Section 457
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426 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. CHAPTER V. Copies of the imperial decrees. Now let us also, subjoin translations from the Latin, of the imperial ordinances of Constantine and Licinius. Copy of the imperial ordinances, translated from the Latin language. " As we long since perceived that religious liberty should not be denied, but that it should be granted to the opinion and wishes of each one to perform divine duties according to his own deter mination, we had given orders, that each one, and the Christians among the rest, have the liberty to observe the religion of his choice, and his peculiar mode of worship. But as there plainlyappeared to be many and different sects added in that edict,* in which this privilege was granted them, some of them perhaps, after a little while, on this account shrunk from this kind of at tention and observance. Wherefore, as I, Constantine Augustus, and I, Licinius Augustus, came under favourable auspices to Milan, and took under consideration all affairs that pertained to the public benefit and welfare, these things among the rest appeared to us to be most advantageous and profitable to all. We have resolved among the first things to ordain, those matters by which reverence and worship to the Deity might be exhibited. That is how we may grant likewise to the Christians, and to all, the free choice to follow that mode of worship which they may wish. That whatsoever divinity and celestial power may exist, may be propitious to us and to all that live under our government. * The edict here mentioned is lost, and the reference is, therefore, subject to some obscurity. The Latin original, however, of this one is preserved by Lano tantius, in his book " De Mortibus Persecutorum," beginning at the words, " Wherefore, as I, Constantine." Valesius here, as well as in the other edicts, has no reference to Lanctantius. The Greek translation is in the main so faithful as to transfer the Latinity ; the text, however, still preserved in Lanctantius, dif fers in some places from that which Eusebius appears to have had.