Book 8
Late Antiquity Eusebius of Caesarea GreekThe Eighth Book of the Ecclesiastical History contains the following: I. On the things before the persecution of our day. II. On the demolition of the churches. III. On the manner of those who contended in the persecution. IV. On the celebrated martyrs of God, how they filled every place with their memory, binding on themselves manifold crowns for true religion. V. On the events at Nicomedia. VI. On the events concerning the imperial households. VII. On the Egyptians in Phoenicia. VIII. On the events in Egypt. IX. On the events in the Thebaid. X. The written teachings of Phileas the martyr concerning the things done at Alexandria. XI. On the events in Phrygia. XII. On very many other men and women who contended in various ways. XIII. On the presidents of the church who showed by their own blood the genuineness of the true religion they championed. XIV. On the character of the enemies of true religion. XV. On the things that befell those without. XVI. On the change of affairs for the better. XVII. On the recantation of the rulers.
Having described the succession of the apostles in seven whole books, in this eighth treatise we think it necessary to hand down, for the knowledge of those after us also, the things of our own day, which are worthy of no ordinary record; and our account will take its beginning from here.
How great and what manner of glory, together with freedom of speech, the word of true religion toward the God of all, proclaimed to the world through Christ, was deemed worthy of among all men, both Greeks and barbarians, before the persecution of our day, is beyond our power worthily to relate.
Proofs of it would be the favours of the rulers toward our people, to whom they even entrusted the governorships of provinces, releasing them from the agony concerning sacrifice, on account of the great friendship they preserved toward our doctrine.
What need is there to speak of those in the imperial households and of the rulers over all? who permitted their own people, who openly avowed before them the divine word both in profession and in life—wives and children and servants—all but to glory in the freedom of the faith; whom they esteemed exceptionally and more than their fellow-servants, such as was that Dorotheus,
most well-disposed and most faithful of all toward them, and on this account preeminently honoured above those in offices and governorships; and with him the renowned Gorgonius, and all who, like these, were deemed worthy of the same honour on account of the word of God;
and what acceptance one might see the rulers of each church deemed worthy of among all the procurators and governors. How could one describe those assemblies of tens of thousands, and the multitudes of those gathering in every city, and the notable concourses in the houses of prayer? On whose account, no longer content with the old buildings, they raised from the foundations spacious churches, broad in extent, throughout all the cities.
And as these things went forward with the times and increased day by day to growth and greatness, no envy held them back, nor was any evil demon able to bewitch them, nor to hinder them by the plots of men, so long as the divine and heavenly hand sheltered and guarded its own people, as being worthy.
But when, through too much freedom, our affairs were changed to laxity and sloth, some envying and reviling others, and we all but warring against ourselves with weapons, as it were, and spears of words, rulers attacking rulers and peoples rising in faction against peoples, and unspeakable hypocrisy and dissembling advancing to the utmost height of wickedness, then indeed the divine judgment, as is its way, while the assemblies were still being held, gently and moderately began to stir up its visitation, the persecution beginning from the brethren in the army;
but as we, being insensible, not only did not strive to render the Deity gracious and merciful, but, like certain atheists, reckoning our affairs unheeded and unwatched, added wickedness upon wickedness; and those who seemed to be our pastors, casting aside the rule of godliness, were inflamed with mutual contentions, increasing these very things alone—the strifes and threats and jealousy and the enmity and hatred toward one another—vehemently championing their love of power as if it were a tyranny; then indeed, then, according to the saying of Jeremiah, 'The Lord in His wrath darkened the daughter of Zion, and cast down from heaven the glory of Israel, and remembered not the footstool of His feet in the day of His wrath; but the Lord overwhelmed all the beautiful things of Israel and threw down all his fences,'
and according to the things foretold in the Psalms, 'He overthrew the covenant of His servant and profaned to the ground'—through the demolition of the churches—'His sanctuary, and threw down all his fences; He made his strongholds cowardice. And all who passed by the way plundered the multitudes of the people, and besides, he became a reproach to his neighbours. For He exalted the right hand of his enemies and turned away the help of his sword and did not aid him in the war; nay, He made him cease from purification, and dashed his throne to the ground, and shortened the days of his time, and over all poured out his shame.'
All these things, indeed, have been fulfilled in our day, when we saw with our own eyes the houses of prayer cast down from on high to their very foundations, and the inspired and sacred Scriptures given over to fire in the midst of the marketplaces, and the pastors of the churches shamefully hiding themselves here and there, and some unseemly taken and mocked by the enemies—when, according to another prophetic word, 'contempt was poured upon rulers, and He made them wander in a trackless and pathless place.'
But it is not for us to describe their final melancholy calamities, since neither is it fitting for us to hand down to memory their dissensions among themselves before the persecution, and their follies; on which account we have determined to relate nothing more concerning them than that by which we may justify the divine judgment.
Therefore we have not been moved to make mention either of those who were tried by the persecution, or of those who utterly suffered shipwreck of their salvation and of their own will were cast into the depths of the surge; but only those things will we add to the general history which may be of profit, first to ourselves, then also to those after us. Let us go on, then, from here, to describe in summary the sacred contests of the martyrs of the divine word.
This was the nineteenth year of the reign of Diocletian, the month Dystrus—which would be called March among the Romans—in which, as the feast of the Saviour's Passion drew near, imperial letters were everywhere published, commanding that the churches be levelled to the ground and the Scriptures destroyed by fire; and proclaiming that those who held office should be deprived of it, and those in households, if they persisted in the profession of Christianity, should be deprived of their freedom.
