in the new religion was “a pestilent superstition,” “hatred of the human race,” “a malevolent superstition.”  He thought its practices to be connected with magic.  The intransigeant Christian refused to take the customary oath in the law courts, and therefore appeared to menace a trustworthy administration of the law.  He took no interest in the affairs of the empire, but talked of another king and his coming kingdom, and he appeared to be an enemy to the Roman power.  He held what appeared to be secret meetings, although the empire rigidly suppressed all secret societies.  He weakened the martial spirit of the soldier.  He divided families—­the basis of Roman society—­against themselves.  He was a socialist leveller.  He threatened with ruin all the trades connected with either the established worship—­as amongst the silversmiths at Ephesus—­or with the luxuries and amusements of life.  Those amusements in circus or amphitheatre he hated, and therefore appeared misanthropic.  He not only stood aloof from the religious observances of the state and the household, but treated them with contempt or abhorrence.

Moreover, at this date, he refused to acknowledge the one great symbol of the imperial authority.  This was the statue of the emperor.  When that statue was set up in every town it was not understood by any intelligent man that the emperor was actually a god, or that, when incense was burnt before the statue, it was being burned to the emperor himself as deity.  But just as every householder had his attendant “Genius”—­the power determining his vital functions and well-being—­which was often represented as a bust with the man’s own features, so the statue of the Augustus, “His Highness,” represented the Genius of that Head of the State, and the offering of incense was meant as an appeal to the Genius to keep the emperor and the imperial power “in health and wealth long to live.”  The man who refused to make such an offering was necessarily considered to be ill-disposed to the majesty and welfare of the Head of the State, and therefore of the state itself.  The Roman attitude towards the early Christians was partly that of a modern government towards Nihilists, and partly that of a generation or two ago to a blend of extreme Radical with extreme atheist.

We are not here concerned with the whole story of the persecution of the Christians, but only with the situation at and immediately after the date we have chosen.  It is at least quite certain that when Nero burned the Christians in the year 64 he was treating them, not as the adherents of a religion, but as social criminals or nuisances.  How far his notions of Christianity may have been influenced by Poppaea we do not know.  At least he believed he was pleasing the populace.

CHAPTER XX

STUDY AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AMONG THE ROMANS