Eusebius of Caesarea · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
arg| The ninth book of the Ecclesiastical History has these contents: 1. On the pretended relaxation. 2. On the reversal that followed. 3. On the newly erected statue at Antioch. 4. On the resolutions passed against us. 5. Concerning the forged memoirs. 6. On those who bore witness as martyrs at this time. 7. On the decree against us set up on pillars. 8. On what happened afterward in famine, plague and wars. 9. On the end of the tyrants' lives, and the words they uttered before their death. 10. On the victory of the emperors dear to God. 11. Concerning the final destruction of the enemies of true religion.
1.1| The recantation of the imperial will set out above had been spread through every part of Asia and through the provinces around it. When this had been done in this way, Maximin, the tyrant in the East, a man as impious as any who ever lived and the bitterest enemy of reverence toward the God of all things, was in no way pleased with what had been written. Instead of publishing the letter that had been sent out, he gave verbal orders to the governors under him to slacken the war against us. Since he could not openly contradict the decision of his superiors in any other way, he thrust the law already issued out of sight, and took care that it should not come into the open in the regions under his rule; then, by an unwritten command, he ordered the governors under him to ease the persecution against us. They, for their part, passed on the substance of this instruction to one another in writing.
1.2| Thus Sabinus, who among them had been honored with the rank of most eminent prefect, made the emperor's mind known to the governors of the several provinces in a Latin letter. Its translation runs as follows:
1.3| "The divinity of our masters, the most divine emperors, long ago resolved, with most earnest and devoted zeal, to turn the minds of all men toward the holy and right path of life, in order that even those who seem to follow a custom foreign to the Romans should render due worship to the immortal gods.
1.4| "But the obstinacy and most stubborn resolve of certain people went so far that neither could they be drawn back from their own purpose by the just reasoning of the command, nor did the punishment that hung over them frighten them.
1.5| "Since, therefore, it has come about that in this way many have been bringing themselves into danger, the divinity of our masters, the mightiest emperors, in keeping with the nobility of their piety, judging it foreign to their own most divine purpose that men should be cast into such great danger for such a cause, has ordered through my devotion that your sagacity be written to, so that if any of the Christians is found practicing the worship of his own people, you are to free him from molestation and danger against him, and are not to consider that anyone should be punished with penalty on this pretext, since it has been established, over so long a lapse of time, that they could in no way be persuaded to withdraw from such obstinacy.
1.6| "Your diligence ought therefore to write to the curators, the magistrates and the overseers of the district of each city, so that they may understand that it is not proper for them to concern themselves any further with this matter."
1.7| Upon this, the governors of the provinces, supposing that the purpose behind what had been written to them was genuine, made the imperial will known by letters to the curators, the magistrates and those set over the country districts. Nor did these measures go forward only on paper; far earlier they went forward in deeds as well. As though carrying an imperial order into effect, they brought out into the open and set free all whom they held shut up in prison for their confession of the divine, and released those of them who had been dispatched to the mines as a punishment. For they had supposed, deceived as they were, that this was truly the emperor's wish.
1.8| And when these things had been done in this way, all at once, like a light blazing out of a gloomy night, one could see churches being gathered in every city, crowded assemblies, and the services customarily performed at them. Every one of the unbelieving gentiles was not a little astounded at this, marveling at the unexpected nature of so great a change, and crying aloud that the Christians' God was great and alone true.
1.9| Of our own people, those who had fought out the contest of the persecutions faithfully and manfully regained once more their freedom of speech before all; while all who had grown sick in their faith and been storm-tossed in their souls hastened gladly to their own healing, entreating the strong and begging them for the right hand of salvation, and imploring God to be merciful to them.
1.10| Then the noble athletes of true devotion, released from the hardships of the mines, were sent back to their own homelands. They went through every city proud and radiant, filled with an inexpressible joy and with a boldness that no words can describe.
1.11| Crowded throngs made their journey along the middle of the highways and through the marketplaces, hymning God with songs and psalms. Those who shortly before had been driven from their native lands as prisoners, under the harshest punishment, you could now see reclaiming their own hearths with cheerful and joyful faces. Even those who had earlier raged murderously against us saw the marvel beyond all expectation and shared in the rejoicing at what had happened.
