Translated from Philip Schaff's History of The Christian Church

第六章 大灾难（《马太福音》24:21）

目录

§ 37. 罗马大火与尼禄的逼迫。

§ 38. 犹太战争与耶路撒冷的毁灭。公元70年。

§ 39. 耶路撒冷的毁灭对基督教会的影响。

§ 37. 罗马大火与尼禄的逼迫。

“我又看见那女人喝醉了圣徒的血和耶稣殉道者的血。我看见她，就大大地希奇。”——《启示录》17:6。

文献。

I. 塔西佗 (Tacitus)：《编年史》(Annales)，第XV卷，第38–44章。

苏维托尼乌斯 (Suetonius)：《尼禄传》(Nero)，第16、38章（极简略）。

苏尔皮基乌斯·塞韦鲁斯 (Sulpicius Severus)：《神圣史》(Hist. Sacra)，第II卷，第41章。他将尼禄的逼迫叙述为范围更广泛的事件。

2. 欧内斯特·勒南 (Ernest Renan)：《敌基督》(L’Antechrist)。巴黎，第2版，1873年。第VI、VIII章，第123页及后。另参其1880年在伦敦所作、论罗马与基督教的《希伯特讲座》(Hibbert Lectures)。

L. 弗里德兰德 (L. Friedländer)：《罗马风俗史》(Sittengeschichte Roms)，I. 6、27；III. 529。

赫尔曼·席勒 (Hermann Schiller)：《尼禄统治时期的罗马帝国史》(Geschichte der röm. Kaiserzeit unter der Regierung des Nero)。柏林，1872年（第173–179页；第424页及后；第583页及后）。

豪斯拉特 (Hausrath)：《新约时代史》(N. T.liche Zeitgeschichte)，III. 第392页及后（第2版，1875年）。

特奥德·凯姆 (Theod. Keim)：《原始基督教论集》(Aus dem Urchristenthum)。苏黎世，1878年，第171–181页。《罗马与基督教》(Rom u. das Christenthum)，1881年，第132页及后。

卡尔·维泽勒 (Karl Wieseler)：《诸凯撒对基督徒的逼迫》(Die Christenverfolgungen der Cäsaren)。1878年。

G. 乌尔霍恩 (G. Uhlhorn)：《基督教与异教的冲突》(The Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism)。斯迈思与罗普斯 (Smyth and Ropes) 英译，纽约，1879年，第241–250页。

C. F. 阿诺德 (C. F. Arnold)：《尼禄对基督徒的逼迫》(Die Neron. Christenverfolgung)。莱比锡，1888年。

保罗和彼得在罗马的传道，是教会历史上的一个划时代事件。它推动了基督教的发展。他们的殉道最终产生了更大的果效：它巩固了犹太人与外邦归信者之间的联合纽带，并使这座异教大都会的土地成为圣地。耶路撒冷将主钉在十字架上，罗马则将他的两位首要使徒斩首、钉十字架，又使整个罗马教会陷入血的洗礼。无论就善就恶而言，罗马都成了基督教世界的耶路撒冷，梵蒂冈山 (Vatican hill) 则成了西方的各各他 (Golgotha)。彼得和保罗如同新的罗慕路斯 (Romulus) 与雷穆斯 (Remus)，奠定了一个属灵帝国的根基；这帝国比诸凯撒的帝国更广阔，也更长久。十字架取代了刀剑，成为征服与权能的象征。¹

但这一转变是以宝贵鲜血的牺牲为代价才实现的。罗马帝国起初凭着其公正的法律，在不知基督教真实性质的情况下，成了它的保护者；又在几次危急关头援救保罗，如在哥林多借着方伯安内乌斯·迦流 (Annaeus Gallio)，在耶路撒冷借着千夫长吕西亚 (Lysias)，在凯撒利亚借着巡抚非斯都 (Festus)。如今，它却与这新宗教展开了殊死冲突，并以偶像崇拜和爱国主义之名，开始了一连串时断时续的逼迫，直到十字架的旗帜在米尔维安桥 (Milvian bridge) 得胜，这些逼迫才告终结。它从前是一种抑制的力量，曾暂时拦阻敌基督的显露；²如今却挥舞着火与剑，公然显出敌基督的面目。³

尼禄。

这些帝国逼迫中的第一次，发生在尼禄 (Nero) 在位第十年，即公元64年；按照教会传统，彼得和保罗的殉道与此次逼迫有关。这场逼迫正是由那位皇帝煽动的，而保罗先前曾以罗马公民的身份，从犹太人的法庭向他上诉。不过，它并不像后来诸皇帝治下的逼迫那样，是严格意义上的宗教逼迫；它起源于一场公共灾难，而无辜的基督徒竟被肆意诬指为这场灾难的祸首。

保罗是人类中最纯洁、最高尚的人物之一，尼禄则是暴君中最卑鄙、最邪恶的人物之一；两者之间的反差，几乎无可比拟。尼禄在塞涅卡 (Seneca) 和布鲁斯 (Burrhus) 的明智辅导下，在位头五年（54–59年）颇为辉煌，这反而使其余九年（59–68年）显得更加可憎。我们读他的生平，既鄙视他的愚昧，又惊骇于他的邪恶。在他眼中，世界既是一出喜剧，也是一出悲剧，而他要在其中担任主角。他疯狂地渴求民众的喝彩；他弹奏里拉琴，在宴席上吟唱自己的颂诗，在竞技场中驾车，又在舞台上扮演戏子，强迫身份最高贵的人在戏剧或活人画中，表演希腊神话里最淫秽的情节。然而，他作为悲剧制造者的表现，更超过了他作为喜剧演员的表现。他罪上加罪，直到成了恶贯满盈、人人传说的怪物。他先后杀害了弟弟不列塔尼库斯 (Britannicus)、母亲阿格里皮娜 (Agrippina)、妻子屋大维娅 (Octavia) 和波佩娅 (Poppaea)、老师塞涅卡，以及许多显赫的罗马人，最后在三十二岁那年自杀，恰如其分地结束了这一切。尤利乌斯·凯撒 (Julius Caesar) 的家族随他一同耻辱地灭绝，帝国则成了得势军人和冒险家的争夺品。⁴

罗马大火。

对于这样一个人形恶魔，杀戮一群无辜的基督徒，不过是取乐的游戏。这场地狱般惨剧的契机，是罗马的一场可怕大火；其破坏之巨、灾祸之重，为历史上前所未有。大火于7月18日至19日之间的夜晚爆发，⁵起火处是大竞技场 (Great Circus) 东南端、帕拉丁山 (Palatine hill) 附近的木造商铺。⁶火借风势，消防人员和士兵虽竭尽全力，仍无法控制；烈焰肆虐了七夜六日，丝毫不减。⁷随后，城中另一处、靠近战神广场 (field of Mars) 的地方又起大火，再烧了三日，将城内另外两个区化为废墟。⁸

这场灾难的损失无法估量。全城划分为十四个区，其中只有四区未受损害；三区已成为一片不辨形状的废墟，包括从竞技场到埃斯奎林山 (Esquiline hill) 之间的整个内城；其余七区也都遭到程度不等的破坏。古老的神庙、王政时期、共和时期和帝国时期的纪念建筑，以及数百年来搜集的希腊艺术最珍贵的杰作，都化作尘土灰烬；人畜葬身火海，这座世界大都会呈现出一片墓地的景象，百万哀恸者在其中痛悼那些无可挽回的珍宝。

圣约翰在《启示录》中写下哀悼帝国罗马倾覆的挽歌时，心中必定浮现着这场可怕的浩劫（《启示录》第18章）。

大火的起因至今仍是一个谜。民间传言将其归咎于尼禄，说他想欣赏特洛伊 (Troy) 燃烧时那火光冲天的景象，又想满足自己的野心，以更加宏伟的规模重建罗马，并称之为尼禄城 (Neropolis)。⁹火起之时，他正在出生地安提乌姆 (Antium) 的海滨；直到吞噬一切的烈火烧到自己的宫殿，他才返回，并竭尽全力遏止灾势，随后又以重建来弥补灾难造成的损失。这项工程一直持续到他死后；他也不忘将自己那部分焚毁的临时宫邸（domus transitoria），换成“金宫”（domus aurea），使其成为建筑宏伟奢华的一座长存奇观。

对基督徒的逼迫。

为了转移众人对他纵火的普遍怀疑，同时给他恶魔般的残忍增添新的娱乐，尼禄恶意地将罪责推到备受憎恨的基督徒身上。在此期间，尤其自保罗公开受审并在罗马卓有成效地传道以来，基督徒已逐渐被视为有别于犹太人的“第三类人”（genus tertium），或被视为从那个民族分出的最危险的支派。他们确实蔑视罗马诸神，忠于一位比凯撒更高的君王，又被人无端怀疑暗中犯罪。警察和民众因这场可怕灾难而惊恐不安，轻信最恶毒的诽谤，要求有人抵罪。就连塔西佗、苏维托尼乌斯和普林尼 (Pliny) 这样有教养的罗马人，都把基督教斥为粗鄙而有害的迷信，对无知的群众还能有什么指望呢？在他们看来，基督教甚至比犹太教更坏；犹太教毕竟是一种古老的民族宗教，基督教却是新起的，不依附于任何特定民族，而且以普世统治为目标。一些基督徒被捕，承认了自己的信仰；塔西佗说，他们“与其说是因纵火罪，不如说是因仇恨人类而被定罪”。他们的犹太渊源、他们对政治和公共事务的漠然，以及他们对异教习俗的憎恶，都被解释为“仇恨人类”（“odium generis humani”）；因此，说他们企图毁灭这座城市，便显得足够可信，足以判定他们有罪。暴怒的群众不会停下来讲道理，而且与个人一样容易陷入疯狂。

在这肆意捏造的纵火罪名之下，又加上同样毫无根据的仇视人类与反自然恶行的指控，一场血的狂欢开始了；即使在异教罗马，这也是空前绝后的。¹⁰这是地狱的权势对两位首要使徒大有能力的传道所作的回应，因为他们的传道已从根本上震撼了异教。“极多”的基督徒遭到最骇人听闻的杀戮。有些被钉在十字架上，大概是为了嘲弄基督所受的刑罚；¹¹有些被缝在野兽皮里，放到竞技场上任狂犬吞噬。这场撒但般的惨剧，到了夜晚在梵蒂冈山坡上的御苑中达到高潮（据推测，这片御苑包括今天圣彼得广场和教堂的所在地）：基督徒男女被浇上沥青、油或树脂，钉在松木柱上，然后点燃，像火炬一般焚烧，供暴民取乐；尼禄则身着奇装异服，参加赛马，炫耀自己的驭车技艺。活活烧死原是惩治纵火犯的惯常刑罚；但只有这个帝国怪物在魔鬼鼓动下所发挥的残酷巧思，才能发明如此可怕的照明方式。

这就是最伟大的异教历史学家的记述，也是我们所有记述中最详尽的一篇——正如关于耶路撒冷毁灭的最佳叙述，出自那位博学的犹太历史学家之笔一样。这样，仇敌也为基督教的真实性作了见证。塔西佗在这里顺带提到，基督在提庇留 (Tiberius) 统治时期，受本丢·彼拉多 (Pontius Pilate) 钉十字架。他对基督徒的认识仅来自传闻与阅读，虽以罗马人的傲慢鄙视他们，却仍确信他们并未犯纵火罪；而且，尽管他持守冷漠的斯多葛主义，仍不禁对他们生出怜悯，因为他们遭到牺牲，不是为了公共利益，而是为了满足一个邪恶暴君的凶残欲望。

有些历史学家所怀疑的，并不是这场可怕逼迫的真实性，而是受害者究竟是基督徒而非犹太人，或是否仅有基督徒受害。基督徒无害而和平；同时代的作家塞涅卡、普林尼、卢坎 (Lucan)、佩尔西乌斯 (Persius) 虽然提及犹太人，却对基督徒只字未提；这样的人竟如此迅速地成为众怒所向，似乎难以理解。因此有人推测，塔西佗和苏维托尼乌斯在事发约五十年后写作时，将基督徒与犹太人混淆了；犹太人素来为罗马人所憎恶，而他们在台伯河彼岸的居住区又免受火灾损害，更使纵火的嫌疑显得有据。¹²

然而，这一暴行太过公开，不可能留下发生这种误认的余地。塔西佗和苏维托尼乌斯虽对这两个派别都所知甚少，却都将二者区分开来；前者更明确指出，基督徒之名源自这一新宗教的创始者基督。此外，如前所述，尼禄并不反感犹太人；他的第二任妻子波佩娅·萨比娜 (Poppaea Sabina)，在大火发生前一年，还曾特别优待约瑟夫斯，并赐给他丰厚的礼物。约瑟夫斯谈到尼禄的罪行，却对自己的同教之人遭受逼迫一事只字未提。¹³单凭这一点，似乎就足以定论。很有可能，在这一次逼迫中（如同在此前一切逼迫中，以及此后许多次逼迫中一样），狂热的犹太人因基督教迅速发展而愤怒，又急于使自己摆脱嫌疑，便煽动民众攻击那些遭人憎恨的加利利人；而异教的罗马人则加倍凶猛地扑向这些被视为半个犹太人的人，因为连他们自己那些奇特的同胞也不承认他们。¹⁴

