After the narration of the passions of very many martyrs that occurred under Diocletian and Maximian and their successors—namely Maximinus, Licinius, and Maxentius—we return to the history of those emperors.
Eusebius speaks thus in Book VIII of the Ecclesiastical History concerning Diocletian and Maximian:
When at length, satiated not by reason or humanity but by the very great excess of their cruelty, they began to look back upon the enormity of their crime—cities desolated of citizens, the rights of towns stripped of their inhabitants, fathers bereaved of sons, and parents of children—they turned themselves toward clemency and humanity.
They published an imperial edict that, because it was not right for so many citizens in whom there was an obstinate persuasion of their faith to be delivered to death, it was resolved that thereafter this race of people should by no means be subjected to destruction.
Nevertheless, all who retained this hope of confession had their right eyes dug out with iron and the sinews at the left knee burned. Disabled in those sinews, they were transported through the several provinces to mines of bronze and iron, or to works of the utmost labor.
This was the imperial clemency by which the best citizens were provided for.
Because the Lord had indeed delivered his household to be chastised by a few, but the ministers of bloody savagery raged against many, God’s avenging right hand was immediately present.
It brought those who had formerly governed the empire and the Church in peace with every prosperity into so great a reversal of affairs that the Augustus Diocletian arrived at such vanity and madness that, after laying down the insignia of the kingdom together with his colleague, the Augustus Maximian Herculius, they afterward lived as private persons and plebeians.
Hugh, however, says that Diocletian forced the unwilling Maximian to lay aside the purple and the empire with him, so that, after younger men had been placed over the republic, they themselves might grow old in private dress.
Thus on one day Diocletian at Nicomedia and Maximian at Milan laid down the empire.
Then Galerius Maximinus and Constantius, father of Constantine, who previously had been Caesars, were created Augusti. In two administrations, namely East and West, they divided the Roman Empire.
Galerius Maximinus held Illyricum, Asia, and the East. Constantius, however, a man of the greatest mildness and civility, was content with Gaul and Spain alone and ceded the remaining regions to Galerius.
Galerius Maximinus then chose two Caesars after himself: Maximinus, whom he placed in the East, and Severus, whom he established in Italy; he himself was established in Illyricum.
Eusebius nevertheless says in his Chronicle that Galerius began to rule in the year of the Lord 300 and in the year of the world 4,270, and that he held the empire alone for two years.
In the Ecclesiastical History he likewise says that the one who was second to the Augustus in honor and afterward also first among his successors was the instigator and standard-bearer of our persecution, namely Galerius.
In the Western Regions. § I
In the western regions Constantius, father of Constantine, governed the empire. He used much clemency toward human beings and the greatest religious devotion toward God.
As Sozomen relates in the Tripartite History, this Constantius wished to test certain men in his palace to learn whether they were good and steadfast men.
He commanded that those who would come to sacrifice and worship his gods should remain about him and in his military service. But if they refused, they should depart from the palace, giving thanks that they were by no means punished.
When men of both kinds therefore appeared—some deserters of religion and others preferring divine things to present things—he decided to use as friends and counselors those who had remained faithful and steadfast in the better things.
He expelled the others from his company as effeminate men, believing that those who were such shameful traitors to their own God would never be devoted to a prince.
Thus, as Eusebius says in the place cited above, this Constantius neither stained his kingdom with the blood of the pious through the rage of his colleagues nor, imitating the greatest madness, destroyed our houses of prayer and meeting places by hostile devastation. Rather, he held God’s worshipers in veneration and honor.
Therefore, as a religious father, he deservedly left his more religious son Constantine as heir to his allotted kingdom.
As Hugh says, Constantine was established emperor in Britain by God’s will while Maximian Galerius was still ruling in the regions of the East.
Licinius, who was Constantine’s kinsman, having Constantine’s sister as his wife, was by the common decision of all summoned to the empire and proclaimed Augustus, as Eusebius attests in Book VIII of the Ecclesiastical History.
This event gravely offended Maximinus, because he was then still regarded merely as Caesar in the regions of the East. Unable to endure it any longer, he violently assumed for himself the name of Augustus.
This Maximinus later advanced to war against Licinius for several years and at last was overcome and killed by Licinius.
Maximian, however—Herculius, according to Eusebius in the place cited above—whom we recorded a little earlier as having been Diocletian’s colleague and having laid down the insignia of the empire with him, had usurped the name and dominion of Augustus with the favor of certain men while his son Maxentius held a tyranny in the city of Rome.
After being expelled, he fled to Constantine as to his son-in-law, seeking mercy. Although Constantine received him honorably, Maximian contrived plots against him. Shamefully detected in them, he perished still more shamefully, so that after his death his statues and images were removed and the titles bearing his name were changed in public buildings.
Hugh agrees with this, though he speaks more briefly. He says that the persecutor Maximian Herculius, wishing again to seize the empire he had cast aside, was crushed and extinguished at Massilia by Constantine, who was not yet sole emperor.
