But there was another and still more remarkable resemblance between the funeral usages of the pagans and Christians than any yet mentioned, and one which greatly contributed to the freedom of action and security of the latter. There is abundant monumental and other evidence of the existence in Rome, in the time of the later Republic and of the Empire, of certain funeral confraternities—collegia, as they were called—much like the modern burial clubs. A remarkable inscription of the time of Hadrian, A. D. 103, found at Lavigna, nineteen miles from Rome, on the Appian Way, gives an insight into their constitution and objects. With much legal tautology it sets forth the privilege of this collegium of the worshippers of Diana and the new divinity Antinous appointed by a decree of the Roman Senate and people, to assemble, convene, and have an association for the burial of the dead.[62] The members of this confraternity were to pay for that purpose a hundred sesterces at entrance, besides an amphora of good wine, and five ases a month thereafter,[63] all of which was forfeited by the non-payment of the monthly dues. Three hundred sesterces were expended on the funeral, fifty of which were to be distributed at the cremation of the body. If a member died at a distance from Rome three of the confraternity were sent to fetch the body. Even if they failed to obtain it the funeral rites were duly paid to an effigy of the deceased. There was also provision made for the members dining together on anniversary and other occasions according to rules duly prescribed by the collegium.

The names of very many of these collegia have been preserved, each of which consisted of the members of a similar profession or handicraft. Thus we have the Collegium Medicorum, the association of the physicians; Aurificum, of the gold-workers; Tignariorum, of the carpenters; Dendrophororum, of the wood-fellers; Pellionariorum, of the furriers; Nautarum, of the sailors; Pabulariorum, of the forage merchants; Aurigariorum, of the charioteers; and Utriculariorum, of the bargemen.[64]

They were frequently also connected by the bond of nationality or of common religious observance, as Collegium Germanorum, the association of the Germans; Pastophororum, of the priests of Isis; Serapidis et Isidis, of Serapis and Isis; Æsculapii et Hygeiæ, of Æsculapius and Hygeia.[65] Sometimes they were Cultores Veneris, Jovis, Herculis, worshippers of Venus, Jupiter, Hercules, or, as we have seen, of Diana and Antinous.

These associations were often favoured with especial privileges, immunities, and rights, like those of incorporation, such as the holding of territorial property. De Rossi has shown, by ample citations, that the emperors, who were always opposed to associations among the citizens, made a special exemption in favour of these funeral clubs.[66]

By conformity to the constitution of these corporations the Christian church had peculiar facilities for the burial of its dead, and even for the celebration of religious worship. Indeed, it has been suggested, and is highly probable, that it was under the cover of these funeral associations that toleration was conceded, first to the sepulchres, then to the churches. Tertullian describes the practice of the Christian community in the second century as follows: “Every one offers a small contribution on a certain day of the month, or when he chooses, and as he is able, for no one is compelled; it is a voluntary offering. This is our common fund for piety; for it is not expended in feasting and drinking and in wanton excesses, but in feeding and burying the poor, in supporting orphans, aged persons, and such as are shipwrecked, or such as languish in mines, in exile, or in prison.”[67] Thus the Ecclesia Fratrum, the “Congregation of the Brethren,” who restored the funeral monument described on page fifty-six,[68] suggests the pagan college of the Fratres Arvales; and the Cultor Verbi, or worshipper of the Divine Word, in the same inscription, would seem to the heathen magistrate analogous to the Cultores Jovis or Cultores Dianæ of the pagan collegia. Indeed, it is difficult to decide from the names of some of these associations whether they were Christian or pagan. Thus we read of the Collegium convictorum qui una epulo vesci solent—“The fraternity of table-companions who are accustomed to feast together.” De Rossi suggests that there may be here a covert reference to a Christian community, and probably to the celebration of the Agape or of the Eucharist.[69] Another is the Collegium quod est in domo Sergiæ Paulinæ—“The association which is in the house of Sergia Paulina.” This possibly may have been a Christian community, like “the church which was in the house” of Priscilla and Aquila.[70]

That the primitive Christians availed themselves of the privileges granted to the funeral associations, is confirmed by a discovery made by De Rossi in the Cemetery of St. Domitilla in the year 1865, and already referred to. At the entrance was found a chamber, with stone seats like the schola, or place of meeting of the pagan tombs where the religious confraternity celebrated the funeral banquet of the deceased. Here the Christians celebrated instead the Agape, or Feast of Charity, and the Natalitia, or anniversary of the martyrs who were buried there, just as the pagan associations commemorated the anniversaries of their deceased patrons.

