CHAPTER II

THE RESTORATION OF THE CHURCHES

ALL men, then, were liberated from the oppression of the tyraut, and those who had been delivered from the miseries previously existing, acknowledged, one in one way, and another in another, that the only true God was the protector of the pious. To us especially, all whose hopes are suspended on the Christ of God, there was an incessant joy, and there sprung up for all a certain celestial gladness, seeing every place, which but a short time before had been desolated by the impieties of the tyrants, reviving again, and recovering as from a long and deadly distemper,—temples again rising from the soil to a lofty height, and receiving a splendour far exceeding those that had been formerly destroyed. Moreover, those who held the supreme power, confirmed the privileges granted us by the divine beneficence to a still wider and greater extent by their constant decrees in favour of the Christians, and epistles of the emperor were issued, addressed to the bishops, with honours and superadded donations of monies; of which it may not be singular to insert extracts in the proper place in this book, as in a certain sacred tablet, as we have translated them from the Latin into the Greek language, that they may remain recorded for those that come after us.