nem, i. 113, 114. 
 
 2 The reading of the Alexandrian and Sina'itic, etc., instead of " on." 
 * Signifying phinder and conflagration.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 335 
 
 corrupted the earth/ has employed its power to extend 
 and strengthen, idolatry,^ has persecuted the saints, has 
 shed in streams the blood of martyrs. The Beast is 
 Nero, who has been thought dead, but will return, 
 though his second reio;n will be short and his ruin 
 complete. The seven heads have a twofold meaning : 
 they are the seven hills on which Rome is seated ; but, 
 and above all, they are the seven emperors down to 
 and including Galba.^ The first five are dead ; Galba 
 reigns for the time, but he is old and weak, and his 
 power will soon pass away. The sixth, Nero, who is 
 at the same time the Beast itself and one of the seven 
 kings,* is not really dead ; he will reign again, but for 
 a short time, — not more than three years and a half, 
 thinks the writer ; thus he will be the eighth, then 
 will perish. The ten horns are the proconsuls and 
 imperial legates, who are not real kings,^ but receive 
 their power from the emperor for a limited time [^l<xv 
 (opav), govern after the same policy, which comes to 
 them from Rome, and are wholly subject to the empire, 
 from which they hold their power. These partial kings 
 bear equal malice with Nero himself against the Chris- 
 tians.'^ Since they represent provincial interests, they 
 will humble Rome, and take from her the right to dis- 
 pose of the empire, which she has held till now ; ^ they 
 will abuse her, set fire to her, and share her ruins 
 
 1 See Carm. Sihyll. iii. 182, 356 ; v. 161 et seq. 
 
 2 Comp. the two hagadas on the origin of Rome: Jerus. Talm., Ahoda 
 zara, 1, 3; Sifrd, sect. Ekeb, 52; Bab. Talm., Shabbath, 56, b; Midrash, 
 Shir hasshii-im, i. 6. 
 
 8 See pp. 317, 321. 
 
 * Rev. xvii. 11. 
 
 ^ See the use of dux in the Midrash rabba, Eka, 1, 5. 
 
 ® See Commodian, v. 864. 
 
 '' Tac. Hist. i. 4.
 
 336 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 among themselves.^ Meanwhile, God does not yet de- 
 sire the dismembering of the empire. He puts it into 
 the minds of the provincial military chiefs, and of all 
 those who in turn control the destiny of the empire, — 
 Vindex, Verginius, Nymphidius Sabinus, Galba, Macer, 
 Capito, Otho, Vitellius, Mucian, Vespasian, — to agree 
 in the policy of restoring the Empire ; and, instead of 
 making themselves independent of it (which to a Jew- 
 ish writer seemed the more natural thing), to do hom- 
 age for their royalty to the Beast.^ 
 
 We see how deeply this manifesto from the head of 
 the churches in Asia enters into the spirit of a situa- 
 tion which, to fancies so impressible as those of the 
 Jews, must needs be strange. Nero, in fact, by his 
 exceptional guilt and madness, had thrown men's rea- 
 son off its balance. The Empire, at his death, was like 
 an estate without heirs. After the murder of Caligula 
 there was still a republican party left, and, besides, the 
 adoptive family of Augustus retained its full prestige ; 
 while, after the death of Nero, there was almost no 
 republican party whatever, and the Augustan family 
 was extinct. The Empire was in the hands of eight or 
 ten generals, who held high commands. The writer of 
 the Apocalypse, knowing nothing of the Roman State, 
 w^onders that the ten chiefs, who seem to him kings, do 
 not declare themselves independent, — that they agree 
 in one policy ; ^ and attributes this to a special act of 
 
 ^ The project of starving the capital was entertained, says Josephus 
 {Wars^ iv. 10: 5), in the party of Mucian. 
 
 2 In xvii. 13 (" give their power to the Beast"), the writer seems to 
 imagine that the generals of the different provinces will combine for tlie 
 restoration of Nero. The reigns of Otho and Vitellius were, in fact, reac- 
 tions in Nero's favour. 
 
 ^ Hoirjaat fjLiav yvwiirjV. Piev. xvii. 13, 17-
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 337 
 
 the divine will. Evidently the Jews of the East — 
 who had been for two years oppressed by the Roman 
 power, and now felt their burden lighter since Nero's 
 death, because Mucian and Vespasian were occupied 
 with general affairs of State — believed that the Empire 
 was about to dissolve, and were in triumph for a while. 
 This was not so superficial a view as it might seem. 
 Tacitus, in sketching the events of the year just before 
 the Apocalypse was written,^ calls it " very nearly the 
 last year of the republic." ^ It was a great surprise to 
 the Jews when they saw the " ten kings " return to 
 the Beast (the unity of the Empire) and lay their king- 
 doms at his feet. They had hoped that the independ- 
 ence of the " ten kings " would result in the ruin of 
 Rome. Hostile as they were themselves to a great cen- 
 tral organisation of the State, they supposed that the 
 proconsuls and legates must hate Rome also. Judging 
 them by themselves, they supposed that these power- 
 ful chiefs would act like Satraps, or else like Hyrca- 
 nus or Janngeus,^ — kings who destroyed their enemies. 
 Like jealous provincials, they at least gloated over the 
 great humiliation endured by the queen-city of the 
 earth, when the right of creating sovereigns passed 
 over to the provinces ; when Rome received within 
 her walls masters whom she had not the first voice in 
 proclaiming. 
 
 How far, then, was the Apocalypse connected with 
 that strange episode of the false Nero, which stirred 
 all hearts in Asia and the Grecian isles* at the very 
 moment when the Seer of Patmos wrote ? Such a 
 
 1 Tac. Hist. i. 11, 2 Comp. Jos. Wars, iv. 11: 5. 
 
 8 See " History of the People of Israel," iv. 239, 240; v. 96-115. — Ed. 
 
 * See pages 280, 281, ante. 
 
 22
 
 338 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 coincidence is surely most remarkable. Cythnos and 
 Patmos are only a hundred and twenty miles apart, 
 and news travels fast in the Archipelago. The days 
 when the Christian prophet wrote were those when the 
 impostor was most talked about, enthusiastically hailed 
 by some, and watched with terror by others. I have 
 shown that he announced himself at Cythnos in Janu- 
 ary of 69, or perhaps in December of 68. The centu- 
 rion Sisenna, who touched at Cythnos early in February, 
 on his way from the East, whence he brought pledges 
 of agreement from the army in Syria to the Pretorians 
 at Rome, had some difficulty in escaping him. A few 
 days later, Calpurnius Asprenas, who had received from 
 Galba the government of Galatia and Pamphylia, ar- 
 rived at Cythnos, accompanied by two galleys of the 
 fleet of Misenum. Emissaries of the Pretender tried 
 upon the captains of these galleys the magic effect of 
 Nero's name ; and the scamp, affecting an air of sad- 
 ness, appealed to the fidelity of those who had once 
 been " his soldiers." He entreated them to convey 
 him, at least, to Syria or Egypt, on which he rested 
 his hopes. The captains, whether by cunning or from 
 hesitation, asked for time. Asprenas heard all, seized 
 the impostor by surprise, and put him to death. His 
 body was carried to Asia, then to Rome, so as to con- 
 fute those of his partisans who might raise doubts of 
 his death.^ Might it be that this poor wretch was al- 
 luded to in the words, " the Beast which you see was, 
 and is no more ; he will come forth from the Pit, and 
 run swiftly to his end ; the otlier king is not yet come, 
 and when he shall come he will not continue long" ?^ 
 
 1 Tac. Hht. ii. 8, 9. 
 
 2 Rev. xvii. 8, 10, 11. Compare the expressions of ver. 8 with those
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 339 
 
 It is possible. The monster rising from the Pit would 
 be a lively image of the ephemeral power which the 
 sagacious historian discerned, not far from Patmos, ap- 
 pearing upon the sea-horizon. We cannot speak con- 
 fidently of this : the general opinion that Nero was in 
 hiding among the Parthians is enough to explain every- 
 thing. But this opinion did not prevent belief in the 
 false Nero of Cythnos ; since it might be supposed that 
 his appearing was really the return of the " monster," 
 coincident with the crossing of the Euphrates by his 
 Eastern allies.^ In any case, it seems to me impossible 
 that these passages should have been written after the 
 false Nero was put to death by Asprenas. The sight 
 of the impostor's body, conveyed from town to town, 
 and the view of his features pallid in death, would 
 have confuted too plainly the apprehensions of the 
 Beast's return, which has such a hold upon the writer's 
 mind.^ I fully admit, then, that John at Patmos had 
 knowledge of the events at Cythnos,^ and that the 
 effect produced on him by these strange rumours was 
 the chief occasion of the letter he wrote to the churches 
 of Asia, to notify them of the great tidings that Nero 
 was risen from the dead. 
 
 Interpreting political events in the interest of his 
 own hate, the writer — a Jewish fanatic — has pre- 
 
 of Tacitus in the passage just referred to, and in the note on p. 327 
 (above). 
 
 1 In the two passages relating to the Parthian invasion, — the sixth 
 trumpet and the sixth bowl, — it is not said that Nero was with his allies, 
 but only that the invasion was made in concert with him. 
 
 ^ This disproves the opinion of those who think to find in the Apoca- 
 lypse allusions to the final struggles of Otho and Vitellius. 
 
 ^ The words "was not yet come" (ver. 10) would well fit the time 
 when the impostor, though much talked of, had not yet committed him- 
 self by any public acts.
 
 340 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 dieted that the provincial commandants, whom he sup- 
 poses to be full of rancour against Rome, while to a 
 certain extent in league with Nero, will ravage and 
 burn the city ; and then, assuming this to be already 
 accomplished, he chants the ruin of his foe/ For this, 
 he has only to copy the declamations of the old proph- 
 ets against Babylon or Tyre.^ Israel has staked out, 
 so to speak, the literature of malediction. To all the 
 great secular States, such words as these have been 
 spoken : " Happy he that shall repay to thee the evil 
 thou hast done ! " A shining angel comes down from 
 heaven, and cries in awful tones, " Fallen, fallen, is 
 Babylon the great, and is now but the habitation of 
 devils,^ an abode of unclean spirits, a refuge of filthy 
 birds ; because all the earth has drunk of the wine of 
 her fornication, and the kings of the earth have defiled 
 themselves with her, and the merchants of the earth 
 have enriched themselves by her wealth ! " Another 
 voice from heaven is heard : — 
 
 Go out of her, yon who are my people, lest you make your- 
 selves guilty of her crimes, and be stricken by the plagues 
 that shall afflict her ! Her abominations have come before 
 the face of heaven, and God has taken note of her iniquities. 
 Return upon her what she has done to others, repay her 
 double for her evil deeds ; pour out to her twice over the cup 
 which she has poured out upon others ! All that she has had 
 of glory and prosperity, so much shall be given her of torment 
 and affliction. " I sit as a Queen," she says ; " I am no widow, 
 and I shall never know what it is to mourn." That is why 
 her punishment shall come all in one day, — death, desolation, 
 
 ^ Rev. chap, xviii. 
 
 ^ As examples, Isa. xiii., xxiii., xxiv., xxxiv., xlvii., xlviii., lii. ; Jer. 
 xvi., XXV., li. ; Ezek. xxvi., xxvii. 
 
 ^ That is, the strange wild animals living in the ruins, which were 
 taken to be evil demons. Isa. xiii. 21 ; x.xxiv. 14.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 341 
 
 famine, and fire ; for mighty is the God who judges her. And 
 the kings of the earth shall be seen weeping over her, they 
 who have shared her uncleanness and debaucheries.^ At the 
 sight of the smoke of her conflagration, the companions of her 
 luxury shall cry out, " Woe, woe ! " and hold themselves afar 
 off in terror. " What ! the great, the mighty Babylon ! In 
 one hour her judgment is come upon her ! " And the mer- 
 chants of the earth will lament, for no one any longer buys 
 their merchandise. Ornaments of gold and silver, precious 
 stones, pearls, fine linen, purple, silk, scarlet, cypress-wood, 
 ivory, brass, steel, marble, cinnamon, balsam, perfumes, aro- 
 matic oils, incense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle, sheep, 
 horses, chariots, bodies ^ and souls of men, — the traders in 
 all these things, who had gained wealth from her, keep far 
 away in dread of her torments. " Woe, woe ! " will they say. 
 "Alas ! that is the great city which was clothed in scarlet, 
 purple, and fine linen ; which was adorned with gold, precious 
 stones, and pearls ! In one hour so great wealth is come to 
 naught ! " And the sailors who once came to her, and all 
 who traffic by the sea, stand afar off at the sight of the smoke 
 of her burning, cast dust upon their heads, and break into 
 cries, weeping, and lamentation : " Woe, woe ! " they say ; 
 " The great city, which enriched with her treasures all who 
 had ships upon the sea, behold ! in one hour slie has been 
 turned into a desert!" Rejoice at her ruin, heaven! 
 Rejoice, saints, apostles, and prophets ! For God has judged 
 your cause, and has given you vengeance upon her.^ 
 
 Then an angel of mighty strength takes a stone 
 great as a millstone, and casts it mto the sea, saying, — 
 
 1 An allusion to the Ilerods, whose flatteries of the Romans were 
 deeply wounding to the Jews, especially after the revolt of 66. 
 
 2 Slaves at sale were counted as "bodies" {<jti>\).ara)\ see Inscr. at 
 Delphi {Journ. asiat. June, 1808, 530, 531); Demosth. Iti Everg., etc., 11; 
 Tob. X. 10; 2 Mace. viii. 11 ; Gen. xxxvi. 6 (Gr. vers.); comp. Gen. xii. 
 5; Ezek. xxvii. 13; Jos. Life, 75; Wescher, in Aim. de Vassoc. dcs etudes 
 grecqries, 1872, 88. 
 
 8 Rev. xviii. 4.-20.
 
 342 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 Thus with violence shall Babylon, that great city, be thrown 
 down, and no more trace of her shall be found. And the 
 sound of the harp and of musicians, the sound of the flute 
 and trumpet shall be heard no more within her walls; no 
 craftsman of any craft shall be found in her ; and the sound 
 of a millstone shall no more be heard in her ; the light of a 
 candle shall shine in her no more ; the voice of the bride- 
 groom and the bride ^ shall no more be heard. For her mer- 
 chants were the great ones of the earth,^ and by her sorceries 
 all nations were deceived. And in her was found the blood 
 of prophets and saints, and of all who have been slain upon 
 the earth .^ 
 
 The ruin of this chief enemy of the people of God is 
 the occasion of great rejoicing in heaven.^ A voice as 
 of a countless multitude is heard, saying, " Hallelujah ! 
 Salvation, glory, and power to our God ! For his judg- 
 ments are just, and He has judged the great Harlot 
 who has corrupted the earth by her adulteries ; and He 
 has avenged the blood of his servants shed by her." 
 Another chorus responds : " Hallelujah ! the smoke of 
 her burning rises up forever and ever." Then the 
 twenty-four elders and the four living creatures pros- 
 trate themselves and do homage to God, who sits upon 
 the throne, saying, " Amen ! hallelujah ! " A voice 
 then comes from the throne, singing the inaugural 
 Psalm of the new kingdom : " Praise our God, all ye 
 who are his servants and who fear him, both small and 
 great." ^ A voice like that of a multitude, or the voice 
 of many waters, or the noise of loud thunder, responds : 
 
 1 Kesponsive chants, as in the Song of Solomon, used for popular song 
 in general. 
 
 2 Not specially applicable to Rome, but taken from the invectives of 
 ancient prophets against Tyre. 
 
 3 Rev. xviii. 21-24. * Ihld. chap. xix. 
 ^ Ps. cxv. 13; cxxxiv. 1.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 343 
 
 " Hallelujah ! now reigns the Lord God Almighty ! Let 
 us rejoice and give ourselves up to joy, and render to 
 him glory ; for this is the marriage-hour of the Lamb/ 
 and his Bride (the Church) has made herself ready : 
 a robe of fine linen is given for her apparel, clean 
 and white." The fine linen, the writer adds, is the 
 righteousness of the saints. 
 
 Delivered now from the presence of the great Adul- 
 teress (Rome), the earth is ripe for the celestial mar- 
 riage, the Messiah's reign. An angel says to the Seer, 
 " Write, happy are they who are bidden to the mar- 
 riage-supper of the Lamb ! " Then heaven opens and 
 Christ — who is here for the first time called by his 
 mystic name, the Word of God — appears as a con- 
 queror,^ mounted on a white horse. He comes to 
 trample the wine-press of the wrath of God, to in- 
 augurate for the pagans the rule of the iron sceptre. 
 His eyes flash fire ; his robe is stained with blood ; he 
 wears upon his head several crowns, with an inscription 
 in mysterious characters.^ From his mouth proceeds a 
 sharp sword, to smite the gentiles ; and on his thigh is 
 written his title, King of kings., Lord of lords. All the 
 heavenly host follow him, riding on white horses, and 
 clad in fine linen. We may now look for a peaceful 
 triumph, but the time for that is not yet. Though 
 Kome is destroyed, yet the Roman world, represented 
 by Nero, the Antichrist, is not annihilated. An angel 
 standing in the sun calls with a loud voice to all the 
 birds flying in the vault of heaven, " Come, gather to 
 
 1 Matt. xxii. 2-14 ; xxv. 1-13. 
 
 2 All these images are taken from Isa. Ixiii. 1-3 ; Ps. ii. 9 ; comp. Rev. 
 i. 16; vi. 2; xiv. 19. 
 
 8 The true reading in ver. 12 seems to be "names" {pv6y.aTa): Tisch. 
 and Cod. Sinail.
 
 344 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 the great feast of God ; come, eat the flesh of kings, of 
 captams, of mighty men, of horses and their riders, of 
 freemen and slaves, both small and great ! ^ Then the 
 prophet sees the Beast (Nero) and the kings of the earth 
 (generals of provinces, almost independent) with their 
 armies, gathered to make war upon him who rides the 
 white horse, and his forces ; and the Beast is seized, 
 and with it the False Prophet,^ who wrought miracles 
 before it ; and both are cast alive into an ever-burning 
 lake of fire and brimstone.^ Their armies are wholly 
 destroyed by the sword which proceeds from the mouth 
 of the rider of the white horse, and the birds glut 
 themselves with their flesh. 
 
 The Roman armies, the great instruments of Satan's 
 power, are now subdued ; Nero the Antichrist, their 
 last chief, is imprisoned in hell ; but the Dragon, the 
 old serpent, Satan, still lives. We have seen how he 
 was cast from heaven upon the earth ; * the earth must 
 now be delivered from his presence.^ An angel comes 
 down from heaven, holding the key of the Pit, and 
 having a great chain in his hand. He seizes the 
 Dragon, binds him for a thousand years, thrusts him 
 into the Pit,^ locks with the key the entrance of the 
 Pit, and seals it with a seal.^ The Devil will remain 
 in chains for a thousand years. Moral evil and phys- 
 ical (which is its consequence) will be suspended, but 
 not destroyed. Satan can no longer deceive the nations, 
 but he is not annihilated for all eternity. 
 
 A judgment-seat is set, to declare who are those that 
 
 i Corap. Ezek. xxxix. 17-20. 2 gee pp. 322-327. 
 
 8 See pp. 267, 2G8. 4 Rev. xii. 7, 8. 
 
 ^ Chap. XX. ^ Jude 6. 
 ' Comp. Bab. Talm Giltin, 68 a.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 345 
 
 shall share the reign of a thousand years.^ This is re- 
 served exclusively for martyrs. The first place in it 
 belongs to the souls of those who were beheaded for 
 bearing witness to Jesus and to the word of God (the 
 martyrs of Nero's persecution) ; then come those who 
 have refused to worship the Beast or his image, and 
 have not received his mark on their foreheads, or in 
 their hands (the confessors of Ephesus, of whom the 
 Seer is one : comp. i. 9). The elect of this first king- 
 dom revive and reign with Christ a thousand years 
 upon the earth. Not that the rest of mankind has dis- 
 appeared, or even that the whole world has become 
 Christian. The millennium is at the centre of the 
 earth, like a little paradise. Rome exists no more; 
 Jerusalem has taken its place as the capital of the 
 world ; the faithful here make a kingdom of priests ; ^ 
 they serve God and Christ ; there is no longer any 
 great pagan empire, or civil power hostile to the 
 Church ; the nations come to Jerusalem to render 
 homage to the Messiah, who controls them by terror. 
 During these thousand years the dead, who have no 
 part in the first resurrection, are not alive : they wait. 
 Those, then, who share in the first kingdom have a 
 special privilege : over and above eternity without end, 
 they have the thousand years on earth with Jesus. No 
 death will ever touch them more. 
 
 When the thousand years shall be fulfilled, Satan 
 will be set free from his prison for a time, and evil 
 will begin again to prevail upon the earth. Satan, 
 unchained, will again deceive the nations, driving them 
 from one end of the earth to the other in frightful 
 wars. Gog and Magog (mythic personifications of bar- 
 
 1 Dan. vii. 9, 22, 27. 2 jga. Ixi. 6.
 
 346 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 barian assaults) ^ will lead to the conflict armies more 
 numerous than the sands of the sea. The Church will 
 be, as it were, drowned in this deluge. The barbarians 
 will besiege the camp of the saints, the beloved city, — 
 that is, Jerusalem, still of earth, but altogether holy, 
 where the faithful friends of Jesus are ; but fire will 
 fall from heaven upon them and consume them. Then 
 Satan, who had seduced them, will be cast into the 
 lake of burning brimstone, wdiere already are the Beast 
 (Nero) and the False Prophet, and where all these ac- 
 cursed ones will henceforth be tormented day and night 
 for ages upon ages. 
 
 The work of the creation is now finished ; it remains 
 only to proceed to the final Judgment.^ A throne ap- 
 pears, shining white, and upon it the Supreme Judge. 
 At sight of him, heaven and earth flee away : there is 
 no longer space for them. The dead, great and small, 
 come to life. Death and the Grave (Sheol) render up 
 their prey ; the sea, too, yields back the drowned, who 
 were swallowed up therein, and did not go down regu- 
 larly into >S'/zeo/(Hades).^ All appear before the throne. 
 The great books are brought, in which is kept a strict 
 
 1 The myth comes from Ezek. sxxviii., xxxix. Among certain tribes 
 speaking Ossetic [an Iranian dialect of the Caucasus], Gogh (mountain) 
 and Muffogh (great mountain) denote two chief ranges of the Caucasus; 
 and these names came to be applied to the Scythian populations near the 
 Black and Caspian seas. In Ezekiel they personify Scythian, or, in gen- 
 eral, any barbaric invasion (comp. Koran, xviii. 94, 95; xxi. 96). The 
 messianic application of this geographical myth begins to appear in the 
 Sibylline verses (iii. 319, 512) ; still more plainly in the Targum of Pseudo- 
 Jonathan, or Jerus. Targ. , Levit. xxvi. 41; Num. xi. 27; comp. Bab. 
 Talm. Sanfi. 94 a, 97 b ; Aboda zara, 1 b. See Zeitsch. der d. m. G. 1867, 
 575. 
 
 2 See Dan. vii. 9. 
 
 8 Comp. Achilles Tatius, v. 116, 117 (ed. Jacobs), and the curious 
 mosaic of Torcello.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 347 
 
 account of the actions of every man.-* Another book, 
 too, is opened, — the "book of life," in which are writ- 
 ten the names of those predestinate to bliss. Then all 
 are judged according to their works. Those whose 
 names are not found written in the book of life are 
 cast down into the lake of fire ; and into this Death 
 and Hell {Sheol) are also cast.^ 
 
 Now that Evil is destroyed without recovery, the 
 reign of absolute Good is about to begin.^ The old 
 earth and the old heaven have passed away ; a new 
 earth and a new heaven succeed to them,^ and there is 
 no more sea.^ Still, this new earth and sky are only a 
 renewing of the present earth and sky; and, just as 
 Jerusalem was the pearl and jewel of the former earth, 
 just so Jerusalem will be again the radiant centre of 
 the new. The apostle sees this new Jerusalem coming 
 down from heaven, from the presence of God, arrayed 
 like a bride adorned for her husband. A loud voice is 
 heard, coming from the throne : " Behold the taber- 
 nacle wherein God will dwell with men ; and they will 
 henceforth be his people, and he will be always present 
 in the midst of them.^ And he will wipe every tear 
 from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, nor 
 sorrow, or crying, or pain ; '^ for the former things are 
 passed away." Jehovah himself speaks, to declare the 
 
 ^ Mai. iii. 16; Dan. vii. 10; Bab. Talrn. Rosh has-shana, 16 6. 
 
 "^ Comp. Dan. vii. 11; Luke xvi. 23; 1 Cor. xv. 26. 
 
 8 Rev. chap. xxi. 
 
 * Comp. Isa. Ixv. 17; Ixvi. 22; 2 Pet. iii. 13. 
 
 ^ The sea [in this writer's view] blots out and sterilises a portion of 
 the earth, and so is a relic of the primal chaos, or a penalty inflicted by 
 God, engulfing guilty lands. It is bottomless (a^vaaos) ; now the abyss 
 is the domain of Satan (comp. xi. 7; xiii. 1). In Paradise (Gen. ii.) 
 there was no sea: comp. Job vii. 12. 
 
