Eusebius of Caesarea · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
arg| The contents of the eighth book of the Ecclesiastical History are these: 1. On the period before the persecution of our own day. 2. On the razing of the churches. 3. On the manner of the contests fought during the persecution. 4. On the renowned martyrs of God, how they made every place full of their memory, having bound on many and varied crowns for their piety. 5. On those at Nicomedia. 6. On those in the imperial households. 7. On the Egyptians in Phoenicia. 8. On those throughout Egypt. 9. On those in the Thebaid. 10. Written instructions of the martyr Phileas concerning what was done at Alexandria. 11. On those in Phrygia. 12. On a great many other men and women who contended in various ways. 13. On the presiding officers of the church who by shedding their blood proved the genuineness of the piety they championed. 14. On the manner of the enemies of piety. 15. On what befell those outside the faith. 16. On the turn of events to something better. 17. On the rulers' recantation.
praef.1| Having outlined the apostolic succession in seven complete books, in this eighth treatise we think it among the most necessary tasks to pass on to the knowledge of later generations the events of our own day, which deserve no ordinary record; and here our account will begin.
1.1| How great was the glory, and how great the freedom of speech, which the message of piety toward the universal God, announced to the world through Christ, enjoyed among all people, Greeks and barbarians alike, before the persecution of our own day, and of what kind they were, is a task beyond us to relate as it deserves;
1.2| yet proofs of it may be found in the goodwill the rulers showed toward our people. They even entrusted them with the government of provinces, and, because of the great friendliness they maintained toward the faith, released them from the anxiety over sacrificing.
1.3| What need is there to speak of those in the imperial households and of the supreme rulers? They allowed the members of their own households, wives, children and servants, to speak openly to their faces about the divine word and way of life, all but permitting them even to take pride in the freedom of their faith; and they regarded these as especially acceptable, more so than their fellow servants. Such a man was the well-known Dorotheus,
1.4| the most loyal and faithful to them of all, and for that reason held in exceptionally high honor, above those who occupied offices and governorships; and with him the renowned Gorgonius, and all who, like them, had been counted worthy of the same honor because of the word of God.
1.5| One could see, too, what favor the rulers of each church received from all procurators and governors. And how could anyone describe those gatherings of countless thousands, the crowds that assembled in every city, and the remarkable concourses in the houses of prayer? Because of them, no longer content with the old buildings, they raised spacious churches from their foundations in every city.
1.6| These things advanced with time and grew daily in size and greatness, and no envy held them back, nor could any wicked demon cast its evil eye on them or hinder them through human plots, as long as the divine and heavenly hand sheltered and guarded its own people, as being worthy of it.
1.7| But when, as a result of greater freedom, our affairs declined into slackness and sloth, and we envied and reviled one another, all but making war on ourselves with weapons, if it came to that, and with the spears of words, when leaders clashed with leaders and congregations rose in faction against congregations, and unspeakable hypocrisy and dissimulation advanced to the furthest pitch of wickedness, then the divine judgment, as is its way, sparingly, while the assemblies were still meeting, gently and moderately began to set its visitation in motion, the persecution beginning with the brethren in the army.
1.8| But we were insensible to all this. Far from striving to make the divine power kind and gracious toward us, we behaved like godless men who think our affairs are neglected and unwatched, and we piled one wickedness upon another. Those who were thought to be our shepherds cast aside the rule of piety and were inflamed with rivalries against one another, increasing only these things: strife, threats, jealousy, and mutual hostility and hatred, fiercely claiming offices of rule as though they were tyrannies. Then indeed, then, in the words of the voice of Jeremiah, the Lord, in his anger, overshadowed the daughter of Zion with a cloud and hurled the glory of Israel down from heaven; he did not remember the footstool of his feet on the day of his anger. Moreover the Lord engulfed all the loveliness of Israel and tore down all its walls,
1.9| and, in accord with the Psalms' prediction, he overthrew the covenant of his servant and brought his sanctuary down to the ground in profanation, through the destruction of the churches; he tore down all his walls and made his strongholds a terror. All who passed along the road plundered the multitudes of the people, and on top of this he became a reproach to his neighbors. For he exalted the right hand of his enemies, turned the help of his sword back, and did not support him in the war. Moreover he put an end to his cleansing and dashed his throne to the ground; he shortened the days of his time, and over all this he poured out shame upon him.
2.1| All this was indeed fulfilled in our time, when with our own eyes we beheld the houses of prayer thrown down from their height to the ground, foundations and all, and the divinely inspired, holy Scriptures handed over to fire in the middle of the marketplaces; when we saw the shepherds of the churches shamefully hiding, some here and some there, while others were disgracefully captured and mocked by their enemies. It was then too, according to another prophetic saying, that scorn was poured out upon rulers, and he made them wander in a pathless waste, where there is no road.
2.2| But describing the grim misfortunes that came to them in the end is not our task, just as it is not fitting for us to hand down to memory their earlier quarrels with one another and their improprieties before the persecution. For that reason we have decided to record nothing more about them than what serves to justify the divine judgment.
2.3| Accordingly, we have not been moved to make mention of those who were tested by the persecution, or of those who suffered complete shipwreck of their salvation and by their own decision plunged into the depths of the flood. We shall add to our general history only those things that would be of benefit first to ourselves and then to those after us. Let us therefore proceed from here to describe briefly the sacred contests of the martyrs of the divine Word.
2.4| This was Diocletian's nineteenth year of reign, the month Dystrus, which among the Romans would be called March, in which, as the feast of the Savior's Passion was approaching, imperial letters were spread everywhere, ordering that the churches be razed to the ground and the Scriptures destroyed by fire, and declaring that those holding positions of honor would be stripped of their honor, and those in household service, if they persisted in their intention of being Christian, would be deprived of their freedom.
