Section 425
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394 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. saved your city, liberated from the yoke of the tyrant. Moreover, 1 have restored both the Senate and the Roman people to their an cient dignity and splendour" After this, Constantine himself, and his imperial colleague Licinius, who had not then yet been per verted into that madness which he afterwards evinced, both cele brating and praising God, as the author of all their successes, with one consent and resolve drew up a full and most compre hensive decree respecting the Christians ; and sent an account of the wonderful things done for them by God, the victory they had obtained over the tyrant, and the law itself to Maximinus, who was yet sovereign of the east, and pretended friendship to ward them. But he, tyrant as he was, was greatly troubled at what he learned. Then, in order not to seem disposed to yield to others, nor to suppress what was commanded, for fear of those who had commanded, as if he acted on his own authority, he of necessity addressed the following decree, first to the governors under him, respecting the Christians, falsely and fictitiously al leging against himself what had never been done by him.f Copy of the translated epistle of the tyrant Maximinus. " Jovius MAXIMINUS AUGUSTUS, to Sabinus : I trust that it is obvious to your gravity and to all men, that our sovereigns and parents, Diocletian and Maximinus, when they saw almost all men abandoning the worship of the gods, and attaching them selves to the people of the Christians, rightly ordained that all men that swerved from the worship of the same immortal gods should be reclaimed, by the infliction of punishment and pain, to the worship of the gods. At the time, however, when I first came to the east, under favourable auspices, and ascertained that great numbers of men, capable of rendering service to the repub lic, were banished by the judges for said reason, I issued or In the Greek style of this inscription, we may see some traces of the Latin original. f Our author here represents Maximinus guilty of the double inconsistency of attempting to give a fair colouring to his proceedings against the Christians, al though his conduct and procedure had wanted even the shadow of appearance, and in his very defence, saying what was in fact a reproach to himself.