 « Ezek. xxxvii. 27 ; 2 Cor, vi. 16. '' Isa. xxv. 8 ; Ixv. 19.
 
 348 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 law of this eternal world : " It is done ; behold I make 
 all things new^^ I am the Alpha and the Omega, the 
 first and the last. Him who thirsts, I will cause to 
 drink of the fountain of life freely.^ He that over- 
 comes shall inherit all these things, and I will be his 
 God, and he will be my son.^ The fearful, the unbeliev- 
 ing, the abominable, — murderers, fornicators, sorce- 
 rers, idolaters, liars, — their part shall be in the lake 
 of fire and brimstone." 
 
 Then an angel draws near the Seer, and says, " Come, 
 I will show you the Bride of the Lamb." And he bears 
 him in spirit to a high mountain, from which he shows 
 him in detail the new Jerusalem,^ filled and clothed 
 with the Divine glory. Its splendour is that of a crys- 
 tal of jasper. In form it is a perfect square,^ with sides 
 of three thousand furlongs, set to the four winds of 
 heaven (the cardinal points), and surrounded by a wall 
 one hundred and forty-four cubits high, pierced with 
 twelve gateways. At each gate an angel stands as 
 guard, and above it is written the name of one of the 
 twelve tribes of Israel. The foundation of the wall 
 consists of twelve layers of stones, and on each shines 
 the name of one of the apostles of the Lamb,*^ each suc- 
 
 1 Isa. xliii. 19 ; Jer. xxxi. 22 ; 2 Cor. v. 17. 
 
 2 Isa. Iv. 1. 3 2 Sam. vii. 14. 
 
 * All that follows is taken from Ezekiel xl., xlvii., xlviii. ; compare 
 Herodotus, i. 178 [the description of Babylon]. 
 
 ^ The word " height" (ver. 16) must be either a freak of fancy or a 
 careless revision. But comp. Bab. Talra. Baha bathra, 75 /;. 
 
 ^ The vague Jewish fancy shows here. The writer is drawn on by his 
 symbols to a picture unsatisfying to the mind. The " twelve foundations " 
 are commonly understood as so many sections of the basement wall, run- 
 ning from one gate to another. I think it better to put them one above 
 another as so many layers, each set a little back from that under it, below 
 the wall proper, as almost necessarily implied in vers. 18-20. Compare 
 the walls of the haram at Jerusalem, as shown by the English excava-
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 349 
 
 cessive layer being adorned with precious stones,^ — 
 jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, cor- 
 nelian, chrysolite, beryl (aquamarine), topaz, chryso- 
 prase, jacinth, and amethyst. The wall itself is of 
 jasper; the city pavement, of pure gold, bright ''like 
 transparent glass ; " each gate is composed of a single 
 great pearl.^ There is no temple in the city ; for God 
 himself and the Lamb are its sanctuary. The throne, 
 which the prophet at the opening of his revelation saw 
 in heaven, is now in the midst of the city, — that is, at 
 the centre of a humanity regenerate and harmoniously 
 reconstructed. On this throne are seated God and the 
 Lamb. From the foot of the throne flows the river of 
 Life,^ bright and clear as crystal, crossing the principal 
 street. On its border grows the tree of life,* which 
 bears twelve kinds of fruits, one in every month, which 
 fruits seem to be reserved for Israel, — the leaves hav- 
 ing a medicinal virtue for the healing of the nations. 
 The city has no need of sun or moon to light it ; ^ for 
 the glory of God makes it bright, and the Lamb is its 
 illumination. The nations will walk by its light \^ the 
 kings of the earth will pay it the homage of their own 
 glory ; and the gates will be shut neither day nor 
 night, so great will be the throng of those who will 
 come to bring their tribute. Nothing unclean or foul 
 will enter there ; "^ those only will find place in it whose 
 
 tions : Palestine exploration fund, No. 4; also, Mem. de VAcad. des inscr. 
 xxvi. pi. 2, 5; and Lex derniers jnurs de Jems., 246. Observe, too, the 
 use of the same ■word (df/xeXios) in Jos. Antiq. vii. 14: 10; viii. 2: 9; xv. 
 11: 3; Wars, v. 5: 2, as designating the substructure of the Temple. 
 
 1 Ex. xxvii. 17-20; xxxix. 10-14. 
 
 ^ Isa. liv. 11, 12. 2 Kev chap. xxii. 
 
 * Gen. ii. 10-14. 5 Dan. vii. 27. 
 
 6 Isa. Ix. 3, 5-7, 19, 20. ' Isa. lii. 1.
 
 350 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 names are written in the Lamb's book of life. There 
 will be no more religious division or curse ; ^ the pure 
 worship of God and the Lamb will bind all the world 
 together. At every hour the servants of God will en- 
 joy the Divine vision, and his name will be written on 
 their foreheads. This blessed reign will last forever 
 and forever. 
 
 1 Zech. xiv. 11.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 LATER FORTUNES OF THE BOOK. — A. D. 69. 
 
 The work ends with an epilogue, which opens thus : — 
 
 I, John, heard and saw all these things. And when I had 
 heard and seen them, I fell down before the feet of the angel 
 who showed them to me, to worship him. But he said, " Do 
 not do that. I am your fellow-servant; we have all one 
 master, — I, and you, and your brothers the prophets, and 
 all those who keep the words of this book.^ Worship God." 
 Then he said tome, "Do not seal" — that is, do not keep 
 back — "the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time 
 is near. Let the unjust act unjustly still, and he that is filthy 
 let him still defile himself; and let the just man continue to 
 do justice, and the holy let him still be holy ! " 
 
 A voice far off, the voice of Jesus himself, is heard, 
 responding to this assurance, and confirming it : — 
 
 Behold, I come quickly, and bring with me the reward 
 which I will bestow on every man according to his works.^ I 
 am the Alpha and Omega^ the first and last, the beginning and 
 the end. Happy are they who make clean their garments ! ^ 
 They will have right to the tree of life, and will enter by the 
 gates into the city. But without are dogs [pagans], sorcerers, 
 the impure in life, murderers, idolaters, and all who love or 
 commit falsehood. I, Jesus, have sent my messenger to tes- 
 tify these things to you in the churches. Happy are they who 
 
 ^ A caution against those who, like the Essenes, exaggerate angel- 
 worship. 
 
 2 Isa. xl. 10. 
 
 * The reading here adopted by the author.
 
 352 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 keep the words of the prophecy of this book ! I am the stem 
 and offshoot of David, the bright star of the morning.^ 
 
 Here the voices from heaven and from earth inter- 
 mingle, and come in softer strain to a cadence in per- 
 fect harmony : — 
 
 " Come ! " say the Spirit and the Bride.^ And let him who 
 hears the call say also, " Come ! " Let every one that thirsts 
 come ! Let him who will take the water of life freely. 
 
 I myself [says the Revcaler] testify to every one who hears 
 the words of the prophecy contained in this book, that if any 
 shall add anything to them, God will lay on him all the 
 plagues that are written here. And if any shall take away 
 from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take 
 from him his share of the tree of life and of the holy city, of 
 which it is written in this book.^ 
 
 He who testifies of these things repeats, " Yes, I come 
 quickly." Even so, come, Lord Jesus. 
 
 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with all. 
 
 There can be no doubt that this Book of Visions 
 made a very deep impression on the churches of Asia, 
 communicated as it was under the most venerated 
 name of the Christian world. A multitude of details, 
 now grown obscure, were clear to the mind of that 
 time. These bold predictions of a coming convulsion 
 had nothing to cause surprise. Discourses just as 
 formal, ascribed to Jesus,"* were in daily circulation, 
 and were accepted in good faith. Besides, throughout 
 a year, public events might seem marvellously to con- 
 firm the book. Toward the first of February, the 
 death of Galba and accession of Otho were reported in 
 
 ^ Isa. xi. 1. 
 
 2 The spirit of prophecy in the Church, and the Church herself. 
 
 8 Deut. iv. 2. 4 Matt. xxiv.
 
 LATER FORTUNES OF THE BOOK. 353 
 
 Asia. Every succeeding day brought some evident 
 sign of the decay of imperial power. All the provinces 
 well knew that Otho was powerless ; that Vitelliiis held 
 his title against Rome and the Senate ; that two bloody 
 battles had been fought at Bedriacum ; ^ that Otho was 
 defeated in his turn, and Vespasian was victorious ; 
 that a fight had taken place in the Roman streets, 
 during which the Capitol was set on fire ; and that 
 from this conflagration many inferred that the destinies 
 of Rome were drawing to an end. All this would 
 appear wonderfully to confirm the gloomy predictions 
 of the prophet. Believers in them only began to be 
 undeceived when Jerusalem was taken, the Temple 
 destroyed, and the Flavian dynasty set firmly on the 
 throne. But religious faith never accepts the refuta- 
 tion of its hopes. Then, too, the book w^as obscure, 
 and much of it might be variously explained. And 
 thus, within a few years of its publication, a meaning 
 was sought for several portions quite different from 
 what the writer had put into them. He had foretold 
 that the Roman empire would not be re-established, and 
 that the Temple at Jerusalem would not be destroyed. 
 Some way of escape must be found from these two 
 misreadings of the event. The reappearance of Nero 
 was not so quickly despaired of ; even under Trajan, 
 thirty years later, some of the common people still 
 thought he would return.^ The " number of the Beast " 
 long survived ; and a variant w^as current in western 
 lands to adjust the figure to Latin ways of thinking. 
 Some copies gave 616 instead of 666,^ corresponding to 
 
 ^ In Italy. In the first, Otho was defeated by Vitellius ; in the second, 
 Vitellius by Vespasian. — Ed. 
 
 - Dion Chrys. Oral. xxi. 10. s Iren. v. 30: 1. 
 
 23
 
 354 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 the Latin form Nero instead of Neron — the Hebrew 
 nun standing for 50. 
 
 During the first tliree centuries the general sense of 
 the book was retained, at least among some few of 
 the initiated. The writer of the Sibylline poem dating 
 not far from the year 80 had heard of the vision of 
 Patmos, if he had not read it. He lived amidst an 
 order of ideas very similar. He knows the meaning of 
 the sixth " bowl." To him Nero is the Anti-Messiah ; 
 the monster has taken refuge beyond the Euphrates, 
 and will come back with thousands of armed men.^ 
 The writer of the ^' Apocalypse of Esdras," of date from 
 96 to 98, is well known to have imitated John's Apoca- 
 lypse,^ and to have employed his symbolic method, his 
 notations, and his style. The same may be said of the 
 " Ascension of Isaiah," a work of the second century, 
 in wliicli Nero, an incarnation of Belial, plays a part 
 which shows that the writer knew " the number of the 
 Beast." ^ The writers of Sibylline verses dating at the 
 time of the Antonines (about 160) see just as clearly 
 the enigmas of the apostolic manifesto, and accept its 
 dreams of the future, even those which, like the return 
 of Nero, events had fully disproved."* Justin and Melito 
 seem to have almost completely understood the book. 
 The same may be said of Commodian (about 250), 
 who mingles foreign elements in his exposition, but 
 never an instant doubts that Nero the Antichrist is to 
 return from Hell to maintain a final conflict with 
 
 1 Carm. Sihjll. iv. 117, 137-139. 
 
 2 Thus, compare 4 Esdr. iv. 35 et seq. with Rev. vi. 9-11 ; vii. 32 with 
 Rev. XX. 13; x. 50 et seq. with Rev. xxi. 2-4. See also xv. 5. 
 
 * A seen, of Isaiah, iv. 2 et seq. 
 
 4 Carm. Sihyll. v. 28, 93, 105, 142 et seq., 363; viii. 151, 1G9 et seq. See 
 above, p. 257, n. 1 ; and comp. iii. 397.
 
 LATER FORTUNES OF THE BOOK. 355 
 
 Christianity/ and conceives the destruction of Rome- 
 Babylon just as it was conceived two centuries before.^ 
 Finally, Victorinus of Pettau^ comments very justly on 
 the AjDocalypse, understanding fully that iVntichrist is 
 Nero risen from the dead.* The number of the Beast 
 was probably lost sight of before the end of the second 
 century. Irenseus (about 190) is grossly mistaken about 
 this, as well as some other points of greater impor- 
 tance ; and opens the series of chimerical comments 
 and arbitrary symbolism/ making the strongest reason 
 for distrusting his relations with those who had seen 
 the apostle John.^ Several subtile points, such as the 
 meaning of the False Prophet, and of Armageddon, 
 were early lost. 
 
 When the Empire and the Church were reconciled, 
 under Constantine, the position of the Apocalypse was 
 gravely compromised. The Greek and Latin theologi- 
 ans, who no longer separated the destinies .of Chris- 
 tianity from those of the Empire, could not accept as 
 inspired a seditious book, whose mainspring was hatred 
 of Rome and the prediction of its downfall. Almost 
 all the enlightened portion of the Eastern Church, 
 having received a Grecian culture, declared the book 
 apocryphal.^ The book had come to be so firmly fixed 
 
 1 Instr. acrost. 41, 42: 36; Carm. 816, 831, 845, 862, 878, 903 et seq.; 
 Pitra, Spic. Sol. i. (see emendations of Ebert in Abhandl. der phil. hist, 
 classe der sacks. Gesells. der Wiss. v. 325). 
 
 2 Comraod. Carm. ver. 907 et seq. 
 
 8 In Pannonia, d. A. d. 303. — Ed. 
 
 * Bib. max. pair. i. 580. 
 
 6 Iren. v. 30: 3. 
 
 ^ Commodian, in his Instructiones, also calls the Antichrist Latinus. 
 Hippolytus {De Antickristo, 50, 52), is quite out of the way. 
 
 ■^ See " Life of Jesus," p. 290, n. 3 ; also, pp. 295 200, above. Dio- 
 nysius of Alexandria, in the third century, — swayed, doubtless, by his
 
 356 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 in the Greek and Latin Testament — the Syrian and 
 Armenian did not contain it — that it could not be 
 displaced ) and, to clear it of the objections it raised, 
 recourse was had to strange feats of exegesis. The 
 evidence, however, was overwhelming. The Latins, 
 less hostile to millenarianism, still identified Antichrist 
 with Nero.^ Until the time of Charlemagne, there was 
 a sort of tradition as to this. Saint Beatus of Liebana, 
 who wrote on the Apocalypse in 786, asserts (with 
 more than one inconsequence) that the " Beast " of 
 chapters xiii. and xvii., who is to reappear at the head 
 of ten kings to annihilate the city of Rome, is Nero 
 the Antichrist. At one moment, even, he barely misses 
 a point which, in our century, has conducted critics to 
 the true reckoning of the emperors, and the right fixing 
 of the date.^ 
 
 It is not until about the twelfth century, when the 
 Middle Age is astray in the paths of scholastic ration- 
 alism, with little care for the tradition of the Fathers, 
 that the meaning of John's vision is completely dis- 
 
 literary training, — speaks of the Apocalypse in a hesitating tone, con- 
 fessing that he does not at all understand it (see Epiph. li. 32, 33 ; Euseb. 
 vii. 25). Chrysostoni has no homilies on the book. 
 
 1 Victorinus of Pettau (Bibl. etc., iii. 418), Lactantius (Jnst. vii. 14- 
 20; Demort. jiersec. 2), Sulp. Sev. {Hist, sacra, ii. 28, 29; Dial. ii. 14). 
 By these writers the early theory of Antichrist is altered as in the Carmen 
 of Commodian. Comp. Aug. De civ. Dei, xx. 19; Jerome, in Dan. xi. 06; 
 in Tsaiam, xvii. 12; Chrys. in 2 Thess. ii. {0pp. xi. 529, 530). Read 
 Malvendu, De Antichristo, lib. vi. De vidis Antichr.; it is a veritable por- 
 trait of Nero. 
 
 2 The text of Saint Beatus, as edited by Florez (JNIadrid, 1770), can 
 hardly be found. Didot has collated the most important portions of his 
 commejitary with the sole copy of Florez in Paris, in the hands of INI. 
 I'abbe Nolfce, and with two important manuscripts, one of whioh hcloiigs 
 to him. Des apncalj/pses Jigure'es mannscrites el xijlographiques (Paris, 1870), 
 pp. 3, 16, 17, 24, 2.j| 7G, 77; ed. Florez, 438, 498.
 
 LATER FORTUNES OF THE BOOK. 357 
 
 torted, yet not wholly lost.^ Joachim of Floris may 
 be regarded as the first who boldly carried the Apoca- 
 lypse into the limitless field of fancy^ and sought to 
 find the secret of the entire future of mankind in the 
 strange figures of a book written for a special end, 
 whose horizon does not extend beyond three and a half 
 years. 
 
 The wildly fanciful commentaries that have resulted 
 from this false notion have cast unmerited discredit on 
 the book itself. Thanks to a sounder exegesis, the 
 Apocalypse has in our own day regained the high posi- 
 tion which belongs to it in sacred Scripture. It is, in 
 a sense, the seal of prophecy, the last word of Israel. 
 Read in the ancient prophets ^ the description of " the 
 day of Jehovah," — that is, of that grand Assize which 
 the supreme Judge of human things holds from time 
 to time to restore the moral balance so constantly dis- 
 turbed by men, — and you will find the germ of the 
 A'^ision of Patmos. Every revolution, every historical 
 crisis, was to the imagination of the Jew — v/ho per- 
 sisted in dispensing with the immortality of the soul, 
 and in demanding the establishment of a reign of jus- 
 tice upon the earth — a providential event, the prelude 
 to a far more solemn and definitive judgment. At 
 every such event a prophet arose, crying, '' Sound, 
 sound the trumpet in Zion ! for the day of Jehovah 
 comes, — it is at hand." ^ The Apocalypse is the 
 sequel and the crown of that strange literature which 
 is the peculiar glory of Israel. Its Avriter is the last of 
 the great prophets, inferior to those -who came before 
 only so far as he is their copyist ; he has the same soul 
 
 ^ Jlht. Utt. de la France, xxv. 258. 
 
 2 In Joel, for example, chap. ii. ^ jQgj \\ 1^
 
 358 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 with them, the same inspiration. The Apocalypse offers 
 the ahuost unique exhibition of an inspired imitator, a 
 plagiarist of genius. Excepting two or three inventions 
 of marvellous beauty, which are the writer's own, — in 
 particular, the episode of the martyr-souls beneath the 
 altar,^ a passage purely divine, which will forever abide 
 for the consolation of a heart that suffers for its faith 
 or virtue, — the composition as a whole is made up of 
 passages borrowed from preceding prophetic and apoc- 
 alyptic writings ; especially from Ezekiel, the book of 
 Daniel, and the two Isaiahs. The Christian Seer is the 
 true disciple of these great men ; he knows their writ- 
 ings by heart, and draws from them their final conse- 
 quences. He is a brother of that marvellous poet of 
 the time of the Captivity, the second Isaiah, — lacking 
 only his serenity and harmony, — whose luminous soul 
 seems to have absorbed, six centuries in advance, all 
 the dews and perfumes of the larger faith that was to 
 come. 
 
 Like most peoples who have a brilliant literature in 
 the past, Israel lived on images consecrated by the old 
 and admirable writers of the Hebrew scripture. Little 
 was now composed, excepting from fragments of the an- 
 cient texts. Christian poetry, especially, knew no other 
 way of literary production : take, for example, the can- 
 ticles in the first two chapters of Luke. But, when 
 the passion is genuine, even the most artificial form 
 is full of beauty. Lamennais' '' Words of a Believer " 
 are to the Apocalypse what this is to the ancient 
 prophets ; yet they make a book of real power, which 
 one can never read over without deep emotion. 
 
 As in the style, so in the dogmas of this time we find 
 
 1 Rev. vii. 9-11.
 
 LATER FORTUNES OF THE BOOK. 359 
 
 something artificial ; but tliey respond to a genuine 
 conviction. The method of the theological mind was 
 to transfer boldly, and apply to the Messianic reign of 
 Jesus wliatever in the ancient writers seemed capable 
 of a relation however vague to an ideal however ob- 
 scure. As the interpretation thus given was to the 
 last degree commonplace, the strange results that fol- 
 lowed often involved serious misunderstandings. This 
 appears conspicuously in those passages of the Apoca- 
 lypse which concern Gog and Magog as soon as they 
 are compared with the corresponding passages in Eze- 
 kiel. Here Gog, king of Magog, will come after many 
 days ("in the sequel of days"^), when the people of 
 Israel have returned from the Captivity and are estab- 
 lished in Palestine, and make an exterminating war 
 upon them. As early as when the Hebrew scripture 
 was rendered into Greek, and the Book of Daniel was 
 composed, the phrase which in classic Hebrew signifies 
 merely an indefinite future had come to mean " at the 
 end of time," and was used only of the coming of the 
 Messiah.^ The writer of the Apocalypse is thus led to 
 refer those passages of Ezekiel ^ to the Messianic times, 
 and to consider Gog and Magog as representing the 
 barbarian and pagan world, which will survive the fall 
 of Rome, and subsist along with the thousand years' 
 reign of Christ and his saints. 
 
 This fashion of creating by way of outside pressure 
 (so to speak), — this method of putting together phrases 
 picked up here and there by dint of a forced exegesis, 
 
 ^ D'rS'n nnnN3: Ezek. xxxviii. 8. 
 
 ^ See Gesenius, Thesaurus (Heb. Chald.), under H'^nx. It was com- 
 raonly so applied to the Messianic times by the Jews of the Middle Age 
 {Bereschith rahha, 88). 
 
 8 Chaps, xxxviii. and xxxix.
 
 360 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 and building up a new theology by a certain sport of 
 self-will, — we find in the attempt to solve, by means 
 of the Apocalypse, the mystery of the last days. The 
 theory of the Apocalypse, thus regarded, is essentially 
 different from anything we find in Paul, or in what the 
 Synoptics report to us from the lips of Jesus. Paul 
 seems, at times,^ to believe in a temporary reign of 
 Christ, which will take place before the Last Day ; but 
 he never expresses himself with the precision we find 
 here. In the view of the Apocalypse, the coming reign 
 of Christ is near at hand ; it will follow close upon the 
 downfall of the Roman Empire. The martyrs alone 
 will come to life for this first resurrection ; the other 
 dead will rise not yet. Such distorted views follow 
 from the slow and incoherent way in which Israel 
 formed its conceptions of the other life. We may say 
 that the Jews were never led to the doctrine of a future 
 life, except by the need of such a doctrine to reconcile 
 them to the fact of martyrdom. In Second Maccabees, 
 the seven young martyrs and their mother are strong 
 through the faith that they will rise again, wdiile Anti- 
 ochus will never rise.^ The first clear affirmations of 
 an eternal life^ in Jewish literature are made in refer- 
 ence to these legendary heroes of the national faith : 
 we find, in particular, this fine expression, " They who 
 die for God's sake live in God." * We see, too, the 
 dawning of a belief in some special destiny for them 
 beyond the grave ; that " they noiv stand near the 
 throne of God, and live a blessed life," ^ not awaiting 
 
 1 As in 1 Cor. xv. 24-28. 
 
 2 2 Mace. vii. 9, 11, 14, 23, 36; vi. 26. 
 
 s Ihkl. vii. 3G; Wisd. ii.-v. ; esp. iii. 2-5; De rat. imp. 9, 10, 18, 20. 
 4 De rat. imp. 16. 5 7;,/^. ig.
 
 LATER FORTUNES OF THE BOOK. 361 
 
 resurrection, Tacitus, on his part, remarks that the 
 Jews impute immortality only to those who have died 
 iu battle or in torment.^ 
 
 The reign of Christ with his martyrs will doubtless 
 come to pass on the earth, at Jerusalem, amidst the 
 unconverted nations, which hold the saints in venera- 
 tion. This reign will last for only a thousand years, 
 and is distinct from that which will follow the final 
 Judgment. This conception of the Messianic reign as 
 anterior to that event is found in the apocalypse of 
 Esdras (about 97). After the thousand years, there will 
 be a new reign of Satan, in which the barbarous tribes, 
 still unconverted, will make horrible wars upon one 
 another, and will be on the point of crushing the Church 
 itself ; but God will destroy them, and then will come 
 " the second resurrection," — this time general, — and 
 the final Judgment, which will be followed by the end 
 of all things. This is the doctrine called " Millenarian," 
 which was widely diffused in the first three centuries.^ 
 It never succeeded in becoming dominant in the Church, 
 but has constantly reappeared at critical periods, rest- 
 ing on texts far older and more precise than can be 
 claimed for some other doctrines everywhere accepted. 
 It was the result of a too literal interpretation, con- 
 trolled by the twofold need of finding those phrases 
 true which describe the kingdom of God as destined to 
 last forever ; and, at the same time, holding to those 
 which denote a Messianic reign of indefinite duration, 
 by saying that it will last '' a thousand years." Fol- 
 lowing a rule of explanation called Jiarmonistic, the 
 
 1 Tac. Hist. V. 5. 
 
 2 Cerinthus in Euseb. iii. 28; Papias, id. iii. 39; Justin, Trypho, SO, 81; 
 Iren. in Euseb. iii. 39; Tert. Contra Marc. iii. 24; Lact. Inst. vii. 20.
 