And the first writing against us was of this kind; but not long after, other letters coming in succession, it was ordered that the presidents of the churches in every place should first be committed to bonds, and then afterward be compelled by every device to sacrifice.
Then indeed, then, very many of the rulers of the churches, eagerly contending against dread torments, displayed records of great contests; but countless others, their souls numbed beforehand by cowardice, were thus readily weakened at the first onset; and of the rest, each underwent diverse forms of tortures—one being maltreated in body with scourges, another punished with rackings and unbearable scrapings, in which some already met an unhappy end of life. But others again passed through the contest in other ways:
for one, when others forced him by violence and brought him to the all-abominable and unholy sacrifices, was dismissed as having sacrificed, even though he had not sacrificed; and another, who had not approached at all nor touched any accursed thing, but when others said that he had sacrificed, went off bearing the slander in silence; another, half-dead, was taken up and cast out as if already a corpse,
and another again, lying on the ground, was dragged a long way by the feet, reckoned among those who had sacrificed. And one cried out and testified with a loud voice his refusal of the sacrifice, and another shouted that he was a Christian, glorying in the confession of the saving name; another insisted that he had not sacrificed and never would.
Yet these too were struck on the mouth and silenced by the multitude of the military array stationed for this purpose, and beaten on the face and cheeks and thrust out by force; so utterly did the enemies of true religion set store by the appearance of having accomplished their end. But these things did not avail them against the holy martyrs; of whom what account could suffice us for an exact narration?
For one might relate countless numbers who displayed a wonderful eagerness for the true religion of the God of all, not only from the time when the persecution against all was stirred up, but much earlier, while peace was still being maintained.
For just now, but very lately, as if from a deep stupor, he who had received the power began to bestir himself, and while still secretly and obscurely attempting the churches in the interval after the time of Decius and Valerian, and not all at once stripping for the war against us, but making trial only of those in the camps (for thus he thought the rest would easily be taken, if he first overcame and prevailed against those), one could see very many of those in the army most gladly embracing the private life beforehand, that they might not be deniers of their piety toward the Maker of all.
For when the commander, whoever he was, just then first set his hand to the persecution against the troops, sorting and purging those enrolled in the camps, and giving them the choice either, by obeying, to enjoy the rank that belonged to them, or, on the contrary, to be deprived of it if they set themselves against the order, very many soldiers of Christ's kingdom, without delay, unhesitatingly preferred the confession of Him to the seeming glory and prosperity which they held.
And already, though rarely, one here and another there of these exchanged not only the loss of their rank, but even death, for their pious resolve; the contriver of the plot at that time acting still with some moderation, and venturing in the case of some to go so far as blood—the multitude of the faithful, as it seems, still deterring him and making him shrink from rushing all at once into the war against all. But when he stripped more openly for the attack, it is not possible to relate in words how many and what manner of martyrs of God it was given to behold with one's eyes among those dwelling throughout all the cities and the country districts.
At once, then, one of those not obscure, but exceedingly distinguished according to the dignities esteemed in this life, as soon as the writing against the churches was set up at Nicomedia, stirred by zeal toward God and impelled by a fervent faith, took it as it lay in a public and conspicuous place, and tore it to pieces as unholy and most impious, while two of the emperors were present in the same city—the eldest of all, and he who held the fourth rank of authority from him. But this man, the first of those at that time to distinguish himself in this manner, and at the same time enduring such things as were likely for so daring a deed, preserved his serenity and calm to his very last breath.
But of all who are ever celebrated as admirable and renowned for courage, whether among Greeks or barbarians, the season brought forth divine and distinguished martyrs in Dorotheus and the imperial pages; who, although deemed worthy of the highest honour with their masters, and not falling short of genuine children in their affection toward them, accounted as truly greater wealth than the glory and luxury of this life the reproaches and toils for true religion, and the manifold deaths newly devised against them. Of one of these we will mention what end of life he met, leaving it to our readers to consider from him also the things that befell the others.
A certain man was led forth into the midst in the aforesaid city, under the rulers we have mentioned. Being commanded to sacrifice, when he stood firm, he was ordered to be raised up naked and aloft, and his whole body to be torn with scourges, until, overcome, he should do even against his will what was commanded.
But when, even suffering these things, he was unmoved, they next mingled vinegar with salt and poured it over the parts of his body that were now putrefying, the bones already showing through; and when he trod these pains underfoot too, a gridiron and fire were thereupon brought into the midst, and, like edible meat, the remnants of his body were consumed by the fire, not all at once, lest he should be quickly released, but little by little, those who set him on the pyre not being permitted to leave off until, even after such things, he should assent to what was commanded.
But he, holding fast to his resolve, victorious, gave up his soul in the very midst of the tortures. Such was the martyrdom of one of the imperial pages, worthy indeed of his very name; for he was called Peter.
The things concerning the rest, though no less worthy of mention, we will pass over, sparing the due proportion of our account, recording only this much: that Dorotheus and Gorgonius, together with very many others of the imperial household, after their manifold contests, ended their life by the noose, and carried off the prizes of their God-given victory.