这场逼迫可能波及的范围

若从异教历史学家的沉默来判断，他们似乎将这场逼迫限于罗马城；但后来的基督教作家则认为它波及各行省。¹⁵皇帝在首都树立的榜样，很难不对各行省产生影响，也会为民众仇恨的爆发提供正当理由。如果《启示录》写于尼禄统治时期，或在他死后不久，那么约翰被放逐到拔摩岛 (Patmos)，必定与这场逼迫有关。该书提到士每拿 (Smyrna) 的监禁、别迦摩 (Pergamus) 的安提帕 (Antipas) 殉道，并谈到先知、圣徒和地上一切被杀之人的遇害。¹⁶《希伯来书》写于意大利，大概是在64年；其中10:32–34同样提到流血的逼迫，13:23则提到提摩太获释出狱。彼得的第一封书信，也可能写于同一年，即逼迫刚爆发之后、他去世前不久；他在信中告诫小亚细亚的基督徒，将有火炼的试验临到他们，又论及他们已经忍受或将要忍受的苦难，不是因犯了什么罪，而是因“基督徒”的名。¹⁷以“巴比伦”¹⁸称呼罗马，最容易从写作的时间和处境得到解释。

基督教刚刚达到其创始者在世的年岁，在罗马却似乎已被消灭。随着彼得和保罗的离世，第一代基督徒也一同埋葬了。黑暗必定笼罩着战栗的门徒，他们陷入的沮丧，几乎与三十四年前耶稣被钉十字架那天傍晚一样深重。然而，复活的清晨已经不远；而圣彼得殉道的那块地方，日后竟要成为基督教世界最宏伟教堂的所在地，以及那些被认为是他继承者之人的宫殿式居所。¹⁹

《启示录》论尼禄的逼迫

在主要使徒中，除了约翰，没有人留存下来记述这场可怕的屠杀。他或许是在以弗所 (Ephesus) 听到这件事的；又或许曾陪同彼得来到罗马，并逃过了尼禄御苑中可怕的死亡——如果我们可以相信那古老的传统，即在梵蒂冈山上那场地狱般的照明中，他曾蒙神迹保全，没有与其他基督徒一同被活活烧死。²⁰无论如何，他自己也是因耶稣的名而遭逼迫的人；他被放逐在孤寂的拔摩岛上，在《启示录》的异象中描绘了这场逼迫的恐怖。

这部奥秘的书——无论写于68至69年之间，还是图密善 (Domitian) 统治下的95年——无疑既是为那个时代的教会，也是为后世的教会而写；它必定充分切合最初读者的实际处境和周围环境，才能在火炼的试验中给予他们切实的帮助和安慰。由于书中所暗指的事件离他们很近，就实际应用而言，他们对这书的理解，必定比后世读者更加透彻。约翰固然展望最终的成全，却也在开端中看见终局。他立足于自己所生活的古罗马帝国这一历史基础，正如以色列先知的异象，以大卫的王国或被掳巴比伦的时代为出发点。他把当时的异教罗马描绘为“从无底坑里上来的兽”，为“从海中上来的一个兽，有十角七头”（即君王、皇帝），为“坐在众水上的大淫妇”，又为“一个女人骑在朱红色的兽上；那兽有七头十角，遍体有亵渎的名号”，并称之为“大巴比伦，作世上的淫妇和一切可憎之物的母”。²¹当这位先见称那坐在七座山上的女人“喝醉了圣徒的血和为耶稣作见证之人的血”时，²²他心中所指的，必定是有史以来最残酷的尼禄逼迫；他又预言她的倾覆，将成为“圣徒、使徒、先知”欢喜的事。²³

近来的注释家甚至发现其中直接暗指尼禄：他的名字用希伯来字母写成（Neron Kesar），便表示那奥秘的数目666；他也是兽的七头中的第五头，虽被杀，却要再从无底坑中回来，成为敌基督。然而，这种解释并不确定；无论如何，我们不能认为约翰相信尼禄真的会从死里复活，成为敌基督。他的意思只是说，逼迫基督教会的尼禄（如同安条克·伊皮法尼 (Antiochus Epiphanes) 一样）是敌基督的先驱，后者将受来自地狱的同一种嗜血之灵驱使。在类似的意义上，罗马是第二个巴比伦，施洗约翰是另一位以利亚。

附注

一、关于尼禄逼迫的记载。

1. 异教历史学家的记载。

关于第一次由皇帝发动的逼迫，我们主要有两份记载：一份出自塔西佗，他出生于事发前约八年，大概活到了图拉真 (Trajan，卒于117年) 死后；另一份出自苏维托尼乌斯，他的《十二凯撒传》(XII. Caesares) 写得稍晚，约在公元120年。狄奥·卡西乌斯 (Dion Cassius，生于约公元155年) 的《罗马史》(History of Rome；JRwmaikh; jIstoriva，现存残篇及修士克西菲利努斯 (Xiphilinus) 所作节本)，记述从埃涅阿斯 (Aeneas) 到来直至公元229年的历史，其中提到罗马大火，却未提及对基督徒的逼迫。

塔西佗的叙述保持了他简练、含蓄而生动的文风，绝无后人插入的嫌疑，但有些地方含义不明。我们将《编年史》(Annal.)，XV. 44全文译录如下：

“然而，无论人们采取怎样的救济措施，皇帝施予怎样的赏赐，或怎样向诸神献祭求恩，都无法使他〔尼禄〕摆脱命人纵火这一传闻所带来的恶名。因此，为了压下谣言，尼禄便将罪名诬加于一些人，以最为惨酷的刑罚折磨他们；这些人因其恶行而遭人憎恨，民众通常称他们为基督徒 (subdidit reos, et quaesitissimis poenis affecit, quos per flagitia invisos vulgus ’Christianos’ appellabat)。这一名称的创始者基督 (Christus)，在提庇留统治时期，已被犹太巡抚本丢·彼拉多处死 (supplicio affectus erat)；然而，这种一度受到压制的有害迷信 (exitiabilis superstitio)，²⁴又重新爆发，不仅遍及这一祸害的发源地犹太，也蔓延到〔罗马〕城；一切凶恶可耻的事物，都从四面八方汇集于此，并受到推崇 (quo cuncta undique atrocia aut pudenda confluunt celebranturque)。于是，起初被捕的，只是那些承认的人。²⁵随后，根据他们提供的消息，极多的人 (multitudo ingens) 被定罪，与其说是因纵火罪，不如说是因仇恨人类 (odio humani generis)。²⁶他们临死时还成了供人取乐的对象：有的被裹在野兽皮中，让狗撕成碎片；有的被钉在十字架上；有的被点燃，待白日过去，便焚烧他们，作为夜间照明之用 (in usum nocturni luminis urerentur)。尼禄把自己〔在梵蒂冈〕的御苑提供出来，供人观看这场奇观，并在此时举行战车竞赛；他时而身穿驭车者的服装，混在群众中，时而亲自执缰驾车。于是，人们对受难者生出了怜悯，尽管他们被认为理当受人憎恶；因为他们看来并非为公共利益而被除灭，倒是成了满足一个人凶残欲望的牺牲品。”

苏维托尼乌斯在《尼禄传》(Nero) 第16章中的记载非常简短，不能令人满意：“Afflicti suppliciis Christiani, genus hominum superstitionis novae ac maleficaea.”（“基督徒受到刑罚；这是一群信奉新起而有害之迷信的人。”）他没有将逼迫与大火联系起来，而是将它与治安条例联系起来。

讽刺诗人尤维纳利斯 (Juvenal) 提到这场逼迫时，可能是以目击者的身份说话；他同塔西佗一样，对受难的基督徒怀着轻蔑与怜悯交织的感情（《讽刺诗》(Sat.) I. 155）：

“你敢说提盖利努斯 (Tigellinus) 有罪吗？

你也将像我们所见的那些人一样发光，

喉咙被刺穿，立在刑柱旁，

冒着烟，燃烧着。”

2. 基督徒的记载。

罗马的革利免 (Clement of Rome) 在第一世纪末，写到那“极多的选民”因嫉妒而遭受许多凌辱与酷刑，又写到被迫扮演“达那伊得斯” (Danaides) 和“狄耳刻” (Dirces) 的基督徒妇女时，所指的必定是尼禄的逼迫，见《致哥林多人书》(Ad Corinth.)，第6章。我在正文中没有采用这段文字。勒南将它加以铺陈，织入他对这场逼迫所作的生动叙述之中（《敌基督》(L’Antechrist)，第163页及后；他的《希伯特讲座》(Hibbert Lectures) 几乎逐字重述了这一段）。按传说，狄耳刻被绑在一头狂暴的公牛身上，拖曳至死。那不勒斯 (Naples) 博物馆中著名的大理石群雕，表现的就是这一场景。但达那伊得斯的故事，却无法提供与基督徒殉道者相切合的类比，除非如勒南所推测的，尼禄曾命人表演塔耳塔罗斯 (Tartarus) 中的苦刑。莱特福特采纳华兹华斯 (Wordsworth，注忒奥克里托斯 (Theocritus)，XXVI. 1) 的大胆校改，摒弃 Danai>vde" kai; Divrkai 这一读法（所有版本，包括格布哈特 (Gebhardt) 和哈纳克 (Harnack) 的版本，都保留此读法），以 neanivde", paidivskai 取而代之。这样，革利免所说的就是：“妇人 (gunai'ke")、少女、婢女遭受逼迫，忍受残酷而邪恶的凌辱之后，虽身体软弱，却在信心的赛程中安然抵达终点，领受了美好的赏赐。”

德尔图良（卒于约220年）在《致异教徒》(Ad Nationes)，I，第7章中这样提到尼禄的逼迫：“我们这名称起于奥古斯都 (Augustus) 统治时期；在提庇留治下，它所代表的教义得到极其清楚而公开的传扬；在尼禄治下，它遭到无情的定罪 (sub Nerone damnatio invaluit)，你们甚至可以从逼迫者其人来衡量它的价值和性质。倘若那位君主是虔诚的人，那么基督徒就是不虔诚的；倘若他公义，倘若他纯洁，那么基督徒就是不义、不洁的；倘若他不是公敌，我们就是国家的仇敌。我们是什么样的人，逼迫我们的人自己就表明了，因为他所惩罚的，自然是那些招致对他本人敌意的东西。如今，虽然尼禄治下存在的其他一切制度都已毁灭，我们的这一制度却仍然坚立——看来，它是公义的，因为它与〔发动逼迫的〕那人截然不同。”

苏尔皮基乌斯·塞韦鲁斯 (Sulpicius Severus) 在《编年史》(Chron.)，II. 28、29中提供了相当详尽的记载，但大多取自塔西佗。他与奥罗修斯 (Orosius，《历史》(Hist.)，VII. 7) 最先明确断言，尼禄将逼迫扩展到了各行省。

二、尼禄作为敌基督归来。

尼禄因其年轻、俊美、豪放、挥霍，以及其恶行令人震惊的新奇而在罗马的下层民众中颇受欢迎（塔西佗称他为“incredibilium cupitor,”，即“追求不可思议之事的人”，《编年史》Ann. XV. 42）。因此，在他自杀之后，异教徒中便流传一种谣言，说他其实并未死去，而是逃到了帕提亚人 (Parthians) 那里，将率领一支军队返回罗马，摧毁这座城市。在奥托 (Otho)、提图斯和图密善 (Domitian) 统治期间，先后有三个冒用他名字的人利用这一信念，获得了支持。甚至三十年后，图密善听见尼禄的名字仍会战栗。参见塔西佗，《历史》Hist. I. 2；II. 8、9；苏维托尼乌斯，《尼禄传》Ner. 57；狄奥·卡西乌斯 (Dio Cassius)，LXIV. 9；席勒 (Schiller)，前引书，第288页。

在基督徒中，这一传言采取了敌视尼禄的形式。拉克坦提乌斯 (Lactantius，《逼迫者之死》De Mort. Persecut.，第2章) 提到西比拉 (Sibylline) 的预言，说尼禄既是第一个逼迫者，也将成为最后一个逼迫者，并要在敌基督来临之前出现。奥古斯丁（《上帝之城》De Civil. Dei.，XX. 19）提到，他所处的时代，教会中仍流传着关于尼禄的两种意见：有人以为他将从死里复活，成为敌基督；另有人以为他并没有死，只是隐藏起来，并将一直活着，直到显露出来，重掌王权。前者是基督徒的信念，后者是异教徒的信念。奥古斯丁将两者一并否定。苏尔皮基乌斯·塞韦鲁斯 (Sulpicius Severus，《编年史》Chron.，II. 29) 也提到这种信念（unde creditur，故而人们相信）：尼禄致命的伤已经医好，他将在世界末日归来，成就保罗所预言的那“不法的奥秘”（帖撒罗尼迦后书2:7）。

有些注释家认为，《启示录》应为这荒谬的传言和错误的信念负责；另一些则认为，作者与他同时代的异教徒共有这种信念。他们援引的经文是《启示录》17:8：“那兽先前有，如今没有，将要从无底坑里上来，又要归于沉沦”……“那兽先前有，如今没有，将来要出现”（kai; pavrestai，而不是 kaivper ejstivn，“却仍然存在”；英译本 E. V. 随从公认本文 text. ec. 作后者）；17:11：“那先前有，如今没有的兽，就是第八位；他也属于那七位，并且要归于沉沦”；以及13:3：“我看见兽的七头中，有一个似乎受了死伤；那死伤却医好了：全地的人都希奇，跟从那兽。”

然而，这些话是指那兽，即罗马帝国；它在全书中始终与那七头，即诸位皇帝，明确区分开来。在《但以理书》中，兽也代表一个整体。此外，必须区分一个统治者（尼禄）的死亡，与这一死亡给兽或帝国所造成的致命创伤；帝国后来却从这创伤中恢复了过来（在韦斯帕芗统治之下）。

§ 38. 犹太战争与耶路撒冷的毁灭。公元70年。

“耶稣从殿里出来的时候，有一个门徒对他说：夫子，请看，这是何等的石头，何等的殿宇！耶稣对他说：你看见这大殿宇吗？将来在这里没有一块石头留在石头上，不被拆毁了。”——马可福音13:1、2。

