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THE

DECIAN PERSECUTION

BEING THE

Hulsean Prize Essay for 1896

BY

JOHN A. F. GREGG, B.A.

LATE SCHOLAR OF CHRIST'S COLLEGE,

CAMBRIDGE

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS

EDINBURGH AND LONDON

MDCCCXCVII

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All Rights reserved

PUBLIC LIBRARY 96036

ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.

1898

PREFACE.

THE chief sources of information with regard to the Decian persecution are the Epistles and Treatises of Cyprian, and the letters of Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, preserved by Eusebius in the sixth and seventh books of his History. Besides these we have the highly coloured narrative—probably derived from oral tradition-of Gregory of Nyssa, and the very untrustworthy 'Acta Martyrum,' from which, with the exception of the Acta Pionii,' we gain but little in tracing the history of the persecution. Thus it will be seen that our information is of the most fragmentary nature, and for two reasons in particular we are unable to gain a clear view of the course of affairs: first, that in no case do different authorities narrate

the execution of the edict in the same province; and second, that the tone of the proceedings in each case varied with the personality of the governor of the province. We are therefore

unable to introduce with any certainty features observable in one province to supply the defects in our knowledge of another, and thus to set before our eyes a course of procedure followed uniformly in every part.

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For this reason I have, after the necessary introductory chapters (i.-v.), traced the history of the persecution in the West, in so far as the works of Cyprian and the Acta Martyrum' permit. The important questions connected with the restitution of the lapsi occupy chapter viii., while Egypt and the East, for which our information is drawn from Dionysius, Gregory of Nyssa, and the various Acts of Martyrs, are dealt with in chapter ix.

A study of the persecution would be incomplete without a short account of the Church's position under Gallus, whose antichristian policy -less aggressive, for cogent reasons, than that of Decius-failed no less miserably than that of

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