Life of Constantine — Book III

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

1.1| So it was that envy, the enemy of all that is good, begrudged the church its blessings and stirred up storms and civil strife against it in a time of peace and gladness. Yet the emperor, the friend of God, did not neglect what was fitting for him to do. By acting in every respect contrary to those cruel men, he proved himself stronger than every foe and enemy.

1.2| For a start, they had used every kind of compulsion to force people to worship gods that do not exist, turning them away from the God who does; he, by deeds and by words, proved that the gods that do not exist do not exist, and urged all to acknowledge the one God who truly is. Again, they had mocked the Christ of God with blasphemous words; he inscribed on himself, as a protecting and victorious emblem, the very thing against which the godless chiefly aimed their blasphemies, and took pride in the trophy of the Passion. They had driven out the servants of God and left them homeless and without a hearth; he called them all back and restored them to their own homes.

1.3| They had heaped disgrace upon them; he made them honored and envied in the eyes of all. They had unjustly confiscated the property of the godly and seized their livelihoods; he gave it back and lavished abundant gifts on them besides. They had published slanders against the leaders of the churches in written edicts; he, on the contrary, raised these men up and exalted them by the honor he showed them, and made them more illustrious through public proclamations and laws.

1.4| They had torn the houses of prayer down from their foundations, leveling them from roof to ground; he decreed that the existing ones be raised higher and that new ones be built on a grand scale and paid for from the imperial treasury itself. They had ordered the divinely inspired Scriptures to be burned in the fire and destroyed; he commanded that these too be multiplied, copied in great numbers and splendidly produced at the cost of the imperial treasury.

1.5| They had forbidden bishops ever, anywhere, under any circumstances, to dare to hold synods; he gathered them to himself from every nation, and thought fit to admit them within the palace, to let them pass into its innermost rooms, and to make them sharers of the imperial hearth and table. They had paid honor to the demons with offerings; he stripped the error bare, and kept distributing the useless material of the offerings to those who could put it to use. They had ordered the temples to be lavishly adorned; he demolished from the foundations those of them that the superstitious valued most highly.

1.6| They had subjected the martyrs of God to the most shameful punishments; he pursued the very men who had done these things and chastened them with the punishment of God that they deserved, while he never ceased to honor the memorials of God's holy martyrs. They had driven godly men out of the imperial households; he placed his confidence above all in these very men, knowing that they were more loyal and faithful to him than anyone else.

1.7| They had been slaves to money, their souls in bondage to the torment of Tantalus; he, with imperial magnificence, threw open all the treasuries and gave out his bounty with a rich and generous hand. They had committed countless murders for plunder and for the confiscation of their victims' property; under Constantine, throughout his whole reign, every sword hung idle in the hands of the judges, as of no use, while the peoples and the citizens in every province were governed with a father's care rather than ruled by force.

1.8| Looking at all this, one might fairly have said that a new and freshly made life seemed to have dawned just then, as a strange light suddenly shone out of darkness on the race of mortals; and one would have had to confess that the whole work was God's, who had set up the God-beloved emperor as the champion against the multitude of the godless.

2.1| For since those men had dared against the church such things as no others had ever been seen to do, and such as had never been heard of from the beginning of time, it was fitting that God himself should bring forward something new, and through him accomplish things never before known by report nor handed down by sight. And what was newer than the marvel of the emperor's virtue, bestowed on the human race by the wisdom of God? Accordingly he continued to proclaim the Christ of God to all with complete boldness, never hiding the saving name but glorying in the fact and making it plain to see: now he sealed his face with the saving sign, now he took delight in the victorious trophy,

3.1| which he also displayed for all eyes to see on a panel set up very high before the entrance of the palace. In the painting he placed the saving sign above his own head, and beneath it he showed the hostile and warring beast, which had besieged the church of God through the tyranny of the godless, plunging into the abyss in the form of a dragon. For the oracles in the books of God's prophets had proclaimed him a dragon and a crooked serpent.

3.2| For this reason the emperor also showed everyone, in a painting done in wax, the dragon under his own feet and those of his children, pierced through the middle of its body by a dart and cast down into the sea's depths. In this way he hinted at the unseen enemy of the human race, and he made clear that by the power of the saving trophy set above his head that enemy had gone down into the depths of destruction. These were the flowers of color that the picture hinted at. But I was seized with wonder at the emperor's greatness of mind, because he sketched out, as if by divine inspiration, the very things that the voices of the prophets had cried out about this beast, declaring that God would bring "his great and terrible sword against the dragon, the crooked serpent, the fleeing one, and would destroy the dragon that is in the sea." These were the images that the emperor outlined, truly setting likenesses of them into his shadow-painting.

4.1| All this was being accomplished to his liking. But the malice of envy was grievously disturbing the churches of God at Alexandria, and the evil of schism among the Thebans and Egyptians troubled him not a little. In every city bishops were clashing with bishops and peoples rising up against peoples, and they all but cut one another to pieces in their collisions, so that men given up to a frenzy of madness had already gone so far as to set their hands to impious acts and to dare to insult the emperor's images. Yet this roused the emperor not so much to anger as to distress of soul, for he grieved deeply over the senseless folly of these deranged men.

5.1| Before these troubles, however, there had already been another, earlier sickness, most grievous and long troublesome: a disagreement over the saving festival. Some said that the custom of the Jews must be followed, while others said that it was right to observe the exact time carefully and not to wander off and follow practices foreign to the grace of the gospel.

5.2| In this matter, then, the peoples everywhere had for a long time been at variance, and divine ordinances were being thrown into confusion. Since the shifting of the date made for the greatest division among those celebrating one and the same festival, some of them practicing fasting and hardship while others devoted their leisure to relaxation, no human being was able to find a cure for the evil, because the quarrel gave both parties of the dispute equal weight. Only almighty God could easily heal even this, and the only one on earth who appeared as a servant of his good purposes was Constantine. When he learned of the report just mentioned, and saw that the letter he had sent to the people of Alexandria had accomplished nothing, he then stirred up his own thinking and said that another campaign must be conducted against the unseen enemy who was troubling the church.

6.1| Then, as though marching an army against that enemy, he assembled a worldwide council as God's phalanx, summoning the bishops with honorific letters to hurry to it from every side. The order was not a simple one, for the emperor's nod was supported by action as well: to some he gave the right to use the public post, and to others he supplied pack animals in abundance. A city fitting for the council had also been appointed, named for victory: Nicaea, in the nation of the Bithynians. As the summons went out everywhere, they all ran, as if from the starting line of a race, with all eagerness. For they were drawn by hope of good things, by the prospect of a share in peace, and by the strange wonder of seeing so great an emperor. When all had come together, what was being done was seen at once to be the work of God. For those who were separated from one another far apart, not only in their souls but in their bodies, countries, places and nations, were brought together, and one city received them all. It was a sight to see: a very great crown of priests, adorned with a rich variety of lovely flowers.

7.1| From all the churches that filled the whole of Europe, Libya and Asia, the finest of God's ministers were gathered together, and a single house of prayer, as if enlarged by God, held within it at the same time Syrians and Cilicians, Phoenicians and Arabians and Palestinians, and besides these Egyptians, Thebans, Libyans, and those who came from Mesopotamia. Already a Persian bishop was present at the council, and not even a Scythian was missing from the company. Pontus and Galatia, Cappadocia and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia supplied their most distinguished men. Thracians and Macedonians, Achaeans and Epirotes came as well, and those who lived still farther away than these were there to meet them. Even the Spaniard who is so widely celebrated sat in session with the many.