史料。

约瑟夫斯 (Josephus)：《犹太战争》Bell. Jud.，共7卷；以及《自传》Vita，第4—74章。这部犹太战争史是他作为目击者于约公元75年写成的。英译本有 W. 惠斯顿 (W. Whiston) 译本，收入《约瑟夫斯著作集》Works of Jos.；另有罗布·特雷尔 (Rob. Traill) 译本，艾萨克·泰勒 (Isaac Taylor) 编，新版，伦敦，1862年。德译本有格弗勒 (Gfrsörer) 与 W. 霍夫曼 (W. Hoffmann) 译本，斯图加特，1836年；以及帕雷特 (Paret) 译本，斯图加特，1855年。法译本有阿尔诺·当迪伊 (Arnauld d’andilly) 译本，1667年；若阿尚·吉莱 (Joachim Gillet) 译本，1756年；格莱尔神父 (Abbé Glaire) 译本，1846年。

拉比传统见德朗堡 (Derenbourg)：《从居鲁士到哈德良的巴勒斯坦史》Histoire de la Palestine depuis Cyrus jusqu’à Adrien。巴黎，1867年（其《根据塔木德及其他拉比史料所著的巴勒斯坦历史与地理》L’Histoire et la géographie de la Palestine d’après les Thalmuds et les autres sources rabbiniques 的第一部分），第255—295页。

塔西佗 (Tacitus)：《历史》Hist.，II. 4；V. 1—13。仅存的一个片段，充满错误，以及对战败犹太人的侮辱。第五卷除这一片段外，均已散佚。犹太人约瑟夫斯对罗马的强盛与伟大满怀钦佩，异教徒塔西佗却以讥诮和轻蔑的态度对待犹太人与基督徒，宁愿从敌视他们的埃及人及民间偏见中获取资料，而不愿求诸圣经、斐洛 (Philo) 和约瑟夫斯。

苏尔皮基乌斯·塞韦鲁斯 (Sulpicius Severus)：《编年史》Chronicon，II. 30（哈尔姆 (Halm) 编，第84页）。简短。

参考文献。

米尔曼 (Milman)：《犹太人史》The History of the Jews，第XIV—XVII卷（纽约版，第II卷，第219页及后）。

埃瓦尔德 (Ewald)：《以色列民族史》Geschichte des Folkes Israel，VI. 705—753（第二版）。

格雷茨 (Grätz)：《犹太人史》Geschichte der Juden，III. 336—414。

希齐希 (Hitzig)：《以色列民族史》Geschichte des Volkes Israel，II. 594—629。

卢因 (Lewin)：《提图斯围攻耶路撒冷：附最近一次圣城访问日记，以及从最早时期直至围城时耶路撒冷地形概述》The Siege of Jerusalem by Titus. With the Journal of a recent Visit in the Holy City, and a general Sketch of the Topography of Jerusalem from the Earliest Times down to the Siege. 伦敦，1863年。

德·尚帕尼伯爵 (Count de Champagny)：《尼禄覆亡时期的罗马与犹太地（公元66—72年）》Rome et la Judie au temps de la chute de Néron (ans 66–72 après Jésus-Christ)，第二版，巴黎，1865年。第I卷，第195—254页；第II卷，第55—200页。

查尔斯·梅里韦尔 (Charles Merivale)：《帝国统治下的罗马人史》History of the Romans under the Empire，第LIX章（第VI卷，第415页及后，第四版，纽约，1866年）。

德·索尔西 (De Saulcy)：《耶路撒冷的末日》Les derniers jours de Jérusalem. 巴黎，1866年。

E. 勒南 (E. Renan)：《敌基督》L’Antechrist（第X—XX章，第226—551页）。巴黎，第二版，1873年。

埃米尔·许勒 (Emil Schürer)：《新约时代史教科书》Lehrbuch der neutestamentlichen Zeitgeschichte（莱比锡，1874年），第323—350页。他也列出了参考文献。

A. 豪斯拉特 (A. Hausrath)：《新约时代史》Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte，第III部，第二版，海德堡，1875年，第424—487页。

阿尔弗雷德·J. 丘奇 (Alfred J. Church)：《据约瑟夫斯所述耶路撒冷末日的故事》The Story of the Last Days of Jerusalem, from Josephus. 附插图。伦敦，1880年。

历史上几乎没有别的时期，像尼禄逼迫与耶路撒冷毁灭之间的六年那样，充满罪恶、腐败和灾难。我们的主对末日所作的预言性描述，在听他说话的那一代人尚未过去之前，就已开始应验，审判之日仿佛近在眼前。基督徒如此相信，而且有充分的理由如此相信。即使在严肃的异教思想家看来，那一时期也黑暗如午夜。我们在别处已经引用过塞涅卡的描绘，说明他的学生兼杀害他的人尼禄统治之下，那种骇人的道德败坏与衰颓。塔西佗叙述尼禄死后罗马历史的著作，以这些话开篇：“我现在着手叙述的这段历史，灾难频仍，充满惨烈的战争、纷争与叛乱，甚至在和平时期也恐怖异常。四位君主〔加尔巴 (Galba)、奥托、维特里乌斯 (Vitellius)、图密善〕死于刀剑；三场内战，数场对外战争，而且大多同时肆虐。东方有顺利之事〔征服犹太人〕，西方却遭逢不幸。伊利里亚 (Illyria) 动荡，高卢 (Gaul) 不安；不列颠 (Britain) 被征服后不久又被放弃；萨尔马提亚 (Sarmatia) 和苏维比 (Suevia) 的各族起来反抗我们；帕提亚人受一个假尼禄的欺骗而骚动。意大利也被新起或屡次发生的灾祸压得喘不过气来；城市被吞没，或被埋在废墟之下；罗马遭大火蹂躏，古老的庙宇被焚毁，甚至卡庇托尔 (Capitol) 也被市民纵火焚烧；圣所遭到亵渎；上层社会奸淫横行。海上满是流亡者；岩石岛屿被杀戮玷污。城中的暴虐更为可怕。高贵的出身、财富、显赫的职位，无论辞谢还是担任，都被算作罪行，而美德则注定遭到毁灭。²⁷

迫近的厄运。

那一时期最不幸的地方是巴勒斯坦 (Palestine)，一个古老而可敬的民族在那里为自己招来了难以言喻的苦难与毁灭。耶路撒冷的悲剧，以缩影的形式预示了最后的审判；基督从起初就预见了结局，他论末世的讲论正是从这一角度描绘这场悲剧。

上帝对他立约之民的宽容，终于达到了极限；这百姓曾将自己的救主钉在十字架上。凡能循通常途径得救的人，都已蒙拯救。百姓大众却顽固地拒绝一切改进。义人雅各本是最有可能使犹太人与基督教和好的人，却被他那些心硬的同胞用石头打死，而他曾天天在圣殿中为他们代求；随着他的死，耶路撒冷的基督徒群体对那座城也失去了重要意义。“大灾难”与可怕审判的时刻日益迫近。主的预言即将逐字应验：耶路撒冷被夷为平地，圣殿被焚毁，没有一块石头留在石头上。²⁸

犹太战争爆发前不久，也就是耶路撒冷被围攻的七年前（公元63年），一个名叫约书亚 (Joshua)，或耶稣 (Jesus) 的农夫，在住棚节时来到城中，带着先知狂喜的语调，昼夜在街上的人群中呼喊：“有声音从早晨而来，有声音从晚上而来！有声音从四风而来！有降灾的声音临到耶路撒冷和圣殿！有声音攻击新郎和新妇！有声音攻击全体百姓！耶路撒冷有祸了，有祸了！”官长们被这灾祸的宣告所惊吓，便将这位预告灾难的先知抓起来鞭打。他毫不反抗，仍旧呼喊着“有祸了”。他被带到巡抚阿尔比努斯 (Albinus) 面前，受鞭打直到骨头显露，却不为自己辩白一句，也不咒诅仇敌；每挨一下，只是悲声呼喊：“耶路撒冷有祸了，有祸了！”巡抚问他是谁，从哪里来，他一概不答。最后，他们把他当作疯子释放了。但他继续如此，长达七年零五个月，直到战争爆发，尤其在三大节期宣告耶路撒冷即将倾覆。围城期间，他最后一次在城墙上吟唱他的哀歌。忽然，他又加上一句：“我也有祸了，有祸了！”——就在这时，罗马人投来的一块石头击中了他的头，使他那先知式的哀号就此终止。²⁹

犹太人的叛乱。

在最后几任总督腓力斯 (Felix)、非斯都 (Festus)、阿尔比努斯和弗洛鲁斯 (Florus) 治下，道德的腐败与一切社会纽带的瓦解逐年加剧，与此同时，罗马的轭也变得愈加沉重。腓力斯上任后，被称为“短刀党” (Sicarians，源自 sica，意为短刀) 的刺客，手持短刀，遍行巴勒斯坦；只要出钱，任何罪行都肯做，危及城乡的安全。此外，犹太人内部的党派之争，以及他们对异教压迫者的仇恨，上升为最肆无忌惮的政治和宗教狂热，又不断受到假先知和假弥赛亚的煽动。例如，据约瑟夫斯记载，其中一人曾吸引三万人跟从他。这样，我们的主所预言的话便应验了：“将有假基督、假先知起来，迷惑许多人。”

终于，在公元66年5月，最后一任巡抚格西乌斯·弗洛鲁斯 (Gessius Florus，自65年起任职) 治下，爆发了一场有组织的反罗马叛乱。此人是个邪恶残暴的暴君，用约瑟夫斯的话说，就是被安置在作恶者之上的刽子手。但与此同时，叛乱者内部的不同派别之间，尤其是奋锐党 (Zealots) 与温和派 (Moderates)，或激进派与保守派之间，也爆发了可怕的内战。凶悍的奋锐党具有宗教与爱国狂热所能激发的一切热情和力量；有人将他们比作法国大革命中的山岳党 (Montagnards)，确是恰当的。他们在战争进程中取得优势，强占了城市与圣殿，实行恐怖统治。他们不断维持百姓对弥赛亚的期待，把每一个走向毁灭的步骤都欢呼为迈向拯救的一步。关于彗星、流星以及各种可怕凶兆和奇事的传闻，都被解释为弥赛亚即将降临并统治外邦人的征兆。罗马人则将韦斯帕芗和提图斯认作弥赛亚。

在那个时代，毫无盟友而挑战罗马，无异于挑战整个武装起来的世界；但马加比家族 (Maccabees) 英勇功绩的回忆所激发的宗教狂热，蒙蔽了犹太人的眼睛，使他们看不见这场疯狂而绝望的叛乱必然失败的结局。

罗马人的入侵。

尼禄皇帝得知叛乱的消息后，派遣他最负盛名的将领韦斯帕芗，率大军前往巴勒斯坦。韦斯帕芗于67年从叙利亚的港口城市多利买 (Ptolemais，即亚柯 Acco) 发起战役，率领六万人的军队，冲破顽强抵抗，席卷加利利。但罗马发生的事变阻碍了他完成征服，迫使他返回那里。尼禄已经自杀。加尔巴 (Galba)、奥托 (Otho) 和维特里乌斯 (Vitellius) 三位皇帝接踵而立。最后一位醉酒时在罗马的狗窝里被人揪出，拖过街头，受辱而死。69年，韦斯帕芗被一致拥戴为皇帝，恢复了秩序与繁荣。

他的儿子提图斯，十年后也成为皇帝，并以温厚仁爱著称，³⁰此时接手继续进行犹太战争，成为上帝手中毁灭圣城与圣殿的工具。他拥有不少于八万名训练有素的士兵，在斯科普斯山 (Mount Scopus) 及邻近的橄榄山扎营，城与圣殿尽收眼底；从这一高处望去，它们的壮丽景象显露无遗。汲沦谷 (Kedron) 将围城者与被围者隔开。

公元70年4月，逾越节刚过，耶路撒冷满是外来客旅，围城便开始了。奋锐党以讥诮而挑衅的态度，拒绝了提图斯一再提出的建议，也拒绝了随军担任翻译与调停人的约瑟夫斯的恳求；凡提议投降的人，都被他们杀死。他们出城突袭，冲下汲沦谷，再攻上山坡，使罗马人蒙受重大损失。困难越多，他们的勇气越大。数以百计的俘虏被钉十字架（一天竟达五百人），只使他们更加愤怒。甚至开始肆虐、每日夺去数千人性命，并迫使一个妇人烤食自己孩子的饥荒，³¹母亲与婴孩的哀号，以及周围最令人怜悯的种种惨状，也不能打动这些疯狂的狂热者。历史上再没有如此顽强抵抗、如此不顾一切地英勇奋战、蔑视死亡的事例。犹太人不仅为公民自由、生命和祖国而战，也为那构成他们民族的骄傲与荣耀、赋予他们全部历史以意义的事物而战——就是他们的宗教；即便在这种可怕的堕落状态中，这宗教仍赋予他们几乎超人的忍耐力。

城与圣殿的毁灭。

终于，到了7月，安东尼亚堡 (Antonia) 在夜间遭突袭而失守。这为圣殿的毁灭开辟了道路，而悲剧也由此达到顶点。7月17日，每日的献祭停止了，因为所有人手都必须用于防守。燔祭坛上最后一次、也是最血腥的祭，便是聚集在祭坛周围的数千犹太人惨遭屠杀。

