The enemy of humanity and the lion
He really is the enemy of the human race--because he is so human.
The joke reverses a recognizable ancient accusation. Tacitus's Annals XV.44 says that Christians punished under Nero were convicted less for arson than for hatred of humankind. In the inspected 1937 Loeb translation, the execution methods include dogs, crosses and burning; lions are not specified there. Tacitus, XV.44.4–5, pp. 283–285.
The lion belongs to the wider persecution tradition. Tertullian's Apology 40 reports the crowd's cry for Christians to be given to the lion whenever flood, drought, earthquake or pestilence strikes. The inspected witness is S. Thelwall's translation in Ante-Nicene Fathers III (1885), reproduced by New Advent. Tertullian, chapter 40. Chesterton combines the charge of hostility to humanity with this familiar spectacle, then makes excessive humanitarianism the alleged offence. His mock verdict does not establish that historical Christians deserved persecution; its force depends on presenting Blatchford as the exception who would make the old charge come true.
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