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UNDER the government of Constantine the churches flourished and
increased in numbers daily, since they were honored by the good deeds
of a benevolent and well-disposed emperor, and otherwise God
preserved them from the persecutions and harassments which they had
previously encountered. When the churches were suffering from
persecution in other parts of the world, Constantius alone, the
father of Constantine, accorded the Christians the right of
worshiping God without fear. I know of an extraordinary thing done by
him, which is worthy of being recorded. He wished to test the
fidelity of certain Christians, excellent and good men, who were
attached to his palaces. He called them all together, and told them
that if they would sacrifice to idols as well as serve God, they
should remain in his service and retain their appointments; but that if
they refused compliance with his wishes, they should be sent from the
palaces, and should scarcely escape his I vengeance. When difference
of judgment had divided them into two parties, separating those who
consented to abandon their religion from those who preferred the honor
of God to their present welfare, the emperor determined upon retaining
those who had adhered to their faith as his friends and counselors; but
he turned away from the others, whom he regarded as unmanly and
impostors, and sent them from his presence, judging that they who had
so readily betrayed their God could never be true to their king.
Hence it is probable that while Constantius was alive, it did not
seem contrary to the laws for the inhabitants of the countries beyond
Italy to profess Christianity, that is to say, in Gaul, in
Britain, or in the region of the Pyrenean mountains as far as the
Western Ocean. When Constantine succeeded to the same government,
the affairs of the churches became still more brilliant; for when
Maxentius, the son of Herculius, was slain, his share also devolved
upon Constantine; and the nations who dwelt by the river Tiber and
the Eridanus, which the natives call Padus, those who dwelt by the
Aquilis, whither, it is said, the Argo was dragged, and the
inhabitants of the coasts of the Tyrrhenian sea were permitted the
exercise of their religion without molestation.
When the Argonauts fled from AEetes, they returned homewards by a
different route, crossed the sea of Scythia, sailed through some of
the rivers there, and so gained the shores of Italy, where they
passed the winter and built a city, which they called Emona. The
following summer, with the assistance of the people of the country,
they dragged the Argo, by means of machinery, the distance of four
hundred stadia, and so reached the Aquilis, a river which falls into
the Eridanus: the Eridanus itself falls into the Italian sea.
After the battle of Cibalis the Dardanians and the Macedonians, the
inhabitants of the banks of the Ister, of Hellas, and the whole
nation of Illyria, became subject to Constantine.
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