EARLY HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH FROM ITS FOUNDATION TO THE END OF THE FIFTH CENTURY

CHAPTER 29

THE GREAT PERSECUTION

1

The Emperor Diocletian

WHEN Gallienus was assassinated (March 22, 268), the Empire, invaded and torn in pieces, was at its lowest. A two-fold task was imposed upon the heirs of the son of Valerian—the reconstruction of the frontier, and the restoration of unity. The upright princes who succeeded one another during the following sixteen years, Claudius II, Aurelian, Tacitus, Probus, and Carus, laboured at this task conscientiously and not without success. Aurelian recovered Gaul from the native princes whom it had chosen, and deprived the Queen of Palmyra of the government of the eastern provinces. As to the frontier, its re­establishment was without doubt achieved, but only by drawing it farther back. The Empire was lopped of everything beyond the Rhine and the Danube: it lost, in Upper Germany, the Agri Decumates (Swabia and the Black Forest), and in the region of the Carpathians the entire province of Dacia, with the parts of the two Moesias which lay beyond the Danube. And even after these readjustments had been made, a feeling of perfect security did not exist in the interior of the Empire. The towns surrounded themselves with walls raised in haste; and it was necessary to fortify Rome itself. The enclosure which protected it during the whole of the middle ages preserves the name of Aurelian.

In the East, war with the Persians was almost incessant. The Emperor Carus perished in it in 284, leaving two sons, one of whom, Carinus, entrusted with the government of the West, had remained in Italy. The other, Numerian, had followed his father beyond the Euphrates. He was bringing home the army, when, in the neighbourhood of Byzantium, he was found dead in his tent. The generals, without troubling themselves about Carinus, elected one of their own number in the place of Numerian, and it was in this way that Diocletian, commander of the imperial guard (comes domesticorum), was raised to the throne (September 17, 284). Carinus marched against the usurper, came up with him in Moesia, and inflicted a few defeats upon him; but in the end he was abandoned by his troops, who passed over to Diocletian.

Diocletian had long dreamed of the sovereign power. Trained in the school of Aurelian and his officers, he was a real soldier and, better still, a clever organizer. When he had the Empire in his hands, it was not of enjoying it that he thought, but rather of restoring it. Before all things, stability was necessary. Diocletian deemed that the revolutions and rivalries for power were caused by the impossibility of a single man governing a territory of such vast extent, and above all directing the operations of armies, separated by such great distances from one another. In order to avoid rivals, he gave himself colleagues. In the year 285, one of his companions-in-arms, Maximian, was adopted by him, invested with the title of Caesar, and sent to Gaul to repress the insurrection of the Bagaudae. In the following year, he made him Augustus and entrusted to him the government of the West. In 293 the system was perfected : each of the two Augusti was provided with an auxiliary emperor, who had the title of Caesar and a definite jurisdiction: Constantius the Pale (Chlorus) in this way governed Gaul and Britain, with Maximian; while Galerius relieved Diocletian of the care of watching over the Danube frontier.

All these princes were natives of Illyricum, and of low origin. Maximian and Galerius remained under the imperial purple the men they had always been, coarse soldiers, cruel on occasion, without education and without morals; Constantius seems to have been more civilized. Diocletian was not anxious that his colleagues should have too many recommendations. He had given to Maximian the title of Herculius, and assumed for himself that of Jovius, thus indicating plainly his own part in the imperial Olympus, and the kind of service he expected from his assistants. It is assuredly to him that we must refer the whole policy of the Dyarchy and the Tetrarchy, especially the whole of the reforming legislation, by which he endeavoured to restore order in the finances, in the army, and in the general management of public affairs.

The leading idea of his system was an absolute centralization, the suppression of all local political life, of every vestige of ancient liberties : in one word, Autocracy. Diocletian is the founder of the Byzantine régime. It was indeed no very considerable change. The reformer did but consecrate by appropriate institutions the tendencies of the situation and usages which were already established. Such a system had the same results that it always has: the centralizing organ was developed at the expense of the body which it was supposed to direct; the fiscal system at the expense of general prosperity; and management at the expense of energy. The Empire was soon a prey to the malady of its government; the time was to come when it died of it.

The supreme head of this immense hierarchy of functionaries, all ornamented with the most high-sounding titles, was necessarily obliged to rise entirely above the ordinary conditions of humanity. The person of the Emperor was sacred, divine, eternal; his house was also divine (domus divina).Therein reigned a pomp worthy of Susa and of Babylon; the Jovius of Nicomedia was scarcely more accessible than his celestial patron. Things had travelled far from the simple life and familiar manners which Augustus had maintained in his house on the Palatine.

And it was not in Rome itself that this Asiatic pomp was displayed. The ancient mistress of the world was nothing now. Her senate, deprived of political power and closed, since the time of Gallienus, to veteran warriors, was now only a great town council. For the crowd which still thronged in the enclosure of Aurelian, games continued to be given and baths to be opened; but they no longer saw their emperor. Diocletian reigned at Nicomedia; his lieutenants had their official residences at Milan, at Treves, at Sirmium. No doubt it was well that the emperors should not be too far away from the frontiers; but there were other reasons. These soldiers of fortune, born in the least cultured provinces, and brought up in the camps on the Danube, cared nothing at all for Rome. Her traditions were tiresome, her populace always ready for seditious movements; her senate might remember that it had once been supreme, and might still wish to be of some consequence. On the death of Aurelian, it had come to life for a brief moment, and had tried to take part in public affairs. It was far better to keep at a distance from this uncomfortable city of Rome, and, since the Empire had become an Oriental monarchy, to install its capital in the Orient. Diocletian well understood this, and so did Constantine after him.

Amongst the reforms introduced at this time, it is fitting to mention here the new distribution of the provinces. Diocletian increased their number. Before his time, there were already sixty of them : he left ninety-six. It is true that this partition was compensated for by the creation of dioceses, more comprehensive divisions, in each of which several provinces were included. Each diocese was governed by a vicarius—that is to say, by a representative of the prefect of the imperial praetorium. This organization was in many places appropriated for the ecclesiastical use. In the East, from the time of the Council of Nicaea, the groupings of bishops corresponded almost everywhere with the new provincial divisions : the bishop of the city in which the governor resided, of the metropolis, as it was called, was the head of the episcopate of the province. It was he who presided over the elections, when a see became vacant, who convened his colleagues in council and presided over their meetings. This system was adopted later on in a great part of the West. These imperial dioceses also served, in a certain measure, to settle the boundaries of the ecclesiastical jurisdictions. It was in this way that Diocletian appears as of some importance in the organization of the Church. But he has claims of a very different character to figure in its history.

2

The Edicts of persecution

During the long peace which followed the persecution of Valerian, the Christian propaganda had made enormous progress. Not to speak of Edessa and the kingdom of Armenia, where Christianity was already the dominant religion, there were regions in the Empire in which it was not far from representing the half or even the majority, of the population. This was the case, for instance, in Asia Minor. In northern Syria, in Egypt, and in Africa, the Christians were also very numerous. At the councils of the time of St Cyprian we find as many as ninety bishops mentioned, which presupposes a much greater number of churches at that time, and in the forty or fifty years which followed many more must have been organized. The sixty Italian bishops assembled in 251 by Pope Cornelius allow of a similar estimate with regard to the Italian peninsula. In the south of Spain and of Gaul, in Greece, and in Macedonia, the spread of the Gospel, without perhaps having made so much progress, must nevertheless have obtained important results. In other countries, such as central and southern Syria, the north of Italy, the north, centre, and west of Gaul, in the island of Britain, in the mountains of the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Hemus, the situation was quite different. The ancient cults were still in favour, and groups of Christians were only to be found by way of exceptions.

