ed the statues
of Abraham, of Orpheus, of Apollonius, and of Christ, as an honor justly
due to those respectable sages who had instructed mankind in the various
modes of addressing their homage to the supreme and universal Deity.
A purer faith, as well as worship, was openly professed and practised
among his household. Bishops, perhaps for the first time, were seen
at court; and, after the death of Alexander, when the inhuman Maximin
discharged his fury on the favorites and servants of his unfortunate
benefactor, a great number of Christians of every rank and of both
sexes, were involved the promiscuous massacre, which, on their account,
has improperly received the name of Persecution. *

Notwithstanding the cruel disposition of Maximin, the effects of his
resentment against the Christians were of a very local and temporary
nature, and the pious Origen, who had been proscribed as a devoted
victim, was still reserved to convey the truths of the gospel to the
ear of monarchs. He addressed several edifying letters to the emperor
Philip, to his wife, and to his mother; and as soon as that prince,
who was born in the neighborhood of Palestine, had usurped the Imperial
sceptre, the Christians acquired a friend and a protector. The public
and even partial favor of Philip towards the sectaries of the new
religion, and his constant reverence for the ministers of the church,
gave some color to the suspicion, which prevailed in his own times, that
the emperor himself was become a convert to the faith; and afforded
some grounds for a fable which was afterwards invented, that he had
been purified by confession and penance from the guilt contracted by the
murder of his innocent predecessor. The fall of Philip introduced, with
the change of masters, a new system of government, so oppressive to
the Christians, that their former condition, ever since the time of
Domitian, was represented as a state of perfect freedom and security,
if compared with the rigorous treatment which they experienced under the
short reign of Decius. The virtues of that prince will scarcely allow
us to suspect that he was actuated by a mean resentment against the
favorites of his predecessor; and it is more reasonable to believe, that
in the prosecution of his general design to restore the purity of Roman
manners, he was desirous of delivering the empire from what he
condemned as a recent and criminal superstition. The bishops of the most
considerable cities wer