He ordered that the usual congregations of the people should be held in the open country without the gates, alleging that the open air without the city was far more suitable for a multitude than the houses of prayer within the walls.

[c. liv.] Failing, however, to obtain obedience in this respect also, at length he threw off the mask, and gave orders that those who held military commissions, in the several cities of the empire, should be deprived of their respective commands, in case of their refusal to offer sacrifices to the demons.

[c. lvi.] . . . The final efforts of his fury appeared in his open hostility to the churches, and he directed his attacks against the bishops themselves, whom he regarded as his worst adversaries, bearing special enmity to those men whom the great and pious Emperor [Constantine] treated as his friends. Accordingly, he spent on us the utmost of his fury.-N. & P.-N.F. i. 496-8.

No. 2.-Constantine's Order to Eusebius for Copies of the Scriptures

From his letter in Eus. V.C. IV. xxxvi.

It happens, through the favouring providence of God our Saviour, that great numbers have united themselves to the most holy Church in the city which is called by my name. It seems therefore highly requisite, since that city is rapidly advancing in prosperity in all other respects, that the number of churches should also be increased. Do you therefore receive with all readiness my determination on this behalf. I have thought it expedient to instruct your Prudence to order fifty copies of the Sacred Scriptures, the provision and use of which you know to be most needful for the instruction of the Church, to be written on prepared parchment in a legible manner, and in a convenient portable form, by professional transcribers thoroughly practised in their art. The Catholicus 1 of the diocese 2 has also received instructions from our Clemency to be careful to furnish all things

1 Financial administrator.

2 One of the [then] twelve larger divisions of the Empire [after 376, thirteen].

necessary for the preparation of such copies; and it will be for you to take special care that they be completed with as little delay as possible. You have authority also, in virtue of this letter, to use two of the public carriages for their conveyance, by which arrangement the copies, when fairly written, will most easily be forwarded for my personal inspection; and one of the deacons of your church may be entrusted with this service: who, on his arrival here, shall experience my liberality. God preserve you, beloved brother.-N. & P.-N.F. i. 549.

No. 3. Constantine's Suppression of Private Divination, February 1, 319

From Nullus haruspex, ap. Cod. Theod. IX. xvi. 1; edd. Th. Mommsen and P. M. Meyer, i. 459 (Berolini, 1895).

The Emperor Constantine Augustus to Maximus [Prefect of the City].

Let no soothsayer approach the threshold of his neighbour, not even for some other cause [than that of soothsaying]; but let friendship, however long-standing, with men of this class be put away. Let the soothsayer who approaches his neighbour's house be burnt; and let him who invites him, whether by persuasion or offer of reward, be deprived of his goods and banished to an island. Those, who desire to follow their own superstition, will be at liberty to practise the rites proper to it in public. He who accuses a man of this offence is, in our judgment, no informer. On the contrary, he is one who deserves a reward. Given at Rome, on the first of February in the consulate of Constantine Augustus (his fifth) and Licinius Cæsar.-K.

No. 4.-The Testament of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, 320

From Testamentum XL. Mart. Sebast. cc. i., iii., ap. O. von Gebhardt, Acta Martyrum Selecta, 165-70 (Berlin, 1902).

Meletius and Aëtius and Eutychius, the prisoners of Christ, to the holy bishops and priests, deacons and

VOL. II.

B

confessors, in every city, and to all others who belong to the Church, greeting in Christ.

[c. i.] When we by the grace of God and the common prayers of all shall finish the strife that is set before us, and come to the rewards of the high calling, we desire that then this will of ours may be respected, to wit, that our relics be conveyed to our father the presbyter Proïdus, and our brethren Crispin and Gordius, and the zealous laity who are with them, to Cyril and Mark and Sapricius the son of Ammonius, in order that our relics may be deposited near the city of Zela, at the spot called Sarin. For although we all come from different localities, we have chosen one and the same resting-place. Since we have set before ourselves one common strife for the prize, we have agreed to make also one common resting-place in the aforesaid spot. These things have seemed good to the Holy Ghost and have pleased us. Therefore we which are with Aëtius and Eutychius and the rest of our brethren in Christ beseech our honoured parents and brethren to have no grief or distress, but to respect the decision of our brotherly fellowship, and to consent heartily to our wishes, in order that you may receive from our common Father the great recompense of obedience and of sharing in our sufferings. Moreover, we entreat all men that no one will secure for himself any single fragment of our relics gathered out of the furnace, but will give them up to the persons aforenamed with a view to their being gathered together in the same place, in order that by such a proof of earnest determination, and of disinterested goodwill, he may receive the gain of a share in our sufferings themselves; even as Mary, abiding steadfastly by the tomb of Christ, saw the Lord before the rest and was the first to obtain the grace of joy and blessing. If, on the other hand, any one shall go counter to our wish, let him have no part in the sacred gain, but incur the penalty of the entire disobedience, for depriving us of our right by his petty self-will, by compelling us as far as lay in his power to be sundered from one another, when our Holy Saviour by His special grace and providence has united us together in faith. And if the boy Eunoïcus, by the favour of the gracious God, shall be brought to the same end of strife, he has requested to have

