Churches Torn Down and Bishops Put to Death

For in that city some of the churches were leveled to the ground, for the second time since the persecutions began, and others were shut by the governors of the various districts, to keep anyone who used them from meeting together or giving God the worship due to him. The man who ordered these outrages knew his own crimes too well to suppose that these services were offered for his benefit. He was convinced that everything we did, and all our efforts to win the favor of God, were on Constantine’s behalf.

So these servile governors, sure that such a course would please the wicked tyrant, put the most distinguished bishops of the churches to death. Men who had committed no crime were led away without cause and punished like murderers. Some suffered a new kind of death: their bodies were cut into pieces, and after this cruel punishment, more horrible than any told in tragedy, they were thrown into the depths of the sea as food for the fish. The result of these horrors was that godly men fled once more, as they had before, and once again the fields and the deserts took in the worshipers of God. Having succeeded so far, the tyrant then resolved to stir up a general persecution of the Christians. He would have done it, and nothing could have stopped him from carrying out his resolution, if the one who defends his own had not forestalled the coming evil. By his special guidance he brought his servant Constantine into this part of the empire, and made him shine out like a brilliant light in the middle of darkness and gloomy night. [a]