THE LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES in the Third Century AD

ZEPHYRINUS, a Roman, son of Habundius, lived in the time of Severus the emperor, who, being by birth an African, of the town of Leptis, upon the death of Julian succeeded in the empire, and took the surname of Pertinax. He was first an officer of the exchequer, then a colonel in the army, till, by several steps, he advanced himself to the dignity of imperator. He was of a very frugal temper. The cruelty of his nature was heightened by the many wars he had been engaged in; and he exercised great valour in defending, and great care in governing, his subjects. He was eminent not only for his skill in arms, but in letters too, taking very much delight in the study of philosophy. He conquered the Parthians and Adiabeni, and made Arabia Interior a province of the Roman empire. For this achievement he triumphed, and upon the arch erected to him in the Capitol he was styled Parthicus Arabicus and Adiabenicus. Moreover, he adorned the city with public buildings. For he made those which from his own name are called the Severian Baths, and erected the famous Septizonium — that part of which noble pile that is now remaining, hardly escaped being pulled down some years ago by order of Pope Paul the second, to make the best of the stones.

But Bishop Zephyrinus, being more intent upon ecclesiastical than secular affairs, decreed, that every deacon and priest should be ordained in the presence of the faithful, both clergy and laity; which was afterwards confirmed in the council of Chalcedon. He decreed likewise, that the wine at the communion should not be consecrated, as had been before used, in a wooden chalice, but in glass. Though this constitution was altered in following times; wherein order was given that it should neither be in wood, because of its sponginess, whereby some of the sacrament might soak into it; nor of glass, because of its brittleness, and the danger of its being broken; nor of any ordinary coarse metal, by reason of the ill taste it might contract from it; but only in vessels of gold or silver, or at least of pewter; as appears in the canons of the councils of Triburia and Reims. He also ordained that all Christians of fourteen years of age should communicate every year upon Easter Day, which in aftertimes Innocent the Third extended not only to communion, but confession too. He commanded likewise, that no bishop being accused by his patriarch, or primate, or metropolitan, should have sentence passed against him but by the authority of the see apostolic. Lastly, he ordained that when the bishop celebrated, all his presbyters should be present.

In his time flourished Heraclius, who wrote a comment upon the apostle; Maximus, who in a large book decided the great controversy of this age (viz., concerning the author of evil and the original of matter); Candidus, who composed an Hexaemeron; and Origen, who in the tenth year of Severus Pertinax, a great persecution being raised against the Christians, and his father Leonidas put to death for his religion, whom he himself, being yet a youth, did very much confirm in his constancy and resolution, was left with his mother, a widow, and six brethren, in a very low condition — all his father's estate being confiscated, because they owned Christ to be the true God. Hereupon he was forced to teach a grammar school to get a livelihood for himself and his relations; and among others he had for his scholar Plutarchus, who afterwards became a martyr. Not long after applying himself wholly to religion, he undertook the office of a catechist or preacher. He was a person of very great parts and skilled in all languages and kinds of learning. He was wonderfully temperate and abstemious as to meat and drink and all other things; imitating the poverty of Christ, and for many years walking barefoot; and, moreover, in his younger days he made himself an example of that passage in the gospel, "There be Eunuchs which have made themselves Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake." Many were so encouraged in religion by his pattern, that they did with great constancy lay down their lives for Christianity, and particularly a woman named Potamiena, who was put to death by pouring scalding pitch upon her head. As for Zephyrinus, having at four Decembrian ordinations made thirteen presbyters, seven deacons, thirteen bishops, he died in the time of Severus, and was buried in the Via Appia, not far from the sepulchre of Calistus, August the 26th. He was in the chair seventeen years, seven months, ten day ; and the see was vacant six days.

ST CALISTUS I. A.D. 219-223.

CALISTUS, an Italian of Ravenna, son of Domitius, lived in the time of Severus, an emperor whose fortune changed with his mind; for no sooner did he raise the fifth persecution against the Christians, but he was presently exposed to a multitude of dangers, and engaged in several wars : on the one side by Piscennius Niger, who was the cause of great commotions in Syria; on the other by Clodius Albinus, whom yet he vanquished with great slaughter in Gaul. But passing over from thence into Britain, being deserted of his friends, and accompanied only with calamities, he died at York in the fifth year of his empire, leaving behind him two sons, Bassianus and Geta; the latter of which was looked upon and put to death as a public enemy, both because of his abominably dissolute life, but especially because he had with his own hand slain Papinian, the great asylum of the civil law. But Bassianus, receiving from the Senate the name of Antoninus, became possessed of the empire and took the surname of Caracalla, from a kind of long vests which he bestowed by way of largess among the people. He was of a nature more cruel than his father, and so impotently vicious, that there was no kind of villany which he was not guilty of. He is said to have slain his brother Geta, and to have married his own step-mother. He left behind him nothing great and magnificent to perpetuate his memory, save only the Antoninian Baths (which bore his name as being begun by him, but were indeed finished by the emperor Alexander Severus), and the causeway he made in the Via Nova. He made it capital for any to wear amulets about their necks for the cure of quartan or tertian agues. But at length undertaking a war against the Parthians, he was surprised by his enemies between Edessa and Charrae, and stabbed, in the seventh year of his reign, as he was alighting off his horse to ease nature.

But during the most confused state of things and under the government of the most dissolute emperors, Calistus was not at all diverted from his purpose of establishing a solemn fast three times in the year, to be observed on the Sabbath or Saturday, particularly to implore a blessing upon the fruits of the earth, corn, wine, and oil, viz., in the fourth month, the seventh, and the tenth, beginning the year according to the custom of the Jews. Though afterwards he changed his opinion, and appointed it at the four seasons of the year, viz., spring, summer, autumn, and winter; at which times in succeeding ages holy orders were conferred, which before was used to be only in the month of December. He also ordained that accusations against clergymen should not be admitted of in any court if the informers were either infamous, or liable to just suspicion, or avowed enemies of the accused. Moreover, he adjudged those to be heretics who maintained that priests, after they were once convicted of any notorious crime, were not to be restored to their former dignity, though they showed never so great signs of their repentance. Damasus tells us that he built St Mary's Church in Trastevere; but I cannot imagine that of his founding to be the magnificent vast one which continues there at this time, since in those days of frequent persecution all things were carried secretly, and the Christians had only small chapels, and those private and hidden, and for the most part underground. He likewise built a burial-place, called by his own name, in the Via Appia, at the very place where the ashes of a multitude of martyrs had been formerly reposited; so that the reader must not think it strange that we have already said of several that they were buried in the Cemetery of Calistus, though it had not that name till now. I myself with some of my friends have religiously been to view it, wherein the ashes and bones of the martyrs are yet to be seen, and oratories and chapels in which the Christians privately communicated, when through the edicts of some emperors they could not do it publicly.

