tunity to escape. When he was required to curse Christ, he answered: "Six and eighty years have I served him, and he has done me nothing but good; and how could I curse him, my Lord and my Saviour!" Refusing to renounce the faith, he was burned to death. Justin-Justin Martyr, as he is generally styled-whose writings present us with very valuable information concerning the Church of his time, was put to death at Rome. The Gallic churches of Lyons and Vienne suffered most. The details of their persecution are given in a letter from them to the churches of Asia Minor. Slanderous charges of incest and of other abominations practised in their meetings, were propagated and believed. Such rumors were common in the case of Christians and of other sects whose assemblies were private. The severity of the tortures, endured without flinching, even by young maidens, at the hands of heathen magistrates, almost surpasses belief. The story of the torments borne by Ponticus, a youth of sixteen, and by Blandina, a female slave, are of this character. Tortures prolonged from morning until night could only elicit from this delicate maiden the exclamation: "I am a Christian; among us no evil is done." Pothinus, the aged bishop, who was past his ninetieth year, was brutally treated, and after two days expired in prison. The tale of an alleged miracle of a shower of rain, falling in answer to the prayers of " the thundering legion," a Christian body of soldiers in the army of Marcus Aurelius, is largely, if not wholly, fabulous. An interval of rest for the Church followed. The cruel Commodus (180-192), the ignoble son of a noble father, was indifferent to religious divisions and rivalries. From the death of Commodus to the accession of Diocletian, a period of ninety-two years, the emperors were appointed and deposed at the pleasure of the soldiers. Their treatment of Christianity depended on their personal character and on the degree of their zeal for the maintenance of the old Roman system emperors." of public order. It was not until Decius that a general persecution was undertaken. The closing part of the reign of Septimius Severus (193-211) witnessed a reversal of the mild policy which had marked the preceding years. There was persecution, especially in North Africa, where, among the martyrs, were two women, Perpetua and Felicitas, who evinced beyond most others the power of the Christian faith. To the former, as she said, "the dungeon became a palace." She did not yield to the pathetic entreaties of her aged father that she would recant. The persecution was continued under Caracalla (211-217). The disposition of succeeding emperors to amalgamate different religions, and the in

The "soldier

terest they felt in Oriental religious systems, contributed to the security of Christian worshippers. This was true in the case of the savage and profligate Elagabalus (218-222), and the more noble and devout Alexander Severus (222-235.) Under Maximinus, the Thracian (235-238), the fury of the heathen populace, which was stimulated by governors who were hostile to Christianity, was allowed to vent itself without check. Earthquakes in Cappadocia and Pontus, and signal calamities elsewhere, excited their superstitious rage, which displayed itself in the slaughter of Christians, to whose "impiety" these judgments were always attributed. Under the next two reigns, that of Gordian (238-244), and that of Philip, the Arabian (244-249), Christians were not molested by their rulers. Their numbers had so multiplied that Origen for the first time expresses the belief, which Christian teachers before him had not ventured to entertain, that the gospel, by its inherent power, and without help of miracle, would supplant the religion of the heathen. The prosperity and the bright prospects of the Church rekindled the hostility of its opposers. The Emperor Decius, a

Decius, 249-251.

Pannonian by birth, set out to restore the unity and vigor of the empire. He was bent on bringing back the virtue and order of a former day, and deemed a revival of the policy of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius the best means to that end. Resolved to extirpate Christianity, Decius adopted a systematic method for attaining his object. All Christians, within a given time, were to appear before a magistrate, abjure their religion, and offer sacrifice to the gods of Rome. Many remained steadfast. Not a few gave way to terror, and either joined in some way in heathen worship, or procured false certificates that they had done so. Fortunately for the Church, the reign of Decius was short. Under Gallus (251-253), pestilence, spreading over the empire, and the occurrence of drought and famine in various provinces, once more stirred up the wrath of the heathen. An imperial edict was sent forth requiring all Roman subjects to sacrifice to the gods. Among the martyrs were two Roman bishops, Cornelius and Lucius. The work left unfinished by Decius was taken up by Valerian (253-260), whose decrees against the Church were skilfully framed. They included special enactments against all Christians of rank and distinction. In this persecution Cyprian, the venerable bishop of Carthage, was put to death, and also the Roman bishop Sixtus and four deacons of his church. In the case of Cyprian, the courtesy of the Roman officials and the external decorum of the whole proceeding, on which Gibbon dilates, only enhance the horror of such

Diocletian,

a deed performed under the sanctions and forms of law. Gallienus (260–268), the son of Valerian, reversed his father's policy, restored exiled bishops to their places, and granted to Christians a practical toleration. Now, for about forty years, the Church enjoyed an almost unbroken rest. Then the last and most formidable of all the persecutions, not excepting the persecution of Decius, broke out. Diocletian, a man of great talents as a states284-305. man, associated with him Maximianus as co-regent, and appointed two more Caesars, each to rule an extensive district of the empire. One of these was Constantius Chlorus. The other was Galerius, who married Diocletian's daughter. Instigated by Galerius, and stimulated by the old Roman conservative feeling, Diocletian, in 303, determined to exterminate the Christian religion and to reinstate the ancient system of worship. In pursuance of this plan, a series of edicts, each more rigorous than the preceding, were deliberately framed for the accomplishment of his purpose. The Roman prisons were soon filled with bishops and other clergy. After the abdication of Diocletian, the influence of Constantius Chlorus, who presided over Gaul, Britain, and Spain, and had used his power to protect Christians, became more potent. But the new Cæsar, Maximinus, and Galerius kept up their savage proceedings. At length, in 311, Galerius utterly changed his course and proclaimed toleration. In 313, Constantine, now the sole ruler of the West, in connection with his colleague in the empire, Licinius, issued, at Milan, an edict of full toleration for both religions.

