by Brother John M.
Samaha, S.M.
The 1,700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan came and went
with hardly a notice.
A most important event in Church history,
promulgated February 3, 313, the Edict of Milan granted Christians freedom from
three centuries of persecution.
Thereafter the Christian faithful, for the first time, enjoyed the same religious
liberties that other religious groups had.
The Christians gained legal protections that allowed them to build
houses of worship and had their confiscated possessions restored.
The signing of
the Edict of Milan by Emperor Constantine heralded the official recognition of
Western Christian civilization and the free societies we enjoy today.
The extent and
severity of the persecution suffered by the early Christians are practically
incomprehensible to the modern mind.
Countless Christians were tortured and killed under the emperors Nero
(who had Peter crucified in 64), Domitian, Marcus Aurelius, and Septimus
Severus. The atrocities abated under
Severus Alexander (208-235) who was sympathetic to Christians, only to flare up
again under the emperors Maximus Thracian, Decius, and Valerian (253-260).
With Diocletian
(299-311) and his contemporaries, Galerius and Maximian, the persecutions
peaked. Under Diocletian alone an
estimated half million Christians were killed.
The last persecution occurred under Licinius (308-324), but the move
toward greater liberty had begun. In 311
an Edict of Tolerance was issued. Although property was being confiscated, this
was corrected by Licinius and Constantine, then Roman emperors of East and West
respectively, with the Edict of Milan in 313.
Diocletian's
intent was to transform society following years of ineffective leaders, wars,
foreign attacks, and deep-seated economic problems. However, he was criticized by the Christian
author Lactantius for assuming monarchical powers not granted him by the Roman
constitution.
Diocletian's persecution
of Christians began after his pagan priests blamed Christian court officials
for making the Sign of the Cross in a court ceremony. Then the emperor ordered all Christians in
government and military service to sacrifice to pagan gods or be
dismissed. Ordinary civilians were
excluded.
Eventually the death
penalty was inflicted against Christian bishops and priests. Churches and Bibles were confiscated and
burned. Then ordinary citizens were
forced to violate their Christian beliefs or suffer martyrdom.
Life in the
post-Constantine Church was not all smooth sailing. but it was not subject to
the corruption myths that emerged during the Renaissance and Reformation and
Enlightenment.
Questions about
whether the Roman Empire surrendered to Christianity, or whether Christianity
prostituted itself to the empire have long been disregarded by competent
historians, except in fictitious potboilers like Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code.
Constantine was
far from perfect, but neither was he a corrupter of the Church nor an
intolerant zealot who obliterated all worship that was not Catholic. Paganism was not rapidly stamped out by state
repression, but gradually disappeared as people abandoned the pagan temples in
response to the superior appeal of Christianity.
Constantine
conferred secular powers and privileges on bishops, but this was in the
interests of justice and liberty. The
bishops had reputations for honesty and resistance to bribery.
In later times close
involvement between State and senior Church officials led to abuses, but the
blame for this can hardly be laid on Constantine.
Constantine is
to be remembered for being the protagonist in fostering the advent of Christian civilization in the West. The path for Christians was never
smooth. Persecutions continued. But the liberty Constantine won allowed the
Church to flourish for centuries to come.
Actually the Christians were the first to develop the notion of
religious liberty.
As society becomes
increasingly secular, will future
anniversaries of the Edict of Milan -- and
similar important events -- be so blithely overlooked?
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