2.61 Galerius's Edict of Toleration

Read Galerius's Edict of Toleration:

"Among other arrangements which we are always accustomed to make for the prosperity and welfare of the republic, we had desired previously to bring all things into harmony with the ancient laws and public order of the Romans. We had wanted to ensure that even the Christians who had left the religion of their fathers should come back to reason. These Christians, for some reason, had followed such a whim and had fallen into such a folly that they would not obey the institutes of antiquity, which perhaps their very own ancestors had first established; but at their own will and pleasure, they would make up their own laws that they should observe and they would collect different peoples in various places in congregations. Finally when our [earlier] law had been promulgated to the effect that they should conform to the ancient ways, many were subdued by the fear of danger, many even suffered death. And yet most of them persevered in their determination, and we saw that they neither paid the reverence and awe due to the gods nor worshipped the God of the Christians. Therefore, because we are most merciful and have made it a habit to grant kindness to all, we thought that we ought to grant our most prompt indulgence also to these, so that they may again be Christians and may hold their meetings, provided they do nothing contrary to good order. But we shall tell the magistrates in another letter what they ought to do.

"Wherefore, in return for our kindness, they ought to pray to their God for our safety, for that of the republic, and for their own, that the republic may continue uninjured on every side, and that they may be able to live securely in their homes.

This edict is published at Nicomedia on the day before the Kalends of May, in our eighth consulship and the second of Maximinus."

Source of the translation:

The above translation was adapted from University of Pennsylvania's Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press [1897?-1907?]), Vol 4,  pp. 28-30. That translation is available online at Fordham University's Internet History Sourcebook.