The first public persecution of them by the Romans was begun by that monster of mankind, Nero; who to clear himself of the charge of burning Rome, endeavoured to fix the crime on the Christians; and having thus falsely and tyrannically made them guilty, he put them to death by various methods of exquisite cruelty. But though this was the pretence for this barbarity towards them, yet it evidently appears from undoubted testimonies, that they were before hated upon account of their religion, and were therefore fitter objects to fall a sacrifice to the resentment and fury of the tyrant. For [C]Tacitus tells us,[36] “that they were hated for their crimes.” And what these were, he elsewhere sufficiently informs us, by calling their religion “an execrable superstition.” In like manner Suetonius, in his life of Nero, speaking of the Christians, says, “they were a set of men who had embraced a new and accursed superstition.” And ïtherefore Tacitus farther informs us,[37] that those who confessed themselves Christians, “were condemned, not so much for the crime of burning the city, as for their being hated by all mankind.” So that it is evident from these accounts, that it was through popular hatred of them for their religion, that they were thus sacrificed to the malice and fury of Nero. Many of them he dressed up in the skins of wild beasts, that they might be devoured by dogs. Others he crucified. Some he cloathed in garments of pitch and burnt them, that by their flames he might supply the absence of the day-light. ----- Footnote C: See note [C] at the end of the volume. Footnote 36: Annal. l. 15. c. 44. Ibid. cap. 16. Footnote 37: Annal. l. 15. c. 44. -----