A. D. 251,
A.U.C.
1004.

Coss. Imp.
Cæs. C.

Traianus

urged by a new and strange partisan, placed themselves on the side of Novatian'.

Early in the year 251 they were liberated from prison and the election of a bishop was contemplated.

For the security of Decius was threatened. Before the Messius Q. commencement of the new year Priscus had assumed in Macedonia the title of Augustus, and allied his legions with P. F. Aug. Cniva and his Goths. Decius left Rome for the scene of III Q.

Decius

Herenn.

Etrusc.

Decius

action. Scarcely was he gone when Julius Valens was proMessius claimed Emperor† behind him, and followed him as far as Cæs. [anno Illyria. There was a sudden absence from the city of all verg. the principal military officers. Valens soon fell. But the Aug.]. * ? Nov. or war of commanders was the Rest of the Church. And though Dec., A.D. threats abounded, and expectations of resumed persecution prevailed, the interval was seized for an election. Cornelius, compelled to accept the result, was by no less than sixteen bishops ordained to the See of Rome.

250.

+ Feb. or

March,

A.D. 251.

In that Imperial world horror followed horror and blood touched blood' so fast that the sense of awe only stirred uneasily from time to time and was still again. But a great people was silently rising over its vast area, for whom Providence and the Innocent Blood were realities, and whose sense of God's Love was deepened by suffering for Him. The tidings were yet some months distant of a treason against

Decius like his own, of the plunging squadrons at dead of night in the all-devouring morass, of the strenuous emperor's disappearance with his loved son. When the news came at last, and the engulfed princes had been added to the gods of Rome', it would have been too strange if there had not survived enough of human nature to make the Christians trace an Avenger in such tragedies; but what was new was the acceptance by the mass of them undoubtingly of their own persecution as a Divine and wholesome chastisement. And, says Cyprian, their enemy had not, 'in the darkest hour of the lovers of God,' succeeded for an instant in any place in silencing their constant 'boast of His praise' until once more 'the world shone out in light".'

Till then security was not assured, but from the day when Decius marched out of the gates the persecution virtually dropped, and 'Peace,' which but a few months before had seemed an impossible blessing, settled tranquilly down upon the Church.

We shall not be far wrong if we fix the ordination of March 5, Cornelius to about the 5th of March3. Easter Day in the

1...uterque in barbarico interfecti sunt, inter Divos relati. Eutrop. ix. 4.

Mundus eluxit,' De Lapsis, 1. Ultione divina' can only refer to the death of Decius in November. This little preface must belong to a later edition, for the treatise was out by the end of March, as we shall see. See below, pp. 156, 175.

Ep. 55. 8. The date of the election of Cornelius is thus arrived at by Lipsius, op. cit. p. 18, pp. 206, 207. His successor Lucius died on the 5th March after having sat eight months and ten days (Liberian Catalogue) in which the three added years are an interpolation. This brings his ordination to June 25, and (if we allow an average time for the vacancy) places the death of Cornelius

in June, and his ordination, two years

three months and ten days previously
(Liberian Catal.), in March.

The date of the 5th of March for
the death of Lucius is prettily sup-
ported by a depraved text of Liber Pon-
tificalis, which says that Cornelius
suffered on 5th March, and committed
the church treasure to the archdeacon
Stephanus.' The introduction of Ste-
phanus shews that Cornelius is here
an error for Lucius from whose life in
the same Pseudo-Damasus comes the
story (Labbe 1. c. 739).

The common date, 4th June, assigned to the election of Cornelius, has disturbed the chronology of the reign of Decius by making it appear that Priscus could not have revolted before April, and has led even Pearson to construct hypotheses of long recesses in the ses

A. D. 251.

April,

A.D. 251.

year 251 was on the 23rd of March, and Cyprian, though unable to keep the Paschal solemnity in his own church, as was the wont of the African bishops', returned very shortly afterwards to Carthage, after fourteen months of absence2. It was some expected move3 on the part of 'the faction' which postponed his return, or the fear of a demonstration which might rekindle persecution. Nothing unusual seems to have occurred. It was recognised that the execution of the edict was suspended', work was instantly resumed with utmost vigour, and the bishops of the province, about the first week of April, began joyfully to muster in the metropolis.

sion of the First Council, and of several
journeys for Novatus to and from Rome.
That date rests however on the mere
application of the duration of Cornelius'
episcopate (two years three months and
ten days) to the 14th of September,
which Jerome gives as the historical
date of his execution at Rome. Corne-
lius was however not put to death, and
that day is the real anniversary of the
martyrdom of Cyprian, together with
whose festival the memorial of Corne-
lius was celebrated at Rome on account
of their friendship and union.

It seems to me possible also that the
coincidence of Cornelius' election and
Lucius' death on 5th March may have
been a cause of error in early calendars.

Eusebius, in assigning three years to the pontificate of Cornelius, blunders

CHAPTER III.

SEQUEL OF THE PERSECUTION.

I.

Cyprian's First Council of Carthage.

Question 1. The Title of Cornelius.

EVENTS had so concurred that the first subject which would demand the attention of this, the first Council of Carthage which had met for perhaps half a century', was quite other than had been contemplated in the agenda.

Cyprian had at the last moment' received the despatch from Cornelius announcing his own election. But with it had been delivered a letter of another tenor;- -a protest against the choice that had been made3. It was from Novatian.

The president felt himself called upon to decide whether he should lay both documents before the Council, or if not, which of the two. He was guided, he says, simply by the tone of the communications. One had the tone of religious sim'plicity; the other rang with the noisy baying of execrations

1 Concil. Agrippinense.

2

Ep. 45. 2 ...jam tunc, fratribus et plebi,' &c.

3 Ep. 45. 2. Dom Maran (Vita S. Cypr. XIX.) takes this letter not to have been a protest, but one from Cornelius: mistakenly, and against the

sense of Baluze (n. p. 432) whom he edits, 'cum ad me talia adversum te (Cornelium) et compresbyteri tecum considentis (Novatiani) scripta venissent, clero et plebi legi præcepi quæ religiosam simplicitatem sonabant...'

' and invectives.' He resolved not to communicate the mass of bitter and offensive charges in writing1 against Cornelius to an audience of partially informed, provincially-educated persons, far from the scene of action, now gathered for deliberation in files about the Altar', and surrounded by the excitable laity of the city. Whether even on these forcible motives he should have withheld them is a question; considering that these councils were the very types of returning freedom, both individually and corporately. We recognise in his act the benevolent despot singularly combined with the scrupulous debater. He took however the politic step of