A SELECT LIBRARY

OF

NICENE AND
POST-NICENE FATHERS

OF

THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH

SECOND SERIES

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH WITH PROLEGOMENA AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.

VOLUMES I-VII.
UNDER THE EDITORIAL SUPERVISION OF

PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., LL.D., 
AND
HENRY WACE, D.D.,
Professor of Church History in the Union Theological Seminary, New York.

Principal of King’s College, London.

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EDINBURGH
WM.B. EERDEMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY
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VOLUME I

EUSEBIUS PAMPHILUS:
CHURCH HISTORY
LIFE OF CONSTANTINE
ORATION IN PRAISE OF CONSTANTINE
________________________

Volume I
 Prolegomena. The Life and Writings of Eusebius of Caesarea
 Testimonies of the Ancients Against Eusebius
Eusebius Pamphilus
The Church History of Eusebius
Book I
Book II
Book III
Book IV
Book V
Book VI
Book VII
Book VIII
Book IX
Book X
 Supplementary Notes and Tables
The Life of the Blessed Emperor Constantine
 Preface
 Prolegomena
 II.—Special Polegomena
Book I
Book II
Book III
Book IV
The Oration of the Emperor Constantine
The Oration in Praise of the Emperor Constantine
 Prolegomena. The Life and Writings of Eusebius of Caesarea.
Chapter I. The Life of Eusebius.
§1. Sources and Literature.
Acacius, the pupil and successor of Eusebius in the bishopric of Caesarea, wrote a life of the latter (Socr. H. E. II. 4) which is unfortunately lost. He was a man of ability (Sozomen H. E. III. 2, IV. 23) and had exceptional opportunities for producing a full and accurate account of Eusebius’ life; the disappearance of his work is therefore deeply to be regretted.
Numerous notices of Eusebius are found in the works of Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, Athanasius, Jerome, and other writers of his own and subsequent ages, to many of which references will be made in the following pages. A collection of these notices, made by Valesius, is found in English translation on p. 57 sq. of this volume. The chief source for a knowledge of Eusebius’ life and character is to be found in his own works. These will be discussed below, on p. 26 sq. Of the numerous modern works which treat at greater or less length of the life of Eusebius I shall mention here only those which I have found most valuable.
Valesius: De vita scriptisque Eusebii Diatribe (in his edition of Eusebius’ Histaria Eccles.; English version in Cruse’s translation of the same work).
Cave: Lives of the Fathers, II. 95–144 (ed. H. Cary, Oxf. 1840).
Tillemont: Hist. Eccles. VII. pp. 39–75 (compare also his account of the Arians in vol, VI.).
Stroth: Leben and Schriften des Eusebius (in his German translation of the Hist. Eccles.).
Closs: Leben and Schriflen des Eusebius (in his translation of the same work).
Danz: De Eusebio Caesariensi, Historion of the sam’ Eccles. Scriptore, ejusque fide historica recte rians in vol, VI.).and most val’stimanda, Cap. II.: de rebus ad Eusebii vitam pertinentibus (pp. 33–75).
Stein: Eusebius Bischof von Caesarea. Nach seinem Leben, seinen Schriften, and seinem dogmatischen Charakter dargestellt (Würzburg, 1859; full and valuable).
Bright, in the introduction to his edition of Burton’s text of the Hist. Eccles. (excellent).
Lightfoot (Bishop of Durham): Eusebius of Caesarea, in Smith and Wace’s Dictionary of Christian Biography, vol. II. pp. 308–348. Lightfoot’s article is a magnificent monument of patristic scholarship and contains the best and most exhaustive treatment of the life and writings of Eusebius that has been written.
The student may be referred finally to all the larger histories of the Church (e.g. Schaff, vol. III. 871 sqq. and 1034 sq.), which contain more or less extended accounts of Eusebius.
§2. Eusebius’ Birth and Training. His Life in Caesarea until the Outbreak of the Persecution.
Our author was commonly known among the ancients as Eusebius of Caesarea or Eusebius Pamphili. The former designation arose from the fact that he was bishop of the church in Caesarea for many years; the latter from the fact that he was the intimate friend and devoted admirer of Pamphilus, a presbyter of Caesarea and a martyr. Some such specific appellation was necessary to distinguish him from others of the same name. Smith and Wace’s Dictionary of Christian Biography mentions 137 men of the first eight centuries who bore the name Eusebius, and of these at least forty were contemporaries of our author. The best known among them were Eusebius of Nicomedia (called by Arius the brother of Eusebius of Caesarea), Eusebius of Emesa, and Eusebius of Samosata.
The exact date of our author’s birth is unknown to us, but his Ecclesiastical History contains notices which enable us to fix it approximately. In H. E. V. 28 he reports that Paul of Samosata attempted to revive again in his day kaqÆ hjma")the heresy of Artemon. But Paul of Samosata was deposed from the episcopate of Antioch in 272, and was condemned as a heretic at least as early as 268, so that Eusebius must have been born before the latter date, if his words are to be strictly interpreted. Again, according to H. E. III. 28, Dionysius was bishop of Alexandria in Eusebius’ time (kaqÆ hma"). But Dionysius was bishop from 247 or 248 to 265, and therefore if Eusebius’ words are to be interpreted strictly here as in the former case, he must have been born before 265. On the other hand, inasmuch as his death occurred about 340, we cannot throw his birth much earlier than 260. It is true that the references to Paul and to Dionysius do not prove conclusively that Eusebius was alive in their day, for his words may have been used in a loose sense. But in H. E. VII. 26, just before proceeding to give an account of Paul of Samosata, he draws the line between his own and the preceding generation, declaring that he is now about to relate the events of his own age (thn kaqÆ hma"). This still further confirms the other indications, and we shall consequently be safe in concluding that Eusebius was born not far from the year 260 a.d. His birthplace cannot be determined with certainty. The fact that he is called “Eusebius the Palestinian” by Marcellus (Euseb. lib. adv. Marcell. I. 4), Bash (Lib. ad. Amphil. de Spir. Sancto, c. 29), and others, does not prove that he was a Palestinian by birth; for the epithet may be used to indicate merely his place of residence (he was bishop of Caesarea in Palestine for many years). Moreover, the argument urged by Stein and Lightfoot in support of his Palestinian birth, namely, that it was customary to elect to the episcopate of any church a native of the city in preference to a native of some other place, does not count for much. All that seems to have been demanded was that a man should have been already a member of the particular church over which he was to be made bishop, and even this rule was not universal (see Bingham’s Antiquities, II 10, 2 and 3). The fact that he was bishop of Caesarea therefore would at most warrant us in concluding only that he had made his residence in Caesarea for some time previous to his election to that office. Nevertheless, although neither of these arguments proves his Palestinian birth, it is very probable that he was a native of that country, or at least of that section. He was acquainted with Syriac as well as with Greek, which circumstance taken in connection with his ignorance of Latin (see below, p. 47) points to the region of Syria as his birthplace. Moreover, we learn from his own testimony that he was in Caesarea while still a youth (Vita Canstantini, I. 19), and in his epistle to the church of Caesarea (see below, p. 16) he says that he was taught the creed of the Caesarean church in his childhood (or at least at the beginning of his Christian life: en th kathchsei), and that he accepted it at baptism. It would seem therefore that he must have lived while still a child either in Caesarea itself, or in the neighborhood, where its creed was in use. Although no one therefore (except Theodorus Metochita of the fourteenth century, in his Cap. Miscell. 17; Migne, Patr. Lat. CXLIV. 949) directly states that Eusebius was a Palestinian by birth, we have every reason to suppose him such. His parents are entirely unknown. Nicephorus Callistus (H. E. VI. 37) reports that his mother was a sister of Pamphilus. He does not mention his authority for this statement, and it is extremely unlikely, in the face of the silence of Eusebius himself and of all other writers, that it is true. It is far more probable that the relationship was later assumed to account for the close intimacy of the two men. Arius, in an epistle addressed to Eusebius of Nicomedia (contained in Theodoret’s Hist. Eccles. I. 5), calls Eusebius of Caesarea the latter’s brother. It is objected to this that Eusebius of Nicomedia refers to Eusebius of Caesarea on one occasion as his “master” (tou destpotou mou, in his epistle to Paulinus contained in Theodoret’s Hist. Eccles. I. 6), and that on the other hand Eusebius of Caesarea calls Eusebius of Nicomedia, “the great Eusebius” (Euseb. lib. adv. Marcell. I. 4), both of which expressions seem inconsistent with brotherhood. Lightfoot justly remarks that neither the argument itself nor the objections carry much weight. The term adelfo" may well have been used to indicate merely theological or ecclesiastical association, while on the other hand, brotherhood would not exclude the form of expression employed by each in speaking of the other. Of more weight is the fact that neither Eusebius himself nor any historian of that period refers to such a relationship, and also the unlikelihood that two members of one family should bear the same name.
From Eusebius’ works we gather that he must have received an extensive education both in secular philosophy and in Biblical and theological science. Although his immense erudition was doubtless the result of wide and varied reading continued throughout life, it is highly probable that he acquired the taste for such reading in his youth. Who his early instructors were we do not know, and therefore cannot estimate the degree of their influence over him. As he was a man, however, who cherished deep admiration for those whom he regarded as great and good men, and as he possessed an unusually acquisitive mind and a pliant disposition, we should naturally suppose that his instructors must have possessed considerable influence over him, and that his methods of study in later years must have been largely molded by their example and precept. We see this exemplified in a remarkable degree in the influence exerted over him by Pamphilus, his dearest friend, and at the same time the preceptor, as it were, of his early manhood. Certainly this great bibliopholist must have done much to strengthen Eusebius’ natural taste for omnivorous reading, and the opportunities afforded by his grand library for the cultivation of such a taste were not lost. To the influence of Pamphilus, the devoted admirer and enthusiastic champion of Origen, was doubtless due also in large measure the deep respect which Eusebius showed for that illustrious Father, a respect to which we owe one of the most delightful sections of his Church History, his long account of Origen in the sixth book, and to which in part antiquity was indebted for the elaborate Defense of Origen, composed by Pamphilus and himself, but unfortunately no longer extant. Eusebius certainly owed much to the companionship of that eager student and noble Christian hero, and he always recognized with deep gratitude his indebtedness to him. (Compare the account of Pamphilus given below in Bk. VII. chap. 32, §25 sq.) The names of his earlier instructors, who were eminently successful, at least in fostering his thirst for knowledge, are quite unknown to us. His abiding admiration for Plato, whom he always placed at the head of all philosophers (see Stein, p. 6), would lead us to think that he received at least a part of his secular training from some ardent Platonist, while his intense interest in apologetics, which lasted throughout his life, and which affected all his works, seems to indicate the peculiar bent of his early Christian education. Trithemius concluded from a passage in his History (VII. 32) that Eusebius was a pupil of the learned Dorotheus of Antioch, and Valesius, Lightfoot and others are apparently inclined to accept his conclusion. But, as Stroth remarks (Eusebii Kirchengeschichte, p. xix), all that Eusebius says is that he had heard Dorotheus expound the Scriptures in the church (toutou metriw" ta" grafa" epi th" ekklhsia" dihgoumenou kathkousamen), that is, that he had heard him preach. To conclude from this statement that he was a pupil of Dorotheus is certainly quite unwarranted.
Stroth’s suggestion that he probably enjoyed the instruction of Meletius for seven years during the persecution rests upon no good ground, for the passage which he relies upon to sustain his opinion (E. E. VII. 32. 28) says only that Eusebius “observed Meletius well” (katenohsamen) during those seven years.
In C§sarea Eusebius was at one time a presbyter of the church, as we may gather from his words in the epistle to that church already referred to, where, in speaking of the creed, he says, “As we believed and taught in the presbytery and in the episcopate itself.” But the attempt to fix the date of his ordination to that office is quite vain. It is commonly assumed that he became presbyter while Agapius was bishop of C§sarea, and this is not unlikely, though we possess no proof of it (upon Agapius see below, H. E. VII. 32, note 39). In his Vita Constantini, I. 19, Eusebius reports that he saw Constantine for the first time in Caesarea in the train of the Emperor Diocletian. In his Chron. Eusebius reports that Diocletian made an expedition against Egypt, which had risen in rebellion in the year 296 a.d., and Theophanes, in his Chron., says that Constantine accompanied him. It is probable therefore that it was at this time that Eusebius first saw Constantine in Caesarea, when he was either on his way to Egypt, or on his way back (see Tillemont’s Hist. des Emp., IV. p. 34).
During these years of quiet, before the great persecution of Diocletian, which broke out in 303 a.d., Eusebius’ life must have been a very pleasant one. Pamphilus’ house seems to have been a sort of rendezvous for Christian scholars, perhaps a regular divinity school; for we learn from Eusebius’ Martyrs in Palestine (Cureton’s edition, pp. 13 and 14) that he and a number of others, including the martyr Apphianus, were living together in one house at the time of the persecution, and that the latter was instructed in the Scriptures by Pamphilus and acquired from him virtuous habits and conduct. The great library of Pamphilus would make his house a natural center for theological study, and the immense amount of work which was done by him, or under his direction, in the reproduction of copies of the Holy Scriptures, of Origen’s works (see Jerome’s de vir. ill. 75 and 8r, and contra Ruf. I. 9), and in other literary employments of the same kind, makes it probable that he had gathered about him a large circle of friends and students who assisted him in his labors and profited by his counsel and instruction. Amidst these associations Eusebius passed his early manhood, and the intellectual stimulus thus given him doubtless had much to do with his future career. He was above all a literary man, and remained such to the end of his life. The pleasant companionships of these days, and the mutual interest and sympathy which must have bound those fellow-students and fellow-disciples of Pamphilus very close together, perhaps had much to do with that broad-minded spirit of sympathy and tolerance which so characterized Eusebius in later years. He was always as far as possible from the character of a recluse. He seems ever to have been bound by very strong ties to the world itself and to his fellow-men. Had his earlier days been filled with trials and hardships, with the bitterness of disappointed hopes and unfulfilled ambitions, with harsh experiences of others’ selfishness and treachery, who shall say that the whole course of his life might not have been changed, and his writings have exhibited an entirely different spirit from that which is now one of their greatest charms? Certainly he had during these early years in Caesarea large opportunities for cultivating that natural trait of admiration for other men, which was often so strong as to blind him even to their faults, and that natural kindness which led him to see good wherever it existed in his Christian brethren. At the same time these associations must have had considerable influence in fostering the apologetic temper. The pursuits of the little circle were apparently exclusively Christian, and in that day when Christianity stood always on its defense, it would naturally become to them a sacred duty to contribute to that defense and to employ all their energies in the task. It has been remarked that the apologetic temper is very noticeable in Eusebius’ writings. It is more than that; we may say indeed in general terms that everything he wrote was an apology for the faith. His History was written avowedly with an apologetic purpose, his Chronicle was composed with the same end in view. Even when pronouncing a eulogy upon a deceased emperor he seized ever), possible opportunity to draw from that emperor’s career, and from the circumstances of his reign, arguments for the truth and grandeur of the Christian religion. His natural temper of mind and his early training may have had much to do with this habit of thought, but certainly those years with Pamphilus and his friends in Caesarea must have emphasized and developed it.
Another characteristic which Pamphilus and the circle that surrounded him doubtless did something to develop in our author was a certain superiority to the trammels of mere traditionalism, or we might perhaps better say that they in some measure checked the opposite tendency of slavishness to the traditional which seems to have been natural to him. Pamphilus’ deep reverence for Origen proclaims him at once superior to that kind of narrow conservatism which led many men as learned and doubtless as conscientious as himself to pass severe and unconditional condemnation upon Origen and all his teaching. The effect of championing his cause must have fostered in this little circle, which was a very hotbed of Origenism, a contempt for the narrow and unfair judgments of mere traditionalists, and must have led them to seek in some degree the truth solely for its own sake, and to become in a measure careless of its relation to the views of any school or church. It could hardly be otherwise than that the free and fearless spirit of Origen should leave its impress through his writings upon a circle of followers so devoted to him as were these Caesarean students. Upon the impressionable Eusebius these influences necessarily operated. And yet he brought to them no keen speculative powers, no deep originality such as Origen himself possessed. His was essentially an acquisitive, not a productive mind, and hence it was out of the question that he should become a second Origen. It was quite certain that Origen’s influence over him would weaken somewhat his confidence in the traditional as such,-a confidence which is naturally great in such minds as his,— but at the same time would do little to lessen the real power of the past over him. He continued to get his truth from others, from the great men of the past with whom he had lived and upon whose thought he had feasted. All that he believed he had drawn from them; he produced nothing new for himself, and his creed was a traditional creed. And yet he had at the same time imbibed from his surroundings the habit of questioning and even criticising the past, and, in spite of his abiding respect for it, had learned to feel that the voice of the many is not always the voice of truth, and that the widely and anciently accepted is sometimes to be corrected by the clearer sight of a single man. Though he therefore depended for all he believed so completely upon the past, his associations had helped to free him from a slavish adherence to all that a particular school had accepted, and had made him in some small measure an eclectic in his relations to doctrines and opinions of earlier generations. A notable instance of this eclecticism on his part is seen in his treatment of the Apocalypse of John. He felt the force of an almost universal tradition in favor of its apostolic origin, and yet in the face of that he could listen to the doubts of Dionysius, and could be led by his example, in a case where his own dissatisfaction with the book acted as an incentive, almost, if not quite, to reject it and to ascribe it to another John. Instances of a similar mode of conduct on his part are quite numerous. While he is always a staunch apologist for Christianity, he seldom, if ever, degenerates into a mere partisan of any particular school or sect.
One thing in fact which is particularly noticeable in Eusebius’ works is the comparatively small amount of time and space which he devotes to heretics. With his wide and varied learning and his extensive acquaintance with the past, he had opportunities for successful heresy hunting such as few possessed, and yet he never was a heresy hunter in any sense. This is surprising when we remember what a fascination this employment had for so many scholars of his own age, and when we realize that his historical tastes and talents would seem to mark him out as just the man for that kind of work. May it not be that the lofty spirit of Origen, animating that Caesarean school, had something to do with the happy fact that he became an apologist instead of a mere polemic, that he chose the honorable task of writing a history of the Church. instead of anticipating Epiphanius’ Panarium?
It was not that he was not alive to the evils of heresy. He shared with nearly all good church-men of his age an intense aversion for those who, as he believed, had corrupted the true Gospel of Christ. Like them he ascribed heresy to the agency of the evil one, and was no more able than they to see any good in a man whom he looked upon as a real heretic, or to do justice in any degree to the error which he taught. His condemnations of heretics in his Church History are most severe. Language is hardly strong enough to express his aversion for them. And yet, although he is thus most thoroughly the child of his age, the difference between him and most of his contemporaries is very apparent. He mentions these heretics only to dismiss them with disapproval or condemnation. He seldom, if ever, discusses and refutes their views. His interests lie evidently in other directions; he is concerned with higher things. A still more strongly marked difference between himself and many churchmen of his age lies in his large liberality towards those of his own day who differed with him in minor points of faith, and his comparative indifference to the divergence of views between the various parties in the Church. In all this we believe is to be seen not simply the inherent nature of the man, but that nature as trained in the school of Pamphilus, the disciple of Origen.
§3. The Persecution of Diocletian.
In this delightful circle and engaged in such congenial tasks, the time must have passed very happily for Eusebius, until, in 303, the terrible persecution of Diocletian broke upon the Church almost like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. The causes of the sudden change of policy on Diocletian’s part, and the terrible havoc wrought in the Church, it is not my intention to discuss here (see below, Bk. VIII. chap. 2, note 3 sq.). We are concerned with the persecution only in so far as it bears upon the present subject. In the first year of the persecution Procopius, the first martyr of Palestine, was put to death at Caesarea (Eusebius’ Martyrs of Palestine, Cureton’s ed. p. 4), and from that time on that city, which was an important Christian center, was the scene of a tempest which raged with greater or less violence, and with occasional cessations, for seven years. Eusebius himself was an eyewitness of many martyrdoms there, of which he gives us an account in his Martyrs of Palestine. The little circle which surrounded Pamphilus did not escape. In the third year of the persecution (Mart. of Pal. p. 12 sq.) a youth named Apphianus, or Epiphanius (the former is given in the Greek text, the latter in the Syriac), who “resided in the same house with us, confirming himself in godly doctrine, and being instructed by that perfect martyr, Pamphilus” (as Eusebius says), committed an act of fanatical daring which caused his arrest and martyrdom. It seems that without the knowledge of his friends, concealing his design even from those who dwelt in the same house with him, he laid hold of the hand of the governor, Arbanus, who was upon the point of sacrificing, and endeavored to dissuade him from offering to “lifeless idols and wicked devils.” His arrest was of course the natural consequence, and he had the glory of witnessing a good profession and suffering a triumphant death. Although Eusebius speaks with such admiration of his conduct, it is quite significant of the attitude of himself, and of most of the circle of which he was one, that Apphianus felt obliged to conceal his purpose from them. He doubtless feared that they would not permit him to perform the rash act which he meditated, and we may conclude from that, that the circle in the main was governed by the precepts of good common sense, and avoided that fanaticism which so frequently led men, as in the present case it led Apphianus, to expose themselves needlessly, and even to court martyrdom. It is plain enough from what we know of Eusebius’ general character that he himself was too sensible to act in that way. It is true that he speaks with admiration of Apphianus’ conduct, and in H. E. VIII. 5, of the equally rash procedure of a Nicomedian Christian; but that does not imply that he considered their course the wisest one, and that he would not rather recommend the employment of all proper and honorable precautions for the preservation of life. Indeed, in H. E. IV. 15, he speaks with evident approval of the prudent course pursued by Polycarp in preserving his life so long as he could without violating his Christian profession, and with manifest disapproval of the rash act of the Phrygian Quintus, who presumptuously courted martyrdom, only to fail when the test itself came. Pamphilus also possessed too much sound Christian sense to advocate any such fanaticism, or to practice it himself, as is plain enough from the fact that he was not arrested until the fifth year of the persecution. This unhealthy temper of mind in the midst of persecution was indeed almost universally condemned by the wisest men of the Church, and yet the boldness and the very rashness of those who thus voluntarily and needlessly threw their lives away excited widespread admiration and too often a degree of commendation which served only to promote a wider growth of the same unhealthy sentiment.
In the fifth year of the persecution Pamphilus was arrested and thrown into prison, where he remained for two years, when he finally, in the seventh year of the persecution, suffered martyrdom with eleven others, some of whom were his disciples and members of his own household. (Pal. Mart. Cureton’s ed. p. 36 sq.; H. E. App. chap. 11.) During the two years of Pamphilus’ imprisonment Eusebius spent a great deal of time with him, and the two together composed five books of an Apology for Origen, to which Eusebius afterward added a sixth (see below, p. 36). Danz (p. 37) assumes that Eusebius was imprisoned with Pamphilus, which is not an unnatural supposition when we consider how much they must have been together to compose the Apology as they did. There is, however, no other evidence that he was thus imprisoned, and in the face of Eusebius’ own silence it is safer perhaps to assume (with most historians) that he simply visited Pamphilus in his prison. How it happened that Pamphilus and so many of his followers were imprisoned and martyred, while Eusebius escaped, we cannot tell. In his Martyrs of Palestine, chap. 11, he states that Pamphilus was the only one of the company of twelve martyrs that was a presbyter of the Caesarean church; and from the fact that he nowhere mentions the martyrdom of others of the presbyters, we may conclude that they all escaped. It is not surprising, therefore, that Eusebius should have done the same. Nevertheless, it is somewhat difficult to understand how he could come and go so frequently without being arrested and condemned to a like fate with the others. It is possible that he possessed friends among the authorities whose influence procured his safety. This supposition finds some support in the fact that he had made the acquaintance of Constantine (the Greek in Vita Const. I. 19 has egnwmen, which implies, as Danz remarks, that he not only saw, but that he became acquainted with Constantine) some years before in Caesarea. He could hardly have made his acquaintance unless he had some friend among the high officials of the city. Influential family connections may account in part also for the position of prominence which he later acquired at the imperial court of Constantine. If he had friends in authority in Caesarea during the persecution his exemption from arrest is satisfactorily accounted for. It has been supposed by some that Eusebius denied the faith during the terrible persecution, or that he committed some other questionable and compromising act of concession, and thus escaped martyrdom. In support of this is urged the fact that in 335, at the council of Tyre, Potamo, bishop of Heraclea, in Egypt, addressed Eusebius in the following words: “Dost thou sit as judge, O Eusebius; and is Athanasius, innocent as he is, judged by thee? Who can bear such things? Pray tell me, wast thou not with me in prison during the persecution? And I lost an eye in behalf of the truth, but thou appearest to have received no bodily injury, neither hast thou suffered martyrdom, but thou hast remained alive with no mutilation. How wast thou released from prison unless thou didst promise those that put upon us the pressure of persecution to do that which is unlawful, or didst actually do it?” Eusebius, it seems, did not deny the charge, but simply rose in anger and dismissed the council with the words, “If ye come hither and make such accusations against us, then do your accusers speak the truth. For if ye tyrannize here, much more do ye in your own country” (Epiphan. Har. LXVIII. 8). It must be noticed, however, that Potamo does not directly charge Eusebius with dishonorable conduct, he simply conjectures that he must have acted dishonorably in order to escape punishment; as if every one who was imprisoned with Potamo must have suffered as he did! As Stroth suggests, it is quite possible that his peculiarly excitable and violent temperament was one of the causes of his own loss. He evidently in any case had no knowledge of unworthy conduct on Eusebius’ part, nor had any one else so far as we can judge. For in that age of bitter controversy, when men’s characters were drawn by their opponents in the blackest lines, Eusebius must have suffered at the hands of the Athanasian party if it had been known that he had acted a cowardly part in the persecution. Athanasius himself refers to this incident (Contra Arian. VIII. 1), but he only says that Eusebius was “accused of sacrificing,” he does not venture to affirm that he did sacrifice; and thus it is evident that he knew nothing of such an act. Moreover, he never calls Eusebius “the sacrificer,” as he does Asterius, and as he would have been sure to do had he possessed evidence which warranted him in making the accusation (cf. Lightfoot, p. 311). Still further, Eusebius’ subsequent election to the episcopate of Caesarea, where his character and his conduct during the persecution must have been well known, and his appointment in later life to the important see of Antioch, forbid the supposition that he had ever acted a cowardly part in time of persecution. And finally, it is psychologically impossible that Eusebius could have written works so full of comfort for, and sympathy with, the suffering confessors, and could have spoken so openly and in such strong terms of condemnation of the numerous defections that occurred during the persecution, if he. was conscious of his own guilt. It is quite possible, as remarked above, that influential friends. protected him without any act of compromise on his part; or, supposing him to have been imprisoned with Potamo, it may be, as Lightfoot suggests, that the close of the persecution brought him his release as it did so many others. For it would seem natural to refer that imprisonment to the latter part of the persecution, when in all probability he visited Egypt, which was the home of Potamo. We must in any case vindicate Eusebius from the unfounded charge of cowardice and apostasy; and we ask, with Cave, “If every accusation against any man at any time were to be believed, who would be guiltless?”
From his History and his Martyrs in Palestine we learn that Eusebius was for much of the time in the very thick of the fight, and was an eyewitness of numerous martyrdoms not only in Palestine, but also in Tyre and in Egypt.
The date of his visits to the latter places (H. E. VIII. 7, 9) cannot be determined with exactness. They are described in connection with what seem to be the earlier events of the persecution, and yet it is by no means certain that chronological order has been observed in the narratives. The mutilation of prisoners—such as Potamo suffered—seems to have become common only in the year 308 and thereafter (see Mason’s Persecution of Diocletian, p. 281), and hence if Eusebius was imprisoned with Potamo during his visit to Egypt, as seems most probable, there would be some reason for assigning that visit to the later years of the persecution. In confirmation of this might be urged the improbability that he would leave Caesarea while Pamphilus was still alive, either before or after the latter’s imprisonment, and still further his own statement in H. E. VII. 32, that he had observed Meletius escaping the fury of the persecution for seven years in Palestine. It is therefore likely that Eusebius did not make his journey to Egypt, which must have occupied some time, until toward the very end of the persecution, when it raged there with exceeding fierceness during the brief outburst of the infamous Maximin.
§4. Eusebius’ Accession to the Bishopric of Caesarea.
Not long after the close of the persecution, Eusebius became bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, his own home, and held the position until his death. The exact date of his accession cannot be ascertained, indeed we cannot say that it did not take place even before the close of the persecution, but that is hardly probable; in fact, we know of no historian who places it earlier than 313. His immediate predecessor in the episcopate was Agapius, whom he mentions in terms of praise in H. E. VII. 32. Some writers have interpolated a bishop Agricolaus between Agopins and Eusebius (see e.g. Tillemont, Hist. Ecceles. VII. 42), on the ground that his name appears in one of the lists of those present at the Council of Ancyra (c. 314), as bishop of Caesarea in Palestine (see Labbei el Cossartii Conc. I. 1475). But, as Hefele shows (Conciliengesch. I. 220), this list is of late date and not to be relied upon. On the other hand, as Lightfoot points out, in the Libellus Synadicus(Conc. I. 1480), where Agricolaus is said to have been present at the Council of Ancyra, he is called bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia; and this statement is confirmed by a Syriac list given in Cowper’s Miscellanies, p. 41. Though perhaps no great reliance is to be placed upon the correctness of any of these lists, the last two may at any rate be set over against the first, and we may conclude that there exists no ground for assuming that Agapius, who is the last Caesarean bishop mentioned by Eusebius, was not the latter’s immediate predecessor. At what time Agapius died we do not know. That he suffered martyrdom is hardly likely, in view of Eusebius’ silence on the subject. It would seem more likely that he outlived the persecution. However that may be, Eusebius was already bishop at the time of the dedication of a new and elegant Church at Tyre under the direction of his friend Paulinus, bishop of that city. Upon this occasion he delivered an address of considerable length, which he has inserted in his Ecclesiastical History, Bk. X. chap. 4. He does not name himself as its author, but the way in which he introduces it, and the very fact that he records the whole speech without giving the name of the man who delivered it, make its origin perfectly plain. Moreover, the last sentence of the preceding chapter makes it evident that the speaker was a bishop: “Every one of the rulers (arcontwn) present delivered panegyric discourses.” The date of the dedication of this church is a matter of dispute, though it is commonly put in the year 315. It is plain from Eusebius’ speech that it was uttered before Licinius had begun to persecute the Christians, and also, as Görres remarks, at a lime when Constantine and Licinius were at least outwardly at peace with each other. In the year 314 the two emperors went to war, and consequently, if the persecution of Licinius began soon after that event, as it is commonly supposed to have done, the address must have been delivered before hostilities opened; that is, at least as early as 314, and this is the year in which Görres places it (Kritische Untersuchungen ueber die licinianische Christenverfolgung, p. 8). But if Görres’ date (319 a.d.) for the commencement of the persecution be accepted (and though he can hardly be said to have proved it, he has urged some strong grounds in support of it), then the address may have been delivered at almost any time between 315 and 319, for, as Görres himself shows, Licinius and Constantine were outwardly at peace during the greater part of that time (ib. p. 14, sq.). There is nothing in the speech itself which prevents this later date, nor is it intrinsically improbable that the great basilica reached completion only in 315 or later. In fact, it must be admitted that Eusebius may have become bishop at any time between about 311 and 318.
The persecution of Licinius, which continued until his defeat by Constantine, in 323, was but local, and seems never to have been very severe. Indeed, it did not bear the character of a bloody persecution, though a few bishops appear to have met their death on one ground or another. Palestine and Egypt seem not to have suffered to any great extent (see Görres, ib. p. 32 sq.).
§5. The Outbreak of the Arian Controversy. The Attitude of Eusebius.
About the year 318, while Alexander was bishop of Alexandria, the Arian controversy broke out in that city, and the whole Eastern Church was soon involved in the strife. We cannot enter here into a discussion of Arius’ views; but in order to understand the rapidity with which the Arian party grew, and the strong hold which it possessed from the very start in Syria and Asia Minor, we must remember that Arius was not himself the author of that system which we know as Arianism, but that he learned the essentials of it from his instructor Lucian. The latter was one of the most learned men of his age in the Oriental Church, and rounded an exegetico-theological school in Antioch, which for a number of years stood outside of the communion of the orthodox Church in that city, but shortly before the martyrdom of Lucian himself (which took place in 311 or 312) made its peace with the Church, and was recognized by it. He was held in the highest reverence by his disciples, and exerted a great influence over them even after his death. Among them were such men as Arius, Eusebius of Nicomedia, Asterius, and others who were afterward known as staunch Arianists. According to Harnack the chief points in the system of Lucian and his disciples were the creation of the Son, the denial of his co-eternity with the Father, and his immutability acquired by persistent progress and steadfastness. His doctrine, which differed from that of Paul of Samosata chiefly in the fact that it was not a man but a created heavenly being who became “Lord,” was evidently the result of a combination of the teaching of Paul and of Origen. It will be seen that we have here, at least in germ, all the essential elements of Arianism proper: the creation of the Son out of nothing, and consequently the conclusion that there was a time when he was not; the distinction of his essence from that of the Father, but at the same time the emphasis upon the fact that he “was not created as the other creatures,” and is therefore to be sharply distinguished from them. There was little for Arius to do but to combine the elements given by Lucian in a more complete and well-ordered system, and then to bring that system forward clearly and publicly, and endeavor to make it the faith of the Church at large. His christology was essentially opposed to the Alexandrian, and it was natural that he should soon come into conflict with that church, of which he was a presbyter (upon Lucian’s teaching and its relation to Arianism, see Harnack’s Dogmengeschichte, II. p. 183 sq.).
Socrates (H. E. I. 5 sq.), Sozomen (H. E. I. 15) and Theodoret (H. E. I. 2 sq.), all of whom give accounts of the rise of Arianism, differ as to the immediate occasion of the controversy, but agree that Arius was excommunicated by a council convened at Alexandria, and that both he and the bishop Alexander sent letters to other churches, the latter defending his own course, the former complaining of his harsh treatment, and endeavoring to secure adherents to his doctrine. Eusebius of Nicomedia at once became his firm supporter, and was one of the leading figures on the Arian side throughout the entire controversy. His influential position as bishop of Nicomedia, the imperial residence, and later of Constantinople, was of great advantage to the Arian cause, especially toward the close of Constantine’s reign. From a letter addressed by this Eusebius to Paulinus of Tyre (Theodoret, H. E. I. 6) we learn that Eusebius of Caesarea was quite zealous in behalf of the Arian cause. The exact date of the letter we do not know, but it must have been written at an early stage of the controversy. Arius himself, in an epistle addressed to Eusebius of Nicomedia (Theodoret, H. E. I. 5), claims Eusebius of Caesarea among others as accepting at least one of his fundamental doctrines (“And since Eusebius, your brother in Caesarea, and Theodotus, and Paulinus, and Athanasius, and Gregory, and ’tius, and all the bishops of the East say that God existed before the Son, they have been condemned,” etc.). More than this, Sozomen (H. E. I. 15) informs us that Eusebius of Caesarea and two other bishops, having been appealed to by Arius for “permission for himself and his adherents, as he had already attained the rank of presbyter, to form the people who were with them into a church,” concurred with others “who were assembled in Palestine,” in granting the petition of Arius, and permitting him to assemble the people as before; but they “enjoined submission to Alexander, and commanded Arius to strive incessantly to be restored to peace and communion with him.” The addition of the last sentence is noticeable, as showing that they did not care to support a presbyter in open and persistent rebellion against his bishop. A fragment of a letter written by our Eusebius to Alexander is still extant, and is preserved in the proceedings of the Second Council of Nicaea, Act. VI. Tom. V. (Labbei et Cossartii Conc. VII. col. 497). In this epistle Eusebius strongly remonstrates with Alexander for having misrepresented the views of Arius. Still further, in his epistle to Alexander of Constantinople, Alexander of Alexandria (Theodoret, H. E. I. 4) complains of three Syrian bishops “who side with them [i.e. the Arians] and excite them to plunge deeper and deeper into iniquity.” The reference here is commonly supposed to be to Eusebius of Caesarean, and his two friends Paulinus of Tyre and Theodotus of Laodicea, who are known to have shown favor to Arius. It is probable, though not certain, that our Eusebius is one of the persons meant. Finally, many of the Fathers (above all Jerome and Photius), and in addition to them the Second Council of Nicaea, directly accuse Eusebius of holding the Arian heresy, as may be seen by examining the testimonies quoted below on p. 67 sq. In agreement with these early Fathers, many modern historians have attacked Eusebius with great severity, and have endeavored to show that the opinion that he was an Arian is supported by his own writings. Among those who have judged him most harshly are Baronins (ad ann. 340, c. 38 sq.), Petavius (Dogm. Theol. de Trin. I. c. 11 sq.), Scaliger (,In Elencho Trihoeresii, c. 27, and De emendatione temporum, Bk. VI. c. 1), Mosheim (Ecclesiastical History, Murdock’s translation, I. p. 287 sq.), Montfaucon (Proelim. in Comment. ad Psalm. c. VI.), and Tillemont (H. E. VII. p. 67 sq. 2d ed.).On the other hand, as may be seen from the testimonies in Eusebius’ favor, quoted below on, p. 57 sq., many of the Fathers, who were themselves orthodox, looked upon Eusebius as likewise sound on the subject of the Trinity. He has been defended in modern times against the charge of Arianism by a great many prominent scholars; among others by Valesius in his Life of Eusebius, by Bull (Def. Fid. Nic. II. 9. 20, III. 9. 3, 11), Cave (Lives of the Fathers, II. p. 135 sq.), Fabricius (Bibl. Groec. VI. p. 32 sq.), Dupin (Bibl. Eccles. IL p. 7 sq.), and most fully and carefully by Lee in his prolegomena to his edition of Eusebius’ Theaphania, p. xxiv. sq. Lightfoot also defends him against the charge of heresy, as do a great many other writers whom it is not necessary to mention here. Confronted with such diversity of opinion, both ancient and modern, what are we to conclude? It is useless to endeavor, as Lee does, to clear Eusebius of all sympathy with and leaning toward Arianism. It is impossible to explain such widespread and continued condemnation of him by acknowledging only that there are many expressions in his works which are in themselves perfectly orthodox but capable of being wrested in such a way as to produce a suspicion of possible Arianistic tendencies, for there are such expressions in the works of multitudes of ancient writers whose orthodoxy has never been questioned. Nor can the widespread belief that he was an Arian be explained by admitting that he was for a time the personal friend of Arius, but denying that he accepted, or in any way sympathized with his views (cf. Newman’s Arians, p. 262). There are in fact certain fragments of epistles extant, which are, to say the least, decidedly Arianistic in their modes of expression, and these must be reckoned with in forming an opinion of Eusebius’ views; for there is no reason to deny, as Lee does, that they are from Eusebius’ own hand. On the other hand, to maintain, with some of the Fathers and many of the moderns, that Eusebius was and continued through life a genuine Arian, will not do in the face of the facts that contemporary and later Fathers were divided as to his orthodoxy, that he was honored highly by the Church of subsequent centuries, except at certain periods, and was even canonized (see Lightfoot’s article, p. 348), that he solemnly signed the Nicene Creed, which contained an express condemnation of the distinctive doctrines of Arius, and finally that at least in his later works he is thoroughly orthodox in his expressions, and is explicit in his rejection of the two main theses of the Arians,—that there was a time when the Son of God was not, and that he was produced out of nothing. It is impossible to enter here into a detailed discussion of such passages in Eusebius’ works as bear upon the subject under dispute. Lee has considered many of them at great length, and the reader may be referred to him for further information.
A careful examination of them will, I believe, serve to convince the candid student that there is a distinction to be drawn between those works written before the rise of Arius, those written between that time and the Council of Nicaea, and those written after the latter. It has been very common to draw a distinction between those works written before and those written after the Council, but no one, so far as I know, has distinguished those productions of Eusebius’ pen which appeared between 318 and 325, and which were caused by the controversy itself, from all his other writings. And yet such a distinction seems to furnish the key to the problem. Eusebius’ opponents have drawn their strongest arguments from the epistles which Eusebius wrote to Alexander and to Euphration; his defenders have drawn their arguments chiefly from the works which he produced subsequent to the year 325; while the exact bearing of the expressions used in his works produced before the controversy broke out has always been a matter of sharp dispute. Lee has abundantly shown his Contra Marcel., his De Eccl. Theol., his Thephania (which was written after the Council of Nicaea, and not, as Lee supposes, before it), and other later works, to be thoroughly orthodox and to contain nothing which a trinitarian might not have written. In his Hist. Eccl., Proeparatio Evang., Demanstratio Evang., and other earlier works, although we find some expressions employed which it would not have been possible for an orthodox trinitarian to use after the Council of Nicaea, at least without careful limitation to guard against misapprehension, there is nothing even in these works which requires us to believe that he accepted the doctrines of Arius’ predecessor, Lucian of Antioch; that is, there is nothing distinctly and positively Arianistic about them, although there are occasional expressions which might lead the reader to expect that the writer would become an Arian if he ever learned of Arius’ doctrines. But if there is seen to be a lack of emphasis upon the divinity of the Son, or rather a lack of clearness in the conception of the nature of that divinity, it must be remembered that there was at this time no especial reason for emphasizing and defining it, but there was on the contrary very good reason for laying particular stress upon the subordination of the Son over against Sabellianism, which was so widely prevalent during the third century, and which was exerting an influence even over many orthodox theologians who did not consciously accept Sabellianistic tenets. That Eusebius was a decided subordinationist must be plain to every one that reads his works with care, especially his earlier ones. It would be surprising if he had not been, for he was born at a time when Sabellianism (monarchianism) was felt to be the greatest danger to which orthodox christology was exposed, and he was trained under the influence of the followers of Origen, who had made it one of his chief aims to emphasize the subordination of the Son over against that very monarchianism.1 The same subordinationism may be clearly seen in the writings of Dionysius of Alexandria and of Gregory Thaumaturgus, two of Origen’s greatest disciples. It must not be forgotten that at the beginning of the fourth century the problem of how to preserve the Godhood of Christ and at the same time his subordination to the Father (in opposition to the monarchianists) had not been solved. Eusebius in his earlier writings shows that he holds both (he cannot be convicted of denying Christ’s divinity), but that he is as far from a solution of the problem, and is just as uncertain in regard to the exact relation of Father and Son, as Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origen, Dionysius, and Gregory Thaumaturgus were; is just as inconsistent in his modes of expression as they, and yet no more so (see Harnack’s Dogmengeschichte, I. pp. 628 sq. and 634 sq., for an exposition of the opinions of these other Fathers on the subject). Eusebius, with the same immature and undeveloped views which were held all through the third century, wrote those earlier works which have given rise to so much dispute between those who accuse him of Arianism and those who defend him against the charge. When he wrote them he was neither Arian nor Athanasian, and for that reason passages may be found in them which if written after the Council of Nicaea might prove him an Arian, and other passages which might as truly prove him an Athanasian, just as in the writings of Origen were found by both parties passages to support their views, and in Gregory Thaumaturgus passages apparently teaching Arianism, and others teaching its opposite, Sabellianism (see Harnack, ib. p. 646).
Let us suppose now that Eusebius, holding fast to the divinity of Christ, and yet convinced just as firmly of his subordination to the Father, becomes acquainted through Arius, or other like-minded disciples of Lucian of Antioch, with a doctrine which seems to preserve the Godhood, while at the same time emphasizing strongly the subordination of the Son, and which formulates the relation of Father and Son in a clear and rational manner. That he should accept such a doctrine eagerly is just what we should expect, and just what we find him doing. In his epistles to Alexander and Euphration, he shows himself an Arian, and Arius and his followers were quite right in claiming him as a supporter. There is that in the epistles which is to be found nowhere in his previous writings, and which distinctly separates him from the orthodox party. How then are we to explain the fact that a few years later he signed the Nicene creed and anathematized the doctrines of Arius? Before we can understand his conduct, it is necessary to examine carefully the two epistles in question. Such an examination will show us that what Eusebius is defending in them is not genuine Arianism. He evidently thinks that it is, evidently supposes that he and Arius are in complete agreement upon the subjects under discussion; but he is mistaken. The extant fragments of the two epistles are given below on p. 70. It will be seen that Eusebius in them defends the Arian doctrine that there was a time when the Son of God was not. It will be seen also that he finds fault with Alexander for representing the Arians as teaching that the “Son of God was made out of nothing, like all creatures,” and contends that Arius teaches that the Son of God was begotten, and that he was not produced like all creatures. We know that the Arians very commonly applied the word “begotten” to Christ, using it in such cases as synonymous with “created,” and thus not implying, as the Athanasians did when they used the word, that he was of one substance with the Father (compare, for instance, the explanation of the meaning of the term given by Eusebius of Nicomedia in his epistle to Paulinns; Theod. H. E. I. 6). It is evident that the use of this word had deceived our Eusebius, and that he was led by it to think that they taught that the Son was of the Father in a peculiar sense, and did in reality partake in some way of essential Godhood. And indeed it is not at all surprising that the words of Arius, in his epistle to Alexander of Alexandria (see Athan. Ep. de conc. Arim. et Seleuc., chap. II. §3; Oxford edition of Athanasius’ Tracts against Arianism, P. 97), quoted by Eusebius in his epistle to the same Alexander, should give Eusebius that impression. The words are as follows: “The God of the law, and of the prophets, and of the New Testament before eternal ages begat an only-begotten Son, through whom also He made the ages and the universe. And He begat him not in appearance, but in truth, and subjected him to his own will, unchangeable and immutable, a perfect creature of God, but not as one of the creatures.” Arius’ use here of the word “begat,” and his qualification of the word “creature” by the adjective “perfect,” and by the statement that he was “not as one of the creatures” naturally tended to make Eusebius think. that Arius acknowledged a real divinity of the Son, and that appeared to him to be all that was necessary. Meanwhile Alexander in his epistle to Alexander of Constantinople (Theod. H. E. I. 4) had, as Eusebius says, misstated Arius’ opinion, or at least had attributed to him the belief that Christ was “made like all other men that have ever been born,” whereas Arius expressly disclaims such a belief. Alexander undoubtedly thought that that was the legitimate result to which the other views of Arius must lead; but Eusebius did not think so, and felt himself called upon to remonstrate with Alexander for what seemed to him the latter’s unfairness in the matter.
When we examine the Caesarean creed2 which Eusebius presented to the Council as a fair statement of his belief, we find nothing in it inconsistent with the acceptance of the kind of Arianism which he defends in his epistle to Alexander, and which he evidently supposed to be practically the Arianism of Arius himself. In his epistle to Euphration, however, Eusebius seems at first glance to go further and to give up the real divinity of the Son. His words are, “Since the Son is himself God, but not true God.” But we have no right to interpret these words, torn as they are from the context which might make their meaning perfectly plain, without due regard to Eusebius’ belief expressed elsewhere in this epistle, and in his epistle to Alexander which was evidently written about the same time. In the epistle to Alexander he clearly reveals a belief in the real divinity of the Son, while in the other fragment of his epistle to Euphration he dwells upon the subordination of the Son and approves the Arian opinion, which he had defended also in the other epistle, that the “Father was before the Son.” The expression, “not true God” (a very common Arian expression; see Athan. Orat. c. Arian. I. 6) seems therefore to have been used by Eusebius to express a belief, not that the Son did not possess real divinity (as the genuine Arians used it), but that he was not equal to the Father, who, to Eusebius’ thought, was “true God.” He indeed expressly calls the Son qeo", which shows—when the sense in which he elsewhere uses the word is considered—that he certainly did believe him to partake of Godhood, though, in some mysterious way, in a smaller degree, or in a less complete manner than the Father. That Eusebius misunderstood Arius, and did not perceive that he actually denied all real deity to the Son, was due doubtless in part to his lack of theological insight (Eusebius was never a great theologian), in part to his habitual dread of Sabellianism (of which Arius had accused Alexander, and toward which Eusebius evidently thought that the latter was tending), which led him to look with great favor upon the pronounced subordinationism of Arius, and thus to overlook the dangerous extreme to which Arius carried that subordinationism.
We are now, the writer hopes, prepared to admit that Eusebius, after the breaking out of the Arian controversy, became an Arian, as he understood Arianism, and supported that party with considerable vigor; and that not as a result of mere personal friendship, but of theological conviction. At the same time, he was then, as always, a peace-loving man, and while lending Arius his approval and support, he united with other Palestinian bishops in enjoining upon him submission to his bishop (Sozomen, H. E. I. 15). As an Arian, then, and yet possessed with the desire of securing, if it were possible, peace and harmony between the two factions, Eusebius appeared at the Council of Nicaea, and there signed a creed containing Athanasian doctrine and anathematizing the chief tenets of Arius. How are we to explain his conduct? We shall, perhaps, do best to let him explain his own conduct. In his letter to the church of Caesarea (preserved by Socrates, H. E. I. 8, as well as by other authors), he writes as follows:—
“What was transacted concerning ecclesiastical faith at the Great Council assembled at Nicaea you have probably learned, Beloved, from other sources, rumour being wont to precede the accurate account of what is doing. But lest in such reports the circumstances of the case have been misrepresented, we have been obliged to transmit to you, first, the formula of faith presented by ourselves; and next, the second, which the Fathers put forth with some additions to our words. Our own paper, then, which was read in the presence of our most pious Emperor, and declared to be good and unexceptionable, ran thus:—
“‘As we have received from the Bishops who preceded us, and in our first catechisings, and when we received the Holy Layer, and as we have learned from the divine Scriptures, and as we believed and taught in the presbytery, and in the Episcopate itself, so believing also at the time present, we report to you our faith, and it is this:—
“‘We believe in One God, the Father Almighty, the Maker of all things visible and invisible. And in One Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, God from God, Light from Light, Life from Life, Son Only-begotten, first-born of every creature, before all the ages, begotten from the Father, by whom also all things were made; who for our salvation was made flesh, and lived among men, and suffered, and rose again the third day, and ascended to the Father, and will come again in glory to judge quick and dead, And we believe also in One Holy Ghost; believing each of These to be and to exist, the Father truly Father, and the Son truly Son, and the Holy Ghost truly Holy Ghost, as also our Lord, sending forth His disciples for the preaching, said, Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Concerning whom we confidently affirm that so we hold, and so we think, and so we have held aforetime, and we maintain this faith unto the death, anathematizing every godless heresy. That this we have ever thought from our heart and soul, from the time we recollect ourselves, and now think and say in truth, before God Almighty and our Lord Jesus Christ do we witness, being able by proofs to show and to convince you, that, even in times past, such has been our belief and preaching.’
“On this faith being publicly put forth by us, no room for contradiction appeared; but our most pious Emperor, before any one else, testified that it comprised most orthodox statements. He confessed, moreover, that such were his own sentiments; and he advised all present to agree to it, and to subscribe its articles and to assent to them, with the insertion of the single word, ‘One in substance’ (omoousio"), which, moreover, he interpreted as not in the sense of the affections of bodies, nor as if the Son subsisted from the Father, in the way of division, or any severance; for that the immaterial and intellectual and incorporeal nature could not be the subject of any corporeal affection, but that it became us to conceive of such things in a divine and ineffable manner. And such were the theological remarks of our most wise and most religious Emperor; but they, with a view to the addition of ‘One in substance,’ drew up the following formula:—
“‘We believe in One God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible:— And in One Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, Only-begotten, that is, from the Substance of the Father; God from God, Light from Light, very God from very God, begotten, not made, One in substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, both things in heaven and things in earth; who for us men and for our salvation came down and was made flesh, was made man, suffered, and rose again the third day, ascended into heaven, and cometh to judge quick and dead.
“‘And in the Holy Ghost. But those who say, “Once He was not,” and “Before His generation He was not,” and “He came to be from nothing,” or those who pretend that the Son of God is “Of other subsistence or substance,” or “created,” or “alterable,” or “mutable,” the Catholic Church anathematizes.’
“On their dictating this formula, we did not let it pass without inquiry in what sense they introduced ‘of the substance of the Father,’ and ‘one in substance with the Father.’ Accordingly questions and explanations took place, and the meaning of the words underwent the scrutiny of reason. And they professed that the phrase ‘of the substance’ was indicative of the Son’s being indeed from the Father, yet without being as if a part of Him. And with this understanding we thought good to assent to the sense of such religious doctrine, teaching, as it did, that the Son was from the Father, not, however, a part of His substance. On this account we assented to the sense ourselves, without declining even the term ‘One in substance,’ peace being the object which we set before us, and steadfastness in the orthodox view. In the same way we also admitted ‘begotten, not made’; since the Council alleged that ‘made’ was an appellative common to the other creatures which came to be through the Son, to whom the Son had no likeness. Wherefore, said they, He was not a work resembling the things which through Him came to be, but was of a substance which is too high for the level of any work, and which the Divine oracles teach to have been generated from the Father, the mode of generation being inscrutable and incalculable to every generated nature. And so, too, on examination there are grounds for saying that the Son is ‘one in substance’ with the Father; not in the way of bodies, nor like mortal beings, for He is not such by division of substance, or by severance; no, nor by any affection, or alteration, or changing of the Father’s substance and power (since from all such the ingenerate nature of the Father is alien), but because ‘one in substance with the Father’ suggests that the Son of God bears no resemblance to the generated creatures, but that to His Father alone who begat Him is He in every way assimilated, and that He is not of any other subsistence and substance, but from the Father.
“To which term also, thus interpreted, it appeared well to assent; since we were aware that, even among the ancients, some learned and illustrious Bishops and writers have used the term ‘one in substance’ in their theological teaching concerning the Father and Son. So much, then, be said concerning the faith which was published; to which all of us assented, not without inquiry, but according to the specified senses, mentioned before the most religious Emperor himself, and justified by the fore-mentioned considerations. And as to the anathematism published by them at the end of the Faith, it did not pain us, because it forbade to use words not in Scripture, from which almost all the confusion and disorder of the Church have come. Since, then, no divinely inspired Scripture has used the phrases, ‘out of nothing’ and ‘once He was not,’ and the rest which follow, there appeared no ground for using or teaching them; to which also we assented as a good decision, since it had not been our custom hitherto to use these terms. Moreover, to anathematize ‘Before His generation He was not’ did not seem preposterous, in that it is confessed by all that the Son of God was before the generation according to the flesh. Nay, our most religious Emperor did at the time prove, in a speech, that He was in being even according to His divine generation which is before all ages, since even before he was generated in energy, He was in virtue with the Father ingenerately, the Father being always Father, as King always and Saviour always, having all things in virtue, and being always in the same respects and in the same way. This we have been forced to transmit to you, Beloved, as making clear to you the deliberation of our inquiry and assent, and how reasonably we resisted even to the last minute, as long as we were offended at statements which differed from our own, but received without contention what no longer pained us, as soon as, on a candid examination of the sense of the words, they appeared to us to coincide with what we ourselves have professed in the faith which we have already published.”3 
It will be seen that while the expressions “of the substance of the Father,” “begotten not made,” and “One in substance,” or “consubstantial with the Father,” are all explicitly anti-Arianistic, yet none of them contradicts the doctrines held by Eusebius before the Council, so far as we can learn them from his epistles to Alexander and Euphration and from the Caesarean creed. His own explanation of those expressions, which it is to be observed was the explanation given by the Council itself, and which therefore he was fully warranted in accepting,—even though it may not have been so rigid as to satisfy an Athanasius,—shows us how this is. He had believed before that the Son partook of the Godhood in very truth, that He was “begotten,” and therefore “not made,” if “made” implied something different from “begotten,” as the Nicene Fathers held that it did; and he had believed before that the “Son of God has no resemblance to created’ things, but is in every respect like the Father only who begat him, and that He is of no other substance or essence than the Father,” and therefore if that was what the word “Consubstantial” (omoousio") meant he could not do otherwise than accept that too.
It is clear that the dread of Sabellianism was still before the eyes of Eusebius, and was the cause of his hesitation in assenting to the various changes, especially to the use of the word omoousio", which had been a Sabellian word and had been rejected on that account by the Synod of Antioch, at which Paul of Samosata had been condemned some sixty years before.
It still remains to explain Eusebius’ sanction of the anathemas attached to the creed which expressly condemn at least one of the beliefs which he had himself formerly held, viz.: that the “Father was before the Son,” or as he puts it elsewhere, that “He who is begat him who was not.” The knot might of course be simply cut by supposing an act of hypocrisy on his part, but the writer is convinced that such a conclusion does violence to all that we know of Eusebius and of his subsequent treatment of the questions involved in this discussion. It is quite possible to suppose that a real change of opinion on his part took place during the sessions of the Council. Indeed when we realize how imperfect and incorrect a conception of Arianism he had before the Council began, and how clearly its true bearing was there brought out by its enemies, we can see that he could not do otherwise than change; that he must have become either an out and-out Arian, or an opponent of Arianism as he did. When he learned, and learned for the first time, that Arianism meant the denial of all essential divinity to Christ, and when he saw that it involved the ascription of mutability and of other finite attributes to him, he must either change entirely his views on those points or he must leave the Arian party. To him who with all his subordinationism had laid in all his writings so much stress on the divinity of the Word (even though he had not realized exactly what that divinity involved) it would have been a revolution in his Christian life and faith to have admitted what he now learned that Arianism involved. Sabellianism had been his dread, but now this new fear, which had aroused so large a portion of the Church, seized him too, and he felt that stand must be made against this too great separation of Father and Son, which was leading to dangerous results. Under the pressure of this fear it is not surprising that he should become convinced that the Arian formula—“there was a time when the Son was not ”—involved serious consequences, and that Alexander and his followers should have succeeded in pointing out to him its untruth, because it led necessarily to a false conclusion. It is not surprising, moreover, that they should have succeeded in explaining to him at least partially their belief, which, as his epistle to Alexander shows, had before been absolutely incomprehensible, that the Son was generated from all eternity, and that therefore the Father did not exist before him in a temporal sense.
He says toward the close of his epistle to the Caesarean church that he had not been accustomed to use such expressions as “There was a time when he was not,” “He came to be from nothing,” etc. And there is no reason to doubt that he speaks the truth. Even in his epistles to Alexander and Euphration he does not use those phrases (though he does defend the doctrine taught by the first of them), nor does Arius himself, in the epistle to Alexander upon which Eusebius apparently based his knowledge of the system, use those expressions, although he too teaches the same doctrine. The fact is that in that epistle Arius studiously avoids such favorite Arian phrases as might emphasize the differences between himself and Alexander, and Eusebius seems to have avoided them for the same reason. We conclude then that Eusebius was not an Arian (nor an adherent of Lucian) before 318, that soon after that date he became an Arian in the sense in which he understood Arianism, but that during the Council of Nicaea he ceased to be one in any sense. His writings in later years confirm the course of doctrinal development which we have supposed went on in his mind. He never again defends Arian doctrines in his works, and yet he never becomes an Athanasian in his emphasis upon the omoousion. In fact he represents a mild orthodoxy, which is always orthodox—when measured by the Nicene creed as interpreted by the Nicene Council—and yet is always mild. Moreover, he never acquired an affection for the word omoousio", which to his mind was bound up with too many evil associations ever to have a pleasant sound to him. He therefore studiously avoided it in his own writings, although clearly showing that he believed fully in what the Nicene Council had explained it to mean. It must be remembered that during many years of his later life he was engaged in controversy with Marcellus, a thorough-going Sabellian, who had been at the time of the Council one of the strongest of Athanasius’ colleagues. In his contest with him it was again anti-Sabellianistic polemics which absorbed him and increased his distaste for omoousion and minimized his emphasis upon the distinctively anti-Arianistie doctrines formulated at Nicaea. For any except the very wisest minds it was a matter of enormous difficulty to steer between the two extremes in those times of strife; and while combating Sabeilianism not to fall into Arianism, and while combating the latter not to be engulfed in the former. That Eusebius under the constant pressure of the one fell into the other at one time, and was in occasional danger of falling into it again in later years, can hardly be cited as an evidence either of wrong heart or of weak head. An Athanasius he was not, but neither was he an unsteady weather-cock, or an hypocritical time-server.
§6. The Council of Nicoea.
At the Council of Nicaea, which met pursuant to an imperial summons in the year 325 A.D., Eusebius played a very prominent part. A description of the opening scenes of the Council is given in his Vita Constantini, III. 10 sq. After the Emperor had entered in pomp and had taken his seat, a bishop who sat next to him upon his right arose and delivered in his honor the opening oration, to which the Emperor replied in a brief Latin address. There can be no doubt that this bishop was our Eusebius. Sozomen (H. E. I. 19) states it directly; and Eusebius, although he does not name the speaker, yet refers to him, as he had referred to the orator at the dedication of Paulinus’ church at Tyre, in such a way as to make it clear that it was himself; and moreover in his Vita Constantini, I. 1, he mentions the fact that he had in the midst of an assembly of the servants of God addressed an oration to the Emperor on the occasion of the latter’s vicennalia, i.e. in 325 a.d. On the other hand, however, Theodoret (H. E. I. 7) states that this opening oration was delivered by Eustathius, bishop of Antioch; while Theodore of Mopsuestia and Philostorgius (according to Nicetas Choniates, Thes. de arthod. fid. V. 7) assign it to Alexander of Alexandria. As Lightfoot suggests, it is possible to explain the discrepancy in the reports by supposing that Eustathius and Alexander, the two great patriarchs, first addressed a few words to the Emperor and that then Eusebius delivered the regular oration. This supposition is not at all unlikely, for it would be quite proper for the two highest ecclesiastics present to welcome the Emperor formally in behalf of the assembled prelates, before the regular oration was delivered by Eusebius. At the same time, the supposition that one or the other of the two great patriarchs must have delivered the opening address was such a natural one that it may have been adopted by Theodoret and the other writers referred to without any historical basis. It is in any case certain that the regular oration was delivered by Eusebius himself (see the convincing arguments adduced by Stroth, p. xxvii. sq.). This oration is no longer extant, but an idea of its character may be formed from the address delivered by Eusebius at the Emperor’s tricennalia (which is still extant under the title De laudibus Canstantini; see below, p. 43) and from the general tone of his Life of Constantine. It was avowedly a panegyric, and undoubtedly as fulsome as it was possible to make it, and his powers in that direction were by no means slight.
That Eusebius, instead of the bishop of some more prominent church, should have been selected to deliver the opening address, may have been in part owing to his recognized standing as the most learned man and the most famous writer in the Church, in part to the fact that he was not as pronounced a partisan as some of his distinguished brethren; for instance, Alexander of Alexandria, and Eusebius of Nicomedia; and finally in some measure to his intimate relations with the Emperor. How and when his intimacy with the latter grew up we do not know. As already remarked, he seems to have become personally acquainted with him many years before, when Constantine passed through Caesarea in the train of Diocletian, and it may be that a mutual friendship, which was so marked in later years, began at that time. However that may be, Eusebius seems to have possessed special advantages of one kind or another, enabling him to come into personal contact with official circles, and once introduced to imperial notice, his wide learning, sound common sense, genial temper and broad charity would insure him the friendship of the Emperor himself, or of any other worthy officer of state. We have no record of an intimacy between Constantine and Eusebius before the Council of Nicaea, but many clear intimations of it after that time. In fact, it is evident that during the last decade at least of the Emperor’s life, few, if any, bishops stood higher in his esteem or enjoyed a larger measure of his confidence. Compare for instance the records of their conversations (contained in the Vita Canstantini, I. 28 and II. 9), of their correspondence (ib. II. 46, III. 61, IV. 35 and 36), and the words of Constantine himself (ib. III. 60). The marked attention paid by him to the speeches delivered by Eusebius in his presence (ib. IV. 33 and 46) is also to be noticed. Eusebius’ intimacy with the imperial family is shown likewise in the tone of the letter which he wrote to Constantia, the sister of Constantine and wife of Licinius, in regard to a likeness of Christ which she had asked him to send her. The frankness and freedom with which he remonstrates with her for what he considers mistaken zeal on her part, reveal a degree of familiarity which could have come only from long and cordial relations between himself and his royal correspondent. Whatever other reasons therefore may have combined to indicate Eusebius as the most fitting person to deliver the oration in honor of the Emperor at the Council of Nicaea, there can be little doubt that Constantine’s personal friendship for him had much to do with his selection. The action of the Council on the subject of Arianism, and Eusebius’ conduct in the matter, have already been discussed. Of the bishops assembled at the Council, not far from three hundred in number (the reports of eye-witnesses vary from two hundred and fifty to three hundred and eighteen), all but two signed the Nicene creed as adopted by the Council. These two, both of them Egyptians, were banished with Arius to Illyria, while Eusebius of Nicomedia, and Theognis of Nicaea, who subscribed the creed itself but refused to assent to its anathemas, were also banished for a time, but soon yielded, and were restored to their churches.
Into the other purposes for which the Nicene Council was called,—the settlement of the dispute respecting the time of observing Easter and the healing of the Meletian schism,—it is not necessary to enter here. We have no record of the part which Eusebius took in these transactions. Lightfoot has abundantly shown (p. 313 sq.) that the common supposition that Eusebius was the author of the paschal cycle of nineteen years is false, and that there is no reason to suppose that he had anything particular to do with the decision of the paschal question at this Council.
§7. Continuance of the Arian Controversy. Eusebius’ Relations to the Two Parties.
The Council of Nicaea did not bring the Arian controversy to an end. The orthodox party was victorious, it is true, but the Arians were still determined, and could not give up their enmity against the opponents of Arius, and their hope that they might in the end turn the tables on their antagonists. Meanwhile, within a few years after the Council, a quarrel broke out between our Eusebius and Eustathius, bishop of Antioch, a resolute supporter of Nicene orthodoxy. According to Socrates (H. E. I. 23) and Sozomen (H. E. II. 18) Eustathius accused Eusebius of perverting the Nicene doctrines, while Eusebius denied the charge, and in turn taxed Eustathius with Sabellianism. The quarrel finally became so serious that it was deemed necessary to summon a Council for the investigation of Eustathius’ orthodoxy and the settlement of the dispute. This Council met in Antioch in 330 a.d. (see Tillemont, VII. p. 651 sq., for a discussion of the date), and was made up chiefly of bishops of Arian or semi-Arian tendencies. This fact, however, brings no discredit upon Eusebius. The Council was held in another province, and he can have had nothing to do with its composition. In fact, convened, as it was, in Eustathius’ own city, it must have been legally organized; and indeed Eustathius himself acknowledged its jurisdiction by appearing before it to answer the charges made against him. Theodoret’s absurd account of the origin of the synod and of the accusations brought against Eustathius (H. E. I. 21) bears upon its face the stamp of falsehood, and is, as Hefele has shown (Canciliengeschichte, I. 451), hopelessly in error in its chronology. It is therefore to be rejected as quite worthless. The decision of the Council doubtless fairly represented the views of the majority of the bishops of that section, for we know that Arianism had a very strong hold there. To think of a packed Council and of illegal methods of procedure in procuring the verdict against Eustathius is both unnecessary and unwarrantable. The result of the Council was the deposition of Eustathius from his bishopric and his banishment by the Emperor to Illyria, where he afterward died. There is a division of opinion among our sources in regard to the immediate successor of Eustathius. All of them agree that Eusebius was asked to become bishop of Antioch, but that he refused the honor, and that Euphronius was chosen in his stead. Socrates and Sozomen, however, inform us that the election of Eusebius took place immediately after the deposition of Eustathius, while Theodoret (H. E. I. 22) names Eulalius as Eustathius’ immediate successor, and states that he lived but a short time, and that Eusebius was then asked to succeed him. Theodoret is Supported by Jerome (Chron., year of Abr. 2345) and by Philostorgius (H. E. III. 15), both of whom insert a bishop Eulalius between Eustathius and Euphronius. It is easier to suppose that Socrates and Sozomen may have omitted so unimportant a name at this point than that the other three witnesses inserted it without warrant. Socrates indeed implies in the same chapter that his knowledge of these affairs is limited, and it is not surprising that Eusebius’ election, which caused a great stir, should have been connected in the mind of later writers immediately with Eustathius’ deposition, and the intermediate steps forgotten. It seems probable, therefore, that immediately after the condemnation of Eustathius, Eulalius was appointed in his place, perhaps by the same Council, and that after his death, a few months later, Eusebius, who had meanwhile gone back to Caesarea, was elected in due order by another Council of neighboring bishops summoned for the purpose, and that he was supported by a large party of citizens. It is noticeable that the letter written by the Emperor to the Council, which wished to transfer Eusebius to Antioch (see Vita Const. III. 62), mentions in its salutation the names of five bishops, but among them is only one (Theodotus who is elsewhere named as present at the Council which deposed Eustathius, while Eusebius of Nicomedia, and Theognis of Nicaea, as well as others whom we know to have been on hand on that occasion, are not referred to by the Emperor. This fact certainly seems to point to a different council.
It is greatly to Eusebius’ credit that he refused the call extended to him. Had he been governed simply by selfish ambition he would certainly have accepted it, for the patriarchate of Antioch stood at that time next to Alexandria in point of honor in the Eastern Church. The Emperor commended him very highly for his decision, in his epistles to the people of Antioch and to the Council (Vita Const. III. 60, 62), and in that to Eusebius himself (ib. III. 61). He saw in it a desire on Eusebius’ part to observe the ancient canon of the Church, which forbade the transfer of a bishop from one see to another. But that in itself can hardly have been sufficient to deter the latter from accepting the high honor offered him, for it was broken without scruple on all sides. It is more probable that he saw that the schism of the Antiochenes would be embittered by the induction into the bishopric of that church of Eustathius’ chief opponent, and that he did not feel that he had a right so to divide the Church of God. Eusebius’ general character, as known to us, justifies us in supposing that this high motive had much to do with his decision. We may suppose also that so difficult a place can have had no very great attractions for a man of his age and of his peace-loving disposition and scholarly tastes. In Caesarea he had spent his life; there he had the great library of Pamphilus at his disposal, and leisure to pursue his literary work. In Antioch he would have found himself compelled to plunge into the midst of quarrels and seditions of all kinds, and would have been obliged to devote his entire attention to the performance of his official duties. His own tastes therefore must have conspired with his sense of duty to lead him to reject the proffered call and to remain in the somewhat humbler station which he already occupied.
Not long after the deposition of Eustathius, the Arians and their sympathizers began to work more energetically to accomplish the ruin of Athanasius, their greatest foe. He had become Alexander’s successor as bishop of Alexandria in the year 326, and was the acknowledged head of the orthodox party. If he could be brought into discredit, there might be hopes of restoring Arius to his position in Alexandria, and of securing for Arianism a recognition, and finally a dominating influence in the church at large. To the overthrow of Athanasius therefore all good Arians bent their energies. They found ready accomplices in the schismatical Meletians of Egypt, who were bitter enemies of the orthodox church of Alexandria. It was useless to accuse Athanasius of heterodoxy; he was too widely known as the pillar of the orthodox faith. Charges must be framed of another sort, and of a sort to stir up the anger of the Emperor against him. The Arians therefore and the Meletians began to spread the most vile and at the same time absurd stories about Athanasius (see especially the latter’s Apol. c. Arian. §59 sq.). These at last became so notorious that the Emperor summoned Athanasius to appear and make his defense before a council of bishops to be held in Caesarea (Sozomen, H. E. II. 25; Theodoret, H. E. I. 28). Athanasius, however, fearing that the Council would be composed wholly of his enemies, and that it would therefore be impossible to secure fair play, excused himself and remained away. But in the following year (see Sozomen, H. E. II, 25) he received from the Emperor a summons to appear before a council at Tyre. The summons was too peremptory to admit of a refusal, and Athanasius therefore attended, accompanied by many of his devoted adherents (see Sozomen, ib.; Theodoret, H. E. I. 30; Socrates, H. E. I. 28; Athanasius, Apol. c. Arian. §71 sq.; Eusebius, Vita Const. IV. 41 sq., and Epiphanius, Hoer. LXVIII. 8). After a time, perceiving that he had no chance of receiving fair play, he suddenly withdrew from the Council and proceeded directly to Constantinople, in order to lay his case before the Emperor himself, and to induce the latter to allow him to meet his accusers in his presence, and plead his cause before him. There was nothing for the Synod to do after his flight but to sustain the charges brought against him, some of which he had not stayed to refute, and to pass condemnation upon him. Besides various immoral and sacrilegious deeds of which he was accused, his refusal to appear before the Council of Caesarea the previous year was made an important item of the prosecution. It was during this Council that Potamo flung at Eusebius the taunt of cowardice, to which reference was made above, and which doubtless did much to confirm Eusebius’ distrust of and hostility to the Athanasian party-Whether Eusebius of Caesarea, as is commonly supposed, or Eusebius of Nicomedia, or some other bishop, presided at this Council we are not able to determine. The account of Epiphanius seems to imply that the former was presiding at the time that Potamo made his untimely accusation. Our sources are, most of them, silent on the matter, but according to Valesius, Eusebius of Nicomedia is named by some of them, but which they are I have not been able to discover. We learn from Socrates (H. E. I. 28), as well as from other sources, that this Synod of Tyre was held in the thirtieth year of Constantine’s reign, that is, between July, 334, and July, 335. As the Council was closed only in time for the bishops to reach Jerusalem by July, 335, it is probable that it was convened in 335 rather than in 334. From Sozomen (H. E. II. 25) we learn also that the Synod of Caesarea had been held the preceding year, therefore in 333 or 334 (the latter being the date commonly given by historians). While the Council of Tyre was still in session, the bishops were commanded by Constantine to proceed immediately to Jerusalem to take part in the approaching festival to be held there on the occasion of his tricennalia. The scene was one of great splendor. Bishops were present from all parts of the world, and the occasion was marked by the dedication of the new and magnificent basilica which Constantine had erected upon the site of Calvary (Theodoret, I. 31; Socrates, I. 28 and 33; Sozomen, II. 26; Eusebius, Vita Canst. IV. 41 and 43). The bishops gathered in Jerusalem at this time held another synod before separating. In this they completed the work begun at Tyre, by re-admitting Arius and his adherents to the communion of the Church (see Socrates, 1. 33, and Sozomen, II. 27). According to Sozomen the Emperor, having been induced to recall Arius from banishment in order to reconsider his case, was presented by the latter with a confession of faith, which was so worded as to convince Constantine of his orthodoxy. He therefore sent Arius and his companion Euzoius to the bishops assembled in Jerusalem with the request that they would examine the confession, and if they were satisfied with its orthodoxy would re-admit them to communion. The Council, which was composed largely of Arius’ friends and sympathizers, was only too glad to accede to the Emperor’s request.
Meanwhile Athanasius had induced Constantine, out of a sense of justice, to summon the bishops that had condemned him at Tyre to give an account of their proceedings before the Emperor himself at Constantinople. This unexpected, and, doubtless, not altogether welcome summons came while the bishops were at Jerusalem, and the majority of them at once returned home in alarm, while only a few answered the call and repaired to Constantinople. Among these were Eusebius of Nicomedia, Theognis of Nicaea, Patrophilus of Scythopolis, and other prominent Arians, and with them our Eusebius (Athanasius, Apol. c. Arian. §§86 and 87; Socrates, I. 33–35; Sozomen, II. 28). The accusers of Athanasius said nothing on this occasion in regard to his alleged immoralities, for which he had been condemned at Tyre, but made another equally trivial accusation against him, and the result was his banishment to Gaul. Whether Constantine banished him because he believed the charge brought against him, or because he wished to preserve him from the machinations of his enemies (as asserted by his son Constantine, and apparently believed by Athanasius himself; see his Apol. c. Arian. §87), or because he thought that Athanasius’ absence would allay the troubles in the Alexandrian church we do not know. The latter supposition seems most probable. In any case he was not recalled from banishment until after Constantine’s death. Our Eusebius has been severely condemned by many historians for the part taken by him in the Eustathian controversy and especially in the war against Athanasius. In justice to him a word or two must be spoken in his defense. So far as his relations to Eustathius are concerned, it is to be noticed that the latter commenced the controversy by accusing Eusebius of heterodoxy. Eusebius himself did not begin the quarrel, and very likely had no desire to engage in any such doctrinal strife; but he was compelled to defend himself, and in doing so he could not do otherwise than accuse Eustathius of Sabellianism; for if the latter was not satisfied with Eusebius’ orthodoxy, which Eusebius himself believed to be truly Nicene, then he must be leaning too far toward the other extreme; that is, toward Sabellianism. There is no reason to doubt that Eusebius was perfectly straightforward and honorable throughout the whole controversy, and at the Council of Antioch itself. That he was not actuated by unworthy motives, or by a desire for revenge, is evinced by his rejection of the proffered call to Antioch, the acceptance of which would have given him so good an opportunity to triumph over his fallen enemy. It must be admitted, in fact, that Eusebius comes out of this controversy without a stain of any kind upon his character. He honestly believed Eustathius to be a Sabellian, and he acted accordingly.
Eusebius has been blamed still more severely for his treatment of Athanasius. But again the facts must be looked at impartially. It is necessary always to remember that Sabellianism was in the beginning and remained throughout his life the heresy which he most dreaded, and which he had perhaps most reason to dread. He must, even at the Council of Nicaea, have suspected Athanasius, who laid so much stress upon the unity of essence on the part of Father and Son, of a leaning toward Sabellianistic principles; and this suspicion must have been increased when he discovered, as he believed, that Athanasitis’ most staunch supporter, Eustathius, was a genuine Sabellian. Moreover, on the other side, it is to be remembered that Eusebius of Nicomedia, and all the other leading Arians, had signed the Nicene creed and had proclaimed themselves thoroughly in sympathy with its teaching. Our Eusebius, knowing the change that had taken place in his own mind upon the controverted points, may well have believed that their views had undergone even a greater change, and that they were perfectly honest in their protestations of orthodoxy. And finally, when Arius himself presented a confession of faith which led the Emperor, who had had a personal interview with him, to believe that he had altered his views and was in complete harmony with the Nicene faith, it is not surprising that our Eusebius, who was naturally unsuspicious, conciliatory and peace-loving, should think the same thing, and be glad to receive Arius back into communion, while at the same time remaining perfectly loyal to the orthodoxy of the Nicene creed which he had subscribed. Meanwhile his suspicions of the Arian party being in large measure allayed, and his distrust of the orthodoxy of Athanasius and of his adherents being increased by the course of events, it was only natural that he should lend more or less credence to the calumnies which were so industriously circulated against Athanasius. To charge him with dishonesty for being influenced by these reports, which seem to us so absurd and palpably calumnious, is quite unwarranted. Constantine, who was, if not a theologian, at least a clear-headed and sharp-sighted man, believed them, and why should Eusebius not have done the same? The incident which took place at the Council of Tyre in connection with Potamo and himself was important; for whatever doubts he may have had up to that time as to the truth of the accusations made against Athanasius and his adherents, Potamo’s conduct convinced him that the charges of tyranny and high-handed dealing brought against the whole party were quite true. It could not be otherwise than that he should believe that the good of the Alexandrian church, and therefore of the Church at large, demanded the deposition of the seditious and tyrannous archbishop, who was at the same time quite probably Sabellianistic in his tendencies. It must in justice be noted that there is not the slightest reason to suppose that our Eusebius had anything to do with the dishonorable intrigues of the Arian party throughout this controversy. Athanasius, who cannot say enough in condemnation of the tactics of Eusebius of Nicomedia and his supporters, never mentions Eusebius of Caesarea in a tone of bitterness. He refers to him occasionally as a member of the opposite party, but he has no complaints to utter against him, as he has against the others. This is very significant, and should put an end to all suspicions of unworthy conduct on Eusebius’ part. It is to be observed that the latter, though having good cause as he believed to condemn Athanasius and his adherents, never acted as a leader in the war against them. His name, if mentioned at all, occurs always toward the end of the list as one of the minor combatants, although his position and his learning would have entitled him to take the most prominent position in the whole affair, if he had cared to. He was but true to his general character in shrinking from such a controversy, and in taking part in it only in so far as his conscience compelled him to. We may suspect indeed that he would not have made one of the small party that repaired to Constantinople in response to the Emperor’s imperious summons had it not been for the celebration of Constantine’s tricennalia, which was taking place there at the time, and at which he delivered, on the special invitation of the Emperor and in his presence, one of his greatest orations. Certain it is, from the account which he gives in his Vita Constantini, that both in Constantinople and in Jerusalem the festival of the tricennalia, with its attendant ceremonies, interested him much more than did the condemnation of Athanasius.
§8. Eusebius and Marcellus.
It was during this visit to Constantinople that another synod was held, at which Eusebius was present, and the result of which was the condemnation and deposition of the bishop Marcellus of Ancyra (see Socrates, I. 36; Sozomen, II. 33; Eusebius, Contra Marc. II. 4). The attitude of our Eusebius toward Marcellus is again significant of his theological tendencies. Marcellus had written a book against Asterius, a prominent Arian, in which, in his zeal for the Nicene orthodoxy, he had laid himself open to the charge of Sabellianism. On this account he was deposed by the Constantinopolitan Synod, and our Eusebius was urged to write a work exposing his errors and defending the action of the Council. As a consequence he composed his two works against Marcelins which will be described later. That Eusebius, if not in the case of Athanasius and possibly not in that of Eustathius, had at least in the present case good ground for the belief that Marcellus was a Sabellian, or Sabellianistic in tendency, is abundantly proved by the citations which he makes from Marcellus’ own works; and, moreover, his judgment and that of the Synod was later confirmed even by Athanasius himself. Though not suspecting Marcellus for some time, Athanasius finally became convinced that he had deviated from the path of orthodoxy, and, as Newman has shown (in his introduction to Athanasius’ fourth discourse against the Arians, Oxford Library of the Fathers, vol. 19, p. 503 sq.), directed that discourse against his errors and those of his followers.
The controversy with Marcellus seems to have been the last in which Eusebius was engaged, and it was opposition to the dreaded heresy of Sabellius which moved him here as in all the other cases. It is important to emphasize, however, what is often overlooked, that though Eusebius during these years was so continuously engaged in controversy with one or another of the members of the anti-Arian party, there is no evidence that he ever deviated from the doctrinal position which he took at the Council of Nicaea. After that date it was never Arianism which he consciously supported; it was never the Nicene orthodoxy which he opposed. He supported those members of the old Arian party who had signed the Nicene creed and protested that they accepted its teaching, against those members of the opposite party whom he believed to be drifting toward Sabellianism, or acting tyrannously and unjustly toward their opponents. The anti-Sabellianistic interest influenced him all the time, but his post-Nicene writings contain no evidence that he had fallen back into the Arianizing position which he had held before 325. They reveal, on the contrary, a fair type of orthodoxy, colored only by its decidedly anti-Sabellian emphasis.
§9. The Death of Eusebius.
In less than two years after the celebration of his tricennalia, on May 22, 337 a.d., the great Constantine breathed his last, in Nicomedia, his former Capital. Eusebius, already an old man, produced a lasting testimonial of his own unbounded affection and admiration for the first Christian emperor, in his Life of Constantine. Soon afterward he followed his imperial friend at the advanced age of nearly, if not quite, eighty years. The exact date of his death is unknown, but it can be fixed approximately. We know from Sozomen (H. E. III. 5) that in the summer of 341, when a council was held at Antioch (on the date of the Council, which we are able to fix with great exactness, see Hefele, Conciliengesch. I. p. 502 sq.) Acacius, Eusebius’ successor, was already bishop of Caesarea. Socrates (H. E. II. 4) and Sozomen (H. E. III. 5) both mention the death of Eusebius and place it shortly before the death of Constantine the younger, which took place early in 340 (see Tillemont’s Hist. des Emp. IV. p. 357 sq.), and after the intrigues had begun which resulted in Athanasius’ second banishment. We are thus led to place Eusebius’ death late in the year 339, or early in the year 340 (cf. Lightfoot’s article, p. 318).
Chapter II. The Writings of Eusebius.
§1. Eusebius as a Writer.
Eusebius was one of the most voluminous writers of antiquity, and his labors covered almost every field of theological learning. In the words of Lightfoot he was “historian, apologist, topographer, exegete, critic, preacher, dogmatic writer, in turn.” It is as an historian that he is best known, but the importance of his historical writings should not cause us to overlook, as modern scholars have been prone to do, his invaluable productions in other departments. Light-foot passes a very just judgment upon the importance of his works in the following words: “If the permanent utility of an author’s labors may be taken as a test of literary excellence, Eusebius will hold a very high place indeed. The Ecclesiastical History is absolutely unique and indispensable. The Chronicle is the vast storehouse of information relating to the ancient monarchies of the world. The Preparation and Demonstration are the most important contributions to theology in their own province. Even the minor works, such as the Martyrs of Palestine, the Life of Constantine, the Questions addressed to Stephanus and to Marinus, and others, would leave an irreparable blank, if they were obliterated. And the same permanent value attaches also to his more technical treatises. The Canons and Sections have never yet been superseded for their particular purpose. The Topography of Palestine is the most important contribution to our knowledge in its own department. In short, no ancient ecclesiastical writer has laid posterity under heavier obligations.”
If we look in Eusebius’ works for evidences of brilliant genius we shall be disappointed. He did not possess a great creative mind like Origen’s or Augustine’s. His claim to greatness rests upon his vast erudition and his sterling sense. His powers of acquisition were remarkable and his diligence in study unwearied. He had at his command undoubtedly more acquired material than any man of his age, and he possessed that true literary and historical instinct which enabled him to select from his vast stores of knowledge those things which it was most worth his while to tell to the world. His writings therefore remain valuable while the works of many others, perhaps no less richly equipped than himself for the mission of adding to the sum of human knowledge, are entirely forgotten. He thus had the ability to do more than acquire; he had the ability to impart to others the very best of that which he acquired, and to make it useful to them. There is not in his writings the brilliancy which we find in some others, there is not the same sparkle and freshness of new and suggestive thought, there is not the same impress of an overmastering individuality which transforms everything it touches. There is, however, a true and solid merit which marks his works almost without exception, and raises them above the commonplace. His exegesis is superior to that of most of his contemporaries, and his apologetics is marked by fairness of statement, breadth of treatment, and instinctive appreciation of the difference between the important and the unimportant points under discussion, which give to his apologetic works a permanent value. His wide acquaintance, too, with other systems than his own, and with the products of Pagan as well as Christian thought, enabled him to see things in their proper relations and to furnish a treatment of the great themes of Christianity adapted to the wants of those who had looked beyond the confines of a single school. At the same time it must be acknowledged that he was not always equal to the grand opportunities which his acquaintance with the works and lives of other men and other peoples opened before him. He does not always reveal the possession of that high quality of genius which is able to interpret the most various forces and to discover the higher principles of unity which alone make them intelligible; indeed, he often loses himself completely in a wilderness of thoughts and notions which have come to him from other men and other ages, and the result is dire confusion.
We shall be disappointed, too, if we seek in the works of Eusebius for evidences of a refined literary taste, or for any of the charms which attach to the writings of a great master of composition. His style is, as a rule, involved and obscure, often painfully rambling and incoherent. This quality is due in large part to the desultoriness of his thinking. He did not often enough clearly define and draw the boundaries of his subject before beginning to write upon it. He apparently did much of his thinking after he had taken pen in hand, and did not subject what he had thus produced to a sufficiently careful revision, if to any revision at all. Thoughts and suggestions poured in upon him while he was writing; and he was not always able to resist the temptation to insert them as they came, often to the utter perversion of his train of thought, and to the ruin of the coherency and perspicuity of his style. It must be acknowledged, too, that his literary taste was, on the whole, decidedly vicious. Whenever a flight of eloquence is attempted by him, as it is altogether too often, his style becomes hopelessly turgid and pretentious. At such times his skill in mixing metaphors is something astounding (compare, for instance, H. E. II. 14). On the other hand, his works contain not a few passages of real beauty. This is especially true of his Martyrs of Palestine, where his enthusiastic admiration for and deep sympathy with the heroes of the faith cause him often to forget himself and to describe their sufferings in language of genuine fire or pathos. At times, too, when he has a sharply defined and absorbing aim in mind, and when the subject with which he is dealing does not seem to him to demand rhetorical adornment, he is simple and direct enough in his language, showing in such cases that his commonly defective style is not so much the consequence of an inadequate command of the Greek tongue as of desultory thinking and vicious literary taste.
But while we find much to criticise in Eusebius’ writings, we ought not to fail to give him due credit for the conscientiousness and faithfulness with which he did his work. He wrote often, it is true, too rapidly for the good of his style, and he did not always revise his works as carefully as he should have done; but we seldom detect undue haste in the collection of materials or carelessness and negligence in the use of them. He seems to have felt constantly the responsibilities which rested upon him as a scholar and writer, and to have done his best to meet those responsibilities. It is impossible to avoid contrasting him in this respect with the most learned man of the ancient Latin Church, St. Jerome. The haste and carelessness with which the latter composed his De Viris Illustribus, and with which he translated and continued Eusebius’ Chronicle, remain an everlasting disgrace to him. An examination of those and of some others of Jerome’s works must tend to raise Eusebius greatly in our esteem. He was at least conscientious and honest in his work, and never allowed himself to palm off ignorance as knowledge, or to deceive his readers by sophistries, misstatements, and pure inventions. He aimed to put the reader into possession of the knowledge which he had himself acquired, but was always conscientious enough to stop there, and not attempt to make fancy play the role of fact.
One other point, which was mentioned some pages back, and to which Lightfoot calls particular attention, should be referred to here, because of its bearing upon the character of Eusebius’ writings. He was, above all things, an apologist; and the apologetic aim governed both the selection of his subjects and method of his treatment. He composed none of his works with a purely scientific aim. He thought always of the practical result to be attained, and his selection of material and his choice of method were governed by that. And yet we must recognize the fact that this aim was never narrowing in its effects. He took a broad view of apologetics, and in his lofty conception of the Christian religion he believed that every field of knowledge might be laid under tribute to it. He was bold enough to be confident that history, philosophy, and science all contribute to our understanding and appreciation of divine truth; and so history and philosophy and science were studied and handled by him freely and fearlessly. He did not feel the need of distorting truth of any kind because it might work injury to the religion which he professed. On the contrary, he had a sublime faith which led him to believe that all truth must have its place and its mission, and that the cause of Christianity will be benefited by its discovery and diffusion. As an apologist, therefore, all fields of knowledge had an interest for him; and he was saved that pettiness of mind and narrowness of outlook which are sometimes characteristic of those who write with a purely practical motive.
§2. Catalogue of his Works.There is no absolutely complete edition of Eusebius’ extant works. The only one which can lay claim even to relative completeness is that of Migne: Eusebii Pamphili, Coesarea Palestinoe Episcopi, Opera omnia qu’ extant, curis variorum, nempe: Henrici Valesii, Francisci Vigeri, Bernardi Montfauconii, Card. Angelo Maii edita; collegit et denuo recognovit J. P. Migne. Par. 1857. 6 vols (tom. XIX.-XXIV. of Migne’s Patrologia Groeca). This edition omits the works which are extant only in Syriac versions, also the Topica, and some brief but important Greek fragments (among them the epistles to Alexander and Euphration). The edition, however, is invaluable and cannot be dispensed with. References to it (under the simple title Opera) will be given below in connection with those works which it contains. Many of Eusebius’ writings, especially the historical, have been published separately. Such editions will be mentioned in their proper place in the Catalogue.
More or less incomplete lists of our author’s writings are given by Jerome (De vir. ill. 87); by Nicephorus Callistus (H. E. VI. 37); by Ebedjesu (in Assemani’s Bibl. Orient. III. p. 18 sq.); by Photius (Bibl. 9–13, 27, 39, 127); and by Suidas (who simply copies the Greek version of Jerome). Among modern works all the lives of Eusebius referred to in the previous chapter give more or less extended catalogues of his writings. In addition to the works mentioned there, valuable lists are also found in Lardner’s Credibility, Part II chap. 72, and especially in Fabricius’ Bibl. Groeca (ed. 1714), vol. VI. p. 30 sq.
The writings of Eusebius that are known to us, extant and non-extant, may be classified for convenience’ sake under the following heads: I. Historical. II. Apologetic. III. Polemic. IV. Dogmatic. V. Critical and Exegetical. VI. Biblical Dictionaries. VII. Orations. VIII. Epistles. IX. Spurious or doubtful works. The classification is necessarily somewhat artificial, and claims to be neither exhaustive nor exclusive.4 
1. Historical Works.
Life of Pamphilus (h tou Pamfilou biou anagrafh; see H. E. VI. 32). Eusebius himself refers to this work in four passages (H. E. VI. 32, VII. 32, VIII. 13, and Mart. Pal. c. In the last he informs us that it consisted of three books. The work is mentioned also more than once by Jerome (De vir. ill. 81; Ep. ad Marcellam, Migne’s ed. Ep. 34; Contra Ruf. I. 9), who speaks of it in terms of praise, and in the last passage gives a brief extract from the third book, which is, so far as known, the only extant fragment of the work. The date of its composition can be fixed within comparatively narrow limits. It must of course have been written before the shorter recension of the Martyrs of Palestine, which contains a reference to it (on its relation to the longer recension, which does not mention it, see below, p. 30), and also before the History, (i.e. as early as 313 a.d. (?), see below, p. 45). On the other hand, it was written after Pamphilus’ death (see H. E. VII. 32, 25), which occurred in 310.
Martyrs of Palestine (peri twn en Palaistinh marturhsantwn). This work is extant in two recensions, a longer and a shorter. The longer has been preserved entire only in a Syriac version, which was published, with English translation and notes, by Cureton in 1861. A fragment of the original Greek of this work as preserved by Sirecon Metaphrastes had previously been published by Papebroch in the Acta Sanctorum (June, tom. I. p. 64; reprinted by Fabricius, Hippolytus II. p. 217), but had been erroneously regarded as an extract. from Eusebius’ Life of Pamphilus. Cureton’s publication of the Syriac version of the Martyrs of Palestine showed that it was a part of the original of that work. There are extant also, in Latin, the Acts of St. Procopius, which were published by Valesius (in his edition of Eusebius’ Hist. Eccles. in a note on the first chapter of the Mart. Pal.; reprinted by Cureton, Mart. Pal. p. 50 sq.). Moreover, according to Cureton, Assemani’s Acta SS. Martyrum Orient el Occidentalium, part II. p. 169 sq. (Romoe, 1748) contains another Syriac version of considerable portions of this same work. The Syriac version published by Cureton was made within less than a century after the composition of the original work (the manuscript of it dates from 411 a.d.; see Cureton, ib., preface, p. i.), perhaps within a few years after it, and there is every reason to suppose that it represents that original with considerable exactness. That Eusebius himself was the author of the original cannot be doubted. In addition to this longer recension there is extant in Greek a shorter form of the same work which is found attached to the Ecclesiastical History in most mss. of the latter. In some of them it is placed between the eighth and ninth books, in others at the close of the tenth book, while one ms. inserts it in the middle of VIII. 13. In some of the most important mss. it is wanting entirely, as likewise in the translation of Rufinus, and, according to Lightfoot, in the Syriac version of the History. Most editions of Eusebius’ History print it at the close of the eighth book. Migne gives it separately in Opera, II. 1457 sq. In the present volume the translation of it is given as an appendix to the eighth book, on p. 342 sq.
There can be no doubt that the shorter form is younger than the longer. The mention of the Life of Pamphilus which is contained in the shorter, but is not found in the corresponding passage of the longer form would seem to indicate that the former was a remodeling of the latter rather than the latter of the former (see below, p. 30). Moreover, as Cureton and Lightfoot both point out, the difference between the two works both in substance and in method is such as to make it clear that the shorter form is a revised abridgment of the longer. That Eusebius himself was the author of the shorter as well as of the longer form is shown by the fact that not only in the passages common to both recensions, but also in those peculiar to the shorter one, the author speaks in the same person and as an eye-witness of many of the events which he records. And still further, in Chap. 11 he speaks of having himself written the Life of Pamphilus in three books, a notice which is wanting in the longer form and therefore must emanate from the hand of the author of the shorter. It is interesting to inquire after Eusebius’ motive in publishing an abridged edition of this work. Cureton supposes that he condensed it simply for the purpose of inserting it in the second edition of his History. Lightfoot, on the other hand, suggests that it may have formed “part of a larger work, in which the sufferings of the martyrs were set off against the deaths of the persecutors,” and he is inclined to see in the brief appendix to the eighth book of the History (translated below on p. 340) “a fragment of the second part of the treatise of which the Martyrs of Palestine in the shorter recension formed the first.” The suggestion is, to say the least, very plausible. If it be true, the attachment of the shorter form of the Martyrs of Palestine to the Ecclesiastical History was probably the work, not of Eusebius himself, but of some copyist or copyists, and the disagreement among the various mss. as to its position in the History is more easily explained on this supposition than on Cureton’s theory that it was attached to a later edition of the latter work by Eusebius himself. 
The date at which the Martyrs of Palestine was composed cannot be determined with certainty. It was at any rate not published until after the first nine books of the Ecclesiastical History (i.e. not before 313, see below, p. 45), for it is referred to as a projected work in H. E. VIII. 13. 7. On the other hand, the accounts contained in the longer recension bear many marks of having been composed on the spot, while the impressions left by the martyrdoms witnessed by the author were still fresh upon him. Moreover, it is noticeable that in connection with the account of Pamphilus’ martyrdom, given in the shorter recension, reference is made to the Life of Pamphilus as a book already published, while in the corresponding account in the longer recension no such book is referred to. This would seem to indicate that the Life of Pamphilus was written after the longer, but before the shorter recension of the Martyrs. But on the other hand the Life was written before the Ecclesiastical History (see above, p. 29), and consequently before the publication of either recension of the Martyrs. May it not be that the accounts of the various martyrdoms were written, at least some of them, during the persecution, but that they were not arranged, completed, and published until 313, or later? If this be admitted we may suppose that the account of Pamphilus’ martyrdom was written soon after his death and before the Life was begun. When it was later embodied with the other accounts in the one work On the Martyrs of Palestine it may have been left just as it was, and it may not have occurred to the author to insert a reference to the Life of Pamphilus which had meanwhile been published. But when he came to abridge and in part rewrite for a new edition the accounts of the various martyrdoms contained in the work On Martyrs he would quite naturally refer the reader to the Life for fuller particulars.
If we then suppose that the greater part of the longer recension of the Martyrs was already complete before the end of the persecution, it is natural to conclude that the whole work was published at an early date, probably as soon as possible after the first edition of the History. How much later the abridgment was made we cannot tell.5 
The differences between the two recensions lie chiefly in the greater fullness of detail on the part of the longer one. The arrangement and general mode of treatment is the same in both. They contain accounts of the Martyrs that suffered in Palestine during the years 303–310, most of whom Eusebius himself saw.
Collection of Ancient Martyrdoms (arcaiwn marturiwn sunagwgh). This work is mentioned by Eusebius in his H. E. IV. 15, V. praef., 4, 21. These notices indicate that it was not an original composition, but simply a compilation; a collection of extant accounts of martyrdoms which had taken place before Eusebius’ day. The work is no longer extant, but the accounts of the martyrdom of Pamphilus and others at Smyrna, of the persecution in Lyons and Vienne, and of the defense of Apollonius in Rome, which Eusebius inserts in his Ecclesiastical History (IV. 15, V. 1, V. 21), are taken, as he informs us, from this collection. As to the time of compilation, we can say only that it antedates the composition of the earlier books of the History (on whose date, see below, p. 45).
Chronicle (Cronikoi kanone"). Eusebius refers to this work in his Church History (I. 1), in his Praeparatio Evang. X. 9, and at the beginning of his Eclogae propheticae. It is divided into two books, the first of which consists of an epitome of universal history drawn from various sources, the second of chronological tables, which “exhibit in parallel columns the succession of the rulers of different nations in such a way that the reader can see at a glance with whom any given monarch was contemporary.” The tables “are accompanied by notes, marking the years of some of the more remarkable historical events, these notes also constituting an epitome of history.” Eusebius was not the first Christian writer to compose a work on universal chronology. Julius Africanus had published a similar work early in the third century, and from that Eusebius drew his model and a large part of the material for his own work. At the same time his Chronicle is more than a simple revision of Africanus’ work, and contains the result of much independent investigation on his own part. The work of Africanus is no longer extant, and that of Eusebius was likewise lost for a great many centuries, being superseded by a revised Latin edition, issued by Jerome. Jerome’s edition, which comprises only the second book of Eusebius’ Chronicle, is a translation of the original work, enlarged by notices taken from various writers concerning human history, and containing a continuation of the chronology down to his own time. This, together with numerous Greek fragments preserved by various ancient writers, constituted our only source for a knowledge of the original work, until late in the last century an Armenian translation of the whole work was discovered and published in two volumes by J. B. Aucher: Venice, 1818. The Armenian translation contains a great many errors and not a few lacunae, but it is our most valuable source for a knowledge of the original work.
The aim of the Chronicle was, above all, apologetic, the author wishing to prove by means of it that the Jewish religion, of which the Christian was the legitimate continuation, was older than the oldest of heathen cults, and thus deprive pagan opponents of their taunt of novelty, so commonly hurled against Christianity. As early as the second century, the Christian apologists had emphasized the antiquity of Judaism; but Julius Africanus was the first to devote to the matter scientific study, and it was with the same idea that Eusebius followed in his footsteps. The Chronology, in spite of its errors, is invaluable for the light it throws on many otherwise dark periods of history, and for the numerous extracts it contains from works no longer extant.
There are good and sufficient reasons (as is pointed out by Salmon in his article in Smith and Wace’s Dictionary of Christian Biography) for supposing that two editions of the Chronicle were published by Eusebius. But two of these reasons need be stated here: first, the chronology of the Armenian version differs from that of Jerome’s edition in many important particulars, divergencies which can be satisfactorily accounted for only on the supposition of a difference in the sources from which they respectively drew; secondly, Jerome states directly that the work was brought down to the vicennalia of Constantine,—that is, to the year 325,—but the Chronicle is referred to as an already published work in the Eclogae propheticae (I. 1), and in the Praeparatio Evang. (X. 9), both of which were written before 313. We may conclude, then, that a first edition of the work was published during, or more probably before, the great persecution, and that a second and revised edition was issued probably in 325, or soon thereafter.
For further particulars in regard to the Chronicle see especially the article of Salmon already referred to. The work has been issued separately a great many times. We may refer here to the edition of Scaliger, which was published in 1606 (2d ed. 1658), in which he attempted to restore the Greek text from the fragments of Syncellus and other ancient writers, and to the new edition of Mai, which was printed in 1833 in his Scriptorum veterum nova collectio, Tom. VIII., and reprinted by Migne, Eusebii Opera, I. 99–598. The best and most recent edition, however, and the one which supersedes all earlier editions, is that of Alfred Schoene, in two volumes: Berlin, 1875 and 1866.
Ecclesiastical History (ekklhsiastikh istoria). For a discussion of this work see below, p. 45 sq.
Life of Constantine (ei" ton bion tou makariou Kwnstantinou tou basilew").For particulars in regard to this work, see the prolegomena of Dr. Richardson, on pp. sq., of this volume.
II. Apologetic Works
Against Hierocles (pro" tou" uper Apollwniou tou tuanew" Ierokleou" logou", as Photius calls it in his Bibl. 39). Hierocles was governor of Bithynia during the early years of the Diocletian persecution, and afterwards governor of Egypt. In both places he treated the Christians with great severity, carrying out the edicts of the emperors to the fullest extent, and even making use of the most terrible and loathsome forms of persecution (see Lactantius, De Mort. Pers. 16, and Eusebius, Mart. Pal. 5, Cureton’s ed. p. 18). He was at the same time a Neo-Platonic philosopher, exceedingly well versed in the Scriptures and doctrines of the Christians. In a work against the Christians entitled logo" filalhqh" pro" tou" cristianou", he brought forward many scriptural difficulties and alleged contradictions, and also instituted a comparison between Christ and Apollonius of Tyana, with the intention of disparaging the former. Eusebius feels called upon to answer the work, but confines himself entirely to that part of it which concerned Christ and Apollonius, leaving to some future time a refutation of the remainder of the work, which indeed, he says, as a mere reproduction of the arguments of Celsus, had been already virtually answered by Origen (see chap. 1). Eusebius admits that Apollonius was a good man, but refuses to concede that he was anything more, or that he can be compared with Christ. He endeavors to show that the account of Apollonius given by Philostratus is full of contradictions and does not rest upon trustworthy evidence. The tone of the book is mild, and the arguments in the main sound and well presented. It is impossible to fix the date of the work with any degree of certainty. Valesius assigns it to the later years of the persecution, when Eusebius visited Egypt; Stein says that it may have been written about 312 or 313, or even earlier; while Lightfoot simply remarks, “it was probably one of the earliest works of Eusebius.” There is no ground for putting it at one time rather than another except the intrinsic probability that it was written soon after the work to which it was intended to be a reply. In fact, had a number of years elapsed after the publication of Hierocles’ attack, Eusebius would doubtless, if writing against it at all, have given a fuller and more complete refutation of it, such as he suggests in the first chapter that he may yet give. The work of Hierocles, meanwhile, must have been written at any rate some time before the end of the persecution, for it is mentioned in Lactantius’ Div. Inst. V. 2.
Eusebius’ work has been published by Gaisford: Eusebii Pamph. contra Hieroclem et Marcellum libri, Oxon. 1852; and also in various editions of the works of Philostratus. Migne, Opera IV. 795 sq., reprints it from Olearius’ edition of Philostratus’ works (Lips. 1709).
Against Porphyry (kata Porfurion). Porphyry, the celebrated Neo-Platonic philosopher, regarded by the early Fathers as the bitterest and most dangerous enemy of the Church, wrote toward the end of the third century a work against Christianity in fifteen books, which was looked upon as the most powerful attack that had ever been made, and which called forth refutations from some of the greatest Fathers of the age: from Methodius of Tyre, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Apollinaris of Laodicea; and even as late as the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth century the historian Philostorgius thought it necessary to write another reply to it (see his H. E. X. 10). Porphyry’s work is no longer extant, but the fragments of it which remain show us that it was both learned and skillful. He made much of the alleged contradictions in the Gospel records, and suggested difficulties which are still favorite weapons in the hands of skeptics. Like the work of Porphyry, and all the other refutations of it, the Apology of Eusebius has entirely perished. It is mentioned by Jerome (de vir. ill. 81 and Ep. ad Magnum, §3, Migne’s ed. Ep. 70), by Socrates (H. E. III. 23), and by Philostorgius (H. E. VIII. 14). There is some dispute as to the number of books it contained. In his Ep. ad Magn. Jerome says that “Eusebius et Apollinaris viginti quinque, et triginta volumina condiderunt,” which implies that it was composed of twenty-five books; while in his de ver. ill. 81, he speaks of thirty books, of which he had seen only twenty. Vallarsi says, however, that all his mss. agree in reading “twenty-five” instead of “thirty” in the latter passage, so that it would seem that the vulgar text is incorrect.
It is impossible to form an accurate notion of the nature and quality of Eusebius’ refutation. Socrates speaks of it in terms of moderate praise (“which [i.e. the work of Porphyry] has been ably answered by Eusebius”), and Jerome does the same in his Ep. ad Magnum (“Alteri [i.e. Porphyry] Methodius, Eusebius, et Apollinaris fortissime responderunt”). At the same time the fact that Apollinaris and others still thought it necessary to write against Porphyry would seem to show that Eusebius’ refutation was not entirely satisfactory. In truth, Jerome (Ep. ad Pammachium et Oceanum, §2, Migne’s ed. Ep. 84) appears to rank the work of Apollinaris above that of Eusebius, and Philostorgius expressly states that the former far surpassed the latter (epi polu kratein hgwnismenwn ÆEusebiw katÆ autou). The date of Eusebius’ work cannot be determined. The fact that he never refers to it, although he mentions the work of Porphyry a number of times, has been urged by Valesius and others as proof that he did not write it until after 325 a.d.; but it is quite possible to explain his silence, as Lardner does, by supposing that his work was written in his earlier years, and that afterward he felt its inferiority and did not care to mention it. It seems, in fact, not unlikely that he wrote it as early, or even earlier than his work against Hierocles, at any rate before his attention was occupied with the Arian controversy and questions connected with it.
On the Numerous Progeny of the Ancients (peri th" twn palaiwn andrwn polupaidia"). This work is mentioned by Eusebius in his Praep. Evang. VII. 8. 20 (Migne, Opera, III. 525), but by no one else, unless it be the book to which Basil refers in his De Spir. Sancto, 29, as Difficulties respecting the Polygamy of the Ancients. The work is no longer extant, but we can gather from the connection in which it is mentioned in the Praeparatio, that it aimed at accounting for the polygamy of the Patriarchs and reconciling it with the ascetic ideal of the Christian life which prevailed in the Church of Eusebius’ lifetime. It would therefore seem to have been written with an apologetic purpose.
Praeparatio Evangelica (proparaskeuh euaggelikh) and Demonstratio Evangelica (ÆEuaggelikh apodeixi"). These two treatises together constitute Eusebius’ greatest apologetic work. The former is directed against heathen, and aims to show that the Christians are justified in accepting the sacred books of the Hebrews and in rejecting the religion and philosophy of the Greeks. The latter endeavors to prove from the sacred books of the Hebrews themselves that the Christians do right in going beyond the Jews, in accepting Jesus as their Messiah, and in adopting another mode of life. The former is therefore in a way a preparation for the latter, and the two together constitute a defense of Christianity against all the world, Jews as well as heathen. In grandeur of conception, in comprehensiveness of treatment, and in breadth of learning, this apology undoubtedly surpasses all other apologetic works of antiquity. Lightfoot justly says, “This great apologetic work exhibits the same merits and defects which we find elsewhere in Eusebius. There is the same greatness of conception marred by the same inadequacy of execution, the same profusion of learning combined with the same inability to control his materials, which we have seen in his History. The divisions are not kept distinct; the topics start up unexpectedly and out of season. But with all its faults this is probably the most important apologetic work of the early Church. It necessarily lacks the historical interest of the apologetic writings of the second century; it falls far short of the thoughtfulness and penetration which give a permanent value to Origen’s treatise against Celsus as a defense of the faith; it lags behind the Latin apologists in rhetorical vigor and expression. But the forcible and true conceptions which it exhibits from time to time, more especially beating on the theme which may be briefly designated ‘God in history,’ arrest our attention now, and must have impressed his contemporaries still more strongly; while in learning and comprehensiveness it is without a rival.” The wide acquaintance with classical literature exhibited by Eusebius in the Praeparatio is very remarkable. Many writers are referred to whose names are known to us from no other source, and many extracts are given which constitute our only fragments of works otherwise totally lost. The Praeparatio thus does for classical much what the History does for Christian literature.
A very satisfactory summary of the contents of the Praeparatio is given at the beginning of the fifteenth book. In the first, second, and third books, the author exposes the absurdities of heathen mythology, and attacks the allegorical theology of the Neo-Platonists; in the fourth and fifth books he discusses the heathen oracles; in the sixth he refutes the doctrine of fate; in the seventh he passes over to the Hebrews, devoting the next seven books to an exposition of the excellence of their system, and to a demonstration of the proposition that Moses and the prophets lived before the greatest Greek writers, and that the latter drew their knowledge from the former; in the fourteenth and fifteenth books he exposes the contradictions among Greek philosophers and the vital errors in their systems, especially in that of the Peripatetics. The Praeparatio is complete in fifteen books, all of which are still extant.
The Demonstratio consisted originally of twenty books (see Jerome’s de vir. ill. 81, and Photius’ Bibl. 10). Of these only ten are extant, and even in the time of Nicephones Callistus no more were known, for he gives the number of the books as ten (H. E. VI. 37). There exists also a fragment of the fifteenth book, which was discovered and printed by Mai (Script. vet. nova call. I. 2, p. 173). In the first book, which is introductory, Eusebius shows why the Christians pursue a mode of life different from that of the Jews, drawing a distinction between Hebraism, the religion of all pious men from the beginning, and Judaism, the special system of the Jews, and pointing out that Christianity is a continuation of the former, but a rejection of the latter, which as temporary has passed away. In the second book he shows that the calling of the Gentiles and the repudiation of the Jews are foretold in Scripture. In books three to nine he discusses the humanity, divinity, incarnation, and earthly life of the Saviour, showing that all were revealed in the prophets. In the remainder of the work we may assume that the same general plan was followed, and that Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension, and the spread of his Church, were the subjects discussed in this as in nearly all works of the kind.
There is much dispute as to the date of these two works. Stroth and Cave place them after the Council of Nicaea, while Valesius, Lightfoot, and others, assign them to the ante-Nicene period. In two passages in the History Eusebius has been commonly supposed to refer to the Demonstratio (H. E. I. 2 and 6), but it is probable that the first, and quite likely the second also, refers to the Eclogae Proph. We can, therefore, base no argument upon those passages. But in Praep. Evang. XII. 10 (Opera, III. 969) there is a reference to the persecution, which seems clearly to imply that it was still continuing; and in the Demonstratio (III. 5 and IV. 6; Opera, IV. 213 and 307), which was written after the Praeparatio, are still more distinct indications of the continuance of the persecution. On the other hand, in V. 3 and VI. 20 (Opera, IV. 364 and 474) there are passages which imply that the persecution has come to an end. It seems necessary then to conclude, with Lightfoot, that the Demonstratio was begun during the persecution, but not completed until peace had been established. The Praeparatio, which was completed before the Demonstratio was begun (see the prooemium to the latter), must have been finished during the persecution. It contains in X. 9 (Opera, III. 807) a reference to the Chronicle as an already published work (see above, p. 31). 
The Praeparatio and Demonstratio are found in Migne’s edition of the Opera, III. and IV. 9 sq. A more recent text is that of Dindorf in Teubner’s series, 1867. The Praeparatio has been published separately by Heinichen, 2 vols., Lips. 1842, and by Gaisford, 4 vols., Oxon. 1843. The latter contains a full critical apparatus with Latin translation and notes, and is the most useful edition which we have. Seguier in 1846 published a French translation with notes. The latter are printed in Latin in Migne’s edition of the Opera, III. 1457 sq. The French translation I have not seen.
The Demonstratio was also published by Gaisford in 2 vols., Oxon. 1852, with critical apparatus and Latin translation. H’nell has made the two works the subject of a monograph entitled De Eusebio Caesariensi religionis Christianae Defensore (Gottingae, 1843) which I know only from the mention of it by Stein and Lightfoot.
Praeparatio Ecclesiastica (ÆEkklhsiastikh Proparaskeuh), and Demanstratio Ecclesiastica ( ÆEkklhsiastikh ÆApodeixi"). These two works are no longer extant. We know of the former only from Photius’ reference to it in Bibl. 11, of the latter from his mention of it in Bibl. 12
Lightfoot says that the latter is referred to also in the Fus Graeco-Romanum (lib. IV. p. 295; ed. Leunclav.). We know nothing about the works (except that the first according to Photius contained extracts), and should be tempted to think them identical with the Praeparatio and Demonstratio Evang. were it not that Photius expressly mentions the two latter in another part of his catalogue (Bibl. 10). Lightfoot supposes that the two lost works did for the society what the Praep. and Dem. Evang. do for the doctrines of which the society is the depositary, and he suggests that those portions of the Theophania (Book IV.) which relate to the foundation of the Church may have been adopted from the Dem. Ecclesiastica, as other portions of the work (Book V.) are adopted from the Dem. Evang.
If there is a reference in the Praep. Evang. I. 3 (Opera, III 33) to the Demanstratio Eccles., as Lightfoot thinks there may be, and as is quite possible, the latter work, and consequently in all probability the Praep. Eccles, also, must have been written before 313 a.d.
Two Books of Objection and Defense (ÆElegcou kai ÆApologia" logoi duo). These are no longer extant, but are mentioned by Photius in his Bibl. 13. We gather from Photius’ language that two editions of the work were extant in his time. The books, as Photius clearly indicates, contained an apology for Christianity against the attacks of the heathen, and not, as Cave supposed, a defense of the author against the charge of Arianism. The tract mentioned by Gelasius of Cyzicus (see below, p. 64) is therefore not to be identified with this work, as Cave imagined that it might be.
Theophania or Divine Manifestation (qeofaneia). A Syriac version of this work is extant in the same ms. which contains the Martyrs of Palestine, and was first published by Lee in 1842. In 1843 the same editor issued an English translation with notes and extended prolegomena (Cambridge, 1 vol.). The original work is no longer extant in its entirety, but numerous Greek fragments were collected and published by Mai in 1831 and 1833 (Script. vet. nov. coll. I. and VIII.), and again with additions in 1847 (Bibl. Nova Patrum, IV. 110 and 310; reprinted by Migne, Opera, VI. 607–690. Migne does not give the Syriac version). The manuscript which contains the Syriac version was written in 411, and Lee thinks that the translation itself may have been made even during the lifetime of Eusebius. At any rate it is very old and, so far as it is possible to judge, seems to have reproduced the sense of the original with comparative accuracy. The subject of the work is the manifestation of God in the incarnation of the Word. It aims to give, with an apologetic purpose, a brief exposition of the divine authority and influence of Christianity. It is divided into five books which handle successively the subject and the recipients of the revelation, that is, the Logos on the one hand, and man on the other; the necessity of the revelation; the proof of it drawn from its effects; the proof of it drawn from its fulfillment of prophecy; finally, the common objections brought by the heathen against Christ’s character and wonderful works. Lee says of the work: “As a brief exposition of Christianity, particularly of its Divine authority, and amazing influence, it has perhaps never been surpassed.” “When we consider the very extensive range of inquiry occupied by our author, the great variety both of argument and information which it contains, and the small space which it occupies; we cannot, I think, avoid coming to the conclusion, that it is a very extraordinary work, and one which is as suitable to our own times as it was to those for which it was written. Its chief excellency is, that it is argumentative, and that its arguments are well grounded, and logically conducted.”
The Theophania contains much that is found also in other works of Eusebius. Large portions of the first, second, and third books are contained in the Oratio de Laudibus Constantini, nearly the whole of the fifth book is given in the Dem. Evang., while many passages occur in the Praep. Evang.
These coincidences assist us in determining the date of the work. That it was written after persecution had ceased and peace was restored to the Church, is clear from II. 76, III. 20, 79, V. 52. Lee decided that it was composed very soon after the close of the Diocletian persecution, but Lightfoot has shown conclusively (p. 333) from the nature of the parallels between it and other writings of Eusebius, that it must have been written toward the end of his life, certainly later than the De Laud. Canst. (335 a.d.), and indeed it is not improbable that it remained unfinished at the time of his death.
III Polemic Works.
Defense of Origen (ÆApologia uper ÆWrigenou"). This was the joint work of Eusebius and Pamphilus, as is distinctly stated by Eusebius himself in his H. E. VI. 33, by Socrates, H. E. III. 7, by the anonymous collector of the Synodical Epistles (Ep. 198), and by Photius, Bibl. 118. The last writer informs us that the work consisted of six books, the first five of which were written by Eusebins and Pamphilus while the latter was in prison, the last book being added by the former after Pamphilus’ death (see above, p. 9). There is no reason to doubt the statement of Photius, and we may therefore assign the first five books to the years 307–309, and assume that the sixth was written soon afterward. The Defense has perished, with the exception of the first book, which was translated by Rufinus (Rufin. ad Hieron. I. 582), and is still extant in his Latin version. Rufinus ascribed this book expressly to Pamphilus, and Pamphilus’ name alone appears in the translation. Jerome (Contra Ruf. I. 8; II. 15, 23; III. 12) maintains that the whole work was written by Eusebius, not by Pamphilus, and accuses Rufinus of having deliberately substituted the name of the martyr Pamphilus for that of the Arianizing Eusebius in his translation of the work, in order to secure more favorable acceptance for the teachings of Origen. Jerome’s unfairness and dishonesty in this matter have been pointed out by Lightfoot (p. 340). In spite of his endeavor to saddle the whole work upon Eusebius, it is certain that Pamphilus was a joint author of it, and it is quite probable that Rufinus was true to his original in ascribing to Pamphilus all the explanations which introduce and connect the extracts from Origen, which latter constitute the greater part of the book. Eusebius may have done most of his work in connection with the later books.
The work was intended as a defense of Origen against the attacks of his opponents (see Eusebius’ H. E. VI 33, and the Preface to the Defense itself). According to Socrates (H. E. VI. 13), Methodius, Eustathius, Apollinaris, and Theophilus all wrote against Origen. Of these only Methodius had written before the composition of the Defense, and he was expressly attacked in the sixth book of that work, according to Jerome (Contra Ruf. I. 11). The wide opposition aroused against Origen was chiefly in consequence not of his personal character, but of his theological views. The Apology, therefore, seems to have been devoted in the main to a defense of those views over against the attacks of the men that held and taught opposite opinions, and may thus be regarded as in some sense a regular polemic. The extant book is devoted principally to a discussion of Origen’s views on the Trinity and the Incarnation. It is not printed in Migne’s edition of Eusebius’ Opera, but is published in the various editions of Origen’s works (in Lommatzsch’s edition, XXIV. 289–412). For further particulars in regard to the work, see Delarue’s introduction to it (Lommatzsch, XXIV. 263 sq.), and Lightfoot’s article on Eusebius, pp. 340 and 341.
Against Marcellus, Bishop of Ancyra (kata Markellou tou ÆAgkura" episkopou). The occasion of this work has been already described (see p. 25), and is explained by Eusebius himself in Book II. chap, 4. The work must have been written soon after the Council at which Marcellus was condemned. It aims simply to expose his errors, exegetical as well as theological. The work consists of two books, and is still extant (Opera, VI. 707–824).
On the Theology of the Church, a Refutation of Marcellus (oi pro" Markellon elegcoi peri th" ekklhsiastikh" Qeologia"). The occasion of this work is stated in the first chapter. In the previous work Eusebius had aimed merely to expose the opinions of Marcellus, but in this he devotes himself to their refutation, fearing that some might be led astray by their length and plausibility. The work, which consists of three books, is still extant, and is given by Migne in the Opera, VI. 825–1046. Both it and the preceding are published with the Contra Hieroclem in Gaisford’s Euseb. Pamph. contra Hieroclem et Marcellum, Oxon. 1852. Zahn has written a valuable monograph entitled Marcellus von Ancyra (Gotha, 1867).
Against the Manicheans. Epiphanius (Haer. LXVI. 21) mentions, among other refutations of the Manicheans, one by our Eusebius. The work is referred to nowhere else, and it is possible that Epiphanius was mistaken in his reference, or that the refutation he has in mind formed only a part of some other work, but we are hardly justified in asserting, as Lightfoot does, that the work cannot have existed.
IV. Dogmatic Works.
General Elementary Introduction (ÆH kaqolou stoiceiwdh" eisagwgh). This work consisted of ten books, as we learn from a reference to it in the Eclogae Propheticae, IV. 35. It was apparently a general introduction to the study of theology, and covered a great variety of subjects. Five brief fragments have been preserved, all of them apparently from the first book, which must have dealt largely with general principles of ethics. The fragments were published by Mai (Bibl. Nova Patrum, IV. 316), and are reprinted by Migne (Opera, IV. 1271 sq.). In addition to these fragments, the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth books of the work are extant under the title:
Prophetical Extracts (Profhtikai ÆEklogai). Although this formed a part of the larger work, it is complete in itself, and circulated independently of the rest of the Introduction. It contains extracts of prophetical passages from the Old Testament relating to the person and work of Christ, accompanied by explanatory notes. It is divided into four books, the first containing extracts from the historical Scriptures, the second from the Psalms, the third from the other poetical books and from the prophets, the fourth from Isaiah alone. The personality of the Logos is the main topic of the work, which is thus essentially dogmatic, rather than apologetic, as it might at first glance seem to be. It was composed during the persecution, which is clearly referred to in Book I. chap. 8 as still raging; it must have been written therefore between 303 and 313. The date of these books, of course, fixes the date of the General Introduction, of which they formed a part. The Eclogae are referred to in the History, I. 2. On the other hand, they mention the Chronicle as a work already written (I. I: Opera, p. 1023); a reference which goes to prove that there were two editions of the Chronicle (see above, p. 31). The four books of the Prophetical Extracts were first published by Gaisford in 1842 (Oxford) from a Vienna ms. The ms. is mutilated in many places, and the beginning, including the title of the work, is wanting. Migne has reprinted Gaisford’s edition in the Opera, IV. 1017 sq.
On the Paschal Festival (peri th" tou pasca eorth"). This work, as Eusebius informs us in his Vita Const. IV. 34, was addressed to the Emperor Constantine, who commends it very highly in an epistle to Eusebius preserved in the Vita Const. IV. 35. From this epistle we learn, moreover , that the work had been translated into Latin. It is no longer extant in its entirety, but a considerable fragment of it was discovered by Mai in Nicetas’ Catena on Luke, and published by him in his Bibl. Nova Patrum, IV. p. 208 sq. The extant portion of it contains twelve chapters, devoted partly to a discussion of the nature of the Passover and its typical significance, partly to an account of the settlement of the paschal question at the Council of Nicaea, and partly to an argument against the necessity of celebrating the paschal feast at the time of the Jewish Passover, based on the ground that Christ himself did not keep the Passover on the same day as the Jews.
Jerome, although he does not mention this work in his catalogue of Eusebius’ writings (de vir. ill. 81), elsewhere (ib. 61) states that Eusebius composed a paschal canon with a cycle of nineteen years. This cycle may have been published (as Lightfoot remarks) as a part of the writing under discussion. The date of the work cannot be determined with exactness. It was written after the Council of Nicaea, and, as would seem from the connection in which it is mentioned in the Vita Canstantini, before the Emperor’s tricennalia (335 a.d.), but not very long before. The extant fragment, as published by Mai, is reprinted by Migne in the Opera, VI. 693–706.
V. Critical and Exegetical Works.
Biblical Texts. We learn from Jerome (Praef. in librum Paralip.) that Eusebius and Pamphilus published a numbe`r of copies of Origen’s edition of the LXX., that is, of the fifth column of the Hexapla. A colophon found in a Vatican ms., and given in fac-simile in Migne’s Opera, IV. 875, contains the following account of their labors (the translation is Lightfoot’s): “It was transcribed from the editions of the Hexapla, and was corrected from the Tetrapla of Origen himself, which also had been corrected and furnished with scholia in his own handwriting; whence I, Eusebius, added the scholia, Pamphilus and Eusebius corrected [this copy].” Compare also Field’s Hexapla, I. p. xcix.
Taylor, in the Dictionary of Christian Biography, III. p. 21, says: “The whole work [i.e. the Hexapla] was too massive for multiplication; but many copies of its fifth column alone were issued from Caesarea under the direction of Pamphilus the martyr and Eusebius, and this recension of the LXX. came into common use. Some of the copies issued contained also marginal scholia, which gave inter alia a selection of readings from the remaining versions in the Hexapla. The oldest extant ms. of this recension is the Leiden Codex Sarravianus of the fourth or fifth century.” These editions of the LXX. must have been issued before the year 309, when Pamphilus suffered martyrdom, and in all probability before 307, when he was imprisoned (see Lardner’s Credibility, Part II. chap. 72.
In later years we find Eusebius again engaged in the publication of copies of the Scriptures. According to the Vita Const. IV. 36, 37, the Emperor wrote to Eusebius, asking him to prepare fifty sumptuous copies of the Scriptures for use in his new Constantinopolitan churches. The commission was carefully executed, and the mss. prepared at great cost. It has been thought that among our extant mss. may be some of these copies which were produced under Eusebius’ supervision, but this is extremely improbable (see Lightfoot, p. 334).
Ten Evangelical Canons, with the Letter to Carpianus prefixed (kanone" deka; Canones decem harmoniae evangeliorum praemissa ad Carpianum epistola). Ammonius of Alexandria early in the third century had constructed a harmony of the Gospels, in which, taking Matthew as the standard, he placed alongside of that Gospel the parallel passages from the three others. Eusebius’ work was suggested by this Harmony, as he tells us in his epistle to Carpianus. An inconvenient feature of Ammonius’ work was that only the Gospel of Matthew could be read continuously, the sequence of the other Gospels being broken in order to bring their parallel sections into the order followed by Matthew. Eusebius, desiring to remedy this defect, constructed his work on a different principle. He made a table of ten canons, each containing a list of passages as follows: Canon I. passages common to all four Gospels; II. those common to Matthew, Mark, and Luke; III. those common to Matt, Luke, and John; IV. those common to Matt., Mark, and John; V. those common to Matthew and Luke; VI. those common to Matt. and Mark; VII. those common to Matt. and John; VIII. those common to Luke and Mark; IX. those common to Luke and John; X. those peculiar to each Gospel: first to Matthew, second to Mark, third to Luke, and fourth to John.

MT.
MP.
L
IW
h
b
z
i
ia
d
i
“
ia
d
i
ib
ia
d
i

Each Gospel was then divided into sections, which were numbered continuously. The length of the section was determined, not by the sense, but by the table of canons, each section comprising a passage common to four, to three, to two Gospels, or peculiar to itself, as the case might be. A single section therefore might comprise even less than a verse, or it might cover more than a chapter. The sections were numbered in black, and below each number was placed a second figure in red, indicating the canon to which the section belonged. Upon glancing at that canon the reader would find at once the numbers of the parallel sections in the other Gospels, and could turn to them readily. The following is a specimen of a few lines of the first canon:—
Thus, opposite a certain passage in John, the reader finds ib (12) written, and beneath it, A (1). He therefore turns to the first canon (A) and finds that sections ia (11) in Matthew, d (4) in Mark, and i (10) in Luke are parallel with ib in John. The disadvantage and convenience of such a system are obvious, and the invention of it shows great ingenuity. It has indeed never been superseded, and the sections and canons are still indicated in the margins of many of our best Greek Testaments (e.g., in those of Tregelles and of Tischendorf). The date of the construction of these canons it is quite impossible to determine. For further particulars in regard to them, see Lightfoot’s article on Eusebius, p. 334 sq., and Scrivener’s Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, 2d ed. p. 54 sq. The canons, with the letter to Carpianus prefixed, are given to Migne, Opera, IV. 1275–1292.
Gospel Questions and Solutions. This work consists of two parts, or of two separate works combined. The first bears the title Gospel Questions and Solutions addressed to Stephanus (pro" Stefanon peri twn en euaggelioi" zhthmatwn kai lusewn), and is referred to by Eusebius in his Dem. Evang. VII. 3, as Questions and Solutions on the Genealogy of our Saviour (twn ei" thn genealogian tou swthro" hmwn zhthmatwn kai lusewn). The second part is entitled Gospel Questions and Solutions addressed to Marinus (pro" Marinon). The first work consisted of two books, we learn from the opening of the second work. In that passage, referring to the previous work, Eusebius says that having discussed there the difficulties which beset the beginning of the Gospels, he will now proceed to consider questions concerning the latter part of them, the intermediate portions being omitted. He thus seems to regard the two works as in a sense forming parts of one whole. In his de vir ill. 81, Jerome mentions among the writings of Eusebius one On the Discrepancy of the Gospels (De Evangeliorum Diaphonia), and in his Comm. in Matt. chap. I. vers. 16, he refers to Eusebius’ libri diafwnia" euaggeliwn. Ebedjesu also remarks, “Eusebius Caesariensis composuit librum solutionis contradictionum evangelii.” In the sixteenth century there were found in Sicily, according to the announcement of Latino Latini, “libri tres Eusebii Caesariensis de Evangeliorum diaphonia,” but nothing more has been heard or seen of this Sicilian ms. There can be no doubt that the work referred to under the title De Evangeliorum Diaphonia is identical with the Gospel Questions and Solutions, for the discrepancies in the Gospels occupy a considerable space in the Questions and Solutions as we have it, and the word diafwnia occurs frequently. The three books mentioned by Latino Latini were therefore the two books addressed to Stephanus which Eusebius himself refers to, and the one book addressed to Marinus. The complete work is no longer extant, but an epitome of it was discovered and published by Mai, together with numerous fragments of the unabridged work, two of them in Syriac (Bibl. Nova Patrum, IV. 217 sq.; reprinted by Migne, Opera, IV. 879–1016). In the epitome the work addressed to Stephanus consists of sixteen chpaters, and the division into two books is not retained. The work addressed to Marinus consists of only four chapters.
The work purports to have been written in answer to questions and difficulties suggested by Stephanus and Marinus, who are addressed by Eusebius in terms of affection and respect. The first work devoted chiefly to a discussion of the genealogies of Christ, as given by Matthew and Luke; the second work deals with the apparent discrepancies between the accounts of the resurrection as given by the different evangelists. Eusebius does not always reach a solution of the difficulties, but his work is suggestive and interesting. The question as to the date of the work is complicated by the fact that there is in the Dem. Evang. VII. 3 a reference to the Questions and Solutions addressed to Stephanus, while in the epitome of the latter work (Quaest. VII. §7) there is a distinct reference to the Demonstratio Evang. This can be satisfactorily explained only by supposing, with Lightfoot, that the Epitome was made at a later date than the original work, and that then Eusebius inserted this reference to the Demonstratio. We are thus led to assume two editions of this work, as of the others of Eusebius’ writings, the second edition being a revised abridgement of the first. The first edition, at least of the Qeaestions ad Stephanum, must have been published before the Demonstratio Evangelica. We cannot fix the date of the epitome, nor of the Quaestiones ad Marinum.
Commentary on the Psalms (ei" tou" yalmou"). This commentary is extant entire as far as the 118the psalm, but from that point to the end only fragments of it have been preserved. It was first published in 1707, by Montfaucon, who, however, knew nothing of the fragments of the latter part of the work. These were discovered and published by Mai, in 1847 (Bibl. Nov. Patrum, IV. 65 sq.), and the entire extant work, including these fragments, is printed by Migne, Opera, V. and VI. 9–76. According to Lightfoot, notices of extant Syriac extracts from it are found in Wright’s Catal. Syr. mss. Brit. Mus. pp. 35 sq. and 125. Jerome (de vir. ill. 96 and Ep. ad Vigilantium, §2; Migne’s ed. Ep. 61) informs us that Eusebius of Vercellae translated this commentary into Latin, omitting the heretical passages. This version is no longer extant. The commentary had a high reputation among the Fathers, and justly so. It is distinguished for its learning, industry, and critical acumen. The Hexapla is used with great diligence, and the author frequently corrects the received LXX. text of his day upon the authority of one of the other versions. The work betrays an acquaintance with Hebrew, uncommon among the Fathers, but by no means extensive of exact. Eusebius devotes considerable attention to the historical relations of the Psalms, and exhibits an unusual degree of good judgment in their treatment, but the allegorical method of the school of Origen is conspicuous, and leads him into the mystical extravagances so common to patristic exegesis.
The work must have been written after the close of the persecution and the death of the persecutors (in Psal. XXXVI. 12). In another passage (in Psal. LXXXVII. 11) there seems to be a reference to the discovery of the site of the Holy Sepulchre and the erection of Constantine’s basilica upon it (see Vita Const. III. 28, 20, &c.). The basilica was dedicated in the year 335 (see above, p. 24), and the site of the sepulchre was not discovered until the year 356, or later (see Lightfoot, p. 336). The commentary must have been written apparently after the basilica was begun, and probably after its completion. If so, it is to be placed among the very latest of Eusebius’ works.
Commentary on Isaiah (upomnhmata ei" ÆHsaian). This work is also extant almost entire, and was first published in 1706, by Montfaucon (Coll. Nova Patrum et Script. Graec. II.; reprinted by Migne. Opera. VI. 77–526). In his de vir. ill. 81 Jerome refers to it as containing ten books (in Isaiam libri decem), but in the preface to his Comment. in Isaiam he speaks of it as composed of fifteen (Eusebius quoque Pamphili juxta historicam explanationem quindecim edidit volumina). In its present form there is no trace of a division into books. The commentary is marked by the same characteristics which were noticed in connection with the one on the Psalms, though it does not seem to have acquired among the ancients so great a reputation as that work. It must have been written after the close of the persecution (in Is. XLIV. 5), and apparently after the accession of Constantine to sole power (in Is. XLIX. 23 compared with Vita Const. IV. 28). If the commentary on the Psalms was written toward the close of Eusebius’ life, as assumed above, it is natural to conclude that the present work was preceded that.
Commentary on Luke (ei" to kata Loukan euallelion). This work is no longer extant, but considerable fragments of it exist and have been published by Mai (Bibl. Nova Patrum, IV. 159 sq.; reprinted by Migne, Opera, VI. 529–606). Although the fragments are all drawn from Catenae on Luke, there are many passages which seem to have been taken from a commentary on Matthew (see notes of the editor). A number of extracts from the work are found in Eusebius’ Theophania (see Mai’s introduction to his fragments of the latter work).
The date of the commentary cannot be fixed with certainty, but I am inclined to place it before the persecution of Diocletian, for the reason that there appears in the work, so far as I have discovered, no hint of a persecution, although the passages expounded offer many opportunities for such a reference, which it is difficult to see how the author could have avoided making if a persecution were in progress while he was writing; and further, because in discussing Christ’s prophecies of victory and dominion over the whole world, no reference is made to the triumph gained by the Church in the victories of Constantine. A confirmation of this early date may be found in the extreme simplicity of the exegesis, which displays neither the wide learning, nor the profound study that mark the commentaries on the Psalms and on Isaiah.
Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians. This work is no longer extant, and we know of it only from a reference in Jerome’s Ep. ad Pammachium, §3 (Migne’s ed. Ep. 49): “Origenes, Dionysius, Pierius, Eusebius Caesariensis, Didymus, Apollinaris latissime hanc Epistolam interpretati sunt.”
Exegetical Fragments. Mai has published brief fragments containing expositions of passages from Proverbs (Bibl. Nova Patrum, IV. 316; reprinted by Migne, Opera, VI. 75–78), from Daniel (ib. p. 314; Migne, VI. 525–528), and from the Epistle to the Hebrews (ib. p. 207; Migne, VI. 605). Fabricius mentions also fragments from a commentary on the Songs of Songs as published by Meursius, and says that other commentaries are referred to by Montfaucon in his Epistola de Therapeutis, p. 151. We have no references in the works of the ancients to any such commentaries, so far as I am awarem and it is quite possible that the various fragments given by Mai, as well as those referred to by Fabricius may have been taken not from continuous commentaries, but from Eusebius’ General Elementary Introduction, or others of his lost works. According to Migne (VI. 527) some Greek Catenae published by Cramer in Oxford in the year 1884 contain extensive fragments on Matthew and John, which, however, have been taken from Eusebius’ Quaest. Evang. Other fragments in Catenae on the same Evangelists and on Mark, have been taken, according to Migne, from the Quaestiones ad Stephanum, or from the Commentary on Luke.
It is, however, quite possible, as it seems to me, that Eusebius wrote a commentary on Daniel. At any rate, the exegetical fragments which we have, taken with the extended discussions of certain passages found in the Dem. Evang. VIII. 2 and in the Eclogae Proph. III. 40 sq., show that he expounded at one time or another a considerable portion of the book.
VI. Biblical Dictionaries.
Interpretation of the Ethnological Terms in the Hebrew Scriptures. This work is no longer extant, but is known to us from Eusebius’ reference to it in the preface to his work On the Names of Places, where he writes as follows: twn ana thn oikoumenhn eqnwn epi thn ellada fwnhn metabalwn ta" th qeia lrafh keimena" ebraioi" onomasi prosrhsei". Jerome, in the preface to his Latin version of the same work, also refers to it in the following words: “… diversarum vocabula nationum, quae olim apud Hebraeos dicta sint, et nunc dicantur, exposuit.” No other ancient authority mentions the work so far as I am aware.
Chorography of Ancient Judea with the Inheritances of the Ten Tribes. This work too is lost, but is referred to by Eusebius in the same preface in the following words: th" palai ÆIoudaia" apo pash" Biblou katagrafqhn pepoihmeno" kai ta" en auth twn dwdeka fulwn diairwn klhrou". Jerome (ib.) says: “… Chorographiam terrae Judaeae, et distinctas tribuum sortes …labaravit.”
It is remarked by Fabricius that this work is evidently intended by Ebedjesu in his catalogue, where he mentions among the writings of Eusebius a Librum de Figura Mundi (cf. Assemani’s Bibl. Orient. III. p. 18, note 7).
A Plan of Jerusalem and of the Temple, accompanied with Memoirs relating to the Various Localities. This too is lost, but is referred to by Eusebius (ib.) in the following words: w" en grafh" tupw th" palai diabohtou mhtropolew" auth" (legw de thn ÆIerousalhm) tou te en auth iepou thn eikona diacaraxa" meta paraqesw" twn tou" tupou" upomnhmatwn. Jerome (ib.) says: “ipsius quoque Jerusalem templique in ea cum brevissima expositione picturam, ad extremum in hoc opussulo laboravit.”
On the Names of Places in Holy Scripture (peri twn topikwn onomatwn twn en th qeia grafh). In Jerome’s version this work bears the title Liber de Situ et Nominibus Locorum Hebraicorum, but in his de vir. ill. 81, he refers to it as topikwn, liber unus, and so it is commonly called simply Topica. It is still extant, both in the original Greek and in a revised and partly independent Latin version by Jerome. Both are published by Vallarsi in Hieronymi Opera, III. 122 sq. Migne, in his edition of Eusebius’ works, omits the Topica and refers to his edition of Jerome’s works, where, however, he gives only Jerome’s version, not the original Greek (III. 859–928). The best editions of the Greek text are by Larsow and Parthey (Euseb. Pamph. Episc. Caes. Onomasticon, &c., Berolini, 1862), and by Lagarde (Onomastica Sacra, I. 207–304, Gottingae, 1870). The work aims to give, in the original language, in alphabetical order, the names of the cities, villages, mountains, rivers, &c., mentioned in the Scriptures, together with their modern designations and brief descriptions of each. The work is thus of the same character as a modern dictionary or Biblical geography. The other three works were narrower than this one in their scope, but seem also have been arranged somewhat on the dictionary plan. The work is dedicated to Paulinus, a fact which leads us to place its composition before 325 a.d., when Paulinus was already dead (see below, p. 369). Jerome, in the preface to his version, says that Eusebius wrote the work after his History and Chronicle. We are to conclude, then either that the work was published in 324 or early in 325, within a very few months after the History, or, what is more probable, that Jerome is mistaken in his statement. He is proverbially careless and inaccurate, and Eusebius, neither in his preface—from which Jerome largely quotes in his own— nor in the work itself, gives any hint of the fact that his History and Chronicle were already written.
On the Nomenclature of the Book of the Prophets (peri th" tou bibliou twn profhtwn onomasia" kai apo merou" ti periexei ekasto"). This work contains brief accounts of the several prophets and notes the subjects of their prophecies. It is thus, so far as it goes, a sort of biographical dictionary. It was first published by Curterius in his Procopii Sophistae Christinae variarum in Isaiam Prophetam commentationum epitome (Paris, 1850, under the title De vitis Prophetarum, by which it is commonly known. We have no means of determining the date of its composition. Curterius’ text has been reprinted by Migne, Opera, IV. 1261–1272.
VII. Orations.
Panegyric on the Building of the Churches, addressed to Paulinus, Bishop of Tyre (Panhguriko" epi th twn ekklhsiwn oikodomh, Paulinw Turiwn episkopw prospefwnhmeno"). This oration was delivered at the dedication of Paulinus’ new church in Tyre, to which reference has already been made (see above, p. 11). It has been preserved in Eusebius’ History, Book X. chap. 4 (see below, p. 370. sq.).
Oration delivered at the Vicennalia of Constantine. Eusebius refers to this in the Preface to his Vita Constantini as eijkosaethrikoi; u{mnoi. It is to be identified with the oration delivered at the opening of the Council of Nicaea (Vita Const. III.11), as stated above, on p. 19. It is unfortunately no longer extant.
Oration on the Sepulchre of the Saviour. In his Vita Const. IV.33 Eusebius informs us that he delivered an oration on this subject (ajmfi` tou; swthrivou mnhvmato" lovgo") in the presence of the Emperor at Constantinople. In the same work, IV.46, he says that he wrote a description of the church of the Saviour and of his sepulchre, as well as of the splendid presents given by the Emperor for their adornment. This description he gave in a special work which he addressed to the Emperor (ejn oijkeivw/ suggravmmati paradovnte", aujtw`/ basilei` prosefwnhvsamen. If these two are identical, as has always been assumed, the Oration on the Sepulchre must have been delivered in 335, when Eusebius went to Constantinople, just after the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (see above, p. 23), and just before the Oratio deo laudibus Constantini (see ib. IV.46). That the two are identical has always been assumed, and seems most probable. At the same time it is worthy of notice that in IV.33 Eusebius speaks as if he returned to Caesarea immediately after delivering his oration, and gives no hint of the delivery of his De laud. Const. at that time. It is noticeable also that he speaks in IV.46 of a work (suvggramma) not of an oration (lovgo"), and that in IV.45 he mentions the fact that he has described the splendid edifice and gifts of the Emperor in writing (dia; gravmmato"), which would seem to imply something else than an address. Finally, it is to be observed that, whereas, in IV. 46, he expressly refers to the church erected by Constantine and to his rich gifts in connection with its construction, in IV.33 he refers only to the sepulchre. It appears to me, in fact, quite possible that Eusebius may be referring to two entirely different compositions, the one an oration delivered after the discovery of the sepulchre and before the Emperor had built the church (perhaps containing the suggestion of such a building), the other a descriptive work written after the completion of that edifice. I present this only as a possibility, for I realize that against it may be urged the unlikelihood that two separate works should have been composed by Eusebius upon subjects so nearly, if not quite, identical, and also the probability that, if there were two, both, and not one only, would have been attached to the end of the Vita Const. with the De laud Const. (see IV.46). Neither the Oration on the Sepulchre of the Saviour nor the Work on the Church and the Sepulchre (whether the two are the same or not) is now extant.
Oration delivered at the Tricennalia of Constantine (eij" Kwnstanti`non to;n basileva triakontaethrikov"), commonly known under the title Oratio de laudibus Constantini. In his Vita Const. IV.46, Eusebius promised to append this oration, together with the writing On the Church and the Sepulchre, to that work. The de laudibus is still found at the end of the mss. of the Vita, while the other writing is lost. It was delivered in Constantinople in 335 on the occasion of the Emperor’s tricennalia, very soon after the dedication of the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (see above, p. 25). It is highly panegyrical, but contains a great deal of theology, especially in regard to the person and work of the Logos. Large portions of it were afterward incorporated into the Vita Constantini and the Theophania. The oration is published in most, if not all, editions of the Vita Constantini; in Migne, Opera, II. 1315–1440.
Oration in Praise of the Martyrs. This oration is mentioned in the catalogue of Ebedjesu (et orationem de laudibus eorum [i.e. Martyrum Occidentalium]; see Assemani, Bibl. Orient. III. p. 19), and, according to Lightfoot, is still extant in a Syriac version, which has been published in the Journal of Sacred Literature, N. S., Vol. V. p. 403 sq., with an English translation by B. H. Cowper, ib. VI. p. 129 sq. Lightfoot finds in it an indication that it was delivered at Antioch, but pronounces it of little value or importance.
On the Failure of Rain. This is no longer extant, and is known to us only from a reference in thecatalogue of Ebedjesu (et orationem de defectu pluvioe; see Assemani, ib.).
VIII. Epistles.
To Alexander, bishop of Alexandria. The purpose and the character of this epistle have been already discussed (see above). A fragment of it has been preserved in the Proceedings of the Second Council of Nicaea, Act VI., Tom. V. (Labbei et Cossartii Conc. VII. col. 497). For a translation of the epistle, see below. This and the following epistle were written after the outbreak of the Arian controversy, but before the Nicene Council.
To Euphration, bishop of Balaneae in Syria, likewise a strong opponent of the Arians (see Athan. de Fuga, 3; Hist. Ar. ad Mon. 5). Athanasius states that this epistle declared plainly that Christ is not God (Athan. de Synod. 17). A brief fragment of it has been preserved in the Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea (l.c.), which probably contains the very passage to which Athanasius refers. Upon the interpretation and significance of the fragment, see above.
To Constantia Augusta, the sister of Constantine and wife of Licinius. Constantia had written toEusebius requesting him to send her a certain likeness of Christ of which she had heard. Eusebius, inthis epistle, rebukes her, and speaks strongly against the use of such representations, on the ground thatit tends toward idolatry. The tone of the letter is admirable. Numerous fragments of it have beendiscovered, so that we have it now almost entire. It is printed in Migne, Opera, II. 1545–1550 Wehave no means of ascertaining the date at which it was written.To the Church of Caesarea. This epistle was written from Nicaea in 325 a.d., during or immediately after the Council. Its purpose and character have been discussed above on p. 16 sq., where a translation of it is given. The epistle is preserved by Athanasius (de Decret. Syn. Nic. app.); by Socrates, H. E. I. 8; by Theodoret, H. E. I. 11, and others. It is printed by Migne, Opera, II. 1535–1544.
In the Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea (l.c.) we find a mention of "all the epistles" of Eusebius, as if many were at that time extant. We know, however, only of those which have been mentioned above.
IX. Spurious or Doubtful Works.
Fourteen Latin opuscula were discovered and published by Sirmond in 1643, and have beenfrequently reprinted (Migne, Opera, VI. 1047–1208).). They are of a theological character,and bear the following titles:—
De fide adv. Sabellium, libri duo.
De Resurrectione, libri duo.
De Incorporali et invisibili Deo.
De Incorporali.
De Incorporali Animal.
De Spiritali Cogitatu hominis.
De eo quad Deus Pater incorporalis est, libri duo.
De eo quad aft Dominus, Won vend pacem, etc.
De Mandato Domini, Quad aid, Quad dico vobis in aure, etc.
De operibus bonds et malis.
De operibus bonds, ex epist. II. ad Corinth.
Their authenticity is a matter of dispute. Some of them may be genuine, but Lardner is doubtless right in denying the genuineness of the two Against Sabellius, which are the most important of all (see Lardner’s Credibility, Part II. chap. 72).
Lightfoot states that a treatise, On the Star which appeared to the Magi, was published by Wright in the Journal of Sacred Literature (1866) from a Syriac ms. It is ascribed to Eusebius, but its genuineness has been disputed, and good reasons have been given for supposing that it was written originally in Syriac (see Lightfoot, p. 345). 
Fabricius (Bibl. Gr. VI. 104) reports that the following works are extant in ms.: Fragmentum de Mensuris ac Ponderibus (mss. Is. Vossii, n. 179); De Morte Herodis (ms. in Bibl. Basil.); Praefatio ad Canticum Mosis in Exodo (Lambec. III. p. 35).
Chapter III. Eusebius’ Church History.
§1. Date of its Composition.
The work with which we are especially concerned at this time is the Church History, the original Greek of which is still extant in numerous mss. It consists of ten books, to which is added in most of the mss. the shorter form of the Martyrs of Palestine (see above, p. 29). The date of the work can be determined with considerable exactness. It closes with a eulogy of Constantine and his son Crispus; and since the latter was put to death by his father in the summer of 326, the History must have been completed before that time. On the other hand, in the same chapter Eusebius refers to the defeat of Licinius, which took place in the year 323 a.d. This gives a fixed terminus a quo. It is not quite certain from Eusebius’ words whether the death of Licinius had already taken place at the time he wrote, but it seems probable that it had, and if so, the completion of the work must be put as late as the Summer of 324. On the other hand, not the slightest reference is made to the Council of Nicaea, which met in the summer of 325; and still further the tenth book is dedicated to Paulinus, at one time bishop of Tyre and afterward bishop of Antioch (see Euseb. Contra Marc. I. 4, and Philost. H. E. III 15), who was already dead in the summer of 325: for at the Nicene Council, Zeno appears as bishop of Tyre, and Eustathius as bishop of Antioch (see for further particulars Lightfoot, p. 322). We are thus led to place the completion of the History in the year 324, or, to give the widest possible limits, between the latter part of 323 and the early part of 325 a.d.
But the question has been raised whether the earlier books may not have been composed some years before this. Lightfoot (following Westcott) supposes that the first nine books were completed not long after the edict of Milan and before the outbreak of the quarrel between Constantine and Licinius in 314. There is considerable to be said in favor of this theory. The language used in the dedication of the tenth book seems to imply that the nine books had been completed some time before, and that the tenth is added as a sort of postscript. The close of the ninth book strengthens that conclusion. Moreover, it would seem from the last sentences of that book that Constantine and Licinius were in perfect harmony at the time it was written, a state of affairs which did not exist after 314. On the other hand, it must be noticed that in Book IX. chap. 9 Licinius’ “madness” is twice referred to as having “not yet” seized him (in §1 oupw manento" tote, and in §12 oupw tote ef hn usteron ekpeptwke manian, thn dianoian ektrapei"). It is necessary either to interpret both these clauses as later insertions (possibly by Eusebius’ own hand at the time when he added the tenth book; cf. also p. 30, above), or to throw the composition of the ninth book down to the year 319 or later. It is difficult to decide between these alternatives, but I am inclined on the whole to think that Westcott’s theory is probably correct, and that the two clauses can best be interpreted as later insertions. The very nature of his History would at any rate lead us to think that Eusebius spent some years in the composition of it, and that the earlier books, if not published, were at least completed long before the issue of the ten books as a whole. The Chronicle is referred to as already written in I. 1; the Eclogae Proph. (? see below, p. 85) in I. 2 and 6; the Collection of Ancient Martyrdoms in IV. 15, V. preface, 4, and 22; the Defense of Origen in VI. 23, 33, and 36; the Life of Pamphilus in VI. 32, VII. 32, and VIII. 13. In VIII. 13 Eusebius speaks also of his intention of relating the sufferings of the martyrs in another work (but see above, p. 30). 
§2. The Author’s Design.
That the composition of a history of the Church was Eusebius’ own idea, and was not due to any suggestion from without, seems clear, both from the absence of reference to any one else as prompting it, and from the lack of a dedication at the beginning of the work. The reasons which led him to undertake its composition seem to have been both scientific and apologetic. He lived, and he must have realized the fact, at the opening of a new age in the history of the Church. He believed, as he frequently tells us, that the period of struggle had come to an end, and that the Church was now about entering upon a new era of prosperity. He must have seen that it was a peculiarly fitting time to put on record for the benefit of posterity the great events which had taken place within the Church during the generations that were past, to sum up in one narrative all the trials and triumphs which had now emerged in this final and greatest triumph, which he was witnessing. He wrote, as any historian of the present day would write, for the information and instruction of his contemporaries and of those who should come after, and yet there was in his mind all the time the apologetic purpose, the desire to exhibit to the world the history of Christianity as a proof of its divine origin and efficacy. The plan which he proposed to himself is stated at the very beginning of his work: “It is my purpose to write an account of the successions of the holy apostles, as well as of the times which have elapsed from the days of our Saviour to our own; and to relate how many and how important events are said to have occurred in the history of the Church; and to mention those who have governed and presided over the Church in the most prominent parishes, and those who in each generation have proclaimed the divine word either orally or in writing. It is my purpose also to give the names and the number and the times of those who through love of innovation have run into the greatest errors, and proclaiming themselves discoverers of knowledge, falsely so-called, have, like fierce wolves, unmercifully devastated the flock of Christ. It is my intention, moreover, to recount the misfortunes which immediately came upon the whole Jewish nation in consequence of their plots against our Saviour, and to record the ways and the times in which the divine word has been attacked by the Gentiles, and to describe the character of those who at various periods have contended for it in the face of blood and tortures, as well as the confessions which have been made in our own days, and finally the gracious and kindly succour which our Saviour afforded them all.” It will be seen that Eusebius had a very comprehensive idea of what a history of the Church should comprise, and that he was fully alive to its importance.
§3. Eusebius as a Historian. The Merits and Defects of his History.
The whole Christian world has reason to be thankful that there lived at the opening of the fourth century a man who, with his life spanning one of the greatest epochs that has occurred in the history of the Church, with an intimate experimental knowledge of the old and of the new condition of things, was able to conceive so grand a plan and possessed the means and the ability to carry it out. Had he written nothing else, Eusebius’ Church History would have made him immortal; for if immortality be a fitting reward for large and lasting services, few possess a clearer title to it than the author of that work. The value of the History to us lies not in its literary merit, but in the wealth of the materials which it furnishes for a knowledge of the early Church. How many prominent figures of the first three centuries are known to us only from the pages of Eusebius; how many fragments, priceless on account of the light which they shed upon movements of momentous and far-reaching consequence, have been preserved by him alone; how often a hint dropped, a casual statement made in passing, or the mention of some apparently trifling event, gives the clue which enables us to unravel some perplexing labyrinth, or to fit into one whole various disconnected and apparently unrelated elements, and thus to trace the steps in the development of some important historical movement whose rise and whose bearing must otherwise remain an unsolved riddle. The work reveals no sympathy with Ebionism, Gnosticism, and Montanism, and little appreciation of their real nature, and yet our knowledge of their true significance and of their place in history is due in considerable part to facts respecting the movements or their leaders which Eusebius alone has recorded or preserved. To understand the development of the Logos Christology we must comprehend the significance of the teaching of Paul of Samosata, and how inadequate would our knowledge of the nature of that teaching be without the epistle quoted in Book VII. chap. 30. How momentous were the consequences of the paschal controversies, and how dark would they be were it not for the light shed upon them by our author. How important, in spite of their tantalizing brevity and obscurity, the fragments of Papias’ writings; how interesting the extracts from the memoirs of Hegesippus; how suggestive the meager notices from Dionysius of Corinth, from Victor of Rome, from Melito, from Caius; how instructive the long and numerous quotations from the epistles of Dionysius of Alexandria! He may often fail to appreciate the significance of the events which he records, he may in many cases draw unwarranted conclusions from the premises which he states, he may sometimes misinterpret his documents and misunderstand men and movements, but in the majority of cases he presents us with the material upon which to form our own judgments, and if we differ with him we must at the same time thank him for the data which have enabled us independently to reach other results.
But the value of Eusebius’ Church History does not lie solely in the fact that it contains so many original sources which would be otherwise unknown to us. It is not merely a thesaurus, it is a history in the truest sense, and it possesses an intrinsic value of its own, independent of its, quotations from other works. Eusebius possessed extensive sources of knowledge no longer accessible to us. His History contains the results of his extended perusal of many works which are now irrecoverably lost, of his wide acquaintance with the current traditions of his day, of his familiar intercourse with many of the chief men of the age. If we cut out all the documents which he quotes, there still remains an extensive history whose loss would leave an irreparable blank in our knowledge of the early Church. How invaluable, for instance, to mention but one matter, are the researches of our author in regard to the circulation of the books of the New Testament: his testimony to the condition of the canon in his own time, and to the more or less widespread use of particular writings by the Fathers of preceding centuries. Great as is the value of the sources which Eusebius quotes, those that he does not give are still more extensive, and it is the knowledge gained from them which he has transmitted to us.
The worth of these portions of his History must depend in the first place upon the extent and reliability of his sources, and in the second place upon the use which he made of them.
A glance at the list of his authorities given in the index, reveals at once the immense range of his materials. The number of books which he either quotes or refers to as read is enormous. When to these are added the works employed by him in the composition of his Praep. Evang., as well as the great number which he must have perused, but does not mention, we are amazed at the extent of his reading. He must have been a voracious reader from his earliest years, and he must have possessed extraordinary acquisitive powers. It is safe to say that there was among the Fathers, with the possible exception of Origen, no more learned man than he. He thus possessed one of the primary qualifications of the historian. And yet even in this respect he had his limitations. He seems to have taken no pains to acquaint himself with the works of heretics, but to have been content to take his knowledge of them at second hand. And still further, he was sadly ignorant of Latin literature and of the Latin Church in general (see below, p. 106); in fact, we must not expect to glean from his History a very thorough or extended knowledge of western Christendom.
But his sources were not confined to literary productions. He had a wide acquaintance with the world, and he was enabled to pick up much from his intercourse with other men and with different peoples that he could not have found upon the shelves of the Caesarean or of any other library. Moreover, he had access to the archives of state and gathered from them much information quite inaccessible to most men. He was thus peculiarly fitted, both by nature and by circumstances, for the task of acquiring material, the first task of the genuine historian.
But the value of his work must depend in the second place upon the wisdom and honesty with which he used his sources, and upon the faithfulness and accuracy with which he reproduced the results thus reached. We are therefore led to enquire as to his qualifications for this part of his work.
We notice, in the first place, that he was very diligent in the use of his sources. Nothing seems to have escaped him that might in any way bear upon the particular subject in hand. When he informs us that a certain author nowhere mentions a book or an event, he is, so far as I am aware, never mistaken. When we realize how many works he read entirely through for the sake of securing a single historical notice, and how many more he must have read without finding anything to his purpose, we are impressed with his untiring diligence. To-day, with our convenient indexes, and with the references at hand which have been made by many other men who have studied the writings of the ancients, we hardly comprehend what an amount of labor the production of a History like Eusebius’ must have cost him, a pioneer in that kind of work.
In the second place, we are compelled to admire the sagacity which our author displays in the selection of his materials. He possessed the true instinct of the historian, which enabled him to pick out the salient points and to present to the reader just that information which he most desires. We shall be surprised upon examining his work to see how little it contains which it is not of the utmost importance for the student of early Church history to know, and how shrewdly the author has anticipated most of the questions which such a student must ask. He saw what it was in the history of the first three centuries of the Church which posterity would most desire to know, and he told them. His wisdom in this respect is all the more remarkable when compared with the unwisdom of most of his successors, who filled their works with legends of saints and martyrs, which, however fascinating they may have been to the readers of that age, possess little either of interest or of value for us. When he wishes to give us a glimpse of the persecutions of those early days, his historical and literary instinct leads him to dwell especially upon two thoroughly representative cases,—the martyrdom of Polycarp and the sufferings of the churches of Lyons and Vienne,—and to preserve for posterity two of the noblest specimens of martyrological literature which the ancient Church produced. It is true that he sometimes erred in his judgment as to the wants of future readers; we could wish that he had been somewhat fuller and clearer on many points, and that he had not so entirely neglected some others; but on the whole I am of the opinion that few historical works, ancient or modern, have in the same compass better fulfilled their mission in this respect.
In the third place, we can hardly fail to be impressed by the wisdom with which Eusebius discriminated between reliable and unreliable sources. Judged by the modern standard he may fall short as a literary critic, but judged by the standard of antiquity he must be given a very high rank. Few indeed are the historians of ancient times, secular or ecclesiastical, who can compare with Eusebius for sound judgment in this matter. The general freedom of his work from the fables and prodigies, and other improbable or impossible tales which disfigure the pages of the great majority even of the soberest of ancient historians, is one of its most marked features. He shows himself uncommonly particular in demanding good evidence for the circumstances which he records, and uncommonly shrewd in detecting spurious and unreliable sources. When we remember the great number of pseudonymous works which were current in his day we are compelled to admire his care and his discrimination. Not that he always succeeded in detecting the false. More than once he was sadly at fault (as for instance in regard to the Abgarus correspondence and Josephus’ testimony to Christ), and has in consequence been severely denounced or held up to unsparing ridicule by many modern writers. But the wonder certainly is not that he erred as often as he did, but that he did not err oftener; not that he was sometimes careless in regard to the reliability of his sources, but that he was ever as careful as, in the majority of cases, he has proved himself to be. In fact, comparing him with other writers of antiquity, we cannot commend too highly the care and the skill with which he usually discriminated between the true and the false.
In the fourth place, he deserves all praise for his constant sincerity and unfailing honesty. I believe that emphasis should be laid upon this point for the reason that Eusebius’ reputation has often suffered sadly in consequence of the unjust imputations, and the violent accusations, which it was for a long time the fashion to make against him, and which lead many still to treat his statements with distrust, and his character with contempt. Gibbon’s estimate of his honesty is well known and has been unquestioningly accepted in many quarters, but it is none the less unjust, and in its implications quite untrue to the facts. Eusebius does dwell with greater fullness upon the virtues than upon the vices of the early Church, upon its glory than upon its shame, and he tells us directly that it is his intention so to do (H. E. VIII. 2), but he never undertakes to conceal the sins of the Christians, and the chapter immediately preceding contains a denunciation of their corruptness and wickedness uttered in no faint terms. In fact, in the face of these and other candid passages in his work, it is the sheerest injustice to charge him with dishonesty and unfairness because he prefers, as almost any Christian historian must, to dwell with greater fullness of detail upon the bright than upon the dark side of the picture. Scientific, Eusebius’ method, in this respect, doubtless is not; but dishonest, no one has a right to call it. The most severe attack which has been made upon Eusebius in recent years is found in an article by Jachmann (see below, p. 55). The evident animus which runs through his entire paper is very unpleasant; the conclusions which he draws are, to say the least, strained. I cannot enter here into a consideration of his positions; most of them are examined below in the notes upon the various passages which he discusses. The whole article, like most similar attacks, proceeds upon the supposition that our author is guilty, and then undertakes simply to find evidence of that which is already presupposed. I submit that few writers could endure such an ordeal. If Eusebius is tried according to the principles of common justice, and of sound literary criticism, I am convinced, after long and careful study, that his sincerity and honesty of purpose cannot be impeached. The particular instances which have been urged as proving his dishonesty will be discussed below in the notes upon the respective passages, and to those the reader is referred (compare especially pp. 88, 98, 100, 111, 112, 114, 127, 194).
Eusebius’ critics are wont to condemn him severely for what they are pleased to call the dishonesty displayed by him in his Vita Constantini. Such critics forget, apparently, that that work pretends to be, not a history, but a panegyric. Judging it as such, I am unable to find anything in it which leads me to entertain for a moment a suspicion of the author’s honesty, It is true that Eusebius emphasizes the Emperor’s good qualities, and fails to mention the darker spots in his character; but so far as I am aware he misstates no facts, and does only what those who eulogize deceased friends are accustomed to do the world over. For a discussion of this matter the reader is referred to the prolegomena of Dr. Richardson, pp. 467 sq. of this volume. I am pleased to learn from him that his study of the Vita has shown him nothing which justifies the charge of dishonesty brought against Eusebius.
One of the most decisive marks of veracity upon the part of our author is the frankness with which he confesses his lack of knowledge upon any subject (cf. IV. 5), and the care with which he distinguishes between the different kinds of evidence upon which he bases his statements. How frequently the phrases logo" ecei, fasi, legetai, &c., occur in connection with accounts which a less scrupulous historian would not hesitate to record as undoubted fact. How particular he is to mention his sources for any unusual or startling event. If the authorities seem to him quite inadequate, he simply omits all reference to an occurrence which most of his contemporaries and successors would have related with the greatest gusto; if the testimony seems to him strong, he records the circumstance and expressly mentions his authority, whether oral tradition, the testimony of eye-witnesses, or written accounts, and we are thus furnished the material from which to form our own judgments.
He is often blamed by modern writers for what they are pleased to call his excessive credulity. Those who accuse him thus seem to forget that he lived in the fourth, not in the nineteenth century. That he believed many things which we now declare to be incredible is perfectly true, but that he believed things that other Christians of his day pronounced incredible is not true. Judged, in fact, according to the standard of his age—and indeed of eleven succeeding centuries—he must be pronounced remarkably free from the fault of over-credulity, in truth uncommonly skeptical in his attitude toward the marvelous. Not that he denies the occurrence of prodigies and wonders in his own and other ages, but that he always demands the strongest testimony before he allows himself to be convinced of their truth. Compare, e.g., the care with which he gives his authorities for the anecdote in regard to the Thundering Legion (V. 5), and his final suspension of judgment in the matter; compare also the emphasis which he lays upon the personal testimony of the Emperor in the matter of the appearance of the sign of the cross in the sky(Vita Const. I. 28 sq.), a phenomenon which he himself tells us that he would have believed upon, no ordinary evidence. His conduct in this matter is a sign rather of a skepticism uncommon in his age than of an excessive and unusual credulity. Gibbon himself gives our author due credit in this respect, when he speaks of his character as “less tinctured with credulity, and more practiced in the arts of courts, than that of almost any of his contemporaries” (Decline and Fall, chap. XVI.).
On the other hand, Eusebius as an historian had many very grave faults which it is not my wish in the least to palliate or conceal. One of the most noticeable of these is his complete lack of any conception of historiography as a fine art. His work is interesting and instructive because of the facts which it records, but that interest is seldom if ever enhanced by his mode of presentation. There is little effective grouping, almost no sense of perspective, utter ignorance of the art of suggesting by a single line or phrase a finished picture of a man or of a movement. He was not, in other words, a Thucydides or a Tacitus; but the world has seen not many such as they.
A second and still more serious fault is our author’s want of depth, if I may so express myself, his failure to look beneath the surface and to grasp the real significance of things, to trace the influence of opinions and events. We feel this defect upon every page. We read the annals, but we are conscious of no masterful mind behind them, digesting and comprehending them into one organic and imposing whole. This radical weakness in our author’s method is revealed perhaps most clearly in his superficial and transcendental treatment of heretics and heresies, his failure to appreciate their origin and their bearing upon the progress of Christian thought. Of a development in theology, in fact, he knows nothing, and hence his work lacks utterly that which we now look upon as the most instructive part of Church history,—the history of doctrine.
In the third place, severe censure must be passed upon our author for his carelessness and inaccuracy in matters of chronology. We should expect that one who had produced the most extensive chronological work that had ever been given to the world, would be thoroughly at home in that province, but in truth his chronology is the most defective feature of his work. The difficulty is chiefly due to his inexcusable carelessness, we might almost say slovenliness, in the use of different and often contradictory sources of information. Instead of applying himself to the discrepancies, and endeavoring to reach the truth by carefully weighing the respective merits of the sources, or by testing their conclusions in so far as tests are possible, he adopts in many cases the results of both, apparently quite unsuspicious of the confusion consequent upon such a course. In fact, the critical spirit which actuates him in dealing with many other matters seems to leave him entirely when he is concerned with chronology; and instead of proceeding with the care and circumspection of an historian, he accepts what he finds with the unquestioning faith. of a child. There is no case in which he can be convicted of disingenuousness, but at times his obtuseness is almost beyond belief. An identity of names, or a resemblance between events recorded by different authors, will often be enough to lead him all unconsciously to himself into the most absurd and contradictory conclusions. Instances of this may be seen in Book I. chap. 5, and in II. 11. His confusion in regard to the various Antonines (see especially the note on the preface to Book V.) is not at all unusual among the writers of his day, and in view of the frequent and perplexing use of the same names by the different emperors, might be quite excusable in a less scholarly man than Eusebius, but in his case it is evidence of unpardonable want of care. This serious defect in our author’s method is not peculiar to him. Many historians, critical almost to a fault in most matters, accept the received chronology without question, and build upon it as if it were the surest of foundations. Such a consideration does not excuse Eusebius; it relieves him, however, of the stigma of peculiarity.
Finally, the character of the History is greatly impaired by our author’s desultory method. This is a characteristic of his literary work in general, and, was referred to in the previous chapter. All his works are marred by it, but few suffer more noticeably than the History. The author does not confine himself as strictly as he should to the logical limits of the subject which he is treating, but allows himself to be led away from the main point by the suggestions that pour in upon him from all sides. As Lightfoot remarks, “We have not unfrequently to pick out from various parts of his work the notices bearing on one definite and limited subject. He relates a fact, or quotes an authority bearing upon it, in season or out of season, according as it is recalled to his memory by some accidental connexion.” This unfortunate habit of Eusebius’ is one into which men of wide learning are very apt to fall. The richness of their acquisitions embarrasses them, and the immense number of facts in their possession renders a comprehension of them all into one logical whole very difficult; and yet unless the facts be thus comprehended, unless they be thoroughly digested and arranged, the result is confusion and obscurity. To exclude is as necessary as to include, if one would write history with the highest measure of success; to exclude rigidly at one time what it is just as necessary to include at another. To men like Eusebius there is perhaps nothing more difficult than this. Only a mind as intensive as it is extensive, with a grasp as strong as its reach is wide, can accomplish it, and few are the minds that are blessed with both qualities. Few are the writers whose histories stand upon our shelves that fail not sadly in the one or in the other; and in few perhaps does the failure seem more marked than in our author.
And yet, though it is apparent that the value of Eusebius’ work is greatly impaired by its desultory method of treatment, I am confident that the defect is commonly exaggerated. The paragraph which Lightfoot quotes from Westcott on this subject leaves a false impression. Altogether too often our author introduces irrelevant matters, and repeats himself when repetition “mars the symmetry of his work”; and yet on the whole he follows a fairly well ordered plan with fairly good success. He endeavors to preserve a strictly chronological sequence in his arrangement of the books, and he adheres for the most part to his purpose. Though there may be disorder and confusion within the various periods, for instance within the apostolic age, the age of Trajan, of Hadrian, of the Antonines, &c., yet the periods themselves are kept reasonably distinct from one another, and having finished his account of one of them the author seldom returns to it. Even in his treatment of the New Testament canon, which is especially desultory, he says most of what he has to say about it in connection with the apostles themselves, and before passing on to the second century. I would not overlook the exceeding flagrancy of his desultoriness and repetitiousness in his accounts of the writings of many of the Fathers, especially of the two Clements, and yet I would emphasize the fact that he certainly had an outline plan which he designed to follow, and for which due credit should be given him. He compares favorably in this respect with at least most of the writers of antiquity. Only with our modern method of dividing history into periods, separated by natural boundary lines, and of handling it under clearly defined rubrics, have we become able wholly to avoid the confused and illogical treatment of Eusebius and of others like him.
§4. Editions and Versions.
The original Greek of Eusebius’ History has been published in many editions.
1. The editio princeps is that of Robert Stephanus, which appeared at Paris in 1544, and again, with a few changes, and with the Latin translation of Christophorsonus and the notes of Suffridus Petrus, at Geneva in 1612.
2. Henr. Valesius (de Valois) published his first edition of the Greek text, with a new Latin translation and with copious critical and explanatory notes, at Paris in 1659. His edition was reprinted at Mainz in 1672, but the reprint is full of errors. In 1677, after Valesius’ death, a revised edition was issued at Paris, which in 1695 was reprinted with some corrections at Amsterdam. In 1720 Valesius’ edition of Eusebius, together with his edition of Socrates, Sozomen, and the other Greek historians, was republished at Cambridge by William Reading, in three folio volumes. This is the best edition of Valesius, the commentary being supplemented by ms. notes which he had left among his papers, and increased by large additions from other writers under the head of Variorum. A reprint of Reading’s edition was issued in 1746–1748, but according to Heinichen it is not as accurate as that of 1720. For the elucidation of Eusebius’ History we owe more to Valesius than to any other man. His edition of the text was an immense advance upon that of Stephanus, and has formed the basis of all subsequent editions, while his notes are a perfect storehouse of information from which all annotators of Eusebius have extensively drawn. Migne’s edition (Opera, II 45–906) is a reprint of Valesius’ edition of 1659.
3. F. A. Stroth (Halle, 1779). A new edition of the Greek text, of which, however, only the first volume appeared, comprising Books I.-VII.
4. E. Zimmermann (Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1822). A new edition of the Greek text, containing also the Latin translation of Valesius, and a few critical notes.
5. F.A. Heinichen (Leipzig, 1827 and 1828). An edition of the Greek text in three volumes, with a reprint of the entire commentary of Valesius, and with the addition of Variorum notes. The critical apparatus, printed in the third volume, is very meager. A few valuable excursuses close the work. Forty years later Heinichen published a second edition of the History in his Eusebii Pamphili Scripta Historica (Lips. 1868–1870, 3 vols.). The first volume contains the Greek text of the History, with valuable prolegomena, copious critical apparatus and very useful indices; the second volume contains the Vita Constantini, the Panegyricus or De laudibus Constantini, and Constantine’s Oratio ad Sanctorum coetum, also accompanied with critical apparatus and indices; the third volume contains an extensive commentary upon the works included in the first two volumes, together with twenty-nine valuable excursuses. This entirely supersedes the first, and is on the whole the most complete and useful edition of the History which we have. The editor made diligent use of the labors of his predecessors, especially of Laemmer’s. He did no independent work, however, in the way of collecting material for the criticism of the text, and was deficient in critical judgment. As a consequence his text has often to be amended on the basis of the variant readings, which he gives with great fullness. His commentary, is made up largely of quotations from Valesius and other writers, and is valuable for the material it thus contains as well as for its references to other works. It labors under the same incompleteness, however, that mars Valesius’ commentary, and, moreover, contains almost nothing of independent value.
6. E. Burton (Oxford, 1838). The Greek text in two volumes, with the translation of Valesius and with critical apparatus; and again in 1845, with the critical apparatus omitted, but with the notes of Valesius, Heinichen and others added. Burton made large contributions to the criticism of the text, and had he lived to superintend the issue of the second edition, would perhaps have succeeded in giving us a better text than any which we now possess, for he was a far more sagacious critic than Heinichen. As it is, his edition is marred by numerous imperfections, largely caused by the inaccuracy of those who collated mss. for him. His text, with the translation, notes, and critical apparatus omitted, was reprinted by Bright at Oxford in 1872, and again in 1881, in a single volume. This is a very handy edition, and for school use is unsurpassed. The typography is superb, and the admirable plan is followed of discarding quotation marks and printing all citations in smaller type, thus making plain to the eye at a glance what is Eusebius’ own and what is another’s. The text is preceded by a very interesting and graphic life of the historian.
7. Schwegler (Tübingen, 1852, in one volume). The Greek text with critical apparatus, but without translation and notes. An accurate and useful edition.
8. Laemmer (Schaffhausen, 1859–1862). The Greek text in one volume, with extensive critical apparatus, but without explanatory notes. Laemmer had unusual opportunities for collecting material, and has made larger additions to the critical apparatus than any one else. His edition was issued, however, in a most slovenly manner, and swarms with mistakes. Great care should therefore be exercised in the use of it.
9. Finally must be mentioned the text of Dindorf (Lips. 1871), which is published in the Teubner series, and like most of the volumes of that series is handy and convenient, but of little value to the critical student.
There are few writings of the Fathers which more sadly need and more richly deserve a new critical edition than the History of Eusebius. The material for the formation of a reliable text is extensive and accessible, but editors have contented themselves too much in the past with the results of their predecessors’ labors, and unfortunately those labors have not always been accurate and thorough. As a consequence a new and more careful collation of most of the mss. of the original, together with those of Rufinus’ translation, must lie at the foundation of any new work which is to be done in this line. The publication of the Syriac version will doubtless furnish much valuable material which the next editor of the History, will be able to use to advantage. Anything less than such a thorough work as I have indicated will be of little worth. Unless the new edition be based upon extensive and independent labors, it will be little if any improvement upon that of Heinichen. It is to be hoped that a critical text, up to the standard of those of some other patristic works which we already possess, may yet be issued, which shall give us this, one of the noblest productions of the ancient Church, in a fitting and satisfactory form.
Translations of Eusebius’ History are very numerous. Probably the earliest of all is the ancient Syriac version which is preserved in great part in two mss., one of which is at St. Petersburg and contains the entire History with the exception of Book VI. and large portions of Books V. and VII. The ms. is dated 462 a.d. (see Wright’s description of it in his Catalogue of the Syriac mss. in the British Museum acquired since the year 1838, Part III. p. xv. sq.). The second ms. is in the British Museum, and contains Books I.-V., with some mutilations at the beginning of the first book. The ms. dates from the sixth century (see Wright’s description of it in his Catalogue, p. 1039). From these mss. Wright was engaged in preparing an edition of the Syriac, which remained unfinished at the time of his death. Whether he left his work in such shape that it can soon be issued by some one else I have not yet learned. The version was probably made at a very early date, possibly within the lifetime of Eusebius himself, though of that we can have no assurance. I understand that it confirms in the main the Greek text as now printed in our best editions.
The original Latin version was made by Rufinus in the early years of the fifth century. He translated only nine books, and added to them two of his own, in which he brought the history down to the death of Theodosius the Great. He allowed himself his customary license in translating, and yet, although his version is by no means exact, it is one of our best sources for a knowledge of the true text of Eusebius, for it is possible, in many doubtful cases where our mss. are hopelessly divided, to ascertain from his rendering what stood in the original Greek. The version of Rufinus had a large circulation, and became in the Western Church a substitute for the original throughout the Middle Ages. It was first printed, according to Fabricius (ib. p. 59), in 1476 at Rome, afterward a great many times there and elsewhere. The first critical edition, which still remains the best, is that of Cacciari (Rome, 1740), which has become rare, and is very difficult to find. A new edition is a great desideratum. An important work upon Rufinus’ version is Kimmel’s De Rufino Eusebii Interprete, Gerae, 1838.
A new Latin translation, by Wolfgang Musculus, was published in Basle, in 1549, and again in 1557, 1562, and 1611, according to Fabricius (Bibl. Gr. VI. p. 60). I have myself seen only the edition of 1562.
Still another Latin version, from the hand of Christophorsonus, was published at Louvain in 1570. This is the only edition of Christophorsonus which I have seen, but I have notices of Cologne editions of 1570, 1581 and 1612, and of a Paris edition of 1571. According to Fabricius the Paris edition, and according to Brunnet the Cologne edition of 1581, contain the notes of Suffridus Petrus. A revision of Christophorsonus’ version is said by Crusè to have been published by Curterius, but I have not seen it, nor am I aware of its date.
Another translation, by Grynaeus, was published at Basle in 1611. This is the only edition of Grynaeeus’ version which I have seen, and I find in it no reference to an earlier one. I have been informed, however, that an edition appeared in 1591. Hanmer seems to imply, in his preface, that Grynaeeus’ version is only a revision of that of Musculus, and if that were so we should have to identify the 1611 edition with the 1611 edition of Musculus mentioned by Fabricius (see above). I am able, however, to find no hint in Grynaeus’ edition itself that his version is a revision of that of Musculus.
The translation of Valesius, which was first published in 1659 (see above), was a great improvement upon all that had preceded it, and has been many times reprinted in other editions of Eusebius, as well as in his own.
The first German translation was published by Caspar Hedio. The date of publication is given by Fabricius as 1545, but the copy which I have seen is dated 1582, and contains no reference to an earlier edition. It comprises only nine books of Eusebius, supplemented by the two of Rufinus. The title runs as follows: Chronica, das ist:wahrhaftige Beschreibunge aller alten Christlichen Kirchen; zum ersten, die hist. eccles. Eusebii Pamphili Caesariensis, Eilff Bücher; zum andern, die hist. eccles. tripartita Sozomeni, Socratis und Theodoreti, Zwölff Bücher; zum dritten die hist. eccles. sampt andern treffenlichen Geschichten, die zuvor in Teutschef Sprache wenig gelesen sind, ouch Zwölff Büucher. Von der Zeit an da die hist. eccles. tripartita aufhöret: das ist, yon der jarzal an, vierhundert nach Christi geburt, biss auff das jar MDXLV, durch D. Caspar Hedion zu Strassburg verteutscht und zusamen getragen. Getruckt zu. Franckfurt am Mayn, im jar 1582.
A second German translation of the entire History (with the exception of the Martyrs of Palestine, and the Oration an the Building of the Churches, X. 4), together with the Life of Constantine, was published by F. A. Stroth in Quedlinburg in 1777, in two volumes. Stroth prefaced the translation with a very valuable Life of Eusebius, and added a number of excellent notes of his own. The translation is reasonably accurate.
A much more elegant German version (including the Oration, but omitting the Martyrs of Palestine) was published by Closs in Stuttgart in 1839, in one volume. This is in my opinion the best translation of the History that exists. Its style is admirable, but pure German idiom is sometimes secured at the expense of faithfulness. In fact the author has aimed to produce a free, rather than a literal translation, and has occasionally allowed himself to depart too far from the original. A few brief notes, most of them taken from Valesius or Stroth, accompany the translation.
More recently a German translation has been published by Stigloher (Kempten, 1880) in the Kempten Bibliothek der Kirchenvaeter. It purports to be a new translation, but is practically nothing more than a poorly revised edition of Closs’ version. The changes which are made are seldom improvements.
Fabricius mentions a French translation by Cloudius Seysselius, but does not give the date of it, and I have not myself seen it. Dr. Richardson, however, informs me that he has a copy of this translation (which is from the Latin, not from the Greek) bearing the following title: L’Histoire ecclesiastique translate de Latin au Français, par M. Claude de Seyssel, evesque lors de Marseille, et depuis archevesque de Thurin. Paris, 1532 [or 33], fº. He informs me also that there exist editions of the years 1537 and 1567.
More than a century later appeared a new French translation by Louis Cousin, bearing the following title: Historie de l’Eglise écritoré par Eusèbe Césarée, Socrate, Sozomène, Theodoret et Evangre, avec l’abrégé de Philostorge par Photius, et de Théodore par Nicephore Calliste. Paris, 1675–1676. 4 vol. 4º. Another edition appeared in Holland in 1686, 5 vol. 12º.
The first English translation was made by Hanmer, and was issued in 1584, and, according to Crusè, passed through five editions. The fourth edition, which lies before me, was published in London in 1636. The volume contains the Histories of Eusebius, of Socrates, and of Evagrius; Dorotheus’ Lives, and Eusebius’ Life of Constantine.
Another translation is said by Crusè to have been published about a century later by T. Shorting, and to be a decided improvement upon that of Hanmer. I have seen no copy bearing Shorting’s name, but have examined an anonymous translation which bears the following title: The Ecclesiastical. History of Eusebius Pamphilus in ten books. Made into English from that edition set forth by Valesius, and printed at Paris in the year 1659; together with Valesius’ notes on the said historian, which are done into English and set at their proper place in the margin. Hereto also is annexed an account of the life and writings of the aforesaid historian, collected by Valesius and rendered into English. Cambridge: John Hayes, 1683. This is evidently the translation of Shorting referred to by Crusè, for it answers perfectly the description which he gives of it.
An abridgment of this version, made by Porker, is mentioned both by Fabricius (ib. p. 62) and by Crusè, but I have not myself seen it. Fabricius gives its date as 1703, and Dr. Richardson informs me that he has seen an edition bearing the date 1729, and that he has a note of another published in 1703 or 1720.
The latest English translation was made by the Rev. C. F. Crusè, an American Episcopalian of German descent, and was published first in Philadelphia in 1833, with a translation, by Parker, of Valesius’ Life of Eusebius prefixed. It has been reprinted a great many times both in England and America, and is included in Bohn’s Ecclesiastical Library. In Bohn’s edition are printed a few scattered notes from Valesius’ commentary, and in some other editions an historical account of the Council of Nicaea, by Isaac Boyle, is added. The translation is an improvement upon its predecessors, but is nevertheless very faulty and unsatisfactory. The translator is not thoroughly at home in the English, and, moreover, his version is marred by many serious omissions and interpolations which reveal an inexcusable degree of carelessness on his part.
§5. Literature.
The literature upon Eusebius’ History is very extensive. Many of the editions already mentioned discuss, in their prolegomena, the History itself and Eusebius’ character as a historian, as do also all the lives of Eusebius referred to above, and all the larger histories of the Church. In addition to these we have numerous important monographs and essays, of which the following may be mentioned here: Möller, de Fide Eusebii in rebus christianis enarrandis, Havn. 1813; Danz, de Eusebio Caesariensi Hist. Ecclesiasticae Scriptore, Jenae, 1815. This was mentioned in Chapter I. as containing a valuable discussion of the life of Eusebius. Its chief importance lies in its treatment of the sources of the Church History, to which the author devotes the whole of Chap. III. which bears the title, de fontibus, quibus usus, historiam ecclesiasticam conscripsit Eusebius, pp. 76–144. Kestner, de Eusebii Historiae Eccles. conditoris auctoritate, et fide diplomatica, sive de ejus Fontibus et Ratione qua eis usus est, Gottingae, 1816; and by the same author, Ueber die Einseitigkeit und Partheiligkeit des Eusebius als Geschichtschreibers, Jenae, 1819; Reuterdahl, de Fontibus Historiae Eccles. Eusebianae, Londini Gothorum, 1826; Reinstra, de Fontibus, ex quibus Historiae Eccles. opus hausit Eusebius Pamphili, et de Ratione, qua iis usus est, Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1833; F. C. Baur, Comparatur Eusebius Historiae Eccles. Parens cum Parente Historiae Herodoto, Tüb. 1834; and pp. 9–26 of the same author’s Epochen der kirchlichen Geschichtschreibung, Tüb. 1852; Dowling, Introduction to the Critical Study of Eccles. History, London, 1838, pp. 11–18; Hély, Eusèbe de Césarée, premier Historien de l’Église, Paris, 1877; J. Burckhardt, Zeit Constantins, 2d ed. 1880, pp. 307 sq. Burckhardt depreciates Eusebius’ value and questions his veracity. The review articles that have been written on Eusebius’ History are legion. I shall mention only Engelhardt’s Eusebius als Kirchengeschichtschreiber, in the Zeitschrift für hist. Theol. 1852, pp. 652–657; and Jachmann’s Bermerkungen über die Kirchengeschichte des Eusebius, ib. 1839, II. pp. 10–60. The latter contains one of the most unsparing attacks upon Eusebius’ honesty that has ever been made (see above, p. 49). 
Testimonies of the Ancients in Favor of Eusebius.6 
From Constantine’s Letter to the Antiochians (in Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, Book III. chap. 60).
“I confess, then, that on reading your records I perceived, by the highly eulogistic testimony which they bear to Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea (whom I have myself long well known and esteemed for his learning and moderation), that you are strongly attached to him and desire to appropriate him as your own prelate. What thoughts then do you suppose that I entertain on this subject, desirous as I am to seek for and act on the strict principles of right? What anxiety do you imagine this desire of yours has caused me? O holy faith, who givest us in our Saviour’s words and precepts a model, as it were, of what our life should be, how hardly wouldst thou thyself resist the course of sin were it not that thou refusest to subserve the purposes of gain! In my own judgment, he whose first object is the maintenance of peace seems to be superior to Victory herself; and where a right and honorable course lies open to one’s choice, surely no one would hesitate to adopt it. I ask then, brethren, why do we so decide as to inflict an injury on others by our choice? Why do we covet those objects which will destroy the credit of our own character? I myself highly esteem the individual whom ye judge worthy of your respect and affection; notwithstanding, it cannot be right that those principles should be entirely disregarded which should be authoritative and binding on all alike; for example, that each should be content with the limits assigned them, and that all should enjoy their proper privileges; nor can it be right in considering the claims of rival candidates to suppose but that not one only, but many, may appear worthy of comparison with this person. For as long as no violence or harshness are suffered to disturb the dignities of the Church, they continue to be on an equal footing, and worthy of the same consideration everywhere. Nor is it reasonable that an enquiry into the qualifications of one person should be made to the detriment of others; since the judgment of all churches, whether reckoned of greater importance in themselves, is equally capable of receiving and maintaining the divine ordinances, so that one is in no way inferior to another (if we will but boldly declare the truth), in regard to that standard of practice which is common to all. If this be so, we must say that you will be chargeable, not with retaining this prelate, but with wrongfully removing him; your conduct will be characterized rather by violence than justice; and whatever may be generally thought by others, I dare clearly and boldly affirm that this measure will furnish ground of accusation against you, and will provoke factious disturbances of the most mischievous kind; for even timid flocks can show the use and power of their teeth when the watchful care of their shepherd declines, and they find themselves bereft of his accustomed guidance. If this then be really so, if I am not deceived in my judgment, let this, brethren, be your first consideration (for many and important considerations will immediately present themselves, if you adopt my advice), whether, should you persist in your intention, that mutual kindly feeling and affection which should subsist among you will suffer no diminution? In the next place remember that Eusebius, who came among you for the purpose of offering disinterested counsel, now enjoys the reward which is due to him in the judgment of heaven; for he has received no ordinary recompense in the high testimony you have borne to his equitable conduct. Lastly, in accordance with your usual sound judgment, do ye exhibit a becoming diligence in selecting the person of whom you stand in need, carefully avoiding all factious and tumultuous clamor: for such clamor is always wrong, and from the collision of discordant elements both sparks and flame will arise.” 
From the Emperor’s Letter to Eusebius (in Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, Book III. chap. 61).
“I have most carefully perused your letter, and perceive that you have strictly conformed to the rule enjoined by the discipline of the Church. Now to abide by that which appears at the same time pleasing to God, and accordant with apostolic tradition, is a proof of true piety: and you have reason to deem yourself happy on this behalf, that you are counted worthy, in the judgment, I may say, of all the world, to have the oversight of the whole Church. For the desire which all feel to claim you for their own, undoubtedly enhances your enviable fortune in this respect. Notwithstanding, your Prudence, whose resolve it is to observe the ordinances of God and the apostolic rule of the Church, has done excellently well in declining the bishopric of the Church at Antioch, and desiring to continue in that Church of which you first received the oversight by the will of God.”
From Constantine’s Letter to the Council (in Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, Book III. chap. 62).
“I have perused the letters written by your Prudences, and highly approve of the wise resolution of your colleague in the ministry, Eusebius. Having, moreover, been informed of the circumstances of the case, partly by your letters, partly by those of our illustrious friends Acacius and Strategius, after sufficient investigation I have written to the people at Antioch, suggesting the course which will be at once pleasing to God and advantageous for the Church. A copy of this I have ordered to be subjoined to this present letter, in order that ye yourselves may know what I thought fit, as an advocate of the cause of justice, to write to that people: since I find in your letter this proposal, that, in consonance with the choice of the people, sanctioned by your own desire, Eusebius the holy bishop of Caesarea should preside over and take the charge of the Church at Antioch. Now the letters of Eusebius himself on this subject appeared to be strictly accordant with the order prescribed by the Church.”
From a Letter of Constantine to Eusebius (in Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, Book IV. chap. 35).
“It is indeed an arduous task, and beyond the power of language itself, worthily to treat of the mysteries of Christ, and to explain in a fitting manner the controversy respecting the feast of Easter, its origin as well as its precious and toilsome accomplishment. For it is not in the power even of those who are able to apprehend them, adequately to describe the things of God. I am, notwithstanding, filled with admiration of your learning and zeal, and have not only myself read your work with pleasure, but have given directions, according to your own desire, that it be communicated to many sincere followers of our holy religion. Seeing, then, with what pleasure we receive favors of this kind from your Sagacity, be pleased to gladden us more frequently with those compositions, to the practice of which, indeed, you confess yourself to have been trained from an early period, so that I am urging a willing man (as they say), in exhorting you to your customary pursuits. And certainly the high and confident judgment we entertain is a proof that the person who has translated your writings into the Latin tongue is in no respect incompetent to the task, impossible though it be that such version should fully equal the excellence of the works themselves.”
From a Letter of Constantine to Eusebius (in Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, Book IV. chap. 36).
“It happens, through the favoring providence of God our Saviour, that great numbers have united themselves to the most holy Church in the city which is called by my name. It seems, therefore, highly requisite, since that city is rapidly advancing in prosperity in all other respects, that the number of Churches should also be increased. Do you, therefore, receive with all readiness my determination on this behalf. I have thought it expedient to instruct your Prudence to order fifty copies of the sacred scriptures (the provision and use of which you know to be most needful for the instruction of the Church) to be written on prepared parchment in a legible manner, and in a commodious and portable form, by transcribers thoroughly practiced in their art. The procurator of the diocese has also received instructions by letter from our Clemency to be careful to furnish all things necessary for the preparation of such copies; and it will be for you to take special care that they be completed with as little delay as possible. You have authority also, in virtue of this letter, to use two of the public carriages for their conveyance, by which arrangement the copies when fairly written will most easily be forwarded for my personal inspection; and one of the deacons of your Church may be intrusted with this service, who, on his arrival here, shall experience my liberality. God preserve you, beloved brother!” 
From the Epistle of Eusebius of Nicomedia, to Paulinus, Bishop of Tyre (given by Theodoret in his Eccles. Hist. I. 6).
“Neither has the zeal of my lord Eusebius concerning the truth, nor thy silence in this matter been unknown, but has reached even us. And, as was fitting, on the one hand we have rejoiced on account of my lord Eusebius; but on the other, we are grieved on thy account, since we look upon the silence of such a man as a condemnation of our cause.”
From the Book of Basil, to Amphilochius, on the Holy Spirit (chap. 29).
“If to any one Eusebius of Palestine seem trustworthy on account of his great experience, we give his own words in the Difficulties concerning the Polygamy of the Ancients.”
From the Book of Questions on the Old and New Testaments, which is published among the Works of Augustine (chap. 125).
“We remember to have read in a certain pamphlet of Eusebius, a man formerly distinguished among the rest of men, that not even the Holy Spirit knows the mystery of the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ; and I wonder that a man of so great learning should have imposed this stigma upon the Holy Spirit.”
From Jerome’s Epistle to Pammachius and Oceanus (Ep. 65).
“Apollinarius wrote the very strongest books against Porphyry; Eusebius has excellently composed his Ecclesiastical History. Of these men, one taught an incomplete human nature in Christ; the other was a most open defender of the heresy of Arius.”
From the Apology of Jerome against Rufinus (Book I. chap. 8).
“As I have already said, Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, formerly leader of the Arian party, has written six books in defense of Origen—a very extensive and elaborate work; with much evidence he has proved that Origen was, from his point of view, a Catholic, that is, from ours, an Arian.”
From the same book (chap. 9).
“For Eusebius himself, a friend, eulogist and companion of Pamphilus, has written three very elegant books comprising a life of Pamphilus. In these, after extolling other things with wondrous praises and exalting his humility to the skies, he also adds this in the third book,” &c.
And a little farther on in the same book (chap. 11).
“I have praised Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History, in his Chronological Canons, in his Description of the Holy Land; and turning these same little works into Latin I have given them to those of my own tongue. Am I therefore an Arian, because Eusebius who wrote these books is an Arian?”
From Jerome’s second book against Rufinus (chap. 16).
“Eusebius, a very learned man (I have said learned, not Catholic; lest after the usual manner, even in this thing, thou heap calumny upon me), in six volumes does nothing else than show Origen to be of his own faith; that is, of the Arian heresy.”
From the Preface of Jerome’s Book on Hebrew Topography.
“Eusebius, who took his surname from the blessed martyr Pamphilus, after the ten books of his Ecclesiastical History, after his Chronological Canons, which we have published in the Latin tongue, after his Names of Various Nations, in which he showed how these were formerly, and are now, called among the Hebrews; after his Topography of the Land of Judea, with the inheritances of the tribes; after his Jerusalem, also, and his Plan of the Temple, with a very brief explanation,—after all these he has finally in this little work labored that he might collect for us from Holy Scripture the names of almost all the cities, mountains, rivers, villages, and divers places, which either remain the same, or have since been changed, or else have become corrupted from some source, wherefore we also, following the zeal of this admirable man,” &c. 
From Jerome’s Book on Ecclesiastical Writers (chap. 61).
“Hippolytus, bishop of a certain church (I have not indeed been able to find out the name of the city), wrote a reckoning of Easter, and chronological tables up to the first year of the Emperor Alexander, and hit upon a cycle of sixteen years which the Greeks call ekkaidekaethrida; and gave an occasion to Eusebius, who also composed an Easter canon, with a cycle of nineteen years, that is enneadekaethrida.”
From the same book (chap. 81).
“Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, a man most studious in the sacred Scriptures, and along with Pamphilus the martyr a most diligent investigator of sacred literature, has edited an infinite number of volumes, some of which are these: of the Demonstratio Evangelica, twenty books; of the Praeparatio Evangelica, fifteen books; of the Theophania, five books; of the Ecclesiastical History, ten books; a General History in Chronological Tables, and an Epitome of them; also, On the Discrepancies of the Gospels; On Isaiah, ten books; and Against Porphyry (who at the same time was writing in Sicily, as some think), thirty books, of which only twenty have come to my notice; of his Topica, one book; of the Apolagia, in defense of Origen, six books; On the Life of Pamphilus, three books; Concerning the Martyrs, other small works; also very learned commentaries on the hundred and fifty Psalms, and many other writings. He flourished chiefly under the emperors Constantine and Constantius; and on account of his friendship with Pamphilus the martyr, he took from him his surname.”
From the same book (chap. 96).
“Eusebius, by nation a Sardinian, and, after being reader in Rome, bishop of Vercellae, on account of his confession of the faith banished by the Prince Constantius to Scythopolis, and thence to Cappadocia, under Julian the emperor sent back to the Church, has published the Commentaries on the Psalms of Eusebius of Caesarea, which he had translated from Greek into Latin.”
Jerome in the Preface to his Commentaries an Daniel.
“Against the prophet Daniel Porphyry wrote a twelfth volume, denying that that book was composed by him with whose name it is inscribed, &c. To him Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, has replied very skillfully in three volumes, that is, in volumes XVIII., XIX., and XX. Apollinarius also in one large volume, that is, in the twenty-sixth volume, and before these, in part, Methodius.”
Jerome on the Twenty-fourth Chapter of Matthew.
“Concerning this place, that is, concerning the abomination of desolation which was spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place, Porphyry has uttered many blasphemies against us in the thirteenth volume of his work. To whom Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, has replied in three volumes, that is, in volumes XVIII., XIX., and XX.”
The same, in his Epistle to Magnus (Ep. 84).
“Celsus and Porphyry have written against us. To the former Origen, to the latter Methodius, Eusebius, and Apollinarius have very vigorously replied. Of whom Origen wrote eight books, Methodius proceeded as far as ten thousand lines, Eusebius and Apollinarius composed twenty-five and thirty volumes respectively.”
The same, in his Epistle to Pammachius and Oceanus (Ep. 65).
“What more skillful, more learned, more eloquent men can be found than Eusebius and Didymus, the advocates of Origen? The former of whom, in the six volumes of his Apologia, proves that he [Origen] was of the same opinion as himself.”

