SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS,

the fifth of the “ten persecutors,” was emperor from A. D. 193 to 211. He was at first the friend of the Christians. There were Christians among the domestics of his household. Both the nurse and the teacher of his son Caracalla were Christians, and “he always treated with peculiar distinction several persons of both sexes who had embraced the new religion.”—Gibbon. ^{11[Page 124] Id., chap. xvi, par. 34.} It must not be supposed, however, that Severus himself was inclined to become a Christian. Finding that the number of Christians was rapidly increasing, he issued an edict in A. D. 202 forbidding anybody thereafter to adopt the new religion. This, however, did not prohibit those who were already Christians from remaining so. The purpose being to check the spread of the new religion, he forbade any further changing from the old to the new. Yet the result of the edict was indirectly to increase the hardships of the Christians under the already existing laws. This was the measure of the persecution by Septimius Severus. But there is another side to the story of Severus which, when compared with this, shows that it is only by a severe stretch of language, if not of imagination, that the Christians could be counted as persecuted by him.TTR 124.2

It was through a triangular civil war that Septimius Severus secured the imperial power. He was commander of the troops on the Illyrian frontier, and was in Pannonia. Pescennius Niger was commander of the troops in Syria. Clodius Albinus was governor of Britain. The troops of Niger proclaimed him emperor; and the troops of Severus did the same for him. Severus had the advantage of being nearest to Rome. He hastened into Italy with his army, and was acknowledged by the Senate as lawful emperor. War immediately followed between Severus and Niger. Niger was defeated in two engagements, and slain. As long as the contest with Niger was uncertain, Severus pretended the utmost friendship for Albinus; bestowed upon him the title of Caesar; sent him a letter in which he called him the brother of his soul and empire; and charged the messengers who carried the letter that when they delivered it, they should secure a private audience with Albinus and assassinate him.TTR 125.1

Albinus, however, detected the conspiracy, and by it discovered that if he were to live, it would have to be as emperor. He crossed into Gaul; the armies met at Lyons; Albinus was defeated, captured, and beheaded. Severus discovered that the Senate had encouraged Albinus. He therefore sent to the Romans the head of Albinus with a letter declaring that none of the adherents of either Albinus or Niger should be spared. He did, however, pardon thirty-five senators who were accused of having favored Albinus, while forty-one other senators with their wives, their children, and their friends were put to death. The same punishment was inflicted upon the most prominent characters of Spain, Gaul, and Syria, while many others were sent into exile, or suffered the confiscation of all their property, merely because they had obeyed the governor under whose authority they had happened to fall in the triangular conflict. Niger had been a popular governor, and many cities of the East contributed to him considerable sums of money when he was proclaimed emperor. All these cities were deprived of their honors, and were compelled to pay to Severus four times the amount that they had contributed to Niger. To elevate to the dignity of a persecution the treatment of the Christians by Septimius Severus in view of his treatment of the Roman Senate and whole cities and provinces of the empire, bears too much evidence of an attempt to make out a case, to be counted worthy of any weight.TTR 125.2

Severus was succeeded in A. D. 211, by his two sons,TTR 126.1