2.5| Such was the first writing against us. Not long afterward other letters arrived, ordering that all the presidents of the churches in every place should first be thrown into chains, and afterward be forced by every means to sacrifice.
3.1| It was then, yes then, that very many of the rulers of the churches, having eagerly struggled in terrible tortures, offered displays of great contests. Countless others, their souls already numbed by cowardice, readily gave way at the very first assault. Of the rest, each underwent a different kind of torture: one had his body mistreated with scourges, another was punished by the rack and by unbearable scrapings, and from these some met an unhappy end of life. Others again went through the contest in another way.
3.2| One man, when others forcibly pushed him forward and brought him to the utterly defiling and unholy sacrifices, was released as one who had sacrificed, although he had not. Another, who had not come near at all nor touched anything polluted, but about whom others claimed that he had sacrificed, departed bearing the slander in silence. Another, picked up half dead, was cast aside as though already a corpse,
3.3| Another, lying on the ground, was dragged by the feet over a long distance, and was counted among those who had sacrificed. One man shouted and protested in a loud voice that he refused the sacrifice; another cried out that he was a Christian, glorying in confessing the saving name; another insisted he had not sacrificed, nor ever would.
3.4| Even so, these men too had their mouths struck and were silenced by the many hands of the soldiers drawn up for the purpose, and beaten about the face and cheeks, and were thrust out by force. So thoroughly did the enemies of true religion count it of great importance to seem to have accomplished their aim. But this did not succeed against the holy martyrs. What account could suffice for us to narrate them exactly?
4.1| For one could tell of countless people who showed a marvelous eagerness for reverence toward the God of the universe, not merely from the time when the persecution was stirred up against everyone, but long before that, while peace was still being maintained.
4.2| For it was only then, for the first time, as if the one who held the power were stirring from a deep stupor, that he began, still secretly and out of sight, in the interval after Decius and Valerian, to move against the churches. He did not strip for war against us all at once, but tried only those in the armies (for in this way he thought the rest would also be caught easily, if he first overcame and prevailed over those). One could then see very many of those in military service most gladly embracing private life, so that they would not have to deny their reverence for the Maker of the universe.
4.3| For when the commander of the army, whoever he was, first began the persecution against the troops, sifting and purging those enrolled in the camps, and giving them a choice either to obey and keep the honor they enjoyed, or, if they resisted the order, to be deprived of it, very many soldiers of Christ's kingdom, without hesitation and without any doubt, preferred their confession of him to the glory and prosperity they seemed to hold.
4.4| Already, though rarely, here and there one or two of them exchanged for their devout stand not only the loss of rank but even death. The man who was working the plot was then still acting with some moderation and venturing in only a few cases to go as far as blood, evidently because the multitude of believers still frightened him and wore down his resolve to launch war on everyone at once. But when he stripped for the contest more openly, it is not possible to tell in words how many martyrs of God, and of what sort, could be seen by the eyes of those living in all the cities and countries.
5.1| For example, one man, not undistinguished but among the most celebrated by the standards of eminence recognized in life, as soon as the writ against the churches was posted in Nicomedia, was moved by zeal for God, rushed forward in burning faith, took down the document, which lay in public view, as unholy and utterly impious, and tore it to pieces. Two emperors were present in that same city, the eldest of them all, together with the one who held the fourth place of rule after him. This man, the first of that time to distinguish himself in this way, endured such things as were to be expected for such a daring act, and yet kept his calm and untroubled spirit to his very last breath.
6.1| More divine and illustrious than all who have ever been praised as wonderful and celebrated for courage, whether among Greeks or among barbarians, were the martyrs that age produced in Dorotheus and his companions, the imperial servants. They had been judged worthy of the highest honor with their masters and were in no way short of the affection shown to true children, yet they considered the reproaches and labors borne for true religion, and the newly devised deaths of many kinds inflicted on them, to be truly greater wealth than the glory and luxury of life. We will mention the end that one of them met with, and leave readers to judge from it what happened to the others.
6.2| A certain man was brought into the middle of the aforementioned city, in the presence of the rulers we have described. Ordered to sacrifice, he refused; so he was commanded to be lifted high in the air, stripped naked, and to have his whole body torn with whips, until, overcome, he might do what was commanded even against his will.
6.3| When he remained unshaken even under these sufferings, they next mixed vinegar with salt, since his bones were by now showing through, and poured it over the rotting parts of his body. When he disregarded these pains as well, a grill and fire were then brought into the middle, and the remains of his body, like edible meat, were eaten away by the fire, not all at once, so that he would not be released quickly, but little by little. The men who had put him on the pyre were forbidden to let up until, even after so much, he agreed to what was being ordered.
6.4| But he held fast to his purpose with all his strength, and gave up his soul victorious in the very midst of the tortures. That was the martyrdom of a certain one among the imperial servants, a death truly worthy of his name, since Peter was what he was called.
6.5| The fates of the others were no less noble, but to keep a due measure in my account I shall pass them over, recording only this much: that Dorotheus and Gorgonius, along with many others from the imperial household, after their manifold struggles ended their lives by the noose and carried off the prizes of a victory given by God.
