Eusebius Church History on the reign of Constantine

MAXIMIN'S RENEWED ATTACKS ON THE CHURCH: THE END OF PERSECUTION

I. The recantation of the imperial will set forth above was published up and down the whole of Asia and in the adjoining provinces of the empire. When this task had been accomplished, Maximin, tyrant in the east - a bitter enemy of religion if ever a man was, and most hostile to the worship of the God of the universe - found what was written little to his liking; instead of circulating the letter set forth above, he gave oral instructions to his subordinate officials to relax the campaign against us. As he could find no other way to reverse the decision of his superiors, he put on one side the ordinance set forth above, and making sure that in the areas under his control it should never be brought to light, he issued verbal instructions to his subordinate officials to relax the persecution against us. They put the order in writing for each other's information. For example, the man they had honoured with the title of His Excellency the Prefect, Sabinus, informed the provincial governors of the emperor's wishes in a letter written in Latin, the translation of which is as follows:

with the most shining and dedicated zeal the Divinity of our most divine masters, the Emperors, has long been resolved to lead the thoughts of all men to the holy and right way of life, in order that even those who apparently follow customs alien to the Romans might render to the immortal gods the worship that is their due. But the opposition and fierce resistance of some was so extreme that the sound logic of the order failed to shake their fixed purpose, and the threatened punishment had no terrors for than. Since therefore the result of such behaviour was that many were involving themselves in danger, the Divinity of our masters, the most mighty potentates, in accordance with the habitual grandeur of their devotion to the gods, deeming it alien to their own most divine purpose that for such a cause they should involve the men in so great danger, issued a command that through my Dedicatedness your Sagacity should be informed in writing that if any of the Christians were found practising the religion of his own people, you must safeguard him from molestation and from danger, and must not on these grounds hold any man guilty of a punishable offence, inasmuch as in the course of so long a time it has become evident that it is impossible to persuade them by any means whatever to abandon their determined opposition. It is therefore your Vigilance's duty to write to the sheriffs, magistrates, and praepositi of every urban district, in order that they may realize that it is incumbent on them to take no action that goes beyond what is here laid down.

Thereupon the provincial governors, having decided that the recommendations in the letter they had received were genuine, wrote to the sheriffs, magistrates, and rural commisioners explaining the imperial decision. It was not only in writing that they gave effect to this policy, but much more by action. To make sure that the imperial will was carried out,they saw to it that all whom they were keeping shut up in prison because of their confession of the Deity were brought out and set free; indeed, they released those prisoners who as a punishment were shackled in the mines - for in their innocence they believed this to be what the emperor really intended.

When these recommendations had been carried out, it was as if all at once a light had shone out of a dark night. ln every town could be seen crowded churches, overflowing congregations, and the appropriate ceremonies duly performed. This dumbfounded all the unconverted heathen, who were astonished at the miracle of this transformation and loudly proclaimed that the Christians' God was alone great and of our own people, those who faithfully and manfully fought through the ordeal of the persecutions again held their heads high in the sight of all; those whose faith had been sickly and their souls storm-tossed made earnest efforts to be made well begging and imploring those who had stood firm to hold out the right hand of deliverance, and beseeching God to be merciful to them. Then, too, the gallant champions of true religion were released from the misery of the mines and allowed to return to their homes, exulting and beaming as they passed through every town, full of unspeakable joy and a confidence beyond description. Long columns of men and women went on their way, singing psalms and hymns of praise to God in the middle of the highways and city squares. Those who a little while ago had been prisoners, driven from their homeland and punished most cruelly, could be seen with happy, smiling faces regaining their own hearths, so that event those who had earlier been athirst for our blood, when they saw this marvellous thing, so utterly unexpected, shared our joy at what had happened.

The subsequent change for the worse; the idol at Antioch: resolutions atacking us: the forged 'Memoranda'

2. All this was more than could be borne by the tyrant who as I have said ruled the eastern region, for everything noble was hateful to him and all good men were objects of his enmity; in fact, he did not tolerate this state of affairs for as long as six months. He did all he could think of to overthrow the peace.

