The Edict of Recantation

Wrestling with so many evils, he came to a sense of what he had dared to do against the godly. Collecting his thoughts, he first made confession to the God of the universe; then he called those around him and ordered them without delay to stop the persecution of the Christians, and by law and imperial decree to urge them on to build their churches and carry on their customary worship, offering prayers for the imperial house. [a] At once the deed followed the word, and imperial decrees were published city by city, containing the recantation of what had been done against us, in this form:

“The Emperor Caesar Galerius Valerius Maximianus, the Unconquered, Augustus, Supreme Pontiff, greatest conqueror of the Germans, greatest conqueror of the Egyptians, greatest conqueror of the Thebans, five times greatest conqueror of the Sarmatians, twice greatest conqueror of the Persians, six times greatest conqueror of the Carpi, greatest conqueror of the Armenians, greatest conqueror of the Medes, greatest conqueror of the Adiabenians, holding the tribunician power for the twentieth time, hailed Imperator for the nineteenth time, Consul for the eighth time, Father of his Country, Proconsul; [b] and the Emperor Caesar Flavius Valerius Constantine, Pious, Fortunate, the Unconquered, Augustus, Supreme Pontiff, holding the tribunician power, hailed Imperator for the fifth time, Consul, Father of his Country, Proconsul; and the Emperor Caesar Valerius Licinianus Licinius, Pious, Fortunate, the Unconquered, Augustus, Supreme Pontiff, holding the tribunician power for the fourth time, hailed Imperator for the third time, Consul, Father of his Country, Proconsul: to their own provincials, greeting. [d]

“Among the other measures we have been framing for the advantage and benefit of the public, we had earlier wished to set everything right in keeping with the ancient laws and public order of the Romans, and to make provision that the Christians too, who had abandoned the way of their own parents, should return to a good purpose. [e] For by some reasoning such overreaching had taken hold of them, and such folly had seized them, that they did not follow the practices shown by those of old, which perhaps their own parents had earlier established, but made laws for themselves according to their own purpose and as each one wished, kept them, and gathered various crowds in various places. [f] So when we had issued an order that they should go back to what the ancients had established, very many were put in danger, and very many, harassed, endured every kind of death. [g] And since we saw that most of them persisted in the same madness, and neither offered due worship to the heavenly gods nor paid heed to the God of the Christians, we have looked to our own humanity and to the constant custom by which we are accustomed to grant pardon to all people, and have thought it right to extend our indulgence most readily in this matter too: that they may be Christians again and may put together the houses in which they used to meet, on condition that they do nothing contrary to public order. In another letter we will make known to the judges what they must observe. [h] Therefore, in keeping with this indulgence of ours, they ought to beseech their own God for our safety, for that of the public, and for their own, so that in every way the public welfare may be kept sound and they may be able to live free from care in their own homes.” [i]

Such is this edict, translated as well as possible from the Latin tongue into Greek. It is time to look at what happened after this. [j]

The author of the edict, after this confession, was soon released from his pains and departed this life. He is said to have been the first cause of the calamity of the persecution, since long before the other emperors moved he had tried by force to turn aside the Christians in the army, and first of all those in his own household, removing some from their military rank, insulting others most shamefully, and even threatening others with death, and at last stirring up his partners in the empire to the general persecution. It would not be right to pass over the end of these rulers’ lives in silence. Four, then, shared the rule over all. Those who were ahead in age and honor withdrew from the empire when the persecution had lasted not quite two years, as we have shown before, and spent the rest of their lives in ordinary, private station. The end of their lives was this: the one honored with the first place in rank and age was worn out by a long and most painful bodily illness; the one who held second place after him ended his life by hanging, suffering this according to a certain demonic portent, because of the very many crimes he had dared.

Of those after them, the last, the one we said was the originator of the whole persecution, suffered what we have described. But the one who ranked before him, Constantius, the kindest and mildest of emperors, spent the whole time of his reign in a manner worthy of his office. He showed himself most gracious and generous toward all, kept out of the war against us, kept the godly under him unharmed and unmolested, neither pulled down the church buildings nor devised anything else at all against us, and received a happy and truly thrice-blessed end to his life. He alone died in his own reign graciously and gloriously, leaving a lawful son, most prudent and most devout in every way, to succeed him in the empire, who from the very start was proclaimed supreme emperor and Augustus by the armies and made himself an emulator of his father’s godliness toward our teaching. Such was the end of the lives of the four we have written of, which came about at different times. Of these, the only one still left, the one we spoke of a little earlier, together with those later brought into the government, made public to all the confession already described, in the written document set out above.