This is a general account of the state of things, but in each country the situation varied according to local circumstances. Not far from Edessa, notable for its Christianity, Harran adhered obstinately to its old Semitic religion, which it preserved until the advent of Islam. Certain towns of the Lebanon, such as Heliopolis, or of the seaboard of Syria, such as Gaza, contained either a very small number of the faithful or none at all. In Phrygia were to be found small towns, where everyone, including the magistrates, professed Christianity. Christian and duumvirs and curators were not rare; there were even Christian flamens. The bishops were in frequent communication with the governors and the financial officials; they were treated with respect; much favour was shown them. And further, they had no longer any difficulty in rebuilding the old churches, in laying the foundation of new ones, and in holding largely attended meetings on festivals.

And there was something more significant still, from the point of view of the progress of Christianity and the liberty of action which it enjoyed, in the fact that not only municipal functions, but even the government of provinces was often entrusted to Christians. The palace itself, the divine dwelling of the imperial Jupiter, was full of Christians; they occupied there the superior positions of the central administration. Several of them—Peter, Dorotheus, and Gorgonius—figure in the number of the persons most highly placed in the favour of the emperor. The government offices, and the employments attached to the personal service of the sovereign, were, to a large extent, occupied by Christians. The Empress Prisca herself and her daughter Valeria seem to have had very close relations with Christianity.

But it was not so with Diocletian himself. Whatever may have been his toleration for the opinions of his subjects, his officials, and his family, he, for his part, preserved his attachment to the old customs of the Roman worship. He frequented the temples and sacrificed to the gods, without any mystic ideas, without ostentation, but with a deep devotion, deeming, no doubt, that he was thus fulfilling his duty as a man and, above all, as a sovereign. Such a state of mind could not make him really favourable to rival religions. “The immortal gods”, he says in his rescript against the Manicheans, “have condescended, in their providence, to entrust to the enlightenment of wise and good men the responsibility of deciding as to that which is good and true. No one is allowed to resist their authority: the old religion must not be criticized by a new one. It is a great crime to go back on anything which, having been established by our forefathers, is now in possession and in use”.

It was comparatively easy to apply these principles to Manicheism, which had been quite recently imported from abroad. But with regard to the Christian beliefs the same might already be said as of the old Roman cults: statum et cursum tenent ac possident. Besides, they were already too extensively propagated to allow any reasonable hope of extirpating them. Decius and Valerian had tried to do so; and it was known how unsuccessful their efforts had proved. Since then the position of Christians had grown and had been reinforced : a new attack upon them could only meet with still greater obstacles.

For a long time the good sense of the emperor led him to avoid any kind of persecution. At length, however, his ideas underwent a change. It is possible that, like so many other reformers, he was led astray by the chimera of religious unity, a baleful and lusty chimera, which still claims its victims. However, the details which have remained to us with regard to his attitude do not indicate any such point of view. Diocletian seems to have discovered, from a certain definite point of time, that there were too many Christians in his palace and in his army. To remedy this inconvenience, there was really no necessity to declare a war of extermination on Christianity. A few personal measures, a few dismissals, would have settled everything. Even among the Christians themselves such a course would have found supporters. There were not wanting among the faithful those who disapproved of military service, and who did not look at all favourably upon those of their brethren who were engaged in public offices. Maximilian, a conscript, was executed for refusing military service, at Theveste, on March 12, 295. The proconsul Dion in vain adduced in opposition to him the Christians who served in the imperial army. “They know what they ought to do”, replied Maximilian. “I am a Christian, and I cannot do what is wrong”. At Tangier, the centurion Marcellus who refused to continue his military service, and the clerk of the court, Cassian, who refused to write the sentence rendered against Marcellus, also suffered). The matter might well have ended here. But Diocletian was old: his power of resistance to external influence was enfeebled, and he was surrounded by a powerful party which clamoured for radical measures. Its head, the ferocious Caesar of Illyricum, found means of bending the aged Augustus to his ends, and of making him commit the enormity to which his name remains attached.

Lactantius gives as the origin of the persecution an event which is said to have happened in the eastern provinces. Diocletian was about to sacrifice, and to consult the entrails of the victims, when some Christians among his attendants made the sign of the Cross. The whose operations that day had led to no result, observed the gesture, and informed the emperor of it, complaining of the profane persons who thus disturbed his ceremonies. Diocletian was furious, and at once commanded that not only the actual offenders, but all the officers of his palace should be compelled to sacrifice, and that, in case of refusal, they should be beaten with rods. Letters were immediately despatched to the various military commanders, to the effect that all soldiers were to sacrifice, under pain of being excluded from the army.

Whatever influence the fact just related may have had upon the emperor's decision, it is certain that measures were taken to eliminate from the army the Christian element which it contained. A magister militum, named Veturius, was specially appointed to carry out this order. A very large number of Christians were thus forced to renounce the profession of arms and accepted the situation. There was no other penalty attached; only in one or two cases, Eusebius tells us, was death inflicted as a punishment, no doubt on account of special circumstances. This was in the year 302.

On his return from the East, Diocletian passed the whole winter at Nicomedia. Galerius rejoined him there, and devoted himself with all his energies to inducing the emperor to sanction more severe measures. It is said that he was incited to this by his mother, an aged and very devout Pagan with an implacable hatred of Christians. Diocletian resisted, “What is the use”, he said, “of causing trouble everywhere, and shedding torrents of blood? The Christians have no fear of death. It is quite sufficient to prevent the soldiers and the people about the palace from following their religion”. Galerius persevered, and returned incessantly to the subject. At last the emperor made up his mind to summon a council of friends, military officers and civil functionaries. Opinions were divided. As usual, those who were urgent in the matter—behind whom might be detected the influence of Galerius, the Caesar of today, the Augustus of tomorrow—drew over those who hesitated to their side. Yet the wise old emperor still refused to yield. It was at last agreed to consult the oracle at Miletus, the Didymean Apollo. The priestess, as can easily be imagined, did not fail to unite her inspiration to the wishes of Galerius and his party. And the conflict was decided upon.

If Galerius could have had his own way entirely, extreme measures would have been taken at the outset, and the stakes would have been lighted everywhere. But Diocletian did not wish for bloodshed; and, for the moment, his will prevailed. An edict was prepared in accordance with his views. On the day before its proclamation (February 23, 303), police officers proceeded at daybreak to the church of Nicomedia, a large edifice in full view of the imperial palace. The sacred books were seized and thrown into the fire, the furniture was given up to pillage, and the church itself demolished from top to bottom.

On the next day (February 24) the edict was published. It commanded that throughout the whole Empire the churches should be demolished, and the sacred books destroyed by fire. All Christians in possession of public offices, dignities, or privileges, were deprived of them; they lost also the right of appearing in a court of justice to accuse anyone of injuries, or adultery, or theft. Christian slaves might no longer be set free.

No sooner was the edict posted up than it was torn in pieces by a Christian of Nicomedia, whose name has not been preserved, but who paid for his daring by dying at the stake. A few days afterwards a fire broke out in the palace. Galerius at once accused the Christians of having kindled it; they repudiated the accusation, saying that he wished in this way to excite Diocletian’s anger against them. While the emperor was making enquiries to obtain light on the affair, a second fire broke out. Galerius, although it was winter-time, made haste to leave Nicomedia, declaring that he did not wish to stay there to be burnt alive.

Convinced at last, Diocletian determined to recommence the horrors of Nero’s reign. The whole of the palace suffered in consequence. His wife and daughter were forced to sacrifice; Adauctus, the head of the fiscal administration; the eunuchs most in favour, Peter, Dorotheus,and Gorgonius; the Bishop of Nicomedia, Anthimus; priests, deacons, Christians of every age, even women, were burnt or drowned wholesale. Thus was expiated the crime, clearly a faked one, of having set fire to the sacred palace and attempted to destroy two emperors at once.