2.1| But the tyrant, who hated what is good and plotted against every blessing, the one we said ruled the eastern parts, could no longer bear this, and did not allow matters to continue in this way for even six full months. He contrived many things to overturn the peace. First he tried, on some pretext, to bar us from assembling in the cemeteries. Then, through certain wicked men, he arranged for an embassy to be sent to himself against us: he incited the citizens of Antioch to ask, as the greatest gift from him, that no Christian be permitted to live in their homeland, and he suggested that others be induced to do the same. The ringleader of all this in Antioch itself was Theotecnus, a formidable sorcerer and a wicked man, whose name did not suit him; he seemed to be the city's curator.
3.1| This man waged a great many campaigns against us. He was zealous to hunt out our people from their hiding places, as though they were impious thieves, and he devised every kind of slander and accusation against us; he became the cause of death for countless people. Finally, through some magic tricks and sorceries, he set up an image of Zeus Philios, devising for it unclean rites, ill-omened initiations and abominable purifications, until, by the oracles he claimed to receive, he displayed his wonder-working even to the emperor. Flattering the ruler to please him, he stirred up the demon against the Christians, saying that the god had commanded that Christians, as enemies of his, be driven beyond the borders of the city and of the fields around it.
4.1| Since this man was the first to succeed in his design, all the remaining officials who dwelt in the cities subject to the same rule rushed to pass the same decree. The governors of the provinces had seen that this was welcome to the emperor, and had suggested to their subjects that they do just this.
4.2| The tyrant welcomed their decrees most gladly, approving them in a written reply, and the persecution against us blazed up again from the beginning. In every city, priests of the images were appointed by Maximin himself, and above them high priests, chosen from those who had most distinguished themselves in public life and had won renown in every office. These men devoted great zeal to the worship of the gods they served.
4.3| In short, the ruler's extraordinary superstition drove all those under him, rulers and ruled alike, to do all things against us so as to please him. They gave him as their greatest gift, in return for the benefits they expected to receive from him, murderous behavior against us and the display of some new forms of malice toward us.
5.1| They fabricated Memoranda of Pilate and of our Savior, full of every blasphemy against Christ, and with the approval of the higher authority they sent them out through the whole of his realm. By public notices they ordered that these be posted openly for all to see in every place, in country and city alike, and that schoolteachers hand them to the children to study and keep in memory in place of their lessons.
5.2| While this was being done, another commander, whom the Romans call a dux, seized some notorious women from the marketplace in Damascus in Phoenicia and threatened to subject them to torture, forcing them to state in writing that they had once been Christians, that they knew of unlawful acts committed by them, that in the Lord's own houses these people practiced licentiousness, and whatever else he wanted them to say to slander our teaching. He entered their statements in the records and reported them to the emperor, and when the emperor gave orders, this document too was published in every place and city.
6.1| But the commander, before long, became his own killer and paid the penalty for his wickedness. Against us, however, exiles were stirred up once more, and harsh persecutions, and the governors of every province again launched terrible attacks on us, so that some of those distinguished in the divine teaching were arrested and received the sentence of death, which allowed no appeal. Three of them, at Emesa, a city of Phoenicia, confessed themselves Christians and were handed over to be devoured by wild beasts. Among them was Silvanus, a bishop, extremely aged, who had completed forty full years in his ministry.
6.2| At the same period Peter, too, who presided over the congregations of Alexandria with the greatest distinction, a divine marvel among bishops for the virtue of his life and his devotion to the sacred scriptures, was seized without any reason at all, with no expectation having prepared anyone for it, so suddenly and senselessly, as though Maximinus had simply given the order, and had his head cut off. With him a good number of other bishops of Egypt suffered the same.
6.3| Lucian also, a man excellent in every respect, temperate in his way of life and well trained in the sacred studies, a presbyter of the congregation at Antioch, was conducted to Nicomedia, the city in which the emperor happened to be staying then. He made before the ruler a defense of the teaching over which he presided, was handed over to prison, and was put to death.
6.4| In so short a time did Maximinus, the hater of what is good, contrive so many things against us that this persecution seemed to have been raised against us far more harshly than the earlier one.
7.1| In the midst of the cities, as had never happened at any other time, decrees of the cities against us, and the rescripts of imperial ordinances in answer to them, were engraved on bronze tablets and set up, and the children in the schools had on their lips every day Jesus and Pilate and the memoranda forged to insult us.