In his time lived Tertullian, an African, the son of a Proconsular centurion, whom St Hierom reckoned next to Victor and Apollonius, the principal of the Latin writers. He was a man of excellent parts, and wrote a multitude of books. I have seen (saith Hierom) at Concordia, a little town in Italy, one Paul, who said, that when he was very young he was at Rome acquainted with St Cyprian's amanuensis, who assured him that St Cyprian never passed a day without the reading of Tertullian. But having continued half his life-time a presbyter at Rome, through the envy and reproaches of the Roman clergy he afterwards turned Montanist, and wrote several pieces against orthodox doctrine, particularly those "de Pudicitia," "de Monogamia," and "de Jejuniis." He also composed six books against Apollonius.

At the same time likewise Origen flourished, and did great service for the Church. For he opposed the heresy of the Ebionites, who asserted our Saviour to be a mere man, the son of Joseph and Mary, and pressed the observation of Mosaical rites; both which errors were maintained by Symmachus. Moreover, by his learning he brought over to the orthodox faith one Ambrosius, who had been (as Eusebius tells us) a Valentinian, or (as Hierom will have it) a Marcionite; to whom., with Protoctetus, a presbyter, he dedicated his book "de Martyrio." Porphyry, that violent opposer of Christianity, and who was Origen's professed adversary, cannot yet sometimes forbear commending him, calling him the most learned and prince of philosophers, acknowledging that he was profoundly skilled in Platonism, and finding no fault in him but his being a Christian. St Hierom himself says that he wrote six thousand volumes; though that father and St Austin too tell us that he was erroneous in most of them, and particularly in his book on First Principles ; yet Pamphilus the martyr, and Eusebius, and Ruffinus, a priest of Aquileia, appear very much in his praise and defence.

As for Calistus, having at five Decembrian ordinations made sixteen presbyters, four deacons, eight bishops, he was crowned with martyrdom, and was buried in the cemetery of Calepodius, in the Via Aurelia, three miles distant from the city, October 14. He was in the chair four years, ten months, ten days. The see was then vacant six days.

ST URBANUS I. A.D. 223-230.

URBANUS, a Roman, son of Pontianus, was Bishop of Rome in the time of the Emperor M. Aurelius Antoninus, a.d. 223.

This Antoninus, supposed to be the base son of Caracalla, coming to Rome, and being advanced to the empire not without an universal expectation of good from him, took the name of Heliogabalus from the sun, so called by the Phoenicians, to which he built a temple and was himself a priest of it. But he led a life so contrary to the hopes and opinion men had entertained of him, that he has left no other memory of himself than that of his exorbitant villanies and all kinds of debauchery. For he violated the chastity of the Vestal virgins, made his palace no better than a stews, and in a rage commanded Sabinus, a man of consular dignity (and to whom Ulpian, the famous civilian wrote) to be immediately put to death. He conferred all places of trust and honour upon the vilest of men, with whom he was wont sometimes to make himself sport after this manner : he would make them lie down with him at supper, but it should be upon large bellows, which being raised and distended, they would all of a sudden tumble down under the table. He had such a loud and indecent way of laughing, that in a full theatre his voice might be heard above all the company. He was the first among the Romans who wore velvet, and used tables and other utensils of silver. When some of his friends advised him to beware that by his luxury he did not reduce himself to want; "Can I do better," says he, "than to make myself my own and my wife's heir?" He was once so extravagantly freakish as to cause a collection to be made of ten thousand pound weight of spiders, from whence he pretended an estimate might be taken of the bigness of the city of Rome; and to get together ten, thousand mice, and as many weazels, and rats. These mad pranks by degrees rendered him so contemptible in the eyes of all men, that himself and his mother were both slain in military tumult. It is said that some Syrian priests having told him that he should undergo a violent death, he thereupon fairly provided himself of a decent scarlet silken halter to do his own work withal. He died in the fourth year of his reign, at the same time when the city of Nicopolis in Palestine (formerly called Emmaus) was built — Africanus, the historian and chronologer, undertaking an embassy to promote that affair.

Urban, who lived in the time of this monster, not of Dioclesian (as some would have it), by his eminent piety and learning proselyted multitudes to the Christian faith; and among others, particularly Valerianus, an excellent person, and contracted to St Cecilia, with his brother Tiburtius, both which afterwards suffered martyrdom with great constancy of mind; as did also the espoused virgin herself, in her father's house, which was at her request consecrated and made a church by Urban.

The same Urban also ordained that the Church might receive estates in land or houses, given and bequeathed to her by any of the faithful, but that the revenues of them should not be any one's property, but for the common good be distributed among the whole clergy, to every one his share — a constitution long since antiquated through the covetousness and rapacity of following ages.

Some attribute to him the distinction of the four stated annual times of fasting, or Ember-weeks, which through men's ignorance were before kept very confusedly. In his time Hved Tryphon, one of Origen's disciples, remarkable for the book he composed concerning the red heifer in Deuteronomy. Minutius Felix, also a famous pleader at Rome, wrote a dialogue, in which he introduces a Christian and a heathen disputing; besides another book against the mathematicians, of which Lactantius makes mention. Moreover, Alexander, Bishop of Jerusalem, at this time founded the famous library there, by which he has gained so great a reputation. As for Urban himself, having at five Decembrian ordinations made nine presbyters, five deacons, nine bishops, he received a crown of martyrdom, and was buried in the cemetery of Pretexatus, in the Via Tiburtina ; having been in the chair seven years, ten months, twelve days ; and the see was vacant thirty days.

ST PONTIANUS. A.D. 230-235.

PONTIANUS, a Roman, son of Calphurnius, lived in the time of the Emperor Alexander, in the year nine hundred and seventy-four from the building of Rome, and the year of our Lord two hundred and thirty.

