Diocletian and Constantine

• Diocletian Persecution was the harshest form of persecution to the Christians
• Diocletian ordered a series of edicts
• Edict One
• He sentenced the newly built Christian Church in Nicomedia to be completely destroyed
• All Christian scriptures, liturgical books, as well as places of worship to be demolished
• He ordered the Christians that they are prohibited from assembling for worship
• He said that all Christians were to be stripped of their rankings as senator, equestrians,decurions,veterans, and soldiers
• The Second Edict
• This ordered the arrest as well as the imprisonment of all bishops and priests
• The Third Edict
• This ordered that if any imprisoned clergyman wanted to be freed, he would have to make a sacrifice to the Roman gods
• The Fourth Edict
• This ordered all men, women, and children to come to the public square and make a collective sacrifice together and if they refused, they would be executed
• Constantine's connection to Christianity
• The night before a battle, Constantine had a dream of God coming to him and telling him that he needed to put the sign of the cross on his armies shield
• Constantine built up the Roman army and in order to pay for his army he introduced a new gold currency. He shared power with other emperors which were his sons, and began to build a new capital

Diocletian:

• edicts are laws that come from the highest authority in the empire from the emperor/ law of the land
• the Christians would start meeting secretly and they kept a low profile
• The killing of the Christians deepened some of the Christians faith because they looked at the people who died for there faith as maryters

Constantine:

• His mother and father was a christian
• he had a vision
• he tries praying to the christian God before a battle and then in the sky he saw a cross and the words "by this you shall conquer"  and then he sees it in his dream and then he made all of his men paint the christian symbol on their shields. And then they won their battle
• Edict of Milan= you cant persecute anyone for their religion anymore
• if you had your land taken away the edict said that you get your land back
• if they took someones stuff they gave it back

Eusibius made a report on Constanitine after the battle