Diocletian
Emperor who shared the rule of the empire with three colleagues and in 303, after nearly twenty years of peace with the church, issued the edicts that began the Great Persecution. He abdicated in 305.
Diocletian shared the empire with three colleagues, an arrangement that Lactantius blames for multiplying armies and taxes (Lactantius, Deaths of the Persecutors 7). For most of his reign the churches were left in peace: Eusebius says that Christians governed provinces and served in the palace, and that large new churches were built in every city (Eusebius, Church History 8.1.1–6).
Lactantius, who lived at his court city of Nicomedia, presents him as a cautious ruler pushed into persecution by his junior colleague Galerius and by an oracle of Apollo, and says that he wished it to be carried through without bloodshed (Lactantius, Deaths of the Persecutors 10–11). The first edict was issued in the nineteenth year of his reign (Eusebius, Church History 8.2.4). After celebrating his twentieth year at Rome he fell gravely ill, and at a ceremony outside Nicomedia he laid down the purple and took back his old name of Diocles (Lactantius, Deaths of the Persecutors 17–19). Lactantius says that he lived to see his portraits taken down and died worn out by grief, unable to eat or rest (Lactantius, Deaths of the Persecutors 42).
In the timeline
- AD 303 to AD 311, firm dateThe Great Persecution under Diocletian
In February 303 Diocletian orders churches demolished and Scriptures burned. Further edicts imprison the clergy and require everyone to sacrifice. The persecution is brief in the West and lasts eight years in the East.