Diocletian

“ And when this saint saw him, her heart waxed hot, because of her love of God, and she was sorry for the men. And she cursed the Emperor Diocletian and his unclean idols, and she also cursed that governor, saying, “O thou whose heart is like a stone, and who art merciless, wilt thou not have compassion on these holy men? Art thou not afraid that their God will destroy thee?” When Diocletian heard of this he commanded his soldiers to fetch her, and he questioned her about her Faith, and she denied not, but confessed before him that she was a Christian. ”

“ Diocletian, though superstitious, indulged no hatred toward the Christians. Constantius Chlorus, following only the dictates of reason in matters of religion, was averse to the popular idolatry, and friendly to the Christians. The pagan priests, therefore, from well-grounded fears lest Christianity, to their great and lasting injury, should spread far and wide its triumphs, endeavored to excite Diocletian, whom they knew to be both timid and credulous, by means of feigned oracles and other impositions, to engage in persecuting the Christians. ”

“ Now as a beginning to his iniquity Diocletian wrote an Edict which he sent into every part of his dominions, saying, “I Diocletian the Emperor, Lord of the World, hereby command that in every country of my dominions they close the churches, and open the houses of idols (i.e., temples) , and worship my gods, for it is they who have given me victory in battle. Whosoever shall not worship them and bow down before them, his house shall be plundered and laid waste, and he shall be punished with every kind of punishment; none shall be spared, neither rich nor poor, nor great nor small.” ”

“ The ceremony of abdicating the empire of the world by Diocletian was very imposing. About three miles from the city of Nicomedia there is a spacious plain, which was selected for the pageant. Upon a lofty throne, Diocletian, pale and emaciate, announced to the immense multitude assembled his resignation of the diadem. Then, laying aside his imperial robes, he entered a closed chariot, and repaired to a rural retreat which he had selected at Salona, on the Grecian shore of the Adriatic Sea. ”

“ It was in the twenty-first year of his reign that Diocletian executed his memorable resolution of abdicating the empire; an action more naturally to have been expected from the elder or the younger Antoninus, than from a prince who had never practised the lessons of philosophy either in the attainment or in the use of supreme power. ”

“ XXVIII Diocletian lived to an old age in a private station, at a villa which is not far from Salonae, in honourable retirement, exercising extraordinary philosophy, inasmuch as he alone of all men, since the foundation of the Roman empire, voluntarily returned from so high a dignity to the condition of private life, and to an equality with the other citizens. That happened to him, therefore, which had happened to no one since men were created, that, though he died in a private condition, he was enrolled among the gods. ”

“ He was of "great Rome," "a man that feared God," "teacher of the Christians"; "and when persecution was set on foot he was arrested and cast into prison." "Diocletian, staying at Nice, wrote to Rome that all the Christians should die, and that Chrysogonus should be brought bound to Nice, and when he was brought he beheaded him." For Nice we should probably read Nicomedia. In these acts it is easy to trace the effects of the first and second of Diocletian's edicts. ”

“ And this saint was in the war against the men of the country of the Persians, and when Diocletian denied our Lord Jesus Christ, Basilides sent to this son Eusebius, and told him that Diocletian had denied Christ. And this saint summoned his kinsfolk, the saints and men of the palace, that is to say, ‘Abadir, and Justus, and Claudius, and Theodore from the East, and he told them how Diocletian had denied our Lord Christ, and how he worshipped idols ”

“ At the age of fifty-nine, exhausted with labour, Diocletian abdicated his sovereignty on the 1st of May 305, and retired to Salona, where he died eight years afterwards (others give 316 as the year of his death) . The end of his reign was memorable for the persecution of the Christians. In defence of this it may be urged that he hoped to strengthen the empire by reviving the old religion, and that the church as an independent state over whose inner life at least he possessed no influence, appeared to be a standing menace to his authority. ”

“ The ancient deities were ready to take their departure, since even those who consistently supported the State religion retained but little faith in them; but Diocletian proved himself not only a firm ruler but also a lover of the old system. His decree ran: "The Christians oppose themselves to the laws of the State, which enjoin the worship of the gods; let them either sacrifice or suffer the penalty." Even the imperial household was to be put to the test, and it is believed that it was with reluctance that the emperor's wife and daughter burned the grains of incense. ”

“ How little do we in this nineteenth century appreciate the blessing of being permitted to worship God according to the dictates of our consciences, with none to molest or make afraid!
While Diocletian was thus persecuting the Christians, he was also struggling with almost superhuman energy to hold together the crumbling elements of the Roman empire, assailed at every point by the barbarians. Nations die slowly: their groans are deep, their convulsions awful. For several centuries, Rome was writhing in death’s agonies. ”

“ It was in fact a clear source of political weakness, though not so deadly a one as the autocracy itself. To seek to suppress it, accordingly, was almost a natural outcome of Diocletian’s ideal of government. He had sought to give a new air of sanctity to the worship of the emperor by calling himself Jovius and his colleague Maximian Herculius; and to make the effort succeed it might well seem necessary to crush the one cult that directly stood in the way, alike as a creed and as an organization. ”

“ Long illness of DiocletianNotwithstanding the severity of a very cold and rainy winter, Diocletian left Italy soon after the ceremony of his triumph, and began his progress towards the East round the circuit of the Illyrian provinces. From the inclemency of the weather, and the fatigue of the journey, he soon contracted a slow illness; and, though he made easy marches, and was generally carried in a close litter, his disorder, before he arrived at Nicomedia, about the end of the summer, was become very serious and alarming. During the whole winter he was confined to his palace ”

