Download the full version of the ebook now at ebookgrade.

com

Conservation Biology 1st By Bradley Cardinale

https://ebookgrade.com/product/conservation-
biology-1st-by-bradley-cardinale/

Explore and download more ebook at https://ebookgrade.com

 Recommended digital products (PDF, EPUB, MOBI) that
you can download immediately if you are interested.

Fundamentals of Conservation Biology 3 edition

https://ebookgrade.com/product/fundamentals-of-conservation-
biology-3-edition/

ebookgrade.com

Otters Ecology Behaviour and Conservation (Oxford Biology)

https://ebookgrade.com/product/otters-ecology-behaviour-and-
conservation-oxford-biology/

ebookgrade.com

Endangered Species Act History Conservation Biology and

Public Policy The

https://ebookgrade.com/product/endangered-species-act-history-
conservation-biology-and-public-policy-the/

ebookgrade.com

Rammed Earth Conservation

https://ebookgrade.com/product/rammed-earth-conservation/

ebookgrade.com
Introduction to Geospatial Technologies 5th By Bradley A.
Shellito Bradley A. Shellito

https://ebookgrade.com/product/introduction-to-geospatial-
technologies-5th-by-bradley-a-shellito-bradley-a-shellito/

ebookgrade.com

Introduction to Conservation Genetics

https://ebookgrade.com/product/introduction-to-conservation-genetics/

ebookgrade.com

Biology for the Informed Citizen 1st Edition by Donna

Bozzone

https://ebookgrade.com/product/biology-for-the-informed-citizen-1st-
edition-by-donna-bozzone/

ebookgrade.com

Otters Ecology Behaviour and Conservation by Hans Kruuk

https://ebookgrade.com/product/otters-ecology-behaviour-and-
conservation-by-hans-kruuk/

ebookgrade.com
Other documents randomly have
different content
SOLIDUS OF SEVERUS II. 332

