being a punishable offence, would be avoided. And therefore their position as a recognised or tolerated collegium would in no way prevent persecution 'for the name' or accusation under the law of majestas. It would merely give the various Christian communities a certain locus standi for their ordinary meetings; it would facilitate their combination for charitable purposes, making it more possible for them to approximate, without the suspicion of dangerous or anti-social communism, to their principle of having all things in common ('omnia indiscreta sunt apud nos'1); and, finally, it would secure to them to them the right of common burial, and the possibility of possessing common burial places, which the vast system of catacombs round Rome proves to have been so essential an element of early Christianity. Indeed, the un

1 Tert., Apol. xxxix. Cf. Moeller, Church Hist. (Eng. Trans.), vol. i. p. 195: "The possibility of corporate rights and collective property for the Christians in the pre-Constantinian period consisted in their application to their own uses of the exceptions to the laws against Hetaireiai in favour of the so-called collegia tenuiorum ; they therefore took the character of a sort of burial and charitable society... These latter were allowed to assemble once a month, but were nevertheless obliged to give notice to the authorities and give the names of the presidents. In this way, therefore, appeared Christian collegia fratrum, which had their triclinia and also their burial places."

doubted possession by the Christians at the end of the second century of arca1 or cemeteria of their own seems necessarily to imply that in some way or other they had corporate rights-that their communities ranked as juristic persons—a result which could only follow from their being generally or specially licensed.” 2

With this account of Tertullian's claims on behalf of the Christian communities and their probable relation to the Imperial legislation on collegia the record is practically closed.

3

In the time of Clement of Alexandria the legislation of Alexander Severus 3 had taken effect, and this may partly account for Clements' frequent mention of the Agapé, which may now have been practically tolerated.

Origen's comparative silence about the Agapé is very possibly due to the renewed feeling of hostility to Christians at the time that he wrote against Celsus (A.D. 249); and his admission 5 of

1 Cf. Hippolytus, quoted on p. 104, note, and Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. vii. 13, who mentions an ordinance of Gallienus in which he grants permission to other bishops "to recover what are called the cemeteries." 2 Hardy, p. 191.

3 Which seemed to give larger toleration than its wording implies. Cf. supra, pp. 98 and 191.

4 The date of the Decian Persecution.

5 Contra Cels. i. I.

the illegal character of the Agapé may perhaps be taken as referring to a period anterior1 to the toleration of Severus to the collegia tenuiorum, and to the further enactments of Alexander Severus, which were no doubt in force in Origen's time.

1 Otherwise it certainly makes against Mr. Hardy's view as quoted above. Celsus himself, as previously pointed out, seems to have written a century earlier.

INDEX

ACHELIS, Dr (Can. Hipp.), | Agapé-continued-