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The Edict of Milan (Latin: Edictum Mediolanense; Greek: Διάταγμα τῶν Μεδιολάνων, Diatagma tōn Mediolanōn) was the February 313 AD agreement to treat Christians benevolently within the Roman Empire.[1] Western Roman Emperor Constantine I and Emperor Licinius, who controlled the Balkans, met in Mediolanum (modern-day Milan) and, among other things, agreed to change policies towards Christians[1] following the edict of toleration issued by Emperor Galerius two years earlier in Serdica. The Edict of Milan gave Christianity legal status and a reprieve from persecution but did not make it the state church of the Roman Empire[2], which occurred in AD 380 with the Edict of Thessalonica[3].
The document is found in Lactantius's De mortibus persecutorum and in Eusebius of Caesarea's History of the Church with marked divergences between the two.[4][5] Whether or not there was a formal 'Edict of Milan' is no longer really debated among scholars, who generally reject the story as it has come down in church history.[6][1]
The version found in Lactantius is not in the form of an edict.[5] It is a letter from Licinius to the governors of the provinces in the Eastern Empire that he had just conquered by defeating Maximinus[7] later that same year and issued in Nicomedia.[1][8]
- ^ a b c d Frend, W. H. C. (1965). The Early Church. SPCK, p. 137.
- ^ The Cambridge History of Christianity - Cambridge University Press "Christianity did not become the official religion of the empire under Constantine, as is often mistakenly claimed..." https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-history-of-christianity/constantine-and-the-peace-of-the-church/1D6492CD5ECB96174AAE1221F48DC56F
- ^ Britanica Encyclopedia "..Emperor Theodosius I (reigned 379–395), who made Catholic Christianity the official religion of the empire.." https://www.britannica.com/topic/Christianity/The-alliance-between-church-and-empire
- ^ Lenski, Noel (2017). "The Significance of the Edict of Milan". In Siecienski, Edward (ed.). Constantine: Religious Faith and Imperial Policy. London: Routledge. pp. 27–56. Retrieved 21 May 2021.
Differences tabulated on pp. 39–40
- ^ a b Cross and Livingstone. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church 1974 art. "Milan, Edict of."
- ^ Potter, D. Constantine the Emperor 2013 p. 148. He refers to the "Edict of Milan" as the so-called Edict of Milan in note 10 at the top of p. 329.
- ^ Stevenson, J. A New Eusebius SPCK 1965, p. 302
- ^ As David Potter states in his 2013 book Constantine the Emperor, "What is significant is that the document, once wrongly known as the Edict of Milan (there was never such a thing) and attributed to Constantine, is the product of a pagan emperor who had decided that Constantine's approach to the "Christian question" was correct. Although the 'Edict of Milan' is really a letter of Licinius to the governors of the eastern provinces, it still represents an important sea change in the direction of imperial policy." Potter p. 149