But measures did not stop with this local repression. Seditious movements having occurred in the direction of Melitene and in Syria, they were declared to be the work of Christians. Other general edicts followed the first: they began by commanding the arrest of all the heads of the Churches, bishops, priests, and other clerics; and then that they should be compelled to sacrifice by every means available.

On September 17, 303, began the twentieth year of the reign of Diocletian. On this occasion an amnesty was granted to condemned criminals but we have no reason to think that it included the imprisoned confessors, who, in the eyes of the law, were neither prisoners awaiting trial nor condemned criminals, but rebels. The aged emperor resolved to celebrate at Rome the feast of his vicennalia. It took place on November 20. The construction of his celebrated baths was not sufficiently advanced for the ceremony of their dedication to be possible; it was therefore postponed. Besides, Diocletian was never happy on the banks of the Tiber. His Oriental magnificence, his austere and melancholy manners, made no impression on the turbulent Roman populace: they wearied him so much with their familiarities and pleasantries, that he did not even stay in Rome till January 1, the day on which he was to inaugurate his ninth consulate, but set out, in the depth of winter, for Ravenna. In the course of this unseasonable journey, he contracted an illness which lasted a long time, and became more severe on his return to Nicomedia. In this condition of affairs, he himself, the East, and in some ways the whole Empire, were in the hands of Galerius. The war against Christians was waged with still more fury. A fourth edict appeared. This time, there was no longer any question of special classes of persons: all Christians, without distinction, were commanded to sacrifice. After following Nero, a return had been made to the policy of Valerian; now it was the work of Decius that was resumed.

3.

The Dislocation of the Tetrarchy.

It was a terrible year, not only for the Christians, but also for the emperor. His health went from bad to worse. In the middle of December, it was reported that he was dead; he was not dead, but when he showed himself again in public, on March 1, 305, he could scarcely be recognized. Weakened in body and spirit, he allowed himself to be persuaded by Galerius, that the time had come for him to resign. Galerius had suggested the same idea to Maximian Herculius, at the same time threatening him with civil war. This double abdication entailed the elevation of Constantius and Galerius to the position of Augusti. Galerius appointed the two new Caesars— Severus, a drunken soldier, and Daia, a rough-hewn barbarian, who was called Maximinus to disguise him as a Roman. With two such colleagues as these, the new Augustus of the East hoped to be almost the sole head of the Empire; for Constantius, far away and pacific in character, and besides of enfeebled health, would be no obstacle. Maximin Daia was set over the diocese of the Orient—that is to say, over Syria and Egypt. Galerius united to his own Illyricum the dioceses of Thrace, Asia, and Pontus; Spain was added to the jurisdiction of Constantius; Italy and Africa fell to the lot of Severus.

This satisfactory arrangement was disturbed by the revolt of the natural heirs. If Diocletian and Galerius had no male children, it was not so with Constantius and Maximian, and their natural heirs did not at all relish the new system of succession. Constantine, the son of Constantius, was at Nicomedia when the change was made; he was a hostage given by Constantius. The latter, now become Augustus, demanded the return of his son, and Galerius was obliged to let him go, though he did it with much reluctance. What he feared, actually happened. The Emperor Constantius died soon after at York; in his last moments, he commended his son to the soldiers as his successor, and these, as soon as he had breathed his last, acclaimed the young prince as emperor (July 25, 306). It was a serious annoyance to Galerius; but as York was a long way from Nicomedia, and as Constantine was not without adherents, he was obliged to recognize him. At the same time, the title of Augustus was not conceded; Galerius proclaimed Severus as Augustus in the place of Constantius Chlorus, and Constantine as Caesar in the place of Severus. The Tetrarchy was reconstituted with the two Augusti, Galerius and Severus, and the two Caesars, Maximin and Constantine.

At the same time as Constantine succeeded his father, Maxentius, the son of Maximian, profiting by the state of abandonment in which the emperors had left Old Rome, seized upon the government there, without troubling himself at all about the Tetrarchy. Notwithstanding his dissolute morals, which recalled the days of Commodus, this young man knew how to please the Romans. As a protest against the new capitals, he reinstated the old forms of worship and the ancient legends in their former position of honour; he restored the Forum and the Sacred Way, and near the latter he raised a magnificent basilica. Severus tried in vain to dispute the position with him; his soldiers deserted him. They were soldiers of the old Maximian, and rallied all the more readily round his son because Maximian himself, issuing from his retreat, had just reassumed the purple, with the title of “Augustus for the second time”. This reappearance of Maximian put the last touch to the disorder. Severus had been driven to suicide; Galerius hastened to avenge him; but, as he drew near to Rome, the attitude of his soldiers decided him to return home. Maxentius, now feeling his hands free, proclaimed himself Augustus (October 27, 307). However, the old Maximian, having now quarrelled with his son, betook himself to Gaul and joined Constantine. There he tried, by making use of his support, still to play a part; then abandoned his protector, returned to him again, betrayed him, and finally was either put to death, or forced to be his own executioner by the advice of his host (310).

Galerius, in search of a second Augustus, had thought (November 11, 308) of giving this title to Licinius, one of his old companions-in-arms. Maximin at once protested : from his distant diocese, he saw with jealousy this newcomer attaining supreme honours at one stroke. Constantine might well have raised the same objections. Galerius, to pacify them, gave them both the new title of “son of the Augusti”; some months later, he went the whole way and made them full Augusti. There were thus four emperors of the first rank.

When Galerius died, in May 311, Licinius and Maximin hastened to claim his inheritance; however, an arrangement was concluded, by virtue of which the Bosphorus became their common boundary. In this way the empire of Maximin comprehended Asia Minor, with Syria and Egypt; that of Licinius stretched from the Bosphorus to the Alps: theoretically, it extended also to Italy and Africa; but, as a matter of fact, these countries obeyed Maxentius, an illegitimate emperor from the point of view of the law of the Tetrarchy, but in reality firmly established in his power.

Constantine, meanwhile, kept his position in Gaul, maneuvering skillfully in the midst of all these conflicts, and no doubt meditating the design which he soon accomplished—that of annihilating all his rivals, by making use of some in order to rid himself of the others.

It was with Maxentius that the process of simplification began. After making sure of the moral support of Licinius, to whom Maximin was causing some useful feelings of alarm, Constantine invaded Italy, inflicted several defeats upon the partisans of the “tyrant”, and finally met him in the ever-famous battle near the Milvian Bridge (October 28, 312). Maxentius perished in the waters of the Tiber; Constantine entered Rome, and was at once recognized throughout the whole of Italy and in Africa. The following year, the hands of Licinius were free to attack Maximin. The infamous Daia, defeated in Thrace on April 30, recrossed the Bosphorus, and then the Taurus, and finally poisoned himself at Tarsus.

There remained now only two emperors, Constantine and Licinius, the one at Rome, the other at Nicomedia.

4.

The Persecution down to the Edict of Galerius.

