Life of Constantine 1.1.1–1.26.1

Only lately the whole human race was keeping festival, with feasts and banquets, for the great emperor's completed periods of two and of three decades. Only lately we ourselves, received into the midst of a synod of God's ministers, honored the victor with hymns for his twentieth year; and already, having woven for him garlands of words for his thirtieth year, we crowned his sacred head not long ago in the palace itself.

But now our speech stands helpless. It longs to utter one of its customary addresses, but is at a loss which way to turn, struck dumb by nothing but wonder at a strange sight. For wherever it fixes its gaze, whether to the east or to the west, whether over the whole earth or toward heaven itself, everywhere and in every way it sees the blessed emperor present with them.

On earth it sees his sons, like new lamps of his radiance, filling the whole world, and himself living in power and governing all of life more mightily than before, multiplied through the succession of his sons. They had earlier shared the rank of Caesars; but now, having put on the whole of him by the virtue of their piety, they have been proclaimed Emperors, Augusti, Sebastoi, and Sovereigns, resplendent in their father's adornments.

And our speech is overwhelmed with amazement when it beholds the one who a little while ago was seen in a mortal body, present with them and with us, most wonderfully, even after the end of his life (when nature rejects what is superfluous as foreign to it), still held worthy of the same imperial palaces, possessions, honors, and hymns. 2 And now, stretching itself up to the very vaults of heaven, it pictures his thrice-blessed soul there too, together with God himself, released from every mortal and earthly covering and shining in a robe flashing with light. Then, when it considers that the soul is no longer confined for long periods of time among the haunts of mortals, but is honored with an ever-blooming crown of endless life and the immortality of a blessed age, it stands open-mouthed, as mortal speech must, and utters no sound; condemning its own weakness and voting silence upon itself, it yields to the higher and universal Word the task of hymns worthy of him. For he alone, being the immortal Word of God, is able to confirm his own sayings,

by which he declared that he would surpass with gifts in return those who glorify and honor him, while those who set themselves up as his enemies and foes would bring upon themselves the ruin of their souls. And by this he has already shown the promises of his words to be unfailing: he displayed the abhorrent ends of the life of godless, God-fighting tyrants, and made the death as well as the life of his own servant enviable and much praised, so that this too is worth remembering and deserves monuments not mortal but immortal.

For mortal nature, finding a consolation for a mortal and perishable end, thought to honor the memories of its forebears with immortal honors by dedicating images. Some, with the colors of encaustic painting, others, carving human likenesses from lifeless material, and others, engraving deep letters on tablets and pillars, supposed that they were handing down the virtues of those they honored to eternal remembrance. But all these were in fact mortal and consumed by length of time, being images of perishable bodies, not representing the forms of an immortal soul. Nevertheless these seemed sufficient to those who placed no hope of good things after the end of mortal life.

But God, God the common Savior of all, who has stored up with himself for the lovers of piety good things greater than mortal reckoning, gives them even here the firstfruits of their prizes as a pledge, in some measure confirming immortal hopes to mortal eyes.

The ancient oracles of the prophets, handed down in Scripture, declare this; the lives of God-beloved men who shone of old with every kind of virtue, remembered by later generations, bear witness to it; and our own time has proved it true, when [Constantine], alone of all who have ever led the Roman government a friend [of God, the King of all], stood before all people as a clear example of a godly life.

This God too, whom Constantine honored, confirmed by clear verdicts, standing at his right hand at the beginning, the middle, and the end of his reign, and setting the man before the human race as a teacher and example of godliness. Alone of the emperors of whom we have ever heard, he set him forth as a very great luminary and a most loud-voiced herald of unerring godliness, and to him alone he displayed the pledges of his own favor through every kind of good thing bestowed on him:

he honored the length of his reign with three full periods of ten years and more, and gave twice this as the measure of his whole life. He made him victor over the whole race of tyrants and destroyer of the God-fighting giants who in madness of soul raised the weapons of impiety against the King of all. They appeared, so to speak, for a moment and were at once extinguished; but his own servant, one against many, the one and only God fortified with divine armor, and having purged mortal life through him of the multitude of the godless, he appointed him teacher of piety toward himself to all nations, testifying with a loud voice in the hearing of all that they should know the God who is, and turn away from the error of those who in no way exist.

