Edicts of the Great Persecution

Imperial · Edict · 303–304 · Latin

Four edicts in fifteen months, each harder than the last: churches demolished and scriptures surrendered, then the clergy imprisoned, then the clergy compelled to sacrifice, then everyone. The texts themselves are lost — what survives is Eusebius and Lactantius describing their terms, which is why this row rests on narrators rather than on a document. The demand to hand over the books produced the word traditor, and in Africa the Donatist schism. The four edicts are of 303–304, and Eusebius describes their terms at HE 8.2.