Agrippa--one asks how the latter came by an ancient Roman name--were
treated with honour and esteem. The latter was in fact brought up with
Drusus, the son of the Emperor Tiberius, his son was on terms of the
greatest intimacy with Claudius, and his daughter or grand-daughter
Berenice was long and truly loved by Titus, who would have made her
Empress had it been possible, to the great scandal of the Emperor's many
detractors, as Suetonius has told. Sabina Poppaea, Nero's lowly and evil
second wife, loved madly one Aliturius, a Jewish comic actor and a
favourite of Nero; and when the younger Agrippa induced Nero to imprison
Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and Josephus came to Pozzuoli, having
suffered shipwreck like the latter, this same Josephus, the historian of
the Jews, got the actor's friendship and by his means moved Poppaea, and
through her, Nero, to a first liberation of those whom he describes as
'certain priests of my acquaintance, very excellent persons, whom on a
small and trifling charge Felix the procurator of Judaea had put in irons
and sent to Rome to plead their cause before Caesar.' It should not be
forgotten that Josephus was himself a pupil of Banus, who, though not a
Christian, is believed to have been a follower of John the Baptist. And
here Saint John Chrysostom, writing about the year 400, takes up the
story and tells how Saint Paul attempted to convert Poppaea and to
persuade her to leave Nero, since she had two other husbands living; and
how Nero turned upon him and accused him of many sins, and imprisoned
him, and when he saw that even in prison the Apostle still worked upon
Poppaea's conscience, he at last condemned him to die. Other historians
have said that Poppaea turned Jewess for the sake of her Jewish actor,
and desired to be buried by the Jewish rite when she was dying of the
savage kick that killed her and her child--the only act of violence Nero
seems to have ever regretted. However that may be, it is sure that she
loved the comedian, and that for a time he had unbounded influence in
Rome. And so great did their power grow that Claudius Rutilius, a Roman
magistrate and poet, a contemporary of Chrysostom, and not a Christian,
expressed the wish that Judaea might never have been conquered by Pompey
and subdued again by Titus, 'since the contagion of the cancer, cut out,
spreads wider, and the conquered nation grinds its conquerors.'

And so, with varying fortune, they survived the empire whic