It is often alleged that the Church, before the conversion of Constantine, passed through ten persecutions; but the statement gives a very incorrect idea of its actual suffering. It would be more accurate to say that, for between two and three hundred years, the faithful were under the ban of imperial proscription. During all this period they were liable to be pounced upon at any moment by bigoted, domineering, or greedy magistrates. There were not, indeed, ten persecutions conducted with the systematic and sanguinary violence exhibited in the times of Diocletian or of Decius; but there were perhaps provinces of the empire where almost every year for upwards of two centuries some Christians suffered for the faith. [307:1] The friends of the confessors and the martyrs were not slow to acknowledge the hand of Providence, as they traced the history of the emperors by whom the Church was favoured or oppressed. It was remarked that the disciples were not worn out by the barbarities of a continuous line of persecutors; for an unscrupulous tyrant was often succeeded on the throne by an equitable or an indulgent sovereign. Thus, the Christians had every now and then a breathing-time during which their hopes were revived and their numbers recruited. It was observed, too, that the princes, of whose cruelty they had reason to complain, generally ended their career under very distressing circumstances. An ecclesiastical writer who is supposed to have flourished towards the commencement of the fourth century has discussed this subject in a special treatise, in which he has left behind him a very striking account of "The Deaths of the Persecutors." [308:1] Their history certainly furnishes a most significant commentary on the Divine announcement that "the Lord is known by the judgment which he executeth." [308:2] Nero, the first hostile emperor, perished ignominiously by his own hand. Domitian, the next persecutor, was assassinated. Marcus Aurelius died a natural death; but, during his reign, the Empire suffered dreadfully from pestilence and famine; and war raged, almost incessantly, from its commencement to its close. The people of Lyons, who now signalised themselves by their cruelty to the Christians, did not escape a righteous retribution; for about twenty years after the martyrdom of Pothinus and his brethren, the city was pillaged and burned. [308:3] Septimius Severus narrowly escaped murder by the hand of one of his own children. Decius, whose name is associated with an age of martyrdom, perished in the Gothic war. Valerian, another oppressor, ended his days in Persia in degrading captivity. The Emperor Aurelian was assassinated. Diocletian languished for years the victim of various maladies, and is said to have abruptly terminated his life by suicide. Galerius, his son-in-law, died of a most horrible distemper; and Maximin took away his own life by poison. [308:4] The interpretation