CHAPTER XXXI

THE LAST PERSECUTION

IT is sometimes said that there were seven persecutions of the early church. But in truth there was only one. In the long conflict of over two hundred and fifty years there were a few considerable intermissions, such as the long periods of peace before and after Decius in the third century. Nevertheless, paganism and Christianity were opposed and irreconcilable forces. No one recognized this more clearly than the official representatives of the Roman government, whose duty it was to defend the old religion with its rites and ceremonies; for paganism was intrenched within the most powerful political and military system the world has ever seen. Coming as a new faith, Christianity was forced to challenge the authority of this ancient system, and was answered with all the energy of a jealous and selfassured state religion. Inch by inch the church gained its ground, but at the fearful cost of innumerable martyrdoms. It purchased its victory with blood. Though widespread persecution was intermittent, the struggle was continuous. Like a forest fire, which dies down for weeks and even months at a time, buried deep in the roots of the trees that nourish and sustain it, then leaping up into a sea of flame as the winds fan and scatter it, so the fires of hatred and oppression burned in the heart of decaying paganism. The "persecutions" were only the conspicuous outbursts of a "persecution" which began as soon as pagans recognized the new religion and lasted until the reign of Constantine.

The life-and-death struggle.-It may seem almost monotonous, to-day, to go over the records of early Christianity. They are chiefly records of martyrdom. Their variety is only the variety of different forms of cruelty and of the various utterances of a common testimony to Christ. Many facts there are about the early church which we should like to know but which the church's historians overlooked, giving us instead the stories of the martyrs. But we forget that these were the stories which they learned, and were handed down until put in writing by Eusebius and his fellow historians. And we forget that the history of early Christianity is the history of a life-and-death struggle, a world-wide warfare, which Christ and his faithful were waging and winning-over powers which seemed at first impregnable in the enjoyment of every conceivable advantage and resource. Its annals are, therefore, the annals of warfare. Each martyrdom was a victory of the spirit, won on "the field of honor." Unless we remember this, and discover the spirit in which this conflict was waged, we shall never understand the early Christians or realize how their victory was won. That spirit is best expressed by one who was himself a martyr, Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage:

"It is he who once conquered death for us who conquers it always in us. ... He is not simply the spectator of our conflict. It is he who wrestles in us; he wages our battles; in the conflict of our strife it is he who gives the crown and he who receives it." -Cyprian, Epistle 8.

Paganism might enjoy every outward advantage, but it could boast of nothing which might be compared with that spirit. The weapons of the Christian's warfare

were not material, but they were invincible. Christianity, if it persisted, could not but win!

THE LAST EFFORT OF DEFEATED PAGANISM

Hence the mad desperation of those who sought to bolster up a lost cause, the fury of Decius and Diocletian and their confederates!

The long peace of Gallienus.-We have already noted the revival of persecution during the brief reign for two and a half years of the Emperor Decius. This had broken the long-established peace; but the gods of Rome, instead of blessing their advocates and rewarding the zeal of Decius, did nothing to defend the frontiers of the empire. Antioch, Tarsus, Cappadocia were captured by the Parthians. Gallienus, the new emperor (260268), saw the uselessness of murdering innocent bishops and issued an edict which restored some of their rights to the Christian clergy. In certain districts the news was too good to be believed-as in Egypt, where the patriarch Dionysius of Alexandria wrote to inquire if liberty was really restored. The "religious places" of the Christians were opened once more; their cemeteries were restored; and the effect of this toleration was practically the recognition of the Christian Church as a legitimate body, entitled both to exist and to hold property.

Unfortunately, Gallienus was not a powerful ruler, and his brief reign was succeeded by those of emperors more narrowly devoted to paganism and more distracted by the declining power of the empire.

The persecution under Diocletian. In the year 284 Diocletian, whose father and mother were slaves and who had risen to the command of the bodyguard of the Emperor Numerian, was chosen by the army as his

successor. He was a courageous and clever ruler, and under the guise of restoring the republic and making its government more stable and democratic he transformed it into an absolute monarchy. For the first eighteen years of his reign the Christians were left undisturbed. Eusebius, the historian, says that the church grew worldly and satisfied in those years, the clergy ambitious, and the laity careless and lax. Some of the bishops even shared the civil government, and many Christians were to be found in the army, the court, and the administrative offices. But the church could not have been very worldly or it would never have faced the issue as it did a few years later.

Gradually Diocletian came to believe that in order to consolidate the empire and insure the undivided loyalty of all its component peoples, even to the very frontiers, it was necessary to establish one official religion. This would provide a bond of religious union throughout the empire whose highest sanction would be the divinity of the emperors at its head. In 297 Galerius, whom Diocletian had chosen as one of his colleagues, gained a great victory over the Persians and thus made secure the eastern frontier. This freed the emperors to devote their energies to internal affairs and apparently proved the reviving favor of the old gods, which Decius had lost.

The signal for persecution was given five years later when Diocletian and his colleagues were celebrating a public triumph in honor of their glorious reign. Some Christians who were present at the taking of the auspices were seen making the sign of the cross. The auspices were not propitious, and their failure was attributed to the presence of the Christians. At once it was decided to clear the court and the army of these disturbers. All

civil and military officers were ordered either to sacrifice or resign their posts.

The four edicts.-The next step, in February, 303, was the destruction of the magnificent church at Nicomedia, just across the sea of Marmora from Byzantium. Immediately afterward were issued a series of edicts, the first ordering the destruction of Christian churches and sacred books, the loss of all civil rights and official positions by Christians, and the enslavement of any Christians at court who should obstinately refuse to give up their faith. Diocletian hoped the edict might be enforced quietly and without bloodshed; but he was sadly mistaken. The edict was torn down as soon as it was posted in Nicomedia-an offense for which the culprit was slowly roasted to death. In retaliation for burning the church the palace was set on fire twice within a fortnight. Diocletian became alarmed at the rebellion his tyranny had inspired, and ordered several Christians at court to be executed with hideous tortures. In April he issued his second edict, directing the arrest of all Christian clergy. The prisons were soon crowded with bishops, presbyters, deacons, and readers. Later in the year he issued the third edict, ordering the magistrates to "use every effort" to compel the clergy to sacrifice. The following March the fourth edict commanded all Christians everywhere to offer libations and sacrifices to the gods.

The horrors of the persecution are almost beyond imagining. It was the last effort of defeated paganism to crush out by brute force an adversary whose strength was every day growing greater and which was destined, if this last effort failed, to triumph completely before long. What military absolutism could not effect directly was undertaken indirectly. In 308 it was ordered to