Hugh also adds that Galerius—namely the Augustus Maximinus—sent Caesar Severus, whom he had created, to Italy with an army. When Severus had already besieged the city, he was deserted and betrayed through the crime of his soldiers and was killed at Ravenna.
Diocletian, having laid aside the imperial dignity, died at Salona.
The Aforementioned Maxentius. § II
The aforementioned Maxentius, son of Maximian, was made emperor at Rome by the praetorian soldiers and exercised tyranny.
As Eusebius says in the Ecclesiastical History, at first, as though prompted by the people’s favor toward him, he pretended to be a worshiper of our faith. On this account he ordered persecutions restrained and all injuries warded away from Christians.
But in all his other practices, in his life, or in his conduct, he displayed nothing that would at first appear Christian. He was entangled in so great a filth of shameful deeds and crimes that none of the worst offenses was foreign to his actions.
Finally, he commanded that the wives of senators and especially noble matrons be publicly dragged away and led to his lust. After violating them, he ordered them returned to their husbands; his lust had not so much been satisfied as shifted to another object.
So great a fear had oppressed the leading men and the people that they did not dare openly display even what they bore by force or fear. Groaning, they endured unaccustomed slavery, and fear kept them from thinking anything on behalf of liberty, while he was driven to slaughter not now by anger but by lust.
Finally, on a certain day he commanded his soldiers to go out through the public squares of the whole city and strike down with swords everyone they met, of whatever age and sex.
Innumerable multitudes of the Roman people were cut down by the weapons not of enemies but of citizens.
Senators, and especially those who appeared in the senate-house more distinguished by honors and riches, were punished and proscribed as criminals on fabricated charges.
He also added this summit to his crimes: he cultivated the practice of magic with the greatest zeal. Noble pregnant women were sought to perform its rites. Brought to the deadly ceremonies, they were split through the middle. Their little infants were seized, and their entrails, torn from their bodies, were examined.
Lions too were slaughtered, and by certain wicked contrivances and incantations composed through demonic art, wars were said to be warded off. It was believed that the right and divine sanction of his reign could be preserved through sacrilege.
To all these evils this was also added: all those who had been terrified by tyrannical cruelty throughout the other cities or the countryside, thinking that nothing was safe for their lives, abandoned their farms and went through hidden places and hiding holes.
Under him Catherine suffered, as was said above. It is no objection that he was made emperor at Rome, because afterward he went to the regions of the East. Constantine went against him, overcame and conquered him in war, and killed him.
Maximinus Galerius. § III
In the East and the regions of Egypt, Maximinus Galerius exercised tyranny with similar cruelty and madness in every respect. Each seemed to imitate the other in crimes, and it was uncertain to which one you ought more particularly to award the palms of shameful deeds.
Thus Maximinus, overflowing with pleasures, luxury, and every kind of dissipation, offered the most shameful examples to his soldiers. No town, however small, passed without adultery with noble matrons found in those places or the corruption of virgins.
Such and so great was this man, a public enemy of modesty, honor, justice, and all equity.
He also showed himself an enemy and persecutor of Christians, against whom he exercised such cruelty that he hastened to surpass his predecessors in crime.
He delighted to inflict fires, plates of metal, savage beasts, the depth of the sea, the cutting off of limbs, the digging out of eyes, and particular punishments upon individual members, although they were found more steadfast and strong in enduring than he was ingenious and crafty in devising.
Truly, because he was driven headlong by two most oppressive masters, lust and cruelty, there was at Alexandria a certain virgin named Dorothea. Born of a sufficiently noble family, abounding in immense riches and noble relatives, and possessing such glory of beauty and comeliness that she was believed to be a marvelous and special creation of God, she nevertheless strove to be more beautiful in the religion of her soul and the honor of her life, so that she might persevere as a virgin consecrated to God.
When Maximinus learned that she was a Christian and, according to his decrees, appeared more fit to be subjected to his lust than to punishment, he solicited the virgin for sexual violation through secret messengers.
[Running heads: Chapter Two, Folio 267; Eighth Title.]
Dorothea replied that it was an abomination for her to pollute the temple of her body, which she had consecrated to God, by the worship of idols or by the contagion of lust. She was prepared for death, and it was not fitting for a cruel tyrant to offer anything flattering or gentle.
When he burned with libidines [read: libidine, lust] for her still more fiercely and, because she had not yielded to words, decided to act by force, the most chaste virgin abandoned all her resources, house, and household. By night she secretly departed with a few most faithful servants and with chastity, her dearest friend, leaving behind the deluded tyrant, vain and mad.
He had attacked very many other noble women and virgins at the same time. Nevertheless, made readier by Dorothea’s example for death than for the servitude of lust, he ordered them afflicted with cruel torments.
In this manner Maximinus and Maxentius, in East and West alike, armed as though by one demonic spirit and inflamed by the same vices in equal measure, raged as tyrants.
Eusebius likewise adds in the Ecclesiastical History:
After Maximinus’s cruelty—crassata [read: grassata, having raged]—had attacked the Christians for ten years, divine vengeance seized the very author of the crimes.
