Which roman emperor ended the persecution of christians

The North African theologian Tertullian penned his famous apologetic works during this period, but to no avail. Among others, the dramatic martyrdom of Perpetua and her servant Felicitas occurred under Severus.

Clement of Alexandria also perished, as did the father of Origen. For decades, Roman emperors had become increasingly concerned with the ragged edges of the Empire and the invading barbarian tribes that harassed them. Decius, from a village near the Danube, at the northern frontier of the Empire, recognized the military dimensions of the problem but perceived some spiritual ones as well. He was concerned that traditional polytheism was weakening, and thought a resurrection of devotion to the deified Roman rulers of the past would help restore Roman strength.

Naturally, monotheistic Christians stood in the way. Although they still constituted a small minority, their efficient and self-contained organization, with no need of the state, irritated him. Consequently, Decius became the first emperor to initiate an Empire-wide persecution of Christians, apparently one with intensity.

Although he did not actually order Christians to give up their faith, he did expect them to perform one pagan religious observance. When undertaken, Christians would receive a Certificate of Sacrifice libellus from the local Sacrificial Commission and so be cleared of suspicion of undermining the religious unity of the Empire.

As expected, many Christians succumbed to this pressure; others paid bribes to receive the certificate. But many refused to compromise and died as a result. Origen was arrested and tortured during this time. Though released, he died within a few years.

Decius, a not—incompetent general, died in Scythia Minor in modern—day Bulgaria and Rumania while engaging in battle, the other tactic he thought necessary to shore up the troubled Empire. Valerian seems to have been honest and well intentioned, but he inherited an empire nearly out of control. Plague and civil strife raged within the provinces.

At the eastern borders, Germanic tribesmen invaded with greater efficiency and more numbers. Meanwhile, attacks from the north were underway. Valerian, recognizing that one emperor could not simultaneously defend north and east, extended in — the principle of collegiate rule to his son and colleague Gallienus, who was already fully occupied to the north.

To divert attention from the troubles that beset the Empire, Valerian blamed the Christians. A year later clergy became liable to capital punishment. Pope Sixtus II and St. Lawrence were subsequently burned to death in Rome, and Cyprian was executed at Carthage. In addition, the property of Christian laity, especially that of senators and equites a class immediately below senators was confiscated, and Christian tenants of imperial estates were condemned to the mines.

In , the Persians, under Shapur I, launched a second series of attacks in Mesopotamia. In the first, —, they had captured and plundered 37 cities. Valerian took an army into Mesopotamia to drive Shapur back from the beseiged city of Edessa.

However, in May , Valerian was taken prisoner. Diocletian was the most remarkable imperial organizer since Augustus, and that talent, unfortunately, was not lost on Christians. He is most famous for his reconstruction of the Empire into a Tetrarchy. The Empire was divided between four men, two Augusti and, under them, two Caesars.

However, the multiplying of ruling authorizes did not ease the transition of rulers, as Diocletian had hoped, but only made for more strife. He tried to insure that tax burdens were equitably distributed, but for all its fairness, the new system tended to freeze people in their professions and social positions, and led, on paper, to a thoroughgoing totalitarian state in practice, however, there was no way to fully implement the new rules.

In , encouraged by his Caesar Galerius, and attempting to rouse patriotic feeling, Diocletian returned to hounding Christians, even though his wife, Prisca, belonged to the faith. It was the first time in almost 50 years that an emperor had taken the trouble. Yet, as never before, the motive of this Great Persecution was the total extinction of Christianity. It was, it seems, the final struggle between the old and new orders, and therefore the fiercest. Two further edicts, required in the eastern provinces, ordered clergy to be arrested unless they sacrificed to pagan deities.

By this edict was extended to all Christians and was particularly vicious in Africa, under Diocletian co-Augustus Maximian. After a serious illness in , Diocletian took the unprecedented step of abdicating the throne. Constantine was baptized only after the onset of his final illness, not many days before his death on Pentecost, May 22, But if only then do we see him as a penitent and delayed baptism was the norm at the time , the explanation lies largely in a circumstance too often forgotten or minimized by critics who depict him as a hypocrite, an impostor, or even a monster.

It is simply this: Constantine was the emperor of Rome, the civil and military and religious head of the Empire. Our sources give us little access to the private Constantine.

His letters and edicts are all official utterances. It is perhaps more remarkable that they make his religious convictions so clear than that they speak so little of Jesus Christ in terms of personal devotion. If pagan elements did not disappear from his coinage immediately after his conversion, that should scarcely surprise us. And so his wife and eldest son had to die for offenses of treason.

Not in vain did this Constantine bear the sword. Yet in many details a Christian inspiration can be glimpsed in his legal enactments—for example, on the treatment of prisoners and slaves, on the status-less underclass of Roman society, on the exposure of surplus children, on celibacy and marriage and extra-marital infidelity. But it is important not to make Constantine out to be more consistently Christian than he was.

His conversion was not accompanied by a sharp break with his former paganism. Rather, a transition is discernible from the worship of the divine Sun to the service of the one true Christian God. When, in , he made the first day of the week a holiday, he described it as the day of the sun but so do Christians today! Few individuals have set as many precedents as Constantine. He launched the church on its way to becoming the official, established religion of the Roman Empire—a journey it completed half a century later under Theodosius the Great.

By his patronage Constantine aligned the former church of the martyrs—persecuted, powerless, and pacifist—with the military might and earthly glory of the state. Christianity would never be the same again. Soon the wars of the Empire became holy wars; church leaders looked for civil sanctions to back up their ecclesiastical judgments the Council of Nicaea deposed Arius; Constantine exiled him ; rulers began to convene synods of church leaders and to influence or intimidate their proceedings; the church hierarchies learned how to invoke state coercion against heretics and schismatics, and they came to control increasing property and wealth.

Yet if blame must be apportioned, much belongs not to Constantine but to those church leaders who not only, it seems, failed to teach him any better, but even, like Eusebius above all, constructed an extravagant theology of the Christian emperor that made him almost the earthly embodiment of divine power. Click here for reprint information on Christian History. Sections Home. Bible Coronavirus Prayer. Maxentius drowned in the Tiber during the battle, and his body was later taken from the river and decapitated.

The Roman coins minted up to eight years after the battle still bore the images of Roman gods. The monuments he first commissioned, such as the Arch of Constantine, contained no reference to Christianity.

The emperor became a great patron of the Church and set a precedent for the position of the Christian emperor within the Church, and the notion of orthodoxy, Christendom, ecumenical councils, and the state church of the Roman Empire, declared by edict in Skip to main content. Chapter 6 The Roman Empire. Search for:. Key Points The age of Constantine marked a distinct epoch in the history of the Roman Empire, both for founding Byzantium in the east, as well as his adoption of Christianity as a state religion.

Constantine experienced a dramatic event in at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, after which Constantine claimed the emperorship in the west and converted to Christianity. According to some sources, on the evening of October 27, with the armies preparing for battle, Constantine had a vision of a cross, which led him to fight under the protection of the Christian god.