something of the exaggeration of religious humiliation, the visible decay of holiness and peace (1). But it is the strongest proof of the firm hold of a party, whether religious or political, upon the public mind, when it may offend with impunity against its own primary principles. That which at one time is a sign of incurable weakness, or approaching dissolution, at another seems but the excess of healthful energy and the evidence of unbroken vigour. siap. The acts of Dioclesian are the only trustworthy history of his Dioclecharacter. The son of a slave, or, at all events, born of obscure and doubtful parentage, who could force his way to sovereign power, conceive and accomplish the design of reconstructing the whole empire, must have been a man, at least, of strong political courage, of profound, if not always wise, and statesmanlike views. In the person of Dioclesian, the Emperor of Rome became an Oriental monarch. The old republican forms were disdainfully cast aside; consuls and tribunes gave way to new officers, with adulatory and un-Roman appellations. Dioclesian himself assumed the new title of Dominus or Lord, which gave offence even to the ser-▾ vile and flexible religion of his Pagan subjects, who reluctantly, al first, paid the homage of adoration to the master of the world. the state Nor was the ambition of Dioclesian of a narrow or personal cha- Change in racter. With the pomp, he did not affect the solitude, of an Eastern of the empic. despot. The necessity of the state appeared to demand the active and perpetual presence of more than one person invested in sovereign authority, who might organise the decaying forces of the different divisions of the empire, against the menacing hosts of barbarians on every frontier. Two Augusti and two Cæsars shared the dignity and the cares of the public administration (2)—a measure, if expedient for the security, fatal to the prosperity, of the exhausted provinces, which found themselves burdened with the maintenance of four imperial establishments. A new system of taxation was imperatively demanded, and relentlessly introduced (3), while the Enperor seemed to mock the bitter and ill-suppressed murmurs of the provinces, by his lavish expenditure in magnificent and ornamentał buildings. That was attributed to the avarice of Dioclesian, which arose out of the change in the form of government, and in some degree out of his sumptuous taste in that particular department, the embellishment, not of Rome only, but of the chief cities of the Empire-Milan, Carthage, and Nicomedia. At one time, the allpervading government aspired, after a season of scarcity, to regulate the prices of all commodities, and of all interchange, whether of labour or of bargain and sale, between man and man. This sin (1) Euseb. Eccl. Hist, viii. 1. (2) In the Leben Constantins des Grossen, by Manso, there is a good discussion on the author ity and relative position of the Augusti aud the Cæsars. (3) The extension of the rights of citizenship to the whole empire by Caracalla made it impossible to maintain the exemptious and immunities which that privilege had thus lavishly conferred. Neglect of gular and gigantic effort of well-meant, but mistaken despotism, has come to light in the present day (1). Among the innovations introduced by Dioclesian, none, perhaps, was more closely connected with the interests of Christianity than the virtual degradation of Rome from the capital of the empire, by the constant residence of the Emperor in other cities. Though the old metropolis was not altogether neglected in the lavish expenditure of the public wealth upon new edifices, either for the convenience of the people or the splendour of public solemnities, yet a larger share fell to the lot of other towns, particularly of Nicomedia (2). In this city, the emperor more frequently displayed the new state of his imperial court, while Rome was rarely honoured by his presence; nor was his retreat, when wearied with political strife, on the Campanian coast, in the Bay of Baia, which the older Romans had girt with their splendid seats of retirement and luxury; it was on the Illyrian and barbarous side of the Adriatic that the palace of Dioclesian arose, and his agricultural establishment spread its narrow belt of fertility. The removal of the seat of government more clearly discovered the magnitude of the danger to the existing institutions from the progress of Christianity. The East was, no doubt, more fully peopled with Christians than any part of the Western world, unless, perhaps, the province of Africa; at all events, their relative rank, wealth, and importance, much more nearly balanced that of the adherents of the old Polytheism (3). In Rome, the ancient majesty of the national religion must still have kept down in comparative obscurity the aspiring rivalry of Christianity. The Prætor still made way for the pontifical order, and submitted his fasces to the vestal virgin, while the Christian bishop pursued his humble and unmarked way. The modest church or churches of the Christians lay hid, no doubt in some sequestered street, or in the obscure Transteverine region, and did not venture to contrast themselves with the stately temples on which the ruling people of the world, and the sovereigns of mankind, had for ages lavished their