The ancient privileges of these collegia were confirmed by an edict of Septimius Severus about the year A. D. 200. It is a curious coincidence that precisely at this time Zephyrinus, bishop of Rome, appointed Callixtus to be “guardian of the cemetery,” as well as head of the clergy.[71] In order to secure to the funeral association the protection of the law it was necessary that one of its members should be appointed agent or “syndic,” by whom its business should be transacted, and in whose name its property should be held.[72] Thus Callixtus became the syndic of the public cemetery of the church, which still bears his name. De Rossi conjectures that this was the first cemetery set apart for the use of the whole Christian community. Hence it was taken under the care of the ecclesiastical authorities, and became, as we shall see hereafter, the burying-place of the Roman bishops, and the especial property of the church.[73]

We will now trace briefly the history of those persecutions which glutted the Catacombs with victims, and at times drove the church for sanctuary to their deepest recesses. We have seen that Christianity grew up under the protection accorded to Judaism as one of the tolerated religions of Rome. But this toleration did not long continue. In Rome as well as elsewhere the new creed was doomed to a baptism of blood. The causes of this persecution are not far to seek. The Christian doctrine spread rapidly, and early excited the jealousy of the Roman authorities by its numerous converts from the national faith, many of whom were of exalted rank. These carefully refrained from the idolatrous adulation by which the servile mob were wont to express their loyalty to the imperial monster who aspired to be a god. Hence they were accused of disaffection, of treason.[74] They were the enemies of Cæsar, and of the Roman people.[75] They were supposed to exert a malign influence on the course of nature. If it did not rain the Christians were to blame.[76] “If the Tiber overflows its banks,” says Tertullian, “or the Nile does not; if there be drought or earthquakes, famine or pestilence, the cry is raised, ‘The Christians to the lions!’”[77] If the pecking of the sacred chickens or the entrails of the sacrificial victims gave unfavourable omens, it was attributed to the counter spell of “the atheists.” At Rome, as well as at Ephesus and Philippi, the selfish fears of the shrine and image makers, whose “craft was in danger,” and the hostility of the priests and dependents on the idol-worship, inspired or intensified the opposition to Christianity, as did also the jealousy of the Jews, who regarded with especial hostility the believers in the lowly Nazarene, whom their fathers with wicked hands had crucified and slain.[78]

The terrible conflagration which destroyed the greater part of the city during the reign of Nero was made the excuse for the first outburst of persecution against the Christian community. By public rumour this deed was attributed to Nero himself. “To put an end to to this report,” says Tacitus, “he laid the guilt, and inflicted the most cruel punishment, upon these men, who, already branded with infamy, were called by the vulgar, Christians.... Their sufferings at their executions,” he adds, “were aggravated by insult and mockery; for some were sewn up in the skins of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs; some were crucified, and some, wrapped in garments of pitch, were burned as torches to illumine the night.”[79]

During this persecution St. Paul fell a victim, A. D. 64. He was beheaded “without the gate,” on the Ostian Way, and weeping friends took up his bleeding corpse and laid it, according to tradition, in one of the most ancient crypts of an adjoining Catacomb, where Eusebius asserts that his tomb could be seen in his day.[80]

From this time Christianity was exposed to outbursts of heathen rage, and express decrees were published against it.[81] No longer sharing the protection of Judaism, it fell under the ban of the empire. At times the rage of persecution slumbered, and again it burst forth with inextinguishable fury. But, like the typical bush that “flourished unconsumed in fire,” the Christian faith but grew and spread the more. Yet the sword ever impended over the church. Sometimes its stroke was for a time deferred, when the little flock took courage and rejoiced; but often it fell with crushing weight, smiting the shepherds and scattering the sheep. One of these periods of rest extended from the time of the Neronian persecution till near the end of the century, when Domitian, “a second Nero,”[82] stretched forth his hand again to vex the saints. During the short reign of the “justice-loving Nerva” the Christians again enjoyed repose, so that Lactantius even asserts that they were restored to all their former privileges.