“ The mind of Diocletian himself was less adapted indeed to speculative inquiries, than to the active labors of war and government. His prudence rendered him averse to any great innovation, and though his temper was not very susceptible of zeal or enthusiasm, he always maintained an habitual regard for the ancient deities of the empire. But the leisure of the two empresses, of his wife Prisca, and of Valeria, his daughter, permitted them to listen with more attention and respect to the truths of Christianity, which in every age has acknowledged its important obligations to female devotion. ”

“ The monarch who held this proud position was still Diocletian, the greatest emperor that had occupied the Roman throne since Trajan, and the prince to whom Tiridates was indebted for his restoration to his kingdom. It was impossible that Diocletian should submit to the affront put upon him without an earnest effort to avenge it. His own power rested, in a great measure, on his military prestige; and the unpunished insolence of a foreign king would have seriously endangered an authority not very firmly established. ”

“ We shall triumph still, Gaius, though, by the Immortals, these Christians have made fearful progress of late. They swarm in this city, and even, as I hear, throughout every part of the world; for since the time when the Emperor Diocletian wisely resolved to put them down, by destroying the places where they met to worship, preventing their secret assemblies, and burning their books, they have once more risen in an audacious manner and walk about with all the airs of freedmen. ”

“ Nor were the vices of Maximian less useful to his benefactor. Insensible to pity, and fearless of consequences, he was the ready instrument of every act of cruelty which the policy of that artful prince might at once suggest and disclaim. As soon as a bloody sacrifice had been offered to prudence or to revenge, Diocletian, by his seasonable intercession, saved the remaining few whom he had never designed to punish, gently censured the severity of his stern colleague, and enjoyed the comparison of a golden and an iron age, which was universally applied to their opposite maxims of government. ”

“ The first order against the Christians was a proclamation requiring that all soldiers, and all persons who held any office under the emperor, should sacrifice to the heathen gods (A.D. 298) . And five years after this, Galerius, who was a cruel man, and very bitter against the Christians [Pg 34] (although his wife was supposed to be one) , persuaded Diocletian to begin a persecution in earnest.
Diocletian did not usually live at Rome, like the earlier emperors, but at Nicomedia, a town in Asia Minor, on the shore of the Propontis (now called the Sea of Marmora) . ”

“ There remains but one more persecution to notice, that which is commonly known as the Diocletian. It could be called more properly the Galerian persecution; for Galerius, son-in-law to the emperor, and one with two others—Constantius Chlorus and Maximian—who shared with him the responsibility of governing the empire, [17] had most to do with it. It is said that Galerius was urged to secure the edicts of Diocletian against the Christians by his mother, Romlia, a very haughty woman, who had taken offense because the saints had excluded her from their sacrament meetings. ”

“ The last great persecution of the Christians took place under the Emperor Diocletian.
Curiously enough, Diocletian was by no means one of the worst among those many potentates who ruled Europe by the grace of their body-guards. But he suffered from a complaint which alas! is quite common among those who are called upon to govern the human race. He was densely ignorant upon the subject of elementary economics.
He found himself possessed of an empire that was rapidly going to pieces. ”

“ Thus, partly by critical method applied to Polemius, partly by the discovery of a new document, we are enabled to rectify the list of Gibbon, who adopted the simple plan of ascribing to Diocletian and Constantine the detailed organization of the Notitia. Otherwise our knowledge of the changes of Diocletian has not been greatly augmented; but our clearer conception of the Principate and its steady development towards pure monarchy has reflected light on Diocletian's system; and the tendencies of the third century, though still obscure at many points, have been made more distinct. ”

“ However tolerant we may be, we cannot help being indignant with the rhetoricians who accuse Diocletian of persecuting the Christians as soon as he ascended the throne. Let us consult Eusebius of Cæsarea, the favourite and panegyrist of Constantine, the violent enemy of preceding emperors. He says (Ecclesiastical History, Bk. VIII.) : "The emperors for a long time gave the Christians proof of their goodwill. They entrusted provinces to them; several Christians lived in the palace; they even married Christians. Diocletian married Prisca, whose daughter was the wife of Maximianus Galerius." ”

“ Immediately on the promulgation of the edict (of Diocletian) a certain man of no mean origin, but highly esteemed for his temporal dignities, as soon as the decree was published against the churches in Nicomedia, stimulated by a divine zeal and excited by an ardent faith, took it as it was openly placed and posted up for public inspection, and tore it to shreds as a most profane and wicked act. ”

“ This introduction is one of the most extraordinary pieces of bombast, mixed metaphors, loose syntax, and incoherent expressions that Latin literature possesses. One is tempted to infer from its style that it was the product of Diocletian's own pen. He was a man of humble origin, and would not live in Rome for fear of being laughed at on account of his plebeian training. The florid and awkward style of these introductory pages is exactly what we should expect from a man of such antecedents. ”

“ When the archbishop woke up he told the bishops what he had seen, and they all believed that vision, and knew that it was from the Lord Jesus Christ. And he took Saint Nicolaus and made him Bishop of the city of Mira. After a few days Diocletian the infidel and idolater began to reign, and he arrested many believing men. When he heard the report of this saint, he seized him and tortured him severely for many years; and our Lord Christ strengthen him, and enable him to endure, and He protected him against the torture, and raised him up sound and unharmed. ”

“ A man born in Illyricum, raised to power in Britain, schooled in Gaul in the arts of empire, won Rome by his right hand, but only to transplant the very life of Rome to a more abiding seat of power. Diocletian, first of the avowed lords of the Roman world, had not slept for many years in his mausoleum at Spalato before a New Rome had arisen by the Bosporos, before the temples of a new worship on the hill of the Vatican and in the palace of the Laterani had begun to threaten the dominion of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on his own Capitol. ”