treasures. However the church of the metropolis of the world might maintain a high rank in Christian estimation, might boast its antiquity, its Apostolic origin, at least of being the scene of Apostolic martyrdom, and might number many distinguished proselytes in all ranks, even (1) Edict of Dioclesian, published and illustrated by Col. Leake. It is alluded to in the Treatise de Mortibus. Persecut. c. vii. (2) Ita semper dementabat, Nicodemiam studens urbi Roma coæquare. De Mort. Persecut. c. 7. (3) Tertullian, Apolog. c. 37. Mr. Coneybeare (Bampton Lectures, page 345.) has drawn a cu rious inference from a passage in this chapter of Tertullian, that the majority of those who had a right of citizenship in those cities had embraced the Christian faith, while the mobs were its most Furious opponents. It appears unquestionable that the strength of Christianity lay in the mid dle, perhaps the mercantile, classes. The two last books of the Paidagogos of Clement of Alexandria, the most copious authority for Christian manners at that time, inveighs against the vices of an opulent and luxurious community, splen did dresses, jewels, gold and silver vessels, rich banquets, gilded litters and chariots, and private baths. The ladies kept Indian birds, Median peacocks, monkeys, and Maltese dogs, instead of maintaining widows and orphans; the men had multitudes of slaves. The sixth chapter of the third book-" that the Christian alone is rich.” would have been unmeaning if addressed to a poor community. in the imperial court; still Paganism, in this stronghold of its most gorgeous pomp, its hereditary sanclity, its intimate connection with all the institutions, and its incorporation with the whole ceremonial of public affairs; in Rome, must have maintained at least its outward supremacy (1). But, in comparison with the less imposing dignity of the municipal government, or the local priesthood, the Bishop of Antioch or Nicomedia was a far greater person than the predecessor of the popes among the consulars and the senate, the hereditary aristocracy of the old Roman families, or the ministers of the ruling Emperor. In Nicomedia, the Christian church, an edifice at least of considerable strength and solidity, stood on an eminence commanding the town, and conspicuous above the palace of the sovereign. Religion sian. Dioclesian might seem born to accomplish that revolution which took place so soon after, under the reign of Constantine. The new constitution of the empire might appear to require a reconstruction of the religious system. The Emperor, who had not scrupled to accommodate the form of the government, without respect to the ancient majesty of Rome, to the present position of affairs; to degrade the capital itself into the rank of a provincial city; and to prepare the way, at least, for the removal of the seat of government to the East, would have been withheld by no scruples of veneration for ancient rites, or ancestral ceremonies, if the establishment of a new religion had appeared to harmonise with his general policy. But his mind was not yet ripe for such a change; nor perhaps his knowledge of Christianity, and its profound and unseen influence, of Dioclesufficiently extensive. In his assumption of the title Jovius, while his colleague took that of Herculius, Dioclesian gave a public pledge of his attachment to the old Polytheism. Among the cares of his administration, he by no means neglected the purification of the ancient religions (2). In Paganism itself, that silent but manifest New Pagachange, of which we have already noticed the commencement, had been creeping on. The new philosophic Polytheism which Julian attempted to establish on the ruins of Christianity was still endeavouring to supersede the older poetic faith of the Heathen nations. It had not even yet come to sufficient maturity to offer itself as a formidable antagonist of the religion of Christ. This new Paganism, as we have observed, arose out of the alliance of the philosophy and the religion of the old world. These once implacable (1) In a letter of Cornelius, bishop of Rome, written during or soon after the reign of Decius, the ministerial establishment in the church of Rome is thus stated:-One bishop; forty-six presbyters; seven deacons; seven subdeacons; forty-two acolyths or attendants; fifty-two exorcists, readers, and doorkeepers; fifteen hundred widows and poor. Euseb. vi, 43. Optatus, lib. ii., states that there were more than forty churches in Rome at the time of the persecution of Dioclesian. It has been usual to (2) Veterrima religiones castissimè curata. nism. of the sun. adversaries had reconciled their difference, and coalesced against the common enemy. Christianity itself had no slight influence upon the formation of the new system; and now an Eastern element, more and more strongly dominant, mingled with the whole, and lent it, as it were, a visible object of worship. From Christianity, the new Paganism had adopted the unity of the Deity; and scrupled not to degrade all the gods of the older world into subordinate Worship dæmons or ministers. The Christians had incautiously held the same language: both concurred in the name of dæmons; but the Pagans used the phrase in the Platonic sense, as good, but subordinate, spirits; while the same term spoke to the Christian