Chapter III.--How God honors Pious Princes, but destroys Tyrants.
Having given assurance that those who glorify and honor him will meet with an abundant recompense at his hands, while those who set themselves against him as enemies and adversaries will compass the ruin of their own souls, he has already established the truth of these his own declarations, having shown on the one hand the fearful end of those tyrants who denied and opposed him, [3058] and at the same time having made it manifest that even the death of his servant, as well as his life, is worthy of admiration and praise, and justly claims the memorial, not merely of perishable, but of immortal monuments.
Mankind, devising some consolation for the frail and precarious duration of human life, have thought by the erection of monuments to glorify the memories of their ancestors with immortal honors. Some have employed the vivid delineations and colors of painting [3059] ; some have carved statues from lifeless blocks of wood; while others, by engraving their inscriptions deep on tablets [3060] and monuments, have thought to transmit the virtues of those whom they honored to perpetual remembrance. All these indeed are perishable, and consumed by the lapse of time, being representations of the corruptible body, and not expressing the image of the immortal soul. And yet these seemed sufficient to those who had no well-grounded hope of happiness after the termination of this mortal life. But God, that God, I say, who is the common Saviour of all, having treasured up with himself, for those who love godliness, greater blessings than human thought has conceived, gives the earnest and first-fruits of future rewards even here, assuring in some sort immortal hopes to mortal eyes. The ancient oracles of the prophets, delivered to us in the Scripture, declare this; the lives of pious men, who shone in old time with every virtue, bear witness to posterity of the same; and our own days prove it to be true, wherein Constantine, who alone of all that ever wielded the Roman power was the friend of God the Sovereign of all, has appeared to all mankind so clear an example of a godly life.
[3058] Compare Lactantius, De mortibus persecutorum, which doubtless the author had in mind.
[3059] [Kerochutou graphes, properly encaustic painting, by means of melted wax.--Bag] Compare admirable description of the process in the Century Dictionary, ed. Whitney, N.Y. 1889, v. 2.
[3060] Kubeis, at first used of triangular tablets of wood, brass, or stone, but afterwards of any inscribed "pillars or tablets." Cf. Lexicons.
Chapter IV.--That God honored Constantine.
And God himself, whom Constantine worshiped, has confirmed this truth by the clearest manifestations of his will, being present to aid him [3061] at the commencement, during the course, and at the end of his reign, and holding him up to the human race as an instructive example of godliness. Accordingly, by the manifold blessings he has conferred on him, he has distinguished him alone of all the sovereigns of whom we have ever heard as at once a mighty luminary and most clear-voiced herald of genuine piety.
[3061] Whether dexios is read or dexios, with Valesius, "present to aid," covers the idea better than "graciously present" (Molz).
Chapter V.--That he reigned above Thirty Years, and lived above Sixty.
With respect to the duration of his reign, God honored him with three complete periods of ten years, and something more, extending the whole term of his mortal life to twice this number of years. [3062] And being pleased to make him a representative of his own sovereign power, he displayed him as the conqueror of the whole race of tyrants, and the destroyer of those God-defying giants [3063] of the earth who madly raised their impious arms against him, the supreme King of all. They appeared, so to speak, for an instant, and then disappeared: while the one and only true God, when he had enabled his servant, clad in heavenly panoply, to stand singly against many foes, and by his means had relieved mankind from the multitude of the ungodly, constituted him a teacher of his worship to all nations, to testify with a loud voice in the hearing of all that he acknowledged the true God, and turned with abhorrence from the error of them that are no gods.
[3062] Compare discussion of length of reign and life under Life in Prolegomena, p. 411.
[3063] 'Gig?nton. The persecuting emperors appear to be meant, of whom there is more mention hereafter.--Bag.] Refers of course to the mythical Gigantes who fought against the gods. It is used in the same sense in which Æschylus uses it of Capaneus (Theb. 424), who defied Zeus in declaring that even his thunderbolts should not keep him out of Thebes.