Church History (Book 7 – Book 9)

Church History

continued

Chapter 30

The Epistle of the Bishops Against Paul.

1 The pastors who had gathered together drafted one letter by common agreement. It was addressed to Dionysius, bishop of Rome, and Maximus of Alexandria, and they sent it out to all the provinces. In it they made their own zeal plain to everyone. They also described Paul’s twisted false teaching, the refutations and questions they had put to him, and the whole life and conduct of the man. For the record, it is good to go through some of their words here. 2 “To Dionysius and Maximus, and to all our fellow ministers throughout the world, bishops, presbyters and deacons, and to the whole catholic church under heaven: Helenus, Hymenaeus, Theophilus, Theotecnus, Maximus, Proclus, Nicomas, Aelianus, Paul, Bolanus, Protogenes, Hierax, Eutychius, Theodorus, Malchion and Lucius, and all the rest of us who live in the neighboring cities and nations, bishops, presbyters and deacons, and the churches of God, to our beloved brothers in the Lord, greetings.”

4 A little later they add these words: “We wrote, and at the same time urged, many of the bishops from far away to come and heal this deadly teaching. Among them were Dionysius of Alexandria and Firmilian of Cappadocia, those blessed men. Dionysius did write to Antioch, but he did not think the leader of the error worthy even of a greeting. He did not write to him personally but to the whole community, and we have attached a copy. Firmilian came twice and condemned Paul’s innovations. We who were present know this and bear witness to it, and many others are aware of it too. But Paul promised to change, and Firmilian believed him. He hoped the matter would be set right without any reproach falling on the Word, so he put off further action. He was deceived by a man who denies his own God and has not kept the faith he himself once held.”

6 “Now Firmilian was about to cross over to Antioch again, and he had come as far as Tarsus, since he had learned by experience the God-denying wickedness of Paul. But while we were gathered together, sending for him and waiting until he came, he ended his life.” After other matters, they again describe the man’s life and the way he conducted himself, in these words: “He has departed from the rule of faith and gone over to counterfeit and spurious teachings. Since he is now outside, there is no need for us to judge his actions. 8 “There is no need to judge, for example, how he was once poor and destitute. He received no wealth from his fathers and gained none from any trade or occupation. Yet now he has reached extraordinary riches through lawless acts and temple-robbing, and through what he demands and shakes out of the brothers. He cheats those who have been wronged and promises to help them for a fee, but lies even to these. He profits in vain from the readiness of people in trouble to pay to be rid of those who torment them. He regards godliness as a means of making money. “Nor is there need to judge how proud he is and how puffed up, putting on worldly honors. He prefers to be called a ‘ducenarius’ rather than a bishop. He struts through the marketplaces, reading and dictating letters as he walks in public, with a bodyguard around him. Many go in front of him and many follow, so that the faith is envied and hated because of his pomposity and the arrogance of his heart. [1 Timothy 6:5]

9 “Nor is there need to judge the showmanship he stages in the church assemblies. He schemes to win glory and make an impression, and so to stun the souls of simpler people. He has built himself a platform and a high throne, which is not what a disciple of Christ would do. He also has a ‘secretum,’ as the rulers of the world do, and he calls it by that name. He slaps his thigh with his hand and stamps on the platform with his feet. Some do not praise him, wave their linen cloths as in the theaters, shout, and jump up as his partisans do, the men and women around him who listen in such a disorderly way. But others listen quietly and in good order, as in the house of God. He rebukes and insults these. He also rudely and drunkenly abuses in public the expositors of the Word who have departed this life, and he boasts grandly about himself, not like a bishop but like a sophist and a charlatan.

11 He stopped the psalms addressed to our Lord Jesus Christ, saying they were recent, the writings of recent men. And on the great day of the Passover he has women sing psalms to himself in the middle of the church, which anyone would shudder to hear. He also lets the bishops and presbyters of the neighboring country districts and cities, who flatter him, say similar things in their sermons to the people. For he refuses to confess that the Son of God came down from heaven. (To anticipate something that will be written later: this is not a bare assertion. It is shown in many places in the records we sent you, and not least where he says that Jesus Christ is “from below.”) Meanwhile those who sing to him and praise him among the people say that their impious teacher has come down from heaven as an angel. He does not stop them. The arrogant man is even present while they say it.

13 Then there are the women he keeps in his household, whom the people of Antioch call “women brought in with him.” He has them, and so do the presbyters and deacons around him. Paul knows about the sins of these men and has exposed them, yet he hides this and their other incurable sins. He does it to keep them in his debt, so that out of fear for themselves they will not dare to accuse him for the wrongs he does in word and deed. He has even made them rich, and for that he is loved and admired by those who covet such things. But why should we write about this? We know, beloved, that the bishop and all the clergy must be an example of every good work to the people. We also know how many have fallen, and how many have come under suspicion, through bringing women into their houses. So even if someone granted that he does nothing indecent, he still ought to guard against the suspicion that arises from such a practice. Otherwise he may cause someone to stumble, or even encourage others to imitate him.

16 For how could he rebuke or warn another man not to go too far in keeping company with a woman, but to be on guard lest he slip, as it is written? He has already sent one woman away, but he has two with him, in their prime and good-looking, and he takes them along wherever he goes. And he does this while living in luxury and overindulgence. Because of this, everyone groans and laments in private. Yet they are so afraid of his tyranny and power that they dare not accuse him. As we said before, one could call the man to account for these things if he held the catholic faith and were numbered with us. But he has mocked the mystery of the faith, and he parades about in the abominable heresy of Artemas. (Why should we not name his father, however reluctantly?) So we think there is no need to demand an explanation of these matters from him.^[244]

17 Then, at the end of the letter, they add this: “We were therefore compelled to excommunicate him, since he set himself against God and would not yield. In his place we appointed another bishop for the catholic church, by God’s providence, as we are persuaded. He is Domnus, son of the blessed Demetrianus, who formerly presided over the same community with distinction. Domnus is adorned with all the good qualities that befit a bishop. We have informed you so that you may write to him and receive letters of communion from him. Let Paul write to Artemas, and let those who think as Artemas does be in communion with him.” 19 So Paul was removed from the office of bishop, and from the orthodox faith along with it, and Domnus, as has been said, took over the ministry of the church at Antioch. But Paul absolutely refused to give up the church’s house. The Emperor Aurelian was petitioned, and he gave a most fitting decision about what should be done. He ordered the house to be given to those with whom the bishops of this teaching in Italy and the city of Rome should correspond. In this way the man we have been speaking of was driven out of the church by the worldly power, in utter disgrace.^[245]

21 That was how Aurelian treated us at that time. But as his reign went on, he changed his mind about us. Certain advisers moved him to stir up a persecution against us, and everyone was talking about it. He was just about to sign the decrees against us when divine justice overtook him. It almost loosed him by the elbows from his undertaking. It showed everyone plainly that the rulers of this world can never find it easy to act against the churches of Christ. This can happen only if the defending hand allows it, by a divine and heavenly judgment, for discipline and turning back to God, at the times that hand approves. 23 Aurelian ruled for six years and was succeeded by Probus. Probus held power for about the same length of time. Carus followed him, together with his sons Carinus and Numerianus. These in turn lasted less than three full years, and then the government passed to Diocletian and those adopted as colleagues after him. Under them the persecution of our own time took place, and the tearing down of the churches. A little before this, Dionysius, bishop of Rome, completed nine years of service and was succeeded by Felix.^[246]

Chapter 31

The Perversive Heresy of the Manicheans Which Began at This Time.

1 At this time Mani, mad in his mind, appeared. His name was given to the demon-possessed heresy. He was arming himself with a twisted way of reasoning, because the demon, none other than Satan, the enemy of God, had put the man forward to ruin many people. He was a barbarian in his way of life, in speech and in manner, and by nature demonic and frenzied. His actions matched this, and he tried to pose as Christ. At one time he proclaimed himself the Paraclete and the Holy Spirit himself, puffed up with his madness. At another time, like Christ, he chose twelve disciples to share his new teaching.^[247] 2 He stitched together false and godless doctrines, gathered from countless godless teachers long since extinct. Like a deadly poison, he wiped them off from Persia onto our part of the world. From him the impious name of the Manichaeans is still common among many people. Such was the origin of this falsely named “knowledge,” which sprang up at the times I have described.^[248] [1 Timothy 6:20]

Chapter 32

The Distinguished Ecclesiastics Of Our Day, and Which of Them Survived Until the Destruction of the Churches.

