CHAPTER XXIX

CONSTANTINE’S EXPRESSIONS OF PIETY TOWARDS GOD; AND PRAISE OF THE CONFESSORS

“I SAID, under the guidance of His hand; for I would desire never to be forgetful of the gratitude due to His grace. Believing, therefore, that this most excellent service had been confided to me as a special gift, I proceeded as far as the regions of the East, which, being under the pressure of severer calamities, seemed to demand still more effectual remedies at my hands. At the same time I am most certainly persuaded that I myself owe my life, my every breath, in short, my very inmost and secret thoughts, entirely to the favour of the Supreme God. Now I am well aware that they who are sincere in the pursuit of the heavenly hope, and have fixed this hope in heaven itself as the peculiar and predominant principle of their lives, have no need to depend on human friendship, but rather have enjoyed a higher degree of dignity in proportion as they have separated themselves from the vices and evils of this earthly existence. Nevertheless I deem it incumbent on me to remove at once and most completely from all such persons the hard necessities laid upon them for a season, and the cruel and unjust inflictions under which they have suffered, though free from any stain of guilt. For it would be strange indeed, that the fortitude and constancy of soul displayed by such men should be fully apparent during the reign of those whose first object it was to persecute them on account of their devotion to God, and yet that the glory of their character should receive no accession of lustre, and be viewed in no more exalted light, under the administration of a prince who is His servant.