7.2| Here it seems necessary to me to insert this very document of Maximinus that was set up on the tablets, so that at one and the same time the boastful and arrogant insolence of the man's hatred of God may be made plain, and also the sleepless hatred of evil that the holy justice directs against the impious, by which he was overtaken, and not long afterward drove himself to the opposite policy toward us and laid it down in written laws.
7.3| COPY OF A TRANSLATION OF MAXIMINUS' REPLY TO THE DECREES AGAINST US, TRANSLATED FROM THE TABLET AT TYRE. At last the weak boldness of the human mind has had the strength to shake off and scatter every dimness and mist of error, which before this besieged, not so much the senses of the impious as those of wretched men, wrapping them in the ruinous darkness of ignorance, and to recognize that it is governed and made secure by the kindly providence of the immortal gods.
7.4| It is beyond belief to say how welcome this has been to us, how sweet and dear, as the greatest proof of your god-loving purpose, since even before this it was unknown to no one with what reverence and piety toward the immortal gods you were disposed, whose faith is recognized not by bare and empty words but by continual and astonishing deeds of note.
7.5| Therefore your city could deservedly be called the foundation and dwelling place of the immortal gods, and the fear of them. At any rate, by many examples it plainly flourishes through the presence of the heavenly gods among you.
7.6| Look, then: your city neglected all its own private interests, and passed over its earlier petitions on its own affairs, and when it perceived that the followers of the accursed folly were beginning to creep forward again, and, like a fire left unattended and gone to sleep, blazing up once more as the torches were rekindled and filling up into the greatest conflagrations, it immediately and without any delay took refuge in our piety, as in the mother city of all forms of reverence for the gods, asking for some cure and help.
7.7| It is clear that the gods put this saving thought into your minds because of the faith of your piety. Therefore that very one, that highest and greatest Zeus, who presides over your most illustrious city and rescues your ancestral gods and your wives and children and hearth and homes from every ruinous destruction, breathed into your souls this saving resolve, showing and making plain how excellent and splendid and salutary it is to approach, with due reverence, the worship of the immortal gods and their sacred rites.
7.8| For who could be so foolish, or so utterly devoid of sense, as not to perceive that it is through the gods' benevolent concern that the soil does not reject the seeds entrusted to it and deceive the farmers' hope with empty expectation; that the sight of impious war is not planted unchecked upon the land; that bodies, once the temperate climate of the heavens is spoiled, are not dragged parched toward death; that the sea does not swell and heave to a peak under the blasts of measureless winds; that unlooked-for squalls do not burst down and stir up destructive storm; and further, that the earth, who nurses and bears us all, does not sink in fearful trembling from her lowest depths, nor the mountains upon her break apart as chasms open? All these things, and others far worse still, have often happened before this time, as no one is unaware.
7.9| And all of this came about because of the deadly error and empty folly of those lawless men, at the time when it prevailed in their souls and, one might almost say, weighed down every part of the world with shame.
7.10| After this, among other matters, he adds: Let them now look upon the broad plains, where the crops are in flower and ripple with their ears of grain, and the meadows, bright with growth and blossoms thanks to good rains, and the condition of the air, which has been restored to a mild and most gentle temper.
7.11| Let all now rejoice, because through our piety, our sacrifice and our reverence the powerful and unyielding air has been appeased, and for that reason let them enjoy a calm peace securely and in quiet, and take their pleasure in it. And let those who have gained entirely from that blind error and wandering and have returned to a right and most excellent understanding rejoice even more, as men snatched from unexpected storm or heavy sickness who will reap the sweet enjoyment of life henceforward.
7.12| But if they remain in their accursed folly, let them be expelled and removed far from your city and its surroundings, as you have requested, so that your city, consistently with your praiseworthy zeal in this matter, may be kept apart from every pollution and impiety, and may obey, with the reverence owed, its inborn purpose in the rites of the immortal gods.
7.13| And so that you may know how welcome your petition on this matter has been to us, and how our soul, most eager in its goodwill, acts of its own free will without any decrees or entreaty, we permit your devotion to ask whatever grand gift you wish in return for this god-loving purpose of yours.
7.14| Make up your mind now to do this and to receive it, for you will obtain it without any delay. Once granted to your city, it will furnish testimony for all time of your god-loving piety toward the immortal gods, and will be shown to your sons and descendants that you obtained from our kindness the rewards you deserve, on account of this choice of life of yours.
7.15| These measures against us were set up on tablets in every province, shutting out every good hope for our affairs, at least as far as men were concerned, so that, according to that divine saying, even the elect themselves, if it were possible, would be led astray by them.
