Book 9
Late Antiquity Eusebius of Caesarea GreekThe Ninth Book of the Ecclesiastical History contains the following: I. On the feigned relaxation. II. On the perversion that followed. III. On the newly set up idol at Antioch. IV. On the petitions against us. V. On the forged memoirs. VI. On those who suffered martyrdom at this time. VII. On the writing set up against us on pillars. VIII. On the things that befell afterward in famine and pestilence and wars. IX. On the overthrow of the life of the tyrants, and what utterances they used before their end. X. On the victory of the God-beloved emperors. XI. On the final destruction of the enemies of true religion.
The recantation of the imperial command set forth above was published throughout all Asia and in every place, and in the provinces around it. When these things had been accomplished in this manner, Maximinus, the tyrant in the East, most impious if any ever was, and become a most bitter enemy of true religion toward the God of all, being in no way pleased with what had been written, instead of the published letter ordered by word of mouth the rulers under him to relax the war against us. For since it was not lawful for him otherwise to gainsay the judgment of his superiors, putting away the aforesaid law in a corner, and taking care that it should not be brought to light in the parts under him, by an unwritten command he ordered the rulers under him to relax the persecution against us; and they signified the order to one another in writing.
At any rate, Sabinus, who among them was honoured with the dignity of most eminent prefect, made known the emperor's mind to the governors of the provinces by a Latin letter, of which the rendering is to this effect:
'With most earnest and devoted zeal the divinity of our masters, the most divine emperors, long ago determined to bring the minds of all men to the holy and right way of life, that even those who seemed to follow a custom alien to the Romans should render the worship due to the immortal gods.
But the obstinacy of certain persons and their most harsh resolve came to such a pitch that they could neither be drawn back from their own purpose by the just reasoning of the command, nor be frightened by the impending punishment.
Since, therefore, it happened that by such conduct many were bringing themselves into peril, the divinity of our masters, the most powerful emperors, according to the inborn nobility of their piety, judging it foreign to their most divine purpose to bring men into so great a peril from such a cause, has commanded, through my devotedness, to write to your sagacity, that if any of the Christians be found following the worship of his own nation, you should free him from molestation and peril against him, and should reckon that none ought to be punished on this pretext; since by the lapse of so long a time it has been established that they could in no way be persuaded to withdraw from such obstinacy.
Your diligence ought, therefore, to write to the curators and the magistrates and the praepositi of the district of each city, that they may know that henceforth it does not behove them to take further thought of this letter.'
Thereupon those in the provinces, reckoning the purpose of what was written to them to be genuine, made the imperial mind manifest by letters to curators and magistrates and those set over the country districts. And not only by writing did these things advance among them, but in deeds much sooner; carrying out, as it were, the imperial intent, all whom they held shut up in prisons for their confession of the Deity they brought forth into the open and set free, releasing those of them who had been given over to the mines for punishment; for they supposed, being deceived, that this was in truth the emperor's pleasure.
And when these things had been so accomplished, suddenly, like a light shining forth out of a gloomy night, in every city one might see churches gathered together and assemblies thronged with multitudes, and the rites customarily performed in them; and every one of the unbelieving heathen was no little astounded at these things, marvelling at the strangeness of so great a change, and crying out that the God of the Christians was great and alone true.
And of our own people, those who had faithfully and manfully contended through the struggle of the persecutions recovered their freedom of speech again toward all; but as many as had become diseased in their faith and were storm-tossed in their souls eagerly hastened to their own healing, beseeching and asking the right hand of salvation from the strong, and entreating God to be gracious to them;
and then also the noble champions of true religion, freed from their suffering in the mines, set out for their homes, passing through every city, proud and radiant, full of unspeakable gladness and of a freedom of speech which it is not even possible to interpret in words.
Crowds thronging with men accomplished their journey through the midst of the highways and marketplaces, hymning God with songs and psalms; and you might see those who a little before had been driven from their homelands as prisoners under most cruel punishment, recovering their own hearths with cheerful and joyful faces, so that even those who before had thirsted for our blood, seeing the wonder beyond all hope, rejoiced together at what had come to pass.