6.6| At this time Anthimus, who was then presiding over the church at Nicomedia, had his head cut off because of his witness to Christ; a dense throng of martyrs was joined to him. I do not know how, a fire started in the imperial palace at Nicomedia in those very days, and a false rumor spread that our people had caused it. By imperial order the God-fearing there were then put to death in heaps, whole families together: some were slaughtered with the sword, others met their end by fire. It is reported that, moved by some divine and inexpressible eagerness, men and women alike leapt onto the pyre. The executioners bound another multitude, put them on boats, and cast them into the depths of the sea.
6.7| As for the imperial servants, who after their death had been laid in the earth with proper burial, those who were regarded as their masters thought it necessary to dig them up again and cast them into the sea, so that no one might worship them as they lay in their tombs, regarding them, as the persecutors supposed, as gods. Such were the events at Nicomedia at the beginning of the persecution.
6.8| Not long afterward, when others in the region called Melitene, and again others around Syria, attempted to rise against the imperial power, an imperial command went out to throw the heads of the churches everywhere into prisons and chains.
6.9| The sight of what followed surpassed every description. An immense multitude was shut up everywhere, and all the prisons, built long ago for murderers and tomb-robbers, were by then crowded with bishops, presbyters, deacons, readers and exorcists, so that no room was left there any longer for those condemned for crimes.
6.10| Then a second letter overtook the first. In it the order was that those imprisoned should be allowed to go free if they sacrificed, but that those who resisted should be torn apart with countless tortures. How again could anyone count the multitude of martyrs in each province, especially in Africa and the nation of the Moors, in the Thebaid and throughout Egypt? From Egypt they went on to other cities and provinces as well, and were distinguished by their martyrdoms.
7.1| At any rate we know those of them who shone brightly in Palestine, and also those in Tyre of Phoenicia. Which of those who saw them was not astonished at the countless scourgings, and the resistance in them of athletes of true godliness, who were truly beyond expectation; at the contest with man-eating beasts immediately after the scourgings; at the attacks in it of leopards and various kinds of bears, of wild boars, and of bulls branded with fire and iron; and at the wonderful endurance shown by these noble men against each of the beasts?
7.2| We were present ourselves when these things were done, when we observed the divine power of our Savior, Jesus Christ himself, for whom they bore witness, present among the martyrs and plainly showing itself to them. For a long time the man-eaters did not dare to touch or approach the bodies of those dear to God. They rushed instead at the others, whoever from outside were provoking them with taunts, while the holy athletes alone, standing naked and waving their hands to draw the beasts toward themselves (for this was what they had been ordered to do), were not touched at all. At times the beasts did charge at them, but as if driven back by some more divine power, they retreated again.
7.3| When this went on for a long time it caused no small wonder in the spectators, so that, since the first beast had accomplished nothing, a second and then a third was set upon the very same martyr.
7.4| One could only be amazed at the fearless endurance of those sacred men, and at the steady, unswerving resistance found in such young bodies. You could see a youth of not quite twenty years standing there without any bonds, his hands stretched out in the form of a cross, his mind unshaken and calm, intent in the most leisurely way on his prayers to the Divine. He did not move at all, nor step aside from the spot where he stood, though bears and leopards, breathing out rage and death, nearly touched his very flesh. Yet by some divine and secret power, I know not how, their mouths were all but shut, and they ran back again the way they had come.
7.5| That was one such man. Again you could have seen others, five in all, thrown before a maddened bull. The bull tossed the other men who approached from outside into the air with its horns and tore them apart, leaving them to be carried off half dead. But when it charged in rage and menace against the holy martyrs alone, it could not even come near them. It pawed the ground with its feet, pushed this way and that with its horns, and, though breathing fury and menace because it had been goaded by red-hot irons, it was dragged back by sacred providence, so that, since it did no harm to them either, other beasts were set upon them.
7.6| At last, after these terrible and varied assaults, all of them were slain with the sword, and instead of earth and tombs they were handed over to the waves of the sea.
8.1| Such was the contest of the Egyptians at Tyre, who displayed their feats for the sake of piety. But one might also marvel at those of them who bore witness in their own land. There countless numbers, men together with women and children, despised this passing life for the sake of our Savior's teaching and endured various kinds of death. Some of them, after scrapings, rackings, the most grievous scourgings and countless other varied tortures dreadful even to hear of, were given over to fire; others were swallowed up by the sea; others bravely held out their own heads to those who cut them off; others died under the tortures; others perished of hunger; and others again were impaled, some in the usual manner of criminals, others in a still worse way, nailed upside down with the head downward and kept alive until they died of hunger on the very gallows.
9.1| Beyond all description, too, were the outrages and pains endured by the martyrs in the Thebaid. Their whole bodies were torn with potsherds instead of claws until life left them. Women were tied by one foot and hoisted into the air, hanging head downward, by certain machines, with their bodies completely naked and uncovered, offering a spectacle that was most shameful, the cruelest of all, and most inhuman to all who looked on.
9.2| Others again died bound to trees and trunks. By certain devices they drew together the strongest of the branches, fastened the legs of the martyrs to each of them, and then let the branches spring back to their natural position, contriving a sudden tearing apart of the limbs of those against whom they set about this.
9.3| All this went on not over a few days or a brief time, but over a long span of whole years. Sometimes more than ten were put to death, sometimes more than twenty, at other times no fewer than thirty, then nearly sixty, and again on another occasion a hundred in a single day, men together with quite small children and women, condemned to varied and changing punishments.
9.4| We ourselves, when we were on the spot, also saw many in a single day put to death together, some suffering beheading, others the punishment by fire, so that the iron that did the killing grew blunt and, losing its edge, was broken, and the executioners themselves, wearied out, took turns relieving one another.
