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The Third Part of the Ecclesiastical History of John Bishop of Ephesus, Tr. by R.p. Smith
The Third Part of the Ecclesiastical History of John Bishop of Ephesus Tr by Rp Smith Author:Joannes General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1860 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: III. 2. For the merciful God, Who willeth not the destruction of His creatures, and Whose providence watcheth over the lives of men, when He saw that king Justin was using his royal power for things excessive and alien to all piety, visited him with chastisement, lest when the measure of his sins was full, it should sink him in utter perdition. For He beheld him wickedly shedding the blood of innocent men, and given up to the plundering and reckless spoiling of their goods, unrestrained by the thought of the fear of God, and gathering and heaping up unrighteous wealth beyond what most of his predecessors had done : and finally, not content with stirring up God to anger by crimes such as these, he betook himself also to the persecution of Christians severely and pitilessly, and without natural mercy, levelling the altars of the orthodox in bitter wrath by the hands of the bishop John, and everywhere breaking down their churches, and seizing their priests and bishops, and oppressing them, and vexing them, and confining them in prisons, and guardhouses and monasteries, and in various cruel hospices, being men aged and weighed down, and infirm with years; so that many of them even fainted, and departed from this present life, being exhausted by the miseries and tortures of their bonds, and their str1ct and bitter and severe imprisonments. For many of his evil deeds have never even been mentioned by us, nor are we willing to record or bear witness of much of his conduct, so iniquitous was its character: but itdid not escape the justice of God, Who yet, because He was gracious unto him, that he might not utt...« less