_III.--The Church under Constantine_

From 284 to 303, during the reign of Diocletian, the Christian Church
enjoyed peace and prosperity, but in the latter year Galerius persuaded
the emperor to renew the persecution of the sect. An edict on February
24 enacted that all churches throughout the empire should be demolished,
and the punishment of death was pronounced against all who should
presume to hold any secret assemblies for the purposes of religious
worship. Many suffered martyrdom under this cruel enactment. Churches
everywhere were burnt, and sacred books destroyed. Three more edicts
published before March 304 led to the imprisonment of all persons of the
ecclesiastical order, compelled the magistrates to exercise torture to
subvert the religion of their Christian prisoners, and made it the duty,
as well as the interest, of the imperial officers to discover, to
pursue, and to torment the most obnoxious among the faithful.

But after six years of persecution, the mind of Galerius, softened by
salutary reflection, induced him to attempt some reparation. In the
edict of toleration which he published on April 30, 311, he expresses
the hope "that our indulgence will engage the Christians to offer up
their prayers to the Deity whom they adore for our safety and
prosperity, and for that of the Republic."

The triumph of the great Constantine established the security of the
Christian Church from the attacks of the pagans. Converted in 306,
Constantine, as soon as he had achieved the conquest of Italy, issued
the Edict of Milan (313), declaring that the places of worship which had
been confiscated should be restored to the Church without dispute,
without delay, and without expense. Though himself never received by
baptism into the Church, until his last moments, his powerful patronage
of the Christians, and his edicts of toleration, removed all the
temporal disadvantages which had hitherto retarded the progress of
Christianity.

The faith of Christ became the national religion of the empire. The
soldiers bore upon their helmets and upon their shields the sacred
emblem of the Cross. All the machinery of government was employed to
propagate the faith, not only within the empire, but beyond its borders.
Confirmed in his new religion by the miraculous vision of the Cross,
Constantine, who was the master of the world, consented to recognise the
superiority of the ecclesiastical orders in all spiritual matters, while
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