We must now return to the enactments of persecution. The first edict, besides the degradations and disqualifications which it pronounced against certain classes of Christians, commanded the demolition of the churches and the burning of the sacred books. Such are, at any rate, the proceedings which are known to us directly; but we know also that the real property of the Christian communities was confiscated, and that, ere the religious edifices were destroyed, the furniture of them was seized. These operations were carried out according to regular forms; in certain places, authentic inventories were made; some of these were preserved for a very considerable period. It was thus that the Donatists were able, in 411, to produce the formal records of the seizure of the churches of Rome. These have been lost since then; but we are still able to read those which were drawn up at Cirta in Numidia. More summary accounts remain to us with regard to the application of the edict in other localities, in Africa and elsewhere. It would have been very difficult to resist the seizure of the Church properties. But at least the clergy did everything in their power to save the furniture, and especially to save the Holy Scriptures. Some women of Thessalonica fled to the mountains with a quantity of books and papers. The Bishop of Carthage, Mensurius, had succeeded in concealing the sacred books; in their place, he left in one of his churches a collection of heretical books, which were seized and destroyed by the unheeding police. The officials, indeed, were not always very observant. Some decurions of Carthage, having obtained knowledge of Mensurius’ deception, denounced him to the proconsul: the latter took no notice of their disclosures. If this was the case in the large towns, we can imagine what would happen in the smaller localities. There were places where the Christians were in bad repute, and where the municipal government was in the hands of their adversaries; but in other places they had to deal with magistrates who were Christians themselves, or who, at least, were sympathetic. Ways out of the difficulty were often found. As in Carthage, other books were seized in the church instead of those of the Bible, and if the search was extended even to the bishop’s house, there were still means of evading it. Sometimes, instead of entirely destroying the churches, the police contented themselves with burning the doors. Moreover, the bishops and clergy often showed themselves accommodating, and gave up their holy books, thinking, doubtless, that it would be easy later on to obtain new copies. But this complaisance was not accepted by general opinion, especially, as can readily be understood, when the persecution was over, and when one could be unyielding without risk. It was then that the heroism of certain bishops was remembered, of Bishop Felix of Thibiuca, who had paid with his head for his refusal to give up the Scriptures. Miracles also, were reported, like that which occurred at Abitina, where, as the sacred books, which had been given up by the Bishop Fundanus, were thrown into the fire, a terrible storm burst over the flames and inundated the whole country.

In those provinces which were governed by the Caesar Constantius, the destruction did not extend beyond the edifices themselves. The churches were seized and destroyed; but the same treatment was not enforced in regard to the Scriptures.

If destruction thus befell the churches in which the Christians assembled under the eye of the authorities, there was, of course, far more reason for forbidding clandestine meetings. This was a necessary consequence of the first edict, and we are justified in believing that such a prohibition was expressly formulated in it. This follows also from an African document, in which figure some fifty Christians of the little town of Abitina, who are accused of having met for service (“collect”) under the presidency of a priest called Saturninus. The second edict, which ordered the imprisonment of the clergy, was aimed indirectly at the meetings for worship; for how could they be held without religious leaders?

Up to this time, for those who obeyed the edicts, who accepted their legal disqualifications, who allowed their Scriptures to be burnt and their churches to be seized, who abstained from taking part in the assemblies for worship henceforth forbidden, there was still some measure of safety. In Nicomedia, it is true, recourse was had at once to the most extreme measures; but that was on account of special circumstances. The more sanguinary form of persecution had not yet attacked the simple profession of Christianity. It was different when the government renewed, for the clergy first and then for all the faithful, the obligation of taking part in the ceremonies of the official form of worship; when they no longer confined themselves to proscribing, but endeavored to convert.

At this stage the same state of things was repeated as had been already experienced in previous persecutions. Excited enthusiasts rushed to martyrdom, denounced themselves, made an uproar before the tribunals, and insulted the police. Wise and strong characters waited quietly until they were arrested, and then met the commands of authority with a calm and persevering resistance, which, in many cases, triumphed over imprisonment and torture, and was maintained unto death. There were also many apostates, most of them in a great hurry to do whatever they were told to do, in order to escape from danger; others resisting at first, and then weakening, overcome by the horror of the dungeons and the anguish of the torture.

Many fled, or hid themselves, at the sacrifice of all their possessions. There was a great difference between various kinds of Christians. We can study them in the penitential letter of Bishop Peter of Alexandria, written in 306, in the canons of the Council of Ancyra (314), in the accounts given by Eusebius, and in certain fragments of hagiography. Many deceived the police, sent their slaves or their pagan friends to sacrifice in their stead, and thus obtained their certificate of sacrifice. Others followed a simpler method still, and bought this certificate, if they could find anyone disposed to sell it to them. Among the stout hearted there were some who could not get their confession of faith accepted. Some of the magistrates cared far less for executions than for apostasies. There were even some who, when the term of their office had expired, boasted of not having put a single Christian to death. In the matter of the pagan actions required, the authorities were very easily satisfied; sometimes they registered people against their will as having complied with the law. Sometimes it happened that inconsiderate friends, Christians or pagans, absolutely determined to save from death a believer whom they knew to be resolute, dragged him to the altars, with his hands and feet bound, gagged him to stop him from crying out, and forced him, even at the cost of burning his hands if necessary, to throw a few grains of incense upon the sacred fire.

Lactantius complains, and with reason, of other judges, more to be feared on account of their pretended clemency, who did not wish to kill their victims, but invented tortures so exquisite that they often overcame the most intrepid resistance. He prefers those judges who were openly cruel, either from natural ferocity, or that they might stand well with the superior authorities. There were some of them who did not hesitate to go beyond their instructions, like the judge in a little town of Phrygia, the inhabitants of which were all Christians, who set fire to the church in which the whole population was assembled, and burnt it to the ground with those in it, including the town council and the magistrates of the place.

The change of emperors, brought about by the abdica­tion of Diocletian and Maximian, had the effect of extend­ing, in the West, the field of action of Constantius Chlorus. Spain, annexed to his immediate jurisdiction, shared from that time in the relative peace which Christians had hitherto enjoyed in Gaul and in Britain. His lieutenant Severus does not seem to have been distinguished in Italy and Africa by a special zeal for the edicts of persecution. After the death of Constantius, Constantine showed himself even more favorable to the Christians than his father had been; Maxentius also was tolerant. We may say, then, that rigorous persecution lasted scarcely more than two years (303-305) in the western provinces. It was quite otherwise in Illyricum, in Thrace, Asia-Minor, and the Orient, where nothing was opposed to the will of Galerius and of Maximin, his creature. In these men natural ferocity was at the service of a kind of religious conviction: Galerius was devout, Maximin a fanatic. The latter combined an unbridled, brutal, and despotic licentiousness with an extraordinary zeal for the worship of the gods. At the beginning of his reign, as the persecution seemed to him to have somewhat abated, he took care to revive it at once, and imposed afresh the obligation to sacrificed

The police, armed with lists of names, went from street to street calling upon the inhabitants to appear, and forcing everyone, even women and children, to repair to the temple, and there perform the prescribed ceremonies. However, after the lapse of a certain time, dating from the year 307, a more lenient state of things was introduced. The penalty of death, in ordinary cases, was replaced by that of hard labour in the mines, with this aggravation, that the confessors were previously deprived of the sight of the right eye, and maimed in the left leg by cauterizing the tendon. A little later, in 308, after a short respite, the provincial and municipal authorities were again set to work. The Caesar ordered the old temples to be rebuilt everywhere, and everyone, even the little children, was obliged to take part in the sacrifices; the wine of the libations was to be poured over the victuals in the market; and at the doors of the public baths altars were erected upon which all those who entered were compelled to throw incense. There were still many evil days to come and go.

