Note 319 — Chapter IV

‘The first year of Commodus must be the epocha of the toleration. From all these authorities, it appears beyond exception, that Commodus put a stop to the persecution in the first year of his reign…. Not one writer, either heathen or Christian, makes Commodus a persecutor.’ Letters concerning the Thundering Legion, in Moyle's Works, vol. ii. p. 266, London, 1726. ‘Heliogabalus also, though in other respects the most infamous of all princes, and perhaps the most odious of all mortals, showed no marks of bitterness or aversion to the disciples of Jesus.’ Mosheim's Eccl. History, vol. i. p. 66: see also Milman's Hist. of Christianity, London, 1840, vol. ii. p. 225.