据约瑟夫斯说，提图斯起初打算保全这座宏伟的建筑，作为胜利的纪念，或许也出于某种迷信的恐惧；当火焰眼看就要烧到至圣所时，他穿过烈火与浓烟，越过死者与垂死者，奋力前去制止大火。³²但这场毁灭已由更高的旨意所命定。他手下的士兵被顽强的抵抗激得近乎疯狂，又贪图其中的金银财宝，已无法遏止他们的毁灭行动。起初，圣殿周围的廊屋被点燃。随后，一支火把从金门掷了进去。火焰升起时，犹太人发出可怕的尖叫，竭力扑火；另一些人则以最后一阵痉挛般的力量，紧紧抓住他们对弥赛亚的盼望，深信一个假先知的宣告，说上帝将在圣殿的大火中发出拯救他百姓的信号。各军团争相助长火势，使这些不幸的人尝尽他们肆无忌惮的暴怒。不久，整座宏伟的建筑便陷入火海，映亮天空。圣殿于公元70年8月10日被焚毁；据传统说，这正是第一座圣殿被尼布甲尼撒毁灭的同月同日。约瑟夫斯说：“没有人能够想象，圣殿焚烧时从四面八方响起的尖叫，是何等响亮、何等可怕。军团得胜的呐喊与欢呼，穿过山上和全城那些被烈火与刀剑包围的百姓的哀号。周围群山，甚至远至比利亚 (Peraea)（？）的回声，更增添了这震耳欲聋的巨响。然而，惨状本身比这混乱更加可怕。圣殿所在的山丘灼热如沸，仿佛直到山脚都裹在一片烈焰之中。鲜血比烈火更多，被杀者比杀人者更多。地面无处可见，到处都覆盖着尸体；士兵越过这些尸堆，追赶逃亡的人。”³³

罗马人在东门对面那不成形状的废墟上竖起鹰旗，向鹰旗献祭，并在极其热烈的欢呼声中，拥戴提图斯为统帅 (Imperator)。这样，关于“那行毁坏可憎的站在圣地”的预言便应验了。³⁴

耶路撒冷被夷为平地；只留下希律王宫的三座塔楼——希庇库斯 (Hippicus，至今仍存)、法赛尔 (Phasael) 和马利亚姆尼 (Mariamne)——以及西城墙的一部分，作为这座被征服之城昔日坚固的见证；这里曾是犹太神权政治的中心，也是基督教会的摇篮。

据传，连异教徒提图斯也曾公开宣称，上帝以特别的护理帮助罗马人，将犹太人逐出他们坚不可摧的堡垒。³⁵约瑟夫斯亲历了这场战争的始末，起初是加利利的总督和犹太军队的将领，后来成为韦斯帕芗的俘虏，最后又随侍提图斯，作罗马人与犹太人之间的调停者。他在这场悲剧中看见了上帝的审判；对于那些堕落的同胞，尽管他在其他方面对他们仍怀着真挚的感情，却也承认：“我不愿迟疑不说，虽然说出来使我痛心：我相信，倘若罗马人迟迟不惩罚这些恶徒，这城也必被大地吞没，或被洪水淹没，或像所多玛一样，被天火烧灭。因为住在其中的这一代，比从前遭受这些惩罚的人更加不敬虔。整个民族因他们的疯狂而归于毁灭。”³⁶

因此，罗马最优秀的皇帝之一，竟必须执行上帝早已警告的审判，而当时最博学的犹太人则必须将它记述下来；他们由此在无意也不知情之中，为预言的真实和耶稣基督使命的神圣作了见证。这个背道的民族正因弃绝了他，才招致这一切以及后来接踵而来的灾祸。

耶路撒冷的毁灭，足以成为一位基督徒荷马 (Homer) 施展天才的题材。它被称为“整个古代史中最震撼心灵的斗争”。³⁷然而，当时没有耶利米来为大卫与所罗门之城吟唱挽歌。《启示录》早已写成，并且预言外邦人“要践踏圣城四十二个月”。³⁸近代绘画大师之一考尔巴赫 (Kaulbach)，以此为题材创作了他最伟大的画作之一，收藏于柏林博物馆。画中呈现的是焚烧中的圣殿：前景中，大祭司将剑刺入自己的胸膛；他周围是令人心碎的苦难景象；上方，古代的先知们正在观看他们预言的应验；在他们下方，提图斯与罗马军队成了不自知的神怒执行者；左下方是中世纪传说中流浪的犹太人亚哈随鲁 (Ahasuerus)，被复仇女神驱赶着，走向永不终结的未来；右边则是一群基督徒，平静地离开这毁灭的现场，还有犹太儿童恳求他们的保护。

幸存者的命运与罗马的凯旋。

经过五个月的围攻，全城落入胜利者手中。据约瑟夫斯所报，围城期间丧生的犹太人，包括从乡间涌入城中的所有人，多达一百一十万；这个数字大得惊人，很可能有所夸张。围城结束后不久，又有一万一千人饿死。九万七千人被掳，被卖为奴，或送往矿场，或在凯撒利亚 (Caesarea)、贝里图斯 (Berytus)、安提阿及其他城市的角斗表演中被杀。最强壮俊美的男子被挑选出来，参加罗马的凯旋游行；其中包括主要的守城将领和叛乱首领西门·巴尔－乔拉 (Simon Bar-Giora) 与吉斯卡拉的约翰 (John of Gischala)。³⁹

韦斯帕芗与提图斯共同庆祝了这场付出惨重代价的胜利（71年）。这场盛典不惜任何费用。两位征服者头戴桂冠，身披紫袍，分乘战车缓缓前行；图密善 (Domitian) 则骑着一匹骏马，在民众与贵族的欢呼声中，一同前往卡庇托山朱庇特神庙 (Jupiter Capitolinus)。身着节庆服装的士兵和七百名犹太俘虏走在他们前面。诸神的像，以及圣殿的圣器——陈设饼的桌子、七枝灯台、宣告禧年的号角、香器和律法书卷——都在行列中被抬着前行，随后存放于新建的和平神庙 (Temple of Peace)；⁴⁰惟有律法书卷与圣所的紫色幔子，由韦斯帕芗留在自己的宫中。西门·巴尔－乔拉被从塔尔佩亚岩 (Tarpeian Rock) 上扔下；吉斯卡拉的约翰被判终身监禁。所铸钱币刻有铭文：Judaea capta, Judaea devicta（犹太被掳，犹太被征服）。但韦斯帕芗与提图斯都没有采用“犹太征服者” (Judaeus) 这一胜利称号；他们鄙视一个已经丧失祖国的民族。

约瑟夫斯目睹了这场铺张的盛典，看着自己的民族受辱、仿佛全族被钉十字架，却不带一滴眼泪地将它记述下来。⁴¹提图斯凯旋门至今仍矗立于罗马斗兽场与广场之间；深思的基督徒望着门上犹太俘虏抬着圣殿器具的浮雕，面对神圣预言的应验，心中满了敬畏。

巴勒斯坦的征服，也意味着犹太国家的毁灭。韦斯帕芗将土地留作私产，或分配给麾下的老兵。五年的战争使百姓陷入极端贫困，没有官长（按犹太人的意义而言），没有圣殿，也没有国家。在假弥赛亚巴尔－科赫巴 (Bar-Cocheba) 领导下再度爆发的叛乱，只导致哈德良 (Hadrian) 的军队更彻底地摧毁耶路撒冷、蹂躏巴勒斯坦（132—135年）。然而，犹太人仍保有律法、先知书和神圣的传统；直到今日，他们仍以不可摧折的坚韧持守这些，并盼望一个伟大的未来。他们散居全地，处处为家，又处处无家；拒绝与任何其他种族通婚，聚居于各自的社群，面容的每一特征、宗教的每一礼仪，都标明他们是一个独特的民族；他们忍耐、节制、勤勉，凡所经营多有成就，虽受压迫仍然兴旺，受人嘲笑却又令人畏惧，遭人抢夺却仍富有，屡遭屠杀却又重新兴起。他们历经数世纪的逼迫而存留下来，而且很可能继续生存，直到时间的尽头：成为世人鄙视、钦佩与惊奇交织的对象。

§ 39. 耶路撒冷的毁灭对基督教会的影响。

耶路撒冷的基督徒记得主的劝诫，及时离开了这座注定毁灭的城，逃往约旦河外、比利亚 (Peraea) 北部低加坡里 (Decapolis) 的佩拉 (Pella) 城；保罗曾在其面前受审的希律·亚基帕二世 (Herod Agrippa II) 王，在那里为他们提供了安全的避难所。一个古老的传统说，有神圣的声音或天使向他们的领袖启示了逃离的责任。⁴²在那里，在以外邦人为主的居民中，受割礼者的教会重新建立起来。可惜，我们对它的历史一无所知。但它再也没有恢复先前的重要地位。耶路撒冷重建为基督教城市后，其主教被擢升为东方四位牧首之一；然而，这只是享有荣誉、而无实权的牧首之位，在穆罕默德教徒入侵以后，更沦为徒具虚名的影子。

犹太神权政体毁灭的可怕浩劫，必定在基督徒中引起了极其深刻的震动；如今，由于缺乏有关此事的一切具体记载，我们几乎无法真切地想象当时的情形。⁴³这是犹太教最大的灾难，却给基督教带来了极大的益处；它驳倒了前者，却使后者得到昭雪与解放。它不仅极大地激发了信心，同时也在这两个宗教群体的关系史上划出了一个真正的时代界限。它使两者永远分离。诚然，使徒保罗早已借着其整个教义体系所具有的基督教普世性，在内在原则上完成了这种分离；但在外在行为上，他曾以种种方式迁就犹太教，并且不止一次虔诚地前往圣殿。他不愿以革命者的姿态出现，也不愿抢在历史的自然进程、上帝护理的道路之前。⁴⁴然而，如今全能上帝的雷霆一击，也使这决裂在外在形式上彻底完成。上帝亲自毁掉了他迄今所居住、耶稣曾教训人、使徒曾祷告的殿；他弃绝了自己特选的子民，因为他们顽梗地弃绝了弥赛亚；他拆毁了摩西神权政体的整个架构，其敬拜制度在本质上原先专与会幕、后来专与圣殿相联系。然而，他这样做，也割断了那些迄今一直束缚着幼年教会的绳索；按照有机发展的规律，这些绳索必然使教会与旧约的外在体制及其中心耶路撒冷相联。从此，异教徒再不能把基督教仅仅看作犹太教的一个宗派，而必须将它视为一个新的、独特的宗教来对待。因此，耶路撒冷的毁灭，标志着那一重大的转折：基督教会作为一个整体，永远破开犹太教的蛹壳，意识到自己已经成熟，并立即在治理与敬拜上，以独立的姿态立于世人面前。⁴⁵

然而，这种与顽梗的犹太教及其宗教形式的决裂，并不意味着背离旧约启示的精神。相反，教会承受了以色列的产业。基督徒显明为真正的犹太人，亚伯拉罕属灵的子孙；他们顺着摩西宗教的内在潮流，寻见了那位成全律法和先知者；他是旧约完美的果实，也是新约活的胚芽；是新的道德创造的开端与本原。

如今剩下的工作，只是在这改变了的局势中，完成教会的巩固；将各种前提汇合为其应有的结果；把分别体现于犹太基督徒教会和外邦基督徒教会中的彼得的保守倾向与保罗的进取倾向接纳进来，融合为第三种更高的倾向，形成一个持久的有机体；既阐明新旧两约在差异中的统一，也阐明它们在统一中的差异；并以这种方式，完成使徒教会的历史。

这就是使一切臻于完成的使徒约翰的工作。

Original Text

CHAPTER VI. THE GREAT TRIBULATION. (MATT. 24:21.)

§ 37. The Roman Conflagration and the Neronian Persecution.

"And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I wondered with a great wonder."—Apoc. 17:6.

Literature.

I. Tacitus: Annales, 1. XV., c. 38–44.

Suetonius: Nero, chs. 16 and 38 (very brief).

Sulpicius Severus: Hist. Sacra, 1. II., c. 41. He gives to the Neronian persecution a more general character.

2. Ernest Renan: L’Antechrist. Paris, deuxième ed., 1873. Chs. VI. VIII, pp. 123 sqq. Also his Hibbert Lectures, delivered in London, 1880, on Rome and Christianity.

L. Friedländer: Sittengeschichte Roms, I. 6, 27; III. 529.

Hermann Schiller: Geschichte der röm. Kaiserzeit unter der Regierung des Nero. Berlin, 1872 (173–179; 424 sqq.; 583 sqq.).

Hausrath: N. T.liche Zeitgeschichte, III. 392 sqq. (2d ed., 1875).

Theod. Keim: Aus dem Urchristenthum. Zürich, 1878, pp. 171–181. Rom u. das Christenthum, 1881, pp. 132 sqq.

Karl Wieseler: Die Christenverfolgungen der Cäsaren. 1878.

G. Uhlhorn: The Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism. Engl. transl. by Smyth and Ropes, N. Y. 1879, pp. 241–250.

C. F. Arnold: Die Neron. Christenverfolgung. Leipz. 1888.

The preaching of Paul and Peter in Rome was an epoch in the history of the church. It gave an impulse to the growth of Christianity. Their martyrdom was even more effective in the end: it cemented the bond of union between the Jewish and Gentile converts, and consecrated the soil of the heathen metropolis. Jerusalem crucified the Lord, Rome beheaded and crucified his chief apostles and plunged the whole Roman church into a baptism of blood. Rome became, for good and for evil, the Jerusalem of Christendom, and the Vatican hill the Golgotha of the West. Peter and Paul, like a new Romulus and Remus, laid the foundation of a spiritual empire vaster and more enduring than that of the Caesars. The cross was substituted for the sword as the symbol of conquest and power.(1)

But the change was effected at the sacrifice of precious blood. The Roman empire was at first, by its laws of justice, the protector of Christianity, without knowing its true character, and came to the rescue of Paul on several critical occasions, as in Corinth through the Proconsul Annaeus Gallio, in Jerusalem through the Captain Lysias, and in Caesarea through the Procurator Festus. But now it rushed into deadly conflict with the new religion, and opened, in the name of idolatry and patriotism, a series of intermittent persecutions, which ended at last in the triumph of the banner of the cross at the Milvian bridge. Formerly a restraining power that kept back for a while the outbreak of Antichrist,(2) it now openly assumed the character of Antichrist with fire and sword.(3)

Nero.