 362 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 millenarians mechanically pieced together, end to end, 
 data which could not possibly be made to agree. They 
 were guided in their choice of the numeral " thousand," 
 by combining passages in the Psalms which seem to 
 say that a day with God is equal to a thousand years.^ 
 Among the Jews is also found the notion that the reign 
 of the Messiah will not be an eternity of blessedness, 
 but an era of felicity preceding the end of the world. 
 Many rabbis, like the writer of the Apocalypse, extend 
 the duration of this reign to a thousand years.^ The 
 writer of the epistle ascribed to Barnabas asserts that, 
 as the Creation occupied six days, so the destiny of the 
 world will be fulfilled in six thousand years (one day 
 with God being equal to a thousand years) ; and that 
 then, as God rested the seventh day, so, too, " when 
 his Son shall come and abolish the time of iniquity, 
 and shall judge the ungodly, and shall change the sun 
 and moon and all the stars, he will rest again the sev- 
 enth day," — that is, he will reign a thousand years ; 
 since the reign of the Messiah is always compared to a 
 Sabbath, which by its repose will put an end to the 
 incessant turmoil found in the evolution of all things. 
 So Commodian and Hippolytus fix the duration of the 
 world at six thousand years. The idea of endless life 
 to the individual is so foreign from Jewish thought 
 that the era of future retribution is expressed by a 
 number of years always limited, though doubtless of 
 great extent. 
 
 The Persian aspect of these dreams is obvious at 
 
 1 Ps. xc. 4, comp. -with Ixxxiv. 11. Comp. Epist. of Barnabas, xv. ; 
 2 Pet. iii. 8; Justin, Tryplu, 81; Iren. v. 23: 2. 
 
 2 Pesikta ralbathi, § 1 ; Jalkut on the Psa]ms, BOG; Ammonius in Mai, 
 Script, vet. nova coll. i. 2, p. 207. According to the Apocalypse of Esdras, 
 vii. 26, 27, the Messiah's reign will last 400 years.
 
 LATER FORTUNES OF THE BOOK. 363 
 
 a glance.-^ Millenarianism, and, if we may so call it, 
 Apocalyptism, flourished in Irania from a very ancient 
 date.^ At tlie bottom of the Zoroastrian ideas is a 
 tendency to put in figures the ages of the world, reck- 
 oning the periods of universal life by hazars, — that is, 
 thousands of years, — and imagining a reign of salva- 
 tion, which will crown at last the trials of humanity.^ 
 These ideas combined with assertions regarding the 
 future which abound in the old Hebrew prophets, 
 became the soul of Jewish theology in the centuries 
 before our era. Apocalyptic writings, especially, are 
 full of them. The revelations passing under the names 
 of Daniel, Enoch, and Moses, are almost Persian in 
 style, doctrine, and imagery. Does this imply that the 
 writers of these strange books had read the Zendic writ- 
 ings as these existed in their time ? Not at all. The 
 transmission of such ideas was indirect, resulting from 
 the hue caught by Jewish fancy from the colouring of 
 Iranian thought. So with the Apocalypse of John. 
 The writer of that book had no direct relations with 
 Persia, more than any other Christian. The exotic 
 matters which he carried into his book were already 
 embodied in the traditional midrashim f and this Seer 
 imbibed them from the atmosphere in which he lived. 
 In fact, all the features which appear on the apoca- 
 
 1 Similar ideas are found among the Etruscans, and no doubt made the 
 groundwork of the old Sil)ylline books, so that a natural connection is 
 found between the Italic Sibylline verse and the Jewish apocalyptic ideas 
 (as in the fourth Eclogue of Virgil). 
 
 2 See the Ardai Viraf-Nameh, a sort of apocalypse, -which is not, as 
 has been supposed, an imitation of the " Ascension of Isaiah." Comp. 
 Sitzuncjsherichte of the Academy of Munich, 1870, i. 3. 
 
 3 Zeilschr. der d. m. G. 1867, 571, 572; Theopompus in the treatise 
 De hide et Osir., 47. 
 
 * Zeitschrift, as above pp. 552, 553.
 
 364. ANTICHRIST. 
 
 lyptic stage are to be found in the Parsee theory of 
 the latter days — from Hoshedar and Hoshedar-mah, 
 the two prophets who preceded Sosiosh [the Zoroas- 
 trian Messiah], down to the plagues which will afflict 
 the world at the eve of the Great Day, and the wars 
 of the kings together, which will be the symptoms of 
 the final conflict.-^ The seven heavens, also the seven 
 angels, seven spirits of God, recurring incessantly in 
 the visions of Patmos, carry us fully over to Parsism, 
 and even beyond. The hieratic and astrological sense 
 of the number seven seems, indeed, to have originated 
 in the Babylonian doctrine of the seven planets^ regu- 
 lating the destiny of men and empires. Similarities 
 still more striking may be found in the mystery of the 
 seven seals.^ Just as in the Assyrian mythology each 
 of the seven tables of destiny * was dedicated to one of 
 the planets, so the seven seals are curiously related to 
 the seven planets, the days of the week, and the colours 
 which Babylonian science connected witli the planets. 
 Thus, the white horse seems to represent the Moon; 
 the red. Mars; the black (dark-blue), Mercury; the 
 pale (or yellow), Jupiter.^ 
 
 The defects of this method are obvious, and it would 
 be vain to try to hide them. Colours hard and fixed, 
 
 1 Be hide, etc., I. c. ; Spiegel, Parsigrammatik, 194 ; Zeitsch., etc., 1867, 
 573, 575-577. 
 
 2 These, in the view of astrology, are all the heavenly bodies which 
 change their position among the fixed stars; that is, the sun, the moon, 
 and the five visible planets. 
 
 2 Kev. i. 16; xii. 1. 
 
 * Nonnus, xli. 340, 341 ; xii. 31, 32; comp. J. Brandis: Die Bedeutung 
 der siehen Thore Thebem (Berlin, 1867), 267, 268. 
 
 ^ On the various colours as related to the planets, see Chwolsohn, Die 
 Ssabier, iii. 658, 671, 676, 677. Comp. the supplementary Turkish MS. 
 in the Bibliolheque Nationale, 242.
 
 LATER FORTUNES OF THE BOOK. z<os 
 
 a complete lack of flexibility, the sacrifice of harmony 
 to symbolism, — something raw, dry, and lifeless put 
 the Apocalypse in direct contrast with Greek art, whose 
 type is the living beauty of the human form. A 
 certain materialism deadens the writer's most ideal 
 conceptions. He heaps on gold ; he has the extrava- 
 gant oriental taste for precious stones. His heavenly 
 Jerusalem is clumsy, childish, impossible, violating all 
 good rules of architecture, which are the rules of 
 good sense. He makes it brilliant to the eye, but has 
 no thought of having it wrought by the artist-hand of 
 a Phidias. To him, in like manner, God is a " vision 
 of emerald," a sort of prodigious diamond, glittering 
 in a thousand flashes, upon a throne.^ Surely, the 
 Olympian Zeus was a far nobler image. The bad taste 
 which has often debased Christian art to mere gaudi- 
 ness of decoration has its germ in the Apocalypse. A 
 Jesuit chapel, adorned with gilding and lapis-laziiU, is 
 far finer than the Parthenon, as soon as we admit the 
 idea that God is honoured by the consecrated use of 
 rich materials. 
 
 A more painful feature is the sullen hatred of the 
 pagan world, common to the Apocalypse and all apoca- 
 lyptic writings, in particular the book of Enoch. We 
 are shocked by the harshness, the passionate and unjust 
 attacks upon Roman society, which in a measure justify 
 those who, like Tacitus, sum up the new religion in 
 the phrase, " hatred of mankind." - The virtuous poor 
 are always under some temptation to regard the world, 
 of which they know little, as wickeder than it really is. 
 The crimes of rich men and courtiers are mao-nified 
 in their eyes. Jews of the prophetic and apocalyptic 
 
 1 Rev. iv. 3. 2 Xac. Ann. xv. 44.
 
 365 ANTICHRIST, 
 
 school carried to violent excess that virtuous rage 
 against civilized luxury, which the Vandals displayed 
 four hundred years later. We find among them a 
 remnant of the old nomadic temper, whose ideal is 
 patriarchal life, deep aversion to great cities, which it 
 regards as centres of corruption, heated jealousy against 
 powerful States established on a military foundation, 
 which is either beyond its attainment or hateful in its 
 sight. 
 
 These qualities have made the Apocalypse, in many 
 regards, a dangerous book. Above all others, it is the 
 intense expression of Jewish pride. In its writer's 
 view, the distinction of Jew and gentile will be carried 
 over into the kingdom of God. While the twelve 
 tribes eat the fruits of the tree of life, the gentiles 
 must content themselves with a medicinal decoction 
 of its leaves.^ The writer regards the gentiles — even 
 believers in Jesus, even martyrs for Jesus — as adopted 
 sons, as strangers introduced into the family of Israel, 
 as plebeians permitted as a favour to claim a place 
 near the aristocracy.^ His Messiah is essentially the 
 Jewish Messiah ; Jesus is, as his highest distinction, a 
 son of David,^ a product of the Israelitish church, a 
 member of the holy family which God has chosen. The 
 church of Israel has really wrought the work of salva- 
 tion by this elected one of its own children.^ Any 
 practice that may possibly bring about a connection 
 between the pure race and the pagans — such as eating 
 the usual food or celebrating marriage under the usual 
 conditions — seems to him an abomination. Pagans in 
 
 1 Rev. xxii. 2; "for the healing of the nations " is a touch of irony. 
 
 2 Ihld. vii. 9 ; xiv. 3. a 7^;,/, y 5. 
 
 * Ihid. ii. 9; iii. 9; xi. 19; xix. 1-3; comp. xii., xiii., xxi. 42.
 
 LATER FORTUNES OF THE BOOK. 367 
 
 the mass are in his eyes wretched creatures, stained 
 with every crime, to be controlled only by terror. The 
 real world is the realm of devils. Disciples of Paul 
 are disciples of Balaam and Jezebel. Paul himself has 
 no place among " the twelve apostles of the Lamb," 
 who are the only foundation of the true Church ; and 
 the church at Ephesus, Paul's own creation, is praised 
 " for having tried those who call themselves apostles 
 and are not, and having found them to be only liars." 
 
 All this is very far from the gospel of Jesus. The 
 writer is too passionate. He sees everything, as it 
 were, through bloodshot eyes, or in the glare of a 
 conflagration. The most dreadful thing in Paris, on 
 the twenty-fifth of May, 1871, was not the flames; it 
 was the general colour cast upon the city when seen 
 from an elevated point, — a yellowish false tone, a sort 
 of ghastly pallor. That is the light that rests on the 
 visions of the Apocalypse, — the least possible like the 
 clear sunlight of Galilee. From this time forth we see 
 that the apocalyptic style will not be, any more than 
 the style of the epistles, the literary form that will 
 convert the world. This will rather be those brief col- 
 lections of precepts and parables, scorned by seekers of 
 exact tradition, — it will be those notes and hints in 
 which the most ignorant and the least informed store 
 by for their own use what they know of the words and 
 acts of Jesus,^ — that mal^ for each coming generation 
 its gospel and its charm. The simple outline of the 
 anecdotic life of Jesus was clearly worth far more for 
 the delight of the world, than the symbolic piling-up of 
 visions, or the touching admonitions of apostolic letters. 
 So true it is that, in the mysterious process of Christian 
 
 ^ See Papias in Eusebius (iii. 39).
 
 368 • ANTICHRIST. 
 
 growth, Jesus, and he alone, has always held the great, 
 trmm pliant, decisive part. Every Christian book or 
 institution has value in proportion to what it holds 
 of him. The Synoptic Gospels, in which he is all, — 
 which we may say were in a sense written by himself, 
 — will be above all else the Christian, the endilring, 
 book.^ 
 
 Still, the place held by the Apocalypse in the 
 Christian canon is one to which it is well entitled. 
 A book of threats and terror, it gave body and form 
 to the sombre antithesis set up over against Jesus by 
 the Christian conscience when profoundly and passion- 
 ately stirred. Tf the Gospel is the book of Jesus, the 
 Apocalypse is the book of Nero. It is due to this that 
 Nero has in Christian history a certain importance as a 
 second founder. His hateful face has been inseparable 
 from that of Jesus. Growing vaster from age to age, 
 the monster born of the nightmare of the year 64 
 became the terror of the Christian conscience, the 
 baleful spectre haunting the darkness of the world.^ 
 A folio of five hundred and fifty pages was composed^ 
 on his birth, education, vices, and wealth, — on his 
 jewels, perfumes, and women, — on his doctrines, mira- 
 cles, and banquets. 
 
 The Antichrist is no longer a terror to us, and 
 Malvenda's book is read by few. We know that the 
 end of the world is not so near as the enlightened of 
 the first century supposed, and that the end, when it 
 
 1 The composition of the Gospels ■will be the special topic of the 
 succeeding volume. 
 
 2 Even to-day, in Armenian, the name of Antichrist is Keren (see 
 the great dictionary of the Armenian Academy of St. Lazare at the word 
 Neren). 
 
 8 Th. Malvenda, Be Antichristo, lihri undccim: Rome, 1G04.
 
 LATER FORTUNES OF THE BOOK. 369 
 
 comes, will not be a sudden catastrophe. It will come 
 to pass by increasing cold, when in the course of a 
 thousand centuries our system can no longer make 
 good its losses; when the earth has exhausted the 
 treasures of the sun's heat stored by in its depths, as 
 the provision for its journey. Before the planetary 
 capital is thus spent, will mankind have attained perfect 
 science — which is nothing else than power to master 
 the forces of the world? or else, will the earth — one 
 more abortive experiment among so many million others 
 — be frozen before the problem how to overcome death 
 has been solved ? We know not. But, with the Seer 
 of Patmos, we discern the ideal beyond these shifting 
 alternations, and we assert that that ideal will at length 
 be realised. Through the mist of an embryonic uni- 
 verse we perceive the laws of progress and life. We 
 witness the unceasing expansion of human thought; 
 and we anticipate a condition when all shall be en- 
 folded in one Absolute Existence (God) as numberless 
 buds are contained in the tree, or as m3^riads of cells 
 are included in a single organism. Then the life of all 
 will be complete. Then each individual being that has 
 lived will live again in God, will see and rejoice with 
 Him, with Him will sing an eternal song of praise. 
 Under whatever form each of us may conceive this 
 future advent of the Absolute, the Apocalypse cannot 
 fail to give us pleasure. It sets forth in symbol the 
 fundamental thought that God is, but, above all, that 
 He WILL BE. The drawing is heavy, the outline in- 
 adequate and mean ; it is but the hand of a child 
 that traces with a rude pencil, or shapes, with a tool he 
 does not know how to handle, the design of a city he 
 has never seen. His childish picture of the City of 
 
 21
 
 370 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 God, a big plaything of gold and pearls, nevertheless 
 continues with us a part of the substance of our dreams. 
 Paul spoke a truer word, no doubt, when he summed 
 up the final destiny of creation in the phrase, 'Hhat 
 God may be all in all." ^ But for a long time to come, 
 humanity will crave a God " whose tabernacle is with 
 men," ^ who has compassion on their trials, keeps a 
 reckoning of their conflicts, and at length '' shall wipe 
 away all tears from their eyes." 
 
 ^ ndvTa iv Tvaa-iv: 1 Cor. xv. 28. 
 
 * Kal (jicr]va)(T€i fitr avravi Rev. XXI. 3.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 ACCESSION OF THE FLAVII. — A. D. 69, 70. 
 
 The aspect of the world, as I have already said, an- 
 swered but too well to the visions of the Seer of 
 Patmos. The rule of military adventurers was bear- 
 ing its fruit. The camps were full of politics ; the 
 Empire was for sale to the highest bidder. In Nero's 
 day, there were assemblies where one might see to- 
 gether seven future emperors and the father of an 
 eighth.^ Verginius, the true republican, who wished 
 the sovereignty to be with Senate and people, was a 
 mere dreamer.^ Galba, an honest old general, who 
 refused to be a party to the military revel, soon per- 
 ished. The soldiers had for a moment the idea of 
 killing all the senators, to simplify the task of govern- 
 ment.^ The unity of Rome seemed to be on the point 
 of breaking up. The Christians were not the only 
 ones to whom so tragic a situation suggested prophe- 
 cies of evil. Report said that a child was born at 
 Syracuse with three heads ; and in this was seen a 
 symbol of the three emperors who rose to power 
 within a year, and for a few hours reigned all three 
 together. 
 
 A few days after the prophet of Asia completed his 
 
 ^ Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus, Domitian, Nerva, and the 
 father of Trajan. 
 
 2 Dion Cass. Ixiii. 25. 
 
 8 Tac. Hist. i. 80; Suet. Otho, 8; Dion Cass. Ixiv. 9.
 
 372 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 strange work, Galba was killed, and Otlio was pro- 
 claimed (Jan. 15, 69). This was like Nero come again 
 to life : while Galba — grave, frugal, and austere — was 
 at all points the opposite of his predecessor.^ If he had 
 succeeded in securing his adoption of Piso, he would 
 have been a sort of Nerva, and the series of emperor- 
 philosophers would have begun thirty years before it 
 did ; but the detestable school of Nero carried the day. 
 Otho was like that monster ; the soldiers, and all who 
 had loved Nero, found their idol in him. They had 
 seen him beside the dead emperor, playing the part of 
 first court favourite, rivalling him in his affectation of 
 sumptuous feasts, his vices, and his mad prodigality. 
 The lower people gave him the name of Nero from the 
 first, and he seems to have assumed it in some of his 
 letters. At all events, he permitted the erection of 
 statues to the Beast ; he put back the favourites of 
 Nero in high places, and loudly announced that he 
 should continue the practices of that former reign. The 
 first act he signed was for the completion of the Golden 
 House. ^ 
 
 Worst of all, the political degradation now reached 
 gave no security. The worthless Vitellius had been 
 proclaimed in Germany a few days before Otho (Jan. 2, 
 69), and did not withdraw his claim. A horrible civil 
 war, such as there had not been since that between 
 Augustus and Antony, seemed inevitable. The popular 
 imagination was inflamed ; frightful prognostics were 
 seen ; ^ crimes committed by the soldiery spread terror 
 
 1 Suet. Galha, 12-15. 
 
 2 Tac. Hist. i. 13, 78; Suet. Otlio.l \ Dion Cass. Ixxiv. 8; Plutarch, 
 Galha, 19; Otho, 3. 
 
 8 Tac. Hist. i. 86, 90; Suet. Otho, 7, 8, 11 ; Dion Cass. Ixiv. 7, 10; Flut. 
 Galha,2Z\ Otho, 4.
 
 ACCESSION OF THE ELAVIL 373 
 
 everywhere. Never had such a year been known ; the 
 world reeked with blood. The first battle of Bedriacum, 
 which left the empire to Vitellius alone, cost the lives 
 of 80,000 men.-^ Disbanded legionaries pillaged the 
 country, and fought among themselves.^ The populace 
 mingled in the quarrel ; it seemed the overthrow of 
 society itself. At the same time astrologers and all 
 manner of charlatans swarmed, taking complete pos- 
 session of the city.^ Reason seemed drowned in a del- 
 uge of crime and madness, defying all control. Certain 
 words of Jesus,"* repeated in secret among the Chris- 
 tians, kept them in a sort of constant fever. Above 
 all, the fate of Jerusalem was an object with them of 
 extreme anxiety and concern. 
 
 The East, indeed, was no less troubled than the 
 West. Ever since June of the preceding j^ear, as we 
 have seen, the military operations of the Romans 
 against Jerusalem were suspended ; yet anarchy and 
 fanaticism were no less furious among the Jews. The 
 violence of John of Gischala and the Zealots was at 
 its height.^ The authority of John rested chiefly on a 
 body of GalilaBans, who committed every conceivable 
 excess. At last the population of the city rose, and 
 forced John, with his assassins, to take refuge in the 
 Temple ; but the dread of him was such that a rival 
 leader was set up for defence against him. Simon, son 
 of Gioras, a native of Gerasa, who had distinguished 
 himself since the beginning of the war, filled Idumaea 
 with his robberies. He had already had to contend 
 
 ^ Dion Cass. Ixiv. 10. 
 
 2 Tac. Hht. ii. G6-68-, comp. Agric. 7, 
 
 8 Dion Cass. Ixv. 1 ; Tac. Hist. ii. 62; Suet. V'dell. 14; Zonaras, vi. 5. 
 
 * Matt. xxiv. 6, 7: " Ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars," etc. 
 
 * Josephus, Wars, vii. 8: 1.
 
 374 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 against the Zealots, and twice he had threatened the 
 gates of Jerusalem. He was now about to make a 
 third attempt, when the people summoned him, in the 
 hope of protecting themselves against a violent return 
 of John. This new master entered the city in March, 
 69, John remaining in possession of the Temple. The 
 two leaders rivalled each other in ferocity. The Jew 
 is a cruel master. Of the same blood with the Cartha- 
 ginians, he would show himself, at a crisis, to be of the 
 same nature. This people has always had a noble mi- 
 nority : there is its glory. But never, in any human 
 society, has there been seen such jealousy, such thirst 
 for mutual extermination. At a certain stage of fury 
 the Jew is capable of anything, even against his own 
 religion. The history of Israel shows us a people of 
 men maddened against one another.^ Say what good 
 or what evil you will of this race, it is all true. For, I 
 repeat, while a good Jew may be the best of men, a 
 bad Jew is certainly the worst ; and this is especially 
 true of Jews in the East. This may explain the possi- 
 bility of a fact which might seem incredible, — that the 
 gospel idyll and the horrors recounted by Josephus were 
 realities on the same land, in the same people, at nearly 
 the same time. 
 
 Vespasian all this while remained inactive at Caesa- 
 rea. His son Titus had succeeded in involving him in 
 a tangle of intrigues, skilfully contrived. Under Galba, 
 Titus had hoped to find himself adopted by the aged 
 emperor. After Galba's death, he saw that he could 
 arrive at supreme power only as his father's successor. 
 With consummate political adroitness, he succeeded in 
 turning all chances in favour of a sober-minded, upright 
 
 ^ See, for example, Josephus, Wars^ vii. 11 ; Life, 76.
 
 ACCESSION OF THE ELAVIL 375 
 
 general, without brilliant parts, without personal ambi- 
 tion, who did almost nothing for his own private ad- 
 vantage. All the East gave help. Mucian and the 
 Syrian legions chafed with impatience to see the West- 
 ern legions alone disposing of imperial power, and as- 
 pired to make an emperor in their turn. Mucian, a 
 sort of sceptic, more desirous to dispense power than 
 to wield it, did not wish the purple for himself. Spite 
 of his advanced age, his plain birth, his second-rate 
 intelligence, Vespasian thus found himself the coming 
 man. Titus, at the age of twenty-eight, by his talent, 
 activity, and address, put into relief whatever modest 
 ability his father had. After Otho's death, the Eastern 
 legions took the oath to Vitellius very grudgingly. 
 They were disgusted by the insolence of the troops 
 from Germany. They had been made to believe that 
 Vitellius meant to send his favourite legions into 
 Syria, and transfer those of Syria to the Rhine, — 
 loved as they were in their own province, and attached 
 to it by many ties. 
 
 And then Nero, though dead, still held a controlling 
 power in the course of events. The fable of his resur- 
 rection had some real truth of fact : his party yet 
 survived him. After Otlio, Vitellius, to the delight of 
 the lower orders, posed as an open admirer, an imita- 
 tor, an avenger of Nero. He urged that, in his judg- 
 ment, Nero had given a model of good government to 
 the Republic. He paid him the honour of a splendid 
 funeral, ordered his musical compositions to be per- 
 formed, and when the first note was heard, rose enthu- 
 siastically from his seat to give the signal for applause.-^ 
 
 ^ Tac. His^t. ii. 71, 95; Suet. Vitell. 11; Dion Cass. Ixv. 4, 7. Tf we 
 could allow later touches in the Apocalypse, we might suppose that verses
 
 376 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 Men of sense and character, tired of these wretched 
 parodies of an abhorred reign, desired a strong reaction 
 against Nero, his favourites, and his style of building. 
 They demanded, first of all, reversal of sentence against 
 the noble victims of that tyranny. It was known that 
 the Flavian house would scrupulously perform this 
 duty. Finally, the native Syrian princes declared 
 strongly for a chief in whom they saw a defender 
 against the fanaticism of the revolted Jews. Agrippa 
 and his sister Berenice were heart and soul with the 
 two Roman generals. Berenice, though forty years of 
 age, gained an influence over Titus by blandishments 
 against which a young man could not well be on guard 
 who was at once ambitious, active, a stranger to the 
 world, and wholly occupied with his own advance- 
 ment ; while the elderly Vespasian was completely won 
 by her flatteries and her gifts. These two rude cap- 
 tains, till now poor, plain men, were not proof against 
 the aristocratic charm of a woman admirably beautiful 
 (if we may judge from busts in Naples and in Florence ^), 
 or the outside glitter of a world they knew nothing of. 
 The passion which Titus conceived for Berenice did no 
 harm to his interests; everything shows, on the con- 
 trary, that this woman, trained in oriental intrigue, 
 was one of his most useful agents. Through her influ- 
 ence the petty kings of Emesa, Sophene, and Comma- 
 gene — all of them kindred or allies of the Herods, and 
 more or less converted to the Jewish faith ^ — were 
 
 12 and 13 of chapter xvii. — that "they shall give their power to the 
 Beast," etc. — refer to these efforts to revive the memory of Nero. I have 
 made many attempts to find Otho in the Second Beast or False Prophet. 
 The verses xiii. 12, 16, 17 would well conform to such a theory; but 
 verses l.'5-15 [the acts of sorcery or magic] stand in the way. 
 ^ That numbered 312 in the Uffizi. '^ Jos. Antiq. xix, 9: 1.
 