2 In their time Eutychianus succeeded the man who had presided over the church of the Romans. Eutychianus lasted less than ten full months and then left the office to Gaius, who lived in our own day. Gaius presided for about fifteen years, and Marcellinus became his successor. The persecution overtook Marcellinus as well. In the same period Timaeus led the church at Antioch after Domnus, and Cyril, who lived in our day, succeeded Timaeus. In Cyril’s time we came to know Dorotheus, who was honored with the office of presbyter at Antioch and was a learned man among those of that time. He loved what is beautiful in divine things, and he also took pains with the Hebrew language, so that he read the Hebrew Scriptures with understanding.^[249] 5 He was one of the most well-bred of men and had some share in the usual Greek schooling. He was also a eunuch by nature, born that way from birth. Because of this the emperor took him into his household as a kind of marvel and honored him with the management of the purple dye works at Tyre. We heard him explain the Scriptures in church, and he did so competently. After Cyril, Tyrannus received the oversight of the church at Antioch. In his time the assault on the churches was at its height. At Laodicea, after Socrates, Eusebius led the church. He came from the city of Alexandria. The reason for his move was the affair of Paul. He had come into Syria because of it, and those there who were zealous for the things of God kept him from returning home. Among our contemporaries he was a lovely example of godliness, as is easy to see from the words of Dionysius quoted above.

7 Anatolius was appointed to succeed him. They say it was one good man following another. He too was Alexandrian by birth. In learning, in Greek education and in philosophy he carried off the prize among the most highly regarded men of our time. He had reached the highest level in arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and the rest of dialectic, as well as natural science and the study of rhetoric. For these reasons, the report goes, the citizens there thought him worthy to set up a school in the succession of Aristotle. They record countless other fine deeds of his during the siege of the Bruchion at Alexandria. Those in authority granted him special privileges, and everyone held him in honor. I will mention only one event, as an example.^[250] 8 They say that the wheat had run out for the people under siege, so that famine had become more unbearable to them than the enemy outside. Anatolius, who was present, arranged something like the following. One part of the city was allied with the Roman army and so was not under siege. Eusebius was still there at that time, before his move to Syria, and was in the part that was not besieged. He had great fame and a well-known name, which had reached even the Roman general. Anatolius sent word to him and informed him about those who were dying of hunger during the siege.

9 When Eusebius learned this, he asked the Roman commander, as the greatest of favors, to grant safety to those who came over to the Romans from the besieged side. He obtained his request and made it known to Anatolius. Anatolius received the promise at once and called together the council of the Alexandrians. At first he urged them all to offer the Romans a hand of friendship. But when he saw that this proposal enraged them, he said, “I do not think you will object to this: I advise that we let out through the gates the people who are surplus and of no use to us at all, the old women, the little children, and the old men, to go wherever they wish. Why should we keep them here for nothing, when they are almost certain to die? Why should we waste away with hunger those who are disabled and crippled in body, when we ought to feed only the men and the young men, and ration the grain we must have for those fit to guard the city?”^[251]

11 With reasoning like this he persuaded the council. He was the first to stand and put forward the motion: everyone not fit for military service, whether men or women, was to be released from the city. If they stayed and lingered uselessly in the city, he said, they had no hope of being saved, since hunger would destroy them. When all the rest agreed to this plan, he saved nearly all the besieged. He took care that those of the church should get away first, and then people of every age from the rest of the city. He did this not only for those named in the decree. Under cover of it, countless others slipped out secretly dressed in women’s clothing, and by his care they left through the gates at night and made for the Roman army. There Eusebius received them all. They had been badly worn down by the long siege, and he restored them, like a father and a physician, with every kind of forethought and care.

13 The church at Laodicea was thought worthy of two such pastors, one after the other. By God’s providence they moved there from the city of Alexandria after the war I have described. Anatolius took pains over a great many writings, but only so many have reached us as to let us see both his eloquence and his wide learning. In these he sets out especially his views on the Passover, and so it is necessary for me to quote from them here. 15 “Now the first year has the new moon of the first month, which is the beginning of the whole nineteen-year cycle, on the twenty-sixth of Phamenoth by the Egyptian reckoning. By the Macedonian months it falls on the twenty-second of Dystrus, and as the Romans would say, on the eleventh day before the Kalends of April. On this twenty-sixth of Phamenoth the sun is found not only to have entered the first segment but already to be passing through its fourth day in it. People are accustomed to call this segment the first twelfth-part, the equinoctial sign, the beginning of months, the head of the cycle, and the starting point of the planets’ course. The segment before it they call the last of the months, the twelfth segment, the final twelfth-part, and the end of the planets’ circuit. For this reason we say that those who place the first month in that earlier segment, and take the fourteenth day of the Passover by it, make no small or ordinary mistake.”

16 “This teaching is not our own. It was known to the Jews long ago, before Christ, and they kept it with special care. One can learn this from what Philo, Josephus, and Musaeus say. It is not only these, but also men still more ancient: both Agathobuli, who were called ‘the Teachers,’ and the famous Aristobulus. He was counted among the seventy who translated the holy and divine Scriptures of the Hebrews for Ptolemy Philadelphus and his father, and he addressed to the same kings his books explaining the law of Moses.” 18 These writers deal with the questions raised in Exodus. They say that everyone alike must sacrifice the passover offerings after the spring equinox, in the middle of the first month. This happens, they say, while the sun is passing through the first segment of the solar circle, which some of them have called the zodiac. Aristobulus adds that for the feast of the passover it is necessary that not only the sun but also the moon pass through an equinoctial segment. There are two equinoctial segments, the spring one and the autumn one, and they lie directly opposite each other. The day of the passover is set for the fourteenth of the month, after evening falls. At that time the moon stands in the opposite position, directly across from the sun, as can be seen at the full moon. So the sun will be in the spring equinoctial segment, and the moon will of necessity be in the autumn one.

19 I know that these writers say many other things. Some of them are persuasive, and others proceed by what they call the Lord’s proofs. By these they try to show that the feast of the passover and of unleavened bread must always be kept after the equinox. But I will not press for this sort of proof from people for whom the veil over the law of Moses has been taken away. With unveiled face we now always see, as in a mirror, Christ and the teachings and sufferings of Christ. As for the first month of the Hebrews falling around the equinox, the teachings in the book of Enoch also support this. [2 Corinthians 3:13-18] 21 The same Anatolius also left behind an introduction to arithmetic in ten whole books, and other proofs of his learning and wide experience in divine matters. Theotecnus, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, was the first to lay hands on him for the office of bishop, since he intended to provide a successor for his own church after his death. For a short time the two of them presided over the same church. But the council about Paul summoned Anatolius to Antioch. As he passed through the city of Laodicea, Eusebius had died, and the brothers there held him back.

23 After Anatolius died, Stephen became the last bishop of that church before the persecution. Many admired him for his philosophical learning and his other Greek education. But he was not equally committed to the divine faith, as the coming of the persecution showed. It proved him to be a dissembler, cowardly and unmanly, rather than a true philosopher. Yet the church was not going to be ruined by this. God himself, the Saviour of all, set its affairs right by promptly making Theodotus bishop of that church. In his actual deeds Theodotus proved true both to his proper name and to the office of overseer. He took first place in the medical knowledge that heals bodies. As a healer of souls there was no one like him, for his kindness, sincerity, sympathy and eagerness to help those who came to him. He was also well practiced in the study of divine things. Such a man was he.

25 In Caesarea in Palestine, Agapius succeeded Theotecnus, who had served as bishop with great zeal. We know that Agapius also labored much, showed the most genuine care in leading the people, and looked after the poor, above all, with a generous hand. In his time we came to know Pamphilus, a man of great distinction and a true philosopher in the way he lived. He had been honored with the rank of presbyter in that church. To explain what sort of man he was, and where he came from, would take a work of no small scope. But we have set out in a separate work about him all the details of his life, the school he founded, his struggles in the various confessions during the persecution, and the crown of martyrdom with which he was finally crowned. 27 Pamphilus was the most admirable man of that region. Among the very rare men of our own time we have known Pierius, one of the presbyters of Alexandria, and Meletius, bishop of the churches in Pontus. Pierius was tested by a life of complete poverty and by his learning in philosophy. He was remarkably skilled in studying and explaining divine things, and in speaking before the assembled church. Meletius was called “the honey of Attica” by men of learning. He was the sort of man one might describe as the most complete in every kind of learning. His excellence in rhetoric could hardly be admired enough, though one might say that this came to him naturally. As for his wide experience and learning in other matters, who could surpass him?

29 Anyone who tested him, even once, in any branch of learning would have called him the most skilled and the most learned of men. The virtues of his life matched his learning. During the time of the persecution we knew that he was in hiding in the regions of Palestine, moving from place to place for seven whole years. In the church of Jerusalem, after Hymenaeus, the bishop mentioned a little earlier, Zambdas took over the ministry. He fell asleep not long afterward, and Hermon, the last bishop before the persecution of our own day, succeeded to the apostolic throne, which is still preserved there to this day. 31 In Alexandria, Maximus was bishop for eighteen years after the death of Dionysius, and Theonas succeeded him. In Theonas’s time Achillas became well known in Alexandria. He had been made a presbyter at the same time as Pierius, and he was entrusted with the school of the sacred faith. He showed a work of philosophy as rare as any, and a truly genuine way of life according to the gospel. After Theonas had served nineteen years, Peter succeeded to the bishopric of Alexandria. He too was outstanding throughout twelve whole years. For less than three of those years, before the persecution, he led the church. For the rest of his life he held himself to a stricter discipline and cared, quite openly, for the common good of the churches. For this reason, in the ninth year of the persecution, he was beheaded and was adorned with the crown of martyrdom.

