The ninth persecution was that of Valerian, who, although at first favorable to the Christians, became one of their greatest opposers at the instigation of their sworn enemy, Marcian. At this date we find upon the list of martyrs the eminent names of Popes Stephen and Sixtus II., Lawrence the Roman deacon, and Cyprian, the great convert and bishop of Carthage.
The persecution of Diocletian was the last and the bloodiest of all. It raged from 303 to 310. Maximian, the emperor’s colleague, had already put to death many Christians, and among others, on the 22d of September, 286, Maurice and his Theban legion, before the persecution became general throughout the Roman Empire. It began in this form at Nicomedia on occasion of a fire that consumed a part of the imperial palace, and which was maliciously ascribed to the Christians; and it is remarkable that the two extreme persecutions of the early church should both have begun with a false charge of incendiarism. Diocletian used to sit upon his throne at Nicomedia, watching the death-pangs of his Christian subjects who were being burned, not singly, but in great crowds. Many officers and servants of his household perished, and, to distinguish them from the rest, they were dropped into the sea with large stones fastened about their necks. A special object of the persecutors was to destroy the churches and tombs of earlier martyrs, to seize the vessels used in the Holy Sacrifice, and to burn the liturgical books and the Holy Scriptures. The _Roman Martyrology_ makes a particular mention on the 2d of January of those who suffered death rather than deliver up these books to the tyrant. Although innumerable copies of the Scriptures perished, not a few were saved, and new copies multiplied either by favor of the less stringent executors of the law, or because the privilege was bought by the faithful at a great price. Some years ago the German Biblical critic Tischendorf discovered on Mount Sinai a Greek codex of extraordinary antiquity and only two removes from an original of Origen. It is connected with one of the celebrated martyrs of this persecution, and bears upon what we have just said of the Sacred Scriptures. In this codex, at the end of the Book of Esther, there is a note attesting that the copy was collated with a very ancient manuscript that had itself been corrected by the hand of the blessed martyr Pamphilus, priest of Cæsarea in Palestine, while in prison, assisted by Antoninus, his fellow-prisoner, who read for him from a copy of the Hexapla of Origen, which had been revised by that author himself. The touching spectacle of these two men, both of whom gave their blood for the faith, occupied, in the midst of the inconveniences, pain, and weariness of captivity, in transcribing good copies of the Bible, is one of the many instances, discovered in every age, showing the care that the church has had to multiply and guard from error the holy written Word of God.