THE ARREST OF INQUIRY. 49 



Pilate." Tacitus goes on to describe Christianity as 

 '■ a pestilent superstition," and its adherents as guilty 

 of " hatred to the human race." The indictment, on 

 the face of it, seems strange, but it has an explana- 

 tion, although the Christians were brutally murdered 

 on the charge of arson, and not of superstition. So 

 far as religious persecution went, they suffered this 

 first at the hands of Jews, the Empire intervening to 

 protect them. Broadly speaking, the Roman note 

 was toleration. Throughout the Empire religion was 

 a national affair, because it began and ended with the 

 preservation of the State. Thereupon it was the bind- 

 ing duty — religio — of every citizen to pay due honour 

 to the protecting gods on whose favour the safety of 

 the State depended. That done, a man might be- 

 lieve what he chose. Polytheism is, from its nature, 

 easy-going and tolerant; so long as there was no 

 open opposition to the authorized public worship, 

 the worshipper could explain it any way he chose. 

 In Greece a man " might believe or disbelieve that 

 the Mysteries taught the doctrine of immortality; 

 the essential thing was that he should duly sacrifice 

 his pig." In Rome, that vast CosmopoUs, " the or- 

 dinary pagan did not care two straws whether his 

 neighbour worshipped twenty gods or twenty-one." 

 Why should he care? 



Now, against all this, the Christians set their 

 faces sternly, and the result was to make them re- 

 garded as anti-patriotic and anti-social. Their suc- 

 cess among the lower classes had been rapid. Chris- 