7.16| Then, when the hope of most people was almost fading away, suddenly, while the men who were carrying out the written order against us were still on the road, journeying through certain regions, God, the champion of his own church, all but stopping the tyrant's boasting against us, displayed heavenly alliance on our behalf.
8.1| The customary rains and showers, since it was the winter season, kept up their usual fall upon the earth; but an unexpected famine struck, and a plague after it, and the onset of another sickness, an ulcer aptly called anthrax because of its fiery nature. It spread over whole bodies and put the sufferers in perilous danger, but above all it attacked the eyes, most often and most severely, and left countless men, together with women and children, blind.
8.2| On top of these troubles came the tyrant's war against the Armenians, men who had been allies and friends of the Romans since ancient times. Since they were Christians and zealous in their reverence for the divine, the God-hater tried to force them to offer sacrifice to idols and demons, and so turned friends into enemies and allies into foes.
8.3| All these things converging suddenly at one and the same moment exposed the tyrant's arrogance and his boastful defiance of the divine. He had boasted that, in his reign, despite his zeal for his idols and his siege against us, neither famine nor plague nor even war had occurred. Now these afflictions came together, all at once, and they formed the prelude to his own downfall.
8.4| He himself was worn down with his armies in the war against the Armenians, while the rest of the people living in the cities under his rule were terribly ground down by famine and plague together, so that a single measure of wheat sold for two thousand five hundred Attic drachmas.
8.5| Countless numbers were dying in the cities, and even more in the fields and villages, so that the once populous registers of the country people were very nearly wiped out entirely, since almost all of them perished together from lack of food and from the pestilential disease.
8.6| Some thought it right to sell their dearest possessions to the better-off for the smallest scrap of food; others, selling off their property bit by bit, were driven into the last extremity of want; and some, chewing small shreds of hay and eating without discrimination any harmful plants, ruined the condition of their bodies and died.
8.7| Some of the well-born women in the cities, forced by poverty into shameless necessity, had even gone out to beg in the marketplaces, showing by the modesty of their faces and the decency of their dress a hint of the free-born life they had once led.
8.8| Some, wasted away like corpses made into phantoms, staggered about gasping out their lives here and there, lurching and slipping, and, unable to stand, fell down and lay stretched face down in the middle of the streets. They begged someone to hand them a small piece of bread, and with their lives at their last breath they cried out that they were hungry, having strength for that one most painful cry alone.
8.9| Others, those who seemed to be better off, were appalled by the crowd of beggars; after giving countless handouts they turned in the end to a harsh and unyielding attitude, expecting that they themselves would very soon suffer the same as those who begged from them. As a result, naked corpses lay scattered for many days unburied in the middle of the marketplaces and alleys, offering onlookers a most pitiful sight.
8.10| Some even became food for dogs, and for this reason above all the living turned to killing dogs, for fear that they would go mad and turn to eating human beings.
8.11| The plague, no less, fed upon every household, especially those which the famine could not wear down because they were well supplied with food. Thus the wealthy, rulers and governors and countless officials, as if deliberately left by the famine to the pestilential disease, suffered a sharp and very swift death. Everything was full of lamentation, and in every alley, marketplace and street there was nothing else to see but dirges, with the flutes and the beating of breasts that usually accompany them.
8.12| In this way, waging war with the two weapons mentioned, plague and famine together, death consumed whole families within a short space of time, so that the bodies of two or three dead could already be seen carried out in a single funeral procession.
8.13| Such was the reward for Maximinus' boasting and for the decrees passed against us in the cities, and at that time the tokens of the Christians' zeal and piety in everything became plain to all the nations.
8.14| For they alone, in so great a crisis of misfortunes, demonstrated their sympathy and humanity by their deeds. All day long some of them devoted themselves to caring for and burying the dead (there were tens of thousands who had nobody to care for them), while others gathered the multitude of those wasting away from hunger throughout the whole city into one assembly and distributed bread to them all. The matter became famous among all people, who glorified the Christians' God and, convinced by the very facts, acknowledged that these alone were truly pious and reverent toward God.
8.15| When these things had been carried out in this way, the great and heavenly defender of the Christians, God, having shown through the events described his threat and anger against all people for the excess of their conduct toward us, gave back to us once more the kindly and radiant light of his providence over us. As though in deep darkness, he made a light of peace shine on us from himself, against all expectation, and made it plain to everyone that God himself had been overseer of our affairs throughout: he scourges his people and at fitting times turns them back through trials, and then, after discipline sufficient for the purpose, appears again gracious and kind to those who place their hopes in him.
