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St. Peter speaks first, as he does every A. D. where else. The converted Gentiles are 49 there freed from the ceremonies of the law. The sentence is pronounced in the name of the Holy Ghost, and of the church*. St. Paul and St. Barnabas carry the decree of the council to the churches, and teach the faithful to submit to it. Such was the form of the first council. The stupid emperor disinherited his son Britannicus, and adopted Nero the son of Agrippina. She, in return, poisoned her too easy husband. But her son's government proved no less fatal to herself, than to all the rest of the republic. Corbulo gained all the honour of this reign by the victories he won over the Parthians and Armenians. Nero commenced at once the war against the Jews, and the persecution against the Christians. He was the first emperor who persecuted the church. He caused St. Peter and St. Paul to be put to death at Rome. But as he at the same time persecuted all mankind, they revolted against him on all sides, and, understanding that the senate had condemned him, he killed himself. Each army made an emperor: the dispute was decided near Rome, and in Rome itself, by dreadful engagements. Galba, Otho and Vitellius, perished in them the distressed empire found some rest under Vespasian. But the Jews were reduced to the last extremity: Jerusalem was taken and burned. Titus, son and successor of Vespasian, afforded the world a

*Acts xvi. 4.

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A. D. short-lived joy; and his days, which he counted lost, when they were not distinguished by some good action, hurried on too fast to an end. We behold Nero revive in the person of Domitian. The persecution broke out afresh. St John having escaped out of the boiling oil, was banished to the isle of Patmos, where he wrote his Revelation. A little after he wrote his Gospel, at the age of 90, and joined the quality of an evangelist to that of an apostle and prophet. From this time the Christians were continually persecuted, as well under the good as under the bad emperors. These persecutions were carried on, sometimes by command of the emperors, and the particular hatred of the magistrates; sometimes by an insurrection of the people, and sometimes by decrees formally pronounced in the senate upon the rescripts of princes, or in their presence. Then the persecution was more universal and bloody; and thus the malice of unbelievers, ever inveterately bent to destroy the church, was excited from time to time to new acts of fury. It is from these renewals of violence that ecclesiastical historians reckon ten persecutions under ten emperors. Under so long sufferings, the Christians never made the smallest sedition. Of all the faithful, the bishops were always the most attacked: of all the churches, that of Rome was persecuted with the greatest violence; and thirty popes sealed with their blood that gospel, which they preached to all the earth. Domitian is killed: the empire begins to

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enjoy some respite under Nerva. His great A. D. age does not permit him to retrieve the state of affairs: but in order to render the public tranquillity permanent, he makes choice of Trajan for his successor, empire quiet at home, and triumphant abroad, cannot forbear admiring so good a prince. And indeed it was a maxim with him, that his citizens ought to find him such as he would have wished to find the emperor, had he been a private citizen. This prince subdued the Daci, and Decedalus their king; extended his conquests in the East; gave a king to the Parthians, and made them dread the Roman power. Happy it was that drunkenness and his infamous amours, vices so deplorable in a great prince, never made him undertake any thing contrary to justice! To times so advantageous for the commonwealth, succeeded those of Hadrian blended with good and evil. This prince maintained military discipline, lived himself like a soldier, with much frugality; he relieved the provinces, made the arts to flourish, and Greece, who was the mother of them. The Barbarians were kept in awe by his arms and authority. He rebuilt Jerusalem, to which he gave his name, and from thence too it derives the is name of Ælia; but he banished the Jews out of it, who were always rebels to the empire. That stubborn race found in him a merciless avenger. He sullied by his cruelties, and monstrous amours, so bright a reign. His infamous Antinous, of whom he made a god, throws shame upon his whole

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But the emperor seemed to make amends for his faults, and, to retrieve his lost glory, by adopting Antoninus Pius, who also adopted Marcus Aurelius, the sage and Philosopher. In these two princes appear two beautiful characters. The father, ever at peace, is always ready to make war, upon occasion: the son, ever at war, is always ready to give peace, both to his enemies, and to the empire. His father Antoninus had taught him, that it was better to save one citizen, than to defeat a thousand enemies. The Parthians and Marcomani experienced the valour of Marcus Aurelius: The latter were Germans, the conquest of whom this emperor was completing when he died. By the virtue of the two Antonines, that name became the darling of the Romans. The glory of so illustrious a name was not defaced, by the effeminacy of Lucius Verus, brother to Marcus Aurelius, and his partner in the empire, nor yet by the brutalities of Commodus his son and successor. This last, unworthy of such a father, forgot both his instructions and example. The senate and people abhorred him: his most assiduous courtiers, and his mistress, put him to death. His successor Pertinax, a vigorous asserter of military discipline, fell a sacrifice to the fury of the licentious soldiers, who had, but a little before, forced him to accept the sovereign power.

The empire, exposed to auction, found a purchaser. The lawyer Didius Julianus ventured upon this bold bargain: it cost

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him his life. Severus Africanus put him to A. D. death, revenged Pertinax, passed from the East to the West, triumphed in Syria, Gaul, and Great Britain. The rapid conqueror equalled Cesar by his victories; but he did not imitate his clemency. He was not able to make peace amongst his own children. Bassian, or Caracalla, his eldest son, a false imitator of Alexander, immediately upon his father's death, murdered his brother Geta, who was emperor as well as himself, in the arms of Julia their common mother; spent his life in cruelty and carnage, and brought himself to a tragical end. Severus had gained him the hearts of the soldiers and people, by giving him the name of Antoninus; but he could not support the glory of it. The Syrian Heliogabalus, or rather Alagabalus, his son, or at least reputed to be so, though the name of Antoninus gave him at first the hearts of the soldiers, and a victory over Macrinus, became presently after, by his infamous conduct, the horror of mankind, and destroyed himself. Alexander Severus, son of Mameus, his relation and successor, lived too short a time for the good of the world. He complained, that he had more difficulty in restraining his soldiers, than in conquering his enemies. His mother, who governed him, was the cause of his ruin, as she had been of his glory. Under his reign Artaxerxes the Persian killed his master Artabanus, the last king of the Parthians, and restored the empire of the Persians in the East.

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