SOLIDUS OF MAXIMIN DAZA 340

SOLIDUS OF LICINIUS I. 340

SOLIDUS OF LICINIUS II. 340

DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF CONSTANTINE THE 340

GREAT

DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF CONSTANTINE THE 348

GREAT

DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF FAUSTA 348

DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF CRISPUS 348

DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF CONSTANTIUS II. AS 348

CÆSAR
Constantine
 CHAPTER I
THE EMPIRE UNDER DIOCLETIAN

The catastrophe of the fall of Rome, with all that its fall signified to
the fifth century, came very near to accomplishment in the third.
There was a long period when it seemed as though nothing could
save the Empire. Her prestige sank to the vanishing point. Her
armies had forgotten what it was to win a victory over a foreign
enemy. Her Emperors were worthless and incapable. On every side
the frontiers were being pierced and the barriers were giving way.
The Franks swept over Gaul and laid it waste. They penetrated
into Spain; besieged Toledo; and, seizing the galleys which they
found in the Spanish ports, boldly crossed into Mauretanian Africa.
Other confederations of free barbarians from southern Germany had
burst through the wall of Hadrian which protected the Tithe Lands
(Decumates agri), and had followed the ancient route of invasion
over the Alps. Pannonia had been ravaged by the Sarmatæ and the
Quadi. In successive invasions the Goths had overrun Dacia; had
poured round the Black Sea or crossed it on shipboard; had sacked
Trebizond and Chalcedon, and, after traversing Bithynia, had
reached the coast at Ephesus. Others had advanced into Greece
and Macedonia and challenged the Roman navies for the
possession of Crete.
Not only was Armenia lost, but the Parthians had passed the
Euphrates, vanquished and taken prisoner the Emperor Valerian,
and surprised the city of Antioch while the inhabitants were idly
gathered in the theatre. Valerian, chained and robed in purple, was
kept alive to act as Sapor’s footstool; when he died his skin was
tanned and stuffed with straw and set to grace a Parthian temple.
Egypt was in the hands of a rebel who had cut off the grain supply.
And as if such misfortunes were not enough, there was a succession
of terrifying and destructive earthquakes, which wrought their worst
havoc in Asia, though they were felt in Rome and Egypt. These too
were followed by a pestilence which raged for fifteen years and,
according to Eutropius, claimed, when at its height, as many as five
thousand victims in a single day.
It looked, indeed, as though the Roman Empire were past praying
for and its destruction certain.[1] The armies were in wide-spread
revolt. Rebel usurpers succeeded one another so fast that the period
came to be known as that of the Thirty Tyrants, many of whom were
elected, worshipped, and murdered by their soldiers within the space
of a few weeks or months. “You little know, my friends,” said
Saturninus, one of the more candid of these phantom monarchs,
when his troops a few years later insisted that he should pit himself
against Aurelian, “you little know what a poor thing it is to be an
Emperor. Swords hang over our necks; on every side is the menace
of spear and dart. We go in fear of our guards, in terror of our
household troops. We cannot eat what we like, fight when we would,
or take up arms for our pleasure. Moreover, whatever an Emperor’s
age, it is never what it should be. Is he a grey beard? Then he is
past his prime. Is he young? He has the mad recklessness of youth.
You insist on making me Emperor; you are dragging me to inevitable
death. But I have at least this consolation in dying, that I shall not be
able to die alone.”[2] In that celebrated speech, vibrating with bitter
irony, we have the middle of the third century in epitome.
But then the usual miracle of good fortune intervened to save
Rome from herself. The Empire fell into the strong hands of
Claudius, who in two years smote the Goths by land and sea, and of
Aurelian, who recovered Britain and Gaul, restored the northern
frontiers, and threw to the ground the kingdom over which Zenobia
ruled from Palmyra. The Empire was thus restored once more by the
genius of two Pannonian peasants, who had found in the army a
career open to talent. The murder of Aurelian, in 275, was followed
by an interregnum of seven months, during which the army seemed
to repent of having slain its general and paid to the Senate a
deference which effectually turned the head—never strong—of that
assembly. Vopiscus quotes a letter written by one senator to another
at this period, begging him to return to Rome and tear himself away
from the amusements of Baiæ and Puteoli. “The Senate,” he says,[3]
“has returned to its ancient status. It is we who make Emperors; it is
our order which has the distribution of offices. Come back to the city
and the Senate House. Rome is flourishing; the whole State is
flourishing. We give Emperors; we make Princes; and we who have
