Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE THIRD AGE OF THE MABTYR CHURCH.371preserving them in his own territory from theseoutrages, gradually appears as their champion. Itis when advancing to Rome against Maxentius thathe sees in the Cross the token of victory over allenemies : enrollin it on his banner he rules withLicinius the Roman world, an4 by a decree issuedat Milan in 313 assures to all Christiansthe freeexercise of their religion.In the year 64 Nero had declared by initiatinga persecution against Christians that their religionwas illicit, and fell under the ban of the old Romanlaws which"forbade the exercise of any wor-ship not approved by the senate. From that timedown to the edict of Constantine no Christian couldstand before a Roman tribunal plainly avowing hisfaith in one God and one Christ without incurringthe liability of capital punishment. In thisperiod of two hundred and forty-eight years it istrue that there were intervals of comparative peacewhen the emperors did not themselves call intoaction the laws against Christians. During thewhole second century there would seem to be noemperor who set himself to destroy the Christianname and people as a whole. In the time of Corn-modus it was even forbidden to accuse a Christianof his religion ; yet even then, if the accusationwas made and proved, it was a capital offence ,followed and that too in the case of a senator afterdefence before the senate, by the infliction of thepenalty. Alexander Severus is the first of whom