...having been set forth, as though out of vast darkness a sudden light shone forth. But Maximinus, who in the eastern parts held rather the tyranny than the position of a Caesar, as though the maternal source of his cruelty were being withdrawn from him, does not suffer the law to be published nor to come to the knowledge of all, yet by word enjoined the judges meanwhile to grant a respite to the Christians. But Sabinus, who at that time governed the summit of the prefecture, writing to the judges of all the provinces and inserting the emperor's preferred law, [names] the manifest curator of the city of Antioch, a man of depraved character and most wicked purpose.
But he also incites others, the vilest citizens, through each several city likewise to a similar crime, and arranges that from all the provinces an embassy of this kind be dispatched, and many other things against us out of a certain peculiar hatred... and had been quiet, he might renew. His evil mind and evil spirit thought itself as if to suffer a certain thirst and hunger, unless it might tear the flesh of the citizens and their blood... reckoning it from this, that at Antioch a certain image of Jupiter... was so composed that it might deceive the eyes of the beholders and seemed to display certain portents and to utter responses. And this was confirmed as certain to all men and to the emperors themselves.
And after this had been believed by all, it is likewise asserted that that god had given responses, that... it might be possible, that they be driven farther off. When these things were known, all who anywhere were under the tyrant's rule throughout the several cities and provinces, knowing this to be pleasing in his sight, pass a similar sentence concerning the Christians, and having sent legates to him obtain from the emperor those things which, that they might ask them, had been [suggested] by him himself... is restored; and Maximinus meanwhile with the utmost urgency appoints, through the several cities and provinces, priests and pontiffs of the idols, and confers on them many honours and gifts, and does absolutely everything diligently, so that he may forestall all men with his benefactions, that through these he might render them the readier for the hatred and slaughter of the Christians.
And this he obtained the more, in that he had presumed for himself even the dignity of Augustus, ungranted, out of favour; yet he wishes it to seem that he does these things on certain just grounds. Certain 'acts' are fabricated, as though transacted before Pilate concerning our Saviour, in which he commands, by an edict set forth, that they be sent to the provinces of his realm and be posted up through the several cities, through the villages, through the fields even; and he orders them to be handed over also to the teachers of boys, so that, in place of those things which they are wont to dictate for meditating or learning by heart, they should hand these over to the boys to be committed to memory.
But when, out of his passion toward the Christians and eager to please him in such matters, he causes certain most unworthy wenches, sought out from the crossroads, to be set before him and a very great inquisition to be conducted upon them, whereby he might compel them to profess in the acts that they had once been Christians and knew that amid the very mysteries such outrages [were done] as no good man could even bear to hear — he causes the wenches to prosecute these matters in the acts, and having had them written down, reports them to the emperor. And he no less orders these to be posted up through each and every city and province, although that leader did not long rejoice in such a fraud. For within a short time the judges of the provinces, as though exhibiting something pleasing to the emperor from this, [began] to rage more atrociously against our people.
And so at Tyre, a city of Phoenicia, [some] are exposed to the beasts, among whom too was Silvanus the bishop, having discharged the priesthood for forty years, a man venerable for his gentleness of soul and now for his very old age, ...and richer in the abundance of the crops; and therefore it was quite rightly resolved, unto the favour of the immortal gods, to whom no victims would be so acceptable, as that this race of men, hateful to them, should be driven out from all the places in which their majesty is worshipped.
He adds also this, that since [they might obtain] whatever it might be — however difficult it seem — which they should judge would profit their own advantage: for this favour there should be nothing which they could not obtain... most useful and most friendly to the Roman people, while by it [that people] was being compelled to change the rite of the Christian religion, to which the whole world is most devotedly given, into the worship of idols, and to venerate demons in place of God — enemies made in place of friends and adversaries in place of allies — they prepare to defend themselves by force against his nefarious edicts, and of their own accord make war.
All which things heaped up together demanded from him the penalties of his foolish arrogance, in return for which he had boasted that through the flight and persecution of the Christians there were made subservient to him peace, and abundance of all things, and even the very temperature of the air. And so, when he himself and his army were being vehemently and fiercely pressed by the Armenian war, the peoples through the cities and villages... he had promised by his authority, a dreadful famine was laying waste without any pity. In the cities such multitudes fell each single day that not even places for burials could be found. In the fields or villages very many houses remained utterly empty.
