ity of Constantius
inclined them to preserve inviolate the maxims of toleration, it was
soon discovered that their two associates, Maximian and Galerius,
entertained the most implacable aversion for the name and religion of
the Christians. The minds of those princes had never been enlightened
by science; education had never softened their temper. They owed their
greatness to their swords, and in their most elevated fortune they still
retained their superstitious prejudices of soldiers and peasants. In the
general administration of the provinces they obeyed the laws which
their benefactor had established; but they frequently found occasions of
exercising within their camp and palaces a secret persecution, for which
the imprudent zeal of the Christians sometimes offered the most specious
pretences. A sentence of death was executed upon Maximilianus, an
African youth, who had been produced by his own father *before the
magistrate as a sufficient and legal recruit, but who obstinately
persisted in declaring, that his conscience would not permit him to
embrace the profession of a soldier. It could scarcely be expected that
any government should suffer the action of Marcellus the Centurion to
pass with impunity. On the day of a public festival, that officer threw
away his belt, his arms, and the ensigns of his office, and exclaimed
with a loud voice, that he would obey none but Jesus Christ the eternal
King, and that he renounced forever the use of carnal weapons, and the
service of an idolatrous master. The soldiers, as soon as they recovered
from their astonishment, secured the person of Marcellus. He was
examined in the city of Tingi by the president of that part of
Mauritania; and as he was convicted by his own confession, he was
condemned and beheaded for the crime of desertion. Examples of such a
nature savor much less of religious persecution than of martial or even
civil law; but they served to alienate the mind of the emperors, to
justify the severity of Galerius, who dismissed a great number of
Christian officers from their employments; and to authorize the opinion,
that a sect of enthusiastics, which avowed principles so repugnant to
the public safety, must either remain useless, or would soon become
dangerous, subjects of the empire.

After the success of the Persian war had raised the hopes and the
reputation of Galerius, he passed a winter with Diocletian in the palace
of Nicomedia; and the fate of Christianity