The Lord has heard your prayers, dearest Donatus, which you poured out in His sight at all hours every day, and those of our other brethren, who by their glorious confession sought for themselves an everlasting crown as the reward of their faith. Behold, now that all our adversaries are blotted out, and tranquillity is restored throughout the world, the Church, lately laid low, rises up again, and the temple of God, which had been overthrown by the impious, is rebuilt with greater glory by the mercy of the Lord. For God has raised up princes who rescinded the wicked and bloody commands of the tyrants and provided for the human race, so that now, as though the cloud of a most sorrowful time has been dispelled, a pleasant and serene peace gladdens the minds of all.
Now, after the violent whirlwinds of the black tempest, calm air and the longed-for light have shone forth again. Now God, appeased by the prayers of His servants, has lifted up by heavenly aid those who were cast down and afflicted; now He has wiped away the tears of the mourners, the conspiracy of the impious being extinguished. Those who had insulted God lie low; those who had overthrown the holy temple have fallen in a greater ruin; those who tortured the just have poured out their guilty souls amid heavenly plagues and deserved torments. Late indeed, but grievously and worthily. For God had deferred their punishments, that He might display in them great and marvellous examples, by which posterity might learn both that God is one, and that the same Judge inflicts due punishments on the impious and on persecutors.
Concerning whose end it has seemed good to bear witness, so that all who were far removed, or who shall come hereafter, may know to what extent the most high God displayed His power and majesty in extinguishing and blotting out the enemies of His name. Yet it will not be beside the point if I set forth, from the very beginning since the Church was established, who were its persecutors, and with what punishments the severity of the heavenly Judge avenged itself upon them. In the last times of Tiberius Caesar, as we read it written, our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified by the Jews on the tenth day before the Kalends of April, in the consulship of the two Gemini.
When He had risen again on the third day, He gathered the disciples, whom the fear of His arrest had turned to flight, and, abiding with them forty days, He opened their hearts and interpreted the Scriptures, which until that time had been obscure and involved, and He ordained them and instructed them for the preaching of His teaching and doctrine, arranging the solemn discipline of the New Testament. When this office was fulfilled, a whirlwind of cloud wrapped Him about and, taking Him from the sight of men, caught Him up into heaven. And thereupon the disciples, who were then eleven, having taken Matthias and Paul into the place of Judas the traitor, were dispersed throughout the whole earth to preach the Gospel, as the Lord their Master had commanded them.
And for twenty-five years, up to the beginning of Nero's reign, they laid the foundations of churches throughout all the provinces and cities. And when Nero was now reigning, Peter came to Rome and, having performed certain miracles—which he did by the power of God Himself, by the authority given to him from Him—he converted many to righteousness and established for God a faithful and stable temple. When this matter was reported to Nero, since he observed that not only at Rome but everywhere a great multitude was daily falling away from the worship of idols and, condemning the old, was passing over to the new religion, then, abominable and harmful tyrant that he was, he sprang forth to cut down the heavenly temple and to destroy righteousness, and, the first of all to persecute the servants of God, he fixed Peter to a cross and put Paul to death.
Yet he did not go unpunished. For God looked upon the affliction of his people. And so, cast down from the pinnacle of empire and toppled from the heights, the powerless tyrant suddenly appeared nowhere at all, so that not even a place of burial for so wicked a beast was to be seen upon the earth. Hence certain deluded persons believe that he was carried off and kept alive, since the Sibyl declares that a matricide, fleeing, shall come from the ends of the earth, so that, having been the first to persecute, he may also be the last to persecute and may go before the coming of Antichrist; but it is impious to believe this.
Just as certain of the saints declare that two prophets were carried off alive into the last times, before the holy and everlasting kingdom of Christ, when He shall have begun to descend, so likewise they suppose that even Nero shall come, to be the forerunner and herald of the devil as he comes for the devastation of the earth and the overthrow of the human race. After this man, with some years intervening, there arose another tyrant no less wicked, Domitian. Although he wielded a hateful despotism, he nonetheless lay heavily upon the necks of his subjects for a very long time and reigned secure, until he stretched out his impious hands against the Lord. But after he was incited by the instigation of demons to persecute the righteous people, then, delivered into the hands of his enemies, he paid the penalty.
Nor was it enough for vengeance that he was slain in his own house; even the memory of his name was blotted out. For although he had built many marvelous works, and had erected the Capitol and other famous monuments, the Senate so pursued his name that no traces of his inscriptions were left, and by its decrees it branded a mark upon him, even in death, unto everlasting disgrace.
