FOOTNOTES:
[60] I have elsewhere pointed out how fearfully mistaken is such a belief. Granting, for the argument’s sake, that the Jews who crucified our Lord are to be regarded as His enemies, and, as such, just objects of our abhorrence, their genuine descendants, those who should inherit that abhorrence, are not their children according to the flesh, but they (St. John viii. 41, 44) who imitate their deeds. These are their genuine children. These ‘crucify the Son of God afresh.’ If we must abhor any as the enemies of Christ, let us abhor these.
[61] Ambrose, Epist. xxix.
[62] A similar case occurred at Antioch, under Theodosius II. (A.D. 423), where the clergy were ordered to make restitution to the Jews, whose synagogue they had gutted and plundered. The celebrated Simeon Stylites interfered on this occasion, and succeeded, as Ambrose had done, in annulling the Imperial order.
[63] Cod. Theod. viii. 16.
[64] It is not improbable that the tradition of this occurrence gave rise to the charge so often made, and which seems so inexplicable, against the Jews in after ages, of crucifying boys in mockery of the Saviour’s passion, though no evidence of such an act was ever produced.
[65] The historian Socrates is persuaded that the impostor was a demon, who assumed human shape to beguile the Jews. But seeing that the cheat resulted in a numerous conversion to the Christian faith, it is strange that he should have entertained such a notion.
[66] Hypatia was a young lady of Alexandria, professing heathenism, and of rare accomplishments, great beauty, and unspotted character. Cyril is said to have been jealous of her influence in the city; and, in the hope of pleasing him by the deed, the fierce Christian mob tore her from her chariot, and cut her to pieces with oyster shells. This barbarous and revolting murder is the worst deed of those cruel and lawless times.
CHAPTER VIII.
A.D. 429-622.
HONORIUS TO HERACLIUS.—JEWISH SLAVE-HOLDERS.—JUSTINIAN.—CHOSROES.
The great change in the condition of Europe, the first symptoms of which had appeared a generation or two previously to this era, now began to make itself everywhere felt. The irruption of the barbarian tribes of the North, which resembled at first the few drops of an approaching shower, became, as the century advanced, the heavy downpour of the storm itself. Every year witnessed their further advance into Europe, in vast and irresistible hordes, disorganizing, and, in some instances, wholly changing the face of society. There were new rulers in the seats of Government, new languages spoken in the streets of cities. The armies carried strange standards, and wielded weapons hitherto unknown in European warfare. Even at the plough and by the cottage fireside, there were forms and faces of a type hitherto unknown. In many places the ancient inhabitants had been driven into exile; in many more, they had been put to the sword; in many more, they cowered out of the sight of their new masters. There must have been terrible and protracted suffering among high and low alike.