 ACCESSION OF THE ELAVIL 377 
 
 gained over to the plot.-^ The apostate Jew, Tiberius 
 Alexander, prefect of Egypt, was fully committed to 
 it ; ^ and even the Parthians professed themselves ready 
 to support it.^ 
 
 The most surprising thing is that the moderate 
 Jews, like Josephus, also came into it, and insisted on 
 ascribing to the Roman commander their own special 
 views. We have seen that the Jewish group about 
 Nero had succeeded in persuading him that, if de- 
 throned at Rome, he would find a new kingdom in 
 Jerusalem, which would make him the greatest sover- 
 eign on earth.^ Josephus asserts that, from the moment 
 when he was made prisoner by the Romans in 67, he 
 foretold to Vespasian the future awaiting him,^ as 
 proved by certain texts of the Jewish scriptures. By 
 reiteration of their prophecies the Jews had made many, 
 even of those not belonging to their sect, believe that 
 the East would gain the day ; and that the master of 
 the world would soon come from Judgea.^ Virgil had 
 soothed the vague sadness of his pensive fancy by 
 applying to his own time a " Cumasan song," seeming 
 to have some relation to the second Isaiah.' Magi, 
 Chaldseans, and astrologers also availed themselves of 
 the belief of a " star in the East," heralding a king of 
 the Jews, and Christians gave serious heed to these 
 
 1 Tac. Hist. ii. 2, 81; Suet. Titus, 7; Josephus, Wars, xii. 7: 1-3. 
 
 2 Mem. of the Acad, of Inscr. xxvi. 294 et seq. ; " The Apostles," chap. 
 xiv. ; " Saint Paul," chap. v. 
 
 8 Tac. Hist.ii. 82; iv. 51. 
 
 4 Suet. Nero, 40. 
 
 6 Jos. Wars, iii. 8: 3, 9; iv. 10: 7; Suet. Vesp. 5; Dion Cass. Ixvi. 1; 
 Appian in Zonaras, xi. 15 (note the comment); comp. Tac. Hist. i. 10; 
 ii. 1, 73, 74, 78; Suet. Vesp. 5; Jos. Wars, iii. 8: 3. 
 
 ^ Jos. Wars, vi. 5: 4; Suet. Vesp. 4; Tac. Hist. v. 13. 
 
 '■ Virgil, Ed. iv. ; Suet. Aug. 94; Servius on JSn. vi. 799.
 
 n^ ANTICHRIST. 
 
 fancies.^ The prophecy had a double meaning, like all 
 oracles.^ It might appear sufficiently verified if the 
 chief of the Syrian legions, posted a few leagues from 
 Jerusalem, should attain the empire in Syria, by aid of 
 a movement there begun.^ Vespasian and Titus, in the 
 midst of Jews, listened readily to such words, and took 
 pleasure in them. While displaying their military 
 talent against the fanatics at Jerusalem, they had a 
 strong attraction toward Judaism, studied it, and paid 
 deference to the Jewish books.'' Josephus had found 
 his way into their companionship, especially that of 
 Titus, through his soft, easy, and insinuating temper.^ 
 He boasted before them of his Law, told them the old 
 Scripture stories, which he often set forth in Greek 
 style, and spoke mysteriously of the prophecies. Other 
 Jews entered into the same views,*' and induced Ves- 
 pasian to accept a sort of messianic character. To this 
 were added miracles, and works of healing were re- 
 ported, much like those told by the evangelists, brought 
 to pass by this novel Messiah.' 
 
 The pagan priests of Phoenicia would not be behind- 
 hand in this rivalry of adulation. The oracles of 
 
 1 Matt. ii. 1, 2; comp. Num. xxiv. 17. 
 
 ^ Comp. Jos. I. c. and Wars, in. 8: 3; also Tacitus. Josephus seems 
 chiefly to have had in view Dan. ix. 2.5-27. What proves that he made 
 no serious account of the prediction is that we find it only in his "Wars," 
 written under Vespasian, while he omits it in the " Life," written in 94, 
 when his two patrons were dead, and the fall of Domitian could be easily 
 foreseen. 
 
 8 Jos. Wars, vi. 5: 4. 
 
 * Jos. Life, 65, 75. 
 
 ^ Jos. Wars, iii. 8: 8, 9; Life, 75. 
 
 ® Bab. Talm. Gittin, 56 a, h , A both derahhi Nathan, iv., at the end 
 (comp. IMidrash El-a, i. 5), a tale of Johanan ben Zakia, quite parallel 
 with that of Josephus, and perhaps an echo of it. 
 
 ■^ Tac. Hist. iv. 81, 82; Suet. Vesp. 7; Dion Cass. Ixvi. 8.
 
 ACCESSION OF THE ELAVIL 379 
 
 Paphos and of Carmel^ claimed to have annoimced 
 beforehand the fortunes of the Flavii. The results of 
 all this were presently seen. Coming to power by the 
 support of Syria, the Flavian emperors were far more 
 open to Syrian ideas than the disdainful C^sars had 
 ever been. Christianity, as we shall see, found its way 
 to the very heart of this imperial house, reckoned its 
 adepts there, and by its help entered upon a wholly 
 new period in its destinies. 
 
 Toward the end of springtime in 69, Vespasian 
 seemed disposed to abandon the military inactivity in 
 which he was held by his political schemes. On the 
 29th of April he marched forward, and soon appeared 
 before Jerusalem. Meanwhile Cerealis, one of his lieu- 
 tenants, set fire to Hebron, and all Judgea submitted to 
 the Romans except Jerusalem and the three fortresses 
 of Masada, Herodium, and Machserus, which were held 
 by the Assassins. These four must be subdued by 
 obstinate siege. Vespasian and Titus hesitated to make 
 the attempt in the present precarious situation, when 
 a new civil war was impending in which they might 
 need all their strength. Thus for a whole year longer 
 continued a state of revolution, which for three years 
 had already held Jerusalem in the most extraordinary 
 state of crisis anywhere recorded in history.^ 
 
 On the first of July, Tiberius Alexander proclaimed 
 Vespasian at Alexandria, and caused the oath to him 
 to be taken. On the third, the army of Judaea saluted 
 him emperor at Csesarea. Mucian, at Antioch, caused 
 him to be recognised by the legions of Syria ; and by 
 
 1 Tac. Hist. ii. 2-4, 78; Suet. Vesp. 5; Tit. 5; comp. Scylax, 104 j 
 Jamblichus, Be Pijthag. vita, 14, 15. 
 
 2 Tac. Hist. V. 10.
 
 38o ANTICHRIST. 
 
 the fifteenth all the East was obedient to him. A 
 congress was held at Beyrout, where it was decided 
 that Muciaii should march upon Italy, while Titus 
 should conduct the war against the Jews ; and that 
 Vespasian should wait the issue of events at Alexan- 
 dria. After a bloody civil war — the third within 
 eighteen months — power remained firmly established 
 with the Flavian house. A citizen-dynasty, diligent in 
 business, moderate of temper, without the energy of 
 the Caesars, but clear of their extravagances, took the 
 place of the heirs of the title created by Augustus. 
 Those spendthrifts and madmen had so abused their 
 privilege as spoiled children that Rome gladly wel- 
 comed the accession of a good honest man, of undistin- 
 guished rank, who had laboriously made his way by his 
 own merit, — in spite of his little awkwardnesses, his 
 vulgar looks, and his want of manners. For ten years, 
 as it proved, the new dynasty conducted affairs with 
 sense and judgment. It kept the Empire whole, and 
 completely belied the predictions of both Jew and 
 Christian, who were now looking in their dreams to 
 see the empire broken up and Rome destroyed. The 
 burning of the Capitol on the 19th of December, the 
 dreadful massacre in Rome the next day,^ might for 
 the moment make them think that the Great Day had 
 come. But the undisputed possession held by Vespa- 
 sian, after the 20th, taught them that they must resign 
 themselves to live yet longer, and forced them to make 
 shift to put off their hopes to a remoter future.^ 
 
 1 Tac. Bht. iii. 83; Dion Cass. Ixv. 19; Jos. Wars, iv. 11 : 4. 
 
 2 Josephus admits that the fate of the Empire had seemed desperate, 
 and that the secure seat of Vespasian saved the Roman State against all 
 hope (TFar.s, iv. 11 : 5).
 
 ACCESSION OF THE FLA VIZ. 381 
 
 The prudent Vespasian, far less disturbed than those 
 who fought to conquer the empire for him, passed the 
 time in Alexandria with Tiberius Alexander, and did 
 not return to Rome till towards July, a little before the 
 fall of Jerusalem. Titus, instead of pushing the war 
 in Judaea, had followed his father into Egypt, where he 
 remained with him till near the first of March. 
 
 The conflicts in Jerusalem, meanwhile, became only 
 the more obstinate and bitter. The actions of fanatics 
 are far from excluding mutual hate, jealousy, and dis- 
 trust from among those who take part in them. Men 
 of strong convictions and strong passions, when leagued 
 together, watch one another with suspicion, and find 
 their strength in it ; for mutual suspicion creates mu- 
 tual dread, binds them as by an iron band, prevents 
 desertion, and braces them against moments of weak- 
 ness. Artificial politics, on the other hand, without 
 conviction, may go on with the appearance of harmony 
 and the forms of good-will. Interest creates the party 
 or clique. Principles create division, and kindle men to 
 decimate, expel, or kill their opponents. Those who 
 judge of human affairs from the shopkeeper's point of 
 view think it is all over with a revolution when the 
 revolutionists begin (as the saying is) to devour one 
 another. But, on the contrary, this is a proof that the 
 revolution is in the full tide of energy, that its heat 
 has no respect of persons. This was never more plainly 
 seen than during that frightful tragedy of Jerusalem. 
 The actors in it seemed to have made a death-pledge 
 amongst themselves. As in those infernal rounds 
 where (as the Middle Age believed) Satan was seen 
 forminoi: the chain to drag- into a dreadful milf files of 
 men dancing and holding each other by the hand, so a
 
 382 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 revolution suffers no one to escape from the mad dance 
 which it excites. Terror drives the actors on. In turn 
 exciting and excited, they reel towards the abyss. No 
 one can draw back, for behind each man is a hidden 
 sword which, at the moment when he would stop, forces 
 him to advance. 
 
 Simon, son of Gioras, was commandant in the city, 
 while John of Gischala, with his assassins, was master 
 of the Temple. The power of Simon seems to have 
 been the more regular : we have coins of his, but ap- 
 parently none from John. Simon, too, was recognised 
 by the Romans as the real chief, and alone was exe- 
 cuted by them.^ A third party was formed under the 
 lead of Eleazar, son of Simon, of priestly race, who 
 drew off a party of Zealots from John, and established 
 himself in the inner court of the Temple, where he 
 lived on the consecrated provisions he found, and on 
 those which were constantly brought in as first-fruits 
 to the priests. These three parties^ made continual 
 war on one another. Their march was over heaps of 
 corpses, for the dead were no longer buried. A vast 
 store of wheat had been laid by, and this might have 
 prolonged the struggle for years ; but John and Simon 
 burned it, each that he might starve out the other.^ The 
 condition of the city was frightful. Peace-loving people 
 besought that order might be restored by the Romans ; 
 but all ways of escape were blocked by the terrorists, 
 and no man could fly. Meanwhile, it was strange to 
 
 ^ Dion Cass. Ixvi. 7. For the above points, see p. 224, note 1 (above), 
 and ISIadden, 166, 167. Tacitus {Hist. v. 12) puts the two on the same 
 footing. 
 
 2 Tac. Hist. V. 12. 
 
 8 Jos. Wars., v. 1:4; Tac. Hist. v. 12; Midrash rabba on Eccles. vii. 
 11; Bab. Talm. Gittin, 56 a; Midr. Kabba on Eka., i. 5.
 
 ACCESSION OF THE ELAVIL 383 
 
 see how they still came to the Temple from the ends of 
 the earth. John and Eleazer welcomed the proselytes, 
 and profited by their gifts. The pious pilgrims were 
 often killed by bolts and stones from John's engines, 
 in the midst of their sacrificial rites, with the priests 
 who recited the service for them. The revolutionists 
 were actively busied beyond the Euphrates to secure 
 aid, whether from the Jews dwelling there, or from the 
 king of Parthia. They had imagined that all the Jews 
 of the East would take up arms. The civil wars in 
 Italy inspired them with wild hopes : they fancied that 
 the Empire was just about to break in pieces. In vain 
 did Jesus, son of Hanan, roam through the city calling 
 on the four winds of heaven to destroy it. Up to 
 the eve of their extermination, the fanatics proclaimed 
 Jerusalem as the capital of the world ; exactly as we 
 have in our day seen Paris, besieged and famished, still 
 maintaining that the world was in her, toiled for her, 
 suffered with her. 
 
 And, what is strangest of all, they were not wholly 
 wrong. Those madmen at Jerusalem, who insisted that 
 the holy city was eternal when it was already in flames, 
 were far nearer the truth than those who saw none but 
 assassins among them. They were mistaken as to the 
 military situation then, but not as to the religious re- 
 sult thereafter. These disastrous days, in fact, clearly 
 mark the point of time when Jerusalem became the 
 spiritual centre of the world. The Apocalypse, that 
 told in words of fire the love which she kindled, has 
 taken a place among the inspired writings of the world, 
 and has enshrined in them the image of " the beloved 
 city." How hard it is to say beforehand who will be 
 hereafter held as saint or scoundrel, as madman or as
 
 384 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 sage ! A sudden change in the log-book shows that 
 the ship is falling behind and not advancing, that she 
 is struggling against head-winds, not borne on by a 
 favouring breeze. When revolutions, with thunderings 
 and earthquakes, are before our eyes, let us rank our- 
 selves among the blessed ones who are ever singing, 
 " Praise the Lord ! " or, with the four Living Creatures, 
 spirits of the Universe, who, after each act of the celes- 
 tial tragedy, respond Amen !
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. A. D. 70. 
 
 At length the iron circle closed about the doomed city, 
 never to relax. As soon as the season allowed, Titus 
 set out from Alexandria, reached C^esarea, and thence 
 advanced upon Jerusalem at the head of a formidable 
 army. He took with him four legions, — the fifth, 
 Macedonica, the tenth, Fretensis, the twelfth, Fuhninata, 
 and the fifteenth, Aj^oilhiaiis, — besides many auxiliaries 
 furnished by his Syrian allies, and troops of Arabs who 
 came to pillage ; ^ and he was accompanied by all the 
 Jews, who had joined him, — Agrippa,^ Tiberius Alex- 
 ander, now prefect of the prgetorium,^ and Josephus the 
 future historian. Berenice, no doubt, stayed behind at 
 Caesarea. The soldierly conduct of the commander 
 matched well the strength of the array. Titus was a 
 man of military talent, above all an excellent officer of 
 high merit, a man of strong good sense, a deep politi- 
 cian, and of fairly humane temper, considering the cru- 
 elty of the time. Vespasian had enjoined on him great 
 severity, angered as he was at the gratification the 
 
 1 Tac. Hist. V. 1 ; comp. the curious Midrash on Eka, i. 5 (Deren- 
 bourg, 291). 
 
 2 Tacitus records Agrippa as present at the siege ; Josephus strangely 
 gives him no part in any incident. Agrippa's letter (Jos. Life, 65) seems 
 to assume his presence at these events ; but possibly he requested the 
 historian to blot out anything that might make him hateful to his 
 co-religionists. 
 
 8 See Mem de VAcad. des Inscr. xxvi. 1, 299, 300. 
 
 25
 
 386 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 Jews took in the outbreak of civil wars, and at the 
 efforts they made to bring on a Parthian invasion.^ 
 Gentleness, as he regarded it, was always taken to 
 be a mark of weakness among these haughty races, 
 convinced that they fought for God with God on 
 their side. 
 
 The Roman army reached Gabaath Saul,^ some five 
 miles from Jerusalem, early in April. It was a little 
 before the Passover, and a vast number of Jews from 
 all countries were gathered in the city.^ Josephus puts 
 the number of those who perished in the siege at 
 1,100,000.* All the nation seemed to have met there 
 by appointment for extermination. About the tenth, 
 Titus fixed his camp at the corner of the tower Pse- 
 phina {Kasr-Jaloud). Some petty advantages gained 
 by a surprise, and a severe wound received by Titus, 
 gave the Jews excessive confidence in their strength, 
 and taught the Romans how carefully they should 
 keep guard in this war with maniacs. 
 
 The city might be reckoned one of the strongest in 
 the world.^ The walls were a perfect type of that 
 structure in enormous blocks of stone which has always 
 prevailed in Syria.*^ Within, the Temple-enclosure, 
 
 1 Jos. Wars, vi. 6: 2. 
 
 2 Tuleil el Foul (?), Robinson, i. .577 et seq. 
 
 8 A circumstance like that told of Lydda (Jos. Wars, ii. 19: ]) shows 
 how prodigious were the gatherings at these feasts: cf. ii. 14: 3. 
 
 * Jos. Wars,\i.Q: -3; comp. v. 13: 7. Tlie number is greatly exagger- 
 ated. Tacitus speaks of the besieged as GOO.OOO {Hist. v. 13; Oros. vii. 9; 
 JNIalala, p. 260). The circuit of the walls, further reduced by the capture 
 of the northern quarter, would not have held so many. The water-supply 
 is poor, and must have given out: see " Life of Jesus," 357. 
 
 ^ Its site was the same as at present, excepting toward the south. 
 Comp. Saulcy, Bern, jours de Jerusalem, plans, p. 218 et seq. 
 
 6 Jos. Wars, v. 4 : 2, 4; vi. 9 : 1 ; vii. 1:1; Tac. Ilisl. v. 11.
 
 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 387 
 
 with those of the upper town, and Acra, made separate 
 walls of defence, like so many distinct fortresses/ The 
 number of defenders was very great, and as yet there 
 was abundance of provisions, though lessened by the 
 fires. The parties continued to fight within the city, 
 but acted together in the defence. After the Feast of 
 Passover, the faction of Eleazar almost disappeared, 
 blending with that of John.^ Titus conducted the 
 attack with consummate skill ; the Romans had never 
 shown such capacity for siege-works as now.^ By the 
 end of April, the legion had broken through the outer 
 defences on the north, and held that portion of the 
 city.* The second wall, that of Acra, was forced five 
 days later, and half the city was thus in the hands of 
 the Romans. On the 12th of May they assaulted the 
 tower of Antonia. Titus was surrounded'by Jews, who 
 (excepting, perhaps, Tiberius Alexander) were desirous 
 of saving the city and Temple ; and was, besides, more 
 than he would admit, controlled by his affection for 
 Berenice, who seems to have been a pious Jewess, 
 devotedly attached to her nation.^ Under these influ- 
 ences he is said to have attempted means of recon- 
 ciliation, and offered favourable conditions of surrender,^ 
 
 1 Tac. Hkt. V. 8, 11 ; Dion Cass. Ixvi. 4 ; Jos. Wars, v. 4, 5. 
 
 2 Jos. Wars, v. 3: 1; Tac. Hist. v. 12. 
 8 Tac. Hist. V. 13. 
 
 * For the topography see authorities cited in n. 1, p. 203, above. 
 
 ^ Jos. Wars, ii. 15: 1; 16: 1, 3. The Herodian princesses are repre- 
 sented by Josephus and in the Talmud as devotees, given to making vows, 
 and much attached to the Temple (Derenb. 253, 290, notes). Agrippa 
 seems also to have been a very strict Jew : Bab. Talm. Succa, 27 a ; 
 Pesachim, 107 b. 
 
 * This is open to some doubt ; for, as we shall see, Josephus system- 
 atically praises the clemency of the Flavii. insisting that tlieir severities 
 ■were wholly due to Jewish obstinacy {Wars, v. 9; vi. 2, 6; cf. 3: 5).
 
 388 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 but in vain. The besieged replied to his propositions 
 only by jeers and insults. 
 
 The siege thereupon took a character of atrocious 
 cruelty. The Romans made ostentatious display of 
 preparations for inflicting awful vengeance ; but the 
 daring of the Jews only increased. On the 27th and 
 29th of May they burned the military engines of the 
 Romans, and attacked them in their camp. The be- 
 siegers began to be discouraged. Some of them were 
 persuaded that the Jews told the truth, — that Jeru- 
 
 Sulpicius Severus (ii. 30), who here as elsewhere (see note on p. 392 
 below) seems to copy from portions of Tacitus now lost, says quite the 
 contrary: "because no opportunity of peace or surrender was offered." 
 Certainlj', a full intention on the part of Titus to destroy Jerusalem is 
 more iu accordance with the general policy of the Empire and the interest 
 of his own family; and he clearly shows the motive of inaugurating the 
 new dynasty by a striking exploit and a triumphal return to Rome. 
 Jerusalem would thus, in a sense, pay the costs of the dynastic revolution. 
 Still, we may not overlook the influence of Agrippa, Berenice, and even of 
 lesser persons, like Josephus : these may well have urged upon him the 
 value of the gratitude which moderate Jews in Rome, Alexandria, and 
 Syria would feel toward the protector of the Temple. Here, as in the 
 matter of counsel and war, Tacitus may ascribe to Titus an ideal of 
 Roman sternness, such as had gi'own familiar since the day of Trajan. 
 Dion Cassius (Ixvi. 4, 5) agrees fully with Josephus; but his testimony, 
 while it may be only a copy of what was reported by the Jewish historian, 
 only proves that, beside the reading of Tacitus, there was another version 
 of the facts tending to show the clemency of Titus. The talmudic tradi- 
 tion seems to hint a knowledge of negotiations with a view to prevent the 
 utter ruin of the city {Ahoth rlemhhi Nathan, iv., vi.). It is noteworthy 
 that in 70 Josephus was liberally rewarded for having served as an agent 
 in efforts for conciliation (Life, 76). Perhaps Titus allowed such efforts 
 to be continued, though knowing they would not succeed, and reserving 
 his own liberty of action. In the accounts of Josephus a large allowance 
 has to be made for exaggeration, his wish to give himself consequence, 
 and his pretension of having rendered valuable service to his nation. 
 Some of his co-religionists charged him with treason. Was it not an 
 excellent answer to such charges, to exhibit himself as using his favour 
 with Titus to avert from his country all the calamity he could ? (See 
 Life, 75.)
 
 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 389 
 
 salem was in fact impregnable; and some deserted. 
 Titus gave up the hope of taking it by storm, and put 
 it under strict blockade. A wall of contravallation 
 was rapidly thrown up, early in June,^ supported 
 toward Peraea by a line of forts crowning the heights 
 of Olivet, and completely cut off the city from the 
 country outside.^ Till then, vegetables and the like 
 had been brought in from the neighbourhood ; but now 
 the famine became dreadful.^ The fanatics, who had 
 all they needed, cared little : though we need not credit 
 the wanton atrocities ascribed to them by Josephus, 
 there were strict searchings with torture, to discover 
 hidden stores of grain. Any air of vigour in one's face 
 was a sign that he was guilty of concealing food, and 
 morsels of bread were snatched from the very mouths 
 of those who ate them. Hideous diseases sprang up 
 among these masses heaped together, weak and fever- 
 stricken. Dreadful tales were put in circulation, which 
 doubled the common terror. 
 
 From this time on Jerusalem was filled by famine, 
 rage, despair, and madness. It was a cage of ferocious 
 maniacs, a city of howling cannibals, a hell. Titus on 
 his part displayed enormous cruelties. Five hundred 
 wretches every day were crucified in plain sight of the 
 city, with hateful aggravations of torment. There was 
 not wood enough to make the crosses, or room enough 
 to plant them. 
 
 1 See Sanlcy, p. 309, with the plan, p. 222. 
 
 2 AUuded to in Luke xix. 43: "thine enemies shall cast a trench 
 about thee," etc. 
 
 8 The memory of this famine is vivid in the talmudic tradition : Bab. 
 Talm. Ginin, 56 a, h; Ahhoth derabbi Nathan, vi. ; Midr. on Knli, vii. 11 ; 
 on Eka, i. 5. Comp. Jngephus, Wars, vi. 3: 3; Sulpicius Severus, ii. 30 
 (probably after Tacitus).
 
 390 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 In this excess of misery the faith and fanaticism 
 of the Jews burned with more heat than ever. The 
 Temple was supposed to be indestructible.-^ Most were 
 persuaded that, since the city was under the special 
 protection of the Eternal, it could not possibly be 
 taken.^ Prophets went about among the people prom- 
 ising speedy relief. There was such confidence in this 
 that many who might have saved themselves remained 
 to witness the miracle of Jehovah. The frenzied 
 leaders, however, had complete mastery. All who 
 were suspected of advising surrender were put to death. 
 Thus the high-priest Matthias, who had brought into 
 the city that brigand Simon, son of Gioras, perished by 
 his order, his three sons being first put to death before 
 his eyes. Many men of note suffered the same fate. 
 The smallest gathering was forbidden ; merely to weep 
 together, to gather in company, was a crime. Josephus 
 tried in vain to signal information into the town from 
 the Roman camp ; he was suspected on both sides.^ 
 The situation had come to be such that reason and 
 moderation had no chance to make themselves heard. 
 
