had an impact on the whole empire), Diocletian ordered the leaders of Manicheism
to be burnt alive together with their books (Collatio legum15.3). These were unusu-
ally hard measures, which, however, did not destroy Manicheism.
Perhaps about 300, after a traditional sacrifice had failed, Diocletian, being told
that this was due to the presence of Christians, ordered first the members of the
palace, soon all of his soldiers and officials to make sacrifices (Lact. DMP10; Divinae
institutiones 4.27.4 –5; Eus. V. Const.2.50 –1). Whoever refused to do so was dis-
missed. Four years later the Diocletianic persecution began, which was to become
the longest and most thorough persecution of Christians. The details of its history
are partially ambiguous: the accounts of our main sources, Lactantius, whose De mort-
ibus persecutorumnarrates the gruesome fates of the persecutors, punished by God,
and Eusebius, who devotes the eighth book of his Church Historyas a whole to the
persecution and its martyrs, differ insofar as only Eusebius distinguishes several edicts.
Here a harmonizing interpretation is adopted (following Corcoran 1996: 179 ff. in
the main outlines), an approach which is arguably controversial (see e.g. Schwarte
1994), particularly as the edicts released for the various parts of the empire may have
shown discrepancies.
It seems to be clear that several edicts threatened Christianity with ever harder
oppression. The first edict, legitimized by an oracle of Apollo and promulgated at
Nicomedia on February 24, 303, ordered the destruction of church buildings and
Christian texts, forbade services to be held, degraded officials who were Christians,
re-enslaved imperial freedmen who were Christians, and reduced the legal rights of
all Christians. But physical or capital punishments were not imposed on them (Lact.
DMP13; Eus.HE8.2.3– 4).
When not much later fires broke out in the palace, arson by Christians was sus-
pected. Several adherents were executed because they were regarded as being guilty
(Lact. DMP14.2; Eus. HE8.6.6). A second edict menaced clerics with imprisonment
(Eus.HE8.2.5); a third, offering a kind of amnesty, ordered them to make sacrifices,
promising freedom to those who did (Eus. HE8.2.5, 8.6.10). Even in 304, a final
edict, seemingly going back to Decius, enjoined universal sacrifice (Eus. Martyribus
Palaestinae 3.1; Lact. DMP15.4). With this edict, Diocletian took up Decius’ meas-
ure, but the times had changed, so as to make it a plainly anti-Christian decree.
The edicts did not fulfill their aims; they were not enforced in every part of the em-
pire with equal vigor. Constantius, Caesarand then Augustusof the west, ignored
them; other rulers or governors did not put them into effect wholeheartedly. Even
in those parts of the empire where the rulers tried to apply the edicts rigorously,
Christians proved to be locally powerful, although as during former persecutions
a considerable number of Christians accommodated themselves to the authorities.
When Diocletian retired in 305, his successor Galerius became the main champion
of anti-Christian politics. On his deathbed, however, Galerius, acknowledging his
defeat, revoked the politics of persecution in 311. In a new edict he allowed the
Christians to assemble and asked them to pray for the emperor (Lact. DMP34;
Eus. HE8.17.3–10). This meant an official recognition of their importance in the
religious world of the Roman empire, although one of the tetrachs, Maximinus Daia,
still oppressed Christians in his part of the empire up to 313.
Old Religions Transformed 103