But a new element was introduced in the case of the Christians, which, except in the treatment of the Druidic brotherhoods among the Gauls, is unusual in Roman methods. It is scarcely possible to read the Apology of Tertullian without being convinced that the profession of Christianity was in and for itself an indictable offense at Roman law since the time of Nero, quite apart from the fantastic crimes of which the Christians were held to be guilty.[343] Tertullian undoubtedly had legal training, and his exposition of the logical absurdities into which the fact led Roman officials is convincing enough, but the fact remains. The _nomen Christianum_, “the profession of Christianity,” was considered a form of _maiestas_, “treason,” and punished capitally. In effect this was an attempt to stamp out a religion, just as Claudius had sought to stamp out the Druids (Suetonius, Claud. 25). (Comp. above, p. 142.) When Tertullian wrote, perhaps even in the time of Tacitus and Suetonius, the gulf between Jew and Christian was wide and impassable. It can hardly have been so in Nero’s time. The statement that Nero’s measures were instigated by Jews is a later invention for which there is simply no evidence whatever.[344] The fact that the _nomen Christianum_ was either actually considered treason or partook of the nature of treason, makes it probable that the Messianic idea, which was the very essence of the evangel, was the basis of the Roman statute. In Judea the special and drastic crushing of every “impostor” has been spoken of, and its significance indicated (above, p. 292). The preaching of Christianity in Rome itself could only have seemed to Nero, or his advisers, an attempt at propagating, under the guise of religion, what had long been considered in the East simple sedition. While therefore the spread of Judaism, Isis-worship, Mithraism, was offensive, and attempts were made to check it, the spread of Christianity was an increase in crime and was treated as such. Perhaps a partial analogy may be offered in the attitude of conservative Americans to doctrines they regard as mischievous, like Socialism, and to those which are directly criminal, like some forms of organized Anarchism. The elaborate scheme of salvation prepared by the Cilician Jew Paul[345] gradually gained almost general acceptance among Christians, although in the mother ecclesia at Jerusalem it found determined and obstinate resistance long after Paul’s death.[346] The fundamental doctrine, that the Law was not necessarily the way of salvation for any but born Jews, and even for them was of doubtful efficacy, was the direct negation of the Pharisaic doctrine that through the Law there was effected immediate communion of man with God in this world and the next.