And he, as a faithful and good servant, did and proclaimed this, openly calling himself a slave and confessing himself the servant of the King of all; and God, repaying him closely, made him lord and master, and alone of the emperors of all time an unconquerable and undefeated victor, ever conquering and always resplendent with trophies over his enemies, and an emperor so great that no one of those of old is recorded to have been his equal: so beloved of God, so pious and altogether happy, that with all ease he ruled more nations than those before him, and kept his rule free of trouble to his very death.

An ancient story celebrates Cyrus of the Persians as the most illustrious king who ever lived. Yet since one must look to the end of a long life, they say that he suffered a death not fortunate but shameful and disgraceful, at the hand of a woman. The sons of the Greeks sing of Alexander the Macedonian that he subdued countless tribes of every kind of nation, but that before he reached full manhood he was carried off by an early death amid revels and drunkenness. He completed his whole life in thirty-two years, and the time of his reign covered no more than a third of these. He advanced through blood like a thunderbolt, mercilessly enslaving nations and whole cities, young and old alike. And when he was scarcely past the bloom of youth and mourning his beloved, fate came upon him and removed him, childless, rootless, and homeless, in a foreign and hostile land, so that he might not long ravage the human race. At once his kingdom was cut up, each of his servants tearing off and seizing a portion for himself. Yet for such deeds he is hymned by choirs.

Our emperor began from the age at which the Macedonian ended; he doubled the other's life in length, and made his reign three times as long.

Having fortified his army with gentle and sober precepts of godliness, he attacked the land of the Britons and those who dwell in the very ocean bounded by the setting sun; he brought over the whole of Scythia, which lies under the very north and is divided into countless diverse barbarian tribes;

and extending his rule also to the south, as far as the Blemmyes and the Ethiopians, he did not regard as foreign to him the possession of the lands toward the rising sun either,

but, shining with the rays of the light of godliness to the very ends of the whole inhabited world, as far as the remotest Indians and those who dwell around the whole circuit of the earth, he held all as his subjects: toparchs, ethnarchs, satraps, and kings of every kind of barbarian nation, who willingly greeted and welcomed him, sent embassies with gifts and presents, and set the highest value on his acquaintance and friendship, so that they honored him among themselves with painted portraits and dedicated statues, and Constantine alone of the emperors was known and acclaimed among them all. And even to these he proclaimed his own God in imperial addresses with all boldness.

Nor did he do this in words while falling short in deeds; advancing through every virtue, he abounded in every fruit of piety. He won over his acquaintances by generous benefactions and ruled by laws of kindness, making his government gentle and much desired by all his subjects; until at last, when he had grown weary after long periods of years in divine contests, God whom he honored crowned him with the prizes of immortality and transferred him from a mortal kingdom to the unending life stored up with him for holy souls, after he had raised up a threefold offspring of sons as successors to his rule. So the throne of the empire, which came down to him from his father, was by the law of nature kept for his sons and their descendants and prolonged into ageless time like a family inheritance. God himself, then, who exalted the blessed man with honors befitting God while he was still with us, and adorned him at his death with singular privileges from himself, would be the fitting writer of his life, engraving the prizes of his achievements on heavenly monuments for long ages.

As for me, even if it is beyond me to say anything worthy of the man's blessedness, and silence would be safe and free of risk, yet I must, in imitation of mortal painting, dedicate a portrait in words to the memory of the man beloved of God, and so clear myself of the charge of sloth and idleness. For I would be ashamed of myself if I did not contribute what I can, small and poor as it is, to the one who, out of his exceeding reverence for God, honored us all. And I think that in any case my writing will be useful and necessary, since it contains the acts of imperial magnanimity that were pleasing to God, the King of all. For would it not be shameful that the memory of Nero, and of some impious and godless tyrants far worse than he, should have found diligent historians, who adorned the plots of worthless dramas with elegant style and set them out in histories of many books, while we keep silent, whom God himself deemed worthy to meet such an emperor as all history has never recorded, and to come into his sight, acquaintance, and company? Therefore it befits us, if anyone, to proclaim the abundant report of good things to all in whom the imitation of noble deeds stirs up longing for divine love. For those who have compiled the lives of men who were not honorable, and deeds useless for the improvement of character, out of favor toward some or hatred of others, and perhaps also to display their own learning, have dramatized with the pomp of eloquent phrases accounts of shameful acts, without need, and so have become teachers, to those whom God kept free from these evils, of deeds not good but deserving to be buried in silence, oblivion, and darkness. But as for me, even if the power of my expression is too weak for the greatness of what it describes, it may yet be brightened by the bare report of good deeds; and the recollection of accounts dear to God will furnish a reading not unprofitable but highly beneficial to those whose souls are well prepared.

