Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE SECOND AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH.303with a persecution broke out so severe and terrible,that many thought the time of Antichristwas come. It was no longer the mere action ofan org l law against all thorised reli ,but an assault led on by the emperor himself, wiidirectly th mp pow r t C s-t as a wh It raged especially at Alexd . where the mast f the cat hetwrites : " we have before our eyes every day abundantinstances of martyrs, tortured by fire, impaled,beheaded : they are superior to pleasure ; theyconquer suffering ; they overcome the world."69Then it was that Origen, a youth of seventeen,desired to share the martrdom of his fatherLeonides, and that seven whom he had himselfinstructed, gained this crown. Then itwas that the slave Potanmena, in the bloom ofyouth and beauty, not only rejected every blandishmentof corruption, but suffered the extremesttorture of fire to preserve her innocence and faith,and gained at Alexandria such a name as St. Lawrenceafterwards gained o at Rome. So at Carthage OPerpetua and Felicitas, young mothers, with theircompanions repeated the example of those whomwe have seen suffering at Lyons; in which city asecond persecution as vehement as the first breakingout numbered Ireneeus with his predecessorPothinus, his people in this case as in the otheraccompanying the pastor's sacrifice with their own.69 Clem, Alex, Strom, ii. c. 20, p. 494.