At this time Anthimus, who then presided over the church at Nicomedia, was beheaded for the testimony of Christ; and to him there was added a whole multitude of martyrs, when, I know not how, a fire was kindled in those very days in the palace at Nicomedia, which, a false rumour being spread that it had been attempted by our people, the godly there, by the imperial command, in whole households and in heaps, some were slaughtered with the sword, others perfected by fire—when an account holds that, with a certain divine and unspeakable eagerness, men together with women leapt upon the pyre; and the executioners bound another multitude upon boats and threw them into the depths of the sea.
And as for the imperial pages, who after death had been committed to the earth with fitting burial, the reputed masters thought it necessary to dig them up afresh and cast them also into the sea, lest, lying in tombs, any should worship them, accounting them, as they supposed, gods. Such were the things accomplished at Nicomedia at the beginning of the persecution.
But not long after, when others in the region called Melitene, and again others about Syria, had attempted to seize the empire, an imperial command went out that the presidents of the churches everywhere should be cast into prisons and bonds.
And the spectacle of what then took place surpasses all narration, a countless multitude being imprisoned in every place, and the prisons everywhere, long ago prepared for murderers and grave-robbers, then being filled with bishops and presbyters and deacons, readers and exorcists, so that there was no longer room left there for those condemned for crimes.
And when, again, other letters followed the first, in which it was ordered that those imprisoned who sacrificed should be allowed to go free, but those who resisted should be torn with countless tortures, how could one again here number the multitude of the martyrs in each province, and especially those in Africa and the nation of the Moors, and the Thebaid and throughout Egypt? from which, having gone forth into other cities and provinces, they distinguished themselves by their martyrdoms.
We know, indeed, those of them who shone forth in Palestine, and we know also those at Tyre in Phoenicia; whom, seeing them, who was not astounded at the countless scourges, and at the steadfastness in these of the truly marvellous champions of true religion, and at the contest immediately after the scourges against man-eating beasts, and the assaults in this of leopards and various bears and wild boars and oxen branded with fire and iron, and the wonderful endurance of those noble men against each of the beasts?
At which doings we ourselves too were present, when we observed the divine power of our attested Saviour, even Jesus Christ himself, present with and manifestly displaying itself to the martyrs; the man-eating beasts for a long time not daring to touch or approach the bodies of the God-beloved, but rushing upon the others, whoever they were that from without were goading them on, while the holy champions alone—standing naked and waving their hands and drawing the beasts upon themselves (for this was what they were commanded to do)—the beasts did not touch at all, but, even when at times they made for them, were as if driven back by some more divine power and again retired backward;
which, continuing a long time, afforded no small wonder to the beholders, so that, because the first beast did nothing, a second and a third were let loose against one and the same martyr.
One might be amazed at the dauntless endurance of those holy ones in these things, and at the firm and unshaken resolve in young bodies. You might see one not yet a full twenty years old standing without bonds and spreading out his hands into the form of a cross, and with an undismayed and unmoved mind most calmly engaged in prayers to the Deity, in no way shifting nor turning aside anywhere from the spot where he stood, while bears and leopards breathing rage and death all but laid hold of his very flesh, but somehow, by a divine and unspeakable power, were all but stopped at the mouth, and again ran back behind.
Such was this one. Again you might see others (for they were five in all) cast before an enraged bull, who tossed into the air with his horns the others coming up from without, and tore them, leaving them to be taken up half-dead; but when in rage and threat he rushed upon the holy martyrs alone, he was not even able to come near them, but, stamping with his feet and using his horns this way and that, and through the goadings of the branding-irons breathing rage and threat, he was dragged back by the holy providence, so that, when this beast too had done them no harm whatever, other beasts were let loose against them.
Finally, then, after the dread and varied assaults of these beasts, they were all slaughtered with the sword, and, instead of earth and graves, were given over to the waves of the sea.
Such was the contest of the Egyptians who at Tyre displayed their struggles for true religion. But one might marvel also at those of them who suffered martyrdom in their own land, where countless numbers, men together with women and children, despising the transitory life for the teaching of our Saviour, endured diverse deaths: some of them, after scrapings and rackings and most grievous scourgings and countless other manifold tortures dreadful to hear, were given over to fire; some were swallowed up in the sea; others courageously stretched out their own heads to those who cut them off; some died under the tortures; others perished by famine; and others again were crucified, some after the manner customary for malefactors, and some yet more cruelly, nailed head downward, and kept alive until they perished by famine upon the very crosses.
But all the indignities and pains which the martyrs in the Thebaid endured surpass all account—scraped over the whole body with potsherds instead of claws, even until they departed life; and women, bound by one foot and raised aloft into the air, head downward by certain machines, their bodies wholly naked and uncovered, presenting this most shameful and of all the cruellest and most inhuman spectacle to all who beheld;
while others again died bound to trees and stumps; for, drawing together by certain machines the strongest of the branches, and stretching to each of these one of the martyr's legs, they let the branches go to be carried back to their own nature, devising a sudden tearing apart of the limbs against those upon whom they attempted these things.
And all these things were wrought not for a few days or for some brief time, but over a long interval of whole years, sometimes more than ten, sometimes above twenty in number being put to death, at other times no fewer than thirty, sometimes near sixty, and again at another time a hundred men in a single day, together with quite young children and women, were slain, condemned to manifold and changing punishments.