Jerome, in the Preface to his Commentaries an Isaiah.“Eusebius Pamphili also has published an historical commentary in fifteen volumes.”
The same, in the Preface to the Fifth Book of his Commentaries an Isaiah.
“Shall I take upon myself a work at which the most learned men have labored hard? I speak of Origen and Eusebius Pomphili. Of these the former wanders afar in the free spaces of alle gory, and his genius so interprets single names as to make out of them the sacred things of the Church. The latter, while promising in his title an historical exposition, meanwhile forgets his purpose, and yields himself up to the tenets of Origen.”
The same, in the fifth book of his Commentaries on Isaiah.
“Eusebius of Caesarea, while promising in his title an historical exposition, strays off in divers notions: while reading his books I found much else than what he gave promise of in his title. For wherever history has failed him, he has crossed over into allegory; and in such a manner does he unite things that are distinct, that I wonder at his joining together by a new art of discourse stone and iron into one body.”
Ferome an the first chapter of Matthew.
“This [chapter] also Africanus, a writer of chronology, and Eusebius of Caesarea, in his books on the Discrepancies of the Gospels, have discussed more fully.”
Rufinus in his Epistle to the Bishop Chromatius.
“You charge me to translate into Latin the Ecclesiastical History, which the very learned Eusebius of Caesarea wrote in the Greek tongue.”
Augustine, in his Book on Heresies(chap. 83).
“When I had searched through the History of Eusebius, to which Rufinus, after having himself translated it into the Latin tongue, has also added two books of subsequent history, I did not find any heresy which I had not read among these very ones, except that one which Eusebius inserts in his sixth book, stating that it had existed in Arabia. Therefore these heretics, since he assigns them no founder, we may call Arabians, who declared that the soul dies and is destroyed along with the body, and that at the end of the world both are raised again. But he states that they were very quickly corrected, these by the disputation of Origen in person, and those by his exhortation.”
Antipater, Bishop of Bostra, in his First Book against Eusebius of Caesarea’s Apology for Origen.
“Since now, this man was very learned, having searched out and traced back all the books and writings of the more ancient writers, and having set forth the opinions of almost all of them, and having left behind very many writings, some of which are worthy of all acceptation, making use of such an estimation as this of the man, they attempt to lead away some, saying, that Eusebius would not have chosen to take this view, unless he had accurately ascertained that all the opinions of the ancients required it. I, indeed, agree and admit that the man was very learned, and that not anything of the more ancient writings escaped his knowledge; for, taking advantage of the imperial co-operation, he was enabled easily to collect for his use material from whatever quarter.”
From the First Book of Extracts from the Ecclesiastical History of Philostorgius.
“Philostorgius, while praising Eusebius Pamphili both as to whatever of worth belongs to his histories and as to other things, yet declares that with regard to religion he has fallen into great error; and that he impiously sets forth this error of his in detail, holding that the Deity is unknowable and incomprehensible. Moreover, he holds that he has also gone astray on other such things. But he unites with others in attesting that he brought his History down to the accession of the sons of Constantine the Great.”
Socrates in the First Book of his Ecclesiastical History (chap. 1).
“Eusebius, surnamed Pamphilus (i.e. universally beloved), has composed a History of the Church in ten books, brought down to the time of the Emperor Constantine, when the persecution ceased which Diocletian had commenced against the Christians. But, in writing the life of Constantine, this author has very slightly treated of the Arian controversy, being evidently more intent on a highly wrought eulogium of the emperor than an accurate statement of facts.” 
The same Socrates in the Eighth Chapter of the same Book, speaking of Sabinus, Bishop of Macedonia, who had written a History of the Synod, says:—
“Yet he commends Eusebius Pamphilus as a witness worthy of credit, and praises the Emperor as capable in stating Christian doctrines; but he still brands the faith which was declared at Nice as having been set forth by ignorant men, and such as had no intelligence in the matter. Thus he voluntarily contemns the testimony of a man whom he himself pronounces a wise and true witness; for Eusebius declares that of the ministers of God who were present at the Nicene Synod, some were eminent for the word of wisdom, others for the strictness of their life; and that the Emperor himself being present, leading all into unanimity, established unity of judgment, and conformity of opinion among them.”
The same Socrates, in Book II. chap.
“But since some have attempted to stigmatize Eusebius Pamphilus as having favored the Arian views in his works, it may not be irrelevant here to make a few remarks respecting him. In the first place, then, he was present at the council of Nice, and gave his assent to what was there determined in reference to the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, and in the third book of the Life of Constantine, he thus expressed himself: ‘The Emperor incited all to unanimity, until he had rendered them united in judgment on those points on which they were previously at variance: so that they were quite agreed at Nice in matters of faith.’ Since, therefore, Eusebius, in mentioning the Nicene Synod, says that all differences were composed, and that unanimity of sentiment prevailed, what ground is there for assuming that he was himself an Arian? The Arians are certainly deceived in supposing him to be a favorer of their tenets. But some one will perhaps say that in his discourses he seems to have adopted the opinions of Arius, because of his frequently saying by Christ. Our answer is that ecclesiastical writers often use this mode of expression, and others of a similar kind denoting the economy of our Saviour’s humanity: and that before all these the apostle made use of such expressions without ever being accounted a teacher of false doctrine. Moreover, inasmuch as Arius has dared to say that the Son is a creature, as one of the others, observe what Eusebius says on this subject in his first book against Marcellus:
“‘He alone, and no other, has been declared to be, and is the only-begotten Son of God; whence any one would justly censure those who have presumed to affirm that he is a Creature made of nothing, like the rest of the creatures; for how then would he be a Son? and how could he be God’s only-begotten, were he assigned the same nature as the other creatures, and were he one of the many created things, seeing that he, like them, would in that case be partaker of a creation from nothing? The sacred Scriptures do not thus instruct us concerning these things.’ He again adds a little afterwards: ‘Whoever then determines that the Son is made of things that are not, and that he is a creature produced from nothing pre-existing, forgets that while he concedes the name of Son, he denies him to be so in reality. Far he that is made of nothing cannot truly be the Son of God, any more than the other things which have been made: but the true Son of God, forasmuch as he is begotten of the Father, is properly denominated the only-begotten and beloved of the Father. Far this reason also, he himself is God: for what can the offspring of God be but the perfect resemblance of him who begat him? A sovereign, indeed, builds a city, but does not beget it; and is said to beget a son, not to build one. An artificer may be called the framer, but not the father of his work; while he could by no means be styled the framer of him whom he had begotten. So also the God of the Universe is the father of the Son; but would be fitly termed the Framer and Maker of the world. And although it is once said in Scripture, The Lord created me the beginning of his ways on account of his works, yet it becomes us to consider the import of this phrase, which I shall hereafter explain; and not, as Marcellus has done, from a single passage to subvert one of the most important doctrines of the Church.’
“These and many other such expressions are found in the first book of Eusebius Pamphilus against Marcellus; and in his third book, declaring in what sense the term creature is to be taken, he says: ‘Accordingly these things being established, it follows that in the same sense as that which preceded, these words also are to be understood, The Lord created me in the beginning of his ways on account of his works. For although he says that he was created, it is not as if he should say that he had arrived at existence from what was not, nor that he himself also was made of nothing like the rest of the creatures, which some have erroneously supposed: but as subsisting, living, pre-existing, and being before the constitution of the whale world; and having been appointed to rule the universe by his Lord and Father: the word created being here used instead of ordained or constituted. Certainly the apostle expressly called the rulers and governors among men creature, when he said, Submit yourselves to every human creature for the Lord’s sake; whether to the king as supreme, or to governors as those sent by him. The prophet also does not use the word ektisen created in the sense of made of that which had no previous existence, when he says, Prepare, Israel, to invoke thy God. For behold he who confirms the thunder, creates the Spirit, and announces his Christ unto men. For God did not then create the Spirit when he declared his Christ to all men, since There is nothing new under the sun; but the Spirit was, and subsisted before: but he was sent at what time the apostles were gathered together, when like thunder, There came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind: and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. And thus they declared unto all men the Christ of God in accordance with that prophecy which says, Behold he who confirms the thunder, creates the spirit, and announces his Christ unto men: the word creates being used instead of sends down, or appoints; and thunder in a similar way implying the preaching of the Gospel. Again he that says, Create in me a clean heart, O God, said not this as if he had no heart; but prayed that his mind might be purified. Thus also it is said, That he might create the two into one new man, instead of unite. Consider also whether this passage is not of the same kind, Clothe yourselves with the new man, which is created according to God; and this, if, therefore, any one be in Christ, he is a new creature, and Whatever other expressions of a similar nature any one may find who shall carefully search the divinely-inspired Scripture. Wherefore one should not be surprised if in this passage, The Lord created me the beginning of his ways, the term created is used metaphorically, instead of appointed, or constituted.’
“These quotations from the books of Eusebius against Marcellus have been adduced to confute those who have slanderously attempted to traduce and criminate him. Neither can they prove that Eusebius attributes a beginning of subsistence to the Son of God, although they may find him often using the expressions of dispensation: and especially so, because he was an emulator and admirer of the works of Origen, in which those who are able to comprehend that author’s writings, will perceive it to be everywhere stated that the Son was begotten of the Father. These remarks have been made in passing, in order to refute those who have misrepresented Eusebius.”
Sozomen in the First Book of his Ecclesiastical History (chap. 1.).
“I at first felt strongly inclined to trace the course of events from the very commencement; but on reflecting that similar records of the past, up to their own time, had been compiled by the learned Clemens and Hegesippus, successors of the apostles, by Africanus the historian and Eusebius surnamed Pamphilus, a man intimately acquainted with the sacred Scriptures and the writings of the Greek poets and historians, I merely drew up an epitome in two books of all that is recorded to have happened to the churches, from the ascension of Christ to the deposition of Licinius.”
Victorius in the Paschal Canon.
“Reviewing therefore the trustworthy histories of the ancients, namely the Chronicles and prologue of the blessed Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, a city in Palestine, a man pre-eminently accomplished and learned; and likewise those things which have been added to these same Chronicles by Jerome of sacred memory.”
Jerome, in his Epistle to Chromatius and Heliodorus, prefixed to the Martyrology which bears Jerome’s Name.
“It is evident that our Lord Jesus Christ obtains triumphs at every martyrdom of his saints, whose sufferings we find described by the saintly Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea. For when Constantine Augustus came to Caesarea and told the celebrated bishop to ask some favors which should benefit the church at Caesarea, it is said that Eusebius answered: That a church enriched by its own resources was under no necessity of asking favors, yet that he himself had an unalterable desire, that whatever had been done in the Roman republic against God’s saints by successive judges in the whole Roman world they should search out by a careful examination of the public records; and that they should draw from the archives themselves and send to Eusebius himself, by royal command, the names of the martyrs: under what judge, in what province or city, upon what day, and with what steadfastness, they had obtained the reward of their suffering. Whence it has come about that, being an able narrator and a diligent historiographer, he has both composed an Ecclesiastical History and has set forth the triumphs of nearly all of the martyrs of all the Roman provinces.” 
Pope Gelasius in his Decree concerning the Apocryphal Books.
“Likewise as to the Chronicles of Eusebius and the books of his Ecclesiastical History, although in the first book of his narration he has grown cold, and has afterwards written one book in praise and in defense of Origen the schismatic, yet on account of his singular knowledge of things which pertain to instruction, we do not say that they ought to be rejected.”
The same in his book On the Two Natures.
“That saying the same thing with one heart and one mouth we may also believe what we have received from our forefathers, and, God giving them to us, that we may hand them down to posterity to be believed in, with which things the adduced testimony of the Catholic masters, being summed up, bear witness that a united faith in a gracious God endures.”
And a little farther on.
“From the exposition of the seventh psalm, by Eusebius, bishop in Palestine, by surname Pomphili, etc. Likewise from his Praeparatio Evangelica, Book VII.”
Pope Pelagius II. in his Third Epistle to Elias of Aquileia and other Bishops of Istria.
“For, indeed, among haeresiarchs who can be found worse than Origen, and among historiographers who more honorable than Eusebius? And who of us does not know with how great praises Eusebius extols Origen in his books? But because the holy Church deals more kindly with the hearts of her faithful ones than she does severely with their words, neither could the testimony of Eusebius remove him from his proper place among heretics, nor on the other hand has she condemned Eusebius for the fault of praising Origen.”
Evagrius, in the First Book of his Ecclesiastical History (chap. 1).
“Eusebius Pomphili—an especially able writer, to the extent, in particular, of inducing his readers to embrace our religion, though failing to perfect them in the faith—and Sozomen, Theodoret, and Socrates have produced a most excellent record of the advent of our compassionate God, and his ascension into heaven, and of all that has been achieved in the endurance of the divine Apostles, as well as of the other martyrs,” etc.
Gregory the Great in his Epistle to Eulogius, Bishop of Alexandria.
“I have now become one of the number of hearers, to whom your Holiness has taken the pains to write, that we ought to transmit the deeds of all the martyrs which have been collected by Eusebius of Caesarea in the age of Constantine of holy memory. But I was not aware before receiving your Holiness’ letter whether these things had been collected or not. I therefore am thankful that being informed by the writings of your most holy learning, I have begun to know what I did not know before. For excepting these things which are contained in the books of this same Eusebius On the deeds of the holy martyrs, I have met with nothing else in the archives of this our church, nor in the libraries of Rome, except some few collected in a single volume.”
Gelasius of Cyzicus in his Second Book On the Council of Nicaea (chap. 1).
“Let us hear now what says this the most illustrious husbandman in ecclesiastical farming, the most truth-loving Eusebius, surnamed after the celebrated Pamphilus. Licinius, indeed, he says, having followed the same path of impiety with the ungodly tyrants, has justly been brought to the same precipice with them, etc. (which may be found at the end of the tenth book of the Ecclesiastical History). As to Eusebius Pomphili, the most trustworthy of ancient ecclesiastical historians, who has investigated and set forth so many struggles, having made a choice from among his simply written works, we say that in all ten books of his Ecclesiastical History he has left behind an accurately written work. Beginning with the advent of our Lord he has, not without much labor, proceeded as far as those times. For how else could it be with him who took so great care to preserve for us the harmony of this collection? But as I have just said, he brought to bear upon it much study and an untold amount of labor. But let no one suppose, from those things which have been alleged with regard to him, that this man ever adopted the heresy of Arius; but let him be sure, that even if he did speak somewhat of, and did write briefly concerning the conjectures of Arius, he certainly did not do it on account of his entertaining the impious notion of that man, but from artless simplicity, as indeed he himself fully assures us in his Apology, which he distributed generally among orthodox bishops.” 
The author of the Alexandrian Chronicle (p. 582).
“The very learned Eusebius Pamphili has written thus: As the Jews crucified Christ at the feast, so they all perished at their own feast.”
Nicephorus in the Sixth Book of his History (chap. 37).
“Upon whose authority also we know of the divine Pamphilus as both living the life of a philosopher and wearing the dignity of presbyter in that place. His life and every event in it, also. his establishing in that place the study of sacred and profane philosophy, also his confession of his religion in divers persecutions, his struggles, and at last his wearing the martyr’s crown, Eusebius his nephew, who had such a regard for him as to take from him his surname, has comprehended in detail in one separate book; to this we refer those who may wish to find out accurately concerning him. This Eusebius, indeed, although having prosecuted many studies, especially excels in the study of sacred literature. His life extended until the time of Constantius. Being a man pre-eminently Christian, and endowed with great zeal for Christ, he has written the Paeporatio Evangelica in fifteen books, and in ten more the Demonstratio Evangelica. He was also the first one to take in hand this subject, having been the first to call his book an Ecclesiastical History; this work is contained in ten volumes. There is also another book of his extant which he entitled Canons, in which he accurately investigates chronological matters. He has also composed five books On the Life of Constantine, and another addressed to him which he calls triakontaethrikon. To Stephanus he also dedicates another concerning those things in the sacred Gospels which have been called in question; and he has also left behind divers other works which are of great benefit to the Church. Apart from being such a man as this, he in many ways seems to uphold the opinions of Arius,” etc.
From the ms. Acts of Pope Silvester.
“Eusebius Pamphili, in writing his Ecclesiastical History, has in every case omitted to mention those things which he has pointed out in other works; for he has put into eleven books the sufferings of the martyrs, bishops, and confessors, who have suffered in almost all the provinces. But indeed as to the sufferings of women and maidens, such as with manly fortitude suffered for the sake of Christ the Lord, he records nothing. He is, moreover, the only one who has set forth in their order the sufferings of the bishops, from the Apostle Peter down. Moreover, he drew up for the benefit of the public a catalogue of the pontiffs of those cities and apostolic seats; that is, of the great city of Rome, and the cities of Alexandria and Antioch. Of the number then of those of whom, up to his own times, the above-mentioned author wrote in the Greek tongue, this man’s life he was unable to paraphrase; that is, the life of the saint Silvester,” etc.
An ancient author in the Passion of the Holy Valerian.
“The glorious struggles of the most blessed martyrs, for the honor of Christ the Lord and of our God, are celebrated by perpetual services and an annual solemnity, that while our faithful people know the faith of the martyrs, they may also rejoice in their triumphs, and may rest assured that it is by the protection of these that they themselves are to be protected. For it is held in repute that Eusebius the historian, of sacred memory, bishop of the city of Caesarea, a most blessed priest of excellent life, very learned also in ecclesiastical matters, and to be venerated for his extraordinary carefulness, set forth for every city, in so far as the truth was able to be ascertained, the Holy Spirit announcing the deeds that had been done,—inasmuch as the cities of single provinces and localities or towns have merited being made famous by the heavenly triumphs of martyrs,—set forth, I say, in the time of what rulers the innumerable persecutions were inflicted at the command of officials. Who, although he has not described entire the sufferings of individual martyrs, yet has truly intimated why they ought to be described or celebrated by faithful and devoted Christians. Thus this faithful husbandman has cultivated the grace of God, which has been scattered abroad in all the earth, while, as it were, from a single grain of wheat, plenteous harvests are produced on account of the fertility of the field, and go on in multiplied abundance. So through the narration of the above-mentioned man, diffused from the fountain of a single book, with the ever-spreading writings of the faithful, the celebrating of the sufferings of the martyrs has watered all the earth.”
Usuardus in his Martyrology.
“On the twenty-first day of June, in Palestine, the holy Eusebius, bishop and confessor, a man of most excellent genius, and a historiographer.” 
Notker in his Martyrology.“On the twenty-first day of June, the deposition in Caesarea of the holy bishop Eusebius.”
Manecharius in his Epistle to Ceraunius, Bishop of Paris.
“Unceasing in thy continual efforts to equal in merit the very excellent persons of the most blessed bishops in all the conversation of the priesthood, zealous to adorn thyself every day with holy religion, by thy zeal for reading thou hast searched through the whole of the doctrines of the sacred Scriptures. Now as an addition to thy praiseworthiness thou dost faithfully purpose, in the city of Paris, to gather together for the love of religion, the deeds of the holy martyrs. Wherefore thou art worthy of being compared in zeal with Eusebius of Caesarea, and art worthy of being remembered perpetually with an equal share of glory.”
From an old Manuscript Breviary of the Lemovicensian Church.
“Of the holy Eusebius, bishop and confessor.
“Lesson 1. Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, on account of his friendship with Pamphilus the martyr, took from him the surname of Pamphili; inasmuch as along with this same Pamphilus he was a most diligent investigator of sacred literature. The man indeed is very worthy of being remembered in these times, both for his skill in many things, and for his wonderful genius, and by both Gentiles and Christians he was held distinguished and most noble among philosophers. This man, after having for a time labored in behalf of the Arian heresy, coming to the council of Nicaea, inspired by the Holy Spirit, followed the decision of the Fathers, and thereafter up to the time of his death lived in a most holy manner in the orthodox faith.
“Lesson 2. He was, moreover, very zealous in the study of the sacred Scriptures, and along with Pamphilus the martyr was a most diligent investigator of sacred literature. At the same time he has written many things, but especially the following books: The Praeparatio Evangelica, the Ecclesiastical History, Against Porphyry, a very bitter enemy of the Christians; he has also composed Six Apologies in Behalf of Origen, a Life of Pamphilus the Martyr, from whom on account of friendship he took his surname, in three books; likewise very learned Commentaries on the hundred and fifty Psalms.
“Lesson 3. Moreover, as we read, after having ascertained the sufferings of many holy martyrs in all the provinces, and the lives of confessors and virgins, he has written concerning these saints twenty books; while on account of these books therefore, and especially on account of his Praeparatio Evangelica, he was held most distinguished among the Gentiles, because of his love of truth he contemned the ancestral worship of the gods. He has written also a Chronicle, extending from the first year of Abraham up to the year 300 a.d., which the divine Hieronymus has continued. Finally this Eusebius, after the conversion of Constantine the Great, was united to him by strong friendship as long as he lived.”
In the Breviary of the same church, June twenty-first.
“Omnipotent, eternal God, who dost permit us to take part in the festivities in honor of Eusebius, thy holy confessor and priest, bring us, we pray thee, through his prayers, into the society of heavenly joys, through our Lord Jesus Christ,” etc.7 
From the book On the Lights of the Church.
“Eusebius of Caesarea, the key of the Scriptures and custodian of the New Testament, is proved by the Greeks to be greater than many in his treatises. There are three celebrated works of his which truly testify to this: the Canons of the Four Gospels, which set forth and defend the New Testament, ten books of Ecclesiastical History, and the Chronicon, that is, a chronological summary. We have never found any one who has been able to follow in all his foot-prints.”
From the Miscellanies of Theodore Metochita (chap. 19)
“Eusebius Pamphili was also a Palestinian by birth, but as he himself says, he sojourner for quite a long time in Egypt. He was a very learned man, and it is evident indeed that he published many books, and that he used language thus.” 
Testimonies of the Ancients Against Eusebius
————————————
From the Epistle of Arius to Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia (in Theodoret’s Eccles. Hist. I. 5).
“Eusebius, your brother bishop of Caesarea, Theodotius, Paulinus, Athanasius, Gregory, Aetius, and all the bishops of the East, have been condemned because they say that God had an existence prior to that of his Son.”
From the Book of Marcellus of Ancyra against the Arians.
“Having happened upon a letter of Narcissus, bishop of Neronias, which he wrote to one Chrestus and to Euphronius and to Eusebius, in which it seems that Hosius, the bishop, had asked him whether or not like Eusebius of Palestine he believed in the existence of two essences, I read in the writing that he answered that he believed in the existence of three essences.”
From the Synodical Epistle of the Bishops of Egypt, met in the City of Alexandria, to All the Bishops of the Catholic Church (which Athanasius gives in his second apology against the Arians).
“For what sort of a council of bishops was that ? What sort of an assembly having truth for its aim? Who out of the great majority of them was not our enemy? Did not the followers of Eusebius rise up against us on account of the Arian madness? Did not they bring forward the others who held the same opinions as themselves? Were we not continually writing against them as against those who held the opinions of Arius? Was not Eusebius of Caesarea in Palestine accused by our confessors of sacrificing?”
Epiphanius in the Heresy of the Meletians (Haer. LXVIII.).
“The emperor upon hearing these things becomes very angry and orders that a synod be convoked in Phoenicia in the city of Tyre; he also gave orders that Eusebius and some others should act as judges: these persons moreover had leaned somewhat too far toward the vulgarity of the Arians. There were also summoned the bishops of the Catholic Church in Egypt, also certain men subject to Athanasius, who were likewise great and who kept their lives transparent before God, among whom was the great Potamo of blessed memory, bishop and confessor of Heraclea. But there were also present Meletians, the chief accusers of Athanasius. Being zealous for truth and for orthodoxy, the above-mentioned Potamo of blessed memory, a free-spoken man, who regarded the person of no man,Äfor he had been deprived of an eye in the persecution for the truth,—seeing Eusebius sitting down and acting as judge, and Athanasius standing up, overcome by grief and weeping, as is the wont with true men, he addressed Eusebius in a loud voice, saying, ‘Dost thou sit down, Eusebius, and is Athanasius, an innocent man, judged by thee? Who could bear such things? Do thou tell me, wert thou not in confinement with me at the time of the persecution? I have parted with an eye for the sake of the truth, but thou neither seemest to be maimed at all in body, nor hast thou suffered martyrdom, but art alive, and in no part mutilated. How didst thou escape from the confinement unless that thou didst promise those who have inflicted upon us the violence of persecution to perform the ungodly act, or didst actually perform it?’ ”
From the Epistle of the Catholic Bishops of Egypt to the Synod of Tyre (which Athanasius gives in theabove-mentioned Apology).
“For ye also know, as we have said before, that they are our enemies, and ye know why Eusebius of Caesarea has become our enemy since last year.”
Athanasius in his Epistle on the Decrees of the Council of Nicaea
“The strange thing is that Eusebius of Caesarea in Palestine, who had denied on one day, but on the next day had subscribed, sent to his church, saying that this is the faith of the Church, and that this is the tradition of the Fathers. He plainly showed to all that before they had been in error, and had been vainly striving after the truth; for although he was then ashamed to write in just these terms, and excused himself to the Church as he himself wished, yet he plainly wishes to imply this in his Epistle, by his not denying the ‘Homoousion,’ ‘one in substance,’ and ‘of the substance.’ He got into serious difficulty, for in defending himself, he went on to accuse the Arians, because, having written that ‘the Son did not exist before that he was begotten,’ they thereby denied that he existed before his birth in the flesh.”
The same, in his Treatise on the Synods of Ariminum and Selucia
“Most of all, what would Acacius say to Eusebius his own teacher? who not only signed in the synod at Nicaea, but also made it known by letter to the people under him that that was the true faith, which had been agreed upon at the council of Nicaea; for although he defended himself as he pleased through the letter, yet he did not deny the grounds taken. But he also accused the Arians, since, in saying that ’the Son did not exist before that he was begotten,’ they also deny that he existed before Mary.”
The same, in his Epistle to the Bishops of Africa
“This also was known all the while to Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, who, at first identifying himself with the Arian heresy, and having afterwards signed at the self-same synod of Nicaea, wrote to his own particular friends, firmly maintaining that, ‘We have known of certain learned and renowned bishops and writers among the ancients who have used the term ojmoouvsio" in reference to the divinity of the Father and Son.’ ”
The same, in his Treatise on the Synods of Ariminum and Selucia
“Eusebius of Caesarea in Palestine, writing to Euphration the bishop, did not fear to say openly that Christ is not true God.”
Jerome, in his Epistle to Ctesiphon against the Pelagians
“He did this in the name of the holy martyr Pamphilus, that he might designate with the name of the martyr Pamphilus the first of the six books in defense of Origen which were written by Eusebius of Caesarea, whom every one knows to have been an Arian.”
The same, in his Second Book against Rufinius
“As soon as he leaves the harbor he runs his ship aground. For, quoting from the Apology of Pamphilus the Martyr (which we have proved to be the work of Eusebius, prince of Arians),” etc.
The same, in his First Book against Rufinus
“Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, of whom I have made mention above, in the sixth book of his Apology in behalf of Origen, lays this same charge against Methodius the bishop and martyr, which you lay against me in my praises [of him]; he says: “How did Methodius dare to write against Origen after having said this and that concerning his opinions?’ This is no place to speak in behalf of a martyr, for not all things ought to be discussed in all places. Now let it suffice to have barely touched upon the matter, that this same thing was charged against a most renowned and most eloquent martyr by an Arian, which you as a friend praise in me, and, being offended, censure me for.”
The same, in his Epistle to Minervius and Alexander
“I both in manhood and in extreme old age am of the same opinion, that Origen and Eusebius of Caesarea were indeed very learned men, but went astray in the truth of their opinions.”
Socrates, in the First Book of his Ecclesiastical History (chap. 23)
“Eusebius Pamphilus says that immediately after the Synod Egypt became agitated by intestine divisions; but as he does not assign the reason for this, some have accused him of disingenuousness, and have even attributed his failure to specify the causes of these dissensions to a determination on his part not to give his sanction to the proceedings at Nice.” 
Again, in the same chapter.
“Eustathius, bishop of Antioch, accuses Eusebius Pamphilus of perverting the Nicene Creed; but Eusebius denies that he violates that exposition of the faith, and recriminates, saying that Eustathius was a defender of the opinion of Sabellius. In consequence of these misunderstandings, each of them wrote volumes as if contending against adversaries: and although it was admitted on both sides that the Son of God has a distinct person and existence, and all acknowledged that there is one God in a Trinity of Persons; yet, from what cause I am unable to divine, they could not agree among themselves, and therefore were never at peace.”
Theodoritus, in his Interpretation of the Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews, speaking of the Arians, writes as follows:
“If not even this is sufficient to persuade them, it at least behooves them to believe Eusebius of Palestine, whom they call the chief advocate of their own doctrines.”
Nicetas, in his Thesaurus of the Orthodox Faith, Book F. Chap. 7.
“Moreover, Theodore of Mopsuestia relates that there were only nine persons out of all whom the decrees of the Synod did not please, and that their names are as follows: Theognis of Nicaea, Eusebius of Nicomedia, Patrophilus of Scythopolis, Eusebius of Caesarea in Palestine, Narcissus of Neronias in Cilicia, which is now called Irenopolis, Paulinus of Tyre, Menophantus of Ephesus, Secundus of Ptolemaïs, which borders upon Egypt, and Theonas of Marmarica.”8 
Antipater, Bishop of Bostra, in his First Book against Eusebius’ Apology for Origen.
“I deny that the man has yet arrived at an accurate knowledge of the doctrines; wherefore he ought to be given place to so far as regards his great learning, but as regards his knowledge of doctrine he ought not. But, moreover, we know him to have been altogether lacking in such accurate knowledge.”
And a little farther on.
“So now, that we may not seem to be trampling upon the man,—concerning whom it is not our purpose for the present to speak,—examining into the accuracy of his Apology, we may go on to show that both were heretics, both he who composed the Apology, and he in whose behalf it was composed.”
And farther on.
“For as to your attempting to show that others as well as he [Origen] have spoken of the subordination of the Son to the Father, we may not at first wonder at it, for such is your opinion and that of your followers; wherefore we say nothing concerning this matter for the present, since it was long ago submitted and condemned at the general Council.”
From the Acts of the Seventh Oecumenical Council.
“For who of the faithful ones in the Church, and who of those who have obtained a knowledge of true doctrine, does not know that Eusebius Pamphili has given himself over to false ways of thinking, and has become of the same opinion and of the same mind with those who follow after the opinions of Arius? In all his historical books he calls the Son and Word of God a creature, a servant, and to be adored as second in rank. But if any speaking in his defense say that he subscribed in the council, we may admit that that is true; but while with his lips he has respected the truth, in his heart he is far from it, as all his writings and epistles go to show. But if from time to time, on account of circumstances or from different causes, he has become confused or has changed around, sometimes praising those who hold to the doctrines of Arius, and at other times reigning the truth, he shows himself to be, according to James the brother of our Lord, a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways; and let him not think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. For if with the heart he had believed unto righteousness, and with the mouth had confessed the truth unto salvation, he would have asked forgiveness for his writings, at the same time correcting them. But this he has by no means done, for he remained like Aethiops with his skin unchanged. In interpreting the verse ‘I said to the Lord, Thou art my Lord,’ he has strayed far away from the true sense, for this is what he says: ‘By the laws of nature every son’s father must be his lord; wherefore God who begat him must be at the same time God, Lord, and Father of the only-begotten Son of God.’ So also in his epistle to the holy Alexander, the teacher of the great Athanasius, which begins thus: ‘With what anxiety and with what care have I set about writing this letter,’ in most open blasphemy he speaks as follows concerning Arius and his followers: ‘Thy letter accuses them of saying that the Son was made out of nothing, like all men. But they have produced their own epistle which they wrote to thee, in which they give an account of their faith, and expressly confess that “the God of the law and of the prophets and of the New Testament, before eternal ages begat an only-begotten Son, through whom also he made the ages and the universe; and that he begat him not in appearance, but in truth, and subjected him to his own will, unchangeable and immutable, a perfect creature of God, but not as one of the creatures.” If, therefore, the letter received from them tells the truth, they wholly contradict thee, in that they confess that the Son of God who existed before eternal ages, and through whom he made the world, is unchangeable and a perfect creature of God, but not as one of the creatures. But thy epistle accuses them of saying that the Son was made as one of the creatures. They do not say this, but clearly declare that he was not as one of the creatures. See if cause is not immediately given them again to attack and to misrepresent whatever they please. Again thou findest fault with them for saying that He who is begat him who was not. I wonder if any one is able to say anything else than that. For if He who is is one, it is plain that everything has been made by Him and after Him. But if He who is is not the only one, but there was also a Son existing, how did He who is beget him who was existing? For thus those existing would be two.’ These things then Eusebius wrote to the illustrious Alexander; but there are also other epistles of his directed to the same holy man, in which are found various blasphemies in defense of the followers of Arius. So also, in writing to the bishop Euphration, he blasphemes most openly; his letter begins thus: ‘I return to my Lord all thanks’; and farther on: ‘For we do not say that the Son was with the Father, but that the Father was before the Son. But the Son of God himself, knowing well that he was greater than all, and knowing that he was other than the Father, and less than and subject to Him, very piously teaches this to us also when he says, “The Father who sent me is greater than I.”’ And farther on: ‘Since the Son also is himself God, but not true God.’ So then from these writings of his he shows that he holds to the doctrines of Arius and his followers. And with this rebellious heresy of theirs the inventors of that Arian madness hold to one nature in hypostatic union, and affirm that our Lord took upon himself a body without soul, in his scheme of redemption, affirming that the divine nature supplied the purposes and movements of the soul: that, as Gregory the Divine says, they may ascribe suffering to the Deity; and it is evident that those who ascribe suffering to the Deity are Patripassians. Those who share in this heresy do not allow images, as the impious Severus did not, and Peter Cnapheus, and Philoxenus of Hierapolis, and all their followers, the many-headed yet headless hydra. So then Eusebius, who belongs to this faction, as has been shown from his epistles and historical writings, as a Patripassian rejected the image of Christ,” etc.9 
Photius, in his 144th Epistle to Constantine.
“That Eusebius (whether slave or friend of Pamphilus I know not) was carried off by Arianism, his books loudly proclaim. And he, feeling repentance as he pretends, and against his will, confesses to his infirmity; although by his repentance he rather shows that he has not repented. For he cannot show, by means of those writings in which he would seem to be defending himself, that he has withdrawn from his former heretical doctrines, nor can he show that he agreed with the holy and Oecumenical Synod. But he speaks of it as a marvel that the upholders of the Homoousion should concur with him in sentiment and agree with him in opinion: and this fact both many other things and the epistle written by him to his own people at Caesarea accurately confirm. But that from the beginning he inwardly cherished the Arian doctrines, and that up to the end of his life he did not cease following them, many know, and it is easy to gather it from many sources; but that he shared also in the infirmity of Origen, namely, the error with regard to the common resurrection of us all, is to most persons unknown. But if thou thyself examine carefully his books, thou shalt see that he was none the less truly overcome by that deadly disease than he was by the Arian madness.”
Photius, in his Bibliotheca (chap. 13).
“Of the Objection and Defense of Eusebius two books have been read; also other two, which although differing in some respects from the former two, are in other respects the same with regard to both diction and thought. But he presents certain difficulties with regard to our blameless religion as having originated with the Greeks. These he correctly solves, although not in all cases. But as regards his diction, it is by no means either pleasing or brilliant. The man is indeed very learned, although as regards shrewdness of mind and firmness of character, as well as accuracy in doctrine, he is deficient. For also in many places in these books it is plain to be seen that he blasphemes against the Son, calling him a second cause, and general-in-chief, and other terms which have had their origin in the Arian madness. It seems that he flourished in the time of Constantine the Great. He was also an ardent admirer of the excellences of the holy martyr Pamphilus, for which cause some say that he took from him the surname Pamphili.”
Photius, in the Same Work (chap. 127).
“There has been read the work of Eusebius Pamphili In praise of the great emperor Constantine, consisting of four books. In this is contained the whole life of the man, starting with his very boyhood, also whatever deeds of his belong to ecclesiastical history, until he departed from life at the age of sixty-four. Eusebius is, however, even in this work, like himself in diction, except that his discourse has risen to a somewhat more than usual brilliancy, and that sometimes he has made use of more flowery expressions than he is wont. However, of pleasantness and beauty of expression there is little, as indeed is the case in his other works. He inserts, moreover, in this work of his in four books very many passages from the whole decalogue of his Ecclesiastical History. He says that Constantine the Great himself also was baptized in Nicomedia, he having put off his baptism until then, because he desired to be baptized in the Jordan. Who baptized him he does not clearly show. However, as to the heresy of Arius, he does not definitely state whether he holds that opinion, or whether he has changed; or even whether Arius held correct or incorrect views, although he ought to have made mention of these things, because the synod occupied an important place among the deeds of Constantine the Great, and it again demands a detailed account of them. But he does state that a ‘controversy’ arose between Arius and Alexander (this is the name he cunningly gives to the heresy), and that the God-fearing prince was very much grieved at this controversy, and strove by epistles and through Hosius, who was then bishop of Cordova, to bring back the dissenting parties into peace and concord, they having laid aside the strife existing between them with regard to such questions; and that when he could not persuade them to do this he convoked a synod from all quarters, and that it dissolved into peace the strife that had arisen. These things, however, are not described accurately or clearly; it would seem then that he is ashamed, as it were, and does not wish to make public the vote cast against Arius in the Synod, and the just retribution of those who were his companions in impiety and who were cast out together with him. Finally, he does not even mention the terrible fate which was inflicted by God upon Arius in the sight of all. None of these things he brings to the light, nor has he drawn up an account of the Synod and the things that were done in it. Whence, also, when about to write a narrative concerning the divine Eustathius, he does not even mention his name, nor what things were threatened and executed against him; but referring these things also to sedition and tumult, he again speaks of the calmness of the bishops, who having been convened in Antioch by the zeal and cooperation of the Emperor, changed the sedition and tumult into peace. Likewise as to what things were maliciously contrived against the ever-conquering Athanasius, when he set about making his history cover these things, he says that Alexandria again was filled with sedition and tumult, and that this was calmed by the coming of the bishops, who had the imperial aid. But he by no means makes it clear who was the leader of the sedition, what sort of sedition it was, or by what means the strife was settled. He also keeps up almost the same mode of dissimulating in his account of the contentions existing among bishops with respect to doctrines, and their disagreements on other matters.”
Joannes Zonaras, in his Third Volume, in which he relates the Deeds of Constantine.
“Even Eusebius Pamphili, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, was at that time one of those who upheld the doctrines of Arius. He is said to have afterwards withdrawn from the opinion of Arius, and to have become of like mind with those who hold that the Son is coëqual and of the same nature with the Father, and to have been received into communion by the holy Fathers. Moreover, in the Acts of the first Synod, he is found to have defended the faithful. These things are found thus narrated by some; but he makes them to appear doubtful by certain things which he is seen to have written in his Ecclesiastical History. For in many places in the above-mentioned work he seems to be following after Arius. In the very beginning of his book, where he quotes David as saying, ‘He spake and they were made, he commanded and they were estab- lished,’ he says that the Father and Maker is to be considered as maker and universal ruler, governing by a kingly nod, and that the second after him in authority, the divine Word, is subject to the commands of the Father. And farther on he says, that he, as being the power and wisdom of the Father, is entrusted with the second place in the kingdom and rule over all. And again, a little farther on, that there is also a certain essence, living and subsisting before the world, which ministers to the God and Father of the universe for the creation of things that are created. Also Solomon, in the person of the wisdom of God, says, ‘The Lord created me in the beginning of his ways,’ etc., and farther on he says: And besides all this, as the pre-existent word of God, who also preëxisted before all ages created, he received divine honor from the Father, and is worshipped as God. These and other things show that Eusebius agreed with Arian doctrines, unless some one say that they were written before his conversion.”
Suidas, under the word Diodwro".
“Diodorus, a monk, who was bishop of Tarsus in Cilicia, in the times of Julian and Valens, wrote divers works, as Theodorus Lector states in his Ecclesiastical History. These are as follows: A Chronicle, which corrects the error of Eusebius Pamphilus with regard to chronology,” etc.
The same Suidas, from Sophronius.
“Eusebius Pamphili, a devotee of the Arian heresy, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, a man zealous in the study of the holy Scriptures, and along with Pamphilus the martyr a most careful investigator of sacred literature, has published many books, among which are the following.”10 
Eusebius Pamphilus 
The Church History of Eusebius.
Book I.
Chapter I. The Plan of the Work.
1 It is my purpose to write an account of the successions of the holy apostles, as well as of the times which have elapsed from the days of our Saviour to our own; and to relate the many important events which are said to have occurred in the history of the Church; and to mention those who have governed and presided over the Church in the most prominent parishes, and those who in each generation have proclaimed the divine word either orally or in writing.
2 It is my purpose also to give the names and number and times of those who through love of innovation have run into the greatest errors, and, proclaiming themselves discoverers of knowledge falsely so-called1 have like fierce wolves unmercifully devastated the flock of Christ.
3 It is my intention, moreover, to recount the misfortunes which immediately came upon the whole Jewish nation in consequence of their plots against our Saviour, and to record the ways and the times in which the divine word has been attacked by the Gentiles, and to describe the character of those who at various periods have contended for it in the face of blood and of tortures, as well as the confessions which have been made in our own days, and finally the gracious and kindly succor which our Saviour has afforded them all. Since I propose to write of all these things I shall commence my work with the beginning of the dispensation2 of our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ.3 
4 But at the outset I must crave for my work the indulgence of the wise,4 for I confess that it is beyond my power to produce a perfect and complete history, and since I am the first to enter upon the subject, I am attempting to traverse as it were a lonely and untrodden path.5 I pray that I may have God as my guide and the power of the Lord as my aid, since I am unable to find even the bare footsteps of those who have traveled the way before me, except in brief fragments, in which some in one way, others in another, have transmitted to us particular accounts of the times in which they lived. From afar they raise their voices like torches, and they cry out, as from some lofty and conspicuous watch-tower, admonishing us where to walk and how to direct the course of our work steadily and safely.
5 Having gathered therefore from the matters mentioned here and there by them whatever we consider important for the present work, and having plucked like flowers from a meadow the appropriate passages from ancient writers,6 we shall endeavor to embody the whole in an historical narrative, content if we preserve the memory of the successions of the apostles of our Saviour; if not indeed of all, yet of the most renowned of them in those churches which are the most noted, and which even to the present time are held in honor.
6 This work seems to me of especial importance because I know of no ecclesiastical writer who has devoted himself to this subject; and I hope that it will appear most useful to those who are fond of historical research.
7 I have already given an epitome of these things in the Chronological Canons7 which I have composed, but notwithstanding that, I have undertaken in the present work to write as full an account of them as I am able.
8 My work will begin, as I have said, with the dispensation8 of the Saviour Christ,—which is loftier and greater than human conception,
9 —and with a discussion of his divinity9 ; for it is necessary, inasmuch as we derive even our name from Christ, for one who proposes to write a history of the Church to begin with the very origin of Christ’s dispensation, a dispensation more divine than many think.
Chapter II. Summary View of the Pre-Existence and Divinity of Our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Since in Christ there is a twofold nature, and the one—in so far as he is thought of as God—resembles the head of the body, while the other may be compared with the feet,—in so far as he, for the sake of our salvation, put on human nature with the same passions as our own,—the following work will be complete only if we begin with the chief and lordliest events of all his history. In this way will the antiquity and divinity of Christianity be shown to those who suppose it of recent and foreign origin,10 and imagine that it appeared only yesterday11 
2 No language is sufficient to express the origin and the worth, the being and the nature of Christ. Wherefore also the divine Spirit says in the prophecies, “Who shall declare his generation?”12 For none knoweth the Father except the Son, neither can any one know the Son adequately except the Father alone who hath begotten him.13 
3 For alone who beside the Father could clearly understand the Light which was before the world, the intellectual and essential Wisdom which existed before the ages, the living Word which was in the beginning with the Father and which was God, the first and only begotten of God which was before every creature and creation visible and invisible, the commander-in-chief of the rational and immortal host of heaven, the messenger of the great counsel, the executor of the Father’s unspoken will, the creator, with the Father, of all things, the second cause of the universe after the Father, the true and only-begotten Son of God, the Lord and God and King of all created things, the one who has received dominion and power, with divinity itself, and with might and honor from the Father; as it is said in regard to him in the mystical passages of Scripture which speak of his divinity: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”14 
4 “All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made.”15 This, too, the great Moses teaches, when, as the most ancient of all the prophets, he describes under the influence of the divine Spirit the creation and arrangement of the universe. He declares that the maker of the world and the creator of all things yielded to Christ himself, and to none other than his own clearly divine and first-born Word, the making of inferior things, and communed with him respecting the creation of man.
5 “For,” says he,“ God said, Let us make man in our image and in our likeness.”16 And another of the prophets confirms this, speaking of God in his hymns as follows: “He spake and they were made; he commanded and they were created.”17 He here introduces the Father and Maker as Ruler of all, commanding with a kingly nod, and second to him the divine Word, none other than the one who is proclaimed by us, as carrying out 
6 the Father’s commands. All that are said to have excelled in righteousness and piety since the creation of man, the great servant Moses and before him in the first place Abraham and his children, and as many righteous men and prophets as afterward appeared, have contemplated him with the pure eyes of the mind, and have recognized him and offered to him the worship which is due him as Son of God.
7 But he, by no means neglectful of the reverence due to the Father, was appointed to teach the knowledge of the Father to them all. For instance, the Lord God, it is said, appeared as a common man to Abraham while he was sitting at the oak of Mambre.18 And he, immediately failing down, although he saw a man with his eyes, nevertheless worshiped him as God, and sacrificed to him as Lord, and confessed that he was not ignorant of his identity when he uttered the words, “Lord, the judge of all the earth, wilt thou not execute righteous judgment?”19 
8 For if it is unreasonable to suppose that the unbegotten and immutable essence of the almighty God was changed into the form of man or that it deceived the eyes of the beholders with the appearance of some created thing, and if it is unreasonable to suppose, on the other hand, that the Scripture should falsely invent such things, when the God and Lord who judgeth all the earth and executeth judgment is seen in the form of a man, who else can be called, if it be not lawful to call him the first cause of all things, than his only pre-existent Word?20 Concerning whom it is said in the Psalms, “He sent his Word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.”21 
9 Moses most clearly proclaims him second Lord after the Father, when he says, “The Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord.”22 The divine Scripture also calls him God, when he appeared again to Jacob in the form of a man, and said to Jacob, “Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name, because thou hast prevailed with God.”23 Wherefore also Jacob called the name of that place “Vision of God,”24 saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”25 
10 Nor is it admissible to suppose that the theophanies recorded were appearances of subordinate angels and ministers of God, for whenever any of these appeared to men, the Scripture does not conceal the fact, but calls them by name not God nor Lord, but angels, as it is easy to prove by numberless testimonies.
11 Joshua, also, the successor of Moses, calls him, as leader of the heavenly angels and archangels and of the supramundane powers, and as lieutenant of the Father,26 entrusted with the second rank of sovereignty and rule over all, “captain of the host of the Lords” although he saw him not otherwise than again in the form and appearance of a man. For it is written:
12 “And it came to pass when Joshua was at Jericho27 that he looked and saw a man standing over against him with his sword drawn in his hand, and Joshua went unto him and said, Art thou for us or for our adversaries? And he said unto him, As captain of the host of the Lord am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and said unto him, Lord, what dost thou command thy servant? and the captain of the Lord said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy.”28 
13 You will perceive also from the same words that this was no other than he who talked with Moses29 For the Scripture says in the same words and with reference to the same one, “When the Lord saw that he drew near to see, the Lord called to him out of the bush and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, What is it? And he said, Draw not nigh hither; loose thy shoe from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. And he said unto him, I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”30 
14 And that there is a certain substance which lived and subsisted31 before the world, and which ministered unto the Father and God of the universe for the formation of all created things, and which, is called the Word of God and Wisdom, we may learn, to quote otherproofs in addition to those already cited, from the mouth of Wisdom herself, who reveals most clearly through Solomon the following mysteries concerning herself: “I, Wisdom, have dwelt with prudence and knowledge, and I have invoked understanding. Through me kings reign, and princes ordain righteousness.
15 Through me the great are magnified, and through me sovereigns rule the earth.”32 To which she adds: “The Lord created me in the beginning of his ways, for his works; before the world he established me, in the beginning, before he made the earth, before he made the depths, before the mountains were settled, before all hills he begat me. When he prepared the heavens I was present with him, and when he established the fountains of the region under heaven33 I was with him, disposing.
16 I was the one in whom he delighted; daily I rejoiced before him at all times when he was rejoicing at having completed the world.”34 That the divine Word, therefore, pre-existed and appeared to some, if not to all, has thus been briefly shown by us.
17 But why the Gospel was not preached in ancient times to all men and to all nations, as it is now, will appear from the following considerations.35 The life of the ancients was not of such a kind as to permit them to receive the all-wise and all-virtuous teaching 18 of Christ.
18 For immediately in the beginning, after his original life of blessedness, the first man despised the command of God, and fell into this mortal and perishable state, and exchanged his former divinely inspired luxury for this curse-laden earth. His descendants having filled our earth, showed themselves much worse, with the exception of one here and there, and entered upon a certain brutal and insupportable mode of life.
19 They thought neither of city nor state, neither of arts nor sciences. They were ignorant even of the name of laws and of justice, of virtue and of philosophy. As nomads, they passed their lives in deserts, like wild and fierce beasts, destroying, by an excess of voluntary wickedness, the natural reason of man, and the seeds of thought and of culture implanted in the human soul. They gave themselves wholly over to all kinds of profanity, now seducing one another, now slaying one another, now eating human flesh, and now daring to wage war with the Gods and to undertake those battles of the giants celebrated by all; now planning to fortify earth against heaven, and in the madness of ungoverned pride to prepare an attack upon the very God of all.36 
20 On account of these things, when they conducted themselves thus, the all-seeing God sent down upon them floods and conflagrations as upon a wild forest spread over the whole earth. He cut them down with continuous famines and plagues, with wars, and with thunderbolts from heaven, as if to check some terrible and obstinate disease of souls with more severe punishments.
21 Then, when the excess of wickedness had overwhelmed nearly all the race, like a deep fit of drunkenness, beclouding and darkening the minds of men, the first-born and first-created wisdom of God, the pre-existent Word himself, induced by his exceeding love for man, appeared to his servants, now in the form of angels, and again to one and another of those ancients who enjoyed the favor of God, in his own person as the saving power of God, not otherwise, however, than in the shape of man, because it was impossible to appear in any other way.
22 And as by them the seeds of piety were sown among a multitude of men and the whole nation, descended from the Hebrews, devoted themselves persistently to the worship of God, he imparted to them through the prophet Moses, as to multitudes still corrupted by their ancient practices, images and symbols of a certain mystic Sabbath and of circumcision, and elements of other spiritual principles, but he did not grant them a complete knowledge of the mysteries themselves.
23 But when their law became celebrated, and, like a sweet odor, was diffused among all men, as a result of their influence the dispositions of the majority of the heathen were softened by the lawgivers and philosophers who arose on every side, and their wild and savage brutality was changed into mildness, so that they enjoyed deep peace, friendship, and social intercourse.37 Then, finally, at the time of the origin of the Roman Empire, there appeared again to all men and nations throughout the world, who had been, as it were, previously assisted, and were now fitted to receive the knowledge of the Father, that same teacher of virtue, the minister of the Father in all good things, the divine and heavenly Word of God, in a human body not at all differing in substance from our own. He did and suffered the things which had been prophesied. For it had been foretold that one who was at the same time man and God should come and dwell in the world, should perform wonderful works, and should show himself a teacher to all nations of the piety of the Father. The marvelous nature of his birth, and his new teaching, and his wonderful works had also been foretold; so likewise the manner of his death, his resurrection from the dead, and,finally, his divine ascension into heaven.
24 For instance, Daniel the prophet, under the influence of the divine Spirit, seeing his kingdom at the end of time,38 was inspired thus to describe the divine vision in language fitted to human comprehension: “For I beheld,” he says, “until thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was a flame of fire and his wheels burning fire. A river of fire flowed before him. Thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood beforehim.
25 He appointed judgment, and the books were opened.”39 And again, “I saw,” says he, “and behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and he hastened unto the Ancient of Days and was brought into his presence, and there was given him the dominion and the glory and the kingdom; and all peoples, tribes, and tongues serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom shall not be destroyed.”40 
26 It is clear that these words can refer to no one else than to our Saviour, the God Word who was in the beginning with God, and who was called the Son of man because of his final appearance in the flesh.
27 But since we have collected in separate books41 as the selections from the prophets which relate to our Saviour Jesus Christ, and have arranged in a more logical form those things which have been revealed concerning him, what has been said will suffice for the present.
Chapter III. The Name Jesus and Also the Name Christ Were Known from the Beginning,and Were Honored by the Inspired Prophets.
1 It is now the proper place to show that the very name Jesus and also the name Christ were honored by the ancient prophets beloved of God.42 
2 Moses was the first 2 to make known the name of Christ as a name especially august and glorious. When he delivered types and symbols of heavenly things, and mysterious images, in accordance with the oracle which said to him, “Look that thou make all things according to the pattern which was shown thee in the mount,”43 he consecrated a man high priest of God, in so far as that was possible, and him he called Christ.44 And thus to this dignity of the high priesthood, which in his opinion surpassed the most honorable position among men, he attached for the sake of honor and glory the name of Christ.
3 He knew so well that in Christ was something divine. And the same one foreseeing, under the influence of the divine Spirit, the name Jesus, dignified it also with a certain distinguished privilege. For the name of Jesus, which had never been uttered among men before the time of Moses, he applied first and only to the one who he knew would receive after his death, again as a type and symbol, the supreme command.
4His successor, therefore, who had not hitherto borne the name Jesus, but had been called by another name, Auses,45 which had been given him by his parents, he now called Jesus, bestowing the name upon him as a gift of honor, far greater than any kingly diadem. For Jesus himself, the son of Nave, bore a resemblance to our Saviour in the fact that he alone, after Moses and after the completion of the symbolical worship which had been transmitted by him, succeeded to the government of the true and pure religion.
5 Thus Moses bestowed the name of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, as a mark of the highest honor, upon the two men who in his time surpassed all the rest of the people in virtue and glory; namely, upon the high priest and upon his own successor in the government.
6 And the prophets that came after also clearly foretold Christ by name, predicting at the same time the plots which the Jewish people would form against him, and the calling of the nations through him. Jeremiah, for instance, speaks as follows: “The Spirit before our face, Christ the Lord, was taken in their destructions; of whom we said, under his shadow we shall live among the nations.”46 And David, in perplexity, says, “Why did the nations rage and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth set themselves in array, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ”;47 to which he adds, in the person of Christ himself, “The Lord said unto me, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.”48 
7 And not only those who were honored with the high priesthood, and who for the sake of the symbol were anointed with especially prepared oil, were adorned with the name of Christ among the Hebrews, but also the kings whom the prophets anointed under the influence of the divine Spirit, and thus constituted, as it were, typical Christs. For they also bore in their own persons types of the royal and sovereign power of the true and only Christ, the divine Word who ruleth over all.
8 And we have been told also that certain of the prophets themselves became, by the act of anointing, Christs in type, so that all these have reference to the true Christ, the divinely inspired and heavenly Word, who is the only high priest of all, and the only King of every creature, and the Father’s only supreme prophet of prophets.
9 And a proof of this is that no one of those who were of old symbolically anointed, whether priests, or kings, or prophets, possessed so great a power of inspired virtue as was exhibited by our Saviour and Lord Jesus, the true and only Christ.
10 None of them at least, however superior in dignity and honor they may have been for many generations among their own people, ever gave to their followers the name of Christians from their own typical name of Christ. Neither was divine honor ever rendered to any one of them by their subjects; nor after their death was the disposition of their followers such that they were ready to die for the one whom they honored. And never did so great a commotion arise among all the nations of the earth in respect to any one of that age; for the mere symbol could not act with such power among them as the truth itself which was exhibited by our Saviour.
11 He, although he received no symbols and types of high priesthood from any one, although he was not born of a race of priests, although he was not elevated to a kingdom by military guards, although he was not a prophet like those of old, although he obtained no honor nor pre-eminence among the Jews, nevertheless was adorned by the Father with all, if not with the symbols, yet with the truth itself.
12 And therefore, although he did not possess like honors with those whom we have mentioned, he is called Christ more than all of them. And as himself the true and only Christ of God, he has filled the whole earth with the truly august and sacred name of Christians, committing to his followers no longer types and images, but the uncovered virtues themselves, and a heavenly life in the very doctrines of truth.
13 And he was not anointed with oil prepared from material substances, but, as befits divinity, with the divine Spirit himself, by participation in the unbegotten deity of the Father. And this is taught also again by Isaiah, who exclaims, as if in the person of Christ himself, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; therefore hath he anointed me. He hath sent me to preach the Gospel to the poor, to proclaim deliverance to captives, and recovery of sight to the blind.”49 
14 And not only Isaiah, but also David addresses him, saying, “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of equity is the scepter of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness and hast hated iniquity. Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.”50 Here the Scripture calls him God in the first verse, in the second it honors him with a royal scepter.
15 Then a little farther on, after the divine and royal power, it represents him in the third place as having become Christ, being anointed not with oil made of material substances, but with the divine oil of gladness. It thus indicates his especial honor, far superior to and different from that of those who, as types, were of old anointed in a more material way.
16 And elsewhere the same writer speaks of him as follows: “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool”;51 and, “Out of the womb, before the morning star, have I begotten thee. The Lord hath sworn and he will not repent. Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedec.”52 
17 But this Melchizedec is introduced in the Holy Scriptures as a priest of the most high God,53 not consecrated by any anointing oil, especially prepared, and not even belonging by descent to the priesthood of the Jews. Wherefore after his order, but not after the order of the others, who received symbols and types, was our Saviour proclaimed, withan appeal to an oath, Christ and priest.
18 History, therefore, does not relate that he was anointed corporeally by the Jews, nor that he belonged to the lineage of priests, but that he came into existence from God himself before the morning star, that is before the organization of the world, and that he obtained an immortal and undecaying priesthood for eternal ages.
19 But it is a great and convincing proof of his incorporeal and divine unction that he alone of all those who have ever existed is even to the present day called Christ by all men throughout the world, and is confessed and witnessed to under this name, and is commemorated both by Greeks and Barbarians and even to this day is honored as a King by his followers throughout the world, and is admired as more than a prophet, and is glorified as the true and only high priest of God.54 And besides all this, as the pre-existent Word of God, called into being before all ages, he has received august honor from the Father, and is worshiped as God.
20 But most wonderful of all is the fact that we who have consecrated ourselves to him, honor him not only with our voices and with the sound of words, but also with complete elevation of soul, so that we choose to give testimony unto him rather than to preserve our own lives.
21 I have of necessity prefaced my history with these matters in order that no one, judging from the date of his incarnation, may think that our Saviour and Lord Jesus, the Christ, has but recently come into being.
Chapter IV. The Religion Proclaimed by Him to All Nations Was Neither New Nor Strange.
1 But that no one may suppose that his doctrine is new and strange, as if it were framed by a man of recent origin, differing in no respect from other men, let us now briefly consider this point also.
2 It is admitted that when in recent times the appearance of our Saviour Jesus Christ had become known to all men there immediately made its appearance a new nation; a nation confessedly not small, and not dwelling in some corner of the earth, but the most numerous and pious of all nations,55 indestructible and unconquerable, because it always receives assistance from God. This nation, thus suddenly appearing at the time appointed by the inscrutable counsel of God, is the one which has been honored by all with the name of Christ.
3 One of the prophets, when he saw beforehand with the eye of the Divine Spirit that which was to be, was so astonished at it that he cried out, “Who hath heard of such things, and who hath spoken thus? Hath the earth brought forth in one day, and hath a nation been born at once?”56 And the same prophet gives a hint also of the name by which the nation was to be called, when he says, “Those that serve me shall be called by a new name, which shall be blessed upon the earth.”57 
4 But although it is clear that we are new and that this new name of Christians has really but recently been known among all nations, nevertheless our life and our conduct, with our doctrines of religion, have not been lately invented by us, but from the first creation of man, so to speak, have been established by the natural understanding of divinely favored men of old. That this is so we shall show in the following way.
5 That the Hebrew nation is not new, but is universally honored on account of its antiquity, is known to all. The books and writings of this people contain accounts of ancient men, rare indeed and few in number, but nevertheless distinguished for piety and righteousness and every other virtue. Of these, some excellent men lived before the flood, others of the sons and descendants of Noah lived after it, among them Abraham, whom the Hebrews celebrate as their own founder and forefather.
6 If any one should assert that all those who have enjoyed the testimony of righteousness, from Abraham himself back to the first man, were Christians in fact if not in name, he would not go beyond the truth.58 
7 For that which the name indicates, that the Christian man, through the knowledge and the teaching of Christ, is distinguished for temperance and righteousness, for patience in life and manly virtue, and for a profession of piety toward the one and only God over all—all that was zealously practiced by them not less than by us.
8 They did not care about circumcision of the body, neither do we. They did not care about observing Sabbaths, nor do we. They did not avoid certain kinds of food, neither did they regard the other distinctions which Moses first delivered to their posterity to be observed as symbols; nor do Christians of the present day do such things. But they also clearly knew the very Christ of God; for it has already been shown that he appeared unto Abraham, that he imparted revelations to Isaac, that he talked with Jacob, that he held converse with Moses and with the prophets that came after.
9 Hence you will find those divinely favored men honored with the name of Christ, according to the passage which says of them, “Touch not my Christs, and do my prophets no harm.”59 
10 So that it is clearly necessary to consider that religion, which has lately been preached to all nations through the teaching of Christ, the first and most ancient of all religions, and the one discovered by those divinely favored men in the age of Abraham.
11 If it is said that Abraham, a long time afterward, was given the command of circumcision, we reply that nevertheless before this it was declared that he had received the testimony of righteousness through faith; as the divine word says, “Abraham believed in God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.”60 
12 And indeed unto Abraham, who was thus before his circumcision a justified man, there was given by God, who revealed himself unto him (but this was Christ himself, the word of God), a prophecy in regard to those who in coming ages should be justified in the same way as he. The prophecy was in the following words: “And inthee shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed.”61 And again, “He shall become a nation great and numerous; and in him shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.”62 
13 It is permissible to understand this as fulfilled in us. For he, having renounced the superstition of his fathers, and the former error of his life, and having confessed the one God over all, and having worshiped him with deeds of virtue, and not with the service of the law which was afterward given by Moses, was justified by faith in Christ, the Word of God, who appeared unto him. To him, then, who was a man of this character, it was said that all the tribes and all the nations of the earth should be blessed in him.
14 But that very religion of Abraham has reappeared at the present time, practiced in deeds, more efficacious than words, by Christians alone throughout the world.
15 What then should prevent the confession that we who are of Christ practice one and the same mode of life and have one and the same religion as those divinely favored men of old? Whence it is evident that the perfect religion committed to us by the teaching of Christ is not new and strange, but, if the truth must be spoken, it is the first and the true religion. This may suffice for this subject.
Chapter V. The Time of His Appearance Among Men.
1 And now, after this necessary introduction to our proposed history of the Church, we can enter, so to speak, upon our journey, beginning with the appearance of our Saviour in the flesh. And we invoke God, the Father of the Word, and him, of whom we have been speaking, Jesus Christ himself our Saviour and Lord, the heavenly Word of God, as our aid and fellow-laborer in the narration of the truth.
2 It was in the forty-second year of the reign of Augustus63 and the twenty-eighth after the subjugation of Egypt and the death of Antony and Cleopatra, with whom the dynasty of the Ptolemies in Egypt came to an end, that our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea, according to the prophecies which had been uttered concerning him.64 His birth took place during the first census, while Cyrenius was governor of Syria.65 
3 Flavius Josephus, the most celebrated of Hebrew historians, also mentions this census,66 which was taken during Cyrenius’ term of office. In the same connection he gives an account of the uprising of the Galileans, which took place at that time, of which also Luke, among our writers, has made mention in the Acts, in the following words: “After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the taxing, and drew away a multitude67 after him: he also perished; and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed.”68 
4 The above-mentioned author, in the eighteenth book of his Antiquities, in agreement with these words, adds the following, which we quote exactly: “Cyrenius, a member of the senate, one who had held other offices and had l passed through them all to the consulship, a man also of great dignity in other respects, came to Syria with a small retinue, being sent by Caesar to be a judge of the nation and to make an assessment of their property.”69 
5 And after a little70 he says: “But Judas,71 a Gaulonite, from a city called Gamala, taking with him Sadduchus,72 a Pharisee, urged the people to revolt, both of them saying that the taxation meant nothing else than downright slavery, and exhorting the nation to defend their liberty.”
6 And in the second book of his History of the Jewish War, he writes as follows concerning the same man: “At this time a certain Galilean, whose name was Judas, persuaded his countrymen to revolt, declaring that they were cowards if they submitted to pay tribute to the Romans, and if they endured, besides God, masters who were mortal.”73 These things are recorded by Josephus.
Chapter VI. About the Time of Christ, in Accordance with Prophecy, the Rulers Who Had Governed the Fewish Nation in Regular Succession from the Days of Antiquity Came to an End, and Herod, the First Foreigner, Became King.
1 When Herod,74 the first ruler of foreign blood, became King, the prophecy of Moses received its fulfillment, according to which there should “not be wanting a prince of Judah, nor a ruler from his loins, until he come for whom it is reserved.”75 The latter, he also shows, was to be the expectation of the nations.76 
2 This prediction remained unfulfilled so long as it was permitted them to live under rulers from their own nation, that is, from the time of Moses to the reign of Augustus. Under the latter, Herod, the first foreigner, was given the Kingdom of the Jews by the Romans. As Josephus relates,77 he was an Idumean78 on his father’s side and an Arabian on his mother’s. But Africanus,79 who was also no common writer, says that they who were more accurately informed about him report that he was a son of Antipater, and that the latter was the son of a certain Herod of Ascalon,80 one of the so-called servants81 of the temple of Apollo.
3 This Antipater, having been taken a prisoner while a boy by Idumean robbers, lived with them, because his father, being a poor man, was unable to pay a ransom for him. Growing up in their practices he was afterward befriended by Hyrcanus,82 the high priest of the Jews. A son of his was that Herod who lived in the, times of our Saviour.83 
4 When the Kingdom of the Jews had devolved upon such a man the expectation of the nations was, according to prophecy, already at the door. For with him their princes and governors, who had ruled in regular succession from the time of Moses came to an end.
5 Before their captivity and their transportation to Babylon they were ruled by Saul first and then by David, and before the kings leaders governed them who were called Judges, and who came after Moses and his successor Jesus.
6 After their return from Babylon they continued to have without interruption an aristocratic form of government, with an oligarchy. For the priests had the direction of affairs until Pompey, the Roman general, took Jerusalem by force, and defiled the holy places by entering the very innermost sanctuary of the temple.84 Aristobulus,85 who, by the right of ancient succession, had been up to that time both king and high priest, he sent with his children in chains to Rome; and gave to Hyrcanus, brother of Aristobulus, the high priesthood, while the whole nation of the Jews was made tributary to the Romans from that time.86 
7 But Hyrcanus, who was the last of the regular line of high priests, was, very soon afterward taken prisoner by the Parthians,87 and Herod, the first foreigner, as I have already said, was made King of the Jewish nation by the Roman senate and by Augustus.
8 Under him Christ appeared in bodily shape, and the expected Salvation of the nations and their calling followed in accordance with prophecy.88 From this time the princes and rulers of Judah, I mean of the Jewish nation, came to an end, and as a natural consequence the order of the high priesthood, which from ancient times had proceeded regularly in closest succession from generation to generation, was immediately thrown into confusion,89 
9 Of these things Josephus is also a witness,90 who shows that when Herod was made King by the Romans he no longer appointed the high priests from the ancient line, but gave the honor to certain obscure persons. A course similar to that of Herod in the appointment of the priests was pursued by his son Archelaus,91 and after him by the Romans, who took the government into their own hands.92 
10 The same writer shows93 that Herod was the first that locked up the sacred garment of the high priest under his own seal and refused to permit the high priests to keep it for themselves. The same course was followed by Archelaus after him, and after Archelaus by the Romans.
11 These things have been recorded by us in order to show that another prophecy has been fulfilled in the appearance of our Saviour Jesus Christ. For the Scripture, in the book of Daniel,94 having expressly mentioned a certain number of weeks until the coming of Christ, of which we have treated in other books,95 most clearly prophesies, that after the completion of those weeks the unction among the Jews should totally perish. And this, it has been clearly shown, was fulfilled at the time of the birth of our Saviour Jesus Christ. This has been necessarily premised by us as a proof of the correctness of the time.
Chapter VII. The Alleged Discrepancy in the Gospels in Regard to the Genealogy of Christ.
1 Matthew and Luke in their gospels have given us the genealogy of Christ differently, and many suppose that they are at variance with one another. Since as a consequence every believer, in ignorance of the truth, has been zealous to invent some explanation which shall harmonize the two passages, permit us to subjoin the account of the matter which has come down to us,96 and which is given by Africanus, who was mentioned by us just above, in his epistle to Aristides,97 where he discusses the harmony of the gospel genealogies. After refuting the opinions of others as forced and deceptive, he give the account which he had received from tradition98 in these words:
2 “For whereas the names of the generations were reckoned in Israel either according to nature or according to law;—according to nature by the succession of legitimate offspring, and according to law whenever another raised up a child to the name of a brother dying childless;99 for because a clear hope of resurrection was not yet given they had a representation of the future promise by a kind of mortal resurrection, in order that the name of the one deceased might be perpetuated;—
3 whereas then some of those who are inserted in this genealogical table succeeded by natural descent, the son to the father, while others, though born of one father, were ascribed by name to another, mention was made of both of those who were progenitors in fact and of those who were so only in name.
4 Thus neither of the gospels is in error, for one reckons by nature, the other by law. For the line of descent from Solomon and that from Nathan100 were so involved, the one with the other, by the raising up of children to the childless and by second marriages, that the same persons are justly considered to belong at one time to one, at another time to another; that is, at one time to the reputed fathers, at another to the actual fathers. So that both these accounts are strictly true and come down to Joseph with considerable intricacy indeed, yet quite accurately.
5 But in order that what I have said may be made clear I shall explain the interchange of the generations. If we reckon the generations from David through Solomon, the third from the end is found to be Matthan, who begat Jacob the father of Joseph. But if, with Luke, we reckon them from Nathan the son of David, in like manner the third from the end is Melchi,101 whose son Eli was the father of Joseph. For Joseph was the son of Eli,the son of Melchi.
6 Joseph therefore being the object proposed to us, it must be shown how it is that each is recorded to be his father, both Jacob, who derived his descent from Solomon, and Eli, who derived his from Nathan; first how it is that these two, Jacob and Eli, were brothers, and then how it is that their fathers, Matthan and Melchi, although of different families, are declared to be grandfathers of Joseph.
7 Matthan and Melchi having married in succession the same woman, begat children who were uterine brothers, for the law did not prohibit a widow, whether such by divorce or by the death of her husband, from marrying another.
8 By Estha102 then (for this was the woman’s name according to tradition) Matthan, a descendant of Solomon, first begat Jacob. And when Matthan was dead, Melchi, who traced his descent back to Nathan, being of the same tribe103 but of another family,104 married her as before said, and begat a son Eli.
9 Thus we shall find the two, Jacob and Eli, although belonging to different families, yet brethren by the same mother. Of these the one, Jacob, when his brother Eli had died childless, took the latter’s wife and begat by her a son105 Joseph, his own son by nature106 and in accordance with reason. Wherefore also it is written: ‘Jacob begat Joseph.’107 But according to law108 he was the son of Eli, for Jacob, being the brother of the latter, raised up seed to him.
10 Hence the genealogy traced through him will not be rendered void, which the evangelist Matthew in his enumeration gives thus: ‘Jacob begat Joseph.’ But Luke, on the other hand, says: ‘Who was the son, as was supposed’109 (for this he also adds), ‘of Joseph, the son of Eli, the son of Melchi’; for he could not more clearly express the generation according to law. And the expression ‘he begat’ he has omitted in his genealogical table up to the end, tracing the genealogy back to Adam the son of God. This interpretation is neither incapable of proof nor is it an idle conjecture.110 
11 For the relatives of our Lord according to the flesh, whether with the desire of boasting or simply wishing to state the fact, in either case truly, have banded down the following account:111 Some Idumean robbers,112 having attacked Ascalon, a city of Palestine, carried away from a temple of Apollo which stood near the walls, in addition to other booty, Antipater, son of a certain temple slave named Herod. And since the priest113 was not able to pay the ransom for his son, Antipater was brought up in the customs of the Idumeans, and afterward was befriended by Hyrcanus, the high priest of the Jews.
12 And having, been sent by Hyrcanus on an embassy to Pompey, and having restored to him the kingdom which had been invaded by his brother Aristobulus, he had the good fortune to be named procurator of Palestine.114 But Antipater having been slain by those who were envious of his great good fortune115 was succeeded by his son Herod, who was afterward, by a decree of the senate, made King of the Jews116 under Antony and Augustus. His sons were Herod and the other tetrarchs.117 These accounts agree also with those of the Greeks.118 
13 But as there had been kept in the archives119 up to that time the genealogies of the Hebrews as well as of those who traced their lineage back to proselytes,120 such as Achior121 the Ammonite and Ruth the Moabitess, and to those who were mingled with the Israelites and came out of Egypt with them, Herod, inasmuch as the lineage of the Israelites contributed nothing to his advantage, and since he was goaded with the consciousness of his own ignoble extraction, burned all the genealogical records,122 thinking that he might appear of noble origin if no one else were able, from the public registers, to trace back his lineage to the patriarchs or proselytes and to those mingled with them, who were called Georae.123 
14 A few of the careful, however, having obtained private records of their own, either by remembering the names or by getting them in some other way from the registers, pride themselves on preserving the memory of their noble extraction. Among these are those already mentioned, called Desposyni,124 on account of their connection with the family of the Saviour. Coming from Nazara and Cochaba,125 villages of Judea,126 into other parts of the world, they drew the aforesaid genealogy from memory127 and from the book of daily records128 as faithfully aspossible.
15 Whether then the case stand thus or not no one could find a clearer explanation, according to my own opinion and that of every candid person. And let this suffice us, for, although we can urge no testimony in its support,129 we have nothing. better or truer to offer. In any case the Gospel states the truth.” And at the end of the same epistle he adds these words: “Matthan, who was descended from Solomon, begat Jacob. And when Matthan was dead, Melchi, who was descended from Nathan begat Eli by the same woman. Eli and Jacob were thus uterine brothers. Eli having died childless, Jacob raised up seed to him, begetting Joseph, his own son by nature, but by law the son of Eli. Thus Joseph was the son of both.”
17 Thus far Africanus. And the lineage of Joseph being thus traced, Mary also is virtually shown to be of the same tribe with him, since, according to the law of Moses, inter-marriages between different tribes were not permitted.130 For the command is to marry one of the same family131 and lineage,132 so that the inheritance may not pass from tribe to tribe. This may suffice here.
Chapter VIII. The Cruelty of Herod Toward the Infants, and the Manner of His Death.
1 When Christ was born, according to the prophecies, in Bethlehem of Judea, at the time indicated, Herod was not a little disturbed by the enquiry of the magi who came from the east, asking where he who was born King of the Jews was to be found,—for they had seen his star, and this was their reason for taking so long a journey; for they earnestly desired to worship the infant as God,133 — for he imagined that his kingdom might be endangered; and he enquired therefore of the doctors of the law, who belonged to the Jewish nation, where they expected Christ to be born. When he learned that the prophecy of Micah134 announced that Bethlehem was to be his birthplace he commanded, in a single edict, all the male infants in Bethlehem, and all its borders, that were two years of age or less, according to the time which he had accurately ascertained from the magi, to be slain, supposing that Jesus, as was indeed likely, would share the same fate as the others of his own age.
2 But the child anticipated the snare, being carried into Egypt by his parents, who had learned from an angel that appeared unto them what was about to happen, These things are recorded by the Holy Scriptures in the Gospel.135 
3 It is worth while, in addition to this, to observe the reward which Herod received for his daring crime against Christ and those of the same age. For immediately, without the least delay, the divine vengeance overtook him while he was still alive, and gave him a foretaste of what he was to receive after death.
4 It is not possible to relate here how he tarnished the supposed felicity of his reign by successive calamities in his family, by the murder of wife and children, and others of his nearest relatives and dearest friends.136 The account, which casts every other tragic drama into the shade, is detailed at length in the histories of Josephus.137 5How, immediately after his crime against our Saviour and the other infants, the punishment sent by God drove him on to his death, we can best learn from the words of that historian who, in the seventeenth book of his Antiquities of the Jews, writes as follows concerning his end:138 “
6 But the disease of Herod grew more severe, God inflicting punishment for his crimes. For a slow fire burned in him which was not so apparent to those who touched him, but augmented his internal distress; for he had a terrible desire for food which it was not possible to resist. He was affected also with ulceration of the intestines, and with especially severe pains in the colon, while a watery and transparent humor settled about his feet.
7 He suffered also from a similar trouble in his abdomen. Nay more, his privy member was putrefied and produced worms. He found also excessive difficulty in breathing, and it was particularly disagreeable because of the offensiveness of the odor and the rapidity of respiration.
8 He had convulsions also in every limb, which gave him uncontrollable strength. It was said, indeed, by those who possessed the power of divination and wisdom to explain such events, that God had inflicted this punishment upon the King on account of his great impiety.”
9 The writer mentioned above recounts these things in the work referred to. And in the second book of his History he gives a similar account of the same Herod, which runs as follows:139 “The disease then seized upon his whole body and distracted it by various torments. For he had a slow fever, and the itching of the skin of his whole body was insupportable. He suffered also from continuous pains in his colon, and there were swellings on his feet like those of a person suffering from dropsy, while his abdomen was inflamed and his privy member so putrefied as to produce worms. Besides this he could breathe only in an upright posture, and then only with difficulty, and he had convulsions in all his limbs, so that the diviners said that his diseases were a punishment.140 
10 But he, although wrestling with such sufferings, nevertheless clung to life and hoped for safety, and devised methods of cure. For instance, crossing over Jordan he used the warm baths at Callirhoë,141 which flow into the Lake Asphaltites,142 but are themselves sweet enough to drink.
11 His physicians here thought that they could warm his whole body again by means of heated oil. But when they had let him down into a tub filled with oil, his eyes became weak and turned up like the eyes of a dead person. But when his attendants raised an outcry, he recovered at the noise; but finally, despairing of a cure, he commanded about fifty drachms to be distributed among the soldiers, and great sums to be given to his generals 12 and friends.
12 Then returning he came to Jericho, where, being seized with melancholy, he planned to commit an impious deed, as if challenging death itself. For, collecting from every town the most illustrious men of all Judea, he commanded that they be shut up in the so-called hippodrome.
13 And having summoned Salome,143 his sister, and her husband, Alexander,144 he said: ‘I know that the Jews will rejoice at my death. But I may be lamented by others and have a splendid funeral if you are willing to perform my commands. When I shall expire surround these men, who are now under guard, as quickly as possible with soldiers, and slay them, in order that all Judea and every house may weep for me even against their will.’“145 
14 And after a little Josephus says, “And again he was so tortured by want of food and by a convulsive cough that, overcome by his pains,he planned to anticipate his fate. Taking anapple he asked also for a knife, for he was accustomed to cut apples and eat them. Then looking round to see that there was no one to hinder, he raised his right hand as if to stab himself.”146 
15 In addition to these things the same writer records that he slew another of his own sons147 before his death, the third one slain by his command, and that immediately afterward he breathed his last, not without excessive pain.
16 Such was the end of Herod, who suffered a just punishment for his slaughter of the children of Bethlehem,148 which was the result of his plots against our Saviour.
17 After this an angel appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and commanded him to go to Judea with the child and its mother, revealing to him that those who had sought the life of the child were dead.149 To this the evangelist adds, “But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in the room of his father Herod he was afraid to go thither; notwithstanding being warned of God in a dream he turned aside into the parts of Galilee.”150 
Chapter IX. The Times of Pilate.
1 The historian already mentioned agrees with the evangelist in regard to the fact that Archelaus151 succeeded to the government after Herod. He records the manner in which he received the kingdom of the Jews by the will of his father Herod and by the decree of Caesar Augustus, and how, after he had reigned ten years, he lost his kingdom, and his brothers Philip152 and Herod the younger,153 with Lysanias,154 still ruled their own tetrarchies. The same writer, in the eighteenth book of his Antiquities,155 says that about the twelfth year of the reign of Tiberius,156 who had succeeded to the empire after Augustus had ruled fifty-seven years,157 Pontius Pilate was entrusted with the government of Judea, and that he remained there ten full years, almost until the death of Tiberius.
2 Accordingly the forgery of those who have recently given currency to acts against our Saviour158 is clearly proved. For the very date given in them159 shows the falsehood of their fabricators.
3 For the things which they have dared to say concerning the passion of the Saviour are put into the fourth consulship of Tiberius, which occurred in the seventh year of his reign; at which time it is plain that Pilate was not yet ruling in Judea, if the testimony of Josephus is to be believed, who clearly shows in the above-mentioned work160 that Pilate was made procurator of Judea by Tiberius in the twelfth year of his reign.
Chapter X. The High Priests of the Jews Under Whom Christ Taught.
1 It was in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius,161 according to the evangelist, and in the fourth year of the governorship of Pontius Pilate,162 while Herod and Lysanias and Philip were ruling the rest of Judea,163 that our Saviour and Lord, Jesus the Christ of God, being about thirty years of age,164 came to John for baptism and began the promulgation of the Gospel.
2 The Divine Scripture says, moreover, that he passed the entire time of his ministry under the high priests Annas and Caiaphas,165 showing that in the time which belonged to the priesthood of those two men the whole period of his teaching was completed. Since he began his work during the high priesthood of Annas and taught until Caiaphas held the office, the entire time does not comprise quite four years.
3 For the rites of the law having been already abolished since that time, the customary usages in connection with the worship of God, according to which the high priest acquired his office by hereditary descent and held it for life, were also annulled and there were appointed to the high priesthood by the Roman governors now one and now another person who continued in office not more than one year.166 
4 Josephus relates that there were four high priests in succession from Annas to Caiaphas. Thus in the same book of the Antiquities167 he writes as follows: “Valerius Graters168 having put an end to the priesthood of Ananus169 appoints Ishmael,170 the son of Fabi, high priest. And having removed him after a little he appoints Eleazer,171 the son of Ananus the high priest, to the same office. And having removed him also at the end of a year he gives the high priesthood to Simon,172 the son of Camithus. But he likewise held the honor no more than a year, when Josephus, called also Caiaphas,173 succeeded him.” Accordingly the whole time of our Saviour’s ministry is shown to have been not quite four full years, four high priests, from Annas to the accession of Caiaphas, having held office a year each. The Gospel therefore has rightly indicated Caiaphas as the high priest under whom the Saviour suffered. From which also we can see that the time of our Saviour’s ministry does not disagree with the foregoing investigation.
5 Our Saviour and Lord, not long after the 5 beginning of his ministry, called the twelve apostles,174 and these alone of all his disciples he named apostles, as an especial honor. And again he appointed seventy others whom he sent out two by two before his face into every place and city whither he himself was about to come.175 
Chapter XI. Testimonies in Regard to John the Baptist and Christ.
1 Not long after this John the Baptist was beheaded by the younger Herod,176 as is stated in the Gospels.177 Josephus also records the same fact,178 making mention of Herodias179 by name, and stating that, although she was the wife of his brother, Herod made her his own wife after divorcing his former lawful wife, who was the daughter of Aretas,180 king of Petra, and separating Herodias from her husband while he was still alive.
2 It was on her account also that he slew John, and waged war with Aretas, because of the disgrace inflicted on the daughter of the latter. Josephus relates that in this war, when they came to battle, Herod’s entire army was destroyed,181 and that he suffered this calamity on account of his crime against John.
3 The same Josephus confesses in this account that John the Baptist was an exceedingly righteous man, and thus agrees with the things written of him in the Gospels. He records also that Herod lost his kingdom on account of the same Herodias, and that he was driven into banishment with her, and condemned to live at Vienne in Gaul.182 
4 He relates these things in the eighteenth book of the Antiquities, where he writes of John in the following words:183 “It seemed to some of the Jews that the army of Herod was destroyed by God, who most justly avenged John called the Baptist.
5 For Herod slew him, a good man and one who exhorted the Jews to come and receive baptism, practicing virtue and exercising righteousness toward each other and toward God; for baptism would appear acceptable unto Him when they employed it, not for the remission of certain sins, but for the purification of the body, as the soul had been already purified in righteousness.
6 And when others gathered about him (for they found much pleasure in listening to his words), Herod feared that his great influence might lead to some sedition, for they appeared ready to do whatever he might advise. He therefore considered it much better, before any new thing should be done under John’s influence, to anticipate it by slaying him, than to repent after revolution had come, and when he found himself in the midst of difficulties.184 On account of Herod’s suspicion John was sent in bonds to the above-mentioned citadel of Mach’ra,185 and there slain.”
7 After relating these things concerning John, he makes mention of our Saviour in the same work, in the following words:186 “And there lived at that time Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it be proper to call him a man. For he was a doer of wonderful works, and a teacher of such men as receive the truth in gladness. And he attached to himself many of the Jews, and many also of the Greeks. He was the Christ.
8 When Pilate, on the accusation of our principal men, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him in the beginning did not cease loving him. For he appeared unto them again alive on the third day, the divine prophets having told these and countless other wonderful things concerning him. Moreover, the race of Christians, named after him, continues down to the present day.”
9 Since an historian, who is one of the Hebrews themselves, has recorded in his work these things concerning John the Baptist and our Saviour, what excuse is there left for not convicting them of being destitute of all shame, who have forged the acts against them?187 But let this suffice here.
Chapter XII. The Disciples of Our Saviour.
1 The names of the apostles of our Saviour are known to every one from the Gospels.188 But there exists no catalogue of the seventy disciples.189 Barnabas, indeed, is said to have been one of them, of whom the Acts of the apostles makes mention in various places,190 and especially Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians.191 
2 They say that Sosthenes also, who wrote tothe Corinthians with Paul, was one of them.192 This is the account of Clement193 in the fifthbook of his Hypotyposes, in which he also says that Cephas was one of the seventy disciples,194 a man who bore the same name as the apostle Peter, and the one concerning whom Paul says, “When Cephas came to Antioch I withstood him to his face.”195 
3 Matthias,196 also, who was numbered with the apostles in the place of Judas, and the one who was honored by being made a candidate with him,197 are like-wise said to have been deemed worthy of the same calling with the seventy. They say that Thaddeus198 also was one of them, concerning whom I shall presently relate an account which has come down to us.199 And upon examination you will find that our Saviour had more than seventy disciples, according to the testimony of Paul, who says that after his resurrection from the dead he appeared first to Cephas, then to the twelve, and after them to above five hundred brethren at once, of whom some had fallen asleep;200 but the majority were still living 4 at the time he wrote.
4 Afterwards he says he appeared unto James, who was one of the so-called brethren of the Saviour.201 But, since in addition to these, there were many others who were called apostles, in imitation of the Twelve, as was Paul himself, he adds: “Afterward he appeared to all the apostles.”202 So much in regard to these persons. But the story concerning Thaddeus is as follows. 
Chapter XIII. Narrative Concerning the Prince of the Edessences.
1 The divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ being noised abroad among all men on account of his wonder-working power, he attracted countless numbers from foreign countries lying far away from Judea, who had the opening of being cured of their diseases and of all kinds of sufferings.
2 For instance the King Abgarus,203 who ruled with great glory the nations beyond the Euphrates, being afflicted with a terrible disease which it was beyond the power of human skill to cure, when he heard of the name of Jesus, and of his miracles, which were attested by all with one accord sent a message to him by a courier and begged him to heal his disease.
3 But he did not at that time comply with his request; yet he deemed him worthy of a personal letter in which he said that he would send one of his disciples to cure his disease, and at the same time promised salvation to himself and all his house.
4 Not long afterward hispromise was fulfilled. For after his resurrection from the dead and his ascent into heaven, Thomas,204 one of the twelve apostles, under divine impulse sent Thaddeus, who was also numbered among the seventy disciples of Christ,205 to Edessa,206 as a preacher and evangelist of the teaching of Christ.
5 And all that our Saviour had promised received through him its fulfillment. You have written evidence of these things taken from the archives of Edessa,207 which was at that time a royal city. For in the public registers there, which contain accounts of ancient times and the acts of Abgarus, these things have been found preserved down to the present time. But there is no better way than to hear the epistles themselves which we have taken from the archives and have literally translated from the Syriac language208 in the following manner.
Copy of an epistle written by Abgarus the ruler to Jesus, tend sent to him at Jerusalem by Ananias209 the swift courier.
6 “Abgarus, ruler Of Edessa, to Jesus the 6 excellent Saviour who has appeared in the country of Jerusalem, greeting. I have heard the reports of thee and of thy cures as performed by thee without medicines or herbs. For it is said that thou makest the blind to see and the lame to walk, that thou cleansest lepers and castest out impure spirits and demons, and that thou healest those afflicted with lingering disease, and raisest the dead.
7 And having heard all these things concerning thee, I have concluded that one of two things must be true: either thou art God, and having come down from heaven thou doest these things, or else thou, who doest these things, art the Son of God.210 
8 I have therefore written to thee to ask thee that thou wouldest take the trouble to come to me and heal the disease which I have. For I have heard that the Jews are murmuring against thee and are plotting to injure thee. But I have a very small yet noble city which is great enough for us both.” 
The answer of Jesus to the ruler Abgarus by the courier Ananias.
9 “Blessed art thou who hast believed in me without having seen me.211 For it is written concerning me, that they who have seen me will not believe in me, and that they who have not seen me will believe and be saved.212 But in regard to what thou hast written me, that I should come to thee, it is necessary for me to fulfill all things here for which I have been sent, and after I have fulfilled them thus to be taken up again to him that sent me. But after I have been taken up I will send to thee one of my disciples, that he may heal thy disease and give life to thee and thine.”
10 To these epistles there was added the following account in the Syriac language. “After the ascension of Jesus, Judas,213 who was also called Thomas, sent to him Thaddeus, an apostle,214 one of the Seventy. When he was come he lodged with Tobias,215 the son of Tobias. When the report of him got abroad, it was told Abgarus that an apostle of Jesus was come, as he had written him.
11 Thaddeus began then in the power of God to heal every disease and infirmity, insomuch that all wondered. And when Abgarus heard of the great and wonderful things which he did and of the cures which he performed, he began to suspect that he was the one of whom Jesus had written him, saying, ‘After I have been taken up I will send to thee one of my disciples who will heal thee.’
12 Therefore, summoning Tobias, with whom Thaddeus lodged, he said, I have heard that a certain man of power has come and is lodging in thy house. Bring him to me. And Tobias coming to Thaddeus said to him, The ruler Abgarus summoned me and told me to bring thee to him that thou mightest heal him. And Thaddeus said, I will go, for I have been sent to him with power.
13 Tobias therefore arose early on the following day, and taking Thaddeus came to Abgarus. And when he came, the nobles were present and stood about Abgarus. And immediately upon his entrance a great vision appeared to Abgarus in the countenance of the apostle Thaddeus. When Abgarus saw it he prostrated himself before Thaddeus, while all those who stood about were astonished; for they did not see the vision, which appeared to Abgarus alone.
14 He then asked Thaddeus if he were in truth a disciple of Jesus the Son of God, who had said to him, ‘I will send thee one of my disciples, who shall heal thee and give thee life.’ And Thaddeus said, Because thou hast mightily believed in him that sent me, therefore have I been sent unto thee. And still further, if thou believest in him, the petitions of thy heart shall be granted thee as thou believest.
15 And Abgarus said to him, So much have I believed in him that I wished to take an army and destroy those Jews who crucified him, had I not been deterred from it by reason of the dominion of the Romans. And Thaddeus said, Our Lord has fulfilled the will of his Father, and having fulfilled it has been taken up to his Father. And Abgarus said to him, I too have believed in him and in his Father.
16 And Thaddeus said to him, Therefore I place my hand upon thee in his name. And when he had done it, immediately Abgarus was cured of the disease and of the suffering which he had.
17 And Abgarus marvelled, that as he had heard concerning Jesus, so he had received in very deed through his disciple Thaddeus, who healed him without medicines and herbs, and not only him, but also Abdus216 the son of Abdus, who was afflicted with the gout; for he too came to him and fell at his feet, and having received a benediction by the imposition of his hands, he was healed. The same Thaddeus cured also many other inhabitants of the city, and did wonders and marvelous works, and preached 
18 the word of God. And afterward Abgarus said, Thou, O Thaddeus, doest these things with the power of God, and we marvel. But, in addition to these things, I pray thee to inform me in regard to the coming of Jesus, how he was born; and in regard to his power, by what power he performed those deeds of which I have heard.
19 And Thaddeus said, Now indeed will I keep silence, since I have been sent to proclaim the word publicly. But tomorrow assemble for me all thy citizens, and I will preach in their presence and sow among them the word of God, concerning the coming of Jesus, how he was born; and concerning his mission, for what purpose he was sent by the Father; and concerning the power of his works, and the mysteries which he proclaimed in the world, and by what power he did these things; and concerning his new preaching, and his abasement and humiliation, and how he humbled himself, and died and debased his divinity and was crucified, and descended into Hades,217 and burst the bars which from eternity had not been broken,218 and raised the dead; for he descended alone, but rose with many, and thus ascended to his Father.219 
20 Abgarus 20 therefore commanded the citizens to assemble early in the morning to hear the preaching of Thaddeus, and afterward he ordered gold and silver to be given him. But he refused to take it, saying, If we have forsaken that which was our own, how shall we take that which is another’s? These things were done in the three hundred andfortieth year.”220 
I have inserted them here in their proper place, translated from the Syriac221 literally, and I hope to good purpose.
Book II.
Introduction.
1 We have discussed in the preceding book those subjects in ecclesiastical history which it was necessary to treat by way of introduction, and have accompanied them with brief proofs. Such were the divinity of the saving Word, and the antiquity of the doctrines which we teach, as well as of that evangelical life which is led by Christians, together with the events which have taken place in connection with Christ’s recent appearance, and in connection with his passion and with the choice of the apostles.
2 In the present book let us examine the events which took place after his ascension, confirming some of them from the divine Scriptures, and others from such writings as we shall refer to from time to time.
Chapter I. The Course Pursued by the Apostles After the Ascension of Christ.
1 First, then, in the place of Judas, the betrayer, Matthias,1 who, as has been shown2 was also one of the Seventy, was chosen to the apostolate. And there were appointed to the diaconate,3 for the service of the congregation, by prayer and the laying on of the hands of the apostles, approved men, seven in number, of whom Stephen was one.4 He first, after the Lord, was stoned to death at the time of his ordination by the slayers of the Lord, as if he had been promoted for this very purpose.5 And thus he was the first to receive the crown, corresponding to his name,6 which belongs to the martyrs of Christ, who are worthy of the meed of victory.
2 Then James, whom the ancients surnamed the Just7 on account of the excellence of his virtue, is recorded to have been the first to be made bishop of the church of Jerusalem. This James was called the brother of the Lord8 because he was known as a son of Joseph,9 and Joseph was supposed to be the father of Christ, because the Virgin, being betrothed to him, “was found with child by the Holy Ghost before they came together,”10 as the account of the holy Gospels shows.
3 But Clement in the sixth book of his Hypotyposes11 writes thus: “For they say that Peter and James and John after the ascension of our Saviour, as if also preferred by our Lord, strove not after honor, but chose James the Just bishop of Jerusalem.”12 
4 But the same writer, in the seventh book of the same work, relates also the following things concerning him: “The Lord after his resurrection imparted knowledge to James the Just and to John and Peter, and they imparted it to the rest of the apostles, and the rest of the apostles to the seventy, of whom Barnabas was one.13 But there were two Jameses:14 one called the Just, who was thrown from the pinnacle of the temple and was beaten to death with a club by a fuller,15 and another who was beheaded.”16 Paul also makes mention of the same James the Just, where he writes, “Other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s brother.”17 
5 At that time also the promise of our Saviour to the king of the Osrhoenians was fulfilled. For Thomas, under a divine impulse, sent Thaddeus to Edessa as a preacher and evangelist of the religion of Christ, as we have shown a little above from the document found there?18 
7 When he came to that place he healed Abgarus by the word of Christ; and after bringing all the people there into the right attitude of mind by means of his works, and leading them to adore the power of Christ, he made them disciples of the Saviour’s teaching. And from that time down to the present the whole city of the Edessenes has been devoted to the name of Christ,19 offering no common proof of the beneficence of our Saviour toward them also.
8 These things have been drawn from ancient accounts; but let us now turn again to the divine Scripture. When the first and greatest persecution was instigated by the Jews against the church of Jerusalem in connection with the martyrdom of Stephen, and when all the disciples, except the Twelve, were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria,20 some, as the divine Scripture says, went as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, but could not yet venture to impart the word of faith to the nations, and therefore preached it to the Jews alone.21 
9 During this time Paul was still persecuting the church, and entering the houses of believers was dragging men and women away and committing them to prison.22 
10 Philip also, one of those who with Stephen had been entrusted with the diaconate, being among those who were scattered abroad, went down to Samaria,23 and being filled with the divine power, he first preached the word to the inhabitants of that country. And divine grace worked so mightily with him that even Simon Magus with many others was attracted by his words.24 
11 Simon was at that time so celebrated, and had acquired, by his jugglery, such influence over those who were deceived by him, that he was thought to be the great power of God.25 But at this time, being amazed at the wonderful deeds wrought by Philip through the divine power, he reigned and counterfeited faith in Christ, even going so far as to receive baptism.26 12And what is surprising, the same thing is done even to this day by those who follow his most impure heresy.27 For they, after the manner of their forefather, slipping into the Church, like a pestilential and leprous disease greatly afflict those into whom they are able to infuse the deadly and terrible poison concealed in themselves.28 The most of these have been expelled as soon as they have been caught in their wickedness, as Simon himself, when detected by Peter, received the merited punishment.29 
13 But as the preaching of the Saviour’s Gospel was daily advancing, a certain providence led from the land of the Ethiopians an officer of the queen of that country,30 for Ethiopia even to the present day is ruled, according to ancestral custom, by a woman. He, first among the Gentiles, received of the mysteries of the divine word from Philip in consequence of a revelation, and having become the first-fruits of believers throughout the world, he is said to have been the first on returning to his country to proclaim the knowledge of the God of the universe and the life-giving sojourn of our Saviour among men;31 so that through him in truth the prophecy obtained its fulfillment, which declares that “Ethiopia stretcheth out her hand unto God.”32 
14 In addition to these, Paul, that “chosen vessel,”33 “not of men neither through men, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ himself and of God the Father who raised him from the dead,”34 was appointed an apostle, being made worthy of the call by a vision and by a voice which was uttered in a revelation from heaven.35 
Chapter II. How Tiberius Was Affected When Informed by Pilate Concerning Christ.
1 And when the wonderful resurrection and ascension of our Saviour were already noised abroad, in accordance with an ancient custom which prevailed among the rulers of the provinces, of reporting to the emperor the novel occurrences which took place in them, in order that nothing might escape him, Pontius Pilate informed Tiberius36 of the reports which were noised abroad through all Palestine concerning the resurrection of our Saviour Jesus from the dead.
2 He gave an account also of other wonders which he had learned of him, and how, after his death, having risen from the dead, he was now believed by many to be a God.37 They say that Tiberius referred the matter to the Senate,38 but that they rejected it, ostensibly because they had not first examined into the matter (for an ancient law prevailed that no one should be made a God by the Romans except by a vote and decree of the Senate), but in reality because the saving teaching of the divine Gospel did not need the confirmation and recommendation of men.
3 But although the Senate of the Romans rejected the proposition made in regard to our Saviour, Tiberius still retained the opinion which he had held at first, and contrived no hostile measures against Christ.39 
4 These things are recorded by Tertullian,40 a man well versed in the laws of the Romans,41 and in other respects of high repute, and one of those especially distinguished in Rome.42 In his apology for the Christians,43 which was written by him in the Latin language, and has been translated into Greek,44 he writes as follows:45 
5 “But in order that we may give an account of these laws from their origin, it was an ancient decree46 that no one should be consecrated a God by the emperor until the Senate had expressed its approval. Marcus Aurelius did thus concerning a certain idol, Alburnus.47 And this is a point in favor of our doctrine,48 that among you divine dignity is conferred by human decree. If a God does not please a man he is not made a God. Thus, according to this custom, it is necessary for man to be gracious to God.
6 Tiberius, therefore, under whom the name of Christ made its entry into the world, when this doctrine was reported to him from Palestine, where it first began, communicated with the Senate, making it clear to them that he was pleased with the doctrine.49 But the Senate, since it had not itself proved the matter, rejected it. But Tiberius continued to hold his own opinion, and threatened death to the accusers of the Christians.”50 Heavenly providence had wisely instilled this into his mind in order that the doctrine of the Gospel, unhindered at its beginning, might spread in all directions throughout the world. 
Chapter III. The Doctrine of Christ Soon Spread Throughout All the World.
1 Thus, under the influence of heavenly power, and with the divine co-operation, the doctrine of the Saviour, like the rays of the sun, quickly illumined the whole world;51 and straightway, in accordance with the divine Scriptures,52 the voice of the inspired evangelists and apostles went forth through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.
2 In every city and village, churches were quickly established, filled with multitudes of people like a replenished threshing-floor. And those whose minds, in consequence of errors which had descended to them from their forefathers, were fettered by the ancient disease of idolatrous superstition, were, by the power of Christ operating through the teaching and the wonderful works of his disciples, set free, as it were, from terrible masters, and found a release from the most cruel bondage. They renounced with abhorrence every species of demoniacal polytheism, and confessed that there was only one God, the creator of all things, and him they honored with the rites of true piety, through the inspired and rational worship which has been planted by our Saviour among men.
3 But the divine grace being now poured out upon the rest of the nations Cornelius, of Caesarea in Palestine, with his whole house, through a divine revelation and the agency of Peter, first received faith in Christ;53 and after him a multitude of other Greeks in Antioch,54 to whom those who were scattered by the persecution of Stephen had preached the Gospel. When the church of Antioch was now increasing and abounding, and a multitude of prophets from Jerusalem were on the ground,55 among them Barnabas and Paul and in addition many other brethren, the name of Christians first sprang up there,56 as from a fresh and life-giving fountain.57 
4 And Agabus, one of the prophets who was with them, uttered a prophecy concerning the famine which was about to take place,58 and Paul and Barnabas were sent to relieve the necessities of the brethren.59 
Chapter IV. After the Death of Tiberius, Caius Appointed Agrippa King of the Jews, Having Punished Herod with Perpetual Exile.
1 Tiberius died, after having reigned about twenty-two years,60 and Caius succeeded him in the empire.61 He immediately gave the government of the Jews to Agrippa,62 making him king over the tetrarchies of Philip and of Ly-sanias; in addition to which he bestowed upon him, not long afterward, the tetrarchy of Herod,63 having punished Herod (the one under whom the Saviour suffered64 ) and his wife Herodias with perpetual exile65 on account of numerous crimes. Josephus is a witness to these facts.66 
2 Under this emperor, Philo67 became known; a man most celebrated not only among many of our own, but also among many scholars without the Church. He was a Hebrew by birth, but was inferior to none of those who held high dignities in Alexandria. How exceedingly he labored in the Scriptures and in the studies of his nation is plain to all from the work which he has done. How familiar he was with philosophy and with the liberal studies of foreign nations, it is not necessary to say, since he is reported to have surpassed all his contemporaries in the study of Platonic and Pythagorean. philosophy, to which he particularly devoted his attention.68 
Chapter V. Philo’s Embassy to Caius in Behalf of the Jews.
1 Philo has given us an account, in five books, of the misfortunes of the Jews under Caius.69 He recounts at the same time the madness of Caius: how he called himself a god, and performed as emperor innumerable acts of tyranny; and he describes further the miseries of the Jews under him, and gives a report of the embassy upon which he himself was sent to Rome in behalf of his fellow-countrymen in Alexandria;70 how when he appeared before Caius in behalf of the laws of his fathers he received nothing but laughter and ridicule, and almost incurred the risk of his life.
2 Josephus also makes mention of these things in the eighteenth book of his Antiquities, in the following words:71 “A sedition having arisen in Alexandria between the Jews that dwell there and the Greeks,72 three deputies were chosen from each faction and went to Caius.
3 One of the Alexandrian deputies was Apion,73 who uttered many slanders against the Jews; among other things saying that they neglected the honors due to Caesar. For while all other subjects of Rome erected altars and temples to Caius, and in all other respects treated him just as they did the gods, they alone considered it disgraceful to honor him with statues and to swear by his name.
4 And when Apion had uttered many severe charges by which he hoped that Caius would be aroused, as indeed was likely, Philo, the chief of the Jewish embassy, a man celebrated in every respect, a brother of Alexander the Alabarch,74 and not unskilled in philosophy, was prepared to enter upon a defense in reply to his accusations.
5 But Caius prevented him and ordered him to leave, and being very angry, it was plain that he meditated some severe measure against them. And Philo departed covered with insult and told the Jews that were with him to be of good courage; for while Caius was raging against them he was in fact already contending with God.”
6 Thus far Josephus. And Philo himself, in the work On the Embassy75 which he wrote, describes accurately and in detail the things which were done by him at that time. But I shall omit the most of them and record only those things which will make clearly evident to the reader that the misfortunes of the Jews came upon them not long after their daring deeds against Christ and on account of the same.
7 And in the first place he relates that at Rome in the reign of Tiberius, Sejanus, who at that time enjoyed great influence with the emperor, made every effort to destroy the Jewish nation utterly;76 and that in Judea, Pilate, under whom the crimes against the Saviour were committed, attempted something contrary to the Jewish law in respect to the temple, which was at that time still standing in Jerusalem, and excited them to the greatest tumults.77 
Chapter VI. The Misfortunes Which Overwhelmed the Jews After Their Presumption Against Christ.
1 After the death of Tiberius, Caius received the empire, and, besides innumerable other acts of tyranny against many people, he greatly afflicted especially the whole nation of the Jews78 These things we may learn briefly from the words of Philo, who writes as follows:79 
2 “So great was the caprice of Caius in his conduct toward all, and especially toward the nation of the Jews. The latter he so bitterly hated that he appropriated to himself their places of worship in the other cities,80 and beginning with Alexandria he filled them with images and statues of himself (for in permitting others to erect them he really erected them himself). The temple in the holy city, which had hitherto been left untouched, and had been regarded as an inviolable asylum, he altered and transformed into a temple of his own, that it might be called the temple of the visible Jupiter, the younger Caius.”81 
3 Innumerable other terrible and almost indescribable calamities which came upon the Jews in Alexandria during the reign of the same emperor, are recorded by the same author in a second work, to which he gave the title, On the Virtues.82 With him agrees also Josephus, who likewise indicates that the misfortunes of the whole nation began with the time of Pilate, and with their daring crimes against the Saviour.83 
4 Hear what be says in the second book of his Jewish War, where he writes as follows:84 “Pilate being sent to Judea as procurator by Tiberius, secretly carried veiled images of the emperor, called ensigns,85 to Jerusalem by night. The following day this caused the greatest disturbance among the Jews. For those who were near were confounded at the sight, beholding their laws, as it were, trampled under foot. For they allow no image to be set up in their city.”
5 Comparing these things with the writings of the evangelists, you will see that it was not long before there came upon them the penalty for the exclamation which they had uttered under the same Pilate, when they cried out that they had no other king than Caesar.86 
6 The same writer further records that after this another calamity overtook them. He writes as follows:87 “After this he stirred up another tumult by snaking use of the holy treasure, which is called Corban,88 in the construction of an aqueduct three hundred stadia in length.89 
7 The multitude were greatly displeased at it, and when Pilate was in Jerusalem they surrounded his tribunal and gave utterance to loud complaints. But he, anticipating the tumult, had distributed through the crowd armed soldiers disguised in citizen’s clothing, forbidding them to use the sword, but commanding them to strike with clubs those who should make an outcry. To them he now gave the preconcerted signal from the tribunal. And the Jews being beaten, many of them perished in consequence of the blows, while many others were trampled under foot by their own countrymen in their flight, and thus lost their lives. But the multitude, overawed by the fate of those who were slain, held their peace.”
8 In addition to these the same author records90 many other tumults which were stirred up in Jerusalem itself, and shows that from that time seditions and wars and mischievous plots followed each other in quick succession, and never ceased in the city and in all Judea until finally the siege of Vespasian overwhelmed them. Thus the divine vengeance overtook the Jews for the crimes which they dared to commit against Christ.
Chapter VII. Pilate’s Suicide.
It is worthy of note that Pilate himself, who was governor in the time of our Saviour, is reported to have fallen into such misfortunes under Caius, whose times we are recording, that he was forced to become his own murderer and executioner;91 and thus divine vengeance, as it seems, was not long in overtaking him. This is stated by those Greek historians who have recorded the Olympiads, together with the respective events which have taken place in each period.92 
Chapter VIII. The Famine Which Took Place in the Reign of Claudius.
1 Caius had held the power not quite four years,93 when he was succeeded by the emperor Claudius. Under him the world was visited with a famine,94 which writers that are entire strangers to our religion have recorded in their histories.95 And thus the prediction of Agabus recorded in the Acts of the Apostles,96 according to which the whole world was to be visited by a famine, received its fulfillment.
2 And Luke, in the Acts, after mentioning the famine in the time of Claudius, and stating that the brethren of Antioch, each according to his ability, sent to the brethren of Judea by the hands of Paul and Barnabas,97 adds the following account.
Chapter IX. The Martyrdom of James the Apostle.
1 “98 Now about that time” (it is clear that he means the time of Claudius) “Herod the King99 stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the Church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword.”
2 And concerning this James, Clement, in the seventh book of his Hypotyposes,100 relates a story which is worthy of mention; telling it as he received it from those who had lived before him. He says that the one who led James to the judgment-seat, when he saw him bearing his testimony, was moved, and confessed that he was himself also a Christian.
3 They were both therefore, he says, led away together; and on the way he begged James to forgive him. And he, after considering a little, said, “Peace be with thee,” and kissed him. And thus they were both beheaded at the same time.
4 And then, as the divine Scripture says,101 Herod, upon the death of James, seeing that the deed pleased the Jews, attacked Peter also and committed him to prison, and would have slain him if he had not, by the divine appearance of an angel who came to him by night, been wonderfully released from his bonds, and thus liberated for the service of the Gospel. Such was the providence of God in respect to Peter.
Chapter X. Agrippa, Who Was Also Called Herod, Having Persecuted the Apostles, Immediately Experienced the Divine Vengeance.
1 The consequences of the king’s undertaking against the apostles were no, long deferred, but the avenging minister of divine justice overtook him immediately after his plots against them, as the Book of Acts records.102 For when he had journeyed to Caesarea, on a notable feast-day, clothed in a splendid and royal garment, he delivered an address to the people from a lofty throne in front of the tribunal. And when all the multitude applauded the speech, as if it were the voice of a god and not of a man, the Scripture relates that an angel of the Lord smote him, and being eaten of worms he gave up the ghost.103 
2 We must admire the account of Josephus for its agreement with the divine Scriptures in regard to this wonderful event; for he clearly bears witness to the truth in the nineteenth book of his Antiquities, where he relates the wonder in the following words:104 
3 “He had completed the third year of his reign over all Judea105 when hecame to Caesarea, which was formerly called Strato’s Tower.106 There he held games in honor of Caesar, learning that this was a festival observed in behalf of Caesar’s safety.107 At this festival was collected a great multitude of the highest and most honorable men in the province.
4 And on the second day of the games he proceeded to the theater at break of day, wearing a garment entirely of silver and of wonderful texture. And there the silver, illuminated by the reflection of the sun’s earliest rays, shone marvelously, gleaming so brightly as to produce a sort of fear and terror in those who gazed upon him.
5 And immediately his flatterers, some from one place, others from another, raised up their voices in a way that was not for his good, calling him a god, and saying, ‘Be thou merciful; if up to this time we have feared thee as a man, henceforth we confess that thou art superior to the nature of mortals.’
6 The king did not rebuke them, nor did he reject their impiousflattery. But after a little, looking up, he saw an angel sitting above his head.108 And this he quickly perceived would be the cause of evil as it had once been the cause of good fortune,109 and he was smitten with a heart-piercing pain.
7 And straightway distress, beginning with the greatest violence, seized his bowels. And looking upon his friends he said, ‘I, your god, am now commanded to depart this life; and fate thus I on the spot disproves the lying words you have just uttered concerning me. He who has been called immortal by you is now led away to die; but our destiny must be accepted as God has determined it. For we have passed our life by no means ingloriously, but in that splendor which is pronounced happiness.’110 
8 And when he had said this he labored with an increase of pain. He was accordingly carried in haste to the palace, while the report spread among all that the king would undoubtedly soon die. But the multitude, with their wives and children, sitting on sackcloth after the custom of their fathers, implored God in behalf of the king, and every place was filled with lamentation and tears.111 And the king as he lay in a lofty chamber, and saw them below lying prostrate on the ground, could not refrain from weeping himself.
9 And after suffering continually for five days with pain in the bowels, he departed this life, in the fifty-fourth year of his age, and in the seventh year of his reign.112 Four years he ruled under the Emperor Caius—three of them over the tetrarchy of Philip, to which was added in the fourth year that of Herod113 —and three years during the reign of the Emperor Claudius.”
10 I marvel greatly that Josephus, in these things as well as in others, so fully agrees with the divine Scriptures. But if there should seem to any one to be a disagreement in respect to the name of the king, the time at least and the events show that the same person is meant, whether the change of name has been caused by the error of a copyist, or is due to the fact that he, like so many, bore two names.114 
Chapter XI. The Impostor Theudas and His Followers.
1 Luke, in the Acts, introduces Gamaliel as saying, at the consultation which was held concerning the apostles, that at the time referred to,115 “rose up Theudas boasting himself to be somebody; who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered.”116 Let us therefore add the account of Josephus concerning this man. He records in the work mentioned just above, the following circumstances:117 
2 “While Fadus was procurator of Judea118 a certain impostor called Theudas119 persuaded a very great multitude to take their possessions and follow him to the river Jordan. For he said that he was a prophet, and that the river should be divided at his command, and afford them an easy passage.
3 And with these words he deceived many. But Fadus did not permit them to enjoy their folly, but sent a troop of horsemen against them, who fell upon them unexpectedly and slew many of them and took many others alive, while they took Theudas himself captive, and cut off his head and carried it to Jerusalem.” Besides this he also makes mention of the famine, which took place in the reign of Claudius, in the following words.
Chapter XII. Helen, the Queen of the Osrhoenians.
1120 “And at this time121 it came to pass that the great famine122 took place in Judea, in which the queen Helen,123 having purchased grain from Egypt with large sums, distributed it to the needy.”
2 You will find this statement also in agreement with the Acts of the Apostles, where it is said that the disciples at Antioch, “each according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren that dwelt in Judea; which also they did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Paul.”124 
3 But splendid monuments125 of this Helen, Of whom the historian has made mention, are still shown in the suburbs of the city which is now called Aelia,126 But she is said to have been queen of the Adiabeni.127 
Chapter XIII. Simon Magus.128 
1 But faith in our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ having now been diffused among all men,129 the enemy of man’s salvation contrived a plan for seizing the imperial city for himself. He conducted thither the above-mentioned Simon,130 aided him in his deceitful arts, led many of the inhabitants of Rome astray, and thus brought them into his own power.
2 This is stated by Justin,131 one of our distinguished writers who lived not long after the time of the apostles. Concerning him I shall speak in the proper place.132 Take and read the work of this man, who in the first Apology133 which he addressedto Antonine in behalf of our religion writes as follows:134 
3 “And after the ascension ofthe Lord into heaven the demons put forward certain men who said they were gods, and who were not only allowed by you to go unpersecuted, but were even deemed worthy of honors. One of them was Simon, a Samaritan of the village of Gitto,135 who in the reign of Claudius Caesar136 performed in your imperial city some mighty acts of magic by the art of demons operating in him, and was considered a god, and as a god was honored by you with a statue, which was erected in the river Tiber,137 between the two bridges, and bore this inscription in the Latin tongue, Simoni Deo Sancto, that is, To Simon the Holy God.138 
4 And nearly all the Samaritans and a few even of other nations confess and worship him as the first God. And there went around with him at that time a certain Helena139 who had formerly been a prostitute in Tyre of Phoenicia; and her they call the first idea that proceeded from him.”140 
5 Justin relates these things, and Irenaeus also agrees with him in the first book of his work, Against Heresies, where he gives an account of the man141 and of his profane and impure teaching. It would be superfluous to quote his account here, for it is possible for those who wish to know the origin and the lives and the false doctrines of each of the heresiarchs that have followed him, as well as the customs practiced by them all, to find them treated at length in the above-mentioned work of Irenaeus.
6 We have understood that Simon was the author of all heresy.142 From his time down to the present those who have followed his heresy have reigned the sober philosophy of the Christians, which is celebrated among all on account of its purity of life. But they nevertheless have embraced again the superstitions of idols, which they seemed to have renounced; and they fall down before pictures and images of Simon himself and of the above-mentioned Helena who was with him; and they venture to worship them with incense and sacrifices and libations.
7 But those matters which they keep more secret than these, in regard to which they say that one upon first hearing them would be astonished, and, to use one of the written phrases in vogue among them, would be confounded,143 are in truth full of amazing things, and of madness and folly, being of such a sort that it is impossible not only to commit them to writing, but also for modest men even to utter them with the lips on account of their excessive baseness and lewdness.144 
8 For what ever could be conceived of, viler than thevilest thing — all that has been outdone by this most abominable sect, which is composed of those who make a sport of those miserable females that are literally overwhelmed with all kinds of vices.145 
Chapter XIV. The Preaching of the Apostle Peter in Rome.
1 The evil power,146 who hates all that isgood and plots against the salvation of men, constituted Simon at that time the father and author of such wickedness,147 as if to make him a mighty antagonist of the great, inspired apostles of our Saviour.
2 For that divine and celestial grace which co-operates with its ministers, by their appearance and presence, quickly extinguished the kindled flame of evil, and humbled and cast down through them “every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God.”148 
3 Wherefore neither the conspiracy of Simon nor that of any of the others who arose at that period could accomplish anything in those apostolic times. For everything was conquered and subdued by the splendors of the truth and by the divine word itself which had but lately begun to shine from heaven upon men, and which was then flourishing upon earth, and dwelling in the apostles themselves.
4 Immediately149 the above-mentioned impostor was smitten in the eyes of his mind by a divine and miraculous flash, and after the evil deeds done by him had been first detected by the apostle Peter in Judea,150 he fled and made a great journey across the sea from the East to the West, thinking that only thus could he live according to his mind.
5 And coming to the city of Rome,151 by the mighty co-operation of that power which was lying in wait there, he was in a short time so successful in his undertaking that those who dwelt there honored him as a god by the erection of a statue.152 
6 But this did not last long. For immediately, during the reign of Claudius, the all-good and gracious Providence, which watches over all things, led Peter, that strongest and greatest of the apostles, and the one who on account of his virtue was the speaker for all the others, to Rome153 against this great corrupter of life. He like a noble commander of God, clad in divine armor, carried the costly merchandise of the light of the understanding from the East to those who dwelt in the West, proclaiming the light itself, and the word which brings salvation to souls, and preaching the kingdom of heaven.154 
Chapter XV. The Gospel According to Mark.
1 And thus when the divine word had made its home among them,155 the power of Simon was quenched and immediately destroyed, together with the man himself.156 And so greatly did the splendor of piety illumine the minds of Peter’s hearers that they were not satisfied with hearing once only, and were not content with the unwritten teaching of the divine Gospel, but with all sorts of entreaties they besought Mark,157 a follower of Peter, and the one whose Gospel is extant, that he would leave them a written monument of the doctrine which had been orally communicated to them. Nor did they cease until they had prevailed with the man, and had thus become the occasion of the written Gospel which bears the name of Mark.158 
2 And they say that Peter when he had learned, through a revelation of the Spirit, of that which had been done, was pleased with the zeal of the men, and that the work obtained the sanction of his authority for the purpose of being used in the churches.159 Clement in the eighth book of his Hypotyposes gives this account, and with him agrees the bishop of Hierapolis named Papias.160 And Peter makes mention of Mark in his first epistle which they say that he wrote in Rome itself, as is indicated by him, when he calls the city, by a figure, Babylon, as he does in the following words: “The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus my son.”161 
Chapter XVI. Mark First Proclaimed Christianity to the Inhabitants of Egypt.
1 And they say that this Mark was the first1 that was sent to Egypt, and that he proclaimed the Gospel which he had written, and first established churches in Alexandria.162 
2 And the multitude of believers, both men and women, that were collected there at the very outset, and lived lives of the most philosophical and excessive asceticism, was so great, that Philo thought it worth while to describe their pursuits, their meetings, their entertainments, and their whole manner of life.”163 
Chapter XVII. Philo’s Account of the Ascetics of Egypt.
1 It is also said that Philo in the reign of Claudius became acquainted at Rome with Peter, who was then preaching there.164 Nor is this indeed improbable, for the work of which we have spoken, and which was composed by him some years later, clearly contains those rules of the Church which are even to this day observed among us.
2 And since he describes as accurately as possible the life of our ascetics, it is clear that he not only knew, but that he also approved, while he venerated and extolled, the apostolic men of his time, who were as it seems of the Hebrew race, and hence observed, after the manner of the Jews, the most of the customs of the ancients.
3 In the work to which he gave the title, On a Contemplative Life or on Suppliants,165 after affirming in the first place that he will add to those things which he is about to relate nothing contrary to truth or of his own invention,166 he says that these men were called Therapeutae and the women that were with them Therapeutrides.167 He then adds the reasons for such a name, explaining it from the fact that they applied remedies and healed the souls of those who came to them, by relieving them like physicians, of evil passions, or from the fact that they served and worshiped the Deity in purity and sincerity.
4 Whether Philo himself gave them this name, employing an epithet well suited to their mode of life, or whether the first of them really called themselves so in the beginning, since the name of Christians was not yet everywhere known, we need not discuss here.
5 He bears witness, however, that first of all 5 they renounce their property. When they begin the philosophical168 mode of life, he says, they give up their goods to their relatives, and then, renouncing all the cares of life, they go forth beyond the walls and dwell in lonely fields and gardens, knowing well that intercourse with people of a different character is unprofitable and harmful. They did this at that time, as seems probable, under the influence of a spirited and ardent faith, practicing in emulation the prophets’ mode of life.
6 For in the Acts of the Apostles, a work universally acknowledged as authentic,169 it is recorded that all the companions of the apostles sold their possessions and their property and distributed to all according to the necessity of each one, so that no one among them was in want. “For as many as were possessors of lands or houses,” as the account says, “sold them and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles’ feet, so that distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.”170 
7 Philo bears witness to facts very much like those here described and then adds the following account:171 “Everywhere in the world is this race172 found. For it was fitting that both Greek173 and Barbarian should share in what is perfectly good. But the race particularly abounds in Egypt, in each of its so-called nomes,174 and especially about Alexandria.
8 The best men from every quarter emigrate, as if to a colony of the Therapeut’s fatherland,175 to a certain very suitable spot which lies above the lake Maria176 upon a low hill excellently situated on account of its security and the mildness of the atmosphere.”
9 And then a little further on, after describing the kind of houses which they had, he speaks as follows concerning their churches, which were scattered about here and there:177 “In each house there is a sacred apartment which is called a sanctuary and monastery,178 where, quite alone, they perform the mysteries of the religious life. They bring nothing into it, neither drink nor food, nor any of the other things which contribute to the necessities of the body, but only the laws, and the inspired oracles of the prophets, and hymns and such other things as augment and makeperfect their knowledge and piety.”
10 And after some other matters he says:179 
“The whole interval, from morning to evening, is for them a time of exercise. For they read the holy Scriptures, and explain the philosophy of their fathers in an allegorical manner, regarding the written words as symbols of hidden truth which is communicated in obscure figures.
11 They have also writings of ancient men, who were the founders of their sect, and who left many monuments of the allegorical method. These they use as models, and imitate their principles.”
12 These things seem to have been stated by a man who had heard them expounding their sacred writings. But it is highly probable that the works of the ancients, which he says they had, were the Gospels and the writings of the apostles, and probably some expositions of the ancient prophets, such as are contained in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and in many others of Paul’s Epistles.
13 Then again he writes as follows concerning the new psalms which they composed:180 “So that they not only spend their time in meditation, but they also compose songs and hymns to God in every variety of metre and melody, though they divide them, of course, into measures of more than common solemnity.”
14 The same book contains an account of many other things, but it seemed necessary to select those facts which exhibit the characteristics of the ecclesiastical mode of life.
15 But if any one thinks that what has been said is not peculiar to the Gospel polity, but that it can be applied to others besides those mentioned, let him be convinced by the subsequent words of the same author, in which, if he is unprejudiced, he will find undisputed testimony on this subject. Philo’s words are as follows:181 
16 “Having laid down temperance as a sort of foundation in the soul, they build upon it the other virtues. None of them may take food or drink before sunset, since they regard philosophizing as a work worthy of the light, but attention to the wants of the body as proper only in the darkness, and therefore assign the day to the former, but to the latter a small portion of the night.
17 But some, in whom a great desire for knowledge dwells, forget to take food for three days; and some are so delighted and feast so luxuriously upon wisdom, which furnishes doctrines richly and without stint, that they abstain even twice as long as this, and are accustomed, after six days, scarcely to take necessary food.” These statements of Philo we regard as referring clearly and indisputably to those of our communion.
18 But if after these things any one still obstinately persists in denying the reference, let him renounce his incredulity and be convinced by yet more striking examples, which are to be found nowhere else than in the evangelical religion of the Christians.182 
19 For they say that there were women also with those of whom we are speaking, and that the most of them were aged virgins183 who had preserved their chastity, not out of necessity, as some of the priestesses among the Greeks,184 but rather by their own choice, through zeal and a desire for wisdom. And that in their earnest desire to live with it as their companion they paid no attention to the pleasures of the body, seeking not mortal but immortal progeny, which only the pious soul is able to bear of itself.
20 Then after a little he adds still more emphatically:185 “They expound the Sacred Scriptures figuratively by means of allegories. For the whole law seems to these men to resemble a living organism, of which the spoken words constitute the body, while the hidden sense stored up within the words constitutes the soul. This hidden meaning has first been particularly studied by this sect, which sees, revealed as in a mirror of names, the surpassing beauties of the thoughts.”
21 Why is it necessary to add to these things their meetings and the respective occupations of the men and of the women during those meetings, and the practices which are even to the present day habitually observed by us, especially such as we are accustomed to observe at the feast of the Saviour’s passion, with fasting and night watching and study of the divine Word.
22 These things the above-mentioned author has related in his own work, indicating a mode of life which has been preserved to the present time by us alone,recording especially the vigils kept in connectionwith the great festival, and the exercises performed during those vigils, and the hymns customarily recited by us, and describing how, while one sings regularly in time, the others listen in silence, and join in chanting only the close of the hymns; and how, on the days referred to they sleep on the ground on beds of straw, andto use his own words,186 “taste no wine at all, norany flesh, but water is their only drink, and therelish with their bread is salt and hyssop.”
23 In addition to this Philo describes the order of dignities which ists among those who carry on the services of the church, mentioning the diaconate, and the office of bishop, which takes the precedence over all the others.187 But whosoever desires a more accurate knowledge of these matters may get it from the history already cited.
24 But that Philo, when he wrote these things, had in view the first heralds of the Gospel and the customs handed down from the beginning by the apostles, is clear to every one.
Chapter XVIII. The Works of Philo188 That Have Came Down to Us.
1 Copious in language, comprehensive in thought, sublime and elevated in his views of divine Scripture, Philo has produced manifold and various expositions of the sacred books. On the one hand, he expounds in order the events recorded in Genesis in the books to which he gives the title Allegories of the Sacred Laws;189 on the other hand, he makes successive divisions of the chapters in the Scriptures which are the subject of investigation, and gives objections and solutions, in the books which he quite suitably calls Questions and Answers an Genesis and Exodus.190 
2 There are, besides these, treatises expressly worked out by him on certain subjects, such as the two books On Agriculture,191 and the same number On Drunkenness;192 and some others distinguished by different titles corresponding to the contents of each; for instance, Concerning the things which the Sober Mind desires and execrates,193 On the Confusion of Tongues,194 On Flight and Discovery,195 On Assembly for the sake of Instruction,196 On the question, ‘Who is heir to things divine?’ or On the division of things into equal and unequal,197 and still further the work On the three Virtues which with others have been described by Moses.198 
3 In addition to these is the work On those whose Names have been changed and why they have been changed,199 in which he says that he hadwritten also two hooks On Covenants.200 
4 And there is also a work of his On Emigration,201 and one On the life of a Wise Man made perfect in Righteousness, or On unwritten Laws;202 and still further the work On Giants or On the Immutability of God,203 and a first, second, third, fourth and fifth book On the proposition, that Dreams according to Moses are sent by God.204 These are the hooks on Genesis that have come down to us.
5 But on Exodus we are acquainted with the first, second, third, fourth and fifth books of Questions and Answers;205 also with that On the Tabernacle,206 and that On the Ten Commandments,207 and the four books On the laws which refer especially to the principal divisions of the ten Commandments,208 and another On animals intended for sacrifice and On the kinds of sacrifice,209 and another On the rewards fixed in the law for the good, and on the punishments and curses fixed for the wicked.210 
6 In addition to all these there are extantalso some single-volumed works of his; as for instance, the work On Providence,211 and the book composed by him On the Jews,212 and The Statesman;213 and still further, Alexander, or On the possession of reason by the irrational animals.214 Besides these there is a work On the proposition that every wicked man is a slave, to which is subjoined the work On the proposition that every goad man is free.215 
7 After these was composed by him the work On the contemplative life, or On suppliants,216 from which we have drawn the facts concerning the life of the apostolic men; and still further, the Interpretation of the Hebrew names in the law and in the prophets are said to be the result of his industry.217 
8 And he is said to have read in the presence of the whole Roman Senate during the reign of Claudius218 the work which he had written, when he came to Rome under Caius, concerning Caius’ hatred of the gods, and to which, with ironical reference to its character, he had given the title On the Virtues.219 And his discourses were so much admired as to be deemed worthy of a place in the libraries.
9 At this time, while Paul was completing his journey “from Jerusalem and round about unto Illyricum,”220 Claudius drove the Jews out of Rome; and Aquila and Priscilla, leaving Rome with the other Jews, came to Asia, and there abode with the apostle Paul, who was confirming the churches of that region whose foundations he had newly laid. The sacred book of the Acts informs us also of these things.221 
Chapter XIX. The Calamity Which Befell the Jews in Jerusalem an the Day of the Passover.
1 While Claudius was still emperor, it happened that so great a tumult and disturbance took place in Jerusalem at the feast of the Passover, that thirty thousand of those Jews alone who were forcibly crowded together at the gate of the temple perished,222 being trampled under foot by one another. Thus the festival became a season of mourning for all the nation, and there was weeping in every house. These things are related literally223 by Josephus.
2 But Claudius appointed Agrippa,224 son of Agrippa, king of the Jews, having sent Felix225 as procurator of the whole country of Samaria and Galilee, and of the land called Perea.226 And after he had reigned thirteen years and eight months227 he died, and left Nero as his successor in the empire.
Chapter XX. The Events Which Took Place in Jerusalem During the Reign of Nero.
1 Josephus again, in the twentieth book of his Antiquities, relates the quarrel which arose among the priests during the reign of Nero, while Felix was procurator of Judea.
2 His words are as follows228 : “There arose a quarrel between the high priests on the one hand and the priests and leaders of the people of Jerusalem on the other.229 And each of them collected a body of the boldest and most restless men, and put himself at their head, and whenever they met they hurled invectives and stones at each other. And there was no one that would interpose; but these things were done at will as if in a city destitute of a ruler.
3 And so great was the shamelessness and audacity of the high priests that they dared to send their servants to the threshing-floors to seize the tithes due to the priests; and thus those of the priests that were poor were seen to be perishing of want. In this way did the violence of the factions prevail over all justice.”
4 And the same author again relates that about the same time there sprang up in Jerusalem a certain kind of robbers,230 “ who byday,” as he says, “and in the middle of the city slew those who met them.”
5 For, especially at the feasts, they mingled with the multitude, and with short swords, which they concealed under their garments, they stabbed the most distinguished men. And when they fell, the murderers themselves were among those who expressed their indignation. And thus on account of the confidence which was reposed in them by all, they remained undiscovered.
6 The first that was slain by them was Jonathan the high priest;231 and after him many were killed every day, until the fear became worse than the evil itself, each one, as in battle, hourly expecting death.
Chapter XXI. The Egyptian, Who is Mentioned Also in the Acts of the Apostles.
1 After other matters he proceeds as follows:232 “But the Jews were afflicted with a greater plague than these by the Egyptian false prophet.233 For there appeared in the land an impostor who aroused faith in himself as a prophet, and collected about thirty thousand of those whom he had deceived, and led them from the desert to the so-called Mount of Olives whence he was prepared to enter Jerusalem by force and to overpower the Roman garrison and seize the government of the people, using those who made the attack with him as body guards.
2 But Felix anticipated his attack, and went out to meet him with the Roman legionaries, and all the people joined in the defense, so that when the battle was fought the Egyptian fled with a few followers, but the most of them were destroyed or taken captive.”
3 Josephus relates these events in the secondbook of his History.234 But it is worth while comparing the account of the Egyptian given here with that contained in the Acts of the Apostles. In the time of Felix it was said to Paul by the centurion in Jerusalem, when the multitude of the Jews raised a disturbance against the apostle, “Art not thou he Who before these days made an uproar, and led out into the wilderness four thousand men that were murderers?”235 These are the events which took place in the time of Felix.236 
Chapter XXII. Paul Having Been Sent Bound from Judea to Rome, Made His Defense, and Was Acquitted of Every Charge.
1 Festus237 was sent by Nero to be Felix’s successor. Under him Paul, having made his defense, was sent bound to Rome238 Aristarchus was with him, whom he also somewhere in his epistles quite naturally calls his fellow-prisoner.239 And Luke, who wrote the Acts of the Apostles,240 brought his history to a close at this point, after stating that Paul spent two whole years at Rome as a prisoner at large, and preached the word of God without restraint.241 
2 Thus after he had made his defense it is said that the apostle was sent again upon the ministry of preaching,242 and that upon coming to the same city a second time he suffered martyrdom.243 In this imprisonment he wrote his second epistle to Timothy,244 in which he mentions his first defense and his impending death.
3 But hear his testimony on these matters: “At my first answer,” he says, “no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.”245 
4 He plainly indicates in these words that 4 on the former occasion, in order that the preaching might be fulfilled by him, he was rescued from the mouth of the lion, referring, in this expression, to Nero, as is probable on account of the latter’s cruelty. He did not therefore afterward add the similar statement, “He will rescue me from the mouth of the lion”; for he saw in the spirit that his end would not be long delayed.
5 Wherefore he adds to the words, “And he delivered me from the mouth of the lion,” this sentence: “The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom,”246 indicating his speedy martyrdom; which he also foretells still more clearly in the same epistle, when he writes, “For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.”247 
6 In his second epistle to Timothy, moreover, he indicates that Luke was with him when he wrote,248 but athis first defense not even he.249 Whence it is probable that Luke wrote the Acts of the Apostles at that time, continuing his history down to the period when he was with Paul.250 
7 But these things have been adduced by us to show that Paul’s martyrdom did not take place at the time of that Roman sojourn which Luke records. 
8 It is probable indeed that as Nero was more disposed to mildness in the beginning, Paul’s defense of his doctrine was more easily received; but that when he had advanced to the commission of lawless deeds of daring, he made the apostles as well as others the subjects of his attacks.251 
Chapter XXIII. The Martyrdom of James, Who Was Called the Brother of the Lord.
1 But after Paul, in consequence of his appeal to Caesar, had been sent to Rome by Festus, the Jews, being frustrated in their hope of entrapping him by the snares which they had laid for him, turned against James, the brother of the Lord,252 to whom the episcopal seat at Jerusalem bad been entrusted by the apostles.253 The following daring measures were undertaken by them against him.
2 Leading him into their midst they demanded of him that he should renounce faith in Christ in the presence of all the people. But, contrary to the opinion of all, with a clear voice, and with greater boldness than they had anticipated, he spoke out before the whole multitude and confessed that our Saviour and Lord Jesus is the Son of God. But they were unable to bearlonger the testimony of the man who, on account of the excellence of ascetic virtue254 and of piety which he exhibited in his life, wasesteemed by all as the most just of men, andconsequently they slew him. Opportunity forthis deed of violence was furnished by the prevailing anarchy, which was caused by the fact that Festus had died just at this time in Judea,and that the province was thus without a governor and head.255 
3 The manner of James’ death has been already indicated by the above-quoted words of Clement, who records that he was thrown from the pinnacle of the temple, and was beaten to death with a club.256 But Hegesippus,257 who lived immediately after the apostles, gives the most accurate account in the fifth book of his Memoirs.258 He writes as follows:
4 “James, the brother of the Lord, succeeded to the government of the Church in conjunction with the apostles.259 He has been called the Just260 by all from the time of our Saviour to the present day; for there were many that bore the name of James.
5 He was holy from his mother’s womb; and he drank no wine nor strong drink, nor did he eat flesh. No razor came upon his head; he did not anoint himself with oil, and he did not use the bath.
6 He alone was permitted to enter into the holy place; for he wore not woolen but linen garments. And he was in the habit of entering alone into the temple, and was frequently found upon his knees begging forgiveness for the people, so that his knees became hard like those of a camel, in consequence of his constantly bending them in his worship of God, and asking forgiveness for the people.261 
7 Because of his exceeding great justice he was called the Just, and Oblias,262 which signifies in Greek, ‘Bulwark of the people’ and ‘Justice,’263 in accordance with what the prophets declare concerning him.264 
8 Now some of the seven sects, which existed among the people and which have been mentioned by me in the Memoirs,265 asked him, ‘What is the gate of Jesus?’266 and he replied that he was the Saviour.
9 On account of these words some believed that Jesus is the Christ. But the sects mentioned above did not believe either in a resurrection or in one’s coming to give to every man according to his works.267 But as many as believed did so on account of James.
10 Therefore when many even of the rulersbelieved, there was a commotion among the Jews and Scribes and Pharisees, who said that there was danger that the whole peoplewould be looking for Jesus as the Christ. Coming therefore in a body to James they said, ‘We entreat thee, restrain the people; for they are gone astray in regard to Jesus, as if he were the Christ.268 We entreat thee to persuade all that have come to the feast of the Passover concerning Jesus; for we all have confidence in thee. For we bear thee witness, as do all the people, that thou art just, and dost not respect persons.269 
11 Do thou therefore persuade themultitude not to be led astray concerning Jesus. For the whole people, and all of us also, have confidence in thee. Stand therefore upon the pinnacle of the temple,270 that from that high position thou mayest be clearly seen, and that thy words may be readily heard by all the people. For all the tribes, with the Gentiles also, are come together on account of the Passover.’
12 The aforesaid Scribes and Pharisees therefore placed James upon the pinnacle of the temple, and cried out to him and said: ‘Thou just one, in whom we ought all to have: confidence, forasmuch as the people are led, astray after Jesus, the crucified one, declare to us, what is the gate of Jesus.’271 
13 And he answered with a loud voice, ‘Why do ye ask me concerning Jesus, the Son of Man? He himself sitteth in heaven at the right hand of the great Power, and is about to come upon the clouds of heaven.’272 
14 And when many were fully convinced and gloried in the testimony of James, and said, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David,’ these same Scribes and Pharisees said again to one another, ‘We have done badly in supplying such testimony to Jesus. But let us go up and throw him down, in order that they may be afraid to believe him.’
15 And they cried out, saying, ‘Oh! oh! the just man is also in error.’ And they fulfilled the Scripture written in Isaiah,273 ‘Let us take away274 the just man, because he is troublesome to us: therefore they shall eat the fruit of their doings.’
16 So they went up and threw down the just man, and said to each other, ‘Let us stone James the Just.’ And they began to stone him, for he was not killed by the fall; but he turned and knelt down and said, ‘I entreat thee, Lord God our Father,275 forgive them, for they know not what they do.’276 
17 And while they were thus stoning him one of the priests of the sons of Rechab, the son of the Rechabites,277 who are mentioned by Jeremiah the prophet,278 cried out, saying, ‘Cease, what do ye? The just one prayeth for you.’279 
18 And one of them, who was a fuller, took the club with which he beat out clothes and struck the just man on the head. And thus he suffered martyrdom.280 And they buried him on the spot, by the temple, and his monument still remains by the temple.281 He became a true witness, both to Jews and Greeks, that Jesus is the Christ. And immediately Vespasian besieged them.”282 
19 These things are related at length by Hegesippus, who is in agreement with Clement.283 James was so admirable a man and so celebrated among all for his justice, that the more sensible even of the Jews were of the opinion that this was the cause of the siege of Jerusalem, which happened to them immediately after his martyrdom for no other reason than their daring act against him.
20 Josephus, at least, has not hesitated to testify this in his writings, where he says,284 “These things happened to the Jews to avenge James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus, that is called the Christ. For the Jews slew him, although he was a most just man.”
21 And the same writer records his death also in the twentieth book of his Antiquities in the following words:285 “But the emperor, when he learned of the death of Festus, sent Albinus286 to be procurator of Judea. But the younger Ananus,287 who, as we have already said,288 had obtained the high priesthood, was of an exceedingly bold and reckless disposition. He belonged, moreover, to the sect of the Sadducees, who are the most cruel of all the Jews in the execution of judgment, as we have already shown.289 
22 Ananus, therefore, being of this character, and supposing that he had a favorable opportunity on account of the fact that Festus was dead, and Albinus was still on the way, called together the Sanhedrim, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ, James by name, together with some others,290 and accused them of violating the law, and condemned them to be stoned.291 
23 But those in the city who seemed most moderate and skilled in the law were very angry at this, and sent secretly to the king,292 requesting him to order Ananus to cease such proceedings. For he had not done right even this first time. And certain of them also went to meet Albinus, who was journeying from Alexandria, and reminded him that it was not lawful for Ananus to summon the Sanhedrim without his knowledge.293 
24 And Albinus, being persuaded by their representations, wrote in anger to Ananus, threatening him with punishment. And the king, Agrippa, in consequence, deprived him, of the high priesthood,294 which he had held threemonths, and appointed Jesus, the son of Damnaeus.”295 
25 These things are recorded in regard to James, who is said to be the author of the first of the so-called catholic296 epistles. But it is to be observed that it is disputed;297 at least, not many of the ancients have mentioned it, as is the case likewise with the epistle that bears the name of Jude,298 which is also one of the seven so-called catholic epistles. Nevertheless we know that these also,299 with the rest, have been read publicly in very many churches.300 
Chapter XXIV. Annianus the First Bishop of the Church of Alexandria After Mark.
1 When Nero was in the eighth year of his reign,301 Annianus302 succeeded Mark the evangelist in the administration of the parish of Alexandria.303 
Chapter XXV. The Persecution Under Nero in Which Paul and Peter Were Honored at Rome with Martyrdom in Behalf of Religion.
1 When the government of Nero was now firmly established, he began to plunge into unholy pursuits, and armed himself even against the religion of the God of the universe.
2 To describe the greatness of his depravity does not lie within the plan of the present work. As there are many indeed that have recorded his history in most accurate narratives,304 every one may at his pleasure learn from them the coarseness of the man’s extraordinary madness, under the influence of which, after he had accomplished the destruction of so many myriads without any reason, he ran into such blood-guiltiness that he did not spare even his nearest relatives and dearest friends, but destroyed his mother and his brothers and his wife,305 with very many others of his own family as he would private and public enemies, with various kinds of deaths.
3 But with all these things this particular in the catalogue of his crimes was still wanting, that he was the first of the emperors who showed himself an enemy of the divine religion.
4 The Roman Tertullian is likewise a witness of this. He writes as follows:306 “Examine your records. There you will find that Nero was the first that persecuted this doctrine,307 particularly then when after subduing all the east, he exercised his cruelty against all at Rome.308 We glory in having such a man the leader in our punishment. For whoever knows him can understand that nothing was condemned by Nero unless it was something of great excellence.”
5 Thus publicly announcing himself as the first among God’s chief enemies, he was led on to the slaughter of the apostles. It is, therefore, recorded that Paul was beheaded in Rome itself,309 and that Peter likewise was crucified under Nero.310 This account of Peter and Paul is substantiated by the fact that their names are preserved in the cemeteries of that place even to the present day.
6 It is confirmed likewise by Caius,311 a member of the Church,312 who arose313 under Zephyrinus,314 bishop of Rome. He, in a published disputation with Proclus,315 the leader of the Phrygian heresy,316 speaks as follows concerning the places where the sacred corpses of the aforesaid apostles are laid:
7 “But317 I can show the trophies of the apostles. For if you will go to the Vatican318 or to the Ostian way,319 you will find the trophies of those who laid the foundations of this church.”320 
8 And that they both suffered martyrdom at the same time is stated by Dionysius, bishop of Corinth,321 in his epistle to the Romans,322 in the following words: “You have thus by such an admonition bound together the planting of Peter and of Paul at Rome and Corinth. For both of them planted and likewise taught us in our Corinth.323 And they taught together in like manner in Italy, and suffered martyrdom at the same time.”324 I have quoted these things in order that the truth of the history might be still more confirmed.
Chapter XXVI. The Jews, Afflicted with Innumerable Evils, Commenced the Last War Against the Romans.
1 Josephus again, after relating many things in connection with the calamity which came upon the whole Jewish nation, records,325 in addition to many other circumstances, that a great many326 of the most honorable among the Jews were scourged in Jerusalem itself and then crucified by Florus.327 It happened that he was procurator of Judea when the war began to be kindled, in the twelfth year of Nero.328 
2 Josephus says329 that at that time a terrible commotion was stirred up throughout all Syria in consequence of the revolt of the Jews, and that everywhere the latter were destroyed without mercy, like enemies, by the inhabitants of the cities, “so that one could see cities filled with unburied corpses, and the dead bodies of the aged scattered about with the bodies of infants, and women without even a covering for their nakedness, and the whole province full of indescribable calamities, while the dread of those things that were threatened was greater than the sufferings themselves which they anywhere endured.”330 Such is the account of Josephus; and such was the condition of the Jews at that time. 
Book III.
Chapter I. The Parts of the World in Which the Apostles Preached Christ.
1 Such was the condition of the Jews. Meanwhile the holy apostles and disciples of our Saviour were dispersed throughout the world.1 Parthia,2 according to tradition, was allotted to Thomas as his field of labor, Scythia3 to Andrew,4 and Asia5 to John,6 who, after he had lived some time there,7 died at Ephesus.
2 Peter appears to have preached8 in Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Asia9 to the Jews of the dispersion. And at last, having come to Rome, he was crucified head-downwards;10 for he had requested that he might suffer in this way. What do we need to say concerning Paul, who preached the Gospel of Christ from Jerusalem to Illyricum,11 and afterwards suffered martyrdom in Rome under Nero?12 These facts are related by Origen in the third volume of his Commentary on Genesis.13 
Chapter II. The First Ruler of the Church of Rome.
1 After the martyrdom of Paul and of Peter, Linus14 was the first to obtain the episcopate of the church at Rome. Paul mentions him, when writing to Timothy from Rome, in the salutation at the end of the epistle.15 
Chapter III. The Epistles of the Apostles.
1 One epistle of Peter, that called the first, is acknowledged as genuine.16 And this the ancient elders17 used freely in their own writings as an undisputed work.18 But we have learned that his extant second Epistle does not belong to the canon;19 yet, as it has appeared profitable to many, it has been used with the other Scriptures.20 
2 The so-called Acts of Peter,21 however, and the Gospel22 which bears his name, and the Preaching23 and the Apocalypse,24 as they are called, we know have not been universally accepted,25 because no ecclesiastical writer, ancient or modern, has made use of testimonies drawn from them.26 
3 But in the course of my history I shall be careful to show, in addition to the official succession, what ecclesiastical writers have from time to time made use of any of the disputed works,27 and what they have said in regard to the canonical and accepted writings,28 as well as in regard to those which are not of this class.
4 Such are the writings that bear the name of Peter, only one of which I know to be genuine29 and acknowledged by the ancient elders.30 
5 Paul’s fourteen epistles are well known and undisputed.31 It is not indeed right to overlook the fact that some have rejected the Epistle to the Hebrews,32 saying that it is disputed33 by the church of Rome, on the ground that it was not written by Paul. But what has been said concerning this epistle by those who lived before our time I shall quote in the proper place.34 In regard to the so-called Acts of Paul,35 I have not found them among the undisputed writings.36 
6 But as the same apostle, in the salutations at the end of the Epistle to the Romans,37 has made mention among others of Hermas, to whom the book called The Shepherd38 is ascribed, it should be observed that this too has been disputed by some, and on their account cannot be placed among the acknowledged books; while by others it is considered quite indispensable, especially to those who need instruction in the elements of the faith. Hence, as we know, it has been publicly read in churches, and I have found that some of the most ancient writers used it.
7 This will serve to show the divine writings that are undisputed as well as those that are not universally acknowledged. 
Chapter IV. The First Successors of the Apostles.
1 That Paul preached to the Gentiles and laid the foundations of the churches “from Jerusalem round about even unto Illyricum,” is evident both from his own words,39 and from theaccount which Luke has given in the Acts.40 
2 And in how many provinces Peterpreached Christ and taught the doctrine of the new covenant to those of the circumcision is clear from his own words in his epistle already mentioned as undisputed,41 in which he writes to the Hebrews of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.42 
3 But the number and the names of those among them that became true and zealous followers of the apostles, and were judged worthy to tend the churches rounded by them, it is not easy to tell, except those mentioned in the writings of Paul.
4 For he had innumerable fellow-laborers, or “fellow-soldiers,” as he called them,43 and most of them were honored by him with an imperishable memorial, for he gave enduring testimony concerning them in his own epistles.
5 Luke also in the Acts speaks of his friends, and mentions them by name.44 
6 Timothy, so it is recorded, was the first to receive the episcopate of the parish in Ephesus,45 Titus of the churches in Crete.46 
7 But Luke,47 who was of Antiochian parentage and a physician by profession,48 and who was especially intimate with Paul and well acquainted with the rest of the apostles,49 has left us, in two inspired books, proofs of that spiritual healing art which he learned from them. One of these books is the Gospel,50 which he testifies that he wrote as those who were from the beginning eye witnesses and ministers of the word delivered unto him, all of whom, as he says, he followed accurately from the first.51 The other book is the Acts of the Apostles52 which he composed not from the accounts of others, but from what he had seen himself.
8 And they say that Paul meant to refer to Luke’s Gospel wherever, as if speaking of some gospel of his own, he used the words, “according to my Gospel.”53 
9 As to the rest of his followers, Paul testifies that Crescens was sent to Gaul;54 but Linus, whom he mentions in the Second Epistle to Timothy55 as his companion at Rome, was Peter’s successor in the episcopate of the church there, as has already been shown.56 
10 Clement also, who was appointed third bishop of the church at Rome, was, as Paul testifies, his co-laborer and fellow-soldier.57 
11 Besides these, that Areopa gite, named Dionysius, who was the first to believe after Paul’s address to the Athenians in the Areopagus (as recorded by Luke in the Acts)58 is mentioned by another Dionysius, an ancient writer and pastor of the parish in Corinth,59 as the first bishop of the church at Athens.
12 But the events connected with the apostolic succession we shall relate at the proper time. Meanwhile let us continue the course of our history.
Chapter V. The Last Siege of the Jews After Christ.
1 After Nero had held the power thirteen years,60 and Galba and Otho had ruled a year and six months,61 Vespasian, who had become distinguished in the campaigns against the Jews, was proclaimed sovereign in Judea and received the title of Emperor from the armies there.62 Setting out immediately, therefore, for Rome, he entrusted the conduct of the war against the Jews to his son Titus.63 
2 For the Jews after the ascension of our Saviour, in addition to their crime against him, had been devising as many plots as they could against his apostles. First Stephen was stoned to death by them,64 and after him James, the son of Zebedee and the brother of John, was beheaded,65 and finally James, the first that had obtained the episcopal seat in Jerusalem after the ascension of our Saviour, died in the manner already described.66 But the rest of the apostles, who had been incessantly plotted against with a view to their destruction, and had been driven out of the land of Judea, went unto all nations to preach the Gospel,67 relying upon the power of Christ, who had said to them, “Go ye and make disciples of all the nations in my name.”68 
3 But the people of the church in Jerusalem had been commanded by a revelation, vouchsafed to approved men there before the war, to leave the city and to dwell in a certain town of Perea called Pella.69 And when those that believed in Christ had come thither from Jerusalem, then, as if the royal city of the Jews and the whole land of Judea were entirely destitute of holy men, the judgment of God at length overtook those who had committed such outrages against Christ and his apostles, and totally destroyed that generation of impious men.
4 But the number of calamities which everywhere fell upon the nation at that time; the extreme misfortunes to which the inhabitants of Judea were especially subjected, the thousands of men, as well as women and children, that perished by the sword, by famine, and by other forms of death innumerable,—all these things, as well as the many great sieges which were carried on against the cities of Judea, and the excessive. sufferings endured by those that fled to Jerusalem itself, as to a city of perfect safety, and finally the general course of the whole war, as well as its particular occurrences in detail, and how at last the abomination of desolation, proclaimed by the prophets,70 stood in the very temple of God, so celebrated of old, the temple which was now awaiting its total and final destruction by fire,— all these things any one that wishes may find accurately described in the history written by Josephus.71 
5 But it is necessary to state that this writer records that the multitude of those who were assembled from all Judea at the time of the Passover, to the number of three million souls,72 were shut up in Jerusalem “as in a prison,” to use his own words.
6 For it was right that in the very days in which they had inflicted suffering upon the Saviour and the Benefactor of all, the Christ of God, that in those days, shut up “as in a prison,” they should meet with destruction at the hands of divine justice.
7 But passing by the particular calamities which they suffered from the attempts made upon them by the sword and by other means, I think it necessary to relate only the misfortunes which the famine caused, that those who read this work may have some means of knowing that God was not long in executing vengeance upon them for their wickedness against the Christ of God.
Chapter VI. The Famine Which Oppressed Them.
1 Taking the fifth book of the History ofJosephus again in our hands, let us go through the tragedy of events which then occurred.73 
2 “For the wealthy,” he says, “it was equally dangerous to remain. For under pretense that they were going to desert men were put to death for their wealth. The madness of the seditions increased with the famine and both the miseries were inflamed more and more day by day.
3 Nowhere was food to be seen; but, bursting into the houses men searched them thoroughly, and whenever they found anything to eat they tormented the owners on the ground that they had denied that they had anything; but if they found nothing, they tortured them on the ground that they had more carefully concealed it.
4 The proof of their having or not having food was found in the bodies of the poor wretches. Those of them who were still in good condition they assumed were well supplied with food, while those who were already wasted away they passed by, for it seemed absurd to slay those who were on the point of perishing for want.
5 Many, indeed, secretly sold their possessions for one measure of wheat, if they belonged to the wealthier class, of barley if they were poorer. Then shutting themselves up in the innermost parts of their houses, some ate the grain uncooked on account of their terrible want, while others baked it according as necessity and6fear dictated.
6 Nowhere were tables set, but, snatching the yet uncooked food from the fire, they tore it in pieces. Wretched was the fare, and a lamentable spectacle it was to see the more powerful secure an abundance while the weaker mourned.
7 Of all evils, indeed, famine is the worst, and it destroys nothing so effectively as shame. For that which under other circumstances is worthy of respect, in the midst of famine is despised. Thus women snatched the food from the very mouths of their husbands and children, from their fathers, and what was most pitiable of all, mothers from their babes, And while their dearest ones were wasting away in their arms, they Were not ashamed to take away froth them the last drops that supported life.
8 And even while they were eating thus they did not remain undiscovered. But everywhere the rioters appeared, to rob them even of these portions of food. For whenever they saw a house shut up, they regarded it as a sign that those inside were taking food. And immediately bursting open the doors they rushed in and seized what they were eating, almost forcing it out of their very throats.
9 Old men who clung to their food were beaten, and if the women concealed it in their hands, their hair was torn for so doing. There was pity neither for gray hairs nor for infants, but, taking up the babes that clung to their morsels of food, they dashed them to the ground. But to those that anticipated their entrance and swallowed what they were about to seize, they were still more cruel, just as if they had been wronged by them.
10 And they, devised the most terrible modes of torture to discover food, stopping up the privy passages of the poor wretches with bitter herbs, and piercing their seats with sharp rods. And men suffered things horrible even to hear of, for the sake of compelling them to confess to the possession of one loaf of bread, or in order that they might be made to disclose a single drachm of barley which they had concealed. But the tormentors themselves did not suffer hunger.
11 Their conduct might indeed have seemed less barbarous if they had been driven to it by necessity; but they did it for the sake of exercising their madness and of providing sustenance for themselves for days to come.
12 And when any one crept out of the city by night as far as the outposts of the Romans to collect wild herbs and grass, they went to meet him; and when he thought he had already escaped the enemy, they seized what he had brought with him, and even though oftentimes the man would entreat them, and, calling upon the most awful name of God, adjure them to give him a portion of what he had obtained at the risk of his life, they would give him nothing back. Indeed, it was fortunate if the one that was plundered was not also slain.”
13 To this account Josephus, after relating other things, adds the following:74 “The possibility of going out of the city being brought to an end,75 all hope of safety for the Jews was cut off. And the famine increased and devoured the people by houses and families. And the rooms were filled with dead women and children, the lanes of the city with the corpses of old men.
14 Children and youths, swollen with the famine, wandered about the market-places like shadows, and fell down wherever the death agony overtook them. The sick were not strong enough to bury even their own relatives, and those who had the strength hesitated because of the multitude of the dead and the uncertainty as to their own fate. Many, indeed, died while they were burying others, and many betook themselves to their graves before death came upon them.
15 There was neither weeping nor lamentation under these misfortunes; but the famine stifled the natural affections. Those that were dying a lingering death looked with dry eyes upon those that had gone to their rest before them. Deep silence and death-laden night encircled the city.
16 But the robbers were more terrible than these miseries; for they broke open the houses, which were now mere sepulchres, robbed the dead and stripped the covering from their bodies, and went away with a laugh. They tried the points of their swords in the dead bodies, and some that were lying on the ground still alive they thrust through in order to test their weapons. But those that prayed that they would use their right hand and their sword upon them, they contemptuously left to be destroyed by the famine. Every one of these died with eyes fixed upon the temple; and they left the seditious alive.
17 These at first gave orders that thedead should be buried out of the public treasury, for they could not endure the stench. But afterward, when they were not able to do this, they threw the bodies from the walls into the trenches.
18 And as Titus went around and saw the trenches filled with the dead, and the thick blood oozing out of the putrid bodies, he groaned aloud, and, raising his hands, called God to witness that this was not his doing.”
19 After speaking of some other things, Josephus proceeds as follows:76 “I cannot hesitate to declare what my feelings compel me to. I suppose, if the Romans had longer delayed in coming against these guilty wretches, the city would have been swallowed up by a chasm, or overwhelmed with a flood, or struck with such thunderbolts as destroyed Sodom. For it had brought forth a generation of men much more godless than were those that suffered such punishment. By their madness indeed was the whole people brought to destruction.”
20 And in the sixth book he writes as follows:77 “Of those that perished by famine in the city the number was countless, and the miseries they underwent unspeakable. For if so much as the shadow of food appeared in any house, there was war, and the dearest friends engaged in hand-to-hand conflict with one another, and snatched from each other the most wretched supports of life.
21 Nor would they believe that even the dying were without food; but the robbers would search them while they were expiring, lest any one should feign death while concealing food in his bosom. With mouths gaping for want of food, they stumbled and staggered along like mad dogs, and beat the doors as if they were drunk, and in their impotence they would rush into the same houses twice or thrice in one hour.
22 Necessity compelled them to eat anything they could find, and they gathered and devoured things that were not fit even for the filthiest of irrational beasts. Finally they did not abstain even from their girdles and shoes, and they stripped the hides off their shields and devoured them. Some used even wisps of old hay for food, and others gathered stubble and sold the smallest weight of it for four Attic drachmae.78 
23 “But why should I speak of the shamelessness which was displayed during the famine toward inanimate things? For I am going to relate a fact such as is recorded neither by Greeks nor Barbarians; horrible to relate, incredible to hear. And indeed I should gladly have omitted this calamity, that I might not seem to posterity to be a teller of fabulous tales, if I had not innumerable witnesses to it in my own age. And besides, I should render my country poor service if I suppressed the account of the sufferings which she endured.
24 “There was a certain woman named Mary that dwelt beyond Jordan, whose father was Eleazer, of the village of Bathezor79 (which signifies the house of hyssop). She was distinguished for her family and her wealth, and had fled with the rest of the multitude to Jerusalem and was shut up there with them during the siege.
25 The tyrants had robbed her of the rest of the property which she had brought with her into the city from Perea. And the remnants of her possessions and whatever food was to be seen the guards rushed in daily and snatched away from her. This made the woman terribly angry, and by her frequent reproaches and imprecations she aroused the anger of the rapacious villains against herself.
26 But no one either through anger or pity would slay her; and she grew weary of finding food for others to eat. The search, too, was already become everywhere difficult, and the famine was piercing her bowels and marrow, and resentment was raging more violently than famine. Taking, therefore, anger and necessity as her counsellors, she proceeded to do a most unnatural thing.
27 Seizing her child, a boy which was sucking at her breast, she said, Oh, wretched child, in war, in famine, in sedition, for what do I preserve thee? Slaves among the Romans we shall be even if we are allowed to live by them. But even slavery is anticipated by the famine, and the rioters are more cruel than both. Come, be food for me, a fury for these rioters,80 and a byeword to the world, for this is all that is wanting to complete the calamities of the Jews.
28 And when she had said this she slew her son; and having roasted him, she ate one half herself, and covering up the remainder, she kept it. Very soon the rioters appeared on the scene, and, smelling the nefarious odor, they threatened to slay her immediately unless she should show them what she had prepared. She replied that she had saved an excellent portion for them, and with that she uncovered the remains of the child.
29 They were immediately seized with horror and amazement and stood transfixed at the sight. But she said This is my own son, and the deed is mine. Eat for I too have eaten. Be not more merciful than a woman, nor more compassionate than a mother. But if you are too pious and shrink from my sacrifice, I have already81 eaten of it; let the rest also remain for me.
30 At these words the men went out trembling, in this one case being affrighted; yet with difficulty did they yield that food to the mother. Forthwith the whole city was filled with the awful crime, and as all pictured the terrible deed before their own eyes, they trembled as if they had done it themselves.
31 Those that were suffering from the famine now longed for death; and blessed were they that had died before hearing and seeing miseries like these.”
32 Such was the reward which the Jews received for their wickedness and impiety, against the Christ of God.
Chapter VII. The Predictions of Christ.
1 It is fitting to add to these accounts the true prediction of our Saviour in which he foretold these very events.
2 His words are as follows:82 “Woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day; For there shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.”
3 The historian, reckoning the whole number of the slain, says that eleven hundred thousand persons perished by famine and sword,83 and that the rest of the rioters and robbers, being betrayed by each other after the taking of the city, were slain.84 But the tallest of the youths and those that were distinguished for beauty were preserved for the triumph. Of the rest of the multitude, those that were over seventeen years of age were sent as prisoners to labor in the works of Egypt,85 while still more were scattered through the provinces to meet their death in the theaters by the sword and by beasts. Those under seventeen years of age were carried away to be sold as slaves, and of these alone the number reached ninety thousand.86 
4 These things took place in this manner in the second year of the reign of Vespasian,87 in accordance with the prophecies of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who by divine power saw them beforehand as if they were already present, and wept and mourned according to the statement of the holy evangelists, who give the very words which be uttered, when, as if addressing Jerusalem herself, he said:88 
5 “If thou hadst known, even thou, in this day, the things which belong unto thy peace! But now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a rampart about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee and thy children even with the ground.”
6 And then, as if speaking concerning the people, he says,89 “For there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” And again:90 “When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.”
7 If any one compares the words of our Saviour with the other accounts of the historian concerning the whole war, how can one fail to wonder, and to admit that the foreknowledge and the prophecy of our Saviour were truly divine and marvellously strange.91 
8 Concerning those calamities, then, that befell the whole Jewish nation after the Saviour’s passion and after the words which the multitude of the Jews uttered, when they begged the release of the robber and murderer, but besought that the Prince of Life should be taken from their midst,92 it is not necessary to add anything to the 9 account of the historian.
9 But it may be proper to mention also those events which exhibited the graciousness of that all-good Providence which held back their destruction full forty years after their crime against Christ,—during which time many of the apostles and disciples, and James himself the first bishop there, the one who is called the brother of the Lord,93 were still alive, and dwelling in Jerusalem itself, remained the surest bulwark of the place. Divine Providence thus still proved itself long-suffering toward them in order to see whether by repentance for what they had done they might obtain pardon and salvation; and in addition to such long-suffering, Providence also furnished wonderful signs of the things which were about to happen to them if they did not repent.
10 Since these matters have been thought worthy of mention by the historian already cited, we cannot do better than to recount them for the benefit of the readers of this work.
Chapter VIII. The Signs Which Preceded the War.
1 Taking, then, the work of this author,read what he records in the sixth book of his History. His words are as follows:94 “Thus were the miserable people won over at this time by the impostors and false prophets;95 but they did not heed nor give credit to the visions and signs that foretold the approaching desolation. On the contrary, as if struck by lightning, and as if possessing neither eyes nor understanding, they slighted the proclamations of God.
2 At one time a star, in form like a sword, stood over the city, and a comet, which lasted for a whole year; and again before the revolt and before the disturbances that led to the war, when the people were gathered for the feast of unleavened bread, on the eighth of the month Xanthicus,96 at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone about the altar and the temple that it seemed to be bright day; and this continued for half an hour. This seemed to the unskillful a good sign, but was interpreted by the sacred scribes as portending those events which very soon took place.
3 And at the same feast a cow, led by the high priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb in the midst of the temple.
4 And the eastern gate of the inner temple, which was of bronze and very massive, and which at evening was closed with difficulty by twenty men, and rested upon iron-bound beams, and had bars sunk deep in the ground, was seen at the sixth hour of the night to open of itself.
5 And not many days after the feast, on the twenty-first of the month Artemisium,97 a certain marvelous vision was seen which passes belief. The prodigy might seem fabulous were it not related by those who saw it, and were not the calamities which followed deserving of such signs. For before the setting of the sun chariots and armed troops were seen throughout the whole region in mid-air, wheeling through the clouds and encircling the cities.
6 And at the feast which is called Pentecost, when the priests entered the temple at night, as was their custom, to perform the services, they said that at first they perceived a movement and a noise, and afterward a voice as of a great multitude, saying, ‘Let us go hence.’98 
7 But what follows is still more7 terrible; for a certain Jesus, the son of Ananias, a common countryman, four years before the war,99 when the city was particularly prosperous and peaceful, came to the feast, at which it was customary for all to make tents at the temple to the honor of God,100 and suddenly began to cry out: ‘A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the temple, a voice against bridegrooms and brides, a voice against all the people.’ Day and night he went 8 through all the alleys crying thus.
8 But certain of the more distinguished citizens, vexed at the ominous cry, seized the man and beat him with many stripes. But without uttering a word in his own behalf, or saying anything in particular to those that were present, he continued to cry out in the same words as before.
9 And the rulers, thinking, as was true, that the man was moved by a higher power, brought him before the Roman governor.101 And then, though he was scourged to the bone, he neither made supplication nor shed tears, but, changing his voice to the most lamentable tone possible, he answered each stroke with the words, ‘Woe, woe unto Jerusalem.’”
10 The same historian records another fact still more wonderful than this. He says102 that a certain oracle was found in their sacred writings which declared that at that time a certain person should go forth from their country to rule the world. He himself understood 11 that this was fulfilled in Vespasian.
11 But Vespasian did not rule the whole world, but only that part of it which was subject to the Romans. With better right could it be applied to Christ; to whom it was said by the Father, “Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the ends of the earth for thy possession.”103 At that very time, indeed, the voice of his holy apostles “went throughout all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.”104 
Chapter IX. Josephus and the Works Which He Has Left.
1 After all this it is fitting that we should know something in regard to the origin and family of Josephus, who has contributed so much to the history in hand. He himself gives us information on this point in the following words:105 “Josephus, the son of Mattathias, a priest of Jerusalem, who himself fought against the Romans in the beginning and was compelled to be present at what happened afterward.”
2 He was the most noted of all the Jews of that day, not only among his own people, but also among the Romans, so that he was honored by the erection of a statue in Rome,106 and his works were deemed worthy of a place in the library.107 
3 He wrote the whole of the Antiquities of the Jews108 in twenty books, and a history of the war with the Romans which took place in his time, in seven books.109 He himself testifies that the latter work was not only written in Greek, but that it was also translated by himself into his native tongue.110 He is worthy of credit here because of his truthfulness in other matters.
4 There are extant also two other books of his which are worth reading. They treat of the antiquity of the Jews,111 and in them he replies to Apion the Grammarian, who had at that time written a treatise against the Jews, and also to others who had attempted to vilify the hereditary institutions of the Jewish people.
5 In the first of these books he gives the number of the canonical books of the so-called Old Testament. Apparently112 drawing his information from ancient tradition, he shows what books were accepted without dispute among the Hebrews. His words are as follows.
Chapter X. The Manner in Which Josephus Mentions the Divine Books.
1113 “We have not, therefore, a multitude of books disagreeing and conflicting with one another; but we have only twenty-two, which contain the record of all time and are justly held to be divine.
2 Of these, five are by Moses, and contain the laws and the tradition respecting the origin of man, and continue the history114 down to his own death. This period embraces nearly three thousand years.115 
3 From the death of Moses to the death of Artaxerxes, who succeeded Xerxes as king of Persia, the prophets that followed Moses wrote the history of their own times in thirteen books.116 The other four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the regulation of the life of men.
4 From the time of Artaxerxes to our own day all the events have been recorded, but the accounts are not worthy of the same confidence that we repose in those which preceded them, because there has not been during this time an exact succession of prophets.117 
5 How much we are attached to our own writings is shown plainly by our treatment of them. For although so great a period has already passed by, no one has ventured either to add to or to take from them, but it is inbred in all Jews from their very birth to regard them as the teachings of God, and to abide by them, and, if necessary, cheerfully to die for them.”
These remarks of the historian I have thought might advantageously be introduced in this connection.
6 Another work of no little merit has been produced by the same writer, On the Supremacy of Reason,118 which some have called Maccabaicum,119 because it contains an account of the struggles of those Hebrews who contended manfully for the true religion, as is related in the books called Maccabees.
7 And at the end of the twentieth book of his Antiquities120 Josephus himself intimates that he had purposed to write a work in four books concerning God and his existence, according to the traditional opinions of the Jews, and also concerning the laws, why it is that they permit some things while prohibiting others.121 And the same writer also mentions in his own works other books written by himself.122 
8 In addition to these things it is proper to quote also the words that are found at the close of his Antiquities,123 in confirmation of the testimony which we have drawn from his accounts. In that place he attacks Justus of Tiberias,124 who, like himself, had attempted to write a history of contemporary events, on the ground that he had not written truthfully. Having brought many other accusations against the man, he continues in these words:125 
9 “I indeed was not afraid in respect to my writings as you were,126 but, on the contrary, I presented my books to the emperors themselves when the events were almost under men’s eyes. For I was conscious that I had preserved the truth in my account, and hence was not disappointed in my expectation of obtaining their attestation.
10 And I presented my history also to many others, some of whom were present at the war, as, for instance, King Agrippa127 and some of his relatives.
11 For the Emperor Titus desired so much that the knowledge of the events should be communicated to men by my history alone, that he indorsed the books with his own hand and commanded that they should be published. And King Agrippa wrote sixty-two epistles testifying to the truthfulness of my account.” Of these epistles Josephus subjoins two.128 But this will suffice in regard to him. Let us now proceed with our history.
Chapter XI. Symeon Rules the Church of Jerusalem After James.
1 After the martyrdom of James129 and the conquest of Jerusalem which immediately followed,130 it is said that those of the apostles and disciples of the Lord that were still living came together from all directions with those that were related to the Lord according to the flesh131 (for the majority of them also were still alive) to take counsel as to who was worthy to succeed James.
2 They all with one consent pronounced Symeon,132 the son of Clopas, of whom the Gospel also makes mention;133 to be worthy of the episcopal throne of that parish. He was a cousin, as they say, of the Saviour. For Hegesippus records that Clopas was a brother of Joseph.134 
Chapter XII. Vespasian Commands the Descendants of David to Be Sought.
He also relates that Vespasian after the conquest of Jerusalem gave orders that all that belonged to the lineage of David should be sought out, in order that none of the royal race might be left among the Jews; and in consequence of this a most terrible persecution again hung over the Jews.135 
Chapter XIII. Anencletus, the Second Bishop of Rome.
After Vespasian had reigned ten years Titus, his son, succeeded him.136 In the second year of his reign, Linus, who had been bishop of the church of Rome for twelve years,137 delivered his office to Anencletus.138 But Titus was succeeded by his brother Domitian after he had reigned two years and the same number of months.139 
Chapter XIV. Abilius, the Second Bishop of Alexandria.
In the fourth year of Domitian, Annianus,140 the first bishop of the parish of Alexandria, died after holding office twenty-two years, and was succeeded by Abilius,141 the second bishop.
Chapter XV. Clement, the Third Bishop of Rome.
In the twelfth year of the same reign Clement succeeded Anencletus142 after the latter had been bishop of the church of Rome for twelve years. The apostle in his Epistle to the Philippians informs us that this Clement was his fellow-worker. His words are as follows:143 “With Clement arid the rest of my fellow-laborers whose names are in the book of life.”
Chapter XVI. The Epistle of Clement.
There is extant an epistle of this Clement144 which is acknowledged to be genuine and is of considerable length and of remarkable merit.145 He wrote it in the name of the church of Rome to the church of Corinth, when a sedition had arisen in the latter church.146 We know that this epistle also has been publicly used in a great many churches both in former times and in our own.147 And of the fact that a sedition did take place in the church of Corinth at the time referred to Hegesippus is a trustworthy witness.148 
Chapter XVII. The Persecution Under Domitian.
Domitian, having shown great cruelty toward many, and having unjustly put to death no small number of well-born and notable men at Rome, and having without cause exiled and confiscated the property of a great many other illustrious men, finally became a successor of Nero in his. hatred and enmity toward God. He was in fact the second that stirred up a persecution against us,149 although his father Vespasian had undertaken nothing prejudicial to us.150 
Chapter XVIII. The Apostle John and the Apocalypse.
1 It is said that in this persecution the apostle and evangelist John, who was still alive, was condemned to dwell on the island of Patmos in consequence of his testimony to the divine word.151 
2 Irenaeus, in the fifth book of his work Against Heresies, where he discusses the number of the name of Antichrist which is given in the so-called Apocalypse of John,152 speaks as follows concerning him:153 
3 “If it were necessary for his name to be proclaimed openly at the present time, it would have been declared by him who saw the revelation. For it was seen not long ago, but almost in our own generation, at the end of the reign of Domitian.”
4 To such a degree, indeed, did the teaching of our faith flourish at that time that even those writers who were far from our religion did not hesitate to mention in their histories the persecution and the martyrdoms which took place during it.154 
5 And they, indeed, accurately indicated the time. For they recorded that in the fifteenth year of Domitian155 Flavia Domitilla, daughter of a sister of Flavius Clement, who at that time was one of the consuls of Rome,156 was exiled with many others to the island of Pontia in consequence of testimony borne to Christ.
Chapter XIX. Domitian Commands the Descendants of David to Be Slain.
But when this same Domitian had commanded that the descendants of David should be slain, an ancient tradition says157 that some of the heretics brought accusation against the descendants of Jude (said to have been a brother of the Saviour according to the flesh), on the ground that they were of the lineage of David and were related to Christ himself. Hegesippus relates these facts in the following words.
Chapter XX. The Relatives of Our Saviour.
1 “Of the family of the Lord there were still living the grandchildren of Jude, who is said to have been the Lord’s brother according to the flesh.158 
2 Information was given that they belonged to the family of David, and they were brought to the Emperor Domitian by the Evocatus.159 For Domitian feared the coming ing of Christ as Herod also had feared it. And he asked them if they were descendants of David, and they confessed that they were. Then he asked them how much property they had, or how much money they owned. And both of them answered that they had only nine thousand denarii,160 
4 half of which belonged to each of them; and this property did not consist of silver, but of a piece of land which contained only thirty-nine acres, and from which they raised their taxes161 and supported themselves by their own labor.”162 
5 Then they showed their hands, exhibiting the hardness of their bodies and the callousness produced upon their hands by continuous toil as evidence of their own labor.
6 And when they were asked concerning Christ and his kingdom, of what sort it was and where and when it was to appear, they answered that it was not a temporal nor an earthly kingdom, but a heavenly and angelic one, which would appear at the end of the world, when he should come in glory to judge the quick and the dead, and to give unto every one according to his works.
7 Upon hearing this, Domitian did not pass judgment against them, but, despising them as of no account, he let them go, and by a decree put a stop to the persecution of the Church.
8 But when they were released they ruled the churches because they were witnesses163 and were also relatives of the Lord.164 And peace being established, they lived until the time of Trajan. These things are related by Hegesippus.
9 Tertullian also has mentioned Domitian in the following words:165 “Domitian also, who possessed a share of Nero’s cruelty, attempted once to do the same thing that the latter did. But because he had, I suppose, some intelligence,166 he very soon ceased, and even recalled those whom he had banished.”
10 But after Domitian had reigned fifteen years,167 and Nerva had succeeded to the empire, the Roman Senate, according to the writers that record the history of those days,168 voted that Domitian’s honors should be cancelled, and that those who had been unjustly banished should return to their homes and have their property restored to them. It was at this time 11 that the apostle John returned from his banishment in the island and took up his abode at Ephesus, according to an ancient Christian tradition.169 
Chapter XXI. Cerdon Becomes the Third Ruler of the Church of Alexandria.
1 After Nerva had reigned a little more than a year170 he was succeeded by Trajan. It was during the first year of his reign that Abilius,171 who had ruled the church of Alexandria for thirteen years, was succeeded by Cerdon.172 
2 He was the third that presided over that church after Annianus,173 who was the first. At that time Clement still ruled the church of Rome, being also the third that held the episcopate there after Paul and Peter.
3 Linus was the first, and after him came Anencletus,174 
Chapter XXII. Ignatius, the Second Bishop of Antioch.
11 At this time Ignatius175 was known as the second bishop of Antioch, Evodius having been the first.176 Symeon177 likewise was at that time the second ruler of the church of Jerusalem, the brother of our Saviour having been the first. 
Chapter XXIII. Narrative Concerning John the Apostle.
1 At that time the apostle and evangelist John, the one whom Jesus loved, was still living in Asia, and governing the churches of that region, having returned after the death of Domitian from his exile on the island.178 
2 And that he was still alive at that time179 may be established by the testimony of two witnesses. They should be trustworthy who have maintained the orthodoxy of the Church; and such indeed were Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria.180 
3 The former in the second book of his work Against Heresies, writes as follows:181 “And all the elders that associated with John the disciple of the Lord in Asia bear witness that John delivered it to them. For he remained among them until the time of Trajan.”182 
4 And in the third book of the same work he attests the same thing in the following words:183 “But the church in Ephesus also, which was founded by Paul, and where John remained until the time of Trajan, is a faithful witness of the apostolic tradition.”
5 Clement likewise in his book entitled What Rich Man can be saved?184 indicates the time,185 and subjoins a narrative which is most attractive to those that enjoy hearing what is beautiful and profitable. Take and read the account which rums as follows:186 “Listen to a tale, which is not a mere tale, but a narrative187 concerning John the apostle, which has been handed down and treasured up in memory. For when, after the tyrant’s death,188 he returned from the isle of Patmos to Ephesus, he went away upon their invitation to the neighboring territories of the Gentiles, to appoint bishops in some places, in other places to set in order whole churches, elsewhere to choose to the ministry some one189 of those that were pointed out by the Spirit.
7 When he had come to one of the cities not far away (the name of which is given by some190 ), and had consoled the brethren in other matters, he finally turned to the bishop that had been appointed, and seeing a youth of powerful physique, of pleasing appearance, and of ardent temperament, he said, ‘This one I commit to thee in all earnestness in the presence of the Church and with Christ as witness.’ And when the bishop had accepted the Charge and had promised all, he repeated the same injunction with an appeal to the same witnesses, and then departed for Ephesus.
8 But the presbyter191 taking home the youth committed to him, reared, kept, cherished, and finally baptized192 him. After this he relaxed his stricter care and watchfulness, with the idea that in putting upon him the seal of the Lord193 he had given him a perfect protection.
9 But some youths of his own age, idle and dissolute, and accustomed to evil practices, corrupted him when he was thus prematurely freed from restraint. At first they enticed him by costly entertainments; then, when they went forth at night for robbery, they took him with them, and finally they demanded that he should unite with them in some greater crime.
10 He gradually became accustomed to such practices, and on account of the positiveness of his character,194 leaving the right path, and taking the bit in his teeth like a hard-mouthed and powerful horse, he rushed the more violently down into the depths.
11 And finally despairing of salvation in God, he no longer meditated what was insignificant, but having committed some great crime, since he was now lost once for all, he expected to suffer a like fate with the rest. Taking them, therefore, and forming a band of robbers, he became a bold bandit-chief, the most violent, most bloody, most cruel of them all.
12 Time passed, and some necessity having arisen, they sent for John. But he, when he had set in order the other matters on account of which he had come, said, ‘Come, O bishop, restore us the deposit which both I and Christ committed to thee, the church, over which thou presidest, being witness.’
13 But the bishop was at first confounded, thinking that he was falsely charged in regard to money which he had not received, and he could neither believe the accusation respecting what he had not, nor could he disbelieve John. But when he said, ‘I demand the young man and the soul of the brother,’ the old man, groaning deeply and at the same time bursting into tears, said, ‘He is dead.’ ‘How and what kind of death?’ ‘He is dead to God,’ he said; ‘for he turned wicked and abandoned, and at last a robber. And now, instead of the church, he haunts the mountain with a band like himself.’
14 But the Apostle rent his clothes, and beating his head with great lamentation, he said, ‘A fine guard I left for a brother’s soul! But let a horse be brought me, and let some one show me the way.’ He rode away from the church just as he was, and coming to the place, he was taken prisoner by the robbers’ outpost.
15 He, however, neither fled nor made entreaty, but cried out, ‘For this did I come; lead me to your captain.’
16 The latter, meanwhile, was waiting, armed as he was. But when he recognized John approaching, he turned in shame to flee.
17 But John, forgetting his age, pursued him with all his might, crying out, ‘Why, my son, dost thou flee from me, thine own father, unarmed, aged? Pity me, my son; fear not; thou hast still hope of life. I will give account to Christ for thee. If need be, I will willingly endure thy death as the Lord suffered death for us. For thee will I give up my life. Stand, believe; Christ hath sent me.’
18 And he, when he heard, first stopped and looked down; then he threw away his arms, and then trembled and wept bitterly. And when the old man approached, he embraced him, making confession with lamentations as he was able, baptizing himself a second time with tears, and concealing only his right hand.
19 But John, pledging himself, and assuring him on oath that he would find forgiveness with the Saviour, besought him, fell upon his knees, kissed his right hand itself as if now purified by repentance, and led him back to the church. And making intercession for him with copious prayers, and struggling together with him in continual fastings, and subduing his mind by various utterances, he did not depart, as they say, until he had restored him to the church, furnishing a great example of true repentance and a great proof of regeneration, a trophy of a visible resurrection.”
Chapter XXIV. The Order of the Gospels.
1 This extract from Clement I have inserted here for the sake of the history and for the benefit of my readers. Let us now point out the undisputed writings of this apostle.
2 And in the first place his Gospel, which is known to all the churches under heaven, must be acknowledged as genuine.195 That it has with good reason been put by the ancients in the fourth place, after the other three Gospels, may be made evident in the following way.
3 Those great and truly divine men, I mean the apostles of Christ, were purified in their life, and were adorned with every virtue of the soul, but were uncultivated in speech. They were confident indeed in their trust in the divine and wonder-working power which was granted unto them by the Saviour, but they did not know how, nor did they attempt to proclaim the doctrines of their teacher in studied and artistic language, but employing only the demonstration of the divine Spirit, which worked with them, and the wonder-working power of Christ, which was displayed through them, they published the knowledge of the kingdom of heaven throughout the whole world, paying little attention to the composition of written works.
4 And this they did because they were assisted in their ministry by one greater than man. Paul, for instance, who surpassed them all in vigor of expression and in richness of thought, committed to writing no more than the briefest epistles,196 although he had innumerable mysterious matters to communicate, for he had attained even unto the sights of the third heaven, had been carried to the very paradise of God, and had been deemed worthy to hear unspeakable utterances there.197 
5 And the rest of the followers of our Saviour, the twelve apostles, the seventy disciples, and countless others besides, were not ignorant of these things. Nevertheless, of all the disciples198 of the Lord, only Matthew and John have left us written memorials, and they, tradition says, were led to write only under the pressure of necessity.
6 For Matthew, who had at first preached to the Hebrews, when he was about to go to other peoples, committed his Gospel to writing in his native tongue,199 and thus compensated those whom he was obliged to leave for the loss of his presence. And when Mark and Luke had already published their Gospels,200 they say that John, who had employed all his time in proclaiming the Gospel orally, finally proceeded to write for the following reason. The three Gospels already mentioned having come into the hands of all and into his own too, they say that he accepted them and bore witness to their truthfulness; but that there was lacking in them an account of the deeds done by Christ at the beginning of his ministry.201 
8 And this indeed is true. For it is evident that the three evangelists recorded only the deeds done by the Saviour for one year after the imprisonment of John the Baptist,202 and indicated this in the beginning of their account.
9 For Matthew, after the forty days’ fast and the temptation which followed it, indicates the chronology of his work when he says: “Now when he heard that John was delivered up he withdrew from Judea into Galilee.”203 
10 Mark likewise says: “Now after that John was delivered up Jesus came into Galilee.”204 And Luke, before commencing his account of the deeds of Jesus, similarly marks the time, when he says that Herod, “adding to all the evil deeds which he had done, shut up John in prison.”205 
11 They say, therefore, that the apostle John, being asked to do it for this reason, gave in his Gospel an account of the period which had been omitted by the earlier evangelists, and of the deeds done by the Saviour during that period; that is, of those which were done before the imprisonment of the Baptist. And this is indicated by him, they say, in the following words: “This beginning of miracles did Jesus”;206 and again when he refers to the Baptist, in the midst of the deeds of Jesus, as still baptizing in Aenon near Salim;207 where he states the matter clearly in the words: “For John was not yet cast into prison.”208 
12 John accordingly, in his Gospel, records the deeds of Christ which were performed before the Baptist was cast into prison, but the other three evangelists mention the events which happened after that time.
13 One who understands this can no longer think that the Gospels are at variance with one another, inasmuch as the Gospel according to John contains the first acts of Christ, while the others give an account of the latter part of his life. And the genealogy of our Saviour according to the flesh John quite naturally omitted, because it had been already given by Matthew and Luke, and began with the doctrine of his divinity, which had, as it were, been reserved for him, as their superior, by the divine Spirit.209 
14 These things may suffice, which we have said concerning the Gospel of John. The cause which led to the composition of the Gospel of Mark has been already stated by us.210 
15 But as for Luke, in the beginning of his Gospel, he states He states that since many others had more rashly undertaken to compose a narrative of the events of which he had acquired perfect knowledge, he himself, feeling the necessity of freeing us from their uncertain opinions, delivered in his own Gospel an accurate account of those events in regard to which he had learned the full truth, being aided by his intimacy and his stay with Paul and by his acquaintance with the rest of the apostles.211 
16 So much for our own account of these things. But in a more fitting place we shall attempt to show by quotations from the ancients, what others have said concerning them.
17 But of the writings of John, not only his Gospel, but also the former of his epistles, has been accepted without dispute both now and in ancient times.212 But the other two are disputed.213 
18 In regard to the Apocalypse, the opinions of most men are still divided.214 But at the proper time this question likewise shall be decided from the testimony of the ancients.215 
Chapter XXV. The Divine Scriptures that are Accept and Those that are Not.216 
1 Since we are dealing with this subject it is proper to sum up the writings of the New Testament which have been already mentioned. First then must be put the holy quaternion of the Gospels;217 following them the Acts of the Apostles.218 
2 After this must be reckoned the epistles of Paul;219 next in order the extant former epistle of John,220 and likewise the epistle of Peter,221 must be maintained.222 After them is to be placed, if it really seem proper, the Apocalypse of John,223 concerning which we shall give the different opinions at the proper time.224 These then belong among the accepted writings.225 
3 Among the disputed writings,226 which are nevertheless recognized227 by many, are extant the so-called epistle of James228 and that of Jude,229 also the second epistle of Peter,230 and those that are called the second and third of John,231 whether they belong to the evangelist or to another person of the same name.
4 Among the rejected writings232 must be reckoned also the Acts of Paul,233 and the so-called Shepherd,234 and the Apocalypse of Peter,235 and in addition to these the extant epistle of Barnabas,236 and the so-called Teachings of the Apostles;237 and besides, as I said, the Apocalypse of John, if it seem proper, which some, as I said, reject,238 but which others class with the accepted books.239 
5 And among these some have placed also the Gospel according to the Hebrews,240 with which those of the Hebrews that have accepted Christ are especially delighted. And all these may be reckoned among the disputed books.241 
6 But we have nevertheless felt compelled to give a catalogue of these also, distinguishing those works which according to ecclesiastical tradition are true and genuine and commonly accepted,242 from those others which, although not canonical but disputed,243 are yet at the same time known to most ecclesiastical writers—we have felt compelled to give this catalogue in order that we might be able to know both these works and those that are cited by the heretics under the name of the apostles, including, for instance, such books as the Gospels of Peter,244 of Thomas,245 of Matthias,246 or of any others besides them, and the Acts of Andrew247 and John248 and the other apostles, which no one belonging to the succession of ecclesiastical writers has deemed worthy of mention in his writings.
7 And further, the character of the style is at variance with apostolic usage, and both the thoughts and the purpose of the things that are related in them are so completely out of accord with true orthodoxy that they clearly show themselves to be the fictions of heretics.249 Wherefore they are not to be placed even among the rejected250 writings, but are all of them to be cast aside as absurd and impious.
Let us now proceed with our history.
Chapter XXVI. Menander the Sorcerer.
1 Menander,251 who succeeded Simon Magus,252 showed himself in his conduct another instrument of diabolical power,253 not inferior to the former. He also was a Samaritan and carried his sorceries to no less an extent than his teacher had done, and at the same time reveled in still more marvelous tales than he.
2 For he said that he was himself the Saviour, who had been sent down from invisible aeons for the salvation of men;254 and he taught that no one could gain the mastery over the world-creating angels themselves255 unless he had first gone through the magical discipline imparted by him and had received baptism from him. Those who were deemed worthy of this would partake even in the present life of perpetual immortality, and would never die, but would remain here forever, and without growing old become immortal.256 These facts can be easily learned from the works of Irenaeus.257 
3 And Justin, in the passage in which he mentions Simon, gives an account of this man also, in the following words:258 “And we know that a certain Menander, who was also a Samaritan, from the village of Capparattea,259 was a disciple of Simon, and that he also, being driven by the demons, came to Antioch260 and deceived many by his magical art. And he persuaded his followers that they should not die. And there are still some of them that assert this.”
4 And it was indeed an artifice of the devil to endeavor, by means of such sorcerers, who assumed the name of Christians, to defame the great mystery of godliness by magic art, and through them to make ridiculous the doctrines of the Church concerning the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the dead.261 But they that have chosen these men as their saviours have fallen away from the true hope.
Chapter XXVII. The Heresy of the Ebionites.262 
1 The evil demon, however, being unable to tear certain others from their allegiance to the Christ of God, yet found them susceptible in a different direction, and so brought them over to his own purposes. The ancients quite properly called these men Ebionites, because they held poor and mean opinions concerning Christ.263 
2 For they considered him a plain and common man, who was justified only because of his superior virtue, and who was the fruit of the intercourse of a man with Mary. In their opinion the observance of the ceremonial law was altogether necessary, on the ground that they could not be saved by faith in Christ alone and by a corresponding life.264 
3 There were others, however, besides them, that were of the same name,265 but avoided the strange and absurd beliefs of the former, and did not deny that the Lord was born of a virgin and of the Holy Spirit. But nevertheless, inasmuch as they also refused to acknowledge that he pre-existed,266 being God, Word, and Wisdom, they turned aside into the impiety of the former, especially when they, like them, endeavored to observe strictly the bodily worship of the law.267 
4 These men, moreover, thought that it was necessary to reject all the epistles of the apostle, whom they called an apostate from the law;268 and they used only the so-called Gospel according to the Hebrews269 and made small account of the rest.
5 The Sabbath and the rest of the discipline of the Jews they observed just like them, but at the same time, like us, they celebrated the Lord’s days as a memorial of the resurrection of the Saviour.270 
6 Wherefore, in consequence of such a course they received the name of Ebionites, which signified the poverty of their understanding. For this is the name by which a poor man is called among the Hebrews.271 
Chapter XXVIII. Cerinthus the Heresiarch.
1 We have understood that at this time Cerinthus,272 the author of another heresy, made his appearance. Caius, whose words we quoted above,273 in the Disputation which is ascribed to him, writes as follows concerning this man:
2 “But Cerinthus also, by means of revelations which he pretends were written by a great apostle, brings before us marvelous things which he falsely claims were shown him by angels; and he says that after the resurrection the kingdom of Christ will be set up on earth, and that the flesh dwelling in Jerusalem will again be subject to desires and pleasures. And being an enemy of the Scriptures of God, he asserts, with the purpose of deceiving men, that there is to be a period of a thousand years274 for marriage festivals.”275 
3 And Dionysius,276 who was bishop of the parish of Alexandria in our day, in the second book of his work On the Promises, where he says some things concerning the Apocalypse of John which he draws from tradition, mentions this same man in the following words:277 
4 “But (they say that) Cerinthus, who founded the sect which was called, after him, the Cerinthian, desiring reputable authority for his fiction, prefixed the name. For the doctrine which he taught was this: that the kingdom of Christ will be an earthly one.
5 And as he was himself devoted to the pleasures of the body and altogether sensual in his nature, he dreamed that that kingdom would consist in those things which he desired, namely, in the delights of the belly and of sexual passion, that is to say, in eating and drinking and marrying, and in festivals and sacrifices and the slaying of victims, under the guise of which he thought he could indulge his appetites with a better grace.”
6 These are the words of Dionysius. But Iranaeus, in the first book of his work Against Heresies,278 gives some more abominable false doctrines of the same man, and in the third book relates a story which deserves to be recorded. He says, on the authority of Polycarp, that the apostle John once entered a bath to bathe; but, learning that Cerinthus was within, he sprang from the place and rushed out of the door, for he could not bear to remain under the same roof with him. And he advised those that were with him to do the same, saying, “Let us flee, lest the bath fall; for Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within.”279 
Chapter XXIX. Nicolaus and the Sect Named After Him.
1 At this time the so-called sect of the Nicolaitans made its appearance and lasted for a very short time. Mention is made of it in the Apocalypse of John.280 They boasted that the author of their sect was Nicolaus, one of the deacons who, with Stephen, were appointed by the apostles for the purpose of ministering to the poor.281 Clement of Alexandria, in the third book of his Stromata, relates the following things concerning him.282 
2 “They say that he had a beautiful wife, and after the ascension of the Saviour, being accused by the apostles of jealousy, he led her into their midst and gave permission to any one that wished to marry her. For they say that this was in accord with that saying of his, that one ought to abuse the flesh. And those that have followed his heresy, imitating blindly and foolishly that which was done and said, commit fornication without shame.
3 But I understand that Nicolaus had to do with no other woman than her to whom he was married, and that, so far as his children are concerned, his daughters continued in a state of virginity until old age, and his son remained uncorrupt. If this is so, when he brought his wife, whom he jealously loved, into the midst of the apostles, he was evidently renouncing his passion; and when he used the expression, ‘to abuse the flesh,’ he was inculcating self-control in the face of those pleasures that are eagerly pursued. For I suppose that, in accordance with the command of the Saviour, he did not wish to serve two masters, pleasure and the Lord.283 
4 But they say that Matthias also taught in the same manner that we ought to fight against and abuse the flesh, and not give way to it for the sake of pleasure, but strengthen the soul by faith and knowledge.”284 So much concerning those who then attempted to pervert the truth, but in less time than it has taken to tell it became entirely extinct.
Chapter XXX. The Apostles that Were Married.
1 Clement, indeed, whose words we have just quoted, after the above-mentioned facts gives a statement, on account of those who rejected marriage, of the apostles that had wives.285 “Or will they,” says he,286 “reject even the apostles? For Peter287 and Philip288 begat children; and Philip also gave his daughters in marriage. And Paul does not hesitate, in one of his epistles, to greet his wife,289 whom he did not take about with him, that he might not be inconvenienced in his ministry.”
2 And since we have mentioned this subject it is not improper to subjoin another account which is given by the same author and which is worth reading. In the seventh book of his Stromata he writes as follows:290 “They say, accordingly, that when the blessed Peter saw his own wife led out to die, he rejoiced because of her summons and her return home, and called to her very encouragingly and comfortingly, addressing her by name, and saying, ‘Oh thou, remember the Lord.’ Such was the marriage of the blessed, and their perfect disposition toward those dearest to them.” This account being in keeping with the subject in hand, I have related here in its proper place.
Chapter XXXI. The Death of John and Philip.
1 The time and the manner of the death of Paul and Peter as well as their burial places, have been already shown by us.291 
2 The time of John’s death has also been given in a general way,292 but his burial place is indicated by an epistle of Polycrates293 (who was bishop of the parish of Ephesus), addressed to Victor,294 bishop of Rome. In this epistle he mentions him together with the apostle Philip and his daughters in the following words:295 
3 “For in Asia also great lights have fallen asleep, which shall rise again on the last day, at the coming of the Lord, when he shall come with glory from heaven and shall seek out all the saints. Among these are Philip, one of the twelve apostles,296 who sleeps in Hierapolis,297 and his two aged virgin daughters, and another daughter who lived in the Holy Spirit and now rests at Ephesus;298 and moreover John, who was both a witness299 and a teacher, who reclined upon the bosom of the Lord, and being a priest wore the sacerdotal plate.300 He also sleeps at Ephesus.”301 
4 So much concerning their death. And in the Dialogue of Caius which we mentioned a little above,302 Proclus,303 against whom he directed his disputation, in agreement with what has been quoted,304 speaks thus concerning the death of Philip and his daughters: “After him305 there were four prophetesses, the daughters of Philip, at Hierapolis in Asia. Their tomb is there and the tomb of their father.” Such is his statement.
5 But Luke, in the Acts of the Apostles, mentions the daughters of Philip who were at that time at Caesarea in Judea with their father, and were honored with the gift of prophecy. His words are as follows: “We came unto Caesarea; and entering into the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, we abode with him. Now this man had four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy.”306 
6 We have thus set forth in these pages what has come to our knowledge concerning the apostles themselves and the apostolic age, and concerning the sacred writings which they have left us, as well as concerning those which are disputed, but nevertheless have been publicly used by many in a great number of churches,307 and moreover, concerning those that are altogether rejected and are out of harmony with apostolic orthodoxy. Having done this, let us now proceed with our history.
Chapter XXXII. Symeon, Bishop of Jerusalem, Suffers Martyrdom.
1 It is reported that after the age of Nero and Domitian, under the emperor whose times we are now recording,308 a persecution was stirred up against us in certain cities in consequence of a popular uprising.309 In this persecution we have understood that Symeon, the son of Clopas, who, as we have shown, was the second bishop of the church of Jerusalem,310 suffered martyrdom.
2 Hegesippus, whose words we have already quoted in various places,311 is a witness to this fact also. Speaking of certain heretics312 he adds that Symeon was accused by them at this time; and since it was clear that he was a Christian, he was tortured in various ways for many days, and astonished even the judge himself and his attendants in the highest degree, and finally he suffered a death similar to that of our Lord.313 
3 But there is nothing like hearing the historian himself, who writes as follows: “Certain of these heretics brought accusation against Symeon, the son of Clopas, on the ground that he was a descendant of David314 and a Christian; and thus he suffered martyrdom, at the age of one hundred and twenty years,315 while Trajan was emperor and Atticus governor.”316 
4 And the same writer says that his accusers also, when search was made for the descendants of David, were arrested as belonging to that family.317 And it might be reasonably assumed that Symeon was one of those that saw and heard the Lord,318 judging from the length of his life, and from the fact that the Gospel makes mention of Mary, the wife of Clopas,319 who was the father of Symeon, as has been already shown.320 
5 The same historian says that there were also others, descended from one of the so-called brothers of the Saviour, whose name was Judas, who, after they had borne testimony before Domitian, as has been already recorded,321 in behalf of faith in Christ, lived until the same reign.
6 He writes as follows: “They came, therefore, and took the lead of every church322 as witnesses323 and as relatives of the Lord. And profound peace being established in every church, they remained until the reign of the Emperor Trajan,324 and until the above-mentioned Symeon, son of Clopas, an uncle of the Lord, was informed against by the heretics, and was himself in like manner accused for the same cause325 before the governor Atticus.326 And after being tortured for many days he suffered martyrdom, and all, including even the proconsul, marveled that, at the age of one hundred and twenty years, he could endure so much. And orders were given that he should be crucified.”
7 In addition to these things the same man, while recounting the events of that period, records that the Church up to that time had remained a pure and uncorrupted virgin, since, if there were any that attempted to corrupt the sound norm of the preaching of salvation, they lay until then concealed in obscure darkness.
8 But when the sacred college of apostles had suffered death in various forms, and the generation of those that had been deemed worthy to hear the inspired wisdom with their own ears had passed away, then the league of godless error took its rise as a result of the folly of heretical teachers,327 who, because none of the apostles was still living, attempted henceforth, with a bold face, to proclaim, in opposition to the preaching of the truth, the ‘knowledge which is falsely so-called.’328 
Chapter XXXIII. Trajan Forbids the Christians to Be Sought After.
1 So great a persecution was at that time opened against us in many places that Plinius Secundus, one of the most noted of governors, being disturbed by the great number of martyrs, communicated with the emperor concerning the multitude of those that were put to death for their faith.329 At the same time, he informed him in his communication that he had not heard of their doing anything profane or contrary to the laws,—except that they arose at dawn330 and sang hymns to Christ as a God; but that they, renounced adultery and murder and like criminal offenses, and did all things in accordance with the laws.
2 In reply to this Trajan made the following decree: that the race of Christians should not be sought after, but when found should be punished. On account of this the persecution which had threatened to be a most terrible one was to a certain degree checked, but there were still left plenty of pretexts for those who wished to do us harm. Sometimes the people, sometimes the rulers in various places, would lay plots against us, so that, although no great persecutions took place, local persecutions were nevertheless going on in particular provinces,331 and many of the faithful endured martyrdom in various forms.
3 We have taken our account from the Latin Apology of Tertullian which we mentioned above.332 The translation runs as follows:333 “And indeed we have found that search for us has been forbidden.334 For when Plinius Secundus, the governor of a province, had condemned certain Christians and deprived them of their dignity,335 he was confounded by the multitude, and was uncertain what further course to pursue. He therefore communicated with Trajan the emperor, informing him that, aside from their unwillingness to sacrifice,336 he had found no impiety in them.
4 And he reported this also, that the Christians arose337 early in the morning and sang hymns unto Christ as a God, and for the purpose of preserving their discipline338 forbade murder, adultery, avarice, robbery, and the like. In reply to this Trajan wrote that the race of Christians should not be sought after, but when found should be punished.” Such were the events which took place at that time.
Chapter XXXIV. Evarestus, the Fourth Bishop of the Church of Rome.
1 In the third year of the reign of the emperor mentioned above,339 Clement340 committed the episcopal government of the church of Rome to Evarestus,341 and departed this life after he had superintended the teaching of the divine word nine years in all.
Chapter XXXV. Justus, the Third Bishop of Jerusalem.
1 But when Symeon also had died in the manner described,342 a certain Jew by the name of Justus343 succeeded to the episcopal throne in Jerusalem. He was one of the many thousands of the circumcision who at that time believed in Christ.
Chapter XXXVI. Ignatius and His Epistles.
1 At that time Polycarp,344 a disciple of the apostles, was a man of eminence in Asia, having been entrusted with the episcopate of the church of Smyrna by those who had seen and heard the Lord.
2 And at the same time Papias,345 bishop of the parish of Hierapolis,346 became well known, as did also Ignatius, who was chosen bishop of Antioch, second in succession to Peter, and whose fame is still celebrated by a great many.347 Report says that he was sent from Syria to Rome, and became food for wild beasts on account of his testimony to Christ.348 
4 And as he made the journey through Asia under the strictest military surveillance, he fortified the parishes in the various cities where he stopped by oral homilies and exhortations, and warned them above all to be especially on their guard against the heresies that were then beginning to prevail, and exhorted them to hold fast to the tradition of the apostles. Moreover, he thought it necessary to attest that tradition in writing, and to give it a fixed form for the sake of greater security.
5 So when he came to Smyrna, where Polycarp was, he wrote an epistle to the church of Ephesus,349 in which he. mentions Onesimus, its pastor;350 and another to the church of Magnesia, situated upon the Maeander, in which he makes mention again of a bishop Damas; and finally one to the church of Tralles, whose bishop, he states, was at that time Polybius.
6 In addition to these he wrote also to the church of Rome, entreating them not to secure his release from martyrdom, and thus rob him of his earnest hope. In confirmation of what has been said it is proper to quote briefly from this epistle.
7 He writes as follows:351 “From Syria even unto Rome I fight with wild beasts, by land and by sea, by night and by day, being bound amidst ten leopards352 that is, a company of soldiers who only become worse when they are well treated. In the midst of their wrongdoings, however, I am more fully learning discipleship, but I am not thereby justified.353 
8 May I have joy of the beasts that are prepared for me; and I pray that I may find them ready; I will even coax them to devour me quickly that they may not treat me as they have some whom they have refused to touch through fear.354 And if they are unwilling, I will compel them. Forgive me.
9 I know what is expedient for me. Now do I begin to be a disciple. May naught of things visible and things invisible envy me;355 that I may attain unto Jesus Christ. Let fire and cross and attacks of wild beasts, let wrenching of bones, cutting of limbs, crushing of the whole body, tortures of the devil,—let all these come upon me if only I may attain unto Jesus Christ.”
10 These things he wrote from the above-mentioned city to the churches referred to. And when he had left Smyrna he wrote again from Troas356 to the Philadelphians and to the church of Smyrna; and particularly to Polycarp, who presided over the latter church. And since he knew him well as an apostolic man, he commended to him, like a true and good shepherd, the flock at Antioch, and besought him to care diligently for it.357 
11 And the same man, writing to the Smyrnaeans, used the following words concerning Christ, taken I know not whence:358 “But I know and believe that he was in the flesh after the resurrection. And when he came to Peter and his companions he said to them, Take, handle me, and see that I am not an incorporeal spirit.359 And immediately they touched him and believed.”360 
12 Irenaeus also knew of his martyrdom and mentions his epistles in the following words:361 “As one of our people said, when he was condemned to the beasts on account of his testimony unto God, I am God’s wheat, and by the teeth of wild beasts am I ground, that I may be found pure bread.”
13 Polycarp also mentions these letters in the epistle to the Philippians which is ascribed to him.362 His words are as follows:363 “I exhort all of you, therefore, to be obedient and to practice all patience such as ye saw with your own eyes not only in the blessed Ignatius and Rufus and Zosimus,364 but also in others from among yourselves as well as in Paul himself and the rest of the apostles; being persuaded that all these ran not in vain, but in faith and righteousness, and that they are gone to their rightful place beside the Lord, with whom also they suffered. For they loved not the present world, but him that died for our sakes and was raised by God for us.”
14 And afterwards he adds:365 “You have written to me, both you and Ignatius, that if any one go to Syria he may carry with him the letters from you. And this I will do if I have a suitable opportunity, either I myself or one whom I send to be an ambassador for you also.
15 The epistles of Ignatius which were sent to us by him and the others which we had with us we sent to you as you gave charge. They are appended to this epistle, and from them you will be able to derive great advantage. For they comprise faith and patience, and every kind of edification that pertaineth to our Lord.” So much concerning Ignatius. But he was succeeded by Heros366 in the episcopate of the church of Antioch.
Chapter XXXVII. The Evangelists that Were Still Eminent at that Time.
1 Among those that were celebrated at that time was Quadratus,367 who, report says, was renowned along with the daughters of Philip for his prophetical gifts. And there were many others besides these who were known in those days, and who occupied the first place among the successors of the apostles. And they also, being illustrious disciples of such great men, built up the foundations of the churches which had been laid by the apostles in every place, and preached the Gospel more and more widely and scattered the saving seeds of the kingdom of heaven far and near throughout the whole world.368 
2 For indeed most of the disciples of that time, animated by the divine word with a more ardent love for philosophy,369 had already fulfilled the command of the Saviour, and had distributed their goods to the needy.370 Then starting out upon long journeys they performed the office of evangelists, being filled with the desire to preach Christ to those who had not yet heard the word of faith, and to deliver to them the divine Gospels.
3 And when they had only laid the foundations of the faith in foreign places, they appointed others as pastors, and entrusted them with the nurture of those that had recently been brought in, while they themselves went on again to other countries and nations, with the grace and the co-operation of God. For a great many wonderful works were done through them by the power of the divine Spirit, so that at the first hearing whole multitudes of men eagerly embraced the religion of the Creator of the universe.
4 But since it is impossible for us to enumerate the names of all that became shepherds or evangelists in the churches throughout the world in the age immediately succeeding the apostles, we have recorded, as was fitting, the names of those only who have transmitted the apostolic doctrine to us in writings still extant.
Chapter XXXVIII. The Epistle of Clement and the Writings Falsely Ascribed to Him.
1 Thus Ignatius has done in the epistles which we have mentioned,371 and Clement in his epistle which is accepted by all, and which he wrote in the name of the church of Rome to the church of Corinth.372 In this epistle he gives many thoughts drawn from the Epistle to the Hebrews, and also quotes verbally some of its expressions, thus showing most plainly that it is not a recent production.
2 Wherefore it has seemed reasonable to reckon it with the other writings of the apostle. For as Paul had written to the Hebrews in his native tongue, some say that the evangelist Luke, others that this Clement himself, translated the epistle.
3 The latter seems more probable, because the epistle of Clement and that to the Hebrews have a similar character in regard to style, and still further because the thoughts contained in the two works are not very different.373 
4 But it must be observed also that there is said to be a second epistle of Clement. But we do not know that this is recognized like the former, for we do not find that the ancients have made any use of it.374 
5 And certain menhave lately brought forward other wordy and lengthy writings under his name, containing dialogues of Peter and Apion.375 But no mention has been made of these by the ancients; for they do not even preserve the pure stamp of apostolic orthodoxy. The acknowledged writing of Clement is well known. We have spoken also of the works of Ignatius and Polycarp.376 
Chapter XXXIX. The Writings of Papias.
1 There are extant five books of Papias, which bear the title Expositions of Oracles of the Lord.377 Irenaeus makes mention of these as the only works written by him,378 in the following words:379 “These things are attested by Papias, an ancient man who was a hearer of John and a companion of Polycarp, in his fourth book. For five books have been written by him.” These are the words of Irenaeus.
2 But Papias himself in the preface to his discourses by no means declares that he was himself a hearer and eye-witness of the holy apostles, but he shows by the words which he uses that he received the doctrines of the faith from those who were their friends.380 
3 He says: “But I shall not hesitate also to put down for you along with my interpretations381 whatsoever things I have at any time learned carefully from the elders382 and carefully remembered, guaranteeing their truth. For I did not, like the multitude, take pleasure in those that speak much, but in those that teach the truth; not in those that relate strange commandments, but in those that deliver383 the commandments given by the Lord to faith,384 and springing from the truth itself.
4 If, then, any one came, who had been a follower of the elders, I questioned him in regard to the words of the elders,—what Andrew or what Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the disciples of the Lord, and what things Aristion385 and the presbyter John,386 the disciples of the Lord, say. For I did not think that what was to be gotten from the books387 would profit me as much as what came from the living and abiding voice.”
5 It is worth while observing here that the name John is twice enumerated by him.388 The first one he mentions in connection with Peter and James and Matthew and the rest of the apostles, clearly meaning the evangelist; but the other John he mentions after an interval, and places him among others outside of the number of the apostles, putting Aristion before him, and he distinctly calls him a presbyter.
6 This shows that the statement of those is true, who say that there were two persons in Asia that bore the same name, and that there were two tombs in Ephesus, each of which, even to the present day, si called John’s.389 It is important to notice this. For it is probable that it was the second, if one is not willing to admit that it was the first that saw the Revelation, which is ascribed by name to John390 
7 And Papias, of whom we are now speaking, confesses that he received the words of the apostles from those that followed them, but says that he was himself a hearer of Aristion and the presbyter John. At least he mentions them frequently by name, and gives their traditions in his writings. These things we hope, have not been uselessly adduced by us.
8 But it is fitting to subjoin to the words of Papias which have been quoted, other passages from his works in which he relates some other wonderful events which he claims to have received from tradition.
9 That Philip the apostle dwelt at Hierapolis with his daughters has been already stated.391 But it must be noted here that Papias, their contemporary, says that he heard a wonderful tale from the daughters of Philip. For he relates that in his time392 one rose from the dead. And he tells another wonderful story of Justus, surnamed Barsabbas: that he drank a deadly poison, and yet, by the grace of the Lord, suffered no harm.
10 The Book of Acts records that the holy apostles after the ascension of the Saviour, put forward this Justus, together with Matthias, and prayed that one might be chosen in place of the traitor Judas, to fill up their number. The account is as follows: “And they put forward two, Joseph, called Barsabbas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias; and they prayed and said.”393 
11 The same writer gives also other accounts which he says came to him through unwritten tradition, certain strange parables and teachings of the Saviour, and some other more mythical things.394 
12 To these belong his statement that there will be a period of some thousand years after the resurrection of the dead, and that the kingdom of Christ will be set up in material form on this very earth.395 I suppose he got these ideas through a misunderstanding of the apostolic accounts, not perceiving that the things said by them were spoken mystically in figures.
13 For he appears to have been of very limited understanding,396 as one can see from his discourses. but it was due to him that so many of the Church Fathers after him adopted a like opinion, urging in their own support the antiquity of the man; as for instance Iranaeus and any one else that may have proclaimed similar views.397 
14 Papias gives also in his own work other accounts of the words of the Lord on the authority of Aristion who was mentioned above, and traditions as handed down by the presbyter John; to which we refer those who are fond of learning. But now we must add to the words of his which we have already quoted the tradition which he gives in regard to Mark, the author of the Gospel.
15 “This also the presbyter398 said: Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately, though not in order, whatsoever he remembered of the things said or done by Christ.399 For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterward, as I said, he followed Peter, who adapted his teaching to the needs of his hearers, but with no intention of giving a connected account of the Lord’s discourses, so that Mark committed no error while he thus wrote some things as he remembered them. For he was careful of one thing, not to omit any of the things which he had heard, and not to state any of them falsely." These things are related 16 by Papias concerning Mark. 16But concerning Matthew he writes as follows: “So then Matthew wrote the oracles in the Hebrew language, and every one interpreted them as he was able.” And the same writer uses testimonies from the first Epistle of John and from that of Peter likewise. And he relates another story of a woman, who was accused of many sins before the Lord, which is contained in the Gospel according to the Hebrews. These things we have thought it necessary to observe in addition to what has been already stated. 
Book IV.
Chapter I.—The Bishops of Rome and of Alexandria During the Reign of Trajan.
1 About the twelfth year of the reign of Trajan the above-mentioned bishop of the parish of Alexandria  died, and Primus, the fourth in succession from the apostles, was chosen to the office. 2At that time also Alexander, the fifth in the line of succession from Peter and Paul, received the episcopate at Rome, after Evarestus had held the office eight years.
Chapter II.—The Calamities of the Jews During Trajan’s Reign.
1The teaching and the Church of our Saviour flourished greatly and made progress from day to day; but the calamities of the Jews increased, and they underwent a constant succession of evils. In the eighteenth year of Trajan’s reign  there was another disturbance of the Jews, through which a great multitude of them perished.’ 2For in Alexandria and in the rest of Egypt, and also in Cyrene, as if incited by some terrible and factious spirit, they rushed into seditious measures against their fellow-inhabitants, the Greeks. The insurrection increased greatly, and in the following year, while Lupus was governor of all Egypt, it developed into a war of no mean magnitude. 3In the first attack it happened that they were victorious over the Greeks, who fled to Alexandria and imprisoned and slew the Jews that were in the city. But the Jews of Cyrene, although deprived of their aid, continued to plunder the land of Egypt and to devastate its districts, under the leadership of Lucuas. Against them the emperor sent Marcius Turbo  with a foot and naval force and also with a force of cavalry. 4He carried on the war against them for a long time and fought many battles, and slew many thousands of Jews, not only of those of Cyrene, but also of those who dwelt in Egypt and had come to the assistance of their king Lucuas. 6But the emperor, fearing that the Jews in Mesopotamia would also make an attack upon the inhabitants of that country, commanded Lucius Quintus to clear the province of them. And he having marched against them slew a great multitude of those that dwelt there; and in consequence of his success he was made governor of Judea by the emperor. These events are recorded also in these very words by the Greek historians that have written accounts of those times.
Chapter III.—The Apologists that Wrote in Defense of the Faith During the Reign of Adrian.
1After Trajan had reigned for nineteen and a half years Aelius Adrian became his successor in the empire. To him Quadratus addressed a discourse containing an apology for our religion, because certain wicked men had attempted to trouble the Christians. The work is still in the hands of a great many of the brethren, as also in our own, and furnishes clear proofs of the man’s understanding and of his apostolic orthodox. 2He himself reveals the early date at which he lived in the following words: “But the works of our Saviour were always present, for they were genuine:—those that were healed, and those that were raised from the dead, who were seen not only when they were healed and when they were raised, but were also always present; and not merely while the Saviour was on earth, but also after his death, they were alive for quite a while, so that some of them lived even to our day.” Such then was Quadratus.