These things the tyrant, who was a hater of the good and a plotter against all good things, and who, we said, ruled over the parts of the East, could no longer bear, nor did he endure that they should be accomplished in this manner for even six full months. At any rate, contriving everything for the overthrow of the peace, first he attempts on a pretext to bar us from assembly in the cemeteries, then through certain wicked men he sends an embassy against us to himself, having incited the citizens of Antioch to ask of him, as if for a very great favour, that he would in no way permit any of the Christians to dwell in their country; and he contrived that others too should put forward the same. Of all these the chief at Antioch itself was Theotecnus, a clever charlatan and wicked man, alien to his name; he was reputed to be curator of the affairs of the city.
This man, then, having waged very many campaigns against us, and having taken pains in every way to hunt out our people from their hiding-places like some unhallowed thieves, and having contrived everything for slander and accusation against us, and become the cause of death to countless numbers, at last set up a certain idol of Zeus Philios by means of certain juggleries and sorceries, and, devising for it unhallowed rites and ill-omened initiations and accursed purifications, displayed the marvel even to the emperor through oracles, as it seemed. And indeed this man too, by flattery suited to the pleasure of the ruler, roused up the demon against the Christians, and said that the god had commanded that the Christians, as his enemies, be driven beyond the bounds of the city and of the fields about the city.
This man having first acted thus by his own resolve, all the rest of those in office who dwelt in the cities under the same rule were moved to make the like decree, the governors of the provinces having perceived that this was pleasing to the emperor, and having suggested to their subjects to do this very thing;
and when the tyrant had most gladly assented by rescript to their decrees, the persecution against us was again kindled afresh from the beginning. Then indeed priests of the idols were appointed in each city, and over these high priests, by Maximinus himself, those who had most distinguished themselves in public life and become renowned in every way; and great was the zeal introduced among them concerning the worship of those they served.
Indeed, the extraordinary superstition of the ruler, to speak briefly, led all under him, both rulers and ruled, to do everything against us for his favour, requiting him with this as the greatest favour, in return for the benefits they thought to obtain from him—to thirst for our blood and to display against us certain newer cruelties.
Having forged, then, Memoirs of Pilate and of our Saviour, full of every blasphemy against Christ, by the resolve of the greater they sent them throughout all the empire under him, charging by proclamation that in every place, both country and city, these be set out openly to all, and that the schoolmasters give them to the children, instead of lessons, to study and to hold in memory.
While these things were being accomplished in this manner, another commander, whom the Romans call a duke, at Damascus in Phoenicia, seizing certain disreputable women of ill fame out of the marketplace, and threatening to apply tortures to them, compelled them to say in writing that they had once been Christians, and were privy to lawless deeds among them, and that in the very houses of the Lord they practised licentious things, and whatever else he wished them to say to the slander of the doctrine. And he too, putting their words into memoirs, communicated them to the emperor; and indeed at his command these writings too were published in every place and city.
But this commander, not long after, having become his own slayer by his own hand, paid the penalty of his malignity. As for us, flights were again stirred up, and grievous persecutions, and again dreadful risings of the governors throughout all the provinces against us, so that even some of those distinguished in the divine word, being taken, received the irrevocable sentence of death. Three of these, at Emesa, a city of Phoenicia, having confessed themselves Christians, were given over to be food for wild beasts; among them was a bishop, Silvanus, exceedingly aged, who had completed full forty years of the ministry.
At the same time also Peter, who presided most illustriously over the communities at Alexandria, a divine ornament of bishops both for the excellence of his life and for his discipline in the sacred words, seized on no charge, with no expectation having gone before, thus suddenly and unaccountably, as by the command of Maximinus, was beheaded; and with him also several others of the bishops in Egypt underwent the same.
And Lucian, a man in all things most excellent, of continent life and trained in the sacred studies, a presbyter of the community at Antioch, being brought to the city of the Nicomedians, where the emperor then chanced to be staying, and having delivered before the ruler his defence of the teaching over which he presided, was committed to prison and put to death.
So many things, in a short time, were contrived against us by the good-hating Maximinus, that this persecution seemed to have been roused against us much more grievously than the former.
In the very midst of the cities, a thing which never at any other time, the decrees of the cities against us, and the rescripts of imperial ordinances in answer to these, engraved upon tablets of bronze, were set up; and the children in the schools carried Jesus and Pilate and the memoirs forged for our insult in their mouths every day.
