Life of Constantine — Book I

Eusebius of Caesarea · a new plain-English translation from the Greek

TOC.1| Chapter headings of the Life of the blessed Emperor Constantine, lived according to God. Book 1. 1. Preface, on the death of Constantine. 2. On his sons, who became emperors. The preface continued. 3. On God, who honors pious emperors and destroys tyrants. 4. That God honored Constantine. 5. That [he was] over sixty. 6. That he was a servant of God and a conqueror of nations. 7. A comparison with Cyrus the king of the Persians and Alexander the king of the Macedonians. 8. That he ruled almost the whole inhabited world. 9. That he was the pious son of an emperor and left the empire to sons who were emperors. 10. On why this history is both necessary and profitable to the soul. 11. That he has now recorded only those deeds of Constantine that were dear to God. 12. That Constantine, like Moses, was brought up in the houses of tyrants. 13. On his father Constantius, who would not tolerate Diocletian, Maximian and Maxentius persecuting the Christians. 14. How his father Constantius, reproached by Diocletian for his poverty, filled his treasuries and then gave the money back to those who had brought it. 15. On the persecution carried out by the others. 16. How his father Constantius, pretending to practice idolatry, dismissed those who were willing to sacrifice, and kept in his palace those who chose to confess their faith. 17. On his devotion to Christ. 18. That when Diocletian and Maximian had laid down their office, Constantius was thereafter the senior Augustus, and was blessed with fine children. 19. On his son Constantine, who as a young man had earlier come to Palestine in company with Diocletian. 20. Constantine's withdrawal to his father because of Diocletian's plots. 21. The death of Constantius, who left his son Constantine as emperor. 22. How, when Constantius had been carried to burial, the armies proclaimed Constantine Augustus. 23. The overthrow of the tyrants, in a brief reminder. 24. That Constantine held imperial power by the will of God. 25. Constantine's victories over the barbarians and the Britons. 26. How he resolved to free Rome from Maxentius. 27. That, having considered the ruin of the idolaters, he chose Christianity instead. 28. How, when he prayed, God granted him the vision: a cross of light in the sky at midday, and writing urging him to conquer by it. 29. How the Christ of God, appearing to him in a dream, ordered him to make a likeness of the sign of the cross and use it in the wars. 30. The making of this same sign of the cross. 31. A description of the cross-shaped sign that the Romans now call the labarum. 32. How Constantine, after receiving instruction, read the divine scriptures. 33. On the adulteries Maxentius committed in Rome. 34. How the wife of the prefect killed herself to preserve her chastity. 35. The slaughter of the Roman people by Maxentius. 36. Maxentius' sorceries, and the shortage of food in Rome. 37. The defeat of Maxentius' armies in Italy. 38. The death of Maxentius at the bridge over the river Tiber. 39. Constantine's entry into Rome. 40. On his statue holding a cross, and its inscription. 41. Celebrations throughout the provinces, and Constantine's gifts. 42. Honors paid to bishops, and the building of churches. 43. On Constantine's acts of kindness toward the poor and needy. 44. How he took part in the councils of the bishops. 45. How he bore patiently even with the foolish. 46. Victories over the barbarians. 47. The death of Maximin, who had tried to plot against him, and of others whose plots Constantine discovered through revelation. 48. The festival of Constantine's tenth anniversary. 49. How Licinius oppressed the East. 50. How Licinius also sought to plot against Constantine. 51. Licinius' schemes against the bishops, and his prohibition of councils. 52. Banishments and confiscations of property directed against Christians. 53. An order that women were not to assemble in the churches, and that congregations were to pray outside the gates. 54. That those who would not sacrifice were to be discharged from the army, and that those in prison were not to be given food. 55. On Licinius' lawless acts, his greed and his debaucheries. 56. That he finally set about launching a persecution. 57. That Maximian, struck down by a fistula and by worms, wrote in favor of the Christians. 58. That Maximin, after persecuting the Christians, fled and hid himself in the guise of a slave. 59. That Maximin, blinded by disease, wrote in favor of the Christians. Chapter headings of the first book. Book 1.

TOC.2| The chapters of the second book. 1. Licinius' secret persecution, in which he kills bishops at Amasea in Pontus. 2. The demolition of churches and the butchering of bishops. 3. How Constantine was moved to act on behalf of Christians who were about to be persecuted. 4. That Constantine prepared for war with prayers, but Licinius with divinations. 5. What Licinius said about the idols and about Christ while sacrificing in the grove. 6. Apparitions in the cities under Licinius, as if Constantine's armies were passing through. 7. That in battles, wherever the sign of the cross was present, victory followed. 8. That fifty men were chosen to carry the cross. 9. That of the cross-bearers the one who fled was killed, while the one who stayed firm in faith was saved. 10. Engagements, and the victories of Constantine. 11. The flight of Licinius, and his sorceries. 12. How Constantine won by praying in a tent. 13. His kindness toward captured soldiers. 14. More on the prayers in the tent. 15. Licinius' deceit concerning friendship, and his idolatry. 16. How Licinius urged his soldiers not to fight against the cross. 17. The victory of Constantine. 18. The death of Licinius, and the celebrations of victory over it. 19. Rejoicing and festivals. 20. How Constantine legislated on behalf of the confessors. 21. How he also did so concerning martyrs and church property. 22. How he also recovered the civic communities. 23. That he proclaimed God the cause of good things, and on copies of laws. 24. The law of Constantine on piety toward God and on Christianity, in which the following is contained. 25. An example from ancient times. 26. On the persecuted and the persecutors. 27. How much evil the persecution brought upon those who dared it. 28. That God chose Constantine as the servant of good things. 29. Constantine's pious words to God, and praise of the confessors. 30. A law releasing people from exile, from service on the council, and from confiscation of property. 31. Likewise for those on the islands. 32. For those disgraced in the mines and in public works. 33. On confessors who served as soldiers. 34. The release of free persons who had been given over to the women's workshops or to slavery. 35. On the inheritance of the property of martyrs, confessors, those banished, and those whose goods were taken into the treasury. 36. That where the dead have no relatives, the church is to be heir, and gifts they made to anyone are to stand. 37. That those who hold such lands, gardens and houses are to give them back, without accounting for what they have enjoyed from them. 38. In what manner petitions about these matters must be submitted. 39. That the treasury is to give back to the churches lands, gardens, houses and the rest. 40. That the martyr shrines and the cemeteries are to be given back to the churches. 41. That buyers of church property, and those who took it as a gift, must restore it. 42. An exhortation to worship God zealously. 43. How what Constantine had enacted was carried out in deeds. 44. That he promoted Christians to be governors, and if any were Greeks, sacrificing was forbidden them. 45. On laws that prohibited sacrifices and commanded the building of churches. 46. Constantine to Eusebius and the other bishops, on the building of the churches, and that the old ones be repaired and larger ones built through the governors. 47. That he wrote against idolatry. 48. Constantine's edict to the provinces on the error of polytheism, in which there is a prologue on vice and virtue. 49. On the God-loving father of Constantine, and on Diocletian and Maximian, the persecutors. 50. That the persecution was stirred up because of the oracle of Apollo, who said he could not prophesy because of the righteous. 51. That while still young, Constantine heard Diocletian himself, who wrote about the persecution because he had heard that the righteous were Christians. 52. How many kinds of tortures and punishments were dared against Christians. 53. That barbarians welcomed Christians. 54. What justice overtook those who persecuted because of the oracle. 55. Constantine's doxology to God, his confession concerning the sign of the cross, and a prayer for the churches and peoples. 56. That he prays that all be Christians, yet does not compel them. 57. A doxology to God through the Son, who gave light to those who had gone astray. 58. Another doxology, drawn from the working of the universe. 59. A doxology to God, who always teaches good things. 60. Exhortations at the end of the edict that no one trouble anyone. 61. How, starting from Alexandria, disputes were stirred up because of Arius. 62. On the same matter, and on the Melitians. 63. How Constantine sent a message and wrote about peace. 64. Constantine to Alexander the bishop and Arius the presbyter. 65. That he was habitually concerned about peace. 66. That he also set right the disputes in Africa. 67. That the affairs of piety began from the East. 68. That, grieved at the strife, he gives advice about peace. 69. Where the dispute of Alexander and Arius began, and that these matters ought not to have been debated. 70. Exhortations concerning concord. 71. Not to quarrel over the same thing because of trifling words. 72. That out of reverence he was driven to tears by his deep distress, and that for this reason he held back from setting out for the East. 73. The disturbance of the disputes persisted even after this letter. Chapters of the second book.

