Laws Ending Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

These two laws were both intended to bring to an end in the eastern part of the Roman Empire the Great Persecution of Christians, which had begun in February 303 and had ended in much of the western part of the Roman Empire in 306. The first law, an edict issued on his deathbed by Galerius, the original instigator of the persecution, was of little lasting effect, as Maximinus Daia, the emperor who succeeded Galerius in Asia Minor and the Levant, resumed persecution within six months. The second law, an imperial letter issued by Licinius after he had overthrown Maximinus in 313, ended persecution and restored Christian property. This marked an important stage in the process by which Christianity came to supplant traditional public religion in the cities of the Roman Empire.

Edict of Galerius

Having been the prime mover behind the Great Persecution, Galerius, as he lay dying, exercised the clemency that Roman emperors considered an important political virtue by restoring to Christians the right to practice their religion and to build places of worship. Christians had already had that right since 306 in territories that Galerius did not directly control—that is, Britain, Gaul, and Spain (controlled by Constantine) and Italy and North Africa (controlled by Maxentius); indeed, in those western territories Christians had also had restored to them the property confiscated in 303.

Preface The preface, giving the full titles of the emperors, is preserved only in the Greek translation of Eusebius. The titles themselves crystallize the constitutional basis for imperial authority and record the names of areas where emperors won significant military victories. It was the custom that edicts should be issued in the names of all emperors who recognized one another's legitimacy even if the motivation for a particular law came from only one of them. Here the three emperors named are Galerius, Constantine, and Licinius. It is possible that Maximinus was originally also named but was omitted by the Christian Eusebius because of his reputation as a persecutor, though Eusebius does claim that Maximinus did not publish the law in his territories, preferring to propagate its message to provincial governors by other means. In manuscripts of the Church History that reflect the state of the text as Eusebius had rewritten it after Constantine and Licinius had become hostile to each other, the name and titles of Licinius are also omitted.

Paragraphs 1 and 2 The surviving text opens by explaining the reasons for the Great Persecution. Few statements of the rationale for persecution survive; this one comes from the prime mover of the Great Persecution himself. Galerius was concerned not with the Christians' beliefs or practices but with their neglect of established religious practice. Earlier laws of the tetrarchs, such as their marriage edict of 295, express similar concerns in similar language. Persecution, then, was meant not to exterminate Christians but to strengthen traditional religion. This intent is apparent in various instances in which persecuting judges expressed joy upon persuading Christians to offer sacrifice to the gods.

Galerius hoped that the Great Persecution would uphold ancient laws and public disciplina. (The Latin word disciplina has a broader significance than the English word discipline; the Latin term refers to all those things that one might be able to learn, so it signifies something like civilization, culture, or way of life.) The emphasis on antiquity is typical of Roman conceptions of public religion. It arises not from unthinking resistance to religious change but from concern that civic religion should maintain a balance among the divine forces that were worshipped (the pax deorum, or peace of the gods). Experiment might unbalance such forces and make the gods angry. Popular mythology held that the Trojan War was caused by divine discord; every city was afraid of the anger of the gods, which might at any time disturb the balance of nature, producing direct and dire practical consequences for a community's security and economic survival.

Galerius thought instinctively of religion in terms of public obligations. His concern was not with the private religious opinions or practices but with the effect of Christianity on Roman public disciplina. For Galerius the failure of Christians to honor the gods of their ancestors amounted to their making up a set of private laws that could be observed how and when the followers wished. This behavior was something that would be attempted only by people suffering from stultitia (stupidity). Accusations of stultitia were frequently traded back and forth between Christians and pagans in the written polemic of the Great Persecution; these accusations expressed the mutual incomprehension by both Christians and pagans of each other's positions.

Paragraphs 3–5 In these paragraphs Galerius affirms that many Christians were martyred and that others were put in danger. The exact number of martyrs cannot be known. Local tradition at Alexandria, one of the worst-hit Christian communities, preserved the figure of 660 martyrs, a number that may not be too far from the truth. Most surviving accounts of executions of individual Christians, the so-called Acts of the Martyrs, were written long after the persecutions and owe more to the imagination of the devout than to the facts of history; fewer than a dozen are contemporary with the Great Persecution. However, Eusebius's Martyrs of Palestine gives eyewitness accounts of the fate and faithful determination of many of the author's friends; further detail in his Church History, in the writings of Lactantius, and in other contemporary texts confirms the truth of Galerius's statement. Christians, as Galerius was reportedly warned by Diocletian, had the habit of dying gladly.