begun to create, can also restrain.” The pleasant delusion was soon
dispelled. The legions speedily re-assumed the rôle of king-makers.
Tacitus, the senatorial nominee, ruled only for a year, and another
series of soldier Emperors succeeded. Probus, in six years of
incessant fighting, repeated the triumphs of Aurelian, and carried his
successful arms east, west, and north. Carus, despite his sixty
years, crossed the Tigris and made good—at any rate in part—his
threat to render Persia as naked of trees as his own bald head was
bare of hairs. But Carus’s reign was brief, and at his death the
Empire was divided between his two sons, Carinus and Numerian.
The former was a voluptuary; the latter, a youth of retiring and
scholarly disposition, quite unfitted for a soldier’s life, was soon slain
by his Prætorian præfect, Arrius Aper. But the choice of the army fell
upon Diocletian, and he, after stabbing to the heart the man who had
cleared his way to the throne, gathered up into his strong hands the
reins of power in the autumn of 284. He met in battle the army of
Carinus at Margus, in Moesia, during the spring of 285. Carinus was
slain by his officers and Diocletian reigned alone.
But he soon found that he needed a colleague to halve with him
the dangers and the responsibilities of empire. He, therefore, raised
his lieutenant, Maximian, to the purple, with the title of Cæsar, and a
twelvemonth later gave him the full name and honours of Augustus.
There were thus two armies, two sets of court officials, and two
palaces, but the edicts ran in the joint name of both Augusti. Then,
when still further division seemed advisable, the principle of imperial
partnership was extended, and it was decided that each Augustus
should have a Cæsar attached to him. Galerius was promoted to be
the Cæsar of Diocletian; Constantius to be the Cæsar of Maximian.
Each married the daughter of his patron, and looked forward to
becoming Augustus as soon as his superior should die. The plan
was by no means perfect, but there was much to be said in its
favour. An Emperor like Diocletian, the nominee of the eastern army
alone and the son of a Dalmatian slave, had few, if any, claims upon
the natural loyalty of his subjects. Himself a successful adventurer,
he knew that other adventurers would rise to challenge his position,
if they could find an army to back them. By entrusting Maximian with
the sovereignty of the West, he forestalled Maximian’s almost certain
rivalry, and the four great frontiers each required the presence of a
powerful army and an able commander-in-chief. By having three
colleagues, each of whom might hope in time to become the senior
Augustus, Diocletian secured himself, so far as security was
possible, against military rebellion.
Unquestionably, too, this decentralisation tended towards general
efficiency. It was more than one man’s task, whatever his capacity, to
hold together the Empire as Diocletian found it. Gaul was ablaze
from end to end with a peasants’ war. Carausius ruled for eight years
in Britain, which he temporarily detached from the Empire, and,
secure in his naval strength, forced Diocletian and Maximian, much
to their disgust, to recognise him as a brother Augustus. This
archpirate, as they called him, was crushed at last, but whenever
Constantius crossed into Britain it was necessary for Maximian to
move up to the vacant frontier of the Rhine and mount guard in his
place. We hear, too, of Maximian fighting the Moors in Mauretania.
War was thus incessant in the West. In the East, Diocletian
recovered Armenia for Roman influence in 287 by placing his
nominee, Tiridates, on the throne. This was done without a breach
with Parthia, but in 296 Tiridates was expelled and war ensued.
Diocletian summoned Galerius from the Danube and entrusted him
with the command. But Galerius committed the same blunder which
Crassus had made three centuries and a half before. He led his
troops into the wastes of the Mesopotamian desert and suffered the
inevitable disaster. When he returned with the survivors of his army
to Antioch, Diocletian, it is said, rode forth to meet him; received him
with cold displeasure; and, instead of taking him up into his chariot,
compelled him to march alongside on foot, in spite of his purple robe.
However, in the following year, 297, Galerius faced the Parthian with
a new army, took the longer but less hazardous route through
Armenia, and utterly overwhelmed the enemy in a night attack. The
victory was so complete that Narses sued for peace, paying for the
boon no less a price than the whole of Mesopotamia and five
provinces in the valley of the Tigris, and renouncing all claim to the
sovereignty of Armenia.
This was the greatest victory which Rome had won in the East
since the campaigns of Trajan and Vespasian. It was followed by fifty
years of profound peace; and the ancient feud between Rome and
Parthia was not renewed until the closing days of the reign of
Constantine. Lactantius, of whose credibility as a historian we shall
speak later on, sneers at the victory of Galerius, which he says was
