Eusebius of Caesarea · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
1.1| In this way, then, the man we have described was hurling himself down into the pit of those who fight against God. The ruin that impiety had brought on others he had seen with his own eyes, yet he set out to emulate them, to his own harm, and fanned back into life the persecution of the Christians, like a blaze of fire long since put out, kindling the flame of impiety more fiercely than those before him. Like some savage beast, or a crooked snake coiling about itself, breathing fury and threats against God, he did not yet dare, for fear of Constantine, to make open war on the churches of God under his rule. Instead he hid the venom of his wickedness and made secret, piecemeal plots against the bishops, and through the treachery of the provincial governors he put to death the most esteemed of them. The manner of their murder was itself something strange, such as had never been heard of before. What was done around Amaseia in Pontus, at any rate, outstripped every extreme of cruelty.
2.1| There some of the churches were torn down from top to bottom for the second time since the first sieges, and others were shut up by the local governors, so that none of the usual congregation could assemble or render to God the worship the law prescribed. For the man who gave these orders did not believe that this worship was performed on his behalf; his bad conscience told him so. He was convinced, rather, that we did everything for Constantine and sought God's favor for him.
2.2| Some of the governors, being fawners and flatterers and convinced they were doing what pleased that accursed man, subjected the most esteemed presidents of the churches to capital punishment. Men who had done no wrong at all were led away and punished, without any pretext, just like murderers. Some even suffered a new kind of death: their bodies were hacked by the sword into many pieces, and after this savage punishment, more horrifying than anything told in tragedy, they were cast into the sea's depths to feed the fish.
2.3| Upon this the godly fled once more, just as they had a little before, and once again fields, once again deserts, received the servants of God. And since these measures too were going the tyrant's way, he next resolved to stir up persecution against everyone. He was set in his purpose, and nothing stood in the way of his proceeding at once to action, had not the champion of his own people forestalled what was coming and made a great light blaze out as if in darkness and the gloomiest night, leading his servant Constantine by the hand into those regions.
3.1| Constantine saw that what he heard of these things could no longer be endured. He gathered his sober judgment, and tempering the firmness of his character with his natural humanity, he hastened to the defense of the oppressed. He judged it a pious and holy thing to remove one man from the way, and thereby to rescue most of the human race. For if he went on showing great humanity and pitying a man who did not deserve sympathy, it would do that man no good, since he would by no means give up his evil practices but would only grow more furious against his subjects, and those he had harmed would be left with no hope of rescue. With this in mind the emperor set out without delay to stretch out a saving right hand to those who had been driven to the extremity of misery. He made the customary preparations for arming his soldiers, and his whole battle line of foot and horse was assembled; and at the head of them all went the symbols of good hope in God, by means of the sign spoken of earlier.
4.1| Even now, knowing well that he needed prayers, he had brought along the high priests of God, thinking that they must stay with him and be present, like good guardians of the soul. So the man who held up the tyranny as his shield, on learning that Constantine won his victories over enemies only with God working alongside him, that the men I have mentioned were always with him and present, and that the symbol of the saving Passion led both him and his whole army, took all this to be laughable, mocking it and deriding it with blasphemous words. He surrounded himself with diviners and seers, with Egyptian sorcerers and magicians, with sacrificers and prophets of the gods he believed in, and then, appeasing those he took to be gods with sacrifices, he asked them how the outcome of the war would turn out for him. Without hesitation they assured him, in tune with his wishes, that he would be the victor and prevail in the war, holding out long prophecies and elegant verses from oracles everywhere; the augurs predicted from the flight of birds that the signs were favorable for him, and the sacrificers likewise made clear that the movement of the entrails hinted at the same. Elated, then, by their deceptive promises, he advanced with great boldness to draw up his battle line, as best he could, against the emperor's camps.
5.1| As he was about to begin the war, he summoned the most distinguished of his bodyguards and of the friends he had honored to one of the places they considered sacred. There was a well-watered, spreading grove, and in it stood images of every kind, carved in stone, of what he took to be gods. He lit candles before them, performed the customary sacrifices, and is reported to have spoken as follows:
5.2| "Friends and allies, these are our ancestral gods, whom we honor and worship, having received them from forebears of old. But the man who leads the opposing army has broken faith with the ancestral ways and chosen a godless opinion; wandering astray, he cherishes some foreign god, I know not whence, and shames his own army with a disgraceful emblem of him. Trusting in this he marches out, having taken up arms not against us but far rather against the very gods he has transgressed.
5.3| The present moment will now refute the man who has been led astray in his opinion, passing judgment between the gods honored on our side and those honored on the other. For either it will show us the victors and prove most justly that our gods are true saviors and helpers, or, if Constantine's god prevails over ours, though ours are very many and until now have had the advantage of numbers, this single god, I do not know what sort or from where he sprang, then let no one hereafter be in doubt which god he ought to worship; he must go over to the one who prevails and award him the prizes of victory.
5.4| And if the foreign god, whom we now laugh at, should prove stronger than ours, let nothing stand in the way of our also acknowledging and honoring him, bidding a long farewell to these gods before whom we light candles in vain. But if our own gods prevail, as is beyond doubt, then after the victory here let us set out on the war against the godless."
5.5| Such was his speech, and those who heard it with their own ears passed on knowledge of it a little later to those who were told of what had been said. And when he had gone through such words, he gave the army orders to lead the way into the engagement.
6.1| While this was going on, they say, a vision beyond description was seen in the cities subject to the tyrant. For men seemed to see different detachments of Constantine's soldiers passing through the cities in the middle of the day, as though they had won the battle. And this was seen although in truth no one was anywhere to be seen; the vision that appeared foretold what was to come by a more divine and stronger power. When the armies joined battle, the man who had broken the treaties of friendship opened the war. Then Constantine called upon the God who is over all as Savior, gave this as the watchword to the soldiers around him, and won the first engagement; and not long after he was victorious in a second clash and gained still greater triumphs, with the saving trophy going before the ranks around him. Wherever this appeared, the enemy turned to flight and the victors to pursuit. When the emperor saw this, if he noticed any unit of his own army growing weary, he would order the saving trophy to be present there, like a victorious remedy, and at once victory went up with it, a divine share of courage and strength empowering the combatants.
