BOOK I

FROM THE PERSECUTION OF THE CHURCH BY NERO TO CONSTANTINE’S EDICT OF TOLERATION. A.D. 64-313.

CHAPTER VII.

FROM THE ACCESSION OF GALLIENUS TO THE GRANT OF TOLERATION BY CONSTANTINE. A.D. 261-313.

 

Gallienus, when left sole emperor by the captivity of his father and colleague, put a stop to the persecution which Valerian had commenced, and issued edicts by which the exiles were recalled, the cemeteries were restored to the Christians, and a free exercise of religion was granted. Thus was Christianity for the first time acknowledged as a lawful religion; a benefit which, in so far as the frivolous and worthless prince was concerned, it probably owed to his indifference rather than to any better motive.

In this reign began a contest as to the see of Antioch, which lasted several years. Paul, a native of Samosata, had been appointed bishop about the year 260. He enjoyed the protection of Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, and was generally admired for his eloquence; but both his opinions and his manners gave scandal to many of the neighbouring clergy, and to the more discerning portion of his flock. Through the favour of Zenobia, as is supposed, he obtained a considerable civil office; and he chose to be addressed by the title of ducenary rather than by that of bishop. In his public appearances Paul affected the state and pomp of a Roman magistrate; he even introduced much of this display into his ecclesiastical functions. He erected a tribunal, and railed off a secretum in his church; in preaching he used the gestures of secular orators, while he expected the hearers to receive his words with clapping of hands and waving of handkerchiefs, as if in a theatre; he discarded the old grave music of the church, and introduced female singers into his choir; nay, it is said that he substituted hymns in celebration of himself for those which had been sung in honour of the Saviour, and that he caused himself to be extolled by the preachers of his party as an angel from heaven. He is charged with having enriched himself by taking bribes, not only in the character of ducenary, but in his episcopal capacity of arbiter between the brethren. And he is further accused of luxurious living, and of indecent familiarity with young women— two of whom were his constant companions.

It has been supposed that Paul’s system of doctrine was framed with a view to the favour of his patroness, who is said by St. Athanasius to have been attached to Judaism. His adversaries describe it as akin to that of Artemon. He maintained that there is no distinction of Persons in the Godhead; that the Logos and the Holy Ghost are in the Father in the same manner as the reason and the spirit are in man; that when the Logos is said to have been from everlasting, nothing more than an ideal existence in the Divine foreknowledge is meant; that His generation means only a going forth to act; that Jesus was a mere man (although it was perhaps admitted that his birth was supernatural); that he is called Son of God, as having in a certain sense become such through the influence of the Divine Logos, which dwelt in him, but without any personal union.

In order to the consideration of the charges against Paul, a synod of bishops and clergy from Syria, Asia, and Arabia, assembled at Antioch in 264. Among the members were Firmilian, Gregory of Neocaesarea, and his brother Athenodore; and the venerable Dionysius of Alexandria, although compelled by age and infirmity to excuse himself from attendance, addressed to the assembly a letter in strong condemnation of Paul's opinions. The accused, however, succeeded in throwing a veil over his unsoundness; he satisfied his brethren by expressing himself in plausible terms, and by promising to abstain from everything that could give offence. The promise was not kept. Two more councils were held; and at the second of these the subtleties which had imposed on less expert theologians were detected by a presbyter named Malchion, who, having formerly been a distinguished sophist or rhetorician, was skilled in the intricacies of such disputation. The bishop was deposed, and Domnus, son of his predecessor, was appointed to succeed him.

Paul still persisted in keeping his position. Relying on the protection of Zenobia. and probably supported by a large party among the Christians of Antioch, he retained the episcopal house, with the church which adjoined it; and the dispute as to the possession of these was referred to the emperor Aurelian, soon after his victory over Zenobia. Aurelian wisely abstained from intermeddling in a question of Christian doctrines and usages. He decided that the buildings should belong to that party which the bishops of Rome and of Italy should acknowledge as being in communion with themselves; and their judgment, pronounced in favour of Domnus, was enforced by the civil power. From this time the followers of Paul became a heretical sect, whose baptism, although administered in the name of the Trinity, was disallowed by the church, on the ground that the orthodox words of administration were used by them in a heterodox meaning.