9.5| It was then that we beheld a most wonderful impulse, and a truly divine power and eagerness, in those who had believed in the Christ of God. For no sooner was sentence passed on the first group than others from one place and another leapt up before the judge's tribunal, confessing themselves Christians. They were careless of terrors and of the manifold methods of torture, and spoke out fearlessly in their piety to the God of the universe, receiving the final sentence of death amid joy, laughter and good cheer, so that they chanted psalms, and to the God of the universe sent up hymns and thanksgivings until their very last breath.
9.6| These men were admirable, but still more admirable were those who had stood out for wealth, noble birth, and reputation, for eloquence and philosophy, and yet ranked everything second to true piety and to faith in our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ,
9.7| such as Philoromus, who had been entrusted with no ordinary office in the imperial administration at Alexandria. Together with his rank and his Roman honor, he used to be examined each day while guarded by soldiers. Such too was Phileas, bishop of the Thmuites' church, a man distinguished for his public service and civic offices in his homeland and for his learning in philosophy.
9.8| Countless relatives and other friends begged these two, as did officials of high standing, and the judge himself urged them to have pity on themselves and to spare their children and wives. Yet none of this persuaded them to choose love of life and to disregard the ordinances of our Savior about confessing and denying him. With a courageous and philosophical reasoning, or rather with a pious and God-loving soul, they stood firm against all the judge's threats and insults, and both were beheaded.
10.1| Since we said that Phileas was also highly esteemed for his learning in secular subjects, let him come forward as his own witness. He will show who he was, and besides this will give a more exact account than we could of the martyrdoms that took place at Alexandria, in these words.
10.2| FROM THE LETTER OF PHILEAS TO THE THMUITES. All these examples, patterns, and fine tokens are set before us in the divine and holy scriptures. So the blessed martyrs among us did not hesitate. They stretched the eye of the soul purely toward the God over all, and, keeping in mind death for the sake of piety, they clung tightly to their calling. They had found that our Lord Jesus Christ became a man for our sake, to cut away every sin and to lay up for us provisions for entry into eternal life. For he did not regard equality with God as something to be seized, but emptied himself, taking on the form of a slave, and, found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself even to death, death on a cross.
10.3| Therefore the Christ-bearing martyrs, zealous for the greater gifts, endured every hardship and every kind of contrived torture, some not once but even a second time. They endured all threats too, not only in words but also in deeds, as the guards competed in zeal against them. Yet they did not yield in resolve, because perfect love casts out fear.
10.4| What account could suffice to list their virtue and the courage each showed under torture? For since all who wished were free to abuse them, some struck them with clubs, others with rods, others used whips, others straps, and others ropes.
10.5| The spectacle of the tortures was varied and full of great cruelty. Some were hung from the wooden beam with their hands tied behind them, and every limb was stretched by machines. Then, on command, the torturers applied their instruments over the whole body. They punished not only the sides, as is done to murderers, but also the belly, the shins, and the cheeks. Others were hung up from the portico by one hand and left swinging, suffering a strain on joints and limbs more terrible than any pain. Others were bound facing the pillars, not standing upon their feet, but with their bodies' weight forcing the bonds to pull them tight.
10.6| They endured this not only while the governor was talking with them or giving them his attention, but almost the whole day long. For when he moved on to others, he left his own officers behind to keep watch over the first, in case any of them, overcome by the tortures, seemed to be giving in. He ordered them without mercy to go on applying the bonds, and afterward, while the victims were still gasping out their lives, to lay them on the ground and haul them off.
10.7| For, he said, they had not even a fraction of concern about us, but thought and acted as though we no longer existed. Our adversaries devised this as a second torment on top of the blows.
10.8| Some, even after the scourgings, were laid out on the stocks, both feet stretched through the four holes, so that they were forced to lie on their backs on the wood, unable to do otherwise because the wounds from the blows were still fresh over their whole bodies. Others were thrown down on the ground, lying there under the combined assault of the tortures, and they presented to onlookers a sight more dreadful than the act itself, bearing on their bodies the varied and diverse devices of torment.
10.9| Under these conditions some died under the tortures, shaming their adversary by their endurance. Others, shut up in prison half dead, were gripped by their pains and reached their end after not many days. The rest, having recovered through treatment, grew bolder with time and with their stay in confinement.
10.10| So, when the order was given, with the choice laid before them, either to touch the polluted sacrifice and be left unmolested, receiving from them that accursed freedom, or to refuse to sacrifice and await the sentence of death, they went to death gladly and without hesitation. For they knew what the sacred scriptures had laid down for us beforehand. For "whoever sacrifices to other gods," it says, "shall be utterly destroyed," and: "There shall be no other gods for you besides me."
10.11| Such were the words of this martyr, truly a philosopher and a lover of God together, which he sent, before his final sentence and while still held among the prisoners, to the brethren of his own diocese. In them he both related his circumstances and urged them to hold fast, even after him, to the reverence for God in Christ, since he was about to be perfected very soon.
10.12| But why should I say more, and set out one fresh contest after another of the God-honoring martyrs everywhere in the world, and particularly of those who were besieged no longer under the common law but in the manner of war?
11.1| Indeed, in Phrygia soldiers surrounded a whole small town of Christians, with all its people, and set fire to it and burned it down, with the children and women calling upon the God over all, because all the inhabitants of the town together, the curator himself and the magistrates with all the officials and the whole populace, declared themselves Christians and did not obey in the slightest those who ordered them to worship idols.
11.2| And there was another man who had attained Roman rank, Adauctus by name, of distinguished family among the Italians, who had advanced through every office of honor under the emperors, with the result that he had blamelessly passed through the general administrations of what they call the magistracy and the treasury. Having distinguished himself in all these offices by his achievements in godliness and his confessions of God's Christ, he was decorated with the martyr's crown, enduring the contest for piety in the very exercise of his post as treasurer.