When therefore the acts of the tyrant had been annulled, the Church was not only restored to its former state, but shone forth far more brightly and flourishingly; and in the times that followed, in which many good princes held the helm and governance of the Roman empire, the Church, suffering no assaults from her enemies, stretched out her hands toward the East and the West, so that now there was no corner of the earth so remote that the religion of God had not penetrated it, no nation at last living in manners so savage that, upon receiving the worship of God, it did not grow gentle unto the works of righteousness. But afterward the long peace was broken. For after very many years there arose an execrable creature, Decius, who harassed the Church; for who but a wicked man would persecute righteousness?
And as if for this very purpose he had been raised to that supreme pinnacle, he straightway began to rage against God, that he might straightway fall. For having set out against the Carpi, who had then occupied Dacia and Moesia, he was at once surrounded by the barbarians, and being slain together with a great part of his army, he could not even be honored with burial, but stripped and naked, as befitted an enemy of God, he lay as food for the beasts and birds. Not long after, Valerian also, seized by a like madness, stretched out his impious hands against God, and in a short time shed much innocent blood. But God afflicted him with a new and singular kind of punishment, that he might be a lesson to posterity that the adversaries of God always receive a recompense worthy of their crime.
This man, taken captive by the Persians, lost not only the empire which he had used so insolently, but also the liberty which he had taken from others, and lived most disgracefully in slavery. For Sapor, king of the Persians, the very one who had captured him, whenever he wished to mount a vehicle or a horse, would order the Roman to bow down and offer his back; and setting his foot upon his back, he would say that this was the truth, reproaching him with a laugh, not what the Romans painted on their tablets or walls. Thus that man, most fittingly led in triumph, lived for some time, so that for a long while the Roman name was a mockery and a derision to the barbarians.
This too was added to his punishment: that although he had a son who was emperor, he yet found no avenger of his captivity and his utmost servitude, nor was he ever sought back at all. But after he had ended his shameful life in that disgrace, his skin was flayed off, and the hide, stripped from the flesh, was dyed with a red color, that it might be set up in the temple of the barbarians' gods as a memorial of that most illustrious triumph, and might ever be displayed to our envoys, lest the Romans should trust too much in their own strength, when they beheld the remains of a captive emperor among their gods.
Since therefore God exacted such penalties from the sacrilegious, is it not astonishing that anyone afterward dared not only to act, but even to plot, against the majesty of the one God who rules and contains all things? Aurelian, who was by nature frenzied and headlong, although he remembered the captivity of Valerian, yet, forgetting his crime and his punishment, provoked the wrath of God by cruel deeds. But he was not even permitted to carry out what he had devised, but was straightway extinguished at the very beginning of his fury. His bloody edicts had not yet reached the more distant provinces, and already at Caenophrurium, a place in Thrace, he himself lay bloody upon the ground, slain by his own friends through a certain false suspicion.
By such and so many examples the tyrants that came after ought to have been restrained; but these were not only not terrified, but acted even more boldly and confidently against God. Diocletian, who was the inventor of crimes and the contriver of evils, while he was ruining everything, could not keep his hands even from God. This man overturned the whole world both by avarice and by cowardice. For he made three partners in his rule, dividing the world into four parts, and multiplying the armies, since each of them strove to have a far greater number of soldiers than former princes had possessed when they alone governed the state.
So far had the number of those who received begun to exceed the number of those who gave, that, the resources of the farmers being consumed by the enormity of the levies, the fields were deserted and cultivated land turned into forest. And that all things might be filled with terror, the provinces too were cut into fragments; many governors and more bureaus pressed upon individual regions and now almost upon individual cities; likewise many fiscal agents and masters and deputies of the prefects—under all of whom civil affairs were exceedingly rare, but only condemnations and proscriptions frequent, exactions of countless things, I will not say frequent, but perpetual, and in those exactions intolerable injuries. These things too—how can they be borne, those which concern the furnishing of soldiers?
The same man, with insatiable avarice, never wished his treasuries to be diminished, but was always heaping up extraordinary wealth and largesses, that he might keep whatever he stored away whole and untouched. The same man, when by his various iniquities he had made an immense scarcity, attempted to fix by law the prices of things for sale; then over trifling and cheap goods much blood was shed, nor did anything for sale appear, out of fear, and the scarcity blazed up far worse, until the law, after the destruction of many, was repealed by the very necessity of the case. To this was added a certain boundless passion for building, no less an exaction upon the provinces in furnishing workmen and craftsmen and wagons, and whatever things are necessary for constructing works.
