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The Diocletianic or Great Persecution was the last and most severe persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. [1] . In 303, the emperors Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius issued a series of edicts rescinding Christians' legal rights and demanding that they comply with traditional religious practices.
- Overview
- Life
- Rise to power
As Roman emperor for more than 20 years (284–305 CE), Diocletian brought stability, security, and efficient government to the Roman state after nearly half a century of chaos. He instituted lasting administrative, military, and financial reforms and introduced a short-lived system of power sharing between four rulers, two augusti and two caesars (the tetrarchy).
What was Diocletian’s religion?
Diocletian was an adherent of the traditional Roman religion involving worship of the pantheon of deities including Jove (Jupiter), Mars, Apollo, and others. Like his predecessors, Diocletian promoted the cult of the emperor but also explicitly associated himself and his co-augustus, Maximian, with Jove and Hercules, respectively.
What did Diocletian do to Christians?
At the urging of the caesar Galerius, in 303 Diocletian began the last major persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire, resulting in the destruction of churches and the torture and execution of Christians who refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods. Galerius, who succeeded Diocletian as augustus in 305, continued the persecution until 311.
Diocletian (born 245 ce, Salonae?, Dalmatia [now Solin, Croatia]—died 316, Salonae) Roman emperor (284–305 ce) who restored efficient government to the empire after the near anarchy of the 3rd century. His reorganization of the fiscal, administrative, and military machinery of the empire laid the foundation for the Byzantine Empire in the East and temporarily shored up the decaying empire in the West. The last major persecution of Christians occurred during his reign.
Diocletian’s biography has been obscured by legends, rhetoric, the dubiousness of documents, and the hostility of his adversaries. Little is known of his origins. His father was a scribe or the emancipated slave of a senator called Anullinus. Diocletian’s complete name, found in official inscriptions, is given as Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianu...
Up to the time of his accession, Diocletian had lived most of his life in military camps. These may have been either in Gaul, as reported in the Historia Augusta, or in Moesia. Or he may have been a member of the Roman emperor Carinus’s bodyguard. The only definite fact known about Diocletian during this period is that he was among those army chiefs whom Carinus gathered, together with the Illyrians, to fight against the Persians. In 284, during that campaign, Numerian, Carinus’s brother and coemperor, was found dead in his litter, and his adoptive father, the praetorian prefect Aper, was accused of having killed him in order to seize power. When Diocletian, acclaimed as emperor by his soldiers, appeared for the first time in public dressed in the imperial purple, he declared himself innocent of Numerian’s murder. He designated Aper as the criminal and killed him personally. Here again, rhetoric has obscured the real events. Aper’s guilt was accepted by contemporaries, but it was also true that a prediction had been made to Diocletian previously, telling him that he would become emperor on the day he killed a boar (Latin: aper). And it was true, too, that he did not wish to wait much longer for the boar to come. In reality, Numerian had died either a natural death or from a stroke of lightning. With the death of Aper, however, Diocletian was relieved of an eventual competitor and, retroactively, his act had been granted sacred meaning.
Acclaimed emperor on November 17, 284, Diocletian possessed real power only in those countries that were dominated by his army (i.e., in Asia Minor and possibly Syria). The rest of the empire was obedient to Numerian’s brother Carinus. After having put down a revolt by Julianus, a troop commander in Pannonia, whom he attacked and killed near Verona, Carinus proceeded to attack Diocletian. An indecisive battle near the confluence of the Margus (modern Morava) and Danube rivers, not far from present-day Belgrade, would have been a defeat for Diocletian had Carinus not been assassinated by a group of soldiers. Thus, in midsummer of 285, Diocletian became master of the empire.
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The Push: Diocletian Persecutes the Church. Though it's popular to believe that Christians were always being persecuted in the Roman empire, it's not true. Empire-wide persecutions were rare, and the Great Persecution under Diocletian was the only one of any great length, lasting eight years.
- Though it's popular to believe that Christians were always being persecuted in the Roman empire, it's not true. Empire-wide persecutions were rare,...
- By 311, Galerius could no longer stomach the attack on the church. Along with Constantine and Licinius he issued the Edict of Toleration, ending th...
- Constantine the Great eventually took the rule of Rome from both Galerius and Licinius, finally defeating Licinius in a civil war in A.D. 324. The...
- Diocletian (and afterwards Galerius), with the Great Persecution, pushed on the Church, Constantine did the pull, turn, and throw. The Church crash...
The Diocletianic Persecution (303–11) was Roman Empire’s last, largest, and bloodiest official persecution of Christianity. It failed to eliminate Christianity in the empire; indeed, after 324, Christianity became the empire's preferred religion under its first Christian emperor, Constantine.
Diocletian's persecution of Christians ceased with his retirement in 305, but his policy had inaugurated the severest repressive measures against Christianity. This article deals with (1) the religious policy of Diocletian, (2) the Edicts of 303, (3) the persecutions to 311 and the Edict of Toleration, and (4) the final persecution under Licinius.
Feb 2, 2014 · However, throughout this Great Persecution, the Christians refused to yield and sacrifice to the Roman gods. Leading members of the clergy were arrested and ordered to sacrifice or die and a bishop in Nicomedia who refused was beheaded.
The Diocletianic Persecution (303–312), the empire's last, largest, and bloodiest official persecution of Christianity, failed to eliminate Christianity in the empire. After 324, Christianity became the empire's preferred religion under Constantine.