First, he found a pretext for trying to stop us from meeting in the cemeteries;then, through the agency of a number of scoundrels, he sent embassies to himself to appeal against us, having instigated the citizens of Antioch to ask him to grant tbem a very great favour by absolutely forbidding any Christian to live in their country, and to work it so that others suggested the same thing. The man behind all this belonged to Antioch itself - one Theotecnus, a clever unprincipled trickster who belied his name (Theoteknos is Greek for "God's Child"). Apparently he was the city sheriff.

3. Time after time this man campaigned against us. He left no method untried in his determination to hunt our people out of hiding-places as if they were thieving scoundrels; he employed every device to defame and calumniate us; he engineered the deaths of thousands; finally he set up an image of Zeus the Friendly, with tricks and illusions; invented devilish rites, unholy initiations, and loathsome purifications, and even in the emperor's presence displayed his magic arts by spurious oracular utterances. In fact, by subtle flattery of the emperor, this man aroused the demon against the Christians: the god, he said, had commanded 'the emperor's enemies', to be cleared right out of the city and its neighbourhood.

4. This man was the first to follow his bent, but all the other authorities in the cities under the same rule lost no time in following his lead: the provincial governors had seen at once that the emperor approved of such a course, and they had advised their subjects to act in this very way. The tyrant was most happy to approve their resolutions, by means of a rescript; so the persecution against us blazed up all over again.

Priests, if you please, were appointed in every town by Maximin himself - priests of the images, and high priests too 3 - men of the greatest note in political life and continuously in the public eye, who were filled with enthusiasm for the worship of the gods they served. The absurd superstition of the emperor, in short, was inducing all under him, rulers and ruled alike, to seek his favour by an all-out attack on us. This was the greatest favour that they could bestow on him, in return for the benefits they expected at his hands - to thirst for our blood and show their spite against us in novel ways.

They actually forged a Memoranda of Pilate and our Saviour, full of every kind of blasphemy against Christ. These, with the approval of their superior, they sent to every district under his command, announcing in edicts that they were to be publicly displayed in every place, whether hamlet or city, for all to see, and that they should be given to children by their teachers instead of lessons, to study and learn by heart.

While these steps were being put into effect, an army offcer - called dux by the Romans - at Damascus in Phoenicia arranged for some disreputable women to be removed by force from the city square, and threatened to torture them. In this way he compelled them to sign a statement to the effect that they had once been Christians and were aware of breaches of the law by Christians, who in their very churches were guilty of immoral practices and everything else he wished the women to say in defamation of the Faith. What they said he set down in a report which he passed to the emperor, and at his command he published the document in every city and district. But not long afterwards he, the officer, committed suicide and so paid the penalty of his malignity.

Martyrdoms at this time

For us there was a resumption of banishments and harsh persecution, and of bitter attacks on us by all the provincial governors. As a result, some of the most notable preachers of the word were sentenced to death, with no right of appeal. Three of these in Emesa, a Phoenician town, confessed themselves Christians and were given to wild beasts as food. Among them was a bishop, Silvanus, a very old man who had filled this office for forty years. At the same time Peter, who had presided over the Alexandrian churches most admirably - a splendid example of a bishop in the nobility of his life and his intimate knowledge of Holy Scripture - was suddenly arrested for no reason and without warning, marched off then and there without explanation, and beheaded,- as if by Maximin's command. With him many other Egyptian bishops suffered the same fate.

Lucian, a man of the highest character, self-disciplined and steeped in divinity, a presbyter of the Antioch diocese, was taken to Nicomedia, where the emperior then happened to be staying. Before the ruler he put forward his defence of the doctrine he upheld, and was sent to prison and to death.

So swift an onslaught did Maximin, in his hatred of all that is good, direct against us, that the earlier persecution seemed trifling in comparison with this. In the middle of the cities - an unheard of thing - resolutions from cities attacking us, and rescripts embodying imperial decisions on the questions raised, were engraved on bronze tablets and posted up and the children in the schools daily repeated the names of Jesus and Pilate and the insolent forged Memoranda.

Here I find it necessary to insert the actual document set up on tablets by Maximin, in order that the swaggering, arrogant presumption of this enemy of God may be clear to all and with it the divine justice following hard on his heels with its unsleeping detestation of evil in the wicked. This it was that soon afterwards drove him to treat us in exactly the opposite way, and publish written laws declaring his policy.