Here a basilica, here a circus, here a mint, here an arms factory, here a house for his wife, here one for his daughter. Suddenly a great part of the city is demolished. All were migrating with their wives and children, as if the city had been taken by enemies. And when these things had been completed, with the ruin of the provinces, "They have not been done rightly," he would say; "let them be done another way." Again it was necessary to tear down and alter, perhaps to fall once more. Thus he was forever raving, striving to make Nicomedia equal to the city of Rome. I now pass over how many perished for the sake of their possessions or their wealth. For this was customary and, by the habit of the wicked, almost permitted.
But in this the chief thing was that, wherever he had seen a more cultivated field or a more ornate building, a false accusation and a capital penalty were already prepared for the owner, as though he could not seize what belonged to others without bloodshed. What of his brother Maximian, who was called Herculius? Not unlike him: for they could not cohere in so faithful a friendship, unless there were in both one mind, the same thinking, an equal will, a like opinion. In this only did they differ, that in the one there was greater avarice but more cowardice, while in the other there was less avarice but more spirit—not for doing good, but for doing evil.
For although he held Italy itself, the seat of empire, and most opulent provinces lay beneath him, whether Africa or Spain, he was not so diligent in guarding wealth, of which an abundance was at his disposal. And when there was need, there were not lacking very rich senators who, by suborned informers, were said to have aspired to the empire, so that the lights of the Senate were continually being dug out. The most bloody treasury overflowed with wealth ill gotten. Moreover, lust in this pestilent man extended not only to corrupting males—which is hateful and detestable—but even to violating the daughters of the foremost men. For wherever he had made his journey, virgins were torn from their parents' embrace and at once made ready for him.
By these things he judged himself happy, in these he thought the felicity of his empire to consist, if he denied nothing to his lust and his evil desire. I pass over Constantius, since he was unlike the rest and worthy to hold the world alone. But the other Maximian, whom Diocletian had taken to himself as a son-in-law, was worse not only than these two whom our times have felt, but than all the wicked men who ever were. In this beast there was a natural barbarity, a savagery foreign to Roman blood: no wonder, since his mother, fleeing from beyond the Danube when the Carpi were harassing it, had crossed the river into New Dacia. His body too was in keeping with his character: a lofty stature, vast flesh spread out and swollen to a horrendous size.
In short, by his words, his deeds, and his very appearance he was a terror and a dread to all. His father-in-law too feared him most keenly, and the cause of this fear was as follows: Narseus, king of the Persians, stirred by the domestic example of his grandfather Sapor, was gaping after the occupation of the East with great forces. Then Diocletian, being, as he always was in every commotion, timid and downcast in spirit, and at the same time fearing the example of Valerian, did not dare to march against him, but sent this man through Armenia, while he himself remained in the East, watching for the outcome of events.
He, employing an ambush, easily overwhelmed the barbarians—whose custom it is to go to war with all their people—impeded as they were by their multitude and burdened with their baggage; and having put King Narseus to flight, he returned with plunder and immense spoils, bringing himself arrogance and Diocletian fear. For after this victory he was lifted up into such great pride that he now scorned the name of Caesar. And when he had heard this in a letter sent to him, he would cry out with a savage countenance and a terrible voice, "How long Caesar?" Thereafter he began to act most insolently, wishing to be both seen and called as begotten of Mars, like another Romulus, and he preferred to defame his mother Romula with the charge of adultery, that he himself might seem to spring from the gods.
But I defer speaking of his deeds, lest I confuse the chronology. For after he had received the name of emperor, his father-in-law being stripped of it, then at last he began to rage and to despise all things. Diocles—for so he was called before his reign—when he was overturning the state by such counsels and such associates, when for his crimes he deserved nothing good, nonetheless reigned for a very long time in the greatest felicity, so long as he did not stain his hands with the blood of the righteous. But what cause he had for persecuting, I will set forth. When he was passing his time in the parts of the East, being, in keeping with his fearfulness, a searcher into things to come, he was sacrificing cattle and seeking the future in their livers.
