To this era belongs the Jerusalem Talmud; but of that, and also of the Babylonian Talmud, the reader will find a full account in Appendix II. To resume our narrative. At the accession of Septimius Severus, who attained the Imperial purple at the close of the struggle which ensued after the murder of Commodus, the Jews are said to have received harsh treatment at his hands; which may well occasion the reader surprise, as they almost everywhere joined his standard, as the rival of their bitter enemy, Niger. Yet it is certain that he re-enacted the old laws against proselytism, or entering the precincts of Jerusalem; and, if Eusebius is to be credited, he actually made war on the Jews, and a triumph was decreed him for his successes in the campaign.[41] But even if this be true, his anger must soon have subsided; for during his reign they enjoyed a considerable share of his favour, for which writers hint that they had to pay heavily. It would appear again that they prospered under the rule of his depraved and barbarous son Caracalla.[42] This Emperor is said in early life to have been warmly attached to a Jewish playmate, the only person for whom he seems ever to have felt any affection. A few years afterwards they had a still more extraordinary and discreditable patron in Heliogabalus, the very vilest, it may safely be affirmed, of all the Roman emperors. Actuated by the strange caprice which commonly swayed his actions, he adopted the Jewish customs of circumcision and abstinence from swine’s flesh. It does not appear, however, that he bestowed any special marks of regard on the Jews, in consequence of the inclination he showed for their peculiar tenets. Their religion, in fact, was only one out of many from which he borrowed one observance or another; and if it is true that he was on the point of proclaiming himself to be the chief object of all religious worship, which all must render him on pain of death, his murder came only just in time to save them from a sharp persecution. Under his successor, Alexander Severus, they are thought to have experienced unusual kindness,[43] because that prince had imbibed from his mother Mammæa (the disciple, it is said, of Origen) a great prejudice in their favour. He did show some feeling of this kind, in that he set up the statue of Abraham in his private chapel, as one of those worthy of Divine honours. But it should be borne in mind that this virtuous prince was after all a heathen, and had very vague and imperfect ideas about religion. He regarded all good men as equally worthy of honour, and his theology hardly extended further. In the shrine already referred to, he placed not only the statue of Abraham, but of Orpheus, Apollonius Tyaneus,[44] and Jesus Christ! It is needless to say that the man who did this could have been no proselyte to Judaism (let the Rabbins say what they will), or to Christianity either.