| EDICT
OF TOLERATION BY GALERIUS Ending the Diocletian persecution of Christianity ( AD 311 ) |
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( Munro & Bramhall in Translations and Reprints..., IV, Philadelphia, 1898, pp. 28-29 ). |
| (Ch. 34.) Among
other arrangements which we are always accustomed to make for the prosperity
and welfare of the republic, we had desired formerly to bring all things
into harmony with the ancient laws and public order of the Romans, and
to provide that even the Christians who had left the religion of their
fathers should come back to reason ; since, indeed, the Christians
themselves, for some reason, had followed such a caprice and had fallen
into such a folly that they would not obey the institutes of antiquity,
which perchance their own ancestors had first established ; but
at their own will and pleasure, they would thus make laws unto themselves
which they should observe and would collect various peoples in divers
places in congregations. Finally, when our law had been promulgated
to the effect that they should conform to the institutes of antiquity,
many were subdued by the fear of danger, many even suffered death. And
yet since most of them persevered in their determination, and we saw
that they neither paid the reverence and awe due to the gods nor worshipped
the God of the Christians, in view of our most mild clemency and the
constant habit by which we are accustomed to grant indulgence to all,
we thought that we ought to grant our most prompt indulgence also to
these, so that they may again be Christians and may hold their conventicles,
provided they do nothing contrary to good order. But we shall tell the
magistrates in another letter what they ought to do. |
| Wherefore,
for this our indulgence, they ought to pray to their God for our safety,
for that of the republic, and for their own, that the republic may continue
uninjured on every side, and that they may be able to live securely
in their homes. |
| (ch. 35.) This
edict is published at Nicomedia on the day before the Kalends of May,
in our eighth consulship and the second of Maximinus. |
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