ices for
the purpose of religious worship; [113] to purchase lands, even at Rome
itself, for the use of the community; and to conduct the elections of
their ecclesiastical ministers in so public, but at the same time in
so exemplary a manner, as to deserve the respectful attention of the
Gentiles. [114] This long repose of the church was accompanied with
dignity. The reigns of those princes who derived their extraction from
the Asiatic provinces, proved the most favorable to the Christians; the
eminent persons of the sect, instead of being reduced to implore the
protection of a slave or concubine, were admitted into the palace in the
honorable characters of priests and philosophers; and their mysterious
doctrines, which were already diffused among the people, insensibly
attracted the curiosity of their sovereign. When the empress Mammaea
passed through Antioch, she expressed a desire of conversing with the
celebrated Origen, the fame of whose piety and learning was spread over
the East. Origen obeyed so flattering an invitation, and though he
could not expect to succeed in the conversion of an artful and ambitious
woman, she listened with pleasure to his eloquent exhortations, and
honorably dismissed him to his retirement in Palestine. [115] The
sentiments of Mammaea were adopted by her son Alexander, and the
philosophic devotion of that emperor was marked by a singular but
injudicious regard for the Christian religion. In his domestic chapel he
placed the statues of Abraham, of Orpheus, of Apollonius, and of Christ,
as an honor justly due to those respectable sages who had instructed
mankind in the various modes of addressing their homage to the supreme
and universal Deity. [116] A purer faith, as well as worship, was openly
professed and practised among his household. Bishops, perhaps for the
first time, were seen at court; and, after the death of Alexander, when
the inhuman Maximin discharged his fury on the favorites and servants of
his unfortunate benefactor, a great number of Christians of every rank
and of both sexes, were involved in the promiscuous massacre, which, on
their account, has improperly received the name of Persecution. [117]
[117a]

[Footnote 112: Sulpicius Severus, l. ii. p. 384. This computation
(allowing for a single exception) is confirmed by the history of
Eusebius, and by the writings of Cyprian.]

[Footnote 113: The antiquity of Christian churches is discussed by
Tillemont, (Memoires Eccles