But even if some, seeing the impending slaughter... [a father] himself also about to die drew near with his children, and along with his children — from whose price they had hoped to be nourished — perished. Others indeed, while they pursued the roots of herbs and tried to sustain life by their juices, urged on by starvation, incautiously were destroyed by some deadly draught. Women too, mothers, went down into public [places] for the sake of begging alms; and those whom modesty did not permit to look upon the face of men, hunger compelled to seek out some food or even to snatch it from another's hand.
Very many indeed went about so wasted that they were thought to be images lacking flesh rather than men; of a foul colour, on the very verge of falling, they went along, and now no longer with their voice, but by drawing their last breath, begging alms; so that sometimes, if perchance someone caught sight of a fragment of bread which he was not permitted to enjoy, while he tries to stretch out his hand and his bodily strength does not attain to his desire, in the midst of his feeble effort, the futile stroke failing him, he would collapse.
But if any of the wealthy, moved by pity, had wished to impart some food to the needy, hemmed in and choked by the multitude of them — among whom there was none who seemed fit to be repelled — he would abandon what he had begun, nor could he by force accomplish his purpose of mercy because of those whom starvation had made shameless. Meanwhile through all the streets and alleys everything was filled with the corpses of the dead, nor was there anyone at all to bury them, since even those who yet seemed to survive were feeble with disease and, as it were, about to die at any moment. Whence there came about a pitiable spectacle, so that very many were devoured by dogs.
And so two most powerful plagues, famine and pestilence, divided the people between them: the poorer sort, whose daily sustenance was sought by the work of their hands, starvation ravaged as though its neighbours and next of kin; but those who seemed wealthy and stuffed with resources, pestilence claimed for itself as though its own. So that you might see the house of a numerous household, within a short time, the contagion running from one to another, emptied by the extinction of all. Thus, though the camps were indeed divided, famine and pestilence, yet warring by one issue of death, laid waste cities and fields.
This was the recompense of the laws of Maximinus, and of his elation and arrogance, and of the judgement he had passed concerning the Christians; this was that piety of his toward god, and the majesty of the religion, as he asserted, delivered from heaven. But, as we said above, when both the unburied corpses of the dead, whom famine had consumed, lay in the streets, and those whom pestilence had destroyed to the last man nonetheless remained unburied in the houses, while those who seemed to survive were pressed by starvation, all cried out and of their own accord invoked the piety and mercy of the Christians; and those whom a little before they had driven out from their native land and home, they now suppliantly entreated that, according to their accustomed manner, they would bring to the living the aid of nourishment, and to the unburied dead render the just rites of burial.
They confessed that among these alone did compassion have force, among these alone were preserved the things which belong to humanity and piety; and that there was no religion so true, so holy, and so perfect in all things, which should persuade [men] to take counsel for all men as for kinsfolk and neighbours; nor was there any other god at all except the God of the Christians.
But then indeed the peoples of our own, to whom in very truth by the grace of God — which was above all most marvellous to all — neither famine in anything nor pestilence had held dominion, mindful of no injury at all... [Constantine] having been so greatly terrified by the sight and troubled by the strange appearance, [Christ] standing by him... then indeed made glad again and now secure of victory, he marks the sign of the cross, which he had seen in heaven, upon his own forehead; and thus divinely invited to the faith, he seems to me not inferior to that one to whom likewise it was said from heaven: 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? I am Jesus of Nazareth' — save that this man is invited not as yet persecuting, but already following after.
Thereupon he transforms the sign, which had been shown him in heaven, into military standards, and fits the labarum, as they call it, into the likeness of the Lord's cross; and thus equipped with the arms and standards of religion he sets out against the arms of the impious. But he is also reported to have had in his right hand a sign of the cross likewise wrought of gold. In truth I do not think it seems out of place if, departing a little [from our subject], we set forth also what the religious leader accomplished of his purpose in this war.
And so, when by the aid of divine power he had been made certain of victory, the mind of the religious prince was nonetheless tossed by another surge of care, namely because, an emperor named Roman and Father of the Fatherland, and one who desired — if it could be — to surpass in piety and religion all who had held the principate before him, was being compelled to wage war not only against the fatherland, but even against the city of Rome itself, which is the head of the Roman empire; nor without an assault upon the fatherland which the tyrant besieged... day and night he prayed to the God, to whom he now felt himself intimate, that he would not stain his right hand, which he had fortified with the saving sign, with the gore of Roman blood... And when he had now pitched his camp not far from the Milvian Bridge, behold, suddenly, as though seized by a divine force, Maxentius is driven forth to meet him, and rushing out from the gates of the city of Rome, he orders the rest of the army to follow him, himself first running out armed to meet him.
