Edict of Milan

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The "Edict of Milan" (313) declared that the Roman Empire would be neutral with regard to religious worship, officially ending all government-sanctioned persecution, especially of Christianity. The Edict was issued in the names of Constantine I, Western emperor, and Licinius, the Eastern emperor.

A previous edict of toleration had been recently issued from Nicomedia by the Emperor Galerius in 311. By its provisions, the Christians, who had "followed such a caprice and had fallen into such a folly that they would not obey the institutes of antiquity", were granted an indulgence.

"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." (Res publica might have better been translated "commonwealth.")

The Edict of Milan went further. Enforcement of the Edict returned the meeting places and other properties which had been confiscated from the Christians and sold out of the government treasury: "…the same shall be restored to the Christians without payment or any claim of recompense and without any kind of fraud or deception…". It gave to Christianity (and any other religion) a status of legitimacy alongside of Paganism, and, in effect, disestablished Paganism as the official religion of the Roman Empire and its armies.

The actual edicts have not been retrieved inscribed upon stone, but quoted at length in a historical work with a theme of divine retribution, by the Church Father Lactantius, De mortibus persecutionibus ("Deaths of the persecutors") in chapters 35 and 48.

In the attempt to consolidate the entire Roman Empire under one ruler, Licinius marched against Constantine. As part of his effort to win the loyalty of the army, Licinius exempted the army and civil service from the Edict's policy of toleration, allowing him to expel the Christians. Some Christians consequently lost property and at least a few lost their lives. A hagiographic legend survives, for example, relating how, around 320, forty Christians in Sevaste refused to pour out a drink-offering in tribute to the Pagan gods; as punishment, they were beaten and jailed. When they still refused to participate in the rite, they were made to stand naked on ice in mid-winter until they froze to death. A handful of them decided to renounce Christianity and joined the other soldiers by the warm fires, while an equal number decided to confess their heretofore hidden Christianity and join those on the ice. The tradition also tells of angels descending, to place crowns on the martyrs' heads.

In 324, Constantine, tempted by the "advanced age and unpopular vices" (Gibbon) of Licinius, again declared war against him, and, having defeated his army at the Battle of Adrianople (July 3, 324), succeeded in shutting him up within the walls of Byzantium. The defeat of the superior fleet of Licinius by Flavius Julius Crispus, Constantine’s eldest son, compelled his withdrawal to Bithynia, where a last stand was made; the Battle of Chrysopolis, near Chalcedon (September 18), resulted in his final submission. Licinius was interned at Thessalonica, under a kind of house arrest; when he attempted to raise troops among the barbarians, Constantine had him assassinated.

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