The Christian ministers at Rome[1] were treated with great distinction, and all who had been imprisoned or banished were released or recalled. Costly offerings were made to the churches, and the poor were relieved, even from the emperor's private funds.
The next tyrant to he destroyed for his crimes and impiety was Maximian, "who was detected in a treasonable conspiracy," and after him others of the same family, "all their intentions being miraculously revealed by God through visions to his servant. For he frequently vouchsafed to him manifestations of himself, the divine presence appearing to him in a most marvellous manner, and giving to him many intimations of future events."
The third tyrant was Licinius, who had married the sister of Constantine. This colleague also "employed himself in machinations against his superior, and resolved at last to carry arms against God himself, whose worshipper he knew the emperor to be."
Licinius had forbidden women to receive instruction from the bishops, or even visit the churches with men, "directing the appointment of females to be the teachers of their own sex, and devised other means for effecting the ruin of the churches." The fourth tyrant, Galerius Valerius, ruler of the Eastern provinces, who stood in the way of Constantine, had a fatal disease overtake him, as a judgment from God. And he was loaded with an enormous quantity of fat, from gluttony. A vast number of worms swarmed in him, because he had
- ↑ Stanley says, Constantine, doubtless, gave the Palace of the Lateran to Silvester, Bishop of Rome, and this was the beginning of the papal ascendency. This palace had been the estate of Fausta, the wife of the emperor.