Many Christians survived in fear. Some (including Eusebius) spent time in jail but were not executed, some sought refuge in deserted places, some bribed the authorities, and some sent their friends or slaves to sacrifice for them. Many, including bishops and other clergy, simply sacrificed, and some of these even argued that sacrificing was not incompatible with being a faithful Christian. The Christian Tertullian once remarked that in time of persecution the church behaves as though it has been struck by thunder. From the pagan point of view, it may be said that to some extent persecution worked.

Whatever ulterior motives Galerius may have had for granting freedom of worship to the Christians, his stated motive was a wish to exercise clementia, not toleration in any modern sense, but the sort of humane and forbearing conduct toward subjects that was admired by emperors and praised by Roman philosophers, such as Seneca. The edict's effect was to revoke the three original edicts that had precipitated the persecution in 303. Christians could once more gather to worship, own property, and rebuild their churches, and they would no longer be required to sacrifice incense on an altar upon appearing in court. These freedoms were granted on the condition that Christians did nothing contrary to disciplina. Christians welcomed the law with enthusiasm, but the clause requiring that they do nothing contrary to disciplina was wide open to interpretation by provincial governors.

In the document Galerius gives no indication as to the means by which Christians were to recover property confiscated from them at the beginning of the persecution. Churches had been expressly permitted to own land and buildings, including cemeteries, and to build places of worship ever since 260, when the emperor Gallienus ended the second general persecution, started by his father, Valerian. Only one church building earlier than the rule of Constantine has been thoroughly excavated—the urban villa converted for Christian use in the early third century at Dura-Europus on the Euphrates. It is therefore difficult to say much about the places of worship that were confiscated from Christians in 303.

Laws issued by emperors regularly promised provincial governors that they would receive further instructions concerning implementation. Imperial pronouncements were in Latin; the emperor would direct governors to make them public under a governor's edict, which in Greek-speaking provinces would normally be in Greek. Laws were posted in the public places of cities; in fact, the first martyr of the Great Persecution was the Christian who tore down the persecuting edict posted at Nicomedia in February 303. Sometimes edicts were carved on stone, as were Maximinus Daia's responses to the petitions sent him in 312 by provincial cities seeking his permission to solve their Christian problem. Provincial governors held office for short periods but were able to exercise considerable initiative; hearing serious legal cases formed a large part of their duties.

In paragraph 5 Galerius indicates that he expects Christians to pray to their god for his safety. Since the second century Christians had been assuring emperors that despite their unwillingness to sacrifice incense to the emperor as a god, they were accustomed to pray to their own god for him; it is not clear whether any earlier emperor had taken such assurances seriously.

Letter of Licinius

This document was issued by the emperor Licinius on June 13, 313, at Nicomedia in Bithynia (northwestern Asia Minor). It is an official letter to the governors of the provinces he had recently conquered from the emperor Maximinus. The copies that survive appear to be from Bithynia, preserved in the original Latin by Lactantius, and from Palestine, translated into Greek and preserved by Eusebius. There are minor variations; in particular, the Greek version has an introductory paragraph lacking in the Latin. Comparison with other imperial laws suggests that the original document was probably longer and that the paragraphs that survive are those intended to have the most practical impact.

Paragraph 1 The initial paragraph is found only in the Greek translation of the text preserved in the Church History of Eusebius. Its convoluted language expresses the thought that each man should have the ability to make his own decisions concerning divine matters, so Christians should have the freedom to follow their way of life and worship. (The gratuitous addition “and non-Christians” found in some English translations has no manuscript authority.) This assertion about individual freedom may seem obvious to a modern sensibility, but to an ancient ear it would have sounded peculiar. Roman religion was in the first place communal and practical. It was not concerned with feelings or ideas—insofar as it aimed to give an ideological account of the gods, it did so through poetry and mythology rather than through philosophical propositions.

Civic religion ensured that the community at large received the practical and immediate benefits of prosperity and public security by performing rituals, particularly sacrifice, that secured the continuing cooperation of the forces of nature. Alongside the performance of such public obligations, Romans held a wide range of views on ultimate questions and in consequence performed a broad range of private devotions. However, they were not allowed to interfere with the fulfillment of public obligations; it would be difficult for Romans to see how civic religious responsibilities could be matters of individual choice, how, as Galerius complained was the practice of Christians, people could make up laws for themselves. The present document, then, is to be seen not as an assertion of universal religious toleration but rather as a step along the road to the Christianization of the Roman Empire. It is important because it granted leave to Christians to worship and live in their own way and implicitly permitted them not to cooperate in the public observances of their communities.

