• The antesiimani were the picked men who fought in the front rank, originally in front of the standards (see Livy's account, xxii. .'i). Calvin tises the same met.iphor in liis note on 1 Ti 1'8 (' jniliti<te nomine subindicat eertandum esse. Atque in universum piis id convenit : proprie tamen Christianis doctoribus, qtii sunt velut antesignani aut duces ').
We may sum up the evidence thus. The avail- able data for the 3rd cent, go to prove that, if some Christians left or tried to leave the army, ol hers found it quite possible to remain ; if some h.ad conscientious objections to entering the legions, others enlisted of their own accord. Natuinlly, it is the cases which led to nuirlyrdom that are chronicled. Instances of men who sullcrcd in the army or for declining to join the army come re- peatedly to light. Hut their number must not be ex.aggerated. It should be remembered that there was nothing to attr,act attention t-o the other class of Christian soldiers who, for one reason or another, never came up to the critical issue, who fought for their country either without raising the general question of war at all or after weighing the inoblem and de(^iding that a healthj' conscience cimld not look at <any other altern.ative than to serve in arms. How important a factor they were in the army by the end of the 3rd cent. m,ay be gathcied indirectly but decisively from the fact that the3' were more than once made the special or primary target of official persecution. Thus, Galerius, incited by his i)ngan mother, over-persuadeil Diocletian, his col- league, to jiersecnte Christians, and one circtim- stance which whetted tlie older man's wrath was that the presence of Christians was sujiposed to obstruct the pagan rites of divin.ation ; when some Christians who had to be juesent at the ceremony made the sign of the cross, the soothsayers at once blamed this for the failure of the rites. The persecution was specially directed against officers .and the rank .and hie of the army (l.act, de Mart. Persernl. 10), wlio were ordered to oiler sacrihce on penalty of dismissal from the service. At first, however, the attack on Christians in the army was not pushed home (cf. Kus. HE viii. 4) ; the auth(ui- ties evidently found that their Christian olii(aas and privates were too resolute and also too nunier- otis to make a ruthless ]iolicy .advisable. Only one or two cases of martyrdom occurred. But during the live years of the great persecution, from 303 onwards, the army contributed its martyrs to the roll-call of the Church, men like Uasius the private, who refused to take part in the revels of the Saturnalia (cf. F. Cumont, in Anahcta Bollan- diann, Brussels and Paris, 1897, xvi. 5f.), Sebastian, an officer in the Prsetorian Guard, who was shot to de:tth by archers for declining to abandon his religion (cf. H. Delehaye, in ib. xvi. 209 f.), and Seleucus, either a veteran or one who had with- drawn from the army (Ens. de Mart. Pal. xi. 20-23), and who was put to death at Ca-sarea (further par- ticulars in A. J. Mason, The Historic Martyrs of tlie Primitive Church, London, 1905, p. 'J03f. ). The (early 4th cent.) Aits of Callistrntvs (cf. F. C. Conyljeare, Mo»iii)ients of Early Christianity-, London, 1896, p. "273 f.) also assign to the great per.secution under Diocletian the martyrdom of that saint and forty-nine of his fellow-soldiers, either at Rome or at Constantinople.
' Early in 303 the Great Persecution was begun with the deinoliti<m of the Church at Nicomedi.a : and there was a tall j^oung ofiicer looking on with thoughts of his own, like Napoleon watching the riot of June 1792.'* But Constantino was not to get his chance, even three years later when be became one of the Ciesars. It was only in 31 1 that the death of Galerius gave him the opi'ortunity of crushing Maxentins at the Milvian Bridge in 312 ; even tlien the vision of the Cross did not dclinitely stamp the victorious general or the army as Chris- tian, but the Christians and Constantine were drawing closer together, and their union was sealed by the final struggle with Licinius (A.Ii. 323), who suddenly committed himself to a fresh
• II. M. Gwatkin, in Camhridije Medieval History, i. [Cam- bridge, 1911)2.
policy of repression apiinst the Church, ordering all the Christians in his army to apostatize, on penaltj' of dismissal from tlie service. The sacri- iice involved in lliis dismissal «as serious, for, when a veteran received his honourahle discharge (hone.sta missio), he not only received his hounty (see ahove, p. 655) hut was generally made a Ivoman citizen, if he was not already enfranchised ; he was also assigned land to settle upon as his own property. The mere prospect of the pay secured to him at the end of his service was a strong motive for adliering to the army, as Vegetius observes (ii. 20 : ' Miles . . . qui sumptus suos scit apiid signa depositos, de deserendo nihil cogitat, magis diligit signa, pi'o illis in acie fortius dimioat'). We are hardly sur- prised, therefore, to discover that some of those who allowed themselves to be cashiered rather than offer the pagan sacrifices, and who conscien- tiously gave up their military belts, reconsidered their position afterwards and by bribery regained their position in the army. It is their case that is decided by the Council of Nicaia (canon xii. ), which ordered such soldiers, who had returned like dogs to their vomit (an echo of 2 P 2™) — i.e. to serve in a pagan army fighting against Constantine, who «as sympathetic to the Church— to undergo a pro- longed penance. But no censure was passed on military service as such. Others were apparently treated with more rigour than dismissal from the service,* if the famous story (cf. Basil's 19th Homily, ' in Sanctos Quadraginta Marty res ') of the Forty Soldiers of Sebaste is to be referred to this period. For declining to sacrifice, tliey were first plunged in an ice-cold lake, and then tortured to deatii. These heroes belonged to the famous Melitene legion, which had already Christian tra- ditions (see above, p. 663), and it was to this legion that Polyeuctes also belonged, although the 4th cent. Acts of this military martyr (cf. F. C. Cony- beare. Monuments of Early Christianity", pp. 123- 146) yield no authentic evidence for the period of his death. The martyrdom of Theodore, an officer in high command (ib., p. 217 f.), is, however, definitely assigned to the period when Licinins was purging his army. Soldiers who had recanted under the terrible pressure of the Diocletian per- secution formed a special item in the problem which the lapsi furnished to the Church (Epiph. H(Er. Ixviii. 2).