COPY OF A TRANSLATION OF MAXIMINS RESCRIPT IN REPLY TO THE RESOLUTIONS ATTACKING US, TAKEN FROM THE TABLET IN TYRE

At last the feeble presumption of the human mind has succeeded in shaking off and scattering all the black fog of error that till now had wrapped the senses of men not so much wicked as unfortunate in the fatal darkness of ignorance, and was still assailing them; at last it has realized that the beneficent providence of the almighty gods governs it and keeps it secure. It is beyond me to express my extreme gratitude, pleasure, and delight at the magnificent proof you have given of your devout disposition; for even before this no one was unaware of the wonderful reverence and piety you always showed towards the immortal gods, evincing not a faith of bare and empty words but a constant and astonishing flow of notable deeds. And therefore your city deserves to be called the temple and abode of the immortal gods: there are many evidences to prove that it is the residence there of the celestial gods that causes it to flourish.

So it is that your city completely disregarded its private interests and did not press its earlier requests with reference to its own affairs, and when it saw that the adherents of that damnable folly were again beginning to spread - like a neglected and smouldering pyre which when it burns up again becomes a huge blazing mass - instantly and without a moment's delay it fled for refuge to our piety as to a mother-city of all religious feelings, appealing for some remedy and assistance. This salutary thought was undoubtedly planted in you by the gods because of the faith shown by your devotion to them. He therefore it was, he the most high and mighty Jupiter, the guardian of your most glorious city, the protector of your ancestral gods, of your women and children, of your hearth and homes, from all destruction and decay, who inspired your breasts with this wholesome resolve, clearly revealing how wonderful and glorious and salutary it is with due reverence to approach the worship and sacred ceremonies of the immortal gods.

Who could be found so stupid or devoid of all sense as not to see that it is thanks to the beneficent activity of the gods that the soil does not refuse the seeds committed to it and disappoint the hopes and expectations of the farmer? and that the form of impious war does not rise up irresistibly upon the earth while the balmy air of heaven grows foul and men's bodies covered with filth are dragged off to death? and that the sea does not rage and swell under the blasts of the squally winds? and that typhoons do not burst without warning, bringing destruction in their wake? and again that the earth, nurse and mother of all, does not sink down from her deepest hollows with a frightful tremor and the mountains that rise from her face disappear into the chasms thus formed? All these things, and things more terrible still, have in days gone by happened over and over again, as we all know. And all of them happened at once as a result of the fatal error implicit in the empty folly of these immoral people, when it enslaved their minds and by its shameful deeds came near to making the entire world suffer ...

Let them cast their eyes on the wide plains, where already the crops are ripe with waving ears of corn, and the meadows, thanks to abundance of rain, are bright with flowering plants, and the weather we enjoy is temperate and very mild. Let them rejoice also, every one of them, that through our piety, our sacrifices, and our adoration, the power of the most mighty and most unyielding air has been propitiated; and let them therefore rejoice that they benefit by the most tranquil peace in security and repose. As for all those who have been brought safely out of the blind error in which they wandered, and restored to a right and satisfactory state of mind, let them the more rejoice, as if they had been rescued from a sudden tempest or from a grave illness and were henceforth gathering from life a rich harvest. But if they persist in their damnable folly, let them be thrown out as you requested, and driven right away from your city and neighbourhood, in order that thereby, in accordance with your praiseworthy enthusiasm in this matter, your city may be purged of all contamination and impiety, and in pursuit of its set purpose may with due reverence give itself to the regular worship of the immortal gods.

That you may know how welcome your request in this matter has been to us, and how anxious our mind is, apart from resolutions and entreaties, and of its own accord, to exercise beneficence, we permit your Dedicatedness to ask whatever munificence you wish in return for this-your devout purpose. Make up your minds now to do this and receive your reward: it will be yours without the least delay. The fact of its being granted to your city will Provide evidence for all time of your devoted piety towards the immortal gods.

This attack on us was engraved on tablets in every province of the Empire, depriving us of any hope, humanly speaking, so that in full accordance with the divine saying, if possible these things should trip up even the elect.l Indeed, generally speaking, in the majority expectation was fainting,2 when all at once, while those in charge of the document attacking us were on their way, with a few miles still to go in some districts, God, the Defender of His own Church, curbing the loud boasting of the tyrant against us, revealed Himself as our ally in heaven.