ear as expressive of malignant and diabolic agency. But the Jupiter Optimus Maximus was not the great supreme of the new system. The universal deity of the East, the Sun, to the philosophic was the emblem or representative, to the vulgar, the Deity. Dioclesian himself, though he paid so much deference to the older faith as to assume the title of Jovius, as belonging to the Lord of the world, yet, on his accession, when he would exculpate himself from all concern in the murder of his predecessor Numerian, he appealed in the face of the army to the all-seeing deity of the sun. It is the oracle of Apollo of Miletus, consulted by the hesitating Emperor, which is to decide the fate of Christianity. The metaphorical language of Christianity had unconsciously lent strength to this new adversary; and, in adoring the visible orb, some, no doubt, supposed that they were not departing far from the worship of the "Sun of Righteousness (1)." But though it might enter into the imagination of an imperious and powerful sovereign to fuse together all these conflicting faiths, the new Paganism was beginning to advance itself as the open and most dangerous adversary of the religion of Christ. Hierocles, the great Hierophant of the Platonic Paganism, is distinctly named as the author of the persecution under Dioclesian (2). Thus, then, an irresistible combination of circumstances tended to precipitate the fatal crisis. The whole political scheme of Dioclesian was incomplete, unless some distinct and decided course was taken with these self-governed corporations, who rendered, according to the notions of the time, such imperfect allegiance to the sovereign power. But the cautious disposition of Dioclesian, his deeper insight, perhaps, into the real nature of the struggle which would take place; his advancing age, and, possibly, the latent and depressing influence of the malady which may then have been hanging over him, and which, a short time after, brought him to (1) Hermogenes, one of the older heresiarchs, applied the text "he has placed his tabernacle in the sun," to Christ, and asserted that Christ had put off his body in the sun. Pantænus apud Routh, Reliquiæ Sacræ, i, 339. (2) Another philosophic writer published a work against the Christians. See Fleury, p. 452., from Tertullian. the brink of the grave (1); these concurrent motives would induce him to shrink from violent measures; to recommend a more temporising policy; and to consent, with difficult reluctance, to the final committal of the imperial authority in a contest in which the complete submission of the opposite party could only be expected by those who were altogether ignorant of its strength. The imperial power had much to lose in an unsuccessful contest; it was likely to gain, if successful, only a temporary and external conquest. On the one hand, it was urged by the danger of permitting a vast and selfgoverned body to coexist with the general institutions of the empire; on the other, if not a civil war, a contest which would array one part of almost every city of the empire against the other in domestic hostility, might appear even of more perilous consequence to the public welfare. Senti. ments of party. The party of the old religion, now strengthened by the accession of the philosophic faction, risked nothing, and might expect much, the philo from the vigorous, systematic, and universal intervention of the saphic civil authority. It was clear that nothing less would restore its superiority to the decaying cause of Polytheism. Nearly three centuries of tame and passive connivance, or of open toleration, had only increased the growing power of Christianity, while it had not in the least allayed that spirit of moral conquest which avowed that its ultimate end was the total extinction of idolatry. But in the army, the parties were placed in more inevitable opposition; and in the army commenced the first overt acts of hostility, which were the prognostics of the general persecution (2). No where did the old Roman religion retain so much hold upon the mind as among the sacred eagles. Without sacrifice to the givers of victory, the superstitious soldiery would advance, divested of their usual confidence, against the enemy; and defeat was ascribed to some impious omission in the ceremonial of propitiating the gods. The Christians now formed no unimportant part in the army though permitted by the ruling authorities to abstain from idolatrous conformity, their contempt of the auspices which promised, and of the rites which insured, the divine favour, would be looked upon with equal awe and animosity. The unsuccessful general, and the routed army, would equally seize every excuse to cover the misconduct of the one, or the cowardice of the other. In the pride of victory, the present deities of Rome would share the honour with Roman valour: the assistance of the Christians would be forgotten in defeat; the resentment of the gods, to whom that (1) The charge of derangement, which rests on the authority of Constantine, as related by Eusebius, is sufficiently confuted by the dignity of his abdication; the placid content with which he appeared to enjoy his peaceful retreat; the respect paid to him by his turbulent and am bitious colleagues; and the involuntary influence (2) Ἐκ τῶν ἐν στρατείαις ἀδελφῶν |