After the Jews had spent their utmost malice in persecuting the Christian messengers, first at Jerusalem, upon St. Stephen's death, and then throughout the empire, wherever the authority of the Sanhedrim could reach them, Nero, the last emperor of the family of Augustus, moved by Jewish instigation, turned upon Christians the accusation of burning Rome, and slew what the Roman historian calls a "huge multitude" of them, with torments so atrocious that pity for them began to arise even among those who hated them. Secondly, at the distance of another generation, Domitian slew his cousin, even while he held the consulate, and an unknown number of other Christians, on the imputed charge of impiety, that is, of deserting the heathen gods. Thirdly, twenty years later, in the time of Trajan, we learn, by his correspondence with Pliny, that the mere profession of the Christian faith was a capital crime; and the punishment of Ignatius, in the Roman amphitheatre, made his name famous to all future generations. We know not to how many in the reign of Trajan the profession of the Christian faith was the sacrifice of life. But the Bishop of Antioch, if the most illustrious, was far from the only victim. Fourthly, an abundance of martyrs in the reign of his successor, Hadrian, testifies the continuance and the exercise of this law proscribing the Christian profession. The noble Roman matron who witnessed the execution of her seven children is an instance how savage a man of letters and curious taste could be, when there was a question of Christian realities crossing his feelings as a heathen. Fifthly, the reign of Marcus Aurelius, noblest of heathen rulers, is conspicuous for the number of its martyrs, in Asia Minor and in Gaul, as well as at Rome; for the increasing number of the Christians had now brought the religion into general notice. It is of this time that Irenæus, an eye-witness, shortly himself to be one of those he commemorates, writes "that the Church in every place, on account of that love which she bears to God, sends forward a multitude of martyrs in every time to the Father; while all the rest (by which he means the various sects), not only are not able to show this thing among them, but do not even say that such a martyrdom is necessary.... For the reproach of those who suffer persecution for the sake of justice, and endure all penalties, and are done to death for their affection towards God and their confession of His Son, these the Church alone continuously maintains, often thereby weakened, and straightway increasing its members, and becoming entire again."[189] Of this time Eusebius writes, that by the attacks made in various cities through the enmity of the populace calling upon the magistrates to execute the laws, "martyrs almost numberless were conspicuous through the whole world."[190]