Aurelian’s impartial decision in the case of Paul was not, however, prompted by any favourable disposition towards the gospel. The emperor was deeply devoted to the pagan system, and most especially to the worship of the sun, of which his mother had been a priestess. He regarded the Christians with contempt: and, notwithstanding the restraints imposed on him by the measures of Gallienus, he had issued an order for a persecution, in token of gratitude to the gods for his success in war, when, before the document could be generally circulated, he was assassinated in his camp.

It appears to have been during the reign of Aurelian, and probably about the year 270, that Manes began to publish his opinions in Persia. As to the history of this earlier Mahomet, the Greek and the oriental accounts differ widely from each other. The Greeks trace the heresy to a Saracen merchant named Scythian, who, after having become rich by trading to India, is said to have settled at Alexandria, and to have devised a philosophical system of his own. At his death, which took place in Palestine, his manuscripts, with the rest of his property, fell to his servant Terebinth, who, in order to obtain a more favourable field for the propagation of his doctrines, went into Persia, where he assumed the name of Buddas. He was, however, beaten in disputation by the priests of the national religion; and while engaged in incantations on the roof of his house, he was thrown headlong and killed by an angel or a demon. On this, a widow with whom he had lodged, and who had been his only convert, buried the body and took possession of his wealth; she bought a boy seven years old, named Cubricus, or Corbicius, liberated him, bestowed on him a learned education, and, dying when he had reached the age of twelve, left him heir to all that she possessed. Cubricus assumed the name of Manes, and, after an interval of nearly half a century, as to which no details are given, appeared at the Persian court, carrying with him the books of Scythian, which he had interpolated with anile fables, and claimed as his own productions. He undertook to cure a son of king Sapor of a dangerous sickness, and, having failed in the attempt, was cast into prison. While he was in confinement, two of his disciples, whom he had sent out on missions, returned, and reported that they had found Christians the most impracticable class of all with whom they had argued. On this Manes procured the Christian Scriptures, and adopted much from them into his system, styling himself the apostle of Christ, and the Paraclete. He escaped from prison, and opened a communication with Marcellus, an eminent and pious Christian of Cascara, whose influence he was anxious to secure for the recommendation of his doctrine. The bishop of the place, Archelaus, however, won over his envoy, Tyrbo, and from him and others discovered the doctrines of the sect, with the history of its origin. Archelaus vanquished the heresiarch in conferences at Cascara and Diodoris; and Manes soon after again fell into the hands of the Persian king, by whose order he was flayed alive.

According to the oriental statements, on the other hand, Mani was a Persian, of the magian or sacerdotal caste, and possessed an extraordinary variety of accomplishments. He embraced Christianity, and is said by one authority to have been a presbyter in the church before he formed his peculiar scheme of doctrine. Having been imprisoned by Sapor on account of his opinions, he escaped, travelled in India and China, and at length retired into a cave in Turkestan, telling his disciples that he was about to ascend into heaven, and that at the end of a year he would meet them again at a certain place. The interval was employed in elaborating his system, and, on his reappearance, he produced the book of a new revelation, adorned with symbolical pictures by his own hand. After the death of Sapor he returned to the persian Court, where he was well received by Hormisdas, and made a convert of him; but within less than two years he lost his royal patron. The next king, Varanes, at first treated him with favour, but was soon gained over by his enemies; he invited to dispute with the magians, and on their declaring Mani a heretic, caused him to be put to death—whether by flaying, crucifixion, or sawing asunder, is uncertain.

Although Manichaeism in many points resembled some of the gnostic systems, the likeness did not arise from any direct connection, but from the Persian element which it had in common with Gnosticism. Manes was not influenced either by Jewish traditions or by Greek philosophy; but, in addition to the Zoroastrian and the Christian sources from which his scheme was partly derived, it has been supposed that in the completion of it he drew largely from the doctrines of Buddhism, with which (it the account of his eastern travels be rejected) it appears that he might have become acquainted in his native country.

