wledged its important
obligations to female devotion. The principal eunuchs, Lucian and
Dorotheus, Gorgonius and Andrew, who attended the person, possessed
the favor, and governed the household of Diocletian, protected by their
powerful influence the faith which they had embraced. Their example was
imitated by many of the most considerable officers of the palace, who,
in their respective stations, had the care of the Imperial ornaments,
of the robes, of the furniture, of the jewels, and even of the private
treasury; and, though it might sometimes be incumbent on them to
accompany the emperor when he sacrificed in the temple, they enjoyed,
with their wives, their children, and their slaves, the free exercise
of the Christian religion. Diocletian and his colleagues frequently
conferred the most important offices on those persons who avowed their
abhorrence for the worship of the gods, but who had displayed abilities
proper for the service of the state. The bishops held an honorable rank
in their respective provinces, and were treated with distinction and
respect, not only by the people, but by the magistrates themselves.
Almost in every city, the ancient churches were found insufficient to
contain the increasing multitude of proselytes; and in their place more
stately and capacious edifices were erected for the public worship of
the faithful. The corruption of manners and principles, so forcibly
lamented by Eusebius, may be considered, not only as a consequence, but
as a proof, of the liberty which the Christians enjoyed and abused
under the reign of Diocletian. Prosperity had relaxed the nerves of
discipline. Fraud, envy, and malice prevailed in every congregation. The
presbyters aspired to the episcopal office, which every day became an
object more worthy of their ambition. The bishops, who contended with
each other for ecclesiastical preeminence, appeared by their conduct to
claim a secular and tyrannical power in the church; and the lively faith
which still distinguished the Christians from the Gentiles, was shown
much less in their lives, than in their controversial writings.

Notwithstanding this seeming security, an attentive observer might
discern some symptoms that threatened the church with a more violent
persecution than any which she had yet endured. The zeal and rapid
progress of the Christians awakened the Polytheists from their supine
indifference in the cause of those deities, whom custom and education
had