To the first century De Rossi refers the construction of at least three or four of the Catacombs. These are, (1) the Cemetery of Priscilla, excavated, according to an ancient tradition, in the property of the Roman Senator Pudens, mentioned by St. Paul, and in which, it is said, were interred his daughters Pudentiana and Praxides; (2) the Catacomb of Domitilla, the grandniece of the Emperor Domitian, in which she herself was buried, together with her chamberlains Nereus and Achilles, who were beheaded for their steadfastness in the Christian faith; (3) the Crypt of Lucina, afterwards part of the Catacomb of Callixtus, in which some of the most ancient inscriptions have been found. De Rossi conjectures that this lady is the same as the Pomponia Græcina before mentioned, the wife of Plautius, the conqueror of Britain. (4) De Rossi is also of the opinion that he has discovered another, and the oldest of all the Catacombs, dating from the very times of the apostles themselves, in that known as the Fons Petri, or the Cemetery of the Font of Peter, in which tradition asserts that he himself baptized. The classical style of the architecture, frescoes, and graceful stucco wreaths and garlands, and the character of the inscriptions, all point to a very ancient period, before art had degenerated, and before long-continued persecution had banished Christianity into seclusion and poverty.

The law of Trajan against secret assemblies, synchronous with the opening of the second century, gave a new occasion of persecuting the Church. With such severity was this done that, according to Pliny, the deserted temples became again frequented, and their neglected rites revived.[83]

The Emperor Hadrian is described by his contemporaries as diligently practising the Roman rites, and despising all foreign religions.[84] Although he restrained the tumultuous attacks of the populace upon the Christians, he nevertheless favoured their legal prosecution.[85]

The following epitaph given by Maitland commemorates a martyrdom of this reign. The last sentence seems to imply that it was erected in a time of actual persecution; but no dated example of the monogram which accompanies it appears before the time of Constantine. The inscription was probably written long after the death of Marius, or the monogram may have been added by a later hand:

Under the humane and equitable Antoninus Pius,[86] Christianity seems to have enjoyed a partial toleration, although the edict of Trajan was still unrevoked. Yet several outbreaks of popular fury against the Christians took place, and in the very first year of his reign Telesphorus, the bishop of the church at Rome, suffered martyrdom.[87]

One of the strangest phenomena in history is the persecution of the primitive church by the philosophical emperor Marcus Aurelius,[88] whose “Meditations” seem almost like the writings of an apostle in their praise of virtue, yearning for abstract perfection, and contempt of pomp and pleasure. Nevertheless, he was one of the most systematic and heartless of all the oppressors of the Christian faith—a faith so much loftier than even his high philosophy, and yet having so much akin. With the cool acerbity of a stoic, he resolved to exterminate the obnoxious doctrines. An active inquisition for the Christians was set on foot, and the odious system of domestic espionage, which even Trajan had forbidden, was encouraged. Shameless informers, greedy for gain, fed their rapacity on the confiscated spoils of the believers, whom they plundered, says Melito, by day and by night. Though gentle to other classes of offenders, and even to rebels, Aurelius exceeded in barbarity the most ruthless of his predecessors in the refinements of torture, by rack and scourge, by fire and stake, employed to enforce the recantation of the Christians; and every year of his long reign was polluted with innocent blood.

From Gaul to Asia Minor raged the storm of persecution. The earthquakes, floods, and famine, the wars and pestilence, that wasted the empire, were visited upon the hapless Christians, who were immolated in hecatombs as the causes of these dire calamities. From the crowded amphitheatre of Smyrna ascended, as in a chariot of fire, the soul of the apostolic bishop Polycarp. The arrowy Rhone ran red with martyrs’ blood. The names of the venerable Pothinus, of the youthful Blandina and Ponticus, and of the valiant Symphorianus, will be memories of thrilling power and pathos to the end of time. At Rome the persecution selected some of its noblest victims. Justin, the Christian philosopher, finding in the Gospels a loftier lore than in the teachings of Zeno or Aristotle, of Pythagoras or Plato, became the foremost of the goodly phalanx of apologists and defenders of the faith, and sealed his testimony with his blood. With six of his companions he was brought before the prefect for refusing obedience to the imperial decree. “We are Christians,” they said, “and sacrifice not to idols.” They were forthwith scourged and beheaded, and devout men bore them to their burial, doubtless in these very Catacombs, where their undiscovered remains may yet lie. In this reign also suffered the seven sons of St. Felicitas—the tomb of one of whom De Rossi believes he has found—and St. Cecilia and her companions, to be hereafter mentioned.[89]