The deliverance of Persia from the Parthian yoke by Artaxerxes had been followed by a reformation of the national religion. The belief in one supreme being, anterior to the opposite powers of light and darkness or of good and evil, had been established, and a persecution had been carried on against those who maintained the original and independent existence of Ormuzd and Ahriman. This system of pure dualism, however, was taken up by Manes. He held that there were two principles, eternally opposed to each other, and presiding respectively over the realms of light and darkness. To the former the name of God properly belonged; the latter, although the Manichees admitted that in some sense he too might be styled God (as St. Paul speaks of the God of this world), was more rightly named Demon or Matter. These powers were independent of each other; but God was the superior. God consisted of pure light, infinitely more subtle than that of our world, and without any definite bodily shape; the demon had a gross material body. Each realm was composed of five elements, which were peopled by beings of kindred natures; and, while the inhabitants of the world of light lived in perfect love and harmony, those of the world of darkness were continually at strife among themselves. In one of their wars, the defeated party fled to the lofty mountains which bounded the two worlds; thence they descried the realm of light, whose existence had before been unknown to them; and forthwith all the powers of darkness, laying aside their internal discords, united to invade the newly-discovered region. God then produced from himself a being called Mother of Life, and from her one named Primal Man, whom he armed with the five good elements, and sent forth to combat against the powers of evil. The invaders, however, were prevailing, when, at the prayer of Primal Man, God sent forth Living Spirit, by whom they were driven out, and Primal Man was rescued; although not until the powers of darkness had swallowed a portion of his armour, which is the living soul. To this part, thus enchained in the bondage of matter, was given the name of Passible Jesus; and thenceforth it was the object of the spirits of darkness to detain the heavenly particles which they had absorbed, while God was bent on effecting their deliverance.

In order to their gradual emancipation, Living Spirit, by the command of God, framed our world out of materials in which the elements of light and darkness had become commingled during the late struggle. The powers of darkness produced children; their prince, by devouring these, concentrated in himself the particles of heavenly essence which were diffused through their bodies; and he employed the materials thus obtained in the formation of man, moulded after the image of the heavenly Primal Man. Adam was therefore a microcosm, including in himself all the elements of both kingdoms, having a soul of light and one of darkness, with a body which was material, and therefore necessarily evil. With a view of retaining him in bondage, his maker forbade him to eat of the tree of knowledge; but Christ or an angel, in the form of the serpent, instructed him—he ate and was enlightened. The Demon produced Eve, and, although God put into her a portion of heavenly light, it was not strong enough to master her evil tendencies. She tempted Adam to sensual pleasure; disregarding the commands of God, who had charged him to restrain, by means of his higher soul, the desires of his lower soul and of his body, he yielded and fell; the particles of heavenly light became yet further enthralled to matter; and, as the race of man continued, it deteriorated more and more from generation to generation.

God had produced out of himself two beings of pure light—Christ and the Holy Spirit—whose office it was to help in the deliverance of mankind. Christ dwelt by his power in the sun, and by his wisdom in the moon—which were therefore to be worshipped, not as deities, but as his habitations; the Holy Spirit dwelt in the air. The world was supported by a mighty angel, who from his office was called in Greek Omophoros (bearer on shoulders); and the frequent signs of impatience exhibited by this being (whose movements were the cause of earthquakes) hastened the coming of Christ in human form.

As the evil nature of matter rendered it unsuitable that the Saviour should have a material body, his humanity was represented by Manes after the docetic fashion; it was supposed that he appeared suddenly among the Jews (for the narrations as to his birth and early years were rejected), and that his acts and sufferings were only in appearance. The object of his mission was to give enlightenment —to teach men their heavenly origin, and urge them to strive after the recovery of bliss, overcoming their body and their evil soul; to deliver them from the blindness of Judaism and other false religions. No idea of atonement could enter into the system, since the divine soul was incapable of guilt, and the lower soul was incapable of salvation.

The particles of celestial life which had been absorbed by the kingdom of matter—the Passible Jesus—were not in man only, but in the lower animals and in vegetables—“hanging” (it was said) “on every tree”. From their abodes in the sun, the moon, and the air, Christ and the Spirit act in the work of disengaging these particles; it is by their operation that herbs burst forth from the ground, striving towards their kindred light, while the powers of darkness, whom the Living Spirit, after his victory, had crucified in the stars, thence exert baleful influences on the earth.