12.1| Why must I name the rest now, or count the multitude of men, or paint a picture of the many-sided torments of the marvelous martyrs? Sometimes they were put to death with axes, as happened to those in Arabia; sometimes their legs were broken, as befell those in Cappadocia; sometimes they were hung up by the feet with the head downward, and a gentle fire was kindled beneath them, so that they were suffocated by the smoke given off from the burning wood, as was inflicted on those in Mesopotamia; sometimes noses, ears and hands were cut off, and the limbs that remained, with the other parts of the body, were butchered, as was the case at Alexandria.
12.2| Why need I revive the memory of the events at Antioch, where people were roasted on grills of fire, not to bring death but as a prolonged punishment, and where others thrust their right hand into the fire itself rather than touch the polluted sacrifice? Some of these, fleeing the ordeal, before they were seized and came into the hands of the plotters, hurled themselves down from high rooftops, counting death a prize snatched from the wickedness of the impious.
12.3| There was a certain woman, holy and marvelous in the virtue of her soul, a woman in body, and in all else one of those in Antioch most widely celebrated by all for her wealth, her birth and her good name. She had raised two virgin daughters, outstanding in the beauty and bloom of their bodies, in the rules of piety. Because the great envy stirred up against them was tracking them down in every way and searching them out while they lay hidden, and then, learning that they were living abroad, summoned them with deliberate care to Antioch, where they were soon enclosed within the nets of the soldiers. Seeing herself and her girls in a hopeless position, she set before them in words the terrors that men were about to inflict, and the threat of fornication, which is more unbearable than all terrors, which she urged herself and the girls not to endure even to hear with the tips of their ears. She declared that to betray their souls to slavery under the demons was worse than every kind of death and than any destruction. She proposed that the one release from all these things was refuge in the Lord,
12.4| and then, agreeing together in purpose, they arranged their bodies decently in their garments, and, coming to the very middle of the road, they begged the guards for a short withdrawal and hurled themselves into a river flowing alongside.
12.5| These, then, destroyed themselves. But another pair of virgins, at Antioch itself, in every way godly and truly sisters, famous in birth, brilliant in manner of life, young in years, lovely in body, dignified in soul, pious in character and admirable in zeal, were ordered by the servants of the demons to be thrown into the sea, as though the earth could not bear to carry such persons.
12.6| That is what happened among these people. Others in Pontus suffered things dreadful to hear: they had sharp reeds driven into their fingers, from the tips of the nails, on both hands; others had lead melted over a fire, and had the boiling, blazing metal poured down their backs, and the most vital parts of the body roasted.
12.7| Others endured, in their private members and their bowels, shameful and pitiless sufferings not even to be spoken of, which those noble and law-abiding judges, displaying their own cleverness as though it were some virtue of wisdom, eagerly devised, each striving to outdo the others with newly invented tortures, as if for prizes in a contest.
12.8| The last of the calamities came when at length they grew weary from the excess of their evils, tired of killing, and sated and glutted with shedding blood, and turned to what they regarded as kindness and humanity, so that it seemed they were no longer contriving anything terrible against us.
12.9| For they declared that it was not fitting to defile the cities by shedding the blood of their own people, nor to bring the charge of cruelty against the supreme authority of the rulers, which was gracious and mild toward all; rather the benefit of the humane and imperial power ought to be extended to everyone, and people should no longer be punished with death, since this penalty against us had been lifted through the humanity of the rulers.
12.10| At that point it was ordered that eyes be gouged out and that one of the two legs be crippled. For these were what they called humane acts and the lightest of their punishments against us, so that because of this humanity of the impious it was no longer possible to tell the number of those beyond all reckoning: some had their right eyes first cut out with the sword and then seared with fire; others had their left feet disabled by cautery at the joints of the knee; and after this they were condemned to the bronze mines of the province, less for service than for ill-treatment and hardship. In addition to all this they fell into other contests of various kinds, which cannot even be listed, for their feats of courage surpass all description.
12.11| In these trials the magnificent martyrs of Christ shone out over the whole world, and naturally astonished those everywhere who witnessed their courage, and through themselves they gave clear proofs of the truly divine and ineffable power of our Savior. To mention each by name would take long, if it were not altogether impossible.
13.1| Of the church rulers who bore witness in the famous cities, let the first to be proclaimed by us on the pillars of the pious, as a martyr for the kingdom of Christ, be the bishop of the city of Nicomedia, Anthimus, who was beheaded,
13.2| and of the martyrs at Antioch, Lucian, a presbyter of the community there and excellent in his whole life, who in Nicomedia itself, with the emperor present, first proclaimed in words the heavenly kingdom of Christ, through a defense, and then also in deeds.
13.3| Among the martyrs in Phoenicia, the most distinguished in every respect would be those God-beloved shepherds of Christ's rational flocks: Tyrannion, bishop of the church at Tyre; Zenobius, presbyter in the church at Sidon; and also Silvanus, bishop of the churches around Emesa.
13.4| Silvanus, in Emesa itself, was given as food to wild beasts along with others and was taken up into the choirs of the martyrs. But the two at Antioch both glorified the word of God through endurance unto death. One, the bishop, was handed over to the depths of the sea; the other, Zenobius, the finest of physicians, died bravely under the tortures applied to his sides.
13.5| Among the Palestinian martyrs, Silvanus, bishop of the churches around Gaza, was beheaded at the copper mines of Phaeno together with others, forty lacking one in number; and there the Egyptian bishops Peleus and Nilus, along with others, endured death by fire.