The legend of the Thundering Legion, supported as it is by the medals and the column of Antoninus, commemorates, indeed, the deliverance of the Roman army by a timely shower; but the Emperor ascribed that deliverance not to the prayers of the Christians, but to his own appeal to the heathen gods,[90] and there is no evidence that he ever relaxed the severity of the persecution.

The ferocity of the brutal Commodus[91] was tempered by the influence of his concubine, Marcia, and Christianity spread among the highest ranks; but persecution did not entirely cease. Apollonius, a senator of the empire, was put to death at Rome, and we read of numerous martyrdoms elsewhere. A Christian inscription commemorates an officer of Commodus, and Procurator of the Imperial household, who was “received to God”—RECEPTVS AD DEVM—A. D. 217.[92]

On the death of this emperor the persecution raged with such violence that, according to Clemens Alexandrinus, many martyrs were burned, crucified, and beheaded every day.[93] Non licet esse vos—“It is not lawful for you to exist”—was the stern edict of extermination pronounced against the saints.

Christianity had little favour to expect from a military despot like Septimius Severus, whose dying counsel to his successor expressed the principle of his government—“Be generous to the soldiers and trample on all besides.”

The revived accusations against the new faith called forth the bold defence, or rather defiance, of Tertullian, one of the noblest monuments of the primitive ages. In this reign the sanctity of the Christian cemeteries was first violated, and that not at Rome but in Africa, where the persecution was most virulent. “The mob assails us with stones and flames with the frenzy of bacchanals,” says Tertullian; “They do not even spare the Christian dead, but tear them from the rest of the tomb, from the asylum of death, cut them in pieces, and rend them asunder.”[94]

After the cessation of this persecution the Church enjoyed a period of unwonted rest. Although under the ignoble Heliogabalus the sensual Asiatic worship of Baal was introduced to Rome, and human sacrifice was even offered to this Eastern Moloch,[95] yet the religion of peace and purity shared the toleration accorded to the most obscene and cruel rites. The just and amiable Alexander Severus inaugurated a new era for Christianity,[96] to which he was favourably disposed, probably through the influence of his mother, Mammæa, who had enjoyed at Antioch the instruction of Origen.[97] He used frequently to quote with approval the Golden Rule of Our Lord, and caused it to be inscribed on his palace walls, and also ceded to the Christians a piece of public ground for the erection of a church.[98] But Alexander was only a religious eclectic, honouring what he thought best in the current systems of belief. Of this reign is the epitaph of Urban, bishop of Rome, which has been found in the so-called “Papal Crypt,” bearing his name and the initial letter of his title—ΟΥΡΒΑΝΟϹ Ε....

A violent reaction took place on the accession of Decius, whose name became an object of execration to mankind.[99] He resolved to entirely crush and extirpate Christianity, whose bishops and churches began to rival the pontiffs and temples of the gods of Rome. At his instigation a persecution of unprecedented virulence raged like an epidemic throughout the empire. The imperial edicts enforced conformity to the pagan ritual under penalty of the most horrible tortures. This unwonted severity produced the first great apostasy of the primitive church; and many of the less stable converts procured exemption from martyrdom by sacrificing to the gods, burning incense on their altars, or purchasing certificates of indulgence from the heathen magistrate.[100]

