Church History Books 1–9 (trans.) 8 part 2/3

Now the leader and captain of this blessed and numerous band of martyrs, welcomed together by the whole city, was a man renowned for piety and religion and for every kind of kindness, Adauctus by name, an Italian by native country and by descent, who had passed through the honours of the palace by each successive grade up to the mastership of the offices, and who at that time also administered the accounts of the imperial treasury while residing in the aforesaid city. The whole people, following his steadfastness in the confession of Christ after the example of that good captain, was truly of the highest rank. But whence shall we find strength to enumerate one by one the sufferings proper to each single martyr? For who could even recount those torments by which the holy martyrs in Arabia were cut down with axes?

Or how could anyone unfold what was done in Cappadocia, where the worshippers of God were ordered to have their legs broken? Who could relate the tortures in Mesopotamia, where they slew Christians with most cruel torments, hanging them one by one by their hands and feet in the manner of swine's carcasses, while a most bitter smoke was thrust up beneath them? And others they consumed with lingering torments, bringing a slow fire close to them. And how could I recount those things done at Alexandria, which even surpass the fables of the ancient poets? There, when the ears had been cut off and the nostrils mutilated with a shameful wound, and the tips of the hands and of the other limbs amputated, they let the maimed victim go away to be mocked.

And how at Antioch shall I recall the gridirons set upon burning coals, on which Christians were laid and roasted? But amid these things I do not think it right to keep silent about a memorable deed of two noble young men. When they had been arrested and were being forced to sacrifice to the images, they said: 'Lead us to the altars.' And when they had been brought there, laying their hands upon the burning fire, they said: 'If we draw them back, believe that we have sacrificed.' And they remained unmoved until all the flesh flowed away into the fire. Others, when they were sought for sacrifice, avoiding the sacrilegious defilement, ended their lives by casting themselves down—with less confidence of endurance, indeed, but with greater caution in preserving the faith.

Among these there was a certain admirable and venerable woman, comely alike in beauty and in chastity, noble by descent and abundant in possessions. She had two virgin daughters, honourable enough and reared according to the rule of their mother's modesty, rivalling each other in probity, alike in appearance and in character; whom their religious mother had brought up in the fear of the Lord according to the divine precept. But because of these good things which we have mentioned above, whether of nature or of upbringing, much strife was stirred up among wicked men concerning the virgins and their mother, and they were sought out with the utmost zeal and the utmost force. And when, in order to escape the whirlwind, they had contrived their own absence, every effort was made to bring about their presence.

Soldiers sent for this very purpose, having found them, compelled them to come to Antioch. But as the soldiers pressed them, and they journeyed placed in a vehicle, the religious and modest mother used such words as these to her daughters: 'You know, my sweetest daughters, how I have brought you up in the discipline of God; you know that from your infancy God has been to you a father, God a nourisher, God an instructor, and that you have loved together with me the good of modesty and chastity so greatly that not even your eye, as I am aware, was ever stained by a wanton look.' [The enemy] strives either to separate us from God or from chastity. Shall those members then be prostituted in public brothels, which almost the very public air itself has held unknown?

Do not, I beseech you, my daughters—for neither is our faith in God so small that we should dread death, nor is our chastity so despised that we should desire to live even in dishonour. Rather, if it please you, in this too follow your mother's example, as you hold to it in all things. Let us anticipate the impure hands of the executioners, and forestall the assaults of the unchaste, and let us condemn this world, which drives and drags us to an impure and unchaste life, by a pure and modest death.

And when she saw her daughters kindled by such exhortations to a like resolve, they came to a certain river situated along the way; and there, when they had pretended to have gone down on account of human necessity, and the guards, compelled by natural respect, had withdrawn a little, drawing their garments more carefully together on this side and that, they cast themselves into the swift currents of the threatening river. And two other virgins also, sisters distinguished in all respects, noble by descent, admirable in life, still in earliest youth, fair enough in appearance but fairer in soul, adorned with morals rather than with jewels, exceedingly praiseworthy in their pursuits, not enduring to have their chastity violated by public edicts and laws, plunged themselves into the sea waves. These things happened at Antioch.

But in the regions of Pontus things yet more cruel were being done. Sharp reeds were driven under the nails of the fingers of some. Upon others, lead melted by fire and poured over the back down to the shameful parts, by which the natural excretion is wont to be effected, was infused. Upon women too, glowing spits and burning stakes, without any regard for humanity or mercy, were thrust through the private parts of the entrails and the secret places of the natural members. But what shall I do, since the very names fail me for the crimes committed, and for the wicked deeds done no words can be found by which they might be enumerated?

Yet the bravest and most pious martyrs endured all things, while the excellent and illustrious judges reckoned that their wisdom would be a marvel to all in this one thing alone: if they should devise some torment of new cruelty and of a new kind.

But when at length, sated not by reason or humanity but by the very excess of their cruelty, they began to look back upon the enormity of their own crime—cities bereft of citizens, and of the best citizens, and the countryside laid waste—they turned to a semblance of humanity and set forth an imperial edict: that since it was not right to deliver to death so many citizens, in whom there was an obstinate conviction of their faith, it was resolved henceforth that this kind of men should indeed by no means undergo destruction, but that all who displayed this kind of confession, having the hollow of the knee likewise disabled by cauterizing, should be deported through each and every province into the mines of copper and iron, whether for labour or for punishment. This was the imperial clemency by which the best citizens were provided for.

But they indeed acted, as it seemed, according to their own manners or vices, while our just Savior through these things either tested the faith of those who believed in Him, or requited their merits.

But just as to enumerate one by one all who at that time in the sufferings of their flesh gave glory to God is not only difficult but even impossible, so also to omit them all utterly and not to make even a brief memorial of a few would not be fitting; and so we will delay especially over the leaders of the churches, each in his own place a martyr. Let there be recorded Anthimus, bishop of Nicomedia, beheaded; after him, ever a martyr in life and in pursuits, Lucian the presbyter of Antioch, who then at Nicomedia was proclaiming the kingdom of Christ by words and by deeds; at Tyre indeed the most noble among the martyrs, and from his earliest age [devoted] to Christ; [there was also] the presbyter of Sidon, and Silvanus bishop of the church of the Emesenes, who in his own city, consumed by the bites of wild beasts, was joined to the choirs of the martyrs; in Palestine indeed first Silvanus, bishop at Gaza, together with very many of the clergy; and in the Phaeno mine forty at once beheaded, among whose number is reckoned also the most noble flower of the church of Caesarea and the fruit of a heavenly gift, Pamphilus.

But at Alexandria and throughout all Egypt or the Thebaid, first, like some morning star rising among the constellations, was Peter, bishop of that city, foremost in doctrine, in morals and in life; and [others] not unequal in their teaching nor in their martyrdom; Phileas too, and Hesychius and Pachomius and Theodorus, bishops from the cities of Egypt, and the rest with them, countless, endured most noble martyrdoms.

To describe the contests of each of these individually—lest we prolong our work beyond what is just—I leave to their own fellow-citizens, who are well able to speak and were then present. Meanwhile, when our estate had been thrown into confusion and by cruel punishment everywhere the Lord had delivered up His household to be chastened by a few, but the ministers of bloody savagery raged against many, forthwith there is present the avenging right hand of God; and those who at first, while they kept the peace of the church, had governed the empire with all prosperity, He brings into so great a reversal of affairs that Augustus himself came to such a pitch of vanity and madness that, having laid aside the insignia of sovereignty together with his colleague Augustus, they lived as private men and commoners after their reign; while that other, who was second to him in honour, and afterward also his successor among the foremost—he who had been both the instigator and standard-bearer of our persecution—was afflicted with so many and various diseases and with a wasting of the body and a madness of mind, that after long and inextricable languors, driven by the furies of his own crimes, he of his own will gave up his nefarious life.

But these things happened afterward. At that time, in the western parts, Constantius was ruling the empire, which Maximian, who is also called Herculius, had laid down. For the Roman realm had been divided into two administrations. But he used much clemency toward men, and toward God indeed the greatest reverence. Nor had he, out of the fury of his partnership, stained his reign with the blood of the pious, nor had he, imitating the madness of Maximian, destroyed with hostile devastation the houses of prayer and the assemblies of our people; but rather he held the worshippers of God in veneration and honour. Whence also deservedly, a religious father, he left as heir a still more religious son, Constantine, to a kingdom well acquired.

But Constantine, as soon as he received the summit of the Roman realm by paternal inheritance, was by a certain marvellous grace of God dear to the citizens, welcome to the army, worthy of imitation by brave men, but terrible to the criminal and the cowardly. In reverence for religion he strove to surpass even his father by far. But Licinius too, by the common judgment of all, was received into the empire and even proclaimed Augustus—a matter which had grievously offended Maximinus, because he was then still held to be only Caesar in the eastern parts; and not enduring this any longer, he seized by force and assumed for himself the name of Augustus.

But Maximian, who is also called Herculius, whom we mentioned a little earlier to have been the colleague of Diocletian and to have laid down with him the insignia of empire, when he had been expelled by his son Maxentius, who held tyranny in the city of Rome, fled for pity's sake to Constantine as to a son-in-law, and contrived a plot against the very man by whom he had been religiously received. In which, being basely detected, he perished still more basely, so that after his death his statues and images were removed, and in public buildings the titles of his name were changed.

This man's son, then, Maxentius, who had seized tyranny in the city of Rome, at first, as though to court the favor of the populace toward himself, pretended to be a venerator of our faith, and on this account was pleased that the persecutions should be checked and all injuries against Christians warded off. But in the rest of his acts, in his life or morals, he showed nothing that might seem near to Christians. For in so great a dregs of outrages and crimes, in so great a mire of impurity was he immersed, that nothing whatever of the worst wicked deeds was foreign to the acts—I will not say of his life, but even of a single day.

In short, he commanded that the matrons of the senators, and especially of the nobles, be publicly dragged off and led to his lust, and after their defilement ordered them returned to their husbands—his adulterous lust not so much sated as altered. So great a fear had oppressed the fathers and the plebs, that they did not dare openly to show even this very thing, that they were in fear, but bore their unaccustomed servitude with groaning, and were held back by fear from contriving anything for liberty; while he, driven now not by anger but by the lust of slaughter, [ordered] the whole city and all who might be met, of whatever age and of whatever sex, to be cut down with swords, and countless multitudes of the Roman people were laid low not by the weapons of enemies but of fellow-citizens.

And the senators, especially those who appeared more illustrious in the curia either by honors or by wealth, were punished and proscribed on fabricated charges as though guilty. He added even this crowning point to his crimes, and cultivated the practice of the magic art with the utmost zeal; for the performance of which services noble pregnant women were sought out and, being applied to deadly rites, were split open through the middle. Little infants too were snatched away, and their entrails, torn from their bowels, were scrutinized.

Lions too were slaughtered, and by certain abominable devices and incantations composed by the demonic art, wars were said to be warded off through these things, and it was believed that the right and lawfulness of the realm could be preserved through wickedness. But to all these evils this too is added: that all who throughout the other cities or fields had been terrified by tyrannical cruelty, while they thought nothing safe for their life—and with all commerce ceasing—so great a famine had invaded the city and every place that nothing was left for the sustaining of life. But in the parts of the East and of Egypt, Maximinus was conducting his tyranny with a cruelty and madness like in every respect, so that the one seemed to imitate the other, as a partner in tyranny, even in crimes.

[so that one] seemed to imitate the other, and you could not tell to which above all you ought to award the palm of outrages. In this indeed Maximinus seemed to outstrip his partner in crime, that he even decreed public honors and the highest magistracies to the teachers of the magic and evil arts. He was also given up to the cult of images too superstitiously, so that he would not acquiesce even in the smallest movement without auguries and divinations and omens. Whence he was a more vehement persecutor against us, and more grievous than his predecessors.

He ordered too that the ancient shrines, long since abandoned even by their zealous worshippers, should all be renovated, and appointed priests and pontiffs for these throughout each province—all the nobles and those who had already discharged other honors—with military attendants and stipends added. Nor is it a marvel that he promoted even manifest sorcerers to be either governors of provinces or commanders of soldiers. But for the ministry of vanity of this sort, very great supplies of gold and silver were sought.

Whence it came about that all the provinces everywhere were stripped bare by various means and occasions—by burdening the census, by multiplying tributes, by condemning all the wealthier by contrived or even fabricated injuries, and by proscribing yet others—he was despoiling all alike of their paternal and ancestral family estates. Whence, mountains of gold, so to speak, gathered together, he lavished upon his intimates and satellites. But at banquets he was so lavish and so drunken that he was thought insane and out of his mind with the frenzy of wine; and awash in these and every kind of dissoluteness, he offered most shameful examples to his soldiers.

In short, whatever had been done wantonly, whatever insolently, whatever luxuriously, by the governors either of the soldiers or of the provinces, went unpunished because of the emperor's example. Among the rest, he had also this singular zeal: that he would pass by no—I do not say city, but even small town—without the adultery of noble matrons, whoever might be found in the various places, or the corruption of virgins. Such and so great a man, who was a public enemy of modesty, of honesty, of justice, and of all equity—why should he not also exist as an enemy and persecutor of Christians? Against whom he exercised so great a cruelty that he hastened to surpass his predecessors in crime.

He was eager to inflict fires, whips, crosses, wild beasts, the depth of the sea, the truncation of limbs, the gouging out of eyes, and special torments upon each single member—while yet those others were found more steadfast and brave in enduring than he was ingenious and cunning in devising. For he was often overcome not only by men, but even by women, who, kindled by the word of God and by the warmth of faith, were arrested indeed as women, but as brave men were crowned in the contest, preferring to undergo death more readily—nay rather even to seek it of their own accord—than to receive a stain upon the body.

Now while he was driven headlong by two most grievous masters, lust and cruelty, there was at Alexandria a certain Dorothea, sprung of a family noble enough, powerful in vast riches and in noble kinsmen. But in her the good of talent and of industry, and the pursuits of the other honorable arts, flourished more than these. Yet the glory of her form and beauty was so great that a marvellous and special fashioning of God was believed to be in her. But she, who strove to be fairer in the religion of her soul and the honesty of her life than in the countenance of her body, by a most equitable judgment of mind resolved rather to consecrate to God that which seemed beautiful and comely among men, than to indulge it to human use, so that she might remain a virgin consecrated to God.

But he, who defiled both divine and human things by lust together with cruelty, having learned only of the good of her form, and not also of the good of her talent and resolve, set his mind to violate the virgin and to pollute her chastity.

But having learned that she was a Christian, who according to his own edicts seemed more fit to be subjected to punishment than to lust, being placed in doubt he began to seethe, and toward whichever part [he inclined] he prevailed; and the virgin, awaiting martyrdom, he ordered snatched to punishment, and through secret messengers he solicited her concerning defilement. She replied that it was likewise a wickedness for her to pollute the temple of her body, which she had once consecrated to God, by the cult of idols or by the contagion of lust; that she was indeed prepared for death, but that it was not fitting for a cruel tyrant to offer anything flattering or soft, nor was it worthy that those fierce spirits should be softened toward her, which the profuse blood of Christians, shed wave upon wave daily, only hardened.

To which answers, when he, inflamed by lust, grew more keenly heated, and resolved to act by force unless she yielded to words, the most modest virgin, having abandoned all her possessions and her house and household, departed by night secretly with a few most faithful servants and with chastity as her dearest companion, and left the tyrant baffled, empty, and mad. But having assailed very many other noble women and virgins after her example, yet by that same example finding them likewise more ready for death than for the servitude of lust, he ordered them afflicted with cruel torments.

These underwent death much more readily and joyfully than all the rest, because they believed that double crowns were being prepared for them by the Lord, not only for piety but also for chastity. But among these accounts, I do not think it right to keep silent about the marvellous deed of a most noble woman in the city of Rome, Sophronia, whose husband held the prefecture of the city of Rome under the tyrant Maxentius. When he had learned of the beauty of the aforesaid woman, as was his custom, sending the ministers of debauchery, he ordered the woman led to him. She reported the matter to her husband. And he, when he had learned of it, revolving many things within himself, at last, groaning more deeply, said: 'And what shall we do, we for whom either these things must be endured or the soul must be laid down?'

Then she, when she saw that her husband, terrified by the fear of death, had betrayed her chastity, said to those who had been sent: 'Wait a little while, until, being composed as is fitting and adorned, I come forth.' Thereupon, having entered her chamber, when she had first prayed with knees fixed to the ground, as though about to immolate her chastity to God, seizing a dagger she pierced through her breast and vitals, sending final messengers of this kind to the tyrant through the servants standing by: 'Such women,' she said, 'may better please a tyrant as Christian women.'

In this manner in the East as well as in the West the tyrants raged, as though armed by one spirit of the demon and kindled by equal and the same vices; while yet through these things the Christians' virtue of soul and constancy of faith [were made] more approved and greater. And when the cruelty of the emperor Maximian too had raged against the Christians, and had delivered to slaughter countless thousands of men who worshipped the true God, and when drunkenness ceaselessly supplied strength to his cruelty and his lust—yet by divine providence [God cared] for His worshippers, and those whom He had tested through fire He leads forth again to refreshment. For divine vengeance seized the very author of the crime. And he who used to walk proud with fat and pampered flesh was suddenly distended, his entrails swollen and festering.

Then a wound, arising in the deeper parts of the breast, devoured all the inward recesses of the entrails within, with a creeping decay. Afterward, when certain fistulas were opened up to the surface with purulent passages, the stench from the inner parts of the putrefied wound was so intolerable that no one at all, not even of the physicians, could come near, because the flesh, quite fat and nourished in every luxury, exhaled from its corruption a grosser reek of putrefaction. Finally he ordered most of the physicians killed, because they could neither remedy the disease in any way nor endure the force of the stench. Among whom, when a certain man stood by rather to have his throat cut than to heal, inspired by God, he said:

'Why,' said he, 'O emperor, do you err, and think that what God inflicts can be revoked by men? This disease is not human, nor is it cured by physicians. But recall how many things you have done against the servants of God, and how impious and profane you have been toward divine religion, and you will understand whence you must seek remedies. For I indeed shall be able to die with the rest, but you will not be cured by physicians.'

Then for the first time Maximian understood that he was a man, and recalling the enormity of his crimes, he first of all confesses that he had erred and acted impiously, and begins as it were to make satisfaction to God; then next, having summoned those who obeyed him in public office, he orders a law to be written and immediately promulgated, whereby not only should persecution against the Christians cease and every injury be warded off, but also that they should be permitted to rebuild their churches, so that, being free for their accustomed worship and supplications, they might also entreat the most high God for his own welfare. When these things had been provided more quickly than said, forthwith edicts were sent throughout each and every city containing this tenor:

'The Emperor Caesar Galerius Maximianus, unconquered Augustus, pontifex maximus, Germanicus, Aegyptiacus, Thebaicus, Sarmaticus five times, Persicus twice, Carpicus six times, Armenicus, victor over the Medes and Adiabeni, holding tribunician power twenty times, imperator nineteen times, consul eight times, father of his country, proconsul; and the Emperor Caesar Flavius Valerius Constantinus, pious, fortunate, unconquered Augustus, pontifex maximus, holding tribunician power, imperator five times, consul, father of his country, proconsul.'

'Among the other things which we ordain for the benefit of the commonwealth, we indeed at first had wished to regulate all things according to the ancient laws and the public discipline of Roman observance, and among these to add this also: that the Christians, who had forsaken the religion of their fathers, should return again to it.'

'But since by a certain judgment of their own mind so great an obstinacy [held] them—[not following the discipline] which had been instituted by their forefathers, but rather each one, according to his own will, established a law for himself, and in diverse places diverse peoples flocked together; and when an edict had been set forth by us concerning these matters, [they chose] rather to subject themselves and to endure innumerable deaths than to obey such precepts; and since we perceive that many still persist in the same judgment of mind, so that they neither rendered due honor to the heavenly gods nor seemed to satisfy their own religion—having regard [to our clemency, which is wont] to give pardon to all men, we have gladly believed that our indulgence should be extended toward these also: that they should again be Christians, and build and rebuild the meeting-places in which they were accustomed to pray, provided nevertheless that they do nothing against the public discipline.'

'And by other letters we shall indicate to the judges what they ought to observe. Wherefore, in accordance with this our indulgence, they ought to entreat their God for our welfare and for the estate of the commonwealth, so that on every side, the commonwealth continuing unharmed, they too may be able to live secure in their homes.' [Chapter headings:] Concerning the image which had lately been consecrated at Antioch. Concerning those who at that time became martyrs. Concerning those things which were inscribed against us on tablets of bronze. Concerning those things which happened afterward—wars, plagues, famine. Concerning the victory of the emperor Constantine. Concerning the final destruction of our enemies.

Sending edicts through the several cities and setting forth a law that all should be released, they command that all who were held in prison, and all who were kept in the mines or in bonds of any kind, should go free and depart. When this had been done, it was as if, after an excessive storm, the splendour of the sun had been restored to heaven and to earth; and the leaders of our people, through each and every city, thronged the assemblies, held councils, restored the priesthoods, and set in order each several church wherever anything seemed to be lacking. And while these things were thus being carried on, a great amazement seized the unbelievers among the heathen at so great and so sudden a turning of affairs, so that by that very wonder they were compelled to confess that great and alone truly God is he whom the Christians worship.

But of our own people, those who in the contests had endured faithfully and manfully conducted themselves with all confidence and gladness. Those, however, who had acted more feebly and cravenly hastened, with all humility and supplication, to seek healing from those who had stood firm unscathed, and through them besought that the almighty God might be made propitious to them again.