13.6| Let us also mention among these the great glory of the community at Caesarea, the presbyter Pamphilus, the most admirable man of our own time, whose manly achievements and virtue I shall record at the proper moment.
13.7| Of those who were perfected with distinction at Alexandria and throughout all of Egypt and the Thebaid, first let Peter be recorded, bishop of Alexandria itself, a truly divine figure among the teachers of piety in Christ; and among the presbyters who were with him, Faustus, Dius and Ammonius, who were perfect martyrs of Christ; likewise Phileas, Hesychius, Pachymius, and also Theodore, who were bishops of the churches of Egypt; and besides these countless other illustrious men, who are remembered by the communities in each region and place. To hand down in writing the contests of those who struggled throughout the whole world for piety toward the divine, and to relate precisely each of the things that befell them, is not my task, but would belong to those who received the events by sight. As for those I attended myself, I shall make them known to later generations in another work.
13.8| In the present account, however, I shall attach, after the things already said, the recantation of those who have acted against us, and the events that took place from the beginning of the persecution, which will prove most useful to those who read them.
13.9| As for the period before the war against us by the Roman government, during which the rulers' attitude toward us was friendly and peaceful, what account could suffice to tell of the abundance of good things and the prosperity it was granted? At that time even the chief holders of universal power, having completed their tenth and twentieth years in office, spent their days in festivals, public assemblies, brilliant banquets and rejoicing, in complete and settled peace.
13.10| While their authority was thus growing unhindered and advancing greatly day by day, they suddenly abandoned their peace with us and stirred up a war without truce. Not even two years of this undertaking had been completed when a new development affecting the whole empire overturned everything.
13.11| For an ill-omened sickness fell upon the foremost of those mentioned, by which even his mind was driven into derangement, and together with the one honored with second place after him he took up the life of a private citizen among the common people. This was not yet done when the whole empire was divided in two, something that had never happened before in any recorded memory.
13.12| After not much time had passed, the emperor Constantius, who had conducted his entire life most gently, with the greatest goodwill toward his subjects and the warmest affection for the divine Word, left behind in his place his legitimate son Constantine as emperor and Augustus, and ended his life by the common law of nature. He was the first to be declared among the gods by them, and was granted after death all the honor that could be owed to an emperor, the kindest and mildest of emperors.
13.13| He alone of our contemporaries conducted himself in a manner worthy of his rule throughout the whole time of his reign, and showed himself in every other way most gracious and beneficent to all. He took no part at all in the war against us, but kept the God-fearing under him unharmed and unmolested, neither pulling down the church buildings nor devising anything else new against us. He received a happy and thrice-blessed end of life, being the only one to die, during his own reign, with favor and good repute, with a legitimate son as his successor, one wholly prudent and devout.
13.14| His son Constantine, from the very beginning of his reign, was proclaimed a perfect emperor and Augustus by the armies, and by God himself, the sovereign of all, long before them, and made himself a zealous imitator of his father's piety toward our faith. Such was he; and after these events Licinius was declared emperor and Augustus by the common vote of the ruling emperors.
13.15| This grieved Maximin terribly, since he alone, of all of them, was still styled Caesar at that time. Being above all else a tyrant, he snatched the rank for himself and became Augustus, made so by himself. Meanwhile the man who, as I have said, had been reinstated after his abdication was caught stitching together a plot to kill Constantine, and ended in a death most shameful. He was the first to have the inscriptions set up in his honor, the statues, and everything of the kind that is customarily dedicated, torn down as the monuments of an impious and utterly godless man.
14.1| His son Maxentius, who had set up the tyranny in Rome, feigned our faith at first in order to please and flatter the Roman people. On this account he ordered his subjects to relax the persecution against the Christians, putting on a show of piety so as to appear gracious and far milder than his predecessors.
14.2| In his deeds, however, he did not turn out to be the man he was expected to be. Plunging into every kind of wickedness, he left undone no act of foulness and licentiousness, committing adultery and every sort of seduction. He would separate lawful wives from their husbands, abuse them in the most dishonorable fashion, and then send them back to their husbands. And he did not undertake this against obscure or unknown people, but chose as the object of his insolence the very men who held the first rank in the Roman senate, outraging the most distinguished of them.
14.3| All cowered before him, peoples and magistrates, the renowned and the obscure alike, and were worn down by a dreadful tyranny. Even when they kept quiet and bore their bitter slavery, there was still no release from the tyrant's murderous cruelty. On one occasion, for some trifling pretext, he handed the people over to be slaughtered by his bodyguards, and in the middle of the city countless throngs of the Roman populace were struck down, not by Scythians or barbarians but by the spears and full armor of their own countrymen.
14.4| As for the number of senators put to death in order to get at their property, it is impossible even to count them, for men beyond number were destroyed, now on one fabricated charge, now on another.
14.5| The crowning evil of the tyrant drove him to sorcery. In his magical contrivances he would at one time slit open pregnant women, at another search the entrails of newborn infants, and slaughter lions, and he arranged certain unspeakable rites to summon demons and to avert the war. For his whole hope lay in this: that these means would win him the victory.
14.6| Tyrant at Rome as he was, it is impossible to say what he did in enslaving his subjects, so that they were reduced even in the necessities of food to extreme scarcity and want, greater than any that people of our time remember ever occurring at Rome.
14.7| Meanwhile Maximin, the tyrant in the East, as though to a brother in wickedness, secretly pledged friendship to the tyrant at Rome and took pains to conceal it for a very long time. When it was later exposed, he paid the penalty he deserved.
