f humanity among those hundred stars in the
horizon of history which have made the history of the human family.

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN

The _prima-facie_ view of early Christianity, in the eyes of witnesses
external to it, is presented to us in the brief but vivid descriptions
given by Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, the only heathen writers who
distinctly mention it for the first hundred and fifty years.

Tacitus is led to speak of the religion, on occasion of the
conflagration of Rome, which was popularly imputed to Nero. "To put an
end to the report," he says, "he laid the guilt on others, and visited
them with the most exquisite punishment, those, namely, who, held in
abhorrence for their crimes (_per flagitia invisos_), were popularly
called Christians. The author of that profession (_nominis_) was Christ,
who, in the reign of Tiberius, was capitally punished by the procurator,
Pontius Pilate. The deadly superstition (_exitiabilis superstitio_),
though checked for a while, broke out afresh; and that, not only
throughout Judea, the original seat of the evil, but through the city
also, whither all things atrocious or shocking (_atrocia aut pudenda_)
flow together from every quarter and thrive. At first, certain were
seized who avowed it; then, on their report, a vast multitude were
convicted not so much of firing the city, as of hatred of mankind (_odio
humani generis_)." After describing their tortures, he continues: "In
consequence, though they were guilty, and deserved most signal
punishment, they began to be pitied, as if destroyed not for any public
object, but from the barbarity of one man."

Suetonius relates the same transactions thus: "Capital punishments were
inflicted on the Christians, a class of men of a new and magical
superstition (_superstitionis novae et maleficae_)." What gives additional
character to this statement is its context, for it occurs as one out of
various police or sanctuary or domestic regulations, which Nero made,
such as "controlling private expenses, forbidding taverns to serve meat,
repressing the contests of theatrical parties, and securing the
integrity of wills."

When Pliny was governor of Pontus, he wrote his celebrated letter to the
emperor Trajan, to ask advice how he was to deal with the Christians,
whom he found there in great numbers. One of his points of hesitation
was whether the very profession of Christianity was not by itself
sufficient to justify punishment; "wheth