Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History, Books I–X

NPNF historical edition · Translated text

Book VIII — Chapter II — The Destruction of the Churches.

Chapter II.—The Destruction of the Churches.

1. All these things were fulfilled in us, when we saw with our own eyes the houses of prayer thrown down to the very foundations, and the Divine and Sacred Scriptures committed to the flames in the midst of the market-places, and the shepherds of the churches basely hidden here and there, and some of them captured ignominiously, and mocked by their enemies. When also, according to another prophetic word, “Contempt was poured out upon rulers, and he caused them to wander in an untrodden and pathless way.” ^{Edition note 1}

2. But it is not our place to describe the sad misfortunes which finally came upon them, as we do not think it proper, moreover, to record their divisions and unnatural conduct to each other before the persecution. Wherefore we have decided to relate nothing concerning them except the things in which we can vindicate the Divine judgment.

3. Hence we shall not mention those who were shaken by the persecution, nor those who in everything pertaining to salvation were shipwrecked, and by their own will were sunk in the depths of the flood. But we shall introduce into this history in general only those events which may be usefull first to ourselves and afterwards to posterity. ^{Edition note 2} Let us therefore proceed to describe briefly the sacred conflicts of the witnesses of the Divine Word.

4. It was in the nineteenth year of the reign of Diocletian, ^{Edition note 3} in the month Dystrus, ^{Edition note 4} called March by the Romans, when the feast of the Saviour’s passion was near at hand, ^{Edition note 5} that royal edicts were published everywhere, commanding that the churches be leveled to the ground and the Scriptures be destroyed by fire, and ordering that those who held places of honor be degraded, and that the household servants, if they persisted in the profession of Christianity, be deprived of freedom. ^{Edition note 6}

5. Such was the first edict against us. But not long after, other decrees were issued, commanding that all the rulers of the churches in every place be first thrown into prison, ^{Edition note 7} and afterwards by every artifice be compelled to sacrifice. ^{Edition note 8}

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Edition notes

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Edition note 1

Ps. cvii. 40 .

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Edition note 2

Gibbon uses this passage as the basis for his severe attack upon the honesty of Eusebius ( Decline and Fall, chap. 16), but he has certainly done our author injustice (cf. the remarks made on p. 49, above).

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Edition note 3

Diocletian began to reign Sept. 17, 284, and therefore his nineteenth year extended from Sept. 17, 302, to Sept. 16, 303. Eusebius is in agreement with all our authorities in assigning this year for the beginning of the persecution, and is certainly correct. In regard to the month, however, he is not so accurate. Lactantius, who was in Nicomedia at the time of the beginning of the persecution, and certainly much better informed than Eusebius in regard to the details, states distinctly (in his De mort. pers. chap. 12) that the festival of the god Terminus, the seventh day before the Kalends of March (i.e. Feb. 23), was chosen by the emperors for the opening of the persecution, and there is no reason for doubting his exact statement.

At the beginning of the Martyrs of Palestine (p. 342, below) the month Xanthicus (April) is given as the date, but this is still further out of the way. It was probably March or even April before the edicts were published in many parts of the empire, and Eusebius may have been misled by that fact, not knowing the exact date of their publication in Nicomedia itself. We learn from Lactantius that on February 23d the great church of Nicomedia, together with the copies of Scripture found in it, was destroyed by order of the emperors, but that the edict of which Eusebius speaks just below was not issued until the following day. For a discussion of the causes which led to the persecution of Diocletian see below, p. 397.

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Edition note 4

Δύστρος , the seventh month of the Macedonian year, corresponding to our March. See the table on p. 403, below.

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Edition note 5

Valesius ( ad locum ) states, on the authority of Scaliger and Petavius, that Easter fell on April 18th in the year 303. I have not attempted to verify the statement.

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Edition note 6

This is the famous First Edict of Diocletian, which is no longer extant, and the terms of which therefore have to be gathered from the accounts of Eusebius and Lactantius. The interpretation of the edict has caused a vast deal of trouble. It is discussed very fully by Mason in his important work, The Persecution of Diocletian, p. 105 sq. and p. 343 sq. As he remarks, Lactantius simply describes the edict in a general way, while Eusebius gives an accurate statement of its substance, even reproducing its language in part.

