The Significance of the Edict of Milan, in Edward

2 The significance of the Edict of Milan1 Noel Lenski The debate over the Edict of Milan The term Edict of Milan is a modern construct used to describe a document datable to summer 313 CE that survives in two copies, one in Lactantius’s On the Deaths of Persecutors and the second in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius.2 It makes up a legal text that purports to have been written by Constantine and Licinius during a joint meeting at Milan, with the aim of granting religious freedom to Christians and others and the restoration of property confiscated during the Great Persecution. The title “Edict of Milan” came to be attached to this document in the counter- reformationTaylor historiography of the andsixteenth century Francis and remained a fixed point in subsequent scholarship down to 1891. In that year, Otto Seeck published a brief but ingeniousNot article, in forwhich he asserteddistribution that “Edict of Milan” is a misnomer and that it overinflates the significance of the document it purports to describe.3 He argued that the text we have is not an edict, a particular type of constitution written to have widespread applicability, but rather a letter (epistula), as in fact it is termed by Lactantius. The Lactantian copy was issued in epistolary form to the governor of Bithynia and posted by him in Nicomedia, and the Eusebian version was probably, though not certainly, sent as a letter to the governor of Palaestina. The text was thus intended for a regional audience and had more limited remit than an edict. Moreover, Seeck argued, this particular letter did not convey new legal content but merely extended the privileges granted by Galerius in his Edict of Toleration, issued in April 311, to the far eastern part of the empire, where Maximinus Daia had refused to enforce the provisions of Galerius’s law down to the eve of his fall in summer 313. In sum, Seeck argued that the “so-called Edict of Milan” was limited in its application to the empire’s far eastern domains, was issued as a letter by Licinius alone without the involvement of Constantine, and should no longer be referred to with the exaggerated title “Edict of Milan” but at best with the anodyne moniker “Law of Nicomedia.” Initially, Seeck’s argument met with little support from the scholarly community, but by the 1910s, it began winning an increasing number of adherents.4 In the wake of a broader trend toward more critical approaches to Constantine and 28 Noel Lenski his impact, many turned to Seeck’s case as further confirmation that Constantine was neither the first imperial defender of Christianity nor the first proponent of the principle of religious toleration. That said, the term Edict of Milan has contin- ued to appear in the scholarship up to the present, in some instances due to blind fealty to received tradition, in others because of a feeling that although the term is not strictly accurate as a designation for this document, it seems adequate as the commonly accepted title for a law that many believe was highly significant in the history of world religion. The failure of Seeck’s argument to gain universal acceptance has provoked strong reaction from several scholars, none more vociferous than T. D. Barnes, who has argued consistently since at least 1981 that the term is inaccurate, incorrect, and even threatening. His position is stated most emphatically in his 2011 mono- graph Constantine: Dynasty, Religion, and Power in the Later Roman Empire: Christianity was only one of the weighty matters of state which Constantine and Licinius discussed in Milan. What action or actions did they take on this matter while they were in the city? The correct answer to this question is amazingly simple. They agreed to extend to the rest of the Roman Empire the freedom of worship and the restoration of property confiscated in 303 which the Christians of the West already enjoyed. No public pronouncement was probably made in Milan because none was needed. Unfortunately, there is a deeply ingrained scholarly tradition of using the term “Edict of Milan,” with or without the definite article, with or without quotation marks around the bogus phrase which contradicts historical reality. It will therefore be worthwhileTaylor to explain andin detail with Francis reference to recent writing about ConstantineNot why thefor term is sodistribution misleading, even dangerous.5 Interestingly, although Barnes’s larger argument on the question grows out of Seeck’s original position, it differs from it in several respects. In brief, Barnes proceeds from six suppositions that overlap only tangentially with Seeck’s thesis: 1 Barnes believes that already at the beginning of his reign in summer 306, Constantine revoked the persecuting edicts issued by Diocletian in 303 and replaced them with religious liberty; 2 This initial grant of