Most of the imperial exploits of the thrice-blessed man — his engagements and battles, feats of valor, victories, and trophies over enemies, and all the triumphs he celebrated; his measures in peacetime for the correction of public affairs and the benefit of each person; the ordinances of law he enacted for the good of his subjects' civic life; and very many other contests of his imperial labors, which are remembered by all — I think I shall pass over, since the aim of the present work directs me to speak and write only of what bears on his life beloved of God. And since these too are countless, I shall select from what has come to our knowledge the most timely and the most worth remembering for those after us, and set out the account of these as briefly as I can, since the time now allows us to hymn the truly blessed man freely with every kind of voice. This was not permitted before, because we are instructed not to call a man blessed before his death, on account of the uncertainty of life's changes. Let God be called upon as helper, and may the heavenly Word inspire us as our fellow worker. Let us now begin our writing from the man's earliest youth.

An ancient report holds that terrible races of tyrants once oppressed the people of the Hebrews, and that God, showing himself gracious to the oppressed, provided that the prophet Moses, still an infant, should be reared in the very midst of the tyrants' houses and bosoms and share in their wisdom. When the advancing years called him to manhood, and Justice, the helper of the wronged, was pursuing the wrongdoers, then the prophet of God came forth from the tyrants' very palaces and served the will of the Higher Power. He estranged himself in deeds and words from the tyrants who had reared him, and declared those who were truly his brothers and kinsmen to be his own. Then God raised him up as leader of the whole nation, freed the Hebrews from slavery under their enemies, and through him pursued the tyrannical race with punishments sent from God. This ancient report, handed down to most people in the form of a myth, used to fill everyone's ears; but now the same God has granted to us too the sight, with our own eyes, of wonders greater than myths, fresh and truer than any report. For the tyrants of our day, bent on making war on the God over all, were oppressing his church; and in their midst Constantine, soon to be the slayer of tyrants, still a young boy, tender, in the bloom of youth with the first down on his cheeks, like that very servant of God, sat at the tyrants' hearths, yet though young did not share the ways of the godless. For from that time a good nature, together with the divine Spirit, drew him toward the pious life pleasing to God; and besides, emulation of his father led the boy on, calling him to imitate what was good. For his father was (and it is right at this point to rekindle his memory too) Constantius, the most illustrious of the emperors of our time. It is necessary to relate briefly those things about him that do honor to his son.

When four men shared the imperial rule of the Romans, he alone, adopting a course of life not shared with the others, made a compact of friendship with the God over all. For they besieged and ravaged the churches of God and pulled them down from top to bottom, destroying the houses of prayer to their very foundations; but he kept his hands clean of their accursed impiety and in no way made himself like them. They defiled the provinces under them with the civil slaughter of godly men and women; but he kept his own soul unstained by the pollution. They, in a confusion of evils, enslaved first themselves and then all their subjects to the errors of wicked demons through lawless idolatry; but he, establishing the deepest peace for those under his rule, granted his own people the untroubled practice of piety toward God. Moreover, while the others laid the heaviest exactions on everyone and made their life unlivable and harder than death, Constantius alone made his rule untroubled and calm for his subjects, and gave them help from himself that lacked nothing of a father's care. Of the countless other virtues of the man sung by all, I shall mention one or two achievements, and using these as evidence for those passed over in silence, I shall proceed to the proposed aim of my writing.

