The story of our Christianity; an account of the struggles, persecutions, wars, and victories of Christians of all times . r any measures THE STORY OF OUR CHRISTIANITY. 167 against those whom he had been brought to look on as his most disloyalsubjects and most dangerous foes. The Caesar had accomplished his deadlypurpose; the emperor was as ferocious against the faith as he. CRUELTIESIN THE PALACE. His first victimswere his own domesticservants, suspected asthe authors of the al-leged attempts uponhis life, and known tobe guilty of professingChrist. His own wifeand daughter were com-pelled to
The story of our Christianity; an account of the struggles, persecutions, wars, and victories of Christians of all times . r any measures THE STORY OF OUR CHRISTIANITY. 167 against those whom he had been brought to look on as his most disloyalsubjects and most dangerous foes. The Caesar had accomplished his deadlypurpose; the emperor was as ferocious against the faith as he. CRUELTIESIN THE PALACE. His first victimswere his own domesticservants, suspected asthe authors of the al-leged attempts uponhis life, and known tobe guilty of professingChrist. His own wifeand daughter were com-pelled to sacrifice, andthose who would not doso were tormented inhis presence. Thepowerful eunuchs,Dorotheus, Gorgonius,and Andreas, werestrangled, after a varietyof sufferings. Peter,one of the householdofficers, was scourgedtill his bones were laidbare; vinegar and saltwere rubbed into hiswounds; and at last,refusing to renouncehis religion, he perishedin a slow fire. In thoseinhuman days, anangry tyrant easily be-came a fiend. The city was nextattended to. Anthi-mus, the bishop, wasbeheaded. Many sharedhis fate ; many were. 168 THE STORY OF OUR CHRISTIANITY. burned ; many were tied, with stones about their necks, rowed out to the middleof the lake, and drowned. From Nicomedia the persecution spread in every direction. The other rulerswere required to do their share. The rude Maximian Hercules, whom Diocletianhad made his colleague, willingly did his part in and about Italy. ConstantiusChlorus, the second Caesar and father of Constantine the Great, was of differentmetal; he had charge of the western provinces. A humane man and a friend tothe Christians, he was not ready for a civil war, and so was forced to make ashow of obeying his orders. He pulled down certain churches, but took no life:in France, where he chiefly lived, not a drop of blood was shed. THE TENTH PERSECUTION BECOMES GENERAL. The general effects of the first edict are thus described by Gibbon, whoalways made as little
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