Not long after the first edict had been carried into execution throughout the empire, rumors of insurrections in Armenia and Syria, regions densely peopled with Christians, reached the emperor’s ears. These troubles were falsely attributed to the Christians, and afforded a pretext for a second edict. It was intimated that the clergy, as leaders of the Christians, were particularly liable to suspicion on this occasion, and the edict directed that all of the clerical order should be seized and thrown into prison. Thus in a short time prisons were filled with bishops, presbyters, and deacons.
THE THIRD EDICT.
A third edict was immediately issued, prohibiting the liberation of any of the clergy, unless they consented to offer sacrifice. They were declared enemies of the state; and wherever a hostile prefect chose to exercise his boundless authority, they were crowded into prisons intended only for the basest criminals. The edict provided that such of the prisoners as were willing to offer sacrifice to the gods should be set free, and that the rest should be compelled by tortures and punishments. Great multitudes of the most devout, godly, and venerable in the Church, either suffered capitally, or were sent to the mines. The emperor vainly thought that if the bishops and teachers were once overcome, the churches would soon follow their example. But finding that the most humiliating defeat was the result of his measures, he was goaded on by the united influence of Galerius, the philosophers, and the pagan priesthood, to issue another and a still more rigorous edict.
THE FOURTH EDICT.
By a fourth edict, the orders which applied only to the clergy were now to be extended to the whole body of Christians. The magistrates were directed to make free use of torture for forcing all Christians—men, women, and children—into the worship of the gods. Dioclesian and his colleagues were now committed to the desperate, but unequal contest. The powers of darkness—the whole Roman empire—stood, armed, determined, pledged, to the defense of ancient polytheism, and to the complete extermination of the Christian name. To retreat, would be the confession of weakness; to be successful, the adversary must be exterminated: as to victory, there could be none, for the Christians made no resistance. Historically, it was the final and fearful struggle between paganism and Christianity; the contest was now at its height and drawing to a crisis.
Public proclamation was made through the streets of the cities, that men, women, and children, were all to repair to the temples of the gods. All must undergo the fiery ordeal—sacrifice or die. Every individual was summoned by name from lists previously made out. At the city gates all were subjected to rigid examination, and such as were found to be Christians were immediately secured.
Details of the sufferings and martyrdoms that followed would fill volumes. As edict followed edict, in rapid sue-cession and in wrathful severity, the spirit of martyrdom revived; it rose higher and higher, until men and women, in place of being seized and dragged to the funeral piles, leaped into the burning flames as if ascending to heaven in a chariot of lire. Whole families were put to various kinds of death; some by fire, others by water, after enduring severe tortures; some perished by famine, others by crucifixion; and some were fastened with their heads downwards, and preserved alive, that they might die a lingering death. In some places, as many as ten, twenty, sixty, and even a hundred men and women with their little ones, were martyred by various torments, in one day.
In almost every part of the Roman world such scenes of pitiless barbarity continued with more or less severity, for the long period of ten years. Constantius alone, of all the emperors, contrived to shelter the Christians in the west, especially in France where he resided. But in all other places they were given up to all sorts of cruelties and injuries, without the liberty to appeal to the authorities, and without the smallest protection from the state. Free leave was given to the heathen populace to practice all sorts of excesses against the Christians. Under these circumstances the reader may easily imagine what they were constantly exposed to, both in their persons and estates. Each one felt sure of never being failed to account for any violence he might be guilty of towards the Christians. But the sufferings of the men, however great, seemed little compared with the women. The fear of exposure and violence was more dreaded than mere death.
Take one example. “A certain holy and devout female,” says Eusebius, “admirable for her virtue and illustrious above all in Antioch for her wealth, family, and reputation, had educated her two daughters—now in the bloom of life, noted for their beauty—in the principles of piety. Their concealment was traced, and they were caught in the toils of the soldiery. The mother, being at a loss for herself and her daughters, knowing what was before them, suggested that it was better to die, betaking themselves to the aid of Christ, than fall into the hands of the brutal soldiers. After this, all agreeing to the same thing, and having requested the guards for a little time, they cast themselves into the flowing river, to escape a greater evil.” Although this act cannot be fully justified, it must be judged with many considerations. They were driven to despair. And sure we are that the Lord knows how to forgive all that is wrong in the action, and to give us full credit for all that is right in our motives.
For a moment the persecutors vainly imagined that they would triumph over the downfall of Christianity. Pillars were raised, and medals were struck, to the honor of Dioclesian and Galerius, for having extinguished the christian superstition, and for restoring the worship of the gods. But He who sits in heaven was at that very moment overruling the very wrath of these men for the complete deliverance and triumph of His people, and the acknowledged defeat and downfall of their enemies. They could martyr Christians, demolish churches, and burn books, but the living springs of Christianity were beyond their reach.