9.1| So it was that Constantine, whom we have already said was an emperor born of an emperor, a devout man born of a most devout and wholly self-controlled father, and Licinius, who came after him, both honored for understanding and piety, two men dear to God, were raised up by the almighty God and Savior of all against the two most impious tyrants, and drew up their battle lines according to the law of war, with God fighting beside them in the most marvelous way. Maxentius fell at Rome before Constantine, and the tyrant in the east, who outlived him by no long time, himself ended his life by a most shameful death under Licinius, who at that time had not yet become mad.
9.2| Constantine, first both in honor and in rank of imperial power, was the first to spare those who were being tyrannized at Rome. He called on the heavenly God and his Word, the Savior of all, Jesus Christ himself, as an ally through prayers, and advanced with his whole army, seeking to win back for the Romans the freedom of their forefathers.
9.3| Maxentius took heart from the contrivances of sorcery more than from the goodwill of his subjects, and did not dare to go even as far as the gates of the city. With countless heavy infantry and with innumerable companies of troops he had walled in every place, district and city around Rome and the whole of Italy that had been enslaved to him. But the emperor, who had taken up the alliance that comes from God, attacked the tyrant's first, second and third lines of battle and captured them all with ease. He advanced over a very great stretch of Italy and was already close to Rome itself.
9.4| Then, so that he would not be forced to make war on the Romans on the tyrant's account, God himself drew the tyrant, as though with chains, far away from the gates. What had long ago been proclaimed against the impious was disbelieved by most people as if it were a tale, though it was believed by believers, inscribed as it is in the sacred books. These marvels God now confirmed, to put it simply, with the plain evidence of the facts, for believers and unbelievers alike, since they had received the wonders with their own eyes.
9.5| Just as under Moses himself and the ancient God-fearing nation of the Hebrews he hurled the chariots of Pharaoh and his force into the sea: his chosen riders, the officers, were swallowed up in the Red Sea, and the deep covered them. Likewise Maxentius, and the heavy infantry and bodyguards around him, sank to the depths like a stone. This happened when he turned his back before the power from God that was with Constantine and crossed the river that lay before his march. He had himself joined its banks with boats and bridged it well, and so built a machine of destruction against himself.
9.6| Of this one could say: He dug a pit and excavated it, and he will fall into the hole that he made. His labor will return upon his own head, and his injustice will come down upon his own crown.
9.7| So, when the bridge over the river was broken apart in this way, the crossing gave way, and the boats went down all at once into the depths with all their men. First the most impious man himself, and then those of his guard around him, sank like lead in mighty water, just as the divine oracles proclaim beforehand.
9.8| Therefore it would be fitting for us, if not in words then at least in deeds, like those around the great servant Moses, to hymn, as those who have won victory from God, the very things done against the tyrant who was impious of old, and to say in some such way: Let us sing to the Lord, for he has been gloriously glorified. Horse and rider he has cast into the sea. My helper and protector is the Lord; he has become my salvation. Who is like you among the gods, Lord? Who is like you? Glorified among the holy ones, marvelous in glories, doing wonders.
9.9| When Constantine had hymned the sovereign God, the author of his victory, in deeds themselves, with these acts and others akin and similar to them, he marched into Rome in triumph. All the people there, little children and women together with the senate's members and the rest of the most distinguished men, and the whole Roman populace, received him with shining eyes and with their very souls, as a deliverer, savior and benefactor, with acclamations and insatiable joy. But he, who possessed piety toward God as something inborn,
9.10| was not in the least shaken by their shouts or exalted by their praises, being fully conscious of the help that came from God. At once he commanded that a trophy of the Savior's suffering be set up beneath the hand of his own statue. He had them place him in the most frequented spot in Rome, holding the saving sign in his right hand, and ordered them to inscribe this very legend in the Roman language, in these words:
9.11| By this saving sign, the true proof of courage, I rescued your city from the tyrant's yoke and set it free; and I freed the senate and the Roman people, and gave them back their ancient distinction and splendor.