TOC.3| Chapters of the third book. 1. A comparison of Constantine's piety with the lawlessness of the persecutors. 2. More on Constantine's piety, as he spoke out boldly with the sign of the cross. 3. On his portrait, in which the cross was set above and the dragon was struck down beneath. 4. More on the controversies in Egypt caused by Arius. 5. On the dissension over the Passover. 6. How he commanded that a council meet at Nicaea. 7. On the ecumenical council, and from how many nations bishops were present. 8. That, as in the Acts of the Apostles, they came together from various nations. 9. On the virtue and age of the bishops, two hundred and fifty in number. 10. The council in the palace, where Constantine entered and sat down with them. 11. The silence of the council after the bishop Eusebius spoke a few words. 12. Constantine's address to the council about peace. 13. How he brought the disputing bishops together into concord. 14. The council's unanimous statement on the faith and on the Passover. 15. How Constantine feasted with the bishops, it being the twentieth anniversary of his reign. 16. Gifts to the bishops and letters to everyone. 17. Constantine's letter to the churches about the council at Nicaea. 18. The same emperor's letter on the agreement of the Passover feast and against the Jews. 19. An exhortation to follow the greater part of the world. 20. An exhortation to be persuaded by what the council had written. 21. Counsel to the bishops as they returned home, concerning concord. 22. How he sent some on their way, wrote to others, and distributed money. 23. How he wrote to the Egyptians on behalf of peace and exhorted them. 24. That he wrote often, and with reverence, to both bishops and peoples. 25. How he ordered a house of prayer to be built in Jerusalem at the holy place of our Savior's resurrection. 26. That the godless had hidden the divine tomb under mounds of earth and idols. 27. How Constantine ordered the material and the earth of the idol-shrine to be thrown far away. 28. The revelation of the most holy tomb. 29. How he wrote about the building both to the governors and to Macarius the bishop. 30. Constantine's letter to Macarius about the building of the Savior's memorial. 31. That it should be built more beautiful than all the churches in the world, in walls, columns and marbles. 32. Also that he should inform the governors about the beauty of the apse, the workmen and the materials. 33. How the new Jerusalem that had been prophesied, the Savior's church, was built. 34. A description of the building of the most holy tomb. 35. A description of the court and the porticoes. 36. A description of the church's sanctuary, its walls, roofwork, beauty and gilding. 37. A description of the double porticoes on each side and the three eastern gates. 38. A description of the hemisphere, with the twelve columns and the bowls. 39. A description of the middle court, the exedrae and the porches. 40. On the abundance of votive offerings. 41. On the construction of churches at Bethlehem and on the Mount of Olives. 42. That Helena, the empress and mother of Constantine, came to pray and built these. 43. More on the church in Bethlehem. 44. How modestly [corrupt word in the Greek] Helena joined the congregations in the churches. 45. How Helena devoutly attended the assemblies in the churches. 46. How, at the age of eighty, she made her arrangements and died. 47. How Constantine buried his mother, and had honored her before this while she lived. 48. How in the city of Constantine he built martyr shrines and removed all idol worship. 49. The sign of the cross in the palace, and Daniel among the fountains. 50. That he built churches in Nicomedia and in other cities too. 51. On the church built in Antioch. 52. That he commanded that a church be built at Mamre too. 53. Constantine's letter to Eusebius about Mamre. 54. That the Savior appeared there to Abraham. 55. The destruction of temples of idols and of carved images everywhere. 56. The removal of the temple at Aphaca in Phoenicia and of its licentious practice. 57. The destruction of the Asclepius at Aegae. 58. How the Greeks, having come to despise their idols, turned to the knowledge of God. 59. How in Heliopolis he pulled down the Aphrodite and was the first to build a church. 60. On the disturbance at Antioch over Eustathius. 61. How Constantine, making peace, wrote about these matters. 62. Constantine's letter to the people of Antioch, not to tear Eusebius of Caesarea away, but to seek another. 63. Constantine's letter to Eusebius, praising his refusal of Antioch. 64. Constantine's letter to the council, that Eusebius not be torn away from Caesarea. 65. How he was eager to cut out the heresies. 66. Constantine's edict against the heretics. 67. On the confiscation of the meeting places of the heretics. 68. How, when unlawful books were found among them, many of the heretics returned to the catholic church. Book 3.

TOC.4| The chapters of the fourth book. 1. How he honored the great majority with gifts and promotions in rank. 2. Remission of one quarter of the taxes. 3. The equalization of the heavily burdened taxes as well. 4. That for those who had lost in lawsuits over money he paid the sums out of his own funds. 5. The Scythians brought under subjection, after being conquered by the sign of our Savior. 6. The subjection of the Sarmatians, on the pretext of the uprising of their slaves. 7. Embassies of various barbarians and gifts from him. 8. That when the king of the Persians sent an embassy, he wrote to him about the Christians there. 9. The letter of Constantine Augustus to Shapur, king of the Persians, confessing God and Christ most piously. 10. Further, against idols and on the glorification of God. 11. Further, against tyrants and persecutors, and about Valerian, who was taken captive. 12. That he saw the downfall of the persecutors, and is now cheerful because of the peace of the Christians. 13. Exhortations to love the Christians who are with him. 14. How the Christians had peace through the zeal of Constantine's prayers. 15. That he had himself stamped on coins and in portraits as one praying. 16. That he also forbade by law the placing of his images in idol temples. 17. Prayers in the palace and readings of the divine scriptures. 18. His law that the day of the Lord and the day of preparation be honored. 19. How he also commanded the pagan soldiers to pray on the Lord's days. 20. The words of a prayer given to the soldiers by Constantine. 21. On the shields of the soldiers, the signs of the cross of the Savior. 22. His zeal in prayer and his honoring of the feast of Passover. 23. How he prohibited idol worship and honored the martyrs and their festivals. 24. That he said he was, as it were, a bishop of those outside the church. 25. Further, on the prohibition of sacrifices, mystic rites, gladiatorial combats, and the formerly licentious practices of the Nile. 26. The correction of the law against the childless, and likewise the correction of the law on wills. 27. That he legislated that a Christian should not serve Jews, and that the decisions of synods should be binding, and other matters. 28. Gifts to the churches, and distributions to virgins and the poor. 29. Speeches and public displays by Constantine. 30. That he showed one of the greedy the measure of a tomb, to shame him. 31. That he was mocked because of his great kindness. 32. On the treatise of Constantine, which he wrote for the assembly of the saints. 33. How he listened, standing, to Eusebius' exposition concerning the Savior's tomb. 34. That he wrote to Eusebius about the Passover and the divine books. 35. Constantine to Eusebius, praising his discourse on the Passover. 36. Constantine to Eusebius, on the production of divine books. 37. How the books were produced. 38. How the trading port of Gaza was made a city because of Christianity and was named Constantia. 39. That a city was founded in Phoenicia, and in the other cities idol temples were demolished and churches built. 40. That after proclaiming his three sons emperors in the course of three decennial celebrations, he proposed to hold the dedication of the martyrium in Jerusalem. 41. That because of the disputes in Egypt he ordered a synod to meet at Tyre in the meantime. 43. At the dedication in Jerusalem, bishops were present for the festival from all the provinces. 44. On their reception through Marianus the secretary, the distributions to the poor, and the various addresses at the gatherings, including those of Eusebius, who wrote this account. 45. That Eusebius afterward also delivered before Constantine himself a description of the Savior's martyrium and a tricennial oration. 47. That the synod at Nicaea took place in Constantine's twentieth year, and the dedication at Jerusalem in his thirtieth. 48. How Constantine would not tolerate someone who praised him too much. 49. The marriage of his son, the Caesar Constantius. 50. An embassy and gifts from the Indians. 51. How Constantine divided the empire among his three sons and described the affairs of the empire with piety. 52. How he led them to piety also when they had grown to manhood. 53. That after reigning about thirty-two years and living more than sixty, he kept his body sound. 54. On those who abused his great kindness through insatiable greed and hypocrisy. 55. How Constantine kept writing until his death. 56. How, when campaigning against the Persians, he took bishops with him, and a tent as a figure of the church. 57. How, on receiving Persian embassies, he kept the all-night vigil with the others at the festival of the Passover. 58. On the building of the martyrium called that of the Apostles in Constantinople. 59. A further description of the same martyrium. 60. That in this he also built for himself a tomb for burial. 61. His bodily illness at Helenopolis and prayers concerning baptism. 62. Constantine's exhortation to the bishops about conferring the bath. 63. How, having received the bath, he sang hymns to God. 64. Constantine's death at midday on the festival of Pentecost. 65. The lamentations of soldiers and officers. 66. The transfer of the corpse from Nicomedia to the palace in Constantinople. 67. How even after death he was honored, by the counts and the rest, as he had been in life. 68. How the army decided that his sons should henceforth be Augusti. 69. Rome's mourning for Constantine, and the honor paid him after death through images. 70. The laying to rest of the remains by his son Constantius in Constantinople. 71. The assembly in the so-called martyrium of the Apostles at Constantine's death. 72. On the phoenix bird. 73. How on coins Constantine was shown as ascending to heaven. 74. That God, honored by him, justly honored him in return. 75. That Constantine was more pious than the Roman emperors before him. The chapter headings of the fourth book.

