Life of Constantine

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.

Knowing well that he needed help more powerful than military force, because of the wicked and magical sorceries zealously practiced by the tyrant, he sought God as his helper. He put the resources of armed men and a host of soldiers in second place (for he considered them able to do nothing without the help of God), and said that what comes from God's cooperation is irresistible and invincible.

He considered, then, what god he should enlist as his patron. As he searched, a thought came to him: of the many who had previously laid hold of power, those who had hung their hopes on many gods and served them with libations, sacrifices, and offerings were first deceived by flattering divinations and oracles that promised them favorable things, and then met an unfavorable end; nor did any of the gods stand at their right hand to keep them from being subjected to disasters sent from heaven. Only his own father had taken the opposite course to theirs and condemned their error; and having honored the God beyond all things throughout his life, he had found him the Savior and Guardian of his empire and the provider of every good.

He weighed these things in himself and reasoned well: those who trusted in a multitude of gods had also fallen into many destructions, so that neither family nor offspring nor root, neither name nor memory of them was left among men; while his father's God had given his father clear and very many proofs of his power. He also considered those who had already marched against the tyrant before him, who had drawn up their battle array with a multitude of gods and met a shameful end: one of them withdrew from the encounter in disgrace, having achieved nothing, and the other was slain in the midst of his own troops and became a mere incident of death. Gathering all these things together in his mind, he judged it folly to trifle with gods who are nothing and to go astray after such a proof, and thought that he must honor his father's God alone.

So he called upon this God in prayer, beseeching and imploring him to show him who he was and to stretch out his right hand to help in the task before him. As the emperor was praying thus and earnestly supplicating, a most extraordinary sign from God appeared to him. If someone else had told of it, it would perhaps not be easy to accept; but since the victorious emperor himself told it to us who are writing this account, long afterwards, when we were deemed worthy of his acquaintance and company, and confirmed the story with oaths, who could hesitate to believe the account? Especially since the time that followed has borne true witness to the story. 2 About the midday hours of the sun, when the day was already beginning to decline, he said that he saw with his own eyes, in the sky itself, above the sun, a trophy of a cross formed of light, and attached to it a writing that said, “By this conquer.” Amazement at the sight seized him and the whole army, which was accompanying him on a march he was making somewhere and became a witness of the miracle.

He said that he was perplexed within himself as to what the apparition might be. As he pondered and reasoned about it at length, night overtook him. Then, as he slept, the Christ of God appeared to him with the sign that had appeared in the sky, and commanded him to make a copy of the sign seen in the sky and to use it as a protection in engagements with the enemy.

At daybreak he rose and told his friends the secret. Then, summoning workers in gold and precious stones, he sat in their midst, described the shape of the sign, and ordered them to reproduce it in gold and precious stones. The emperor himself once deemed us worthy to see it with our own eyes, God granting this too.

It was made in the following form. A tall spear overlaid with gold had a transverse bar forming the shape of a cross. Above, at the very top, was fixed a wreath woven of precious stones and gold, and within it the symbol of the Savior's title: two letters indicating the name of Christ by its first characters, the rho being crossed [by the chi] exactly in the middle. These letters the emperor was also accustomed to wear on his helmet in later times. From the crossbar fixed across the spear hung a cloth, a royal fabric covered with a variety of precious stones set together and flashing with rays of light, and richly interwoven with gold, presenting to the beholders a beauty [beyond description]. This banner, hanging from the crossbar, was of equal length and breadth. The upright spear, extending a long way upward from its lower end, bore beneath the trophy of the cross, near the top of the fabric described, the golden portrait of the God-beloved emperor from the chest up, and likewise those of his sons. This saving sign the emperor always used as a defense against every opposing and hostile power, and he ordered copies of it to lead all his armies.

But this was a little later. At the time mentioned, struck by the extraordinary vision and resolving to worship no other god than the one who had appeared, he summoned those initiated in his teachings and asked who this God was and what was the meaning of the sign that had been seen. They said that he was God, the only-begotten Son of the one and only God, and that the sign that appeared was a symbol of immortality, a trophy of the victory over death which he had once won when he came upon earth; and they taught him the reasons for his coming, setting out for him the exact account of his dispensation among men. He was instructed in these teachings, and he marveled at the divine manifestation granted to his eyes; comparing the heavenly vision with the interpretation of what was said, he was confirmed in mind, persuaded that the knowledge of these things had come to him taught by God. He himself now resolved to devote himself to the inspired writings. And making the priests of God his counselors, he thought he must honor the God he had seen with every form of worship. Then, fortified by good hopes in him, he set out at last to quench the threat of the tyrant's fire.

For the man who had earlier seized the imperial city there was busily engaged in impieties and unholy deeds, so that he left no outrage of foul and impure conduct undared. He separated lawful wives from their husbands, abused them most shamefully, and sent them back to their husbands; and this not to obscure or undistinguished people, but in drunken insolence toward those who held the first rank in the Roman senate. Though he shamefully abused countless freeborn women, he could find no way to satisfy his incontinent and licentious soul.

But when he assailed Christian women too, he could no longer find means for his adulteries; for they would sooner yield their life to death than their body to him for corruption.

One woman, the wife of one of the senators there who held the authority of prefect, learned that those who served the tyrant in such matters were standing at the house (she was a Christian), and knew that her husband, out of fear, had told them to take her and lead her away. She asked for a brief delay, as if to put on her usual adornment, went into her chamber, and, alone, plunged a sword into her breast. Dying at once, she left her corpse to the procurers; but by deeds louder than any voice she showed to all people, present and to come, that the self-control celebrated among Christians is the only thing unconquerable and indestructible. Such, then, was this woman.

All cowered before the man who dared such things, peoples and magistrates, eminent and obscure alike, and were worn down by a terrible tyranny. Even when they kept quiet and bore their bitter slavery, there was still no escape from the tyrant's murderous cruelty. On one occasion, on a slight pretext, he handed the people over to his guards for slaughter, and countless multitudes of the Roman people were killed in the middle of the city itself, not by the spears and armor of Scythians or barbarians but of their own countrymen. As for the murder of senators carried out to get hold of their property, it is impossible even to count it, countless men being put to death on one invented charge after another.

The crowning point of the tyrant's evils drove him to sorcery. By magical devices he would at one time rip open pregnant women, at another search the entrails of newborn babies, slaughter lions, and put together certain unspeakable rites for summoning demons and averting the war; for he hoped by these means to secure the victory. While he was thus tyrant at Rome, it is impossible to say what he did to enslave his subjects, so that they were reduced to the extremest scarcity and lack of necessary food, such as our contemporaries remember never to have occurred at Rome at any other time.

But Constantine, taking pity on all these people, armed himself with every preparation against the tyranny. Setting before himself as protector the God over all, and calling on Christ as Savior and helper, he placed his victorious trophy, the saving sign, at the head of the soldiers and guards about him and led on with his whole army, winning back for the Romans the freedom of their ancestors. Maxentius, trusting more in the devices of sorcery than in the goodwill of his subjects, did not dare to go even outside the city gates, but fortified every place, district, and city under his yoke with countless armed men and innumerable companies of troops. The emperor, however, relying on alliance with God, attacked the tyrant's first, second, and third battle lines, overcame them all with ease at the very first onset, and advanced through the greater part of Italy.

He was now very near Rome itself. Then, so that he would not be forced to make war on the Romans because of the tyrant, God himself dragged the tyrant, as if in chains, very far from the gates. And the things done of old against the impious, which most people disbelieve as told in the manner of a myth, but which are trustworthy to believers, being recorded in the sacred books, he confirmed by actual events to all, in a word, believers and unbelievers alike, who saw the wonders with their own eyes. For just as once, in the time of Moses himself and the God-fearing race of the Hebrews, “Pharaoh's chariots and his army he cast into the sea, and his chosen riders, his captains, he drowned in the Red Sea,” so too Maxentius and the soldiers and guards around him “sank into the deep like a stone,” when, turning his back before the power from God that was with Constantine, he crossed the river that lay in his path. He himself had joined it with boats and bridged it well, and so had built a device of destruction against himself, hoping by it to catch the friend of God. But the God of the one stood at his right hand, while the other, wretched man, was constructing secret devices against himself. So one could say of him, “He dug a pit and hollowed it out, and he will fall into the hole that he made. His trouble will return upon his head, and his wrongdoing will come down upon his crown.” Thus, at God's nod, the mechanisms on the bridge and the ambush hidden in them came apart [at an unexpected moment]; the crossing gave way, and the boats went down at once, men and all, into the deep, first the wretch himself, and then the shield-bearers and guards around him, as the divine oracles had foretold: “They sank like lead in mighty water.” So those who had won the victory from God might fittingly, if not in words then in deeds, like those with the great servant Moses, hymn and say the very words sung against the impious tyrant of old: “Let us sing to the Lord, for he has been gloriously glorified; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea; he became my helper and protector for salvation,” and “Who is like you among the gods, O Lord, who is like you? Glorified among the holy ones, marvelous in glories, doing wonders.”

Having hymned these and similar things, in deeds themselves, to God, the Ruler of all and the cause of the victory, just as the great servant had done in his time, Constantine rode in triumph into the imperial city. All together, members of the senate and the others there who were eminent and distinguished, as if freed from prison, along with the whole Roman people, received him with beaming eyes and with their whole souls, with acclamations and insatiable joy; men, women, and children, and countless crowds of slaves, hailed him with unrestrained shouts as redeemer, savior, and benefactor. But he, having an inborn piety toward God, was neither puffed up by the shouts nor elated by the praises, but, conscious of the help from God, at once offered a prayer of thanksgiving to the author of the victory.

With a loud voice and by inscriptions he proclaimed the saving sign to all people, setting up this great trophy over his enemies in the middle of the imperial city, and expressly engraving it in indelible characters as the saving sign, the safeguard of the Roman government and of the whole empire. At once, then, he ordered a tall spear in the shape of a cross to be set up beneath the hand of a statue made in his likeness, in the most frequented place in Rome, and this very inscription to be engraved, in these words, in the Latin language: “By this saving sign, the true proof of courage, I saved your city and freed it from the yoke of the tyrant; moreover, having set them free, I restored the senate and people of Rome to their ancient distinction and splendor.”

So the God-beloved emperor, made glorious by his confession of the victorious cross, with all boldness made the Son of God known to the Romans themselves. All the inhabitants of the city together, with the senate itself and the multitudes of the people, as if they had drawn breath again after a bitter and tyrannical domination, seemed to enjoy rays of purer light and to share in the rebirth of a fresh new life. And all the nations bounded by the ocean toward the setting sun, freed from the evils that had formerly gripped them, kept holiday with bright festivals and continually hymned the glorious victor, the godly one, the common benefactor; and all confessed with one voice and one mouth that Constantine had shone forth, by the grace of God, as a common good for mankind. An imperial letter was also published everywhere, granting to those whose property had been seized the enjoyment of their own, recalling to their homes those who had suffered unjust exile, and releasing from chains and from every danger and fear those whom the tyrant's cruelty had subjected to them.

The emperor himself summoned the ministers of God, held them in the highest honor and regard, and showed kindness in deeds and words to the men as consecrated to his God. They shared his table, men humble in the appearance of their dress but not so regarded by him, since he thought he beheld not the man seen by most, but the God honored in each. He took them with him wherever he traveled, trusting that in this way too the God they served would be at his right hand. Indeed, he also gave rich help from his own resources to the churches of God, enlarging the houses of prayer and raising them high, and adorning the sanctuaries of the church with very many offerings.

He made all kinds of distributions of money to the needy. Besides these, he showed himself kind and beneficent to outsiders who came to him. For the wretched and outcast beggars in the marketplace he provided not only money and necessary food but also decent clothing for the body. To those who had been well born but had fallen into misfortune through a change of fortune he supplied more generous help, and with imperial magnanimity gave splendid benefactions to such people: to some he gave estates, others he honored with various dignities. He cared for the orphaned in a father's place, and relieved the helplessness of widows, looking after them with personal concern, so that he even gave in marriage to wealthy men of his acquaintance girls orphaned by the loss of their parents; and he did this by giving the brides beforehand what they needed to bring to their husbands in the partnership of marriage. And as the sun, rising over the earth, freely shares the rays of its light with all, so Constantine, coming forth from the palace together with the rising sun, as if rising with the heavenly luminary, shone on all who came into his presence the rays of his own goodness. It was simply impossible to come near him without receiving some benefit, and those who hoped to obtain his help were never disappointed.

Toward all in common, then, he was such. But to the church of God he gave special care. When some were at variance with one another in various regions, he, like a common bishop appointed by God, convened synods of the ministers of God. He did not disdain to be present in the midst of their proceedings and to sit with them, taking part in their deliberations and arbitrating for all what makes for the peace of God. He sat in their midst as if he were one of the many, having dismissed his spearmen, soldiers, and every kind of bodyguard, clothed with the fear of God and surrounded by the most loyal of his faithful companions. Then those whom he saw persuaded by the better counsel and disposed to a stable and harmonious course, he warmly welcomed, showing that he rejoiced in the common concord of all; but he turned away from the disobedient.

Some who were even harsh toward him he bore with patience, bidding them, quietly and with a gentle voice, to be sensible and not factious. Of these, some were ashamed at his exhortations and desisted; those who were incurably deaf to sound reasoning he let go, leaving them to [God], never himself planning anything painful against anyone. Hence it naturally came about that those who were quarreling in the region of Africa were driven to such a pitch of violence that they even ventured on some reckless deeds, a wicked demon, as it seems, envying the abundance of present blessings and urging the men on to outrageous acts, so as to rouse the emperor's anger against them. But envy made no headway, for the emperor laughed at what was done and said he understood that the impulse came from the evil one. For what they dared, he said, was not the act of sensible men but of men wholly deranged or goaded by the evil demon, who ought to be pitied rather than punished; and he himself was in no way harmed by the madness of the senseless, except so far as he sympathized with them out of his exceeding humanity.

In this way, then, the emperor served God, the overseer of all, in every action, and made untiring provision for his churches. And God, repaying him, subjected all the races of barbarians under his feet, so that everywhere he raised trophies over his enemies; he proclaimed him victor among all and made him fearsome to enemies and foes, though he was not such by nature, but the gentlest, meekest, and most humane of men, if anyone ever was.

While he was so engaged, the second of those who had laid down the imperial power was caught stitching together a plot for his death, and came to a most shameful end. His were the first honorific pictures, statues, and all such things customarily set up in honor, that were pulled down everywhere on earth, as those of an unholy and impious man.

Then after him others of his family were caught weaving secret plots against him, God wonderfully revealing all their designs to his servant through visions.

For indeed he often granted him manifestations of God, a divine vision appearing to him most wonderfully and furnishing all kinds of foreknowledge of things to come. The indescribable wonders of God's grace, which God himself deigned to grant his servant, it is not possible to put into words.

Fortified by these, he thereafter passed his life in safety, rejoicing in the goodwill of his subjects, rejoicing too to see all under him leading a cheerful life, and delighting above all in the bright prosperity of the churches of God.

While things stood so, the tenth year of his reign was completed. On this occasion he held public festivals and sent up prayers of thanksgiving to God, the King of all, like sacrifices without fire or smoke. But while he continued to rejoice in these things, he did not rejoice at what he heard by report about the nations being worn down in the east.

For there too, it was reported to him, a terrible beast lay in wait for the church of God and for the other inhabitants of the provinces, the wicked demon, as it were, vying to accomplish the opposite of what the God-beloved man was doing; so that the whole Roman empire, divided into two parts, seemed like night and day, darkness overspreading those who had the east as their lot, while the brightest day shone on the inhabitants of the other portion.

While countless blessings were being dispensed to the latter by God, the sight of what was happening was unbearable to envy, the hater of good, as it was also to the tyrant oppressing the other part of the world. His rule was prospering, and he had been deemed worthy of a marriage alliance with so great an emperor as Constantine; yet he fell short of imitating the God-beloved man and emulated the wickedness of the policy of the impious, and he chose to follow the counsel of those whose ruin he had seen with his own eyes rather than the friendly right hand of the better man.

So he [took up] an implacable war against his benefactor, respecting no laws of friendship and keeping in mind no memory of oaths, kinship, or treaties. For the most humane emperor, giving him tokens of true goodwill, had thought him worthy to share in his ancestral kinship and ancient royal blood by joining his sister to him in marriage, and had granted him authority to enjoy rule over all the peoples of the east. But he, minded the opposite way, contrived all kinds of devices against the better man, devising now one mode of plotting, now another, so as to repay his benefactor with evil. At first, pretending friendship, he did everything by deceit and trickery, hoping to escape notice in what he dared; but God made the plots devised in darkness manifest to the other. When he was caught in his first schemes, he went on to second deceptions, now offering the right hand of friendship, now confirming treaties with oaths. Then suddenly he broke what had been agreed, and again sought terms through embassies, and again disgraced himself with lies, until finally he declared open war, and in his madness set out to array himself against God himself, whom he knew the emperor worshiped.

First of all he quietly harassed the ministers of God under him, who had never committed any offense against his rule, hunting for malicious pretexts against them. Finding no charge and having nothing to accuse the men of, he sent out a law ordering that the bishops were in no way to have communication with one another, that none of them was permitted to visit a neighbor's [church], and that they were not to hold synods, councils, or deliberations about matters of common benefit. This was a pretext for abusing us. For either we had to break the law and be subjected to punishment, or obey the order and undo the ordinances of the church; for it is impossible to settle great questions otherwise than through synods. Indeed, the divine ordinances have laid down that the ordinations of bishops take place in this way and no other. And besides, the God-hated man issued such orders because he was set on acting contrary to the God-beloved. For the one, out of honor for the sacred law, brought the priests of God together, leading them in peace and concord; the other, contriving to undo what was good, tried to scatter their harmonious agreement.

Then, since the friend of God thought fit to receive the servants of God within the palace, the God-hated man, minded the opposite way, drove all the godly under him out of the palace. He sent into exile especially the most faithful and loyal men about him; he ordered those who had received honor and rank from him for earlier brave deeds to serve others and perform the tasks of household slaves; he seized everyone's property as if it were a windfall; and he now threatened death to those who bore the saving name. He himself, having a passionate and licentious soul and committing countless adulteries and unspeakable obscenities, despaired of the adornment of chastity in human nature, using himself as a bad test case.

So he laid down a second law, ordering that men must not attend the prayers to God together with women, that women must not go to the holy schools of virtue, and that bishops must not instruct women in godly teaching, but that women should be chosen as teachers of women. When these orders were laughed at by all, he devised another measure for the destruction of the churches, saying that the customary assemblies of the people must be held outside the gates in open country; for the air outside the gates, he said, was far better for a crowd than that of the houses of prayer in the city.

When he found no one obeying him in this either, he at last ordered openly that the soldiers in the cities be dismissed from the governors' units unless they chose to sacrifice to the demons. So the ranks of godly men were stripped of their dignities in every province, and the lawgiver himself was stripped of their prayers, depriving himself of holy men. Why should I mention how he dealt with those outside, how he ordered that no one should show kindness by sharing food with those suffering in prison, nor pity those in chains perishing of hunger, nor, in short, that anyone be good, nor that those drawn by nature itself to sympathy with their neighbors should do any good? This law was utterly shameless and most lawless, surpassing every savage nature; and a penalty was added to it, that those who showed pity should suffer the same as those they pitied, and that those who did humane service should be shut up in chains and prisons, undergoing the same punishment as the afflicted.

Such were the ordinances of Licinius. Why should one enumerate his innovations concerning marriage, or his novelties regarding those departing this life, by which he dared to set aside the ancient, well and wisely established laws of the Romans and introduced barbarous and savage ones in their place, devising countless pretexts against his subjects? Hence he devised remeasurements of land, so that the smallest plot might be reckoned larger by the measure, out of greed for excessive levies. Hence he entered in the registers country people who no longer existed but had long been lying among the dead, providing himself with shameful gain from this. For his meanness had no measure and his greed knew no satiety. So, having filled all his treasuries with gold and silver and a boundless quantity of goods, he groaned and bewailed his poverty, his soul tormented with the suffering of Tantalus. What banishments he devised against those who had done no wrong, what confiscations of property, what arrests of well-born and distinguished men, whose wedded wives he handed over to vile slaves for shameful outrage; how many married women and virgin girls he himself assailed, though already aged in body — there is no need to dwell on these things, since the excess of his last deeds made the first seem small and nothing.

At last, in the height of his madness, he armed himself against the churches and went after the bishops, whom he regarded as his chief opponents, and considered as enemies those who were friends of the God-beloved great emperor. Therefore he sharpened his anger especially against us, turned aside from sound reason and plainly out of his mind. He did not take to heart the memory of those before him who had persecuted Christians, nor of those whose destroyer and avenger he himself had been appointed because of the impieties they pursued, nor of what he himself had witnessed, when he saw with his own eyes the ringleader of the evils, whoever he was, struck by a scourge sent from God.