 Titus, meanwhile, was growing weary of these de- 
 lays. His mind was full only of Rome, its splendours, 
 and its pleasures.* A city taken by famine seemed too 
 ignoble an exploit to shine at the inauguration of a 
 dynasty. He accordingly built four new embankments 
 {aggeres) for an attack by main force. The orchards 
 and ornamental trees within a distance of four leagues 
 from Jerusalem were cut down. In twenty-one days 
 all was ready. On the first of July the Jews repeated 
 the attempt which they had once made successfully : 
 
 1 Enoch, cxiii. 7. ^ Jqs, Wars, vi. 2: 1 ; 5:2. 
 
 8 Comp. Aholli derabhi Nathan, iv. ^ Tac. Hist. v. 11.
 
 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 391 
 
 the}^ went out to set fire to the timbers, but this time 
 completely failed. From that day forth the city's fate 
 was sealed. On the second the Romans began to bat- 
 ter and undermine the tower Antonia. On the fifth 
 Titus was master of it, and had it almost wholly de- 
 molished, so as to open a broad passage to his cavalry 
 and engines to the point at which all his efforts aimed, 
 and where the final strut(o;le must be met. 
 
 The Temple, by its peculiar style of construction, was 
 (as I have said) the most formidable of citadels.^ The 
 Jews intrenched there with John of Gischala prepared 
 for battle. The priests themselves were under arms. 
 On the seventeenth the daily sacrifice ceased for want 
 of officiating ministers. This made a great impression 
 upon the people,^ and was known outside the town. 
 The suspension of sacrifice was as grave an event to 
 the Jews as a stop in the order of the universe. Jose- 
 phus took occasion of it to try once more to break 
 down the obstinacy of John. From the battlements of 
 the tower Antonia, which was at only some sixty yards' 
 distance from the Temple, he called out in Hebrew, by 
 command of Titus (if in this the historian is to be be- 
 lieved), that John might withdraw with such number 
 of his men as he wished ; that Titus would take on 
 himself the continuing of the legal offerings by Jews ; 
 that John might even select the men to offer them. 
 But John refused to listen. Those not blinded by 
 fanaticism now fled to the protection of the Romans. 
 As many as remained deliberately chose death. 
 
 On the twelfth of July Titus began his advance 
 
 1 Tac. Hhi. V. 12. 
 
 2 It was the occasion of a fast on the 17th of the 10th month : Mishna, 
 Taanith, iv. 6.
 
 392 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 against the Temple.-^ The resistance was most obsti- 
 nate. On the twenty-eighth the Romans held the 
 entire north gallery, from the tower of Antonia to the 
 vale of Kedron. Then the attack on the Temple itself 
 began. On the second of August the most powerful 
 engines were set to batter the solidly built walls of the 
 porches {exedrw) ^ that enclosed the inner courts. The 
 effect was hardly noticeable ; but on the eighth the 
 Romans set fire to the wooden doors. The Jews were 
 thrown into unspeakable confusion. They had never 
 thought of such a thing as possible ; and, at the sight 
 of the crackling flames, they hurled upon the Romans 
 a torrent of imprecations. 
 
 The next day Titus gave orders to extinguish the 
 flames, and held a council of war, which was attended 
 by Tiberius Alexander, Cerealis, and his chief officers,^ 
 to discuss the burning of the Temple. Several among 
 them held that, as long as this should stand, the Jews 
 would never be at peace. The opinion of Titus himself 
 it is hard to know, for the two accounts contradict each 
 other. Josephus reports that he desired to spare so 
 admirable a structure, whose preservation would be a 
 glory to his reign and a proof of Roman moderation ; 
 while Tacitus says that he urged the necessity of de- 
 stroying an edifice hallowed by two superstitions equally 
 deadly, — the Jewish and the Christian ; * adding that 
 
 ^ For the topography, see Vogiid, pp. 60, 61, pis. xv., xvi. 
 
 2 These were arcades, or cloisters, built about the entire circuit, 
 open to the inner courts, and protected by walls of great thickness 
 without. — Ed. 
 
 8 See Ldon Renier, in the Mem. de VAcad. des Imcr. xxvi. 269 et seq. 
 
 4 Bernays {Chron. des SuJp. Severus, Berlin, 1861, p. 48) has shown 
 that the passage of Severus (ii. 30: 6, 7) is taken almost word for word 
 fi-om the lost portion of the Histories of Tacitus, who himself drew his 
 information from a book entitled De Judceis, written by Antonius Julia-
 
 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 393 
 
 " these two, though hostile to each other, are from the 
 same source : the Christians come from the Jews ; pluck 
 up the root, and the branch will presently wither." 
 
 It is hard to decide between two accounts so ab- 
 solutely contradictory. On the one hand, the view 
 which Josephus ascribes to Titus may well be regarded 
 as an invention of his own, eager as he was to prove 
 the sympathy of his patron for Judaism, to clear him 
 in Jewish eyes from the guilt of having destroyed the 
 Temple, and to satisfy the strong desire of Titus to 
 pass as a man of moderation.^ On the other hand, we 
 cannot deny that the words which Tacitus puts in the 
 mouth of the conqueror, both as to style and in the 
 order of thought, exactly reflect the view of the histo- 
 rian himself. We have a right to suspect that — full 
 as he was of the contempt of both Jew and Christian 
 which marks the period of Trajan and the Antonines — 
 he has made Titus speak like a Roman aristocrat of his 
 own day ; while, in fact, the citizen-prince had a far 
 more kindly feeling toward oriental superstitions than 
 the haughty nobility which succeeded the Flavian 
 house.^ He had lived for three years among the Jews, 
 who had boasted to him of their Temple as the wonder 
 of the world ; he was won by the flattering attentions 
 of Josephus (who owed all his fortune to Titus's special 
 
 nus, an officer in the council of war (Minuc. Felix, Octav. 33; Tillemont, 
 Hist, des Emp. i. 588). Orosius, like Snip. Severus, had in his hands the 
 full text of the " Histories; " but he leaves it uncertain, saying only, " He 
 long deliberated ; " but ends by attributing the act to Titus, — "he burned 
 and destroyed" {diruit, vii. 9). 
 
 ^ Note that the "Jewish War" (as Josephus himself asserts) was 
 submitted to the judgment of Titus, and the approval of Agrippa ; that, 
 in a word, it was composed, as far as possible, to flatter the self-love of 
 Titus, and to serve the Flavian interest (Jos. Life, 63; c. Apion, i. 9). 
 
 2 Suet. Titus, 5; Fhilostr. ApolL vi. 29 ; p. 408 (below).
 
 394 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 favour ^), of Agrippa, and still more of Berenice ; and 
 he may well have wished to preserve a sanctuary 
 whose worship, as many of those nearest him asserted, 
 tended wholly to peace. It is quite possible, then, that 
 (as Josephus relates) orders were given to extinguish 
 the flames, and that measures were taken against a 
 general conflagration, in view of the frightful tumult 
 sure to follow. In the character of Titus, along with 
 a vein of genuine kind-heartedness, there was a good 
 deal that was theatrical, and something of hypocrisy. 
 Most likely he did not order the burning, as Tacitus 
 asserts ; he did not forbid it, as Josephus represents ; 
 but he tacitly allowed it, holding himself in reserve for 
 any explanation it might suit him to allow, to satisfy 
 the various phases of popular opinion. However that 
 may be, a general assault was ordered against the edi- 
 fice, now stripped of its doors. To a trained soldiery, 
 what remained to be done was only a single effort, which 
 might be bloody, but could be no longer doubtful. 
 
 The Jews were beforehand in the fig!;ht. On the 
 morning of the tenth ^ they opened a furious though 
 unsuccessful conflict. Titus withdrew into the tower 
 Antonia to rest and prepare for assault on the morrow, 
 leaving a detachment to prevent the fire from rekin- 
 dling. Then, as Josephus relates it, befell the incident 
 which brouo;ht on the ruin of the sacred structure. 
 The Jews threw themselves madly upon the troop 
 which was watching near the fire ; the Romans, in a 
 fury of rage, drove them back, and entered with the 
 
 1 Wars, iii. 8: 8, 9. 
 
 2 The great fast for the destruction of the Temple is celebrated on the 
 ninth day of the month Ah, corresponding nearly to August: Jos. Wars, 
 vi. 4: 5; Mishna, Taanilh, iv. 6; cf. Dion Cass. Ixvi. 7.
 
 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 395 
 
 fugitives, pell-mell, into the Temple. A soldier, " with- 
 out any order being given, and as if driven on by a 
 supernatural force," seized a flaming rafter, and, calling 
 to one of his fellows to '• give him a lift," threw in 
 the glowing brand by a window that opened upon the 
 northern porch. The flame and smoke spread rapidly. 
 Titus was just then reposing in his tent. As they ran 
 to warn him (if we may believe Josephus), a sort of 
 struggle ensued between him and the soldiers. Titus, 
 by voice and gesture, gave orders to put out the fire ; 
 but in the confusion he was not understood, and those 
 who could not mistake his intention made as if they 
 did not hear him. Instead of checking the flames, the 
 legionaries piled on more brands. Dragged along by 
 the stream of assailants, Titus was borne into the very 
 Temple. The flames had not yet reached the central 
 building, and he saw, unharmed, that sanctuary of 
 which Josephus, Agrippa, and Berenice had so often 
 spoken to him with admiration, finding it (says Jose- 
 phus) yet more magnificent than he had been told. 
 He redoubled his efforts ; commanded the interior to 
 be cleared of men ; and even gave orders to Liberalis, 
 a centurion of his guard, to strike those who dis- 
 obeyed. All at once a jet of flame and smoke shot 
 out from the Temple door. At the moment of their 
 disorderly retreat, a soldier had set fire to the interior. 
 The flames spread on all sides ; the position could no 
 longer be held, and Titus came away. 
 
 This account of Josephus is unlikely on more ac- 
 counts than one. It is not easy to suppose that Roman 
 legions were so slack in obeying a victorious com- 
 mander. Dion Cassius, on the contrary, asserts that 
 Titus had to use force to compel his men to enter a
 
 396 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 place SO encompassed by dread/ where every trespasser 
 was said to have been smitten with death. Only one 
 thing is sure, — that a few years later Titus was very 
 glad to have the matter told in the Jewish world as 
 Josephus has done it, and the burning of the Temple 
 attributed to the loose discipline of his men, or, rather, 
 to the supernatural act of some unconscious agent of a 
 higher Will.^ " The War of the Jews " was written 
 toward the end of Vespasian's reign, not earlier than 
 76, when Titus was already ambitious to be known as 
 " the joy of mankind " {delicice hiimani generis), and 
 wished to pass as a model of mildness and bounty. In 
 earlier years, and in another world than that of Jews, 
 he would surely have accepted another style of praise. 
 Among the scenes exhibited in the triumph of 71 was 
 a picture of '"' fire set to temples," ^ certainly without 
 the least intention, then, of exhibiting this deed as 
 anything else than glorious. About the same time the 
 court poet, Valerius Flaccus, proposes to Domitian, as 
 the finest task for his poetic gift, to sing the war in 
 Judaea, and to show his brother scattering firebrands 
 on every side : — 
 
 . . . Solymo nigrantem pulvere fratrem, 
 Spargentemque faces, et in omui turre furentem.^ 
 
 ^ Dion Cass. Ixvi. 6; comp. Jos. xi. 2: 3. Josephus is vei'y precise in 
 some details, having been himself an eye-witness ; but his story as a whole 
 is warped by all manner of inventions and afterthoughts. 
 
 2 " Under some daemonic impulse," says Josephus, Wars, vi. 4 : 5; 
 "by the will of a divinity" {del nutu), says Sulpicius Severus, ii. 30. 
 Josephus goes so far as to charge his own countrymen with being the 
 first cause of the calamity: "the beginning and the guilt of the flames 
 were from the citizens " (vi. 2:9). 
 
 2 Jos. Wars, vii. 5: 5. 
 
 * Argonautica, i. 43. The burning of the Temple is attributed, in the 
 Talmud, to " Titus the Wicked " (Bab. Talm. Gittin, 56 a).
 
 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 397 
 
 The conflict, meanwhile, was hot in the courts and 
 open spaces. There was fearful slaughter about the 
 Altar. This was a sort of truncated pyramid, sur- 
 mounted by a platform, which stood in front of the 
 Temple : the bodies of those slain on the platform 
 rolled down the steps, making a heap at the foot. 
 Streams of blood flowed on every side, and everywhere 
 were heard the sharp screams of those who were being 
 slain, and who died while crying aloud to heaven. 
 There was still time to take refuge in the upper city ; 
 but many chose rather to expose themselves to death, 
 esteeming it an enviable fate to die for their sanctuary. 
 Others threw themselves into the flames ; others, again, 
 upon the swords of the Romans ; while yet others 
 stabbed themselves or one another.^ Some priests, who 
 had succeeded in reaching the ridge-pole of the Temple 
 roof, tore out the metallic points there with the lead 
 fastenings, and hurled them down upon the Romans, 
 and continued to do this till overtaken by the flames. 
 A large number of Jews had gathered about the Holy 
 Place, on the word of a prophet who had assured them 
 that this was the moment when God would display to 
 them the signals of deliverance.^ A gallery whither 
 six thousand poor wretches had retreated, mostly 
 women and children, was burned. Two doors of the 
 Temple and a part of the Women's Court were left 
 unharmed a little while ; the Romans planted tlieir 
 standards where the sanctuary had been, and offered 
 them the worship to which they had been accustomed. 
 
 There remained the ancient Zion, the upper town, 
 the strongest part of the city, with its defences still 
 untouched. Hither had retreated John of Gischala, 
 
 1 Dion Cassius, Ixvi. 6. 2 Jqs. TFars, vi. 5: 2.
 
 398 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 Simon the son of Gioras, and a large number of the 
 fighting men, who had succeeded in clearing themselves 
 a passage through the conquerors. This stronghold of 
 desperate men required a fresh siege. John and Simon 
 had fixed their centre of resistance in the palace of the 
 Herods, near the site of the present citadel, covered 
 by the three enormous towers, Hippicus, Phasael, and 
 Mariamne. In order to carry this last rallying-place 
 of Jewish obstinacy, the Romans had to construct em- 
 bankments [aggeres) against the western wall of the city, 
 opposite the palace, — that is, the wall which starts 
 from the present citadel, enclosing the gardens of the 
 Armenians.-^ The four legions spent eighteen days — 
 from the 20th of August to the 6th of September — 
 upon this task. Meanwhile, Titus pushed the con- 
 flagration into those parts of the city which were in 
 his power. The lower town, especially, and Ophel as 
 far as Siloam, were s^^stematically destroyed. Many 
 Jews of the middling class succeeded in escaping. 
 Those of the lower orders were sold at a very low 
 price. They made the beginning of a large population 
 of Jewish slaves, who, when cast upon the Italian and 
 other Mediterranean shores, brought with them the 
 elements of a new and zealous propaganda. Their 
 number is estimated by Josephus at ninety-seven thou- 
 sand.^ Titus granted pardon to the princes of Adiabene. 
 The priestly vestments, jewelry, tables, bowls, candle- 
 sticks, and hangings were delivered to him. He ordered 
 them to be carefully kept, to serve in the triumph he 
 was preparing, to which he wished to give a special 
 stamp of foreign splendour, by displaying in it the rich 
 material of Jewish worship. 
 
 1 Saulcy, Last Days, etc , 409, 410; pi. 222. 
 
 2 Jos. Wars, vi. 9 : 3.
 
 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 399 
 
 When the embankments were finished, the Romans 
 began to batter the wall of the upper town. At the 
 first attack, on the 7th of September, they overthrew 
 a part of the wall, with several towers. Shrunken by 
 famine, sapped by fever and rage, the defenders were 
 now mere skeletons. The legions marched in without 
 diflSculty. All day long the soldiers burned and killed. 
 Most of the houses which they entered for plunder 
 were full of corpses. The wretches who could escape 
 fled to Acra, which was mostly deserted by the Roman 
 force, and into the vast underground cavities which 
 honeycomb the subsoil of Jerusalem.^ Just at this 
 point John and Simon weakened.^ They still held 
 the towers Hippicus, Phasael, and Mariamne, the most 
 astonishing military constructions of all antiquity.^ 
 The battering-ram was impotent against those enor- 
 mous blocks of stone, which were put together with 
 matchless skill, and fastened with iron clamps. Dizzied, 
 with wits astray, John and Simon left these impreg- 
 nable defences, and tried to force the besieg;ino; lines on 
 the side of Siloam. Failing in this, they went to join 
 those of their partisans who had hidden in the drains. 
 
 On the eighth all resistance was at an end. The 
 soldiers were broken down with fatigue. The weak, 
 who could not walk, were put to death. The remnant, 
 with women and children, were driven, like a herd of 
 cattle, into the Temple enclosure, and shut up in the 
 
 1 See Dion Cass. Ixvi. 5; Jos. Antiq. xv. 11: 7; Wars, v. 3: 1 ; Tac. 
 Hkt. V. 12 ; Catherwood, Plan: Vogiie, Z. c, pi. i, xvii. 
 
 2 The charge of cowardice laid against them by Josephus is most 
 likely groundless, and due only to his hatred of them. 
 
 ^ Jos. Wars, vi. 9: 1. The lower courses of one of these towers still 
 exist, and create astonishment, though the blocks have been detached 
 and misfitted.
 
 400 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 inner court which had escaped the burning.^ In this 
 great crowd, herded together for death or slavery, 
 lines of distinction were drawn. Every one who had 
 borne arms was slaughtered. Seven hundred young 
 men, the tallest and handsomest, were reserved to 
 follow in the triumph of Titus. Among the rest those 
 who had passed the age of seventeen were sent into 
 Egypt, with their feet in fetters, to forced labour, or 
 were distributed among the provinces to perish in the 
 amphitheatres. Those under seventeen were sold. The 
 assorting of the captives lasted several days, during 
 which, it is said, thousands died, some for lack of food, 
 some because they would not eat. 
 
 The Romans spent the ensuing days in burning the 
 remainder of the city, undermining its walls, and 
 breaking up the drains and underground-works. Here 
 they found great wealth. Many of the insurgents, who 
 were found alive, were killed on the spot. More than 
 two thousand dead bodies were unearthed, and some 
 few prisoners whom the terrorists had confined there. 
 John of Gischala, compelled by hunger to surrender, 
 begged for quarter, and was sentenced to imprisonment 
 for life. Simon, son of Gioras, who had a supply of 
 food, kept hid till the end of October. Then, in lack 
 of provision, he took a singular course. Clad in a 
 close-fitting white tunic, with a purple mantle, he sud- 
 denly emerged from under ground, on the spot where 
 the Temple had stood.- He fancied that he should 
 bewilder the Romans by a seeming resurrection, and 
 possibly pass himself off as the Messiah. The soldiers 
 
 1 The enclosure, of about 3(iO feet by 300, wag very scanty for the 
 numbers that Josephus crowds into it. But he was an eye-witness 
 (JAfe, 75). 
 
 ^ There are inanv subterranean retreats beneatli the site of the haram.
 
 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 401 
 
 were at first, in fact, no little astonished. Simon 
 would give his name to no one but their commander, 
 Terentius Rufus; who put him in chains, sent word 
 to Titus (then at Paneas), and ordered his captive to 
 be taken to CaBsarea. 
 
 The Temple, with its huge constructions, was de- 
 molished to the foundation ; the substructions, how- 
 ever, were preserved,^ and make what is now called 
 the Haram esh-sherif. Titus also wished to preserve the 
 three great towers, Hippicus, Phasael, and Mariamne, 
 to inform posterity against what defences he had 
 fought. The western wall was left standing to shelter 
 the tenth legion (Fretensis), which was detailed to 
 garrison the ruins of the captured city. Finally, a few 
 buildings at the end of Mount Zion escaped destruction 
 and remained as isolated ruins, while all the rest disap- 
 peared.^ From the month of September, 70, till about 
 the year 122, when Hadrian rebuilt it under the name 
 JElia Capitolina, Jerusalem was nothing but a field of 
 ruins,^ in a corner of which was set up the encamp- 
 ment of a legion,* always on guard. At any moment, 
 
 1 Jerome, In Zach. xiv. 2. The extraordinary height of this sub- 
 basement could not be known before the English excavations. The 
 foundations of the Temple itself could be seen till the time of Julian. 
 Comp. Hegesippus in Euseb. ii. 23: 18. 
 
 2 Jos. Wars, vii. 1:1; Lnke xix. 44; Epiphan. De mensuris, 14; Lact. 
 Inst. div. iv. 21 ; Oros. vii. 9 The contrary statements of Eusebius (Z)e??j, 
 evang. vi. 18) and Jerome (In Zach. xiv.) came from the wish to find the 
 fulfilment of prophecy. The destruction, evidently, means simply the 
 dismantling' and overthrow of the walls of stone. 
 
 8 I shall examine later, in detail, what was the condition of Jerusalem 
 duriniT these fifty-two years, and in what sense it can be said that there 
 was during that time a church at Jerusalem. 
 
 ^ On the spot which is now the seat of the Latin patriarchate. See 
 Jos. Wars, vii. 1: 1; Clermont-Ganneau, Comptes rendus de I'Acad. des 
 Inscr., 1872, 158 et seq. 
 
 26
 
 402 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 it was tlioiiglit, might blaze out the conflagration that 
 smouldered under these calcined rocks. Men trembled 
 lest the spirit of life should return to those corpses 
 which seemed, from below the charnel-heap, to lift 
 their arms in affirmation that there still remained with 
 them the promise of eternity. 
 
 \
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 RESULTS OF THE FALL OF JERUSALEM — A. D. 71-73. 
 
 Titus seems to have remained about a month in the 
 neighbourhood of Jerusalem, offering sacrifices, and 
 giving bounties to his men.^ The spoils and captives 
 were sent to Caesarea. The season was too far ad- 
 vanced to allow the youthful commander to set out 
 for Rome. He spent the winter in visiting several 
 eastern cities, and in giving feasts. Troops of Jewish 
 prisoners, whom he dragged about with him, were cast 
 to wild beasts, burned alive, or forced to fight one an- 
 other.^ At Paneas, on the twenty-fourth of October 
 (his brother Domitian's birthday), more than twenty- 
 five hundred Jews perished in the flames, or else in 
 the horrid sports of the amphitheatre. At Beyrout, 
 on the seventeenth of November, an equal number 
 were sacrificed to celebrate the birthday of Vespasian. 
 Hatred of Jews was the ruling passion of the Syrian 
 towns ; and these frightful massacres were hailed with 
 delight. The most shocking thing of all is, perhaps, 
 that Josephus and Agrippa did not quit Titus during 
 this time, and were witnesses of these atrocities. 
 
 Titus then made a long journey in Syria and beyond 
 the Euphrates. At Antioch he found the population 
 
 1 Inscription in Mem de I'Acad. des Inscr. xxvi. 290. 
 
 2 Jos. TFars, vii. 2; 3: 1; 5: L
 
 404 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 enraged against the Jews, who were accused of starting 
 a conflagration that had nearly destroyed the city ; but 
 he did no more than to cancel the bronze tablets on 
 which their privileges were inscribed/ He further pre- 
 sented to the city the winged cheriibim which over- 
 spread the ark. This curious trophy was set in front 
 of the great western gate, which took the name of the 
 Gate of Cherubim. Near this he dedicated a four-horse 
 chariot to the Moon, in gratitude for the help given 
 him by that luminary during the siege. At Daphne he 
 erected a theatre on the site of the Jewish synagogue, 
 with an inscription signifying that this structure was 
 built from the spoil got in Judeea.^ 
 
 From Antioch he returned to Jerusalem, where he 
 found the legion Fretensis, under command of Terentius 
 Rufus, still occupied in searching the hollows beneath 
 the ruined city. The apparition of Simon, son of Gio- 
 ras, emerging from the drains, when it was supposed 
 that no one was left there, had revived the subterra- 
 nean hunt. Every day, indeed, some wretched fugitive 
 or some new treasure was discovered. At sight of the 
 solitude he had made, Titus, it is said, could not refrain 
 from an emotion of pity. The Jews who came to him 
 had an increasing influence upon him : the vision of an 
 oriental empire, which had been displayed before the 
 eyes of Nero and Vespasian, began to glow about him, 
 and even stirred some suspicion at Rome.''' Agrippa, 
 Berenice, Josephus, and Tiberius Alexander were more 
 than ever in favour with him, and there were many 
 who argued that Berenice might play the part of a new 
 Cleopatra. Some anger was felt at seeing people of 
 
 1 Jos. Wars, vii. 3:2-4. 2 Malala (ed. Bonn), 261, 281. 
 
 8 Suet. Titus, 5.
 
 RESULTS OF THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 405 
 
 that class honoured and all-powerful, when the rebel- 
 lion had but just been put down.^ On his own part, 
 Titus listened more and more willingly to the sugges- 
 tion that he was fulfilling a providential mission ; and 
 he took pleasure in hearing prophetic passages which, he 
 was assured, referred to him. Josephus asserts that he 
 ascribed his victory to God, and acknowledged himself 
 to have been the object of special divine favour.^ We 
 are struck by finding that Philostratus, a hundred and 
 twenty years later, in his " Life of Apollonius " (vi. 29), 
 fully admits the statement, and makes it the occasion 
 of a correspondence between Titus and his own philo- 
 sophic hero. If we may believe him, Titus refused the 
 crowns that were offered him, saying that not he was 
 the conqueror of Jerusalem ; that he had only lent his 
 own service to an angry God. Now, it is hardly to 
 be supposed that Philostratus knew the passage in 
 Josephus : it was part of the trite legend of Titus's 
 moderation. 
 
