CHAPTER XXXIX

THE PERSECUTION OF DECIUS

PHILIP, after a reign of seven years, was succeeded by Decius, who, in consequence of his hatred to Philip, raised a persecution against the church, in which Fabianus suffered martyrdom, and was succeeded as bishop of Rome by Cornelius. In Palestine, however, Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem, was again brought before the tribunal of the governor, at Cæsarea, and after an eminent perseverance in his profession, though crowned with the hoary locks of venerable age, he was cast into prison. After giving a splendid and illustrious testimony at the governor’s tribunal, and expiring in prison, he was succeeded by Mazabanes as bishop of Jerusalem. But Babylas, like Alexander, dying in prison at Antioch, after his confession, the church there was governed by Fabius. But the number and greatness of Origen’s sufferings there during the persecution, and the nature of his death, when the spirit of darkness drew up his forces, and waged a war with all his arts and powers against the man, and assailed him particularly beyond all that were then assaulted by him; the nature and number of bonds which he endured on account of the doctrine of Christ, and all his torments of body, the sufferings also which he endured under an iron collar, and in the deepest recesses of the prison, when for many days he was extended and stretched to the distance of four holes on the rack; besides the threats of fire, and whatsoever other sufferings inflicted by his enemies he nobly bore, and finally the issue of these sufferings, when the judge eagerly strove with all his might to protract his life (in order to prolong his sufferings), and what expressions after these he left behind, replete with benefit to those needing consolation, all this, his many epistles detail with no less truth than accuracy.