216 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, princes would adopt the same measures with regard • to their established clergy, Marcellus, the former of those prelates, had thrown the capital into confusion, by the severe penance which he imposed on a great number of christians, who, during the late persecution, had renounced or dissembled their religion. The rage of faction broke out in frequent and violent seditions ; the blood of the faithful was shed by each other's hands, and the exile of Marcellus, whose prudence seems to have been less eminent than his zeal, was found to be the only measure capable of restoring peace to the distracted church of Rome ^. The be- haviour of INlensurius, bishop of Carthage, appears to have been still more reprehensible. A deacon of that city had published a libel against the emperor. The offender took refuge in the episcopal palace ; and though it was somewhat early to advance any claims of ecclesiastical immunities, the bishop refused to de- liver him up to the officers of justice. For this trea- sonable resistance, Mensurius was summoned to court, and instead of receiving a legal sentence of death or banishment, he was permitted, after a short examina- tion, to return to his diocese'. Such was the happy condition of the christian subjects of Maxentius, that whenever they were desirous of procuring for their own use any bodies of martyrs, they were obliged to purchase them from the most distant provinces of the east. A story is related of Aglae, a Roman lady, de- scended from a consular ftxmily, and possessed of so
- > The epitaph of Marcellus is to be found in Gruter, Inscript. p. 1172.
No. 3. and it contains all that we know of his history. Marcellinus and IMarcellus, whose names follow in the list of popes, are supposed by many Clitics to be different persons ; but the learned abbe de Longuerue was con- vinced that they were one and the same. Veridicus rector lapsis quia crimina flere Praedixit miseris, fuit omnibus hostis amarus. Hinc furor, hinc odium ; sequitur discordia, lites, Seditio, csedesj solvuntur foedera pacis. Crimen ob alterius, Christum qui in pace negavit, Finibus expulsus patriae est fentate tyranni. Ha2c breviter Damasus voluit comperta referre : Marcelli populus meritum cognoscere posset. We may observe that Damasus was made bishop of Rome A. D. 366. ' Optalus contr. Donatist, 1. i. c. 17, 18.