He who had walked proudly with fat and well-fed flesh was suddenly distended by swollen and suppurating bowels. Then, because a wound arose in the deeper parts of his breast, his entire inward recess of entrails was devoured by a spreading corruption.
Afterward an innumerable multitude of worms also began to boil forth through certain fistulas with prurulentis [read: purulentis, purulent] passages upon the surface. The stench was so intolerable that absolutely no one, not even any of the physicians, could approach nearer.
Finally, he ordered most of the physicians killed because they could neither cure the disease nor endure the force of the stench.
When one of them stood by, more likely to be slaughtered than to practice medicine, he was inspired by God and said: “Why do you err, emperor, and think that what God inflicts can be withdrawn by human beings?
“This is not a human disease, nor is it cured by physicians. Remember how many things you have done against God’s servants and how impious and profane you have shown yourself toward the divine religion, and you will understand whence remedies must be sought for you.
“I indeed can die with the others, but you will not be cured by physicians.”
Then Maximinus first understood that he was a mere man. Remembering the enormity of his crimes, he confessed first of all that he had erred and acted impiously, and, as though penitent, began to make satisfaction to God.
He summoned those who obeyed him in their offices, wrote a law, and ordered it issued immediately: not only should persecution against the Christians cease and every injury be restrained, but they should also be permitted to rebuild their churches, so that, attending to their customary worship and entreaties, they might also beseech the Most High God for his health.
Then, as though after a very great storm the sun’s splendor had been restored to the lands, the leaders of our people began to frequent assemblies throughout each city, restore churches, hold councils, and renew priestly offices.
Hence there arose immense wonder among the gentiles at so great and sudden a reversal of affairs, so that wonder itself compelled them to confess that the Christians’ God was great and the only true God.
But Maximinus allowed our people to persist in peace for six months and no longer. He immediately contrived whatever he could obtain for disturbing it.
First, therefore, he attempted under certain pretexts to prohibit our people from gathering at the cemeteries.
Meanwhile, he believed that he had found the greatest possible occasion in this: at Antioch a certain newly consecrated image of Jupiter had been fashioned through certain magical arts and impure consecrations so as to deceive the eyes of those looking upon it, to appear to display certain wonders, and to utter responses.
This was asserted as certain to everyone and to the emperors themselves, and afterward it was affirmed that everyone had believed it.
That same god was said to have given responses that Christians should not dwell in the cities.
Then the rage of persecution against us was renewed once more. Meanwhile Maximinus, with the greatest urgency, established priests of the images and pontiffs throughout the individual cities and provinces. He enriched them with many honors and gifts and did absolutely everything diligently so as to anticipate everyone with his benefits and thereby make them more eager for the hatred and slaughter of Christians.
Certain acts were fabricated as though they had been conducted before Pilate concerning our Savior. In them every blasphemy against Christ was written down.
He ordered these acts sent by published edict throughout all the provinces of his kingdom and posted in individual cities, villages, and even rural districts. He also commanded that they be handed to the teachers of boys, so that, in place of the things they customarily dictated for meditation or memorization, they should deliver these things to the boys to be committed to memory.
Concerning the Impious Edicts of the Aforementioned Galerius Maximinus. § IV
Concerning the impious edicts of the aforementioned Galerius Maximinus, through whom the Lord inflicted many scourges upon the persecutors of the Christians, the same Eusebius says in Book IX of the Ecclesiastical History:
In a short time the most cruel tyrant stirred up so much against us that we suffered things far more savage and harsher than those before.
For when had the embassies of provinces and cities come against us? When had so many and such great imperial edicts arrived that the laws issued against us were even ordered cut into bronze tablets? When had schoolboys been ordered, for our reproach, to practice a composition concerning Pilate and Jesus, full of insults and blasphemies, and to recite it throughout the whole day?
In these laws, which he boasted would remain forever and had arrogantly inscribed in bronze against us, he declared that since the Christians had been expelled from the cities, the climate of the air had become favorable and the fertility of the earth more abundant.
Therefore, he said, it was rightly resolved, in gratitude to the immortal gods, that this hateful race of people be expelled from every place in which their majesty was worshiped.
God’s providence did not delay. While the impious edicts were still being sent throughout certain more distant cities, it curbed the arrogance of the tyrannical declaration, which had described joyful harvests and fields rich in fruit because the Christians had fled.
It restrained the rain in the clouds and left the crops arid and rendered sterile. The grass of the fields also withered, and not only did it deny fruit to human beings but fodder also to livestock. A foul and loathsome famine raged everywhere.
The climate of the air, which he had described as serving his impious actions, was changed into such corruption that human bodies were filled with the worst sores, which are called sacred fire, and also with those called carbuncles. They occupied people’s faces and eyes, so that if anyone escaped death from them, he was deprived of his sight.
Immense multitudes of men and women, and especially of children, also fell in heaps from other pestilential diseases.
The same Eusebius adds another thing to these evils: the Armenian people, formerly most useful and most friendly to the Roman people, was compelled by him to change the rite of the Christian religion, to which it was most devoted, into the worship of idols and to venerate demons in place of God.