7.2| The bishop of the imperial city was absent because of old age, but presbyters who were present filled his place. Thus Constantine, the one emperor of all the ages, bound a crown for Christ with the bond of peace, and dedicated to his Savior a thank-offering worthy of God for victory over enemies and foes, setting up in our own day this image of the apostolic company.

8.1| For it is told that in the apostles' day too there were gathered "from every nation under heaven" "devout men," and among them were "Parthians and Medes and Elamites, together with those living in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya around Cyrene, and visiting Romans, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs" — except that they lacked this: that not all of them were ministers of God. In the present company, however, the multitude of bishops exceeded two hundred and fifty in number, and the presbyters and deacons who followed them, together with a great many other attendants, were beyond any count.

9.1| Of the ministers of God, some stood out for the word of wisdom, others by the firmness of their lives and the endurance of their patience, and others were adorned by a manner between the two. Some of them were honored for the length of their years, others shone with youth and the vigor of the soul, and others had only just entered the course of ministry. For all of these the emperor had ordered that provisions be supplied lavishly every day.

10.1| When the day appointed for the council arrived, on which the disputed questions were to be settled, each party came bringing it. In the very central hall of the palace, which seemed to surpass all the rest in size, with rows of many seats set along either side of the hall, those who had been summoned entered and all took the seat that suited them.

10.2| When the whole council had taken its seats in becoming order, silence held everyone as they awaited the emperor's arrival. First one, then a second, then a third of the emperor's attendants came in. Others led the way too, not of the usual soldiers and guards but only of trusted friends.

10.3| At a signal that announced the emperor's entrance, all rose, and then he himself walked through the middle, like some heavenly angel of God, gleaming in a bright robe of purple that flashed like beams of light and was lit with fiery rays, and adorned with the brilliant gleam of gold and costly stones.

10.4| So much for his body. As for his soul, it was plain that it was decked with the fear of God and reverence. His downcast eyes showed this, as did the blush on his face, his manner of walking, and the rest of his appearance, and his stature, which surpassed all those around him . . . in the beauty of his prime, the splendor of his bodily presence, and the force of his invincible strength. These qualities, blended with gentleness of character and the mildness of imperial kindness, showed the surpassing quality of his mind to be beyond all description. 5 When he had advanced to the head of the first ranks and stood in the middle, a small chair made of gold was set before him, and he did not sit until the bishops had nodded their assent. All the others did the same along with the emperor.

11.1| Then the bishop who held first place in the right-hand rank delivered a measured address, speaking to the emperor and offering a hymn of thanksgiving to the almighty God on his behalf. When the bishop too had sat down, silence fell on everyone, all gazing steadily at the emperor. He looked calmly at them all with bright eyes, and then, collecting his thoughts, spoke in a quiet and gentle voice the following address.

12.1| "It was the fulfillment of my prayer, my friends, to enjoy your company, and now that I have obtained it I acknowledge my thanks to the King of all, because in addition to everything else he has granted me this blessing, better than any good: I mean to find you all gathered together, and to see one common mind shared in harmony by all.

12.2| Let no envious enemy, then, spoil our blessings; and now that the God-fighting of the tyrants has been removed by the power of God the Savior, let no demon who loves wickedness cover the divine law in blasphemies in some other way. For to me civil strife in the church of God is reckoned more grievous than any war or terrible battle, and these troubles appear more painful than those from outside.

12.3| When, then, by the nod and cooperation of the Power above, I won my victories over our enemies, I thought nothing remained for me but to give thanks to God and to rejoice with those whom he had set free through us. But when, against all expectation, I learned of your dissension, I did not treat the report as a secondary matter. Praying that this too might find healing through my service, I summoned all of you without delay.

12.4| I am glad to see your assembly, yet I judge that my prayers will be fulfilled most fully when I see all of you joined together in soul, and one common, peaceful harmony presiding over everyone, a harmony it would be fitting for you, who are consecrated to God, to proclaim to others as well.

12.5| Do not delay, then, my friends, ministers of God and good servants of our common Master and Savior. Begin now to bring the causes of your dissension into the open, and untie every knot of dispute by the laws of peace. In this way you will also give the greatest pleasure to me, your fellow servant.

13.1| When he had said this in the Roman tongue, with another interpreting, he handed the discussion over to the presidents of the council. From that point some began to accuse their neighbors, while others defended themselves and made counter-charges. Very many points were raised by each side, and at first there was great wrangling. The emperor listened patiently to everyone, received their proposals with close attention, and, taking up in turn what each party said, gradually brought together those who were contending stubbornly.

13.2| He addressed each one gently, and speaking in Greek as well, since he was not unskilled in that language, he was pleasant and agreeable: persuading some, shaming others with his words, commending those who spoke well, and urging all toward concord, until he brought them to one mind and one opinion on all the disputed points,

14.1| so that the faith prevailed with a single voice, and the same time for the feast of salvation was agreed on by everyone. What had been decided in common was also confirmed in writing, each man adding his signature. When this was done, the emperor said that he had won a second victory over the enemy of the church, and he celebrated a feast of victory to God.

15.1| At the same time the twentieth year of his reign was being completed. For this the other nations held public festivals, while the emperor himself gave a banquet for the ministers of God, entertaining those who had been made peaceful and offering through them a sacrifice, as it were, that was fitting for God. Not one of the bishops was left out of the imperial feast.

15.2| What took place was beyond all description. Spearmen and men-at-arms with bare sword blades stood guard in a ring around the entrances of the palace, and between them the men of God passed through without fear and went into the innermost chambers of the palace.

15.3| Then some reclined at table with the emperor, and others rested on couches on either side. One might have imagined an image of the kingdom of Christ, and supposed that what was happening was a dream and not reality.

16.1| When the feast had gone on splendidly, the emperor added one thing more in welcoming those present: with generosity he honored each man according to his rank with gifts of his own. He also handed down the memory of this council, even to those who had not been present, in a letter of his own. I shall set this too into my account of him, as on a monument. It runs as follows. Letter of the emperor about the feast of salvation, which he wrote to the churches after the council assembled at Nicaea.

17.1| “Constantine, Victor, Greatest, Augustus, to the churches. Having learned from the prosperity of the common welfare how great the grace of divine power is, I decided that this above all should be my aim: that among the most blessed multitudes of the catholic church there be kept one faith, a sincere love, and a devotion of one mind toward almighty God. 2 But this could not receive a firm and unwavering order unless all the bishops, or at least the greater number of them, came together in the same place and a decision were made on each matter that concerns our most holy religion. For this reason very many were gathered (and I myself was present as one of you; for I would not deny what gives me the greatest joy, to be your fellow servant), and everything received proper examination, until the opinion that pleases God, the overseer of all, was brought to light for the harmony of unity, so that nothing was left any longer for disagreement or dispute about the faith.”

18.1| Here, too, concerning the question that had arisen about the most holy day of the Pascha, it seemed good by common judgment that all everywhere should celebrate it on one day. For what could be finer for us, or more august, than that this festival, from which we have received the hope of immortality, should be kept unfailingly by everyone in a single order and by a plain rule?

18.2| And first of all it seemed unworthy to celebrate that most holy festival by following the custom of the Jews, who have defiled their own hands with an unlawful crime and so, as one would expect, are blind in their souls, polluted as they are. For now that their nation has been cast off, we are free to extend the observance, in a truer order, that we have preserved since the first day of the Passion until the present, to the ages still to come. Let us have nothing in common with the most hateful rabble of the Jews.

18.3| For we have received another way from the Savior; a course lies open before our most sacred religion, lawful and fitting. Let us hold to this in agreement, and tear ourselves away from that shameful complicity, most honored brothers. For it is truly most absurd for them to boast that without their teaching we were not capable of keeping these things.

