justice, have attributed to a sect whose odious memory was almost extinguished! 4. Whatever opinion may be entertained of this conjecture, (for it is no more than a conjecture,) it is evident that the effect, as well as the cause, of Nero’s persecution, was confined to the walls of Rome, 43 that the religious tenets of the Galilæans or Christians, 431 were never made a subject of punishment, or even of inquiry; and that, as the idea of their sufferings was for a long time connected with the idea of cruelty and injustice, the moderation of succeeding princes inclined them to spare a sect, oppressed by a tyrant, whose rage had been usually directed against virtue and innocence. 35 (return) [ Sueton. in Nerone, c. 16. The epithet of _malefica_, which some sagacious commentators have translated magical, is considered by the more rational Mosheim as only synonymous to the _exitiabilis_ of Tacitus.] 36 (return) [ The passage concerning Jesus Christ, which was inserted into the text of Josephus, between the time of Origen and that of Eusebius, may furnish an example of no vulgar forgery. The accomplishment of the prophecies, the virtues, miracles, and resurrection of Jesus, are distinctly related. Josephus acknowledges that he was the Messiah, and hesitates whether he should call him a man. If any doubt can still remain concerning this celebrated passage, the reader may examine the pointed objections of Le Fevre, (Havercamp. Joseph. tom. ii. p. 267-273), the labored answers of Daubuz, (p. 187-232, and the masterly reply (Bibliothèque Ancienne et Moderne, tom. vii. p. 237-288) of an anonymous critic, whom I believe to have been the learned Abbé de Longuerue. * Note: The modern editor of Eusebius, Heinichen, has adopted, and ably supported, a notion, which had before suggested itself to the editor, that this passage is not altogether a forgery, but interpolated with many additional clauses. Heinichen has endeavored to disengage the original text from the foreign and more recent matter.—M.] 37 (return) [ See the lives of Tacitus by Lipsius and the Abbé de la Bleterie, Dictionnaire de Bayle a l’article Particle Tacite, and Fabricius, Biblioth. Latin tem. Latin. tom. ii. p. 386, edit. Ernest. Ernst.] 38 (return) [ Principatum Divi Nervæ, et imperium Trajani, uberiorem, securioremque materiam senectuti seposui. Tacit. Hist. i.] 39 (return) [ See Tacit. Annal. ii. 61, iv. 4. * Note: The perusal of this passage of Tacitus alone is sufficient, as I have already said, to show that the Christian sect was not so obscure as not already to have been repressed, (repressa,) and that it did not pass for innocent in the eyes of the Romans.—G.]