Animal and even vegetable life was therefore sacred for the Manichaeans, who believed that vegetables had the same feelings of pain as mankind. The elect (the highest class in the community) might not even pluck a leaf or a fruit with their own hands; when about to eat bread, it is said that they thus addressed it:—“It was not I who reaped, or ground, or baked thee; may they who did so be reaped, and ground, and baked in their turn!”. While the elect ate, the particles of divine essence contained in their food were set free: thus, says St. Augustine, did Manes make man the saviour of Christ. But the effect of other men's eating was to confine the heavenly particles in the bonds of matter; and hence it was inferred that, although a Manichaean might relieve a beggar with money, it would be impious to give him food.

It was taught that the natural man, born after the flesh, was not the work of God; but the new man, the believer, who, in St. Paul’s words, “after God is created in righteousness and true holiness”. By those who should obey the precepts of Christ and of Manes, the evil elements of their nature would at length be shaken off; but, although penitence atoned for sin, the work of purgation could not be finished in this life. The sun and the moon were two ships for the conveyance of the elect souls to bliss. On leaving the body such souls were transferred to the sun by the revolution of a vast whee1 with twelve buckets; the sun, after purging them by his rays, delivered them over to the moon, where they were for fifteen days to undergo a further cleansing by water; and they were then to be received into the primal light. The less sanctified souls were to return to earth in other forms—some of them after undergoing intermediate tortures. Their new forms were to be such as would subject them to retribution for the misdeeds of their past life, so that one who had killed any animal would be changed into a creature of the same kind, while those who had reaped, or ground, or baked, were themselves to become wheat, and to undergo the like operations; and thus the purgation of souls was to be carried on in successive migrations until they should become fitted to enter into the bliss of the elect. When this world should have completed its course, it would be burnt into an inert mass, to which those souls which had chosen the service of evil would be chained, while the powers of darkness would be for ever confined to their own dismal region.

Manes represented the Old Testament as a work of the powers of darkness. He attacked its morality and its representations of God, dwelt on its alleged inconsistency with the New Testament, and denied that it prophesied of Christ. The gospel, it was said, was intended chiefly for gentiles; and on them the Jewish prophets could have no claim, insomuch that it would be more reasonable for gentiles to listen to the oracles of the Sibyl or of Hermes Trismegistus; those who should give heed to the prophets would die eternally. Christ had left his revelation imperfect, promising to send the Paraclete for its completion; and St. Paul had spoken (I Cor. XIII. 4) of the further knowledge which was thus to be given. The promise, according to Manes, was fulfilled in himself; but, in claiming to be the Paraclete, he did not imply the full blasphemy which such a pretension suggests to a Christian mind. He rejected the Acts of the Apostles as opposed to his doctrine on this subject; he declared the Gospels to be the work of unknown persons who lived long after the apostolic times, and also to be much adulterated, so that he might assume the right of correcting them after his own fancy; and he set aside such other portions of the New Testament as were inconsistent with his scheme. The sect relied on some apocryphal Gospels and other forgeries of a like kind, but their chief sources of belief were the writings of the founder; and they claimed the liberty of interpreting the New Testament in accordance with the teaching of their Paraclete, in like manner as the orthodox interpreted the older Scriptures by the light of the Christian revelation. They denounced the idea of symbolism in religion, and made it their especial boast that their opinions were agreeable to reason—that their converts were emancipated from the bondage of authority and faith.

The Manichaeans were divided into elect and hearers. The former class professed a high degree of ascetic sanctity. They were bound by the “three seals”—“of the mouth, of the hand, and of the bosom”; they were to live in poverty, celibacy, and abstinence; they were not allowed even to gather the fruits of the earth for themselves, but were supported and served by the hearers, who were obliged by the fear of the severest punishments after death to supply all their necessities. The hearers were not subject to such rigid rules : although forbidden to kill animals, they were allowed to eat flesh and to drink wine, to marry, and to engage in the usual occupations of life. At a later time, charges of hypocrisy and gross sensuality were freely brought against the Manichaeans, notwithstanding their pale and mortified appearance; nor do these charges appear to have been without substantial foundation.

