Christianity was opposed by Maximian and Galerius, tolerated by Constantius-I Chlorus and, at least early on, was favoured by Diocletian. In 297 Diocletian issued a rigorous edict against Manichaeism, a major religious movement in Persia, founded by the Persian prophet Manichaeus (c.216-276), which Diocletian said endangered the Empire.
According to Eusebius of Caesarea (260/65-339/40), the persecution of Christians seems to have started with purging from the army, where they served all four rulers in substantial numbers. Galerius proceeded cautiously at first, stripping officers of their titles and discharging the rank and file, but he gradually put more and more to death.
Diocletian apparently turned against the religion in 302 during a visit to Antioch when a Christian interrupted a sacrifice by making the sign of the cross. In 303 Diocletian issued his first general edict commanding that churches be levelled to the ground, scriptures burned, persons holding places of honour degraded, and household servants who refused to submit to be deprived of their freedom.
Soon after the beginning of the persecution in Nicomedia (Bithynia), two attempts were made to usurp the imperial power, one in Cappadocia, and the other in Syria Coele. Details of the revolution in Cappadocia have not been recorded, but the revolt in Syria was led by 01Eugenius, a tribune whose discontented soldiers had proclaimed him emperor. The men started drinking and then marched to Antioch where its citizens easily overcame the drunken throng of men.
Although it seems that there was no evidence of Christian involvement in these events, Diocletian used these uprisings as a pretext for further edicts against Christianity. Diocletian’s second edict ordered ecclesiastical leaders arrested and imprisoned; a third arranged for all prisoners to be set free on the condition that they sacrificed to the gods but stipulated that those that refused to be punished.
In 304 Diocletian, dangerously ill and tired, was persuaded by Galerius to issue a fourth edict requiring ‘that all citizens in every country in each city offer sacrifices publicly and libations to the idols’. This was a declaration of war not only on churches, scriptures, and members of the clergy but on all the faithful without regard to status, age or sex. Galerius probably applied it first in areas that he ruled, Macedonia and Pannonia, and from there spread throughout the Empire.
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