For since this man had begun the siege of the churches and had been the first to defile his own soul with the blood of righteous and godly men, a punishment sent by God pursued him, beginning from his very flesh and advancing to his soul. Suddenly an abscess formed around the middle of the secret parts of his body, then a deep fistulous ulcer, and an incurable spreading of these through the innermost bowels, from which an unspeakable multitude of worms swarmed and a deadly stench was given off; the whole mass of his flesh had been turned by gluttony into an excessive quantity of fat, which, rotting then, presented, they say, an unbearable and most horrifying sight to those who came near. Wrestling with such evils, he at last came to a realization of what he had dared against the church; and then, confessing to God, he stopped the persecution against the Christians, urged them by laws and imperial decrees to build their churches, and ordered them to perform their customary worship, making prayers for him.

Such was the penalty suffered by the one who began the persecution. The man now spoken of in our account, though he had been an eyewitness of these things and knew them precisely by experience, forgot them all, calling to mind neither the punishment of the first nor the avenging justice that came upon the second.

He too, as if striving to outdo the first in a contest of evils, prided himself on inventing newer punishments against us. Fire and sword and nailing were not enough for him, nor wild beasts and the depths of the sea; besides all these he devised a strange punishment of his own and decreed that the organs of sight be destroyed. So whole crowds, not of men only but also of children and women, had the sight of their right eyes and the sinews of their feet disabled with iron and cautery, and were handed over to be worn out in the mines.

For this reason God's righteous judgment overtook him too before long, when, trusting in the hopes of demons, whom he took for gods, and in countless myriads of soldiers, he drew up for war. Then, stripped of any hope from God, he slipped off the imperial dress that did not befit him, cowardly and unmanly crept into the crowd, and thought of saving himself by flight; then, hiding in the fields and villages in the dress of a servant, he thought he could escape notice. But he did not escape the great eye of universal providence. For just when he hoped that his life was now safe, he was struck by God's fiery dart and lay prostrate, his whole body consumed by fire sent from God, so that every trace of his former appearance vanished, and only dry bones, reduced to a skeleton, were left to him, like phantoms. [59] As God's blow pressed on more violently, his eyes started out and, falling from their sockets, left him blind; so by God's most just verdict he suffered the very punishments he had first devised against the martyrs of God. And while he still breathed, after all this, he too at last made confession to the God of the Christians and openly declared his own fighting against God. He too, like the former, composed recantations, confessing in writing, by laws and decrees, his error concerning those he took for gods, and testifying that he had come to know by experience that the God of the Christians alone [is God]. Licinius, who had learned these things by events and not by hearsay from others, nevertheless clung to the same courses, as if his mind were veiled in moonless darkness.

Thus the man described was plunging himself into the pit of the God-fighters. Emulating, to his own harm, those whose destruction for impiety he had seen with his own eyes, he fanned up again the persecution against the Christians like a blaze of fire long since extinguished, kindling the flame of impiety more fiercely than those before him. And like some terrible beast or crooked serpent writhing about itself, breathing anger and God-fighting threats, he did not yet dare, for fear of Constantine, to make open war on the churches of God under him; but hiding the venom of his wickedness, he made secret and piecemeal plots against the bishops, and did away with the most esteemed of them through the treachery of the provincial governors. The manner of their murder was strange, such as had never before been heard of. What was done at Amaseia in Pontus surpassed every excess of cruelty.

There some of the churches were pulled down from top to bottom, for the second time since the first sieges, while others were shut up by the local governors, so that none of the regular worshipers might assemble or render to God the lawful services. For the man who gave these orders did not think the services were performed for him, reckoning so from a bad conscience, but was convinced that we did everything, and propitiated God, on Constantine's behalf.

Certain fawners and flatterers, convinced that they were doing what pleased the accursed man, subjected the most esteemed presidents of the churches to capital punishment; men who had done no wrong were led away and punished without any pretext, like murderers. Some even suffered a new kind of death: their bodies were hacked with the sword into many pieces, and after this cruel punishment, more horrifying than any tragic tale, they were thrown into the depths of the sea as food for fish.

So once more, as a little before, godly men took to flight, and again the fields and again the deserts received the servants of God. And when these things had gone forward as the tyrant wished, he then set his mind on stirring up the persecution against all, and was fixed in his purpose; nothing would have prevented him from proceeding to action, had not the champion of his own people anticipated what was coming and made a great luminary shine out, as in darkness and the gloomiest night, leading his servant Constantine by the hand to those regions.

Constantine, seeing that what he heard was no longer bearable, collected his sober judgment, and, tempering the firmness of his character with his innate humanity, hastened to the defense of the oppressed. He judged it pious and holy to remove one man and so save the greater part of the human race. For while he had shown great humanity and pitied one unworthy of sympathy, nothing was gained with that man, who in no way gave up the practice of evil but rather increased his fury against his subjects, while no hope of safety was left to those he ill-treated. With this in mind the emperor set out without delay to stretch out a saving right hand to those driven to the extremity of evils. He made the usual preparations of military armament; the whole phalanx of infantry and cavalry was assembled, and before them all went the symbols of good hope in God, in the form of the sign already described.

Knowing well that now, if ever, he needed prayers, he took the priests of God with him, thinking it necessary that they should be with him and beside him as good guardians of the soul. Hence, naturally, the man who had set himself up as tyrant, learning that Constantine won his victories over his enemies only with God's help, that the men mentioned were always with him and at his side, and that the symbol of the saving passion led both him and his whole army, regarded these things as laughable, mocking them and tearing them to pieces with blasphemous words. He himself gathered around him diviners and seers, Egyptian sorcerers and magicians, sacrificers and prophets of those he took for gods; and then, propitiating with sacrifices those he thought gods, he asked how the outcome of the war would go for him. Without hesitation they held out to him, all in agreement, long oracles and elegant verses from oracles everywhere, saying that he would be victor and prevail in the war; augurs foretold that favorable things were signified to him by the flight of birds, and sacrificers declared that the movement of the entrails hinted the same. Elated by their deceitful promises, he advanced with great boldness to array himself, as best he could, against the emperor's camp.

When he was about to begin the war, he summoned the picked men of his shield-bearers and his honored friends to one of the places they regarded as sacred. It was a well-watered and shady grove, and in it stood all kinds of statues, carved in stone, of those he regarded as gods. Having lit candles to them and performed the customary sacrifices, he is said to have delivered a speech like this:

“Friends and allies, these are our ancestral gods, whom we honor with worship, having received them from our forefathers of old. But the man who leads the army opposed to us has broken faith with the ways of our fathers and chosen the godless opinion, in his error cherishing some foreign god from who knows where, and he disgraces his own army with that god's shameful sign. Trusting in him he sets out, taking up arms not so much against us as, long before, against the very gods he has transgressed.

The present occasion, then, will expose which of us is mistaken in his opinion, acting as umpire between the gods honored by us and those honored by the other side. For either it will show us victors and so most justly prove our gods to be true saviors and helpers; or, if this one god of Constantine, of what sort and from where I do not know, prevails over ours, who are very many and so far have the advantage in numbers, then let no one hereafter be in doubt which god one ought to worship, but let him go over to the victor and ascribe to him the prizes of victory.

And if the foreign god, now laughed at by us, should prove stronger, let nothing prevent us too from acknowledging and honoring him, bidding a long farewell to those for whom we light our candles in vain. But if ours prevail, which is not in doubt, then after the victory here let us set out on the war against the godless.”

So he spoke to those present; and those who heard the words themselves passed on the knowledge of them a little later to the one writing this. Having gone through such words, he ordered the troops to begin the engagement.

While this was going on, they say that an apparition beyond words was seen in the cities subject to the tyrant. People seemed to see various units of Constantine's troops passing through the cities at midday as though they had won the battle; and this was seen when none of them was actually present anywhere, a diviner and higher power showing beforehand, through the vision, what was going to happen. When the armies came to grips, the man who had broken the treaties of friendship began the war. Then Constantine, calling upon God the Savior over all and giving this as the watchword to his soldiers, won the first battle, and not long afterwards prevailed in a second engagement and gained still greater victories, the saving trophy going before the phalanx around him. [7] Wherever it appeared, the enemy fled and the victors pursued. When the emperor noticed this, wherever he saw any unit of his own army exhausted, he ordered the saving trophy to be brought there as a victorious remedy; and with it victory at once came up, courage and strength, with a certain divine dispensation, invigorating the combatants.

Therefore he ordered those of his shield-bearers who excelled in bodily strength, courage, and godly character to devote themselves solely to the service of the sign. The men were no fewer than fifty in number, and their only concern was to surround and guard the sign, carrying it in turns on their shoulders. The emperor himself told these things to us who are writing this, at a time of leisure long after the events, and added to his account a wonder worth recording.

He said that once, in the middle of an engagement, when sudden noise and confusion seized the army, the man carrying the sign on his shoulders fell into a panic from cowardice and handed it over to another, so as to escape the fighting. When the other had taken it, and he had stepped back out of the protection of the sign, a spear thrown at him pierced his belly and took his life. So he paid the penalty for cowardice and unbelief and lay dead there; but to the one who held the saving trophy aloft it became a safeguard of life, so that, though many missiles were sent against him, the bearer was preserved and the shaft of the trophy received the missiles. And this was beyond all wonder: the enemy's missiles struck the very narrow circumference of the shaft and stuck fast in it, while it freed the bearer from death, so that none of those performing this service was ever touched. The account is not ours, but again the emperor's own, who related this too, among other things, in our hearing. Having won the first victories by God's power, he then advanced, moving his army forward in order.

The leaders on the opposing side could not withstand their first onset; they threw down their weapons and fell at the emperor's feet, and he received them all unharmed, glad at the men's deliverance. Others remained under arms and attempted to give battle. When the emperor, after offering them friendly terms, found that they would not be persuaded, he let his army loose on them. They at once turned their backs and fled. Then some of them were overtaken and killed by the law of war, while more fell upon one another and were cut down by their own swords.

Their leader was struck with dismay at this, when he saw himself stripped of help from his own men, the great host of troops and allies he had assembled gone, and his hope in those he thought gods proved by experience to be nothing. Then he took to a most shameful flight. Fleeing with a few, he crossed into the interior of his domain and was in safety, since the God-beloved man ordered his men not to pursue him closely, so that the fugitive might be saved. For he hoped that one day, perceiving what evils he was headed for, he would cease his mad rashness and change his mind to better counsel.

But while the one, in his exceeding humanity, intended this, and was willing to bear with him and grant pardon to the undeserving, the other did not refrain from wickedness, but, heaping evils on evils, took up worse audacities, and again grew bold, resorting to the evil arts of sorcerers. Of him too one could say, as of the ancient tyrant, that “God hardened his heart.”

While the one, entangling himself in such things, was pushing himself into the pits of destruction, the emperor, when he saw that a second battle would be needed, devoted his leisure to his Savior. He pitched his tent outside and far away from the army, and there kept a pure and holy way of life and offered prayers to God, just like that ancient prophet of God who, as the divine oracles assure us, pitched his tent outside the camp. A few men attended him, those proved to him by their faith and loyal godliness. This was his custom whenever else he set out to join battle; for he was slow for safety's sake, and wished to do everything by God's counsel.

[Praying earnestly to God, he was always shortly] granted a manifestation of God; then, as if moved by a diviner inspiration, he would order them not to delay but to take up their swords that very hour. They attacked all together and cut down [the enemy] to a man, until, having won the victory in a moment of time, they set up trophies of victory over their enemies.

This was how the emperor had long been accustomed to conduct himself and his army in battle: always setting his God before his soul, intending to do everything by his counsels, and taking care to avoid the death of many.

Hence he cared for the safety of the enemy no less than for that of his own men. So he urged his soldiers, when victorious in battle, to spare those they captured, and not, being human, to forget their common nature. And if he ever saw the soldiers' passions unrestrained, he curbed them with gifts of gold, ordering that anyone who took one of the enemy alive should be rewarded with a fixed weight of gold. The emperor's wisdom found this bait for saving human lives, so that countless men, even of the barbarians, were saved, the emperor buying their lives with gold.

These and countless similar things the emperor was glad to do at other times too. On the present occasion also, as was his custom before battle, he pitched a tent for himself and devoted his leisure to prayers to God, keeping away from all ease and luxurious living, disciplining himself with fasts and bodily mortification, and propitiating God with suppliant prayers, so that he might have him at his right hand as his helper and might do whatever God put into his mind. He kept a sleepless watch over the common good, praying for the safety of the enemy no less than for that of his own men.

When the recent fugitive, with dissimulation, pretended to beg again for a pact of friendship, [Constantine] thought fit to grant it to him, on terms of treaty offered for the good of life and the advantage of all. The man described pretended to accept the treaty eagerly, confirming his good faith with oaths; but again he secretly gathered a force of soldiers, again began war and battle, called in barbarian men as allies, and went about seeking other gods, as having been deceived by the former ones. He took to heart no memory of what he had said shortly before about gods, nor was he willing to acknowledge Constantine's champion God; instead, ridiculously, he sought out more and newer gods.

Then, having learned by experience how great a divine and secret power was in the saving trophy, through which Constantine's army had learned to prevail, he urged his soldiers never to advance against it, nor even to look at it carelessly; for it was terrible in strength and hostile and inimical to him, so they must avoid engaging with it. Having given these orders, he set out to join battle with the man who, out of humanity, was hesitating and putting off his death. They, trusting in their multitude of gods, advanced with a great force of soldiers, holding before them images of the dead in lifeless statues; but he, fortified with the breastplate of piety, set the saving and life-giving sign against the multitude of the enemy as a terror and a defense against evils. At first he held back, using forbearance, so as not to be the first to begin the war, because of the treaty that had been made;

but when he saw his adversaries persisting and already grasping their swords, the emperor was roused to indignation, routed the whole force of the enemy with a single charge, and carried off victories over enemies and demons alike.

Then, having judged the God-hater himself, and after him those about him, by the law of war, he handed them over to fitting punishment. Together with the tyrant were led away and put to death, paying the due penalty, the counselors of his war against God; and those who a little before had been buoyed up by hope in vain things learned by experience who Constantine's God was, and confessed that they acknowledged him as the true and only God.

So, with the impious men removed, the sun's rays were at last clear of tyrannical domination. Every portion under Roman rule was joined together, the peoples of the east being united to the other part, and the whole body was adorned with one rule over all, as with a single head, the authority of one ruler extending through all; and bright gleams of the light of piety gave shining days to those who had before sat in darkness and the shadow of death. There was no longer any memory of former evils, as all everywhere hymned the victor and confessed that they acknowledged his Savior as the only God. And the victorious emperor, resplendent in every virtue of godliness (for he found for himself this most fitting title, Victor, because of the victory God had given him over all his enemies and foes), took over the east, and made the Roman empire, joined into one as of old, subject to himself. He was the first to proclaim to all the sole rule of God, and he himself steered the whole of life by the sole rule of Roman power. All fear of the evils that had formerly oppressed everyone was removed. The peoples in every province and city celebrated brilliant festivals; those who before had been downcast looked at one another with smiling faces and bright eyes; with dances and hymns they declared first of all that the God and King of all is indeed this one, and then honored with unrestrained voices the glorious victor and his most orderly and God-beloved sons, the Caesars. There was forgetfulness of old evils and oblivion of all impiety, enjoyment of present goods, and besides, expectation of those to come.

Among us too, as before among those who had the other part of the world, the emperor's ordinances full of humanity were published; and laws breathing holiness toward God offered all kinds of promised benefits, granting to the provincials in each nation what was suitable and useful, and prescribing to the churches of God what was fitting for them.

First of all, they recalled those who, for refusing to worship idols, had endured exile and deportation at the hands of the provincial governors; then they freed from public duties those who for the same reason had been enrolled in the city councils; and they ordered that those deprived of their property should recover it.

Those who in the time of the contest had shone through endurance of soul for God's sake, and had been handed over to suffer in the mines, or sentenced to live on islands, or forced to serve as slaves in public works — all of them at once enjoyed freedom. The imperial gift also recalled from disgrace those who had been dismissed from military rank for their steadfast piety, giving them the choice either to recover their own positions and be distinguished in their former ranks, or, if they preferred a quiet life, to remain free of all public duties. Those sentenced to serve in women's work, for outrage and disgrace, were likewise set free with the rest.

These were the provisions of the emperor's letter concerning those who had endured such things. Concerning their property the law gave full directions. It ordered that the property of the holy martyrs of God who had ended their lives in confession should be received by their next of kin, and, if there were none of these, that the churches should inherit it. And whatever had earlier been alienated from the treasury to others, whether by sale or by gift, and whatever remained in it, the letter of grant ordered to be returned to the owners to whom it belonged. Such were the benefits the gifts sent down provided to the church of God.

And to the peoples outside the church and to all nations the emperor's generosity gave other gifts, surpassing these in number. At these, all of us in our region, who had formerly heard by report what was happening in the other part of the Roman empire and had called its beneficiaries blessed, praying that we too might one day enjoy the same, now saw these things before our eyes and thought ourselves happy as well, confessing that so great an emperor had shone upon the mortal race as something strange, such as all the ages under the sun's rays had never recorded. So they thought.

When all things had been subjected to the emperor by the power of God the Savior, he made known to all the provider of his blessings, and testified that they should regard him, and not himself, as the cause of his victories; and he proclaimed this very thing in a writing sent to every nation in the characters of the Latin and Greek languages. You may learn the excellence of the words by examining the ordinances themselves. There were two: one sent to the churches of God, the other to the peoples outside in each city. The latter it seems to me fitting to insert here, as belonging to the present subject, so that through this history the text of this ordinance too may remain and be preserved for those after us, for the confirmation of the truth and of our narratives. It is taken from the authentic imperial law preserved among us, on which the written subscription of his own right hand, confirming the words, attests its authenticity as with a seal.

Letter of Constantine, [son of] Constantius, Emperor of the Romans: the first letter sent to those in the eastern lands after the victory over the tyrants. “The Victor Constantine Maximus Augustus to the provincials of Palestine. It has long been, and from of old, plain to those who hold right and sober opinions about the Supreme Being — a difference that put all doubt far away — how far the careful observance of the most holy worship of Christianity surpassed the ways of those who made war on it and chose to despise it.

But now, by still more conspicuous actions and more brilliant successes, both the unreasonableness of that doubt and the greatness of the power of the great God have been shown, since for those who faithfully honor the most holy law and dare to break none of its commandments, good things are abundant, and in their undertakings the best strength comes to meet them together with good hopes, while for those who have adopted the impious opinion, the outcomes too have been in keeping with their choices.

For who could obtain any good who neither acknowledges God, the cause of good things, nor is willing to worship him as is fitting? And the facts themselves confirm what has been said.”

“If anyone should run over in his mind the times reaching from of old to the present, and consider in his reasoning the deeds ever done, he would find that all who laid a just and good foundation for their affairs brought their undertakings to a good end and gathered sweet fruit, as from a pleasant root; while those who attempted unjust audacities, and either raged senselessly against the Supreme Being or took no holy thought for the human race, but dared banishments, dishonors, confiscations, slaughters, and many such things, and never repented nor turned their minds to better things, received a like requital. And this would happen neither unreasonably nor without cause.”

“For all who approach any undertaking with a just purpose, keep the fear of the Supreme Being continually in mind, preserve firm faith in him, and do not hold present fears and dangers more important than those hopes to come — even if for a time they have experienced hardships, they did not bear what befell them grievously, believing that greater honors were laid up for them, but obtained all the more brilliant glory the heavier the hardships they endured. But as for those who either dishonorably disregarded justice or did not acknowledge the Supreme Being, and dared to subject those who faithfully pursued it to outrages and incurable punishments, and neither judged themselves wretched for punishing on such pretexts, nor [judged] happy and blessed those who kept their piety toward the Supreme Being even to such extremes — of these, many armies fell, many were put to flight, and every battle line of their wars ended in most shameful defeat.”

“From such things grievous wars spring up, from such things utter devastations; hence the lack of what is needed for life and a host of impending terrors; hence the leaders of such great impiety either endured the extremes and met with an all-destroying death, or, living a most shameful life, recognized it to be heavier than death, and received punishments, as it were, equal in measure to their wrongs. For each met with as many calamities as he had been led by folly to try to war down the divine law, as he thought; so that for them not only was life heavy, but the fear of the punishments beneath the earth was expected to be even harsher.”

“When such grievous impiety held human affairs, and the commonwealth was in danger of being utterly destroyed, as by some pestilential disease, and needed much saving treatment, what relief, what deliverance from these terrors, did the Divinity devise? That must surely be understood as divine which alone truly exists and has power lasting through all time. Nor is it boasting for one who acknowledges the benefits received from the Supreme Being to speak of them solemnly. He sought out and judged my service suitable to his will. Beginning from that sea beside the Britons and from the regions where the sun is ordained by a certain necessity to set, and driven on by a higher power, I scattered all the terrors that held sway, so that the human race, instructed by my service, might be recalled to the worship of the most holy law, and at the same time the most blessed faith might grow under the guidance of the Supreme.”

