Beate Dignas & Engelbert Winter - Kaveh Farrokh

31 From Diocletian to Constantine 219
for the Christians in the Sasanian Empire were severe as they were declared
enemies of the state, Roman auxiliary troops, and soon after were officially
persecuted – for political rather than religious reasons. 52
In turn, the attitude of the Roman emperors towards the Persian
Christians was also influenced by the religious policy of Constantine the
Great (306–37). In his Life of Constantine, the Greek Church father Eusebius
of Caesarea (Palestine), who was very close to the emperor, 53 quotes a
letter which Constantine wrote to the Sasanian king ˇ Sāpūr II (309–79) on
behalf of the Christians in the Persian Empire. 54
Eusebius, Vita Constantini iv.8 and iv.13
(8) When the Persian king also deemed it worthy to win Constantine’s friendship
through an embassy and sent gifts indicating his desire for friendship and peace, the
emperor, too, wanted to form an alliance with him; he surpassed the king, who had
obliged him with his honours first, in an exceptional way with his counter gifts. 55
When he found out that the churches of God were numerous among the Persians
and that very many communities had joined the herds of Christ, he rejoiced and
displayed – as if the common protector of everything – also there his solicitude
for all. He will now express this in his own words which he used in a letter to the
Persian king, recommending them with utmost diligence and zeal to his care. This
letter, which was written by the emperor himself, 56 is circulated among us in Latin
but translated into Greek it should be more accessible to the readers. 57 It reads as
follows . . .
(13) ‘You can imagine with what joy I heard that also many fine areas of Persia
are adorned with this group of people, I mean the Christians (for it is on their
behalf that I am speaking), just as I desire. May many blessings be granted to you,
and in equal amounts blessings to them, as they also belong to you; in this way the
almighty Lord will be a father to you, merciful and benevolent. I now commend
these to you, because you are so powerful, I place them in your care, because your
piety is as eminent. Love them according to your customary humanity; for by this
expression of your faith you will procure an immeasurable gratification for yourself
and for us.’
52 Brentjes 1978: 245; on the ambivalent situation of the Christians see Blum 1980: 11–32 and Brock
1982: 1–9 (= 1984: 1–19).
53 See Barnes 1981 and Winkelmann 1991.
54 On this letter see Dörries 1954: 125–7; Vivian 1987 and Girardet 1998: 75–6.
55 The embassy referred to by Eusebius dates to the year 324, that is after Constantine had defeated
Licinius and become the sole ruler of the empire; it would appear that soon after (around 325)
Constantine approached ˇ Sāpūr II; on the dating of the letter (324, 325 or 327) see DeDecker 1979:
100; Barnes 1985: 131; Vivian 1987: 87–129.
56 For Warmington 1986: 94 this letter is the only ‘surviving verbatim example of an imperial diplomatic
document from a Roman emperor’; in contrast Vivian 1987: 70–7, who questions the authenticity
of the letter as being a document composed by Constantine himself.
57 Greek was the preferred language in the Eastern Roman Empire, also with regard to foreign relations;
cf. Balsdon 1979: 135.