However, the first author of the persecution was already struggling with the terrible malady which was to overcome his ferocity. It began almost with the opening of the year 310; and for some eighteen months the wretched Galerius fought against it, wearying his physicians with his complaints, and the gods with his fruitless supplications. At last there came to him an idea—surely of all the strangest—of interesting in his health the Christians, whom for years he had hunted down, and the God whose worship he had sworn to exterminate. From Sardica, no doubt, where he then was with Licinius, a proclamation was sent through all the provinces in the name of the four sovereigns. It declared that the emperors, with the general intention of reform, had wished to bring back the Christians to the religious institutions of their ancestors, but that they had not been able to succeed, the Christians having persisted, in spite of the severities of which they had been the victims, in obeying the laws which they had made for themselves. Under these conditions, as they would not honour the gods of the empire, and since they could not practise their own form of religion, it was necessary to make provision by indulgence for their situation. In consequence, they were allowed to exist once more, and to reconstitute their assemblies, on condition, however, that they did nothing contrary to discipline. The magistrates were informed that another imperial letter would explain to them what they were to do. “In return for our indulgence”, the edict concluded, “the Christians are to pray to their God for our health, for the State, and for themselves, that the commonwealth may enjoy perfect prosperity, and that they may be enabled to live at home in security”.

What a change! The emperor and the empire recommended to the prayers of the Christians, and this by the very man who was responsible for all the calamities which they had endured for eight years!

5.

The Persecution of Maximin.

The edict was published at Nicomedia and in all the provinces belonging to Galerius, Licinius, and Constantine. In the empire of Constantine it was really only an official consecration of a liberty already re-established as a matter of fact. Maxentius restored to the bishops the places of worship which had hitherto remained in the hands of the treasury. Maximin showed himself less prompt. He did not publish the edict; but, by his orders, his praetorian prefect, Sabinus, communicated it to the governors of the provinces, commanding them to let the municipal magistrates know that the emperors had given up the idea of converting the Christians to the State religion, and that they were no longer to be punished for their resistance. This was sufficient in the eastern provinces, as in Asia Minor; the gaols were opened; the mines yielded up their prisoners; the Christians who had disguised their religion, took courage and showed themselves as they were. The confessors were welcomed with enthusiasm, the penitent apostates were received back to the fold. Upon the high roads resounded the joyous canticles of the liberated prisoners and the exiles returning to their homes. The religious assemblies, after an interval of eight years, were held again as of old. The Christians were specially attached to those which took place in the cemeteries, over the graves of the martyrs.

But these joys of religious peace were not of long duration. No sooner was Galerius dead than Maximin transported to Nicomedia the seat of his tyranny and the scandal of his debaucheries, and along with them his fanatical zeal for the service of the gods. In the preced­ing years, he had caused all their temples in the Orient to be restored; now he reorganized the priestly colleges. Taking a hint from the Christian hierarchy, he established in each city a chief priest, and in each province a high priest, giving them authority over their colleagues, and loading them with honours and dignities. These pagan bishops and archbishops were designated, of course, to take care that the gods should have no cause to complain of the liberty granted to the Christians. Spurious Acts of Pilate were fabricated, filled with blasphemies against Christ. An official having procured, by infamous means, pretended revelations with regard to the morals of Christians and the horrors of their assemblies, the greatest publicity was given to all these documents; they were placarded in all the cities and villages, and were imposed as text-books in the elementary schools.

The curator of Antioch, a certain Theotecnus, conceived the idea of procuring an oracle against the Christians, by means of the god Zeus Philios, whose worship he had restored. The god demanded that the impious persons should be driven from the city and its surrounding territory. This demand, when brought to the knowledge of Maximin, pleased him greatly. At Nicomedia a similar request was presented to him by the magistrates of the town. The people of Tyre were unwilling to be behind-hand; to the petition which they sent him, the emperor replied by a letter full of unction and of gratitude. We still possess it, for Eusebius procured a copy of it, and inserted it in Greek in his History.

The movement spread: the municipal councils and the provincial assemblies hastened to follow an example thus encouraged in high quarters. The officials, besides, were on the spot, to stir up zeal. We still possess, in part at least, the text, inscribed on stone, of the petition addressed to Maximin by the provincial assembly of Lycia and Pamphylia, and also of the emperor's reply. We see in the reply, as in the letter to the people of Tyre, that the petitioners were regarded with high approval, and that the greatest rewards were promised to them.

Thus strengthened by imperial approbation, the municipal magistrates could give themselves up with an easy mind to hunting the Christians. Soon troops of wretched beings were to be found wandering upon the public roads in search of a refuge. Yet still the edict of toleration had not been officially recalled. The magistrates confined themselves to forbidding meetings in the cemeteries, and the rebuilding of churches. The Government did not acknowledge that anyone was punished for the simple fact of being a Christian. Constantine, more­over, intervened by means of letters, and set himself to restrain the frenzied zeal of his eastern colleague. But in the state of mind in which Maximin was, we can well imagine how easily he found pretexts for getting rid of the troublesome Christians. It was in this way that the Bishop of Emesa, Silvanus, was put to death, being thrown to the beasts with two companions; Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, was beheaded, without even the pretence of a trial; and several Egyptian bishops were treated in the same fashion. Lucian, the celebrated priest of Antioch, who had retired to Nicomedia, was arrested there, and, in spite of the eloquent speech which he made in his own defence, was executed in prison.

These are examples of the kind of treatment to which the Churches of Asia-Minor, of the Orient, and of Egypt had to submit, during the two years that the tyranny of Maximin lay heavy upon them. To these miseries was added also, in Syria at least, the scourge of famine and that of contagious disease. Eusebius has left us affecting details on this subject. The Christians around him distinguished themselves at this time by their charity to the sick and starving, without any distinction of religion, as well as by their assiduous care in burying the dead. They thus disarmed the hostility of many of their enemies. During this time, Maximin attempted to interfere in the religious affairs of the Armenians, who were friends and allies of the Empire, and to force them to “sacrifice to idols”. The Armenians rose in revolt, and war once more drenched the eastern frontiers with blood.

But the days of Maximin were numbered. At the beginning of the year 312, he heard that the war between Constantine and Maxentius, a war foreseen and expected ever since the death of Maximian,s had at last broken out; that Constantine was in Italy, marching from one success to another; that he had betrothed his sister to Licinius, and concluded an alliance with him. The Nicomedian Emperor then understood the danger which threatened him. He, the legitimate prince, consecrated by the choice of Galerius, and invested with the imperial insignia by Diocletian, entered into a secret treaty with the “tyrant”, against whom had fulminated, for six years, all the thunders of the Tetrarchy. When the news reached him of the battle of the Milvian Bridge, he felt that it was he himself who was defeated. Constantine had found in Rome statues of Maximin placed side by side with those of Maxentius, and—a more serious matter still—he found letters which confirmed the alliance and the treason. However, he did not at once take up a hostile attitude, but he assumed for himself, or allowed the senate to give him, the first place in the imperial triumvirate, a place which had, until then, been accorded to Maximin. It was an evil omen for the latter. He was officially informed of the defeat of Maxentius, and at the same time he was invited to leave the Christians in peace. He made a pretence of compliance. In a new letter addressed to his praetorian prefect, Sabinus, he reminded him that ever since his accession to power (305) he had endeavored to mitigate, in the provinces of the Orient subject to his authority, the severities enjoined by Diocletian and Maximian against the followers of the Christian religion; that, when he became emperor at Nicomedia (in 311), he had, it was true, received favorably the requests presented to him against the Christians by the inhabitants of that town and of many others; that, nevertheless, he had not intended that anyone should be ill-treated on account of his religion, and that it was necessary to write to that effect to the officials of the provinces.

This document was lacking in precision. The Christians mistrusted it; they abstained from holding assemblies in public, and from rebuilding their churches. The new edict did not specify that they were authorized to do so. The whole thing did not amount to more than a purely formal satisfaction given to Constantine. In reality, things remained in the condition in which Maximin had maintained them for the past two years.

6.

The End of the Evil Days.