1.1| Just recently every race of people was celebrating, with festival banquets, the completed cycles of all manner of decades, two and then three, for the great emperor; just recently we ourselves, given a place in the midst of a synod of God's ministers, were honoring the glorious victor with hymns for his twentieth year; and lately, having woven for him crowns of words for his thirtieth year as well, we were crowning his sacred head in the palace itself.

1.2| But now my account stands at a loss. It longs to say something in its customary manner, yet does not know where to turn, struck dumb by the sheer wonder of a strange sight. For wherever it gazes steadily, whether toward the east or the west, whether at the whole earth or at heaven itself, everywhere and in every place it beholds the blessed emperor present with them.

1.3| On earth it sees his sons, like new torches filling the whole world with his radiance, and sees him himself living on in power and governing all of life more mightily than before, now multiplied through the succession of his sons. They had earlier shared the honor of Caesars, but now, clothed wholly in him through the virtue of godliness, they have been proclaimed emperors, Augusti, Augusti and emperors, resplendent in their father's adornments.

2.1| And the man who a little while ago was seen in a mortal body and lived among us, even after the end of his life, when nature exposes what is superfluous as foreign to it, is seen, most astonishingly, to be deemed worthy of the same imperial houses, possessions, honors and hymns; and at the sight my account is struck with amazement. Then, stretching itself up even to the heavenly vaults, it will picture there too his thrice-blessed soul, in the company of God himself, released from every mortal and earthly covering, and bathed in a robe of flashing light. Then, considering that it is no longer revolving through long cycles of time among the dwellings of mortals, but is honored with a diadem ever in bloom, with life unending and the immortality of a blessed age, my account stands speechless, as a mortal word, letting out no sound. Condemning its own weakness, and voting silence against itself, it yields to the greater and universal Word the task of obtaining the worth of hymns that match him. For he alone, the immortal Word of God, is able to make his own utterances credible,

3.1| by which he surpasses with gifts in return those who glorify and honor him, while those who set themselves up as his enemies and foes, he has declared, will bring destruction of their souls upon themselves. From this point he has shown that the promises of his words are free of falsehood: he has displayed the ends of godless tyrants who fought against God as things to be shunned, and has revealed that the death of his own servant, as well as his life, is enviable and much hymned, so that it too is worthy of remembrance and of monuments not mortal but immortal.

3.2| For the nature of mortals, having found a consolation for a mortal and doomed end, decided to honor the memory of men of former times with the immortal tributes of dedicated images. Some, fashioning lifelike figures in shaded paintings, in the colors of wax-based pictures, others in carvings of lifeless material, others cutting deep lines into tablets and pillars, supposed that they were handing down the virtues of those they honored to eternal memory. But all these things were mortal after all, consumed by the length of time, as likenesses of perishable bodies, and certainly not stamping the forms of the immortal soul. Nevertheless, they seemed sufficient to those who placed no other hope of good things beyond the overthrow of mortal life.

3.3| But God, God the common Savior of all, who has laid up in his own keeping, for the lovers of godliness, good things greater than mortal reckonings can grasp, gives the first fruits of those rewards here and now as a pledge, in some measure confirming to mortal eyes their immortal hopes.

3.4| Ancient oracles of the prophets, handed down in writing, declare these things; the lives of men dear to God, who long ago shone with every kind of virtue and are remembered by later generations, bear witness to them; and in our own time the one who alone of all who ever led the Roman empire became a friend of God proved them true, and stood forth as a clear example of the godly life to all people.

4.1| And God, whom Constantine honored, standing at his right hand at the beginning, in the middle and at the end, confirmed these things for him with clear verdicts, setting the man before the mortal race as a teacher of godliness and as a shield against terror. Of all the emperors since the beginning of time that we have heard of, he alone God set forth as a great beacon, and as the loudest-voiced herald of unerring godliness, and to him alone he displayed the sureties of his godliness through all the good things bestowed on him,

5.1| God honored him with a reign of more than three full decades, and gave him a whole life twice as long as that; he made him victor over every race of tyrants and destroyer of the god-fighting giants, who in the frenzy of their souls had raised the weapons of impiety against the universal Sovereign himself. Those men, one might say, appeared and were extinguished in a moment. But his servant, one man against many, was fenced about by the one and only God with divine full armor, and through him God cleansed mortal life of the multitude of the godless, and set him up as a teacher of reverence for himself to all nations, bearing witness with a great cry in the hearing of all that they should know the God who truly is and turn away from the error of those who are not gods at all.

6.1| He, as a faithful and good servant, did this and proclaimed it, calling himself outright a slave and confessing himself a servant of the universal Sovereign. And God, rewarding him close at hand, made him lord and master, and the only one of all emperors since the beginning of time to be invincible and unconquered, always victorious and ever made radiant by trophies won over his enemies. He made him an emperor greater than any remembered from earlier times in what we have heard, so beloved of God, so reverent and so wholly blessed that he held more nations than his predecessors with perfect ease, and brought his rule to its very end without grief.

7.1| The ancient story celebrates Cyrus as the most illustrious king the Persians ever had. But since one ought to look at the end of a long life and not at such things, they say that he suffered a death that was inauspicious, shameful and disgraceful, at the hands of a woman. The Greeks' children sing of Alexander of Macedon, who subdued countless peoples of every kind, but who died young, struck down in revels and drunkenness before he had fully come to manhood. He completed in all thirty-two years of life, and his time as king occupied no more than a third of that; he advanced through blood like a thunderbolt, enslaving whole nations and cities, young and old, without mercy. Scarcely had his youth bloomed a little, and he was grieving terribly for his beloved, when fate came upon him and destroyed him, childless, rootless and homeless, in a foreign and hostile land, so that he might not for long ravage the mortal race. At once his kingdom was cut to pieces, each of his servants tearing off and plundering some share for himself. Yet this is the sort of chorus in which that man is hymned.

8.1| But our emperor began his rule from the point at which the Macedonian died, and he doubled that man's lifetime in years, and made the length of his reign three times as long.

8.2| Having fenced his army about with gentle and sober precepts of reverence for God, he advanced to Britain and to those who live on the Ocean bounded by the setting sun, and he brought in all the Scythian lands that lie divided beneath the very Bear by countless barbarian tribes of differing kinds,

8.3| and extending his rule southward as well, to the Blemmyes and the Ethiopians, he did not treat as foreign to his possession the lands toward the rising sun,

8.4| but reached the very limits of the whole inhabited world, as far as the outermost Indians and the peoples dwelling round about the whole element of the earth that sustains life. Shining on them with the rays of the light of reverence, he held all as his subjects: district rulers, tribal chiefs, satraps and kings of barbarian nations of every kind, who willingly welcomed him and rejoiced, sending embassies with their own gifts of hospitality and presents, and valuing acquaintance and friendship with him above all else, so that they honored him among themselves with painted portraits and dedications of statues, and Constantine alone of emperors was known and acclaimed among them all. And he, even to those regions, proclaimed his own God with complete boldness in imperial addresses.