He had ordered boats to be joined together to form a trap, that a river might be spanned by them and, with bridges laid on top, made level for crossing. And so, when the horseman and forerunner himself, forgetful of his own contrivance, had entered the bridge with a few men, the boats gave way beneath him; and, plunged into the depths, by the death of his own one accursed head he averted the slaughters that would have come from a whole war, and preserved unstained by civil bloodshed the right hand of the devout prince. Then indeed you might see enacted no less in this than in Moses and the Hebrew people what was worthily done, so that even over these things it might rightly be said in that day: 'The chariots of Pharaoh and his host he cast into the sea; his chosen captains, three by three, he drowned in the Red Sea; the deep covered them.'
For thus Maxentius and those armed satellites who were with him were drowned in the depths, and he was tumbled down by those very bridges which he had fitted for the destruction of the devout prince. But concerning him also it may fitly be said: 'He opened a pit and dug it out, and fell into the ditch which he himself had made. His pain shall be turned upon his own head, and his iniquity shall come down upon his own crown.' This too concerning his enemies, saying: 'Let us sing to the Lord, for he has been gloriously honoured; the horse and his rider he cast into the sea. He is my helper and my protector, and he has become my salvation. Who is like unto thee among the gods, O Lord?'
Who is like unto thee, glorious also—if not in words, yet in deeds and achievements? So Constantine himself, singing in harmony with the God on high from whom he had merited the victory, entered the city of Rome in triumph. Then indeed all were joyful with their wives and children; the senate and the Roman people, freed from a mighty plague and delivered from the yoke of tyrannical savagery, received Constantine as the author of their salvation and the restorer of their liberty. Yet he relaxed his spirit neither into the praises of the acclaiming people nor into the applause of so great a city, nor did he attribute the deed accomplished to his own valour, but reckoned it to the gift of God.
Straightway indeed he ordered images of himself to be painted with his right hand raised, and this inscription written beneath: that by this singular sign, which is the emblem of true valour, he had rescued the city of Rome, the senate, and the Roman people from the yoke of tyrannical domination and restored them to their ancient liberty and nobility. About the same time, his colleague being still of one mind and one purpose with him, they enacted a law in which they honoured the God of the Christians with the fullest praises, and confessed him to be for themselves the author of all valour and achievement, and that he himself had granted the victory over the tyrant, and that therefore to him were to be paid by all veneration and worship. This law they sent also to Maximinus, who then ruled the eastern regions and seemed to seek their friendship.
But he, terrified by the mighty achievements of the emperors, although the things written seemed to him contrary and alien to the purpose of his own mind, yet because he did not dare to resist, and again blushed to seem unwillingly to have come to this by yielding to another's authority, moved at once by fear and shame, employing most wretched counsellors, resolved—as though of his own will and authority—to promulgate a law on behalf of the Christians of similar tenor, in which he asserted that it had indeed seemed good to his own predecessors, the earlier Augusti, that the race of the Christians, as being hostile to the worship of the gods, should be utterly destroyed, and that he too for some time had thought that he ought to follow a like judgment.
But since this race is the more propagated and grows the more the more it is thought to be restrained, he preferred rather that, if indeed anyone by gentle persuasions should consent to the worship of the gods, he should be received, but that no one should be compelled unwillingly, but should have it in his own choice by which rite each might wish to worship God; and that on this account no commotion or disturbance should be brought upon the provincials. These things Maximinus wrote to Sabinus the prefect, though all knew that he did not carry this in his heart, but decreed these things with a feigned humanity. And so none of our people dared either to hold assemblies or to perform anything in public which our practice required for religion—which the law sent to him by the emperors deemed lawful to be done.
But that impious man, savage in mind, had granted only this which fear extorted from him, and in no way changed his disposition, until divine vengeance brought upon him the stripes he deserved. For when, against his desert, he had risen up—a man in whom was nothing of prudence, nothing of sobriety or moderation, swollen with arrogance and puffed up with pride—he began to exalt and lift himself up even against his partners in the empire, in whom royal training shone with uprightness of character and by the grace of sobriety and religion. He dares therefore first to attempt to make war on Licinius, and, throwing all into confusion in a short time, now to shake the cities, now to wear out the army. At last, relying on demons and on the deity of his gods, he advances to war with an immense multitude of soldiers.