But between the reign of Heliogabalus and Alexander there are reckoned three other emperors, Macrimus, Diadumenus, and Albinus — whose names I intended to have left out, not only because they governed but a very little while, but chiefly because they did nothing memorable : only Albinus became notorious to posterity for his gluttony, eating, if we may believe the authority of Cordus, an hundred large peaches, ten choice melons, five hundred dried figs, and four hundred oysters at one meal. But to pass by these monsters of men, I come to Alexander, a singular pattern of virtue, who being created emperor by the Senate and the army, immediately applied himself to the settling of the commonwealth, which had been very much impaired by the miscarriages of former princes. To which end he made use of Julius Frontinus, a very learned man, and Ulpian and Paul, two excellent civilians, as assistants and coadjutors in that affair. He was so upright in all his dealings, that no man could ever complain of any injury received from him; and so far removed from any kind of vanity or ostentation, that he appeared but once in the costly robes belonging to his office, while he was consul. All those who in their addresses to him were sneakingly obsequious in their carriage, or affectedly complaisant in their words, he would reject as fawning fellows : for he was so wise and discerning that no man could impose upon him; one instance of which was his proceeding with Turinus, to whom, for his taking bribes upon the pretence of his being the emperor's mighty favourite, he allotted this remarkable punishment : that being bound to a stake in the Transitory Forum, a place of greatest concourse, and the most public thoroughfare, he should be suffocated with smoke — the common crier in the meantime proclaiming these words, "He that sold smoke, is punished with smoke". Though his mother Mammaea, as she was a woman, had a great love for money, yet he was altogether above it; and for jewels he slighted them as feminine trifles, being often wont to say that in Virgil (whom he called the Plato of the poets), there were more and more precious gems to be found. The revenue which arose from bawds, and whores, and catamites, he forbade to be laid up in the sacred treasury, and judged it more fit to be assigned to the defraying some public charge, as the repairing of the theatre, the cirque, the amphitheatre, and the stadium. Having after great search gotten a collection of the images of famous men, he caused them to be put up in the Transitory Forum; and likewise finished and beautified those which are at this time called the Antonian Baths, having been begun by Antoninus Caracalla. He had it in his design to acknowledge our Saviour to be a God, and build a temple to Him, and did actually set up the effigies of Christ, and Abraham, and Orpheus in his domestic chapel. Being renowned for so many excellent qualities, and created emperor while he was very young, he immediately engaged in a war against the Persians, and bravely vanquished the king Xerxes. In reforming the military discipline he was so strict that he cashiered some whole legions at once; which severity of his was the occasion of his being slain in a tumult of the soldiers at Mentz.

Pontianus being now Bishop of Rome, at the instigation of the idol priests both he and Philip, a presbyter, were at the emperor's command transported from the city of Rome to the island Sardinia, much about that time when Germanus, a presbyter of Antioch, and Beryllus, a bishop of Arabia, were converted to the faith by Origen. The heresy of Beryllus was his denial that Christ had any being before His incarnation. He wrote some small pieces, and particularly certain epistles, in which he returns thanks to Origen for his sound doctrine. There is extant likewise a dialogue between them, wherein Origen convicts Beryllus of heresy. As for Origein himself, he was a person of so great wit and learning that seven amanuenses, taking their turns, were scarce sufficient for him. He had also as many transcribers and young women well skilled in writing, all of which he wearied out with the copiousness and fertility of his inventions. Being sent for from Antioch to Rome by Mammaea, the pious emperor's mother, he was in great esteem with her, and having fully instructed her in the Christian faith, he returned to Antioch. But Pontianus, having suffered diverse calamities and severe torments for the faith of Christ, at length died in Sardinia, his body being afterwards at the request of the whole clergy brought back with great veneration to Rome by Bishop Fabian, and interred in the Via Appia in the cemetery of Calistus. At the ordinations which he held twice in the month of December, he made six presbyters, five deacons, and six bishops. He was in the chair five years, five months, two days; and from his martyrdom the see was vacant ten days.

ST ANTERUS. A.D. 235-236.

ANTERUS, a Grecian, the son of Romulus, was made bishop of Rome in the time of Maximine; who a.u.c. 987, having fortunately managed the war in Germany, was elected emperor by the army without any authority of the Senate.

He was a man of a mighty stature, being about eight feet high; and had a foot of such a magnitude, that it is since become proverbial, when men talk of a tall silly fellow, to say, "He needs Maximine's hose." His wife's bracelet served him only for a ring; and his appetite was so large, that he would drink a rundlet of nine gallons of wine at a sitting. He raised the sixth persecution against the Christians, but in the third year of his reign, himself, together with his son Maximine, was slain by Pupienus at Aquileia, a city which he besieged, and so an end was put to his life and that persecution together; by which means Mammaea, a Christian lady, and the famous Origen, the blood of both which he very much thirsted for, escaped his cruelty. It is reported, that during this siege of Aquileia, when their bowstrings failed, the women of the city supplied that want with their hair; for which reason, in honour to those matrons, the Senate dedicated a temple to Venus the Bald.

Anterus was the first who, for the sake of one Maximus a martyr, ordained that the acts of the martyrs diligently searched after should be committed to writing by certain notaries appointed for that purpose, and being written should be deposited in the treasury of the church, that so the memory of good men might not perish with their lives. He ordered likewise that no bishop should be translated from his first bishopric to another for his private need or benefit, but only for the sake of the flock committed to him, and by the leave of the supreme bishop — a constitution which at this day is made void by common practice; for now the prelates being intent upon their own profit and pleasure, are always looking out for a fatter; not that they are at all inquisitive how they may feed a larger flock, but the great enquiry is, how much any see may be made worth yearly. There is very little discourse among them concerning the care of souls, but very much concerning the increase of their revenues, that thereby they may be able to keep more horses, and have a greater retinue of useless lubberly servants.

In his time flourished Julius Africanus, an eminent writer, who, as Eusebius tells us, founded a famous library at Cesarea. This Julius, in the reign of M. Aurelius Antoninus, undertook an embassy for the rebuilding the city of Emmaus, which, as I have already said, was afterwards called Nicopolis. He wrote also an epistle to Origen, showing that the story of Susanna was not received among the Jews : against whom Origen afterwards penned a large epistle upon that argument.

At this time likewise flourished Geminus, a presbyter of the Church of Antioch, and Heraclas, patriarch of the Church of Alexandria. As for Anterus himself, having consecrated only one bishop, he suffered martyrdom, and was interred in the cemetery of Calistus in the Via Appia, on the 3rd of January. He was in the chair one year, one month, twelve days, and the see was then vacant thirteen days.

