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| Demolition of Churches, and Butchery of the Bishops.
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Chapter
II.—Demolition of Churches, and
Butchery of the Bishops.
For in
that city some of the churches, for the second time since the
commencement of the persecutions, were leveled with the ground, and
others were closed by the governors of the several districts, in order
to prevent any who frequented them from assembling together, or
rendering due 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 endeavors to obtain the favor of God, were
on Constantine’s behalf.
These servile governors3160
| 3160 Literally, “the flatterers and time-servers about
him.” | 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
cause3161
punished like murderers: and some
suffered a new kind of death, having their bodies cut piecemeal; and,
after this cruel punishment, more horrible than any named in tragedy,
being cast, as a food to fishes, into the depths of the sea. The result
of these horrors was again, as before, the flight of pious men, and
once more the fields and deserts received the worshipers of God. The
tyrant, having thus far succeeded in his object, he farther determined
to raise a general persecution of the Christians:3162
| 3162 [The reading in the text is τούτων, but
should be π€ντων, of
all Christians, as it is in Hist. Eccles. Bk. 10, c. 8,
from which this passage is almost verbally
taken.—Bag.] | and he would have accomplished his
purpose, nor could anything 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
Constantine to this part of the empire, causing him to shine forth as a
brilliant light in the midst of the darkness and gloomy
night.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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