9.1| Then he did not merely say this in words while falling short in deeds. Passing through every kind of virtue, he flourished with all the fruits of piety, binding his acquaintances to himself by generous kindnesses, and ruling by laws of humanity, making his government easy to guide and the object of every subject's prayers. At last, when he was worn out by the long circuits of the years, God, whom he honored, crowned him with the divine prizes of immortality for his contests, and moved him from a mortal kingdom to the unending life that God keeps in store with himself for holy souls, having raised up a threefold offspring of sons to succeed to his rule. In this way the throne of the empire came down to him from his father, and by the ordinance of nature was held in reserve for his sons and their descendants, extended through unaging time like an inheritance from a father. God himself, then, who exalted the blessed man with honors worthy of God while he was still with us, and adorned him at his death with distinctions of his own bestowing, would himself become his writer, engraving the struggles of his achievements on heavenly tablets for the long ages.

10.1| For my part, even if speaking in a way worthy of the man's blessedness is beyond me, and silence is safe and free of danger, still I must dedicate to the memory of this friend of God a portrait in words, imitating mortal drawing in shadows, and so absolve myself of the charge of hesitation and idleness. For I would be ashamed of myself if I did not contribute what I can, however small and cheap it may be, to the one who honored all of us with such extraordinary reverence for God. I also suppose that my work will be of use for life and necessary in other ways, since it embraces the deeds of imperial greatness of mind that were pleasing to God, the King of all. Is it not shameful that Nero, and some impious and godless tyrants much worse than he, have had the good fortune to be remembered by tireless writers, who adorned the plots of worthless dramas with elegant style and set them down in many-volumed histories, while we are silent, we whom God himself judged worthy of meeting, seeing, knowing and conversing with an emperor such as the whole of time has not recorded? Therefore, if it befits anyone, it befits us to proclaim to all an abundant report of his good deeds, for those whom the imitation of what is noble arouses to a longing for love of the divine. Some writers have collected the lives of men who were not venerable, and actions of no profit for the improvement of character, out of favor toward some or hatred of others, and perhaps also to show off their own education. With a pomp of eloquent words they have inappropriately dramatized lessons in shameful deeds, and have become teachers, for those who by God's grace had no share in these evils, of conduct that was not good but deserved to be silenced in oblivion and darkness. As for me, my style of expression, though it is weak beside the greatness of what is made known, would still be made bright by the bare report of good deeds; and the recollection of narratives dear to God will offer a reading that is not useless but highly profitable for life to those whose souls are well prepared.

11.1| Most of the thrice-blessed emperor's strategic acts as a general, the clashes and battle lines of wars, his feats of valor, victories, and trophies over enemies, all the triumphs he celebrated, and in time of peace the measures he laid down for the correction of public affairs and for the benefit of each person, the ordinances of laws that he drew up for the advantage of the government of his subjects, and very many other contests of imperial achievement that are remembered among all people, I think I shall pass over, since the aim of the work before us requires me to tell and write only what bears on his life as a friend of God. Even of these there are countless examples; so, selecting from what has come down to us the most important and those worth remembering for later generations, I shall set out an account of them as briefly as possible. The time now allows us to hymn the one who was truly blessed with every kind of utterance without hindrance, since this was not permitted before, because of the precept not to call a man blessed before his death, owing to the uncertainty of the turns of life. Let God be called upon as helper, and let the heavenly Word breathe with us as fellow worker. Let us, then, begin the account from the very first age of the man, somewhere along these lines.

12.1| An old report holds that terrible tribes of tyrants once oppressed the people of the Hebrews, and that God, showing favor to the oppressed, saw to it that the prophet Moses, still an infant at the time, was raised in the very midst of the tyrants' houses and bosoms and shared in their wisdom. But as advancing time called him on toward manhood, and Justice, the helper of the wronged, went after the wrongdoers, he then came out from the tyrants' own palaces, and the prophet of God served the purpose of the Mightier One. In deed and word he estranged himself from the tyrants who had brought him up, and openly owned as his own those who were in truth his brothers and kin. Then God raised him up as leader of the whole nation, and through him delivered the Hebrews from slavery under their enemies, while pursuing the tyrant race with God-sent punishments. This report is an old one, handed down to the many in the form of a legend, and it once filled every ear. But now the same God has granted even to us, as eyewitnesses, sights of wonders greater than legends tell, fresh, and more true than any hearsay. For the tyrants of our own day, bent on making war against the God of all, were crushing his church; and in their midst Constantine, who soon after would slay the tyrants, a boy just young, tender and in the bloom of youth, with the first down upon his cheeks, like that servant of God himself, lived in the tyrants' households. Yet though young, he did not share the ways of the godless. For from that time a good nature drew him, together with a divine spirit, toward a pious life pleasing to God; and besides, zeal for his father's example urged him on, calling the boy to imitate what was good. His father was (it is indeed fitting to rekindle the memory of him at the right moment) Constantius, the most distinguished of the emperors of our time. It is necessary to go through briefly what brings credit to the son in connection with him.

13.1| For when four men shared the imperial rule of the Romans, he alone, adopting a manner unshared with the others, made a treaty of friendship with the God of all. The others besieged the churches of God and razed them from top to bottom, wiping out the houses of prayer down to their foundations. He kept his hands clean of their accursed impiety, in no way making himself like them. They defiled the provinces under them with civil slaughters of God-fearing men and women; he kept his own soul unstained by the pollution. They enslaved themselves first, and then all their subjects, to the confusion of evils of lawless idolatry and the deceits of wicked demons; he, ruling those under him in the deepest peace, granted his people a godly piety free of pain. Moreover, while the others hung the heaviest exactions over all men and laid on them a life not worth living, harder than death, Constantius alone made his government painless and calm for his subjects, and offered his help, which fell short of a father's care in nothing. Though countless other virtues of the man are sung by everyone, I will mention one or two achievements, use them as evidence of what I pass over in silence, and turn to the aim set before this writing.

14.1| Much talk went around, in a widespread report, about this emperor: that he was gentle, good, and exceedingly dear to God, and that because of his extreme sparing of his subjects he had not even stored up a treasury of money. The emperor of that time, who held the first rank of the empire, sent to him and blamed him for neglecting the public interest, reproaching him for poverty, and offering as proof of his charge that he had nothing laid away in treasuries.

14.2| Constantius told the messengers from the emperor to stay where they were. He summoned from all the lands under his rule those subject to him who possessed abundant wealth, and told them that he needed money, and that this was the occasion on which each of them ought to show his own freely chosen goodwill toward their emperor.

14.3| And those who heard, as though they had long prayed for this chance to show their goodwill, quickly and zealously they filled the treasuries with gold, silver and other wealth, outdoing one another in their rivalry to give more, and they did this with bright and smiling faces.

14.4| When this had happened, Constantius ordered the men who had come from the great emperor to see the treasures with their own eyes. Then he instructed them to carry the testimony of what they had seen with their own eyes to the one who had faulted him for poverty, adding to their report . . . that these goods had not been amassed through lamentation or unjust greed; that he was now gathering them in his own keeping, but that they had long been guarded for him by the masters of the money, as though by trusted keepers of deposits.

14.5| Amazement at the deed seized the envoys. The account holds that the emperor, most humane of men, after their departure sent for the owners of the money, and that once they had received everything back he told them to go home, commending the men for their compliance and good will.

14.6| This is one act of the man in question, and it offers a proof of his humanity. The other would contain a plain testimony to his piety toward the divine.

15.1| Everywhere on earth the governors of each nation were driving out the worshippers of God, by command of the ruling powers. But the martyrs beloved of God, setting out first of all from the imperial households themselves, went through the contests for piety, most eagerly enduring fire, sword, the depths of the sea, and every manner of death, so that in a short time the palaces everywhere were emptied of men who worshipped God. This above all left the perpetrators bereft of God's oversight. For together with driving out the worshippers of God, they were also driving out the prayers offered on their behalf.