8.1| For this reason he ordered those of his bodyguard who were distinguished for bodily strength, for excellence, and for devout ways to devote themselves to the service of the sign alone. They numbered no fewer than fifty men, and their sole concern was to ring the sign round and tend it as its escort, each in turn carrying it on his shoulders. The emperor himself related this to me as I was writing, at a time of leisure long after these events, and he added a marvel worth recording in the narrative.
9.1| He said that once, in the middle of a battle, when din and utter confusion had seized the army, the man who was carrying the sign on his shoulders was overcome by cowardice and fell into anguish, and handed it over to another so that he might escape the fighting. But when the second man had taken it, and the first had stepped aside and was outside the protection of the sign, a missile hurled at him lodged in his belly and took his life. So this man paid the penalty for his cowardice and lack of faith and lay dead where he was; but for the one who held aloft the trophy of salvation it became a safeguard of life, so that, although missiles were often sent against him, the bearer was kept safe while the shaft of the trophy took the shots that were aimed at him. And this was beyond every wonder: the enemy's missiles, reaching the tiny circuit of the spear, stuck fast and were pierced into it, and they kept death from the bearer, so that none of those who performed this service was ever touched. This account is not my own; it is again the emperor's, who recounted this too to my ears, along with other matters. Once he had won his first victories by the power of God, he drove on further, moving his army forward in good order.
10.1| The commanders of the opposing side did not withstand the first onset of these troops. They threw down their arms, came over to the emperor's feet, and he received them all unharmed, glad at the preservation of these men. Others, however, stayed with their weapons and tried to join battle. When the emperor had offered them friendly terms and found that they would not be persuaded, he let his army loose. At once they turned their backs and took to flight. Some of them were then caught and killed according to the law of war, while more fell upon one another and were struck down by their own comrades' swords.
11.1| The man who led them was stunned by this. When he saw that he had been stripped of help from his own men, that the great multitude of the army and allies he had gathered had vanished, and that his hope in the gods he believed in had proved by trial to be nothing, he then submitted to a most shameful flight. He fled with a few men into the interior of the territory under his rule and reached safety, since the friend of God ordered his men not to pursue closely on his heels, so that the fugitive might find safety. For he hoped that the man, once he perceived into what evils he was going, would cease from his raving recklessness and change his mind to a better way of reasoning.
11.2| But while the emperor, out of the excess of his kindness, thought thus, wished to be forbearing, and wished to grant pardon to one who did not deserve it, the other did not refrain from wickedness. Heaping evil upon evil, he laid hold of still worse acts of daring, and once more grew bold by turning to the malicious practices of sorcerers. It could well be said of him, as of the tyrant of old, that "God hardened his heart."
12.1| So he, entangling himself in such things, pushed himself down into the pits of destruction. The emperor, seeing that he would have to fight a second pitched battle, devoted his leisure to his Savior. He pitched his tent outside the army, far away, and there kept to a pure and clean manner of life and offered his prayers to God, after the example of that ancient prophet of God who, as the divine oracles testify, pitched his tent outside the camp. Only a few attended him, men proved to him by their faith and by their goodwill toward devotion. This was his habit whenever he set out to join battle in any other engagement as well. For he was slow to act, for the sake of safety, and thought it right to do everything by the will of God.
12.2| When a manifestation of God had occurred, then, as if moved by a more divine inspiration, he would urge his men not to delay but to lay hands on their swords at that very hour. They would fall on the enemy all together and cut them down to a man, until, taking victory in the instant of a moment's turn, they set up trophies over their enemies in token of triumph.
13.1| This was how the emperor had long been accustomed to conduct himself and his army in the battle lines of war, always placing his God before his own life, intending to do everything according to God's counsel, and holding the death of the many in reverent dread.
13.2| For this reason he took thought for the safety of enemies no less than for that of his own men. So he urged his troops, when they won a battle, to spare the prisoners and not to forget that they were human beings of the same kind as themselves. And if he ever saw the soldiers' tempers growing unrestrained, he held them in check with a gift of gold, ordering that anyone who took an enemy alive be rewarded with a fixed weight of gold. The emperor's shrewdness devised this as a lure to save human lives, so that countless numbers even of the barbarians were being spared, their lives bought back for them by the emperor's gold.
14.1| These acts, and countless others like them, were ones he was glad to perform at other times as well. On the present occasion, too, as was his custom before the battle, he pitched a tent for himself and devoted his leisure to prayers to God. He kept away from all ease and luxurious living, and mortified himself with fasting and bodily hardship, appeasing God with suppliant entreaties so that he might have him favorable and as a helper, and might do whatever God put into his mind. Thus he made his concern for the common good a sleepless one, praying no less for the safety of the enemy than for that of his own people.
15.1| Meanwhile the man who had a little earlier been a fugitive feigned, with false pretense, to ask once more for a friendly pledge of peace, and begged that the emperor grant it, on terms of agreement proposed as beneficial to life and advantageous to all. The man in question pretended to accept the agreement eagerly and confirmed his good faith with oaths, but in secret he again gathered a force of soldiers, once more began war and battle, called barbarian men to his side as allies, and went about seeking other gods, as though he had been deceived by the earlier ones. Of what had been said to him shortly before about the gods he retained no memory at all, nor was he willing to acknowledge the God who fought for Constantine, but absurdly kept searching for more and newer ones for himself.