This was the position in the spring of 313, when Maximin opened his campaign against Licinius. Being defeated on April 30, near Adrianople, he recrossed the Bosphorus, disguised in borrowed clothes, passed through Nicomedia, and did not stop until he reached the Taurus. There, in Cilicia, he was again in his former empire. But Licinius was following him closely; he forced the passes, and at last Maximin, in despair, poisoned himself at Tarsus. He died in frightful suffering. Before killing himself, he had thought for a moment that resistance was still possible, and, to conciliate the Christians whom he had so eagerly persecuted, he had an idea of issuing a fresh edict, giving them full and complete toleration. But with him cruelty never lost its sway. At the same time as he granted liberty to the Christians, he ordered the execution of a number of pagan priests and diviners, whose oracles had induced him to engage in this disastrous war.

His edict, as regards its practical part, was absolutely similar to that which Licinius had hastened to publish at Nicomedia, of which the following is the text:—

“Inasmuch as we have long considered that liberty of religion could not be refused, and that everyone ought to have granted to him, according to his opinions and wishes, power to act as he pleases in the practice of divine things, we had already given orders that every person, including the Christians, may remain faithful to his religious principles. But since different provisions have been added to the text by which this concession was granted to them. it seems speedily to have come to pass that some of them have not been able to profit by it.

“While we were happily together at Milan, namely, I, Constantine Augustus, and I, Licinius Augustus, and while we were consulting together upon all that relates to the public welfare and safety, amongst the things which appeared to us useful to the greatest number, we decided that the first place must be given to that which concerns the worship of the Divinity, by granting to the Christians and to everyone else perfect liberty to follow the religion which he prefers, in order that whatsoever Divinity there be in the celestial mansions may be favourable and pro­pitious to us, and to all those placed under our authority. Wherefore we have decided, being influenced thereunto by wise and just reasons, to refuse liberty to no man, whether he be attached to the religious observances of the Christians, or to any other religion which he finds suitable to him; in order that the Supreme Divinity, whom we serve in all freedom, may grant us, in all things, his favor and benevolence. Therefore, be it known to Your Devotedness. it has pleased us to remove absolutely all the restrictions contained in the letters previously addressed to your offices regarding the Christians, as odious restrictions, incompatible with our clemency; and to allow every person who wishes to observe the Christian religion the pure and simple liberty to do so, without being troubled or molested. We have thought fit to dignify this expressly to Your Solicitude, that you may have full knowledge of our intention to give the Christians perfect and entire liberty to practice their religion.

“In making this concession to them, we wish also, and Your Devotedness will understand this, that others too should have the same entire liberty with regard to their religions and observances, as the peace of our own times requires, in order that everyone may have free license to adore whatever he pleases. We have made this rule, in order that no dignity and no religion should be diminished.

“As concerns the Christians, we have decided in addition, that the places in which they were accustomed to assemble, and regarding which letters addressed to your offices have previously given instructions, if some of them have been bought by our imperial treasury or by anyone else, are to be restored to the Christians gratis and without asking any price for them, without seeking any pretexts or raising any doubtful questions; and that those to whom such places may have been given, must also restore them to the Christians, with as little delay as possible. These buyers, however, and those who have received such places as a gift, may address themselves to our benevolence, to obtain some compensation, for which our clemency will provide. And since the Christians possessed, not only their places of assembly, but others also, belonging to their corporate bodies, that is to their churches, and not to private individuals, these properties also you will cause all to be restored, on the conditions expressed above, without ambiguity or dispute, to these same Christians, that is to say to their corporations and conventicles, subject to the reservation already announced that those who thus restore them, without exacting any price for them, may rely upon an indemnity from our benevolence. In all this, you are to lend to the said body of Christians the most efficient assistance, so that our orders may be executed with the briefest possible delay, and that thus, through our clemency, provision may be made for public tranquility. Thus, as we have already said, the Divine favor, of which we have had experience in such grave conjunctures of affairs, will continue to sustain our success, for the public weal.

“In order that the purport of this decision of our benevolence may come to the knowledge of all, you shall take care to publish this edict by means of placards posted up everywhere, and also give notice of it to everyone, that no one may be ignorant thereof”.

This edict, in the name of the two emperors, Constantine and Licinius, but emanating immediately from Licinius, was undoubtedly addressed to the praetorian prefect of the Orient, who was charged with the duty of publishing it, and communicating it to the governors of provinces and other magistrates competent to execute it. It represented, first of all, the abolition, by Licinius, of all those restrictions by which, for eighteen months, Maximin had tried to impede the application of the edict of tolera­tion ; in the second place, it represented an addition decided upon at Milan, between Constantine and Licinius, which addition was directed to two points: (1) to religious liberty in general, which it declared to be full, entire, and absolute for Christians as for others, for others as for Christians; (2) to ecclesiastical properties apart from the buildings used for purposes of worship : it prescribed the immediate restitution of these, whether they had remained in the hands of the imperial treasury or had been disposed of, either by sale or gift, to private individuals.

Following upon the interview at Milan, another edict, earlier than this one, must have brought these liberal arrangements to the knowledge of the public in the West, and in Illyricum : we no longer possess the details of it, and it is only by its Eastern adaptations that we are able to judge of it. As a matter of fact, thanks to these extensions to the edict of Galerius, the Christians, as individuals and as a body, were restored, by a kind of restitutio in integrum, to the position in which they found themselves before the persecution. But this position they had at that time only enjoyed by a tacit toleration: the new arrangements gave them a legal title.

7.

The Effects of the Persecution.

At last, then, religious peace reigned; it was complete, without reservations, and extended to the whole Empire. The Christians breathed again; the Churches were re­organized in the full light of day; the sacred edifices were rebuilt, and the interrupted meetings were resumed. In this re-awakening to life, the memory of the dark days was soon obliterated, and then effaced entirely. It would almost have been lost to history, if the indefatigable Eusebius had not taken care to record some details of it at once. And even he did not think it expedient to present a general picture of the persecution. Leaving to others the task of relating what they had witnessed around them, he confined his special enquiries to his own province of Palestine, contenting himself, so far as the other provinces were concerned, with reporting a few names and indicating a few general features of the situation. Unfortunately, however, the “others”, upon whom he had relied, nowhere took up the pen, and it is only for Eusebius’ own province that we possess exact information.

His book, The Martyrs of Palestine, written in the year 313, just when the persecution was drawing to an end, enumerates forty-three persons condemned to death and executed by order of the governors of Palestine during the ten years 303-313. We must remark, first of all, that this number does not include the name of a single bishop, although there were, at that time, at least some twenty s episcopal sees in the province. The most distinguished of these dignitaries, Agapius, Bishop of Caesarea, passed through the whole of the crises unscathed. Eusebius praises his alms-giving and his talent for administration, but that is all. Hermon, Bishop of Aelia, also came safely through all. The only Palestinian bishop who made the supreme sacrifice at that time was a Marcionite bishop, Asclepios, martyred in 309. With regard to priests, we hear only of Pamphilus, the learned and celebrated disciple of Origen, and a priest of Gaza, called Silvanus. Moreover, the last named was only sent to the mines, and, if he died there, it was not by sentence of the governor of Palestine. Several deacons, exorcists, and readers represent the lower ranks of the clergy rather more largely.

Nevertheless, we must not think that those whose names do not appear among the victims, properly so-called, remained absolutely untouched. Eusebius, who is by no means well-disposed to the bishops of his own country, relates that, since they had not known how to lead the Lord’s sheep, they were made leaders of camels, or set to look after post-horses. These details evidently refer to persons who had survived, and into whose history it was better not to enquire. Eusebius adds that, as regards the sacred vessels of the churches, they were submitted to many outrages on the part of the officials of the imperial treasury.