Here it seems to me necessary to insert this very writing of Maximinus that was set up on the pillars, that at once the boastful and proud arrogance of the man's hatred of God may be made plain, and the sleepless wickedness-hating of the holy justice that overtook him close upon his heels against the impious; driven on by which, not long after he both took counsel concerning us the contrary, and decreed it by written laws.
Copy of the rendering of Maximinus's rescript in answer to the decrees against us, taken from the pillar at Tyre: 'At last the feeble boldness of the human mind has had strength to shake off and scatter all the obscurity and mist of error, which before this besieged the senses—not so much of the impious as of the wretched men—wrapped in the deadly darkness of ignorance, and to recognize that it is governed and established by the good-loving providence of the immortal gods;
which thing it is incredible to say how welcome, how most pleasant and dear it has become to us, as a very great proof of your God-loving disposition you have given, since even before this it was unknown to none what manner of observance and piety toward the immortal gods you happened to hold, you with whom is known the faith not of bare and empty words, but of continual and marvellous notable deeds.
Wherefore your city might worthily be called a foundation and dwelling-place of the immortal gods. By many examples, at any rate, it appears to flourish through the presence with it of the heavenly gods.
Behold, then, your city, neglecting all things that concern its private interests, and overlooking its former prayers for its own affairs, when it perceived again that those of the accursed vanity were beginning to creep abroad, and, like a fire neglected and slumbering, were filling up great conflagrations as the brands rekindled, straightway, without any delay, fled for refuge to our piety, as to a mother-city of all true religions, asking some cure and help;
which saving thought it is plain the gods have cast into you for the faith of your piety. That one, therefore, that one, the most high and greatest Zeus, who presides over your most splendid city, who delivers your ancestral gods and wives and children and hearth and homes from all destructive corruption, has breathed into your souls the saving resolve, showing and making plain how excellent and splendid and saving it is to approach, with the worship due, the rites and the holy worship of the immortal gods.
For who could be found so foolish or so void of all understanding as not to perceive that it is by the good-loving zeal of the gods that it comes to pass that neither does the earth deny the seeds entrusted to it, baffling the hope of the husbandmen with empty expectation; nor again is the sight of impious war established unhindered upon the earth, and bodies, the temper of heaven being corrupted, dragged down to death in drought; nor is the sea, swelling under the blasts of immoderate winds, heaped into crests; nor do unlooked-for hurricanes, breaking forth, stir up a destructive tempest; nor again does the earth, the nurse and mother of all, sinking down from its lowest depths in fearful trembling, nor do the overlying mountains, when chasms open, fall to ruin—all of which, and things still far more grievous than these, no one is ignorant to have often come to pass before this time?
And all these things came about through the destructive error of the empty vanity of those lawless men, when it prevailed upon their souls, and well-nigh, so to speak, oppressed all parts of the world with shameful deeds.'
To these things, after others, he adds: 'Let them behold in the broad plains the crops now flourishing and waving with their ears, and the meadows, through good rains, gleaming with growths and flowers, and the temper of the air restored gentle and most mild;
let all henceforth rejoice that, through our piety and rites and the honour due, the might of the most powerful and steadfast air has been appeased, and on this account let them, securely and at peace, enjoy and take pleasure in the most serene calm. And as many as, wholly profited, have come back from that blind error and wandering to a right and most excellent mind, let them rejoice the more, as those snatched from an unlooked-for storm or a grievous sickness, and reaping a sweet enjoyment of life for the future;
but if they persist in their accursed vanity, let them be separated and driven far away from your city and its territory, as you requested, so that thus, in accordance with your praiseworthy zeal in this matter, your city, being separated from all defilement and impiety, may, with its inborn purpose, obey, with the worship due, the rites of the immortal gods.
And that you may know how welcome to us your request in this matter has been, of our own accord, even without decrees and without petition, our soul, most eager for the love of good, grants leave to your devotedness to ask whatever great gift you wish in return for this your God-loving purpose.
And now ask to do this and to receive it; for you shall obtain it without any delay; which, being granted to your city, shall furnish for all time a testimony of your God-loving piety toward the immortal gods, and shall show to your sons and descendants that you have obtained worthy rewards from our love of good, for this your choice of life.'
Such things against us were set up on pillars throughout every province, shutting off our affairs from all good hope, so far at least as lay in men; so that, according to that very divine oracle, at these things, 'if possible, even the elect themselves' should be 'offended.'
