"In the eleventh place, says a learned and judicious writer, 'It is probable that Pilate, who had no enmity toward Christ, and accounted him a man unjustly accused and an extraordinary person, might be moved by the wonderful circumstances attending and following his death, to hold him in veneration, and perhaps to think him a hero and the son of some deity. It is possible that he might send a narrative, such as he thought most convenient, of these transactions to Tiberius: but it is not at all likely that Tiberius proposed to the senate that Christ should be deified, and that the senate rejected it, and that Tiberius continued favorably disposed toward Christ, and that he threatened to punish those who should molest and accuse the Christians.' 'Observe also,' says the same learned writer, 'that the Jews persecuted the apostles, and slew Stephen, and that Saul made havoc of the church, entering into every house, and hailing men and women, committing them to prison, and that Pilate connived at all this violence, and was not afraid of the resentment of Tiberius on that account.' "Admitting the truth of all these particulars just mentioned, it does not follow that no orders were given by Tiberius for the protection of the followers of Jesus. "For no commands of princes are obeyed by all men everywhere. They are oftentimes transgressed. "Nor was any place more likely than Judea, where the enmity of many against the disciples of Jesus was so great. Nor need it be supposed that Tiberius was very intent to have this order strictly regarded. For he was upon many occasions very indolent and dilatory; and he was well known to be so. Moreover, the death of Stephen was tumultuous, and not an act of the Jewish council. And further, the influence of Pilate in that country was not now at its full height. We perceive from the history of our Lord's trial before him, as recorded in the gospels, that he stood in fear of the Jews. "He was apprehensive that, if he did not gratify them in that point, they might draw up a long list of maladministrations for the emperor's view. His condemnation of Jesus at the importunity of the Jews, contrary to his own judgment and inclination, declared to them more than once, was a point gained; and his government must have been ever after much weakened by so mean a condescension. And that Pilate's influence in the province continued to decline is manifest, in that the people of it prevailed at last to have him removed in a very ignominious manner by Vitellius, president of Syria. "Pilate was removed from his government before the Passover in the year of Christ 36. After which there was no procurator or other person with the power of life and death, in Judea, before the ascension of Herod Agrippa, in the year 41. "In that space of time the Jews would take an unusual license, and gratify their own malicious dispositions, beyond what they could otherwise have done, without control.