Edict of Milan (313): Toleration for Christians in the Empire

The Edict of Milan is the name traditionally given to the agreement made in February AD 313 by the Roman emperors Constantine and Licinius to grant religious freedom throughout the empire. Christians and followers of every other religion were allowed to worship as they chose, and property seized from churches during the persecutions was to be returned. Coming only a decade after the harshest persecution Christians had ever faced, it marked the decisive moment at which the Roman state stopped trying to suppress Christianity.

Background: from persecution to toleration

In 303 the emperor Diocletian and his colleagues launched the Great Persecution. Churches were destroyed, scriptures burned, clergy arrested and, from 304, all inhabitants ordered to sacrifice to the gods. The persecution was enforced most harshly in the eastern provinces and only lightly in Gaul and Britain.

The policy failed. On 30 April 311 the dying emperor Galerius, one of its chief authors, issued an edict at Nicomedia allowing Christians to exist again and to hold their meetings, provided they did not disturb public order, and asking them to pray for the emperors. It was a reluctant toleration, not a recognition of religious freedom.

In the West the persecution had already ended. Constantine had stopped it in Gaul and Britain on becoming emperor in 306, and Maxentius had ended it in Italy and Africa and returned church property in Rome around 311. In the East, however, Maximinus Daia renewed pressure on Christians after Galerius’s death, encouraging cities to petition against them.

The meeting at Milan

In October 312 Constantine defeated Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge and took control of Rome and the West. He credited his victory to the God of the Christians.

In February 313 Constantine travelled to Milan, then an important imperial residence in northern Italy, to meet Licinius, who ruled the Balkans. The meeting sealed an alliance already planned: Licinius married Constantine’s half-sister Constantia. The two Augusti also agreed on a common religious policy for the territories they ruled.

The meeting was cut short when news arrived that Maximinus Daia had invaded Licinius’s territory, crossing from Asia into Thrace. Licinius marched east, and on 30 April 313 he defeated Maximinus at the Battle of Tzirallum, on the Campus Ergenus near Adrianople (modern Edirne). Maximinus fled to Asia Minor and died at Tarsus later that summer.

What the edict said

Having taken over the East, Licinius published the agreed policy in the form of a letter to provincial governors. A copy was posted at Nicomedia on 13 June 313. Its text survives in two versions: the Latin original quoted by Lactantius in On the Deaths of the Persecutors, and a Greek translation in Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History.

The letter states that the two emperors, having met at Milan, decided that among the matters affecting the public good, the first concern should be the worship of the divinity. Its main provisions were:

• Freedom of religion: Christians and all others were given the free right to follow whatever form of worship they wished, so that, in the letter’s words as usually translated, whatever divinity dwells in heaven might be favourable to the emperors and their subjects.
• Removal of earlier conditions: All previous restrictions concerning Christians were withdrawn, so that anyone who wished to practise Christianity could do so freely and without disturbance.
• Equal freedom for other religions: The same open and free practice of religion was granted to others, so that no cult or religion would be diminished.
• Restitution of property: Meeting places and other property belonging to the Christian communities, taken during the persecution, were to be returned at once and without payment, whether they had passed to the state or been bought or received by private individuals.
• Compensation: Those who returned property they had bought or been given could apply to the provincial governor for compensation from the imperial treasury.

Governors were instructed to publish the decision so that it would be known to all.

Why toleration, and why then?

For Constantine, the policy fitted his new public favour for Christianity. He had already begun giving money and buildings to the Church in Rome and Africa, and he believed that the empire’s safety depended on worshipping the supreme God correctly.

For Licinius, who was not a Christian, the alliance with Constantine and the war against Maximinus gave practical reasons to win the support of the numerous Christians of the East. According to Lactantius, Licinius’s soldiers recited a prayer to the “supreme God” before the battle of Tzirallum, a formula acceptable to Christians and pagans alike.

The wording of the letter reflects this compromise. It speaks of “the divinity” and the “supreme divinity” rather than naming Christ, and it grants freedom to all religions rather than declaring one true faith.