It was the winter season, and the usual rains and showers were withholding their normal downpour, when without warning famine struck, followed by pestilence and an outbreak of a different disease - a malignant pustule, which because of its fiery appearance was known as a carbuncle. This spread over the entire body, causing great danger to the sufferers; but the eyes were the chief target for attack, and hundreds of men, women, and children lost their sight through it.

Besides this, the tyrant had to cope with the war against the Armenians, people who from a very early date had been friends and allies of Rome. They were Christians and zealous adherents of the Deity; so the God-hater attempted to force them to sacrifice to idols and demons, thereby turning them from friends into foes and from allies into enemies.

The conjunction of all these things at one and the same time disproved the presumptuous tyrant's loud boasting against the Deity, for he had had the effrontery to declare that his devotion to the idols and his attack on us prevented any famine or plague or even war from occurring in his time.

These things, coming on him together and at the same time, formed the prelude to his own downfall. In the Armenian war the emperor was worn out as completely as his legions: the rest of the people in the cities under his rule were so horribly wasted by famine and pestilence that a single measure of wheat fetched 2,500 Attic drachmas. Hundreds were dying in the cities, still more in the country villages, so that the rural registers which once contained so many names now suffered almost complete obliteration; for at one stroke food shortage and epidemic disease destroyed nearly all the inhabitants. Some, indeed, thought fit to sell their most precious possessions to those who were better off, in return for a tiny quantity of food; others parted with their treasures one at a time till they were driven by want to desperate straits; while some ruined their bodily health by chewing small fragments of cattle fodder and recklessly swallowing poisonous plants, with fatal results. As for the women, some leaders of city society were driven by their straits to such shameless necessity that they went out to beg in the public squares, showing signs of their gentle nurture in their shy looks and the care with which they were dressed.

Some people, shrunken like ghosts and at death's door, tottered and slipped about in all directions till, unable to stand, they fell to the ground; and as theylay face down in the middle of the streets, they implored passers-by to hand them a tiny scrap of bread, and with their life at its last gasp they called out that they were hungry - anything else than this anguished cry was beyond their strength. Others - men classed as well-to-do - were astounded by the number of beggars, and after giving to scores, they adopted for the future a hard and merciless attitude, in the expectation that very soon they themselves would be no better off; so that in the middle of public squares and narrow streets dead and naked bodies lay about unburied for days on end, furnishing a most distressing sight to all who saw them. Indeed some even became food for dogs, and it was mainly for this reason that the survivors turned to killing the dogs, for fear they might go mad and begin devouring human flesh. No less terrible was the pestilence which consumed every household, particularly those which were so well off for food that famine could not wipe them out. Men of great wealth, rulers, governors, and numberless officials, left by the famine to the epidemic disease as if on purpose, met a sudden and very swift end. Lamentations filled the air on every side, and in all the lanes, squares, and streets there was nothing to be seen except processions of mourners with the usual flute-playing and beating of breasts. In this way death waged war with these two weapons of pestilence and famine, swallowing whole families in a few moments, so that two or three dead bodies could be seen carried to the graveyard by a single group of mourners.

Such was the reward for Maximin's loud boasts and the cities' resolutions against us, while the fruits of the Christians' limitless enthusiasm and devotion became evident to all the heathen. Alone in the midst of this terrible calamity they proved by visible deeds their sympathy and humanity. All day long some continued without rest to tend the dying and bury them - the number was immense, and there was no one to see to them; others rounded up the huge number who had been reduced to scarecrows all over the city and distributed loaves to them all, so that their praises were sung on every side, and all men glorified the God of the Christians and owned that they alone were pious and truly religious: did not their actions speak for themselves?

At the end of all this, when God, the great and heavenly Defender of Christians, had by such means displayed his wrath as a warning to all men in return for the cruel wrongs they had done us, He again restored to us the kindly, cheering radiance of His providence towards us. As if in black darkness, He most wonderfully illumined us with the light of peace from Himself, making it plain to all that God himself had been watching over us throughout: at first He had scourged His people, and by severe trials had in due time corrected them; then again, after sufficient chastisement, He had shown Himself gracious and kind to all whose hopes were fixed on Him.

The victory of God's beloved emperors

9. Thus Constantine, an emperor and son of an emperor, a religious man and son of a most religious man, most prudent in every way, as stated above - and Licinius the next in rank, both of them honoured for their wise and religious outlook, two men dear to God - were roused by the King of kings, God of the universe, and Saviour against the two most irreligious tyrants and declared war on them. God came to their aid in a most marvellous way, so that at Rome Maxentius fell at the hands of Constantine, and the ruler of the East survived him only a short time and himself came to a most shameful end at the hands of Licinius, who at that time was still sane.