Friends became enemies and allies became adversaries. They prepared to defend themselves by force against his wicked edicts and voluntarily to make war.
All these things, heaped up together, foolishly demanded from him the penalties of his arrogance, because he had boasted that, through the flight and persecution of the Christians, peace, an abundance of all things, and even a temperate climate served him.
Therefore, while he and his army were pressed violently and sharply in the Armenian war, a dreadful famine pitilessly ravaged the people throughout cities and villages.
In the cities such great multitudes fell each day that not even places for burial could be found.
Very many walked about so exhausted that they were thought more like images lacking flesh than human beings. With a hideous color and eyes sunken deep, they mutabundi [read: nutabundi, tottered] here and there in body and walked as though about to fall at any moment.
Meanwhile, throughout all public squares and narrow streets everything was filled with the corpses of the dead. There was no one at all to bury them, since even those who seemed still to survive were weakened by disease and as though about to die immediately.
From this arose a pitiable spectacle, so that very many were devoured by dogs.
This was the reward for Maximinus’s laws, for his arrogance and pride, and for his judgment concerning the Christians. This was the majesty of his piety toward God and of the religion he asserted had been delivered from heaven.
Those who seemed to survive, pressed by need, all began to cry out and voluntarily to invoke the piety and mercy of the Christians. Those whom a little earlier they had driven as exiles from country and home they now humbly entreated, according to their usual practice, to bring them assistance and food.
The peoples on our side, over whom—what was most marvelous to everyone—by God’s grace neither famine nor plague had held dominion in any respect, were mindful of no injury at all.
Instructed by the Lord’s precepts to show their accustomed mercy toward enemies, each strove to contribute food according to his ability and to support and refresh those who were perishing.
They began not only to share food with them but also to share their affection. From this even small things seemed sufficient to the needy, because they were offered with great loving piety.
They also cared, by diligent and frequent visitation, for those who labored under the contagion of disease, whom none of the gentiles or even their relatives visited. They suffered no harm at all through the contagion, since divine grace surrounded them.
They also furnished burial for the corpses of the dead and fulfilled the dues that belong to nature.
Thus, in a short time, by the mere entry of the Christians through villages and cities, the appearance of the evils was changed. By facts and deeds themselves, it wrote in everyone’s hearts that the Christians’ religion was true and pious, much more tenaciously than the tyrant had cut into bronze tablets that it was false.
Then, therefore, that which is written in Exodus appeared to be fulfilled: namely, that the Egyptians had palpable and thick darkness, but the children of Israel had light in all their dwellings.
Concerning Constantine’s Victory over Maxentius, Who Had Usurped the Empire for Himself. § V
Hugh of Fleury speaks thus concerning Constantine’s victory against Maxentius, who had usurped the empire for himself:
When Constantine was passing the seventh year of his reign, he prepared for war against Maxentius, who, as was said, was adorned with the worst conduct. Constantine was not yet baptized, and his colleague Licinius cooperated with him.
As he proceeded there and considered many things within himself concerning the necessity of the impending war and the approaching battle, he saw in sleep the sign of the holy cross shining in heaven with a fiery radiance, and angels standing beside him and saying: “Constantine, in this sign you shall conquer.”
Cassiodorus relates this more fully in Book I of the Tripartite History, saying:
Eusebius Pamphilus relates that he heard the emperor himself say with an oath that, around midday, when the sun was now declining, he saw the sign of the cross made from light and an inscription joined to it saying, “Conquer in this.”
The emperor himself and the soldiers who were then with him saw it. For, he says, when he was going somewhere with the army, this miracle was shown to him and to them alike.
While he considered what he should do, night came on. As he slept, Christ appeared to him with the sign he had seen in heaven and ordered that an image of that sign be made, which would be an aid in the encounters of battles.
When there was now no need for an interpreter, but it had been openly shown to the emperor what it was fitting to believe concerning God, as soon as day came he summoned Christ’s priests and consulted them concerning the doctrine.
They brought forward the sacred books, spoke concerning Christ, and confirmed their statements from the prophets.
They said that the sign which had appeared to him was the trophy of Christ’s victory against hell.
Therefore Constantine, as Hugh says, painted the sign he had seen upon the military standards. He then transformed the standard they call the labatum [read: labarum] into the shape of a cross. Thus instructed and armed, with great hope of victory he hastened on his way to fight against Maxentius.
Maxentius came out against him in hostility across a bridge composed of boats. He had ordered the river covered with boats arranged as a discipulam [read: decipulam, trap] and leveled by planks placed upon them.
But while each side fought and Maxentius’s armies were laid low by the power of the holy cross, Maxentius, wishing to return to the city in flight, mounted the bridge composed of boats, as we said.
Suddenly the boats sank, and he, by the fall of his horse, was submerged in the depth of the riverbed.
Thus, by the death of his wicked head, he redeemed the slaughter the war was going to bring.
Constantine then entered the city of Rome in triumph. Thus the empire of the whole West as far as the ocean came to Constantine and Licinius.