But victory, fleeing from him who was hateful to God and to men, passed over to the other side. And when his army fell by the sword, the few who survived, seeing him stripped of his forces of soldiers and of divine favour, delivered him into the hands of the stronger. But he, as soon as he saw himself deceived by his gods and deserted by men, stripping off the imperial insignia which he had never worn worthily, and mingling himself with the crowds of fleeing camp-servants, shamefully and wretchedly removed from the war, escaped through the fields, perceiving that what the divine Scripture had pronounced was far more truly so than his own empty persuasions, saying:
'A king is not saved through the greatness of his own strength, nor shall a giant be saved by the greatness of his own might. The horse is a false hope for salvation, and in the abundance of his strength he shall not be saved. Behold, the eyes of the Lord are upon them that fear him, that hope in his mercy, to deliver their souls from death.' Therefore when, with all shame and ignominy, the tyrant had returned to his own country, first, kindled as if by a frenzy worthy of himself, he orders to be slain very many of the priests of his gods and the soothsayers whom he had before admired, and trusting in whose responses he had stirred up wars, as deceivers and liars who had betrayed his own safety and kingdom.
After this he renders glory and praise to the God of the Christians, and, meditating a conversion by a late repentance in the very condemnation of his life, while he was dragging out a most grievous death amid diseases warring against his own self, he writes a law for the liberty and security of the Christians, of which a copy is written below: 'The Emperor Caesar Galerius Maximinus Germanicus Sarmaticus, pious, fortunate, unconquered, Augustus. Bearing unceasing care for our provincials and consulting for their advantages and conveniences, in matters which concern the common and public good and which are dear and pleasing to the minds of all, we never cease to make provision.'
'Whence I do not doubt that it is known to all men and plainly ascertained, that from that occasion—when it had been commanded by the deified princes Diocletian and Maximian, our parents, that the assemblies of the Christians should be prohibited—very many plunderings and pillagings were made by officials, and this went on day by day to the detriment of our provincials, of whom we are eager to take especial care, so much so that they were almost stripped of their own goods and patrimonies. On this matter, in the past year, we issued a law, that whoever wished to adhere to that race or religion might, without any fear or suspicion, do whatever pleased him, entirely free from any hindrance to his will and purpose.'
'But lest even now we should again stir up our provincials and, as it were by our own authority, trouble them—by which of course they might be rendered more sluggish toward the religion which they love: therefore, that for the future all fear or ambiguity may be removed, by the law of this our edict we sanction that it be made known to all that those who venerate the Christian sect and religion are permitted, by this bounty of our indulgence, that each one, in whatever way he wishes and as pleases his mind, may devote himself to this religion and its solemn worship. Moreover we permit them, according to their will, to restore their houses of prayer, that is, their churches.'
'Indeed, that in all respects this our bounty may be held more complete, we also sanction this by the present law: that if any houses, fields, or estates whatsoever, formerly from the goods of the Christians, had by the precepts of our parents been annexed to the right of the treasury, or if any were also claimed by anyone, or if any were sold or bestowed upon anyone as a gift—all these things we command to be recalled to the ancient right of the Christians, and the whole to be restored to their proper owners, that in this also all may receive the benefit of our piety.'
Such laws now at last does Maximinus employ—he who not a full year before had, on tablets of bronze, sanctioned penalties against us as though to endure forever, in which he had ordered us, as impious men, to be made exiles from cities and fields and fugitives from almost the whole earth. Yet not even now was his conversion whole and from the heart, but he offered laws of this kind to God as a sort of price. And because the hope of his gods had first deceived him in war, by these things, as though with his patrons changed, he was attempting to enter upon war again, not knowing, most vain of men, that God cannot be redeemed by wicked men, for a depraved undertaking, either by services or by rewards.
Therefore, when he had equipped his army with all his forces and prepared an unjust war, he was seized by pains of his inward parts and began to be violently tormented, so that he could not even lie upon his bed, but, going out from his chamber, he was often thrown face-down upon the ground. Then that gluttonous man, who was always filled with wine, now could not receive food to be tasted even with the tips of his lips, nor take wine so much as by its smell. Thus, his flesh being consumed by starvation and dryness, this alone the wretch accomplished: that, placed in the last extremity of life, he acknowledged the vengeance of God to be just, and all the plots of their crimes.
But as for us, whose hope and salvation rest in the almighty God and in Christ, the King of all, our Saviour and the Redeemer of our souls, we gladly receive correction from him.