16.1| Then, having learned by experience how great a divine and ineffable power lay in the saving trophy, through which Constantine's army had learned to prevail, he urged the soldiers around him never to advance against it, nor to look at it carelessly and without caution. It was terrible in its strength, he said, and hostile and inimical to him, and therefore an encounter with it must be avoided. And having given these orders, he set out to join battle against the one who, out of kindness, hesitated and put off his death. They, then, confident in a multitude of gods, advanced with a large force of soldiery, holding out in front of them images of the dead and departed in lifeless statues. But the emperor, fenced about with the breastplate of piety, set the saving and life-giving sign against the host of his opponents, like a scarecrow and a defense against evils. For a time he held back, showing restraint at first, so as not to be the first to begin the war because of the agreements that had been made,
17.1| but when he saw that the enemy were persisting and were already laying hands on their swords, then the emperor, thoroughly indignant, in a single moment of decisive force routed the whole power of his adversaries, and at the same time won victories over both his enemies and the demons.
18.1| Then, separating by the law of war first the God-hated man himself and afterward those around him, he handed them over to fitting punishment. The counselors of the fight against God were led away together with the tyrant himself and perished, paying the penalty they deserved. And those who shortly before had been lifted up by empty hope now in actual fact came to understand who Constantine's God was, and confessed that this one was the true and only God.
19.1| So, with the impious men removed from the scene, the rays of the sun were at last free of tyrannical rule. Every part of the world under Roman authority was joined together, the eastern provinces being united with the other half, and the whole body was ordered under a single government, as under one head, with monarchic authority reaching through everything. Bright flashes of the light of piety gave radiant days to those who had formerly sat in darkness and in the shadow of death. No memory of the earlier evils remained. Everywhere all men were singing the praises of the victor and confessing that they knew only his savior, God. And the emperor Victor, conspicuous in every virtue of godly devotion (for he had himself chosen "Victor" as his own and most fitting title, on account of the victory over all enemies and foes that God had granted him), took back the East and brought the Roman empire, once more joined together as of old, under his own rule. He led the way in proclaiming to all the monarchy of God, and he himself, in a monarchy over the Roman power, steered the whole of life. All fear of the evils that had formerly oppressed everyone was taken away. The peoples in every province and city celebrated brilliant festivals, and those who had been downcast looked at one another with smiling faces and bright eyes. Choruses and hymns taught them first of all to honor God, the king of all, as indeed he is, and then to praise the glorious victor and his sons, the most orderly and God-beloved Caesars, with unrestrained voices. There was forgetfulness of the old evils and oblivion of all impiety; there was enjoyment of the good things at hand, and besides, expectation of those to come.
20.1| Among us too, as earlier among those who had been allotted the other part of the world, edicts of the emperor full of kindness toward humanity were spread abroad, and laws breathing devotion toward God offered promises of every kind of blessing. To the provincials of each nation they granted what was suitable and profitable, and to the churches of God they decreed what was fitting.
20.2| First of all, then, they recalled those who, for refusing to worship idols, had suffered exile and banishment at the hands of the governors of the nations. Next, those who on the same account had been enrolled on the city councils were released from their public duties, and those who had been stripped of their property were ordered to take it back.
20.3| Those who had been made illustrious in the time of the struggle by their steadfastness of soul for God's sake, who had been handed over to suffer in the mines, or sentenced to live on islands, or forced into servitude at public works, all enjoyed freedom at once from all of these. And as for those who had been cast out of military rank because they held firmly to their godliness, the emperor's gift made amends for the outrage, giving them a free choice either to take back their own rank and stand out in their former dignities, or, if they preferred a quiet life, to remain free of all public burdens. Those who had been condemned to women's work in servitude, for insult and dishonor, he likewise freed, as he did the rest.
21.1| This is what the emperor's letter laid down concerning those who had endured these things. Concerning their property the law gave complete directions. It ordered that the estates of the holy martyrs of God, who had ended their lives in confession, be taken by their relatives, and that if none of these existed, the churches should receive the inheritances. As for goods that had earlier been transferred out of the treasury to others, whether by sale or by gift, and whatever had been left in it, the written grant ordered that they be returned to their rightful owners. Such were the gifts that were sent down to the church of God.
22.1| The emperor's magnanimity also bestowed on the communities outside and on every nation other gifts that exceeded these in number. Seeing these things before their eyes, all of us here, who had earlier heard by report of what was happening in the other part of the Roman empire and had called those who benefited blessed, praying that we too might one day enjoy the same, now thought it right to count themselves fortunate as well. They acknowledged that such an emperor was a strange marvel, of a kind that all the ages had never seen shining on the mortal race under the rays of the sun. But this was what they thought at that time.
23.1| When everything had been made subject to the emperor by the power of God the Savior, he made the giver of these blessings known to all, and he testified that people should regard that God, and not himself, as the cause of his victories. He proclaimed this in writing, in Latin and in Greek characters, in a document sent out to every nation. You can judge the strength of his words by setting before yourself the decrees themselves. There were two of them: one sent to the churches of God, the second to the peoples of the cities outside the church. It seems to me fitting to insert the latter into the present subject, so that through this history the text of this decree may remain and be preserved for those after us, both as proof of the truth and as confirmation of our narrative. It has been taken from the authentic imperial law kept in our possession, to which the emperor's own signature in his own hand, like a seal, attaches its testimony to the reliability of the words.
24.1| Letter of Constantine, son of Constantius, emperor of the Romans, the first document sent to the peoples of the eastern provinces after the victory over the tyrants. "Constantine, victor, greatest, Augustus, to the provincials of Palestine. From of old, among those who hold correct and sober beliefs about the Higher Power, the difference was plain, and it removed every doubt from far off: it was as wide as the gulf that separated the careful observance of the most venerable worship of Christianity from those who had made war against it and chose to treat it with contempt.
24.2| But now, through even more conspicuous deeds and more brilliant successes, both the senselessness of such doubt has been demonstrated and the great extent of the power of the great God. For those who faithfully honor his most revered law and do not dare to break any of its commands have abundant blessings, and the best strength in their undertakings, which meets them together with good hopes; but for those who have adopted an impious mind, the outcomes were consistent with their choices.
24.3| For who could obtain any good thing without knowing God, the cause of good things, or without being willing to give him the reverence that is due? And the facts themselves give credibility to what I have said."
