became the object of their
secret consultations. The experienced emperor was still inclined to
pursue measures of lenity; and though he readily consented to exclude
the Christians from holding any employments in the household or the
army, he urged in the strongest terms the danger as well as cruelty
of shedding the blood of those deluded fanatics. Galerius at length
extorted from him the permission of summoning a council, composed of a
few persons the most distinguished in the civil and military departments
of the state. The important question was agitated in their presence,
and those ambitious courtiers easily discerned, that it was incumbent
on them to second, by their eloquence, the importunate violence of the
Caesar. It may be presumed, that they insisted on every topic which might
interest the pride, the piety, or the fears, of their sovereign in the
destruction of Christianity. Perhaps they represented, that the glorious
work of the deliverance of the empire was left imperfect, as long as an
independent people was permitted to subsist and multiply in the heart
of the provinces. The Christians, (it might specially be alleged,)
renouncing the gods and the institutions of Rome, had constituted a
distinct republic, which might yet be suppressed before it had acquired
any military force; but which was already governed by its own laws and
magistrates, was possessed of a public treasure, and was intimately
connected in all its parts by the frequent assemblies of the bishops,
to whose decrees their numerous and opulent congregations yielded an
implicit obedience. Arguments like these may seem to have determined the
reluctant mind of Diocletian to embrace a new system of persecution;
but though we may suspect, it is not in our power to relate, the secret
intrigues of the palace, the private views and resentments, the jealousy
of women or eunuchs, and all those trifling but decisive causes which
so often influence the fate of empires, and the councils of the wisest
monarchs.

The pleasure of the emperors was at length signified to the Christians,
who, during the course of this melancholy winter, had expected, with
anxiety, the result of so many secret consultations. The twenty-third of
February, which coincided with the Roman festival of the Terminalia,
was appointed (whether from accident or design) to set bounds to the
progress of Christianity. At the earliest dawn of day, the Praetorian
praefect, accompanied by several g