The Persecution Resumes

But the tyrant who, as we said, ruled the parts of the East, a hater of what is good and a plotter against everything good, could no longer bear this, and did not let things go on in this way for six full months. Devising everything he could to overturn the peace, he first tried, under some pretext, to keep us from gathering in the cemeteries. [a] Then, through certain wicked men, he sent an embassy to himself against us, urging the citizens of Antioch to ask him, as a very great favor, that no Christian should in any way be allowed to live in their city, and getting others to put forward the same request. The leader of all this at Antioch itself was Theotecnus, a dangerous, wicked man and a sorcerer, a stranger to the name he bore. He was, it seems, the city’s curator. [b]