The spiritual impetus of nominally accepting Hellenized Christianity came to Rome too late to prevent the well-started moral decline or to compensate for the already well-established and increasing racial deterioration. This new religion was a cultural necessity for imperial Rome, and it is exceedingly unfortunate that it did not become a means of spiritual salvation in a larger sense.
Close in meaning, found by a language model. A match does not mean the teachings are the same.
He proceeded to Egypt, grew worse in wickedness through his previously mentioned companions in wine, who were lost to all goodness, and not satisfied with countless acts of impiety, his audacity so increased that he raised evil reports there, and many of his friends, watching his purpose attentively, joined in furthering his will. His purpose was to inflict a public stigma upon our race. Therefore he erected a stone pillar in the courtyard, and caused the following inscription to be engraved upon it: “Entrance to this temple is to be refused to all those who would not sacrifice. All the Jews were to be registered among the slaves. Those who resisted are to be forcibly seized and put to death. Those who are thus registered are to be marked on their persons by the ivy-leaf symbol of Dionysus, and to be reduced to these limited rights.” To do away with the appearance of hating them all, he had it written underneath, that if any of them should elect to enter the community of those initiated in the rites, these should have equal rights with the Alexandrians.
The king, just like another Phalaris, a prey to thoughtlessness, made no account of the changes which his own mind had undergone, issuing in the deliverance of the Jews. He swore a fruitless oath, and determined immediately to send them to hades, crushed by the knees and feet of the elephants. He would also invade Judea, level its towns with fire and the sword, destroy that temple which the heathen might not enter, and prevent sacrifices ever after being offered up there. Joyfully his friends broke up, together with his kinsmen; and, trusting in his determination, arranged their forces in guard at the most convenient places of the city. The master of the elephants urged the animals into an almost maniacal state, drenched them with incense and wine, and decked them with frightful devices. About early morning, when the city was filled with an immense number of people at the hippodrome, he entered the palace and called the king to the business in hand. The king’s heart teemed with impious rage; and he rushed forth with the mass, along with the elephants. With unsoftened feelings and pitiless eyes, he longed to gaze at the hard and wretched doom of the previously mentioned Jews. But the Jews, when the elephants went out at the gate, followed by the armed force. When they saw the dust raised by the throng, and heard the loud cries of the crowd, thought that they had come to the last moment of their lives, to the end of what they had tremblingly expected. They gave way, therefore, to lamentations and moans. They kissed each other. Those nearest of kin to each other hung around one another’s necks—fathers hugging their sons and mothers their daughters. Other women held their infants to their breasts, which drew what seemed their last milk. Nevertheless, when they reflected upon the help previously granted them from heaven, they prostrated themselves with one accord, removed even the sucking children from the breasts, and sent up an exceedingly great cry asking the Lord of all power to reveal himself, and have mercy upon those who now lay at the gates of hades.
The visitation of this evil was harsh and utterly grievous. For the temple was filled with debauchery and reveling by the heathen, who dallied with prostitutes, and had intercourse with women within the sacred precincts, and moreover brought inside things that were not appropriate. The altar was filled with those abominable things which had been prohibited by the laws. A man could neither keep the Sabbath, nor observe the feasts of their ancestors, nor so much as confess himself to be a Jew.