32 Here I have set out the subject of the successions, covering three hundred and five years from the birth of our Saviour to the destruction of the places of prayer. Next, let me leave a written record, so that those who come after us may know the contests of our own time, in which men fought bravely for true godliness, how many they were and how great.

Book 8

Greeting

Preface. I have set out the succession of the apostles in seven whole books. In this eighth book I think it necessary to hand down, for the knowledge of those who come after us, an account of our own times, which are worthy of no ordinary record. From here my account begins.

Chapter 1

The Events Which Preceded the Persecution in Our Times.

2 The Events Which Preceded the Persecution in Our Times. Before the persecution of our own day, the message of reverence for the God of all, announced to the world through Christ, was honored among all people, Greeks and barbarians alike, with such glory and such freedom of speech that it is too great for us to describe as it deserves. As evidence we might take the favor the rulers showed to our people. They even entrusted the governing of provinces to them, and because of the great friendship they felt toward their teaching, they spared them the distress of having to sacrifice. 4 Why speak of those in the imperial households and of the highest rulers of all? They allowed their own people, their wives, children and servants, to speak openly in front of them in word and in life about the divine message. They almost let them boast of the boldness of their faith. They held such believers in special esteem, more than their fellow servants. One such man was the well-known Dorotheus, the most loyal and trusted of all to them, and for that reason honored above those who held the most prized offices and governorships. With him was the famous Gorgonius, and all who in the same way were counted worthy of the same honor because of the word of God.

6 One could also see the leaders of each church welcomed with approval by all procurators and governors. How could anyone describe those gatherings of tens of thousands, the crowds that assembled in every city, and the notable throngs in the houses of prayer? Because of these, the believers were no longer content with the old buildings, and in every city they raised wide churches from the foundations. As the years went by, these things grew larger every day. No envy held them back, and no evil demon could cast a spell on them or hinder them by human plots, as long as the divine and heavenly hand covered and guarded its own people as worthy of it. 7 But as our affairs changed, through too much freedom, into slackness and sloth, people grew jealous of one another and abused one another. We almost waged war on each other with whatever weapons came to hand, with spears made of words. Leaders broke out against leaders, and congregations rose in factions against congregations. Unspeakable hypocrisy and pretense advanced to the furthest point of wickedness. Then the divine judgment, as it loves to do, spared us. While the assemblies were still meeting, it gently and moderately began its visitation, and the persecution began with the brothers in the armies.

8 But we had lost all feeling. We were not eager to make God kind and favorable toward us. Like some godless people, we thought our affairs were neglected and unwatched, and we piled one wickedness on another. Those who were thought to be our shepherds set aside the rule of true religion and burned with rivalries against one another. They only increased their quarrels, threats, jealousy, enmity and hatred, and eagerly claimed their ambition for power as if it were a tyranny. Then indeed, just as the word of Jeremiah says: “The Lord in his anger covered the daughter of Zion with darkness, and cast down the glory of Israel from heaven to earth, and did not remember his footstool in the day of his anger. The Lord also drowned all the beautiful things of Israel, and tore down all his fences,” [Lamentations 2:1-2] 9 and as was foretold in the Psalms: “He overturned the covenant of his servant, and profaned his sanctuary to the ground,” through the tearing down of the churches. “He tore down all his fences and made his strongholds cowardice. All who passed by plundered the multitudes of the people, and he became a reproach to his neighbors. For he raised up the right hand of his enemies, and turned back the help of his sword, and did not support him in the war. He put an end to his cleansing and threw his throne down to the ground. He shortened the days of his time, and poured shame over him besides.”^[252]

Chapter 2

The Destruction of the Churches.

2 All this was fulfilled in our own time. We saw with our own eyes the houses of prayer torn down from top to bottom, to their very foundations. We saw the inspired and sacred Scriptures handed over to the fire in the middle of the public squares. We saw the shepherds of the churches hiding shamefully here and there, some of them captured in disgrace and mocked by their enemies. It was then that, according to the prophetic word, “contempt was poured out on rulers, and he made them wander in a trackless waste where there was no road.” But it is not for us to describe the grim misfortunes that came upon them in the end. Nor is it fitting for us to record their quarrels with one another and their improper conduct before the persecution. So we have decided to report nothing more about them than what serves to justify the divine judgment.^[253]

4 So we have not been led to mention those who were tested by the persecution and failed. Nor will we mention those who were wrecked completely as far as their salvation was concerned, and who by their own choice were thrown into the depths of the flood. We will add to this general history only the things that may be of benefit first to ourselves, and then to those who come after us. Let us go on, then, to describe briefly the sacred contests of the martyrs of the Word of God. This was the nineteenth year of the reign of Diocletian, in the month Dystrus, which the Romans call March. As the feast of the Saviour’s passion drew near, imperial edicts were posted everywhere. They ordered that the churches be leveled to the ground and the Scriptures destroyed by fire. They declared that those who held positions of honor would lose their rank, and that those in slavery, if they persisted in their Christian purpose, would be deprived of freedom.^[254]

5 That was the first writing against us. Not long afterward other letters arrived. They ordered that the heads of the churches in every place should first be thrown into chains, and afterward be forced by every means to sacrifice.

Chapter 3

The Nature of the Conflicts Endured in the Persecution.

2 Then indeed, many leaders of the churches eagerly struggled through terrible tortures and gave a record of great contests. But countless others, their souls numbed beforehand by cowardice, were readily weakened at the first attack. Each of the rest went through various kinds of torture. One had his body beaten with whips. Another was punished with racking and with scrapings that could not be endured, and some of these came to an unhappy end of life. Others went through the contest in other ways. One man was pushed forward by force by others, who brought him to the utterly defiling and unholy sacrifices, and he was let go as though he had sacrificed, even though he had not. Another had not come near at all and had touched nothing unclean, but others said he had sacrificed, and he went away in silence, bearing the false accusation. Another was picked up half dead and thrown aside as if he were already a corpse.

4 Another was lying on the ground and was dragged a long way by his feet, and was counted among those who had sacrificed. One man cried out and declared in a loud voice that he refused the sacrifice. Another shouted that he was a Christian, glorying in the confession of the saving name. Another insisted that he had not sacrificed and never would. Even so, these men were struck on the mouth and silenced by a large body of soldiers drawn up for that purpose. They were beaten on the face and cheeks and forced away. So important did the enemies of true religion think it, by any means at all, to seem to have gained their end. But this did not work against the holy martyrs. What account of ours could be enough to describe them accurately?

Chapter 4

The Famous Martyrs of God, Who Filled Every Place with Their Memory and Won Various Crowns in Behalf of Religion.

2 One could tell of countless people who showed wonderful zeal for devotion to the God of all. This was true not only from the time the persecution against everyone broke out, but long before, while peace was still being arranged. For the one who held the power was only now stirring, as if from a deep sleep. After the time of Decius and Valerian he had been moving against the churches secretly and out of sight. He did not launch war on us all at once, but at first tested only those serving in the armies, since he thought the rest would be easily caught if he first overcame these. So one could see very many soldiers gladly welcoming civilian life, so that they would not deny their devotion to the Creator of all. 4 When the commanding officer, whoever he was, first began the persecution of the armies, he sorted the men in the camps by tribe and purged the lists. He gave them a choice: obey and keep the rank they held, or lose it if they resisted the order. Very many soldiers of Christ’s kingdom did not hesitate. They preferred confessing him to the glory and prosperity they undeniably had. Rarely, here and there, one or two of them exchanged not only the loss of their rank but even death for their devout stand. At that stage the man carrying out the plan was still acting with some restraint, and ventured to go as far as bloodshed in only a few cases. It seems the great number of believers frightened him and made him shrink from launching war on everyone at once.

5 But when he went on to attack more openly, no words can tell how many martyrs of God, and of what kind, could be seen by those living in all the cities and countries.

Chapter 5

Those in Nicomedia.

For example, a man of no little note, indeed among the most distinguished by the world’s standards of rank, was moved by zeal for God and rushed forward with burning faith as soon as the written decree against the churches was posted in Nicomedia. He took it down where it was displayed publicly, and tore it to pieces as unholy and utterly impious. Two emperors were then in that same city: the senior of all, and the one who held the fourth rank of power after him. This man was the first of those there to distinguish himself in this way. He suffered what one would expect for such a bold act, and kept his calm and freedom from distress right to his last breath.

Chapter 6

Those in the Palace.