“easily won”[4] over an enemy encumbered by baggage, and he
represents him as being so elated with his success that when
Diocletian addressed him in a letter of congratulation by the name of
Cæsar, he exclaimed,[5] with glowing eyes and a voice of thunder,
“How long shall I be merely Cæsar?” But there is no word of
corroboration from any other source. On the contrary, we can see
that Diocletian, whose forte was diplomacy rather than generalship,
was on the best of terms with his son-in-law, Galerius, who regarded
him not with contempt, but with the most profound respect.
Diocletian and Galerius, for their lifetime at any rate, had settled the
Eastern question on a footing entirely satisfactory and honourable to
Rome. A long line of fortresses was established on the new frontier,
within which there was perfect security for trade and commerce, and
the result was a rapid recovery from the havoc caused by the Gothic
and Parthian irruptions.
Though Diocletian had divided the supreme power, he was still the
moving and controlling spirit, by whose nod all things were governed.
[6]
He had chosen for his own special domain Asia, Syria, and Egypt,
fixing his capital at Nicomedia, which he had filled with stately
palaces, temples, and public buildings, for he indulged the dream of
making his city the rival of Rome. Galerius ruled the Danubian
provinces with Greece and Illyricum from his capital at Sirmium.
Maximian, the Augustus of the West, ruled over Italy, Africa, and
Spain from Milan; Constantius watched over Gaul and Britain, with
headquarters at Treves and at York. But everywhere the writ of
Diocletian ran. He took the majestic name of Jovius, while Maximian
styled himself Herculius; and it stands as a marvellous tribute to his
commanding influence that we hear of no friction between the four
masters of the world.
Diocletian profoundly modified the character of the Roman
Principate. He orientalised it, adopting frankly and openly the
symbols and paraphernalia of royalty which had been so repugnant
to the Roman temper. Hitherto the Roman Emperors had been, first
and foremost, Imperators, heads of the army, soldiers in the purple.
Diocletian became a King, clad in sumptuous robes, stiff with
embroidery and jewels. Instead of approaching with the old military
salute, those who came into his presence bent the knee and
prostrated themselves in adoration. The monarch surrounded
himself, not with military præfects, but with chamberlains and court
officials, the hierarchy of the palace, not of the camp. We cannot
wholly impute this change to vanity or to that littleness of mind which
is pleased with pomp and elaborate ceremonial. Diocletian was too
great a man to be swayed by paltry motives. It was rather that his
subjects had abdicated their old claim to be called a free and
sovereign people, and were ready to be slaves. The whole senatorial
order had been debarred by Gallienus from entering the army, and
had acquiesced without apparent protest in an edict which closed to
its members the profession of arms. Diocletian thought that his
throne would be safer by removing it from the ken of the outside
world, by screening it from vulgar approach, by deepening the
mystery and impressiveness attaching to palaces, by elaborating the
court ceremonial, and exalting even the simplest of domestic
services into the dignity of a liturgy. It may be that these changes
intensified the servility of the subject, and sapped still further the
manhood and self-respect of the race. Let it not be forgotten,
however, that the ceremonial of the modern courts of Europe may be
traced directly back to the changes introduced by Diocletian, and
also that the ceremonial, which the older school of Romans would
have thought degrading and effeminate, was, perhaps, calculated to
impress by its stateliness, beauty, and dignity the barbarous nations
which were supplying the Roman armies with troops.
We will reserve to a later chapter some account of the remodelled
administration, which Constantine for the most part accepted without
demur. Here we may briefly mention the decentralisation which
Diocletian carried out in the provinces. Lactantius[7] says that “he
carved the provinces up into little fragments that he might fill the
earth with terror,” and suggests that he multiplied officials in order to
wring more money out of his subjects. That is an enemy’s perversion
of a wise statesman’s plan for securing efficiency by lessening the
administrative areas, and bringing them within working limits.
Diocletian split up the Empire into twelve great dioceses. Each
diocese again was subdivided into provinces. There were fifty-seven
of these when he came to the throne; when he quitted it there were
ninety-six. The system had grave faults, for the principles on which
the finances of the Empire rested were thoroughly mischievous and
unsound. But the reign of Diocletian was one of rapid recuperation
and great prosperity, such as the Roman world had not enjoyed
since the days of the Antonines.
 CHAPTER II
THE PERSECUTION OF THE CHURCH

