It must be understood that although the Roman State recognized other religions than the established paganism, as that of the Jews, and allowed the votaries freedom of worship, yet Christianity was not of this number. It was in itself illegal, and any magistrate, at his option, in any place and at any time, might put the laws in force against the members of the Church. Not only so, but any envious, bigoted, or resentful person might compel a magistrate to take cognizance of the presence of Christians in the district under his jurisdiction, and require him to capitally convict those brought before him. The system in the Roman Commonwealth for the maintenance of order was that every man was empowered to act as spy upon and delate another. Any man might accuse his neighbor, his brother, before the court; and if he could prove his charge, the magistrate had no option—he must sentence. Consequently the Christians depended for their safety on the favor of their fellow‐citizens, on their own abstention from giving offence. The sole protection against false accusations in the Roman Commonwealth lay in the penalties to which an accuser was subject should he fail to establish his charge. But as on conviction a portion of the estate of the guilty person was handed over to the accuser, there was an inducement to delation. Under the Julian and Claudian Cæsars the system had worked terribly. An entire class of men made denunciation their trade. They grew rich on the spoils of their victims, they spared none, and the judges themselves lived in fear of them. The evil became so intolerable that measures were taken to accentuate the risk to the accusers. If the Christians were not oftener denounced, the reason was that in the event of one lapsing, and through terror or pain abjuring Christ, then immediately the tables were turned, and the accuser was placed in danger of his life. When an Emperor issued an edict against the Christians he enacted no new law; he merely required that the existing laws should be put in force against them, and all risk to delators was removed in that no delation was exacted. On such an occasion every citizen and householder was required to appear before the court and offer a few grains of incense on an altar to the genius of the empire or of the prince. Should any one refuse to do this, then he was convicted of high treason and delivered over to the executioner to be either tortured or put to death off‐hand. When the magistrate deemed it important to obtain a recantation, then he had recourse to the rack, iron hooks, torches, thumbscrews as means of forcing the prisoner through pain to abjure Christ. The Christians in Nemausus had lived in complete tranquillity. There had been no persecution. They had multiplied.