religious liberty by Constantine included the restitution of property confiscated from Christians by the state; 3 Maxentius made a similar grant of liberty and restoration of property around the same time; 4 The letters published seven years later by Licinius and now preserved in Eusebius and Lactantius (the “Edict of Milan”) were composed by Licinius alone; 5 These represent only the execution of the order of restitution of property in the territories of Maximinus Daia after his defeat in the summer of 313; 6 These did not involve new principles of toleration or religious liberty since both had already been guaranteed by Galerius’s Edict of Toleration. The significance of the Edict of Milan 29 Clean and emphatic though Barnes’s case may be, few of its planks stand up to detailed scrutiny. In this study, I will interrogate the six suppositions just stated in an effort to show this. In the process, I hope also to prove that although the texts extant in Eusebius and Lactantius are in fact letters, they would seem to take their origins from an edict, issued by Constantine and Licinius jointly in Milan, and that this edict both was newly constructed in early 313 and included revolutionary ideas first articulated and implemented only in this year. I will begin by show - ing the shaky basis for Barnes’s argument for Constantine’s grant of religious liberty and restoration of property in 306. I will then show the powerful influence of Constantine over Licinius in the period when the documents were issued and the clear imprint of Constantine’s rhetoric on the documents. Next, I will turn to a broader look at the nature of late antique legislation, in order to prove that the firm distinction between edicts and letters, so essential to Barnes’s case, was not a feature of late Roman lawgiving. A close examination of the texts will show that they derive from a separate original text, which was, most likely, an edict. Finally, an investigation of the rhetoric of the Edict of Milan and related contem- porary documents will demonstrate both that this key source arrived at the end of a lengthy dialogue regarding the grant of religious freedom and also that its emphasis on religious liberty traces back to Lactantius’s Divine Institutes. Thus, while not denying that the copies of the Edict of Milan preserved to us are in fact letters, the article sets out to prove: (1) that the content of these letters was formu- lated primarily by Constantine and not Licinius; (2) that the letter we now have derives from a no longer extant original that was almost certainly an edict; and (3) that its Taylorconcept of religious libertyand was thoroughly Francis Constantinian and was calqued onNot philosophical for principles distribution first outlined by Lactantius. The Edict of Milan and religious toleration in the early fourth century The Edict of Milan was the last of a number decrees designed to put an end to the persecutions unleashed by a series of edicts issued by Diocletian, beginning in February 303. The first of these had the effect of removing from Christians all honors and offices, limiting their access to justice, and denying them liberty and juridical rights—making them nonexistent before the law. As many as three further edicts followed in eastern territories, such that in a general way, the persecutions were more intensive in the East, where they persisted down to the spring of 311, than in the West, where some territories—Gaul and Britain especially—suffered very little.6 Famously, with his Edict of Toleration issued in 311, Galerius attempted to put an end to the persecutions empire-wide. The dispositive part of this constitution reads: . bearing in mind our own most gentle clemency (mitissimae nostrae clementiae) and our perpetual habit of showing indulgent pardon (veniam indulgere) to all men, we believed that in the case of these people too we should extend our speediest indulgence (promptissimam . indulgentiam), 30 Noel Lenski so that once more there may be Christians, and they may reconstruct their meetingplaces, provided they do nothing against good order. But in another letter we shall indicate to governors what they ought to observe.7 Apart from its general import, which is, of course, profound, this quotation stands out for two reasons of relevance to the discussion that follows. First, its notice that a letter will be sent informing governors of what actions they should take on the basis of the edict conveys the sense that edicts were often explained, elabo- rated, or enacted through an accompanying letter. Second, its restoration of legal rights to members of the Christian community stops well short of granting religious freedom, a point that vitiates Seeck’s claim that the “so-called Edict of Milan” merely extended the principles of the Edict of Toleration to the territories of Maximinus Daia.

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