Excerpt from Life of Gregory the Seventh, Vol. 1 of 2: Preceded by a Sketch of the History

How many impossibilities this tale sets forth! The Senate refusing anything to Tiberius! A Roman Emperor proposing to the Senate the apotheosis of a Jew who had been executed as a criminal! History tells us, on the contrary, that the Roman tyrant exer cised an apprehensive severity against all religious innovations, and any form Of worship coming from the East. Seneca says, that having in his youth, while the Empire was under Tiberius, adopted the diet Of the Pythagoreans, he, at his father's request, quitted the city, in order that he might not be confounded with a strange sect persecuted at that time, and whose members were known by their abstinence from certain meats.1 Tacitus mentions the promulgation Of a decree by the Senate, under Tiberius, banishing the Egyptian and Jewish religion out of Italy, and he adds that four thousand Roman freed men, who were infected with that superstition, were transported to Sardinia to put down the brigandage carried on in its unwholesome climate. The rest were forced either to go into exile or to abjure, and Tiberius caused their sacred vestments and all the appliances Of their worship to be burned.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.