The Manichaean hierarchy consisted of a chief, twelve masters, and seventy-two bishops, with priests and deacons under them. The worship of the sect, simple and naked, agreeably to its Persian origin, was in many points studiously opposed to that of the church—as in the rejection or disregard of the Christian festivals, and in observing the Lord’s day as a fast. The anniversary of the heresiarch's death, in the month of March, was the great festival of their year, and was known by the name of Bema. In prayer the Manichaeans turned towards the sun. The hearers were allowed to listen to the reading of Manes’ books, but did not receive any explanation of their meaning; the worship of the elect was shrouded in mystery, which naturally gave rise to rumours of abominable rites. St. Augustine, after having been nine years a hearer, could only state that the Eucharist was celebrated among the elect; of the manner of administration he had been unable to learn anything, although, as the principles of the Manichaeans forbade them to use wine, he taunts them with “acknowledging their God in the grape, and refusing to acknowledge him in the cup"”. Baptism is supposed to have been administered with oil; that with water was held indifferent, if it was not forbidden.

Manichaeism soon spread into the west. Its appearance in proconsular Africa, within a few years after the founder's death, is attested by an edict of Diocletian, which condemns the doctrine, not as Christian, but as coming from the hostile kingdom of Persia. This document orders that the teachers and their books should be burnt; that the disciples should be sent to the mines, or, if persons of rank, should be banished; and that in either case their property should be seized. But two centuries later (as we learn from St. Augustine) the sect was numerous in Italy and in Africa, where some of its secret members were even among the clergy of the church. Notwithstanding frequent and severe edicts of the Christian emperors, Manichaeism continued to exist, and we shall have frequent occasion to notice it hereafter among the heresies of the middle ages.

The persecuting edict of Aurelian was revoked by his successor Tacitus; and for many years the church was undisturbed by the secular power. In the reign of Diocletian it had attained a degree of prosperity exceeding that of any former time. Its buildings began to display architectural splendour, and were furnished with sacred vessels of silver and gold. Converts flocked in from all ranks; even the wife of the emperor, and his daughter Valeria, who was married to his colleague Galerius, appear to have been among the number. Christians held high offices in the state and in the imperial household. Provincial governments were entrusted to them, with a privilege of exemption from all such duties as might be inconsistent with their religion. With these advances in temporal well-being, the contemporary historian laments that there had been a decay of faith and love; that hypocrisy and ambition had crept in : that pastors and people alike were distracted by jealousies and dissensions. But it has been well observed that the very offences which now appeared in the church are a token of progress, since it is the strongest proof of the firm hold of a party, whether religious or political, upon the public mind, when it may offend with impunity against its own primary principles. That which at one time is a sign of incurable weakness, or approaching dissolution, at another seems but the excess of healthful energy, and the evidence of unbroken vigour.

It was in the year 284 that Diocletian assumed the purple. In 286 he admitted Maximian to share the empire, as Augustus; and in 292 Galerius and Constantius were associated in the government, with the inferior title of Caesars. Disregarding the republican forms under which the imperial power had hitherto been veiled, Diocletian assumed the state of an eastern monarch, established a new system of administration, with offices and titles of a pomp before unknown among the Romans, and removed his court from Rome to Nicomedia, on the Asiatic shore of the Propontis. The ancient capital ceased to be the centre of government; the senate sank into insignificance and neglect. In the partition of the empire, Diocletian reserved for himself Thrace, the Asiatic provinces, and Egypt; Maximian, whose residence was at Milan, received Italy and Africa; Galerius had Illyria and the countries on the Danube; while Gaul, Spain, and Britain were assigned to Constantius.

The priests and others who were interested in the maintenance of the pagan system began to apprehend that they might lose their hold on the empire. Diocletian was indifferent as to religion, while Constantius openly favoured the Christians; and, although Maximian and Galerius were hostile to Christianity, yet it may have seemed possible that the Caesar might be influenced by his Christian wife. Attempts were therefore made to work on the superstitious feelings of Diocletian by means of omens and oracles. On one occasion, when Apollo was consulted in his presence, the answer was given, not, as was usual, through the priest, but by the god himself, in a hollow voice which issued from the depths of the cave—that, on account of the righteous who were on the earth, the oracles were restrained from answering truly; and, in reply to Diocletian’s inquiries, the priests explained that these words pointed at the Christians.

At another time, when the emperor was with his army in the east, it was announced that the entrails of the victims did not exhibit the usual marks by which the future was signified. The sacrifice was several times repeated without any better result; and at last the chief soothsayer declared that the presence of profane persons— that is to say, of Christians—was the cause of its failure. It was in the army that Christians were most especially liable to be noted, and that the first attempts on their fidelity were made.

