The Diocletianic or Great Persecution was the last and most
severe persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. In 303, the Emperors
Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius issued a series of edicts
rescinding the legal rights of Christians and demanding that they comply with
traditional Roman religious practices. Later edicts targeted the clergy and
ordered all inhabitants to sacrifice to the Roman gods (a policy known as
universal sacrifice). The persecution varied in intensity across the
empire—weakest in Gaul and Britain, where only the first edict was applied, and
strongest in the Eastern provinces. Persecutory laws were nullified by different
emperors at different times, but Constantine and Licinius's Edict of Milan
(313) has traditionally marked the end of the persecution.
Christians had always been subject to local discrimination
in the empire, but early emperors were either too reluctant to issue general
laws against them or, at least in the 3rd century (see Crisis of the Third
Century), too caught up with more immediate issues to do so. It was not until
the 250s, under the reigns of Decius and Valerian, that such laws were passed.
Under this legislation, Christians were compelled to sacrifice to Roman gods or
face imprisonment and execution.When Gallienus acceded in 260, he issued the
first imperial edict regarding tolerance toward Christians, leading to nearly
40 years of peaceful coexistence. Diocletian's accession in 284 did not mark an
immediate reversal of disregard to Christianity, but it did herald a gradual
shift in official attitudes toward religious minorities. In the first 15 years
of his rule, Diocletian purged the army of Christians, condemned Manicheans to
death, and surrounded himself with public opponents of Christianity.
Diocletian's preference for autocratic government, combined with his self-image
as a restorer of past Roman glory, presaged the most pervasive persecution in
Roman history. In the winter of 302, Galerius urged Diocletian to begin a
general persecution of the Christians. Diocletian was wary, and asked the
oracle of Apollo for guidance. The oracle's reply was read as an endorsement of
Galerius's position, and a general persecution was called on February 24, 303.
Persecutory policies varied in intensity across the empire.
Where Galerius and Diocletian were avid persecutors, Constantius was
unenthusiastic. Later persecutory edicts, including the calls for universal
sacrifice, were not applied in his domain. His son, Constantine, on taking the
imperial office in 306, restored Christians to full legal equality and returned
property that had been confiscated during the persecution. In Italy in 306, the
usurper Maxentius ousted Maximian's successor Severus, promising full religious
toleration. Galerius ended the persecution in the East in 311, but it was
resumed in Egypt, Palestine, and Asia Minor by his successor, Maximinus.
Constantine and Licinius, Severus's successor, signed the Edict of Milan in
313, which offered a more comprehensive acceptance of Christianity than
Galerius's edict had provided. Licinius ousted Maximinus in 313, bringing an
end to persecution in the East.
The persecution failed to check the rise of the church. By
324, Constantine was sole ruler of the empire, and Christianity had become his
favored religion. Although the persecution resulted in death, torture,
imprisonment, or dislocation for many Christians, the majority of the empire's
Christians avoided punishment. The persecution did, however, cause many
churches to split between those who had complied with imperial authority (the
traditores), and those who had remained "pure". Certain schisms, like
those of the Donatists in North Africa and the Meletians in Egypt, persisted
long after the persecutions. The Donatists would not be reconciled to the
Church until after 411. In the centuries that followed, some historians
consider that Christians created a "cult of the martyrs", and
exaggerated the barbarity of the persecutory era. These accounts were
criticized during the Enlightenment and afterwards, most notably by Edward
Gibbon. Modern historians, such as G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, have attempted to determine
whether Christian sources exaggerated the scope of the Diocletianic
persecution.
Source: History.com
