The community of goods which for a short time had been adopted in the primitive church was gradually abolished, and a system of voluntary gifts was substituted. In the time of the Emperor Decius it was the opinion of the magistrates that the Christians of Rome were possessed of very considerable wealth, and several laws, enacted with the same design as our statutes of mortmain, forbade real estate being given or bequeathed to any corporate body, without special sanctions. The bishops distributed these revenues, exercised the right of exclusion or excommunication of recalcitrant members of the Church, and maintained the dignity of their office with ever increasing pomp and circumstance. _II.--The Days of Persecution_ The persecution of Christians by the Roman emperors must at first sight seem strange, when one considers their inoffensive mode of faith and worship. When one remembers the scepticism that prevailed among the pagans, and the tolerant view of all religions which was characteristic of the Roman citizen in the early years of the empire, this harshness seems all the more remarkable. It can be explained partly by the misapprehension which existed in the mind of the pagan world as to the principles of the Christian faith, and partly by the organization of the sect. The Jews were allowed the exercise of their unsocial and exclusive faith. But the Jews were a nation; the Christians were a sect. Moreover, the Christians were regarded as apostates from the ancient faith of Moses, and, worshipping no visible god, were held to be atheists. The Roman policy also viewed with the utmost jealousy and distrust any association among its subjects, and the secret and nocturnal meetings of the Christians appeared peculiarly dangerous in the eyes of the law. They were oppressed by the Emperor Domitian. Trajan protected their meetings by requiring definite evidence of these illegal assemblies, and an informer who failed in his proofs was subject to a severe or capital penalty. But the edicts of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius protected the Church from the danger of popular clamour in times of disaster, declaring that the voice of the multitude should never be admitted as legal evidence to convict or to punish those unfortunate persons who had embraced the enthusiasm of the Christians. The authority of Origen and Dionysius annihilates that formidable army of martyrs, whose relics, drawn for the most part from the catacombs of Rome, have replenished so many churches, and whose marvellous achievements have been the subject of so many volumes of holy romance.