25.1| "If, then, someone were to run back in his mind through the times that stretch from long ago to the present, and survey in his reasoning all the actions that have ever taken place, he would find that all those who laid a just and good foundation for their affairs brought their undertakings on to a good end, and gathered, as it were from a sweet root, sweet fruit; while those who attempted deeds of injustice, and either in their folly raged madly against the Higher Power or took no holy thought toward the human race, but dared many such things as exile, loss of rights, confiscation and slaughter, and never repented or turned their minds to better things, met with equal retribution. And these things happen not without reason or without cause."
26.1| "For those who come to their actions with a just purpose, who constantly keep in mind the fear of the Higher Power and preserve a steadfast faith in him, and who do not consider present fears and dangers more valuable than the hopes of what is to come, even if for a time they meet with some hardships, bore them, in the belief that greater honors are laid up for them, and did not take what befell them hard; rather they gained a glory all the brighter, in proportion as the hardships they endured were heavier. But those who either dishonorably disregarded justice, or did not know the Higher Power, and subjected to outrages and incurable punishments those who faithfully pursued it, and did not judge themselves wretched for the grounds on which they were inflicting such punishments, nor judge happy and blessed those who preserved their devotion to the Higher Power even through such treatment, of these many armies have fallen, many have been turned to flight, and every battle line they drew up in their wars ended in the most shameful defeat."
27.1| "From such conduct grow heavy wars; from such conduct come sackings that spare nothing sacred; from it come shortage of the necessities of life and a multitude of dreadful things hanging overhead; from it the originators of so great an impiety either endured the utmost and perished in swift and total ruin, or, living a most shameful life, found it heavier than death, and so received punishments in equal measure to their wrongs. For each of them met with misfortunes in proportion to how far he was driven, in his senselessness, to make war, as he supposed, on the divine law, so that for them not only was life burdensome, but the fear of the punishments beneath the earth awaited them as something harsher still."
28.1| With such grievous impiety gripping human affairs, and with the common welfare threatened with utter destruction as if by some plague, and in need of great saving treatment, what relief does the divine power devise, and what deliverance from these evils? We must understand as divine that which alone truly is, and which holds its power undiminished through all time. It is surely not boasting for one who acknowledges the benefaction of the stronger to speak of it with reverence. It was my service that He sought out and judged suited to His purpose. Beginning from the sea by those Britons, and from the regions where the sun is bound by necessity to set, I drove back and scattered, by a power greater than my own, all the evils that held sway, so that the human race, instructed through my service, might be called back to the worship of the most revered law, and at the same time the blessed faith might grow under the guidance of the stronger hand.
29.1| For I would never be ungrateful toward the thanks that are owed. Trusting that this was the best service and a gift graciously granted to me, I advanced as far as the eastern regions, which, held down by heavier misfortunes, cried out all the more for our help. I am firmly convinced that my whole soul, every breath I draw, and indeed whatever turns in the innermost depths of my mind, is owed entirely by us to the greatest God. I know well that those who have rightly pursued the heavenly hope, and have set it firmly as their chosen possession in the divine places, need nothing of the goodwill of men, and enjoy honors the greater as they have separated themselves from earthly faults and evils. Yet I think it right that we keep as far as possible from those who are blameless and not liable to any charge the hardships that have been brought on them for a time, and the undeserved torments. Otherwise it would be most absurd that, under the persecutors, the endurance and firmness of soul of those who were eager for the worship of the divine should be fully made known, while under the servant of God their glory should not be raised to a brighter and more blessed condition.
30.1| All, then — whether any exchanged their homeland for life abroad because they did not neglect their faith in the divine, to which they had consecrated themselves with their whole souls, having been subjected to the harsh sentences of judges at whatever time each happened to be; or whether any were enrolled on the registers of the city councils although they had not formerly belonged to that body — let them be restored to their ancestral lands and, in their accustomed leisure, bring thank offerings to God, the liberator of all. And whether some were stripped of their possessions and, stunned by the loss of all their property, have led a most dejected life until now, let them be given back their old homes, families and estates, and rejoice in enjoying the benefaction of the stronger.
31.1| Moreover, we also order that those whom islands hold against their will are to enjoy this provision, so that those who until now have been shut in by difficult mountains and the surrounding sea, freed from a grim and inhuman solitude, may give themselves back to their dearest ones and fulfil the longed-for desire. They spent a long time in a wretched life with some abominable squalor, and, treating their return as a kind of prize snatched up and released from cares for the future, may live with us without fear. For to live in fear under us, who boast and believe ourselves to be servants of God, would be among the most absurd things even to hear of, let alone to believe, since we are by nature those who correct even the sins of others.
32.1| As for those who were condemned to toil in wretched mines or to perform service on public works, let them exchange their unending labors for sweet leisure, and live a lighter life, one already with freedom, having turned the measureless miseries of their toils into gentle rest. And if some have fallen from the common right of free speech and suffered the misfortune of disgrace, let them, with fitting joy, as though they had been separated by a long absence abroad, recover their former rank and hasten to their own native cities.
33.1| “Furthermore, as for those who once held military rank but were driven out of them on some cruel and unjust pretext, because they confessed that knowing the better course mattered more to them than the rank they held: let it be as they wish, either to remain in the military status in which they were, if they are fond of soldiering, or to enjoy free leisure with an honorable discharge. For it would be fitting and consistent that a man who has shown such greatness of spirit and endurance in the face of the dangers brought upon him should, if he wishes, enjoy leisure and honor, whichever he chooses.”
34.1| “Moreover, all those who were forcibly stripped of their noble birth and endured from the judges a decision of this kind, so that they were thrown into the women's workshops or the linen-weaving shops to bear an unaccustomed and wretched labor, or were counted as servants of the treasury, with their former birth doing nothing to help them, are to recover the honors they enjoyed before and take pleasure in the blessings of freedom. Let them call back their customary ranks and live from now on in complete cheerfulness. And as for the man who exchanged freedom for slavery through some unlawful and inhuman madness, who often lamented the unfamiliar services, and who suddenly found himself a servant instead of a free man, let him take back his former freedom by our order, let him restore himself to his family, and let him pursue the labors that befit a free man, casting from his memory the toils he formerly endured in what was not his own service.”