When Constantine had been received in the city, the senate immediately erected images in honor of his triumph. Constantine had the standard of the holy cross depicted in his right hand and an inscription beneath it declaring this to be the vincibile [read: invincibile, invincible] sign of the living God.
At the Same Time. § VI
At the same time, as Eusebius says in the Ecclesiastical History, Licinius also cooperated with Constantine, for he had not yet fallen into that madness into which he later slipped.
Knowing and professing that God was the author of all good things for them, they established a law by one and the same decree. In it they extolled the Christians’ God with the fullest praises, professed him to be the author of every virtue and work, and confessed that he had granted them victory over the tyrant and therefore that veneration and worship ought to be offered to him by all.
They also sent this law to Maximinus, who then ruled in the regions of the East and seemed to seek their friendship.
[Running heads: Chapter Two, Folio 268; Eighth Title.]
Terrified by the emperors’ great deeds, Maximinus did not dare resist, even if the things being written seemed contrary to him and foreign to the purpose of his mind.
Yet, yielding unwillingly to another’s authority, he was ashamed to appear to have come to this position. Therefore, at first still fierce in mind, he granted only what fear extorted and changed his disposition in no respect, until divine vengeance brought fitting blows upon him.
For, although he had presumed upon the name of Augustus or the empire contrary to his merit, he was also exalted against his partners in the kingdom, in whom royal training shone with integrity of conduct and the grace of religion.
He therefore first dared to set himself before them in honor. Not long afterward, breaking the treaty, he attempted to make war upon Licinius.
Concerning Licinius’s Victory over Maximinus
As Hugh of Fleury says, Licinius therefore departed from Rome and prepared to defeat him.
When Maximinus’s army had now fallen by Licinius’s sword, the part that survived saw its emperor stripped of divine favor and submitted itself to Licinius.
Maximinus himself, Galerius, when he saw that he had been deceived by his gods and abandoned by human beings, fled shamefully and faithlessly.
But while he was restoring his army and wished to engage a second time with the enemy, he was seized by pains in his internal organs and began to be so violently tormented that he could not even lie upon a bed.
“Then,” says Eusebius in the place cited above, “the gluttonous man who was always filled with wine could not now receive even food to taste with the tips of his lips, or take wine so far as its odor.
“Thus, when his flesh had been consumed by hunger and dryness, the unhappy man accomplished only this: placed at the end of his life, he confessed that God’s judgment was just and that he deservedly paid the penalties of his crimes.”
At last, after first losing his sight through the disease, and then pondering still more what impiety he had committed against Christ, he made an end of living.
After the death of the man who had exercised unheard-of cruelty against the Christians and now practiced a feigned pardon, the condition of the churches began to be restored under the open permission of lawful princes, more splendid even than it had been before.
Then repentance for their final savagery came upon the enemies of the faith, so that their very appearance in public shamed them.
For first Maximinus himself was pronounced a tyrant and impious man, hateful to God and human beings, by imperial edicts.
His painted panels or bronze images were also ordered destroyed and cast down; some were effaced after being daubed with black colors.
His judges, whom he had used as ministers of crimes under tyrannical rule, were ordered killed by the lawful princes as high priests of his impiety and cruelty.
To these were also added his sons, whom he had already assumed as partners in the empire. Licinius likewise afflicted with equal punishments his relatives and those who, on account of kinship of this kind, had polluted themselves as most oppressive men toward citizens and provincials.
Concerning Licinius’s Envy of Constantine’s Glory, His Persecution of the Christians, and the War He Began against Constantine, in Which Constantine Defeated and Killed Him. § VII
Finally, says Hugh of Fleury, it is incredible to relate how broadly throughout the whole world the Church grew in a short time through Constantine’s zeal, and with how great a concern he burned for the expense of churches that were to be built.
For while churches were being built throughout his whole empire by public edict, he himself contributed money most abundantly from the royal treasuries for carrying this out.
Thus, while by such simplicity, as Eusebius says in the Ecclesiastical History, the glory of the churches advanced before God and human beings, and a certain image of heavenly things was held upon earth, the religious prince Constantine, growing each day in faith and religion, was filled with ineffable joy at the churches’ advancement, as will be said more fully in the following title.
Because of all these things he was now honored by everyone not as an emperor but as a father.
Unhappy envy did not endure either that our people’s peace should increase through joyful successes or that his concern for us should continue undisturbed.
For Licinius, who at first, as though because of the integrity of his conduct, had not only been summoned by Constantine as though into partnership in the kingdom but also received into kinship through union—for he had taken Constantine’s sister in marriage—saw that Emperor Constantine ruled everyone not so much by force and fear as by love and religion, and that he was held in the highest veneration by all mortals, especially Christians.
Struck with envy, Licinius prepared to deceive him by secret plots. But Constantine, wholly trusting in God, protected himself against everything with that sign which had been shown to him from heaven. Through it he could be made subject to no plots.
Licinius, angered because Constantine was aided by the Christians’ prayers and therefore remained safe, was moved by foolish wrath. He declared open war upon the emperor, polluted the faith and fellowship of the kingdom, and prepared to persecute our people with a private and particular hatred.