18.4| What could they possibly think rightly, those who, after that murder of the Lord and parricide, have lost their senses and are led not by any reasoning but by an uncontrollable impulse, wherever their innate madness drives them? For this reason, in this matter too, they do not see the truth, so that, going astray for the most part, instead of making the proper correction they celebrate the Pascha twice within a single year. Why, then, ought we to follow people who are acknowledged to suffer from a dreadful error? For we would never tolerate keeping the Pascha twice in one year. But even if these things were not before us, your sharpness of mind ought always, with zeal and with prayer, to see to it that the purity of your soul does not appear to share in any likeness with the practices of utterly wicked men.

18.5| In addition to this, one may also observe that in so great a matter, and at a festival of such a religion, disagreement is unlawful. For our Savior handed down to us one day of our freedom, that is, the most holy day of his Passion, and he wished his catholic church to be one; and although its parts are divided among many different places, yet it is warmed by one Spirit, that is, by the divine will.

18.6| Let the sharpness of your holiness consider how terrible and unseemly it is that on the same days some should devote themselves to fasting while others hold banquets, and that after the days of the Pascha some should be found in festivals and relaxation while others are given over to the appointed fasts. For this reason, then, divine providence wishes that this be properly corrected and brought into one regulation, as I think everyone can see.

19.1| Therefore, since it was fitting that this be corrected so that there should be nothing in common with the nation of those parricides and killers of the Lord, and since there is a seemly order which all the churches in the western, southern, and northern regions of the world observe, along with some of those in the eastern regions, for this reason all have judged it good for the present, and I myself promised that it would please your sharpness of mind, that what is observed in the city of the Romans and throughout Italy and all Africa, Egypt, the Spains, the Gauls, the Britains, the Libyas, the entirety of Greece, the diocese of Asia, Pontus, together with Cilicia, with one harmonious judgment, your understanding too should gladly accept, reckoning not only that the number of churches in the aforementioned regions is greater, but also that this above all is what it is most holy for all to desire in common, which strict reasoning also seems to demand, and which has no communion with the perjury of the Jews.

19.2| To state the chief point briefly: it pleased all by common decision that the most holy festival be completed on one and the same day. For it is not fitting, in so great a purpose as this, in which there will be no admixture of alien error and sin.

20.1| Since these things are so, gladly receive the grace of God and this truly divine command. For whatever is done in the holy councils of the bishops must be referred to the divine will.

20.2| Therefore, once you have shown what is written above to all our beloved brothers, you should now accept the aforementioned reasoning and the observance of this most holy day, and put it into effect, so that when I arrive at the sight of your devotion, which I have long desired, I may be able to celebrate the holy festival with you on the very same day, and may be glad with you on every account, seeing the devilish cruelty removed by the divine power through our deeds, while your faith, peace and concord flourish everywhere. May God keep you safe, beloved brothers."

20.3| The emperor sent a copy of equal force of this letter to every province, offering to those who read it a mirror in which the purest part of his mind and his devotion toward the divine could be seen.

21.1| Since the council was at last about to break up, he called the bishops together for a day of farewell and urged those present to turn away from contentious quarrels, not to be envious if any bishop appeared to be esteemed for wisdom in speech, but to regard the excellence of one man as a common good; the stronger were not to exalt themselves over the more modest, for the judgment of who is truly stronger in reason belongs to God, and they must stoop to the weaker in a spirit of forbearance, since perfection is rare everywhere.

21.2| For this reason, he said, they must grant pardon to one another for small failings, show favor and allow whatever is human, all holding in great honor harmonious agreement, so that no cause for mockery might be given, through their quarrelling with one another, to those prepared to blaspheme the divine law. These above all they must care for in every way, since they could be saved if our affairs appeared worth emulating to them. And they should not fail to recognize that the benefit of words does not reach everyone alike.

21.3| For some are glad to be helped with food, others are accustomed to seek patronage, others welcome those who treat them kindly with greetings, and others are fond of those who honor them with gifts of hospitality; few are lovers of true words, and the friend of truth is rare in turn. Therefore, he said, they must adapt themselves to everyone, supplying to each, like a physician, what is profitable for salvation, so that in every way the saving teaching might be glorified among all.

21.4| Such was his counsel at the beginning; at the end he added a request that they earnestly make supplication to God on his behalf. Having thus given his instructions, he allowed them all to return to their own homes. They went back with joy, and from then on a single opinion prevailed among all, the one agreed upon in the emperor's own presence, as those who had long been divided were joined together as if under one body.

22.1| The emperor, delighted at this success, bestowed by letters a rich harvest of gifts on those who had not attended the council, and he ordered that lavish distributions of money be made to all the peoples, both in the countryside and around the cities, honoring in this way the festival of his twentieth year of rule.

23.1| But while everything else was at peace, only among the Egyptians did the mutual quarrelling remain unreconciled, so that it troubled the emperor once more, though it did not rouse him to anger. Treating them with every honor as fathers, or rather as prophets of God, he summoned them a second time and again acted as mediator for them, patiently; he honored them again with gifts, explained his arrangement in a letter, and confirmed and sealed the decrees of the council. He urged them to hold to concord and not to tear and cut the church apart, but to keep in mind the judgment of God. The emperor wrote these things too in a letter of his own.

24.1| In addition to these, the thrice-blessed emperor wrote countless other things and composed very many letters, in some instances giving bishops fitting instructions on behalf of the churches of God, and at other times addressing the multitudes themselves, calling the peoples of the church his brothers and fellow servants.

24.2| It would take leisure to gather these together under a subject of their own, so that the body of our present history is not interrupted.

25.1| While matters stood thus, the God-beloved emperor carried out another very great memorial among the nation of the Palestinians. What was it? He thought it right to make the most blessed place of the Savior's resurrection in Jerusalem evident and venerable to all. So he immediately gave orders to build a house of prayer, and not without God did he conceive this in his mind, to build a house of prayer, being stirred in spirit by the Savior.

26.1| For once, impious men, or rather the whole race of demons working through them, made it their business to hand over to darkness and oblivion that divine monument of immortality, beside which the angel who came down from heaven, flashing like lightning, rolled away the stone from those whose minds had been turned to stone and who supposed that the living One was still among the dead. He brought the women good news, and he removed the stone of unbelief from their minds, to the glory of the life of the One they were seeking.

26.2| This saving cave, then, some godless and impious people had resolved to make vanish from human sight, reckoning in their senseless way that by this means they would somehow hide the truth. And so, after expending great labor, they brought in earth from somewhere outside and covered the whole site. Then they raised it to a height, paved it with a layer of stone, and buried the divine cave somewhere far below under a great mound.

26.3| Next, as though nothing were left for them to do, they built above the ground a truly dreadful tomb for souls, a shrine of dead idols, constructing a dark recess for the licentious demon of Aphrodite; and there they poured out foul sacrifices upon profane and defiled altars. For they believed that only in this way, and not otherwise, would they accomplish what they were intent on, if they hid the saving cave beneath such polluted abominations.

26.4| For the wretches were unable to understand that it was not in the nature of the One who had won the prizes of victory over death to leave his triumph hidden, any more than the sun, shining above the earth and driving its own course across the sky, can escape the notice of the whole inhabited world. For the saving power, illuminating the souls of men and not their bodies more brilliantly than the sun, was filling the whole world with the radiance of its own light.

26.5| Nevertheless, the schemes of those godless and impious men against the truth dragged on for long ages, and no one at any time, whether rulers or generals or even emperors themselves, was found suited to undo what had been dared, except one man alone, the friend of the God who is King of all.

