Diocletian Attacks Christianity
AT THE festival of the Roman god Terminus on February 23, 303 C.E., held at Nicomedia in Asia Minor, the empire’s new capital, men vied with one another to express their patriotism. But the sizable Christian community was notably absent.
From their palace vantage point, Emperor Diocletian and subordinate Galerius Caesar viewed the local Christian meeting place. At a given signal, soldiers and government officials forced their way into the Christians’ building, pillaged it, and burned the copies of the Bible they found. Finally, they razed the structure to the ground.
Thus began a period of persecution that stained Diocletian’s reign. Historians label it “the last great persecution,” “the most violent persecution,” even “nothing less than the extermination of the Christian name.” A look at the background of these dramatic events proves most revealing.
Paganism Versus Christianity
Diocletian, born in Dalmatia, a region of what became Yugoslavia, rose to prominence through the ranks of the Roman army. Acclaimed as emperor in 284 C.E., he became famous for political reform when he established a tetrarchy, a collective leadership of four, to head the empire. Diocletian appointed Maximian, an old comrade-in-arms, to serve alongside him as second emperor, a second Augustus, with special responsibility in the western part of the empire. Both Diocletian and Maximian had a subordinate Caesar to whom succession rights were granted. Constantius Chlorus served as Caesar to Maximian, while Galerius from Thrace held power under Diocletian.
Galerius Caesar was, like Diocletian, an ardent worshiper of the pagan gods. Ambitious to succeed the emperor, Galerius pretended to fear treachery in the army. He disliked the growing influence of soldiers who claimed to be Christians. From the emperor’s viewpoint, their refusal to participate in pagan worship amounted to a challenge to his authority. So Galerius urged Diocletian to take steps to exterminate Christianity. Finally, in the winter of 302/303 C.E., the emperor bowed to the Caesar’s anti-Christian feeling and agreed to purge the army and the court of these individuals. But Diocletian ruled against bloodshed, fearing that martyrs to the Christian cause would spur others to resolute defiance.
Still, dissatisfied with this approach to the problem, Diocletian consulted military commanders and officials, including Hierocles, governor of Bithynia. This ardent Hellenist supported violent action against all the Christians. Diocletian’s support of Rome’s traditional gods led to conflict with Christianity. The outcome, according to Diocletian and the Roman Recovery, by Stephen Williams, was “unrestricted war to the finish between the gods of Rome and the god of the Christians.”
The Edicts
To prosecute his campaign of persecution, Diocletian promulgated four successive edicts. The day after the attack in Nicomedia, he ordered all Christian meeting places and property destroyed and decreed that sacred books be surrendered and burned. Christians holding an official State position were to be demoted.
When two fires broke out right inside the emperor’s palace, the blame fell on Christians employed there. This prompted a second edict, which ordered the arrest and imprisonment of all bishops, presbyters, and deacons. Authorizing torture if necessary, the third edict attempted to make these men apostatize, demanding that they sacrifice to the Roman gods. The fourth decree went further and made it a capital offense for anyone to profess Christianity.
The resulting wave of brutality produced a class branded traditores (meaning, “those who surrendered”), traitors to God and Christ who attempted to secure their lives by surrendering their copies of the Scriptures. According to historian Will Durant, “thousands of Christians recanted . . . But most of the persecuted stood firm; and the sight or report of heroic fidelity under torture strengthened the faith of the wavering and won new members for the hunted congregations.” Christians in Phrygia, Cappadocia, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Egypt, and most other parts of the Roman Empire suffered martyrdom.
Church historian Eusebius of Caesarea reckoned that thousands of Christians perished during the persecution. On the other hand, Edward Gibbon, author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, claims a figure of less than two thousand. “Gibbon treats many of these stories with some scepticism, coming as they do from highly coloured Christian sources bent on glorifying the martyrs and edifying the faithful,” explains one writer. “There is no doubt,” he continues, “exaggeration in writers who easily turn a few deaths into ‘multitudes’, who make no distinction between unsolicited martyrdoms and those resulting from deliberate provocation; and who relate how wild beasts in the amphitheatres furiously mangled all other criminals but were stopped by a ‘supernatural power’ from touching the Christians. But, even allowing a margin for invention, what remains is terrible enough.” Certainly a most brutal persecution did occur with racks, burnings, flaying, and pincers used for torture.
Some authorities hold the view that Galerius, rather than Diocletian, was the instigator of the persecution. “It is not without a deep moral significance,” claims Professor William Bright in The Age of the Fathers, “that the supreme effort of the pagan world-power to trample out the life of the Kingdom that is not of this world should bear the name of Diocletian, rather than of its true originator Galerius.” Yet, even within the tetrarchy, Diocletian retained supreme control, as writer Stephen Williams asserts: “There is no doubt that Diocletian had control of every major policy in the Empire until 304, and has the major responsibility for the persecution until that date.” Diocletian fell sick and eventually relinquished control in 305 C.E. For some six years thereafter, the continuing persecution reflected Galerius’ bitter hatred of all things Christian.
Fourth Century Christianity
These horrific events early in the fourth century confirm what had been predicted by the apostles Paul and Peter, as well as other inspired writers. The foretold “man of lawlessness,” the ruling clergy class of professed Christians, was already entrenched, as Diocletian’s edicts, particularly the second, testify. (2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4; Acts 20:29, 30; 2 Peter 2:12) By the fourth century, apostate practices were already commonplace. Not a few professed Christians were members of the Roman army. Were there no Christians back then who were faithful to “the pattern of healthful words” received from the apostles?—2 Timothy 1:13.
Eusebius names some of the victims of the persecution, even graphically describing their torture, suffering, and eventual martyrdom. Whether all these martyrs died in integrity to the revealed truth available at that time, we cannot presently know. No doubt some had taken to heart Jesus’ warnings to avoid sectarianism, immorality, and compromise of any sort. (Revelation 2:15, 16, 20-23; 3:1-3) Evidently, some faithful ones who survived remained hidden from historic view. (Matthew 13:24-30) Indeed, so successful were the measures to stifle public Christian worship that a Spanish monument of the period hails Diocletian for having ‘abolished the superstition of Christ.’ Nevertheless, efforts to seize and destroy copies of the Scriptures, a key aspect of Diocletian’s attack on Christianity, failed to wipe out God’s Word completely.—1 Peter 1:25.
Unsuccessful in completely obliterating Christianity, Satan the Devil, the ruler of the world, continued his crafty acts through Emperor Constantine, who ruled from 306 to 337 C.E. (John 12:31; 16:11; Ephesians 6:11, footnote) Pagan Constantine did not fight the Christians. Rather, he found it expedient to fuse pagan and Christian beliefs into a new State religion.
What a warning there is for all of us! When we face brutal persecution, our love for Jehovah will help us avoid compromise for the sake of any temporary physical relief. (1 Peter 5:9) Similarly, we will not allow a peaceful period to sap our Christian vitality. (Hebrews 2:1; 3:12, 13) Strict adherence to Bible principles will keep us loyal to Jehovah, the God who can deliver his people.—Psalm 18:25, 48.
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Musei Capitolini, Roma