I doubt whether you'd find it in a biography of
Constantine so much as a
history of the
church. I remember
writing an essay in which I argued that, if there was an identifiable turning point at all, it was probably Clement of Alexandria's apologia for wealthy Christians, written at the end of the 2nd Century. What I can't do is remember the sources I used, since it was twenty years ago and I no longer have it. According to Eusebius,
Gallienus issued at least a partial
edict of toleration, but the details in the letter to the bishops he includes are vague. After the defeat of
Zenobia by
Aurelian, the
church appealed to the emperor for the return of ecclesiastical property held by Paul of
Samosata, a heretic she'd favoured, and won. One thing I haven't, unfortunately, come across is a
history of the
church which really sets it in the context of the wider
history; how far was the temporary cessation of persecution in the 3rd Century a consequence of the near collapse of the empire, for instance? I strongly suspect that it was, but I 'd like to know for sure.
When it
comes to the Great Persecution,
Diocletian persecuted the Manichees, apparently as a result of an appeal against them.
Galerius was pressurised by
his mother, a devout pagan, to persecute Christians, and in turn pressurised
Diocletian, who only wanted to forbid the court and the army to practice the faith. This was despite an earlier incident when he
had consulted the omens and recieved no reply, allegedly because Christians present
had made the sign of the
Cross. Dio eventually consulted
Apollo of Miletus, who gave the inevitable reply in support of persecution, and gave way. It sounds to me as though there was probably a
good deal of to-ing and fro-ing within the court over this, with the supporters of traditional paganism attacking what we might term the 'new faiths' like Manicheeinsm and Christianity, which they inevitably perceived as a threat. Eventually the inevitable happened, as the old paganism lost ground, and the emperors came to see that teh
church offered no threat to them at all.
It's been a very long time since I did much reading in
church history, and I need to get back to it. There has to be something decent on this out there somewhere!
