Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

LIBRARY ST. MARY S COLLEGETHE SECOND AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH. 245ous education, who surrounds him on the perilousheight of the Roman throne with the arms of herffection and her practical wisdom. Alexandrules for thirteen years, a period equal to thf Commodus, and little less than that of Nero.Younger O than both at his accessiondeath his reign offers the most striking contrastto theirs. Of all heathen rulers he stands forth*as the most blameless. It is a reign which, afterthe obscene domination of Commodus, / Caracalla, *and Heliogabalus, with the savagery between themeptimius Severus immediately preceding itseems like a romance of goodness.admirable in his private life, he rivals Marcus Au-relius in his zeal for the administration of justice,for the choice of good governors, for devotion tothe public service ; and, happier than Marcus Au-relius, on his name rests no stain of persecution." He suffered the Christians to be,"4 are the em-phatic words of his biographer ; concerning whichit has been well remarked that little as this seemsto say, it had been said of no one of his predecessors,though several had not persecuted thChurch.5 And therefore this expression mustm le left them in an entire liberty as toligion. It is indeed the exact contradiction ofwhat, thirty years before, Tertullian had stated respectingthe law in the time of Septimius Severus;4 " Christianos esse passus est." Larnpridius5 Tillemont, Hist. Ecc. iii. 250.