Diocletianic Persecution

Background

Diocletian (reigned 284–305) sought to resolve the political and economic turmoil of the third century by establishing the Tetrarchy, a system in which four emperors divided the government of the empire among themselves. He regarded sacrifice to Rome's traditional gods as the foundation of imperial unity. By this time Christianity had grown considerably, especially in the cities of the East, and a church building stood near the imperial palace at Nicomedia, where the eastern emperor resided. The early church writer Lactantius recorded that the junior emperor (Caesar) Galerius instigated the persecution. Even before the persecution began in earnest, measures are known to have been taken to remove Christians from the army and the imperial court.

Course of the Persecution

• February 303: The church building in Nicomedia was demolished, and the first edict was issued shortly afterward. It ordered the destruction of places of worship, the confiscation and burning of the Scriptures, and a ban on Christian assemblies, and it stripped Christians of their rank and legal rights.
• 303: A second edict ordered the arrest of the clergy, and a third provided for their release if they offered pagan sacrifice.
• 304: A fourth edict required all inhabitants to offer sacrifice. That same year at Abitina in North Africa, believers arrested while holding a Lord's Day assembly are said to have answered, "We cannot live without the Lord's Day."
• The severity of the persecution varied by region. Constantius, who governed Gaul and Britain, is said to have done no more than demolish buildings, while in Italy and Africa the edicts were enforced more strictly.
• 305: Even after Diocletian and Maximian abdicated, Galerius and Maximinus Daia continued the persecution in the East.
• 311: Galerius issued an edict of toleration that ended the persecution.
• 313: Constantine and Licinius agreed at Milan to recognize freedom of religion. This agreement is commonly called the "Edict of Milan."

Consequences and Influence

Within little more than a decade, the persecution gave way to the legal recognition of Christianity, and with Constantine's subsequent convening of the Council of Nicaea (325), the relationship between church and state changed profoundly.

Those who had surrendered the Scriptures to the authorities during the persecution were called traditores ("those who handed over"). The church in North Africa divided over whether to recognize their clerical orders and the sacraments they had administered. Around 311, the claim that Caecilian, bishop of Carthage, had been ordained by a traditor touched off the Donatist schism. In Egypt as well, the question of restoring those who had lapsed gave rise to the Melitian schism.

The principal sources for this period include Lactantius's On the Deaths of the Persecutors and Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History and The Martyrs of Palestine.

Assessment

Because the ancient records may contain exaggeration, the number of martyrs cannot be determined precisely. Modern scholars generally estimate it in the thousands, though figures vary. Many of the martyrdom accounts handed down to later generations also contain legendary elements.

In Korean Protestant churches, some dispensationalist interpreters, following a scheme that divides church history into periods, connect the "tribulation ten days" (Revelation 2:10) foretold for the church at Smyrna in Revelation 2:8–11 with this persecution (303–313). Other interpreters understand the passage as referring either to a brief tribulation that the church at Smyrna was to face in its own day or to a symbolic period.

The controversy over how to receive those who had compromised during the persecution is sometimes compared with a question that arose in Korea after liberation from Japanese rule: the repentance and restoration of church leaders who had taken part in Shinto shrine worship (see division of the Korean Presbyterian Church).