The story of the Theban legion, which is referred to the year 286, although extravagantly fabulous in its details, may possibly have some foundation of truth. This legion, it is said, consisting of 6,600 Christians, was summoned from the east for the service of Maximian in Gaul. When near the Alpine town of Agaunum, which takes its modern name from their leader, St. Maurice, the soldiers discovered that they were to be employed in the persecution of their brethren in the faith, and refused to march onward for such a purpose. By order of Maximian, who was in the neighbourhood, they were twice decimated. But this cruelty was unable to shake the firmness of the survivors; and Maurice, in the name of his comrades, declared to the emperor that, while ready to obey him in all things consistent with their duty to God, they would rather die than violate that duty. Maximian, exasperated by their obstinacy, ordered the other troops to close around them; whereupon the devoted band laid down their arms and peacefully submitted to martyrdom. There are other and more authentic records of military confessors and martyrs in the early part of Diocletian's reign; but whatever persecutions or annoyances may have then been experienced by Christian soldiers, it does not appear that any general attempt to force their conscience was made before the year 298, when it was ordered that all persons in military service or in public employment of any kind should offer sacrifice to the gods.

Galerius, during a visit which he paid to Diocletian at Nicomedia in the winter of 302-3, endeavoured to excite the elder emperor against the Christians. For a time Diocletian withstood his importunity—whether sincerely, or only with a wish to gain credit for a show of reluctance, is doubtful. The advice of some lawyers and military officers was then called in (as is said to have been the emperor’s custom when he wished to divert from himself the odium of any unpopular measure), and a persecution was decreed. On the 23rd of February—the great Roman festival of the Terminalia,—an attack was made on the church of Nicomedia, which was situated on a height, and overlooked the palace. The heathen functionaries, on entering, found nothing to seize except the copies of the sacred books, which they burnt. It was then proposed to set fire to the building itself; but Diocletian, out of fear that the flames might spread, preferred to give it over to the soldiery for destruction, and by their exertions the church was in a few hours entirely demolished.

Next day the imperial edict was issued. It ordained that all who should refuse to sacrifice should lose their offices, their property, their rank, and civil privileges; that slaves persisting in the profession of the gospel should be excluded from the hope of liberty; that Christians of all ranks should be liable to torture; that all churches should be razed to the ground; that religious meetings should be suppressed; and that the Scriptures and other service-books should be committed to the flames. No sooner had the edict been publicly displayed, than a Christian, who is described as a man of station, tore it down, uttering at the same time words of insult against the emperors. In punishment of this audacious act, he was roasted at a slow fire, and the stern composure with which he bore his sufferings astonished and mortified his executioners.

Within a fortnight the palace of Nicomedia was twice discovered to be on fire. The cause is unknown but on the second occasion, at least, the guilt was charged on the Christians. Diocletian was greatly alarmed and incensed. He compelled his wife and daughter to sacrifice, and proceeded to administer the same test to the members of his household and to the inhabitants of the city. Some of the most confidential chamberlains, who were Christians, were put to death, after having endured extreme tortures, and many other Christians, among whom was Anthimus, bishop of Nicomedia, also suffered martyrdom.

The edict was soon carried into execution throughout the empire. The churches were for the most part demolished; in some cases the furniture was carried out and burnt, and the buildings were shut up, or were converted to profane uses. The attempt to exterminate the Scriptures was a new feature in this persecution. Many Christians suffered death for refusing to deliver them up, while those who complied were branded by their brethren as traditors—a term which we shall have occasion to notice hereafter. As the officials were unable to distinguish the sacred books from other Christian writings, there is reason to believe that, through the confusion, a vast number of precious documents perished, to the irreparable loss of ecclesiastical history. In some cases, however, the destruction of these arose from the forbearance of the authorities, who disliked the task imposed on them, and were willing to accept any books that might be offered, without inquiring whether they were those which the Christians regarded as sacred. Thus, when Mensurius, bishop of Carthage, had withdrawn the copies of the Scriptures from his church, and had placed some heretical writings in their room, the proconsul Anulinus, on being informed of the pious fraud, refused to make any further search. In some cases, indeed, the magistrates even hinted to the Christians that a substitution of this kind would be admitted; and such connivance was the more remarkable, if it is correct to suppose that negligence in execution of the edict was punishable even with death. But on the other hand, there were governors who gladly seized the opportunity of venting their enmity against the church, and carried on the work of persecution with a severity which exceeded the imperial orders.

