The five or six years' experience of the results of dividing the Imperial dignity and responsibilities had been on the whole fairly successful, and during these years no further barbarian invasion of any serious importance had disturbed the Empire; but in A. D. 291 threatened raids or revolts on many sides imperatively called for the presence of an Emperor and an army on each frontier. Diocletian determined in 292 to enlarge further his plan of government by the association of two more sovereign princes under the title of Caesars, who were attached in a subordinate capacity to the two senior Emperors, styled "Augusti." The Caesars were to enjoy the right of succession to the Augusti, and thus the ever-recurring danger of a popular or tumultuous election of an Emperor was at least minimized.
The choice of Diocletian fell on two distinguished soldiers, both trained in the military school of Aurelian and Probus; Galerius, who became attached to his Eastern portion of the Empire; and Constantius, surnamed Chlorus (the pale), who assumed the position of the Assistant-Emperor to Maximian in the West. Galerius was peasant-born, and had risen to high rank owing to his military capacity. He was rough, cruel, ignorant, and masterful, though at the same time he was acknowledged to be an able and successful general. Constantius Chlorus, on the other hand, while a brilliant soldier, loved peace, and in his temper and tastes was in most respects the opposite of the rough and stern Galerius. He- was nobly born, his mother bemg the niece of the famous Emperor Claudius.
In religious matters Galerius was a fanatical and superstitious Pagan, while Constantius, though attached to the doctrines of the Neo-Pagan School of which we have spoken, was in no way opposed to Christianity; indeed, he was ever kindly disposed to the followers of Jesus, perhaps owing to the influence of his first wife, Helena, who, according to a S. Helena, afterwards famous in Christian history, is generally supposed to have been of very low extraction; she is currently described as originally a servant at an inn. Although the laws of Rome did not give the title of wife to a woman lowly born married to one in the higher grade of society, still such a union being legal was recognized by the State. It was a lawful marriage to all intents and purposes, save that it did not carry with it the title of wife. On his elevation to the rank of Caesar, one of the conditions accepted by Constantius was that he should marry the daughter of Maximian the Augustus; Helena was then repudiated and divorced. Constantine the Great, however, the son of Constantius Chlorus and Helena, succeeded to the dignity of his father, being preferred to the issue of the second marriage. It would thus seem that the first marriage was deemed a legal union. On the question of the Christianity of Helena, Theodoret, who wrote in the tradition of authority, was already a Christian during the boyhood of her son, afterwards known as Constantine the Great.
This further partition of the East and West was a fresh blow to the cherished unity of the Empire, and to the matchless dignity of the immemorial city which had given its proud name to the mighty dominion. Four Emperors, each with their army and their court; four capital cities, the selected residences of the four wearers of the Imperial purple; completed the work of the first division between Diocletian and Maximian, and effectually obscured the oneness of the grand and imposing creation of Augustus and his successors.
No doubt such a division of the great Empire had its advantages; it provided a more ready and effective means of defense against the ever-flowing tide of barbarian invasion, while, to a certain extent, it was a safeguard against the constantly recurring revolutions to which the State was exposed, owing to the facility with which a turbulent and mercenary soldiery could make and unmake a solitary Emperor. But in spite of all the precautions which the statesman-like foresight of the creator of the new Imperial constitution could devise, to use the words of the historian of the Decline and Fall, "the political union of the Roman world was gradually dissolved, and a principle of division was introduced, which in the course of a few years occasioned the perpetual separation of the Eastern and Western Empires."