26.6| Possessed, then, by a divine spirit, he did not overlook that very place, which I have described, hidden by the enemies' plots with every kind of unclean material and handed over to oblivion and ignorance, nor did he give way to the wickedness of those responsible. Calling upon God as his helper, he ordered it to be cleansed, thinking that the very place defiled by the enemies ought especially to enjoy the great work of the all-good God through him.

26.7| At the command, the contrivances of deceit were thrown down from on high to the ground, and the buildings of error were demolished and cleared away, along with their wooden idols and demons.

27.1| Yet his zeal did not stop there. Once more the emperor ordered that the material of stones and timbers from the demolished structures be carried off and thrown far away from the site. And the deed followed his word. But it was not enough to go only this far. Again inspired by God, the emperor commanded that they dig down to a great depth in the ground and carry the soil itself, which had been fouled by demonic gore, far away to a place well outside.

28.1| This too was carried out at once. But as the place beneath the depths of the earth appeared, one thing after another coming to light, then, beyond all hope, the revered and most holy witness of the Savior's resurrection was revealed, and the holy of holies, the cave, shone forth as an image of the Savior's return to life. For after its descent into darkness it came forth again into the light, and it offered those who came to see it a clear view of the story of the wonders done there, bearing witness to the Savior's resurrection by deeds more resounding than any voice.

29.1| When this had been done, the emperor at once ordered, by edicts of pious laws and with ample funds, that a house of prayer, fit for God, be built around the saving cave, on a rich and imperial scale of expense, having planned this long beforehand and seen what was to be with better foresight. To the governors of the eastern provinces he gave orders, with abundant and generous funds, to make the work extraordinary, great, and rich. To the bishop of the church then presiding in Jerusalem he sent a letter of the following kind, in which he set out in clear words the love of God in his soul and the purity of his faith in the saving Word, writing in this manner. Letter of the emperor to Macarius, bishop of the church in Jerusalem, concerning the building of the martyrium.

30.1| “Victor Constantine, Greatest Augustus, to Macarius. So great is the grace of our Savior that no abundance of words seems equal to the present marvel. For that the token of that most holy Passion lay hidden beneath the earth for so many cycles of years, escaping notice until, with the removal of the common enemy of all, it was due to shine out for his own servants, now set free, truly surpasses all astonishment.

30.2| For if all who are reputed wise throughout the whole inhabited world were to gather together and wish to say something worthy of the matter, they would not be able to rival it even in the smallest degree, since faith in this marvel surpasses every nature capable of human reasoning by as much as heavenly things are mightier than human things.

30.3| For this reason, then, this is always my first and only aim: that, just as the faith of the truth displays itself day by day through ever newer marvels, so all of us may become more zealous for the holy law, with all self-control and with one-minded eagerness.

30.4| But what I think is plain to everyone, I wish above all that you be persuaded of: that I care more than for anything that we adorn with the beauty of buildings that sacred place, which by God's command I relieved of the shameful addition of an idol, as of some weight lying upon it. It was holy from the beginning by God's judgment, and has been shown to be holier still since it brought to light the proof of the saving Passion.

31.1| It is fitting, then, that your sagacity so arrange matters and make provision for every necessary thing that the basilica is not only better than any elsewhere, but that the remaining parts too are such that everything most beautiful in any city is surpassed by this structure.

31.2| As for the raising and finishing of the walls, know that the care of it has been entrusted by us to our friend Dracilianus, who administers the office of the prefects, and to the governor of the province. For my piety has ordered that craftsmen and laborers, and everything else they learn from your sagacity to be necessary for the building, be sent at once through their provision.

31.3| As for the columns and marbles, whichever you judge to be the most precious and most serviceable, take care to write to us yourself once you have made a survey, so that from your letter we may learn how many and of what kind are needed, and they can be brought from every quarter. For it is right that the most wondrous place in the world be made radiant as it deserves.

32.1| As for the vault of the basilica, I want to learn from you whether you think it should be made with coffering or by some other kind of work. For if it is to be coffered, it will be possible for it to be adorned with gold as well.

32.2| For the rest, let your holiness hasten to have the aforesaid judges informed as quickly as possible how many workmen and craftsmen and what expenses are needed, and to report to me immediately, not only about the marbles and columns but also about the coffered ceilings, if you decide that this is better. May God keep you, beloved brother.”

33.1| This is what the emperor wrote. And as soon as the words were spoken, his orders went forward in deeds, and so, at the very site of the Savior's witness, the new Jerusalem was being built, facing the one famed of old, which, after the murderous slaying of the Lord, was turned to the last extreme of desolation and paid the penalty for its impious inhabitants.

33.2| Directly opposite this city the emperor raised up, with rich and lavish munificence, the Savior's victory over death, perhaps this being the new and renewed Jerusalem proclaimed in the prophetic oracles, of which long discourses sing, uttering countless prophecies through the inspired Spirit. And first of all, like a head of the whole, he adorned the sacred cave. It was a tomb full of eternal remembrance, containing the great Savior's trophies over death, a divine tomb, beside which an angel, flashing with light, once announced to all the good news of the rebirth shown forth through the Savior.

34.1| This, then, as the head of the whole, the emperor's munificence first adorned with choice columns and with a great wealth of ornament, making the venerable cave radiant with decorations of every kind.

35.1| Next he passed on to a very large space, opened out into a clear open court, which was adorned by a gleaming stone pavement laid over the ground, and enclosed on three sides by long colonnades running around it.

36.1| On the side directly opposite the cave, the side that looked toward the rising sun, the imperial church was joined on, a marvelous work raised to a boundless height and spreading out to a great extent in length and breadth. Inside the building, slabs of marble in many colors covered the walls, while the outer face of the walls, made radiant with polished stone fitted together at each joint, offered a marvelous beauty in no way inferior to a facing of marble.

36.2| Above, at the very roofs, a covering of lead enclosed the outer part of the building, a secure defense against winter rains. The inner ceiling, carved in the manner of a royal house, spread wide in continuous interlacings of panels and was covered throughout with gleaming gold, so that the whole church flashed as with the glitter of light.

37.1| On each side were double colonnades, in upper and lower stories, with twin rows of pillars running the length of the church, and their ceilings too were picked out in gold. Of these, the colonnades at the front of the building rested on enormous columns, while those within, behind them, were raised on piers adorned with a rich decoration on their outer face. Three gates, well arranged to face the rising sun, received the crowds streaming in.

38.1| Opposite these, the crown of the whole was a hemisphere set at the summit of the imperial house, ringed by twelve columns equal in number to the Savior's apostles, their tops adorned with very large bowls made of silver, which the emperor himself presented as a most beautiful offering to his God.

39.1| From there, as people advanced toward the entrances in front of the church, another open court intervened. On either side of it were recesses, and first a courtyard with colonnades beside it, and beyond all these the outer doors; after them, in the middle of the broad market square, the gateway of the whole complex, tastefully fitted out, gave those traveling outside a stunning view of what could be seen within.

40.1| This church, then, the emperor raised as a clear testimony to the Savior's resurrection, brightening the whole with rich and imperial furnishing. He adorned it with indescribable beauty by a great multitude of offerings of gold, silver, and costly stones in varied materials. There is no leisure now for my account to go through the details of this furnishing, skillfully wrought, in their size, number, and variety.

41.1| Setting apart other places there that were honored by two mystic caves, he adorned these as well with rich and lavish gifts. To the cave of the Savior's first manifestation of God, where he underwent his birth in the flesh, he gave fitting honors, and to the other, the cave of the ascent into heaven, he gave dignity by a memorial on the mountaintop. These too he honored with fine taste, perpetuating the memory of his own mother, who had rendered so great a service to human life.

