After celebrating the felicity and increase of the church, under a long succession of good princes, he adds, "Extitit post annos plurimos, execrabile animal, Decius, qui vexaret Ecclesiam."] [Footnote 122: Euseb.l.vi.c.39.

Cyprian.Epistol.55.The see of Rome remained vacant from the martyrdom of Fabianus, the 20th of January, A.D.259, till the election of Cornelius, the 4th of June, A.
D.251 Decius had probably left Rome, since he was killed before the end of that year.] The administration of Valerian was distinguished by a levity and inconstancy ill suited to the gravity of the Roman Censor.

In the first part of his reign, he surpassed in clemency those princes who had been suspected of an attachment to the Christian faith.

In the last three years and a half, listening to the insinuations of a minister addicted to the superstitions of Egypt, he adopted the maxims, and imitated the severity, of his predecessor Decius.

[123] The accession of Gallienus, which increased the calamities of the empire, restored peace to the church; and the Christians obtained the free exercise of their religion by an edict addressed to the bishops, and conceived in such terms as seemed to acknowledge their office and public character.