3Aristides also, a believer earnestly devoted to our religion, left, like Quadratus, an apology for the faith, addressed to Adrian. His work, too, has been preserved even to the present day by a great many persons.
Chapter IV.—The Bishops of Rome and of Alexandria Uncle; The Same Emperor.
In the third year of the same reign, Alexander, bishop of Rome, died after holding office ten years. His successor was Xystus. About the same time Primus, bishop of Alexandria, died in the twelfth year of his episcopate, and was succeeded by Justus.
Chapter V.—The Bishops of Jerusalem from the Age of Our Saviour Lo the Period Under Consideration.
1The chronology of the bishops of Jerusalem I have nowhere found preserved in writing; for tradition says that they were all short lived. 2But I have learned this much from writings, that until the siege of the Jews, which took place under Adrian, there were fifteen bishops in succession there. all of whom are said to have been of Hebrew descent, and to have received the knowledge of Christ in purity, so that they were approved by those who were able to judge of such matters, and were deemed worthy of the episcopate. For their whole church consisted then of believing Hebrews who continued from the days of the apostles until the siege which took place at this time; in which siege the Jews, having again rebelled against the Romans, were conquered after severe battles. 3But since the bishops of the circumcision ceased at this time, it is proper to give here a list of their names from the beginning. The first, then, was James, the so-called brother of the Lord; the second, Symeon; the third, Justus; the fourth, Zacchaeus; the fifth, Tobias; the sixth, Benjamin; the seventh, John; the eighth, Matthias; the ninth, Philip; the tenth, Seneca; the eleventh, Justus; the twelfth, Levi; the thirteenth, Ephres; the fourteenth, Joseph; and finally, the fifteenth, Judas. 4These are the bishops ofJerusalem that lived between the age of the apostles and the time referred to, all of them belonging to the circumcision.
5In the twelfth year of the reign of Adrian, Xystus, having completed the tenth year of his episcopate,1 was succeeded by Telesphorus,2 the seventh in succession from the apostles. In the meantime, after the lapse of a year and some months, Eumenes,3 the sixth in order, succeeded to the leadership of the Alexandrian church, his predecessor having held office eleven years.4 
Chapter VI. The Last Siege of the Jews Under Adrian.
1 As the rebellion of the Jews at this timegrew much more serious,5 Rufus, governor of Judea, after an auxiliary force had been sent him by the emperor, using their madness as a pretext, proceeded against them without mercy, and destroyed indiscriminately thousands of men and women and children, and in accordance with the laws of war reduced their country to a state of complete subjection.
2 The leader of the Jews at this time was a man by the name of Barcocheba6 (which signifies a star), who possessed the character of a robber and a murderer, but nevertheless, relying upon his name, boasted to them, as if they were slaves, that he possessed wonderful powers; and he pretended that he was a star that had come down to them out of heaven to bring them light in the midst of their misfortunes.
3 The war raged most fiercely in the eighteenth year of Adrian,7 at the city of Bithara,8 which was a very secure fortress, situated not far from Jerusalem. When the siege had lasted a long time, and the rebels had been driven to the last extremity by hunger and thirst, and the instigator of the rebellion had suffered his just punishment, the whole nation was prohibited from this time on by a decree, and by the commands of Adrian, from ever going up to the country about Jerusalem. For the emperor gave orders that they should not even see from a distance the land of their fathers. Such is the account of Aristo of Pella.9 
4 And thus, when the city had been emptied of the Jewish nation and had suffered the total destruction of its ancient inhabitants, it was colonized by a different race, and the Roman city which subsequently arose changed its name and was called Aelia, in honor of the emperor Aelius Adrian. And as the church there was now composed of Gentiles, the first one to assume the government of it after the bishops of the circumcision was Marcus.10 
Chapter VII. The Persons that Became at that Time Leaders of Knowledge Falsely So-Called.11 
1 As the churches throughout the world were now shining like the most brilliant stars, and faith in our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ was flourishing among the whole human race,12 the demon who hates everything that is good, and is always hostile to the truth, and most bitterly opposed to the salvation of man,turned all his arts against the Church.13 In the beginning he armed himself against it with external persecutions.
2 But now, being shut off from the use of such means,14 he devised all sorts of plans, and employed other methods in his conflict with the Church, using base and deceitful men as instruments for the ruin of souls and as ministers of destruction. Instigated by him, impostors and deceivers, assuming the name of our religion, brought to the depth of ruin such of the believers as they could win over, and at the same time, by means of the deeds which they practiced, turned away from the path which leads to the word of salvation those who were ignorant of the faith.
3 Accordingly there proceeded from that Menander, whom we have already mentioned as the successor of Simon,15 a certain serpent-like power, double-tongued and two-headed, which produced the leaders of two different heresies, Saturninus, an Antiochian by birth,16 and Basilides, an Alexandrian.17 The former of these established schools of godless heresy in Syria, the latter in Alexandria.
4 Irenaeus states18 that the false teaching of Saturninus agreed in most respects with that of Menander, but that Basilides, under the pretext of unspeakable mysteries, invented monstrous fables, and carried the fictions of his impious heresy quite beyond bounds.
5 But as there were at that time a great many members of the Church19 who were fighting for the truth and defending apostolic and ecclesiastical doctrine with uncommon eloquence, so there were some also that furnished posterity through their writings with means of defense against the heresies to which we have referred.20 
6 Of these there has come down to us a most powerful refutation of Basilides by Agrippa Castor,21 one of the most renowned writers of that day, which shows the terrible imposture of the man.
7 While exposing his mysteries he says that Basilides wrote twenty-four books upon the Gospel,22 and that he invented prophets for himself named Barcabbas and Barcoph,23 and others that had no existence, and that he gave them barbarous names in order to amaze those who marvel at such things; that he taught also that the eating of meat offered to idols and the unguarded renunciation of the faith in times of persecution were matters of indifference;24 and that he enjoined upon his followers, like Pythagoras, a silence of five years.25 
8 Other similar things the above-mentioned writer has recorded concerning Basilides, and has ably exposed the error of his heresy.
9 Irenaeus also writes26 that Carpocrates was a contemporary of these men, and that he was the father of another heresy, called the heresy of the Gnostics,27 who did not wish to transmit any longer the magic arts of Simon, as that one28 had done, in secret, but openly.29 For they boasted — as of something great — of love potions that were carefully prepared by them, and of certain demons that sent them dreams and lent them their protection, and of other similar agencies; and in accordance with these things they taught that it was necessary for those who wished to enter fully into their mysteries, or rather into their abominations, to practice all the worst kinds of wickedness, on the ground that they could escape the cosmic powers, as they called them, in no other way than by discharging their obligations to them all by infamous conduct.
10 Thus it came to pass that the malignant demon, making use of these ministers, on the one hand enslaved those that were so pitiably led astray by them to their own destruction, while on the other hand he furnished to the unbelieving heathen abundant opportunities for slandering the divine word, inasmuch as the reputation of these men brought infamy upon the whole race of Christians.
11 In this way, therefore, it came to pass that there was spread abroad in regard to us among the unbelievers of that age, the infamous and most absurd suspicion that we practiced unlawful commerce with mothers and sisters, and enjoyed impious feasts.30 
12 He did not, however, long succeed in these artifices, as the truth established itself and in time shone with great brilliancy.
13 For the machinations of its enemies were refuted by its power and speedily vanished. One new heresy arose after another, and the former ones always passed away, and now at one time, now at another, now in one way, now in other ways, were lost in ideas of various kinds and various forms. But the splendor of the catholic and only true Church, which is always the same, grew in magnitude and power, and reflected its piety and simplicity and freedom, and the modesty and purity of its inspired life and philosophy to every nation both of Greeks and of Barbarians.
14 At the same time the slanderous accusations which had been brought against the whole Church31 also vanished, and there remained our teaching alone, which has prevailed over all, and which is acknowledged to be superior to all in dignity and temperance, and in divine and philosophical doctrines. So that none of them now ventures to affix a base calumny upon our faith, or any such slander as our ancient enemies formerly delighted to utter.
15 Nevertheless, in those times the truth again called forth many champions who fought in its defense against the godless heresies, refuting them not only with oral, but also with written arguments.32 
Chapter VIII. Ecclesiastical Writers.
1 Among these Hegesippus was well known.33 We have already quoted his words a number of times,34 relating events which happened in the time of the apostles according to his account.
2 He records in five books the true tradition of apostolic doctrine in a most simple style, and he indicates the time in which he flourished when he writes as follows concerning those that first set up idols: “To whom they erected cenotaphs and temples, as is done to the present day. Among whom is also Antinoüs,35 a slave of the Emperor Adrian, in whose honor are celebrated also the Antinoian games, which were instituted in our day. For he [i.e. Adrian] also founded a city named after Antinoüs,36 and appointed prophets.”
3 At the same time also Justin, a genuine lover of the true philosophy, was still continuing to busy himself with Greek literature.37 He indicates this time in the Apology which he addressed to Antonine, where he writes as follows:38 “We do not think it out of place to mention here Antinoüs also, who lived in our day, and whom all were driven by fear to worship as a god, although they knew who he was and whence he came.”
4 The same writer, speaking of the Jewish war which took place at that time, adds the following:39 “For in the late Jewish war Barcocheba, the leader of the Jewish rebellion, commanded that Christians alone40 should be visited with terrible punishments unless they would deny and blaspheme Jesus Christ.”
5 And in the same work he shows that his conversion from Greek philosophy to Christianity41 was not without reason, but that it was the result of deliberation on his part. His words are as follows:42 “For I myself, while I was delighted with the doctrines of Plato, and heard the Christians slandered, and saw that they were afraid neither of death nor of anything else ordinarily looked upon as terrible, concluded that it was impossible that they could be living in wickedness and pleasure. For what pleasure-loving or intemperate man, or what man that counts it good to feast on human flesh, could welcome death that he might be deprived of his enjoyments, and would not rather strive to continue permanently his present life, and to escape the notice of the rulers, instead of giving himself up to be put to death?”
6 The same writer, moreover, relates that Adrian having received from Serennius Granianus,43 a most distinguished governor, a letter44 in behalf of the Christians, in which he stated that it was not just to slay the Christians without a regular accusation and trial, merely for the sake of gratifying the outcries of the populace, sent a rescript45 to Minucius Fundanus,46 proconsul of Asia, commanding him to condemn no one without an indictment and a well-grounded accusation.
7 And he gives a copy of the epistle, preserving the original Latin in which it was written,47 and prefacing it with the following words:48 “Although from the epistle of the greatest and most illustrious Emperor Adrian, your father, we have good ground to demand that you order judgment to be given as we have desired, yet we have asked this not because it was ordered by Adrian, but rather because we know that what we ask is just. And we have subjoined the copy of Adrian’s epistle that you may know that we are speaking the truth in this matter also. And this is the copy.”
8 After these words the author referred to gives the rescript in Latin, which we have translated into Greek as accurately as we could.49 It reads as follows:
Chapter IX. The Epistle of Adrian, Decreeing that We Should Not Be Punished Without a Trial.
1 “To Minucius Fundanus. I have received an epistle,50 written to me by Serennius Granianus, a most illustrious man, whom you have succeeded. It does not seem right to me that the matter should be passed by without examination, lest the men51 be harassed and opportunity be given to the informers for practicing villainy.
2 If, therefore, the inhabitants of the province can clearly sustain this petition against the Christians so as to give answer in a court of law, let them pursue this course alone, but let them not have resort to men’s petitions and outcries. For it is far more proper, if any one wishes to make an accusation, that you should examine into it.
3 If any one therefore accuses them and shows that they are doing anything contrary to the laws, do you pass judgment according to the heinousness of the crime.52 But, by Hercules! if any one bring an accusation through mere calumny, decide in regard to his criminality,53 and see to it that you inflict punishment.”54 
Such are the contents of Adrian’s rescript.
Chapter X. The Bishops of Rome and of Alexandria During the Reign of Antoninus.
Adrian having died after a reign of twenty-one years,55 was succeeded in the government of the Romans by Antoninus, called the Pious. In the first year of his reign Telesphorus56 died in the eleventh year of his episcopate, and Hyginus became bishop of Rome.57 Irenaeus records that Telesphorus’ death was made glorious by martyrdom,58 and in the same connection he states that in the time of the above-mentioned Roman bishop Hyginus, Valentinus, the founder of a sect of his own, and Cerdon, the author of Marcion’s error, were both well known at Rome.59 He writes as follows:60 
Chapter XI. The Heresiarchs of that Age.
1 “For Valentinus came to Rome under Hyginus, flourished under Pius, and remained until Anicetus.61 Cerdon62 also, Marcion’s cion’s predecessor, entered the Chruch in the time of Hyginus, the ninth bishop, and made confession, and continued in this way, now teaching in secret, now making confession again, and now denounced for corrupt doctrine and withdrawing from the assembly of the brethren.”
2These words are found in the third book of the work Against Heresies. And again in the first book he speaks as follows concerning Cerdon: “A certain Cerdon, who had taken his system fromt he followers of Simon, and had come to Rome under Hyginus, the ninth in the episcopal succession from the apostles, taught that the God proclaimed by the law and prophets was not the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the former was known, but hte latter unknown; and the former was just, but the latter good. Marcion of Pontus succeeded Cerdon and developed his doctrine, uttering shameless blasphemies.” 3The same Irenaeus unfolds with the greates vigor the unfathomable abyss of Valentinus’ errors in regard to matter, and reveals his wickedness, secret and hidden like a serpent lurking in its nest. 4And in addition ot these men he says that there was also another that lived in that age, Marcus by name, who was remarkably skilled in magic arts. And he describes also their unholy initiations and their abominable mysteries in the following words: “For some of them prepare a nuptial couch an dperform a mystic rite with certain forms of expression addressed to those who are being initiated, and they say that it is a spiritual marriage which is celebrated by them, after the likeness of the marriages above. but others lead them to water, and while they baptize them they repeat the following words: Into the name of the unknown father of the universe, into truth, the mother of all things, into the one that descended upon Jesus. Others repeat Hebrew names in order the better to confound those whoa re being initiated.”
6But Hyginus having died at the close of the fourth year of his episcopate, Pius succeeded him in the government of the church of Rome. In Alexandria Marcus was appointed pastor, after Eumenes had filled the office thirteen years in all. And Marcus having died after holding office ten years was succeeded by Celadion in the government of the church of Alexandria. 7And in Rome Pius died in the fifteenth year of his episcopate, and Anicetus assumed the leadership of the Christians there. Hegesippus records that he himself was in Rome at this time, and that he remained there until the episcopate of Eleutherus.
8But Justin was especially prominent in those days. In the guise of a philospher he preached the divine word, and contended for the faith in his writings. He wrote also a work against Marcion, in which he states that the latter was alive at the time he wrote. 9He speaks as follows: “And there is a certain Marcion of Pontus, who is even now still teaching his followers to think that there is some other God greater than the creator. And by the aid of the demons he has persuaded many of every race of men to utter blasphemy, and to deny that the maker of this universe is the father of Christ, and to confess that someother, greater than he, was the creator. And all who followed them are, as we have said, called Christians, just as the name of philosophy is given to philosphers, although they may have no doctrines in common.” 10To this he adds: “And we have also written a work against all the heresies that have existed, which we will give you if you wish to read it.”
But this same justin contended most successfully against the Greeks, and addressed discourses containing an apology for our faith to the Emperor Antonius, called Pius, and to the Roman senate. For he lived at Rome. But who and whence he was he shows in hi Apology in the following words.Chapter Xiithe Apology of Justin addressed to Antonius
“To the Emperor Titus Aelius Adrian Antoninus Pius Caesar Augustus, and to Verissimus his son, the philosopher, and to Lucius the philospher, own son of Caesar and adopted son of Pius, a lover of learning, and to the sacred senate and to the whole Roman people, I , Justin, son of Priscus and grandson of Bacchius, of Flavia Neapolis in Palestine, Syria, present this address and petition in behalf of those men of every nation who are unjustly hated and persecuted, I myself being one of them.” And the same emperor having learned also from other brethren in Asia of the injuries of all kinds which they were suffering from the inhabitants of hte province, thought it proper to address the following ordinance to the Common Assembly of Asia.Chapter Xiiithe Epistle of Antoninus to the Common Assembly of Asia in Regard to our Doctine.
1The Emperor Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, Armenicus, Pontifex Maximus, fo rthe fifteenth time Tribuine, for the third time Consul, to the Common Assembly of Asia, Greeting. 2I know that the gods also take care that such persons do not escape detection. For they would much rather punish those who will not worship them than you would. 3But you throw them into confusion, and while you accuse them of atheism you only confirm them in the opinion which they hold. It would indeed be more desirable for them, when accused, to appear to die for their God, than to live. Wherefore also they come off victorius when they give up their lives rather than yield obedience to your commands. 4And in regard to the eqrthquakes which have been and are still taking place, it is not improper to admonish you who lose heart whenever they occur, and nevertheless are accustomed to compare your conduct with theirs. 5They indeed become the more confident in God, while you, during the whle time, neglect, in apparent ignorance, the other gods and the worship of the Immortal, and oppress and persecute even unto death the Christians who worship him. 6But in regard to these persons, many of the governors of the provinces wrote also to our most divine father, to whome he wrote in reply that they should not trouble these people unless it should appear that they were attempting something affecting the Roman government. And to me also may have sent communications concerning these men, but I have replied to them in the same way that my father did. 7But if any one still persists in bringing accusations against any of these people as such, the person who is accused shall be acquitted of the charge, even if it appear that he is one of them, but the accuser shall be punished. Published in Ephesus in the Common Assembly of Asia.” 8To these things Melito, bishop of hte church of Sardis, and a man well known at that time, is a witness, as is clear from his words in the Apology which he addressed to the Emperor Verus in behalf of our doctrine. Chapter Xivthe Circumstances related of Polycarp, a Friend of the Apostles.
1At this time, while Anicetus was at the head of the church of Rome, Irenaeus relates that Polycarp, who was still alive, was at Rome, and that he had a conference with Anicetus on a question concerning the day of the paschal feast. 2And the same writer gives another account of Polycarp which I feel constrained to add to that which has been already related in regard to him. The account is taken fromthe third book of Irenaeus’ work Against Heresies, and is as follows: 3“But Polycarp also was not only instructed by the apostles, and acquainted with many that had seen Christ, but was also appointed by apostles in Asia bishop of the church of Smyrna. 4We too saw him in our early youth; for he lived a long time, and died, when a very old man, a glorious and most illustrious martyr’s death,having always taught the things which he had learned form the apostles, which the Church also hands down, and which alone are true. 5To these things all the Asiatic churches testify, as do also those who, down to the present time, have succeeded Polycarp, who was a much more trustworthy and certain witness of ht truth thatn Valentinus and Marcion and the rest of the heretics. He also was in Rome in the time of Anicetus and caused many to turn away from the above-mentioned heretics to the Church of God, proclaiming that he had received fromthe apostles thisone and only system of truth which has been transmittted by the Church. 6And there are those that heard from him that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe in Ephesus and seeing Cerinthus within, ran out of the bath-house without bathing, crying, ‘Let us flee, lest even the bath fall, because Cerinthus, the enemy of hte truth, is within.’ 7And Polycarp himself, when Marcion once met him and said, ‘Knowest thou us?’ replied, ‘I know the first born of Satan.’ Such caution did the apostles nd their disciples exercise that they might not even converse with any of those who perverted the truth; as Paul also said, ‘A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject; knowing he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.’ 8There is also a very powerful epistle of Polycarp written to the Philippians, from which those that wish to do so, and that are concerned for their own salvation, may learn the character of his faith and the preaching of the truth.” Such is the account of Irenaeus. 9But Polycarp, in his above-mentioned epistle to the Philippians, which is still extant, has made use of certain testimonies drawn from the First Epistle of Peter.
10And when Antoninus, called Pius, had completed the twenty-second year of his reign, Marcus Aurelius Verus, his son, who was also called Antoninus, succeeded him, together with his brother Lucius.Chapter Xvunder Verus, Polycarp with Others suffered Martyrdom as Smyrna.
1At this time, when the greatest persecutions were exciting Asia, Polycarp ended his life by martyrdom. But I consider it most important that his death, a written account of which is still extant, should be recorded in this history. 2There is a letter, written in the name of the church over which he himself presided, to the parishes in Pontus, which relates the events that befell him, in the following words: 3“The church of God which dwelleth in Philomelium, and to all the parishes of the holy catholic Church in every place; mercy and peace and love from God the Father be multiplied. We write unto you, brethren, an account of what happened to htose that suffered martyrdom and to the blessed Polycarp, who put an end to the persecution, having, as it were, sealed it his martyrdom.“
4 After these words, before giving the account of Polycarp, they record the events which befell the rest of the martyrs, and describe the great firmness which they exhibited in the midst of their pains. For they say that the bystanders were struck with amazement when they saw them lacerated with scourges even to the innermost veins and arteries, so that the hidden inward parts of the body, both their bowels and their members, were exposed to view; and then laid upon sea-shells and certain pointed spits, and subjected to every species of punishment and of torture, and finally thrown as food to wild beasts.
5 And they record that the most noble Germanicus63 especially distinguished himself, overcoming by the grace of God the fear of bodily death implanted by nature. When indeed the proconsul64 wished to persuade him, and urged his youth, and besought him, as he was very young and vigorous, to take compassion on himself, he did not hesitate, but eagerly lured the beast toward himself, all but compelling and irritating him, in order that he might the sooner be freed from their unrighteous and lawless life.
6 After his glorious death the whole multitude marveling at the bravery of the God-beloved martyr and at the fortitude of the whole race of Christians, began to cry out suddenly, “Away with the atheists;65 let Polycarp be sought.”
7 And when a very great tumult arose in consequence of the cries, a certain Phrygian, Quintus66 by name, who was newly come from Phrygia, seeing the beasts and the additional tortures, was smitten with cowardice and gave up the attainment of salvation.
8 But the above-mentioned epistle shows that he, too hastily and without proper discretion, had rushed forward with others to the tribunal, but when seized had furnished a clear proof to all, that it is not right for such persons rashly and recklessly to expose themselves to danger. Thus did matters turn out in connection with them.
9 But the most admirable Polycarp, when he first heard of these things, continued: undisturbed, preserved a quiet and unshaken mind, and determined to remain in the city. But being persuaded by his friends who entreated and exhorted him to retire secretly, he went out to a farm not far distant from the city and abode there with a few companions, night and day doing nothing but wrestle with the Lord in prayer, beseeching and imploring, and asking peace for the churches throughout the whole world. For this was always his custom.
10 And three days before his arrest, while he was praying, he saw in a vision at night the pillow under his head suddenly seized by fire and consumed; and upon this awakening he immediately interpreted the vision to those that were present, almost foretelling that which was about to happen, and declaring plainly to those that were with him that it would be necessary for him for Christ’s sake to die by fire.
11 Then, as those who were seeking him pushed the search with vigor, they say that he was again constrained by the solicitude and love of the brethren to go to another farm. Thither his pursuers came after no long time, and seized two of the servants there, and tortured one of them for the purpose of learning from him Polycarp’s hiding-place.
12 And coming late in the evening, they found him lying in an upper room, whence he might have gone to another house, but he would not, saying, “The will of God be done.”
13 And when he learned that they were present, as the account says, he went down and spoke to them with a very cheerful and gentle countenance, so that those who did not already know the man thought that they beheld a miracle when they observed his advanced age and the gravity and firmness of his bearing, and they marveled that so much effort should be made to capture a man like him.
14 But he did not hesitate, but immediately gave orders that a table should be spread for them. Then he invited them to partake of a bounteous meal, and asked of them one hour that he might pray undisturbed. And when they had given permission, he stood up and prayed, being full of the grace of the Lord, so that those who were present and heard him praying were amazed, and many of them now repented that such a venerable and godly old man was about to be put to death.
15 In addition to these things the narrative concerning him contains the following account: “But when at length he had brought his prayer to an end, after remembering all that had ever come into contact with him, small and great, famous and obscure, and the whole catholic Church throughout the world, the hour of departure being come, they put him upon an ass and brought him to the city, it being a great Sabbath.67 And he was met by Herod,68 the captain of police,69 and by his father Nicetes, who took him into their carriage, and sitting beside him endeavored to persuade him, saying, ‘For what harm is there in saying, Lord Caesar, and sacrificing and saving your life?’ He at first did not answer; but when they persisted, he said, ‘I am not going to do what you advise me.’
16 And when they failed to persuade him, they uttered dreadful words, and thrust him down with violence, so that as he descended from the carriage he lacerated his shin. But without turning round, he went on his way promptly and rapidly, as if nothing had happened to him, and was taken to the stadium.
17 But there was such a tumult in the stadium that not many heard a voice from heaven, which came to Polycarp as he was entering the place: ‘Be strong, Polycarp, and play the man.’70 And no one saw the speaker, but many of our people heard the voice.
18 And when he was led forward, there was a great tumult, as they heard that Polycarp was taken. Finally, when he came up, the proconsul asked if he were Polycarp. And when he confessed that he was, he endeavored to persuade him to deny, saying, ‘Have regard for thine age,’ and other like things, which it is their custom to say: ‘Swear by the genius of Caesar;71 repent and say, Away with the Atheists.’
19 But Polycarp, looking with dignified countenance upon the whole crowd that was gathered in the stadium, waved his hand to them, and groaned, and raising his eyes toward heaven, said, ‘Away with the Atheists.’
20 But when the magistrate pressed him, and said, ‘Swear, and I will release thee; revile Christ,’ Polycarp said, ‘Fourscore and six years72 have I been serving him, and he hath done me no wrong; how then can I blaspheme my king who saved me?’
21 “But when he again persisted, and said, ‘Swear by the genius of Caesar,’ Polycarp replied, ‘If thou vainly supposest that I will swear by the genius of Caesar, as thou sayest, feigning to be ignorant who I am, hear plainly: I am a Christian. But if thou desirest to learn the doctrine of Christianity, assign a day and hear.’
22 The proconsul said, ‘Persuade the people.’ But Polycarp said, ‘As for thee, I thought thee worthy of an explanation; for we have been taught to render to princes and authorities ordained by God the honor that is due,73 so long as it does not injure us;74 but as for these, I do not esteem them the proper persons to whom to make my defense.’75 
23 But the proconsul said, ‘I have wild beasts; I will throw thee to them unless thou repent.’ But he said, ‘Call them; for repentance from better to worse is a change we cannot make. But it is a noble thing to turn from wickedness to righteousness.’
24 But he again said to him, ‘If thou despisest the wild beasts, I will cause thee to be consumed by fire, unless thou repent.’ But Polycarp said, ‘Thou threatenest a fire which burneth for an hour, and after a little is quenched; for thou knowest not the fire of the future judgment and of the eternal punishment which is reserved for the impious. But why dost thou delay? Do what thou wilt.’
25 Saying these and other words besides, he was filled with courage and joy, and his face was suffused with grace, so that not only was he not terrified and dismayed by the words that were spoken to him, but, on the contrary, the proconsul was amazed, and sent his herald to proclaim three times in the midst of the stadium: ‘Polycarp hath confessed that he is a Christian.’
26 And when this was proclaimed by the herald, the whole multitude, both of Gentiles and of Jews,76 who dwelt in Smyrna, cried out with ungovernable wrath and with a great shout, ‘This is the teacher of Asia, the father of the Christians, the overthrower of our gods, who teacheth many not to sacrifice nor to worship.’
27 When they had said this, they cried out and asked the Asiarch Philip77 to let a lion loose upon Polycarp. But he said that it was not lawful for him, since he had closed the games. Then they thought fit to cry out with one accord that Polycarp should be burned alive.
28 For it was necessary that the vision should be fulfilled which had been shown him concerning his pillow, when he saw it burning while he was praying, and turned and said prophetically to the faithful that were with him, ‘I must needs be burned alive.’
29 These things were done with great speed, —more quickly than they were said,—the crowds immediately collecting from the workshops and baths timber and fagots, the Jews being especially zealous in the work, as is their wont.
30 But when the pile was ready, taking off all his upper garments, and loosing his girdle, he attempted also to remove his shoes, although he had never before done this, because of the effort which each of the faithful always made to touch his skin first; for he had been treated with all honor on account of his virtuous life even before his gray hairs came.
31 Forthwith then the materials prepared for the pile were placed about him; and as they were also about to nail him to the stake,78 he said, ‘Leave me thus; for he who hath given me strength to endure the fire, will also grant me strength to remain in the fire unmoved without being secured by you with nails.’ So they did not nail him, but bound him.
32 And he, with his hands behind him, and bound like a noble ram taken from a great flock, an acceptable burnt-offering unto God omnipotent, said, ‘Father of thy beloved and blessed Son79 Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the knowledge of thee, the God of angels and of powers and of the whole creation and of the entire race of the righteous who live in thy presence, I bless thee that thou hast deemed me worthy of this day and hour, that I might receive a portion in the number of the martyrs, in the cup of Christ, unto resurrection of eternal life,80 both of soul and of body, in the immortality of the Holy Spirit.
34 Among these may I be received before thee this day, in a rich and acceptable sacrifice, as thou, the faithful and true God, hast beforehand prepared and revealed, and hast fulfilled. Wherefore I praise thee also for everything; I bless thee, I glorify thee,through the eternal high priest, Jesus Christ, thy beloved Son, through whom, with him, in the Holy Spirit, be glory unto thee, both now and for the ages to come, Amen.’
36 When he had offered up his Amen and had finished his prayer, the firemen lighted the fire and as a great flame blazed out, we, to whom it was given to see, saw a wonder, and we were preserved that we might relate what happened to the others. For the fire presented the appearance of a vault, like the sail of a vessel filled by the wind, and made a wall about the body of the martyr,81 and it was in the midst not like flesh burning, but like gold and silver refined in a furnace. For we perceived such a fragrant odor, as of the fumes of frankincense or of some other precious spices.
38 So at length the lawless men, when they saw that the body could not be consumed by the fire, commanded an executioner82 to approach and pierce him with the sword. And 39 when he had done this there came forth a quantity of blood83 so that it extinguished the fire; and the whole crowd marveled that there should be such a difference between the unbelievers and the elect, of whom this man also was one, the most wonderful teacher in our times, apostolic and prophetic, who was bishop of the catholic Church84 in Smyrna. For every word which came from his mouth was accomplished and will be accomplished.
40 But the jealous and envious Evil One, the adversary of the race of the righteous, when he saw the greatness of his martyrdom, and his blameless life from the beginning, and when he saw him crowned with the crown of immortality and bearing off an incontestable prize, took care that not even his body should be taken away by us, although many desired to do it and to have communion with his holy flesh.
41 Accordingly certain ones secretly suggested to Nicetes, the father of Herod and brother of Alce,85 that he should plead with the magistrate not to give up his body, ‘lest,’ it was said, ‘they should abandon the crucified One and begin to worship this man.’86 They said these things at the suggestion and impulse of the Jews, who also watched as we were about to take it from the fire, not knowing that we shall never be able either to forsake Christ, who suffered for the salvation of the whole world of those that are saved, or to worship any other.
42 For we worship him who is the Son of God, but the martyrs, as disciples and imitators of the Lord, we love as they deserve on account of their matchless affection for their own king and teacher. May we also be made partakers and fellow-disciples with them.
43 The centurion, therefore, when he saw the contentiousness exhibited by the Jews, placed him in the midst and burned him, as was their custom. And so we afterwards gathered up his bones. which were more valuable than precious stones and more to be esteemed than gold, and laid them in a suitable place.
44 There the Lord will permit us to come together as we are able, in gladness and joy to celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom,87 for the commemoration of those who have already fought and for the training and preparation of those who shall hereafter do the same.
45 Such are the events that befell the blessed Polycarp, who suffered martyrdom in Smyrna with the eleven88 from Philadelphia. This one man is remembered more than the others by all, so that even by the heathen he is talked about in every place.”
46 Of such an end was the admirable and apostolic Polycarp deemed worthy, as recorded by the brethren of the church of Smyrna in their epistle which we have mentioned. In the same volume89 concerning him are subjoined also other martyrdoms which took place in the same city, Smyrna, about the same period of time with Polycarp’s martyrdom. Among them also Metrodorus, who appears to have been a proselyte of the Marcionitic sect, suffered death by fire.
47 A celebrated martyr of those times was a certain man named Pionius. Those who desire to know his several confessions, and the boldness of his speech, and his apologies in behalf of the faith before the people and the rulers, and his instructive addresses and moreover, his greetings to those who had yielded to temptation in the persecution, and the words of encouragement which he addressed to the brethren who came to visit him in prison, and the tortures which he endured in addition, and besides these the sufferings and the nailings, and his firmness on the pile, and his death after all the extraordinary trials,90 —those we refer to that epistle which has been given in the Martyrdoms of the Ancients,91 collected by us, and which contains a very full account of him.
48 And there are also records extant of others that suffered martyrdom in Pergamus, a city of Asia,—of Carpus and Papylus, and a woman named Agathonice, who, after many and illustrious testimonies, gloriously ended their lives.92 
Chapter XVI. Justin the Philosopher Preaches the Word of Christ in Rome and Suffers Martyrdom.
1 About this time93 Justin, who was mentioned by us just above,94 after he had addressed a second work in behalf of our doctrines to the rulers already named,95 was crowned with divine martyrdom,96 in consequence of a plot laid against him by Crescens,97 a philosopher who emulated the life and manners of the Cynics, whose name he bore. After Justin had frequently refuted him in public discussions he won by his martyrdom the prize of victory, dying in behalf of the truth which he preached.
2 And he himself, a man most learned in the truth, in his Apology already referred to98 clearly predicts how this was about to happen to him, although it had not yet occurred.
3 His words are as follows:99 “I, too,100 therefore, expect to be plotted against and put in the stocks101 by some one of those whom I have named, or perhaps by Crescens, that unphilosophical and vainglorious man. For the man is not worthy to be called a philosopher who publicly bears witness against those concerning whom he knows nothing, declaring, for the sake of captivating and pleasing the multitude, that the Christians are atheistical and impious.102 
4 Doing this he errs greatly. For if he assails us without having read the teachings of Christ, he is thoroughly depraved, and is much worse than the illiterate, who often guard against discussing and bearing false witness about matters which they do not understand. And if he has read them and does not understand the majesty that is in them, or, understanding it, does these things in order that he may not be suspected of being an adherent, he is far more base and totally depraved, being enslaved to vulgar applause and irrational fear.
5 For I would have you know that when I proposed certain questions of the sort and asked him in regard to them, I learned and proved that he indeed knows nothing. And to show that I speak the truth I am ready, if these disputations have not been reported to you, to discuss the questions again in your presence. And this indeed would be an act worthy of an emperor.
6 But if my questions and his answers have been made known to you, it is obvious to you that he knows nothing about our affairs; or if he knows, but does not dare to speak because of those who hear him, he shows himself to be, as I have already said,103 not a philosopher, but a vainglorious man, who indeed does not even regard that most admirable saying of Socrates.”104 These are the words of Justin.
7 And that he met his death as he had predicted that he would, in consequence of the machinations of Crescens, is stated by Tatian,105 a man who early in life lectured upon the sciences of the Greeks and won no little fame in them, and who has left a great many monuments of himself in his writings. He records this fact in his work against the Greeks, where he writes as follows:106 “And that most admirable Justin declared with truth that the aforesaid persons were like robbers.”
8 Then, after making some remarks about the philosophers, he continues as follows:107 “Crescens, indeed, who made his nest in the great city, surpassed all in his unnatural lust, and was wholly devoted to the love of money.
9 And he who taught that death should be despised, was himself so greatly in fear of it that he endeavored to inflict death, as if it were a great evil, upon Justin, because the latter, when preaching the truth, had proved that the philosophers were gluttons and impostors.” And such was the cause of Justin’s martyrdom.
Chapter XVII. The Martyrs Whom Justin Mentions in His Own Work.
1 The same man, before his conflict, mentions in his first Apology108 others that suffered martyrdom before him, and most fittingly records the following events.
2 He writes thus:109 “A certain woman lived with a dissolute husband; she herself, too, having formerly been of the same character. But when she came to the knowledge of the teachings of Christ, she became temperate, and endeavored to persuade her husband likewise to be temperate, repeating the teachings, and declaring the punishment in eternal fire which shall come upon those who do not live temperately and conformably to right reason.
3 But he, continuing in the same excesses, alienated his wife by his conduct. For she finally, thinking it wrong to live as a wife with a man who, contrary to the law of nature and right, sought every possible means of pleasure, desired to be divorced from him.
4 And when she was earnestly entreated by her friends, who counseled her still to remain with him, on the ground that her husband might some time give hope of amendment, she did violence to herself and remained.
5 But when her husband had gone to Alexandria, and was reported to be conducting himself still worse, she—in order that she might not, by continuing in wedlock, and by sharing his board and bed, become a partaker in his lawlessness and impiety—gave him what we110 call a bill of divorce and left him.
6 But her noble and excellent husband,—instead of rejoicing, as he ought to have done, that she had given up those actions which she had formerly recklessly committed with the servants and hirelings, when she delighted in drunkenness and in every vice, and that she desired him likewise to give them up,—when she had gone from him contrary to his wish, brought an accusation concerning her, declaring that she was a Christian.
7 And she petitioned you, the emperor, that she might be permitted first to set her affairs in order, and afterwards, after the settlement of her affairs, to make her defense against the accusation. And this you granted.
8 But he who had once been her husband, being no longer able to prosecute her, directed his attacks against a certain Ptolemaeus,111 who had been her teacher in the doctrines of Christianity, and whom Urbicius112 had punished. Against him he proceeded in the following manner:
9 “He persuaded a centurion who was his friend to cast Ptolemaeus into prison, and to take him and ask him this only: whether he were a Christian? And when Ptolemaeus, who was a lover of truth, and not of a deceitful and false disposition, confessed that he was a Christian, the centurion bound him and punished him for a long time in the prison.
10 And finally, when the man was brought before Urbicius he was likewise asked this question only: whether he were a Christian? And again, conscious of the benefits which he enjoyed through the teaching of Christ, he confessed his schooling in divine virtue.
11 For whoever denies that he is a Christian, either denies because he despises Christianity, or he avoids confession because he is conscious that he is unworthy and an alien to it; neither of which is the case with the true Christian.
12 And when Urbicius commanded that he be led away to punishment, a certain Lucius,113 who was also a Christian, seeing judgment so unjustly passed, said to Urbicius, ‘Why have you punished this man who is not an adulterer, nor a fornicator, nor a murderer, nor a thief, nor a robber, nor has been convicted of committing any crime at all, but has confessed that he bears the name of Christian? You do not judge, O Urbicius, in a manner befitting the Emperor Pius, or the philosophical son114 of Caesar, or the sacred senate.’ And without making any other reply, he said to Lucius, ‘Thou also seemest to me to be such an one.’ And when Lucius said, ‘Certainly,’ he again commanded that he too should be led away to punishment. But he professed his thanks, for he was liberated, he added, from such wicked rulers and was going to the good Father and King, God. And still a third having come forward was condemned to be punished.”
14 To this, Justin fittingly and consistently adds the words which we quoted above,115 saying, “I, too, therefore expect to be plotted against by some one of those whom I have named,” &c.116 
Chapter XVIII. The Works of Justin Which Have Come Down to Us.
1 This writer has left us a great many monuments of a mind educated and practiced in divine things, which are replete with profitable matter of every kind. To them we shall refer the studious, noting as we proceed those that have come to our knowledge.117 
2 There is a certain discourse118 of his in defense of our doctrine addressed to Antoninus surnamed the Pious, and to his sons, and to the Roman senate. Another work contains his second Apology119 in behalf of our faith, which he offered to him who was the successor of the emperor mentioned and who bore the same name, Antoninus Verus, the one whose times we are now recording.
3 Also another work against the Greeks,120 in which he discourses at length upon most of the questions at issue between us and the Greek philosophers, and discusses the nature of demons. It is not necessary for me to add any of these things here.
4 And still another work of his against the Greeks has come down to us, to which he gave the title Refutation. And besides these another, On the Sovereignty of God,121 which he establishes not only from our Scriptures, but also from the books of the Greeks. Still further, a work entitled Psaltes,122 and another disputation On the Soul, in which, after propounding various questions concerning the problem under discussion, he gives the opinions of the Greek philosophers, promising to refute it, and to present his own view in another work.
6 He composed also a dialogue against the Jews,123 which he held in the city of Ephesus with Trypho, a most distinguished man among the Hebrews of that day. In it he shows how the divine grace urged him on to the doctrine of the faith, and with what earnestness he had formerly pursued philosophical studies, and how ardent a search he had made for the truth.124 
7 And he records of the Jews in the same work, that they were plotting against the teaching of Christ, asserting the same things against Trypho: “Not only did you not repent of the wickedness which you had committed, but you selected at that time chosen men, and you sent them out from Jerusalem through all the land, to announce that the godless heresy of the Christians had made its appearance, and to accuse them of those things which all that are ignorant of us say against us, so that you become the causes not only of your own injustice, but also of all other men’s.”125 
8 He writes also that even down to his time prophetic gifts shone in the Church.126 And he mentions the Apocalypse of John, saying distinctly that it was the apostle’s.127 He also refers to certain prophetic declarations, and accuses Trypho on the ground that the Jews had cut them out of the Scripture.128 A great many other works of his are still in the hands of many of the brethren.129 
9 And the discourses of the man were thought so worthy of study even by the ancients, that Irenaeus quotes his words: for instance, in the fourth book of his work Against Heresies, where he writes as follows:130 “And Justin well says in his work against Marcion, that he would not have believed the Lord himself if he had preached another God besides the Creator”; and again in the fifth book of the same work he says:131 “And Justin well said that before the coming of the Lord Satan never dared to blaspheme God,132 because he did not yet know his condemnation.”
10 These things I have deemed it necessary to say for the sake of stimulating the studious to peruse his works with diligence. So much concerning him.
Chapter XIX. The Rulers of the Churches of Rome and Alexandria During the Reign of Verus.
1 In the eighth year of the above-mentioned reign133 Soter134 succeeded Anicetus135 as bishop of the church of Rome, after the latter had held office eleven years in all. But when Celadion136 had presided over the church of Alexandria for fourteen years he was succeeded by Agrippinus.137 
Chapter XX. The Rulers of the Church of Antioch.
1 At that time also in the church of Antioch, Theophilus138 was well known as the sixth from the apostles. For Cornelius,139 who succeeded Hero,140 was the fourth, and after him Eros,141 the fifth in order, had held the office of bishop.
Chapter XXI. The Ecclesiastical Writers that Flourished in Those Days.
1 At that time there flourished in the Church Hegesippus, whom we know from what has gone before,142 and Dionysius,143 bishop of Corinth, and another bishop, Pinytus of Crete,144 and besides these, Philip,145 and Apolinarius,146 and Melito,147 and Musanus,148 and Modestus,149 and finally, Irenaeus.150 From them has come down to us in writing, the sound and orthodox faith received from apostolic tradition.151 
Chapter XXII. Hegesippus and the Events Which He Mentions.
1 Hegesippus in the five books of Memoirs152 which have come down to us has left a most complete record of his own views. In them he states that on a journey to Rome he met a great many bishops, and that he received the same doctrine from all. It is fitting to hear what he says after making some remarks about the epistle of Clement to the Corinthians.
2 His words are as follows: “And the church of Corinth continued in the true faith until Primus153 was bishop in Corinth. I conversed with them on my way to Rome, and abode with the Corinthians many days, during which we were mutually refreshed in the true doctrine.
3 And when I had come to Rome I remained a there until Anicetus,154 whose deacon was Eleutherus. And Anicetus was succeeded by Soter, and he by Eleutherus. In every succession, and in every city that is held which is preached by the law and the prophets and the Lord.”
4 The same author also describes the beginnings of the heresies which arose in his time, in the following words: “And after James the Just had suffered martyrdom, as the Lord had also on the same account, Symeon, the son of the Lord’s uncle, Clopas,155 was appointed the next bishop. All proposed him as second bishop because he was a cousin of the Lord. “Therefore,156 they called the Church a virgin, for it was not yet corrupted by vain discourses.
5 But Thebuthis,157 because he was not made bishop, began to corrupt it. He also was sprung from the seven sects158 among the people, like Simon,159 from whom came the Simonians, and Cleobius,160 from whom came the Cleobians, and Dositheus,161 from whom came the Dositheans, and Gorthaeus,162 from whom came the Goratheni, and Masbotheus,163 from whom came the Masbothaeans. From them sprang the Menandrianists,164 and Marcionists,165 and Carpocratians, and Valentinians, and Basilidians, and Saturnilians. Each introduced privately and separately his own peculiar opinion. From them came false Christs, false prophets, false apostles, who divided the unity of the Church by corrupt doctrines uttered against God and against his Christ.”
6 The same writer also records the ancient heresies which arose among the Jews, in the following words: “There were, moreover, various opinions in the circumcision, among the children of Israel. The following were those that were opposed to the tribe of Judah and the Christ: Essenes, Galileans, Hemerobaptists, Masbothaeans, Samaritans, Sadducees, Pharisees.”166 
7 And he wrote of many other matters, which we have in part already mentioned, introducing the accounts in their appropriate places. And from the Syriac Gospel according to the Hebrews he quotes some passages in the Hebrew tongue,167 showing that he was a convert from the Hebrews,168 and he mentions other matters as taken from the unwritten tradition of the Jews.
8 And not only he, but also Irenaeus and the whole company of the ancients, called the Proverbs of Solomon All-virtuous Wisdom.169 And when speaking of the books called Apocrypha, he records that some of them were composed in his day by certain heretics. But let us now pass on to another.
Chapter XXIII. Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, and the Epistles Which He Wrote.170 
1 And first we must speak of Dionysius, who was appointed bishop of the church in Corinth, and communicated freely of his inspired labors not only to his own people, but also to those in foreign lands, and rendered the greatest service to all in the catholic epistles which he wrote to the churches.
2 Among these is the one addressed to the Lacedaemonians,171 containing instruction in the orthodox faith and an admonition to peace and unity; the one also addressed to the Athenians, exciting them to faith and to the life prescribed by the Gospel, which he accuses them of esteeming lightly, as if they had almost apostatized from the faith since the martyrdom of their ruler Publius,172 which had taken place during the persecutions of those days.
3 He mentions Quadratus173 also, stating that he was appointed their bishop after the martyrdom of Publius, and testifying that through his zeal they were brought together again and their faith revived. He records, moreover, that Dionysius the Areopagite,174 who was converted to the faith by the apostle Paul, according to the statement in the Acts of the Apostles,175 first obtained the episcopate of the church at Athens.
4 And there is extant another epistle of his addressed to the Nicomedians,176 in which he attacks the heresy of Marcion, and stands fast by the canon of the truth.
5 Writing also to the church that is in Gortyna,177 together with the other parishes in Crete, he commends their bishop Philip,178 because of the many acts of fortitude which are testified to as performed by the church under him, and he warns them to be on their guard against the aberrations of the heretics.
6 And writing to the church that is in Amastris,179 together with those in Pontus, he refers to Bacchylides180 and Elpistus, as having urged him to write, and he adds explanations of passages of the divine Scriptures, and mentions their bishop Palmas181 by name. He gives them much advice also in regard to marriage and chastity, and commands them to receive those who come back again after any fall, whether it be delinquency or heresy.182 
7 Among these is inserted also another epistle addressed to the Cnosians,183 in which he exhorts Pinytus, bishop of the parish, not to lay upon the brethren a grievous and compulsory burden in regard to chastity, but to have regard to the weakness of the multitude.
8 Pinytus, replying to this epistle, admires and commends Dionysius, but exhorts him in turn to impart some time more solid food, and to feed the people under him, when he wrote again, with more advanced teaching, that they might not be fed continually on these milky doctrines and imperceptibly grow old under a training calculated for children. In this epistle also Pinytus’ orthodoxy in the faith and his care for the welfare of those placed under him, his learning and his comprehension of divine things, are revealed as in a most perfect image.
9 There is extant also another epistle written by Dionysius to the Romans, and addressed to Soter,184 who was bishop at that time. We cannot do better than to subjoin some passages from this epistle, in which he commends the practice of the Romans which has been retained down to the persecution in our own days. His words are as follows:
10 “For from the beginning it has been your practice to do good to all the brethren in various ways, and to send contributions to many churches in every city. Thus relieving the want of the needy, and making provision for the brethren in the mines by the gifts which you have sent from the beginning, you Romans keep up the hereditary customs of the Romans, which your blessed bishop Soter has not only maintained, but also added to, furnishing an abundance of supplies to the saints, and encouraging the brethren from abroad with blessed words, as a loving father his children.”
11 In this same epistle he makes mention also of Clement’s epistle to the Corinthians,185 showing that it had been the custom from the beginning to read it in the church. His words are as follows: “To-day we have passed the Lord’s holy day, in which we have read your epistle. From it, whenever we read it, we shall always be able to draw advice, as also from the former epistle, which was written to us through Clement.”
12 The same writer also speaks as follows concerning his own epistles, alleging that they had been mutilated: “As the brethren desired me to write epistles, I wrote. And these epistles the apostles of the devil have filled with tares, cutting out some things and adding others.186 For them a woe is reserved.187 It is, therefore, not to be wondered at if some have attempted to adulterate the Lord’s writings also,188 since they have formed designs even against writings which are of less accounts.”189 
There is extant, in addition to these, another epistle of Dionysius, written to Chrysophora,190 a most faithful sister. In it he writes what is suitable, and imparts to her also the proper spiritual food. So much concerning Dionysius.
Chapter XXIV. Theophilus Bishop of Antioch.
1 Of Theophilus,191 whom we have mentioned as bishop of the church of Antioch,192 three elementary works addressed to Autolycus are extant; also another writing entitled Against the Heresy of Hermogenes,193 in which he makes use of testimonies from the Apocalypse of John, and finally certain other catechetical books.194 
2 And as the heretics, no less then than at other times, were like tares, destroying the pure harvest of apostolic teaching, the pastors of the churches everywhere hastened to restrain them as wild beasts from the fold of Christ, at one time by admonitions and exhortations to the brethren, at another time by contending more openly against them in oral discussions and refutations, and again by correcting their opinions with most accurate proofs in written works.
3 And that Theophilus also, with the others, contended against them, is manifest from a certain discourse of no common merit written by him against Marcion.195 This work too, with the others of which we have spoken, has been preserved to the present day.
Maximinus,196 the seventh from the apostles, succeeded him as bishop of the church of Antioch. 
Chapter XXV. Philip and Modestus.
1 Philip who, as we learn from the words of Dionysius,197 was bishop of the parish of Gortyna, likewise wrote a most elaborate work against Marcion,198 as did also Irenaeus199 and Modestus.200 The last named has exposed the error of the man more clearly than the rest to the view of all. There are a number of others also whose works are still presented by a great many of the brethren.
Chapter XXVI. Melito and the Circumstances Which He Records.
1 In those days also Melito,201 bishop of the parish in Sardis, and Apolinarius,202 bishop of Hierapolis, enjoyed great distinction. Each of them on his own part addressed apologies in behalf of the faith to the above-mentioned emperor203 of the Romans who was reigning at that time.
2 The following works of these writers have come to our knowledge. Of Melito,204 the two books On the Passover,205 and one On the Conduct of Life and the Prophets,206 the discourse On the Church,207 and one On the Lord’s Day,208 still further one On the Faith of Man,209 and one On his Creation,210 another also On the Obedience of Faith, and one On the Senses;211 besides these the work On the Soul and Body,212 and that On Baptism,213 and the one On Truth,214 and On the Creation and Generation of Christ;215 his discourse also On Prophecy,216 and that On Hospitality;217 still further, The Key,218 and the books On the Devil and the Apocalypse of John,219 and the work On the Corporeality of God,220 and finally the book addressed to Antoninus.221 
3 In the books On the Passover he indicates the time at which he wrote, beginning with these words: “While Servilius Paulus was proconsul of Asia, at the time when Sagaris suffered martyrdom, there arose in Laodicea a great strife concerning the Passover, which fell according to rule in those days; and these were written.”222 
4 And Clement of Alexandria refers to this work in his own discourse On the Passover,223 which, he says, he wrote on occasion of Melito’s work.
5 But in his book addressed to the emperor he records that the following events happened to us under him: “For, what never before happened,224 the race of the pious is now suffering persecution, being driven about in Asia by new decrees. For the shameless informers and coveters of the property of others, taking occasion from the decrees, openly carry on robbery night and day, despoiling those who are guilty of no wrong.” And a little further on he says: “If these things are done by thy command, well and good. For a just ruler will never take unjust measures; and we indeed gladly accept the honor of such a death.
6 But this request alone we present to thee, that thou wouldst thyself first examine the authors of such strife, and justly judge whether they be worthy of death and punishment, or of safety and quiet. But if, on the other hand, this counsel and this new decree, which is not fit to be executed even against barbarian enemies, be not from thee, much more do we beseech thee not to leave us exposed to such lawless plundering by the populace.”
7 Again he adds the following:225 “For our philosophy formerly flourished among the Barbarians; but having sprung up among the nations under thy rule, during the great reign of thy ancestor Augustus, it became to thine empire especially a blessing of auspicious omen. For from that time the power of the Romans has grown in greatness and splendor. To this power thou hast succeeded, as the desired possessor,226 and such shalt thou continue with thy son, if thou guardest the philosophy which grew up with the empire and which came into existence with Augustus; that philosophy which thy ancestors also honored along with the other religions.
8 And a most convincing proof that our doctrine flourished for the good of an empire happily begun, is this—that there has no evil happened since Augustus’ reign, but that, on the contrary, all things have been splendid and glorious, in accordance with the prayers of all.
9 Nero and Domitian, alone, persuaded by certain calumniators, have wished to slander our doctrine, and from them it has come to pass that the falsehood227 has been handed down, in consequence of an unreasonable practice which prevails of bringing slanderous accusations against the Christians.228 
10 But thy pious fathers corrected their ignorance, having frequently rebuked in writing229 many who dared to attempt new measures against them. Among them thy grandfather Adrian appears to have written to many others, and also to Fundanus,230 the proconsul and governor of Asia. And thy father, when thou also wast ruling with him, wrote to the cities, forbidding them to take any new measures against us; among the rest to the Larissaeans, to the Thessalonians, to the Athenians, and to all the Greeks.231 
11 And as for thee,—since thy opinions respecting the Christians232 are the same as theirs, and indeed much more benevolent and philosophic,—we are the more persuaded that thou wilt do all that we ask of thee.” These words are found in the above-mentioned work.
12 But in the Extracts233 made by him the same writer gives at the beginning of the introduction a catalogue of the acknowledged books of the Old Testament, which it is necessary to quote at this point. He writes as follows:
13 “Melito to his brother Onesimus,234 greeting: Since thou hast often, in thy zeal for the word, expressed a wish to have extracts made from the Law and the Prophets concerning the Saviour and concerning our entire faith, and hast also desired to have an accurate statement of the ancient book, as regards their number and theirorder, I have endeavored to perform the task, knowing thy zeal for the faith, and thy desire to gain information in regard to the word, and knowing that thou, in thy yearning after God, esteemest these things above all else, struggling to attain eternal salvation.
14 Accordingly when I went East and came to the place where these things were preached and done, I learned accurately the books of the Old Testament, and send them to thee as written below. Their names are as follows: Of Moses, five books: Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus,235 Deuteronomy; Jesus Nave, Judges, Ruth; of Kings, four books; of Chronicles, two; the Psalms of David,236 the Proverbs of Solomon, Wisdom also,237 Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Job; of Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah; of the twelve prophets, one book238 ; Daniel, Ezekiel, Esdras.239 From which also I have made the extracts, dividing them into six books.” Such are the words of Melito.
Chapter XXVII. Apolinarius, Bishop of the Church of Hierapolis.
1 A Number of works of Apolinarius240 have been preserved by many, and the following have reached us: the Discourse addressed to the above-mentioned emperor,241 five books Against the Greeks,242 On Truth, a first and second book,243 and those which he subsequently wrote against the heresy of the Phrygians,244 which not long afterwards came out with its innovations,245 but at that time was, as it were, in its incipiency, since Montanus, with his false prophetesses, was then laying the foundations of his error.
Chapter XXVIII. Musanus and His Writings.
1 And as for Musanus,246 whom we have mentione among the foregoing writers, a certain very elegant discourse is extant, which was written by him against some brethren that had gone over to the heresy of the so-called Encratites,247 which had recently sprung up, and which introduced a strange and pernicious error. It is said that Tatian was the author of this false doctrine.
Chapter XXIX. The Heresy of Tatian.248 
1 He is the one whose words we quoted a little above249 in regard to that admirable man, Justin, and whom we stated to have been a disciple of the martyr. Irenaeus declares this in the first book of his work Against Heresies, where he writes as follows concerning both him and his heresy:250 
2 “Those who are called Encratites,251 and who sprung from Saturninus252 and Marcion, preached celibacy, setting aside the original arrangement of God and tacitly censuring him who made male and female for the propagation of the human race. They introduced also abstinence from the things called by them animate,253 thus showing ingratitude to the God who made all things. And they deny the salvation of the first man.254 
3 But this has been only recently discovered by them, a certain Tatian being the first to introduce this blasphemy. He was a hearer of Justin, and expressed no such opinion while he was with him, but after the martyrdom of the latter he left the Church, and becoming exalted with the thought of being a teacher, and puffed up with the idea that he was superior to others, he established a peculiar type of doctrine of his own, inventing certain invisible aeons like the followers of Valentinus,255 while, like Marcion and Saturninus, he pronounced marriage to be corruption and fornication. His argument against the salvation of Adam, however, he devised for himself.” Irenaeus at that time wrote thus.
4 But a little later a certain man named Severus256 put new strength into the aforesaid heresy, and thus brought it about that those who took their origin from it were called, after him, Severians.
5 They, indeed, use the Law and Prophets and Gospels, but interpret in their own way the utterances of the Sacred Scriptures. And they abuse Paul the apostle and reject his epistles, and do not accept even the Acts of the Apostles.
6 But their original founder, Tatian, formed a certain combination and collection of the Gospels, I know not how,257 to which he gave the title Diatessaron,258 and which is still in the l hands of some. But they say that he ventured to paraphrase certain words of the apostle,259 in order to improve their style.
7 He has left a great many writings. Of these the one most in use among many persons is his celebrated Address to the Greeks,260 which also appears to be the best and most useful of all his works. In it he deals with the most ancient times, and shows that Moses and the Hebrew prophets were older than all the celebrated men among the Greeks.261 So much in regard to these men.
Chapter XXX. Bardesanes the Syrian and His Extant Works.
1 In the same reign, as heresies were abounding in the region between the rivers,262 a certain Bardesanes,263 a most able man and a most skillful disputant in the Syriac tongue, having composed dialogues against Marcion’s followers and against certain others who were authors of various opinions, committed them to writing in his own language, together with many other works. His pupils,264 of whom he had very many (for he was a powerful defender of the faith), translated these productions from the Syriac into Greek.
2 Among them there is also his most able dialogue On Fate,265 addressed to Antoninus, and other works which they say he wrote on occasion of the persecution which arose at that time.266 
3 He indeed was at first a follower of Valentinus,267 but afterward, having rejected his teaching and having refuted most of his fictions, he fancied that he had come over to the more correct opinion. Nevertheless he did not entirely wash off the filth of the old heresy.268 
About this time also Soter,269 bishop of the church of Rome, departed this life. 
Book V.
Introduction.
1 Soter,1 bishop of the church of Rome, died after an episcopate of eight years, and was succeeded by Eleutherus,2 the twelfth from the apostles. In the seventeenth year of the Emperor Antoninus Verus,3 the persecution of our people was rekindled more fiercely in certain districts on account of an insurrection of the masses in the cities; and judging by the number in a single nation, myriads suffered martyrdom throughout the world. A record of this was written for posterity, and in truth it is worthy of perpetual remembrance.
2 A full account, containing the most reliable information on the subject, is given in our Collection of Martyrdoms,4 which constitutes a narrative instructive as well as historical. I will repeat here such portions of this account as may be needful for the present purpose.
3 Other writers of history record the victories of war and trophies won from enemies, the skill of generals, and the manly bravery of soldiers, defiled with blood and with innumerable slaughters for the sake of children and country and other possessions.
4 But our narrative of the government of God5 will record in ineffaceable letters the most peaceful wars waged in behalf of the peace of the soul, and will tell of men doing brave deeds for truth rather than country, and for piety rather than dearest friends. It will hand down to imperishable remembrance the discipline and the much-tried fortitude of the athletes of religion, the trophies won from demons, the victories over invisible enemies, and the crowns placed upon all their heads.
Chapter I. The Number of Those Who Fought for Religion in Gaul Under Verus and the Nature of Their Conflicts.
1 The country in which the arena was prepared for them was Gaul, of which Lyons and Vienne6 are the principal and most celebrated cities. The Rhone passes through both of them, flowing in a broad stream through the entire region. 
2 The most celebrated churches in that country sent an account of the witnesses7 to the churches in Asia and Phrygia, relating in the following manner what was done among them.
 I will give their own words.8 
3 “The servants of Christ residing at Vienne and Lyons, in Gaul, to the brethren through out Asia and Phrygia, who hold the same faith and hope of redemption, peace and grace and glory from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.”
4 Then, having related some other matters, they begin their account in this manner: “The greatness of the tribulation in this region, and the fury of the heathen against the saints, and the sufferings of the blessed witnesses, we cannot recount accurately, nor indeed could they possibly be recorded.
5 For with all his might the adversary fell upon us, giving us a foretaste of his unbridled activity at his future coming. He endeavored in every manner to practice and exercise his servants against the servants of God, not only shutting us out from houses and baths and markets, but forbidding any of us to be seen in any place whatever.
6 But the grace of God led the conflict against him, and delivered the weak, and set them as firm pillars, able through patience to endure all the wrath of the Evil One. And they joined battle with him, undergoing all kinds of shame and injury; and regarding their great sufferings as little, they hastened to Christ, manifesting truly that ‘the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward.’9 
7 First of all, they endured nobly the injuries heaped upon them by the populace; clamors and blows and draggings and robberies and stonings and imprisonments,10 and all things which an infuriated mob delight in inflicting on enemies and adversaries.
8 Then, being taken to the forum by the chiliarch11 and the authorities of the city, they were examined in the presence of the whole multitude, and having confessed, they were imprisoned until the arrival of the governor.
9 When, afterwards, they were brought before him, and he treated us with the utmost cruelty, Vettius Epagathus,12 one of the brethren, and a man filled with love for God and his neighbor, interfered. His life was so consistent that, although young, he had attained a reputation equal to that of the elder Zacharias: for he ‘walked in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless,’13 and was untiring in every good work for his neighbor, zealous for God and fervent in spirit. Such being his character, he could not endure the unreasonable judgment against us, but was filled with indignation, and asked to be permitted to testify in behalf of his brethren, that there is among us nothing ungodly or impious.
10 But those about the judgment seat cried out against him, for he was a man of distinction; and the governor refused to grant his just request, and merely asked if he also were a Christian. And he, confessing this with a loud voice, was himself taken into the order14 of the witnesses, being called the Advocate of the Christians, but having the Advocate15 in himself, the Spirit16 more abundantly than Zacharias.17 He showed this by the fullness of his love, being well pleased even to lay down his life18 in defense of the brethren. For he was and is a true disciple of Christ, ‘following the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.’19 
11 “Then the others were divided,20 and the proto-witnesses were manifestly ready, and finished their confession with all eagerness. But some appeared unprepared and untrained, weak as yet, and unable to endure so great a conflict. About ten of these proved abortions,21 causing us great grief and sorrow beyond measure, and impairing the zeal of the others who had not yet been seized, but who, though suffering all kinds of affliction, continued constantly with the witnesses and did not forsake them.
12 Then all of us feared greatly on account of uncertainty as to their confession; not because we dreaded the sufferings to be endured, but because we looked to the end, and were afraid that some of them might fall away.
13 But those who were worthy were seized day by day, filling up their number, so that all the zealous persons, and those through whom especially our affairs had been established, were collected together out of the two churches.
14 And some of our heathen servants also were seized, as the governor had commanded that all of us should be examined publicly. These, being ensnared by Satan, and fearing for themselves the tortures which they beheld the saints endure,22 and being also urged on by the soldiers, accused us falsely of Thyestean banquets and Oedipodean intercourse,23 and of deeds which are not only unlawful for us to speak of or to think, but which we cannot believe were ever done by men.
15 When these accusations were reported, all the people raged like wild beasts against us, so that even if any had before been moderate on account of friendship, they were now exceedingly furious and gnashed their teeth against us. And that which was spoken by our Lord was fulfilled: ‘The time will come when whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.’24 
16 Then finally the holy witnesses endured sufferings beyond description, Satan striving earnestly that some of the slanders might be uttered by them also?25 
17 “But the whole wrath of the populace, and governor, and soldiers was aroused exceedingly against Sanctus, the deacon from Vienne,26 and Maturus, a late convert, yet a noble combatant, and against Attalus, a native of Pergamos27 where he had always been a pillar and foundation, and Blandina, through whom Christ showed that things which appear mean and obscure and despicable to men are with God of great glory,28 through love toward him manifested in power, and not boasting in appearance.
18 For while we all trembled, and her earthly mistress, who was herself also one of the witnesses, feared that on account of the weakness of her body, she would be unable to make bold confession, Blandina was filled with such power as to be delivered and raised above those who were torturing her by turns from morning till evening in every manner, so that they acknowledged that they were conquered, and could do nothing more to her. And they were astonished at her endurance, as her entire body was mangled and broken; and they testified that one of these forms of torture was sufficient to destroy life, not to speak of so many and so great sufferings.
19 But the blessed woman, like a noble athlete, renewed her strength in her confession; and her comfort and recreation and relief from the pain of her sufferings was in exclaiming, ‘I am a Christian, and there is nothing vile done by us.’
20 “But Sanctus also endured marvelously and superhumanly29 all the outrages which he suffered. While the wicked men hoped, by the continuance and severity of his tortures to wring something from him which he ought not to say, he girded himself against them with such firmness that he would not even tell his name, or the nation or city to which he belonged, or whether he was bond or free, but answered in the Roman tongue to all their questions, ‘I am a Christian.’ He confessed this instead of name and city and race and everything besides, and the people heard from him no other word.
21 There arose therefore on the part of the governor and his tormentors a great desire to conquer him; but having nothing more that they could do to him, they finally fastened red-hot brazen plates to the most tender parts of his body.
22 And these indeed were burned, but he continued unbending and unyielding, firm in his confession, and refreshed and strengthened by the heavenly fountain of the water of life, flowing from the bowels of Christ.
23 And his body was a witness of his sufferings, being one complete wound and bruise, drawn out of shape, and altogether unlike a human form. Christ, suffering in him, manifested his glory, delivering him from his adversary, and making him an ensample for the others, showing that nothing is fearful where the love of the Father is, and nothing painful where there is the glory of Christ.
24 For when the wicked men tortured him a second time after some days, supposing that with his body swollen and inflamed to such a degree that he could not bear the touch of a hand, if they should again apply the same instruments, they would overcome him, or at least by his death under his sufferings others would be made afraid, not only did not this occur, but, contrary to all human expectation, his body arose and stood erect in the midst of the subsequent torments, and resumed its original appearance and the use of its limbs, so that, through the grace of Christ, these second sufferings became to him, not torture, but healing.
25 “But the devil, thinking that he had already consumed Biblias, who was one of those who had denied Christ, desiring to increase her condemnation through the utterance of blasphemy,30 brought her again to the torture, to compel her, as already feeble and weak, to report impious things concerning us.
26 But she recovered herself under the suffering, and as if awaking from a deep sleep, and reminded by the present anguish of the eternal punishment in hell, she contradicted the blasphemers. ‘How,’ she said, ‘could those eat children who do not think it lawful to taste the blood even of irrational animals?’ And thenceforward she confessed herself a Christian, and was given a place in the order of the witnesses.
27“But as the tyrannical tortures were made by Christ of none effect through the patience of the blessed, the devil invented other contrivances,—confinement in the dark and most loathsome parts of the prison, stretching of the feet to the fifth hole in the stocks,31 and the other outrages which his servants are accustomed to inflict upon the prisoners when furious and filled with the devil. A great many were suffocated in prison, being chosen by the Lord for this manner of death, that he might manifest in them his glory.
28 For some, though they had been tortured so cruelly that it seemed impossible that they could live, even with the most careful nursing, yet, destitute of human attention, remained in the prison, being strengthened by the Lord, and invigorated both in body and soul; and they exhorted and encouraged the rest. But such as were young, and arrested recently, so that their bodies had not become accustomed to torture, were unable to endure the severity of their confinement, and died in prison. 29 “The blessed Pothinus, who had been entrusted with the bishopric of Lyons, was dragged to the judgment seat. He was more than ninety years of age, and very infirm, scarcely indeed able to breathe because of physical weakness; but he was strengthened by spiritual zeal through his earnest desire for martyrdom. Though his body was worn out by old age and disease, his life was preserved that Christ might triumph in it.
30 When he was brought by the soldiers to the tribunal, accompanied by the civil magistrates and a multitude who shouted against him in every manner as if he were Christ himself, he bore noble witness.
31 Being asked by the governor, Who was the God of the Christians, he replied, ‘If thou art worthy, thou shalt know.’ Then he was dragged away harshly, and received blows of every kind. Those near him struck him with their hands and feet, regardless of his age; and those at a distance hurled at him whatever they could seize; all of them thinking that they would be guilty of great wickedness and impiety if any possible abuse were omitted. For thus they thought to avenge their own deities. Scarcely able to breathe, he was cast into prison and died after two days.
32 “Then a certain great dispensation of God occurred, and the compassion of Jesus appeared beyond measure,32 in a manner rarely seen among the brotherhood, but not beyond the power of Christ.
33 For those who had recanted at their first arrest were imprisoned with the others, and endured terrible sufferings, so that their denial was of no profit to them even for the present. But those who confessed what they were were imprisoned as Christians, no other accusation being brought against them. But the first were treated afterwards as murderers and defiled, and were punished twice as severely as the others.
34 For the joy of martyrdom, and the hope of the promises, and love for Christ, and the Spirit of the Father supported the latter; but their consciences so greatly distressed the former that they were easily distinguishable from all the rest by their very countenances when they were led forth.
35 For the first went out rejoicing, glory and grace being blended in their faces, so that even their bonds seemed like beautiful ornaments, as those of a bride adorned with variegated golden fringes; and they were perfumed with the sweet savor of Christ,33 so that some supposed they had been anointed with earthly ointment. But the others were downcast and humble and dejected and filled with every kind of disgrace, and they were reproached by the heathen as ignoble and weak, bearing the accusation of murderers, and having lost the one honorable and glorious and life-giving Name. The rest, beholding this, were strengthened, and when apprehended, they confessed without hesitation, paying no attention to the persuasions of the devil.”
36 After certain other words they continue:
“After these things, finally, their martyrdoms (were divided into every form.34 For plaiting a crown of various colors and of all kinds of flowers, they presented it to the Father. It was proper therefore that the noble athletes, having endured a manifold strife, and conquered grandly, should receive the crown, great and incorruptible.
37 “Maturus, therefore, and Sanctus and Blandina and Attalus were led to the amphitheater to be exposed to the wild beasts, and to give to the heathen public a spectacle of cruelty, a day for fighting with wild beasts being specially appointed on account of our people.
38 Both Maturus and Sanctus passed again through every torment in the amphitheater, as if they had suffered nothing before, or rather, as if, having already conquered their antagonist in many contests,35 they were now striving for the crown itself. They endured again the customary running of the gauntlet36 and the violence of the wild beasts, and everything which the furious people called for or desired, and at last, the iron chair in which their bodies being roasted, tormented them with the fumes.
39 And not with this did the persecutors cease, but were yet more mad against them, determined to overcome their patience. But even thus they did not hear a word from Sanctus except the confession which he had uttered from the beginning.
40 These, then, after their life had continued for a long time through the great conflict, were at last sacrificed, having been made throughout that day a spectacle to the world, in place of the usual variety of combats.
41 “But Blandina was suspended on a stake, and exposed to be devoured by the wild beasts who should attack her.37 And because she appeared as if hanging on a cross, and because of her earnest prayers, she inspired the combatants with great zeal. For they looked on her in her conflict, and beheld with their outward eyes, in the form of their sister, him who was crucified for them, that he might persuade those who believe on him, that every one who suffers for the glory of Christ has fellowship always with the living God.
42 As none of the wild beasts at that time touched her, she was taken down from the stake, and cast again into prison. She was preserved thus for another contest, that, being victorious in more conflicts, she might make the punishment of the crooked serpent irrevocable;38 and, though small and weak and despised, yet clothed with Christ the mighty and conquering Athlete, she might arouse the zeal of the brethren, and, having overcome the adversary many times might receive, through her conflict, the crown incorruptible.
43 “But Attalus was called for loudly by the people, because he was a person of distinction. He entered the contest readily on account of a good conscience and his genuine practice in Christian discipline, and as he had always been a witness for the truth among us.
44 He was led around the amphitheater, a tablet being carried before him on which was written in the Roman language ‘This is Attalus the Christian,’ and the people were filled with indignation against him. But when the governor learned that he was a Roman, he commanded him to be taken back with the rest of those who were in prison concerning whom he had written to Caear, and whose answer he was awaiting.
45 “But the intervening time was not wasted nor fruitless to them; for by their patience the measureless compassion of Christ was manifested. For through their continued life the dead were made alive, and the witnesses showed favor to those who had failed to witness. And the virgin mother had much joy in receiving alive those whom she had brought forth as dead.39 
46 For through their influence many who had denied were restored, and re-begotten, and rekindled with life, and learned to confess. And being made alive and strengthened, they went to the judgment seat to be again interrogated by the governor; God, who desires not the death of the sinner,40 but mercifully invites to repentance, treating them with kindness.
47 For Caesar commanded that they should be put to death,41 but that any who might deny should be set free. Therefore, at the beginning of the public festival42 which took place there, and which was attended by crowds of men from all nations, the governor brought the blessed ones to the judgment seat, to make of them a show and spectacle for the multitude. Wherefore also he examined them again, and beheaded those who appeared to possess Roman citizenship, but he sent the others to the wild beasts.
48 “And Christ was glorified greatly in those who had formerly denied him, for, contrary to the expectation of the heathen, they confessed. For they were examined by themselves, as about to be set free; but confessing, they were added to the order of the witnesses. But some continued without, who had never possessed a trace of faith, nor any apprehension of the wedding garment,43 nor an understanding of the fear of God; but, as sons of perdition, they blasphemed the Way through their apostasy.
49 But all the others were added to the Church. While these were being examined, a certain Alexander, a Phrygian by birth, and physician by profession, who had resided in Gaul for many years, and was well known to all on account of his love to God and boldness of speech (for he was not without a share of apostolic grace), standing before the judgment seat, and by signs encouraging them to confess, appeared to those standing by as if in travail.
50 But the people being enraged because those who formerly denied now confessed, cried out against Alexander as if he were the cause of this. Then the governor summoned him and inquired who he was. And when he answered that he was a Christian, being very angry he condemned him to the wild beasts. And on the next day he entered along with Attalus. For to please the people, the governor had ordered Attalus again to the wild beasts.
51 And they were tortured in the amphitheater with all the instruments contrived for that purpose, and having endured a very great conflict, were at last sacrificed. Alexander neither groaned nor murmured in any manner, but communed in his heart with God.
52 But when Attalus was placed in the iron seat, and the fumes arose from his burning body, he said to the people in the Roman language: ‘Lo! this which ye do is devouring men; but we do not devour men; nor do any other wicked thing.’ And being asked, what name God has, he replied, ‘God has not a name as man has.’
53 “After all these, on the last day of the contests, Blandina was again brought in, with Ponticus, a boy about fifteen years old. They had been brought every day to witness the sufferings of the others, and had been pressed to swear by the idols. But because they remained steadfast and despised them, the multitude became furious, so that they had no compassion for the youth of the boy nor respect for the sex of the woman.
54 Therefore they exposed them to all the terrible sufferings and took them through the entire round of torture, repeatedly urging them to swear, but being unable to effect this; for Ponticus, encouraged by his sister so that even the heathen could see that she was confirming and strengthening him, having nobly endured every torture, gave up the ghost. 
55 But the blessed Blandina, last of all, having, as a noble mother, encouraged her children and sent them before her victorious to the King, endured herself all their conflicts and hastened after them, glad and rejoicing in her departure as if called to a marriage supper, rather than cast to wild beasts.
56 And, after the scourging, after the wild beasts, after the roasting seat,44 she was finally enclosed in a net, and thrown before a bull. And having been tossed about by the animal, but feeling none of the things which were happening to her, on account of her hope and firm hold upon what had been entrusted to her, and her communion with Christ, she also was sacrificed. And the heathen themselves confessed that never among them had a woman endured so many and such terrible tortures.
57 “But not even thus was their madness and cruelty toward the saints satisfied. For, incited by the Wild Beast, wild and barbarous tribes were not easily appeased, and their violence found another peculiar opportunity in the dead bodies45 
58 For, through their lack of manly reason, the fact that they had been conquered did not put them to shame, but rather the more enkindled their wrath as that of a wild beast, and aroused alike the hatred of governor and people to treat us unjustly; that the Scripture might be fulfilled: ‘He that is lawless, let him be lawless still, and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still.’46 
59 For they cast to the dogs those who had died of suffocation in the prison, carefully guarding them by night and day, lest any one should be buried by us. And they exposed the remains left by the wild beasts and by fire, mangled and charred, and placed the heads of the others by their bodies, and guarded them in like manner from burial by a watch of soldiers for many days.
60 And some raged and gnashed their teeth against them, desiring to execute more severe vengeance upon them; but others laughed and mocked at them, magnifying their own idols, and imputed to them the punishment of the Christians. Even the more reasonable, and those who had seemed to sympathize somewhat, reproached them often, saying, ‘Where is their God, and what has their religion, which they have chosen rather than life, profited them?’
61 So various was their conduct toward us; but we were in deep affliction because we could not bury the bodies. For neither did night avail us for this purpose, nor did money persuade, nor entreaty move to compassion; but they kept watch in every way, as if the prevention of the burial would be of some great advantage to them.”
In addition, they say after other things:
62 “The bodies of the martyrs, having thus in every manner been exhibited and exposed for six days, were afterward burned and reduced to ashes, and swept into the Rhone by the wicked men, so that no trace of them might appear on the earth.
63 And this they did, as if able to conquer God, and prevent their new birth; ‘that,’ as they said, ‘they may have no hope of a resurrection,47 through trust in which they bring to us this foreign and new religion, and despise terrible things, and are ready even to go to death with joy. Now let us see if they will rise again, and if their God is able to help them, and to deliver them out of our hands.’”
Chapter II. The Martyrs, Beloved of God, Kindly Ministered Unto Those Who Fell in the Persecution.
1 Such things happened to the churches of Christ under the above-mentioned emperor,48 from which we may reasonably conjecture the occurrences in the other provinces. It is proper to add other selections from the same letter, in which the moderation and compassion of these witnesses is recorded in the following words:
2 “They were also so zealous in their imitation of Christ,—‘who, being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God,’49 —that, though they had attained such honor, and had borne witness, not once or twice, but many times,—having been brought back to prison from the wild beasts, covered with burns and scars and wounds,—yet they did not proclaim themselves witnesses, nor did they suffer us to address them by this name. If any one of us, in letter or conversation, spoke of them as witnesses, they rebuked him sharply.
3 For they conceded cheerfully the appellation of Witness to Christ ‘the faithful and true Witness,’50 and ‘firstborn of the dead,’51 and prince of the life of God;52 and they reminded us of the witnesses who had already departed, and said, ‘They are already witnesses whom Christ has deemed worthy to be taken up in their confession, having sealed their testimony by their departure; but we are lowly and humble confessors.’53 And they besought the brethren with tears that earnest prayers should be offered that they might be made perfect.54 
4 They showed in their deeds the power of ‘testimony,’ manifesting great boldness toward all the brethren, and they made plain their nobility through patience and fearlessness and courage, but they refused the title of Witnesses as distinguishing them from their brethren,55 being filled with the fear of God.”
5 A little further on they say: “They humbled themselves under the mighty hand, by which they are now greatly exalted.56 They defended all,57 but accused none. They absolved all, but bound none.58 And they prayed for those who had inflicted cruelties upon them, even as Stephen, the perfect witness, ‘Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.’59 But if he prayed for those who stoned him, how much more for the brethren!”
6 And again after mentioning other matters, they say:
 “For, through the genuineness of their love, their greatest contest with him was that the Beast, being choked, might cast out alive those whom he supposed he had swallowed. For they did not boast over the fallen, but helped them in their need with those things in which they themselves abounded, having the compassion of a mother, and shedding many tears on their account before the Father.
7 They asked for life, and he gave it to them, and they shared it with their neighbors. Victorious over everything, they departed to God. Having always loved peace, and having commended peace to us60 they went in peace to God, leaving no sorrow to their mother, nor division or strife to the brethren, but joy and peace and concord and love.”
8 This record of the affection of those blessed ones toward the brethren that had fallen may be profitably added on account of the inhuman and unmerciful disposition of those who, after these events, acted unsparingly toward the members of Christ.61 
Chapter III. The Vision Which Appeared in a Dream to the Witness Attalus.
1 The same letter of the above-mentioned witnesses contains another account worthy of remembrance. No one will object to our bringing it to the knowledge of our readers. It runs as follows: “For a certain Alcibiades,62 who was one of them, led a very austere life, partaking of nothing whatever but bread and water. When he endeavored to continue this same sort of life in prison, it was revealed to Attalus after his first conflict in the amphitheater that Alcibiades was not doing well in refusing the creatures of God and placing a stumbling-block before others.
3 And Alcibiades obeyed, and partook of all things without restraint, giving thanks to God. For they were not deprived of the grace of God, but the Holy Ghost was their counselor.” Let this suffice for these matters.
4 The followers of Montanus,63 Alcibiades64 and Theodotus65 in Phrygia were now first giving wide circulation to their assumption in regard to prophecy,—for the many other miracles that, through the gift of God, were still wrought in the different churches caused their prophesying to be readily credited by many,—and as dissension arose concerning them, the brethren in Gaul set forth their own prudent and most orthodox judgment in the matter, and published also several epistles from the witnesses that had been put to death among them. These they sent, while they were still in prison, to the brethren throughout Asia and Phrygia, and also to Eleutherus,66 who was then bishop of Rome, negotiating for the peace of the churches.67 
Chapter IV. Irenaeus Commended by the Witnesses in a Letter.
1 The same witnesses also recommended Irenaeus,68 who was already at that time a presbyter of the parish of Lyons, to the above-mentioned bishop of Rome, saying many favorable things in regard to him, as the following extract shows:
2 “We pray, father Eleutherus, that you may rejoice in God in all things and always. We have requested our brother and comrade Irenaeus to carry this letter to you, and we ask you to hold him in esteem, as zealous for the covenant of Christ. For if we thought that office could confer righteousness upon any one, we should commend him among the first as a presbyter of the church, which is his position.”
3 Why should we transcribe the catalogue of the witnesses given in the letter already mentioned, of whom some were beheaded, others cast to the wild beasts, and others fell asleep in prison, or give the number of confessors69 still surviving at that time? For whoever desires can readily find the full account by consulting the letter itself, which, as I have said, is recorded in our Collection of Martyrdoms.70 Such were the events which happened under Antoninus.71 
Chapter V. God Sent Rain from Heaven for Marcus Aurelius Caesar in Answer to the Prayers of Our People.
1 It is reported72 that Marcus Aurelius Caesar, brother of Antoninus,73 being about to engage in battle with the Germans and Sarmatians, was in great trouble on account of his army suffering from thirst.74 But the soldiers of the so-called Melitene legion,75 through the faith which has given strength from that time to the present, when they were drawn up before the enemy, kneeled on the ground, as is our custom in prayer,76 and engaged in supplications to God.
2 This was indeed a strange sight to the enemy, but it is reported77 that a stranger thing immediately followed. The lightning drove the enemy to flight and destruction, but a shower refreshed the army of those who had called on God, all of whom had been on the point of perishing with thirst.
3 This story is related by non-Christian writers who have been pleased to treat the times referred to, and it has also been recorded by our own people.78 By those historians who were strangers to the faith, the marvel is mentioned, but it is not acknowledged as an answer to our prayers. But by our own people, as friends of the truth, the occurrence is related in a simple and artless manner.
4 Among these is Apolinarius,79 who says that from that time the legion through whose prayers the wonder took place received from the emperor a title appropriate to the event, being called in the language of the Romans the Thundering Legion.
5 Tertullian is a trustworthy witness of these things. In the Apology for the Faith, which he addressed to the Roman Senate, and which work we have already mentioned,80 he confirms the history with greater and stronger proofs.
6 He writes81 that there are still extant letters82 of the most intelligent Emperor Marcus in which he testifies that his army, being on the point of perishing with thirst in Germany, was saved by the prayers of the Christians. And he says also that this emperor threatened death83 to those who brought accusation against us.
7 He adds further:84 
“What kind of laws are those which impious, unjust, and cruel persons use against us alone? which Vespasian, though he had conquered the Jews, did not regard;85 which Trajan partially annulled, forbidding Christians to be sought after;86 which neither Adrian,87 though inquisitive in all matters, nor he who was called Pius88 sanctioned.” But let any one treat these things as he chooses;89 we must pass on to what followed.
8 Pothinus having died with the other martyrs in Gaul at ninety years of age,90 Irenaeus succeeded him in the episcopate of the church at Lyons.91 We have learned that, in his youth, he was a hearer of Polycarp.92 
9 In the third book of his work Against Heresies he has inserted a list of the bishops of Rome, bringing it down as far as Eleutherus (whose times we are now considering), under whom he composed his work. He writes as follows:93 
Chapter VI. Catalogue of the Bishops of Rome.
1 “The blessed apostles94 having founded and established the church, entrusted the office of the episcopate to Linus.95 Paul speaks of this Linus in his Epistles to Timothy.96 
2 Anencletus97 succeeded him, and after Anencletus, in the third place from the apostles, Clement98 received the episcopate. He had seen and conversed with the blessed apostles,99 and their preaching was still sounding in his ears, and their tradition was still before his eyes. Nor was he alone in this, for many who had been taught by the apostles yet survived.
3 In the times of Clement, a serious dissension having arisen among the brethren in Corinth,100 the church of Rome sent a most suitable letter to the Corinthians,101 reconciling them in peace, renewing their faith, and proclaiming102 the doctrine lately received from the apostles.”103 
4 A little farther on he says:104 
“Evarestus105 succeeded Clement, and Alexander,106 Evarestus. Then Xystus,107 the sixth from the apostles, was appointed. After him Telesphorus,108 who suffered martyrdom gloriously; then Hyginus;109 then Pius;110 and after him Anicetus;111 Soter112 succeeded Anicetus; and now, in the twelfth place from the apostles, Eleutherus113 holds the office of bishop.
5 In the same order and succession114 the tradition in the Church and the preaching of the truth has descended from the apostles unto us.”
Chapter VII. Even Down to Those Times Miracles Were Performed by the Faithful.
1 These things Irenaeus, in agreement with the accounts already given by us,115 records in the work which comprises five books, and to which he gave the title Refutation and Overthrow of the Knowledge Falsely So-called.116 In the second book of the same treatise he shows that manifestations of divine and miraculous power continued to his time in some of the churches.
2 He says:117 
“But so far do they come short of raising the dead, as the Lord raised them, and the apostles through prayer. And oftentimes in the brotherhood, when, on account of some necessity, our entire Church has besought with fasting and much supplication, the spirit of the dead has returned,118 and the man has been restored through the prayers of the saints.”
3 And again, after other remarks, he says:119 
“If they will say that even the Lord did these things in mere appearance, we will refer them to the prophetic writings, and show from them that all things were beforehand spoken of him in this manner, and were strictly fulfilled; and that he alone is the Son of God. Wherefore his true disciples, receiving grace from him, perform such works in his Name for the benefit of other men, as each has received the gift from him.
4 For some of them drive out demons effectually and truly, so that those who have been cleansed from evil spirits frequently believe and unite with the Church. Others have a foreknowledge of future events, and visions, and prophetic revelations. Still others heal the sick by the laying on of hands, and restore them to health. And, as we have said, even dead persons have been raised, and remained with us many years.
5 But why should we say more? It is not possible to recount the number of gifts which the Church, throughout all the world, has received from God in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and exercises every day for the benefit of the heathen, never deceiving any nor doing it for money. For as she has received freely from God, freely also does she minister.”120 
6 And in another place the same author writes:121 
“As also we hear that many brethren in the Church possess prophetic gifts, and speak, through the Spirit, with all kinds of tongues, and bring to light the secret things of men for their good, and declare the mysteries of God.”
So much in regard to the fact that various gifts remained among those who were worthy even until that time.
Chapter VIII. The Statements of Irenaeus in Regard to the Divine Scriptures.
1 Since, in the beginning of this work,122 we promised to give, when needful, the words of the ancient presbyters and writers of the Church, in which they have declared those traditions which came down to them concerning the canonical books, and since Irenaeus was one of them, we will now give his words and, first, what he says of the sacred Gospels:123 
2 “Matthew published his Gospel among the Hebrews in their own language,124 while Peter and Paul were preaching and founding the churchin Rome.125 
3 After their departure Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, also transmitted to us in writing those things which Peter had preached;126 and Luke, the attendant of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel which Paul had declared.127 
4 Afterwards John, the disciple of the Lord, who also reclined on his bosom, published his Gospel, while staying at Ephesus in Asia.”128 
5 He states these things in the third book of his above-mentioned work. In the fifth book he speaks as follows concerning the Apocalypse of John, and the number of the name of Antichrist:129 
“As these things are so, and this number is found in all the approved and ancient copies,130 and those who saw John face to face confirm it, and reason teaches us that the number of the name of the beast, according to the mode of calculation among the Greeks, appears in its letters. …”131 
6 And farther on he says concerning the same:132 
“We are not bold enough to speak confidently of the name of Antichrist. For if it were necessary that his name should be declared clearly at the present time, it would have been announced by him who saw the revelation. For it was seen, not long ago, but almost in our generation, toward the end of the reign of Domitian.”133 
7 He states these things concerning the Apocalypse134 in the work referred to. He also mentions the first Epistle of John,135 taking many proofs from it, and likewise the first Epistle of Peter.136 And he not only knows, but also receives, The Shepherd,137 writing as follows:138 
“Well did the Scripture139 speak, saying,140 ‘First of all believe that God is one, who has created and completed all things,’” &c.
8 And he uses almost the precise words of the Wisdom of Solomon, saying:141 “The vision of God produces immortality, but immortality renders us near to God.” He mentions also the memoirs142 of a certain apostolic presbyter,143 whose name he passes by in silence, and gives his expositions of the sacred Scriptures.
9 And he refers to Justin the Martyr,144 and to Ignatius,145 using testimonies also from their writings. Moreover, he promises to refute Marcion from his own writings, in a special work.146 
10 Concerning the translation of the inspired147 Scriptures by the Seventy, hear the very words which he writes:148 
“God in truth became man, and the Lord himself saved us, giving the sign of the virgin; but not as some say, who now venture to translate the Scripture, ‘Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bring forth a son,’149 as Theodotion of Ephesus and Aquila of Pontus,150 both of them Jewish proselytes, interpreted; following whom, the Ebionites say151 that he was begotten by Joseph.”
11 Shortly after he adds:
“For before the Romans had established their empire, while the Macedonians were still holding Asia, Ptolemy, the son of Lagus,152 being desirous of adorning the library which he had founded in Alexandria with the meritorious writings of all men, requested the people of Jerusalem to have their Scriptures translated into the Greek language.
12 But, as they were then subject to the Macedonians, they sent to Ptolemy seventy elders, who were the most skilled among them in the Scriptures and in both languages. Thus God accomplished his purpose.153 
13 But wishing to try them individually, as he feared lest, by taking counsel together, they might conceal the truth of the Scriptures by their interpretation, he separated them from one another, and commanded all of them to write the same translation.154 He did this for all the books.
14 But when they came together in the presence of Ptolemy, and compared their several translations, God was glorified, and the Scriptures were recognized as truly divine. For all of them had rendered the same things in the same words and with the same names from beginning to end, so that the heathen perceived that the Scriptures had been translated by the inspiration155 of God.
15 And this was nothing wonderful for God to do, who, in the captivity of the people under Nebuchadnezzar, when the Scriptures had been destroyed, and the Jews had returned to their own country after seventy years, afterwards,in the time of Artaxerxes, king of the Persians, inspired Ezra the priest, of the tribe of Levi, to relate all the words of the former prophets, and to restore to the people the legislation of Moses.”156 
Such are the words of Irenaeus.
Chapter IX. The Bishops Under Commodus.
1 After Antoninus157 had been emperor for nineteen years, Commodus received the government.158 In his first year Julian159 became bishop of the Alexandrian churches, after Agrippinus160 had held the office for twelve years.
Chapter X. Pantaenus the Philosopher.
1 About that time, Pantaenus,161 a man highly distinguished for his learning, had charge of the school of the faithful in Alexandria.162 A school of sacred learning, which continues to our day, was established there in ancient times,163 and as we have been informed,164 was managed by men of great ability and zeal for divine things. Among these it is reported165 that Pantaenus was at that time especially conspicuous, as he had been educated in the philosophical system of those called Stoics.
2 They say that he displayed such zeal for the divine Word, that he was appointed as a herald of the Gospel of Christ to the nations in the East, and was sent as far as India.166 For indeed167 there were still many evangelists of the Word who sought earnestly to use their inspired zeal, after the examples of the apostles, for the increase and building up of the Divine Word.
3 Pantaenus was one of these, and is said to have gone to India. It is reported that among persons there who knew of Christ, he found the Gospel according to Matthew, which had anticipated his own arrival. For Bartholomew,168 one of the apostles, had preached to them, and left with them the writing of Matthew in the Hebrew language,169 which they had preserved till that time.
4 After many good deeds, Pantaenus finally became the head of the school at Alexandria,170 and expounded the treasures of divine doctrine both orally and in writing.171 
Chapter XI. Clement of Alexandria.
1 At this time Clement,172 being trained with him173 in the divine Scriptures at Alexandria, became well known. He had the same name as the one who anciently was at the head of the Roman church, and who was a disciple of the apostles.174 
2 In his Hypotyposes175 he speaks of Pantaenus by name as his teacher. It seems to me that he alludes to the same person also in the first book of his Stromata, when, referring to the more conspicuous of the successors of the apostles whom he had met,176 he says:177 
3 “This work178 is not a writing artfully constructed for display; but my notes are stored up for old age, as a remedy against forgetfulness; an image without art, and a rough sketch of those powerful and animated words which it was my privilege to hear, as well as of blessed and truly remarkable men.
4 Of these the one—the Ionian179 —was in Greece, the other in Magna Graecia;180 the one of them was from Coele-Syria,181 the other from Egypt. There were others in the East, one of them an Assyrian,182 the other a Hebrew in Palestine.183 But when I met with the last,184 —in ability truly he was first,—having hunted him out in his concealment in Egypt, I found rest.
5 These men, preserving the true tradition of the blessed doctrine, directly from the holy apostles, Peter and James and John and Paul, the son receiving it from the father (but few were like the fathers), have come by God’s will even to us to deposit those ancestral and apostolic seeds.”185 
Chapter XII. The Bishops in Jerusalem.
1 At this time Narcissus186 was the bishop of the church at Jerusalem, and he is celebrated by many to this day. He was the fifteenth in succession from the siege of the Jews under Adrian. We have shown that from that time first the church in Jerusalem was composed of Gentiles, after those of the circumcision, and that Marcus was the first Gentile bishop that presided over them.187 
2 After him the succession in the episcopate was: first Cassianus; after him Publius; then Maximus;188 following them Julian; then Gaius;189 after him Symmachus and another Gaius, and again another Julian; after these Capito190 and Valens and Dolichianus; and after all of them Narcissus, the thirtieth in regular succession from the apostles. 
Chapter XIII. Rhodo and His Account of the Dissension of Marcion.
1 At this time Rhodo,191 a native of Asia, who had been instructed, as he himself states, by Tatian, with whom we have already become acquainted,192 having written several books, published among the rest one against the heresy of Marcion.193 He says that this heresy was divided in his time into various opinions;194 and while describing those who occasioned the division, he refutes accurately the falsehoods devised by each of them.
2 But hear what he writes:195 
“Therefore also they disagree among themselves, maintaining an inconsistent opinion.196 For Apelles,197 one of the herd, priding himself on his manner of life198 and his age, acknowledges one principle,199 but says that the prophecies200 are from an opposing spirit, being led to this view by the responses of a maiden by name Philumene,201 who was possessed by a demon.
3 But others, among whom are Potitus and Basilicus,202 hold to two principles,203 as does the mariner204 Marcion himself.
4 These following the wolf205 of Pontus, and, like him, unable to fathom the division of things, became reckless, and without giving any proof asserted two principles. Others, again, drifting into a worse error, consider that there are not only two, but three natures.206 Of these, Syneros207 is the leader and chief, as those who defend his teaching208 say.”
5 The same author writes that he engaged in conversation with Apelles. He speaks as follows:
“For the old man Apelles, when conversing with us,209 was refuted in many things which he spoke falsely; whence also he said that it was not at all necessary to examine one’s doctrine,210 but that each one should continue to hold what he believed. For he asserted that those who trusted in the Crucified would be saved, if only they were found doing good works.211 But as we have said before, his opinion concerning God was the most obscure of all. For he spoke of one principle, as also our doctrine does.”
6 Then, after stating fully his own opinion, he adds:
“When I said to him, Tell me how you know this or how can you assert that there is one principle, he replied that the prophecies refuted themselves, because they have said nothing true;212 for they are inconsistent, and false, and self-contradictory. But how there is one principle he said that he did not know, but that he was thus persuaded.
7 As I then adjured him to speak the truth, he swore that he did so when he said that he did not know how there is one unbegotten God, but that he believed it. Thereupon I laughed and reproved him because, though calling himself a teacher, he knew not how to confirm what he taught.”213 
8 In the same work, addressing Callistio,214 the same writer acknowledges that he had been instructed at Rome by Tatian.215 And he says that a book of Problems216 had been prepared by Tatian, in which he promised to explain the obscure and hidden parts of the divine Scriptures. Rhodo himself promises to give in a work of his own solutions of Tatian’s problems.217 There is also extant a Commentary of his on the Hexaemeron.218 
9 But this Apelles wrote many things, an impious manner, of the law of Moses, blaspheming the divine words in many of his works, being, as it seemed, very zealous for their refutation and overthrow?219 
So much concerning these.
Chapter XIV. The False Prophets of the Phrygians.
1 The enemy of God’s Church, who is emphatically a hater of good and a lover of evil, and leaves untried no manner of craft against men, was again active in causing strange heresies to spring up against the Church.220 For some persons, like venomous reptiles, crawled over Asia and Phrygia, boasting that Montanus was the Paraclete, and that the women that followed him, Priscilla and Maximilla, were prophetesses of Montanus.221 
Chapter XV. The Schism of Blastus at Rome.222 
Others, of whom Florinus223 was chief, flourished at Rome. He fell from the presbyterate of the Church, and Blastus was involved in a similar fall. They also drew away many of the Church to their opinion, each striving to introduce his own innovations in respect to the truth.
Chapter XVI. The Circumstances Related of Montanus and His False Prophets.224 
1 Against the so-called Phrygian225 heresy, the power which always contends for the truth raised up a strong and invincible weapon, Apolinarius of Hierapolis, whom we have mentioned before,226 and with him many other men of ability, by whom abundant material for our history has been left.
2 A certain one of these, in the beginning of his work against them,227 first intimates that he had contended with them in oral controversies. He commences his work in this manner:228 
“Having for a very long and sufficient time, O beloved Avircius Marcellus,229 been urged by you to write a treatise against the heresy of those who are called after Miltiades,230 I have hesitated till the present time, not through lack of ability to refute the falsehood or bear testimony for the truth, but from fear and apprehension that I might seem to some to be making additions to the doctrines or precepts of the Gospel of the New Testament, which it is impossible for one who has chosen to live according to the Gospel, either to increase or to diminish.
But being recently in Ancyra231 in Galatia, I found the church there232 greatly agitated by this novelty, not prophecy, as they call it, but rather false prophecy, as will be shown. Therefore, to the best of our ability, with the Lord’s help, we disputed in the church many days concerning these and other matters separately brought forward by them, so that the church rejoiced and was strengthened in the truth, and those of the opposite side were for the time confounded, and the adversaries were grieved.
5 The presbyters in the place, our fellow-presbyter Zoticus233 of Otrous also being present, requested us to leave a record of what had been said against the opposers of the truth. We did not do this, but we promised to write it out as soon as the Lord permitted us, and to send it to them speedily.” 
6 Having said this with other things, in the beginning of his work, he proceeds to state the cause of the above-mentioned heresy as follows:
“Their opposition and their recent heresy which has separated them from the Church arose on the following account.
7 There is said to be a certain village called Ardabau in that part of Mysia, which borders upon Phrygia.234 There first, they say, when Gratus was proconsul of Asia,235 a recent convert, Montanus by name, through his unquenchable desire for leadership,236 gave the adversary opportunity against him. And he became beside himself, and being suddenly in a sort of frenzy and ecstasy, he raved, and began to babble and utter strange things, prophesying in a manner contrary to the constant custom of the Church handed down by tradition from the beginning.237 
8 Some of those who heard his spurious utterances at that time were indignant, and they rebuked him as one that was possessed, and that was under the control of a demon, and was led by a deceitful spirit, and was distracting the multitude; and they forbade him to talk, remembering the distinction238 drawn by the Lord and his warning to guard watchfully against the coming of false prophets?239 But others imagining themselves possessed of the Holy Spirit and of a prophetic gift,240 were elated and not a little puffed up; and forgetting the distinction of the Lord, they challenged the mad and insidious and seducing spirit, and were cheated and deceived by him. In consequence of this, he could no longer be held in check, so as to keep silence.
9 Thus by artifice, or rather by such a system of wicked craft, the devil, devising destruction for the disobedient, and being unworthily honored by them, secretly excited and inflamed their understandings which had already become estranged from the true faith. And he stirred up besides two women,241 and filled them with the false spirit, so that they talked wildly and unreasonably and strangely, like the person already mentioned.242 And the spirit pronounced them blessed as they rejoiced and gloried in him, and puffed them up by the magnitude of his promises. But sometimes he rebuked them openly in a wise and faithful manner, that he might seem to be a reprover. But those of the Phrygians that were deceived were few in number.
“And the arrogant spirit taught them to revile the entire universal Church under heaven, because the spirit of false prophecy received neither honor from it nor entrance into it.
10 For the faithful in Asia met often in many places throughout Asia to consider this matter,243 and examined the novel utterances and pronounced them profane, and rejected the heresy, and thus these persons were expelled from the Church and debarred from communion.”
11 Having related these things at the outset, and continued the refutation of their delusion through his entire work, in the second book he speaks as follows of their end:
12 “Since, therefore, they called us slayers of the prophets244 because we did not receive their loquacious prophets, who, they say, are those that the Lord promised to send to the people,245 let them answer as in God’s presence: Who is there, O friends, of these who began to talk, from Montanus and the women down, that was persecuted by the Jews, or slain by lawless men? None. Or has any of them been seized and crucified for the Name? Truly not. Or has one of these women ever been scourged in the synagogues of the Jews, or stoned? No; never anywhere.246 
13 But by another kind of death Montanus and Maximilla are said to have died. For the report is that, incited by the spirit of frenzy, they both hung themselves;247 not at the same time, but at the time which common report gives for the death of each. And thus they died, and ended their lives like the traitor Judas.
14 So also, as general report says, that remarkable person, the first steward,248 as it were, of their so-called prophecy, one Theodotus—who, as if at sometime taken up and received into heaven, fell into trances, and entrusted himself to the deceitful spirit—was pitched like a quoit, and died miserably?249 
15 They say that these things happened in this manner. But as we did not see them, O friend, we do not pretend to know. Perhaps in such a manner, perhaps not, Montanus and Theodotus and the above-mentioned woman died.”
16 He says again in the same book that the holy bishops of that time attempted to refute the spirit in Maximilla, but were prevented by others who plainly co-operated with the spirit.
17 He writes as follows:
“And let not the spirit, in the same work of Asterius Urbanus,250 say through Maximilla, ‘I am driven away from the sheep like a wolf.251 I am not a wolf. I am word and spirit and power.’ But let him show clearly and prove the power in the spirit. And by the spirit let him compel those to confess him who were then present for the purpose of proving and reasoning with the talkative spirit,—those eminent men and bishops, Zoticus,252 from the village Comana, and Julian,253 from Apamea, whose mouths the followers of Themiso254 muzzled, refusing to permit the false and seductive spirit to be refuted by them.”
18 Again in the same work, after saying other things in refutation of the false prophecies of Maximilla, he indicates the time when he wrote these accounts, and mentions her predictions in which she prophesied wars and anarchy. Their falsehood he censures in the following manner:
19 “And has not this been shown clearly to be false? For it is to-day more than thirteen years since the woman died, and there has been neither a partial nor general war in the world; but rather, through the mercy of God, continued peace even to the Christians.”255 These things are taken from the second book.
20 I will add also short extracts from the third book, in which he speaks thus against their boasts that many of them had suffered, martyrdom:
“When therefore they are at a loss, being refuted in all that they say, they try to take refuge in their martyrs, alleging that they have many martyrs, and that this is sure evidence of the power of the so-called prophetic spirit that is with them. But this, as it appears, is entirely fallacious.256 
21 For some of the heresies have a great many martyrs; but surely we shall not on that account agree with them or confess that they hold the truth. And first, indeed, those called Marcionites, from the heresy of Marcion, say that they have a multitude of martyrs for Christ; yet they do not confess Christ himself in truth.”
A little farther on he continues:
22 “When those called to martyrdom from the Church for the truth of the faith have met with any of the so-called martyrs of the Phrygian heresy, they have separated from them, and died without any fellowship with them,257 because they did not wish to give their assent to the spirit of Montanus and the women. And that this is true and took place in our own time in Apamea on the Maeander,258 among those who suffered martyrdom with Gaius and Alexander of Eumenia, is well known.”
Chapter XVII. Miltiades and His Works.
1 In this work he mentions a writer, Miltiades,259 stating that he also wrote a certain book against the above-mentioned heresy. After quoting some of their words, he adds:
“Having found these things in a certain work of theirs in opposition to the work of the brother Alcibiades,260 in which he shows that a prophet ought not to speak in ecstasy,261 I made an abridgment.”
2 A little further on in the same work he gives a list of those who prophesied under the new covenant, among whom he enumerates a certain Ammia262 and Quadratus,263 saying:
“But the false prophet falls into an ecstasy, in which he is without shame or fear. Beginning with purposed ignorance, he passes on, as has been stated, to involuntary madness of soul.
3 They cannot show that one of the old or one of the new prophets was thus carried away in spirit. Neither can they boast of Agabus,264 or Judas,265 or Silas,266 or the daughters of Philip,267 or Ammia in Philadelphia, or Quadratus, or any others not belonging to them.”
4 And again after a little he says: “For if after Quadratus and Ammia in Philadelphia, as they assert, the women with Montanus received the prophetic gift, let them show who among them received it from Montanus and the women. For the apostle thought it necessary that the prophetic gift should continue in all the Church until the final coming. But they cannot show it, though this is the fourteenth year since the death of Maximilla.”268 
5 He writes thus. But the Miltiades to whom he refers has left other monuments of his own zeal for the Divine Scriptures,269 in the discourses which he composed against the Greeks and against the Jews,270 answering each of them separately in two books.271 And in addition he addresses an apology to the earthly rulers,272 in behalf of the philosophy which he embraced. 
Chapter XVIII. The Manner in Which Apollonius Refuted the Phrygians, and the Persons273 Whom He Mentions.
1 As the so-called Phrygian heresy274 was still flourishing in Phrygia in his time, Apollonius275 also, an ecclesiastical writer, undertook its refutation, and wrote a special work against it, correcting in detail the false prophecies current among them and reproving the life of the founders of the heresy. But hear his own words respecting Montanus:
2 “His actions and his teaching show who this new teacher is. This is he who taught the dissolution of marriage;276 who made laws for fasting;277 who named Pepuza and Tymion,278 small towns in Phrygia, Jerusalem, wishing to gather people to them from all directions; who appointed collectors of money;279 who contrived the receiving of gifts under the name of offerings; who provided salaries for those who preached his doctrine, that its teaching might prevail through gluttony.”280 
3 He writes thus concerning Montanus; and a little farther on he writes as follows concerning his prophetesses: “We show that these first prophetesses themselves, as soon as they were filled with the Spirit, abandoned their husbands. How falsely therefore they speak who call Prisca a virgin.”281 
4 Afterwards he says: “Does not all Scripture seem to you to forbid a prophet to receive gifts and money?282 When therefore I see the prophetess receiving gold and silver and costly garments, how can I avoid reproving her?”
5 And again a little farther on he speaks thus concerning one of their confessors:
“So also Themiso,283 who was clothed with plausible covetousness, could not endure the sign of confession, but threw aside bonds for an abundance of possessions. Yet, though he should have been humble on this account, he dared to boast as a martyr, and in imitation of the apostle, he wrote a certain catholic284 epistle, to instruct those whose faith was better than his own, contending for words of empty sound, and blaspheming against the Lord and the apostles and the holy Church.”
And again concerning others of those honored among them as martyrs, he writes as follows:
“Not to speak of many, let the prophetess herself tell us of Alexander,285 who called himself a martyr, with whom she is in the habit of banqueting, and who is worshiped286 by many. We need not mention his robberies and other daring deeds for which he was punished, but the archives287 contain them. Which of these forgives the sins of the other? Does the prophet the robberies of the martyr, or the martyr the covetousness of the prophet? For although the Lord said, ‘Provide neither gold, nor silver, neither two coats,’288 these men, in complete opposition, transgress in respect to the possession of the forbidden things. For we will show that those whom they call prophets and martyrs gather their gain not only from rich men, but also from the poor, and orphans, and widows.
8 But if they are confident, let them stand up and discuss these matters, that if convicted they may hereafter cease transgressing. For the fruits of the prophet must be tried; ‘for the tree is known by its fruit.’289 
9 But that those who wish may know concerning Alexander, he was tried by Aemilius Frontinus,290 proconsul at Ephesus; not on account of the Name,291 but for the robberies which he had committed, being already an apostate.292 Afterwards, having falsely declared for the name of the Lord, he was released, having deceived the faithful that were there.293 And his own parish, from which he came, did not receive him, because he was a robber.294 Those who wish to learn about him have the public records295 of Asia. And yet the prophet with whom he spent many years knows nothing about him!296 
10 Exposing him, through him we expose also the pretense297 of the prophet. We could show the same thing of many others. But if they are confident, let them endure the test.”
11 Again, in another part of his work he speaks as follows of the prophets of whom they boast:
“If they deny that their prophets have received gifts, let them acknowledge this: that if they are convicted of receiving them, they are not prophets. And we will bring a multitude of proofs of this. But it is necessary that all the fruits of a prophet should be examined. Tell me, does a prophet dye his hair?298 Does a prophet stain his eyelids?299 Does a prophet delight in adornment? Does a prophet play with tables and dice? Does a prophet lend on usury? Let them confess whether these things are lawful or not; but I will show that they have been done by them.”300 
12 This same Apollonius states in the same work that, at the time of his writing, it was the fortieth year since Montanus had begun his pretended prophecy.301 
13 And he says also that Zoticus, who was mentioned by the former writer,302 when Maximilla was pretending to prophesy in Pepuza, resisted her and endeavored to refute the spirit that was working in her; but was prevented by those who agreed with her. He mentions also a certain Thraseas303 among the martyrs of that time.
He speaks, moreover, of a tradition that the Saviour commanded his apostles not to depart from Jerusalem for twelve years.304 He uses testimonies also from the Revelation of John,305 and he relates that a dead man had, through the Divine power, been raised by John himself in Ephesus.306 He also adds other things by which he fully and abundantly exposes the error of the heresy of which we have been speaking. These are the matters recorded by Apollonius.
Chapter XIX. Serapion on the Heresy of the Phrygians.
1 Serapion,307 who, as report says, succeeded Maximinus308 at that time as bishop of the church of Antioch, mentions the works of Apolinarius309 against the above-mentioned heresy. And he alludes to him in a private letter to Caricus and Pontius,310 in which he himself exposes the same heresy, and adds the following words:311 
2 “That you may see that the doings of this lying band of the new prophecy, so called, are an abomination to all the brotherhood throughout the world, I have sent you writings312 of the most blessed Claudius Apolinarius, bishop of Hierapolis in Asia.”
3 In the same letter of Serapion the signatures of several bishops are found,313 one of whom subscribes himself as follows:
“I, Aurelius Cyrenius, a witness,314 pray for your health.”
And another in this manner:
“Aelius Publius Julius,315 bishop of Debeltum, a colony of Thrace. As God liveth in the heavens, the blessed Sotas in Anchialus desired to cast the demon out of Priscilla, but the hypocrites did not permit him.”316 
4 And the autograph signatures of many other bishops who agreed with them are contained in the same letter.
 So much for these persons.
Chapter XX. The Writings of Irenaeus Against the Schismatics at Rome.
1 Irenaeus317 wrote several letters against those who were disturbing the sound ordinance of the Church at Rome. One of them was to Blastus On Schism;318 another to Florinus On Monarchy,319 or That God is not the Author of Evil. For Florinus seemed to be defending this opinion. And because he was being drawn away by the error of Valentinus, Irenaeus wrote his work On the Ogdoad,320 in which he shows that he himself had been acquainted with the first successors of the apostles.321 
2 At the close of the treatise we have found a most beautiful note which we are constrained to insert in this work.322 It runs as follows:
“I adjure thee who mayest copy this book, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by his glorious advent when he comes to judge the living and the dead, to compare what thou shalt write, and correct it carefully by this manuscript, and also to write this adjuration, and place it in the copy.”
3 These things may be profitably read in his work, and related by us, that we may have those ancient and truly holy men as the best example of painstaking carefulness.
4 In the letter to Florinus, of which we have spoken,323 Irenaeus mentions again his intimacy with Polycarp, saying:
“These doctrines, O Florinus, to speak mildly, are not of sound judgment. These doctrines disagree with the Church, and drive into the greatest impiety those who accept them. These doctrines, not even the heretics outside of the Church, have ever dared to publish. These doctrines, the presbyters who were before us, and who were companions of the apostles, did not deliver to thee.
5 “For when I was a boy, I saw thee in lower Asia with Polycarp, moving in splendor in the royal court,324 and endeavoring to gain his approbation.
6 I remember the events of that time more clearly than those of recent years. For what boys learn, growing with their mind, becomes joined with it; so that I am able to describe the very place in which the blessed Polycarp sat as he discoursed, and his goings out and his comings in, and the manner ner of his life, and his physical appearance, and his discourses to the people, and the accounts which he gave of his intercourse with John and with the others who had seen the Lord. And as he remembered their words, and what he heard from them concerning the Lord, and concerning his miracles and his teaching, having received them from eyewitnesses of the ‘Word of life,’325 Polycarp related all things in harmony with the Scriptures.
7 These things being told me by the mercy of God, I listened to them attentively, noting them down, not on paper, but in my heart. And continually, through God’s grace, I recall them faithfully. And I am able to bear witness before God thatif that blessed and apostolic presbyter had heard any such thing, he would have cried out, and stopped his ears, and as was his custom, would have exclaimed, O good God, unto what times hast thou spared me that I should endure these things? And he would have fled from the place where, sitting or standing, he had heard such words.326 
8 And this can be shown plainly from the letters327 which he sent, either to the neighboring churches for their confirmation, or to some of the brethren, admonishing and exhorting them.” Thus far Irenaeus.
Chapter XXI. How Appolonius Suffered Martyrdom at Rome.
1 About the same time, in the reign of Commodus, our condition became more favorable, and through the grace of God the churches throughout the entire world enjoyed peace,328 and the word of salvation was leading every soul, from every race of man to the devout worship of the God of the universe. So that now at Rome many who were highly distinguished for wealth and family turned with all their household and relatives unto their salvation.
2 But the demon who hates what is good, being malignant in his nature, could not endure this, but prepared himself again for conflict, contriving many devices against us. And he brought to the judgment seat Apollonius,329 of the city of Rome, a man renowned among the faithful for learning and philosophy, having stirred up one of his servants, who was well fitted for such a purpose, to accuse him.330 
3 But this wretched man made the charge unseasonably, because by a royal decree it was unlawful that informers of such things should live. And his legs were broken immediately, Perennius the judge having pronounced this sentence upon him.331 
4 But the martyr, highly beloved of God, being earnestly entreated and requested by the judge to give an account of himself before the Senate, made in the presence of all an eloquent defense of the faith for which he was witnessing. And as if by decree of the Senate he was put to death by decapitation; an ancient law requiring that those who were brought to the judgment seat and refused to recant should not be liberated,332 Whoever desires to know his arguments before the judge and his answers to the questions of Perennius, and his entire defense before the Senate will find them in the records of the ancient martyrdoms which we have collected.333 
Chapter XXII. The Bishops that Were Well Known at This Time.
In the tenth year of the reign of Commodus, Victor334 succeeded Eleutherus,335 the latter havingheld the episcopate for thirteen years. In the same year, after Julian336 a had completed his tenth year, Demetrius337 received the charge of the parishes at Alexandria. At this time the above-mentioned Serapion,338 the eighth from the apostles, was still well known as bishop of the church at Antioch. Theophilus339 presided at Caesarea in Palestine; and Narcissus,340 whom we have mentioned before, still had charge of the church at Jerusalem. Bacchylus341 at the same time was bishop of Corinth in Greece, and Polycrates342 of the parish of Ephesus. And besides these a multitude of others, as is likely, were then prominent. But we have given the names of those alone, the soundness of whose faith has come down to us in writing.
Chapter XXIII. The Question Then Agitated Concerning the Passover.
1 A Question of no small importance arose at that time. For the parishes of all Asia, as from an older tradition, held that the fourteenth day of the moon, on which day the Jews were commanded to sacrifice the lamb, should be observed as the feast of the Saviour’s passover.343 It was therefore necessary to end their fast on that day, whatever day of the week it should happen to be. But it was not the custom of the churches in the rest of the world to end it at this time, as they observed the practice which, from apostolic tradition, has prevailed to the present time, of terminating the fast on no other day than on that of the resurrection of our Saviour.
2 Synods and assemblies of bishops were held on this account,344 and all, with one consent, through mutual correspondence drew. up an ecclesiastical decree, that the mystery of the resurrection of the Lord should be celebrated on no other but the Lord’s day, and that we should observe the close of the paschal fast on this day only. There is still extant a writing of those who were then assembled in Palestine, over whom Theophilus,345 bishop of Caesarea, and Narcissus, bishop of Jerusalem, presided. And there is also another writing extant of those who were assembled at Rome to consider the same question, which bears the name of Bishop Victor;346 also of the bishops in Pontus over whom Palmas,347 as the oldest, presided; and of the parishes in Gaul of which Irenaeus was bishop, and of those in Osrhoëne348 and the cities there; and a personal letter of Bacchylus,349 bishop of the church at Corinth, and of a great many others, who uttered the same opinion and judgment, and cast the same vote.
3 And that which has been given above was their unanimous decision.350 
Chapter XXIV. The Disagreement in Asia.
1 But the bishops of Asia, led by Polycrates, decided to hold to the old custom handed down to them.351 He himself, in a letter which he addressed to Victor and the church of Rome, set forth in the following words the tradition which had come down to him:352 
2 “We observe the exact day; neither adding, nor taking away. For in Asia also great lights have fallen asleep, which shall rise again on the day of the Lord’s coming, when he shall come with glory from heaven, and shall seek out all the saints. Among these are Philip, one of the twelve apostles, who fell asleep in Hierapolis; and his two aged virgin daughters, and another daughter, who lived in the Holy Spirit and now rests at Ephesus; and, moreover, John,who was both a witness and a teacher, who reclined upon the bosom of the Lord, and, being a priest, wore the sacerdotal plate.
3 He fell asleep at Ephesus.
4 And Polycarp353 in Smyrna, who was a bishop and martyr; and Thraseas,354 bishop and martyr from Eumenia, who fell asleep in Smyrna.
5 Why need I mention the bishop and martyr Sagaris355 who fell asleep in Laodicea, or the blessed Papirius,356 or Melito,357 the Eunuch who lived altogether in the Holy Spirit, and who lies in Sardis, awaiting the episcopate from heaven, when he shall rise from the dead?
6 All these observed the fourteenth day of the passover according to the Gospel, deviating in no respect, but following the rule of faith.358 And I also, Polycrates, the least of you all, do according to the tradition of my relatives, some of whom I have closely followed. For seven of my relatives were bishops; and I am the eighth. And my relatives always observed the day when the people359 put away the leaven.
7 I, therefore, brethren, who have lived sixty-five years in the Lord, and have met with the brethren throughout the world, and have gone through every Holy Scripture, am not affrighted by terrifying words. For those greater than I have said ‘We ought to obey God rather than man.’”360 
8 He then writes of all the bishops who were present with him and thought as he did. His words are as follows:
“I could mention the bishops who were present, whom I summoned at your desire;361 whose names, should I write them, would constitute a great multitude. And they, beholding my littleness, gave their consent to the letter, knowing that I did not bear my gray hairs in vain, but had always governed my life by the Lord Jesus.”
9 Thereupon Victor, who presided over the church at Rome, immediately attempted to cut off from the common unity the parishes of all Asia, with the churches that agreed with them, as heterodox; and he wrote letters and declared all the brethren there wholly excommunicate.362 
10 But this did not please all the bishops. And they besought him to consider the things of peace, and of neighborly unity and love. Words of theirs are extant, sharply rebuking Victor.
11 Among them was Irenaeus, who, sending letters in the name of the brethren in Gaul over whom he presided, maintained that the mystery of the resurrection of the Lord should be observed only on the Lord’s day. He fittingly admonishes Victor that he should not cut off whole churches of God which observed the tradition of an ancient custom and after many other words he proceeds as follows:363 
12 “For the controversy is not only concerning the day, but also concerning the very manner of the fast. For some think that they should fast one day, others two, yet others more; some, moreover, count their day as consisting of forty hours day and night.364 
13 And this variety in its observance has not originated in our time; but long before in that of our ancestors.365 It is likely that they did not hold to strict accuracy, and thus formed a custom for their posterity according to their own simplicity and peculiar mode. Yet all of these lived none the less in peace, and we also live in peace with one another; and the disagreement in regard to the fast confirms the agreement in the faith.”
14 He adds to this the following account, which I may properly insert:
“Among these were the presbyters before Soter, who presided over the church which thou now rulest. We mean Anicetus, and Plus, and Hyginus, and Telesphorus, and Xystus. They neither observed it366 themselves, nor did they permit those after them to do so. And yet though not observing it, they were none the less at peace with those who came to them from the parishes in which it was observed; although this observance was more opposed to those who did not observe it.367 
15 But none were ever cast out on account of this form; but the presbyters before thee who did not observe it, sent the eucharist to those of other parishes who observed it.368 
16 And when the blessed Polycarp was at Rome369 in the time of Anicetus, and they disagreed a little about certain other things, they immediately made peace with one another, not caring to quarrel over this matter. For neither could Anicetus persuade Polycarp not to observe what he had always observed with John the disciple of our Lord, and the other apostles with whom he had associated; neither could Polycarp persuade Anicetus to observe it as he said that he ought to follow the customs of the presbyters that had preceded him.
17 But though matters were in this shape, they communed together, and Anicetus conceded the administration of the eucharist in the church to Polycarp, manifestly as a mark of respect.370 And they parted from each other in peace, both those who observed, and those who did not, maintaining the peace of the whole church.”
18 Thus Irenaeus, who truly was well named,371 became a peacemaker in this matter, exhorting and negotiating in this way in behalf of the peace of the churches. And he conferred by letter about this mooted question, not only with Victor, but also with most of the other rulers of the churches.372 
Chapter XXV. How All Came to an Agreement Respecting the Passover.
1 Those in Palestine whom we have recently mentioned, Narcissus and Theophilus,373 and with them Cassius,374 bishop of the church of Tyre, and Clarus of the church of Ptolemais, and those who met with them,375 having stated many things respecting the tradition concerning the passover which had come to them in succession from the apostles, at the close of their writing add these words:376 
2 “Endeavor to send copies of our letter to every church, that we may not furnish occasion to those who easily deceive their souls. We show you indeed that also in Alexandria they keep it on the same day that we do. For letters are carried from us to them and from them to us, so that in the same manner and at the same time we keep the sacred day.”377 
Chapter XXVI. The Elegant Works of Irenaeus Which Have Come Down to Us.
Besides the works and letters of Irenaeus which we have mentioned,378 a certain book of his On Knowledge, written against the Greeks,379 very concise and remarkably forcible, is extant; and another, which he dedicated to a brother Martian, In Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching;380 and a volume containing various Dissertations,381 in which he mentions the Epistle to the Hebrews and the so-called Wisdom of Solomon, making quotations from them. These are the works of Irenaeus which have come to our knowledge.
 Commodus having ended his reign after thirteen years, Severus became emperor in less than six months after his death, Pertinax having reigned during the intervening time.382 
Chapter XXVII. The Works of Others that Flourished at that Time.
 Numerous memorials of the faithful zeal of the ancient ecclesiastical men of that time are still preserved by many. Of these we would note particularly the writings of Heraclitus On the Apostle, and those of Maximus on the question so much discussed among heretics, the Origin of Evil, and on the Creation of Matter.383 Also those of Candidus on the Hexaemeron,384 and of Apion385 on the same subject; likewise of Sextus386 on the Resurrection, and another treatise of Arabianus,387 and writings of a multitude of others, in regard to whom, because we have no data, it is impossible to state in our work when they lived, or to give any account of their history.388 And works of many others have come down to us whose names we are unable to give, orthodox and ecclesiastical, as their interpretations of the Divine Scriptures show, but unknown to us, because their names are not stated in their writings.389 
Chapter XXVIII. Those Who First Advanced the Heresy of Artemon; Their Manner of Life, and How They Dared to Corrupt the Sacred Scriptures.
1 In a laborious work by one of thesewriters against the heresy of Artemon,390 which Paul of Samosata391 attempted to revive again in our day, there is an account appropriate to the history which we are now examining.
2 For he criticises, as a late innovation, the above-mentioned heresy which teaches that the Saviour was a mere man, because they were attempting to magnify it as ancient392 Having given in his work many other arguments in refutation of their blasphemous falsehood, he adds the following words:
3 “For they say that all the early teachers and the apostles received and taught what they now declare, and that the truth of the Gospel was preserved until the times of Victor, who was the thirteenth bishop of Rome from Peter,393 but that from his successor, Zephyrinus,394 the truth had been corrupted.
4 And what they say might be plausible, if first of all the Divine Scriptures did not contradict them. And there are writings of certain brethren older than the times of Victor, which they wrote in behalf of the truth against the heathen, and against the heresies which existed in their day. I refer to Justin395 and Miltiades396 and Tatian397 and Clement398 and many others, in all of whose 5 works Christ is spoken of as God.399 
5 For who does not know the works of Irenaeus400 and of Melito401 and of others which teach that Christ is God and man?402 And how many psalms and hymns,403 written by the faithful brethren from the beginning, celebrate Christ the Word of God, speaking of him as Divine.
6 How then since the opinion held by the Church has been preached for so many years, can its preaching have been delayed as they affirm, until the times of Victor? And how is it that they are not ashamed to speak thus falsely of Victor, knowing well that he cut off from communion Theodotus, the cobbler,404 the leader and father of this God-denying apostasy, and the first to declare that Christ is mere man? For if Victor agreed with their opinions, as their slander affirms, how came he to cast out Theodotus, the inventor of this heresy?”
7 So much in regard to Victor. His bishopric lasted ten years, and Zephyrinus was appointed his successor about the ninth year of the reign of Severus.405 The author of the above-mentioned book, concerning the founder of this heresy, narrates another event which occurred in the time of Zephyrinus, using these words:
8 “I will remind many of the brethren of a fact which took place in our time, which, had it happened in Sodom, might, I think, have proved a warning to them. There was a certain confessor, Natalius,406 not long ago, but in our own day.
9 This man was deceived at one time by Asclepiodotus407 and another Theodotus,408 a money-changer. Both of them were disciples of Theodotus, the cobbler, who, as I have said, was the first person excommunicated by Victor, bishop at that time, on account of this sentiment, or rather senselessness.409 
10 Natalius was persuaded by them to allow himself to be chosen bishop of this heresy with a salary, to be paid by them, of one hundred and fifty denarii a month.410 When 11 he had thus connected himself with them, he was warned oftentimes by the Lord through visions.
12 For the compassionate God and our Lord Jesus Christ was not willing that a witness of his own sufferings, being cast out of the Church, should perish. But as he paid little regard to the visions, because he was ensnared by the first position among them and by that shameful covetousness which destroys a great many, he was scourged by holy angels, and punished severely through the entire night.411 Thereupon having risen in the morning, he put on sackcloth and covered himself with ashes, and with great haste and tears he fell down before Zephyrinus, the bishop, rolling at the feet not only of the clergy, but also of the laity; and he moved with his tears the compassionate Church of the merciful Christ. And though he used much supplication, and showed the welts of the stripes which he had received, yet scarcely was he taken back into communion.”
13 We will add from the same writer some other extracts concerning them, which run as follows:412 
 “They have treated the Divine Scriptures recklessly and without fear. They have set aside the rule of ancient faith; and Christ they have not known. They do not endeavor to learn what the Divine Scriptures declare, but strive laboriously after any form of syllogism which may be devised to sustain their impiety. And if any one brings before them a passage of Divine Scripture, they see whether a conjunctive or disjunctive form of syllogism can be made from it.
14 And as being of the earth and speaking of the earth, and as ignorant of him who cometh from above, they forsake the holy writings of God to devote themselves to geometry.413 Euclid is laboriously measured414 by some of them; and Aristotle and Theophrastus are admired; and Galen, perhaps, by some is even worshiped.
15 But that those who use the arts of unbelievers for their heretical opinions and adulterate the simple faith of the Divine Scriptures by the craft of the godless, are far from the faith, what need is there to say? Therefore they have laid their hands boldly upon the Divine Scriptures, alleging that they have corrected them.
16 That I am not speaking falsely of them in this matter, whoever wishes may learn. For if any one will collect their respective copies, and compare them one with another, he will find that they differ greatly.
17 Those of Asclepiades,415 for example, do not agree with those of Theodotus. And many of these can be obtained, because their disciples have assiduously written the corrections, as they call them, that is the corruptions,416 of each of them. Again, those of Hermophilus417 do not agree with these, and those of Apollonides418 are not consistent with themselves. For you can compare those prepared by them at an earlier date with those which they corrupted later, and you will find them widely different.
18 But how daring this offense is, it is not likely that they themselves are ignorant. For either they do not believe that the Divine Scriptures were spoken by the Holy Spirit, and thus are unbelievers, or else they think themselves wiser than the Holy Spirit, and in that case what else are they than demoniacs? For they cannot deny the commission of the crime, since the copies have been written by their own hands. For they did not receive such Scriptures from their instructors, nor can they produce any copies from which they were transcribed.
19 But some of them have not thought it worth while to corrupt them, but simply deny the law and the prophets,419 and thus through their lawless and impious teaching under pretense of grace, have sunk to the lowest depths of perdition.”
Let this suffice for these things. 
Book VI.
Chapter I. The Persecution Under Severus.
1 When Severus began to persecute the churches,1 glorious testimonies were given everywhere by the athletes of religion. This was especially the case in Alexandria, to which city, as to a most prominent theater, athletes of God were brought from Egypt and all Thebais according to their merit, and won crowns from God through their great patience under many tortures and every mode of death. Among these was Leonides, who was called the father of Origen,2 and who was beheaded while his son was still young. How remarkable the predilection of this son was for the Divine Word, in consequence of his father’s instruction, it will not be amiss to state briefly, as his fame has been very greatly celebrated by many.
Chapter II. The Training of Origen from Childhood.3 
1 Many things might be said in attempting to describe the life of the man while in school; but this subject alone would require a separate treatise. Nevertheless, for the present, abridging most things, we shall state a few facts concerning him as briefly as possible, gathering them from certain letters, and from the statement of persons still living who were acquainted with him.
2 What they report of Origen seems to me worthy of mention, even, so to speak, from his swathing-bands.
It was the tenth year of the reign of Severus, while Laetus4 was governor of Alexandria and the rest of Egypt, and Demetrius5 had lately received the episcopate of the parishes there, as successor of Julian.6 
3 As the flame of persecution had been kindled greatly,7 and multitudes had gained the crown of martyrdom, such desire for martyrdom seized the soul of Origen, although yet a boy, that he went close to danger, springing forward and rushing to the conflict in his eagerness.
4 And truly the termination of his life had been very near had not the divine and heavenly Providence, for the benefit of many, prevented his desire through the agency of his mother.
5 For, at first, entreating him, she begged him to have compassion on her motherly feelings toward him; but finding, that when he had learned that his father had been seized and imprisoned, he was set the more resolutely, and completely carried away with his zeal for martyrdom, she hid all his clothing, and thus compelled him to remain at home.
6 But, as there was nothing else that he could do, and his zeal beyond his age would not suffer him to be quiet, he sent to his father an encouraging letter on martyrdom,8 in which he exhorted him, saying, “Take heed not to change your mind on our account.” This may be recorded as the first evidence of Origen’s youthful wisdom and of his genuine love for piety.
7 For even then he had stored up no small resources in the words of the faith, having been trained in the Divine Scriptures from childhood. And he had not studied them with indifference, for his father, besides giving him the usual liberal education,9 had made them a matter of no secondary importance.
8 First of all, before inducting him into the Greek sciences, he drilled him in sacred studies, requiring him to learn and recite every day. Nor was this irksome to the boy, but he was eager and diligent in these studies. And he was not satisfied with learning what was simple and obvious in the sacred words, but sought for something more, and even at that age busied himself with deeper speculations. So that he puzzled his father with inquiries for the true meaning of the inspired Scriptures.
10 And his father rebuked him seemingly to his face, telling him not to search beyond his age, or further than the manifest meaning. But by himself he rejoiced greatly and thanked God, the author of all good, that he had deemed him worthy to be the father of such a child.
11 And they say that often, standing by the boy when asleep, he uncovered his breast as if the Divine Spirit were enshrined within it, and kissed it reverently; considering himself blessed in his goodly offspring. These and other things like them are related to Origen when a boy.
12 But when his father ended his life in martyrdom, he was left with his mother and six younger brothers when he was not quite seventeen years old.10 
13 And the poverty of his father being confiscated to the royal treasury, he and his family were in want of the necessaries of life. But he was deemed worthy of Divine care. And he found welcome and rest with a woman of great wealth, and distinguished in her manner of life and in other respects. She was treating with great honor a famous heretic then in Alexandria;11 who, however, was born in Antioch. He was with her as an adopted son, and she treated him with the greatest kindness.
14 But although Origen was under the necessity of associating with him, he nevertheless gave from this time on strong evidences of his orthodoxy in the faith. For when on account of the apparent skill in argument12 of Paul, — for this was the man’s name, — a great multitude came to him, not only of heretics but also of our people, Origen could never be induced to join with him in prayer;13 for he held, although a boy, the rule of the Church,14 and abominated, as he somewhere expresses it, heretical teachings.15 Having been instructed in the sciences of the Greeks by his father, he devoted him after his death more assiduously and exclusively to the study of literature, so that he obtained considerable preparation in philology16 and was able not long after the death of his father, by devoting himself to that subject, to earn a compensation amply sufficient for his needs at his age.17 
Chapter III. While Still Very Young, He Taught Diligently the Word of Christ.
1 But while he was lecturing in the school, as he tells us himself, and there was no one at Alexandria to give instruction in the faith, as all were driven away by the threat of persecution, some of the heathen came to him to hear the word of God.
2 The first of them, he says, was Plutarch,18 who after living well, was honored with divine martyrdom. The second was Heracles,19 a brother of Plutarch; who after he too had given with him abundant evidence of a philosophic and ascetic life, was esteemed worthy to succeed Demetrius in the bishopric of Alexandria.
3 He was in his eighteenth year when he took charge of the catechetical school.20 He was prominent also at this time, during the persecution under Aquila,21 the governor of Alexandria, when his name became celebrated among the leaders in the faith, through the kindness and goodwill which he manifested toward all the holy martyrs, whether known to him or strangers.
4 For not only was he with them while in bonds, and until their final condemnation, but when the holy martyrs were led to death, he was very bold and went with them into danger. So that as he acted bravely, and with great boldness saluted the martyrs with a kiss, oftentimes the heathen multitude round about them became infuriated, and were on the point of rushing upon him.
5 But through the helping hand of God, he escaped absolutely and marvelously. And this same divine and heavenly power, again and again, it is impossible to say how often, on account of his great zeal and boldness for the words of Christ, guarded him when thus endangered.22 So great was the enmity of the unbelievers toward him, on account of the multitude that were instructed by him in the sacred faith, that they placed bands of soldiers around the house where he abode.
6 Thus day by day the persecution burned against him, so that the whole city could no longer contain him; but he removed from house to house and was driven in every direction because of the multitude who attended upon the divine instruction which he gave. For his life also exhibited right and admirable conduct according to the practice of genuine philosophy.
7 For they say that his manner of life was as his doctrine, and his doctrine as his life.23 Therefore, by the divine Power working with him he aroused a great many to his own zeal.
8 But when he saw yet more coming to him for instruction, and the catechetical school had been entrusted to him alone by Demetrius, who presided over the church, he considered the teaching of grammatical science inconsistent with training in divine subjects,24 and forthwith he gave up his grammatical school as unprofitable and a hindrance to sacred learning.
9 Then, with becoming consideration, that he might not need aid from others, he disposed of whatever valuable books of ancient literature he possessed, being satisfied with receiving from the purchaser four aboli a day.25 For many years he lived philosophically26 in this manner, putting away all the incentives of youthful desires. Through the entire day he endured no small amount of discipline; and for the greater part of the night he gave himself to the study of the Divine Scriptures. He restrained himself as much as possible by a most philosophic life; sometimes by the discipline of fasting, again by limited time for sleep. And in his zeal he never lay upon a bed, but upon the ground.
10 Most of all, he thought that the words of the Saviour in the Gospel should be observed, in which he exhorts not to have two coats nor to use shoes,27 nor to occupy oneself with cares for the future.28 
11 With a zeal beyond his age he continued in cold and nakedness; and, going to the very extreme of poverty, he greatly astonished those about him. And indeed he grieved many of his friends who desired to share their possessions with him, on account of the wearisome toil which they saw him enduring in the teaching of divine things.
12 But he did not relax his perseverance. He is said to have walked for a number of years never wearing a shoe, and, for a great many years, to have abstained from the use of wine, and of all other things beyond his necessary food; so that he was in danger of breaking down and destroying his constitution.29 
13 By giving such evidences of a philosophic life to those who saw him, he aroused many of his pupils to similar zeal; so that prominent men even of the unbelieving heathen and men that followed learning and philosophy were led to his instruction. Some of them having received from him into the depth of their souls faith in the Divine Word, became prominent in the persecution then prevailing; and some of them were seized and suffered martyrdom.
Chapter IV. The pupils of Origen that became Martyrs.
1 The first of these was Plutarch, who was mentioned just above.30 As he was led to death the man of whom we are speaking being with him at the end of his life, came near being slain by his fellow-citizens, as if he were the cause of his death. But the providence of God preserved him at this time also.
2 After Plutarch, the second martyr among the pupils of Origen was Serenus,31 who gave through fire a proof of the faith which he had received.
3 The third martyr from the same school was Heraclides,32 and after him the fourth was Hero.33 The former of these was as yet a catechumen, and the latter had but recently been baptized. Both of them were beheaded. After them, the fifth from the same school proclaimed as an athlete of piety was another Serenus, who, it is reported, was beheaded, after a long endurance of tortures. And of women, Herais34 died while yet a catechumen, receiving baptism by fire, as Origen himself somewhere says. 
Chapter V. Potamiaena.35 
1 Basilides36 may be counted the seventh of these. He led to martyrdom the celebrated Potamiaena, who is still famous among the people of the country for the many things which she endured for the preservation of her chastity and virginity. For she was blooming in the perfection of her mind and her physical graces. Having suffered much for the faith of Christ, finally after tortures dreadful and terrible to speak of, she with her mother, Marcella,37 was put to death by fire.
2 They say that the judge, Aquila by name, having inflicted severe tortures upon her entire body, at last threatened to hand her over to the gladiators for bodily abuse. After a little consideration, being asked for her decision, she made a reply which was regarded as impious.
3 Thereupon she received sentence immediately, and Basilides, one of the officers of the army, led her to death. But as the people attempted to annoy and insult her with abusive words, he drove back her insulters, showing her much pity and kindness. And perceiving the man’s sympathy for her, she exhorted him to be of good courage, for she would supplicate her Lord for him after her departure, and he would soon receive a reward for the kindness he had shown her.
4 Having said this, she nobly sustained the issue, burning pitch being poured little by little, over various parts of her body, from the sole of her feet to the crown of her head. Such was the conflict endured by this famous maiden.
5 Not long after this Basilides, being asked by his fellow-soldiers to swear for a certain reason, declared that it was not lawful for him to swear at all, for he was a Christian, and he confessed this openly. At first they thought that he was jesting, but when he continued to affirm it, he was led to the judge, and, acknowledging his conviction before him, he was imprisoned. But the brethren in God coming to him and inquiring the reason of this sudden and remarkable resolution, he is reported to have said that Potamiaena, for three days after her martyrdom, stood beside him by night and placed a crown on his head and said that she had besought the Lord for him and had obtained what she asked, and that soon she would take him with her.
6 Thereupon the brethren gave him the seal38 of the Lord; and on the next day, after giving glorious testimony for the Lord, he was beheaded. And many others in Alexandria are recorded to have accepted speedily the word of Christ in those times.
7 For Potamiaena appeared to them in their dreams and exhorted them. But let this suffice in regard to this matter.
Chapter VI. Clement of Alexandria.
1 Clement39 having succeeded Pantaenus,40 had charge at that time of the catechetical instruction in Alexandria, so that Origen also, while still a boy,41 was one of his pupils. In the first book of the work called Stromata, which Clement wrote, he gives a chronological table,42 bringing events down to the death of Commodus. So it is evident that that work was written during the reign of Severus, whose times we are now recording.
Chapter VII. The Writer, Judas.43 
At this time another writer, Judas, discoursing about the seventy weeks in Daniel, brings down the chronology to the tenth year of the reign of Severus. He thought that the coming of Antichrist, which was much talked about, was then near.44 So greatly did the agitation caused by the persecution of our people at this time disturb the minds of many.
Chapter VIII. Origen’s Daring Deed.
1At this time while Origen was conducting catechetical instruction at Alexandria, a deed was done by him which evidenced an immature and youthful mind, but at the same time gave the highest proof of faith and continence.45 For he took the words, “There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake,”46 in too literal ad extreme a sense. And in order to fulfill the Saviour’s word, and at the same time to take away from the unbelievers all opportunity for scandal,—for, although young, he met for the study of divine things with women as well as men,—he carried out in action the word of the Saviour.
2 He thought that this would not be known by many of his acquaintances. But it was impossible for him, though desiring to do so, to keep such an action secret.
3 When Demetrius, who presided over that parish, at last learned of this, he admired greatly the daring nature of the act, and as he perceived his zeal and the genuineness of his faith, he immediately exhorted him to courage, and urged him the more to continue his work of catechetical instruction.
4 Such was he at that time. But soon afterward, seeing that he was prospering, and becoming great and distinguished among all men, the same Demetrius, overcome by human weakness, wrote of his deed as most foolish to the bishops throughout the world. But the bishops of Cesarea and Jerusalem, who were especially notable and distinguished among the bishops of Palestine, considering
5 Origen worthy in the highest degree of the honor, ordained him a presbyter.47 Thereupon his fame increased greatly, and his name became renowned everywhere, and he obtained no small reputation for virtue and wisdom. But Demetrius, having nothing else that he could say against him, save this deed of his boyhood, accused him bitterly,48 and dared to include with him in these accusations those who had raised him to the presbyterate.
6 These things, however, took place a little later. But at this time Origen continued fearlessly the instruction in divine things at Alexandria by day and night to all who came to him; devoting his entire leisure without cessation to divine studies and to his pupils.
7 Severus, having held the government for eighteen years, was succeeded by his son, Antoninus.49 Among those who had endured courageously the persecution of that time, and had been preserved by the Providence of God through the conflicts of confession, was Alexander, of whom we have spoken already50 as bishop of the church in Jerusalem. On account of his pre-eminence in the confession of Christ he was thought worthy of that bishopric, while Narcissus,51 his predecessor, was still living.
Chapter IX. The Miracles of Narcissus.
1 The citizens of that parish mention many other miracles of Narcissus, on the tradition of the brethren who succeeded him; among which they relate the following wonder as performed by him.
2 They say that the oil once failed while the deacons were watching through the night at the great paschal vigil. Thereupon the whole multitude being dismayed, Narcissus directed those who attended to the lights, to draw water and bring it to him.
3 This being immediately done he prayed over the water, and with firm faith in the Lord, commanded them to pour it into the lamps. And when they had done so, contrary to all expectation by a wonderful and divine power, the nature of the water was changed into that of oil. A small portion of it has been preserved even to our day by many of the brethren there as a memento of the wonder.52 
4 They tell many other things worthy to be noted of the life of this man, among which is this. Certain base men being unable to endure the strength and firmness of his life, and fearing punishment for the many evil deeds of which they were conscious, sought by plotting to anticipate him, and circulated a terrible slander against him.
5 And to persuade those who heard of it, they confirmed their accusations with oaths: one invoked upon himself destruction by fire; another the wasting of his body by a foul disease; the third the loss of his eyes. But though they swore in this manner, they could not affect the mind of the believers; because the continence and virtuous life of Narcissus were well known to all.
6 But he could not in any wise endure the wickedness of these men; and as he had followed a philosophic53 life for a long time, he fled from the whole body of the Church, and hid himself in desert and secret places, and remained there many years.54 
7 But the great eye of judgment was not unmoved by these things, but soon looked down upon these impious men, and brought on them the curses with which they had bound themselves. The residence of the first, from nothing but a little spark falling upon it, was entirely consumed by night, and he perished with all his family. The second was speedily covered with the disease which he had imprecated upon himself, from the sole of his feet to his head.
8 But the third, perceiving what had happened to the others, and fearing the inevitable judgment of God, the ruler of all, confessed publicly what they had plotted together. And in his repentance he became so wasted by his great lamentations, and continued weeping to such an extent, that both his eyes were destroyed. Such were the punishments which these men received for their falsehood.
Chapter X. The Bishops of Jerusalem.
1 Narcissus having departed, and no one knowing where he was, those presiding over the neighboring churches thought it best to ordain another bishop. His name was Dius.55 He presided but a short time, and Germanio succeeded him. He was followed by Gordius,56 in whose time Narcissus appeared again, as if raised from the dead.57 And immediately the brethren besought him to take the episcopate, as all admired him the more on account of his retirement and philosophy, and especially because of the punishment with which God had avenged him.
Chapter XI. Alexander.
1 But as on account of his great age Narcissus was no longer able to perform his official duties,58 the Providence of God called to the office with him, by a revelation given him in a night vision, the above-mentioned Alexander, who was then bishop of another parish.59 
2 Thereupon, as by Divine direction, he journeyed from the land of Cappadocia, where he first held the episcopate, to Jerusalem, in consequence of a vow and for the sake of information in regard to its places.60 They received, him there with great cordiality, and would not permit him to return, because of another revelation seen by them at night, which uttered the clearest message to the most zealous among them. For it made known that if they would go outside the gates, they would receive the bishop foreordained for them by God. And having done this, with the unanimous consent of the bishops of the neighboring churches, they constrained him to remain.
3 Alexander, himself, in private letters to the Antinoites,61 which are still preserved among us, mentions the joint episcopate of Narcissus and himself, writing in these words at the end of the epistle:
4 “Narcissus salutes you, who held the episcopate here before me, and is now associated with me in prayers, being one hundred and sixteen years of age; and he exhorts you, as I do, to be of one mind.”
These things took place in this manner. But, on the death of Serapion,62 Asclepiades,63 who had been himself distinguished among the confessors64 during the persecution, succeeded to the episcopate of the church at Antioch. Alexander alludes to his appointment, writing thus to the church at Antioch:
5 “Alexander, a servant and prisoner of Jesus Christ, to the blessed church of Antioch, greeting in the Lord. The Lord hath made my bonds during the time of my imprisonment light and easy, since I learned that, by the Divine Providence, Asclepiades, who in regard to the true faith is eminently qualified, has undertaken the bishopric of your holy church at Antioch.”
6 He indicates that he sent this epistle by Clement,65 writing toward its close as follows:
“My honored brethren,66 I have sent this letter to you by Clement, the blessed presbyter, a man virtuous and approved, whom ye yourselves also know and will recognize. Being here, in the providence and oversight of the Master, he has strengthened and built up the Church of the Lord.”
Chapter XII. Serapion and His Extant Works.
1 It is probable that others have preserved other memorials of Serapion’s67 literary industry,68 but there have reached us only those addressed to a certain Domninus, who, in the time of persecution, fell away from faith in Christ to the Jewish will-worship;69 and those addressed to Pontius and Caricus,70 ecclesiastical men, and other letters to different persons, and still another work composed by him on the so-called Gospel of Peter.71 
2 He wrote this last to refute the falsehoods which that Gospel contained, on account of some in the parish of Rhossus72 who had been led astray by it into heterodox notions. It may be well to give some brief extracts from his work, showing his opinion of the book. He writes as follows:
3 “For we, brethren, receive both Peter and the other apostles as Christ; but we reject intelligently the writings falsely ascribed to them, knowing that such were not handed down to us.
4 When I visited you I supposed that all of you held the true faith, and as I had not read the Gospel which they put forward under the name of Peter, I said, If This is the Only Thing Which Occasions Dispute Among You, Let It Be Read. But now having learned, from what has been told me, that their mind was involved in some heresy, I will hasten to come to you again.
5 Therefore, brethren, expect me shortly. But you will learn, brethren, from what has been written to you, that we perceived the nature of the heresy of Marcianus,73 and that, not understanding, what he was saying, he contradicted himself.
6 For having obtained this Gospel from others who had studied it diligently, namely, from the successors of those who first used it, whom we call Docet74 (for most of their opinions are connected with the teaching of that school75 ) we have been able to read it through, and we find many things in accordance with the true doctrine of the Saviour, but some things added to that doctrine, which we have pointed out for you farther on.” So much in regard to Serapion.
Chapter XIII. The Writings of Clement.76 
1 All the eight Stromata of Clement are preserved among us, and have been given by him the following title: “Titus Flavius Clement’s
2 Stromata of Gnostic Notes on the True Philosophy.”77 The books entitled Hypotyposes78 are of the same number. In them he mentions Pantaenus79 by name as his teacher, and gives his opinions and traditions.
3 Besides these there is his Hortatory Discourse addressed to the Greeks;80 three books of a work entitled the Instructor;81 another with the title What Rich Man is Saved?82 the work on the Passover;83 discussions on Fasting and on Evil Speaking;84 the Hortatory Discourse on Patience, or To Those Recently Baptized;85 and the one bearing the title Ecclesiastical Canon, or Against the Judaizers,86 which he dedicated to Alexander, the bishop mentioned above.
4 In the Stromata, he has not only treated extensively87 of the Divine Scripture, but he also quotes from the Greek writers whenever anything that they have said seems to him profitable.
5 He elucidates the opinions of many, both Greeks and barbarians. He also refutes the false doctrines of the heresiarchs, and besides this, reviews a large portion of history, giving us specimens of very various learning; with all the rest he mingles the views of philosophers. It is likely that on this account he gave his work the appropriate title of Stromata.88 
6 He makes use also in these works of testimonies from the disputed Scriptures,89 the so-called Wisdom of Solomon,90 and of Jesus, the son of Sirach, and the Epistle to the Hebrews,91 and those of Barnabas,92 and Clement93 and Jude.94 He mentions also Tatian’s95 
7 Discourse to the Greeks, and speaks of Cassianus96 as the author of a chronological work. He refers to the Jewish authors Philo,97 Aristobulus,98 Josephus,99 Demetrius,100 and Eupolemus,101 as showing, all of them, in their works, that Moses and the Jewish race existed before the earliest origin of the Greeks.
8 These books abound also in much other learning. In the first of them102 the author speaks of himself as next after the successors of the apostles.
9 In them he promises also to write a commentary on Genesis.103 In his book on the Passover104 he acknowledges that he had been urged by his friends to commit to writing, for posterity, the traditions which he had heard from the ancient presbyters; and in the same work he mentions Melito and Irenaeus, and certain others, and gives extracts from their writings.
Chapter XIV. The Scriptures Mentioned by Him.
1 To sum up briefly, he has given in the Hypotyposes105 abridged accounts of all canonical Scripture, not omitting the disputed books,106 —I refer to Jude and the other Catholic epistles, and Barnabas107 and the so-called Apocalypse of Peter.108 
2 He says that the Epistle to the Hebrews109 is the work of Paul, and that it was written to the Hebrews in the Hebrew language; but that Luke translated it carefully and published it for the Greeks, and hence the same style of expression is found in this epistle and in the Acts.
3 But he says that the words, Paul the Apostle, were probably not prefixed, because, in sending it to the Hebrews, who were prejudiced and suspicious of him, he wisely did not wish to repel them at the very beginning by giving his name.
4 Farther on he says: “But now, as the blessed presbyter said, since the Lord being the apostle of the Almighty, was sent to the Hebrews, Paul, as sent to the Gentiles, on account of his modesty did not subscribe himself an apostle of the Hebrews, through respect for the Lord, and because being a herald and apostle of the Gentiles he wrote to the Hebrews out of his superabundance.”
5 Again, in the same books, Clement gives the tradition of the earliest presbyters, as to the order of the Gospels, in the following manner:
6 The Gospels containing the genealogies, he says, were written first. The Gospel according to Mark110 had this occasion. As Peter had preached the Word publicly at Rome, and declared the Gospel by the Spirit, many who were present requested that Mark, who had followed him for a long time and remembered his sayings, should write them out. And having composed the Gospel he gave it to those who had requested it.
7 When Peter learned of this, he neither directly forbade nor encouraged it. But, last of all, John, perceiving that the external111 facts had been made plain in the Gospel, being urged by his friends, and inspired by the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel.112 This is the account of Clement.
8 Again the above-mentioned Alexander,113 in a certain letter to Origen, refers to Clement, and at the same time to Pantaenus, as being among his familiar acquaintances. He writes as follows:
“For this, as thou knowest, was the will of God, that the ancestral friendship existing between us should remain unshaken; nay, rather should be warmer and stronger.
9 For we know well those blessed fathers who have trodden the way before us, with whom we shall soon be;114 Pantaenus, the truly blessed man and master, and the holy Clement, my master and benefactor, and if there is any other like them, through whom I became acquainted with thee, the best in everything, my master and brother.”115 
10 So much for these matters. But Adamantius,116 —for this also was a name of Origen,— when Zephyrinus117 was bishop of Rome, visited Rome, “desiring,” as he himself somewhere says, “to see the most ancient church of Rome.”
11 After a short stay there he returned to Alexandria. And he performed the duties of catechetical instruction there with great zeal; Demetrius, who was bishop there at that time, urging and even entreating him to work diligently for the benefit of the brethren.118 
Chapter XV. Heraclas.119 
1 But when he saw that he had not time for the deeper study of divine things, and for the investigation and interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures, and also for the instruction of those who came to him,— for coming, one after another, from morning till evening to be taught by him, they scarcely gave him time to breathe,—he divided the multitude. And from those whom he knew well, he selected Heraclas, who was a zealous student of divine things, and in other respects a very learned man, not ignorant of philosophy, and made him his associate in the work of instruction. He entrusted to him the elementary training of beginners, but reserved for himself the teaching of those who were farther advanced.
Chapter XVI. Origen’s Earnest Study of the Divine Scriptures.
1 So earnest and assiduous was Origen’s research into the divine words that he learned the Hebrew language,120 and procured as his own the original Hebrew Scriptures which were in the hands of the Jews. He investigated also the works of other translators of the Sacred Scriptures besides the Seventy.121 And in addition to the well-known translations of Aquila,122 Symmachus,123 and Theodotion,124 he discovered certain others which had been concealed from remote times,— in what out-of-the-way corners I know not,—and by his search he brought them to light.125 
2 Since he did not know the authors, he simply stated that he had found this one in Nicopolis near Actium126 and that one in some other place.
3 In the Hexapla127 of the Psalms, after the four prominent translations, he adds not only a fifth, but also a sixth and seventh.128 He states of one of these that he found it in a jar in Jericho in the time of Antoninus, the son of Severus.
4 Having collected all of these, he divided them into sections, and placed them opposite each other, with the Hebrew text itself. He thus left us the copies of the so-called Hexapla. He arranged also separately an edition of Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotion with the Septuagint, in the Tetrapla.129 
Chapter XVII. The Translator Symmachus.130 
1 As to these translators it should be stated that Symmachus was an Ebionite. But the heresy of the Ebionites, as it is called, asserts that Christ was the son of Joseph and Mary, considering him a mere man, and insists strongly on keeping the law in a Jewish manner, as we have seen already in this history.131 Commentaries of Symmachus are still extant in which he appears to support this heresy by attacking the Gospel of Matthew.132 Origen states that he obtained these and other commentaries of Symmachus on the Scriptures from a certain Juliana,133 who, he says, received the books by inheritance from Symmachus himself.
Chapter XVIII. Ambrose.
1 About this time Ambrose,134 who held the heresy of Valentinus,135 was convinced by Origen’s presentation of the truth, and, as if hismind were illumined by light, he accepted the orthodox doctrine of the Church.
2 Many others also, drawn by the fame of Origen’s learning, which resounded everywhere, came to him to make trial of his skill in sacred literature. And a great many heretics, and not a few of the most distinguished philosophers, studied under him diligently, receiving instruction from him not only in divine things, but also in secular philosophy.
3 For when he perceived that any persons had superior intelligence he instructed them also in philosophic branches—in geometry, arithmetic, and other preparatory studies—and then advanced to the systems136 of the philosophers and explained their writings. And he made observations and comments upon each of them, so that he became celebrated as a great philosopher even among the Greeks themselves.
4 And he instructed many of the less learned in the common school branches,137 saying that these would be no small help to them in the study and understanding of the Divine Scriptures. On this account he considered it especially necessary for himself to be skilled in secular and philosophic learning.138 
Chapter XIX. Circumstances Related of Origen.
1 The Greek philosophers of his age are witnesses to his proficiency in these subjects. We find frequent mention of him in their writings. Sometimes they dedicated their own works to him; again, they submitted their labors to him as a teacher for his judgment.
2 Why need we say these things when even Porphyry,139 who lived in Sicily in our own times and wrote books against us, attempting to traduce the Divine Scriptures by them, mentions those who have interpreted them; and being unable in any way to find a base accusation against the doctrines, for lack of arguments turns to reviling and calumniating their interpreters, attempting especially to slander Origen, whom he says he knew in his youth.
3 But truly, without knowing it, he commends the man; telling the truth about him in some cases where he could not do otherwise; but uttering falsehoods where he thinks he will not be detected. Sometimes he accuses him as a Christian; again he describes his proficiency in philosophic learning. But hear his own words:
4 “Some persons, desiring to find a solution of the baseness of the Jewish Scriptures rather than abandon them, have had recourse to explanations inconsistent and incongruous with the words written, which explanations, instead of supplying a defense of the foreigners, contain rather approval and praise of themselves. For they boast that the plain words of Moses are enigmas, and regard them as oracles full of hidden mysteries; and having bewildered the mental judgment by folly, they make their explanations.” Farther on he says:
5 “As an example of this absurdity take a man whom I met when I was young, and who was then greatly celebrated and still is, on account of the writings which he has left. I refer to Origen, who is highly honored by the teachers of these doctrines.
6 For this man, having been a hearer of Ammonius,140 who had attained the greatest proficiency in philosophy of any in our day, derived much benefit from his teacher in the knowledge of the sciences; but as to the correct choice of life, he pursued a course opposite to his.
7 For Ammonius, being a Christian, and brought up by Christian parents, when he gave himself to study and to philosophy straightway conformed to the life required by the laws. But Origen, having been educated as a Greek in Greek literature, went over to the barbarian recklessness.141 And carrying over the learning which he had obtained, he hawked it about, in his life conducting himself as a Christian and contrary to the laws, but in his opinions of material things and of the Deity being like a Greek, and mingling Grecian teachings with foreign fables.142 
8 For he was continually studying Plato, and he busied himself with the writings of Numenius143 and Cronius,144 Apollophanes,145 Longinus,146 Moderatus,147 and Nicomachus,148 and those famous among the Pythagoreans. And he used the books of Chaeremon149 the Stoic, and of Cornutus.150 Becoming acquainted through them with the figurative interpretation of the Grecian mysteries, he applied it to the Jewish Scriptures.”151 
9 These things are said by Porphyry in the third book of his work against the Christians.152 He speaks truly of the industry and learning of the man, but plainly utters a falsehood (for what will not an opposer of Christians do?) when he says that he went over from the Greeks,153 and that Ammonius fell from a life of piety into heathen customs.
10 For the doctrine of Christ was taught to Origen by his parents, as we have shown above. And Ammonius held the divine philosophy unshaken and unadulterated to the end of his life.154 His works yet extant show this, as he is celebrated among many for the writings which he has left. For example, the work entitled The Harmony of Moses and Jesus, and such others as are in the possession of the learned.
11 These things are sufficient to evince the slander of the false accuser, and also the proficiency of Origen in Grecian learning. He defends his diligence in this direction against some who blamed him for it, in a certain epistle,155 where he writes as follows:
12 “When I devoted myself to the word, and the fame of my proficiency went abroad, and when heretics and persons conversant with Grecian learning, and particularly with philosophy, came to me, it seemed necessary that I should examine the doctrines of the heretics, and what the philosophers say concerning the truth.
13 And in this we have followed Pantaenus,156 who benefited many before our time by his thorough preparation in such things, and also Heraclas,157 who is now a member of the presbytery of Alexandria. I found him with the teacher of philosophic learning, with whom he had already continued five years before I began to hear lectures on those subjects.158 
14 And though he had formerly worn the common dress, he laid it aside and assumed and still wears the philosopher’s garment;159 and he continues the earnest investigation of Greek works.”
He says these things in defending himself for his study of Grecian literature.
15 About this time, while he was still at Alexandria, a soldier came and delivered a letter from the governor of Arabia160 to Demetrius, bishop of the parish, and to the prefect of Egypt who was in office at that time, requesting that they would with all speed send Origen to him for an interview. Being sent by them, he went to Arabia. And having in a short time accomplished the object of his visit, he returned to Alexandria.
16 But sometime after a considerable war broke out in the city,161 and he departed from Alexandria. And thinking that it would be unsafe for him to remain in Egypt, he went to Palestine and abode in Caesarea. While there the bishops of the church in that country162 requested him to preach and expound the Scriptures publicly, although he had not yet been ordained as presbyter.163 
17 This is evident from what Alexander,164 bishop of Jerusalem and Theoctistus165 of Caesarea, wrote to Demetrius166 in regard to the matter, defending themselves thus:
“He has stated in his letter that such a thing was never heard of before, neither has hitherto taken place, that laymen should preach in the presence of bishops. I know not how he comes to say what is plainly untrue.
18 For whenever persons able to instruct the brethren are found, they are exhorted by the holy bishops to preach to the people. Thus in Laranda, Euelpis by Neon; and in Iconium, Paulinus by Celsus; and in Synada, Theodorus by Atticus, our blessed brethren.167 And probably this has been done in other places unknown to us.”
He was honored in this manner while yet a young man, not only by his countrymen, but also by foreign bishops.168 
19 But Demetrius sent for him by letter, and urged him through members and deacons of the church to return to Alexandria. So he returned and resumed his accustomed duties.
Chapter XX. The Extant Works of the Writers of that Age.
1 There flourished many learned men in the Church at that time, whose letters to each other have been preserved and are easily accessible. They have been kept until our time in the library at Aelia,169 which was established by Alexander, who at that time presided over that church. We have been able to gather from that library material for our present work.
2 Among these Beryllus170 has left us, besides letters and treatises, various elegant works. He was bishop of Bostra in Arabia. Likewise also Hippolytus,171 who presided over another church, has left writings.
3 There has reached us also a dialogue of Caius,172 a very learned man, which was held at Rome under Zephyrinus,173 with Proclus, who contended for the Phrygian heresy. In this he curbs the rashness and boldness of his opponents in setting forth new Scriptures. He mentions only thirteen epistles of the holy apostle, not counting that to the Hebrews174 with the others. And unto our day there are some among the Romans who do not consider this a work of the apostle.
Chapter XXI. The Bishops that Were Well Known at that Time.
1 After Antoninus175 had reigned seven years and six months, Macrinus succeeded him. He held the government but a year, and was succeeded by another Antoninus. During his first year the Roman bishop, Zephyrinus,176 having held his office for eighteen years, died, and Callistus177 received the episcopate.
2 He continued for five years, and was succeeded by Urbanus.178 After this, Alexander became Roman emperor, Antoninus having reigned but four years.179 At this time Philetus180 also succeeded Asclepiades181 in the church of Antioch.
3 The mother of the emperor, Mammaea182 by name, was a most pious woman, if there ever was one, and of religious life. When the fame of Origen had extended everywhere and had come even to her ears, she desired greatly to see the man, and above all things to make trial of his celebrated understanding of divine things.
4 Staying for a time in Antioch, she sent for him with a military escort. Having remained with her a while and shown her many things which were for the glory of the Lord and of the excellence of the divine teaching, he hastened back to his accustomed work.
Chapter XXII. The Works of Hippolytus Which Have Reached Us.
1 At that time Hippolytus,183 besides many other treatises, wrote a work on the passover.184 He gives in this a chronological table, and presents a certain paschal canon of sixteen years, bringing the time down to the first year of the Emperor Alexander.
2 Of his other writings the following have reached us: On the Hexaemeron,185 On the Works after the Hexaemeron,186 Against Marcion,187 On the Song of Songs,188 On Portions of Ezekiel,189 On the Passover,190 Against All the Heresies;191 and you can find many other works preserved by many. 
Chapter XXIII. Origen’s Zeal and His Elevation to the Presbyterate.
1 At that time Origen began his commentaries on the Divine Scriptures, being urged thereto by Ambrose,192 who employed innumerable incentives, not only exhorting him by word, but also furnishing abundant means.
2 For he dictated to more than seven amanuenses, who relieved each other at appointed times. And he employed no fewer copyists, besides girls who were skilled in elegant writing. For all these Ambrose furnished the necessary expense in abundance, manifesting himself an inexpressible earnestness in diligence and zeal for the divine oracles, by which he especially pressed him on to the preparation of his commentaries.
3 While these things were in progress, Urbanus,193 who had been for eight years bishop of the Roman church, was succeeded by Pontianus,194 and Zebinus195 succeeded Philetus196 in Antioch.
4 At this time Origen was sent to Greece on account of a pressing necessity in connection with ecclesiastical affairs,197 and went through Palestine, and was ordained as presbyter in Caesarea by the bishops of that country. The matters that were agitated concerning him on this account, and the decisions on these matters by those who presided over the churches, besides the other works concerning the divine word which he published while in his prime, demand a separate treatise. We have written of them to some extent in the second book of the Defense which we have composed in his behalf.198 
Chapter XXIV. The Commentaries Which He Prepared at Alexandria.
1 It may be well to add that in the sixth book of his exposition of the Gospel of John199 he states that he prepared the first five while in Alexandria. Of his work on the entire Gospel only twenty-two volumes have come down to us.
2 In the ninth of those on Genesis,200 of which there are twelve in all, he states that not only the preceding eight had been composed at Alexandria, but also those on the first twenty-five Psalms201 and on Lamentations.202 Of these last five volumes have reached us.
3 In them he mentions also his books On the Resurrection,203 of which there are two. He wrote also the books De Principiis204 before leaving Alexandria; and the discourses entitled Stromata,205 ten in number, he composed in the same city during the reign of Alexander, as the notes by his own hand preceding the volumes indicate.
Chapter XXV. His Review of the Canonical Scriptures.
1 When expounding the first Psalm,206 he gives a catalogue of the sacred Scriptures of the Old Testament207 as follows:
“It should be stated that the canonical books, as the Hebrews have handed them down, are twenty-two; corresponding with the number of their letters.” Farther on he says:
2 “The twenty-two books of the Hebrews are the following: That which is called by us Genesis, but by the Hebrews, from the beginning of the book, Bresith,208 which means, ‘In the beginning’; Exodus, Welesmoth,209 that is, ‘These are the names’; Leviticus, Wikra, ‘And he called‘; Numbers, Ammesphekodeim; Deuteronomy, Eleaddebareim, ‘These are the words’; Jesus, the son of Nave, Josoue ben Noun; Judges and Ruth, among them in one book, Saphateim; the First and Second of Kings, among them one, Samouel, that is, ‘The called of God’; the Third and Fourth of Kings in one, Wammelch David, that is, ‘The kingdom of David’; of the Chronicles, the First and Second in one, Dabreïamein, that is, ‘Records of days’; Esdras,210 First and Second in one, Ezra, that is, ‘An assistant’; the book of Psalms, Spharthelleim; the Proverbs of Solomon, Meloth; Ecclesiastes, Koelth; the Song of Songs (not, as some suppose, Songs of Songs), Sir Hassirim; Isaiah, Jessia; Jeremiah, with Lamentations and the epistle in one, Jeremia; Daniel, Daniel; Ezekiel, Jezekiel; Job, Job; Esther, Esther. And besides these there are the Maccabees, which are entitled Sarbeth Sabanaiel.211 He gives these in the above-mentioned work. 
3 In his first book on Matthew’s Gospel,212 maintaining the Canon of the Church, hetestifies that he knows only four Gospels, writing as follows:
4 “Among the four Gospels,213 which are the only indisputable ones in the Church of God under heaven, I have learned by tradition that the first was written by Matthew, who was once a publican, but afterwards an apostle of Jesus Christ, and it was prepared for the converts from Judaism, and published in the Hebrew language.214 
5 The second is by Mark, who composed it according to the instructions of Peter,215 who in his Catholic epistle acknowledges him as a son, saying, ‘The church that is at Babylon elected together with you, saluteth you, and so doth Marcus, my son.’216 
6 And the third by Luke, the Gospel commended by Paul,217 and composed for Gentile converts. Last of all that by John.”218 
7 In the fifth book of his Expositions of John’s Gospel, he speaks thus concerning the epistles of the apostles:219 “But he who was ‘made sufficient to be a minister of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the Spirit,’220 that is, Paul, who ‘fully preached the Gospel from Jerusalem and round about even unto Illyricum,’221 did not write to all the churches which he had instructed and to those to which he wrote he sent but few lines.222 
8 And Peter, on whom the Church of Christ is built, ‘against which the gates of hell shall not prevail,’223 has left one acknowledged epistle; perhaps also a second, but this is doubtful.224 
9 Why need we speak of him who reclined upon the bosom of Jesus,225 John, who has left us one Gospel,226 though he confessed that he might write so many that the world could not contain them?227 And he wrote also the Apocalypse, but was commanded to keep silence and not to write the words of the seven thunders.228 
10 He has left also an epistle of very few lines; perhaps also a second and third; but not all consider them genuine, and together they do not contain hundred lines.”
11 In addition he makes the following statements 11 in regard to the Epistle to the Hebrews229 in his Homilies upon it: “That the verbal style of the epistle entitled ‘To the Hebrews,’ is not rude like the language of the apostle, who acknowledged himself ‘rude in speech‘230 that is, in expression; but that its diction is purer Greek, any one who has the power to discern differences of phraseology will acknowledge.
12 Moreover, that the thoughts of the epistle are admirable, and not inferior to the acknowledged apostolic writings, any one who carefully examines the apostolic text231 will admit.’
13 Farther on he adds: “If I gave my opinion, I should say that the thoughts are those of the apostle, but the diction and phraseology are those of some one who remembered the apostolic teachings, and wrote down at his leisure what had been said by his teacher. Therefore if any church holds that this epistle is by Paul, let it be commended for this. For not without reason have the ancients handed it down as Paul’s.
14 But who wrote the epistle, in truth, God knows. The statement of some who have gone before us is that Clement, bishop of the Romans, wrote the epistle, and of others that Luke, the author of the Gospel and the Acts, wrote it.” But let this suffice on these matters. 
Chapter XXVI. Heraclas Becomes Bishop of Alexandria.
It was in the tenth year of the above-mentioned reign that Origen removed from Alexandria to Caesarea,232 leaving the charge of the catechetical school in that city to Heraclas. Not long afterward Demetrius, bishop of the church of Alexandria, died, having held the office for forty-three full years,233 and Heraclas succeeded him. At this time Firmilianus,234 bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, was conspicuous.
Chapter XXVII. How the Bishops Regarded Origen.
1 He was so earnestly affected toward Origen, that he urged him to come to that country for the benefit of the churches, and moreover he visited him in Judea, remaining with him for some time, for the sake of improvement in divine things. And Alexander,235 bishop of Jerusalem, and Theoctistus,236 bishop of Caesarea, attended on him constantly,237 as their only teacher, and allowed238 him to expound the Divine Scriptures, and to perform the other duties pertaining to ecclesiastical discourse.239 
Chapter XXVIII. The Persecution Under Maximinus.
1 The Roman emperor, Alexander, having finished his reign in thirteen years, was succeeded by Maximinus Caesar.240 On account of his hatred toward the household of Alexander,241 which contained many believers, he began a persecution, commanding that only the rulers of the churches should be put to death, as responsible for the Gospel teaching. Thereupon Origen composed his work On Martyrdom,242 and dedicated it to Ambrose and Protoctetus,243 a presbyter of the parish of Caesarea, because in the persecution there had come upon them both unusual hardships, in which it is reported that they were eminent in confession during the reign of Maximinus, which lasted but three years. Origen has noted this as the time of the persecution in the twenty-second book of his Commentaries on John, and in several epistles.244 
Chapter XXIX. Fabianus, Who Was Wonderfully Designated Bishop of Rome by God.
1 Gordianus succeeded Maximinus as Roman emperor;245 and Pontianus,246 who had been bishop of the church at Rome for six years, was succeeded by Anteros.247 After he had held the office for a month, Fabianus248 succeeded him.
2 They say249 that Fabianus having come, after the death of Anteros, with others from the country, was staying at Rome, and that while there he was chosen to the office through a most wonderful manifestation of divine and heavenly grace.
3 For when all the brethren had assembled to select by vote him who should succeed to the episcopate of the church, several renowned and honorable men were in the minds of many, but Fabianus, although present, was in the mind of none. But they relate that suddenly a dove flying down lighted on his head, resembling the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Saviour in the form of a dove.
4 Thereupon all the people, as if moved by one Divine Spirit, with all eagerness and unanimity cried out that he was worthy, and without delay they took him and placed him upon the episcopal seat.250 
5 About that time Zebinus,251 bishop of Antioch died, and Babylas252 succeeded him. And in Alexandria Heraclas,253 having received the episcopal office after Demetrius,254 was succeeded in the charge of the catechetical school by Dionysius,255 who had also been one of Origen’s pupils.
Chapter XXX. The Pupils of Origen.
While Origen was carrying on his customary duties in Caesarea, many pupils came to him not only from the vicinity, but also from other countries. Among these Theodorus, the same that was distinguished among the bishops of our day under the name of Gregory,256 and his brother Athenodorus,257 we know to have been especially celebrated. Finding them deeply interested in Greek and Roman learning, he infused into them a love of philosophy, and led them to exchange their old zeal for the study of divinity. Remaining with him five years, they made such progress in divine things, that although they were still young, both of them were honored with a bishopric in the churches of Pontus.
Chapter XXXI. Africanus.
1 At this time also Africanus,258 the writer of the books entitled Cesti, was well known. There is extant an epistle of his to Origen,expressing doubts259 of the story of Susannah in Daniel, as being spurious and fictitious. Origen answered this very fully. Other works of the same Africanus which have reached us are his five books on Chronology, a work accurately and laboriously prepared. He says in this that he went to Alexandria on account of the great fame of Heraclas,260 who excelled especially in philosophic studies and other Greek learning, and whose appointment to the bishopric of the church there we have 
3 already mentioned. There is extant also another epistle from the same Africanus to Aristides on the supposed discrepancy between Matthew and Luke in the Genealogies of Christ. In this he shows clearly the agreement of the evangelists, from an account which had come down to him, which we have already given in its proper place in the first book of this work.261 
Chapter XXXII. The Commentaries Which Origen Composed in Caesarea in Palestine.
1 About this time Origen prepared his Commentaries on Isaiah262 and on Ezekiel.263 Of the former there have come down to us thirty books, as far as the third part of Isaiah, to the vision of the beasts in the desert;264 on Ezekiel twenty-five books, which are all that he wrote on the whole prophet. Being at that time in Athens,265 he finished his work on Ezekiel and commenced his Commentaries on the Song of Songs,266 which he carried forward to the fifth book. After his return to Caesarea, he completed these also, ten books in number.
3 But why should we give in this history an accurate catalogue of the man’s works, which would require a separate treatise?267 we have furnished this also in our narrative of the life of Pamphilus,268 a holy martyr of our own time. After showing how great the diligence of Pamphilus was in divine things, we give in that a catalogue of the library which he collected of the works of Origen and of other ecclesiastical writers, Whoever desires may learn readily from this which of Origen’s works have reached us. But we must proceed now with our history.
Chapter XXXIII. The Error of Beryllus.
1 Beryllus,269 whom we mentioned recently as bishop of Bostra in Arabia, turned aside from the ecclesiastical standard270 and attempted to introduce ideas foreign to the faith. He dared to assert that our Saviour and Lord did not pre-exist in a distinct form of being of his own271 before his abode among men, and that he does not possess a divinity of his own,272 but only that of the Father dwelling in him.
2 Many bishops carried on investigations and discussions with him on this matter, and Origen having been invited with the others, went down at first for a conference with him to ascertain his real opinion. But when he understood his views, and perceived that they were erroneous, having persuaded him by argument, and convinced him by demonstration, he brought him back to the true doctrine, and restored him to his former sound opinion.
3 There are still extant writings of Beryllus and of the synod held on his account, which contain the questions put to him by Origen, and the discussions which were carried on in his parish, as well as all the things done at that time.
4 The elder brethren among us273 have handed down many other facts respecting Origen which I think proper to omit, as not pertaining to this work. But whatever it has seemed necessary to record about him can be found in the Apology in his behalf written by us and Pamphilus, the holy martyr of our day. We prepared this carefully and did the work jointly on account of faultfinders.274 
Chapter XXXIV. Philip Caesar.
1 Gordianus had been Roman emperor for six years when Philip, with his son Philip, succeeded him.275 It is reported that he, being a Christian desired, on the day of the last paschal vigil, to share with the multitude in the prayers of the Church,276 but that he was not permitted to enter, by him who then presided,277 until he had made confession and had numbered himself among those who were reckoned as transgressors and who occupied the place of penance.278 For if he had not done this, he would never have been received by him, on account of the many crimes which he had committed. It is said that he obeyed readily, manifesting in his conduct a genuine and pious fear of God.
Chapter XXXV. Dionysius Succeeds Heraclas in the Episcopate.
1 In the third year of this emperor, Heraclas279 died, having held his office for sixteen years, and Dionysius280 received the episcopate of the churches of Alexandria.
Chapter XXXVI. Other Works of Origen.
1 At this time, as the faith extended and our doctrine was proclaimed boldly before all,281 Origen, being, as they say, over sixty years old,282 and having gained great facility by his long practice, very properly permitted his public discourses to be taken down by stenographers, a thing which he had never before allowed. He also at this time composed a work of eight books in answer to that entitled True Discourse, which had been written against us by Celsus283 the Epicurean, and the twenty-five books on the Gospel of Matthew,284 besides those on the Twelve Prophets, of which we have found only twenty-five.285 
3 There is extant also an epistle286 of his to the Emperor Philip, and another to Severa his wife, with several others to different persons. We have arranged in distinct books to the number of one hundred, so that they might be no longer scattered, as many of these as we have been able to collect,287 which have been preserved here and there by different persons.
4 He wrote also to Fabianus,288 bishop of Rome, and to many other rulers of the churches concerning his orthodoxy. You have examples of these in the eighth book of the Apology289 which we have written in his behalf.
Chapter XXXVII. The Dissension of the Arabians.290 
1 Aboutsame time others arose in Arabia, putting forward a doctrine foreign to the truth. They said that during the present time the human soul dies and perishes with the body, but that at the time of the resurrection they will be renewed together. And at that time also a synod of considerable size assembled, and Origen, being again invited thither, spoke publicly on the question with such effect that the opinions of those who had formerly fallen were changed. 
Chapter XXXVIII. The Heresy of the Elkesites.
1 Another error also arose at this time, called the heresy of the Elkesites,291 which was extinguished in the very beginning. Origen speaks of it in this manner in a public homily on the eighty-second Psalm:292 
“A certain man293 came just now, puffed up greatly with his own ability, proclaiming that godless and impious opinion which has appeared lately in the churches, styled ‘of the Elkesites.’ I will show you what evil things that opinion teaches, that you may not be carried away by it. It rejects certain parts of every scripture. Again it uses portions of the Old Testament and the Gospel, but rejects the apostle294 altogether. It says that to deny Christ is an indifferent matter, and that he who understands will, under necessity, deny with his mouth, but not in his heart. They produce a certain book which they say fell from heaven. They hold that whoever hears and believes295 this shall receive remission of sins, another remission than that which Jesus Christ has given.” Such is the account of these persons.
Chapter XXXIX. The Persecution Under Decius, and the Sufferings of Origen.
1 After a reign of seven years Philip was succeeded by Decius.296 On account of his hatred of Philip, he commenced a persecution of the churches, in which Fabianus297 suffered martyrdom at Rome, and Cornelius succeeded him in the episcopate.298 
2 In Palestine, Alexander,299 bishop of the church of Jerusalem, was brought again on Christ’s account before the governor’s judgment seat in Caesarea, and having acquitted himself nobly in a second confession was cast into prison, crowned
3 with the hoary locks of venerable age. And after his honorable and illustrious confession at the tribunal of the governor, he fell asleep in prison, and Mazabanes300 became his successor
4 in the bishopric of Jerusalem. Babylas301 in Antioch, having like Alexander passed away in prison after his confession, was succeeded by Fabius302 in the episcopate of that church.
5 But how many and how great things came upon Origen in the persecution, and what was their final result,—as the demon of evil marshaled all his forces, and fought against the man with his utmost craft and power, assaulting him beyond all others against whom he contended at that time,—and what and how many things he endured for the word of Christ, bondsand bodily tortures and torments under the iron collar and in the dungeon; and how for many days with his feet stretched four spaces in the stocks303 he bore patiently the threats of fire and whatever other things were inflicted by his enemies; and how his sufferings terminated, as his judge strove eagerly with all his might not to end his life; and what words he left after these things, full of comfort to those needing aid, a great many of his epistles show with truth and accuracy.304 
Chapter XL. The Events Which Happened to Dionysius.305 
1 I Shall quote from the epistle of Dionysius to Germanus306 an account of what befell the former. Speaking of himself, he writes as follows: “I speak before God, and he knows that I do not lie. I did not flee on my own impulse nor without divine direction.
2 But even before this, at the very hour when the Decian persecution was commanded, Sabinus307 sent a frumentarius308 to search for me, and I remained at home four days awaiting his arrival.
3 But he went about examining all places,—roads, rivers, and fields,—where he thought I might be concealed or on the way. But he was smitten with blindness, and did not find the house,309 for he did not suppose, that being pursued, I would remain at home. And after the fourth day God commanded me to depart, and made a way for me in a wonderful manner; and I and my attendants310 and many of the brethren went away together. And that this occurred through the providence of God was made manifest by what followed, in which perhaps we were useful to some.”
4 Farther on he relates in this manner what happened to him after his flight:
 “For about sunset, having been seized with those that were with me, I was taken by the soldiers to Taposiris,311 but in the providence of God, Timothy312 was not present and was not captured. But coming later, he found the house deserted and guarded by soldiers, and ourselves reduced to slavery.”313 
5 After a little he says: “And what was the manner of his admirable management? for the truth shall be told. One of the country people met Timothy fleeing and disturbed, and inquired the cause of his haste. And he told him the truth. And 6 when the man heard it (he was on his way to a marriage feast, for it was customary to spend the entire night in such gatherings), he entered and announced it to those at the table. And they, as if on a preconcerted signal, arose with one impulse, and rushed out quickly and came and burst in upon us with a shout. Immediately the soldiers who were guarding us fled, and they came to us lying as we were upon the bare couches. But I, God knows, thought 7 at first that they were robbers who had come for spoil and plunder. So I remained upon the bed on which I was, clothed only in a linen garment, and offered them the rest of my clothing which was lying beside me. But they directed me to rise and come away quickly. Then I understood why they were come,8 and I cried out, beseeching and entreating them to depart and leave us alone. And I requested them, if they desired to benefit me in any way, to anticipate those who were carrying me off, and cut off my head themselves. And when I had cried out in this manner, as my companions and partners in everything know, they raised me by force. But I threw myself on my back on the ground; and they seized me by the hands and feet and dragged me away. And the witnesses of all these occurrences 9 followed: Gaius, Faustus, Peter, and Paul.314 But they who had seized me carried me out of the village hastily, and placing me on an ass without a saddle, bore me away.”315 
Dionysius relates these things respecting himself. 
Chapter XLI. The Martyrs in Alexandria.
1 The same writer, in an epistle to Fabius,316 bishop of Antioch, relates as follows the sufferings of the martyrs in Alexandria under Decius:
“The persecution among us did not begin with the royal decree, but preceded it an entire year.317 The prophet and author of evils318 to this city, whoever he was, previously moved and aroused against us the masses of the heathen, rekindling among them the superstition of their country.
2 And being thus excited by him and finding full opportunity for any wickedness, they considered this the only pious service of their demons, that they should slay us.
3 “They seized first an old man named Metras,319 and commanded him to utter impious words. But as he would not obey, they beat him with clubs, and tore his face and eyes with sharp sticks, and dragged him out of the city and stoned him.
4 Then they carried to their idol temple a faithful woman, named Quinta, that they might force her to worship. And as she turned away in detestation, they bound her feet and dragged her through the entire city over the stone-paved streets, and dashed her against the millstones, and at the same time scourged her; then, taking her to the same place, they stoned her to death.
5 Then all with one impulse rushed to the homes of the pious, and they dragged forth whomsoever any one knew as a neighbor, and despoiled and plundered them. They took for themselves the more valuable property; but the poorer articles and those made of wood they scattered about and burned in the streets, so that the city appeared as if taken by an enemy.
6 But the brethren withdrew and went away, and ‘took joyfully the spoiling of their goods,’320 like those to whom Paul bore witness. I know of no one unless possibly some one who fell into their hands, who, up to this time, denied the Lord.
7 Then they seized also that most admirable virgin, Apollonia, an old woman, and, smiting her on the jaws, broke out all her teeth. And they made a fire outside the city and threatened to burn her alive if she would not join with them in their impious cries. And she, supplicating a little, was released, when she leaped eagerly into the fire and was consumed.
8 Then they seized Serapion in his own house, and tortured him with harsh cruelties, and having broken all his limbs, they threw him headlong from an upper story. And there was no street, nor public road, nor lane open to us, by night or day; for always and everywhere, all of them cried out that if any one would not repeat their impious words, he should immediately be dragged away and burned.
9 And matters continued thus for a considerable time. But a sedition and civil war came upon the wretched people and turned their cruelty toward us against one another.321 So we breathed for a little while as they ceased from their rage against us. But presently the change from that milder reign was announced to us,322 and great fear 
10 of what was threatened seized us. For the decree arrived, almost like unto that most terrible time foretold by our Lord, which if it were possible would offend even the elect.323 
11 All truly were affrighted. And many of the more eminent in their fear came forward immediately;324 others who were in the public service were drawn on by their official duties;325 others were urged on by their acquaintances. And as their names were called they approached the impure and impious sacrifices. Some of them were pale and trembled as if they were not about to sacrifice, but to be themselves sacrifices and offerings to the idols; so that they were jeered at by the multitude who stood around, as it was plain to every one that they were afraid either to die or to sacrifice.
12 But some advanced to the altars more readily, declaring boldly that they had never been Christians. Of these the prediction of our Lord is most true that they shall ‘hardly’326 be saved. Of the rest some followed the one, others the other of these classes, some fled and some were seized.
13 And of the latter some continued faithful until bonds and imprisonment, and some who had even been imprisoned for many days yet abjured the faith before they were brought to trial. Others having for a time endured great tortures finally retracted.
14 But the firm and blessed pillars of the Lord being strengthened by him, and having received vigor and might suitable and appropriate to the strong faith which they possessed, became admirable witnesses of his kingdom.
15 The first of these was Julian, a man who suffered so much with the gout that he was unable to stand or walk. They brought him forward with two others who carried him. One of these immediately denied. But the other, whose name was Cronion, and whose surname was Eunus, and the old man Julian himself, both of them having confessed the Lord, were carried on camels through the entire city, which, as you know, is a very large one, and in this elevated position were beaten and finally burned in a fierce fire,327 surrounded by all the populace.
16 But a soldier, named Besas, who stood by16 them as they were led away rebuked those who insulted them. And they cried out against him, and this most manly warrior of God was arraigned, and having done nobly in the great contest for piety, was beheaded.
17 A certain other one, a Libyan by birth, but in name and blessedness a true Macar,328 was strongly urged by the judge to recant; but as he would not yield he was burned alive. After them Epimachus and Alexander, having remained in bonds for a long time, and endured countless agonies from scrapers329 and scourges, were also consumed in a fierce fire.330 And with them there were four women.
18 Ammonarium, a holy virgin, the judge tortured relentlessly and excessively, because she declared from the first that she would utter none of those things which he commanded; and having kept her promise truly, she was dragged away. The others were Mercuria, a very remarkable old woman, and Dionysia, the mother of many children, who did not love her own children above the Lord.331 As the governor was ashamed of torturing thus ineffectually, and being always defeated by women, they were put to death by the sword, without the trial of tortures. For the champion, Ammonarium, endured these in behalf of all.
19 The Egyptians, Heron and Ater and Isidorus, and with them Dioscorus,332 a boy about fifteen years old, were delivered up. At first the judge attempted to deceive the lad by fair words, as if he could be brought over easily, and then to force him by tortures, as one who would readily yield. But Dioscorus was neither persuaded nor constrained.
20 As the others remained firm, he scourged them cruelly and then delivered them to the fire. But admiring the manner in which Dioscorus had distinguished himself publicly, and his wise answers to his persuasions, he dismissed him, saying that on account of his youth he would give him time for repentance. And this most godly Dioscorus is among us now, awaiting a longer conflict and more severe contest.
21 But a certain Nemesion, who also was an Egyptian, was accused as an associate of robbers; but when he had cleared himself before the centurion of this charge most foreign to the truth, he was informed against as a Christian, and taken in bonds before the governor. And the most unrighteous magistrate inflicted on him tortures and scourgings double those which he executed on the robbers, and then burned him between the robbers, thus honoring the blessed man by the likeness to Christ.
22 A band of soldiers, Ammon and Zeno and Ptolemy and Ingenes, and with them an old man, Theophilus, were standing close together before the tribunal. And as a certain person who was being tried as a Christian, seemed inclined to deny, they standing by gnashed their teeth, and made signs with their faces and stretched out their hands, and gestured with their bodies. And when the attention of all was turned to them, before any one else could seize them, they rushed up to the tribunal saying that they were Christians, so that the governor and his council were affrighted. And those who were on trial appeared most courageous in prospect of their sufferings, while their judges trembled. And they went exultingly from the tribunal rejoicing in their testimony;333 God himself having caused them to triumph gloriously.”
Chapter XLII. Others of Whom Dionysius Gives an Account.
1 “Many others, in cities and villages, were torn asunder by the heathen, of whom I will mention one as an illustration. Ischyrion334 was employed as a steward by one of the rulers. His employer commanded him to sacrifice, and on his refusal insulted him, and as he remained firm, abused him. And as he still held out he seized a long staff and thrust it through his bowels335 and slew him.
2 “Why need I speak of the multitude that wandered in the deserts and mountains, and perished by hunger, and thirst, and cold, and sickness, and robbers, and wild beasts? Those of them who survived are witnesses of their election and victory.
3 But I will relate one occurrence as an example. Chaeremon,336 who was very old, was bishop of the city called Nilus. He fled with his wife337 to the Arabian mountain338 and did not return. And though the brethren searched diligently they could not find either them or their bodies. And many who fled to the same
4 Arabian mountain were carried into slavery by the barbarian Saracens. Some of them were ransomed with difficulty and at a large price others have not been to the present time. I have related these things, my brother, not without an object, but that you may understand how many and great distresses came upon us. Those indeed will understand them the best who have had the largest experience of them.”
5 A little further on he adds: “These divine martyrs among us, who now are seated with Christ, and are sharers in his kingdom, partakers of his judgment and judges with him, received some of the brethren who had fallen away and become chargeable with the guilt of sacrificing. When they perceived that their conversion and repentance were sufficient to be acceptable with him who by no means desires the death of the sinner, but his repentance, having proved them they received them back and brought them together, and met with them and had fellowship with them in prayers and feasts.339 
6 What counsel then, brethren, do you give us concerning such persons? What should we do? Shall we have the same judgment and rule as theirs, and observe their decision and charity, and show mercy to those whom they pitied? Or, shall we declare their decision unrighteous, and set ourselves as judges of their opinion, and grieve mercy and overturn order?”340 These words Dionysius very properly added when making mention of those who had been weak in the time of persecution.
Chapter XLIII. Novatus,341 His Manner of Life and His Heresy.
1 After this, Novatus, a presbyter of the church at Rome, being lifted up with arrogance against these persons, as if there was no longer for them a hope of salvation, not even if they should do all things pertaining to a genuine and pure conversion, became leader of the heresy of those who, in the pride of their imagination, call themselves Cathari.342 
2 There upon a very large synod assembled at Rome,343 of bishops in number sixty, and a great many more presbyters and deacons; while the pastors of the remaining provinces deliberated in their places privately concerning what ought to be done. A decree was confirmed by all, that Novatus and those who joined with him, and those who adopted his brother-hating and inhuman opinion, should be considered by the church as strangers; but that they should heal such of the brethren as had fallen into misfortune,344 and should minister to them with the medicines of repentance.
3 There have reached us epistles345 of Cornelius, bishop of Rome, to Fabius, of the church at Antioch, which show what was done at the synod at Rome, and what seemed best to all those in Italy and Africa and the regions thereabout.346 Also other epistles, written in the Latin language, of Cyprian and those with him in Africa,347 which show that they agreed as to the necessity of succoring those who had been tempted, and of cutting off from the Catholic Church the leader of the heresy and all that joined with him.
4 Another epistle of Cornelius, concerning the resolutions of the synod, is attached to these; and yet others,348 on the conduct of Novatus, from which it is proper for us to make selections, that any one who
5 sees this work may know about him. Cornelius informs Fabius what sort of a man Novatus was, in the following words:
“But that you may know that a long time ago this remarkable man desired the episcopate, but kept this ambitious desire to himself and concealed it,—using as a cloak for his rebellion those confessors who had adhered to him from the beginning,—I desire to speak.
6 Maximus,349 one of our presbyters, and Urbanus,350 who twice gained the highest honor by confession, with Sidonius,351 and Celerinus,352 a man who by the grace of God most heroically endured all kinds of torture, and by the strength of his faith overcame the weakness of the flesh, and mightily conquered the adversary,—these men found him out and detected his craft and duplicity, his perjuries and falsehoods, his un-sociability and cruel friendship. And they returned to the holy church and proclaimed in the presence of many, both bishops and presbyters and a large number of the laity, all his craft and wickedness, which for a long time he had concealed. And this they did with lamentations and repentance, because through the persuasions of the crafty and malicious beast they had left the church for the time.” A little farther on he says:
7 “How remarkable, beloved brother, the change and transformation which we have seen take place in him in a short time. For this most illustrious man, who bound himself with terrible oaths in nowise to seek the bishopric,353 suddenly appears a bishop as if thrown among us by some machine.354 
8 For this dogmatist, this defender of the doctrine of the Church,355 attempting to grasp and seize the episcopate, which had not been given him from above, chose two of his companions who had given up their own salvation. And he sent them to a small and insignificant corner of Italy, that there by some counterfeit argument he might deceive three bishops, who were rustic and very simple men. And they asserted positively and strongly that it was necessary that they should come quickly to Rome, in order that all the dissension which had arisen there might be appeased through their mediation, jointly with other bishops.
9 When they had come, being, as we have stated, very simple in the craft and artifice of the wicked, they were shut up with certain selected men like himself. And by the tenth hour, when they had become drunk and sick, he compelled them by force to confer on him the episcopate through a counterfeit and vain imposition of hands. Because it had not come to him, he avenged himself by craft
10 and treachery. One of these bishops shortly after came back to the church, lamenting and confessing his transgression. And we communed with him as with a layman, all the people present interceding for him. And we ordained successors of the other bishops, and sent 11 them to the places where they were.
11 This avenger of the Gospel356 then did not know that there should be one bishop in a catholic church;357 yet he was not ignorant (for how could he be?) that in it there were forty-six presbyters, seven358 deacons, seven sub-deacons,359 forty-two acolyths,360 fifty-two exorcists,361 readers,362 and janitors,363 and over fifteen hundred widows and persons in distress, all of whom the grace and kindness of the Master nourish.
12 But not even this great multitude, so necessary in the church, nor those who, through God’s providence, were rich and full, together with the very many, even innumerable people, could turn him from such desperation and presumption and recall him to the Church.”
13 Again, farther on, he adds these words: “Permit us to say further: On account of what works or conduct had he the assurance to contend for the episcopate? Was it that he had been brought up in the Church from the beginning, and had endured many conflicts in her behalf, and had passed through many and greatdangers for religion? Truly this is not the fact.
14 But Satan, who entered and dwelt in him for a long time, became the occasion of his believing. Being delivered by the exorcists, he fell into a severe sickness; and as he seemed about to die, he received baptism by affusion, on the bed where he lay;364 if indeed we
15 can say that such a one did receive it. And when he was healed of his sickness he did not receive the other things which it is necessary to have according to the canon of the Church, even the being sealed by the bishop.365 And as he did not receive this,366 how could he receive
16 the Holy Spirit?” Shortly after he says again:
“In the time of persecution, through cowardice and love of life, he denied that he was a presbyter. For when he was requested and entreated by the deacons to come out of the chamber in which he had imprisoned himself and give aid to the brethren as far as was lawful and possible for a presbyter to assist those of the brethren who were in danger and needed help, he paid so little respect to the entreaties of the deacons that he went away and departed in anger. For he said that he no longer desired to be a presbyter, as he was an admirer 17of another philosophy.”367 
17 Passing by a few things, he adds the following:
“For this illustrious man forsook the Church of God, in which, when he believed, he was judged worthy of the presbyterate through the favor of the bishop who ordained him to the presbyterial office. This had been resisted by all the clergy and many of the laity; because it was unlawful that one who had been affused on his bed on account of sickness as he had been should enter into any clerical office;368 but the bishop requested that he might be permitted to ordain this one only.”
18 He adds to these yet another, the worst of all the man’s offenses, as follows:
“For when he has made the offerings, and distributed a part to each man, as he gives it he compels the wretched man to swear in place of the blessing. Holding his hands in both of his own, he will not release him until he has sworn in this manner (for I will give his own words):
Swear to me by the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ that you will never forsake me and turn to Cornelius.’
19 And the unhappy man does not taste until he has called down imprecations on himself; and instead of saying Amen, as he takes the bread, he says, I will never return to Cornelius.” Farther on he says again:
20 “But know that he has now been made bare and desolate; as the brethren leave him every day and return to the church. Moses369 also, the blessed martyr, who lately suffered among us a glorious and admirable martyrdom, while he was yet alive, beholding his boldness and folly, refused to commune with him and with the five presbyters who with him had separated themselves from the church.”
21 At the close of his letter he gives a list of the bishops who had come to Rome and condemned the silliness of Novatus, with their names and the parish over which each of them presided.
22 He mentions also those who did not come to Rome, but who expressed by letters their agreement with the vote of these bishops, giving their names and the cities from which they severally sent them.370 Cornelius wrote these things to Fabius, bishop of Antioch.
Chapter XLIV. Dionysius’ Account of Serapion.
1 To this same Fabius, who seemed to lean somewhat toward this schism,371 Dionysius of Alexandria also wrote an epistle.372 He writes in this many other things concerning repentance, and relates the conflicts of those who had lately suffered martyrdom at Alexandria. After the other account he mentions a certain wonderful fact, which deserves a place in this work. It is as follows:
2 “I will give thee this one example which occurred among us. There was with us a certain Serapion,373 an aged believer who had lived for a long time blamelessly, but had fallen in the trial. He besought often, but no one gave heed to him, because he had sacrificed. But he became sick, and for three successive days continued speechless and senseless.
3 Having recovered somewhat on the fourth day he sent for his daughter’s son, and said, How Long Do You Detain Me, My Child? I Beseech You, Make Haste, and Absolve Me Speedily. Call One of the Presbyters to Me. And when he had said this, he became again speechless. And the boy ran to the presbyter. But it was night and he was sick, and therefore unable to come.
4 But as I had commanded that persons at the point of death, if they requested it, and especially if they had asked for it previously, should receive remission, that they might depart with a good hope, he gave the boy a small portion of the eucharist, telling him to soak374 it and let the drops fall into the old man’s mouth.375 
5 The boy returned with it, and as he drew near, before he entered, Serapion again arousing, said, ‘Thou art come, my child, and the presbyter could not come; but do quickly what he directed, and let me depart.’ Then the boy soaked it and dropped it into his mouth. And when he had swallowed a little, immediately he gave up the ghost.
6 Is it not evident that he was6 preserved and his life continued till he was absolved, and, his sin having been blotted out, he could be acknowledged376 for the many good deeds which he had done?”
Dionysius relates these things.
Chapter XLV. An Epistle of Dionysius to Novatus.
1 But let us see how the same man addressed Novatus377 when he was disturbing the Roman brotherhood. As he pretended that some of the brethren were the occasion of his apostasy and schism, as if he had been forced by them to proceed as he had,378 observe the manner in which he writes to him:
2“Dionysius to his brother Novatus, greeting. If, as thou sayest, thou hast been led on unwillingly, thou wilt prove this if thou retirest willingly. For it were better to suffer everything, rather than divide the Church of God. Even martyrdom for the sake of preventing division would not be less glorious than for refusing to worship idols. Nay, to me it seems greater. For in the one case a man suffers martyrdom for the sake of his own soul; in the other case in behalf of the entire Church. And now if thou canst persuade or induce the brethren to come to unanimity, thy righteousness will be greater than thine error, and this will not be counted, but that will be praised. But if thou canst not prevail with the disobedient, at least save thine own soul. I pray that thou mayst fare well, maintaining peace in the Lord.” This he wrote to Novatus.
Chapter XLVI. Other Epistles of Dionysius.
1 He wrote also an epistle to the brethren in Egypt on Repentance.379 In this he sets forth what seemed proper to him in regard to those who had fallen, and he describes the classes of transgressions.
2 There is extant also a private letter on Repentance, which he wrote to Conon,380 bishop of the parish of Hermopolis, and another of an admonitory381 character, to his flock at Alexandria. Among them also is the one written to Origen on Martyrdom382 and to the brethren at Laodicea,383 of whom Thelymidres was bishop. He likewise sent one on Repentance to the brethren in Armenia,384 of whom Merozanes was bishop.
3 Besides all these, he wrote to Cornelius of Rome, when he had received from him an epistle against Novatus.385 He states in this that he had been invited by Helenus,386 bishop of Tarsus, in Cilicia, and the others who were with him, Firmilianus,387 bishop in Cappadocia, and Theoctistus,388 of Palestine, to meet them at the synod in Antioch, where some persons were endeavoring to establish the schism of Novatus.
4 Besides this he writes that he had been informed that Fabius389 had fallen asleep, and that Demetrianus390 had been appointed his successor in the episcopate of Antioch. He writes also in these words concerning the bishop of Jerusalem: “For the blessed Alexander391 having been confined in prison, passed away happily.”
5 In addition to this there is extant also a certain other diaconal epistle of Dionysius, sent to those in Rome through Hippolytus.392 And he wrote another to them on Peace, and likewise on Repentance;393 and yet another to the confessors there who still held to the opinion of Novatus.394 He sent two more to the same persons after they had returned to the Church. And he communicated with many others by letters, which he has left behind him as a benefit in various ways to those who now diligently study his writings.395 
Book VII.
Introduction.
In this seventh book of the Church History, the great bishop of Alexandria, Dionysius,1 shall again assist us by his own words; relating the several affairs of his time in the epistles which he has left. I will begin with them.
Chapter I. The Wickedness of Decius and Gallus.
When Decius had reigned not quite two years,2 he was slain with his children, and Gallus succeeded him. At this time Origen died, being sixty-nine years of age.3 Dionysius, writing to Hermammon,4 speaks as follows of Gallus:5 
“Gallus neither recognized the wickedness of Decius, nor considered what had destroyed him; but stumbled on the same stone, though it lay before his eyes. For when his reign was prosperous and affairs were proceeding according to his mind, he attacked the holy men who were interceding with God for his peace and welfare. Therefore with them he persecuted also their prayers in his behalf.” So much concerning him.
Chapter II. The Bishops of Rome in Those Times.
Cornelius,6 having held the episcopate in the city of Rome about three years, was succeeded by Lucius.7 He died in less than eight months, and transmitted his office to Stephen.8 Dionysius wrote to him the first of his letters on baptism,9 as no small controversy had arisen as to whether those who had turned from any heresy should be purified by baptism. For the ancient custom prevailed in regard to such, that they should receive only the laying on of hands with prayers.10 
Chapter III. Cyprian, and the Bishops with Him, First Taught that It Was Necessary to Purify by Baptism Those Converted from Heresy.
First of all, Cyprian, pastor of the parish of Carthage,11 maintained that they should not be received except they had been purified from their error by baptism. But Stephen considering it unnecessary to add any innovation contrary to the tradition which had been held from the beginning, was very indignant at this.12 
Chapter IV. The Epistles Which Dionysius Wrote an This Subject.
Dionysius, therefore, having communicated with him extensively on this question by letter,13 finally showed him that since the persecution had abated,14 the churches everywhere had rejected the novelty of Novatus, and were at peace among themselves. He writes as follows:
Chapter V. The Peace Following the Persecution.
1 “But know now, my brethren, that all the churches throughout the East and beyond, which formerly were divided, have become united. And all the bishops everywhere are of one mind, and rejoice greatly in the peace which has come beyond expectation. Thus Demetrianus in Antioch,15 Theoctistus in Caesarea, Mazabanes in Aelia, Marinus in Tyre (Alexander having fallen asleep),16 Heliodorus in Laodicea (Thelymidres being dead), Helenus in Tarsus, and all the churches of Cilicia, Firmilianus, and all Cappadocia. I have named only the more illustrious bishops, that I may not make my epistle too long and my words too burdensome.
2 And all Syria, and Arabia to which you send help when needed,17 and whither you have just written,18 Mesopotamia, Pontus, Bithynia, and in short all everywhere are rejoicing and glorifying God for the unanimity and brotherly love.” Thus far Dionysius.
3 But Stephen, having filled his office two years, was succeeded by Xystus.19 Dionysius wrote him a second epistle on baptism,20 in which he shows him at the same time the opinion and judgment of Stephen and the other bishops, and speaks in this manner of Stephen:
4 “He therefore had written previously concerning Helenus and Firmilianus, and all those in Cilicia and Cappadocia and Galatia and the neighboring nations, saying that he would not commune with them for this same cause; namely, that they re-baptized heretics. But consider the importance of the matter.
5 For truly in the largest synods of the bishops, as I learn, decrees have been passed on this subject, that those coming over from heresies should be instructed, and then should be washed21 and cleansed from the filth of the old and impure leaven. And I wrote entreating him concerning all these things.” Further on he says:
6 “I wrote also, at first in few words, recently in many, to our beloved fellow-presbyters, Dionysius22 and Philemon,23 who formerly had held the same opinion as Stephen, and had written to me on the same matters.” So much in regard to the above-mentioned controversy.
Chapter VI. The Heresy of Sabellius.
He refers also in the same letter to the heretical teachings of Sabellius,24 which were in his time becoming prominent, and says:
“For concerning the doctrine now agitated in Ptolemais of Pentapolis,—which is impious and marked by great blasphemy against the Almighty God, the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, and contains much unbelief respecting his Only Begotten Son and the first-born of every creature, the Word which became man, and a want of perception of the Holy Spirit,—as there came to me communications from both sides and brethren discussing the matter, I wrote certain letters treating the subject as instructively as, by the help. of God, I was able.25 Of these I send26 thee copies.”
Chapter VII. The Abominable Error of the Heretics; The Divine Vision of Dianysius; And the Ecclesiastical Canon Which He Received.
1 In the third epistle on baptism which this same Dionysius wrote to Philemon,27 the Roman presbyter, he relates the following: “But I examined the works and traditions of the heretics, defiling my mind for a little time with their abominable opinions, but receiving this benefit from them, that I refuted them by myself, and detested them all the more.
2 And when a certain brother among the presbyters restrained me, fearing that I should be carried away with the filth of their wickedness (for it would defile my soul), — in which also, as I perceived, he spoke the truth,—a vision sent from God came and strengthened me.
3 And the word which came to me commanded me, saying distinctly, ‘Read everything which thou canst take in hand,28 for thou art able to correct and prove all; and this has been to thee from the beginning the cause of thy faith.’ I received the vision as agreeing with the apostolic word, which says to them that are stronger, ‘Be skillful money-changers.’”29 
4 Then after saying some things concerning all the heresies he adds: “I received this rule and ordinance from our blessed father,30 Heraclas.31 For those who came over from heresies, although they had apostatized from the Church,—or rather had not apostatized, but seemed to meet with them, yet were charged with resorting to some false teacher,— when he, had expelled them from the Church he did not receive them back, though they entreated for it, until they had publicly reported all things which they had heard from their adversaries; but then he received them without requiring of them another baptism.32 For they had formerly received the Holy Spirit from him.” Again, after treating the question thoroughly, he adds: “I have learned also that this33 is not a novel practice introduced in Africa alone, but that even long ago in the times of the bishops before us this opinion has been adopted in the most populous churches, and in synods of the brethren in Iconium and Synnada,34 and by many others. To overturn their counsels and throw them into strife and contention, I cannot endure. For it is said,35 ‘Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor’s landmark, which thy fathers have set.’”36 
6 His fourth epistle on baptism37 was written to Dionysius38 of Rome, who was then a presbyter, but not long after received the episcopate of that church. It is evident from what is stated of him by Dionysius of Alexandria, that he also was a learned and admirable man. Among other things he writes to him as follows concerning Novatus:
Chapter VIII. The Heterodoxy of Navatus.
“For with good reason do we feel hatred toward Novatian,39 who has sundered the Church and drawn some of the brethren into impiety and blasphemy, and has introduced impious teaching concerning God, and has calumniated our most compassionate Lord Jesus Christ as unmerciful. And besides all this he rejects the holy baptism,40 and overturns the faith and confession which precede it,41 and entirely banishes from them the Holy Ghost, if indeed there was any hope that he would remain or return to them.”42 
Chapter IX. The Ungodly Baptism of the Heretics.
1 His fifth epistle43 was written to Xystus,44 bishop of Rome. In this, after saying much against the heretics, he relates a certain occurrence of his time as follows: “For truly, brother, I am in need of counsel, and I ask thy judgment concerning a certain matter which has come to me, fearing that I may be in error.
2 For one of the brethren that assemble, who has long been considered a believer, and who, before my ordination, and I think before the appointment of the blessed Heraclas,45 was a member of the congregation, was present with those who were recently baptized. And when he heard the questions and answers,46 he came to me weeping, and bewailing himself; and falling at my feet he acknowledged and protested that the baptism with which he had been baptized among the heretics was not of this character, nor in any respect like this, because it was full of impiety and blasphemy.47 
3 And he said that his soul was now pierced with sorrow, and that he had not confidence to lift his eyes to God, because he had set out from those impious words and deeds. And on this account he besought that he might receive this most perfect purification, and reception and grace.
4 But I did not dare to do this; and said that his long communion was sufficient for this. For I should not dare to renew from the beginning one who had heard the giving of thanks and joined in repeating the Amen; who had stood by the table and had stretched forth his hands to receive the blessed food; and who had received it, and partaken for a long while of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. But I exhorted him to be of good courage, and to approach the partaking of the saints with firm faith and good hope.
5 But he does not cease lamenting, and he shudders to approach the table, and scarcely, though entreated, does he dare to be present at the prayers.”48 
6 Besides these there is also extant another epistle of the same man on baptism, addressed by him and his parish to Xystus and the church at Rome. In this he considers the question then agitated with extended argument. And there is extant yet another after these, addressed to Dionysius of Rome,49 concerning Lucian.50 So much with reference to these.
Chapter X. Valerian and the Persecution Under Him.
1 Gallus and the other rulers,51 having held the government less than two years, were overthrown, and Valerian, with his son Gallienus, received the empire. The circumstances which Dionysius relates of him we may learn from his epistle to Hermammon,52 in which he gives the following account:
2 “And in like manner it is revealed to John; ‘For there was given to him,’ he says, ‘a mouth speaking great things and blasphemy; and there was given unto him authority and forty and two months.’53 
3 It is wonderful that both of these things occurred under Valerian; and it is the more remarkable in this case when we consider his previous conduct, for he had been mild and friendly toward the men of God, for none of the emperors before him had treated them so kindly and favorably; and not even those who were said openly to be Christians54 received them with such manifest hospitality and friendliness as he did at the beginning of his reign. For his entire house was filled with
4 pious persons and was a church of God. But the teacher and ruler of the synagogue of the Magi from Egypt55 persuaded him to change his course, urging him to slay and persecute pure and holy men56 because they opposed and hindered the corrupt and abominable incantations. For there are and there were men who, being present and being seen, though they only breathed and spoke, were able to scatter the counsels of the sinful demons. And he induced him to practice initiations and abominable sorceries and to offer unacceptable sacrifices; to slay innumerable children and to sacrifice the offspring of unhappy fathers; to divide the bowels of new-born babes and to mutilate and cut to pieces the creatures of God, as if by such practices they could attain happiness.”
5 He adds to this the following: “Splendid indeed were the thank-offerings which Macrianus brought them57 for the empire which was the object of his hopes. He is said to have been formerly the emperor’s general finance minister58 ; yet he did nothing praiseworthy or of general benefit,59 but fell under the prophetic 
6 saying, ‘Woe unto those who prophesy from their own heart and do not consider the general good.’60 For he did not perceive the general Providence, nor did he look for the judgment of Him who is before all, and through all, and over all. Wherefore he became an enemy of his Catholic61 Church, and alienatedand estranged himself from the compassion of God, and fled as far as possible from his salvation. In this he showed the truth of his own name.”62 
7 And again, farther on he says: “For Valerian, being instigated to such acts by this man, was given over to insults and reproaches, according to what was said by Isaiah: ‘They have chosen their own ways and their abominations in which their soul delighted; I also will choose their delusions and will render unto them their sins.’63 
8 But this man64 madly desired the kingdom though unworthy of it, and being unable to put the royal garment on his crippled body, set forward his two sons to bear their father’s sins.65 For concerning them the declaration which God spoke was plain, ‘Visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.’66 
9 For heaping on the heads of his sons his own evil desires, in which he had met with success,67 he wiped off upon them his own wickedness and hatred toward God.”
Dionysius relates these things concerning Valerian.
Chapter XI. The Events Which Happened at This Time to Dionysius and Those in Egypt.
1 But as regards the persecution which prevailed so fiercely in his reign, and the sufferings which Dionysius with others endured on account of piety toward the God of the universe, his own words shall show, which he wrote in answer to Germanus,68 a contemporary bishop who was endeavoring to slander him. His statement is as follows:
2 “Truly I am in danger of falling into great folly and stupidity through being forced to relate the wonderful providence of God toward us. But since it is said69 that ‘it is good to keep close the secret of a king, but it is honorable to reveal the works of God,’70 I will join issue with the violence of Germanus.
3 I went not alone to Aemilianus;71 but my fellow-presbyter, Maximus,72 and the deacons Faustus,73 Eusebius,74 and Chaeremon,75 and a brother who was present from Rome, went with me.
4 But Aemilianus did not at first say to me: ‘Hold no assemblies;’76 for this was superfluous to him, and the last thing to one who was seeking to accomplish the first. For he was not concerned about our assembling, but that we ourselves should not be Christians. And he commanded me to give this up; supposing if I turned from it, the others also would follow me.
5 But I answered him, neither unsuitably nor in many words: ‘We must obey God rather than men.’77 And I testified openly that I worshiped the one only God, and no other; and that I would not turn from this nor would I ever cease to be a Christian. Thereupon he commanded us to go to a village near the desert, called Cephro.78 
6 But listen to the very words which were spoken on both sides, as they were recorded: “Dionysius, Faustus, Maximus, Marcellus,79 and Chaeremon being arraigned, Aemilianus the prefect said:
7 ‘I have reasoned verbally with you concerning the clemency which our rulers have shown to you; for they have given you the opportunity to save yourselves, if you will turn to that which is according to nature, and worship the gods that preserve theirempire, and forget those that are contrary to nature.80 What then do you say to this? For I do not think that you will be ungrateful for their kindness, since they would turn you to a better course.’
8 Dionysius replied: ‘Not all people worship all gods; but each one those whom he approves. We therefore reverence and worship the one God, the Maker of all; who hath given the empire to the divinely favored and august Valerian and Gallienus; and we pray to him continually for their empire that it may remain unshaken.’
9 Aemilianus, the prefect, said to them: ‘But who forbids you to worship him, if he is a god, together with those who are gods by nature. For ye have been commanded to reverence the gods, and the gods whom all know.’ Dionysius answered:
10 ‘We worship no other.’ Aemilianus, the prefect, said to them: ‘I see that you are at once ungrateful, and insensible to the kindness of our sovereigns. Wherefore ye shall not remain in this city. But ye shall be sent into the regions of Libya, to a place called Cephro. For I have chosen this place at the command of our sovereigns, and it shall by no means be permitted you or any others, either to hold assemblies, or to enter into the so called cemeteries.81 
11 But if any one shall be seen without the place which I have commanded, or be found in any assembly, he will bring peril on himself. For suitable punishment shall not fail. Go, therefore where ye have been ordered.’
“And he hastened me away, though I was sick, not granting even a day’s respite. What opportunity then did I have, either to hold assemblies, or not to hold them?”82 Farther on he says: “But through the
12 help of the Lord we did not give up the open assembly. But I called together the more diligently those who were in the city, as if I were with them; being, so to speak,83 ‘absent in body but present in spirit.’84 But in Cephro a large church gathered with us of the brethren that followed us from the city, and those that joined us from Egypt; and there ‘God opened unto us a door for the Word.’85 
13 At first we were persecuted and stoned; but afterwards not a few of the heathen forsook the idols and turned to God. For until this time they had not heard the Word, since it was then first sown by us.
14 And as if God had brought us to them for this purpose, when we had performed this ministry he transferred us to another place. For Aemilianus, as it appeared, desired to transport us to rougher and more Libyan-like places;86 so he commanded them to assemble from all quarters in Mareotis,87 and assigned to them different villages throughout the country. But he ordered us to be placed nearer the highway that we might be seized first.88 For evidently he arranged and prepared matters so that whenever he wished to seize us he could take all of us without difficulty.
15 When I was first ordered to go to Cephro I did not know where the place was, and had scarcely ever heard the name; yet I went readily and cheerfully. But when I was told that I was to remove to the district of Colluthion,89 those who were present know how I was affected.
16 For here I will accuse myself. At first I was grieved and greatly disturbed; for though these places were better known and more familiar to us, yet the country was said to be destitute of brethren and of men of character, and to be exposed to the annoyances of travelers and incursions of robbers.
17 But I was comforted when the brethren reminded me that it was nearer the city, and that while Cephro afforded us much intercourse with the brethren from Egypt, so that we were able to extend the Church more widely, as this place was nearer the city we should enjoy more frequently the sight of those who were truly beloved and most closely related and dearest to us. For they would come and remain, and special meetings90 could be held, as in the more remote suburbs. And thus it turned out.” After other matters he writes again as follows of the things which happened to him
18 “Germanus indeed boasts of many confessions. He can speak forsooth of many adversities which he himself has endured. But is he able to reckon up as many as we can, of sentences, confiscations, proscriptions, plundering of goods, loss of dignities, contempt of worldly glory, disregard for the flatteries of governors and of councilors, and patient endurance of the threats of opponents, of outcries, of perils and persecutions, and wandering and distress, and all kinds of tribulation, such as came upon me under Decius and Sabinus,91 and such as continue even now under Aemilianus? But where has Germanus been seen? And what
19 account is there of him? But I turn from this great folly into which I am falling on account of Germanus. And for the same reason I desist from giving to the brethren who know it an account of everything which took place.”
20 The same writer also in the epistle to! Domitius and Didymus92 mentions some particulars of the persecution as follows: “As our people are many and unknown to you, it would be superfluous to give their names; but understand that men and women, young and old, maidens and matrons, soldiers and civilians, of every race and age, some by scourging and fire, others by the sword, have conquered in the strife and received their crowns.
21 But in the case of some a very long time wasnot sufficient to make them appear acceptable to the Lord; as, indeed, it seems also in my own case, that sufficient time has not yet elapsed. Wherefore he has retained me for the time which he knows to be fitting, saying, ‘In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee.’93 For as you
22 have inquired of our affairs and desire us to tell you how we are situated, you have heard fully that when we — that is, myself and Gaius and Faustus and Peter and Paul94 — were led away as prisoners by a centurion and magistrates, with their soldiers and servants, certain persons from Mareotis came and dragged us away by force, as we were unwilling to follow them.95 But
 23 now I and Gaius and Peter are alone, deprived of the other brethren, and shut up in a desert and dry place in Libya, three days’ journey from Paraetonium.”96 
24 He says farther on: “The presbyters, 24 Maximus,97 Dioscorus,98 Demetrius, and Lucius99 concealed themselves in the city, and visited the brethren secretly; for Faustinus and Aquila,100 who are more prominent in the world, are wandering in Egypt. But the deacons, Faustus, Eusebius, and Chaeremon,101 have survived those who died in the pestilence. Eusebius is one whom God has strengthened. and endowed from the first to fulfill energetically the ministrations for the imprisoned confessors, and to attend to the dangerous task of preparing for burial the bodies of the perfected and blessed martyrs
25 For as I have said before, unto the present time the governor continues to put to death in a cruel manner those who are brought to trial. And he destroys some with tortures, and wastes others away with imprisonment and bonds; and he suffers no one to go near them, and investigates whether any one does so. Nevertheless God gives relief to the afflicted through the zeal and persistence of the brethren.”
26 Thus far Dionysius. But it should be known that Eusebius, whom he calls a deacon, shortly afterward became bishop of the church of Laodicea in Syria;102 and Maximus, of whom he speaks as being then a presbyter, succeeded Dionysius himself as bishop of Alexandria.103 But the Faustus who was with him, and who at that time was distinguished for his confession, was preserved until the persecution in our day,104 when being very old and full of days, he closed his life by martyrdom, being beheaded. But such are the things which happened at that time105 to Dionysius.
Chapter XII. The Martyrs in Caesarea in Palestine.
1 During the above-mentioned persecution under Valerian, three men in Caesarea in Palestine, being conspicuous in their confession of Christ, were adorned with divine martyrdom, becoming food for wild beasts. One of them was called Priscus, another Malchus, and the name of the third was Alexander.106 They say that these men, who lived in the country, acted at first in a cowardly manner, as if they were careless and thoughtless. For when the opportunity was given to those who longed for the prize with heavenly desire, they treated it lightly, lest they should seize the Crown of martyrdom prematurely. But having deliberated on the matter, they hastened to Caesarea, and went before the judge and met the end we have mentioned. They relate that besides these, in the same persecution and the same city, a certain woman endured a similar conflict. But it is reported that she belonged to the sect of Marcion.107 