And already, indeed, when the expectation among most had all but fainted away, suddenly, while those who served the writing set forth against us were still accomplishing their journey by the road in certain regions, the God who champions His own Church, all but curbing the great vaunting of the tyrant against us, displayed His heavenly alliance on our behalf.
The customary rains and showers, then, the season being wintry, withheld their wonted bounty upon the earth, and an unlooked-for famine fell upon us, and upon this a pestilence, and besides an outbreak of another disease—an ulcer which, from its fiery nature, was fitly called the carbuncle; which, creeping over the whole body, wrought perilous dangers for the sufferers, but most of all, settling especially upon the eyes, made countless numbers of men, together with women and children, blind.
In addition to these, the war against the Armenians rose up against the tyrant—men of old both friends and allies of the Romans; whom, being themselves Christians and zealous in their piety toward the Deity, the God-hated man, having attempted to compel to sacrifice to idols and demons, made enemies instead of friends and foes instead of allies.
All these things, then, flowing together at one and the same season, confuted the boldness of the tyrant's vaunting against the Deity, since for the sake of his zeal for the idols and his siege against us he had boasted that neither famine nor pestilence nor war had befallen in his times. These things, then, coming on together and at once, contained also the prelude of his overthrow.
He himself, accordingly, was being worn down, together with his armies, in the war against the Armenians; and the rest of those who dwelt in the cities under him were grievously wasted at once by the famine and the pestilence, so that two thousand five hundred Attic drachmas were given in exchange for a single measure of wheat.
Countless, then, were those dying in the cities, and yet more those in the country and villages, so that the once populous registers of the country folk now nearly suffered complete erasure, well-nigh all being destroyed at once by want of food and by the pestilential disease.
Some, then, thought it right to barter away their dearest possessions to the wealthier for the scantiest food; others, selling off their property little by little, were driven to the last extremity of want; and some already, chewing small fragments of hay and recklessly eating certain destructive herbs, ruined and destroyed the constitution of their bodies.
And some of the noble women in the cities, driven by want to a shameless necessity, came forth to beg in the marketplaces, displaying a token of their former free-born nurture by the modesty of their faces and the seemliness of their attire.
And some, shrivelled up like dead images, here and there at their last gasp, reeling and slipping from inability to stand, fell down, and stretched out prone in the midst of the open streets, besought that a small fragment of bread be held out to them, and, with their soul at its last breaths, cried out that they were hungry, having strength for this most painful word alone;
while others, the more well-to-do, astounded at the multitude of those who begged, after giving countless gifts, came at last to a harsh and unfeeling disposition, expecting that they themselves would soon suffer the same as the beggars; so that already, in the midst of the marketplaces and lanes, dead and naked bodies, cast out unburied for many days, presented to the beholders a most pitiable sight.
Indeed, some even became food for dogs, on which account chiefly the living turned to the killing of dogs, from fear lest, going mad, they should work the eating of men.
And not least did the pestilence too feed upon all houses, but most of all those which the famine, on account of their abundance of food, was not able to wear out; the wealthy, at any rate—rulers and governors and countless of those in office—as if of set purpose left to the pestilential disease by the famine, underwent a swift and most rapid end. All places, then, were full of wailings, and through all the lanes and marketplaces and streets there was nothing else to behold but lamentations, with the flutes and beatings customary with them.
In this manner, then, warring with two weapons, those aforesaid of pestilence and famine at once, death devoured whole families in a short time, so that one might see the bodies of two and three dead being borne forth at a single funeral.
Such were the wages of the vaunting of Maximinus and of the decrees of the cities against us, when also the tokens of the zeal and piety of the Christians in all things became conspicuous to all the nations.
For alone, in so great a crisis of evils, displaying their compassion and humanity by their very deeds, throughout each day some persevered in the tending and burial of the dying (and they were tens of thousands for whom there was none to care), while others gathered together into one assembly the multitude of those throughout the whole city wasted by the famine, and distributed bread to all, so that the matter became noised abroad among all men, and they glorified the God of the Christians, and confessed them, convicted by the very facts, to be truly the only pious and godly.
