d despised, could have
been burned or tortured for the mere fact of being a Jew. We hear of no
Jewish martyrdoms or Jewish persecutions till we come to the times of
the Jewish War, and then chiefly in Palestine itself. It is clear that a
shedding of blood--in fact, some form or other of human sacrifice--was
imperatively demanded by popular feeling as an expiation of the ruinous
crime which had plunged so many thousands into the depths of misery. In
vain had the sibylline books been once more consulted, and in vain had
public prayer been offered, in accordance with their directions to
Vulcan and the goddesses of Earth and Hades. In vain had the Roman
matrons walked in procession in dark robes, and with their long hair
unbound, to propitiate the insulted majesty of Juno, and to sprinkle
with sea-water her ancient statue. In vain had largesses been lavished
upon the people, and propitiatory sacrifices offered to the gods. In
vain had public banquets been celebrated in honor of various deities. A
crime had been committed, and Romans had perished unavenged. Blood cried
for blood before the sullen suspicion against Nero could be averted or
the indignation of heaven appeased.

Nero had always hated, persecuted, and exiled the philosophers, and no
doubt, so far as he knew anything of the Christians--so far as he saw
among his own countless slaves any who had embraced this superstition,
which the _elite_ of Rome described as not only new, but "execrable" and
"malefic"--he would hate their gravity and purity, and feel for them
that raging envy which is the tribute that virtue receives from vice.
Moreover, St. Paul, in all probability, had recently stood before his
tribunal, and though he had been acquitted on the special charges of
turbulence and profanation, respecting which he had appealed to Caesar,
yet during the judicial inquiry Nero could hardly have failed to hear
from the emissaries of the Sanhedrim many fierce slanders of a sect
which was everywhere spoken against. The Jews were by far the deadliest
enemies of the Christians, and two persons of Jewish proclivities were
at this time in close proximity to the person of the Emperor. One was
the pantomimist Aliturus, the other was Poppaea, the harlot-empress.[31]
The Jews were in communication with these powerful favorites, and had
even promised Nero that if his enemies ever prevailed at Rome he should
have the kingdom of Jerusalem.[32]

It is not even impossible that there