35.1| “Nor must we pass over the matter of property, of which individuals were deprived on various pretexts. Whether some, having undergone the best and divine contest of martyrdom, were deprived of their possessions with a fearless and courageous resolve, or some, having become confessors, prepared eternal hope for themselves, or those who were compelled to move away, because they did not yield to their persecutors by abandoning the faith, were themselves also deprived of their possessions, or if any, though not condemned to death, suffered the loss of their property: we order that the estates of these be assigned to their kinsmen. Since the laws in every case prescribe that the nearer of the next of kin take precedence, it is easy to determine to whom the estates belong, and that those who were closer would reasonably come to the succession, just as if those persons had died a natural death.”
36.1| “But if none of the next of kin is left who would rightfully become heir to any of the persons mentioned, whether martyrs, I mean, or confessors, or exiles who departed because of such a cause, let the church in each place in every case be appointed to take the inheritance. This will in no way be grievous even to the departed, if they have the good fortune to have as their heir that church for the sake of which they endured all their labors. This must also be added: if any of those mentioned made a gift of any of their possessions to people of their choosing, it is reasonable that ownership remain valid for those recipients.”
37.1| “So that no uncertainty may appear in the order, and what is right may be readily known to all, let everyone understand that, whether they hold a field, a house, a garden, or anything else of the things mentioned, it is good and profitable for them to acknowledge it and to restore it with all speed. For even if some of them should be shown to have drawn many profits from unjust ownership, we judge it unjust that these be demanded back. Yet let them themselves, recognizing how much they gathered and from where, ask us for pardon for this offense, so that by such a correction their former greed may be healed, and at the same time the greatest God, accepting this as a kind of repentance, may become gracious to them over their sins.”
38.1| “For perhaps those who have become masters of such properties will say in their defense, if this plea deserves to prevail or has any force, that it was not possible to give them up at that time, when the sight of every kind of terror took many forms: people being cruelly driven out, ruthlessly destroyed, carelessly cast aside, with frequent confiscations from those who were not at fault, insatiable persecutions, and the sale of their possessions. But if some insist on such arguments and persist in their insatiable inclinations, they will find that this does not go unpunished for them, especially now that our affairs are thus serving the greatest God. Whatever deadly necessity formerly forced people to take, it is now hazardous to keep. Besides, it is necessary by every means to reduce greed through reasoning and examples.”
39.1| “Nor shall the treasury, if it holds any of the properties mentioned, be permitted to hold them securely; rather, since it has not dared to speak against the holy churches, from which it unjustly withheld these things for a time, it will rightly give these up to the churches. . . . Everything that would rightly seem to be the churches' own, whether the property consists of houses, or fields and gardens, or any other thing whatever, we order to be restored, with no part of the right of ownership diminished but everything remaining intact.”
40.1| “Moreover, as for the very places that have been honored by the bodies of the martyrs and stand as memorials of their glorious departure, who could doubt that they belong to the churches, or would fail to command it? For no gift could be better, nor any labor more pleasing and of greater benefit, than for people, urged on by the divine will, to take earnest care of such matters, and for whatever was taken away on the malicious pretexts of unjust and thoroughly wicked men to be restored justly to the pious churches and so preserved for them again.”
41.1| “Since it would be a mark of complete foresight not to pass over in silence even those who either bought something from the treasury by right of purchase or held something by a concession as a gift, stretching their insatiable desires in vain even to such things, let them know that such people, even if by what they dared to buy they have done their utmost to put themselves outside the kindness we show them, will nevertheless not fail to obtain that kindness, so far as is possible and fitting. Let this much be said on these matters.”
42.1| “Since it has been made plain, by the clearest and most evident proofs, through the power of God who can do all things, and likewise through the exhortations and the aid that he sees fit to give me so often, that the hardship which formerly gripped everything human has now been driven out from everywhere under the sun, each one of you and all together observe with earnest concern what that authority is, what that grace is, which has wiped out and destroyed, so to speak, the very seed of the most wicked and vile men, while the cheerfulness of the good, called back again, spreads freely over every land; and which once more gives complete freedom for the divine law itself to be served as is fitting with all reverence, and for those who have consecrated themselves to it to worship what is due. Having emerged, as it were, from some very deep darkness and gained a bright understanding of events, they will show in future the proper service and a consistent honor toward him. Let this be posted in our eastern regions.”
43.1| This, then, was what the emperor's first letter, sent down to us, laid down. At once what the law had proclaimed went into action, and everything was done in reverse of what the cruelty of the tyranny had dared a little earlier, and those for whom these laws were made enjoyed the emperor's gifts.
44.1| After this the emperor moved on and set about active measures. First he sent governors to the nations divided up by provinces, most of them consecrated to the saving faith. As for those who were thought to be pagans, they were forbidden to sacrifice. The same law applied to the offices of higher rank above the governorships, to those of the highest rank who held the authority of prefect. For he either granted them to distinguish themselves by the name of Christians, if they were Christians, or, if they were otherwise disposed, he commanded them not to worship idols.
45.1| Then, next, two laws were sent out together. One banned the abominations of the idolatry formerly carried on in cities and countryside, so that no one dared set up wooden images, or attempt divination and the other idle arts, or indeed sacrifice at all. The other ordered the buildings of the houses of prayer to be raised high and the churches of God to be enlarged in width and length, as though practically all people were from now on to be joined to God, with the madness of many gods removed from the path.
45.2| For his own piety toward God moved the emperor to think and to write such things to the local governors, and the law included the instruction not to be sparing in giving money but to make the repairs out of the imperial treasuries themselves. Letters of the same kind were also written to the presidents of the churches in every place, such as he saw fit to write to us as well, having sent this one first, addressed to me personally.