“For I could never be ungrateful for the thanks I owe. Believing this to be the best service, this the gift granted to me, I am advancing even to the eastern regions, which, held down by heavier calamities, cried out for greater healing at our hands. I have firmly believed that my whole soul, all that I breathe, and in short whatever turns in the innermost recesses of my mind, is wholly owed by us to the greatest God. I know well that those who have rightly pursued the heavenly hope, and have established it as their chief possession, securely set in the divine places, need no goodwill from men, since they enjoy honors all the greater the more they have separated themselves from earthly failings and terrors. Yet I think it our duty to keep as far away as possible from those who are in no way guilty or liable the compulsions laid on them for a time and the undeserved tortures. Otherwise it would be most absurd that under those eager to persecute them for their worship of the Divinity the endurance and firmness of their souls should have been sufficiently proved, while under the servant of God their glory should not be raised to a more brilliant and blessed state.”

“All, then, who exchanged their homeland for exile because they did not disregard their faith toward the Divinity, to which they had consecrated themselves with their whole souls, having been subjected to the harsh sentences of judges at whatever time each happened; and all who were enrolled in the lists of councillors, though not formerly of that number — let them be restored to their ancestral places and their accustomed tranquility and give thanks to God, the liberator of all. And those who were deprived of their possessions and, struck down by the loss of all their substance, have lived until now a most dejected life — let them be restored to their old homes, families, and properties, and enjoy with joy the beneficence of the Supreme Being.”

“Moreover, we order that all those held on islands against their will should enjoy this provision, so that those who until now have been shut in by rugged mountains and the surrounding sea may be freed from gloomy and inhuman isolation and give themselves back to their dearest ones, fulfilling their longed-for desire. Those who for a long time have lived a poor life in abominable squalor, treating their return as an unexpected windfall and freed henceforth from anxieties, need not live in fear with us. For that anyone should live in fear under us, who boast and believe that we are servants of God, would be most absurd even to hear of, let alone to believe — we whose nature it is to set right even the sins of others.”

“Those who were condemned either to toil in grievous mines or to perform services at the public works — let them exchange their continual labors for sweet leisure and live the easier life of those who now live at liberty, dissolving the immeasurable misery of their toils into gentle rest. And if any have lost their common civic rights and suffered dishonor, let them, with fitting joy, as if they had been separated by a long absence abroad, recover their former rank and hasten to their homelands.”

“Moreover, those who were once enrolled in military ranks, but were expelled from them on a harsh and unjust pretext, because by confessing that they knew the Supreme Being they held this more precious than the rank they had — let them have the choice either, if they love military life, to remain in the position they held, or to live in free leisure with an honorable discharge. For it would be fitting and consistent that one who showed such magnanimity and endurance in the dangers brought upon him should enjoy either leisure, if he wishes, or honor, as he chooses.”

“And those who were forcibly deprived of their noble birth and underwent such a sentence of the judges that they were thrown into the women's workshops or the linen mills and endured unaccustomed and wretched labor, or were counted as slaves of the treasury, their former birth availing them nothing — let these, rejoicing in the honors they enjoyed before and in the goods of freedom, and recovering their accustomed ranks, live henceforth in all joy. And he who exchanged freedom for slavery through some lawless and inhuman madness, often lamenting his unaccustomed services and finding himself suddenly a slave instead of free — let him, recovering his former freedom by our order, restore himself to his parents and pursue the occupations befitting a free man, casting from his memory the services, not his own, at which he toiled before.”

“Nor must we pass over the matter of the property of which each was deprived on various pretexts. Whether some underwent the best and divine contest of martyrdom with fearless and courageous resolve and were deprived of their possessions; or some, having become confessors, prepared for themselves the eternal hope; or those forced to emigrate, because they did not yield to the persecutors by disregarding their faith, were themselves also deprived of their possessions; or if some, without even being condemned to death, suffered the misfortune of losing their possessions — we order that their inheritances be assigned to their kin. Since the laws expressly name the nearest of the next of kin, it is easy to determine to whom the inheritances belong, and that those would rightly come to the succession who would have been the nearer relatives if those persons had died a natural death.”

“If none of the next of kin is left who would rightly have become heir of any of those mentioned — I mean of the martyrs, of the confessors, or of those who emigrated for such a reason — let the church in each place be appointed to succeed to the inheritance. This will surely not be grievous even to the departed, if the church, for whose sake they underwent all their toils, is fortunate enough to be their heir. It is necessary to add this too: if any of those mentioned gave any of their possessions to whomever they wished, it is reasonable that the ownership remain valid for the recipients.”

“So that no misunderstanding may arise about this ordinance, but justice may be plain for all to know, let all know that whether they hold land, a house, a garden, or anything else of the kinds mentioned, it is good and advantageous for them both to acknowledge it and to restore it with all speed. For even if it should appear that some of them have reaped much from their unjust ownership, and we do not judge it right that restitution of this be demanded, nevertheless let them themselves, recognizing how much they gathered and from where, beg pardon from us for this fault, so that the former greed may at once be healed by such correction, and the greatest God, accepting this as a kind of repentance, may be gracious toward their sins.”

“Those who have become owners of such properties — if that title can properly or possibly be applied to them — will perhaps say in their defense that it was not possible to refuse at that time, when there was a manifold spectacle of every terror: people cruelly driven out, mercilessly destroyed, heedlessly cast aside; frequent confiscations of the innocent, insatiable persecutions, forced sales of possessions. But if any insist on such arguments and persist in their greedy intentions, they will find that it does not go unpunished for them, especially when our affairs are thus conducted in the service of the greatest God. What deadly necessity formerly compelled them to take, it is now dangerous to retain; and besides, greed must in every way be curbed by reasoning and by examples.”

“Nor will the treasury be allowed to keep securely anything of what has been mentioned that it holds; but, not daring even to speak against the holy churches, it will rightly give up to the churches what it has for a time unjustly held. … Everything that may rightly appear to belong to the churches, whether the property consists of houses, or fields and gardens, or anything else whatever, we order to be restored, with no right of ownership diminished but all remaining intact.”

“As for the places themselves which are honored by the bodies of the martyrs and stand as memorials of their glorious departure, who would doubt that they belong to the churches, or would not order it so? For there could be no better gift, no labor more pleasing and more profitable, than, at the prompting of the divine will, to show zeal in such matters, and that what was taken away on wicked pretexts by unjust and most wicked men should be rightly restored and preserved once more for the holy churches.”

“Since it belongs to complete foresight not to pass over in silence those who either bought something from the treasury by right of purchase or retained what was granted to them as a gift, vainly stretching out their insatiable desires even to such things, let them know that, although by daring to make such purchases they have estranged themselves as far as possible from our humanity toward them, they will nevertheless not fail to obtain it in the manner that is possible and fitting. Let this matter be carried this far.”

“Since it has been shown by the clearest and plainest proofs, through the power of the almighty God and through the exhortations and help which he deigns often to give on my behalf, that the hardship which formerly held all human affairs has now been driven from the whole earth under the sun, you all, individually and together, see with earnest attention what that power is, what that grace, which destroyed and annihilated the very seed, so to speak, of the most wicked and evil men, spreads abundantly over all lands the joy of the good that has been recalled, and gives full authority again for the divine law itself to be served with all fitting reverence, and for those who have consecrated themselves to it to be honored as is due. They, as if lifting their heads out of the deepest darkness and receiving a clear knowledge of affairs, will henceforth show him fitting service and accordant honor. Let this be posted in our eastern parts.”

Such were the provisions of the emperor's first letter sent to us. At once what the law prescribed was put into effect, and everything was done contrary to what had been dared a little before by tyrannical cruelty; and those for whom these laws were enacted enjoyed the imperial gifts.

Turning from these matters, the emperor took up active measures. First he sent governors to the nations divided into provinces, most of them dedicated to the saving faith; and those who were thought to follow the Hellenic religion were forbidden to sacrifice. The same law applied to those in ranks above the governorships, to the highest officials and those who held the authority of prefect. If they were Christians, he allowed them to adorn themselves with that name; if they were otherwise disposed, he ordered them not to worship idols.

Then next, two laws were sent out at the same time. One restrained the abominations of idolatry long practiced in the cities and the countryside, so that no one should dare to set up cult statues, or attempt divination and other occult arts, or indeed sacrifice at all. The other directed that the houses of prayer be built higher and the churches of God be enlarged in breadth and length, as though almost all people were henceforth going to attach themselves to God, now that the madness of polytheism had been removed.

For the emperor's own holiness toward God led him to think and write such things to the local governors; and the law included the provision that they should not spare expense but should make the repairs from the imperial treasuries themselves. Similar letters were written to the presidents of the churches everywhere, such as he also deigned to send to us; this was the first letter he sent to us personally.

“The Victor Constantine Maximus Augustus to Eusebius. Until the present time, while the unholy will and tyranny were persecuting the servants of God the Savior, I have believed, and am fully convinced, that the buildings of all the churches have either been ruined by neglect or, through fear of the impending injustice, have fallen below their proper dignity, dearest brother.

But now that freedom has been restored, and that dragon has been driven from the administration of public affairs by the providence of the greatest God and by our service, I think that the divine power has become manifest to all, and that those who fell into sins through fear or unbelief, having recognized what truly is, will come to the true and right ordering of life.

Therefore, as to all the churches over which you yourself preside, or which you know other bishops, presbyters, or deacons to preside over in their places, remind them to give their attention to the church buildings, either to repair those that exist, or to enlarge them, or, where need requires, to build new ones. You yourself, and the others through you, will request what is necessary from the governors and the prefectural office; for they have been instructed to comply with all eagerness with whatever your Holiness says. God will preserve you, beloved brother.”

These things were written in each province to the heads of the churches, and the provincial governors were ordered to act accordingly; and what had been legislated was put into effect with great speed.

The emperor, increasing still further his holiness toward God, sent to the provincials of every nation a treatise refuting the idolatrous error of those who had ruled before him, urging his subjects in a more learned way to acknowledge the God over all and openly to enroll Christ himself as their Savior. This writing too, which is his own composition translated from the Latin language, must be included in the present account, so that we may seem to hear the emperor himself proclaiming it in this way in the hearing of all people.

The emperor's letter to all the provinces. “The Victor Constantine Maximus Augustus to the eastern provincials. Everything contained under the sovereign laws of nature gives all people a sufficient perception of the providence and contemplation belonging to the divine ordering; and there is no doubt, for those whose minds are led toward that goal along the straight road of knowledge, that the exact apprehension of sound reason and of sight itself leads, by a single impulse of true virtue, to the knowledge of God. Therefore no wise man would ever be disturbed to see the many carried away by contrary choices. 2 For the grace of virtue would pass unnoticed and bring no profit, if vice did not set against it the life of perverse madness. Therefore a crown is set before virtue, and the Most High God presides over the judgment. I will try to confess to you all as openly as I can my own hopes.”

“I regarded the emperors before this one as harsh because of the savagery of their ways; only my father practiced works of gentleness, calling with wonderful reverence on God the Savior in all his actions. All the rest, not being sound of mind, cultivated savagery rather than gentleness and fostered it abundantly, perverting the true doctrine in their own times; and their dreadful wickedness was inflamed to such a pitch that, while all things divine and human were at peace, civil wars were fanned into flame by them.”

“At that time they said that Apollo had given an oracle, from some cave and dark recess and not through a human being, saying that the righteous on earth were preventing him from telling the truth, and that for this reason he was making the oracles from the tripods false. This was why his priestess, letting her hair hang down in dejection and driven by frenzy, lamented this evil among mankind. But let us see to what end this ran aground.”

“I call now on you, the Most High God. I heard at that time, when I was still quite a boy, how the man who then held first place among the Roman emperors — wretched, truly wretched, his soul deceived by error — inquired curiously of his guards who these righteous on earth might be; and one of the sacrificing priests about him answered, ‘The Christians, surely.’ He, gulping down the answer like honey, stretched out the swords devised for punishing crimes against blameless holiness. At once he drew up edicts of blood, written, one might say, with murderous sword-points, and urged the judges to exert their natural ingenuity in inventing newer punishments.”

“Then, then it could be seen with what license that venerable godliness suffered, day after day, no ordinary outrages through the continual cruelty; and chastity, which no enemy had ever violated, became the sport of the drunken violence of angry citizens. What fire, what tortures, what kind of rack was not applied to every body and every age without distinction? Then the earth undoubtedly wept, the world that encompasses all things, stained with gore, lamented, and the very daylight was veiled in mourning at the sight.”

“But what of it? The barbarians now pride themselves on it, who at that time received those fleeing from us and kept them in a humane captivity, since they secured for them not only safety but also the untroubled practice of their religion. And the Roman race now bears this lasting stain, which the Christians who were then driven out of the Roman world and fled to the barbarians fastened upon it.”

“But why should I dwell any further on those laments and the common mourning of the world? Gone now are the authors of that pollution, handed over with a shameful end to everlasting punishment in the pits of Acheron. Entangled in civil wars, they have left behind neither name nor family. This would not have happened to them, had not that impious divination of the Pythian oracles possessed a counterfeit power.”

“I now entreat you, the greatest God: be gentle and gracious to your easterners; be gracious to all your provincials who have been crushed by long calamity, offering them healing through me, your servant. And I ask this not without reason, O Lord of all, holy God: for under your guidance I undertook and accomplished saving deeds; putting forward your seal everywhere, I led a victorious army; and whenever any public need calls, I go out against the enemy following the same tokens of your power.

For this reason I have dedicated to you my own soul, purely blended of love and fear; for I sincerely love your name and revere your power, which you have shown by many proofs, and so have made my faith firmer. I am hastening, then, putting my own shoulders to the task, to restore your most holy house, which those abominable and most impious men have damaged by the outrage of its destruction.”

“I desire that your people be at peace and remain free of strife, for the common good of the world and the benefit of all people. Let those who are in error, as well as those who believe, gladly receive the same enjoyment of peace and quiet. For this very sweetness of fellowship will be able to correct them too and lead them to the straight way. Let no one molest another; let each keep what his soul wishes, and make full use of it.

But those of sound mind must be convinced that only those will live holy and pure lives whom you yourself call to rest upon your holy laws. As for those who hold themselves aloof, let them keep, if they wish, their precincts of falsehood; we have the most radiant house of your truth, which you have given us by nature. We pray that they too may have the same, so that they also may gain the same joy through common concord.”

“For our religion is nothing new or recent; but ever since, as we believe, the ordering of the universe was firmly established, you enjoined it, together with the worship befitting you. But the human race fell, led astray by all kinds of errors; yet you, through your Son, so that evil might not weigh down still more heavily, raised up a pure light and reminded all people of yourself.”

“Your works confirm this. Your might makes us innocent and faithful. Sun and moon keep their lawful course; the stars do not move in disorder around the circuit of the heavens; the changes of the seasons revolve according to law; the firm station of the earth was established by your word; the wind makes its movement according to the ordinance laid on it; the flow of the waters runs on in the measure of a boundless stream; the sea is held within fixed bounds; and whatever stretches alongside earth and ocean is all contrived with wonderful and useful richness.

If this were not done by the decision of your will, beyond doubt such great diversity and such wide distribution of power would have ruined all life and its affairs. For the forces that have fought among themselves would have harmed the human race more grievously — as they do even now, though unseen.”

“But greatest thanks to you, Lord of all, greatest God: for the more humanity is known by its various pursuits, the more firmly the teachings of the divine word are established. But whoever keeps himself from being healed, let him not blame this on another; for the healing art of remedies is set before all, lying open to view. Only let no one harm what the facts themselves assure us to be undefiled. Let all people, then, make use of their share in the good that has been given, that is, the blessing of peace, keeping their conscience apart from all that is contrary.

But let no one harm another with that of which he has persuaded himself. What one has seen and understood, let him use to help his neighbor, if possible; if not, let him leave it be. For it is one thing to take up willingly the contest for immortality, another to compel it by punishment. I have said these things and gone through them at greater length than the aim of my clemency requires, because I did not wish to conceal my faith in the truth, especially since some, I hear, are saying that the customs of the temples and the power of darkness have been abolished. I would indeed have advised this to all people, were it not that the violent resistance of wicked error was immoderately fixed in the souls of some, to the harm of the common salvation.”

Such were the words that the emperor, like a most loud-voiced herald of God, addressed to all the provincials in his own letter, restraining his subjects from demonic error and urging them to pursue true godliness.

While he was rejoicing in these things, a report was brought to him of no small disturbance that had seized the churches. Wounded by what he heard, he pondered a remedy for the evil. It was as follows.

The people of God were exulting, adorned with good deeds, and there was no fear from outside to trouble them, since a bright and very deep peace was guarding the church on every side by the grace of God. But envy was lying in wait for our blessings, slipping inside and dancing in the very midst of the assemblies of the saints.

It set the bishops against one another, throwing in strife and contention on the pretext of divine doctrines; and then, as from a small spark, a great fire was kindled. It began, as it were, from the head, the church of the Alexandrians, and ran through all Egypt and Libya and the Thebaid beyond,

and it was already spreading to the other provinces and cities, so that one could see not only the presidents of the churches battling with words, but the multitudes being split, some inclining to one side and some to the other. The spectacle reached such a pitch of absurdity that the solemn truths of inspired teaching were subjected to the most shameful mockery in the very theaters of the unbelievers.

Those in Alexandria itself were quarreling vigorously about the highest matters, while those throughout Egypt and the upper Thebaid were at odds because of an older question already underlying it, so that the churches were divided everywhere. With these, as with an injured body, all Libya suffered, and the rest of the outer provinces sickened too. For those from Alexandria sent embassies to the bishops in each province, while those split off to the other side shared in the same strife.

When the emperor learned this, he was deeply grieved in soul and treated the matter as his own misfortune. At once he sent as arbiter of peace to those at variance in Alexandria one of the godly men about him, whom he knew well to be proved by a sober life and the virtue of faith, a man who had been very distinguished in earlier times for his confessions on behalf of piety. By him he sent a most necessary letter to those responsible for the contention; and since it too contains evidence of the emperor's care for the people of God, it is good to include it in the account of him. It runs as follows.

“The Victor Constantine Maximus Augustus to Alexander and Arius. I call God himself to witness, as is fitting, the helper of my undertakings and Savior of all, that I had a twofold purpose in the tasks whose service I undertook in deed.

First, I was eager to bring the disposition of all nations toward the Divinity into one settled state; second, to restore and bind together the body of the common world, which was suffering as from a grievous wound.

Keeping these aims in view, I considered the one with the secret eye of the mind, and tried to set the other right by the power of the military arm, knowing that if, according to my prayers, I could establish common concord among all the servants of God, the needs of public affairs too would reap a change in keeping with the pious sentiments of all.

For when an intolerable madness had seized all Africa, because of those who with ill-advised levity had dared to split the religion of the people into various sects, I wished to check this disease, and found no other remedy sufficient for the matter than this: having removed the common enemy of the world, who opposed his lawless will to your holy synods, to send some of you as helpers toward the concord of those at odds with one another.”

“For since the power of light and the law of holy religion, sent forth by the beneficence of the Supreme Being as from certain bosoms of the East, have lit up the whole world at once with a sacred lamp, I naturally believed that you would be, as it were, the leaders in the salvation of the nations, and tried to seek you out with both the inclination of my soul and the activity of my eyes. So at the very time of the great victory and the true triumph over my enemies, I chose to investigate this first, which I considered the first and most precious of all concerns.”

“But, O most excellent and divine Providence, what a deadly wound struck my hearing, or rather my very heart, when news came of a division among you far more grievous than those left behind there; so that your regions, from which I had hoped healing would come to the rest, now needed greater treatment themselves.

When I considered the origin and subject of these things, the cause was found to be quite trivial and in no way worthy of such contention. Therefore, pressed to the necessity of this letter, and writing to your like-minded intelligence, and calling on divine providence as helper in the matter, I fittingly present myself as a mediator of peace in the midst of your dispute with one another.

For if, with the Supreme Being's help, I could without difficulty have brought each person over to the better course by entrusting my argument to the holy minds of my hearers, even if the occasion of disagreement had been greater, how will it not secure me an easier and much readier correction of the matter, when the cause that stands in the way of the whole is small and very trivial?”

“I learn, then, that the present question had its beginning in this way. When you, Alexander, asked the presbyters what each of them thought about a certain passage of what is written in the Law, or rather about some part of a futile question, you, Arius, rashly put forward what one ought either never to have thought in the first place or, having thought it, to have consigned to silence. From this, dissension arose among you; communion was refused, and the most holy people, split in two, was separated from the harmony of the common body.

So let each of you, granting pardon equally, accept what your fellow servant justly advises. And what is that? It was not fitting to ask about such things in the first place, nor, when asked, to answer. For such questions as no necessity of any law prescribes, but which the contentiousness of unprofitable idleness puts forward, even if they arise for the sake of some philosophical exercise, we ought to shut up within our minds, and not bring them out rashly into public assemblies, nor thoughtlessly entrust them to the ears of the people.

