Edict of Milan

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The document known as the Edict of Milan (Edictum Mediolanense) is found in De Mortibus Persecutorum of Lactantius and Eusebius of Caesarea's History of the Church with marked divergences between them.[1] In February 313, Constantine I, emperor controlling the western part of the Roman Empire and Licinius, controlling the Balkans, met in Milan and, among other things, agreed to treat the Christians benevolently. Whether or not there was a formal 'edict of Milan'  is debatable.[2] The version found in Lactantius is not in the form of an edict;[1] it is a letter from Licinius to the governors of the provinces in the Eastern Empire he had just conquered by defeating Maximin[3] later in the same year and issued in Nicomedia.[2]

Contents

History [edit]

Remains of the Imperial palace of Mediolanum (Milan). The imperial palace (mainly built by Maximian, colleague of Diocletian) was a large complex with several buildings, gardens, courtyards, for the Emperor's private and public life, for his court, family and imperial bureaucracy

Ever since the fall of the Severan Dynasty in 235 rivals for the imperial throne had bid for support by either favoring or persecuting Christians.[4] A previous edict of toleration had been recently issued by the emperor Galerius from Serdica and posted up at Nicomedia on 30 April 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.[5]

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 commonwealth may continue uninjured on every side, and that they may be able to live securely in their homes.

Their confiscated property, however, was not restored until 313 when instructions were given for the Christians' meeting places and other properties were to be returned and compensation paid by the state to the current owners:[6]

the same shall be restored to the Christians without payment or any claim of recompense and without any kind of fraud or deception

It directed the provincial magistrates to execute this order at once with all energy, so that public order may be restored and the continuance of the Divine favor may "preserve and prosper our successes together with the good of the state."

The actual letters have never been retrieved inscribed upon stone. However, they are quoted at length in Lactantius' On the Deaths of the Persecutors (De mortibus persecutorum), which gives the Latin text of both Galerius's Edict of Toleration as posted at Nicomedia on 30 April 311, and of Licinius's letter of toleration and restitution addressed to the governor of Bithynia, posted at Nicomedia on 13 June 313. Eusebius of Caesarea translated both into Greek in his History of the Church (Historia Ecclesiastica). His version of the letter of Licinius must derive from a copy as posted up in Israel (probably at Caesarea) in the late summer or early autumn of 313, but the origin of his copy of Galerius's Edict of 311 is unknown, since that does not seem to have been promulgated in Caesarea. In his Life of Constantine, Eusebius eliminated the role at Milan of Licinius, whom he portrayed as the evil foil to his hero Constantine.

The Edict was in effect promulgated against Maximinus Daia, Caesar in the East who was currently styling himself Augustus. Having received the emperor Galerius' instruction to repeal the persecution in 311, Maximinus had instructed his subordinates to desist, but had not released Christians from prisons or virtual death-sentences in the mines, as Constantine and Licinius had both done in the West. Following Galerius' death, Maximin was no longer constrained; he enthusiastically took up renewed persecutions in the eastern territories under his control, encouraging petitions against Christians, one of which, addressed to him and to Constantine and Licinius, is preserved in a stone inscription at Arycanda in Lycia, "to request that the Christians, who have long been disloyal and still persist in the same mischievous intent, should at last be put down and not be suffered by any absurd novelty to offend against the honour due to the gods."[7]

Since the Edict was composed for publication in the east by Licinius, on his hoped for victory over Maximinus, it was expressive of the religious policy accepted by Licinius, a pagan, rather than that of Constantine, already a committed Christian. Constantine's own policy went beyond tolerating Christianity: he tolerated paganism and other religions, but Christianity he actively promoted.

See also [edit]

Notes [edit]

  1. ^ a b Cross and Livingstone. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church 1974 art. Milan, Edict of.
  2. ^ a b Frend, W.H.C. The Early Church SPCK 1965, p. 137
  3. ^ Stevenson, J. A New Eusebius SPCK 1965, p. 302
  4. ^ Frend, W.H.C. The Early Church SPCK 1965, p. 135
  5. ^ Stevenson, J. A New Eusebius SPCK 1965, p. 296
  6. ^ Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.15-17
  7. ^ Inscription printed in Stevenson, J. A New Eusebius SPCK 1965, p. 297

External links [edit]

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