Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE THIRD AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH. 311Aurelian, Probus, and Car us, and perhaps Deciusrequired but happier circumstances to be emperorswhose fame would have matched that of Trajan orHadrian : but their short tenure of power, occupiedwith the vast effort to restore unity and beatback the barbarian, prevented their doing morethan preserve the imperial power and the empireitself. This whole time, then, in civil society wasone of fluctuation, anxiety, disaster, alarms frombeyond the frontiers and anarchy within them.The Roman peace seemed departing, and the majestyof the empire irreparably violated. Mencould not tell what the morrow would bring forth.The fairest cities of the Roman world, Alexandriaand Antioch, narrowly escaped perishing throughinternal discord or hostile surprise. Greece andAsia Minor, after reposing for centuries under thesafeguard of the Roman name, found themselvesswept through and desolated by barbarian hordes.Italy itself was in imminent danger of the samelot. Towards the end of this period the senateby the election of Tacitus seems to make whatmay be termed its final effort to assert itself asthe depository of legitimate power, the representativeof civil society: and this time of confusionissues in a rejection of any such claim, and the'establishment of unlimited despotism in the empireas reconstituted by Diocletian. To these straits,then, the first great and haughty enemy of theChristian Church was reduced, so that the power