The senior in imperial rank and position, Constantine, was the first to feel pity for the victims of tyranny at Rome. Calling in prayer on God in heaven and on His Word, Jesus Christ Himself, the Saviour of all, to come to his aid, he advanced at the head of all his forces, intent on recovering for the Romans the liberty of their ancestors. Maxentius, for his part, pinned his faith more to the wiles of a trickster than to the goodwill of his subjects, and could not pluck up courage to go an inch beyond the city gates. Instead he employed a vast host of heavy infantry and countless centuries of legionaries to garrison every region, district, or city, in the neighbourhood of Rome or anywhere in Italy, that he had reduced to slavery. The emperor who clung to God for aid attacked the first, second, and third of the tyrant's concentrations, completely defeated them all, overran a great part of Italy' and arrived almost at the gates of Rome. Then, to save him from the necessity of fighting Romans because of the tyrant, God Himself as it were dragged the tyrant with chains a long way from the city gates; and the words enshrined long ago in Holy Writ as a warning to the wicked - words regarded as mythical by most and disbelieved, but to believers worthy of all belief - by their unmistakable truth compelled the belief of practically everyone, believer or unbeliever, when he saw the miracle before his eyes. In the time of Moses himself and the godfearing nation of the ancient Hebrews,

The chariots of Pharaoh and his hosts He hurled into the sea;
His picked horsemen, his captains, He swallowed up in the Red sea;
With the deep He covered them.
In just the same way Maxentius and his bodyguard of infantry and pikemen went down into the depths like a stone when he turned back before the God-given might of Constantine, and began to cross the river in his path, having himself constructed a perfectly sound bridge of boats from one bank to the other, contriving thus an instrument for his own destruction. And so we might say

He made a pit and dug it,
And shall fall into the ditch that he fashioned.
His labour shall return on to his own head, And on his own crown shall his unrighteousness come down.

In this way, through the breaking of the floating bridge, the crossing collapsed, and in a moment the boats, men and all, went to the bottom, and first the prime villain, then his bodyguard of picked men, in the way foretold by the inspired sayings

Sank like lead in the mightly waters.

Thus, if not in words at any rate in deeds, like the great servant Moses and his companions, the men who with God's help had won the victory might well sing the same hymn as was sung about the villainous tyrant of old:

Let us sing to the Lord, for gloriously has He been glorified:
Horse and rider He threw into the Sea.
The Lord became my helper and protector, to my salvation

And

Who is like Thee among the gods, Lord? who is like Thee?
Glorified among saints, marvellous in praises, doing wonders?

These things, and many others akin to them and just like them, Constantine by his very deeds sang as a hymn to the universal Lord, the author of his triumph, God. Then he rode into Rome with songs of victory, and together with women and tiny children all the members the senate and citizens ot the highest distinction in other spheres, and the whole populace of Rome, turned out in force and with shining eyes and all their heart welcomed him as deliverer saviour, and benefactor, singing his praises with insatiate joy. But he, as if he possessed an innate reverence for God, was not in the least excited by their shouts or elated by their plaudits, fully aware that his help came from God: at once he ordered a trophy of the Saviour's Passion to be set up under the hand of his own statue - indeed, he ordered them to place him in the most frequented spot in Rome, holding the sign of the Saviour in his right hand, and to engrave this inscription on it:

By this saving sign, the true proof of courage, I saved your city from the yoke of the tyrant and set her free: furthermore I freed the the senate and People of Rome and restored them to their ancient renown and splendour.

After this, Constantine himself and with him the Emperor Licinius - whose mind was not yet unhinged by the mania which later took possession of him - first made things right with God, the author of all their successes; then both with one will and intent formulated on behalf of the Christians a most thoroughgoing law in the fullest terms. Next, an account of the wonders that God had performed for them, of their triumph over the tyrant, and of the law itself, was sent to Maximin, who was still master of the eastern provinces and posing as their friend. He, tyrant that he was, was very upset by what he learnt. He did not wish it to appear that he was giving way to others; on the other hand, he dared not suppress the order, for fear of those who had issued it. So, as if on his own initiative, he perforce indited to the governors under him this first missive on behalf of the Christians; in it he lays claim to actions he had never yet taken, lying about himself.

