to death, though without the concurrence of the Senate."

The favourable disposition of Tiberius toward Christianity, and the indisposition of the Senate to support him therein, are mysteries best explained, perhaps, by Tertullian, in the following incidental narrative: "Tiberius, in whose time the Christian name [or religion] had its rise, having received information from Palestine, in Syria, of the truth of Christ's divinity, proposed to the Senate that he should be enrolled among the Roman Gods. But the Senate rejected the proposal, because the emperor himself had declined the honour of deification. Notwithstanding this, Cæsar still persisted in his opinion, and threatened the accusers of the Christians with punishment." This account is highly probable: the emperor, in all likelihood, was informed by Pilate*, his procurator at Jerusalem, of the stupendous miracles attending our Lord's crucifixion and resurrection; the præternatural darkness, the earthquake, the vision of angels at the resurrection to the Roman guard at the sepulchre, &c. And, under such circumstances, this pagan emperor might naturally have followed the example of his predeces sors, Nebuchadnezzar, and Darius the Mede,

*Justin Martyr, in his first Apology for Christianity, A. D. 140, appealed to "the Acts made in the time of Pilate" to prove his assertions. About the year 307, the Pagans forged Acts of Pilate, injurious to the Christian Faith. These spurious acts prove the prior existence of the genuine.

when they were appalled by the prophecies of the God of Israel, revealed through Daniel; and he might have issued a decree similar to theirs, threatening destruction to all that should speak against "JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS," according to Pilate's superscription on the cross.

The exact time of the introduction of Christianity into Britain is not specified by Gildas. It may be collected, however, from the first word, interea," in the mean time," (evidently having a retrospect to the preceding fifth chapter,) to have taken place during the second subjection of the Britons. This second subjection commenced from the defeat and captivity of Caractacus, the British prince, as we learn from Tacitus. He informs us, that Caractacus, king of the Silures, was defeated by Ostorius, the Roman proprætor in Britain, A.D. 50; and that, after his defeat, he was betrayed to the conquerors by Cartismandua, queen of the Brigantes, to whom he had fled for refuge, and was carried captive to Rome, but was released, with his wife and brothers, by the clemency, or the policy, of the emperor Claudius; who was moved, it is said, by a pathetic speech of Caractacus, made for him by the Roman Historian. Annal. xii. 33-37.

The conditions of his release, omitted by Tacitus, are fortunately supplied by the British Historians. From the Archeologia Myvyriana,

Vol. II. p. 68, under the article of Triad 35, of the three blessed kings of Britain Bran, Lleirwig, (Lles or Lucius) and Cadwallader, translated from the origial Welsh, by Roberts, in his Collectanea Cambrica, Appendix, p. 293; we learn the following curious particulars respecting the first of them:

"Bran, the son of Llyr (Lear) Llediarth, first brought the knowledge of the Christian Faith to the Cymry (Cambri) from Rome, where he had been seven years, as a hostage for his son Caradoc (Caractacus), whom the Romans had made captive; after he had been betrayed, by treachery, into an ambush laid for him by Aregwedd Freddawg (Cartismandua)."

A fuller description of the war of Caractacus with the Romans, and of the treachery of Cartismandua, is furnished by an old Monkish historian, Ricardus Corinensis, in his geographical work De situ Britannia, Lib. I. 6, 23, which is published, along with Gildas Badonicus, and Nennius Banchoriensis, by Bertram, in his neat edition of these three historians, 8vo. Harnie (Copenhagen,) 1757.

"Olim ac diu potens erat hæc Silurum regio: Sed cùm cam tenuit Charaticus (Caractacus), longè potentissima. Hic, continuis novem annis, omnia Romanorum arma pro ludibrio habita, sæpe evertit; donec de illo, conjunctis viribus, Romanos aggressuro, triumphavit legatus Ostorius.

Charaticus enim, prælio evadens, auxiliumque a vicinis regibus petens, per astutiam matronæ, Romane, Carlismandua, cum rege Brigantia Venusio nuptæ, Romanis deditus est. Post id temporis, mascule tantum suam ipsius ditionem idem ille populus defendens, usque dum a Varionio spoliatus, ac tandem a Frontino devictus, in formam Romana (cui Britannic Secunda nomen erat) provinciæ, suum redigi pateretur."

This curious and valuable document, critically harmonizing with, and explaining the foregoing testimonies of Gildas. Tacitus and the British Triad, 1. satisfactorily accounts for the treachery of Cartismandua, as being " a Roman matron, the wife of Venusius king of the Brigantes." 2. It specifies the reduction of the western province by Frontinus, called Britannia Secunda, consisting of Wales, Cumberland, and a great part of Cheshire, inhabited by the Silures, Ordovici, and Dimeta, as we learn from the intelligent Rowland, Mona Antiqua, p. 134, 146. And we learn from Tacitus, that Julius Frontinus finally reduced the powerful nation of the Silures under the Roman yoke, about A. D. 77.

Bran, the father of Caractacus, was left at Rome, as hostage for his son, A. D. 50, according to Tacitus; and, after seven years residence there, returned to Britain, in A. D. 57, according to the Triad. He was accompanied by three teachers of Christianity, as we learn from the

Cambrian Biography, namely, Arwysth the Old, Cyndaf, and Iliol. Of these, Iliol is expressly said to have been an Israelite (or Jew), and to have converted many of the Britons. Cyllin the son, and Eigen the daughter of Caractacus, are also recorded to have been Christians. Eigen, in particular, is noted as the first female Saint among the Britons. Mr. Roberts thinks it not improbable, that she was the Claudia of St. Paul, (2 Tim. iv. 21.) "who so far interested herself in improving the literature of her native country, as to send thither the works of the Roman writers." Usher, Bishop Burgess, Tracts, p. 132.

From Gildas, we may also collect the time employed by Bran and his missionaries in converting the Britons; namely, during the interval of twenty years, between Bran's return, A. D, 57, and the final conquest of Britain, by Fron tinus, A. D. 77. (See Tacitus' Life of Agricola, c. 17, 18.) This is more credible than the contracted limit of three years, from the return of Bran, till the defeat of Boadicea, A. D. 61, according to the conjecture of Bishop Burgess, Tracts, p. 23.

But who converted Bran and his associates to Christianity, at Rome? It could not possibly be St. Paul himself; whose epistle to the Romans, A. D. 58, was written from the east, the year after Bran's return home. The epistle itself, however, furnishes a satisfactory clue to the