"The persecution of Diocletian," writes Westcott, " offers singular parallel to that which Antiochus Epiphanes directed against the Jews."-I. The imperial edict, issued in A.D. 303, directed that " the churches should be razed. and the scriptures consumed with fire." (Euseb. Eccl. Hist. 8. 2.) " Both resulted in determining more closely than before the limits of the sacred volume, by giving scope to the practical exhibition of the popular feeling, hitherto vague and wavering." The persecuted, no less than the persecutors, understood well at what the blow was aimed. The enemy cared not for " useless writings": he would put forth all his power to destroy the Canonical Scriptures. The persecution was carried on with greatest vehemence in Africa and in Syria: when the storm was over, the tried ones gave their voice with a peculiar emphasis as to what they had deemed the word of God.