Sixthly, after another generation, in the time of Septimius Severus, Eusebius states that there were martyrdoms in every part of the Church. This is the time of which Tertullian writes that Christians were now everywhere, and from their numbers would have been able to wage a civil war with their persecutors, had their religion permitted them. Of this also an eye-witness, Clement of Alexandria, says, "It was a good remark of Zeno about the Indians, that he would rather see one Indian roasted than hear any number of arguments about the endurance of pain. But we have every day a rich stream displayed before our eyes of martyrs roasted, impaled, and beheaded. All these the fear of the law has been a tutor to lead to Christ, and has wrought them up to show their piety by shedding their blood. 'God hath stood in the congregation of gods, and being in the midst of them He judgeth gods.' Who are these? They who are superior to pleasure; they who conquer sufferings; they who know each thing which they do; possessors of true knowledge, who have mastered the world."[191] This was the time when Origen, a youth of seventeen, tried to share with his father, Leonides, the martyr's crown, while death, as the result of sufferings undergone in confession, was reserved for him fifty years later in the persecution under Decius. Many writings of Tertullian bear witness of the persecution of his own time, respecting which he says: "You crucify and impale Christians; you tear open their sides with hooks; we lay down our necks; we are driven before wild beasts; we are burnt in fires; we are banished into islands."[192] Again, we pass thirty years, in which, while emperors hold their hands, yet individual Christians suffer under the law which proscribes their religion in general, and then we come to a seventh persecution of great severity under the Emperor Maximinus, which lasts for three years. After another interval of ten years we reach the great persecution of Decius, the eighth in number, which aims with decision at the general destruction of the Christian clergy and people. The ten years which commence with the reign of Decius contain also two general persecutions under the Emperors Gallus and Valerianus. It is in this period that three Popes, Fabian, Lucius, and Stephen, Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, and Laurence, Deacon at Rome, are crowned with martyrdom. The extant letters of Cyprian and Dionysius of Alexandria bear witness to the wide extent of suffering inflicted upon all classes. Upon this succeeds the longest period of rest which occurs during the three centuries, and is terminated by the persecution commenced in the year 303 by Diocletian, which is likewise the longest, and also the most universal, and the most severe of all.