What was the theory of the State religion in Rome? Cicero tells us in a well-known passage in his treatise _On the Laws_, where he quotes the ancient formula, “Let no man have separate gods of his own: nor let people privately worship new gods or alien gods, unless they have been publicly admitted.”[55] Nothing could be more explicit. But theory and practice in Rome had a habit of becoming divorced from one another. It is a notorious fact that, as Rome’s conquering eagles flew farther afield, the legions and the merchants who followed in their track brought all manner of strange gods back to the city, where every wandering Chaldæan thaumaturgist, magician, or soothsayer found welcome and profit, and every stray goddess—especially if her rites had mysteries attached to them—received a comfortable home. In a word, Rome found new religions just as fascinating—for a season or two—as do the capitals of the modern world, and these new religions were certainly not “publicly admitted” by the _Pontifex Maximus_ and the representatives of the State religion. Occasionally, usually after some outbreak of pestilence or because an Emperor was nervous at the presence of so many swarthy charlatans devoting themselves to the Black Arts, an order of expulsion would be issued and there would be a fluttering of the dove-cotes. But they came creeping back one by one, as the storm blew over. While, therefore, in theory the gods of Rome were jealous, in practice they were not so. The easy scepticism or eclecticism of the cultured Roman was conducive to tolerance. Cicero’s famous sentence in the _Pro Flacco_, “Each state has its own religion, Lælius: we have ours,” shews how little of the religious fanatic there was in the average Roman, who stole the gods of the people he conquered and made them his own, so that they might acquiesce in the Roman domination. The Roman was tolerant enough in private life towards other people’s religious convictions: all he asked was reciprocity, and that was precisely what the Christian would not and could not give him. If the Christian would have sacrificed at the altars of the State gods, the Roman would never have objected to his worship of Christ for his own private satisfaction. There lies the secret of the persecutions, and of the fierce anti-Christian hatreds. Constantine and Licinius, by their edict of recognition and toleration, “publicly admitted” into the Roman worship the God of the Christians. ----- Footnote 55: _Separatim nemo habessit deos: neve novos, sive advenas, nisi publice adscitos privatim colunto._—_De Leg._, ii., 8. ----- [Illustration] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration] CHAPTER VII THE DOWNFALL OF LICINIUS