9.12| After this, Constantine himself, and the emperor Licinius together with him, who had not yet turned his mind to the madness into which he later fell, made God, the cause of all their blessings, gracious to them. Both of them, with one counsel and purpose, drew up in the fullest detail a most perfect law on behalf of the Christians. They sent to Maximinus, who was still ruling the nations of the East and feigning friendship toward them, both an account of the marvels God had worked for them, including the victory over the tyrant, together with the law itself.
9.13| Being, as a tyrant would be, deeply pained at what he learned, and wishing neither to seem to yield to others nor, out of fear of those who had commanded it, to suppress the order, he wrote to the governors under him this letter on behalf of the Christians, as though on his own authority and under compulsion. It was the first of its kind, and in it he falsified against himself, with feigned words, things he had never done before.
9a.1| COPY OF A TRANSLATION OF THE TYRANT'S LETTER. Jovius Maximinus Augustus to Sabinus. I am convinced that it is plain to your firmness and to all men alike that our lords Diocletian and Maximian, our fathers, seeing that nearly everyone had given up the worship of the gods and mingled with the nation of the Christians, rightly ordained that all who had withdrawn from the worship of those very immortal gods should be recalled to worship them by open punishment and penalty.
9a.2| When I first arrived in the East, and fortunately so, and learned that very many men who could benefit the public interest were being banished by the judges to certain places for the reason stated above, I gave each of the judges instructions that none of them should henceforth deal harshly with the provincials, but should rather recall them to the gods' worship by means of flattery and exhortation.
9a.3| At that time, then, when the judges were observing my orders in accordance with my command, it came about that no one in the eastern regions was either exiled or insulted; rather, because nothing harsh was done against them, they were called back to the worship of the gods.
9a.4| But afterward, last year, when in good fortune I arrived at Nicomedia and was staying there, citizens of that city came to me together with the images of the gods, earnestly begging that by every means such a people should never be permitted to live in their native city.
9a.5| But when I learned that very many men of that religion were living in those parts, I gave them this answer: that I felt gratitude for their request, and gladly so, but I saw that it had not been asked by all. If, then, there were some who remained in the same superstition, each one should be free to follow his own choice, and, if they wished, to acknowledge the worship of the gods.
9a.6| Nevertheless, to the people of Nicomedia in the same city and to the other cities, which have likewise made a similar request to me with such great zeal, namely that no Christian should dwell in their cities, I felt bound to reply in a friendly way. All the ancient emperors have kept to this very practice, and it has pleased the gods themselves, through whom all men and the very administration of public affairs stand firm. Therefore I would confirm the great request which they present for the sake of the worship of their deity.
9a.7| Therefore, although even before this time written instructions were sent to your devotion, and orders were likewise given, that those who took care to maintain this custom were not to be treated harshly in the case of the provincials, but that people should deal with them patiently and with moderation, nevertheless, so that they might endure neither insults nor shakings from the beneficiarii or from any others who happen along, I thought it fitting to remind your steadfastness by this letter as well, so that by flattery and exhortation, rather, you may bring our provincials to recognize the care of the gods.
9a.8| Hence, if anyone of his own choice should take up the worship of the gods, as one ought to acknowledge it, it is fitting to welcome them; but if some wish to follow their own religion, you should leave them within their own authority.
9a.9| Therefore your devotion must preserve what has been entrusted to you, and authority must be given to no one to crush our provincials with insults and shakings, since, as was written above, it is by exhortation and flattery rather that our provincials ought to be called back to the worship of the gods. And so that this order of ours may reach the knowledge of all our provincials, you must make what has been ordered known by an edict published by you.
9a.10| He gave these orders under the pressure of necessity, forced into them, and not according to his own judgment; and he was no longer regarded by anyone as truthful or trustworthy, because of his earlier shifting and falsified intention after a similar concession.
9a.11| So none of our people dared to hold a synod or to present himself openly, because the letter did not allow even this; it permitted us only to be kept free from harassment, but it did not command us to hold synods, or to build houses of churches, or to carry out any other of our customary practices.
9a.12| And yet the champions of peace and piety had written to allow these things to him and had conceded them to all under their authority by edicts and laws; but the utterly impious man had not chosen to yield on this point, until, driven on by divine justice, he was finally brought to it against his will.