The first of these imperial persecutions with which the Martyrdom of Peter and Paul is connected by ecclesiastical tradition, took place in the tenth year of Nero’s reign, a.d. 64, and by the instigation of that very emperor to whom Paul, as a Roman citizen, had appealed from the Jewish tribunal. It was, however, not a strictly religious persecution, like those under the later emperors; it originated in a public calamity which was wantonly charged upon the innocent Christians.

A greater contrast can hardly be imagined than that between Paul, one of the purest and noblest of men, and Nero, one of the basest and vilest of tyrants. The glorious first five years of Nero’s reign (54–59) under the wise guidance of Seneca and Burrhus, make the other nine (59–68) only more hideous by contrast. We read his life with mingled feelings of contempt for his folly, and horror of his wickedness. The world was to him a comedy and a tragedy, in which he was to be the chief actor. He had an insane passion for popular applause; he played on the lyre; he sung his odes at supper; he drove his chariots in the circus; he appeared as a mimic on the stage, and compelled men of the highest rank to represent in dramas or in tableaux the obscenest of the Greek myths. But the comedian was surpassed by the tragedian. He heaped crime upon crime until he became a proverbial monster of iniquity. The murder of his brother (Britannicus), his mother (Agrippina), his wives (Octavia and Poppaea), his teacher (Seneca), and many eminent Romans, was fitly followed by his suicide in the thirty-second year of his age. With him the family of Julius Caesar ignominiously perished, and the empire became the prize of successful soldiers and adventurers.(4)

The Conflagration in Rome.

For such a demon in human shape, the murder of a crowd of innocent Christians was pleasant sport. The occasion of the hellish spectacle was a fearful conflagration of Rome, the most destructive and disastrous that ever occurred in history. It broke out in the night between the 18th and 19th of July,(5) among the wooden shops in the south-eastern end of the Great Circus, near the Palatine hill.(6) Lashed by the wind, it defied all exertions of the firemen and soldiers, and raged with unabated fury for seven nights and six days.(7) Then it burst out again in another part, near the field of Mars, and in three days more laid waste two other districts of the city.(8)

The calamity was incalculable. Only four of the fourteen regions into which the city was divided, remained uninjured; three, including the whole interior city from the Circus to the Esquiline hill, were a shapeless mass of ruins; the remaining seven were more or less destroyed; venerable temples, monumental buildings of the royal, republican, and imperial times, the richest creations of Greek art which had been collected for centuries, were turned into dust and ashes; men and beasts perished in the flames, and the metropolis of the world assumed the aspect of a graveyard with a million of mourners over the loss of irreparable treasures.

This fearful catastrophe must have been before the mind of St. John in the Apocalypse when he wrote his funeral dirge of the downfall of imperial Rome (Apoc. 18).

The cause of the conflagration is involved in mystery. Public rumor traced it to Nero, who wished to enjoy the lurid spectacle of burning Troy, and to gratify his ambition to rebuild Rome on a more magnificent scale, and to call it Neropolis.(9) When the fire broke out he was on the seashore at Antium, his birthplace; he returned when the devouring element reached his own palace, and made extraordinary efforts to stay and then to repair the disaster by a reconstruction which continued till after his death, not forgetting to replace his partially destroyed temporary residence (domus transitoria) by "the golden house" (domus aurea), as a standing wonder of architectural magnificence and extravagance.

The Persecution of the Christians.

To divert from himself the general suspicion of incendiarism, and at the same time to furnish new entertainment for his diabolical cruelty, Nero wickedly cast the blame upon the hated Christians, who, meanwhile, especially since the public trial of Paul and his successful labors in Rome, had come to be distinguished from the Jews as a genus tertium, or as the most dangerous offshoot from that race. They were certainly despisers of the Roman gods and loyal subjects of a higher king than Caesar, and they were falsely suspected of secret crimes. The police and people, under the influence of the panic created by the awful calamity, were ready to believe the worst slanders, and demanded victims. What could be expected of the ignorant multitude, when even such cultivated Romans as Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, stigmatized Christianity as a vulgar and pestiferous superstition. It appeared to them even worse than Judaism, which was at least an ancient national religion, while Christianity was novel, detached from any particular nationality, and aiming at universal dominion. Some Christians were arrested, confessed their faith, and were "convicted not so much," says Tacitus, "of the crime of incendiarism as of hating the human race." Their Jewish origin, their indifference to politics and public affairs, their abhorrence of heathen customs, were construed into an "odium generis humani," and this made an attempt on their part to destroy the city sufficiently plausible to justify a verdict of guilty. An infuriated mob does not stop to reason, and is as apt to run mad as an individual.

Under this wanton charge of incendiarism, backed by the equally groundless charge of misanthropy and unnatural vice, there began a carnival of blood such as even heathen Rome never saw before or since.(10) It was the answer of the powers of hell to the mighty preaching of the two chief apostles, which had shaken heathenism to its centre. A "vast multitude" of Christians was put to death in the most shocking manner. Some were crucified, probably in mockery of the punishment of Christ,(11) some sewed up in the skins of wild beasts and exposed to the voracity of mad dogs in the arena. The satanic tragedy reached its climax at night in the imperial gardens on the slope of the Vatican (which embraced, it is supposed, the present site of the place and church of St. Peter): Christian men and women, covered with pitch or oil or resin, and nailed to posts of pine, were lighted and burned as torches for the amusement of the mob; while Nero, in fantastical dress, figured in a horse race, and displayed his art as charioteer. Burning alive was the ordinary punishment of incendiaries; but only the cruel ingenuity of this imperial monster, under the inspiration of the devil, could invent such a horrible system of illumination.

This is the account of the greatest heathen historian, the fullest we have—as the best description of the destruction of Jerusalem is from the pen of the learned Jewish historian. Thus enemies bear witness to the truth of Christianity. Tacitus incidentally mentions in this connection the crucifixion of Christ under Pontius Pilate, in the reign of Tiberius. With all his haughty Roman contempt for the Christians whom he knew only from rumor and reading, he was convinced of their innocence of incendiarism, and notwithstanding his cold stoicism, he could not suppress a feeling of pity for them because they were sacrificed not to the public good, but to the ferocity of a wicked tyrant.

Some historians have doubted, not indeed the truth of this terrible persecution, but that the Christians, rather than the Jews, or the Christians alone, were the sufferers. It seems difficult to understand that the harmless and peaceful Christians, whom the contemporary writers, Seneca, Pliny, Lucan, Persius, ignore, while they notice the Jews, should so soon have become the subjects of popular indignation. It is supposed that Tacitus and Suetonius, writing some fifty years after the event, confounded the Christians with the Jews, who were generally obnoxious to the Romans, and justified the suspicion of incendiarism by the escape of their transtiberine quarter from the injury of the fire.(12)

But the atrocious act was too public to leave room for such a mistake. Both Tacitus and Suetonius distinguish the two sects, although they knew very little of either; and the former expressly derives the name Christians from Christ, as the founder of the new religion. Moreover Nero, as previously remarked, was not averse to the Jews, and his second wife, Poppaea Sabina, a year before the conflagration, had shown special favor to Josephus, and loaded him with presents. Josephus speaks of the crimes of Nero, but says not a word of any persecution of his fellow-religionists.(13) This alone seems to be conclusive. It is not unlikely that in this (as in all previous persecutions, and often afterwards) the fanatical Jews, enraged by the rapid progress of Christianity, and anxious to avert suspicion from themselves, stirred up the people against the hated Galilaeans, and that the heathen Romans fell with double fury on these supposed half Jews, disowned by their own strange brethren.(14)

The Probable Extent of the Persecution.

The heathen historians, if we are to judge from their silence, seem to confine the persecution to the city of Rome, but later Christian writers extend it to the provinces.(15) The example set by the emperor in the capital could hardly be without influence in the provinces, and would justify the outbreak of popular hatred. If the Apocalypse was written under Nero, or shortly after his death, John’s exile to Patmos must be connected with this persecution. It mentions imprisonments in Smyrna, the martyrdom of Antipas in Pergamus, and speaks of the murder of prophets and saints and all that have been slain on the earth.(16) The Epistle to the Hebrews 10:32–34, which was written in Italy, probably in the year 64, likewise alludes to bloody persecutions, and to the release of Timothy from prison, 13:23. And Peter, in his first Epistle, which may be assigned to the same year, immediately after the outbreak of the persecution, and shortly before his death, warns the Christians in Asia Minor of a fiery trial which is to try them, and of sufferings already endured or to be endured, not for any crime, but for the name of "Christians."(17) The name "Babylon"(18) for Rome is most easily explained by the time and circumstances of composition.

Christianity, which had just reached the age of its founder, seemed annihilated in Rome. With Peter and Paul the first generation of Christians was buried. Darkness must have overshadowed the trembling disciples, and a despondency seized them almost as deep as on the evening of the crucifixion, thirty-four years before. But the morning of the resurrection was not far distant, and the very spot of the martyrdom of St. Peter was to become the site of the greatest church in Christendom and the palatial residence of his reputed successors.(19)

The Apocalypse on the Neronian Persecution.

None of the leading apostles remained to record the horrible massacre, except John. He may have heard of it in Ephesus, or he may have accompanied Peter to Rome and escaped a fearful death in the Neronian gardens, if we are to credit the ancient tradition of his miraculous preservation from being burnt alive with his fellow-Christians in that hellish illumination on the Vatican hill.(20) At all events he was himself a victim of persecution for the name of Jesus, and depicted its horrors, as an exile on the lonely island of Patmos in the vision of the Apocalypse.

This mysterious book—whether written between 68 and 69, or under Domitian in 95—was undoubtedly intended for the church of that age as well as for future ages, and must have been sufficiently adapted to the actual condition and surroundings of its first readers to give them substantial aid and comfort in their fiery trials. Owing to the nearness of events alluded to, they must have understood it even better, for practical purposes, than readers of later generations. John looks, indeed, forward to the final consummation, but he sees the end in the beginning. He takes his standpoint on the historic foundation of the old Roman empire in which he lived, as the visions of the prophets of Israel took their departure from the kingdom of David or the age of the Babylonian captivity. He describes the heathen Rome of his day as "the beast that ascended out of the abyss," as "a beast coming out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads" (or kings, emperors), as "the great harlot that sitteth among many waters," as a "woman sitting upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns," as "Babylon the great, the mother of the harlots and of the abominations of the earth."(21) The seer must have in view the Neronian persecution, the most cruel that ever occurred, when he calls the woman seated on seven hills, "drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus,"(22) and prophesied her downfall as a matter of rejoicing for the "saints and apostles and prophets."(23)

Recent commentators discover even a direct allusion to Nero, as expressing in Hebrew letters (Neron Kesar) the mysterious number 666, and as being the fifth of the seven heads of the beast which was slaughtered, but would return again from the abyss as Antichrist. But this interpretation is uncertain, and in no case can we attribute to John the belief that Nero would literally rise from the dead as Antichrist. He meant only that Nero, the persecutor of the Christian church, was (like Antiochus Epiphanes) the forerunner of Antichrist, who would be inspired by the same bloody spirit from the infernal world. In a similar sense Rome was a second Babylon, and John the Baptist another Elijah.

Notes.

I. The Accounts of the Neronian Persecution.

1. From heathen historians.

We have chiefly two accounts of the first imperial persecution, from Tacitus, who was born about eight years before the event, and probably survived Trajan (d. 117), and from Suetonius, who wrote his XII. Caesares a little later, about a.d. 120. Dion Cassius (born circa a.d. 155), in his History of Rome ( JRwmaikh; jIstoriva , preserved in fragments, and in the abridgment of the monk Xiphilinus), from the arrival of Aeneas to a.d. 229, mentions the conflagration of Rome, but ignores the persecutions of the Christians.

The description of Tacitus is in his terse, pregnant, and graphic style, and beyond suspicion of interpolation, but has some obscurities. We give it in full, from Annal., XV. 44

"But not all the relief of men, nor the bounties of the emperor, nor the propitiation of the gods, could relieve him [Nero] from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the conflagration. Therefore, in order to suppress the rumor, Nero falsely charged with the guilt, and punished with the most exquisite tortures, those persons who, hated for their crimes, were commonly called Christians (subdidit reos, et quaesitissimis poenis affecit, quos per flagitia invisos vulgus ’Christianos’ appellabat). The founder of that name, Christus, had been put to death (supplicio affectus erat) by the procurator of Judaea, Pontius Pilate, in the reign of Tiberius; but the pernicious superstition (exitiabilis superstitio), repressed for a time,(24) broke out again, not only through Judaea, the source of this evil, but also through the city [of Rome], whither all things vile and shameful flow from all quarters, and are encouraged (quo cuncta undique atrocia aut pudenda confluunt celebranturque). Accordingly, first, those only were arrested who confessed.(25) Next, on their information, a vast multitude (multitudo ingens), were convicted, not so much of the crime of incendiarism as of hatred of the human race (odio humani generis).(26) And in their deaths they were made the subjects of sport; for they were wrapped in the hides of wild beasts and torn to pieces by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set on fire, and when day declined, were burned to serve for nocturnal lights (in usum nocturni luminis urerentur). Nero had offered his own gardens [on the Vatican] for this spectacle, and also exhibited a chariot race on the occasion, now mingling in the crowd in the dress of a charioteer, now actually holding the reins. Whence a feeling of compassion arose towards the sufferers, though justly held to be odious, because they seemed not to be cut off for the public good, but as victims to the ferocity of one man."

The account of Suetonius, Nero, c. 16, is very short and unsatisfactory: "Afflicti suppliciis Christiani, genus hominum superstitionis novae ac maleficaea." He does not connect the persecution with the conflagration, but with police regulations.

