As far as we can judge from the evidence of coins and medals, there was little or no parade of Antonine’s religious ideals or his comprehensive cult until the later part of the year 220, until, in fact, the temple was ready and the necessary adjuncts to hand. With its opening came the transference thither of the most venerable objects of Roman superstition: all the sacred stones, even the Palladium from the temple of Minerva, the sacred fire which was the symbol of Rome’s existence, even the shields which had fallen from heaven, and to which the oracles had attached the very destinies of the city itself. But of this more in its proper place. Certainly, for all his attempts, Elagabal did not become a popular divinity. Men began to fear his propensity for swallowing other cults. His rapacity in absorbing the deities of centuries made the superstitious uneasy for the continued existence of Gods whom, they believed vaguely, they might some day need, and who would then have lost their power and authority. But there was yet another reason for Elagabal’s unpopularity, namely, the Emperor’s attempt to unite the Hebraic and Christian mysteries with those of his own God. Neither Christian nor Hebrew was ever popular in old Rome. Their characters, their rites, and their machinations were sincerely disapproved of both by the rulers and the governed; they were generally known as robbers, thieves, liars, lawbreakers, cannibals even, men who were lacking in every virtue that Rome held dear; men who set up their own specimen of a creed to the exclusion of all others, the which was, generally speaking, subversive of government, law and order. They were men entirely displeasing to the high Gods, and therefore to be spared only when the master of Rome refused consent to kill. Now, Antonine clearly protected these atheistic vagabonds, citizens of no state, troublers of every nation; nay more, he attempted to tolerate their blasphemies by uniting them with his own religion. As we have said, Rome was probably familiar with Elagabal through the Syrian house and Emesan coins, but with the other Judean religion they had not a few disagreements, and had certainly no wish to amalgamate it with the venerated cults of the city, as Antonine seemed bent on doing. It was certainly a bad day for the house of Severus when the Emperor decided to mix himself up with the hated Judaism. We must here leave for a moment the history of Antonine’s religious changes and aspirations to recount the secular work accomplished between the summer of the year 219 and the autumn or winter of the year 220, it may be even up to the early weeks of the year 221, when the Emperor made that vital mistake in policy which threw him into the hands of his family, to his undoing.