10.1| Such was the cause that came around upon him. Unable to bear the greatness of the rule entrusted to him beyond his worth, and attempting affairs in a tasteless way through his inexperience of sound and imperial reasoning, and above all lifted up in his soul, without reason, by the boastfulness of arrogance, he already set out to behave insolently even against his partners in the empire, who surpassed him in everything: in birth, upbringing and education, in rank and intelligence, and, most important of all, in self-control and in piety toward the true God, and to proclaim himself first in rank. Stretching his madness to the point of frenzy,
10.2| he broke the treaty he had made with Licinius and raised an implacable war. Then, throwing everything into confusion in a short time, and stirring up every city, and gathering the whole army, countless tens of thousands in number, he went out to battle and drew himself up against him, his soul lifted up by hopes in demons, whom he took to be gods, and by the myriads of his heavy-armed soldiers.
10.3| And when he joined battle, he was left bereft of the oversight of God, for the victory was granted to the ruler of that time by the one God alone, the God of all. He lost first the heavy infantry in which he had placed his trust,
10.4| for the bodyguards around him left him exposed and utterly abandoned and fled to the victor. The wretch stripped off as quickly as he could the imperial finery that did not suit him, and in cowardly, base and unmanly fashion slipped into the crowd; then he ran away, concealing himself in fields and villages, and barely got through the hands of his enemies, seeking to arrange his own survival. By the very facts he showed the divine oracles to be thoroughly trustworthy and true,
10.5| in which it is said: No king is saved through his great power, and a giant will not be delivered by his abundant strength. The horse is a false hope for safety, and by the abundance of its power it will not be saved. See, the Lord's eyes are upon those who fear him, upon those who hope for his mercy, to rescue their souls from death.
10.6| Filled with shame in this way, the tyrant turned to his own affairs. First, in a frenzy of rage, he executed many of the priests and prophets belonging to the gods he had long admired, whose oracles had fired him to take up the war, calling them sorcerers and frauds and, above all, betrayers of his own safety. Then he glorified the God of the Christians and drew up, in the fullest and most complete terms, a law for their freedom. Soon afterward he died a miserable death, with no interval of time granted to him, and ended his life. The law he sent out was as follows.
10.7| COPY OF THE TYRANT'S ORDINANCE IN FAVOR OF THE CHRISTIANS, TRANSLATED FROM THE ROMAN LANGUAGE INTO GREEK. Emperor Caesar Gaius Valerius Maximinus, Germanicus, Sarmaticus, pious, fortunate, unconquered Augustus. We believe that no one is unaware, but that every person, by returning to the facts of the matter itself, both knows and can clearly see within himself, that we continually take thought in every way for the benefit of our provincials and wish to provide them with those things by which the interests of all are best advanced, and everything that belongs to their common advantage and benefit, whatever suits the public good and is pleasing to the minds of each.
10.8| Since, then, it became clear to our knowledge before this time that the assemblies of the Christians had been forbidden by the most divine Diocletian and Maximian, our parents, on which pretext many disturbances and confiscations were carried out by the officials, and that this was continuing to grow against our provincials, for whom we are especially eager that proper care be taken, as their own property was being worn away, we legislated last year, by letters sent to the governors of each province, that if anyone wished to follow this custom or the same observance of worship, he should hold to his purpose without hindrance, should be impeded or prevented by no one, and should have freedom, without any fear or suspicion, to do whatever pleases each.
10.9| Even now, however, it could not escape us that some of the judges disregarded our orders, made our people hesitate over our commands, and caused them to approach with more reluctance those forms of worship that were pleasing to them.
10.10| So that in future every suspicion or doubt of fear may be removed, we have ordered that this edict be posted publicly, so that it may be clear to everyone that those who wish to pursue this sect and form of worship are permitted, by this gift of ours, to take up that worship which they chose to practice by custom, in whatever way each one wishes or finds agreeable. It is also permitted that they build their own houses of the Lord.
10.11| In order, moreover, that our gift may be greater, we have also thought it right to enact this: if any houses and lands that previously belonged to the right of the Christians passed, by the command of our parents, into the right of the treasury, or were seized by some city, whether they have been sold or given to someone as a gift, we have ordered all of these to be restored to the ancient right of the Christians, so that in this too all may perceive our piety and our care.
10.12| These were the words of the tyrant, which followed the decrees against the Christians that he had set up on pillars by less than a full year. In his eyes we had shortly before seemed impious and godless and the destruction of all life, so that we could not live in a city, or even in the countryside or the wilderness. Now, from the same man, ordinances and laws were drawn up in favor of the Christians. Those who a little earlier, before his eyes, were being destroyed by fire and sword, by the food of beasts and birds, and who were enduring every form of torment and punishment, and a most pitiable departure from life, as godless and impious men, were now acknowledged by him as practicing a religion of their own, were permitted to repair houses of the Lord, and the tyrant himself admitted that they had some rights.
