Origin from 313
The agreement between Constantine and Licinius, published as instructions to provincial governors, granting Christians and everyone else freedom to follow the religion they chose and ordering the restitution of confiscated church property. It did not make Christianity the religion of the empire and it was not, strictly, an edict of Milan: the text survives in letters quoted by Lactantius and Eusebius, and the two emperors met at Milan and agreed a policy which was then issued elsewhere. Its substance is nonetheless real and it ends the age of persecution as imperial policy.
Facts
Origins
Language of CompositionLatin, preserved in Lactantius's own Latin text; Eusebius's version survives in Greek translation. 1 Origin Period Place of OriginMilan, where Constantine and Licinius agreed the policy; the instructions themselves were issued elsewhere and no single promulgation site survives 3 Consequences
What It SettledFreedom for Christians and for everyone else to follow the religion they chose, and the return of confiscated church property. 1 Lasting ConsequenceIt ended persecution as imperial policy without making Christianity the religion of the empire, which came two generations later. 3 Scholarship
How Its Legacy Is ContestedIt was not strictly an edict and not issued at Milan. Constantine and Licinius agreed a policy there which was then published as instructions to governors, and the text survives in Lactantius and Eusebius. 3 Learn More
Not an Edict, and Not at Milan
The most famous document in the history of religious toleration has three problems: it is not an edict, it was not issued at Milan, and it may not be a single document at all. Constantine and Licinius met at Milan in early 313 and agreed a policy. What survives is the instruction sent afterwards to provincial governors, preserved in Latin by Lactantius and in Greek by Eusebius, both of whom quote a letter of Licinius issued in the East.
The substance is nevertheless real and generous. It grants to Christians and to everyone else the free power to follow whatever religion each chooses, so that whatever divinity is in the heavenly seat may be favourable to the emperors and to their subjects. And it orders the restitution of property taken from Christian congregations, at public expense where it had passed into private hands, which is the provision that actually cost something.
The wording is worth reading closely for what it does not do. It establishes no religion, names no orthodoxy, and grants nothing to Christians that it does not grant to everyone. Whatever Constantine's personal convictions by this date, the policy expressed here is a general freedom of worship, and the atlas records it as such rather than as the moment the empire became Christian, which is a later and different event.
Toleration Is Not Establishment
The distance between 313 and 380 is the distance between two entirely different arrangements, and collapsing them is the commonest error made about this period. In 313 Christians were granted the same freedom as everyone else. In 380 the empire required its subjects to hold a specified form of Christianity and named those who did not as heretics liable to punishment. Sixty-seven years separate them.
What happened in between was not primarily legal but material and social. Constantine gave the church money, buildings, judicial privileges for bishops and exemptions for clergy. He and his successors involved themselves in doctrinal disputes, convening councils and enforcing their outcomes. Careers began to depend on the right religious affiliation. Traditional cults lost subsidy long before they were prohibited.
Understanding the sequence matters for reading everything downstream in this atlas. The persecuted church of 300 and the established church of 400 are the same institution a century apart, and it acquired coercive power gradually enough that no single decision can be pointed to. The bishops who had argued for toleration when they were the minority did not, for the most part, argue for it once they were not. Whether that transition was a corruption or a fulfilment is one of the oldest arguments in Christian historiography and it is not settled.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
The toleration policy was agreed between Constantine and Licinius at Milan in 313 and published as a rescript afterwards. Licinius, the co-author, is not held in this atlas.
Milan, Cities The Edict of Milan of 313 extended toleration to Christians across the Roman empire.
Rome, Cities Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, ending the persecution of Christians across the empire, in 313 CE.
Why this is disputed. The traditional date for Armenias conversion under Tiridates, 301, precedes the 313 Edict of Milan by more than a decade, so any connection between the two events is one of parallel timing in the wider late Roman world rather than of the edict directly causing or enabling Armenias decision. Some historians of Armenia have proposed a somewhat later date for the kingdoms official conversion, which would change the relationship between the two events further; the traditional 301 date remains the one Armenian church tradition itself keeps.
Related To
The arrangement of 313 follows the persecution and the edict of toleration issued by Galerius in 311.
Toleration in 313 became establishment in 380, within two generations.
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.