We ourselves too, being on the spot, observed many at once in a single day, some undergoing beheading, some the punishment by fire, so that the murdering iron was blunted and, growing weak, was broken in pieces, and the executioners themselves, growing weary, relieved one another in turns;
when also we beheld the most wonderful impulse and the truly divine power and eagerness of those who had believed in the Christ of God. For as soon as sentence was pronounced against the former, others from this side and that leapt up to the tribunal before the judge, confessing themselves Christians, taking no thought for the terrors and the manifold kinds of tortures, but undismayed speaking freely of their piety toward the God of all, and with joy and laughter and gladness receiving the final sentence of death, so that they sang psalms and sent up hymns and thanksgivings to the God of all up to their very last breath.
Wonderful, then, were these too; but exceptionally more wonderful were those who, distinguished by wealth and noble birth and glory, by learning and philosophy, yet set all these in the second place to true religion and to faith in our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ:
such as Philoromus was, who had been entrusted with no ordinary office of the imperial administration at Alexandria, and who, with his dignity and Roman honour, escorted by soldiers, was examined day by day; and Phileas, bishop of the church of the Thmuites, a man distinguished both in the public life and offices of his country and in philosophic discourse;
who, though countless of their kinsmen and other friends entreated them, and besides the rulers in office, and the judge himself exhorting that they should take pity on themselves and spare their children and wives, were by no means led by so many to choose to love their life and to despise the laws of our Saviour concerning confession and denial; but with manly and philosophic reasoning, or rather with a pious and God-loving soul, standing firm against all the judge's threats and insults, both were beheaded.
And since we said that Phileas was a man of much account also for the learning of those without, let him come forward as his own witness, at once to show what manner of man he was, and to relate the martyrdoms that befell at Alexandria in his time more exactly than we, in these words:
From the writings of Phileas to the Thmuites: 'All these examples and patterns and noble tokens being set before us in the divine and sacred Scriptures, the blessed martyrs with us, without delay, fixing the eye of the soul purely upon the God over all, and taking into mind the death for the sake of true religion, held fast to their calling; finding our Lord Jesus Christ to have become man for us, that He might cut off all sin and lay up for us provisions for the entrance into eternal life. For "He counted it not a thing to be grasped to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and being found in fashion as a man, humbled himself unto death, even the death of the cross."
Wherefore also the Christ-bearing martyrs, emulating the greater gifts, endured every toil and every contrivance of torments, not once only, but some even a second time; and though the bodyguards vied against them in all manner of threats, not only in words but also in deeds, they did not yield in resolve, because perfect love casts out fear.
To recount whose virtue and the courage shown under each torture, what account would suffice? For, license being given to all who wished to insult them, some struck with clubs, others with rods, others with scourges, others again with thongs, and others with cords.
And the spectacle of the maltreatments was a varied one and held much wickedness in it. For some, with their two hands bound behind, were hung up on the wood and stretched in every limb by certain machines; then thus, throughout the whole body, the torturers, by command, applied themselves—not, as with murderers, on the sides only, but also on the belly and legs and cheeks they punished with the instruments; others were hung suspended from the portico by one hand, having from the joints and limbs a tension more dreadful than every pain; others were bound facing the pillars, not standing on their feet, but with the bonds drawn tight by the weight of their bodies forcing them down.
And this they endured not only while the governor conversed with them and was at leisure, but well-nigh through the whole day. For when he passed on to others, he left those in charge of his authority to keep watch over the former, if perchance any, overcome by the tortures, seemed to be giving way; and he ordered them mercilessly to apply the bonds, and afterward, when they were at their last gasp, to lay them down and drag them on the ground;
for there was not even a part of any thought for us among them, but they so thought and acted as though we were no longer existing, the adversaries having devised this second torture, besides the blows.
There were also those who, after the maltreatments, lay upon the wood, both feet stretched apart through the four holes, so that of necessity they lay upon their backs upon the wood, unable to stand because of the fresh wounds from the blows over the whole body; and others, flung upon the ground, lay there from the combined assault of the tortures, presenting to the beholders a sight more dreadful than the act, bearing on their bodies the manifold and various devices of the tortures.
These things being so, some died under the tortures, putting the adversary to shame by their endurance; some, shut up half-dead in the prison, after not many days, worn out by the pains, were perfected; and the rest, obtaining recovery by tending, with time and the stay in prison grew more confident.
Thus, then, when it was ordered that the choice should lie open, either, by touching the accursed sacrifice, to be unmolested and to obtain from them the accursed freedom, or, by not sacrificing, to receive the sentence of death, without delay they went gladly to death; for they knew the things foreordained for us by the holy Scriptures. For it says, "He who sacrifices to other gods shall be utterly destroyed," and that "You shall have no other gods but me."'
Such are the words of the martyr who was truly both a philosopher and a lover of God, which, before the final sentence, while still in the prisoners' ranks, he had sent to the brethren of his community, at once setting forth the things in which he was, and at the same time urging them on to hold fast, even after him, to the true religion in Christ for which he was on the point of being perfected.
But what need is there to say much, and to set forth new contests after new of the godly martyrs throughout the world, especially of those no longer besieged by common law, but in the manner of war?
Already, indeed, soldiers, surrounding in a circle a whole little town of Christians in Phrygia, every soul of it, and setting fire to it, burned it up, together with the infants and women who called upon the God over all; because all the inhabitants of the city, with one accord—the curator himself and the generals, with all in office and the whole people—confessing themselves Christians, would in no way obey those who commanded idolatry.
And another man who had attained Roman dignity, Adauctus by name, of a family distinguished among the Italians, a man who had advanced through every honour with the emperors, so that he had blamelessly passed through the general administrations of what is among them called the magistracy and the office of catholicus, distinguished in all these things by his achievements in true religion and his confessions of the Christ of God, was adorned with the diadem of martyrdom, enduring the contest for true religion in the very office of catholicus.
