God Honors Godly Rulers and Destroys Tyrants

He has given his assurance that those who glorify and honor him will receive an abundant reward at his hands, while those who set themselves against him as enemies and adversaries will bring about the ruin of their own souls. And he has already proved the truth of these declarations of his own. On the one hand, he has shown the fearful end of those tyrants who denied and opposed him. At the same time, he has made it plain that the death of his servant, as well as his life, is worthy of admiration and praise, and rightly claims a memorial not merely of perishable monuments but of immortal ones. [a]

People have sought some consolation for the frail and uncertain span of human life by putting up monuments, thinking to glorify the memories of their ancestors with immortal honors. Some have used the vivid lines and colors of painting; some have carved statues out of lifeless blocks of wood; while others have cut inscriptions deep into tablets and monuments, thinking to hand down the virtues of those they honored to everlasting remembrance. All these things are perishable and are worn away by the passing of time, for they portray the body, which decays, and do not express the image of the immortal soul. And yet they seemed enough to those who had no well-grounded hope of happiness after this mortal life ends. But God, that God, I say, who is the common Savior of all, has stored up with himself for those who love godliness greater blessings than human thought has conceived. Even here he gives a pledge and first fruits of the rewards to come, in some way assuring mortal eyes of immortal hopes. The ancient oracles of the prophets, handed down to us in the Scriptures, declare this. The lives of godly men who shone with every virtue in times past bear witness to the same thing for later generations. And our own days prove it true, for in them Constantine, who alone of all who ever wielded the Roman power was the friend of God, the Sovereign of all, has appeared to all humankind as so clear an example of a godly life. [c]