Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE THIRD AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH.363It was in truth scarcely less than the rendingin pieces the whole social framework when a proclamationof the Emperors Diocletian and Maxi-mian, in the year 303, declared that the ChristianFaith should cease to exist. How entirely thatfaith had now penetrated all ranks was shown inDiocletian's own household, wherein his mosttrusted38 chamberlains, beloved as his children,were cruelly tortured because they refused toworship the heathen gods, while his wife Priscaand his daughter Valeria purchased immunity forthe present by compliance. We have the emperordescribed by an eye-witness of those times ashimself sitting in judgment,39 and"putting men tothe torture of fire. The same power was delegatedto the governors throughout the provinces. " Itwas," says Eusebius, "the nineteenth year of Diocletian'sreign, in the month of March, when thefestival of the Lord's Passion was drawing O near, /that imperial edicts were everywhere published,ordering the churches to be levelled, the scrip-tures to be burnt, those of rank to be deprived ofit, the common people, if they remained faithful,to be reduced to slavery. This was the first edictagainst us ; another soon came enjoining that allalive.m(Hist. viii. 6)mberlain Peter, who, says39 " Diocletianus ... excarnificare omnes sues protenus ccepit. Sedebatipse atque innocentes igne torrebat, . . . Omnis sexus et eetafcis homines adstionem nm iltitudo, sed gre-m circum Lactant, 14, 15.