Eusebius of Caesarea · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
1| Prologue to the Praise of Constantine. I have not come here with myths of my own fashioning, with snares for the ear, with a fluent show of words, to bewitch your ears with the voice of the Sirens; nor will I pledge the lovers of such things in golden cups, adorned with the lovely flowers of fine phrasing, a draught of the drugs of pleasure. Instead, heeding the wise, I counsel you to shun and turn aside from the highways, and I urge you not to let yourselves be jostled along with the crowd.
2| I have come, then, to offer among you the first fruits of a newer song of imperial hymns. Though countless others are hurrying along the same road as I am, I myself will avoid the beaten path of men and walk the untrodden way, on which it is not lawful to set unwashed feet. Some go after popular speeches, worn smooth by the sophistries of schoolboys, and, embracing a sweet and common muse, charm mortal ears with mortal tales, having handed the verdict over to pleasure. But those who are initiated into wisdom itself, wisdom in its whole compass, count divine things as their portion of the good; they have preferred the godlike virtues and the God-loving deeds of the emperor himself to his human achievements and chosen them instead, leaving it to lesser speakers to sing the lesser of his glories.
3| For since there is a twofold order of things divine and human even in the soul of the emperor, some reaching toward God and others toward men, let those who stand outside the sacred precincts, and who are suited to the task, attend to the human side. These things too are venerable, extraordinary and of benefit to life, for everything the emperor does is noble; yet they still fall short of the more divine.
4| But let those who have passed inside the holy palace, within the innermost recesses of the sanctuary where none may tread, and have shut the doors against profane ears, recount the emperor's secret initiations to his initiates alone: to those who have purified their ears with the streams of piety, and, lifting the mind of the soul itself on soaring wings, dance in chorus around the King of all, receiving the divine rites in silence.
5| And let the utterances of the oracles, spoken not out of divination (or rather out of witless frenzy) but by the inspiration of divine light, be our teachers in these rites: teachers concerning kingship itself, concerning the supreme King and the divine guard that surrounds the King of all, concerning the royal pattern among us and the one who has counterfeited the stamp, and concerning the ranks that attend upon each of them. Having been led by them, as by a hierophant, into these godlike rites, let us now lay hold of the divine mysteries somewhat in this way.
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