For how great is any one of us, that he can either comprehend exactly or interpret worthily the meaning of matters so great and so very difficult? And even if someone were thought to do this with ease, how large a part of the people will he persuade? Or who could withstand the subtleties of such questions without a dangerous slip?

So in such matters we must restrain loquacity, lest, either because we through weakness of nature cannot interpret what was proposed, or because the hearers through slower understanding cannot arrive at an exact grasp of what is said, the people be driven by one or the other into blasphemy or schism.”

“Therefore let the unguarded question and the inconsiderate answer grant each other equal pardon on both sides. For the cause of your contention was not kindled over the chief of the commandments in the Law, nor was any new heresy about the worship of God introduced by you; but you have one and the same mind, so that you can come together in the bond of communion.

For while you contend with one another over small and very trivial things, it is believed to be neither fitting nor at all lawful that so great a people of God, which ought to be directed by your hands, should be divided.

To remind your intelligence by a small example: you know, surely, that the philosophers themselves all agree in one doctrine, and often, when they disagree on some part of their statements, though they are separated by the excellence of their learning, yet they breathe together again in the unity of their doctrine. If this is so, is it not much more just that we, who have been appointed servants of the great God, should be of one mind with one another in such a profession of religion?

Let us examine what has been said with greater reflection and more understanding: whether it is right that, because of a few futile quarrels about words among you, brothers should be set against brothers, and the honor of the assembly be torn apart by impious dissension through us, who contend with one another over things so small and in no way necessary. These things are vulgar, and suit childish folly rather than the understanding of priests and prudent men.

Let us willingly withdraw from the temptations of the devil. Our great God, the Savior of all, has spread out his light for all in common. Under his providence allow me, the servant of the Supreme Being, to bring this effort to completion, so that I may lead his peoples back to the communion of the assembly by my address, my service, and the earnestness of my admonition.

For since, as I said, there is one faith among us and one understanding of our religion, and the commandment of the law, in its two parts, encloses the whole in one purpose of soul, let this matter, which has stirred up a slight contention among you, since it does not concern the force of the whole law, in no way produce any separation or strife among you.

And I say this not to force you to agree entirely on that very foolish question, whatever it may be. For the honor of the assembly can be preserved intact for you, and one and the same communion kept among all, even if some partial disagreement should arise among you over a very small point, since we do not all will the same in all things, nor does one nature or opinion govern us. Concerning divine providence, then, let there be among you one faith, one understanding, one agreement about the Supreme; but what you examine minutely among yourselves about these trivial questions, even if you do not come to one opinion, should remain within your reasoning, kept in the secret of the mind. But let the excellence of common friendship, faith in the truth, and honor toward God and toward the worship of the law remain unshaken among you. Return to friendship and goodwill toward one another; give back to the whole people their proper embraces; and you yourselves, having as it were purified your own souls, recognize one another again. For friendship often becomes sweeter when, after enmity has been laid aside, it returns again to reconciliation.”

“Give me back, then, peaceful days and untroubled nights, so that for me too some pleasure of pure light and the joy of a quiet life may be preserved hereafter. Otherwise I must groan and be wholly drowned in tears, and not even endure the span of life calmly. For while the peoples of God, I mean my fellow servants, are separated from one another by such unjust and harmful contention, how can I remain composed in mind any longer?

That you may perceive the excess of my grief at this: recently, when I arrived at the city of Nicomedia, I was at once hastening in mind to the East. As I was hurrying toward you, and was already with you in the greater part of myself, the news of this matter pulled my thoughts back again, so that I should not be forced to see with my own eyes what I did not think I could bear even to hear. Open for me, then, by your concord, the road to the East, which you have closed by your contentions with one another, and allow me soon to see you and all the other peoples rejoicing, and to confess to the Supreme, with auspicious words of praise, the thanks owed for the common concord and freedom of all.”

Thus the God-beloved man provided for the peace of the church of God by the letter he sent. The man who carried it served well and nobly, cooperating not only with the letter but also with the purpose of the one who sent him; and he was in all respects a godly man, as has been said. But the matter was too great for the service of a letter, so that the strife of the disputants grew still greater and the force of the evil spread into all the eastern provinces. This was the work of envy and a wicked demon, jealous of the church's blessings.

In this way envy, the hater of good, jealous of the church's blessings, was raising storms and civil disturbances against her in a time of peace and gladness. But the emperor, the friend of God, did not neglect what befitted him; doing everything contrary to [the tyrants of a little before], he proved stronger than every enemy and foe.

For at once, where they, having turned away from the One who is, had forced people by every kind of compulsion to worship the gods who are not, he, proving by deeds and words that those who are not do not exist, called on them to acknowledge the only One who is. They mocked the Christ of God with blasphemous words; he inscribed as his victorious safeguard the very thing for which the godless most raised their blasphemies, glorying in the trophy of the passion. They drove out the servants of God, making them homeless and without a hearth; he recalled them all and restored them to their own homes.

They surrounded them with dishonor; he made them honored and envied by all. They unjustly confiscated and seized the livelihoods of the godly; he restored them, lavishing on them very many gifts besides. They published slanders against the church's presidents in written edicts; he, on the contrary, exalting and raising the men by his own honor, made them more illustrious by proclamations and laws.

They pulled down the houses of prayer from their foundations, laying them flat from top to bottom; he legislated that the existing ones be raised higher and newer ones built magnificently at the expense of the imperial treasuries themselves. They ordered the God-inspired oracles to be destroyed by burning; he ordered these too to be multiplied, copied in magnificent editions at the expense of the imperial treasuries.

They ordered that bishops should never dare to hold synods; he gathered them from all the nations to himself, and deigned to let them enter the palace, go into its innermost rooms, and share the imperial hearth and table. They honored the demons with offerings; he laid bare the error, continually distributing the useless material of the offerings to those able to use it. They ordered the temples to be lavishly adorned; he destroyed from their foundations those of them most prized by the superstitious.

They subjected the martyrs of God to the most shameful punishments; he pursued those who had done these things, chastening them with the fitting punishment of God, and never ceased to honor the memorials of the holy martyrs of God. They drove godly men from the imperial palaces; he continued to rely on these men above all, knowing them to be more loyal and faithful to him than anyone.

They were slaves to money, their souls enslaved to the torment of Tantalus; he, opening all his treasuries with imperial magnificence, made distributions with a rich and generous hand. They committed countless murders for plunder and confiscation of the property of those put to death; but throughout Constantine's reign every sword hung idle for the judges as useless, the peoples and citizens of each nation being governed with a father's rule rather than by compulsion.

Looking at these things, one might fairly say that a fresh and newly made life seemed just then to have appeared, a strange light suddenly shining out of darkness upon the mortal race; and one would confess that the whole was the work of God, who had set forth the God-beloved emperor to oppose the multitude of the godless.

For since they had dared against the church such things as no others had ever been seen to do, and as had never been heard of from the beginning of time, God himself fittingly put forward something strange and accomplished through him things neither known by report nor handed down by sight. And what was newer than the wonder of the emperor's virtue, given to the mortal race by God's wisdom? So he continued to champion the Christ of God to all with complete boldness, not at all concealing the saving name but priding himself on it; he made it manifest, now sealing his face with the saving sign, now glorying in the victorious trophy,

which he also set out for all eyes to see in a painting on a very lofty panel set up before the palace gates. In the painting he placed the saving sign above his own head, and beneath it he represented the hostile and warlike beast, which had besieged the church of God through the tyranny of the godless, falling into the abyss in the form of a dragon. For the oracles in the books of God's prophets had called him a dragon and a crooked serpent.

So the emperor showed to all, in the encaustic painting, the dragon beneath his own feet and those of his sons, pierced through the middle of its body with a dart and thrown into the depths of the sea. In this way he hinted at the invisible enemy of the human race, and showed that it had gone down into the depths of destruction by the power of the saving trophy set above his head. 3 This the colors of the picture expressed in figure; but I was filled with wonder at the emperor's greatness of mind, that by divine inspiration he portrayed what the voices of the prophets had cried out about this beast, saying that “God will bring his great and fearful sword upon the dragon, the crooked serpent, upon the fleeing one, and will slay the dragon that is in the sea.” The emperor portrayed images of these things, truly setting likenesses of them in the painting.

These things were accomplished as he wished. But the effects of envy's malice, which were terribly troubling the churches of God in Alexandria, and the schismatic evil of the Thebans and Egyptians, disturbed him not a little. In every city bishops clashed with bishops, and peoples rose against peoples, all but grinding one another to pieces like the Clashing Rocks, so that the desperate, in their madness, committed unholy acts and even dared to insult the emperor's statues. Yet this roused the emperor not so much to anger as to anguish of soul, grieving deeply at the folly of the deranged.

There was also another, older disease, most grievous, which had long been causing trouble: the disagreement about the saving feast. Some said that one must follow the custom of the Jews; others that it was proper to keep the exact time of the season, and not to go astray by following those who are strangers to the grace of the gospel.

In this matter, then, the peoples everywhere had long been at variance and the divine ordinances confused, so that for one and the same feast the difference in date caused the greatest discord among those keeping it, some practicing fasts and austerities while others gave their leisure to relaxation. No human being could find a cure for the evil, since the dispute was evenly balanced between the parties. For God almighty alone this too was easy to heal, and of all those on earth Constantine alone appeared as his servant for good. 3 When he had learned what has been described, and saw that the letter he had sent to those in Alexandria had failed, he stirred up his own mind and said that he must fight to the end this other war, against the invisible enemy who was disturbing the church.

Then, as if marshalling a phalanx of God against him, he convened an ecumenical synod, inviting the bishops with honorific letters to hasten from every quarter. Nor was it a mere command: the emperor's will cooperated in carrying it out, granting to some the use of the public post and to others an ample supply of pack animals. A city fitting for the synod was appointed, named for victory: Nicaea in the province of Bithynia. 2 So when the summons went out everywhere, all ran with complete eagerness, as if from a starting line. They were drawn by the hope of good things, by the prospect of sharing in peace, and by the strange wonder of seeing so great an emperor. When all had assembled, what was being done was already seen to be the work of God. For men who were separated as widely as possible from one another, not only in their souls but also in body, country, place, and nation, were brought together, and one city received them all; one could see a very great crown of priests, adorned with beautiful flowers.

From all the churches that filled all Europe, Libya, and Asia, the choicest of the ministers of God were gathered together. One house of prayer, as if enlarged by God, held within it at the same time Syrians and Cilicians, Phoenicians, Arabians, and Palestinians, and besides these Egyptians, Thebans, Libyans, and those who came from Mesopotamia. Even a Persian bishop was present at the synod, nor was a Scythian missing from the company; Pontus and Galatia, Cappadocia and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia sent their chosen men; Thracians and Macedonians, Achaeans and Epirotes, and those living still further beyond these came too; and from the Spaniards themselves the very famous one sat with the many.

The president of the imperial city was absent because of old age, but his presbyters were present and filled his place. Constantine alone of all emperors since time began, having bound such a crown for Christ with the bond of peace, dedicated it to his Savior as a thank-offering befitting God for his victory over enemies and foes, assembling in our own time this image of the apostolic company.

For in the apostles' time too, the account says, there were gathered “from every nation under heaven” “devout men,” among whom were “Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs”; except that they fell short in this, that not all of them were ministers of God. In the present company the number of bishops exceeded two hundred and fifty, while the presbyters and deacons accompanying them, and the very many other attendants, were beyond counting.

Of the ministers of God, some excelled in the word of wisdom, others in strictness of life and patient endurance, and others were adorned with the middle way between these. Some were honored for their length of years, others shone with youth and vigor of soul, and others had only just entered on the course of ministry. For all of them the emperor had ordered ample daily provisions to be supplied.

When the day appointed for the synod had come, on which they were to bring the disputed questions to a resolution, all who were to take part were present in the very central hall of the palace, which seemed to surpass all others in size. Many benches had been set in order along both sides of the hall; those who had been invited came in, and all took their appropriate seats.

When the whole synod had taken its seats with fitting decorum, silence held all in expectation of the emperor's entrance. First one, then a second and a third of those around the emperor came in. Others too led the way, not of the usual soldiers and guards, but only of his faithful friends.

When all rose at the signal announcing the emperor's entrance, he himself at last passed through their midst like some heavenly angel of God, his bright robe flashing as with gleams of light, shining with the fiery rays of purple, and adorned with the brilliant radiance of gold and precious stones.

So much for his body. As for his soul, he was plainly adorned with the fear of God and reverence. This was shown by his downcast eyes, the blush on his face, his gait, the rest of his appearance, and his stature, which surpassed all those around him … in the beauty of his prime, the majesty of his bodily bearing, and the strength of his invincible might; these qualities, blended with gentleness of character and the mildness of imperial kindness, displayed the surpassing greatness of his mind beyond all description. 5 When he had come to the head of the rows and stood in the middle, a small seat made of gold was set before him; and he did not sit down until the bishops had signed to him to do so. And all did the same after the emperor.

The first bishop of the right-hand row [then rose and] delivered a measured speech, addressing the emperor and offering on his behalf a hymn of thanksgiving to God almighty. When he too had sat down, there was silence, all gazing intently at the emperor; and he, looking round at all calmly with bright eyes, and then collecting his thoughts, delivered in a quiet and gentle voice a speech like this.

“It was the fulfillment of my prayer, my friends, to enjoy your company; and having obtained it, I acknowledge my gratitude to the King of all, that in addition to all his other gifts he has granted me to see this, which is better than every good: I mean, to receive you all gathered together and to behold one common, harmonious mind among you all.

Let no envious enemy, then, harm our blessings; and now that the tyrants' war against God has been removed by the power of God the Savior, let not the demon who loves evil assail the divine law with blasphemies in some other way. For to me internal strife in the church of God is more grievous than any war or terrible battle, and these things appear more painful than troubles from outside.

When, by the will and cooperation of the Supreme Being, I won my victories over my enemies, I thought nothing remained but to give thanks to God and to rejoice with those freed by him through us. But when, against all hope, I learned of your dissension, I did not treat the report as a secondary matter; praying that this too might be healed through my service, I summoned you all without delay.

I rejoice to see your assembly; but I shall judge that I have most fully achieved what I prayed for when I see you all united in soul, and one common, peaceful harmony prevailing among you all, which it would befit you, who are consecrated to God, to proclaim to others as well.

Do not delay, then, my friends, ministers of God and good servants of the common Lord and Savior of us all, but begin now to bring the causes of your dissension into the open, and loosen every knot of controversy by the laws of peace. For so you will give surpassing joy to your fellow servant.”

Having said this in the Latin tongue, with someone else interpreting, he handed over the discussion to the presidents of the synod. From then on some began to accuse their neighbors, while others defended themselves and made countercharges. Very many proposals were put forward by each side, and at first much controversy arose; the emperor listened patiently to all and received the proposals with steady attention, and taking up in turn what was said by each side, he gently brought together those who were contentiously opposed,

speaking gently with each and using the Greek language, since he was not ignorant of it either. He was agreeable and pleasant, persuading some, shaming others by his words, praising those who spoke well, and urging all toward concord, until he had brought them to be of one mind and one opinion on all the disputed questions,

so that the faith prevailed with one voice, and the same date for the saving feast was agreed by all. What had been decided in common was confirmed in writing by the signature of each. When these things were done, the emperor, saying that he had won this second victory over the enemy of the church, celebrated a festival of victory to God.

At the same time the twentieth year of his reign was completed. On this occasion public festivals were held among the other nations, while the emperor himself gave a banquet for the ministers of God, feasting with those who were now at peace and offering this through them, as it were, as a fitting sacrifice to God. None of the bishops was absent from the imperial banquet.

What happened surpassed all description. Guards and soldiers stood in a circle guarding the entrance of the palace with drawn swords, and through their midst the men of God passed without fear and went into the innermost parts of the palace.

Then some reclined with him, while others rested on couches on either side. One might have thought that a picture of Christ's kingdom was being imagined, and that what was happening was a dream and not reality.

When the banquet had gone forward splendidly, the emperor, showing further kindness to those present, added this: he honored each of them generously with gifts from himself, according to his rank. And he conveyed the memory of this synod to those who had not been present by a letter of his own, which I shall attach to this account of him as if on a monument. It runs as follows. The emperor's letter concerning the saving feast, which he wrote to the churches after the synod held at Nicaea.

“Constantine Victor Maximus Augustus to the churches. Having learned from the prosperity of public affairs how great is the grace of the divine power, I judged that this aim above all befitted me: that among the most blessed multitudes of the catholic church one faith, sincere love, and unanimous piety toward almighty God should be preserved. 2 But since this could not receive an unwavering and firm order unless all, or at least most, of the bishops came together in one place and a decision were reached on each of the matters concerning the most holy religion, for this reason as many as possible were assembled (and I myself was present as one of you; for I would not deny that I am your fellow servant, in which I rejoice above all). Everything received fitting examination, until the judgment pleasing to God, the overseer of all, was brought to light for the concord of unity, so that nothing further remained for dissension or dispute about the faith.”

“There, when a question also arose about the most holy day of Easter, it was resolved by common consent that it was right for all people everywhere to celebrate it on one day. For what could be finer or more solemn for us than that this feast, from which we have received the hope of immortality, should be kept by all without fail in one order and by a clear reckoning?

And first, it seemed unworthy to keep that most holy feast following the custom of the Jews, who, having defiled their hands with a lawless crime, are, as polluted men, fittingly blind in their souls. For now that their nation has been cast off, it is possible, by a truer order, which we have kept from the first day of the passion until now, to extend the fulfillment of this observance to future ages as well. Let us have nothing in common with the most hostile crowd of the Jews.

For we have received from the Savior another way; a course lies open to our most holy religion that is both lawful and fitting. Taking hold of this with one accord, let us tear ourselves away, most honored brothers, from that shameful complicity. For it is truly most absurd for them to boast that without their teaching we would not be able to observe these things.

What right judgment can those have who, after that murder of the Lord and parricide, have lost their minds and are led not by any reason but by an uncontrollable impulse, wherever their innate madness leads them? Hence in this matter too they do not see the truth, so that, being for the most part in error, instead of making the proper correction they celebrate the Pascha a second time in the same year. Why then do we follow those who are admittedly sick with terrible error? For we would never tolerate celebrating the Pascha twice in one year. But even if this were not the case, your intelligence ought always to take care, with zeal and in prayer, that the purity of your souls should not seem to share in any likeness with the customs of utterly wicked men.

Besides this, one can also see that in so great a matter, and in the feast of so great a religion, it is unlawful for there to be disagreement. For our Savior handed down to us one day of our freedom, that is, of his most holy passion, and he willed that his catholic church be one; and even though its members are divided among many and various places, yet it is cherished by one Spirit, that is, by the divine will.

Let the intelligence of your Holiness consider how terrible and unseemly it is that on the same days some are devoting themselves to fasts while others are holding banquets, and that after the days of Pascha some are engaged in feasts and relaxation while others are given over to the appointed fasts. For this reason divine providence wills that this should receive fitting correction and be brought to one arrangement, as I think all see.”

“Therefore, since it was right that this should be so corrected that there be nothing in common with that nation of parricides and murderers of the Lord, and since there is a seemly order which all the churches of the western, southern, and northern parts of the world observe, and some of those in the East, for this reason all judged it good for the present — and I myself promised that it would please your intelligence — that what is observed with one harmonious mind in the city of Rome, in Italy and all Africa, Egypt, the Spains, the Gauls, the Britains, the Libyas, all Greece, the dioceses of Asia and Pontus, and Cilicia, your understanding too should gladly accept. You should reckon not only that the number of churches in the places mentioned is greater, but also that it is most holy for all in common to want what exact reason seems to require and what has no fellowship with the perjury of the Jews.

To put the chief point briefly: it pleased the common judgment of all that the most holy [feast of Pascha] be celebrated on one and the same day. For it is not fitting that [in so great a holiness there should be any difference; it is better to follow] this judgment, in which there will be no admixture of alien error and sin.”

“Since this is so, gladly receive the grace of God and this truly divine command; for whatever is done in the holy councils of the bishops has reference to the divine will.

Therefore, having made known what is written above to all our beloved brothers, you ought now both to accept and to put in order the reckoning described and the observance of the most holy day, so that when I come to the long-desired sight of your affection, I may be able to celebrate the holy feast with you on one and the same day, and may rejoice with you in all things, seeing the devil's cruelty destroyed by the divine power through our actions, while your faith, peace, and concord flourish everywhere. God will preserve you, beloved brothers.”

The emperor sent a writing of the same force as this letter to every province, allowing its readers to see mirrored in it the perfect purity of his mind's holiness toward the Divinity.

When the synod was at last about to disperse, he called them together on a [farewell] day and [exhorted] those present [to be zealous for peace] and to turn away from contentious quarrels; not to be jealous if any of the bishops appeared distinguished for wisdom in speech, but to regard the excellence of one as a common good; and that the better men should not exalt themselves over the more modest, since the judgment of who are truly better belongs to God, while they ought to condescend to the weaker in a spirit of forbearance, since perfection is everywhere rare.

