Church government modified also for a time.
A temporary modification in the government of the Church was also brought about by these times of suffering. Bishops, under the pressure of persecution, were sometimes forced to leave their flocks, or were first tortured and then banished, and their places had to be filled as far as they could be by the presbyters, with the advice of the distant Bishop; whilst at Rome, in the middle of the third century, there was a year's vacancy in the see after the martyrdom of Fabian, on account of the impossibility of bringing neighbouring Bishops into the midst of a storm which was raging with especial fury against the rulers of the Church.
[1] St. John was a martyr in will, though not in deed, being miraculously preserved from injury in the caldron of boiling oil, into which he was plunged by order of Nero or Domitian.
[2] From Dr. Steere's "Account of the Persecutions of the Early Church under the Roman Emperors."
CHAPTER VI
The Church under the Roman Empire
A.D. 312-A.D. 680
Persecution arrested by conversion of Constantine.