Juvenal, the satirical poet, alludes, probably as an eye-witness, to the persecution, like Tacitus, with mingled feelings of contempt and pity for the Christian sufferers (Sat. I. 155):

"Dar’st thou speak of Tigellinus’ guilt?

Thou too shalt shine like those we saw

Stand at the stake with throat transfixed

Smoking and burning."

2. From Christians.

Clement of Rome, near the close of the first century, must refer to the Neronian persecution when he writes of the "vast multitude of the elect "who suffered, many indignities and tortures, being the victims of jealousy; "and of Christian women who were made to personate "Danaides" and "Dirces," Ad Corinth., c. 6. I have made no use of this passage in the text. Renan amplifies and weaves it into his graphic description of the persecution (L’Antechrist, pp. 163 sqq., almost literally repeated in his Hibbert Lectures). According to the legend, Dirce was bound to a raging bull and dragged to death. The scene is represented in the famous marble group in the museum at Naples. But the Danaides can furnish no suitable parallel to Christian martyrs, unless, as Renan suggests, Nero had the sufferings of the Tartarus represented. Lightfoot, following the bold emendation of Wordsworth (on Theocritus, XXVI. 1), rejects the reading Danai>vde" kai; Divrkai (which is retained in all editions, including that of Gebhardt and Harnack), and substitutes for it neanivde", paidivskai, so that Clement would say:, Matrons (gunai'ke") maidens, slave-girls, being persecuted, after suffering cruel and unholy insults, safely reached the goal in the race of faith, and received a noble reward, feeble though they were in body."

Tertullian (d. about 220) thus alludes to the Neronian persecution, Ad Nationes, I. ch. 7: "This name of ours took its rise in the reign of Augustus; under Tiberius it was taught with all clearness and publicity; under Nero it was ruthlessly condemned (sub Nerone damnatio invaluit), and you may weigh its worth and character even from the person of its persecutor. If that prince was a pious man, then the Christians are impious; if he was just, if he was pure, then the Christians are unjust and impure; if he was not a public enemy, we are enemies of our country: what sort of men we are, our persecutor himself shows, since he of course punished what produced hostility to himself. Now, although every other institution which existed under Nero has been destroyed, yet this of ours has firmly remained—righteous, it would seem, as being unlike the author [of its persecution]."

Sulpicius Severus, Chron. II. 28, 29, gives a pretty full account, but mostly from Tacitus. He and Orosius (Hist. VII. 7) first clearly assert that Nero extended the persecution to the provinces.

2. Nero’s Return as Antichrist.

Nero, owing to his youth, beauty, dash, and prodigality, and the startling novelty of his wickedness (Tacitus calls him "incredibilium cupitor," Ann. XV. 42), enjoyed a certain popularity with the vulgar democracy of Rome. Hence, after his suicide, a rumor spread among the heathen that he was not actually dead, but had fled to the Parthians, and would return to Rome with an army and destroy the city. Three impostors under his name used this belief and found support during the reigns of Otho, Titus, and Domitian. Even thirty years later Domitian trembled at the name of Nero. Tacit., Hist. I. 2; II. 8, 9; Sueton., Ner. 57; Dio Cassius, LXIV. 9; Schiller, l.c., p. 288.

Among the Christians the rumor assumed a form hostile to Nero. Lactantius (De Mort. Persecut., c. 2) mentions the Sibylline saying that, as Nero was the first persecutor, he would also be the last, and precede the advent of Antichrist. Augustin (De Civil. Dei, XX. 19) mentions that at his time two opinions were still current in the church about Nero: some supposed that he would rise from the dead as Antichrist, others that he was not dead, but concealed, and would live until he should be revealed and restored to his kingdom. The former is the Christian, the latter the heathen belief. Augustin rejects both. Sulpicius Severus (Chron., II. 29) also mentions the belief (unde creditur) that Nero, whose deadly wound was healed, would return at the end of the world to work out "the mystery of lawlessness" predicted by Paul (2 Thess. 2:7).

Some commentators make the Apocalypse responsible for this absurd rumor and false belief, while others hold that the writer shared it with his heathen contemporaries. The passages adduced are Apoc. 17:8: "The beast was, and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss and to go into perdition" ... "the beast was, and is not, and shall be present" (kai; pavrestai, not kaivper ejstivn, "and yet is," as the E. V. reads with the text. ec.); 17:11: "And the beast that was, and is not, is himself also an eighth, and is of the seven; and he goeth into perdition;" and 13:3: "And I saw one of his heads as though it had been smitten unto death; and his death-stroke was healed: and the whole world wondered after the beast."

But this is said of the beast, i.e., the Roman empire, which is throughout clearly distinguished from the seven heads, i.e., the emperors. In Daniel, too, the beast is collective. Moreover, a distinction must be made between the death of one ruler (Nero) and the deadly wound which thereby was inflicted on the beast or the empire, but from which it recovered (under Vespasian).

§ 38. The Jewish War and the Destruction of Jerusalem. a.d. 70.

"And as He went forth out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto Him, Master, behold, what manner of stones and what manner of buildings! And Jesus said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? There shall not be left here one stone upon another, which shall not be thrown down."—Mark 13:1,2.

Sources.

Josephus: Bell. Jud., in 7 books; and Vita, c. 4–74. The history of the Jewish war was written by him as eye-witness about a.d. 75. English translations by W. Whiston, in Works of Jos., and by Rob. Traill, ed. by Isaac Taylor, new ed., Lond., 1862. German translations by Gfrsörer and W. Hoffmann, Stuttgart, 1836; and Paret, Stuttg., 1855; French translations by Arnauld d’andilly, 1667, Joachim Gillet, 1756, and Abbé Glaire, 1846.

Rabbinical traditions in Derenbourg: Histoire de la Palestine depuis Cyrus jusqu’à Adrien. Paris, 1867 (first part of his L’Histoire et la géographie de la Palestine d’après les Thalmuds et les autres sources rabbiniques), pp. 255–295.

Tacitus: Hist., II. 4; V. 1–13. A mere fragment, full of errors and insults towards the vanquished Jews. The fifth book, except this fragment, is lost. While Josephus, the Jew, is filled with admiration for the power and greatness of Rome, Tacitus, the heathen, treats Jews and Christians with scorn and contempt, and prefers to derive his information from hostile Egyptians and popular prejudice rather than from the Scriptures, and Philo, and Josephus.

Sulpicius Severus: Chronicon, II. 30 (p. 84, ed. Halm). Short.

Literature.

Milman: The History of the Jews, Books XIV.-XVII. (New York ed., vol. II., 219 sqq.).

Ewald: Geschichte des Folkes Israel, VI. 705–753 (second ed.).

Grätz: Geschichte der Juden, III. 336–414.

Hitzig: Geschichte des Volkes Israel, II. 594–629.

Lewin: The Siege of Jerusalem by Titus. With the Journal of a recent Visit in the Holy City, and a general Sketch of the Topography of Jerusalem from the Earliest Times down to the Siege. London, 1863.

Count de Champagny: Rome et la Judie au temps de la chute de Néron (ans 66–72 après Jésus-Christ), 2. éd., Paris, 1865. T. I., pp. 195–254; T. II., pp. 55–200.

Charles Merivale: History of the Romans under the Empire, ch. LIX. (vol. VI., 415 sqq., 4th ed., New York, 1866).

De Saulcy: Les derniers jours de Jérusalem. Paris, 1866.

E. Renan: L’Antechrist (ch. X.-XX., pp. 226–551). Paris, second ed., 1873.

Emil Schürer: Lehrbuch der neutestamentlichen Zeitgeschichte (Leipzig, 1874), pp. 323–350. He also gives the literature.

A. Hausrath: Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, Part III., second ed., Heidelberg, 1875, pp. 424 487.

Alfred J. Church: The Story of the Last Days of Jerusalem, from Josephus. With illustrations. London, 1880.

There is scarcely another period in history so full of vice, corruption, and disaster as the six years between the Neronian persecution and the destruction of Jerusalem. The prophetic description of the last days by our Lord began to be fulfilled before the generation to which he spoke had passed away, and the day of judgment seemed to be close at hand. So the Christians believed and had good reason to believe. Even to earnest heathen minds that period looked as dark as midnight. We have elsewhere quoted Seneca’s picture of the frightful moral depravity and decay under the reign of Nero, his pupil and murderer. Tacitus begins his history of Rome after the death of Nero with these words: "I proceed to a work rich in disasters, full of atrocious battles, of discord and rebellion, yea, horrible even in peace. Four princes [Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Domitian] killed by the sword; three civil wars, several foreign wars; and mostly raging at the same time. Favorable events in the East [the subjugation of the Jews], unfortunate ones in the West. Illyria disturbed, Gaul uneasy; Britain conquered and soon relinquished; the nations of Sarmatia and Suevia rising against us; the Parthians excited by the deception of a pseudo-Nero. Italy also weighed down by Dew or oft-repeated calamities; cities swallowed up or buried in ruins; Rome laid waste by conflagrations, the old temples burned up, even the capitol set on fire by citizens; sanctuaries desecrated; adultery rampant in high places. The sea filled with exiles; the rocky islands contaminated with murder. Still more horrible the fury in the city. Nobility, riches, places of honor, whether declined or occupied, counted as crimes, and virtue sure of destruction.(27)

The Approaching Doom.

The most unfortunate country in that period was Palestine, where an ancient and venerable nation brought upon itself unspeakable suffering and destruction. The tragedy of Jerusalem prefigures in miniature the final judgment, and in this light it is represented in the eschatological discourses of Christ, who foresaw the end from the beginning.

The forbearance of God with his covenant people, who had crucified their own Saviour, reached at last its limit. As many as could be saved in the usual way, were rescued. The mass of the people had obstinately set themselves against all improvement. James the Just, the man who was fitted, if any could be, to reconcile the Jews to the Christian religion, had been stoned by his hardened brethren, for whom he daily interceded in the temple; and with him the Christian community in Jerusalem had lost its importance for that city. The hour of the "great tribulation" and fearful judgment drew near. The prophecy of the Lord approached its literal fulfilment: Jerusalem was razed to the ground, the temple burned, and not one stone was left upon another.(28)

Not long before the outbreak of the Jewish war, seven years before the siege of Jerusalem (a.d. 63), a peasant by the name of Joshua, or Jesus, appeared in the city at the Feast of Tabernacles, and in a tone of prophetic ecstasy cried day and night on the street among the people:, A voice from the morning, a voice from the evening! A voice from the four winds! A voice of rain against Jerusalem and the Temple! A voice against the bridegrooms and the brides! A voice against the whole people! Woe, woe to Jerusalem! "The magistrates, terrified by this woe, had the prophet of evil taken up and scourged. He offered no resistance, and continued to cry his "Woe." Being brought before the procurator, Albinus, he was scourged till his bones could be seen, but interposed not a word for himself; uttered no curse on his enemies; simply exclaimed at every blow in a mournful tone: "Woe, woe to Jerusalem!" To the governor’s question, who and whence he was, He answered nothing. Finally they let him go, as a madman. But he continued for seven years and five months, till the outbreak of the war, especially at the three great feasts, to proclaim the approaching fall of Jerusalem. During the siege he was singing his dirge, for the last time, from the wall. Suddenly he added: "Woe, woe also to me!"—and a stone of the Romans hurled at his head put an end to his prophetic lamentation.(29)

The Jewish Rebellion.

Under the last governors, Felix, Festus, Albinus, and Florus, moral corruption and the dissolution of all social ties, but at the same time the oppressiveness of the Roman yoke, increased every year. After the accession of Felix, assassins, called "Sicarians" (from sica, a dagger), armed with daggers and purchasable for any crime, endangering safety in city and country, roamed over Palestine. Besides this, the party spirit among the Jews themselves, and their hatred of their heathen oppressors, rose to the most insolent political and religious fanaticism, and was continually inflamed by false prophets and Messiahs, one of whom, for example, according to Josephus, drew after him thirty thousand men. Thus came to pass what our Lord had predicted: "There shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall lead many astray."

At last, in the month of May, a.d. 66, under the last procurator, Gessius Florus (from 65 onward), a wicked and cruel tyrant who, as Josephus says, was placed as a hangman over evil-doers, an organized rebellion broke out against the Romans, but it the same time a terrible civil war also between different parties of the revolters themselves, especially between the Zealots, and the Moderates, or the Radicals and Conservatives. The ferocious party of the Zealots had all the fire and energy which religious and patriotic fanaticism could inspire; they have been justly compared with the Montagnards of the French Revolution. They gained the ascendancy in the progress of the war, took forcible possession of the city and the temple and introduced a reign of terror. They kept up the Messianic expectations of the people and hailed every step towards destruction as a step towards deliverance. Reports of comets, meteors, and all sorts of fearful omens and prodigies were interpreted as signs of the common of the Messiah and his reign over the heathen. The Romans recognized the Messiah in Vespasian and Titus.

To defy Rome in that age, without a single ally, was to defy the world in arms; but religious fanaticism, inspired by the recollection of the heroic achievements of the Maccabees, blinded the Jews against the inevitable failure of this mad and desperate revolt.

The Roman Invasion.

The emperor Nero, informed of the rebellion, sent his most famous general, Vespasian, with a large force to Palestine Vespasian opened the campaign in the year 67 from the Syrian port-town, Ptolemais (Acco), and against a stout resistance overran Galilee with an army of sixty thousand men. But events in Rome hindered him from completing the victory, and required him to return thither. Nero had killed himself. The emperors, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius followed one another in rapid succession. The latter was taken out of a dog’s kennel in Rome while drunk, dragged through the streets, and shamefully put to death. Vespasian, in the year 69, was universally proclaimed emperor, and restored order and prosperity.

