Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/211

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 193 to the christians: the eminent persons of the sect, in- CHAP, stead of being reduced to implore the protection of a_ ^ slave or concubine, were admitted into the palace in the honourable characters of priests and philoso])hers ; and their mysterious doctrines, which were already diffused among the people, insensibly attracted the curiosity of their sovereign. When the empi'css Mammasa 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 flatterinij an invitation; and though he could not ex- pect to succeed in the conversion of an artful and am- bitious woman, she listened with pleasure to his elo- quent exhortations, and honourably dismissed him to his retirement in Palestine ^. The sentiments of Mam- mfea were adopted by her son Alexander ; and the phi- losophic devotion of that emperor was marked by a singular but injudicious regard for the christian reli- gion. In his domestic chapel he placed the statues of Abraham, of Orpheus, of Apollonius, and of Christ, as an honour justly due to those respectable sages who had instructed mankind in the various modes of ad- dressing their homage to the supreme and universal Deity". 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 Maxi- A. D. 235. min discharged his fury on the favourites and ser- vants 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 ' Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. 1. vi. c. 21 ; Hieronym. de Script. Eccles. c. 54. jMammsea was styled a holy and pious woman, both by the christians and the pagans. From the former, therefore, it was impossible that she sliouid deserve that honourable epithet. much on the domestic religion of Alexander. His design of building a public temple to Christ, (Hist. August, p. 129.) and the olijection which was suggested either to iiim, or in similar circumstances to Hadrian, appear to have no other foundation than an improbable report, invented by the christians, and credulously adopted by an historian of the age of Con- stantine. VOL. II. O
 * See the Augustan History, p. 123. Mosheim (p. 465.) seems to refine too