His Three Sons Made Caesars, and the Church at Jerusalem Dedicated

By this time the thirtieth year of his reign was complete. In the course of this period his three sons had been admitted at different times as his colleagues in the empire. The first, Constantine, who bore his father’s name, received this honor about the tenth year of his reign. Constantius, the second son, named after his grandfather, was proclaimed Caesar about the twentieth; and Constans, the third, whose name expresses the firmness and steadiness of his character, was raised to the same rank at the thirtieth anniversary of his father’s reign. So he had raised a threefold offspring, a Trinity, as it were, of pious sons, and had received them, one at each ten-year period, into a share of his imperial authority. He judged the festival of his Tricennalia to be a fitting occasion for giving thanks to the Sovereign Lord of all. At the same time he believed it would be a good occasion to dedicate the church that his generous zeal had built at Jerusalem. [a]