Great and important changes began to take place in the sovereignty of the empire. But the Head of the Church watched over everything. He had limited and defined the period of her sufferings, and neither the hosts of hell, nor the legions of Borne, could extend these one hour. The enemies of the Christians were smitten with the direst calamities. God appeared to be making requisition for blood. Galerius, the real author of the persecution, in the eighteenth year of his reign, and the eighth of the persecution, lay expiring of a most loathsome malady. Like Herod the Great, and Philip II. of Spain, he was “eaten of worms.” Physicians were sought for, oracles were consuited, but all in vain; the remedies applied only aggravated the virulence of the disease. The whole palace was so infected from the nature of his affliction, that he was deserted by all his friends. The agonies which he suffered forced from him the cry for mercy; and also an earnest request to the Christians to intercede for the suffering emperor in their supplications to their God.
From his dying bed he issued an edict; which, while it condescended to apologize for the past severities against the Christians, under the specious plea of regard for the public welfare and unity of the state, admitted to the fullest extent the total failure of the severe measures for the suppression of Christianity; and provided for the free and public exercise of the Christian religion. A few days after the promulgation of the edict Galerius expired. For about six months the merciful orders of this edict were acted upon, and great numbers were liberated from the prisons and the mines; but, alas, bearing the marks of bodily torture only short of death. This brief cessation of the persecution showed at once its fearful character and alarming extent.
But Maximin, who succeeded Galerius in the government of Asia, sought to revive the pagan religion in all its original splendor, and the suppression of Christianity, with renewed and relentless cruelty. He commanded that all the officers of his government, from the highest to the lowest, both in the civil and military service; that all free men and women, all slaves, and even little children, should sacrifice, and even partake of what was offered at heathen altars. All vegetables and provisions in the market were to be sprinkled with the water or the wine which had been used in the sacrifices, that the Christians might thus be forced into contact with idolatrous offerings.
New tortures were invented, and fresh streams of christian blood flowed in all the provinces of the Roman empire, with the exception of France. But the hand of the Lord was again laid heavily both on the entire and on the emperor. Every kind of calamity prevailed. Tyranny, war, pestilence, and famine, depopulated the Asiatic provinces. Throughout the dominions of Maximin the summer rains did not fall; a famine desolated the whole East; many opulent families were reduced to beggary, and others sold their children as slaves. The famine produced its usual accompaniment, pestilence. Boils broke out all over the bodies of those who were seized with the malady, but especially about the eyes, so that multitudes became helplessly and incurably blind. All hearts failed, and all who were able fled from the infected houses; so that myriads were left to perish in a state of absolute desertion. The Christians, moved by the love of God in their hearts, now came forward to do the kind offices of humanity and mercy. They attended the living and decently buried the dead. Fear fell upon all mankind. The heathen concluded their calamities to be the vengeance of heaven for persecuting its favored people.
Maximin was alarmed, and endeavored, when too late, to retrace his steps. He issued an edict, avowing the principles of toleration, and commanding the suspension of all violent measures against the Christians, and recommending only mild and persuasive means to win back these apostates to the religion of their forefathers. Having been defeated in battle by Licinius, he turned his rage against the pagan priests. He charged them with having deceived him with false hopes of victory over Licinius and of universal empire in the East, and now revenged his disappointment by a promiscuous massacre of all the pagan priests within his power. His last imperial act was the promulgation of another edict, still more favorable to the Christians, hi which he proclaimed an unrestricted liberty of conscience, and restored the confiscated property of their churches. But death came and closed the dark catalog of his crimes, and the dark line of persecuting emperors, who died of the most excruciating torments and under the visible hand of divine judgment. Many names, of great celebrity both for station and character, are among the martyrs of this period; and many thousands, unknown and unnoticed on earth, but whose record is on high and whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
Thus closed the most memorable of all the attacks of the powers of darkness on the christian church, and thus closed the last hope of paganism to maintain itself by the authority of the government. The account of the most violent, most varied, most prolonged, and most systematic attempt to exterminate the gospel ever known, well deserves the space we have given to it, so that we offer no apology for its length. We have seen the arm of the Lord lifted up in a gracious but solemn manner to chastise and purify His Church, to demonstrate the imperishable truth of Christianity, and to cover with everlasting shame and confusion her daring but impotent foes. Like Moses we may exclaim, “Behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush.” Thus we see why the bush was not burned, or Israel in Egypt not consumed, or the Church in this world not exterminated: God was in the midst of the bush—He is in the midst of His Church—it is the habitation of God through the Spirit. Besides, Christ hath plainly said, referring to Himself in His risen power and glory, “ Upon this rock I will build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Exod. 3; Matt. 16.