LECTURE VIII.

ST. PAUL'S POSITION IN REFERENCE TO ESTABLISHED CUSTOMS AND INSTITUTIONS.

WE have shown in our last how St. Paul dealt with existing institutions. He did not attack them directly, however evil they might be; but he inculcated principles, the adoption of which would destroy evil by introducing good. In the case of divine institutions which were perverted from their original purpose, he inculcated the duties and affections which were appropriate to them. He unfolded the duties of the marriage and family relation. He explained the mutual duties of rulers and subjects. He described the "powers that be"-existing governments—as ordained of God; and with Nero upon the throne, proclaimed disobedience to government to be disloyalty to Heaven.

We shall not be able fully to feel all the significance of this fact, unless we recall some of the incidents of those reigns, which will show us what sort of a government existed in Rome just previous to the period when St. Paul wrote his Epistle.

Every one has heard of what may be called the more personal extravagances of the reign of Caligula. His incestuous passion for his sisters; his claim to be a god, and to hold private conferences with the moon, and with Jupiter; the elevation of

his favorite horse to the Consulate, and his wish that the Romans had but one neck, that he might destroy them all at a blow,—those imperial insanities are well known. We have alluded to his bridge at Baii, which drew to that point all the vessels of the empire, and called for thousands more,-an extravagance which strained the resources of the empire to the utmost for a mere imperial whim. We have spoken of the drunken frenzy in which, on the occasion of its inauguration, he consigned helpless and unoffending victims by the boat-load to the sea. We have described also his impious cruelty to the Jews. Even these wild violations of all the purposes for which a government is instituted, were outdone by the means which he adopted to replenish his exhausted treasury.

Seneca informs us that at one repast he expended ten millions of sesterces; and in a year two thousand and seven hundred millions of sesterces. These extravagances called for extraordinary means. Accordingly confiscations were multiplied. Caligula professed to find in the records of Tiberius proofs of the treason of those rich persons whose possessions he coveted; and they were cut off. He adopted a means, which subsequent tyrants largely practiced, of replenishing his treasury by getting himself appointed heir of the estates of his subjects. "If you wish a favor of Cæsar-make him your heir! you wish to escape a charge of treason—make him your heir! If you wish to rescue a relative from the wiles of informers-make him your heir!" Such were the messages which his creatures gave to the trembling citizens. Even then, if the old man who had enrolled him as heir to the detriment of all his

If

own relations, lingered too long in life, a delicate ragout was sent to him from the Emperor's table with his compliments, and with poison in it; and he died it was said of apoplexy, and the grateful Cæsar commemorated his virtues. If it was announced that one who was a stranger to him had left to him all his property, to the exclusion of all his own relatives, he declared that the sanctity of wills must be preserved; and took the money! If another who had received any benefit, by offices or contracts from the state, had forgotten him in his will, it was declared to be an infamous insult to the imperial majesty and beneficence; and he broke the will and took the money. If another died, and a friend of Cæsar informed him that the deceased told him that he intended to have made him heir-though his name was not mentioned in the will-the intention was held to be sacred, and Cæsar broke the will and received the money. Thus a vast source of supply was opened by a means which was at the same time absolutely unjust, and so cunningly cruel that it must have kept every wealthy citizen in a terror of anxiety, and all his relatives in a state of doubt and fear.

On the birth of a daughter the poor Cæsar affects to fear absolute ruin and destitution. How to provide for her support? He asks alms of his people. He seats himself in the vestibule of his palace on his throne, to receive their gifts. Consuls, the senate, patricians, goldsmiths, and merchants crowd, with hands and togas full of coins, and of precious gifts, and lay them at the feet of Cæsar. It is much, but it is not enough. The imperial beggar resorts to another device which sinks the Cæsar as low as the vilest imagination could place the most infamous

As one now passes

creature of his household. through the colossal substructions of his palace, recently uncovered, under the auspices of the Emperor of the French, the series of apartments is pointed out which, according to the statement of a Roman historian, Caligula rented out as the place of debauchery, whose patrons were commended by him for thus aiding their impoverished lord, burdened with the expense of an imperial baby.

But the supply is temporary and insufficient. He professes to find records which prove that his deceased sisters had been plotting against his life. Their effects are sold. Caligula attends the sale, and cries up the articles, and exhorts the purchasers to bid generously for the possession of goods which once belonged to the imperial family; and for the pressing needs of their poor bankrupt master. "Are you not ashamed, you misers! to be richer than I? See to what straits I am reduced!-compelled to sell the furniture belonging once to Augustus. Behold this choice utensil! Mark Antony once used this!-and Augustus this! For the love of history and of Roman glory, purchase this for the trifle at which it is offered,-only 200,000 sesterces! Crier! why do you not observe that Aponius nods his head in sign that he takes the thirteen gladiators at my price,-only nine millions of sesterces!" And Aponius, a corpulent man of consular dignity, who was asleep and nodding, awakes to find himself ruined, with thirteen voracious gladiators on his hands. And to all this ludicrous degradation of themselves and of their prince, the once haughty Romans, whose pride was always associated with dignity, tamely and unresistingly submitted.

For a time Caligula was again rich. His gold was strewn upon the floor of one of the rooms of his palace, and he handled it with greedy glee, and took off his sandals and walked over it, and even slept upon it. But golden bigas set with precious stones, and golden oats for his favorite horse, and his vast new palaces, and his bridge over the Forum, from the Palatine to the Capitoline hill, soon exhausted his means, and led him to resume his business of auctioneering on a still grander scale. The supply of his exhausted treasury was secured in the rich provinces of Gaul.

On his way to commence his ridiculous invasion of Great Britain, which he undertook only for the purposes of obtaining more money, he paused in Gaul and hastened to despoil its citizens. The people were subjected to new and onerous taxes. A conspiracy, real or pretended, at Rome, enabled him to destroy and to seize the possessions of some of its richest citizens. While in Gaul he sent, in hot haste, for what would be called, in modern phrase, the regalia, or jewels, and for many of the triumphal chariots and equipages of state, which he sold at auction. Every appliance of terror, and every species of trickery was resorted to, in order that an exorbitant price might be secured. He personally set forth the peculiar value of each article as it was offered. "This," he said, "belonged to my father, and this to my grandfather. This vase is Egyptian, and was used by Antony; and this is a trophy of the victory of Actium!" By this means he again accumulated enor

mous sums.

And this poor creature was the master of the world! This is the great Cæsar who insisted upon