A report was going about, with much talk, concerning this emperor, that he was gentle and good and exceedingly devoted to God, and that out of his great sparing of his subjects he had not even laid up any treasury of money. The emperor who then held the first rank in the government sent to him and reproached him for neglecting the public interest, and taunted him with poverty, offering as proof of the charge that he had nothing stored up in his treasuries.

Constantius told the envoys who had come from the emperor to stay there, and calling together those of his subjects from all the peoples under his rule who possessed abundant wealth, he said that he needed money, and that this was the time for each of them to show freely their goodwill toward their emperor.

When they heard this, as if they had long prayed for an opportunity to show their good zeal, they filled the treasuries quickly and eagerly with gold and silver and other goods, vying with one another to give more, and doing so with bright and smiling faces.

When this was done, Constantius ordered the envoys from the great emperor to see the treasures with their own eyes. Then he instructed them to report what they had witnessed to the one who had reproached him with poverty, adding to their account that this wealth, not gathered by causing lamentation nor by unjust greed, had now been collected to him, but had long been kept for him with the owners of the money, as with trustworthy guardians of a deposit.

They were struck with amazement at the deed. And the story goes that after their departure the most humane emperor sent for the owners of the money and told them to take it all back and go home, praising the men for their obedience and goodwill.

This one deed shows the humanity of the man described. The other would contain clear evidence of his holiness toward the divine.

For the governors of each province, by command of those in power, were driving out the godly everywhere on earth; and setting out from the imperial palaces themselves, first of all, the God-beloved martyrs went through the contests for piety, enduring most eagerly fire and sword and the depths of the sea and every manner of death, so that in a short time the palaces everywhere were bereft of godly men. This above all left those who did it without God's protection; for in driving out the godly they also drove away the prayers offered for them.

To Constantius alone, then, there came a certain wisdom of pious reasoning, and he did something strange to hear and most marvelous to have done. He set a choice before all the imperial servants under him, from his own household to those in positions of authority, and gave out the word: those who sacrificed to the demons might remain with him and enjoy their customary honors, but those who did not were to be shut out from access to him, thrust out, and dismissed. When they had divided, some on one side and some on the other, and the character of each one's choice had been exposed, then the admirable man revealed the hidden point of the stratagem. He condemned the cowardice and selfishness of the one group and warmly approved the others for their conscience toward God. Then he declared that the former, as betrayers of God, were not worthy of the emperor either; for how could those who had proved ungrateful toward the Higher Power ever keep faith with an emperor? So he ordered that they be driven far from the imperial palaces. But those whom the truth had attested as worthy of God, he said, would be the same toward the emperor; he appointed them bodyguards and guardians of the empire itself, saying that such men should be held among the first and closest of his friends and relatives, and valued more than great treasures.

Such, then, is the memory of Constantine's father, as has been briefly shown. What end followed for him who had proved himself such toward God, and how great a difference the God he honored made between him and his partners in rule, one may learn by attending to the course of events. For since he had long given proofs of imperial virtue, acknowledging only the God over all and condemning the polytheism of the godless, and had fortified his whole house with the prayers of holy men, he passed the rest of his life in good order and without disturbance — the very thing they say is blessedness: neither to have troubles nor to cause them to another. Thus, governing the whole period of his reign steadily and calmly, he consecrated his whole house — children, wife, and household servants — to the one God, King of all, so that the multitude gathered within the palace itself differed in nothing from a church of God; and ministers of God were among them too, who performed continual services on the emperor's behalf. And this happened with him alone, at a time when among the others the race of the godly was not permitted even to be named.

Close upon this followed the rewards from God, so that he came to hold the first place in imperial power. For the senior emperors somehow withdrew from rule, a change coming upon them after the first year of the siege of the churches, and Constantius alone was then proclaimed first Augustus. At first he had been distinguished by the diadem of the Caesars and held first place among them; after being proved in that office he was adorned with the highest honor among the Romans, styled first Augustus of the four afterwards proclaimed. He alone, too, excelled the other emperors in the number of his children, having gathered a very large chorus of sons and daughters. And when, in a ripe old age, he was about to pay the common debt of nature and depart this life, God again showed himself the worker of wonders for him, arranging that at his death the first of his sons, Constantine, should be present to receive the empire.

