Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

CHAPTERXIITHE THIRD AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH"Rex pacificus magnificatus est, cujus vultuin desiderat universa terra."THE third century is that during which the ChristianChurch was making its way into every relationof life, and taking possession of human society.During this period it advances into full light, andbecomes a manifest power. In the second centuryCelsus had attacked it as disclosed only to theyearning hearts of slaves, and fostered by the devotionof the weaker sex. At the distance of threeOgenerations OrigeiiOanswered him,'but the religionOwhich he defended already stood avowed alike beforethe inquiring . gaze of philosophers, the corruptcrowds of cities, and the jealous fear of rulers.Even in Rome, the sceptered head of idolatry,whose nobles the great political traditions of theircity, and whose populace their sensualife, havingits root in a false worship, made the most difficultto convert, the hated faith is known to have hadpublic churches by the time of Alexander Severus,two hundred years after its first rise.1 And much1 Churches in private houses, under cover of that great liberty whichinvested with a sort of sacred independence the Roman household, it hadfrom the beginning: the church of 8. Pudentiana in the house of thesenator Pudens still guards the altar on which S, Peter offered.