ffice with ever increasing pomp and circumstance.

_II.--The Days of Persecution_

The persecution of Christians by the Roman emperors must at first sight
seem strange, when one considers their inoffensive mode of faith and
worship. When one remembers the scepticism that prevailed among the
pagans, and the tolerant view of all religions which was characteristic
of the Roman citizen in the early years of the empire, this harshness
seems all the more remarkable. It can be explained partly by the
misapprehension which existed in the mind of the pagan world as to the
principles of the Christian faith, and partly by the organization of the
sect. The Jews were allowed the exercise of their unsocial and exclusive
faith. But the Jews were a nation; the Christians were a sect. Moreover,
the Christians were regarded as apostates from the ancient faith of
Moses, and, worshipping no visible god, were held to be atheists.

The Roman policy also viewed with the utmost jealousy and distrust any
association among its subjects, and the secret and nocturnal meetings of
the Christians appeared peculiarly dangerous in the eyes of the law.

They were oppressed by the Emperor Domitian. Trajan protected their
meetings by requiring definite evidence of these illegal assemblies, and
an informer who failed in his proofs was subject to a severe or capital
penalty. But the edicts of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius protected the
Church from the danger of popular clamour in times of disaster,
declaring that the voice of the multitude should never be admitted as
legal evidence to convict or to punish those unfortunate persons who had
embraced the enthusiasm of the Christians.

The authority of Origen and Dionysius annihilates that formidable army
of martyrs, whose relics, drawn for the most part from the catacombs of
Rome, have replenished so many churches, and whose marvellous
achievements have been the subject of so many volumes of holy romance.

The martyrdom of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, on September 14, 258, was
one of the most notable of that period. Under Marcus Antoninus, the
Christians were treated harshly, but the tyrant Commodus protected them
by his leniency. After a temporary period of persecution during the
reign of Severus, the Christians enjoyed a calm from 211 to 249. The
storms gathered again under Decius, and so vigorous was the persecution
that the bishops of the most considerable cities were removed by exile
or death.