Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/212

 194 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, account, lips improperly received the name of perse- X I. . • 1, . cution ' ot iiaxi- Notwithstanding the cruel disposition of Maxiniin, min, Philip, i «. ,., . . , , . . and Decius. the eiiects ot his resentment agamst the christians were of a very local and temporary nature ; and the pious Origen, who had been proscribed as a devoted victim, was still reserved to convey the truths of the gospel to A. D. 244. the ear of monarchs ''. He addressed several edifying letters to the emperor Philip, to his wife, and to his mother ; and as soon as that prince, who was born in the neighbourhood of Palestine, had usurped the im- perial sceptre, the christians acquired a friend and a protector. The public and even partial favour of Philip towards the sectaries of the new religion, and his constant reverence for the ministers of the church, gave some colour to the suspicion which prevailed in his own times, that the emperor himself was become a convert to the faith '^; and afforded some grounds for a fable which was afterwards invented, that he had been purified by confession and penance from the guilt con- tracted by the murder of his innocent predecessor^. A.D. 249. The fall of Philip introduced, with the change of masters, a new system of government, so oppressive to the christians, that their former condition, ever since the time of Domitian, was represented as a state of '' Euseb. 1. vi. c. 28. It may be presumed, that the success of the christians had exasperated the increasing bigotry of the pagans. Dion Cassius, who composed his liistory under the former reign, had most proba- bly intended for the use of his master those counsels of persecution which he ascribes to a better age, and to the favourite of Augustus. Concerning this oration of Maecenas, or rather of Dion, I may refer to my own unbiassed opinion (vol. i. p. 40, note *>.) and to the abbe de la Bleterie, Memoires de I'Academie, torn. xxiv. p. 303. tom. xxv. p. 432. <= Orosius, i. vii. c. 19, mentions Origen as the object of Maxirain's re- sentment ; and Firmilianus, a Cappadocian bishop of that age, gives a just and coiifined idea of this persecution, apud Cyprian. Epist. 75. <^ The mention of those princes w ho were publicly supposed to be chris- tians, as we find it in an epistle of Dionysius of Alexandria, (ap. Euseb. 1. vii. c. 10.) evidently alludes to Philip and his family ; and forms a con- temporary evidence, that such a report had prevailed; but the Egyptian bishop, who lived at an humble distance from the court of Rome, expresses himself with a becoming diffidence concerning the truth of the fact. The epistles of Origen (which were extant in the time of Eusebius,seel. vi. c. 36.) would most probably decide this curious, rather than important question. « Euseb. 1. vi. c. 34. The story, as is usual, has been embellished by succeeding writers, and is confuted, with much superfluous learning, by Frederick Spanheim, Opera A'aria, tom. ii. p. 400, etc.