Why need I now mention the rest by name, or count the multitude of the men, or depict the manifold maltreatments of the wonderful martyrs—now slain with axes, as happened to those in Arabia; now having their legs broken, as befell those in Cappadocia; sometimes hung up on high by the feet, head downward, and, a slow fire being kindled beneath, suffocated by the smoke given off from the burning fuel, as was inflicted on those in Mesopotamia; sometimes having their noses and ears and hands cut off and the rest of their members and parts butchered, as was the case at Alexandria?
Why need I rekindle the memory of those at Antioch, roasted on gridirons of fire, not to death, but for a prolonged punishment; and others who plunged their right hands into the very fire sooner than touch the accursed sacrifice? Some of whom, fleeing the trial, before they were taken and came into the hands of the plotters, threw themselves down from on high from lofty houses, accounting death a prize snatched from the wickedness of the impious.
And a certain holy and wonderful one in the virtue of her soul, but in body a woman, and otherwise renowned among all at Antioch for wealth and birth and good repute, who had brought up by the laws of true religion a pair of daughters distinguished for the bloom and prime of their bodies—when the great envy stirred against them, searching out by every means where they lay hid, busied itself about them, and then, learning that they were staying in a foreign land, deliberately summoned them to Antioch, and they were now caught within the soldiers' nets—seeing herself and her daughters in straits, and setting before them in words the dreadful things to come from men, and the most unbearable of all dreadful things, the threat of fornication, and exhorting that neither she nor her daughters should endure to hear of it even with the tips of their ears, and saying that to betray their souls to the slavery of the demons was worse than all deaths and than every destruction, suggested that the one release from all these things was flight to the Lord.
And then, having together agreed in resolve, and decently arranging their bodies with their garments, when they had come to the very middle of the road, asking the guards for a little space to withdraw, they flung themselves into a river flowing by.
These, then, destroyed themselves. But another pair of virgins at Antioch itself, in all things godly and truly sisters, illustrious in family, splendid in life, young in years, fair in body, reverent in soul, pious in manner, wonderful in zeal—as though the earth could not bear to carry such as these—the worshippers of the demons commanded to be cast into the sea.
Such things, then, befell among these. But others in Pontus suffered things dreadful to the ears: pierced in the fingers, through the tips of the nails, with sharp reeds in both hands; and others, lead being melted by fire, having the seething and red-hot material poured over their backs, and roasted in the most necessary parts of the body;
and others endured, through their secret members and entrails, shameful and unfeeling sufferings, not even to be told in words, which the noble and lawful judges, displaying their cleverness as if it were some excellence of wisdom, more ambitiously devised, ever striving to surpass one another with newly found maltreatments, as if for the prizes of a contest.
And the last of the calamities was when, at length, wearied by the excess of evils and worn out with killing, and having had their fill and surfeit of the shedding of blood, they turned to what they reckoned kind and humane, so as to seem no longer to contrive anything dreadful against us;
for they said it was not fitting to defile the cities with the blood of fellow-citizens, nor to charge the supreme rule of the rulers with cruelty, since it was gracious and mild toward all, but rather that the benefit of the humane and imperial power should be extended to all, no longer punishing them with death; for this punishment against us had been remitted, on account of the humanity of the rulers.
Then it was commanded that the eyes should be gouged out and one of the two legs maimed. For these were to them the humane things and the lightest of the punishments against us, so that already, on account of this humanity of the impious, it is no longer possible to tell the multitude beyond all account of those who first had their right eyes cut out with the sword and then these cauterized with fire, and their left feet again made useless at the joints by branding-irons; and after these things were condemned to the copper mines throughout the province, not so much for service as for ill-usage and hardship; and besides all these, of others who fell into other contests, which it is not possible even to recount (for their deeds of valour surpass all account).
In these things, having shone forth throughout the whole world, the magnificent martyrs of Christ naturally astounded the eyewitnesses of their courage everywhere, and presented in themselves manifest proofs of the truly divine and unspeakable power of our Saviour. To mention each by name would be long, not to say impossible.
Of the rulers of the church who suffered martyrdom in the notable cities, let the first proclaimed by us, on the monuments of the godly, as a martyr of the kingdom of Christ, be Anthimus, the bishop of the city of the Nicomedians, who was beheaded;
and of the martyrs at Antioch, the best in his whole life, a presbyter of the community there, Lucian, who at Nicomedia, the emperor himself being present, proclaimed the heavenly kingdom of Christ, first by an apology in word, then also in deeds.
Of the martyrs in Phoenicia the most distinguished would be the in all things God-beloved pastors of the rational flocks of Christ: Tyrannion, bishop of the church at Tyre, and Zenobius, a presbyter of that at Sidon, and besides Silvanus, bishop of the churches about Emesa.
But this last, becoming food for wild beasts with others at Emesa itself, was taken up into the choirs of martyrs; and the two at Antioch glorified the word of God by their endurance unto death—the one, the bishop, being given over to the depths of the sea, and the other, Zenobius, the best of physicians, dying bravely under the tortures applied to his sides.
Of the martyrs in Palestine, Silvanus, bishop of the churches about Gaza, was beheaded at the copper mines in Phaeno, together with others, thirty-nine in number all but one; and there the Egyptian bishops Peleus and Nilus, with others, endured death by fire.
