ABSTRACT
FROM THE MIDST of conditions whose history is clearly and precisely known there sometimes emerges a fact of the first importance whose deeper causes stubbornly elude the eye of the student. Such an event is the great persecution of Christians under Diocletian, the last war of annihilation waged by paganism against Christianity. At first glance there is nothing strange in these persecutions; Diocletian had all too many predecessors upon the throne of the world who similarly wished to extirpate the Christians, and scarcely any other course was to be expected of so zealous and confirmed a pagan as he was. But the question takes on a quite different aspect when we consider the circumstances in detail. From the time of Gallienus — that is, for more than forty years — the Christians had remained unmolested, and to this period belong the first eighteen years of Diocletian's own reign. Even after he had ordered the Manichaeans to be burnt at the stake (296), he left the Christians in peace for seven years. His wife Prisca and his daughter Valeria are said to have been not unfavorably disposed to the Christians; Diocletian himself even tolerated about his sacred person Christian chamberlains and pages to whom he was devoted as a father. Courtiers and their wives and children might practice the Christian religion under his very eyes. Christians who were dispatched to the provinces as governors were graciously excused from the solemn
sacrifices which their position entailed. Christian congregations felt perfectly secure and were so greatly strengthened that their old meeting places nowhere sufficed. New buildings were constructed everywhere; in the large cities very handsome churches arose, and there was no fear.
