Reinstitution of This Persecution

223

The followers of Jesus Christ had enjoyed some rest during this time and for a few years before. But the envy and hatred of some against the Christians grew so great that even Alexander Severus, who otherwise favored the Christians, indeed had built them a church, and, in the manner of the heathen, had placed Christ among the number of the so-called gods, began a persecution against them, or at least continued the one begun under Septimus Severus. This came about chiefly, as Lactantius Firmianus states, through some of the Roman jurists, who, by wrongly interpreting the laws, but especially through a deadly hatred against the Christians, stirred up the Emperor and urged him on to persecute them.

Among those who instigated the Emperor, the one chiefly mentioned is Ulpianus, who was not only a senator, but also a master of requests, and the Emperor's tutor, so that the Emperor regarded him as his father. Therefore the accusations of Ulpianus against the Christians found a willing ear with him the more easily. Lactantius Firmianus calls this Ulpianus and his followers murderers, because they made wicked laws against the godly. He says: "For we read of blasphemous laws and unjust disputes of the jurists against the Christians."

Domitius, surnamed Ulpianus (mentioned above), in his seventh book of the office of the Governors of the Roman provinces, hunted out and collected the edicts and decrees of the princes, such as Nero, Domitian, Trajan, and so on, in order to send instructions from them on how they should punish the Christians who served and confessed the true God. Thus far, Lactantius, according to the annotation of Mellinus, in the 1st book, folio 61, columns 1 and 2, ex Lamprid. Herodian, in Alex. Severo. Lactant. Firmian. Institut., book 5, chapters 11, 12, 19. [n183-2] Also, in Corras., book 1, Missel., chapter 10, although D. P. Pers calls this Emperor a pious and excellent prince: Roomschen Adelaer, printed 1642, page 154, on the name Severus Alexander, in the year 224. On the other hand P. J. Twisck states that in the beginning of his reign he was not favorable to the Christians, so that, through false information, he had some of them put to death for the name of Jesus Christ. Third book, for the year 223, page 60, column 1, from Chron. Mich., folio 141, Merula.