Note 1. The martyrdom of these saints cannot be placed in the great persecution in 303, as some have imagined. On the 1st of March, 291, Constantius Chlorus and C. Galerius-Valerius-Maximianus, were created Cæsars; the latter had Italy for his portion of the empire, and the former Gaul beyond the Alps and Britain. Constantius died at York on the 25th of July, 306. We are assured by Lactantius, (de Morte Persecut. c. 15 and 16;) Eusebius, (Vit. Constant. c. 13, 15, 16, and 17;) and St. Optatus, (l. 1, de Schism. Donat.) &c., that Constantius never suffered any one to be put to death for the Christian religion. It is therefore clear that the martyrs who suffered in Gaul and Britain under Dioclesian and Maximian ought to be placed in the beginning of their reign; such as Gereon and his companions at Cologne; Cassius, Florentius, Victor, and some others in the same place: Justus at Paris, Fuscian and Victoricus at Amiens, Piat at Tournay, Lucian at Beauvais, Quintin at Peronne, Crispin and Crispinian at Soissons, &c. before the year 291. After Maximian Herculeus had martyred the Thebæan Legion, he sent Rictius Varus prefect into the Belgic and Celtic Gaul, who at Triers, St. Quintin’s, Basil, Amiens, &c. exercised unheard of cruelties against the Christians from 286 to his death in 288. His successor Julian put to death St. Yon in the province of Lyons, and St. Lucian at Beauvais. Eutychius and Austerius, mentioned in the trial of St. Victor at Marseilles, seem also to have been prefects of the prætorium in Gaul, and, perhaps, succeeded Julian in 290 or 291. As for Sicinnius Fescenninus, who put to death St. Dionysius at Paris, and St. Nicasius in the Vexin, he seems to have been governor of the second province of Lyons, which was then extended further northwards than in later ages. SS. Fides and Caprais suffered at Agen under a judge named Dacian. St. Alban, &c. seem to have been crowned in Britain before Carausius assumed the purple in 287. Eusebius (l. 8, c. 1, et. 4,) in describing the peace which the church enjoyed before the great persecution, is chiefly to be understood of the East; for it is clear that not only Maximian, but Dioclesian also, when he came to Rome in the first year of his reign, persecuted the Christians, probably out of complaisance to the Romans. Prisca, wife to Dioclesian, and his daughter Valeria, who was married to Maximian Galerius, were very favourable to the Christian religion, and seem both to have embraced it—(See Lactant. de Mort. Persec. c. 15.)—for in 303 they refused to be defiled with sacrifices till compelled for fear of torments. This they probably learned from Lucian, chamberlain to Dioclesian, a zealous Christian, to whom St. Theonas; who governed the see of Alexandria from 288 to 300, sent an excellent instruction, extant in D’Acheri’s Spicilegium, t. 12, p. 545. The empress was not a Christian when it was written. Lucian seems to have died before the great persecution in 303, in which Dorotheus, Gorgonius, and other officers of the palace were crowned with martyrdom. And Dorotheus is said in his acts (26th December) to have then been chamberlain. This note answers the objections which some critics have raised against the history of so many martyrs who suffered in the West about the beginning of Dioclesian’s reign; when it is certain that the persecution of Carinus was still carried on in several governments. The governors were always enraged against the Christians, under a pretext that the edicts against them had not been revoked. See Tillemont, Mém. de l’Histoire de l’Eglise, t. 5, p. 3. [back] |