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The Senate , moved with indignation that it had not been ; as usual , proposed to them ^ to determine respect * mg the reception of hid religion , rejected hid deification , and decreed by an edict that the Christians should be
banished from the city , especially as SejartUs , the minister of Tiberius , obstinately resisted the reception of his faith . " Orosius , Kb . yii . c . 4 . The fact here recorded has been rejected hy most learned men as utterly mferedible , for is it to be believed that Tiberius could be induced to think that
man to be a god , whom his viceroy in a remote province had crucified as a malefactor ? Or , if he heard any thing of the fame and character oi Jesus , is it credible that , selfish ,
slothful and negligent as that emperor was of the affairs even of the empire , he should yet interest himself in the case of an obscure Jew , and that Jew executed for treason against himself , so far out of the common course of
things as to propose his deification , and thus to place him in the same rank with the tutelar divinities of Rome ? On the contrary , it may be asked , is it at all credible that Tertullian who flourished so , near the time , and who withal was very learned , would have dared to hazard such an
assertion , if it were not founded in truth ? Is it within the compass of moral possibility , that a respectable writer , engaged in hostility with men of rank , talents and learning in the state , should virtually appeal to the archives of the empire for the truth of an incident which he knew did not
exist there , and which he knew tdo , his enemies oiv inquiry would not fail to negative , and thus overwhelm him and his cause and his brethren throughout the world , with the fabrication of
a palpable falsehood ? Amidst these improbabilities , this curious and important question has been left by learned men undecided ; and if no new light could have been thrown upon it , in this undecided state it must for
ever have remained . But , fortunately for the interest of truth , Philo , Josephus , Plutarch , not to mention Tacitus and Suetonius , by a new and additional evidence , enable us to decide the question . The most improbable port of t * he stt * rjr is , that < Tiberius , from being an enemy , should have become a friend to Christ , and thus
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publish an edict in Rome and in the provinces to protect the Christians , that is , the Jews who believed in Jesus ( for the Christian name was not yet in existence ) : and yet Philo * who flourished at the time , not only bears his testimony to this edict , but quotes the substance of it to the
following e # ect : " All nations , though prejudiced against the Jews , have been careful not to abolish the Jewish rites : and the same caution was preserved in the reign of Tiberius ; though , indeed , in Italy the Jews had been * distressed by the machinations of Sejanus . For after his death , the emperor became sensible that the accusations
alleged against the Jews in Italy were calumnies , the inventions of Sejanus , who was eager to devour a nation , who he knew opposed his impious designs . And to the constituted authorities in every place * Tiberius sent orders not to molest in their several
cities the men of that nation , excepting the guilty only , ( who were few , ) and not to suppress any of their institutions , but to regard as a trust committed to their care , both the people themselves as disposed to peace , and their laws which , like oil , brace them
with firmness and magnanimity . ' * Philo , Vol . II . p . 569 . Josephus ' saccount of this transaction is as follows : " A Jew resided at Rome , who was in every way wicked , and who , having been accused of transgressing the laws , fled from his country to
avoid the punishment which threatened him . During his residence in Rome , he pretended to unfold the wisdom of the law of Moses , in conjunction with three other men , who in every respect resembled himself . With these men associated Fulvia , a
lady of rank , who had become a convert to the Jewish religion , and whom they prevailed upon to send , for the Temple at Jerusalem , presents o £ purple and gold . Having received these , they appropriated them to their own use ; which , indeed , was their
motive at first in making the request . Tiberius ( being informed of this by Saturninus , who was- his friend , and the husband of Fulvia , } commanded the Jews to be expelled from . the city . The young men , to the amount of 4000 , were' foircckl to enKsjfc , by a de- * cree of the Senate , and sent to the island of Sardinia . But most of
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dictated hy Heathenism , in order to aectottnifor his Miracles . 35
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1823, page 35, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1780/page/35/
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