Some troubles in Armenia and Syria, which were falsely charged on the Christians, afforded a pretext for a second edict, by which it was ordered that their teachers should be arrested, In consequence of this, as Eusebius informs us, the prisons were filled with bishops and clergy, so that no room could be found for the malefactors by whom they were commonly occupied. By a third edict, issued in the same year which had witnessed the beginning of the persecution, it was directed that the prisoners should be required to sacrifice, and, in case of refusal, should be tortured; and a fourth edict, in the following year, extended this order to Christians of every class. As it was supposed that the victims would be proof against the usual kinds of torture, the judges were charged to invent new and more excruciating torments. Yet no one of these edicts enacted death as a punishment, although through the zeal of officials, and under various pretexts, that punishment was inflicted on multitudes of believers.

On the 1st of May 305, Diocletian abdicated the empire at Nicomedia, and Maximian, in reluctant submission to the influence of his colleague and benefactor, performed a like ceremony of resignation at Milan. Constantius and Galerius now succeeded to the highest dignity, and two new Caesars, Maximin and Severus, were associated with them. For some years the imperial power was the subject of contentions, changes, and partitions : at one time there were no fewer than six emperors —in the east, Galerius, Maximin, and Licinius; in the west, Maximian, who had resumed his power, his son Maxentius, and his son-in-law Constantine, the son and successor of Constantius. Meanwhile the condition of the Christians throughout the empire varied according to the character of its several rulers.

Constantius, while he held the subordinate dignity of Caesar, destroyed the churches in his dominions, out of deference to the authority of the elder emperors; but he protected Christians, and entertained many of them in his court. On his elevation to the rank of Augustus he befriended them more openly; and in this policy he was followed by Constantine, who succeeded him in 306, and showed himself yet more decidedly favourable to the Christians.

Galerius persecuted with great zeal until, in the year 311, having found his cruelty utterly ineffectual towards the suppression of the gospel, and feeling himself sinking under a loathsome and excruciating disease, he issued, in his own name and in those of Licinius and Constantine, an edict by which Christians were allowed to exercise their religion and to rebuild their churches, provided that they refrained from doing anything against the discipline of the state; and he concluded with the remarkable request that they would offer up prayers for his safety. There can be little doubt that in this change of policy the emperor was influenced by other motives than that pity for the perversity of the Christians, and that regard for the unity of his subjects, which were professed in the edict. Perhaps his bodily sufferings may have been aggravated by remorse for the cruelties which he had committed; or it may have been that, despairing of other relief, he sought to obtain a chance of recovery through the favour of the God of Christians,—regarding him as a power of the same class with the multitude of heathen deities.

In Italy and in Africa the persecution was severe during the reign of Maximian. When his son Maxentius assumed the government of those countries, the Christians, although they suffered from the usurper's tyranny in common with his other subjects, were not molested on account of their religion; indeed, he even pretended to favour them. For it was now felt that they were an important element in the state, and princes who had no regard for their religion might nevertheless be with reason desirous to secure their political support.

The most violent of all the persecutors was Maximin, who in the year 305 received the sovereignty of Syria and Egypt, and on the death of Galerius added Asia Minor to his dominions. Brutal, ferocious, and ignorant, he was a slave to pagan superstition, and a dupe to priests, soothsayers, and professors of magical arts. Galerius did not venture to include his name in the edict for toleration of the gospel; but Maximin, although he declined to publish it in his dominions, gave verbal orders to a like effect. At the same time, however, he took measures for restoring the splendour of the heathen worship, and six months later he issued an edict for a renewal of persecution, professing to do so in compliance with petitions from Antioch and other cities,—petitions which, according to the Christian writers of the age, had been instigated by himself. It was required that all his subjects, even to infants at the breast, should offer sacrifice; that provisions in the markets should be sprinkled with the libations, and that guards should be placed at the doors of the public baths, with a charge to defile in the same manner those who were about to go forth after having performed their ablutions. Calumny too was employed to discredit the Christian religion. Forged Acts of Pilate were circulated, and were introduced into schools as lesson-books, so that the very children had their mouths filled with blasphemies against the Saviour. Women of the vilest character were suborned to confess abominations of which they pretended to have partaken among the Christians. The edict was engraved on plates of brass, and set up in every city. In it Maximin boasted of the blessings which had followed on his measures for the revival of paganism—success in war, fruitful seasons, immunity from the plagues of earthquake, storm, and sickness. But soon after the renewal of persecution, this boast was signally falsified by the appearance of famine and pestilence, which fearfully wasted his dominions. And in this time of trial, as before on similar occasions, the power of Christian faith and love was admirably manifested. The believers, while they shared in the common visitation, distinguished themselves from the multitude by their behaviour under it, hazarding their lives in ministering to the sick and in burying the dead who were abandoned by their own nearest kindred.