His son, Titus, who himself ten years after became emperor, and highly distinguished himself by his mildness and philanthropy,(30) then undertook the prosecution of the Jewish war, and became the instrument in the hand of God of destroying the holy city and the temple. He had an army of not less than eighty thousand trained soldiers, and planted his camp on Mount Scopus and the adjoining Mount Olivet, in full view of the city and the temple, which from this height show to the best advantage. The valley of the Kedron divided the besiegers from the besieged.

In April, a.d. 70, immediately after the Passover, when Jerusalem was filled with strangers, the siege began. The zealots rejected, with sneering defiance, the repeated proposals of Titus and the prayers of Josephus, who accompanied him as interpreter and mediator; and they struck down every one who spoke of surrender. They made sorties down the valley of the Kedron and tip the mountain, and inflicted great loss oil the Romans. As the difficulties multiplied their courage increased. The crucifixion of hundreds of prisoners (as many as five hundred a day) only enraged them the more. Even the famine which began to rage and sweep away thousands daily, and forced a woman to roast her own child,(31) the cries of mothers and babes, the most pitiable scenes of misery around them, could not move the crazy fanatics. History records no other instance of such obstinate resistance, such desperate bravery and contempt of death. The Jews fought, not only for civil liberty, life, and their native land, but for that which constituted their national pride and glory, and gave their whole history its significance—for their religion, which, even in this state of horrible degeneracy, infused into them an almost superhuman power of endurance.

The Destruction of the City and the Temple.

At last, in July, the castle of Antonia was surprised and taken by night. This prepared the way for the destruction of the Temple in which the tragedy culminated. The daily sacrifices ceased July 17th, because the hands were all needed for defence. The last and the bloodiest sacrifice at the altar of burnt offerings was the slaughter of thousands of Jews who had crowded around it.

Titus (according to Josephus) intended at first to save that magnificent work of architecture, as a trophy of victory, and perhaps from some superstitious fear; and when the flames threatened to reach the Holy of Holies he forced his way through flame and smoke, over the dead and dying, to arrest the fire.(32) But the destruction was determined by a higher decree. His own soldiers, roused to madness by the stubborn resistance, and greedy of the golden treasures, could not be restrained from the work of destruction. At first the halls around the temple were set on fire. Then a firebrand was hurled through the golden gate. When the flames arose the Jews raised a hideous yell and tried to put out the fire; while others, clinging with a last convulsive grasp to their Messianic hopes, rested in the declaration of a false prophet, that God in the midst of the conflagration of the Temple would give a signal for the deliverance of his people. The legions vied with each other in feeding the flames, and made the unhappy people feel the full force of their unchained rage. Soon the whole prodigious structure was in a blaze and illuminated the skies. It was burned on the tenth of August, a.d. 70, the same day of the year on which, according to tradition, the first temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. "No one," says Josephus, "can conceive a louder, more terrible shriek than arose from all sides during the burning of the temple. The shout of victory and the jubilee of the legions sounded through the wailings of the people, now surrounded with fire and sword, upon the mountain, and throughout the city. The echo from all the mountains around, even to Peraea (?), increased the deafening roar. Yet the misery itself was more terrible than this disorder. The hill on which the temple stood was seething hot, and seemed enveloped to its base in one sheet of flame. The blood was larger in quantity than the fire, and those that were slain more in number than those that slew them. The ground was nowhere visible. All was covered with corpses; over these heaps the soldiers pursued the fugitives."(33)

The Romans planted their eagles on the shapeless ruins, over against the eastern gate, offered their sacrifices to them, and proclaimed Titus Imperator with the greatest acclamations of joy. Thus was fulfilled the prophecy concerning the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place."(34)

Jerusalem was razed to the ground; only three towers of the palace of Herod—Hippicus (still standing), Phasael, and Mariamne—together with a portion of the western wall, were left as monuments of the strength of the conquered city, once the centre of the Jewish theocracy and the cradle of the Christian Church.

Even the heathen Titus is reported to have publicly declared that God, by a special providence, aided the Romans and drove the Jews from their impregnable strongholds.(35) Josephus, who went through the war himself from beginning to end, at first as governor of Galilee and general of the Jewish army, then as a prisoner of Vespasian, finally as a companion of Titus and mediator between the Romans and Jews, recognized in this tragical event a divine judgment and admitted of his degenerate countrymen, to whom he was otherwise sincerely attached: "I will not hesitate to say what gives me pain: I believe that, had the Romans delayed their punishment of these villains, the city would have been swallowed up by the earth, or overwhelmed with a flood, or, like Sodom, consumed with fire from heaven. For the generation which was in it was far more ungodly than the men on whom these punishments had in former times fallen. By their madness the whole nation came to be ruined."(36)

Thus, therefore, must one of the best Roman emperors execute the long threatened judgment of God, and the most learned Jew of his time describe it, and thereby, without willing or knowing it, bear testimony to the truth of the prophecy and the divinity of the mission of Jesus Christ, the rejection of whom brought all this and the subsequent misfortune upon the apostate race.

The destruction of Jerusalem would be a worthy theme for the genius of a Christian Homer. It has been called "the most soul-stirring struggle of all ancient history."(37) But there was no Jeremiah to sing the funeral dirge of the city of David and Solomon. The Apocalypse was already written, and had predicted that the heathen "shall tread the holy city under foot forty and two months."(38) One of the master artists of modern times, Kaulbach, has made it the subject of one of his greatest paintings in the museum at Berlin. It represents the burning temple: in the foreground, the high-priest burying his sword in his breast; around him, the scenes of heart-rending suffering; above, the ancient prophets beholding the fulfilment of their oracles; beneath them, Titus with the Roman army as the unconscious executor of the Divine wrath; below, to the left, Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew of the mediaeval legend, driven by furies into the undying future; and to the right the group of Christians departing in peace from the scene of destruction, and Jewish children imploring their protection.

The Fate of the Survivors, and the Triumph in Rome.

After a siege of five months the entire city was in the hands of the victors. The number of the Jews slain during the siege, including all those who had crowded into the city from the country, is stated by Josephus at the enormous and probably exaggerated figure of one million and one hundred thousand. Eleven thousand perished from starvation shortly after the close of the siege. Ninety-seven thousand were carried captive and sold into slavery, or sent to the mines, or sacrificed in the gladiatorial shows at Caesarea, Berytus, Antioch, and other cities. The strongest and handsomest men were selected for the triumphal procession in Rome, among them the chief defenders and leaders of the revolt, Simon Bar-Giora and John of Gischala.(39)

Vespasian and Titus celebrated the dearly bought victory together (71). No expense was spared for the pageant. Crowned with laurel, and clothed in purple garments, the two conquerors rode slowly in separate chariots, Domitian on a splendid charger, to the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, amid the shouts of the people and the aristocracy. They were preceded by the soldiers in festive attire and seven hundred Jewish captives. The images of the gods, and the sacred furniture of the temple—the table of show-bread, the seven-armed candlestick, the trumpets which announced the year of jubilee, the vessel of incense, and the rolls of the Law—were borne along in the procession and deposited in the newly built Temple of Peace,(40) except the Law and the purple veils of the holy place, which Vespasian reserved for his palace. Simon Bar-Giora was thrown down from the Tarpeian Rock; John of Gischala doomed to perpetual imprisonment. Coins were cast with the legend Judaea capta, Judaea devicta. But neither Vespasian nor Titus assumed the victorious epithet Judaeus; they despised a people which had lost its fatherland.

Josephus saw the pompous spectacle of the humiliation and wholesale crucifixion of his nation, and described it without a tear.(41) The thoughtful Christian, looking at the representation of the temple furniture borne by captive Jews on the triumphal arch of Titus, still standing between the Colosseum and the Forum, is filled with awe at the fulfilment of divine prophecy.

The conquest of Palestine involved the destruction of the Jewish commonwealth. Vespasian retained the land as his private property or distributed it among his veterans. The people were by the five years’ war reduced to extreme poverty, and left without a magistrate (in the Jewish sense), without a temple, without a country. The renewal of the revolt under the false Messiah, Bar-Cocheba, led only to a still more complete destruction of Jerusalem and devastation of Palestine by the army of Hadrian (132–135). But the Jews still had the law and the prophets and the sacred traditions, to which they cling to this day with indestructible tenacity and with the hope of a great future. Scattered over the earth, at home everywhere and nowhere; refusing to mingle their blood with any other race, dwelling in distinct communities, marked as a peculiar people in every feature of the countenance, in every rite of religion; patient, sober, and industrious; successful in every enterprise, prosperous in spite of oppression, ridiculed yet feared, robbed yet wealthy, massacred yet springing up again, they have outlived the persecution of centuries and are likely to continue to live to the end of time: the object of the mingled contempt, admiration, and wonder of the world.

§ 39. Effects of the Destruction of Jerusalem on the Christian Church.

The Christians of Jerusalem, remembering the Lord’s admonition, forsook the doomed city in good time and fled to the town of Pella in the Decapolis, beyond the Jordan, in the north of Peraea, where king Herod Agrippa II., before whom Paul once stood, opened to them a safe asylum. An old tradition says that a divine voice or angel revealed to their leaders the duty of flight.(42) There, in the midst of a population chiefly Gentile, the church of the circumcision was reconstructed. Unfortunately, its history is hidden from us. But it never recovered its former importance. When Jerusalem was rebuilt as a Christian city, its bishop was raised to the dignity of one of the four patriarchs of the East, but it was a patriarchate of honor, not of power, and sank to a mere shadow after the Mohammedan invasion.

The awful catastrophe of the destruction of the Jewish theocracy must have produced the profoundest sensation among the Christians, of which we now, in the absence of all particular information respecting it, can hardly form a true conception.(43) It was the greatest calamity of Judaism and a great benefit to Christianity; a refutation of the one, a vindication and emancipation of the other. It not only gave a mighty impulse to faith, but at the same time formed a proper epoch in the history of the relation between the two religious bodies. It separated them forever. It is true the apostle Paul had before now inwardly completed this separation by the Christian universality of his whole system of doctrine; but outwardly he had in various ways accommodated himself to Judaism, and had more than once religiously visited tile temple. He wished not to appear as a revolutionist, nor to anticipate the natural course of history, tile ways of Providence.(44) But now the rupture was also outwardly consummated by the thunderbolt of divine omnipotence. God himself destroyed the house, in which he had thus far dwelt, in which Jesus had taught, in which the apostles had prayed; he rejected his peculiar people for their obstinate rejection of the Messiah; he demolished the whole fabric of the Mosaic theocracy, whose system of worship was, in its very nature, associated exclusively with the tabernacle at first and afterwards with the temple; but in so doing he cut the cords which had hitherto bound, and according to the law of organic development necessarily bound the infant church to the outward economy of the old covenant, and to Jerusalem as its centre. Henceforth the heathen could no longer look upon Christianity as a mere sect of Judaism, but must regard and treat it as a new, peculiar religion. The destruction of Jerusalem, therefore, marks that momentous crisis at which the Christian church as a whole burst forth forever from the chrysalis of Judaism, awoke to a sense of its maturity, and in government and worship at once took its independent stand before the world.(45)

This breaking away from hardened Judaism and its religious forms, however, involved no departure from the spirit of the Old Testament revelation. The church, on the contrary, entered into the inheritance of Israel. The Christians appeared as genuine Jews, as spiritual children of Abraham, who, following the inward current of the Mosaic religion, had found Him, who was the fulfilment of the law and the prophets; the perfect fruit of the old covenant and the living germ of the new; the beginning and the principle of a new moral creation.

It now only remained to complete the consolidation of the church in this altered state of things; to combine the premises in their results; to take up the conservative tendency of Peter and the progressive tendency of Paul, as embodied respectively in the Jewish-Christian and the Gentile-Christian churches, and to fuse them into a third and higher tendency in a permanent organism; to set forth alike the unity of the two Testaments in diversity, and their diversity in unity; and in this way to wind up the history of the apostolic church.

This was the work of John, the apostle of completion.

Original Footnotes

(1; original 514): Lange on Romans, p. 29 (Am. ed.): "As the light and darkness of Judaism was centralized in Jerusalem, the theocratic city of God (the holy city, the murderer of the prophets), so was heathen Rome, the humanitarian metropolis of the world, the centre of all the elements of light and darkness prevalent in the heathen world; and so did Christian Rome become the centre of all the elements of vital light, and of all the antichristian darkness in the Christian church. Hence Rome, like Jerusalem, not only possesses a unique historical significance, but is a universal picture operative through all ages. Christian Rome, especially, stands forth as a shining light of the nations, which is turned into an idol of magical strength to those who are subject to its rule."

(2; original 515): In 2 Thess. 2:6, 7, to; katevcon is the Roman empire, oJ katevcwn the emperor as its representative. This is the patristic interpretation to which some of the beat modern commentators have returned. Mediaeval sects and many Protestant writers found the great apostacy in the Papacy and the restraining power in the German empire; while papal commentators took revenge by fastening the charge of apostacy on the Reformation which was restrained by the Papacy. I believe in a repeated and growing fulfilment of this and other prophecies on the historic basis of the apostolic age and the old Roman empire.

(3; original 516): It is so represented in the Apocalypse 13 –18 after the Neronian persecution.

(4; original 517): Comp. Renan’s portraiture of Nero, l.c. ch. I. He thinks that there is no parallel to this monster, and calls him un esprit prodigieusement déclamatoire, une mauvaise nature, hypocrite, légère, vaniteuse; un composé incroyable d’intelligence fausse, de méchanceté profonde, d’égoïsme atroce et sournois, avee des raffinements inouïs de subtilité."See also the description of Merivale, ch. LV. (vol. VI. 245 sqq.).