Unfortunately for the fame of Diocletian there is one indelible blot

upon the record of his reign. He attached his name to the edicts
whereby was let loose upon the Christian Church the last and—in
certain provinces—the fiercest of the persecutions. Inasmuch as the
affairs of the Christian Church will demand so large a share of our
attention in dealing with the religious policy of Constantine, it will be
well here to describe, as briefly as possible, its condition in the reign
of Diocletian. It has been computed that towards the end of the third
century the population of the Roman Empire numbered about a
hundred millions. What proportion were Christians? No one can say
with certainty, but they were far more numerous in the East than in
the West, among the Greek-speaking peoples of Asia than among
the Latin-speaking peoples of Europe. Perhaps if we reckon them at
a twelfth of the whole we shall rather underestimate than
overestimate their number, while in certain portions of Asia and Syria
they were probably at least one in five. Christianity had spread with
amazing rapidity since the days of Domitian. There had been
spasmodic outbreaks of fierce persecution under Decius,—“that
execrable beast,” as Lactantius calls him,—under Valerian, and
under Aurelian. But Aurelian’s reign was short and he had been too
busy fighting to spare much time for religious persecution. The
tempest quickly blew over. For fully half a century, with brief
interludes of terror, the Church had been gathering strength and
boldness.
The policy of the State towards it was one of indifference.
Gallienus, indeed, the worthless son of Valerian, had issued edicts of
toleration, which might be considered cancelled by the later edicts of
Aurelian or might not. If the State wished to be savage, it could
invoke the one set; if to be mild, it could invoke the other. There was,
therefore, no absolute security for the Church, but the general feeling
was one of confidence. The army contained a large number of
Christians, of all ranks and conditions, officers, centurions, and
private soldiers. Many of the officials of the civil service were
Christians. The court and the palace were full of them. Diocletian’s
wife, Prisca, was a Christian; so was Valeria, his daughter. So, too,
were many of his chamberlains, secretaries, and eunuchs. If
Christianity had been a proscribed religion, if the Christians had
anticipated another storm, is it conceivable that they would have
dared to erect at Nicomedia, within full view of the palace windows, a
large church situated upon an eminence in the centre of the city, and
evidently one of its most conspicuous structures? No, Christianity in
the East felt tolerably safe and was advancing from strength to
strength, conscious of its increasing powers and of the benevolent
neutrality of Diocletian. Christians who took office were relieved from
the necessity of offering incense or presiding at the games. The
State looked the other way; the Church was inclined to let them off
with the infliction of some nominal penance. Nor was there much
difficulty about service in the army. Probably few enlisted in the
legions after they had become Christians; against this the Church set
her face. But she permitted the converted soldier to remain true to
his military oath, for she did not wish to become embroiled with the
State. In a word, there was deep religious peace, at any rate in
Diocletian’s special sphere of influence, Asia, Egypt, and Syria.
It is to be remembered, however, that there were four rulers, men
of very different characters and each, therefore, certain to regard
Christianity from a different standpoint. Thus there might be religious
peace in Asia and persecution in the West, as, indeed, there was—
partial and spasmodic, but still persecution. Maximian was cruel and
ambitious, an able soldier of the hard Roman type, no respecter of
persons, and careless of human life. Very few modern historians
have accepted the story of the massacre of the Theban Legion at
Agauna, near Lake Leman, for refusal to offer sacrifice and take the
oath to the Emperor. According to the legend, the legion was twice
decimated and then cut to pieces. But it is impossible to believe that
there could have been a legion or even a company of troops from
Thebes in Egypt, wholly composed of Christians, and, even
supposing the facts to have been as stated, their refusal to march in
obedience to the Emperor’s orders and rejoin the main army at a
moment when an active campaign was in progress, simply invited
the stroke of doom. Maximian was not the man to tolerate mutiny in
the face of the enemy.
But still there were many Christian victims of Maximian wherever
he took up his quarters—at Rome, Aquileia, Marseilles—mostly
soldiers whose refusal to sacrifice brought down upon them the arm
of the law. Maximian is described in the “Passion of St. Victor” as “a
great dragon,” but the story, even as told by the hagiologist, scarcely
justifies the epithet. Just as the military præfects, before whom Victor
was first taken, begged him to reconsider his position, so Maximian,
after ordering a priest to bring an altar of Jupiter, turned to Victor and