COPY OF A TRANSLATION OF THE TYRANT'S LETTER

Jovius Maximinus Augustus to Sabinus. I am satisfied that it is obvious to Your Steadfastness and to everybody else that our masters Diocletian and Maximian, our fathers, when they realized that nearly everyone had abandoned the worship of the gods and associated himself with the people known as Christians, were justified in giving orders that all who withdrew from the worship of their own immortal gods should by public correction and punishment be recalled to the worship of the gods. But when I first arrived so auspiciously in the east I was informed that in some localities a great number of people capable of service to the community were for the reason already given being deported by judges, so I gave instructions to each of the judges that for the future none of them was to treat the provincials harshly, but rather by coaxing and persuasion recall them to the worship of the gods. The immediate result was that in conformity with my order the judges carried out their instructions and no one in the eastern region was either deported or interfered with, but rather as a result of the leniency with which they were treated they were recalled to the worship ofthe gods.

Later, however, when last year I paid an auspicious visit to Nicomedia and was staying there, some of the citizens presented themselves before me, bringing images ofthe gods and earnestly requesting that in no circumstances should such people be allowed to live in their city. But when I was informed that large numbers of men who practised that same religion lived in that very region, I gave them this answer: I thanked them heartily for their reguest, but saw that it was by no means unanimous. So, if there were some who persisted in the same superstition, each must keep to his purpose in accordance with his own choice, and if they wished they could acknowledge worship of the gods. Notwithstanding, to the people of Nicomedia and the other cities which with such enthusiasm have made the same request to me - that none of the Christians should live in their cities - I had no option but to give a friendly answer; for this very principle bad been maintained by all my predecessors from the beginning, and the gods themselves, without whom all mankind and the whole administration of the Empire would perish, willed that such a request, put forward on behalf of the worship of their Deity, should be confirmed by me.

The position therefore is this. Particular instructions have in the past been sent in writing to Your Dedicatedness, and express commands have similarly laid it down that provincials who have made up their mind to adhere to such a custom must be treated not harshly, but with forbearance and restraint. Nevertheless, to prevent their suffering insults or blackmail at the hands of beneficiarii or anyone else, I have thought it desirable to send this further letter to draw the attention of Your Steadfastness to the advantages of coaxing and persuading the provincials into a proper regard for the gods. If therefore anyone decides by his own choice that the worship of the gods must be acknowledged, such persons may appropriately be welcomed; but if some choose to follow their own worship, you will please leave them free to do so.

My final recommendation to Your Dedicatedness is that you adhere to these instructions and that you give no one authority to subject our provincials to insults and blackmail; for, as already stated, it is by persuasion and coaxing that our provincials can more appropriately be recalled to the worship of the gods. And in order that this our command may come to the knowledge of our provincials you are requested to issue an edict of your own, and so give publicity to what we have commanded.

As it was under the compulsion of necessity and not in accordance with his own wishes that he sent out these commands, it was now universally recognized that he was neither truthful nor trustworthy, for already on a previous occasion, after making a similar concession, his attitude had been inconsistent and hypocritical. So none of our people even ventured to hold a meeting or appear in public, because not even this was allowed him by the letter, which mercy permitted us to be protected from deliberate cruelty, and gave no encouragement to the holding of meetings or building of churches or performance of any of our normal practices. And yet the advocates of peace and true religion had sent him written instructions to allow these very things, and by laws and decrees had conceded them to all their subjects. But this unprincipled scoundrel had made up his mind not to budge an inch till he found himself in the grip of divine Justice and at long last driven willy-nilly to give way.

Close of the tyrant's lives

10. His downfall was brought about by the following circumstance. The burden of the government with which he had so undeservedly been entrusted was too heavy for his shoulders, and for want of a prudent and imperial mentality be was clumsy in his handling of affairs; above all, he was senselessly elated by arrogance and boastfulness, even at the expense of his colleagues in the Empire, who were vastly superior to him in birth, upbringing, and education, in character and intellect, and in the most important thing of all - prudence and reverence for the true God. He began to display presumption and effrontery, publicly proclaiming himself first in rank. Then, pushing his madness to the point of utter dementia, he broke the treaty he had made with Licinius and brought about a war to the death. It was not long before he had produced universal confusion and set every city in a turmoil. He concentrated all available forces, forming an army of immense size, and set out in battle array to challenge Licinius, pinning his hopes to demons whom, if you please, he regarded as gods, and supremely confident, in view of the immense numbers of his infantry forces.

