A.D. 180.] EPOCH IN THE CHURCH'S HISTORY. 599 Gaul, and, after his mission to Rome, he succeeded the martyred Pothinus as bishop of Lyon, a post which he continued to fill through the reign of Commodus. The interval of quiet which the Christians enjoyed under the last of the Antonines-who seems to have been too intent on his pleasures to concern himself about them-and the rise within the Church of the great Gnostic heresy, against which Irenæus wrote, may be regarded as marking the epoch of division between the Church of the Apostolic Fathers and that of the next age; a division nearly corresponding with the close of the second century. It is for the ecclesiastical historian to trace the marked change which came over the spirit of the Church at this epoch; the growth of worldly elements, the higher assumptions of bishops and teachers, the increase of philosophical speculation, the multiplication of heresies, the distinctive characters which began to separate the Churches of the East and West, of Asia and Egypt, of Europe and Africa. Nor shall we need to traverse again the well-beaten ground of controversy concerning the attempt of the brilliant historian of the later empire to discover other causes for the rapid diffusion of Christianity, than its own inherent truth, applied by Divine power to a state of society long prepared for its reception by Divine Providence. Amidst all the melancholy scenes which history records, there is scarcely one sadder than the self-exposure of disingenuous malice made in those celebrated chapters of the History of the Decline and Fall, unless perhaps in the conduct of the philosophic emperor, who is the historian's idol, in his dealing with Christianity. For Aurelius, with all his claims on our admiration, has the unenviable distinction of having deliberately made the wrong choice, in the great crisis of the empire's fate, between the principles which alone could save it and those which were hurrying it to ruin. To his philosophic mind was presented the question, more momentous than any which had occupied his predecessors, whether to accept the prospect held out by Christianity for the regeneration of society, and thus to unite the world over which he ruled into that universal state-one by the bond of inward lifewhich has been the ideal of philosophic politicians in every age; or whether to seal the fate of the Empire by falling back upon a lifeless philosophy, and a false religion which had lost its hold upon its votaries. His choice, confirmed by the people at largelike that already made within the ancient Church by the Jewslost the opportunity to the civilized nations of the ancient world: "the kingdom of the earth was taken from them," and given to the barbarian races. Such was the course appointed by Divine wisdom: the new wine had to be put into new bottles: the native vigour of unexhausted nations was the fit instrument of God's further designs and the Church, left to work out her own course by her own principles and her Master's power, gained more real strength by the withholding of the favour of Aurelius than she lost by the patronage of Constantine. Meanwhile," the blood of the martyrs" had proved the seed of the Church; and Christian communities were to be found from the Rhine to the Tigris, and from the Libyan Desert to the distant shores of Britain.* The Churches throughout the Empire, amidst the assaults of persecution and the divisions of heresy, were assuming a definite constitution. Not to concern ourselves with disputed points concerning the internal government into which the Church now settled, it deserves our special notice, that Christians agreed to adopt one authoritative written rule of faith, in the Canon of the New Testament, just at the time when their Jewish antagonists were engaged in elaborating and overlaying the Old Canon by giving a body to their system of tradition. It is not our province to discuss the formation of the Canon, nor the grounds on which it is accepted, in its collected form, as the "New Covenant