ST FABIANUS. A.D. 236-249.

FABIANUS, a Roman, the son of Fabius, continued from the reign of Gordianus and Philip to that of the Emperor Decius. Gordianus getting the empire, and having given a mighty defeat to the Parthians, in his return home to triumph was slain by the two PhiHps. His chief commendation was, that he is reported to have had sixty-two thousand books in his Library.

Philip, A.U.C. 997, having brought home his army out of Syria into Italy, reigned, together with his son, whom he joined to him as a partner in the empire, five years. He was the first Christian emperor, and it is said of him that he never presumed to goto the holy mysteries before he had confessed. After the third year of his reign, the thousandth year from the building of the city being completed, he caused to be celebrated the secular games, which were wont to be repeated every hundredth year. They were first instituted by Valerius Poplicola after the expulsion of the kings, and had their name from the Latin word seculum, which signifies the space of an hundred years. But by the fraud of Decius, both the Philips were slain : the father at Verona, the son at Rome.

Fabianus distributed the several regions of the city among the seven deacons, by whom the Acts of the Martyrs written by the notaries were to be collected and digested, for the example of others who professed the faith of Christ. He also built monuments in the cemeteries for the honour of the martyrs. Further, he ordained, that every year at some sacrament the chrism or holy oil should be new consecrated, and the old burnt in the church. In his time sprang up the Novatian heresy. For Novatianus, a presbyter of the city of Rome, out of an eager desire of being bishop, put all things into a great disorder, that the pontificate might not come into the hands of Cornelius, who was successor to Fabianus. Having separated himself from the Church, he gave to himself and his followers the denomination of the Pure; and denied that apostates, though truly penitent, ought to be received into the Church. Upon this occasion a Council of sixty bishops, as many presbyters, and several deacons, was held at Rome, in which the opinion of Novatianus was condemned as false, for that according to the example of our Saviour, pardon is to be denied to no man that repents. At the same time Origen opposed the heretical doctrine of certain persons, who affirmed that the souls of men died with their bodies, and were both together to be raised again at the resurrection; as also that of the Helchesaites, who altogether rejected the Apostle St Paul, and asserted, that though a man in his torments should outwardly deny Christ, yet he might be free from guilt, provided his heart were upright. The same author wrote against Celsus an Epicurean, who opposed the Christians, and sent letters concerning religion to the Emperor Philip and his wife Severa, and wrote also many things con- cerning the order of faith to Fabianus.

Alexander, Bishop of Cappadocia, having, from a desire to see the holy places, made a journey to Jerusalem, was there compelled by Narcissus, bishop of that city, and now grown old, to be his assistant in the administration of that bishopric. But the persecution under Decius growing hot, at the same that Babylas suffered martyrdom at Antioch, he being carried to Caesarea, was there put to death for the faith of Christ. As for Fabianus (concerning whom it is commonly believed, that, when inquiry was made for a successor to Anterus, a dove lighted upon his head in the same shape with that which descended upon the head of Jesus at Jordan) he received a crown of martyrdom, after that at five ordinations, which he held in the month of December, he had ordained twenty-two presbyters, seven deacons, eleven bishops; and was interred in the cemetery of Calistus in the Via Appia, Jan. the 19th. He was in the chair thirteen years, eleven months, eleven days, and by his death the see was vacant six days.

ST CORNELIUS. A.D. 251-252.

CORNELIUS, a Roman, the son of Castinus, lived in the times of the Emperor Decius, who being born at Buda in Hungary, upon the death of the two Philips, assumed the empire, proving a bitter enemy to the Christians, because those Philips had been favourers of their religion. But having with his son Caesar reigned only two years, he was so suddenly cut off by the Goths, that not so much as his dead body was ever found — a just judgment upon him who, raising the seventh persecution, had put to death a multitude of most holy men.

During the pontificate of Cornelius, whose judgment was, that apostates upon their repentance ought to be received, Novatus irregularly ordained Novatianus and Nicostratus; upon which occasion the confessors who had fallen off from Cornelius, being of the same opinion with Maximus the presbyter, and Moyses, reconciled themselves to the Church again, and thereby gained the name of confessors indeed. But, not long after, these heretics pressing hard upon him, Cornelius is banished to Centumcellae; to whom Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, being himself imprisoned, wrote letters, by which he came to understand both the calamity of his friend and the confirmation of his own exile. There are extant also other epistles of Cyprian to Cornelius, full of religion and piety, but the choicest of them is accounted to be that wherein he accuses and condemns Novatus, a certain disciple of his. Concerning the same heresy, Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria, who had been scholar to Origen, wrote to Cornelius; and in another epistle reproves Novatian for having deserted the communion of the Roman Church, and pretending that he was forced against his will to take the pontificate upon him; to whom he thus replies : "That thou wert," says he, "O Novatian, chosen to that dignity against thy will, will appear when thou dost voluntarily leave it."

Cornelius, before he went into banishment, at the instance of Lucina, a holy matron, by night removed the bodies of St Peter and St Paul out of the public burial places, where they seemed to be less secure. That of St Paul was by Lucina herself deposited in ground of her own in the Via Oxiensis, near the place where he suffered; and that of Peter was by Cornelius laid near the place where he also was martyred, not far from the Temple of Apollo. But when Decius came to understand that Cornelius had received letters from Cyprian, he caused him to be brought from Centumcellae to Rome; and in the Temple of Tellus, the city prefect being present, he thus expostulated with him : "Are you," says he, "resolved to live thus contumaciously, that neither regarding the gods, nor fearing the commands and threatening of princes, you keep a correspondence tending to endanger the public weal?" To whom Cornelius replied, "That the letters which he received and returned, were only concerning the praises of Christ, and the design of the redemption of souls, but con- tained nothing in them tending to the diminution of the empire." At this Decius, being enraged, gave order that the holy man should first be scourged with a kind of whips that had small globes of lead fastened to the end of them; that afterwards he should be carried to the Temple of Mars to pay adoration to his image, and upon his refusal so to do, that he should be put to death. The good man, as they were leading him to punishment, disposed of what he had to Stephen the archdeacon; and afterwards, upon the 5 th of May, was beheaded. Lucina, with some of the clergy, buried his body by night in a grotto of hers in the Via Appia, nor far from the cemetery of Calistus. There are some who write that the bishop suffered under Gallus and Volusianus, but I rather give credit to Damasus, who affirms Decius to have been the author of his martyrdom. Cornelius held two ordinations in the month of December, in which he made four presbyters, four deacons, seven bishops. He sat in the chair two years, three days ; and by his death the see was vacant thirty-five days.

