The
reader will bear in mind that this passage was written about seventy
years after Christ's death, and that it relates to transactions which
took place about thirty years after that event--Speaking of the fire
which happened at Rome in the time of Nero, and of the suspicions which
were entertained that the emperor himself was concerned in causing it,
the historian proceeds in his narrative and observations thus:--
"But neither these exertions, nor his largesses to the people, nor his
offerings to the gods, did away the infamous imputation under which Nero
lay, of having ordered the city to be set on fire. To put an end,
therefore, to this report, he laid the guilt, and inflicted the most
cruel punishments, upon a set of people, who were holden in abhorrence
for their crimes, and called by the vulgar, Christians. The founder of
that name was Christ, who suffered death in the reign of Tiberius, under
his procurator, Pontius Pilate--This pernicious superstition, thus
checked for a while, broke out again; and spread not only over Judea,
where the evil originated, but through Rome also, whither everything bad
upon the earth finds its way and is practised.
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