Eusebius — Church History, Book VIII (c. 325)

An eyewitness account of the Great Persecution under the Emperor Diocletian, the harshest the early Church ever faced.

Eusebius of Caesarea is called the father of church history. In Book VIII he describes the persecution that began in 303: churches destroyed, Scriptures burned, and believers imprisoned, tortured and killed across the empire.

Eusebius lived through it himself. A decade later, under Constantine, Christianity became legal, and his history records both the suffering and the survival.

Part of the Boston Made Reader’s special collection Courage, Conscience & Service. Every book and document here is free to read.