42.1| For she had made it her task to pay to God, the King of all, the debt of her pious disposition, and she thought she ought to fulfill her thanksgiving in prayers for so great an emperor as her son and for his sons, the Caesars most beloved of God, her own descendants. So the aged woman came, hastening with youthful vigor, with surpassing wisdom to inspect the land worthy of admiration, to visit the eastern regions, and to look in with imperial foresight on peoples and nations alike. When she paid the fitting worship at the footsteps of the Savior, in accord with the prophetic word that says, "Let us worship in the place where his feet stood," she left to those after her, at once, the fruit of her own piety.

43.1| Immediately, then, she dedicated two churches to the God she had worshiped, one beside the cave of the birth, the other on the mountain of the ascent. For the God who is with us endured for our sake to undergo birth, and the place of his birth in the flesh was proclaimed among the Hebrews by the name of Bethlehem.

43.2| For this reason the most God-fearing empress adorned the childbearing of the Mother of God with wonderful monuments, brightening the holy cave there in every way, and a little later the emperor honored this place also with imperial offerings, adding to his mother's fine works treasures of silver and gold and embroidered hangings of many kinds.

43.3| Again, the emperor's mother raised on the Mount of Olives a memorial of the journey into heaven of the Savior of all, in lofty buildings. At the top, near the summit of the whole mountain, she built a sacred house of a church and established there a church for prayer to the Savior who had chosen to spend his time in that place, since a true account holds that in that very cave the Savior of all initiated his followers into the secret rites.

43.4| Here too the emperor honored the great King with offerings and adornments of every kind. And these two august and most beautiful dedications, worthy of eternal remembrance, on the two mystic caves, were set up to God her Savior by Helena Augusta, the God-loving mother of a God-loving emperor, as proofs of her devout disposition, her son having extended to her a ready hand of imperial authority.

43.5| The aged woman did not have long to wait for a fruit worthy of this. Through the whole span of her life, up to the threshold of old age, she passed her time in every good thing, and by word and deed she put forth flourishing shoots of the saving precepts. Then she lived out a life orderly and free of distress in body and soul alike, with a sound mind to the end, and for all this she received, even in the present life, a fitting close to her piety and a good recompense from God.

44.1| For she traveled through the whole East with the magnificence of imperial authority, and bestowed countless gifts at once upon the peoples of the cities, and privately upon each who approached her. She distributed very many gifts with a splendid hand to the ranks of the soldiers, and very many to the poor, the naked and the helpless, giving money to some and providing others lavishly with clothing for the body. Others she released from imprisonment and from the misery of the mines, and she set free those who had been defrauded; still others she summoned back from exile.

45.1| Though she shone with such deeds, she did not neglect the rest of her duty toward God. She let herself be seen constantly attending the church of God, and she furnished the houses of prayer with splendid treasures, not overlooking even the churches in the smallest towns. One could see that admirable woman mingling with the crowd in modest and decorous dress, and showing her reverence for the divine through every God-loving act.

46.1| When she had completed a life of full measure and was called to the better portion, having lasted about eighty years, she came to the very end and made her arrangements and testament. She set down her final wishes for the benefit of her only son, the emperor, sole ruler and master of the world, and of his sons the Caesars, her own grandchildren, and she divided among each of her grandchildren whatever property she possessed throughout the whole inhabited world.

46.2| Having made her will in this way, she then ended her life, with her great son present and standing by her, tending her and holding her hands, so that to those who understood, the thrice-blessed woman seemed not to have died at all, but, as the saying goes, to have undergone a change and transfer from earthly life to heavenly. Her soul, at any rate, was transformed into the incorruptible and angelic essence, and taken up to her Savior.

47.1| The body of the blessed woman was deemed worthy of no ordinary honor: it was carried back to the imperial city and laid there in royal tombs. So the emperor's mother came to her end, deserving of unforgotten memory both for her God-loving deeds and for the extraordinary and marvelous plant that grew from her,

47.2| whom, besides everything else, it is right to call blessed for his devotion to the woman who bore him. He made her devout toward God, though she had not been so before, so that she seemed to have been a disciple of the common Savior from the first; and he honored her with such imperial dignity that in all the nations, and among the ranks of the soldiers themselves, she was proclaimed Augusta and empress, and her image was stamped on gold coins.

47.3| He even gave her authority over the imperial treasuries, so that she might use them as she chose and manage them as she saw fit, in whatever way and for whatever purposes she thought good, her son having made her distinguished and enviable in this too. For this reason we have rightly included these matters among the things that bear on his memory: in the excess of his piety he honored his mother, and so fulfilled the divine ordinances that prescribe what is due in honoring parents.

47.4| The emperor, then, established the fine works just described among the nation of the Palestinians in this manner, and in all the provinces he furnished newly built churches and made them far more splendid than the former ones.

48.1| The city that bore his own name he honored with exceptional distinction, adorning it with a great number of houses of prayer and with very large and beautiful martyr shrines, some outside the city and some within it. By these he at once honored the memorials of the martyrs and consecrated his own city to the God of the martyrs.

48.2| Inspired in every way by the wisdom of God, he judged that the city which he had decided to name after himself should be kept clean of all idolatry. Nowhere in it were to be seen statues of the so-called gods set up for worship in temples, nor altars defiled with streams of blood, nor sacrifices burned whole in fire, nor demonic festivals, nor anything else customary among the superstitious.

49.1| In the middle of the marketplaces you could see fountains adorned with the emblems of the good shepherd, familiar to those who know the divine oracles, and Daniel with the lions, modeled in bronze and shining with plates of gold. Such a divine love had taken hold of the emperor's soul that in the palace itself, in the most outstanding room of all, at the very center of the gilded paneled ceiling, a huge tablet was spread out, and in the middle of it was fixed the emblem of the saving Passion, composed of many costly stones set in abundant gold. The God-beloved emperor regarded this as made to be a safeguard of his reign itself.

50.1| With these things he adorned his own city. The leading city of the Bithynians he likewise honored with the dedication of a very large and extraordinary church, raising there too, from his own treasuries, trophies to his Savior over enemies and fighters against God. He also made the strongest cities of the remaining provinces stand out for the splendor of their houses of prayer, as indeed he did in the eastern metropolis, which has received its name from Antiochus. In this city, as the head of the provinces there, he dedicated a church unique for its size and beauty. He enclosed the whole sanctuary within long outer precincts, and inside raised the house of prayer to an immense height, built in an octagonal shape and encircled all around by chambers on upper and lower levels. This he crowned with a great abundance of gold, with bronze, and with the beauty of other costly material.

51.1| These, then, were the most outstanding of the emperor's dedications. Having learned that one and the same Savior, who had recently appeared in human life, had in ancient times also made manifestations of God to God-loving men in Palestine, beside the oak called Mamre, he commanded that a house of prayer be built there too for the God who had appeared.

51.2| To the governors of the provinces, then, imperial authority came through the letters sent to each, ordering them to carry out what was commanded. To us, who are writing this history, he sent instruction of a more reasoned kind, and it seems right to me to attach an exact copy of that letter to the present account, so that the God-beloved emperor's care may be clearly recognized. He reproached us for what he had learned was being done there, and wrote the following, word for word.

52.1| Letter of the emperor concerning the place at the oak called Mamre. "Constantine, Victor, Greatest, Augustus, to Macarius and the other bishops of Palestine. This too is one very great benefit that my most holy mother-in-law has done us: by her letter to us she has revealed the madness of impious men, which until now had gone unnoticed among you, so that the neglected offense might receive, through us, the fitting correction and remedy, late though it be, yet of necessity. For it is truly an enormous impiety that holy places should be polluted by unholy defilements. What is it, then, dearest brothers, that escaped your keen intelligence, but that the lady mentioned above, out of her reverence for the divine, could not pass over in silence?