And upon these things being thus accomplished, the great and heavenly Champion of the Christians, God, having displayed His threat and indignation against all men through the things mentioned, in requital for what they had immeasurably shown toward us, restored to us again the gracious and radiant beam of His providence toward us, most marvellously, as in deep darkness, making light to shine forth for us from Himself, and making manifest to all that God Himself had been throughout the overseer of our affairs—now scourging and at the proper time turning back His people through afflictions, and again, after sufficient discipline, showing Himself gracious and kindly to those who set their hopes upon Him.
Thus, then, when Constantine—who, we said before, was an emperor sprung from an emperor, and pious from a most pious and in all things most prudent father—and Licinius after him, both honoured for understanding and piety, had by the King of all and God of the universe and Saviour been roused up against the two most impious tyrants, and arrayed themselves for war by law, with God fighting on their side most marvellously, Maxentius fell at Rome by the hand of Constantine, and the one in the East, surviving him no long time, himself too came to a most shameful end by the hand of Licinius, who was not yet at that time gone mad.
But Constantine, who was first both in honour and in rank of the empire, taking pity on those tyrannized over at Rome, and calling upon God the heavenly and His Word, even Jesus Christ Himself the Saviour of all, as his ally through prayers, advanced with his whole army, procuring for the Romans their ancestral freedom.
When Maxentius, then, trusting rather to the devices of sorcery than to the goodwill of his subjects, did not dare to advance even so far as the gates of the city, but with a countless multitude of soldiers and innumerable companies of armies had fortified every place and country and city, as many as had been enslaved under him round about Rome and all Italy, the emperor, leaning on the alliance from God, came on and, in the first and second and third array of the tyrant, defeating them most thoroughly, advanced over the greater part of Italy, and was already very close to Rome itself;
then, that he might not be compelled to war against the Romans for the tyrant's sake, God Himself, as if by certain bonds, drew the tyrant far away from the gates; and those things long ago recorded against the impious—as if in a tale, distrusted by most, yet trustworthy to the faithful, inscribed in the sacred books—He confirmed by their very plainness, simply speaking, to all, both faithful and unbelieving, who took in the marvels with their eyes.
Just as, then, in the time of Moses himself and the ancient godly race of the Hebrews, 'the chariots of Pharaoh and his host He cast into the sea, and his chosen captains were drowned in the Red Sea, the deep covered them,' in the very same manner Maxentius too, and the soldiers and bodyguards about him, 'sank into the depth like a stone,' when, turning his back to the power from God with Constantine, he was passing the river that lay before his march, which he himself had bridged with boats and well spanned, contriving a device of destruction against himself;
of whom it might be said: 'He has dug a pit and hollowed it out, and shall fall into the ditch which he made. His labour shall return upon his own head, and upon his own crown his iniquity shall come down.'
Thus indeed, the bridge over the river being broken up, the passage gave way, and all at once the boats sank down into the depth, men and all; and the most impious man himself first, and then also the shield-bearers about him, as the divine oracles foretell, 'sank like lead in the mighty waters';
so that fitly, if not in words yet in deeds, like those about the great servant Moses, those who had won the victory from God might thus, concerning the impious tyrant of old, hymn and say: 'Let us sing to the Lord, for He has been gloriously glorified; horse and rider He has cast into the sea. The Lord is my helper and protector, He has become my salvation,' and, 'Who is like Thee among the gods, O Lord? who is like Thee? glorified among the holy ones, wonderful in glories, doing wonders.'
These things, and as many as are akin and like to these, Constantine, by his very deeds hymning to God the supreme Ruler and the Author of the victory, entered Rome in triumph, all at once, together with quite young children and women, receiving him—the members of the senate and the otherwise most distinguished, with the whole people of the Romans—with radiant eyes and very souls, as a redeemer and saviour and benefactor, with acclamations and insatiable joy. But he, possessing as it were an inborn piety toward God,
in no way shaken by the shouts nor lifted up by the praises, but well aware of the help from God, straightway ordered a trophy of the saving Passion to be set up under the hand of his own statue; and indeed, when they had set it up in the most public place of Rome holding the saving sign in its right hand, he commanded this very inscription to be set down in these words in the Roman tongue:
'By this saving sign, the true proof of valour, I delivered and freed your city, saved from the yoke of the tyrant; nay more, having freed both the senate and the people of the Romans, I restored them to their ancient renown and splendour.'