 Titus returned to Rome in May or June of the year 
 71, bent upon a triumph which should surpass every- 
 thing in that kind that had ever been seen. The sim- 
 plicity, gravity, and somewhat commonplace manners 
 of Vespasian were not such as to appeal to the fancy 
 of a population accustomed to demand of its sovereigns, 
 first of all, prodigality and an air of grandeur. Titus 
 thought that a stately entrance would have a fine effect, 
 
 1 Juvenal, Sat. i. 128-130, a passage referring to Tiberius Alexander, 
 
 2 Jos. Wars, vi. 9:1. Xo doubt we may suspect in tliis a deliberate 
 afterthought of the historian (see above, note on pp. 387, 388; also pp. 
 391-394). But since Titus is said some years after to have approved 
 these statements (Jos. Life., 6.")), we may conclude that at some points 
 they reflect his nature and thought. And, even if we doubt the fact, at 
 any rate Josephus thought to make favour at court by asserting it.
 
 4o6 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 and succeeded in conquering the prejudices of his old- 
 fashioned father about it. The ceremony was set forth 
 with all the skill of the Roman decorative artists of 
 that period. Especially it was marked by the care 
 taken to ensure local colour and historic realism.^ It 
 was also a favourite device to reproduce the simple 
 and austere Roman rites as if on purpose to set them 
 in relief against the vanquished religion. At the open- 
 ing of the ceremony, Vespasian officiated as pontiff, 
 with his head more than half covered by the toga, and 
 made the formal prayers, Titus then following him 
 with the same formalities. The procession was amaz- 
 ing. All the curiosities and rarities of the world, the 
 costly products of Oriental art, were displayed in it, 
 beside the finished work of Greek and Roman skill. 
 Having just escaped the greatest danger the Empire 
 had ever run, it would seem the most pompous display 
 must be made of its wealth and splendour. Scaffold- 
 ings on wheels, rising three or four stages in height, 
 were the object of universal admiration. Here were 
 seen displayed all the episodes of the war, each series 
 ending with an exhibition, to the life, of the strange 
 figure made by Bar-Gioras as he emerged from his 
 hiding-place, and the method of his capture. The pale 
 features and sunken eyes of the captives were disguised 
 under the superb garments they were dressed in. In 
 the midst was Bar-Gioras himself, conducted in great 
 pomp to his death. Then came the spoils of the 
 Temple, — the golden table, the golden candlestick 
 with seven branches, the purple veil of the Holy of 
 Holies, and, to end the series of trophies, the captive, 
 the vanquished, the specially guilty one — the Book of 
 
 1 Jo3. Wars, vii. 5: 3-7.
 
 RESULTS OF THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 407 
 
 the Law {ToraK). The parade of victorious soldiers 
 closed the march. Vespasian and Titus were borne in 
 two separate chariots.^ Titus was radiant ; while Ves- 
 pasian, seeing in all this pomp only a day lost for busi- 
 ness, was very weary of it, and did not try to hide the 
 dull look of a busy man, expressing his impatience that 
 the procession did not move faster, and grumbling to 
 himself, " A very pretty mess ! . . . Well, I have de- 
 served it. What a fool I have made of myself . . . 
 a man of my age, too ! " ^ Domitian, sumptuously at- 
 tired and mounted on a noble charger, pranced here 
 and there about his father and elder brother. 
 
 Thus they arrived, by the Sacred Way, at the temple 
 of Jupiter Capitolinus, the usual goal of the triumphal 
 march. At the foot of the Capitol Hill they made a 
 halt, in order to avoid the distressing part of the cere- 
 mony, the execution of the chief captives. This hate- 
 ful custom was observed to the letter. Bar-Gioras was 
 taken out from the troop of prisoners, and dragged, 
 with a cord about his neck, the butt of unseemly in- 
 sults, to the Tarpeian Rock, where he was put to 
 death. When a cry proclaimed that the enemy of 
 Rome was no more, there went up a mighty shout, 
 and the sacrifices began. After the customary invoca- 
 tions, the princes retired to the Palatine, and the rest 
 of the day was spent by all the city in festival and 
 rejoicing. 
 
 The Book of the Law and the hangings of the Tem- 
 ple were carried to the imperial palace. The furnish- 
 
 ^ Positively so stated by Josephus, who witnessed the ceremony. 
 Zonaraa (xi. 17) puts them, though not so precisely, on the same 
 chariot. 
 
 '"■ Suet. Vesp. 12.
 
 4o8 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 ings of gold, especially the table for shew-bread and 
 the candlestick, were laid aside in a great building con- 
 structed by Vespasian over against the Palatine, across 
 the Sacred Way, called the Temple of Peace, which 
 made a sort of Museum under the Flavian emperors.^ 
 A triumphal arch of Pentelican marble, still standing, 
 kept the memory of this extraordinary triumph, with 
 figures of the chief objects which were carried in it.^ 
 Father and son on this occasion took each the title of 
 imperator, but refused that of Jiidaicus^ either because 
 there was something of scorn or ridicule in it,* or to 
 show that the victory in Judaea was not in a campaign 
 against a foreign nation, but was only the suppression 
 of a revolt of slaves ; or, again, from some secret 
 motive, such as Josephus and Philostratus have hinted 
 at in exaggerated terms. A coin, or medal, represent- 
 ing Judoea in chains, weeping under a palm-tree, with 
 the legend ivdaea capta, ivdaea devicta, preserved 
 the memory of the one great exploit of the Flavian 
 dynasty. This coin continued to be struck till the 
 days of Domitian.^ 
 
 The victory was complete. A commander of Gallic 
 race and blood — one, I may say, of ourselves,'' at the 
 head of legions, in whose register, if we could read it, 
 
 1 This temple, dedicated in 75, was entirely destroyed by fire under 
 Commodus. Little dependence can be placed on what Procopius says in 
 his Vandal War (ii. 5). 
 
 2 This [the so-called Arch of Titus] was not finished till the reign of 
 Domitian. See inscr. 758, in Orelli. 
 
 8 Dion Cassius, Ixvi. 7. 
 
 * See Cicero's jest {Hierosohpnarius), Ad Alt. ii. 9. 
 
 ^ IVIadden, "Jewish Coinage," 183-197. 
 
 ^ The Flavian family originated in Cisalpine Gaul. The portraits of 
 Titus and Vespasian show us very common features, like those most 
 familiar to us.
 
 RESULTS OF THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 409 
 
 we sliould find many an ancestor of our own — had 
 demolished the citadel of Semitic faith, and had in- 
 flicted on the theocracy, that formidable foe to civili- 
 sation, the most crushing defeat it had ever sustained. 
 It was the triumph of the Roman Law — or, rather, 
 the Law of Reason, a wholly philosophic structure, 
 with no groundwork of revelation — over the Jewish 
 Book of the Law {Torah), which claims to be revealed. 
 This Law — the Jus Romcmiim, whose roots were partly 
 Greek, but so largely due to the practical genius of 
 the Latins — was the noble gift which Rome bestowed 
 on vanquished nations in recompense of their lost in- 
 dependence. Every victory of Rome was a step in the 
 advance of Reason. Rome introduced into the world 
 a principle better in many respects than that of the 
 Jews, — I mean the Secular State, resting on a purely 
 civil conception of society. Every patriotic struggle 
 is to be honoured. But the Zealots were not merely 
 patriots ; they were fanatics, armed tools of an intol- 
 erable tyranny. What they wished was to uphold a 
 bloody code, which ordained stoning' as the penalty of 
 wrong thinking. What they fought against was the 
 common right, the layman's right, a right free to all, 
 which does not disturb itself about private opinion. 
 Liberty of conscience was destined to result at length 
 from Roman Law, while it could never have been born 
 of Judaism. Out of this could come only the Syna- 
 gogue or the Church, censorship of manners, compulsory 
 morality, the convent, — a world like that in the fifth 
 century, in which the human race would have lost all 
 its vigour, unless the Barbarians had brought the rem- 
 edy. Better, in truth, the reign of the Warrior than 
 the temporal rule of the Priest ! For the warrior harms
 
 41 o ANTICHRIST. 
 
 not the spirit : one can think freely under him ; while 
 the priest requires of his subjects that which is impos- 
 sible, — namely, belief in certain things, and the pledge 
 to find them always true. 
 
 The triumph of Rome was, therefore, in some re- 
 spects well deserved. Jerusalem had become an impos- 
 sibility. The Jews, if left to themselves, would have 
 reduced it to ruins. But a great void was to deprive 
 this victory of its fruits. Our Western races, with all 
 their superiority, have always shown lamentable reli- 
 gious impotence. It was utterly impossible to get from 
 the Roman or Gallic religion anything akin to the 
 Christian Church. But any advantage gained over one 
 religion is futile, unless its place is filled by another 
 that gives at least equal satisfaction to the needs of 
 the heart. Jerusalem was destined to avenge herself 
 for her defeat : to conquer Rome through Christianity, 
 and Persia through Islam ; to destroy the old political 
 structure, and to become for all finer natures a City of 
 the Soul. The most perilous tendency of its Code 
 (Torah) — a Law at once ethical and civil, giving pre- 
 cedence to social questions over matters military and 
 political — was to become dominant in the Church. 
 Throughout the Middle Age, censured and spied upon 
 by the community, the individual would dread the 
 homily, and tremble before the sentence of excommu- 
 nication. This was just amends for the moral indif- 
 ference of pagan society, ' and a protest against the 
 impotence of Roman institutions to benefit the indi- 
 vidual. Certainly, there is something hateful in the 
 power of coercion granted to religious bodies over their 
 members. The worst of errors is to think that any 
 one religion has the monopoly of goodness. For every
 
 RESULTS OF THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 411 
 
 man that religion is good which makes him gentle, 
 upright, humble, and kind. But to govern mankind 
 is a hard task. The ideal is very high, and the earth 
 is very low. Outside the sterile province of philos- 
 ophy, what we meet at every step is unreason, folly, 
 and passion. The wise men of antiquity succeeded in 
 winning to themselves some little authority only by 
 impostures, which gave them a hold upon the imagina- 
 tion, in their lack of physical force. Where would 
 civilisation have been if men had not believed for cen- 
 turies that the Brahman could cast a thunderbolt by 
 his glance ; or if the barbarians had not been awe- 
 struck by the terrible vengeance of Saint Martin of 
 Tours ? Man has need of a moral discipline, for which 
 the cares of Family and State are not enough. 
 
 In the intoxication of success Rome did not easily 
 keep in mind that the Jewish insurrection was still 
 alive in the valley of the Dead Sea. Three fortresses 
 — Herodium, Machaerus, and Masada^ — remained in 
 the hands of the Jews. What kept any hope in them 
 after the capture of Jerusalem must have been their 
 firm resolution to shut their eyes to all evidence. The 
 rebels defended themselves as fiercely as if the struggle 
 were just beginning. Herodium was little more than a 
 fortified palace, and was taken without much difficulty 
 by Lucilius Bassus. Machserus held out obstinately ; 
 and atrocities, massacres, and the sale of whole troops 
 of Jewish captives were renewed. Masada made one 
 of the most heroic defences recorded in the history of 
 
 ^ Saulcy, Travels in the Holy Land (i. 168) and about the Dead Sea 
 (i. 199, with plates xi., xii., xiii.); Guerhi, Bescr. of Palestine, iii. 122; 
 Parent, Machcerous (Paris, 1868); Vignes, notes; G. Rey, Voyage dans le 
 Haouran, 285; pi. xxv., xxvi.
 
 412 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 war. Eleazar, son of Jairns, grandson of Judas the 
 Gaulonite, had seized this fortress early in the revolt, 
 and made it a resort of Zealots and armed partisans. 
 Masada occupies the level summit of an immense cliff, 
 some sixteen hundred feet in height, on the margin of 
 the Dead Sea. To gain possession of such a stronghold, 
 Fulvius Silva was compelled to make enormous efforts. 
 The Jews were cast into immeasurable despair when 
 they found themselves stormed in a retreat they had 
 deemed impregnable. At the instigation of Eleazar, 
 they slew one another, and set fire to the heap they 
 had made of their possessions. So perished nine hun- 
 dred and sixty persons. This bloody tragedy befell on 
 the 15th of April, 72. 
 
 By these events Judaea was left desolated from end 
 to end. Vespasian ordered the sale of all lands that 
 had become ownerless by the death or captivity of their 
 proprietors.^ It seems to have been proposed to him 
 to rebuild Jerusalem under another name and found a 
 colony there, — a scheme afterwards carried out by 
 Hadrian. He declined to do this, and annexed the 
 entire territory to the emperor's private domain.^ He 
 only gave to eight hundred veterans the village of 
 Emmaus, near Jerusalem,^ making of it a little colony, 
 of which a trace is preserved in the name of the pretty 
 village Kulonie. A special tribute was assessed upon 
 the Jews throughout the Empire, who were to pay 
 
 ^ Jos. Wars, vii. 6: 6. 
 
 2 The words of Josephus {I. c.) are, Iblav avra rrjv )(<^pav (PvXuttmv, mean- 
 ing, probably, that he kept the price of sale (compaiiiig the phrase else- 
 where, KeXfvwr/ . . . dTToBoadm). On the meaning of t.^ini', comp. Corpus 
 inscr. grcec, 3751; Mommsen, Inscr. regni Neap., iG'dG; Heuzen, 6926; 
 Strabo, xvii. 1 : 12. 
 
 8 See note at the beginning of chap. xiii.
 
 RESULTS OF THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 413 
 
 yearly to the Capitol the amount of two drachmas 
 [about forty cents], which they had previously paid to 
 the Temple at Jerusalem.* Tlie little band of reconciled 
 Jews — Josephus, Agrippa, Berenice, Tiberius Alexan- 
 der — chose Rome for their residence. We shall meet 
 them there, playing a considerable part, sometimes 
 winning some moments of court favour for their coun- 
 trymen, sometimes pursued by the hatred of fanatical 
 believers, more than once indulging hopes, — notably, 
 when Berenice seemed likely to become the wife of 
 Titus, and to hold the sceptre of the world. 
 
 Judsea was now reduced to a solitude, and seemed 
 at rest. But the prodigious disturbance she had felt 
 was repeated in lesser shocks in the adjoining regions. 
 This effervescence continued till near the end of 73. 
 The Zealots who had escaped massacre, those who had 
 enlisted in the siege, all the crazy-heads of Jerusalem, 
 spread abroad into Egypt and Cyrenaica, The com- 
 munities of these regions, wealthy and conservative, 
 and very far away from the fanaticism of Palestine, 
 felt the danger brought among them by these desper- 
 ate men ; and so undertook the task of arresting and 
 handing them over to the Romans. Many fled as far 
 as to Upper Egypt, whither they were tracked and 
 hunted like wild beasts.^ At Cyrene a partisan named 
 Jonathas, by trade a weaver, set up for a prophet ; and, 
 like all false Messiahs, persuaded two thousand poor 
 men (ebionim) to follow him to the desert, M'here he 
 promised to show them prodigies and astounding appa- 
 
 1 Jos. Wars, vii. 6: 6; Dion Cass. Ixvi. 7; Suet. Domitian, 12; Appian, 
 Syr. 50; Origen, Epist. ad Afric. " de Susanna," i. 28; Martial, vii. 54; 
 Nerva's coinage, Madden, 199. 
 
 2 Jos. Wars, vii. 10: 1; Euseb. Chron. ann. 73.
 
 414 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 ritions.^ Cool-headed Jews denounced him to Catullus, 
 governor of the district ; but he retaliated by laying 
 charges against them, which brought on them end- 
 less troubles. Almost the entire Jewish population of 
 Cyrene, one of the most prosperous in the world,^ was 
 exterminated ; and its property was confiscated in the 
 emperor's name. Catullus, who had shown much cru- 
 elty in this affair, and was disavowed by Vespasian, 
 died a victim to frightful hallucinations, which (it has 
 been thought) became the subject of a dramatic work 
 with fantastic scenery, " The Spectre of Catullus." ^ 
 
 But, strange to say, this long and terrible death- 
 agony was not immediately fatal. Under Trajan and 
 Hadrian, as we shall see, the Jewish nationality re- 
 vived, and proved still capable of a bloody struggle ; 
 but clearly the die was cast, the Zealot was crushed 
 beyond recovery. The way pointed out by Jesus, and 
 instinctively followed by the heads of the church in 
 Jerusalem who took refuge in Peraea, became emphati- 
 cally the true way for Israel. The secular kingdom of 
 the Jews had been hateful, hard, and cruel. The time 
 of the Asmonsean kings, when they enjoyed national 
 independence, was their gloomiest period. Had they 
 to regret the Herodian monarchy, or the rule of Sad- 
 ducees, that shameful alliance of an ignoble princedom 
 with a dishonoured priesthood ? Surely not. That 
 was not the true vocation of the "people of God." 
 One must be blind not to see that the ideal institutions 
 to which " the Israel of God " aspired did not admit of 
 national independence. Since these institutions could 
 
 ^ Jos. Wam^ vii. 11: 1. 
 
 ^ Strabo, cited by Josephus, Antiq. xiv. 7: 2. 
 
 ' Juvenal, Sat. viii. 5: 186.
 
 RESULTS OF THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 415 
 
 not create an army, they could exist only in a vassal 
 State under a great Empire, which leaves much free- 
 dom to its alien subjects {rayahs), while it relieves 
 them of the cares of politics by requiring of them no 
 military service. The rule of the Persian monarchy 
 fully satisfied these conditions of Jewish life. At a 
 later day the Caliphate, the Ottoman Empire, were 
 again to satisfy them, and to watch the unfolding, 
 beneath their shield, of free communities like those of 
 the Armenians, Parsees, and Greeks, — nations without 
 a country; brotherhoods, making good the lack of 
 political and military independence by the autonomy of 
 the College and the Church. 
 
 The Roman Empire was not flexible enough thus to 
 meet the needs of the communities it embraced in its 
 dominion. Of the Four Empires this was, in the opin- 
 ion of the Jews, the cruellest and wickedest.^ Like 
 Antiochus Epiphanes, the Roman Empire forced the 
 Jewish people from its true vocation, thus leading it, 
 by reaction, to the attempt at forming a separate king- 
 dom or State. This attempt was not due to those who 
 represented the true genius of the Hebrew race. In 
 some regards, they would prefer Romans for their 
 rulers. The idea of a Jewish nationality was coming 
 every day to be an idea of the past, — an idea of mad- 
 men and fanatics, against which the pious made no 
 scruple of appealing to the protection of their con- 
 querors. The true Jew — clinging to the Law [Torali), 
 making the sacred books (as Christians do) his rule of 
 life, absorbed in his hope of the kingdom of God — 
 more and more renounced the thought of earthly na- 
 
 ^ Apocalypse of Baruch iu Ceriani: Monum. sacra et profana, i. 82^ 
 V. 136.
 
 41 6 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 tionality. The principles of Judas the Gaulonite, which 
 were tlie soul of the great revolt, were principles of 
 Anarchy. According to them, since God is Master, no 
 man may claim that title. And thus, while these prin- 
 ciples could lead forth bands of fanatics like Cromwell's 
 " Independents," they could found nothing that would 
 last. Such tempestuous explosions were an indication 
 how thoroughly the heart of Israel had been wrenched 
 by the awful task laid upon it. Forced to wrestle with 
 bloody sweat for humanity at large, he must perish, as 
 he did, in a death of frightful agony. 
 
 A people must, in fact, choose between the long, 
 tranquil, and obscure career of one who lives for him- 
 self, and the stormy and vexed career of one who lives 
 for man. A nation whose heart is divided by social 
 and religious problems is almost always weak as a 
 nation. Every country that dreams of a kingdom of 
 God, that lives for universal ideas, and undertakes a 
 task for the general advantage, sacrifices by that course 
 its own particular destiny. It enfeebles and annihilates 
 the part it might sustain as a political entity. So it 
 was with Judcea, with Greece, with Italy ; so it may 
 yet be with France. It is not with impunity that one 
 carries fire in his heart. Jerusalem, as a capital of 
 commonplace citizens, might have pursued indefinitely 
 a commonplace career. Because it had the unparalleled 
 glory of being the cradle of Christianity, it became a 
 prey to such chieftains as John of Gischala and Si- 
 mon Bar-Gioras, — seemingly scourges of their country, 
 really the means of its transfiguration. Those Zealots 
 whom Josephus regards as brigands and assassins were 
 the basest of politicians, and the most incompetent of 
 captains; but they ruined heroically a country which
 
 RESULTS OF THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 417 
 
 was incapable of being saved. They destroyed the 
 visible city ; but they opened the realm of a spiritual 
 Jerusalem, which, seated in her desolation, was far 
 more glorious than she had been in the day of Herod 
 or of Solomon. 
 
 What, in truth, was the aim of the conservatives, 
 the Sadducees ? It was a small and paltry aim. It 
 was to maintain a city of priests, like Emesa, Tyana, 
 or Comana. Surely they spoke the truth when they 
 said that the uprising of enthusiasts would be the ruin 
 of the nation. Revolution and Messianism were indeed 
 the ruin of the Jewish people considered as a nation ; 
 but they were the true vocation of that people, its one 
 contribution to the structure of a world-wide civilisa- 
 tion. In like manner we speak truly when we say to 
 France, " Renounce the Revolution, or thou art lost ! " 
 But, if an}^ one of the ideas obscurely working out in 
 the people's heart has the promise of the future, it will 
 be found that France shall be fully recompensed for 
 that which in 1870 and 1871 made her weakness and 
 her misery. Unless by some very violent wrenching of 
 the truth (which is always possible), our sons of the 
 Revolution ^ will never be great citizens ; but let each 
 man do his part, and we shall see, perhaps, that such 
 men were more in the secrets of the future than cooler 
 heads. 
 
 How, now, shall Judaism take new shape, when de- 
 prived of its holy city and its temple ? How will the 
 situation which events have brought to pass for Israel 
 give birth to the spirit of the Talmud ? This will ap- 
 pear in the succeeding volume. In one sense, Judaism 
 had no longer an excuse for living after Christianity 
 
 1 In the original, nos Bar-Gioras, nos Jean de Gischala. 
 27
 
 4i8 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 had been brought forth. From that hour the spirit of 
 life was departed from Jerusalem. The mother-church 
 gave all to the child of her sorrows, and spent her force 
 in that sore travail. That was a true voice of the an- 
 cient Divinity {EloJiim) which men thought they heard 
 in the sanctuary, murmuring, " Let us go hence ! " The 
 law of every great creation is that its creator, in be- 
 stowing existence upon another, virtually gives away 
 his own. After the complete transfusion of life to him 
 who is to bear it on, the giver remains but a sapless 
 stem, an exhausted stock. Still, this sentence of Nature 
 is rarely executed upon the spot. The plant which has 
 borne the flower does not yet consent to die. The 
 world is full of walking skeletons which outlive the 
 decree that has been passed upon them. Modern Juda- 
 ism is one of these. History has no stranger spectacle 
 than this, — the spectral existence of a people which 
 for more than a thousand years has lost the sense of 
 fact ; which has written not a single page that can be 
 read, or given a single precept that can be obeyed. 
 Can we wonder if, after having lived for centuries out 
 of the atmosphere of human life, — in a cavern, if I 
 may say so, in a condition partially demented, — it 
 should come forth pallid, bewildered by the light, and 
 bloodless ? 
 
 The consequences which resulted to Christianity from 
 the fall of Jerusalem are so evident that, from this time 
 forth, it is easy to point them out. I have already had 
 several occasions to speak of them.^ 
 
 The ruin of Jerusalem and of the Temple was a piece 
 of unexampled good fortune for Christianity. If Tac- 
 itus correctly reports the opinion of Titus,^ the con- 
 
 1 See "Saint Paul," chap. xvii. (end). « gee above, p. 392.
 
 RESULTS OF THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 419 
 
 queror believed that Christianity and Judaism would 
 perish alike in the destruction of the Temple. There 
 was never a more complete misjudgment. The Romans 
 supposed that, in tearing away the root, they had torn 
 away the shoot. But the shoot was already a tree, liv- 
 ing its own life. If the Temple had remained, Chris- 
 tianity would certainly have been smothered in its 
 growth. The Temple would have continued to be the 
 centre of everything that Judaism had produced. It 
 would never have ceased to be looked on as the holiest 
 spot on earth.^ Hither would come pilgrimages ; here 
 would be offered pious gifts. Clinging about the sacred 
 courts, the church at Jerusalem would have continued, 
 in virtue of its primacy, to receive homage from every 
 land, to persecute the followers of Paul, to require cir- 
 cumcision and the observance of the Mosaic code as 
 the condition of claiming disci pleship to Jesus. Every 
 way of fruitful expansion would have been cut off; 
 every missionary must sign a pledge of obedience to 
 the hierarchy at Jerusalem.^ A centre of inviolable 
 authority would have been established, with a patri- 
 archate consisting (so to speak) of a college of cardi- 
 nals under the presidency of such men as James, — 
 Jews of unmixed blood, belonging to the family of 
 Jesus.^ This would have been a monstrous danger for 
 
 ^ See above, p. 313. 
 
