Afterwards also laws were laid down by which the religion was pro- scribed and edicts were issued by which it was publicly declared illegal to be a Christian. Then Paul and Peter were condemned to death.!
To the three first persecutors of the Church—Nero, Domitian, and Trajan—Sulpicius Severus suggests that Titus should be added. If he is following good authority—say, Tacitus, here as elsewhere— Titus held a council to decide the fate of the Temple, when Jerusalem was taken in Α.Ρ. 70. Of his councillors some urged that a con- secrated house famous beyond all mortal things ought not to be destroyed. Its preservation would bear witness to Roman modera- tion; its ruin would be an eternal mark of their cruelty. Others, and among them Titus himself, held the Temple should be destroyed at once, in order that the religion of the Jews and Christians might be more completely undone; inasmuch as these religions, though opposed to one another, nevertheless came from the same parent stock. The Christians sprang from the Jews. If the root were taken away the branch would naturally perish.?
From this survey of the evidence it appears that the non-Christian authorities bear out the assertion of Tertullian that from the year 64 A.D. Christianity was distinguished from Judaism and, therefore, pro- scribed. It had lost the protection of the ancient and famous lawful religion, which sheltered it at the first.2 Nero set the law in motion against it for his own purposes and attempted to justify his action to the people. But such action once taken, persecution of the Church was part of the law of the Empire, as Suetonius, Sulpicius Severus, and Tertullian aver.t There is nothing in the evidence to
1 Chronicon, ii. 29: “Hoc initio in Christianos saeviri coeptum. Post etiam datis legibus religio vetebatur, palamque edictis propositis Christianum esse non licebat. Tum Paulus et Petrus capitis damnati.”
2 Chronicorum, ii. 30: “ Fertur Titus adhibito consilio prius deliberasse an templum tanti operis everteret. Etenim nonnullis videbatur aedem sacratam ultra omnia mortalia illustrem non oportere deleri, quae servata modestiae Romanae testimonium, diruta perennem crudelitatis notam praeberet. At contra alii et Titus ipse evertendum imprimis templum censebant, quo plenius Judaeorum et Christianorum religio tolleretur: quippe has religiones, licet contrarias sibi, isdem tamen ab auctoribus profectas: Christianos ex Judaeis extitisse: radice sublata stirpem facile perituram.”
3 Tertullian, Apology, xxi.: ‘‘ Antiquissimis Judaecorum instrumentis sectam. . . suffultam . . . sub umbraculo insignissimae religionis certe licitae”’.
4In addition to passages quoted above, see Tertullian, ad Nationes, i.7: ‘ Prin- © cipe Augusto nomen hoc ortum est: Tiberio disciplina eius inluxit: sub Nerone damnatio invaluit ut iam hinc de persona persecutoris ponderetis, si pius ille princeps, impii Christiani. . . si non hostis publicus, nos publici hostes: quales simus dam- nator ipse demonstravit, utique aemula sibi puniens: et tamen permansit erasis