Читать книгу Valeria, the Martyr of the Catacombs: A Tale of Early Christian Life in Rome - W. H. Withrow - Страница 9

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[1] I have myself seen in the museum of the Collegio Romano at Rome, a rude caricature which had been scratched upon the wall of the barracks of Nero's palace, representing a man with an ass's head upon a cross, and beneath it the inscription, "Alexomenos sebete Theon" "Alexomenos worships his God." Evidently some Roman soldier had scratched this in an idle hour in derision of the worship of our Lord by his Christian fellow-soldier. Tertullian also refers to the same calumny; and Lucian, a pagan writer, speaks of our Lord as "a crucified impostor." It is almost impossible for us to conceive the contempt and detestation in which crucifixion was held by the Romans. It was a punishment reserved for the worst of felons, or the vilest of slaves.—ED.

[2] All these calumnies, and others still worse, are recorded by pagan writers concerning the early Christians. Their celebration of the Lord's Supper in the private meetings became the ground of the last-mentioned distorted accusation.—ED.

[3] "Graeculus esuriens," the term applied by Juvenal to those foreign adventurers who sought to worm their way into the employment and confidence of great Roman houses.

[4] Regina Viarum, as the Romans called it.

[5] It is a circular structure sixty-five feet in diameter, built upon a square base of still larger size. After two thousand years it still defies the gnawing tooth of Time.