The effect of these great changes in the government and the Constitution upon the Christian portion of the population was only gradually felt. No doubt the kindly feelings of the newly appointed Western Caesar, Constantius, towards Christianity in the provinces immediately under his rule, contributed to the quietness generally enjoyed by the worshippers of Jesus; and to a certain extent their influence modified the persecutions to which they were exposed under Maximian. In the East, on the other hand, where the toleration of Diocletian had largely contributed to the development of Christianity, and had emboldened the communities to make a more open profession of their faith in such matters as the building and decorating of their churches, a new and hostile influence had arisen in the person of the Caesar Galerius, a bigoted and superstitious Pagan. As time advanced the ascendancy of this powerful enemy of Christianity became more pronounced, and Diocletian, whose health gradually failed under the crushing burdens of government, passed more and more under the evil influence of the Pagan Emperor he had created; and a new policy of the bitterest persecution was adopted which, under the name and authority of Diocletian, the Senior and virtual Chief of the Emperors, extended over a large portion of the Empire.
The first famous edict of Diocletian directing a general proscription of Christians was issued early in A. D. 303. But for several years before this date, we are aware that in the army attached to the Caesar Galerius, the Christian soldiers had been subjected to persecution. At first the respect and awe with which he naturally regarded the Senior Emperor, who had raised him from a private situation to the purple, kept him in check; and the unfortunate issue of his earlier campaign against Persia diminished his influence. But his subsequent triumph over the eastern enemies of the Empire, a series of victories which resulted in the annexation of several important provinces, evidently placed Galerius in a new and more independent position; and he felt himself at liberty to carry out his designs against the hated religion even though they were contrary to the wishes and in direct opposition to the policy of Diocletian. The victorious campaign against Persia was completed in A. D. 297-8, and between this date and the year 302-3 must be placed the various attempts of Galerius to eradicate, or at least to diminish, the growing influence of Christianity in the armies under his command.
The policy pursued seems, from Eusebius' words, to have been devised in the hope of more easily overcoming the scruples of the Christians serving in the armies of the Emperor; the advisers of Galerius reckoned that, if these were compelled or persuaded to renounce their faith, the victory of Paganism over those in civil life who professed Christianity would be comparatively easy. Galerius evidently knew little of the history of the Faith in former years, and strangely miscalculated the constancy of Christians! The Caesar began by methodically testing the strength of his soldiers' convictions; requiring the different divisions of the army to take part in formal and public idolatrous ceremonies, and giving notice that if any disobeyed the general's orders they would forfeit their rank and the various privileges which many of them as veteran legionnaires enjoyed. Eusebius goes on to tell us that numbers of these legionnaires, who were soldiers in the kingdom of Christ, without hesitancy preferred the confession of the Name to the apparent glory and comfort which they enjoyed; and of these a few exchanged their honors not only for degradation but even for death. These last, however, who suffered this extreme penalty were not yet many. The great number of believers found in his army probably deterred Galerius and caused him to shrink from a general attack upon all.
Among the more prominent of those few who died for the Faith at this time were the well-known martyr-officers Sergius and Bacchus. A general tradition speaks of these two confessors as originally standing high in the Imperial favor. They attained an extraordinary popularity in early times—many churches erected after the Constantinian Edict of Peace of A. D. 313 were named after them; among which the circular-shaped basilica of SS. Sergius and Bacchus erected at Constantinople by Justinian very early in the sixth century is, perhaps, the most remarkable. Their fame extended far bejond the limits of Galerius' sphere of influence, and we find even in distant Gaul a church dedicated to their memory as far north as Chartres. Two of the "Acts" of martyrs of this period, generally accepted as genuine contemporary pieces, have come down to us, viz., "The Acts of S. Julius" and "The Acts of SS. Marcianus and Nicander."
The simple details of their trial and brave constancy are no doubt accurate pictures of the sufferings undergone for the Faith's sake. Seemingly small concessions to the Pagan worship favored by the Emperor would have procured for these soldiers life and even high honor, but they preferred the martyr's painful death, rather than deny their Lord. Some strangely pathetic circumstances related in the evidently circumstantial narrative of the "Acts" accompanied the trial scene of Nicander. His wife, Daria, who was present, encouraged her husband in his resistance to the Imperial commands. "O my Lord," the brave woman is reported to have said, "take care how you deny our Lord Jesus Christ. Look up to heaven, you will surely see Him there in whom you must believe. He will help you." And when insulting words were spoken to this true Christian lady, she asked for herself the boon of dying first for Christ.