Marking this as a grievance, he said that the Christians kept vigil in their solemnities and in the prayers handed down to them by command not so much for him as for Constantine.
Thus the situation was reversed. The man who a little earlier had punished most sharply those who in the time of the tyrants attempted anything cruel against the Christians now turned his weapons against our people.
First of all, he ordered any Christian to depart from his palace and be stripped of every military office.
After this the plague advanced, and by tyrannical edicts he decreed that all who professed themselves Christians should be cast into prison. Yet he immediately found something in which he might surpass the earlier cruelty.
He added to the edict that no one should bring food or drink to anyone sent into prison.
Finally, all who refused to acquiesce in polluted sacrifices were to be delivered not to torturers but to butchers, so that, suspended after the manner of pigs, they might cut them in pieces and cast the divided parts into the sea as food for fishes.
He also ordered that the churches which he himself had already caused to be built in his time by common edicts should in turn be overthrown.
Moreover, if any laws had been enacted well and honorably among the Romans by their ancestors, he overturned them into a barbarous practice.
He began to pursue avarice insatiably, renew property assessments, and fill with taxes lands empty of cultivators.
If he had sent any men into exile after they had been beset by hostile factions, he tore their wives from lawful marriages and joined them to his slaves and attendants.
He himself also, contrary to the powers of his age, began to delight in adulteries and the corruption of virgins.
After Licinius, says Hugh of Fleury, girded with arms of this kind, began to exercise tyranny, Constantine, adorned with true virtues, prepared to go against so many and such great shameful deeds.
There was no difficulty in the victory where the cause was more just, the faith purer, and the courage more eminent.
After battle was therefore joined in Bithynia [read: Thrace, near Tzirallum], Licinius was beheaded at Thessalonica.
Thus, when Licinius had been cast down and extinguished, Constantine, with marvelous success in wars, alone obtained the solidity of the Roman Empire.
Licinius died in the fourteenth year of his reign and about the sixtieth year of his life, a man of very severe spirit and a forceful tamer of eunuchs and courtiers. He called them the moths and mice of the palace.
Concerning the Contradictions That Appear about Constantine’s Deeds and Times. § VIII
First concerning Constantine himself, diverse writers hold various opinions about his faith and baptism.
Jerome, in the addition to the chronicles of Eusebius of Caesarea, says that at the end of his life Constantine had himself baptized by Eusebius, the Arian bishop of Nicomedia, and that he himself fell into the heresy of the Arians.
Ambrose speaks thus in his book On the Death of Theodosius: “Although the grace of baptism, given to Constantine at the end, remitted all his sins, nevertheless, because he was the first of the emperors to believe and afterward left the inheritance of faith to the rulers, he merited a place of great merit before God.”
From the deeds or legend of blessed Pope Sylvester, which is very widely known and regarded as authentic, it is held that, when Constantine had been infected with leprosy and could not be healed by the art of medicine, he was baptized at Rome by Pope Sylvester and thereby cleansed of the leprosy, as had been shown to him in a vision.
This third opinion is commonly held as the more pious one.
For Ambrose, who says that Constantine was of great merit before God, contradicts the first writers’ claim that he fell into heresy. A heretic is of no merit but is assigned to eternal damnation.
Therefore Pope Nicholas, writing to Emperor Louis, exhorts him to imitate Constantine, saying: “Just as you appear to be made equal to him in faith, religion, and equality of honor, so strive to be equaled to him in humility and devotion,” Distinction XCVI, chapter In Scripturis.
Gregory also calls him “of pious memory,” which is not said of a heretic, Cause XI, Question I, chapter Sacerdotibus.
Emperor Marcian also says: “We wish to attend the synod, following the example of the most religious prince Constantine, to confirm the faith, not to display power, so that, when the truth has been found, the multitude drawn by depraved doctrines may no longer be at variance,” Distinction XCVI, chapter Nos ad Fidem.
One who believes against the Christian religion cannot be called religious.
Eusebius also asserts in the Ecclesiastical History, as Vincent reports in Book XIV of the Speculum Historiale, that Emperor Constantine was baptized by Sylvester and cleansed of leprosy.
Marianus also says in his Chronicle that the Greeks call him a saint, have assumed him into the catalogue of saints, and celebrate a feast concerning him.
Isidore also says this.
Therefore, through a fault of writers or falsifiers—which is worse—it came about that this was said concerning Constantine which is most certain concerning his son Constantius: that he was an Arian, as will be said below.
The second doubt or second contradiction concerns the discovery of the cross.
In On Consecration, Distinction III, chapter Crucis, Pope Eusebius says that it was found while he presided in the See of Peter. Hence he commands that the very day on which it was found, namely the third day of May, be celebrated.
But in the legend of blessed Sylvester it is read that Helena, Constantine’s mother, went to Jerusalem after her son Constantine obtained the empire and was baptized by Sylvester.
Pope Eusebius was immediately before Pope Melchiades, who was immediately followed by Sylvester in the supreme pontificate.
