The Character of the Enemies of Religion.
1. his son, who obtained the government at Rome, at first feigned our faith, in
complaisance and flattery toward the Roman people. On this account he
commanded his subjects to cease persecuting the Christians, pretending
to religion that he might appear merciful and mild beyond his
predecessors.
2. But he did not prove in his
deeds to be such a person as was hoped, but ran into all wickedness and
abstained from no impurity or licentiousness, committing adulteries and
indulging in all kinds of corruption. For having separated wives from
their lawful consorts, he abused them and sent them back most
dishonorably to their husbands. And he not only practiced this against
the obscure and unknown, but he insulted especially the most prominent
and distinguished members of the Roman senate.
3. All his subjects, people and
rulers, honored and obscure, were worn out by grievous oppression. Neither, although they kept quiet, and bore the bitter servitude, was there any relief from the murderous cruelty of the tyrant. Once, on a small pretense, he gave the people to be slaughtered by his guards; and a great multitude of the Roman populace were slain in the midst of the city, with the spears and arms, not of Scythians and barbarians, but of their own fellow-citizens.
4. It would be impossible to
recount the number of senators who were put to death for the sake of
their wealth; multitudes being slain on various pretenses.
5. To crown all his wickedness, the tyrant resorted to magic. And in his divinations he cut open pregnant women, and again inspected the bowels of newborn infants. He slaughtered lions, and performed various execrable acts to invoke demons and avert war. For his only hope was that, by these means, victory would be secured to him.
6. It is impossible to tell the
ways in which this tyrant at Rome oppressed his subjects, so that they
were reduced to such an extreme dearth of the necessities of life as
has never been known, according to our contemporaries, either at Rome
or elsewhere.
7. But Maximinus, the tyrant in
the East, having secretly formed a friendly alliance with the Roman
tyrant as with a brother in wickedness, sought to conceal it for a long
time. But being at last detected, he suffered merited punishment.
8. It was wonderful how akin he was in
wickedness to the tyrant at Rome, or rather how far he surpassed him in
it. For the chief of sorcerers and magicians were honored by him with
the highest rank. Becoming exceedingly timid and superstitious, he
valued greatly the error of idols and demons. Indeed, without
soothsayers and oracles he did not venture to move even a finger, so to speak.
9. Therefore he persecuted us
more violently and incessantly than his predecessors. He ordered
temples to be erected in every city, and the sacred groves which had
been destroyed through lapse of time to be speedily restored. He
appointed idol priests in every place and city; and he set over them in
every province, as high priest, some political official who had
especially distinguished himself in every kind of service, giving him a
band of soldiers and a body-guard. And to all jugglers, as if they were
pious and beloved of the gods, he granted governments and the greatest
privileges.
10. From this time on he
distressed and harassed, not one city or country, but all the provinces
under his authority, by extreme exactions of gold and silver and goods, and most grievous prosecutions and various fines. He took away from the wealthy the property which they had inherited from their ancestors, and bestowed vast riches and large sums of money on the flatterers about him.
11. And he went to such an
excess of folly and drunkenness that his mind was deranged and crazed
in his carousals; and he gave commands when intoxicated of which he
repented afterward when sober. He suffered no one to surpass him in
debauchery and profligacy, but made himself an instructor in wickedness
to those about him, both rulers and subjects. He urged on the army to
live wantonly in every kind of revelry and intemperance, and encouraged
the governors and generals to abuse their subjects with rapacity and
covetousness, almost as if they were rulers with him.