(5; original 518): Tacitus (Ann. XV. 41) gives the date quarto decimo [ante] Kalendas Sextiles ... quo et Senones captam urbem inflammaverant. Friedländer, I. 6, wrongly makes it the 17^th July. The coincidence with the day when the Gauls had set fire to Rome (July 19, A. U. 364, or 453 years before), was considered a bad omen. It was in the tenth year of Nero’s reign, ie., a.d. 64. See Clinton, Fasti Romani, I. Oxon. 1845, pp. 45, 46; Friedländer, l.c. I. 6; Schiller, l.c. pp. 173 sq.; Merivale, VI. 131, note. Eusebius, in his Chronicle, erroneously puts the fire in the year 66.

(6; original 519): For a description of the Circus Maximus see Friedländer, III. 293 sqq. The amphitheatrical rows of seats were eight stadia long, with accommodation for 150,000 persons. After Nero’s reconstruction the seats amounted to 250,000 under Vespasianum, and subsequent additions raised the number, in the fourth century to 385,000. It was surrounded by wooden buildings for shopkeepers (among whom were many Jews), astrologers, caterers, prostitutes, and all sorts of amusements. Nero was most extravagant in his expenditure for the circus and the theatre to gratify the people’s passion for Panem et Circenses, to use Juvenal’s words.

(7; original 520): "Per sex dies septemque noctes," Sueton. Nero, 38 sex dies,"Tacit. Ann. XV. 4

(8; original 521): The nine days’ duration is proved by an inscription (Gruter, 61. 3). The great fire in London in 1666 lasted only four days and swept an area of 436 acres. Comp. Lambert’s Hist. of London,II. 91, quoted by Merivale. The fire in Chicago lasted only thirty-six hours, October 8 and 9, 1871, but swept over nearly three and one-third square miles (2,114 square acres), and destroyed 17,450 buildings, the homes of 98,500 people.

(9; original 522): Tacitus XV. 39: "Pervaserat rumor ipso tempore flagrantis urbis inisse eum domesticam scenam et cecinisse Troianum excedium." Sueton. c. 38: "Quasi offensus deformitate veterum aedificiorum et angustiis flexurisque vicorum [Nero]incendit Urbem ... Hoc incendium e turre Maecenatiana prospectans, laetusque ’flammae,’ut ajebat, ’pulchritudine,’a{lwsin Ilii in illo suo scaenico habitu decantavit."Robbers and ruffians were seen to thrust blazing brands into the buildings, and, when seized, they affirmed that they acted under higher orders. The elder Pliny, Xiphilinus, and the author of the tragedy, Octavia, likewise charge Nero with incendiarism. But Schiller, l.c. 425 sqq., labors to relieve him of it.

(10; original 523): We do not know the precise date of the massacre. Mosheim fixes it on November, Renan on August, a.d. 64. Several weeks or months at all events must have passed after the fire. If the traditional date of Peter’s crucifixion be correct there would be an interval of nearly a year between the conflagration, July 19, 64, and his martyrdom, June 29th.

(11; original 524): "Crucibus affixi,"says Tacitus. This would well apply to Peter, to whom our Lord had prophesied such a death, John 21:18, 19. Tertullian says:"Romae Petrus passioni Dominicae adaequatur"(De Praescript. Haeret., c. 36; comp. Adv. Marc., IV. 5; Scorpiace, 15). According to a later tradition he was, at his own request, crucified with his head downwards, deeming himself unworthy to be crucified as was his Lord. This is first mentioned in the Acta Pauli, c. 81, by Origen (in Euseb. H. E., III. 1) and more clearly by Jerome (Catal. 1); but is doubtful, although such cruelties were occasionally practised (see Josephus, Bell. Jud., V. 11, 1). Tradition mentions also the martyrdom of Peter’s wife, who was cheered by the apostle on her way to the place of execution and exhorted to remember the Lord on the cross (mevmnhso tou' Kurivou). Clement of Alexandria, Strom. VII. 11, quoted by Eusebius, H. E., III. 30. The orderly execution of Paul by the sword indicates a regular legal process before, or more probably at least a year after, the Neronian persecution in which his Roman citizenship would scarcely have been respected. See p. 326.

(12; original 525): So Gibbon (ch. XVI.), more recently Merivale, l.c. ch. 54 (vol. VI. 220, 4th ed.), and Schiller, l.c., pp. 434, 585, followed by Hausrath and Stahr. Merivale and Schiller assume that the persecution was aimed at the Jews and Christians indiscriminately. Guizot, Milman, Neander, Gieseler, Renan, Lightfoot, Wieseler, and Keim defend or assume the accuracy of Tacitus and Suetonius.

(13; original 526): Ant. XX. 8, 2, 3.

(14; original 527): So Ewald. VI. 627, and Renan, L’Antechist, pp. 159 sqq. Renan ingeniously conjectures that the "jealousy" to which Clement of Rome (Ad Cor. 6) traces the persecution, refers to the divisions among the Jews about the Christian religion.

(15; original 528): Orosius (about 400), Hist., VII. 7: "Primus Romae Christianos suppliciis et mortibus adferit [Nero],ac per omnes provincias pari persecutione excruciari imperavit."So also Sulpicius Severus, Chron. II. 29. Dodwell (Dissert. Cypr. XI., De Paucitate martyrum, Gibbon, Milman, Merivale, and Schiller (p. 438) deny, but Ewald (VI. 627, and in his Com. on the Apoc.)and Renan (p. 183) very decidedly affirm the extension of the persecution beyond Rome. "L’atrocité commandée par Néron,"says Renan, "dut avor des contre-coups dans les provinces et y exciter une recrudescence de persécution." C. L. Roth (Werke des Tacitus, VI. 117) and Wieseler (Christenverfolgungen der Cäsaren, p. 11) assume that Nero condemned and prohibited Christianity as dangerous to the state. Kiessling and De Rossi have found in an inscription at Pompeii traces of a bloody persecution; but the reading is dispated, see Schiller, p. 438, Friedländer III. 529, and Renan, p. 184.

(16; original 529): Apoc. 2:9, 10, 13; 16:6; 17:6; 18:24.

(17; original 530): 1 Pet. 2:12, 19, 20; 3:14-18; 4:12-19.

(18; original 531): At the close, 1 Pet. 5:13. not on page 384

(19; original 532): "Those who survey," says Gibbon (ch. XVI.)."with a curious eye the revolutions of mankind, may observe that the gardens and circus of Nero on the Vatican, which were polluted with the blood of the first Christians, have been rendered still more famous by the triumph and by the abuse of the persecuted religion. On the same spot, a temple, which far surpasses the ancient glories of the capital, has been since erected by the Christian pontiffs, who, deriving their claim of universal dominion from a humble fisherman of Galilee, have succeeded to the throne of the Caesars, given laws to the barbarian conquerors of Rome, and extended their spiritual jurisdiction from the coast of the Baltic to the shores of the Pacific Ocean." Comp. Renan, L’Antechr. p. 177: "L’orgie de Néron fut le grand baptême de sanq qui désiqna Rome, comme la ville des martyrs, pour jouer un rôle à part dans l’histoire du christianisme, et en étre la seconde ville sainte. Ce fut la prise de possession de la colline Vatcane par ces triomphateurs d’un genre inconnu jusque-là ... Rome, rendue responsable de tout le sang versé, devint comme Babylone une sorte de ville sacramentelle et symbolique."

(20; original 533): Tertullian mentions it in connection with the crucifixion of Peter and the decapitation of Paul as apparently occurring at the same time; De Praescript. Haer., c.36: "Ista quam felix ecclesia (the church of Rome) cui totam doctrinam apostoli sanguine suo profuderunt, ubi Petrus passioni Dominicae adaequatur, ubi Paulus Joannis exitu coronatur, ubi Apostolus Joannes, posteaquam in oleum igneum demersus nihil passus est, in insulam relegatur." Comp. Jerome, Adv. Jovin., 1, 26, and in Matt. 22: 23; and Euseb., H. E., VI. 5. Renan (p. 196) conjectures that John was destined to shine in the illumination of the Neronian gardens, and was actually steeped in oil for the purpose, but saved by an accident or caprice. Thiersch (Die Kirche im Apost. Zeitalter, p. 227, third edition, 1879) likewise accepts the tradition of Tertullian, but assumes a miraculous deliverance.

(21; original 534): Rev. 11:7; 13:1; 17:1, 3, 5. Comp. Daniel’s description of the fourth (Roman) beast, "dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly," with "ten horns," Dan. 7:7 sqq.

(22; original 535): Rev. 17:6.

(23; original 536): Rev. 18:2. Comp. also Rev. 6:9-11.

(24; original 537): This refers either to the crucifixion, or more probably to the edict of Claudius, who banished the Jews and Jewish Christians from Rome. See above, p. 363.

(25; original 538): Confessed what? Probably the Christian religion, which was already regarded as a sort of crime. If they confessed to be guilty of incendiarism, they must have been either weak neophytes who could not stand the pain of the torture, or hired scoundrels.

(26; original 539): This is to be understood in the active sense of the reputed enmity to mankind, with which Tacitus charges the Jews also in almost the same terms ("Adversus omnes alios hostile odium," Hist. V. 5). But Thiersch and others explain it of the hatred of mankind towards the Christians (comp. Matt. 10:22, "Ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake").

(27; original 540): Hist. I. c. 2.

(28; original 541): Matt. 24:1,2; Mark 13:1; Luke 19:43, 44; 21:6.

(29; original 542): Jos, B. Jud., VI. 5, 3 sqq

(30; original 543): The people called him Amor et Deliciae generis humani. He was born December 30, a.d. 40, and died September 13, 81. He ascended the throne 79, in the year when the towns of Herculaneum, Stabiae, and Pompeii were destroyed. His reign was marked by a series of terrible calamities, among which was a conflagration in Rome which lasted three days, and. a plague which destroyed thousands of victims daily. He made earnest efforts to repair the injuries, and used to say, when a day passed without an act of philanthropy, "Amici, diem perdidi." See Suetonius, Titus.

(31; original 544): Josephus, VI. 3, 4, gives a full account of this horrible and most unnatural incident.

(32; original 545): Josephus is, however, not quite consistent; he says first that Titus, perceiving that his endeavors to spare a foreign temple turned to the damage of his soldiers, commanded the gates to be set on fire (VI. 4, 1); and then, that on the next day he gave orders to extinguish it (§ 3, 6, and 37). Sulpicius Severus (II. 30) makes Titus responsible for the destruction, who thought that it would make an end both to the Jewish and the Christian religion. This is defended by Stange, De Titi imperatoris vita, P. I., 1870, pp. 39-43, but doubted by Schürer, l.c. p. 346. Renan (511 sqq.), following Bernays, Ueber die Chronik des Sulpicius Sev., 1861, p. 48, believes that Sulpicius drew his account from the lost portion of the Histories of Tacitus, and that Titus neither ordered nor forbade the burning of the Temple, but left it to its fate, with a prudent reservation of his motives. So also Thiersch, p. 224.

(33; original 546): B. J., VI. 5, 1.

(34; original 547): Daniel, 9:27; Matt. 24:15; comp. Luke 21:20; Josephus, B. Jud., VI.

(35; original 548): B. Jud., VI. 9, 1. Titus is said to have approved such passages (Jos. Vita, 65).

(36; original 549): B. Jud., V. 13, 6.

(37; original 550): Merivale, l.c., p. 445.

(38; original 551): Apoc. 11:2; comp. Luke, 21:24. In Dan. 7:25; 9:27; 12:7, the duration of the oppression of the Jewish people is given as seven half-years (= 42 months).

(39; original 552): B Jud. VI. 9, 2-4. Milman (II. 388) sums up the scattered statements of Josephus, and makes out the total number of killed, from the beginning to the close of the war, to be 1,356,460, and the total number of prisoners 101,700.

(40; original 553): The Temple of Peace was afterwards burned under Commodus, and it is not known what became of the sacred furniture.

(41; original 554): B. Jud., VII. 5, 5-7. Josephus was richly rewarded for his treachery. Vespasian gave him a house in Rome, an annual pension, the Roman citizenship, and large possessions in Judaea. Titus and Domitian continued the favors. But his countrymen embittered his life and cursed his memory. Jost and other Jewish historians speak of him with great contempt. King Agrippa, the last of the Idumaean sovereigns, lived and died an humble and contented vassal of Rome, in the third year of Trajan, a.d. 100. His licentious sister, Berenice, narrowly escaped the fate of a second Cleopatra. The conquering Titus was conquered by her sensual charms, and desired to raise her to the imperial throne, but the public dissatisfaction forced him to dismiss her, "invitus invitam." Suet., Tit. 7. Comp. Schürer, l. c. 321, 322.

(42; original 555): In Eusebius, H. E., III. 5: katav tina crhsmo;n toi'" aujtovqi dokivmoi" dij ajpokaluvyew" ejkdoqevnta. Comp. Epiphanius, De pond. et meis. c. 15, and the warring of Christ, Matt. 24:15 sq. Eusebius puts the, flight to Pella before the war (pro; tou' polevmou), four years before the destruction of Jerusalem.

(43; original 556): It is alluded to in the Ep. of Barnabas, cap. 16.

(44; original 557): Comp. 1 Cor. 7:18 sqq.; Acts 21:26 sqq.

(45; original 558): Dr. Richard Rothe (Die Anfänge der Christl. Kirche, p. 341 sqq.). Thiersch (p. 225), Ewald (VII. 26), Renan (L’Antechr., p. 545), and Lightfoot (Gal., p. 301) ascribe the same significance to the destruction of Jerusalem. Ewald says: "As by one great irrevocable stroke the Christian congregation was separated from the Jewish, to which it had heretofore clung as a new, vigorous offshoot to the root of the old tree and as the daughter to the mother." He also quotes the newly discovered letter of Serapion, written about 75, as showing the effect which the destruction of Jerusalem exerted on thoughtful minds. See above, p. 171.

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