Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE THIRD AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH.323from His own Body a Body which shall embrace auniverse of souls, ' instinct with one life, and thatHis own. This was Origen's view of the workand triumph of Christ, as he saw it before him, atthe eve of the great Decian persecution in 249.Origen was writing this at a moment of greatinterest. It was the last year which precededthose two * generations, in the course of which fivegreat persecution should be directed by the emperorsagainst the Church. He was then a manof sixty-four. The son of a martyr, he had whena youth of eighteen beheld his father imprisonedfor the faith, and had encouraged him to suffer theloss of all his goods, and death itself, without regardingthat large family which must be left inpenury, of whom Origen was the eldest. He wasburning himself to share his father's sufferings.n the persecution of which this was the obius tells us that seven of his disciulestyrs: and, lastly, he was to undergo suchties himself in the persecution of Decius, then onthe eve of breaking out, that he is believed to havelied of their results. Now it is in this work thhe speaks of the remarkable providence of God inpreserving Christians, who by their religion werebound not to defend themselves, against the attacksof their enemies, for God, he says, had fought forthem, and from time to time had stopped thosewho had risen up with the purpose of destroyingthem. Few and easily numbered were those who