53.1| She says that the place called after the oak of Mamre, where we learn that Abraham had his dwelling, is being defiled in every way by certain superstitious people. For she reported that idols worthy of utter destruction have been set up beside it, that an altar stands nearby, and that unclean sacrifices are performed continually.

53.2| Since, then, this seems foreign to our times and unworthy of the holiness of the place, I want your Reverence to know that we have written a letter to Acacius, our most distinguished count and friend, so that without any delay both the idols that may be found in the aforementioned place are handed over to fire and the altar is overturned from its foundations, and, in a word, with every such thing utterly wiped out from there, he may make it his business to cleanse the whole surrounding area with every strength and means, and afterward, as you yourselves shall direct, have a basilica built on the same ground, worthy of the catholic and apostolic church. It will then be a matter for your good sense and piety, once you learn that all that abomination has been entirely removed from there, to come together with the bishops of Phoenicia, whom you will be able to summon on the authority of this letter, and to draw up the plan of a basilica worthy of my munificence, so that, in accordance with what has been commanded, the splendor of the work may be completed with all speed, in keeping with the antiquity and sanctity of the place, under the care of our aforementioned count. But above all I want you to take this precaution, that none of those accursed and abominable men shall dare to approach the place in future. For it is truly intolerable to us, and deserving of punishment for all who dare it, that after our command anything impious should be done in such a place, which we have ordered to be adorned with a pure imperial building, so that it may be shown to be an assembly worthy of holy men. But if anything should happen contrary to what has been commanded, it is fitting that it be made known to our Clemency without any delay, by your letters of course, so that we may order the one caught to undergo the utmost penalty as a transgressor.

53.3| For you are not unaware that it was there first that God, the Master of the universe, appeared to Abraham and conversed with him. There the worship of the holy law first took its beginning; there first the Savior himself, with the two angels, lavished his appearing on Abraham; there God began to appear to men; there he spoke to Abraham beforehand about his coming offspring and at once fulfilled the promise; there he proclaimed that Abraham would be the father of very many nations.

53.4| This being so, it is fitting, as it seems to me, that through our care this place be kept pure from every defilement and be called back to its ancient holiness, so that nothing else is done upon it except the worship due to our almighty God and Savior, the Master of the universe. It is right that you guard this with the proper care, if indeed your Reverence wishes, as I am persuaded, to fulfill what is dear to me, which depends especially on piety toward God. May God keep you safe, beloved brothers.

54.1| The emperor accomplished all these things for the glory of the saving power. In this way he continued to honor God, his Savior, while he refuted the superstitious error of the nations in every manner.

54.2| Hence, naturally, the entrances of their temples in the cities were stripped, the doors being removed by the emperor's order; of others the roofs were ruined when their covering tiles were taken off; and of others the revered bronze works, in which the delusion of the ancients had prided itself for long ages, were set out plainly for all to see in every marketplace of the emperor's city, so that to the onlookers there lay an unseemly spectacle: here the Pythian Apollo, elsewhere the Sminthian, in the hippodrome itself the tripods from Delphi, and in the palace the Muses of Helicon.

54.3| The whole city that bears the emperor's name was filled with the artfully worked bronze treasures dedicated in every nation. Those who had been sick with error had offered to them, in the names of gods, countless hecatombs and whole burnt offerings, in vain, through long ages, and only late did they come to their senses; and the emperor used these very objects as playthings, for the laughter and amusement of those who looked on.

54.4| The golden statues he dealt with in another way. For when he saw the crowds of the error fearing in vain, like foolish infants, the bogeys fashioned of gold and silver, he judged that these too must be taken out of the way, like stumbling stones thrown before the feet of those walking in darkness, and so he opened up for everyone from then on a smooth and level imperial road.

54.5| With this in mind, he did not think he needed heavily armed soldiers or a crowd of troops to expose these practices. One man alone, or at most two of his acquaintances, sufficed for the service, and at a single nod he sent them out into every nation.

54.6| Confident in the emperor's piety and in their own reverence for the divine, these men passed through the midst of countless peoples and crowds, in every city and region, and brought a long-standing delusion to detection. They ordered the priests themselves, amid much laughter and to their shame, to bring their gods out into the light from their dark recesses. Then they stripped away the outward show and displayed to everyone's eyes the formlessness inside the painted shape. Next they scraped off whatever part of the material seemed useful, tested it by smelting and fire, and kept in safe storage as much of the profit as was thought necessary to them; what was otherwise superfluous and useless they left to the superstitious as a memorial of their shame.

54.7| The admirable emperor also did the following. When the dead idols had been stripped of their costly material in the manner described, he went on to the remaining statues, which were made of bronze. These gods of the myths were led off as prisoners too, wrapped in coverings of aged hair.

55.1| After this the emperor, as if he had lit some brilliantly shining beacon so that no hidden remnant of error might escape him, surveyed the world with an emperor's eye. As an eagle soaring in the sky, keenest of sight, might look down from on high and see things lying far apart on the ground, so he, attending to the imperial hearth of his own fair city, saw from a distance a dreadful snare for souls lying hidden in the nation of the Phoenicians.

55.2| This was a grove and sacred precinct. It was not in the middle of a city, nor in the marketplaces and broad streets where cities commonly take pride in adorning themselves, but lay off the beaten path, away from crossroads and highways, dedicated to the shameful demon Aphrodite on a mountain ridge of Lebanon, at Aphaca.

55.3| For all the dissolute and for those whose bodies had been ruined by great self-indulgence it was a school of wickedness. Certain effeminate men, men who were not men, renouncing the dignity of their nature, appeased the demon with a womanish sickness; unlawful intercourse with women, adulterous corruptions, and acts both unspeakable and notorious were attempted in this temple, as in a lawless place without any authority. None of what went on was detected, since no respectable man dared to go there.

55.4| But it was not possible for the great emperor to remain ignorant of what was done there. Having seen it for himself, with an emperor's forethought, he judged that such a temple was not worthy of the sun's rays, and he ordered that the whole place, offerings and all, be wiped out from its foundations.

55.5| At once, at the emperor's nod, the contrivances of that dissolute error were demolished, and a company of soldiers served in the cleansing of the place. Those who until then had been dissolute were taught self-control by the emperor's threat, as were the superstitious among the pseudo-wise Greeks, who also learned by experience the emptiness of their own beliefs.

56.1| For the delusion of the pseudo-wise about the demon of the Cilicians was great, and countless people were swept up in enthusiasm for him, as for a savior and physician who sometimes appeared to those sleeping in his shrine and sometimes healed the diseases of the sick in body. In fact he was an outright destroyer of souls, drawing them away from the true Savior and dragging down into godless error those who were easily open to deception. The emperor acted fittingly, holding up before him the jealous God, the one who is truly Savior, and he ordered this temple too to be razed to the ground.

56.2| At a single nod, the soldiers' hand laid flat upon the earth that marvel hailed by the noble philosophers, and the one who lurked inside, no demon and no god, but a deceiver of souls who had beguiled them for long ages beyond number. The one who promised to rescue others from evils and misfortune found no remedy to defend himself, any more than when, as the story goes, he was struck by a thunderbolt.

56.3| But the successes of our emperor, which were pleasing to God, were no myths. By the manifest power of that same Savior, the temple there was also overturned from its roots, so that not even a trace of the former madness was left remaining.

