ir respective departments. It was at least to be expected, that the
convenience of the public highways and established posts would have
enabled the emperors to transmit their orders with the utmost despatch
from the palace of Nicomedia to the extremities of the Roman world; and
that they would not have suffered fifty days to elapse, before the edict
was published in Syria, and near four months before it was signified to
the cities of Africa. This delay may perhaps be imputed to the cautious
temper of Diocletian, who had yielded a reluctant consent to the
measures of persecution, and who was desirous of trying the experiment
under his more immediate eye, before he gave way to the disorders and
discontent which it must inevitably occasion in the distant provinces.
At first, indeed, the magistrates were restrained from the effusion
of blood; but the use of every other severity was permitted, and
even recommended to their zeal; nor could the Christians, though
they cheerfully resigned the ornaments of their churches, resolve to
interrupt their religious assemblies, or to deliver their sacred books
to the flames. The pious obstinacy of Felix, an African bishop, appears
to have embarrassed the subordinate ministers of the government. The
curator of his city sent him in chains to the proconsul. The proconsul
transmitted him to the Praetorian praefect of Italy; and Felix, who
disdained even to give an evasive answer, was at length beheaded at
Venusia, in Lucania, a place on which the birth of Horace has conferred
fame. This precedent, and perhaps some Imperial rescript, which was
issued in consequence of it, appeared to authorize the governors of
provinces, in punishing with death the refusal of the Christians to
deliver up their sacred books. There were undoubtedly many persons who
embraced this opportunity of obtaining the crown of martyrdom; but there
were likewise too many who purchased an ignominious life, by discovering
and betraying the holy Scripture into the hands of infidels. A great
number even of bishops and presbyters acquired, by this criminal
compliance, the opprobrious epithet of Traditors; and their offence was
productive of much present scandal and of much future discord in the
African church.

The copies as well as the versions of Scripture, were already so
multiplied in the empire, that the most severe inquisition could no
longer be attended with any fatal consequences; and even the sacrifice
of those volume