The whole company was moved, and tears were shed. The martyr composed himself to suffer, and offering his neck to the sword, he was beheaded : An admirable Christian hero! in whom divine love breathed in conjunction with resignation and serenity. The Lord's hand was not shortened: His grace appeared in him in a manner worthy of the Apostolic age. Soon after a hundred and thirty Egyptian chieftains, suffering the same mutilations which have been mentioned above, were sentenced by Maximin to the mines of Palestine and Cilicia. CENT. IV. After the persecution had paused some time, it Edicts of was renewed with fresh violence by the Edicts of Maximin. Maximin*. The temples were repaired; men were compelled to sacrifice every where; all things sold in the markets were polluted with libations; and persons were placed at the public baths to force men to idolatrous compliances. Three believers, Antoninus, Zebinus, and Germanus, threw themselves into the hands of Firmilian, and were capitally punished. Eusebius, in his usual manner, commends their over-forward zeal. With them a virgin called Ennathus was dragged by violence to the judge, whipped, and burned to death. Their bodies were left exposed to the beasts of prey, and particular care was taken to prevent their interment. Some time after, certain Egyptians, coming to minister to the confessors of their own country, who had been condemned to the mines in Cilicia, one of them was burned, two were beheaded, and several were associated with the confessors in their afflictions, mutilation, and the drudgery of the mines. Peter the monk, having in vain been solicited by the judge to save his life, gave it up cheerfully for the sake of Christ. With him suffered Asclepius, bishop of the Marcionites, being burned on the same funeral pile, "animated with zeal," * C. IX. de Martyr. Pal. CHAP. I. Pamphilus beheaded. says my author, "but not according to knowledge*." This however might be more than Eusebius knew. The heretical form, in which he appeared, might be consistent with the pure love of Christ; in a history, which undertakes impartially to celebrate the people of God, it does not become us to be blinded by the idea of a rigorous and exclusive uniformity of denomination. Pamphilus the presbyter and friend of Eusebius is highly commended by him for his contempt of secular grandeur, to which he might have aspired; for his great liberality to the poor; for that which may seem more likely to cloud than to adorn his Christian excellencies, his philosophic life; above all, for his knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, in which his panegyrist thinks he excelled all men of that time; and for his benevolence to all who came to him. An excellent Christian he undoubtedly was, though a moderate degree of Evangelical knowledge in that age would easily be esteemed prodigious. Firmilian asking him when brought before him, what was his country, received for answer, "Jerusalem." Not understanding what he meant by this, he tortured him for an explanaPamphilus persisted that he had spoken tion. * C. X. blood, like him also suffered capitally by the sentence of the emperor. Toward the end of the seventh year the persecution relaxing in some degree, the multitude of the confessors in the mines of Palestine enjoyed some liberty, and even erected some places of public worship. The president of the province coming among them, envied them the small cessation of their miseries, and wrote to the emperor in their prejudice. Afterwards the master of the mines coming thither, as if by an imperial rescript, divided the sufferers into classes. Some he ordered to dwell in Cyprus, others in Libanus; the rest he dispersed and harassed with various drudgeries in different parts of Palestine. Four he singled out for the examination of the military commander, who burnt them to death. Silvanus, a bishop of great piety, John, an Egyptian, and thirty-seven others, were the same day beheaded by the order of Maximin. Of John it is remarked, that though blind, he had been, like the rest, cauterized and debilitated in one leg by a hot iron. The strength of his memory was admired among the Christians: he could at pleasure repeat from the Old or New Testament many passages in Christian assemblies. But the fact proves something more than what Eusebius mentions, namely, that he had made the best use of his eyes while he was possessed of them. And here we close the account from Eusebius, of the martyrs of Palestine. For eight years the East, with little intermission, groaned under the most heavy persecution. In the West, their sufferings abated after two years. The political changes of the empire account for the difference. But, both in the East and the West, Satan was permitted to exert his malice in the keenest manner during this last of the Pagan persecutions. And the Divine power and wisdom, in still preserving a real Church on earth, was never more conspicuously displayed, since CENT. IV. I. CHAP. the days of the Apostles. The time of an external triumph of the Church, under Constantine, was at hand. Those, who look at outward things alone, may be tempted to think how much more glorious would the Church have appeared at that time, without the previous desolations of Dioclesian's persecution. But when it is considered how much Christian doctrine had decayed, and how low holy practice had fallen, the necessity of so sharp a trial to purify the Church, and fit her at all for a state of prosperity, is evident. Otherwise, the difference between Christians and Pagans might probably have been little more than a name. I know it is common for authors to represent the great declension of Christianity to have taken place only after its external establishment under Constantine. But the evidence of history has compelled me to dissent from this view of things. In fact we have seen, that for a whole generation previous to the persecution, few marks of superior piety appeared. Scarce a luminary of godliness existed; and it is not common in any age for a great work of the Spirit of God to be exhibited, but under the conduct of some remarkable Saints, Pastors, and Reformers. This whole period, as well as the whole scene of the persecution, is very barren of such characters. Not but that many precious children of God suffered in much patience and charity. But those who suffered with very much of a different spirit found no pastor to discountenance their selfwill and false zeal; a sure sign that the true spirit of martyrdom was less pure than it had formerly been. Moreover, the prevalence of superstition on the one hand, and the decay of Evangelical knowledge on the other, are equally apparent. Christ crucified, justification purely by faith, and the effectual influences of the Holy Ghost, together with humbling views of man's total apostasy and corruption, these were ideas at least very faintly 24 impressed at that day on Christian minds. It is vain to expect Christian faith to abound without Christian doctrine. Moral, and philosophical, and monastical instructions, will not effect for men what is to be expected from Evangelical doctrine. And if the faith of Christ was so much declined, (and its decayed state ought to be dated from about the year 270), we need not wonder that such scenes as Eusebius hints at without any circumstantial details, took place in the Christian world *. He observes, that pastors of churches were condemned to take care of camels, and to feed the emperor's horses. Even he, who was far from seeing in a due light the cause of the declension of piety in their departure from the faith, was struck with the moral effects, and could not but revere the Divine justice, in giving unworthy ministers a punishment adapted to their crimes. He speaks also of the ambitious spirit of many, in aspiring to the offices of the Church, the ill-judged and unlawful ordinations, the quarrels among confessors themselves, and the contentions excited by young demagogues in the very relics of the persecuted Church, and the multiplied evils which their vices excited among Christians. How sadly must the Christian world have declined, which could thus conduct itself under the very rod of Divine vengeance? Yet let not the infidel or profane world triumph. It was not Christianity, but the departure from it, which brought on these evils; and even in this low state of the Church there was much more moral virtue than could be found any where else; and the charitable spirit of many in suffering, showed that God had yet a Church upon earth. The reader is however now prepared to conceive aright of the state of the Church, when Constantine took it under his protection, and to judge how far a national establishment was beneficial or prejudicial to it in future. C. XII. Martyr. of Pal. CENT. IV. Decay of tianity. pure Chris A. D. 270. |