The persecution, however, between A. D. 297-8 and 802 seems to have been confined strictly to the army. There are records which evidently point to a similar harrying of Christian soldiers at the same period in the dominion of Maximian Herculius, colleague of Diocletian, especially in North Africa and Italy; and towards the end of the period the insistence of Galerius, whose influence over the elder Emperor was gradually increasing, prevailed to a certain extent with Diocletian, who issued similar directions to the officers of his army, insisting upon the duty of sacrificing to the gods of Rome. But in no case does it seem that a death penalty was exacted as yet in his armies.
Diocletian was prematurely old. He was not sixty when his health failed him; years of toil, the cares of government, the restless anxiety of his busy, successful life had worn him out. The gorgeous and elaborate magnificence of the palace which he had caused to be erected at Salona, on the Adriatic, to which he retired after his abdication in the late spring of A. D. 305, seems to tell us that he had long meditated his design of quitting the scenes of his greatness. At all events, in the last months of A. D. 302, when Galerius visited him at Nice media, his health had begun to fail, and he was unable to resist the urgent importunities of his younger colleague, who pressed him to change his tolerant policy. Still reluctant, however, to assume the role of persecutor of a very numerous sect, which reckoned among its numbers his own wife and daughter, he summoned a Council to consider the wisdom of adopting the anti-Christian policy urged on him. The opinion of this Council, although somewhat divided, seems to have been, on the whole, adverse to Christianity. No doubt the influence of the younger Emperor colored the spirit of the resolution of the advisers thus called together. Diocletian, in feeble health, a world-weary man, would probably soon disappear from the scene, while his younger colleague, strong and vigorous, would at no distant period no doubt succeed to the supreme authority; naturally his views prevailed. It was determined that the oracle of Apollo at Miletus, a famous Pagan shrine, should be consulted on this all-important question. Lactantius simply tells us that the reply of the oracle was such as an enemy of our divine religion would give. Eusebius in the "Life of Constantine" adds some curious details.
The oracle's answer was a very singular and ambiguous pronouncement. "The god complained of being unable to announce what was coming on the earth, owing to the presence of just men who were living in the world." The superstitious mind of Diocletian was troubled by this reply, and he enquired who were these just men, enemies of the god who prevented his speaking. The opinion was unanimous. They were the Christians. This decided the wavering Emperor. The Caesar Galerius, the god Apollo, and the Imperial Councillors were evidently of one mind; and the terrible persecution was then arranged. Still Diocletian, remembering the past prosperity of his reign, was loth to proceed to extremities, and, while, ordering a persecution, forbade that any Christian lives should be sacrificed; the harrying of the sect was to be confined to deprivation of rank, privileges, and fortune. With this modified persecution the Caesar Galerius and the Pagan party professed themselves contented for the present. They had laid their plans skillfully, and were confident that events would happen which would speedily induce the ailing Diocletian to adopt a harsher procedure.
The first persecuting edict was published at Nicomedia in the names of Diocletian and Galerius early in the year 303. It was drastic in its stern provisions. (1) All assemblies of Christians were absolutely forbidden; (2) Christian churches were to be destroyed; (3) The Sacred Books of the Christians were to be burned; (4) Rank and privileges were to be taken away from all persons professing the religion of the Crucified; henceforth such noble and privileged citizens of the Empire were liable to torture, and lost their right of appeal to any tribunal; (5) Those who belonged to the lower grades of society, if they persisted in their adherence to the forbidden religion, would lose their liberty; (6) Christian slaves could never receive their freedom.
