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| Concerning the Prosperity Which God Granted to the Christian Emperor Constantine.
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Chapter 25.—Concerning the
Prosperity Which God Granted to the Christian Emperor
Constantine.
For the good God, lest men, who
believe that He is to be worshipped with a view to eternal life,
should think that no one could attain to all this high estate, and
to this terrestrial dominion, unless he should be a worshipper of
the demons,—supposing that these spirits have great power with
respect to such things,—for this reason He gave to the Emperor
Constantine, who was not a worshipper of demons, but of the true
God Himself, such fullness of earthly gifts as no one would even
dare wish for. To him also He granted the honor of founding a
city,227
a companion
to the Roman empire, the daughter, as it were, of Rome itself, but
without any temple or image of the demons. He reigned for a long
period as sole emperor, and unaided held and defended the whole
Roman world. In conducting and carrying on wars he was most
victorious; in overthrowing tyrants he was most successful. He
died at a great age, of sickness and old age, and left his sons to
succeed him in the empire.228
| 228 Constantius, Constantine, and
Constans. | But again, lest any emperor
should become a Christian in order to merit the happiness of
Constantine, when every one should be a Christian for the sake of
eternal life, God took away Jovian far sooner than Julian, and
permitted that Gratian should be slain by the sword of a tyrant.
But in his case there was far more mitigation of the calamity than
in the case of the great Pompey, for he could not be avenged by
Cato, whom he had left, as it were, heir to the civil war. But
Gratian, though pious minds require not such consolations, was
avenged by Theodosius, whom he had associated with himself in the
empire, though he had a little brother of his own, being more
desirous of a faithful alliance than of extensive
power.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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