If he was a Christian, he must have been a very early Christian; and by all accounts the early Christians were very much pleasanter people than some of their successors. But, whether he was a Christian or not, he certainly was one of the three men who made Christianity possible. Augustus and he kept the world at peace during the whole period of Gospel history; and Christ looked to Cæsar--that is, Tiberius--to manage all the rough work of the world, and let people in Judæa have peace and quietness and no responsibilities. Herod was the other of those three great men. People make a fuss about his massacring some Innocents: they forget that there might not have been any Bethlehem or any Innocents there to massacre, if he had not governed the country so successfully during his long reign.
Whitewashing goes on apace. Dean Milman whitewashed Savonarola in 1855, and in 1905 Baron Corvo whitewashed the entire Borgia family; and in due season all the villains of history will be arrayed in shining white. Meanwhile it is hard on those whose turn is yet to come, as they are suffering by comparison now. Dreyfus has been whitewashed, and Bazaine has not: yet he was the worse treated of the two--a packed tribunal, with charges framed in such a way that the accused could not put in his real defence.
Whitewash is an admirable thing, but people always lay it on too thick; and Rendle not only makes Tiberius ‘a believer in the divinity of Jesus Christ’ but makes him ‘the nursing father of the infant Catholic Church.’ Tacitus calls Christianity an ‘exitiabilis superstitio,’ and says that it arose in the reign of Tiberius, was kept down for a time, and then broke out again, _Annales_, XV. 44; and he also says that a ‘gravissimum exitium’ was brought in very artfully by Tiberius himself, was kept down for a time, and then broke out again, _Annales_, I. 73. Rendle argues that this ‘exitium’ must have been the ‘exitiabilis superstitio’ of Christianity, and not Espionage, as the context would lead one to suppose. Having satisfied himself of this by a careful examination of Tacitus and other good authorities, he goes on to admit inferior authorities without any examination at all, if only they concur in this. And thus he admits Tertullian, _Apologeticus_, 5, which says that Tiberius sent a Message to the Senate, recommending Christianity; and although the Senate rejected it, Tiberius did not change his mind, but used his powers to protect the Christians.