fered most under Diocletian (303). It was in this emperor's reign
that nearly all the inhabitants of Caesar Augusta were treacherously
slaughtered on the sole ground of their being Christians; thus earning
for their native city from the Christian poet Prudentius,[3] the proud
title of "patria sanctorum martyrum."

[1] Florez, "Espana Sagrada," vol. iii. pp. 361 ff.

[2] Bk. I. ch. x. 2 (A.D. 186).

[3] 348-402 A.D.

The persecution of Diocletian, though the fiercest, was at the same time
the last, which afflicted the Church under the Roman Empire. Diocletian
indeed proclaimed that he had blotted out the very name of Christian and
abolished their hateful superstition. This even to the Romans must have
seemed an empty boast, and the result of Diocletian's efforts only
proved the truth of the old maxim--"the blood of martyrs is the seed of
the Church."

The Spanish Christians about this time[1] held the first ecclesiastical
council whose acts have come down to us. This Council of Illiberis, or
Elvira, was composed of nineteen bishops and thirty-six presbyters, who
passed eighty canons.

[1] The date is doubtful. Blunt, "Early Christianity," p. 209,
places it between 314 and 325, though in a hesitating manner.
Other dates given are 300 and 305.

The imperial edict of toleration was issued in 313, and in 325 was held
the first General Council of the Church under the presidency of the
emperor, Constantine, himself an avowed Christian. Within a quarter of a
century of the time when Diocletian had boasted that he had extirpated
the Christian name, it has been computed that nearly one half of the
inhabitants of his empire were Christians.

The toleration, so long clamoured for, so lately conceded, was in 341
put an end to by the Christians themselves, and Pagan sacrifices were
prohibited. So inconsistent is the conduct of a church militant and a
church triumphant! In 388, after a brief eclipse under Julian,
Christianity was formally declared by the Senate to be the established
religion of the Roman Empire.

But the security, or rather predominance, thus suddenly acquired by the
church, resting as it did in part upon royal favour and court intrigue,
did not tend to the spiritual advancement of Christianity. Almost
coincident with the Edict of Milan was the appearance of Arianism,
which, after dividing the Church against itself for upwards of
half-a-century, and almost succeeding at one time in i