The provisions of this sweeping edict were in some respects even more far-reaching than the anti-Christian legislation of the Emperor Valerian. The burning of the sacred books was a novel provision. The widely extended regulations as regards slavery affected classes untouched by any previous edict. On the other hand, the clergy were not specially named by Diocletian, and the extreme penalty of death was not mentioned. This last concession was the remnant of the old favor so long shown by the Senior Emperor to the Christian sect.
It may well be conceived that the provisions of this terrible law struck the Christian communities who had for several years been in the enjoyment of immunity from all harassing persecution with dismay and astonishment.
Very shortly after the promulgation of the first edict, a fire broke out in the Imperial palace at Nicomedia where the two Emperors were residing. Fifteen days later another fire in the palace alarmed Diocletian. Eusebius notices it briefly in the following language: "I know not how it happened, but there was a fire that broke out in the Imperial palace at Nicomedia in those days, which by a false suspicion reported abroad was attributed to our brethren as the authors of it." Lactantius goes into further details, and openly charges Galerius with having contrived the fires, and then accusing the Christians as the incendiaries, hoping thus to embitter Diocletian against them.
The result certainly turned out as Galerius wished. Diocletian was thoroughly alarmed; his sick fancy pictured a widespread plot on the part of the harassed Christian communities to destroy him. He no longer trusted his palace officials, many of whom were Christians.
His genuine terror was no doubt increased by the hurried departure from Nicomedia of his younger colleague in the Empire after the second fire in the palace; Galerius professing to dread being burned alive in the Imperial residence.
Then the great persecution, commonly known as Diocletian's, began in real earnest. In some particulars the last of these terrible onslaughts of Paganism on Christianity bore a striking resemblance to the first. The primary reason for the harrying of Christians under Nero singularly enough was the result of the charge brought against the sect of incendiarism. The current belief that they were the authors of the fires which had partly consumed the Imperial residence at Nicomedia determined Diocletian to crush them. There was no longer any hesitation on his part to proceed to extreme measures; old and long trusted palace officials were tortured and put to death, simply because they professed the feared and hated religion. The ghastly details of some of these martyrdoms are given at length by Eusebius. These men endured their sufferings and met their deaths with the calm courage showed by so many confessors of the noble army of martyrs. The only recorded instances of failure in the moment of bitter trial were the two princesses, Prisca and Valeria, the wife and daughter of the Emperor, who both consented to sacrifice.
Outside the palace walls the same cruel treatment was meted out to the leading personages in the Christian community of Diocletian's capital. The Bishop Anthemius, his presbyters, and a number of his clergy and their households were put to death, nor were the women and children spared. The early days of the persecution in Nicomedia witnessed scenes unparalleled in any preceding persecution; some victims were taken out to sea and drowned, others burned, and these not in solitary instances, but in whole companies. The prisons were crowded. New and fearful forms of punishment were devised for these hapless and innocent members of the Christian communities. Nicomedia, the beautiful capital of the Eastern Empire of Diocletian, will ever occupy in the sad yet glorious annals of the early story of Christianity a position of prominence. It would, however, be an exaggerated picture of Christian constancy which omitted to record any instances of falling away among the crowd of sufferers for the Faith; but, generally speaking, the Christians of Nicomedia presented a spectacle of extraordinary constancy and even of superhuman endurance. In other cities of the East the first edict and the provisions of the subsequent more severe proclamations which followed, were carried out with more or less rigor, but the instances of defection were often more numerous than at Nicomedia. In Antioch, for instance, we hear of numbers of Christians falling away in the hour of trial.