46.1| “Constantine, Victor, Greatest, Augustus, to Eusebius. Up to the present time, while an unholy will and tyranny was persecuting the servants of God the Savior, I have believed, and have convinced myself with certainty, that the works of all the churches had either been ruined through neglect or had become less than they deserve through fear of the injustice that hung over them, dearest brother.
46.2| Now that freedom has been given back, and that serpent has been driven from the management of public affairs by the forethought of the greatest God, through my own service, I believe the divine power has become plain to everyone, and that those who fell into some sins through fear or unbelief will recognize what truly is and come to the true and upright ordering of life.
46.3| Therefore, for all the churches you yourself preside over, and for the other bishops, presbyters and deacons who preside in each place, as far as you know them, remind them to take earnest care over the works of the churches: either to repair the existing buildings, or to enlarge them, or, wherever need requires, to build new ones. You yourself will ask, and through you the others will ask, for what is necessary from the governors and from the provincial administration. For these have been written to, instructing them to give assistance with all eagerness to what your holiness says. May God keep you safe, beloved brother.
46.4| Such were the letters written to the heads of the churches in each nation, and the governors of the nations were ordered to act accordingly; and with great speed what had been enacted was carried out in deeds.
47.1| The emperor, intensifying still further his devotion to God, sent to the provincials in every nation a teaching that refuted the idolatrous error of those who had held power before him, urging his subjects in more learned language to acknowledge the God over all and expressly to proclaim his Christ as Savior. It is necessary for the present account to include this writing too, which is in his own hand and was translated from the Roman language, so that we may seem to hear the emperor himself crying out to the ears of all people in this way.
48.1| Letter of the emperor to all the provinces. Constantine, Victor, Greatest, Augustus, to the provincials of the East. Everything that is contained in the most sovereign laws of nature gives everyone a sufficient perception of providence and contemplation according to the divine ordering, and there is no doubt for those whose mind is led along the direct road of knowledge to that goal, since sound reasoning and the exact grasp of sight itself carry them, in a single movement of true virtue, to the knowledge of God. For this reason no sensible man would ever be troubled at seeing the many carried along by opposite choices. For the grace of virtue would have gone unnoticed and without benefit, had vice not been set directly against it in the life of perverted folly. Therefore a crown lies before virtue, and the most high God is the authority over the judgment. I shall try, as openly as I can, to declare to all of you my own hopes.
49.1| I for my part found that the emperors before this man were harsh because of the savagery of their ways; my father alone practiced deeds of gentleness, calling upon God the Savior with marvelous reverence in all his undertakings. But all the rest, being unsound in mind, cared more for savagery than for mildness, and fed it without stint, twisting the true account to suit their own occasions; and the force of their wickedness was kindled to such a degree that, while all things divine and human together were at peace, civil wars were stirred up by them.
50.1| At that time they said that Apollo gave his oracle from some cave and dark recess, and not through a man, because the righteous on earth were a hindrance to his speaking the truth, and for this reason the prophecies from the tripods were made false. For his priestess, letting her locks hang down in dejection and driven on by frenzy, lamented the evil among men. But let us see to what end this ran aground.
51.1| I call upon you now, the most high God. I heard then, being still quite a boy, how the man who at that time held first place among the Roman emperors, wretched, truly wretched, his soul deceived by error, made inquiry of those who served as his guards, asking who the righteous on earth might be; and one of the sacrificing priests around him answered, "Christians, of course." He swallowed the answer like honey, and turned swords found for the punishment of crimes against blameless piety. At once, then, he drew up edicts, written, so to speak, with the murderous points of bloodshed, and urged the judges to exert their natural keenness of mind in devising newer punishments.
52.1| "It was then possible to see with what authority that solemn dignity of reverence for God, under the unbroken pressure of cruelty, endured no ordinary outrages day after day; and chastity, which no enemy had ever wronged, became the incidental sport of the drunken violence of angry fellow citizens. What fire, what tortures, what kind of instrument of torment was not applied, without distinction, to every body and every age? In those days the earth wept beyond all doubt, the world that embraces all things, stained with gore, lamented, and the very day was veiled in mourning at the sight."
53.1| "But why dwell on this? The barbarians, who at that time took in those fleeing from us and kept them in a humane captivity, now boast of those events, because they established not only the safety of these refugees but also the security of their chastity; and now the Roman race bears this lasting stain, which the Christians, driven out at that time from the Roman world and taking shelter among barbarians, rubbed upon it."
54.1| "But why must I recall at greater length those lamentations and the common mourning of the world? Those authors of defilement are now gone as well, handed over to everlasting punishment in the pits of Acheron, with a shameful end. For they were caught up in civil wars and have left behind neither name nor family. This would never have happened to them had that impious divination of the oracles of the Pythian god not possessed a counterfeit power."
55.1| "Now I call upon you, greatest God: be gentle and kind to your peoples of the East; be so to all your provincials, crushed by long-standing disaster, and bring them healing through me, your servant. And I ask this not without reason, Master of all things, holy God. For by your guidance I have undertaken and carried through works of salvation, displaying your seal everywhere, and I have led a victorious army; and if any public need calls, following the same tokens of your excellence, I advance against the enemy.
55.2| For this reason I have dedicated to you my own soul, purely blended of love and fear: your name I love sincerely, and your power I revere, which you have shown by many proofs and by which you have made my faith more firm. So I am eager, putting my own shoulders to the work, to restore your most holy house, which those defiled and utterly impious men damaged by the outrage of its demolition."
56.1| "I desire that your people be at peace and remain free of faction, for the good of the world in common, and for the benefit of all humanity. Let those who are in error gladly receive the same enjoyment of peace and quiet as those who believe. For this sweetness of fellowship will have the strength to set them right too and bring them to the straight road. Let no one trouble another; let each hold to what his soul wishes, and use that.
56.2| But the sensible must be convinced that only those will live holy and pure lives whom you yourself call to rest upon your holy laws. Let those who hold themselves aloof keep, if they wish, their shrines of falsehood. We have the most radiant house of your truth. What you have given by nature, we pray that they too may have, that through common concord they also may gain gladness of heart."