ST LUCIUS I. A.D. 252-253.

LUCIUS, by birth a Roman, his father's name Porphyrius, was chosen bishop when Gallus Hostilianus was emperor.

Gallus associated to himself in the Government his son Volusianus, in whose time there arose so great a plague to revenge the cause of Christianity, that there were few families, much less cities and provinces, which had not their share in the public calamity. But while Gallus and Volusianus were engaging in a civil war against Aemilianus, who had attempted an alteration of the government, they were both killed at Terani, before they had completed the second year of their empire. Aemilianus, a person of obscure birth, was slain ere he had possessed his usurped power three months; and soon after Valerianus and Gallienus were chosen emperors — the former by the army in Rhetia and Noricum, the latter at Rome by the Senate. Their government proved very per- nicious to the Roman State by means of their own pusillanimity and the cruelty they exercised against the Christians. For both the Germans had marched forward as far as Ravenna, laying all waste wherever they came with fire and sword; and also Valerianus himself, making war in Mesopotamia, was taken prisoner by the Parthians and forced to live in the most ignominious servitude, for Sapor, king of Persia, made use of him for a footstool when he got up on horseback — a punishment which justly befell him for this reason, that as soon as he was seized of the empire, he was the eighth from Nero who commanded that the Christians should be put to tortures, be made to worship idols, or upon their refusal be put to death. Gallienus, being terrified by this manifest judgment of God, suffered the Christians to live quietly. But it was now too late, for by the Divine permission, the barbarians had already made inroads upon the Roman borders, and certain pernicious tyrants arose, who overthrew at home what was left undestroyed by the foreign enemy. Gallienus hereupon leaves the care of the public, and spending his time very dissolutely at Milan, was there slain.

Lucius, upon the death of Volusianus, being released from banishment, at his return to Rome ordained that every bishop should be accompanied wherever he went with two presbyters and three deacons, as witnesses of his life and actions. In his time suffered St Cyprian, who was first a professor of rhetoric, and afterward, as St Hierom tells us, at the persuasion of Caecilius, the presbyter, from whom he took his surname, becoming a Christian, he gave his estate to the poor. Having been first ordained a presbyter, and then Bishop of Carthage, he was put to death under Gallus and Volusianus. His life and martyrdom were excellently well written by Pontius, a presbyter, and his companion in exile. And it ought not to be forgotten that Cyprian, before he died, was reconciled to the opinion of the Church of Rome, that heretics were not to be rebaptized, but to be received without any further ceremony than that of imposition of hands — a matter about which there had been formerly a great controversy between him and Cornelius.

But to return to Lucius, before his martyrdom, which he suffered at the command of Valerianus, he delivered up his ecclesiastical power to Stephanus, the archdeacon. He conferred holy orders thrice in the month of December, ordaining four presbyters, four deacons, seven bishops. He was interred in the cemetery of Calistus in the Via Appia, August the 25 th. He was in the chair one year, three months, three days; and by his death the see was vacant thirty-five days.

ST STEPHANUS I. A.D. 253-257.

STEPHANUS, a Roman, the son of Julius, was chosen bishop when the Roman Empire seemed to be utterly ruined, and particularly at the time when Posthumus exercised his usurped power in Gallia, though not without great advantage to the public, for he governed very well ten years together, freed the country from hostility, and restored that province to its ancient form. But being afterwards killed at Metz in a tumult of the soldiers, Victorinus succeeded him, who was indeed an excellent soldier, but being excessively incontinent and adulterous, was slain at Cologne.

Stephanus, applying himself to the regulation of the Church, ordained that the priests and other ministers should not use their sacred vestments anywhere but in the church, and during the performance of divine offices; lest otherwise they should incur the punishment of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, for touching the holy vessels with profane hands. Concerning the rebaptization of those who returned to the faith, he was of the same judgment with Cornelius, his predecessor, and thought it by no means lawful to communicate with those who rebaptized them; whereupon Dionysius, who had formerly concurred in opinion about the matter with those of Carthage and the East, both his and their sentiments of it being now altered, writes to Stephen, and encourages him from the assurance that both the Asian and African Churches were now reconciled to the judgment of the Roman see concerning it.

About the same time Malchion, a presbyter of Antioch, a person of extraordinary eloquence, became very useful to the Church of God in writing against Paulus of Samosata, the bishop of that place, who endeavoured to revive the opinion of Artemon, affirming Christ to have been a mere man, and that he had no existence till he was conceived by the Virgin Mary, — an opinion which, being afterwards condemned in the Council of Antioch by general consent, this Malchion, in the name of the synod, wrote a large epistle to the Christians concerning it. As for Stephanus, when he had by his example and persuasion converted a multitude of Gentiles to Christianity, being seized by Gallienus, as some say, or else by those who upon the edict of Decius were appointed to persecute the Christians, he himself, together with many others his pro- selytes, was hurried away to martyrdom; and having suffered, he was interred in the cemetery of Calistus in the Via Appia, August the 2nd, after that he had at two Decembrian ordinations made six presbyters, five deacons, three bishops. He was in the chair four years, five months, two days; and the see was vacant two and twenty days.

ST SIXTUS II. A.D. 257-258.

SIXTUS, an Athenian philosopher, became a Christian, the Decian and Valerian persecution yet continuing. But it will not be foreign to our present purpose to go on, as we have begun, to give some account of the other tyrants, till we come to the true successor.

Victorinus therefore being slain in Gallia, Tetricus, a senator, being at that time governor of Aquitain, was in his absence chosen emperor by the soldiers. But while these things are transacting in Gallia, Odenatus overcomes the Persians, defends Syria, and seizeth Mesopotamia as far as Ctesiphon.

