Plutarch[[25]] also relates, that in his time some of the Egyptians who worshipped a dog, eat one of the fishes, which others of the Egyptians adored as their deity; and that upon this, the fish eaters laid hold on the other’s dogs, and sacrificed and eat them; and that this gave occasion to a bloody battle, in which a great number were destroyed on both sides.
SECT. IV.
Persecutions by Antiochus Epiphanes[Epiphanes].
Antiochus Epiphanes, though a very wicked prince, yet was a great zealot for his religion, and endeavoured to propagate it by all the methods of the most bloody persecution. Josephus[[26]] tells us, that after he had taken Jerusalem, and plundered the temple, he caused an altar to be built in it, upon which he sacrificed swine, which were an abomination to the Jews, and forbidden by their laws. Not content with this, he compelled them to forsake the worship of the true God, and to worship such as he accounted deities; building altars and temples to them in all the towns and streets, and offering swine upon them every day. He commanded them to forbear circumcising their children, grievously threatening such as should disobey his orders. He also appointed overseers, or bishops, to compel the Jews to come in, and do as he had ordered them. Such as rejected it, were continually persecuted, and put to death, with the most grievous tortures. He ordered them to be cruelly scourged, and their bodies to be tore, and, before they expired under their tortures, to be crucified. The women, and the children which they circumcised, were, by his command, hanged; the children hanging from the necks of their crucified parents. Wherever he found any of the sacred books, or of the law, he destroyed them, undoubtedly to prevent the propagation of heretical opinions, and punished with death such as kept them. The same author tells us also, in his History of the Maccabees, that Antiochus put forth an edict, whereby he made it death for any to observe the Jewish religion, and compelled them, by tortures, to abjure it. The inhuman barbarities he exercised upon Eleazar and the Maccabees, because they would not renounce their religion, and sacrifice to his Grecian gods, are not, in some circumstances, to be paralleled by any histories of persecution extant; and will ever render the name and memory of that illustrious tyrant execrable and infamous. It was on the same religious account that he banished the philosophers[[27]] from all parts of his kingdom; the charge against them being, “their corrupting the youth,” i. e. teaching them notions of the gods, different from the common orthodox opinions which were established by law; and commanded Phanias, that such youths as conversed with them should be hanged.
SECT. V.
Persecutions under the Romans.
The very civil constitution of Rome was founded upon persecuting principles. [[B]]Tertullian[[28]] tells us, “that it was an ancient decree that no emperor should consecrate a new god, unless he was approved by the senate;” and one of the standing laws of the republic was to this effect, as Cicero[[29]] gives it: “that no one should have separately new gods, no nor worship privately foreign gods, unless admitted by the commonwealth.” This law he endeavours to vindicate by reason and the light of nature, by adding,[[30]] “that for persons to worship their own, or new, or foreign gods, would be to introduce confusion and strange ceremonies in religion.” So true a friend was this eminent Roman, and great master of reason, to uniformity of worship; and so little did he see the equity, and indeed necessity of an universal toleration in matters of religion. Upon this principle, after he had reasoned well against the false notions of God that had obtained amongst his countrymen, and the public superstitions of religion, he concludes with what was enough to destroy the force of all his arguments:[[31]] “It is the part of a wise man to defend the customs of his ancestors, by retaining their sacred rites and ceremonies.” Thus narrow was the foundation of the Roman religion, and thus inconsistent the sentiments of the wisest heathens with all the principles of toleration and universal liberty.
And agreeable to this settlement they constantly acted. A remarkable instance of which we have in Livy, the Roman historian; he tells us,[[32]] “that such a foreign religion spread itself over the city, that either men or the gods seemed entirely changed; that the Roman rites were not only forsaken in private, and within the houses, but that even publicly, in the forum and capitol, great numbers of women flocked together, who neither sacrificed nor prayed to the gods, according to the manner of their ancestors.—This first excited the private indignation of good men, till at length it reached the fathers, and became a public complaint. The senate greatly blamed the Ædiles and capital Triumvirs, that they did not prohibit them; and when they endeavoured to drive away the multitude from the forum, and to throw down the things they had provided for performing their sacred rites, they were like to be torn in pieces. And when the evil grew too great to be cured by inferior magistrates, the senate ordered M. Atilius, the prætor of the city, to prevent the people’s using these religions.” He accordingly published this decree of the senate, that “whoever had any fortune-telling books, or prayers, or ceremonies about sacrifices written down, they should bring all such books and writings to him, before the calends of April; and that no one should use any new or foreign rite of sacrificing in any public or sacred place.”
Mecenas,[[33]] in his Advice to Augustus, says to him: “Perform divine worship in all things exactly according to the custom of your ancestors, and compel others to do so also; and as to those who make any innovations in religion, hate and punish them; and that not only for the sake of the gods, but because those who introduce new deities, excite others to make changes in civil affairs. Hence conspiracies, seditions, and riots, things very dangerous to government.” Accordingly Suetonius, in his life of this prince,[[34]] gives him this character: “that though he religiously observed the ancient prescribed ceremonies, yet he contemned all other foreign ones; and commended Caius, for that passing by Judea, he would not pay his devotions at Jerusalem.” He also, as the same author tells us,[[35]] made a law, very much resembling our test act, by which he commanded, “that before any of the senators should take their places in council, they should offer frankincense and wine upon the altar of that god in whose temple they met.” It was no wonder therefore that Christianity, which was so perfectly contrary to the whole system of pagan theology, should be looked upon with an evil eye; or that when the number of Christians increased, they should incur the displeasure of the civil magistrate, and the censure of the penal laws that were in force against them.
The first public persecution of them by the Romans was begun by that monster of mankind, Nero; who to clear himself of the charge of burning Rome, endeavoured to fix the crime on the Christians; and having thus falsely and tyrannically made them guilty, he put them to death by various methods of exquisite cruelty. But though this was the pretence for this barbarity towards them, yet it evidently appears from undoubted testimonies, that they were before hated upon account of their religion, and were therefore fitter objects to fall a sacrifice to the resentment and fury of the tyrant. For [[C]]Tacitus tells us,[[36]] “that they were hated for their crimes.” And what these were, he elsewhere sufficiently informs us, by calling their religion “an execrable superstition.” In like manner Suetonius, in his life of Nero, speaking of the Christians, says, “they were a set of men who had embraced a new and accursed superstition.” And ïtherefore Tacitus farther informs us,[[37]] that those who confessed themselves Christians, “were condemned, not so much for the crime of burning the city, as for their being hated by all mankind.” So that it is evident from these accounts, that it was through popular hatred of them for their religion, that they were thus sacrificed to the malice and fury of Nero. Many of them he dressed up in the skins of wild beasts, that they might be devoured by dogs. Others he crucified. Some he cloathed in garments of pitch and burnt them, that by their flames he might supply the absence of the day-light.