Chapter XIII. The Peace Under Gallienus.
1 Shortly after this Valerian was reduced to slavery by the barbarians,108 and his son having become sole ruler, conducted the government more prudently. He immediately restrained the persecution against us by public proclamations,109 and directed the bishops to perform in freedom their customary duties, in a rescript110 which ran as follows: “The Emperor Caesar Publius Licinius
2 Gallienus, Pius, Felix, Augustus,111 to Dionysius, Pinnas, Demetrius,112 and the other bishops. I have ordered the bounty of my gift to be declared through all the world, that they may depart from the places of religious worship.113 And for this purpose you may use this copy of my rescript, that no one may molest you. And this which you are now enabled lawfully to do, has already for a long time been conceded by me.114 Therefore Aurelius Cyrenius,115 who is the chief administrator of affairs,116 will observe this ordinance which I have given.” I have given this in a translation from the Latin, that it may be more readily understood. Another decree of his is extant addressed to other bishops, permitting them to take possession again of the so-called cemeteries.117 
Chapter XIV. The Bishops that Flourished at that Time.
1 At that time Xystus118 was still presiding over the church of Rome, and Demetrianus,119 successor of Fabius,120 over the church of Antioch, and Firmilianus121 over that of Caesarea in Cappadocia; and besides these, Gregory122 and his brother Athenodorus,123 friends of Origen, were presiding over the churches in Pontus; and Theoctistus124 of Caesarea in Palestine having died, Domnus125 received the episcopate there. He held it but a short time, and Theotecnus,126 our contemporary, succeeded him. He also was a member of Origen’s school. But in Jerusalem, after the death of Mazabanes,127 Hymenaeus,128 who has been celebrated among us for a great many years, succeeded to his seat.
Chapter XV. The Martyrdom of Marinus at Caesarea.
1 At this time, when the peace of the 1 churches had been everywhere129 restored, Marinus in Caesarea in Palestine, who was honored for his military deeds, and illustrious by virtue of family and wealth, was beheaded for his testimony to Christ, on the following account. The vine-branch130 is a certain
2 mark of honor among the Romans, and those who obtain it become, they say, centurions. A place being vacated, the order of succession called Marinus to this position. But when he was about to receive the honor, another person came before the tribunal and claimed that it was not legal, according to the ancient laws, for him to receive the Roman dignity, as he was a Christian and did not sacrifice to the emperors; but that the office belonged rather to him. Thereupon the judge, whose name was
3 Achaeus,131 being disturbed, first asked what opinion Marinus held. And when he perceived that he continually confessed himself a Christian, he gave him three hours for reflection. When he came out from the tribunal, Theotecnus
4132 the bishop there, took him aside and conversed with him, and taking his hand led him into the church. And standing with him within, in the sanctuary, he raised his cloak a little, and pointed to the sword that hung by his side; and at the same time he placed before him the Scripture of the divine Gospels, and told him to choose which of the two he wished. And without hesitation he reached forth his right hand, and took the divine Scripture. “Hold fast then,” says Theotecnus to him, “hold fast to God, and strengthened by him mayest thou obtain what thou hast chosen, and go inpeace.” Immediately on his return the
5 herald cried out calling him to the tribunal, for the appointed time was already completed. And standing before the tribunal, and manifesting greater zeal for the faith, immediately, as he was, he was led away and finished his course by death. 
Chapter XVI. Story in Regard to Astyrius.
1 Astyrius133 also is commemorated on account of his pious boldness in connection with this affair. He was a Roman of senatorial rank, and in favor with the emperors, and well known to all on account of his noble birth and wealth. Being present at the martyr’s death, he took his body away on his shoulder, and arraying him in a splendid and costly garment, prepared him for the grave in a magnificent manner, and gave him fitting burial.134 The friends of this man, that remain to our day, relate many other facts, concerning him.
Chapter XVII. The Signs at Paneas of the Great Might of Our Saviour.
1 Among these is also the following wonder. At Caesarea Philippi, which the Phoenicians call Paneas,135 springs are shown at the foot of the Mountain Panius, out of which the Jordan flows. They say that on a certain feast day, a victim was thrown in,136 and that through the power of the demon it marvelously disappeared and that which happened was a famous wonder to those who were present. Astyrius was once there when these things were done, and seeing the multitude astonished at the affair, he pitied their delusion; and looking up to heaven he supplicated the God over all through Christ, that he would rebuke the demon who deceived the people, and bring the men’s delusion to an end. And they say that when he had prayed thus, immediately the sacrifice floated on the surface of the fountain. And thus the miracle departed; and no wonder was ever afterward performed at the place.
Chapter XVIII. The Statue Which the Woman with an Issue of Blood Erected.137 
1 Since I have mentioned this city I do not think it proper to omit an accountwhich is worthy of record for posterity. For they say that the woman with an issue of blood, who, as we learn from the sacred Gospel,138 received from our Saviour deliverance from her affliction, came from this place, and that her house is shown in the city, and that remarkable memorials of the kindness of the Saviour to her remain there. For there stands upon
2 an elevated stone, by the gates of her house, a brazen image of a woman kneeling, with her hands stretched out, as if she were praying. Opposite this is another upright image of a man, made of the same material, clothed decently in a double cloak, and extending his hand toward the woman. At his feet, beside the statue itself,139 is a certain strange plant, which climbs up to the hem of the brazen cloak, and is a remedy for all kinds of diseases. They say that this statue is an image of
3 Jesus. It has remained to our day, so that we ourselves also saw it when we were staying in the city. Nor is it strange that those
4 of the Gentiles who, of old, were benefited by our Saviour, should have done such things, since we have learned also that the likenesses of his apostles Paul and Peter, and of Christ himself, are preserved in paintings,140 the ancients being accustomed, as it is likely, according to a habit of the Gentiles, to pay this kind of honor indiscriminately to those regarded by them as deliverers. 
Chapter XIX. The Episcopal Chair of James.
1 The chair of James, who first received the episcopate of the church at Jerusalem from the Saviour himself141 and the apostles, and who, as the divine records show,142 was called a brother of Christ, has been preserved until now,143 the brethren who have followed him in succession there exhibiting clearly to all the reverence which both those of old times and those of our own day maintained and do maintain for holy men on account of their piety. So much as to this matter.
Chapter XX. The Festal Epistles of Dionysius, in Which He Also Gives a Paschal Canon.
1 Dionysius, besides his epistles already mentioned,144 wrote at that time145 also his extant Festal Epistles,146 in which he uses words of panegyric respecting the passover feast. He addressed one of these to Flavius,147 and another to Domitius and Didymus,148 in which he sets forth a canon of eight years,149 maintaining that it is not proper to observe the paschal feast until after the vernal equinox. Besides these he sent another epistle to his fellow-presbyters in Alexandria, as well as various others to different persons while the persecution was still prevailing.150 
Chapter XXI. The Occurrences at Alexandria.
1 Peace had but just been restored when he returned to Alexandria;151 but as sedition and war broke out again, rendering it impossible for him to oversee all the brethren, separated in different places by the insurrection, at the feast of the passover, as if he were still an exile from Alexandria, he addressed them again by letter.152 
2 And in another festal epistle written later to Hierax,153 a bishop in Egypt, he mentions the sedition then prevailing in Alexandria, as follows:
“What wonder is it that it is difficult for me to communicate by letters with those who live far away, when it is beyond my power even to reason with myself, or to take counsel for my own life?
3 Truly I need to send letters to those who are as my own bowels,154 dwelling in one home, and brethren of one soul, and citizens of the same church; but how to send them I cannot tell. For it would be easier for one to go, not only beyond the limits of the province, but even from the East to the West, than from Alexandria to Alexandria itself. 
4 For the very heart of the city is more intricate and impassable than that great and trackless desert which Israel traversed for two generations. And our smooth and waveless harbors have become like the sea, divided and walled up, through which Israel drove and in whose highway the Egyptians were overwhelmed. For often from the slaughters there committed they appear like the Red Sea.
5 And the river which flows by the city has sometimes seemed drier than the waterless desert, and more parched than that in which Israel, as they passed through it, so suffered for thirst, that they cried out against Moses, and the water flowed for them from the steep rock,155 through him who alone doeth wonders.
6 Again it has overflowed so greatly as to flood all the surrounding country, and the roads and the fields; threatening to bring back the deluge of water that occurred in the days of Noah. And it flows along, polluted always with blood and slaughter and drownings, as it became for Pharaoh through the agency of Moses, when he changed it into blood, and it stank.156 
7 And what other water could purify the water which purifies everything? How could the ocean, so great and impassable for men, if poured into it, cleanse this bitter sea? Or how could the great river which flowed out of Eden, if it poured the four heads into which it is divided into the one of Geon,157 wash away this pollution?
8 Or when can the air poisoned by these noxious exhalations become pure? For such vapors arise from the earth, and winds from the sea, and breezes from the river, and mists from the harbors, that the dews are, as it were, discharges from dead bodies putrefying in all the elements around us.
9 Yet men wonder and cannot understand whence these continuous pestilences; whence these severe sicknesses; whence these deadly diseases of all kinds; whence this various and vast human destruction; why this great city no longer contains as many inhabitants, from tender infants to those most advanced in life, as it formerly contained of those whom it called hearty old men. But the men from forty to seventy years of age were then so much more numerous that their number cannot now be filled out, even when those from fourteen to eighty years are enrolled and registered for the public allowance of food.
10 And the youngest in appearance have become, as it were, of equal age with those who formerly were the oldest. But though they see the race of men thus constantly diminishing and wasting away, and though their complete destruction is increasing and advancing, they do not tremble.”
Chapter XXII. The Pestilence Which Came Upon Them.
1 After these events a pestilential disease followed the war, and at the approach of the feast he wrote again to the brethren, describing the sufferings consequent upon this calamity.158 
2 “To other men159 the present might not seem to be a suitable time for a festival. Nor indeed is this or any other time suitable for them; neither sorrowful times, nor even such as might be thought especially cheerful.160 Now, indeed, everything is tears and every one is mourning, and wailings resound daily through the city because of the multitude of the dead and dying.
3 For as it was written of the firstborn of the Egyptians, so now ‘there has arisen a great cry, for there is not a house where there is not one dead.’161 And would that this were all!162 
4 For many terrible things have happened already. First, they drove us out; and when alone, and persecuted, and put to death by all, even then we kept the feast. And every place of affliction was to us a place of festival: field, desert, ship, inn, prison; but the perfected martyrs kept the most joyous festival of all, feasting in heaven.
5 After these things war and famine followed, which we endured in common with the heathen. But we bore alone those things with which they afflicted us, and at the same time we experienced also the effects of what they inflicted upon and suffered from one another; and again, we rejoiced in the peace of Christ, which he gave to us alone.
6 “But after both we and they had enjoyed a very brief season of rest this pestilence assailed us; to them more dreadful than any dread, and more intolerable than any other calamity; and, as one of their own writers has said, the only thing which prevails over all hope. But to us this was not so, but no less than the other things was it an exercise and probation. For it did not keep aloof even from us, but the heathen it assailed more severely.”
7 Farther on he adds:
“The most of our brethren were unsparing in their exceeding love and brotherly kindness. They held fast to each other and visited the sick fearlessly, and ministered to them continually, serving them in Christ. And they died with them most joyfully, taking the affliction of others, and drawing the sickness from their neighbors to themselves and willingly receiving their pains. And many who cared for the sick and gave strength to others died themselves having transferred to themselves their death. And the popular saying which always seems a mere expression of courtesy, they then made real in action, taking their departure as the others”‘offscouring.’163 
8 “Truly the best of our brethren departed from life in this manner, including some presbyters and deacons and those of the people who had the highest reputation; so that this form of death, through the great piety and strong faith it exhibited, seemed to lack nothing of martyrdom.
9 And they took the bodies of the saints in their open hands and in their bosoms, and closed their eyes and their mouths; and they bore them away on their shoulders and laid them out; and they clung to them and embraced them; and they prepared them suitably with washings and garments. And after a little they received like treatment themselves, for the survivors were continually following those who had gone before them.
10 “But with the heathen everything was quite otherwise. They deserted those who began to be sick, and fled from their dearest friends. And they cast them out into the streets when they were half dead, and left the dead like refuse, unburied. They shunned any participation or fellowship with death; which yet, with all their precautions, it was not easy for them to escape.”
11 After this epistle, when peace had been restored to the city, he wrote another festal letter164 to the brethren in Egypt, and again several others besides this. And there is also a certain one extant On the Sabbath,165 and another On Exercise.
12 Moreover, he wrote again an epistle to Hermammon166 and the brethren in Egypt, describing at length the wickedness of Decius and his successors, and mentioning the peace under Gallienus.
Chapter XXIII. The Reign of Gallienus.
1 But there is nothing like hearing his own words, which are as follows:
“Then he,167 having betrayed one of the emperors that preceded him, and made war on the other,168 perished with his whole family speedily and utterly. But Gallienus was proclaimed and universally acknowledged at once an old emperor and a new, being before them and continuing after them.
2 For according to the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah, ‘Behold the things from the beginning have come to pass, and new things shall now arise.’169 For as a cloud passing over the sun’s rays and obscuring them for a little time hides it and appears in its place; but when the cloud has passed by or is dissipated, the sun which had risen before appears again; so Macrianus who put himself forward and approached the existing empire of Gallienus, is not, since he never was. But the other is just as he was.
3 And his kingdom, as if it had cast aside old age, and had been purified from the former wickedness, now blossoms out more vigorously, and is seen and heard farther, and extends in all directions.”170 
4 He then indicates the time at which he wrote this in the following words:
“It occurs to me again to review the days of the imperial years. For I perceive that those most impious men, though they have been famous, yet in a short time have become nameless. But the holier and more godly prince,171 having passed the seventh year, is now completing the ninth,172 in which we shall keep the feast.”
Chapter XXIV. Nepos and His Schism.173 
1 Besides all these the two books on the Promises174 were prepared by him. The occasion of these was Nepos, a bishop in Egypt, who taught that the promises to the holy men in the Divine Scriptures should be understood in a more Jewish manner, and that there would be a certain millennium of bodily luxury upon this earth.
2 As he thought that he could establish his private opinion by the Revelation of John, he wrote a book on this subject, entitled Refutation of Allegorists.175 
3 Dionysius opposes this in his books on the Promises. In the first he gives his own opinion of the dogma; and in the second he treats of the Revelation of John, and mentioning Nepos at the beginning, writes of him in this manner:
4 “But since they bring forward a certain work of Nepos, on which they rely confidently, as if it proved beyond dispute that there will be a reign of Christ upon earth, I confess that176 in many other respects I approve and love Nepos, for his faith and industry and diligence in the Scriptures, and for his extensive psalmody,177 with which many of the brethren are still delighted; and I hold him in the more reverence because he has gone to rest before us. But the truth should be loved and honored most of all. And while we should praise and approve ungrudgingly what is said aright, we ought to examine and correct what does not seem to have been written soundly.
5 Were he present to state his opinion orally, mere unwritten discussion, persuading and reconciling those who are opposed by question and answer, would be sufficient. But as some think his work very plausible, and as certain teachers regard the law and prophets as of no consequence, and do not follow the Gospels, and treat lightly the apostolic epistles, while they make promises178 as to the teaching of this work as if it were some great hidden mystery, and do not permit our simpler brethren to have any sublime and lofty thoughts concerning the glorious and truly divine appearing of our Lord, and our resurrection from the dead, and our being gathered together unto him, and made like him, but on the contrary lead them to hope for small and mortal things in the kingdom of God, and for things such as exist now,— since this is the case, it is necessary that we should dispute with our brother Nepos as if he were present.” Farther on he says:
6 “When I was in the district of Arsinoë,179 where, as you know, this doctrine has prevailed for a long time, so that schisms and apostasies of entire churches have resulted, I called together the presbyters and teachers of the brethren in the villages,—such brethren as wished being also present,—and I exhorted them to make a public examination of this question.
7 Accordingly when they brought me this book, as if it were a weapon and fortress impregnable, sitting with them from morning till evening for three successive days, I endeavored to correct what was written in it.
8 And I rejoiced over the constancy, sincerity, docility, and intelligence of the brethren, as we considered in order and with moderation the questions and the difficulties and the points of agreement. And we abstained from defending in every manner and contentiously the opinions which we had once held, unless they appeared to be correct. Nor did we evade objections, but we endeavored as far as possible to hold to and confirm the things which lay before us, and if the reason given satisfied us, we were not ashamed to change our opinions and agree with others; but on the contrary, conscientiously and sincerely, and with hearts laid open before God, we accepted whatever was established by the proofs and teachings of the Holy Scriptures.
9 And finally the author and mover of this teaching, who was called Coracion,180 in the hearing of all the brethren that were present, acknowledged and testified to us that he would no longer hold this opinion, nor discuss it, nor mention nor teach it, as he was fully convinced by the arguments against it. And some of the other brethren expressed their gratification at the conference, and at the spirit of conciliation and harmony which all had manifested.”
Chapter XXV. The Apocalypse of John.181 
1 Afterward he speaks in this manner of the Apocalypse of John.
“Some before us have set aside and rejected the book altogether, criticising it chapter by chapter, and pronouncing it without sense or argument, and maintaining that the title is fraudulent.
2 For they say that it is not the work of John, nor is it a revelation, because it is covered thickly and densely by a vail of obscurity. And they affirm that none of the apostles, rend none of the saints, nor any one in the Church is its author, but that Cerinthus, who founded the sect which was called after him the Cerinthian, desiring reputable authority for his fiction, prefixed the name.
3 For the doctrine which he taught was this: that the kingdom of Christ will be an earthly one. And as he was himself devoted to the pleasures of the body and altogether sensual in his nature, he dreamed that that kingdom would consist in those things which he desired, namely, in the delights of the belly and of sexual passion; that is to say, in eating and drinking and marrying, and in festivals and sacrifices and the slaying of victims, under the guise of which he thought he could indulge his appetites with a better grace.182 
4 “But I could not venture to reject the book, as many brethren hold it in high esteem. But I suppose that it is beyond my comprehension, and that there is a certain concealed and more wonderful meaning in every part. For if I do not understand I suspect that a deeper sense lies beneath the words
5 I do not measure and judge them by my own reason, but leaving the more to faith I regard them as too high for me to grasp. And I do not reject what I cannot comprehend, but rather wonder because I do not understand it.”
6 After this he examines the entire Book of Revelation, and having proved that it is impossible to understand it according to the literal sense, proceeds as follows:
“Having finished all the prophecy, so to speak, the prophet pronounces those blessed who shall observe it, and also himself. For he says, ‘Blessed is he that keepeth the words of the prophecy of this book, and I, John, who saw and heard these things.’183 
7 Therefore that he was called John, and that this book is the work of one John, I do not deny. And I agree also that it is the work of a holy and inspired man. But I cannot readily admit that he was the apostle, the son of Zebedee, the brother of James, by whom the Gospel of John and the Catholic Epistle184 were written.
8 For I judge from the character of both, and the forms of expression, and the entire execution of the book,185 that it is not his. For the evangelist nowhere gives his name, or proclaims himself, either in the Gospel or Epistle.”
9 Farther on he adds:
“But John never speaks as if referring to himself, or as if referring to another person.186 But the author of the Apocalypse introduces himself at the very beginning: ‘The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which he gave him to show unto his servants quickly; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John, who bare witness of the word of God and of his testimony, even of all things that he saw.’187 
10 Then he writes also an epistle: ‘John to the seven churches which are in Asia, grace be with you, and peace.’188 But the evangelist did not prefix his name even to the Catholic Epistle; but without introduction he begins with the mystery of the divine revelation itself: ‘That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes.’189 For because of such a revelation the Lord also blessed Peter, saying, ‘Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my heavenly Father.’190 
11 But neither in the reputed second or third epistle of John, though they are very short, does the name John appear; but there is written the anonymous phrase, ‘the elder.’191 But this author did not consider it sufficient to give his name once and to proceed with his work; but he takes it up again: ‘I, John, who also am your brother and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and in the patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus.’192 And toward the close he speaks thus: ‘Blessed is he that keepeth the words of the prophecy of this book, and I, John, who saw and heard these things.’193 
12 “But that he who wrote these things was called John must be believed, as he says it; but who he was does not appear. For he did not say, as often in the Gospel, that he was the beloved disciple of the Lord,194 or the one who lay on his breast,195 or the brother of James, or the eyewitness and hearer of the Lord.
13 For he would have spoken of these things if he had wished to show himself plainly. But he says none of them; but speaks of himself as our brother and companion, and a witness of Jesus, and blessed because he had seen and heard the revelations.
14 But I am of the opinion that there were many with the same name as the apostle John, who, on account of their love for him, and because they admired and emulated him, and desired to be loved by the Lord as he was, took to themselves the same surname, as many of the children of the faithful are called Paul or Peter.
15 For example, there is also another John, surnamed Mark, mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles,196 whom Barnabas and Paul took with them; of whom also it is said, ‘And they had also John as their attendant.’197 But that it is he who wrote this, I would not say. For it not written that he went with them into Asia, but, ‘Now when Paul and his company set sail from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia and John departing from them returned to Jerusalem.’198 
16 But I think that he was some other one of those in Asia; as they say that there are two monuments in Ephesus, each bearing the name of John.199 
17 “And from the ideas, and from the words and their arrangement, it may be reasonably conjectured that this one is different from that one.200 
18 For the Gospel and Epistle agree with each other and begin in the same manner. The one says, ‘In the beginning was the Word’;201 the other, ‘That which was from the beginning.’202 The one: ‘And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father’;203 the other says the same things slightly altered: ‘Which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes; which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the Word of life,—and the life was manifested.’204 
19 For he introduces these things at the beginning, maintaining them, as is evident from what follows, in opposition to those who said that the Lord had not come in the flesh. Wherefore also he carefully adds, ‘And we have seen and bear witness, and declare unto you the eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us. That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also.’205 
20 He holds to this and does not digress from his subject, but discusses everything under the same heads and names 21 some of which we will briefly mention. Any one who examines carefully will find the phrases, ‘the life,’ ‘the light,’ ‘turning from darkness,’ frequently occurring in both; also continually, ‘truth,’ ‘grace,’ ‘joy,’ ‘the flesh and blood of the Lord,’ ‘the judgment,’ ‘the forgiveness of sins,’ ‘the love of God toward us,’ the ‘commandment that we love one another,’ that we should ‘keep all the commandments’; the ‘conviction of the world, of the Devil, of Anti-Christ,’ the ‘promise of the Holy Spirit,’ the ‘adoption of God,’ the ‘faith continually required of us,‘ ‘the Father and the Son,’ occur everywhere. In fact, it is plainly to be seen that one and the same character marks the Gospel and the Epistle throughout.
22 But the Apocalypse is different from these writings and foreign to them; not touching, nor in the least bordering upon them; almost, so to speak, without even a syllable in common with them.
23 Nay more, the Epistle—for I pass by the Gospel — does not mention nor does it contain any intimation of the Apocalypse, nor does the Apocalypse of the Epistle. But Paul, in his epistles, gives some indication of his revelations,206 though he has not written them out by themselves.
24 “Moreover, it can also be shown that the, diction of the Gospel and Epistle differs from that of the Apocalypse.
25 For they were written not only without error as regards the Greek language, but also with elegance in their expression, in their reasonings, and in their entire structure. They are far indeed from betraying any barbarism or solecism, or any vulgarism whatever. For the writer had, as it seems, both the requisites of discourse,—that is, the gift of knowledge and the gift of expression,—as the Lord had bestowed them both upon him.
26 I do not deny that the other writer saw a revelation and received knowledge and prophecy. I perceive, however, that his dialect and language are not accurate Greek, but that he uses barbarous idioms, and, in some places, solecisms.
27 It is unnecessary to point these out here, for I would not have any one think that I have said these things in a spirit of ridicule, for I have said what I have only with the purpose of showing dearly the difference between the writings.”
Chapter XXVI. The Epistles of Dionysius.
1 Besides these, many other epistles of Dionysius are extant, as those against Sabellius,207 addressed to Ammon,208 bishop of the church of Bernice, and one to Telesphorus,209 and one to Euphranor, and again another to Ammon and Euporus. He wrote also four other books on the same subject, which he addressed to his namesake Dionysius, in Rome.210 
2 Besides these many of his epistles are with us, and large books written in epistolary form, as those on Nature,211 addressed to the young man Timothy, and one on Temptations,212 which he also dedicated to Euphranor.
3 Moreover, in a letter to Basilides,213 bishop of the parishes in Pentapolis, he says that he had written an exposition of the beginning of Ecclesiastes.214 And he has left us also various letters addressed to this same person. Thus much Dionysius.
But our account of these matters being now completed, permit us to show to posterity the character of our own age.215 
Chapter XXVII. Paul of Samosata, and the Heresy Introduced by Hint at Antioch.
1 After Xystus had presided over the church of Rome for eleven years,216 Dionysius,217 namesake of him of Alexandria, succeeded him. About the same time Demetrianus218 died in Antioch, and Paul of Samosata219 received that episcopate.
2 As he held, contrary to the teaching of the Church, low and degraded views of Christ, namely, that in his nature he was a common man, Dionysius of Alexandria was entreated to come to the synod.220 But being unable to come on account of age and physical weakness, he gave his opinion on the subject under consideration by letter.221 But all the other pastors of the churches from all directions, made haste to assemble at Antioch, as against a despoiler of the flock of Christ.
Chapter XXVIII. The Illustrious Bishops of that Time.
1 Of these, the most eminent were Firmilianus,222 bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia; the brothers Gregory223 and Athenodorus, pastors of the churches in Pontus; Helenus224 of the parish of Tarsus, and Nicomas225 of Iconium moreover, Hymenaeus,226 of the church of Jerusalem, and Theotecnus227 of the neighboring church of Caesarea; and besides these Maximus,228 who presided in a distinguished manner over the brethren in Bostra. If any should count them up he could not fail to note a great many others, besides presbyters and deacons, who were at that time assembled for the same cause in the above-mentioned city.229 But these were the most illustrious.
2 When all of these assembled at different times and frequently to consider these matters, the arguments and questions were discussed at every meeting; the adherents of the Samosatian endeavoring to cover and conceal his heterodoxy, and the others striving zealously to lay bare and make manifest his heresy and blasphemy against Christ.
3 Meanwhile, Dionysius died in the twelfth year of the reign of Gallienus,230 having held the episcopate of Alexandria for seventeen years, and Maximus231 succeeded him.
4 Gallienus after a reign of fifteen years232 was succeeded by Claudius,233 who in two years delivered the government to Aurelian.
Chapter XXIX. Paul, Having Been Refuted by Malchion, a Presbyter from the Sophists, Was Excommunicated.
1 During his reign a final synod234 composed of a great many bishops was held, and the leader of heresy235 in Antioch was detected, and his false doctrine clearly shown before all, and he was excommunicated from the Catholic Church under heaven.236 
2 Malchion especially drew him out of his hiding-place and refuted him. He was a man learned in other respects, and principal of the sophist school of Grecian learning in Antioch; yet on account of the superior nobility of his faith in Christ he had been made a presbyter of that parish. This man, having conducted a discussion with him, which was taken down by stenographers and which we know is still extant, was alone able to detect the man who dissembled and deceived the others.
Chapter XXX. The Epistle of the Bishops Against Paul.
1 The pastors who had assembled about this matter, prepared by common consent an epistle addressed to Dionysius,237 bishop of Rome, and Maximus238 of Alexandria, and sent it to all the provinces. In this they make manifest to all their own zeal and the perverse error of Paul, and the arguments and discussions which they had with him, and show the entire life and conduct of the man. It may be well to put on record at the present time the following extracts from their writing:
2 “To Dionysius and Maximus, and to all our fellow-ministers throughout the world, bishops, presbyters, and deacons, and to the whole Catholic Church under heaven,239 Helenus,240 Hymenaeus, Theophilus, Theotecnus, Maximus, Proclus, Nicomas, Aelianus, Paul, Bolanus, Protogenes, Hierax, Eutychius, Theodorus,241 Malchion, and Lucius, and all the others who dwell with us in the neighboring cities and nations, bishops, presbyters, and deacons, and the churches of God, greeting to the beloved brethren in the Lord.”
3 A little farther on they proceed thus: “We sent for and called many of the bishops from a distance to relieve us from this deadly doctrine; as Dionysius of Alexandria242 and Firmilianus243 of Cappadocia, those blessed men. The first of these not considering the author of this delusion worthy to be addressed, sent a letter to Antioch,244 not written to him, but to the entire parish, of which we give a copy below.
4 But Firmilianus came twice245 and condemned his innovations, as we who were present know and testify, and many others understand. But as he promised to change his opinions, he believed him and hoped that without any reproach to the Word what was necessary would be done. So he delayed the matter, being deceived by him who denied even his own God and Lord,246 and had not kept the faith which he formerly held.
5 And now Firmilianus was again on his way to Antioch, and had come as far as Tarsus because he had learned by experience his God-denying wickedness. But while we, having come together, were calling for him and awaiting his arrival, he died.”247 
6 After other things they describe as follows the manner of life which he248 led:
7 “Whereas he has departed from the rule of faith,249 and has turned aside after base and spurious teachings, it is not necessary,—since he is without,—that we should pass judgment upon his practices: as for instance in that although formerly destitute and poor, and having received no wealth from his fathers, nor made anything by trade or business, he now possesses abundant wealth through his iniquities and sacrilegious acts, and through those things which he extorts from the brethren,250 depriving the injured of their rights and promising to assist them for reward, yet deceiving them, and plundering those who in their trouble are ready to give that they may obtain reconciliation with their oppressors,
8 ‘supposing that gain is godliness’;251 —or in that he is haughty, and is puffed up, and assumes worldly dignities, preferring to be called ducenarius252 rather than bishop; and struts in the market-places, reading letters and reciting them as he walks in public, attended by a body-guard, with a multitude preceding and following him, so that the faith is envied and hated on account of his pride and haughtiness of heart;
9 —or in that he practices chicanery in ecclesiastical assemblies, contrives to glorify himself, and deceive with appearances, and astonish the minds of the simple, preparing for himself a tribunal and lofty throne,253 —not like a disciple of Christ,—and possessing a ‘secretum,’254 —like the rulers of the world,—and so calling it, and striking his thigh with his hand, and stamping on the tribunal with his feet;—or in that he rebukes and insults those who do not applaud, and shake their handkerchiefs as in the theaters, and shout and leap about like the men and women that are stationed around him, and hear him in this unbecoming manner, but who listen reverently and orderly as in the house of God;—or in that he violently and coarsely assails in public the expounders of the Word that have departed this life, and magnifies himself, not as a bishop, but as a sophist and juggler,
10 and stops the psalms to our Lord Jesus Christ, as being the modern productions of modern men, and trains women to sing psalms to himself in the midst of the church on the great day of the passover, which any one might shudder to hear, and persuades the bishops and presbyters of the neighboring districts and cities who fawn upon him, to advance the same ideas in their discourses to the people.
11 For to anticipate something of what we shall presently write, he is unwilling to acknowledge that the Son of God has come down from heaven. And this is not a mere assertion, but it is abundantly proved from the records which we have sent you; and not least where he says ‘Jesus Christ is from below.’255 But those singing to him and extolling him among the people say that their impious teacher has come down an angel from heaven.256 And he does not forbid such things; but the arrogant man is even present when they are uttered.
12 And there are the women, the ‘subintroductae,’257 as the people of Antioch call them, belonging to him and to the presbyters and deacons that are with him. Although he knows and has convicted these men, yet he connives at this and their other incurable sins, in order that they may be bound to him, and through fear for themselves may not dare to accuse him for his wicked words and deeds.258 But he has also made them rich; on which account he is loved and admired by those who covet such things.
13 We know, beloved, that the bishop and all the clergy should be an example to the people of all good works. And we are not ignorant how many have fallen or incurred suspicion, through the women whom they have thus brought in. So that even if we should allow that he commits no sinful act, yet he ought to avoid the suspicion which arises from such a thing, lest he scandalize some one, or lead others to imitate him.
14 For how can he reprove or admonish another not to be too familiar with women,—lest he fall, as it is written,259 —when he has himself sent one away already, and now has two with him, blooming and beautiful, and takes them with him wherever he goes, and at the same time lives in luxury and surfeiting?
15 Because of these things all mourn and lament by themselves; but they so fear his tyranny and power, that they dare not accuse him.
16 But as we have said, while one might call the man to account for this conduct, if he held the Catholic doctrine and was numbered with us,260 since he has scorned the mystery and struts about in the abominable heresy of Artemas261 (for why should we not mention his father?), we think it unnecessary to demand of him an explanation of these things.”
17 Afterwards, at the close of the epistle, they add these words:
“Therefore we have been compelled to excommunicate him, since he sets himself against God, and refuses to obey; and to appoint in his place another bishop for the Catholic Church. By divine direction, as we believe, we have appointed Domnus,262 who is adorned with all the qualities becoming in a bishop, and who is a son of the blessed Demetrianus,263 who formerly presided in a distinguished manner over the same parish. We have informed you of this that you may write to him, and may receive letters of communion264 from him. But let this man write to Artemas; and let those who think as Artemas does, communicate with him.”265 
18 As Paul had fallen from the episcopate, as well as from the orthodox faith, Domnus, as has been said, became bishop of the church at Antioch.
19 But as Paul refused to surrender the church building, the Emperor Aurelian was petitioned; and he decided the matter most equitably, ordering the building to be given to those to whom the bishops of Italy and of the city of Rome should adjudge it.266 Thus this man was driven out of the church, with extreme disgrace, by the worldly power.
20 Such was Aurelian’s treatment of us at that time; but in the course of his reign he changed his mind in regard to us, and was moved by certain advisers to institute a persecution against us.267 And there was great talk about this on every side.
21 But as he was about to do it, and was, so to speak, in the very act of signing the decrees against us, the divine judgment came upon him and restrained him at the very verge268 of his undertaking, showing in a manner that all could see clearly, that the rulers of this world can never find an opportunity against the churches of Christ, except the hand, that defends them permits it, in divine and heavenly judgment, for the sake of discipline and correction, at such times as it sees best.
22 After a reign of six years,269 Aurelian was succeeded by Probus. He reigned for the same number of years, and Carus, with his sons, Carinus and Numerianus, succeeded him. After they had reigned less than three years the government devolved on Diocletian, and those associated with him.270 Under them took place the persecution of our time, and the destruction of the churches connected with it.
23 Shortly before this, Dionysius,271 bishop of Rome, after holding office for nine years, died, and was succeeded by Felix.272 
Chapter XXXI. The Perversive Heresy of the Manicheans Which Began at This Time.
1 At this time, the madman,273 named from his demoniacal heresy, armed himself in the perversion of his reason, as the devil, Satan, who himself fights against God, put him forward to the destruction of many. He was a barbarian in life, both in word and deed; and in his nature demoniacal and insane. In consequence of this he sought to pose as Christ, and being puffed up in his madness, he proclaimed himself the Paraclete and the very Holy Spirit;274 and afterwards, like Christ, he chose twelve disciples as partners of his new doctrine.
2 And he patched together false and godless doctrines collected from a multitude of long-extinct impieties, and swept them, like a deadly poison, from Persia to our part of the world. From him the impious name of the Manicheans is still prevalent among many. Such was the foundation of this “knowledge falsely so-called,”275 which sprang up in those times.
Chapter XXXII. The Distinguished Ecclesiastics276 Of Our Day, and Which of Them Survived Until the Destruction of the Churches.
1 At this time, Felix,277 having presided over the church of Rome for five years, was succeeded by Eutychianus,278 but he in less than ten months left the position to Caius,279 who lived in our day. He held it about fifteen years, and was in turn succeeded by Marcellinus,280 who was overtaken by the persecution.
2 About the same time Timaeus281 received the episcopate of Antioch after Domnus,282 and Cyril,283 who lived in our day, succeeded him. In his time we became acquainted with Dorotheus,284 a man of learning among those of his day, who was honored with the office of presbyter in Antioch. He was a lover of the beautiful in divine things, and devoted himself to the Hebrew language, so that he read the Hebrew Scriptures with facility.285 
3 He belonged to those who were especially liberal, and was not unacquainted with Grecian propaedeutics.286 Besides this he was a eunuch,287 having been so from his very birth. On this account, as if it were a miracle, the emperor288 took him into his family, and honored him by placing him over the purple dye-works at Tyre. We have heard him expound the Scriptures wisely in the Church.
4 After Cyril, Tyrannus289 received the episcopate of the parish of Antioch. In his time occurred the destruction of the churches.
5 Eusebius,290 who had come from the city of Alexandria, ruled the parishes of Laodicea after Socrates.291 The occasion of his removal thither was the affair of Paul. He went on this account to Syria, and was restrained from returning home by those there who were zealous in divine things. Among our contemporaries he was a beautiful example of religion, as is readily seen from the words of Dionysius which we have quoted.292 Anatolius293 was appointed his successor; one good man, as they say, following another. He also was an Alexandrian by birth. In learning and skill in Greek philosophy, such as arithmetic and geometry, astronomy, and dialectics in general, as well as in the theory of physics, he stood first among the ablest men of our time, and he was also at the head in rhetorical science. It is reported that for this reason he was requested by the citizens of Alexandria to establish there a school of Aristotelian philosophy.294 
7 They relate of him many other eminent deeds during the siege of the Pyrucheium295 in Alexandria, on account of which he was especially honored by all those in high office; but I will give the following only as an example.
8 They say that bread had failed the besieged, so that it was more difficult to withstand the famine than the enemy outside; but he being present provided for them in this manner. As the other part of the city was allied with the Roman army, and therefore was not under siege, Anatolius sent for Eusebius,—for he was still there before his transfer to Syria, and was among those who were not besieged, and possessed, moreover, a great reputation and a renowned name which had reached even the Roman general,—and he informed him of those who were perishing in the siege from famine.
9 When he learned this he requested the Roman commander as the greatest possible favor, to grant safety to deserters from the enemy. Having obtained his request, he communicated it to Anatolius. As soon as he received the message he convened the senate of Alexandria, and at first proposed that all should come to a reconciliation with the Romans. But when he perceived that they were angered by this advice, he said, “But I do not think you will oppose me, if I counsel you to send the supernumeraries and those who are in nowise useful to us, as old women and children and old men, outside the gates, to go wherever they may please. For why should we retain for no purpose these who must at any rate soon die? and why should we destroy with hunger those who are crippled and maimed in body, when we ought to provide only for men and youth, and to distribute the necessary bread among those who are needed for the garrison of the city?”
10 With such arguments he persuaded the assembly, and rising first he gave his vote that the entire multitude, whether of men or women, who were not needful for the army, should depart from the city, because if they remained and unnecessarily continued in the city, there would be for them no hope of safety, but they would perish with famine.
11 As all the others in the senate agreed to this, he saved almost all the besieged. He provided that first, those belonging to the church, and afterwards, of the others in the city, those of every age should escape, not only the classes included in the decree, but, under cover of these, a multitude of others, secretly clothed in women’s garments; and through his management they went out of the gates by night and escaped to the Roman camp. There Eusebius, like a father and physician, received all of them, wasted away through the long siege, and restored them by every kind of prudence and care.
12 The church of Laodicea was honored by two such pastors in succession, who, in the providence of God, came after the aforesaid war from Alexandria to that city.
13 Anatolius did not write very many works; but in such as have come down to us we can discern his eloquence and erudition. In these he states particularly his opinions on the passover. It seems important to give here the following extracts from them.296 
14 From the Paschal Canons of Anatolius. “There is then in the first year the new moon of the first month, which is the beginning of every cycle of nineteen years,297 on the twenty-sixth day of the Egyptian Phamenoth;298 but according to the months of the Macedonians, the twenty-second day of Dystrus,299 or, as the Romans would say, the eleventh before the Kalends of April.
15 On the said twenty-sixth of Phamenoth, the sun is found not only entered on the first segment,300 but already passing through the fourth day in it. They are accustomed to call this segment the first dodecatomorion,301 and the equinox, and the beginning of months, and the head of the cycle, and the starting-point of the planetary circuit. But they call the one preceding this the last of months, and the twelfth segment, and the final dodecatomorion, and the end of the planetary circuit. Wherefore we maintain that those who place the first month in it, and determine by it the fourteenth of the passover, commit no slight or common blunder.
16 And this is not an opinion of our own; but it was known to the Jews of old, even before Christ, and was carefully observed by them. This may be learned from what is said by Philo, Josephus, and Musaeus;302 and not only by them, but also by those yet more ancient, the two Agathobuli,303 surnamed ‘Masters,‘ and the famous Aristobulus,304 who was chosen among the seventy interpreters of the sacred and divine Hebrew Scriptures305 by Ptolemy Philadelphus and his father, and who also dedicated his exegetical books on the law of Moses to the same kings.
17 These writers, explaining questions in regard to the Exodus, say that all alike should sacrifice the passover offerings after the vernal equinox, in the middle of the first month. But this occurs while the sun is passing through the first segment of the solar, or as some of them have styled it, the zodiacal circle. Aristobulus adds that it is necessary for the feast of the passover, that not only the sun should pass through the equinoctial segment, but the moon also.
18 For as there are two equinoctial segments, the vernal and the autumnal, directly opposite each other, and as the day of the passover was appointed on the fourteenth of the month, beginning with the evening, the moon will hold a position diametrically opposite the sun, as may be seen in full moons; and the sun will be in the segment of the vernal equinox, and of necessity the moon in that of the autumnal.
19 I know that many other things have been said by them, some of them probable, and some approaching absolute demonstration, by which they endeavor to prove that it is altogether necessary to keep the passover and the feast of unleavened bread after the equinox. But I refrain from demanding this sort of demonstration for matters from which the veil of the Mosaic law has been removed, so that now at length with uncovered face we continually behold as in a glass Christ and the teachings and sufferings of Christ.306 But that with the Hebrews the first month was near the equinox, the teachings also of the Book of Enoch show.’307 
20 The same writer has also left the Institutes of Arithmetic, in ten books,308 and other evidences of his experience and proficiency in divine things.
21 Theotecnus,309 bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, first ordained him as bishop, designing to make him his successor in his own parish after his death. And for a short time both of them presided over the same church.310 But the synod which was held to consider Paul’s case311 called him to Antioch, and as he passed through the city of Laodicea, Eusebius being dead, he was detained by the brethren there.
22 And after Anatolius had departed this life, the last bishop of that parish before the persecution was Stephen,312 who was admired by many for his knowledge of philosophy and other Greek learning. But he was not equally devoted to the divine faith, as the progress of the persecution manifested; for it showed that he was a cowardly and unmanly dissembler rather than a true philosopher.
23 But this did not seriously injure the church, for Theodotus313 restored their affairs, being straightway made bishop of that parish by God himself, the Saviour of all. He justified by his deeds both his lordly name314 and his office of bishop. For he excelled in the medical art for bodies, and in the healing art for souls. Nor did any other man equal him in kindness, sincerity, sympathy, and zeal in helping such as needed his aid. He was also greatly devoted to divine learning. Such an one was he.
24 In Caesarea in Palestine, Agapius315 succeeded Theotecnus, who had most zealously performed the duties of his episcopate. Him too we know to have labored diligently, and to have manifested most genuine providence in his oversight of the people, particularly caring for all the poor with liberal hand.
25 In his time we became acquainted with Pamphilus,316 that most eloquent man, of truly philosophical life, who was esteemed worthy of the office of presbyter in that parish. It would be no small matter to show what sort of a man he was and whence he came. But we have described, in our special work concerning him,317 all the particulars of his life, and of the school which he established, and the trials which he endured in many confessions during the persecution, and the crown of martyrdom with which he was finally honored. But of all that were there he was indeed the most admirable.
26 Among those nearest our times, we have known Pierius,318 of the presbyters in Alexandria, and Meletius,319 bishop of the churches in Pontus, — rarest of men.
27 The first was distinguished for his life of extreme poverty and his philosophic learning, and was exceedingly diligent in the contemplation and exposition of divine things, and in public discourses in the church. Meletius, whom the learned called the “honey of Attica,”320 was a man whom every one would describe as most accomplished in all kinds of learning; and it would be impossible to admire sufficiently his rhetorical skill. It might be said that he possessed this by nature; but who could surpass the excellence of his great experience and erudition in other respects?
28 For in all branches of knowledge had you undertaken to try him even once, you would have said that he was the most skillful and learned. Moreover, the virtues of his life were not less remarkable. We observed him well in the time of the persecution, when for seven full years he was escaping from its fury in the regions of Palestine.
29 Zambdas321 received the episcopate of the church of Jerusalem after the bishop Hymenaeus, whom we mentioned a little above.322 He died in a short time, and Hermon,323 the last before the persecution in our day, succeeded to the apostolic chair, which has been preserved there until the present time.324 
30 In Alexandria, Maximus,325 who, after the death of Dionysius,326 had been bishop for eighteen years, was succeeded by Theonas.327 In his time Achillas,328 who had been appointed a presbyter in Alexandria at the same time with Pierius, became celebrated. He was placed over the school of the sacred faith,329 and exhibited fruits of philosophy most rare and inferior to none, and conduct genuinely evangelical.
31 After Theonas had held the office for nineteen years, Peter330 received the episcopate in Alexandria, and was very eminent among them for twelve entire years. Of these he governed the church less than three years before the persecution, and for the remainder of his life he subjected himself to a more rigid discipline and cared in no secret manner for the general interest of the churches. On this account he was beheaded in the ninth year of the persecution, and was adorned with the crown of martyrdom.
32 Having written out these books the account of the successions from the birth of our Saviour to the destruction of the places of worship, — a period of three hundred and five years,331 — permit me to pass on to the contests of those who, in our day, have heroically fought for religion, and to leave in writing, for the information of posterity, the extent and the magnitude of those conflicts. 
Book VIII.
Introduction.
As we have described in seven books the events from the time of the apostles,1 we think it proper in this eighth book to record for the information of posterity a few of the most important occurrences of our own times, which are worthy of permanent record. Our account will begin at this point.
Chapter I. The Events Which Preceded the Persecution in Our Times.
1 It is beyond our ability to describe in a suitable manner the extent and nature of the glory and freedom with which the word of piety toward the God of the universe, proclaimed to the world through Christ, was honored among all men, both Greeks and barbarians, before the persecution in our day.
2 The favor shown our people by the rulers might be adduced as evidence; as they committed to them the government of provinces,2 and on account of the great friendship which they entertained toward their doctrine, released them from anxiety in regard to sacrificing.
3 Why need I speak of those in the royal palaces, and of the rulers over all, who allowed the members of their households, wives3 and children and servants, to speak openly before them for the Divine word and life, and suffered them almost to boast of the freedom of their faith?
4 Indeed they esteemed them highly, and preferred them to their fellow-servants. Such an one was that Dorotheus,4 the most devoted and faithful to them of all, and on this account especially honored by them among those who held the most honorable offices and governments. With him was the celebrated Gorgonius,5 and as many as had been esteemed worthy of the same distinction on account of the word of God.
5 And one could see the rulers in every church accorded the greatest favor6 by all officers and governors.But how can any one describe those vast assemblies, and the multitude that crowded together in every city, and the famous gatherings in the houses of prayer; on whose account not being satisfied with the ancient buildings they erected from the foundation large churches in all the cities?
6 No envy hindered the progress of these affairs which advanced gradually, and grew and increased day by day. Nor could any evil demon slander them or hinder them through human counsels, so long as the divine and heavenly hand watched over and guarded his own people as worthy.
7 But when on account of the abundant freedom, we fell into laxity and sloth, and envied and reviled each other, and were almost, as it were, taking up arms against one another, rulers assailing rulers with words like spears, and people forming parties against people, and monstrous hypocrisy and dissimulation rising to the greatest height of wickedness, the divine judgment with forbearance, as is its pleasure, while the multitudes yet continued to assemble, gently and moderately harassed the episcopacy.
8 This persecution began with the brethren in the army. But as if without sensibility, we were not eager to make the Deity favorable and propitious; and some, like atheists, thought that our affairs were unheeded and ungoverned; and thus we added one wickedness to another. And those esteemed our shepherds, casting aside the bond of piety, were excited to conflicts with one another, and did nothing else than heap up strifes and threats and jealousy and enmity and hatred toward each other, like tyrants eagerly endeavoring to assert their power. Then, truly, according to the word of Jeremiah, “The Lord in his wrath darkened the daughter of Zion, and cast down the glory of Israel from heaven to earth, and remembered not his foot-stool in the day of his anger. The Lord also overwhelmed all the beautiful things of Israel, and threw down all his strongholds.”7 
9 And according to what was foretold in the Psalms: “He has made void the covenant of his servant, and profaned his sanctuary to the earth, — in the destruction of the churches, — and has thrown down all his strongholds, and has made his fortresses cowardice. All that pass by have plundered the multitude of the people; and he has become besides a reproach to his neighbors. For he has exalted the right hand of his enemies, and has turned back the help of his sword, and has not taken his part in the war. But he has deprived him of purification, and has cast his throne to the ground. He has shortened the days of his time, and besides all, has poured out shame upon him.”8 
Chapter II. The Destruction of the Churches.
1 All these things were fulfilled in us, when we saw with our own eyes the houses of prayer thrown down to the very foundations, and the Divine and Sacred Scriptures committed to the flames in the midst of the market-places, and the shepherds of the churches basely hidden here and there, and some of them captured ignominiously, and mocked by their enemies. When also, according to another prophetic word, “Contempt was poured out upon rulers, and he caused them to wander in an untrodden and pathless way.”9 
2 But it is not our place to describe the sad misfortunes which finally came upon them, as we do not think it proper, moreover, to record their divisions and unnatural conduct to each other before the persecution. Wherefore we have decided to relate nothing concerning them except the things in which we can vindicate the Divine judgment.
3 Hence we shall not mention those who were shaken by the persecution, nor those who in everything pertaining to salvation were shipwrecked, and by their own will were sunk in the depths of the flood. But we shall introduce into this history in general only those events which may be usefull first to ourselves and afterwards to posterity.10 Let us therefore proceed to describe briefly the sacred conflicts of the witnesses of the Divine Word.
4 It was in the nineteenth year of the reign of Diocletian,11 in the month Dystrus,12 called March by the Romans, when the feast of the Saviour’s passion was near at hand,13 that royal edicts were published everywhere, commanding that the churches be leveled to the ground and the Scriptures be destroyed by fire, and ordering that those who held places of honor be degraded, and that the household servants, if they persisted in the profession of Christianity, be deprived of freedom.14 
5 Such was the first edict against us. But not long after, other decrees were issued, commanding that all the rulers of the churches in every place be first thrown into prison,15 and afterwards by every artifice be compelled to sacrifices.16 
Chapter III. The Nature of the Conflicts Endured in the Persecution.
1 Then truly a great many rulers of the churches eagerly endured terrible sufferings, and furnished examples of noble conflicts. But a multitude of others,17 benumbed in spirit by fear, were easily weakened at the first onset. Of the rest each one endured different forms of torture.18 The body of one was scourged with rods. Another was punished with insupportable rackings and scrapings, in which some suffered a miserable death.
2 Others passed through different conflicts. Thus one, while those around pressed him on by force and dragged him to the abominable and impure sacrifices, was dismissed as if he had sacrificed, though he had not.19 Another, though he had not approached at all, nor touched any polluted thing, when others said that he had sacrificed, went away, bearing the accusation in silence.
3 Another being taken up half dead, was cast aside as if already dead, and again a certain one lying upon the ground was dragged a long distance by his feet and counted among those who had sacrificed. One cried out and with a loud voice testified his rejection of the sacrifice; another shouted that he was a Christian, being resplendent in the confession of the saving Name. Another protested that he had not sacrificed and never would.
4 But they were struck in the mouth and silenced by a large band of soldiers who were drawn up for this purpose; and they were smitten on the face and cheeks and driven away by force; so important did the enemies of piety regard it, by any means, to seem to have accomplished their purpose. But these things did no avail them against the holy martyrs; for an accurate description of whom, what word of ours could suffice?
Chapter IV. The Famous Martyrs of God, Who Filled Every Place with Their Memory and Won Various Crowns in Behalf of Religion.
1 For we might tell of many who showed admirable zeal for the religion of the God of the universe, not only from the beginning of the general persecution, but long before that time, while yet peace prevailed.
2 For though he who had received power was seemingly aroused now as from a deep sleep, yet from the time after Decius and Valerian, he had been plotting secretly and without notice against the churches. He did not wage war against all of us at once, but made trial at first only of those in the army. For he supposed that the others could be taken easily if he should first attack and subdue these. Thereupon many of the soldiers were seen most cheerfully embracing private life, so that they might not deny their piety toward the Creator of the universe. For when the commander,20 whoever he was,21 began to persecute the soldiers, separating into tribes and purging those who were enrolled in the army, giving them the choice either by obeying to receive the honor which belonged to them, or on the other hand to be deprived of it if they disobeyed the command, a great many soldiers of Christ’s kingdom, without hesitation, instantly preferred the confession of him to the seeming glory and prosperity which they were enjoying.
4 And one and another of them occasionally received in exchange, for their pious constancy,22 not only the loss of position, but death. But as yet the instigator of this plot proceeded with moderation, and ventured so far as blood only in some instances; for the multitude of believers, as it is likely, made him afraid, and deterred him from waging war at once against all.
5 But when he made the attack more boldly, it is impossible to relate how many and what sort of martyrs of God could be seen, among the inhabitants of all the cities and countries.23 
Chapter V. Those in Nicomedia.24 
1 Immediately on the publication of the decree against the churches in Nicomedia,25 a certain man, not obscure but very highly honored with distinguished temporal dignities, moved with zeal toward God, and incited with ardent faith, seized the edict as it was posted openly and publicly, and tore it to pieces as a profane and impious thing;26 and this was done while two of the sovereigns were in the same city, — the oldest of all, and the one who held the fourth place in the government after him.27 But this man, first in that place, after distinguishing himself in such a manner suffered those things which were likely to follow such daring, and kept his spirit cheerful and undisturbed till death.
Chapter VI. Those in the Palace.
1 This period produced divine and illustrious martyrs, above all whose praises have ever been sung and who have been celebrated for courage, whether among Greeks or barbarians, in the person of Dorotheus28 and the servants that were with him in the palace. Although they received the highest honors from their masters, and were treated by them as their own children, they esteemed reproaches and trials for religion, and the many forms of death that were invented against them, as, in truth, greater riches than the glory and luxury of this life.
2 We will describe the manner in which one of them ended his life, and leave our readers to infer from his case the sufferings of the others. A certain man was brought forward in the above-mentioned city, before the rulers of whom we have spoken.29 He was then commanded to sacrifice, but as he refused, he was ordered to be stripped and raised on high and beaten with rods over his entire body, until, being conquered, he should, even against his will, do what was commanded.
3 But as he was unmoved by these sufferings, and his bones were already appearing, they mixed vinegar with salt and poured it upon the mangled parts of his body. As he scorned these agonies, a gridiron and fire were brought forward. And the remnants of his body, like flesh intended for eating, were placed on the fire, not at once, lest he should expire instantly, but a little at a time. And those who placed him on the pyre were not permitted to desist until, after such sufferings, he should assent to the things commanded.
4 But he held his purpose firmly, and victoriously gave up hislife while the tortures were still going on. Such was the martyrdom of one of the servants of the palace, who was indeed well worthy of his name, for he was called Peter.30 
5 The martyrdoms of the rest, though they were not inferior to his, we will pass by for the sake of brevity, recording only that Dorotheus and Gorgonius,31 with many others of the royal household, after varied sufferings, ended their lives by strangling, and bore away the trophies of God-given victory.
6 At this time Anthimus,32 who then presided over the church in Nicomedia, was beheaded for his testimony to Christ. A great multitude of martyrs were added to him, a conflagration having broken out in those very days in the palace at Nicomedia, I know not how, which through a false suspicion was laid to our people.33 Entire families of the pious in that place were put to death in masses at the royal command, some by the sword, and others by fire. It is reported that with a certain divine and indescribable eagerness men and women rushed into the fire. And the executioners bound a large number of others and put them on boats34 and threw them into the depths of the sea.
7 And those who had been esteemed their masters considered it necessary to dig up the bodies of the imperial servants, who had been committed to the earth with suitable burial and cast them into the sea, lest any, as they thought, regarding them as gods, might worship them lying in their sepulchers.35 
8 Such things occurred in Nicomedia at the beginning of the persecution.36 But not long after, as persons in the country called Melitene,37 and others throughout Syria,38 attempted to usurp the government, a royal edict directed that the rulers of the churches everywhere39 should be thrown into prison and bonds.
9 What was to be seen after this exceeds all description. A vast multitude were imprisoned in every place; and the prisons everywhere, which had long before been prepared for murderers and robbers of graves, were filled with bishops, presbyters and deacons, readers and exorcists,40 so that room was no longer left in them for those condemned for crimes.
10 And as other decrees followed the first, directing that those in prison if they would sacrifice should be permitted to depart in freedom, but that those who refused should be harassed with many tortures,41 how could any one, again, number the multitude of martyrs in every province,42 and especially of those in Africa, and Mauritania, and Thebais, and Egypt? From this last country many went into other cities and provinces, and became illustrious through martyrdom.
Chapter VII. The Egyptians in Phoenicia.
1 Those of them that were conspicuous in Palestine we know, as also those that were at Tyre in Phoenicia.43 Who that saw them was not astonished at the numberless stripes, and at the firmness which these truly wonderful athletes of religion exhibited under them? and at their contest, immediately after the scourging, with bloodthirsty wild beasts, as they were cast before leopards and different kinds of bears and wild boars and bulls goaded with fire and red-hot iron? and at the marvelous endurance of these noble men in the face of all sorts of wild beasts?
2 We were present ourselves when these things occurred, and have put on record the divine power of our martyred Saviour Jesus Christ, which was present and manifested itself mightily in the martyrs. For a long time the man-devouring beasts did not dare to touch or draw near the bodies of those dear to God, but rushed upon the others who from the outside irritated and urged them on. And they would not in the least touch the holy athletes, as they stood alone and naked and shook their hands at them to draw them toward themselves, — for they were commanded to do this. But whenever they rushed at them, they were restrained as if by some divine power and retreated again.
3 This continued for a long time, and occasioned no little wonder to the spectators. And as the first wild beast did nothing, a second and a third were let loose against one and the same martyr.
4 One could not but be astonished at the invincible firmness of these holy men, and the enduring and immovable constancy of those whose bodies were young. You could have seen a youth not twenty years of age standing unbound and stretching out his hands in the form of a cross, with unterrified and untrembling mind, engaged earnestly in prayer to God, and not in the least going back or retreating from the place where he stood, while bears and leopards, breathing rage and death, almost touched his flesh. And yet their mouths were restrained, I know not how, by a divine and incomprehensible power, and they ran back again to their place. Such an one was he.
5 Again you might have seen others, for they were five in all, cast before a wild bull, who tossed into the air with his horns those who approached from the outside, and mangled them, leaving them to be token up half dead; but when he rushed with rage and threatening upon the holy martyrs, who were standing alone, he was unable to come near them; but though he stamped with his feet, and pushed in all directions with his horns, and breathed rage and threatening on account of the irritation of the burning irons, he was, nevertheless, held back by the sacred Providence. And as he in nowise harmed them, they let loose other wild beasts upon them.
6 Finally, after these terrible and various attacks upon them, they were all slain with the sword; and instead of being buried in the earth they were committed to the waves of the sea.
Chapter VIII. These in Egypt.44 
1 Such was the conflict of those Egyptians who contended nobly for religion in Tyre. But we must admire those also who suffered martyrdom in their native land; where thousands of men, women, and children, despising the present life for the sake of the teaching of our Saviour, endured various deaths. Some of them, after scrapings and rackings and severest scourgings, and numberless other kinds of tortures, terrible even to hear of, were committed to the flames; some were drowned in the sea; some offered their heads bravely to those who cut them off; some died under their tortures, and others perished with hunger. And yet others were crucified; some according to the method commonly employed for malefactors; others yet more cruelly, being nailed to the cross with their heads downward, and being kept alive until they perished on the cross with hunger.
Chapter IX. Those in Thebais.45 
1 It would be impossible to describe the outrages and tortures which the martyrs in Thebais endured. They were scraped over the entire body with shells instead of hooks until they died. Women were bound by one foot and raised aloft in the air by machines, and with their bodies altogether bare and uncovered, presented to all beholders this most shameful, cruel, and inhuman spectacle.
2 Others being bound to the branches and trunks of trees perished. For they drew the stoutest branches together with machines, and bound the limbs of the martyrs to them; and then, allowing the branches to assume their natural position, they tore asunder instantly the limbs of those for whom they contrived this.
3 All these things were done, not for a few days or a short time, but for a long series of years. Sometimes more than ten, at other times above twenty were put to death. Again not less than thirty, then about sixty, and yet again a hundred men with young children and women, were slain in one day, being condemned to various and diverse torments.
4 We, also being on the spot ourselves, have observed large crowds in one day; some suffering decapitation, others torture by fire; so that the murderous sword was blunted, and becoming weak, was broken, and the very executioners grew weary and relieved each other. And we beheld the most wonderful ardor, and the truly divine energy and zeal of those who believed in the Christ of God. For as soon as sentence was pronounced against the first, one after another rushed to the judgment seat, and confessed themselves Christians. And regarding with indifference the terrible things and the multiform tortures, they declared themselves boldly and undauntedly for the religion of the God of the universe. And they received the final sentence of death with joy and laughter and cheerfulness; so that they sang and offered up hymns and thanksgivings to the God of the universe till their very last breath.
6 These indeed were wonderful; but yet more wonderful were those who, being distinguished for wealth, noble birth, and honor, and for learning and philosophy, held everything secondary to the true religion and to faith in our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ.
7 Such an one was Philoromus, who held a high office under the imperial government at Alexandria,46 and who administered justice every day, attended by a military guard corresponding to his rank and Roman dignity. Such also was Phileas,47 bishop of the church of Thmuis, a man eminent on account of his patriotism and the services rendered by him to his country, and also on account of his philosophical learning. These persons, although a multitude of 8 relatives and other friends besought them, and many in high position, and even the judge himself entreated them, that they would have compassion on themselves and show mercy to their children and wives, yet were not in the least induced by these things to choose the love of life, and to despise the ordinances of our Saviour concerning confession and denial. But with manly and philosophic minds, or rather with pious and God-loving souls, they persevered against all the threats and insults of the judge; and both of them were beheaded.
Chapter X. The Writings of Phileas the Martyr Describing the Occurrences at Alexandria.
1 Since we have mentioned Phileas as having a high reputation for secular learning, let him be his own witness in the following extract, in which he shows us who he was, and at the same time describes more accurately than we can the martyrdoms which occurred in his time at Alexandria:48 
2 “Having before them all these examples and models and noble tokens which are given us in the Divine and Sacred Scriptures, the blessed martyrs who were with us did not hesitate, but directing the eye of the soul in sincerity toward the God over all, and having their mind set upon death for religion, they adhered firmly to their calling. For they understood that our Lord Jesus Christ had become man on our account, that he might cut off all sin and furnish us with the means of entrance into eternal life. For ‘he counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God, but emptied himself taking the form of a servant; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself unto death, even the death of the cross.’49 
3 Wherefore also being zealous for the greater gifts, the Christ-bearing martyrs endured all trials and all kinds of contrivances for torture; not once only, but some also a second time. And although the guards vied with each other in threatening them in all sorts of ways, not in words only, but in actions, they did not give up their resolution; because ‘perfect love casteth out fear.’50 
4 “What words could describe their courage and manliness under every torture? For as liberty to abuse them was given to all that wished, some beat them with clubs, others with rods, others with scourges, yet others with thongs, and others with ropes.
5 And the spectacle of the outrages was varied and exhibited great malignity. For some, with their hands bound behind them, were suspended on the stocks, and every member stretched by certain machines. Then the torturers, as commanded, lacerated with instruments51 their entire bodies not only their sides, as in the case of murderers, but also their stomachs and knees and cheeks. Others were raised aloft, suspended from the porch by one hand, and endured the most terrible suffering of all, through the distension of their joints and limbs. Others were bound face to face to pillars, not resting on their feet, but with the weight of their bodies bearing on their bonds and drawing them tightly.
6 And they endured this, not merely as long as the governor talked with them or was at leisure, but through almost the entire day. For when he passed on to others, he left officers under his authority to watch the first, and observe if any of them, overcome by the tortures, appeared to yield. And he commanded to cast them into chains without mercy, and afterwards when they were at the last gasp to throw them to the ground and drag them away. For he said that they were not to have the least concern for us, but were to think and act as if we no longer existed, our enemies having invented this second mode of torture in addition to the stripes.
8 “Some, also, after these outrages, were placed on the stocks, and had both their feet stretched over the four52 holes, so that they were compelled to lie on their backs on the stocks, being unable to keep themselves up on account of the fresh wounds with which their entire bodies were covered as a result of the scourging. Others were thrown on the ground and lay there under the accumulated infliction of tortures, exhibiting to the spectators a more terrible manifestation of severity, as they bore on their bodies the marks of the various and diverse punishments which had been invented.
9 As this went on, some died under the tortures, shaming the adversary by their constancy. Others half dead were shut up in prison, and suffering with their agonies, they died in a few days; but the rest, recovering under the care which they received, gained confidence by time and their long detention in prison.
10 When therefore they were ordered to choose whether they would be released from molestation by touching the polluted sacrifice, and would receive from them the accursed freedom, or refusing to sacrifice, should be condemned to death, they did not hesitate, but went to death cheerfully. For they knew what had been declared before by the Sacred Scriptures. For it is said,53 ‘He that sacrificeth to other gods shall be utterly destroyed,’54 and, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’”55 
11 Such are the words of the truly philosophical and God-loving martyr, which, before the final sentence, while yet in prison, he addressed to the brethren in his parish, showing them his own circumstances, and at the same time exhorting them to hold fast, even after his approaching death, to the religion of Christ.
12 But why need we dwell upon these things, and continue to add fresh instances of the conflicts of the divine martyrs throughout the world, especially since they were dealt with no longer by common law, but attacked like enemies of war?
Chapter XI. Those in Phrygia.
1 A Small town56 of Phrygia, inhabited solely by Christians, was completely surrounded by soldiers while the men were in it. Throwing fire into it, they consumed them with the women and children while they were calling upon Christ. This they did because all the inhabitants of the city, and the curator himself, and the governor, with all who held office, and the entire populace, confessed themselves Christians, and would not in the least obey those who commanded them to worship idols.
9 There was another man of Roman dignity named Adauctus,57 of a noble Italian family, who had advanced through every honor under the emperors, so that he had blamelessly filled even the general offices of magistrate, as they call it, and of finance minister.58 Besides all this he excelled in deeds of piety and in the confession of the Christ of God, and was adorned with the diadem of martyrdom. He endured the conflict for religion while still holding the office of finance minister.
Chapter XII. Many Others, Both Men and Women, Who Suffered in Various Ways.
1 Why need we mention the rest by name, or number the multitude of the men, or picture the various sufferings of the admirable martyrs of Christ? Some of them were slain with the axe, as in Arabia. The limbs of some were broken, as in Cappadocia. Some, raised on high by the feet, with their heads down, while a gentle fire burned beneath them, were suffocated by the smoke which arose from the burning wood, as was done in Mesopotamia. Others were mutilated by cutting off their noses and ears and hands, and cutting to pieces the other members and parts of their bodies, as in Alexandria.59 
2 Why need we revive the recollection of those in Antioch who were roasted on grates, not so as to kill them, but so asto subject them to a lingering punishment? Or of others who preferred to thrust their right hand into the fire rather than touch the impious sacrifice? Some, shrinking from the trial, rather than be taken and fall into the hands of their enemies, threw themselves from lofty houses, considering death preferable to the cruelty of the impious.
3 A certain holy person, — in soul admirable for virtue, in body a woman, — who was illustrious beyond all in Antioch for wealth and family and reputation, had brought up in the principles of religion her two daughters, who were now in the freshness and bloom of life. Since great envy was excited on their account, every means was used to find them in their concealment; and when it was ascertained that they were away, they were summoned deceitfully to Antioch. Thus they were caught in the nets of the soldiers. When the woman saw herself and her daughters thus helpless, and knew the things terrible to speak of that men would do to them, — and the most unbearable of all terrible things, the threatened violation of their chastity,60 — she exhorted herself and the maidens that they ought not to submit even to hear of this. For, she said, that to surrender their souls to the slavery of demons was worse than all deaths and destruction; and she set before them the only deliverance from all these things, — escape to Christ.
4 They then listened to her advice. And after arranging their garments suitably, they went aside from the middle of the road, having requested of the guards a little time for retirement, and cast themselves into a river which was flowing by.
5 Thus they destroyed themselves.61 But there were two other virgins in the same city of Antioch who served God in all things, and were true sisters, illustrious in family and distinguished in life, young and blooming, serious in mind, pious in deportment, and admirable for zeal. As if the earth could not bear such excellence, the worshipers of demons commanded to cast them into the sea. And this was done to them.
6 In Pontus, others endured sufferings horrible to hear. Their fingers were pierced with sharp reeds under their nails. Melted lead, bubbling and boiling with the heat, was poured down the backs of others, and they were roasted in the most sensitive parts of the body.
7 Others endured on their bowels and privy members shameful and inhuman and unmentionable torments, which the noble and law-observing judges, to show their severity, devised, as more honorable manifestations of wisdom. And new tortures were continually invented, as if they were endeavoring, by surpassing one another, to gain prizes in a contest.
8 But at the close of these calamities, when finally they could contrive no greater cruelties, and were weary of putting to death, and were filled and satiated with the shedding of blood, they turned to what they considered merciful and humane treatment, so that they seemed to be no longer devising terrible things against us.
9 For they said that it was not fitting that the cities should be polluted with the blood of their own people, or that the government of their rulers, which was kind and mild toward all, should be defamed through excessive cruelty; but that rather the beneficence of the humane and royal authority should be extended to all, and we should no longer be put to death. For the infliction of this punishment upon us should be stopped in consequence of the humanity of the rulers.
10 Therefore it was commanded that our eyes should be put out, and that we should be maimed in one of our limbs. For such things were humane in their sight, and the lightest of punishments for us. So that now on account of this kindly treatment accorded us by the impious, it was impossible to tell the incalculable number of those whose right eyes had first been cut out with the sword, and then had been cauterized with fire; or who had been disabled in the left foot by burning the joints, and afterward condemned to the provincial copper mines, not so much for service as for distress and hardship. Besides all these, others encountered other trials, which it is impossible to recount; for their manly endurance surpasses all description.
11 In these conflicts the noble martyrs of Christ shone illustrious over the entire world, and everywhere astonished those who beheld their manliness; and the evidences of the truly divine and unspeakable power of our Saviour were made manifest through them. To mention each by name would be a long task, if not indeed impossible.
Chapter XIII. The Bishops of the Church that Evinced by Their Blood the Genuineness of the Religion Which They Preached.
1 As for the rulers of the Church that suffered martyrdom in the principal cities, the first martyr of the kingdom of Christ whom we shall mention among the monuments of the pious is Anthimus,62 bishop of the city of Nicomedia, who was beheaded.
2 Among the martyrs at Antioch was Lucian,63 a presbyter of that parish, whose entire life was most excellent. At Nicomedia, in the presence of the emperor, he proclaimed the heavenly kingdom of Christ, first in an oral defense, and afterwards by deeds as well. Of the martyrs in Phénicia
3 the most distinguished were those devoted pastors of the spiritual flocks of Christ: Tyrannion,64 bishop of the church of Tyre; Zenobius, a presbyter of the church at Sidon; and Silvanus,65 bishop of the churches about Emesa. 
4 The last of these, with others, was made food for wild beasts at Emesa, and was thus received into the ranks of martyrs. The other two glorified the word of God at Antioch through patience unto death. The bishop66 was thrown into the depths of the sea. But Zenobius, who was a very skillful physician, died through severe tortures which were applied to his sides.
5 Of the martyrs in Palestine, Silvanus,67 bishop of the churches about Gaza, was beheaded with thirty-nine others at the copper mines of Phaeno.68 There also the Egyptian bishops, Peleus and Nilus,69 with others, suffered
6 death by fire. Among these we must mention Pamphilus, a presbyter, who was thegreat glory of the parish of Caesarea, and among the men of our time most admirable.
7 The virtue of his manly deeds we have recorded in the proper place.70 Of those who suffered death illustriously at Alexandria and throughout Egypt and Thebais, Peter,71 bishop of Alexandria, one of the most excellent teachers of the religion of Christ, should first be mentioned; and of the presbyters with him Faustus,72 Dius and Ammonius, perfect martyrs of Christ; also Phileas,73 Hesychius,74 Pachymius and Theodorus, bishops of Egyptian churches, and besides them many other distinguished persons who are commemorated by the parishes of their country and region.It is not for us to describe the conflicts of those who suffered for the divine religion throughout the entire world, and to relate accurately what happened to each of them. This would be the proper work of those who were eye-witnesses of the events. I will describe for posterity in another work75 those which I myself witnessed.
8 But in the present book76 I will add to what I have given the revocation issued by our persecutors, and those events that occurred at the beginning of the persecution, which will be most profitable to such as shall read them.
9 What words could sufficiently describe the greatness and abundance of the prosperity of the Roman government before the war against us, while the rulers were friendly and peaceable toward us? Then those who were highest in the government, and had held the position ten or twenty years, passed their time in tranquil peace, in festivals and public games and most joyful pleasures and cheer.
10 While thus their authority was growing uninterruptedly, and increasing day by day, suddenly they changed their peaceful attitude toward us, and began an implacable war. But the second year of this movement was not yet past, when a revolution took place in the entire government and overturned all things.
11 For a severe sickness came upon the chief of those of whom we have spoken, by which his understanding was distracted; and with him who was honored with the second rank, he retired into private life.77 Scarcely had he done this when the entire empire was divided; a thing which is not recorded as having ever occurred before.78 
12 Not long after, the Emperor Constantius, who through his entire life was most kindly and favorably disposed toward his subjects, and most friendly to the Divine Word, ended his life in the common course of nature, and left his own son, Constantine, as emperor and Augustus in his stead.79 He was the first that was ranked by them among the gods, and received after death every honor which one could pay to an emperor.80 
13 He was the kindest and mildest of emperors, and the only one of those of our day that passed all the time of his government in a manner worthy of his office. Moreover, he conducted himself toward all most favorably and beneficently. He took not the smallest part in the war against us, but preserved the pious that were under him unharmed and unabused. He neither threw down the church buildings,81 nor did he devise anything else against us. The end of his life was honorable and thrice blessed. He alone at death left his empire happily and gloriously to his own son as his successor,—one who was in all respects most prudent and pious.
14 His son Constantine entered on the government at once, being proclaimed supreme emperor and Augustus by the soldiers, and long before by God himself, the King of all. He showed himself an emulator of his father’s piety toward our doctrine. Such an one was he.
But after this, Licinius was declared emperor and Augustus by a common vote of the rulers.82 
15 These things grieved Maximinus greatly, for until that time he had been entitled by all only Caesar. He therefore, being exceedingly imperious, seized the dignity for himself, and became Augustus, being made such by himself.83 In the mean time he whom we have mentioned as having resumed his dignity after his abdication, being detected in conspiring against the life of Constantine, perished by a most shameful death.84 He was the first whose decrees and statues and public monuments were destroyed because of his wickedness and impiety.85 
Chapter XIV. The Character of the Enemies of Religion.
1 Maxentius his son, who obtained the government at Rome,86 at first feigned our faith, in complaisance and flattery toward the Roman people. On this account he commanded his subjects to cease persecuting the Christians, pretending to religion that he might appear merciful and mild beyond his predecessors.
2 But he did not prove in his deeds to be such a person as was hoped, but ran into all wickedness and abstained from no impurity or licentiousness, committing adulteries and indulging in all kinds of corruption. For having separated wives from their lawful consorts, he abused them and sent them back most dishonorably to their husbands. And he not only practiced this against the obscure and unknown, but he insulted especially the most prominent and distinguished members of the Roman senate.
3 All his subjects, people and rulers, honored and obscure, were worn out by grievous oppression. Neither, although they kept quiet, and bore the bitter servitude, was there any relief from the murderous cruelty of the tyrant. Once, on a small pretense, he gave the people to be slaughtered by his guards; and a great multitude of the Roman populace were slain in the midst of the city, with the spears and arms, not of Scythians and barbarians, but of their own fellow-citizens.
4 It would be impossible to recount the number of senators who were put to death for the sake of their wealth; multitudes being slain on various pretenses.
5 To crown all his wickedness, the tyrant resorted to magic. And in his divinations he cut open pregnant women, and again inspected the bowels of newborn infants. He slaughtered lions, and performed various execrable acts to invoke demons and avert war. For his only hope was that, by these means, victory would be secured to him.
6 It is impossible to tell the ways in which this tyrant at Rome oppressed his subjects, so that they were reduced to such an extreme dearth of the necessities of life as has never been known, according to our contemporaries, either at Rome or elsewhere.
7 But Maximinus, the tyrant in the East, having secretly formed a friendly alliance with the Roman tyrant as with a brother in wickedness, sought to conceal it for a long time. But being at last detected, he suffered merited punishment.87 
8 It was wonderful how akin he was in wickedness to the tyrant at Rome, or rather how far he surpassed him in it. For the chief of sorcerers and magicians were honored by him with the highest rank. Becoming exceedingly timid and superstitious, he valued greatly the error of idols and demons. Indeed, without soothsayers and oracles he did not venture to move even a finger,88 so to speak.
9 Therefore he persecuted us more violently and incessantly than his predecessors. He ordered temples to be erected in every city, and the sacred groves which had been destroyed through lapse of time to be speedily restored. He appointed idol priests in every place and city; and he set over them in every province, as high priest, some political official who had especially distinguished himself in every kind of service, giving him a band of soldiers and a body-guard. And to all jugglers, as if they were pious and beloved of the gods, he granted governments and the greatest privileges.
10 From this time on he distressed and harassed, not one city or country, but all the provinces under his authority, by extreme exactions of gold and silver and goods, and most grievous prosecutions and various fines. He took away from the wealthy the property which they had inherited from their ancestors, and bestowed vast riches and large sums of money on the flatterers about him.
11 And he went to such an excess of folly and drunkenness that his mind was deranged and crazed in his carousals; and he gave commands when intoxicated of which he repented afterward when sober. He suffered no one to surpass him in debauchery and profligacy, but made himself an instructor in wickedness to those about him, both rulers and subjects. He urged on the army to live wantonly in every kind of revelry and intemperance, and encouraged the governors and generals to abuse their subjects with rapacity and covetousness, almost as if they were rulers with him.
12 Why need we relate the licentious, shameless deeds of the man, or enumerate the multitude with whom he committed adultery? For he could not pass through a city without continually corrupting women and ravishing virgins.
13 And in this he succeeded with all except the Christians. For as they despised death, they cared nothing for his power. For the men endured fire and sword and crucifixion and wild beasts and the depths of the sea, and cutting off of limbs, and burnings, and pricking and digging out of eyes, and mutilations of the entire body, and besides these, hunger and mines and bonds. In all they showed patience in behalf of religion rather than transfer to idols the reverence due to God.
14 And the women were not less manly than the men in behalf of the teaching of the Divine Word, as they endured conflicts with the men, and bore away equal prizes of virtue. And when they were dragged away for corrupt purposes, they surrendered their lives to death rather than their bodies to impurity.89 
15 One only of those who were seized for adulterous purposes by the tyrant, a most distinguished and illustrious Christian woman in Alexandria, conquered the passionate and intemperate soul of Maximinus by most heroic firmness. Honorable on account of wealth and family and education, she esteemed all of these inferior to chastity. He urged her many times, but although she was ready to die, he could not put her to death, for his desire was stronger than his anger.
16 He therefore punished her with exile, and took away all her property. Many others, unable even to listen to the threats of violation from the heathen rulers, endured every form of tortures, and rackings, and deadly punishment.
These indeed should be admired. But far the most admirable was that woman at Rome, who was truly the most noble and modest of all, whom the tyrant Maxentius, fully resembling Maximinus in his actions, endeavored to abuse.
17 For when she learned that those who served the tyrant in such matters were at the house (she also was a Christian), and that her husband, although a prefect of Rome, would suffer them to take and lead her away, having requested a little time for adorning her body, she entered her chamber, and being alone, stabbed herself with a sword. Dying immediately, she left her corpse to those who had come for her. And by her deeds, more powerfully than by any words, she has shown to all men now and hereafter that the virtue which prevails among Christians is the only invincible and indestructible possession.90 
18 Such was the career of wickedness which was carried forward at one and the same time by the two tyrants who held the East and the West. Who is there that would hesitate, after careful examination, to pronounce the persecution against us the cause of such evils? Especially since this extreme confusion of affairs did not cease until the Christians had obtained liberty. 
Chapter XV. The Events Which Happened to the Heathen.91 
1 During the entire ten years92 of the persecution, they were constantly plotting and warring against one another.93 For the sea could not be navigated, nor could men sail from any port without being exposed to all kinds of outrages; being stretched on the rack and lacerated in their sides, that it might be ascertained through various tortures, whether they came from the enemy; and finally being subjected to punishment by the cross or by fire.
2 And besides these things shields and breastplates were preparing, and darts and spears and other warlike accoutrements were making ready, and galleys and naval armor were collecting in every place. And no one expected anything else than to be attacked by enemies any day. In addition to this, famine and pestilence came upon them, in regard to which we shall relate what is necessary in the proper place.94 
Chapter XVI. The Change of Affairs for the Better.
1 Such was the state of affairs during the entire persecution. But in the tenth year, through the grace of God, it ceased altogether, having begun to decrease after the eighth year.95 For when the divine and heavenly grace showed us favorable and propitious oversight, then truly our rulers, and the very persons96 by whom the war against us had been earnestly prosecuted, most remarkably changed their minds, and issued a revocation, and quenched the great fire of persecution which had been kindled, by merciful proclamations and ordinances concerning us. But this was not due to any human agency; nor was it the result, as one might say, of the compassion or philanthropy of our rulers;—far from it, for daily from the beginning until that time they were devising more and more severe measures against us, and continually inventing outrages by a greater variety of instruments;—but it was manifestly due to the oversight of Divine Providence, on the one hand becoming reconciled to his people, and on the other, attacking him97 who instigated these evils, and showing anger toward him as the author of the cruelties of the entire persecution.
3 For though it was necessary that these things should take place, according to the divine judgment, yet the Word saith, “Woe to him through whom the offense cometh.”98 Therefore punishment from God came upon him, beginning with his flesh, and proceeding to his soul.99 
4 For an abscess suddenly appeared in the midst of the secret parts of his body, and from it a deeply perforated sore, which spread irresistibly into his inmost bowels. An indescribable multitude of worms sprang from them, and a deathly odor arose, as the entire bulk of his body had, through his gluttony, been changed, before his sickness, into an excessive mass of soft fat, which became putrid, and thus presented an awful and intolerable sight to those who came near.
5 Some of the physicians, being wholly unable to endure the exceeding offensiveness of the odor, were slain; others, as the entire mass had swollen and passed beyond hope of restoration, and they were unable to render any help, were put to death without mercy. 
Chapter XVII. The Revocation of the Rulers.
1 Wrestling with so many evils, he thought of the cruelties which he had committed against the pious. Turning, therefore, his thoughts toward himself, he first openly confessed to the God of the universe, and then summoning his attendants, he commanded that without delay they should stop the persecution of the Christians, and should by law and royal decree, urge them forward to build their churches and to perform their customary worship, offering prayers in behalf of the emperor. Immediately the deed followed the word.
2 The imperial decrees were published in the cities, containing the revocation of the acts against us in the following form:
3 “The Emperor Caesar Galerius Valerius Maximinus, Invictus, Augustus, Pontifex Maximus, conqueror of the Germans, conqueror of the Egyptians, conqueror of the Thebans, five times conqueror of the Sarmatians, conqueror of the Persians, twice conqueror of the Carpathians, six times conqueror of the Armenians, conqueror of the Medes, conqueror of the Adiabeni, Tribune of the people the twentieth time, Emperor the nineteenth time, Consul the eighth time, Father of his country, Proconsul;
4 and the Emperor Caesar Flavius Valerius Constantinus, Pius, Felix, Invictus, Augustus, Pontifex Maximus, Tribune of the people, Emperor the fifth time, Consul, Father of his country, Proconsul;
5 and the Emperor Caesar Valerius Licinius, Pius, Felix, Invictus, Augustus, Pontifex Maximus, Tribune of the people the fourth time, Emperor the third time, Consul, Father of his country, Proconsul; to the people of their provinces, greeting:100 
6 “Among the other things which we have ordained for the public advantage and profit, we formerly wished to restore everything to conformity with the ancient laws and public discipline101 of the Romans, and to provide that the Christians also, who have forsaken the religion of their ancestors,102 should return to a good disposition.
7 For in some way such arrogance had seized them and such stupidity had overtaken them, that they did not follow the ancient institutions which possibly their own ancestors had formerly established, but made for themselves laws according to their own purpose, as each one desired, and observed them, and thus assembled as separate congregations in various places.
8 When we had issued this decree that they should return to the institutions established by the ancients,103 a great many104 submitted under danger, but a great many being harassed endured all kinds of death.105 
9 And since many continue in the same folly,106 and we perceive that they neither offer to the heavenly gods the worship which is due, nor pay regard to the God of the Christians, in consideration of our philanthropy and our invariable custom, by which we are wont to extend pardon to all, we have determined that we ought most cheerfully to extend our indulgence in this matter also; that they may again be Christians, and may rebuild the conventicles in which they were accustomed to assemble,107 on condition that nothing be done by them contrary to discipline.108 In another letter we shall indicate to the magistrates what they have to observe.
10 Wherefore, on account of this indulgence of ours, they ought to supplicate their God for our safety, and that of the people, and their own, that the public welfare may be preserved in every place,109 and that they may live securely in their several homes.”
11 Such is the tenor of this edict, translated, as well as possible, from the Roman tongue into the Greek.110 It is time to consider what took place after these events.
That which follows is found in Some Copies in the Eighth Book.111 
1 The author of the edict very shortly after this confession was released from his pains and died. He is reported to have been the original author of the misery of the persecution, having endeavored, long before the movement of the other emperors, to turn from the faith the Christians in the army, and first of all those in his own house, degrading some from the military rank, and abusing others most shamefully, and threatening still others with death, and finally inciting his partners in the empire to the general persecution. It is not proper to pass over the death of these emperors in silence.
2 As four of them held the supreme authority, those who were advanced in age and honor, after the persecution had continued not quite two years, abdicated the government, as we have already stated,112 and passed the remainder of their lives in a common and private station.
3 The end of their lives was as follows. He who was first in honor and age perished through a long and most grievous physical infirmity.113 He who held the second place ended his life by strangling,114 suffering thus according to a certain demoniacal prediction, on account of his many daring crimes.
4 Of those after them, the last,115 of whom we have spoken as the originator of the entire persecution, suffered such things as we have related. But he who preceded him, the most merciful and kindly emperor Constantius,116 passed all the time of his government in a manner worthy of his office.117 Moreover, he conducted himself towards all most favorably and beneficently. He took not the smallest part in the war against us, and preserved the pious that were under him unharmed and unabused. Neither did he throw down the church buildings, nor devise anything else against us. The end of his life was happy and thrice blessed. He alone at death left his empire happily and gloriously to his own son118 as his successor, one who was in all respects most prudent and pious. He entered on the government at once, being proclaimed supreme emperor and Augustus by the soldiers;
5 and he showed himself an emulator of his father’s piety toward our doctrine. Such were the deaths of the four of whom we have written, which took place at different times.
6 Of these, moreover, only the one referred to a little above by us,119 with those who afterward shared in the government, finally120 published openly to all the above-mentioned confession, in the written edict which he issued. 
Martyrs of Palestine.121 
The Following also we found in a Certain Copy in the Eighth Book.122 
It was in the nineteenth year of the reign of Diocletian, in the month Xanthicus,123 which is called April by the Romans, about the time of the feast of our Saviour’s passion, while Flavianus124 was governor of the province of Palestine, that letters were published everywhere, commanding that the churches be leveled to the ground and the Scriptures be destroyed by fire, and ordering that those who held places of honor be degraded, and that the household servants, if they persisted in the profession of Christianity, be deprived of freedom.
Such was the force of the first edict against us. But not long after other letters were issued, commanding that all the bishops of the churches everywhere be first thrown into prison, and afterward, by every artifice, be compelled to sacrifice.
Chapter I.
1 The first of the martyrs of Palestine was Procopius,125 who, before he had received the trial of imprisonment, immediately on his first appearance before the governor’s tribunal, having been ordered to sacrifice to the so-called gods, declared that he knew only one to whom it was proper to sacrifice, as he himself wills. But when he was commanded to offer libations to the four emperors, having quoted a sentence which displeased them, he was immediately beheaded. The quotation was from the poet: “The rule of many is not good; let there be one ruler and one king.”126 
2 It was the seventh127 day of the month Desius,128 the seventh before the ides of June,129 as the Romans reckon, and the fourth day of the week, when this first example was given at Caesura in Palestine.
3 Afterwards,130 in the same city, many rulers of the country churches readily endured terrible sufferings, and furnished to the beholders an example of noble conflicts. But others, benumbed in spirit by terror, were easily weakened at the first onset. Of the rest, each one endured different forms of torture, as scourgings without number, and rackings, and tearings of their sides, and insupportable fetters, by which the hands of some were dislocated.
4 Yet they endured what came upon them, as in accordance with the inscrutable purposes of God. For the hands of one were seized, and he was led to the altar, while they thrust into his right hand the polluted and abominable offering, and he was dismissed as if he had sacrificed. Another had not even touched it, yet when others said that he had sacrificed, he went away in silence. Another, being taken up half dead, was cast aside as if already dead, and released from his bonds, and counted among the sacrificers. When another cried out, and testified that he would not obey, he was struck in the mouth, and silenced by a large band of those who were drawn up for this purpose, and driven away by force, even though he had not sacrificed. Of such consequence did they consider it, to seem by any means to have accomplished their purpose.
5 Therefore, of all this number, the only ones who were honored with the crown of the holy martyrs were Alphaeus and Zacchaeus.131 After stripes and scrapings and severe bonds and additional tortures and various other trials, and after having their feet stretched for a night and day over four holes in the stocks,132 on the seventeenth day of the month Dius,133 —that is, according to the Romans, the fifteenth before the Kalends of December,—having confessed one only God and Christ Jesus as king,134 as if they had uttered some blasphemy, they were beheaded like the former martyr.
Chapter II.
1 What occurred to Romanus on the same day135 at Antioch, is also worthy of record. For he was a native of Palestine, a deacon and exorcist in the parish of Caesarea; and being present at the destruction of the churches, he beheld many men, with women and children, going up in crowds to the idols and sacrificing.136 But, through his great zeal for religion, he could not endure the sight, and rebuked them with a loud voice.
2 Being arrested for his boldness, he proved a most noble witness of the truth, if there ever was one. For when the judge informed him that he was to die by fire,137 he received the sentence with cheerful countenance and most ready mind, and was led away. When he was bound to the stake, and the wood piled up around him, as they were awaiting the arrival of the emperor before lighting the fire, he cried, “Where is the fire for me?”
3 Having said this, he was summoned again before the emperor,138 and subjected to the unusual torture of having his tongue cut out. But he endured this with fortitude and showed to all by his deeds that the Divine Power is present with those who endure any hardship whatever for the sake of religion, lightening their sufferings and strengthening their zeal. When he learned of this strange mode of punishment, the noble man was not terrified, but put out his tongue readily, and offered it with the greatest alacrity to those who cut it off.
4 After this punishment he was thrown into prison, and suffered there for a very long time. At last the twentieth anniversary of the emperor being near,139 when, according to an established gracious custom, liberty was proclaimed everywhere to all who were in bonds, he alone had both his feet stretched over five holes in the stocks,140 and while he lay there was strangled, and was thus honored with martyrdom, as he desired.
5 Although he was outside of his country, yet, as he was a native of Palestine, it is proper to count him among the Palestinian martyrs. These things occurred in this manner during the first year, when the persecution was directed only against the rulers of the Church.
Chapter III.
1 In the course of the second year, the persecution against us increased greatly. And at that time Urbanus141 being governor of the province, imperial edicts were first issued to him, commanding by a general decree that all the people should sacrifice at once in the different cities, and offer libations to the idols.142 
In Gaza, a city of Palestine, Timotheus endured countless tortures, and afterwards was subjected to a slow and moderate fire. Having given, by his patience in all his sufferings, most genuine evidence of sincerest piety toward the Deity, he bore away the crown of the victorious athletes of religion. At the same time Agapius143 and our contemporary, Thecla,144 having exhibited most noble constancy, were condemned as food for the wild beasts.
2 But who that beheld these things would not have admired, or if they heard of them by report, would not have been astonished? For when the heathen everywhere were holding a festival and the customary shows, it was noised abroad that besides the other entertainments, the public combat of those who had lately been condemned to wild beasts would also take place. 
3 As this report increased and spread in all directions, six young men, namely, Timolaus, a native of Pontus, Dionysius from Tripolis in Phoenicia, Romulus, a sub-deacon of the parish of Diospolis,145 Paesis and Alexander, both Egyptians, and another Alexander from Gaza, having first bound their own hands, went in haste to Urbanus, who was about to open the exhibition, evidencing great zeal for martyrdom. They confessed that they were Christians, and by their ambition for all terrible things, showed that those who glory in the religion of the God of the universe do not cower before the attacks of wild beasts.
4 Immediately, after creating no ordinary astonishment in the governor and those who were with him, they were cast into prison. After a few days two others were added to them. One of them, named Agapius,146 had in former confessions endured dreadful torments of various kinds. The other, who had supplied them with the necessaries of life, was called Dionysius. All of these eight were beheaded on one day at Caesarea, on the twenty-fourth day of the month Dystrus,147 which is the ninth before the Kalends of April.
5 Meanwhile, a change in the emperors occurred, and the first of them all in dignity, and the second retired into private life,148 and public affairs began to be troubled.
6 Shortly after the Roman government became divided against itself, and a cruel war arose among them.149 And this division, with the troubles which grew out of it, was not settled until peace toward us had been established throughout the entire Roman Empire.
7 For when this peace arose for all, as the daylight after the darkest and most gloomy night, the public affairs of the Roman government were re-established, and became happy and peaceful, and the ancestral good-will toward each other was revived. But we will relate these things more fully at the proper time. Now let us return to the regular course of events.
Chapter IV.
1 Maximinus Caesar150 having come at that time into the government, as if to manifest to all the evidences of his reborn enmity against God, and of his impiety, armed himself for persecution against us more vigorously than his predecessors.
2 In consequence, no little confusion arose among all, and they scattered here and there, endeavoring in some way to escape the danger; and there was great commotion everywhere. But what words would suffice for a suitable description of the Divine love and boldness, in confessing God, of the blessed and truly innocent lamb,—I refer to the martyr Apphianus,151 —who presented in the sight of all, before the gates of Caesarea, a wonderful example of piety toward the only God?
3 He was at that time not twenty years old. He had first spent a long time at Berytus,152 for the sake of a secular Grecian education, as he belonged to a very wealthy family. It is wonderful to relate how, in such a city, he was superior to youthful passions, and clung to virtue, uncorrupted neither by his bodily vigor nor his young companions; living discreetly, soberly and piously, in accordance with his profession of the Christian doctrine and the life of his teachers.
4 If it is needful to mention his native country, and give honor to it as producing this noble athlete of piety, we will do so with pleasure.
5 The young man came from Pagae,153 —if any one is acquainted with the place,—a city in Lycia of no mean importance. After his return from his course of study in Berytus, though his father held the first place in his country, he could not bear to live with him and his relatives, as it did not please them to live according to the rules of religion. Therefore, as if he were led by the Divine Spirit, and in accordance with a natural, or rather an inspired and true philosophy, regarding this preferable to what is considered the glory of life, and despising bodily comforts, he secretly left his family. And because of his faith and hope in God, paying no attention to his daily needs, he was led by the Divine Spirit to the city of Caesarea, where was prepared for him the crown of martyrdom for piety.
6 Abiding with us there, and conferring with us in the Divine Scriptures diligently for a short time, and fitting himself zealously by suitable exercises, he exhibited such an end as would astonish any one should it be seen again.
7 Who, that hears of it, would not justly admire his courage, boldness, constancy, and even more than these the daring deed itself, which evidenced a zeal for religion and a spirit truly superhuman?
8 For in the second attack upon us under Maximinus, in the third year of the persecution, edicts of the tyrant were issued for the first time, commanding that the rulers of the cities should diligently and speedily see to it that all the people offered sacrifices.154 Throughout the city of Caesarea, by command of the governor, the heralds were summoning men, women, and children to the temples of the idols, and besides this, the chiliarchs were calling out each one by name from a roll, and an immense crowd of the wicked were rushing together from all quarters. Then this youth fearlessly, while no one was aware of his intentions, eluded both us who lived in the house with him and the whole band of soldiers that surrounded the governor, and rushed up to Urbanus as he was offering libations, and fearlessly seizing him by the right hand, straightway put a stop to his sacrificing, and skillfully and persuasively, with a certain divine inspiration, exhorted him to abandon his delusion, because it was not well to forsake the one and only true God, and sacrifice to idols and demons.
9 It is probable that this was done by the youth through a divine power which led him forward, and which all but cried aloud in his act, that Christians, who were truly such, were so far from abandoning the religion of the God of the universe which they had once espoused, that they were not only superior to threats and the punishments which followed, but yet bolder to speak with noble and untrammeled tongue, and, if possible, to summon even their persecutors to turn from their ignorance and acknowledge the only true God.
10 Thereupon, he of whom we are speaking, and that instantly, as might have been expected after so bold a deed, was torn by the governor and those who were with him as if by wild beasts. And having endured manfully innumerable blows over his entire body, he was straightway cast into prison.
11 There he was stretched by the tormentor with both his feet in the stocks for a night and a day; and the next day he was brought before the judge. As they endeavored to force him to surrender, he exhibited all constancy under suffering and terrible tortures. His sides were torn, not once, or twice, but many times, to the bones and the very bowels; and he received so many blows on his face and neck that those who for a long time had been well acquainted with him could not recognize his swollen face.
12 But as he would not yield under this treatment, the torturers, as commanded, covered his feet with linen cloths soaked in oil and set them on fire. No word can describe the agonies which the blessed one endured from this. For the fire consumed his flesh and penetrated to his bones, so that the humors of his body were melted and oozed out and dropped down like wax.
13 But as he was not subdued by this, his adversaries being defeated and unable to comprehend his superhuman constancy, cast him again into prison. A third time he was brought before the judge; and having witnessed the same profession, being half dead, he was finally thrown into the depths of the sea.
14 But what happened immediately after this will scarcely be believed by those who did not see it. Although we realize this, yet we must record the event, of which to speak plainly, all the inhabitants of Caesarea were witnesses. For truly there was no age but beheld this marvelous sight. For as soon as
15 they had cast this truly sacred and thrice-blessed youth into the fathomless depths of the sea, an uncommon commotion and disturbance agitated the sea and all the shore about it, so that the land and the entire city were shaken by it. And at the same time with this wonderful and sudden perturbation, the sea threw out before the gates of the city the body of the divine martyr, as if unable to endure it.155 
Such was the death of the wonderful Apphianus. It occurred on the second day of the month Xanthicus,156 which is the fourth day before the Nones of April, on the day of preparation157 
Chapter V.
1 About the same time, in the city of Tyre, a youth named Ulpianus,158 after dreadful tortures and most severe scourgings, was enclosed in a raw oxhide, with a dog and with one of those poisonous reptiles, an asp, and cast into the sea. Wherefore I think that we may properly mention him in connection with the martyrdom of Apphianus.
2 Shortly afterwards, Aedesius,159 a brother of Apphianus, not only in God, but also in the flesh, being a son of the same earthly father, endured sufferings like his, after very many confessions and protracted tortures in bonds, and after he had been sentenced by the governor to the mines in Palestine. He conducted himself through them all in a truly philosophic manner; for he was more highly educated than his brother, and had prosecuted philosophic studies.
3 Finally in the city of Alexandria, when he beheld the judge, who was trying the Christians, offending beyond all bounds, now insulting holy men in various ways, and again consigning women of greatest modesty and even religious virgins to procurers for shameful treatment, he acted like his brother. For as these things seemed insufferable, he went forward with bold resolve, and with his words and deeds overwhelmed the judge with shame and disgrace. After suffering in consequence many forms of torture, he endured a death similar to his brother’s, being cast into the sea. But these things, as I have said, happened to him in this way a little later.
Chapter VI.
1 In the fourth year of the persecution against us, on the twelfth day before the Kalends of December, which is the twentieth day of the month Dius,160 on the day before the Sabbath,161 while the tyrant Maximinus was present and giving magnificent shows in honor of his birthday, the following event, truly worthy of record, occurred in the city of Caesarea.
2 As it was an ancient custom to furnish the spectators more splendid shows when the emperors were present than at other times, new and foreign spectacles taking the place of the customary amusements, such as animals brought from India or Ethiopia or other places, or men who could astonish the beholders with skillful bodily exercises,—it was necessary at this time, as the emperor was giving the exhibition, to add to the shows something more wonderful. And what should this be?
3 A witness of our doctrine was brought into the midst and endured the contest for the true and only religion. This was Agapius, who, as we have stated a little above,162 was, with Thecla, the second to be thrown to the wild beasts for food. He had also, three times and more, marched with malefactors from the prison to the arena; and every time, after threats from the judge, whether in compassion or in hope that he might change his mind, had been reserved for other conflicts. But the emperor being present, he was brought out at this time, as if he had been appropriately reserved for this occasion, until the very word of the Saviour should be fulfilled in him, which through divine knowledge he declared to his disciples, that they should be brought before kings on account of their testimony unto him.163 
4 He was taken into the midst of the arena with a certain malefactor who they said was charged with the murder of his master. But this murderer of his master, when he had been cast to the wild beasts, was deemed worthy of compassion and humanity, almost like Barabbas in the time of our Saviour. And the whole theater resounded with shouts and cries of approval, because the murderer was humanely saved by the emperor, and deemed worthy of honor and freedom.
6 But the athlete of religion was first summoned by the tyrant and promised liberty if he would deny his profession. But he testified with a loud voice that, not for any fault, but for the religion of the Creator of the universe, he would readily and with pleasure endure whatever might be inflicted upon him. Having said this, he joined the deed7 to the word, and rushed to meet a bear which had been let loose against him, surrendering himself most cheerfully to be devoured by him. After this, as he still breathed, he was cast into prison. And living yet one day, stones were bound to his feet, and he was drowned in the depths of the sea. Such was the martyrdom of Agapius.
Chapter VII.
1 Again, in Caesarea, when the persecution had continued to the fifth year, on the second day of the month Xanthicus,164 which is the fourth before the Nones of April, on the very Lord’s day of our Saviour’s resurrection,165 Theodosia, a virgin from Tyre, a faithful and sedate maiden, not yet eighteen years of age, went up to certain prisoners who were confessing the kingdom of Christ and sitting before the judgment seat, and saluted them, and, as is probable, besought them to remember her when they came before the Lord.
2 Thereupon, as if she had committed a profane and impious act, the soldiers seized her and led her to the governor. And he immediately, like a madman and a wild beast in his anger, tortured her with dreadful and most terrible torments in her sides and breasts, even to the very bones. And as she still breathed, and withal stood with a joyful and beaming countenance, he ordered her thrown into the waves of the sea. Then passing from her to the other confessors, he condemned all of them to the copper mines in Phaeno in Palestine.
3 Afterwards on the fifth of the month Dius,166 on the Nones of November according to the Romans, in the same city, Silvanus167 (who at that time was a presbyter and confessor, but who shortly after was honored with the episcopate and died a martyr), and those with him, men who had shown the noblest firmness in behalf of religion, were condemned by him to labor in the same copper mines, command being first given that their ankles be disabled with hot irons.
4 At the same time he delivered to the flames a man who was illustrious through numerous other confessions. This was Domninus, who was well known to all in Palestine for his exceeding fearlessness168 After this the same judge, who was a cruel contriver of suffering, and an inventor of devices against the doctrine of Christ, planned against the pious punishments that had never been heard of. He condemned three to single pugilistic combat. He delivered to be devoured by wild beasts Auxentius, a grave and holy old man. Others who were in mature life he made eunuchs, and condemned them to the same mines. Yet others, after severe tortures, he cast into prison.
Among these was my dearest friend Pamphilus,169 who was by reason of every virtue the most illustrious of the martyrs in our time.
5 Urbanus first tested him in rhetorical philosophy and learning; and afterwards endeavored to compel him to sacrifice. But as he saw that he refused and in nowise regarded his threats, being exceedingly angry, he ordered him to be tormented with severest tortures.
6 And when the brutal man, after he had almost satiated himself with these tortures by continuous and prolonged scrapings in his sides, was yet covered with shame before all, he put him also with the confessors in prison.
7 But what recompense for his cruelty to the saints, he who thus abused the martyrs of Christ, shall receive from the Divine judgment, may be easily determined from the preludes to it, in which immediately, and not long after his daring cruelties against Pamphilus, while he yet held the government, the Divine judgment came upon him. For thus suddenly, he who but yesterday was judging on the lofty tribunal, guarded by a band of soldiers, and ruling over the whole nation of Palestine, the associate and dearest friend and table companion of the tyrant himself, was stripped in one night, and overwhelmed with disgrace and shame before those who had formerly admired him as if he were himself an emperor; and he appeared cowardly and unmanly, uttering womanish cries and supplications to all the people whom he had ruled. And Maximinus himself, in reliance upon whose favor Urbanus was formerly so arrogantly insolent, as if he loved him exceedingly for his deeds against us, was set as a harsh and most severe judge in this same Caesarea to pronounce sentence of death against him, for the great disgrace of the crimes of which he was convicted. Let us say this in passing.
8 A suitable time may come when we shall have leisure to relate the end and the fate of those impious men who especially fought against us,170 both of Maximinus himself and those with him.
Chapter VIII.
1 Up to the sixth year the storm had been incessantly raging against us. Before this time there had been a very large number of confessors of religion in the so-called Porphyry quarry in Thebais, which gets its name from the stone found there. Of these, one hundred men, lacking three, together with women and infants, were sent to the governor of Palestine. When they confessed the God of the universe and Christ, Firmilianus,171 who had been sent there as governor in the place of Urbanus, directed, in accordance with the imperial command, that they should be maimed by burning the sinews of the ankles of their left feet, and that their right eyes with the eyelids and pupils should first be cut out, and then destroyed by hot irons to the very roots. And he then sent them to the mines in the province to endure hardships with severe toil and suffering.
2 But it was not sufficient that these only who suffered such miseries should be deprived of their eyes, but those natives of Palestine also, who were mentioned just above as condemned to pugilistic combat, Since they would neither receive food from the royal storehouse nor undergo the necessary preparatory Exercises.
3 Having been brought on this account not only before the overseers, but also before Maximinus himself, and having manifested the noblest persistence in confession by the endurance of hunger and stripes, they received like punishment with those whom we have mentioned, and with them other confessors in the city of Caesarea.
4 Immediately afterwards others who were gathered to hear the Scriptures read, were seized in Gaza, and some endured the same sufferings in the feet and eyes; but others were afflicted with yet greater torments and with most terrible tortures in the sides.
5 One of these, in body a woman, but in understanding a man, would not endure the threat of fornication, and spoke directly against the tyrant who entrusted the government to such cruel judges. She was first scourged and then raised aloft on the stake, and her sides lacerated.
6 As those appointed for this purpose applied the tortures incessantly and severely at the command of the judge, another, with mind fixed, like the former, on virginity as her aim,— a woman who was altogether mean in forth and contemptible in appearance; but, on the other hand, strong in soul, and endowed with an understanding superior to her body,—being unable to bear the merciless and cruel and inhuman deeds, with a boldness beyond that of the combatants famed among the Greeks, cried out to the judge from the midst of the crowd: “And how long will you thus cruelly torture my sister?” But he was greatly enraged, and ordered the woman to be immediately seized.
7 Thereupon she was brought forward and having called herself by the august name of the Saviour, she was first urged by words to sacrifice, and as she refused she was dragged by force to the altar. But her sister continued to maintain her former zeal, and with intrepid and resolute foot kicked the altar, and overturned it with the fire that was on it.
8 Thereupon the judge, enraged like a wild beast, inflicted on her such tortures in her sides as he never had on any one before, striving almost to glut himself with her raw flesh. But when his madness was satiated, he bound them both together, this one and her whom she called sister, and condemned them to death by fire. It is said that the first of these was from the country of Gaza; the other, by name Valentina, was of Caesarea, and was well known to many.
9 But how can I describe as it deserves the martyrdom which followed, with which the thrice-blessed Paul was honored. He was condemned to death at the same time with them, under one sentence. At the time of his martyrdom, as the executioner was about to cut off his head, he requested a brief respite.
10 This being granted, he first, in a clear and 10 distinct voice, supplicated God in behalf of his fellow-Christians,172 praying for their pardon, and that freedom might soon be restored to them. Then he asked for the conversion of the Jews to God through Christ; and proceeding in order he requested the same things for the Samaritans, and besought that those Gentiles, who were in error and were ignorant of God, might come to a knowledge of him, and adopt the true religion. Nor did he leave neglected the mixed multitude who were standing around.
11 After all these, oh! great and unspeakable forbearance! he entreated the God of the universe for the judge who had condemned him to death, and for the highest rulers, and also for the one who was about to behead him, in his hearing and that of all present, beseeching that their sin toward him should not be reckoned against them.
12 Having prayed for these things with a loud voice, and having, as one who was dying unjustly, moved almost all to compassion and tears, of his own accord he made himself ready, and submitted his bare neck to the stroke of the sword, and was adorned with divine martyrdom. This took place on the twenty-fifth day of the month Panemus,173 which is the eighth before the Kalends of August.
13 Such was the end of these persons. But not long after, one hundred and thirty admirable athletes of the confession of Christ, from the land of Egypt, endured, in Egypt itself, at the command of Maximinus the same afflictions in their eyes and feet with the former persons, and were sent to the above-mentioned mines in Palestine. But some of them were condemned to the mines in Cilicia.
Chapter IX.
1 After such noble acts of the distinguished martyrs of Christ, the flame of persecution lessened, and was quenched, as it were by their sacred blood, and relief and liberty were granted to those who, for Christ’s sake, were laboring in the mines of Thebais, and for a little time we were beginning to breath pure air.
2 But by some new impulse, I know not what, he who held the power to persecute was again aroused against the Christians. Immediately letters from Maximinus against us were published everywhere in every province.174 The governors and the military prefect175 urged by edicts and letters and public ordinances the magistrates and generals and notaries176 in all the cities to carry out the imperial decree, which ordered that the altars of the idols should with all speed be rebuilt; and that all men, women, and children, even infants at the breast, should sacrifice and offer oblations; and that with diligence and care they should cause them to taste of the execrable offerings; and that the things for sale in the market should be polluted with libations from the sacrifices; and that guards should be stationed before the baths in order to defile with the abominable sacrifices those who went to wash in them.
3 When these orders were being carried out, our people, as was natural, were at the beginning greatly distressed in mind; and even the unbelieving heathen blamed the severity and the exceeding absurdity of what was done. For these things appeared to them extreme and burdensome.
4 As the heaviest storm impended over all in every quarter, the divine power of our Saviour again infused such boldness into his athletes,177 that without being drawn on or dragged forward by any one, they spurned the threats. Three of the faithful joining together, rushed on the governor as he was sacrificing to the idols, and cried out to him to cease from his delusion, there being no other God than the Maker and Creator of the universe. When he asked who they were, they confessed boldly that they were Christians.
5 Thereupon Firmilianus, being greatly enraged, sentenced them to capital punishment without inflicting tortures upon them. The name of the eldest of these was Antoninus; of the next, Zebinas, who was a native of Eleutheropolis; and of the third, Germanus. This took place on the thirteenth of the month Dius, the Ides of November.178 
6 There was associated with them on the same day Ennathas, a woman from Scythopolis, who was adorned with the chaplet of virginity. She did not indeed do as they had done, but was dragged by force and brought before the judge.
7 She endured scourgings and cruel insults, which Maxys, a tribune of a neighboring district, without the knowledge of the superior authority, dared to inflict upon her. He was a man worse than his name,179 sanguinary in other respects, exceedingly harsh, and altogether cruel, and censured by all who knew him. This man stripped the blessed woman of all her clothing, so that she was covered only from her loins to her feet and the rest of her body was bare. And he led her through the entire city of Caesarea, and regarded it as a great thing to beat her with thongs while she was dragged through all the market-places.
8 After such treatment she manifested the noblest constancy at the judgment seat of the governor himself; and the judge condemned her to be burned alive. He also carried his rage against the pious to a most inhuman length and transgressed the laws of nature, not being ashamed even to deny burial to the lifeless bodies of the sacred men.
9 Thus he ordered the dead to be exposed in the open air as food for wild beasts and to be watched carefully by night and day. For many days a large number of men attended to this savage and barbarous decree. And they looked out from their post of observation, as if it were a matter worthy of care, to see that the dead bodies should not be stolen. And wild beasts and dogs and birds of prey scattered the human limbs here and there, and the whole city was strewed with the entrails and bones of
10 men, so that nothing had ever appeared more dreadful and horrible, even to those who formerly hated us; though they bewailed not so much the calamity of those against whom these things were done, as the outrage against themselves and the common nature of man.
11 For there was to be seen near the gates a spectacle beyond all description and tragic recital; for not only was human flesh devoured in one place, but it was scattered in every place; so that some said that limbs and masses of flesh and parts of entrails were to be seen even within the gates.
12 After these things had continued for many days, a wonderful event occurred. The air was clear and bright and the appearance of the sky most serene. When suddenly throughout the city from the pillars which supported the public porches many drops fell like tears; and the market places and streets, though there was no mist in the air, were moistened with sprinkled water, whence I know not. Then immediately it was reported everywhere that the earth, unable to endure the abomination of these things, had shed tears in a mysterious manner; and that as a rebuke to the relentless and unfeeling nature of men, stones and lifeless wood had wept for what had happened. I know well that this account may perhaps appear idle and fabulous to those who come after us, but not to those to whom the truth was confirmed at the time.180 
Chapter X.
1 On the fourteenth day of the following month Appellaeus,181 the nineteenth before the Kalends of January, certain persons from Egypt were again seized by those who examined people passing the gates. They had been sent to minister to the confessors in Cilicia. They received the same sentence as those whom they had gone to help, being mutilated in their eyes and feet. Three of them exhibited in Ascalon, where they were imprisoned, marvelous bravery in the endurance of various kinds of martyrdom. One of them named Ares was condemned to the flames, and the others, called Probus182 and Elias, were beheaded.
2 On the eleventh day of the month Audynaeus,183 which is the third before the Ides of January, in the same city of Caesarea, Peter an ascetic, also called Apselamus,184 from the village of Anea,185 on the borders of Eleutheropolis, like purest gold, gave noble proof by fire of his faith in the Christ of God. Though the judge and those around him besought him many times to have compassion on himself, and to spare his own youth and bloom, he disregarded them, preferring hope in the God of the universe to all things, even to life itself. A certain Asclepius, supposed to be186 a bishop of the sect of Marcion, possessed as he thought with zeal for religion, but “not according to knowledge,”187 ended his life on one and the same funeral pyre. These things took place in this manner.
Chapter XI.
1 It is time to describe the great and celebrated spectacle of Pamphilus,188 a man thrice dear to me, and of those who finished their course with him. They were twelve in all; being counted worthy of apostolic grace and number.
2 Of these the leader and the only one honored with the position of presbyter at Caesarea, was Pamphilus; a man who through his entire life was celebrated for every virtue, for renouncing and despising the world, for sharing his possessions with the needy, for contempt of earthly hopes, and for philosophic deportment and exercise. He especially excelled all in our time in most sincere devotion to the Divine Scriptures and indefatigable industry in whatever he undertook, and in his helpfulness to his relatives and associates.
3 In a separate treatise on his life,189 consisting of three books, we have already described the excellence of his virtue. Referring to this work those who delight in such things and desire to know them, let us now consider the martyrs in order.
4 Second after Pamphilus, Vales, who was honored for his venerable gray hair, entered the contest. He was a deacon from Aelia,190 an old man of gravest appearance, and versed in the Divine Scriptures, if any one ever was. He had so laid up the memory of them in his heart that he did not need to look at the books if he undertook to repeat any passage of Scripture.
5 The third was Paul from the city of Jamna,191 who was known among them as most zealous and fervent in spirit. Previous to his martyrdom, he had endured the conflict of confession by cauterization.
After these persons had continued in prison for two entire years, the occasion of their martyrdom was a second arrival of Egyptian brethren who suffered with them.
6 They had accompanied the confessors in Cilicia to the mines there and were returning to their homes. At the entrance of the gates of Caesarea, the guards, who were men of barbarous character, questioned them as to who they were and whence they came. They kept back nothing of the truth, and were seized as malefactors taken in the very act. They were five in number.
7 When brought before the tyrant, being very bold in his presence, they were immediately thrown into prison. On the next day, which was the nineteenth of the month Peritius,192 according to the Roman reckoning the fourteenth before the Kalends of March, they were brought, according to command, before the judge, with Pamphilus and his associates whom we have mentioned. First, by all kinds of torture, through the invention of strange and various machines, he tested the invincible constancy of the Egyptians.
8 Having practised these cruelties upon the leader193 of all, he asked him first who he was. He heard in reply the name of some prophet instead of his proper name. For it was their custom, in place of the names of idols given them by their fathers, if they had such, to take other names; so that you would hear them calling themselves Elijah or Jeremiah or Isaiah or Samuel or Daniel, thus showing themselves inwardly true Jews, and the genuine Israel of God, not only in deeds, but in the names which they bore. When Firmilianus had heard some such name from the martyr, and did not understand the force of the word, he asked next the name of his country.
9 But he gave a second answer similar to the former, saying that Jerusalem was his country, meaning that of which Paul says, “Jerusalem which is above is free, which is our mother,”194 and, “Ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.”195 
10 This was what he meant; but the judge thinking only of the earth, sought diligently to discover what that city was, and in what part of the world it was situated. And therefore he applied tortures that the truth might be acknowledged. But the man, with his hands twisted behind his back, and his feet crushed by strange machines, asserted firmly that he had spoken the truth.
11 And being questioned again repeatedly what and where the city was of which he spoke, he said that it was the country of the pious alone, for no others should have a place in it, and that it lay toward the far East and the rising sun.
12 He philosophized about these things according to his own understanding, and was in nowise turned froth them by the tortures with which he was afflicted on every side. And as if he were without flesh or body he seemed insensible of his sufferings. But the judge being perplexed, was impatient, thinking that the Christians were about to establish a city somewhere, inimical and hostile to the Romans. And he inquired much about this, and investigated where that country toward the East was located.
13 But when he had for a long time lacerated the young man with scourgings, and punished him with all sorts of torments, he perceived that his persistence in what he had said could not be changed, and passed against him sentence of death. Such a scene was exhibited by what was done to this man. And having inflicted similar tortures on the others, he sent them away in the same manner.
14 Then being wearied and perceiving that he punished the men in vain, having satiated his desire, he proceeded against Pamphilus and his companions. And having learned that already under former tortures they had manifested an unchangeable zeal for the faith, he asked them if they would now obey. And receiving from every one of them only this one answer, as their last word of confession in martyrdom, he inflicted on them punishment similar to the others.
15 When this had been done, a young man, one of the household servants of Pamphilus, who had been educated in the noble life and instruction of such a man, learning the sentence passed upon his master, cried out from the midst of the crowd asking that their bodies might be buried.
16 Thereupon the judge, not a man, but a wild beast, or if anything more savage than a wild beast, giving no consideration to the young man’s age, asked him only the same question. When he learned that he confessed himself a Christian, as if he had been wounded by a dart, swelling with rage, he ordered the tormentors to use their utmost power against him.
17 And when he saw that he refused to sacrifice as commanded, he ordered them to scrape him continually to his very bones and to the inmost recesses of his bowels, not as if he were human flesh but as if he were stones or wood or any lifeless thing. But after long persistence he saw that this was in vain, as the man was speechless and insensible and almost lifeless, his body being worn out by the tortures.
18 But being inflexibly merciless and inhuman, he ordered him to be committed straightway, as he was, to a slow fire. And before the death of his earthly master, though he had entered later on the conflict, he received release from the body, while those who had been zealous about the others were yet delaying.
19 One could then see. Porphyry,196 like one who had come off victorious in every conflict, his body covered with dust, but his countenance cheerful, after such sufferings, with courageous and exulting mind, advancing to death. And as if truly filled with the Divine Spirit, covered only with his philosophic robe thrown about him as a cloak, soberly and intelligently he directed his friends as to what he wished, and beckoned to them, preserving still a cheerful countenance even at the stake. But when the fire was kindled at some distance around him in a circle, having inhaled the flame into his mouth, he continued most nobly in silence from that time till his death, after the single word which he uttered when the flame first touched him, and he cried out for the help of Jesus the Son of God. Such was the contest of Porphyry. His death was reported to Pamphilus by a messenger, Seleucus.
20 He was one of the confessors from the army. As the bearer of such a message, he was forthwith deemed worthy of a similar lot. For as soon as he related the death of Porphyry, and had saluted one of the martyrs with a kiss, some of the soldiers seized him and led him to the governor. And he, as if he would hasten him on to be a companion of the former on the way to heaven, commanded that he be put to death immediately.
21 This man was from Cappadocia, and belonged to the select band of soldiers, and had obtained no small honor in those things which are esteemed among the Romans. For in stature and bodily strength, and size and vigor, he far excelled his fellow-soldiers, so that his appearance was matter of common talk, and his whole form was admired on account of its size and symmetrical proportions.
22 At the beginning of the persecution he was prominent in the conflicts of confession, through his patience under scourging. After he left the army he set himself to imitate zealously the religious ascetics, and as if he were their father and guardian he showed himself a bishop and patron of destitute orphans and defenceless widows and of those who were distressed with penury or sickness. It is likely that on this account he was deemed worthy of an extraordinary call to martyrdom by God, who rejoices in such things more than in the smoke and blood of sacrifices.
23 He was the tenth athlete among those whom we have mentioned as meeting their end on one and the same day. On this day, as was fitting, the chief gate was opened, and a ready way of entrance into the kingdom of heaven was given to the martyr Pamphilus and to the others with him.
24 In the footsteps of Seleucus came Theodulus, a grave and pious old man, who belonged to the governor’s household, and had been honored by Firmilianus himself more than all the others in his house on account of his age, and because he was a father of the third generation, and also on account of the kindness and most faithful conscientiousness which he had manifested toward him.197 As he pursued the course of Seleucus when brought before his master, the latter was more angry at him than at those who had preceded him, and condemned him to endure the martyrdom of the Saviour on the cross.198 
25 As there lacked yet one to fill 25 up the number of the twelve martyrs of whom we have spoken, Julian came to complete it. He had just arrived from abroad, and had not yet entered the gate of the city, when having learned about the martyrs while still on the way, he rushed at once, just as he was, to see them. When he beheld the tabernacles of the saints prone on the ground, being filled with joy, he embraced and kissed them all.
26 The ministers of slaughter straightway seized him as he was doing this and led him to Firmilianus. Acting as was his custom, he condemned him to a slow fire. Thereupon Julian, leaping and exulting, in a loud voice gave thanks to the Lord who had judged him worthy of such things, and was honored with the crown of martyrdom.
27 He was a Cappadocian by birth, and in his manner of life he was most circumspect, faithful and sincere, zealous in all other respects, and animated by the Holy Spirit himself. Such was the company which was thought worthy to enter into martyrdom with Pamphilus.
28 By the command of the impious governor their sacred and truly holy bodies were kept as food for the wild beasts for four days and as many nights. But since, strange to say, through the providential care of God, nothing approached them,—neither beast of prey, nor bird, nor dog,— they were taken up uninjured, and after suitable preparation were buried in the customary manner.
29 When the report of what had been done to these men was spread in all directions, Adrianus and Eubulus, having come from the so-called country of Manganaea199 to Caesarea, to see the remaining confessors, were also asked at the gate the reason for their coming; and having acknowledged the truth, were brought to Firmilianus. But he, as was his custom, without delay inflicted many tortures in their sides, and condemned them to be devoured by wild beasts.
30 After two days, on the fifth of the month Dystrus,200 the third before the Nones of March, which was regarded as the birthday of the tutelary divinity of Caesarea,201 Adrianus was thrown to a lion, and afterwards slain with the sword. But Eubulus, two days later, on the Nones of March, that is, on the seventh of the month Dystrus, when the judge had earnestly entreated him to enjoy by sacrificing that which was considered freedom among them, preferring a glorious death for religion to transitory life, was made like the other an offering to wild beasts, and as the last of the martyrs in Caesarea, sealed the list of athletes. It is proper also to relate here, how in a
31 short time the heavenly Providence came upon the impious rulers, together with the tyrants themselves. For that very Firmilianus, who had thus abused the martyrs of Christ, after suffering with the others the severest punishment, was put to death by the sword. Such were the martyrdoms which took place at Caesarea during the entire period of the persecution.
Chapter XII.
1 I Think it best to pass by all the other events which occurred in the meantime: such as those which happened to the bishops of the churches, when instead of shepherds of the rational202 flocks of Christ, over which they presided in an unlawful manner, the divine judgment, considering them worthy of such a charge, made them keepers of camels,203 an irrational beast204 and very crooked in the structure of its body, or condemned them to have the care of the imperial horses;—and I pass by also the insults and disgraces and tortures they endured from the imperial overseers and rulers on account of the sacred vessels and treasures of the Church; and besides these the lust of power on the part of many, the disorderly and unlawful ordinations, and the schisms among the confessors themselves; also the novelties which were zealously devised against the remnants of the Church by the new and factious members, who added innovation after innovation and forced them in unsparingly among the calamities of the persecution, heaping misfortune upon misfortune. I judge it more suitable to shun and avoid the account of these things, as I said at the beginning.205 But such things as are sober and praiseworthy, according to the sacred word,—“and if there be any virtue and praise,”206 —I consider it most proper to tell and to record, and to present to believing hearers in the history of the admirable martyrs. And after this I think it best to crown the entire work with an account of the peace which has appeared unto us from heaven.
Chapter XIII.
1 The seventh year of our conflict was completed; and the hostile measures which had continued into the eighth year were gradually and quietly becoming less severe. A large number of confessors were collected at the copper mines in Palestine, and were acting with considerable boldness, so far as even to build places of worship. But the ruler of the province, a cruel and wicked man, as his acts against the martyrs showed, having come there and learned the state of affairs, communicated it to the emperor, writing in accusation whatever he thought best.
2 Thereupon, being appointed superintendent of the mines, he divided the band of confessors as if by a royal decree, and sent some to dwell in Cyprus and others in Lebanon, and he scattered others in different parts of Palestine and ordered them to labor in various works.
3 And, selecting the four who seemed to him to be the leaders, he sent them to the commander of the armies in that section. These were Peleus and Nilus,207 Egyptian bishops, also a presbyter,208 and Patermuthius, who was well known among them all for his zeal toward all. The commander of the army demanded of them a denial of religion, and not obtaining this, he condemned them to death by fire.
4 There were others there who had been allotted to dwell in a separate place by themselves,— such of the confessors as on account of age or mutilations, or for other bodily infirmities, had been released from service. Silvanus,209 a bishop from Gaza, presided over them, and set a worthy and genuine example of Christianity.
5 This man having from the first day of the persecution, and throughout its entire continuance, been eminent for his confessions in all sorts of conflicts, had been kept all that time that he might, so to speak, set the final seal upon the whole conflier in Palestine.
6 There were with him many from Egypt, among whom was John, who surpassed all in our time in the excellence of his memory. He had formerly been deprived of his sight. Nevertheless, on account of his eminence in confession he had with the others suffered the destruction of his foot by cauterization. And although his sight had been destroyed he was subjected to the same burning with fire, the executioners aiming after everything that was merciless and pitiless and cruel and inhuman.
7 Since he was such a man, one would not be so much astonished at his habits and his philosophic life, nor would he seem so wonderful for them, as for the strength of his memory. For he had written whole books of the Divine Scriptures, “not in tables of stone”210 as the divine apostle says, neither on skins of animals, nor on paper which moths and time destroy, but truly “in fleshy tables of the heart,”211 in a transparent soul and most pure eye of the mind, so that whenever he wished he could repeat, as if from a treasury of words, any portion of the Scripture, whether in the law, or the prophets, or the historical books, or the gospels, or the writings of the apostles.
8 I confess that I was astonished when I first saw the man as he was standing in the midst of a large congregation and repeating portions of the Divine Scripture. While I only heard his voice, I thought that, according to the custom in the meetings, he was reading. But when I came near and perceived what he was doing, and observed all the others standing around him with sound eyes while he was using only the eyes of his mind, and yet was speaking naturally like some prophet, and far excelling those who were sound in body, it was impossible for me not to glorify God and wonder. And I seemed to see in these deeds evident and strong confirmation of the fact that true manhood consists not in excellence of bodily appearance, but in the soul and understanding alone. For he, with his body mutilated, manifested the superior excellence of the power that was within him.
9 But as to those whom we have mentioned as abiding in a separate place, and attending to their customary duties in fasting and prayer and other exercises, God himself saw fit to give them a salutary issue by extending his right hand in answer to them. The bitter foe, as they were armed against him zealously through their prayers to God, could no longer endure them, and determined to slay and destroy them from off the earth because they troubled him.
10 And God permitted him to complish this, that he might not be restrained from the wickedness he desired, and that at the same time they might receive the prizes of their manifold conflicts. Therefore at the command of the most accursed Maximinus, forty, lacking one,212 were beheaded in one day.
11 These martyrdoms were accomplished 11 in Palestine during eight complete years; and of this description was the persecution in our time. Beginning with the demolition of the churches, it increased greatly as the rulers rose up from time to time against us. In these assaults the multiform and various conflicts of those who wrestled in behalf of religion produced an innumerable multitude of martyrs in every province,—in the regions extending from Libya and throughout all Egypt, and Syria, and from the East round about to the district of Illyricum.
12 But the countries beyond these, all Italy and Sicily and Gaul, and the regions toward the setting sun, in Spain, Mauritania, and Africa, suffered the war of persecution during less than two years,213 and were deemed worthy of a speedier divine visitation and peace; the heavenly Providence sparing the singleness of purpose and faith of those men.
13 For what had never before been recorded in the annals of the Roman government, first took place in our day, contrary to all expectation; for during the persecution in our time the empire was divided into two parts.214 The brethren dwelling in the part of which we have just spoken enjoyed peace; but those in the other part endured trials without number.
14 But when the divine grace kindly and compassionately manifested its care for us too, then truly our rulers also, those very ones through whom the wars against us had been formerly carried on, changed their minds in a most wonderful manner, and published a recantation;215 and by favorable edicts and mild decrees concerning us, extinguished the conflagration against us. This recantation also must be recorded.216 
The End OF The Book OF Eusebius Pamphili Concerning Those Who Suffered Martyrdom IN Palestine.217 
Book IX.
Chapter I. The Pretended Relaxation.
1 The imperial edict of recantation, which has been quoted above,1 was posted in all parts of Asia and in the adjoining provinces. After this had been done, Maximinus, the tyrant in the East,—a most impious man, if there ever was one, and most hostile to the religion of the God of the universe,—being by no means satisfied with its contents,2 instead of sending the above-quoted decree to the governors under him, gave them verbal commands to relax the war against us.
2 For since he could not in any other way oppose the decision of his superiors, keeping the law which had been already issued secret, and taking care that it might not be made known in the district under him, he gave an unwritten order to his governors that they should relax the persecution against us. They communicated the command to each other in writing.
3 Sabinus,3 at least, who was honored with the highest official rank among them, communicated the will of the emperor to the provincial governors in a Latin epistle, the translation of which is as follows:
4 “With continuous and most devoted earnestness their Majesties, our most divine masters, the emperors,4 formerly directed the minds of all men to follow the holy and correct course of life, that those also who seemed to live in a manner foreign to that of the Romans, should render the worship due to the immortal gods. But the obstinacy and most unconquerable determination of some went so far that they could neither be turned back from their purpose by the just reason of the command, nor be intimidated by the impending punishment.
5 Since therefore it has come to pass that by such conduct many have brought themselves into danger, their Majesties, our most powerful masters, the emperors, in the exalted nobility of piety, esteeming it foreign to their Majesties’ purpose to bring men into so great danger for such a cause, have commanded their devoted servant, myself, to write to thy wisdom,5 that if any Christian be found engaging in the worship of his own people, thou shouldst abstain from molesting and endangering him, and shouldst not suppose it necessary to punish any one on this pretext. For it has been proved by the experience of so long a time that they can in no way be persuaded to abandon such obstinate conduct.
6 Therefore it should be thy care to write to the curators6 and magistrates and district overseers7 of every city, that they may know that it is not necessary for them to give further attention to this matter.”8 
7 Thereupon the rulers of the provinces, thinking that the purpose of the things which were written was truly made known to them, declared the imperial will to the curators and magistrates and prefects of the various districts9 in writing. But they did not limit themselves to writing, but sought more quickly to accomplish the supposed will of the emperor in deeds also. Those whom they had imprisoned on account of their confession of the Deity, they set at liberty, and they released those of them who had been sent to the mines for punishment; for they erroneously supposed that this was the true will of the emperor.
8 And when these things had thus been done, immediately, like a light shining forth in a dark night, one could see in every city congregations gathered and assemblies thronged, and meetings held according to their custom. And every one of the unbelieving heathen was not a little astonished at these things, wondering at so marvelous a transformation, and exclaiming that the God of the Christians was great and alone true.
9 And some of our people, who had faithfully and bravely sustained the conflict of persecution, again became frank and bold toward all; but as many as had been diseased in the faith and had been shaken in their souls by the tempest, strove eagerly for healing, beseeching and imploring the strong to stretch out to them a saving hand, and supplicating God to be merciful unto them.
10 Then also the noble athletes of religion who had been set free from their sufferings in the mines returned to their own homes. Happily and joyfully they passed through every city, full of unspeakable pleasure and of a boldness which cannot be expressed in words.
11 Great crowds of men pursued their journey along the highways and through the market-places, praising God with hymns and psalms. And you might have seen those who a little while before had been driven in bonds from their native countries under a most cruel sentence, returning with bright and joyful faces to their own firesides; so that even they who had formerly thirsted for our blood, when they saw the unexpected wonder, congratulated us on what had taken place.
Chapter II. The Subsequent Reverse.
1 But the tyrant who, as we have said, ruled over the districts of the Orient, a thorough hater of the good and an enemy of every virtuous person, as he was, could no longer bear this; and indeed he did not permit matters to go on in this way quite six months.10 Devising all possible means of destroying the peace, he first attempted to restrain us, under a pretext,11 from meeting in the cemeteries.
2 Then through the agency of some wicked men he sent an embassy to himself against us,12 inciting tim citizens of Antioch to ask from him as a very great favor that he would by no means permit any of the Christians to dwell in their country; and others were secretly induced to do the same thing. The author of all this in Antioch was Theotecnus,13 a violent and wicked man, who was an impostor, and whose character was foreign to his name.14 He appears to have been the curator15 of the city. 
Chapter III. The Newly Erected Statue at Antioch.
After this man had carried on all kinds of war against us and had caused our people to be diligently hunted up in their retreats, as if they were unholy thieves, and had devised every sort of slander and accusation against us, and become the cause of death to vast numbers, he finally erected a statue of Jupiter Philius16 with certain juggleries and magic rites. And after inventing unholy forms of initiation and ill-omened mysteries in connection with it, and abominable means of purification,17 he exhibited his jugglery, by oracles which he pretended to utter, even to the emperor; and through a flattery which was pleasing to the ruler he aroused the demon against the Christians and said that the god had given command to expel the Christians as his enemies beyond the confines of the city and the neighboring districts.
Chapter IV. The Memorials Against Us.18 
The fact that this man, who took the lead in this matter, had succeeded in his purpose was an incitement to all the other officials in the cities under the same government to prepare a similar memorial.19 And the governors of the provinces perceiving that this was agreeable to the emperor suggested to their subjects that they should do the same.
2 And as the tyrant by a rescript declared himself well pleased with their measures,20 persecution was kindled anew against us. Priests for the images were then appointed in the cities, and besides them high priests by Maximinus himself.21 The latter were taken from among those who were most distinguished in public life and had gained celebrity in all the offices which they had filled; and who were imbued, moreover, with great zeal for the service of those whom they worshiped.
3 Indeed, the extraordinary superstition of the emperor, to speak in brief, led all his subjects, both rulers and private citizens, for the sake of gratifying him, to do everything against us, supposing that they could best show their gratitude to him for the benefits which they had received from him, by plotting murder against us and exhibiting toward us any new signs of malignity.
Chapter V. The Forged Acts.
1 Having therefore forged Acts of Pilate22 and our Saviour full of every kind of blasphemy against Christ, they sent them with the emperor’s approval to the whole of the empire subject to him, with written commands that they should be openly posted to the view of all in every place, both in country and city, and that the schoolmasters should give them to their scholars, instead of their customary lessons, to be studied and learned by heart.
2 While these things were taking place, another military commander, whom the Romans call Dux,23 seized some infamous women in the market-place at Damascus in Phoenicia,24 and by threatening to inflict tortures upon them compelled them to make a written declaration that they had once been Christians and that they were acquainted with their impious deeds,—that in their very churches they committed licentious acts; and they uttered as many other slanders against our religion as he wished them to. Having taken down their words in writing, he communicated them to the emperor, who commanded that these documents also should be published in every place and city.
Chapter VI. Those Who Suffered Martyrdom at This Time.
1 Not long afterward, however, this military commander became his own murderer and paid the penalty for his wickedness. But we were obliged again to endure exile and severe persecutions, and the governors in every province were once more terribly stirred up against us; so that even some of those illustrious in the Divine Word were seized and had sentence of death pronounced upon them without mercy. Three of them in the city of Emesa25 in Phoenicia, having confessed that they were Christians, were thrown as food to the wild beasts. Among them was a bishop Silvanus,26 a very old man, who had filled his office full forty years.
2 At about the same time Peter27 also, who presided most illustriously over the parishes in Alexandria, a divine example of a bishop on account of the excellence of his life and his study of the sacred Scriptures, being seized for no cause and quite unexpectedly, was, as if by command of Maximinus, immediately and without explanation, beheaded. With him also many other bishops of Egypt suffered the same fate.
3 And Lucian,28 a presbyter of the parish at Antioch, and a most excellent man in every respect, temperate in life and famed for his learning in sacred things, was brought to the city of Nicomedia, where at that time the emperor happened to be staying, and after delivering before the ruler an apology for the doctrine which he professed, was committed to prison and put to death.
4 Such trials were brought upon us in a brief time by Maximinus, the enemy of virtue, so that this persecution which was stirred up against us seemed far more cruel than the former.
Chapter VII. The Decree Against Us Which Was Engraved on Pillars.
1 The memorials against us29 and copies of the imperial edicts issued in reply to them were engraved and set up on brazen pillars in the midst of the cities,30 —a course which had never been followed elsewhere. The children in the schools had daily in their mouths the names of Jesus and Pilate, and the Acts which had been forged in wanton insolence.31 
2 It appears to me necessary to insert here this document of Maximinus which was posted on pillars, in order that there may be made manifest at the same time the boastful and haughty arrogance of the God-hating man, and the sleepless evil-hating divine vengeance upon the impious, which followed close upon him, and under whose pressure he not long afterward took the opposite course in respect to us and confirmed it by written laws.32 
The rescript is in the following words:
Copy of a translation of the rescript of Maximinus in answer to the memorials against us, taken from the pillar in Tyre.
3 “Now at length the feeble power of the human mind has become able to shake off and to scatter every dark mist of error, which before this besieged the senses of men, who were more miserable than impious, and enveloped them in dark and destructive ignorance; and to perceive that it is governed and established by the beneficent providence of the immortal gods.
4 It passes belief how grateful, how pleasing and how agreeable it is to us, that you have given a most decided proof of your pious resolution; for even before this it was known to every one how much regard and reverence you were paying to the immortal gods, exhibiting not a faith of bare and empty words, but continued and wonderful examples of illustrious deeds.
5 Wherefore your city may justly be called a seat and dwelling of the immortal gods. At least, it appears by many signs that it flourishes because of the presence of the celestial gods.
6 Behold, therefore, your city, regardless of all private advantages, and omitting its former petitions in its own behalf, when it perceived that the adherents of that execrable vanity were again beginning to spread, and to start the greatest conflagration,—like a neglected and extinguished funeral pile when its brands are rekindled,—immediately resorted to our piety as to a metropolis of all religiousness, asking some remedy and aid.
7 It is evident that the gods have given you this saving mind on account of your faith and piety.
“Accordingly that supreme and mightiest Jove, who presides over your illustrious city, who preserves your ancestral gods, your wives and children, your hearths and homes from every destructive pest, has infused into your souls this wholesome resolve; showing and proving how excellent and glorious and salutary it is to observe with the becoming reverence the worship and sacred rites of the immortal gods.
8 For who can be found so ignorant or so devoid of all understanding as not to perceive that it is due to the kindly care of the gods that the earth does not refuse the seed sown in it, nor disappoint the hope of the husbandmen with vain expectation; that impious war is not inevitably fixed upon earth, and wasted bodies dragged down to death under the influence of a corrupted atmosphere; that the sea is not swollen and raised on high by blasts of intemperate winds; that unexpected hurricanes do not burst forth and stir up the destructive tempest; moreover, that the earth, the nourisher and mother of all, is not shaken from its lowest depths with a terrible tremor, and that the mountains upon it do not sink into the opening chasms. No one is ignorant that all these, and evils still worse than these, have oftentimes happened hitherto.
9 And all these misfortunes have taken place on account of the destructive error of the empty vanity of those impious men, when it prevailed in their souls, and, we may almost say, weighed down the whole world with shame.”
10 After other words he adds: “Let them look at the standing crops already flourishing with waving heads in the broad fields, and at the meadows glittering with plants and flowers, in response to abundant rains and the restored mildness and softness of the atmosphere.
11 Finally, let all rejoice that the might of the most powerful and terrible Mars has been propitiated by our piety, our sacrifices, and our veneration; and let them on this account enjoy firm and tranquil peace and quiet; and let as many as have wholly abandoned that blind error and delusion and have returned to a right and sound mind rejoice the more, as those who have been rescued from an unexpected storm or severe disease and are to reap the fruits of pleasure for the rest of their life.
12 But if they still persist in their execrable vanity, let them, as you have desired, be driven far away from your city and territory, that thus, in accordance with your praiseworthy zeal in this matter, your city, being freed from every pollution and impiety, may, according to its native disposition, attend to the sacred rites of the immortal gods with becoming reverence.
13 But that ye may know how acceptable to us your request respecting this matter has been, and how ready our mind is to confer benefits voluntarily, without memorials and petitions, we permit your devotion to ask whatever great gift ye may desire in return for this your pious disposition.
14 And now ask that this may be done and that ye may receive it; for ye shall obtain it without delay. This, being granted to your city, shall furnish for all time an evidence of reverent piety toward the immortal gods, and of the fact that you have obtained from our benevolence merited prizes for this choice of yours; and it shall be shown to your children and children’s children.”
15 This was published against us in all the provinces, depriving us of every hope of good, at least from men; so that, according to that divine utterance, “If it were possible, even the elect would have stumbled”33 at these things.
16 And now indeed, when the hope of most of 16 us was almost extinct, suddenly while those who were to execute against us the above decree had in some places scarcely finished their journey, God, the defender of his own Church, exhibited his heavenly interposition in our behalf, well-nigh stopping the tyrant’s boasting against us.
Chapter VIII. The Misfortunes Which Happened in Connection with These Things, in Famine, Pestilence, and War.
1 The customary rains and showers of the winter season ceased to fall in their wonted abundance upon the earth and an unexpected famine made its appearance, and in addition to this a pestilence, and another severe disease consisting of an ulcer, which on account of its fiery appearance was appropriately called a carbuncle.34 This, spreading over the whole body, greatly endangered the lives of those who suffered from it; but as it chiefly attacked the eyes, it deprived multitudes of men, women, and children of their sight.
2 In addition to this the tyrant was compelled to go to war with the Armenians, who had been from ancient times friends and allies of the Romans. As they were also Christians35 and zealous in their piety toward the Deity, the enemy of God had attempted to compel them to sacrifice to idols and demons, and had thus made friends foes, and allies enemies.
3 All these things suddenly took place at one and the same time, and refuted the tyrant’s empty vaunt against the Deity. For he had boasted that, because of his zeal for idols and his hostility against us, neither famine nor pestilence nor war had happened in his time.36 These things, therefore, coming upon him at once and together, furnished a prelude also of his own destruction.
4 He himself with his forces was defeated in the war with the Armenians, and the rest of the inhabitants of the cities under him were terribly afflicted with famine and pestilence, so that one measure of wheat was sold for twenty-five hundred Attic drachms.37 
5 Those who died in the cities were innumerable, and those who died in the country and villages were still more. So that the tax lists which formerly included a great rural population were almost entirely wiped out; nearly all being speedily destroyed by famine and pestilence.
6 Some, therefore, desired to dispose of their most precious things to those who were better supplied, in return for the smallest morsel of food, and others, selling their possessions little by little, fell into the last extremity of want. Some, chewing wisps of hay and recklessly eating noxious herbs, undermined and mined their constitutions.
7 And some of the high-born women in the cities, driven by want to shameful extremities, went forth into the market-places to beg, giving evidence of their former liberal culture by the modesty of their appearance and the decency of their apparel.
8 Some, wasted away like ghosts and at the very point of death, stumbled and tottered here and there, and too weak to stand fell down in the middle of the streets; lying stretched out at full length they begged that a small morsel of food might be given them, and with their last gasp they cried out Hunger! having strength only for this most painful cry.
9 But others, who seemed to be better supplied, astonished at the multitude of the beggars, after giving away large quantities, finally became hard and relentless, expecting that they themselves also would soon suffer the same calamities as those who begged. So that in the midst of the market-places and lanes, dead and naked bodies lay unburied for many days, presenting the most lamentable spectacle to those that beheld them.
10 Some also became food for dogs, on which account the survivors began to kill the dogs, lest they should become mad and should go to devouring men.
11 But still worse was the pestilence which consumed entire houses and families, and especially those whom the famine was not able to destroy because of their abundance of food. Thus men of wealth, rulers and governors and multitudes in office, as if left by the famine on purpose for the pestilence, suffered swift and speedy death. Every place therefore was full of lamentation; in every lane and market-place and street there was nothing else to be seen or heard than tears, with the customary instruments and the voices of the mourners.38 
12 In this way death, waging war with these two weapons, pestilence and famine, destroyed whole families in a short time, so that one could see two or three dead bodies carried out at once.
13 Such were the rewards of the boasting of Maximinus and of the measures of the cities against us.
Then did the evidences of the universal zeal and piety of the Christians become manifest to all the heathen.
14 For they alone in the 14 midst of such ills showed their sympathy and humanity by their deeds. Every day some continued caring for and burying the dead, for there were multitudes who had no one to care for them; others collected in one place those who were afflicted by the famine, throughout the entire city, and gave bread to them all; so that the thing became noised abroad among all men, and they glorified the God of the Christians; and, convinced by the facts themselves, confessed that they alone were truly pious and religious.
15 After these things were thus done, God, the great and celestial defender of the Christians, having revealed in the events which have been described his anger and indignation at all men for the great evils which they had brought upon us, restored to us the bright and gracious sunlight of his providence in our behalf; so that in the deepest darkness a light of peace shone most wonderfully upon us from him, and made it manifest to all that God himself has always been the ruler of our affairs. From time to time indeed he chastens his people and corrects them by his visitations, but again after sufficient chastisement he shows mercy and favor to those who hope in him.
Chapter IX. The Victory of the God-Beloved Emperors.39 
1 Thus when Constantine, whom we have already mentioned40 as an emperor, born of an emperor, a pious son of a most pious and prudent father, and Licinius, second to him,41 —two God-beloved emperors, honored alike for their intelligence and their piety,—being stirred up against the two most impious tyrants by God, the absolute Ruler and Saviour of all, engaged in formal war against them, with God as their ally, Maxentius42 was defeated at Rome by Constantine in a remarkable manner, and the tyrant of the East43 did not long survive him, but met a most shameful death at the hand of Licinius, who had not yet become insane.44 
2 Constantine, who was the superior both in dignity and imperial rank,45 first took compassion upon those who were oppressed at Rome, and having invoked in prayer the God of heaven, and his Word, and Jesus Christ himself, the Saviour of all, as his aid, advanced with his Whole army,46 proposing to restore to the Romans their ancestral liberty.
3 But Maxentius, putting confidence rather in the arts of sorcery than in the devotion of his subjects, did not dare to go forth beyond the gates of the city, but fortified every place and district and town which was enslaved by him, in the neighborhood of Rome and in all Italy, with an immense multitude of troops and with innumerable bands of soldiers. But the emperor, relying upon the assistance of God, attacked the first, second, and third army of the tyrant, and conquered them all; and having advanced through the greater part of Italy, was already very near Rome.
4 Then, that he might not be compelled to wage war with the Romans for the sake of the tyrant, God himself drew the latter, as if bound in chains, some distance without the gates, and confirmed those threats against the impious which had been anciently inscribed in sacred books,—disbelieved, indeed, by most as a myth, but believed by the faithful,—confirmed them, in a word, by the deed itself to all, both believers and unbelievers, that saw the wonder with their eyes.
5 Thus, as in the time of Moses himself and of the ancient God-beloved race of Hebrews, “he cast Pharaoh’s chariots and host into the sea, and overwhelmed his chosen charioteers in the Red Sea, and covered them with the flood,”47 in the same way Maxentius also with his soldiers and body-guards “went down into the depths like a stone,”48 when he fled before the power of God which was with Constantine, and passed through the river which lay in his way, over which he had formed a bridge with boats, and thus prepared the means of his own destruction.
6 In regard to him one might say, “he digged a pit and opened it and fell into the hole which he had made; his labor shall turn upon his own head, and his unrighteousness shall fall upon his own crown.”49 
7 Thus, then, the bridge over the river being broken, the passageway settled down, and immediately the boats with the men disappeared in the depths, and that most impious one himself first of all, then the shield-bearers who were with him, as the divine oracles foretold, “sank like lead in the mighty waters”;50 so that those who obtained the victory from God, if not in words, at least in deeds, like Moses, the great servant of God, and those who were with him, fittingly sang as they had sung against the impious tyrant of old, saying, “Let us sing unto the Lord, for he hath gloriously glorified himself; horse and rider hath he thrown into the sea; a helper and a protector hath he become for my salvation;”51 and “Who is like unto thee, O Lord; among the gods, who is like unto thee glorious in holiness,52 marvelous in glory, doing wonders.”53 
8 These and the like praises Constantine, by his very deeds, sang to God, the universal Ruler, and Author of his victory, as he entered Rome in triumph.
9 Immediately all the members of the senate and the other most celebrated men, with the whole Roman people, together with children and women, received him as their deliverer, their saviour, and their benefactor, with shining eyes and with their whole souls, with shouts of gladness and unbounded joy.
10 But he, as one possessed of inborn piety toward God, did not exult in the shouts, nor was he elated by the praises; but perceiving that his aid was from God, he immediately commanded that a trophy of the Saviour’s passion be put in the hand of his own statue.
11 And when he had placed it, with the saving sign of the cross in its right hand, in the most public place in Rome, he commanded that the following inscription should be engraved upon it in the Roman tongue: “By this salutary sign, the true proof of bravery, I have saved and freed your city from the yoke of the tyrant and moreover, having set at liberty both the senate and the people of Rome, I have restored them to their ancient distinction and splendor.”54 
12 And after this both Constantine himself and with him the Emperor Licinius, who had not yet been seized by that madness into which he later fell,55 praising God as the author of all their blessings, with one will and mind drew up a full and most complete decree in behalf of the Christians,56 and sent an account of the wonderful things done for them by God, and of the victory over the tyrant, together with a copy of the decree itself, to Maximinus, who still ruled over the nations of the East and pretended friendship toward them.
13 But he, like a tyrant, was greatly pained by what he learned; but not wishing to seem to yield to others, nor, on the other hand, to suppress that which was commanded, for fear of those who enjoined it, as if on his own authority, he addressed, under compulsion, to the governors under him this first communication in behalf of the Christians,57 falsely inventing things against himself which had never been done by him.
Copy of a translation of the epistle of the tyrant Maximinus.
14 “Jovius Maximinus Augustus to Sabinus.58 am confident that it is manifest both to thy firmness and to all men that our masters Diocletian and Maximianus, our fathers, when they saw almost all men abandoning the worship of the gods and attaching themselves to the party of the Christians, rightly decreed that all who gave up the worship of those same immortal gods should be recalled by open chastisement and punishment to the worship of the gods.
15 But when I first came to the East under favorable auspices and learned that in some places a great many men who were able to render public service had been banished by the judges for the above-mentioned cause, I gave command to each of the judges that henceforth none of them should treat the provincials with severity, but that they should rather recall them to the worship of the gods by flattery and exhortations.59 
16 Then when, in accordance with my command, these orders were obeyed by the judges, it came to pass that none of those who lived in the districts of the East were banished or insulted, but that they were rather brought back to the worship of the gods by the fact that no severity was employed toward them.
17 But afterwards, when I went up last year60 under good auspices to Nicomedia and sojourned there, citizens of the same city came to me with the images of the gods, earnestly entreating that such a people should by no means be permitted to dwell in their country.61 
18 But when I learned that many men of the same religion dwelt in those regions, I replied that I gladly thanked them for their request, but that I perceived that it was not proffered by all, and that if, therefore, there were any that persevered in the same superstition, each one had the privilege of doing as he pleased, even if he wished to recognize the worship of the gods.62 
19 Nevertheless, I considered it necessary to give a friendly answer to the inhabitants of Nicomedia and to the other cities which had so earnestly presented to me the same petition, namely, that no Christians should dwell in their cities,—both because this same course had been pursued by all the ancient emperors, and also because it was pleasing to the gods, through whom all men and the government of the state itself endure,—and to confirm the request which they presented in behalf of the worship of their deity.
20 Therefore, although before this time, special letters have been sent to thy devotedness, and commands have likewise been given that no harsh measures should be taken against those provincials who desire to follow such a course, but that they should be treated mildly and moderately,—nevertheless, in order that they may not suffer insults or extortions63 from the beneficiaries,64 or from any others, I have thought meet to remind thy firmness in this epistle65 also that thou shouldst lead our provincials rather by flatteries and exhortations to recognize the care of the gods.
21 Hence, if any one of his own choice should decide to adopt the worship of the gods, it is fitting that he should be welcomed, but if any should wish to follow their own religion, do thou leave it in their power.
22 Wherefore it behooves thy devotedness to observe that which is committed to thee, and to see that power is given to no one to oppress our provincials with insults and extortions,66 since, as already written, it is fitting to recall our provincials to the worship of the gods rather by exhortations and flatteries. But, in order that this command of ours may come to the knowledge of all our provincials, it is incumbent upon thee to proclaim that which has been enjoined, in an edict issued by thyself.”
23 Since he was forced to do this by necessity and did not give the command by his own will, he was not regarded by any one as sincere or trustworthy, because he had already shown his unstable and deceitful disposition after his former similar concession.
24 None of our people, therefore, ventured to hold meetings or even to appear in public, because his communication did not cover this, but only commanded to guard against doing us any injury, and did not give orders that we should hold meetings or build churches or perform any of our customary acts.
25 And yet Constantine and Licinius, the advocates of peace and piety, had written him to permit this, and had granted it to all their subjects by edicts and ordinances.67 But this most impious man did not choose to yield in this matter until, being driven by the divine judgment, he was at last compelled to do it against his will. 
Chapter X. The Overthrow of the Tyrants and the Words, Which They Uttered Before Their Death.68 
1 The circumstances which drove him to this course were the following. Being no longer able to sustain the magnitude of the government which had been undeservedly committed to him, in consequence of his want of prudence and imperial understanding, he managed affairs in a base manner, and with his mind unreasonably exalted in all things with boastful pride, even toward his colleagues in the empire who were in every respect his superiors, in birth, in training, in education, in worth and intelligence, and, greatest of all, in temperance and piety toward the true God, he began to venture to act audaciously and to arrogate to himself the first rank.69 
2 Becoming mad in his folly, he broke the treaties which he had made with Licinius70 and undertook an implacable war. Then in a brief time he threw all things into confusion, and stirred up every city, and having collected his entire force, comprising an immense number of soldiers, he went forth to battle with him, elated by his hopes in demons, whom he supposed to be gods, and by the number of his soldiers.
3 And when he joined battle71 he was deprived of the oversight of God, and the victory was given to Licinius,72 who was then ruling, by the one and only God of all.
4 First, the army in which he trusted was destroyed, and as all his guards abandoned him and left him alone, and fled to the victor, he secretly divested himself as quickly as possible of the imperial garments, which did not fitly belong to him, and in a cowardly and ignoble and unmanly way mingled with the crowd, and then fled, concealing himself in fields and villages.73 But though he was so careful for his safety, he scarcely escaped the hands of his enemies, revealing by his deeds that the divine oracles are faithful and true,in which it is said, “A king is not saved by a great force, and a giant shall not be saved by the greatness of his strength; a horse is a vain thing for safety, nor shall he be delivered by the greatness of his power.
5 Behold, the eyes of the Lord are upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy, to deliver their souls from death.”74 
6 Thus the tyrant, covered with shame, went to his own country. And first, in frantic rage, he slew many priests and prophets of the gods whom he had formerly admired, and whose oracles had incited him to undertake the war, as sorcerers and impostors, and besides all as betrayers of his safety. Then having given glory to the God of the Christians and enacted a most full and complete ordinance in behalf of their liberty,75 he was immediately seized with a mortal disease, and no respite being granted him, departed this life.76 The law enacted by him was as follows:
7 Copy of the edict of the tyrant in behalf of the Christians, translated from the Roman tongue.
“The Emperor Caesar Caius Valerius Maximinus, Germanicus, Sarmaticus, Plus, Felix, Invictus, Augustus. We believe it manifest that no one is ignorant, but that every man who looks back over the past knows and is conscious that in every way we care continually for the good of our provincials, and wish to furnish them with those things which are of especial advantage to all, and for the common benefit and profit, and whatever contributes to the public welfare and is agreeable to the views of each.
8 When, therefore, before this, it became clear to our mind that under pretext of the command of our parents, the most divine Diocletian and Maximianus, which enjoined that the meetings of the Christians should be abolished, many extortions77 and spoliations had been practiced by officials; and that those evils were continually increasing, to the detriment of our provincials toward whom we are especially anxious to exercise proper care, and that their possessions were in consequence perishing, letters were sent last year78 to the governors of each province, in which we decreed that, if any one wished to follow such a practice or to observe this same religion, he should be permitted without hindrance to pursue his purpose and should be impeded and prevented by no one, and that all should have liberty to do without any fear or suspicion that which each preferred.
9 But even now we cannot help perceiving that some of the judges have mistaken our commands, and have given our people reason to doubt the meaning of our ordinances, and have caused them to proceed too reluctantly to the observance of those religious rites which are pleasing to them.
10 In order, therefore, that in the future every suspicion of fearful doubt may be taken away, we have commanded that this decree be published, so that it may be clear to all that whoever wishes to embrace this sect and religion is permitted to do so by virtue of this grant of ours; and that each one, as he wishes or as is pleasing to him, is permitted to practice this religion which he has chosen to observe according to his custom. It is also granted them to build Lord’s houses.
11 But that this grant of ours may be the greater, we have thought good to decree also that if any houses and lands before this time rightfully belonged to the Christians, and by the command of our parents fell into the treasury, or were confiscated by any city,—whether they have been sold or presented to any one as a gift,—that all these should be restored to their original possessors, the Christians, in order that in this also every one may have knowledge of our piety and care.”
12 These are the words of the tyrant which were published not quite a year after the decrees against the Christians engraved by him on pillars.79 And by him to whom a little before we seemed impious wretches and atheists and destroyers of all life, so that we were not permitted to dwell in any city nor even in country or desert,—by him decrees and ordinances were issued in behalf of the Christians, and they who recently had been destroyed by fire and sword, by wild beasts and birds of prey, in the presence of the tyrant himself, and had suffered every species of torture and punishment, and most miserable deaths as atheists and impious wretches, were now acknowledged by him as possessors of religion and were permitted to build churches;and the tyrant himself bore witness and confessed that they had some rights.
13 And having made such confessions, as if he had received some benefit on account of them, he suffered perhaps less than he ought to have suffered, and being smitten by a sudden scourge of God, he perished in the second campaign of the war.
14 But his end was not like that of military chieftains who, while fighting bravely in battle for virtue and friends, often boldly encounter a glorious death; for like an impious enemy of God, while his army was still drawn up in the field, remaining at home and concealing himself, he suffered the punishment which he deserved. For he was smitten with a sudden scourge of God in his whole body, and harassed by terrible pains and torments, he fell prostrate on the ground, wasted by hunger, while all his flesh was dissolved by an invisible and God-sent fire, so that the whole appearance of his frame was changed, and there was left only a kind of image wasted away by length of time to a skeleton of dry bones; so that those who were present could think of his body as nothing else than the tomb of his soul, which was buried in a body already dead and completely melted away.
15 And as the heat still more violently consumed him in the depths of his marrow, his eyes burst forth, and falling from their sockets left him blind. Thereupon still breathing and making free confession to the Lord, he invoked death, and at last, after acknowledging that he justly suffered these things on account of his violence against Christ, he gave up the ghost.
Chapter XI. The Final Destruction of the Enemies of Religion.
1 Thus when Maximinus, who alone had remained of the enemies of religion80 and had appeared the worst of them all, was put out of the way, the renovation of the churches from their foundations was begun by the grace of God the Ruler of all, and the word of Christ. shining unto the glory of the God of the universe, obtained greater freedom than before, while the impious enemies of religion were covered with extremest shame and dishonor.
2 For Maximinus himself, being first pronounced by the emperors a common enemy, was declared by public proclamations to be a most impious, execrable, and God-hating tyrant. And of the portraits which had been set up in every city in honor of him or of his children, some were thrown down from their places to the ground, and torn in pieces; while the faces of others were obliterated by daubing them with black paint. And the statues which had been erected to his honor were likewise overthrown and broken, and lay exposed to the laughter and sport of those who wished to insult and abuse them.
3 Then also all the honors of the other enemies of religion were taken away, and all those who sided with Maximinus were slain, especially those who had been honored by him with high offices in reward for their flattery, and had behaved insolently toward our doctrine.
4 Such an one was Peucetius,81 the dearest of his companions, who had been honored and rewarded by him above all, who had been consul a second and third time, and had been appointed by him chief minister;82 and Culcianus,83 who had likewise advanced through every grade of office, and was also celebrated for his numberless executions of Christians in Egypt;84 and besides these not a few others, by whose agency especially the tyranny of Maximinus had been confirmed and extended.
5 And Theotecnus85 also was summoned by justice which by no means overlooked his deeds against the Christians. For when the statue had been set up by him at Antioch,86 he appeared to be in the happiest state, and was already made a governor by Maximinus.
6 But Licinius, coming down to the city of Antioch, made a search for impostors, and tortured the prophets and priests of the newly erected statue, asking them for what reason they practiced their deception. They, under the stress of torture, were unable longer to conceal the matter, and declared that the whole deceptive mystery had been devised by the art of Theotecnus. Therefore, after meting out to all of them just judgment, he first put Theotecnus himself to death, and then his confederates in the imposture, with the severest possible tortures.
7 To all these were added also the children87 of Maximinus, whom he had already made sharers in the imperial dignity, by placing their names on tablets and statues. And the relatives of the tyrant, who before had been boastful and had in their pride oppressed all men, suffered the same punishments with those who have been already mentioned, as well as the extremest disgrace. For they had not received instruction, neither did they know and understand the exhortation given in the Holy Word:
8 “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the sons of men, in whom there is no salvation; his spirit shall go forth and return to his earth; in that day all their thoughts perish.”88 
9 The impious ones having been thus removed, the government was preserved firm and undisputed for Constantine and Licinius, to whom it fittingly belonged. They, having first of all cleansed the world of hostility to the Divine Being, conscious of the benefits which he had conferred upon them, showed their love of virtue and of God, and their piety and gratitude to the Deity, by their ordinance in behalf of the Christians.89 
Book X.
Chapter I. The Peace Granted Us by God.
1 Thanks for all things be given unto God the Omnipotent Ruler and King of the universe, and the greatest thanks to Jesus Christ the Saviour and Redeemer of our souls, through whom we pray that peace may be always preserved for us firm and undisturbed by external troubles and by troubles of the mind.
2 Since in accordance with thy wishes, my most holy Paulinus,1 we have added the tenth book of the Church History to those which have preceded,2 we will inscribe it to thee, proclaiming thee as the seal of the whole work; and we will fitly add in a perfect number the perfect panegyric upon the restoration of the churches,3 obeying the Divine Spirit which exhorts us in the following words:
3 “Sing unto the Lord a new song, for he hath done marvelous things. His right hand and his holy arm hath saved him. The Lord hath made known his salvation, his righteousness hath he revealed in the presence of the nations.”4 
4 And in accordance with the utterance which commands us to sing the new song, let us proceed to show that, after those terrible and gloomy spectacles which we have described,5 we are now permitted to see and celebrate such things as many truly righteous men and martyrs of God before us desired to see upon earth and did not see, and to hear and did not hear.6 
5 But they, hastening on, obtained far better things,7 being carried to heaven and the paradise of divine pleasure. But, acknowledging that even these things are greater than we deserve, we have been astonished at the grace manifested by the author of the great gifts, and rightly do we admire him, worshiping him with the whole power of our souls, and testifying to the truth of those recorded utterances, in which it is said, “Come and see the works of the Lord, the wonders which he hath done upon the earth; he removeth wars to the ends of the world, he shall break the bow and snap the spear in sunder, and shall burn the shields with fire.”8 
6 Rejoicing in these things which have been clearly fulfilled in our day, let us proceed with our account.
7 The whole race of God’s enemies was destroyed in the manner indicated,9 and was thus suddenly swept from the sight of men. So that again a divine utterance had its fulfillment: “I have seen the impious highly exalted and raising himself like the cedars of Lebanon and I have passed by, and behold, he was not and I have sought his place, and it could not be found.”10 
8 And finally a bright and splendid day, overshadowed by no cloud, illuminated with beams of heavenly light the churches of Christ throughout the entire world. And not even those without our communion11 were prevented from sharing in the same blessings, or at least from coming under their influence and enjoying a part of the benefits bestowed upon us by God.12 
Chapter II. The Restoration of the Churches.
1 All men, then, were freed from the oppression of the tyrants, and being released from the former ills, one in one way and another in another acknowledged the defender of the pious to be the only true God. And we especially who placed our hopes in the Christ of God had unspeakable gladness, and a certain inspired joy bloomed for all of us, when we saw every place which shortly before had been desolated by the impieties of the tyrants reviving as if from a long and death-fraught pestilence, and temples again rising from their foundations to an immense height, and receiving a splendor far greater than that of the old ones which had been destroyed.
2 But the supreme rulers also confirmed to us still more extensively the munificence of God by repeated ordinances in behalf of the Christians; and personal letters of the emperor were sent to the bishops, with honors and gifts of money. It may not be unfitting to insert these documents, translated from the Roman into the Greek tongue, at the proper place in this book,13 as in a sacred tablet, that they may remain as a memorial to all who shall come after us.
Chapter III. The Dedications in Every Place.
1 After this was seen the sight which had been desired and prayed for by us all; feasts of dedication in the cities and consecrations of the newly built houses of prayer took place, bishops assembled, foreigners came together from abroad, mutual love was exhibited between people and people, the members of Christ’s body were united in complete harmony.
2 Then was fulfilled the prophetic utterance which mystically foretold what was to take place: “Bone to bone and joint to joint,”14 and whatever was truly announced in enigmatic expressions in the inspired passage.
3 And there was one energy of the Divine Spirit pervading all the members, and one soul in all, and the same eagerness of faith, and one hymn from all in praise of the Deity. Yea, and perfect services were conducted by the prelates, the sacred rites being solemnized, and the majestic institutions of the Church observed,15 here with the singing of psalms and with the reading of the words committed to us by God, and there with the performance of divine and mystic services; and the mysterious symbols of the Saviour’s passion were dispensed.
4 At the same time people of every age, both male and female, with all the power of the mind gave honor unto God, the author of their benefits, in prayers and thanksgiving, with a joyful mind and soul. And every one of the bishops present, each to the best of his ability, delivered panegyric orations, adding luster to the assembly.
Chapter IV. Panegyric on the Splendor of Affairs.
1 A Certain one of those of moderate talent,16 who had composed a discourse, stepped forward in the presence of many pastors who were assembled as if for a church gathering, and while they attended quietly and decently, he addressed himself as follows to one who was in all things a most excellent bishop and beloved of God,17 through whose zeal the temple in Tyre, which was the most splendid in Phoenicia, had been erected.
2 Panegyric upon the building of the churches, addressed to Paulinus, Bishop of Tyre.
“Friends and priests of God who are clothed in the sacred gown and adorned with the heavenly crown of glory, the inspired unction and the sacerdotal garment of the Holy Spirit; and thou,18 oh pride of God’s new holy temple, endowed by him with the wisdom of age, and yet exhibiting costly works and deeds of youthful and flourishing virtue, to whom God himself, who embraces the entire world, has granted the distinguished honor of building and renewing this earthly house to Christ, his only begotten and first-born Word, and to his holy and divine bride;19 — one might call thee a new Beseleel,20 the architect of a divine tabernacle, or Solomon, king of a new and much better Jerusalem, or also a new Zerubabel, who added a much greater glory than the former to the temple of God;21 —and you also, oh nurslings of the sacred flock of Christ, habitation of good words, school of wisdom, and august and pious auditory of religion:22 
5 It was long ago permitted us to raise hymns and songs to God, when we learned from hearing the Divine Scriptures read the marvelous signs of God and the benefits conferred upon men by the Lord’s wondrous deeds, being taught to say ‘Oh God! we have heard with our ears, our fathers have told us the work which thou didst in their days, in days of old.’23 
6 But now as we no longer perceive the lofty arm24 and the celestial right hand of our all-gracious God and universal King by hearsay merely or report, but observe so to speak in very deed and with our own eyes that the declarations recorded long ago are faithful and true, it is permitted us to raise a second hymn of triumph and to sing with loud voice, and say, ‘As we have heard, so have we seen; in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God.’25 
7 And in what city but in this newly built and God-constructed one, which is a ‘church of the living God, a pillar and foundation of the truth,’26 concerning which also another divine oracle thus proclaims, ‘Glorious things have been spoken of thee, oh city of God.’27 Since the all-gracious God has brought us together to it, through the grace of his Only-Begotten, let every one of those who have been summoned sing with loud voice and say, ‘I was glad when they said unto me, we shall go unto the house of the Lord,’ and ‘Lord, I have loved the beauty of thy house and the place where thy glory dwelleth.’28 
8 And let us not only one by one, but all together, with one spirit and one soul, honor him and cry aloud, saying, ‘Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in his holy mountain.’29 For he is truly great, and great is his house, lofty and spacious and ‘comely in beauty above the sons of men.’30 ‘Great is the Lord who alone doeth wonderful things’;31 ‘great is he who doeth great things and things past finding out, glorious and marvelous things which cannot be numbered’;32 is great is he ‘who changeth times and seasons, who exalteth and debaseth kings’;33 ‘who raiseth up the poor from the earth and lifteth up the needy from the dunghill.’34 ‘He hath put clown princes from their thrones and hath exalted them of low degree from the earth. The hungry he hath filled with good things and the arms of the proud he hath broken.’35 
9 Not only to the faithful, but also to unbelievers, has he confirmed the record of ancient events; he that worketh miracles, he that doeth great things, the Master of all, the Creator of the whole world, the omnipotent, the all-merciful, the one and only God. To him let us sing the new song,36 supplying in thought,37 ‘To him who alone doeth great wonders: for his mercy endureth forever’;38 ‘To him which smote great kings, and slew famous kings: for his mercy endureth forever’;39 ‘For the Lord remembered us in our low estate and delivered us from our adversaries.’40 
10 And let us never cease to cry aloud in these words to the Father of the universe. And let us always honor him with our mouth who is the second cause of our benefits, the instructor in divine knowledge, the teacher of the true religion, the destroyer of the impious, the slayer of tyrants, the reformer of life, Jesus, the Saviour of us who were in despair.
11 For he alone, as the only all-gracious Son of an all-gracious Father, in accordance with the purpose of his Father’s benevolence, has willingly put on the nature of us who lay prostrate in corruption, and like some excellent physician, who for the sake of saving them that are ill, examines their sufferings, handles their foul sores, and reaps pain for himself from the miseries of another,41 so us who were not only diseased and afflicted with terrible ulcers and wounds already mortified, but were even lying among the dead, he hath saved for himself from the very jaws of death. For none other of those in heaven had such power as without harm42 to minister to the salvation of so many.
12 But he alone having reached our deep corruption, he alone having taken upon himself our labors, he alone having suffered the punishments due for our impieties, having recovered us who were not half dead merely, but were already in tombs and sepulchers, and altogether foul and offensive, saves us, both anciently and now, by his beneficent zeal, beyond the expectation of any one, even of ourselves, and imparts liberally of the Father’s benefits,—he who is the giver of life and light, our great Physician and King and Lord, the Christ of God.
13 For then when the whole human race lay buried in gloomy night and in depths of darkness through the deceitful arts of guilty demons and the power of God-hating spirits, by his simple appearing he loosed once for all the fast-bound cords of our impieties by the rays of his light, even as wax is melted.
14 But when malignant envy and the evil-loving demon wellnigh burst with anger at such grace and kindness, and turned against us all his death-dealing forces, and when, at first, like a dog gone mad which gnashes his teeth at the stones thrown at him, and pours out his rage against his assailants upon the inanimate missiles, he leveled his ferocious madness at the stones of the sanctuaries and at the lifeless material of the houses, and desolated the churches,—at least as he supposed,—and then emitted terrible hissings and snake-like sounds, now by the threats of impious tyrants, and again by the blasphemous edicts of profane rulers, vomiting forth death, moreover, and infecting with his deleterious and soul-destroying poisons the souls captured by him, and almost slaying them by his death-fraught sacrifices of dead idols, and causing every beast in the form of man and every kind of savage to assault us—then, indeed, the ‘Angel of the great Council,’43 the great Captain44 of God after the mightiest soldiers of his kingdom had displayed sufficient exercise through patience and endurance in everything, suddenly appeared anew, and blotted out and annihilated his enemies and foes, so that they seemed never to have had even a name.
15 But his friends and relatives he raised to the highest glory, in the presence not only of all men, but also of celestial powers, of sun and moon and stars, and of the whole heaven and earth, so that now, as has never happened before, the supreme rulers, conscious of the honor which they have received from him, spit upon the faces of dead idols, trample upon the unhallowed rites of demons, make sport of the ancient delusion handed down from their fathers, and acknowledge only one God, the common benefactor of all, themselves included.
16 And they confess Christ, the Son of God, universal King of all, and proclaim him Saviour on monuments,45 imperishably recording in imperial letters, in the midst of the city which rules over the earth, his righteous deeds and his victories over the impious. Thus Jesus Christ our Saviour is the only one from all eternity who has been acknowledged, even by those highest in the earth, not as a common king among men, but as a trite son of the universal God, and who has been worshiped as very God,46 and that rightly.
17 For what king that ever lived attained such virtue asto fill the ears and tongues of all men upon earth with his own name? What king, after ordaining such pious and wise laws, has extended them from one end of the earth to the other, so that they are perpetually read in the hearing of all men?
18 Who has abrogated barbarous and savage customs of uncivilized nations by his gentle and most philanthropic laws? Who, being attacked for entire ages by all, has shown such superhuman virtue as to flourish daily, and remain young throughout his life?
19 Who has founded a nation which of old was not even heard of, but which now is not concealed in some corner of the earth, but is spread abroad everywhere under the sun? Who has so fortified his soldiers with the arms of piety that their souls, being firmer than adamant, shine brilliantly in the contests with their opponents?
20 What king prevails to such an extent, and even after death leads on his soldiers, and sets up trophies over his enemies, and fills every place, country and city, Greek and barbarian, with his royal dwellings, even divine temples with their consecrated oblations, like this very temple with its superb adornments and votive offerings, which are themselves so truly great and majestic, worthy of wonder and admiration, and clear signs of the sovereignty of our Saviour? For now, too, ‘he spake, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created.’47 For what was there to resist the nod of the universal King and Governor and Word of God himself?48 
21 “A special discourse would be needed accurately to survey and explain all this; and also to describe how great the zeal of the laborers is regarded by him who is celebrated as divine,49 who looks upon the living temple which we all constitute, and surveys the house, composed of living and moving stones, which is well and surely built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, the chief cornerstone being Jesus Christ himself, who has been rejected not only by the builders of that ancient building which no longer stands, but also by the builders — evil architects of evil works — of the structure, which is composed of the mass of men and still endures50 But the Father has approved him both then and now, and has made him the head of the corner of this our common church.
22 Who that beholds this living temple of the living God formed of ourselves — this greatest and truly divine sanctuary, I say, whose inmost shrines are invisible to the multitude and are truly holy and a holy of holies — would venture to declare it? Who is able even to look within the sacred enclosure, except the great High Priest of all, to whom alone it is permitted to fathom the mysteries of every rational soul?
23 But perhaps it is granted to another, to one only, to be second after him in the same work, namely, to the commander of this army whom the first and great High Priest himself has honored with the second place in this sanctuary, the shepherd of your divine flock who has obtained your people by the allotment and the judgment of the Father, as if he had appointed him his own servant and interpreter, a new Aaron or Melchizedec, made like the Son of God, remaining and continually preserved by him in accordance with the united prayers of all of you.
24 To him therefore alone let it be granted, if not in the first place, at least in the second after the first and greatest High Priest, to observe and supervise the inmost state of your souls,—to him who by experience and length of time has accurately proved each one, and who by his zeal and care has disposed you all in pious conduct and doctrine, and is better able than any one else to give an account, adequate to the facts, of those things which he himself has accomplished with the Divine assistance.
25 As to our first and great High Priest, it is said,51 ‘Whatsoever he seeth the Father doing those things likewise the Son also doeth.’52 So also this one,53 looking up to him as to the first teacher, with pure eyes of the mind, using as archetypes whatsoever things he seeth him doing, produceth images of them, making them so far as is possible in the same likeness, in nothing inferior to that Beseleel, whom God himself ‘filled with the spirit of wisdom and understanding’54 and with other technical and scientific knowledge, and called to be the maker of the temple constructed after heavenly types given in symbols.
26 Thus this one also bearing in his own soul the image of the whole Christ, the Word, the Wisdom, the Light, has formed this magnificent temple of the highest God, corresponding to the pattern of the greater as a visible to an invisible, it is impossible to say with what greatness of soul, with what wealth and liberality of mind, and with what emulation on the part of all of you, shown in the magnanimity of the contributors who have ambitiously striven in no way to be left behind by him in the execution of the same purpose. And this place,—for this deserves to be mentioned first of all,—which had been covered with all sorts of rubbish by the artifices of our enemies he did not overlook, nor did he yield to the wickedness of those who had brought about that condition of things, although he might have chosen some other place, for many other sites were available in the city, where he would have had less labor, and been free from trouble.
27 But having first aroused himself to the work, and then strengthened the whole people with zeal, and formed them all into one great body, he fought the first contest. For he thought that this church, which had been especially besieged by the enemy, which had first suffered and endured the same persecutions with us and for us, like a mother bereft of her children, should rejoice with us in the signal favor of the all-merciful God.
28 For when the Great Shepherd had driven away the wild animals and wolves and every cruel and savage beast, and, as the divine oracles say, ‘had broken the jaws of the lions,’55 , he thought good to collect again her children in the same place, and in the most righteous manner he set up the fold of her flock, ‘to put to shame the enemy and avenger,’56 and to refute the impious daring of the enemies of God.57 
29 And now they are not,—the haters of God,—for they never were. After they had troubled and been troubled for a little time, they suffered the fitting punishment, and brought themselves and their friends and their relatives to total destruction, so that the declarations inscribed of old in sacred records have been proved true by facts. In these declarations the divine word truly says among other things the following concerning them:
30 ‘The wicked have drawn out the sword, they have bent their bow, to slay the righteous in heart; let their sword enter into their own heart and their bows be broken.’58 And again: ‘Their memorial is perished with a sound’59 and ‘their name hast thou blotted out forever and ever’;60 for when they also were in trouble they ‘cried out and there was none to save: unto the Lord, and he heard them not.’61 But ‘their feet were bound together, and they fell, but we have arisen and stand upright.’62 And that which was announced beforehand in these words,—‘O Lord, in thy city thou shalt set at naught their image,’63 —has been shown to be true to the eyes of all.
31 But having waged war like the giants against God,64 they died in this way. But she that was desolate and rejected by men received the consummation which we behold in consequence of her patience toward God, so that the prophecy of Isaiah was spoken of her:
32 ‘Rejoice, thirsty desert, let the desert rejoice and blossom as the lily, and the desert places shall blossom and be glad.’65 ‘Be strengthened, ye weak hands and feeble knees. Be of good courage, ye feeble-hearted, in your minds; be strong, fear not. Behold our God recompenseth judgment and will recompense, he will come and save us.’66 ‘For,’ he says, ‘in the wilderness water has broken out, and a pool in thirsty ground, and the dry land shall be watered meadows, and in the thirsty ground there shall be springs of water.’67 
33 These things which were prophesied long ago have been recorded in sacred books; but no longer are they transmitted to us by hearsay merely, but in facts. This desert, this dry land, this widowed and deserted one, ‘whose gates they cut down with axes like wood in a forest, whom they broke down with hatchet and hammer,’68 whose books also they destroyed,69 ‘burning with fire the sanctuary of God, and profaning unto the ground the habitation of his name,’70 ‘whom all that passed by upon the way plucked, and whose fences they broke down, whom the boar out of the wood ravaged, and on which the savage wild beast fed,’71 now by the wonderful power of Christ, when he wills it, has become like a lily. For at that time also she was chastened at his nod as by a careful father; ‘for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.’72 
34 Then after being chastened in a measure, according to the necessities of the case, she is commanded to rejoice anew; and she blossoms as a lily and exhales her divine odor among all men. ‘For,’ it is said, ‘water hath broken out in the wilderness,’73 the fountain of the saving bath of divine regeneration.74 And now she, who a little before was a desert, ‘has become watered meadows. and springs of water have gushed forth in a thirsty land.’75 The hands which before were ‘weak’ have become ‘truly strong’;76 and these works are great and convincing proofs of strong hands. The knees, also, which before were ‘feeble and infirm,’ recovering their wonted strength, are moving straight forward in the path of divine knowledge, and hastening to the kindred flock77 of the all-gracious Shepherd.
35 And if there are any whose souls have been stupefied by the threats of the tyrants, not even they are passed by as incurable by the saving Word; but he heals them also and urges them on to receive divine comfort, saying, ‘Be ye comforted, ye who are faint-hearted; be ye strengthened, fear not.’78 
36 This our new and excellent Zerubabel, having heard the word which announced beforehand, that she who had been made a desert on account of God should enjoy these things, after the bitter captivity and the abomination of desolation, did not overlook the dead body; but first of all with prayers and supplications propitiated the Father with the common consent of all of you, and invoking the only one that giveth life to the dead as his ally and fellow-worker, raised her that was fallen, after purifying and freeing her from her ills. And he clothed her not with the ancient garment, but with such an one as he had again learned from the sacred oracles, which say clearly, ‘And the latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former.’79 
37 Thus, enclosing a much larger space, he fortified the outer court with a wall surrounding the whole, which should serve as a most secure 38 bulwark for the entire edifice.80 
38 And he raised and spread out a great and lofty vestibule toward the rays of the rising sun,81 and furnished those standing far without the sacred enclosure a full view of those within, almost turning the eyes of those who were strangers to the faith, to the entrances, so that no one could pass by without being impressed by the memory of the former desolation and of the present incredible transformation. His hope was that such an one being impressed by this might be attracted and be induced to enter by the very sight.
39 But when one comes within the gates he does not permit him to enter the sanctuary immediately, with impure and unwashed feet; but leaving as large a space as possible between the temple and the outer entrance, he has surrounded and adorned it with four transverse cloisters, making a quadrangular space with pillars rising on every side, which he has joined with lattice-work screens of wood, rising to a suitable height; and he has left an open space82 in the middle, so that the sky can be seen, and the free air bright in the rays of the sun.
40 Here he has placed symbols of sacred purifications, setting up fountains opposite the temple which furnish an abundance of water wherewith those who come within the sanctuary may purify themselves. This is the first halting-place of those who enter; and it furnishes at the same time a beautiful and splendid scene to every one, and to those who still need elementary instruction a fitting station.
41 But passing by this spectacle, he has made open entrances to the temple with many other vestibules within, placing three doors on one side, likewise facing the rays of the sun. The one in the middle, adorned with plates of bronze, iron bound, and beautifully embossed, he has made much higher and broader than the others, as if he were making them guards for it as for a queen.
42 In the same way, arranging the number of vestibules for the corridors on each side of the whole temple, he has made above them various openings into the building, for the purpose of admitting more light, adorning them with very fine wood-carving. But the royal house he has furnished with more beautiful and splendid materials, using unstinted liberality in his disbursements.
43 It seems to me superfluous to describe here in detail the length and breadth of the building, its splendor and its majesty surpassing description, and the brilliant appearance of the work, its lofty pinnacles reaching to the heavens, and the costly cedars of Lebanon above them, which the divine oracle has not omitted to mention, saying, ‘The trees of the Lord shall rejoice and the cedars of Lebanon which he hath planted.’83 
44 Why need I now describe the skillful architectural arrangement and the surpassing beauty of each part, when the testimony of the eye renders instruction through the ear superfluous? For when he had thus completed the temple, he provided it with lofty thrones in honor of those who preside, and in addition with seats arranged in proper order throughout the whole building, and finally placed in the middle84 the holy of holies, the altar, and, that it might be inaccessible to the multitude, enclosed it with wooden lattice-work, accurately wrought with artistic carving, presenting a wonderful sight to the beholders.
45 And not even the pavement was neglected by him; for this too he adorned with beautiful marble of every variety. Then finally he passed on to the parts without the temple, providing spacious exedrae and buildings85 on each side, which were joined to the basilica, and communicated with the entrances to the interior of the structure. These were erected by our most peaceful86 Solomon, the maker of the temple of God, for those who still needed purification and sprinkling by water and the Holy Spirit, so that the prophecy quoted above is no longer a word merely, but a fact; for now it has also come to pass that in truth ‘the bitter glory of this house is greater than the former.’87 
46 For it was necessary and fitting that as her shepherd and Lord had once tasted death for her, and after his suffering had changed that vile body which he assumed in her behalf into a splendid and glorious body, leading the very flesh which had been delivered88 from corruption to incorruption, she too should enjoy the dispensations of the Saviour. For having received from him the promise of much greater things than these, she desires to share uninterruptedly throughout eternity with the choir of the angels of light, in the far greater glory of regeneration, in the resurrection of an incorruptible body, in the palace of God beyond the heavens, with Christ Jesus himself, the universal Benefactor and Saviour.
47 But for the present, she that was formerly widowed and desolate is clothed by the grace of God with these flowers, and is become truly like a lily, as the prophecy says, and having received the bridal garment and the crown of beauty, she is taught by Isaiah to dance, and to present her thank-offerings unto God the King in reverent words.
48 Let us hear her saying, ‘My soul shall rejoice in the Lord; for he hath clothed me with a garment of salvation and with a robe of gladness; he hath bedecked me like a bridegroom with a garland, and he hath adorned me like a bride with jewels; and like the earth which bringeth forth her bud, and like a garden which causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth, thus the Lord God hath caused righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.’ 
49 In these words she exults. And in similar words the heavenly bridegroom, the Word Jesus Christ himself, answers her. Hear the Lord saying, ‘Fear not because thou hast been put to shame, neither be thou confounded because thou hast been rebuked; for thou shalt forget the former shame, and the reproach of thy widowhood shalt thou remember no more.’ ‘Not as a woman deserted and faint-hearted I hath the Lord called thee, nor as a woman hated from her youth, saith thy God. For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercy will I have mercy upon thee; in a little wrath I hid my face from thee, but with everlasting mercy will I have mercy upon thee, saith the Lord that hath redeemed thee.’ 
50 ‘Awake, awake, thou who hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury; for thou hast drunk the cup of ruin, the vessel of my wrath, and hast drained it. And there was none to console thee of all thy sons whom thou didst bring forth, and there was none to take thee by the hand.’ ‘Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of ruin, the vessel of my fury, and thou shalt no longer drink it. And I will put it into the hands of them that have treated thee unjustly and have humbled thee.’ 
51 ‘Awake, awake, put on thy strength, put on thy glory. Shake off the dust and arise. Sit thee down, loose the bands of thy neck.’ ‘Lift up thine eyes round about and behold thy children gathered together; behold they are gathered together and are come to thee. As I live, saith the Lord, thou shalt clothe thee with them all as with an ornament, and gird thyself with them as with the ornaments of a bride. For thy waste and corrupted and ruined places shall now be too narrow by reason of those that inhabit thee, and they that swallow thee up shall be far from thee.
52 For thy sons whom thou hast lost shall say in thine ears, The place is too narrow for me, give place to me that I may dwell. Then shalt thou say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me these? I am childless and a widow, and who hath brought up these for me? I was left alone, and these, where were they for me?’ 
53 “These are the things which Isaiah foretold; and which were anciently recorded concerning us in sacred books and it was necessary that we should sometime learn their truthfulness by their fulfillment.
54 For when the bridegroom, the Word, addressed such language to his own bride, the sacred and holy Church, this bridesman, —when she was desolate and lying like a corpse, bereft of hope in the eyes of men,—in accordance with the united prayers of all of you, as was proper, stretched out your hands and aroused and raised her up at the command of God, the universal King, and at the manifestation of the power of Jesus Christ; and having raised her he established her as he had learned from the description given in the sacred oracles.
55 This is indeed a very great wonder, passing all admiration, especially to those who attend only to the outward appearance; but more wonderful than wonders are the archetypes and their mental prototypes and divine models; I mean the reproductions of the inspired and rational building in our souls.
56 This the Divine Son himself created after his own image, imparting to it everywhere and in all respects the likeness of God, an incorruptible nature, incorporeal, rational, free from all earthly matter, a being endowed with its own intelligence; and when he had once called her forth from non-existence into existence, he made her a holy spouse, an all-sacred temple for himself and for the Father. This also he clearly declares and confesses in the following words: ‘I will dwell in them and will walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.’ Such is the perfect and purified soul, so made from the beginning as to bear the image of the celestial Word.
57 But when by the envy and zeal of the malignant demon she became, of her own voluntary choice, sensual and a lover of evil, the Deity left her; and as if bereft of a protector, she became an easy prey and readily accessible to those who had long envied her; and being assailed by the batteries and machines of her invisible enemies and spiritual foes, she suffered a terrible fall, so that not one stone of virtue remained upon another in her, but she lay completely dead upon the ground, entirely divested of her natural ideas of God.
58 “But as she, who had been made in the image of God, thus lay prostrate, it was not that wild boar from the forest which we see that despoiled her, but a certain destroying demon and spiritual wild beasts who deceived her with their passions as with the fiery darts of their own wickedness, and burned the truly divine sanctuary of God with fire, and profaned to the ground the tabernacle of his name. Then burying the miserable one with heaps of earth, they destroyed every hope of deliverance.
59 But that divinely bright and saving Word, her protector, after she had suffered the merited punishment for her sins, again restored her, securing the favor of the all-merciful Father.
60 Having won over first the souls of the highest rulers, he purified, through the agency of those most divinely favored princes, the whole earth from all the impious destroyers, and from the terrible and God-hating tyrants themselves. Then bringing out into the light those who were his friends, who had long before been consecrated to him for life, but in the midst,as it were, of a storm of evils, had been concealed under his shelter, he honored them worthily with the great gifts of the Spirit. And again, by means of them, he cleared out and cleaned with spades and mattocks—the admonitory words of doctrine —the souls which a little while before had been covered with filth and burdened with every kind of matter and rubbish of impious ordinances.
61 And when he had made the ground of all your minds clean and clear, he finally committed it to this all-wise and God-beloved Ruler, who, being endowed with judgment and prudence, as well as with other gifts, and being able to examine and discriminate accurately the minds of those committed to his charge, from the first day, so to speak, down to the present, has not ceased to build.
62 Now he has supplied the brilliant gold, again the refined and unalloyed silver, and the precious and costly stones in all of you, so that again is fulfilled for you in facts a sacred and mystic prophecy, which says, ‘Behold I make thy stone a carbuncle, and thy foundations of sapphire, and thy battlements of jasper, and thy gates of crystals, and thy wall of chosen stones; and all thy sons shall be taught of God, and thy children shall enjoy complete peace; and in righteousness shall thou be built.’ 
63 Building therefore in righteousness, he divided the whole people according to their strength. With some he fortified only the outer enclosure, walling it up with unfeigned faith; such were the great mass of the people who were incapable of bearing a greater structure. Others he permitted to enter the building, commanding them to stand at the door and act as guides for those who should come in; these may be not unfitly compared to the vestibules of the temple. Others he supported by the first pillars which are placed without about the quadrangular hall, initiating them into the first elements of the letter of the four Gospels. Still others he joined together about the basilica on both sides; these are the catechumens who are still advancing and progressing, and are not far separated from the inmost view of divine things granted to the faithful.
64 Taking from among these the pure souls that have been cleansed like gold by divine washing, he then supports them by pillars, much better than those without, made from the inner and mystic teachings of the Scripture, and illumines them by windows.
65 Adorning the whole temple with a great vestibule of the glory of the one universal King and only God, and placing on either side of the authority of the Father Christ, and the Holy Spirit as second lights, he exhibits abundantly and gloriously throughout the entire building the clearness and splendor of the truth of the rest in all its details. And having selected from every quarter the living and moving and well-prepared stones of the souls, he constructs out of them all the great and royal house, splendid and full of light both within and without; for not only soul and understanding, but their body also is made glorious by the blooming ornament of purity and modesty.
66 And in this temple there are also thrones, and a great number of seats and benches, in all those souls in which sit the Holy Spirit’s gifts, such as were anciently seen by the sacred apostles, and those who were with them, when there ‘appeared unto them tongues parting asunder, like as of fire, and sat upon each one of them.’ 
67 But in the leader of all it is reasonable to suppose that Christ himself dwells in his fullness, and in those that occupy the second rank after him, in proportion as each is able to contain the power of Christ and of the Holy Spirit. And the souls of some of those, namely, who are committed to each of them for instruction and care — may be seats for angels.
68 But the great and august and unique altar, what else could this be than the pure holy of holies of the soul of the common priest of all? Standing at the right of it, Jesus himself, the great High Priest of the universe, the Only Begotten of God, receives with bright eye and extended hand the sweet incense from all, and the bloodless and immaterial sacrifices offered in their prayers, and bears them to the heavenly Father and God of the universe. And he himself first worships him, and alone gives to the Father the reverence which is his due, beseeching him also to continue always kind and propitious to us all.
69 “Such is the great temple which the great Creator of the universe, the Word, has built throughout the entire world, making it an intellectual image upon earth of those things which lie above the vault of heaven, so that throughout the whole creation, including rational beings on earth, his Father might be honored and adored.
70 But the region above the heavens, with the models of earthly things which are there, and the so-called Jerusalem above, and the heavenly Mount of Zion, and the supramundane city of the living God, in which innumerable choirs of angels and the Church of the first born, whose names are written in heaven, praise their Maker and the Supreme Ruler of the universe with hymns of praise unutterable and incomprehensible to us,—who that is mortal is able worthily to celebrate this? ‘For eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of men those things which God hath prepared for them that love him.’ 
71 Since we, men, children, and women, small and great, are already in part partakers of these things, let us not cease all together, with one spirit and one soul, to confess and praise the author of such great benefits to us, ‘Who forgiveth all our iniquities, who healeth all our diseases, who redeemeth our life from destruction, who crowneth us with mercy and compassion, who satisfieth our desires with good things.’ ‘For he hath not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities;’ ‘for as far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our iniquities from us. Like as a father pitieth his own children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.’ 
72 Rekindling these thoughts in our memories, both now and during all time to come, and contemplating in our mind night and day, in every hour and with every breath, so to speak, the Author and Ruler of the present festival, and of this bright and most splendid day, let us love and adore him with every power of the soul. And now rising, let us beseech him with loud voice to shelter and preserve us to the end in his fold, granting his unbroken and unshaken peace forever, in Christ Jesus our Saviour; through whom be the glory unto him forever and ever. Amen.”
Chapter V. Copies of Imperial Laws. 
1 Let us finally subjoin the translations from the Roman tongue of the imperial decrees of Constantine and Licinius. 
2 Copy of imperial decrees translated from the Roman tongue. 
“Perceiving long ago that religious liberty ought not to be denied, but that it ought to be granted to the judgment and desire of each individual to perform his religious duties according to his own choice, we had given orders that every man, Christians as well as others, should preserve the faith of his own sect and religion. 
3 But since in that rescript, in which such liberty was granted them, many and various conditions seemed clearly added, some of them, it may be, after a little retired from such observance.
4 When I, Constantine Augustus, and I, Licinius Augustus, came under favorable auspices to Milan and took under consideration everything which pertained to the common weal and prosperity, we resolved among other things, or rather first of all, to make such decrees as seemed in many respects for the benefit of every one; namely, such as should preserve reverence and piety toward the deity. We resolved, that is, to grant both to the Christians and to all men freedom to follow the religion which they choose, that whatever heavenly divinity exists may be propitious to us and to all that live under our government.
5 We have, therefore, determined, with sound and upright purpose, that liberty is to be denied to no one, to choose and to follow the religious observances of the Christians, but that to each one freedom is to be given to devote his mind to that religion which he may think adapted to himself, in order that the Deity may exhibit to us in all things his accustomed care and favor.
6 It was fitting that we should write that this is our pleasure, that those conditions being entirely left out which were contained in our former letter concerning the Christians which was sent to your devotedness, everything that seemed very severe and foreign to our mildness may be annulled, and that now every one who has the same desire to observe the religion of the Christians may do so without molestation.
7 We have resolved to communicate this most fully to thy care, in order that thou mayest know that we have granted to these same Christians freedom and full liberty to observe their own religion.
8 Since this has been granted freely by us to them, thy devotedness perceives that liberty is granted to others also who may wish to follow their own religious observances; it being clearly in accordance with the tranquillity of our times, that each one should have the liberty of choosing and worshiping whatever deity he pleases. This has been done by us in order that we might not seem in any way to discriminate against any rank or religion. 
9 And we decree still further in regard to the Christians, that their places, in which they were formerly accustomed to assemble, and concerning which in the former letter sent to thy devotedness a different command was given if it appear that any have bought them either from our treasury or from any other person, shall be restored to the said Christians, without demanding money or any other equivalent, with no delay or hesitation.
10 If any happen to have received the said places as a gift, they shall restore them as quickly as possible to these same Christians: with the understanding that if those who have bought these places, or those who have received them as a gift, demand anything from our bounty, they may go to the judge of the district, that provision may be made for them by our clemency. All these things are to be granted to the society of Christians by your care immediately and without any delay.
11 And since the said Christians are known to have possessed not only those places in which they were accustomed to assemble, but also other places, belonging not to individuals among them, but to the society as a whole, that is, to the society of Christians, you will command that all these, in virtue of the law which we have above stated, be restored, without any hesitation, to these same Christians; that is, to their society and congregation: the above-mentioned provision being of course observed, that those who restore them without price, as we have before said, may expect indemnification from our bounty.
12 In all these things, for the behoof of the aforesaid society of Christians, you are to use the utmost diligence, to the end that our command may be speedily fulfilled, and that in this also, by our clemency, provision may be made for the common and public tranquillity. 
13 For by this means, as we have said before, the divine favor toward us which we have already experienced in many matters will continue sure through all time.
14 And that the terms of this our gracious ordinance may be known to all, it is expected that this which we have written will be published everywhere by you and brought to the knowledge of all, in order that this gracious ordinance of ours may remain unknown to no one.”
15 Copy of another imperial decree which they issued, indicating that the grant was made to the Catholic Church alone.
“Greeting to thee, our most esteemed Anulinus. It is the custom of our benevolence, most esteemed Anulinus, to will that those things which belong of right to another should not only be left unmolested, but should also be restored. 
16 Wherefore it is our will that when thou receivest this letter, if any such things belonged to the Catholic Church of the Christians, in any city or other place, but are now held by citizens or by any others, thou shalt cause them to be restored immediately to the said churches. For we have already determined that those things which these same. churches formerly possessed shall be restored to them.
17 Since therefore thy devotedness perceives that this command of ours is most explicit, do thou make haste to restore to them, as quickly as possible, everything which formerly belonged to the said churches,—whether gardens or buildings or whatever they may be,—that we may learn that thou hast obeyed this decree of ours most carefully. Farewell, our most esteemed and beloved Anulinus.”
18 Copy of an epistle in which the Emperor commands that a synod of bishops be held at Rome in behalf of the unity and concord of the churches. 
19 “Constantine Augustus to Miltiades, bishop of Rome, and to Marcus. Since many such communications have been sent to me by Anulinus, the most illustrious proconsul of Africa, in which it is said that Caecilianus, bishop of the city of Carthage, has been accused by some of his colleagues in Africa, in many matters; and since it seems to me a very serious thing that in those provinces which Divine Providence has freely entrusted to my devotedness, and in which there is a great population, the multitude are found following the baser course, and dividing, as it were, into two parties, and the bishops are at variance,—it has seemed good to me that Caecilianus himself, with ten of the bishops that appear to accuse him, and with ten others whom he may consider necessary for his defense, should sail to Rome, that there, in the presence of yourselves and of Retecius and Maternus and Marinus, your colleagues, whom I have commanded to hasten to Rome for this purpose, he may be heard, as you may understand to be in accordance with the most holy law.
20 But in order that you may be enabled to have most perfect knowledge of all these things, I have subjoined to my letter copies of the documents sent to me by Anulinus, and have sent them to your above-mentioned colleagues. When your firmness has read these, you will consider in what way the above-mentioned case may be most accurately investigated and justly decided. For it does not escape your diligence that I have such reverence for the legitimate Catholic Church that I do not wish you to leave schism or division in any place. May the divinity of the great God preserve you, most honored sirs, for many years.”
21 Copy of an epistle in which the emperor commands another synod to be held for the purpose of removing all dissensions among the bishops.
“Constantine Augustus to Chrestus, bishop of Syracuse. When some began wickedly and perversely to disagree among themselves in regard to the holy worship and celestial power and Catholic doctrine, wishing to put an end to such disputes among them, I formerly gave command that certain bishops should be sent from Gaul, and that the opposing parties who were contending persistently and incessantly with each other, should be summoned from Africa; that in their presence, and in the presence of the bishop of Rome, the matter which appeared to be causing the disturbance might be examined and decided with all care. 
22 But since, as it happens, some, forgetful both of their own salvation and of the reverence due to the most holy religion, do not even yet bring hostilities to an end, and are unwilling to conform to the judgment already passed, and assert that those who expressed their opinions and decisions were few, or that they had been too hasty and precipitate in giving judgment, before all the things which ought to have been accurately investigated had been examined,—on account of all this it has happened that those very ones who ought to hold brotherly and harmonious relations toward each other, are shamefully, or rather abominably, divided among themselves, and give occasion for ridicule to those men whose souls are aliens to this most holy religion. Wherefore it has seemed necessary to me to provide that this dissension, which ought to have ceased after the judgment had been already given by their own voluntary agreement, should now, if possible, be brought to an end by the presence of many.
23 Since, therefore, we have commanded a number of bishops from a great many different places to assemble in the city of Arles, before the kalends of August, we have thought proper to write to thee also that thou shouldst secure from the most illustrious Latronianus, corrector of Sicily, a public vehicle, and that thou shouldst take with thee two others of the second rank whom thou thyself shalt choose, together with three servants who may serve you on the way, and betake thyself to the above-mentioned place before the appointed day; that by thy firmness, and by the wise unanimity and harmony of the others present, this dispute, which has disgracefully continued until the present time, in consequence of certain shameful strifes, after all has been heard which those have to say who are now at variance with one another, and whom we have likewise commanded to be present, may be settled in accordance with the proper faith, and that brotherly harmony, though it be but gradually, may be restored.
24 May the Almighty God preserve thee in health for many years.”
Chapter VI. Copy of an Imperial Epistle in Which Money is Granted to the Churches. 
1 “Constantine Augustus to Caecilianus, bishop of Carthage. Since it is our pleasure that something should be granted in all the provinces of Africa and Numidia and Mauritania to certain ministers of the legitimate and most holy catholic religion, to defray their expenses, I have written to Ursus, the illustrious finance minister of Africa, and have directed him to make provision to pay to thy firmness three thousand folles. 
2 Do thou therefore, when thou hast received the above sum of money, command that it be distributed among all those mentioned above, according to the brief sent to thee by Hosius. 
3 But if thou shouldst find that anything is wanting for the fulfillment of this purpose of mine in regard to all of them, thou shalt demand without hesitation from Heracleides, our treasurer, whatever thou findest to be necessary. For I commanded him when he was present that if thy firmness should ask him for any money, he should see to it that it be paid without delay.
4 And since I have learned that some men of unsettled mind wish to turn the people from the most holy and catholic Church by a certain method of shameful corruption, do thou know that I gave command to Anulinus, the proconsul, and also to Patricius, vicar of the prefects, when they were present, that they should give proper attention not only to other matters but also above all to this, and that they should not overlook such a thing when it happened. Wherefore if thou shouldst see any such men continuing in this madness, do thou without delay go to the above-mentioned judges and report the matter to them; that they may correct them as I commanded them when they were present. The divinity of the great God preserve thee for many years.”
Chapter VII. The Exemption of the Clergy. Copy of an Epistle in Which the Emperor Commands that the Rulers of the Churches Be Exempted from All Political Duties. 
1 “Greeting to thee, our most esteemed Anulinus. Since it appears from many circumstances that when that religion is despised, in which is preserved the chief reverence for the most holy celestial Power, great dangers are brought upon public affairs; but that when legally adopted and observed it affords the most signal prosperity to the Roman name and remarkable felicity to all the affairs of men, through the divine beneficence,—it has seemed good to me, most esteemed Anulinus, that those men who give their services with due sanctity and with constant observance of this law, to the worship of the divine religion, should receive recompense for their labors.
2 Wherefore it is my will that those within the province entrusted to thee, in the catholic Church, over which Caecilianus presides, who give their services to this holy religion, and who are commonly called clergymen, be entirely exempted from all public duties, that they may not by any error or sacrilegious negligence be drawn away from the service due to the Deity, but may devote themselves without any hindrance to their own law. For it seems that when they show greatest reverence to the Deity, the greatest benefits accrue to the state. Farewell, our most esteemed and beloved Anulinus.” 
Chapter VIII. The Subsequent Wickedness of Licinius, and His Death.
1 Such blessings did divine and heavenly grace confer upon us through the appearance of our Saviour, and such was the abundance of benefits which prevailed among all men in consequence of the peace which we enjoyed. And thus were our affairs crowned with rejoicings and festivities.
2 But malignant envy, and the demon who loves that which is evil, were not able to bear the sight of these things; and moreover the events that befell the tyrants whom we have already mentioned were not sufficient to bring Licinius to sound reason.
3 For the latter, although his government was prosperous and he was honored with the second rank after the great Emperor Constantine, and was connected with him by the closest ties of marriage, abandoned the imitation of good deeds, and emulated the wickedness of the impious tyrants whose end he had seen with his own eyes, and chose rather to follow their principles than to continue in friendly relations with him who was better than they. Being envious of the common benefactor he waged an impious and most terrible war against him, paying regard neither to laws of nature, nor treaties, nor blood, and giving no thought to covenants. 
4 For Constantine, like an all-gracious emperor, giving him evidences of true favor, did not refuse alliance with him, and did not refuse him the illustrious marriage with his sister, but honored him by making him a partaker of the ancestral nobility and the ancient imperial blood, and granted him the right of sharing in the dominion over all as a brother-in-law and co-regent, conferring upon him the government and administration of no less a portion of the Roman provinces than he himself possessed. 
5 But Licinius, on the contrary, pursued a course directly opposite to this; forming daily all kinds of plots against his superior, and devising all sorts of mischief, that he might repay his benefactor with evils. At first he attempted to conceal his preparations, and pretended to be a friend, and practiced frequently fraud and deceit, in the hope that he might easily accomplish the desired end. 
6 But God was the friend, protector, and guardian of Constantine, and bringing the plots which had been formed in secrecy and darkness to the light, he foiled them. So much virtue does the great armor of piety possess for the warding off of enemies and for the preservation of our own safety. Protected by this, our most divinely favored emperor escaped the multitudinous plots of the abominable man.
7 But when Licinius perceived that his secret preparations by no means progressed according to his mind,—for God revealed every plot and wickedness to the God-favored emperor,—being no longer able to conceal himself, he undertook an open war. 
8 And at the same time that he determined to wage war with Constantine, he also proceeded to join battle with the God of the universe, whom he knew that Constantine worshiped, and began, gently for a time and quietly, to attack his pious subjects, who had never done his government any harm. This he did under the compulsion of his innate wickedness which drove him into terrible blindness.
9 He did not therefore keep before his eyes the memory of those who had persecuted the Christians before him, nor of those whose destroyer and executioner he had been appointed, on account of the impieties which they had committed. But departing from sound reason, being seized, in a word, with insanity, he determined to war against God himself as the ally of Constantine, instead of against the one who was assisted by him.
10 And in the first place, he drove from his house every Christian, thus depriving himself, wretched man, of the prayers which they offered to God in his behalf, which they are accustomed, according to the teaching of their fathers, to offer for all men. Then he commanded that the soldiers in the cities should be cashiered and stripped of their rank unless they chose to sacrifice to the demons. And yet these were small matters when compared with the greater things that followed.
11 Why is it necessary to relate minutely and in detail all that was done by the hater of God, and to recount how this most lawless man invented unlawful laws? He passed an ordinance that no one should exercise humanity toward the sufferers in prison by giving them food, and that none should show mercy to those that were perishing of hunger in bonds; that no one should in any way be kind, or do any good act, even though moved by Nature herself to sympathize with one’s neighbors. And this was indeed an openly shameful and most cruel law, calculated to expel all natural kindliness. And in addition to this it was also decreed, as a punishment, that those who showed compassion should suffer the same things with those whom they compassionated; and that those who kindly ministered to the suffering should be thrown into bonds and into prison, and should endure the same punishment with the sufferers. Such were the decrees of Licinius.
12 Why should we recount his innovations in regard to marriage or in regard to the dying — innovations by which he ventured to annul the ancient laws of the Romans which had been well and wisely formed, and to introduce certain barbarous and cruel laws, which were truly unlawful and lawless? He invented, to the detriment of the provinces which were subject to him, innumerable prosecutions, and all sorts of methods of extorting gold and silver. new measurements of land and injurious exactions from men in the country, who were no longer living, but long since dead.
13 Why is it necessary to speak at length of the banishments which, in addition to these things, this enemy of mankind inflicted upon those who had done no wrong, the expatriations of men of noble birth and high reputation whose young wives he snatched from them and consigned to certain baser fellows of his own, to be shamefully abused by them, and the many married women and virgins upon whom he gratified his passions, although he was in advanced age — why, I say, is it necessary to speak at length of these things, when the excessive wickedness of his last deeds makes the first appear small and of no account?
14 For, finally, he reached such a pitch of madness that he attacked the bishops, supposing that they — as servants of the God over all — would be hostile to his measures. He did not yet proceed against them openly, on account of his fear of his superior, but as before, secretly and craftily, employing the treachery of the governors for the destruction of the most distinguished of them. And the manner of their murder was strange, and such as had never before been heard of.
15 The deeds which he performed at Amaseia and in the other cities of Pontus surpassed every excess of cruelty. Some of the churches of God were again razed to the ground, others were closed, so that none of those accustomed to frequent them could enter them and render the worship due to God.
16 For his evil conscience led him to suppose that prayers were not offered in his behalf; but he was persuaded that we did everything in the interest of the God-beloved emperor, and that we supplicated God for him. Therefore he hastened to turn his fury against us.
17 And then those among the governors who wished to flatter him, perceiving that in doing such things they pleased the impious tyrant, made some of the bishops suffer the penalties customarily inflicted upon criminals, and led away and without any pretext punished like murderers those who had done no wrong. Some now endured a new form of death: having their bodies cut into many pieces with the sword, and after this savage and most horrible spectacle, being thrown into the depths of the sea as food for fishes.
18 Thereupon the worshipers of God again fled, and fields and deserts, forests and mountains, again received the servants of Christ. And when the impious tyrant had thus met with success in these measures, he finally planned to renew the persecution against all.
19 And he would have succeeded in his design, and there would have been nothing to hinder him in the work, had not God, the defender of the lives of his own people, most quickly anticipated that which was about to happen, and caused a great light to shine forth as in the midst of a dark and gloomy night, and raised up a deliverer for leading into those regions with a lofty arm, his servant, Constantine.
Chapter IX. The Victory of Constantine, and the Blessings Which Under Him Accrued to the Subjects of the Roman Empire.
1 To him, therefore, God granted, from heaven above, the deserved fruit of piety, the trophies of victory over the impious, and he cast the guilty one with all his counselors and friends prostrate at the feet of Constantine.
2 For when Licinius carried his madness to the last extreme, the emperor, the friend of God, thinking that he ought no longer to be tolerated, acting upon the basis of sound judgment, and mingling the firm principles of justice with humanity, gladly determined to come to the protection of those who were oppressed by the tyrant, and undertook, by putting a few destroyers out of the way, to save the greater part of the human race. 
3 For when he had formerly exercised humanity alone and had shown mercy to him who was not worthy of sympathy, nothing was accomplished; for Licinius did not renounce his wickedness, but rather increased his fury against the peoples that were subject to him, and there was left to the afflicted no hope of salvation, oppressed as they were by a savage beast.
4 Wherefore, the protector of the virtuous, mingling hatred for evil with love for good, went forth with his son Crispus, a most beneficent prince, and extended a saving right hand to all that were perishing. Both of them, father and son, under the protection, as it were, of God, the universal King, with the Son of God, the Saviour of all, as their leader and ally, drew up their forces on all sides against the enemies of the Deity and won an easy victory; God having prospered them in the battle in all respects according to their wish.
5 Thus, suddenly, and sooner than can be told, those who yesterday and the day before breathed death and threatening were no more, and not even their names were remembered, but their inscriptions and their honors suffered the merited disgrace. And the things which Licinius with his own eyes had seen come upon the former impious tyrants he himself likewise suffered, because he did not receive instruction nor learn wisdom from the chastisements of his neighbors, but followed the same path of impiety which they had trod, and was justly hurled over the same precipice. Thus he lay prostrate.
6 But Constantine, the mightiest victor, adorned with every virtue of piety, together with his son Crispus, a most God-beloved prince, and in all respects like his father, recovered the East which belonged to them; and they formed one united Roman empire as of old, bringing under their peaceful sway the whole world from the rising of the sun to the opposite quarter, both north and south, even to the extremities of the declining day.
7 All fear therefore of those who had formerly afflicted them was taken away from men, and they celebrated splendid and festive days. Everything was filled with light, and those who before were downcast beheld each other with smiling faces and beaming eyes. With dances and hymns, in city and country, they glorified first of all God the universal King, because they had been thus taught, and then the pious emperor with his God-beloved children.
8 There was oblivion of past evils and forgetfulness of every deed of impiety; there was enjoyment of present benefits and expectation of those yet to come. Edicts full of clemency and laws containing tokens of benevolence and true piety were issued in every place by the victorious emperor. 
9 Thus after all tyranny had been purged away, the empire which belonged to them was preserved firm and without a rival for Constantine and his sons alone. And having obliterated the godlessness of their predecessors, recognizing the benefits conferred upon them by God, they exhibited their love of virtue and their love of God, and their piety and gratitude to the Deity, by the deeds which they performed in the sight of all men.
The End, with God’s Help, of the Tenth Book of the Church History of Eusebius Pamphili.
Supplementary Notes and Tables.
On Bk. III. chap. 3, § 5 (note 17, continued).

