9. What can you say of the charges of immorality as justifying Roman persecution? (Note 1). 10. What of the charge of treason? (Note 2). 11. What was the true cause of the persecution? 12. Who was the first emperor to enact laws against the Christians? 13. What was the character of Nero? (Note 3). 14. What was the incentive which prompted Nero to persecute the Christians? {113} 15. What was the duration and extent of the first Roman persecution? 16. Under whose reign did the second Roman persecution begin? 17. On what was the persecution based? {114} SECTION II. 1. Condition of the Church in the Second Century.--During the second century the church had many seasons of immunity from persecution. The Roman emperors for the most part were of a mild and equitable character, and at the beginning of the century there were no laws against the Christians, as those enacted both by Nero and Domitian had been repealed. The first by the senate, the second by his successor, Nerva.[15] Still it must not be supposed that the saints were free from persecution. Their troubles arose, however, rather from the tumults of the rabble at the instigation of the pagan priests than from any desire of the emperors to oppress them. 2. As the Christians had no temples, no altars, no clouds of incense, no smoking victims--in short, as they had none of the pomp and circumstance in their simple religion which attended pagan worship, they were open to the charge of atheism by the great body of the people of the Roman empire; and, in their judgment, deserved the severest tortures and death. If the empire had been afflicted by any recent calamity, [remarks Gibbon], by a plague, a famine, or an unsuccessful war; if the Tiber had, or if the Nile had not, risen above its banks; if the earth had shaken, or if the temperate order of the seasons had been interrupted, the superstitious pagans were convinced that the crimes and impurities of the Christians, who were spared by the excessive lenity of the government, had at length, provoked the divine justice.[16] And however virtuous the emperors were, however mild or equitable in character the governors of the provinces, it is certain {115} they did not hesitate to appease the rage of the people by sacrificing a few obnoxious victims.