said[8]: “Just offer a few grains of incense; placate Jupiter and be our
friend.” Victor’s answer was to dash the altar to the ground from the
hands of the priest and place his foot triumphantly upon it. We may
admire the fortitude of the martyr, but the martyrdom was self-
inflicted, and the anger of the Emperor not wholly unwarranted. “Be
our friend,” he had said, and his overtures were spurned with
contempt.
We may suspect, indeed, that this partial persecution was due
rather to the insistence of the martyrs themselves than to deliberate
policy on the part of Maximian. When enthusiastic Christians thrust
their Christianity upon the official notice of the authorities, insulted
the Emperor or the gods, and refused to take the oath or sacrifice on
ceremonial occasions, then martyrdom was the result, and little
notice was taken, for life was cheap. Diocletian, as we have seen,
rather patronised than persecuted Christianity. Maximian’s
inclinations towards cruelty were kept in check by the known wishes
of his senior colleague. Constantius, the Cæsar of Gaul, was one of
those refined characters, tolerant and sympathetic by nature, to
whom the idea of persecution for the sake of religion was intensely
repugnant; and Galerius, the Cæsar of Pannonia, the most fanatical
pagan of the group, was not likely, at any rate during the first few
years after his elevation, to run counter to the wishes of his patron.
 What was it, then, that wrought the fatal change in the mind of
Diocletian and turned him from benevolent neutrality to fierce
antagonism? Lactantius attributes it solely to the baleful influence of
Galerius, whom he paints in the very blackest colours. He was a wild
beast, a savage barbarian of alien blood, tall in stature, a mountain
of flesh, abnormally bloated, terrifying to look at, and with a voice
that made men shiver.[9] Behind this monster stood his mother, a
barbarian woman from beyond the Danube, priestess of some wild
deity of the mountains, imbued with a fanatical hatred of the
Christians, which she was for ever instilling into her son. When we
have stripped away the obvious exaggeration of this onslaught we
may still accept the main statement and admit that Galerius was the
most active and unsparing enemy of the Christians in the Imperial
circle. This rough soldier, trained in the school of two such martinets
as Aurelian and Probus, who enforced military discipline by the most
pitiless methods, would not stay to reason with a soldier’s religious
prejudices. Unhesitating obedience or death—that was the only
choice he gave to those who served under him, and when, after his
great victory over the Parthians, his position and prestige in the East
were beyond challenge, we find Christian martyrdoms in the track of
his armies, in the Anti-Taurus, in Cœle-Syria, in Samosata.
Galerius began to purge his army of Christians. Unless they would
sacrifice, officers were to lose their rank and private soldiers to be
dismissed ignominiously without the privileges of long service.
Several were put to death in Moesia, where a certain Maximus was
Governor. Among them was a veteran named Julius, who had
served in the legion for twenty-six years, and fought in seven
campaigns, without a single black mark having been entered against
his name for any military offence. Maximus did his best to get him
off. “Julius,” he said, “I see that you are a man of sense and wisdom.
Suffer yourself to be persuaded and sacrifice to the gods.” “I will not,”
was the reply, “do what you ask. I will not incur by an act of sin
eternal punishment.” “But,” said the Governor, “I take the sin upon
myself. I will use compulsion so that you may not seem to act
voluntarily. Then you will be able to return in peace to your house.
You will receive the bounty of ten denarii and no one will molest
you.” Evidently, Maximus was heartily sorry that such a fine old
soldier should take up a position which seemed to him so
grotesquely indefensible. But what was Julius’s reply? “Neither this
Devil’s money nor your specious words shall cause me to lose
eternal God. I cannot deny Him. Condemn me as a Christian.” After
the interrogation had gone on for some time, Maximus said: “I pity
you, and I beg you to sacrifice, so that you may live with us.” “To live
with you would be death for me,” rejoined Julius, “but if I die, I shall
live.” “Listen to me and sacrifice; if not, I shall have to keep my word
and order you to death.” “I have often prayed that I might merit such
an end.” “Then you have chosen to die?” “I have chosen a temporary
death, but an eternal life.” Maximus then passed sentence, and the
law took its course.
On another occasion the Governor said to two Christians, named
Nicander and Marcian, who had proved themselves equally resolute,
“It is not I whom you resist; it is not I who persecute you. My hands
are unstained by your blood. If you know that you will fare well on
your journey, I congratulate you.[10] Let your desire be
accomplished.” “Peace be with you, merciful judge,” cried both the
martyrs as the sentence was pronounced.
The movement seems gradually to have spread from the
provinces of Galerius to those of Maximian. At Tangiers, Marcellus, a