The varieties of torture exercised during the persecution need not be here detailed. On the whole, the Christians endured their sufferings with a noble constancy and patience, although, in addition to the weakness of the traditors, there were some who denied the faith, and others who provoked their death by violent and fanatical conducts The pagans who witnessed their sufferings were at length disgusted by such profusion of bloodshed and cruelty; the persecutors themselves became weary of slaying, and resorted to other punishments—such as mutilation of the limbs, plucking out an eye, employing bishops and other eminent persons in degrading occupations, and sending large numbers of all classes to labour in unwholesome mines.

The persecution altogether lasted ten years, although after the first two it was but little felt in the west. Gibbon, with an evident desire to state as low as possible the number of those who were put to death, reckons them at two thousand; of bodily torments short of death, and of the immense wretchedness of other kinds which must have been experienced by the members of the suffering community during that long period of terror, the historian disdains to take any account whatever.

Among the martyrs, the most celebrated for station or character were—Peter, bishop of Alexandria; Lucian, a presbyter of Antioch, who in early life had been connected with Paul of Samosata, but afterwards returned to the orthodox communion, and distinguished himself by his labours on the Scriptures : Pamphilus, the founder of the library of Caesarea, celebrated for his zeal in multiplying and correcting copies of the sacred text, for his writings in defence of Origen, and for his intimate friendship with the historian Eusebius; and Methodius, bishop of Tyre, the opponent of Pamphilus in the Origenistic controversy.

In addition to those whose names are recorded in authentic history, a great number of martyrs enjoying a general or a local celebrity are referred to this period—as St. Sebastian and St. Agnes, who are said to have suffered at Rome, and are commemorated by churches and catacombs without the walls of the city; St. Januarius, of Naples; SS. Cosmus and Damian, two Arabian brothers, who are said to have suffered in Cilicia, and are regarded as patrons of the medical art; St. Vincent of Saragossa; St. Denys (Dionysius) of Paris, St. Clement of Metz, St. Quentin, from whom the capital of the Veromandui takes its modern name, St Victor of Marseilles, and many others in France; St. Gereon and his 318 companions, whose relics are shown in a singular and beautiful church at Cologne; St. George, who is supposed to have suffered at Nicomedia, and is famous as the patron of England. To the earlier part of Diocletian’s reign, before the edict of 303, belongs the story of the British protomartyr St. Alban.

After his victory over Maxentius, in the end of October 312, Constantine published an edict in favour of the Christians; and by a second, which he issued in conjunction with Licinius, from Milan, in June 313, he established for them, in common with all other subjects of the empire, complete religious freedom,—ordering that the churches and other property of the community should be restored to them, and inviting persons who might suffer by this restitution to seek compensation from the public purse. In consequence of the overthrow of Maximin by Licinius (April 30, 313), the benefits of this edict were speedily extended to the whole empire. The fury of the defeated tyrant, who had vowed that, if victorious, he would exterminate the Christian name, was now turned into an opposite direction; in his despair he put to death many of the priests and soothsayers on whose counsels he had relied, and he proclaimed an entire toleration of the Christians—laying the blame of his former severities against them on the judges and governors, whom he attempted to represent as having misunderstood his intentions. Maximin died miserably at Tarsus in August 313; and in the contrast between the prosperity of the princes who had befriended them and the calamitous ends of their oppressors, the Christians could not but suppose that they discerned tokens of the Divine judgment.

 

CHAPTER VIII. SUPPLEMENTARY