They should therefore grant one another pardon for small faults, and indulge and forgive what is merely human, all valuing harmonious concord highly, so that no occasion for mockery should be given, through their strife with one another, to those who are ready to blaspheme the divine law. These above all must be cared for in every way, since they can be saved if our ways appear enviable to them. Nor should they be unaware that benefit from preaching does not work for everyone.

For some are glad to be helped with food, others are accustomed to seek protection, others welcome those who greet them kindly, and others love to be honored with gifts; few are lovers of true words, and rare indeed is the friend of truth. So they must adapt themselves to all, like a physician providing each with what is beneficial for salvation, so that in every way the saving teaching may be glorified among all.

Such were his exhortations first of all; and at the end he enjoined them to offer supplications to God earnestly on his behalf. Having thus taken leave of them, he let them all return to their own homes. They went back with gladness, and thereafter one mind prevailed among all, agreed upon in the emperor's own presence, those who had long been divided being joined together as in one body.

Rejoicing at this success, the emperor gave, through letters, a flourishing fruit to those who had not been present at the synod, and ordered ample distributions of money to all the peoples in the countryside and around the cities, thus honoring the festival of the twentieth year of his reign.

But while all others were at peace, among the Egyptians alone the contention with one another remained unappeased, so that it troubled the emperor again, 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 patiently mediated for the same men, honored them with gifts again, announced his arbitration by letter, and, ratifying the decrees of the synod, confirmed them with his seal. He urged them to hold to concord and not to tear apart and cut up the church, but to keep in mind the judgment of God. These things too the emperor sent in a letter of his own.

He wrote countless other things similar to these and composed very many letters: sometimes to bishops, ordering what was advantageous for the churches of God, and sometimes addressing the congregations themselves, the thrice-blessed man calling the peoples of the church his brothers and fellow servants.

It would require leisure to collect these in a work of their own, so as not to interrupt the body of our present history.

While things stood so, the God-beloved man accomplished another very great memorial in the province of Palestine. What was it? He thought it right to make the most blessed place of the Savior's resurrection in Jerusalem conspicuous and venerable to all. At once, then, he ordered a house of prayer to be built there, conceiving this in his mind not without God, but moved by the Spirit of the Savior himself.

For once upon a time impious men, or rather the whole race of demons through them, had made it their business to consign to darkness and oblivion that divine monument of immortality, at which the angel who had come down from heaven, flashing with light, rolled away the stone — the stone of those whose minds were petrified and who supposed that the Living One was still among the dead — bringing the good news to the women and removing from their minds the stone of unbelief by the conviction that the one they sought was alive.

This saving cave, then, certain godless and impious men had planned to make invisible to human eyes, thinking in their foolishness that they could hide the truth in this way. Going to great trouble, they brought in earth from somewhere outside and covered the whole place; then, raising it up high and paving it with stone, they hid the divine cave somewhere beneath a great mound.

Then, as though nothing more were needed, above ground they constructed a truly terrible tomb of souls, of dead idols, building a dark shrine to the licentious demon Aphrodite, and then pouring foul libations there on profane and accursed altars. For they thought they could achieve their aim in this way only and no other, by hiding the saving cave beneath such accursed abominations.

For the wretches could not understand that it was not in the nature of the one who had crowned himself with the prizes of victory over death to leave his achievement hidden, any more than the sun, when it rises above the earth and drives its own course across the sky, could escape the notice of the whole inhabited world. For more powerfully than the sun, the saving power, illuminating the souls rather than the bodies of men, was filling the whole world with the gleams of its own light.

Nevertheless the devices of these godless and impious men against the truth continued for long periods of time, and none of those who ever lived — not governors, not generals, not even emperors — was found fit to undo what had been dared, except one alone, the friend of God, the King of all.

Possessed by the divine Spirit, he did not overlook that place described above, hidden by the plotting of enemies under all kinds of impure materials and consigned to oblivion and ignorance; nor did he give way to the wickedness of those responsible. Calling on God as his helper, he ordered it to be cleared, thinking that the very place defiled by the enemies ought above all to enjoy the magnificent work of the All-Good through him.

At his command the contrivances of deceit were thrown down from on high to the ground, and the buildings of error were dismantled and destroyed, idols, demons, and all.

Nor did his zeal stop there. The emperor further ordered the stone and timber of what had been demolished to be taken up and thrown as far away from the site as possible; and the deed followed the word. But even this was not enough: again, divinely inspired, the emperor commanded that the very ground be dug up to a great depth and the soil itself, as polluted with demonic gore, be carried a long way off, far outside.

This too was done at once. As one layer after another of the ground was uncovered at depth, then at last, beyond all hope, the venerable and all-holy testimony of the saving resurrection came to light; and the holy of holies, the cave, took on the likeness of the Savior's return to life. After its descent into darkness it came forth again into the light, and offered those who came to see it a clear view of the history of the wonders done there, testifying to the Savior's resurrection by deeds louder than any voice.

When this had been done, the emperor at once, by ordinances of pious laws and by ample grants, ordered a house of prayer worthy of God to be built around the saving cave with rich and imperial magnificence, as though he had long intended this and had foreseen with superior foresight what was to come. He instructed the governors of the eastern provinces to make the work extraordinary, great, and rich with ample and abundant grants; and to the bishop who then presided over the church in Jerusalem he sent the following letter, in which he plainly displayed the God-loving character of his soul and the purity of his faith in the saving word, writing in this way. Letter of the emperor to Macarius, bishop of the church in Jerusalem, concerning the building of the Martyrium.

“The Victor Constantine Maximus Augustus to Macarius. So great is the grace of our Savior that no wealth of words seems worthy of the present wonder. For that the token of his most holy passion, long hidden beneath the earth, should have lain unnoticed for so many cycles of years, until it was to shine forth for his servants, set free by the removal of the common enemy of all — this truly surpasses all amazement.

For if all throughout the world who are thought wise were to come together in one place and wished to say something worthy of the matter, they could not rival even the least part of it; for faith in this wonder surpasses every capacity of human reason as far as heavenly things are more powerful than human.

For this reason my first and only aim is always this: that as the faith of the truth shows itself daily by newer wonders, so [the souls of all of us] may become more zealous for the holy law, with all sobriety and unanimous eagerness.

What I think is plain to all, I want you above all to be convinced of: that I care most of all that we should adorn with beautiful buildings that sacred place which, at God's command, I have relieved of the most shameful addition of an idol, as of a heavy burden laid upon it — a place holy from the beginning by God's judgment, and shown to be holier still since it brought to light the faith in the Savior's passion.

“It befits your intelligence, then, so to arrange and provide for every necessary thing that not only the basilica itself may be finer than those everywhere else, but that the rest too may be such that all the most beautiful buildings in every city are surpassed by this one.

As for the raising and adornment of the walls, know that we have entrusted the care of this 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 workmen, and whatever they learn from your intelligence to be necessary for the building, be sent at once through their care.

As for the columns or marbles, whichever you judge most precious and useful, make a survey yourself and be diligent to write to us, so that when we learn from your letter how many and of what kind are needed, these may be brought from every quarter; for it is right that the most wonderful place in the world should be worthily adorned.”

“As for the vault of the basilica, I wish to learn from you whether you think it should be coffered or done in some other kind of work. For if it is to be coffered, it can also be decorated with gold.

It remains for your Holiness to make known as quickly as possible to the officials mentioned how many workmen and craftsmen, and what expenditure, are needed, and to be diligent to report to me at once, not only about the marbles and columns but also about the coffered ceilings, if you judge this the finer choice. God will preserve you, beloved brother.”

So the emperor wrote. And as soon as the word was given, what he had ordered went into effect. At the very Martyrium of salvation the new Jerusalem was built, facing the old one so celebrated in story, which, after the bloody murder of the Lord, was overthrown in utter desolation and paid the penalty for its impious inhabitants.

Opposite this city, then, the emperor raised high the saving victory over death with rich and abundant munificence; and this was perhaps the new and fresh Jerusalem proclaimed in the prophetic oracles, about which long passages, prophesying countless things through the divine Spirit, sing its praises. First of all, as the head of the whole, he adorned the sacred cave. It was a tomb full of eternal memory, holding the trophies of the great Savior over death — a divine tomb, at which an angel once, flashing with light, announced to all the good news of the rebirth shown forth through the Savior.

This, then, first of all, as the head of the whole, the emperor's munificence decorated with choice columns and the richest ornament, brightening the holy cave with every kind of embellishment.

Next he passed on to a very large space lying open to the clear sky, which was adorned with bright stone paving on the ground and enclosed on three sides by long colonnades.

On the side opposite the cave, which faced the rising sun, the royal temple was joined on, an extraordinary work raised to an immense height and very broad in length and width. Its interior was covered with slabs of varied marble, while the outer face of the walls, gleaming with polished stone closely fitted at every joint, presented an extraordinary beauty in no way inferior to marble.

Above, at the roof, the outside was covered with lead, a safe defense against winter rains; while the inner ceiling, carved with coffered work and extending in continuous interlacing panels over the whole royal house, and overlaid throughout with brilliant gold, made the whole temple flash as with gleams of light.

Along each side, twin aisles with double colonnades, upper and lower, ran the length of the temple, their ceilings too adorned with gold. Those at the front of the building rested on very large columns, while those within them were raised on piers richly decorated on their outer surfaces. Three doors, well placed facing the rising sun, received the crowds coming in.

Opposite these, the crowning point of the whole was a hemisphere set at the head of the basilica. Twelve columns encircled it, equal in number to the apostles of the Savior, their tops adorned with very large bowls made of silver, which the emperor himself presented to his God as a most beautiful offering.

Going on from there to the entrances in front of the temple, one came to another atrium. There were exedras on either side, a first court with colonnades beyond it, and finally the gates of the court; after these, in the very middle of the broad marketplace, the propylaea of the whole, finely wrought, gave those passing by outside an astonishing view of what was to be seen within.

This temple, then, the emperor raised up as a clear testimony to the saving resurrection, embellishing the whole with rich and royal furnishings; and he adorned it with the indescribable beauty of very many offerings of gold, silver, and precious stones in various materials. There is no leisure now to describe in words their detailed and skillful workmanship, their size, number, and variety.

Taking over in that region other places honored by two mystic caves, he adorned these too with rich munificence. To the cave of the Savior's first manifestation, where he underwent his birth in the flesh, he paid fitting honors, and at the cave of his ascension into heaven he glorified the memorial on the mountaintop. These too he honored splendidly, perpetuating the memory of his mother, who had rendered so great a service to the life of mankind.

For since she had made it her task to pay to God, the King of all, the debt of her pious disposition, and thought that she must fulfill with prayers her thank-offerings for so great an emperor, her son, and for his sons, the most God-beloved Caesars, her grandchildren, the aged woman came with youthful eagerness to survey with surpassing understanding the land worthy of all admiration, and to visit with imperial care the eastern provinces, cities, and peoples. When she had paid fitting reverence to the footsteps of the Savior, according to the prophetic word that says, “Let us worship at the place where his feet stood,” she at once left to later generations too the fruit of her own piety.

At once, then, she dedicated two temples to the God she worshiped, one at the cave of his birth, the other on the mount of his ascension. For God-with-us submitted, 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.

So the most pious empress adorned the place where the God-bearer gave birth with wonderful monuments, brightening the sacred cave there in every way; and a little later the emperor honored it too with imperial offerings, adding to his mother's works of beauty with treasures of silver and gold and embroidered hangings.

Again, the emperor's mother raised on high, with lofty buildings, the memorial of the journey into heaven of the Savior of all on the Mount of Olives. Up by the ridge, beside the very summit of the whole mountain, she erected a sacred church house, and built there too a temple for prayer to the Savior who chose to spend his time in that place; since here too a true account holds that in that very cave the Savior of all initiated his disciples into the secret mysteries.

Here too the emperor honored the great King with all kinds of offerings and ornaments. These two venerable and most beautiful dedications, worthy of eternal remembrance, over two mystic caves, Helena Augusta, the God-beloved mother of a God-beloved emperor, founded for God her Savior as tokens of her pious disposition, her son supplying her with the right hand of his imperial power.

Not long afterwards the aged woman received a worthy reward. She had spent the whole of her life in every good thing, up to the very threshold of old age; she had brought forth, in words and deeds, flourishing shoots of the saving commandments; and she then completed a well-ordered life, untroubled in body and soul alike, with her mind still vigorous. For these things she received, even in this present life, an end worthy of her piety and a good reward from God.

For as she went round the whole East with the magnificence of imperial authority, she gave countless gifts to the peoples of the cities in general, and privately to each who approached her; with a magnificent hand she distributed very many gifts to the ranks of the soldiers; and very many she gave to the poor, naked and helpless, making gifts of money to some and supplying others abundantly with clothing for the body. Others she freed from prison and from the misery of the mines where they were suffering hardship; she released those who were oppressed by fraud, and recalled others from exile.

Distinguished by such deeds, she did not neglect the rest of her devotion to God. She let herself be seen constantly attending the church of God; she adorned the houses of prayer with splendid treasures, not overlooking the churches even in the smallest towns. One could see the admirable woman, in modest and simple dress, mingling with the crowd and showing her reverence for the divine in every God-loving act.

When at last, having completed a sufficient life, she was being called to the better lot, having reached about eighty years of age, she came to the very end and set her affairs in order and made her will. She made her last dispositions in favor of her only son, the emperor, sole ruler and lord of the world, and of his sons the Caesars, her grandchildren, distributing to each of her descendants her own property, all that she had throughout the world.

Having made her dispositions in this way, she then came to the end of her life, with her great son present and standing beside her, tending her and holding her hands; so that to those of right mind the thrice-blessed woman fittingly seemed not to have died, but to have undergone a change and removal from earthly life to heavenly. Her very soul was re-formed into an incorruptible and angelic being as she was taken up to her Savior.

The body of the blessed woman too was held worthy of no ordinary [honor]; it was carried [to the imperial] city and laid there in the imperial tombs. So the emperor's mother came to her end, worthy of unfading memory both for her own God-loving deeds and for the extraordinary and wonderful offspring who sprang from her,

whom, besides all else, it is right to call blessed for his devotion to the mother who bore him. He made her so God-fearing, though she had not been so before, that she seemed to him to have been a disciple of the common Savior from the first; and he so honored her with imperial rank that in all nations, and in the military ranks themselves, she was proclaimed Augusta and Empress, and her portrait was stamped on gold coins.

He even gave her authority over the imperial treasuries, to use them at her choice and manage them at her discretion, however she wished and as she judged best in each case, her son having made her distinguished and enviable in these things too. For this reason we have rightly included these things also among what pertains to his memory, since in honoring his mother through the excess of his piety he fulfilled the divine ordinances that prescribe what is fitting in the honor of parents.

In this way the emperor established the works of beauty described in the province of Palestine; and throughout all the provinces too, by constructing newly built churches, he made them far more honored than the earlier ones.

Honoring with special distinction the city that bore his name, he beautified it with very many houses of prayer and with very great and most beautiful shrines of martyrs, some before the city and some within it. By these he both honored the memorials of the martyrs and consecrated his city to the martyrs' God.

Wholly inspired by the wisdom of God, he judged it right that the city he had decided to name after himself should be pure of all idolatry, so that nowhere in it should there appear statues of the supposed gods worshiped in temples, nor altars defiled with gore of blood, nor sacrifices burned whole in fire, nor demonic festivals, nor any other of the customs of the superstitious.

You would see, in the middle of the squares, set up on fountains, the symbols of the Good Shepherd, familiar to those who start from the divine oracles, and Daniel with the lions, fashioned in bronze and gleaming with gold leaf. So great a divine love had seized the emperor's soul that in the palace itself, in the most eminent hall of all, at the very center of the gilded coffering of the ceiling, the symbol of the saving passion was fixed on a very large panel, made of various precious stones set in much gold. The God-beloved man seemed to have made this as a safeguard of the empire itself.

With these things he beautified his own city. The leading city of Bithynia he likewise honored with the dedication of a very great and magnificent church, here too raising up from his own treasuries trophies to his Savior over his enemies and the enemies of God. And he made the principal cities of the other provinces distinguished by beautiful houses of prayer, as in the metropolis of the East, which bears the name of Antiochus. There, as at the head of the peoples of that region, he dedicated a church unique in size and beauty. He enclosed the whole temple outside with long surrounding walls, and within raised the house of prayer to an immense height; it was built in an octagonal form, surrounded on every side with chambers on the upper and lower levels, and he crowned it with the beauty of abundant gold, bronze, and other costly materials.

Such were the emperor's most eminent dedications. Learning that the same Savior who had recently appeared in human life had long ago also made manifestations of God to God-loving men of Palestine by the place called the Oak of Mamre, he ordered a house of prayer to be built there too, to the God who had appeared.

The imperial authority reached the provincial governors through letters sent to each of them, ordering them to carry out what was commanded; and to us who are writing this history he sent a more reasoned instruction, a copy of which it seems good to me to attach to the present account, so that the God-beloved man's care may be known exactly. Rebuking us for what he had learned was being done there, he wrote as follows, word for word.

The emperor's letter concerning the place at the oak called Mamre. “The Victor Constantine Maximus Augustus to Macarius and the other bishops of Palestine. This too has been one of the very great benefits to us from my most holy mother-in-law: that she has made known to us by letter the madness of accursed men, which has gone unnoticed among you until now, so that the fault that was overlooked may receive fitting correction and remedy through us, late indeed, yet of necessity. For it is truly a very great impiety that holy places should be defiled by unholy pollutions. What is it, then, dearest brothers, that has escaped your intelligence, and that the lady mentioned, out of her reverence for the divine, could not keep silent about?

“The place called ‘by the oak of Mamre,’ where we learn that Abraham had his home, is being defiled in every way, she says, by certain superstitious people. She has disclosed that idols worthy of utter destruction have been set up beside it, that an altar stands nearby, and that unclean sacrifices are continually offered.

Therefore, since this is plainly foreign to our times and unworthy of the holiness of the place, I wish your Reverence to know that we have written to Acacius, the most distinguished count and our friend, that without any delay whatever idols may be found at the place mentioned be committed to the fire and the altar overturned from its foundations; and, in short, that when all such things have been utterly destroyed there, he is to be diligent to cleanse the whole surrounding area with all his strength and by every means, and afterwards, as you yourselves shall design it, to have a basilica worthy of the catholic and apostolic church built on that same spot. It will then be the part of your understanding and reverence, once you learn that all the abominations there have been completely removed, to meet together with the bishops of Phoenicia, whom you will be able to summon by the authority of this letter, and to draw up the plan of a basilica worthy of my munificence, so that, in accordance with our orders, the splendor of the work may be completed with all speed, worthily of the antiquity and holiness of the place, under the care of our count mentioned above. But above all I wish you to take care that none of those accursed and abominable men dare in future to approach the place. 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 basilica building, so that it may be shown to be a meeting place worthy of holy men. If anything should happen contrary to the command, it must be made known without delay to our Clemency through your letters, so that we may order the one caught to undergo the severest punishment as a transgressor of the law.

For you are not unaware that it was there that God, the Lord of all, first appeared to Abraham and spoke with him. There first the worship of the holy law had its beginning; there first the Savior himself, with the two angels, granted Abraham his manifestation; there God began to appear to men; there he foretold to Abraham the offspring that was to come to him, and at once fulfilled the promise; there he proclaimed beforehand that he would be the father of very many nations.

Since this is so, it is right, as it seems to me, that through our care this place should be kept pure of every pollution and restored to its ancient holiness, so that nothing else may be done there except the performance of the worship befitting God, the Almighty, our Savior and the Lord of all. You should guard this with due care, if indeed your Reverence wishes, as I am convinced it does, that my desires, which depend above all on godliness, should be fulfilled. God will preserve you, beloved brothers.”

All these things the emperor did, contributing to the glory of the saving power. And while he continued thus to honor his Savior God, he also exposed the superstitious error of the pagans in every way.

Hence, naturally, the entrances of the temples in the cities were laid bare, left without doors at the emperor's command; the roofs of others were ruined as their tiles were removed; and of others the revered bronze statues, in which the deceit of the ancients had long taken pride, were set out plainly before all in all the squares of the emperor's city, so that they lay exposed as a shameful spectacle to the beholders: here the Pythian, there the Sminthian, in the hippodrome itself the tripods of Delphi, and the Muses of Helicon in the palace.

The whole city named after the emperor was filled throughout with artistic bronze works dedicated in every province. To these, in the name of gods, those sick with error had for long ages vainly offered countless hecatombs and whole burnt offerings; now at last they learned to think rightly, since the emperor used these very toys for the laughter and amusement of the spectators.

The golden statues he dealt with in another way. For when he saw that the multitudes, like senseless children, were vainly afraid of the bogeys of error fashioned out of gold and silver, he thought that these too must be removed, like stumbling stones thrown before the feet of those who walk in darkness, and so he opened for all henceforth a smooth and level royal road.

Having decided this, he did not think he needed soldiers and a host of troops to expose them; one or two of his acquaintances were enough for the service, and he sent them into every province with a single nod.