16.1| Constantius alone was visited by a kind of wisdom of pious reasoning, and he did something astonishing to hear of, yet most admirable to have done. He set a choice before all the imperial servants under him, from his own household up to the officials holding authority, and gave the order that they might either sacrifice to the demons and remain with him and share the customary honors, or, if they did not do this, be shut out from access to him, driven away, and sent off; they were divided in both ways, some going to the one side and some to the other, and the character of each man's choice was exposed. At that point the admirable man uncovered the hidden purpose of his stratagem. He condemned the one group for cowardice and self-love, and fully welcomed the others for their conscience toward God. Then he declared that the first were traitors to God and not worthy even to serve an emperor. For how could men ever be trusted to keep faith with an emperor when they had been caught acting without scruple toward the higher power? So he made it law that these should be driven far from the imperial households. But those whom the truth itself had attested as worthy of God, he said, would be just such men toward the emperor as well; and he appointed them bodyguards and guardians of the kingdom itself, saying that such men must be cherished among his first and closest friends and kinsmen, and honored more highly than great treasures.

17.1| But what kind of man Constantine's father is remembered to have been has been shown in brief. What end attended him, proved as he was in such a character toward God, and how great a difference God, whom he honored, showed between him and his partners in the empire, anyone may learn who turns his mind to the nature of the events. For over a long time he had given proofs of imperial virtue: he had recognized that God alone is over all, and had condemned the polytheism of the godless, and he fenced his whole household about with the prayers of holy men. He then passed his life in orderly calm and freedom from disturbance, like that very state which people call blessed, having no troubles and causing none to others. So, governing the whole time of his reign in steadiness and peace, together with his children and wife and the attendance of his servants, he consecrated his entire household to the one God, the king of all. The throng gathered inside the palace itself fell nothing short of a church of God, and with them were ministers of God who performed unceasing services on the emperor's behalf. And this took place with him alone, at a time when among the others the race of God's worshippers was not allowed even the bare title of a name.

18.1| Close upon these events there followed for him the reward from God, so that he now shared in the first rank of the imperial office. For those who were senior in time, somehow gave way from power, since a change fell upon them after the first year of the siege of the churches, and Constantius alone was left, first, and was also proclaimed Augustus. At the beginning he was made illustrious with the diadem of the Caesars and had received the first place among them; after his proving in these offices he was adorned with the highest honor among the Romans, being styled the first Augustus of the four who were later appointed. But he also surpassed all the other emperors alone in the blessing of children, having raised a very great company of sons and daughters. And when, in rich old age, the time came for him to pay nature's common debt and depart from life, God again appeared as the doer of marvelous deeds on his behalf, arranging that as he was dying his eldest child, Constantine, should be present to receive the empire.

19.1| For Constantine lived with those who shared the imperial power, and, as has been said, spent his days in their midst, like that ancient prophet of God. Already, from boyhood into youth, he was thought worthy among them of the first honor. We ourselves knew him as such when he passed through the nation of the Palestinians with the senior of the emperors, at whose right hand he stood, most conspicuous to all who wished to see, giving from that time proofs of an imperial mind. For in the bloom of bodily beauty and in stature of build there was no one else to compare with him, and in strength of body he so excelled those of his own age that he was a source of fear to them; yet he took greater pride in the virtues of the soul than in the advantages of the body, adorning his soul first of all with self-control above everything, and then standing out conspicuously for his training in letters, his native good sense, and his God-given wisdom.

20.1| Seeing the young man proud on these accounts, strong, tall, and full of high spirit, the rulers of that time, in envy and fear, judged that keeping company with him was not safe for them, and so they devised secret plots against him, though they were restrained by shame before his father from putting him to death openly. 2 The young man perceived this, since the plot was exposed to him a first and a second time by God's inspiration, and he secured his safety by flight, in this too preserving the likeness of the great prophet Moses. And God worked everything together with him, providing that he should be present for his father's succession.

21.1| So at once, when he had escaped the schemes of the plotters and reached his father in haste, he arrived after a long time away, at the very moment when his father's life stood on a razor's edge. When Constantius saw his son standing by him unexpectedly, he leapt up from his bed and threw his arms around him, saying that he had cast away from his soul the one thing that grieved him as he was about to lay down his life (this was his son's absence); he sent up a prayer of thanks to God, declaring that he now reckoned death better than immortality, and then he put his own affairs in order,

21.2| and after bidding farewell to his sons and daughters, who stood around him like a chorus, in the palace itself, on an imperial bed, he handed the inheritance of the empire, by the law of nature, to the eldest of his children, and so he came to rest.

22.1| Yet the empire did not remain without an emperor. Constantine, adorned with his father's very purple, came forth from his father's house, showing everyone through himself his father reigning, as though restored to life. Then, taking the lead in the funeral procession with his father's friends about him, he sent his father on his way; countless crowds of people and bodyguards of soldiers, some going before and some following behind, escorted the man beloved of God with every honor, and all of them honored the thrice-blessed man with acclamations and hymns, and with a single mind and voice they glorified the son's rule as the revival of the dead man, and with auspicious shouts they proclaimed the new emperor, from the very first cry, emperor and Augustus.

22.2| And the shouts adorned the dead man with praises of his son, while they called the son blessed for being shown the successor of such a father; and all the nations under the empire were filled with gladness and unspeakable joy, as though not even for the briefest moment had they been left widowed of imperial good order. This was the end that God showed to our generation for the pious and God-loving way of life in the emperor Constantius.

23.1| As for the others, all those whose reversals I judged it unfitting to hand down in the present narrative, nor to stain the memory of good men by setting it beside that of their opposites. The experience of events is enough to bring sense to those who have received, through their own eyes and ears, the history of what befell each man.

24.1| So it was that God, the Governor of the whole universe, appointed Constantine, born of such a father, by his own choice to be ruler and leader of all, so that no human being could boast of having promoted him, he alone of all, while the others had been thought worthy of that honor by the choice of other men.

25.1| When, then, he was established in the imperial office, he first took thought for the portion his father had held. With great kindness he surveyed all the nations that had formerly been governed under his father's share. Of the tribes of barbarians living around the river Rhine and the western ocean that dared to rebel, he subdued them all and made them tame from being wild; others, whom he saw to be incurably unfit for a settled and civilized life, he drove back and scared away from his own territory, like savage beasts. 2 When this had been set in good order for him, he put before his eyes the remaining portions of the inhabited world. First he crossed over to the nations of the Britons, which lie within the ocean itself, and having brought them under his control, he surveyed the other parts of the whole, to see how he might care for those that needed help.

26.1| Then, conceiving the whole element of the earth as a great body, and seeing that its head, the imperial city of the Roman empire, the capital of the whole, had been brought under tyrannical slavery, he at first left the defense of it to the rulers of the remaining parts, since they were senior in time. But when not one of these was able to bring aid, and even those who were willing to make the attempt suffered a shameful end, he said that life was not worth living for him if he should overlook the imperial city suffering so, and he prepared the measures for overthrowing the tyranny.

27.1| He reasoned well that he needed a help greater than the military kind, because of the evil-crafted and sorcerous trickeries on which the tyrant lavished his zeal. So he sought God as his helper. He ranked in second place what came from heavy-armed soldiers and a multitude of troops, believing that without help from God these could accomplish nothing; but he said that what comes from cooperation with God is invincible and unconquerable.

27.2| He considered, then, what sort of god he ought to enlist. As he searched, a thought came to him: that of the many who had earlier taken hold of imperial power, the majority had hung their hopes on a number of gods and had served them with libations, sacrifices and dedicated offerings. Deceived at first by favorable oracles and prophecies that announced good things to them, they had found an end that was not good, and no god had stood by them to help them avoid ruin sent from heaven. Only his own father had turned the opposite way from them, condemning their error; he had honored the God beyond the universe throughout his whole life, and had found him to be savior and guardian of his kingdom and giver of every good thing.

27.3| Having weighed these matters within himself and reasoned well that those who had put their confidence in a multitude of gods had fallen into many kinds of destruction, so that no offspring, no stock, no root, no name and no memory of them was left among men; whereas his father's God had given his own father clear and abundant proofs of his power; and having also examined those who had already taken the field against the tyrant, and seeing that they had drawn up their battle line with a multitude of gods and had met a shameful end (for one of them withdrew from the encounter in disgrace with nothing achieved, and the other was cut down in the very midst of his own armies and became a mere sideshow of death), he gathered all this together in his mind. He took it to be the work of folly to waste effort on gods who were nothing, and to go on wandering after so great a refutation, and he thought that he must honor his father's God alone.