Behavior of Christians under persecution.

During the succession of persecutions which came to an end on the accession of Constantine to supreme power and his adoption of the Christian faith, there were very many who submitted to imprisonment, torture, and death. Not a few, especially after long seasons of quiet, lacked the courage to face the terror, and saved their lives at the cost of their Christian fidelity. To offer sacrifice to the heathen gods, to procure from the heathen false testimonies to the effect that they had renounced Christianity, or to give up copies of the Scriptures on the demand of the magistrates, excluded those guilty of these offences from Christian fellowship. As to the total number of martyrs in the first three centuries, it was doubtless over-estimated by the Church fathers, but it has been underrated by Gibbon, who draws a larger inference than is warranted from a passage in Origen. Gibbon, moreover, fails to take into account the multitude of instances where tortures were inflicted that resulted, not at once, yet eventually, in death. It was the heroic age in the history of the Church,

when, with no aid from an arm of flesh, the whole might of the Roman empire was victoriously encountered by the unarmed and unresisting adherents of the Christian faith. Imperial Rome, the conqueror of the world, was herself overcome by the bands of Christian disciples, whose meek but dauntless courage was more than a match for all her power.

CHAPTER II.

GOVERNMENT AND DISCIPLINE IN THE CHURCH.

We have now to consider the organization of the churches. Among the special topics are the rise of episcopacy, the incoming of the sacerdotal idea of the ministry, the growth of the hierarchical system until the close of this period.

Rise of the

In the New Testament, as we have seen, there are two classes of officers in each church, called, respectively, elders or bishops, and deacons. After we cross the limit of the first century episcopate. we find that with each board of elders there is a person to whom the name of "bishop" is specially applied, although, for a long time, he is likewise often called a presbyter. In other words, in the room of a twofold, we have a threefold, ministry. The period that elapsed between the destruction of Jerusalem and about the middle of the second century is obscure. For this interval our means of information are scanty. Much of the early Christian literature has perished. There is a list of authors who are known only through fragments preserved in later writers. Hence there are many questions about which we are left, more or less, in the dark. This

Episcopate developed from the presbytery.

question of the origin of the episcopate, as a distinct office from the presbyterate, is one of them. To Timothy, Titus, and other evangelists there was committed. a certain superintendence of churches. But they discharged a special mission, and if it may be called a "movable episcopate," it is not thus described in Scripture, and was quite distinct from the localized episcopate with which we have to do. It is probable, to quote the language of Bishop Lightfoot, "that the solution suggested by the history of the word 'bishop,' and its transfer from the lower to the higher office, is the true solution, and that the episcopate was created out of the presbytery;" "that this creation was not so much an isolated act as a progressive

development, not advancing everywhere at a uniform rate, but exhibiting at one and the same time different stages of growth in different churches." Polycarp is designated as bishop by Irenæus, who knew him. But Polycarp, in his Epistle to the Church at Philippi, makes no mention of a bishop there in distinction from presbyters. The Corinthians had no bishop when Clement, in the year 96, wrote to them his epistle. If the office had existed there, the character and purpose of his epistle would have led him to make mention of it. In promoting the rise of the episcopate, the example of the presidency exercised by James at Jerusalem would have its effect in Syria. An early tradition ascribes a special agency in this matter to the Apostle John, who is said to have appointed bishops in the churches of Asia Minor. Irenæus tells us that Polycarp was appointed by apostles. It was in these Syrian and Asian churches that the episcopate appears to have first taken root. Personal eminence, derived it might be, as in the case of Polycarp, John's disciple, and of Clement of Rome, a pupil of Paul, from an intimate relation to an apostle, or from some other source of special esteem, would tend to give precedence to particular individuals, and to elevate them above their associate presbyters. It accords with experience that a presidency should arise in a body of peers such as the elders of a church were. The Greek term for bishop, which had been used to designate presbyters, was familiar to readers of the Septuagint, where it denotes an overseer. The same term, it would appear, was sometimes employed to designate an analogous office in heathen societies, both voluntary and municipal. The rise of sects and heresies, and the consequent demand for stricter discipline and for united action, would favor the rise of the episcopate. The bishop acquired importance, also, as the steward of the charitable funds of the church. He was the superintendent of the deacons in their work. This financial responsibility had something to do with the building up of the office. But reminiscences of the primitive parity of ministers long continued. Jerome, the great scholar of the fourth century, as an illustration of this fact, adverts to a peculiarity in the Church of Alexandria. "With the ancients," he says, "presbyters were the same as bishops; but gradually all the responsibility was deferred to a single person, that the thickets of heresies might be rooted out." The subjection of presbyters he designates as a "custom of the churches." Down to near the middle of the third century, Jerome says, when a bishop died at Alexandria, the twelve presbyters placed one of their own number in the episcopal office. That

Primitive parity of ministers.