nearly three of which he governed the church, before the persecution; but the rest of his life he subjected himself to a more rigid course of discipline, but still continued to manifest great interest in advancing the welfare of the church. Hence, in the ninth year of the persecution he was beheaded, and thus obtained the crown of martyrdom. But after giving in our history an account of the successors, since the birth of our Saviour until the demolition of the churches, embracing a period of three hundred and five years, now let us here attempt to give the conflicts which have been endured in the cause of religion, in our own times, in all their extent and magnitude, that it may be on record also for the benefit of posterity.

BOOK VIII.

HAVING already related the successions of the apostles in seven books, in this eighth we consider it necessary to record, for the benefit of posterity, the events of our own times that deserve a more than superficial narration. And our account, therefore, shall begin with these.

CHAPTER I.

The events that preceded the persecution in our times.

To give a satisfactory account of the extent, and the nature of that glory and liberty, with which the doctrine of piety towards the supreme God, as announced to the world through Christ, was honoured among all, both Greeks and barbarians, before the persecution in our day, this, we say, were an undertaking beyond our power. As a proof, we might refer to the clemency of the emperors toward our brethren, to whom they even entrusted the government of provinces, exonerating them from all anxiety as it regarded sacrificing, on account of that singular good will that they entertained toward the doctrine. Why should we speak of those in the imperial palaces, and the sovereigns themselves, who granted their domestics the liberty of declaring themselves' freely, in word and deed, on religion, and I would say almost the liberty of boasting of their freedom in the practice of the faith? These, indeed, they eminently valued, and considered them as more acceptable than their associates in the imperial service.

Such was that Dorotheus, the most devoted and most faithful of all to them, and, on this account, exceedingly honoured beyond all those that had the charge of government, and the most honour

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able stations in the provinces. We may also add Gorgonius, equally celebrated with him; and so many others that were honoured with the same distinction as these on account of the divine word. The same privileges one could observe conferred on the rulers in every church, who were courted and honoured with the greatest subserviency by all the rulers and governors. Who could describe those vast collections of men that flocked to the religion of Christ, and those multitudes crowding in from every city, and the illustrious concourse in the houses of worship? On whose account, not content with the ancient buildings, they erected spacious churches from the foundation in all the cities. These, advancing in the lapse of time, and daily increasing in magnitude and improvement, were not restrained by any odium or hostility. Nor was any malignant dæmon able to infatuate, nor human machinations prevent them, as long as the providential hand of God superintended and guarded his people as the worthy objects of his care. But when, by reason of excessive liberty, we sunk into negligence and sloth, one envying and reviling another in different ways, and we were almost, as it were, on the point of taking up arms against each other, and were assailing each other with words as with darts and spears, prelates inveighing against prelates, and people rising up against people, and hypocrisy and dissimulation had arisen to the greatest height of malignity, then the divine judgment, which usually proceeds with a lenient hand, whilst the multitudes were yet crowding into the church, with gentle and mild visitations began to afflict its episcopacy; the persecution having begun with those brethren that were in the army. But, as if destitute of all sensibility, we were not prompt in measures to appease and propitiate the Deity; some, indeed, like atheists, regarding our situation as unheeded and unobserved by a providence, we added one wickedness and misery to another. But some that appeared to be our pastors, deserting the law of piety, were inflamed against each other with mutual strifes, only accumulating quarrels and threats, rivalship, hostility and hatred to each other, only anxious to assert the government as a kind of sovereignty for themselves. Then, as Jeremiah says, "the Lord in his anger darkened the daughter of Sion, and hurled

from heaven to earth the glory of Israel. Neither did he remember his footstool in the day of his wrath. But the Lord, also, overwhelmed all the beauty of Israel, and tore down all his walls." And, as it is predicted in the Psalms, "He overturned the covenant of his servant, and he prostrated his sanctuary to the earth," by the demolition of the churches. "He has destroyed all his walls, and has made all his bulwarks fear. All the multitudes that pass through have ravaged him, and hence he has become a reproach to his neighbours. For he has exalted the right arm of his enemies, and has turned away the help of his sword, nor aided him in war. But he has also deprived him of his purification, and his throne he has cast to the ground. He has shortened the days of his time, and has poured upon him all his disgrace."

CHAPTER II.

The demolition of the churches.

ALL this has been fulfilled in our day, when we saw, with our own eyes, our houses of worship thrown down from their elevation, the sacred Scriptures of inspiration committed to the flames in the midst of the markets, the shepherds of the people basely concealed here and there, some of them ignominiously captured, and the sport of their enemies; when, also, according to another prophetic declaration, "contempt was poured out upon their rulers, and he has made them to err in a trackless by-path, and where there is no road."

But it is not for me to describe fully the sorrowful calamities which they endured, since neither does it belong to me to record the dissensions and follies which they exercised against each other before the persecution. Hence, also, we have purposed not to extend our narration beyond the events in which we perceive the just judgment of God. Hence, also, we shall not make mention of those that were shaken by the persecution, nor of those that suffered shipwreck in their salvation, and of their own accord

were sunk into the depths of the watery gulph. But we shall only, upon the whole, introduce those events in our history that may be profitable first to us of the present day, and hereafter to posterity. Now let us proceed to describe, in a condensed account, the holy conflicts of the witnesses of divine truth.

It was the nineteenth year of the reign of Diocletian, and the month of Dystrus, called by the Romans March, in which the festival of our Saviour's passion was at hand, when the imperial edicts were every where published, to tear down the churches to the foundation, and to destroy the sacred Scriptures by fire, and which commanded, also, that those who were in honourable stations, should be degraded, but those who were freedmen should be deprived of their liberty, if they persevered in their adherence to Christianity. The first edict against us was of this nature; but it was not long before other edicts were also issued, in which it was ordered that all the prelates in every place, should first be committed to prison, and then, by every artifice constrained to offer sacrifice to the gods.

CHAPTER III

The nature of the conflicts endured by the martyrs, in the per

secution.

THEN, indeed, vast numbers of the prelates of the church endured with a noble resolution the most appalling trials, and exhibited instances of illustrious conflicts for the faith. Vast numbers, however, of others, broken and relaxed in spirit, by timidity before the contest, voluntarily yielded at the first onset. But of the rest, each encountered various kinds of torments. Here was one that was scourged with rods, there another tormented with the rack and excruciating scrapings, in which some at the time endured the most terrible death; others again passed through other torments in the struggle. Here one, whilst some forced him to the impure and detestable sacrifices, was again dismissed, as if