Since this note was in type Dr. Gardiner’s admirable and exhaustive essay on the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews (in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. XIV. p. 341 sq.) has come to hand, and I have been much pleased to see that the theory that Barnabas wrote the epistle is accepted and defended with vigor.

On Bk. III. chap. 3, § 6 (note 22, continued).

Upon the last chapter of Romans and its relation to the remainder of the epistle, see especially Farrar’s Life and Work of St. Paul, p. 450 sq., Weiss’ Einleitung in das N. T. p. 245 sq., Pfleiderer’s Urchristenthum, p. 145 , Renan’s Saint Paul, p. 46 I sq. (maintaining that an editor has combined four copies of the one encyclical letter of Paul, addressed severally to as many different churches), Lightfoot’s Commentary on Philippians, p. I 72 sq., and Schaff, Ch. History, I. p. 765

On Bk. III. chap. 24, § 17 (note 18 continued).

In three places in the Church History (Bk. III. chap. 24, § 17, chap. 25, § 2, and chap. 39, § 16) John’s “former” epistle is referred to, as if he had written only two. In the last passage the use of protevra instead of prwvth might be explained as Westcott suggests (Canon of the New Testament, p. 77, note 2), by supposing Eusebius to be reproducing the words of Papias; but in the other passages this explanation will not do, for the words are certainly Eusebius’ own. In the Muratorian Canon only two epistles of John are mentioned, and in Irenaeus the second epistle is quoted as if it were the first (see Westcott, ibid. p. 384, note I). These facts lead Westcott to ask: “Is it possible that the second epistle was looked upon as an appendix to the first? and may we thus explain the references to two epistles of John?” He continues: “The first epistle, as is well known, was called ad Parthos by Augustine and some other Latin authorities; and the same title pro;" Pavrqou" is given to the second epistle in one Greek manuscript (62 Scholz). The Latin translation of Clement’s Outlines (IV. 66) says: Secunda Johannis epistola quae ad virgines (parqevnou") scripta simplissima est. Jerome, it may be added, quotes names from the third epistle as from the second (De nom. Hebr.).” On the other hand, in Bk. V. chap. 8, § 7, Eusebius speaks of the “first” (prwvth) epistle of John, and in Bk. III. chap. 25, § 3, he expressly mentions a second and third epistle of John. It is evident, therefore, that whatever the use of protevra instead of prowvth in connection with John’s first epistle may mean as used by others, it does not indicate a knowledge of only a first and second as used by him. It is by no means impossible, however, that Westcott’s suggestion may be correct, and that the first and second epistles were sometimes looked upon as but one, and it is possible that such use of them by some of his predecessors may account for Eusebius’ employment of the word protevra in three separate passages.

On Bk. III. chap. 25, § 4 (note 18 continued).

The words hj feromevnh Barnavba ejpistolhv have been commonly translated “the so-called Epistle of Barnabas,” or “the Epistle ascribed to Barnabas,” implying a doubt in Eusebius’ mind as to the authenticity of the work. This translation, however, is, in my opinion, quite unwarranted. There are passages in Eusebius where the word fevromai used in connection with writings cannot by any possibility be made to bear this meaning; cases in which it can be interpreted only “to be extant” or “in circulation.” Compare, for instance, Bk. II. chap. 15, § 1, Mavrkon ouj to; eujggevlion fevretai; II.18. 6, monovbibla aujtou` fevretai; III. 9. 4; III. 16; III. 25. 3, hJ legomevnh ÆIakwvbou fevretai; III.37. 4; III. 39. 1; IV. 3. 1, eijsevti de; fevretai para; pleivstoi"; IV. 14. 9, ejn th`/ dehlwqivse/ pro;" filipphsivou" aujtou` grafh`/ feromevnh/ eij" deu`ro. Compare also IV. 15. I; IV. 23. 4, 9, 12 IV. 24. 1; IV. 28; V. 5. 6; 19. 3; 23. 2; 24. 1O; VI. 15. 1; VI. 20, &c. These passages, and many others which are cited by Heinichen (Vol. III. p. 91), prove that the word is frequently used in the sense of “extant” or “in circulation.” But in spite of these numerous examples, Heinichen maintains that the word is also used by Eusebius in another and quite different sense; namely, “so-called” or “ascribed to,” thus equivalent to legomevnh. A careful examination, however, of all the passages cited by him in illustration of this second meaning will show that in them too the word may be interpreted in the same way as in those already referred to; in fact, that in many of them that is in itself the more natural interpretation. The passages to which we refer are Bk. III. chap. 25, §§ 2, 3, and 4; III. 3. 1, th;n de; feromevnhn aujtou` deutevran; III. 39. 6 (where I ought to have translated “is extant under the name of John”). To draw a distinction between the meaning of the word as used in these and in the other passages is quite arbitrary, and therefore unwarranted. The sense in which, as we have found, Eusebius so commonly employs the word attaches also to the Latin word fertur in the Muratorian Canon. I have not endeavored to trace carefully the use of the word in other writers; but while many instances occur in which it is certainly used in this sense, others in which either interpretation is allowable, I have not yet found one in which this meaning is ruled out by the nature of the case or by the context. In view of these facts I believe we should be careful to draw a sharp distinction between legomevh or kaloumevnh and feromevh when used in connection with written works.
A considerable portion of my translation was in type before I had observed this distinction between the two words, which is commonly quite overlooked, and as a consequence in a few cases my rendering of the word feromevnh is inaccurate. All such cases I have endeavored to call attention to in these supplementary notes.

On Bk. III. chap. 28, § 1.

For the Disputation which is ascribed to him, read his extant Disputation.

On Bk. III. chap. 32, § 6 (note 14).

The Greek reads pavsh" ejkklehsiva" (without the article), and so, two lines below, ejn pavsh/ ejkklhsiva/. All the translators (with the exception of Pratten in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VIII., who reads, “the churches”) render “the whole church,” as if reading pa`" with the article. We have not, it is true, enough of Hegesippus’ writings to be able to ascertain positively his use of pa`", and it is possible that he carelessly employed it indifferently with or without the article to signify the definite “all” or “the whole.“ In the absence of positive testimony, however, that he failed to draw the proper distinction between its use with and its use without the article, and in view of the fact that Eusebius himself (as well as other early Fathers so far as I am able to recall) is very consistent in making the distinction, I have not felt at liberty in my translation to depart from a strict grammatical interpretation of the phrases in question. Moreover, upon second thought, it seems quite as possible that Hegesippus meant to say “every” not “all”; for he can hardly have supposed these relatives of the Lord to have presided literally over the whole Church, while he might very well say that they presided each over the church in the city in which he lived, which is all that the words necessarily imply. The phrase just below, “in every church,” is perhaps as natural as “in the whole church.”

On Bk. III. chap. 36 § 13.

For the Epistle to the Philippians which is ascribed to him, read his extant Epistle to the Philippians.

On Bk. III. chap. 39, § 1 (note 1, continued).

Since the above note was in type Resch’s important work on the Agrapha (von Gebhardt and Harnack’s Texte und Untersuchungen, Bd. V. Heft 4) has come to hand. On p. 27 sq. he discusses at considerable length the sources of the Synoptic Gospels. He accepts the theory which is most widely adopted by New-Testament critics, that the synoptic tradition as contained in our Synoptic Gospels rests upon an original Gospel of Mark (nearly if not quite identical with our present Gospel of Mark) and a pre-canonical Hebrew Gospel. In agreement with such critics he draws a sharp distinction between this original Hebrew Gospel and our canonical Greek Matthew, while at the same time recognizing that the latter reproduces that original more fully than either of the other Gospels does. This original Hebrew he then identifies with the lovgia referred to by Papias as composed by Matthew in the Hebrew tongue (see Bk. III. chap. 39, § 16); that is, with the traditional Hebrew Gospel of Matthew (see ibid. chap. 24, note 5). The arguments which he urges in support of this position are very strong. Handmann regards the Gospel according to the Hebrews as the second original source of the synoptic tradition, alongside of the Ur-Marcus, and even suggests its identification with the lovgia of Papias, and yet denies its identity with the Hebrew Matthew. On the other hand, Resch regards the Hebrew Matthew, which he identifies with the lovgia of Papias, as the second original source of the synoptic tradition, alongside of Mark or the Ur-Marcus, and yet, like Handmann, though on entirely different grounds, denies the identity of the Gospel according to the Hebrews with the Hebrew Matthew. Their positions certainly tend to confirm my suggestion that the Hebrew Matthew and the Gospel according to the Hebrews were originally identical (see above, Bk. III. chap. 27, note 8).

On Bk. III. chap. 39, § 6.

For ascribed by name to John, read extant under the name of John.

On Bk. III. chap. 39, § 16.

For from the first epistle of John and from that of Peter likewise, read from the former epistle of John and from the eipstle of Peter likewise. See p. 388.

On Bk. IV. chap. 1O.

For the Pious, read Pius.

On Bk. IV. chap. 18, § 2.

For the Pious, read Pius.

On Bk. V. Introd. § I (note 3, continued). The Successors of Antoninus Pius.

Antoninus Pius was succeeded in 161 by his adopted sons, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Verus and Lucius Ceionius Aelius Aurelius Commodus Antoninus. Upon his accession to the throne the former transferred his name Verus to the latter, who was thenceforth called Lucius Aurelius Verus. In his Chronicle Eusebius keeps these two princes distinct, but in his History he falls into sad confusion in regard to them, and this confusion has drawn upon him the severe censure of all his critics. He knew of course, as every one did, that Antoninus Pius had two successors. In Bk. IV. chap. 14, § 1O, he states this directly, and gives the names of the successors as “Marcus Aurelius Verus, who was also called Antoninus,” and “Lucius.” From that point on he calls the former of these princes simply Antoninus Verus, Antoninus, or Verus, dropping entirely the name Marcus Aurelius. In Bk. IV. chap. 18, § 2, he speaks of the emperor “whose times we are now recording,” that is, the successor of Antoninus Pius, and calls him Antoninus Verus. In Bk. V. Introd. § I he refers to the same emperor as Antoninus Verus, and in Bk. V. chap. 4, § 3, and chap. 9, he calls him simply Antoninus, while in Bk. IV. chap. 13, § 8, he speaks of him as the “Emperor Verus.” The death of this Emperor Antoninus is mentioned in Bk. V. chap. 9, and it is there said that he reigned nineteen years and was then succeeded by Commodus. It is evident that in all these passages he is referring to the emperor whom we know as Marcus Aurelius, but to whom he gives that name only once, when he records his accession to the empire. On the other hand, in Bk. V. chap. 5, § 1, Eusebius speaks of Marcus Aurelius Caesar and expressly distinguishes him from the Emperor Antoninus, to whom he has referred at the close of the previous chapter, and makes him the brother of that emperor. Again, in the same chapter, § 6, he calls this Marcus Aurelius Caesar, just referred to, the “Emperor Marcus,” still evidently distinguishing him from the Emperor Antoninus. In this chapter, therefore, he thinks of Marcus Aurelius as the younger of the two sons left by Antoninus Pius; that is, he identifies him with the one whom we call Lucius Verus, and whom he himself calls Lucius in Bk. IV. chap. 14 § 1O. Eusebius thus commits a palpable error. How are we to explain it?
The explanation seems to me to lie in the circumstance that Eusebius attempted to reconcile the tradition that Marcus Aurelius was not a persecutor with the fact known to him as a historian, that the emperor who succeeded Antoninus Pius was. It was the common belief in the time of Eusebius, as it had been during the entire preceding century, that all the good emperors had been friendly to the Christians, and that only the bad emperors had persecuted. Of course, among the good emperors was included the philosophical Marcus Aurelius (cf. e.g. Tertullian’s Apol. chap. 5, to which Eusebius refers in Bk. V. chap. 5). It was of Marcus Aurelius, moreover, that the story of the Thundering Legion was told (see ibid.). But Eusebius was not able to overlook the fact that numerous martyrdoms occurred during the reign of the successor of Antoninus Pius. He had the documents recording the terrible persecution at Lyons and Vienne; he had an apology of Melito, describing the hardships which the Christians endured under the same emperor (see Bk. IV. chap. 26). He found himself, as an historian, face to face with two apparently contradictory lines of facts. How was the contradiction to be solved? He seems to have solved it by assuming that a confusion of names had taken place, and that the prince commonly known as Marcus Aurelius, whose noble character was traditional, and whose friendship to the Christians he could not doubt, was the younger, not the older of the two brothers, and therefore not responsible for the numerous martyrdoms which took place after the death of Antoninus Pius. And yet he is not consistent with himself even in his History; for he gives the two brothers their proper names when he first mentions them, and says nothing of an identification of Marcus Aurelius with Lucius. It is not impossible that the words Marcus Aurelius, which are used nowhere else of the older brother, are an interpolation; but for this there is no evidence, and it may be suggested as more probable that at the time when this passage was written the solution of the difficulty which he gives distinctly in Bk. V. chap. 5 had not yet occurred to him. That he should be able to fancy that Marcus Aurelius was identical with Lucius is perhaps not strange when we remember how much confusion was caused in the minds of other writers besides himself by the perplexing identity of the names of the various members of the Antonine family. To the two successors of Antoninus Pius, the three names, Aurelius, Verus, and Antoninus, alike belonged. It is not surprising that Eusebius should under the circumstances think that the name Marcus may also have belonged to the younger one. This supposition would seem to him to find some confirmation in the fact that the most common official designation of the older successor of Antoninus Pius was not Marcus Aurelius, but Antoninus simply, or M. Antoninus. The name Marcus Aurelius or Marcus was rather a popular than an official designation. Even in the Chronicle there seems to be a hint that Eusebius thought of a possible distinction between Antoninus the emperor and Marcus, or Marcus Aurelius; for while he speaks of the “Emperor Antoninus” at the beginning of the passages in which he recounts the story of the Thundering Legion (year of Abr. 2188), he says at the close: literae quoque exstant Marci regis (the M. Aureli gravissimi imperatoris of Jerome looks like a later expansion of the simpler original) quibus testatur copias suas iamiam perituras Christianorum precibus servatas esse. But even when he had reached the solution pointed out, Eusebius did not find himself clear of difficulties; for his sources put the occurrence of the Thundering Legion after the date at which the younger brother was universally supposed to have died, and it was difficult on still other grounds to suppose the prince named Marcus Aurelius already dead in 169 (the date given by Eusebius himself inhis Chronicle for the death of Lucius). In this emergency he came to the conclusion that there must be some mistake in regard to the date of his death, and possessing no record of the death of Marcus Aurelius as distinct from Antoninus, he simply passed it by without mention.
That Eusebius in accepting such a lame theory showed himself altogether too much under the influence of traditional views cannot be denied; but when we remember that the tradition that Marcus Aurelius was not a persecutor was supported by writers whose honesty and accuracy he could never have thought of questioning, as well as by the very nature of the case, we must, while we smile at the result, at least admire his effort to solve the contradiction which he, as an historian, felt more keenly than a less learned man, unacquainted with the facts on the other side, would have done.

On Bk. VI. chap. I, § 27 (note 26, continued).

See also Bk. VIII. chap. 1O, note 5.

On Bk. VI. chap. 2 (note I, continued). Origen’s Life and Writings.

Origen Adamantius (on the second name, see Bk. VI. chap. 14, note 12) was of Christian parentage and probably of Greek descent on his father’s side (as stated in the previous note), but whether born in Alexandria or not we do not know. Westcott suggests that his mother may have been of Jewish descent, because in an epistle of Jerome (ad Paulam: Ep. 39, § I, Migne’s ea.) he is said to have learned Hebrew so thoroughly that he “vied with his mother” in the singing of psalms (but compare the stricture of Redepenning on this passage, p. 187, note I). The date of his birth may be gathered from the fact (stated in this chapter) that he was in his seventeenth year at the time of his father’s death, which gives us 185 or 186 as the year of his birth (cf. Redepenning, I. p. 417–420, Erste Beilage). We learn from the present chapter that as a boy he was carefully trained by his father in the Scriptures and afterward in Greek literature, a training of which he made good use in later life. He was also a pupil of Clement in the catechetical school, as we learn from chaps. 6 and 14 (on the time, see chap. 6, note 4). He showed remarkable natural ability, and after the death of his father (being himself saved from martyrdom only by a device of his mother), when left in poverty with his mother and six younger brothers (see § 13 of this chapter), he was able, partly by the assistance of a wealthy lady and partly by teaching literature, to support himself (§ 14). Whether he supported the rest of the family Eusebius does not state, but his thoroughly religious character does not permit us to imagine that he left them to suffer. In his eighteenth year, there being no one at the head of the catechetical school in Alexandria, he was induced to take the school in charge and to devote himself to the work of instruction in the Christian faith. Soon afterward the entire charge of the work was officially committed to him by Demetrius, the bishop of Alexandria (see chap. 3). He lived at this time a life of rigid asceticism (ibid.), and even went so far as to mutilate himself in his zeal for the prosecution of his work (see chap. 8). His great influence naturally aroused the hostility of unbelievers against him; but though many of his pupils suffered martyrdom (see chap. 4), he himself escaped, we do not know how. Eusebius ascribes his preservation to the providence of God (ibid.). During these years in which he was at the head of the catechetical school, he devoted himself with vigor to the study of Greek philosophy, and was for a time a pupil of the Neo-Platonist Ammonius Saccas (chap. 19). He studied non-Christian thought, as he tells us, in order that he might be the better able to instruct his pagan and heretical pupils (ibid.). His labors in the school in time grew so heavy that he was obliged to associate with himself his friend and fellow-pupil Heraclas, to whom he committed the work of elementary instruction (chap. 15). It was during this time that he seems to have begun his Hexapla, having learned Hebrew in order to fit himself the better for his work upon the Old Testament (chap. 16). During this period (while Zephyrinus was bishop of Rome, i.e. before 217) he made a brief visit to Rome (chap. 14), and later he was summoned to Arabia, to give instruction to the governor of that country, and remained there a short time (chap. 19). Afterward, on account of a great tumult in Alexandria (see chap. 19, note 22), he left the city and went to Caesarea in Palestine, where, although only a layman, he publicly expounded the Scriptures in the church (chap. 19). The bishop Demetrius strongly disapproved of this, and summoned him back to Alexandria (ibid.). Upon his return to Alexandria he entered upon the work of writingCommentaries on the Scriptures (see chap. 23). During this period he wrote also other important works(see chap. 24).
In the tenth year of Alexander Severus (a.d. 231) he left Alexandria (according to chap. 26) and took up his residence in Caesarea, leaving his catechetical school in charge of his assistant, Heraclas. The cause of his departure is stated in chap. 23 to have been “some necessary affairs of the church” which called him to Greece. (For a statement of the reasons which lead me, contrary to the common opinion, to identify the departure mentioned in chap. 23 with that mentioned in chap. 26, see below, p. 395 sq.) Jerome (de vir. ill. c. 54) says that he went to Achaia on account of heresies which were troubling the churches there. His words are: Et propter ecclesias Achaiae, quae pluribus haeresibus vexabantur, sub testimonio ecclesiasticae epistolae Athenas per Palaestinam pergeret. He passed through Palestine on his way to Greece, and it was at this time that he was ordained a presbyter by the Palestinian bishops (chap. 23), Theoctistus of Caesarea and Alexander of Jerusalem (according to Jerome, l.c.; cf. also Euseb. chap. 8). Whether he remained long in Palestine at this time, or went on at once to Greece, we do not know; but that a visit (to be distinguished from the second visit mentioned in chap. 32; see note 4 on that chapter) was made we know from a fragment of one of Origen’s epistles written from Athens (printed in Lommatzsch’s ed. of Origen’s works, XXV. p. 388); with which are to be compared Epiphanius, Haer. LXIV. I, and the remark made by Eusebius in chap. 16, § 2. in regard to the finding of a copy of a translation in Nicopolis. Origen’s ordination resulted in the complete alienation of the bishop Demetrius (upon his earlier and later attitude toward Origen, and the causes of the change, see below, p. 394 sq.), and he called a council in Alexandria of bishops and presbyters (the council must have been held very soon after the receipt of the news of Origen’s ordination, for Demetrius died in 232; see Bk. V. chap. 22, note 4) which decided that Origen should be required to leave Alexandria and not be allowed to reside or to teach there, but did not depose him from the priesthood. Afterward, however, Demetrius, combining with some bishops of like mind with himself, deposed Origen from his office, and the sentence was ratified by those who had before voted with him. Photius gives this account in Cod. 118, quoting from the lost Defense of Pamphilus and Eusebius. Eusebius himself tells us nothing about these proceedings in his History, but simply refers us (chap. 23) to the second book of his Defense, which he says contained a full account of the matter. (Upon the bearing of the words quoted by Photius from the Defense, see below, p. 395 sq.) Demetrius wrote of the result of the council “to the whole world” (according to Jerome’s de vir. ill. c. 54), and the sentence was concurred in by the bishops of Rome and of all the other churches, except those of Palestine, Arabia, Phoenicia, and Achaia (see Jerome ad Paul. Ep. 33; and Apol. adv. libros Ruf. II. 18). Taking up his abode in Caesarea, Origen made this place his headquarters for the rest of his life, and found there the most cordial sympathy and support (chap. 27). He carried on in Caesarea a catechetical school, expounding the Scriptures, lecturing on theology, and at the same time continuing his literary labors in peace until the persecution of Maximinus (a.d. 235–237). during which some of his friends in Caesarea suffered (see chaps. 27, 28, 30, 32, and 36). How Origen escaped and where he was during the persecution we do not know (see chap. 28, note 2).In 237 or 238 at any rate, he was (again) in Caesarea and at this time Gregory Thaumaturgus delivered his Panegyric, which is our best source for a knowledge of Origen’s methods of teaching and of the influence which he exerted over his pupils. (Upon the date, see Draeseke, Der Brief des Origenes an Gregorios in the Jabrbücher f. pros. Theologie, 1887, p. 102 sq.) During this period he did considerable traveling, making another visit to Athens (see chap. 32) and two to Arabia (see chaps. 33 and 37). It was while in Caesarea, and when he was over sixty years old, that he first permitted his discourses to be taken down by shorthand writers (see chap. 26). His correspondence with the Emperor Philip and his wife is mentioned by Eusebius in the same chapter. He was arrested during the Decian persecution and suffered terrible torments, but not martyrdom (chap. 39). He died not much more than a year after the close of the persecution, in the seventieth year of his age (see Bk. VII. chap. 1), at Tyre, and was buried there (Jerome, de vir. ill. c. 54).
Origen was without doubt the greatest scholar and the most original thinker of his age. He was at the same time a man of most devout piety, and employed all his wonderful talents in the service of what he believed to be the truth. His greatest labors were in the field of exegesis, and here his writings were epoch-making, although his results were often completely vitiated by his use of the allegorical method of interpretation and his neglect of the grammatical and historical sense. His services in the’ cause of scientific theology cannot be overestimated, and his thinking long stimulated the brightest minds of the Church, both orthodox and heretical. Both his natural predilections and his training in the philosophy which prevailed in Alexandria in that day led him in the direction of idealism, and to an excess of this, combined with his deep desire—common also to Clement—to reconcile Christianity with reason and to commend it to the minds of philosophers, are due most of his errors, nearly all of which are fascinating and lofty in conception. Those errors led the Church to refuse him a place among its saints and even among its Fathers in the stricter sense. Even before his death suspicions of his orthodoxy were widespread; and although he had many followers and warm’ defenders, his views were finally condemned at a home synod in Constantinople in 543 (?) (see Helele,II. 790). Into the bitter controversies which raged during the fourth and fifth centuries, and in which Jerome and Rufinus (the former against, the latter for, Origen) played so large a part we cannot enter here. See the article Origenstic Controversies in the Dict. of Christ. Biog., or any of the Church histories and lives of Origen.
Origen was a marvelously prolific writer. Epiphanius (Haer. LXIV. 63) says that it was commonly reported that he had written 6000 works. Jerome reduces the number to less than a third (adv. Ruf. II. 22). But whatever the number, we know that he was one of the most voluminous—perhaps the most voluminous writer of antiquity. He wrote works of the most diverse nature, critical, exegetical, philosophical and theological, apologetic and practical, besides numerous epistles. (On his great critical work, the Hexpla, see chap. 16, note 8.) His exegetical works consisted of commentaries, scholia (or detached notes), and homilies. Of his commentaries on the Old Testament, which were very numerous, only fragments of those on Genesis, Exodus, the Psalms, and the Song of Solomon are presented in the version of Rufinus, and a fragment of the commentary on Ezekiel in the Philocalia Of the New Testament commentaries we have numerous fragments both in Greek and Latin (especially on Matthew and John), and the whole of Romans in the translation of Rufinus. Upon the commentaries composed by Origen while still in Alexandria, see chap. 24; on those written afterwards, see chaps. 32 and 36. No complete scholia are extant; but among the numerous exegetical fragments which are preserved there may be portions of these scholia, as well as of the commentaries and homilies. It is not always possible to tell to which a fragment belongs. Of the homilies, over zoo are preserved, the majority of them in the translation of Rufinus. 
The philosophical and theological works known to us are the two books On the Resurrection (see chap. 24, note 5): the De principiis (see ibid. note 6); and the Stromata (see ibid. note 7).
Origen’s great apologetic work is his Contra Celsum (see chap. 36, note 3).
Two works of a practical character are known to us: On Martyrdom (see chap. 28, note 3); and On Prayer. The latter work is not mentioned by Eusebius in his History, but is referred to in Pamphilus’ Apology for Origen, Chap. VIII. (Lommatzsch, XXIV. p. 397). It is extant in the original Greek, and is printed by Lommatzsch, XVII. p. 79–297. It is addressed to two of his friends, Ambrosius and Tatiana, and is one of his most beautiful works. As to the date at which Origen wrote the work, we know (from chap. 23 of the work) only that it was written after the composition of the commentary on Genesis (see above, Bk. VI. chap. 24), but whether before or after his departure from Alexandria we cannot tell.
Of his epistles only two are preserved entire, one to Julius Africanus, and another to Gregory Thaumaturgus. On the former, see chap. 31, note 1. On the latter and on Origen’s other epistles, see chap. 36, note 7.
Finally must be mentioned the Philocalia (Lommatzsch, XXV. p. 1–278), a collection of judiciously selected extracts from Origen’s works in twenty-seven books. Its compilers were Gregory Nazianzen and Basil.
The principal edition of Origen’s works is that of the Benedictine Delarue in 4 vols. for.; repeated by Migne in 8 vols. A convenient edition is that of Lommatzsch, in 25 vols. small 8vo., a revision of Delarue’s. Only his De principiis, Contra Cels., and the epistles to Africanus and to Gregory have been translated into English, and are given in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. IV. p. 221 sqq. Of lives of Origen must be mentioned that of Huetius: Origeniana (Paris, 1679, in 2 vols.; reprinted in Delarue and Lommatzsch); also Redepenning’s Origenes. Eine Darstellung seines Lebens und seiner Lehre (Bonn, 1841 and 1846, in 2 vols.). The respective sections in Lardner and Tillemont should be compared, and the thorough article of Westcott in the dict. of Christ. Biog. IV. 96–142. For a good list of the literature on Origen, see Schaff, Ch. Hist. II. p. 785.
On Bk. VI. chap. 8, § 5 (note 4). Origen and Demetrius.
The friendship of Demetrius for Origen began early and continued, apparently without interruption, for many years. In 203 he committed to him the charge of the catechetical school (chap. 3); in the present chapter we find him encouraging him after learning of his rash deed; some years afterward, upon Origen’s return from a visit to Rome, where his fame as a teacher had already become very great, Demetrius still showed the very best spirit toward him (chap. 14); and a little later sent him into Arabia to give instruction to an officer in that country (chap. 19). It is soon after this that the first sign of a difference between the two men appears, upon the occasion of Origen’s preaching in Caesarea (ibid.). There seems, however, to have been no lasting quarrel, if there was any quarrel at all; for in 231 we find Demetrius giving Origen letters of recommendation upon the occasion of his visit to Achaia (see below, p. 396). The fact that he gives him these letters, thus recognizing him as a member of his church in good standing, and sending him upon his important mission with his official approval, shows that no open break between himself and Origen can as yet have taken place. But in his commentary on John (Tom. VI. praef.) Origen shows us that his last years in Alexandria were by no means pleasant ones. He compares his troubles there to the waves of a stormy sea, and his final departure to the exodus of the children of Israel. We know that he had been engaged for some time in writing commentaries, and that the first five books of his commentary on John—epoch-making in their significance, and sure to cause a sensation in orthodox, conservative circles—had recently appeared. We know that his reputation for heterodoxy was already quite widespread and that the majority of the Egyptian clergy were by no means upon his side. The trials to which he refers, therefore, may well have been a result of this hostility to his teachings existing among the clergy about him, and Demetrius may have shared to an extent in the common feeling. At the same time his disapproval cannot have been very pronounced, or he could not have given his official sanction to Origen’s important visit to Achaia. But now, things being in this condition, Origen set out upon his mission, leaving Heraclas in charge of his school, and undoubtedly with the expectation of returning again, for he left the unfinished sixth book of his commentary on John behind him (see preface to the sixth book). He stopped in Palestine on his way to Athens, and there was ordained a presbyter by the bishops of that country (upon the motives which prompted him in the matter, see below, p. 397). The result was a complete break between Demetrius and himself, and his condemnation by an Alexandrian synod. To understand Demetrius’ action in the matter, we must remember that both Eusebius and Jerome attribute the change in his attitude to jealousy of Origen. They may be too harsh in their judgment, and yet it is certainly not at all unnatural that the growing power and fame of his young catechumen should in time affect, all unconsciously, his attitude toward him. But we must not do Demetrius an injustice. There is no sign that his jealousy led him to attack Origen, or to seek to undermine his influence, and we have no right to accuse him, without ground, of such unchristian conduct. At the same time, while he remained, as he supposed, an honest friend of Origen’s, the least feeling of jealousy (and it would have been remarkable had he never felt the least) would make him more suspicious of the latter’s conduct, and more prone to notice in his actions anything which might be interpreted as an infringement of his own prerogatives, or a disregard of the full respect due him.We seem to see a sign of this over-sensitiveness (most natural under the circumstances) in his severe disapproval of Origen’s preaching in Caesarea, which surprised the Palestinian bishops, but which is not surprising when we realize that Demetrius might so easily construe it as a token of growing disrespect for his authority on the part of his rising young school principal. It is plain enough, if he was in this state of mind, that he might in all sincerity have given letters of recommendation to Origen and have wished him God speed upon his mission, and yet that the news of his ordination to the presbyterate by foreign bishops, without his own approval or consent, and indeed in opposition to his own principles and to ecclesiastical law, should at once arouse his ire, and, by giving occasion for what seemed righteous indignation, open the floodgates for all the smothered jealousy of years. In such a temper of mind he could not do otherwise than listen willingly to all the accusations of heresy against Origen, which were no doubt busily circulated in his absence, and it was inevitable that he should believe it his duty to take decided steps against a man who was a heretic, and at the same time showed complete disregard of the rules and customs of the Church, and of the rights of his bishop. The result was the definitive and final exclusion of Origen from communion with the Alexandrian church, and his degradation from the office of presbyter by decree of the Alexandrian synods described above, p. 392 sq. The two grounds of the sentence passed by these synods were plainly his irregular ordination to the priesthood when constitutionally unfit for it (cf. what Eusebius says in this chapter), and his heterodoxy (cf. e.g. the synodical epistle of the Egyptian bishops given in Mansi’s Collect. Concil. IX. colt 524, and also Jerome’s epistle ad Pammachium et Oceanum, § 10, and Rufinus’ Apologi in Hieron. II. 21). That the ordination to the priesthood of one who had mutilated himself was not universally considered uncanonical in the time of Origen is proved by the fact that the Palestinian bishops (whom Origen cannot have allowed to remain ignorant of his condition) all united in ordaining him. But the very fact that they all united (which has perplexed some scholars) leads us to think that they realized that their action was somewhat irregular, and hence wished to give it sanction by the participation of a number of bishops. The first canon of the Council of Nicaea forbids such ordination, and the canon is doubtless but the repetition of an older one (cf. Apost. Canons, 21 to 24, and see Hefele, Conciliengesch. I. p. 377), and yet Origen’s consent to his ordination makes it improbable that there was in force in his time, even in Alexandria, a canon placing absolute and unconditional clerical disabilities upon such as he. That the action, however, was considered at least irregular in Alexandria, is proved by the position taken in the matter by Demetrius; and the fact that he made so much of it leads us to believe that the synod, called by him, may now have made canon law of what was before only custom, and may have condemned Origen for violating that custom which they considered as binding as law. Certainly had there been no such custom, and had it not seemed to Demetrius absolutely binding, he would have ordained Origen to the priesthood long before. His ordination in Palestine was in violation of what was known to be Demetrius’ own principle, and the principle of the Alexandrian church, even if the principle was not, until this time or later, formulated into a canon.

On Bk. VI. chap. 12, § 6.

Since this passage was printed, I have seen Westcott’s translation of this fragment of Serapion’s epistle in his Canon of the New Testament, 5th ed. p. 390 sq. (cf. especially p. 391 note), and am glad to note that his rendering of the words katarxamevnwn aujtou` is the same as my own. His interpretation of one or two other points I am unable to adopt.

On Bk. VI. chap. 23, § 4 (note 6). Origen’s Visit to Achaia.

Eusebius gives as the cause of Origen’s visit to Greece simply “a pressing necessity in connection with ecclesiastical affairs,” but Jerome (de vir. ill. c. 54) tells us that it was on account of heresies which were troubling the churches of Achaia (propter ecclesias Achaiae, quae pluribus hoeresibus vexabantur). Photius (Cod. 118) reports that Origen went to Athens without the consent of Demetrius (cwri;" th`" tou` oijkeivou gnwvmh" ejpiskovpou), but this must be regarded as a mistake (caused perhaps by his knowledge that it was Origen’s ordination, which took place during this trip, that caused Demetrius’ anger; for Photius does not say that this statement rests upon the authority of Pamphilus, but prefaces his whole account with the words oJ te Pavmfilo" mavrtu" kai; e{teroi plei`stoi), for Jerome (de vir. ill. c. 54) says that Origen went to Athens by way of Palestine sub testimonio ecclesiasticae epistolae, and in chap. 62 he says that Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem wrote an epistle in which he stated that he had ordained Origen juxta testimonium Demetrii. We must therefore assume that Origen left Alexandria for Athens with Demetrius’ approval, and with letters of recommendation from him. It is the common opinion that Origen left Alexandria this time about 228 a.d., and after his visit in Achaia returned to Alexandria, where he remained until excommunicated by the council called by Demetrius. Upon searching the sources, however, I can find absolutely no authority for the statement that he returned to Alexandria after his visit to Achaia; in fact, that he did seems by most scholars simply to be taken for granted without further investigation. The opinion apparently rests upon the inter. pretation of two passages, one in a report of the proceedings of the Alexandrian synod taken by Photius from Pamphilus’ Apology, the other in the preface to the sixth book of Origen’s comment tary on the Gospel of John. In the former it is said that the synod voted to exile Origen from Alexandria, and forbade him to reside or to teach there (yhfivzetai metasth`nai me;n ajpo; ÆAlexandreiva" to;n ÆWrigevnhn, kai; mevte diatrivbein ejn aujth`/, mevte didavskein). But certainly such a decree is far from proving that Origen, at the time it was passed, was actually in Alexandria. It simply shows that he still regarded that city as his residence, and was supposed to be expecting to return to it after his visit was completed. In the preface to the sixth book of his commentary on John’s Gospel, he speaks of the troubles and trials which he had been enduring in Alexandria before he finally left the city, and compares that departure to the exodus of the children of Israel. But certainly it is just as easy to refer these troubles to the time before his visit to Achaia, a time when in all probability the early books of his commentary on John, as well as others of his writings, had begun to excite the hostility of the Alexandrian clergy, and thus made his residence there uncomfortable. It is almost necessary to assume that this hostility had arisen some time before the synods were held, in order to account both for the hostility of the majority of the clergy, which cannot have been so seriously aroused in an instant, and also for the change in Demetrius’ attitude, which must have found a partial cause in the already existing hostility of the clergy to Origen, hostility which led them to urge him on to take decisive steps against Origen when the fitting occasion for action came in the ordination of the latter (see above, p. 395). The only arguments which, so far as I am able to learn, have been or can be urged for Origen’s return to Alexandria are thus shown to prove nothing.On the other hand, it is a fact that Origen was ordained on his way to Achaia, and then went on and did his business there, and it is difficult to imagine that Demetrius and the Alexandrian church would have waited so long before taking action in regard to this step, which appeared to them so serious. More than that, Origen reports that he had begun the sixth book of his commentary on John in Alexandria, but had left it there, and therefore began it anew in Palestine. It is difficult to imagine that his departure was so hasty that he could not take even his mss. with him; but if he left only for his visit to Achaia, expecting to return again, he would of course leave his mss. behind him, and when his temporary absence was changed by the synod into permanent exile, he might not have been in a position, or might not have cared, to send back for the unfinished work. Still further, it does not seem probable that, if he were leaving Alexandria an exile under the condemnation of the church, and in such haste as the leaving of his unfinished commentary would imply, he should be in a position to entrust the care of his catechetical school to his assistant Heraclas (as he is said in chap. 26 to have done). That matter would rather have been taken out of his hands by Demetrius and the rest of the clergy. But going away merely on a visit, he would of course leave the school in Heraclas’ charge, and after his condemnation the clergy might see that Heraclas was the man for the place, and leave him undisturbed in it. After having, upon the grounds mentioned, reached the conclusion, shared so far as I knew by no one else, that it is at least unlikely that Origen returned to Alexandria after his visit to Greece, I was pleased to find my position strengthened by some chronological considerations urged by Lipsius(Chronologie d. röm. Bischöfe, p. 195, note), who says that “we do not know whether Origen ever returned to Alexandria after his ordination,” and who seems to think it probable that he did not. He shows that Pontanus did not become bishop of Rome until 230, and therefore, if Eusebius is correct in putting Origen’s visit to Achaia in the time of Pontianus’ episcopate, as he does in this passage, that visit cannot have taken place before 230 (the commonly accepted date, which rests upon a false chronology of Pontianus’ episcopate, is 228); while on the other hand, according to chap. 26, Origen’s final departure from Alexandria took place in the tenth year of Alexander’s reign (231 a.d.), shortly before Demetrius’ death, which occurred not later than 232 (see Bk. V. chap. 22, note 4). Supposing, then, that Origen returned to Alexandria, we must assume his journey to Palestine, his ordination there, his visit to Achaia and settlement of the disputes there, his return to Alexandria, the composition of at least some part of his commentary on John, the calling of a synod, his condemnation and exile,—all within the space of about a year. These chronologicalconsiderations certainly increase the improbability of Origen’s return to Alexandria. (It may be remarked that Redepenning, who accepts the commonly received chronology, assigns two years to the Caesarean and Achaian visit.) Assuming, then, that this departure for Achaia is identical with that mentioned in chap. 26, we put it in the year 231. It must have been (as of course we should expect, for he stopped in Palestine only on his way to Achaia) very soon after his departure that Origen’s ordination took place; and the synod must have been called very soon after that event (as we shouldlikewise expect), for Demetrius died the following year.
As to the cause of Origen’s ordination, it is quite possible, as Redepenning suggests, that when he went a second time to Palestine, his old friends, the bishops of Caesarea, of Jerusalem, and of other cities, wished to hear him preach again, but that remembering the reproof of the bishop Demetrius, called forth by his preaching on the former occasion (see chap. 19), he refused, and that then the Palestinian bishops, in order to obviate that difficulty, insisted on ordaining him. It is not impossible that Origen, who seems never to have been a stickler for the exact observance of minor ecclesiastical rules and formalities, supposed that Demetrius, who had shown himself friendly in the past, and not hostile to him because of his youthful imprudence (see chap. 8), would concur willingly in an ordination performed by such eminent bishops, and an ordination which would prove of such assistance to Origen in the accomplishment of the work in Achaia which he was undertaking with the approval of Demetrius himself, even though the latter could not bring himself to violate what he considered an ecclesiastical canon against the ordination of eunuchs. We can thus best explain Origen’s consent to the step which, when we consider his general character, it is difficult to suppose he would have taken in conscious opposition to the will of his bishop. (On Demetrius’ view of the matter, see above, p. 394 sq.) He was ordained, according to Jerome’s de vir. ill. c. 54 (cf. also chap. 8, above), by Theoctistus, bishop of Caesarea, and Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem, together with “the most distinguished bishops of Palestine” (as Eusebius says in chap. 8).

On Bk. VII. chap. 25, § 11.

For in the reputed second or third Epistle of John, read in the extant second and third Epistles of John (ejn teh`/ deutevra/ feromevnh/ ÆIwavnnou dai; trivth/)

On Bk. VII. chap. 26, § 1 (note 4, continued).

On Dionysius’ attitude toward Sabellianism and the occasion of the Apology (e[legco" kai; ajpologiva) in four books, which he addressed to Dionysius of Rome, see Bk. VI. chap. 40, note 1. This work is no longer extant, but brief fragments of it have been preserved by Athanasius (in his De Sent. Dionysii) and by Basil De Spir. Sancto). English translation in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VI. p. 92 sq. The longer work was preceded by a shorter one, now lost, to which reference is made in one of the fragments of the longer work. We do not know the exact date of the work, but may assign it with considerable probability to the earlier part of the episcopate of Dionysius of Rome; that is, soon after 259. Upon this work and upon Dionysius’ attitude toward Sabellianism, see especially Dittrich, Dionysius der Grosse, p. 91. sq.

On Bk. VIII. chap. 2, § 4 (note 3, continued). The Causes of the Diocletian Persecution.

The persecution of Diocletian, following as it did a period of more than forty years during which Christianity had been recognized as a religio licita, and undertaken as it was by a man who throughout the first eighteen years of his reign had shown himself friendly to the Christians, and had even filled his own palace with Christian servants, presents a very difficult problem to the historian. Why did Diocletian persecute? The question has taxed the ingenuity of many scholars and has received a great variety of answers. Hunziker (in his Regierung und Christenverfolgung des Kaisers Diocletianus und seiner Nachfolger, Leipzig, 1869), Burckhardt (in his Zeit Constantins, Basel, 1853, 2d and improved edition, Leipzig, 1880), and A. J. Mason (in his Persecution of Diocletian, Cambridge and London, 1876), not to mention other investigators, have treated the subject with great ability and at considerable length, and the student is referred to their works for a fuller examination of the questions involved. It is not my purpose here to discuss the various views that have been presented by others; but inasmuch as I am unable fully to agree with any of them, I desire to indicate my own conception of the causes that led to the persecution. We are left almost wholly to conjecture in the matter; for our only authority, Lactantius, makes so many palpably erroneous statements in his description of the causes which produced the great catastrophe that little reliance can be placed upon him (see Burckhardt’s demonstration of these errors, ibid. p. 289 sq.). Nevertheless, he has preserved for us at least one fact of deep significance, and it is a great merit of Mason’s discussion that he has proved so conclusively the correctness of the report. The fact I refer to is that the initiative came from Galerius, not from Diocletian himself. Lactantius states this very distinctly and repeatedly, but it has been argued by Hunziker and many others that the persecution had been in Diocletian’s mind for a long time, and that it was but the culmination of his entire policy. Having settled political matters, it is said, he turned his attention to religious matters, and determined as a step toward the restoration of the old Roman religion in its purity to exterminate Christianity. But, as Mason shows, this is an entire misconception of Diocletian’s policy. It had never been his intention to attack Christianity. Such an attack was opposed to all his principles, and was at length made only under the pressure of strong external reasons. But though Mason has brought out this important fact so clearly, and though he has shown that Galerius was the original mover in the matter, he has, in my opinion, gone quite astray in his explanation of the causes which led Diocletian to accede to the wishes of Galerius. According to Mason, Diocletian was induced against his will to undertake a course of action which his judgment told him was unwise. " But the Caesar [Galerius] was the youngerand the stronger man; and a determination to do has always an advantage over the determination not to do. At length Diocletian broke down so far as to offer to forbid the profession of the faith within the walls of his palace and under the eagles of his legions. He was sure it was a mistaken policy. It was certainly distasteful to himself. The army would suffer greatly by the loss. Diocletian would have to part with servants to whom he was attached," &c. To my mind, it is impossible to believe that Diocletian—great and wise emperor as he had proved himself, and with an experience of over eighteen years of imperial power during which he had always shown himself master—can thus have yielded simply to the importunity of another man. Our knowledge of Diocletian’s character should lead us to repudiate absolutely such a supposition.Feeling the difficulty of his own supposition, Mason suggests that Diocletian may have felt that it would be better for him to begin the persecution himself, and thus hold it within some bounds, than to leave it for Galerius to conduct when he should become emperor two years later. But certainly if, as Mason assumes, Diocletian was convinced that the measure was in itself vicious and impolitic, that was a most remarkable course to pursue. To do a bad thing in order to leave no excuse for a successor to do the same thing in a worse way—certainly that is hardly what we should expect from the strongest and the wisest ruler Rome had seen for three centuries. If he believed it ought not to be done, we may be sure he would not have done it, and that neither Galerius nor any one else could compel him to. He was not such a helpless tool in the hands of others, nor was he so devoid of resources as to be obliged to prevent a successor’s folly and wickedness by anticipating him in it, nor so devoid of sense as to believe that he could. It is, in my opinion, absolutely necessary to assume that Diocletian was convinced of the necessity of proceeding against the Christians before he took the step he did. How then are we to account for this change in his opinions? Burckhardt attributes the change to the discovery of a plot among the Christians. But the question naturally arises, what motive can the Christians have had for forming a plot against an emperor so friendly to them and a government under which they enjoyed such high honors? Burckhardt gives no satisfactory answer to this very pertinent query, and consequently his theory has not found wide acceptance. And yet I believe he is upon the right track in speaking of a plot, though he has not formed the right conception of its causes and nature, and has not been able to urge any known facts in direct support of his theory. In my opinion the key to the mystery lies in the fact which Lactantius states and the truth of which Mason demonstrates, but which Burckhardt quite overlooks, that the initiative came from Galerius, not Diocletian, viewed in the light of the facts that Galerius had long been known to be a bitter enemy of the Christians, and that hewas to succeed Diocletian within a couple of years. The course of events might be pictured somewhat as follows. Some of the Christian officials and retainers of Diocletian, fearing what migh happen upon the accession of Galerius, who was known to be a deadly enemy of hte Christians, and who might be expected, if not to persecute, at least to be a deadly enemy of the Christian officials that had enjoyed Diocletian’s fafor (Galerius himself had only heathen officials in his court), conceived the idea of frustrating in some way the appointed succession and secure it for some one who would be more favorable to them (possibly for the young Constantine, who was then at Diocletian’s court, and who, as we know, was later so cordially hated by Galerius). It may have been hoped by some of them that it would be possible in the end to win Diocletian himself over to the side of Christianity, and then induce him to change the succession and transmit the power to a fitter prince. There may thus have been nothing distinctly treasonable in the minds of any of them, but there may have been enough to arouse the suspicions of Galerius himself, who was the one most deeply interested, and who was always well aware of the hatred which the Christians entertained toward him. We are told by Lactantius that Galerius spent a whole winter with Diocletian, endeavoring to persuade him to persecute. The latter is but a conclusion drawn by Lactantius from the events which followed; for he tells us himself that their conferences were strictly private, and that no one knew to what they pertained. But why did the persecution of the Christians at this particular time seem so important a thing to Galerius that he should make this long and extraordinary visit to Nicomedia? Was it the result of a fresh accession of religious zeal on his part? I confess myself unable to believe that Galerius’ piety lay at the bottom of the matter, and at any rate, knowing that he would himself be master of the empire in two years, why could he not wait until he could take matters into his own hands and carry them out after his own methods? No one, so far as I know, has answered this question; and yet it is a very pertinent one. It might be said that Galerius was afraid that he should not be able to carry out such measures unless they had had the sanction of his great predecessor. But Galerius never showed, either as Caesar or Augustus, any lack of confidence in himself, and I am inclined to think that he would have preferred to enjoy the glory of the great undertaking himself rather than give it all to another, had he been actuated simply by general reasons of hostility toward the Church. But if we suppose that he had conceived a suspicion of such a plan as has been suggested. we explain fully his remarkable visit and his long and secret interviews with Diocletian. There was no place in which he could discover more about the suspected plot (which he might well fancy to be more serious than it really was) than in Nicomedia itself; and if such a plot was on foot, it was of vital importance to unearth it and reveal it to Diocletian. We may believe then that Galerius busied himself during the whole winter in investigating matters, and that long after he had become thoroughly convinced of the existence of a plot Diocletian remained skeptical.
We may suppose that at the same time whatever vague plans were in the minds of any of the Christians were crystallizing during that winter, as they began to realize that Galerius’ hold upon the emperor was such that the latter could never be brought to break with him. We may thus imagine that while Galerius was seeking evidence of a plot, the plot itself was growing and taking a more serious shape in the minds at least some of the more daring and worldly minded Christians. Finally, sufficient proof was gathered to convince even Diocletian that there was some sort of a plot on foot, and that the plotters were Christians. The question then arose what course should be pursued in the matter. And this question may well have caused the calling together of a number of counsellors and the consultation of the oracle of Apollo of which Lactantius tells us. Galerius naturally wished to exterminate the Christians as a whole, knowing their universal hostility to him; but Diocletian just as naturally wished to punish only such as were concerned in the plot, and was by no means convinced that the Christians as a whole were engaged in it. The decision which was reached, and which is exhibited in the edict of the 24th of February, 303 seems to confirm in a remarkable manner the theory which has been presented. Instead of issuing an edict against Christians in general, Diocletian directs his blows solely against Christians in governmental circles,—public officials and servants in official families (cf. the interpretation of the edict given above in Bk. VIII. chap. 2, note 6). This is certainly not the procedure of an emperor who is persecuting on religious grounds. The church officers should in that case have been first attacked as they had been by Decius and Valerian. The singling out of Christians in official circles—and the low as well as the high ones, the servants as well as the masters—is a clear indication that the motive was political, not religious. Moreover, that the edict was drawn in such mild terms is a confirmation of this. These men were certainly not all guilty, and it was not necessary to put them all to death. It was necessary to put an end to the plot in the most expeditious and complete way. The plotters should be shown that their plot was discovered, and the whole thing should be broken up by causing some of them to renounce their faith, by degrading and depriving of citizenship all that would not renounce it. It was a very shrewd move. Executions would but have increased the rebellious spirit and caused the plot to spread. But Diocletian was well aware that any one that renounced his faith would lose caste with his fellow-Christians, and even if he had been a plotter in the past, he could never hope to gain anything in the future from the accession of a Christian emperor. He was careful moreover to provide against any danger from those who refused to renounce their faith, by putting them into a position where it would be impossible for them to accomplish anything in that line in the future. He knew that a plot which had no support within official circles would be of no account and was not to be feared. The action, based on the grounds given, was worthy of Diocletian’s genius; explained in any other way it becomes, in my opinion, meaningless. A further confirmation of the view which has been presented is found in the silence of Lactantius and Eusebius. The former was in Nicomedia, and cannot have failed to know the ostensible if not the true cause of the great persecution. Diocletian cannot have taken such a step without giving some reason for it, and doubtless that reason was stated in the preambles of his edicts, as is the case in the edicts of other emperors; but as it happens, while we know the substance of all the edicts, not a single preamble has been preserved. May it not be possible that the Christians, who preserved the terms of the edicts, found the preambles distasteful because derogatory to some of themselves and yet unfortunately not untrue?The reasons which Lactantius gives are palpable makeshifts, and indeed he does not venture to state them categorically. " I have learned," he says, " that the cause of his fury was as follows." Doubtless he had heard it thus in Christian circles; but doubtless he had heard it otherwise from heathen or from the edicts themselves; and he can hardly, as a sensible man, have been fully satisfied with his own explanation of the matter. Eusebius attempts no explanation. He tells us in chapter I, above, that the Church just before the persecution was in an abominable state and full of unworthy Christians, and yet he informs us that he will pass by the unpleasant facts to dwell upon the brighter side for the edification of posterity. Was the cause of the persecution one of the unpleasant facts ? He calls it a judgment of God. Was it a merited judgment upon some who had been traitors to their country? He gives us his opinion as to the causes of the persecution of Decius and Valerian; why is he silent about the causes of this greatest of all the persecutions ? His silence in the present case is eloquent.
The course of events after the publication of the First Edict is not difficult to follow. Fire broke out twice in the imperial palace. Lactantius ascribes it to Galerius, who was supposed to have desired to implicate the Christians; but, as Burckhardt remarks, Diocletian was not the man to be deceived in that way, and we may dismiss the suspicion as groundless. That the fires were accidental is possible, but extremely improbable. Diocletian at least believed that they were kindled by Christians, and it must be confessed that he had some ground for his belief. At any rate, whether true or not, the result was the torture (for the sake of extorting evidence) and the execution of some of his most faithful servants (see Bk. VIII. chap. 6). It had become an earnest matter with Diocletian, and he was beginning to feel—as he had never had occasion to feel before—that a society within the empire whose claims were looked upon as higher than those of the state itself, and duty to which demanded, in case of a disagreement between it and the state, insubordination, and even treason, toward the latter, was too dangerous an institution to tolerate longer, however harmless it might be under ordinary circumstances. It was at about this time that there occurred rebellions in Melitene and Syria, perhaps in consequence of the publication of the First Edict; at any rate, the Christians, who were regarded with ever increasing suspicion, were believed to be in part at least responsible for the outbreaks, and the result was that a second edict was issued, commanding that all the rulers of the churches should be thrown into prison (see above, Bk. VIII. chap. 6). Here Diocletian took the same step taken by Decius and Valerian, and instituted thereby a genuine religious persecution. It was now Christians as Christians whom he attacked; no longer Christian officials as traitors. The vital difference between the first and second edicts is very clear. All that followed was but the legitimate carrying out of the principle adopted in the Second Edict,—the destruction of the Church as such, the extermination of Christianity.

On Bk. X. chap. 8, § 4 (note I, a).

After Constantine’s victory over Maxentius, his half-sister Constantia, daughter of Constantius Chlorus by his second wife, Theodora, was married to Licinius, and thus the alliance of the two emperors was cemented by family ties. Constantius Chlorus was a grandson of Crispus, brother of the Emperor Claudius II., and hence could claim to be, in a sense, of imperial extraction; a fact which gave him a dignity beyond that of his colleagues, who were all of comparatively low birth. Constantine himself and his panegyrists always made much of his illustrious descent.

Table of Roman Emperors.
Augustus
b.c. 27–a.d. 14
Tiberius
a.d. 14–37
Caius Caligula
37–41
Claudius
41–54
Nero
54–68
Galba
68–69
Otho
69
Vitellius
69
Vespasian
69–79
Titus
79–81
Domitian
81–96
Nerva
96–98
Trajan
98–117
Hadrian
117–138
Antonius Pius
138–161
Marcus Aurelius [Antoninus Verus]
}{stfrs=2}
161–180
Lucius Verus

161–169
Commodus
180–192
Pertinax
193
Didius Julianus
193
Niger
193–194
Septimius Severus
193–211
Caracalla
}{stfrs=2}{stfvac}
211–217
Geta

211–212
M. Opilius Macrinus
217–218
Heliogabalus, or Elagabalus
218–222
Alexander Severus
222–235
Maximin I
235–238
The Gordians, I and II
237–238
Maximus Pupienus
}{stfrs=2}{stfvac}
238
Balbinus

238
Gordian III
238–244
Philip
244–249
Decius
249–251
Gallus
251–252
Aemilian
253
Valerian
253–260
Gallienus
260–268
Claudius II
268–270
Aurelian
270–275
Tacitus
275–276
Probus
276–282
Carus
282–283
Carinus
}{stfrs=2}{stfvac}
283–284
Numerian

283–284
Diocletian
}{stfrs=2}{stfvac}
284–305
Maximian

285–305
Constantius
}{stfrs=2}{stfvac}
305–306
Galerius

305–311
Maxentius (not recognized by the others)
}{stfrs=4}{stfvac}
306–312
Licinius

307–323
Maximin II

308–313
Constantine

308–337

The Bishops of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, mentioned by Eusebius.
Bishops of Rome.
(Dates taken from the table given by Lipsius in his Chronologie der röm. Bischöfe, p. 26 sq.)
Linus.
Anencletus.
Clement.
Evarestus.
Alexander.
Xystus I, for about ten years; died between 124 and 126.
Telesphorus, 11 years; died between 135 and 137.
Hyginus, 4 years; died between 139 and 141.
Pius, 15–16 years; died between 154 and 156.
Anicetus, 11–12 years; died in 166 or 167.
Soter, 8–9 years; died in 174 or 175.
Eleutherus, 15 years; died in 189.
Victor, 9–10 years; 189–198 or 199.
Zephyrinus, 18–19 years; 198 or 199–217 (Aug. 26?).
Callistus, 5 years; 217–Oct. 14, 222.
Urbanus, 8 years; 222–230 (May 19?).
Pontianus, 5 years 2 months 7 days; (July 21 ?), 230–Sept. 28, 235.
Anteros, 1 month 12 days; Nov. 21, 235–Jan. 3, 236.
Fabianus, 14 years 10 days; 236–Jan. 20, 250. Vacancy from Jan. 21, 250–March, 251.
Cornelius, 2 years 3 months 10 days; beginning of March, 251–middle of June, 253.
Lucius, 8 months 10 days; June (25?), 253–March 5, 254.
Stephanus, 3 years 2 months 21 days; (May 12?), 254–Aug. 6, 258.
Xystus II., 11 months 12 days (6?) days; Aug. 24 (31?), 257–Aug. 6, 258.
Dionysius, 9 years 5 months 2 days; July 22, 259–Dec. 27, 268.
Felix I., 5 years 11 months 25 days; Jan. 5, 269–Dec. 30, 274.
Eutychian, 8 years 11 months 3 days; (Jan. 5?) 275–Dec. 8, 283.
Caius, 12 years 4 months 6 days; Dec. 17, 283–April 22, 296.
Marcellinus, 8 years, 2 months 25 days; June 30, 296–(Oct. 25?), 304. Vacancy until 307.
Marcellus, 1 year 7 months 21 days; (May 24?), 307–Jan. 15, 309.
Eusebius, 3 (4?) months 23 (16?) days; April 23 (16?), 309–Aug. 17, 309. Vacancy until 310.
Miltiades, 3 years 6 months 8 days; July 2, 310–Jan. 10 (11?), 314.

Bishops of Alexandria.
Annianus.
Abilius.
Cerdon.
Primus.
Justus.
Eumenes.
Marcus.
Celadion.
Agrippinus.
Julian.
Demetrius.
Heraclas.
Dionysius.
Maximus.
Theonas.
Peter.

Bishops of Jerusalem.
James.
Symeon.
Justus.
Zacchaeus.
Tobias.
Benjamin.
John.
Matthias.
Philip.
Seneca.
Justus.
Levi.
Ephres.
Joseph.
Judas.
Marcus.
Cassianus.
Publius.
Maximus I.
Julian I.
Gaius I.
Symmachus.
Gaius II.
Julian II.
Capito.
Maximus II.
Antoninus.
Valens.
Dolichianus.
Narcissus.
Dius.
Germanio.
Gordius.
Narcisscus, a second time.
Alexander.
Mazabanes.
Hymenaeus.
Zambdas.
Hermon.

Table showing the Roman Method of counting the Days of the Month.
(Taken from the Encyclopedia Britannica, article Calender.)
Days of the Month.
MarchJanuAprilFebruary.
1
Kalendae.
Kalendae.
Kalendae.
Kalendae.
2
6
4
4
4
3
5
3
3
3
4
4
Prid. Nonas.
Prid. Nonas.
Prid. Nonas.
5
3
Nonae.
Nonae.
Nonae.
6
Prid. Nonas.
8
8
8
7
Nonae.
7
7
7
8
8
6
6
6
9
7
5
5
5
10
6
4
4
4
11
5
3
3
3
12
4
Prid. Idus.
Prid. Idus.
Prid. Idus.
13
3
Idus.
Idus.
Idus.
14
Prid. Idus.
19
18
16
15
Idus.
18
17
15
16
17
17
16
14
17
16
16
15
13
18
15
15
14
12
19
14
14
13
11
20
13
13
12
10
21
12
12
11
9
22
11
11
10
8
23
10
10
9
7
24
9
9
8
6
25
8
8
7
5
26
7
7
6
4

“Instead of distinguishing the days by the ordinal numbers, first, second, third, etc., the Romans counted backwards from three fixed epochs; namely, the Kalends, the Nones, and the Ides. The Kalends were invariably the first day of the month, and were so denominated because it had been an ancient custom of the pontiffs to call the people together on that day, to apprise them of the festivals, or days that were to be kept sacred during the month. The Ides (from an obsolete verb iduare, to divide) were at the middle of the month, either the 13th or the 15th day; and the Nones were the ninth day before the Ides, counting inclusively. From these three terms the days received their denomination in the following manner:—
“Those which were comprised between the Kalends and the Nones were called the days before the Nones; those between the Nones and the Ides were called the days before the Ides; and, lastly, all the days after the Ides to the end of the month were called the days before the Kalends of the succeeding month.
“In the months of March, May, July, and October, the Ides fell on the 15th day, and the Nones consequently on the 7th: so that each of these months had six days named from the Nones. In all the other months the Ides were on the 13th and the Nones were on the 5th; consequently there were only four days named from the Nones. Every month had eight days named from the Ides. The number of days receiving their denomination from the Kalends depended on the number of days in the month and the day on which the Ides fell. For example, if the month contained 31 days, and the Ides fell on the 13th as was the case in January, August, and December, there would remain 18 days after the Ides, which, added to the first of the following month, made 19 days of Kalends. In January, therefore, the 14th day of the month was called the nineteenth before the Kalends of February (counting inclusively), the 15th was the 18th before the Kalends, and so on to the 30th, which was called the third before the Kalends (tertio Kalendas), the last being the second of the Kalends, or the day before the Kalends (pridie Kalendas).”

Table of Macedonian Months

The months of the Macedonian year, as commonly employed in the time of Eusebius, corresponded exactly to the Roman months, but the year began with the first of September. The names of the months were as follows:—

Macedonian
Roman
1. Gorpiaeus
September
2. Hyperberetaeus
October
3. Dius
November
4. Apellaeus
December
5. Audynaeus
January
6. Peritius
February
7. Dystrus
March
8. Xanthicus
April
9. Artemisius
May
10. Daesius
June
11. Panemus
July
12. Loü
The Life of the Blessed Emperor Constantine
By Eusebius,
Together with the
Oration of Constantine to the Assembly of the Saints,
And the
Oration of Eusebius in Praise of Constantine.
A Revised Translation, with Prolegomena and Notes, by Ernest Cushing Richardson, Phd., Librarian and Associate Professor in Hartford Theological Seminary.   
Preface.
In accordance with the instruction of the eidtor-in-chief the following work consists of a revision of the Bagster translationof Eusebius’ “Life of Constantine,” Constantine’s “Oration to the Saints,” and Eusebius’ “Oration in Praise of Constantine,” with somewhat extended Prolegomena and limited notes, especial attention being given in the Prolegomena to a study of the Character of Constantine. In the work of revision care has been taken so far as possible not to destroy the style of the original translator, which though somewhat inflated and verbose, represents perhaps all the better, the corresponding styles of both Eusebius and Constantine, but the number of changes really requied has been considerable, and has caused here and there a break in style in the translation, whose chief merit is that it presents in smooth, well-rounded phrase the generalized idea of a sentence. The work on the Proegomena has been done as thoroughly and originally as circumstances would permit, and has aimed to present material in such way that the general student might get a survey of the man Constantine; and the various problems and discussions of which he is center. It is impossible to return special thanks to all who have given special facilities for work, but the peculiar kindness of various helpers in the Bibliothèque de la Ville at Lyons demands at least the recognition of individualized thanksgiving.
E.C.R.
Hartford, Conn., April 15, 1890 
Prolegomena. 
I.—Constantine the Great.
Chapter I. Life.1 

§1. Early Years.
The Emperor Flavius Valerius Constantinus, surnamed the Great,2 born February 27, 272 or 274,3 at Naïssus,4 was son of Constantius Chlorus, afterwards Emperor,5 and Helena his wife.6 He was brought up at Drepanum, his mother’s home,7 where he remained until his father became Caesar (a.d. 292 acc. to Clinton) and divorced Helena (Anon. Vales. p. 471). He was then sent to the court of Diocletian, nominally to be educated (Praxagoras, in Müller, Fragm. 4 (1868); Zonar. 13. 1, &c.), but really as hostage,8 and remained with Diocletian, or Galerius, until the year 306.9 During this time he took part in various campaigns, including the famous Egyptian expedition of Diocletian in 296 (Euseb. V. C. 1. 19; Anon. Metroph., Theoph. p. 10).10 Shortly after joining the emperor he contracted (296 or 297) his alliance with Minervina,11 by whom he had a son, Crispus.12 He was at Nicomedia when Diocletian’s palace was struck by lightning (Const. Orat. 35), and was present at the abdication of Diocletian and Maximinus in 305 (Lact. De M.P.c. 18 sq.). This last event proved a crisis for Constantine. He had grown to be a man of fine physique (Lact. c. 18; Euseb. V. C. 1. 19), of proved courage and military skill (cf. remarks on physical characteristics under Character), and a general favorite (Lact. 1.c.). He had already “long before” (Lact. c. 18) been created Tribune of the first order. It was both natural and fitting that at this time he should become Caesar in the place of his father, who became Augustus. Every one supposed he would be chosen (c. 19), and Diocletian urged it (c. 18), but the princely youth was too able and illustrious to please Galerius, and Constantine was set aside for obscure and incompetent men (cf. Lact.). His position was far from easy before. His brilliant parts naturally aroused the jealousy and suspicions of the emperors. They, or at least Galerius, even sought his death, it is said, by tempting him to fight wild beasts (a lion, Praxag. p. 3; cf. Zonaras 2, p. 623), or exposing him to special danger in battle (cf. Philistog. 1. 6; Lact. c. 24; Anon. Vales. p. 471; Theophanes p. 10–12, &c.). The situation, hard enough before, now became, we may well believe, intolerable. He was humiliated, handicapped, and even in danger of his life. He was practically a prisoner. The problem was, how to get away. Several times Constantius asked that his son might be allowed to join him, but in vain (Lact. c. 24; Anon. Vales. p. 471). Finally, however, Constantine gained a grudging permission to go. It was given at night, and the emperor intended to take it back in the morning (Lact. c. 24). But in the morning it was too late. Constantine had left at once to join his father. He lost no time either in starting or making the journey. Each relay of post horses which he left was maimed to baffle pursuit (Anon. Vales., Vict. Epit. p. 49; cf. Lact. c. 24, Praxag. p. 3). The rage of the emperor when he learned of the flight was great but vain. Constantine was already out of reach, and soon joined his father at Bononia (Boulogne, Anon. Vales.; cf. Eumen. Paneg. (310), c. 7),13 just in time to accompany him on his final expeditions to Britain (Eumen. Paneg. (310) c. 7; cf. Anon. Vales. 1.c.). Constantius died shortly after at York (Anon. Vales. p. 471; Eutrop. 10. 1), having named Constantine as his successor (Euseb. V. C. 1. 21; Eumen. Paneg. (310) c. 7.; Lact. c. 24). 

§2. The First Five Years of Reign.
The will of the father was promptly ratified by the soldiers, who at once proclaimed Constantine Augustus.14 Supported by them, and also by Erocus, king of the Allemanni (Vict. Epit. p. 49–50), he sent his portrait to Galerius, claiming the title of Augustus. This the emperor refused to grant, but, much against his will, allowed him to have the title of Caesar (Lact. c. 250). Constantine did not insist on his right to the greater title, but waited his time, and in the interim contented himself with the lesser,— as the coins show.15 There was enough to do. After his father’s death he waged war against the Francs, and later against the Bructeri and others (Eutrop. 10. 3; Paneg. (307) c. 4; Eumen. Paneg. (310) cc. 10–12; Nazar. Paneg. (321) 18; Euseb. V. C. 1. 25, &c.; cf. Inscr. ap. Clinton 2. 93), and celebrated his victories by exposing his captives to the wild beasts (Eutrop. 10. 3; Eumen. Paneg. (310) c. 12; Paneg. (313) c. 23; cf. Nazar. Paneg. (321) c. 16).
Meanwhile affairs were marching at Rome, too. The same year (306) that Constantine was elected Augustus by the soldiers, Maxentius at Rome was proclaimed emperor by the Pretorian Guards (Eutrop. 10. 2; Vict. Coes. p. 156; Anon. Vales. p. 472; Zos. 2. 9; Socr. 1. 2; Oros. c. 26, &c.; Lact. c. 26). He persuaded the willing (Eutrop. 10. 2) Maximian to resume the imperial purple (Lact. c. 26; Zos. 2. 10), but soon quarreled with him (Socr. 1. 2; Eutrop. 10. 3; Zos. 11; Lact. c. 28).16 In 307 Constantine and Maximinus were named “sons of the emperors,” and the following year were reluctantly acknowledged as emperors by Galerius. Maximian, after he had quarreled with his son, betook himself to Gaul and made alliance with Constantine by giving his daughter Fausta in marriage (307). He proved an uncomfortable relative. The much-abused mother-in-law of fiction is not to be compared with this choice father-in-law of history. First he tried to supersede Constantine by corrupting his soldiers. At his persuasion Constantine had left behind the bulk of his army while he made a campaign on the frontier. As soon as he was supposably out of the way, the soldiers were won by largesses, and Maximian assumed the purple again. But he had reckoned without his host. Constantine acted with decisive promptness, returned by such rapid marches that he caught Maximian entirely unprepared (Lact. c. 29) and drove him into Marseilles, where the latter cursed him vigorously from the walls (Lact. c. 29), but was able to offer no more tangible resistance. The gates were thrown open (Lact. c. 29), and Maximian was in the power of Constantine, who this time spared his precious father-in-law.17 Grateful for this mildness, Maximian then plotted to murder him. The plan was for Fausta to leave her husband’s door open and for Maximian to enter and kill Constantine with his own hands. Fausta pretended to agree, but told her husband (Zos. 2. 11; Joh. Ant. p. 603; Oros. c. 28), who put a slave in his own place (but apparently did not “put himself in the place of” the slave), had the program been carried out, and catching Maximian in the act, granted him that supreme ancient mercy,—the right to choose how he would die (Lact. c. 30).18 
Though in the midst of wars and plots, and liable at any time to have to run from one end of his province to the other to put down some insurrection, Constantine kept steadily at the work of internal improvement, organizing the interior, fortifying the boundaries, building bridges, restoring cities, building up educational institutions, &c.19 At the end of five years’ reign (July 24, 311) he had reduced the turbulent tribes, organized his affairs, and endeared himself to his people, especially to the Christians, whom he had favored from the first (Lact. c. 24), and who could hardly fail in those days of persecution to rejoice in a policy such as is indicated in his letter to Maximinus Daza in behalf of persecuted Christians (Lact, c. 37).

§3. State of Affairs in 311.
In the meantime, while the extreme west of the empire was enjoying the mild rule of Constantine, the other corners of the now quadrangular and now hexagonal world, over which during this time Maximinus, Galerius, Licinius, Maximian, and Maxentius had tried to reign, had had a much less comfortable time. Every emperor wanted a corner to himself, and, having his corner, wanted that of some one else or feared that some one else wanted his. In order clearly to understand Constantine, a glimpse of the state of affairs in these other parts of the empire, together with some idea of the kind of men with whom he had to deal is essential, and may be gotten from a brief view of (1) The rulers, (2) Characters of the rulers, (3) Condition of the ruled.
(1) The Rulers.
The intricate process of evolution and devolution of emperors, mysterious to the uninitiated as a Chinese puzzle, is briefly as follows: In 305 Diocletian and Maximian had abdicated (Lact. c. 18; Eutrop. 9. 27; Vict. Coes.), Galerius and Constantius succeeding as Augusti and Severus, Maximinus Daza succeeding them as Caesars (Lact. c. 19). In 306 Constantius died, Constantine was proclaimed Augustus by his army, Maxentius by the Pretorian Guards (cf. above), and Severus by Galerius (Lact. c. 25), while Maximian resumed the purple (see above)—four emperors, Galerius, Severus, Maximian, and Maxentius, with two Caesars, Constantine and Maximinus, one with a pretty definite claim to the purple, and the other bound not to be left out in the cold. In 307 Licinius was appointed Augustus by Galerius (Lact. c. 29; Vict. Coes.; Zos. 2. 11; Anon. Vales.; Eutrop. 10. 4), who also threw a sop to Cerberus by naming Constantine and Maximin “sons of emperors” (Lact. c. 32; Coins in Eckhel 8 (1838) 52. 3). Constantine was given title of Augustus by Maximianus (?), and Maximinus about this time was forced, as he said, by his army to assume the title. Meantime the growing procession of emperors was reduced by one. Severus, sent against Maxentius, was deserted by his soldiers, captured, and slain in 307 (Lact. c. 26; Zos. 2. 10; Anon. Vales.; Eutrop. 10. 2; Vict. Coes. &c. &c.), leaving still six emperors or claimants,—Galerius, Licinius, Maxentius, Maximian, Maximinus, and Constantine. In 308, making the best of a bad matter, Galerius appointed Constantine and Maximin Augusti (see above), leaving the situation unchanged, and so it remained until the death of Maximian in 310 (see above), and of Galerius in May, 311 (Lact. c. 33; Vict. Coes., Vict. Epit.; Zos. 2. 11) reduced the number to four.
(2) Characters of the Rulers.
Constantine’s own character has been hinted at and will be studied later. Severus was the least significant of the others, having a brief reign and being little mentioned by historians. Diocletian’s characterization of him was, according to Lactantius (c. 18), as ejaculated to Galerius, “That dancing, carousing drunkard who turns night into day and day into night.” The average character of the other emperors was that of the prisoners for life in our modern state prisons. Galerius, “that pernicious wild beast” (Lact. c. 25), was uneducated, drunken (Anon. Vales. p. 472); fond of boasting himself to be the illegitimate son of a dragon (Lact. 9; Vict. Epit. p. 49), and sanguinary and ferocious to an extraordinary degree (Lact. c. 9. 21, 22, &c.). Licinius, characterized by “ingratitude” and “cold-blooded ferocity,” was “not only totally indifferent to human life and suffering, and regardless of any principle of law or justice which might interfere with the gratification of his passions, but he was systematically treacherous and cruel, possessed of not one redeeming quality save physical courage and military skill” (Ramsay, in Smith Dict. 2, p. 784; compare Euseb. H. E. 10. 8; V. C. 1. 49–56), and “in avaricious cupidity worst of all” (Vict. Epit. p. 51). Maximinus’ character “stands forth as pre-eminent for brutal licentiousness and ferocious cruelty—‘lust hard by hate’” (Plumptre, in Smith & W. 3, p. 872), and according to Lactantius, c. 38, “that which distinguished his character and in which he transcended all former emperors was his desire of debauching women,” He was cruel, superstitious, gluttonous, rapacious, and “so addicted to intoxication that in his drunken frolics he was frequently deranged and deprived of his reason like a madman” (Euseb. H. E. 8. 14). Maximianus has been thought to be on the whole the least outrageous, and his somewhat defective moral sense respecting treachery and murder has been noted (cf. above). He has been described as “thoroughly unprincipled …base and cruel” (Ramsay, in Smith Dict. 2, p. 981). He is described by Victor, (Epit. p. 48) as “ferus natura, ardens libidine,” being addicted to extraordinary and unnatural lust (Lact. c. 8). Truly a choice “best” in this rogues’ gallery. Of Maxentius it is said (Tyrwhitt, in Smith & W. 3, p. 865): “His wickedness seems to have transcended description, and to have been absolutely unredeemed by any saving feature.” He “left no impurity or licentiousness untouched” (Euseb. H. E. 8. 14; cf. Eutrop. 10. 4; Lact. 9). He was marked by “impiety,” “cruelty,” “lust,” and tyranny (Paneg. [313] c. 4). He was the most disreputable of all,—unmitigatedly disreputable. With all due allowance for the prejudice of Christian historians, from whom such strong statements are mainly drawn, yet enough of the details are confirmed by Victor, Epit., the Panegyrists, Eutropius, and other non-Christian writers to verify the substantial facts of the ferocity, drunkenness, lust, covetousness, and oppression of this precious galaxy of rulers.
(3) Condition of the Ruled.
Under such rulers there was a reign of terror during this period which contrasted strangely with the state of things under Constantine. Galerius was “driving the empire wild with his taxations” (cf. Lact. c. 23 and 26), affording in this also a marked contrast with the course of Constantine in Gaul. Maxentius led in the unbridled exercise of passion (Euseb. H. E. 8. 14; cf. Lact, c. 18), but in this he differed from the others little except in degree (compare Euseb. V. C. 1. 55 on Licinius), and according to Lactantius (c. 28) he was surpassed by Maximin. In brief, all did according to their own sweet wills, and the people had to stand it as best they could. The worst was that the oppression did not end with the emperors nor the friends and officials to whom they delegated power to satisfy their desires at the expense of the helpless. Their armies were necessary to them. The soldiers had to be conciliated and exactions made to meet their demands. They followed the examples of their royal leaders in all manner of excesses and oppressions. No property or life or honor was safe.
The persecution of the Christians reached a climax of horror in this period. The beginning of the tenth persecution was, to be sure, a little before this (303), but its main terror was in this time. Galerius and Maximian are said indeed to have persecuted less during this period, and Maxentius not at all; but Galerius was the real author and sanguinary promoter of the persecution which is ascribed to Diocletian (Lact. c. 11), while Maximian was, in 304, the author of the celebrated “Fourth Edict” which made death the penalty of Christianity, and Maxentius was only better because impartial—he persecuted both Christian and heathen (Euseb. V. C. 1. 33–6; H. E. 8. 14; Eutrop. 10. 4).20 The persecution under Maximin was of peculiar atrocity (Euseb. H. E. 8. 17; 9. 6, &c.; Lact. c. 26–27), so that the whole of this period in the East, excepting a slight breathing space in 308, was a terror to Christians, and it is said that “these two years were the most prolific of bloodshed of any in the whole history of Roman persecutions” (Marriott, in Smith & W. 2, p. 594). It was not until the very end of this period21 that Galerius, in terror of death, issued the famous first edict of toleration.22 Such was the condition of things in July, 311. The deaths of Severus in 307, Maximian in 310, and Galerius in 311, had cleared the stage so far as to leave but four Augusti, Licinius and Maximin in the East, Constantine and Maxentius in the West. The only well-ordered and contented section of the world was that of Constantine. In all the others there was oppression, excess, and discontent, the state of things at Rome being on the whole the most outrageous.

§4. Second Five Years.
This period was most momentous for the world’s history. Maxentius, seeking an excuse for war against Constantine, found it in a pretended desire to avenge his father (Zos. 2. 14), and prepared for war.23 Like his father before him, however, he did not know his man. Constantine’s mind was prepared. He was alert and ready to act. He gathered all the forces, German, Gallic, and British (Zos. 2. 15) that he could muster, left a portion for the protection of the Rhine, entered Italy by way of the Alps (Paneg.), and marched to meet the much more numerous forces of Maxentius,—Romans, Italians, Tuscans, Carthagenians, and Sicilians (Zos. 2. 15).24 First Sigusium was taken by storm (Naz. Paneg. [321] c. 17 and 21; Paneg. [313] c. 5); then the cavalry of Maxentius was defeated at Turin (Naz. Paneg. [321] c. 22; Paneg. [313] c. 6). After a few days’ rest in Milan (Paneg. [313] c. 7) he continued his triumphant march, defeating the enemy again in a cavalry engagement at Brescia (Naz. Paneg. c. 25), and taking the strongly fortified Verona after a hard-fought battle before the walls (Anon. Vales. p. 473; Paneg. [313]; Naz. Paneg. c. 25–26). This had taken him out of his way a little; but now there were no enemies in the rear, and he was free to push on to Rome, on his way whither, if not earlier, he had his famous vision of the cross.25 He reached the Tiber October 26. Maxentius, tempted by a dubious oracle26 issued from Rome, crossed the Tiber, and joined battle. His apparently unwise action in staking so much on a pitched battle has its explanation, if we could believe Zosimus (2. 15), Eusebius (V. C. 1. 38), Praxagoras, and others. His object was, it is said, by a feigned retreat to tempt Constantine across the bridge of boats which he had built in such a way that it could be broken, and the enemy let into the river.27 If it was a trick, he at least fell into his own pit. The dissipated soldiers of Maxentius gave way before the hardy followers of Constantine, fired by his own energy and the sight of the cross. The defeat was a rout. The bridge broke. Maxentius, caught in the jam, was cast headlong into the river (Anon. Val. p. 473; Lact. c. 44; Chron. Pasch. p. 521, &c.); and after a vain attempt to climb out on the steep bank opposite (Paneg. [313] c. 17), was swept away by the stream. The next day his body was found, the head cut off (Praxag.; Anon. Vales. p. 473), and carried into the city (Anon. Vales. p. 473) on the point of a spear (Paneg. [313] c. 18; Zos. 2. 17; Praxag. p. 1). Constantine entered the city in triumph amid rejoicings of the people,28 exacted penalties from a few of those most intimate with Maxentius (Zos. 2. 17),29 disbanded the Praetorian Guards (Vict. Coes. p. 159; Zos. 2. 17), raised a statue to himself, and did many other things which are recorded; and if he did as many things which are not recorded as there are recorded things which he did not do, he must have been very busy in the short time he remained there.30 
Constantine was now sole emperor in the West, and the emperors were reduced to three. History was making fast. After a very brief stay in Rome he returned to Milan (Lact. c. 45), where Licinius met him (Anon. Vales. p. 473; Lact. c. 25; Vict. Epit. p. 50; Zos. 2. 17, &c.). It had become of mutual advantage to these emperors to join alliance. So a betrothal had been made, and now the marriage of Licinius to the sister of Constantine was celebrated (cf. refs. above Lact.; Vict.; Zos.; Anon. Vales.). At the same time the famous Second Edict or Edict of Milan was drawn up by the two emperors (Euseb. H. E. 10. 5; Lact. c. 48), and probably proclaimed.31 Constantine then returned to Gaul (Anon. Vales. p. 473; Zos. 11. 17), where he was forced into another sort of strenuous warfare—the ecclesiastical, taking a hand somewhat against his will in trying to settle the famous Donatist schism.32 
Licinius had a more critical problem to meet. Maximin thought it a good time to strike while Licinius was off in Milan engaged in festivities (Lact. c. 45); but the latter, hastily gathering his troops and pushing on by forced marches, met near Heraclea and utterly defeated him (Lact. c. 46). Maximin fled precipitately, escaping the sword only to die a more terrible death that same summer (Lact. c. 49; Euseb. V. C. 1. 58; cf. Zos. 2. 17).33 The death of Maximin cleared the field still farther. Through progressive subtractions the number of emperors had been reduced to two,—one in the East and one in the West.
They, too, promptly fell out. The next year they were at war. Causes and pretexts were various; but the pretext, if not the cause, was in general that Licinius proved an accomplice after the fact, at least, to a plot against Constantine.34 Whatever the immediate cause, it was one of the inevitabilities of fate. Another vigorous campaign followed, characterized by the same decisive action and personal courage on the part of Constantine which he had already shown, and which supplied his lack of soldiers.35 First at Cibalis in Pannonia (Oct. 8),36 then in a desperate battle at Mardia, Licinius was defeated and forced to make peace (Anon. Vales. p. 474; Zos. a. 19–20). The world was re-divided between the affectionate brothers-in-law, and Constantine took Illyrium to his other possessions.37 After this battle and the re-division there was a truce between the emperors for some years, during the early part of which (in 316 or 315) the Decennalia of Constantine were celebrated (Euseb. V. C. 1. 48).

§5. Third Five Years.
About the time of his decennial celebration,38 his sons Crispus and Constantine, and Licinius, son of Licinius, were made Caesars. The peace between the emperors continued during the whole of this period. There was more or less fighting with the frontier tribes, Crispus, e.g., defeating the Franks in 320 (Naz. Paneg. c. 3. 17?), but the main interest of the period does not lie in its wars. It was a period of legislation and internal improvement (cf. Laws of 319, 320, 321, collected in Clinton, 1, p. 9; also De Broglie, I. 1, 296–97). Early in the period he was at Milan, where the Donatist matter, which had been dragging along since 311, came up for final settlement (cf. note, above). He was also at one time or another at Aries and at Rome, but the latter and greater part of the period was spent mainly in Dacia and Pannonia (cf. Laws, as above). The close of his fifteen years was celebrated somewhat prematurely at Rome, in the absence of Constantine, by the oration of Nazarius (cf. Naz. Paneg.).

§6. Fourth Five Years.
If the third period was relatively quiet the fourth was absolutely stirring. There had undoubtedly been more or less fighting along the Danube frontier during the preceding years, but early in this period there was a most important campaign against the Sarmatians, in which they were defeated and their king taken prisoner.39 In honor of this victory coins were struck (Eckhel, Doct. Num. Vet. 8 (1827) 87). But this was only skirmishing; afterwards came the tug of war. Nine years of peace proved the utmost limit of mutual patience, and Constantine and Licinius came to words, and from words to blows. For a long time Constantine had been vexed at the persecution of the Christians by Licinius (cf. Euseb. H. E. 10. 8, 9), persecutions waged perhaps with the express purpose of aggravating him.40 Licinius, on the other hand, naturally chagrined over the previous loss of territory, knowing of Constantine’s indignation over his persecutions, and perhaps suspecting him of further designs, was naturally suspicious when Constantine passed within his boundaries in pursuing the Sarmatians (Anon. Vales. p. 474). Mutual recriminations and aggravations followed. Licinius would not let the Sarmatian coins pass current and had them melted down (Anon. Contin. Dio. Cass., in Müller, Fragm. Hist. Gr. 4 [1868] 199). Altogether they soon came to blows. The steps were short, sharp, decisive. Constantine defeated Licinius by land (July 3, 323), and through Crispus, by sea (Soz. 1. 7; Anon. Vales. p. 474–5; Zos. 2. 22–3). After the defeat at Adrianople, Licinius retreated to Byzantium (Zos. 2. 23–5; Vict. Epit. p. 50), and then to Chalcedon (Anon. Vales. p. 475, Zos. 2. 25–6). Two months after the first victory (Sept. 18) a final and decisive battle was fought at Chrysopolis41 (Anon. Vales. p. 475; Socr. 1. 4). Licinius surrendered on condition that his life should be spared (Zos. 2. 28), or rather Constantia secured from her brother the promise that his life should be spared (Anon. Vales. p. 475; Vict. Epit. p. 50; Pseudo-Leo, p. 85, &c.). He retired to Nicomedia, residing at Thessalonica (Soz. 1. 7; Pseudo-Leo, &c.), but was put to death the following year.42 Constantine was now sole emperor. His first act (Soz. 1. 8) was to issue a proclamation in favor of the Christians (Soz. l.c.; V. C. 2. 24-, and 48-). This was followed by many other acts in their favor,—building of churches, &c. (cf. Euseb. V. C., and notes). From this time on he was much identified with Christian affairs, and the main events are given in extenso by Eusebius (see various notes). In 325 (June 19-Aug. 25) the Council of Nicaea was held (cf. Euseb. V. C. 3. 6, and notes), and Constantine took an active part in its proceedings. The same year his Vicennalia were celebrated at Nicomedia (Euseb. V. C. 1. 1; Hieron.; Cassiod.) and the following year at Rome also (Hieron., Cassiod., Prosper, Idat.), Constantine being present at both celebrations,43 being thus at Rome in July, and passing during the year as far as Arles, apparently spending some time at Milan (cf. the various laws in Clinton, v. 2, p. 92).

§7. Fifth Five Years.
The beginning of this period was the beginning of the series of acts which have taken most from the reputation of Constantine. Sometime in 326, perhaps while at Rome, he ordered the death of his son Crispus.44 The same year (Hieron. Chron.) the Caesar Licinius, his sister’s son, was put to death (Eutrop. 10. 6; Hieron.; Prosper.), and shortly after45 his wife Fausta died or was put to death.46 But apart from this shadow, the period was hardly less brilliant, in its way, than preceding ones. It was a time of gigantic and, as some said, extravagant internal improvements. Among various enterprises was the refounding, in 327, of Drepanum, his mother’s city, as Helenopolis (Hieron. An. 2343; Chron. Pasch. p. 283(?); Socr. H. E. 1. 18; Soz. 2. 2; Theoph. p. 41), and greatest of all, the transformation of the insignificant Byzantium into the magnificent Constantinople,47 which was dedicated in 330 (Idatius; Chron. Pasch. p. 285; Hesych. §42; Hieron.; cf. Clinton).48 It was probably during this period, too, that the work of improvement in Jerusalem was undertaken, and Helena made her famous visit thither (Euseb. V. C. 3. 42; Soz. 21; Socr. 1. 17; Ephraem. p. 24: Theoph. 37–8, &c.).

§8. Sixth Five Years.
The main event of the last full five-year period of this reign was the Gothic war (Hieron. An. 2347; Idat.; Oros. c. 28; Anon. Vales. p. 476; Eutrop. 10. 7; Vict. Coes. p. 352; cf. Soz. 1. 26), undertaken in behalf of the Sarmatians (Anon. Vales. l.c.), carried on by Constantine II, and brought to an end April 20, 332 (cf. Clinton). The following year (333) Constans was made consul (Idat.; Hieron.; Prosper has 332; cf. Zos. 2. 35; Vict. Coes. p. 161, &c.), and in 334 the remarkable (Anon. Vales.) incorporation of 300,000 Sarmatians into the empire (Anon. Vales. p. 476; Idat.; Hieron.; cf. Ammian. 17. 12, 18; 17. 13; 19. 12; V. C. 4. 6). This same year Calocoerus revolted in Crete and was defeated (Anon. Vales. p. 476; Vict. Coes. p. 161; Oros. c. 28; Hieron.). The following year (335) celebrated his tricennalia, and Dalmatius was made Coesar (Idat.; Hieron. An. 340; Vict. Coes. p. 161; Anon. Vales. p. 476; Chron. Pasch. p. 532; Vict. Epit. p. 51; Oros. c. 28), making now four Caesars and a nondescript (cf. Anon. Vales. p. 476),— Constantine II, Constantius, Constans, Dalmatius, and Hannibalianus, among whom the world was now partitioned (Anon. Vales. p. 476; Zos. 2. 39; Vict. Epit. p. 52).

§9. Last Years.
Later in this year, Constantine is known to have been at Jerusalem, where he dedicated a church (V. C. 4. 40; Chron. Pasch., but wrong year). It was also the year of the Synods of Tyre (Athanas. c. Ar. 1. p. 788; V. C. 4.41; Theod. 1. 28). The same year, or early in the following one, Eusebius pronounced his tricennial oration (see Special Prolegomena). In 337 the Great Emperor died at Ancyrona, near Nicomedia, just as he was preparing for an expedition against the Persians, and was buffed in the Church of the Apostles, at Constantinople (cf. notes on Eusebius’ Life of Constantine).49 
Chapter II. Character.

§1. Introduction.
A man’s character consists of an inherited personality enlarged, modified, or disfigured by his own repeated voluntary acts. A sufficiently exhaustive survey of such character may be made under the rubrics of: 1. Inherited characteristics. 2. Physical characteristics. 3. Mental characteristics. 4. Moral characteristics. 5. Religious characteristics.
The character of Constantine has been so endlessly treated, with such utter lack of agreement, that it seems hopeless to try to reach any clear results in a study of it. “Who shall decide when doctors disagree?” “How shall I go about it to find what sort of a man Constantine really was?” Certainly nothing can be gained by that method which chooses a few acts or characteristics to which shifting tests of various philosophies are applied. Nor can any haphazard selection and stringing together of traits give what is by its nature a synthesis of them all. Like any other scientific study, the first condition of method is that it be systematic. Then, a character generalization is worth just so much, no more, as the grounds on which it is based. To get a man’s character from secondary sources, from other men’s generalizations, is a hopelessly will-of-the-wisp effort. Again, another vice of characterization as usually practised is the interpretation of the whole by a part rather than the part by the whole. The individual act is thus made the standard of character. To get at what this personality called Constantine was therefore requires a systematic survey of the primary sources with a view to getting the ensemble that the eccentric may be judged by the normal. In such survey the main thing is the body of analyzed and grouped facts. The editor’s summary, like any summary, is worth only what the facts are worth. This method, however imperfectly carried out, is at least better than rambling observations of incoherent phenomena; and has therefore been adopted in this attempt to find out what sort of a man this Constantine was; Physically, Mentally, Morally, Spiritually. 

§2. Inherited Characteristics.
The fact of the inheritance of character, virtues or vices as the case may be, curiously recognized in various nations and ancient philosophies (cf. Ribot. Heredity, N.Y. 1875, p. 375–6), and even in the ten commandments, has received the clearer exposition of modern science. In view of it, a scientific study of character considers antecedent generations. Biography rests properly on genealogy. Constantine’s father, Constantius Chlorus, was a man of great mildness, self-possession, and philosophic virtue, just, and a Neo-Platonist of the best type, a monotheist and philanthropist (cf. Sinclair, in Smith & W. 1. 661–2). Constantine is said to have inherited his father’s strength, courage, personal appearance (Eumen. Paneg. c. 4), piety (Pseud.-Leo, p. 83; cf. Const. and Euseb. in V. C. 2. 49), and general virtues. The slur of Zosimus on the character of Constantine’s mother seems to have been quite gratuitous. Her relation to Constantius was in nowise incompatible with virtue, and the honor afterwards paid her, along with the indisputable good early training of Constantine which was with her, indicate a woman of unusual character. The later enterprise and activity with the honors and responsibilities given her show her to have been of very considerable energy and ability.

§3. Physical Characteristics.
A graphic picture of his personal appearance is drawn by Cedrenus (p. 472–3). “Constantinus Magnus was of medium height, broad-shouldered, thick-necked, whence his epithet Bull-necked. His complexion was ruddy, his hair neither thick nor crisp curling, his beard scanty and not growing in many places, his nose slightly hooked, and his eyes like the eyes of a lion. He was joyous of heart and most cheery of countenance.”50 Many points in this description are confirmed by others, some apparently contradicted. Taken in detail, his Height was probably above medium. Over against this statement of Cedrenus (p. 472) that he was of middle height is that of the earlier Malalas (13. 1), who, while confirming the ruddiness of complexion, characterizes him as tall, and the explicit testimony of Eusebius, that among those with Diocletian “there was no one comparable with him for height” (V. C. 1. 19), and likewise among those present at Nicaea (V. C. 3- 10). But a “thick-necked” form hardly belongs to the strictly “tall” man, and a thick neck and broad shoulders would hardly belong to a form of “distinguished comeliness,” if it were short (Lact. c. 18). It may be supposed therefore that he can be described as above medium height. Moreover, there would naturally have been more mention of height by Lactantius and Panegyrists if it had been very extraordinary. In respect of Countenance he was undoubtedly handsome. The “majestic beauty of his face” mentioned by Theophanes (p. 29; cf. V. C. 1. 19; 3. 10) is confirmed by suggestions in the Panegyrists (e.g. Eumen. c. 17; Naz. c. 24), and all general testimony, and not belied by the coins. His Complexion was ruddy; “reddish” in the expression of Cedrenus (p. 272), “fiery” in that of Malalas (13.1). His Hair, rather thin and straight, scanty Beard, and “slightly hooked” Nose are shown also by the coins, where the nose varies from a pronounced Roman or ungraceful eagle’s beak to a very proportionate, slightly aquiline member. His Eyes were lion-like (Cedren.), piercingly bright (Paneg. 313, c. 19; also Eumen.). His Expression was bright and joyous (Cedren.), characterized by “noble gravity mingled with hilarity” (Naz. Paneg. c. 24), by “serenity” and “cheerfulness” (cf. Euseb. V. C. 3.11). In brief, he seems to have been a type of the sanguine temperament.
Added to his beauty of face was an unquestioned beauty of form. His distinguished comeliness of Figure (Lact. c. 18) is a favorite theme with his enthusiastic friend Eusebius, who says, “No one was comparable with him for grace and beauty of person” (cf. Eumen. c. 17; V. C. 1. 19; 3. 10), and that his figure was “manly and vigorous” (1. 20). The broad Shoulders and thick Neck prepare one for the testimony to his great bodily Strength. The feats of personal valor in combat with the Sarmatian champions and the wild beasts (cf. above), his personal energy in battle (e.g. before Verona; cf. above), much special testimony (e.g. Eumen. Paneg. c. 4) and all the general testimony, show that the superlative language of Eusebius is well grounded, and interpreted with conservative imagination is to be taken as fact. According to him, “he so far surpassed his compeers in personal strength as to be a terror to them” (V. C. 1. 19), and in respect of Vigor of body was such that at the Council of Nicaea his very beating showed that he surpassed all present in “invincible strength and vigor”; while at the age of sixty or upwards, “he still possessed a sound and vigorous body, free from all blemish and of more than youthful vivacity; a noble mien and strength equal to any exertion, so that he was able to join in martial exercises, to ride, endure the fatigues of travel, engage in battle,” &c. (Vict. 4. 53). In Bearing he was “manly” (V. C. 1. 20), self-possessed, calm (V. C. 3. 11), dignified (“noble gravity,” Naz. c. 24; of. Eumen. &c.), with “majestic dignity of mien” (V. C. 3. 10) and serenity (V. C. 3. 10). In Manners he was “suave” (epieikh") (V. C. 3. 10) and “affable to all” (V. C. 3. 13). This singular affability was such, according to Lactantius (c. 18), as to endear him greatly to his soldiers. Over against this, however, must be set the statement of Victor, Epit. that he was “a scoffer [irrisor] rather than suave [blandus]” (Vict. Epit. 51). But this seems rounded on a false exegesis (cf. above) and withal there is no absolute contradiction. Moreover, all his intercourse with bishops, deputies, soldiers, citizens, barbarians, seems to have generally made a favorable impression, and such success without affability of manner would have been marvelous. In Dress his taste, late in life at least, became somewhat gorgeous. If he were reigning to-day, the comic papers would undoubtedly represent him, like some other good and great men, with exaggerated red neckties and figured waistcoats. He “always wore a diadem,” according to Victor, Epit. (p. 51), and according to many (Malal. 13. 7–8; Cedren.; Pseudo-Leo, &c.) “none of the emperors before him” wore the diadem at all. Eusebius’ description of his appearance at the Council of Nicaea would do credit to a Washington reporter on wedding-toilets; he was “clothed in raiment which glittered, as it were, with rays of light, reflecting the glowing radiance of a purple robe, and adorned with the brilliant splendor of gold and precious stones” (V. C. 3. 10).

