Note 244 — Chapter XXI · THE FOREIGN CULTS: CYBELE, ISIS, MITHRAS. THE CHRISTIANS IN PAGAN EYES
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From the age of Augustus to that of Nero Judaism had a considerable popularity in Rome. Its austere monotheism coupled with the mysterious Mosaic law and ceremonies made a considerable appeal to public opinion, and many fashionable persons—including apparently Nero’s Empress, the notorious Poppæa Sabina—gave “Jewish doctrines” a superficial patronage. It was also somewhat the fad to treat the Hebrew Sabbath as a kind of “holy day.” All this favor collapsed after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. The Jews became a scattered and persecuted sect, without influence. As for Christianity, after 70 A.D. it lost nearly all its Jewish element and became pretty strictly a Gentile religion.