 ^ See " Saint Paul," chap, x., and the letters prefixed to the Clemen- 
 tine " Homilies." 
 
 8 Something like this is taking place among the Jews of our day, and 
 seems likely to grow into a serious thing. All the Jews of Jerusalem are 
 regarded as hakamirn, or " learned," having no other occupation than to 
 meditate upon the Law. As such, they have a right to receive alms, and 
 feel that they ought to be supported by the Jews of all the world. Their 
 begging agents circulate throughout the East, and even rich Israelites of 
 Europe hold themselves in duty bound to contribute to their demands
 
 420 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 the growing Church. When we see Saint Paul, after 
 all the ill-treatment he had received, remaining still 
 attached to the church at Jerusalem, we may conceive 
 the difficulty of any break with these holy personages. 
 Such a schism would have been regarded as an enor- 
 mity, as the same thing as to renounce Christianity 
 outright. Separation from Judaism would have been 
 impossible. But this separation was as essential to the 
 existence of the new religion as the cutting of the um- 
 bilical cord is to the life of the new-born child. The 
 mother would else deprive her child of life. On the 
 contrary, the Temple once destroyed, Christians no 
 longer think of it ; soon they will even hold it to be 
 an unholy place, — "effete and empty," says Orosius,^ 
 " and fit for no good use." For them Jesus will 
 be all. 
 
 By the same blow the church at Jerusalem was 
 brouo;ht down to a second rank. We shall see it ral- 
 lying anew about the element that gave it strength, 
 — the members of the family of Jesus (SecrTrocrwot, 
 "the Princes") the sons of Cleopas; but it will reign 
 no more. With the destruction of that centre of hatred 
 and exclusion, the reconciliation of opposite parties in 
 the Church becomes easy. Peter and Paul are officially 
 made at one, and the alarming duality of infant Chris- 
 tianity ceases at length to be a deadly hurt. The little 
 group that clung to the relatives of Jesus — to James 
 or Cleopas — lives forgotten, secluded in Batanaea and 
 
 (see "Saint Paul," chap, iii., xv.). Again, the decisions of the Great 
 llabbi at Jerusalem tend to gain universal authority, while formerly the 
 doctors were of equal rank, their credit depending on their personal repu- 
 tation. Thus the future may, perhaps, see a doctrinal tribunal of Judaism 
 having its seat at Jerusalem, 
 
 * Hist. adv. parjanos^ vii. 9 (early in the fifth century).
 
 RESULTS OF THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 421 
 
 the Haiiran. Here, as the Ebionitish sect, it lingers 
 out a slow death of sterility and insignificance. 
 
 In many respects its situation was like that of 
 Catholicism in our day. No religious community has 
 ever had more inward activity, more readiness to put 
 forth its own original productions, than the Catholicism 
 of the last sixty years. All these efforts, however, 
 have been void of result from a single cause, — the 
 autocratic rule of the court of Rome. This it is which 
 has driven from the Church such minds as Lamennais, 
 Hermes, Dollinger, Loyson {le Pere H^acinthe), — all the 
 apologists who have defended it with any success. It 
 is the Roman Curia that has reduced Lacordaire and 
 Montalembert to despair and impotence. It is this that, 
 by its Syllabus and its Council, has cut away all future 
 from the liberal Catholics. When will this lamentable 
 state of things have an end ? It will be when Rome 
 shall be no longer the pontifical city ; when the dan- 
 gerous oligarchy which holds Catholicism in its grasp 
 has ceased to be. The occupation of Rome by the King 
 of Italy will probably be reckoned in Catholic history 
 an event as happy as the destruction of Jerusalem 
 has proved in Christian history. Most Catholics have 
 deplored it, as no doubt the Jewish Christians of 70 
 deplored the destruction of the Temple as the most 
 gloomy of disasters. But the sequel shows how super- 
 ficial was that judgment. While weeping the fall of 
 papal Rome, Catholicism will find that loss its greatest 
 gain. Formal unity with real death will give place in 
 its communion to free discussion, movement, variety, 
 and life.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 OF PETER'S COMING TO ROME, AND OF JOHN'S STAY 
 AT EPHESUS. 
 
 At the end of the second century, as all are agreed, the gen- 
 eral belief of the Christian churches was that the apostle 
 Peter suffered martyrdom at Rome, and that the apostle 
 John lived to extreme old age at Ephesus. Protestant theo- 
 logians of the sixteenth century argued strongly that Peter 
 never came to Rome, — an opinion which Luther opposed 
 when it first appeared, in 1520, but which Flacius Illyricus 
 and Salmasius made a received belief among Protestants. The 
 belief of John's residence at Ephesus has never been seriously 
 controverted until our own day. 
 
 It is easy to detect the motive of the emphasis with which 
 Protestants generally have denied that Peter ever came to 
 Rome. Throughout the Middle Age his residence there was 
 the foundation of the exorbitant claims of the papacy. These 
 claims rested on three assertions which were held to be arti- 
 cles of faith : (1) that Jesus himself conferred upon Peter 
 primacy in his Church ; (2) that this primacy must have been 
 transmitted to the successors of Peter ; (3) that these succes- 
 sors are the bishops of Rome, since Peter, after remaining a 
 time at Jerusalem and then at Antioch, had fixed his residence 
 definitely at Rome. To disprove this last assertion was, ac- 
 cordingly, to overthrow the entire edifice of Roman theology. 
 Much learning was spent upon the question. It was shown 
 that the Roman tradition was not sustained by very substan- 
 tial direct testimony ; but indirect evidence was treated lightly. 
 In particular, there was weary discussion on the passage.
 
 424 APPENDIX, 
 
 daTrd^erai, v/xd'i rj iv ^a^vXoiVL avveKKeKTrj (1 Pet. v. 13).^ 
 Now it cannot be maintained that " Babylon" in this passage 
 really means the city on the Euphrates : first, because " Baby- 
 lon," in the esoteric language of Christians at this time, al- 
 ways means Rome ; secondly, because Christianity in the 
 first century hardly went outside the limits of the Roman 
 Empire, and was very little current among the Parthians. 
 
 To us the question is far less important than it was to the 
 Reformers ; ^ and we find it easier than they did to discuss it 
 without bias. We do not believe in the least that Jesus had 
 any such design as to establish an official Head in his Church ; 
 still less, to attach this headship to the episcopal succession 
 in any particular city. Almost certainly no thought of an 
 episcopate was in his mind ; and besides, if there was any city 
 in the world known to him by name, which he could have had 
 no thought of associating with such succession, it unquestion- 
 ably was Rome. It would surely have inspired him with hor- 
 ror, if he had been told that this city of perdition, this merciless 
 foe to the people of God, would one day vaunt its Satanic roy- 
 alty as the ground of its own right to inherit the new title of 
 power founded by the Son of God. Whether Peter was ever 
 at Rome or not is, accordingly, not of the slightest importance 
 for us, political or moral. It is, simply, a curious question of 
 history. That is all. 
 
 At the outset, the Catholic position is open to most serious 
 attack from its unfortunate assumption (taken from Euse- 
 bius and Jerome) that Peter came to Rome in the year 42, 
 thus extending his residence there as pontiff to twenty-three 
 or twenty-four years. This is utterly out of the question. 
 To remove any doubt about it, we have only to consider that 
 the persecution at Jerusalem under Herod Agrippa, in which 
 
 ^ Rendered in the Revised Version, " She that is in Babylon, elect to- 
 gether with [you], saluteth you." — Ed. 
 
 2 The final and most learned form given to Protestant doubts upon 
 this subject is found in the two essays of Lipsius : " Chronolof/ie der 
 romischen Bischofe his zur Mitte des vierten Jahrhunderls {Kiel, 18G9) ; Die 
 Quellen der romischen Petrussage (J.bid. 1872).
 
 OF PETER'S COMING TO ROME. 425 
 
 Peter suffered imprisonment and exile (as related in Acts xii. 
 3-19), occurred in the same year with the death of Herod ; 
 that is, in 44.^ ApoUonius, the anti-Montanist, at the end 
 of the second century,^ and Lactantius, at the beginning of 
 the fourth,^ surely did not believe that Peter had been at 
 Rome in 42 : the former affirming the tradition that Jesus 
 had forbidden his apostles to leave Jerusalem within twelve 
 years after his death ; the latter asserting that they devoted 
 the twenty-five years following their Master's death to preach- 
 ing the gospel in the provinces, and that Peter did not go to 
 Rome till after the accession of Nero. It w^ould be idle to 
 contend at length against an assumption which no reasonable 
 person can defend. I may go farther, and say that Peter had 
 not yet arrived in Rome when Paul was brought thither as a 
 prisoner in 61. We find a further argument in Paul's Epistle 
 to the Romans, written about 58, — at all events not more 
 than two and a half years before his arrival in Rome ; for we 
 cannot easily imagine that he should write to a community 
 of which Peter was the head without the slightest mention of 
 him. Still more decisive is the last chapter of Acts. This 
 chapter — especially the verses (17-29) telling of Paul's inter- 
 view with tlie Jews at Rome — cannot- be explained if Peter 
 was there when Paul arrived. I may assume it, then, as 
 absolutely proved, that Peter did not go to Rome before Paul, 
 — that is, before 61, or thereabout. 
 
 But did he not go there after Paul ? This the Protestant 
 critics have never succeeded in disproving. Not only is there 
 no impossibility in such a later journey, but strong reasons 
 may be urged in its favour. I think that those who will read 
 consecutively the account which I have given will find that 
 everything shapes itself easily to this view. The evidence of 
 the Fathers of the second and third centuries has some weight 
 in the decision ; and there are, besides, three arguments which 
 appear to me worth considering. 
 
 ^ Jos. Ant. xix. 8:2; see " The Apostles," cliap. xiv. 
 
 " Euseb. V. 18:14. 
 
 * De mortibus persecutorum, 2.
 
 426 APPENDIX. 
 
 First, the fact is not to be disputed that Peter suffered 
 martyrdom. The testimonies of the Fourth Gospel, the Roman 
 Clement, the fragment called " Canon of Muratori," Dionysius 
 of Corinth, Caius, and TertuUian leave no doubt upon it.^ 
 Granting that the Fourth Gospel is apocryphal, and that the 
 twenty-first chapter is a later addition, still it is clear that 
 the verses (18-19) in which Jesus predicts to Peter a death 
 like his own give expression to an opinion well fixed in the 
 churches before 120 or 130, alluded to here and elsewhere as 
 a fact known to all. Now we cannot easily put it to ourselves 
 that Peter suffered a martyr's death anywhere else than at 
 Rome. Nero's persecution, in fact, was hardly violent ex- 
 cepting there. At Jerusalem or Antioch, the martyrdom of 
 Peter is far less intelligible. 
 
 In the second place, the name " Babylon," in the epistle 
 commonly ascribed to Peter (v. 13), evidently points to Rome. 
 If the epistle is genuine, the passage is decisive. If it is 
 apocryphal, the inference to be drawn from the words is 
 equally strong. Whoever the writer may be, he wishes us 
 to believe that the epistle is Peter's own. Hence, to give his 
 fraud the semblance of truth, he must so arrange the local 
 circumstances as to conform to what he knew himself, or to 
 what was generally believed in his time, about the life of 
 Peter. If, with this motive, he dated the epistle at Rome, we 
 may be sure that the common opinion of the time when it 
 was written was that Peter had lived in Rome. On any the- 
 ory it is a very ancient work, of early and great authority .^ 
 
 Again, the theory which underlies the Ebionite " Acts of 
 Peter " is also well worthy of consideration. In this view 
 Peter is shown to us as everywhere following the steps of 
 Simon Magus (by which name we understand that Paul is 
 meant), to contend against his errors. This curious legend 
 has been analysed by Lipsius ^ with admirable critical acu- 
 
 1 See above, pp. 161-163. 2 ggg p 4^ above. 
 
 8 In Rihnhche Petrussage, p. 13 et seq., esp. 16, 18, 41, 42. Comp. the 
 «' Clementine Recognitions," i. 74 ; iii. 65 ; also the apocryphal epistle 
 of Clement addressed to James, at the beginning of the " Homilies," 
 chap. i.
 
 OF JOHN'S STA Y AT EPHESUS. 427 
 
 men. He shows us that the basis of the various versions of 
 the legends that have come down to us was an original ac- 
 count, written about 130. In this account Peter comes to 
 Rome to defeat Simon-Paul at the centre of his power, and 
 here meets his death, after he has overthrown this father of 
 all heresies. It is hard to see how the Ebionite writer, at so 
 remote a date, could have ascribed so much importance to 
 Peter's journey to Rome if he never really made it. The 
 Ebionite legend has, doubtless, some ground of truth notwith- 
 standing the errors mingled in it. We may admit that Peter 
 came to Rome, as he came to Antioch, in the footsteps of 
 Paul, and in part to neutralise his influence. The Christian 
 community, toward the year 60, was in a state of mind not at 
 all like that calm waiting of the twenty years succeeding the 
 death of Jesus. The missionary journeys of Paul, and the 
 ease with which the Jews went from place to place, had 
 brought about a custom of distant travel. In the same way 
 an old and persistent tradition represents the apostle Philip 
 as coming to make his abode in Hierapolis. 
 
 I hold, then, as very probable, the tradition of Peter's stay 
 in Rome ; but I regard this stay as very short, and believe 
 that he suffered martyrdom not long after his arrival. The 
 account of Tacitus in his " Annals " (xv. 44) falls in favour- 
 ably with this view. In this account we find a very natural 
 occasion for connecting with it the death of Peter. As the 
 leader of the Judaeo-Christians, he undoubtedly helped make 
 up the list of victims described by Tacitus as crucibus adfizi ; 
 and among the holy martyrs of the year 64, who rejoice in the 
 ruin of the city where they perished, the Seer of the Apoca- 
 lypse has done well to include " apostles " along with " saints 
 and prophets " (xviii. 20). 
 
 The coming of John to Ephesus was an event of far less 
 doctrinal importance that that of Peter to Rome, and has not 
 given rise to so extended controversy. Until a very recent 
 time the commonly accepted opinion has been that John the 
 apostle, son of Zebedee, died at a very advanced age in the
 
 428 APPENDIX. 
 
 capital of the province of Asia. Even those who declined to 
 believe that during his stay here he composed the Gospel and 
 the Epistles bearing his name, even those v^^ho denied that he 
 was the writer of the Apocalypse, continued to believe that 
 his journey thither, attested by tradition, was real. Some 
 rational doubts were raised upon this point by Liitzelber- 
 ger, in 1840 ; but little heed was given to them. Critics who 
 can surely be charged with no excess of credulity, — Baur, 
 Strauss, Schwegler, Zeller, Hilgenfeld, Volkmar, — while 
 holding a large part of the accounts of John's residence at 
 Ephesus to be legendary, have yet regarded as historical the 
 main fact of his coming into this region. This opinion was 
 seriously challenged, in 1867, by Keim, in the first volume 
 of his " Life of Jesus," ^ his position being that " John the 
 Elder " has been confused with " John the Apostle," and that 
 what ecclesiastical writers have asserted of the latter should 
 be understood as of the former ; and in this view he was fol- 
 lowed by Wittichen and Holtzmann. Still more recently 
 Professor Scholten, of the University of Leyden, has sought 
 in an extended treatise to overthrow, one by one, all the evi- 
 dences of the commonly received opinion, and to prove that 
 John the Apostle never set foot in Asia.^ 
 
 Scholten's essay is a real masterpiece of argument and 
 method. He passes in review not only all the testimonies 
 cited for or against the tradition, but all writings, besides, in 
 which the question might be, or (as he thinks) should be, 
 entertained. Tlie learned professor had once been of a differ- 
 ent mind. In liis extended reasonings against the genuine- 
 ness of the Fourth Gospel, he had strongly urged the passage in 
 which Polycrates of Ephesus, near the end of the second cen- 
 tury, represents John as having been one of the pillars of the 
 Jewish and Quartodeciman party in Asia. But, in a difficult 
 question like this, it is not for a friend of truth to count the 
 cost of changing or correcting a position once taken. 
 
 1 Pages 161-1G7; compare vol. iii. (1871-72), pp. 44, 45; 477, notes. 
 
 ^ De apoxlel Johannes in Klein- Aziii (Lnyden, 1871). The question has 
 been resumed by Holtzmann in his Kritik der Eph. und Kolosserhriefe 
 (Leipzig, 1872), pp. 314-324.
 
 OF JOHN'S STA Y AT EPHESUS. 429 
 
 To me the arguments of Professor Scholten are not con- 
 vincing. In them the removal of John into Asia Minor is 
 shown to be an open question. But they do not make it out 
 to be certainly apocryphal ; and, as 1 regard it, the chances 
 still are that the tradition is true. It is less probable, indeed, 
 than the tradition of Peter's residence in Rome, but still it 
 has its probability; and, on various points, Scholten has 
 given evidence of an exaggerated scepticism. As I have 
 said more than once, a theologian is never quite satisfying as 
 a critic. Professor Scholten has a mind too elevated to allow 
 himself ever to be controlled by motives of advocacy or of 
 dogma ; but a theologian is by habit so apt to subordinate the 
 fact to the idea, that he rarely regards a point in dispute with 
 the eyes of an unprejudiced historian. In these last five and 
 twenty years especially, we have seen the Liberal Protestant 
 school committing itself to a drift of extreme negation, where 
 impartial science, finding in these topics purely matter of 
 interesting research, may well hesitate to follow. The re- 
 ligious situation has come to such a pass tbat the defence 
 of supernaturalist dogma is thought to be made easier by 
 handling texts with a free hand and making large sacrifice 
 of them than by urging their authenticity. And I am con- 
 fident that a critical method clear of all theological bias will 
 one day find that the liberal Protestant theologians of our day 
 have gone too far in their negations ; and that in some of its 
 results — certainly not in its spirit — such a method will 
 approach more nearly to the old traditionary schools. 
 
 Among the documents passed in review by Professor Schol- 
 ten, the Apocalypse naturally stands in the foremost rank; 
 and it is just here that this able critic shows himself weakest. 
 We have our choice of three positions : that the Apocalypse 
 is the work of the Apostle John ; or that it is by some one 
 writing under a false name who wishes to make it pass as a 
 work of the apostle John ; or that it is by some one of the 
 same name — for example, John Mark, or the enigmatical 
 " John the Elder." In the last case the Apocalypse, clearly, 
 has nothing to do with the apostle's residence in Asia ; but
 
 430 APPENDIX. 
 
 the hypothesis is little likely in itself, and it is not that 
 adopted by Scholten. He is in favour of the second of the 
 three cases supposed. He holds the Apocalypse to be an 
 apocryphal work like the book of Daniel ; and thinks that the 
 composer (following a common Jewish practice of the time) 
 wished to shield himself under an honoured name, choosing 
 that of the apostle John as one of the pillars of the church at 
 Jerusalem, and addressing the churches in Asia in the person 
 of that venerated leader. Since such a forgery can scarcely 
 be imagined in the lifetime of the apostle, Scholten holds that 
 John had died before the year 68. 
 
 But this view rests on real impossibilities. However it 
 may be with the genuineness of the Apocalypse, I venture to 
 say that the argument founded on that book for the residence 
 of John in Asia is quite as strong in the second of the cases 
 supposed as in the first. We have not here to do with a book 
 like " Daniel," written hundreds of years after the assumed 
 writer's death. The Apocalypse was circulated among the 
 disciples in Asia during the winter of 68-69, while the con- 
 flict among the generals for succession to the Empire, and the 
 appearance of the pretended Nero at Cythnos, held all the 
 world in feverish expectation. If the apostle John was dead, 
 as Scholten supposed, his death was very recent. In any 
 event, on this theory, the disciples at Ephesus, Smyrna, and 
 elsewhere, knew perfectly well at that time that he had never 
 been in Asia. How would they have received the story of a 
 vision claiming to have taken place at Patmos, only a few 
 leagues from Epliesus ? That story is addressed to the seven 
 leading churches of Asia by a man assumed to know the hid- 
 den windings of their conscience. To some he allots the 
 sharpest reproach, to others the most exalted praise. He 
 speaks to them in the tone of undisputed authority. He 
 exhibits himself as a sharer in their sufferings. And yet this 
 man has never set foot in Patmos or in Asia ; they must think 
 of him as still sitting quietly in Jerusalem ! The writer, we 
 must suppose, had very little sense, to heap together with 
 a light heart so many reasons for ill-will against his book.
 
 OF JOHN'S STAY AT EPHESUS. 431 
 
 Why does he put the scene of the vision at Patmos ? Up 
 to this time that island had been a place of no note, no 
 significance. It was a mere way-station on the sail from 
 Ephesus to Rome or from Rome to Ephesus. On these trips, 
 Patmos offered a convenient port of relay, at a short day's 
 sail from Ephesus, — the first or the last landing in such 
 petty voyages as those described in Acts, where the main 
 point was to stop over, if possible, every night. It was not of 
 consequence enough to be the object of a voyage ; it was 
 likely to be visited only by some one going to or coming from 
 Ephesus. Even granting the Apocalypse to be a forgery, the 
 first three chapters make a strong argument for the residence 
 of John in Asia; just as First Peter, even if apocryphal, 
 gives very good reason to believe that Peter abode in Rome. 
 A forger, however credulous the public he addresses, always 
 seeks to make the circumstances of his invention such that 
 it will be easily received. If the writer of First Peter be- 
 lieves himself bound to date his epistle from Rome, — if the 
 writer of the Apocalypse thinks to provide a good prelude 
 to his vision by making it date from the very threshold of 
 Asia, almost in front of Ephesus, and fitting it out with coun- 
 sels such as might be given by a spiritual director to the 
 churches in Asia, — the reason is that Peter was in Rome, 
 and John in Asia. Dionysius of Alexandria, at the end of 
 the third century, had a clear sense of the embarrassing na- 
 ture of the question so stated.^ Feeling that antipathy against 
 the Apocalypse common to all the Greek Fathers filled with 
 the true Hellenic spirit, he brings together all the objections 
 to ascribing such a work to the apostle John; but he ac- 
 knowledges that it can have been composed only by some one 
 who has lived in Asia, and so comes down to men of the same 
 name : so clearly does it stand in relief that the real or sup- 
 posed writer of the Apocalypse was some one in near relation 
 with [the churches in] Asia. 
 
 We are indebted to Professor Scholten for a valuable dis- 
 cussion on the text of Papias. This " ancient man " {apxalo<i 
 
 ^ Comj:). Euseb. vii. 25.
 
 432 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 avrip) has had the fortune to be misunderstood, from Irenasus, 
 who wrongly make him a hearer of the apostle John, to 
 Eusebiiis, who wrongly supposes that he had personal knowl- 
 edge of " John the Elder." Keim had already shown that 
 the text of Papias, rightly understood, tells rather against 
 than for the residence of the apostle John in Asia. Scholten 
 goes farther, and concludes from the same passage that John 
 the Elder also was a stranger to Asia Minor, holding that 
 he — whom he regards as distinct from the apostle — lived in 
 Palestine and was a contemporary of Papias. I grant that, if 
 the passage of Papias is correct, it bears against the residence 
 of the apostle John in Asia. But is it correct ? The words 
 rj Ti 'lQ}dvvr)<; may be an interpolation. If any think the 
 rejection of them to be arbitrary, I would reply that, if those 
 words be retained, then the words ol rod Kvpiov p^adrjrai, put 
 after Arrstion and John the Elder, make the entire clause odd 
 and incoherent. Scholten's doubts, however, are confirmed 
 by a passage of Papias quoted by George Hamartolus,^ stating 
 that John was put to death by the Jews. This tradition 
 seems to have been invented to fulfil certain words of Jesus, — 
 " Ye shall drink indeed of my cup," ^ etc. ; it is irreconcilable 
 with John's stay at Ephesus ; and if Papias really adopted it,^ 
 he certainly never once thought of him as living in the Prov- 
 ince of Asia. It would surely surprise us to find a man like 
 Papias, an eager inquirer into the apostolic tradition, ignorant 
 of so essential a fact in the annals of his own coimtry. 
 
 The fact that no mention of John's residence in Asia is 
 
 1 First published by the Abbe Norle in the Thed. Quartahchrijl (a 
 journal of Catholic theology at Tubingen), 1862, p. 466. Conip. Holtz- 
 mann, Krit. der Eph. und KoL, p. 322 ; Keim, Gesch. Jcsu von Nazara, 
 iii. 44, 45 n.; and the later observations of Scholten in the Theologisch 
 Tijdschrifl (Amsterdam and Leyden), 1872, p. 325 et seq. 
 
