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300 the martyrs the religious character of the Christians was low at first, but as in the case of the two great Roman persecutions—the Decian and the Diocletian—the fires of tribulation purged the Church.

The immediate motive of this especially severe persecution at the exact time when it broke out appears to have been political. The Magi had been urging the king to suppress their rivals all along. But now Sapor saw the Christian bishop James at Nisibis keeping that city firm in its allegiance to the Roman Emperor Constantius, so that it successfully withstood two sieges by the Persians. This was a clear case of action on the part of the Church in favour of Rome against Persia, although not within his own territory. It was enough to embitter him against those of James's friends and co-religionists whom he had in his power.

The persecution began with a heavy capitation tax on the Christians. Their bishop proved himself to be a very haughty passive-resister. "Christ," he answered, "who had freed His Church by His death would not permit His people to bow to such a yoke." Like the young officer Marcellus who had spoken to his superiors scornfully about "your emperors," during the Diocletian persecution, because his sovereign was Christ, and like the "fifth monarchy men" in the seventeenth century, Symeon seemed to think that his status as a Christian involved escape from the authority of the civil government; or if he did not go so far as that, he took it as a full justification for refusing to pay an iniquitous tax. He was arrested, tried, urged in vain to worship the sun, and condemned to perish in torture. At the same time other martyrs were beheaded. The very day of Symeon's martyrdom a fresh and more severe edict was issued against the Christians. It only stimulated the heroism of the martyrs. Sapor's queen being attacked by an unknown disease, the Jewish physician who attended her attributed it to the practice of witchcraft by two Christian ladies of high station. They were stripped, tied to posts, and hacked to pieces, and then the queen was led through the yet reeking portions of