And indeed thereupon Constantine himself, and with him the emperor Licinius—who had not yet at that time turned aside in mind to the madness into which he afterward fell—propitiating God the Author of all their good things, both of one counsel and mind drew up a most perfect and most complete law on behalf of the Christians; and they sent to Maximinus, who still held power over the nations of the East and made pretence of friendship toward them, the marvellous things that had been done for them by God, and the things of the victory over the tyrant, and the law itself.
And he, being as a tyrant grievously pained at what he learned, then, not wishing to seem to yield to others, nor again to put aside what was commanded, from fear of those who commanded it, as though of his own authority for the first time writes perforce this letter on behalf of the Christians to the governors under him, falsely feigning against himself things which he had never yet done.
Copy of the rendering of the tyrant's letter: 'Jovius Maximinus Augustus, to Sabinus. I am persuaded that it is plain both to your gravity and to all men that our masters Diocletian and Maximian, our fathers, when they perceived that well-nigh all men, the worship of the gods being forsaken, had attached themselves to the nation of the Christians, rightly ordained that all men who had withdrawn from the worship of those same immortal gods should be recalled to the worship of the gods by open chastisement and punishment.
But when I came happily for the first time to the East, and learned that into certain places very many of the men who were able to be of profit to the public were being banished by the judges for the aforesaid cause, I gave commands to each of the judges that henceforth none of them should deal harshly with the provincials, but rather by flattery and exhortations recall them to the worship of the gods.
Then, accordingly, when, in obedience to my command, the things ordained were observed by the judges, it came about that none from the parts of the East was either banished or insulted, but rather, from no grievous thing being done against them, they were recalled to the worship of the gods.
But after these things, when in the past year I happily came to Nicomedia and was staying there, citizens of the same city came to me, together with the images of the gods, earnestly entreating that by every means such a nation should in no way be permitted to dwell in their country.
But when I learned that very many men of the same worship dwelt in those very parts, I gave them this answer: that I gladly received their request with thanks, but perceived that it was not asked by all; if, then, any persisted in the same superstition, that each one should so hold the will in his own choice, and, if he wished, recognize the worship of the gods.
Nevertheless, to the Nicomedians of the same city, and to the other cities which themselves also had so very earnestly made the like request to me—namely, that none of the Christians should dwell in their cities—I had necessarily to answer kindly, because this very thing all the ancient emperors also preserved, and it was pleasing to the gods themselves, through whom all men and the very administration of public affairs subsist; that I would therefore confirm so great a request as they bring forward on behalf of the worship of their deity.
Therefore, even though most especially before this time it has been enjoined upon your devotedness by letters, and likewise commanded by ordinances, that nothing harsh be done against the provincials who were diligent to preserve such a custom, but that they be borne with patiently and in moderation, nevertheless, that they may suffer neither insults nor extortions from the beneficiarii nor from any others whatever, I have thought it fitting by these letters too to remind your gravity, that you should rather make our provincials recognize the care of the gods by flatteries and exhortations;
whence, if any of his own choice should take up the recognition of the worship of the gods, it is fitting to receive these; but if any wish to follow their own worship, you should leave them in their own power.
Wherefore your devotedness ought to preserve what has been entrusted to you, and let power be given to none to wear down our provincials by insults and extortions, since, as has been written above, it is fitting rather by exhortations and flatteries to recall our provincials to the worship of the gods. And that this our command may come to the knowledge of all our provincials, you ought to make known what has been commanded by an edict set forth by you.'
Having commanded these things, being forced thereto by necessity, but not ordaining them according to his own purpose, he was no longer true nor trustworthy in the eyes of all, on account of his fickle and lying disposition already before, after the like concession.
None of our people, therefore, dared to convene an assembly nor to set himself forth in the open, since not even this did the writing allow him, permitting us only to be kept free from molestation, but not commanding us to hold assemblies nor to build houses of churches nor to do any other of our customary things.
And yet the advocates of peace and piety had written to grant him leave for these things, and had conceded them to all under them by proclamations and laws; but the most impious man did not choose to yield in this, save when, driven on by the divine justice, he was at last, unwillingly, brought to it.