§4. Mental Characteristics.
According to his biographer-friend, Constantine was even more conspicuous for the excellence of his psychical qualities than his physical (V. C. 1. 19). Among these qualities are natural intelligence (V. C. 1. 19), sound judgment (V. C. 1. 19), well-disciplined power of thought (Theoph. p. 29), and peculiarly, as might be expected from his eye and general energy, penetration (Theoph. p. 29). In respect of Education, it is said on the one hand that he “reaped the advantages of a liberal education” (V. C. 1. 19), and particularly that he was thoroughly trained in the art of reasoning (V. C.); but according to Anonymous Vales. (p. 471), and also Cedrenus (p. 473), his literary education was scanty. If there was early lack, he made up for it afterwards with characteristic energy, for he attained very considerable erudition (of a sort) for an emperor, as is shown in his Oration. According to Eutropius he was devoted to liberal studies. According to Lydus he was skilled both in the science of letters and the science of arms; for “if he had not excelled in both sciences, he would not have been made emperor of the Romans” (Lydus, de Magist. 3.33),—a somewhat subjective ground. Such was his devotion to study that, according to Eusebius (V. C. 4. 29), “he sometimes passed sleepless nights in furnishing his mind with divine knowledge.” The measure of his thoroughness may be gathered from the fact that his knowledge of Greek even, does not seem to have been very extensive —“ with which he was not altogether unacquainted” (V. C. 3. 13). His learning, as shown in his orations, is the learning of a man of affairs, and has many elements of crudity and consequent pretentiousness; but he is no worse than many authors—much better than most royal authors.
His learning had at least the excellent quality that it was radiated with reference to expression, as all sound learning must be. According to Eusebius, much of his time was spent in composing discourses, many of which he delivered in public (V. C. 4. 29), and he continued to the last to compose discourses and to deliver frequent orations in public.
The description by Eusebius of the character of his orations (V. C. 4. 24) seems to forbid any assumption of pure vanity as his motive. It is the most natural thing in the world that an emperor should make speeches, and that he should speak on scholastic or religious themes, and with the use of classical philosophy, mythology, and literature, should be no surprise in the days of President Harrison, Mr. Gladstone, and the Emperor William. There is no doubt he wrote and spoke vigorously and effectively to his soldiers, and on political and judicial matters (witness his laws), and his learned literary production is very fair amateur work, considering. In the Delivery of his speeches he seems to have had self-possession and modesty of manner, as e.g. at the Council of Nicaea, where “he looked serenely around on the assembly with a cheerful aspect, and having collected his thoughts in a calm and gentle tone …proceeded to speak” (V. C. 3. 11). His Literary style was somewhat inflated and verbose, but for this, compare Special Prolegamena. His Patronage of learning showed his interest in it. Following his father’s example and continuing his work, he encouraged the schools in Gaul (cf. above). Hosius and Eusebius were his friends and counselors. He made Lactantius tutor to Crispus (Hieron. Chron.). He had copies of the Scriptures made and distributed (V. C. 3. 1). In short, he especially “encouraged the study of letters” (Vict. Epit. 51) in every way.

§5. Moral Characteristics.
(a) In relations with events, things, or persons. First of all, Constantine excelled in Energy, that fundamental of all developed character. He was pre-eminent for masculine strength of character (Theoph. p. 29), a man of energy (vir ingens, Eutrop. 10. 1). This was manifested at every turn, in his successful military activity under Diocletian, in the decisive acts at the time of leaving him, in the prosecution of campaigns against Maximian, Maxentius, Licinius, in the wholesale way in which he pushed internal improvements, the building of Constantinople, the multiplication of Christian houses of worship, in his studies, in his law-making; in short, in everything he touched there was the same teeming, resistless energy of the man. His Determination was “bent on effecting whatever he had settled in his mind” (Eutrop. 10. 5). His Rapidity of action when he rejoined his father is described by Lactantius as incredible (Lact. c. 24). He showed the same alacrity in his quick return and surprise of Maximian, in his first entry into Italy, and in his campaign against Licinius. This energy and activity rose to positive Impetuosity, which led him at Verona, before Rome, and at Cibalis to plunge into the midst of battle, communicating his own resistless, indomitable, alert will to do, to his soldiers. Closely linked with these qualities was that personal Courage and Valor, inherited from his father (Paneg. 307, c. 3), mentioned by Eusebius (V. C. 1. 11), and explicitly or implicitly by almost every one. This most indubitable of all his qualities was witnessed to even by the scoffing Julian as “inexpressibly” great (Orat. p. 13), and mentioned even in the work whose chief aim seems, almost, to detract from Constantine (Coes. p. 23). United with all these characteristics of greatness was a far-reaching Ambition. This on the one hand is represented to be an ambition for power and glory. He was “exceedingly ambitious of military glory” (Eutrop. 10. 7); “aspiring to the sovereignty of the whole world” (Eutrop. 10. 5). According to Zosimus, at the time of the appointment of Severus and Maximin, already having his mind set on attaining royalty he was roused to a greater desire by the honor conferred on Severus and Maximin, and this eager desire of power was already well known to many. On the other hand, this ambition is represented to be a burning zeal for righting wrongs; his wars against Maxentius and Licinius real crusades, and his actual objective in all things the reform to be effected. If the fruit proves the motive, this was so; for he consistently used or tried to use his power for what he thought public good. This he did in Gaul, after his victories, in his legislation, and in his internal improvements.
In view of all this powerfulness of personality, it may be said of all successes of this “man of power” (Eutrop. 10. 5) what Eutropius says of his success in war, that it was great, “but not more than proportioned to his exertions” (Eutrop.). With all this energy of personality, however, he was far from being headstrong. On the contrary, he showed marked Prudence, resembling his father in this also (Paneg. 307, c. 3). Sustaining so long the delicate position at the court of Diocletian, all his provision for guarding the frontiers, his long-suffering in waiting to be confirmed Caesar, in waiting his opportunity to meet Maxentius, in waiting and getting everything in hand before meeting Licinius, his wise moderation in demand on the conquered, and the not pressing forward until he had everything well arranged, show this, and a high degree of Patience withal. This latter virtue was peculiarly characteristic whether exercised in respect of things or plans or people, and his great patience in listening to complaints (Naz. c. 24) is only a part of the whole. As he was patient, so he was distinguished for Perseverance, and “firm and unshaken” (Theoph. p. 29) Steadfastness. So great energy united with these other qualities barely needs testimony to suggest great Faithfulness to his tasks in hand, as in that “strict attention to his military duties” which Lactantius says (c. 18) characterized him as a young man. In brief, his whole personality was a marked example of that balance of power and the measuring of remote ends which is included under the word Self-control, in the use of the philosophy of which he, as well as his father, was a disciple. In this exercise of his great energy towards himself he was recognized to be remarkable. This self-control was manifested especially in his unusual Chastity. As a young man he was marked by correct moral habits (probis moribus, Lact. c. 18). The specific testimony of Eusebius to this (V. C.) would have comparatively little weight on a point like this, and the same might be said, in a measure, of the testimony of the Panegyrists (Naz. c. 24; 207, c. 4; 313, c. 4), who mention this virtue. But panegyrical art would forbid the laudation of what was conspicuously lacking; rather it would not be mentioned, and the general testimony goes to show at least a contemporary reputation for extraordinary continence, considering his time and environment. His relationship with Minervina hardly touches this reputation, whether she was wife or only legitimate concubine. The accusations and innuendoes of Julian, Coesars, have, in any fairly critical estimate, hardly more than the weight of some malignant gossip whose backbiting is from his own heart. “Honi soit qui mat y pense.” Like Licinius, he seems to have been unable to understand that purity of heart which permitted the free companionship of women in social or religious life. Julian’s general charge of luxuriousness and sensuousness (p. 43, 306, 25, 38, 42, &c.) must be regarded largely in the same light; for this delight in soft garments, precious gems, games, and festivities was, if we can judge aright, in no sense “enervating pleasure and voluptuous indulgence”: for he was indefatigable in studies and works of all sorts, although it is perhaps to be referred to the vanity and love of display of which he is accused, and of which more later.
(b) In relations with people. In general he was Amiable,—popular with the soldiers, popular even with his subdued enemies (Eutrop. 10. 7). Diocletian reminded Galerius (Lact. c. 18) that he was “amiable,” and he must have been so; for he was “loved by soldiers” (Eumen. c. 16), and so “endeared to the troops” that in the appointment of Caesar he was “the choice of every individual” (Lact. c. 18). This popularity he indeed “sought by every kind of liberality and obligingness” (Eutr. 10. 7.), but what he sought he found.
A very large element in this popularity was the universal Mildness, Mercifulness, and Forbearance which he showed. In these is found a class of characteristics which stand alongside his energy of character as peculiarly characteristic and great. “He whose familiar habit it was to save men’s lives” (V. C. 4. 6), as a young man promised, in the opinion of Diocletian (Lact. c. 18), to be “milder and more merciful than his father.” Even in the opinion of Julian he was “far more humane (praoteron), and in very many other respects superior to others, as I would demonstrate if there were opportunity” (Julian, Orat. p. 15); and he again (p. 96) speaks of him in laudatory terms as contrasted with the other emperors. Eusebius, as might be expected, is still stronger in expression, and sets Constantine “in contrast with tyrants who were stained with blood of countless numbers,” saying that in Constantine’s reign “the sword of justice lay idle,” and men were “rather constrained by a paternal authority than governed by the stringent power of the laws” (V. C. 3. 1). This mercifulness he manifested on every occasion. “When Sigusium was on fire,” he directed greater effort towards saving it than he had to capturing it (Naz. Paneg. c. 21). At the taking of Rome he punished a certain few only of those most intimate with Maxentius (Zos.), and even Zosimus notes the great joy and relief of people at the exchange of Constantine for Maxentius. It is noticeable that in the inscriptions the epithet “clementissimus,” most rare of other emperors, is found a considerable number of times of him. So great was this mildness of conduct that he was “generally blamed for his clemency” (V. C. 4. 31), on the ground that crimes were not visited with their proper penalties. The testimony to this humaneness of character is almost unlimited and conclusive, but there is more or less evidence which is urged in qualification or contradiction. It is rather a common thing to say that he was at first mild, but later pride of prosperity caused him greatly to depart from this former agreeable mildness of temper (Eutrop.). Then the execution of the various members of his own family (cf. discussion below), the exposure of prisoners to the wild beasts (Eumen. Paneg. c. 12), his severe decree against those who should conceal copies of the works of Arius (Socr. 1. 9), his treatment of the Jews (Greg. Niceph., or at least his laws), and the severe penalties of some of his laws are among the points brought against him. But the remark of Eutropius is to be interpreted by the “former agreeable mildness of temper,” to which he himself witnesses, and the fact that this latter period was that where the points of view of the two men had widely diverged. The exposure of prisoners to wild beasts was no evidence of cruelty in itself; for under the customs then prevailing it might have been cruelty to his subjects not to have done this, and his treatment of the barbarian enemies is rather to be interpreted in the light of the testimony of Eutropius that he “left on the minds of the barbarians [Goths] a strong remembrance of his kindness” (10. 7). His treatment of his family is discussed elsewhere, but whatever its bearings may be, there is no just historico-psychological ground whatever for the use of the word which is so freely bandied,—cruelty. Cruel he was not in any sense. Even the extreme of the Panegyrist who says to him, “you are such by inheritance and destiny that you cannot be cruel” (Eumen. Paneg. c. 14), is nearer the truth. The penalties of his laws lay him open in a degree to a charge of growing severity; but it was great, if sometimes mistaken and overzealous, regard for what he deemed the public welfare, and on quite a different plane from anything which we express as cruelty. Though with the growing conservatism of a man who finds his purposes of mercy continually perverted and his indulgences abused, he yet remained to the end of his life most merciful and mild compared with those who went before and who followed.
This fact becomes more clear in seeing how he excelled in kindred virtues. The Patience already mentioned, distinguished forbearance, and undoubted benevolence, or at least generosity, are traits which group with mercy and have no fellowship with cruelty. And these he had. He showed distinguished Forbearance, and that oftentimes, as in a disturbance at Antioch, where he “applied with much forbearance the remedy of persuasion” (V. C. 3. 59). The outrageous conduct of those who, in the Arian disturbances, dared “even to insult the statues of the emperor …had little power to excite his anger, but rather caused in him sorrow of spirit” (V. C. 3. 4), “and he endured with patience men who were exasperated against himself.” These words are by Eusebius, to be sure.; but his conduct with Donatists, Arians, Maximinianus, and Licinius, in individual and on the whole, show that in fact he did habitually exercise great forbearance. To this was added much activity of positive Kindness. On first accession he “visited with much considerate kindness all those provinces” (V. C. p. 23). This kindness was shown throughout his reign, and brightly illustrated in his treatment of the persecuted Christians from the beginning,—in his acts in Gaul, in his famous toleration edict, in his letter to Maximin, and in his acts throughout. After his victory over Maxentius came the edict that those wrongfully deprived of their estates should be permitted to enjoy them again, …unjustly exiled were recalled and freed from imprisonment (Euseb. V. C. 1. 41). After the victory over Licinius he recalled Christian exiles, ordered restitution of property, released from labor in mines, from the solitude of islands, from toil in public works, &c., those who had been oppressed in these ways (V. C. p. 70–71). There is strong concensus of testimony to a very lovable habitual exercise of this trait in his “readiness to grant hearing,” “patience in listening,” and “kindness of response” to those whose complaints he had patiently listened to (Naz. 24). He was most excellent (commadissimus) to hear embassies and complaints of provinces (Vict. Epit. p. 51),—a testimony which is borne out by the facts. His Generosity is equally undoubted. His magnificent gifts and largesses to the army were still remembered in the time of Julian (Orat. p. 13). His constant and lavish giving to the Christians is Eusebius’ unending theme: but it was not to the churches alone; for we read of his munificence to heathen tribes (V. C. 2. 22), his liberality to the poor (V. C. 1. 43) in giving money for clothing, provision for orphans and widows, marriage portions for virgins, compensation to losers in law suits (V. C. 4. 4). It was “scarcely possible to be near him without benefit” (V. C. 1. 43; cf. V. C. 3. 16; 3. 22; 4. 44).
Though slow to serve some friends through suspicion (i.e. dubius thus explained), he was “exceedingly generous towards others, neglecting no opportunity to add to their riches and honors” (Eutrop. 10. 7). “With royal magnificence he unlocked all his treasures and distributed his gifts with rich and high-souled liberality” (V. C. 3. 1). He seems to have carried it rather to excess, even on the showing of Eusebius. “No one could request a favor of the emperor, and fail of obtaining what he sought. …He devised new dignities, that he might invest a larger number with the tokens of his favor” (V. C. 4. 2). It is worth giving the account by Eusebius of this conduct in full here. He says (V. C. 4. 54) that this “was a virtue, however, which subjected him to censure from many, in consequence of the baseness of wicked men, who ascribed their own crimes to the emperor’s forbearance. In truth, I can myself bear testimony to the grievous evils which prevailed during those times: I mean the violence of rapacious and unprincipled men, who preyed on all classes of society alike, and the scandalous hypocrisy of those who crept into the church. …His own benevolence and goodness of heart, the genuineness of his own faith, and his truthfulness of character induced the emperor to credit the professions of those reputed Christians who craftily preserved the semblance of sincere affection for his person. The confidence he reposed in such men sometimes forced him into conduct unworthy of himself, of which envy took advantage to cloud in this respect the luster of his character.” There seems, therefore, some ground for the charge of Prodigality, that he “wasted public money in many useless buildings, some of which he shortly after destroyed because they were not built to stand” (Zos.), and (Zos. p. 104) “gave great largesses to ill-deserving persons, mistaking profusion for munificence” (thn gar aswtian aswtian hgeito filotimian). Zosimus adds that to do this, he “imposed severe taxes on all, so severe that fathers were obliged to prostitute their daughters to raise the money, that tortures were employed, and in consequence whole villages depopulated.” This testimony is, however, by one bitterly prejudiced, who regarded money spent on Christian houses of worship as worse than wasted, and indicates only what appears from Eusebius as well, that expenditures for cities, schools, and churches built, and for other matters, must have been enormous. But so, too, they were enormous under other emperors, and Constantine, at least, instead of spending on debauchery, seems to have had something to show for it. As to taxes, Zosimus would undoubtedly sympathize with the Kentucky moonshiners in their “oppression” by revenue officers, if he were here now and Constantine were President, and would fulminate in the daily papers against the wicked party which by its wicked tariff compels men to marry their daughters to rich husbands in order to get their taxes paid,—and incidental luxuries supplied. But that does not say that an exorbitant tariff, to supply “jobs” which shall furnish rich “spoils” for those who have “pulls” out of the pockets of the many, is good; yet this, in modern phrase, is about what Constantine did. Constantine’s trust in his friends and generosity to the unworthy, with its consequences on the tax-payers, reminds strikingly of some of our own soldier-presidents, whom we love and admire without approving all their acts. And yet, on the other hand, much of the expenditure was for solid improvement, and could only be criticised by those who now oppose expenditures for navy, for improved postal service, public buildings, subsidies, &c.; though yet, again, his wholesale way of doing things also reminds one of the large generosity of some modern politicians in their race for popularity, with their Pension, Education, River and Harbor, and what not liberalities out of the pockets of the people. But whatever unwisdom may have been mingled, all this profusion shows in him a generosity of character which was at least amiable, and in the main genuine. His generosity took also the form of Hospitality, as shown by his entertainings at the Council of Nicaaea (V. C. 4. 49). With all these qualities of amiable popularity there seems to have been joined a yet more fundamental element, of permanent influence among men, in a spirit of Justice so marked that the claim of the Panegyrist is hardly too sweeping when he says that “all who took/refuge with him for whatever cause he treated justly and liberally” (Paneg. 307. 5)—if there is added “up to his light and ability.” Closely linked with this again is that “Unbending righteousness” of which Theophanes (p. 29) speaks. And to all these qualities was added that synthesis of qualities,—a remarkable Tact in his intercourse with men, a trait typically exemplified in his conduct at the Council of Nicaea, where “the emperor gave patient audience to all alike, and reviewed every proposition with steadfast attention, and by occasionally assisting the arguments of each party in turn, he gradually disposed even the most vehement disputants to a reconciliation, …persuading some, convincing others by his reasonings, praising those who spoke well, and urging all to unity of sentiment, until at last he succeeded in bringing them to one mind and judgment respecting every disputed question” (V. C. 3. 13).
But success with men and popularity seem to have opened that pitfall of success,—Vanity,—and it is charged that he fell thereinto, although there is testimony to the exact contrary. According to Victor (Epit. p. 51) he was “immeasurably greedy of praise.” This agrees with, and is at the same time modified by Eutropius’ testimony to his ambition for glory and for honorable popularity (10. 7), and his apparently complacent reception of the outrageous flattery of Optatian (cf. his letter), seems at least to show some weakness in this direction. So again his tendency toward Magnificence, as shown in his assuming the diadem and his dress in general (cf. above), in the splendor of banquets as witnessed by his approving friend (V. C. 3. 15), his desire to do on a large scale whatever he did, whether in the building of cities or splendid houses of worship, or in book-binding ornamentations of pearls and gems. And yet again it is shown in what seems at this distance his Conceit, sublime in its unconsciousness in reckoning himself a sort of thirteenth, but, it would seem, a facile princeps apostle, in the disposition for his burial, “anticipating with extraordinary fervor of faith that his body would share their title with the apostles themselves. …He accordingly caused twelve coffins to be set up in this church, like sacred pillars, in honor and memory of the apostolic number, in the centre of which his own was placed, having six of theirs on either side of it” (V. C. 4. 60). One can seem to read in this a whole history of unblushing flattery, and it reminds that Eunapius (Vic. oedes. p. 41) has spoken of his pleasure in the stimulant of “intoxicating flattery.” Still it is not to be supposed that this was a peculiarly weak vanity or an absorbing one. The testimony to his Modesty (V. C. 3. 10), though by Eusebius, is too circumstantial to be wholly unreal, and the testimony to his Humility in his “indignation at excessive praise” (V. C. 4. 48), and the records of Eusebius that he “was not rendered arrogant by these plaudits nor uplifted by the praises” (Euseb. V. C. 1. 39), and of the Chronicon Paschale (p. 521) that “he was not at all puffed up by the acclamations,” evidently represent a genuine thing. This mixed character is too frequently met with to be incomprehensible. Real power, recognizing its own success, glad of the recognition of others, not at bottom because of cold vanity, but from warm appreciation of human friendliness, became through success in carrying out what seemed to him, and were, divine plans, fired with the thought that he was the especial and necessary minister of God, that his thoughts and will were directly touched by the Divine Will and thus that whatever he thought or willed was infallible. He is not unlike some modern rulers. The spirit, though one of real vanity, or egotism at least, has an element of nobleness in it, and in most of its manifestations commands respect along with the smile. The accusation of Zosimus of Arrogance “when he had attained to the sole authority,” and that he “gave himself up to the unrestrained exercise of his power,” must be interpreted like those of other un-Christian witnesses, in the light of the fact that his actions worked relative hardships to the non-Christians, and that very justice to the Christians would seem injustice to them, and if Constantine was more than just, his generosity was at some one’s expense. His energy of execution and constant success, with his dominating idea of a Divine mission, would naturally engender this faith in his own infallibility; for what is arrogance but this vanity joined with power? His action toward schismatics—Donatists, Arians, or orthodox troublers of his peace—was such as to suggest some degree of this vice. Yet his success in keeping the followers of the old religion fairly mollified, and his generally successful tact, showed that this was in no sense a dominating and unrelieved characteristic. Two other weaknesses closely allied with these are also imputed to Constantine: Jealousy, as illustrated by the statement that “wishing to minimize the deeds of his predecessors, he took pains to tarnish their virtues by giving them jocose epithets” (Dion. Cont. 2 [Müller, p. 199]; cf. Vict. Epit. p. 51), and Suspiciousness (Eutrop. 10. 7); for which latter, a man who had survived as many plots as he had, might well be excused. Again and again and again he trusted men, and they deceived him. His conduct with Maximian shows that at least in the beginning, before he had had so much experience of untrustworthiness, he was remarkably free from this. A much more serious charge is that of Faithlessness preferred by Zosimus, who says (2. 28), “in violation of his oaths (for this was customary with him)” and twice repeats the charge. Eusebius, on the other hand, tells what great pains Constantine took not to be the one to break peace with Licinius (V. C.). One is worth as little as the other. The charge seems to rest mainly or wholly on his conduct towards Licinius, in beginning war and in putting him to death. A small boy once held a smaller boy in a firm grip, but agreed to spare him the cuffing he deserved because he was smaller. The smaller small boy promptly set his teeth in the leg of the larger small boy, and was properly cuffed for it. Thereupon the smaller small boy’s big brother was filled with indignation, which he manifested by seeking and finding the same fate. The indignation in behalf of Licinius seems to be in large measure big brother indignation—indignation with the wrong party. He appears to have been one of those who held a compact to be binding on the other party only. It wasn’t in the bargain that he should persecute the Christians, or in the other bargain that he should plot his benefactor’s overthrow. That king in Scripture who took back his promise to forgive a debt of ten thousand talents was not faithless.
(c) In relations with his family. He was a filial Son, having the confidence of his father, as shown in his wish of succession, and showing his mother all honors when he came to power (cf. coins showing her position as empress, and V.C.). “And well may his character be styled blessed for his filial piety as well as on other grounds” (V. C. 3. 47).
It is in this relation to his family, however, that the most serious attacks on the character of Constantine have been made. Eutropius says: “But the pride of prosperity caused Constantine greatly to depart from his former agreeable mildness of temper. Falling first upon his own relatives, he put to death his son, an excellent man; his sister’s son, a youth of amiable disposition; soon afterwards his wife; and subsequently many of his friends.” This has been a battle-ground of accusation or excusation in all the centuries. The testimony is very meagre and uncertain, but this much may be said: 1. That any jury would regard the fact of deaths as evidenced. It is witnessed by Eutrop. (10. 6), Zos., Vict., Hieron., &c. 2. That he was unjustifiable is not proven. In respect to the death of Fausta, at least, there was probably just cause; whether love intrigue or other intrigue, there seems to have been some real occasion. The death of Crispus, too, was from no mere suspicions, but on apparently definite grounds of distrust. It is historical assumption to say that he had no good grounds, whatever these may have been—illicit relationship with Fausta or more probably political intrigue. At the worst, he was put to death on false but, at the time, apparently true accusation: what has been done by judges and juries of the best intention.51 Of Licinius, his sister’s son, it can hardly be said that he had the same reason, as he was still a boy. But remembering the inherited character of Licinius, and noticing the curious fact that the cordiality between Constantia and Constantine was peculiarly great to the end, it seems as if there must have been some mitigating circumstance.52 In all historical candor it looks as if there had been some general intrigue against Constantine which had been met in this way; but the fairest verdict to enter is “causes unknown.”
In estimating the characteristic value of the acts it must be noted, 1. That it has in no sense the character of private execution. The emperor was judge. Even if he mistook evidence and put to death an innocent man, it was as when a judge does the same. 2. That the relative moral character of punishments inflicted is conditioned by the custom of punishment. An English judge of the past was not as cruel in hanging a man for theft, as a modern one in applying the extreme penalty of the law to an offense with mitigating circumstances, would be. 3. That all law of evidence, all rhyme and reason, says that any man’s any act is to be interpreted in the light of his general character. Where evidence is lacking or doubtful, such evidence of general character has actual weight, and may be conclusive. In application to these acts note (a) The peculiar forbearance which Constantine exercised toward Maximian. (b) The conclusive universal testimony to the general mildness of his character and his habitual mercifulness. In view of this, it is to be judged that there was some real, or appearing, great ground of judicial wrath. 4. That Constantine had suffered from plots on the part of his own relatives over and over again, and spared, and been plotted against again, as in the cases of Maximian, Bassianus, and Licinius. 5. That they were not put to death “in a gust of passion” at once, but in successive acts. In view of these things it is fair and just to say that they were put to death on grounds which seemed just and for the welfare of society, and their deaths in no sense indicate cruelty or unnaturalness on the part of Constantine. Even the death of Licinius must be interpreted by the political ethics of the times and its circumstances. So long as sentimentalists continue to send bouquets to murderers and erect monuments to anarchists, they will regard execution, even legal execution, as prima facie evidence of cruelty, and the killing of a murderer in self-defense, or the hanging of a traitor, as crime. Constantine’s whole character ensures that if he thought he could have spared them, or any one, with safety, he would have done so.53 
In general he was a faithful husband as respects marital virtue, and a good father. He took care that his children should be well educated. Crispus was under Lactantius (Hieron.), and the others perhaps under Arborius (“Auson. de Prof. Burdig. 16”); at all events, he had the most accomplished teachers of secular learning to instruct in the art of war, and in political and legal science (V. C. 4. 51), and both by his own instruction and that of men of approved piety, took special pains with their religious training. He early appointed them to offices of authority, and distributed the empire among them. 
(d) In relations with friends. His general conduct toward his friends was marked by very great liberality (cf. above). Eutropius speaks emphatically of this even while he uses the expression which has been such a puzzle to all, that “toward some of his friends he was double” (or dangerous), a phrase which is interpreted by Johannes Ant. as meaning “to some of friends false (unsound, upoulw") and unsafe (unwholesome, ouc ugiw")” (ed. Müller 4. p. 602–3). His uniform effort to please his friends has been discussed above.
(e) In relations with society. 1. As General he seems to have been popular with his own soldiers (cf. above), inspiring them with enthusiasm and energy. Toward hostile soldiers he was merciful (cf. above), not following up an advantage further than was necessary, and toward conquered enemies unusually forbearing; e.g. at Sigusium, at Rome, with Maximian, with Licinius, and with the Goths (cf. above). His generalship is characterized by careful provision for the guarding of his rear, and by rapidity of movement and dash in actual conflict. 2. As Legislator he “enacted many laws, some good, but most of them superfluous, and some severe” (Eutrop. 10. 8). He seems to have had a weakness for law-making which, at all events, shows a characteristic respect for law little shared by his early contemporaries. Of course Eutropius would consider all laws in favor of Christians superfluous. Laws for the abolition of idolatrous practices, for the erection of Christian houses of worship, observance of the Lord’s Day (V. C. 4. 23), permitting cases to be tried before bishops (Soz. 1. 9; Euseb. H. E. 10. 7; Cod. Theod. Tit. de episc. &c., would surely seem so. But even in other laws Constantine seems to have had at times an abnormal zeal for law-making, when his energies were not occupied in war or church-building. The laws were generally wise and, at the least, benevolently or righteously meant. Such were the abolition of crucifixion (Vict. Coes.) and of gladiatorial shows (V. C. 4. 25; Socr. 1. 8; C. Theod. 15. 12. 10), the law that the families of slaves were not to be separated (C. Theod. 2.25), that forbidding the scourging of debtors (C. Theod. 7.3), and that repressing calumny (Vict. Epit. 51). Among the “severe” laws were such as punished certain forms of illicit intercourse with death.3. As Statesman his policy was broad and far-reaching. He fully organized and carefully established one section of his territory before he enlarged. He changed the whole constitution of the empire, both civil and military (cf. Wordsworth, in Smith & W.). He inaugurated reforms in finance, and especially was most assiduous in the matter of internal improvements, restoring and building from one end of the empire to the other. The great characteristic consummation of his reign was the union of Church and State, over which men are still divided as to whether it was a tremendous blessing or a tremendous curse. Tremendous it surely was in its shaping power on world history. (Compare numerous titles under Literature.) The general statement of Eutropius that “in the beginning of his reign he might have been compared to the best princes, in the latter part only to those of a middling character,” must be interpreted by the fact that during the latter part of his reign he was so associated with Christianity, in itself a falling away in the eyes of the old religionists. His reign was one of order and justice such as few were, and an order out of chaos, a reign in which it could be peculiarly said that “chastity was safe and marriage protected” (Naz. c. 38), where a man’s life and property were secure as under few of the Roman emperors. It is idle to refuse the title of Great to a man who, from the beginning, followed a consistent, though developing policy, organized the interior, and securely guarded the frontier of his empire at each enlargement, and finally unified the whole on such a basis as to secure large internal prosperity and development.

§6. Religious Characteristics.
Was Constantine a Christian? This vain question has to be considered, hardly discussed. The interminable opinions, one way or the other, are for the most part wise-seeming, meaningless generalizations. Like any generalized statement, it is conditioned by the point of view of the author. When ten men answered the question “What is a Christian?” in ten different ways, who shall say what any one is? This has been the difficulty. One does not conceive of Christianity apart from baptismal regeneration. The question has then narrowed to one of baptism. Constantine was not a Christian until just before his death. Another has some other test. Another is not a Christian himself, and so on. A good Biblical, Protestant starting-point is to say he was a Christian as soon as he believed in Christ, and that the evidence of faith is in confession and action. Already, before his campaign into Italy, he seems to have been in intimate contact with the Christians. Hosius was probably already one of his advisers. The young emperor had inherited his father’s piety (Paneg. 307, c. 5), and was inclined to monotheism. The words of advisers must have made him think at least, and he seems to have made a sort of test of believing at the time of the famous “vision of the cross,” whatever that may have been. Judging from the way men think and feel their way to faith, it seems psychologically probable that, feeling his way along to that point, he tried faith and, having success, he substantially believed from that time on. Certainly from a very early period after this, the evidences begin to be clear and increasingly so as presumably his faith itself became more clear and fixed. The account in Eusebius of the process of thought by which he inclined toward Christianity has the greatest plausibility. He says that “considering the matter of Divine assistance, it occurred to him that those who had relied on idols had been deceived and destroyed, while his father…had honored the one Supreme God, had found him Saviour, &c.…he judged it folly to join in the idle worship of those who were no gods…and felt it incumbent on him to honor no other than the God of his father.” The nature of the vision of the cross, whether a miracle, a natural phenomenon, or only a dream, does not affect the probability of the account by Eusebius of what followed it (V. C. 1. 32). “At the time above specified, being struck with amazement at the extraordinary vision, and resolving to worship no other God save him who had appeared to him, he sent for those who were acquainted with the mysteries of his doctrines, and inquired also what God was.…They affirmed that he was God, the only begotten Son of the one and only God,” and he thereupon “made the priests of God his counsellors and deemed it incumbent on him to honor the God who had appeared to him, with all devotion.” According to Sozomen, “it is universally admitted Constantine embraced the religion of the Christians previous to his war with Maxentius and prior to his return to Rome and Italy; and this is evidenced by the dates of the laws which he enacted in favor of religion” (Soz. 1. 5; cf. 1. 3). Philostorgius (1. 6), “in conformity with all other writers,” ascribes to the victory over Maxentius (Photius. Epit.). This is confirmed, too, by the remark of the Panegyrist (313, c. 4; cf. c. 2 and c. 11), that he conducted the war by Divine instruction, and the famous inscription on the triumphal arch, “instinctu Divinitatis.” According to Augustine he was at the time of the petition of the Donatists, “mindful of the hope which he maintained in Christ” (August. contra litt. Petil. Bk. II. c. 92, p. 205).
The tales of his baptism at this time, or by Sylvester at all, are pure fables (cf. under The Mythical Constantine), but it appears from antecedent probability, from testimony, and from his early subsequent identification with the Christians that he became fairly convinced at this time. His letters concerning the council at Arles, to be sure, have little direct evidence, but enough to show that he regarded the Christian religion as the worship of that one supreme God, and in them Hosius was already his trusted adviser. But in his letters to Chrestus (314) he speaks of those who are “forgetful of their own salvation and the reverence due to the most holy faith,” and if his letter to the bishops after the council at Arles—a letter full of expressions like “Christ the Saviour,” “brethren beloved,” “I who myself await the judgment of Christ,” “our Saviour”54 —be genuine, Constantine was well advanced in his commitment in 314; but whether it is or not, the fact of his Christian advisers, of his laws in behalf of Christians, and various substantial favors to them, his recognition of their God as his one God, makes it almost idle to discuss the question. Was Constantine a Christian in 314? What is a Christian? He seems to have been. The type was that of many a business-man church-member of to-day—Christians, but neither over-well-instructed, nor dangerously zealous in the exercise of his faith. It must be remembered that during these earlier years his confession of his faith and identification of himself with the Christians was conditioned by his relation to the old religion. Such a change was a radical novelty. His position was not yet secure. He had to use his utmost tact to keep all elements in hand. He was conditioned just as a modern Christian emperor or president, a majority of whose political advisers and subjects or electors are non-religious. He had great problems of political organization to effect, and was immersed in these. The only matter of surprise is that he grew so rapidly. There is no ground whatever for supposing that he dissembled to the end, or even at all. To say that his retaining the title of pontifex maximus, or making concessions respecting the old worship, or allowing soothsayers to be consulted, or even the postponement of his baptism, indicate this, is critical absurdity in the face of evidence.55 Testimony, both heathen and Christian, to the openness of his action is complete, and the testimony of his acts—such, e.g., as the law for the observance of Sunday—conclusive. Later, at least, he “most openly destroyed temple worship and built Christian houses of worship” (Eunap. Vita Aedes. 37, ed. Boiss. p. 20). From the defeat of Licinius on, edicts, letters, speeches, acts of all sorts, testify to a most unequivocal adoption of the Christian religion. Eusebius hardly overstates in saying that “he maintained a continual testimony to his Christianity, with all boldness and before all men, and so far was he from shrinking from an open profession of the Christian name, that he rather desired to make it manifest to all that he regarded this as his highest honor” (V. C. 3. 2). Really the question whether he considered himself, or was considered, a Christian at and after the time of the Council of Nicaea is too idle even to mention, if it had not been gravely discussed. In the opinion of the bishops there he was “most pious” and “dear to God” (E.P. synod. in Socr. 1. 9; Theodoret, 1. 8). On his part, letters are full of pious expression and usually begin or end or both with “beloved brethren.” To the council itself he describes himself as “fellow-servant” of “Him who is our common Lord and Saviour.” Another more considerable position is that all that indisputable external connection with Christianity was pure political expediency, that he was a shrewd politician who saw which way the wind was blowing, and had skill to take advantage of it. That Constantine was not a Christian in the strict sense even to the end of his life was the position of Keim. Burckhardt regards him as a pure politician, without a touch of Christian life. Brieger (1880) says we have not grounds to decide either way, whether he was “a godless egoistic fatalist or had a more or less warm religious or even Christian interest,” but that the fixed fact is, that it was not because of his inner belief in the Christian religion that he showed favor to the Christians. In a brief attempt to get some basis in the sources, the enthusiastic testimony of Eusebius and other writers, explicit as it is, may be quite disregarded, even the testimony to facts, such as his practice of giving thanks (V. C. 1. 39), of invoking Divine aid (Euseb. V. C. 2, 4, 6, 13; Soz. 2. 34), of his erecting a place of prayer in his palace (Soz. 1. 8), of his fasting (V C. 2.41), of his having a stated hour of prayer (V. C. 4. 22), although all these are interesting. The documents, however, unless by supremely uncritical rejection, can be regarded as fundamental sources. A brief analysis of these, even though imperfect, will furnish grounds on the basis of which those who apply various tests may apply them. Starting from his faith in Christ, surely the center of Christianity, he believed Christ to be Son of God, “God and the Son of God the author of every blessing” (S.C.), the revealer of the Father, who has “revealed a pure light in the person of Thy Son…and hast thus given testimony concerning Thyself” (S.C. 1), proceeding from the Father (S.C.), and incarnate, his incarnation having been pre- dicted also by the prophets. He believed this Son of God to be his Saviour (Ad Tyr., Ad Ant., Ad Euseb., &c.) “our common Lord and Saviour” (Ad Euseb.), “our Saviour, our hope, and our life” (Ad eccl. Al.). He believed in his miraculous birth (S.C.) and in his death for our deliverance (Ad Nic.; cf. Ad Mac. &c.), “the path which leads to everlasting life” (S.C. 1), “a precious and toilsome” work (Ad Euseb.), and in his ascension into heaven (S.C. 1). He believed in “God the Father” (Ad Euseb. 2), “Almighty” (Ad Euseb.), Lord of all (Ad Euseb. 2), and the Holy Ghost (Ad eccl. Al.; cf. S. C.). He believed in “Divine Providence” (Ad Eccl. Al.; Ad Alex.Ar.; Ad. Euseb. 1), God the preserver of all men (Ad Alex. et Ar.), who sees all things (Ad Syn. Nic.), who is near us and the observer of all our actions (S. C.), and “under the guidance of whose Almighty hand” he is (Ad Prov. Pal.), that all things are regulated by the determination of his will (Ad Euseb.). He believed in the existence of a personal devil (Ad Eccl. Al.). He believed in the future life (Ad Prov. Pal.), “the only true life” (S.C. 12), the “strife for immortality” (Ad Euseb.), to which those may aspire who know Him (S. C. 12). He believed in future rewards and punishments (Ad Prov. Pal.; S. C. 23). He believed in the inspiration of the Scriptures (Ad Eccl. Al.). He loved God (Ad Euseb. 2; V. C. 2.55), and considered it his chief work in life to glorify Christ (S. C.). He loved his fellow-men, being disposed “to love you with an enduring affection” (Ad Ant.; V. C. 3.60, &c.), and recognized it as virtue in others (8, c. 11). To him, God, in general, is the source of all blessings (Ad Prov. Pal.; S.C., &c.). “I am most certainly persuaded,” he says, “that I myself owe my life, my every breath, in short, my very inmost and secret thoughts to the favor of the Supreme God” (Ad Prov. Pal.). He recognizes contrition as a requisite for pardon (Ad. Prov. Pal), and that it is the power of God which removes guilt (Ad Euseb.). In the conduct of life. “Our Saviour’s words and precepts are a model, as it were, of what our life should be” (Ad. Ant.; V. C. 3. 60).
Expositions of his doctrinal and ethical positions might be multiplied almost without end from the many and fruitful sources, but a few specimens in his own expression will best show the spirit of his religious life. A most suggestive and beautiful sketch of Christ’s ministry on earth too long to quote here may be found in his Oration (ch. 15), but the following selections will give the idea:
A description of the inner Christian life. “For the only power in man which can be elevated to a comparison with that of God is sincere and guiltless service and devotion of heart to Himself, with the contemplation and study of whatever pleases Him, the raising our affections above the things of earth, and directing our thoughts, as far as we may, to high and heavenly objects” (S.C. 14).
A description of the outer Christian life. “Compare our religion with your own. Is there not with us genuine concord, and unwearied love of others? If we reprove a fault, is not our object to admonish, not to destroy; our correction for safety, not for cruelty? Do we not exercise not only sincere faith toward God, but fidelity in the relations of social life? Do we not pity the unfortunate? Is not ours a life of simplicity which disdains to cover evil beneath the mask of fraud and hypocrisy?” (S.C. 23).
A prayer. “Not without cause, O holy God, do I prefer this prayer to Thee, the Lord of all. Under Thy guidance have I devised and accomplished measures fraught with blessing: preceded by Thy sacred sign, I have led Thy armies to victory: and still on each occasion of public danger, I follow the same symbol of Thy perfections while advancing to meet the foe. Therefore have I dedicated to Thy service a soul duly attempered by love and fear. For Thy name I truly love, while I regard with reverence that power of which Thou hast given abundant proofs, to the confirmation and increase of my faith” (Ad prov. Or.).
A confession of faith in God and in Christ. “This God I confess that I hold in unceasing honor and remembrance; this God I delight to contemplate with pure and guileless thoughts in the height of his glory.” “His pleasure is in works of moderation and gentleness. He loves the meek and hates the turbulent spirit, delighting in faith. He chastises unbelief” (Ad Sap.). “He is the supreme judge of all things, the prince of immortality, the giver of everlasting life” (S.C. 36). Was Constantine a Christian? Let each one apply his own test.

§7. General Characterization.
Before trying to gather into continuous statement the traits of character which have been examined, a few general characterizations must be mentioned at least. Beginning at the bottom, the unfriendly, or hostile, or at the least unsympathetic, heathen testimonies generalize him as at least relatively and on the whole both great and good. The general tendency of heathen testimony is to represent him as admirable in the early part of his reign, but execrable, or less admirable, in the latter part; that of Christian writers is to represent a growth of excellence, which raises him to saintship at the end. This is most natural. Favoring Christianity was itself a moral fall to a heathen, and bestowing money on Christians would be robbery. The turning of his character was with his changing face towards Christianity, and culminated in the overthrow of Licinius. Licinius fought really as the champion of heathenism. The adherents of a lost cause are characterizing their victor. It is like an ex-Confederate characterizing Lincoln or Grant. The point of view is different. Honest and true men in the South thought Lincoln a curse, and often in popular verdict his character was “black.” The popular proverb quoted by Victor (Epit. p. 51), “Bull-necked for ten years, for twelve a freebooter, and for ten a spendthrift (immature child),” has just the value of a Southern popular opinion of Lincoln, or a rural Northerner’s of “Jeff Davis.” Indeed, the first might summarize at times the Southern popular verdict of Grant; the second, a frequently expressed estimate of Lincoln’s conduct in the emancipation of slaves; and the third, their view of the enormous expenditure for pensions of Union soldiers, even as it was fifteen years ago. But even the rather severe Victor, who reports this proverb, finds Constantine “most excellent (commodissimus) in many respects,”—in respect of certain laws, in his patronage of the arts, especially that of letters, as scholar, as author, in the hearing of delegations and complaints (p. 51). Again, “Praxagoras, though a heathen, says that in all sorts of virtue and personal excellence and good fortune, Constantine outshone all the emperors who preceded him” (Photius, Cod. 62, ed. Müller, p. 1). And finally, the heathen Eutropius, who characterizes from his standpoint so admirably,56 though he naturally finds that “in the beginning of his reign he might have been compared to the best princes; in the latter part, only to those of middling character,” nevertheless records “that innumerable good qualities of mind and body were present in him,” and that he was “deservedly enrolled among the gods,”—using the meruit which he uses also of Aurelian, but not generally, and not even of Constantius. On purely heathen testimony, therefore, Constantine, taken by and large, was comparatively remarkable and admirable. A moderate Christian characterization is that of Theophanes (p. 29): “Pre-eminent for masculine strength of character, penetration of mind, well-disciplined power of thought; for unbending righteousness, ready benevolence, thorough majestic beauty of countenance, mighty and successful in war, great in wars with the barbarians, invincible in domestic wars, and so firm and unshaken in faith that through prayer he obtained the victory in all his battles.” Remembering, therefore, that in order to understand a character in past centuries one must project himself into his time; remembering again the circumstances of his time and its practice, we shall, without forgetting any of the acts on which he has been judged, find him on indisputable testimony superior to most of the other emperors in character, and as much above the circumstances of his times as would characterize a man of to-day as of peculiarly high moral character. In view of this, it is uncritical, and a violence to historical evidence, to approach one whom, at death, the heathen thought worthy to be enrolled among the gods, and the Christians canonized as saint (in the Greek calendar), as other than one who, taken all in all, was of unusual excellence of character. As in any synthesis, any organization, subordinate facts must be viewed in their relation to their center and whole, as by any law of criminal procedure acts must be judged in the light of general character, so any rational, legal, scientific, historical estimate of Constantine must be in view of this fact.

§8. Summary.
With this as center of perspective, we have a picture of Constantine with lights and shadows, to be sure, but in the main true in its drawing and coloring. He was a man of rather more than medium height, strongly built, with broad shoulders, thick neck, and generally athletic and well-formed figure. His piercing eye, slightly aquiline nose, scanty reddish beard, and florid complexion, together with his bright expression, made a countenance striking and even handsome. Of great physical strength and vigor, he carried himself in a manly, self-possessed, dignified, and serene manner, uniting a dignity which might rise at times even to hauteur, or even incipient arrogance, with a general and customary affability. His dress, like his complexion, was somewhat florid. His mind was active, alert, intense without being somber, penetrating, sound, fairly cultivated, and well exercised in expression by pen or word. He was animated, habile, and attentive in conversation, self-possessed, steady, and calm in formal address. He was pre-eminently a man of energy, intense and resistless, with a determination to accomplish whatever he attempted, which rose under opposition to irresistible impetuosity, and wrought a courage which, in action, was absolutely fearless. His ambition was limitless, but not wholly or even mainly selfish.
With his energy and ambition were united the ballast of marked prudence, patience, perseverance, faithfulness to details, steadfastness, and supreme self-control. He was amiable and tactful, popular with his soldiers, and careful to please. Toward those who came into his power he showed habitual mildness and forbearance,—a mildness so great that he was generally blamed for it; and toward all he showed great kindness, justice, and a generosity which verged on the lavish. He was open to the charge of over-generosity, almost of prodigality, a good measure of real vanity, some over-insistence on his own will and thought as the final standard of right, and by no means free from mistakes or human weaknesses. He was a good son, husband, father, a remarkably successful general, a tolerable legislator, and a clear-sighted, firm-willed statesman. In his religious life he abounded in creed and confession—believing in the Trinity, the Divinity of Christ, the Atonement, the Resurrection, and Eternal Life, in Repentance and Faith, in love to God, and love to man. He preached his faith on all occasions; he practiced thanksgiving and prayer abundantly. He regarded everything that he had or was as from God. The editor’s brief judgment is that Constantine, for his time, made an astonishingly temperate, wise, and, on the whole, benevolent use of absolute power, and in morality, kindly qualities, and, at last, in real Christian character, greatly surpassed most nineteenth century politicians—standing to modern statesmen as Athanasius to modern theologians. 
Chapter III. Writings.

§i. Introduction.
Quite a number of works by this emperor-author are extant.57 They may be grouped under, I. Oratorical writings; 2. Letters and decrees; 3. Laws; 4. Various.

§2. Oratorical Writings.
According to Eusebius (V. C. 4. 29; cf. 4. 55) these were very numerous, and it may well be believed. He seems to have done much of everything he undertook at all—fighting, or learning, or building temples, or making laws, he was nothing if not incessant. He had a habit of inflicting his orations on his court, and undoubtedly had plenty of enthusiastic hearers, as any emperor would, and as Eusebius says he did. They seem to have been generally philosophical with as much religion as possible worked in (V. C. 4. 9). Not many are extant, but we have some account of the few following:
1. Oration to the saints (Oratio ad sanctum caetum, S. C.). For this see the following translation and Special Prolegomena.
2. Address to the Council of Nicaea in praise of peace (Ad Syn. Nic.), in Euseb. V. C. 3.12. Address of welcome. He rejoices in the assembly, and exhorts them to be united, that they may thereby please God and do a favor to their emperor.
3. Oration to the Council of Nicaea, in Gelasius, Hist. Coun. Nic. 1. 7. Begins with rhetorical comparison of the Church to a temple, and ends with injunctions to observe peace and to search the Scriptures as the authority in all points of doctrine. Appears dubiously authentic.
4. Address to the bishops on their departure from Nicaea. Abstract in Euseb. V. C. 32. 1. Exhorts them to keep peace, cautions against jealousy, &c.
5. Funeral oration. A description in Euseb. V. C. 4. 55. Dwells on the immortality of the soul, the blessings laid up for those who love God, and the ruin of the ungodly.
His method of composition is spoken of by Eusebius (V. C. 4. 29), and his manner of delivery may be gathered from Eusebius’ description of his speech at the opening of the Council of Nicaeea (V. C. 3. 11). For the style of his oratorical discourses, compare remarks on the Oration to the Saints in the Special Prolegomena.

§3. Letters and Edicts.
It is hard to separate between letters, edicts, and laws. A substantial autocrat, the form of address was much the same, and the force. The extant letters are quite numerous, and those of which we have definite or general mention, many. He seems to have been a most industrious letter-writer. Of the extant letters a majority are undoubtedly or probably genuine. Some, however, need more critical study than seems to have been given to them.58 Following is the roughly chronological list, the works being grouped by years. The dating is taken mainly from the Migne edition, Ceillier, and Valesius with slight original study. The descriptions are of course from the documents themselves.
1. (313 a.d.) Edict of Constantine and Licinius for the restoration of the Church. In Lact. De M. P. c. 48, and also in Euseb. H. E. 10. 5 (Op. Const. ed. Migne, 105–110). The second edict of toleration. The first edict (Euseb. 8. 17; Lact. De M. P. 34) can hardly be classed among the “writings” of Constantine. This famous second edict grants full religious liberty to the Christians and restoration of their property. Compare section on Acts of Toleration in Wordworth’s Constatinus.
2. (313.) First letter of Constantine and Licinius to Anulinus. In Euseb. H.E. 10. 5 (Op. Const. ed. Migne, 479–480). Restores goods to the Catholic Christians; written about the same time as the edict of toleration, according to Ceillier.
3. (313.) Second Letter of Constantine to Anulinus. In Euseb. H. E. 10. 7 (Op. Const. 481–2). Ordering that the Catholic clergy be free from public service, that they might not be disturbed in their worship of God.
4. (313.) Letter of Constantine to Caecilianus. In Euseb. H. E. 10. 6 (Op. Const. 481–4). Presents money—three thousand purses (folles) — to be distributed according to direction of Hosius.
5. (313.) Letter of Constantine to Melchiades (or Miltiades). In Euseb. H. E. 10. 5 (Op. Const. 477-). Having received various letters from Anulinus regarding Caecilian and the Donatists, he summons a council at Rome to consider the matter.
6. (314.) Letter of Constantine to Ablavius (or Aelafius). In Optat. Mon. vet. p. 283–4 (Op. Const. 483–6). The result of the council at Rome not having proved final, he summons the Council of Arles.
7. (314.) Letter of Constantine to Chrestus (Crescentius), bishop of Syracuse. In Euseb. H. E. 10. 5 (Op. Const. 485–8). Invites to the Council of Arles.
8. (314.) Letter of Constantine to the Bishops after the Council of Arles. In Optat. Mon. vet. p. 287–8 (Op. Const. 487–90). Contains gratulations, reprobations of obstinate schismatists, and exhortations to patience with such obstinateness. It is full of religious expressions, and if genuine, is a most interesting exhibition of Constantine’s religious position at this time, but it looks suspicious, and probably is not genuine.
9. (314) Letter of Constantine and Licinius to Probianus, the Proconsul of Africa. In Augustine, Ep. 88 (ed. Migne 33 [1865] 3045), and also in Contr. Crest. (43 [1861] 540, also in Op. Const. and tr. Engl. in Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 1, p. 370). Orders that the Donatist Ingentius be brought to his court. One text adds Maximianus or Maximus in place of Maximus as epithet of Constantine.
10. (314 or 315.) Letter of Constantine to the Donatist Bishops. In Optat. Mon. vet. p. 290 (Op. Const. ed. Migne [1844] 490). As the Donatists were not yet satisfied, he summons them to meet Caecilian, and promises if they convict him in one particular, it shall be as if in all.
11. (315.) Letter of Constantine to Celsus. In Optat. Mon. vet p. 291 (Op. Const. 489–90). In reply to letter mentioning disturbances of the Donatists, he hints that he expects to go shortly to Africa and settle things summarily.
12. (315.) Fragment of a Letter of Constantine to Eumalius Vicarius. In Augustine’s Contr. Crest. 3. 71 (ed. Migne 43 [1861] 541; also Op. Const. 491–2). An extract of six lines, in which he says Caecilianus was entirely innocent.
13. (316 or 317.) Letter of Constantine to the bishops and people of Africa. Optat. Mon. vet. p. 294 (Op. Const. 491–2). He has tried every way to settle the Donatist disturbances in vain, and now leaves them to God and advises patience.
14. (323.) First Letter of Constantine to Eusebius. In Euseb. V. C. 2. 46; Theodoret, 1. 14; Socr. 1. 9 (Op. Const. 491–4). Empowers the repairing, enlarging of old, and building of new churches. 
15. (323 a.d.) Law of Constantine respecting piety toward God and the Christian Religion (Ad prov. Pal.). In Euseb. V. C. 2. 24–42; abstr. in Soz. 1. 8 (Op. Const. 253–282). This long edict, addressed to the inhabitants of Palestine, contains an exposition of the prosperity which attends the righteous and the adversity which comes to the wicked, followed by edict for the restitution of confiscated property, the recall of exiles, and various other rectifications of injustices. This is the copy, “or letter,” sent to the heathen population of the empire.
16. (324.) Constantine’s edict to the people of the eastern provinces concerning the error of polytheism, &c. (Ad. prov. Or). In Euseb. V. C. 48-. This letter, written in Latin and translated by Eusebius, begins with “some general remarks on virtue and vice,” touches on the persecutions and the fate of the persecutors, expresses the wish that all would become Christians, praises God, and exhorts concord.
17. (323 or 324.) Letter of Constantine to Alexander the Bishop and Arius the Presbyter. In Euseb. V. C. 2. 64–72; Gelas. 2.4; Socr. 1. 7 (Op. Const. 493–502). Expresses his desire for peace, his hope that they might have helped him in the Donatist troubles, his distress at finding that they, too, were in a broil, his opinion that the matters under discussion are of little moment, and what he thinks they are. He exhorts to unanimity, repeats his opinion that the matters are of little moment, mentions his “copious and constant tears,” and finally gets through.
18. (324–5.) Letter to Porphyrius (Optatian). In Migne, Patrol. Lat. 19 [1846] 393–394 and in various editions of Optatian. This letter to Porphyrius or Optatian was on the occasion of the sending of a poem by the latter for his vicennalia. It expresses his pleasure and his disposition to encourage the cultivation of belles lettres. Compare note on Optatian under sources.
19. (325.) Letter of Constantine the King, summoning the bishops to Nicaea. In Cowper, Syriac Misc., Lond. 1841, p. 5–6. This is translated from a Syriac ms. in the British Museum, written in 501. Gives as reason for the choice of Nicaea the convenience for the European bishops and “the excellent temperature of the air.” This, if genuine, is the letter mentioned by Eusebius, V. C., but it looks suspicious.
20. (325.) Letter of Constantine to the churches after the Council of Nicaea. In Euseb. V. C. 3. 17–20; Socr. 1. 9 (Op. Const. 501–506). Dwells on the harmonious result, especially respecting the Easter controversy, and commends to the bishops to observe what the Council has decreed.
21. (325.) Letter of Constantine to the church of Alexandria. In Socr. 1. 9 (Op. Const. 507–510). Expresses great horror of the blasphemy of Arius, and admiration for the wisdom of the more than three hundred bishops who condemned him.
22. (325.) Letter of Constantine to Arius and the Arians. In “Conc. 2. 269.” A long and rather railing address against Arius.
23. (325.) Letter of Constantine to the churches. In Socr. H. E. 1. 9. A translation of a Syriac translation of this, written in 501, in Cowper, Syriac Misc., Lond. 1861, p. 6–7. Against Arius and the Porphyrians, and threatens that any one who conceals a work of Arius shall be punished with death.
24. (325.) Letter of Constantine to the Nicomedians against Eusebius and Theognis. In Gelas. 3. 2; Theodoret, 1. 20; Soz. 1. 21 (Op. Const. 519–524). A theological discussion partly of the relation of Father and Son, and an attack on Eusebius of Nicomedia.
25. (325.) Letter to Theodotus. In Gelas. 3. 3 (Op. Const. 523–524). Counsels him to take warning by what has happened to Eusebius (of Nicomedia) and Theognis, i.e. banishment, and get rid of such evil influence, if any, as they may have had on him.
26. (325.) Letter of Constantine to Macarius. In Euseb. V. C. 3. 30–32; Theodoret, 1. 16. Directs the erection of a peculiarly magnificent church at the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.
27. (330.) Letter of Constantine to the Numidian Bishops. In Optat. Mon. vet. p. 295 (Op. Const. 531–532). Concerns a church taken possession of by schismatists.
28. (332.) Letter of Canstantine to the Antiochians. In Euseb. V. C. 3. 60 (Op. Const. 533-). Exhorts them not to persist in their effort to call Eusebius from Caesarea to Antioch. 
29. (332 a.d.) Letter of Constantine to the Synod of Tyre deprecating the removal of Eusebius from Caesarea. In Euseb. V. C. 362; Theodoret, 1. 27 (Op. Const. 543–546).
30. (332.) Second Letter of Constantine to Eusebius. In Euseb. V. C. 3. 61 (Op. Const. 537–540). Commends Eusebius for having declined the call to Antioch.
31. (332.) Second Letter of Constantine to Macarius and the rest of the Bishops in Palestine (to Eusebius). In Euseb. V. C. 3. 52–53 (Op. Const. 539–544). Directs the suppression of idolatrous worship at Mamre.
32. (332.?) Edict against the heretics. In Euseb. V. C. 3. 64–5. Against Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Paulians, Cataphrygians who are forbidden to assemble and whose houses of worship are to be given to the Catholic party.
33. (333.) Letter of Constantine to Sapor, King of the Persians. In Euseb. 4. 9–13; Theodoret, 1. 24 (Op. Const. 545–552). Is mainly a confession of faith commending the Persian Christians to the special care of their king.
34. (333.) Letters of Constantine to Antonius, the monk, and of Antonius to him are mentioned in Athanasius, 1. 855 (Op. Const. 551–552). Constantine and his sons write as to a father. Antony grudgingly replies with some good advice for them to remember the day of judgment, regard Christ as the only emperor, and have a care for justice and the poor.
35. (333.) Letter of Constantine to Eusebius in praise of his discourse concerning Easter. Eusebius, V. C. 4. 35 (Op. Const. 551–554) praises the discourse and asks for more.
36. (333.) Letter of Constantine to Eusebius on the preparation of the copies of the Scriptures. In Euseb. V. C. 4. 36; Theod. 1. 15; Socr. 1. 9 (Op. Const. 553–554). Orders fifty copies with directions as to style.
37. (335.) Fragment of the first letter of Constantine to Athanasius. In Athan. Apol.; Socr. 1. 27 (Op. Const. 553–556; Tr. Engl. in Athan. Hist. Tracts, Oxf. 1843, p. 89). The letter summoning to the Council of Tyre, but only a half-dozen lines remain. This bids him admit all who wish to enter the church.
38. (335.) Letter of Constantine to the people of the Alexandrian Church. In Athan. Apol. c. Ar. c. 61 (Op. Const. 559–562; abstract in Soz. 2. 31; Tr. Engl. in Athan. Hist. Tracts, Oxf. 1850, p. 90–92). Is a general lamentation over the dissensions of the Church, with expression of confidence in Athanasius.
39. (335.) Second Letter of Constantine to Athanasius. Athan. Apol. (Op. Const. 555–558). Expresses his reprobation of the false accusations of the Meletians against Athanasius.
40. (335.) Letter of Constantine to Joannes the Meletian. Athan. Apol. (Op. Const. 557–560). Congratulates on his reconciliation with Athanasius.
41. (335.) Letter of Constantine to Arius. In Socr. 1. 25 (Op. Const. 561–562). Invites Arius to visit him— the famous visit where he presented a confession of faith claimed to be in conformity with that of Nicaea.
42. (335.) A Letter to Dalmatius is mentioned by Athanasius, Apol. 5.13, but not preserved (Op. Const. 563–564;Tr. Engl. in Athan. Hist. Tracts, Oxf. 1850, p. 94). It required him to make judicial enquiry respecting the charge against Athanasius of the murder of Arsenius.
43. (335.) Celebrated Letter of Constantine concerning the Synod of Tyre. In Euseb. V. C. 3. 42 (Op. Const. 561–564). Exhorts the bishops to give zeal to fulfilling the purpose of the synod in the restitution of peace to the Church.
44. (335.) Letter to the Bishops assembled at Tyre. In Socr. H. E. 1. 34, and in Soz. H. E. 2. 28. Summons them to come to him at Constantinople and give account of their proceedings.
Besides these there are the clearly spurious:
1. Letter of Helena to Constantine (Op. Const. 529–530).
2. Letter of Constantine in response to Helena (Op. Const. 529–532).
3. Treaty of peace between Constantine, Sylvester and Tiridates (Op. Const. 579–582). On Tiridates compare various sources in Langlois Col. des historiens de …l’Armènie, and for literature respecting their authenticity, his note on p. 103.
4. Edict of Constantine to Pope Silvester (Op. Const. 567–578). The famous Donation which first appeared in Pseudo-Isidore, and for which see under The Mythical Constantine, p. 442–3.
There are also quite a large number of letters mentioned with more or less description, and a “multitude of letters” (V. C. 3. 24) of which there is no specific knowledge. Of the former may be mentioned that to the inhabitants of Heliopolis, one to Valerius (or Valerianus or Verinus) (Augustine, Ad Donat. p.c. c. 33); one to the Council of Tyre, asking them to hasten to Jerusalem (V. C. 4. 43; Soz. 2. 26); and one acknowledging the copies of the Scriptures prepared at his order, through Eusebius (V. C. 4. 37).

§4. Laws.
The numerous laws are collected in the edition of Migne (Patrol. Lat. 8. p. 93–400), mainly from the Theodosian code. They are in the opinion of Eutropius (10. 8) “many,” “some good and equitable, but most of them superfluous, and some severe” (cf. under Character). Many of them show the author’s tendency to declamation, but taken all in all they are businesslike and do credit, in the main, to their author’s heart, and even, though less conspicuously, to his head. For more specific account, compare the laws themselves as collected in Migne, the relating passages in Wordsworth and Ceillier, standard and annotated editions of the codes, and special treatises, such as Balduin, De leg. eccl. et civ. 1737.

§5. Various.
Besides the more formal works mentioned above, various conversations, sayings, bon mots, prayers, &c., are preserved, among which may be mentioned:
1. Memoirs of himself, of which no portion is extant. Writings of Constantine are mentioned by Lydus (p. 194, 226), but whether the writings referred to deserve the title given by Burckhardt it is hard to say.
2. A form of prayer given by Constantine to his soldiers (V. C. 4. 20).
3. His address when the memorials of contendents, at Council of Nicaea, were brought to him (Soz. 1. 17).
4. The conversation with Acesius, for which Socrates vouches, closing, “O Acesius, set up a ladder, and do you alone climb up to heaven.”
5. His rebuke to the courtier concerning covetousness (V. C. 4. 30).
6. His answer when told his statues had been stoned, “Strange, but I feel no wound” (“ Chrysost. Ad Pop. Ant.”).
7. His appeal to the bishops, requesting them to confer upon him the rite of baptism (V. C. 4. 62).
8. His Thanksgiving after baptism and testimony (V. C. 4. 63).
In general, his writings were composed in Latin, and translated into Greek by those appointed for this special purpose (V. C. 4. 32). His general style is rhetorical, rather profuse, and declamatory, abounding in pious allusion and exhortation, as well as philosophical quotation and reflection. His works are interesting to study and not without a touch here and there of genuine literary interest. A remark on friendship, for example, unless it be a product of his habit of borrowing the thoughts of other men more or less directly, is delightful and most quotable. “For it often happens,” he says, “that when a reconciliation is effected by the removal of the causes of enmity, friendship becomes even sweeter than it was before” (Const. to Alex. and At. in V. C. 2. 71). 
Chapter IV.—The Mythical Constantine.
The many legends which have attached themselves to the name of Constantine are valuable chiefly as curiosities, and can be treated here only in specimens. A few of the more interesting and important are the following:
1. Constantine and his Mother Helena.
A little anonymous work of some thirty pages, edited by Heydenreich from a fourteenth-century manuscript, was published under this title in 1879, and has drawn forth an astonishing amount of literature for so slight a thing. It has little value except as an illustration of mediaeval romance, though Coen seems to think the honor of having introduced it into literature enough to warrant the expenditure of a good deal of pains in vindicating his claim to it. The story is written with tolerable art, and runs, abbreviated, something as follows:
Helena, daughter of a noble family of Trèves, came on a pious journey to Rome. The Emperor Constantius, crossing a bridge of the Tiber, saw Helena among other pilgrims. Struck with her beauty, he arranged that she should be detained by force at the inn where she stayed, when her fellow-pilgrims returned to Gaul. The emperor then constrained her by force, but, seeing the great grief which his act had caused, gave her a certain ornament of precious stones and his ring, as a sort of pledge, and went away. She did not venture to return to her country, but remained at Rome with the son who was born to her, representing that her Gallic husband was dead. This son, Constantine, grew up pleasing, handsome, and versatile. Certain merchants, seeing his excellent quality, formed a scheme of making money by palming him off on the emperor of the Greeks as a son-in-law, representing him to be a son of the Roman emperor.
The scheme was carried out, and the merchants after some time embarked again for Rome, with the Constantine and the princess, and much treasure. Toward the end of their journey they stopped over night at a little island. In the morning the young people awoke to find they had been deserted by the merchants, and Constantine in great grief confessed the deception which had been practiced. To this the princess replied that she cared little who he was or his family, since he was himself and her husband. After a few days of short rations they were taken by passing voyagers to Rome, where they joined Helena, and having purchased a house with the proceeds from the sale of certain valuables which the princess had kept with her, they went to hotel-keeping. Constantine took naturally to military life, and at tournaments surpassed everyone else so far as to arouse astonishment and inquiry. The emperor would not believe him a poor and friendless man, and had his mother called. After much vigorous evasion the truth came out, confirmed by the ring which the emperor had given Helena. Constantius first had the merchants put to death, and gave all their property to Constantine. Then a treaty was made with the emperor of the East, and Constantine was recognized as heir to the empire.
A more wildly unhistorical historical novel could hardly have been written even by a Muhlbach. For further account, see under Literature especially articles by Heydenreich and by Coen.
2. Constantine the Son of a British Princess.
Duke Coel of Colchester, say the old chronicles, by an insurrection became king. The Senate, rejoiced at the overthrow of an enemy, sent Constantius to Britain. Coel, fearing, sent ambassadors to meet him, gave hostages, and shortly died. Constantius was crowned, married Helena, daughter of Coel, the most beautiful, cultivated, and educated woman of her time. By her he had a son, Constantine, afterwards called the Great. This is in substance the account of Geoffrey of Monmouth (5.6) and Pierre de Langloft (1, p. 66–7). The story is mentioned by Henry of Huntington (Bk. I. 37), who perhaps wrote before Geoffrey (in 1137 [?]), and Richard of Cirencester (2. 1. 33). Waurin (Vol. I. Bk. 2. 43) makes “Choel” Count of Leicester, but in general is identical with Geoffrey. The famous Brut of Layamon (ed. Madden, 2 [1847] p. 35) is translated with amplifications from Wace’s Brut, and this in turn from Geoffrey. This makes Coel Earl of Gloucester. The Eulogium Hist. calls Helena (1. 337) daughter of a British king, but also concubine, though elsewhere (2, p. 267) she is wife according to the conventional story. It is also mentioned by many others; e.g. Voragine, Golden Legend. It is interesting that this legendary father of Helena is supposed (Hayden, Index to Eulogium, p. 45, and Giles, note on Geoffrey, p. 162) to be the same as “Old King Cole, the merry old soul,” making Constantine thus the grandson of the Mother Goose hero.
3. Constantine’s Leprosy; Healing and Baptism by Silvester.
This tale is one of the most frequently found. The earliest account is said to be that of the Acts of Silvester. Some of the many who repeat it are Ephraem, Cedrenus, Zonaras. The following account is mainly froth Glycas, p. 461–462.
When Constantine was fighting against Maxentius, after he had seen the sign of the cross, he was victorious. Then, forgetting, he was conquered, and grieving, he fell asleep and had a vision in which the blow of a switch on his nostrils brought blood which flowed down on his linen tunic. in the form of a cross. Seeing this, he was filled with penitence, and became again victorious. Being led away a second time into idolatry through his wife Fausta, he was divinely afflicted with leprosy. The priests prescribed a bath in the blood of infants, and it was ordered; but when he heard the lamentations of the mothers, he said it was better to suffer than that so many infants should perish. Therefore the apostles, Peter and Paul as some say, appeared to him and told him Silvester would cure him, as he did. There are many varieties of the story and various details as to baptism, but in general the whole series of stories regarding his baptism at Rome centers in this story, and gratitude for this cure is the supposed occasion of the famous donation of Constantine. In this the circumstances of the miracle are given at length,—the words of the apostles, Silvester’s identification of them as apostles by portraits, the immersion, and subsequent instruction.
4. Donation of Constantine.
This most remarkable of forgeries for its practical effect on world-history has been the subject of endless discussion. It is, in brief, a supposed grant to the Pope of Rome, Silvester, of certain sweeping privileges in recognition of the miracle he has wrought. The edict gives a long confession of faith followed by an account of the miracle and mention of the churches he has built. Then follow the grants to Silvester, sovereign Pontiff and Pope of Rome, and all his successors until the end of the world,—the Lateran palace, the diadem, phryginus, the purple mantle and scarlet robe, imperial scepters, insignia, banners and the whole imperial paraphernalia, as well as various clerical privileges and pretty much the whole world to govern. It is impossible here even to represent in outline the history of this extraordinary fiction. Composed not earlier than the latter part of the eighth century (Martens et alt. 9 cent.; Grauert, 840–850; Hauck, Bonneau, 752–757; Langen, 778, &c.; Friedrich acc. to Seeberg, divides into an earlier [653] and a later [753] portion), it early came to be general, though not unquestioned, authority. In 1229–1230 a couple of unfortunates who ventured to doubt its authenticity were burned alive at Strasburg (Documents communicated by Ristelhuber to Bonneau p. 57–58). Not many years after, Dante seems (Inf. 19. 115) to have taken its authenticity for granted; and although there is a possible doubting (De Monarch. 4. 10), he does not venture to dispute this. He denies, however, Constantine’s power or right to give, if he did give. In modern times the fictitious character of the document is recognized by Protestants and Catholics alike, and the discussion, so vigorous for- merly, over this authenticity has narrowed itself chiefly to a discussion of the place (France or Rome) and date (653–753, ninth century) and possible author. The discussion over these points has been lately renewed and is being carried on with animation. Among the later monographs are those of Martens (1889) and Friedrich (1889, not at hand). The latest treatise at hand is that of Seeberg in the Theol. Literaturbl. of Jan. 17. 24. 31 of the current year. For farther select literature, compare Verzeichniss in Martens; for sources, the chapters of Martens and Preface of Bonneau; for older literature, Muensch. p. 96–97, and in general the Literature of Constantine, in this volume, although no attempt has been made to exhaust the literature of this sub-topic there. Treatises on the Donation will be found under the names of Albani, Altus, Arrhenius, Bachmann, Bayet, Bonneau, Brunner, Chaulnes, Colombier, Cusa, Friedrich, Genelin, Grauert, Hauck, Hildebrand, Jacobatius, Kaufman, Krüger, Martens, Muench, Rallaye, Scheffer-Boichorst, Seeberg, Steuchus, Tacut, Valla, Walther, Wieland, Zeumer.
5. Dream concerning the Founding of Constantinople.
“As Constantine was sleeping in this city [Byzantium], he imagined that there stood before him an old woman whose forehead was furrowed with age; but that presently, clad in an imperial robe, she became transformed into a beautiful girl, and so fascinated his eyes by the elegance of her youthful charms that he could not refrain from kissing her; that Helena, his mother, being present, then said, ‘She shall be yours forever; nor shall she die till the end of time.’ The solution of this dream, when he awoke, the emperor extorted from heaven, by fasting and alms-giving. And behold, within eight days, being cast again into a deep sleep, he thought he saw Pope Silvester, who died some little time before, regarding his convert with complacency, and saying, ‘You have acted with your customary prudence in waiting for a solution from God of that enigma which was beyond the comprehension of man. The old woman you saw is this city, worn down by age, whose time-struck walls, menacing approaching ruin, require a restorer. But you, renewing its walls, and its affluence, shall signalize it also with your name; and here shall the imperial progeny reign forever’” (William of Malmesbury, Chronicle., tr. English. Lond. 1847, p. 372–3. The final section, which instructs Constantine how to lay out the city, is omitted). This is taken by the Chronicler from Aldhelm’s (d. 709) de laudibus virginitatis (c. 52, ed. Giles, 1844, p. 28–29), where, however, instead of kissing her, he much more appropriately “clothes her with his mantle, and puts his diadem adorned with pure gold and brilliant gems on her head.” It is given also by Ralph de Diceto (ed. Stubbs, Lond. 1876), 74–75, and probably by many others.
6. Voyage of Helena.
A matter-of-fact account of things which are not so, given in Hakluyt’s Voyages, 2 (1810),p. 34, is worth giving in the words of the translator:
“Helena Flavia Augusta, the heire and onely daughter of Coelus, sometime the most excellent king of Britaine, by reason of her singular beautie, faith, religion, goodnesse, and godly Maiestie (according to the testimonie of Eusebius) was famous in all the world. Amongst all the women of her time there was none either in the liberall arts more learned, or in the instruments of musike more skilfull, or in the divers languages of nations more abundant than herselfe. She had a naturall quicknesse of wit, eloquence of speech, and a most notable grace in all her behaviour. She was seene in the Hebrew, Greeke, and Latin tongues. Her father (as Virumnius reporteth) had no other childe, …had by her a sonne called Constantine the great, while hee remained in Britaine …peace was granted to the Christian churches by her good meanes. After the light and knowledge of the Gospel, she grew so skilfull in divinity that she wrote and composed divers bookes and certaine Greeke verses also, which (as Ponticus reporteth) are yet extant …went to Jerusalem …lived to the age of fourscore years, and then died at Rome the fifteenth day of August, in the yeere of oure redemption 337 …Her body is to this day very carefully preserved at Venice.”
7. The Finding of the Cross.
It is said in a certain “tolerably authentic chronicle,” according to Voragine, that Constantine sent his mother Helena to Jerusalem to try to find the cross on which our Lord was crucified. When she arrived, she bade all the Jewish Rabbis of the whole land gather to meet her. Great was their fear. They suspected that she sought the wood of the cross, a secret which they had promised not to reveal even under torture, because it would mean the end of Jewish supremacy. When they met her, sure enough, she asked for the place of the crucifixion. When they would not tell, she ordered them all to be burned. Frightened, they delivered up Judas, their leader and instigator, saying that he could tell. She gave him his choice of telling or dying by starvation. At first he was obstinate, but six days of total abstinence from food brought him to terms, and on the seventh he promised. He was conducted to the place indicated, and in response to prayer. there was a sort of earthquake, and a perfume filled the air which converted Judas. There was a temple of Venus on the spot. This the queen had destroyed. Then Judas set to digging vigorously, and at the depth of twenty feet, found three crosses, which he brought to Helena. The true cross was tested by its causing a man to rise from the dead, or according to others, by healing a woman, or according to others, by finding the inscription of Pilate. After an exceedingly vigorous conversation between the devil and Judas, the latter was baptized and became Bishop Cyriacus. Then Helena set him hunting for the nails of the cross. He found them shining like gold and brought them to the queen, who departed, taking them and a portion of the wood of the cross. She brought the nails to Constantine, who put them on his bridle and helmet, or according to another account, two were used in this way, and one was thrown into the Adriatic Sea.
It is interesting to trace the melancholy consequences of this particular enterprise of Constantine’s in the sad death of St. Cyriacus née Judas. The Emperor Julian, the apostate, “invited” him to sacrifice to idols. When he refused, melted lead was poured into his mouth; then an iron bedstead was brought, on which he was stretched, while a fire was built underneath and the body of the martyr larded with salt and fat. The saint did not budge, and Julian had a deep well dug, which was filled with venomous serpents. But contact with the saint killed the serpents, and a cauldron of boiling oil succeeded. Julian was so angry at the alacrity and cheerfulness of the saint’s preparations for this bath, that he killed him with a blow of his sword. There is some consolation in the thought of this premature death, in the fact that, unless his claim that he was nephew to Stephen, the Proto-martyr, be disallowed, he had reached a ripe old age of two hundred and fifty years or thereabouts.
The literature on this legend is very great. The finding of the cross is mentioned as early as Cyril of Jerusalem (ab. 347–350), within twenty-five years of the visit of Helena recorded by Eusebius (V. C. 3. 26), and with great frequency afterwards. The failure of any mention by Eusebius seems, however, conclusive against any finding, or pretended finding, at the time of Helena’s famous visit, though the contrary is acutely argued by Newman. The finding and use of the nails is often separated from the other, and is found in many of the sources on Constantine. But even those who believe in the miracle of the finding of the cross will hardly vouch for the story in the above form, which is substantially that of Voragine.
Compare Sinker’s article, Cross, Finding of, in Smith and Cheetham, Dict. 1 (1880), 503–506; Jameson, Hist. of Our Lord, 2 (1872) 385–391; Newman, Essays an Miracles (Loond. 1875) 287–326; and especially Voragine, whom see under Sources. Under the article Helena, in Smith & W. is a sub-article by Argles on the Invention of the Cross, which gives an admirable abstract of the sources in order.
These examples of the Stories which have gathered around the name of Constantine do not begin to exhaust the list. The interesting tales of the sword of Constantine presented to Athelstan (Reg. Malms. 1, 1879, p. 55, 468; Eul. Hist. 3, 1863, P. 12), his conversion through remorse, and the whole series of allusions and stories in mediaeval fiction and poetry must be passed here. If any one has the curiosity to follow them up, he will find the references in the articles of Heydenreich a good guide to literature. A few stories, like that of Constantine and Tiridates, one hesitates to class among the wholly fictitious (compare, under Sources, Agathangelos, Zenobius, and Faustus).
Chapter V.—Sources and Literature.

§1. Introduction.
The insertion in such a work as this of what seems almost technical in its character has this twofold purpose: first, to give a glimpse of the grounds of our knowledge of Constantine, with a view of how far and in what directions it has been worked out through literature; second, to serve the expressed purpose of this series, of encouraging farther study in its lines. The very knowledge of what the sources are, and their character, apart from any special study of them, gives a width of horizon and definiteness of conception to the general student, which can hardly be gotten in any other way; while for any one who plans farther study in any line, it is of first importance to find the what and where of his material.

§2. Sources.
Remembering the class of students for which the series is chiefly intended, effort has been made to refer to translations of sources where they are at hand, and to refer to the best accessible English authorities on them. But the plan has been to refer to the source itself in the edition actually used, and for literature on them to choose the best for ready reference. Both editions and authorities on sources are therefore selections, usually from many, of such as seem most directly useful. The intention has been to guide to all frequently mentioned sources, whether they were of great value or not, since a useless one costs often quite as much trouble to hunt up and find useless, as a good one to use. It is hardly to be hoped that all the sources often referred to have been gathered, but the following list represents pretty much all that are worth mentioning, and some which are not.
1. Inscriptions, coins, medals, &c.
In some sense these are the most reliable of sources, in spite of counterfeits. A large number will be found collected in Clinton. For farther critical study, compare the collections, great and small; for which, with the matter of inscriptions in general, see Hicks, E. L., and Hubner, E., in the Encyclopedia Britannica, 13 (1881) 121–133; and Babington, in Smith and Cheetham, 1 (1880) 841–862. Monographs on those relating to Constantine will be found under the names, Cavedoni, Cigola, Eltz, Freherus, Garucci, Harduin, Penon, Revellot, Valois, Westphalen, Werveke, in the Literature of this volume.
2. Laws.
These, with their dates, their official nature, their fullness and variety, are primary, and are the only sources recognized by some. They are embodied in the Theodosian and Justinian Codes, and collected from these are edited in Migne, Patrol. Latina, Vol. 8. See under Writings of Constantine, above.
3. Other Writings by Constantine. See under Writings, above, p. 436. With this might perhaps be included also writings to Constantine, like that of Anulinus in Augustinus, Ep. 88.
4. General Literary Sources.
Taking in general chronological order, without attempting the impossibility of fixing the exact chronological place, the first group of contemporary sources is that of the Panegyrists (for collected editions, see Engelmann). It was a serious mistake, now recognized, to pass them by as worthless. Like all authentic documents, they have a minimum residuum of undoubted material, which is larger or smaller according to the critical acumen of the investigator. In the case of these, however inflated or eulogistic they may be, the circumstances under which they were spoken give a considerable value.
(I) Incerti auctoris Panegyricus Maximiano et Constantino dictus (Paneg.307). In Migne, Patrol. Lat. 8 (1844), 609–620. Pronounced at celebration of marriage of Constantine and Fausta, a.d. 307. Besides having the great value of being contemporary evidence, the author shows a certain ingenuity in enlarging on the virtues of the young Constantine, who had few deeds to show, and on the deeds of Maximian, who had few virtues, and has therefore a certain discernible modicum of truth.
Compare the Monitumin Migne, Ramsay’s article on Drepanius, in Smith, Dict. 1073–4, and references under Eumenius.
(2) Eumenius (310–311). (a) Panegyric (Panegyricus Constantino Augusto). In Migne, Patrol. Lat. 8 ((1884), 619–640. (b) Thanksgiving Oration (Gratiarum Actio Constantino Augusto). In Migne, Patrol. Lat. 8 (1844), 641–654. Eumenius flourished during the reigns of Constantius, with whom he was in high favor, and Constantine. He was head of the school at Autun. The Panegyric was delivered at Treves, in 310. The authorship of Eumenius has been unwarrantably questioned, on the ground that the flattery and exaggeration of the work are not consistent with his taste and sense; but it would seem that both his exaggeration and his taste have been themselves exaggerated. His praise is hardly more “outrageous” than panegyrics were wont to be,—or are, for that matter; and so far from being “worthless,” there is a peculiar deal of interesting, unquestionable, and primary historical evidence. Still, his taste and veracity are not much above that of modern eulogists of living or dead emperors and politicians. The Gratiarum Actio is the official oration of thanks to Constantine in behalf of the citizens of Autun, on account of favors shown them. It was pronounced at Treves in 311.
Compare Ramsay, in Smith, Dict. 2 (1859), 92; the Prooemium, in ed. Migne, 619–622; also for editions, Ramsay, article Drepanius, in Smith, Dict. 1. 1073–4; and for literature, Chevalier. For general account of the Panegyrists, see this article on Drepanius.
(3) Incerti Panegyricus Constantino Augusto(Paneg. 313). In Migne, Patrol. Lat. 8 (1844), 653-This is usually ascribed to Nazarius, on the ground of style. It was spoken at Treves in 313, and relates mainly to the war with Maxentius. Various details relating to this are of such nature and form as to suggest again that the author is the same as that of the 321 Paneg.,—Nazarius.
Compare Ramsay, in Smith, Dict. 2 (1859), 1145; the Prooemium in ed. Migne, &c., and literature as under Eumenius, above.
(4) Nazarius. (321) Panegyric (Panegyricus Constantino Augusto dictus). In ed. Migne, Patrol. Lat. 8 (1844), 581–608. Nazarius is mentioned by Jerome as a distinguished rhetorician. This oration was delivered at Rome in 321. Constantine was not present. It is superlatively eulogistic, but like the related panegyrics contains many historical facts of greatest value.
Compare Ramsay, in Smith, Dict. 2 (1859), 1145, the Monitum, in Migne, and references under Menius.
In the midst of the period which these cover comes one of the two great Christian sources, and he is followed by a considerable row of great and small Christians during the century.
(5) Lactantius (ab. 313–314). On the Deaths of the Persecutors (De M. P.). Ed. Fritsche (Lips. 248–286; ed. Migne, Patrol. Lat. 7 (Par. 1844), 157–276; tr. in T. & T. Clark Library, 22 (Edinb. 1871), 164–211, and in Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo and N.Y.), 300–326 [Lord Hailes translation]. There are many editions in collected works, and about a dozen separate, and many translations,—in all a hundred or more editions and translations. There has been much controversy regarding the author of this work, but there is little doubt that it was Lactantius. Ebert (Gesch. chr. Lat. Lit. 1. 83) claims to have demonstrated the fact, and most of the later writers agree. The work was composed after the edict of Constantine and Licinius, and before the break between the two, i.e. 313–314. It was written thus in the midst of things, and has the peculiar historical value of a contemporary document, unprejudiced by later events. It is a sort of psalm of triumph, colored by the passionate rejoicing of one persecuted over the Divine vengeance which has come upon the persecutors. “In the use of the work the historian must employ great critical discernment” (Ebert, in Herzog, 8 [1881], 365). But granted all his prejudice, the facts he witnesses are of first value.
Compare Ffoulkes, in Smith and Wace, 3 (1882), 613–617; Teuffel, Hist. Rom. Lit. 2 (1873), 334; Ebert, in Herzog, Encyk. 8 (1881), 364–366, and Gesch. chr. Lat. Lit. 1 (1874), 83; and for farther literature, Bibliog, Synops. in Ante-Nicene Fathers Suppl. (1887), 77–81.
(6) Eusebius (ab. 260–340). I. Ecclesiastical History. 2. Constantine. 3. Chronicle.
For 1 and 3 compare Prolegomena of Dr. McGiffert at the beginning of this volume, and for 2, Special Prolegomena, p. 466.
(7) Optatian (fl. ab. 326). Panegyric, in Migne, Patrol. Lat. 19 (1846), 395–432; Letter to Constantine,do. 391–392. Optatian, Porfirius, or Porphyrius, as he is variously called, is dubiously Christian, composed this poem, or series of poems, while in exile, on the occasion of the Vicennalia of Constantine. It dates, therefore, from 325 or 326. It is a most extraordinary aggregation of acrostics, pattern poems, and every possible device of useless, mechanical variety of form, of little value, excepting as a sort of dime-museum exhibition of patience and ingenuity. It consists mainly in calling Constantine flattering names, but contains here and there an historical suggestion. It was accompanied by a letter to Constantine, and drew one from him, and a pardon as well (Hieronymus, Chron.).
Compare Wilson, article Porfirius, in Smith & W. 4 (1887), 440; article Porphyrius, in Smith, Dict. 3 (1859), 502; and for editions and literature, Engelmann.
(8) Athanasius (296–373). Apology against the Arians, and various works, ed. Migne, Patrol. Gr. 25–28 (I857), 4 v.; translated in part in Newman, Library of the Fathers, and in Schaff-Wace, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (announced). The works of Athanasius contain various letters of Constantine (see under Works) and much of primary historical value for the latter part of Constantine’s reign. So far as it goes, the matter is almost equal to official documents as source.
Compare Bright, in Smith & W. 1 (1877), 179–203; Schaff, Hist. of Church, 23 (1884), 884–893; and for extensive literature and editions, Chevalier and Graesse.
(9) Cyril of Jerusalem (ab. 315–386). Catechetical Lectures. In Migne, Patrol Gr. 33 (1857), especially 830. English translations in Newman, Library of Fathers, 2 (1838), one ref. p. 178. Letter to Constantine II. concerning the sign of the cross seen at Jerusalem, c 3. In Migne, Patrol. Gr. 33 (1857), 1165–1176, ref. on 1167–1168. Two or three references only to excavation of the cross and building of churches, &c., at Jerusalem. They take significance only in the fact that Cyril is so near the time (the letter was 351 [?], or not many years later), and delivered his lectures in the very church which Constantine had built (sect. 14, 22).
Compare Schaff, Hist. of Church, 3 (1884) 923–925; Venables, in Smith & W. 1 (1887), 760–763; and literature in Chevalier Schaff, &c.; also editions in Graesse, Hoffmann, &c.(10) Ambrosius of Milan (ab. 340–397). Oration on the Death of Theodosius. In Migne, Patrol. Lat. 16 (1866), portion relating to Constantine especially, 1462–1465. Relates chiefly to the Finding of the Cross.
Compare Davies, in Smith & W. 1 (1877), 91–99; also Chevalier, Engelmann, Schoenemann, &c.
(11) Hieronymus (Jerome) (331–420). Chronicle. In Migne, Patrol. Lat. 27 (1866). Part relating to Constantine, 493 (497)-500. A translation and continuation of the Chronicle of Eusebius, who ends with the death of Licinius. An indispensable but aggravating authority.
Compare Salmon, Eusebius, Chronicle of, in Smith & W. 2 (1880), 348–355.
(12) Augustinus (354–430). Ep. 43, ed. Migne, 33 (1865), 159-, §§4, 5, 20, &c. He gives account of the various Donatist hearings, and speaks of having read aloud from various original documents, including the petition to Constantine, the proconsular acts, the proceedings of the court at Rome, and the letters of Constantine. He speaks of the hearing at Milan. Ep. 88, ed. Migne, Patrol. Lat. 33 (1865), 302–309. This has the text of letter of Anulinus to Constantine and Constantine to Probianus. Eps. 76. 2; 93. 13–14, 16 (which contains account of decree of Constantine that property of obstinate Donatists should be confiscated); 105. 9, 10 (not translated); 141. 8–10 (not translated), in ed. Migne, and tr. English ed. Schaff, contain various matter on the Donatist acts of Constantine. Ad Donatistas post collationem, c. 33, §56; ed. Migne, 43 (1861), 687 (important for dates given). Contra litt. Petil. Bk. II. ch. 92, §205; ed. Migne, 45 (1861), 326. Tr. in Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 4 (1887), 580–581. Contr. Epist. Parmen. Bk. I. chs. 5–6, §10–11; ed. Migne, 43 (1841), 40–41. Augustine as a source is of primary value, because of the otherwise unknown sources which he uses and quotes.
Compare Schaff, Hist. of Church, 3 (1884), 988–1028; Maclear, in Smith & W. Dict. 1 (1887), 216–228. For literature see Schaff, Chevalier Engelmann, and for particular literature of the Donatist portions, Hartranft, in Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 4 (1887), 369–372; and for editions, see Schoenemann, Graesse, Brunet, Engelmann, Schaff, Hartranft, &c.
The equally numerous series of non-Christian writers is headed, in value at least, though not in time, by Constantine’s secretary.
(13) Eutropius (4th cent.). Abridgment of Roman History, Bk. 10. Multitudes of editions and translations; the ones used are: (Paris, 1539), 63–68; transl.by Watson, (Bohn, 1853), 527–535. Eutropius was secretary to Constantine, and afterwards the intimate of Julian. His testimony though brief, is of peculiar weight from his position for knowing and from a certain flavor of fairness. It was early remarked (Nicephorus Gregoras) that his praise of Constantine had peculiar force, coming from a heathen and friend of Julian. His dispraise, on the other hand, is conditioned by the fact that he applies it only to the period after Constantine began peculiarly to favor the Christians. He seems to be a cool, level-headed man of the world, unsympathetic with Constantine’s religion and, writing from this standpoint, presents a just, candid, reliable account of him.
Compare Ramsay, in Smith, Dict. 2 (1859), 126–127; Wagon, Notice, in his translation; also for multitudinous editions and translations, and relatively scanty though considerable literature, Chevalier, Engelmann, Graesse. (14) Scriptores Historiae Augustae (? 2–324). Ed. Jordan and Eyssenhardt, Berol. 1864, 2 v. Contains a few dedications to and mentions of Constantine, for which see Index.
Compare Teuffel, Hist. of Rom. Lit. tr. Wagner, 2 (Lond. 1873), 320–324.
(I5) Victor, Sextus Aurelius (fl. 350–400). Caesars. In ed. Schottius, Antv. Plantin, 1579, p. 97-I67. Section on Constantine chiefly, 157–162. Epitome, Antv. 1579. Section on Constantine, p. 49–52. These works, by different author, have been associated since the time of the above edition with the name of Victor. The former is by him, the latter probably by a slightly later Victor. They use the same sources with Zosimus, but supplement him (Wordsworth). Both are interesting and important, and in Manso’s judgment, final where they agree.
Compare Ramsay, in Smith, Dict. 3 (1859), 1256–1257; Thomas, article Aurelius, in Biog. Dict. (1886), 228; Manso, Leben Const. p. 215; and scanty references in Chevalier. For editions and farther literature, see Engelmann.
(16) Praxagoras Atheniensis (4th cent). In Photius, Cod. 62; Ed. Bekker, p. 20; ed. Müller, Fragm. 4 (1868), 2–3. Lived in reign of Constantine (Müller, p. 2). Although a heathen (Photius, Cod, 62), he lauds Constantine above all his predecessors. He wrote various works in the Ionic dialect, among, others a “history of the deeds of Constantine the Great, in two books,” composed at the age of twenty-two. The fragments or resumé are preserved by Photius, as above. Though brief (thee columns), it is a concise mass of testimony.
Compare Smith, Dict. 3. 517; also for literature, Chevalier; and for editions, the various editions of Photius in Graesse, Hofmann, Engelmann, &c.
(17) Calendarium Romanum Constantini Magni (350). In Petavius, Uranologium (1630), 112–119. Written after 337, and in or before 355, probably in 355. It is authority for the birthday of Constantine, Constantius, &c.
Compare Greswell, Origines Kalendariae Italicae, 4 (Oxf. 1854), 388–392.
(18) Julian the Apostate (331–363). Caesars, Orations an Constantius and Constantinus, et pass. Ed. Paris, 1630, p. 12–96, 422; Vol. 2, 1–54, passim. Compare also ed. Hertlein, Lips. 1875–76, 2 v. 8vo. Editions and translations are very numerous. (Compare arts. of Wordsworth and Graves; also Engelmann, Graesse, &c. The orations which are panegyrical were delivered (Wordsworth) 355 and 358, and the Caesars dates from shortly after his accession (in 361). The latter is a satire which has found literary favor, the substantial purpose of which is thought to be a suggestion that he (Julian) is much superior to all the great emperor; but which if one were to venture a guess at its real motive is quite as much a systematic effort to minimize by ridicule the landed Constantine. The laudatory words of Julian himself in his orations are quite overshadowed by the bitter sarcasms of the Caesars. As a matter of estimate of the value of this source, there is to be remembered the bitterness of Julian’s hostility to Christianity. What to Eusebius was a virtue would to Julian be a vice. In view of his prejudice, everything which he concedes is of primary weight, while his ill-natured gossip carries a presumption of slanderousness.
Compare Schaff, Hist. of Church, 2. 40–59; Wordsworth, in Smith & W. 3. 484–525; Graves, in Smith, Dict. 644–655. Compare for endless literature, Wordsworth, Chevalier, Engelmann, 1 (1880), 476–477.(19) Libanius, (314 or 316–391 +). Orations. Ed. Morellus, Par. 1606–1627. Contain a few allusions of more or less interest and historical value, for which, see ed. Morellus, Index volume 2, fol. Qqqvb.
Compare Schmitz, in Smith, Dict. 2 (1859), 774–776; and for editions and literature, Chevalier, Engelmann, &c.
(21) Ammianus Marcellinus (d. ab. 395). Histories. There are many editions, for which compare Engelmann, Graesse, and Wordsworth. Among editions are ed. Valesius (1636) and ed. Eyssenhardt, Berol. 1871. The work was a continuation of Tacitus, but the first thirteen books (including Constantine’s period) are best. He says (Bk. I5, ed. Valesius, 1636, p. 56–57) that Constantine investigated the Manichaeans and like sects through Musonius, and gives account of the bringing of his obelisk to Rome, perhaps by Constantine (Bk. 17, p. 92–93; compare Parker, Twelve Egypt. Obelisks in Rome, Oxf. 1879, p. 1), and makes other mention, for which see Index to ed. Eyssenhardt, p. 566.
Compare Wordsworth, in Smith & W. 1 (1879, 99–101, and for literature, Chevalier (scanty) and Engelmann, 2 (1882), 43–45 (Rich).
(22) Eunapius (Anti-Christian) (ab. 347–414). Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists; Aedesius. Ed. Boissonade (Amst. 1822), 19–46 passim. Eunapius was born at Sardis about 347, and died after 414 a.d. (cf. Müller, Fragm. 87). He was a teacher of rhetoric, and besides this work wrote a continuation of the history of Dexippus, extending from 270–404 a.d. Fragments of this are preserved, but none relating to Constantine. Photius (Cod. 77) says that he calumniated the Christians, especially Constantine. With the fragments in Müller, Fragm. 4 (1868), 11–56, is included also (14–15) a fragment from the Vita Aedes., relating to Sopater. The death of Sopater and the relation of Ablavius to it is given more fully in the Vita Aedes. with various suggestive allusions. Much of his history is supposed to be incorporated in Zosimus, and this gives importance to his name, weight to Zosimus, and light on the hostile position of Zosimus towards Constantine. 
Cf. Photius, Cod. 77; Müller, Fragm. 4 (1868), 7–9; Mozley, in Smith & W. 2 (1880),285–286; Schmitz, in Smith, Dict. 2 (1859), 93; also for further literature and editions, Chevalier and Engelmann.
(23) Bemarchius (4th cent.) was of Caesarea in Cappadocia; wrote the Acts of Constantine in ten books (Suidas, s.v. Bhmarcio"; cf. Zonaras, p. 386). No portion is preserved.Wrote under Constantius, on whom he is said (Libanius, Orat. ed. Reiske, p. 24) to have delivered a panegyric.Cf. Müller, Fragm. 4 (1868), 3; Smith, Dict. 1 (1859), 482, &c.
An early but as yet valueless group is that of Syriac and Armenian sources on the (apocryphal) treaty of Constantine with Tiridates
(24) Zenobius of Klag (ft. ab. 324). History, of Daron. French translation from Armenian in Langlois, Coll. Hist. Arm. 1 (1867), 353–355. Like the works of the other Armenian historians, the text of this writer has suffered more or less from corruption. He has two mentions (p. 344 and 351) of Constantine, the latter being an account of the treaty with Tiridates.
Compare introduction of Langlois, and literature in Chevalier.
(25) Agathangelus (ab. 330). History of the Reign of Tiridates and of the Preaching of St. Gregory the Illuminator, c. 125–127, §163–169; in Acta SS. Boll. Sept. VIII. 320-; also with French translation from Armenian in Langlois Coll. d hist. de l’Arm. p. 97-. The work extends for 226–330 a.d. The author was secretary to Tiridates, but the work as we have it is a redaction made, however, not long after, as it was used by Moses of Khorene. This was in turn later (seventh century?) retouched by some Greek hagiographer. This Greek form is extant in mss. at Florence and Paris (cf. editions above), and there is reason to suppose that the extant Armenian is a version from this Greek form. But with its additions of arrantly apocryphal matter, it is hard to tell what is what, and so all considerable mention of the relation of Constantine and Tiridates has been left out of the account of Constantine’s life. Yet we must hesitate to put it all down under the mythical; for Tiridates certainly had intercourse with the Romans, and the original form of this life was certainly by a competent hand, and the matter relating to Constantine is in part soberly historical enough.
For farther information, compare Davidson on Gregorius Illuminator, in Smith & W., Dict. 2. 737–739; Introduction, Langlois, p. 99–103.
(26) Faustus of Byzantium (320–392). Historical Library. French translation from the Armenian in Langlois Coll. d. hist. Arm. 1. 201–310. There are mentions of Constantine and Tiridates in Bk. 3, chaps. 10 and 21. The work is open to some suspicions of having been tampered with, but Langlois inclines to give it a fairly good character. If genuine, the mention of the treaty with Tiridates would nearly establish it as historical fact.
Compare Beauvois Nouv. biog. gén. 17 (1856), 203, and Introduction of Langlois; also, literature in Chevalier.
The writers of the following centuries are for the most part Christian, uncertain or religiously unknown, excepting the very pronounced non-Christian who heads the list.
(27) Zozimus (fl. ab. 400–450). History. Ed. Bekker (Bonn, 1837), 8vo. Section on Constantine occupying Bk. 2. 8-, p. 72–106. The date of this writer has been put as easy as the fourth century and as late as the end of the fifth. It will be safe to divide extremes. He is a heathen who, on the period of Constantine, draws from an anti-Christian and anti-Constantinian source, and who regards the introduction of Christianity as a chief cause of the decline of the Roman Empire (cf. various passages cited by Milligan). He is prejudiced against Christianity with the bitter prejudice of one who finds himself in a steadily narrowing minority, and he is occasionally credulous. But he wrote in a clear, interesting style, without intentional falsifications, and was quite as moderate as the Christian writer (Evagrius 3. 41) who calls Zosimus himself a “fiend of hell.” His extended account is therefore of great value among the sources, and especially as it is probably drawn in large measure from the earlier lost work of Eunapius.
Compare Milligan, in Smith & W. 4 (1887), 1225–1227: Mason, in Smith, Dict. 3 (1859), 1334–1335; also, for literature, Chevalier and Engelmann, and for editions, Engelmann.
Anonymus Valesianus (fifth century). Ed. Valesius (Paris, 1636), p. 471–476. This fragment, first published by Valesius in the above editions of Ammianus, is of the highest value for the life of Constantine. It is evidently drawn from various sources, many of which are now lost. The compiler or writer shows a judiciousness and soberness which commends his statements as peculiarly trustworthy.
Compare the exhaustive examination by Ohnesorge, Der Anonymus Valesii de Constantino. Kiel, 1885. 8vo.
(27) Stephen of Byzantium (ab. 400). Greek Cities. Venet. Aldus, 1502, fol. H. iii. s.v. Naisso". The work is a dictionary of geography, and the fact in these few lines is of first value.
Compare Smith, in Smith, Dict. 3 (1859), 904–906. Chevalier Hoffmann, etc.
(28) Sozomen (b. ab. 400). Ecclesiastical History. Ed. Hussey, English translation, London. Bohn, 1855; newly edited by Hartranft in Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2 (1890) [in press]. This history covers the period 323–423 (not 439). He draws largely from Eusebius. He has been described rightly (Dowling, Study of Eccl. Hist. p. 31) as relatively inaccurate, rhetorical and credulous. But he works from sources, though mainly from exact ones. For father discussion, compare Hartranft in volume 2 of this series.
Compare also Milligan, in Smith & W. 4 (1887), 722–723, and literature in Chevalier.
(29) Socrates (b. ab. 408). Ecclesiastical History. Ed. Hussey, reprinted with Introduction by Bright, Oxf. 1878. English translation London, Bohn, newly edited by Zenos in volume 2 of this series [in press]. This history covers the period 306–439. It is written with general good judgment, but for Constantine adds little to Eusebius of which it professes to be a continuation.
For farther description and discussion, compare Zenos, Milligan, in Smith & W. 4 (1887), 709–711, and literature in Chevalier.
(30) Theodoret (h. ab. 393?-457?). Ecclesiastical History. In Migne, Patrol. Gr. 82 (1859), 879–1280. English translation London, Bohn, 1854. The birth of Theodoret has been placed at various dates, 386, 387, 393, &c., and the exact time of his death (453–458) is equally uncertain. This work reaches from 324 to 429, and is generally regarded as learned and impartial. It gives much concerning Constantine’s relations to the Arian controversy and incorporates many documents, which appear to be taken mainly from Eusebius’ Life of Constantine. A chief value is, it would seem, for the text of Eusebius. But his very use of documents shows care and gives value.
Compare Venables, in Smith & W. 4 (1887), 904–919; Newman, Hist. Sketches, 2 (1876), 303–362; Schaff, Hist. of Church, 3 (1884), 881–882; and literature in Chevalier; also for editions, Graesse and Hoffmann.
(31) Orosius, Paulus (ab. 417). Histories, Bk. 7, chaps. 26–28. Ed. Migne Patrol. Lat. 31 (1846), 635–1174; section relating to Constantine occupies 1128–1137. For many editions and mss. compare Schoenemann, Bibl. Patr. Lat. 2 (1794), 481–507, and Engelmann, 2 (1882),441-. It is said (Manso) that Orosius adds nothing to existing material. This is only in part true. At all events, his value as corroboratory evidence is considerable, brief as the work is.
Compare Phillott, in Smith & W, 4 (1887), 157–158; Ebert, Gesch. d. chr. Lat. Lit. 1 (1874), 323–330, and literature in Chevalier and Engelmann.
(32) Prosper Aquitanus (403—463+). Chronicle. Ed. Migne, Patrol Lat. 51 (1861), 535–606 (8). Portion relating to Constantine, 574–576. The Chronicle extends to 444 or 455. To 326 he depends mainly on Eusebius’ Chronicle, and for the rest of our period on the continuation of Hieronymus.
Compare Phillott, in Smith & W. 3 (1882), 492–497; Teuffel, Hist. of Rom. Lit. 2 (Lond. 1873), 482–484; and for literature, editions, &c., Chevalier, Engelmann, &c.
(33) Idatius (468+). List Consuls (Fasti Idatiani). In Migne, Patrol. Lat. 51 (1861), 891–914; portion relating to Constantine, 907–908. Idatius lived until after 469. This work, which is net generally acknowledged to be his, although quoted under his name, ends in 468. It contains brief statements of some events under the most significant years.
Compare Ramsay, in Smith, Dict. 2 (1859), and literature under “Idace de Lamego,” in Chevalier.
(34) Gelasius of Cyzicus (ab. 450-). History of the Council of Nicaea. In Labbe, Concilia, 2 (1671), 103–286. There is also an abstract in Photius, Bibl. Cod. 88, ed. Migne, Patrol. Gr. 103 (1860), 293–296. Venables is probably just when he says: “His work is little more than a compilation from the ecclesiastical histories of Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, to which he has added little but what is very doubtful or manifestly untrue.” There is a little on Constantine not in those sources, but to try to fix on any of it as authoritative quite battles one. Still, it is not wholly clear that he did not use sources, as well as his own imagination, in adding to the other sources. It may be said to be “of doubtful value,” as source. It is not easy to see what Venables means in saying that the third hook, as we have it, gives only three letters of Constantine.This is true; but the second book, “as we have it,” gives several more.
Compare Venables, in Smith & W. 2 (1880), 621–623.
(35) Jacobus of Sarug (452–521). Homily on the Baptism of Constantine, Ed. Frothingham, Roma, 1882. For further information consult the extended study of Frothingham.
(25) Philostorgius (b. ab. 468). English translation by Walford (Lond. Bohn, 1855), 425–528. The original work covered the period between 300 and 425. The fragments preserved contain several interesting facts, or fictions, relating to Constantine, some not found elsewhere. Photius and all the orthodox have always called him untrustworthy or worse, and a very unorthodox critic (Gibbon) finds him passionate, prejudiced and ignorant; but it seems to be agreed that he used some sources not availed of by others.
Compare Milligan, in Smith & W. 4 (1587), 390; Dowling, Study of Eccl. Hist. p. 26–27; and literature in Chevalier.
(26) Hesychius Milesius (ab. 500?—). Origins of Constantinople. In Müller, Fragm. 4 (1868), 146–155; also in ed. Orelli (Lips. 1820). 59–73. Hesychius, surnamed Illustris, of Miletus lived in the early part of the sixth century. This work contains several allusions to the founding of the city of Constantine. It seems to have been taken almost word for word in parts by Codinus.
Compare Venables, in Smith & W. 3 (1882), 12–13; Means, in Smith, Dict. 2 (1859), 447–448; Müller, Fragm. 4 (1868), 143–145; also literature in Chevalier, and editions and literature in Engelmann. 
(27) Cassiodorus (ab. 468–561+). Tripartite History. In Opera, ed. Garetius, 1 (Rotom. 1679, fol.), b I-b 372. On Constantine, especially p. 207–243. (Same ed. in Migne, Patrol Lat. 69 [1865], 879–1214.) Cassiodorus was born about 468 and lived to be more than ninety-three years old. This work is an epitome of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, and has no additional value as source. A work on the Goths has been preserved to us only in an epitome by Jordanes. See Jordanes.
Compare Young, in Smith & W. 1 (1877), 416–418, or (better for this work) Ramsay, in Smith, 1 (1859), 623–625; and for literature and editions, Chevalier, Engelmann, Graesse, etc.
(28) Lydus, Joannes (Laurentius) (490–550+). De Mensibus; De Magistratibus; De Ostentis, passim. Ed. Bekker, in Corp. Hist. Byz. (1837). Other editions of the various works may be found noticed in Graesse, Trésor, 4 (1863), 122; Brunet, Manuel, 3 (1862), 880; Engelmann, Bibl. scr. class. I (1880), 478–479; Hoffmann, Lex. He was born at Philadelphia in 490, and lived some time after 550. He was a heathen, but respects toward Christianity (Photius, Cod. 180). He mentions Constantine ten or a dozen times; e.g. his foundation of Constantinople (De O. 21. 5), Constantine’s learning and military skill (De mag. 3. 53), and quotes (De magistr. 3. 33, ed. Bonn., p. 226), Constantine’s own writings.
Compare Photius, Cod. 180; Means, in Smith, Dict. 2 (1859), 600; Hase, Pref. and in ed. Bekker; Joubert, in Nouv. biog. gén. (Hoefer), 32 (1860), 388–391; and for farther literature, Chevalier and the article of Joubert, and Engelmann, Bibl. scr. class. 1 (1880), 479.
(29) Jordanes (or Jornandes) (-551?). History of the Goths, (De Getarum origine et rebus gestis). In Cassiodorus, Opera, ed. Garetius, 1 (Rotom. 1679), 397–425; same ed. in Migne, Patrol. Lat. 69 (1865), 1251–1296. This work on the Goths is said by its author to be an epitome of the work of Cassiodorus. It says (p. 406–407) that Constantine employed Goths in his campaign against Licinius, and also in the building of Constantinople. It was composed in 551 or 552 (cf. Wattenbach, Deutschland’s Geschichtsq. 1 [1877], 66).
Compare Hodgkin, in Encycl. Brit. 13 (1881), 747–749; Acland, in Smith & W. 3 (1882), 431–438 (exhaustive); and abundant literature in Chevalier, Engelmann, Wattenbach, &c.; also editions in Engelmann, “Potthast. Bibl. hist. med. aev. 1862, p. 102, &c.
(30) Anonymous, Qui Dionis Cassii Historias Continuavit (sixth century?). 14. Licinius (18 lines); 15. Constantinus (9 lines). In Müller, Fragm. 4 (1868), 199; of especially Introd. in Müller, p. 191–192. These were first published by Ang. Mai in Script. Vet. Nov. Call. 2, 135-, 527-, and are found also in various editions of Dion Cassius; e.g. ed. Sturz. 9 (Spz. 1843). Mai strongly inclines to suspect that Johannes Antiochenus is the author. but this Müller (p. 191) argues to be impossible. They are sometimes referred to as Excerpta Vaticana. Petrus Patricius and various others have been suggested as authors, but all that is affirmed with any assurance is that the author was a Christian. This is on the ground of Diocletianus, 1 (p. 198). The fragments are very brief, but contain several little facts and turns not found elsewhere.
(31) Evagrius (536?-594+). Ecclesiastical History, 3. 40–41. English translation (1709), 472–474. A violent invective against and disproval of the charges of Zosimus against Constantine and adds nothing to historical facts. Compare Milligan, in Smith & W. 2 (1880), 423–424.
(32) Procopius Caesariensis (fl. 547–565). Histories. Ed. Dindorf Bonn, 1833–1838 3 v. Two or three slight mentions, of which the nearest to any account is the division of the empire by Constantine, and the founding of Constantinople (De bel. Vand, 1. 1). He flourished from about 547 to 565. Whether he was Christian or heathen is uncertain. He is characterized by peculiar truthfulness (cf. his De aedif. 1; Praf. ed. Bonn, v. 3, 170-, and Milligan).
Compare Milligian in Smith & W. 4 (1887), 487–488; Plate, in Smith, Dict. 3, 538–540; also for literature, Chevalier and Engelmann, 1. 655; and for editions, Milligan, Plate, and the various bibliographies.
(33) Petrus Patricius (fl. 550–562). Fragments. In Müller, Fragm. 4 (1868), 189. Gives account of an embassy of Licinius to Constantine.
Compare Means, in Smith, Dict. 3 (1859), 226–227; also Chevalier and Hoffmann.
(34) Gregory of Tours (ab. 573–594). History of the Franks, 1. 34. Ed. Ruinart (Paris, 1699), 27, &c. (?) History of the Seven Sleepers, do. 1272–1273, &c. Liber miraculorum, do. 725–729. The edition of Ruinart is reprinted in Migne, Patrol. Lat. vol. 71 (1867). In the first of these he quotes as authorities, Eusebius and Junius; the latter are full of legendary matter.
Compare Buchanan, in Smith & W. 2 (1880), 771–776; also for editions and literature, Engelmann, Chevalier, and Graesse.
(35) Chronicon Paschale (ab. 630 a.d.) Ed. Dindorf, Bonn, 1832, 2 v.; section relating to Constantine occupies vol. 1, p. 516–533. Ed. Migne, Patrol. Gr. 92 (Paris, 1865). The work is a chronicle of the world from the creation until 630. It has been thought, but on insufficient grounds (cf. Salmon), that the first part ended with a.d. 354 and was written about that time. It is really a homogeneous work and written probably not long after 630 a.d. (Salmon). It is frequently quoted, unfortunately as Alexandrian Chronicle (e.g. M’Clintock and Strong Cycl.). The chief value is the chronological, but the author has used good sources and presumably some not now extant. It has something the value of a primary source of second rate. 
Compare Salmon, In Smith & W. I. (1877), 509–513; Clinton Fasti. Rom. 2 (1850), 169; Ideler, Handb. d. Chron. 2 (1826), 350–351, 462–463; and for literature and editions Salmon.
(36) Anonymous Acts of Metrophanes and Alexander (seventh century?), “in which is contorted also a life of the emperor Constantine the Great.” In Photius, Cod. 256; ed. Migne, Patrol Gr. 104 (1860), 105–120. A more complete recession of this anonymous piece was edited by Combefis, who regards it as the work of a contemporary, written therefore in the middle of the fourth century (cf. his Hist. Mon. p. 573, taste Fabricius). The authentic details can be traced word for word, according to Tillemont, in other historians, while impossible statements show it to be not the work of a contemporary. It seems to fall under the class of works where “What is true is not new, and what is new is not true,” but it can hardly be regarded as sufficiently determined whether or no it is worthless.
Compare Tillemont, Mém. 7 (1732), 657; Fabricius, Bibl. Gr. 9 (1737), 124 and 498; Acta. SS. Nov, I.
(37) Johannes Antiochenus (ft. 610–650). Chronological History. Fragments in Müller, 4 (1868), 535(8)-622; Fragm. 168–169, on Constantius and Galerius, and 170–171a, on Constantine, p. 602–603. This writer is to be distinguished from Johannes Malalas, also known as Johannes Antiochenus. He flourished somewhere between 610–650 (Müller, p. 536). The sections relating to Constantine are in the main exactly correspondent to Eutropius. It has been conjectured (Müller, p. 1538) that Eutropius and Johannes copied from a common Greek source; but the curious error in the section on Constantine (p. 603), by which “commodae” is converted into a proper name, and becomes the name of the sister whose son Constantine put to death, shows it to have been translated from the Latin. The work of Johannes has, however, some interesting suggestions and additions; e.g. its paraphrase of the word “dubius” in the characterization of Constantine’s conduct towards his friends.
Compare Müller, p. 535–538; Means, in Smith, Dict. 2 (1859), 587; also article of Stokes, and other literature under Malalas.
(38) Malalas (= John of Antioch) (ab. 700). Chronography, Bk. 13, 1–11. Ed. Dindorf (Bonnae, 1831); in Corp. scr. hist. Byz. (section on Constantine, p. 316–324); also in Migne, Patrol. Gr. 97 (Par. 1865), 1–70. Earlier editions are, Oxf. 1691, 80; Venice, 1733, fol. [reprint of 1691, “quite useless”]. Lived about 700 (Müller, Fragm. 4 [1868], 536), or about 650 (Chevalier, 1205). He has been placed as late as ninth century (Hody), and as early as 601 (Cave). Noting is known of his personal history. He is to be distinguished from the John of Antioch in Müller’s Fragm. who is earlier than Malalas. He is very credulous and inaccurate and the section on Constantine is no exception to the rule.
Compare Prolegomena of Hody and Dindorf; Stokes, in Smith & W. 3 (1882), 787–788, &c.; and farther literature in Chevalier, Rép. 1205; Hoefer, Nouv. biog. gén. 32 (1060), 1007, and the article of Stokes.
(39) Pseudo-Isidore (eighth cent.?). Decretals. In Migne, Patrol. Lat. 130 (1853), 245–252. The famous “Donation of Constantion,” which appears here for the first time. See under The Mythical Constantine.
Compare Schaff, Hist. of Church, 4 (1885), 268–733; and for literature, Chevailer under Isidore Mercator; also the literature of the Donation.
(40) Theophanes (758–818). Chronography. Ed. Classen, Bonn. 1839–41, 2 v. Section on Constantine occupying vol. 1, p. 10–51; also in Migne, Patrol. Gr. 108 (186). This work “is justly regarded as one of the most important in the what series of Byzantine historians” (Dowling, p. 69). Theophanes was friend of Georgius Syncellus; and at his request (Proem. p. 5) took up the latter work at the point where he left off (Diocletian), extending it to 811. He is an authority of judgment and wright for matters relating to his own times, and on quite a different level of historical character from Cedrenus and Zonaras. Although of very much less value for Constantine, he shows even here a certain historical judgment and discrimination. His book is an intelligent work from various sources, one of which is Eusebius He says that he has diligently examined many works, and reports nothing on his own authority, but on the authority of ancient historiographers and “logographers” (Proem. p. 5).
Compare Dowling Introd. (Lond. 1838), 69–70; Smith, in Smith, Dict. 3. 1082–1083; Gass, in Herzog, Real Enc. 15 (1885), 536–537; Acta sanctorum Boll. March 12; and for (extensive) literature, Chevalier.
(41) Anastasius Bibliothecarius (d. 879). Lives of the Roman Pontiffs. In Migne, Patrol. Lat. 127–128 (1852). 34. S. Silvester, vol. 127, 1511–1527. Small use.
Compare Schaff, Hist. of the Church, 4 (1885), 774–776; and for literature and editions, Chevalier and Graesse.
(42) Photius (ninth cent.). Bibliotheca. In Migne, Patrol. Gr. vols. 103–104 (1860). Contains excerpts from and comments on Praxagoras, Eunapius, Gelasius, Anon. Metroph., and Eusebius which see.
Compare Schaff, Hist. of Church, 4 (1885), 636–642; Means, in Smith, Dict. 3 (1859), 347–355.
(43) Constantinus Porphyrogenitus (c. VII.) (fl. 911–959). De thematibus. Ed. Bekker (Bonn. 1840), 1–64, in Corp. scr. hist. Byz.; and in ed. Migne, Patrol. Gr. 113 (1864), 63–140. Gives (2. 8, ed. Bonn. p. 57–58) account of division of the empire among his sons by Constantine. He also mentions in his De cer. aul. Byz. (ed. Reiske, Bonn. 1829; ed. Migne, Patrol. Gr. 112); e.g. the “cross of Constantine” several times mentioned, and gives a few facts of archaeological interest. Constantinus VII was emperor 911–959.
Compare Plate, in Smith, Dict.. I. 349–351; Ceillier, 12 (1862), 811–813 and for farther literature, Chevalier and Engelmann, I (1880), 249; also for editions, Plate, who has admirable survey.
(44) Leo Diaconus (tenth century). Histories, 5. 9 and 8. 8. In ed. Hase (Bonn. 1828), p. 91 and 138. Mentions the foundation of a city, the vision of the cross, the Scythian wars, and burial in the Church of the Apostles at Constantinople, and characterizes him as " among emperors the one renowned in story " (8. 8). For other editions, compare Brunet, Graesse, Hoffmann, and Engelmann. He lived from about 950 to at least 993. He was used by Scylitzes (cf. Cedrenus) and perhaps Zonaras. “Style vicious,” and “knowledge … of ancient history is slight” (Means).
Compare Means, in Smith, Dict. 2 (1859), 743–744; M’Clintock and Strong, Encycl. 5 (1875), 351; Hase, Praef.; and for literature, Chevalier.

It is by some stretching of the term that many of those dating before the year 1000 are admitted as sources. Some contribute hardly a single fact not in other sources. This is still more true of the period following, but this period is especially rich in sources of historical fictions—and these must be considered. So the Byzantine historians to the invention of printing are given, and some Western writings, which contain relevant matter.

(45) Zonaras, Johannes (1042–1130?). Chronicle. Ed. Migne, Patrol. Gr. 134–135 (Par. 1864). The section relating to Constantine occupies Vol. I. 1097–1118, Bk. 13, chs. 1–4; cf. also end of Bk. 12. The ed. Pinder, Bonn. 1841–1844, 2 v., is unfinished, containing only twelve books. It has since been edited by Dindorf, Lips. 1868–1875, 6 v. Bk. 13 is in Vol. 3 (1870). This work consists of eighteen books extending from the beginning of the world until 1118. Zonaras draws, for Christian period, from Eusebius, Philostorgius, &c., with some discernment, and so deserves a tolerably high place among the Byzantine historians (Zöckler). He incorporates a choice variety of fables, but gives more or less facts which seem to be facts. He actually adds almost nothing to the sources of Constantine, though there are certain facts over which one lingers a little before relegating to the great class of “interesting, if true.“
Compare Smith, Dict. 3. 1331; (Zöckler). in Herzog, Real Enc. 17 (1886), 555–556; and for (rich) literature,(Zöckler). Chevalier, and Engelmann, I (1880), 798.
(46) Cedrenus, Georgius (ate. 1057). Compendium of History. Ed. Bekker, Bonn. 1838–1839, 2 v., the section relating to Constantine occupying Vol. I, p. 472–520 et pass. Also in Migne, Patrol. Cr. 121–122 (Par. 1864). Nothing is known of his personal history. The work is a chronicle from the beginning of the world until 1057 a.d. He mentions as his chief sources Georgius Syncellus, “until the time of Maximianus and Maximinus,” and from this point Theophanes, Siculus, Psellus, and others (cf. p. 4; cf. also Glycas. Chron., ed. Bonn. p. 457), and claims to have collected facts not in these sources. He mentions the work of Joannes Thracesius, or Curopalates, who is probably Scylitzes, whose work corresponds so exactly with that of Cedrenus in parts as to suggest the one or the other a better copier than compiler. The statement of Ceillier is that Cedrenus copied the work of Scylitzes for the period 811–1057, and that Scylitzes afterwards continued his work to 1081; i.e. there was a double edition of the work of Scylitzes, and Cedrenus wrote between. But Means (p. 760) thinks otherwise, and gives good reasons, making one edition and placing Cedrenus’ work later, i.e. after 1081. The “additional facts” are few, the compilation is uncritical and credulous; but the work is recognized as a source to be consulted, though with greatest critical care.
Compare Plate, in Smith, Dict. I. 658; Ceillier, 13 (1863), 560; Means, Scylitecs, in Smith, Dict. 3. 759–762; and for literature, Chevalier, under the words Cedrene and Scylitzes.
(47) Pseudo-Leo. Chronography, under Constantius Chlorus and Constantinus Magnus. Ed. Bekker (Bonn. 1842), p. 83–90. In Corp. scr. hist. Byz. from Cramer, Anecd. gr. bibl. reg. Par. 2 (1839), 243–379. It is published as the first part of the Chronography of Leo Grammaticus, because assigned to him by the catalogues of the ms. at Paris. It is thought by Cramer, however, not to be by him, but to be “compiled from various writers, —Cedrenus, Joannes Antiochenus, Chronicon Paschali, and perhaps others which are lost” (cf. Cramer, Anecd. gr. 2. 243–379, quoted by Bekker, Praef. iii.-iv.). In this section the author quotes Socrates and Eusebius, but uses other and some unusual sources. While one hesitates to lay much weight on an author of such unknown age and personality, and which contains obvious errors, yet it carries the conviction of a certain moderate weight. Many passages are identical, almost word for word, with Cedrenus. In one of these passages the author refers to Socrates as his authority, while there is no such mention in Cedrenus. They may have taken from the same source. At all events, this work appears on its face much more like sober history than do Cedrenus and Zonaras. Its absolute value as source is very slight.
Compare Preface of Bekker.
(48) Attaliata, Michael (ab. 1072). History. Ed. De Presle and Bekker, Bonn. 1853. 8°. He mentions (p. 217, also p. 222) half a dozen things relating to Constantine; that he was reckoned among the apostles, the sign of the cross, &c., but nothing of value, unless (p. 222) the transposition of a colony from Iberia to Assyria (?).
Compare Praef. of De Presle, also Graves, in Smith, Dict. I. 409, who, however, does not mention this work; and for literature, Chevalier and De Presle, p. 7–8. 
(49) Anna Comnena. Alexias. Ed. Schopen-Reifferscheid, Bonn. 1839–1878.1148). Mentions among two or three other deeds, a statue which this “father and lord of the city” had made over for him (12. 4), and that he has been counted among the apostles (14. 8).
Compare Plate, in Smith, Dict. I. 179; Klippel, in Herzog, I (1877), 427–429, &c.
(50) Glycas, Mich (after 1118). Chronicle (or Annals). Ed. Bekker, Bonn. 1836; the section relating to Constantine occupies p. 460–468, ed. Migne, 158 (Par. 1866), 1–958. This work of Glycas extends from the beginning of the world to a.d. 1118. Though “justly placed among the better Byzantine historians” (Plate), for the period of Constantine he is one of the worst. His critical judgment seems to incline to the. selection of the most unhistoric. He gives at end of preceding section a description of the work of Scylitzes (cf. Cedrenus), and quotes in it a work of Alexander on the Invention of the Cross.
Compare Plate, in Smith, Dict. 2. 277; Joubert. in Nouv. biog. gén. (Hoefer), 20 (1857), 845–846; and for literature, Chevalier; also for editions, Hoffmann.
(51) Nicetas Choniatas (Acominatus) (1150–1216+). History. Ed. Bekker, in Corp. scr. hist. Byz. Bonn. 1835, 8°; ed. Migne, Patrol. Gr. 139 (1865), 282–1088 (= Mai, Bibl. nov. patr. 6. ?). Thesaurus, in Migne, Patrol. Gr. 139–140 (1865), 1087–1443, 1–282 (= Mai, Spicil. Rom. v. 4 ). Born about 1150, and lived until 1216 at least. Gives in his History two or three things which relate to “the first and mightiest among Christian emperors” (De Is. Aug. 3. 7, ed. Bonn. p. 583); e.g. the tale of the nails from the cross (do. p. 584), and the despoiling of his tomb (De Al. Is. Aug. I. 7, p. 632); also a few in the Thesauri, e.g. his conciliation to Arianism through his sister and her friend, the Arian presbyter (6. 3 and 6), and various matters relating to the Arian controversy (mainly in Bk. 5), where he uses the familiar sources,—Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, Philostorgius, &c, but also some other less familiar ones.
Compare Worman, in M’Clintock and Strong, Cyclop. 7 (1877), 54–55; Plate, in Smith, Dict. 2. 1182–1183Ullmann, in Stud. u. Krit. (1833), 674–700; Gass, in Herzog, 10 (1882), 540–541, and abridged in Schaff-Herz 2. 1652. Compare for literature, the above and Chevalier; and for editions, Worman, Plate, Brunet, Graesse. Hoffmann, &c.
(52) Gregoras, Nicephoras (1295—1359). Byzantine History, Bks. 1–37. Ed. Shopen (v. 1–2) and Bekker (v. 3), Bonn. 1829, 1830, and 1855. In Corp. scr. hist. Byz.; ed. Migne, Patrol. Lat. 148–149 (1865) Mentions incidentally half a dozen facts relating to foundation of Constantinople (10.1; 14. 3, &c.), his destruction of idolatry (19. I), treatment of the Jews (26. 15), and enlargement of empire (26. 37). He was born 1295, and died after 1359. Was more learned but less judicious than Cantacuzenus (Plate).
Compare Plate, in Smith, Dict. 2. 304–306; Joubert, in Nouv. biog. gén. 21 (1857), 889–891; also for literature, sure, Chevalier, and for editions, Plate and Joubert.
(53) Ephraemius (fourteenth century). Caesars (?). Constantinus. Ed. Bekker, Bonn. 1840, 8°; section on Constantine occupies p. 21–25; ed. Migne, 143 (Par. 1865), 1–380. It was first edited by Mai, Scr. cwr. noc. Boll. 3 (1828), 1–225 (Dowl.). This metrical chronicle introduces one or two fables, but is in the main at least semi historical, but its additional facts give no impression of having special sources,—in brief, it is scarcely a source, rather literature.
Compare Smith, Dict. 2. 28; Bonneau, in Nouv. boig. gén. (Hoefer) 16 (1856), 127; Mai, Praef. in ed. Bekker, also ed. Migne. Compare for literature, Chevalier.
(54) Cantacuzenus, Joannes. Angelus Comnenus Palaeolugus (d. 1375 +). Histories. Ed. Schopen, Bonn. 1828–1832, 3 v.; also in Migne, Patrol. Gr. 153–154 (Dowl. 1866). Speaks of Constantine as a model of clemency (4. 2; ed. Bonn. v. 3, p. 18) worthy to be compared with the apostles (3. 92), and as led by the spirit of God like David (4. 48; ed. Bonn. v. 3, p. 351), and mentions the time (in May) when his memory is celebrated (4. 4; 3. 92), but has hardly a half-dozen mentions and fewer facts of interest or value. He reigned 1342–1355, abdicated, and lived until after 1375.
Compare Plate, in Smith, Dict. 579–581; and for farther literature, Chevalier and Engelmann, also for editions
(55) Nicephorus Callistus (d. ab. 1450). Ecclesiastical History, 7. 17–18, 55. In Migne, Patrol. Gr. 145–147. Bk. 7 is in 145, and Bk. 8 in 146. This late history, not so bad as some in style, but full of legendary matter, was compiled from the standard existing historians, and perhaps some others. The portions on Constantine are taken almost wholly from Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, and other existing historians.
Compare Schaff, Church Hist. 3 (1884), 883–884; Plate, in Smith, Dict. 2 (1859), 1180–1181; Dowling, Introd.(1838), 91–93.
(56) Monody on the Younger Constantine (ab. 1450). Ed. Frotscher, Anon. Graeci oratio funebris, Freiberg i. S., 1855. This work has not been seen, but according to Seeck (Ztschr. f. Wiss. Theolo. 1890, p. 64) and Wordsworth (p. 630) this edition contains the result of a study by Wesseling, which shows that this work, referring to an anonymous emperor, does not refer to Constantine II. at all, but to some ruler who belongs in the fifteenth century.
Compare Seeck and Wordsworth for editions.
(57) Codinus (d. ab. 1453?). Excerpts on the origins of Constantinople. Ed. Bekker (Bonn. 1843). For other editions, compare articles of Plate the Nouv. biog. gén. Contains considerable relating to Constantine, especially respecting the founding of Constantinople, and the buildings and statues in it. Mainly compilation, or compilation from compilation, but is from partly lost sources and far from unnecessary. He died about 1453 (?).
Compare Plate, in Smith, Dict. I (1859), 810–811; Nouv. biog. gén. I’ (1855), 24–25; and for literature, Chevalier.
(58) Ducas (fl. 1450–1460 a.d.) gives “From the incarnation until Constantine the Great, 318 years,” and speaks of a church restored by him. Ed. Bekker, in Corp. scr. hist. Byz. (1834), p. 13 and 48.
(59) Geoffrey of Monmouth (d. 1154). British History. English translation (Lond. Bohn, 1848), 162-. The passage relating to Constantine covers a number of pages, and is ninety-five per cent fiction, five per centfact.
Compare Tedder, in Stephen, Dict. of Nat. Biog. 21 (1890), 133–135.
Various of the old chronicles are only translations or paraphrases of this; e.g. the Chronicle of Pierre de Langtoft (ea. Wright, Lond. 1866, p. 76–78), various Welsh, Anglo-Saxon, and French chronicles, Waurin’s Recueil des Chroniques (ea. Hardy, Lond. 1864), although Hardy maintains that neither Waurin or any of the other versions are real translations, but says there is some lost common source.
(60) Henry of Huntingdon (1135). History of the English. Ed. Arnold, Lond. 1879, 8°, p. 29–31. Engl. translation, Lond. Bohn, 1853, p. 28–29. This is written from generally good sources, notably Eutropius, and means to be historical; but its mythical details—e.g. Helena, a British princess, Constantine cured of leprosy— make it useless.
Compare Forester, Preface to translation; Wright, Biog. Brit. Lit. 2 (1846), 167–173.
(61) William of Malmesbury (1137). Chronicle of England. English translation, Giles (Lond. Bohn, 1847), 6. Mentioned as a source because often quoted in literature. He ascribes to Constantine the introduction of the British settlement in France.
Compare Wright, Biog. Brit. Lit. 2 (1846), 134–142.
(62) Diceto, Ralph de (d. 1202?). Abbreviated Chronicles. Ed. Stubbs, Lond. 1876; section on Constantine, p. 73–76. This work was composed before 1188. It consists in the main of abstracts from Eutropius, Euseblus, Jerome, and Rufinus, with various mythical details from William of Malmesbury and other sources.
Compare Poole, in Stephen, Dict. of Nat. Biog. 15 (1888), 12–14. This is taken from Stubbs, Introduction, q.v.
(63) Eulogium Historiarum (ab. 1366). Ed. Haydon, Lond. 1858, 3 v.; section on Constantine, I. 337–339; 2. 267–268, 332–333; 3. 12, 265. This was probably written by Peter, a monk of Malmesbury (Haydon), about 1366. Compiled from various sources, has familiar facts, but is of no value except for legends.
Compare Preface of Haydon.
(64) Voragine (1230–1298). Golden Legend. Legend conecrning the Invention of the Cross. Ed. Graesse (Lips. 1846, repr. Vratisl. 1890). French translation by Brunet, 2 (1843), 118–116. Early English translation printed by Caxton. A curious mixture of fact and fable, in which legendary is gathered, but all facts are expressed with a curious conscientiousness, or pretended conscientiousness, in quoting authorities. But on Constantine, however, his authorities do not always come to the test of containing what he quotes from them.
Compare article Varaggio, in M’Clintock and Strong, Cyclop. 10 (1881), 719, Brunet’s Preface and the Proceedings of the American Soc. of Ch. Hist. for 1889.

Besides the above-mentioned sources there are many mentions which may be found in the various collections of mediaeval documents, such, e.g., as Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, which has various interesting chronicles covering the period of Constantine.