Nevertheless, the common opinion is that Helena, Constantine’s mother, found the cross and that she went to Jerusalem for this reason, as the Church also sings and as will be said below.
If this is so, as appears, then what is said in On Consecration, Distinction III, chapter Crucis, erred in the name Eusebius.
Rufinus also, in Book X, which he added to Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History, says that the cross was found by Constantine’s mother Helena at Jerusalem, where she had gone to find it.
It could be said that after Constantine gained victory through the power of the cross against the tyrant Maximinus [read: Maxentius], although he had not then been converted to the faith, his mother Helena nevertheless went to Jerusalem to seek the cross.
This discovery occurred in the time of Pope Eusebius, a short time before Sylvester and Constantine’s conversion. For Eusebius immediately preceded Pope Melchiades, whom Sylvester succeeded, and those two, namely Eusebius and Melchiades, held the papacy for only a short time.
Vincent says in Book XIV, chapter XXIII, of the Speculum Historiale: “It is marvelous how the book of the deeds of the Roman pontiffs composed by Pope Damasus disagrees in many respects with other historians.
“For Eusebius of Caesarea, who was a writer of those things which he saw and heard—for he lived in Constantine’s time—says in his chronicles that Pope Eusebius lived in the time of Galerius and sat only six months, and after him Melchiades three years.
“Hence it does not appear that the cross was found under the private Eusebius but under Constantine.”
Rufinus also, in Book X of the Ecclesiastical History, after the Council of Nicaea celebrated under Constantine, relates that the holy cross of the Lord was sought and found by Saint Helena.
The third doubt concerns the donation made to the Church by Constantine, concerning which Distinction XCVI, chapter Constantinus, speaks. But that chapter is not contained in the ancient Decretals.
Therefore, what and how much he donated is not well established.
It nevertheless appears that at least that which Louis, king of the Franks and emperor, promised under oath to Pope Paschal and his successors was donated. This is treated in Distinction LXIII, chapter Ego Ludovicus.
Otto, the first emperor of the Germans, confirms it to Pope John in the same distinction, chapter Tibi.
But a question is still debated among canonists and jurists whether that donation had effect. The canonists affirm it altogether, and the theologians affirm it still more.
They also say that it was not simply a donation but rather a restitution to the Church of its own right, since all things belong to Christ’s dominion, whose vicar upon earth is the pope; the pope left the remaining things to temporal lords.
Flourishing in Those Times. § IX
In those times Pamphilus, a priest of Caesarea, flourished, outstanding in sanctity and conduct as well as in learning.
He had gathered such a quantity of books in his library that he surpassed all who had preceded him in this labor. Indeed, nearly thirty thousand volumes are said to have been gathered in it, as Jacobus de Columna relates.
Jerome speaks thus of him in his book On Illustrious Men: “Pamphilus, priest and intimate friend of Eusebius of Caesarea, burned with such divine love for a library that he copied with his own hand the greater part of Origen’s volumes, which are held to this day in the library at Caesarea.
“Among the Twelve Prophets I found twenty-five volumes written by his hand. I embrace and preserve them with such joy that I think I possess the Cresi [read: Croesi, riches of Croesus].”
Pamphilus also wrote an apology for Origen and was crowned with martyrdom at Caesarea under Emperor Maximinus.
[Running heads: Chapter Two, Folio 269; Eighth Title.]
After Sigebert, Vincent of Beauvais of the Order of Preachers continued the history as far as the year of the Lord 1242, while relating past deeds more fully in the Speculum Historiale. After him Jacobus de Columna of the same Order continued it as far as the year of the Lord 1340.
Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, flourished in Constantine’s time. As Jerome says in his book On Illustrious Men, he was a most zealous student of the divine Scriptures and, together with the martyr Pamphilus, a most diligent investigator of the divine library. He published innumerable volumes.
Among them are ten books on Isaiah. Against Porphyry, who, as some think, was writing in Sicily at the same time, he wrote twenty-five [read: thirty] books; six in defense of Origen; most learned commentaries upon the one hundred and fifty Psalms; three books on the life of Pamphilus; the books of the Ecclesiastical History; the canons of the chronicles; and a history of every kind.
Vincent adds in Book XIV, chapter XC, of the Speculum Historiale:
The aforementioned Eusebius wrote a history of the chronicles from the first year of Abraham as far as the year of the Lord 300.
Jerome, translating it from Greek into Latin, continued it farther, as far as the year of the Lord 380. Sigebert of Gembloux later continued it as far as the year of the Lord 1113.
Eusebius himself composed the Ecclesiastical History in ten books, from the Ascension of the Lord to Constantine’s victory against Maxentius.
Rufinus, priest of Aquileia, translated those books of the Ecclesiastical History from Greek into Latin. Because the tenth contained very little in narrated deeds, he omitted those things that seemed superfluous, joined whatever history it contained to the ninth book, and himself wrote and added the following two books, namely Books X and XI.
He continued the history from Constantine’s times after the persecution as far as the times of the Augustus Theodosius.