Trusting in the emperor's piety and in their own reverence for the divine, they passed through the midst of peoples numbering tens of thousands in every city and district and exposed the long-standing error. They ordered the priests themselves, amid much laughter and shame, to bring their gods out of their dark recesses into the light; then they stripped them of their disguise and displayed to the eyes of all the ugliness within the painted form. Next they scraped off whatever part of the material seemed useful and tested it by melting and fire; what was of value and considered necessary they secured and kept, and what was otherwise superfluous and useless they left to the superstitious as a memorial of their shame.

And here is another thing the admirable emperor did. When the precious material of the dead idols had been stripped off in the way described, he went after the rest, the statues made of bronze. So these gods of antiquated myths too were led away captive, bound with ropes of woven hair.

Besides this, the emperor, as though kindling a brilliant beacon, looked round with an imperial eye lest any hidden remnant of error should escape his notice. And as the sharpest-sighted eagle, soaring in the sky, sees from on high things far off on the earth, so he, as he went about the imperial residence of his own beautiful city, perceived from afar a terrible snare of souls lurking in the province of Phoenicia.

This was a grove and precinct, not in the middle of cities nor in squares and streets, as most such things are set up to adorn cities; it lay off the beaten track, away from crossroads and highways, established for the shameful demon Aphrodite on a mountain ridge in part of Lebanon, at Aphaca.

It was a school of wickedness for all the licentious and for those who had ruined their bodies by much indulgence. Certain effeminate men, not men, having renounced the dignity of their nature, propitiated the goddess with a womanish disease; unlawful intercourse with women, adulterous corruptions, and unspeakable and infamous deeds were practiced at this temple as in a lawless and unguarded place. No one detected what was done, since no respectable man dared to go there.

But what was done there could not escape the great emperor. Having seen these things for himself with imperial foresight, he judged such a temple unworthy of the sun's rays, and ordered the whole of it to be destroyed from its foundations, offerings and all.

At once, at the emperor's nod, the contrivances of licentious error were dismantled, a detachment of soldiers carried out the cleansing of the place, and those who until then had been licentious learned self-control through the emperor's threat — as did also the superstitious among the Greeks who fancied themselves wise, who likewise learned by experience the proof of their own vanity.

For there was great error among those who fancied themselves wise concerning the demon of the Cilicians. Countless people were excited about him as a savior and physician, who sometimes appeared to those sleeping in his temple and sometimes healed the diseases of those sick in body. But he was plainly a destroyer of souls, drawing those easily deceived away from the true Savior and dragging them down to godless error. The emperor, acting fittingly, and holding before him the jealous God, the true Savior, ordered this temple too to be razed to the ground.

At a single nod the much-vaunted wonder of the noble philosophers was thrown down by a soldier's hand and laid flat on the ground, and with it the one who lurked there — no demon, nor yet a god, but a deceiver of souls, who had deceived them for many long ages. Then he who promised to deliver others from evils and misfortunes found no remedy for his own defense, any more than when, as the myth tells, he was struck by a thunderbolt.

But our emperor's achievements, pleasing to God, were not in myths. By the manifest power of his Savior, the temple there too was overturned, root and all, so that not even a trace of the former madness was left in the place.

All who had formerly been superstitious, seeing with their own eyes the refutation of their error and beholding in fact the desolation of temples and shrines everywhere, either took refuge in the saving word, or, if they did not do this, at least condemned the vanity of their fathers and laughed and jeered at those they had long regarded as gods.

And how could they not think so, when they saw so much filth hidden inside beneath the outward show of the images? For underneath were bones of dead bodies and dry skulls prepared by the curious arts of sorcerers, or filthy rags full of shameful stench, or a heap of hay and straw.

Seeing these things heaped up inside the lifeless images, they blamed themselves and their fathers for great folly, especially when they realized that there was in fact no one dwelling in their secret sanctuaries or in the statues themselves — no demon, no oracle-giver, no god, no seer, as they had formerly supposed — not even a dim or shadowy phantom.

So every dark cave and every secret recess was readily accessible to those sent by the emperor; the untrodden and forbidden places and the innermost parts of the temples were trampled by soldiers' feet, so that from these things the blindness of mind that had held all nations for a long age became plain and manifest to all.

One might fittingly count these things too among the emperor's achievements, as also the measures he ordered for each province in particular: for example at Heliopolis in Phoenicia, where those who honored licentious pleasure under the name of Aphrodite had formerly allowed their wives and daughters to prostitute themselves freely.

But now a new and chaste law came from the emperor, forbidding them to dare any of their former customs; and he provided them with written instructions as well, as though he had been brought forward by God for this very purpose, to educate all people in the laws of chastity. So he did not disdain to address them too in a letter of his own, and urged them to hasten to the knowledge of the Supreme Being.

Here too he added deeds akin to his words, founding among them as well a very large house of prayer and church; so that what had never been heard of in all ages now for the first time came to pass: that the city of the superstitious was deemed worthy of a church of God, with presbyters and deacons, and that a bishop consecrated to the God over all presided over the people there.

Providing here too that more might come to the word, the emperor supplied ample means for the relief of the poor, urging them in this way too to hasten to the saving teaching, all but saying himself, like the one who said it, “Whether in pretense or in truth, let Christ be proclaimed.”

But while, because of these things, all were passing their lives in gladness, and the church of God was being exalted everywhere, in every way, and among all nations, once more envy, which lies in wait for good things, was galled by the prosperity of such great blessings, hoping perhaps that the emperor himself would change toward us, worn out by our disturbances and disorders.

So, kindling a very great blaze, it seized the church of the Antiochenes with tragic calamities, so that the whole city was nearly overturned from its foundations. The people of the church were divided into two parties, and the common people of the city, together with the magistrates and soldiers themselves, were stirred up as if against enemies, so that they were about to take up swords, had not a certain oversight of God and fear of the emperor checked the impulses of the multitude;

and again the emperor's forbearance, like a savior and physician of souls, applied the treatment of words to the sick. He negotiated most gently with the peoples, sending the most trustworthy of the approved men about him who had been honored with the rank of count; he urged them by letter after letter to think of peace, taught them to act as befits godliness, and persuaded them and explained himself in what he wrote to them, saying that he himself had given a hearing to the cause of the strife.

These letters of his too, full of no ordinary instruction and benefit, I would have included at this point, were it not that they brought reproach on those accused.

So I shall lay these aside, having decided not to renew the memory of evils, and shall attach to the account only those he wrote in his joy at the union and peace of the peoples. In them he urged them by no means to want to claim for themselves the leader of another church, for whose sake they had made peace, but by the rule of the church to choose as shepherd the one whom the common Savior of all would himself designate. He writes separately to the people itself and to the bishops what is set out below.

The emperor's letter to the Antiochenes concerning the union of the people, and that they should not seek another church's bishop. “The Victor Constantine Maximus Augustus to the people of the Antiochenes. How pleasing to the understanding and wisdom of the world is your concord! I myself, brothers, have resolved to love you with an undying love, drawn on by your law, your life, and your zeal. This, then, is truly to enjoy good things rightly: to use a right and sound mind.

For what could suit you so well? I would not be surprised, then, 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 for the right and just road pledges to God to enroll in a pure and holy household, what could be more precious than to share gladly in the good of all? Especially where instruction from the law brings your purpose to a better correction, and we desire that our own judgment be confirmed by good decisions.

Perhaps you wonder what the preface of my letter means. I shall not decline or refuse to state the reason. For I confess that I have read the records in which I saw, from the splendid acclamations and testimonies you offered for Eusebius, already bishop of the Caesareans — whom I myself have long known well for his learning and moderation — that you were insistently claiming him as your own.

What, then, do you suppose I have been thinking, as I press on toward an exact inquiry into what is right, and what anxiety do you think your zeal has caused me? O holy faith, who through the word and mind of our Savior give us, as it were, a pattern of life, how hard it would be even for you to withstand our faults, unless the one who strives for peace rather than for victory prevails! For wherever anyone is free to do what is fitting, no one would be found who is not glad.

I ask, then, brothers: why do we decide in such a way as to inflict injury on others by taking from them what we choose? I praise the man, whom you too judge worthy of honor and affection; yet what ought to remain authoritative and firm for each church must not be so weakened that each is not content with his own and all do not enjoy what is theirs. And in a fair comparison with this man, not one only but many others could be put forward.

So it will cause no astonishment or offense if the honors of the church prove to be alike and equally cherished everywhere. For it is not reasonable to conduct the inquiry into these matters to the advantage of some over others, since the minds of all alike, whether they seem lesser or greater, receive and guard the divine doctrines, so that in no respect are some inferior to others with regard to the common law.

If, then, we declare the truth plainly, one would say that this would be not keeping the man but rather taking him away, and that what was done would be a work of violence, not of justice, whatever the multitudes may think. For I declare plainly and boldly that this invitation is an occasion for accusation and for no ordinary disturbance of strife. Even lambs show the nature and power of their teeth when their shepherd's accustomed care slips away for the worse and they are deprived of their former guidance.

If this is so, and we are not mistaken, consider this first, brothers (for many great considerations will meet you at the outset): [whether your mutual affection] will not be felt to be diminished. Next, that he who came with right counsel reaps what he deserves from the divine judgment, having received no ordinary favor in that you have cast so great a vote of esteem for him. Besides this, as is your custom, apply with goodwill the fitting zeal to the search for the man you need, shutting out all factious and disorderly clamor; for such clamor is always unjust, and from the clash of differences sparks and flames spring up.

So may I please God and you, and live according to your prayers, as I love you and the haven of your gentleness, since you have cast out that filth and brought in concord in its place with good character, setting the sign firmly, running a heavenly course toward the light, with iron rudders, as one might say. Therefore you have taken on board the incorruptible cargo; for everything that harmed the ship has been drained away as from the bilge. So you must now take care that the enjoyment of all these things be secured, so that we may not seem a second time, by ill-advised and unprofitable zeal, to settle anything at all, or to undertake from the start what is not expedient. God will preserve you, beloved brothers.”

The emperor's letter to us on declining the bishopric of the Antiochenes. “The Victor Constantine Maximus Augustus to Eusebius. I have read with the greatest pleasure the letter that your understanding composed, and perceived that the rule of ecclesiastical discipline has been exactly observed. Abide, then, in these things that appear pleasing to God and in harmony with the apostolic tradition. Count yourself blessed in this very thing, that by the testimony, so to speak, of the whole world you have been judged worthy to be bishop of any church; for if all long for you to be among them, they undoubtedly add to this happiness of yours.

But your understanding, which has resolved to keep the commandments of God, the apostolic canon, and that of the church, has done excellently in declining the bishopric of the church at Antioch and in being eager to remain in the church whose bishopric it received from the first by the will of God.

About this I have written a letter to the people, and to your other fellow ministers, who had themselves written to me on these matters. When your Purity reads it, you will easily see that, since justice spoke against them, I wrote to them at the prompting of the Divine. Your understanding will need to be present at their council, so that what is judged most fitting for God himself and for the church may be settled for the church of the Antiochenes. God will preserve you, beloved brother.”

The emperor's letter to the synod at Antioch. “The Victor Constantine Maximus Augustus to Theodotus, Theodorus, Narcissus, Aetius, Alpheus, and the other bishops who are at Antioch. I have read what your understanding wrote, and welcomed the sensible resolve of Eusebius, your fellow priest. Having learned all that was done, partly from your letters and partly from those of Acacius and Strategius, the most distinguished counts, and having made the necessary examination, I have written to the people of the Antiochenes what was pleasing to God and fitting for the church, and I have ordered a copy of that letter to be appended to this one, so that you too may know what I chose to write to the people, called forth by the principle of justice. For your letter contained this: that according to the understanding and wish of the people and of your own choice, Eusebius, the most holy bishop of the church of the Caesareans, should preside over that of the Antiochenes and take up its care.

But the letter of Eusebius, which appeared to keep the ordinance of the church most carefully, proposed the opposite view, that he would by no means leave the church entrusted to him by God. It seemed good, then, to confirm rather this purpose, so just and one that all of you should observe, and not to tear him away from his own church. But my own opinion too had to be made known to your understanding. It has reached me that Euphronius the presbyter, a citizen of Caesarea in Cappadocia, and likewise George of Arethusa, a presbyter whom Alexander appointed to this rank in Alexandria, are most approved in the faith.

It was right, then, to make known to your understanding that you should put forward these men, and others whom you think worthy of the dignity of the episcopate, and decide in a manner consistent with the tradition of the apostles. For when such matters have been prepared, your understanding will be able to arrange the ordination according to the canon of the church and the apostolic tradition, as the principle of ecclesiastical discipline directs. God will preserve you, beloved brothers.”

Giving such directions to the rulers of the churches, the emperor urged them to do everything for the good repute of the divine word. And when he had removed the dissensions and brought the church of God into harmonious concord, he passed on from there and thought he must remove from human life, as a poison, another kind of godless men.

These were certain corrupters, ruining the cities under a solemn pretense. The saving voice called them false prophets or ravening wolves, prophesying thus: “Beware of the false prophets, who will come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves; by their fruits you will know them.”

An order sent to the governors of each province drove out the whole slanderous tribe of such men; and besides the law he composed a life-giving teaching addressed to them personally, urging the men to hasten to repentance, for the church of God would be for them a haven of salvation. Hear how he addressed them too in his letter to them.

The emperor's letter to the godless sectarians. “The Victor Constantine Maximus Augustus to the heretics. Learn now by this legislation, you Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Paulians, you who are called after the Phrygians, and, in short, all of you who make up the heresies by your own assemblies, with how many lies your vanity is entangled, and with what venomous poisons your teaching is bound up, so that through you the healthy are led into sickness and the living into everlasting death.

O enemies of the truth, foes of life, and counselors of destruction! Everything among you is contrary to the truth, in tune with shameful villainies, fit for absurdities and stage plays, by which you fabricate falsehoods, afflict the innocent, and deny the light to those who believe. Always sinning under a pretense of godliness, you defile everything; you wound innocent and pure consciences with deadly blows; you all but snatch the very daylight from human eyes.

And why need I speak of each thing, when to say anything worthy of your evils is a matter neither of a short time nor of our leisure? So long and immeasurable are your absurdities, so hateful and full of every cruelty, that not even a whole day would suffice to describe them. Besides, it is fitting to turn away the ears and avert the eyes from such things, so that the sincere and pure zeal of our faith may not be defiled by a detailed account of them.

Why, then, should we bear such evils any longer? Long indulgence makes even the healthy defiled, as by a pestilential disease. Why, then, do we not cut out as quickly as possible the roots, so to speak, of such great wickedness by public correction?”

“Therefore, since it is no longer possible to bear the ruin of your destructiveness, we proclaim by this law that none of you shall dare to assemble from now on. We have therefore ordered that all your houses in which you hold these meetings be taken away, this concern extending so far that the gatherings of your superstitious folly may meet not only not in public but not in a private house or any private place either.

Instead — and this is better — all of you who care for true and pure religion, come into the catholic church and share in its holiness, through which you will also be able to attain the truth; and let the deceit of your perverted teaching be wholly separated from the prosperity of our times — I mean the accursed and destructive dissension of heretics and schismatics. For it befits our blessedness, which we enjoy with God's help, that those who live in good hopes be led from all disorderly error to the straight way, from darkness to light, from vanity to truth, from death to salvation. 3 And so that this remedy may have compelling force as well, we have ordered, as was said above, that all the meeting places of your superstition — I mean the houses of prayer of all the heretics, if indeed they should be called houses of prayer — be taken away and handed over, without dispute and without any delay, to the catholic church, that the other places be made public property, and that no opportunity be left you hereafter to assemble, so that from this day on your lawless assemblies may not dare to gather in any place, public or private. Let this be posted.”

In this way the lurking places of the heterodox were broken up by imperial command, and the wild beasts, the ringleaders of their impiety, were driven off. Of those deceived by them, some, with counterfeit minds and out of fear of the emperor's threat, crept into the church, dissembling to suit the times; for the law also ordered the men's books to be searched out, and they were caught practicing forbidden evil arts, and for this reason they did everything to secure their safety by pretense. Others, perhaps with true conviction, deserted to the hope of the Supreme Being.

The presidents of the churches distinguished carefully among these. Those who tried to come in by pretense they kept far from God's flock, as wolves hidden in sheepskins; those who did so with a pure soul they tested over a period of time, and after sufficient trial enrolled them among the number of those admitted.

This was how the slanderous heterodox were treated. But those who held nothing impious in their teaching of doctrine, and had been separated from the common assembly only 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; they made their return to her with gladness and joy. The members of the common body were united and joined in one harmony, and the catholic church of God alone, gathered into itself, shone out, no heretical or schismatic assembly being left anywhere on earth. And of this great achievement too the emperor cared for by God, alone of all who ever lived, ascribed the cause to God.

While doing so much for the building up and good repute of the church of God, and accomplishing everything for the good report of the Savior's teaching, the emperor did not neglect secular affairs either. In these too he continued to bestow all kinds of benefits, one after another in constant succession, on all the inhabitants of every province: now showing a fatherly care common to all, now honoring each of his acquaintances with various dignities, and giving everything to everyone with a generous mind. No one who asked a favor of the emperor could miss his aim, nor did anyone who hoped for good things fail to obtain what he expected. 2 Some received money, others wealth in possessions; others obtained prefectural dignities, others senatorial rank, others the consulship; more were styled governors; of the counts, some were deemed worthy of the first rank, some of the second, some of the third; and likewise countless others shared the rank of clarissimus and very many other dignities. For the emperor devised various ranks so as to honor more people.

How he also made the common people cheerful one may see from a single example, beneficial to life, which reached everyone and is still remembered today. Of the yearly taxes on land he gave [a fourth part] to the landowners, so that, for anyone reckoning it, the effect of the yearly deduction was that the holders of the land were free of tax every fourth year. This, ratified by law and remaining in force for the future too, made the emperor's grace unforgettable and lasting, not only for those then living but also for their children and their heirs.

When others complained about the land surveys of former rulers, charging that their land had been overburdened, here too, by an ordinance of justice, he sent out assessors to give relief to those who petitioned.

When the emperor judged lawsuits between others, so that the party that lost before him should not go away less happy than the winner, he gave the losers from his own resources sometimes goods, sometimes landed estates, contriving that the loser should rejoice as much as the victor, since he had been thought worthy to see him; for he held that no one who had stood before so great an emperor should go away dejected and grieved. So both parties left the court with bright and smiling faces, and all were filled with wonder at the emperor's magnanimity.

Why should I mention in passing how he subjected the barbarian tribes to Roman rule; how he was the first to bring under the yoke the races of the Scythians and Sarmatians, who had never before learned to serve, compelling them, even against their will, to acknowledge the Romans as their masters? For the rulers before him had even paid tribute to the Scythians, and Romans were serving barbarians with annual payments.

This state of things was not tolerable to the emperor, nor did the victor think it honorable to pay the same as his predecessors. Trusting in his Savior and brandishing the victorious trophy against them too, he brought them all to submission in a short time, sometimes chastening the rebellious by military force, sometimes taming the rest by reasoned embassies, bringing them over from a lawless and beastlike life to a rational and law-abiding one. So the Scythians at last learned to serve the Romans.

The Sarmatians God himself drove under Constantine's feet, subduing in this way men who were proud with barbarian arrogance. When the Scythians rose against them, the masters armed their slaves to ward off the enemy. When the slaves had won, they raised their shields against their masters and drove them all out of their own land.

They found no haven of safety other than Constantine alone. And he, as one who knew how to save, received them all into Roman territory; the suitable ones he enrolled in his own armies, and to the rest he distributed land to farm for their livelihood, so that they confessed that their misfortune had turned out for their good, since they enjoyed Roman freedom instead of barbarian savagery. So God granted him victories over all nations, so that all kinds of barbarian tribes were willing to submit to him of their own accord.

Envoys from every quarter were continually bringing the costly gifts of their lands, so that we ourselves, once happening to be present before the outer gates of the palace, saw remarkable figures of barbarians standing in line in order. Their dress was outlandish, the fashion of their appearance different, the hair of head and beard very different; the look of their faces was barbarous and startlingly fierce, and their bodies exceeded ordinary stature. Some had red faces, others were whiter than snow, others blacker than ebony and pitch, and others of a mixed complexion; for among those described were to be seen races of Blemmyes, Indians, and Ethiopians, “who are divided in two, the farthest of men.”

Each of these in turn, as in a painted picture, brought to the emperor the things valued among them: some golden crowns, others diadems of precious stones, others fair-haired boys, others barbarian robes woven with gold and flowers, others horses, others shields, long spears, darts, and bows, showing that through these they offered the emperor their service and alliance if he wished it.

Receiving these from those who brought them and taking note of them, the emperor gave back so much in return that he made the bearers very rich at a stroke; and he honored the more distinguished among them with Roman dignities, so that many now preferred to stay here, forgetting their return home.

