A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

§ 56. The Diocletian Persecution 289Amongst our other measures, which we are always making forthe use and profit of the commonwealth, we have hitherto endeavoredto bring all things into conformity with the ancient lawsand public order of the Romans, and to bring it about also that theChristians, who have abandoned the religion of their ancestors,should return to sound reason. For in some way such wilfulnesshas seized the Christians and such folly possessed them thatthey do not follow those constitutions of the ancients, whichperadventure their own ancestors first established, but entirelyaccording to their own judgment and as it pleased them theywere making such laws for themselves as they would observe,and in different places were assembling various sorts of people.In short, when our command was issued that they were to betakethemselves to the institutions of the ancients, many of them weresubdued by danger, many also were ruined. Yet when greatnumbers of them held to their determination, and we saw thatthey neither gave worship and due reverence to the gods nor yetregarded the God of the Christians, we therefore, mindful of ourmost mild clemency and of the unbroken custom whereby weare accustomed to grant pardon to all men, have thought that inthis case also speediest indulgence ought to be granted to them, [263]that the Christians might exist again and might establish theirgatherings, yet so that they do nothing contrary to good order.By another letter we shall signify to magistrates how they areto proceed. Wherefore, in accordance with this our indulgence,they ought to pray their God for our good estate, for that of thecommonwealth, and for their own, that the commonwealth mayendure on every side unharmed and that they may be able to livesecurely in their own homes.(d) Constantine, Edict of Milan, A. D. 313, in Lactantius, DeMortibus Persecutorum, 48. (MSL, 7:267.) See also Eusebius.Hist. Ec., X, 5:2. (MSG, 20:880.)