At no period had the worshippers of Jesus been exposed to so rigorous a persecution as in those early years of the fourth century. No enemy to the Christian sect among the Pagan rulers of Rome had arisen like Galerius. He had made the cause of Paganism his own, and he hoped finally to destroy the dangerous and powerful religion which he so intensely hated. He was an ambitious and self-seeking despot, and probably calculated upon all the influence of Paganism to support him in his intrigues eventually to gain the supreme power in the Empire. Diocletian, his patron, the founder of the new Imperial college of rulers, was sick, he thought, to death, and Galerius was well aware of his project of abdication; it was arranged that Maximian should abdicate at the same time. Galerius' influence with the sick Diocletian would, he rightly guessed, be sufficient to ensure the nomination of two subordinate Emperors, who would be creatures of his own, to fill the vacant places in the Imperial tetrarchy. Only one obstacle remained to his obtaining the coveted position of supreme lord of the Roman Empire, in the person of the Western Emperor Constantius Chlorus; whose quiet and unostentatious career, however, seemed to suggest that in him would scarcely be found a formidable competitor.
Under such a coming master of the Roman world the future of Christianity seemed indeed gloomy. The fierce edict of A. D. 303 was rapidly followed, under the inspiration of Galerius, by other and yet more terrible anti-Christian laws; laws which were directed against no one special class or order among the communities of the Church, but which in their comprehensive scope affected all, clergy, laity, legionnaires, all classes of the Christian society, rich and poor, noble and servile alike. Indeed, had they been generally put into execution throughout the provinces of the Empire, it is hardly conceivable that Christianity could have survived; humanly speaking, it seems as though the religion of Jesus was preserved from annihilation by the new Imperial Constitution arranged years before by Diocletian.
The edicts of persecution drafted, to use a modern term, by Galerius ran in the names of the four lords of the Roman world, Diocletian and Maximian, Galerius and Constantius Chlorus. In the Eastern Empire there was no question respecting the execution of the edicts; here and there a powerful pro-consul or provincial magistrate, sympathizing with the persecuted sect, might and did soften the fury of the prosecution; but generally the sufferings of the members of the sect who declined to conform to the State religion were very terrible. In the Eastern countries of Roman Europe, including Greece and the provinces on the Danube, the sphere of Galerius' special influence, the same may be said; in Italy and Africa, the dominion under Maximian, the Imperial edicts of persecution were, of course, enforced with stern rigor, that Emperor being a cruel and superstitious Pagan. But in the West of the Roman Empire there was a very different spirit inspiring the Government. Far away from Diocletian and Galerius, the vast and wealthy province of Gaul, which roughly included, it must be remembered, modern France, Switzerland, the Low Countries, the Rhenish provinces of the modern German Empire, and the island of Britain, were all under the rule of Constantius Chlorus.
In this great and important division of the Empire, the edicts emphatically were, if not ignored, at least very imperfectly put in force; nothing like a persecution, in the grave sense of the word, ever raged there. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that this great and good ruler preserved Christianity from the most deadly peril to which it had as yet been exposed.
We have already briefly touched upon Constantius' family and early life. He was by birth a noble, his mother being the niece of the great military Emperor Claudius, and was a trained soldier. Of the contemporary historians, Eusebius tells us that the persecuting edicts were ignored in his provinces; Lactantius slightly modifies this statement, and represents Constantius as making a show of conformity to the laws of the Empire, in that he ordered the destruction of some churches, and even proceeded against certain professors of the proscribed religion; but these proceedings seemed to have been merely a feigned compliance with edicts to which his name was necessarily appended, and the Christians were generally left unmolested in his broad provinces while their brethren were enduring terrible sufferings in Italy, Africa, Spain, and in the East of the Empire.
The question has been asked. What motive induced Constantius to sympathize with the proscribed religion? Eusebius seems to have deemed him a Christian; in his "Life of Constantino," he represents Constantius Chlorus as dedicating to the One God wife and children, his palace, and all that dwelt in it, so effectively that the frequenters of the palace were much the same as those who made up the congregation of a church, and as loving to surround himself with Christian priests and bishops. This picture, however, which paints Constantius as a Christian seems scarcely accurate; for Christian writers, who are never weary of describing the conversion of his son, afterwards known as Constantino the Great, say comparatively little of the father; whereas Pagan writers speak of him with an enthusiasm which they would scarcely have felt for a declared enemy of the gods of Rome.
