The History of Christianity / Consisting of the Life and Teachings of Jesus of Nazareth; the Adventures of Paul and the Apostles; and the Most Interesting Events in the Progress of Christianity, from the Earliest Period to the Present Time.

by John S. C. Abbott

The cruelty of this idiotic monster was equal to his folly. Senators, untried, uncondemned, were wantonly murdered at his bidding. His victims were thrown into the dens of half-famished lions and tigers to be devoured alive. It was one of the entertainments of his meals to place persons upon the rack, that he might be amused by their shrieks, and entertained by their convulsions.

The guilty, cowardly wretch was ever trembling in every nerve in apprehension of assassination. Suspecting one of the most beautiful women of his court of being engaged in a conspiracy against him, he placed her upon the rack to enforce confession, and dislocated every joint in her body. Her shrieks and mutilation roused the courtiers to the energies of despair. Cherea, a Roman senator, approached the emperor, and, plunging a dagger into his heart, exclaimed, “Tyrant, think of this!”

Caligula fell dead. He was but twenty-nine years of age, and had reigned but four years. To such men, how awful the declaration of Christianity!—“All that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth,—they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.”

Anarchy succeeded. As some drunken Roman soldiers were rioting through the palace, they found a half-crazed old man named Claudius, an uncle of Caligula, hidden behind a pile of lumber in the garret. They seized him, and partly in jest, and partly in earnest, proclaimed him emperor. The army took up the joke, and ratified the choice. In solid phalanx, with banners, shoutings, and bugle-peals, they presented him to the trembling senate, and compelled his enthronement.

In Claudius, the worst of conceivable bad elements werecombined: he united the stupidity of the idiot with the ferocity of the demon. He commenced his reign about the forty-sixth year of the Christian era. Britain, then inhabited by barbaric tribes, invited invasion. Claudius sent an army to march through Gaul, and, crossing the channel, to plant the banners of the empire on those distant shores. Many and bloody were the battles; but the Roman legions were triumphant.

Claudius was so elated with the conquest, that he in person repaired to Britain to receive the homage of the savage inhabitants of the conquered isle. Still the conquest was very imperfect. But a few of the tribes had been vanquished. Large portions of the island still remained under the sway of their bold and indomitable chieftains. Thirty battles were subsequently fought, and several years of incessant conflict passed, before Britain was fairly reduced to the condition of a Roman province.

Messalina, the wife of Claudius, has attained the unenviable notoriety of having been the worst, the most shameless woman earth has ever known. The renown of her profligacy has survived the lapse of eighteen centuries. The story of her life can now never be told: modern civilization would not endure the recital. The ladies of her court were compelled, under penalty of torture and death, publicly to practise the same enormities in which she rioted. Her brutal husband was utterly regardless of the infamy of her life. At length, becoming weary of her, he connived with another for her assassination.

Claudius, having murdered Messalina, married Agrippina. She had already given birth to the monster Nero. For a short time, she ruled her imbecile husband with a rod of iron. Three wives had preceded her. One day, Claudius, in his cups, imprudently declared that it was his fate to be tormented with bad wives, and to be their executioner. Agrippina weighed the words. Claudius loved mushrooms. Agrippina prepared for him a delicious dish, sprinkled poison upon it, and with her own loving hands presented it to herspouse. She had the pleasure of seeing him fall and die in convulsions at her feet.

Such was life in the palaces of Rome at the time of the apostles. Such was the world that Jesus came to redeem. The question is sometimes asked, whether humanity is advancing or retrograding in moral character. No one familiar with the history of past ages will ask that question. Manifold as are the evils in many of the courts of Europe at the present time, most of them are as far in advance of ancient Rome, in all that constitutes integrity and virtue, as is the most refined Christian family in advance of the most godless and degraded.

Nero, a lad of seventeen, whom Claudius had adopted as his heir, succeeded to the throne. It is said, that, at the commencement of his reign, he gave indications of a humane spirit; but this period was so short as scarcely to deserve notice. The character and career of Nero were such, that, from that day to this, the ears of mankind have tingled with the recital of the outrages he inflicted upon humanity. The sceptre of the world was placed in the hands of this boy in the year of our Lord 54. The knowledge of the doctrines of Jesus had already reached Rome. Paul was there, though in chains, boldly preaching the religion of Jesus of Nazareth.