At this time in Ptolemais, anciently called Barce, a city of Pentapolis, there was broached a doctrine, full of blasphemies against God the Father, and against Christ, whom it denied to be the Son of the Most High God and the first-born of every creature, and against the Holy Ghost, whose being it disowned. The assertors of it were called Sabellians, from Sabellius, the author of this perverse sect. What shall I say of that carnal opinion of Cerinthus? who affirmed, that Christ should personally reign upon the earth a thousand years (from whence by the Greeks he was called a Chiliast). Being himself a man of unbounded lust and luxury, he feigned a great plenty of delicious viands and a great variety of beautiful women to be the principal ingredients of the happiness of that kingdom. Of the same opinion likewise was Nepos, a bishop of some parts of Egypt, who affirmed that the saints were to reign with Christ on the earth, in the highest enjoyment of all sensual delights and pleasures (from whom his brutish followers were called Nepotiani). Sixtus had it some time in his mind to baffle and suppress these opinions, but being accused for preaching the faith of Christ contrary to the emperor's edict, he was taken and led to the Temple of Mars, where he must either offer sacrifice to the idol, or, upon his refusal, be put to death. As he was going forth to punishment, Laurence, his archdeacon, thus bespake him : — "Whither art thou going, O my father, without thy son? whither, O best of bishops, art thou hastening without thy attendants?" To whom Sixtus answered, "I do not forsake thee, O my son; there are yet greater conflicts behind which thou art to undergo for the faith of Christ : within three days, thou, as a dutiful deacon, shalt follow me, thy bishop ; in the meantime, if thou hast any stock lying by thee, distribute it all to the poor."

On the same day with Sixtus, which was the eighth of August, there were executed six deacons, viz., Felicissimus, Agapetus, Januarius, Magus, Innocentius, Stephanus. And on the third day after, August the tenth, the same Lawrence, with Claudius the subdeacon, and Severus the presbyter, and Crescentius the reader, and Romanus the door-keeper, were all put to death together, though with several kinds of tortures; among which it is said that Laurence was broiled upon a gridiron. Vincentius, who had been scholar to Sixtus, being gone into Spain, could not be present at this martyrdom. Sixtus, during his pontificate having at two Decembrian ordinations made four presbyters, seven deacons, two bishops, his body was interred in the cemetery of Calistus, in the Via Appia. The other martyrs lay in the cemetery of Praetextatus, in the Via Tiburtina. Sixtus sat in the chair two years, ten months, twenty-three days. And the see was vacant thirty-five days.

ST DIONYSIUS. A.D. 259-269.

DIONYSIUS, whose original Damasus could not trace, being of a monk advanced to the pontifical dignity, forthwith allotted to the several presbyters in the city of Rome their several churches and cemeteries, and to others elsewhere distributed their respective parishes and dioceses, that so every one might be confined within his own bounds and limits.

His contemporary emperor I take to have been Claudius, who, when by consent of the senate he had undertaken the government, made war upon, and with incredible slaughter defeated the Goths, who had for fifteen years together wasted Illyricum and Macedonia. Hereupon it was decreed by the senate, that in the council-house a golden shield, in the Capitol a golden statue, should be erected to his honour. But falling sick at Sirmium, he died before the second year of his empire was completed. Upon his death, Quintillus, his brother, was straightway chosen emperor by the army — a person of singular moderation, and the only man who deserved to succeed his brother; but he also governed a very little time, being slain in the seventeenth day of his reign.

During the pontificate of Dionysius, Paulus of Samosata, deserting the orthodox faith, revived the heresy of Artemon. This Paul, being made bishop of Antioch in the room of Demetrianus, behaved himself with excessive haughtiness and affectation; for as he passed along he affected to read and dictate letters, a great throng of attendants going before and following him so that for the sake of his arrogance, multitudes were very strongly prejudiced against the Christian religion. But had they lived in our times, wherein pride and pomp, not to say luxury itself, are at their height, what would they think to see prelates led on by so many young sparks, and brought up by a crowd of presbyters, all mounted upon high-fed and gay-trapped horses? Certain I am they would abhor and execrate them, and say, that they were false and hypocritical pretenders to the religion of the blessed Jesus.

But I return to Paul, whom I may more securely reprove. He was highly self-opinionated and ambitious, and denied our Saviour's eternal generation, or that he had a being till his conception of the blessed Virgin. For this reason, at the council of Antioch, he was publicly condemned by the consent of all the bishops that were present; but especially by the sentence of Gregory, Bishop of Cesarea, a most holy man who was present at the council, and afterwards suffered martyrdom for the faith of Christ. Malchion, also a presbyter of Antioch, disputed and wrote much against this Paul, for the reason that I have already mentioned. Dionysius himself could not be at this council because of his great age, but of all the transactions there he had full intelligence given him by Maximus, Bishop of Alexandria.

Dionysius dying, was buried in the cemetery of Calistus; after that at two Decembrian ordinations he had made twelve presbyters, six deacons, seven bishops. He sat in the chair, ten years, two months, four days ; and the see was vacant six days.

ST FELIX I. A.D. 269-275.

FELIX, a Roman, son of Constantinus, lived in the time of Aurelianus, who came to the empire a.u.c. 1027, and being an excellent soldier, gained a great victory over the Goths at the river Danube. From thence passing into Asia, at a place not far from Antioch, by the terror of his name rather than by fighting, he overcame Zenobia, who from the time that her husband, Odenatus, had been slain, was possessed of the Eastern Empire. Her he led in triumph, together with Tetricus, by his defeating of whom at Chalons, Gallia was again recovered. Yet by the humanity and clemency of Aurelianus, Zenobia lived all her time very honourably in the city, from whom the Zenobian family in Rome derives its original; and Tetricus being saved, was afterwards made governor of the Lucani. The emperor now applying himself to works of peace, repaired the Temple of Apollo and the walls of the city with great magnificence. But not long after, raising the ninth persecution against the Christians, the Divine ven- geance meeting with him, he was slain at a small fort between Constantinople and Heraclea, called Zenophrurium.

Felix, out of the great regard he had to the honour of the martyrs, ordained that upon their account masses should be celebrated yearly; and that the sacrifice of the mass should be celebrated by no other persons but such as were in holy orders, and in no places but such as were consecrated — cases of necessity being always excepted. But if through the age or loss of records it were doubtful concerning any church whether it had been consecrated or no, he commanded that it should be consecrated anew; saying, that nothing could properly be said to be repeated, of which it is uncertain whether ever it were once done at all.

During his pontificate, one Manes, a Persian, had the impudence to profess himself to be Christ, and that he might gain the greater credit to his imposture, he associated to himself twelve disciples. But as that Manes was detested and abhorred for his pride and blasphemy, so Anatolius, the Bishop of Laodicaea, was as much extolled and magnified for his religion and learning.

