two disciples (1). In his time Arius was declaring, “The Father alone is God, the unique and self-sufficient One; the Son is a created being, a product, and there was a time when the Father existed and the Son did not.” Peter therefore said to his two disciples, “The Messiah has cursed Arius, so beware of accepting his words. I saw the Messiah in a dream with His garment torn. I asked, ‘My lord, who tore Your garment?’ He replied, ‘Arius. Beware of receiving him or letting him enter the church with you.’

Five years after Peter’s martyrdom one of his disciples was made patriarch of Alexandria; he served for six months and died. When all that befell Arius had run its course, Arius pretended that he had repented of his doctrine. That patriarch accepted him, admitted him into the church, and ordained him a priest.

Then another Caesar arose, hunting down Christians and killing them until God poured His vengeance upon him and he perished the worst of deaths.

He was followed by two Caesars: one ruled Syria, the Roman provinces, and part of the East; the other, Rome and the lands around it. They were like ravenous beasts toward the Christians, inflicting upon them slaughter, captivity, and exile such as no previous king had wrought. Serving with them was Festus (2), Constantine’s father, a devout man (3) who detested idols and loved the Christians. He set out toward al-Jazīra and Edessa and took up residence in a village outside Edessa. There he saw a beautiful woman named Helena, who had embraced Christianity at the hands of the bishop of Edessa and had learned to read the Scriptures. He asked her father for her hand, married her, and she conceived and bore Constantine, who was thus raised in Edessa,