57.1| "For what concerns us is neither new nor in any way recent. From the time that we believed the ordering of the universe to have been firmly established, you commanded this with the reverence due to you; but the human race went astray, led off by errors of every kind. Yet you, through your Son, so that evil might not weigh down any further, caused a pure light to rise and reminded everyone about yourself."
58.1| "Your deeds confirm these things. Your power makes us innocent and faithful. The sun and moon keep a lawful course, and the stars do not hold the revolution of the heavenly circle in disorder. The successions of the seasons come round according to law; the firm stability of the earth stands by your word; the wind makes its motion according to the ordinance laid upon it; the rush of waters runs on in the measure of an unstinted stream; the sea is enclosed within fixed boundaries; and whatever extends alongside the earth and the ocean, all of it is fashioned with marvelous and useful richness.
58.2| If this were not done by the judgment of your will, beyond doubt such great difference and wide division of authority would have damaged all of life and its affairs. For those who fought against one another would have afflicted the human race more harshly; and this they do even though they are not seen."
59.1| "But great thanks to you, Master of all things, greatest God. For as much as humanity is distinguished by its varied pursuits, by so much are the teachings of the divine Word established. Yet whoever prevents himself from being healed should blame no one else for it; for the art of medicine presides over all remedies, set out openly for everyone. Only let no one damage what the facts command to be kept undefiled. So let all of us, then, make use of the shared inheritance of the good that has been given, that is, the blessing of peace, keeping the conscience clearly apart from everything hostile.
60.1| But let each person not harm another in the matter he has persuaded himself to undertake; and what the other has seen and understood, let him help his neighbor with it if that is possible, and if it is impossible, let it be set aside. For it is one thing to take up the contest for immortality willingly, and another to compel it by punishment. I have said these things, and gone through them at greater length than the purpose of my moderation requires, because I did not wish to conceal faith in the truth, especially since some, as I hear, say that the temple customs and the power of darkness have been taken away. I would have advised this for all people, had I not judged that the violent upheaval of wretched error had been fixed immoderately in the souls of some, to the harm of the common salvation."
61.1| Such was what the emperor, like a most loud-voiced herald of God, addressed to all the provincials in a letter of his own, keeping his subjects away from demonic error and urging them to pursue true piety.
61.2| While he was rejoicing over this, a report was brought to him that a considerable disturbance had seized the churches. Struck by what he heard, he cast about for a cure for the evil. It was this.
61.3| The people of God were full of pride, adorned with fine deeds, and no fear from outside troubled them, since the grace of God was fencing the church about on every side with a bright and very deep peace. But envy was lying in wait for our blessings too, slipping inside and dancing in the midst of the very gatherings of the holy.
61.4| It set the bishops against one another, casting in strife and quarreling under the pretext of divine doctrines, and then, as a great fire blazes up from a small spark, it flared up, beginning as if from the very summit with the church of the Alexandrians, and ran through all of Egypt and Libya and the Thebaid beyond,
61.5| and was already spreading over the remaining provinces and cities, so that one could see not only the presidents of the churches clashing in argument, but the crowds too torn apart, some inclining to one side and some to the other. The sight of what was happening reached such a pitch of absurdity that the solemn matters of divinely inspired teaching were by now suffering the most shameful mockery in the very midst of the theaters of the unbelievers.
62.1| Those in Alexandria itself, then, were fiercely contending over the highest matters, while those throughout Egypt and the upper Thebaid were quarreling because of an older underlying dispute, so that the churches were divided everywhere. All Libya suffered along with them, as when a body is afflicted, and the remaining parts of the outlying provinces fell ill together with it. For those from Alexandria sent embassies to the bishops in each province, and those cut off into the other side joined in the same discord.
63.1| When the emperor learned of this, he was pained to the depths of his soul, and, taking the matter as a misfortune of his own, he immediately sent out, as a mediator of peace to those divided at Alexandria, one of the devout men about him whom he knew well, tested by a temperate life and the excellence of his faith, a man who had shone brightly in earlier times through his confessions for the sake of piety. Through him he also laid a most urgent letter on those responsible for the quarrel, which, since it too contains a mark of the emperor's care for the people of God, is good to include in my account of him. It was in this manner.
64.1| "Victor Constantine, Greatest, Augustus, to Alexander and Arius. That my purpose in these matters, for which I took on the task in deed, has been twofold, I make God himself, the helper and savior of the whole world and of my undertakings, my witness, as is fitting.
65.1| For first, I was eager to unite the disposition of all the nations toward the divine into one settled condition, and second, to restore and bring together the body of the common inhabited world, which was suffering as if from some grievous wound.
65.2| Looking ahead to these things, I reckoned the one with the hidden eye of the mind, and the other I tried to set right by the authority of the soldiery, knowing that if I should establish common harmony among all the servants of God in answer to my prayers, the public affairs too, in step with the pious judgments of all, would reap the benefit of the change.
66.1| “For when an unbearable madness had seized the whole of Africa, and through the reckless folly of those who had dared to split the religion of the peoples into different sects, I wished to put down this disease, and I found no other remedy adequate to the matter than to remove the common enemy of the world, who had set his unlawful purpose against your sacred councils, and to send some of you as helpers toward concord among those at variance with one another.”
67.1| “For since the power of the light and the law of holy religion, issued by the beneficence of the Higher Power as if from some recesses of the East, had flashed over the whole world at once with its sacred lamp, I trusted that you would naturally be, as it were, leaders in the salvation of the nations, and so I tried to seek you out both with the inclination of my soul and with the activity of my eyes. At any rate, together with the great victory and the true triumph over the enemies, this was the first thing I chose to investigate, which I held to be first and most precious of all for me.”
68.1| “But, most noble and divine Providence, what a deadly wound struck my hearing, or rather my very heart, when it showed that the division among you was far harsher than what had been left behind there, so that your own parts now needed more healing, though I had hoped that the cure for the others would come from you.