At the same time also Saturninus, relying upon the assistance of his army, enterprised the building of a new Antioch; but when it appeared that he designed to invade the empire too, he was slain at Apamaea.

Felix, after that at several Decembrian ordinations he had made nine presbyters, seven deacons, five bishops, suffered martyrdom, and was buried in the Via Aurelia, May the 30th, in a church which he had built, two miles distant from the city. He sat in the chair six years, three months, fifteen days; and the see was vacant seven days.

ST EUTYCHIANUS. A.D. 275-283.

EUTYCHIANUS, a Tuscan, his father's name Maximus, was in the time of the emperor Aurelianus, who being slain, was succeeded by Tacitus, a man who both for his valour and justice, was certainly very fit for government, but he was slain in Pontus in the sixth month after he came to the empire; as was also his successor Florianus in Tarsus, before he had reigned three months.

Eutychianus ordained that the fruits of the earth, as beans and grapes, &c., should be blessed upon the altar; and also that no persons should bury the martyrs in any but purple vestments, unless with his knowledge and leave. Some write that in his time Dorotheas the eunuch flourished, a man questionless of very great skill in the Greek and Hebrew languages, and with whose learning it is said the Emperor Aurelianus was wonderfully delighted. For in the beginning of his reign he was such a favourer of the Christians that he severely censured the sect of Paulus of Samosata. But being afterwards corrupted by evil counsels, and, as hath been said, raising a persecution against the Christians, having sent des- patches concerning that affair to the several governors of provinces, he was cut oif by the Divine hand. Eusebius, when he was, young, was an auditor of Dorotheus at his expositions of Scripture.

At this time also Anatolius an Alexandrian, Bishop of Laodicaea, a man of great learning, wrote several excellent things in mathematics and divinity, and was very severe against the Manichaean heresy which then very much prevailed. These Manichees, to their other errors, brought in two substances, the one good, the other evil, and held that souls flowed from God as from a fountain. The Old Testament they altogether disowned, and received but some parts of the New.

Eutychianus, after that at several ordinations he had consecrated fourteen presbyters, five deacons, nine bishops, was crowned with martyrdom, and buried in the cemetery of Calistus, July the 25 th. He sat in the chair one year, one month, one day; and by his death the see was vacant eight days. There are some who say he lived in the pontificate eight years, ten months; but I rather give credit to Damasus, who is the author of the former assertion.

ST CAIUS. A.D. 283-296.

CAIUS, a Dalmatian, the son of Caius, a kinsman of the Emperor Diocletian, lived in the times of Probus, Carus, and Carinus.

Probus, a person renowned for military skill, having undertaken the government, was very successful in recovering Gallia that had been possessed by the barbarians. He also vanquished Saturninus, who was attempting to usurp the Empire in the east, and Proculus and Bonosus at Cologne. But this valiant and just man was notwithstanding slain in a tumult of the soldiers at Sirmium, in the sixth year of his reign. After whom Carus Narbonensis entered upon the Empire, and held it two years. He having admitted his two sons, Carinus and Numerianus, to a share in the government, and having in the Parthian War taken Celaenae and Ctesiphon, two famous cities, was in the camp slain by a thunderbolt. Numerianus, who was returning with his father, was murdered by the fraud of his father-in-law, Arrius Aper. But Carinus, a person most dissolutely lewd, was overcome after a sharp and doubtful engagement by Diocletian in Dalmatia; and at length suffered the just punishment of his villanies.

Caius stated the several orders in the Church by which, as by certain steps and degrees, the clergy were to rise to the Episcopal dignity. These were the door-keeper, the reader, the exorcist, the acolythus, the sub-deacon, the deacon, the presbyter, and the bishop. He also, as Fabianus had done before him, allotted several regions to the deacons, who were to register and compile the acts of the martyrs. He ordained, likewise, that no laic should commence a suit of law against a clergyman, and that no pagan or heretic should have power to accuse a Christian. In his time lived Victorinus, Bishop of Poietiers, who wrote diverse commentaries on the Scriptures, and was very sharp and severe against the heresies then prevailing, though he had greater skill in the Latin than the Greek tongue, as Hierom will have it, who tells us that the sense of his writings was great, but the style mean. Pamphilus, also a presbyter, and the intimate friend of Eusebius, bishop of Cesarea, was so eagerly greedy of divine learning, that with his own hand he transcribed a great part of Origen's books; which books Eusebius affirms himself to have seen in the library of Cesarea, with as great satisfaction as if he had gained the riches of Crcesus. The same Pamphilus wrote the defence of Origen, as Eusebius himself also did not long after.

But in the reign of Diocletian, there arising against the Christians a persecution sharper than ever was before, Caius lay a long time concealed in certain grottoes and vaults underground; but being at length discovered and taken from thence by the persecutors, together with his brother, Gabinius, and his niece, Susanna, he was crowned with martyrdom, and buried in the cemetery of Calistus, in the Via Appia, April the 22nd. Some write that Lucia, Agatha, and Agnes became martyrs not long after. Caius sat in the chair thirteen years, four months, twelve days; in which time, at four several Decembrian ordinations, he made twenty-five presbyters, eight deacons, five bishops; and by his death the see was vacant eleven days.

ST MARCELLINUS. A.D. 296-304.

MARCELLINUS, a Roman, the son of Projectus, was, in the times of Diocletian, a Dalmatian of obscure birth, and Maximian.

Diocletian being elected Emperor by the army in a.d. 284, slew that Aper who had murdered Numerian. But a commotion arising in Gallia, which was a sedition rather than a war, thither Diocletian sent Maximianus Herculeus, by whom the peasants were soon quelled. But wars breaking out on every side, Diocletian not being able singly to bear the shock of so many dangers, associated Maximian as his colleague by the name of Augustus, and Constantius and Galerius under them by the name of Csesars. Maximian, after that Carausius was killed by the treachery of Alectus, in ten years' time made himself master of Britain. And Constantius, after one unsuccessful engagement in Gallia, renewing the fight a second time, slew several thousand Germans who were mercenaries there, and thereby restored peace to that province. In the meantime Diocletian took Alexandria, which, being bravely defended by Achilleus, held out a siege of eight months, and gratified his soldiers with the plunder of it. But Galerius having behaved himself gallantly in two fights against Narseus, was at length routed between Galietium and Carrae; and his forces being scattered and lost in that unfortunate battle, he was forced to fly to Diocletian, who received him with such disdain, that it is said he suffered him in his imperial habit to run on foot several miles before his chariot. Maximian, being nettled at so foul a disgrace, undertook the war afresh, and in the end became victorious.

