THE 



" ANNALS" OF TACITUS. 







ONE of the darkest epochs in the history of Christianity 

 is that period which commenced with the annihilation 

 of the Saracen power in Europe and the establishment 

 of the Inquisition by Pope Innocent IV. in 1243, and 

 continued until about the end of the fifteenth century. 

 The ghastly horrors perpetrated by the Christian Church 

 at this time against unoffending people are too well 

 known to need any reproduction here, and may be found 

 fully detailed in Rule's " History of the Inquisition," 

 Draper's " Conflict," and other similar works. My pur- 

 pose just now is not to follow in detail these wicked 

 and cruel abominations connected with the Christian 

 superstition, but to study carefully the various circum- 

 stances surrounding the sudden appearance, in the early 

 part of the fifteenth century, of so many MSS. purport- 

 ing to have been written by the ancients. Among these 

 manuscripts were the so-called "Annals of Tacitus," 

 which have since become so celebrated on account of 

 the reference made by the author in his fifteenth book 

 to the persecution of the early Christians by Nero. It 

 has long been suspected by learned scholars that these 

 " Annals," and in particular the passage relating to Nero's 

 persecution of Christians, were never written by Tacitus ; 

 but, owing to the danger usually incurred in giving ex- 

 pression to opinions so detrimental to the interests of 

 the Church, no one ventured until quite lately publicly 

 to state his doubts as to the genuineness of these cele- 

 brated writings. It is now, however, pretty generally 

 admitted among such scholars as do not make their 

 honour subservient to their interests that the author of 

 the " History " and the author of the " Annals " were 

 not the same person, and that the latter, moreover, were 



