lost by shipwreck what they had, and those who are condemned to the mines, or have been banished to islands, or shut up in prisons, because they professed the religion of the true God.  There is but one thing that Christians have not in common, and that one thing is their wives.  They do not feast as if they should die to-morrow, nor build as if they should never die.  The objects of their life are innocence, justice, patience, temperance, chastity.

To this noble exposition of Christian belief and life in his day, Tertullian does not hesitate to add an ominous warning to the magistrates he is addressing—­ ominous, for it was a forecast of a great event soon to come to pass:  “Our origin is but recent, yet already we fill all that your power acknowledges—­cities, fortresses, islands, provinces, the assemblies of the people, the wards of Rome, the palace, the senate, the public places, and especially the armies.  We have left you nothing but your temples.  Reflect what wars we are able to undertake!  With what promptitude might we not arm ourselves were we not restrained by our religion, which teaches us that it is better to be killed than to kill!”

Before he closes his defense, Tertullian renews an assertion which, carried into practice, as it subsequently was, affected the intellectual development of all Europe.  He declares that the Holy Scriptures are a treasure from which all the true wisdom in the world has been drawn; that every philosopher and every poet is indebted to them.  He labors to show that they are the standard and measure of all truth, and that whatever is inconsistent with them must necessarily be false.

From Tertullian’s able work we see what Christianity was while it was suffering persecution and struggling for existence.  We have now to see what it became when in possession of imperial power.  Great is the difference between Christianity under Severus and Christianity after Constantine.  Many of the doctrines which at the latter period were preeminent, in the former were unknown.

Paganization of Christianity.  Two causes led to the amalgamation of Christianity with paganism:  1.  The political necessities of the new dynasty; 2.  The policy adopted by the new religion to insure its spread.

1.  Though the Christian party had proved itself sufficiently strong to give a master to the empire, it was never sufficiently strong to destroy its antagonist, paganism.  The issue of the struggle between them was an amalgamation of the principles of both.  In this, Christianity differed from Mohammedanism, which absolutely annihilated its antagonist, and spread its own doctrines without adulteration.