centurion of the Legion of Trajan, threw down his centurion’s staff
and belt and refused to serve any longer. He did so in the face of the
whole army assembled to sacrifice in honour of Maximian’s birthday.
A similar scene took place in Spain at Calahorra, near Tarraco,
where two soldiers cast off their arms exclaiming, “We are called to
serve in the shining company of angels. There Christ commands His
cohorts, clothed in white, and from His lofty throne condemns your
infamous gods, and you, who are the creatures of these gods, or, we
should say, these ridiculous monsters.” Death followed as a matter of
course. Looking at the evidence with absolute impartiality, one
begins to suspect that the process of clearing the Christians out of
the army was due quite as much to the fanaticism of certain
Christian soldiers eager for martyrdom, as to any lust for blood on
the part even of Galerius and Maximian.
But what we have to account for is the rise of a fierce anti-
Christian spirit which induced Diocletian—for even Lactantius admits
that he was not easily persuaded—to take active measures against
the Christians. It is certainly noteworthy that about this time the only
school of philosophy which was alive, active, and at all original, was
definitely anti-Christian. We refer, of course, to the Neo-Platonists of
Alexandria. Their principal exponent was the philosopher Porphyry,
who carried on a violent anti-Christian propaganda, though he
seems to have borrowed from Christianity, and more especially from
the rigorously ascetic form which Christianity had assumed in Egypt,
many of his leading tenets. The morality which Porphyry inculcated
was elevated and pure; his religion was mystical to such a degree
that none but an expert philosopher could follow him into the
refinements of his abstractions; but he had for the Christian Church a
“theological hatred” of extraordinary bitterness. The treatise—in
fifteen books—in which he assailed the Divinity of Christ apparently
set a fashion in anti-Christian literature. We hear, for example, of
another unnamed philosopher who “vomited three books against the
Christian religion,” and the violence with which Lactantius denounces
him as “an accomplished hypocrite” makes one suspect that his work
had a considerable success. Still better known was Hierocles,
Governor at one time of Palmyra, and then transferred to the royal
province of Bithynia, who wrote a book to which he gave the name of
The Friend of Truth, and addressed it, “To the Christians.” Its interest
lies chiefly in the fact that its author compares with the miracles
wrought by Christ those attributed to Apollonius of Tyana, and denies
divinity to both. Lactantius tells us that this Hierocles was “author
and counsellor of the persecution,”[11] and we may judge, therefore,
that there existed among the pagans a powerful party bitterly
opposed to Christianity, carrying on a vigorous campaign against it,
and urging upon the Emperors the advisability of a sharp repressive
policy.
They would have no difficulty in making out a case against the
Christians which on the face of it seemed plausible and
overwhelming. They would point to the fanatical spirit manifested, as
we have seen, by a large number of Christian soldiers in the army,
which led them to throw down their arms, blaspheme the gods, and
deny the Emperors. They would point to the anti-social movement,
which was especially marked in Egypt, where the example of St.
Antony was drawing crowds of men and women away into the desert
to live out their lives, either in solitary cells as hermits, or as
members of religious communities equally ascetic, and almost
equally solitary. They would point to the aloofness even of the
ordinary Christian in city or in town from its common life, and to his
avoidance of office and public duties. They would point to the
extraordinary closeness of the ties which bound Christians together,
to their elaborate organisation, to the implicit and ready obedience
they paid to their bishops, and would ask whether so powerful a
secret society, with ramifications everywhere throughout the Empire,
was not inevitably a menace to the established authorities. The
Christians were peaceable enough. To accuse them of plotting
rebellion was hardly possible, though the most outrageous
calumnies against them and their rites were sedulously fostered in
order to inflame the minds of the rabble, just as they were against
the Jews in the Middle Ages, and are, even at the present day, in
certain parts of the Continent of Europe. But, at bottom, the real
strength of the case against the Christians lay in the fact that the
more enlightened pagans saw that Christianity was the solvent which
was bound to loosen all that held pagan society together. They
instinctively felt what was coming, and were sensible of approaching
doom. Christianity was the enemy, the proclaimed enemy, of their
religion, of their point of view of this life as well as of the next, of their
customs, of their pleasures, of their arts. Paganism was fighting for
existence. What wonder that it snatched at any weapon wherewith to
strike?
 BUST OF DIOCLETIAN.