Moreover, as is read, the same Eusebius included in twenty books the passions of martyrs, bishops, confessors, and sacred virgins from almost all provinces.
Among the number of those pontiffs was Saint Sylvester, bishop of the city of Rome, whose life was translated from Greek into Latin by someone unknown to me. Thus far Vincent.
Jerome, writing to Chromatius and Heliodorus, relates that when the Augustus Constantine had entered Caesarea and the bishop of that city was told to request some benefits that would profit the church of Caesarea, Bishop Eusebius is read to have replied that the church, enriched by its own resources, was compelled by no necessity to request benefits for the church of Caesarea.
He nevertheless had one immovable desire: that, concerning whatever human acts had been done anywhere in the republic against God’s saints, successive judges throughout the whole Roman world should, by diligent investigation, examine the public records.
They should extract from the archives themselves which martyr, under which judge, in which province or city, on what day, and by what passion had obtained the palm of perseverance, and by royal command send the material to Eusebius himself.
Hence it came about that, proving himself a suitable reporter, he composed the ecclesiastical history of almost all the martyrs.
Concerning this Eusebius, Distinction XX, Sancta Romana, says thus:
“Although Eusebius of Caesarea was lukewarm in the first book of his narrative, and afterward he composed one book in praise and defense of Origen the schismatic, nevertheless, on account of their singular knowledge of matters that pertain to instruction, we do not say that they should be rejected altogether.”
In the same place it also says: “We bring forward with distinguished praise the paschal work of the venerable man Sedulius, who described the Gospel in heroic verse. Likewise, we do not reject the laborious work of Juvencus, but marvel at it.”
Around Those Times. § X
Around those times Lactantius shone forth. Jerome writes concerning him in his book On Illustrious Men:
Firmianus, who is also called Lactantius, a disciple of Arnobius, was summoned with Flavius the grammarian, whose book concerning medicine composed in verse survives. He taught rhetoric at Nicomedia and, because of a lack of pupils in a Greek city, devoted himself to writing.
We have his Symposium, which he wrote as a young man in Africa; an Adeporicum [read: Hodoeporicum, travel poem] from Africa as far as Nicomedia, written in exametris [read: hexametris, hexameter] verse; another book entitled The Grammarian; and the most beautiful book On the Wrath of God.
To his student Demetrius he wrote a book On the Workmanship of God, or On the Formation of the Human Being, and to the same man two books of letters. To Probus he wrote three books of letters; to Severus two books of letters; one book On the Persecution; and likewise seven books of the Divine Institutes against the Gentiles. Thus far Jerome.
In the aforementioned book of the Institutes, Lactantius most beautifully refutes the gentiles’ errors concerning the plurality of gods. He most lucidly proves the immortality of the soul and God’s providence against the Epicureans. He treats at length of the Father and of his incarnate Son.
He says nothing concerning the Holy Spirit, whence it appears that he did not know the Holy Spirit to exist.
In the final book of those Institutes, he shows himself to be among those who said that Christ, with his saints after the resurrection, would rejoice in bodily pleasures for a thousand years. This is determined to be a heresy in Cause XXIV, Question III, the penultimate chapter.
But because in that time this had not yet been determined by the Church, perhaps in this matter he and the others who held this opinion, drawing it from the authority of John’s Apocalypse but not understanding it correctly, were for that time excused from heresy.
Jerome says that in extreme old age this Lactantius was the teacher in Gaul of Caesar Cripsus [read: Crispus], Constantine’s son, who afterward was killed by his father.
In that time also, as Vincent attests at the end of Book XIV of the Speculum Historiale, there was the philosopher Porphyry. At first a gentile, he afterward became a Christian and then apostatized from the faith.
For, having been beaten by certain Christians at Caesarea in Palestine and not bearing the injury, he abandoned Christianity.
Thus Eusebius reproved him when he destroyed his arguments. For this Porphyry wrote against us, and Eusebius and Apollinaris replied to him, refuting his errors.
After a distinguished volume had been sent to Constantine, Publilius Optatianus Porfyrius—not the philosopher Porphyry—was recalled from exile.
Augustine, however, in his book The City of God, more forcefully destroys the falsehoods of his doctrine than the others. He also calls Porphyry the most learned of the philosophers but the Christians’ most bitter enemy.
Jacobus, surnamed the Wise, bishop of the city of Nisibis in Persia, also illuminated the Church with the light of sanctity and learning.
Jerome commends him thus in his book On Illustrious Men: “Jacobus of Nisibis is acknowledged, at whose prayers the city was often delivered from danger.”
He wrote many things: concerning the faith against all heresies; concerning charity; prayer; love toward one’s neighbor; the resurrection; life after death; humility; penance; Christ, that he is God’s Son and consubstantial with the Father; chastity; the kingdom of the Persians; and other subjects.
The source says that he was crowned with martyrdom under Maximian [read: he was a confessor under Maximinus and died under Constantius].
Colophon
The First Historical Part of Lord Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence, of the Order of Preachers, ends happily. Praise be to God.
[Running head: Eighth Title.]