ntertained the
missionaries of the gospel with more coldness and reluctance than any
other part of the empire. [172] But when Galerius had obtained the
supreme power, and the government of the East, he indulged in their
fullest extent his zeal and cruelty, not only in the provinces of Thrace
and Asia, which acknowledged his immediate jurisdiction, but in those
of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, where Maximin gratified his own
inclination, by yielding a rigorous obedience to the stern commands
of his benefactor. [173] The frequent disappointments of his ambitious
views, the experience of six years of persecution, and the salutary
reflections which a lingering and painful distemper suggested to the
mind of Galerius, at length convinced him that the most violent efforts
of despotism are insufficient to extirpate a whole people, or to subdue
their religious prejudices. Desirous of repairing the mischief that he
had occasioned, he published in his own name, and in those of Licinius
and Constantine, a general edict, which, after a pompous recital of the
Imperial titles, proceeded in the following manner:--

[Footnote 171a: A little after this, Christianity was propagated to the
north of the Roman provinces, among the tribes of Germany: a multitude
of Christians, forced by the persecutions of the Emperors to take
refuge among the Barbarians, were received with kindness. Euseb. de Vit.
Constant. ii. 53. Semler Select. cap. H. E. p. 115. The Goths owed their
first knowledge of Christianity to a young girl, a prisoner of war;
she continued in the midst of them her exercises of piety; she fasted,
prayed, and praised God day and night. When she was asked what good
would come of so much painful trouble she answered, "It is thus that
Christ, the Son of God, is to be honored." Sozomen, ii. c. 6.--G.]

[Footnote 172: During the four first centuries, there exist few traces
of either bishops or bishoprics in the western Illyricum. It has been
thought probable that the primate of Milan extended his jurisdiction
over Sirmium, the capital of that great province. See the Geographia
Sacra of Charles de St. Paul, p. 68-76, with the observations of Lucas
Holstenius.]

[Footnote 173: The viiith book of Eusebius, as well as the supplement
concerning the martyrs of Palestine, principally relate to the
persecution of Galerius and Maximin. The general lamentations with which
Lactantius opens the vth book of his Divine Institutions allude to their
cr