Another observation which the accounts given by Eusebius suggest to us, is that, in many cases, the persons executed were executed, not for the simple refusal to sacrifice, but for having complicated their refusal by words or actions calculated to aggravate it, for instance, by having made demonstrations in favor of those condemned, or assisting the confessors with too much zeal. Enthusi­astic believers, as always happens, lost no opportunity of distinguishing themselves. Procopius, a reader at Scythopolis, thought it wrong that there should be four emperors, and quoted to the audience a verse from Homer, in which monarchy was commended. Others spoke, in this connection of Jesus Christ as the only true King. The governor, Urbanus, was going one day to the amphitheatre, where, it was said, a Christian was to be thrown to the beasts; he met a group of six young men, who presented themselves before him with their hands bound, declaring that they also were Christians, and ought to be thrown into the arena. Eusebius and Pamphilus had received into their house a young Lycian, Apphianus by name, a prize-winner of the schools of Berytus, and so fervent a Christian that he could not endure to live with his parents, who were still pagans. Pamphilus used to instruct him in the Holy Scriptures; but, one day, he heard shouting in the street. The Christians were being summoned to a pagan ceremony. Apphianus could no longer restrain himself, made his escape without any warning to his hosts, rushed to the temple, where the governor was, sprang upon him, seized his hand, and tried to prevent him from offering sacrifice to the idols.

Apphianus had a brother, Aedesius, a Christian like himself and a disciple of Pamphilus, a youth of superior culture and an ardent ascetic. He had been several times arrested, and was at last condemned to the mines of Palestine; he escaped from them, Red to Alexandria, and lost no time in frequenting the audiences of the prefect. This official was a certain Hierocles, a great devourer of Christians. Appointed to the government of Lower Egypt, he there applied his principles with the greatest severity. Aedesius heard him condemn some Christian virgins to a treatment which was far worse to them than death, and which was, besides, illegal. This was quite enough. Protesting against the sentence, he sprang upon the tribunal, gave the judge two resounding boxes on the ears, threw him on the ground, and trampled him underfoot.

A virgin of Gaza, threatened with the same shameful fate, protested against the tyrant who caused himself to be represented by such abominable magistrates. She was immediately put to the torture. In indignation a poor woman of Caesarea, Valentina by name, caused an uproar and overturned the altar. The two women were burnt together. Three Christians, Antoninus, Zebinas, and Germanus, imitated the exploit of Apphianus, and assaulted the governor during a religious ceremony: they were beheaded.

From these accounts it may be concluded, I think, that the governors of Palestine, though much abused by Eusebius, must not be regarded as having displayed any special ferocity. They may have made examples, and severely chastised several Christians, who were in too great a hurry to declare themselves as such, or guilty of having infringed some special prohibitions. But we are not told of any of those wholesale executions, or of those refined and revolting tortures which we find in other provinces.

After the year 307, the punishment of death was generally replaced by that of condemnation to the mines. But, by way of compensation, the punishment was applied very largely to considerable bodies of persons: for instance, to a whole assembly of Christians, who were surprised by the vigilant police of Gaza. The confessors were sent to the copper-mines at Phaeno, to the south of the Dead Sea. It was a very desolate place. Thither also were sent, in large troops of a hundred or a hundred and thirty persons at a time, many Egyptian Christians, for whom a place could no longer be found in the quarries of their own country. Phamo ended by becoming a Christian colony. The con­demned, apart from their work, enjoyed there a certain amount of liberty; they assembled themselves together in various places, transformed into churches. Priests and bishops were to be found amongst them, and presided over these assemblies. We may mention among them the Egyptian bishops, Nilus, Peleus, and Meletius; and also Silvanus, a veteran of the army, who had entered the service of the Church. At the time when the persecution broke out, he was exercising his priestly functions in the neighbourhood of Gaza; he was a past confessor. He was ordained bishop at Phaeno itself. There also officiated the Reader John, who had long been blind, and who knew the whole Bible by heart, and used to recite it without a book in the meetings of the confessors. These meetings were not always peaceful ones: even in prison they found means of quarrelling with one another. So much liberty displeased the governor, Firmilian. After a visit paid to these quarters, he informed Maximin of the state of affairs, and by the emperor’s command the colony of Phaeno was dispersed in other mines. Several executions took place at the same time; Nilus and Peleus were burnt, with a priest and the confessor Patermouthios, a personage highly esteemed for his zeal. This execution was ordered by the military commandant. There only remained thirty-nine infirm persons, incapable of real work; in this group were to be found the Bishop Silvanus and the Reader John. They were got rid of by cutting off their heads.

In Egypt the persecution was far more severe, especi­ally in Upper Egypt, in the Thebaid. Eusebius visited these regions while the persecution was still going on. He heard of wholesale executions, of thirty, sixty, or even a hundred martyrs who died each day, either by being beheaded or burnt alive; he heard of abominable tortures—of women suspended, naked, by one foot only, of confessors attached by their legs to branches of neighbouring trees which were forcibly brought close together: then, when the rope was cut, the branches Hew back to their former positions, quartering the poor victims. It was all in vain; no amount of torture could terrify these Egyptians, always severe in their life, and inspired by their enthusiasm and their resistance. The more executions there were, the more eagerly fresh victims presented themselves. In Lower Egypt, Peter, the Bishop of Alexandria, kept himself hidden, but with a watchful eye over his flock; several of his priests, Faustus, Dius, and Ammonius, figured among the victims. The first of these had already confessed his faith, nearly half a century before, when he was deacon to Bishop Dionysius; he had now attained extreme old age. Some bishops also were arrested and put to death, after long confine­ment in prison. We hear of Hesychius, Pachymius, Theodore, and, above all, of Phileas, the learned Bishop of Thmuis. Before he became bishop he had filled high offices; he was a very rich man, and was surrounded by a numerous family. His relations and friends, and even Culcianus, the prefect himself, did all in their power to save him from death, but in vain. He remained unshaken. With him died also Philoromus, the head of the financial administration in Egypt. From his prison, Phileas had written to his Hock at Thmuis a letter in which he described to them the torments suffered by the martyrs of Alexandria. Eusebius has preserved a fragment of this letter. As in the Thebaid, there were executions of numbers at a time. Besides the martyrs of whom Phileas speaks, we hear of thirty-seven who, divided into four groups, perished on the same day, by means of different punishments—beheading, drowning, Hre, and crucifixion. Several of them were clerics, of various orders.

It was not only in their own country that the Egyptians confessed the faith. Several are mentioned by Eusebius as having found martyrdom in Palestine and elsewhere. He himself saw some of them, in the amphitheatre at Tyre, who were thrown to the wild beasts, and whom the beasts refused to devour. When it was decided to send recalcitrant Christians to the mines, the confessors of the Thebaid were despatched to the porphyry quarries, near the Red Sea. But this prison was not large enough for all of them: and gangs of Christian convicts were continually sent to Palestine, to Idumea, to the island of Cyprus, and to Cilicia.

Besides Egypt and the Thebaid, where the persecution lasted so long, Eusebius mentions the African and Mauritanian provinces, in which it was of short duration, as among the countries where Christians had most to suffer. The commentary on these words is furnished to us by the long lists of Egyptian and African martyrs, preserved in the Martyrology attributed to Saint Jerome. With regard to Africa especially, groups of thirty, fifty, and a hundred names recur very frequently all through the calendar. It is, apparently, to Diocletian’s persecution, rather than to any of the preceding ones, that these hecatombs must be referred. The same impression may be deduced from the Martyrology as concerns Nicomedia, where the persecution raged very cruelly.

