Eusebius of Caesarea · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
1| Now, then, it is time to set the new beside the old, to observe the turn toward better things by contrasting it with the worse, and to distinguish and take in at a glance how, in former days, gateways and sacred precincts, groves and temples were laboriously adorned for them in every city, and the shrines were crowned with a great multitude of offerings.
2| The rulers of that time had much to say about gods, and nations and peoples, in the countryside and in every place, and even at home in their own storerooms and bedchambers, honored their ancestral cults with altars and statues. Yet the fruit of their piety was not the peace with one another that our eyes now behold, but everything opposite to it: wars, battles and civil strife. Worn down by these their whole life long, they filled their own lands with blood and the slaughter of kinsmen.
3| Those whom they honored, for their part, promised the rulers of the day oracles, prophecies and foreknowledge of things to come, with a great deal of flattery; but their own destruction they could neither foresee nor foretell for themselves. And this may well be the clearest proof that exposes the fraud.
4| Not one, at any rate, of those once admired for their oracles ever foretold the shining forth upon humankind of the common Savior, or the new proclamation of the knowledge of God that he set forth. No, neither the Pythian himself nor any other of the great demons perceived his own coming desolation; none announced the one who would besiege him, or divined the one who would pull them down.
5| What oracle-singer or seer foretold that their solemn rites would be extinguished when someone new appeared in human life, and that knowledge of the King of all, and worship of him, would be handed down to all people? Who foresaw this solemn and God-fearing reign, our gloriously victorious emperor himself, the trophies he has raised everywhere on earth against the demons, and the overthrow of the lofty?
6| Which of the heroes ever declared beforehand that they would be melted down in fire, and that lifeless things would be changed from a useless form to needful uses? And when their wooden images were melted down and ludicrously chopped into small pieces, which of the gods ever made mention of it?
7| Where were their helpers, that they did not come to the defense of their own dedications as they were being destroyed by human hands, though they watched their besiegers go on living in the deepest peace? And where are those who trusted in them as gods and whose minds were puffed up with empty confidence, those who raised error to a height and took up an undeclared war against the champions of the truth?
8| Where is that throng of giants who fought against God, and the hissing of the serpents, who sharpened their tongues and let loose godless words against the King of all? Those who made war on the Sovereign of the universe, relying on a multitude of gods, advanced with a great force of soldiers, holding up before them the images of the dead and departed in lifeless statues. But he, armored with the breastplate of piety, set the saving and life-giving sign against the mass of his opponents as a kind of terror to them and a defense against evil, and won the victory over his enemies and over the demons together. Then, with a grateful mind, he paid his vow of thanksgiving to the author of the victory, and proclaimed the victory-bringing sign to all people with a loud voice and on monuments, raising up this great trophy against all enemies at the center of the imperial city, and expressly declaring this saving sign, never to be effaced, to be the safeguard both of the Roman government and of the whole empire.
9| This he taught all people to recognize, and above all the soldiers, who of all people most ought not to fasten their hopes on spears and full armor or on bodily strength, but to know the God who is over all, the giver of every good thing and of victory itself.
10| So the emperor himself (how astonishing a thing to hear!), in keeping with divine ordinances, taught them pious practice: to lift their hands up high toward heaven, to send the eyes of the mind higher still to the heavenly King, and in their prayers to call on him as the giver of victory, Savior, guardian and helper. Yes, and he taught them to regard as the proper day for prayer the one that is truly the sovereign and first, the Lord's day and the day of salvation, the day that takes its name from light and life, from immortality and every good.
11| He himself, having become his own teacher in what is good, honored his Savior even within the private chambers of the palace. In one place he carried out the divine ordinances with prayers, in another he trained his mind by listening to sacred discourses. Servants and attendants consecrated to God, men adorned with dignity of life and virtue, were set as guardians of the whole household; and his trusted spear-bearers, bodyguards armed with the manners of good will, enrolled the emperor as the teacher of a godly life.
12| The emperor honored the sign that gives victory, having learned by experience the divinity within it. For by this the multitudes of the enemy's army gave way; by this the boasts of those who fought against God were brought down; by this the tongues of the slanderous and impious were silenced; by this barbarian tribes were subdued; by this the powers of unseen demons were driven off; by this the games of superstitious deceit were exposed. By this, as though paying a debt for the end of all good things, the emperor set up monuments of victory everywhere on earth, ordering with a rich and royal hand that temples, sacred precincts and houses of prayer be built for all.
13| At once the great works of the emperor's generous mind rose up in the very midst of provinces and cities, and in a short time they shone forth in every nation, bringing with them the exposure of the godless tyranny. For those who, in the madness of their souls, had only a little earlier set out to fight against God, raging like dogs, vented their anger on lifeless buildings, since they could not do so against God himself. They threw down the houses of prayer from their heights to the ground and dug them up from their very foundations, presenting the sight of a city captured by enemies. And this was the drama of their wickedness, through which, with the divine as it were retaliating, they quickly tasted the fruits of their madness. Not even a short time passed before a single blast of a storm sent by God made them vanish, so that no family, no seed, no remnant of their memory was left among human beings; and in a brief time all of them, although they had been counted as a multitude, were punished with scourges sent by God and utterly extinguished. 14 Such was the end these men found for their God-fighting frenzy. But he who held forward the trophy of salvation stood alone, yet not alone, since the One who alone is God was with him and worked with him. He showed the new buildings to be far better than those captured a little before, the second far more honorable than the first. In one place he made the city that bears his name radiant with various churches of God; in another he honored the capital of the Bithynians with a church of the greatest size and beauty; and the most powerful of the remaining nations he adorned in like manner.
15| Above all, he set apart two places in the East for special distinction: one in the nation of the Palestinians, since from there the life-giving stream had poured out upon all like the flow from a spring; the other in the metropolis of the East, which bears the name of Antiochus. In the latter, as though on the head of all the nations there, he dedicated a work that was divine and unique in its size and beauty. He enclosed the whole temple with long outer walls, and inside raised the sanctuary to an immense height. He gave it an octagonal shape, surrounded it on every side with many chambers and recesses, and crowned it with beauty of every kind.
16| So these works were completed there. In the nation of the Palestinians, in the midst of the royal seat of the Hebrews, at the very place of the Savior's witness, he adorned an immense house of prayer and a holy temple to the saving sign with rich and lavish generosity. He also honored a memorial full of eternal remembrance, and the very trophies of the great Savior over death, with decorations beyond all description.
17| Taking three sites in this region honored by three mystic caves, he adorned them with costly buildings. To the cave of the first he gave the honor that fitted it; to the cave of the last, the ascension, he lent grandeur through a memorial on the mountain's summit; and to the middle one he raised up the saving victories of the whole contest. The emperor adorned all of these, proclaiming the saving sign to everyone.
18| And piety, repaying him in return, increases his whole house and family, and strengthens the throne of his empire through long cycles of years, storing up the fruits of virtue for his good sons, for his family, and for their successions.
19| And this was the finest proof of the power of the one he honored: that, holding the scales of justice level, he brought to each party the reward it deserved. So the wages of impiety followed hard on the heels of those who had laid siege to the houses of prayer; at once they were left rootless and homeless, without hearth and without a trace. But he who honored his own Master by every manner of piety, now raising royal houses for him, now displaying him to his subjects through dedicated offerings in every part of the earth, fittingly found in him the savior and guardian of his house, his empire and his line. Thus the works of God were made plain, through the inspired virtue of the saving sign,
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