The End of the Persecutions and the Holy Places

Well, the persecutions came to an end eighty-eight years ago, at the time when the emperors began to be Christians. For it was then that Constantine gained supreme power, and he was the first of all the Roman rulers to be a Christian. It is true that at that time Licinius, who was competing with Constantine for the empire, had ordered his soldiers to offer sacrifice, and was dismissing from the army those who refused. But that is not counted among the persecutions; it was too small an affair to do the churches any real harm. From that time on we have continued to enjoy peace. Nor do I believe there will be any more persecutions, except the one that Antichrist will carry on just before the end of the world. For it has been proclaimed in the words of God that the world was to be struck by ten afflictions; and since nine of these have already been endured, the one that remains must be the last. [a]

It is wonderful how the Christian religion has prevailed during this period. For Jerusalem, which had been a horrible heap of ruins, was then adorned with a great many magnificent churches. Helena, the mother of the emperor Constantine, who reigned alongside her son as Augusta, had a strong desire to see Jerusalem. She threw down the idols and the temples she found there, and in the course of time, using her royal power, she built churches on the places of the Lord’s passion, resurrection, and ascension. It is a remarkable fact that the spot where the divine footprints were last left, when the Lord was carried up to heaven in a cloud, could not be joined by paving to the rest of the street. For the earth, unused to mere human contact, rejected everything laid on it, and often threw the blocks of marble back in the faces of those who were trying to set them in place. It is also a lasting proof that the ground there was trodden by God that the footprints can still be seen. Those who flock to the place every day are led by their faith to compete with one another in carrying away something the Lord’s feet have trodden. And yet the sand of the place suffers no loss, and the ground still looks as it did long ago, as if it had been sealed by the footprints pressed into it.