CHAPTER XXVIII

THE PERSECUTION UNDER MAXIMINUS

BUT the emperor Alexander being carried off after a reign of thirteen years, was succeeded by Maximinus, who, inflamed with hatred against the house of Alexander, consisting of many believers, raised a persecution, and commanded at first only the heads of the churches to be slain, as the abettors and agents of evangelical truth. It was then that Origen wrote his book on Martyrdom, which he dedicated to Ambrose, and Protoctetus a presbyter of the church at Cæsarea, because both of these encountered no common danger in the persecution. In which also it is said that these men were pre-eminent for (persevering in) their confession, as Maximinus did not reign longer than three years. Origen has assigned the time of this persecution, both in the twenty-second book of his Commentaries on John, and in different epistles.