INTRODUCTORY NOTICE

LACTANTIUS.

[A.D. 260–330.] Reaching, at last, the era of Constantine, perhaps the reader will share my own feelings, as those of—

“One who long, in thickets and in brakes
Entangled, winds now this way, and now that,
His devious course uncertain, seeking home,
But finds at last a greensward smooth and large,
Courageous, and refreshed for future toil.”

How strange it seems, after three centuries since John the Baptist suffered, to reach a moment when kings are not actively persecuting Christ in His servants!

How marvelous the change must have been in the experience of the early faithful; the Roman Emperor not ashamed of Jesus, and placing the cross on the standards of his legions! Tertullian’s On Flight original: De Fuga and the troubles of Cyprian regarding "the Lapsed" Those who renounced their faith during persecution. are matters of the past. As in a moment, God has changed the world for His people, and their perils have just as suddenly reversed. The world’s favor begins to be the trial of faith, just as its hatred was before. The mild, contemplative attitude of the Church at this period is surprising. It accepts this miracle of the Master with little excitement; but it has been habituated to persecution for so long that it finds much of its discipline, and no small part of its prevailing spirit, neutralized by its very triumph. No more does the martyr offer his heroic testimony and claim his crown beyond this life; there is no longer such a call for celibacy as had been enforced before in volumes of Christian literature; and what need is there now for Antony’s invitation to the desert and the cell? But, on the other hand, these ascetic forms of heroic faith were all that remained to minister to the martyr-spirit and to perpetuate the habits forced upon the early believers. The hermitage and the monastery assumed a new attractiveness and became as dear to sentiment as they had been to principle before. We must not be surprised, then, at the tendencies of the age that were now rapidly developing; but let us rejoice for a moment in the times of refreshing from the Lord now finally granted to that “little flock” to which He had promised the kingdom.

The “conversion of Constantine,” as it is called, introduced the most marvelous revolution in human empire, in practical thought, and in the laws and manners of mankind ever known in history. It is amazing how little the men of that era glorified their own introduction to “marvelous light,” and how very little the Church has left us to tell the story of its emotions when it first found itself at rest from fiery persecutions, or when the Emperor issued the Edict of Milan for the legal observance of “the Day of the Sun.” Sunday. What a day that Easter was, when, emerging from the catacombs and other dens and caves of the earth, the Church herself seemed like one risen from the dead!