the same dwelling-place with us. But if he shall be preserved unhurt by the grace of God and should be further proved in the world, we charge him to look liberally to our chapel; and we beseech him to keep the commandments of Christ, that in the great day of Resurrection he may obtain part in our felicity, because while he was in the world he endured the same afflictions with us.

[c. iii.] So, honoured friends, we all greet you all—forty brethren and fellow-prisoners, Meletius, Aëtius, etc. . We then, the forty prisoners of the Lord Jesus Christ, have subscribed with our hand by one of our number, Meletius, and have confirmed all that is above written, and it has pleased us all. We pray with our souls, and with the Divine Spirit, that we may all obtain the eternal good things of God and His Kingdom, now and for ever and ever. Amen.-A. J. Mason, The Historic Martyrs of the Primitive Church, 247-51.

No. 5.-Constantine's Legislation about

Sunday, 321

(a) From Omnes judices, ap. Codex Justinianus, III. xii. 3, (Corp. Jur Civ. ii. 127, ed. P. Krüger).

Constantine to Elpidius.-All judges and city-people and the craftsmen shall rest upon the venerable Day of the Sun. Country-people, however, may freely attend to the cultivation of the fields, because it frequently happens that no other days are better adapted for planting the grain in the furrows or the vines in trenches; so that the advantage given by heavenly providence may not, for the occasion of a short time, perish. Given on March 7 [321], in the second consulate of Crispus and the second of Constantine.J. C. Ayer, A Source-Book for Ancient Church History, 284, sq.

(b) From Sicut indignissimum, ap. Cod. Theod. II. viii. 1, edd. Th. Mommsen and P. M. Meyer, i. 87.

The Emperor Constantine Augustus to Elpidius.--Just as we considered it most unbefitting that the Day of the Sun, with its venerable solemnities, should be taken up with

the rival oaths and the baleful brawling of litigants, so it is a pleasant and joyous thing, on that day, to fulfil petitions of special urgency. Wherefore, on that festal day, let all have liberty for emancipation and manumission: and let nothing be forbidden that is done in this behalf.-Given on July 3 [321], at Cagliari [in Sardinia], in the second consulate of Crispus and the second of Constantine.-K.

No. 6.-The Letter of Arius [c. 321] to Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia, c. 325-39

From Theodoret, H.E. I. v. §§ 1-4.

[§ 1] Arius, unjustly persecuted by the Pope Alexander, on account of that all-conquering truth which you also uphold, sendeth greeting in the Lord to his very dear lord, the man of God, the faithful and orthodox Eusebius.

Ammonius, my father, being about to depart for Nicomedia, I considered myself bound to salute you by him, and withal to address myself to that natural affection which you bear towards the brethren for the sake of God and of Christ, apprising you that the bishop oppresses and persecutes us most severely, and that he causes us much suffering: he has driven us out of the city as atheists, because we do not concur in what he publicly preaches, namely, that the Father has always been, and that the Son has always been: that as the Father so is the Son that the Son is unbegotten as the Father: that He is always being begotten, without having been begotten: that neither by thought nor by any interval does God precede the Son, God and the Son having always been; and that the Son proceeds from God.

:

[§ 2] Eusebius, your brother, bishop of Cæsarea, Theodotus, Paulinus, Athanasius, Gregory, Aëtius, and all the bishops of the East, have been condemned because they say that God had an existence prior to that of His Son : except Philogonius, Hellanicus, and Macarius, who are unlearned men, and who have embraced heretical opinions. One of them says that the Son is an effusion, another that He is an emission, the other that He is also unbegotten.

[§ 3] These are impieties to which we could not listen, even though the heretics should threaten us with a thousand