Volume I Part 31 (1/2)

Cyprian speaks (_Ep._ lxvi.) of both Cornelius and Lucius as martyred. The emperors were probably at this time beginning to realise the power the Bishops of Rome possessed. We know hardly anything of the Decian persecution at Rome except the execution of the bishop; and St. Cyprian says (_Ep._ li.) that Decius would have preferred a pretender to the throne to a Bishop of Rome.

889 Dionysius, Archbishop of Alexandria; see Euseb. vii. 10.

890 Eusebius, vii. 10-12; Cyprian, _Ep._ lx.x.xi. Lactantius says of Valerian, ”Multum quamvis brevi tempore justi sanguinis fudit.”-_De Mort. Persec._ c. v.

891 Cyprian. _Ep._ lx.x.xi.

892 See his _Life_ by the deacon Pontius, which is reproduced by Gibbon.

893 Eusebius, vii. 13.

894 Tertullian had before, in a curious pa.s.sage, spoken of the impossibility of Christian Caesars. ”Sed et Caesares credidissent super Christo si aut Caesares non essent seculo necessarii, aut si et Christiani potuissent esse Caesares.”-_Apol._ xxi.

_ 895 Contra Demetrianum._

896 Eusebius, vii. 30. Aurelian decided that the cathedral at Antioch should be given up to whoever was appointed by the bishops of Italy.

897 Compare the accounts in Eusebius, vii. 30, and Lactantius, _De Mort._ c. vi.

898 See the forcible and very candid description of Eusebius, viii. 1.

899 This is noticed by Optatus.

900 See the vivid pictures in Lact. _De Mort. Persec._

901 Lactant. _De Mort. Persec._ 15.

902 Eusebius, viii.

903 These incidents are noticed by Eusebius in his _History_, and in his _Life of Constantine_, and by Lactantius, _De Mort. Persec._