1 Of all those ever praised as wonderful and famed for courage, whether among Greeks or among foreigners, this time produced martyrs who were truly godly and outstanding: Dorotheus and the imperial servants with him. They had been given the highest honor by their masters, and were treated no less than true children. Yet they counted the reproaches and hardships suffered for devotion to God, and the many new kinds of death devised for them, as true riches, greater than the glory and luxury of this life. We will recall how one of them ended his life, and leave readers to judge from that what happened to the others. 3 In the city mentioned above, one of them was brought into the open before the rulers we have named. He was ordered to sacrifice, and when he refused, he was commanded to be stripped, hoisted into the air, and scourged over his whole body until he gave in and did what was commanded, even against his will. But he was not shaken by these sufferings. His bones were already showing, so they mixed vinegar with salt and poured it over the torn parts of his body. When he overcame these pains too, a grill and fire were dragged out into the middle. What was left of his body was consumed by the fire like meat prepared for eating. They did not put him on all at once, so that he would not be released quickly, but a little at a time. Those who laid him on the fire were not allowed to stop until, after all this, he agreed to what was commanded.

5 But he held firmly to his purpose and gave up his life victorious in the midst of the tortures. Such was the martyrdom of one of the imperial servants, and it was truly worthy of his name, for he was called Peter. The sufferings of the rest were no less severe, but to keep within proper length I will pass them over. I will record only that Dorotheus and Gorgonius, with many others of the imperial household, after many kinds of struggles ended their lives by the noose and carried off the prizes of a God-given victory. 6 At this time Anthimus, who was then the head of the church in Nicomedia, was beheaded for his witness to Christ. A great crowd of martyrs was added to him. A fire had broken out in the palace at Nicomedia in those very days, I do not know how. A report spread, on a false suspicion, that our people had started it. At the emperor’s command, the God-fearing people of that place were put to death in whole households and in heaps. Some were killed with the sword, and others were made perfect through fire. The story goes that men and women leaped onto the fire with an indescribable eagerness. The executioners also tied up another large group, put them on boats, and threw them into the depths of the sea.

8 As for the imperial servants, after their death they had been given proper burial in the earth. But their supposed masters thought they must dig them up again and throw them into the sea. They feared that if the bodies were left in tombs, some people would worship them, regarding them as gods, as the rulers imagined. Such were the events at Nicomedia at the beginning of the persecution. Not long afterward, some people in the region called Melitene, and others in Syria, tried to seize the throne. An imperial order then went out that the heads of the churches everywhere were to be thrown into prisons and chains.^[255] 10 What followed was a sight beyond all description. Countless numbers were shut up in every place. The prisons everywhere, long before built for murderers and grave robbers, were then filled with bishops, presbyters, deacons, readers and exorcists, so that no room was left there for those condemned for crimes. Then other letters followed the first. They ordered that those shut up should be allowed to go free if they sacrificed, but that those who held out should be torn apart with countless tortures. Who could count the multitude of martyrs in each province, especially in Africa, among the people of Mauretania, in the Thebaid, and in Egypt? From Egypt, some went on to other cities and provinces and became famous through their martyrdoms.^[256]

Chapter 7

The Egyptians in Phoenicia.

1 We know of those among them who shone in Palestine, and we know of those at Tyre in Phoenicia. Who saw them and was not amazed? There were the countless scourgings and the resistance of these truly extraordinary athletes of godliness under them. Right after the scourging came the contest with blood-thirsty wild beasts. There were attacks by leopards, various kinds of bears, wild boars, and bulls scorched with fire and hot iron. And there was the wonderful endurance of these noble men against each of the beasts.^[257] 2 We ourselves were present when these things happened. We saw the divine power of our Savior Jesus Christ himself, to whom they bore witness, present with the martyrs and plainly shown to them. For a long time the man-eating beasts did not dare to touch or come near the bodies of those loved by God. They rushed instead at the others, who were stirring them up from outside. The holy athletes alone stood naked and waved their hands to draw the beasts toward themselves, since they were ordered to do this. Yet the beasts did not touch them at all. At times they charged at them, but they were driven back as though by some more divine power, and went back again.^[258]

4 This went on for a long time and caused the onlookers no small wonder. Because the first beast accomplished nothing, a second and a third were let loose on one and the same martyr. One could only be astounded at the fearless endurance of those holy men, and at the steady, unshaken resistance found in such young bodies. You could see a youth not yet twenty years old, standing without any bonds, with his hands stretched out in the form of a cross. His mind was fearless and calm, and he prayed at great length and without hurry to God. He did not move at all, nor step aside from the place where he stood, though bears and leopards, breathing out rage and death, almost touched his very flesh. Yet somehow, by a divine and inexpressible power, their mouths were all but shut, and they ran back again. This was the kind of man he was.

5 Again you could see others, five in all, thrown before a maddened bull. The bull tossed the other men who approached from outside into the air with his horns and tore them apart, leaving them to be carried off half dead. But when he charged in anger and menace at the holy martyrs alone, he could not even come near them. He pawed the ground with his feet and butted this way and that with his horns, and he breathed out rage and menace because of the goading of the red-hot irons. Yet he was dragged back by sacred providence. Since he did no harm to them at all, other beasts were then let loose on them. 6 In the end, after these terrible and varied attacks, they were all killed with the sword. Instead of earth and tombs, they were handed over to the waves of the sea.

Chapter 8

These in Egypt.

Such was the contest of those Egyptians at Tyre who displayed their struggles for true religion. But one should also admire those who bore witness in their own land. There countless men, together with women and children, despised this short life for the sake of our Saviour’s teaching and endured various kinds of death. Some, after being scraped and racked and cruelly flogged, and put through countless other varied tortures too dreadful to hear of, were handed over to fire. Some were swallowed up in the sea. Others boldly offered their heads to those who cut them off. Some died under torture, and others were destroyed by starvation. Others again were crucified, some in the usual way for criminals, and others even more cruelly, nailed upside down with the head downward. These were kept alive until they died of hunger on the very cross.

Chapter 9

Those in Thebais.

2 Beyond all description were the outrages and pains that the martyrs in the Thebaid endured. They were scraped over the whole body with potsherds instead of claws until they died. Women were tied by one foot and hauled up head downward by some machines, hanging high in the air. Their bodies were completely naked and uncovered, and they presented to all who watched a most shameful, savage and inhuman sight. Others died tied to trees and stumps. Using machines, the persecutors pulled the strongest branches together, fastened one of the martyrs’ legs to each, and then let the branches spring back to their natural position. In this way they devised the sudden tearing apart of the limbs of those on whom they tried it.^[259] 4 All this went on not for a few days or a short time, but over a long span of whole years. Sometimes more than ten were killed, sometimes over twenty. At other times not fewer than thirty, then nearly sixty, and again at other times a hundred men were put to death in a single day, together with small children and women, condemned to various and changing punishments. We ourselves were on the spot and saw large numbers killed together in a single day. Some suffered beheading, others punishment by fire, until the murderous sword grew blunt and, losing its edge, broke, and the executioners themselves grew weary and had to take turns with one another.

5 At that time we also saw the most wonderful eagerness, and the truly divine power and zeal, of those who believed in the Christ of God. As soon as sentence was passed on the first group, others leaped forward from every side to the judge’s tribunal, declaring themselves Christians. They took no thought of the terrors or of the many kinds of torture. They spoke boldly and without fear of their devotion to the God of the universe. They received the final sentence of death with joy, laughter and gladness, so that they sang psalms, hymns and thanksgivings to the God of the universe until their very last breath. 7 These were wonderful, but those were even more wonderful who stood out for wealth, noble birth and reputation, and for eloquence and philosophy, and yet put everything second to true godliness and to faith in our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. One such man was Philoromus. He had been entrusted with no ordinary office in the imperial administration at Alexandria. With the dignity of his Roman rank he used to sit in judgment every day, with a bodyguard of soldiers around him. Another was Phileas, bishop of the church of Thmuis, a man who stood out for his public service and civic offices in his homeland, and for his learning in philosophy.^[260]

8 A great many relatives and other friends begged these two men, and so did officials of high rank, and even the judge himself urged them to take pity on themselves and spare their wives and children. But none of this led them to choose love of life, or to disregard our Savior’s ordinances about confessing and denying him. With a brave and philosophical resolve, or rather with godly and God-loving souls, they stood firm against all the judge’s threats and insults. Both of them were beheaded.

Chapter 10

The Writings of Phileas the Martyr Describing the Occurrences at Alexandria.

2 Since we said that Phileas was highly regarded for his learning outside the faith, let him be his own witness. In the following words he shows who he was, and he also reports the martyrdoms that took place at Alexandria more accurately than we could. He writes: “The blessed martyrs who were with us had before them all the examples, patterns and noble marks set down in the divine and holy Scriptures. They did not hesitate. They fixed the eye of the soul purely on the God who is over all, and, with death for the sake of godliness in mind, they held fast to their calling. For they had found that our Lord Jesus Christ became man for our sake, to cut off all sin and to lay up for us provisions for our entry into eternal life. For he did not consider it something to be grasped to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave. Found in human form, he humbled himself even to death, death on a cross.^[261] [Philippians 2:6-8]

4 “So, eager for the greater gifts, these Christ-bearing martyrs endured every hardship and every kind of ingenious torture. Some endured them not just once but a second time. Their guards eagerly threatened them, not only in words but in deeds, yet they did not give way in their resolve, because perfect love casts out fear. What words could be enough to list their courage and bravery under each torture? Anyone who wanted to abuse them was given free license. Some beat them with clubs, others with rods, others with whips, others with leather straps, and others with ropes.^[262] [1 John 4:18] 5 “The spectacle of these tortures was varied, and there was great cruelty in it. Some had their hands tied behind them and were hung from a wooden beam, and every limb was stretched by machines. Then, at the command of the judge, the torturers tore at their whole bodies with iron claws. They did not scrape only the sides, as they did with murderers, but also the belly, the legs and the cheeks. Others were hung up from the portico by one hand, and the strain on their joints and limbs was more terrible than any pain. Others were bound facing the pillars, not standing on their feet, but with the weight of their bodies drawing the bonds tight.”

7 And they endured this not only while the governor was questioning them or had time for them, but for almost the whole day. When he moved on to others, he left his own officers behind to keep watch over the first group, in case any of them, overcome by the tortures, seemed to give way. He ordered these men to press on without mercy, going at their bonds as well, and afterward, when the prisoners were at their last gasp, to throw them on the ground and drag them away. For, he said, they were to have no concern at all for us, but to think and act as if we no longer existed. This was a second torment our enemies devised in addition to the blows. 8 Some, even after the tortures, lay on the stocks with both feet stretched through the fourth hole. They were forced to lie on their backs on the wood, because the wounds from the blows were fresh over their whole bodies and they could not hold themselves up. Others were thrown on the ground and lay there, worn down by the combined assault of the tortures. To those who watched, the sight was more terrible than the act of torture itself. They bore on their bodies the marks of the many different devices of torment.

10 While this went on, some died under the tortures and put their adversary to shame by their endurance. Others were shut up in prison half dead, and a few days later they were brought to completion, overcome by their pains. The rest recovered with treatment, and with time and the long stay in prison they grew bolder. So when the order came and they were given a choice, they did not hesitate. They could touch the accursed sacrifice and be left alone, receiving from the persecutors that cursed freedom. Or they could refuse to sacrifice and take the penalty of death. They went gladly to their deaths. For they knew what the sacred Scriptures had laid down for us. It says, “The one who sacrifices to other gods shall be utterly destroyed,” and, “You shall have no other gods besides me.” [Exodus 22:20; Exodus 20:3] 12 Such were the words of this martyr, truly a philosopher and a lover of God together. Before the final sentence, while he was still a prisoner, he sent them to the brothers in his own diocese. He was explaining his situation to them, and at the same time urging them to hold on tightly to godliness in Christ even after him, since he was about to be brought to completion. But why should I say more, or keep setting out fresh contests of God-honoring martyrs all over the world, one after another? This is especially so for those who were no longer dealt with under ordinary law but were besieged as in war.

Chapter 11

Those in Phrygia.

Heading: Those in Phrygia. Already, in fact, in Phrygia, soldiers surrounded a whole little town of Christians, every one of them. They set it on fire and burned them up, with their infants and women, as they called on the God who is over all. This happened because all the people living in the city, the curator himself and the chief magistrate along with all the officials and the whole populace, confessed themselves Christians and would not obey in the least those who ordered them to worship idols. Another man, Adauctus, held Roman rank. He came from a distinguished Italian family and had passed through every honor given by the emperors. He had blamelessly carried out the general administration of the offices they call “magistrate” and “catholicus.” Besides all this he was outstanding in deeds of godliness and in confessing the Christ of God. He was adorned with the crown of martyrdom and endured the contest for godliness while still carrying out the duties of the catholicus.^[263]

Chapter 12

Many Others, Both Men and Women, Who Suffered in Various Ways.

1 Heading: Many Others, Both Men and Women, Who Suffered in Various Ways. Why should I now mention the rest by name, or count the multitude of men, or paint a picture of the many kinds of torture suffered by Christ’s wonderful martyrs? Sometimes they were killed with axes, as happened to those in Arabia. Sometimes their legs were broken, as happened to those in Cappadocia. Sometimes they were hung up by the feet, head downward, with a slow fire burning beneath them, and were choked by the smoke from the burning wood. That was inflicted on those in Mesopotamia. Sometimes noses, ears and hands were cut off, and the other limbs and parts of the body were cut up like butchered meat, as happened in Alexandria. 2 Why should I revive the memory of those in Antioch? They were roasted on grids of fire, not to kill them but to prolong the punishment. Others quicker put their right hand into the fire than touch the accursed sacrifice. Some of them, shrinking from the ordeal, threw themselves down from high rooftops before they could be caught and fall into the hands of their plotters. They counted death a prize snatched away from the wickedness of the ungodly.

3 There was a certain holy woman, admirable in the virtue of her soul, though a woman in body. She was the most celebrated woman in Antioch for wealth, family and reputation. She had brought up her two unmarried daughters in the teachings of the faith. They were in the full bloom of youth and outstanding in beauty. Great envy was stirred up against them, and their pursuers searched everywhere for them while they were in hiding. Then the pursuers learned that the girls were living abroad, and they carefully arranged to summon them to Antioch. So they were caught in the soldiers’ nets. When the mother saw that she and her daughters were helpless, she set before them in words the terrible things that men would do to them. Worst and most unbearable of all was the threat of sexual violation. She urged herself and the girls not to endure even the faintest hearing of it. To surrender their souls to the slavery of demons, she said, was worse than every kind of death and any ruin. She proposed one release from all of these things: flight to the Lord.^[264]

5 The mother and daughters agreed together. They arranged their clothing neatly around their bodies. When they were in the middle of the road, they asked the guards to step aside for a moment. Then they threw themselves into a river that flowed beside them. So these women destroyed themselves. In the same city of Antioch there was another pair of unmarried girls, true sisters in every way and devoted to God. They were of distinguished family and splendid in their way of life. They were young, beautiful in body, dignified in soul, pious in conduct and admirable in their earnestness. The servants of the demons ordered them to be thrown into the sea, as though the earth could not bear to carry such people. So it was with these. 7 In Pontus others suffered things dreadful to hear. Sharp reeds were driven under the fingernails and into the fingertips of both hands. Others had molten lead, boiling and red-hot, poured over their backs. Others were roasted in the most vital parts of the body. Still others endured shameful, pitiless torments in their private parts and inner organs, too foul even to describe. These “noble” and “law-abiding” judges devised such things eagerly, to show off their cleverness as if it were some excellence of wisdom. They kept competing with one another, each trying to outdo the others with newly invented tortures, as if they were contending for prizes in a contest.^[265]

9 The end of these calamities came when the persecutors were at last worn out by the sheer excess of their evil. They were tired of killing and had had their fill, even a surfeit, of shedding blood. So they turned to what they thought of as kindness and humanity, so that they now seemed to be devising nothing more terrible against us. They said it was not right to pollute the cities with the blood of their own people. Nor, they said, should the supreme government of the rulers, which was gracious and mild toward all, be slandered for extreme cruelty. Rather, the kindness of the humane imperial authority should be extended to everyone, and we should no longer be punished with death. For the rulers’ humanity, they said, had set aside this penalty against us. 10 At that point it was ordered that our eyes be gouged out and one of our legs be crippled. For this was “humane” in their eyes, and the lightest of the punishments against us. Because of this “kindness” of the impious, it was no longer possible to give the number of those who suffered beyond all description. The right eyes of some were first cut out with a sword, and after the cutting they were seared with fire. The left feet of others were disabled by burning the tendons at the joint with hot irons. After this they were condemned to the government copper mines in the province, not so much to work as to be ill-treated and worn down. Besides all this, others fell into other struggles that cannot even be listed, for their courageous deeds surpass all description.^[266]

11 In these struggles Christ’s magnificent martyrs shone out over the whole world. They rightly amazed those everywhere who watched their courage. Through themselves they gave clear proofs of the truly divine and inexpressible power of our Saviour. To mention each one by name would take long, and indeed would be impossible.

Chapter 13

The Bishops of the Church that Evinced by Their Blood the Genuineness of the Religion Which They Preached.

3 Among the church leaders who bore witness by death in the well-known cities, let the first to be proclaimed on the monuments of the godly, as a martyr of Christ’s kingdom, be Anthimus, bishop of the city of Nicomedia, who was beheaded. Among the martyrs of Antioch was Lucian, a presbyter of the church there, excellent in his whole life. At Nicomedia, with the emperor present, he first proclaimed the heavenly kingdom of Christ in words, by way of a defense, and then in deeds as well. Among the martyrs of Phoenicia, the most distinguished would be the shepherds of Christ’s rational flock, who were in every way beloved of God: Tyrannion, bishop of the church at Tyre; Zenobius, a presbyter of the church at Sidon; and Silvanus, bishop of the churches around Emesa. 5 Silvanus, with others, was made food for wild beasts at Emesa itself, and was taken up into the choirs of the martyrs. Two of the Antioch martyrs glorified the word of God by enduring death. One, the bishop, was handed over to the depths of the sea. The other was Zenobius, an excellent physician, who bravely died under the tortures applied to his sides. Among the martyrs of Palestine, Silvanus, bishop of the churches around Gaza, was beheaded with others, thirty-nine in all, at the copper mines of Phaeno. There too the Egyptian bishops Peleus and Nilus, with others, endured death by fire.

7 Among these we should also remember Pamphilus, a presbyter, the great glory of the church at Caesarea and the most admirable man of our time. I recorded his brave deeds at the proper place. Among those who finished their course with distinction at Alexandria and throughout Egypt and the Thebaid, Peter should be written down first. He was bishop of Alexandria itself, and a truly divine gift to teachers of godliness in Christ. With him were the presbyters Faustus, Dius and Ammonius, perfect martyrs of Christ, and Phileas, Hesychius, Pachymius and Theodorus, bishops of churches in Egypt. There were also countless other distinguished people, remembered by the churches in their own countries and places. It is not for me to put on record the contests of those who struggled for the true worship of God throughout the whole world, or to relate in exact detail everything that happened to them. That would belong to those who saw the events with their own eyes. But the ones I witnessed myself I will make known, in another writing, to those who come after us.

9 In the present account, however, I will add to what has been said the recantation of what our persecutors had done to us, along with the events that happened from the beginning of the persecution, which will be very useful to those who read them. Before the war against us, the government of the Romans enjoyed a great abundance of good things and good seasons, in the times when the rulers were friendly and peaceable toward us. What words could be enough to describe it? In those days the chief rulers of the whole empire completed ten and twenty years of their reign. They spent their time in festivals and public gatherings, in the most brilliant feasting and merrymaking, in perfect and settled peace. 11 Their power grew without hindrance and increased greatly day by day. Then all at once they abandoned their peaceful attitude toward us and stirred up a war with no truce. This movement was not yet two years old when a new development in the whole government overturned everything. A serious illness fell upon the senior ruler, and it affected his mind so that he lost his senses. Together with the one honored with second place after him, he withdrew to the life of an ordinary private citizen. This was hardly done when the whole empire was split in two, something never before recorded as having happened.

13 Not long after this, the emperor Constantius died. He had conducted his whole life with great gentleness and goodwill toward his subjects, and with warm friendliness toward the divine Word. He died by the common law of nature and left his legitimate son Constantine as emperor and Augustus in his place. Constantius was the first of these rulers to be proclaimed among the gods by them, and after his death he received every honor owed to an emperor. He was the kindest and gentlest of emperors. Alone among the rulers of our time he spent his entire reign in a way worthy of his office, and in every other respect he showed himself most gracious and generous to all. He took no part at all in the war against us. He kept the God-fearing people under his rule unharmed and unmolested. He did not tear down the church buildings, and he devised nothing else new against us. He reached an honorable and thrice-blessed end to his life. He alone died during his own reign in peace and honor, with a legitimate son to succeed him, one who was in every respect most prudent and devout.

15 His son Constantine began his rule at once. He was proclaimed full emperor and Augustus by the armies, and long before that by God himself, the King of all. He set himself to follow his father’s devotion toward our teaching. That was Constantine. After this, Licinius was declared emperor and Augustus by the common vote of the ruling emperors. This troubled Maximinus badly. Until then he was the only one still holding the title Caesar. Being thoroughly tyrannical, he snatched the rank for himself and became Augustus, made so by himself alone. Meanwhile the man I mentioned as having taken up power again after he had laid it down was caught plotting Constantine’s death, and he died a most shameful death. He was the first to have his honorary inscriptions, his statues, and everything of the sort set up in his honor torn down, as belonging to an unholy and utterly godless man.

Chapter 14

The Character of the Enemies of Religion.

2 His son Maxentius set up the tyranny at Rome. At the beginning he pretended to share our faith, to please and flatter the Roman people. So he ordered his subjects to ease off the persecution of Christians. He put on a show of piety so that he might seem more gracious and much milder than those before him. But he did not turn out in his deeds to be the man people hoped for. He plunged into every kind of wickedness and left no act of filth or lust undone. He committed adultery and every sort of defilement. He took lawful wives away from their husbands, abused them, and then sent them back to the husbands in disgrace. He did not do this to obscure or unknown people. He did it most of all to those who held the first rank in the Roman senate, and he behaved outrageously toward the most distinguished of them.

4 All the peoples and officials cowered before him, famous and unknown alike, and they were worn down by his terrible tyranny. Even when they kept quiet and bore the bitter slavery, there was still no escape from the tyrant’s murderous cruelty. On one occasion, over some small pretext, he handed the people over to be slaughtered by the bodyguards around him. Countless crowds of the Roman people were killed in the middle of the city. They were killed by the spears and armor, not of Scythians or foreigners, but of their own countrymen. As for the senators, it is not even possible to count how many he murdered to get at their property. Tens of thousands were put to death, each time on some newly invented charge. 6 The crowning point of the tyrant’s evils drove him to sorcery. In his magical schemes he sometimes ripped open pregnant women, and sometimes searched the entrails of newborn babies. He slaughtered lions as well, and he performed certain unspeakable rites to call up demons and to ward off the war. All his hope was that victory would be secured for him by these means. It is impossible to say what he did while tyrant at Rome to enslave his subjects. Things reached such a point that even the necessary food ran extremely short. People of our time remember no such scarcity at Rome at any other time.

8 But Maximinus, the tyrant in the East, had secretly made a friendship with the tyrant at Rome, as with a brother in wickedness. He took care to keep this hidden for a very long time. Later he was found out and paid the penalty he deserved. It was astonishing how he, too, was akin to him in wickedness, or rather how he carried off first prize and the victor’s crown for the evil character of the tyrant at Rome. The leading sorcerers and magicians were honored by him with the very highest rank. He was extremely timid and very superstitious, and he thought a great deal of the error of idols and demons. Without omens and oracles he could not dare to move, so to speak, even as far as a fingernail. 9 Because of this superstition he took up the persecution against us more fiercely and more constantly than those before him. He ordered temples to be built in every city, and the sacred precincts that had fallen down over the years to be rebuilt in haste. He appointed priests of the idols in every place and city. Over these, in each province, he set a high priest. This was a man from public life who had most conspicuously distinguished himself in every kind of public service, and he was given a troop of soldiers and a bodyguard. He also freely gave governorships and the greatest privileges to all sorcerers, as though they were devout men and friends of the gods.

11 Starting from these measures, he harassed and crushed not just one city or region but all the provinces under his rule. He did it by collecting gold, silver and untold sums of money, by very heavy charges, and by one fine after another. He took from the wealthy the property they had inherited from their ancestors, and gave great riches and heaps of money to the flatterers around him. He went so far in drunken violence and drinking that he went mad and lost his senses in his drinking bouts. When drunk, he gave orders that he regretted the next day when sober. He left no one able to outdo him in carousing and debauchery, and made himself a teacher of wickedness to those around him, both rulers and ruled. He pushed the army to go soft through every kind of luxury and indulgence. He also urged governors and commanders to move against their subjects with plunder and greed, almost ruling as tyrants alongside him.

13 Why should I recall the man’s lustful and shameful acts, or count up the crowd of women he committed adultery with? He could not pass through a city without corrupting women and carrying off virgins. In this he succeeded against everyone except the Christians alone. They despised death and counted his great tyranny as nothing. The men endured fire and sword, nailings, wild beasts and the depths of the sea. They endured the cutting off of limbs, brandings, the stabbing and gouging out of eyes, and the mutilation of the whole body. Besides these they endured hunger, mines and chains. In all of this they showed endurance for the sake of their godliness, rather than exchange the reverence due to God for idols.^[267] 15 The women, no less than the men, were made manly by the teaching of the divine Word. Some endured the same contests as the men and won equal prizes of virtue. Others were dragged off to be violated, and they gave up their souls to death sooner than their bodies to defilement. One Christian woman of Alexandria was among those the tyrant tried to violate. She was the most distinguished and brilliant of them, and she alone overcame the lustful and unrestrained soul of Maximinus by her very courageous resolve. She was renowned for wealth, family and education, but she put all of these second to chastity. He pressed her with many entreaties, and yet could not bring himself to kill her, though she was ready to die, because his desire overpowered his anger. Instead he punished her with exile and took away all her property.

17 Countless other women could not even bear to hear a threat of sexual immorality from the governors of their provinces, and they endured every kind of torture, racking and deadly punishment. These women too are to be admired. But the most remarkable of all was the woman in Rome, truly the noblest and most chaste of all the women whom the tyrant Maxentius there tried to abuse as Maximinus did. She learned that the men who served the tyrant in such matters had arrived at her house. She too was a Christian. Her husband, who was prefect of Rome, had allowed them out of fear to take her and lead her away. She asked for a short delay to adorn her body, went into her room, and when she was alone she drove a sword into herself. She died at once and left her body to those who had come to procure her. By these deeds, louder than any voice, she showed to all people, now and in the future, that among Christians virtue is the only possession that cannot be defeated or destroyed.

18 So great a flood of wickedness came upon us at one and the same time. It was worked by the two tyrants who divided East and West between them. Who, looking into the cause of so many evils, would hesitate to declare it to be the persecution against us? This is especially so because this great confusion did not stop until the Christians regained their freedom.

Chapter 15

The Events Which Happened to the Heathen.

All through the ten years of the persecution, they never stopped plotting and making war against one another. The sea could not be sailed. No one could come ashore from anywhere without being put through every kind of abuse. They were stretched on the rack, their sides torn open, and questioned under every sort of torture, in case they had come from the enemy on the other side. In the end they were put to death by crucifixion or by fire. On top of this, shields and breastplates were being prepared, with arrows, spears and other battle equipment, and warships and naval weapons were being gathered everywhere. Everyone expected nothing else than an enemy attack on any day. After this, famine and plague also fell upon them. We will report the necessary facts about these in their proper place.

Chapter 16

The Change of Affairs for the Better.

1 Such were the conditions that lasted all through the persecution. By God’s grace it came to a complete end in the tenth year, though it had begun to ease after the eighth. For when the divine and heavenly grace showed its kindly and merciful watch over us, then our rulers also changed their minds in the most surprising way. These were the very men through whom the wars against us had long been carried on. Now they sang a recantation, and with kind proclamations and very gentle decrees they put out the great fire of persecution they had lit.^[268] 2 No human cause brought this about. It was not pity or kindness on the part of the rulers, as someone might suppose. Far from it! From the beginning up to that time they had been thinking up more and harsher measures against us every day, and kept inventing new torments with ever more varied devices. It was the plain visitation of divine providence itself. Providence was being reconciled to its own people, and it went after the author of these evils, angry with him as the leader in all the wickedness of the persecution.

4 Even if these things had to happen by God’s judgment, yet, as the Word says, “Woe to the one through whom the offense comes.” So a punishment sent by God pursued him. It began with his flesh and went on to reach his soul. A sudden abscess formed in the middle of his private parts. Then came a deep, festering ulcer, and an incurable eating away of his innermost bowels. From these swarmed an indescribable number of worms, and a deadly stench rose from him. His whole body had already, before the illness, turned through overeating into an enormous mass of fat. This now rotted, and it presented an unbearable and horrifying sight to those who came near. [Matthew 18:7] 5 Some of the physicians could not endure the overpowering foulness of the stench at all, and they were slaughtered. Others were put to death without pity because the whole mass had swollen and recovery was beyond hope, and they could not help him.

Chapter 17

The Revocation of the Rulers.

2 Struggling with so many evils, he became aware of what he had dared to do against the godly. He collected his thoughts and first confessed openly to the God of the universe. Then he called those around him and ordered them to stop the persecution without delay. By law and royal decree he ordered that the Christians should build their churches, hurry to do so, and carry on their usual practices, offering prayers for the emperor. At once the deed followed the word. Royal edicts were posted in the cities, containing the recantation of what had been done against us, in this form: 5 “The Emperor Caesar Galerius Valerius Maximinus, Unconquered, Augustus, Supreme Pontiff, Greatest Conqueror of the Germans, of the Egyptians, of the Thebans, of the Sarmatians five times, of the Persians twice, of the Carpi six times, of the Armenians, of the Medes, of the Adiabeni; holding tribunician power for the twentieth time, emperor for the nineteenth time, consul for the eighth time, Father of the Fatherland, Proconsul. And the Emperor Caesar Flavius Constantinus, Devout, Fortunate, Unconquered, Augustus, Supreme Pontiff, holding tribunician power for the fifth time, emperor for the fifth time, Consul, Father of the Fatherland, Proconsul. And the Emperor Caesar Valerius Licinianus Licinius, Devout, Fortunate, Unconquered, Augustus, Supreme Pontiff, holding tribunician power for the fourth time, emperor for the third time, Consul, Father of the Fatherland, Proconsul. To the people of their own provinces, greetings.”

7 Among the other measures we are laying down for the public good and benefit, we had wished earlier to set everything right according to the ancient laws and public order of the Romans. We also wanted to see to it that the Christians, who had abandoned the way of their own ancestors, should return to a good purpose. For somehow such self-seeking had gripped them, and such folly had seized them, that they no longer followed what the ancients had established, which perhaps their own forefathers had first set up. Instead they made laws for themselves according to their own inclination, as each one wished, and kept those laws, and gathered various crowds in various places. 9 Therefore, when an order of ours followed, requiring them to turn back to what the ancients had established, very many were put in danger, and very many were harassed and suffered every kind of death. Most of them remained in the same madness. We saw that they were neither offering the worship due to the heavenly gods nor paying attention to the God of the Christians. So, looking to our kindness toward humanity and to our constant custom of granting pardon to all people, we thought we should gladly extend our indulgence in this matter also. Let them be Christians again, and let them rebuild the houses where they used to meet, provided they do nothing contrary to public order. In another letter we will tell the judges what they will need to observe.

11 Accordingly, in return for this indulgence of ours, they ought to pray to their own God for our safety, for the welfare of the state, and for their own. Then public affairs will be kept sound in every way, and they will be able to live free from anxiety in their own homes. This is the text, translated as well as possible from the Roman language into Greek. Now it is time to look at what happened after these things.

Book 9

Chapter 1

The Pretended Relaxation.

1 The recantation of the imperial decree quoted above was posted everywhere throughout Asia and the surrounding provinces. When this had been done, Maximinus, the tyrant of the East, was displeased with what was written. He was as impious as any man has ever been, and a bitter enemy of reverence for the God of the universe. Instead of publishing the document, he gave his governors a spoken order to relax the war against us. He could not otherwise oppose the decision of his superiors, so he shut the law away out of sight. He took care that it should not become public in the regions under him, and by an unwritten command he ordered the governors under him to relax the persecution against us. They passed on the order to one another in writing. 3 Sabinus, who was honored among them with the rank of most eminent prefect, made the emperor’s mind known to the governors of the provinces in a Latin letter. The translation of it runs as follows. “With most ardent and devoted zeal, the divinity of our masters, the most divine emperors, long ago determined to turn the minds of all people to the holy and right way of life. They wished that even those who seemed to follow a custom foreign to the Romans should perform the worship owed to the immortal gods.

5 “But the stubbornness of some, and their extremely harsh resolve, went so far that they could neither be drawn from their purpose by the just reasoning of the command nor be frightened by the punishment hanging over them. Since many were bringing themselves into danger in this way, the divinity of our masters, the most powerful emperors, judged in keeping with their native nobility of piety that it was foreign to their most divine purpose to throw people into such danger for such a cause. So they ordered me, in my devotion, to write to your Sagacity as follows. If any Christian is found practicing the religion of his own people, you are to keep him free from harassment and danger. You are not to think that anyone should be punished on this pretext, since the experience of so long a time has established that they cannot in any way be persuaded to withdraw from such stubbornness.

7 “So your diligence should write to the curators, the magistrates, and the district prefects of every city, so that they will know it is not fitting for them to concern themselves any further with this letter.” On this, the governors of the provinces took it that the letter expressed the true intention of those who wrote it. They made the emperor’s will known in writing to the curators, magistrates, and officials in the country districts. But they did not stop at writing. Long before that, they carried out in deeds what they took to be the emperor’s decision. Those they had shut up in prison for confessing God they brought out into the open and set free, and they released those who had been handed over to the mines as punishment. They were deceived into thinking this was truly what the emperor wanted.^[269] 9 When this had been done, all at once, like a light shining out of a dark night, one could see in every city churches being gathered, huge assemblies, and the meetings held there as they had been by custom. Every one of the unbelieving nations was greatly astonished at this. They marveled at so strange and complete a change, and they cried out that the God of the Christians was great and the only true God. Some of our people had fought the struggle of the persecutions faithfully and bravely, and they received their boldness again before everyone. But those whose souls had fallen sick in the faith and been battered by the storm eagerly hurried to be healed. They begged the strong and asked them for a hand to save them, and they pleaded with God to have mercy on them.

11 Then the noble athletes of true religion were freed from their sufferings in the mines and were sent back to their own homes. They went through every city proud and radiant, full of indescribable joy and a boldness that words cannot explain. Great crowds made their journey along the main roads and through the marketplaces, praising God with songs and psalms. And you could have seen those who a little earlier had been driven from their homelands in chains under the harshest punishment, now receiving back their own hearths with cheerful and happy faces. Even those who had earlier raged murderously against us saw this wonder, beyond all hope, and rejoiced with us over what had happened.

Chapter 2

The Subsequent Reverse.

The tyrant could not bear this any longer. He was a hater of all that is good and a plotter against every good thing, and, as we said, he ruled the eastern parts. He did not allow things to go on this way even for six full months. He devised every means of overturning the peace. First, he tried to keep us from meeting in the cemeteries, using some pretext. Then, through some wicked men, he arranged for an embassy to be sent to himself against us. He stirred up the citizens of Antioch to ask, as the greatest favor from him, that no Christian be allowed to live in their city. He had others prompted to ask for the same thing. The ringleader of all this in Antioch itself was Theoteknos, a terrible man, a charlatan and a villain, whose character did not match his name. He appeared to be the city’s curator.^[270]

Chapter 3

The Newly Erected Statue at Antioch.

This man waged many campaigns against us. He eagerly hunted our people out of their hiding places as though they were unholy thieves. He contrived every kind of slander and accusation against us, and he caused the death of countless people. At last, with tricks and sorcery, he set up an image of Zeus Philios (Zeus the Friendly). He devised unclean rites, ill-omened initiations, and abominable purifications for it. He even displayed his wonder-working to the emperor through the oracles he claimed to deliver. To please the ruler by flattery, he stirred up the demon against the Christians. He said the god had commanded that the Christians be driven beyond the borders of the city and its surrounding countryside, as enemies of the god.^[271]

Chapter 4

The Memorials Against Us.

2 Because this man had taken the lead and gained his purpose, all the other officials in the cities under the same government rushed to pass the same decree. The provincial governors saw that this pleased the emperor, and they suggested to their subjects that they do the same. The tyrant welcomed these decrees with great pleasure and approved them by a written reply. So the persecution against us was set ablaze again from the beginning. Priests of the idols were appointed in each city. Over them Maximinus himself appointed high priests, chosen from those who had been most distinguished in public life and were famous in every office they had held. These men were full of zeal for the religion of the gods they served. 3 In short, the emperor’s extreme superstition drove everyone under him, rulers and ruled alike, to do everything against us to win his favor. They thought the greatest thanks they could give him for the benefits they expected from him was to thirst for our blood and to invent some new form of cruelty against us.

Chapter 5

The Forged Acts.

They forged “Memoranda” of Pilate and of our Savior, full of blasphemy against Christ. With the approval of the higher authority, they sent these throughout the whole territory under his rule, with written orders that they be posted openly for all to see in every place, in country and in city. The schoolteachers were also to give them to the children, in place of their regular lessons, to study and memorize. While this was going on, another military commander, called a “dux” by the Romans, rounded up some women of ill repute from the marketplace in Damascus in Phoenicia. He threatened them with torture and forced them to state in writing that they had once been Christians, that they knew of criminal acts among them, and that in the Lord’s own gatherings they practiced immorality, along with whatever else he wanted them to say to slander our teaching. He had their statements entered in the record and reported them to the emperor. At the emperor’s command, these documents too were published in every place and city.^[272]

Chapter 6

Those Who Suffered Martyrdom at This Time.

1 Not long afterward, that commander took his own life and so paid the penalty for his wickedness. But for us, flight and harsh persecution began again. Governors in every province rose against us once more with terrible force. Some who were prominent in the divine Word were arrested and received an unrelenting sentence of death. Three of them, in the city of Emesa in Phoenicia, confessed that they were Christians and were handed over to be eaten by wild beasts. Among them was a bishop named Silvanus, extremely old, who had completed forty full years in his ministry. 3 At the same time Peter, who had presided with great distinction over the churches in Alexandria, was a truly divine example of a bishop, both for the virtue of his life and for his devotion to the study of the sacred writings. He was suddenly seized for no reason at all, with no warning, and was beheaded abruptly and without explanation, as if by Maximinus’ order. Many other Egyptian bishops suffered the same fate along with him. Lucian also was an excellent man in every respect, disciplined in his way of life and well trained in the sacred studies, a presbyter of the church at Antioch. He was taken to the city of Nicomedia, where the emperor was staying at that time. There he made his defense before the ruler for the teaching he led, was handed over to prison, and was put to death.

4 In a short time Maximinus, the hater of what is good, prepared so many such things against us that this persecution seemed far harsher than the earlier one.

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Notes

[244] The Greek verb ἐξορχησάμενος literally means “danced away” or “danced off,” that is, treated with mocking contempt. The clause about naming his father is textually difficult, so the sense given is only a probable one.

[245] The Greek says the house was to go to those “to whom the bishops of the doctrine in Italy and the city of Rome should write.” In practice this means those who were in communion with those bishops.

[246] The Greek says the rule passed to Diocletian and “those adopted after him,” meaning his co-rulers. It says only that Dionysius completed nine years of ministry before Felix succeeded him.

[247] The Greek has a wordplay: Μανεὶς τὰς φρένας (“mad in mind,” from μαίνομαι) sounds like the name Mani. The pun is reinforced by μανιώδης and μανία later in the passage. The Greek also says “at one time... at another” (τοτὲ μὲν... τοτὲ δέ).

[248] “Falsely named knowledge” echoes the phrase in 1 Timothy 6:20.

[249] The Greek text as given names no predecessor of Eutychianus and no number of years. The older English supplies “Felix, having presided five years.” That is the likely sense, but the supplied words are not in this Greek.

[250] The Bruchion (Greek Prouchion, also spelled Pyrucheion) was the palace quarter of Alexandria.

[251] The Greek word boulē means a council. Here it is the council of the Alexandrians, and the Roman commander (strategos) is not named.

[252] The words “through the tearing down of the churches” are Eusebius’s own comment worked into the quotation, which is from Psalm 88 (89 in English Bibles), verses 39-45. His wording differs slightly from the usual Septuagint text, for example in the verb forms. It is translated here as he gives it.

[253] The quotation is from Psalm 106:40 (107:40 in English Bibles).

[254] Dystrus was a month of the Macedonian calendar used in the East; Eusebius gives its Roman equivalent himself.

[255] The older English says the rebels tried to “usurp the government.” The Greek says they “attempted to rise up against the empire (basileia).”

[256] “Readers” and “exorcists” were minor church offices at that time.

[257] The Greek “those of them” (tous ex autōn) points back to the Egyptians at the end of 8.6.10, so it means those Egyptians who shone in Palestine and at Tyre. The older English “those who were conspicuous” loses this link.

[258] The Greek verb historēsamen (“we learned by inquiry, observed, recorded”) is ambiguous, but with “we ourselves were present” (parēmen) just before it, Eusebius claims to have been an eyewitness.

[259] Greek “ostraka” can mean either potsherds (broken pottery) or shells (such as oyster shells); both renderings are possible, and the context does not decide between them.

[260] Thmuis was a city in the Nile Delta of Egypt.

[261] Phileas here quotes Philippians 2:6–8.

[262] “Christ-bearing” (Christophoroi) is Phileas’s own word for the martyrs. “Greater gifts” echoes 1 Corinthians 12:31, and “perfect love casts out fear” echoes 1 John 4:18.

[263] The “catholicus” was the imperial finance officer. The Greek names the town’s top officials as the “curator” (logistes) and the “strategos,” here a chief magistrate. The Greek says the townspeople called on “the God over all.”

[264] “Unmarried” translates parthenoi, “virgins.” The Greek says the daughters were living “in a foreign land” (ep’ allodapes). “Flight to the Lord” means taking refuge in the Lord through death.

[265] “Noble and law-abiding” is sarcasm on Eusebius’ part.

[266] The Greek says the left feet were disabled “at the joints” (kata ton ankylon), probably the ankle or the bend of the leg. “Tendons” is an interpretive addition.

[267] Greek προσηλώσεις literally means “nailings” (fastenings with nails), which may include crucifixion but does not name it.

[268] “Recantation” translates a Greek word for a song that takes back what an earlier song said. Eusebius means a public reversal of policy.

[269] “Curators” translates “logistai,” city financial officials (Latin curator rei publicae). “District prefects” renders “praipositoi tou pagou,” from Latin praepositus, an official over the rural district (pagus) of each city.

[270] Theoteknos means “child of God” in Greek, hence “did not match his name.” The older version’s “Theotecnus” is the same name.

[271] The older version has “Jupiter Philius,” the Roman name for the same god.

[272] The “Acts” or “Memoranda” (hypomnēmata) of Pilate were forged documents, presented as official records of Jesus’ trial. Eusebius says the women were forced to give false testimony. The older translation’s “Acts of Pilate and our Saviour” is accurate; the Greek simply says “records.”