When the armies met, he found himself deprived of God's assistance, and it was to his rival, who was still on the throne that the one and only God of all Himself assigned the victory. First to perish was the heavy infantry on which he had placed such reliance; then his personal bodyguard deserted him leaving him utterly defenceless, and went over to his conqueror. So the wretched man lost no time in stripping off the imperial insignia, of which he was so unworthy, and unmanly, craven coward as he was, slipped unnoticed into the crowd. Then he ran this way and that, hiding in fields and villages. But though he tried so hard to save his skin, he only just succeeded in eluding his pursuers, proving by his own straits the absolute trustworthiness and truth of the inspired sayings:

No king is saved by great power, And a giant will not be saved by the fulness of his strength; vain is a horse for safety, And by the fulness of his power he will not be saved. Lo, the eyes of the Lord are on those that fear Him, Those that hope in His mercy, To deliver their souls from death.

In this very way the tyrant, full of shame, reached his own territory. There in his insane fury he began by seizing many priests and prophets of the gods whom he had once so revered and whose oracles had inflamed his warlike ardour, and - on the ground that they had tricked and deceived him, and above all that they had betrayed his safety - he put them to death. Next, he paid tribute to the Christians' God, and to safeguard their freedom drew up a law that went the whole way to meet their case. But the sands had run out, and in a few days his life came to a miserable end.

The law issued by him was as follows:

COPY OF THE TYRANTS ORDINANCE IN FAVOUR OF THE CHRISTIANS, TRANSLATED FROM LATIN INTO GREEK

The Emperor Caesar Gaius Valerius Maximinus, Germanicus Sarmaticus, Pius Felix Invictus Augustus. That in every way we devote our constant attention to the benefit of our provincials, and desire to furnish them with those things by which the advantage of all is most fully secured, with all such things as are to the advantage and benefit of the community as a whole, tending to the public advantage and meeting the wishes of each individual, is a truth of which all are aware, for everyone who looks at the facts themselves must realize without a shadow of doubt that it is so - of that I am convinced. Whereas therefore before this it has come to our knowledge that with the excuse that orders had been given by Diocletian and Maximian, our most divine fathers, that Christian assemblies were prohibited, blackmail and robbery had been practiced on a large scale by public employees, and that with the passage of time this was causing increasing hurt to our provincials - whose interests we strongly desire to be carefully considered - as their own personal possessions were being whittled away: we have sent letters to the governors of each province in the past year, decreeing that if any man chose to follow such a custom or the same form of worship, he might without hindrance hold on to his purpose and be hindered or prevented by none, and that they should have freedom, without any fear or suspicion, to do exactly as each man pleased. But even so it has not escaped our notice that some of the judges have been disregarding our commands and causing our people to feel doubts about our instruction, making them more hesitant to participate in those facts of worship that accorded with their desires.

In order therefore that for the future all suspicion or doubt due to fear may be done away, we have decreed that this ordinance shall be promulgated, making it clear to all that everyone who chooses to follow this sect and form of worship may, in accordance with this our indulgence and in furfilment of his own choice and desire, participate in such acts of worship as he was accustomed and wishful to practice. Permission to build 'the Lord's houses', as they call them, has also been accorded. Moreover, in order that our indulgence may be yet greater, we have thought it good to make this further decree: if any houses and lands which before this were the legal property of the Christians have through the command of our predecessors passed into the ownership of the Treasury, or been confiscated by any city council - whether these have been publicly auctioned or bestowed as a favour on an individual - all these shall by our command be restored to their former legal owners, the Christians, in order that in this also our piety and loving care may be apparent to all.

These were the tyrant's words, coming less than a year after the posting on tablets of his anti-Christian ordinances. The very man by whom such a little while before we had been judged impious and godless and ruinous to public life - so that we were not permitted to live in the country or the desert, much less in a city - was now drawing up pro-Christian ordinances and decrees; and those who so recently were being destroyed by fire and sword and given as food for beasts and birds before his eyes, and were undergoing every kind of punishment and torture and death - as if, poor wretches, they were godless and impious - are now allowed by the same man to practice their form of worship and permitted to rebuild the Lord's houses; and the tyrant himself allows that they have legal rights!