Then indeed certain of his servants, who knew the Lord, while they stood by as he sacrificed, placed upon their foreheads the immortal sign; and when this was done, the demons being put to flight, the rites were thrown into confusion. The soothsayers trembled, nor did they see the accustomed marks in the entrails, and, as though they had not propitiated the gods, they sacrificed again and again. But the victims, slain repeatedly, showed nothing, until at last that master of the soothsayers, Tagis, whether by suspicion or by sight, declared that the rites did not respond for this reason: that profane men were present at the divine affairs.
Then, raging with anger, he commanded not only those who ministered at the rites, but all who were in the palace, to sacrifice; and he ordered that, if they refused, they should be chastised with scourges; and having sent letters to the commanders, he directed that the soldiers too be compelled to the abominable sacrifices, so that those who did not obey should be discharged from military service. Thus far his fury and his anger proceeded, nor did he do anything further against the law or the religion of God. Then, after some time had intervened, he came into Bithynia to winter, and thither at that time Maximian Caesar also came, inflamed with crime, to instigate the vain old man to persecute the Christians—he who had already made a beginning. The cause of this fury I have learned to have been the following.
His mother was a worshipper of the mountain gods, and being a most superstitious woman, she sacrificed with banquets almost daily and set out feasts for her fellow villagers. The Christians abstained, and while she feasted with the heathen, they devoted themselves to fastings and prayers. Hence she conceived a hatred against them, and by womanish complaints she incited her son, no less superstitious, to do away with these people. So, after they had held counsel between themselves throughout the whole winter, while no one was admitted and all supposed that matters of the highest concern to the state were being discussed, for a long while the old man resisted his fury, showing how pernicious it would be for the world to be disturbed and the blood of many to be shed; that those people were wont to die gladly.
It would be enough, he said, if he merely forbade the palace officials and the soldiers from that religion. Yet he could not turn aside the madness of the headlong man. It was resolved therefore to try the opinion of their friends. For such was his malice: when he had resolved to do something good, he did it without counsel, that he himself might be praised; but when something evil, since he knew it would be censured, he summoned many into council, that whatever he himself had done amiss might be ascribed to the fault of others. A few judges therefore were admitted, and a few of the military, and they were questioned in the order of their rank.
Some, out of their own hatred against the Christians, judged that the enemies of the gods and the foes of the public religions should be destroyed; and those who thought otherwise, having understood the man's will, whether out of fear or wishing to gratify him, agreed in the same opinion. Yet not even thus was the emperor bent to give his assent, but he resolved above all to consult the gods, and sent a soothsayer to the Milesian Apollo. He, as an enemy of the divine religion, answered accordingly. He was thus drawn away from his purpose, and since he could resist neither his friends nor Caesar nor Apollo, he attempted to maintain this moderation: that he ordered the matter to be carried out without bloodshed, whereas Caesar wished those who resisted the sacrifice to be burned alive.
A suitable and auspicious day for carrying out the matter is sought, and the Terminalia are chiefly chosen, which fall on the seventh day before the Kalends of March, so that, as it were, an end might be set to this religion. That day was the first of death and the first cause of the evils which befell both them and the whole world. When that day had dawned, both old men being in their eighth and seventh consulship, suddenly, while the light was still doubtful, the prefect came to the church with generals and tribunes and fiscal officers, and the doors having been torn off, the image of God is sought, the Scriptures that are found are burned, plunder is given to all, there is snatching, panic, and running to and fro.
But they themselves, in their watch-towers—for the church, being set on high, was visible from the palace—long contended between themselves whether fire ought rather to be set under it. The opinion of Diocletian prevailed, who took care lest, a great fire being made, some part of the city should be burned. For many and great houses surrounded it on every side. The praetorians therefore came in battle array with axes and other iron tools, and being sent in from every quarter, in a few hours they leveled that most lofty sanctuary to the ground.
On the next day an edict was published, by which it was provided that the men of that religion should be deprived of all honor and rank, should be subjected to tortures, from whatever order or grade they came; that every legal action should be valid against them, while they themselves could bring no suit concerning injury, nor adultery, nor goods taken away; and that in short they should have neither liberty nor a voice. A certain man, though not rightly, yet with great spirit, tore down and rent that edict, saying with mockery that the victories of the Goths and Sarmatians had been set forth. And being at once led off, he was not only racked, but even, as it were lawfully, roasted, and with admirable patience was at last burned to death. But Caesar was not content with the laws of the edict; he prepares to assail Diocletian in another way.
