The gospel having spread itself into Persia, the pagan priests, who worshipped the sun, were greatly alarmed, and dreaded the loss of that influence they had hitherto maintained over the people's minds and properties. Hence they thought it expedient to complain to the emperor, that the christians were enemies to the state, and held a treasonable correspondence with the Romans, the great enemies of Persia.
The emperor Sapores, being naturally averse to christianity, easily believed what was said against the christians, and gave orders to persecute them in all parts of his empire. On account of this mandate, many eminent persons in the church and state fell martyrs to the ignorance and ferocity of the pagans.
Constantine the Great being informed of the persecutions in Persia, wrote a long letter to the Persian monarch, in which he recounts the vengeance that had fallen on persecutors, and the great success that had attended those who had refrained from persecuting the christians. The persecution by this means ended during the life of Sapores; but it was again renewed under the lives of his successors.
_Persecutions under the Arian Heretics._
The author of the Arian heresy was Arius, a native of Lybia, and a priest of Alexandria, who, in A. D. 318, began to publish his errors. He was condemned by a council of Lybian and Egyptian bishops, and that sentence was confirmed by the council of Nice, A. D. 325. After the death of Constantine the Great, the Arians found means to ingratiate themselves into the favour of the emperor Constantinus, his son and successor in the east; and hence a persecution was raised against the orthodox bishops and clergy. The celebrated Athanasius, and other bishops, were banished, and their sees filled with Arians.
In Egypt and Lybia, thirty bishops were martyred, and many other christians cruelly tormented; and, A. D. 386, George, the Arian bishop of Alexandria, under the authority of the emperor, began a persecution in that city and its environs, and carried it on with the most infernal severity. He was assisted in his diabolical malice by Catophonius, governor of Egypt; Sebastian, general of the Egyptian forces; Faustinus the treasurer; and Herachus, a Roman officer.
The persecution now raged in such a manner, that the clergy were driven from Alexandria, their churches were shut, and the severities practised by the Arian heretics were as great as those that had been practised by the pagan idolaters. If a man, accused of being a christian, made his escape, then his whole family were massacred, and his effects confiscated.
_Persecution under Julian the Apostate._
This emperor was the son of Julius Constantius, and the nephew of Constantine the Great. He studied the rudiments of grammar under the inspection of Mardomus, a eunuch, and a heathen of Constantinople. His father sent him some time after to Nicomedia, to be instructed in the christian religion, by the bishop of Eusebius, his kinsman, but his principles were corrupted by the pernicious doctrines of Ecebolius the rhetorician, and Maximus the magician.
Constantius dying in the year 361, Julian succeeded him, and had no sooner attained the imperial dignity, than he renounced Christianity and embraced paganism, which had for some years fallen into great disrepute. Though he restored the idolatrous worship, he made no public edicts against christianity. He recalled all banished pagans, allowed the free exercise of religion to every sect, but deprived all christians of offices at court, in the magistracy, or in the army. He was chaste, temperate, vigilant, laborious, and pious; yet he prohibited any christian from keeping a school or public seminary of learning, and deprived all the christian clergy of the privileges granted them by Constantine the Great.
Bishop Basil made himself first famous by his opposition to Arianism, which brought upon him the vengeance of the Arian bishop of Constantinople; he equally opposed paganism. The emperor's agents in vain tampered with Basil by means of promises, threats, and racks, he was firm in the faith, and remained in prison to undergo some other sufferings, when the emperor came accidentally to Ancyra. Julian determined to examine Basil himself, when that holy man being brought before him, the emperor did every thing in his power to dissuade him from persevering in the faith. Basil not only continued as firm as ever, but, with a prophetic spirit foretold the death of the emperor, and that he should be tormented in the other life. Enraged at what he heard, Julian commanded that the body of Basil should be torn every day in seven different parts, till his skin and flesh were entirely mangled. This inhuman sentence was executed with rigour, and the martyr expired under its severities, on the 28th day of June, A. D. 362.