And let the great glory of the community of Caesarea be mentioned by us among these—Pamphilus, a presbyter, the most admirable of those of our day, the excellence of whose deeds of valour we shall record at the proper time.
And of those at Alexandria, and throughout all Egypt and the Thebaid, who were illustriously perfected, let Peter, bishop of Alexandria itself, be recorded first, a divine ornament of the teachers of the true religion in Christ; and of the presbyters with him, Faustus and Dius and Ammonius, perfect martyrs of Christ; and Phileas and Hesychius and Pachymius and Theodore, bishops of the churches about Egypt; and besides these, countless others distinguished, who are remembered by the communities of their country and place; whose contests, who throughout the whole world contended for the true religion toward the Deity, and to relate exactly each of the things that befell them, it is not for us to hand down in writing, but it would be proper to those who took in the matters by sight. Those, however, at whose deeds I myself was present, I will make known also to those after us by another writing.
But in the present account I will add to what has been said the recantation of the things wrought against us, and the things that befell from the beginning of the persecution, being most useful to those who shall read.
Now, as for the affairs of the Roman government before the war against us, in what times the conduct of the rulers was friendly and peaceful toward us, of how great an abundance of good things and of prosperity it was deemed worthy, what account could suffice to relate? when those who most held the supreme rule, having completed their tenth and twentieth years, passed their time in festivals and solemn assemblies and most radiant banquets and rejoicings, with all settled peace.
And while their power thus grew unimpeded and advanced to greatness day by day, suddenly, changing their peace toward us, they raised a truceless war; nor was the second year of such a movement yet fulfilled, when something new, happening with respect to the whole empire, overturned all affairs.
For an unfavourable sickness having fallen upon the chief of those mentioned, by which his mind too was now brought to derangement, together with him who after him had been honoured with the second place, he resumed the common and private life; and these things had not yet been so done, when the whole empire was divided into two parts—a thing handed down to memory as never before having happened at any former time.
And after no very long interval, the emperor Constantius, having conducted his whole life most gently and most kindly toward his subjects and most affectionately toward the divine word, leaving behind a legitimate son, Constantine, as emperor and Augustus in his stead, by the common law of nature ended his life, and was first proclaimed among them as one of the gods, having been deemed worthy after death of all honour such as might be owed to an emperor, the most gracious and gentle of emperors;
who indeed alone of those of our day passed the whole time of his rule worthily of his sovereignty, and in other respects showed himself most gracious and beneficent toward all, and in no way took part in the war against us, but kept the godly under him unharmed and unmolested, and neither pulled down the houses of the churches nor devised anything else against us, and so received a happy and thrice-blessed end of life, alone in his reign dying graciously and gloriously, with a legitimate son as successor, most prudent and most pious in all things.
His son Constantine, immediately from the outset proclaimed a most perfect emperor and Augustus by the armies, and long before these by God himself, the King of all, set himself up as an emulator of his father's piety toward our word. Such was he; and Licinius after these things was declared, by the common vote of the rulers, emperor and Augustus.
These things grievously vexed Maximinus, who was still up to that time styled only Caesar above all the rest; who, being most especially tyrannical, snatching the dignity for himself, was Augustus, having made himself so by himself. Meanwhile he who, as we have shown, after his abdication had resumed power, being detected in plotting death against Constantine, ended his life by a most shameful death; and his honorary inscriptions and statues and all such things as are customarily set up, as those of an unholy and most impious man, were the first to be thrown down.
His son Maxentius, who set up the tyranny at Rome, at the beginning feigned our faith, to please and flatter the people of the Romans, and on this account ordered his subjects to relax the persecution against the Christians, putting on a show of piety, that he might appear gracious and much more mild than his predecessors;
but he did not prove in deeds such as he was hoped to be, but, running aground upon all unholy deeds, left undone no work of defilement and licentiousness, committing adulteries and all manner of corruptions. Indeed, separating from their husbands their lawful wives, and insulting them most shamefully, he sent them back again to their husbands; and these things he practised, attempting them not against obscure or undistinguished persons, but most of all insulting the most eminent of those who had attained the first places of the Roman senate.
All cowered before him—peoples and rulers, both renowned and obscure—and were worn down by the dread tyranny; and even when they kept quiet and bore the bitter slavery, there was nevertheless no deliverance from the murderous cruelty of the tyrant. On some small pretext, indeed, he once gave the people over to slaughter by his bodyguards, and countless multitudes of the Roman people were slain in the midst of the city, not by Scythians nor barbarians, but by the spears and full armour of their own people;
and the number of senators slain for the sake of plotting against their property it is not even possible to reckon, countless being put to death now on one feigned pretext, now on another.
And the crown of the tyrant's evils drove him to sorcery, now, by magic devices, cutting open pregnant women, now searching the entrails of newborn babes, and slaughtering lions, and composing certain unspeakable rites for the summoning of demons and the averting of the war; for through these he had every hope that victory would be achieved for him.
This man, then, playing the tyrant at Rome, it is not even possible to say what things he did in enslaving his subjects, so that they came to be in extreme scarcity and want even of the necessary food, such as at Rome those of our day do not remember to have happened at any other time.
And the tyrant in the East, Maximinus, secretly making a friendly compact with him at Rome, as toward a brother in wickedness, took care for a very long time to escape notice; but being detected later, he paid the deserved penalty.
