es, but
because they were, as they had always notoriously been, a dangerous
political influence interfering with the proper carrying out of the
Roman government.

And when we come to Christianity it must be remarked that, so long as
that nascent religion was regarded as merely a variety of Judaism, it
was actually protected by the Roman power, and owes no little of its
original progress to the fact. In the Acts of the Apostles it is
always from the Roman governor that St. Paul receives, not only the
fairest, but the most courteous treatment. It is the Jews who
persecute him and work up difficulties against him, because to them he
is a renegade and is weaning away their people. To the philosophers at
Athens he appears as the preacher of a new philosophy, and they think
him a "smatterer" in such subjects. To the Roman he is a man charged
by a certain community with being dangerous to social order, to wit,
causing factious disturbances and profaning the temple; and since he
refuses to let the local authorities judge his case, and has exercised
his citizen privilege by appealing to Caesar, to Caesar he is sent.
And, when a prisoner in somewhat free custody at Rome, note that he is
permitted to speak "with all freedom," and that in the first instance
he is acquitted.

True, but the fact remains that Nero burnt Christians in his gardens
after the great fire of Rome, and that certain later emperors are
found punishing Christians merely for avowing themselves such. Why was
Christianity thus singled out? It was not through what can be
reasonably called "religious intolerance," for, as has been said, the
Romans did not seek to force Roman religion on other peoples nor did
they make any inquisition into the beliefs of Romans themselves. The
reasons for singling out Christianity for special treatment are
obvious enough. The question is not whether the reasons were sound,
whether the Romans properly understood or tried to understand, whether
they could be as wise before the event as we are after it, but whether
the motive was what we should call a "religious" one. To allow
Epicureans to deny the existence of gods at all, and to make scornful
concessions to the peculiar tenets of Jews, could not be the action of
a people which was bigoted. If there was bigotry and intolerance, it
was political or social bigotry and intolerance, not religious. To
prevent any possible misconception let the present writer say here
that he considers t