of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." It is enough to mark the great crowning fact in the rise of Christianity, that, by the end of the Second Century, the believers possessed a Book as the standard of their faith, and the rule of their life. The time has gone by when it was necessary to correct the popular error which confounds the mission of St. Augustin to the heathen English with the first introduction of Christianity into Britain. Among the many interesting records of the British Church in the Roman period-a Church which sent bishops to general councils, furnished martyrs (such as St. Alban), and produced the heresiarch Pelagius -we may mention, as belonging to this epoch, the religions connection said to have been formed by the British prince Lucius with Eleutherius, bishop of Rome, about A.D. 171–185 (Beda, Hist. Eccl. i. 4). BOOK IX. DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE AND OF PAGANISM. FROM THE DEATH OF COMMODUS TO THE FALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE. A.D. 193 TO A.D. 476. CONTENTS OF BOOK IX. CHAP. XLI. THE MILLENNIUM OF ROME. FROM THE DEATH OF COMMODUS TO THE SECULAR GAMES OF PHILIP. XLII.—IRRUPTIONS OF THE BARBARIANS. FROM DECIUS TO DIOCLE- XLIII. PERIOD OF REVIVAL. DIOCLETIAN AND HIS COLLEAGUES. XLV. DIVISION OF THE EAST AND WEST; AND FALL OF THE CHAPTER XLI. THE MILLENNIUM OF ROME. FROM THE DEATH OF COMMODUS TO THE SECULAR GAMES OF PHILIP. A.D. 193 TO A.D. 286. One day is with the LORD as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 2 Peter iii. 8. ACCESSION AND DEATH OF PERTINAX-THE PRETORIANS SELL THE EMPIRE TO DIDIUS JULIANUS-PROCLAMATION OF CLODIUS ALBINUS, PESCENNIUS NIGER AND SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS-SEVERUS MARCHES ON ROME-JULIANUS DESERTED AND SLAIN-CLODIUS ALBINUS NAMED CÆSAR-DEFEAT AND DEATH OF NIGER AND ALBINUS-PARTHIAN EXPEDITION OF SEVERUS-HIS NEW PRETORIAN GUARD, AND RELAXATION OF DISCIPLINE DEATH OF PLAUTIANUS-EXPEDITION TO CALEDONIA-DEATH OF SEVERUS -CARACALLA AND GETA-THEIR MUTUAL HATRED-MURDER OF GETA-TYRANNY AND MURDER OF CARACALLA-UNIVERSAL CITIZENSHIP-REIGN OF MACRINUS - THE GRANDSONS OF JULIA MESA-ACCESSION AND ABOMINABLE TYRANNY OF ELAGABALUS -REIGN AND VIRTUES OF ALEXANDER SEVERUS - HIS COUNCIL OF STATE-MILITARY INSOLENCE-MURDER OF THE JURIST ULPIAN-CAREER OF THE HISTORIAN DION AND AND CASSIUS ARDSHIR, OR ARTAXERXES, OVERTHROWS THE PARTHIAN EMFIRE, FOUNDS THE PERSIAN DYNASTY OF THE SASSANIDE-WAR BETWEEN ROME PERSIA-ALEXANDRR SEVERUS ON THE RHINE-ORIGIN AND ACCESSION OF MAXIMIN -HIS BRUTAL TYRANNY-THE TWO GORDIANS PROCLAIMED AND KILLED IN AFRICA -MAXIMUS AND BALBINUS PROCLAIMED AT ROME-DEATHS OF MAXIMIN, MAXIMUS, AND BALBINUS-REIGN OF GORDIAN III-HIS PERSIAN WAR AND MURDER-REIGN OF PHILIP I.-QUESTION OF HIS CHRISTIANITY-HIS SECULAR GAMES-RETROSPECT OF ROME'S ONE THOUSAND YEARS-HER PRESENT CONDITION, AND APPROACHING FALL. THE last experiment of a constitutional empire had been tried and had failed. Hopeless from the first, through the utter corruption of the whole social system, and deprived of its last chance by the rejection of the renovating power of Christianity, it had been stifled by the tyranny of Commodus, and extinguished in his blood. We now enter on a period of undisguised military despotism, a form of government which does not purchase by its bloodshed and tyranny even the fruit claimed for it of firm order. For, as we have had abundant proof since the maxim was uttered by Gibbon, "every military government floats between the extremes of absolute monarchy and wild democracy;" and often, he might have added, combines the vices of the two. Still, as after the fall of Nero and Domitian, there were some who fondly dreamed of a restoration of the Republic; and this time the conspirators were prepared with a worthy successor to the empire in PERTINAX, the prefect of the city, and now almost the sole survivor of the ancient counsellors of Marcus Aurelius. Roused in the dead of night by Lætus and Eclectus, he showed more readiness to submit to the |