How the Persecution Began

It was the nineteenth year of Diocletian’s reign, in the month Xanthicus, which the Romans call April, about the time of the feast of the Savior’s suffering, while Flavianus was governor of the province of Palestine, that letters were published everywhere ordering that the churches be leveled to the ground and the Scriptures destroyed by fire, that those who held positions of honor be stripped of them, and that those in household service, if they persisted in professing Christianity, be deprived of their freedom. Such was the force of the first edict against us. But not long after, other letters were issued, ordering that all the bishops of the churches everywhere be first thrown into prison, and afterward compelled by every means to sacrifice. [a]