§ 3. Literature.
In making the following thread to the rich literature on Constantine the plan has been to confine almost wholly to Monographs, since to refer to all histories’ encyclopaedias, and the like which treat of him would be endless. Only such few analyzed references are introduced as have special reasons. Even with this limit it cannot be at all hoped that the list is exhaustive. Considerable pains has been taken, however, to make it full, as there is no really extended modern list of works on Constantine, excepting, perhaps, Chevalier (Rep. des sources hist. du Moyen Age). The effort was made to see each work referred to personally, but the libraries of London, Oxford, Berlin, Paris, could not supply them, and after a good deal of search in other libraries and more or less successful effort to purchase, there is still a considerable portion which has not been seen. The editor has tried in vain to decide in various instances whether praeses or respondent is author in certain dissertations. Following is the list:
Albani, Jo. Hier. Liber pro oppugnata R. pontif. dignatate & Constantini donatione. Colon. Agrip.. 1535, fol.; Romae, 1547, 4°; Venetiis, 1584, fol.
Alexander, Natalis. Hist. eccles. IV. (1778), 345 - 351 (= Zaccaria, Thes. theolog. VII. 886 -900), 431–451.
Alford, Mich. Brittania illustrata, s. liber de Lucii, Helenae, et Constantini patria et fide. Antwerpiae,, 1641. 4°.
Altus, Henricus. Donatio Constantini imperatoris facto (ut aiunt) Sylvestro papoe (proes. Joach. Hildebrando). Helmstadii, 1661. 4° (p. 56). Not Hildebrand?
Alzog, J. Manual of Universal Church History. Tr. Pabisch and Byrne. Cincinnati, O., 1874 3 v. 8°, p. 462–476. Relations of Constantine the Great to the Catholic Church. Very Roman Catholic.
Andlau, Fr. Von. Die byz. Kaiser Hist.-stud. Mainz, 1865, 8°.
Antoniades, Crysanthos. Kaiser Licinius, eine historische Untersuchung nach dem bestern alten und neueren Quellen. München, 1884 8°. Unfortunately not at hand, but often mentioned with greatest respect by Görres and others.
Arbellot. Memoire sur Ies statues équestres de Constantin placées dans Ies églises de l’ouest de la France. Limoges, 1885. 8°, 34 pp. (Cf. Audiat, Louis, in Bull. soc. arch. Saintonge, 1885. II. v. 186–193, 280–292.) Contains a history of the long archaeological discussion on the subject of the equestrian statue on the facades of various churches in the west of France. Some say it represents Charles Martel, Charlemagne, the founder of the church, the rider who appeared to Heliodorus, Rider of the Apocalypse, St. Martin, St. George or the Church Triumphant. Consult for many titles on the discussion, which it is not worth while to give here. Arrives at the result that the “greater part” represent Constantine.
Arendt. Ueber Constantin und sein Verhältniss zum Christenthum. In Theolog. Quartalschr. Tübing. 1834 III. 387
Arrhenius, Laur. Dissertatio historica de Constantino Magno. Upsal. 1719. 4°.
—— ——. Refutatio commenti de donatione Constantini Magni. Upsal. 1729. 8°.
Aubé, B. De Constantino imperatore pontifice maximo dissertatio. Lutetiae, 1861. 8°, 108 pp. Examines Constantine’s attitude toward (1) Pagans, (2) Christians; concludes that, as a matter of fact, he exercised the office of Pontifex Maximus over both.
Audiat, Louis. Les statues au protail des églises. In Bull. de la soc. des arch. de la Saintogne. 5 (1884–1885) (1885), 186, 193. Starts out from Arbellot. Gives ten various theories. Mentions various works. This with Arbellot a sufficient apparatus for this topic.
Bachmann, P. Wider die Natterzungen … Dabey ein Antwort auff Constantini Donation welche der Luther spöttlich nennet den Hohen Artickel des allerhyligisten Bebstlichen glaubens (Dresden), 1538, 4°, (45). p. Examines whether the Donation is “ein Teuffelische lügen und Gottes lasterung (wie sie der Luther rennet).”
Baier, Joh. Dav. Disputatio de erroribus quibusdam politicis Constantino Magno imputatis. Jenae, 1705, 4°.
Balduinus, Franc. Constantinus Magnus sive de Constantini imperatoris Iegibus eeclesiasticis atque civilibus commentariorum libri 2. Basileae, 1556, 8°; Argent, 1612, 8°; praef. Nic. Hier. Gundling, Lipsiae-Halae, 1727, 8°, 235 (23) pp.
Bang, a. Chrs. Kirchen og Romerstaten indtil Constantin den Stre. Christiana, 1879, 8°.
Baring, Nicol. Dissertatio epistolica de crucis signo a Constantino Magno conspecto. Hannov. 1645, 8°.
Baronius. Annales (1590), 306, 16–18, 3–25; 307, 3–15; 312, 7–337, 37; 358, 27. Cf. Pagi, Crit. (1689), 306, 5–307, 14; 311, 9–337, 6; 547, 12.
Bartolini, Domenico. Come Constantini Augusti imperatore innalzasse in Roma i primi sacri edifici del culto cristiano. Dissertezione in Atti Accad. Rom. archeol. 12 (1852) I. 281–308. Opposes the idea that these belong to a period not before Honorius. Separately printed. “Dissertazione … letta nell’ Adunanza tenuta. il di 16 di marzo, 1843.” pp. 30 (1).
Baudot. Dissertation critique sur la famille de Constantin & en particulier sur Constantin le Jeune. In Magas. encyclop. 6 (1812), 241–274. Under head of Numismatique opposes Valois in Acad. Inscr. 1740. The medals do refer to Constantine. Includes a discussion of Constantine’s family.
Baune, J. De La. Vita Constantini Magni herausgegeben von A. Jäger. Norimb. 1779, 8°.
Bayet, C. La fausse donation de Constantini examen de quelques theories récentes. In Ann. fact Iett. Lyon, 1884, I. 3 (1884), 12–44. The donation belongs in second half of eighth century, or first half of ninth.
Berthelé, Jos. In Bibl. ec. des Chartes, 46 (1885), 330–331. [Review of Arbellot.] Gives brief analysis, and mentions one statue omitted by Arbellot.
Beuste, Joach. V. Oratio de Constantino Magno. Witteb. 1569, 8°. “Extat Tom VI. Orationum Vitemburgensium.”
bivo" kai; politeiva t`n aJgivwn qesstevptwn megavlwn Basilevwn kai; ijsapostovlwnKwnstantivnou kai;  JElenh" [Mnemeia hagiologica, p. 164] Benetiva, 1884, la. 8°.
Boehringer. Athanasius u. Arius. 1874, p. 1–53.
Boissier. Essais d’histoire religieuse I. un dernier mot sur les persecutions; II. la conversion de Constantin. In Rev. d. deux mondes (Feb. 1886), p. 790–818, (July) p. 51–72.
II.—Special Polegomena
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§1. The Life of Constantine
1. Editions
The Life is found in the editions of Eusebius (compare list in Dr. McGiffert’s Prolegomena) of 1544 (p. 117a-), 1612 (p. 301-), 1659, 1672, 1678, 1720 (p. 583-) and 1822 at least. The edition of Heinichen first published in 1830 (p. 1–332, 333–406, 407–500) and republished in 1869: Eusebius Pamphili Vita Contantini et Panegyricus atque Constantini ad sanctorum Coetum oratio. Recensuit cum annotatione critica atque indicibus denuo edidit ... Lipsiae, Hermann Mendellsohn, 1869. 80 is the latest and best.
2. Translations
The editions of Latin translations are very numerous. Basil. 1549, Portesius (V.C. 650–698, O.C. 698–715, no L.C.); Basil, 1557, Musculus (V.C. 158–215, O.C. 217–231, no L.C.); Basil, 1559 (V.C. 650–698, O.Co. 698–715); Par. 1562, Musculus (V.C. 160–218, O.C. 218–234); Antv. 1568 (?), Christophorson (V.C. 224–306a, O.C. 306b-326a, L.C. 326b-361); Basil, 1570, Portesius (V.C 862–914, O.C. 915–932) and Christophorson (L.C. 923–971); Paris, 1581 (V.C. p. 214–297, O.C. 27–317, L.C. 317–355); Colon. 1581, Christophorson (V.C. 195–268, O.C. 118–170, O.C. 171–184, no L.C.); Paris, 1677, Valesius (V.C. 164–232, O.C. 233–248; L.C. 249–275); Frf ad M. 1695, Valesius (328–465, 466–497, 498–549); Cambr. 1720 (Reading) Valesius; Cambr. 1746 (Reading) Valesius; 1822 (Zimmermann), Valesius (772–1046, 1047–1117, 118–1232); Par. 1842 (Cailleau). The editions of 1612, 1659, and 1672 at least also have been Latin translations. There is a French translation by J. Morin, Historie de lat dèliverance de l’Englise, &c., Par. 1630, fol., and another by Cousin, Par. 1675, 4º, and 1686, 4º. There is a German translation by Stroth, Quedlinb. 1799, v. 2, p. 141–468, and one by Molzberger. Kempten, 1880. For English translations, se the following paragraph.
3. English Translations
The first English translation of Eusebius was by Merideth Hanmer (compare Prolegomena of Dr. McGiffert). The first editions of Hanmer did not contain the Life of Constantine. It is a little hard to distinguish the early editions, but there were at least three, and perhaps four, editions (1577 (76), 1585 (84), 1607, 1619 ?), before there was added in 16378 to the 1637 eidition (“fourth edition”, not “fifth edition 1650,” as Wood, Athenae Oxon.), a translation by Wye Saltonstall as follows:
Eusebius | His life of Constantine, | in foure | bookes. | With Constantine’s Oration to the Clergie | ... | London. | Printed by Thomas Cotes, for Michael Sparke, and are to be | sold at the blue Bible in greene Arbour | 1637; fol. pp. (2) 1–106 (E), 107–132 (C), 133–163 (4) (L.C.). the dedication by the “translator” is signed Wye Saltonstall. This was reprinted: London. Printed by Abraham Miller, dwelling in Black Friers, 1649. fol., and is probably the same as that quoted often (e.g. Hofmann) as 1650. The Life occupies p. 1–74. It was again reprinted, London, 1656, fol., it is said, revised and enlarged. The former editions having become exhausted, it was proposed to re-edit and republish Hanmer’s (Saltonstall’s) version, but the editor found it “a work of far greater labor to bring Dr. Hanber’s Translation to an agreement with the Greek Text of Valesius’ Edition, thant to make a New One,” which latter thing he accordinly did and did well. It was published in 1682, with the following title:The | Life | of | Constantine | in four books, | Written in Greek, by Eusebius Pamphilus, Bishop of Caesarea in | Palestine; done into English from that edition set forth by | Valesius, and Printed at Paris in the Year 1659. | Together with | Valesius’s Annotations on the said Life, which are made | English, and set at their proper places in the margin. | Hereto is also annext the Emperour Constantine’s Oration to the | Convention of the Saints, and Eusebius Pamphilus’s Speech concerning the praises of Constantine, | spoken at his tricennalia. | Cambridge, | Printed by Jon Hayes, Printer to the University, 1682, fol. this was published with teh 1683 edition of the History, and is so properly 1683 in spite of title-page. In 1692 this was reprinted with a general title-page, but otherwise identically the same edition with same sub-titles and same paging. In 1709 a new edition was published, also with the History, having substantially the same matter on the title-page but The second edition. London. Pronted for N. and J. Churchill, in the Year 1709. In this paging is the same (527–633), but there is preliminary matter added before the History. This version is said by Crusé (compare Dr. McGiffert’s Prolegomena) to be by T. Shorting. Whoever it was by, it was well done and most interesting. In the course of time, however, it became antiquated in form, and there was added in 1845 to the Bagster edition of the ecclesiastical historians an anonymous translation:
The | Life | of | the Blessed Emperor | Constantine, | in four books. | from 306–337 a.d. | By | Eusebius Pamphilus | ... | London: | Samuel Bagster and Sons; | ... | MDCCCXLV. 8º p. xx, 380. This translation is in somewhat inflated style, wich perhaps represents Eusebius and Constantine better than a simpler one, but which sometimes out-Herods Herod, as, e.g. in the oration of Constantine, p. 279, where it takes fourteen English words to express seven Greek ones, “Far otherwise has it been during the corrupt and lawless period of human life”  for “It was not thus in lawless times.” A quotation from Matthew (xxvi. 52) on p. 267 takes eight words in the original, twelve in the 1881 Reviesd Version, sixteen in the phrase of Constantine, and twenty-two in this translation. The translation is made from the edition of Valesius, not the first of Heinichen, as appears from the division of Bk. I, chap. 10, and similar peculiarities. The present edition (1890) is a revision of the translation of 1845 founded on the edition of Henichen.
4. Author and Date
Almost no fact of history is unquestioned; therefore th unquestionable authorship of Eusebius has been questioned. Some have made the author Macarius (compare Vog. Hist. lit. p. 12), evidently on the ground of the letter (3. 52) which the author says was addressed to himslef, but which is to Marcarius and others, but there is no real dowubt of the Eusebian authorship. It was written after the deat of Constantine (337), and therefore between 337 and 340, when Eusebius died. The interesting hypothesis of Meyeer (p. 28) that it was perhaps written mainly in Constantine’s lifetime, at the suggestion and under the direction of Constatine, to defend him against charges brought, or which might be brought, against him, is worth mentions, although is more ingenious than probably. The headings of the chapters are by another, though probably not much later, and a competent hand (cf. Lightfoot).
5. Trustworthiness of Eusebius.
The value of a writer is determined by (1) His sources of knowledge, (2) His own intellectual and moral ability. Again, the criticism of a given work seeks whether the aim proposd for that work has been truly fulfilled. A man who attempts a treatise on Geometry is not to be criticised because he omits mention of sulphuric acid, or if he proposes a description of Wagner’s music, because he does not produce a Hemholtz on Sound. The application of these principles to Eusebius’ Life of Constantine requires brief examination of 1. The proposed scope of the work. 2. The character of the sources. 3. The intellectual and moral competency of Eusebius on the premises.
(1) The Scope of the Work. This is quite definately outlined (i. 11). In contrast with those who have recorded the evil deeds of other emperors and have thus “become to those who by some favor had been kept apart from evil, teachers not of good, but of what should be silenced in oblivion and darkness,” he proposes to record the noble actions of this emperor. He proposes, however, to pass over many things,—his wars, personal bravery, victories, and successes, his legislative acts, and many other things, and confine himself to such things as have reference to his religious character. His aim, therefore, is distinctly limited to his religious acts, and it is not stretching his meaning too far to say, expressly limited to his virtuous actions.
(2) Character of the Sources. Respecting this there is endless controversy. The fullness of material is unquestionable, the intellectual competency of Eusebius is almost equally so, and the questionings regard mainly whether the author has made a proper use of material. Opinions are various, but this does not mean that they are equally well grounded and valuable. Some of the latest judgments are the most severe. Crivellucci (Livorno, 1888) calls it an historical novel, and Görres, in a review of Crivellucci, agrees that it is worth less than the Panegyrics of Eumenius and Nazarius, whcih is certainly milder than Manso’s (p. 222) “more shameless and lying” than these. Right or wrong, this is a frequently repeated view. Some (Hely, p. 141) cannot speak too strongly of the “contempt” which he “deserves,” and accuse of “pious fraud” or the next thing to it (Kestner, 1816, p. 67). for farther criticisms consult the works cited by Dr. McGiffert under Literature, and the special works on Eusibius cited in the Literature to Constantine above, passim. The criticisms group generally around 1. The suppression of the facts respecting the deaths of Crispus, &c., and various others derogatory to Constantine. 2. The eulogistic tone and coloring of the work, especially the very pietistic saintly sort of flavor given to Constantine.
As to the suppression of facts, note (1) That he geives entire worning of his plan. It would have been artistically and ethically improper, in a work which distinctly sets out with such purpose, to admit that class of facts. It takes more or less from the value of the work, but it does not reflect on the general trustworthiness of what is said. (2) No similar judgment is passed on Eutropius, the Victors, Anonymous Valesianus or Zosimus, for not mentioning his pious acts. (3) A comparison of most biographies of living and dead presidents, kings, and emperors will be greatly to the advantage, even, of this fourth century eulogist over those of our boasted critical age.
As tot he eulogistic and exaggerated tone, observe (1) That is was more or less justified. That is, the premises of the criticism which are substantially that Constantine was not saintly or pietistic and was non-committal toward Christianity, are false. His extreme testimony is backed by very general testimony in the election of Constantine to technical saintship. (2) That is compares well with modern eulogists and extremely well with the contemporary Pangyrists of Constantine. (3) That Eusebius takes care frequently to guard his statements by quoting his source, as in the matter of the vision of the cross, or by ascribing to hearsay.
In general, the work stands much on the same level as the biographies of generals in the late civil war, or of presidents, written by admiring members of their staffs or cabinets, incorporating authentic documents, intending to be truthful, and generally succeeding, but yet full of the enthusiasm of admiring friendship and inclined not to see, or to extenuate or even suppress, faults and mistakes. Nevertheless, they are valuable on the positive side as the real testimony to genuinely believed excellency by those in the position to know intimately. Eusebius is, substantially, genuine. Such supreme hypocrisy as would produce this work, without admiring respect and after its subject was dead, is inconceivable in him. All the unconscious turns o phrase show at least a consistent attitude of mind. The work is, in brief, by a comptetne author, from ample sources and without intentional falsification or misrepresentation. It probably represents the current Christian view of the man as accurately and honestly as any biography of Lincoln or the Emperor William written within a year or two of their deaths has done. As we now think of these two men whom doubtless inquisitive criticism might find to have faults, so the Christians in general and his friend Eusebius in particular thought of the Great Emperor. Compare discussion and literature of the trustworthiness of Eusebius as a historical writer in the Prolegomena of Dr. McGiffert in this volume.
6. Value of the Work
That the work on any basis but the untenable one of out-and-out forgery shoudlb be characterized as “worhtless” or  “a mere romance” or “of less value than the heathen pangyrists” is a curious bit of psychological performance, for it does precisely what it grounds its contempt for Eusebius on, —suppresses and exaggerates. Taking the minimum residuum of the most penetrating criticism, and the work is yet a soruce of primary value for understanding the man Constantine. This residuum includes (1) The documents which the work contains. These amount at the very least estimate to more than one-fourth of the whole matter, and the appended oration of Constantine is nearly as much more. (2) Many facts and details where there could be no possibility of motive for falsifying. (3) Much which critical care can draw out of the over-statements of eulogy.
§2. Oration of Constantine.
The Editions and Translations of this work are substantially identical with those of the Life. See above, under Life. The Authenticity of the work has been doubted, and its composition ascribed to Eusebius or some other Christian writer, but without sufficient reason. it was appended by Eusebius to his Life of Constantine as specimens of the latter’s style (cf. V.C. 4. 32). As such it shows a man of some learning, though learling taken at second hand, it is thought, from Lactantius and others (cf. Wordsworth’s Constantine I.). It was composed in Latin, and translated into Greek by the special officials appointed for such work (V.C. 4. 32). It was delivered on Good Friday, but in what year or where is not known. It has been placed before the year 324 (Ceiller, 130), but the mention of events and the character of the work itself suggest a considerably later date.
§3. Oration of Eusebius
The Editions and Translations of this work are substantially identical with those of the Life, above, but some of the earlier ones do not contain the work. It was delivered in the year 336 (or possibly 335) at Constantinople, in celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of Constantine’s acession, Constantine himself being present (cf. V.C. 4. 46 and O.C. 1). It gave the empreror lively satisfaction, from whcih one may safely infer a pecular taste for combined panegyric and philosophical theology unless the hypothesis of a double work be true. According to this hypothesis the work consists of two separate orations, spoken perhaps at different times, the first including chapters 1–10, which are panegyrical in character, and the other chapters 11–18, which are theological (compare Lightfoot, Eusebius, p. 343; also McGiffert, Prolegomena, p. 43). It is like the oration of Constantine, a proper part of the Life of Constantine being appended according to his promise in Bk. 4, ch. 46.
The special points relating to these works are treated in the notes. 
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The Life of the Blessed Emperor Constantine
By Eusebius Pamphilus.
Book I.
Chapter I. Preface.—Of the Death of Constantine.
Already1 have all mankind united in celebrating with joyous festivities the completion of the second and third decennial period of this great emperor’s reign; already have we ourselves received him as a triumphant conqueror in the assembly of God’s ministers, and greeted him with the due meed of praise on the twentieth anniversary of his reign:2 and still more recently we have woven, as it were, garlands of words, wherewith we encircled his sacred head in his own palace on his thirtieth anniversary.3 
But now, while I desire4 to give utterance to some of the customary sentiments, I stand perplexed and doubtful which way to turn, being wholly lost in wonder at the extraordinary spectacle before me. For to whatever quarter I direct my view, whether to the east, or to the west, or over the whole world, or toward heaven itself, everywhere and always I see the blessed one yet administering the self-same empire. On earth I behold his sons, like some new reflectors of his brightness, diffusing everywhere the luster of their father’s character,5 and himself still living and powerful, and governing all the affairs of men more completely than ever before, being multiplied in the succession of his children. They had indeed had previously the dignity of Caesars;6 but now, being invested with his very self, and graced by his accomplishments, for the excellence of their piety they are proclaimed by the titles of Sovereign, Augustus, Worshipful, and Emperor.
Chapter II. The Preface Continued.
And I am indeed amazed, when I consider that he who was but lately visible and present with us in his mortal body, is still, even after death, when the natural thought disclaims everything superfluous as unsuitable, most marvelously endowed with the same imperial dwellings, and honors, and praises as heretofore.7 But farther, when I raise my thoughts even to the arch of heaven, and there contemplate his thrice-blessed soul in communion with God himself, freed from every mortal and earthly vesture, and shining in a refulgent robe of light, and when I perceive that it is no more connected with the fleeting periods and occupations of mortal life, but honored with an ever-blooming crown, and an immortality of endless and blessed existence, I stand as it were without power of speech or thought8 and unable to utter a single phrase, but condemning my own weakness, and imposing silence on myself, I resign the task of speaking his praises worthily to one who is better able, even to him who, being the immortal God and veritable Word, alone has power to confirm his own saying.9 
Chapter III. How God Honors Pious Princes, But Destroys Tyrants.
Having given assurance that those who glorify and honor him will meet with an abundant recompense at his hands, while those who set themselves against him as enemies and adversaries will compass the ruin of their own souls, he has already established the truth of these his own declarations, having shown on the one hand the fearful end of those tyrants who denied and opposed him,10 and at the same time having made it manifest that even the death of his servant, as well as his life, is worthy of admiration and praise, and justly claims the memorial, not merely of perishable, but of immortal monuments.
Mankind, devising some consolation for the frail and precarious duration of human life, have thought by the erection of monuments to glorify the memories of their ancestors with immortal honors. Some have employed the vivid delineations and colors of painting11 ; some have carved statues from lifeless blocks of wood; while others, by engraving their inscriptions deep on tablets12 and monuments, have thought to transmit the virtues of those whom they honored to perpetual remembrance. All these indeed are perishable, and consumed by the lapse of time, being representations of the corruptible body, and not expressing the image of the immortal soul. And yet these seemed sufficient to those who had no well-grounded hope of happiness after the termination of this mortal life. But God, that God, I say, who is the common Saviour of all, having treasured up with himself, for those who love godliness, greater blessings than human thought has conceived, gives the earnest and first-fruits of future rewards even here, assuring in some sort immortal hopes to mortal eyes. The ancient oracles of the prophets, delivered to us in the Scripture, declare this; the lives of pious men, who shone in old time with every virtue, bear witness to posterity of the same; and our own days prove it to be true, wherein Constantine, who alone of all that ever wielded the Roman power was the friend of God the Sovereign of all, has appeared to all mankind so clear an example of a godly life.
Chapter IV. That God Honored Constantine.
And God himself, whom Constantine worshiped, has confirmed this truth by the clearest manifestations of his will, being present to aid him13 at the commencement, during the course, and at the end of his reign, and holding him up to the human race as an instructive example of godliness. Accordingly, by the manifold blessings he has conferred on him, he has distinguished him alone of all the sovereigns of whom we have ever heard as at once a mighty luminary and most clear-voiced herald of genuine piety.
Chapter V. That He Reigned Above Thirty Years, and Lived Above Sixty.
With respect to the duration of his reign, God honored him with three complete periods of ten years, and something more, extending the whole term of his mortal life to twice this number of years.14 And being pleased to make him a representative of his own sovereign power, he displayed him as the conqueror of the whole race of tyrants, and the destroyer of those God-defying giants15 of the earth who madly raised their impious arms against him, the supreme King of all. They appeared, so to speak, for an instant, and then disappeared: while the one and only true God, when he had enabled his servant, clad in heavenly panoply, to stand singly against many foes, and by his means had relieved mankind from the multitude of the ungodly, constituted him a teacher of his worship to all nations, to testify with a loud voice in the hearing of all that he acknowledged the true God, and turned with abhorrence from the error of them that are no gods.
Chapter VI. That He Was the Servant of God, and the Conqueror of Nations.
Thus, like a faithful and good servant, did he act and testify, openly declaring and confessing himself the obedient minister of the supreme King. And God forthwith rewarded him, by making him ruler and sovereign, and victorious to such a degree that he alone of all rulers pursued a continual course of conquest, unsubdued and invincible, and through his trophies a greater ruler than tradition records ever to have been before. So dear was he to God, and so blessed; so pious and so fortunate in all that he undertook, that with the greatest facility he obtained the authority over more nations than any who had preceded him,16 and yet retained his power, undisturbed, to the very close of his life.
Chapter VII. Comparison with Cyrus, King of the Persians, and with Alexander of Macedon.
Ancient history describes Cyrus, king of the Persians, as by far the most illustrious of all kings up to his time. And yet if we regard the end of his days,17 we find it but little corresponded with his past prosperity, since he met with an inglorious and dishonorable death at the hands of a woman.18 
Again, the sons of Greece celebrate Alexander the Macedonian as the conqueror of many and diverse nations; yet we find that he was removed by an early death, before he had reached maturity, being carried off by the effects of revelry and drunkenness.19 His whole life embraced but the space of thirty-two years, and his reign extended to no more than a third part of that period. Unsparing as the thunderbolt, he advanced through streams of blood and reduced entire nations and cities, young and old, to utter slavery. But when he had scarcely arrived at the maturity of life, and was lamenting the loss of youthful pleasures, death fell upon him with terrible stroke, and, that he might not longer outrage the human race, cut him off in a foreign and hostile land, childless, without successor, and homeless. His kingdom too was instantly dismembered, each of his officers taking away and appropriating a portion for himself. And yet this man is extolled for such deeds as these.20 
Chapter VIII. That He Conquered Nearly the Whole World.
But our emperor began his reign at the time of life at which the Macedonian died, yet doubled the length of his life, and trebled the length of his reign. And instructing his army in the mild and sober precepts of godliness, he carried his arms as far as the Britons, and the nations that dwell in the very bosom of the Western ocean. He subdued likewise all Scythia, though situated in the remotest North, and divided into numberless diverse and barbarous tribes. He even pushed his conquests to the Blemmyans and Ethiopians, on the very confines of the South; nor did he think the acquisition of the Eastern nations unworthy his care. In short, diffusing the effulgence of his holy light to the ends of the whole world, even to the most distant Indians, the nations dwelling on the extreme circumference of the inhabited earth, he received the submission of all the rulers,21 governors,22 and satraps of barbarous nations, who cheerfully welcomed and saluted him, sending embassies and presents, and setting the highest value on his acquaintance and friendship; insomuch that they honored him with pictures and statues in their respective countries, and Constantine alone of all emperors was acknowledged and celebrated by all. Notwithstanding, even among these distant nations, he proclaimed the name of his God in his royal edicts with all boldness.
Chapter IX. That He Was the Son of a Pious Emperor, and Bequeathed the Power to Royal Sons.
Nor did he give this testimony in words merely, while exhibiting failure in his own practice, but pursued every path of virtue, and was rich in the varied fruits of godliness. He ensured the affection of his friends by magnificent proofs of liberality; and inasmuch as he governed on principles of humanity, he caused his rule to be but lightly felt and acceptable to all classes of his subjects; until at last, after a long course of years, and when he was wearied by his divine labors, the God whom he honored crowned him with an immortal reward, and translated him from a transitory kingdom to that endless life which he has laid up in store for the souls of his saints, after he had raised him up three sons to succeed him in his power. As then the imperial throne had descended to him from his father, so, by the law of nature, was it reserved for his children and their descendants, and perpetuated, like some paternal inheritance, to endless generations. And indeed God himself, who distinguished this blessed prince with divine honors while yet present with us, and who has adorned his death with choice blessings from his own hand, should be the writer of his actions; since he has recorded his labors and successes on heavenly monuments.23 
Chapter X. Of the Need for This History, and Its Value for Edification.
However, hard as it is to speak worthily of this blessed character, and though silence were the safer and less perilous course, nevertheless it is incumbent on me, if I would escape the charge of negligence and sloth, to trace as it were a verbal portraiture, by way of memorial of the pious prince, in imitation of the delineations of human art. For I should be ashamed of myself were I not to employ my best efforts, feeble though they be and of little value, in praise of one who honored God with such surpassing devotion. I think too that my work will be on other grounds both instructive and necessary, since it will contain a description of those royal and noble actions which are pleasing to God, the Sovereign of all. For would it not be disgraceful that the memory of Nero, and other impious and godless tyrants far worse than he, should meet with diligent writers to embellish the relation of their worthless deeds with elegant language, and record them in voluminous histories, and that I should be silent, to whom God himself has vouchsafed such an emperor as all history records not, and has permitted me to come into his presence, and enjoy his acquaintance and society?24 
Wherefore, if it is the duty of any one, it certainly is mine, to make an ample proclamation of his virtues to all in whom the example of noble actions is capable of inspiring the love of God. For some who have written the lives of worthless characters, and the history of actions but little tending to the improvement of morals, from private motives, either love or enmity, and possibly in some cases with no better object than the display of their own learning, have exaggerated unduly their description of actions intrinsically base, by a refinement and elegance of diction.25 And thus they have become to those who by the Divine favor had been kept apart from evil, teachers not of good, but of what should be silenced in oblivion and darkness. But my narrative, however unequal to the greatness of the deeds it has to describe, will yet derive luster even from the bare relation of noble actions. And surely the record of conduct that has been pleasing to God will afford a far from unprofitable, indeed a most instructive study, to persons of well-disposed minds.
Chapter XI. That His Present Object is to Record Only the Pious Actions of Constantine.
It is my intention, therefore, to pass over the greater part of the royal deeds of this thrice-blessed prince; as, for example, his conflicts and engagements in the field, his personal valor, his victories and successes against the enemy, and the many triumphs he obtained: likewise his provisions for the interests of individuals, his legislative enactments for the social advantage of his subjects, and a multitude of other imperial labors which are fresh in the memory of all; the design of my present undertaking being to speak and write of those circumstances only which have reference to his religious character.
And since these are themselves of almost infinite variety, I shall select from the facts which have come to my knowledge such as are most suitable, and worthy of lasting record, and endeavor to narrate them as briefly as possible. Henceforward, indeed, there is a full and free opportunity for celebrating in every way the praises of this truly blessed prince, which hitherto we have been unable to do, on the ground that we are forbidden to judge any one blessed before his death,26 because of the uncertain vicissitudes of life. Let me implore then the help of God, and may the inspiring aid of the heavenly Word be with me, while I commence my history from the very earliest period of his life.
Chapter XII. That Like Moses, He Was Reared in the Palaces of Kings.
Ancient history relates that a cruel race of tyrants oppressed the Hebrew nation; and that God, who graciously regarded them in their affliction, provided that the prophet Moses, who was then an infant, should be brought up in the very palaces and bosoms of the oppressors, and instructed in all the wisdom they possessed. And when in the course of time he had arrived at manhood, and the time was come for Divine justice to avenge the wrongs of the afflicted people, then the prophet of God, in obedience to the will of a more powerful Lord, forsook the royal household, and, estranging himself in word and deed from the tyrants by whom he had been brought up, openly acknowledging his true brethren and kinsfolk. Then God, exalting him to be the leader of the whole nation, delivered the Hebrews from the bondage of their enemies, and inflicted Divine vengeance through his means on the tyrant race. This ancient story, though rejected by most as fabulous, has reached the ears of all. But now the same God has given to us to be eye-witnesses of miracles more wonderful than fables, and, from their recent appearance, more authentic than any report. For the tyrants of our day have ventured to war against the Supreme God, and have sorely afflicted His Church.27 And in the midst of these, Constantine, who was shortly to become their destroyer, but at that time of tender age, and blooming with the down of early youth, dwelt, as that other servant of God had done, in the very home of the tyrants,28 but young as he was did not share the manner of life of the ungodly: for from that early period his noble nature, under the leading of the Divine Spirit, inclined him to piety and a life acceptable to God. A desire, moreover, to emulate the example of his father had its influence in stimulating the son to a virtuous course of conduct His father was Constantius29 (and we ought to revive his memory at this time), the most illustrious emperor of our age; of whose life it is necessary briefly to relate a few particulars, which tell to the honor of his son.
Chapter XIII. Of Constantius His Father, Who Refused to Imitate Diocletian, Maximian, and Maxentius,30 In Their Persecution of the Christians.
At a time when four emperors31 shared the administration of the Roman empire, Constantius alone, following a course of conduct different from that pursued by his colleagues, entered into the friendship of the Supreme God.
For while they besieged and wasted the churches of God, leveling them to the ground, and obliterating the very foundations of the houses of prayer,32 he kept his hands pure from their abominable impiety, and never in any respect resembled them. They polluted their provinces by the indiscriminate slaughter of godly men and women; but he kept his soul free from the stain of this crime.33 They, involved in the mazes of impious idolatry, enthralled first themselves, and then all under their authority, in bondage to the errors of evil demons, while he at the same time originated the profoundest peace throughout his dominions, and secured to his subjects the privilege of celebrating without hindrance the worship of God. In short, while his colleagues oppressed all men by the most grievous exactions, and rendered their lives intolerable, and even worse than death, Constantius alone governed his people with a mild and tranquil sway, and exhibited towards them a truly parental and fostering care. Numberless, indeed, are the other virtues of this man, which are the theme of praise to all; of these I will record one or two instances, as specimens of the quality of those which I must pass by in silence, and then I will proceed to the appointed order of my narrative. 
Chapter XIV. How Constantius His Father, Being Reproached with Poverty by Diocletian, Filled His Treasury, and Afterwards Restored the Money to Those by Whom It Had Been Contributed.
In consequence of the many reports in circulation respecting this prince, describing his kindness and gentleness of character, and the extraordinary elevation of his piety, alleging too, that by reason of his extreme indulgence to his subjects, he had not even a supply of money laid up in his treasury; the emperor who at that time occupied the place of supreme power sent to reprehend his neglect of the public weal, at the same time reproaching him with poverty, and alleging in proof of the charge the empty state of his treasury. On this he desired the messengers of the emperor to remain with him awhile, and, calling together the wealthiest of his subjects of all nations under his dominion, he informed them that he was in want of money, and that this was the time for them all to give a voluntary proof of their affection for their prince.
As soon as they heard this (as though they had long been desirous of an opportunity for showing the sincerity of their good will), with zealous alacrity they filled the treasury with gold and silver and other wealth; each eager to surpass the rest in the amount of his contribution: and this they did with cheerful and joyous countenances. And now Constantius desired the messengers of the great emperor34 personally to inspect his treasures, and directed them to give a faithful report of what they had seen; adding, that on the present occasion he had taken this money into his own hands, but that it had long been kept for his use in the custody of the owners, as securely as if under the charge of faithful treasurers. The ambassadors were overwhelmed with astonishment at what they had witnessed: and on their departure it is said that the truly generous prince sent for the owners of the property, and, after commending them severally for their obedience and true loyalty, restored it all, and bade them return to their homes.
This one circumstance, then, conveys a proof of the generosity of him whose character we are attempting to illustrate: another will contain the clearest testimony to his piety.
Chapter XV. Of the Persecution Raised by His Colleagues.
By command of the supreme authorities of the empire, the governors of the several provinces had set on foot a general persecution of the godly. Indeed, it was from the imperial courts themselves that the very first of the pious martyrs proceeded, who passed through those conflicts for the faith, and most readily endured both fire and sword, and the depths of the sea; every form of death, in short, so that in a brief time all the royal palaces were bereft of pious men.35 The result was, that the authors of this wickedness were entirely deprived of the protecting care of God, since by their persecution of his worshipers they at the same time silenced the prayers that were wont to be made on their own behalf.
Chapter XVI. How Constantius, Feigning Idolatry, Expelled Those Who Consented to Offer Sacrifice, But Retained in His Palace All Who Were Willing to Confess Christ.
On the other hand, Constantius conceived an expedient full of sagacity, and did a thing which sounds paradoxical, but in fact was most admirable.
He made a proposal to all the officers of his court, including even those in the highest stations of authority, offering them the following alternative: either that they should offer sacrifice to demons, and thus be permitted to remain with him, and enjoy their usual honors; or, in case of refusal, that they should be shut out from all access to his person, and entirely disqualified from acquaintance and association with him. Accordingly, when they had individually made their choice, some one way and some the other; and the choice of each had been ascertained, then this admirable prince disclosed the secret meaning of his expedient, and condemned the cowardice and selfishness of the one party, while he highly commended the other for their conscientious devotion to God. He declared, too, that those who had been false to their God must be unworthy of the confidence of their prince; for how was it possible that they should preserve their fidelity to him, who had proved themselves faithless to a higher power? He determined, therefore, that such persons should be removed altogether from the imperial court, while, on the other hand, declaring that those men who, in bearing witness for the truth, had proved themselves to be worthy servants of God, would manifest the same fidelity to their king, he entrusted them with the guardianship of his person and empire, saying that he was bound to treat such persons with special regard as his nearest and most valued friends, and to esteem them far more highly than the richest treasures.
Chapter XVII. Of His Christian Manner of Life.
The father of Constantine, then, is said to have possessed such a character as we have briefly described. And what kind of death was vouchsafed to him in consequence of such devotion to God, and how far he whom he honored made his lot to differ from that of his colleagues in the empire, may be known to any one who will give his attention to the circumstances of the case. For after he had for a long time given many proofs of royal virtue, in acknowledging the Supreme God alone, and condemning the polytheism of the ungodly, and had fortified his household by the prayers of holy men,36 he passed the remainder of his life in remarkable repose and tranquillity, in the enjoyment of what is counted blessedness,—neither molesting others nor being molested ourselves.
Accordingly, during the whole course of his quiet and peaceful reign, he dedicated his entire household, his children, his wife, and domestic attendants, to the One Supreme God: so that the company assembled within the walls of his palace differed in no respect from a church of God; wherein were also to be found his ministers, who offered continual supplications on behalf of their prince, and this at a time when, with most,37 it was not allowable to have any dealings with the worshipers of God, even so far as to exchange a word with them.
Chapter XVIII. That After the Abdication of Diocletian and Maximian, Constantius Became Chief Augustus, and Was Blessed with a Numerous Offspring.
The immediate consequence of this conduct was a recompense from the hand of God, insomuch that he came into the supreme authority of the empire. For the older emperors, for some unknown reason, resigned their power; and this sudden change took place in the first year after their persecution of the churches.38 
From that time Constantius alone received the honors of chief Augustus, having been previously, indeed, distinguished by the diadem of the imperial Caesars,39 among whom he held the first rank; but after his worth had been proved in this capacity, he was invested with the highest dignity of the Roman empire, being named chief Augustus of the four who were afterwards elected to that honor. Moreover, he surpassed most of the emperors in regard to the number of his family, having gathered around him a very large circle of children both male and female. And, lastly, when he had attained to a happy old age, and was about to pay the common debt of nature, and exchange this life for another, God once more manifested His power in a special manner on his behalf, by providing that his eldest son Constantine should be present during his last moments, and ready to receive the imperial power from his hands.40 
Chapter XIX. Of His Son Constantine, Who in His Youth Accompanied Diocletian into Palestine.
The latter had been with his father’s imperial colleagues,41 and had passed his life among them, as we have said, like God’s ancient prophet. And even in the very earliest period of his youth he was judged by them to be worthy of the highest honor. An instance of this we have ourselves seen, when he passed through Palestine with the senior emperor,42 at whose right hand he stood, and commanded the admiration of all who beheld him by the indications he gave even then of royal greatness. For no one was comparable to him for grace and beauty of person, or height of stature; and he so far surpassed his compeers in personal strength as to be a terror to them. He was, however, even more conspicuous for the excellence of his mental43 qualities than for his superior physical endowments; being gifted in the first place with a sound judgment,44 and having also reaped the advantages of a liberal education. He was also distinguished in no ordinary degree both by natural intelligence and divinely imparted wisdom.
Chapter XX. Flight of Constantine to His Father Because of the Plots of Diocletian.45 
The emperors then in power, observing his manly and vigorous figure and superior mind, were moved with feelings of jealousy and fear, and thenceforward carefully watched for an opportunity of inflicting some brand of disgrace on his character. But the young man, being aware of their designs, the details of which, through the providence of God, more than once came to him, sought safety in flight;46 in this respect again keeping up his resemblance to the great prophet Moses. Indeed, in every sense God was his helper; and he had before ordained that he should be present in readiness to succeed his father.
Chapter XXI. Death of Constantius, Who Leaves His Son Constantine Emperor.47 
Immediately, therefore, on his escape from the plots which had been thus insidiously laid for him, he made his way with all haste to his father, and arrived at length at the very time that he was lying at the point of death.48 As soon as Constantius saw his son thus unexpectedly in his presence, he leaped from his couch, embraced him tenderly, and, declaring that the only anxiety which had troubled him in the prospect of death, namely, that caused by the absence of his son, was now removed, he rendered thanks to God, saying that he now thought death better than the longest life,49 and at once completed the arrangement of his private affairs. Then, taking a final leave of the circle of sons and daughters by whom he was surrounded, in his own palace, and on the imperial couch, he bequeathed the empire, according to the law of nature,50 to his eldest son, and breathed his last.
Chapter XXII. How, After the Burial of Constantius, Constantine Was Proclaimed Augustus by the Army.
Nor did the imperial throne remain long unoccupied: for Constantine invested himself with his father’s purple, and proceeded from his father’s palace, presenting to all a renewal, as it were, in his own person, of his father’s life and reign. He then conducted the funeral procession in company with his father’s friends, some preceding, others following the train, and performed the last offices for the pious deceased with an extraordinary degree of magnificence, and all united in honoring this thrice blessed prince with acclamations and praises, and while with one mind and voice, they glorified the rule of the son as a living again of him who was dead, they hastened at once to hail their new sovereign by the titles of Imperial and Worshipful Augustus, with joyful shouts.51 Thus the memory of the deceased emperor received honor from the praises bestowed upon his son, while the latter was pronounced blessed in being the successor of such a father. All the nations also under his dominion were filled with joy and inexpressible gladness at not being even for a moment deprived of the benefits of a well ordered government.
In the instance of the Emperor Constantius, God has made manifest to our generation what the end of those is who in their lives have honored and loved him.
Chapter XXIII. A Brief Notice of the Destruction of the Tyrants.
With respect to the other princes, who made war against the churches of God, I have not thought it fit in the present work to give any account of their downfall,52 nor to stain the memory of the good by mentioning them in connection with those of an opposite character. The knowledge of the facts themselves will of itself suffice for the wholesome admonition of those who have witnessed or heard of the evils which severally befell them. 
Chapter XXIV. It Was by the Will of God that Constantine Became Possessed of the Empire.
Thus then the God of all, the Supreme Governor of the whole universe, by his own will appointed Constantine, the descendant of so renowned a parent, to be prince and sovereign: so that, while others have been raised to this distinction by the election of their fellow-men, he is the only one to whose elevation no mortal may boast of having contributed.
Chapter XXV. Victories of Constantine Over the Barbarians and the Britons.
As soon then as he was established on the throne, he began to care for the interests of his paternal inheritance, and visited with much considerate kindness all those provinces which had previously been under his father’s government. Some tribes of the barbarians who dwelt on the banks of the Rhine, and the shores of the Western ocean, having ventured to revolt, he reduced them all to obedience, and brought them from their savage state to one of gentleness. He contented himself with checking the inroads of others, and drove from his dominions, like untamed and savage beasts, those whom he perceived to be altogether incapable of the settled order of civilized life.53 Having disposed of these affairs to his satisfaction, he directed his attention to other quarters of the world, and first passed over to the British nations,54 which lie in the very bosom of the ocean. These he reduced to submission, and then proceeded to consider the state of the remaining portions of the empire, that he might be ready to tender his aid wherever circumstances might require it.
Chapter XXVI. How He Resolved to Deliver Rome from Maxentius.
While, therefore, he regarded the entire world as one immense body, and perceived that the head of it all, the royal city of the Roman empire, was bowed down by the weight of a tyrannous oppression; at first he had left the task of liberation to those who governed the other divisions of the empire, as being his superiors in point of age. But when none of these proved able to afford relief, and those who had attempted it had experienced a disastrous termination of their enterprise,55 he said that life was without enjoyment to him as long as he saw the imperial city thus afflicted, and prepared himself for the overthrowal of the tyranny.
Chapter XXVII. That After Reflecting on the Dawnfall of Those Who Had Worshiped Idols, He Made Choice of Christianity.
Being convinced, however, that he needed some more powerful aid than his military forces could afford him, on account of the wicked and magical enchantments which were so diligently practiced by the tyrant,56 he sought Divine assistance, deeming the possession of arms and a numerous soldiery of secondary importance, but believing the co-operating power of Deity invincible and not to be shaken. He considered, therefore, on what God he might rely for protection and assistance. While engaged in this enquiry, the thought occurred to him, that, of the many emperors who had preceded him, those who had rested their hopes in a multitude of gods, and served them with sacrifices and offerings, had in the first place been deceived by flattering predictions, and oracles which promised them all prosperity, and at last had met with an unhappy end, while not one of their gods had stood by to warn them of the impending wrath of heaven; while one alone who had pursued an entirely opposite course, who had condemned their error, and honored the one Supreme God during his whole life, had found I him to be the Saviour and Protector of his empire, and the Giver of every good thing. Reflecting on this, and well weighing the fact that they who had trusted in many gods had also fallen by manifold forms of death, without leaving behind them either family or offspring, stock, name, or memorial among men: while the God of his father had given to him, on the other hand, manifestations of his power and very many tokens: and considering farther that those who had already taken arms against the tyrant, and had marched to the battle-field under the protection of a multitude of gods, had met with a dishonorable end (for one of them57 had shamefully retreated from the contest without a blow, and the other,58 being slain in the midst of his own troops, became, as it were, the mere sport of death59 ); reviewing, I say, all these considerations, he judged it to be folly indeed to join in the idle worship of those who were no gods, and, after such convincing evidence, to err from the truth; and therefore felt it incumbent on him to honor his father’s God alone.
Chapter XXVIII. How, While He Was Praying, God Sent Him a Vision of a Cross of Light in the Heavens at MID-Day, with an Inscription Admonishing Him to Conquer by that.
Accordingly he called on him with earnest prayer and supplications that he would reveal to him who he was, and stretch forth his right hand to help him in his present difficulties. And while he was thus praying with fervent entreaty, a most marvelous sign appeared to him from heaven, the account of which it might have been hard to believe had it been related by any other person. But since the victorious emperor himself long afterwards declared it to the writer of this history,60 when he was honored with his acquaintance and society, and confirmed his statement by an oath, who could hesitate to accredit the relation, especially since the testimony of after-time has established its truth? He said that about noon, when the day was already beginning to decline, he saw with his own eyes the trophy of a cross of light in the heavens, above the sun, and bearing the inscription, Conquer by this. At this sight he himself was struck with amazement, and his whole army also, which followed him on this expedition, and witnessed the miracle.61 
Chapter XXIX. How the Christ of God Appeared to Him in His Sleep, and Commanded Him to Use in His Wars a Standard Made in the Form of the Cross.
He said, moreover, that he doubted within himself what the import of this apparition could be. And while he continued to ponder and reason on its meaning, night suddenly came on; then in his sleep the Christ of God appeared to him with the same sign which he had seen in the heavens, and commanded him to make a likeness of that sign which he had seen in the heavens, and to use it as a safeguard in all engagements with his enemies.
Chapter XXX. The Making of the Standard of the Cross.
At dawn of day he arose, and communicated the marvel to his friends: and then, calling together the workers in gold and precious stones, he sat in the midst of them, and described to them the figure of the sign he had seen, bidding them represent it in gold and precious stones. And this representation I myself have had an opportunity of seeing.
Chapter XXXI. A Description of the Standard of the Cross, Which the Romans Now Call the Labarum.62 
Now it was made in the following manner. A long spear, overlaid with gold, formed the figure of the cross by means of a transverse bar laid over it. On the top of the whole was fixed a wreath of gold and precious stones; and within this,63 the symbol of the Saviour’s name, two letters indicating the name of Christ by means of its initial characters, the letter P being intersected by X in its centre:64 and these letters the emperor was in the habit of wearing on his helmet at a later period. From the cross-bar of the spear was suspended a cloth,65 a royal piece, covered with a profuse embroidery of most brilliant precious stones; and which, being also richly interlaced with gold, presented an indescribable degree of beauty to the beholder. This banner was of a square form, and the upright staff, whose lower section was of great length,66 bore a golden half-length portrait67 of the pious emperor and his children on its upper part, beneath the trophy of the cross, and immediately above the embroidered banner.
The emperor constantly made use of this sign of salvation as a safeguard against every adverse and hostile power, and commanded that others similar to it should be carried at the head of all his armies.
Chapter XXXII. How Constantine Received Instruction, and Read the Sacred Scriptures.
These things were done shortly afterwards. But at the time above specified, being struck with amazement at the extraordinary vision, and resolving to worship no other God save Him who had appeared to him, he sent for those who were acquainted with the mysteries of His doctrines, and enquired who that God was, and what was intended by the sign of the vision he had seen. They affirmed that He was God, the only begotten Son of the one and only God: that the sign which had appeared was the symbol of immortality,68 and the trophy of that victory over death which He had gained in time past when sojourning on earth. They taught him also the causes of His advent, and explained to him the true account of His incarnation. Thus he was instructed in these matters, and was impressed with wonder at the divine manifestation which had been presented to his sight. Comparing, therefore, the heavenly vision with the interpretation given, he found his judgment confirmed; and, in the persuasion that the knowledge of these things had been imparted to him by Divine teaching, he determined thenceforth to devote himself to the reading of the Inspired writings.
Moreover, he made the priests of God his counselors, and deemed it incumbent on him to honor the God who had appeared to him with all devotion. And after this, being fortified by well-grounded hopes in Him, he hastened to quench the threatening fire of tyranny.
Chapter XXXIII. Of the Adulterous Conduct of Maxentius at Rome.69 
For the who had tyrannically possessed himself of the imperial city,70 had proceeded to great lengths in impiety and wickedness, so as to venture without hesitation on every vile and impure action.
For example: he would separate women from their husbands, and after a time send them back to them again, and these insults he offered not to men of mean or obscure condition, but to those who held the first places in the Roman senate. Moreover, though he shamefully dishonored almost numberless free women, he was unable to satisfy his ungoverned and intemperate desires. But71 when he assayed to corrupt Christian women also, he could no longer secure success to his designs, since they chose rather to submit their lives72 to death than yield their persons to be defiled by him. 
Chapter XXXIV. How the Wife of a Prefect Slew Herself for Chastity’s Sake.73 
Now a certain woman, wife of one of the senators who held the authority of prefect, when she understood that those who ministered to the tyrant in such matters were standing before her house (she was a Christian), and knew that her husband through fear had bidden them take her and lead her away, begged a short space of time for arraying herself in her usual dress, and entered her chamber. There, being left alone, she sheathed a sword in her own breast, and immediately expired, leaving indeed her dead body to the procurers, but declaring to all mankind, both to present and future generations, by an act which spoke louder than any words, that the chastity for which Christians are famed is the only thing which is invincible and indestructible. Such was the conduct displayed by this Woman.
Chapter XXXV. Massacre of the Roman People by Maxentius.
All men, therefore, both people and magistrates, whether of high or low degree, trembled through fear of him whose daring wickedness was such as I have described, and were oppressed by his grievous tyranny. Nay, though they submitted quietly, and endured this bitter servitude, still there was no escape from the tyrant’s sanguinary cruelty. For at one time, on some trifling pretense, he exposed the populace to be slaughtered by his own body-guard; and countless multitudes of the Roman people were slain in the very midst of the city by the lances and weapons, not of Scythians or barbarians, but of their own fellow-citizens. And besides this, it is impossible to calculate the number of senators whose blood was shed with a view to the seizure of their respective estates, for at different times and on various fictitious charges, multitudes of them suffered death.
Chapter XXXVI. Magic Arts of Maxentius Against Constantine; And Famine at Rome.
But the crowning point of the tyrant’s wickedness was his having recourse to sorcery: sometimes for magic purposes ripping up women with child, at other times searching into the bowels of new-born infants. He slew lions also, and practiced certain horrid arts for evoking demons, and averting the approaching war, hoping by these means to get the victory. In short, it is impossible to describe the manifold acts of oppression by which this tyrant of Rome enslaved his subjects: so that by this time they were reduced to the most extreme penury and want of necessary food, a scarcity such as our contemporaries do not remember ever before to have existed at Rome.74 
Chapter XXXVII. Defeat of Maxentius’s Armies in Italy.
Constantine, however, filled with compassion on account of all these miseries, began to arm himself with all warlike preparation against the tyranny. Assuming therefore the Supreme God as his patron, and invoking His Christ to be his preserver and aid, and setting the victorious trophy, the salutary symbol, in front of his soldiers and body-guard, he marched with his whole forces, trying to obtain again for the Romans the freedom they had inherited from their ancestors.
And whereas, Maxentius, trusting more in his magic arts than in the affection of his subjects, dared not even advance outside the city gates,75 but had guarded every place and district and city subject to his tyranny, with large bodies of soldiers,76 the emperor, confiding in the help of God, advanced against the first and second and third divisions of the tyrant’s forces, defeated them all with ease at the first assault,77 and made his way into the very interior of Italy.
Chapter XXXVIII. Death of Maxentius on the Bridge of the Tiber.78 
And already he was approaching very near Rome itself, when, to save him from the necessity of fighting with all the Romans for the tyrant’s sake, God himself drew the tyrant, as it were by secret cords, a long way outside the gates.79 And now those miracles recorded in Holy Writ, which God of old wrought against the ungodly (discredited by most as fables, yet believed by the faithful), did he in every deed confirm to all alike, believers and unbelievers, who were eye-witnesses of the wonders. For as once in the days of Moses and the Hebrew nation, who were worshipers of God, “Pharaoh’s chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea and his chosen chariot-captains are drowned in the Red Sea,”80 —so at this time Maxentius, and the soldiers and guards81 with him, “went down into the depths like stone,”82 when, in his flight before the divinely-aided forces of Constantine, he essayed to cross the river which lay in his way, over which, making a strong bridge of boats, he had framed an engine of destruction, really against himself, but in the hope of ensnaring thereby him who was beloved by God. For his God stood by the one to protect him, while the other, godless,83 proved to be the miserable contriver of these secret devices to his own ruin. So that one might well say, “He hath made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made. His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violence shall come down upon his own pate.”84 Thus, in the present instance, under divine direction, the machine erected on the bridge, with the ambuscade concealed therein, giving way unexpectedly before the appointed time, the bridge began to sink, and the boats with the men in them went bodily to the bottom.85 And first the wretch himself, then his armed attendants and guards, even as the sacred oracles had before described, “sank as lead in the mighty waters.”86 So that they who thus obtained victory from God might well, if not in the same words, yet in fact in the same spirit as the people of his great servant Moses, sing and speak as they did concerning the impious tyrant of old: “Let us sing unto the Lord, for he hath been glorified exceedingly: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. He is become my helper and my shield unto salvation.” And again, “Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, marvelous in praises, doing wonders?”87 
Chapter XXXIX. Constantine’s Entry into Rome.
Having then at this time sung these and suchlike praises to God, the Ruler of all and the Author of victory, after the example of his great servant Moses, Constantine entered the imperial city in triumph. And here the whole body of the senate, and others of rank and distinction in the city, freed as it were from the restraint of a prison, along with the whole Roman populace, their countenances expressive of the gladness of their hearts, received him with acclamations and abounding joy; men, women, and children, with countless multitudes of servants, greeting him as deliverer, preserver, and benefactor, with incessant shouts. But he, being possessed of inward piety toward God, was neither rendered arrogant by these plaudits, nor uplifted by the praises he heard:88 but, being sensible that he had received help from God, he immediately rendered a thanksgiving to him as the Author of his victory.
Chapter XL. Of the Statue of Constantine Holding a Cross, and Its Inscription.
Moreover, by loud proclamation and monumental inscriptions he made known to all men the salutary symbol, setting up this great trophy of victory over his enemies in the midst of the imperial city, and expressly causing it to be engraven in indelible characters, that the salutary symbol was the safeguard of the Roman government and of the entire empire. Accordingly, he immediately ordered a lofty spear in the figure of a cross to be placed beneath the hand of a statue representing himself, in the most frequented part of Rome, and the following inscription to be engraved on it in the Latin language: by virtue of this salutary sign, which is the true test of valor, I have preserved and liberated your city from the yoke of tyranny. I have also set at liberty the roman senate and people, and restored them to their ancient distinction and splendor.89 
Chapter XLI. Rejoicings Throughout the Provinces; And Constantine’s Acts of Grace.
Thus the pious emperor, glorying in the confession of the victorious cross, proclaimed the Son of God to the Romans with great boldness of testimony. And the inhabitants of the city, one and all, senate and people, reviving, as it were, from the pressure of a bitter and tyrannical domination, seemed to enjoy purer rays of light, and to be born again into a fresh and new life. All the nations, too, as far as the limit of the western ocean, being set free from the calamities which had heretofore beset them, and gladdened by joyous festivals, ceased not to praise him as the victorious, the pious, the common benefactor: all, indeed, with one voice and one mouth, declared that Constantine had appeared by the grace of God as a general blessing to mankind. The imperial edict also was everywhere published, whereby those who had been wrongfully deprived of their estates were permitted again to enjoy their own, while those who had unjustly suffered exile were recalled to their homes. Moreover, he freed from imprisonment, and from every kind of danger and fear, those who, by reason of the tyrant’s cruelty, had been subject to these sufferings.
Chapter XLII. The Honors Conferred Upon Bishops, and the Building of Churches.
The emperor also personally inviting the society of God’s ministers, distinguished them with the highest possible respect and honor, showing them favor in deed and word as persons consecrated to the service of his God. Accordingly, they were admitted to his table, though mean in their attire and outward appearance; yet not so in his estimation, since he thought he saw not the man as seen by the vulgar eye, but the God in him. He made them also his companions in travel, believing that He whose servants they were would thus help him. Besides this, he gave from his own private resources costly benefactions to the churches of God, both enlarging and heightening the sacred edifices,90 and embellishing the august sanctuaries91 of the church with abundant offerings.
Chapter XLIII. Constantine’s Liberality to the Poor.
He likewise distributed money largely to those who were in need, and besides these showing himself philanthropist and benefactor even to the heathen, who had no claim on him;92 and even for the beggars in the forum, miserable and shiftless, he provided, not with money only, or necessary food, but also decent clothing. But in the case of those who had once been prosperous, and had experienced a reverse of circumstances, his aid was still more lavishly bestowed. On such persons, in a truly royal spirit, he conferred magnificent benefactions; giving grants of land to some, and honoring others with various dignities. Orphans of the unfortunate he cared for as a father, while he relieved the destitution of widows, and cared for them with special solicitude. Nay, he even gave virgins, left unprotected by their parents’ death, in marriage to wealthy men with whom he was personally acquainted. But this he did after first bestowing on the brides such portions as it was fitting they should bring to the communion of marriage.93 In short, as the sun, when he rises upon the earth, liberally imparts his rays of light to all, so did Constantine, proceeding at early dawn from the imperial palace, and rising as it were with the heavenly luminary, impart the rays of his own beneficence to all who came into his presence. It was scarcely possible to be near him without receiving some benefit, nor did it ever happen that any who had expected to obtain his assistance were disappointed in their hope.94 
Chapter XLIV. How He Was Present at the Synods of Bishops.
Such, then, was his general character towards all. But he exercised a peculiar care over the church of God: and whereas, in the several provinces there were some who differed from each other in judgment, he, like some general bishop constituted by God, convened synods of his ministers. Nor did he disdain to be present and sit with them in their assembly, but bore a share in their deliberations, ministering to all that pertained to the peace of God. He took his seat, too, in the midst of them, as an individual amongst many, dismissing his guards and soldiers, and all whose duty it was to defend his person; but protected by the fear of God, and surrounded by the guardianship of his faithful friends. Those whom he saw inclined to a sound judgment, and exhibiting a calm and conciliatory temper, received his high approbation, for he evidently delighted in a general harmony of sentiment; while he regarded the unyielding wills aversion.95 
Chapter XLV. His Forbearance with Unreasonable Men.
Moreover he endured with patience some who were exasperated against himself, directing them in mild and gentle terms to control themselves, and not be turbulent. And some of these respected his admonitions, and desisted; but as to those who proved incapable of sound judgment, he left them entirely at the disposal of God, and never himself desired harsh measures against any one. Hence it naturally happened that the disaffected in Africa reached such a pitch of violence as even to venture on overt acts of audacity;96 some evil spirit, as it seems probable, being jealous of the present great prosperity, and impelling these men to atrocious deeds, that he might excite the emperor’s anger against them. He gained nothing, however, by this malicious conduct; for the emperor laughed at these proceedings, and declared their origin to be from the evil one; inasmuch as these were not the actions of sober persons, but of lunatics or demoniacs; who should be pitied rather than punished; since to punish madmen is as great folly as to sympathize with their condition is supreme philanthropy.97 
Chapter XLVI. Victories Aver the Barbarians.
Thus the emperor in all his actions honored God, the Controller of all things, and exercised an unwearied98 oversight over His churches. And God requited him, by subduing all barbarous nations under his feet, so that he was able everywhere to raise trophies over his enemies: and He proclaimed him as conqueror to all mankind, and made him a terror to his adversaries: not indeed that this was his natural character, since he was rather the meekest, and gentlest, and most benevolent of men.
Chapter XLVII. Death of Maximin,99 Who Had Attempted a Conspiracy, and of Others Whom Constantine Detected by Divine Revelation.
While he was thus engaged, the second of those who had resigned the throne, being detected in a treasonable conspiracy, suffered a most ignominious death. He was the first whose pictures, statues, and all similar marks of honor and distinction were everywhere destroyed, on the ground of his crimes and impiety. After him others also of the same family were discovered in the act of forming secret plots against the emperor; all their intentions being miraculously revealed by God through visions to His servant.
For he frequently vouchsafed to him manifestations of himself, the Divine presence appearing to him in a most marvelous manner, and according to him manifold intimations of future events. Indeed, it is impossible to express in words the indescribable wonders of Divine grace which God was pleased to vouchsafe to His servant. Surrounded by these, he passed the rest of his life in security, rejoicing in the affection of his subjects, rejoicing too because he saw all beneath his government leading contented lives; but above all delighted at the flourishing condition of the churches of God.
Chapter XLVIII. Celebration of Constantine’s Decennalia.
While he was thus circumstanced, he completed the tenth year of his reign. On this occasion he ordered the celebration of general festivals, and offered prayers of thanksgiving to God, the King of all, as sacrifices without flame or smoke.100 And from this employment he derived much pleasure: not so from the tidings he received of the ravages committed in the Eastern provinces. 
Chapter XLIX. How Licinius Oppressed the East.
For he was informed that in that quarter a certain savage beast was besetting both the church of God and the other inhabitants of the provinces, owing, as it were, to the efforts of the evil spirit to produce effects quite contrary to the deeds of the pious emperor: so that the Roman empire, divided into two parts, seemed to all men to resemble night and day; since darkness overspread the provinces of the East, while the brightest day illumined the inhabitants of the other portion. And whereas the latter were receiving manifold blessings at the hand of God, the sight of these blessings proved intolerable to that envy which hates all good, as well as to the tyrant who afflicted the other division of the empire; and who, notwithstanding that his government was prospering, and he had been honored by a marriage connection101 with so great an emperor as Constantine, yet cared not to follow the steps of that pious prince, but strove rather to imitate the evil purposes and practice of the impious; and chose to adopt the course of those whose ignominious end he had seen with his own eyes, rather than to maintain amicable relations with him who was his superior.102 
Chapter L. How Licinius Attempted a Conspiracy Against Constantine.
Accordingly he engaged in an implacable war against his benefactor, altogether regardless of the laws of friendship, the obligation of oaths, the ties of kindred, and already existing treaties. For the most benignant emperor had given him a proof of sincere affection in bestowing on him the hand of his sister, thus granting him the privilege of a place in family relationship and his own ancient imperial descent, and investing him also with the rank and dignity of his colleague in the empire.103 But the other took the very opposite course, employing himself in machinations against his superior, and devising various means to repay his benefactor with injuries. At first, pretending friendship, he did all things by guile and treachery, expecting thus to succeed in concealing his designs; but God enabled his servant to detect the schemes thus devised in darkness. Being discovered, however, in his first attempts, he had recourse to fresh frauds; at one time pretending friendship, at another claiming the protection of solemn treaties. Then suddenly violating every engagement, and again beseeching pardon by embassies, yet after all shamefully violating his word, he at last declared open war, and with desperate infatuation resolved thenceforward to carry arms against God himself, whose worshiper he knew the emperor to be.
Chapter LI. Intrigues of Licinius Against the Bishops, and His Prohibition of Synods.
And at first he made secret enquiry respecting the ministers of God subject to his dominion, who had never, indeed, in any respect offended against his government, in order to bring false accusations against them. And when he found no ground of accusation, and had no real ground of objection against them, he next enacted a law, to the effect that the bishops should never on any account hold communication with each other, nor should any one of them absent himself on a visit to a neighboring church; nor, lastly, should the holding of synods, or councils for the consideration of affairs of common interest,104 be permitted. Now this was clearly a pretext for displaying his malice against us. For we were compelled either to violate the law, and thus be amenable to punishment, or else, by compliance with its injunctions, to nullify the statutes of the Church; inasmuch as it is impossible to bring important questions to a satisfactory adjustment, except by means of synods. In other cases also this God-hater, being determined to act contrary to the God-loving prince, enacted such things. For whereas the one assembled the priests of God in order to honor them, and to promote peace and unity of judgment; the other, whose object it was to destroy everything that was good, used all his endeavors to destroy the general harmony.
Chapter LII. Banishment of the Christians, and Confiscation of Their Property.
And whereas Constantine, the friend of God, had granted to His worshipers freedom of access to the imperial palaces; this enemy of God, in a spirit the very reverse of this, expelled thence all Christians subject to his authority. He banished those who had proved themselves his most faithful and devoted servants, and compelled others, on whom he had himself conferred honor and distinction as a reward for their former eminent services, to the performance of menial offices as slaves to others; and at length, being bent on seizing the property of all as a windfall for himself, he even threatened with death those who professed the Saviour’s name. Moreover, being himself of a nature hopelessly debased by sensuality, and degraded by the continual practice of adultery and other shameless vices, he assumed his own worthless character as a specimen of human nature generally, and denied that the virtue of chastity and continence existed among men.
Chapter LIII. Edict that Women Should Not Meet with the Men in the Churches.
Accordingly he passed a second law, which enjoined that men should not appear in company with women in the houses of prayer, and forbade women to attend the sacred schools of virtue, or to receive instruction from the bishops, directing the appointment of women to be teachers of their own sex. These regulations being received with general ridicule, he devised other, means for effecting the ruin of the churches. He ordered that the usual congregations of the people should be held in the open country outside the gates, alleging that the open air without the city was far more suitable for a multitude than the houses of prayer within the walls.
Chapter LIV. That Those Who Refuse to Sacrifice are to Be Dismissed from Military Service, and Those in Prison Not to Be Fed.
Failing, however, to obtain obedience in this respect also, at length he threw off the mask, and gave orders that those who held military commissions in the several cities of the empire should be deprived of their respective commands, in case of their refusal to offer sacrifices to the demons. Accordingly the forces of the authorities in every province suffered the loss of those who worshiped God; and he too who had decreed this order suffered loss, in that he thus deprived himself of the prayers of pious men. And why should I still further mention how he directed that no one should obey the dictates of common humanity by distributing food to those who were pining in prisons, or should even pity the captives who perished with hunger; in short, that no one should perform a virtuous action, and that those whose natural feelings impelled them to sympathize with their fellow-creatures should be prohibited from doing them a single kindness? Truly this was the most utterly shameless and scandalous of all laws, and one which surpassed the worst depravity of human nature: a law which inflicted on those who showed mercy the same penalties as on those who were the objects of their compassion, and visited the exercise of mere humanity with the severest punishments.105 
Chapter LV. The Lawless Conduct and Covetousness of Licinius.
Such were the ordinances of Licinius. But why should I enumerate his innovations respecting marriage, or those concerning the dying, whereby he presumed to abrogate the ancient and wisely established laws of the Romans, and to introduce certain barbarous and cruel institutions in their stead, inventing a thousand pretenses for oppressing his subjects? Hence it was that he devised a new method of measuring land, by which he reckoned the smallest portion at more than its actual dimensions, from an insatiable desire of acquisition. Hence too he registered the names of country residents who were now no more, and had long been numbered with the dead, procuring to himself by this expedient a shameful gain. His meanness was unlimited and his rapacity insatiable. So that when he had filled all his treasuries with gold, and silver, and boundless wealth, he bitterly bewailed his poverty, and suffered as it were the torments of Tantalus. But why should I mention how many innocent persons he punished with exile; how much property he confiscated; how many men of noble birth and estimable character he imprisoned, whose wives he handed over to be basely insulted by his profligate slaves, and to how many married women and virgins he himself offered violence, though already feeling the infirmities of age? I need not enlarge on these subjects, since the enormity of his last actions causes the former to appear trifling and of little moment.106 
Chapter LVI. At Length He Undertakes to Raise a Persecution.
For the final efforts of his fury appeared in his open hostility to the churches, and he directed his attacks against the bishops themselves, whom he regarded as his worst adversaries, bearing special enmity to those men whom the great and pious emperor treated as his friends. Accordingly he spent on us the utmost of his fury, and, being transported beyond the bounds of reason, he paused not to reflect on the example of those who had persecuted the Christians before him, nor of those whom he himself had been raised up to punish and destroy for their impious deeds: nor did he heed the facts of which he had been himself a witness, though he had seen with his own eyes the chief originator of these our calamities (whoever he was), smitten by the stroke of the Divine scourge.
Chapter LVII. That Maximian,107 Brought Low by a Fistulous Ulcer with Worms, Issued an Edict in Favor of the Christians.
For whereas this man had commenced the attack on the churches, and had been the first to pollute his soul with the blood of just and godly men, a judgment from God overtook him, which at first affected his body, but eventually extended itself to his soul. For suddenly an abscess appeared in the secret parts of his person, followed by a deeply seated fistulous ulcer; and these diseases fastened with incurable virulence on the intestines, which swarmed with a vast multitude of worms, and emitted a pestilential odor. Besides, his entire person had become loaded, through gluttonous excess, with an enormous quantity of fat, and this, being now in a putrescent state, is said to have presented to all who approached him an intolerable and dreadful spectacle. Having, therefore, to struggle against such sufferings, at length, though late, he came to a realization of his past crimes against the Church; and, confessing his sins before God, he put a stop to the persecution of the Christians, and hastened to issue imperial edicts and rescripts for the rebuilding of their churches, at the same time enjoining them to perform their customary worship, and to offer up prayers on his behalf.108 
Chapter LVIII. That Maximin, Who Had Persecuted the Christians, Was Compelled to Fly, and Conceal Himself in the Disguise of a Slave.
Such was the punishment which he underwent who had commenced the persecution. He,109 however, of whom we are now speaking, who had been a witness of these things, and known them by his own actual experience, all at once banished the remembrance of them from his mind, and reflected neither on the punishment of the first, nor the divine judgment which had been executed on the second persecutor.110 The latter had indeed endeavored to outstrip his predecessor in the career of crime, and prided himself on the invention of new tortures for us. Fire nor sword, nor piercing with nails, nor yet wild beasts or the depths of the sea sufficed him. In addition to all these, he discovered a new mode of punishment, and issued an edict directing that their eyesight should be destroyed. So that numbers, not of men only, but of women and children, after being deprived of the sight of their eyes, and the use of the joints of their feet, by mutilation or cauterization, were consigned in this condition to the painful labor of the mines. Hence it was that this tyrant also was overtaken not long after by the righteous judgment of God, at a time when, confiding in the aid of the demons whom he worshiped as gods, and relying on the countless multitudes of his troops, he had ventured to engage in battle. For, feeling himself on that occasion destitute of all hope in God, he threw from him the imperial dress which so ill became him, hid himself with unmanly timidity in the crowd around him, and sought safety in flight.111 
He afterwards lurked about the fields and villages in the habit of a slave, hoping he should thus be effectually concealed. He had not, however, eluded the mighty and all-searching eye of God: for even while he was expecting to pass the residue of his days in security, he fell prostrate, smitten by God’s fiery dart, and his whole body consumed by the stroke of Divine vengeance; so that all trace of the original lineaments of his person was lost, and nothing remained to him but dry bones and a skeleton-like appearance.
Chapter LIX. That Maximin, Blinded by Disease, Issued an Edict in Favor of the Christians.
And still the stroke of God continued heavy upon him, so that his eyes protruded and fell from their sockets, leaving him quite blind: and thus he suffered, by a most righteous retribution, the very same punishment which he had been the first to devise for the martyrs of God. At length, however, surviving even these sufferings, he too implored pardon of the God of the Christians, and confessed his impious fighting against God: he too recanted, as the former persecutor had done; and by laws and ordinances explicitly acknowledged his error in worshiping those whom he had accounted gods, declaring that he now knew, by positive experience, that the God of the Christians was the only true God. These were facts which Licinius had not merely received on the testimony of others, but of which he had himself had personal knowledge: and yet, as though his understanding had been obscured by some dark cloud of error, persisted in the same evil course. 
Book II.
Chapter I. Secret Persecution by Licinius, Who Causes Some Bishops to Be Put to Death at Amasia of Pontus.
In this manner, he of whom we have spoken continued to rush headlong towards that destruction which awaits the enemies of God; and once more, with a fatal emulation of their example whose ruin he had himself witnessed as the consequence of their impious conduct, he re-kindled the persecution of the Christians, like a long-extinguished fire, and fanned the unhallowed flame to a fiercer height than any who had gone before him.
At first, indeed, though breathing fury and threatenings against God, like some savage beast of prey, or some crooked and wriggling serpent, he dared not, from fear of Constantine, openly level his attacks against the churches of God subject to his dominion; but dissembled the virulence of his malice, and endeavored by secret and limited measures to compass the death of the bishops, the most eminent of whom he found means to remove, through charges laid against them by the governors of the several provinces. And the manner in which they suffered had in it something strange, and hitherto unheard of. At all events, the barbarities perpetrated at Amasia of Pontus surpassed every known excess of cruelty.
Chapter II. Demolition of Churches, and Butchery of the Bishops.
For in that city some of the churches, for the second time since the commencement of the persecutions, were leveled with the ground, and others were closed by the governors of the several districts, in order to prevent any who frequented them from assembling together, or rendering due worship to God. For he by whose orders these outrages were committed was too conscious of his own crimes to expect that these services were performed with any view to his benefit, and was convinced that all we did, and all our endeavors to obtain the favor of God, were on Constantine’s behalf.
These servile governors1 then, feeling assured that such a course would be pleasing to the impious tyrant, subjected the most distinguished prelates of the churches to capital punishment. Accordingly, men who had been guilty of no crime were led away, without cause2 punished like murderers: and some suffered a new kind of death, having their bodies cut piecemeal; and, after this cruel punishment, more horrible than any named in tragedy, being cast, as a food to fishes, into the depths of the sea. The result of these horrors was again, as before, the flight of pious men, and once more the fields and deserts received the worshipers of God. The tyrant, having thus far succeeded in his object, he farther determined to raise a general persecution of the Christians:3 and he would have accomplished his purpose, nor could anything have hindered him from carrying his resolution into effect, had not he who defends his own anticipated the coming evil, and by his special guidance conducted his servant Constantine to this part of the empire, causing him to shine forth as a brilliant light in the midst of the darkness and gloomy night.
Chapter III. How Constantine Was Stirred in Behalf of the Christians Thus in Danger of Persecution.
He, perceiving the evils of which he had heard to be no longer tolerable, took wise counsel, and tempering the natural clemency of his character with a certain measure of severity, hastened to succor those who were thus grievously oppressed. For he judged that it would rightly be deemed a pious and holy task to secure, by the removal of an individual, the safety of the greater part of the human race. He judged too, that if he listened to the dictates of clemency only, and bestowed his pity on one utterly unworthy of it, this would, on the one hand, confer no real benefit on a man whom nothing would induce to abandon his evil practices, and whose fury against his subjects would only be likely to increase; 4 while, on the other hand, those who suffered from his oppression would thus be forever deprived of all hope of deliverance.
Influenced by these reflections, the emperor resolved without farther delay to extend a protecting hand to those who had fallen into such an extremity of distress. He accordingly made the usual warlike preparations, and assembled his whole forces, both of horse and foot. But before them all was carried the standard which I have before described, as the symbol of his full confidence in God.
Chapter IV. That Constantine Prepared Himself for the War by Prayer: Licinius by the Practice of Divination.
He took with him also the priests of God, feeling well assured that now, if ever, he stood in need of the efficacy of prayer, and thinking it right that they should constantly be near and about his person, as most trusty guardians of the soul.
Now, as soon as the tyrant understood that Constantine’s victories over his enemies were secured to him by no other means than the cooperation of God, and that the persons above alluded to were continually with him and about his person; and besides this, that the symbol of the salutary passion preceded both the emperor himself and his whole army; he regarded these precautions with ridicule (as might be expected), at the same time mocking and reviling the emperor with blasphemous words.
On the other hand, he gathered round himself Egyptian diviners and soothsayers, with sorcerers and enchanters, and the priests and prophets of those whom he imagined to be gods. He then, after offering the sacrifices which he thought the occasion demanded, enquired how far he might reckon on a successful termination of the war. They replied with one voice, that he would unquestionably be victorious over his enemies, and triumphant in the war: and the oracles everywhere held out to him the same prospect in copious and elegant verses. The soothsayers certified him of favorable omens from the flight of birds; the priests5 declared the same to be indicated by the motion of the entrails of their victims. Elevated, therefore, by these fallacious assurances, he boldly advanced at the head of his army, and prepared for battle.
Chapter V. What Licinius, While Sacrificing in a Grove, Said Concerning Idols, and Concerning Christ.
And when he was now ready to engage, he desired the most approved of his body-guard6 and his most valued friends to meet him in one of the places which they consider sacred. It was a well-watered and shady grove, and in it were several marble statues of those whom he accounted to be gods. After lighting tapers and performing the usual sacrifices in honor of these, he is said to have delivered the following speech:
“Friends and fellow-soldiers! These are our country’s gods, and these we honor with a worship derived from our remotest ancestors. But he who leads the army now opposed to us has proved false to the religion of his forefathers, and adopted atheistic sentiments, honoring in his infatuation some strange and unheard-of Deity, with whose despicable standard he now disgraces his army, and confiding in whose aid he has taken up arms, and is now advancing, not so much against us as against those very gods whom he has forsaken. However, the present occasion shall prove which of us is mistaken in his judgment, and shall decide between our gods and those whom our adversaries profess to honor. For either it will declare the victory to be ours, and so most justly evince that our gods are the true saviours and helpers; or else, if this God of Constantine’s, who comes we know not whence, shall prove superior to our deities (who are many, and in point of numbers, at least, have the advantage), let no one henceforth doubt which god he ought to worship, but attach himself at once to the superior power, and ascribe to him the honors of the victory. Suppose, then, this strange God, whom we now regard with ridicule, should really prove victorious; then indeed we must acknowledge and give him honor, and so bid a long farewell to those for whom we light our tapers in vain. But if our own gods triumph (as they undoubtedly will), then, as soon as we have secured the present victory, let us prosecute the war without delay against these despisers of the gods.”
Such were the words he addressed to those then present, as reported not long after to the writer of this history by some who heard them spoken.7 And as soon as he had concluded his speech, he gave orders to his forces to commence the attack. 
Chapter VI. An Apparition Seen in the Cities Subject to Licinius, as of Constantine’s Troops Passing Through Them.
While these things were taking place a supernatural appearance is said to have been observed in the cities subject to the tyrant’s rule. Different detachments of Constantine’s army seemed to present themselves to the view, marching at noonday through these cities, as though they had obtained the victory. In reality, not a single soldier was anywhere present at the time, and yet this appearance was seen through the agency of a divine and superior power, and foreshadowed what was shortly coming to pass. For as soon as the armies were ready to engage, he who had broken through the ties of friendly alliance8 was the first to commence the battle; on which Constantine, calling on the name of “God the Supreme Saviour,” and giving this as the watchword to his soldiers, overcame him in this first conflict: and not long after in a second battle he gained a still more important and decisive victory, the salutary trophy preceding the ranks of his army.
Chapter VII. That Victory Everywhere Followed the Presence of the Standard of the Cross in Battle.
Indeed, wherever this appeared, the enemy soon fled before his victorious troops. And the emperor perceiving this, whenever he saw any part of his forces hard pressed, gave orders that the salutary trophy should be moved in that direction, like some triumphant charm9 against disasters: at which the combatants were divinely inspired, as it were, with fresh strength and courage, and immediate victory was the result.
Chapter VIII. That Fifty Men Were Selected to Carry the Cross.
Accordingly, he selected those of his bodyguard who were most distinguished for personal strength, valor, and piety, and entrusted them with the sole care and defense of the standard. There were thus no less than fifty men whose only duty was to surround and vigilantly defend the standard, which they carried each in turn on their shoulders. These circumstances were related to the writer of this narrative by the emperor himself in his leisure moments, long after the occurrence of the events: and he added another incident well worthy of being recorded.
Chapter IX. That One of the Cross-Bearers, Who Fled from His Post, Was Slain: While Another, Who Faithfully Stood His Ground, Was Preserved.
For he said that once, during the very heat of an engagement, a sudden tumult and panic attacked his army, which threw the soldier who then bore the standard into an agony of fear, so that he handed it over to another, in order to secure his own escape from the battle. As soon, however, as his comrade had received it, and he had withdrawn, and resigned all charge of the standard, he was struck in the belly by a dart, which took his life. Thus he paid the penalty of his cowardice and unfaithfulness, and lay dead on the spot: but the other, who had taken his place as the bearer of the salutary standard, found it to be the safeguard of his life. For though he was assailed by a continual shower of darts, the bearer remained unhurt, the staff of the standard receiving every weapon. It was indeed a truly marvelous circumstance, that the enemies’ darts all fell within and remained in the slender circumference of this spear, and thus saved the standard-bearer from death; so that none of those engaged in this service ever received a wound.
This story is none of mine, but for this,10 too, I am indebted to the emperor’s own authority, who related it in my hearing along with other matters. And now, having thus through the power of God secured these first victories, he put his forces in motion and continued his onward march.
Chapter X. Various Battles, and Constantine’s Victories.
The van, however, of the enemy, unable to resist the emperor’s first assault, threw down their arms, and prostrated themselves at his feet. All these he spared, rejoicing to save human life. But there were others who still continued in arms, and engaged in battle. These the emperor endeavored to conciliate by friendly overtures, but when these were not accepted he ordered his army to commence the attack. On this they immediately turned and betook themselves to flight; and some were overtaken and slain according to the laws of war, while others fell on each other in the confusion of their flight, and perished by the swords of their comrades.
Chapter XI. Flight, and Magic Arts of Licinius.
In these circumstances their commander, finding himself bereft of the aid of his followers,11 having lost his lately numerous array, both of regular and allied forces, having proved, too, by experience, how vain his confidence had been in those whom he thought to be gods, ignominiously took to flight, by which indeed he effected his escape, and secured his personal safety, for the pious emperor had forbidden his soldiers to follow him too closely,12 and thus allowed him an opportunity for escape. And this he did in the hope that he might hereafter, on conviction of the desperate state of his affairs, be induced to abandon his insane and presumptuous ambition, and return to sounder reason. So Constantine, in his excessive humanity, thought and was willing patiently to bear past injuries, and extend his forgiveness to one who so ill deserved it; but Licinius, far from renouncing his evil practices, still added crime to crime, and ventured on more daring atrocities than ever. Nay, once more tampering with the detestable arts of magic, he again was presumptuous: so that it might well be said of him, as it was of the Egyptian tyrant of old, that God had hardened his heart.13 
Chapter XII. How Constantine, After Praying in His Tabernacle, Obtained the Victory.
But while Licinius, giving himself up to these impieties, rushed blindly towards the gulf of destruction, the emperor on the other hand, when he saw that he must meet his enemies in a second battle, devoted the intervening time to his Saviour. He pitched the tabernacle of the cross14 outside and at a distance from his camp, and there passed his time in a pure and holy manner, offering up prayers to God; following thus the example of his ancient prophet, of whom the sacred oracles testify, that he pitched the tabernacle without the camp.15 He was attended only by a few, whose faith and pious devotion he highly esteemed. And this custom he continued to observe whenever he meditated an engagement with the enemy. For he was deliberate in his measures, the better to insure safety, and desired in everything to be directed by divine counsel. And making earnest supplications to God, he was always honored after a little with a manifestation of his presence. And then, as if moved by a divine impulse, he would rush from the tabernacle, and suddenly give orders to his army to move at once without delay, and on the instant to draw their swords. On this they would immediately commence the attack, fight vigorously, so as with incredible celerity to secure the victory, and raise trophies of victory over their enemies.
Chapter XIII. His Humane Treatment of Prisoners.
Thus the emperor and his army had long been accustomed to act, whenever there was a prospect of an engagement; for his God was ever present to his thoughts, and he desired to do everything according to his will, and conscientiously to avoid any wanton sacrifice of human life. He was anxious thus for the preservation not only of his own subjects, but even of his enemies. Accordingly he directed his victorious troops to spare the lives of their prisoners, admonishing them, as human beings, not to forget the claims of their common nature. And whenever he saw the passions of his soldiery excited beyond control, he repressed their fury by a largess of money, rewarding every man who saved the life of an enemy with a certain weight of gold. And the emperor’s own sagacity led him to discover this inducement to spare human life, so that great numbers even of the barbarians were thus saved, and owed their lives to the emperor’s gold.
Chapter XIV. A Farther Mention of His Prayers in the Tabernacle.
Now these, and a thousand such acts as these, were familiarly and habitually done by the emperor. And on the present occasion he retired, as his custom was before battle, to the privacy of his tabernacle, and there employed his time in prayer to God. Meanwhile he strictly abstained from anything like ease, or luxurious living, and disciplined himself by fasting and bodily mortification, imploring the favor of God by supplication and prayer, that he might obtain his concurrence and aid, and be ready to execute whatever he might be pleased to suggest to his thoughts. In short, he exercised a vigilant care over all alike, and interceded with God as much for the safety of his enemies as for that of his own subjects.
Chapter XV. Treacherous Friendship, and Idolatrous Practices of Licinius.
And inasmuch as he who had lately fled before him now dissembled his real sentiments, and again petitioned for a renewal of friendship and alliance, the emperor thought fit, on certain conditions, to grant his request,16 in the hope that such a measure might be expedient, and generally advantageous to the community. Licinius, however, while he pretended a ready submission to the terms prescribed, and attested his sincerity by oaths, at this very time was secretly engaged in collecting a military force, and again meditated war and strife, inviting even the barbarians to join his standard,17 and he began also to look about him for other gods, having been deceived by those in whom he had hitherto trusted. And, without bestowing a thought on what he had himself publicly spoken on the subject of false deities, or choosing to acknowledge that God who had fought on the side of Constantine, he made himself ridiculous by seeking for a multitude of new gods.
Chapter XVI. How Licinius Counseled His Soldiers Not to Attack the Standard of the Cross.
Having now learned by experience the Divine and mysterious power which resided in the salutary trophy, by means of which Constantine’s army had become habituated to victory, he admonished his soldiers never to direct their attack against this standard, nor even incautiously to allow their eyes to rest upon it; assuring them that it possessed a terrible power, and was especially hostile to him; so that they would do well carefully to avoid any collision with it. And now, having given these directions, he prepared for a decisive conflict with him whose humanity prompted him still to hesitate, and to postpone the fate which he foresaw awaited his adversary. The enemy, however, confident in the aid of a multitude of gods, advanced to the attack with a powerful array of military force, preceded by certain images of the dead, and lifeless statues, as their defense. On the other side, the emperor, secure in the armor of godliness, opposed to the numbers of the enemy the salutary and life-giving sign, as at once a terror to the foe, and a protection from every harm. And for a while he paused, and preserved at first the attitude of forbearance, from respect to the treaty of peace to which he had given his sanction, that he might not be the first to commence the contest.
Chapter XVII. Constantine’s Victory.
But as soon as he perceived that his adversaries persisted in their resolution, and were already drawing their swords, he gave free scope to his indignation, and by a single charge18 overthrew in a moment the entire body of the enemy, thus triumphing at once over them and their gods.
Chapter XVIII. Death of Licinius, and Celebration of the Event.
He then proceeded to deal with this adversary of God and his followers according to the laws of war, and consign them to fitting punishment. Accordingly the tyrant himself, and they whose counsels had supported him in his impiety, were together subjected to the just punishment of death. After this, those who had so lately been deceived by their vain confidence in false deities, acknowledged with unfeigned sincerity the God of Constantine, and openly professed their belief in him as the true and only God. 
Chapter XIX. Rejoicings and Festivities.
And now, the impious being thus removed, the sun once more shone brightly after the gloomy cloud of tyrannic power. Each separate portion of the Roman dominion became blended with the rest; the Eastern nations united with those of the West, and the whole body of the Roman empire was graced as it were by its head in the person of a single and supreme ruler, whose sole authority pervaded the whole. Now too the bright rays of the light of godliness gladdened the days of those who had heretofore been sitting in darkness and the shadow of death. Past sorrows were no more remembered, for all united in celebrating the praises of the victorious prince, and avowed their recognition of his preserver as the only true God. Thus he whose character shone with all the virtues of piety, the emperor Victor, for he had himself adopted this name as a most fitting appellation to express the victory which God had granted him over all who hated or opposed him,19 assumed the dominion of the East, and thus singly governed the Roman empire, re-united, as in former times, under one head. Thus, as he was the first to proclaim to all the sole sovereignty of God, so he himself, as sole sovereign of the Roman world, extended his authority over the whole human race. Every apprehension of those evils under the pressure of which all had suffered was now removed; men whose heads had drooped in sorrow now regarded each other with smiling countenances, and looks expressive of their inward joy. With processions and hymns of praise they first of all, as they were told, ascribed the supreme sovereignty to God, as in truth the King of kings; and then with continued acclamations rendered honor to the victorious emperor, and the Caesars, his most discreet and pious sons. The former afflictions were forgotten, and all past impieties forgiven: while with the enjoyment of present happiness was mingled the expectation of continued blessings in the future.
Chapter XX. Constantine’s Enactments in Favor of the Confessors.
Moreover, the emperor’s edicts, permeated with his humane spirit, were published among us also, as they had been among the inhabitants of the other division of the empire; and his laws, which breathed a spirit of piety toward God, gave promise of manifold blessings, since they secured many advantages to his provincial subjects in every nation, and at the same time prescribed measures suited to the exigencies of the churches of God. For first of all they recalled those who, in consequence of their refusal to join in idol worship, had been driven to exile, or ejected from their homes by the governors of their respective provinces. In the next place, they relieved from their burdens those who for the same reason had been adjudged to serve in the civil courts, and ordained restitution to be made to any who had been deprived of property. They too, who in the time of trial had signalized themselves by fortitude of soul in the cause of God, and had therefore been condemned to the painful labor of the mines, or consigned to the solitude of islands, or compelled to toil in the public works, all received an immediate release from these burdens; while others, whose religious constancy had cost them the forfeiture of their military rank, were vindicated by the emperor’s generosity from this dishonor: for he granted them the alternative either of resuming their rank, and enjoying their former privileges, or, in the event of their preferring a more settled life, of perpetual exemption from all service. Lastly, all who had been compelled by way of disgrace and insult to serve in the employments of women,20 he likewise freed with the rest.
Chapter XXI. His Laws Concerning Martyrs, and Concerning Ecclesiastical Property.
Such were the benefits secured by the emperor’s written mandates to the persons of those who had thus suffered for the faith, and his laws made ample provision for their property also.
With regard to those holy martyrs of God who had laid down their lives in the confession of His name, he directed that their estates should be enjoyed by their nearest kindred; and, in default of any of these, that the right of inheritance should be vested in the churches. Farther, whatever property had been consigned to other parties from the treasury, whether in the way of sale or gift, together with that retained in the treasury itself, the generous mandate of the emperor directed should be restored to the original owners. Such benefits did his bounty, thus widely diffused, confer on the Church of God. 
Chapter XXII. How He Won the Favor of the People.
But his munificence bestowed still further and more numerous favors on the heathen peoples and the other nations of his empire. So that the inhabitants of our [Eastern] regions, who had heard of the privileges experienced in the opposite portion of the empire, and had blessed the fortunate recipients of them, and longed for the enjoyment of a similar lot for themselves, now with one consent proclaimed their own happiness, when they saw themselves in possession of all these blessings; and confessed that the appearance of such a monarch to the human race was indeed a marvelous event, and such as the world’s history had never yet recorded. Such were their sentiments.
Chapter XXIII. That He Declared God to Be the Author of His Prosperity: and Concerning His Rescripts.
And now that, through the powerful aid of God his Saviour, all nations owned their subjection to the emperor’s authority, he openly proclaimed to all the name of Him to whose bounty he owed all his blessings, and declared that He, and not himself, was the author of his past victories. This declaration, written both in the Latin and Greek languages, he caused to be transmitted through every province of the empire. Now the excellence of his style of expression21 may be known from a perusal of his letters themselves which were two in number; one addressed to the churches of God; the other to the heathen population in the several cities of the empire. The latter of these I think it well to insert here as connected with my present subject, in order on the one hand that a copy of this document may be recorded as matter of history, and thus preserved to posterity, and on the other that it may serve to confirm the truth of my present narrative. It is taken from an authentic copy of the imperial statute in my own possession and the signature in the emperor’s own handwriting attaches as it were the impress of truth to the statement I have made.
Chapter XXIV. Law of Constantine Respecting Piety Towards God, and the Christian Religion.22 
“Victor Constantinus, Maximus Augustus, to the inhabitants of the province of Palestine.
“To all who entertain just and sound sentiments respecting the character of the Supreme Being, it has long been most clearly evident, and beyond the possibility of doubt, how vast a difference there has ever been between those who maintain a careful observance of the hallowed duties of the Christian religion, and those who treat this religion with hostility or contempt. But at this present time, we may see by stilt more manifest proofs, and still more decisive instances, both how unreasonable it were to question this truth, and how mighty is the power of the Supreme God: since it appears that they who faithfully observe His holy laws, and shrink from the transgression of His commandments, are rewarded with abundant blessings, and are endued with well-grounded hope as well as ample power for the accomplishment of their undertakings. On the other hand, they who have cherished impious sentiments have experienced results corresponding to their evil choice. For how is it to be expected that any blessing would be obtained by one who neither desired to acknowledge nor duly to worship that God who is the source of all blessing? Indeed, facts themselves are a confirmation of what I say.
Chapter XXV. An Illustration from Ancient Times.
“For certainly any one who will mentally retrace the course of events from the earliest period down to the present time, and will reflect on what has occurred in past ages, will find that all who have made justice and probity the basis of their conduct, have not only carried their undertakings to a successful issue, but have gathered, as it were, a store of sweet fruit as the produce of this pleasant root. Again, whoever observes the career of those who have been bold in the practice of oppression or injustice; who have either directed their senseless fury against God himself, or have conceived no kindly feelings towards their fellow-men, but have dared to afflict them with exile, disgrace, confiscation, massacre, or other miseries of the like kind, and all this without any sense of compunction, or wish to direct thoughts to a better course, will find that such men have received a recompense proportioned to their crimes. And these are results which might naturally and reasonably be expected to ensue?23 
Chapter XXVI. Of Persecuted and Persecutors.
“For whoever have addressed themselves with integrity of purpose to any course of action, keeping the fear of God continually before their thoughts, and preserving an unwavering faith in him, without allowing present fears or dangers to outweigh their hope of future blessings—such persons, though for a season they may have experienced painful trials, have borne their afflictions lightly, being supported by the belief of greater rewards in store for them; and their character has acquired a brighter luster inproportion to the severity of their past sufferings. With regard, on the other hand, to those who have either dishonorably slighted the principles of justice, or refused to acknowledge the Supreme God themselves, and yet have dared to subject others who have faithfully maintained his worship to the most cruel insults and punishments; who have failed equally to recognize their own wretchedness in oppressing others on such grounds, and the happiness and blessing of those who preserved their devotion to God even in the midst of such sufferings: with regard, I say, to such men, many a time have their armies been slaughtered, many a time have they been put to flight; and their warlike preparations have ended in total ruin and defeat.
Chapter XXVII. How the Persecution Became the Occasion of Calamities to the Aggressors.
“From the causes I have described, grievous wars arose, and destructive devastations. Hence followed a scarcity of the common necessaries of life, and a crowd of consequent miseries: hence, too, the authors of these impieties have either met a disastrous death of extreme suffering, or have dragged out an ignominious existence, and confessed it to be worse than death itself, thus receiving as it were a measure of punishment proportioned to the heinousness of their crimes.24 For each experienced a degree of calamity according to the blind fury with which he had been led to combat, and as he thought, defeat the Divine will: so that they not only felt the pressure of the ills of this present life, but were tormented also by a most lively apprehension of punishment in the future world.25 
Chapter XXVIII. That God Chose Constantine to Be the Minister of Blessing.
“And now, with such a mass of impiety oppressing the human race, and the commonwealth in danger of being utterly destroyed, as if by the agency of some pestilential disease, and therefore needing powerful and effectual aid; what was the relief, and what the remedy which the Divinity devised for these evils? (And by Divinity is meant the one who is alone and truly God, the possessor of almighty and eternal power: and surely it cannot be deemed arrogance in one who has received benefits from God, to acknowledge them in the loftiest terms of praise.) I myself, then, was the instrument whose services He chose, and esteemed suited for the accomplishment of his will. Accordingly, beginning at the remote Britannic ocean, and the regions where, according to the law of nature, the sun sinks beneath the horizon, through the aid of divine power I banished and utterly removed every form of evil which prevailed, in the hope that the human race, enlightened through my instrumentality, might be recalled to a due observance of the holy laws of God, and at the same time our most blessed faith might prosper under the guidance of his almighty hand.
Chapter XXIX. Constantine’s Expressions of Piety Towards God; And Praise of the Confessors.
“I Said,26 under the guidance of his hand; for I would desire never to be forgetful of the gratitude due to his grace. Believing, therefore, that this most excellent service had been confided to me as a special gift, I proceeded as far as the regions of the East, which, being under the pressure of severer calamities, seemed to demand still more effectual remedies at my hands. At the same time I am most certainly persuaded that I myself owe my life, my every breath, in short, my very inmost and secret thoughts, entirely to the favor of the Supreme God. Now I am well aware that they who are sincere in the pursuit of the heavenly hope, and have fixed this hope in heaven itself as the peculiar and predominant principle of their lives, have no need to depend on human favor, but rather have enjoyed higher honors in proportion as they have separated themselves from the inferior and evil things of this earthly existence. Nevertheless I deem it incumbent on me to remove at once and most completely from all such persons the hard necessities laid upon them for a season, and the unjust inflictions under which they have suffered, though free from any guilt or just liability. For it would be strange indeed, that the fortitude and constancy of soul displayed by such men should be fully apparent during the reign of those whose first object it was to persecute them on account of their devotion to God, and yet that the glory of their character should not be more bright and blessed, under the administration of a prince who is His servant.
Chapter XXX. A Law Granting Release from Exile, from Service in the Courts, and from the Confiscation of Property.
“Let all therefore who have exchanged their country for a foreign land, because they would not abandon that reverence and faith toward God to which they had devoted themselves with their whole hearts, and have in consequence at different times been subject to the cruel sentence of the courts; together with any who have been enrolled in the registers of the public courts though in time past exempt from such office let these, I say, now render thanks to God the Liberator of all, in that they are restored to their hereditary property, and their wonted tranquility. Let those also who have been despoiled of their goods, and have hitherto passed a wretched existence, mourning under the loss of all that they possessed, once more be restored to their former homes, their families, and estates, and receive with joy the bountiful kindness of God.
Chapter XXXI. Release Likewise Granted to Exiles in the Islands.
“Furthermore, it is our command that all those who have been detained in the islands against their will should receive the benefit of this present provision; in order that they who rill now have been surrounded by rugged mountains and the encircling barrier of the ocean, being now set free from that gloomy and desolate solitude, may fulfill their fondest wish by revisiting their dearest friends. Those, too, who have prolonged a miserable life in the midst of abject and wretched squalor, welcoming their restoration as an unlooked-for gain, and discarding henceforth all anxious thoughts, may pass their lives with us in freedom from all fear. For that any one could live in a state of fear under our government, when we boast and believe ourselves to be the servants of God, would surely be a thing most extraordinary even to hear of, and quite incredible; and our mission is to rectify the errors of the others.
Chapter XXXII. And to Those Ignominiously Employed in the Mines and Public Works.
“Again, with regard to those who have been condemned either to the grievous labor of the mines, or to service in the public works, let them enjoy the sweets of leisure in place of these long-continued toils, and henceforth lead a far easier life, and more accordant with the wishes of their hearts, exchanging the incessant hardships of their tasks for quiet relaxation. And if any have forfeited the common privilege of liberty, or have unhappily suffered dishonor,27 let them hasten back every one to the country of his nativity, and resume with becoming joy their former positions in society, from which they have been as it were separated by long residence abroad.
Chapter XXXIII. Concerning Those Confessors Engaged in Military Service.
“Once more, with respect to those who had previously been preferred to any military distinction, of which they were afterwards deprived, for the cruel and unjust reason that they chose rather to acknowledge their allegiance to God than to retain the rank they held; we leave them perfect liberty of choice, either to occupy their former stations, should they be content again to engage in military service, or after an honorable discharge, to live in undisturbed tranquillity. For it is fair and consistent that men who have displayed such magnanimity and fortitude in meeting the perils to which they have been exposed, should be allowed the choice either of enjoying peaceful leisure, or resuming their former rank.
Chapter XXXIV. The Liberation of Free Persons Condemned to Labor in the Women’s Apartments, or to Servitude.
“Lastly, if any have wrongfully been deprived of the privileges of noble lineage, and subjected to a judicial sentence which has consigned them to the women’s apartments28 and to the linen making, there to undergo a cruel and miserable labor, or reduced them to servitude for the benefit of the public treasury, without any exemption on the ground of superior birth; let such persons, resuming the honors they had previously enjoyed, and their proper dignities, henceforward exult in the blessings of liberty, and lead a glad life. Let the free man,29 too, by some injustice and inhumanity, or even madness, made a slave, who has felt the sudden transition from liberty to bondage, and ofttimes bewailed his unwonted labors, return to his family once more a free man in virtue of this our ordinance, and seek those employments which befit a state of freedom; and let him dismiss from his remembrance those services which he found so oppressive, and which so ill became his condition.
Chapter XXXV. Of the Inheritance of the Property of Martyrs and Confessors, Also of Those Who Had Suffered Banishment or Confiscation of Property.
“Nor must we omit to notice those estates of which individuals have been deprived on various pretenses. For if any of those who have engaged with dauntless and resolute determination in the noble and divine conflict of martyrdom have also been stripped of their fortunes; or if the same has been the lot of the confessors, who have won for themselves the hope of eternal treasures; or if the loss of property has befallen those who were driven from their native land because they would not yield to the persecutors, and betray their faith; lastly, if any who have escaped the sentence of death have yet been despoiled of their worldly goods; we ordain that the inheritances of all such persons be transferred to their nearest kindred. And whereas the laws expressly assign this right to those most nearly related, it will be easy to ascertain to whom these inheritances severally belong. And it is evidently reasonable that the succession in these cases should belong to those who would have stood in the place of nearest affinity, had the deceased experienced a natural death.
Chapter XXXVI. The Church is Declared Heir of Those Who Leave No Kindred; And the Free Gifts of Such Persons Confirmed.
“But should there be no surviving relation to succeed in due course to the property of those above-mentioned, I mean the martyrs, or confessors, or those who for some such cause have been banished from their native land; in such cases we ordain that the church locally nearest in each instance shall succeed to the inheritance. And surely it will be no wrong to the departed that that church should be their heir, for whose sake they have endured every extremity of suffering. We think it necessary to add this also, that in case any of the above-mentioned persons have donated any part of their property in the way of free gift, possession of such property shall be assured, as is reasonable, to those who have thus received it.
Chapter XXXVII. Lands, Gardens, or Houses, But Not Actual Produce from Them, are to Be Given Back.
“And that there may be no obscurity in this our ordinance, but every one may readily apprehend its requirements, let all men hereby know that if they are now maintaining themselves in possession of a piece of land, or a house, or garden, or anything else which had appertained to the before-mentioned persons, it will be good and advantageous for them to acknowledge the fact, and make restitution with the least possible delay. On the other hand, although it should appear that some individuals have reaped abundant profits from this unjust possession, we do not consider that justice demands the restitution of such profits. They must, however, declare explicitly what amount of benefit they have thus derived, and from what sources, and entreat our pardon for this offense; in order that their past covetousness may in some measure be atoned for, and that the Supreme God may accept this compensation as a token of contrition, and be pleased graciously to pardon the sin.
Chapter XXXVIII. In What Manner Requests Should Be Made for These.
“But it is possible that those who have become masters of such property (if it be right or possible to allow them such a title) will assure us by way of apology for their conduct, that it was not in their power to abstain from this appropriation at a time when a spectacle of misery in all its forms everywhere met the view; when men were cruelly driven from their homes, slaughtered without mercy, thrust forth without remorse: when the confiscation of the property of innocent persons was a common thing, and when persecutions and property seizures were unceasing. If any defend their conduct by such reasons as these, and still persist in their avaricious temper, they shall be made sensible that such a course will bring punishment on themselves, and all the more because this correction of evil is the very characteristic of our service to the Supreme God. So that it will henceforth be dangerous to retain what dire necessity may in time past have compelled men to take; especially because it is in any case incumbent on us to discourage covetous desires, both by persuasion, and by warning examples.
Chapter XXXIX. The Treasury Must Restore Lands, Gardens, and Houses to the Churches.
“Nor shall the treasury itself, should it have any of the things we have spoken of, be permitted to keep them; but, without venturing as it were to raise its voice against the holy churches, it shall justly relinquish in their favor what it has for a time unjustly retained. We ordain, therefore, that all things whatsoever which shall appear righteously to belong to the churches, whether the property consist of houses or fields and gardens, or whatever the nature of it may be, shall be restored in their full value and integrity, and with undiminished right of possession.
Chapter XL. The Tombs of Martyrs and the Cemeteries to Be Transferred to the Possession of the Churches.
“Again, with respect to those places which are honored in being the depositories of the remains of martyrs, and continue to be memorials of their glorious departure; how can we doubt that they rightly belong to the churches, or refrain from issuing our injunction to that effect? For surely there can be no better liberality, no labor more pleasing or profitable, than to be thus employed under the guidance of the Divine Spirit, in order that those things which have been appropriated on false pretenses by unjust and wicked men, may be restored, as justice demands, and once more secured to the holy churches.
Chapter XLI. Those Who Have Purchased Property Belonging to the Church, or Received It as a Gift, are to Restore It.
“And since it would be wrong in a provision intended to include all cases, to pass over those who have either procured any such property by right of purchase from the treasury, or have retained it when conveyed to them in the form of a gift; let all who have thus rashly indulged their insatiable thirst of gain be assured that, although by daring to make such purchases they have done all in their power to alienate our clemency from themselves, they shall nevertheless not fail of obtaining it, so far as is possible and consistent with propriety in each case. So much then is determined.
Chapter XLII. An Earnest Exhortation to Worship God.
“And now, since it appears by the clearest and most convincing evidence, that the miseries which erewhile oppressed the entire human race are now banished from every part of the world, through the power of Almighty God, and at the same time the counsel and aid which he is pleased on many occasions to administer through our agency; it remains for all, both individually and unitedly, to observe and seriously consider how great this power and how efficacious this grace are, which have annihilated and utterly destroyed this generation, as I may call them, of most wicked and evil men; have restored joy to the good, and diffused it over all countries; and now guarantee the fullest authority both to honor the Divine law as it should be honored, with all reverence, and pay due observance to those who have dedicated themselves to the service of that law. These rising as from some dark abyss and, with an enlightened knowledge of the present course of events, will henceforward render to its precepts that becoming reverence and honor which are consistent with their pious character.
Let this ordinance be published in our Eastern provinces.”30 
Chapter XLIII. How the Enactments of Constantine Were Carried into Effect.
Such were the injunctions contained in the first letter which the emperor addressed to us. And the provisions of this enactment were speedily carried into effect, everything being conducted in a manner quite different from the atrocities which had but lately been daringly perpetrated during the cruel ascendancy of the tyrants. Those persons also who were legally entitled to it, received the benefit of the emperor’s liberality.
Chapter XLIV. That He Promoted Christians to Offices of Government, and Forbade Gentiles in Such Stations to Offer Sacrifice.
After this the emperor continued to address himself to matters of high importance, and first he sent governors to the several provinces, mostly such as were devoted to the saving faith; and if any appeared inclined to adhere to Gentile worship, he forbade them to offer sacrifice. This law applied also to those who surpassed the provincial governors in rank and dignity,31 and even to those who occupied the highest station, and held the authority of the Praetorian Praefecture.32 If they were Christians, they were free to act consistently with their profession; if otherwise, the law required them to abstain from idolatrous sacrifices.
Chapter XLV. Statutes Which Forbade Sacrifice, and Enjoined the Building of Churches.
Soon after this, two laws were promulgated about the same time; one of which was intended to restrain the idolatrous abominations which in time past had been practiced in every city and country; and it provided that no one should erect images, or practice divination and other false and foolish arts, or offer sacrifice in any way.33 The other statute commanded the heightening of the oratories, and the enlargement in length and breadth of the churches of God; as though it were expected that, now the madness of polytheism was wholly removed, pretty nearly all mankind would henceforth attach themselves to the service of God. His own personal piety induced the emperor to devise and write these instructions to the governors of the several provinces: and the law farther admonished them not to spare the expenditure of money, but to draw supplies from the imperial treasury itself. Similar instructions were written also to the bishops of the several churches; and the emperor was pleased to transmit the same to myself, being the first letter which he personally addressed to me.
Chapter XLVI. Constantine’s Letter to Eusebius and Other Bishops, Respecting the Building of Churches, with Instructions to Repair the Old, and Erect New Ones on a Larger Scale, with the Aid of the Provincial Governors.
“Victor Constantinus, Maximus Augustus, to Eusebius.
“Forasmuch as the unholy and willful rule of tyranny has persecuted the servants of our Saviour until this present time, I believe and have fully satisfied myself, best beloved brother, that the buildings belonging to all the churches have either become ruinous through actual neglect, or have received inadequate attention from the dread of the violent spirit of the times.
“But now, that liberty is restored, and that serpent34 driven from the administration of public affairs by the providence of the Supreme God, and our instrumentality, we trust that all can see the efficacy of the Divine power, and that they who through fear of persecution or through unbelief have fallen into any errors, will now acknowledge the true God, and adopt in future that course of life which is according to truth and rectitude. With respect, therefore, to the churches over which you yourself preside, as well as the bishops, presbyters, and deacons of other churches with whom you are acquainted, do you admonish all to be zealous in their attention to the buildings of the churches, and either to repair or enlarge those which at present exist, or, in cases of necessity, to erect new ones.
“We also empower you, and the others through you, to demand what is needful for the work, both from the provincial governors and from the Praetorian Praefect. For they have received instructions to be most diligent in obedience to your Holiness’s orders. God preserve you, beloved brother.” A copy of this charge was transmitted throughout all the provinces to the bishops of the several churches: the provincial governors received directions accordingly, and the imperial statute was speedily carried into effect. 
Chapter XLVII. That He Wrote a Letter in Condemnation of Idolatry.
Moreover, the emperor, who continually made progress in piety towards God, dispatched an admonitory letter to the inhabitants of every province, respecting the error of idolatry into which his predecessors in power had fallen, in which he eloquently exhorts his subjects to acknowledge the Supreme God, and openly to profess their allegiance to his Christ as their Saviour. This letter also, which is in his own handwriting, I have judged it necessary to translate from the Latin for the present work, in order that we may hear, as it were, the voice the emperor himself uttering these sentiments in the audience of all mankind.
Chapter XLVIII. Constantine’s Edict to the People of the Provinces Concerning the Error of Polytheism, Commencing with Some General Remarks on Virtue and Vice.
“Victor Constantinus, Maximus Augustus, to the people of the Eastern provinces.
“Whatever is comprehended under the sovereign35 laws of nature, seems to convey to all men an adequate idea of the forethought and intelligence of the divine order. Nor can any, whose minds are directed in the true path of knowledge to the attainment of that end, entertain a doubt that the just perceptions of sound reason, as well as those of the natural vision itself, through the sole influence of genuine virtue, lead to the knowledge of God. Accordingly no wise man will ever be surprised when he sees the mass of mankind influenced by opposite sentiments. For the beauty of virtue would be useless36 and unperceived, did not vice display in contrast with it the course of perversity and folly. Hence it is that the one is crowned with reward, while the most high God is himself the administrator of judgment to the other.
“And now I will endeavor to lay before you all as explicitly as possible, the nature of my own hopes of future happiness.37 
Chapter XLIX. Concerning Constantine’s Pious Father, and the Persecutors Diocletian and Maximian.
“The former emperors I have been accustomed to regard as those with whom I could have no sympathy,38 on account of the savage cruelty of their character. Indeed, my father was the only one who uniformly practiced the duties of humanity, and with admirable piety called for the blessing of God the Father on all his actions, but the rest, unsound in mind, were more zealous of cruel than gentle measures; and this disposition they indulged without restraint, and thus persecuted the true doctrine during the whole period of their reign. Nay, so violent did their malicious fury become, that in the midst of a profound peace, as regards both the religious and ordinary interests of men, they kindled, as it were, the flames of a civil war.39 
Chapter L. That the Persecution Originated on Account of the Oracle of Apollo, Who, It Was Said, Could Not Give Oracles Because of “The Righteous Men.”
“About that time it is said that Apollo spoke from a deep and gloomy cavern, and through the medium of no human voice, and declared that the righteous men on earth were a bar to his speaking the truth, and accordingly that the oracles from the tripod were fallacious. Hence it was that he suffered his tresses to droop in token of grief,40 and mourned the evils which the loss of the oracular spirit would entail on mankind. But let us mark the consequences of this.
Chapter LI. That Constantine, When a Youth, Heard from Him Who Wrote the Persecution Edict that “The Righteous Men” Were the Christians.
“I call now on thee, most high God, to witness that, when young, I heard him who at that time was chief among the Roman emperors, unhappy, truly unhappy as he was, and laboring under mental delusion, make earnest enquiry of his attendants as to who these righteous ones on earth were, and that one of the Pagan priests then present replied that they were doubtless the Christians. This answer he eagerly received, like some honeyed draught, and unsheathed the sword which was ordained for the punishment of crime, against those whose holiness was beyond reproach. Immediately, therefore, he issued those sanguinary edicts, traced, if I may so express myself, with a sword’s point dipped in blood; at the same time commanding his judges to tax their ingenuity for the invention of new and more terrible punishments.
Chapter LII. The Manifold Forms of Torture and Punishment Practiced Against the Christians.
“Then, indeed, one might see with what arrogance those venerable worshipers of God were daily exposed, with continued and relentless cruelty, to outrages of the most grievous kind, and how that modesty of character41 which no enemy had ever treated with disrespect, became the mere sport of their infuriated fellow-citizens. Is there any punishment by fire, are there any tortures or forms of torment, which were not applied to all, without distinction of age or sex? Then, it may be truly said, the earth shed tears, the all-encircling compass of heaven mourned because of the pollution of blood; and the very light of day itself was darkened in grief at the spectacle.
Chapter LIII. That the Barbarians Kindly Received the Christians.
“But what is the consequence of this? Why, the barbarians themselves may boast now of the contrast their conduct presents to these creel deeds; for they received and kept in gentlest captivity those who then fled from amongst us, and secured to them not merely safety from danger, but also the free exercise of their holy religion. And now the Roman people bear that lasting stain which the Christians, at that time driven from the Roman world, and taking refuge with the barbarians, have branded on them.
Chapter LIV. What Vengeance Overtook Those Who on Account of the Oracle Raised the Persecution.
“But why need I longer dwell on these lamentable events, and the general sorrow which in consequence pervaded the world? The perpetrators of this dreadful guilt are now no more: they have experienced a miserable end, and are consigned to unceasing punishment in the depths of the lower world. They encountered each other in civil strife, and have left neither name nor race behind. And surely this calamity would never have befallen them, had not that impious deliverance of the Pythian oracle exercised a delusive power over them.42 
Chapter LV. Constantine Gives Glory to God, Makes Grateful Acknowledgment of the Sign of the Cross, and Prays for the Churches and People.
And now I beseech thee, most mighty God, to be merciful and gracious to thine Eastern nations, to thy people in these provinces, worn as they are by protracted miseries; and grant them healing through thy servant. Not without cause, O holy God, do I prefer this prayer to thee, the Lord of all. Under thy guidance have I devised and accomplished measures fraught with blessings: preceded by thy sacred sign I have led thy armies to victory: and still, on each occasion of public danger, I follow the same symbol of thy perfections while advancing to meet the foe. Therefore have I dedicated to thy service a soul duly attempered by love and fear. For thy name I truly love, while I regard with reverence that power of which thou hast given abundant proofs, to the confirmation and increase of my faith. I hasten, then, to devote all my powers to the restoration of thy most holy dwelling-place, which those profane and impious men have defiled by the contamination of violence.
Chapter LVI. He Prays that All May Be Christians, But Compels None.
“My own desire is, for the common good of the world and the advantage of all mankind, that thy people should enjoy a life of peace and undisturbed concord. Let those, therefore, who still delight in error, be made welcome to the same degree of peace and tranquillity which they have who believe. For it may be that this restoration of equal privileges to all will prevail to lead them into the straight path. Let no one molest another, but let every one do as his soul desires. Only let men of sound judgment be assured of this, that those only can live a life of holiness and purity, whom thou callest to a reliance on thy holy laws. With regard to those who will hold themselves aloof from us, let them have, if they please, their temples43 of lies: we have the glorious edifice of thy truth, which thou hast given us as our native home.44 We pray, however, that they too may receive the same blessing, and thus experience that heartfelt joy which unity of sentiment inspires.
Chapter LVII. He Gives Glory to God, Who Has Given Light by His Son to Those Who Were in Error.
“And truly our worship is no new or recent thing, but one which thou hast ordained for thine own due honor, from the time when, as we believe, this system of the universe was first established. And, although mankind have deeply fallen, and have been seduced by manifold errors, yet hast thou revealed a pure light in the person of thy Son, that the power of evil should not utterly prevail, and hast thus given testimony to all men concerning thyself.
Chapter LVIII. He Glorifies Him Again for His Government of the Universe.
The truth of this is assured to us by thy works. It is thy power which removes our guilt, and makes us faithful. The sun and the moon have their settled course. The stars move in no uncertain orbits round this terrestrial globe. The revolution of the seasons recurs according to unerring laws. The solid fabric of the earth was established by thy word: the winds receive their impulse at appointed times; and the course of the waters continues with ceaseless flow,45 the ocean is circumscribed by an immovable barrier, and whatever is comprehended within the compass of earth and sea, is all contrived for wondrous and important ends.
“Were it not so, were not all regulated by the determination of thy will, so great a diversity, so manifold a division of power, would unquestionably have brought ruin on the whole race and its affairs. For those agencies which have maintained a mutual strife46 would thus have carried to a more deadly length that hostility against the human race which they even now exercise, though unseen by mortal eyes.
Chapter LIX. He Gives Glory to God, as the Constant Teacher of Good.
“Abundant thanks, most mighty God, and Lord of all, be rendered to thee, that, by so much as our nature becomes known from the diversified pursuits of man, by so much the more are the precepts of thy divine doctrine confirmed to those whose thoughts are directed aright, and who are sincerely devoted to true virtue. As for those who will not allow themselves to be cured of their error, let them not attribute this to any but themselves. For that remedy which is of sovereign and healing virtue is openly placed within the reach of all. Only let not any one inflict an injury on that religion which experience itself testifies to be pure and undefiled. Henceforward, therefore, let us all enjoy in common the privilege placed within our reach, I mean the blessing of peace, endeavoring to keep our conscience pure from all that is contrary.
Chapter LX. An Admonition at the Close of the Edict, that No One Should Trouble His Neighbor.
“Once more, let none use that to the detriment of another which he may himself have received on conviction of its truth; but let every, one, if it be possible, apply what he has understood and known to the benefit of his neighbor; if otherwise, let him relinquish the attempt. For it is one thing voluntarily to undertake the conflict for immortality, another to compel others to do so from the fear of punishment.
“These are our words; and we have enlarged on these topics more than our ordinary clemency would have dictated, because we were unwilling to dissemble or be false to the true faith; and the more so, since we understand there are some who say that the rites of the heathen temples, and the power of darkness, have been entirely removed. We should indeed have earnestly recommended such removal to all men, were it not that the rebellious spirit of those wicked errors still continues obstinately fixed in the minds of some, so as to discourage the hope of any general restoration of mankind to the ways of truth.”47 
Chapter LXI. How Controversies Originated at Alexandria Through Matters Relating to Arius.48 
In this manner the emperor, like a powerful herald of God, addressed himself by his own letter to all the provinces, at the same time warning his subjects against superstitious49 error, and encouraging them in the pursuit of true godliness. But in the midst of his joyful anticipations of the success of this measure, he received tidings of a most serious disturbance which had invaded the peace of the Church. This intelligence he heard with deep concern, and at once endeavored to devise a remedy for the evil. The origin of this disturbance may be thus described. The people of God were in a truly flourishing state, and abounding in the practice of good works. No terror from without assailed them, but a bright and most profound peace, through the favor of God, encompassed his Church on every side. Meantime, however, the spirit of envy was watching to destroy our blessings, which at first crept in unperceived, but soon revelled in the midst of the assemblies of the saints. At length it reached the bishops themselves, and arrayed them in angry hostility against each other, on pretense of a jealous regard for the doctrines of Divine truth. Hence it was that a mighty fire was kindled as it were from a little spark, and which, originating in the first instance in the Alexandrian church,50 overspread the whole of Egypt and Libya, and the further Thebaid. Eventually it extended its ravages to the other provinces and cities of the empire; so that not only the prelates of the churches might be seen encountering each other in the strife of words, but the people themselves were completely divided, some adhering to one faction and others to another. Nay, so notorious did the scandal of these proceedings become, that the sacred matters of inspired teaching were exposed to the most shameful ridicule in the very theaters of the unbelievers.
Chapter LXII. Concerning the Same Arius, and the Melitians.51 
Some thus at Alexandria maintained an obstinate conflict on the highest questions. Others throughout Egypt and the Upper Thebaid, were at variance on account of an earlier controversy: so that the churches were everywhere distracted by divisions. The body therefore being thus diseased, the whole of Libya caught the contagion; and the rest of the remoter provinces became affected with the same disorder. For the disputants at Alexandria sent emissaries to the bishops of the several provinces, who accordingly ranged themselves as partisans on either side, and shared in the same spirit of discord.
Chapter LXIII. How Constantine Sent a Messenger and a Letter Concerning Peace.
As soon as the emperor was informed of these facts, which he heard with much sorrow of heart, considering them in the light of a calamity personally affecting himself, he forthwith selectedfrom the Christians in his train one whom he well knew to be approved for the sobriety and genuineness of his faith,52 and who had before this time distinguished himself by the boldness. of his religious profession, and sent him to negotiate peace53 between the dissentient parties at Alexandria. He also made him the bearer of a most needful and appropriate letter to the original movers of the strife: and this letter, as exhibiting a specimen of his watchful care over God’s people, it may be well to introduce into this our narrative of his life. Its purport was as follows.
Chapter LXIV. Constantine’s Letter to Alexander the Bishop, and Arius the Presbyter.
“Victor Constantinus, Maximus Augustus, to Alexander and Arius.
“I call that God to witness, as well I may, who is the helper of my endeavors, and the Preserver of all men, that I had a twofold reason for undertaking that duty which I have now performed. 
Chapter LXV. His Continual Anxiety for Peace.
“My design then was, first, to bring the diverse judgments formed by all nations respecting the Deity to a condition, as it were, of settled uniformity; and, secondly, to restore to health the system of the world, then suffering under the malignant power of a grievous distemper. Keeping these objects in view, I sought to accomplish the one by the secret eye of thought, while the other I tried to rectify by the power of military authority. For I was aware that, if I should succeed in establishing, according to my hopes, a common harmony of sentiment among all the servants of God, the general course of affairs would also experience a change correspondent to the pious desires of them all.
Chapter LXVI. That He Also Adjusted the Controversies Which Had Arisen in Africa.
“Finding, then, that the whole of Africa was pervaded by an intolerable spirit of mad folly, through the influence of those who with heedless frivolity had presumed to rend the religion of the people into diverse sects; I was anxious to check this disorder, and could discover no other remedy equal to the occasion, except in sending some of yourselves to aid in restoring mutual harmony among the disputants, after I had removed that common enemy54 of mankind who had interposed his lawless sentence for the prohibition of your holy synods.
Chapter LXVII. That Religion Began in the East.
“For since the power of Divine light, and the law of sacred worship, which, proceeding in the first instance, through the favor of God, from the bosom, as it were, of the East, have illumined the world, by their sacred radiance, I naturally believed that you would be the first to promote the salvation of other nations, and resolved with all energy of thought and diligence of enquiry to seek your aid. As soon, therefore, as I had secured my decisive victory and unquestionable triumph over my enemies, my first enquiry was concerning that object which I felt to be of paramount interest and importance.
Chapter LXVIII. Being Grieved by the Dissension, He Counsels Peace.
“But, O glorious Providence of God! how deep a wound did not my ears only, but my very heart receive in the report that divisions existed among yourselves more grievous still than those which continued in that country!55 so that you, through whose aid I had hoped to procure a remedy for the errors of others, are in a state which needs healing even more than theirs. And yet, having made a careful enquiry into the origin and foundation of these differences, I find the cause to be of a truly insignificant character, and quite unworthy of such fierce contention. Feeling myself, therefore, compelled to address you in this letter, and to appeal at the same time to your unanimity56 and sagacity, I call on Divine Providence to assist me in the task, while I interrupt your dissension in the character of a minister of peace. And with reason: for if I might expect, with the help of a higher Power, to be able without difficulty, by a judicious appeal to the pious feelings of those who heard me, to recall them to a better spirit, even though the occasion of the disagreement were a greater one, how can I refrain from promising myself a far easier and more speedy adjustment of this difference, when the cause which hinders general harmony of sentiment is intrinsically trifling and of little moment?
Chapter LXIX. Origin of the Controversy Between Alexander and Arius, and that These Questions Ought Not to Have Been Discussed.
I Understand, then, that the origin of the present controversy is this. When you, Alexander, demanded of the presbyters what opinion they severally maintained respecting a certain passage in the Divine law,57 or rather, I should say, that you asked them something connected with an unprofitable question, then you, Arius, inconsiderately insisted on58 what ought never to have been conceived at all, or if conceived, should have been buried in profound silence. Hence it was that a dissension arose between you, fellowship was withdrawn,59 and the holy people, rent into diverse parties, no longer preserved the unity of the one body. Now, therefore, do ye both exhibit an equal degree of forbearance,60 and receive the advice which your fellow-servant righteously gives. What then is this advice? It was wrong in the first instance to propose such questions as these, or to reply to them when propounded. For those points of discussion which are enjoined by the authority of no law, but rather suggested by the contentious spirit which is fostered by misused leisure, even though they may be intended merely as an intellectual exercise, ought certainly to be confined to the region of our own thoughts, and not hastily produced in the popular assemblies, nor unadvisedly intrusted to the general ear. For how very few are there able either accurately to comprehend, or adequately to explain subjects so sublime and abstruse in their nature? Or, granting that one were fully competent for this, how many people will he convince? Or, who, again, in dealing with questions of such subtle nicety as these, can secure himself against a dangerous declension from the truth? It is incumbent therefore on us in these cases to be sparing of our words, lest, in case we ourselves are unable, through the feebleness of our natural faculties, to give a clear explanation of the subject before us, or, on the other hand, in case the slowness of our hearers’ understandings disables them from arriving at an accurate apprehension of what we say, from one or other of these causes the people be reduced to the alternative either of blasphemy or schism.
Chapter LXX. An Exhortation to Unanimity.
“Let therefore both the unguarded question and the inconsiderate answer receive your mutual forgiveness.61 For the cause of your difference has not been any of the leading doctrines or precepts of the Divine law, nor has any new heresy respecting the worship of God arisen among you. You are in truth of one and the same judgment:62 you may therefore well join in communion and fellowship.
Chapter LXXI. There Should Be No Contention in Matters Which are in Themselves of Little Moment.
“For as long as you continue to contend about these small and very insignificant questions, it is not fitting that so large a portion of God’s people should be under the direction of your judgment, since you are thus divided between yourselves. I believe it indeed to be not merely unbecoming, but positively evil, that such should be the case. But I will refresh your minds by a little illustration, as follows. You know that philosophers, though they all adhere to one system, are yet frequently at issue on certain points, and differ, perhaps, in their degree of knowledge: yet they are recalled to harmony of sentiment by the uniting power of their common doctrines. If this be true, is it not far more reasonable that you, who are the ministers of the Supreme God, should be of one mind respecting the profession of the same religion? But let us still more thoughtfully and with closer attention examine what I have said, and see whether it be right that, on the ground of some trifling and foolish verbal difference between ourselves, brethren should assume towards each other the attitude of enemies, and the august meeting of the Synod be rent by profane disunion, because of you who wrangle together on points so trivial and altogether unessential? This is vulgar, and rather characteristic of childish ignorance, than consistent I with the wisdom of priests and men of sense. Let us withdraw ourselves with a good will from these temptations of the devil. Our great God and common Saviour of all has granted the same light to us all. Permit me, who am his servant, to bring my task to a successful issue, under the direction of his Providence, that I may be enabled, through my exhortations, and diligence, and earnest admonition, to recall his people to communion and fellowship. For since you have, as I said, but one faith, and one sentiment respecting our religion, and since the Divine commandment in all its parts enjoins on us all the duty of maintaining a spirit of concord, let not the circumstance which has led to a slight difference between you, since it does not affect the validity of the whole, cause any division or schism among you. And this I say without in any way desiring to force you to entire unity of judgment in regard to this truly idle question, whatever its real nature may be. For the dignity of your synod may be preserved, and the communion of your whole body maintained unbroken, however wide a difference may exist among you as to unimportant matters. For we are not all of us like-minded on every subject, nor is there such a thing as one disposition and judgment common to all alike. As far, then, as regards the Divine Providence, let there be one faith, and one understanding among you, one united judgment in reference to God. But as to your subtle disputations on questions of little or no significance, though you may be unable to harmonize in sentiment, such differences should be consigned to the secret custody of your own minds and thoughts. And now, let the preciousness of common affection, let faith in the truth, let the honor due to God and to the observance of his law continue immovably among you. Resume, then, your mutual feelings of friendship, love, and regard: restore to the people their wonted embracings; and do ye yourselves, having purified your souls, as it were, once more acknowledge one another. For it often happens that when a reconciliation is effected by the removal of the causes of enmity, friendship becomes even sweeter than it was before.
Chapter LXXII. The Excess of His Pious Concern Caused Him to Shed Tears; And His Intended Journey to the East Was Postponed Because of These Things.
“Restore me then my quiet days, and untroubled nights, that the joy of undimmed light, the delight of a tranquil life, may henceforth be my portion. Else must I needs mourn, with constant tears, nor shall I be able to pass the residue of my days in peace. For while the people of God, whose fellow-servant I am, are thus divided amongst themselves by an unreasonable and pernicious spirit of contention, how is it possible that I shall be able to maintain tranquillity of mind? And I will give you a proof how great my sorrow has been on this behalf. Not long since I had visited Nicomedia, and intended forthwith to proceed from that city to the East. It was while I was hastening towards you, and had already accomplished the greater part of the distance, that the news of this matter reversed my plan, that I might not be compelled to see with my own eyes that which I felt myself scarcely able even to hear. Open then for me henceforward by your unity of judgment that road to the regions of the East which your dissensions have closed against me, and permit me speedily to see yourselves and all other peoples rejoicing together, and render due acknowledgment to God in the language of praise and thanksgiving for the restoration of general concord and liberty to all.”
Chapter LXXIII. The Controversy Continues Without Abatement, Even After the Receipt of This Letter.
In this manner the pious emperor endeavored by means of the foregoing letter to promote the peace of the Church of God. And the excellent man63 to whom it was intrusted performed his part not merely by communicating the letter itself, but also by seconding the views of him who sent it; for he was, as I have said, in all respects a person of pious character. The evil, however, was greater than could be remedied by a single letter, insomuch that the acrimony of the contending parties continually increased, and the effects of the mischief extended to all the Eastern provinces. These things jealousy and some evil spirit who looked with an envious eye on the prosperity of the Church, wrought.
Book III.
Chapter I. A Comparison of Constantine’s Piety with the Wickedness of the Persecutors.
In this manner that spirit who is the hater of good, actuated by envy at the blessing enjoyed by the Church, continued to raise against her the stormy troubles of intestine discord, in the midst of a period of peace and joy. Meanwhile, however, the divinely-favored emperor did not slight the duties befitting him, but exhibited in his whole conduct a direct contrast to those atrocities of which the cruel tyrants had been lately guilty,1 and thus triumphed over every enemy that opposed him. For in the first place, the tyrants, being themselves alienated from the true God, had enforced by every compulsion the worship of false deities: Constantine convinced mankind by actions as well as words,2 that these bad but an imaginary existence, and exhorted them to acknowledge the only true God. They had derided his Christ with words of blasphemy: he assumed that as his safeguard3 against which they directed their blasphemies, and gloried in the symbol of the Saviour’s passion. They had persecuted and driven from house and home the servants of Christ: he recalled them every one, and restored them to their native homes. They had covered them with dishonor: he made their condition honorable and enviable in the eyes of all. They had shamefully plundered and sold the goods of godly men: Constantine not only replaced this loss, but still further enriched them with abundant presents. They had circulated injurious calumnies, through their written ordinances, against the prelates of the Church: he on the contrary, conferred dignity on these individuals by personal marks of honor, and by his edicts and statutes raised them to higher distinction than before. They had utterly demolished and razed to the ground the houses of prayer: he commanded that those which still existed should be enlarged, and that new ones should be raised on a magnificent scale at the expense of the imperial treasury. They had ordered the inspired records to be burnt and utterly destroyed: he decreed that copies of them should be multiplied, and magnificently adorned4 at the charge of the imperial treasury. They had strictly forbidden the prelates, anywhere or on any occasion, to convene synods; whereas he gathered them to his court from every province, received them into his palace, and even to his own private apartments and thought them worthy to share his home and table. They had honored the demons with offerings: Constantine exposed their error, and continually distributed the now useless materials for sacrifice, to those who would apply them to a better use. They had ordered the pagan temples to be sumptuously adorned: he razed to their foundations those of them which had been the chief objects of superstitious reverence. They had subjected God’s servants to the most ignominious punishments: he took vengeance on the persecutors, and inflicted on them just chastisement in the name of God, while he held the memory of his holy martyrs in constant veneration. They had driven God’s Worshipers from the imperial palaces: he placed full confidence in them at all times, and knowing them to be the better disposed and more faithful than any beside. They, the victims of avarice, voluntarily subjected themselves as it were to the pangs of Tantalus: he with royal magnificence unlocked all his treasures, and distributed his gifts with rich and high-souled liberality They committed countless murders, that they might plunder or confiscate the wealth of their victims; while throughout the reign of Constantine the sword of justice hung idle everywhere, and both people and municipal magistrates5 in every provence were governed rather by paternal authority than by any constraining.6 Surely it must seem to all who duly regard these facts, that a new and fresh era of existence had begun to appear, and a light heretofore unknown suddenly to dawn from the midst of darkness on the human race: and all must confess that these things were entirely the work of God, who raised up this pious emperor to withstand the multitude of the ungodly.
Chapter II. Father Remarks on Constantine’s Piety, and His Open Testimony to the Sign of the Cross.
And when we consider that their iniquities were without example, and the atrocities which they dared to perpetrate against the Church such as had never been heard of in any age of the world, well might God himself bring before us something entirely new, and work thereby effects such as had hitherto been never either recorded or observed. And what miracle was ever more marvelous than the virtues of this our emperor, whom the wisdom of God has vouchsafed as a gift to the human race? For truly he maintained a continual testimony to the Christ of God with all boldness, and before all men; and so far was he from shrinking from an open profession of the Christian name, that he rather desired to make it manifest to all that he regarded this as his highest honor, now impressing on his face the salutary sign, and now glorying in it as the trophy which led him on to victory.7 
Chapter III. Of His Picture Surmounted by a Cross and Having Beneath It a Dragon.
And besides this, he caused to be painted on a lofty tablet, and set up in the front of the portico of his palace, so as to be visible to all, a representation of the salutary sign placed above his head, and below it that hateful and savage adversary of mankind, who by means of the tyranny of the ungodly had wasted the Church of God, falling headlong, under the form of a dragon, to the abyss of destruction. For the sacred oracles in the books of God’s prophets have described him as a dragon and a crooked serpent;8 and for this reason the emperor thus publicly displayed a painted9 resemblance of the dragon beneath his own and his children’s feet, stricken through with a dart, and cast headlong into the depths of the sea.
In this manner he intended to represent the secret adversary of the human race, and to indicate that he was consigned to the gulf of perdition by virtue of the salutary trophy placed above his head. This allegory, then, was thus conveyed by means of the colors of a picture: and I am filled with wonder at the intellectual greatness of the emperor, who as if by divine inspiration thus expressed what the prophets had foretold concerning this monster, saying that “God would bring his great and strong and terrible sword against the dragon, the flying serpent; and would destroy the dragon that was in the sea.”10 This it was of which the emperor gave a true and faithful representation in the picture above described.
Chapter IV. A Farther Notice of the Controversies Raised in Egypt by Arius.
In such occupations as these he employed himself with pleasure: but the effects of that envious spirit which so troubled the peace of the churches of God in Alexandria, together with the Theban and Egyptian schism, continued to cause him no little disturbance of mind. For in fact, in every city bishops were engaged in obstinate conflict with bishops, and people rising against people; and almost like the fabled Symplegades,11 coming into violent collision with each other. Nay, some were so far transported beyond the bounds of reason as to be guilty of reckless and outrageous conduct, and even to insult the statues of the emperor. This state of things had little power to excite his anger, but rather caused in him sorrow of spirit; for he deeply deplored the folly thus exhibited by deranged men.
Chapter V. Of the Disagreement Respecting the Celebration of Easter.
But before this time another most virulent disorder had existed, and long afflicted the Church; I mean the difference respecting the salutary feast of Easter.12 For while one party asserted that the Jewish custom should be adhered to, the other affirmed that the exact recurrence of the period should be observed, without following the authority of those who were in error, and strangers to gospel grace.
Accordingly, the people being thus in every place divided in respect of this,13 and the sacred observances of religion confounded for a long period (insomuch that the diversity of judgment in regard to the time for celebrating one and the same feast caused the greatest disagreement between those who kept it, some afflicting themselves with fastings and austerities, while others devoted their time to festive relaxation), no one appeared who was capable of devising a remedy for the evil, because the controversy continued equally balanced between both parties. To God alone, the Almighty, was the healing of these differences an easy task; and Constantine appeared to be the only one on earth capable of being his minister for this good end. For as soon as he was made acquainted with the facts which I have described, and perceived that his letter to the Alexandrian Christians had failed to produce its due effect, he at once aroused the energies of his mind, and declared that he must prosecute to the utmost this war also against the secret adversary who was disturbing the peace of the Church.
Chapter VI. How He Ordered a Council to Be Held at Nicoea.
Then as if to bring a divine array against this enemy, he convoked a general council, and invited the speedy attendance of bishops from all quarters, in letters expressive of the honorable estimation in which he held them. Nor was this merely the issuing of a bare command but the emperor’s good will contributed much to its being carried into effect: for he allowed some the use of the public means of conveyance, while he afforded to others an ample supply of horses14 for their transport. The place, too, selected for the synod, the city Nicaea in Bithynia (named from “Victory”), was appropriate to the occasion.15 As soon then as the imperial injunction was generally made known, all with the utmost willingness hastened thither, as though they would outstrip one another in a race; for they were impelled by the anticipation of a happy result to the conference, by the hope of enjoying present peace, and the desire of beholding something new and strange in the person of so admirable an emperor. Now when they were all assembled, it appeared evident that the proceeding was the work of God, inasmuch as men who had been most widely separated, not merely in sentiment but also personally, and by difference of country, place, and nation, were here brought together, and comprised within the walls of a single city, forming as it were a vast garland of priests, composed of a variety of the choicest flowers.
Chapter VII. Of the General Council, at Which Bishops from All Nations Were Present.16 
In effect, the most distinguished of God’s ministers from all the churches which abounded in Europe, Lybia,17 and Asia were here assembled. And a single house of prayer, as though divinely enlarged, sufficed to contain at once Syrians and Cilicians, Phoenicians and Arabians, delegates from Palestine, and others from Egypt; Thebans and Libyans, with those who came from the region of Mesopotamia. A Persian bishop too was present at this conference, nor was even a Scythian found wanting to the number.18 Pontus, Galatia, and Pamphylia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Phrygia, furnished their most distinguished prelates; while those who dwelt in the remotest districts of Thrace and Macedonia, of Achaia and Epirus, were notwithstanding in attendance. Even from Spain itself, one whose fame was widely spread took his seat as an individual in the great assembly.19 The prelate of the imperial city20 was prevented from attending by extreme old age; but his presbyters were present, and supplied his place. Constantine is the first prince of any age who bound together such a garland as this with the bond of peace, and presented it to his Saviour as a thank-offering for the victories he had obtained over every foe, thus exhibiting in our own times a similitude of the apostolic company. 
Chapter VIII. That the Assembly Was Composed, as in the Dots of the Apostles, of Individuals from Various Nations.
For it is said21 that in the Apostles’ age, there were gathered “devout men from every nation under heaven”; among whom were Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, in Judea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia, in Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and the parts of Libya about Cyrene; and sojourners from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians. But that assembly was less, in that not all who composed it were ministers of God; but in the present company, the number of bishops exceeded two hundred and fifty,22 while that of the presbyters and deacons in their train, and the crowd of acolytes and other attendants was altogether beyond computation.
Chapter IX. Of the Virtue and Age of the Two Hundred and Fifty Bishops.
Of these ministers of God, some were distinguished by wisdom and eloquence, others by the gravity of their lives, and by patient fortitude of character, while others again united in themselves all these graces.23 There were among them men whose years demanded veneration: others were younger, and in the prime of mental vigor; and some had but recently entered on the course of their ministry. For the maintenance of all ample provision was daily furnished by the emperor’s command.
Chapter X. Council in the Palace. Constantine, Entering, Took His Seat in the Assembly.
Now when the appointed day arrived on which the council met for the final solution of the questions in dispute, each member was present for this in the central building of the palace,24 which appeared to exceed the rest in magnitude. On each side of the interior of this were many seats disposed in order, which were occupied by those who had been invited to attend, according to their rank. As soon, then, as the whole assembly had seated themselves with becoming orderliness, a general silence prevailed, in expectation of the emperor’s arrival. And first of all, three of his immediate family entered in succession, then others also preceded his approach, not of the soldiers or guards who usually accompanied him, but only friends in the faith. And now, all rising at the signal which indicated the emperor’s entrance, at last he himself proceeded through the midst of the assembly, like some heavenly messenger of God, clothed in raiment which glittered as it were with rays of light, reflecting the glowing radiance of a purple robe, and adorned with the brilliant splendor of gold and precious stones. Such was the external appearance of his person; and with regard to his mind, it was evident that he was distinguished by piety and godly fear. This was indicated by his downcast eyes, the blush on his countenance, and his gait. For the rest of his personal excellencies, he surpassed all present in height of stature and beauty of form, as well as in majestic dignity of mien, and invincible strength and vigor. All these graces, united to a suavity of manner, and a serenity becoming his imperial station, declared the excellence of his mental qualities to be above all praise.25 As soon as he had advanced to the upper end of the seats, at first he remained standing, and when a low chair of wrought gold had been set for him, he waited until the bishops had beckoned to him, and then sat down, and after him the whole assembly did the same.
Chapter XI. Silence of the Council, After Some Words by the the Bishop Eusebius.
The bishop who occupied the chief place in the right division of the assembly26 then rose, and, addressing the emperor, delivered a concise speech, in a strain of thanksgiving to Almighty God on his behalf. When he had resumed his seat, silence ensued, and all regarded the emperor with fixed attention; on which he looked serenely round on the assembly with a cheerful aspect, and, having collected his thoughts, in a calm and gentle tone gave utterance to the following words. 
Chapter XII. Constantine’s Address to the Council Concerning Peace.27 
“It was once my chief desire, dearest friends, to enjoy the spectacle of your united presence; and now that this desire is fulfilled, I feel myself bound to render thanks to God the universal King, because, in addition to all his other benefits, he has granted me a blessing higher than all the rest, in permitting me to see you not only all assembled together, but all united in a common harmony of sentiment. I pray therefore that no malignant adversary may henceforth interfere to mar our happy state; I pray that, now the impious hostility of the tyrants has been forever removed by the power of God our Saviour, that spirit who delights in evil may devise no other means for exposing the divine law to blasphemous calumny; for, in my judgment, intestine strife within the Church of God, is far more evil and dangerous than any kind of war or conflict; and these our differences appear to me more grievous than any outward trouble. Accordingly, when, by the will and with the co-operation of God, I had been victorious over my enemies, I thought that nothing more remained but to render thanks to him, and sympathize in the joy of those whom he had restored to freedom through my instrumentality; as soon as I heard that intelligence which I had least expected to receive, I mean the news of your dissension, I judged it to be of no secondary importance, but with the earnest desire that a remedy for this evil also might be found through my means, I immediately sent to require your presence. And now I rejoice in beholding your assembly; but I feel that my desires will be most completely fulfilled when I can see you all united in one judgment, and that common spirit of peace and concord prevailing amongst you all, which it becomes you, as consecrated to the service of God, to commend to others. Delay not, then, dear friends: delay not, ye ministers of God, and faithful servants of him who is our common Lord and Saviour: begin from this moment to discard the causes of that disunion which has existed among you, and remove the perplexities of controversy by embracing the principles of peace. For by such conduct you will at the same time be acting in a manner most pleasing to the supreme God, and you will confer an exceeding favor on me who am your fellow-servant.”
Chapter XIII. How He Led the Dissentient Bishops to Harmony of Sentiment.
As soon as the emperor had spoken these words in the Latin tongue, which another interpreted, he gave permission to those who presided in the council to deliver their opinions. On this some began to accuse their neighbors, who defended themselves, and recriminated in their turn. In this manner numberless assertions were put forth by each party, and a violent controversy arose at the very commencement. Notwithstanding this, the emperor gave patient audience to all alike, and received every proposition with steadfast attention, and by occasionally assisting the argument of each party in turn, he gradually disposed even the most vehement disputants to a reconciliation. At the same time, by the affability of his address to all, and his use of the Greek language, with which he was not altogether unacquainted, he appeared in a truly attractive and amiable light, persuading some, convincing others by his reasonings, praising those who spoke well, and urging all to unity of sentiment, until at last he succeeded in bringing them to one mind and judgment respecting every disputed question.
Chapter XIV. Unanimous Declaration of the Council Concerning Faith, and the Celebration of Easter.
The result was that they were not only united as concerning the faith, but that the time for the celebration of the salutary feast of Easter was agreed on by all. Those points also which were sanctioned by the resolution of the whole body were committed to writing, and received the signature of each several member.28 Then the emperor, believing that he had thus obtained a second victory over the adversary of the Church, proceeded to solemnize a triumphal festival in honor of God.
Chapter XV. How Constantine Entertained the Bishops on the Occasion of His Vicennalia.
About this time he completed the twentieth year of his reign.29 On this occasion public festivals were celebrated by the people of the provinces generally, but the emperor himself invited and feasted with those ministers of God whom he had reconciled, and thus offered as it were through them a suitable sacrifice to God. Not one of the bishops was wanting at the imperial banquet,30 the circumstances of which were splendid beyond description. Detachments of the body-guard and other troops surrounded the entrance of the palace with drawn swords, and through the midst of these the men of God proceeded without fear into the innermost of the imperial apartments, in which some were the emperor’s own companions at table, while others reclined on couches arranged on either side.31 One might have thought that a picture of Christ’s kingdom was thus shadowed forth, and a dream rather than reality.
Chapter XVI. Presents to the Bishops, and Letters to the People Generally.
After the celebration of this brilliant festival, the emperor courteously received all his guests, and generously added to the favors he had already bestowed by personally presenting gifts to each individual according to his rank. He also gave information of the proceedings of the synod to those who had not been present, by a letter in his own hand-writing. And this letter also I will inscribe as it were on some monument by inserting it in this my narrative of his life. It was as follows:
Chapter XVII. Constantine’s Letter to the Churches Respecting the Council at Nicaea.
“Constantinus Augustus, to the Churches.
“Having had full proof, in the general prosperity of the empire, how great the favor of God has been towards us, I have judged that it ought to be the first object of my endeavors, that unity of faith, sincerity of love, and community of feeling in regard to the worship of Almighty God, might be preserved among the highly favored multitude who compose the Catholic Church. And, inasmuch as this object could not be effectually and certainly secured, unless all, or at least the greater number of the bishops were to meet together, and a discussion of all particulars relating to oar most holy religion to take place; for this reason as numerous an assembly as possible has been convened, at which I myself was present, as one among yourselves (and far be it from me to deny that which is my greatest joy, that I am your fellow-servant), and every question received due and full examination, until that judgment which God, who sees all things, could approve, and which tended to unity and concord, was brought to light, so that no room was left for further discussion or controversy in relation to the faith.
Chapter XVIII. He Speaks of Their Unanimity Respecting the Feast of Easter, and Against the Practice of the Jews.
“At this meeting the question concerning the most holy day of Easter was discussed, and it was resolved by the united judgment of all present, that this feast ought to be kept by all and in every place on one and the same day. For what can be more becoming or honorable to us than that this feast from which we date our hopes of immortality, should be observed unfailingly by all alike, according to one ascertained order and arrangement? And first of all, it appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of this most holy feast we should follow the practice of the Jews, who have impiously defiled their hands with enormous sin, and are, therefore, deservedly afflicted with blindness of soul. For we have it in our power, if we abandon their custom, to prolong the due observance of this ordinance to future ages, by a truer order, which we have preserved from the very day of the passion until the present time. Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd; for we have received from our Saviour a different way. A course at once legitimate and honorable lies open to our most holy religion. Beloved brethren, let us with one consent adopt this course, and withdraw ourselves from all participation in their baseness.32 For their boast is absurd indeed, that it is not in our power without instruction from them to observe these things. For how should they be capable of forming a sound judgment, who, since their parricidal guilt in slaying their Lord, have been subject to the direction, not of reason, but of ungoverned passion, and are swayed by every impulse of the mad spirit that is in them? Hence it is that on this point as well as others they have no perception of the truth, so that, being altogether ignorant of the true adjustment of this question, they sometimes celebrate Easter twice in the same year. Why then should we follow those who are confessedly in grievous error? Surely we shall never consent to keep this feast a second time in the same year. But supposing these reasons were not of sufficient weight, still it would be incumbent on your Sagacities33 to strive and pray continually that the purity of your souls may not seem in anything to be sullied by fellowship with the customs of these most wicked men. We must consider, too, that a discordant judgment in a case of such importance, and respecting such religious festival, is wrong. For our Saviour has left us one feast in commemoration of the day of our deliverance, I mean the day of his most holy passion; and he has willed that his Catholic Church should be one, the members of which, however scattered in many and diverse places, are yet cherished by one pervading spirit, that is, by the will of God. And let your Holinesses’ sagacity reflect how grievous and scandalous it is that on the self-same days some should be engaged in fasting, others in festive enjoyment; and again, that after the days of Easter some should be present at banquets and amusements, while others are fulfilling the appointed fasts. It is, then, plainly the will of Divine Providence (as I suppose you all clearly see), that this usage should receive fitting correction, and be reduced to one uniform rule.
Chapter XIX. Exhortation to Follow the Example of the Greater Part of the World.
“Since, therefore, it was needful that this matter should be rectified, so that we might have nothing in common with that nation of parricides who slew their Lord: and since that arrangement is consistent with propriety which is observed by all the churches of the western, southern, and northern parts of the world, and by some of the eastern also: for these reasons all are unanimous on this present occasion in thinking it worthy of adoption. And I myself have undertaken that this decision should meet with the approval of your Sagacities,34 in the hope that your Wisdoms35 will gladly admit that practice which is observed at once in the city of Rome, and in Africa; throughout Italy, and in Egypt, in Spain, the Gauls, Britain, Libya, and the whole of Greece; in the dioceses of Asia and Pontus, and in Cilicia, with entire unity of judgment. And you will consider not only that the number of churches is far greater in the regions I have enumerated than in any other, but also that it is most fitting that all should unite in desiring that which sound reason appears to demand, and in avoiding all participation in the perjured conduct of the Jews.36 In fine, that I may express my meaning in as few words as possible, it has been determined by the common judgment of all, that the most holy feast of Easter should be kept on one and the same day. For on the one hand a discrepancy of opinion on so sacred a question is unbecoming, and on the other it is surely best to act on a decision which is free from strange folly and error.
Chapter XX. Exhortation to Obey the Decrees of the Council.
“Receive, then, with all willingness this truly Divine injunction, and regard it as in truth the gift of God. For whatever is determined in the holy assemblies of the bishops is to be regarded as indicative of the Divine will. As soon, therefore, as you have communicated these proceedings to all our beloved brethren, you are bound from that time forward to adopt for yourselves, and to enjoin on others the arrangement above mentioned, and the due observance of this most sacred day; that whenever I come into the presence of your love, which I have long desired, I may have it in my power to celebrate the holy feast with you on the same day, and may rejoice with you on all accounts, when I behold the cruel power of Satan removed by Divine aid through the agency of our endeavors, while your faith, and peace, and concord everywhere flourish. God preserve you, beloved brethren.”|
The emperor transmitted a faithful copy37 of this letter to every province, wherein they who read it might discern as in a mirror the pure sincerity of his thoughts, and of his piety toward God.
Chapter XXI. Recommendation to the Bishops, on Their Departure, to Preserve Harmony.
And now, when the council was on the point of being finally dissolved, he summoned all the bishops to meet him on an appointed day, and on their arrival addressed them in a farewell speech, in which he recommended them to be diligent in the maintenance of peace, to avoid contentious disputations, amongst themselves and not to be jealous, if any one of their number should appear pre-eminent for wisdom and eloquence, but to esteem the excellence of one a blessing common to all. On the other hand he reminded them that the more gifted should forbear to exalt themselves to the prejudice of their humbler brethren, since it is God’s prerogative to judge of real superiority. Rather should they considerately condescend to the weaker, remembering that absolute perfection in any case is a rare quality indeed. Each then, should be willing to accord indulgence to the other for slight offenses, to regard charitably and pass over mere human weaknesses; holding mutual harmony in the highest honor, that no occasion of mockery might be given by their dissensions to those who are ever ready to blaspheme the word of God: whom indeed we should do all in our power to save, and this cannot be unless our conduct seems to them attractive. But you are well aware of the fact that testimony is by no means productive of blessing to all, since some who hear are glad to secure the supply of their mere bodily necessities, while others court the patronage of their superiors; some fix their affection on those who treat them with hospitable kindness, others again, being honored with presents, love their benefactors in return; but few are they who really desire the word of testimony, and rare indeed is it to find a friend of truth. Hence the necessity of endeavoring to meet the case of all, and, physician-like, to administer to each that which may tend to the health of the soul, to the end that the saving doctrine may be fully honored by all. Of this kind was the former part of his exhortation;38 and in conclusion he enjoined them to offer diligent supplications to God on his behalf. Having thus taken leave of them, he gave them all permission to return to their respective countries; and this they did with joy, and thenceforward that unity of judgment at which they had arrived in the emperor’s presence continued to prevail, and those who had long been divided were bound together as members of the same body.
Chapter XXII. How He Dismissed Some, and Wrote Letters to Others; Also His Presents.
Full of joy therefore at this success, the emperor presented as it were pleasant fruits in the way of letters to those who had not been present at the council. He commanded also that ample gifts of money should be bestowed on all the people, both in the country and the cities, being pleased thus to honor the festive occasion of the twentieth anniversary of his reign.
Chapter XXIII. How He Wrote to the Egyptians, Exhorting Them to Peace.
And now, when all else were at peace, among the Egyptians alone an implacable contention still raged,39 so as once more to disturb the emperor’s tranquillity, though not to excite his anger. For indeed he treated the contending parties with all respect, as fathers, nay rather, as prophets of God; and again he summoned them to his presence, and again patiently acted as mediator between them, and honored them with gifts, and communicated also the result of his arbitration by letter. He confirmed and sanctioned the decrees of the council, and called on them to strive earnestly for concord, and not to distract and rend the Church, but to keep before them the thought of God’s judgment. And these injunctions the emperor sent by a letter written with his own hand.
Chapter XXIV. How He Wrote Frequent Letters of a Religious Character to the Bishops and People.
But besides these, his writings are very numerous on kindred subjects, and he was the author of a multitude of letters, some to the bishops, in which he laid injunctions on them tending to the advantage of the churches of God; and sometimes the thrice blessed one addressed the people of the churches generally, calling them his own brethren and fellow-servants. But perhaps we may hereafter find leisure to collect these despatches in a separate form, in order that the integrity of our present history may not be impaired by their insertion.
Chapter XXV. How He Ordered the Erection of a Church at Jerusalem, in the Holy Place of Our Saviour’s Resurrection.
After these things, the pious emperor addressed himself to another work truly worthy of record, in the province of Palestine. What then was this work? He judged it incumbent on him to render the blessed locality of our Saviour’s resurrection an object of attraction and veneration to all. He issued immediate injunctions, therefore, for the erection in that spot of a house of prayer: and this he did, not on the mere natural impulse of his own mind, but being moved in spirit by the Saviour himself.
Chapter XXVI. That the Holy Sepulchre Had Been Covered with Rubbish and with Idols by the Ungodly.
For it had been in time past the endeavor of impious men (or rather let me say of the whole race of evil spirits through their means), to consign to the darkness of oblivion that divine monument of immortality to which the radiant angel had descended from heaven, and rolled away the stone for those who still had stony hearts, and who supposed that the living One still lay among the dead; and had declared glad tidings to the women also, and removed their stony-hearted unbelief by the conviction that he whom they sought was alive. This sacred cave, then, certain impious and godless persons had thought to remove entirely from the eyes of men, supposing in their folly that thus they should be able effectually to obscure the truth. Accordingly they brought a quantity of earth from a distance with much labor, and covered the entire spot; then, having raised this to a moderate height, they paved it with stone, concealing the holy cave beneath this massive mound. Then, as though their purpose had been effectually accomplished, they prepare on this foundation a truly dreadful sepulchre of souls, by building a gloomy shrine of lifeless idols to the impure spirit whom they call Venus, and offering detestable oblations therein on profane and accursed altars. For they supposed that their object could not otherwise be fully attained, than by thus burying the sacred cave beneath these foul pollutions. Unhappy men! they were unable to comprehend how impossible it was that their attempt should remain unknown to him who had been crowned with victory over death, any more than the blazing sun, when he rises above the earth, and holds his wonted course through the midst of heaven, is unseen by the whole race of mankind. Indeed, his saving power, shining with still greater brightness, and illumining, not the bodies, but the souls of men, was already filling the world with the effulgence of its own light. Nevertheless, these devices of impious and wicked men against the truth had prevailed for a long time, nor had any one of the governors, or military commanders, or even of the emperors themselves ever yet appeared, with ability to abolish these daring impieties, save only that one who enjoyed the favor of the King of kings. And now, acting as he did under the guidance of the divine Spirit, he could not consent to see the sacred spot of which we have spoken, thus buried, through the devices of the adversaries, under every kind of impurity, and abandoned to forgetfulness and neglect; nor would he yield to the malice of those who had contracted this guilt, but calling on the divine aid, gave orders that the place should be thoroughly purified, thinking that the parts which had been most polluted by the enemy ought to receive special tokens, through his means, of the greatness of the divine favor. As soon, then, as his commands were issued, these engines of deceit were cast down from their proud eminence to the very ground, and the dwelling-places of error, with the statues and the evil spirits which they represented, were overthrown and utterly destroyed.
Chapter XXVII. How Constantine Commanded the Materials of the Idol Temple, and the Soil Itself, to Be Removed at a Distance.
Nor did the emperor’s zeal stop here; but he gave further orders that the materials of what was thus destroyed, both stone and timber, should be removed and thrown as far from the spot as possible; and this command also was speedily executed. The emperor, however, was not satisfied with having proceeded thus far: once more, fired with holy ardor, he directed that the ground itself should be dug up to a considerable depth, and the soil which had been polluted by the foul impurities of demon worship transported to a far distant place.
Chapter XXVIII. Discovery of the Most Holy Sepulchre.40 
This also was accomplished without delay. But as soon as the original surface of the ground, beneath the covering of earth, appeared, immediately, and contrary to all expectation, the venerable and hollowed monument of our Saviour’s resurrection was discovered. Then indeed did this most holy cave present a faithful simili- tude of his return to life, in that, after lying buried in darkness, it again emerged to light, and afforded to all who came to witness the sight, a clear and visible proof of the wonders of which that spot had once been the scene, a testimony to the resurrection of the Saviour clearer than any voice could give.
Chapter XXIX. How He Wrote Concerning the Erection of a Church, Both to the Governors of the Provinces, and to the Bishop Macarius.
Immediately after the transactions I have recorded, the emperor sent forth injunctions which breathed a truly pious spirit, at the same time granting ample supplies of money, and commanding that a house of prayer worthy of the worship of God should be erected near the Saviour’s tomb on a scale of rich and royal greatness. This object he had indeed for some time kept in view, and had foreseen, as if by the aid of a superior intelligence, that which should afterwards come to pass. He laid his commands, therefore, on the governors of the Eastern provinces, that by an abundant and unsparing expenditure they should secure the completion of the work on a scale of noble and ample magnificence. He also despatched the following letter to the bishop who at that time presided over the church at Jerusalem, in which he clearly asserted the saving doctrine of the faith, writing in these terms.
Chapter XXX. Constantine’s Letter to Macarius Respecting the Building of the Church of Our Saviour.
“Victor Constantius, Maximus Augustus, to Macarius.
1 “Such is our Saviour’s grace, that no power of language seems adequate to describe the wondrous circumstance to which I am about to refer. For, that the monument of his most holy Passion, so long ago buried beneath the ground, should have remained unknown for so long a series of years, until its reappearance to his servants now set free through the removal of him41 who was the common enemy of all, is a fact which truly surpasses all admiration. For if all who are accounted wise throughout the world were to unite in their endeavors to say somewhat worthy of this event, they would be unable to attain their object in the smallest degree. Indeed, the nature of this miracle as far transcends the capacity of human reason as heavenly things are superior to human affairs. For this cause it is ever my first, and indeed my only object, that, as the authority of the truth is evincing itself daily by fresh wonders, so our souls may all become more zealous, with all sobriety and earnest unanimity, for the honor of the Divine law. I desire, therefore, especially, that you should be persuaded of that which I suppose is evident to all beside, namely, that I have no greater care than how I may best adorn with a splendid structure that sacred spot, which, under Divine direction, I have disencumbered as it were of the heavy weight of foul idol worship; a spot which has been accounted holy from the beginning in God’s judgment, but which now appears holier still, since it has brought to light a clear assurance of our Saviour’s passion.
Chapter XXXI. That the Building Should Surpass All the Churches in the World in the Beauty of Its Walls, Its Columns, and Marbles.
1 “It will be well, therefore, for your sagacity to make such arrangements and provision of all things needful for the work, that not only the church itself as a whole may surpass all others whatsoever in beauty, but that the details of the building may be of such a kind that the fairest structures in any city of the empire may be excelled by this. And with respect to the erection and decoration of the walls, this is to inform you that our friend Dracilianus, the deputy of the Praetorian Praefects, and the governor of the province, have received a charge from us. For our pious directions to them are to the effect that artificers and laborers, and whatever they shall understand from your sagacity to be needful for the advancement of the work, shall forthwith be furnished by their care. And as to the columns and marbles, whatever you shall judge, after actual inspection of the plan, to be especially precious and serviceable, be diligent to send information to us in writing, in order that whatever quantity or sort of materials we shall esteem from your letter to be needful, may be procured from every quarter, as required, for it is fitting that the most marvelous place in the world should be worthily decorated.
Chapter XXXII. That He Instructed the Governors Concerning the Beautifying of the Roof; Also Concerning Workmen, and Materials.
 “With respect to the ceiling42 of the church, I wish to know from you whether in your judgment it should be panel-ceiled,43 or finished with any other kind of workmanship. If the panel ceiling be adopted, it may also be ornamented with gold. For the rest, your Holiness will give information as early as possible to the before-mentioned magistrates how many laborers and artificers, and what expenditure of money is required. You will also be careful to send us a report without delay, not only respecting the marbles and columns, but the paneled ceiling also, should this appear to you to be the most beautiful form. God preserve you, beloved brother!”
Chapter XXXIII. How the Church of Our Saviour, the New Jerusalem Prophesied of in Scripture, Was Built.
 This was the emperor’s letter; and his directions were at once carried into effect. Accordingly, on the very spot which witnessed the Saviour’s sufferings, a new Jerusalem was constructed, over against the one so celebrated of old, which, since the foul stain of guilt brought on it by the murder of the Lord, had experienced the last extremity of desolation, the effect of Divine judgment on its impious people. It was opposite this city that the emperor now began to rear a monument to the Saviour’s victory over death, with rich and lavish magnificence. And it may be that this was that second and new Jerusalem spoken of in the predictions of the prophets,44 concerning which such abundant testimony is given in the divinely inspired records.
 First of all, then, he adorned the sacred cave itself, as the chief part of the whole work, and the hallowed monument at which the angel radiant with light had once declared to all that regeneration which was first manifested in the Saviour’s person.
Chapter XXXIV. Description of the Structure of the Holy Sepulchre.
 This monument, therefore, first of all, as the chief part of the whole, the emperor’s zealous magnificence beautified with rare columns, anti profusely enriched with the most splendid decorations of every kind.
Chapter XXXV. Description of the Atrium and Porticos.
 The next object of his attention was a space of ground of great extent, and open to the pure air of heaven. This he adorned with a pavement of finely polished stone, and enclosed it on three sides with porticos of great length.
Chapter XXXVI. Description of the Walls, Roof, Decoration, and Gilding of the Body of the Church.
 For at the side opposite to the cave, which was the eastern side, the church itself was erected; a noble work rising to a vast height, and of great extent both in length and breadth. The interior of this structure was floored with marble slabs of various colors; while the external surface of the walls, which shone with polished stones exactly fitted together, exhibited a degree of splendor in no respect inferior to that of marble. With regard to the roof, it was covered on the outside with lead, as a protection against the rains of winter. But the inner part of the roof, which was finished with sculptured panel work, extended in a series of connected compartments, like a vast sea, over the whole church;45 and, being overlaid throughout with the purest gold, caused the entire building to glitter as it were with rays of light.
Chapter XXXVII. Description of the Double Porticos on Either Side, and of the Three Eastern Gates.
 Besides this were two porticos on each side, with upper and lower ranges of pillars,46 corresponding in length with the church itself; and these also had their roofs ornamented with gold. Of these porticos, those which were exterior to the church were supported by columns of great size, while those within these rested on piles47 of stone beautifully adorned on the surface. Three gates, placed exactly east, were intended to receive the multitudes who entered the church.
Chapter XXXVIII. Description of the Hemisphere, the Twelve Columns, and Their Bowls.
 Opposite these gates the crowning part of the whole was the hemisphere,48 which rose to the very summit of the church. This was encircled by twelve columns (according to the number of the apostles of our Saviour), having their capitals embellished with silver bowls of great size, which the emperor himself presented as a splendid offering to his God.
Chapter XXXIX. Description of the Inner Court, the Arcades and Porches.
 In the next place he enclosed the atrium which occupied the space leading to the entrances in front of the church. This comprehended, first the court, then the porticos on each side, and lastly the gates of the court. After these, in the midst of the open market-place,49 the general entrance-gates, which were of exquisite workmanship, afforded to passers-by on the outside a view of the interior which could not fail to inspire astonishment.
Chapter XL. Of the Number of His Offerings.
 This temple, then, the emperor erected as a conspicuous monument of the Saviour’s resurrection, and embellished it throughout on an imperial scale of magnificence. He further enriched it with numberless offerings of inexpressible beauty and various materials,—gold, silver, and precious stones, the skillful and elaborate arrangement of which, in regard to their magnitude, number, and variety, we have not leisure at present to describe particularly.50 
Chapter XLI. Of the Erection of Churches in Bethlehem, and an the Mount of Olives.
 In the same country he discovered other places, venerable as being the localities of two sacred caves: and these also he adorned with lavish magnificence. In the one case, he rendered due honor to that which had been the scene of the first manifestation of our Saviour’s divine presence, when he submitted to be born in mortal flesh; while in the case of the second cavern he hallowed the remembrance of his ascension to heaven from the mountain top. And while he thus nobly testified his reverence for these places, he at the same time eternized the memory of his mother,51 who had been the instrument of conferring so valuable a benefit on mankind.
Chapter XLII. That the Empress Helena,52 Constantine’s Mother, Having Visited This Locality for Devotional Purposes, Built These Churches.
 For she, having resolved to discharge the duties of pious devotion to the God, the King of kings, and feeling it incumbent on her to render thanksgivings with prayers on behalf both of her own son, now so mighty an emperor, and of his sons, her own grandchildren, the divinely favored Caesars, though now advanced in years, yet gifted with no common degree of wisdom, had hastened with youthful alacrity to survey this venerable land; and at the same time to visit the eastern provinces, cities, and people, with a truly imperial solicitude. As soon, then, as she had rendered due reverence to the ground which the Saviour’s feet had trodden, according to the prophetic word which says53 “Let us worship at the place whereon his feet have stood,” she immediately bequeathed the fruit of her piety to future generations.
Chapter XLIII. A Farther Notice of the Churches at Bethlehem.
 For without delay she dedicated two churches to the God whom she adored, one at the grotto which had been the scene of the Saviour’s birth; the other on the mount of his ascension. For he who was “God with us” had submitted to be born even in a cave54 of the earth, and the place of his nativity was called Bethlehem by the Hebrews. Accordingly the pious empress honored with rare memorials the scene of her travail who bore this heavenly child, and beautified the sacred cave with all possible splendor. The emperor himself soon after testified his reverence for the spot by princely offerings, and added to his mother’s magnificence by costly presents of silver and gold, and embroidered hangings. And farther, the mother of the emperor raised a stately structure on the Mount of Olives also, in memory of his ascent to heaven who is the Saviour of mankind, erecting a sacred church and temple on the very summit of the mount. And indeed authentic history informs us that in this very cave the Saviour imparted his secret revelations to his disciples.55 And here also the emperor testified his reverence for the King of kings, by diverse and costly offerings. Thus did Helena Augusta, the pious mother of a pious emperor, erect over the two mystic caverns these two noble and beautiful monuments of devotion, worthy of everlasting remembrance, to the honor of God her Saviour, and as proofs of her holy zeal, receiving from her son the aid of his imperial power. Nor was it long ere this aged woman reaped the due reward of her labors. After passing the whole period of her life, even to declining age, in the greatest prosperity, and exhibiting both in word and deed abundant fruits of obedience to the divine precepts, and having enjoyed in consequence an easy and tranquil existence, with unimpaired powers of body and mind, at length she obtained from God an end befitting her pious course, and a recompense of her good deeds even in this present life.
Chapter XLIV. Of Helena’s Generosity and Beneficent Acts.
 For on the occasion of a circuit which she made of the eastern provinces, in the splendor of imperial authority, she bestowed abundant proofs of her liberality as well on the inhabitants of the several cities collectively, as on individuals who approached her, at the same time that she scattered largesses among the soldiery with a liberal hand. But especially abundant were the gifts she bestowed on the naked and unprotected poor. To some she gave money, to others an ample supply of clothing: she liberated some from imprisonment, or from the bitter servitude of the mines; others she delivered from unjust oppression, and others again, she restored from exile.
Chapter XLV. Helena’s Pious Conduct in the Churches.
 While, however, her character derived luster from such deeds as I have described, she was far from neglecting personal piety toward God.56 She might be seen continually frequenting his Church, while at the same time she adorned the houses of prayer with splendid offerings, not overlooking the churches of the smallest cities. In short, this admirable woman was to be seen, in simple and modest attire, mingling with the crowd of worshipers, and testifying her devotion to God by a uniform course of pious conduct.
Chapter XLVI. How She Made Her Will, and Died at the Age of Eighty Years.
 And when at length at the close of a long life, she was called to inherit a happier lot, having arrived at the eightieth year of her age, and being very near the time of her departure, she prepared and executed her last will in favor of her only son, the emperor and sole monarch of the world, and her grandchildren, the Caesars his sons, to whom severally she bequeathed whatever property she possessed in any part of the world. Having thus made her will, this thrice blessed woman died in the presence of her illustrious son, who was in attendance at her side, caring for her and held her hands: so that, to those who rightly discerned the truth, the thrice blessed one seemed not to die, but to experience a real change and transition from an earthly to a heavenly existence, since her soul, remoulded as it were into an incorruptible and angelic essence,57 was received up into her Saviour’s presence.58 
Chapter XLVII. How Constantine Buried His Mother, and How He Honored Her During Her Life.
 Her body, too, was honored with special tokens of respect, being escorted on its way to the imperial city by a vast train of guards, and there deposited in a royal tomb. Such were the last days of our emperor’s mother, a person worthy of being had in perpetual remembrance, both for her own practical piety, and because she had given birth to so extraordinary and admirable an offspring. And well may his character be styled blessed, for his filial piety as well as on other grounds. He rendered her through his influence so devout a worshiper of God, (though she had not previously been such,) that she seemed to have been instructed from the first by the Saviour of mankind: and besides this, he had honored her so fully with imperial dignities, that in every province, and in the very ranks of the soldiery, she was spoken of under the titles of Augusta and empress, and her likeness was impressed on golden coins.59 He had even granted her authority over the imperial treasures, to use and dispense them according to her own will and discretion in every case for this enviable distinction also she received at the hands of her son. Hence it is that among the qualities which shed a luster on his memory, we may rightly include that surpassing degree of filial affection whereby he rendered full obedience to the Divine precepts which enjoin due honor from children to their parents. In this manner, then, the emperor executed in Palestine the noble works I have above described: and indeed in every province he raised new churches on a far more imposing scale than those which had existed before his time.
Chapter XLVIII. How He Built Churches in Honor of Martyrs, and Abolished Idolatry at Constantinople.
 And being fully resolved to distinguish the city which bore his name with especial honor, he embellished it with numerous sacred edifices, both memorials of martyrs on the largest scale, and other buildings of the most splendid kind, not only within the city itself, but in its vicinity: and thus at the same time he rendered honor to the memory of the martyrs, and consecrated his city to the martyrs’ God. Being filled, too, with Divine wisdom, he determined to purgethe city which was to be distinguished by his own name from idolatry of every kind, that henceforth no statues might be worshiped there in the temples of those falsely reputed to be gods, nor any altars defiled by the pollution of blood: that there might be no sacrifices consumed by fire, no demon festivals, nor any of the other ceremonies usually observed by the superstitious.
Chapter XLIX. Representation of the Cross in the Palace, and of Daniel at the Public Fountains.
 On the other hand one might see the fountains in the midst of the market place graced with figures representing the good Shepherd, well known to those who study the sacred oracles, and that of Daniel also with the lions, forged in brass, and resplendent with plates of gold. Indeed, so large a measure of Divine love possessed the emperor’s soul, that in the principal apartment of the imperial palace itself, on a vast tablet60 displayed in the center of its gold-covered paneled ceiling, he caused the symbol of our Saviour’s Passion to be fixed, composed of a variety of precious stones richly inwrought with gold. This symbol he seemed to have intended to be as it were the safeguard of the empire itself.
Chapter L. That He Erected Churches in Nicomedia, and in Other Cities.
 Having thus embellished the city which bore his name, he next distinguished the capital of Bithynia61 by the erection of a stately and magnificent church, being desirous of raising in this city also, in honor of his Saviour and at his own charges, a memorial of his victory over his own enemies and the adversaries of God. He also decorated the principal cities of the other provinces with sacred edifices of great beauty; as, for example, in the case of that metropolis of the East which derived its name from Antiochus, in which, as the head of that portion of the empire, he consecrated to the service of God a church of unparalleled size and beauty. The entire building was encompassed by an enclosure of great extent, within which the church itself rose to a vast elevation, being of an octagonal form, and surrounded on all sides by many chambers, courts, and upper and lower apartments; the whole richly adorned with a profusion of gold, brass, and other materials of the most costly kind.
Chapter LI. That He Ordered a Church to Be Built at Mambre.
 Such was the principal sacred edifices erected by the emperor’s command. But having heard that the self-same Saviour who erewhile had appeared on earth62 had in ages long since past afforded a manifestation of his Divine presence to holy men of Palestine near the oak of Mambre,63 he ordered that a house of prayer should be built there also in honor of the God who had thus appeared. Accordingly the imperial commission was transmitted to the provincial governors by letters addressed to them individually, enjoining a speedy completion of the appointed work. He sent moreover to the writer of this history an eloquent admonition, a copy of which I think it well to insert in the present work, in order to convey a just idea of his pious diligence and zeal. To express, then, his displeasure at the evil practices which he had heard were usual in the place just referred to, he addressed me in the following terms.
Chapter LII. Constantine’s Letter to Eusebius Concerning Mambre.
“Victor Constantinus, Maximus Augustus, to Macarius, and the rest of the bishops in Palestine.64 
“One benefit, and that of no ordinary importance, has been conferred on us by my truly pious mother-in-law,65 in that she has made known to us by letter that abandoned folly of impious men which has hitherto escaped detection by you: so that the criminal conduct thus overlooked may now through our means obtain fitting correction and remedy, necessary though ardy. For surely it is a grave impiety indeed, that holy places should be defiled by the stain of unhallowed impurities. What then is this, dearest brethren, which, though it has eluded your sagacity, she of whom I speak was impelled by a pious sense of duty to disclose?
Chapter LIII. That the Saviour Appeared in This Place to Abraham.
 “She assures me, then, that the place which takes its name from the oak of Mambre, where we find that Abraham dwelt, is defiled by certain of the slaves of superstition in every possible way. She declares that idols66 which should be utterly destroyed have been erected on the site of that tree; that an altar is near the spot; and that impure sacrifices are continually performed. Now since it is evident that these practices are equally inconsistent with the character of our times, and unworthy the sanctity of the place itself, I wish your Gravities67 to be informed that the illustrious Count Acacius, our friend, has received instructions by letter from me, to the effect that every idol which shall be found in the place above-mentioned shall immediately be consigned to the flames; that the altar be utterly demolished; and that if any one, after this our mandate, shall be guilty of impiety of any kind in this place, he shall be visited with condign punishment. The place itself we have directed to be adorned with an unpolluted structure, I mean a church; in order that it may become a fitting place of assembly for holy men. Meantime, should any breach of these our commands occur, it should be made known to our clemency without the least delay by letters from you, that we may direct the person detected to be dealt with, as a transgressor of the law, in the severest manner. For you are not ignorant that the Supreme God first appeared to Abraham, and conversed with him, in that place. There it was that the observance of the Divine law first began; there first the Saviour himself, with the two angels, vouchsafed to Abraham a manifestation of his presence; there God first appeared to men; there he gave promise to Abraham concerning his future seed, and straightway fulfilled that promise; there he foretold that he should be the father of a multitude of nations. For these reasons, it seems to me right that this place should not only be kept pure through your diligence from all defilement, but restored also to its pristine sanctity; that nothing hereafter may be done there except the performance of fitting service to him who is the Almighty God, and our Saviour, and Lord of all. And this service it is incumbent on you to care for with due attention, if your Gravities be willing (and of this I feel confident) to gratify my wishes, which are especially interested in the worship of God. May he preserve you, beloved brethren!”
Chapter LIV. Destruction of Idol Temples and Images Everywhere.
 All these things the emperor diligently performed to the praise of the saving power of Christ, and thus made it his constant aim to glorify his Saviour God. On the other hand he used every means to rebuke the superstitious errors of the heathen. Hence the entrances of their temples in the several cities were left exposed to the weather, being stripped of their doors at his command; the tiling of others was removed, and their roofs destroyed. From others again the venerable statues of brass, of which the superstition of antiquity had boasted for a long series of years, were exposed to view in all the public places of the imperial city: so that here a Pythian, there a Sminthian Apollo, excited the contempt of the beholder: while the Delphic tripods were deposited in the hippodrome and the Muses of Helicon in the palace itself. In short, the city which bore his name was everywhere filled with brazen statues of the most exquisite workmanship, which had been dedicated in every province, and which the deluded victims of superstition had long vainly honored as gods with numberless victims and burnt sacrifices, though now at length they learnt to renounce their error, when the emperor held up the very objects of their worship to be the ridicule and sport of all beholders. With regard to those images which were of gold, he dealt with them in a different manner. For as soon as he understood that the ignorant multitudes were inspired with a vain and childish dread of these bugbears of error, wrought in gold and silver, he judged it right to remove these also, like stumbling-stones thrown in the way of men walking in the dark, and henceforward to open a royal road, plain and unobstructed to all. Having formed this resolution, he considered no soldiers or military force of any sort needful for the suppression of the evil: a few of his own friends sufficed for this service, and these he sent by a simple expression of his will to visit each several province. Accordingly, sustained by confidence in the emperor’s pious intentions and their own personal devotion to God, they passed through the midst of numberless tribes and nations, abolishing this ancient error in every city and country. They ordered the priests themselves, amidst general laughter and scorn, to bring their gods from their dark recesses to the light of day: they then stripped them of their ornaments, and exhibited to the gaze of all the unsightly reality which had been hidden beneath a painted exterior. Lastly, whatever part of the material appeared valuable they scraped off and melted in the fire to prove its worth, after which they secured and set apart whatever they judged needful for their purpose, leaving to the superstitious worshipers that which was altogether useless, as a memorial of their shame. Meanwhile our admirable prince was himself engaged in a work similar to what we have described. For at the same time that these costly images of the dead were stripped, as we have said, of their precious materials, he also attacked those composed of brass; causing those to be dragged from their places with ropes and as it were carried away captive, whom the dotage of mythology had esteemed as gods.
Chapter LV. Overthrow of an Idol Temple, and Abolition of Licentious Practices, at Aphaca in Phoenicia.
 The emperor’s next care was to kindle, as it were, a brilliant torch, by the light of which he directed his imperial gaze around, to see if any hidden vestiges of error might still exist. And as the keen-sighted eagle in its heavenward flight is able to descry from its lofty height the most distant objects on the earth, so did he, while residing in the imperial palace of his own fair city, discover as from a watch-tower a hidden and fatal snare of souls in the province of Phoenicia. This was a grove and temple, not situated in the midst of any city, nor in any public place, as for splendor of effect is generally the case, but apart from the beaten and frequented road, at Aphaca, on part of the summit of Mount Lebanon, and dedicated to the foul demon known by the name of Venus. It was a school of wickedness for all the votaries of impurity, and such as destroyed their bodies with effeminacy. Here men undeserving of the name forgot the dignity of their sex, and propitiated the demon by their effeminate conduct; here too unlawful commerce of women and adulterous intercourse, with other horrible and infamous practices, were perpetrated in this temple as in a place beyond the scope and restraint of law. Meantime these evils remained unchecked by the presence of any observer, since no one of fair character ventured to visit such scenes. These proceedings, however, could not escape the vigilance of our august emperor, who, having himself inspected them with characteristic forethought, and judging that such a temple was unfit for the light of heaven, gave orders that the building with its offerings should be utterly destroyed. Accordingly, in obedience to the imperial command, these engines of an impure superstition were immediately abolished, and the hand of military force was made instrumental in purging the place. And now those who had heretofore lived without restraint learned self-control through the emperor’s threat of punishment, as likewise those superstitious Gentiles wise in their own conceit, who now obtained experimental proof of their own folly.
Chapter LVI. Destruction of the Temple of Aesculapius at Egaae.68 
 For since a wide-spread error of these pretenders to wisdom concerned the demon worshiped in Cilicia, whom thousands regarded with reverence as the possessor of saving and healing power, who sometimes appeared to those who passed the night in his temple, sometimes restored the diseased to health, though on the contrary he was a destroyer of souls, who drew his easily deluded worshipers from the true Saviour to involve them in impious error, the emperor, consistently with his practice, and desire to advance the worship of him who is at once a jealous God and the true Saviour, gave directions that this temple also should be razed to the ground. In prompt obedience to this command, a band of soldiers laid this building, the admiration of noble philosophers, prostrate in the dust, together with its unseen inmate, neither demon nor god, but rather a deceiver of souls, who had seduced mankind for so long a time through various ages. And thus he who had promised to others deliverance from misfortune and distress, could find no means for his own security, any more than when, as is told in myth, he was scorched by the lightning’s stroke.69 Our emperor’s pious deeds, however, had in them nothing fabulous or feigned; but by virtue of the manifested power of his Saviour, this temple as well as others was so utterly overthrown, that not a vestige of the former follies was left behind.
Chapter LVII. How the Gentiles Abandoned Idol Worship, and Turned to the Knowledge of God.
 Hence it was that, of those who had been the slaves of superstition, when they saw with their own eyes the exposure of their delusion, and beheld the actual ruin of the temples and images in every place, some applied themselves to the saving doctrine of Christ; while others, though they declined to take this step, yet reprobated the folly which they had received from their fathers, and laughed to scorn what they had so long been accustomed to regard as gods. Indeed, what other feelings could possess their minds, when they witnessed the thorough uncleanness concealed beneath the fair exterior of the objects of their worship? Beneath this were found either the bones of dead men or dry skulls, fraudulently adorned by the arts of magicians,70 or filthy rags full of abominable impurity, or a bundle of hay or stubble. On seeing all these things heaped together within their lifeless images, they denounced their fathers’ extreme folly and their own, especially when neither in the secret recesses of the temples nor in the statues themselves could any inmate be found; neither demon, nor utterer of oracles, neither god nor prophet, as they had heretofore supposed: nay, not even a dim and shadowy phantom could be seen. Accordingly, every gloomy cavern, every hidden recess, afforded easy access to the emperor’s emissaries: the inaccessible and secret chambers, the innermost shrines of the temples, were trampled by the soldiers’ feet; and thus the mental blindness which had prevailed for so many ages over the gentile world became clearly apparent to the eyes of all.
Chapter LVIII. How He Destroyed the Temple of Venus at Heliopolis, and Built the First Church in that City.
 Such actions as I have described may well be reckoned among the emperor’s noblest achievements, as also the wise arrangements which he made respecting each particular province. We may instance the Phoenician city Heliopolis, in which those who dignify licentious pleasure with a distinguishing title of honor, had permitted their wives and daughters to commit shameless fornication. But now a new statute, breathing the very spirit of modesty, proceeded from the emperor, which peremptorily forbade the con- tinuance of former practices. And besides this he sent them also written exhortations, as though he had been especially ordained by God for this end, that he might instruct all men in the principles of chastity. Hence, he disdained not to communicate by letter even with these persons, urging them to seek diligently the knowledge of God. At the same time he followed up his words by corresponding deeds, and erected even in this city a church of great size and magnificence: so that an event unheard of before in any age, now for the first time came to pass, namely, that a city which had hitherto been wholly given up to superstition now obtained the privilege of a church of God, with presbyters and deacons, and its people were placed under the presiding care of a bishop consecrated to the service of the supreme God. And further, the emperor, being anxious that here also as many as possible might be won to the truth, bestowed abundant provision for the necessities of the poor, desiring even thus to invite them to seek the doctrines of salvation, as though he were almost adopting the words of him who said, “Whether in pretense, or in truth, let Christ be preached.”71 
Chapter LIX. Of the Disturbance at Antioch by Eustathius.
 In the midst, however, of the general happiness occasioned by these events, and while the Church of God was every where and every way flourishing throughout the empire, once more that spirit of envy, who ever watches for the ruin of the good, prepared himself to combat the greatness of our prosperity, in the expectation, perhaps, that the emperor himself, provoked by our tumults and disorders, might eventually become estranged from us. Accordingly, he kindled a furious controversy at Antioch, and thereby involved the church in that place in a series of tragic calamities, which had well-nigh occasioned the total overthrow of the city. The members of the Church were divided into two opposite parties; while the people, including even the magistrates and soldiery, were roused to such a pitch, that the contest would have been decided by the sword, had not the watchful providence of God, as well as dread of the emperor’s displeasure, controlled the fury of the multitude. On this occasion, too, the emperor, acting the part of a preserver and physician of souls, applied with much forbearance the remedy of persuasion to those who needed it. He gently pleaded, as it were by an embassy, with his people, sending among them oneof the best approved and most faithful of those who were honored with the dignity of Count;72 at the same time that he exhorted them to a peaceable spirit by repeated letters, and instructed them in the practice of true godliness, Having prevailed by these remonstrances, he excused their conduct in his subsequent letters, alleging that he had himself heard the merits of the case from him on whose account the disturbance had arisen.73 And these letters of his, which are replete with learning and instruction of no ordinary kind, I should have inserted in this present work, were it not that they might affix a mark of dishonor to the character of the persons accused. I will therefore omit these, being unwilling to revive the memory of past grievances, and will only annex those to my present narrative which he wrote to testify his satisfaction at the re-establishment of peace and concord among the rest. In these letters, he cautioned them against any desire to claim the ruler of another district,74 through whose intervention peace had been restored, as their own, and exhorted them, consistently with the usage of the Church, to choose him as their bishop, whom the common Saviour of all should point out as suited for the office. His letter, then, is addressed to the people and to the bishops, severally, in the following terms.
Chapter LX. Constantine’s Letter to the Antiochians, Directing Them Not to Withdraw Eusebius from Caesarea, But to Seek Some One Else.
 “Victor Constantinus, Maximus Augustus, to the people of Antioch.
2 “How pleasing to the wise and intelligent portion of mankind is the concord which exists among you! And I myself, brethren, am disposed to love you with an enduring affection, inspired both by religion, and by your own manner of life and zeal on my behalf. It is by the exercise of right understanding and sound discretion, that we are enabled really to enjoy our blessings. And what can become you so well as i this discretion? No wonder, then, if I affirm that your maintenance of the truth has tended rather to promote your security than to draw on you the hatred of others. Indeed, amongst brethren, whom the selfsame disposition to walk in the ways of truth and righteousness promises, through the favor of God, to register among his pure and holy family, what can be more honorable than gladly to acquiesce in the prosperity of all men? Especially since the precepts of the divine law prescribe a better direction to your proposed intention, and we ourselves desire that your judgment should be confirmed by proper sanction.75 It may be that you are surprised, and at a loss to understand the meaning of this introduction to my present address. The cause of it I will not hesitate to explain without reserve. I confess, then, that on reading your records I perceived, by the highly eulogistic testimony which they bear to Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, whom I have myself long well known and esteemed for his learning and moderation, that you are strongly attached to him, and desire to appropriate him as your own. What thoughts, then, do you suppose that I entertain on this subject, desirous as I am to seek for and act on the strict principles of right? What anxiety do you imagine this desire of yours has caused me? O holy faith, who givest us in our Saviour’s words and precepts a model, as it were, of what our life should be, how hardly wouldst thou thyself resist the sins of men, were it not that thou refusest to subserve the purposes of gain! In my own judgment, he whose first object is the maintenance of peace, seems to be superior to Victory herself; and where a right and honorable course lies open to one’s choice, surely no one would hesitate to adopt it. I ask then, brethren, why do we so decide as to inflict an injury on others by our choice? Why do we covet those objects which will destroy the credit of our own reputation? I myself highly esteem the individual whom ye judge worthy of your respect and affection: notwithstanding, it cannot be right that those principles should be entirely disregarded which should be authoritative and binding on all alike, so that each should not be content with his own circumstances, and all enjoy their proper privileges: nor can it be right, in considering the claims of rival candidates, to suppose but that not one only, but many, may appear worthy of comparison with this person. For as long as no violence or harshness are suffered to disturb the dignities of the church, they continue to be on an equal footing, and worthy of the same consideration everywhere. Nor is it reasonable that an inquiry into the qualifications of this one should be made to the detriment of others; since the judgment of all churches, whether reckoned of greater or less importance in themselves, is equally capable of receiving and maintaining the divine ordinances, so that one is in no way inferior to another, if we will but boldly declare the truth, in regard to that standard of practice which is common to all. If this be so, we must say that you will be chargeable, not with retaining this prelate, but with wrongfully removing him; your conduct will be characterized rather by violence than justice; and whatever may be generally thought by others, I dare clearly and boldly affirm that this measure will furnish ground of accusation against you, and will provoke factious disturbances of the most mischievous kind: for even timid flocks can show the use and power of their teeth, when the watchful care of their shepherd declines, and they find themselves bereft of his accustomed guidance. If this then be really so, if I am not deceived in my judgment, let this, brethren, be your first consideration, for many and important considerations will immediately present themselves, whether, should you persist in your intention, that mutual kindly feeling and affection which should subsist among you will suffer no diminution? In the next place, remember that he, who came among you for the purpose of offering disinterested counsel,76 now enjoys the reward which is due to him in the judgment of heaven; for he has received no ordinary recompense in the high testimony you have borne to his equitable conduct. Lastly, in accordance with your usual sound judgment, do ye exhibit a becoming diligence in selecting the person of whom you stand in need, carefully avoiding all factious and tumultuous clamor; for such clamor is always wrong, and from the collision of discordant elements both sparks and flame will arise. I protest, as I desire to please God and you, and to enjoy a happiness commensurate with your kind wishes, that I love you, and the quiet haven of your gentleness, now that you have cast from you that which defiled,77 and received in its place at once sound morality and concord, firmly planting in the vessel the sacred standard, and guided, as one may say, by a helm of iron in your course onward to the light of heaven. Receive then on board that merchandise which is incorruptible, since, as it were, all bilge water has been drained from the vessel; and be careful henceforth so to secure the enjoyment of all your present blessing, that you may not seem at any future time either to have determined any measure on the impulse of inconsiderate or ill-directed zeal, or in the first instance rashly to have entered on an inexpedient course. May God preserve you, beloved brethren!”
Chapter LXI. The Emperor’s Letter to Eusebius Praising Him for Refusing the Bishopric of Antioch.
The Emperor’s Letter to me on my refusing the Bishopric of Antioch.
“Victor Constantinus, Maximus Augustus, to Eusebius.
“I have most carefully perused your letter, and perceive that you have strictly conformed to the rule enjoined by the discipline of the Church. Now to abide by that which appears at the same time pleasing to God, and accordant with apostolical tradition, is a proof of true piety. You have reason to deem yourself happy on this behalf, that you are counted worthy, in the judgment, I may say, of all the world, to have the oversight of any church. For the desire which all feel to claim you for their own, undoubtedly enhances your enviable fortune in this respect. Notwithstanding, your Prudence whose resolve it is to observe the ordinances of God and the apostolic canon of the Church,78 has done excellently well in declining the bishopric of the church at Antioch, and desiring to continue in that church of which you first received the oversight by the will of God. I have written on this subject to the people of Antioch, and also to your colleagues in the ministry who had themselves consulted me in regard to this question; on reading which letters, your Holiness will easily discern, that, inasmuch as justice itself opposed their claims, I have written to them under divine direction. It will be necessary that your Prudence should be present at their conference, in order that this decision may be ratified in the church at Antioch. God preserve you, beloved brother!”
Chapter LXII. Constantine’s Letter to the Council, Depreciating the Removal of Eusebius from Caesarea.
“Victor Constantinus, Maximus Augustus, to Theodotus, Theodorus, Narcissus, Atius, Alpheus, and the rest of the bishops who are at Antioch.
“I have perused the letters written by your Prudences, and highly approve of the wise resolution of your colleague in the ministry, Eusebius. Having, moreover, been informed of the circumstances of the case, partly by your letters, partly by those of our illustrious counts,79 Acacius and Strategius, after sufficient investigation I have written to the people of Antioch, suggesting the course which will be at once pleasing to God and advantageous for the Church. A copy of this I have ordered to be subjoined to this present letter, in order that ye yourselves may know what I thought fit, as an advocate of the cause of justice, to write to that people: since I find in your letter this proposal, that, in consonance with the choice of the people, sanctioned by your own desire, Eusebius the holy bishop of Caesarea should preside over and take the charge of the church at Antioch. Now the letters of Eusebius himself on this subject appeared to be strictly accordant with the order prescribed by the Church. Nevertheless it is expedient that your Prudences should be made acquainted with my opinion also. For I am informed that Euphronius the presbyter, who isa citizen of Caesarea in Cappadocia, and George of Arethusa, likewise a presbyter, and appointed to that office by Alexander at Alexandria,80 are men of tried faith. It was right, therefore, to intimate to your Prudences, that in proposing these men and any others whom you may deem worthy the episcopal dignity, you should decide this question in a manner conformable to the tradition of the apostles. For in that case, your Prudences will be able, according to the rule of the Church and apostolic tradition, to direct this election in the manner which true ecclesiastical discipline shall prescribe. God preserve you, beloved brethren!”
Chapter LXIII. How He Displayed His Zeal for the Extirpation of Heresies.
 Such were the exhortations to do all things to the honor of the divine religion which the emperor addressed to the rulers of the churches. Having by these means banished dissension, and reduced the Church of God to a state of uniform harmony, he next proceeded to a different duty, feeling it incumbent on him to extirpate another sort of impious persons, as pernicious enemies of the human race. These were pests of society, who ruined whole cities under the specious garb of religious decorum; men whom our Saviour’s warning voice somewhere terms false prophets and ravenous wolves: “Beware of false prophets, which will come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves. By their fruits ye shall know them.”81 Accordingly, by an order transmitted to the governors of the several provinces, he effectually banished all such offenders. In addition to this ordinance he addressed to them personally a severely awakening admonition, exhorting them to an earnest repentance, that they might still find a haven of safety in the true Church of God. Hear, then, in what manner he addressed them in this letter.
Chapter LXIV. Constantine’s Edict Against the Heretics.
“Victor Constantinus, Maximus Augustus, to the heretics.
“Understand now, by this present statute, ye Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Paulians, ye who are called Cataphrygians,82 and all ye who devise and support heresies by means of your private assemblies, with what a tissue of falsehood and vanity, with what destructive and venomous errors, your doctrines are inseparably interwoven; so that through you the healthy soul is stricken with disease, and the living becomes the prey of everlasting death. Ye haters and enemies of truth and life, in league with destruction! All your counsels are opposed to the truth, but familiar with deeds of baseness; full of absurdities and fictions: and by these ye frame falsehoods, oppress the innocent, and withhold the light from them that believe. Ever trespassing under the mask of godliness, ye fill all things with defilement: ye pierce the pure and guileless conscience with deadly wounds, while ye withdraw, one may almost say, the very light of day from the eyes of men. But why should I particularize, when to speak of your criminality as it deserves demands more time and leisure than I can give? For so long and unmeasured is the catalogue of your offenses, so hateful and altogether atrocious are they, that a single day would not suffice to recount them all. And, indeed, it is well to turn one’s ears and eyes from such a subject, lest by a description of each particular evil, the pure sincerity and freshness of one’s own faith be impaired. Why then do I still bear with such abounding evil; especially since this protracted clemency is the cause that some who were sound are become tainted with this pestilent disease? Why not at once strike, as it were, at the root of so great a mischief by a public manifestation of displeasure?
Chapter LXV. The Heretics are Deprived of Their Meeting Places.
 “Forasmuch, then, as it is no longer possible to bear with your pernicious errors, we give warning by this present statute that none of you henceforth presume to assemble yourselves together.83 We have directed, accordingly, that you be deprived of all the houses in which you are accustomed to hold your assemblies: and our care in this respect extends so far as to forbid the holding of your superstitious and senseless meetings, not in public merely, but in any private house or place whatsoever. Let those of you, therefore, who are desirous of embracing the true and pure religion, take the far better course of entering the catholic Church, and uniting with it in holy fellowship, whereby you will be enabled to arrive at the knowledge of the truth. In any case, the delusions of your perverted understandings must entirely cease to mingle with and mar the felicity of our present times: I mean the impious and wretched double-mindedness of heretics and schismatics. For it is an object worthy of that prosperity which we enjoy through the favor of God, to endeavor to bring back those who in time past were living in the hope of future blessing, from all irregularity and error to the right path, from darkness to light, from vanity to truth, from death to salvation. And in order that this remedy may be applied with effectual power, we have commanded, as before said, that you be positively deprived of every gathering point for your superstitious meetings, I mean all the houses of prayer, if such be worthy of the name, which belong to heretics, and that these be made over without delay to the catholic Church; that any other places be confiscated to the public service, and no facility whatever be left for any future gathering; in order that from this day forward none of your unlawful assemblies may presume to appear in any public or private place. Let this edict be made public.”
Chapter LXVI. How on the Discovery of Prohibited Books Among the Heretics, Many of Them Return to the Catholic Church.
 Thus were the lurking-places of the heretics broken up by the emperor’s command, and the savage beasts they harbored (I mean the chief authors of their impious doctrines) driven to flight. Of those whom they had deceived, some, intimidated by the emperor’s threats, disguising their real sentiments, crept secretly into the Church. For since the law directed that search should be made for their books, those of them who practiced evil and forbidden arts were detected, and, these were ready to secure their own safety by dissimulation of every kind.84 Others, however, there were, who voluntarily and with real sincerity embraced a better hope. Meantime the prelates of the several churches. continued to make strict inquiry, utterly rejecting those who attempted an entrance under the specious disguise of false pretenses, while those who came with sincerity of purpose were proved for a time, and after sufficient trial numbered with the congregation. Such was the treatment of those who stood charged with rank heresy: those, however, who maintained no impious doctrine, but had been separated from the one body through the influence of schismatic advisers, were received without difficulty or delay. Accordingly, numbers thus revisited, as it were, their own country after an absence in a foreign land, and acknowledged the Church as a mother from whom they had wandered long, and to whom they now returned with joy and gladness. Thus the members of the entire body became united, and compacted in one harmonious whole; and the one catholic Church, at unity with itself, shone with full luster, while no heretical or schismatic body anywhere continued to exist.85 And the credit of having achieved this mighty work our Heaven-protected emperor alone, of all who had gone before him, was able to attribute to himself. 
Book IV.
Chapter I. How He Honored Many by Presents and Promotions.
1 While thus variously engaged in promoting the extension and glory of the church of God, and striving by every measure to commend the Saviour’s doctrine, the emperor was far from neglecting secular affairs; but in this respect also he was unwearied in bestowing benefits of every kind and in quick succession on the people of every province. On the one hand he manifested a paternal anxiety for the general welfare of his subjects; on the other he would distinguish individuals of his own acquaintance with various marks of honor; conferring his benefits in every instance in a truly noble spirit. No one could request a favor from the emperor, and fail of obtaining what he sought: no one expected a boon from him, and found that expectation vain.1 Some received presents in money, others in land; some obtained the Praetorian praefecture, others senatorial, others again consular rank: many were appointed provincial governors: others were made counts of the first, second, or third order: in numberless instances the title of Most Illustrious and many other distinctions were conferred; for the emperor devised new dignities, that he might invest a larger number with the tokens of his favor.
Chapter II. Remission of a Fourth Part of the Taxes.
1 The extent to which he studied the general happiness and prosperity may be understood from a single instance most beneficial and universal in its application, and still gratefully remembered. He remitted a fourth part of the yearly tribute paid for land, and bestowed it on the owners of the soil; so that if we compute this yearly reduction, we shall find that the cultivators enjoyed their produce free of tribute every fourth year.2 This privilege being established by law, and secured for the time to come, has given occasion for the emperor’s beneficence to be held, not merely by the then present generation, but by their children and descendants, in perpetual remembrance.
Chapter III. Equalization of the More Oppressive Taxes.
1 And whereas some persons found fault with the surveys of land which had been made under former emperors, and complained that their property was unduly burdened; acting in this case also on the principles of justice, he sent commissioners to equalize the tribute, and to secure immunity to those who had made this. appeal.
Chapter IV. His Liberality, from His Private Resources, to the Losers in Suits of a Pecuniary Nature.
1 In cases of judicial arbitration, in order that the loser by his decision might not quit his presence less contented than the victorious litigant, he himself bestowed, and from his own private means in some cases lands, in other money, on the defeated party. In this manner he took care that the loser, as having appeared in his presence, should be as well satisfied as the gainer of the cause; for he considered that no one ought in any case to retire dejected and sorrowful from an interview with such a price.3 Thus it happened that both parties returned from the scene of trial with glad and cheerful countenances, while the emperor’s noble-minded liberality excited universal admiration.
Chapter V. Conquest of the Scythians Defeated Through the Sign of Our Saviour.
1 And why should I relate even briefly and incidentally, how he subjected barbarous nations to the Roman power; how he was the first who subjugated the Scytian4 and Sarmatian tribes, which had never learned submission, and compelled them, how unwilling soever, to own the sovereignitiy of Rome? for the emperors who preceded him had actually rendered tribute to the Scythians: and Romans, by an annual payment, had confessed themselves servants to barbarians; an indignity which our emperor could no longer bear, nor think it consistent with his victorious career to continue the payment his predecessors had made. Accordingly, with full confidence in his Saviour’s aid, he raised his conquering standard against these enemies also, and soon reduced them all to obedience; coercing by military force those who fiercely resisted his authority, while, on the other hand, he conciliated the rest by wisely conducted embassies, and reclaimed them to a state of order and civilization from their lawless and savage life. Thus the Scythians at length learned to acknowledge subjection to the power of Rome.
Chapter VI. Conquest of the Sarmatians, Consequent on the Rebellion of Their Slaves.
1 With respect to the Sarmatians, God himself brought them beneath the rule of Constantine, and subdued a nation swelling with barbaric pride in the following manner. Being attacked by the Scythians, they had entrusted their slaves with arms, in order to repel the enemy. These slaves first overcame the invaders and then, turning their weapons against their masters, drove them all from their native land. The expelled Sarmatians found that their only hope of safety was in Constantine’s protection: and he, whose familiar habit it was to save men’s lives, received them all within the confines of the Roman empire.5 Those who were capable of serving he incorporated with his own troops: to the rest he allotted lands to cultivate for their own support: so that they themselves acknowledged that their past misfortune had produced a happy result, in that they now enjoyed Roman liberty in place of savage barbarism. In this manner God added to his dominions many and various barbaric tribes.
Chapter VII. Ambassadors from Different Barbarous Nations Receive Presents from the Emperor.
1 Indeed, ambassadors were continually arriving from all nations, bringing for his acceptance their most precious gifts. So that I myself have sometimes stood near the entrance of the imperial palace, and observed a noticeable array of barbarians in attendance, differing from each other in costume and decorations, and equally unlike in the fashion of their hair and beard. Their aspect truculent and terrible, their bodily stature prodigious: some of a red complexion, others white as snow, others again of an intermediate color. For in the number of those I have referred to might be seen specimens of the Blemmyan tribes, of the Indians, and the Ethiopians,6 “that widely-divided race, remotest of mankind.” All these in due succession, like some painted pageant, presented to the emperor those gifts which their own nation held in most esteem; some offering crowns of gold, others diadems set with precious stones; some bringing fair-haired boys, others barbaric vestments embroidered with gold and flowers: some appeared with horses, others with shields and long spears, with arrows and bows, thereby offering their services and alliance for the emperor’s acceptance. These presents he separately received and carefully laid aside, acknowledging them in so munificent a manner as at once to enrich those who bore them. He also honored the noblest among them with Roman offices of dignity; so that many of them thenceforward preferred to continue their residence among us, and felt no desire to revisit their native land.
Chapter VIII. That He Wrote Also to the King of Persia7 Who Had Sent Him an Embassy, on Behalf of the Christians in His Realm.
1 The king of the Persians also having testified a desire to form an alliance with Constantine, by sending an embassy and presents as assurances of peace and friendship, the emperor, in negotiating this treaty, far surpassed the monarch who had first done him honor, in the magnificence with which he acknowledged his gifts. Having heard, too, that there were many churches of God in Persia, and that large numbers there were gathered into the fold of Christ, full of joy at this intelligence, he resolved to extend his anxiety for the general welfare to that country also, as one whose aim it was to care for all alike in every nation. 
Chapter IX. Letter of Constantine Augustus to Sapor, King of the Persians, Containing a Truly Pious Confession of God and Christ. Copy of His Letter to the King of Persia.
1 “By keeping the Divine faith, I am made a partaker of the light of truth: guided by the light of truth, I advance in the knowledge of the Divine faith. Hence it is that, as my actions themselves evince, I profess the most holy religion; and this worship I declare to be that which teaches me deeper acquaintance with the most holy God; aided by whose Divine power, beginning from the very borders of the ocean, I have aroused each nation of the world in succession to a well-grounded hope of security; so that those which, groaning in servitude to the most cruel tyrants and yielding to the pressure of their daily sufferings, had well nigh been utterly destroyed, have been restored through my agency to a far happier state. This God I confess that I hold in unceasing honor and remembrance; this God I delight to contemplate with pure and guileless thoughts in the height of his glory.
Chapter X. The Writer Denounces Idols, and Glorifies God.
1 “This God I invoke with bended knees, and recoil with horror from the blood of sacrifices from their foul and detestable odors, and from every earth-born magic fire:8 for the profane and impious superstitions which are defiled by these rites have cast down and consigned to perdition many, nay, whole nations of the Gentile world. For he who is Lord of all cannot endure that those blessings which, in his own loving-kindness and consideration of the wants of men, he has revealed for the use of all, should be perverted to serve the lusts of any. His only demand from man is purity of mind and an undefiled spirit; and by this standard he weighs the actions of virtue and godliness. For his pleasure is in works of moderation and gentleness: he loves the meek, and hates the turbulent spirit: delighting in faith, he chastises unbelief: by him all presumptuous power is broken down, and he avenges the insolence of the proud. While the arrogant and haughty are utterly overthrown, he requires the humble and forgiving with deserved rewards: even so does he highly honor and strengthen with his special help a kingdom justly governed, and maintains a prudent king in the tranquillity of peace.
Chapter XI. Against the Tyrants and Persecutors; And on the Captivity of Valerian.
1 “I Cannot, then, my brother believe that I err in acknowledging this one God, the author and parent of all things: whom many of my predecessors in power, led astray by the madness of error, have ventured to deny, but who were all visited with a retribution so terrible and so destructive, that all succeeding generations have held up their calamities as the most effectual warning to any who desire to follow in their steps. Of the number of these I believe him9 to have been, whom the lightning-stroke of Divine vengeance drove forth from hence, and banished to your dominions and whose disgrace contributed to the fame of your celebrated triumph.
Chapter XII. He Declares That, Having Witnessed the Fall of the Persecutors, He Now Rejoices at the Peace Enjoyed by the Christians.
1 “And it is surely a happy circumstance that the punishment of such persons as I have described should have been publicly manifested in our own times. For I myself have witnessed the end of those who lately harassed the worshipers of God by their impious edict. And for this abundant thanksgivings are due to God that through his excellent Providence all men who observe his holy laws are gladdened by the renewed enjoyment of peace. Hence I am fully persuaded that everything is in the best and safest posture, since God is vouchsafing, through the influence of their pure and faithful religious service, and their unity of judgment respecting his Divine character, to gather all men to himself.
Chapter XIII. He Bespeaks His Affectionate Interest for He Christians in His Country.
1 “Imagine, then, with what joy I heard tidings so accordant with my desire, that the fairest districts of Persia are filled with those men on whose behalf alone I am at present speaking, I mean the Christians. I pray, therefore, that both you and they may enjoy abundant prosperity, and that your blessings and theirs may be in equal measure;10 for thus you will experience the mercy and favor of that God who is the Lord and Father of all. And now, because your power is great, I commend these persons to your protection;because your piety is eminent, I commit them to your care. Cherish them with your wonted humanity and kindness; for by this proof of faith you will secure an immeasurable benefit both to yourself and us.”
Chapter XIV. How the Zealous Prayers of Constantine Procured Peace to the Christians.
1 Thus, the nations of the world being everywhere guided in their course as it were by the skill of a single pilot, and acquiescing in the administration of him who governed as the servant of God, the peace of the Roman empire continued undisturbed, and all classes of his subjects enjoyed a life of tranquillity and repose. At the same time the emperor, who was convinced that the prayers of godly men contributed powerfully to the maintenance of the public welfare, felt himself constrained zealously to seek such prayers and not only himself implored the help and favor of God, but charged the prelates of the churches to offer supplications on his behalf.
Chapter XV. He Causes Himself to Be Represented on His Coins, and in His Portraits, in the Attitude of Prayer.
1 How deeply his soul was impressed by the power of divine faith may be understood from the circumstance that he directed his likeness to be stamped on the golden coin of the empire with the eyes uplifted as in the posture of prayer to God: and this money became current throughout the Roman world. His portrait also at full length was placed over the entrance gates of the palaces in some cities, the eyes upraised to heaven, and the hands outspread as if in prayer.
Chapter XVI. He Forbids by Law the Plating His Likeness in Idol Temples.
1 In this manner he represented himself, even through the medium of painting, as habitually engaged in prayer to God. At the same time he forbade, by an express enactment, the setting up of any resemblance of himself in any idol temple, that not even the mere lineaments of his person might receive contamination from the error of forbidden superstition.
Chapter XVII. Of His Prayers in the Palace, and His Reading the Holy Scriptures.
1 Still nobler proofs of his piety might be discerned by those who marked how he modeled as it were his very palace into a church of God, and himself afforded a pattern of zeal to those assembled therein: how he took the sacred scriptures into his hands, and devoted himself to the study of those divinely inspired oracles; after which he would offer up regular prayers with all the members of his imperial court.
Chapter XVIII. He Enjoins the General Observance of the Lord’s Day, and the Day of Preparation.
1 He ordained, too, that one day should be regarded as a special occasion for prayer: I mean that which is truly the first and chief of all, the day of our Lord and Saviour. The entire care of his household was entrusted to deacons and other ministers consecrated to the service of God, and distinguished by gravity of life and every other virtue: while his trusty body guard, strong in affection and fidelity to his person, found in their emperor an instructor in the practice of piety, and like him held the Lord’s salutary day in honor and performed on that day the devotions which he loved. The same observance was recommended by this blessed prince to all classes of his subjects: his earnest desire being gradually to lead all mankind to the worship of God. Accordingly he enjoined on all the subjects of the Roman empire to observe the Lord’s day, as a day of rest, and also to honor the day which precedes the Sabbath; in memory, I suppose, of what the Saviour of mankind is recorded to have achieved on that day.11 And since his desire was to teach his whole army zealously to honor the Saviour’s day (which derives its name from light, and from the sun),12 he freely granted to those among them who were partakers of the divine faith, leisure for attendance on the services of the Church of God, in order that they might be able, without impediment, to perform their religious worship.
Chapter XIX. That He Directed Even His Pagan Soldiers to Pray on the Lord’s Day.
1 With regard to those who were as yet ignorant of divine truth, he provided by a second statute that they should appear on each Lord’s day on an open plain near the city, and there, at a given signal, offer to God with one accord a prayer which they had previously learnt. He admonished them that their confidence should not rest in their spears, or armor, or bodily strength, but that they should acknowledge the supreme God as the giver of every good, and of victory itself; to whom they were bound to offer their prayers with due regularity, uplifting their hands toward heaven, and raising their mental vision higher still to the king of heaven, on whom they should call as the Author of victory, their Preserver, Guardian, and Helper.The emperor himself prescribed the prayer to be used by all his troops, commanding them, to pronounce the following words in the Latin tongue:
Chapter XX. The Form of Prayer Given by Constantine to His Soldiers.
1 “We acknowledge thee the only God: we own thee, as our King and implore thy succor. By thy favor have we gotten the victory through thee are we mightier than our enemies. We render thanks for thy past benefits, and trust thee for future blessings. Together we pray to thee, and beseech thee long to preserve to us, safe and triumphant, our emperor Constantine and his pious sons.” Such was the duty to be performed on Sunday by his troops, and such the prayer they were instructed to offer up to God.
Chapter XXI. He Orders the Sign of the Saviour’s Cross to Be Engraven on His Soldiers’ Shields.
1 And not only so, but he also caused the sign of the salutary trophy to be impressed on the very shields of his soldiers; and commanded that his embattled forces should be preceded in their march, not by golden images, as heretofore,13 but only by the standard of the cross.
Chapter XXII. Of His Zeal in Prayer, and the Honor He Paid to the Feast of Easter.
1 The emperor himself, as a sharer in the holy mysteries of our religion, would seclude himself daily at a stated hour in the innermost chambers of his palace; and there in solitary converse with his God, would kneel in humble supplication, and entreat the blessings of which he stood in need. But especially at the salutary feast of Easter, his religious diligence was redoubled; he fulfilled as it were the duties of a hierophant with every energy of his mind and body, and outvied all others in the zealous celebration of this feast. He changed, too, the holy night vigil into a brightness like that of day, by causing waxen tapers of great length to be lighted throughout the city: besides which, torches everywhere diffused their light, so as to impart to this mystic vigil a brilliant splendor beyond that of day.14 As soon as day itself returned, in imitation of our Saviour’s gracious acts, he opened a liberal hand to his subjects of every nation, province, and people, and lavished abundant bounties on all.
Chapter XXIII. How He Forbade Idolatrous Worship, But Honored Martyrs and the Church Festivals.
1 Such were his sacred ministrations in the service of his God. At the same time, his subjects, both civil and military, throughout the empire, found a barrier everywhere opposed against idol worship, and every kind of sacrifice forbidden.15 A statute was also passed, enjoining the due observance of the Lord’s day, and transmitted to the governors of every province, who undertook, at the emperor’s command, to respect the days commemorative of martyrs, and duly to honor the festal seasons in the churches:16 and all these intentions were fullfilled to the emperor’s entire satisfaction. 
Chapter XXIV. That He Described Himself to Be a Bishop, in Charge of Affairs External to the Church.
1 Hence it was not without reason that once, on the occasion of his entertaining a company of bishops, he let fall the expression, “that he himself too was a bishop,” addressing them in my hearing in the following words: “You are bishops whose jurisdiction is within the Church: I also am a bishop, ordained by God to overlook whatever is external to the Church.”17 And truly his measures corresponded with his words: for he watched over his subjects with an episcopal care, and exhorted them as far as in him lay to follow a godly life.
Chapter XXV. Prohibition of Sacrifices, of Mystic Rites, Combats of Gladiators, Also the Licentious Worship of the Nile.
1 Consistently with this zeal he issued successive laws and ordinances, forbidding any to offer sacrifice to idols, to consult diviners, to erect images, or to pollute the cities with the sanguinary combats of gladiators.18 And inasmuch as the Egyptians, especially those of Alexandria, had been accustomed to honor their river through a priesthood composed of effeminate men, a further law was passed commanding the extermination of the whole class as vicious, that no one might thenceforward be found tainted with the like impurity. And whereas the superstitious inhabitants apprehended that the river would in consequence withhold its customary flood, God himself showed his approval of the emperor’s law by ordering all things in a manner quite contrary to their expectation. For those who had defiled the cities by their vicious conduct were indeed seen no more; but the river, as if the country through which it flowed had been purified to receive it, rose higher than ever before, and completely overflowed the country with its fertilizing streams: thus effectually admonishing the deluded people to turn from impure men, and ascribe their prosperity to him alone who is the Giver of all good.
Chapter XXVI. Amendment of the Law in Force Respecting Childless Persons, and of the Law of Wills.
1 So numerous, indeed, were the benefits of this kind conferred by the emperor on every province, as to afford ample materials to any who might desire to record them. Among these may be instanced those laws which he entirely remodelled, and established on a more equitable basis: the nature of which reform may be briefly and easily explained. The childless were punished under the old law with the forfeiture of their hereditary property a merciless statute, which dealt with them as positive criminals. The emperor annulled this, and decreed that those so circumstanced should inherit. He regulated the question on the principles of equity and justice, arguing willful transgressors should be chastised with the penalties their crimes deserve. But nature herself denies children to many, who long, perhaps, for a numerous offspring, but are disappointed of their hope by bodily infirmity. Others continue childless, not from any dislike of posterity, but because their ardent love of philosophy19 renders them averse to the conjugal union. Women, too, consecrated to the service of God, have maintained a pure and spotless virginity, and have devoted themselves, soul and body to a life of entire chastity and holiness. What then? Should this conduct be deemed worthy of punishment, or rather of admiration and praise; since to desire this state is in itself honorable, and to maintain it surpasses the power of unassisted nature? Surely those whose bodily infirmity destroys their hope of offspring are worthy of pity, not of punishment: and he who devotes himself to a higher object calls not for chastisement, but especial admiration. On such principles of sound reason did the emperor rectify the defects of this law. Again, with regard to the wills of dying persons, the old laws had ordained that they should be expressed, even at the latest breath, as it were, in certain definite words, and had prescribed the exact form and terms to be employed. This practice had occasioned many fraudulent attempts to hinder the intentions of the deceased from being carried into full effect. As soon as our emperor was aware of these abuses, he reformed this law likewise, declaring that a dying man ought to be permitted to indicate his last wishes in as few words as possible, and in whatever terms he pleased; and to set forth his will in any written form; or even by word of mouth, provided it were done in the presence of proper witnesses, who might be competent faithfully to discharge their trust.
Chapter XXVII. Among Other Enactments, He Decrees that No Christian Shall Slave to a Jew, and Affirms the Validity of the Decisions of Councils.
1 He also passed a law to the effect that no Christian should remain in servitude to a Jewish master, on the ground that it could not be right that those whom the Saviour had ransomed should be subjected to the yoke of slavery by a people who had slain the prophets and the Lord himself. If any were found hereafter in these circumstances, the slave was to be set at liberty, and the master punished by a fine.
2 He likewise added the sanction of his authority to the decisions of bishops passed at their synods, and forbade the provincial governors to annul any of their decrees: for he rated the priests of God at a higher value than any judge whatever. These and a thousand similar provisions did he enact for the benefit of his subjects; but there is not time now to give a special description of them, such as might convey an accurate idea of his imperial wisdom in these respects: nor need I now relate at length, how, as a devoted servant of the Supreme God, he employed himself from morning until night in seeking objects for his beneficence, and how equally and universally kind he was to all.
Chapter XXVIII. His Gifts to the Churches, and Bounties to Virgins and to the Poor.
1 His liberality, however, was most especially exercised on behalf of the churches of God. In some cases he granted lands, in others he issued supplies of food for the support of the poor, of orphan children, and widows; besides which, he evinced much care and forethought in fully providing the naked and destitute with clothing. He distinguished, however, with most special honor those who had devoted their lives to the practice of Divine philosophy. Hence his respect, little short of veneration, for God’s most holy and ever virgin choir: for he felt assured that the God to whom such persons devoted themselves was himself an inmate of their souls.
Chapter XXIX. Of Constantine’s Discourses and Declamations.20 
1 For himself, he sometimes passed sleepless nights in furnishing his mind with Divine knowledge: and much of his time was spent in composing discourses, many of which he delivered in public; for he conceived it to be incumbent on him to govern his subjects by appealing to their reason, and to secure in all respects a rational obedience to his authority. Hence he would sometimes himself evoke an assembly, on which occasions vast multitudes attended, in the hope of hearing an emperor sustain the part of a philosopher. And if in the course of his speech any occasion offered of touching on sacred topics, he immediately stood erect, and with a grave aspect and subdued tone of voice seemed reverently to be initiating his auditors in the mysteries of the Divine doctrine: and when they greeted him with shouts of acclamation, he would direct them by his gestures to raise their eyes to heaven, and reserve their admiration for the Supreme King alone, and honor him with adoration and praise. He usually divided the subjects of his address, first thoroughly exposing the error of polytheism, and proving the superstition of the Gentiles to be mere fraud, and a cloak for impiety. He then would assert the sole sovereignty of God: passing thence to his Providence, both general and particular. Proceeding next to the dispensation of salvation, he would demonstrate its necessity, and adaptation to the nature of the case; entering next in order on the doctrine of the Divine judgment.21 And here especially he appealed most powerfully to the consciences of his hearers, while he denounced the rapacious and violent, and those who were slaves to an inordinate thirst of gain. Nay, he caused some of his own acquaintance who were present to feel the severe lash of his words, and to stand with downcast eyes in the consciousness of guilt, while he testified against them in the clearest and most impressive terms that they would have an account to render of their deeds to God. He reminded them that God himself had given him the empire of the world, portions of which he himself, acting on the same Divine principle, had intrusted to their government; but that all would in due time be alike summoned to give account of their actions to the Supreme Sovereign of all. Such was his constant testimony; such his admonition and instruction. And he himself both felt and uttered these sentiments in the genuine confidence of faith: but-his hearers were little disposed to learn, and deaf to sound advice; receiving his words indeed with loud applause, but induced by insatiable cupidity practically to disregard them.
Chapter XXX. That He Marked Out Before a Covetous Man the Measure of a Grave, and So Put Him to Shame.
1 On one occasion he thus personally addressed one of his courtiers: “How far, my friend, are we to carry our inordinate desires?” Then drawing the dimensions of a human figure with a lance which he happened to have in his hand, he continued: “Though thou couldst obtain the whole wealth of this world, yea, the whole world itself, thou wilt carry with thee at last no more than this little spot which I have marked out, if indeed even that be thine.”22 Such were the words and actions of this blessed prince; and though at the time he failed to reclaim any from their evil ways, yet notwithstanding the course of events afforded evident proof that his admonitions were more like Divine prophecies than mere words.
Chapter XXXI. That He Was Derided Because of His Excessive Clemency.23 
1 Meantime, since there was no fear of capital punishment to deter from the commission of crime, for the emperor himself was uniformly inclined to clemency, and none of the provincial governors visited offenses with their proper penalties, this state of things drew with it no small degree of blame on the general administration of the empire; whether justly or not, let every one form his own judgment: for myself, I only ask permission to record the fact.
Chapter XXXII. Of Constantine’s Oration Which He Wrote to the Assembly of the Saints.24 
1 The emperor was in the habit of composing his orations in the Latin tongue, from which they were translated into Greek by interpreters appointed for this special service. One of the discourses thus translated I intend to annex, by way of specimen, to this present work, that one, I mean, which he inscribed “To the assembly of the saints,” and dedicated to the Church of God, that no one may have ground for deeming my testimony on this head mere empty praise.
Chapter XXXIII. How He Listened Standing to Eusebius’ Declamation in Honor of Our Saviour’s Sepulchre.
1 One act, however, I must by no means omit to record, which this admirable prince performed in my own presence. On one occasion, emboldened by the confident assurance I entertained of his piety, I had begged permission to pronounce a discourse on the subject of our Saviour’s sepulchre in his hearing. With this request he most readily complied, and in the midst of a large number of auditors, in the interior of the palace itself, he stood and listened with the rest. I entreated him, but in vain, to seat himself on the imperial throne which stood near: he continued with fixed attention to weigh the topics of my discourse, and gave his own testimony to the truth of the theological doctrines it contained. After some time had passed, the oration being of considerable length, I was myself desirous of concluding; but this he would not permit, and exhorted me to proceed to the very end. On my again entreating him to sit, he in his turn was displeased and said that it was not right to listen in a careless manner to the discussion of doctrines relating to God; and again, that this posture was good and profitable to himself, since it was reverent to stand while listening to sacred truths. Having, therefore, concluded my discourse, I returned home, and resumed my usual occupations.
Chapter XXXIV. That He Wrote to Eusebius Respecting Easter, and Respecting Copies of the Holy Scriptures.
1 Ever careful for the welfare of the churches of God, the emperor addressed me personally in a letter on the means of providing copies of the inspired oracles, and also on the subject of the most holy feast of Easter. For I had myself dedicated to him an exposition of the mystical import of that feast; and the manner in which he honored me with a reply may be understood by any one who reads the following letter. 
Chapter XXXV. Constantine’s Letter to Eusebius, in Praise of His Discourse Concerning Easter.
1 “Victor Constantinus, Maximus Augustus, to Eusebius.
2 “It is indeed an arduous task, and beyond the power of language itself, worthily to treat of the mysteries of Christ, and to explain in a fitting manner the controversy respecting the feast of Easter, its origin as well as its precious and toilsome accomplishment.25 For it is not in the power even of those who are able to apprehend them, adequately to describe the things of God. I am, notwithstanding, filled with admiration of your learning and zeal, and have not only myself read your work with pleasure, but have given directions, according to your own desire, that it be communicated to many sincere followers of our holy religion. Seeing, then, with what pleasure we receive favors of this kind from your Sagacity, be pleased to gladden us more frequently with those compositions, to the practice of which, indeed, you confess yourself to have been trained from an early period, so that I am urging a willing man, as they say, in exhorting you to your customary pursuits. And certainly the high and confident judgment we entertain is a proof that the person who has translated your writings into the Latin tongue is in no respect incompetent to the task, impossible though it be that such version should fully equal the excellence of the works themselves. God preserve you, beloved brother.” Such was his letter on this subject: and that which related to the providing of copies of the Scriptures for reading in the churches was to the following purport.
Chapter XXXVI. Constantine’s Letter to Eusebius on the Preparation of Copies of the Holy Scriptures.
1 “Victor Constantinus, Maximus Augustus, to Eusebius.
2 “It happens, through the favoring providence of God our Saviour, that great numbers have united themselves to the most holy church in the city which is called by my name. It seems, therefore, highly requisite, since that city is rapidly advancing in prosperity in all other respects, that the number of churches should also he increased. Do you, therefore, receive with all readiness my determination on this behalf. I have thought it expedient to instruct your Prudence to order fifty copies of the sacred Scriptures, the provision and use of which you know to be most needful for the instruction of the Church, to be written on prepared parchment in a legible manner, and in a convenient, portable form, by professional transcribers thoroughly practiced in their art.26 The catholicus27 of the diocese has also received instructions by letter from our Clemency to be careful to furnish all things necessary for the preparation of such copies; and it will be for you to take special care that they be completed with as little delay as possible.28 You have authority also, in virtue of this letter, to use two of the public carriages for their conveyance, by which arrangement the copies when fairly written will most easily be forwarded for my personal inspection; and one of the deacons of your church may be intrusted with this service, who, on his arrival here, shall experience my liberality. God preserve you, beloved brother!”
Chapter XXXVII. How the Copies Were Provided.
1 Such were the emperor’s commands, which were followed by the immediate execution of the work itself, which we sent him in magnificent and elaborately bound volumes of a threefold and fourfold form.29 This fact is attested by another letter, which the emperor wrote in acknowledgment, in which, having heard that the city Constantia in our country, the inhabitants of which had been more than commonly devoted to superstition, had been impelled by a sense of religion to abandon their past idolatry, he testified his joy, and approval of their conduct. 
Chapter XXXVIII. How the Market-Town of Gaza Was Made a City for Its Profession of Christianity, and Received the Name of Constantia.
1 For in fact the place now called Constantia, in the province of Palestine, having embraced the saving religion, was distinguished both by the favor of God, and by special honor from the emperor, being now for the first time raised to the rank of a city, and receiving the more honored name of his pious sister in exchange for its former appellation.
Chapter XXXIX. That a Place in Phoenicia Also Was Made a City, and in Other Cities Idolatry Was Abolished, and Churches Built.
1 A Similar change was effected in several other cities; for instance, in that town of Phoenicia which received its name from that of the emperor, and the inhabitants of which committed their innumerable idols to the flames, and adopted in their stead the principles of the saving faith. Numbers, too, in the other provinces, both in the cities and the country, became willing inquirers after the saving knowledge of God; destroyed as worthless things the images of every kind which they had heretofore held most sacred; voluntarily demolished the lofty temples and shrines which contained them; and, renouncing their former sentiments, or rather errors, commenced and completed entirely new churches. But since it is not so much my province to give a circumstantial detail of the actions of this pious prince, as it is theirs who have been privileged to enjoy his society at all times, I shall content myself with briefly recording such facts as have come to my own personal knowledge, before I proceed to notice the last days of his life.
Chapter XL. That Having Conferred the Dignity of Caesars on His Three Sons at the Three Decennial Periods of His Reign, He Dedicated the Church at Jerusalem.
1 By this time the thirtieth year of his reign was completed. In the course of this period, his three sons had been admitted at different times as his colleagues in the empire. The first, Constantinus, who bore his father’s name, obtained this distinction about the tenth year of his reign. Constantius, the second son, so called from his grandfather, was proclaimed Caesar about the twentieth, while Constans, the third, whose name expresses the firmness and stability of his character, was advanced to the same dignity at the thirtieth anniversary of his father’s reign.30 Having thus reared a threefold offspring, a Trinity,31 as it were, of pious sons, and having received them severally at each decennial period to a participation in his imperial authority, he judged the festival of his Tricennalia to be a fit occasion for thanksgiving to the Sovereign Lord of all, at the same time believing that the dedication of the church which his zealous magnificence had erected at Jerusalem might advantageously be performed.
Chapter XLI. That in the Meantime He Ordered a Council to Be Convened at Tyre, Because of Controversies Raised in Egypt.
1 Meanwhile that spirit of envy which is the enemy of all good, like a dark cloud intercepting the sun’s brightest rays, endeavored to mar the joy of this festivity, by again raising contentions to disturb the tranquillity of the Egyptian churches. Our divinely favored emperor, however, once more convened a synod composed of many bishops, and set them as it were in armed array, like the host of God, against this malignant spirit, having commanded their presence from the whole of Egypt and Libya, from Asia, and from Europe, in order, first, to decide the questions in dispute, and afterwards to perform the dedication of the sacred edifice above mentioned. He enjoined them, by the way, to adjust their differences at the capital city of Phoenicia, reminding them that they had no right, while harboring feelings of mutual animosity, to engage in the service of God, since his law expressly forbids those who are at variance to offer their gift until they have first become reconciled and mutually disposed to peace. Such were the salutary precepts which the emperor continually kept vividly before his own mind, and in accordance with which he admonished them to undertake their present duties in a spirit of perfect unanimity and concord, in a letter to the following purport.
Chapter XLII. Constantine’s Letter to the Council at Tyre.
1 “Victor Constantinus, Maximus Augustus, to the holy Council at Tyre. 
2 “Surely it would best consist with and best become the prosperity of these our times, that the Catholic Church should be undivided, and the servants of Christ be at this present moment clear from all reproach. Since, however, there are those who, carried away by a baleful and furious spirit of contention (for I will not charge them with intentionally leading a life unworthy of their profession), are endeavoring to create that general confusion which, in my judgment, is the most pernicious of all evils; I exhort you, forward as you already are, to meet together and form a synod without delay: to defend those who need protection; to administer remedies to your brethren who are in peril; to recall the divided members to unity of judgment; to rectify errors while opportunity is yet allowed: that thus you may restore to so many provinces that due measure of concord which, strange and sad anomaly! the arrogance of a few individuals has destroyed. And I believed that all are alike persuaded that this course is at the same time pleasing to Almighty God (as well as the highest object of my own desires), and will bring no small honor to yourselves, should you be successful in restoring peace. Delay not, then, but hasten with redoubled zeal to terminate the present dissensions in a manner becoming the occasion, by assembling together in that spirit of true sincerity and faith which the Saviour whom we serve especially demands from us, I may almost say with an audible voice, on all occasions. No proof of pious zeal on my part shall be wanting. Already have I done all to which my attention was directed by your letters. I have sent to those bishops whose presence you desired, that they may share your counsels. I have despatched Dionysius, a man of consular rank, who will both remind those prelates of their duty who are bound to attend the Council with you, and will himself be there to superintend the proceedings, but especially to maintain good order. Meantime should any one, though I deem it most improbable, venture on this occasion to violate my command, and refuse his attendance, a messenger shall be despatched forthwith to banish that person in virtue of an imperial edict, and to teach him that it does not become him to resist an emperor’s decrees when issued in defense of truth. For the rest, it will be for your Holinesses, unbiased either by enmity or favor, but consistently with ecclesiastical and apostolic order, to devise a fitting remedy whether it be for positive offenses or for unpremeditated errors; in order that you may at once free the Church from all reproach, relieve my anxiety, and, by restoring the blessings of peace to those who are now divided, procure the highest honor for yourselves. God preserve you, beloved brethren!”32 
Chapter XLIII. Bishops from All the Provinces Attended the Dedication of the Church at Jerusalem.
1 No sooner had these injunctions been carried into effect, than another emissary arrived with despatches from the emperor, and an urgent admonition to the Council to hasten their journey to Jerusalem without delay.33 Accordingly they all took their departure from the province of Phoenicia, and proceeded to their destination, availing themselves of the public means of transport. Thus Jerusalem became the gathering point for distinguished prelates from every province, and the whole city was thronged by a vast assemblage of the servants of God. The Macedonians had sent the bishop of their metropolis;34 the Pannonians and Moesians the fairest of God’s youthful flock among them. A holy prelate from Persia too was there, deeply versed in the sacred oracles; while Bithynian and Thracian bishops graced the Council with their presence; nor were the most illustrious from Cilicia wanting, nor the chief of the Cappadocians, distinguished above all for learning and eloquence. In short, the whole of Syria and Mesopotamia, Phoenicia and Arabia, Palestine, Egypt, and Libya, with the dwellers in the Thebaid, all contributed to swell the mighty concourse of God’s ministers, followed as they were by vast numbers from every province. They were attended by an imperial escort,35 and officers of trust had also been sent from the palace itself, with instructions to heighten the splendor of the festival at the emperor’s expense.
Chapter XLIV. Of Their Reception by the Notary Marianus; The Distribution of Money to the Poor; And Offerings to the Church.
1 The director and chief of these officers was a most useful servant of the emperor, a man eminent for faith and piety, and thoroughly acquainted with the Divine word, who had been honorably conspicuous by his profession of godliness during the time of the tyrants’ power, and therefore was deservedly entrusted with the arrangement of the present proceedings. Accordingly, in faithful obedience to the emperor’s commands, he received the assembly with courteous hospitality, and entertained them with feasts and banquets on a scale of great splendor. He also distributed lavish supplies of money and clothing among the naked and destitute, and the multitudes of both sexes who suffered from want of food and the common necessaries of life. Finally, he enriched and beautified the church itself throughout with offerings of imperial magnificence, and thus fully accomplished the service he had been commissioned to perform.
Chapter XLV. Various Discourses by the Assembled Bishops; Ala by Eusebius, the Writer of This History.
1 Meantime the festival derived additional luster both from the prayers and discourses of the ministers of God, some of whom extolled the pious emperor’s willing devotion to the Saviour of mankind, and dilated on the magnificence of the edifice which he had raised to his memory. Others afforded, as it were, an intellectual feast to the ears of all present, by public disquisitions on the sacred doctrines of our religion. Others interpreted passages of holy Scripture, and unfolded their hidden meaning; while such as were unequal to these efforts presented a bloodless sacrifice and mystical service to God in the prayers which they offered for general peace, for the Church of God, for the emperor himself as the instrumental cause of so many blessings, and for his pious sons. I myself too, unworthy as I was of such a privilege, pronounced various public orations in honor of this solemnity, wherein I partly explained by a written description the details of the imperial edifice, and partly endeavored to gather from the prophetic visions apt illustrations of the symbols it displayed.36 Thus joyfully was the festival of dedication celebrated in the thirtieth year of our emperor’s reign.
Chapter XLVI. That Eusebius Afterwards Delivered His Description of the Church of the Saviour, and a Tri-Cennial Oration Before Constantine Himself.
1 The structure of the church of our Saviour, the form of his sacred cave, the splendor of the work itself, and the numberless offerings in gold, and silver, and precious stones, I have described to the best of my ability, and dedicated to the emperor in a separate treatise, which on a fitting opportunity I shall append to this present work. I shall add to it also that oration on his Tricennalia which shortly afterwards, having traveled to the city which bears his name, I delivered in the emperor’s own presence.37 This was the second opportunity afforded me of glorifying the Supreme God in the imperial palace itself: and on this occasion my pious hearer evinced the greatest joy, as he afterwards testified, when he entertained the bishops then present, and loaded them with distinctions of every kind.
Chapter XLVII. That the Council at Nicaea Was Held in the Twentieth, the Dedication of the Church at Jerusalem in the Thirtieth, Year of Constantine’s Reign.
1 This second synod the emperor convened at Jerusalem, being the greatest of which we have any knowledge, next to the first which he had summoned at the famous Bithynian city. That indeed was a triumphal assembly, held in the twentieth year of his reign, an occasion of thanksgiving for victory over his enemies in the very city which bears the name of victory.38 The present meeting added luster to the thirtieth anniversary, during which the emperor dedicated the church at the sepulchre of our Saviour, as a peace-offering to God, the giver of all good.
Chapter XLVIII. That Constantine Was Displeased with One Who Praised Him Excessively.
1 And now that all these ceremonies were completed, and the divine qualities of the emperor’s character continued to be the theme of universal praise, one of God’s ministers presumed so far as in his own presence to pronounce him blessed, as having been counted worthy to hold absolute and universal empire in this life, and as being destined to share the empire of the Son of God in the world to come. These words, however, Constantine heard with indignation, and forbade the speaker to hold such language, exhorting him rather to pray earnestly on his behalf, that whether in this life or in that which is to come, he might be found worthy to be a servant of God.39 
Chapter XLIX. Marriage of His Son Constantius Caesar.
1 On the completion of the thirtieth year of his reign he solemnized the marriage of his second son,40 having concluded that of his first-born long before. This was an occasion of great joy and festivity, the emperor himself attending on his son at the ceremony, and entertaining the guests of both sexes, the men and women in distinct and separate companies, with sumptuous hospitality. Rich presents likewise were liberally distributed among the cities and people.
Chapter L. Embassy and Presents from the Indians.
1 About this time ambassadors from the Indians, who inhabit the distant regions of the East, arrived with presents consisting of many varieties of brilliant precious stones, and animals differing in species from those known to us. These offerings they presented to the emperor, thus allowing that his sovereignty extended even to the Indian Ocean, and that the princes of their country, who rendered homage to him both by paintings and statues, acknowledged his imperial and paramount authority. Thus the Eastern Indians now submitted to his sway, as the Britons of the Western Ocean had done at the commencement of his reign.
Chapter LI. That Constantine Divided the Empire Between His Three Sons, Whom He Had Instructed in Politics and Religion.
1 Having thus established his power in the opposite extremities of the world, he divided the whole extent of his dominions, as though he were allotting a patrimonial inheritance to the dearest objects of his regard, among his three sons. To the eldest he assigned his grandfather’s portion; to the second, the empire of the East; to the third, the countries which lie between these two divisions.41 And being desirous of furnishing his children with an inheritance truly valuable and salutary to their souls, he had been careful to imbue them with true religious principles, being himself their guide to the knowledge of sacred things, and also appointing men of approved piety to be their instructors. At the same time he assigned them the most accomplished teachers of secular learning, by some of whom they were taught the arts of war, while they were trained by others in political, and by others again in legal science. To each moreover was granted a truly royal retinue, consisting of infantry, spearmen, and body guards, with every other kind of military force; commanded respectively by captains, tribunes, and generals42 of whose warlike skill and devotion to his sons the emperor had had previous experience.
Chapter LII. That After They Had Reached Man’s Estate He Was Their Guide in Piety.
1 As long as the Caesars were of tender years, they were aided by suitable advisers in the management of public affairs; but on their arrival at the age of manhood their father’s instructions alone sufficed. When present he proposed to them his own example, and admonished them to follow his pious course: in their absence he furnished them by letter with rules of conduct suited to their imperial station, the first and greatest of which was an exhortation to value the knowledge and worship of the Sovereign Lord of all more than wealth, nay, more than empire itself. At length he permitted them to direct the public administration of the empire without control, making it his first request that they would care for the interests of the Church of God, and boldly profess themselves disciples of Christ. Thus trained, and excited to obedience not so much by precept as by their own voluntary desire for virtue, his sons more than fulfilled the admonitions of their father, devoting their earnest attention to the service of God, and observing the ordinances of the Church even in the palace itself, with all the members of their households.43 For their father’s forethought had provided that all the attendants of his son’s should be Christians. And not only so, but the military officers of highest rank, and those who had the control of public business, were professors of the same faith: for the emperor placed confidence in the fidelity of men devoted to the service of God, as in a strong and sure defense. When our thrice blessed prince had completed these arrangements, and thus secured order and tranquillity throughout the empire, God, the dispenser of all blessings, judged it to be the fitting time to translate him to a better inheritance, and summoned him to pay the debt of nature.
Chapter LIII. Having Reigned About Thirty-Two Years, and Lived Above Sixty, He Still Had a Sound Body.
1 He completed the time of his reign in two and thirty years, wanting a few months and days,44 and his whole life extended to about twice that period. At this age he still possessed a sound and vigorous body, free from all blemish, and of more than youthful vivacity; a noble mien, and strength equal to any exertion; so that he was able to join in martial exercises, to fide, endure the fatigues of travel, engage in battle, and erect trophies over his conquered enemies, besides gaining those bloodless victories by which he was wont to triumph over those who opposed him.45 
Chapter LIV. Of Those Who Abused His Extreme Benevolence for Avarice and Hypocrisy.
1 In like manner his mental46 qualities reached the highest point of human perfection. Indeed he was distinguished by every excellence of character, but especially by benevolence; a virtue, however, which subjected him to censure from many, in consequence of the baseness of wicked men, who ascribed their own crimes to the emperor’s forbearance. In truth I can myself bear testimony to the grievous evils which prevailed during these times; I mean the violence of rapacious and unprincipled men, who preyed on all classes of society alike, and the scandalous hypocrisy of those who crept into the Church, and assumed the name and character of Christians. His own benevolence and goodness of heart, the genuineness of his own faith, and his truthfulness of character, induced the emperor to credit the profession of these reputed Christians, who craftily preserved the semblance of sincere affection for his person. The confidence he reposed in such men sometimes forced him into conduct unworthy of himself, of which envy took advantage to cloud in this respect the luster of his character.47 
Chapter LV. Constantine Employed Himself in Composition of Various Kinds to the Close of His Life.
1 These offenders, however, were soon over-taken by divine chastisement. To return to our emperor. He had so thoroughly trained his mind in the art of reasoning that he continued to the last to compose discourses on various subjects, to deliver frequent orations in public, and to instruct his hearers in the sacred doctrines of religion. He was also habitually engaged in legislating both on political and military questions;48 in short, in devising whatever might be conducive to the general welfare of the human race. It is well worthy of remark, that, very shortly before his departure, he pronounced a funeral oration before his usual auditory, in which he spoke at length on the immortality of the soul, the state of those who had persevered in a life of godliness, and the blessings which God has laid up in store for them that love him. On the other hand he made it appear by copious and conclusive arguments what the end of those will be who have pursued a contrary career, describing in vivid language the final ruin of the ungodly. His powerful testimony on these subjects seemed so far to touch the consciences of those around him, that one of the self-imagined philosophers, of whom he asked his opinion of what he had heard, bore testimony to the truth of his words, and accorded a real, though reluctant, tribute of praise to the arguments by which he had exposed the worship of a plurality of gods. By converse such as this with his friends before his death, the emperor seemed as it were to smooth and prepare the way for his transition to a happier life.
Chapter LVI. How He Took Bishops with Him on an Expedition Against the Persians, and Look with Him a Tent in the Form of a Church.
1 It is also worthy of record that about the time of which I am at present writing, the emperor, having heard of an insurrection of some barbarians in the East, observed that the conquest of this enemy was still in store for him, and resolved on an expedition against the Persians. Accordingly he proceeded at once to put his forces in motion, at the same time communicating his intended march to the bishops who happened to be at his court, some of whom he judged it right to take with him as compan- ions, and as needful coadjutors in the service of God. They, on the other hand, cheerfully declared their willingness to follow in his train, disclaiming any desire to leave him, and engaging to battle with and for him by supplication to God on his behalf. Full of joy at this answer to his request, he unfolded to them his projected line of march;49 after which he caused a tent of great splendor, representing in shape the figure of a church, to be prepared for his own use in the approaching war. In this he intended to unite with the bishops in offering prayers to the God from whom all victory proceeds.
Chapter LVII. How He Received an Embassy from the Persians and Kept the Night Vigil with Others at the Feast of Easter.
1 In the meanwhile the Persians, hearing of the emperor’s warlike preparations, and not a little terrified at the prospect of an engagement with his forces, dispatched an embassy to pray for conditions of peace. These overtures the emperor, himself a sincere lover of peace, at once accepted, and readily entered on friendly relations with that people. At this time, the great festival of Easter was at hand; on which occasion he rendered the tribute of his prayers to God, and passed the night in watching with the rest.
Chapter LVIII. Concerning the Building of a Church in Honor of the Apostles at Constantinople.
1 After this he proceeded to erect a church in memory of the apostles, in the city which bears his name. This building he carried to a vast height, and brilliantly decorated by encasing it from the foundation to the roof with marble slabs of various colors. He also formed the inner roof of finely fretted work, and overlaid it throughout with gold. The external covering, which protected the building from the rain, was of brass instead of tiles; and this too was splendidly and profusely adorned with gold, and reflected the sun’s rays with a brilliancy which dazzled the distant beholder. The dome was entirely encompassed by a finely carved tracery, wrought in brass and gold.
Chapter LIX. Farther Description of the Same Church.
1 Such was the magnificence with which the emperor was pleased to beautify this church. The building was surrounded by an open area of great extent, the four sides of which were terminated by porticos which enclosed the area and the church itself. Adjoining these porticos were ranges of stately chambers, with baths and promenades, and besides many apartments adapted to the use of those who had charge of the place.
Chapter LX. He Also Erected His Own Sepulchral Monument in This Church.
1 All these edifices the emperor consecrated with the desire of perpetuating the memory of the apostles of our Saviour. He had, however, another object in erecting this building: an object at first unknown, but which afterwards became evident to all. He had in fact made choice of this spot in the prospect of his own death, anticipating with extraordinary fervor of faith that his body would share their title with the apostles themselves, and that he should thus even after death become the subject, with them, of the devotions which should be performed to their honor in this place. He accordingly caused twelve coffins to be set up in this church, like sacred pillars in honor and memory of the apostolic number, in the center of which his own was placed, having six of theirs on either side of it. Thus, as I said, he had provided with prudent foresight an honorable resting-place for his body after death, and, having long before secretly formed this resolution, he now consecrated this church to the apostles, believing that this tribute to their memory would be of no small advantage to his own soul. Nor did God disappoint him of that which he so ardently expected and desired. For after he had completed the first services of the feast of Easter, and had passed this sacred day of our Lord in a manner which made it an occasion of joy and gladness to himself and to all; the God through whose aid he performed all these acts, and whose zealous servant he continued to be even to the end of life, was pleased at a happy time to translate him to a better life.
Chapter LXI. His Sickness at Helenopolis, and Prayers Respecting His Baptism.
1 At first he experienced some slight bodily indisposition, which was soon followed by positive disease. In consequence of this he visited the hot baths of his own city; and thence proceeded to that which bore the name of his mother. Here he passed some time in the church of the martyrs, and offered up supplications and prayers to God. Being at length convinced that his life was drawing to a close, he felt the time was come at which he should seek purification from sins of his past career, firmly believing that whatever errors he had committed as a mortal man, his soul would be purified from them through the efficacy of the mystical words and the salutary waters of baptism.50 Impressed with these thoughts, he poured forth his supplications and confessions to God, kneeling on the pavement in the church itself, in which he also now for the first time received the imposition of hands with prayer.51 After this he proceeded as far as the suburbs of Nicomedia, and there, having summoned the bishops to meet him, addressed them in the following words.
Chapter LXII. Constantine’s Appeal to the Bishops, Requesting Them to Confer Upon Him the Rite of Baptism.
1 “The time is arrived which I have long hoped for, with an earnest desire and prayer that I might obtain the salvation of God. The hour is come in which I too may have the blessing of that seal which confers immortality; the hour in which I may receive the seal of salvation. I had thought to do this in the waters of the river Jordan, wherein our Saviour, for our example, is recorded to have been baptized: but God, who knows what is expedient for us, is pleased that I should receive this blessing here. Be it so, then, without delay:52 for should it be his will who is Lord of life and death, that my existence here should be prolonged, and should I be destined henceforth to associate with the people of God, and unite with them in prayer as a member of his. Church, I will prescribe to myself from this time such a course of life as befits his service.” After he had thus spoken, the prelates performed the sacred ceremonies in the usual manner, and, having given him the necessary instructions, made him a partaker of the mystic ordinance. Thus was Constantine the first of all sovereigns who was regenerated and perfected in a church dedicated to the martyrs of Christ; thus gifted with the Divine seal of baptism, he rejoiced in spirit, was renewed, and filled with heavenly light: his soul was gladdened by reason of the fervency of his faith, and astonished at the manifestation of the power of God. At the conclusion of the ceremony he arrayed himself in shining imperial vestments, brilliant as the light,53 and reclined on a couch of the purest white, refusing to clothe himself with the purple any more.
Chapter LXIII. How After His Baptism He Rendered Thanks to God.
1 He then lifted his voice and poured forth a strain of thanksgiving to God; after which he added these words. “Now I know that I am truly blessed: now I feel assured that I am accounted worthy of immortality, and am made a partaker of Divine light.” He further expressed his compassion for the unhappy condition of those who were strangers to such blessings as he enjoyed: and when the tribunes and generals of his army appeared in his presence with lamentations and tears at the prospect of their bereavement, and with prayers that his days might yet be prolonged, he assured them in reply that he was now in possession of true life; that none but himself could know the value of the blessings he had received; so that he was anxious rather to hasten than to defer his departure to God. He then proceeded to complete the needful arrangement of his affairs, bequeathing an annual donation to the Roman inhabitants of his imperial city; apportioning the inheritance of the empire, like a patrimonial estate, among his own children; in short, making every disposition according to his own pleasure.54 
Chapter LXIV. Constantine’s Death at Noon on the Feast of Pentecost.
1 All these events occurred during a most important festival, I mean the august and holy solemnity of Pentecost, which is distinguished by a period of seven weeks, and sealed with that one day on which the holy Scriptures attest, the ascension of our common Saviour into heaven, and the descent of the Holy Spirit among men. In the course of this feast the emperor received the privileges I have described; and on the last day of all, which one might justly call the feast of feasts, he was removed about mid-day to the presence of his God, leaving his mortal remains to his fellow mortals, and carrying into fellowship with God that part of his being which was capable of understanding and loving him.55 Such was the close of Constantine’s mortal life. Let us now attend to the circumstances which followed this event.
Chapter LXV. Lamentations of the Soldiery and Their Officers.
1 Immediately the assembled spearmen and body-guard rent their garments, and prostrated themselves on the ground, striking their heads, and uttering lamentations and cries of sorrow, calling on their imperial lord and master, or rather, like true children, on their father, while their tribunes and centurions addressed him as their preserver, protector, and benefactor. The rest of the soldiery also came in respectful order to mourn as a flock the removal of their good shepherd. The people meanwhile ran wildly throughout the city, some expressing the inward sorrow of their hearts by loud cries, others appearing confounded with grief: each mourning the event as a calamity which had befallen himself, and bewailing his death as though they felt themselves bereft of a blessing common alike to all.
Chapter LXVI. Removal of the Body from Nicomedia to the Palace at Constantinople.
1 After this the soldiers lifted the body from its couch, and laid it in a golden coffin, which they enveloped in a covering of purple, and removed to the city which was called by his own name. Here it was placed in an elevated position in the principal chamber of the imperial palace, and surrounded by candles burning in candlesticks of gold, presenting a marvelous spectacle, and such as no one under the light of the sun had ever seen on earth since the world itself began. For in the central apartment of the imperial palace, the body of the emperor lay in its elevated resting-place, arrayed in the symbols of sovereignty, the diadem and purple robe, and encircled by a numerous retinue of attendants, who watched around it incessantly night and day.
Chapter LXVII. He Received the Same Honors from the Counts and Other Officers as Before His Death.
1 The military officers, too, of the highest rank, the counts, and the whole order of magistrates, who had been accustomed to do obeisance to their emperor before, continued to fulfill this duty without any change, even after his death entering the chamber at the appointed times, and saluting their coffined sovereign with bended knee, as though he were still alive. After them the senators appeared, and all who had been distinguished by any honorable office, and rendered the same homage. These were followed by multitudes of every rank, who came with their wives and children to witness the spectacle. These honors continued to be rendered for a considerable time, the soldiers having resolved thus to guard the body until his sons should arrive, and take on themselves the conduct of their father’s funeral. No mortal had ever, like this blessed prince, continued to reign even after death, and to receive the same homage as during his life: he only, of all who have ever lived, obtained this reward from God: a suitable reward, since he alone of all sovereigns had in all his actions honored the Supreme God and his Christ, and God himself accordingly was pleased that even his mortal remains should still retain imperial authority among men; thus indicating to all who were not utterly devoid of understanding the immortal and endless empire which his soul was destined to enjoy. This was the course of events here.
Chapter LXVIII. Resolution of the Army to Confer Thence-Forward the Title of Augustus on His Sons.
1 Meanwhile the tribunes selected from the troops under their command those officers whose fidelity and zeal had long been known to the emperor, and dispatched them to the Caesars with intelligence of the late event. This service they accordingly performed. As soon, however, as the soldiery throughout the provinces received the tidings of the emperor’s decease, they all, as if by a supernatural impulse, resolved with one consent, as though their great emperor had been yet alive, to acknowledge none other than his sons as sovereigns of the Roman world: and these they soon after determined should no longer retain the name of Caesar, but should each be honored with the title of Augustus, a name which indicates the highest supremacy of imperial power. Such were the measures adopted by the army; and these resolutions they communicated to each other by letter, so that the unanimous desire of the legions became known at the same point of time throughout the whole extent of the empire.
Chapter LXIX. Mourning for Constantine at Rome; And the Honor Paid Him There Through Paintings After His Death.
1 On the arrival of the news of the emperor’s death in the imperial city, the Roman senate and people felt the announcement as the heaviest and most afflictive of all calamities, and gave themselves up to an excess of grief. The baths and markets were closed, the public spectacles, and all other recreations in which men of leisure are accustomed to indulge, were interrupted. Those who had erewhile lived in luxurious ease, now walked the streets in gloomy sadness, while all united in blessing the name of the deceased, as the one who was dear to God, and truly worthy of the imperial dignity. Nor was their sorrow expressed only in words: they proceeded also to honor him, by the dedication of paintings to his memory, with the same respect as before his death. The design of these pictures embodied a representation of heaven itself, and depicted the emperor reposing in an ethereal mansion above the celestial vault. They too declared his sons alone to be emperors and Augusti, and begged with earnest entreaty that they might be permitted to receive the body of their emperor, and perform his obsequies in the imperial city.
Chapter LXX. His Burial by His Son Constantius at Constantinople.
1 Thus did they there testify their respect for the memory of him who had been honored by God. The second of his sons, however, who had by this time arrived, proceeded to celebrate his father’s funeral in the city which bears his name, himself heading the procession, which was preceded by detachments of soldiers in military array, and followed by vast multitudes, the body itself being surrounded by companies of spearmen and heavy armed infantry. On the arrival of the procession at the church dedicated to the apostles of our Saviour, the coffin was there entombed. Such honor did the youthful emperor Constantius render to his deceased parent, both by his presence, and by the due performance of this sacred ceremony.
Chapter LXXI. Sacred Service in the Church of the Apostles an the Occasion of Constantine’s Funeral.
1 As soon as [Constantius] had withdrawn himself with the military train, the ministers of God came forward, with the multitude and the whole congregation of the faithful, and performed the rites of Divine worship with prayer. At the same time the tribute of their praises was given to the character of this blessed prince, whose body rested on a lofty and conspicuous monument, and the whole multitude united with the priests of God in offering prayers for his soul, not without tears,—nay, rather with much weeping; thus performing an office consonant with the desires of the pious deceased.56 In this respect also the favor of God was manifested to his servant, in that he not only bequeathed the succession of the empire to his own beloved sons, but that the earthly tabernacle of his thrice blessed soul, according to his own earnest wish, was permitted to share the monument of the apostles; was associated with the honor of their name, and with that of the people of God; was honored by the performance of the sacred ordinances and mystic service; and enjoyed a participation in the prayers of the saints. Thus, too, he continued to possess imperial power even after death, controlling, as though with renovated life, a universal dominion, and retaining in his own name, as Victor, Maximus, Augustus, the sovereignty of the Roman world.57 
Chapter LXXII. Of the Phoenix.
1 We cannot compare him with that bird of Egypt, the only one, as they say, of its kind, which dies, self-sacrificed, in the midst of aromatic perfumes, and, rising from its own ashes with new life, soars aloft in the same form which it had before. Rather did he resemble his Saviour, who, as the sown corn which is multiplied from a single grain, had yielded abundant increase through the blessing of God, and had overspread the whole world with his fruit. Even so did our thrice blessed prince become multiplied, as it were, through the succession of his sons. His statue was erected along with theirs in every province; and the name of Constantine was owned and honored even after the close of his mortal life.
Chapter LXXIII. How Constantine is Represented on Coins in the Act of Ascending to Heaven.
1 A Coinage was also struck which bore the following device. On one side appeared the figure of our blessed prince, with the head closely veiled: the reverse exhibited him sitting as a charioteer, drawn by four horses, with a hand stretched downward from above to receive him up to heaven.
Chapter LXXIV. The God Whom He Had Honored Deservedly Honored Him in Return.
1 Such are the proofs by which the Supreme God has made it manifest to us, in the person of Constantine, who alone of all sovereigns had openly professed the Christian faith, how great a difference he perceives between those whose privilege it is to worship him and his Christ, and those who have chosen the contrary part, who provoked his enmity by daring to assail his Church, and whose calamitous end, in every instance, afforded tokens of his displeasure, as manifestly as the death of Constantine conveyed to all men an evident assurance of his Divine love.
Chapter LXXV. He Surpassed All Preceding Emperors in Devotion to God.
1 Standing, as he did, alone and pre-eminent among the Roman emperors as a worshiper of God; alone as the bold proclaimer to all men of the doctrine of Christ; having alone rendered honor, as none before him had ever done, to his Church; having alone abolished utterly the error of polytheism, and discountenanced idolatry in every form: so, alone among them both during life and after death, was he accounted worthy of such honors as none can say have been attained to by any other; so that no one, whether Greek or Barbarian, nay, of the ancient Romans themselves, has ever been presented to us as worthy of comparison with him.58 
The Oration of the Emperor Constantine
Which He Addressed “To the Assembly of the Saints.”
Chapter I. Preliminary Remarks on the Feast of Easter: and How the Word of God, Having Conferred Manifold Benefits on Mankind, Was Betrayed by His Beneficiaries.
That light which far outshines the day and sun, first pledge of resurrection, and renovation of bodies long since dissolved,1 the divine token2 of promise, the path which leads to everlasting life—in a word, the day of the Passion—is arrived, best beloved doctors, and ye, my friends who are assembled here, ye blessed multitudes, who worship him who is the author of all worship, and praise him continually with heart and voice, according to the precepts of his holy word. But thou, Nature,3 parent of all things, what blessing like to this hast thou ever accomplished for mankind? Nay rather, what is in any sense thy workmanship, since he who formed the universe is himself the author of thy being? For it is he who has arrayed thee in thy beauty; and the beauty of Nature is life according to Nature’s laws. But principles quite opposed to Nature have mightily prevailed; in that men have agreed in withholding his rightful worship from the Lord of all, believing that the order of the universe depended, not on his providence, but, on the blind uncertainty of chance: and this notwithstanding the clearest announcement of the truth by his inspired prophets, whose words should have claimed belief, but were in every way resisted by that impious wickedness which hates the light of truth, and loves the obscure mazes of darkness. Nor was this error unaccompanied by violence and cruelty, especially in that the will of princes encouraged the blind impetuosity of the multitude, or rather itself led the way in the career of reckless folly. Such principles as these, confirmed by the practice of many generations, became the source of terrible evils in those early times: but no sooner had the radiance of the Saviour’s presence appeared, than justice took the place of wrong, a calm succeeded the confusion of the storm, and the predictions of the prophets were all fulfilled. For after he had enlightened the world by the glorious discretion and purity of his character, and had ascended to the mansions of his father’s house, he founded his Church on earth, as a holy temple of virtue, an immortal, imperishable temple, wherein the worship due to the Supreme Father and to himself should be piously performed. But what did the insane malice of the nations hereupon devise? Their effort was to reject the grace of Christ, and to ruin that Church which was ordained for the salvation of all, though they thus ensured the overthrow of their own superstition.4 Once more then unholy sedition, once more war and strife prevailed, with stiff-neckedness, luxurious riot, and that craving for wealth which now soothes its victims with specious hope, now strikes them with groundless fear; a craving which is contrary to nature, and the very characteristic of Vice herself. Let her, however, lie prostrate in the dust, and own the victorious power of Virtue; and let her rend and tear herself, as well she may, in the bitterness of repentance. But let us now proceed to speak of topics which pertain to the Divine doctrine. 
Chapter II. An Appeal to the Church and to His Hearers to Pardon and Correct the Errors of His Speech.
Hear then, thou master5 of the ship, possessor of virgin purity, and thou Church, the cherisher of tender and inexperienced age, guardian of truth and gentleness, through whose perennial fountain the stream6 of salvation flows! Be ye also indulgent, my hearers, who worship God sincerely, and are, therefore, the objects of his care: attending, not to the language, but to the truth of what is said; not to him who speaks, but rather to the pious zeal which hallows his discourse! For what will be the use of words when the real purpose of the speaker remains unknown? It may be, indeed, that I essay great things; the love of God which animates my soul, a love which overpowers natural reserve, is my plea for the bold attempt. On you, then, I call, who are best instructed in the mysteries of God, to aid me with your counsel, to follow me with your thoughts, and correct whatever shall savor of error in my words, expecting no display of perfect knowledge, but graciously accepting the sincerity of my endeavor. And may the Spirit of the Father and the Son accord his mighty aid, while I utter the words which he shall suggest to speech or thought.7 For if any one, whether in the practice of eloquence, or any other art, expects to produce a finished work without the help of God, both the author and his efforts will be found alike imperfect; while he has no cause to fear, no room for discouragement,8 who has once been blessed with the inspiration of Heaven. Wherefore asking your indulgence for the length of this preface, let us attempt the theme in its utmost scope.9 
Chapter III. That God is the Father of the Word, and the Creator of All Things; And that Material Objects Could Not Continue to Exist, Were Their Causes Various.
God, who is ever above all existence, and the good which all things desire, has no origin, and therefore no beginning, being himself the originator10 of all things which receive existence. But he who proceeds from him is again united to him; and this separation from and union with him is not local, but intellectual in its character. For this generation was accompanied by no diminution of the Father’s substance (as in the case of generation by seed); but by the determining act of foreknowledge God manifested a Saviour presiding over11 this sensible world, and all created things therein.12 From hence, then, is the source of existence and life to all things which are within the compass of this world; hence proceed the soul, and every sense;13 hence those organs through which the sense-perceptions are perfected. What, then, is the object of this argument? To prove that there is One director of all things that exist, and that all things, whether in heaven or on earth, both natural and organized bodies,14 are subject to his single sovereignty. For if the dominion of these things, numberless as they are, were in the hands, not of one but of many, there must be a partition and distribution of the elements, and the old fables would be true;15 jealousy, too, and ambition, striving for superior power, would destroy the harmonious concord of the whole, while each of the many masters would regulate in a manner different from the rest the portion subject to his control. The fact, however, that this universal order is ever one and the same, is the proof that it is under the care of a superior power, and that its origin cannot be ascribed to chance. Else how could the author of universal nature ever be known? To whom first, or last, could prayers and supplications be addressed? Whom could I choose16 as the object of my worship, without being guilty of impiety towards the rest? Again, if haply I desired to obtain some temporal blessing, should I not, while expressing my gratitude to the Power who favored my request, convey a reproach to him who opposed it? Or to whom should I pray, when desiring to know the cause of my calamity, and to obtain deliverance? Or let us suppose that the answer is given by oracles and prophecies, but that the case is not within the scope of their authority, being the province of some other deity.17 Where, then, is mercy? where is the provident care of God for the human race? Unless, indeed, some more benevolent Power, assuming a hostile attitude against another who has no such feeling, be disposed to accord me his protection. Hence anger, discords, mutual censure, and finally universal confusion, would ensue, while each departed from his proper sphere of action, dissatisfied, through ambitious love of power, with his allotted portion. What, then, would be the result of these things? Surely this discord among the heavenly powers would prove destructive to the interests of earth: the orderly alternation of times and seasons would disappear; the successive productions of the earth would be enjoyed no more: the day itself, and the repose of night which follows it, would cease to be. But enough on this subject: let us once more resume that species of reasoning which admits of no reply.
Chapter IV. On the Error of Idolatrous Worship.
Whatever has had a beginning, has also an end. Now that which is a beginning in respect of time, is called a generation: and whatever is by generation is subject to corruption, and its beauty18 is impaired by the lapse of time. How, then, can they whose origin is from corruptible generation, be immortal? Again, this supposition has gained credit with the ignorant multitude, that marriages, and the birth of children, are usual among the gods. Granting, then, such offspring to be immortal, and continually produced, the race must of necessity multiply to excess: and if this were so, where is the heaven, or the earth, which could contain so vast and still increasing a multitude of gods? But what shall we say of those men who represent these celestial beings as joined in incestuous union with their sister goddesses, and charge them with adultery and impurity?19 We declare, further, with all confidence, that the very honors and worship which these deities receive from men are accompanied by acts of wantonness and profligacy. Once more; the experienced and skillful sculptor, having formed the conception of his design, perfects his work according to the rules of art; and in a little while, as if forgetful of himself, idolizes his own creation, and adores it as an immortal god, while yet he admits that himself, the author and maker of the image, is a mortal man. Nay, they even show the graves and monuments of those whom they deem immortal, and bestow divine honors on the dead: not knowing that that which is truly blessed and incorruptible needs no distinction which perishable men can give: for that Being, who is seen by the mental eye, and conceived by the intellect alone, requires to be distinguished by no external form, and admits no figure to represent its character and likeness. But the honors of which we speak are given to those who have yielded to the power of death: they once were men, and tenants, while they lived, of a mortal body.
Chapter V. That Christ, the Son of God, Created All Things, and Has Appointed to Every Thing the Term of Its Existence.
But why do I defile my tongue with unhallowed words, when my object is to sound the praises of the true God? Rather let me cleanse myself, as it were, from this bitter draught by the pure stream which flows from the everlasting fountain of the virtue20 of that God who is the object of my praise. Be it my special province to glorify Christ, as well by the actions of my life, as by that thanksgiving which is due to him for the manifold and signal blessings which he has bestowed. I affirm, therefore, that he21 has laid the foundations of this universe; and conceived the race of men, ordaining these things by his word. And immediately he transferred our newly created parents (ignorant at first, according to his will, of good and evil) to a happy region, abounding in flowers and fruits of every kind.22 At length, however, he appointed them a seat on earth befitting creatures endued with reason; and then unfolded to their faculties, as intelligent beings, the knowledge of good and evil. Then, too, he bade the race increase; and each healthy region of the world, as far as the bounds of the circumambient ocean, became the dwelling-place of men; while with this increase of numbers the invention of the useful arts went hand in hand. Meantime the various species of inferior23 animals increased in due proportion, each kind discovering some characteristic quality, the special gift of nature: the tame distinguished by gentleness and obedience to man; the wild by strength and swiftness, and an instinctive foresight which warned them to escape from peril. The gentler animals he placed entirely beneath man’s protecting care, but entailed on him the necessity of strife with those of fiercer nature. He next created the feathered race, manifold in number, diverse in character and habits; brilliant with every variety of color, and endued with native powers of melody. Finally, having arranged with wise discrimination whatever else the compass of this world contains, and having assigned to every creature the stated term of its existence, he thus completed the beautiful order of the perfect whole.
Chapter VI. The Falsity of the General Opinion Respecting Fate24 Is Proved by the Consideration of Human Laws, and by the Works of Creation, the Course of Which is Not Fortuitous, But According to an Orderly Arrangement Which Evinces the Design of the Creator.
The great majority, however, in their folly, ascribe the regulation of the universe to nature, while some imagine fate, or accident,25 to be the cause. With regard to those who attribute the control of all things to fate, they know not that in using this term they utter a mere word, but designate no active power, nor anything which has real and substantial existence. For what can this fate be, considered in itself, if nature be the first cause of all things? Or what shall we suppose nature itself to be, if the law of fate be inviolable? Indeed, the very assertion that there is a law of fate implies that such law is the work of a legislator: if, therefore, fate itself be a law, it must be a law devised by God. All things, therefore, are subject to God, and nothing is beyond the sphere of his power. If it be said that fate is the will26 of God, and is so considered, we admit the fact. But in what respect do justice,27 or self-control,28 or the other virtues, depend on fate? From whence, if so, do their contraries, as injustice and intemperance, proceed? For vice has its origin from nature, not from fate; and virtue is the due regulation of natural character and disposition. But, granting that the varied results of actions, whether right or erroneous in themselves, depend on fortune or fate: in what sense can the general principle of justice,29 the principle of rendering to every one his due, be ascribed to fate?30 Or how can it be said that laws, encouragements to virtue and dissuasives from what is evil, praise, blame, punishment, in short whatever operates as a motive to virtue, and deters from the practice of vice, derive their origin from fortune or accident, and not rather from that of justice,31 which is a characteristic attribute of the God of providence? For the events which befall men are consequent upon the tenor of their lives. Hence pestilence or sedition, famine and plenty, succeed in turn, declaring plainly and emphatically that all these things are regulated with reference to our course of life. For the Divine Being delights in goodness, but turns with aversion from all impiety; looks with acceptance on the humble spirit, but abhors presumption, and that pride which exalts itself above what becomes a creature. And though the proofs of these truths are clear and manifest to our sight, they appear in a still stronger light, when we collect, and as it were concentrate our thoughts within ourselves, and ponder their causes with deep attention. I say, then, that it becomes us to lead a life of modesty and gentleness, not suffering our thoughts to rise proudly above our natural condition, and ever mindful that God is near us, and is the observer of all our actions. But let us still farther test the truth of the proposition, that the order of the universe depends on chance32 or accident.33 Are we then to suppose that the stars and other heavenly bodies, the earth and sea, fire and wind, water and air, the succession of the seasons, the recurrence of summer and winter, that all these have an undesigned and fortuitous existence, and not rather that they proceed from the creative hand of God? Some, indeed, are so senseless as to say that most of these things have been devised by mankind because of their need of them. Let it be admitted that this opinion has a semblance of reason in regard to earthly and corruptible things (though Nature herself supplies every good with a lavish hand); yet can we believe that things which are immortal and unchangeable are the inventions of men? These, indeed, and all things else which are beyond the reach of our senses, and comprehended by the intellect34 alone, receive their being, not from the material life of man, but from the intellectual and eternal essence of God. Again, the orderly arrangement of these things is the work of his providence: for instance, that the day, deriving radiance from the sun, is bright; that night succeeds his setting, and the starry host35 by which night itself is redeemed from total darkness. And what shall we say of the moon, which when most distant from, and opposite to the sun, is filled with light, but wanes in proportion to the nearness of her approach to him? Do not these things manifestly evince the intelligence36 and sagacious wisdom of God? Add to this that needful warmth of the solar rays which ripens the fruits of the earth; the currents of wind, so conducive to the fertility of the seasons; the cool and refreshing showers; and the harmony of all these things in accordance with which all are reasonably and systematically conducted: lastly, the everlasting order of the planets, which return to the self-same place at their appointed times: are not all these, as well as the perfect ministry of the stars, obedient to a divine law, evident proofs of the ordinance37 of God? Again, do the mountain heights, the deep and hollow valleys, the level and extensive plains, useful as they are, as well as pleasing to the eye, appear to exist independently of the will of God? Or do not the proportion and alternate succession of land and water, serviceable, the one for husbandry, the other for the transport of such foreign products as we need, afford a clear demonstration of his exact and proportionate providential care? For instance, the mountains contain a store of water, which the level ground receives, and after imbibing sufficient for the renovation of the soil, sends forth the residue into the sea, and the sea in turn passes it onward to the ocean. And still we dare to say that all these things happen by chance38 and accident; unable though we be to show by what shape or form this chance is characterized; a thing which has no foundation either in intellect or sense existence; which rings in our ears as the mere sound of an unsubstantial name!
Chapter VII. In Regard to Things Above Our Comprehension, We Should Glorify the Creator’s Wisdom, and Attribute Their Causes to Him Alone, and Not to Chance.
In fact, this word “chance” is the expression of men who think in haphazard and illogical fashion; who are unable to understand the causes of these things, and who, owing to the feebleness of their own apprehensions, conceive that those things for which they cannot assign a reason, are ordered without reason. There are, unquestionably, some things which possess wonderful natural properties, and the full apprehension of which is very difficult: for example, the nature of hot springs. For no one can easily explain the cause of so powerful a fire; and it is indeed surprising that though surrounded on all sides by a body of cold water, it loses none of its native heat. These phenomena appear to be of rare occurrence throughout the world, being intended, I am persuaded, to afford to mankind convincing evidence of the power of that Providence which ordains that two directly opposite natures, heat and cold, should thus proceed from the self-same source. Many indeed, yea, numberless, are the gifts which God has bestowed for the comfort and enjoyment of man; and of these the fruit of the olive-tree and the vine deserve especial notice; the one for its power of renovating and cheering the soul,39 the other because it ministers to our enjoyment, and is likewise adapted for the cure of bodily disease. Marvelous, too, is the course of rivers, flowing night and day with unceasing motion, and presenting a type of ever-flowing, never-ceasing life: and equally wonderful is the alternate succession of day and night. 
Chapter VIII. That God Bestows an Abundant Supply of Whatever is Suited to the Wants of Man, and Ministers But Sparingly to His Pleasures; In Both Cases with a View to His Advantage.
Let what has been said suffice to prove that nothing exists without reason and intelligence, and that reason itself and providence are of God. It is he who has also distributed the metals, as gold, silver, copper, and the rest, in due proportion; ordaining an abundant supply of those which would be most needed and generally employed, while he dispensed those which serve the purposes merely of pleasure in adornment of luxury with a liberal and yet a sparing hand, holding a mean between parsimony and profusion. For the searchers for metals, were those which are employed for ornament procured in equal abundance with the rest, would be impelled by avarice to despise and neglect to gather those which, like iron or copper, are serviceable for husbandry, or house-building, or the equipment of ships; and would care for those only which conduce to luxury and a superfluous excess of wealth. Hence it is, as they say, that the search for gold and silver is far more difficult and laborious than that for any other metals, the violence of the toil thus acting as a counterpoise to the violence of the desire. And how many instances might still further be enumerated of the workings of that Divine Providence which, in all the gifts which it has so unsparingly conferred upon us, plainly urges us to the practice of self-control and all other virtues, and leads us away from unbefitting covetousness! To trace the secret reasons of all these things is indeed a task which exceeds the power of human faculties. For how can the intellect of a frail and perishable being arrive at the knowledge of perfect truth, or apprehend in its purity the counsel of God from the beginning?
Chapter IX. Of the Philosophers, Who Fell into Mistaken Notions, and Some of Them into Danger, by Their Desire of Universal Knowledge.—Also of the Doctrines of Plato.
We ought, therefore, to aim at objects which are within our power, and exceed not the capacities of our nature. For the persuasive influence of argument has a tendency to draw most of us away from the truth of things, which has happened to many philosophers, who have employed themselves in reasoning, and the study of natural science, and who, as often as the magnitude of the subject surpasses their powers of investigation, adopt various devices for obscuring the truth. Hence their diversities of judgment, and contentious opposition to each others’ doctrines, and this notwithstanding their pretensions to wisdom. Hence, too, popular commotions have arisen, and severe sentences, passed by those in power, apprehensive of the overthrow of hereditary institutions, have proved destructive to many of the disputants themselves. Socrates, for example, elated by his skill in argumentation, indulging his power of making the worse appear the better reason,40 and playing continually with the subtleties of controversy, fell a victim to the slander of his own countrymen and fellow-citizens. Pythagoras, too, who laid special claim to the virtues of silence and self-control, was convicted of falsehood. For he declared to the Italians that the doctrines which he had received during his travels in Egypt, and which had long before been divulged by the priests of that nation, were a personal revelation to himself from God. Lastly, Plato himself, the gentlest and most refined of all, who first essayed to draw men’s thoughts from sensible to intellectual and eternal objects, and taught them to aspire to sublimer speculations, in the first place declared, with truth, a God exalted above every essence, but to him he added also a second, distinguishing them numerically as two, though both possessing one perfection, and the being of the second Deity proceeding from41 the first. For he is the creator and controller of the universe, and evidently supreme: while the second, as the obedient agent of his commands, refers the origin of all creation to him as the cause. In accordance, therefore, with the soundest reason, we may say that there is one Being whose care and providence are over all things, even God the Word, who has ordered all things; but the Word being God himself is also the Son of God. For by what name can we designate him except by this title of the Son, without falling into the most grievous error? For the Father of all things is properly considered the Father of his own Word. Thus far, then, Plato’s sentiments were sound; but in what follows he appears to have wandered from the truth, in that he introduces a plurality of gods, to each of whom he assigns specific forms. And this has given occasion to still greater error among the unthinking portion of mankind, who pay no regard to the providence of the Supreme God, but worship images of their own devising, made in the likeness of men or other living beings. Hence it appears that the transcendent nature and admirable learning of this philosopher, tinged as they were with such errors as these, were by no means free from impurity and alloy. And yet he seems to me to retract, and correct his own words, when he-plainly declares that a rational soul is the breath42 of God, and divides all things into two classes, intellectual and sensible: [the one simple, the other]43 consisting of bodily structure; the one comprehended by the intellect alone, the other estimated by the judgment and the senses. The former class, therefore, which partakes of the divine spirit, and is uncompounded and immaterial, is eternal, and inherits everlasting life; but the latter, being entirely resolved into the elements of which it is composed, has no share in everlasting life. He farther teaches the admirable doctrine, that those who have passed a life of virtue, that is, the spirits of good and holy men, are enshrined, after their separation from the body, in the fairest mansions of heaven. A doctrine not merely to be admired, but profitable too.44 For who can believe in such a statement, and aspire to such a happy lot, without desiring to practice righteousness and temperance, and to turn aside from vice? Consistently with this doctrine he represents the spirits of the wicked as tossed like wreckage on the streams of Acheron and Pyriphlegethon.
Chapter X. Of Those Who Reject the Doctrines of Philosophers, as Well as Those of Scripture: and that We Ought to Believe the Poets in All Things, or Disbelieve Them in All.
There are, however, some persons so infatuated, that when they meet with such sentiments as these, they are neither converted or alarmed: nay, they even treat them with contempt and scorn, as if they listened to the inventions of fable; applauding, perhaps, the beauty of the eloquence, but abhorring the severity of the precepts. And yet they give credence to the fictions of the poets, and make both civilized and barbarous45 countries ring with exploded and false tales. For the poets assert that the judgment of souls after death is committed to men whose parentage they ascribe to the gods,46 ex-tolling their righteousness and impartiality and represent them as guardians of the dead. The same poets describe the battles of the gods and certain usages of war among them, and speak of them as subject to the power of fate. Some of these deities they picture to us as cruel, others as strangers to all care for the human race, and others again as hateful in their character. They introduce them also as mourning the slaughter of their own children, thus implying their inability to succor, not strangers merely, but those most dear to them. They describe them, too, as subject to human passions, and sing of their battles and wounds, their joys and sorrows. And in all this they appear worthy of belief.47 For if we suppose them to be moved by a divine impulse to attempt the poetic art, we are bound to believe them and to be persuaded of what they utter under this inspiration. They speak, then, of the calamities to which their divinities are subject; calamities which of course are altogether true! But it will be objected that it is the privilege of poets to lie, since the peculiar province of poetry is to charm48 the spirits of the hearers, while the very essence of truth is that things told be in reality exactly what they are said to be.49 Let us grant that it is a characteristic of poetry occasionally to conceal the truth. But they who speak falsehood do it not without an object; being influenced either by a desire of personal gain or advantage, or possibly, being conscious of some evil conduct, they are induced to disguise the truth by dread of the threatening vengeance of the laws. But surely it were possible for them (in my judgment), by adhering faithfully to truth at least while treating of the nature of the Supreme Being, to avoid the guilt at once of falsehood and impiety. 
Chapter XI. On the Coming of Our Lord in the Flesh; Its Nature and Cause.50 
Whoever, then, has pursued a course unworthy of a life of virtue, and is conscious of having lived an irregular and disorderly life, let him repent, and turn with enlightened spiritual vision to God; and let him abandon his past career of wickedness, content if he attain to wisdom even in his declining years. We, however, have received no aid from human instruction; nay, whatever graces of character are esteemed of good report by those who have understanding, are entirely the gift of God. And I am able to oppose no feeble buckler against the deadly weapons of Satan’s armory; I mean the knowledge I possess of those things which are pleasing to him: and of these I will select such as are appropriate to my present design, while I proceed to sing the praises of the Father of all. But do thou, O Christ, Saviour of mankind, be present to aid me in my hallowed task! Direct the words which celebrate thy virtues,51 and instruct me worthily to sound thy praises. And now, let no one expect to listen to the graces of elegant language: for well I know that the nerveless eloquence of those who speak to charm the ear, and whose aim is rather applause than sound argument, is distasteful to hearers of sound judgment. It is asserted, then, by some profane and senseless persons, that Christ, whom we worship, was justly condemned to death, and that he who is the author of life to all, was himself deprived of life. That such an assertion should be made by those who have once dared to enter the paths of impiety, who have cast aside all fear, and all thought of concealing their own depravity, is not surprising. But it is beyond the bounds of folly itself that they should be able, as it seems, really to persuade themselves that the incorruptible God yielded to the violence of men, and not rather to that love alone which he bore to the human race: that they should fail to perceive that divine magnanimity and forbearance is changed by no insult, is moved from its intrinsic steadfastness by no revilings; but is ever the same, breaking down and repelling, by the spirit of wisdom and greatness of soul, the savage fierceness of those who assail it. The gracious kindness of God had determined to abolish iniquity, and to exalt order and justice. Accordingly, he gathered a company of the wisest among men,52 and ordained that most noble and useful doctrine, which is calculated to lead the good and blessed of mankind to an imitation of his own providential care. And what higher blessing can we speak of than this, that God should prescribe the way of righteousness, and make those who are counted worthy of his instruction like himself; that goodness might be communicated to all classes of mankind, and eternal felicity be the result? This is the glorious victory: this the true power: this the mighty work, worthy of its author, the restoration of all people to soundness of mind: and the glory of this triumph we joyfully ascribe to thee, thou Saviour of all! But thou, vile and wretched blasphemy, whose glory is in lies and rumors and calumny; thy power is to deceive and prevail with the inexperience of youth, and with men who still retain the folly of youth. These thou seducest from the service of the true God, and settest up false idols as the objects of their worship and their prayers; and thus the reward of their folly awaits thy deluded victims: for they calumniate Christ, the author of every blessing, who is God, and the Son of God. Is not the worship of the best and wisest of the nations of this world worthily directed to that God, who, while possessing boundless power, remains immovably true to his own purpose, and retains undiminished his characteristic kindness and love to man? Away, then, ye impious, for still ye may while vengeance on your transgressions is yet withheld; begone to your sacrifices, your feasts, your scenes of revelry and drunkenness, wherein, under the semblance of religion, your hearts are devoted to profligate enjoyment, and pretending to perform sacrifices, yourselves are the willing slaves of your own pleasures. No knowledge have ye of any good, nor even of the first commandment of the mighty God, who both declares his will to man, and gives commission to his Son to direct the course of human life, that they who have passed a career of virtue and self-control may obtain, according to the judgment of that Son, a second, yea, a blessed and happy existence.53 I have now declared the decree of God respecting the life which he prescribes to man, neither ignorantly, as many have done, nor resting on the ground of opinion or conjecture. But it may be that some will ask, Whence this title of Son? Whence this generation of which we speak, if God be indeed only One, and incapable of union with another? We are, however, to consider generation as of two kinds; one in the way of natural birth, which is known to all; the other, that which is the effect of an eternal cause, the mode of which is seen by the prescience of God, and by those among men whom he loves. For he who is wise will recognize the cause which regulates the harmony of creation. Since, then, nothing exists without a cause, of necessity the cause of existing substances preceded their existence. But since the world and all things that it contains exist, and are preserved,54 their preserver must have had a prior existence; so that Christ is the cause of preservation, and the preservation of things is an effect:55 even as the Father is the cause of the Son, and the Son the effect of that cause. Enough, then, has been said to prove his priority of existence. But how do we explain his descent to this earth, and to men? His motive in this,56 as the prophets had foretold, originated in his watchful care for the interests of all: for it needs must be that the Creator should care for his own works. But when the time came for him to assume a terrestrial body, and to sojourn on this earth, the need requiring, he devised for himself a new mode57 of birth. Conception was there, yet apart from marriage: childbirth, yet pure virginity: and a maiden became the mother of God! An eternal nature received a beginning of temporal existence: a sensible form of a spiritual essence, a material manifestation of incorporeal brightness,58 appeared. Alike wondrous were the circumstances which attended this great event. A radiant dove, like that which flew from the ark of Noah,59 alighted on the Virgin’s bosom: and accordant with this impalpable union, purer than chastity, more guileless than innocence itself, were the results which followed. From infancy possessing the wisdom of God, received with reverential awe by the Jordan, in whose waters he was baptized, gifted with that royal unction, the spirit of universal intelligence; with knowledge and power to perform miracles, and to heal diseases beyond the reach of human art; he yielded a swift and unhindered assent to the prayers of men, to whose welfare, indeed, his whole life was devoted without reserve. His doctrines instilled, not prudence only,60 but real wisdom: his hearers were instructed, not in the mere social virtues,61 but in the ways which conduct to the spiritual world; and devoted themselves to the contemplation of immutable and eternal things, and the knowledge of the Supreme Father. The benefits which he bestowed were no common blessings: for blindness, the gift of sight; for helpless weakness, the vigor of health; in the place of death, restoration to life again. I dwell not on that abundant provision in the wilderness, whereby a scanty measure of food became a complete and enduring supply62 for the wants of a mighty multitude?63 Thus do we render thanks to thee, our God and Saviour, according to our feeble power; unto thee, O Christ, supreme Providence of the mighty Father, who both savest us from evil, and impartest to us thy most blessed doctrine: for I say these things, not to praise, but to give thanks. For what mortal is he who shall worthily declare thy praise, of whom we learn that thou didst from nothing call creation into being, and illumine it with thy light; that thou didst regulate the confusion of the elements by the laws of harmony and order? But chiefly we mark thy loving-kindness,64 in that thou hast caused those whose hearts inclined to thee to desire earnestly a divine and blessed life, and hast provided that, like merchants of true blessings, they might impart to many others the wisdom and good fortune they had received; themselves, meanwhile, reaping the everlasting fruit of virtue. Freed from the trammels of vice, and imbued with the love of their fellow-men, they keep mercy ever before their eyes, and hoping for the promises of faith;65 devoted to modesty, and all those virtues which the past career of human life had thrown aside [but which were now restored by him whose providence is over all].66 No other power could be found to devise a remedy for such evils, and for that spirit of injustice which had heretofore asserted its dominion over the race of men. Providence, however, could reach the circumstances even here, and with ease restored whatever had been disordered by violence and the licentiousness of human passion. And this restoring power he exercised without concealment. For he knew that, though there were some whose thoughts were able to recognize and understand his power, others there were whose brutish and senseless nature led them to rely exclusively on the testimony of their own senses. In open day, therefore, that no one, whether good or evil, might find room for doubt, he manifested his blessed and wondrous healing power; restoring the dead to life again, and renewing with a word the powers of those who had been bereft of bodily sense.67 Can we, in short, suppose, that to render the sea firm as the solid ground, to still the raging of the storm, and finally to ascend to heaven, after turning the unbelief of men to steadfast faith by the performance of these wondrous acts, demanded less than almighty power, was less than the work of God? Nor was the time of his passion unaccompanied by like wonders: when the sun was darkened, and the shades of night obscured the light of day. Then terror everywhere laid hold upon the people, and the thought that the end of all things was already come, and that chaos, such as had been ere the order of creation began, would once more prevail. Then, too, the cause was sought of so terrible an evil, and in what respect the trespasses of men had provoked the wrath of Heaven; until God himself, who surveyed with calm dignity the arrogance of the ungodly, renewed the face of heaven, and adorned it with the host of stars. Thus the beclouded face of Nature was again restored to her pristine beauty.
Chapter XII. Of Those Who are Ignorant of This Mystery; And that Their Ignorance is Voluntary. The Blessings Which Await Those Who Know It, Especially Such as Die in the Confession of the Faith.68 
But it will be said by some, who love to blaspheme, that it was in the power of God to ameliorate and soften the natural will of man. What better way, I ask, what better method could be devised, what more effectual effort put forth for reclaiming evil man, than converse with God himself? Was not he visibly present to teach them the principles of virtuous conduct? And if the personal instructions of God were without effect, how much more, had he continued absent and unheard? What, then, had power to hinder this most blessed doctrine? The perverse folly of man. For the clearness of our perceptions is at once obscured, as often as we receive with angry impatience those precepts which are given for our blessing and advantage. In truth, it was the very choice of men to disregard these precepts, and to turn a deaf ear to the commandments so distasteful to them; though had they listened, they would have gained a reward well worthy such attention, and that not for the present only, but the future life, which is indeed the only true life. For the reward of obedience to God is imperishable and everlasting life, to which they may aspire who know him,69 and frame their course of life so as to afford a pattern to others, and as it were a perpetual standard for the imitation of those who desire to excel in virtue. Therefore was the doctrine committed to men of understanding, that the truths which they communicated might be kept with care and a pure conscience by the members of their households, and that thus a truthful and steadfast observance of God’s commands might be secured, the fruit of which is that boldness in the prospect of death which springs from pure faith and genuine holiness before God. He who is thus armed can withstand the tempest of the world, and is sustained even to martyrdom by the invincible power of God, whereby he boldly overcomes the greatest terrors, and is accounted worthy of a crown of glory by him to whom he has thus nobly testified.70 Nor does he himself assume the praise, knowing full well that it is God who gives the power both to endure, and to fulfill with ready zeal the Divine commands. And well may such a course as this receive the meed of never-failing remembrance and everlasting honor. For as the martyr’s life is one of sobriety and obedience to the will of God, so is his death an example of true greatness and generous fortitude of soul. Hence it is followed by hymns and psalms, words and songs of praise to the all-seeing God: and a sacrifice of thanksgiving is offered in memory of such men, a bloodless, a harmless sacrifice, wherein is no need of the fragrant frankincense, no need of fire; but only enough of pure light71 to suffice the assembled worshipers. Many, too, there are whose charitable spirit leads them to prepare a temperate banquet for the comfort of the needy, and the relief of those who had been driven from their homes: a custom which can only be deemed burdensome72 by those whose thoughts are not accordant with the divine and sacred doctrine.
Chapter XIII. That There is a Necessary Difference Between Created Things. That the Propensity to Good and Evil Depends on the Will of Man; And That, Consequently, Judgment is a Necessary and Reasonable Thing.
There are, indeed, some who venture with childish presumption to find fault with God in respect of this also, and ask why it is that he has not created one and the same natural disposition for all, but rather has ordained the existence of many things different, nay, contrary in their nature, whence arises the dissimilarity of our moral conduct and character. Would it not (say they) have been better, both as regards obedience to the commands of God, and a just apprehension of himself, and for the confirmation of individual faith, that all mankind should be of the same moral character? It is indeed ridiculous to expect that this could be the case, and to forget that the constitution of the world is different from that of the things that are in the world; that physical and moral objects are not identical in their nature, nor the affections of the body the same as those of the soul. [For the immortal soul far exceeds the material world in dignity, and is more blessed than the perishable and terrestrial creation, in proportion as it is noble and more allied to God.73 ] Nor is the human race excluded from participation in the divine goodness; though this is not the lot of all indiscriminately, but of those only who search deeply into the Divine nature, and propose the knowledge of sacred things as the leading object of their lives.
Chapter XIV. That Created Nature Differs Infinitely from Uncreated Being; To Which Man Makes the Nearest Approach by a Life of Virtue.
Surely it must be the very height of folly to compare created with eternal things, which latter have neither beginning nor end, while the former, having been originated and called into being, and having received a commencement of their existence at some definite time, must consequently, of necessity have an end. How then can things which have thus been made, bear comparison with him who has ordained their being? Were this the case,74 the power to command their existence could not rightly be attributed to him. Nor can celestial things be compared to him, any more than the material75 with the intellectual76 world, or copies with the models from which they are formed. Nay, is it not absurd thus to confound all things, and to obscure the honor of God by comparing him with men, or even with beasts? And is it not characteristic of madmen, utterly estranged from a life of sobriety and virtue, to affect a power equivalent to that of God? If indeed we in any sense aspire to blessedness like that of God, our duty is to lead a life according to his commandments: so shall we, having finished a course consistent with the laws which he has prescribed, dwell for ever superior to the power of fate, in eternal and undecaying mansions. For the only power in man which can be elevated to a comparison with that of God, is sincere and guileless service and devotion of heart to himself, with the contemplation and study of whatever pleases him, the raising our affections above the things of earth, and directing our thoughts, as far as we may, to high and heavenly objects: for from such endeavors, it is said, a victory accrues to us more valuable than many blessings.77 The cause, then, of that difference which subsists, as regards the inequality both of dignity and power in created beings, is such as I have described. In this the wise acquiesce with abundant thankfulness and joy: while those who are dissatisfied, display their own folly, and their arrogance will reap its due reward.
Chapter XV. Of the Saviour’s Doctrines and Miracles; And the Benefits He Confers on Those Who Own Subjection to Him.
The Son of God invites all men to the practice of virtue, and presents himself to all who have understanding hearts, as the teacher of his saving precepts.78 Unless, indeed, we will deceive ourselves; and remain in wretched ignorance of the fact, that for our advantage, that is, to secure the blessing of the human race, he went about upon earth; and, having called around him the best men of their age, committed to them instructions full of profit, and of power to preserve them in the path of a virtuous life; teaching them the faith and righteousness which are the true remedy against the adverse power of that malignant spirit whose delight it is to ensnare and delude the inexperienced. Accordingly he visited the sick, relieved the infirm from the ills which afflicted them, and consoled those who felt the extremity of penury and want. He commended also sound and rational sobriety of character, enjoining his followers to endure, with dignity and patience, every kind of injury and contempt: teaching them to regard such as visitations permitted by their Father, and the victory is ever theirs who nobly bear the evils which befall them. For he assured them that the highest strength of all consisted in this steadfastness of soul, combined with that philosophy which is nothing else than the knowledge of truth and goodness, producing in men the generous habit of sharing with their poorer brethren those riches which they have themselves acquired by honorable means. At the same time he utterly forbade all proud oppression, declaring that, as he had come to associate with the lowly, so those who despised the lowly would be excluded from his favor. Such and so great was the test whereby he proved the faith of those who owned allegiance to his authority, and thus he not only prepared them for the contempt of danger and terror, but taught them at the same time the most genuine confidence in himself. Once, too, his rebuke was uttered to restrain the zeal of one of his companions, who yielded too easily to the impulse of passion, when he assaulted with the sword, and, eager to protect his Saviour’s life, exposed his own. Then it was that he bade him desist, and returned his sword to its sheath, reproving him for his distrust of refuge and safety in himself, and declaring solemnly that all who should essay to retaliate an injury by like aggression, or use the sword, should perish by a violent death.79 This is indeed heavenly wisdom, to choose rather to endure than to inflict injury, and to be ready, should necessity so require, to suffer, but not to do, wrong. For since injurious conduct is in itself a most serious evil, it is not the injured party, but the injuring, on whom the heaviest punishment must fall. It is indeed possible for one who is subject to the will of God to avoid the evil both of committing and of suffering injury, provided his confidence be firm in the protection of that God whose aid is ever present to shield his servants from harm. For how should that man who trusts in God attempt to seek for resources in himself? In such a case he must abide the conflict with uncertainty of victory: and no man of understanding could prefer a doubtful to a certain issue. Again, how can that man doubt the presence and aid of God, who has had experience of manifold dangers, and has at all times been easily delivered, at his simple nod, from all terrors: who has passed, as it were, through the sea which was leveled by the Saviour’s word, and afforded a solid road for the passage of the people? This is, I believe, the sure basis of faith, the true foundation of confidence, that we find such miracles as these performed and perfected at the command of the God of Providence. Hence it is that even in the midst of trial we find no cause to repent of our faith, but retain an unshaken hope in God; and when this habit of confidence is established in the soul, God himself dwells in the inmost thoughts. But he is of invincible power: the soul, therefore, which has within it him who is thus invincible, will not be overcome by the perils which may surround it. Likewise,80 we learn this truth from the victory of God himself, who, while intent on providing for the blessing of mankind, though grievously insulted by the malice of the ungodly, yet passed unharmed through the sufferings of his passion, and gained a mighty conquest, an everlasting crown of triumph, over all iniquity; thus accomplishing the purpose of his own providence and love as regards the just, and destroying the cruelty of the impious and unjust.
Chapter XVI. The Coming of Christ Was Predicted by the Prophets; And Was Ordained to Be the Overthrow of Idols and Idolatrous Cities.
Long since had his passion, as well as his advent in the flesh, been predicted by the prophets. The time, too, of his incarnation had been foretold, and the manner in which the fruits of iniquity and profligacy, so ruinous to the works and ways of righteousness, should be destroyed, and the whole world partake of the virtues of wisdom and sound discretion, through the almost universal prevalence of those principles of conduct which the Saviour should promulgate, over the minds of men; whereby the worship of God should be confirmed, and the rites of superstition utterly abolished. By these not the slaughter of animals alone, but the sacrifice of human victims, and the pollutions of an accursed worship, had been devised: as, for example, by the laws of Assyria and Egypt, the lives of innocent men were offered up in images of brass or earth. Therefore have these nations received a recompense worthy so foul a worship. Memphis and Babylon [it was declared]81 shall be wasted, and left desolate with their fathers’ gods. Now these things I speak not from the report of others, but having myself been present, and actually seen the most wretched of these cities, the unfortunate Memphis.82 Moses desolated, at the Divine command, the land of the once mighty Pharaoh, whose arrogance was his destruction,83 and destroyed his army (which had proved victorious over numerous and mighty nations, an army strong in defenses and in arms), not by the flight of arrows or the hurling of hostile weapons, but by holy prayer alone, and quiet supplication.
Chapter XVII. Of the Wisdom of Moses, Which Was an Object of Imitation to the Wise Among Heathen Nations. Also Concerning Daniel, and the Three Children.
No nation has ever been more highly blessed than that which Moses led: none would have continued to enjoy higher blessings, had they not willingly withdrawn themselves from the guidance of the Holy Spirit. But who can worthily describe the praises of Moses himself; who, after reducing to order an unruly nation, and disciplining their minds84 to habits of obedience and respect, out of captivity restored them to a state of freedom, turned their mourning into gladness, and so far elevated their minds,85 that, through the excess of contrast with their former circumstances, and the abundance of their prosperity, the spirit of the people was elated with haughtiness and pride? So far did he surpass in wisdom those who had lived before him, that even the wise men and philosophers86 who are extolled by heathen nations aspired to imitate his wisdom. For Pythagoras, following his wisdom, attained to such a pitch of self-control, that he became to Plato, himself a model of discretion, the standard of his own self-mastery. Again, how great and terrible the cruelty of that ancient Syrian king, over whom Daniel triumphed, the prophet who unfolded the secrets of futurity, whose actions evinced transcendent greatness of soul, and the luster of whose character and life shone conspicuous above all? The name of this tyrant was Nebuchadnezzar, whose race afterward became extinct, and his vast and mighty power was transferred to Persian hands. The wealth of this tyrant was then, and is even now, celebrated far and wide, as well as his ill-timed devotion to unlawful worship, his idol statues, lifting their heads to heaven, and formed of various metals, and the terrible and savage laws ordained to uphold this worship. These terrors Daniel, sustained by genuine piety towards the true God, utterly despised, and predicted that the tyrant’s unseasonable zeal would be productive of fearful evil to himself. He failed, however, to convince the tyrant (for excessive wealth is an effectual barrier to true soundness of judgment), and at length the monarch displayed the savage cruelty of his character, by commanding that the righteous prophet should be exposed to the fury of wild beasts. Noble, too, indeed was the united spirit exhibited by those brethren87 (whose example others have since followed, and have won surpassing glory by their faith in the Saviour’s name),88 those, I mean, who stood unharmed in the fiery furnace, and the terrors appointed to devour them, repelling by the holy touch of their bodies the flame by which they were surrounded. On the overthrow of the Assyrian Empire, which was destroyed by thunderbolts from Heaven,89 the providence of God conducted Daniel to the court of Cambyses the Persian king. Yet envy followed him even here; nor envy only, but the deadly plots of the magians against his life, with a succession of many and urgent dangers, from all which he was easily delivered by the providential care of Christ,90 and shone conspicuous in the practice of every virtue. Three times in the day did he present his prayers to God, and memorable were the proofs of supernatural power which he displayed: and hence the magians, filled with envy at the very efficacy of his petitions, represented the possession of such power to the king as fraught with danger, and prevailed on him to adjudge this distinguished benefactor of the Persian people to be devoured by savage lions. Daniel, therefore, thus condemned, was consigned to the lions’ den (not indeed to suffer death, but to win unfading glory); and though surrounded by these ferocious beasts of prey, he found them more gentle than the men who had enclosed him there. Supported by the power of calm and steadfast prayer, he was enabled to subdue all these animals, ferocious as, by nature, they were. Cambyses, on learning the event (for so mighty a proof of Divine power could not possibly be concealed), amazed at the marvelous story, and repenting the too easy credence he had given to the slanderous charges of the magians, resolved, notwithstanding, to be himself a witness of the spectacle. But when he saw the prophet with uplifted hands rendering praises to Christ, and the lions crouching, and as it were worshiping, at his feet, immediately he adjudged the magians, to whose persuasions he had listened, to perish by the self-same sentence, and shut them up in the lions’ den.91 The beasts, erewhile so gentle, rushed at once upon their victims, and with all the fierceness of their nature tore and destroyed them all.92 
Chapter XVIII. Of the Erythraean Sibyl, Who Pointed in a Prophetic Acrostic at Our Lord and His Passion. The Acrostic is “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour, Cross.”
My desire, however, is to derive even from foreign sources a testimony to the Divine nature of Christ. For on such testimony it is evident that even those who blaspheme his name must acknowledge that he is God, and the Son of God if indeed they will accredit the words of those whose sentiments coincided with their own.93 The Erythraean Sibyl, then, who herself assures us that she lived in the sixth generation after the flood, was a priestess of Apollo, who wore the sacred fillet in imitation of the God she served, who guarded also the tripod encompassed with the serpent’s folds, and returned prophetic answers to those who approached her shrine; having been devoted by the folly of her parents to this service, a service productive of nothing good or noble, but only of indecent fury, such as we find recorded in the case of Daphne.94 On one occasion, however, having rushed into the sanctuary of her vain superstition, she became really filled with inspiration from above, and declared in prophetic verses the future purposes of God; plainly indicating the advent of Jesus by the initial letters of these verses, forming an acrostic in these words: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour, Cross. The verses themselves are as follows:

Judgment! Earth’s oozing pores95 shall mark the day;
Earth’s heavenly king his glories shall display:
Sovereign of all, exalted on his throne,
Unnumbered multitudes their God shall own;
Shall see their Judge, with mingled joy and fear,
Crowned with his saints, in human form appear.
How vain, while desolate earth’s glories lie,
Riches, and pomp, and man’s idolatry!
In that dread hour, when Nature’s fiery doom
Startles the slumb’ring tenants of the tomb,
Trembling all flesh shall stand; each secret wile,
Sins long forgotten, thoughts of guilt and guile,
Open beneath God’s searching light shall lie:
No refuge then, but hopeless agony.
O’er heaven’s expanse shall gathering shades of night
From earth, sun, stars, and moon, withdraw their light;
God’s arm shall crush each mountain’s towering pride;
On ocean’s plain no more shall navies ride.
Dried at the source, no river’s rushing sound
Shall soothe, no fountain slake the parched ground.
Around, afar, shall roll the trumpet’s blast,
Voice of wrath long delayed, revealed at last.
In speechless awe, while earth’s foundations groan,
On judgment’s seat earth’s kings their God shall own. 
Uplifted then, in majesty divine,
Radiant with light, behold Salvation’s Sign!
Cross of that Lord, who, once for sinners given,
Reviled by man, now owned by earth and heaven,
O’er every land extends his iron sway.
liSuch is the name these mystic lines display;
Saviour, eternal king, who bears our sins away.96 
It is evident that the virgin uttered these verses under the influence of Divine inspiration. And I cannot but esteem her blessed, whom the Saviour thus selected to unfold his gracious purpose towards us.
Chapter XIX. That This Prophecy Respecting Our Saviour Was Not the Fiction of Any Member of the Christian Church, But the Testimony of the Erythraean Sibyl, Whose Books Were Translated into Latin by Cicero Before the Coming of Christ. Also that Virgil Makes Mention of the Same, and of the Birth of the Virgin’s Child: Though He Spoke Obscurely of This Mystery from Fear of the Ruling Powers.
Many, however, who admit that the Erythraean Sibyl was really a prophetess, yet refuse to credit this prediction, and imagine that some one professing our faith, and not unacquainted with the poetic art, was the composer of these verses. They hold, in short, that they are a forgery, and alleged to be the prophecies of the Sibyl on the ground of their containing useful moral sentiments, tending to restrain licentiousness, and to lead man to a life of sobriety and decorum. Truth, however, in this case is evident, since the diligence of our countrymen97 has made a careful computation of the times; so that there is no room to suspect that this poem was composed after the advent and condemnation of Christ, or that the general report is false, that the verses were a prediction of the Sibyl in an early age. For it is allowed that Cicero was acquainted with this poem, which he translated into the Latin tongue, and incorporated with his own works.98 This writer was put to death during the ascendancy of Antony, who in his turn was conquered by Augustus, whose reign lasted fifty-six years. Tiberius succeeded, in whose age it was that the Saviour’s advent enlightened the world, the mystery of our most holy religion began to prevail, and as it were a new race of men commenced: of which, I suppose, the prince of Latin poets thus speaks:
Behold, a new, a heaven-born race appears.99 
And again, in another passage of the Bucolics:
Sicilian Muses, sound a loftier strain.
What can be clearer than this? For he adds,
The voice of Cuma’s oracle is heard again.100 
Evidently referring to the Cumaean Sibyl. Nor was even this enough: the poet goes further, as if irresistibly impelled to bear his testimony. What then does he say?
Behold! the circling years new blessings bring:The virgincomes, with her the long-desired king.101  
Who, then, is the virgin who was to come? Is it not she who was filled with, and with child of the Holy Spirit? And why is it impossible that she who was with child of the Holy Spirit should be, and ever continue to be a virgin? This king, too, will return, and by his coming lighten the sorrows of the world. The poet adds,
Thou, chaste Lucina, greet the new-born child,
Beneath whose reign the iron offspring ends,
A golden progeny from heaven descends;
His kingdom banished virtue shall restore,
And crime shall threat the guilty world no more.
We perceive that these words are spoken plainly and at the same time darkly, by way of allegory. Those who search deeply for the import of the words, are able to discern the Divinity of Christ. But lest any of the powerful in the imperial city might be able to accuse the poet of writing anything contrary to the laws of the country, and subverting the religious sentiments which had prevailed from ancient times, he intentionally obscures the truth. For he was acquainted, as I believe, with that blessed mystery which gave to our Lord the name of Saviour:102 but, that he might avoid the severity of cruel men, he drew the thoughts of his hearers to objects with which they were familiar, saying that altars must be erected, temples raised, and sacrifices offered to the new-born child. His concluding words also are adapted to the sentiments of those who were accustomed to such a creed; for he says:
Chapter XX. A Farther Quotation from Virgilius Maro Respecting Christ, with Its Interpretation, Showing that the Mystery Was Indicated Therein Darkly, as Might Be Expected from a Poet.
A life immortal he shall lead, and be
By heroes seen, himself shall heroes see;
evidently meaning the righteous.
The jarring nations he in peace shall bind,
And with paternal virtues rule mankind.
Unbidden earth her earliest fruits shall bring,
And fragrant herbs, to greet her infant king.
Well indeed was this admirably wise and accomplished man acquainted with the cruel character of the times. He proceeds:
The goats, uncall’d, full udders home shall bear;
The lowing herds no more fierce lions fear.
Truly said: for faith will not stand in awe of the mighty in the imperial palace.
His cradle shall with rising flowers be crown’d:
The serpent’s brood shall die; the sacred ground
Shall weeds and poisonous plants refuse to bear;
Each common bush th’ Assyrian rose103 shall wear.
Nothing could be said more true or more consistent with the Saviour’s excellency than this. For the power of the Divine Spirit presents the very cradle of God, like fragrant flowers, to the new-born race.104 The serpent, too, and the venom of that serpent, perishes, who originally beguiled our first parents, and drew their thoughts from their native innocence105 to the enjoyment of pleasures, that they might experience106 that threatened death. For before the Saviour’s advent, the serpent’s power was shown in subverting the souls of those who were sustained by no well-grounded hope, and ignorant of that immortality which awaits the righteous. But after that he had suffered, and was separated for a season from the body which he had assumed, the power of the resurrection was revealed to man through the communication of the Holy Spirit: and whatever stain of human guilt might yet remain was removed by the washing of sacred lustrations.
Then indeed could the Saviour bid his followers be of good cheer, and, remembering his adorable and glorious resurrection, expect the like for themselves. Truly, then, the poisonous race may be said to be extinct. Death himself is extinct, and the truth of the resurrection sealed. Again, the Assyrian race is gone, which first led the way to faith in God.107 But when he speaks of the growth of amomum every where, he alludes to the multitude of the true worshipers of God.108 For it is as though a multitude of branches, crowned with fragrant flowers, and fitly watered, sprung from the self-same root. Most justly said, Maro, thou wisest of poets! and with this all that follows is consistent.
But when heroic worth his youth shall hear,
And learn his father’s virtues to revere.
By the praises of heroes, he indicates the works of righteous men: by the virtues of his Father he speaks of the creation and everlasting structure of the world: and, it may be, of those laws by which God’s beloved Church is guided, and ordered in a course of righteousness and virtue. Admirable, again, is the advance to higher things of that state of life which is intermediate, as it were, between good and evil, and which seldom admits a sudden change:
Unlabored harvests shall the fields adorn,109 
that is, the fruit of the Divine law springs up for the service of men.
And clustered gropes shall blush on every thorn.
Far otherwise has it been during the corrupt and lawless period of human life.
The knotted oaks shall showers of honey weep.110 
He here describes the folly and obduracy of the men of that age; and perhaps he also intimates that they who suffer hardships in the cause of God, shall reap sweet fruits of their own endurance.
Yet, of old fraud some footsteps shall remain;
The merchant still shall plough the deep for gain:
Great cities shall with walls be compassed round,
And sharpened shares shall vex the fruitful ground:
Another Tiphys shall new seas explore;
Another Argo land the chiefs upon the Iberian shore;
Another Helen other wars create,
And great Achilles urge the Trojan fate.
Well said, wisest of bards! Thou hast carried the license of a poet precisely to the proper point. For it was not thy purpose to assume the functions of a prophet, to which thou hadst no claim. I suppose also he was restrained by a sense of the danger which threatened one who should assail the credit of ancient religious practice. Cautiously, therefore, and securely, as far as possible, he presents the truth to those who have faculties to understand it; and while he denounces the munitions and conflicts of war111 (which indeed are still to be found in the course of human life), he describes our Saviour as proceeding to the war against Troy, understanding by Troy the world itself.112 And surely he did maintain the struggle against the opposing powers of evil, sent on that mission both by the designs of his own providence and the commandment of his Almighty Father. How, then, does the poet proceed?
But when to ripen’d manhood he shall grow,
that is, when, having arrived at the age of manhood, he shall utterly remove the evils which encompass the path of human life, and tranquilize the world by the blessings of peace:

The greedy sailor shall the seas forego;
No keel shall cut the waves for foreign ware,
For every soil shall every product bear.
The laboring hind his oxen shall disjoin;
No plough shall hurt the glebe, no pruning-hook the vine;
Nor wool shall in dissembled colors shine:
But the luxurious father of the fold,
With native purple, and unborrow’d gold,
Beneath his pompous fleece shall proudly sweat;
And under Tyrian robes the lamb shall bleat.
Mature in years, to ready honors move,
O of celestial seed, O foster son of Jove!
See, laboring nature calls thee to sustain
The nodding flame of heaven, and earth, and main!
See to their base restored, earth, seas, and air;
And joyful ages, from behind, in crowing ranks appear.
To sing thy praise, would heaven my breath prolong.
Infusing spirits worthy such a song,
Not Thracian Orpheus should transcend my lays,
Nor Linus, crown’d with never-fading bays;
Though each his heavenly parent should inspire;
The Muse instruct the voice, and Phoebus tune the lyre.
Should Pan contend in verse, and thou my theme,
Arcadian judges should their God condemn.113 
Behold (says he) how the mighty world and the elements together manifest their joy.
Chapter XXI. That These Things Cannot Have Been Spoken of a Mere Man: and that Unbelievers, Owing to Their Ignorance of Religion, Know Not Even the Origin of Their Own Existence.
It may be some will foolishly suppose that these words were spoken of the birth of a mere ordinary mortal. But if this were all, what reason could there be that the earth should need neither seed nor plough, that the vine should require no pruning-hook, or other means of culture? How can we suppose these things to be spoken of a mere mortal’s birth? For nature is the minister of the Divine will, not an instrument obedient to the command of man. Indeed, the very joy of the elements indicates the advent of God, not the conception of a human being. The prayer, too, of the poet that his life might be prolonged is a proof of the Divinity of him whom he invoked; for we desire life and preservation from God, and not from man. Indeed, the Erythraean Sibyl thus appeals to God: “Why, O Lord, dost thou compel me still to foretell the future, and not rather remove me from this earth to await the blessed day of thy coming?” And Maro adds to what he had said before: 
Begin, sweet boy! with smiles thy mother know,
Who ten long months did with thy burden go.
No mortal parents smiled upon thy birth:
No nuptial joy thou know’st, no feast of earth.
How could his parents have smiled on him? For his Father114 is God, who is a Power without sensible quality,115 existing, not in any definite shape, but as comprehending other beings,116 and not, therefore, in a human body. And who knows not that the Holy Spirit has no participation in the nuptial union? For what desire can exist in the disposition of that good which all things else desire? What fellowship, in short, can wisdom hold with pleasure? But let these arguments be left to those who ascribe to him a human origin, and who care not to purify themselves from all evil in word as well as deed. On thee, Piety, I call to aid my words, on thee who art the very law of purity, most desirable of all blessings, teacher of holiest hope, assured promise of immortality! Thee, Piety, and thee, Clemency, I adore. We who have obtained thine aid117 owe thee everlasting gratitude for thy healing power. But the multitudes whom their innate hatred of thyself deprives of thy succor, are equally estranged from God himself, and know not that the very cause of their life and being, and that of all the ungodly, is connected with the rightful worship of him who is Lord of all: for the world itself is his, and all that it contains.
Chapter XXII. The Emperor Thankfully Ascribes His Victories and All Other Blessings to Christ; And Condemns the Conduct of the Tyrant Maximin, the Violence of Whose Persecution Had Enhanced the Glory of Religion.
To thee, Piety, I ascribe the cause of my own prosperity, and of all that I now possess. To this truth the happy issue of all my endeavors bears testimony: brave deeds, victories in war, and triumphs over conquered foes. This truth the great city itself allows with joy and praise. The people, too, of that much-loved city accord in the same sentiment, though once, deceived by ill-grounded hopes, they chose a ruler unworthy of themselves,118 a ruler who speedily received the chastisement which his audacious deeds deserved. But be it far from me now to recall the memory of these events, while holding converse with thee, Piety, and essaying with earnest endeavor to address thee with holy and gentle words. Yet will I say one thing, which haply shall not be unbefitting or unseemly. A furious, a cruel, and implacable war was maintained by the tyrants against thee, Piety, and thy holy churches: nor were there wanting some in Rome itself who exulted at a calamity so grievous to the public weal. Nay, the battlefield was prepared; when thou disdst stand forth,119 and present thyself a voluntary victim, supported by faith in God. Then indeed it was that the cruelty of ungodly men, which raged incessantly like a devouring fire, wrought for thee a wondrous and ever memorable glory. Astonishment seized the spectators themselves, when they beheld the very executioners who tortured the bodies of their holy victims wearied out, and disgusted at the cruelties;120 the bonds loosened, the engines of torture powerless, the flames extinguished, while the sufferers preserved their constancy unshaken even for a moment. What, then, hast thou gained by these atrocious deeds, most impious of men?121 And what was the cause of thy insane fury? Thou wilt say, doubtless, these acts of thine were done in honor of the gods. What gods are these? or what worthy conception hast thou of the Divine nature? Thinkest thou the gods are subject to angry passions as thou art? Were it so indeed, it had been better for thee to wonder at their strange determination than obey their harsh command, when they urged thee to the unrighteous slaughter of innocent men. Thou wilt allege, perhaps, the customs of thy ancestors and the opinion of mankind in general, as the cause of this conduct. I grant the fact: for those customs are very like the acts themselves, and proceed from the self-same source of folly. Thou thoughtest, it may be, that some special power resided in images formed and fashioned by human art; and hence thy reverence, and diligent care lest they should be defiled: those mighty and highly exalted gods, thus dependent on the care of men!
Chapter XXIII. Of Christian Conduct. That God is Pleased with Those Who Lead a Life of Virtue: and that We Must Expect a Judgment and Future Retribution.
Compare our religion with your own. Is there not with us genuine concord, and unwearied love of others? If we reprove a fault, is not our object to admonish, not to destroy; our correction for safety, not for cruelty: Do we not exercise, not only sincere faith towards God, but fidelity in the relations of social life? Do we not pity the unfortunate? Is not ours a life of simplicity which disdains to cover evil beneath the mask of fraud and hypocrisy? Do we not acknowledge the true God, and his undivided sovereignty? This is real godliness: this is religion sincere and truly undefiled: this is the life of wisdom; and they who have it are travelers, as it were, on a noble road which leads to eternal life. For he who has entered on such a course, and keeps his soul pure from the pollutions of the body, does not wholly die: rather may he be said to complete the service appointed him by God, than to die. Again, he who confesses allegiance to God is not easily overborne by insolence or rage, but nobly stands under the pressure of necessity and the trial of his constancy is as it were, a passport to the favor of God. For we cannot doubt that the Deity is pleased with excellence in human conduct. For it would be absurd indeed if the powerful and the humble alike acknowledge gratitude to those from whose services they receive benefit, and repay them by services in return, and yet that he who is supreme and sovereign of all, nay, who is Good itself, should be negligent in this respect. Rather does he follow us throughout the course of our lives, is near us in every act of goodness, accepts, and at once rewards our virtue and obedience; though he defers the full recompense to that future period, when the actions of our lives shall pass under his review and when those who are clear in that account shall receive the reward of everlasting life, while the wicked shall be visited with the penalties due to their crimes.
Chapter XXIV. Of Decius, Valerian, and Aurelian Who Experienced a Miserable End in Consequence of Their Persecution of the Church.
To thee, Decius,122 I now appeal, who has trampled with insult on the labors of the righteous: to thee, the hater of the Church, the punisher of those who lived a holy life: what is now thy condition after death? How hard and wretched thy present circumstances! Nay, the interval before thy death gave proof enough of thy miserable fate, when overthrown with all thine army on the plains of Scythia, thou didst expose the vaunted power of Rome to the contempt of the Goths. Thou, too, Valerian, who didst manifest the same spirit of cruelty towards the servants of God, hast afforded an example of righteous judgment. A captive in the enemies’ hands, led in chains while yet arrayed in the purple and imperial attire, and at last thy skin stripped from thee, and preserved by command of Sapor the Persian king, thou hast left a perpetual trophy of thy calamity. And thou, Aurelian, fierce perpetrator of every wrong, how signal was thy fall, when, in the midst of thy wild career in Thrace, thou wast slain on the public highway, and didst fill the furrows of the road with thine impious blood!
Chapter XXV. Of Diocletian, Who Ignobly Abdicated123 The Imperial Throne, and Was Terrified by the Dread of Lightning for His Persecution of the Church.
Diocletian, however, after the display of relentless cruelty as a persecutor, evinced a consciousness of his own guilt and owing to the affliction of a disordered mind, endured the confinement of a mean and separate dwelling.124 What then, did he gain by his active hostility against our God? Simply this I believe, that he passed the residue of his life in continual dread of the lightning’s stroke. Nicomedia attests the fact; eyewitnesses, of whom I myself am one, declare it. The palace, and the emperor’s private chamber were destroyed, consumed by lightning, devoured by the fire of heaven. Men of understanding hearts had indeed predicted the issue of such conduct; for they could not keep silence, nor conceal their grief at such unworthy deeds; but boldly and openly expressed their feeling, saying one to another: “What madness is this? and what an insolent abuse of power, that man should dare to fight against God; should deliberately insult the most holy and just of alI religions; and plan, without the slightest provocation, the destruction of so great a multitude of righteous persons? O rare example of moderation to his subjects! Worthy instructor of his army in the care and protection due to their fellow-citizens! Men who had never seen the backs of a retreating army plunged their swords into the breasts of their own countrymen!” So great was the effusion of blood shed, that if shed in battle with barbarian enemies, it had been sufficient to purchase a perpetual peace.125 At length, indeed, the providence of God took vengeance on these unhallowed deeds; but not without severe damage to the state. For the entire army of the emperor of whom I have just spoken, becoming subject to the authority of a worthless person,126 who had violently usurped the supreme authority at Rome (when the providence of God restored freedom to that great city), was destroyed in several successive battles. And when we remember the cries with which those who were oppressed, and who ardently longed for their native liberty implored the help of God; and their praise and thanksgiving to him on the removal of the evils under which they had groaned, when that liberty was regained, and free and equitable intercourse restored: do not these things every way afford convincing proofs of the providence of God, and his affectionate regard for the interests of mankind?
Chapter XXVI. The Emperor Ascribes His Personal Piety to God; And Shows that We are Bound to Seek Success from God, and Attribute It to Him; But to Consider Mistakes as the Result of Our Own Negligence.
When men commend my services, which owe their origin to the inspiration of Heaven, do they not clearly establish the truth that God is the cause of the exploits I have performed? Assuredly they do: for it belongs to God to do whatever is best, and to man, to perform the commands of God. I believe, indeed, the best and noblest course of action is, when, before an attempt is made, we provide as far as possible for a secure result: and surely all men know that the holy service in which these hands have been employed has originated in pure and genuine faith towards God; that whatever has been done for the common welfare has been effected by active exertion combined with supplication and prayer; the consequence of which has been as great an amount of individual and public benefit as each could venture to hope for himself and those he holds most dear. They have witnessed battles, and have been spectators of a war in which the providence of God has granted victory to this people:127 they have seen how he has favored and seconded our prayers. For righteous prayer is a thing invincible; and no one fails to attain his object who addresses holy supplication to God: nor is a refusal possible, except in the case of wavering faith;128 for God is ever favorable, ever ready to approve of human virtue. While, therefore, it is natural for man occasionally to err, yet God is not the cause of human error. Hence it becomes all pious persons to render thanks to the Saviour of all, first for our own individual security, and then for the happy posture of public affairs: at the same time intreating the favor of Christ with holy prayers and constant supplications, that he would continue to us our present blessings. For he is the invincible ally and protector of the righteous: he is the supreme judge of all things, the prince of immorality, the Giver of everlasting life.
The Oration in Praise of the Emperor Constantine.
Pronounced on the Thirtieth Anniversary of His Reign.
Prologue to the Oration.1 
1 I Come not forward prepared with a fictitious narrative, nor with elegance of language to captivate the ear, desiring to charm my hearers as it were, with a siren’s voice; nor shall I present the draught of pleasure in cups of gold decorated with lorry flowers (I mean the graces of style) to those who are pleased with such things. Rather would I follow the precepts of the wise, and admonish all to avoid and turn aside from the beaten road, and keep themselves from contact with the vulgar crowd.
2 I come, then, prepared to celebrate our emperor’s praises in a newer strain; and, though the number be infinite of those who desire to be my companions in my present task, I am resolved to shun the common track of men,2 and to pursue that untrodden path which it is unlawful to enter on with unwashed feet. Let those who admire a vulgar style, abounding in puerile subtleties, and who court a pleasing and popular muse, essay, since pleasure is the object they have in view, to charm the ears of men by a narrative of merely human merits. Those, however who are initiated into the universal science,3 and have attained to Divine as well as human knowledge, and account the choice of the latter as the real excellence, will prefer those virtues of the emperor which Heaven itself approves, and his pious actions, to his merely human accomplishments; and will leave to inferior encomiasts the task of celebrating his lesser merits.
3 For since our emperor is gifted as well with that sacred wisdom which has immediate reference to God, as with the knowledge which concerns the interests of men; let those who are competent to such a task describe his secular acquirements, great and transcendent as they are, and fraught with advantage to mankind (for all that characterizes the emperor is great and noble), yet still inferior to his diviner qualifies, to those who stand without the sacred precincts.
4 Let those, however, who are within the sanctuary, and have access to its inmost and untrodden recesses, close the doors against every profane ear, and unfold, as it were, the secret mysteries of our emperor’s character to the initiated alone. And let those who have purified their ears in the streams of piety, and raised their thoughts on the soaring wing of the mind itself, join the company which surrounds the Sovereign Lord of all, and learn in silence the divine mysteries.
5 Meanwhile let the sacred oracles, given, not by the spirit of divination (or rather let me say of madness and folly), but by the inspiration of Divine truth,4 be our instructors in these mysteries; speaking to us of sovereignty, generally: of him who is the Supreme Sovereign of all, and the heavenly array which surrounds the Lord of all; of that exemplar of imperial power which is before us, and that counterfeit coin: and, lastly, of the consequences which result from both. With these oracles, then, to initiate us in the knowledge of the sacred rites, let us essay, as follows, the commencement of our divine mysteries.
Chapter I. The Oration.
1 To-Day is the festival of our great emperor: and we his children rejoice therein, feeling the inspiration of our sacred theme. He who presides over our solemnity is the Great Sovereign himself; he, I mean, who is truly great; of whom I affirm (nor will the sovereign who hears me be offended, but will rather approve of this ascription of praise to God), that HE is above and beyond all created things, the Highest, the Greatest, the most Mighty One; whose throne is the arch of heaven, and the earth the footstool of his feet.5 His being none can worthily comprehend; and the ineffable splendor of the glory which surrounds him repels the gaze of every eye from his Divine majesty.
2 His ministers are the heavenly hosts; his armies the supernal powers, who own allegiance to him as their Master, Lord, and King. The countless multitudes of angels, the companies of archangels, the chorus of holy spirits, draw from and reflect his radiance as from the fountains of everlasting light. Yea every light, and specially those divine and incorporeal intelligences whose place is beyond the heavenly sphere, celebrate this august Sovereign with lofty and sacred strains of praise. The vast expanse of heaven, like an azure veil, is interposed between those without, and those who inhabit his royal mansions: while round this expanse the sun and moon, with the rest of the heavenly luminaries (like torch-bearers around the entrance of the imperial palace), perform, in honor of their sovereign, their appointed courses; holding forth, at the word of his command, an ever-burning light to those whose lot is cast in the darker regions without the pale of heaven.
3 And surely when I remember that our own victorious emperor renders praises to this Mighty Sovereign, I do well to follow him, knowing as I do that to him alone we owe that imperial power under which we live. The pious Caesars, instructed by their father’s wisdom, acknowledge him as the source of every blessing: the soldiery, the entire body of the people, both in the country and in the cities of the empire, with the governors of the several provinces, assembling together in accordance with the precept of their great Saviour and Teacher, worship him. In short, the whole family of mankind, of every nation, tribe, and tongue, both collectively and severally, however diverse their opinions on other subjects, are unanimous in this one confession; and, in obedience to the reason implanted in them, and the spontaneous and uninstructed impulse of their own minds, unite in calling on the One and only God.6 
4 Nay, does not the universal frame of earth acknowledge him her Lord, and declare, by the vegetable and animal life which she produces her subjection to the will of a superior Power? The rivers, flowing with abundant stream, and the perennial fountains, springing from hidden and exhaustless depths, ascribe to him the cause of their marvellous source. The mighty waters of the sea, enclosed in chambers of unfathomable depth, and the swelling surges, which lift themselves on high, and menace as it were the earth itself, shrink back when they approach the shore, checked by the power of his Divine law. The duly measured fall of winter’s rain, the rolling thunder, the lightning’s flash, the eddying currents of the winds, and the airy courses of the clouds, all reveal his presence to those to whom his Person is invisible.
5 The all-radiant sun, who holds his constant career through the lapse of ages, owns him Lord alone, and obedient to his will, dares not depart from his appointed path. The inferior splendor of the moon, alternately diminished and increased at stated periods, is subject to his Divine command. The beauteous mechanism of the heavens, glittering with the hosts of stars, moving in harmonious order, and preserving the measure of each several orbit, proclaims him the giver of all light: yea, all the heavenly luminaries maintaining at his will and word a grand and perfect unity of motion, pursue the track of their ethereal career, and complete in the lapse of revolving ages their distant course. The alternate recurrence of day and night, the changing seasons, the order and proportion of the universe, all declare the manifold wisdom of [his boundless power]. To him the unseen agencies which hold their course throughout the expanse of space, render the due tribute of praise. To him this terrestrial globe itself, to him the heavens above, and the choirs beyond the vault of heaven, give honor as to their mighty Sovereign: the angelic hosts greet him with ineffable songs of Praise; and the spirits which draw their being from incorporeal light, adore him as their Creator. The everlasting ages which were before this heaven and earth, with other periods beside them, infinite, and antecedent to all visible creation, acknowledge him the sole and supreme Sovereign and Lord.
6 Lastly, he who is in all, before, and after all,7 his only begotten, pre-existent Word, the great High Priest of the mighty God, elder than all time and every age, devoted to his Father’s glory, first and alone makes intercession with him for the salvation of mankind.8 Supreme and pre-eminent Ruler of the universe, he shares the glory of his Father’s kingdom: for he is that Light, which, transcendent above the universe, encircles the Father’s Person, interposing and dividing between the eternal and uncreated Essence and all derived existence: that Light which, streaming from on high, proceeds from that Deity who knows not origin or end, and illumines the super-celestial regions, and all that heaven itself contains, with the radiance of wisdom bright beyond the splendor of the sun. This is he who holds a supreme dominion over this whole world,9 who is over and in all things, and pervades all things10 visible and invisible; the Word of God. From whom and by whom our divinely favored emperor, receiving, as it were a transcript of the Divine sovereignty, directs, in imitation of God himself, the administration of this world’s affairs.
Chapter II.
1 This only begotten Word of God reigns, from ages which had no beginning, to infinite and endless ages, the partner of his Father’s kingdom. And [our emperor] ever beloved by him, who derives the source of imperial authority from above, and is strong in the power of his sacred title,11 has controlled the empire of the world for a long period of years.
2 Again, that Preserver of the universe orders these heavens and earth, and the celestial kingdom, consistently with his Father’s will. Even so our emperor whom he loves, by bringing those whom he rules on earth to the only begotten Word and Saviour renders them fit subjects of his kingdom.
3 And as he who is the common Saviour of mankind, by his invisible and Divine power as the good shepherd, drives far away from his flock, like savage beasts, those apostate spirits which once flew through the airy tracts above this earth, and fastened on the souls of men;12 so this his friend, graced by his heavenly favor with victory over all his foes, subdues and chastens the open adversaries of the truth in accordance with the usages of war.
4 He who is the pre-existent Word, the Preserver of all things, imparts to his disciples the seeds of true wisdom and salvation, and at once enlightens and gives them understanding in the knowledge of his Father’s kingdom. Our emperor, his friend, acting as interpreter to the Word of God, aims at recalling the whole human race to the knowledge of God; proclaiming clearly in the ears of all, and declaring with powerful voice the laws of truth and godliness to all who dwell on the earth.
5 Once more, the universal Saviour opens the heavenly gates of his Father’s kingdom to those whose course is thitherward from this world. Our emperor, emulous of his Divine example, having purged his earthly dominion from every stain of impious error, invites each holy and pious worshiper within his imperial mansions, earnestly desiring to save with all its crew that mighty vessel of which he is the appointed pilot. And he alone of all who have wielded the imperial power of Rome, being honored by the Supreme Sovereign with a reign of three decennial periods, now celebrates this festival, not, as: his ancestors might have done, in honor of infernal demons, or the apparitions of seducing spirits, or of the fraud and deceitful arts of impious men; but as an act of thanksgiving to him by whom he has thus been honored, and in acknowledgment of the blessings he has received at his hands. He does not, in imitation of ancient usage, defile his imperial mansions with blood and gore, nor propitiate the infernal deities with fire and smoke, and sacrificial offerings; but dedicates to the universal Sovereign a pleasant and acceptable sacrifice, even his own imperial soul, and a mind truly fitted for the service of God.
6 For this sacrifice alone is grateful to him: and this sacrifice our emperor has learned, with purified mind and thoughts, to present as an offering without the intervention of fire and blood, while his own piety, strengthened by the truthful doctrines with which his soul is stored, he sets forth in magnificent language the praises of God, and imitates his Divine philanthropy by his own imperial acts. Wholly devoted to him, he dedicates himself as a noble offering, a first-fruit of that world, the government of which is intrusted to his charge. This first and greatest sacrifice our emperor first dedicates to God; and then, as a faithful shepherd, he offers, not “famous hecatombs of firstling lambs,” but the souls of that flock which is the object of his care, those rational beings whom he leads to the knowledge and pious worship of God.
Chapter III.
1 And gladly does he accept and welcome this sacrifice, and commend the presenter of so august and noble an offering, by protracting his reign to a lengthened period of years, giving larger proofs of his beneficence in proportion to the emperor’s holy services to himself. Accordingly he permits him to celebrate each successive festival during great and general prosperity throughout the empire, advancing one of his sons, at the recurrence of each decennial period, to a share of his own imperial power.13 
2 The eldest, who bears his father’s name, he received as his partner in the empire about the close of the first decade of his reign: the second, next in point of age, at the second; and the third in like manner at the third decennial period, the occasion of this our present festival. And now that the fourth period has commenced, and the time of his reign is still further prolonged, he desires to extend his imperial authority by calling still more of his kindred to partake his power; and, by the appointment of the Caesars,14 fulfills the predictions of the holy prophets, according to what they uttered ages before: “And the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom.”15 
3 And thus the Almighty Sovereign himself accords an increase both of years and of children to our most pious emperor, and renders his sway over the nations of the world still fresh and flourishing, as though it were even now springing up in its earliest vigor. He it is who appoints him this present festival, in that he has made him victorious over every enemy that disturbed his peace: he it is who displays him as an example of true godliness to the human race.
4 And thus our emperor, like the radiant sun, illuminates the most distant subjects of his empire through the presence of the Caesars, as with the far piercing rays of his own brightness. To us who occupy the eastern regions he has given a son worthy of himself;16 a second and a third respectively to other departments of his empire, to be, as it were, brilliant reflectors of the light which proceeds from himself. Once more, having harnessed, as it were, under the self-same yoke the four most noble Caesars17 as horses in the imperial chariot, he sits on high and directs their course by the reins of holy harmony and concord; and, himself every where present, and observant of every event, thus traverses every region of the world.
5 Lastly, invested as he is with a semblance of heavenly sovereignty, he directs his gaze above, and frames his earthly government according to the pattern of that Divine original, feeling strength in its conformity to the monarchy of God. And this conformity is granted by the universal Sovereign to man alone of the creatures of this earth: for he only is the author of sovereign power, who decrees that all should be subject to the rule of one.
6 And surely monarchy far transcends every other constitution and form of government: for that democratic equality of power, which is its opposite, may rather be described as anarchy and disorder. Hence there is one God, and not two, or three, or more: for to assert a plurality of gods is plainly to deny the being of God at all. There is one Sovereign; and his Word and royal Law is one: a Law not expressed in syllables and words, not written or engraved on tablets, and therefore subject to the ravages of time; but the living and self-subsisting Word, who himself is God, and who administers his Father’s kingdom on behalf of all who are after him and subject to his power.
7 His attendants are the heavenly hosts; the myriads of God’s angelic ministers; the super-terrestrial armies, of unnumbered multitude; and those unseen spirits within heaven itself, whose agency is employed in regulating the order of this world. Ruler and chief of all these is the royal Word, acting as Regent of the Supreme Sovereign. To him the names of Captain, and great High Priest, Prophet of the Father, Angel of mighty counsel, Brightness of the Father’s light, Only begotten Son, with a thousand other titles, are ascribed in the oracles of the sacred writers. And the Father, having constituted him the living Word, and Law and Wisdom the fullness of all blessing, has presented this best and greatest gift to all who are the subjects of his sovereignty.
8 And he himself, who pervades all things, and is every where present, unfolding his Father’s bounties to all with unsparing hand, has accorded a specimen of his sovereign power even to his rational creatures of this earth, in that he has provided the mind of man, who is formed after his own image, with Divine faculties, whence it is capable of other virtues also, which flow from the same heavenly source. For he only is wise, who is the only God: he only is essentially good: he only is of mighty power, the Parent of justice, the Father of reason and wisdom, the Fountain of light and life, the Dispenser of truth and virtue: in a word, the Author of empire itself, and of all dominion and power.
Chapter IV.
1 But whence has man this knowledge, and who has ministered these truths to mortal ears? Or whence has a tongue of flesh the power to speak of things so utterly distinct from fleshly or material substance? Who has gazed on the invisible King, and beheld these perfections in him? The bodily sense may comprehend elements and their combinations, of a nature kindred to its own: but no one yet has boasted to have scanned with corporeal eye that unseen kingdom which governs all things nor has mortal nature yet discerned the beauty of perfect wisdom. Who has beheld the face of righteousness through the medium of flesh? And whence came the idea of legitimate sovereignty and imperial power to man? Whence the thought of absolute dominion to a being composed of flesh and blood? Who declared those ideas which are invisible and undefined, and that incorporeal essence which has no external form, to the mortals of this earth?
2 Surely there was but one interpreter of these things; the all-pervading Word of God.18 For he is the author of that rational and intelligent being which exists in man; and, being himself one with his Father’s Divine nature, he sheds upon his offspring the out-flowings of his Father’s bounty. Hence the natural and untaught powers of thought, which all men, Greeks or Barbarians, alike possess: hence the perception of reason and wisdom, the seeds of integrity and righteousness, the understanding of the arts of life, the knowledge of virtue, the precious name of wisdom, and the noble love of philosophic learning. Hence the knowledge of all that is great and good: hence apprehension of God himself, and a life worthy of his worship: hence the royal authority of man, and his invincible lordship over the creatures of this world.
3 And when that Word, who is the Parent of rational beings, had impressed a character on the mind of man according to the image and likeness of God,19 and had made him a royal creature, in that he gave him alone of all earthly creatures capacity to rule and to obey (as well as forethought and foreknowledge even here, concerning the promised hope of his heavenly kingdom, because of which he himself came, and, as the Parent of his children, disdained not to hold converse with mortal men); he continued to cherish the seeds which himself had sown, and renewed his gracious favors from above; holding forth to all the promise of sharing his heavenly kingdom. Accordingly he called men, and exhorted them to be ready for their heavenward journey, and to provide themselves with the garment which became their calling. And by an indescribable power he filled the world in every part with his doctrine, expressing by the similitude of an earthly kingdom that heavenly one to which he earnestly invites all mankind, and presents it to them as a worthy object of their hope.
Chapter V.
1 And in this hope our divinely-favored emperor partakes even in this present life, gifted as he is by God with native virtues, and having received into his soul the out-flowings of his favor. His reason he derives from the great Source of all reason: he is wise, and good, and just, as having fellowship with perfect Wisdom, Goodness, and Righteousness: virtuous, as following the pattern of perfect virtue: valiant, as partaking of heavenly strength.
2 And truly may he deserve the imperial title, who has formed his soul to royal virtues, according to the standard of that celestial kingdom. But he who is a stranger to these blessings, who denies the Sovereign of the universe, and owns no allegiance to the heavenly Father of spirits; who invests not himself with the virtues which become an emperor, but overlays his soul with moral deformity and baseness; who for royal clemency substitutes the fury of a savage beast; for a generous temper, the incurable venom of malicious wickedness; for prudence, folly; for reason and wisdom, that recklessness which is the most odious of all vices, for from it, as from a spring of bitterness, proceed the most pernicious fruits; such as inveterate profligacy of life, covetousness, murder, impiety and defiance of God; surely one abandoned to; such vices as these, however he may be deemed powerful through despotic violence, has no true title to the name of Emperor.
3 For how should he whose soul is impressed with a thousand absurd images of false deities,20 be able to exhibit a counterpart of the true and heavenly sovereignty? Or how can he be absolute lord of others, who has subjected himself to the dominion of a thousand cruel masters? a slave of low delights and ungoverned lust, a slave of wrongfully-extorted wealth, of rage and passion, as well as of cowardice and terror; a slave of ruthless demons, and soul-destroying spirits?
4 Let, then, our emperor, on the testimony of truth itself, be declared alone worthy of the title; who is dear to the Supreme Sovereign himself; who alone is free, nay, who is truly lord: above the thirst of wealth, superior to sexual desire; victorious even over natural pleasures; controlling, not controlled by, anger and passion.21 He is indeed an emperor, and bears a title corresponding to his deeds; a Victor in truth, who has gained the victory over those passions which overmaster the rest of men: whose character is formed after the Divine original22 of the Supreme Sovereign, and whose mind reflects, as in a mirror, the radiance of his virtues. Hence is our emperor perfect in discretion, in goodness, in justice, in courage, in piety, in devotion to God: he truly and only is a philosopher, since he knows himself, and is fully aware that supplies of every blessing are showered on him from a source quite external to himself, even from heaven itself. Declaring the august title of supreme authority by the splendor of his vesture, he alone worthily wears that imperial purple which so well becomes him.
5 He is indeed an emperor, who calls on and implores in prayer the favor of his heavenly Father night and day, and whose ardent desires are fixed on his celestial kingdom. For he knows that present things, subject as they are to decay and death, flowing on and disappearing like a river’s stream, are not worthy to be compared with him who is sovereign of all; therefore it is that he longs for the incorruptible and incorporeal kingdom of God. And this kingdom he trusts he shall obtain, elevating his mind as he does in sublimity of thought above the vault of heaven, and filled with inexpressible longing for the glories which shine there, in comparison with which he deems the precious things of this present world but darkness. For he sees earthly sovereignty to be but a petty and fleeting dominion over a mortal and temporary life, and rates it not much higher than the goatherd’s, or shepherd’s, or herdsman’s power: nay, as more burdensome than theirs, and exercised over more stubborn subjects. The acclamations of the people, and the voice of flattery, he reckons rather troublesome than pleasing, because of the steady constancy of his character, and genuine discipline of his mind.
6 Again, when he beholds the military service of his subjects, the vast array of his armies, the multitudes of horse and foot, entirely devoted to his command, he feels no astonishment, no pride at the possession of such mighty power; but turns his thoughts inward on himself, and recognizes the same common nature there. He smiles at his vesture, embroidered with gold and flowers, and at the imperial purple and diadem itself, when he sees the multitude gaze in wonder, like children at a bugbear, on the splendid spectacle.23 Himself superior to such feelings, he clothes his soul with the knowledge of God, that vesture, the broidery of which is temperance, righteousness, piety, and all other virtues; a vesture such as truly becomes a sovereign.
7 The wealth which others so much desire, as gold, silver, or precious gems, he regards to be, as they really are, in themselves mere stones and worthless matter, of no avail to preserve or defend from evil. For what power have these things to free from disease, or repel the approach of death? And knowing as he does this truth by personal experience in the use of these things, he regards the splendid attire of his subjects with calm indifference, and smiles at the childishness of those to whom they prove attractive. Lastly, he abstains from all excess in food and wine, and leaves superfluous dainties to gluttons, judging that such indulgences, however suitable to others, are not so to him, and deeply convinced of their pernicious tendency, and their effect in darkening the intellectual powers of the soul.
8 For all these reasons, our divinely taught and noble-minded emperor, aspiring to higher objects than this life affords, calls upon his heavenly Father as one who longs for his kingdom; exhibits a pious spirit in each action of his life; and finally, as a wise and good instructor, imparts to his subjects the knowledge of him who is the Sovereign Lord of all.
Chapter VI.
1 And God himself, as an earnest of future reward, assigns to him now as it were tricennial crowns24 composed of prosperous periods of time; and now, after the revolution of three circles of ten years, he grants permission to all mankind to celebrate this general, nay rather, this universal festival. And while those on earth thus rejoice, crowned as it were with the flowers of divine knowledge, surely, we may not unduly suppose that the heavenly choirs, attracted by a natural sympathy, unite their joy with the joy of those on earth: nay, that the Supreme Sovereign himself, as a gracious father, delights in the worship of duteous children, and for this reason is pleased to honor the author and cause of their obedience through a lengthened period of time; and, far from limiting his reign to three decennial circles of years, he extends it to the remotest period, even to far distant eternity. Now eternity25 in its whole extent is beyond the power of decline or death: its beginning and extent alike incapable of being scanned by mortal thoughts. Nor will it suffer its central point to be perceived, nor that which is termed its present duration to be grasped by the inquiring mind. Far less, then, the future, or the past: for the one is not, but is already gone; while the future has not yet arrived, and therefore is not. As regards what is termed the present time, it vanishes even as we think or speak, more swiftly than the word itself is uttered. Nor is it possible in any sense to apprehend this time as present; for we must either expect the future, or contemplate the past; the present slips from us, and is gone, even in the act of thought. Eternity, then, in its whole extent, resists and refuses subjection to mortal reason. But it does not refuse to acknowledge its own Sovereign and Lord,26 and bears him as it were mounted on itself, rejoicing in the fair trappings which he bestows.27 And he himself, not binding it, as the poet imagined, with a golden chain,28 but as it were controlling its movements by the reins of ineffable wisdom, has adjusted its months and seasons, its times and years, and the alterations of day and night, with perfect harmony, and has thus attached to itlimits and measures of various kinds. For eternity, being in its nature direct, and stretching onward into infinity, and receiving its name, eternity, as having an everlasting existence,29 and being similar in all its parts, or rather having no division or distance, progresses only in a line of direct extension. But God, who has distributed it by intermediate sections, and has divided it, like a far extended line, in many points, has included in it a vast number of portions; and though it is in its nature one, and resembles unity itself, he has attached to it a multiplicity of numbers, and has given it, though formless in itself, an endless variety of forms.
5 For first of all he framed in it formless matter, as a substance capable of receiving all forms. He next, by the power of the number two, imparted quality to matter, and gave beauty to that which before was void of all grace. Again, by means of the number three, he framed a body compounded of matter and form, and presenting the three dimensions of breadth, and length, and depth. Then, from the doubling of the number two, he devised the quaternion of the elements, earth, water, air, and fire, and ordained them to be everlasting sources for the supply of this universe. Again, the number four produces the number ten. For the aggregate of one, and two, and three, and four, is ten.30 And three multiplied with ten discovers the period of a month: and twelve successive months complete the course of the sun. Hence the revolutions of years, and changes of the seasons, which give grace, like variety of color in painting, to that eternity which before was formless and devoid of beauty, for the refreshment and delight of those whose lot it is to traverse therein the course of life.
6 For as the ground is defined by stated distances for those who run in hope of obtaining the prize; and as the road of those who travel on a distant journey is marked by resting-places and measured intervals, that the traveler’s courage may not fail at the interminable prospect; even so the Sovereign of the universe, controlling eternity itself within the restraining power of his own wisdom, directs and turns its course as he judges best. The same God, I say, who thus clothes the once undefined eternity as with fair colors and blooming flowers, gladdens the day with the solar rays; and, while he overspreads the night with a covering of darkness, yet causes the glittering stars, as golden spangles, to shine therein. It is he who lights up the brilliancy of the morning stab the changing splendor of the moon, and the glorious companies of the starry host, and has arrayed the expanse of heaven, like some vast mantle, in colors of varied beauty. Again, having created the lofty and profound expanse of air, and caused the world in its length and breadth to feel its cooling influence, he decreed that the air itself should be graced with birds of every kind, and left open this vast ocean of space to be traversed by every creature, visible or invisible, whose course is through the tracts of heaven. In the midst of this atmosphere he poised the earth, as it were its center, and encompassed it with the ocean as with a beautiful azure vesture.
7 Having ordained this earth to be at once the home, the nurse, and the mother of all the creatures it contains, and watered it both with rain and water-springs, he caused it to abound in plants and flowers of every species, for the enjoyment of life. And when he had formed man in his own likeness, the noblest of earthly creatures, and dearest to himself, a creature gifted with intellect and knowledge, the child of reason and wisdom, he gave him dominion over all other animals which move and live upon the earth. For man was in truth of all earthly creatures the dearest to God: man, I say, to whom, as an indulgent Father, he has subjected the brute creation; for whom he has made the ocean navigable, and crowned the earth with a profusion of plants of every kind; to whom he has granted reasoning faculties for acquiring all science; under whose control he has placed even the creatures of the deep, and the winged inhabitants of the air; to whom he has permitted the contemplation of celestial objects, and revealed the course and changes of the sun and moon, and the periods of the planets and fixed stars. In short, to man alone of earthly beings has he given commandment to acknowledge him as his heavenly Father, and to celebrate his praises as the Supreme Sovereign of eternity itself.
8 But the unchangeable course of eternity the Creator has limited by the four seasons of the year, terminating the winter by the approach of spring, and regulating as with an equal balance that season which commences the annual period. Having thus graced the eternal course of time with the varied productions of spring, he added the summer’s heat; and then granted as it were a relief of toil by the interval of autumn: and lastly, refreshing and cleansing the season by the showers of winter, he brings it, rendered sleek land glossy, like a noble steed, by these abundant rains, once more to the gates of spring.
9 As soon, then, as the Supreme Sovereign had thus connected his own eternity by these cords of wisdom with the annual circle, he committed it to the guidance of a mighty Governor, even his only begotten Word, to whom, as the Preserver of all creation, he yielded the reins of universal power. And he, receiving this inheritance as from a beneficent Father, and uniting all things both above and beneath the circumference of heaven in one harmonious whole, directs their uniform course; providing with perfect justice whatever is expedient for his rational creatures on the earth, appointing its allotted limits to human life, and granting to all alike permission to anticipate even here the commencement of a future existence. For he has taught them that beyond this present world there is a divine and blessed state of being, reserved for those who have been supported here by the hope of heavenly blessings; and that those who have lived a virtuous and godly life will remove hence to a far better habitation; while he adjudges to those who have been guilty and wicked here a place of punishment according to their crimes.
10 Again, as in the distribution of prizes at the public games, he proclaims various crowns to the victors, and invests each with the rewards of different virtues: but for our good emperor, who is clothed in the very robe of piety, he declares that a higher recompense of his toils is prepared; and, as a prelude to this recompense, permits us now to assemble at this festival, which is composed of perfect numbers, of decades thrice, and triads ten times repeated.
11 The first of these, the triad, is the offspring of the unit, while the unit is the mother of number itself, and presides over all months, and seasons, and years, and every period of time. It may, indeed, be justly termed the origin, foundation, and principle of all number, and derives its name from its abiding character.31 For, while every other number is diminished or increased according to the subtraction or addition of others, the unit alone continues fixed and steadfast, abstracted from all multitude and the numbers which are formed from it, and resembling that indivisible essence which is distinct from all things beside, but by virtue of participation in which the nature of all things else subsists.
12 For the unit is the originator of every number, since all multitude is made up by the composition and addition of units; nor is it possible without the unit to conceive the existence of number at all. But the unit itself is independent of multitude, apart from and superior to all number; forming, indeed, and making all, but receiving 13 no increase from any. Kindred to this is the triad; equally indivisible and perfect, the first of those sums which are formed of even and uneven numbers. For the perfect number two, receiving the addition of the unit, forms the triad, the first perfect compound number. And the triad, by explaining what equality is, first taught men justice, having itself an equal beginning, and middle, and end. And it is also an image of the mysterious, most holy, and royal Trinity, which, though itself without beginning or origin, yet contains the germs, the reasons, and causes of the existence of all created things.
14 Thus the power of the triad may justly be regarded as the first cause of all things. Again, the number ten, which contains the end of all numbers, and terminates them in itself, may truly be called a full and perfect number, as comprehending every species and every measure of numbers, proportions, concords, and harmonies. For example, the units by addition form and are terminated by the number ten; and, having this number as their parent, and as it were the limit of their course they round this as the goal of their career.
15 Then they perform a second circuit, and again a third, and a fourth, until the tenth and thus by ten decades they complete the hundredth number. Returning thence to the first starting point, they again proceed to the number ten, and having ten times completed the hundredth number, again they recede, and perform round the same barriers their protracted course, proceeding from themselves back to themselves again, with revolving motion.
16 For the unit is the tenth of ten, and ten units make up a decade, which is itself the limit, the settled goal and boundary of units: it is that which terminates the infinity of number; the term and end of units. Again, the triad combined with the decade, and performing a threefold circuit of tens, produces that most natural number, thirty. For as the triad is in respect to units, so is the number thirty in respect to tens.
17 It is also the constant limit to the course of that luminary which is second to the sun in brightness. For the course of the moon from one conjunction with the sun to the next, completes the period of a month; after which, receiving as it were a second birth, it recommences a new light, and other days, being adorned and honored with thirty units, three decades, and ten triads.
18 In the same manner is the universal reign of our victorious emperor distinguished by the giver of all good, and now enters on a new sphere of blessing, accomplishing, at present, this tricennalian festival, but reaching forward beyond this to far more distant intervals of time, and cherishing the hope of future blessings in the celestial kingdom; where, not a single sun, but infinite hosts of light surround the Almighty Sovereign, each surpassing the splendor of the sun, glorious and resplendent with rays derived from the everlasting source of light.
19 There the soul enjoys its existence, surrounded by fair and unfading blessings; there is a life beyond the reach of sorrow; there the enjoyment of pure and holy pleasures, and a time of unmeasured and endless duration, extending into illimitable space; not defined by intervals of days and months, the revolutions of years, or the recurrence of times and seasons, but commensurate with a life which knows no end. And this life needs not the light of the sun, nor the lustre of the moon or the starry host, since it has the great Luminary himself, even God the Word, the only begotten Son of the Almighty Sovereign.
20 Hence it is that the mystic and sacred oracles reveal him to be the Sun of righteousness, and the Light which far transcends all light. We believe that he illumines also the thrice-blessed powers of heaven with the rays of righteousness, and the brightness of wisdom, and that he receives truly pious souls, not within the sphere of heaven alone, but into his own bosom, and confirms indeed the assurances which he himself has given.
21 No mortal eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor can the mind in its vesture of flesh understand what things are prepared for those who have been here adorned with the graces of godliness; blessings which await thee too, most pious emperor, to whom alone since the world began has the Almighty Sovereign of the universe granted power to purify the course of human life: to whom also he has revealed his own symbol of salvation, whereby he overcame the power of death, and triumphed over every enemy. And this victorious trophy, the scourge of evil spirits, thou hast arrayed against the errors of idol worship, and hast obtained the victory not only over all thy impious and savage foes, but over equally barbarous adversaries, the evil spirits themselves.
Chapter VII.
1 For whereas we are composed of two distinct natures, I mean of body and spirit, of which the one is visible to all, the other i invisible, against both these natures two kinds of barbarous and savage enemies, the one invisibly, the other openly, are constantly arrayed. The one oppose our bodies with bodily force: the other with incorporeal assaults besiege the naked soul itself.
2 Again, the visible barbarians, like the wild nomad tribes, no better than savage beasts, assail the nations of civilized men, ravage their country, and enslave their cities, rushing on those who inhabit them like ruthless wolves of the desert, and destroying all who fall under their power. But those unseen foes, more cruel far than barbarians, I mean the soul-destroying demons whose course is through the regions of the air, had succeeded, through the snares of vile polytheism, in enslaving the entire human race, insomuch that they no longer recognized the true God, but wandered in the mazes of atheistic error. For they procured, I know not whence, gods who never anywhere existed, and set him aside who is the only and the true God, as though he were not.
3 Accordingly the generation of bodies was esteemed by them a deity, and so the opposite principle to this, their dissolution and destruction, was also deified. The first, as the author of generative power, was honored with rites under the name of Venus:32 the second, as rich, and mighty in dominion over the human race, received the names of Pluto, and Death. For men in those ages, knowing no other than naturally generated life, declared the cause and origin of that life to be divine: and again, believing in no existence after death, they proclaimed Death himself a universal conqueror and a mighty god. Hence, unconscious of responsibility, as destined to be annihilated by death, they lived a life unworthy of the name, in the practice of actions deserving a thousand deaths. No thought of God could enter their minds, no expectation of Divine judgment, no recollection of, no reflection on, their spiritual existence: acknowledging one dread superior, Death, and persuaded that the dissolution of their bodies by his power was final annihilation, they bestowed on Death the title of a mighty, a wealthy god, and hence the name of Pluto.33 Thus, then, Death became to them a god; nor only so, but whatever else they accounted precious in comparison with death, whatever contributed to the luxuries of life.
4 Hence animal pleasure became to them a god; nutrition, and its production, a god; the fruit of trees, a god; drunken riot, a god; carnal desire and pleasure, a god. Hence the mysteries of Ceres and Proserpine, the rape of the latter, and her subsequent restoration, by Pluto: hence the orgies of Bacchus, and Hercules overcome by drunkenness as by a mightier god: hence the adulterous rites of Cupid and of Venus: hence Jupiter himself infatuated with the love of women, and of Ganymede:34 hence the licentious legends of deities abandoned to effeminacy and pleasure.
5 Such were the weapons of superstition whereby these cruel barbarians and enemies of the Supreme God afflicted, and indeed entirely subdued, the human race; erecting everywhere the monuments of impiety, and rearing in every corner the shrines and temples of their false religion.
6 Nay, so far were the ruling powers of those times enslaved by the force of error, as to appease their gods with the blood of their own countrymen and kindred; to whet their swords against those who stood forward to defend the truth; to maintain a ruthless war and raise unholy hands, not against foreign or barbarian foes, but against men l bound to them by the ties of family and affection, against brethren, and kinsmen, and dearest friends, who had resolved, in the practice of virtue and true piety, to honor and worship God.
7 Such was the spirit of madness with which these princes sacrificed to their demon deities men consecrated to the service of the King of kings. On the other hand their victims, as noble martyrs in the cause of true godliness, resolved to welcome a glorious death in preference to life itself, and utterly despised these cruelties. Strengthened, as soldiers of God, with patient fortitude, they mocked at death in all its forms; at fire, and sword, and the torment of crucifixion; at exposure to savage beasts, and drowning in the depths of the sea; at the cutting off and searing of limbs, the digging out of eyes, the mutilation of the whole body; lastly, at famine, the labor of the mines, and captivity: nay, all these sufferings they counted better than any earthly good or pleasure, for the love they bore their heavenly King. In like manner women also evinced a spirit of constancy and courage not inferior to that of men.
8 Some endured the same conflicts with them, and obtained a like reward of their virtue: others, forcibly carried off to be the victims of violence and pollution, welcomed death rather than dishonor; while many, very many more, endured not even to hear the same threats wherewith they were assailed by the provincial governors, but boldly sustained every variety of torture, and sentence of death in every form.35 Thus did these valiant soldiers of the Almighty Sovereign maintain the conflict with steadfast fortitude of soul against the hostile forces of polytheism: and thus did these enemies of God and adversaries of man’s salvation, more cruel far than the ferocious savage, delight in libations of human blood: thus did their ministers drain as it were the cup of un-righteous slaughter in honor of the demons whom they served, and prepare for them this dread and impious banquet, to the ruin of the human race.
9 In these sad circumstances, what course should the God and King of these afflicted ones pursue? Could he be careless of the safety of his dearest friends or abandon his servants in this great extremity? Surely none could deem him a wary pilot, who, without an effort to save his fellow-mariners should suffer his vessel to sink with all her crew: surely no general could be found so reckless as to yield his own allies, without resistance, to the mercy of the foe: nor can a faithful shepherd regard with unconcern the straying of a single sheep from his flock, but will rather leave the rest in safety, and dare all things for the wanderer’s sake, even, if need be, to contend with savage beasts.
10 The zeal, however, of the great Sovereign of all was for no unconscious36 sheep: his care was exercised for his own faithful host, for those who sustained the battle for his sake: whose conflicts in the cause of godliness he himself approved, and honored those who had returned to his presence with the prize of victory which he only can bestow, uniting them to the angelic choirs. Others he still preserved on earth, to communicate the living seeds of piety to future generations; to be at once eye-witnesses of his vengeance on the ungodly, and narrators 11 of the events.
11 After this he outstretched his arm in judgment on the adversaries, and utterly destroyed them with the stroke of Divine wrath, compelling them, how reluctant soever to confess with their own lips and recant their wickedness, but raising from the ground and exalting gloriously those who had long been oppressed and disclaimed by all.
12 Such were the dealings of the Supreme Sovereign, who ordained an invincible champion to be the minister of his heaven-sent vengeance (for our emperor’s surpassing piety delights in the title of Servant of God), and him he has, proved victorious over all that opposed him, having raised him up, an individual against many foes. For they were indeed numberless, being the friends of many evil spirits (though in reality they were nothing, and hence are now no more); but our emperor is one, appointed by, and the representative of, the one Almighty Sovereign. And they, in the very spirit of impiety, destroyed the righteous with cruel slaughter: but he, in imitation of his Saviour, and knowing only how to save men’s lives, has spared and instructed in godliness the impious themselves.
13 And so, as truly worthy the name of Victor, he has subdued the twofold race of barbarians; soothing the savage tribes of men by prudent embassies, compelling them to know and acknowledge their superiors, and reclaiming them from a lawless and brutal life to the governance of reason and humanity; at the same time that he proved by the facts themselves that the fierce and ruthless race of unseen spirits had long ago been vanquished by a higher power. For he who is the preserver of the universe had punished these invisible spirits by an invisible judgment: and our emperor, as the delegate of the Supreme Sovereign, has followed up the victory, bearing away the spoils of those who have long since died and mouldered into dust, and distributing the plunder with lavish hand among the soldiers of his victorious Lord.37 
Chapter VIII.
1 For as soon as he understood that the ignorant multitudes were inspired with a vain and childish dread of these bugbears of error, wrought in gold and silver, he judged it right to remove these also, like stumbling-stones thrown in the path of men walking in the dark, and henceforward to open a royal road, plain and unobstructed, to all.
2 Having formed this resolution, he considered that no soldiers or military force of any sort was needed for the repression of the evil: a few of his own friends sufficed for this service, and these he sent by a simple expression of his will to visit each several province.
3 Accordingly, sustained by confidence in the emperor’s piety and their own personal devotion to God, they passed through the midst of numberless tribes and nations, abolishing this ancient system of error in every city and country. They ordered the priests themselves, in the midst of general laughter and scorn, to bring their gods from their dark recesses to the light of day. They then stripped them of their ornaments, and exhibited to the gaze of all the unsightly reality which had been hidden beneath a painted exterior: and lastly, whatever part of the material appeared to be of value they scraped off and melted in the fire to prove its worth, after which they secured and set apart whatever they judged needful for their purposes, leaving to the superstitious worshipers what was altogether useless, as a memorial of their shame.
4 Meanwhile our admirable prince was himself engaged in a work similar to that we have described. For at the same time that these costly images of the dead were stripped, as we have said, of their precious materials, he also attacked those composed of brass; causing those to be dragged from their places with ropes, and, as it were, carried away captive, whom the dotage of mythology had esteemed as gods. The next care of our august emperor was to kindle, as it were, a brilliant torch, by the light of which he directed his imperial gaze around, to see if any hidden vestiges of error might yet exist.
5 And as the keen-sighted eagle in its heavenward flight is able to descry from its lofty height the most distant objects on the earth: so did he, whilst residing in the imperial palace of his own fair city, discover, as from a watch-tower, a hidden and fatal snare of souls in the province of Phoenicia. This was a grove and temple, not situated in the midst of any city, or in any public place, as for splendor of effect is generally the case, but apart from the beaten and frequented road, on part of the summit of Mount Lebanon, and dedicated to the foul demon known by the name of Venus.
6 It was a school of wickedness for all the abandoned votaries of impurity and such as destroyed their bodies with effeminacy. Here men undeserving the name forgot the dignity of their sex, and propitiated the demon by their effeminate conduct: here too unlawful commerce of women, and adulterous intercourse, with other horrible and infamous practices, were perpetrated in this temple as in a place beyond the scope and restraint of law.
7 Meantime these evils remained unchecked by the presence of any observer, since no one of fair character ventured to visit such scenes. These proceedings, however, could not escape the vigilance of our august emperor, who, having himself inspected them with characteristic forethought, and judging that such a temple was unfit for the light of heaven, gave orders that the building with its offerings should be utterly destroyed. Accordingly, in obedience to the imperial edict, these engines of an impure superstition were immediately abolished, and the hand of military force was made instrumental in purging the place. And now those who had heretofore lived without restraint, learned, through the imperial threat of punishment, to practice self-control.
8 Thus did our emperor tear the mask from this system of delusive wickedness, and expose it to the public gaze, at the same time proclaiming openly his Saviour’s name to all. No advocate appeared; neither god nor demon, prophet nor diviner, could lend his aid to the detected authors of the imposture. For the souls of men were no longer enveloped in thick darkness: but enlightened by the rays of true godliness, they deplored the ignorance and pitied the blindness of their forefathers, rejoicing at the same time in their own deliverance from such fatal error.38 
9 Thus speedily, according to the counsel of the mighty God, and through our emperor’s agency, was every enemy, whether visible or unseen, utterly removed: and henceforward peace, the happy nurse of youth, extended her reign throughout the world. Wars were no more, for the gods were not: no more did warfare in country or town, no more did the effusion of human blood, distress mankind, as heretofore, when demon-worship and the madness of idolatry prevailed.
Chapter IX.
1 And now we may well compare the present with former things, and review these happy changes in contrast with the evils that are past, and mark the elaborate care with which in ancient times porches and sacred precincts, groves and temples, were prepared in every city for these false deities, and how their shrines were enriched with abundant offerings.
2 The sovereign rulers of those days had indeed a high regard for the worship of the gods. The nations also and people subject to their power honored them with images both in the country and in every city, nay, even in their houses and secret chambers, according to the religious practice of their fathers. The fruit, however, of this devotion, far different from the peaceful concord which now meets our view, appeared in war, in battles, and seditions, which harassed them throughout their lives, and deluged their countries with blood and civil slaughter.
3 Again, the objects of their worship could hold out to these sovereigns with artful flattery the promise of prophecies, and oracles, and the knowledge of futurity: yet could they not predict their own destruction, nor forewarn themselves of the coming ruin: and surely this was the greatest and most convincing proof of their imposture.
4 Not one of those whose words once were heard with awe and wonder, had announced the glorious advent of the Saviour of mankind,39 or that new revelation of divine knowledge which he came to give. Not Pythius himself, nor any of those mighty gods, could apprehend the prospect of their approaching desolation; nor could their oracles point at him who was to be their conqueror and destroyer.
5 What prophet or diviner could foretell that their rites would vanish at the presence of a new Deity in the world, and that the knowledge and worship of the Almighty Sovereign should be freely given to all mankind? Which of them foreknew the august and pious reign of our victorious emperor, or his triumphant conquests everywhere over the false demons, or the overthrow of their high places?
6 Which of the heroes has announced the melting down and conversion of the lifeless statues from their useless forms to the necessary uses of men? Which of the gods have yet had power to speak of their own images thus melted and contemptuously reduced to fragments?
7 Where were the protecting powers, that they should not interpose to save their sacred memorials, thus destroyed by man? Where, I ask, are those who once maintained the strife of war, yet now behold their conquerors abiding securely in the profoundest peace? And where are they who upheld themselves in a blind and foolish confidence, and trusted in these vanities as gods; but who, in the very height of their superstitious error, and while maintaining an implacable war with the champions of the truth, perished by a fate proportioned to their crimes?
8 Where is the giant race whose arms were turned against heaven itself; the hissings of those serpents whose tongues were pointed with impious words against the Almighty King? These adversaries of the Lord of all, confident in the aid of a multitude of gods, advanced to the attack with a powerful array of military force, preceded by certain images of the dead, and lifeless statues, as their defense. On the other, side our emperor, secure in the armor of godliness, opposed to the numbers of the enemy the salutary and life-giving Sign, as at the same time a terror to the foe, and a protection against every harm; and returned victorious at once over the enemy and the demons whom they served.40 And then, with thanksgiving and praise, the tokens of a grateful spirit, to the Author of his victory, he proclaimed this triumphant Sign, by monuments as well as words, to all mankind, erecting it as a mighty trophy against every enemy in the midst of the imperial city, and expressly enjoining on all to acknowledge this imperishable symbol of salvation as the safeguard of the power of Rome and of the empire of the world.
9 Such were the instructions which he gave to his subjects generally; but especially to his soldiers, whom he admonished to repose their confidence, not in their weapons, or armor, or bodily strength, but to acknowledge the Supreme God as the giver of every good, and of victory itself.
10 Thus did the emperor himself, strange and incredible as the fact may seem, become the instructor of his army in their religious exercises, and teach them to offer pious prayers in accordance with the divine ordinances, uplifting their hands towards heaven, and raising their mental vision higher still to the King of heaven, on whom they should call as the Author of victory, their preserver, guardian, and helper. He commanded too, that one day should be regarded as a special occasion for religious worship; I mean that which is truly the first and chief of all, the day of our Lord and Saviour; that day the name of which is connected with light, and life, and immortality, and every good.
11 Prescribing the same pious conduct to himself, he honored his Saviour in the chambers of his palace, performing his devotions according to the Divine commands, and storing his mind with instruction through the hearing of the sacred word. The entire care of his household was intrusted to ministers devoted to the service of God, and distinguished by gravity of life and every other virtue; while his trusty body-guards, strong in affection and fidelity to his person, found in their emperor an instructor in the practice of a godly life.
12 Again, the honor with which he regards the victorious Sign is founded on his actual experience of its divine efficacy. Before this the hosts of his enemies have disappeared: by this the powers of the unseen spirits have been turned to flight: through this the proud boastings of God’s adversaries have come to nought, and the tongues of the profane and blasphemous been put to silence. By this Sign the Barbarian tribes were vanquished: through his the rites of superstitious fraud received a just rebuke: by this our emperor, discharging as it were a sacred debt, has performed the crowning good of all, by erecting triumphant memorials of its value in all parts of the world, raising temples and churches on a scale of royal costliness, and commanding all to unite in constructing the sacred houses of prayer.
13 Accordingly these signal proofs of our emperor’s magnificence forthwith appeared in the provinces and cities of the empire, and soon shone conspicuously in every country; convincing memorials of the rebuke and overthrow of those impious tyrants who but a little while before had madly dared to fight against God, and, raging like savage dogs, had vented on unconscious buildings that fury which they were unable to level against him; had thrown to the ground and Upturned the very foundations of the houses of prayer, causing them to present the appearance of a city captured and abandoned to the enemy. Such was the exhibition of that wicked spirit whereby they sought as it were to assail God himself, but soon experienced the result of their own madness and folly. But a little time elapsed, when a single blast of the storm of Heaven’s displeasure swept them utterly away, leaving neither kindred, nor offspring, nor memorial of their existence among men: for all, numerous as they were, disappeared as in a moment beneath the stroke of Divine vengeance.
14 Such, then, was the fate which awaited these furious adversaries of God: but he who, armed with the salutary Trophy, had alone opposed them (nay rather, not alone, but aided by the presence and the power of him who is the only Sovereign), has replaced the ruined edifices on a greater scale, and made the second far superior to the first. For example, besides erecting various churches to the honor of God in the city which bears his name, and adorning the Bithynian capital with another on the greatest and most splendid scale, he has distinguished the principal cities of the other provinces by structures of a similar kind.
15 Above all, he has selected two places in the eastern division of the empire, the one in Palestine (since from thence the life-giving stream has flowed as from a fountain for the blessing of all nations), the other in that metropolis of the East which derives its name from that of Antiochus; in which, as the head of that portion of the empire, he has consecrated to the service of God a church of unparalleled size and beauty. The entire building is encompassed by an enclosure of great extent, within which the church itself rises to a vast elevation, of an octagonal form, surrounded by many chambers and courts on every side, and decorated with ornaments of the richest kind.41 
16 Such was his work here. Again, in the province of Palestine, in that city which was once the seat of Hebrew sovereignty, on the very site of the Lord’s sepulchre, he has raised a church of noble dimensions, and adorned a temple sacred to the salutary Cross with rich and lavish magnificence, honoring that everlasting monument, and the trophies of the Saviour’s victory over the power of death, with a splendor which no language can describe.
17 In the same country he discovered three places venerable as the localities of three sacred caves: and these also he adorned with costly structures, paying a fitting tribute of reverence to the scene of the first manifestation of the Saviour’s presence; while at the second cavern he hallowed the remembrance of his final ascension from the mountain top; and celebrated his mighty conflict, and the victory which crowned it, at the third.42 
18 All these places our emperor thus adorned in the hope of proclaiming the symbol of redemption to all mankind; that Cross which has in deed repaid his pious zeal; through which his house and throne alike have prospered, his reign has been confirmed for a lengthened series of years, and the rewards of virtue bestowed on his noble sons, his kindred, and their descendants.
19 And surely it is a mighty evidence of the power of that God whom he serves, that he has held the balances of justice with an equal hand, and has apportioned to each party their due reward. With regard to the destroyers of the houses of prayer, the penalty of their impious conduct followed hard upon them: forthwith were they swept away, and left neither race, nor house, nor family behind. On the other hand, he whose pious devotion to his Lord is conspicuous in his every act, who raises royal temples to his honor, and proclaims his name to his subjects by sacred offerings throughout the world, he, I say, has deservedly experienced him to be the preserver and defender of his imperial house and race. Thus clearly have the dealings of God been manifested, and this through the sacred efficacy of the salutary Sign.
Chapter X.
1 Much might indeed be said of this salutary Sign, by those who are skilled in the mysteries of our Divine religion. For it is in very truth the symbol of salvation, wondrous to speak of, more wondrous still to conceive; the appearance of which on earth has thrown the fictions of all false religion from the beginning into the deepest shade, has buried superstitious error in darkness and oblivion, and has revealed to all that spiritual light which enlightens the souls of men, even the knowledge of the only true God.
2 Hence the universal change for the better, which leads men to spurn their lifeless idols, to trample under foot the lawless rites of their demon deities, and laugh to scorn the time-honored follies of their fathers. Hence, too, the establishment in every place of those schools of sacred learning, wherein men are taught the precepts of saving truth, and dread no more those objects of creation which are seen by the natural eye, nor direct a gaze of wonder at the sun, the moon, or stars; but acknowledge him who is above all these, that invisible Being who is the Creator of them all, and learn to worship him alone.
3 Such are the blessings resulting to mankind from this great and wondrous Sign, by virtue of which the evils which once existed are now no more, and virtues heretofore unknown shine everywhere resplendent with the light of true godliness.
4 Discourses, and precepts, and exhortations to a virtuous and holy life, are proclaimed in the ears of all nations. Nay, the emperor himself proclaims them: and it is indeed a marvel that this mighty prince, raising his voice in the hearing of all the world, like an interpreter of the Almighty Sovereign’s will, invites his subjects in every country to the knowledge of the true God.
5 No more, as in former times, is the babbling of impious men heard in the imperial palace; but priests and pious worshipers of God together celebrate his majesty with royal hymns of praise. The name of the one Supreme Ruler of the universe is proclaimed to all: the gospel of glad tidings connects the human race with its Almighty King, declaring the grace and love of the heavenly Father to his children on the earth.
6 His praise is everywhere sung in triumphant strains: the voice of mortal man is blended with the harmony of the angelic choirs in heaven; and the reasoning soul employs the body which invests it as an instrument for sounding forth a fitting tribute of praise and adoration to his name. The nations of the East and the West are instructed at the same moment in his precepts: the people of the Northern and Southern regions unite with one accord, under the influence of the same principles and laws, in the pursuit of a godly life, in praising the one Supreme God, in acknowledging his only begotten Son their Saviour as the source of every blessing, and our emperor as the one ruler on the earth, together with his pious sons.
7 He himself, as a skillful pilot, sits on high at the helm of state, and directs the vessel with unerring course, conducting his people as it were with favoring breeze to a secure and tranquil haven. Meanwhile God himself, the great Sovereign, extends the right hand of his power from above for his protection, giving him victory over every foe, and establishing his empire by a lengthened period of years: and he will bestow on him yet higher blessings, and confirm in every deed the truth of his own promises. But on these we may not at present dwell; but must await the change to a better world: for it is not given to mortal eyes or ears of flesh, fully to apprehend the things of God.43 
Chapter XI.
1 And now, victorious and mighty Constantine, in this discourse, whose noble argument is the glory of the Almighty King, let me lay before thee some of the mysteries of his sacred truth: not as presuming to instruct thee, who art thyself taught of God; nor to disclose to thee those secret wonders which he himself, not through the agency of man, but through our common Saviour, and the frequent light of his Divine presence has long since revealed and unfolded to thy view: but in the hope of leading the unlearned to the light, and displaying before those who know them not the causes and motives of thy pious deeds.
2 True it is that thy noble efforts for the daily worship and honor of the Supreme God throughout the habitable world, are the theme of universal praise. But those records of gratitude to thy Saviour and Preserver which thou hast dedicated in our own province of Palestine, and in that city from which as from a fountain-head the Saviour Word44 has issued forth to all mankind; and again, the hallowed edifices and consecrated temples which thou hast raised as trophies of his victory over death; and those lofty and noble structures, imperial monuments of an imperial spirit, which thou hast erected in honor of the everlasting memory of the Saviour’s tomb the cause, I say, of these things is not equally obvious to all.
3 Those, indeed, who are enlightened in heavenly knowledge by the power of the Divine Spirit, well understand the cause, and justly admire and bless thee for that counsel and resolution which Heaven itself inspired. On the other hand the ignorant and spiritually blind regard these designs with open mockery and scorn, and deem it a strange and unworthy thing indeed that so mighty a prince should waste his zeal on the graves and monuments of the dead.
4 “Were it not better,” such a one might say, “to cherish those rites which are hallowed by ancient usage; to seek the favor of those gods and heroes whose worship is observed in every province; instead of rejecting and disclaiming them, because subject to the calamities incident to man? Surely they may claim equal honors with him who himself has suffered: or, if they are to be rejected, as not exempt from the sorrows of humanity, the same award would justly be pronounced respecting him.” Thus, with important and contracted brow, might he give utterance in pompous language to his self-imagined wisdom.
5 Filled with compassion for this ignorance, the gracious Word of our most beneficent Father freely invites, not such a one alone, but all who are in the path of error, to receive instruction in Divine knowledge; and has ordained the means of such instruction throughout the world, in every country and village, in cultivated and desert lands alike, and in every city: and, as a gracious Saviour and Physician of the soul, calls on the Greek and the Barbarian, the wise and the unlearned, the rich and the poor, the servant and his master, the subject and his lord, the ungodly, the profane, the ignorant, the evil-doer, the blasphemer, alike to draw near, and hasten to receive his heavenly cure. And thus in time past had he clearly announced to all the pardon of former transgressions, saying, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”45 And again, “I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”46 And he adds the reason, saying, “For they that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.”47 And again, “I desire not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should repent.”48 
6 Hence it is only for those who are themselves instructed in Divine things and understand the motives of that zeal of which these works are the result, to appreciate the more than human impulse by which our emperor was guided, to admire his piety toward God, and to believe his care for the memorial of our Saviour’s resurrection to be a desire imparted from above, and truly inspired by that Sovereign, to be whose faithful servant and minister for good is his proudest boast.
7 In full persuasion, then, of thy approval, most mighty emperor, I desire at this present time to proclaim to all the reasons and motives of thy pious works. I desire to stand as the interpreter of thy designs, to explain the counsels of a soul devoted to the love of God. I propose to teach all men, what all should know who care to understand the principles on which our Saviour God employs his power, the reasons for which he who was the pre-existent Controller of all things at length descended to us from heaven: the reasons for which he assumed our nature, and submitted even to the power of death. I shall declare the causes of that immortal life which followed, and of his resurrection from the dead. Once more, I shall adduce convincing proofs and arguments, for the sake of those who yet need such testimony: and now let me commence my appointed task.
8 Those who transfer the worship due to that God who formed and rules the world to the works of his hand; who hold the sun and moon, or other parts of this material system, nay, the elements themselves, earth, water, air, and fire, in equal honor with the Creator of them all; who give the name of gods to things which never would have had existence, or even name, except as obedient to that Word of God who made the world: such persons in my judgment resemble those who overlook the master hand which gives its magnificence to a royal palace; and, while lost in wonder at its roofs and walls, the paintings of varied beauty and coloring which adorn them, and its gilded ceilings and sculptures, ascribe to them the praise of that skill which belongs to the artist whose work they are: whereas they should assign the cause of their wonder, not to these visible objects, but to the architect himself, and confess that the proofs of skill are indeed manifest, but that he alone is the possessor of that skill who has made them what they are.
9 Again, well might we liken those to children, who should admire the seven-stringed lyre, and disregard him who invented or has power to use it: or those who forget the valiant warrior, and adorn his spear and shield with the chaplet of victory: or, lastly, those who hold the squares and streets, the public buildings, temples, and gymnasia of a great and royal city in equal honor with its founder; forgetting that their admiration is due, not to lifeless stones, but to him whose wisdom planned and executed these mighty works.
10 Not less absurd is it for those who regard this universe with the natural eye to ascribe its origin to the sun, or moon, or any other heavenly body. Rather let them confess that these are themselves the works of a higher wisdom, remember the Maker and Framer of them all, and render to him the praise and honor above all created objects. Nay rather, inspired by the sight of these very objects, let them address themselves with full purpose of heart to glorify and worship him who is now invisible to mortal eye, but perceived by the clear and unclouded vision of the soul, the supremely sovereign Word of God. To take the instance of the human body: no one has yet conferred the attribute of wisdom on the eyes, or head, the hands, or feet, or other members, far less on the outward clothing, of a wise and learned man: no one terms the philosopher’s household furniture and utensils, wise: but every rational person admires that invisible and secret power, the mind of the man himself.
11 How much more, then, is our admiration due, not to the visible mechanism of the universe, material as it is, and formed of the selfsame elements; but to that invisible Word who has moulded and arranged it all, who is the only-begotten Son of God, and whom the Maker of all things, who far transcends all being, has begotten of himself, and appointed Lord and Governor of this universe?
12 For since it was impossible that perishable bodies, or the rational spirits which he had created, should approach the Supreme God, by reason of their immeasurable distance from his perfections, for he is unbegotten, above and beyond all creation, ineffable, inaccessible, unapproachable, dwelling, as his holy word assures us,49 in the light which none can enter; but they were created from nothing, and are infinitely far removed from his unbegotten Essence; well has the all-gracious and Almighty God interposed as it were an intermediate Power50 between himself and them, even the Divine omnipotence of his only-begotten Word. And this Power, which is in perfect nearness and intimacy of union, with the Father which abides in him, and shares his secret counsels, has yet condescended, in fullness of grace, as it were to conform itself to those who are so far removed from the supreme majesty of God. How else, consistently with his own holiness could he who is far above and beyond all things unite himself to corruptible and corporeal matter? Accordingly the Divine Word, thus connecting himself with this universe, and receiving into his hands the reins, as it were, of the world, turns and directs it as a skillful charioteer according to his own will and pleasure
13 The proof of these assertions is evident. For supposing that those component parts of the world which we call elements, as earth, water, air, and fire, the nature of which is manifestly without intelligence, are self-existent; and if they have one common essence, which they who are skilled in natural science call the great receptacle, mother, and nurse of all things; and if this itself be utterly devoid of shape and figure, of soul and reason; whence shall we say it has obtained its present form and beauty? To what shall we ascribe the distinction of the elements, or the union of things contrary in their very nature? Who has commanded the liquid water to sustain the heavy element of earth? Who has turned back the waters from their downward course, and carried them aloft in clouds? Who has bound the force of fire, and caused it to lie latent in wood, and to combine with substances most contrary to itself? Who has mingled the cold air with heat, and thus reconciled the enmity of opposing principles? Who has devised the continuous succcession of the human race, and given it as it were an endless term of duration? Who has moulded the male and female form, adapted their mutual relations with perfect harmony, and given one common principle of production to every living creature? Who changes the character of the fluid and corruptible seed, which in itself is void of reason, and gives it its prolific power? Who is at this moment working these and ten thousand effects more wonderful than these, nay, surpassing all wonder, and with invisible influence is daily and hourly perpetuating the production of them all?
14 Surely the wonder-working and truly omnipotent Word of God may well be deemed the efficient cause of all these things: that Word who, diffusing himself through all creation, pervading height and depth with incorporeal energy, and embracing the length and breadth of the universe within his mighty grasp, has compacted and reduced to order this entire system, from whose unreasoned and formless matter he has framed for himself an instrument of perfect harmony, the nicely balanced chords and notes of which he touches with all-wise and unerring skill. He it is who governs the sun, and moon, and the other luminaries of heaven by inexplicable laws, and directs their motions for the service of the universal whole.
15 It is this Word of God who has stooped to the earth on which we live, and created the manifold species of animals, and the fair varieties of the vegetable world. It is this same Word who has penetrated the recesses of the deep, has given their being to the finny race, and produced the countless forms of life which there exist. It is he who fashions the burden of the womb, and informs it in nature’s laboratory with the principle of life. By him the fluid and heavy moisture is raised on high, and then, sweetened by a purifying change, descends in measured quantities to the earth, and at stated seasons in more profuse supply.
16 Like a skillful husbandman, he fully irrigates the land, tempers the moist and dry in just proportion, diversifying the whole with brilliant flowers, with aspects of varied beauty, with pleasant fragrance, with alternating varieties of fruits, and countless gratifications for the taste of men. But why do I dare essay a hopeless task, to recount the mighty works of the Word of God, and describe an energy which surpasses mortal thought? By some, indeed, he has been termed the Nature of the universe, by others, the World-Soul, by others, Fate. Others again have declared him to be the most High God himself, strangely confounding things most widely different; bringing down to this earth, uniting to a corruptible and material body, and assigning to that supreme and unbegotten Power who is Lord of all an intermediate place between irrational animals and rational mortals on the one hand, and immortal beings on the other.51 
Chapter XII.
1 On the other hand, the sacred doctrine teaches that he who is the supreme Source of good, and Cause of all things, is beyond all comprehension, and therefore inexpressible by word, or speech, or name; surpassing the power, not of language only, but of thought itself. Un-circumscribed by place, or body; neither in heaven, nor in ethereal space, nor in any other part of the universe; but entirely independent of all things else, he pervades the depths of unexplored and secret wisdom. The sacred oracles teach us to acknowledge him as the only true God,52 apart from all corporeal essence, distinct from all subordinate ministration. Hence it is said that all things are from him, but not through him.53 
2 And he himself dwelling as Sovereign in secret and undiscovered regions of unapproachable light, ordains and disposes all things by the single power of his own will. At his will whatever is, exists; without that will, it cannot be. And his will is in every case for good, since he is essentially Goodness itself. But he through whom are all things, even God the Word, proceeding in an ineffable manner from the Father above, as from an everlasting and exhaustless fountain, flows onward like a river with a full and abundant stream of power for the preservation of the universal whole.
3 And now let us select an illustration from our own experience. The invisible and undiscovered mind within us, the essential nature of which no one has ever known, sits as a monarch in the seclusion of his secret chambers, and alone resolves on our course of action. From this proceeds the only-begotten word from its father’s bosom, begotten in a manner and by a power inexplicable to us; and is the first messenger of its father’s thoughts, declares his secret counsels, and, conveying itself to the ears of others, accomplishes his designs.
4 And thus the advantage of this faculty is enjoyed by all: yet no one has ever yet beheld that invisible and hidden mind, which is the parent of the word itself.54 In the same manner, or rather in a manner which far surpasses all likeness or comparison, the perfect Word of the Supreme God, as the only-begotten Son of the Father (not consisting in the power of utterance, nor comprehended in syllables and parts of speech, nor conveyed by a voice which vibrates on the air; but being himself the living and effectual Word of the most High, and subsisting personally as the Power and Wisdom of God),55 proceeds from his Father’s Deity and kingdom.56 Thus, being the perfect Offspring of a perfect Father, and the common Preserver of all things, he diffuses himself with living power throughout creation, and pours from his own fullness abundant supplies of reason,57 wisdom, light, and every other blessing, not only on objects nearest to himself, but on those most remote, whether in earth, or sea, or any other sphere of being.
5 To all these he appoints with perfect equity their limits, places, laws, and inheritance, allotting to each their suited portion according to his sovereign will. To some he assigns the super-terrestrial regions, to others heaven itself as their habitation: others he places in ethereal space, others in air, and others still on earth. He it is who transfers mankind from hence to another sphere, impartially reviews their conduct here, and bestows a recompense according to the life and habits of each.
6 By him provision is made for the life and food, not of rational creatures only, but also of the brute creation, for the service of men; and while to the latter he grants the enjoyment of a perishable and fleeting term of existence, the former he invites to a share in the possession of immortal life. Thus universal is the agency of the Word of God: everywhere present, and pervading all things by the power of his intelligence, he looks upward to his Father, and governs this lower creation, inferior to and consequent upon himself, in accordance with his will, as the common Preserver of all things.
7 Interme- diate, as it were, and attracting the created to the uncreated Essence, this Word of God exists as an unbroken bond between the two, uniting things most widely different by an inseparable tie. He is the Providence which rules the universe; the guardian and director of the whole: he is the Power and Wisdom of God the only-begotten God, the Word begotten of God himself. For “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that hath been made”; as we learn from the words of the sacred writer.58 Through his vivifying power all nature grows and flourishes, refreshed by his continual showers, and invested with a vigor and beauty ever new.
8 Guiding the reigns of the universe, he holds its onward course in conformity to the Father’s will and moves, as it were, the helm of this mighty ship. This glorious Agent, the only-begotten Son of the Supreme God, begotten by the Father as his perfect Offspring, the Father has given to this world as the highest of all goods infusing his word, as spirit into a lifeless body, into unconscious nature; imparting light and energy to that which in itself was a rude, inanimate, and formless mass, through the Divine power. Him therefore it is ours to acknowledge and regard as everywhere present, and giving life to matter and the elements of nature:59 in him we see Light, even the spiritual offspring of inexpressible Light: one indeed in essence, as being the Son of one Father; but possessing in himself many and varied powers.
9 The world is indeed divided into many parts; yet let us not therefore suppose that there are many independent Agents: nor, though creation’s works be manifold, let us thence assume the existence of many gods. How grievous the error of those childish and infatuated advocates of polytheistic worship, who deify the constituent parts of the universe, and divide into many that system which is only one!
10 Such conduct resembles theirs who should abstract the eyes of an individual man, and term them the man himself, and the ears, another man, and so the head: or again, by an effort of thought should separate the neck, the breast and shoulders, the feet and hands,: or other members, nay, the very powers of sense, and thus pronounce an individual to be a multitude of men. Such folly must surely be rewarded with contempt by men of sense. Yet such is he who from the component parts of a single world can devise for himself a multitude of gods, or even deem that world which is the work of a Creator, and consists of many parts, to be itself a god:60 not knowing that the Divine Nature can in no sense be divisible into parts; since, if compounded, it must be so through the agency of another power; and that which is so compounded can never be Divine. How indeed could it be so, if composed of unequal and dissimilar, and hence of worse and better elements? Simple, indivisible, uncompounded, the Divine Nature exists at an infinite elevation above the visible constitution of this world.
11 And hence we are assured by the clear testimony of the sacred Herald,61 that the Word of God, who is before all things, must be the sole Preserver of all intelligent beings: while God, who is above all, and the Author of the generation of the Word, being himself the Cause of all things, is rightly called the Father of the Word, as of his only-begotten Son, himself acknowledging no superior Cause. God, therefore, himself is One, and from him proceeds the one only-begotten Word, the omnipresent Preserver of all things. And as the many-stringed lyre is composed of different chords, both sharp and flat, some slightly, others tensely strained, and others intermediate between-the two extremes, yet all attuned according to the rules of harmonic art; even so this material world, compounded as it is of many elements, containing opposite and antagonist principles, as moisture and dryness, cold and heat, yet blended into one harmonious whole, may justly be termed a mighty instrument framed by the hand of God: an instrument on which the Divine Word, himself not composed of parts or opposing principles, but indivisible and uncompounded, performs with perfect skill, and produces a melody at once accordant with the will of his Father the Supreme Lord of all, and glorious to himself. Again, as there are manifold external and internal parts and members comprised in a single body, yet one invisible soul, one undivided and incorporeal mind pervades the whole; so is it in this creation, which, consisting of many parts, yet is but one: and so the One mighty, yea, Almighty Word of God, pervading all things, and diffusing himself with undeviating energy throughout this universe, is the Cause of all things that exist therein.
12 Survey the compass of this visible world. Seest thou not how the same heaven contains within itself the countless courses and companies of the stars? Again, the sun is one, and yet eclipses many, nay all other luminaries, by the surpassing glory of his rays. Even so, as the Father himself is One, his Word is also One, the perfect Son of that perfect Father. Should any one object because they are not more, as well might he complain that there are not many suns, or moons, or worlds, and a thousand things beside; like the madman, who would fain subvert the fair and perfect course of Nature herself. As in the visible, so also in the spiritual world: in the one the same sun diffuses his light throughout this material earth; in the other the One Almighty Word of God illumines all things with invisible and secret power.
13 Again, there is in man one spirit, and one faculty of reason, which yet is the active cause of numberless effects. The same mind, instructed in many things, will essay to cultivate the earth, to build and guide a ship, and construct houses: nay, the one mind and reason of man is capable of acquiring knowledge in a thousand forms: the same mind shall understand geometry and astronomy, and discourse on the rules of grammar, and rhetoric, and the healing art. Nor will it excel in science only, but in practice too: and yet no one has ever supposed the existence of many minds in one human form, nor expressed his wonder at a plurality of being in man, because he is thus capable of varied knowledge.
14 Suppose one were to find a shapeless mass of clay, to mould it with his hands, and give it the form of a living creature; the head in one figure, the hands and feet in another, the eyes and cheeks in a third, and so to fashion the ears, the mouth and nose, the breast and shoulders, according to the rules of the plastic art. The result, indeed, is a variety of figure, of parts and members in the one body; yet must we not suppose it the work of many hands, but ascribe it entirely to the skill of a single artist, and yield the tribute of our praise to him who by the energy of a single mind has framed it all. The same is true of the universe itself, which is one, though consisting of many parts: yet surely we need not suppose many creative powers, nor invent a plurality of gods. Our duty is to adore the all-wise and all-perfect agency of him who is indeed the Power and the Wisdom of God, whose undivided force and energy pervades and penetrates the universe, creating and giving life to all things, and furnishing to all, collectively and severally, those manifold supplies of which he is himself the source.
15 Even so one and the same impression of the solar rays illumines the air at once, gives light to the eyes, warmth to the touch, fertility to the earth, and growth to plants. The same luminary constitutes the course of time, governs the motions of the stars, performs the circuit of the heavens, imparts beauty to the earth, and displays the power of God to all: and all this he performs by the sole and unaided force of his own nature. In like manner fire has the property of refining gold, and fusing lead, of dissolving wax, of parching clay, and consuming wood; producing these varied effects by one and the same burning power.
16 So also the Supreme Word of God, pervading all things, everywhere existent, everywhere present in heaven and earth, governs and directs the visible and invisible creation, the sun, the heaven, and the universe itself, with an energy inexplicable in its nature, irresistible in its effects. From him, as from an everlasting fountain, the sun, the moon, and stars receive their light: and he forever rules that heaven which he has framed as the fitting emblem of his own greatness. The angelic and spiritual powers, the incorporeal and intelligent beings which exist beyond the sphere of heaven and earth, are filled by him with light and life, with wisdom and virtue, with all that is great and good, from his own peculiar treasures. Once more, with one and the same creative skill, he ceases not to furnish the elements with substance, to regulate the union and combinations, the forms and figures, and the innumerable qualities of organized bodies; preserving the varied distinctions of animal and vegetable life, of the rational and the brute creation; and supplying all things to all with equal power: thus proving himself the Author, not indeed of the seven-stringed lyre,62 but of that system of perfect harmony which is the workmanship of the One world-creating Word.63 
Chapter XIII.
1 And now let us proceed to explain the reasons for which this mighty Word of God descended to dwell with men. Our ignorant and foolish race, incapable of comprehending him who is the Lord of heaven and earth, proceeding from his Father’s Deity as from the supreme fountain, ever present throughout the world, and evincing by the clearest proofs his providential care for the interests of man; have ascribed the adorable title of Deity to the sun, and moon, the heaven and the stars of heaven. Nor did they stop here, but deified the earth itself, its products, and the various substances by which animal life is sustained, and devised images of Ceres, of Proserpine, of Bacchus,64 and many such as these.
2 Nay, they shrank not from giving the name of gods to the very conceptions of their own minds, and the speech by which those conceptions are expressed; calling the mind itself Minerva, and language Mercury,65 and affixing the names of Mnemosyne and the Muses to those faculties by means of which science is acquired. Nor was even this enough: advancing still more rapidly in the career of impiety and folly, they deified their own evil passions, which it behooved them to regard with aversion, or restrain by the principles of self-control. Their very lust and passion and impure disease of soul, the members of the body which tempt to obscenity, and even the very uncontrol66 in shameful pleasure, they described under the titles of Cupid, Priapus, Venus,67 and other kindred terms.
3 Nor did they stop even here. Degrading their thoughts of God to this corporeal and mortal life, they deified their fellow-men, conferring the names of gods and heroes on those who had experienced the common lot of all, and vainly imagining that the Divine and imperishable Essence could frequent the tombs and monuments of the dead. Nay, more than this: they paid divine honors to animals of various species, and to the most noxious reptiles: they felled trees, and excavated rocks; they provided themselves with brass, and iron, and other metals, of which they fashioned resemblances of the male and female human form, of beasts, and creeping things; and these they made the objects of their worship.
4 Nor did this suffice. To the evil spirits themselves which lurked within their statues, or lay concealed in secret and dark recesses, eager to drink their libations, and inhale the odor of their sacrifices, they ascribed the same divine honors. Once more, they endeavored to secure the familiar aid of these spirits, and the unseen powers which move through the tracts of air, by charms of forbidden magic, and the compulsion of unhallowed songs and incantations. Again, different nations have adopted different persons as objects of their worship. The Greeks have rendered to Bacchus, Hercules, Aesculapius, Apollo, and others who were mortal men, the titles of gods and heroes. The Egyptians have deified Horus and Isis, Osiris, and other mortals such as these. And thus they who boast of the wondrous skill whereby they have discovered geometry, astronomy, and the science of number, know not, wise as they are in their own conceit, nor understand how to estimate the measure of the power of God, or calculate his exceeding greatness above the nature of irrational and mortal beings.
5 Hence they shrank not from applying the name of gods to the most hideous of the brute creation, to venomous reptiles and savage beasts. The Phoenicians deified Melcatharus, Usorus,68 and others; mere mortals, and with little claim to honor: the Arabians, Dusaris69 and Obodas: the Getae, Zamolxis: the Cicilians, Mopsus: and the Thebans, Amphiaraus:70 in short, each nation has adopted its own peculiar deities, differing in norespect from their fellow-mortals, being simply and truly men. Again, the Egyptians with one consent, the Phoenicians, the Greeks, nay, every nation beneath the sun, have united in worshiping the very parts and elements of the world, and even the produce of the ground itself. And, which is most surprising, though acknowledging the adulterous, unnatural, and licentious crimes of their deities, they have not only filled every city, and village, and district with temples, shrines, and statues in their honor, but have followed their evil example to the ruin of their own souls.
6 We hear of gods and the sons of gods described by them as heroes and good genii, titles entirely opposed to truth, honors utterly at variance with the qualifies they are intended to exalt. It is as if one who desired to point out the sun and the luminaries of heaven, instead of directing his gaze thitherward, should grope with his hands on the ground, and search for the celestial powers in the mud and mire. Even so mankind, deceived by their own folly and the craft of evil spirits, have believed that the Divine and spiritual Essence which is far above heaven and earth could be compatible with the birth, the affections, and death, of mortal bodies here below. To such a pitch of madness did they proceed, as to sacrifice the dearest objects of their affection to their gods, regardless of all natural ties, and urged by frenzied feeling to slay their only and best beloved children.
7 For what can be a greater proof of madness, than to offer human sacrifice, to pollute every city, and even their own houses, with kindred blood? Do not the Greeks themselves attest this, and is not all history filled with records of the same impiety? The Phoenicians devoted their best beloved and only children as an annual sacrifice to Saturn. The Rhodians, on the sixth day of the month Metageitnion,71 offered human victims to the same god. At Salamis, a man was pursued in the temple of Minerva Agraulis and Diomede, compelled to run thrice round the altar, afterwards pierced with a lance by the priest, and consumed as a burnt offering on the blazing pile. In Egypt, human sacrifice was most abundant. At Heliopolis three victims were daily offered to Juno, for whom king Amoses, impressed with the atrocity of the practice, commanded the substitution of an equal number of waxen figures. In Chios, and again in Tenedos, a man was slain and offered up to Omadian Bacchus. At Sparta they immolated human beings to Mars. In Crete they did likewise, offering human sacrifices to Saturn. In Laodicea of Syria a virgin was yearly slain in honor of Minerva, for whom a hart is now the substitute. The Libyans and Carthaginians appeased their gods with human victims. The Dumateni of Arabia buried a boy annually beneath the altar. History informs us that the Greeks without exception, the Thracians also, and Scythians, were accustomed to human sacrifice before they marched forth to battle. The Athenians record the immolation of the virgin children of Leus,72 and the daughter of Erechtheus.73 Who knows not that at this day a human victim is offered in Rome itself at the festival of Jupiter Latiaris?
8 And these facts are confirmed by the testimony of the most approved philosophers. Diodorus, the epitomizer of libraries,74 affirms that two hundred of the noblest youths were sacrificed to Saturn by the Libyan people, and that three hundred more were voluntarily offered by their own parents. Dionysius, the compiler of Roman history,75 expressly says that Jupiter and Apollo demanded human sacrifices of the so-called Aborigines, in Italy. He relates that on this demand they offered a proportion of all their produce to the gods; but that, because of their refusal to slay human victims, they became involved in manifold calamities, from which they could obtain no release until they had decimated themselves, a sacrifice of life which proved the desolation of their country.
9 Such and so great were the evils which of old afflicted the whole human race. Nor was this the full extent of their misery: they groaned beneath the pressure of other evils equally numerous and irremediable. All nations, whether civilized or barbarous, throughout the world, as if actuated by a demoniac frenzy, were infected with sedition as with some fierce and terrible disease: insomuch that the human family was irreconcilably divided against itself; the great system of society was distracted and torn asunder; and in every corner of the earth men stood opposed to each other, and strove with fierce contention on questions of law and government.
10 Nay, more than this: with passions aroused to fury, they engaged in mutual conflicts, so frequent that their lives were passed as it were in uninterrupted warfare. None could undertake a journey except as prepared to encounter an enemy in the very country and villages the rustics girded on the sword, provided themselves with armor rather than with the implements of rural labor, and deemed it noble exploit to plunder and enslave any who belonged to a neighboring state.
11 Nay, more than this: from the fables they had themselves devised respecting their own deities, they deduced occasions for a vile and abandoned life, and wrought the ruin of body and soul by licentiousness of every kind. Not content with this, they even overstepped the bounds which nature had defined, and together committed incredible and nameless crimes, “men with men (in the words of the sacred writer) working un-seemliness, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was due.”
12 Nor did they stop even here; but perverted their natural thoughts of God, and denied that the course of this world was directed by his providential care, ascribing the existence and constitution of all things to the blind operation of chance, or the necessity of fate.
13 Once more: believing that soul and body were alike dissolved by death, they led a brutish life, unworthy of the name: careless of the nature or existence of the soul, they dreaded not the tribunal of Divine justice, expected no reward of virtue, nor thought of chastisement as the penalty of an evil life.
14 Hence it was that whole nations, a prey to wickedness in all its forms, were wasted by the effects of their own brutality: some living in the practice of most vile and lawless incest with mothers, others with sisters, and others again corrupting their own daughters. Some were found who slew their confiding guests; others who fed on human flesh; some strangled, and then feasted on, their aged men; others threw them alive to dogs. The time would fail me were I to attempt to describe the multifarious symptoms of the inveterate malady which had asserted its dominion over the whole human race.
15 Such, and numberless others like these, were the prevailing evils, on account of which the gracious Word of God, full of compassion for his human flock, had long since, by the ministry of his prophets, and earlier still, as well as later, by that of men distinguished by pious devotion to God, invited those thus desperately afflicted to their own cure; and had, by means of laws, exhortations, and doctrines of every kind, proclaimed to man the principles and elements of true godliness. But when for mankind, distracted and torn as I have said, not indeed by wolves and savage beasts, but by ruthless and soul-destroying spirits of evil, human power no longer sufficed, but a help was needed superior to that of man; then it was that the Word of God, obedient to his all-gracious Father’s will, at length himself appeared, and most willingly made his abode amongst us.
16 The causes of his advent I have already described, induced by which he condescended to the society of man; not in his wonted form and manner, for he is incorporeal, and present everywhere throughout the world, proving by his agency both in heaven and earth the greatness of his almighty power, but in a character new and hitherto unknown. Assuming a mortal body, he deigned to associate and converse with men; desiring, through the medium of their own likeness, to save our mortal race.
Chapter XIV.
1 And now let us explain the cause for which the incorporeal Word of God assumed this mortal body as a medium of intercourse with man. How, indeed, else than in human form could that Divine and impalpable, that immaterial and invisible Essence manifest itself to those who sought for God in created and earthly objects, unable or unwilling otherwise to discern the Author and Maker of all things?
2 As a fitting means, therefore, of communication with mankind, he assumed a mortal body, as that with which they were themselves familiar; for like, it is proverbially said, loves its like. To those, then, whose affections were engaged by visible objects, who looked for gods in statues and lifeless images, who imagined the Deity to consist in material and corporeal substance, nay, who conferred on men the title of divinity, the Word of God presented himself in this form.
3 Hence he procured for himself this body as a thrice-hallowed temple, a sensible habitation of an intellectual power; a noble and most holy form, of far higher worth than any lifeless statue. The material and senseless image, fashioned by base mechanic hands, of brass or iron, of gold or ivory, wood or stone, may be a fitting abode for evil spirits: but that Divine form, wrought by the power of heavenly wisdom, was possessed of life and spiritual being; a form animated by every excellence, the dwelling-place of the Word of God, a holy temple of the holy God.
4 Thus the indwelling Word76 conversed with and was known to men, as kindred with themselves; yet yielded not to passions such as theirs, nor owned, as the natural soul, subjection to the body. He parted not with aught of his intrinsic greatness, nor changed his proper Deity. For as the all-pervading radiance of the sun receives no stain from contact with dead and impure bodies; much less can the incorporeal power of the Word of God be injured in its essential purity, or part with any of its greatness, from spiritual contact with a human body.
5 Thus, I say, did our common Saviour prove himself the benefactor and preserver of all, displaying his wisdom through the instrumentality of his human nature, even as a musician uses the lyre to evince his skill. The Grecian myth tells us that Orpheus had power to charm ferocious beasts, and tame their savage spirit, by striking the chords of his instrument with a master hand: and this story is celebrated by the Greeks, and generally believed, that an unconscious instrument could subdue the untamed brute, and draw the trees from their places, in obedience to its melodious power. But he who is the author of perfect harmony, the all-wise Word of God, desiring to apply every remedy to the manifold diseases of the souls of men, employed that human nature which is the workmanship of his own wisdom, as an instrument by the melodious strains of which he soothed, not indeed the brute creation, but savages endued with reason; healing each furious temper, each fierce and angry passion of the soul, both in civilized and barbarous nations, by the remedial power of his Divine doctrine. Like a physician of perfect skill, he met the diseases of their souls who sought for God in nature and in bodies, by a fitting and kindred remedy, and showed them God in human form.
6 And then, with no less care for the body than the soul, he presented before the eyes of men wonders and signs, as proofs of his Divine power, at the same time instilling into their ears of flesh the doctrines which he himself uttered with a corporeal tongue. In short, he performed all his works through the medium of that body which he had assumed for the sake of those who else were incapable of apprehending his Divine nature.
7 In all this he was the servant of his Father’s will, himself remaining still the same as when with the Father; unchanged in essence, unimpaired in nature, unfettered by the trammels of mortal flesh, nor hindered by his abode in a human body from being elsewhere present.77 
8 Nay, at the very time of his intercourse with men, he was pervading all things, was with and in the Father, and even then was caring for all things both in heaven and earth. Nor was he precluded, as we are, from being present everywhere, or from the continued exercise of his Divine power. He gave of his own to man, but received nothing in return: he imparted of his Divine power to mortality, but derived no accession from mortality itself.
9 Hence his human birth to him brought no defilement; nor could his impassible Essence suffer at the dissolution of his mortal body. For let us suppose a lyre to receive an accidental injury, or its chord to be broken; it does not follow that the performer on it suffers: nor, if a wise man’s body undergo punishment, can we fairly assert that his wisdom, or the soul within him, are maimed or burned.
10 Far less can we affirm that the inherent power of the Word sustained any detriment from his bodily passion, any more than, as in the instance we have already used, the solar rays which are shot from heaven to earth contract defilement, though in contact with mire and pollution of every kind. We may, indeed, assert that these things partake of the radiance of the light, but not that the light is contaminated, or the sun defiled, by this contact with other bodies.
11 And indeed these things are themselves not contrary to nature; but the Saviour, the incorporeal Word of God, being Life and spiritual Light itself, whatever he touches with Divine and incorporeal power must of necessity become endued with the intelligence of light and life. Thus, if he touch a body, it becomes enlightened and sanctified, is at once delivered from all disease, infirmity, and suffering, and that which before was lacking is supplied by a portion of his fullness.
12 And such was the tenor of his life on earth; now proving the sympathies of his human nature with our own, and now revealing himself as the Word of God: wondrous and mighty in his works as God; foretelling the events of the far distant future; declaring in every act, by signs, and wonders, and supernatural powers, that Word whose presence was so little known; and finally, by his Divine teaching, inviting the souls of men to prepare for those mansions which are above the heavens.
Chapter XV.
1 What now remains, but to account for those which are the crowning facts of all; I mean his death, so far and widely known, the manner of his passion, and the mighty miracle of his resurrection after death: and then to establish the truth of these events by the clearest testimonies?
2 For the reasons detailed above he used the instrumentality of a mortal body, as a figure becoming his Divine majesty, and like a mighty sovereign employed it as his interpreter in his intercourse with men, performing all things consistently with his own Divine power. Supposing, then, at the end of his sojourn among men, he had by any other means suddenly withdrawn himself from their sight, and, secretly removing that interpreter of himself, the form which he had assumed, had hastened to flee from death, and afterwards by his own act had consigned his mortal body to corruption and dissolution: doubtless in such a case he would have been deemed a mere phantom by all. Nor would he have acted in a manner worthy of himself, had he who is Life, the Word, and the Power of God, abandoned this interpreter of himself to corruption and death.
3 Nor, again, would his warfare with the spirits of evil have received its consummation by conflict. with the power of death. The place of his retirement must have remained unknown; nor would his existence have been believed by those who had not seen him for themselves. No proof would have been given that he was superior to death nor would he have delivered mortality from the law of its natural infirmity. His name had never been heard throughout the world nor could he have inspired his disciples with contempt of death, or encouraged those who embraced his doctrine to hope for the enjoyment of a future life with God. Nor would he have fulfilled the assurances of his own promise, nor have accomplished the predictions of the prophets concerning himself. Nor would he have undergone the last conflict of all; for this was to be the struggle with the power of death.
4 For all these reasons, then, and inasmuch as it was necessary that the mortal body which had rendered such service to the Divine Word should meet with an end worthy its sacred occupant, the manner of his death was ordained accordingly. For since but two alternatives remained: either to consign his body entirely to corruption, and so to bring the scene of life to a dishonored close, or else to prove himself victorious over death, and render mortality immortal by the act of Divine power; the former of these alternatives would have contravened his own promise. For as it is not the property of fire to cool, nor of light to darken, no more is it compatible with life, to deprive of life, or with Divine intelligence, to act in a manner contrary to reason. For how would it be consistent,with reason, that he who had promised life to others, should permit his own body, the form which he had chosen, to perish beneath the power of corruption? That he who had inspired his disciples with hopes of immortality, should yield this exponent of his Divine counsels to be destroyed by death?
5 The second alternative was therefore needful I mean, that he should assert his dominion over the power of death. But how? should this be a furtive and secret act, or openly performed and in the sight of all? So mighty an achievement, had it remained unknown and unrevealed, must have failed of its effect as regards the interests of men; whereas the same event, if openly declared and understood, would, from its wondrous character, redound to the common benefit of all. With reason, therefore, since it was needful to prove his body victorious over death, and that not secretly but before the eyes of men, he shrank not from the trial, for this indeed would have argued fear, and a sense of inferiority to the power of death, but maintained that conflict with the enemy which has rendered mortality immortal; a conflict undertaken for the life, the immortality, the salvation of all.
6 Suppose one desired to show us that a vessel could resist the force of fire; how could he better prove the fact than by casting it into the furnace and thence withdrawing it entire and unconsumed? Even thus the Word of God who is the source of life to all, desiring to prove the triumph of that body over death which he had assumed for man’s salvation, and to make this body partake his own life and immortality, pursued a course consistent with this object. Leaving his body for a little while,78 and delivering it up to death in proof of its mortal nature, he soon redeemed it from death, in vindication of that Divine power whereby he has manifested the immortality which he has promised to be utterly beyond the sphere of death.
7 The reason of this is clear. It was needful that his disciples should receive ocular proof of the certainty of that resurrection on which he had taught them to rest their hopes as a motive for rising superior to the fear of death. It was indeed most needful that they who purposed to pursue a life of godliness should receive a clear impression of this essential truth: more needful still for those who were destined to declare his name in all the world, and to communicate to mankind that knowledge of God which he had before ordained for all nations.
8 For such the strongest conviction of a future life was necessary, that they might be able with fearless and unshrinking zeal to maintain the conflict with Gentile and polytheistic error: a conflict the dangers of which they would never, have been prepared to meet, except as habituated to the contempt of death. Accordingly, in arming his disciples against the power of this last enemy, he delivered not his doctrines in mere verbal precepts, nor attempted to prove the soul’s immortality, by persuasive and probable arguments; but displayed to them in his own person a real victory over death.
9 Such was the first and greatest reason of our Saviour’s conflict with the power of death, whereby he proved to his disciples the nothingness of that which is the terror of all mankind, and afforded a visible evidence of the reality of that life which he had promised; presenting as it were a first-fruit of our common hope, of future life and immortality in the presence of God.
10 The second cause of his resurrection was, that the Divine power might be manifested which dwelt in his mortal body. Mankind had heretofore conferred Divine honors on men who had yielded to the power of death, and had given the titles of gods and heroes to mortals like themselves. For this reason, therefore, the Word of God evinced his gracious character, and proved to man his own superiority over death, recalling his mortal body to a second life, displaying an immortal triumph over death in the eyes of all, and teaching them to acknowledge the Author of such a victory to be the only true God, even in death itself.
11 I may allege yet a third cause of the Saviour’s death. He was the victim offered to the Supreme Sovereign of the universe for the whole human race: a victim consecrated for the need of the human race, and for the overthrow of the errors of demon worship. For as soon as the one holy and mighty sacrifice, the sacred body of our Saviour, had been slain for man, to be as a ransom for all nations, heretofore involved in the guilt of impious superstition, thenceforward the power of impure and unholy spirits was utterly abolished, and every earth-born and delusive error was at once weakened and destroyed.
12 Thus, then, this salutary victim taken from among themselves, I mean the mortal body of the Word, was offered on behalf of the common race of men. This was that sacrifice delivered up to death, of which the sacred oracles speak: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”79 And again, as follows: “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is dumb.” They declare also the cause, saying: “He bears our sins, and is pained for us: yet we accounted him to be in trouble, and in suffering, and in affliction. But he was wounded on account of our sins, and bruised because of our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and by his bruises we were healed. All we as sheep have gone astray; every one has gone astray in this way; and the Lord gave him up for our sins.”80 
13 Such were the causes which led to the offering of the human body of the Word of God. But forasmuch as he was the great high priest, consecrated to the Supreme Lord and King, and therefore more than a victim, the Word, the Power, and the Wisdom of God; he soon recalled his body from the grasp of death, presented it to his Father as the first-fruit of our common salvation, and raised this trophy, a proof at once of his victory over death and Satan, and of the abolition of human sacrifices, for the blessing of all mankind.
Chapter XVI.
1 And now the time is come for us to proceed to the demonstration of these things; if indeed such truths require demonstration, and if the aid of testimony be needful to confirm the certainty of palpable facts. Such testimony, however, shall be here given; and let it be received with an attentive and gracious ear.
2 Of old the nations of the earth, the entire human race, were variously distributed into provincial, national, and local governments,81 subject to kingdoms and principalities of many kinds. The consequences of this variety were war and strife, depopulation and captivity, which raged in country and city with unceasing fury. Hence, too, the countless subjects of history, adulteries, and rapes of women; hence the woes of Troy, and the ancient tragedies, so known among all peoples.
3 The origin of these may justly be ascribed to the delusion of polytheistic error. But when that instrument of our redemption, the thrice holy body of Christ, which proved itself superior to all Satanic fraud, and free from evil both in word and deed, was raised, at once for the abolition of ancient evils, and in token of his victory over the powers of darkness; the energy of these evil spirits was at once destroyed. The manifold forms of government, the tyrannies and republics, the siege of cities, and devastation of countries caused thereby, were now no more, and one God
4 was proclaimed to all mankind. At the same time one universal power, the Roman empire, arose and flourished, while the enduring and implacable hatred of nation against nation was now removed: and as the knowledge of one God, and one way of religion and salvation, even the doctrine of Christ, was made known to all mankind; so at the self-same period, the entire dominion of the Roman empire being vested in a single sovereign, profound peace reigned throughout the world. And thus, by the express appointment of the same God, two roots of blessing, the Roman empire, and the doctrine of Christian piety, sprang up together for the benefit of men.
5 For before this time the various countries of the world, as Syria, Asia, Macedonia, Egypt, and Arabia, had been severally subject to different rulers. The Jewish people, again, had established their dominion in the laud of Palestine. And these nations, in every village, city, and district, actuated by some insane spirit, were engaged in incessant and murderous war and conflict. But two mighty powers, starting from the same point, the Roman empire, which henceforth was swayed by a single sovereign, and the Christian religion, subdued and reconciled these contending elements.
6 Our Saviour’s mighty power destroyed at once the many governments and the many gods of the powers of darkness, and proclaimed to all men, both rude and civilized, to the extremities of the earth, the sole sovereignty of God himself. Meantime the Roman empire, the causes of multiplied governments being thus removed, effected an easy conquest of those which yet remained; its object being to unite all nations in one harmonious whole; an object in great measure already secured, and destined to be still more perfectly attained, even to the final conquest of the ends of the habitable world, by means of the salutary doctrine, and through the aid of that Divine power which facilitates and smooths its way.
7 And surely this must appear a wondrous fact to those who will examine the question in the love of truth, and desire not to cavil at these blessings.82 The falsehood of demon superstition was convicted: the inveterate strife and mutual hatred of the nations was removed: at the same time One God, and the knowledge of that God, were proclaimed to all: one universal empire prevailed; and the whole human race, subdued by the controlling power of peace and concord, received one another as brethren, and responded to the feelings of their common nature. Hence, as children of one God and Father, and owning true religion as their common mother, they saluted and welcomed each other with words of peace. Thus the whole world appeared like one well-ordered and united family: each one might journey unhindered as far as and whithersoever he pleased: men might securely travel from West to East, and from East to West, as to their own native country: in short, the ancient oracles and predictions of theprophets were fulfilled, more numerous than we can at present cite, and those especially which speak as follows concerning the saving Word. “He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.” And again, “In his days shall righteousness spring up; and abundance of peace.” “And they shall beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into sickles: and nation shall not take up sword against nation, neither shall they learn to war any more.”83 
8 These words, predicted ages before in the Hebrew tongue, have received in our own day a visible fulfillment, by which the testimonies of the ancient oracles are clearly confirmed. And now, if thou still desire more ample proof, receive it, not in words, but from the facts themselves. Open the eyes of thine understanding expand the gates of thought; pause awhile, and consider; inquire of thyself as though thou weft another, and thus diligently examine the nature of the case. What king or prince in any age of the world, what philosopher, legislator, or prophet, in civilized or barbarous lands, has attained so great a height of excellence, I say not after death, but while living still, and full of mighty power, as to fill the ears and tongues of all mankind with the praises of his name? Surely none save our only Saviour has done this, when, after his victory over death, he spoke the word to his followers, and fulfilled it by the event, saying to them, “Go ye, and make disciples of all nations in my name.”84 He it was who gave the distinct assurance, that his gospel must be preached in all the world for a tes testimony to all nations, and immediately verifiedhis word: for within a little time the world itself was filled with his doctrine.
9 How, then, will those who caviled at the commencement of my speech be able to reply to this? For surely the force of ocular testimony is superior to any verbal argument. Who else than he, with an invisible and yet potent hand, has driven from human society like savage beasts that ever noxious and destructive tribe of evil spirits who of old had made all nations their prey, and by the motions of their images had practiced many a delusion among men? Who else, beside our Saviour, by the invocation of his name, and by unfeigned prayer addressed through him to the Supreme God, has given power to banish from the world the remnant of those wicked spirits to those who with genuine and sincere obedience pursue the course of life and conduct which he has himself prescribed? Who else but our Saviour has taught his followers to offer those bloodless and reasonable sacrifices which are performed by prayer and the secret worship of God?
10 Hence is it that throughout the habitable world altars are erected, and churches dedicated, wherein these spiritual and rational sacrifices are offered as a sacred service by every nation to the One Supreme God. Once more, who but he, with invisible and secret power, has suppressed and utterly abolished those bloody sacrifices which were offered with fire and smoke, as well as the cruel and senseless immolation of human victims; a fact which is attested by the heathen historians themselves? For it was not till after the publication of the Saviour’s Divine doctrine, about the time of Hadrian’s reign, that the practice of human sacrifice was universally abandoned.
11 Such and so manifest are the proofs of our Saviour’s power and energy after death. Who then can be found of spirit so obdurate as to withhold his assent to the truth, and refuse to acknowledge his life to be Divine? Such deeds as I have described are done by the living, not the dead; and visible acts are to us as evidence of those which we cannot see. It is as it were an event of yesterday that an impious and godless race disturbed and confounded the peace of human society, and possessed mighty power. But these, as soon as life departed, lay prostrate on the earth, worthless as dung, breathless, motionless, bereft of speech, and have left neither fame nor memorial behind. For such is the condition of the dead; and he who no longer lives is nothing: and how can he who is nothing be capable of any act? But how shall his existence be called in question, whose active power and energy are greater than in those who are still alive? And though he be invisible to the natural eye, yet the discerning faculty is not in outward sense. We do not comprehend the rules of art, or the theories of science, by bodily sensation; nor has any eye yet discerned the mind of man. Far less, then, the power of God: and in such cases our judgment is formed from apparent results.
12 Even thus are we bound to judge of our Saviour’s invisible power, and decide by its manifest effects whether we shall acknowledge the mighty operations which he is even now carrying on to be the works of a living agent; or whether they shall be ascribed to one who has no existence; or, lastly, whether the inquiry be not absurd and inconsistent in itself. For with what reason can we assert the existence of one who is not? Since all allow that that which has no existence is devoid of that power, and energy, and action, for these are characteristics of the living, but the contrary is characteristic of the dead.
Chapter XVII.
1 And now the time is come for us to consider the works of our Saviour in our own age, and to contemplate the living operations of the living God. For how shall we describe these mighty works save as living proofs of the power of a living agent, who truly enjoys the life of God? If any one inquire the nature of these works, let him now attend.
2 But recently a class of persons, impelled by furious zeal, and backed by equal power and military force, evinced their enmity against God, by destroying his churches, and overthrowing from their foundations the buildings dedicated to his worship. In short, in every way they directed their attacks against the unseen God, and assailed him with a thousand shafts of impious words. But he who is invisible avenged himself with an invisible hand.
3 By the single fiat of his will his enemies were utterly destroyed, they who a little while before had been flourishing in great prosperity, exalted by their fellow men as worthy of divine honor, and blessed with a continued period of power and glory,85 so long as they had maintained peace and amity with him whom they afterwards opposed. As soon, however, as they dared openly to resist his will, and to set their gods in array against him whom we adore; immediately, according to the will and power of that God against whom their arms were raised, they all received the judgment due to their audacious deeds. Constrained to yield and flee before his power, together they acknowledged his Divine nature, and hastened to reverse the measures which they had before essayed.
4 Our Saviour, therefore, without delay erected trophies of this victory everywhere, and once more adorned the world with holy temples and consecrated houses of prayer; in every city and village, nay, throughout all countries, and even in barbaric wilds, ordaining the erection of churches and sacred buildings to the honor of the Supreme God and Lord of all. Hence it is that these hallowed edifices are deemed worthy to bear his name, and receive not their appellation from men, but from the Lord himself, from which circumstances they are called churches (or houses of the Lord).86 
5 And now let him who will stand forth and tell us who, after so complete a desolation, has restored these sacred buildings from foundation to roof? Who, when all hope appeared extinct, has caused them to rise on a nobler scale than heretofore? And well may it claim our wonder, that this renovation was not subsequent to the death of those adversaries of God, but whilst the destroyers of these edifices were still alive; so that the recantation of their evil deeds came in their own words and edicts.87 And this they did, not in the sunshine of prosperity and ease (for then we might suppose that benevolence or clemency might be the cause), but at the very time that they were suffering under the stroke of Divine vengeance.
6 Who, again, has been able to retain in obedience to his heavenly precepts, after so many successive storms of persecution, nay, in the very crisis of danger, so many persons throughout the world devoted to philosophy, and the service of God and those holy choirs of virgins who had dedicated themselves to a life of perpetual chastity and purity? Who taught them cheerfully to persevere in the exercise of protracted fasting, and to embrace a life of severe and consistent self-denial? Who has persuaded multitudes of either sex to devote themselves to the study of sacred things, and prefer to bodily nutriment that intellectual food which is suited to the wants of a rational soul?88 Who has instructed barbarians and peasants, yea, feeble women, slaves, and children, in short, unnumbered multitudes of all nations, to live in the contempt of death; persuaded of the immortality of their souls, conscious that human actions are observed by the unerring eye of justice, expecting God’s award to the righteous and the wicked, and therefore true to the practice of a just and virtuous life? For they could not otherwise have persevered in the course of godliness. Surely these are the acts which our Saviour, and he alone, even now performs.
7 And now let us pass from these topics, and endeavor by inquiries such as these that follow to convince the objector’s obdurate understanding. Come forward, then, whoever thou art, and speak the words of reason: utter, not the thoughts of a senseless heart, but those of an intelligent and enlightened mind: speak, I say, after deep solemn converse with thyself. Who of the sages whose names have yet been known to fame, has ever been fore-known and proclaimed from the remotest ages, as our Saviour was by the prophetic oracles to the once divinely-favored Hebrew nation? But his very birth-place, the period of his advent the manner of his life, his miracles, and words and mighty acts, were anticipated and recorded in the sacred volumes of these prophets.
8 Again, who so present an avenger of crimes against himself; so that, as the immediate consequence of their impiety, the entire Jewish people were scattered by an unseen power, their royal seat utterly removed, and their very temple with its holy things levelled with the ground? Who, like our Saviour, has uttered predictions at once concerning that impious nation and the establishment of his church throughout the world, and has equally verified both by the event? Respecting the temple of these wicked men, our Saviour said: “Your house is left unto you desolate”:89 and, “There shall not be left one stone upon another in this place, that shall not be thrown down.”90 And again, of his church he says: “I will build my church upon a rock, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”91 
9 How wondrous, too, must that power be deemed which summoned obscure and unlettered men from their fisher’s trade, and made them the legislators and instructors of the human race! And how clear a demonstration of his deity do we find in the promise so well performed, that he would make them fishers of men: in the power and energy which he bestowed, so that they composed and published writings of such authority that they were translated into every civilized and barbarous language,92 were read and pondered by all nations, and the doctrines contained in them accredited as the oracles of God!
10 How marvelous his predictions of the future, and the testimony whereby his disciples were forewarned that they should be brought before kings and rulers, and should endure the severest punishments, not indeed as criminals, but simply for their confession of his name! Or who shall adequately describe the power with which he prepared them thus to suffer with a willing mind, and enabled them, strong in the armor of godliness, to maintain a constancy of spirit indomitable in the midst of conflict?
11 Or how shall we enough admire that steadfast firmness of soul which strengthened, not merely his immediate followers, but their successors also, even to our present age, in the joyful endurance of every infliction, and every form of torture, in proof of their devotion to the Supreme God? Again, what monarch has prolonged his government through so vast a series of ages? Who else has power to make war after death, to triumph over every enemy, to subjugate each barbarous and civilized nation and city, and to subdue his adversaries with an invisible and secret hand?
12 Lastly, and chief of all, what slanderous lip shall dare to question that universal peace to which we have already referred; established by his power throughout the world93 For thus the mutual concord and harmony of all nations coincided in point of time with the extension of our Saviour’s doctrine and preaching in all the world: a concurrence of events predicted in long ages past by the prophets of God. The day itself would fail me, gracious emperor, should I attempt to exhibit in a single view those cogent proofs of our Saviour’s Divine power which even now are visible in their effects; for no human being, in civilized or barbarous nations, has ever yet exhibited such power of Divine virtue as our Saviour.
13 But why do I speak of men, since of the beings whom all nations have deemed divine, none has appeared on earth with power like to his? If there has, let the fact now be proved. Come forward, ye philosophers, and tell us what god or hero has yet been known to fame, who has delivered the doctrines of eternal life and a heavenly kingdom as he has done who is our Saviour? Who, like him, has persuaded multitudes throughout the world to pursue the principles of Divine wisdom, to fix their hope on heaven itself, and look forward to the mansions there reserved for them that love God? What god or hero in human form has ever held his course from the rising to the setting sun, a course co-extensive as it were with the solar light, and irradiated mankind with the bright and glorious beams of his doctrine, causing each nation of the earth to render united worship to the One true God? What god or hero yet, as he has done, has set aside all gods and heroes among civilized or barbarous nations; has ordained that divine honors should be withheld from all, and claimed obedience to that command: and then, though singly conflicting with the power of all, has utterly destroyed the opposing hosts; victorious over the gods and heroes of every age, and causing himself alone,in every region of the habitable world, to be acknowledged by all people as the only Son of God?
14 Who else has commanded the nations inhabiting the continents and islands of this mighty globe to assemble weekly on the Lord’s day, and to observe it as a festival, not indeed for the pampering of the body, but for the invigoration of the soul by instruction in Divine truth? What god or hero, exposed, as our Saviour was, to so sore a conflict, has raised the trophy of victory over every foe? For they indeed, from first to last, unceasingly assailed his doctrine and his people: but he who is invisible, by the exercise of a secret power, has raised his servants and the sacred houses of their worship to the height of glory.
But why should we still vainly aim at detailing those Divine proofs of our Saviour’s power which no language can worthily express; which need indeed no words of ours, but themselves appeal in loudest tones to those whose mental ears are open to the truth? Surely it is a strange, a wondrous fact, unparalleled in the annals of human life; that the blessings we have described should be accorded to our mortal race, and that he who is in truth the only, the eternal Son of God, should thus be visible on earth.
Chapter XVIII.
1 These words of ours, however, [gracious] Sovereign, may well appear superfluous in your ears, convinced as you are, by frequent and personal experience, of our Saviour’s Deity; yourself also, in actions still more than words, a herald of the truth to all mankind. Yourself, it may be, will vouchsafe at a time of leisure to relate to us the abundant manifestations which your Saviour has accorded you of his presence, and the oft-repeated visions of himself which have attended you in the hours of sleep. I speak not of those secret suggestions which to us are unrevealed: but of those principles which he has instilled into your own mind, and which are fraught with general interest and benefit to the human race. You will yourself relate in worthy terms the visible protection which your Divine shield and guardian has extended in the hour of battle; the ruin of your open and secret foes; and his ready aid in time of peril. To him you will ascribe relief in the midst of perplexity; defence in solitude; expedients in extremity; foreknowledge of events yet future; your fore-thought for the general weal; your power to investigate uncertain questions; your conduct of most important enterprises; your administration of civil affairs; your military arrangements, and correction of abuses in all departments; your ordinances respecting public right; and, lastly, your legislation for the common benefit of all. You will, it may be, also detail to us those particulars of his favor which are secret to us, but known to you alone, and treasured in your royal memory as in secret storehouses. Such, doubtless, are the reasons, and such the convincing proofs of your Saviour’s power, which caused you to raise that sacred edifice which presents to all, believers and unbelievers alike, a trophy of his victory over death, a holy temple of the holy God: to consecrate those noble and splendid monuments of immortal life and his heavenly kingdom: to offer memorials of our Almighty Saviour’s conquest which well become the imperial dignity of him by whom they are bestowed. With such memorials have you adorned that edifice which witnesses of eternal life: thus, as it were in imperial characters, ascribing victory and triumph to the heavenly Word of God: thus proclaiming to all nations, with clear and unmistakable voice, in deed and word, your own devout and pious confession of his name.parparpar