The personal attitude of Diocletian towards religion in general is

best seen in the edict which he issued against the Manichæans. The
date is somewhat uncertain, but it undoubtedly preceded the anti-
Christian edicts. Manichæanism took its rise in Persia, its principal
characteristic being the practice of thaumaturgy, and it spread fast
throughout the East. Diocletian ordered the chiefs of the sect to be
burned to death; their followers were to have their goods confiscated
and to suffer capital punishment unless they recanted; while persons
of rank who had disgraced themselves by joining such a shameful
and infamous set of men were to lose their patrimony and be sent to
the mines. These were savage enactments, and it is important to see
how the Emperor justified them. Fortunately his language is most
explicit. “The gods,” he says, “have determined what is just and true;
the wisest of mankind, by counsel and by deed, have proved and
firmly established their principles. It is not, therefore, lawful to
oppose their divine and human wisdom, or to pretend that a new
religion can correct the old one. To wish to change the institutions of
our ancestors is the greatest of crimes.” Nothing could be clearer. It
is the old official defence of the State religion, that men are not wiser
than their fathers, and that innovation in worship is likely to bring
down the wrath of the gods. Moreover, as the edict points out, this
Manichæanism came from Persia, the traditional enemy of Rome,
and threatened to corrupt the “modest and tranquil Roman people”
with the detestable manners and infamous laws of the Orient.
“Modest and tranquil” are not the epithets which posterity has
chosen to apply to the Roman people of the Empire, but Diocletian’s
point is obvious. Manichæanism was a device of the enemy; it must
be poison, therefore, to the good Roman. Such an argument was
born of prejudice rather than of reason; we shall see it applied yet
again to the Christians, and applied even by the Christian Church to
its own schismatics and heretics.
It was during the winter of 302 that the question was carefully
debated by Diocletian and Galerius—the latter was staying with the
senior Augustus at Nicomedia—whether it was advisable to take
repressive measures against the Christians. According to Lactantius,
Galerius clamoured for blood, while Diocletian represented how
mischievous it would be to throw the whole world into a ferment, and
how the Christians were wont to welcome martyrdom. He argued,
therefore, that it would be quite enough if they purged the court and
the army. Then, as neither would give way, a Council was called,
which sided with Galerius rather than with Diocletian, and it was
decided to consult the oracle of Apollo at Miletus. Apollo returned the
strange answer that there were just men on the earth who prevented
him from speaking the truth, and gave that as the reason why the
oracles which proceeded from his tripods were false. The “just men”
were, of course, the Christians. Diocletian yielded, only stipulating
that there should be no bloodshed, while Galerius was for burning all
Christians alive. Such is Lactantius’s story, and it does credit to