Constantius probably belonged to the school—a fairly numerous body in his days—of enlightened Pagans, who, without breaking with the popular Pagan ideas, had a dim conception of the unity of God; he was probably tolerant of all forms of belief; perhaps he had an especial sympathy with Christianity, and encouraged and even courted its professors. The "pale" Emperor, whose quiet, noble life was spent in successfully fighting with the enemies of his country and in ruling with justice his widespread dominions; whose reign, according to the testimony of both Pagan and Christian writers, was unstained by cruelty or by crime, and who was invariably kind and gentle to all his subjects; stands out a very noble figure among the group of ambitious and persecuting princes who, after Diocletian's division of the Empire, successively filled the various Imperial thrones of the East and West.
The importance of Constantius' policy towards Christianity in her darkest hour can scarcely be overrated. The bitterest and most unrelenting persecution was making havoc of the Church in all the provinces of the East, as well as in Italy and Greece, Africa and Spain. Successive edicts, each surpassing the last in severity, were being put forth by the Imperial Chancery under the direction of Galerius, with the avowed purpose of utterly destroying Christianity in the Roman Empire; but the knowledge that in Gaul, the great province of the West, a totally different policy was being pursued by the powerful and honored ruler of that portion of the Empire, largely neutralized the deadening and numbing influence of Galerius' work. No doubt those magistrates in the persecuted districts who sympathized with Christianity were encouraged secretly to favor the proscribed sect, and, as far as was possible, to check persecution; and as time went on, and the power of Galerius began to wane, the policy of Constantius in the West insensibly influenced some at least of that group of Imperial rulers who arose in the troubling times which followed the abdication of Diocletian.
But it was only in the favored West, in the realm of Constantius, that the edicts were suffered to slumber. In the Asiatic provinces of Diocletian destruction and havoc were very general. In many of the towns the churches which had arisen in the long period of quietness were razed to the ground, and the communities of Christians scattered and cruelly harassed. In the realm of Maximian, ever a bitter foe, the edicts of persecution were rigorously carried out. Rome suffered severely, and much of the "earthing up" of the catacombs which modern exploration has brought to light dates from this sad period; the Bishop of Rome, Marcellinus, thus preventing any desecration of the sacred shrines of the dead. Vast numbers of the Church's archives and copies of the sacred books were seized and destroyed in this period.
In North Africa, which was included in Maximian's territories, the persecution, as might have been expected, was severe. In this province religious life seems to have been all through the earlier centuries peculiarly intense; it was the home, too, of the schismatic whose cardinal error was an exaggerated austerity of life and conduct.
A special feature of this first persecution of Diocletian was the bitterness displayed in the search after the sacred Christian books. Wherever the edicts were rigorously carried out, not only were the churches and the buildings connected with the cemeteries of the dead pitilessly destroyed, but the-communities were required to give up the sacred vessels used for the Holy Eucharist, and also the manuscripts which contained the writings of their Teacher and His disciples. There is no doubt that vast numbers of them were destroyed at this time as well as many "Acts of Martyrs," and other church records, an irreparable loss being thus sustained. Many earnest and devout Christians went to prison and some to death rather than give up these sacred writings; others, however, yielded, not looking upon such a surrender as a vital point. In North Africa a few years later the question was fiercely raised in the Christian communities whether those presbyters who in the hour of extreme peril had thus given up the Holy Books, and who were branded with the opprobrious title of "Traditores," had not by their weakness forfeited their sacerdotal privileges. The charge of yielding up the sacred books was the immediate occasion of the great Donatist schism. The ranks of these schismatics were largely recruited, as might have been expected, in North Africa, from the inheritors of the peculiarly strict and austere tenets of the Novatianists. The schism made so wide a cleavage in the Christian communities that the whole question was subsequently debated at a Council composed of 200 bishops summoned from all parts of the Western Empire to Aries by Constantino in the year 314.