But there came upon him a cause of this kind. Unable to bear the greatness of the rule entrusted to him beyond his desert, but, through inexperience of prudent and kingly reasoning, handling affairs tastelessly, and lifted up in soul beyond reason by the boastfulness of pride over all, he was moved to dare to behave insolently even against the partners of his empire, who surpassed him in all things—in birth and nurture and education, in dignity and understanding, and in that most crowning thing of all, prudence and piety toward the true God—and to proclaim himself first in honour. Pushing his madness to the point of frenzy,
and having broken the covenant which he had made with Licinius, he raises a truceless war; then, in a short time confounding all things and throwing every city into uproar, and gathering every army, a countless multitude of myriads, he went out to battle, arraying himself against him, lifted up in soul by the hopes of the demons, whom indeed he reckoned gods, and by the myriads of his soldiers.
And indeed, when he came to grips, he was left bereft of the oversight from God, the victory being dispensed by the one and only God of all to him who then ruled. First, then, he loses the soldiery in which he had trusted;
and when the bodyguards about him had left him stripped and bereft of all, and had fled to the ruler, the wretch, stripping off as quickly as possible the imperial array that did not befit him, cowardly and basely and unmanfully sank himself into the multitude, and then ran away, and, hiding himself about the country and the villages, scarcely escaped the hands of the enemies, procuring his own safety, by his very deeds proving most surely true and faithful the divine oracles,
in which it is said: 'A king is not saved by his great power, and a giant shall not be saved by the multitude of his strength; a horse is a vain thing for safety, and in the multitude of his power he shall not be saved. Behold, the eyes of the Lord are upon them that fear Him, that hope in His mercy, to deliver their souls from death.'
Thus, then, full of shame, the tyrant came to his own parts, and first, in raging fury, slew many priests and prophets of the gods he had formerly admired—by whose oracles he had been stirred up to take the war—as charlatans and impostors, and above all betrayers of his safety; then, having given glory to the God of the Christians, and ordained a most perfect and complete law on behalf of their freedom, straightway, dying a hard death, no respite of time being granted him, he ended his life. The law he sent down was of this kind:
Copy of the rendering of the tyrant's ordinance on behalf of the Christians, translated from the Roman tongue into the Greek: 'The Emperor Caesar Gaius Valerius Maximinus, Germanicus, Sarmaticus, Pious, Fortunate, Invincible, Augustus. That in every way we continually take thought for the advantage of our provincials, and wish to grant them those things by which the interests of all are best set right, and whatsoever pertains to their common advantage and usefulness, and such things as suit the public benefit and are dear to the minds of each—we believe that none is ignorant, but that each man, recurring to the very thing that is done, knows and has it plain within himself.
When, therefore, before this it became plain to our knowledge that, on this pretext—on which it had been commanded by the most divine Diocletian and Maximian, our parents, that the assemblies of the Christians should be done away—many extortions and despoilings had been committed by the officials, and that for the future this was advancing against our provincials (of whom we are most zealous that the fitting forethought be taken), their own substance being worn down, we gave letters last year to the governors of each province, and made it law that, if any wished to follow such a custom or the same observance of worship, he should hold to his own purpose unhindered and be impeded and prevented by none, and that there should be liberty for them, without any fear or suspicion, to do that which is pleasing to each.
But not even now could it escape us that some of the judges set aside our commands and made our people doubtful concerning our ordinances, and caused them more hesitantly to approach those forms of worship which were pleasing to them.
In order, therefore, that for the future all suspicion or ambiguity of fear may be removed, we have made it law that this edict be set forth, that it may be plain to all that it is permitted to those who wish to follow this sect and worship, by this our gift, even as each one wishes or as is pleasant to him, so to approach this worship which he has chosen to observe by custom. And it has been conceded that they may build their own houses of the Lord.
And that our gift may be still greater, we have thought it right to ordain this too: that if any houses or lands which formerly belonged of right to the Christians have, by the command of our parents, passed into the right of the fiscus, or been seized by any city—whether a sale of these has been made, or they have been given to anyone as a gift—all these we have ordered to be recalled to the ancient right of the Christians, that in this too all may take perception of our piety and forethought.'
These were the utterances of the tyrant, not falling a full year short of his decrees against the Christians set up on pillars; and with him with whom a little before we seemed impious and atheists and the ruin of all life—so that we were permitted to dwell not only in no city, but not even in any country or wilderness—with him now ordinances and laws on behalf of the Christians were drawn up; and those who a little before, by fire and iron and by being made food for beasts and birds, were being destroyed before his eyes, and were enduring most pitiably every kind of chastisement and punishment and departure from life, as atheists and impious—these now are by the same man both acknowledged to practise their worship and permitted to build their houses of the Lord, and the tyrant himself confesses that they have a share in certain rights.