For in order to drive him to the design of a most cruel persecution, by secret agents he set fire to the palace; and when a certain part had burned down, the Christians were accused as public enemies, and amid immense odium the name of the Christians blazed together with the palace: that they, having held counsel with the eunuchs concerning the assassination of the princes, had plotted that two emperors should be burned nearly alive in their own house. But Diocletian, who always wished to seem shrewd and discerning, could suspect nothing, but inflamed with anger, he straightway ordered all his own people to be tortured. He himself sat and roasted innocent men with fire.
Likewise all the judges, and finally all the masters who were in the palace, having been given authority, applied torture. They were vying to see who should first discover something: nothing anywhere was found, since indeed no one tortured Caesar's household. He himself was present and pressed on, nor did he suffer the wrath of the inconsiderate old man to burn itself out. But after fifteen days had intervened, he contrived another fire, but it was more quickly detected, and yet no author appeared. Then Caesar, having prepared his departure in the middle of winter, burst forth on that same day, declaring that he was fleeing lest he be burned alive. The emperor therefore raged now not only against his household, but against all; and first of all he compelled his daughter Valeria and his wife Prisca to be defiled by sacrifice.
The eunuchs, once most powerful, through whom both the palace and he himself had formerly stood firm, were put to death; presbyters and ministers were seized, and condemned without any proof or confession, and led away together with all their households. People of every sex and age were dragged off to be burned, and not singly—since the multitude was so great—but in herds they were encircled with fire set round about; household servants were drowned in the sea with millstones tied to their necks. Nor did the persecution press any less violently upon the rest of the people. For the judges, dispersed through all the temples, compelled everyone to the sacrifices.
The prisons were full; unheard-of kinds of tortures were devised; and lest justice should be administered to anyone rashly, altars were set up in the council-chambers and before the tribunal, so that litigants should first sacrifice and so plead their cases—thus one approached the judges as though approaching the gods. Letters too had gone to Maximian and Constantius, that they should do the same, whose opinion in such great matters had not been awaited. And indeed old Maximian willingly obeyed throughout Italy, a man not very merciful. For Constantius, lest he should seem to dissent from the precepts of his elders, allowed the meeting-houses—that is, the walls, which could be restored—to be torn down, but kept unharmed the true temple of God, which is in men.
The whole earth therefore was harassed, and except for the Gauls, from the East even to the West three most savage beasts raged. Not, had I a hundred tongues and a hundred mouths and a voice of iron, could I comprehend all the forms of their crimes, nor run through all the names of their punishments, which the judges throughout the provinces inflicted upon the righteous and the innocent. But what need is there to narrate those things especially to you, dearest Donatus, who beyond all others have experienced the storm of that turbulent persecution?
For when you had fallen into the hands of Flaccinus the prefect, no small murderer, then into those of Hierocles, a governor risen from a deputyship, who was the author and counselor in carrying out the persecution, and finally into those of Priscillianus his successor, you furnished to all a proof of invincible fortitude. For nine times subjected to tortures and various torments, nine times did you vanquish the adversary by a glorious confession; in nine battles you overcame the devil with his satellites; with nine victories you triumphed over the world with its terrors. How delightful was that spectacle to God, when He beheld you as victor subjugating to your chariot not white horses or huge elephants, but the very triumphers themselves!
This is the true triumph, when the dominators are dominated. For they were conquered and subjugated by your virtue, since, despising their abominable command, you overthrew all the apparatus and terrors of tyrannical power by steadfast faith and strength of soul. Nothing against you availed—not the lashes, not the iron claws, not the fire, not the sword, not the various kinds of tortures: no force could take from you your faith and your devotion. This is to be a disciple of God; this is to be a soldier of Christ, whom no enemy may conquer, whom no wolf may snatch from the heavenly camp, whom no snare may ensnare, whom no pain may overcome, whom no torment may crush.
Finally, after those nine most glorious battles, in which the devil was conquered by you, he did not dare to contend with you further, having found by so many combats that you could not be overcome. And when a victorious crown had been prepared for you, he ceased to provoke you any more, lest you should now seize it; which, though you have not received it in the present, is yet kept whole and reserved for you, for your virtues and merits, in the kingdom of the Lord. But let us return to the order of events. This crime therefore having been perpetrated, Diocletian, when felicity had now departed from him, proceeded at once to Rome to celebrate the day of his twentieth anniversary, which was to fall on the twelfth day before the Kalends of December.