Laws Ending Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire

Impact

The Edict of Galerius had very limited impact. Christians had enjoyed liberty since 306 in the territories of Constantine (Britain, Gaul, and Spain) and probably also in those controlled by Maxentius (Italy and Latin-speaking Africa). The edict therefore affected only the Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean, where Christians initially welcomed it; Eusebius describes the lights burning in the churches that Eastertide. Within six months Maximinus Daia had renewed persecution in Asia Minor, the Levant, and Egypt.

The Letter of Licinius granted freedom of worship to Christians and restored their property, including churches, awarding appropriate compensation from imperial funds. Those in charge of pagan oracles that had inspired the persecutors were rounded up and tortured until they admitted that their oracles were fraudulent. However, the letter did nothing to diminish the practice of traditional civic religion; many cities remained obstinately attached to their customary practices into the fifth century. Christians, meanwhile, built churches and resumed worship. Lactantius's triumphant pamphlet On the Deaths of the Persecutors, glorying in the defeat and death of emperors who presumed to persecute Christians, was written between 313 and 315, soon after the Christian triumphs that it chronicles.

The Letter of Licinius was a clear expression of imperial favor for the Christians, but it did not complete the process of the Christianization of the Roman Empire. In 316 Licinius was attacked by Constantine, who took his Balkan territory. In 324 Constantine attacked again, partly on the pretext that Licinius was preparing to persecute Christians. Licinius was deposed and subsequently killed.

Between 324, when he defeated Licinius, and his death in 337, Constantine promoted Christianity extensively. One Eastertide he preached a sermon, which survives, to the Christians at his court, attributing his success to the protection of the Christian god. A new imperial residence was founded at Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), a city whose public life was dominated not by traditional civic religion but by the emperor and the buildings and practice of Christianity. A general council, attended by some 250 bishops and by Constantine himself, was convened at Nicaea in 325 to agree upon a creed defining the essentials of Christian beliefs. Pagan sacrifice was forbidden, and several important temples were closed. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was constructed on the site of the principal Roman temple at Jerusalem.

Despite such active imperial patronage, Christianity did not become the public religion of the Roman Empire overnight. Public religion in the Roman Empire had always been a concern primarily of individual cities. By the same token, the Christianization of the empire took place city by city, as individual communities incorporated Christianity into their communal lives, their civic calendars, and their public architecture. In some cities the process was swift: By 361 at Caesarea Mazaca, Cappadocia, in central Asia Minor (present-day Kayseri in Turkey), there was only one temple left but numerous shrines to Christians martyrs. By contrast, in 386 at Carrhae (modern-day Haran on the Turkish-Syrian frontier), the only resident Christian was the city's unfortunate bishop. What the Letter of Licinius and Constantine's subsequent patronage of the church achieved was to ensure that the current of affairs would henceforth flow in the Christian direction.