oderate proportion was accepted by the ministers of the
gospel; and in their weekly or monthly assemblies, every believer,
according to the exigency of the occasion, and the measure of his wealth
and piety, presented his voluntary offering for the use of the common
fund. [131] Nothing, however inconsiderable, was refused; but it was
diligently inculcated; that, in the article of Tithes, the Mosaic law
was still of divine obligation; and that since the Jews, under a less
perfect discipline, had been commanded to pay a tenth part of all that
they possessed, it would become the disciples of Christ to distinguish
themselves by a superior degree of liberality, [132] and to acquire
some merit by resigning a superfluous treasure, which must so soon be
annihilated with the world itself. [133] It is almost unnecessary to
observe, that the revenue of each particular church, which was of so
uncertain and fluctuating a nature, must have varied with the poverty
or the opulence of the faithful, as they were dispersed in obscure
villages, or collected in the great cities of the empire. In the time
of the emperor Decius, it was the opinion of the magistrates, that the
Christians of Rome were possessed of very considerable wealth; that
vessels of gold and silver were used in their religious worship, and
that many among their proselytes had sold their lands and houses to
increase the public riches of the sect, at the expense, indeed, of
their unfortunate children, who found themselves beggars, because their
parents had been saints. [134] We should listen with distrust to the
suspicions of strangers and enemies: on this occasion, however, they
receive a very specious and probable color from the two following
circumstances, the only ones that have reached our knowledge, which
define any precise sums, or convey any distinct idea. Almost at the same
period, the bishop of Carthage, from a society less opulent than that of
Rome, collected a hundred thousand sesterces, (above eight hundred
and fifty pounds sterling,) on a sudden call of charity to redeem
the brethren of Numidia, who had been carried away captives by the
barbarians of the desert. [135] About a hundred years before the reign of
Decius, the Roman church had received, in a single donation, the sum of
two hundred thousand sesterces from a stranger of Pontus, who proposed
to fix his residence in the capital. [136] These oblations, for the
most part, were made in money; nor was the soci