28.1| So he called on this God in prayer, pleading and imploring him to reveal who he was and to stretch out his right hand to help him in the task before him. And while the emperor was praying in this way and earnestly entreating, a most extraordinary sign from God appeared to him. If someone else had told of it, it might perhaps not have been easy to accept; but since the victorious emperor himself recounted it long afterward to us, the writer of this account, when we had been granted his acquaintance and his company, and confirmed his story with oaths, who could hesitate to believe the narrative? All the more so because the time that followed bore true witness to his words. He said that around the noon hours of the sun, when the day had already begun to decline, he beheld with his own eyes, in the very sky and lying above the sun, a trophy in the form of a cross, made of light, and attached to it writing that said: "By this, conquer." Amazement at the sight seized both him and the whole army, which was accompanying him as he was making a march somewhere and so became a witness of the wonder.

29.1| He said that he was then at a loss within himself as to what the apparition could mean. And while he was pondering it and reasoning at length, night came on and overtook him. Then, as he slept, God's Christ appeared to him with the sign that had been seen in the sky, and urged him to make a likeness of the sign he had seen in the sky and to use it as a protection in his encounters with the enemy.

30.1| At daybreak he rose and told his friends the secret. Then he summoned craftsmen who worked in gold and precious stones, sat down in their midst, and described the shape of the sign, and he ordered them to reproduce it in gold and precious stones. The emperor himself once saw fit to let us, too, behold this with our own eyes, God granting us this as well.

31.1| It was made in the following form. A tall spear overlaid with gold had a crossbar laid across it, forming the shape of a cross. At the very summit of the whole a wreath woven of precious stones and gold had been set firmly, and on it was the symbol of the saving title: two letters making clear the name of Christ through its first characters, the rho crossed by the chi exactly at its center. These letters the emperor also made a habit of wearing on his helmet in later times. From the crossbar fastened across the spear hung a cloth, an imperial fabric covered with an array of precious stones set together and flashing with rays of light, and richly interwoven with gold, offering the beholders a beauty beyond description. This banner, then, fastened to the crossbar, was of equal measure in length and breadth. The upright spear, extending a great length from its lower end, rose high aloft, and beneath the trophy of the cross, right at the top edge of the cloth just described, it bore the golden portrait, down to the chest, of the God-beloved emperor, and likewise of his sons. This saving sign the emperor used at all times as a safeguard against every opposing and hostile power, and he commanded that likenesses of it should lead all his armies.

32.1| But this was somewhat later. At the time we have spoken of, struck with awe at the extraordinary vision and resolved to worship no other god than the one he had seen, he summoned those initiated into his teachings and asked who this God was and what was the meaning of the vision of the sign he had seen. They said that he was God, the only-begotten child of God who is one and alone, and that the sign that had appeared was a symbol of immortality and a trophy of the victory over death that he had once won when he came upon the earth. They taught him the reasons for his coming, setting out for him the exact account of his dispensation among human beings. He became a pupil of these teachings, yet he still marveled at the divine manifestation that had been granted to his own eyes; and comparing the heavenly vision with the interpretation of what he was told, he grew firm in his mind, convinced that the knowledge of these things had come to him as taught by God himself. He now resolved to devote himself to the inspired writings as well. Making the priests of God his counselors, he thought it right to honor the God he had seen with every form of worship. And then, fortified by good hopes in him, he set out at last to quench the menace of the tyrant's fire.

33.1| For the man who had seized the imperial city before him went far indeed in his attempts at impiety and unholy deeds, so that he left no outrage of foul and impure conduct untried. He would separate lawfully wedded wives from their husbands, abuse them in the most shameful way, and then send them back to their husbands; and he did this not to obscure or undistinguished men, but in his drunken insolence to the very men who held the first rank in the Roman senate. Yet though he shamefully abused countless freeborn women, he could find no way to sate his intemperate and unbridled soul.

33.2| But when he set his hand to Christian women as well, he could no longer contrive an easy way to his adulteries; for these women would sooner surrender their life to death than their body to him for defilement.

34.1| One woman, at any rate, the wife of one of the senators there who held the authority of prefect, learned that the tyrant's ministers in such matters had come to her house (she was a Christian), and she knew that her husband, out of fear, had told them to take her and lead her away. She asked for a short delay, as if to put on her usual adornment, went into her chamber, and, once alone, drove a sword into her breast. She died on the spot and left the corpse to the procurers; but by deeds that spoke louder than any voice she declared to all people, both those now living and those who will come after, that the chastity so celebrated among Christians is by nature the one possession that cannot be conquered or destroyed. Such, then, was the woman she proved to be.

35.1| Before the man who dared such things everyone cowered, peoples and magistrates, the renowned and the obscure, and they were worn down by a dreadful tyranny. Even when they kept quiet and bore their bitter slavery, there was still no escape from the tyrant's murderous cruelty. On one occasion, on a trivial pretext, he handed the people over to his bodyguards for slaughter, and in the very middle of the city countless multitudes of the Roman populace were cut down, not by the spears and armor of Scythians or barbarians, but by those of their own countrymen. As for the murder of senators, carried out in order to get hold of each one's property, it is impossible even to count it, since countless men were put to death on one fabricated charge after another.

36.1| The crowning point of the tyrant's evils drove him to sorcery. For magical purposes he would at one time slit open pregnant women, at another search the entrails of newborn infants; he slaughtered lions and devised certain unspeakable rites to call up demons and to avert the coming war. By these means he hoped to win the victory. Thus, while he ruled as tyrant at Rome, it is impossible to describe what he did in enslaving his subjects, with the result that they were reduced to the utmost scarcity and lack of the necessary food, such as our contemporaries recall never having occurred at Rome at any other time.

37.1| Constantine, however, was moved to pity for all these things and began arming himself with every kind of preparation against the tyranny. So, setting God over all as his patron, and calling on Christ as savior and helper, he placed his victorious trophy, the saving sign itself, at the head of the soldiers and bodyguards around him, and led out his whole army, seeking to win back for the Romans the freedom they had from their ancestors. Maxentius, for his part, trusted more in the devices of sorcery than in his subjects' goodwill, and did not dare to go even as far as the city gates, but fortified every place, district and city that he had enslaved with a countless host of soldiers and innumerable companies of troops. Yet the emperor, who had fastened himself to the alliance that comes from God, attacked the tyrant's first, second and third battle lines, overcame them all with great ease at the very first onset, and advanced through the greater part of the land of Italy.

38.1| He was already close to Rome itself. Then, lest he be compelled to wage war on the Romans because of the tyrant, God himself dragged the tyrant, as if in bonds, far away from the gates. And what had long ago been said against the impious, which most people disbelieved as though it were a tale, but which is credible to the faithful and was recorded in the sacred books, God now confirmed, in actual events, to put it simply, before the eyes of believers and unbelievers alike as they watched these marvels. Just as once, in the days of Moses himself and of the God-fearing Hebrew race, "he threw Pharaoh's chariots and his army into the sea, and drowned his chosen three-man chariot-riders in the Red Sea," so too Maxentius and the armed soldiers and bodyguards around him "sank like a stone into the depths," when he turned his back before the power that came from God with Constantine and crossed the river in front of his line of march. He had himself joined boats together and bridged it very well, and so built an engine of destruction against himself, hoping in this way to catch the friend of God. But for Constantine his God stood at his right hand, while the wretched man set up these hidden devices against himself. Of him one could say: "He dug a pit and excavated it, and he will fall into the hole he has made. His toil will turn back upon his own head, and his injustice will come down upon his own crown." So, by the will of God, the machinery of the bridge and the concealed trap in it were released, not in the way that had been intended; the crossing gave way, and the boats, with all their men, plunged together into the deep. He himself, the wretched man, went first, and then the shield-bearers and bodyguards around him, just as the divine oracles had foretold: "They sank like lead in mighty water." So it would be fitting, if not in words then at least in deeds, for those who had won victory from God to sing, as did those with the great servant Moses, the very words once sung against the impious tyrant of old, and to say something like this: "Let us sing to the Lord, for he has been gloriously glorified. Horse and rider he threw into the sea; he became my helper and protector for salvation." And: "Who is like you among the gods, Lord? Who is like you? Glorious among the holy ones, marvelous in glories, working wonders."

