session of their patrimony, to receive legacies and inheritances, and
to increase their separate property by all the lawful means of trade and
industry. Instead of an absolute sacrifice, a moderate 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. 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, and to acquire some merit by resigning a
superfluous treasure, which must so soon be annihilated with the world
itself. 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. 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. About a hundred years
before the reign of Decius, the Roman church had received, in a single
donation, the sum of two hundred thousand seste