with guards, and ruler of all Palæstine: he who was the companion, the guest, and the most inti"mate and honoured friend of the tyrant, suddenly "was stripped of all his dignity, and exposed to pub

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lic ignominy before the face of those who had fear❝ed and reverenced him. The whole nation beheld "their governor dejected, dispirited, poorly begging "for mercy, and shewing the meanest and most unmanly behaviour: whilst Maximinus himself, "whose favour had filled him with vanity and insolence, and whose affection he had obtained by his barbarity to the innocent Christians, proved his "most barbarous and inexorable enemy, and, after having convicted him of many crimes, and openly shamed him at Cæsarea, condemned him to be put "to death." Eusebius de Mart. Pal. vii.

The ecclesiastical historian seems to have taken some pleasure in stigmatizing this inhuman and cowardly governor, in consigning him to everlasting infamy, and in sacrificing his worthless name to the manes of his dear friend Pamphilus,

Firmilianus, another persecuting governor, met with the same fate.

"It is proper to observe here how the governors, "as well as the tyrannical emperors, were punished

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by God's providence: for Firmilianus, who had so “much insolence and inhumanity to the martyrs of Jesus Christ, was condemned to die with several others, and was beheaded." Eusebius, Mart. Pal. xi.

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Maximianus Herculius, one of the persecuting emperors, was compelled to hang himself, A. D. 310.

Maximianus Galerius, of all the tyrants in his time the most cruel, and the first mover of the persecution, was seized with a grievous and horrible disease, and tormented with ulcers and worms, to such a degree, that they who were ordered to attend him could not bear the stench. He then made an edict, preserved by Eusebius, in favour of the Christians, that they might pray to God for him, and he died, A. D.

311.

"The wrath of heaven fell upon him and afflicted "him with a disease which seized his body, and pene"trated to his soul. An abscess was suddenly formed "about his secret parts, with a fistulous ulcer, which preyed upon his bowels, and an incredible quantiof worms issued thence with an intolerable stink. "For before this distemper, he had indulged his vo"racious appetite, and was grown extremely fat and

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unwieldly, and the huge mass of flesh being totally

currupted afforded a most hideous spectacle to those "who were about him. Of his physicians some "were put to death, because they could not "bear the suffocating stench of his body; and others "were still more barbarously condemned to the same

punishment, because the remedies which they applied to him were ineffectual, and they could not "remove an incurable distemper." Eeusebius viii. 16, Maxentius, an enemy to Christianity, was overthrown in battle by Constantine, and in his flight he fell into the Tiber, and was drowned, A. D. 312.

The Christians, who were thus delivered out of the hands of this tyrant, compared his death with that of Pharaoh. Eusebius ix. 9.

At this time there was a dreadful famine in the eastern part of the empire, where Maximinus reigned,

and

and a plague which particularly affected the eyes *, and took away the sight: upon which the Christians could not forbear observing that Maximinus had inflicted that very punishment on many thousand Christians, and had caused one of their eyes to be bored out.

The Christians signalized their piety and charity towards all persons in this public calamity, and forced even their pagan adversaries to admire and commend their behaviour. Eusebius ix. 8.

At the same time Maximinus and his army suffered much in a war with the Armenians, with whom he had quarrelled, because they were Christians.

Maximinus was defeated by Licinius; and he then repented, and made an edict favourable to the Christians, whom he had inhumanly oppressed and persecuted, and whose eyes he had put out. He died miserably, and upon the rack, his eyes starting out of his head, through the violence of his distemper, A. D. 313. All his family were destroyed, and his wife and children put to death, and with them many persons of rank, and governors of provinces, who had been his friends and dependents, and the ministers of his cruelty in tormenting and destroying the Christians, as Pincentius, Culcianus, Theotecnus. "Nor was his latter "end like that of illustrious generals, who fighting boldly for their friends and their country, and for an honourable cause, met with a death no less ho"nourable but whilst his army was drawn up in "the

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In the fifth century, there was a famine in Phrygia and the neighbourhood, and then a pestilence; Ex victus mutatione in mor. bun delapsi, corporibus ob nimiam inflammationem tumescentibus. oculos ammittebant: simulque tussi vexati, tertio die moriebautur, Evagrius ii. 6.

"the field, and ready to engage, he was lurking and

hiding his cowardly head at home; and yet he "could not conceal himself from God, who suddenly "struck his whole body with a sore plage, and in"flicted a punishment suitable to his impieties. For "being tormented with the most acute and insuf

ferable anguish, he rolled himself upon the ground, "and pined away by long fasting, so that his whole "form was changed, and he looked like a withered

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and dried skeleton, or like a living sepulchre where the soul was buried in a rotten and dead body. "At last, through the vehemence of the inward inflammation, he lost his sight, and his eyes started "out of his head; and yet still breathing and confessing his sins, he called upon death, to come and "release him, which advanced slowly, and not till

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he had acknowledged that he deserved what he suf❝fered, for his cruelty, and for the insults which he "had committed against Jesus Christ." Eusebius E. H. ix. 10.

Tarsum postremo confugit (Maximinus.) Ibi cum jam terra marique perterreretur, nec ullum speraret refugium, angore animi ac metu confugit ad mortem, quasi ad remedium malorum qua Deus in caput ejus ingessit. Sed prius cibo se infersit ac vino ingurgitavit, ut solent hi qui hoc ultimo se facere arbitrantur, Et sic hausit venenum. Cujus vis stomacho repercussa, valere non potuit in præsens, sed in languorem malum versa pestilentia similem, ut diutius protracto spiritu cruciamenta sentiret, Jam sævire in eum cæperat virus; cujus vis cum præcordia ejus ureret, insustentabili dolore usque ad rabiem mentis elatus est, adeo ut per dies quatuor insania percitus haustam manibus, terram velut esuriens devoraret. Deinde post multos gravesque cruciatus, cum caput suum parietibus infligeret,

"exilierunt

Tunc demum, amisso visu,

exilierunt oculi ejus de caveis. Deum videre cæpit candidatis ministris de se judicantem. Exclamabat ergo sicut i qui torqueri solent, et non se sed alios fecisse dicebat. Deinde quasi tormentis aductus fatebatur. Christum subinde deprecans et plorans ut suimet misereretur. Sic inter gemitus, quos tanquam cremaretur edebat, nocentem spiritum detestabili genere mortis effluvit. Lactantius de Mort. Pers. c. 49.

Eusebius, Chrysostom, Epiphanius, and Lactantius (as he is commonly called) agree that Maximinus lost his eye-sight before he died. In the circumstances wherein Lactantius and Eusebius differ, the preference seems due to Eusebius, as to one who might be better informed of the truth, and who was less inclined to embellish it with common reports.

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After this, most of the enemies of our religion were despoiled of all their honours. All the rulers "of provinces were put to death, who had acted on "the side of Maximinus, and who, to please him, "had cruelly treated the Christians, as Pincentius "his principal favourite-Culcianus, who had des

troyed so many Christians in Egypt-together "with several others, who had assisted in establishing "and supporting his tyranny.-Nor did the divine "Justice suffer Theotecnus one of our violent per

secutors to escape unpunished."-Eusebius ix. 11.

A Roman Officer, (whose name Eusebius hath not recorded) to oblige Maximinus, oppressed the Christians at Damascus, and spread calumnies against them; and not long after he died by his own hands, says Eusebius, and inflicted upon him the punishment due to his wickedness. E. H. ix. 5, 6.

Licinius, the last of these persecutors, was conquered, and put to death by Constantine, A. D. 323,