ciently prescribed to them, which in all probability their ancestors had established, but they began to make and follow laws, each one according to his own purpose and his own will, and thus different multitudes assembled with different opinions and of different sects. Hence, when a decree of this kind was issued by us, that they should return again to the established usages of their forefathers, vast numbers were subjected to danger, many, when threatened, endured various kinds of death. But though we saw the great mass still persevering in their folly, and that they neither gave the honour that was due to the immortal gods, nor heeded that of the Christians, still having a regard to our clemency and our invariable practice, according to which we are wont to grant pardon to all, we most cheerfully have resolved to extend our indulgence in this matter also: that there may be Christians again, and that they may restore their houses in which they were accustomed to assemble, so that nothing be done by them contrary to their profession. In another epistle we shall point out to the judges, what they will be required to observe; whence, according to this condescension of ours, they are obligated to implore their God for our safety, as well as that of the people and their own. That in every place the public welfare may be preserved, and they may live unmolested in their respective homes and fire-hearths.

Such was the purport of this ordinance, which, according to our ability, we have translated from the Latin into the Greek.* But the affairs after this we are now farther to consider.

• Since writing the above notes, we have compared the original Latin edict, which is still preserved in Lanctantius, "de mortibus persecutorum." Our conjectures, as it regards style and phraseology, we have found considerably confirmed by this comparison. The Latinity, however, of the edict itself, savours of the degeneracy of the day. It is surprising, that neither Valesius nor his translator, Shorting, has noticed the edict as preserved by Lanctantius. And yet the former has struck upon the signification of, occurring twice in this edict.

[In some copies, this is appended to the eighth Book.
k.*]

BUT the author of this edict after this acknowledgment, soon after was liberated from his pains, and terminated his life. It is agreed he was the original cause of the miseries of the persecution, as he had long before the movements of the other emperors, attempted to seduce the Christian soldiers of his own house from their faith, degrading some from their military rank, and insulting others in the most abusive manner, even punishing some with death, and at last exciting his associate emperors to a general persecution against all. Nor have I thought proper, that the death of these emperors should be passed over in silence. As there were four, therefore, that held the sovereignty divided among them, those that were advanced in years and honours, after nearly two years from the persecution, abdicated the government, as we have already shown; and thus passing their days in common and retired life, ended their life in the following manner. The one, indeed, who preceded the others in honour and age, was at length overpowered by a long and distressing disease, but the next to him in dignity destroyed himself by strangling, suffering thus according to certain dæmoniacal prognostics, on account of the innumerable crimes that he had committed. But of the two after these, the last, whom we have mentioned as the leader of the whole persecution, suffered such things as we have already stated. But he that surpassed them all in kindness and condescension, the emperor Constantius, who had conducted his government the whole time consistently with the imperial dig. nity, and who exhibited himself a most gracious and benevolent prince in other respects, also, had no hand in raising the perse cution against us, but even protected and patronised those pious persons that were under him. He neither demolished the buildings of the churches, nor devised any thing in opposition to us;

• The two sections that here follow, are regarded as supplementary to the work. The first being an Appendix to the eighth Book, and the following one a preliminary to the Book of Martyrs. The statements at the head of each are from some of the copyists, as they are found in the most approved manuscripts.

and finally enjoyed a death really happy and blessed, being the only one of the four that in the midst of a tranquil and glorious reign, at his death, transmitted the government to his own son as his successor, a prince most eminent in all respects for his wisdom and piety. He, at the very beginning, was proclaimed supreme emperor and Augustus, by the armies, and exhibited himself a generous rival of his father's piety, with regard to us. Such then, was the issue of the life of the four emperors, at different times. Of these the only one that yet left the abovementined confession, was he whom we mentioned above, together with those whom he had afterwards associated with him in the government, which confession also, he sent abroad in his proclamation to all.

The following we also found appended to the eighth Book.

THIS was the eighth year of the reign of Diocletian, in the month of Xanthicus, which one would call April according to the Romans, about the time when the paschal festival of our Saviour took place, when Flavianus was governor of Palestine. Suddenly edicts were published every where to raze the churches to the ground, and to destroy the sacred Scriptures in the flames, to strip those that were in honour of their dignities, and to deprive the freedmen of their liberty if any persisted in the Christian profession. Such was the first violence of this edict against us; but it was not long before other mandates were issued, in which it was ordered that the prelates of the churches should first be cast into prison everywhere, and then compelled by every artifice to offer the sacrifice.

THE BOOK OF MARTYRS.

CHAPTER I.

Procopius, Alpheus, and Zaccheus.

THE first, therefore, of the martyrs of Palestine, was Procopius, who, before he was tried by imprisonment, was immediately at the beginning arraigned before the tribunal of the governor. When commanded to sacrifice to those called gods, he declared that he knew but one, to whom it was proper to sacrifice, as He himself had commanded; but when he was ordered to make libations to the four emperors, he uttered a sentence which did not please them, and was immediately beheaded. The sentence was from the poet: "A plurality of sovereigns is not good, let there be but one prince and one sovereign Lord."* This happened on the eighth of the month Desius, or as one would say with the Romans, the seventh before the Idest of June, the fourth day of the week. This was the first signal that was given at Cesarea in Palestine. After him many bishops in the same city, of the provincial churches, cheerfully struggled with dreadful tortures, and exhibited noble specimens of mighty conflicts. Some indeed, from excessive dread, broken down and overpowered by their terrors, sunk and gave way immediately at the first onset, but each of the rest experienced various kinds of torture. Some were scourged with innumerable strokes of the lash, others racked in their limbs and galled in their sides with torturing instruments, some with intolerable fetters, by which the joints of their

The words of Ulysses, in the Iliad, book ii. line 208. Ουκ αγαθον πολυκοιρανίη. Sentences from Homer were among the proverbs of the day. The same passage was on a certain occasion repeated by Domitian. See his Life by Suetonius, ch. 13.

The Romans had three divisions of the month, Calends, Nones, and Ides, and in marking the days they counted backwards. For the days given here, see any tabular view of the Roman calendar.

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hands were dislocated. Nevertheless they bore the event, as regulated by the secret determinations of God. One was seized by the hands, and led to the altar by others who were thrusting the polluted and unhallowed victim into his right hand, and then suffered to go again as if he had sacrificed. Another, though he had not even touched, when others said that he had sacrificed, went away in silence. Another was taken up half dead, and cast out as already dead, and was released from his bonds, and ranked among the sacrificers. Another crying out, and asserting that he did not assent to these things, was struck on the mouth; and thus silenced by the many blows of those that were suborned for this purpose, was thrust away by violence, although he had never sacrificed. So much was it valued by them, for one upon the whole only to appear to have performed their desire. Of these therefore, so many in number, only Alpheus* and Zaccheus were honoured with the crown of the holy martyrs, who after scourging and scraping with iron hooks, and severe bonds, and the tortures consequent on these, and other different tortures on the rack, having their feet stretched a night and day, to the fourth hole of the stocks, were at length beheaded on the seventeenth day of the month Dius, the same that is called the fifteenth of the Calends of December. Thus for confessing the only God and Jesus Christ the only king, they suffered martyrdom with the former martyr, just as if they had uttered some dreadful blasphemy.

CHAPTER II.

The martyr Romanus.

WORTHY of record, also, are the circumstances respecting Romanus, which occurred on the same day at Antioch.

He was a

* The names of some of these martyrs are to be found in some of the old calendars. Thus Alpheus is found on the 17th of November, corresponding to the date here given. Others may be found in the same way. The names of some have in the lapse of time given way to others.