Maximin: Renewed Persecution

When he had allowed all this he received a reward, of a sort, for doing so; at any rate, he got a great deal less than his deserts when he was struck all at once by God's scourge, and in the second encounter of the war met his end. The character of his end was not such as befalls the general at the head of his army, who for the sake of his friends and the right again and again plays the man and fearlessly meets a glorious fate in battle, but like an impious enemy of God, while his army still held its position on the field he stayed at home in hiding, till he paid the penalty that fitted his crimes. All at once he was struck by God's scourge over his whole body, so that he was plagued with terrible, agonizing pains and fell prone; he was wasted by hunger, and the whole of his flesh was consumed by an invisible fire sent from God, so that all the contours of his former shape disintegrated and disappeared, and nothing but a collection of dry bones, like a phantom reduced by long years to a skeleton, was left, so that the onlookers could imagine nothing else than that his body had become the grave of his soul, which was interred in what was already a corpse and completely disintegrated. As the fever that consumed him blazed up ever more fiercely from the depths of his marrow, his eyes stood out of his head and fell from their sockets, leaving him blind. But even in this condition he could still breathe, and made open confession to the Lord, begging for death. So at long last he acknowledged that he deserved these torments because of his furious onslaught on Christ, and all was over.

Final destruction of the enemies of true religion

II. The way had now been left clear by Maximin, the last survivor of the enemies of true religion and unmistakably the worst. So the re-establishment of the churches from the foundations was by the grace of Almighty God taken in hand, and the message of Christ, making itself dearly heard to the glory of the God of the universe, was preached with greater freedom than before, while the anti-religious activities of the enemies of true religion were covered with the utmost shame and dishonour. For Maximin had been the first to be proclaimed by the supreme rulers a common enemy of all and posted in public notices as a most anti-religious, abominable, and God-hated tyrant. Of the portraits set up in every city in his honour and his children's, some were flung from a height to the ground and smashed, others had their faces blacked out with dark paint and were damaged beyond repair. The many statues, too, that had been erected in his honour were similarly thrown down and smashed, and lay there an object of jesting and horseplay to all who wished to insult and abuse them.

The next step was to strip the other enemies of true religion of all their honours, and to execute all Maximin's sympathizers especially those in government circles who had held office under him, and as a sop to him had poured violent and irresponsible abuse on our teaching. Such was the man who was higher in his favour and more respected than anyone else, the most trustworthy of his friends, Peucetius, consul a second and a third time and by Maximin's appointment chief finance minister; another was Culcianus, who had held every office in turn, a man who had prided himself on the murder of innumerable Christians in Egypt; to say nothing of many others who had been chief contributors to the strengthening and extending of Maximin's tyranny.

Theotecnus too was called to account, for justice was determined that what he had done to the Christians should never pass into oblivion. For when he set up the idol at Antioch he had seemed to be on top of the world, and indeed was rewarded with a governorship by Maximin, but when Licinius arrived at Antioch, he hunted out the impostors and tortured the prophets and priests of the newly made idol, to find out the means by which they perpetrated their frauds. When these tortures made it impossible to hide the truth, and they revealed that the whole mystery was a fraud contrived by the arts of Theotecnus, Licinius gave all of them their deserts: first Theotecnus himself and then his partners in imposture were subjected to elaborate tortures and handed over to the executioner.

To these were added the sons of Maximin, who had already made them partners in his imperial honours, with their features publicly displayed in painted portraits. Those who hitherto had vaunted their kinship with the tyrant and arrogantly attempted to lord it over all and sundry suffered the same fate, with every circumstance of shame; for they did not receive correction or know or understand the precept in the inspired books:

Put not your trust in princes, In the sons of men, in whom is no salvation. His breath shall go forth and he shall return to his earth: In that day shall perish all their thoughts.

Thus the wicked were purged away, and the imperial powers that had been theirs were preserved stable and undisputed for Constantine and Licinius and for them alone. They made it their first duty to purge the world of enmity towards God, and recognizing the blessings He had lavished upon them, they showed their high purpose and love of God, their devotion and gratitude to the Deity, by their decree in favour of the Christians.