39.1| With these words and others akin to them, Constantine, in keeping with the occasion and like the great servant of God, praised the ruler of all and the cause of his victory, in deeds themselves, and then rode in triumph into the imperial city. All together, the senate's members and the other distinguished and notable people of the city, as though released from prison, along with the whole people of the Romans, received him with radiant eyes and with their whole souls, with acclamations and insatiable joy; men together with women and children and countless crowds of household slaves proclaimed him with unrestrained shouts their liberator, savior and benefactor. But he, who possessed an inborn piety toward God, was neither puffed up by the shouting nor lifted up by the praises, being fully aware that the help had come from God, and he immediately offered a prayer of thanksgiving to the cause of his victory.

40.1| With a loud voice and with inscribed pillars he proclaimed the saving sign to all people, raising it as a great trophy over the enemy in the middle of the imperial city, and having it engraved, explicitly and in indelible characters, as the saving sign, the protector of the Roman empire and of the whole realm. At once, then, he ordered that a tall spear in the shape of a cross be set up, under the hand of a statue made of his own likeness, in the most public place in Rome, and that this very inscription be cut into it in the Roman language: "By this saving sign, the true proof of courage, I freed your city from the tyrant's yoke and saved it. Moreover, I freed both the senate and the Roman people, and set them again in their ancient distinction and splendor."

41.1| So the God-beloved emperor, made radiant in this way by his confession of the victory-bringing cross, made the Son of God known with complete boldness to the Romans themselves. All who lived in the city, together with the senate itself and the multitudes of the people, felt as though they had drawn breath after a bitter, tyrannical rule; they seemed to enjoy a purer light and to share in the rebirth of a new and different life. All the nations bounded by the ocean toward the setting sun, freed from the evils that had long oppressed them, rejoiced in glad festivals and kept on hymning the glorious victor, the devout man, the common benefactor; and with one voice and a single mouth they all acknowledged that Constantine had shone forth as a common good for humankind by the grace of God. The emperor's letter was spread everywhere as well: it gave those who had been robbed of their property the enjoyment of what was their own, recalled to their hearths those who had endured unjust exile, and freed from chains and every danger and fear those who had been subjected to these things by the cruelty of the tyrant.

42.1| The emperor himself summoned the servants of God and held them in the highest honor and regard, showing kindness to these men in deeds and words as people consecrated to his own God. They shared his table, men humble in the outward look of their dress, yet not regarded as such by him, since he seemed to look not on the man seen by the many but on the God honored in each of them. He brought them with him, too, wherever he travelled, trusting that in this way the God they served would be present at his right hand. Indeed he also supplied the churches of God with rich assistance from his own resources, enlarging the houses of prayer and raising them to a great height, and adorning the solemn precincts of the church with a great many dedicated gifts.

43.1| He made distributions of money of every kind to the needy. Besides this, he showed himself kind and generous to outsiders who approached him. For wretched, cast-off people begging in the marketplace he provided not only money and the necessary food but also decent clothing for the body; for those who had begun life well but had fallen into misfortune through a change in their circumstances he supplied more abundant provision. With a truly imperial spirit he bestowed magnificent benefactions on people in such straits: to some he gave the ownership of estates, and others he honored with various offices. He took the place of a father for those orphaned by misfortune, and for widows, who were left without protection, he took up their cause and cared for them as if they were his own kin, so that he even joined girls left orphaned by the absence of parents in marriage to men of his acquaintance who were wealthy. And he did this while providing in advance for the brides everything that those who took them needed to bring to the partnership of marriage. Just as the sun, rising above the earth, shares the brilliance of its light freely with all, in the same way Constantine, appearing from the imperial palace together with the rising sun, as though rising with the luminary in the heavens, shone out the rays of his own nobility of character upon all who came before his face. It was simply impossible to come near him and not receive some good, and impossible for those who expected to obtain his help ever to fall from a good hope.

44.1| Toward everyone in general, then, he was of this kind. But the care he gave to the church of God was exceptional. When some in different regions were at odds with one another, he, like a common bishop appointed by God, gathered synods of the servants of God. In the midst of their proceedings he did not think it beneath him to be present and sit among them, and he became a participant in their oversight, administering the peace of God to all. He sat in the middle as though he were one of the many, having shaken off spearmen, soldiers and the whole class of bodyguards, clothed instead in the fear of God and encircled by the most loyal of his faithful companions. Then, those whom he saw yielding to the better judgment and prepared for a steady and harmonious manner he welcomed warmly, showing himself delighted at the general agreement of all, but those who were disobedient he turned away from.

45.1| Some men had by now turned harshly against him, and he bore them without resentment, urging even these, in a calm and gentle voice, to be sensible and not to stir up faction. Some of them went away, ashamed before his admonitions; those who were beyond cure and would not come to a sound way of thinking he let go, handing them over to the One who hands over, since he himself intended no harm whatever against anyone. Hence it was natural that those who were stirring up dissension in the land of the Afri were driven to such a pitch of mischief that they even attempted some reckless acts, for some wicked demon, it seems, was envying the abundance of the blessings of the present time and goading the men into absurd deeds, in order to rouse the emperor's anger against them. But the envy did not succeed, for the emperor made a joke of what was being done and said that he understood the stirring that came from the evil one. These bold acts, he said, were not those of men in their right minds but of men either wholly deranged or driven to frenzy by the wicked demon; such men ought to be pitied rather than punished, and he himself could in no way be harmed by the madness of the senseless, except insofar as, out of his surpassing humanity, he felt sympathy for them.

46.1| In this way, then, the emperor honored God, the overseer of all things, in every action, and made his care for God's churches unwearying. And God in return placed every race of barbarians beneath his feet, so that he raised trophies over enemies everywhere and in every place; God proclaimed him victor in the sight of all and made him a terror to enemies and foes, though he was not such by nature, but as gentle, mild and humane as anyone ever was.

47.1| While he was engaged in these matters, the second of those who had laid down the imperial office was caught stitching together a plot to kill him, and came to an utterly shameful end in death. He was the first whose honorific inscriptions, statues, and all such things as had customarily been set up everywhere in the world to do him honor were pulled down, as being those of an unholy and impious man.

47.2| Then after him others of his kin, too, were caught devising secret plots against him, since God, by means he had not looked for, uncovered all their counsels to his servant through visions.

47.3| For God judged him worthy of divine manifestations many times, a divine sight appearing to him in most astonishing fashion and giving him foreknowledge of every kind of event that was to come. The marvels that came by God's grace are beyond telling, nor is it possible to comprehend in words all that God himself saw fit to grant his servant.

47.4| Protected by these, he spent the rest of his life in safety, rejoicing in the goodwill of his subjects, rejoicing also that he saw all those under him living in cheerful contentment, and delighting beyond measure in the radiant state of God's churches.

48.1| While things stood thus with him, the tenth year of his reign was completed. On this occasion he held festivals for all the people and sent up to God, the King of all, prayers of thanksgiving, as though they were sacrifices without fire or smoke. Yet although he continued rejoicing in all this, he did not rejoice at what he learned by report about the nations worn down in the East.

49.1| For word was brought to him that there, too, a dreadful beast lay in wait against God's church and the other inhabitants of the provinces, the wicked demon seeming to compete with what was done by the man beloved of God by working the opposite effects, so that the whole empire under the Romans, divided into two parts, seemed like night and day: darkness lay over those who had received the East as their lot, while the brightest daylight shone on the inhabitants of the other portion.

49.2| Though countless blessings were being supplied to these by God, the sight of what was happening was not bearable to Envy, the hater of what is good, nor to the tyrant who was oppressing the other part of the world. His own rule was prospering and he had been honored with marriage into the family of so great an emperor as Constantine, yet he fell short of imitating the man beloved of God and instead emulated the wicked disposition of the impious. And he tried to follow in his purpose those whose lives he had seen end before his own eyes, rather than the friendly right hands of the better man.