57.1| All who had formerly been superstitious, seeing with their own eyes the refutation of their error, and watching in actual fact the desolation of the temples and shrines everywhere, either took refuge in the saving Word or, if they did not do that, at least condemned the folly of their fathers, and laughed, and mocked the gods they had long believed in.

57.2| And how could they fail to think so, when they saw how great a filth lay hidden inside, beneath the outward show of the idols? For within lay either the dry bones of dead bodies and withered skulls, contrived by the meddling arts of sorcerers, or filthy rags full of foul stench, or a heap of hay and straw.

57.3| When they looked at these things piled up inside lifeless statues, they blamed themselves and their fathers for great folly of reasoning, above all when they realized that no one at all dwelt in the innermost recesses of their shrines or in the images themselves, neither demon nor oracle-giver nor god nor seer, as they had formerly supposed, and not even a faint or shadowy phantom.

57.4| For this reason the men sent out by the emperor found every dark cave and every secret recess readily open to them, and the places that had been untrodden and forbidden, the innermost parts of the temples, were trampled by soldiers' feet, so that from this it became plain to all, and was exposed, how long a blindness of mind had held all the nations in its grip from ages past.

58.1| And one might reasonably credit these things to the emperor's successes, just as one might the measures he ordered for each nation individually. Take Heliopolis in Phoenicia, where those who honored unrestrained pleasure under the name of Aphrodite had previously allowed their wives and daughters to prostitute themselves without restraint.

58.2| But now a new and temperate law came from the emperor, forbidding them to dare any of their old customs, and he also set before them written instruction, as one advanced by God for this very purpose, to train all people by laws of self-control. For this reason he did not disdain to address even these people in a letter of his own, and urged them to hasten toward knowledge of what is better.

58.3| And here too he added deeds akin to his words, laying the foundations of a house of prayer, a very great church, among these people also, so that what had not been heard of in all the ages now achieved realization for the first time, and the city of the superstitious was thought worthy of a church of God, of presbyters and deacons, and a bishop consecrated to the God of all presided over the people there.

58.4| Here too the emperor took thought that more people might come to the word, and provided abundant relief for the poor, urging them by this means also to hasten to the saving teaching. He all but said himself, like the man who spoke, "Let Christ be proclaimed, whether in pretense or in truth."

59.1| But while everyone was passing life in good cheer in these circumstances, and the church of God was being exalted everywhere, in every way, and among all nations, envy, which lies in wait for what is good, was once more stirred up against the prosperity of such great blessings, hoping that perhaps he too might one day become a different sort of emperor toward us, once worn down by our disturbances and disorders.

59.2| Kindling a very great beacon of strife, it seized the church of the Antiochenes with tragic calamities, so that almost the whole city was overturned from its foundations. For the people of the church were divided into two parts, and the general population of the city, along with the magistrates themselves and the soldiers, was stirred up like enemies, so that they were on the point of laying hands on swords, had not some oversight of God and fear of the emperor checked the impulses of the crowd,

59.3| and had not the emperor's forbearance, like that of a savior and physician of souls, again brought remedies through words to the sick. He sent envoys to the peoples in the gentlest manner, dispatching the most trusted of the esteemed men in his service, who were honored with the rank of count, and in repeated letters he urged them to think of peace and taught them to act as befits reverence for God; he persuaded them and defended himself in what he wrote to them, saying that he himself had heard of the cause of the dissension.

59.4| I would have set out these letters of his here, for they are full of no ordinary instruction and benefit, if they did not bring slander upon those who were accused in them.

59.5| So I shall put these aside, judging that the memory of evils should not be renewed, and I shall attach to my account only those which he wrote in good spirits for the union and peace of the peoples. In them he advised them in no way to wish to lay claim to a ruler belonging to another, for whose sake they had made peace, but to choose as shepherd, according to the church's ordinance, the man whom the common Savior of all himself would designate. He writes to the people and to the bishops separately the letters set out below.

60.1| Letter of the emperor to the people of Antioch, on the unity of the people and on the need not to covet another community's bishop. "Victor Constantine Maximus Augustus, to the Antiochene people. How welcome to the understanding and wisdom of the world is the harmony among you! And I, brothers, have resolved to cherish an undying friendship for you, drawn to it by your law, your way of life, and your zeal. To enjoy good things rightly, then, is truly this: to make use of a sound and upright mind.

60.2| For what would suit you better than this? I should not be surprised if I said that the truth is for you a cause of salvation rather than of hatred. Among brothers, then, whom one and the same disposition promises to God as travelers on a straight and just road, to be enrolled in a pure and holy household, what could be more honorable than to be of one mind, in good fortune, about all that is good? This is especially so where the training you have received from the law carries your purpose toward a nobler correction, and where we desire that our own judgment too be confirmed by good doctrines.

60.3| Perhaps it strikes you as strange what this opening of my discourse can mean. I will not decline or refuse to state the reason. I admit that I have read the records, in which, by the splendid praises and testimonies that you brought forward for Eusebius, who is already bishop of the Caesareans, and whom I myself have known well for a long time on account of his learning and his gentle character, I saw that you were earnestly claiming him as your own.

60.4| What, then, do you suppose I have felt, urged on as I am to a careful search for what is right, and what concern have I taken up from your eagerness? O holy faith, who through the word and mind of our Savior give us, as it were, a portrait of the life to be lived, how hard it would be for you yourself to resist transgressions, you who lay claim to peace rather than to victory! For where it is possible for a person to have what is fitting, no one could be found who is not delighted.

60.5| I therefore ask you, brothers: why do we judge in such a way that by what we choose we bring insult upon others and pull down our own reputation? For my part, I praise the man, who is judged worthy of honor and affection by you as well; yet the authority that rightly belongs to each community, and ought to remain firm, must not be so weakened that each is not content with its own judgments and everyone does not enjoy what is their own, while in a contest of deliberation, for comparison with this man, not just one but several candidates may be put forward.

60.6| Therefore there will be no cause for alarm or harshness, if the honors of the church turn out to be alike and valued equally throughout. It is not reasonable to conduct an inquiry into these matters for the advantage of some over others, since the mind of all, whether they seem lesser or greater, receives and guards the divine doctrines equally, so that in no respect is one group diminished in comparison with the other under the common law.

60.7| If, then, we now declare the truth openly and plainly, one might say that this would amount not to keeping the man but to taking him away, and that what is done would be acts of violence and not of justice, whether the multitudes think so or otherwise. For I declare plainly and boldly that this provokes grounds for accusation and the disturbance of no ordinary sedition. Even lambs, at any rate, show the nature and power of their teeth when, the shepherd's familiar care having slipped away, they are deprived of their former way of life and left to the worse.

60.8| If this is so and we are not mistaken, consider this first, brothers (for many great things will meet you from the start): it will perceive itself first as diminished. Then consider also that he, having come by sound counsel, reaps from the divine judgment what he deserves, having received no ordinary favor in that you have cast so kind a vote concerning him. In addition to this, as is your custom, bring with good intent the fitting zeal to the search for the man you need, shutting out every factious and disorderly outcry; for such clamor is always unjust, and from the clash of disputes sparks and flames spring up."

60.9| May I please God, and live out my life as you wish in your prayers, just as I love you and the haven of your gentleness. From it you thrust off that filth and brought in concord in its place, a good habit of character, setting the sign firmly in place and running a heavenly course toward the light, with rudders, one might say, of iron. For this reason you have also taken on an imperishable cargo; for everything that was damaging the ship has been used up, as if pumped out of the hold. So now we must take care that the enjoyment of all these things stays as it is, so that we may not seem a second time, by a thoughtless and unprofitable zeal, to have fixed anything at all, or to have undertaken from the start what is not to our advantage. God will preserve you, beloved brothers."