14.8| It was astonishing how this man too carried off what was akin and brother to the depravity of the tyrant at Rome, or rather the first prizes and the trophies of wickedness. For the foremost sorcerers and magicians were thought worthy of the highest honor at his court. He was extremely timid, easily frightened by every noise, and superstitious to the last degree, and he set great store by the error of idols and demons. He could not dare, so to speak, to move even a fingernail without prophecies and oracles.
14.9| For this reason he launched his persecution against us more violently and more incessantly than his predecessors. Temples, he ordered, were to be built in every city, and the sacred precincts that had been destroyed by the passage of time to be restored with zeal. In every city and place he appointed priests of the idols, and over them, in each province, a high priest drawn from the public officials, one of those who had distinguished himself most conspicuously in every public service, with a company of soldiers and a bodyguard. And he freely bestowed governorships and the greatest privileges on all sorcerers, as though they were devout and beloved of the gods.
14.10| Setting out from this base, he tormented and oppressed not one city or region but whole provinces under his rule, utterly, with exactions of gold and silver and untold sums, with the heaviest levies, and with fines of one kind after another. He also stripped the wealthy of the property they had inherited from their ancestors, and made gifts of riches and heaps of money all at once to the flatterers around him.
14.11| In drunken excess and revelry he went so far that in his cups he would lose his head and his wits, and give orders while drunk that he regretted the next day when he had sobered up. Leaving no one any room to outdo him in debauchery and dissipation, he made himself a teacher of vice to the officials around him and to their subjects alike. He drove the army to go soft through every kind of luxury and licence, and he urged its governors and commanders to prey on their subjects through plunder and greed, so that they all but shared his tyranny with him. Why need I recall the man's passionate acts of shamelessness, or count up the multitude of women he had seduced?
14.12| Indeed it was impossible for him to go by a city without having ruined women and carried off maidens.
14.13| All of this he carried out against everyone, not Christians alone. But they, despising death, counted so great a tyranny as nothing. For the men endured fire and sword, nailing to posts, wild beasts, the depths of the sea, the cutting off of limbs, burning with hot irons, the pricking and gouging out of eyes, the maiming of the entire body, and hunger besides, with mines and chains; and in all of it they showed endurance for the sake of piety rather than exchange the reverence due to God for idols.
14.14| The women, for their part, were made no less manly than the men through the instruction of the divine Word. Some, having faced the same contests as the men, carried off equal prizes of virtue; others, when dragged away to be violated, surrendered their souls to death sooner than their bodies to defilement.
14.15| Alone among the women the tyrant set out to debauch, a Christian woman of Alexandria, most distinguished and brilliant, overcame the passionate and unrestrained soul of Maximinus by her most courageous resolve. She was renowned in other respects for wealth, birth and education, but she put everything second to chastity. Though he pressed her repeatedly, he could not bring himself to kill her, though she was ready to die, since his desire proved stronger than his anger; instead he punished her with exile and stripped her of all her property.
14.16| Countless other women, who could not bear even to hear a threat of fornication, were subjected by the governors of the provinces to every kind of torture, racking and deadly punishment. These too were admirable, yet beyond all others most admirable was the woman at Rome, truly of the noblest birth and the most chaste of all those whom Maxentius, the tyrant there, tried to abuse, acting just as Maximinus did.
14.17| For when she learned that the men who served the tyrant in such matters had come to her house (she, too, was a Christian), and that her husband, a prefect of the Romans, had out of fear allowed them to take her and lead her away, she begged a short delay, as if to adorn her body. She went into her chamber and, alone, drove a sword into herself. Dying at once, she left her body to the procurers, and by her very deeds, which speak louder than any voice, she made plain to all people, those living now and those yet to come, that of all possessions the virtue found among Christians is the only one that cannot be conquered or destroyed.
14.18| Such was the surge of wickedness that came to pass at one and the same time, brought about by the two tyrants who had divided East and West between them. Who, investigating the cause of so great an evil, would hesitate to declare it to be the persecution against us? Above all, the great confusion did not cease until Christians had regained their freedom of speech.
15.1| Throughout the whole ten-year period of the persecution, nothing ever stopped them from plotting and making war against one another. The seas could not be sailed, and no one could put in anywhere without being subjected to every outrage, racked, having his sides torn, and tortured in every way, to find out whether he had come from the enemies on the opposite side, and then being put to the cross or to punishment by fire.
15.2| Besides these things, everywhere shields and breastplates were being prepared, with missiles and spears and other equipment for the battle line, and triremes and the weapons of naval warfare were being assembled in every place. Everyone could expect nothing other than war, with every approach of each day. Upon these, afterwards, there fell also famine and plague, about which we shall relate what is needed at the proper time.
16.1| Such were the events that stretched through the whole persecution. By God's grace it ended completely in the tenth year, though it had begun to abate after the eighth. For as soon as the divine and heavenly grace displayed its watchful care over us as kind and gracious, then indeed the rulers of our day, the very men through whom the wars against us had long been carried on, changed their minds most astonishingly and sang a recantation, quenching the great fire of persecution that had been kindled, with merciful proclamations and the gentlest edicts about us.
16.2| No human cause brought this about, nor pity, as one might say, or kindness on the part of the rulers; far from it. From the beginning right up to that time they had been devising more and harsher measures against us every day, and had been renewing their cruelties against us by a variety of contrivances, each time in a different way. It was rather the plain visitation of divine providence itself, which was reconciled to its own people while it pursued the author of the evils and was angry with the leader of the wickedness of the whole persecution.
