Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

358 THE THIRD AGE OE THE MARTYR CHURCH.punishment."33 Decius indeed was slain by theGoths in battle after less than two years' reign,but the persecution was renewed by Gallus, andagain by Valerian, so that in ten years no less thanfive Pontiffs, holding that place of Peter, Fabian,Cornelius, Lucius, Stephen, and Sistus, offered uptheir lives for the faith. Then it was that the tenyears' noble episcopate of S. Cyprian after manyminor sufferings ended in martyrdom: and thentoo the deacon Laurence wore out in the agony offire all the malignity of the enemy, and gained hisalmost matchless crown.34The state of things which immediately precededthis grand attack of the empire on theChurch is thus described by Cyprian in the intervalwhich followed the persecution of Deciusand preceded that of Gallus; and the words of onewho not only taught but died for his teachingcarry with them no common force. " As longrepose had corrupted the discipline which had33 Epist. Hi. p. GO.34 Compare with the savageness of the Prefect of Rome in torturingS. Laurence the following incident which occurred five years later.Valerian had been captured by the Persian monarch, and his son theEmperor Gallienus bore the reproach with great tranquillity. In thegreat o festival which he held at Rome about 263, * to commemorate thevictory of Odenatus over Sapor, some revellers mixed themselves withthe pretended Persian captives, and examined their faces closely. Whenasked what they meant, they replied. " We are looking for the emperor'sfather." The jest so stung Gallienus that he had them burnt alive.Weiss, Lehrbueh der Weltgescliiclite, ii. 224, It was for showing himthe Church's spiritual treasures, the poor, the helpless, and the suffering,instead of the coveted gold and silver, that the Prefect burnt S. Laurencealive.