The search after and confiscation of these various Christian writings indicates the nature of the persecution, and shows how elaborately planned were the proceedings of the enemies of the Faith. It was no temporary outbreak of Pagan animosity, but a carefully arranged campaign against the Christian religion, which Galerius and his advisers hoped completely to eradicate.
In Rome, so rich in indirect testimonies to the severity of the last persecution, an absence of written documents containing reliable details is specially noticeable. And this is accounted for by the same reasons we have adduced for the provinces. Indeed, in Rome, the great seat of Paganism, the search for and consequent destruction of the sacred writings and manuscripts of the Christians seems to have been more thorough and complete than in any other of the important centers of population.
The first edict was rapidly followed by a second, which was especially aimed at the clergy. Eusebius tells us of the numbers who were at once thrust into prison—bishops, presbyters, and deacons, readers and exorcists. A third edict was soon after put forth offering liberty to any of these who would consent to sacrifice, but in the event of their refusing they were to be punished with excruciating tortures. The historian seems to imply, in the words immediately following his brief notice of these second and third edicts, that the invitation to recant was generally refused, as he adds: "Who could tell the numbers of those martyrs in every province, and particularly in Mauritania, Thebais, and Egypt, that suffered death for their religion?" Still Eusebius does not conceal the fact that there were some who, appalled at the sufferings which awaited those who were steadfast, did recant in the supreme hour of trial. His words must be quoted: "Hence also we shall not make mention of those who were shaken by the persecution, nor of those that suffered shipwreck in their salvation, and of their own accord were sunk in the depths of the watery gulf." Of the kind of tortures that were endured, he writes: "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 different torments in the struggle."
The closing days of the year 303 brought a brief respite to the sufferings of the persecuted followers of Jesus. It was the twentieth year of the reign of Diocletian, and the Emperor, worn out and ill though he was, determined to celebrate the auspicious date with a grand triumph, accompanied with public games of great magnificence at Rome. Maximian, his senior partner in the Imperial dignity, was associated with him on the great occasion. The long reign on the whole had been a period of real prosperity for the colossal Empire. The frontier provinces of the Danube and the Rhine had been generally protected from the raids of the barbarian tribes, and the military prowess of Maximian and Constantius Chlorus had continued the successful work of the military Emperors Claudius Probus and Aurelian in maintaining the fading prestige of Rome in the West, while the victories of Galerius over the Persian armies secured the Eastern frontiers.
Africa and Britain, as well as the great frontiers of the Rhine and Danube, were each represented in the striking triumph procession, while the signal victories of Galerius in Persia were conspicuously represented in the stately march along the sacred way and through the time-honored Forum, the scene of so many and such varied Republican and Imperial triumphs.
In one respect the great military display of Diocletian and Maximian in the November of A. D. 303 was especially remarkable. It was the last of the long series of Roman triumphs. Rome had already virtually ceased to be the capital of the Empire. The Imperial visit, however, to the old capital was very short. Diocletian disliked Rome, and his failing health was his excuse for cutting short his part in the festivities of the triumph. He left suddenly for Ravenna; then, his illness becoming grave, he lived in great retirement; slowly journeying in a closed litter back to his loved Nicomedia, which he only reached in the summer of the following year, A. D. 304. Seriously ill, he was confined to his palace in that city for many months; many supposed him to be dead, as in fact he virtually was to all public business.
The ceremonies connected with the triumph of November, A. D. 303, were accompanied by a proclamation of a general amnesty, and, save in certain special cases, all prisoners were released throughout the Empire. Great numbers of more or less undistinguished Christian captives who were awaiting trial found themselves set at liberty in consequence of the general pardon. But the sounds of the public rejoicings soon died away, and the cruel edicts of persecution, being unrepealed, were once more enforced with rigor; in the East where Galerius was now in reality supreme, and in the West throughout the sphere of Maximian's influence; both these Emperors being deadly enemies of Christianity.
