OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 117 their lands and houses to increase the pubhc riches of CHAP. . XV the sect, at the expense, indeed, of their unfortunate '__ children, who found themselves beggars, because their parents had been saints*. We should listen with dis- trust to the suspicions of strangers and enemies : on this occasion, however, they receive a very specious and probable colour from the two following circumstances, the only ones that have reached our knowledge, which define any precise sums, or convey any distinct idea. Almost at the same period, the bishop of Carthage, from a society less opulent than that of Rome, collected an hundred thousand sesterces (above eight hundred and fifty pounds sterling) on a sudden call of charity to redeem the brethren of Numidia, who had been carried away captives by the barbarians of the desert". About an hundred years before the reign of Decius, the Ro- man church had received, in a single donation, the sum of two iiundred thousand sesterces from a stranger of Pontus, who proposed to fix his residence in the capital". These oblations, for the most part, were made in money ; nor was the society of christians either desirous or capable of acquiring, to any considerable degree, the incumbrance of landed property. It had been provided by several laws, which were enacted with the same design as our statutes of mortmain, that no real estates should be given or bequeathed to any
- Turn summa cura est fratribus
(Ut sermo testatur loquax) Offerre, fundis venditis Sestertiorum niillia. Addicta avorum pradia Fcedis sub auctionibus. Successor exhsres gemit Sanctis egens parentibus. IlaiC occuluntur abditis Ecclesiarum in angulis : Et summa pietas creditur Nudare dulces liberos. Prudent, irtpi arf^aviov. Hymn. 2. The subsequent conduct of the deacon Laurence, only proves how proper a use was made of tho wealtli of the Roman church : it was un(U)ubtedly very considerable ; but Fra. Paolo (c.3.) appears lo exaggerate, when he s'ippo.ses that ilie successors of Couimodus were urged lo persecute the christians by their own avarice, or that of their pretorian prefects. " Cyprian. Epistol. 62. * Tertullian de Praescriplione, c. 30.