And indeed, having made such confessions, as though obtaining some benefit on account of these very things, suffering doubtless less than he ought to have suffered, smitten by a sudden scourge of God, he came to his end in the second engagement of the war;
and his overthrow came upon him not such as befell generals and commanders who, often playing the man in war for the sake of valour and of their comrades, bravely undergo a glorious end, but, as an impious man and fighter against God, while his array was still standing before him on the plain, remaining himself at home and hiding, he paid the fitting penalty, smitten by a sudden scourge of God over his whole body, so that, driven by dread pains and agonies, he fell prone, wasted by famine, his whole flesh melted away by an unseen and God-sent fire, so that the whole form of his old appearance dissolved and vanished, and there was left only, as it were, an image of dry bones, like something skeletonized by long time, so that those present could think nothing else than that his body had become the tomb of his soul, which was buried in a corpse already wholly dissolved.
And as the heat consumed him yet more violently from the depth of his marrow, his eyes started forth, and falling from their own sockets left him blind; and he, even still breathing upon this, making acknowledgment to the Lord, called for death; and at the very last, confessing that he suffered these things justly for his outrage against Christ, he gave up his soul.
Thus, then, Maximinus being removed out of the way—who, being the only one yet left of the enemies of true religion, appeared the worst of all—the renewal of the churches from the foundations was raised by the grace of God the Almighty, and the word of Christ, shining forth to the glory of the God of all, recovered greater freedom than before, while the impiety of the enemies of true religion was filled with the utmost shame and dishonour.
For Maximinus first, himself proclaimed a common enemy of all by the rulers, was inscribed on public proclamations as a most impious and most ill-named and most God-hated tyrant; and as many writings as had been set up in honour of him and his children in every city, some, cast down from on high to the ground, were shattered, and others were made useless, blackened over with a dark colour; and likewise as many statues as had been set up in his honour were in like manner cast down and shattered, lying exposed to the laughter and sport of those who wished to insult and abuse them.
Then also all honours of the other enemies of true religion were taken away, and all who held with Maximinus were slain—especially those who, honoured by him with ruling dignities, in their flattery toward him had insolently outraged our word;
such as was Peucetius, most honoured and revered by him above all, and most genuine of his comrades, twice consul and thrice consul, and appointed by him prefect of the chief office; and Culcianus likewise, who had advanced through every ruling authority, who too had made himself illustrious with the countless blood of the Christians in Egypt; and besides these not a few others, through whom most of all the tyranny of Maximinus had been strengthened and increased.
And justice summoned also Theotecnus, by no means consigning to oblivion the things done by him against the Christians. For on account of the idol set up by him at Antioch, seeming to prosper, he had already been deemed worthy of a governorship by Maximinus;
but Licinius, entering the city of the Antiochenes, and making a search for charlatans, tortured the prophets and priests of the newly set up idol, asking by what device they feigned their deceit; and when it was impossible for them, hard pressed by the tortures, to conceal it, and they declared that the whole mystery was a deceit contrived by the art of Theotecnus, he laid upon all the fitting penalty, and gave over first Theotecnus himself, and then also his partners in the sorcery, after very many maltreatments, to death.
To all these were added also the children of Maximinus, whom he had already made partakers of the imperial honour and of the dedication on tablets and paintings; and those who before had boasted kinship with the tyrant and had been lifted up to lord it over all men suffered the same as those aforementioned, with the utmost dishonour, since they had not received instruction, nor known, nor understood the exhortation that says in the sacred words:
'Put not your trust in princes, in the sons of men, in whom there is no salvation. His spirit shall go forth and shall return to his earth; in that day all their reasonings shall perish.' Thus, then, the impious being cleared away, there were preserved to Constantine and Licinius alone the things of the empire that befell them, secure and free from envy; who, having cleared away from life the hatred of God of all those before, perceiving the good things dispensed to them by God, displayed their love of virtue and devotion to God, and their piety and thankfulness toward the Deity, through their legislation on behalf of the Christians.