50.1| He therefore waged an implacable war against his benefactor, sparing neither the laws of friendship, nor oaths, nor kinship, nor any memory of treaties in his mind. For the most humane emperor, offering him tokens of genuine goodwill, had thought him worthy of sharing the kinship of his forefathers and the royal blood of old, joining his sister to him in marriage, and had granted him the power to enjoy rule over all those who held the East. But he, holding opposite views to all this, kept contriving schemes of every kind against his better, devising now one manner of plot and now another, so that he might requite his benefactor with evils. At first he did everything under a pretense of friendship, with guile and deceit, hoping to escape notice in what he dared; but God made the plots devised in darkness plain to see. When he was caught in the first attempts, he went on to second deceptions, now holding out hands of friendship, now confirming agreements with oaths. Then suddenly he would annul what had been decided, and again make entreaties through embassies, and again disgrace himself with lies, until at last he openly proclaimed war, and in the madness of his reasoning set out from then on to array himself against God himself, the God he knew the emperor worshipped.

51.1| First of all, he quietly kept probing the servants of God under his rule, who had never committed any offense in connection with the government, hunting for malicious pretexts against them. But since he had no accusation to hand and nothing with which to find fault with these men, he issued a law ordering that bishops in no way whatsoever hold communion with one another, that none of them be permitted to travel to visit a neighbor, and that they not hold synods, or councils and deliberations about matters of common benefit. This was a pretext for abusing us. For either they had to be subjected to punishment for transgressing the law, or, by obeying the command, to abolish the church's regulations. For otherwise great questions cannot be rightly settled except through synods. Indeed the divine ordinances have laid down that the ordinations of bishops take place in no other way than this alone. And in other respects too the God-hater issued such commands, having resolved to do the opposite of the God-beloved. For the latter, taking the lead in peace and concord, gathered the priests of God together in one place in honor of the sacred law, while the former, scheming to destroy what is good, tried to break up their harmonious unity.

52.1| Then, when the friend of God thought it right to receive the servants of God inside the imperial palaces, the God-hater, holding the contrary view, drove all the godly among his subjects out of the royal households, and gave into exile the very men about him who were most faithful and most loyal; and those who had received honor and rank from him for earlier deeds of valor he ordered to be slaves to others and to perform household services. Seizing everyone's possessions as if they were a windfall, he even threatened death to those who bore the saving name. Yet he himself, possessing a soul full of passion and without self-restraint, committing countless adulteries and unspeakable shameful acts, despaired of there being the adornment of chastity in human nature, judging it by the poor test of himself.

53.1| Therefore he enacted a second law, ordering that men must not be present with women at the prayers of God, that the female sex must not attend the schools of solemn virtue, that bishops must not lead women in godly teachings, but that women be chosen as teachers of women. When this was laughed at by everyone, he devised something else for the destruction of the churches, saying that the customary assemblies of the people had to be held outside the gates on open ground. For the air outside the gates, he said, was far better for the public than that of the houses of prayer in the city.

54.1| When he did not find obedience even in this, he next ordered that the soldiers in each city be openly expelled from the governors' units unless they chose to offer sacrifice to the demons. So the ranks of godly men were stripped of the honors they held throughout every nation, and the lawgiver himself was stripped of their prayers, having deprived himself of holy men. But why need I mention matters beyond these, how he commanded that no one show kindness to those suffering in prisons by sharing food, that none take pity on those perishing of hunger in chains, and that, in a word, no one be good, nor do anything good, even those whom nature itself draws toward sympathy with their neighbors? And this was a law of outright shamelessness and utter lawlessness, going beyond anything a civilized nature could allow, to which a penalty was attached: that those showing mercy suffer the same as those receiving it, being confined in bonds and prisons, and that those who performed acts of kindness endure the same punishment as the ones being tormented.

55.1| These were the ordinances of Licinius; yet why should I list his innovations concerning marriage, or his reforms concerning those who depart this life? By these he dared to set aside the ancient Roman laws, which had been laid down well and wisely, and introduced in their place certain barbarous and savage ones, devising countless burdens for his subjects. Hence he conceived surveys of the land, so that, by the measuring, he might reckon the smallest plot as larger, out of an insatiable greed for excessive exactions. Hence too he drew up registers of country people who no longer existed, who had long since been numbered among the dead, drawing a shameful profit from this. For his meanness knew no measure, and his greed was not bounded by satiety. So, although he had filled every treasury with gold and silver and an endless mass of money, he groaned and lamented his poverty, his soul worn down by the suffering of Tantalus. And what punishments abroad he invented against men who had done no wrong, what confiscations of property, what seizures of men of noble birth and high repute, whose lawful wives he handed over to vile servants to be shamefully abused, and how many married women and unmarried girls he himself attempted, though his body was by now aged and worn with years! There is no need to dwell on this, since the excess of his last deeds makes his earliest seem small and as nothing.

56.1| In the end, then, the climax of his madness was armed against the churches, and he marched against the bishops, whom he saw most opposed to him and considered enemies because they were friends of the great emperor beloved of God. For this reason above all his anger was whetted against us. He was turned aside from sober reasoning and was plainly mad in his wits. He did not bring to mind the memory of those before him who had persecuted the Christians, nor of how he himself had become the destroyer and avenger of them for the impieties they had committed, nor of what he had himself witnessed, having seen with his own eyes the leader of those evils, whoever that man was, struck down by a scourge sent from God.

57.1| For when this man began the siege of the churches and was the first to stain his own soul with the blood of the righteous and godly, a punishment sent by God pursued him, beginning from his very flesh and advancing as far as his soul. For suddenly an abscess formed in the middle of his private parts, then a deep fistulous ulcer, and an incurable spreading of these through his inmost entrails, from which an unspeakable multitude of worms swarmed and a deadly stench breathed out. The whole bulk of his flesh, from overeating, had turned into an excessive quantity of fat, which then, rotting, is said to have presented an unbearable and most dreadful sight to those who came near. And so, wrestling with so many afflictions, he at last perceived what he had dared to do against the church. Then, confessing to God, he put an end to the persecution against the Christians, and by imperial laws and decrees urged on the building of their churches, and commanded them to carry on their customary practices, making prayers on his behalf.

58.1| Thus the one who began the persecution paid such a penalty. But the man whom our account is describing, who had witnessed these things and learned them exactly by experience, made himself forget them all. He recalled neither the punishment of the former nor the avenging justice that fell on the second.

58.2| He, too, in a spirit of rivalry as if in a contest of evils, strove to surpass the first, and prided himself on devising newer punishments against us. For fire and iron and nailing to stakes did not suffice him, nor wild beasts, nor the depths of the sea; but besides all these he invented a strange kind of penalty, and enacted that the organs of sight must be destroyed. So whole crowds, not of men only but of children and women too, had their right eyes' sight and the sinews of their feet ruined with iron and cautery, and were handed over to be worn down in the mines.

58.3| For this reason God's just judgment soon came after him as well, when, putting his confidence in the hopes held out by demons, whom he took for gods, and in countless tens of thousands of armed men, he drew up his forces for war. At that moment, stripped of any hope that comes from God, he slipped out of the imperial dress that had never suited him, crept in a cowardly and unmanly way into the crowd, and set his mind on saving himself by flight. After that he hid in the fields and villages, dressed as a household slave, and thought he could escape notice. But he did not escape the great eye of universal providence. For just when he hoped that his life was at last secure, he was struck by a fiery arrow from God and fell headlong, his whole body consumed by a fire sent from heaven, so that every trace of his former appearance vanished, and nothing was left of him but dry bones, wasted to a skeleton like phantoms. LIX. As God's blow pressed on him ever more violently, his eyes burst out, fell from their sockets, and left him blind; and so, by God's most just sentence, he suffered the very punishments he had been the first to devise against God's martyrs. Even so, while he still breathed, after all this, he too at long last acknowledged the Christians' God and confessed his own wars against God. Like the former ruler, he too composed recantations, admitting in writing, in laws and decrees, his error regarding those he had taken for gods, and bearing witness that he had come to know, by experience itself, that the God of the Christians alone is God. Licinius learned these things from what he saw happen, not from hearsay passed on by others, and yet he clung to the same course, his mind veiled as if by a moonless darkness.

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