Origen in the tenth year of this reign (A.D. 231) withdrew to Caesarea, on finding himself made uncomfortable at Alexandria by the displeasure of Demetrius the bishop; and he left the care of the Christian school to Heraclas, who had been one of his pupils.  Origen’s opinions met with no blame in Caesarea, where Christianity was not yet so far removed from its early simplicity as in Egypt.

The Christians of Syria and Palestine highly prized his teaching when it was no longer valued in Alexandria.  He died at Tyre in the reign of Gallus.

[Illustration:  149.jpg A MODERN SCRIBE]

On the death of Demetrius, Heraclas, who had just before succeeded Origen in the charge of the Christian school, was chosen Bishop of Alexandria; and Christianity had by that time so far spread through the cities of Upper and Lower Egypt that he found it necessary to ordain twenty bishops under him, while three had been found enough by his predecessor.  From his being the head of the bishops, who were all styled fathers, Heraclas received the title of Papa, pope or grandfather, the title afterwards used by the bishops of Rome.

Among the presbyters ordained by Heraclas was Ammonius Saccas, the founder of the platonic school; but he afterwards forsook the religion of Jesus; and we must not mistake him for a second Alexandrian Christian of the name of Ammonius, who can hardly have been the same person as the former, for he never changed his religion, and was the author of the Evangelical Canons, a work afterwards continued by Eusebius of Caesarea.

On the death of the Emperor Alexander, in A.D. 235, while Italy was torn to pieces by civil wars and by its generals’ rival claims for the purple, the Alexandrians seem to have taken no part in the struggles, but to have acknowledged each emperor as soon as the news reached them that he had taken the title.  In one year we find Alexandrian coins of Maximin and his son Maximus, with those of the two Gordians, who for a few weeks reigned in Carthage, and in the next year we again have coins of Maximin and Maximus, with those of Balbinus and Pupienus, and of Gordianus Pius.

The Persians, taking advantage of the weakness in the empire caused by these civil wars, had latterly been harassing the eastern frontier; and it soon became the duty of the young Gordian to march against them in person.  Hitherto the Roman armies had usually been successful; but unfortunately the Persians, or, rather, their Syrian and Arab allies, had latterly risen as much as the Romans had fallen off in courage and warlike skill.  The army of Gordian was routed, and the emperor himself slain, either by traitors or by the enemy.  Hereafter we shall see the Romans paying the just penalty for the example that they had set to the surrounding nations.  They had taught them that conquest should be a people’s chief aim, that the great use of strength was to crush a neighbour; and it was not long before Egypt and the