Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE SECOND AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH.305which is most complete during the reign of Alexander,but continues more or less from 211 to theend of his reign in 235.11 a review of the whole period it is evidentthat the Church has passed from its state of concealmentinto almost full light. The fiery trialwhich it met at the beginning of the third centuryfrom the hand of Severus is the best proof that canbe o sfiveii how o oreatlv "/ it had increased, ' how it couldno longer be ignored or despised; how its organisationwhich was hidden from Trajan was at leastpartially revealed to Severus, and how he saw andattempted to meet the danger which the earlieremperor would have tried to stamp out, had hedivined it. But it is evident also * that in propor-tion as the Christian Faith had grown, the heathenempire had been shaken in *its foundations. Itsperiod of just government was over; its imperialpower was to fall henceforth into the hands of adventurers,,with whom it would be more and morethe symbol of force alone, and not of law: hforth thev would seldom even in blood be Rd more seldom still in principles. Marcus waswell nigh the last zealot for the Jupiter of th( apitol: within a generation after him Heliog11 think of a fusion of all religions in his god tlsun, and Alexander Severus of a rel giouscretism wherein Orpheus, Abraham, « and Christtestify together to the divine unity.71 Xor is thisII.71 Cliampagny, les Afitomns, iii. 32G, 338.X