“Pale and trembling, and more like sacrificial victims than those about to sacrifice,” says an eye-witness, “some approached the heathen shrines; but others, firm and blessed pillars of the Lord, witnessed a good confession unto death.”[101] The bishops of the church, who, as the leaders of Christ’s sacramental host, bore gallantly the battle’s brunt, were naturally the earliest victims of the tyrant’s rage. Accordingly, at the very outbreak of the Decian slaughter, the venerable Fabian, head of the Roman church, perished by decapitation; and the Catacombs were glutted with a host of unknown martyrs. In the very chamber in the Cemetery of Callixtus to which his mutilated corpse was borne, may still be seen the Bishop’s epitaph—ΦΑΒΙΑΝΟϹ · ΕΠΙ—with the monogram of his martyrdom, the conjoined letters ΜΤΡ, added probably by a later hand. The church seemed paralyzed with fear, and for sixteen months no successor was elected. But, undismayed by the tragic fate of Fabian, Cornelius, allied with some of the noblest families of Rome, became the leader of the forlorn hope of Christianity against all the power of the empire. After a year’s episcopate he was first banished and then beheaded under Gallus, a worthy successor in persecution of Decius. Through the archæological researches of De Rossi have been recovered, first his epitaph—CORNELIVS · MARTYR · EP—and then his tomb, with a Damasine inscription, in one of the most interesting crypts of the Catacombs. Lucius, his successor, in six months shared his fate, and was buried in the chamber consecrated by the dust of so many martyr-bishops, where his brief epitaph—ΛΟΥΚΙϹ—is still legible.

Valerian,[102] who revived in his own person the ancient office of Censor, was at first so favourable toward the Christians that his house, says Dionysius of Alexandria, was filled with pious persons, and was, indeed, a congregation[103] of the Lord. This favour was doubtless the result of the Censor’s approval of Christian influence on public morals.[104] In the latter part of his reign, however, the Emperor passed under the dominion of the most abject superstition. Through the influence of Macrianus, a pagan bigot learned in the dark lore of Egypt, he became addicted to magic arts, and is said to have sought the auguries of the empire in the entrails of human victims.[105] The most relentless decrees were launched against the Christian church. The bishops, priests, and deacons were forthwith to be put to the sword; all others were to share the same fate, or to be punished by exile and fetters.[106] The holding of assemblies, or even entering the Christian cemeteries, was strictly prohibited A. D. 257.[107] By this unwonted invasion of the immemorial sanctity of the sepulchre the Christians were forbidden even these last refuges from persecution.

Among the most illustrious victims of Valerian whose bodies lie in the lowly Catacombs, but whose names live for evermore, were Stephen I. and Sixtus II., bishops of the persecuted church, and a number of distinguished ecclesiastics, as well as many laymen of noble rank.[108]

Stephen, as the head of the Christian community, was especially obnoxious to heathen rage. According to the Acts of his martyrdom he sought concealment in these sepulchral crypts,[109] where he was secretly visited by the faithful, and where he administered the sacraments. He was traced by the Roman soldiers to his subterranean chapel, but, awed by the mysterious rites, they allowed him to conclude the service in which he was engaged. He was then beheaded, with several of his adherents,[110] and buried in the Catacomb.

Sixtus, the successor of Stephen, within a year received the martyr’s crown. Like another Daniel setting at defiance the emperor’s decree, he was leading the devotions of the persecuted flock in the Catacomb of Prætextatus, probably because it was less known than the public cemetery of Callixtus, when he was apprehended by the fierce soldiery, who had tracked his footsteps thither. He was hurried away to summary judgment, brought back to the place of his offence, and there beheaded, sprinkling with his blood the walls of the chamber. With him were also executed four of his deacons,[111] the monuments of two of whom, Agapetus and Felicissimus, De Rossi discovered in the very Catacomb in which they suffered. Sixtus himself was buried in the “Bishops’ Tomb” in the Callixtan Cemetery, where the following inscription, fragments of which have been found in the débris, was afterward set up by Damasus:

At the time when the sword pierced the tender heart of the Mother [church,] I, the ruler buried here, was teaching the laws of heaven. Suddenly came [the enemy,] who seized me sitting as I was. Then the people presented their necks to the soldiers sent against me. Soon the old man saw who sought to bear away the palm, and was the first to offer himself and his own head, that impatient rage might injure no one else. Christ who bestows the rewards of life, manifests the merit of the pastor: he himself defends the flock.[112]

Thus seven bishops of the church at Rome fell in succession by the hand of the headsman, five of them in the space of eight years—heroic athletes of Christ who, at the very seat of paganism, as in a mighty theatre of God, bore the brunt of persecution, and, conquering even in death, received the martyr’s crown and palm.