68.2| When I reflected on the origin and basis of these troubles, the pretext was found to be exceedingly trivial and in no way worthy of so great a quarrel. Therefore, driven by necessity to write this letter, and addressing your likeminded sagacity, and having called divine Providence as helper in the matter, I rightly place myself in the midst of your dispute with one another, as a kind of president of peace.
68.3| For with the help of the Higher Power, even if the occasion of discord had been greater, I could have turned each person toward the more useful course without difficulty, by committing my words to the devout minds of those who heard. Since the occasion is small and altogether trivial, and it stands in the way of the whole, how will it not promise me a far easier and much more ready correction of the matter?”
69.1| “I learn, then, that the beginning of the present controversy was laid as follows. When you, Alexander, were asking the presbyters what each of them thought about a certain passage written in the law, or rather about some part of a pointless inquiry, and you, Arius, thoughtlessly set against it what ought either never to have been thought of at all or, once thought of, to have been consigned to silence, discord was stirred up among you, communion was refused, and the most holy people, split into two, was separated from the harmony of the common body.
69.2| Therefore let each of you, granting equal pardon, accept what your fellow servant rightly advises you. And what is this? It was not proper to ask about such matters in the first place, nor to answer when asked. For questions of this kind, which no necessity of law imposes but which the idle chatter of useless leisure puts forward, even if they arise for the sake of some philosophical exercise, we ought nonetheless to shut up inside the mind, and not carelessly bring them out into public councils, nor thoughtlessly entrust them to the ears of the people.
69.3| For how great is any one of us, that he could either discern accurately the force of matters so great and so difficult, or explain it worthily? And even if someone were thought to do this easily, how small a part of the people will he persuade? Or who could stand against the precise details of such inquiries without a dangerous slip?
69.4| Therefore wordiness must be restrained in such matters, lest the people be forced into blasphemy or schism, either because we, through weakness of nature, are unable to explain what has been proposed, or because the hearers, through slower understanding, are unable to arrive at an accurate grasp of what has been said.”
70.1| “For this reason let an unguarded question and a thoughtless answer give each other equal pardon on both sides. For the pretext of your quarrel was not kindled over the chief of the commandments in the law, nor has some new sect been introduced among you concerning the worship of God; rather, you have one and the same way of reasoning, so that you are able to come together at the password of communion.
71.1| For while you contend with one another over small and utterly trivial matters, it is believed neither fitting nor at all permissible that so great a people of God, which it is your duty to guide under your hands, should be in discord.”
71.2| To remind your good sense by a small example: you surely know that even the philosophers all agree on a single doctrine, yet often, when they differ on some part of their pronouncements, even if they are divided by the excellence of their knowledge, they are nonetheless drawn into harmony with one another again by the unity of the doctrine. If that is so, how much more justly should we, who are servants of the great God and hold such a commitment to religion, be of one mind with one another?
71.3| Let us examine what has been said with greater reflection and more understanding: is it right that, because of a few empty quarrels over words among you, brothers should be set against brothers, and the honor of the council be split by impious discord, through us, who contend with one another over matters so small and not at all necessary? These are the concerns of the common crowd, suited to childish folly rather than fitting the understanding of priests and sensible men.
71.4| Let us willingly withdraw from the devil's temptations. Our great God, the Savior of all, has extended a light common to all. Under his providence, allow me, his servant, to carry this effort through to its end, so that by my address, my service, and the insistence of my admonition I may bring his own peoples back to communion in the council.
71.5| For since, as I said, there is one faith among us and one understanding of our own school of belief, and since the commandment of the law gathers the whole into a single purpose of the soul through its two parts, let this matter which has stirred up a little contention among you, because it does not touch the force of the whole law, create no division or faction among you at all.
71.6| I say this not to compel you by any means to agree to that question, which is quite foolish, whatever sort of question it is. For the honor of the council can be preserved intact among you, and one and the same communion maintained among all, even if some partial disagreement arises among you over the very smallest matter, since we do not all want the same thing in everything, nor is there a single nature or opinion that governs among us. Concerning divine providence, then, let there be among you one faith, one understanding, one covenant with the Higher Power. But as for what you debate precisely with one another about these very small questions, even if you do not come together in a single opinion, it is right that they stay within your reasoning, kept in the secrecy of the mind. Let the special quality of common friendship, faith in the truth, and reverence for God and for the observance of the law remain unshaken among you. Return, then, to friendship and goodwill toward one another; give back to the whole people their own embraces, and, having purified your own souls, as it were, recognize one another again. For friendship is often sweeter when it returns to reconciliation after enmity has been put aside."
72.1| "Give me, then, calm days and nights free of care, so that some pleasure in pure light and the gladness of a peaceful life may be preserved for me as well. Otherwise I must groan, be drowned throughout in tears, and not even endure the span of my life with composure. For when the peoples of God, I mean my fellow servants, are so divided from one another by unjust and harmful contentiousness, how can my own reason be at peace any longer?
72.2| To let you feel the excess of my grief at this, I recently arrived at the city of the Nicomedians and at once was pressing on in my mind toward the East. But as I hurried toward you, and was for the most part already with you, the news of this affair turned my reasoning back the other way, so that I would not be forced to see with my eyes what I had thought impossible even to hear of beforehand. Open for me now, through your concord, the road to the East, which you have closed by your quarrels with one another, and allow me soon to see both you and all the other peoples rejoicing, and to render to the Higher Power, in words of good omen, the thanks owed for the common concord and freedom of all."
73.1| In this way, then, the man dear to God provided for the peace of the church of God by means of the letter he sent. And the service was carried out well and honorably: the bearer acted in concert not only with the letter but also with the will of the one who had sent it, and he was, as has been said, a man devout in every respect. But the matter proved, as it turned out, too great for the service of a letter. The strife between the contending parties grew still fiercer, and the force of the evil spread into all the eastern provinces. These things, then, were the work of a certain envy and of a wicked demon that begrudged the church its blessings.
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