 2 Matt. XX. 23; Mark x. 39. 
 
 8 As to -which there is some doubt. George Hamartolus adds that 
 Origen was of the same opinion, which is utterly untrue. See Origen, In 
 Matt., vol. xvi. 6. Heracleon, too, includes John among the apostles 
 who were martyrs : Clem. Alex. Strom, iv. 9. Such incidents as that of 
 the boiling oil, and the passage Revel, i. 9, are enough to warrant the 
 expression.
 
 OF JOHN'S STA Y AT EPHESUS. 433 
 
 found in the epistles ascribed to Ignatius, or in Hegesippus, 
 suggests a doubt. On the other hand, the tradition of it is 
 constant from the year 180. Apollonius the anti-Montanist, 
 Polycrates, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen make 
 no question of the great honour which came thus to the city 
 of Ephesus. Among the texts that may be cited,^ two are 
 especially noteworthy : that of Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus 
 about 196, and that of Irenaeus in his letter to Florinus of 
 nearly the same date. Professor Scholten treats too lightly 
 the language of Polycrates. It is a weighty point, to find the 
 tradition so firmly established at Ephesus within a century. 
 " The very uncritical mind of Polycrates," he says, " appears 
 in his representing John as decorated with the petalon [the 
 golden badge of the high-priest], thus by an anachronism car- 
 rying back to the apostolic period a custom of his own time, 
 which assigned the rank of high-priest to a Christian bishop." 
 But Professor Scholten did not always think so. He formerly 
 found in the petalon, and in the title of " priest," given to 
 John by Polycrates, a proof that this apostle was chief of the 
 Judaeo-Christian party in Asia. He was right. The petalon, 
 far from being a bishop's badge in the second century, is as- 
 cribed to only two persons, both of the first century, — James 
 and John, both belonging to the Judaeo-Christian party, whom 
 this party thought to exalt by assigning to them the insignia 
 of the Jewish high-priest. Both Keim and Scholten make it 
 a charge against Polycrates, that he believes the Philip who 
 came with his prophetess-daughters to live in Hierapolis to 
 have been Philip the apostle. I think that Polycrates is right ; 
 and that, if we compare the passage in Acts^ [which speaks 
 of "Philip the Evangelist"] with the passages of Papias, Pro- 
 clus, Polycrates, and Clement, which speak of Philip and his 
 daughters resident in Hierapolis,^ we shall be satisfied that it 
 is the apostle who is meant. The verse in Acts has all the 
 appearance of an interpolation. Holtzmann * seems to adopt, 
 
 ^ See note on pp. 175, 176, above. 2 ^^tg ^xi. 8. 
 
 8 See pp. 273-275, above; also " The Apostles," chap. ix. 
 ^ Judenthum und Christenthumy p. 719. 
 28
 
 434 APPENDIX. 
 
 as to this, the view which I had offered in " The Apostles," 
 and of which I am more convinced than ever. 
 
 The most curious passage of all in the Church Fathers 
 on the question in hand is a fragment of Irenseus's letter to 
 Florinus, preserved to us in Eusebius (v. 20). It is one of 
 the choice passages in the Christian literature of the second 
 century : " Those opinions, Florinus, are not of sound doc- 
 trine. . . . They are not such as were handed down by the 
 elders who preceded us, or were known to the Apostles. I 
 remember that when I was a boy in Lower Asia, where you 
 held high office at court, I saw you with Polycarp, seeking to 
 win his good esteem. I remember what happened then better 
 than I do things that have happened since ; for what we have 
 learned in childhood grows with the mind, and comes to be a 
 part of it. So that 1 could tell you the very spot where the 
 blessed Polycarp sat and talked, his gait and habit, his ways 
 of living, his personal appearance and manner of converse 
 with his companions, how he would tell of his familiar ac- 
 quaintance with John and others who had seen our Lord. He 
 would relate to us, also, what he had heard them say about 
 our Lord, and about his wonderful works and doctrine, as 
 having received these things from eye-witnesses of the Word 
 of Life, all in conformity with the Scriptures. Thanks to 
 God's goodness, I would listen diligently to these things, and 
 write them down, not on paper but in my heart; and, thank 
 God, I always record them truly. And I may assert, in God's 
 presence, that if that blessed and apostolic old man had heard 
 anything like your doctrines, he would have stopped his ears, 
 and cried out, as he would sometimes do, '0 good God! to 
 what a time hast thou preserved me, that I should endure 
 such discourse ? ' And he would have fled away from the 
 place where he had heard them." 
 
 We see that Irenoeus does not appeal here, as in most 
 other passages where he speaks of John's residence in Asia, 
 to a vague tradition. He recalls to Florinus the memories of 
 childhood about their common master Polycarp, one of which 
 is that Polycarp would often speak of his relations with the
 
 OF JOHN'S STA Y AT EPHESUS. 435 
 
 apostle John. Professor Scholten has clearly seen that he 
 must admit these reports as genuine, or else make the epistle 
 to Florinus to be apocryphal. He takes the latter alterna- 
 tive, for reasons which seem to me weak. In the first place, 
 Irenaeus expresses himself in the work " Against Heresies " 
 (iii. 3 : 4) almost exactly as he does in the letter to Florinus. 
 Scholten's chief objection turns on this : that to explain such 
 relations between John and Polycarp, we must suppose all 
 three — John, Polycarp, and Irenaeus — to have been unusually 
 long-lived. This does not disturb me much. The death of 
 John, at the earliest, was not before somewhere between a. d. 
 80 and 90, while Irenseus wrote about 180. That is, Irenaeus 
 was about as far from the last years of John as we are from 
 those of Voltaire. Now, without any miracle of longevity, my 
 colleague and friend M. R^musat knew intimately the abb^ 
 Morellet, who would talk to him at length about Voltaire. 
 The supposed difficulty in the circumstance reported by Ire- 
 naeus comes from assigning the martyrdom of Polycarp to the 
 reign of Marcus Aurelius, somewhere between 166 and 169. 
 At his death Polycarp was eighty-six years old, which would 
 carry back his birth to 80-83, making him very young at the 
 time of John's death. But the date of his martyrdom must 
 be corrected. It took place under the proconsulate of Quad- 
 ratus in Asia ; and this has been shown by Waddington, in 
 a manner which hardly admits of doubt, to have been in 
 154-155, under Antoninus Pius.^ This carries back the birth 
 of Polycarp to 68 or 69 ; and if John was living as late as 90, 
 — in which there is no difficulty, as he may have been ten 
 years younger than Jesus, — it is not unlikely that Polycarp 
 may have listened to him when a child. The reign of Marcus 
 Aurelius is not given as the date of Polycarp's martyrdom in 
 the " Acts " relating that event ; but Eusebius, by a false reck- 
 oning, as made fully clear by Waddington, supposed that the 
 proconsulate of Quadratus fell within that reign. 
 
 A journey to Rome, taken by Polycarp during the pontifi- 
 
 ^ Mem. de I'Acad. <les Tnscr., etc., xxvi. part 2 (18G7), 232 et seq. Comp. 
 Waddington, Fasti of the Asiatic Provinces, 1872, part 1, 219-221.
 
 436 APPENDIX. 
 
 cate of Anicetus, offers a difficulty in the chronological reck- 
 oning just proposed.^ Anicetus, as commonly held, became 
 bishop of Rome not earlier than 154, so that we are rather 
 crowded to find room for Polycarp's journey. If, consistently 
 with Waddington's view (which seems to be decisive), it 
 were necessary to set back a little the accession of Anicetus, 
 we need not hesitate to do so, especially since the pontifical 
 lists are confused just here, and some lists put Anicetus before 
 Pius. Lipsius, who has lately put out an excellent treatise on 
 the chronology of the Bishops of Rome down to the fourth cen- 
 tury, was, unfortunately, ignorant of Waddington's memoir. 
 He would have found in it material for valuable discussion. 
 
 " Is it likely," says Professor Scholten, " that an old man, 
 already nearing his hundredth year, would undertake such a 
 journey, at a time, too, when travelling was far more difficult 
 than now ? " But the journey from Ephesus or Smyrna to 
 Rome was the easiest thing in the world. A merchant of 
 Hierapolis tells us, in his epitaph,^ that he had journeyed 
 from Hierapolis to Italy, round Cape Malea, seventy-two times. 
 He therefore must have continued his passages till he was 
 quite as old as Polycarp when he went to Rome. Such 
 voyages in summer — for hardly any one travelled then in 
 winter — were not in the least fatiguing. We may suppose 
 that Polycarp went to Rome in the summer of 154, and suf- 
 fered martyrdom at Smyrna on the twenty-third of February, 
 155.^ Keim's theory,'* that the John known to Polycarp was 
 not the Apostle, but the Elder, is full of difficulties. If this 
 Elder was (as I think) a person of inferior consequence, a 
 disciple of the Apostle, who flourished about a. d. 110-120, 
 we cannot imagine that Polycarp or Ireuaeus should have 
 confused the two. That the Elder was really a man of the 
 great apostolic period, equal in dignity to the apostles, whom 
 any one might confound with them, I have given elsewhere 
 
 ^ Euseb. Hist. eccl. iv. 14 ; Chron. ann. 155. 
 
 2 Corpus inscr. grcBC. 3920. 
 
 8 Mem. de VAcad. xxvi. 240. 
 
 * Gesch. Jesu von Nazara, i. 161 et seq.
 
 OF JOHN'S ST A Y AT EPHESUS. 437 
 
 mj reasons for disbelieving.^ Even in that case (I may add), 
 the error of Polycarp is about equally difficult to explain. 
 
 One of the most curious parts of Scholten's work is that 
 in which he returns upon the question of the Fourth Gospel, 
 already discussed by him so fully a few years back. He not 
 only refuses to admit this as the work of John, but denies 
 that it has anything to do with John ; he denies that John 
 was the disciple whom it several times mentions with a cer- 
 tain mystery, calling him " the disciple whom Jesus loved." 
 That disciple, according to liim, is not a real person. The 
 disciple who knows not death, — who, unlike all the rest, is 
 to live through the power of his spirit till the end of time, — 
 whose testimony, resting on spiritual contemplation, is of ab- 
 solute authority, — cannot be identified with any one of the 
 Galilaean apostles : he is an ideal person. It is wholly impos- 
 sible for me to accept such a theory. But let us not compli- 
 cate one difficult question by another still more difficult. 
 Professor Scholten has shaken some of the props which once 
 sustained the belief that the apostle John lived in Asia. He 
 has shown that this fact does not stand out clear from the 
 half-shadow which envelops almost every fact of the apo- 
 stolic story. Regarding Papias he has raised an objection 
 hard to meet. Still, he has not refuted all that may be al- 
 leged in favour of the tradition. The first chapters of the 
 Apocalypse, the letter of Irenaeus to Florinus, and the pas- 
 sage in Polycrates remain, three solid supports, on which we 
 may not, indeed, erect a certainty, but which Professor Schol- 
 ten, with all the stress of his logic, has not overthrown. 
 
 1 See Introduction to the present volume, pp. 13, 14.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Abaddon, 310. 
 
 Abomiuation of Desolation, 228. 
 
 Acte, 124, 253. 
 
 Agrippa II., 64, 213, 376, 385. 
 
 Amphitheatre, 121, 146. 
 
 Angels in Enoch, 287 ; of nations, 311 ; 
 of winds, etc., 305. 
 
 AnufEus, house of, 38. 
 
 Apocalypse ("Revelation"): book and 
 writer, 12-24; 28, 54, 139, 174, 260, 
 279, 282, 286, 292-298, 366,369 ; struc- 
 ture and events, 299-352 ; later theo- 
 ries and comments, 28, 29, 354-357 ; 
 its theology, 357-364. 
 
 Apocryphal writings, 7, 15, 70, 84, 354. 
 
 Apostates, 237. 
 
 Apostolic missions, 74 ; in Asia, 272. 
 
 Armageddon, 331, 332, 355. 
 
 Armenia, supposed retreat of Nero, 256. 
 
 Art in Home, 129. 
 
 Asia Minor, 90, 98, 160, 174 ; sects, 92. 
 
 Asmona^an monarchy, 191, 192. 
 
 Assyrian mythology, 364. 
 
 Atonement, sacrifice of, 160. 
 
 Augu.stus (the title), 321. 
 
 Aurelius, 101. 
 
 Babylon, a name of Rome, 54, 1 1 5, 328 ; 
 in Apocalypse, 328, 333 ; its downfall, 
 340-342. 
 
 BaiiB, 266. 
 
 Barabbas, 228. 
 
 Barnabas, 9, 177; probable author of 
 Hebrews, 178; apocr. epistle of, 362. 
 
 Beast (of Revelation), 156,277, 281, 283, 
 i(cia) 299, (evplov) 314, 319, 320, 322, 
 329, 335 ; mark of, 281, 322-324 ; wor- 
 ship of, 324, 328; the second Beast, 
 325-327. 
 
 Berenice, 201 ; her influence with Titus, 
 376, 387, 394, 400, 404, 413. 
 
 Boethus, 64, 65, 
 
 Bowls (phials) of divine wrath, 330. 
 
 Caligula, 119, 120, 122. 
 Campania (volcanic features), 37. 
 Canon of Muratori, 104, 169. 
 Cestius Gallus in Judtea, 213-216. 
 Christ iu Apocalypse, 300. 
 Christians in Jerusalem, 235 ; in Rome, 
 
 36-39, 54-61, 138-143. 
 Christology, 87-89. 
 
 Church of Jerusalem, 66, 68, 419, 420. 
 Churches iu Asia, 275; letters to, in 
 
 Apocalypse, 288-292. 
 Coinage of Jews, 224. 
 Colossffi, destroyed, 98. 
 Colossians, epistle to, 93-97. 
 Conflagration of Rome, 116, 132-135. 
 Cythnos (island of false Nero), 257, 280; 
 
 events at, 338. 
 
 Damascus, massacre of Jews in, 221. 
 Danaids and Dirces, 149, 159, 168. 
 Daniel, Book of, 284, 313. 
 Disasters, ominous, 262. 
 Diviuation, 201. 
 
 Dragon, image of, 240; bound for a 
 thousand years, 344. 
 
 Earthquakes, as signs, 264, 268. 
 Ebionites, 51, 57, 73, 421. 
 Ecclesiastes, Book of, 62, 100. 
 Edessa, 75. 
 Eleazar in Jerusalem, 202, 204, 222, 224, 
 
 382; at Macha;rus, 412. 
 Emmaus, 244. 
 Emperors of Rome (in Apocalypse), 
 
 335, 371. 
 Empire and its chiefs, 336. 
 End of the earth. 369. 
 Enoch, Book of, 223, 266, 284, 287, 365.
 
 440 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Epaphras (Epaphroditus),43, 90, 92, 96. 
 
 Ephesians, Epistle to, 178. 
 
 Ephesus, 156, 176; Johu in, 276, 427- 
 
 436. 
 Epictetus, 273. 
 
 Epistles of New Testament, 2. 
 Ezekiel, imagery of, 284, 312, 359. 
 
 False Prophet, 59. 
 
 Earnese Bull, 150. 
 
 Flight to Pella, 240-243. 
 
 Elorus, governor of Judjea, 200, 210. 
 
 Galea, his revolt, 248, 250, 251 ; death, 
 
 282, 352, 372. 
 Galilee, slaughter in, 226, 227. 
 Gauls, revolt of, under Vindex, 247, 249, 
 
 259. 
 German critics, as historians, 3, 25, 424. 
 Gnostics, 83, 91, 95. 
 Gog and Magog, 345, 346, 359. 
 Golden House of Nero, 130, 135. 
 
 Hanan (the younger), 76, 78, 224 ; his 
 death, 231. 
 
 Hatred of the pagan world, 365-367. 
 
 Hebrews, Epistle to, author and struc- 
 ture, 8-11, 177-183, 186. 
 
 Hermas, "Shepherd" of, 1.5, 19. 
 
 Hierapolis, 272, 273. 
 
 Horses (in Apocal.), 302, 308. 
 
 Immortality, Jewish view of, 360. 
 Incarnation, 89. 
 Incendiary mania, 131. 
 India, missions in, 74. 
 Islam, 191. 
 
 James the Apostle (Obliam), Epistle of, 
 7, 63-69 ; death, 77. 
 
 Jerusalem, parties in, 66, 78, 382 ; Chris- 
 tians in, 5, 60, 80 ; siege and destruc- 
 tion of, 385-400; effect on Chris- 
 tianity, 419-421 ; New, 347-350. 
 
 Jesus of Nazareth, kindred of, 239 ; son 
 of Hauan, 78. 
 
 Jews in Rome, 35, 38 ; as persecutors, 
 143; under foreign rule, 190, 207; 
 under Koman rule, 192-195; in the 
 modern world, 193, 198; charities, 
 272 ; the Jewish household, 309 ; para- 
 doxical character, 212, 374. 
 
 Joachim, on Apocalypse, 357. 
 
 Johu the Apostle, 15, 23, 168, 276-278, 
 292; his harsh character, 16, 277; 
 sufferings in Rome, 168, 175; in 
 Ephesus, 175, 276, 281, 427-436; as 
 writer of Apocalypse, 15-18, 21, 23, 
 292 ; bitterness toward Paul, 16, 278. 
 
 John the Elder, 13, 429, 432. 
 
 John of Gischala, 225 ; in Jerusalem, 
 228, 373, 400. 
 
 Josephus, 225, 377, 391, 393; at Rome, 
 413. 
 
 Jotapata, siege of, 226. 
 
 Judaea, churches in, 62 ; Judcca Capta, 
 408 ; after the conquest, 412. 
 
 Judaeo-Christians, 73, 328. 
 
 Judas the Gaulonite, 416. 
 
 Judgment day (in Apocalypse), 329. 
 
 Kindred of Jesus (desposynoi) , 80, 239, 
 
 243. 
 Knights of Augustus (under Nero), 119. 
 Kulonie' (Emmaus), 244, 412. 
 
 Lamb (symbol in Apocalypse), 18, 112, 
 
 301. 
 Laocoon, as work of art, 121. 
 Laodicea, 98, 269, 292. 
 Laureolus, 60, 149. 
 Law (Jewish), abolished, 86; (Roman), 
 
 195, 409. 
 Logos, 87. 
 
 Mach^kus (Machero), 204, 379, 411, 
 
 412. 
 Malvenda on Antichrist, 368. 
 Man of Sorrows, 208. 
 Mark (friend of Peter and Paul), 107. 
 Mark of the Beast, 281, 322-324. 
 Martyrs in Apocalypse, 306 ; souls of, 
 
 172, 258, 303. 
 Martyrdom (epic of the amphitheatre), 
 
 152; of Peter, 161 ; Paul, 181 ; James, 
 
 77; code of, 106. 
 Masada, the fortress, 201 ; stormed by 
 
 Romans, 204, 412. 
 Massacres iu Palestine, 206, 207, 210- 
 
 213, 221. 
 Messiah in Apocalypse, 300; birth, 317. 
 Messianic ideas, 36, 141 ; predictions, 
 
 199, 227, 360. 
 Milleuarianism, 22, 362.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 441 
 
 Missions in Asia, 74. 
 
 Moderates in Jerusalem, 229. 
 
 Montanism, 21, 92. 
 
 Monuments ("trophies") of apostles in 
 
 Rome, 164-167. 
 Mosaic Law, 189, 409 
 
 Nero, 1 ; his character and rule, 31-34, 
 116, 119, 126, 140, 254-256; as Anti- 
 christ, 156, 325, 343, 354, 356; ambi- 
 tious schemes, 217; insane vanity, 218 ; 
 on the stage, 219 ; in Greece, 220, 245- 
 247; terror under the revolt of Vin- 
 dex, 250 ; his popularity, 255, 375 ; 
 his death, 253 ; supposed revival, 256, 
 279, 325 ; restoration, 283 ; false Nero 
 at Cythuos, 257, 280, 338 ; Nero a sec- 
 ond founder of the Christian Church, 
 155, 368. 
 
 New Jerusalem, 347, 361, 365. 
 
 Number of the Beast (in Apocalypse), 
 29, 323, 353, 355. 
 
 Omens and signs (apocalyptic), 261. 
 Otho, succeeds Galba, 255, 282 ; au ad- 
 mirer of Nero, 353, 372. 
 
 Parthia, 218, 223, 256, 281, 331,3.39; 
 supposed retreat of Nero, 256 ; cavalry 
 (in Apocal.), 311. 
 
 Parties in Jerusalem, 196, 221. 
 
 Patmos (as scene of the Apocalypse), 
 294-296. 
 
 Paul in Rome, 34, 42 ; hostility towards 
 him, .53, 278, 367; his last days, 81, 
 101-105, 166; his later views, 84, 95, 
 170; proposed last journey, 103, 104. 
 
 Pella (retreat of Christians beyond Jor- 
 dan), 241-243, 317, 319. 
 
 Persecution of Christians, 56, 144-151, 
 279, 285; impotence of, 173. 
 
 Persian Empire, 190. 
 
 Peter in Rome, 24, 48, 50, 56, 423, 429 ; 
 Epistle of, 4, 52, 107, 109-114; cruci- 
 fixion, 161-163; relations with Paul, 
 51-53, 176; their reconciliation, 170. 
 
 Petronius, 128, 173, 266. 
 
 Philip the Apostle, 273-275. 
 
 Philippians, Epistle to, 41, 43-47, 99. 
 
 Philo, 187. 
 
 Pomponia Gr^cina, 32. 
 
 Poppaea, 123, 141, 157. 
 
 Prayers of Saints, 139. 
 Predictions ascribed to Jesus, 270. 
 Provinces of Empire, 321. 
 Pseudonymous writings, 15. 
 Puteoli, 37 ; the region and its popula- 
 tion, 265, 266, 310. 
 
 Retribution in history, 232. 
 
 Revelation, see Apocalypse. 
 
 Revolt against Nero, 247 ; of Jews in 
 
 JudjEa, 159, 189. 
 Rod of iron, 317. 
 Roman and Jewish Law, 409. 
 Roman rule in Judaea, 192; policy in 
 
 the Provinces, 207. 
 Romans, Epistle to, 94. 
 Rome, old and new, 136 ; as a holy city 
 
 for Christians, 155. 
 
 Sacrifice, 64, 180, 186. 
 
 Sadducees as a party, 62, 196, 234, 414, 
 
 417; they perish, 232. 
 Satan, 318, 322, 346. 
 Scarlet woman (in Apocalypse), 333, 
 Sea (in the Apocalypse), 297. 
 Sects in Asia Minor, 92. 
 Seneca, 117, 120. 
 Seven a sacred number, 364. 
 Sheol, 346. 
 
 Sibylline poems, 269, 354. 
 Simon Magus, 39, 49, 54, 59, 60, 143, 325. 
 Simon son of Gioras, 214, 224, 382, 390, 
 
 400, 404. 
 Solfatara as a volcanic region, 265, 267, 
 
 310. 
 Sosiosh (the Zoroastrian Messiah), 364. 
 Spain as the aim of Paul's travel, 104. 
 Suffering not punishment but discipline, 
 
 183; of the Messiah, 111. 
 Symbolism, classic and apocalyptic, 365. 
 Synagogue as opposed to City, 191. 
 Synoptic Gospels, 71, 72, 88, 185, 368. 
 Syrian and Jewish Massacres, 209-212. 
 
 Talmud, 65. 
 
 Temple in Jerusalem, 187, 233, 313, 353 ; 
 
 storming of, 392 ; its fall, 395, 396. 
 Terror during siege, 234. 
 Theatre in Rome, 121. 
 Theocracy, 191, 193, 409. 
 Thera (in imagery of Apocalypse), 269, 
 
 308.
 
 442 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Thousand-year period, 344, 362. 
 
 Thraseas, 42, 123. 
 
 Three-and-a-half years' period, 313. 
 
 Tiberius Alexander, a recreant Jew, 141, 
 196, 324, 377, 379, 385, 404. 
 
 Tigellinus, 35, 128, 173. 
 
 Titus, son of Vespasian, 374, 376, 378 ; 
 his schemes, 374, 387, 392, 405 ; char- 
 acter, 394; in Jerusalem, 386, 392- 
 394, 404 ; at Rome, 405 ; arch of, 408. 
 
 Torah and Roman Law, 409. 
 
 Triumph of Rome over Judasa, 410. 
 
 Trophies of apostles and martyrs in 
 Rome and elsewhere, 164-167. 
 
 Trumpets in Apocalypse, 307-311. 
 
 Vespasian, 220; in Galilee, 225, 374; 
 campaign of (a. d. 68), 244 ; messianic 
 attitude, 374 ; emperor, 375, 379, 380; 
 his triumph, 406-408. 
 
 Vindex, his revolt against Nero, 247-250, 
 
 259, 282. 
 Vitellius, 255, 282, 372 ; an admirer of 
 
 Nero, 375. 
 Volcanic phenomena in Italy, etc., 264, 
 
 267, 310. 
 
 Witnesses (the two) in Apocalypse, 
 
 313. 
 Women among the Christian martyrs, 
 
 148, 153, 157. 
 Word of God (applied to Christ), 178, 
 
 343. 
 Wormwood (the apocalyptic star), 309. 
 
 Zacharias, son of Barachias, 235, 239. 
 Zealots in Jerusalem, 197-209, 214, 230- 
 
 236 ; after the conquest, 413. 
 Zoroastriauism in Apocalypse, 363.
 
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