Kingdom Parables

THE KINGDOM PARABLES
by every lingering means the most infernal imaginations could suggest.
During this cruel temporizing, the emperor Decius died, and Gallus,
who succeeded him, engaging in a war with the Goths, the Christians
met with a respite. In this interim, Origen obtained his enlargement, and,
retiring to Tyre, he there remained until his death, which happened
when he was in the sixty-ninth year of his age.
Gallus, the emperor, having concluded his wars, a plague broke out in
the empire: sacrifices to the pagan deities were ordered by the emperor,
and persecutions spread from the interior to the extreme parts of the
empire, and many fell martyrs to the impetuosity of the rabble, as well as
the prejudice of the magistrates. Among these were Cornelius, the
Christian bishop of Rome, and Lucius, his successor, in 253.
Most of the errors which crept into the Church at this time arose from
placing human reason in competition with revelation; but the fallacy of
such arguments being proved by the most able divines, the opinions
they had created vanished away like the stars before the sun.
H. The Eighth Persecution, Under Valerian, A. D. 257
The eighth wave of persecution began under Valerian, in the month of
April, 257, and continued for three years and six months. The martyrs
that fell in this persecution were innumerable, and their tortures and
deaths as various and painful. The most eminent martyrs were the
following, though neither rank, sex, nor age were regarded.
Stephen, bishop of Rome, was beheaded in the same year, and about
that time Saturninus, the pious orthodox bishop of Toulouse, refusing
to sacrifice to idols, was treated with all the barbarous indignities
imaginable, and fastened by the feet to the tail of a bull and martyr's
brains were dashed out.
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