annual present
from the churches within their jurisdiction, as the price, or as the
reward, of their moderation. [109] The controversy concerning the
precise time of the celebration of Easter, armed the bishops of Asia
and Italy against each other, and was considered as the most important
business of this period of leisure and tranquillity. [110] Nor was
the peace of the church interrupted, till the increasing numbers of
proselytes seem at length to have attracted the attention, and to
have alienated the mind of Severus. With the design of restraining the
progress of Christianity, he published an edict, which, though it was
designed to affect only the new converts, could not be carried into
strict execution, without exposing to danger and punishment the
most zealous of their teachers and missionaries. In this mitigated
persecution we may still discover the indulgent spirit of Rome and of
Polytheism, which so readily admitted every excuse in favor of those who
practised the religious ceremonies of their fathers. [111]

[Footnote 107: Dion Cassius, or rather his abbreviator Xiphilin, l.
lxxii. p. 1206. Mr. Moyle (p. 266) has explained the condition of the
church under the reign of Commodus.]

[Footnote 107a: The Jews and Christians contest the honor of having
furnished a nurse is the fratricide son of Severus Caracalla. Hist. of
Jews, iii. 158.--M.]

[Footnote 108: Compare the life of Caracalla in the Augustan History,
with the epistle of Tertullian to Scapula. Dr. Jortin (Remarks on
Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 5, &c.) considers the cure of
Severus by the means of holy oil, with a strong desire to convert it
into a miracle.]

[Footnote 109: Tertullian de Fuga, c. 13. The present was made during
the feast of the Saturnalia; and it is a matter of serious concern
to Tertullian, that the faithful should be confounded with the most
infamous professions which purchased the connivance of the government.]

[Footnote 110: Euseb. l. v. c. 23, 24. Mosheim, p. 435--447.]

[Footnote 111: Judaeos fieri sub gravi poena vetuit. Idem etiam de
Christianis sanxit. Hist. August. p. 70.]

But the laws which Severus had enacted soon expired with the authority
of that emperor; and the Christians, after this accidental tempest,
enjoyed a calm of thirty-eight years. [112] Till this period they had
usually held their assemblies in private houses and sequestered places.
They were now permitted to erect and consecrate convenient edif