When the king of the Persians too thought fit to become known to Constantine through an embassy, and he too sent gifts as tokens of a friendly treaty, the emperor concluded the agreement in this case as well, surpassing with lavish generosity, in his return gifts, the one who had begun the exchange of honors. Learning that the churches of God were multiplying among the Persian nation and that peoples numbering tens of thousands were being gathered into the flocks of Christ, he rejoiced at the report and, as a common guardian of all people everywhere, again made provision here too for the welfare of all. He himself will show this in his own words, in the letter he sent to the king of the Persians, commending the men to him with all tact and care. This letter of the emperor, written in his own hand in the Latin language, is extant among us too; translated into Greek it would be more intelligible to readers. It runs somewhat as follows.

The emperor's letter to Sapor, king of the Persians, concerning his care for the people of God. “Guarding the divine faith, I share in the light of truth; guided by the light of truth, I recognize the divine faith. Therefore by these things, as events confirm, I acknowledge the most holy religion. I confess that I have this worship as my teacher in the knowledge of the most holy God. Having the power of this God as my ally, and beginning from the ends of the Ocean, I have raised up the whole world in turn with sure hopes of salvation, so that all that had been enslaved under so many tyrants and, yielding to daily calamities, had wasted away, received the vindication of the common good and was rekindled, as by some remedy. This God I honor, whose sign my army, dedicated to God, carries on its shoulders, and it is directed wherever the principle of justice calls it; and from those very enemies I at once receive my recompense in splendid trophies. This God I confess that I honor with undying remembrance; this God I delight to contemplate with a pure and undefiled mind in the highest places.

Him I call upon with bended knee, shunning all abominable blood and unpleasant and offensive odors, and turning away from all earthly splendor; for, defiled by all these things, lawless and unspeakable error has cast down many of the nations and whole races, handing them over to the lowest regions.

For what the God of all, in his providence for mankind and out of his own love for humanity, brought forth into view for their use, he by no means allows to be dragged about at each person's desire; he demands from people only a pure mind and an unstained soul, weighing by these the deeds of virtue and piety.

For he is pleased with works of gentleness and mildness; he loves the meek and hates the turbulent; he loves faith and punishes unbelief; he breaks every power joined with arrogance, punishes the insolence of the proud, and destroys from their foundations those lifted up with vanity, while he gives to the humble-minded and forbearing what they deserve.

So too, valuing a just kingdom highly, he strengthens it with his help, and preserves the royal understanding in the calm of peace.”

“I do not think I am mistaken, my brother, in confessing this one God, the Author and Father of all, whom many who reigned here, led astray by mad errors, tried to deny. But such an avenging end consumed them all that the whole human race after them sets their calamities, above any other example, before those who emulate their deeds.

Of these I believe that one was he whom the divine wrath drove from these parts like a thunderbolt and handed over to your regions, where he made the trophy over his disgrace famous among you.”

“But it seems to have turned out well that in our own age too the punishment of such men has been made manifest. For I myself have seen the ends of those who recently harassed with lawless edicts the people dedicated to God. Therefore great thanks are due to God, that by his perfect providence the whole of mankind that serves the divine law, now that [peace] has been restored to them, [rejoices]. I am convinced that everything is in the best and safest state, since, through their pure and approved worship and their concord concerning the divine, he deigns to gather all people to himself.”

“With this class of people — I mean the Christians, for my whole discourse is on their behalf — how pleased do you think I am to hear that the finest parts of Persia too are richly adorned with them, just as I would wish! May the best things, then, be yours in the fullest measure, and theirs likewise, since they too are yours. For so you will have the Lord of all, the Father, as a merciful and gracious God. These, therefore, since you are so great a ruler, I commend to you; I place these same men in your hands, because you are distinguished for piety as well. Love them as befits your own humanity; for through your faith you will confer on yourself and on us a favor beyond measure.”

So at last, as all the nations of the world were steered as by one pilot and welcomed the government under the servant of God, with no one any longer troubling the Roman empire, all people passed their lives in a settled and untroubled existence. The emperor, judging that the prayers of the godly contributed greatly to the protection of the whole, secured them as a necessity, himself becoming a suppliant of God and ordering the presidents of the churches to make supplications on his behalf.

How great a power of divine faith was firmly set in his soul one may learn by considering this too: he had his own portrait so represented on the gold coins that he seemed to be looking upward, gazing intently toward God in the manner of one praying.

Impressions of this circulated throughout the Roman world. [And in the palaces of certain cities, in the images set up] high above the entrances, he was portrayed standing upright, looking up to heaven, with his hands outstretched in the posture of prayer.

So he represented himself as praying even in pictures. But by law he forbade images of himself to be set up in the temples of idols, so that not even his painted likeness might be defiled by the error of forbidden things.

One might observe things more solemn still, recognizing that in the palace itself he arranged matters in the manner of a church of God, himself leading the devotion of those who assembled inside. Taking the books in his hands, he applied his mind to the study of the God-inspired oracles, and then offered the prescribed prayers with those who filled the imperial household.

He also ordained that the day which is truly sovereign and first, the Lord's day and day of salvation, should be regarded as the appropriate day for prayers. Deacons and servants consecrated to God, men adorned with solemnity of life and every virtue, were appointed guardians of the whole household; and his guards, faithful bodyguards armed with ways of loyal goodwill, took the emperor as their teacher in godly ways, themselves no less honoring the saving Lord's day and performing on it the prayers the emperor loved.

The blessed man urged all people to do the same, as if he had made it his prayer gradually to make all people godly. So he legislated that all who lived under Roman rule should rest on the days named after the Savior, and likewise should honor the days before the Sabbath, in memory, it seems to me, of what is recorded to have been done by the common Savior on those days.

The day of salvation, which also happens to bear the name of light and of the sun, he taught all the military to honor zealously. To those who shared the divine faith he granted leisure to attend the church of God without hindrance, so that they might perform their prayers with no one standing in their way,

while those who had not yet shared in the divine word he ordered, in a second law, to go out on the Lord's days to an open field in the suburbs, and there, all together, at a single signal, to send up to God a prayer they had learned by heart. For they ought not to set their hopes on spears or armor or bodily strength, but to know the God over all, the giver of every good and indeed of victory itself, to whom it was fitting to offer the lawful prayers, lifting up their hands on high toward heaven and sending the eyes of their minds higher still to the heavenly King, and calling on him in their prayers as the giver of victory, their Savior, guardian, and helper. He himself was the teacher of the prayer to all the soldiers, ordering them all to say in the Latin language as follows:

“You alone we know as God; you we acknowledge as King; you we call on as helper. From you we have won our victories; through you we have prevailed over our enemies. To you we give thanks for the good things we have received, and in you we hope for those to come. To you we all come as suppliants, earnestly asking that you preserve for us our emperor Constantine and his God-beloved sons, safe and victorious for the longest life.” Such things he laid down by law that the military units should do on the day of light, and such words he taught them to utter in their prayers to God.

He also had the symbol of the saving trophy marked on the very weapons, and ordered that the armed host be led in procession not by golden images, as had formerly been their custom, but only by the saving trophy.

He himself, like one who shares in sacred rites, would shut himself in at set times each day in the secret inner rooms of his imperial palace and converse alone with his God alone; kneeling, he entreated him with suppliant petitions for what he needed. On the days of the saving festival he intensified his discipline, and performed the divine mysteries with all the strength of soul and body, on the one hand wholly devoted to purity of life, on the other leading everyone in the festival.

He turned the sacred night vigil into daylight: those appointed for the task lit very tall pillars of wax throughout the whole city, and there were fiery torches lighting every place, so that the mystic vigil was made brighter than brilliant day. When dawn broke, imitating the saving benefits, he stretched out his beneficent right hand to all nations, peoples, and communities, giving rich gifts of every kind to all.

In this way he himself served his God as a priest. In general, for the peoples and soldiers under Roman rule, the doors of all idolatry were shut and every form of sacrifice was forbidden. To the governors of each province likewise a law went out to honor the Lord's day; and they, at the emperor's nod, also honored the days of the martyrs and glorified the seasons of festivals with assemblies; and all such things were done to the emperor's satisfaction.

Hence, fittingly, when he was once entertaining bishops at a banquet, he let fall the remark that he too was a bishop, speaking to them in these very words, which we heard: “You are bishops of those within the church, but I would be a bishop, appointed by God, of those outside.” In keeping with this saying, he oversaw all his subjects and urged them, as far as was in his power, to pursue the godly life.

Hence, fittingly, by one law and ordinance after another he commanded everyone not to sacrifice to idols, not to meddle with divination, not to set up cult statues, not to perform secret rites, and not to pollute the cities with the bloodshed of gladiatorial combats.

To those in Egypt and in Alexandria itself, who had the custom of worshiping their river through effeminate men, another law was sent: that the whole class of androgynous men should be removed from life like something counterfeit, and that those sick with this licentiousness should nowhere be seen.

When the superstitious supposed that the river would no longer flow for them as usual, God, cooperating with the emperor's law, brought about the very opposite of what they expected. For those who defiled the cities with their abominations were no more, while the river, as though its land had been purified, flowed as never before and rose with an abundant stream, flooding all the fields — teaching the foolish by the event itself that they must turn away from vile men and ascribe the cause of good things to the Giver of every good alone.

But the countless such things done by the emperor in each province would provide ample material for those eager to record them, as would the laws which he renewed, changing them from ancient to holier forms. The manner of these too it is easier to show briefly.

The ancients punished the childless by depriving them of inheritance from their relatives; this was a harsh law against those without children, penalizing them as if they had committed an offense. He abolished it and allowed those concerned to inherit. The emperor reshaped this law toward holiness, saying that it is those who do wrong deliberately who ought to be corrected with fitting punishment.

For nature has made many people childless who prayed to be blessed with many children but were deprived of them through weakness of nature. Others have become childless not by refusing a succession of children but by abstaining from intercourse with women, which they chose out of a most ardent love of philosophy; and women consecrated to the sacred service of God have pursued chastity and complete virginity, dedicating themselves to a pure and all-holy life of soul and body.

What, then? Should this be thought worthy of punishment, or of wonder and approval? For the zeal is of great worth and the achievement surpasses nature. Those deprived of the children they desired through weakness of nature ought to be pitied, not punished, and the lover of the higher life deserves the highest admiration, not chastisement. So the emperor, with right reasoning, reformed the law.

Next, as regards those departing this life, the ancient laws likewise prescribed that wills drawn up at the very last breath must be exact in the wording of their phrases, and laid down what forms and what words must be used; and much fraud arose from this, to circumvent the intentions of the dead.

Seeing this, the emperor changed this law too, saying that the dying should set out their wishes in plain words and ordinary language, and declare their mind in any writing whatever — or, if they wished, without writing — provided only that they did so before trustworthy witnesses able to keep faith with the truth.

He also legislated that no Christian should be a slave to Jews; for it was not lawful, he said, that those redeemed by the Savior should be brought under the yoke of slavery to the killers of the prophets and of the Lord. If anyone were found in such a case, the one was to be set free and the other punished with a fine.

He also confirmed with his seal the decisions of the bishops declared in synods, so that the provincial governors might not annul what had been decided; for the priests of God, he said, were more trustworthy than any judge.

Countless things akin to these he ordained for those under his rule, which would require leisure to set out in a work of their own, for an exact knowledge of the emperor's wisdom in these matters too. Why need I now relate how, having joined himself to the God over all, he considered from dawn to dusk which people he might benefit, and how he was even-handed and impartial to all in his beneficence?

To the churches of God he gave, above all, very many special gifts, granting in one place lands, in another distributions of grain for the support of poor men, orphaned children, and pitiable women. With great care he also provided very many garments for the naked and unclothed. He thought especially worthy of greater honor those who had devoted their lives to godly philosophy. So he continued all but venerating the company of God's all-holy perpetual virgins, believing that the God to whom they had consecrated themselves dwelt in the souls of such women.

Enriching his own mind with divine words, he spent the hours of the night awake, and in his leisure composed speeches and made frequent public appearances, thinking it his duty to govern his subjects by instructive discourse and to establish his whole empire on reason.

So he would summon assemblies himself, and countless crowds hurried to hear the emperor philosophize. [If, as he spoke,] an occasion for theology came up, he would stand fully upright with a concentrated look and a lowered voice, and seemed to initiate those present into the divine teaching with all reverence. Then, when the hearers applauded with acclamations, he signed to them to look up to heaven and to reserve their wonder and honor, with reverent praises, for the King over all.

Dividing up his subjects, he would at one time lay down refutations of polytheistic error, showing that the superstition of the nations was a deceit and a screen for godlessness; at another he taught them to acknowledge the one sovereign Godhead; then he went through in order the doctrine of providence, both universal and particular. From there he came down to the saving dispensation, showing that it had necessarily come about in the fitting way. Passing on from this, he took up the teaching about the divine judgment.

Here above all he touched his hearers most sharply, convicting the rapacious and greedy and those who had given themselves up to an insatiable love of money. Striking, as it were, and lashing with his words some of his acquaintances who stood around, he made them bow their heads, smitten in conscience. With clear words he solemnly charged them that they would give account to God for what had been entrusted to them: for the God over all had given him the kingdom over things on earth, and he, in imitation of the Supreme, had entrusted to them the administration of parts of his rule; but all would in due time give account of their deeds to the great King.

He constantly bore witness to these things, reminded them of them, and taught them. But while he, confident in his genuine faith, thought and declared such things, they were unteachable and deaf to what is good; they applauded what was said with their tongues and with acclamations, but in their deeds disregarded it out of greed,

so that once, taking hold of one of those around him, he said, “How far, my man, are we to stretch our greed?” Then, marking out on the ground with the spear he happened to be holding the measure of a man's height, he said: “If you should gain all the wealth of the world and the whole element of the earth, you will carry away nothing more than this plot I have marked out — if indeed you get even that.” But though he said and did such things, the blessed man stopped no one; yet events plainly persuaded them that the emperor's pronouncements were like divine oracles and not mere words.

Since there was no fear of death to keep the wicked from their wickedness — the emperor being wholly given to clemency, and none of the provincial governors anywhere proceeding against offenders — this brought no small reproach on the whole administration. Whether justly or not, let each judge as he pleases; let me be allowed to write the truth.

The emperor composed his speeches in the Latin language, and translators whose task it was rendered them into Greek. As a specimen of the translated speeches, I shall attach after the present work the one that he entitled “To the Assembly of the Saints,” dedicating the writing to the church of God, so that no one may think our testimony about what has been said mere boasting.

Nor, I think, should this be dismissed from memory, which the admirable man did in our own presence. Once, trusting in his reverence for the divine, we asked to deliver a discourse about the Savior's tomb in his hearing. He lent his ears most eagerly, and, with a crowd of hearers standing round inside the palace itself, he stood upright with the rest and listened. When we begged him to rest on the imperial throne placed nearby, he would by no means agree, but with intent reasoning he weighed what was said and bore witness to the truth of the doctrinal theology.

When much time had passed and the discourse was growing long, we proposed to stop; but he would not allow it and urged us to go on to the end. When we begged him to sit down, he entreated us in turn, saying at one time that it was not right to listen in a relaxed posture to doctrines being discussed about God, at another that this was good and profitable for him; for it was a holy thing to listen to divine matters standing. When this too came to an end, we returned home and resumed our usual occupations;

and he, taking thought for the churches of God, addressed a letter to us personally about the preparation of copies of the divine oracles. He attached to it another letter as well, about the most holy feast of Pascha. For we had dedicated to him a mystical explanation of the meaning of the feast; how he repaid us, honoring us with a reply, one may learn by reading this letter of his.

Letter of the emperor Constantine, which he wrote in reply to our discourse. “The Victor Constantine Maximus Augustus to Eusebius. It is a very great undertaking, and beyond all power of words, to speak worthily of the mysteries of Christ, and to explain in the fitting way the controversy about the Pascha and its origin, its beneficial and laborious fulfillment. For it is impossible for men to express the divine worthily, even for those able to understand it.

Nevertheless, greatly admiring your love of learning and zeal, I have myself read the book with pleasure, and, as you wished, have ordered it to be published to the many who sincerely devote themselves to the worship of the divine. Seeing, then, with what delight we receive such gifts from your intelligence, be eager to gladden us more often with the works in which you confess you have been nurtured; for we are spurring you on, as the saying goes, as you run to your accustomed studies. Indeed, so great a confidence shows that the one who is translating your labors into the Latin tongue has been found not unworthy of your writings, even though such a translation cannot render the beauties of the words worthily. God will preserve you, beloved brother.” Such was the letter on this subject; the one about the preparation of the divine readings runs as follows.

The emperor's letter concerning the preparation of the divine Scriptures. “The Victor Constantine Maximus Augustus to Eusebius. In the city that bears our name, with the help of the providence of God the Savior, a very great multitude of people has dedicated itself to the most holy church, so that, since everything there is growing greatly, it seems very fitting that more churches should also be built in it.

Receive, therefore, most eagerly what our purpose has decided. For it seemed fitting to make known to your understanding that you should order fifty volumes, with ornamental bindings, on parchment, easy to read and convenient to carry for use, to be written by skilled calligraphers who know their art exactly — volumes, that is, of the divine Scriptures, whose preparation and use you know to be especially necessary for the instruction of the church.

Letters have been sent from our Clemency to the finance officer of the diocese, that he should see to providing everything needed for their preparation; and it will be the task of your diligence that the volumes be written and prepared as quickly as possible. You are authorized by this letter of ours to take two public carriages for their transport; for in this way the fine copies will most easily be brought even before our eyes, one of the deacons of your church evidently carrying out this task, who, when he reaches us, will experience our generosity. God will preserve you, beloved brother.”

These were the emperor's orders; and at once the deed followed the word, as we sent [the volumes] in richly wrought bindings, in threes and fours. … This too another reply of the emperor will show, in which, having learned that our city of Constantia, whose people had formerly been extraordinarily superstitious, had turned from its former idolatrous error by an impulse of godliness, he declared that he rejoiced and approved the deed …

So Constantia in the province of Palestine, having embraced the saving godliness, was deemed worthy of greater honor both with God himself and with the emperor: it was declared a city, which it had not been before, and exchanged its name for the better one of the emperor's pious sister.

Very many other places did the same, like the one in the province of Phoenicia named after the emperor himself, whose citizens committed countless cult statues to the fire and took the saving law in exchange.

In other provinces too, people came over of their own accord to the saving knowledge in crowds, throughout the countryside and in the cities. They destroyed, as things of no account, what they had formerly held sacred, made of every kind of material for cult images; they pulled down their temples and lofty precincts with no one ordering them to; and raising churches from their foundations, they took these in exchange for their former error. But to write in detail of the God-beloved man's deeds would be the task not so much of us as of those who were thought worthy to be with him all the time. We, having briefly set down in this writing what we have learned, shall pass on to the last period of his life.

The period of thirty years of his reign was being completed. His three sons, most illustrious Caesars, had been proclaimed partners in the empire at different times: Constantine, who bore his father's name, first received the honor of imperial rank about the time of his father's tenth anniversary; the second, Constantius, adorned with his grandfather's name, was proclaimed about the time of the twentieth-anniversary celebration; and the third, Constans, whose name signifies steadfastness and constancy, was promoted about the third decade.

So, having obtained, after the pattern of a trinity, a threefold God-beloved offspring of sons, and having honored them at each ten-year period by adoption into the imperial rule, he thought the time of his thirtieth anniversary a fitting occasion for thank-offerings to the King of all, and judged it right to hold the dedication of the Martyrium which he had built in Jerusalem with all zeal for beauty.

But envy, the hater of good, here too, like a dark cloud against the most brilliant gleams of the sun, [was] again troubling the churches of Egypt with its contentions.

But he who was cared for by God, arming once more a large synod of bishops like an army of God, drew it up against the envious demon, ordering them to hasten from all Egypt and Libya, Asia and Europe, first to resolve the conflict, and then to perform the dedication of the temple already mentioned.

On the way, he ordered them to settle the disputes at the metropolis of Phoenicia; for it was not permitted, he said, for those divided in opinion to come to the worship of God, since the divine law forbids those at variance to offer their gifts before making friends and settling their differences peaceably.

The emperor, kindling these saving precepts in his own mind, made known that they were to hold to the task before them in all concord and harmony, in a letter that ran as follows:

The emperor's letter to the synod at Tyre. “The Victor Constantine Maximus Augustus to the holy synod at Tyre. It would perhaps have been consistent, and most fitting to the good fortune of our times, that the catholic church should be free of strife, and that the servants of Christ should now be free of all reproach. But since some, driven by the frenzy of unsound contentiousness (for I would not say that they live in a manner worthy of themselves), are trying to throw everything into confusion — which seems to me to go beyond every calamity — for this reason I urge you, who are already running, as the saying goes, to come together without any delay, to complete the synod, to help those who need aid, to heal the brothers who are in danger, to bring the divided members back to concord, and to correct what has gone wrong while there is still time, so that you may restore to so many provinces the fitting harmony which, alas for the absurdity, the arrogance of a very few men has destroyed.