Affairs being thus settled, Diocletian in the east, and Maximian Herculeus in the west, commanded that the churches should be destroyed, and the Christians tortured and put to death; and so raised the tenth persecution, which lasted longer, and was more vehement and bloody than any before. For now Bibles were publicly burnt; all Christians who were in any office ignominiously cashiered; servants who continued constant to their profession cut off of all hope of being ever made free, and the Christian soldiers compelled either to offer up sacrifice to idols, or else to lay down their arms and their lives together, by an imperial edict publicly affixed in the forum. This edict, a certain person being so hardy as to pull down and tear in pieces, he was thereupon ordered to be flayed and to have vinegar mixed with salt poured upon his raw flesh till he died; which he patiently endured, being confirmed and encouraged in his sufferings by Dorotheus and Gorgonius, two very eminent men.

At the same time the royal palace at Nicomedia happening to be on fire, the emperor groundlessly suspecting it to be caused by the Chris- tians, commanded multitudes of them to be put to the sword, and several others to be thrown alive into the flames. The same severity was exercised against them in Mitylene, Syria, Africa, Thebais, and Egypt, by the several governors of those provinces; and in Palestine and Tyre great numbers of them were exposed to be devoured by wild beasts. Indeed, there was no kind of torment could be invented which the Christians did not undergo. Some had their flesh scraped and torn off with potsherds; to others, sharp reeds were thrust under their nails, and to the women run into their bodies.

A certain city in Phrygia was set on fire and burnt to the ground, because the citizens, who were kept constant to the faith by Adauctus, a pious Roman, refused to offer sacrifice to idols. In the end their inhuman tormentors came to such a height of cruelty, that they would first burn out their eyes with searing-irons, and then wreak the remainder of their fury and rage against them.

At this time were also put to death for the profession of Christianity, Anthimus, Bishop of Nicomedia ; and Lucianus, the learned presbyter of Antioch; and Pamphilus of Cesarea and Phileas, an Egyptian, and Bishop of Thmyis — this last being beheaded because he had written a book in praise of the martyrs, and had courage enough to tell his unjust judges their sin. I need not enumerate more instances, since Damasus affirms that there were no less than seventeen thousand persons of both sexes who suffered martyrdom through the several provinces in the space of thirty days. I shall not mention those who were banished to the islands, or condemned to work in the mines or melting-houses, or to dig sand, or to hew stones, or to other the like kinds of servitude, whose numbers were almost infinite. But our Marcellinus, being carried to the heathen sacrifices, and his tormentors, with menaces, urging him to offer, he being overcome with fear, submitted to their importunities, and joined with them in their idolatries. But not long after, a council of a hundred and eighty bishops being held at Sinuessa, a city of Campania, thither goes Marcellinus, clothed in sackcloth, with all the marks of a humble penitent, and beseeches them to inflict upon him the just punishment of his cowardice and inconstancy. Yet, in so numerous a council, there was not a man who would pass any sentence against him, they all agreeing that he had lapsed only after the same manner that St Peter himself did, and that by his tears and sorrows he had already sufficiently suffered for his fault.

To Rome returns Marcellinus, full of zeal, hastens to Diocletian, and boldly reproves him for causing him to sacrifice to false gods. Hereupon, by Diocletian's order, he was forthwith led to execution, together with Claudius, Cyrinus, and Antoninus, three other assertors of Christianity. As he went along, he admonished Marcellus his presbyter, not to submit to the command of Diocletian in matters appertaining to religion; and forbade him to suffer his body to be buried, saying that, since he had denied his Saviour, he was unworthy of the least acts of humanity — though, indeed, by Diocletian's order, the bodies of all these four martyrs lay unburied in the highway the space of thirty-six days. Afterwards, at the command of St Peter the Apostle, who appeared to Marcellus in a dream, they were buried in the Via Salaria, in the cemetery of Priscilla, near the body of St Crescention, May the 27th.

After so long a series of miseries, God at length, as Eusebius words it, opened his eyes, and, to free the Christians from such a plague, so wrought upon Diocletian's mind that he voluntarily resigned the empire and retired to a private life. And he compelled Maximian, his partner in the government, to do the same. He was as violent a persecutor as himself, who, some years after, was afflicted with divers diseases, and after incessant torment was smitten with distraction, and haunted with the reflections on his guilt. It is the judgment of Eusebius that this calamity befell the Christians by God's permission, as a just punishment for the great corruption of manners which the liberty and indulgence which they before enjoyed had occasioned among them all in general, but especially among the clergy, to the hypocrisy of whose looks, the fraud of their words, and the deceit of their hearts, the Divine justice deigned to give a check by this persecution. Indeed, the envy, pride, animosity, and hatred with which they strove among themselves, was grown to such a height that it seemed rather a contention between haughty tyrants than humble churchmen; and having forgotten all true Christian piety, they did not so much perform as profane the Divine offices. But what calamity shall our presaging minds prompt us to expect in our age, in which our vices have increased to such a magnitude that they have scarce left us any room for God's mercy. It would be to no purpose for me to mention the great covetousness of the clergy, especially of those who are in authority; their lust, their ambition, their pomp, their pride, their idleness, their ignorance of themselves and of the doctrine of Christianity, their little piety, and that rather feigned than true, and their great debauchery, so great that it would be abominable even in the profane (for so they superciliously call the laity), this I say, it would be to no purpose for me to tell, since they themselves do avow their sins so openly that one would think they judged vice to be a laudable quality, and expected to gain reputation by it. The Turk (believe me, though I wish I may prove a false prophet) — the Turk is coming whom we shall find a more violent enemy to Christianity, than Diocletian or Maximian. He is already at the gates of Italy; while we idly and supinely wait the common ruin, every one consulting rather his own private pleasure than the public defence.

I come now again to Marcellinus, whom I would to God we might at last imitate, and return to a better mind. For he, as I said before, finding his error in falling away from his profession, came to himself, and did with great constancy suffer martyrdom for the sake of Christ; after that, at two Decembrian ordinations, he had made four presbyters, two deacons, five bishops. He was in the chair nine years, two months, fifteen days ; and by his death the see was vacant till 308.