10.13| Having made such admissions, as though he had received some benefaction on account of these very men, although he suffered less than he surely ought to have suffered, he was struck suddenly by a scourge from God in the second engagement of the war and met his end.
10.14| His end did not come in the way it has often fallen to generals and commanders, who show their courage in war for the sake of virtue and their friends, to meet a glorious death with a bold heart. Instead, as an impious man and an enemy of God, he stayed at home and kept himself hidden while his battle line was still drawn up before him on the field, and there he underwent the punishment he deserved. God struck him all at once with a scourge that covered his whole body, so that, driven by terrible pains and agonies, he fell headlong to the ground. He wasted away with hunger, and all his flesh was melted by an unseen fire sent from God, so that the whole appearance of his former shape dissolved and vanished, and nothing was left of him but a likeness made of dry bones, like a skeleton long dried out. Those who were with him could think of nothing else but that his body had become his soul's tomb, buried as it was in something already dead and entirely wasted away.
10.15| As the fever burned him still more fiercely out of his deepest marrow, his eyes burst out, fell from their sockets, and left him blind. Even then, while he still had breath, he made confession to the Lord and called for death. At the very last he acknowledged that he had suffered these things justly, on account of his drunken violence against Christ, and so he gave up his soul.
11.1| So Maximin was removed: he had been the only one of the enemies of godliness still left, and had shown himself the worst of them all. By the favor of God the Ruler of all, the work of restoring the churches from their foundations went up; the word of Christ, shining out to the glory of the universe's God, enjoyed a greater freedom than before; and the enemies of godliness, in their impiety, were filled with the utmost shame and disgrace.
11.2| For first Maximin himself was proclaimed by the rulers the common enemy of all, and was denounced in public proclamations as a most impious, most infamous and most God-hated tyrant. Of the portraits set up in each city to honor him and his children, some were hurled from their height to the ground and smashed, while others had their faces defaced and blackened with dark paint. In the same way all the statues that had been raised in his honor were thrown down and smashed, and lay there as a laughingstock and a plaything for anyone who wanted to insult and abuse them.
11.3| Next, the other enemies of godliness were likewise stripped of all their honors, and all who had sided with Maximin were put to death, above all those whom he had honored with high office and who, to flatter him, had arrogantly abused our faith.
11.4| Such was Peucetius, the most honored and esteemed of all his companions and the most loyal of his friends, whom he had made consul twice and then three times and had appointed chief minister of finance; such too was Culcianus, who had likewise risen through every grade of office and who had covered himself in glory with the blood of countless Christians in Egypt; and not a few others besides these, through whom above all the tyranny of Maximin had been strengthened and enlarged.
11.5| Justice summoned Theotecnus as well, for she by no means let his deeds against the Christians pass into oblivion. On the strength of the idol he had set up at Antioch he had seemed to prosper, and had even been made a governor by Maximin.
11.6| But when Licinius arrived at the city of Antioch, he made a search for sorcerers, and had the prophets and priests of the newly made idol tortured, demanding to know by what means they had staged their deception. Under the pressure of the tortures they could no longer keep it hidden, and they disclosed that the whole mystery was a fraud contrived by the craft of Theotecnus. Licinius then inflicted on them all the punishment they deserved: first Theotecnus himself, and after him his partners in the sorcery, were put to death after a great many tortures.
11.7| To all these were added the sons of Maximin as well, whom he had already made partners in the imperial honor and in the display of portraits and paintings. Those too who had once boasted of kinship with the tyrant and had been puffed up to lord it over all people suffered the same fate as those already mentioned, with the utmost disgrace, since they had not received instruction, nor known nor understood the exhortation in the sacred words that says:
11.8| "Do not put your trust in rulers, in the sons of men, who have no salvation in them. His spirit will depart, and he will return to his earth; on that day all their thoughts will perish." So, when the impious had been cleared away, the sovereignty that was rightfully theirs was kept firm and uncontested for Constantine and Licinius alone. Having purged from life the hatred of God shown by all who came before them, and conscious of the good things God had bestowed on them, they displayed their love for virtue and for God, together with their piety and gratitude toward the Divine, by their legislation on behalf of the Christians.
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