CHAPTER II

DEMOLITION OF CHURCHES, AND CRUEL BUTCHERY OF THE BISHOPS

FOR in that city some of the churches were levelled with the ground (for the second time since the commencement of the persecutions), and others were closed by the governors of the several districts, in order to prevent any who frequented them from assembling together, or rendering clue worship to God. For he by whose orders these outrages were committed was too conscious of his own crimes to expect that these services were performed with any view to his benefit, and was convinced that all we did, and all our endeavours to obtain the favour of God, were on Constantine’s behalf. These servile governors then, feeling assured that such a course would be pleasing to the impious tyrant, subjected the most distinguished prelates of the churches to capital punishment. Accordingly, men who had been guilty of no crime were led away, without any reason assigned, to undergo the penalties due to murderers: and some suffered a new kind of death, having their bodies cut piecemeal into many portions; and, after this horribly cruel and more than tragic punishment, being cast, as a prey to fishes, into the depths of the sea. The result of these horrors was once more (as on a former occasion), the flight of pious men, and again the fields and deserts afforded a refuge to the worshippers of God. But further, the tyrant having thus far succeeded in his object, began to consider how he might raise a general persecution of the Christians: and he would have gratified his wishes, nor could any thing have hindered him from carrying his resolution into effect, had not He who defends His own anticipated the coming evil, and by His special guidance conducted His servant Constantinc to this part of the empire, causing him to shine forth as a brilliant light in the midst of the dark and gloomy shades of night.