Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE THIRD AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH.355the Asiatics, which took the 14th and the 16th daysof the month Nisan, on whatever days of the weekthey might fall, for that purpose. And here in theperemptory tone of Pope Victor, and in the threatof excommunication which he issued, the consciousnesswas shown that the right to determinelay with him, while subsequent times justified hisjudgment and followed it. Nor was it of littleimportance that the greatest festival of the Churchshould be celebrated by all her children both onthe same day and in the same spirit.We have then now traced up to^the end of thethird century the innerconstituenpies of that great institution, whichevery language, tribe, and religion in the empireor beyond it had formed and welded together onepeople, the bearer of that Truth and that Gracewhich h the Son of God in assuming *- + manhood hadconveyed to the world. It remains rapidly to reviewthe relations of the empire with this peopleduring seventy- eight years, from the death of AlexanderSeverus in 235 to the edict of toleration313.II. The seizure of the empire by Maximin wasaccompanied by a violent attack upon Christians iwhom Alexander was held to have favoured. Itis on this occasion that we learn from Drien31, ,.that churches were burnt, and thus their existenceas public buildings is attested. The clergy were31 In Matt. torn. iii. 857 c.in