The accession of Gallienus[113] restored peace to the church. His decree granting complete religious toleration, the restoration of confiscated ecclesiastical property, and permission to “recover what they called their cemeteries,”[114] won the gratitude of his Christian subjects. His character, however, by no means justified the epithet of “holy and pious emperor” bestowed by Dionysius of Alexandria.[115] This was the first formal recognition of Christianity as a religio licita, or legalized faith, and for forty years the church enjoyed comparative repose; at least such repose as was possible while twenty rival emperors—fantastic things “that likeness of a kingly crown had on”—struggled for the supremacy, and harried the land with their mutual devastations. During this period, Felix, the bishop of the Roman church, who, according to the Liber Pontificalis, was exceedingly diligent in honouring the martyrs of the Catacombs, became himself a conscript of that noble army, and was beheaded, in accordance with an imperial decree, as was also Agapetus, a Christian of noble rank.

The mild and amiable Tacitus[116] ruled over a turbulent people only six months. His brother Florian retained the purple only half that time. Probus, “the just,” whose name, says his epitaph, expressed his character,[117] fell by the hands of his own tumultuous legionaries. The sensual and abominable Carinus displayed the extravagancies of Heliogabalus, aggravated by the cruelty of Domitian. In his reign died Eutychianus, whose epitaph and title—ΕΥΤΥΧΙΑΝΟϹ ΕΠΙϹ—have been found in the “Papal Crypt” of Callixtus.[118]

Christianity was destined to undergo a final ordeal before it should ascend the throne of the Cæsars. The church must pass once more through the purifying flames of persecution before it was fit to be entrusted with the reins of empire. The long peace and temporal prosperity had fostered pride and luxury, and relaxed the morals of the Christian community. Schisms and feuds destroyed the unity of the faith, and the bishops had begun to aspire to temporal power, and to assert an unwarranted authority. “Prelates inveighed against prelates,” says Eusebius, “and people rose against people, assailing each other with words as with darts and spears.”[119] The blasts of adversity were necessary to winnow the spurious and false away, and to leave the tried and true behind. From the fatal slumber of religious apathy into which the church was falling it was to be rudely awakened. Its former afflictions sank into insignificance compared with this great tribulation, which was pre-eminently called The Persecution by the historian of the times.[120]

The close of the third century witnessed the strange spectacle of the government of the Roman world by a group of men who had climbed to the giddy height of power from the lowest stations in life. Diocletian, originally a slave, or at least the son of a slave, reduced the haughty aristocracy of Rome to a condition of oriental servility. Maximian, a Pannonian peasant, betrayed the savageness of his nature by his bloodthirsty cruelty. Galerius, an Illyrian herdsman, but exhibited more conspicuously upon the throne of empire the native barbarity of his character. Constantius was of nobler birth than any of his colleagues, and he alone adorned his lofty station by dignity, justice, and clemency. The world groaned under the oppression of its cruel masters. So exhausting were their exactions that none remained to tax, says Lactantius,[121] but the beggars.

The early years of the reign of Diocletian were characterized for the most part by principles of religious toleration. Indeed, his wife and daughter, the empresses Prisca and Valeria, favoured, if they did not adopt, the Christian faith, and some of the first officers of the imperial household belonged to the now powerful sect.[122] But even during this period the Christians were not free from danger. Caius, the Roman bishop, is said to have lived for eight years in the Catacombs on account of the persecution, and at last underwent martyrdom in the year A. D. 296.[123] Marcus and Marcelianus, two Roman Christians of noble rank, who have given their name to one of the Catacombs, suffered about this time. Others, especially in the army, where the ancient faith had firmest hold, and where, indeed, Eusebius says, the persecution began,[124] endured martyrdom as the valiant soldiers of Christ. The storm, of which these events were the precursors, at length burst with fury on the Christians in the year 303. A series of cruel edicts, written, says Eusebius, with a dagger’s point,[125] were fulminated for the extirpation of the Christian name.[126] They were framed with malignant ingenuity, so as to leave no chance of escape save in open apostasy. All ecclesiastical property was confiscated. The churches were razed to the ground, and the sacred scriptures burned with fire.[127] All assemblies for worship were prohibited on pain of death. The clergy of every order were zealously sought out, and thrust into dungeons designed for the worst of felons.[128] The whole Christian community was outlawed, degraded from every secular office, deprived of the rights of citizenship, and exposed to the punishment of the vilest slaves. With intensifying violence edict followed edict, like successive strokes of thunder in a raging storm. A universal and relentless proscription of the Christian name took place. The truculent monster Galerius, of whom his Christian subjects said, that he never supped without human blood,[129] proposed that all who refused to sacrifice to the gods should be burned alive; and the fiendish ingenuity of the persecutors was exhausted in devising fresh tortures for their victims.

