Christianity, which came from Nazareth, was really an offshoot of the sect of the Essenes, and inherited the aversion of that sect for the Pharisaic laws by which the life of the people was regulated. This aversion rose to hatred in the followers, stimulated by grief at the death of their founder. Pontius Pilate had greatly contributed to increasing of the enmity of the Christians against their own flesh and blood. He it was who added mockery and scorn to the punishment of death; he had bound their Messiah to the cross like the most abject slave, and in derision of his assumed royalty had placed the crown of thorns on his head. The picture of Jesus nailed to the cross, crowned with thorns, the blood streaming from his wounds, was ever present to his followers, filling their hearts with bitter thoughts of revenge. Instead of turning their wrath against cruel Rome, they made the representatives of the Judæan people, and by degrees the whole nation, responsible for inhuman deeds. They either intentionally deceived themselves, or in time really forgot that Pilate was the murderer of their master, and placed the crime upon the heads of all the children of Israel. At about this period the anger of Pilate was kindled against a Samaritan self-styled Messiah or prophet, who called his believers together in a village, promising to show them on Mount Gerizim the holy vessels used in the time of Moses. The Governor, who looked with suspicion upon every gathering of the people, and regarded every exciting incident as fraught with possible rebellion against the Roman Empire, led his troops against the Samaritans, and ordered the ringleaders, who had been caught in their flight, to be cruelly executed. Judæans and Samaritans jointly denounced his barbarity to Vitellius, the Governor of Syria, and Pilate was summoned to Rome to justify himself. The degree of favor shown to the Judæans by Tiberius after the fall of Sejanus, explains the otherwise surprising leniency evinced towards the Judæan nation at that time. The Judæans had found an advocate at court in Antonia, the sister-in-law of Tiberius. The latter, who was the friend of a patriotic prince of the house of Herod, had revealed to Tiberius the plot framed against him by Sejanus, and in grateful recognition Tiberius repealed the act of outlawry against the Judæans. Vitellius, the Governor of Syria, was graciously inclined towards the Judæans, and not only inquired into their complaints, but befriended them in every way, showing a degree of indulgence and forbearance most unusual in a Roman, in those subjects on which they were peculiarly sensitive. When, on the occasion of the Feast of Passover, Vitellius repaired to Jerusalem in order to make himself acquainted with all that was going on there, he sought to lighten as much as possible the Roman yoke. He remitted the tax on the fruits of the market, and as the capital was mainly dependent upon that