condemned for their "enmity to mankind" (the expression of Tacitus may
either mean _haters of_ mankind, or _hated by_ mankind), expressions
which show that the adherents of the higher and purer morality were, at
least, singularly unfortunate in the impressions of it which they
conveyed to their neighbours by their lives; and we find, further, the
most scandalous crimes imputed to the Christians, necessitating the
enforcement against them of edicts passed to put down the shameful
Bacchanalian mysteries. And here, indeed, is the true cause of the
persecution to which they were subjected under the just and merciful
Roman sway, and this is a point that should not be lost sight of by the
student.

About 186 B.C., according to Livy (lib. xxxix. c. 8-19), the Roman
Government, discovering that certain "Bacchanalian mysteries" were
habitually celebrated in Rome, issued stern edicts against the
participants in them, and succeeding in, at least partially, suppressing
them. The reason given by the Consul Postumius for these edicts was
political, not religious. "Could they think," he asked, "that youths,
initiated under such oaths as theirs, were fit to be made soldiers? That
wretches brought out of the temple of obscenity could be trusted with
arms? That those contaminated with the foul debaucheries of these
meetings should be the champions for the chastity of the wives and
children of the Roman people?" "Let us now closely examine how far the
Eleusinian and Bacchanalian feasts resembled the Christian
Agapae--whether the latter, modified and altered a little according to
the change which would take place in the taste of the age, originated
from the former, or were altogether from a different source. We have
seen that the forementioned Pagan feasts were, throughout Italy, in a
very flourishing state about 186 years before the Christian era. We have
also seen that about this time they were, at least, partially suppressed