And it was a marvel how this man too carried off prizes akin and brotherly—nay, rather the first prizes and the victory—of the wickedness of the tyrant at Rome. For the foremost of the wizards and magicians were deemed worthy of the highest honour with him, since he was most timid and most superstitious, and set great store by the error concerning the idols and the demons; indeed, without divinations and oracles, he was not able, so to speak, to venture to move so much as a fingernail's breadth;
for which reason he attacked the persecution against us more violently and more persistently than those before him, commanding that temples be raised in every city and that the precincts long demolished by lapse of time be zealously renewed, and appointing priests of idols in every place and city, and over these, for each province, a high priest, some one of those most conspicuous in public life, who had distinguished himself through every public service, with a troop of soldiers and a bodyguard; and lavishly granting to all charlatans, as to pious men and dear to the gods, governorships and the greatest privileges.
Proceeding from these things, he vexed and oppressed, not one city nor one country, but whole provinces utterly under him, with exactions of gold and silver and untold sums of money, and with most grievous impositions and various other condemnations. Indeed, taking away from the wealthy the substance acquired from their ancestors, he bestowed riches in heaps and piles of money all at once upon the flatterers about him.
And to such a pitch of drunken excess and intoxication was he carried, that in his cups he was deranged and beside himself, and gave such orders in his drunkenness as, when he had become sober the next day, brought him to repentance; and leaving to none any superlative in surfeiting and profligacy, he set himself up as a teacher of wickedness to the rulers and the ruled about him, leading the army to grow soft through all luxury and licentiousness, and inciting governors and commanders to proceed against the subjects by plunderings and rapacities, all but joining with him in tyranny. Why need I mention the man's passionate and shameful deeds, or count up the multitude of those he debauched?
Indeed, he could not pass by a city without having in every case wrought the corruption of women and the snatching away of virgins.
And in these things he succeeded against all—not only against the Christians; who, despising death, set his great tyranny at naught. For the men, having endured fire and iron and nailings and wild beasts and the depths of the sea and the cutting off of limbs and brandings and the piercing and gouging out of eyes and the maiming of the whole body, and besides these famine and mines and bonds, showed in all things endurance for the sake of true religion rather than exchanged the worship due to God for idols;
and the women again, no less than the men, made manly by the teaching of the divine word, some, undergoing the same contests as the men, carried off equal prizes of virtue; and others, when dragged off for corruption, gave up their souls to death sooner than their bodies to corruption.
Indeed, alone of those debauched by the tyrant, a Christian woman, most distinguished and illustrious of those at Alexandria, by a most manly resolve overcame the passionate and licentious soul of Maximinus, renowned otherwise for wealth and birth and learning, yet setting all in the second place to chastity; whom, though he greatly importuned, he was not able to put to death, ready as she was to die, his desire prevailing over his rage rather, but punishing her with exile he took away all her substance.
And countless others, by the rulers in the provinces, unable even to hear the threat of fornication, endured every kind of tortures and rackings and death-bearing punishment. Wonderful, then, were these too; but exceedingly the most wonderful was the woman at Rome, truly the most noble and most chaste of all those whom the tyrant there, Maxentius, doing the like to Maximinus, attempted to debauch.
For when she learned that those who served the tyrant in such matters had come to her house (and she too was a Christian), and that her husband—and that too a prefect of the Romans—from fear had given them leave to take and lead her away, she asked for a brief space, as though to adorn her body, and went into her chamber, and being alone drove a sword into herself, and dying straightway, left her corpse to the procurers, but by her very deeds, more eloquent than any voice, declared to all men, both those now living and those who should come after, that the virtue among Christians is alone unconquerable and indestructible by riches.
So great a tide of wickedness was wrought together at one and the same time by the two tyrants who had divided between them the East and the West; and who, searching out the cause of so many evils, would doubt to declare it to be the persecution against us? especially since the great confusion did not cease before the Christians recovered their freedom of speech.
Throughout the whole ten years' time of the persecution there was no respite for them from plotting and warring against one another. The sea was unnavigable, nor was it possible for any to sail in from any quarter without being subjected to all manner of maltreatments, racked and torn in their sides and examined with tortures of every kind, lest perchance they came from the enemies on the other side, and at last brought to crosses or to the punishment by fire.
Besides these, preparations of shields and breastplates, and makings ready of arrows and spears and the rest of the warlike array, and of triremes and naval armaments, were being put together in every place; nor was there anything for anyone to expect but the onset of wars on every day. And to these the famine and pestilence afterward fell upon them, concerning which we shall relate what is needful at the proper time.
Such were the things that extended throughout the whole persecution, which in the tenth year, by the grace of God, wholly ceased, having begun to abate after the eighth year. For when the divine and heavenly grace showed its visitation toward us to be gracious and merciful, then indeed even our rulers—those very men through whom of old the wars against us were waged—most marvellously changing their minds, sang a recantation, quenching by gracious proclamations and most gentle edicts concerning us the fire of the persecution kindled to so great a height.
But it was not any human cause that was the occasion of this, nor any pity, as one might say, or humanity of the rulers—far from it; for more and more grievous things were devised against us by them daily, from the beginning and up to that time, with manifold devices ever newly contriving maltreatments against us in various ways; but it was the manifest visitation of the divine providence itself, being reconciled to its own people, but proceeding against the author of the evils and venting its wrath upon the chief instigator of the wickedness of the whole persecution.