Key people

Constantine I (ruled 306–337) was the son of the emperor Constantius I and was proclaimed at York in 306. After 312 he openly favoured Christianity, and his patronage transformed the Church’s place in Roman society. He was baptised only shortly before his death in 337.

Licinius (ruled 308–324) was an old army comrade of Galerius, who made him Augustus at the Conference of Carnuntum in 308. He issued the surviving text of the agreement, and his defeat of Maximinus Daia made it effective in the East. Christian writers later turned against him after his break with Constantine.

Constantia, Constantine’s half-sister, married Licinius at Milan in 313. Her marriage sealed the alliance, and she later pleaded, unsuccessfully in the end, for her husband’s life after his defeat in 324.

Lactantius, a Christian teacher of rhetoric from North Africa who had worked at Nicomedia, preserved the Latin text. He later became tutor to Constantine’s eldest son, Crispus.

Eusebius of Caesarea, bishop and historian, included a Greek version in his Ecclesiastical History and celebrated the end of persecution as the triumph of the Church.

Consequences

The Edict of Milan brought the era of empire-wide persecution to an end. Churches were rebuilt and returned to their congregations, and exiles and prisoners were released. Within a few years Constantine exempted clergy from certain public duties, allowed bishops to hear some legal cases and permitted the Church to receive bequests.

The partnership between the two emperors soon broke down. They fought a first war in about 316, after which Licinius lost most of his European territories. In his later years Licinius again took measures against Christians, which Constantine used to justify a final war. Constantine defeated him at Adrianople on 3 July 324 and at Chrysopolis on 18 September 324, becoming sole emperor. Licinius was executed in 325.

As sole ruler, Constantine extended his support for the Church across the whole empire. He called the First Council of Nicaea in 325 to settle the dispute over the teaching of Arius, and he founded Constantinople, which he filled with churches.

Toleration of traditional religions continued for several decades, though with growing restrictions on sacrifice. The emperor Julian the Apostate tried to reverse the trend in 361–363. Under Theodosius I, the Edict of Thessalonica of 27 February 380 made Nicene Christianity the religion expected of Roman subjects, and laws of the 390s banned pagan sacrifice altogether.

Myths and facts

Myth: the Edict of Milan made Christianity the state religion. It did not. It made Christianity legal and gave the same freedom to all religions. The state religion came under Theodosius I more than sixty years later.

Myth: it was the first legal toleration of Christianity. Galerius’s edict of 311 had already tolerated Christians, and the emperor Gallienus had ended the persecution of Valerian in 260. What was new in 313 was the broad principle of religious freedom and the full return of property.

Myth: it was a formal edict issued in Milan. The German historian Otto Seeck argued in 1891 that no edict was ever issued at Milan. The surviving document is a letter posted in Nicomedia, based on decisions taken at Milan. Most historians accept this, while continuing to use the familiar name.

Fact: the full text survives. Unlike many ancient laws, the wording is preserved almost in full in two independent sources, Lactantius in Latin and Eusebius in Greek.

Timeline

• 303, 24 February: The first edict of the Great Persecution is issued.
• 311, 30 April: Galerius’s edict of toleration is published at Nicomedia.
• 312, 28 October: Constantine defeats Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge.
• 313, February: Constantine and Licinius meet at Milan; Licinius marries Constantia.
• 313, 30 April: Licinius defeats Maximinus Daia near Adrianople.
• 313, 13 June: The letter granting religious freedom is posted at Nicomedia.
• c. 316: First war between Constantine and Licinius.
• 324, 18 September: Constantine defeats Licinius at Chrysopolis and becomes sole emperor.
• 325: The First Council of Nicaea meets.
• 380, 27 February: The Edict of Thessalonica makes Nicene Christianity the expected faith.

Why it matters

The Edict of Milan ended three centuries of intermittent persecution and opened the way for Christianity to become the dominant religion of the Roman world and later of Europe. It is also one of the earliest official statements of religious freedom as a principle of government. Its anniversary in 2013 was marked by celebrations in Milan and in Niš, Serbia, Constantine’s birthplace.