no measures so severe; but I personally had nothing to do with it. It was the fanatical zeal of the government, who, acting without my commands, took advantage of ancient laws to punish the Christians; and this your own Tertullian will prove to you. They undoubtedly supposed that the Christians were endeavoring to create a political and social revolution,—that they were in fact Communists, as you would now call them, intent upon overthrowing the state. I confess that there was a good deal of color given to such a judgment by the conduct of the Christians. But as for myself, as I said, I was opposed to any movement against them, believing them all to be honest of purpose, though perhaps somewhat excited and fanatical.” “Why did you think that they were Communists?” I asked. “Had you any sufficient grounds for such a belief?” “Surely; the most ample grounds in the very teachings of Christ himself. His system was essentially communistic, and nothing else. His followers and disciples were all Communists; they all lived in common, had a common purse, and no one was allowed to own anything. They were ordered by Christ not to labor, but to live from day to day, and take no heed of the future, and lay up nothing, but to sell all they had, and live like the ravens. Christ himself denounced riches constantly—not the wrong use of riches, but the mere possession of them; and said it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to inherit the kingdom of heaven,—not a bad rich man, observe, but any rich man. So, too, his story of Lazarus and Dives turns on the same point. It does not appear that Lazarus was good, but only that he was poor; nor does it appear that Dives was bad, but only that he was rich; and when Dives in Hades prays for a drop of water, he is told that he had the good things in his lifetime, and Lazarus the evil things, and that _therefore_ he is now tormented, and Lazarus is comforted.” “But, surely,” I answered, “it was intended to mean that Dives had not used his riches properly?” “Nothing is said of the kind, or even intimated; for all that appears, Dives may have been a good man, and Lazarus not. The only apparent virtue of Lazarus is, that he was a beggar; the only fault of Dives, that he was rich. Do you not remember, also, the rich young man who desired to become one of Christ’s followers, and asked what he should do to be saved? Christ told him that doing the commandments, and being virtuous and honest, was not enough; but that he must sell all that he had, and give it to the poor, and then he could follow Him, and not otherwise; and the rich good man was very sorrowful, and went away. What does all this mean but Communism? Yes; the system He would carry out was community of goods, and He would permit no one to have possessions of his own. This struck at the roots of all established law and rights of property, and naturally made his sect feared and hated among certain classes in Rome.”