Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE THIRD AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH.365only to suffer servitude or at most death, whereasin this case what was committed aainst those whorefused to do wrong passes all description. Tused against them every imaginable torture, andthought it little to slay those whom they hated,unless by cruelty having first exposed their bodiesto mockery. If they could persuade, by terror,any to violate the faith to which they were bound,and to agree to the fatal sacrifice, these theypraised and with their honours destroyed, but onthe others they exhausted the whole ingenuity oft heir butchery, calling them desperate as disregardingtheir own body.45 For two years thewhole Roman world ruled by Diocletian, Maxi-mian, and Galerius was exposed to this misery:when on the retirement of Diocletian and Maxi-mian in 305 Galerius became the chief emperor,the persecution continued in all its intensity, savein the territory subjecto Constantius. " It is impossibleto describe the individual scenes whichtook place throughout the world. The severalgovernors having received their commission carriedit out according to their own ferocity. Somerough excess of fear did more than their orders;some were inspired by personal enmity; " some bynatural cruelty; some sought to advance themselves;some were precipitate in the work of destruction,as one in Phrygia,"46 where, says Euse-45 Lactant. Livin. Institut. 1. v. 9. Gallandi, torn. iv. 313-4.« Ib. 1. v. 11.