36 PERSECUTION FROM EARLIEST TIMES aliena quara res publica" was their challenge to Roman patriotism. Moreover, they committed the more unpardonable sin of succeeding everywhere as proselytisers. Christianity thus became no longer a local and occasional disorder, but an imperial gangrene, which needed great surgical activity for its cure.^ Accordingly in 250 Decius made persecution inquisitorial ; imprisonment and torture became frequent, and all Christians were to be required to take part in sacrifices on pain of death. The vddespread prevalence of Christianity is shown by the fact that Gallienus found it necessary to grant indulgences by two edicts of toleration nine years later. The beginning of the inevitable association of the Christian Church with the Roman State appears in the way in which the Church begins to fit into the interstices of the empire — for example, as time went on, "the dioceses generally coincided with the Roman prefectures." ^ ^ It is difficult to mark off the phases of the persecution very definitely. Thus under Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, the imperial lieutenants had the option of exercising "powers of search against the Christians as sacrilegious persons." Trajan and Hadrian preferred to leave the persecution of the Christians to individual informers, who, by prosecuting, ran the risk of incurring the enmity of the Christians round them, but apparently the lieutenants exercised powers which were practi- cally inquisitorial under Marcus Aurelius. — Vide Ramsay's "Church in the Roman Empire," p. 339. I quote from the admirable summary of Mr Taylor Innes in "Church and State" (T. & T. Clark), p. 15.