As to the other countries of the Orient, our information is very inadequate. We know from Eusebius that Silvanus, the Bishop of Emesa, suffered under Maximin, in the amphitheatre of his episcopal city; that Tyrannion, the Bishop of Tyre, and Zenobius, a priest of Sidon, confessed the faith at Antioch; that the former was thrown into the sea, and that Zenobius died under the agonies of the rack.

The Bishop of Laodicea, Stephen, apostatized shamefully. Like his predecessor, Anatolius, he was a man of great culture, well versed in literature and philosophy, but either of weak character or a hypocrite, as his fall proved.

At Antioch also suffered, quite at the beginning of the persecution (303), a certain Romanus, rural deacon of Caesarea in Palestine, who was passing through the Syrian metropolis, and made himself conspicuous by his vigorous protests against the apostates. As to the clergy and the faithful of Antioch, we do not know what happened to them. But the persecution was severe. Eusebius tells us of pyres on which the martyrs were burnt gradually over a slow fire, and of the altars on which, when commanded to drop grains of incense, they allowed their hands, flesh and bone alike, rather to be devoured by the flame. Without mentioning the names, he recalls the remembrance, apparently known to his readers, of two young girls, two sisters, distinguished by their birth and fortune as much as by their virtue, who were thrown together into the sea; and also the story of a noble lady, who, when the persecution broke out, fled with her daughters, no doubt beyond the Euphrates. Their retreat being discovered, they were being brought back to Antioch. But at the crossing of the river, in despair at the thought of the treatment, worse than death, which awaited them on their return, they escaped from their escort and threw themselves into the current.

With regard to other countries, what Eusebius has preserved is the recollection of extraordinary punishments; in Arabia, Christians were killed by being hewn in pieces by a hatchet; in Cappadocia, their legs were broken; in Mesopotamia, they were suffocated, hung by their feet over a brazier; in Pontus, sharp-pointed reeds were driven under their nails, or the most sensitive parts of their bodies were sprinkled with molten lead. Certain officials distinguished themselves by their ingenuity in combining torture and obscenity.

If such horrors as these had come to our knowledge through legendary stories, we could never have sufficiently distrusted the exaggeration of the narrators; in the present case, the man who relates them was in a position to be well informed, and little inclined to pervert the meaning of the documents which had been transmitted to him. When Eusebius wrote, the fires were scarcely extinguished: their ashes were still warm. We must therefore believe him. And, moreover, have we not other stories, less ancient and as well attested, to tell us that in matters of this kind anything and everything is possible?

As regards all the special occurrences, of which the recollection was consecrated in each country by religious observance, and cultivated by local hagiography, it would be impossible to enumerate them here. Among the documents which treat of them, there are very few on which we can rely for the details of the circumstances. Of the features which we can really gain from them, those which are of general interest are already known to us through Eusebius and Lactantius: the others have no importance except for local history.

8.

Literary Polemies.

To the strife of laws and police was added that of literary controversy. This, indeed, had never really ceased. After Tertullian, Minucius Felix and St Cyprian had again set before public opinion the exposition and the defense of Christianity; to the Greek Apologies of the 2nd century had succeeded various writings, of which we still possess the text, but without knowing who were the authors of them.

When Porphyry’s book against the Christians appeared, Methodius and Eusebius had answered it at once. The persecution had excited the zeal of people who delighted—it is a characteristic of every age—in crushing the conquered. An African rhetorician, Arnobius, an official professor at Sicca Veneria, had for a long time attacked the Christians, when, suddenly touched by divine grace, he became a Christian himself. The bishop of that place, who did not believe in his conversion, asked him for guarantees of it, and Arnobius gave one of the most striking kind, by publishing a searching attack upon paganism. While he was thus engaged in refuting himself, he seems at the same time to have had in view a certain Cornelius Labeo, the author of writings hostile to Christianity. His work bears the mark of the haste with which it was composed; the style of it is very careless; and with regard to the soul, its origin and its immortality, the language of the author is that of a neophyte inadequately instructed.

Arnobius had among his disciples at Sicca Veneria another African who was to take a much more prominent place as a Christian apologist. This was Lactantius (L. Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius), who had acquired as a rhetorician a reputation sufficient to induce the Emperor Diocletian to invite him to Nicomedia, and to entrust him with an official professorship of Latin oratory. He had begun life as a pagan, and was so still, to all appearance, at the time of his promotion. At Nicomedia he was converted. The persecution deprived him of his position; he was reduced to private teaching, which was little remunerative to a professor of Latin in this Greek city, and especially to a Christian in such times. He employed his enforced leisure in writing in the defense of his beliefs. He was a man of ability. Happily for his literary fame, he did not take Arnobius as his model, and tried rather to imitate Cicero. Of his writings there are preserved to us two little treatises: one on the nature of man (De opificio Dei), the other on certain anthropomorphisms (De Ira Dei); but also, and more important, a great apologetic work, the Divine Institutions, in seven books, of which he himself made a summary It was the attacks of his enemies which made him take up his pen. While the executioners were doing their worst against the Christians, a certain sophist, whose name he has not preserved, attacked them in his lectures. An eloquent apostle of theoretical poverty, he could be seen walking about in a short mantle, with his hair in disorder; but it was well known that his possessions were constantly increasing, thanks to the favor of highly placed person­ages, that at his house a better dinner was served than in the imperial palace, and also that no kind of austerity was practiced there. He preached to the public that the duty of philosophers was to correct the errors of men, and to guide them in the right way; he praised the emperors highly for having undertaken the defense of the old religion and violently attacked the new, of which he knew next to nothing, as was easily perceived. The public, moreover, agreed that the time was ill chosen for this kind of rhetorical display, and that it was discreditable to trample in this way on the fallen. The sophist was hissed.

After him another enemy of Christianity entered the lists, Hierocles, formerly governor of Phoenicia, then vicarius, and finally governor of Bithynia. He was a very great personage and a councillor of the emperor; he had been a member of the famous council in which the persecution was decided upon. He published a work in two books with the title: To the Christians, the friend of truth. Lactantius considers it very well informed, and especially familiar with the difficulties of Holy Scripture. This can easily be explained. Hierocles had stolen largely from Porphyry. On certain points, however, he followed his own path. I do not know whence he had obtained the information that Jesus, after being driven away by the Jews, put Himself at the head of a band of nine hundred brigands. The romance of Philostratus had suggested to him the idea of making numerous com­parisons between the Saviour and Apollonius of Tyana. On this point he was attacked by Eusebius, who devoted a special book to him. When, later on, he became governor in Egypt, he had to do with an apologist of a different kind.

As for Lactantius, a saddened witness of these cowardly attacks, they furnished him with the idea, not of measuring his own strength against that of the aggressors—for he did not think they were worth the trouble—but of taking up again, against all the adversaries of Christianity and with an appeal to the opinion of cultivated persons, the task which Tertullian and Cyprian had assumed before him. The first of these, he thought, had written with too much polemical ardor, the second had made use of arguments which appealed to Christians themselves rather than to their pagan adversaries. A calm statement in good style, and resting upon the ground of philosophy and literature common to all well-educated persons: this was what Lactantius intended to compose, and what he succeeded in producing. He was the Cicero of Christianity.

He was the Christian Cicero even to the Philippics; for it was certainly he (the fact is now scarcely disputed) who was the author of that spirited pamphlet, The Death of the Persecutors, published in 313, just when Licinius was posting up, on the walls of Nicomedia, the edict of freedom. Lactantius, who during the evil days had seen his friends massacred or tortured, and had found himself obliged to leave Nicomedia, returned there to enjoy the religious peace. He was still unhappy. It was only some years later that fortune smiled upon him: Constantine summoned him to the West, and entrusted him with the education of his son Crispus (about the year 317). He was then far advanced in years.