16.3| For even if these things had to happen by divine judgment, still "woe," says the scripture, "to him through whom the stumbling block comes." So a punishment sent by God came upon him, beginning from his very flesh and advancing as far as his soul.
16.4| For a sudden abscess formed in the middle of his private parts, and then a deep, fistulous ulcer, and an incurable spreading of these sores into his innermost bowels. From these there swarmed an unspeakable multitude of worms, and a deadly stench rose, since the whole bulk of his body, through over-feeding even before the disease, had turned into an excessive mass of fat, which then rotted and presented an unbearable and most dreadful sight to those who came near.
16.5| Of the physicians, some were unable to endure at all the excessive foulness of the stench and were slaughtered; others, since the whole mass was swollen and had fallen beyond any hope of recovery, could give no help, and were put to death without mercy.
17.1| And so, wrestling with such great evils, he came to a realization of the crimes he had dared to commit against the godly. Gathering his thoughts within himself, he first confessed openly to the God over all; after that he summoned his attendants and ordered them to stop the persecution against the Christians without delay, and by law and imperial decree to urge on the building of their churches and to carry out their customary activities, offering prayers on behalf of the emperor.
17.2| At once, then, the deed followed the word, and imperial edicts were posted in city after city, containing the recantation of the measures against us, in this form:
17.3| Emperor Caesar Galerius Valerius Maximianus, unconquered Augustus, supreme pontiff, greatest conqueror of the Germans, greatest of the Egyptians, greatest of the Thebans, greatest of the Sarmatians five times, greatest of the Persians twice, greatest of the Carpi six times, greatest of the Armenians, greatest of the Medes, greatest of the Adiabenians, holding tribunician power for the twentieth time, nineteenth time emperor, eighth time consul, father of his country, proconsul;
17.4| and Emperor Caesar Flavius Valerius Constantine, pious, fortunate, unconquered Augustus, supreme pontiff, holding tribunician power, emperor five times, consul, father of his country, proconsul;
17.5| and Emperor Caesar Valerius Licinianus Licinius, pious, fortunate, unconquered Augustus, supreme pontiff, holding tribunician power a fourth time, hailed emperor a third time, consul, father of the fatherland, proconsul, to his own provincials, greetings.
17.6| Among the other measures we are laying down for the benefit and advantage of the public, it was our wish earlier to set everything right in accordance with the ancient laws and the public discipline of the Romans, and to make provision that the Christians too, who had abandoned the way of life of their own parents, should return to a good purpose;
17.7| for by some reasoning such willfulness had possessed them, and such folly had seized them, that they no longer followed the practices established by those of old, which perhaps their own forebears had first set up, but made laws for themselves according to their own inclination and as each one wished, observed these laws, and gathered various crowds in various places.
17.8| Accordingly, when an order of ours followed requiring them to move over to the practices established by the ancients, very many were exposed to danger, and very many were thrown into turmoil and suffered death in every form;
17.9| And since we saw that most of them persisted in the same madness, and neither offered the worship owed to the gods of heaven nor paid heed to the god of the Christians, we looked to our own clemency and to the constant habit by which we are accustomed to grant pardon to all people, and we judged that in this matter too we ought most readily to extend our indulgence: that they may be Christians once again and may put together the buildings in which they used to assemble, on condition that they do nothing contrary to good order. By another letter we shall explain to the judges what they will need to observe.
17.10| Accordingly, in keeping with this indulgence of ours, they are bound to entreat their own god for our safety, for that of the commonwealth, and for their own, so that in every way the commonwealth may be kept sound and they may be able to live free of anxiety in their own homes.
17.11| Such was the substance of this edict in the Roman tongue, rendered into the Greek language as faithfully as possible. Now it is time to look at what came about after these things.
app.1| The author of this edict, then, after making such an admission, was released from his agonies at once, not long afterward, and departed this life. It is said that he was the first cause of the calamity of the persecution: that long before the other emperors stirred, he had set about forcing the Christians in the army, beginning with those in his own household, to turn from their faith; that he removed some from their military rank and subjected others to the most shameful outrages, and was already threatening still others with death; and that in the end he roused his partners in the empire to the persecution against everyone. It would be wrong to pass over in silence how their own lives ended as well.
app.2| Of the four who had divided the government of the whole world between them, those who were first in age and in rank withdrew from the imperial office before the persecution had run a full two years, as we have already shown; and after spending the rest of their lives in the manner of ordinary private citizens, they met the following ends.
app.3| The one who had been granted precedence in both rank and age was worn down by a long and most grievous bodily illness; the one who held second place after him snapped off his life with a noose, suffering this, according to a certain demonic portent, because of the countless villainies he had dared to commit.
app.4| Of those who came after them, the last, whom we called the instigator of the whole persecution, underwent such things as we have already related; but the one who ranked before him, Constantius, the kindest and gentlest of emperors, who passed the whole time of his reign in a manner worthy of his rule and in every other respect showed himself most gracious and most generous toward all, kept himself apart from the war against us, preserved the God-fearing people under him from harm and from abuse, neither pulled down the church buildings nor devised anything else new against us at all, and so received an end of life truly happy and thrice blessed. He alone, while still on the throne, died in peace and glory, leaving as successor to the empire his own legitimate son, a man in every way most prudent and most devout.
app.5| From the very start of his reign this son was proclaimed by the armies supreme emperor and Augustus, and he made himself a zealous follower of his father's piety toward our faith. Such, then, was the outcome of the lives of the four we described above, coming about at different times.
app.6| Of these, the only one still remaining was the one we spoke of a little earlier, who, together with those later adopted into the government, made public to all the confession already described, through the written document set out above.
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