For Constantine was living with the partners in rule and passing his time in their midst, as has been said, like that ancient prophet of God. And already, as he passed from boyhood to youth, he was held worthy of the highest honor among them. We ourselves saw him like this when he was traveling through the land of Palestine with the senior emperor, at whose right hand he stood, most conspicuous to those who wished to see, even then giving proofs of an imperial spirit. For in beauty of body and tallness of stature there was none to compare with him; in bodily strength he so surpassed those of his age as to be feared by them; yet he took more pride in the virtues of the soul than in bodily advantages, adorning his soul above all with self-control, and then distinguished by literary education, natural good sense, and God-given wisdom.

Seeing the young man proud of these gifts, robust, tall, and full of spirit, those then in power, out of envy and fear, and judging his company unsafe for themselves, contrived secret plots against him, though they avoided inflicting an open death on him out of respect for his father. 2 The young man perceived this; and since, once and again, the plots were exposed to him by the inspiration of God, he secured his safety by flight, in this too preserving the likeness of the great prophet Moses. God worked with him in everything, providing that he should be present to succeed his father.

At once, then, having escaped the devices of the plotters, he hastened to his father and arrived after a long absence, at the very time when his father's life hung on a razor's edge. When Constantius saw his son unexpectedly standing beside him, he sprang up from his bed and threw his arms around him; and saying that he had now cast out of his soul the only grief he had in laying down his life (that is, his son's absence), he sent up a prayer of thanksgiving to God, declaring that he now counted death better than immortality, and set his affairs in order.

Then, bidding farewell to his sons and daughters, who surrounded him like a chorus, in the palace itself, upon the imperial bed, he handed on the inheritance of the empire, by the law of nature, to the eldest of his sons, and passed to his rest.

Yet the empire did not remain without an emperor. Constantine, clothed in his father's purple, came forth from his father's house, showing to all, as it were, his father reigning again through himself. Then, leading the funeral procession with his father's friends about him, he escorted his father on his way. Countless crowds of people and guards of soldiers, some going before and others following behind, accompanied the God-beloved man with all ceremony; all honored the thrice-blessed with acclamations and hymns, and with one mind and voice glorified the son's rule as the dead man's return to life; and at once, with their first cry, they proclaimed the new emperor Imperator and venerable Augustus with loud acclamations.

The acclamations adorned the dead man with praises of his son, and they called the son blessed for having been shown the successor of such a father; and all the nations under his rule were filled with gladness and unspeakable joy, since they had not been bereft of imperial good order even for the briefest moment. This was the end of a pious and God-loving life that God displayed to our generation in the emperor Constantius.

As for the others, [who made war on the churches of God,] I have judged it unfitting to hand down their overthrows in the present narrative, or to stain the memory of the good by setting the opposite beside it. The experience of the events is enough to warn those who have received the story of what befell each of them by their own eyes and ears.

Thus Constantine, born of such a father, God, the Ruler of the whole universe, chose of his own accord as ruler and leader of all, so that no human being could boast of having promoted him, whereas the others had been held worthy of the honor by the choice of others.

Once established in the empire, he first provided for his father's portion, overseeing with great humanity all the nations formerly governed under his father's share. All the barbarian tribes living by the Rhine river and the western ocean that dared to rebel he subdued, making them tame instead of wild; others he drove away from his own territory like wild beasts, those he saw to be incurably unfit for a settled and civilized life. 2 When these matters were settled to his mind, he set before his eyes the remaining portions of the inhabited world. First he crossed over to the nations of the Britons, which lie within the ocean itself, and having brought them to terms, he considered the other parts of the whole, so as to tend those in need of help.

Then, thinking of the whole element of the earth as one great body, and perceiving that its head, the imperial city of the Roman government, had been brought under tyrannical slavery, he at first left its defense to those who ruled the other parts, since they were his seniors in age. But when none of them was able to help, and those who were willing to make the attempt met a shameful end, he declared that life was not worth living for him if he overlooked the imperial city in such distress, and began preparing to overthrow the tyranny.