Tacitus said it all when it comes to that abhorrent race: "Among the Jews,
all things are profane that we hold sacred; on the other hand, they regard
as permissible what seems to us immoral." They mutilate their manchildren,
and will not expose even the weakest of their newborn to the elements, and
so improve the race. Among them it is a crime to kill any infant. They do no
honor to the gods like the rest of the world, and have no concept at all of
civilized ways - the great games in the Coliseum, our learned symposia and
vomitoria. Read your Tacitus, and you need know no more about that sullen
tribe.
Who? No, when I was there, I never heard of the one you inquire after, this
god who is supposed to have been born under a star in the humblest
circumstances. Though his cult seems to be growing even here in the
civilized world. He sounds, with all due respect, like just another of their
wonder-working rabbis. That fly-specked land breeds prophets and seers of
every description - the way we Romans do lawgivers and builders, leaders
whose work lasts.
I doubt if the fad for these new, cryptic teachings you mention will last.
Indeed, I can't imagine why they should have spread this far. Why would a
Roman, a citizen of the world, be interested in such strange, upside-down
sayings about the first becoming last and the last first? And the poor in
spirit being blessed. What bosh. Those people never did have any idea of how
to exercise power.
I do remember hearing of the great governor and tax collector Cyrenius. Now
that's a name to conjure with! Mark my words, he'll be remembered for the
ages, recalled every year. That's my prophecy.
As for this other one you ask about, with all respect, I cannot understand
your interest in him. He had no military honors, did he? All his worldly
goods, they say, consisted of a cloak. He never held political office, did
he? Take it from one who has seen much, and understands the ways of the
world. These new teachings are but passing fancies, all this talk about
eternity only talk. The empire may decline but never fall. So the gods have
decreed. Everyone knows it is Rome that is eternal.