The first provision (that the churches be leveled to the ground) is simply a carrying out of the old principle, that it was unlawful for the Christians to hold assemblies, under a new form. The second provision, directed against the sacred books, was entirely new, and was a very shrewd move, revealing at the same time an appreciation on the part of the authors of the persecution of the important part which the Scriptures occupied in the Christian Church. The third provision, as Mason has pointed out, is a substantial reproduction of a part of the edict of Valerian, and was evidently consciously based upon that edict.

(Upon the variations from the earlier edict, see Mason, p. 115 sq.) It is noticeable that not torture nor death is decreed, but only civil degradation. This degradation, as can be seen from a comparison with the description of Lactantius ( ibid. chap. 13) and with the edict of Valerian (given in Cyprian’s Epistle to Successus, Ep. No. 81, al. 80), consisted, in the case of those who held public office ( τιμῆς ἐπειλημμένους ), in the loss of rank and also of citizenship; that is, they fell through two grades, as is pointed out by Mason.

In the interpretation of the fourth provision, however, Mason does not seem to me to have been so successful. The last clause runs τοὺς δὲ ἐν οἰκετίαις, εἰ ἐπιμένοιεν τῇ τοῦ χριστιανισμοῦ προθέσει ἐλευθερίας στερεῖσθαι . The difficult point is the interpretation of the τοὺς ἐν οἰκετίαις . The words usually mean “household slaves,” and are commonly so translated in this passage. But, as Valesius remarks, there is certainly no sense then in depriving them of freedom ( ἐλευθερία ) which they do not possess.

Valesius consequently translates plebeii, “common people,” and Mason argues at length for a similar interpretation (p. 344 sq.), looking upon these persons as common people, or individuals in private life, as contrasted with the officials mentioned in the previous clause. The only objection, but in my opinion a fatal objection, to this attractive interpretation is that it gives the phrase οἱ ἐν οἰκετίαις a wider meaning than can legitimately be applied to it. Mason remarks:

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“The word οἰκετία means, and is here a translation of, familia; οἱ ἐν οἰκετίαις means ii qui in familiis sunt, —not graceful Latin certainly, but plainly signifying ‘those who live in private households.’ Now in private households there lived not only slaves, thank goodness, but free men too, both as masters and as servants; therefore in the phrase τοὺς ἐν οἰκετίαις itself there is nothing which forbids the paraphrase ‘private persons.’”

But I submit that to use so clumsy a phrase, so unnecessary a circumlocution, to designate simply private people in general— οἱ πολλοί —would be the height of absurdity. The interpretation of Stroth (which is approved by Heinichen) seems to me much more satisfactory. He remarks:

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“Das Edict war zunächst nur gegen zwei Klassen von Leuten gerichtet, einmal gegen die, welche in kaiserlichen Æmtern standen, und dann gegen die freien oder freigelassenen Christen, welche bei den Kaisern oder ihren Hofleuten und Statthaltern in Diensten standen, und zu ihrem Hausgesinde gehörten.”

This seems to me more satisfactory, both on verbal and historical grounds. The words οἱ ἐν οἰκετίαις certainly cannot, in the present case, mean “household slaves,” but they can mean servants, attendants, or other persons at court, or in the households of provincial officials, who did not hold rank as officials, but at the same time were freemen born, or freedmen, and thus in a different condition from slaves. Such persons would naturally be reduced to slavery if degraded at all, and it is easier to think of their reduction to slavery than of that of the entire mass of Christians not in public office.

Still further, this proposition finds support in the edict of Valerian, in which this class of people is especially mentioned. And finally, it is, in my opinion, much more natural to suppose that this edict (whose purpose I shall discuss on p. 399) was confined to persons who were in some way connected with official life,—either as chiefs or assistants or servants,—and therefore in a position peculiarly fitted for the formation of plots against the government, than that it was directed against Christians indiscriminately.

The grouping together of the two classes seems to me very natural; and the omission of any specific reference to bishops and other church officers, who are mentioned in the second edict, is thus fully explained, as it cannot be adequately explained, in my opinion, on any other ground.

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Edition note 7

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Edition note 8

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