61.1| Letter of the emperor to us, on our declining the bishopric of Antioch. "Victor Constantine Maximus Augustus, to Eusebius. I read with great pleasure the letter which your wisdom composed, and I saw that the rule of ecclesiastical knowledge had been kept with precision; so hold fast to those things which are pleasing to God and appear to agree with the apostolic tradition. Count yourself blessed in this very fact, that you were judged, by the testimony, one might almost say, of the whole world, worthy to be bishop of every church. For if all long to have you among them, they will undoubtedly increase this good fortune for you.

61.2| But your wisdom, which has resolved to keep the commandments of God and the apostolic rule and that of the church, has done excellently in refusing the bishopric of the church of Antioch and in striving to remain in the one to which, by God's will, you first received your bishopric.

61.3| About this I have written a letter to the people, and to your other fellow ministers, who themselves also happened to have written to me on these matters. Your purity will easily understand it when you read it. Since justice spoke against them, I wrote to them at the prompting of the divine; and your wisdom will need to be present at their counsel, so that what is settled for the church of the Antiochenes may be what is judged most fitting both to God himself and to the church. God will preserve you, beloved brother."

62.1| Letter of the emperor to the synod of the Antiochenes. "Victor Constantine Maximus Augustus, to Theodotus, Theodorus, Narcissus, Aetius, Alpheus, and the other bishops in Antioch. I read what your wisdom wrote, and I welcomed the prudent purpose of Eusebius, who serves as a priest together with you. Having learned everything that was done, partly from your letters and partly from those of Acacius and Strategius, the most distinguished counts, and having made the necessary consideration, I wrote to the people of Antioch what was pleasing to God and fitting for the church. I also gave orders that a copy of that letter be appended to this one, so that you too may know what I chose to write to the people, called on by the principle of justice, since this was contained in your letter: that, in accordance with the judgment and wish of the people and of your own choice, Eusebius, the most holy bishop of the church of the Caesareans, should preside over the church of the Antiochenes and take up the care of it.

62.2| The letters of Eusebius, however, which showed him to be especially observant of the church's ordinance, put forward the opposite view: that he would on no account abandon the church entrusted to him by God. It seemed good, then, to give effect to so just a purpose, which all of you also ought to observe, rather than to tear him away from his own church. It was right that my own opinion too be made known to your wisdom. For it has come to my notice that Euphronius the presbyter, a citizen of Caesarea in Cappadocia, and George, likewise a presbyter, of Arethusa, whom Alexander appointed to that rank in Alexandria, are men most approved in faith.

62.3| It was therefore proper to make known to your wisdom that you should choose these men and others whom you consider worthy of the dignity of the episcopate, and decide those things that would agree with the tradition of the apostles. For once such men have been prepared, your wisdom will be able, in accordance with the rule of the church and the apostolic tradition, to arrange the ordination so that the principle of ecclesiastical knowledge directs. God will preserve you, beloved brothers."

63.1| In such terms the emperor gave directions to the rulers of the churches, urging them to do everything for the good name of the divine Word. And when he had removed the dissensions and set the church of God in harmonious concord, he moved on from there and thought it necessary to make another kind of godless men, like a poison, disappear from the life of mankind.

63.2| These men were a plague, ruining the cities under a solemn pretense. Our Savior called them false prophets or ravening wolves, in a saying to this effect: "Beware of the false prophets, who will come to you dressed as sheep, but who are inwardly ravening wolves. You will know them by their fruits."

63.3| An edict was then sent down to the governors of the provinces, driving out the whole of this ill-famed tribe. In addition to the law, he also drafted a life-giving instruction addressed to the men themselves, urging them to hasten to repentance, for the church of God would be a harbor of salvation for them. Hear how he addressed them in the letter he sent to them.

64.1| Letter of the emperor to the godless heretics. "Constantine, Victor, Greatest, Augustus, to the heretics. Learn now from this legislation, you Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionists, Paulians, and those called Phrygians, and in short all who make up the heresies through their own sects, with what falsehoods your emptiness among us is entangled, and with what venomous drugs your teaching is infected, so that through you the healthy are led into sickness and the living into unending death.

64.2| Enemies of the truth, foes of life, counselors of destruction! Everything among you is contrary to the truth, in harmony with shameful wickedness, serviceable to absurdities and stage-plays, by which you fabricate falsehoods, oppress the innocent, and deny the light to those who believe. Always committing offenses under a pretense of piety, you defile everything; you wound innocent and pure consciences with deadly blows, and you almost snatch the very daylight from human eyes.

64.3| But why speak of each point, when to say anything worthy of your evils would take neither a short time nor one compatible with our duties? So long and boundless are your outrages, so hateful and full of every cruelty, that not even a whole day would suffice to describe them. Besides, it is fitting to turn our ears away from such things and avert our eyes, so that the sincere and pure zeal of our faith is not defiled by a detailed account.

64.4| Why, then, should we endure such evils any longer? This long indulgence, like a plague, makes even the healthy sick. Why do we not, as quickly as possible, cut out the roots, so to speak, of so great a wickedness by public punishment?"

65.1| "Therefore, since it is no longer possible to bear this destroyer of your ruin any further, we declare by this law that none of you shall dare to assemble from now on. For this reason we have ordered all your houses, in which you hold these meetings, to be taken away, and our concern goes so far that the gatherings of your superstitious folly may not meet not only in public, but not even in a private house or in any places of your own.

65.2| Rather, and what is far better, all of you who care for the true and pure religion, come to the catholic church and share in its holiness, through which you will be able to reach the truth. But let the deceit of your perverted teaching, I mean the accursed and ruinous discord of the heretics and schismatics, be banished altogether from the good fortune of our times. For it befits our blessedness, which we enjoy with God, that those who live in good hopes be led from every disordered error to the straight road, from darkness to light, from emptiness to truth, from death to salvation. 3 And so that the force of this remedy may also become necessary, we have ordered, as stated before, that all the meeting houses of your superstition, I mean the houses of prayer of all the heretics, if it is right to call them houses of prayer, be taken away without dispute and handed over to the catholic church without any delay, and that the remaining places be assigned to the public property, and that no facility for assembling be left to you in future, so that from this present day none of your unlawful gatherings may dare to meet in any place, public or private. Let this be posted."

66.1| In this way, by imperial command, the lurking places of those who held other opinions were broken up, and both the wild beasts and the ringleaders of their impiety were brought low. Of those whom they had deceived, some slipped into the church out of fear of the emperor's threats, with a counterfeit mind, making a pretense to suit the times; for the law had also ordered that these men's books be searched out, and they were caught practicing forbidden arts of mischief, which was the very reason they did everything by pretense, contriving their own safety through dissembling. Others, perhaps with sincere reasoning, deserted to the hope of what is better.

66.2| The presiding bishops of the churches distinguished between these with great care. Those who tried to approach under false pretenses they kept far from the flock of God, as wolves hiding in the fleeces of sheep; those who did this with a pure soul they tested over time, and after sufficient trial enrolled them among the number of those being admitted.

66.3| This, then, was how the slanderous heterodox were dealt with. But those who brought nothing impious in their teaching of doctrine, and had otherwise stood apart from the common assembly through the fault of schismatic men, they received without delay. These came back in flocks, as if returning from exile, recovered their own homeland, and recognized their mother, the church, from which they had long wandered, and made their return to her with gladness and joy. The members of the common body were united and joined together in one harmony, and the catholic church of God alone, gathered into itself, shone out, with no heretical or schismatic faction left anywhere on earth. And of this great achievement, alone of all who ever lived, the emperor who was cared for by God ascribed the cause to God.

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