Nor were the first three edicts far reaching enough to satisfy the bitter animosity of these princes, for in the spring of the following year, 304, a fourth and more terrible edict was promulgated, no doubt under the special inspiration of Galerius. Eusebius, dwelling especially on the Palestinian persecution, of which he was an eye-witness, thus briefly sums up the purport of this fresh order of the Imperial Chancery: "In the course of the second year (A. D. 304), when the war was blazing more violently against us, when Urbanus was administering the province. Imperial letters were sent in which it was directed that all persons of every people and city should sacrifice and offer libations to idols." Thus open war was proclaimed not merely against the Churches, the holy vessels, the sacred books and writings, and the clergy of all ranks, but against all the believers in Jesus, without distinction of condition, or sex, or age.
In one of those rare Martyrologies which have come down to us, that of S. Savinus—which bears, however, unmistakable traces of a late redaction—we have an evidently genuine description of the bitter spirit of animosity against Christianity which animated the Pagan population of Rome in the great year of Diocletian's persecution, A. D. 304.
In the spring of this year, in the course of the annual games in honor of Ceres, the Emperor Maximian Herculius was present. Loud shouts applauding the Sovereign were interrupted by cries of the populace clamoring for the destruction of the Christians. The air was full of the persecuting fury of Galerius and Diocletian, which was raging in the East. The Roman Pagans longed to see the bloody scenes of Nicomedia and the oriental centers revived in their own city. "Away with the Christians," shouted the populace, "and we shall be happy." "Let there be no more Christians," was repeated by the angry crowd again and again. Maximian, whose hostility to the sect was well known, was not slow to comply with the popular desire, and soon the persecuting edicts of which we have written above were carried into dread effect at Rome.
Many and various were the devices adopted in the course of the terrible year 304 to compel the Christians to pay even an involuntary homage to the gods of Rome. At Nicomedia, the residence of the Emperor, altars were placed in all the law courts, and the suitors with various cases were bidden before their cases came on to offer sacrifice. In Galatia, all articles of food, before being allowed to be exposed for sale, were formally consecrated to one or other of the gods. In Rome these strange and hitherto unheard of methods of compelling submission to idolatry were multiplied. Images of the gods were erected in the various markets, and incense had to be sprinkled before these by all who wished to buy and sell. The very public fountains, then as now so abundant in Rome, were guarded, and could only be used by those who chose to adore the national gods.
The condition of the Christian portion of the Roman world, with the exception of Gaul for the reasons above referred to, after the putting out of this fourth edict of persecution, was undoubtedly more serious than it had been at any previous time. The greater part of the year 304 and a considerable portion of 305 may be considered the most terrible period of the long drawn-out persecution which began in the year 303, and did not end till Constantine promulgated at Milan his famous edict in the year 313. It was the most deliberate and carefully planned attack on the Religion of Jesus that the advocates of Paganism ever arranged, and the Emperor Galerius, the chief instigator of the persecution, and his advisers had good hopes that the universal terrorism would, in the end, everywhere stamp out the hated Christianity. The name of Diocletian appeared still as the first of the Imperial names on the fourth edict, but it is doubtful if the state of his health all through that year permitted him to take any active share in the Government. The real author of the persecution undoubtedly was Galerius, while Maximian in Italy and Africa, then, as ever, a determined foe to the sect, willingly carried out the provisions of the various edicts. The passive resistance of Constantius Chlorus, who administered the Gallic Provinces, and who sympathized with Christianity, was, however, the great obstacle to the effectual carrying out of the Pagan propaganda.
The numbers of the Christians in the Roman Empire in the first years of the fourth century, against whom the great persecution was directed, have been variously stated; we have computed them, it will be remembered, as amounting roughly to between seven and nine millions. But this may possibly be very considerably under the mark, the whole population of the Empire at this period being reckoned at about one hundred millions.