Licinius refers to an earlier rescript that had accorded freedom of worship to Christians. (A rescript is the response of an emperor to a request for a ruling, whether from one of his officials or from a private person, and it had the force of law.) It is not clear what rescript is referred to here. It may be one that survives in Eusebius's Church History and that was issued by Maximinus to Sabinus, his praetorian prefect, in response to the threat to him posed by Constantine and Licinius, only a short while before Licinius defeated him and drove him to suicide. The text of this rescript does indeed concede that if Christians wish to follow their own religion, they should be allowed to do so, while expressing more forcefully the hope that they would return to the worship of the civic gods. As Licinius's army advanced against him, Maximinus issued a further law affirming Christians' freedom to worship, allowing the building of churches, restoring Christian property, and blaming the suffering of Christians on overzealous provincial governors. It is easy to believe, therefore, that the rescript to Sabinus, issued by a defeated and dead emperor and confused by Maximinus's subsequent edict, might well have given rise to the “many and various conditions” to which Licinius refers.

Paragraph 2 Licinius states clearly the circumstances that brought about the law he was about to promulgate. After Constantine had defeated Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 and thereby added Italy and North Africa to his territories, there were only three emperors left: Constantine in the West, Licinius in the Balkans, and Maximinus in the eastern Mediterranean basin. Licinius allied himself with Constantine, marrying Constantine's sister. Licinius was then free to assault Maximinus, who fled across Asia Minor to Tarsus. At Tarsus, Maximinus took poison, leaving Licinius in control of the eastern half of the empire.

Part of the agreement between Constantine and Licinius at Milan had been that Licinius would bring the Great Persecution to a final end. Constantine had been keen to succor the Christians ever since his accession in 306. Licinius, on the other hand, had no particular commitment to Christianity, though he was willing to have his army offer anodyne invocations to the Most High God. The letter that Licinius issued is therefore the result of an agreement between two emperors with substantially different interests. Any appearance it may have of evenhandedness cannot be separated from the probability that it is the product of compromise. The statement, however, that divine patronage was essential to prosperity and political success would likely have been endorsed by any Roman, pagan, or Christian.

Paragraph 3 The statement in this paragraph that individuals should have a free choice in matters of religion has a misleadingly modern appearance. Romans had long held a broad range of philosophical views and practiced various private cults, which did not interfere with the performance of their public religious duties. Permission to practice private religion of one's choice was not the point at issue; the concern was permission to follow a religion at odds with established civic religious practices. Christians believed that only their god deserved worship. They knew that many non-Christian philosophers thought that there was only one god, but the Christians also believed that only they knew how to offer him worship. It is the favor of the Christian god, obtained through such worship, that Licinius says he wants to enjoy. Beneath the rhetoric of free private choice lies a tendency toward Christianizing public religion; by the end of the fourth century, similar rhetoric about freedom and diversity of religion was being employed by those attempting to sustain traditional public paganism.

Paragraphs 4–6 We no longer have details of the stipulations that had been given to governors to implement the persecution and that Licinius here rescinds. Licinius, like Galerius before him, acknowledges the terrors that persecution aroused among Christians, though Lactantius claims that martyrs were able to endure suffering because they feared only God. Paragraphs 5 and 6 stipulate that the new liberties accorded to Christians must not interfere with the rights of others. It was not until after Constantine achieved sole supreme power in 324 that steps were taken to destroy traditional civic religion.

Paragraphs 7–9 Paragraphs 7 through 9 order confiscated Christian communal property to be returned and arrangements to be made to compensate those who had acquired it during the persecution. Claimants were directed to apply to the office of the vicarius, a senior official who oversaw a grouping of provinces known as a diocesis. This provision covered all church property, not just buildings where Christians met for worship, and included Christian cemeteries, which were often the focus for the growing cult of the martyrs. Churches as corporate bodies had been allowed to own land and buildings since the law of Gallienus ending the Valerianic Persecution in 260 but had lost their property at the start of the Great Persecution in 303. Accounts of some local confiscations in North Africa at the start of the Great Persecution are preserved in a collection of documents called the Optatan Appendix, but most details of the official procedures (forma) have been lost.

Paragraphs 10–12 This exercise of imperial clementia was intended to foster public peace and also to ensure divine favor for the emperors. Several surviving documents written by Constantine attribute his success to the favor of the Christian god. The Letter of Licinius, unlike the laws of the pagan Maximinus, makes no mention of divine favor for individual cities.