For even if these things had to come about by divine judgment, yet 'woe,' says the word, 'to him through whom the offence comes.' A God-sent punishment, therefore, overtook him, beginning from his very flesh and proceeding to his soul.
For suddenly an abscess formed about the middle of his secret parts, then a deep fistulous ulcer, and an incurable eating away of these into his innermost entrails; from which an indescribable multitude of worms swarmed and a death-bearing stench breathed forth, since the whole bulk of his body, from his gluttony, had even before the sickness been changed into an excess of fat, which, then rotting, presented to those who approached an unbearable and most horrible sight.
Of the physicians, therefore, some, not being able to endure at all the surpassing foulness of the stench, were slaughtered; and others, when the whole swollen mass had fallen into a state past hope of recovery and they could give no help, were mercilessly put to death.
And so, wrestling with so many evils, he came to a consciousness of the things he had dared against the godly; and gathering his mind to himself, he first made acknowledgment to the God of all, and then, calling those about him, commanded them without any delay to put a stop to the persecution against the Christians, and by law and imperial decree to hasten the building of their churches and the performance of their customary rites, while they offered prayers for the imperial house.
At once, then, deed following upon word, imperial edicts were published throughout the cities, containing the recantation of the things against us in this manner:
'The Emperor Caesar Galerius Valerius Maximianus, Invincible, Augustus, Pontifex Maximus, Germanicus Maximus, Aegyptiacus Maximus, Thebaicus Maximus, Sarmaticus Maximus five times, Persicus Maximus twice, Carpicus Maximus six times, Armeniacus Maximus, Medicus Maximus, Adiabenicus Maximus, holding the tribunician power for the twentieth time, Imperator for the nineteenth, Consul for the eighth, Father of his Country, Proconsul;
and the Emperor Caesar Flavius Valerius Constantinus, Pious, Fortunate, Invincible, Augustus, Pontifex Maximus, holding the tribunician power, Imperator for the fifth time, Consul, Father of his Country, Proconsul;
and the Emperor Caesar Valerius Licinianus Licinius, Pious, Fortunate, Invincible, Augustus, Pontifex Maximus, holding the tribunician power for the fourth time, Imperator for the third, Consul, Father of his Country, Proconsul, to their own provincials, greeting.
Among the rest of the things which we ordain for the advantage and benefit of the state, we for our part formerly wished to set all things right according to the ancient laws and public order of the Romans, and to make this provision: that the Christians too, who had forsaken the way of life of their own parents, should return to a good purpose;
since by some reasoning such wilfulness had seized them and such folly had overtaken them, that they did not follow the things established by the ancients—which perhaps their own parents had formerly instituted—but according to their own purpose and as each one wished, so made laws for themselves and observed these, and gathered in various places various multitudes.
Accordingly, when such a command had followed from us, that they should betake themselves to the things established by the ancients, very many were subjected to peril, and very many were harassed and underwent all manner of deaths;
and since most of them persisted in the same folly, and we saw that they neither rendered to the heavenly gods the worship due, nor attended to that of the Christians, looking to our humanity and the perpetual custom by which we are accustomed to grant pardon to all men, we have thought it right to extend our indulgence most readily in this matter also, so that they may again be Christians and may rebuild the houses in which they used to assemble, in such a way that they do nothing contrary to public order. And by another letter we shall make known to the judges what they will have to observe;
wherefore, in accordance with this our indulgence, they ought to entreat their own God for our welfare and that of the state and their own, that the state may in every way be kept sound, and that they may be able to live free from care in their own homes.'
This, in the Roman tongue, rendered as far as possible into the Greek language, was of this form. It is now time to consider what came to pass after these things.
But the author of the writing, after such a confession, immediately, and not long after, being released from his pains, departed life. This man, an account holds, was the chief cause of the calamity of the persecution, having, long before the movement of the rest of the emperors, forced the Christians in the army, and first of all those in his own household, to turn aside, and having removed some from their military rank and most shamefully insulted others, and already even threatened others with death, and at last stirred up his colleagues in the empire to the persecution against all; of whom it is not fitting to pass over in silence the end of life that befell themselves.
Four, then, having divided the rule over all; of whom those preeminent in time and honour, having lasted not even two full years after the persecution, were removed from the empire, as has been shown by us before, and, having passed the remaining time of their life in a common and private manner, met such an end of life as follows:
the one who had been deemed worthy of the first place in honour and in time was worn out by a long and most painful weakness of body, and the one who held the second place after him broke off his life by the noose, suffering this according to a certain demonic foretokening, on account of the very many reckless deeds he had dared.
And of those after these, the last, whom indeed we said had become the author of the whole persecution, suffered such things as we have already shown; but the one who preceded him, the most gracious and gentle emperor Constantius, having passed the whole time of his rule worthily of his sovereignty, and in other respects showing himself most gracious and beneficent toward all, and besides keeping aloof from the war against us, and preserving the godly under him unharmed and unmolested, and neither pulling down the houses of the churches nor devising any other new thing at all against us, received a truly happy and thrice-blessed end of life, alone in his reign dying graciously and gloriously, with a legitimate son as successor to the empire, most prudent and most pious in all things;
who, immediately from the outset, proclaimed a most perfect emperor and Augustus by the armies, set himself up as an emulator of his father's piety toward our word. Such was the issue of life of the four aforementioned, coming about at differing times.
Of these the only one still left, he whom we mentioned a little before, together with those afterward introduced into the rule, made the aforesaid confession manifest to all through the written document set forth above.