Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

TPIE THIRD AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH.325not the fearful trials which were to be encounteredbefore that triumph of the truth which he alreadyanticipated should be attained : or that God wasabout to accept from the grayhaired man the sacrificewhich the impetuous youth had affronted with-out success. For scarcely has he written this bookwhen he has to fly for his life before the edict ofDecius, who will attempt to destroy the Christianreligion, and to whose anger Pope S. Fabian fallsa victim. Amid great peril after long delay thenext Pope Cornelius is chosen. And now for thefirst time a new danger from within assaults theChurch. Novatian, a Roman presbyter of greatrepute, attempts after the due election and consecrationof Cornelius to usurp his place, and todivide the one flock of Christ. Under circum-stances so wholly altered from those in whichOrigen above was writing, we come to our nextwitness, the man in all the Western Church themost renowned, as Origen was in the Eastern.For it was on occasion of the first antipope, aneffort, * that U_LLt_AJ U is, XkJ* withinthe See of Peter itself to armthe episcopal power at its very source against itself,to set an altar up against the legitimate altar, andto divide the sacraments of the Church from the-Bride whose dowry they are, that S.. Cyprianwrote his treatise on the Unity of the Church." It was for the purpose of reminding his brethrenthat unity is the first element of the Christianstate, and that those who break off from the