[145] It could scarcely be expected that any government should suffer the action of Marcellus the Centurion to pass with impunity.

On the day of a public festival, that officer threw away his belt, his arms, and the ensigns of his office, and exclaimed with a loud voice, that he would obey none but Jesus Christ the eternal King, and that he renounced forever the use of carnal weapons, and the service of an idolatrous master.

The soldiers, as soon as they recovered from their astonishment, secured the person of Marcellus.

He was examined in the city of Tingi by the president of that part of Mauritania; and as he was convicted by his own confession, he was condemned and beheaded for the crime of desertion.

[146] Examples of such a nature savor much less of religious persecution than of martial or even civil law; but they served to alienate the mind of the emperors, to justify the severity of Galerius, who dismissed a great number of Christian officers from their employments; and to authorize the opinion, that a sect of enthusiastics, which avowed principles so repugnant to the public safety, must either remain useless, or would soon become dangerous, subjects of the empire.
[Footnote 144: Eusebius, l.viii.c.4, c.17.He limits the number of military martyrs, by a remarkable expression, of which neither his Latin nor French translator have rendered the energy.