That this is pleasing to God, the Lord of all, beyond every prayer of ours, and [will bring] no ordinary [glory] to you yourselves if you restore peace, [all will agree. Do not] delay, then, any longer, but, redoubling your zeal from now on, strive to bring the matters before you to a fitting conclusion, coming together with all sincerity and faith, which the Savior whom we worship, all but uttering a voice everywhere, demands above all from you.

Nothing that concerns my Piety will be lacking to you. Everything you asked for in your letters has been done by me. I have written to those of the bishops whom you wished, that they should come and share your deliberations. I have sent Dionysius, the former consul, who will both remind those who ought to come to the synod with you, and will be present to oversee the proceedings, and especially good order.

For if anyone — though I do not think it likely — should even now try to evade our command and refuse to attend, someone will be sent from here by us who, expelling him by imperial order, will teach him that it is not right to resist the decrees of the emperor issued on behalf of the truth.

It will then be the work of your Holiness, with a unanimous judgment, neither out of hatred nor out of favor, but in accordance with the ecclesiastical and apostolic canon, to devise the fitting remedy for the faults committed or the errors that have occurred, so that you may free the church from all blasphemy, lighten my cares, and, by restoring the grace of peace to those now at strife, win the greatest glory for yourselves. God preserve you, beloved brothers.”

While these orders were being carried out, another imperial official arrived, urging on the synod with an imperial letter, and pressing them to hurry and not to postpone their journey to Jerusalem.

So they all set out from the province of Phoenicia and traveled by the public post to their destination; and the whole place was then filled with a very great company of God, the distinguished bishops from every province being gathered together in Jerusalem.

The Macedonians sent the bishop of their metropolis; the Pannonians and Moesians, the flourishing beauties of God's youth among them; there was present also a holy ornament of the Persian bishops, a man thoroughly versed in the divine oracles; and Bithynians and Thracians adorned the fullness of the synod.

Nor were the eminent men of Cilicia missing, and the leading men of Cappadocia, first in literary learning, shone in the midst of all. All Syria and Mesopotamia, Phoenicia and Arabia with Palestine itself, Egypt and Libya, and those who live in the land of the Thebans — all together filled the great company of God, and a countless people from all the provinces followed them. With all these there was an imperial service, and approved men were sent from the palace itself to brighten the festival with the emperor's bounty.

Indeed, the man in charge of all these was a right hand to the emperor, distinguished for faith and piety and for training in divine words, who had also been made illustrious by his confessions for piety in the time of the tyrants; so he was fittingly entrusted with the arrangement of these things. Serving the emperor's will with complete sincerity, he honored the synod with a friendly welcome, splendid banquets, and convivial feasts; he made costly distributions of money and clothing to the naked poor and to countless multitudes of poor men and women who lacked food and other necessities; and he adorned the whole temple with rich and imperial offerings. So he fulfilled this service,

while the ministers of God adorned the festival with prayers and discourses: some hymned the God-beloved emperor's devotion to the Savior of all and described in their speeches the magnificent works around the Martyrium; others, with festal theology drawn from the divine doctrines, provided a banquet of spiritual food for the ears of all.

Others gave interpretations of the divine readings, disclosing their hidden meanings; and those unable to do this propitiated the Divinity with bloodless sacrifices and mystic sacred rites, offering suppliant prayers to God for the common peace, for the church of God, for the emperor himself, the cause of such great blessings, and for his God-beloved sons. 3 There we too, thought worthy of blessings beyond our deserts, honored the festival with various public discourses, at one time interpreting the descriptions of the works of beauty the emperor had made, at another making prophetic interpretations fitting to the occasion and to the symbols before us. So the festival of the dedication was celebrated with gladness in the very year of the emperor's thirtieth anniversary.

What the Savior's temple was like, what the saving cave was like, what the emperor's works of beauty were, and the multitude of offerings made of gold, silver, and precious stones, we have set down to the best of our ability in a special work and addressed it to the emperor himself. That discourse we shall set out at the proper time, after the present work, joining with it also the thirtieth-anniversary oration, which a little later, having traveled to the city named after the emperor, we delivered in the emperor's hearing, glorifying for the second time, in the palace itself, God the King of all. As he listened, the friend of God looked like a man delighted, and he showed this after the hearing by dining with the bishops who were present and welcoming them with every kind of honor.

This was the second greatest synod that we know the emperor to have convened, in Jerusalem itself, after the first one, which he held in the famous city of Bithynia. That one was a victory celebration, fulfilling at Nicaea itself, in the twentieth year of his reign, his thank-offering for victory over enemies and foes; this one adorned the period of the third decade, when the emperor dedicated the Martyrium around the saving tomb to God, the Giver of all good things, as an offering of peace.

When these things had been accomplished for the emperor, and his virtue toward God was being praised on everyone's lips, one of the ministers of God dared to call him blessed to his face, because in the present life [he had been deemed worthy of empire over all,] and in the life to come would reign with the Son of God. He heard the remark with displeasure and told the man not to dare to utter such things, but rather to ask in prayer that, both in the present life and in the life to come, he might be found worthy of the service of God.

When the thirtieth year of his reign was being completed, he celebrated the marriage of the second of his sons, having long before arranged the marriage of the elder as well. There were festivities and banquets, the emperor himself escorting the bride to his son and giving splendid feasts and banquets, here with companies of men, elsewhere with separate groups of women; and rich distributions of gifts were bestowed on peoples and cities alike.

At this time too envoys arrived from the Indians toward the rising sun, bringing gifts: all kinds of flashing precious stones and animals different in nature from those known among us. These they presented to the emperor, [showing] that his rule extended to the Ocean itself, [that they honored] him with painted portraits and dedicated statues, and that the rulers of the land of the Indians acknowledged him as emperor and king. So at the beginning of his reign the Britons by the ocean toward the setting sun were the first to submit to him, and now the Indians who dwell toward the rising sun.

Since he ruled both ends of the whole inhabited world, he divided the whole government of the empire among his three sons, as if bequeathing a family estate to his dearest ones: to the eldest he assigned his grandfather's portion, to the second the rule of the East, and to the third the region between them.

Providing for them a good inheritance, and one saving for the soul, he planted in them the seeds of godliness, leading them to divine studies and setting over them teachers approved for their piety. He also set over them other masters of secular learning who had reached the height of education. Others trained them in military studies, others made them expert in affairs of state, and others made them skilled in the law.

An imperial establishment had been allotted to each of the sons: soldiers, spearmen, bodyguards, and all kinds of military units, with their commanders — captains, generals, and tribunes — whose military skill and loyalty to himself their father had tested beforehand.

While the Caesars were still young, their assistants necessarily lived with them and managed public affairs; but as they grew to manhood, their father alone was enough to instruct them. When they were with him he would urge them with private counsels to become zealous followers and imitators of his piety; when they were absent he wrote to them with imperial precepts, of which the greatest and foremost was to value the knowledge of God, the King of all, and piety toward him, above all wealth and above empire itself.

He also gave them authority to act on their own in what was beneficial to the public, urged them to make the church of God their first concern, and commanded them to be openly Christians. So he led his sons on; and they, not as though under orders but of their own free zeal, surpassed their father's exhortations, directing their minds to holiness toward God and fulfilling the ordinances of the church in the palace itself with all their households. This too was the work of their father's foresight: to give his sons only godly companions in their households; and the commanders of the chief units, and those who had taken on the care of public affairs, were such men too. With men faithful toward God he secured them as with strong walls. When this too had been well arranged for the thrice-blessed man, God, the President of every good, judged that, since all his affairs had been well ordered, it was at last the fitting time for his transfer to better things, and brought on the debt of nature.

He completed thirty-two years of his reign, lacking a few months and days, and of his life about twice that time. At this age his body remained unimpaired and unbroken, free of every blemish, more youthful than any young man, handsome to look at and strong enough to do whatever was needed, so that he could exercise, ride, travel, take part in wars, raise trophies over his enemies, and win his customary bloodless victories over his opponents.

Likewise the qualities of his soul advanced to the height of human perfection. He excelled in every good thing, but above all in humanity — which many also thought blameworthy because of the wickedness of evil men, who blamed their own vice on the emperor's forbearance.

And indeed we ourselves observed these two grievous evils in the times we are describing: the unchecked oppression by greedy and wicked men who were ruining all of life, and the unspeakable hypocrisy of those who crept into the church and falsely assumed the name of Christians.

His humanity and love of good, the sincerity of his faith, and the truthfulness of his character led him to trust the outward appearance of those reputed to be Christians, who with feigned souls pretended to keep true goodwill toward him. Entrusting himself to these, he may sometimes have become entangled with unworthy people, envy bringing this stain upon his good deeds.

But divine wrath pursued such men before long. As for the emperor himself, his soul was so advanced in rational understanding that to the very end he continued, as usual, to compose speeches, to make public appearances and give godly teaching to his hearers, and to legislate on civil and military matters, devising everything suitable for human life.

It is worth recording that at the very end of his life he delivered a funeral oration in his usual auditorium. Extending it at length, he discoursed on the immortality of the soul, on those who had lived the present life piously, and on the good things stored up with God for those who love him; and by lengthy proofs he made plain what end awaits those of the opposite kind, describing in his speech the overthrow of the godless. Bearing solemn witness to this, he seemed to reproach those around him, so that he asked one of those who fancied themselves wise what he thought of what had been said; and the man bore witness to the truth of the words and, though unwillingly, warmly praised the teaching against the polytheists.

Having spoken such things to his acquaintances before his death, he seemed to be preparing for himself a smooth and level road to the better life.

This too is worth recording: at about the time described, when a movement of the barbarians in the East was reported, he said that this victory over them still remained for him, and set out to campaign against the Persians.

Having decided this, he set the military units in motion and consulted the bishops about him concerning the expedition, taking care that some of those needed for divine worship should be with him.

They said that they very much wished to follow him, not to stay behind, but to campaign with him and fight alongside him with supplications to God. Greatly pleased at their promises, he arranged the march for them.

Then with great magnificence he had a tent made in the form of a church for that campaign, in which he intended to offer supplications together with the bishops to God, the giver of victory.

Meanwhile the Persians, learning of the emperor's preparations for war and greatly fearing to join battle with him, sent an embassy asking him to make peace. So the most peaceable emperor received the Persian embassy and gladly concluded friendly terms with them. The great feast of Pascha had now arrived, in which the emperor, offering his prayers to God, kept the night vigil with the others.

After this he prepared to build the martyr-shrine in the city named after him, in memory of the apostles. He raised the whole temple to an extraordinary height and made it flash with varied stones of every kind, facing it from the floor to the ceiling; dividing the roof into delicate coffers, he covered it all with gold. Above this, on the roof itself, bronze instead of tile protected the building against rain; and much gold shone around this too, so that it sent out flashes, reflecting the rays of the sun, to those looking from afar. Lattice-work in relief, made of bronze and gold, ran all around the roof-structure.

So the temple received great care and munificence from the emperor. Around it was a very large court open to the clear sky; in this quadrangle ran colonnades enclosing the court, with the temple itself in the middle; imperial buildings, baths, and resting places extended alongside the colonnades, and very many other lodgings suitably built for the guardians of the place.

All these the emperor dedicated, perpetuating for all the memory of the apostles of our Savior. But he was building with another purpose in mind as well, which, hidden at first, became evident to all at the end.

He had reserved the place there for himself against the time when his death should come, foreseeing with surpassing eagerness of faith that his body after death would share the title of the apostles, so that even after his death he might be thought worthy of the prayers that would be offered there in honor of the apostles. So he ordered that services be held there, setting up an altar in the middle.

So he set up there twelve coffins, like sacred pillars, in honor and memory of the company of the apostles, and placed his own sarcophagus in the middle, with six of the apostles' coffins on either side. This too, as I said, he had considered with sober reasoning: where his body would fittingly rest when he had ended his life.

Having long before planned these things in his mind, he dedicated the temple to the apostles, believing that their memory would be a benefit to his soul; and God did not think him unworthy of what he hoped for in his prayers. For when he had completed the first exercises of the feast of Pascha and had spent the saving day bright and joyful, making the feast radiant for himself and for all, then God, with whose help he had accomplished these things, while he was spending his life to the end in this way and in these things, deemed him worthy, at a fitting time, of the divine passage to the better life.

First a disturbance of his body came upon him, then an illness followed; then he went out from his city to the baths of hot waters, and from there came to the city named after his mother. There, spending time in the house of prayer of the martyrs, he sent up suppliant prayers and litanies to God.

When he came to think of the end of his life, he considered that this was the time for cleansing from all the faults he had ever committed, believing that whatever sins he had fallen into, as a mortal, would be washed from his soul by the power of the secret words and by the saving bath.

Having resolved on this, he knelt on the ground as a suppliant of God, making confession in the martyr-shrine itself, where he was also first deemed worthy of the prayers with the laying on of hands. Passing on from there, he came to a suburb of the city of Nicomedia, and there, calling the bishops together, he addressed them somewhat as follows.

“This is the very time I have long hoped for, as I thirsted and prayed to obtain salvation in God. It is time for us too to enjoy the seal that confers immortality, time to share in the saving sealing,

which I once intended to receive in the streams of the river Jordan, in which the Savior too is recorded to have shared in the bath as an example for us. But God, who knows what is best, deems us worthy of these things here and now.

Let there be no hesitation, then. For even if the Lord of life and death should will that we live on here again, it has in any case been determined once for all that I shall henceforth be numbered with the people of God and share in the prayers with all in the church assembly; and I shall set for myself rules of life befitting God.”

So he spoke; and they, performing the customary rites, fulfilled the divine ordinances and imparted the mysteries, having first given such instructions as were necessary. And so Constantine, alone of all the emperors since time began, was reborn and perfected in the mysteries of Christ. Deemed worthy of the divine seal, he rejoiced in spirit, was renewed and filled with divine light, rejoicing in his soul through the abundance of his faith and awed by the manifest power of God.

When what was needed had been completed, he was clothed in bright imperial garments shining like light and rested on a pure white couch, no longer willing to touch the purple.

Then, raising his voice, he sent up a prayer of thanksgiving to God, after which he added: “Now I know myself truly blessed; now I have been shown worthy of immortal life; now I have received the divine light.” And he called those deprived of these blessings wretched and miserable.

When the tribunes and commanders of the armies came in and lamented, weeping that they would be left bereft, and prayed that more years of life be granted him, he answered them too that he had now been deemed worthy of true life and that he alone knew the blessings he had received; therefore he was hastening, and would not put off his journey to his God.

Then he gave the necessary directions. He honored the Romans who lived in the imperial city with annual gifts, and handed on the inheritance of the empire to his sons like a family estate, arranging everything as he wished.

All these things were done during the greatest feast, the all-venerable and holy Pentecost, honored with seven weeks and sealed with a single day, during which, as the divine words record, the ascension of the common Savior into heaven and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon mankind took place.

Deemed worthy of these things during this feast, the emperor, on the last day of all, which one would not be wrong to call the feast of feasts, about the midday hours of the sun was taken up to his God. He left to mortals what was akin to them, while he himself, all that was intellectual and God-loving in his soul, was united to his God. This was the end of Constantine's life. But let us go on to what followed.

At once the spearmen and the whole company of bodyguards tore their clothes, threw themselves on the ground, and beat their heads, uttering wailing cries with lamentations and shouts, calling on their master, lord, and emperor, not as a master but, like true sons, as a father.

Tribunes and captains wept for their savior, guardian, and benefactor, and the rest of the soldiers, with fitting decorum, longed for their good shepherd like flocks.

The people likewise went about the whole city, making the inward grief of their souls plain with cries and shouts, while others looked dejected, as if stunned; each made the mourning his own and beat himself, as though the common good of all had been taken from his own life.

The soldiers took up the body and laid it in a golden coffin, wrapped this in imperial purple, and carried it to the city named after the emperor; [and there, in the most eminent] hall [of the palace,] they placed it on a lofty pedestal. Lighting lamps all around on golden stands, they presented to the beholders a marvelous spectacle, such as had never been seen on earth under the rays of the sun since the world was first established. 2 For inside the palace itself, in the very center of the imperial residence, the emperor's body lay on a lofty golden coffin, honored with imperial ornaments, purple and diadem, and very many men stood around it keeping sleepless watch day and night.

The commanders of the whole army, the counts, and the whole order of magistrates, whose custom it had been to do obeisance to the emperor, changed nothing of their usual practice, but entering at the appointed times they greeted the emperor on his coffin on bended knee, as if he were alive even after death. After the chief men, members of the senate itself and all persons of rank came in and did the same, and after them crowds of every kind of people, with women and children, came to see.

These things went on in this way for a long time, the soldiers having decided that the body should remain and be guarded thus until his sons should arrive and honor their father by conducting the funeral themselves. 3 The blessed man alone of mortals reigned even after death, and the customary business was carried on as though he were alive, God having granted this to him alone since time began. Alone, as no other emperor, he had honored God, the King of all, and his Christ by every kind of deed; so he alone fittingly obtained these things, and the God over all deemed even his mortal part worthy to reign among men, thus showing the ageless and endless kingdom of his soul to those whose minds are not turned to stone. But these things were done in this way,

and the tribunes sent picked men from the military units, long known to the emperor for their faithfulness and loyalty, to make known to the Caesars what had happened. These men did so,

and, as if by a higher inspiration, all the armies everywhere, on learning of the emperor's death, were possessed by one mind: as though the great emperor were still alive among them, they would recognize no one but his sons alone as emperors of the Romans.

Not long afterwards they resolved that they should be styled no longer Caesars but all of them henceforth Augusti, [which would be the] symbol [of supreme power]. They did this, announcing their votes and declarations to one another by letter, and in a single moment the agreement of the armies became known to all everywhere.

Those who lived in the imperial city, the senate itself and the people of Rome, when they learned of the emperor's death, took the news as terrible and beyond every calamity, and gave way to unrestrained mourning. Baths were closed, and markets, public spectacles, and everything that people in good spirits usually do for the enjoyment of life. Those who had formerly lived in luxury went about dejected, and all together praised the blessed one, the God-beloved, the one truly worthy of empire.

Nor did they only cry these things aloud; they proceeded to deeds, honoring him with dedications of his image, as though he were alive even when dead. Depicting in a painting the form of heaven, they portrayed him resting in an ethereal dwelling above the vaults of heaven. They too acclaimed his sons alone and no others as emperors and Augusti, and with suppliant cries begged that the body of their emperor be brought to them and laid to rest in the imperial city.

So they too honored in this way the one who was honored by God. But the second of his sons, arriving at the city, brought his father's body, himself leading the funeral procession. The military units went before in ranks, a multitude of tens of thousands followed, and spearmen and soldiers attended the emperor's body.

When they reached the temple of the Savior's apostles, they laid the coffin to rest there. And the new emperor Constantius, honoring his father in this way with his presence and with the rites due to him, fulfilled the duties of fitting piety.

When he had withdrawn with the military units, the ministers of God came forward into the midst with the multitudes and the whole people of the faithful, and performed the rites of divine worship with prayers. There the blessed man, lying above on a lofty base, was glorified, and the vast people, together with those consecrated to God, not without tears but with much weeping, offered prayers to God for the emperor's soul, fulfilling the wishes of the God-beloved man.

In this too God showed his favor toward his servant: even after his death he gave the empire to his beloved and true sons as his successors, and Constantine was granted the place he had so desired, together with the memorial of the apostles. So one may see even now the tabernacle of his thrice-blessed soul glorified along with the name of the apostles and numbered with the people of God, deemed worthy of the divine rites and the mystic liturgy, and enjoying a share in holy prayers; while he himself, holding the empire even after death, governing the whole realm as if returned to life, rules the Roman government under his very own title, Victor Maximus Augustus,

not like the Egyptian bird, which, they say, being unique in its kind, dies on spices, making itself a sacrifice for its own end, and comes to life again from its own ashes and flies up grown once more into what it was before; but like his own Savior, who, like a grain of wheat, was multiplied from one and with God's blessing produced the ear and filled the whole world with his fruits. In the same way the thrice-blessed man became many instead of one through the succession of his sons, so that he is honored with the setting up of images among all nations together with his sons, and his own name of Constantine is still used even after the end of his life.

Types were also struck on coins, showing on the front the blessed one with his head veiled, and on the other side as a charioteer in a four-horse chariot, being taken up by a right hand stretched down to him from above.

Having shown these things to our own eyes in Constantine, who alone of all rulers ever was plainly shown to be a Christian, God over all made evident how great a difference there was between those who chose to worship him and his Christ and those who chose the opposite. The latter, having set out to make war on his church, made him their enemy and foe, and the overthrow of each one's life gave clear proof of their hatred of God, just as Constantine's end made plain to all the pledges of God's love. [75] He alone of the emperors of the Romans [honored] God the King of all [with surpassing godliness]; he alone proclaimed the word of Christ boldly to all; he alone glorified his church as no other ruler from the beginning of time; he alone destroyed all polytheistic error and removed every form of idolatry; and indeed he alone was deemed worthy, both in life itself and after death, of such honors as no one could say had been obtained by anyone, either among Greeks or barbarians, or even among the Romans of the highest antiquity, since nothing like it has been recorded to us from all the ages.