After his captivity, the Church enjoyed greater
tranquillity; many more persons ventured to avow themselves Christians,
and their worship was carried on without so much concealment as
formerly.
But the troublous times were not yet over, and the rage of the prince of
this world moved the Romans to make a yet more violent effort than any
before to put down the kingdom of the Prince of Peace. Two emperors
began to reign together, named Diocletian and Maximian, dividing the
whole empire between them into two parts, the East and the West. After a
few years' rule, they both of them fell savagely upon the Christians.
In Switzerland, a whole division of the army, called the Theban Legion,
6,000 in number, with the leader, St. Maurice, all were cut to pieces
together rather than deny their faith. In Egypt the Christians were
mangled with potsherds, and every torture was invented that could shake
their constancy. Each tribunal was provided with a little altar to some
idol, and if the Christians would but scatter a few grains of incense
upon it, they were free; but this was a denying of their Lord, and the
few who yielded in the fear of them who could kill the body, grieved all
their lives afterwards for the act, and were not restored to their place
in the Church until after long years of penance, or until they had
atoned for their fall by witnessing a good confession.
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