In Italy, and especially at Rome, the work of destruction was eagerly carried on by Maximian, an implacable enemy of the Christians; and after his death by the abominable voluptuary Maxentius, in whom the twin passions of cruelty and lust struggled for the mastery. These monsters of iniquity revelled in a carnival of blood, and glutted the Catacombs with victims, some of the most illustrious of whom will shortly be mentioned. On the retirement of Diocletian, satiated with slaughter and weary with the cares of state, to his retreat at Salonica, Galerius continued the persecution with increased zeal. It was the expiring effort of paganism, the death throes of its mortal agony. But the Christian religion, like the trodden grass that ranker grows, flourished still in spite of the oppression it endured. Like the rosemary and thyme, which the more they are bruised give out the richer perfume, it breathed forth the odours of sanctity which are fragrant in the world to-day. Though the frail and the fickle fell off in the blast of adversity, the staunch and true remained; and from the martyr’s blood, more prolific than the fabled dragon’s teeth, a new host of Christian heroes rose, contending for the martyr’s starry and unwithering crown.

But the period of deliverance was at hand. Smitten by the power of that God whose titles and attributes he had usurped, the wretched Galerius, amid the agonies of a loathsome disease, implored the intercessions of the Christians whom he had so ruthlessly proscribed. With sublimest magnanimity the church exhibited the nobility of a Gospel revenge, and obeyed the injunction of its divine Master to pray for those who persecuted and despitefully used it. From the dying couch of the remorseful monarch came an abject apology for his cruel deeds; and, in late atonement for his crime, a decree of amplest recognition of Christianity, and restoration of the right to worship God. Like the trump of jubilee, the edict of deliverance pealed through the land. It penetrated the gloomy dungeon, the darksome mine, the catacomb’s dim labyrinth; and from their sombre depths vast processions of the “noble wrestlers of religion”[130] thronged to the long forsaken churches with grateful songs of praise to God.

But this treacherous calm was soon to be again broken. The superstitious tyrant Maximin endeavoured to revive the dying paganism, and to renew the persecution. He paid Christianity the high compliment of attempting a complete organization of the heathen priesthood on the model of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and restored the ancient worship with unwonted pomp. He prohibited the assemblies in the cemeteries, and reiterated the edict of extermination against the Christians.[131] But the loathsome death of this brutal voluptuary soon delivered the church from the most implacable of its foes. From the distant island of Britain—that ultimate far Thule of the empire—had arrived the Cæsar who should enthrone the new faith on the seat of its persecutors, and establish it as the religion of the state,[132] an event more perilous to its purity and spiritual power than the direst oppression it had ever endured. Constantine having overcome the enemies of Christianity, who were also his own, became its protector, more, it is easy to believe, either from conviction of its truth or from policy than on account of the alleged miraculous vision of the cross of Christ, the presage of a bloody victory.[133] He issued at Milan, A. D. 313, that decree of full and unlimited toleration[134] which became thenceforth the charter of the church’s liberties.[135]

The sufferings of the more illustrious victims of persecution are alone recorded in history, which is silent concerning the great army of unknown martyrs, whose names are recorded only in the Book of Life. The bishops of the church were ever the first to feel the tyrants’ rage. The episcopal chair was often but the stepping-stone to the scaffold. Yet faithful shepherds were not wanting to lead the flock of Christ, and to testify their devotion to their trust by the sacrifice of their lives. We have seen how Caius suffered even before the final outbreak of persecution. Marcellinus, his successor, incurred the resentment of the tyrant Maxentius, was degraded to the office of groom of the public stables, where the horses of the circus were kept, and soon sank beneath the weight of his miseries and those of the church.[136] Marcellus, sometimes confounded with Marcellinus, paid the penalty of exile for his firmness in maintaining the ecclesiastical discipline against those who apostatized from the faith in those times of fiery trial. This event is recorded in the Damasine inscription: