《教會史》卷九 第 10 章

And such was the cause that overtook him: the greatness of the dominion that had been entrusted to him not according to his desert, he was no longer able to bear; but, through inexperience of sober and kingly reasoning, handling affairs with a want of taste, and being above all things irrationally lifted up in his soul by the boastfulness of arrogance, he set about daring to grow insolent even against his partners in the empire, men who surpassed him in everything—in birth and rearing and education, in dignity and understanding, and in that which is the chief of all, in temperance and in piety toward the true God—and he began to proclaim himself first in the honours.

And, having intensified the symptoms of his madness into frenzy, having broken the covenants which he had made with Licinius, he raised up a truceless war; then, in a short time having thrown everything into confusion, and having stirred up every city, and having gathered together a whole army of an innumerable multitude of myriads, he went out to do battle, drawing up his lines against him, lifted up in his soul by hopes in demons whom he supposed to be gods, and by the myriads of his men-at-arms.

And indeed, having joined battle hand to hand, he found himself bereft of the oversight that comes from God, the victory being dispensed to Licinius by the one and only God of all.

First, then, he lost the army of men-at-arms in which he had trusted, and the guards about him having left him stripped and bereft of all, and having fled for refuge to him who then held sway, the wretched man, having stripped off as quickly as possible the imperial array that ill became him, in cowardly and ignoble and unmanly fashion crept in among the multitude, and then ran away; hiding himself throughout the fields and villages, he barely escaped the hands of his enemies, taking forethought for his own safety, by these very deeds proving right well faithful and true those divine oracles in which it is said:

「There is no king saved by reason of a great host, and a giant shall not be saved by the abundance of his strength. A horse is a vain thing for safety, and in the abundance of its power it shall not be saved. Behold, the eyes of the Lord are upon them that fear Him, upon them that hope in His mercy, to deliver their souls from death.」

Thus, then, the tyrant, full of shame, having come back to his own parts, first, in frenzied wrath, made away with many priests and prophets of the gods of old admired by him—by whose oracles he had been fanned into kindling the war—as being conjurers and impostors and, above all, betrayers of his own safety; then, having given glory to the God of the Christians, and having most perfectly and fully ordained the law on behalf of their liberty, immediately, dying a hard death, no respite of time being granted him, he ended his life. And the law sent down by him was of this kind: A copy of a translation of the tyrant's ordinance on behalf of the Christians, transferred from the Roman tongue into the Greek.

「The Emperor Caesar Gaius Valerius Maximinus, Germanicus, Sarmaticus, Pius, Felix, Invictus, Augustus. That in every way we continually provide for the advantage of our provincials, and wish to grant them those things by which the interests of all are best secured, and whatever things pertain to the advantage and benefit common to them, and such things as befit the public advantage and prove agreeable to the minds of each—of this we believe no one to be ignorant, but each, recurring to the matter, both knows and holds it within himself that this is plain.

Since, then, it had before this become plain to our knowledge, from this circumstance—namely, that it had been commanded by the most divine Diocletian and Maximian, our parents, that the assemblies of the Christians should be abolished—that many extortions and despoilings had been committed by the officials, and that this was proceeding in time to come against our provincials (for whom we are zealous that fitting care should especially be taken), their own substance being worn away, we enacted by letters given to the governors of each province in the past year, that, if any one should wish to follow such a custom or the same observance of that same religion, he should hold unhindered to his own purpose, and be hindered or prevented by no one, and that there should be liberty for them, without any fear or suspicion, to do that which is pleasing to each.

Nevertheless, not even now has it been able to escape us that certain of the judges have set at naught our commands, and have caused our people to doubt concerning our ordinances, and have made them approach more reluctantly those rites which were pleasing to them.

In order, therefore, that for the future all suspicion of ambiguity and of fear may be removed, we have enacted that this edict be set forth, so that it may be plain to all that it is permitted to those who wish to follow this sect and this religion, out of this gift of ours, even as each one wishes, or as is agreeable to him, so to approach this religion which by custom he has chosen to practise; and it is also conceded that they may build their own meeting-houses.

Moreover, that our gift may be yet greater, we have thought fit to enact this also: that if any houses and lands which formerly belonged to the right of the Christians, by the command of our parents, had passed over into the right of the treasury, or had been seized by any city, whether a sale of these has taken place, or they have been given to any one as a favour, all these we have commanded to be restored to the ancient right of the Christians, so that in this also all may receive a perception of our piety and providence.」

These were the tyrant's words, falling short by not even a whole year of the decrees against the Christians that had been set up on pillars by him. And he with whom a little before we seemed to be impious and atheists and the destroyers of all life—so that we were permitted to dwell not so much as in a city, but not even in country or wilderness—with him there were now drawn up ordinances and laws on behalf of the Christians; and those who a little before were being destroyed by fire and sword, and as food for beasts and birds before the eyes of the tyrant himself, and were enduring most piteously every kind of chastisement and punishment and departure from life as though atheists and impious men—these now were acknowledged by him to be practising a religion, and were permitted to repair the churches, and the tyrant himself bore witness and confessed that certain rights belonged to them.

And indeed, having made such acknowledgments, as though having met with some benefit, on account of these very things—having suffered, doubtless, less than it behoved him to suffer—being smitten by a sudden scourge of God, in a second engagement of the war he was overthrown.

And the manner of his overthrow was not such as befalls generals and commanders of war, who, on behalf of valour and for their friends, often playing the man in battle, courageously and with good heart undergo a glorious end; but rather, like some impious man and fighter against God, while his battle-line was still drawn up before the plain, remaining at home himself and hiding, he underwent the fitting punishment—being smitten by a sudden scourge of God over his whole body, so that, driven by dreadful pains and agonies, he fell prostrate, wasting away with hunger, while his whole flesh, melted by an invisible and God-sent fire, so dissolved that the entire form of his former shape vanished away, and there was left only, as it were, an image of dry bones, like something reduced to a skeleton by long lapse of time; so that those present thought nothing else than that his body had become a tomb for his soul, buried as it now was in a corpse already wholly decomposed.

And as the heat yet more violently consumed him from the depth of his marrow, his eyes started forth, and, falling from their own sockets, left him blind.

But he, still breathing even after these things, making confession to the Lord, kept calling upon death; and at the very last, having confessed that he was justly suffering these things on account of his outrage against Christ, he gave up his soul.