Later and more ignorant ages took literally, and perhaps embellished, what was intelligible among the generation to which it was addressed.Hist.of Jews, iii.131.

----The false Josephus has the inauguration of the emperor, with the seven electors and apparently the pope assisting at the coronation! Pref.

page xxvi .-- M.] Since the Jews, who rejected with abhorrence the deities adored by their sovereign and by their fellow-subjects, enjoyed, however, the free exercise of their unsocial religion, there must have existed some other cause, which exposed the disciples of Christ to those severities from which the posterity of Abraham was exempt.

The difference between them is simple and obvious; but, according to the sentiments of antiquity, it was of the highest importance.

The Jews were a nation; the Christians were a sect: and if it was natural for every community to respect the sacred institutions of their neighbors, it was incumbent on them to persevere in those of their ancestors.