EDICT OF MILAN. - After the victory over Maxentius in 312, the emperors Constantine and Licinius met in Milan in the first months of 313. Their good accord was strengthened also by ties of kinship, since Licinius married Constantia, sister of Constantine. And among the liberal and munificent measures taken at that conference there were certainly also some relating to the Christian problem. Eusebius (Hist. eccl., X, 5) and Lactantius (De mort. persec., 48) report, with slight variations, a letter of Licinius to the governors of the provinces dependent on him, a letter written in the name of the two emperors, and which was very improperly called by modern writers the E. of M., whereas at most it presupposes a legislative act, and explains it. The essential passages of the document are these: "When I, Constantine Augustus, and I, Licinius Augustus, were happily assembled at Milan and were discussing together all that pertains to the interest and security of the State, among the things that seemed to us useful to the multitude we believed we ought to assign the first place to what concerns the worship of the divinity, granting to the Christians and to all the freedom to follow the religion they wish, so that whatever there is of the divine in heaven might be favorable and propitious to us as well as to all who are subject to our authority... Furthermore, as regards the Christians, we have decided that the places where they were accustomed to assemble - concerning which letters of instruction had already been directed to your offices - if anyone has bought them from our treasury or from anyone else, he must restore them to the Christians without money and without demanding a price, without seeking pretexts or raising disputes; those who have received them as a gift shall likewise restore them as soon as possible to the same Christians. Those, moreover, who have bought them or received them as a donation, if they desire to obtain something from our benevolence, should apply to the vicar (of the diocese) so that their requests may be carefully provided for by our clemency. You shall take care that all this be restored to the community of the Christians (corpori Christianorum) and without delay..." (Fliche-Martin-Fruta, III, p. 22).
The document therefore is not a profession of Christian faith, nor does it create for the Christians a situation of privilege, but to them, as to the followers of any other religion, it acknowledges freedom of worship. The State no longer considers necessary an act of compliance with the divinities of the official religion; the great conquest of the freedom of religious thought is accomplished, and consequently the previous policy of persecutions is disavowed and condemned. It is a great advance with respect to the edict of toleration of Galerius of 311; whereas the latter reproves and reviles those who have abandoned the religion of their fathers to follow the doctrine of Christ, and only for reasons of expediency, and, as he says, of clemency, puts an end to the persecutions, the document of Milan repudiates the entire persecuting policy of the predecessors. Once the principle is established that following the Christian religion is no longer an offense against the State, the restitution of the goods confiscated from the Christians follows from it as a legitimate consequence.
It is noteworthy in any case that the restitutions are made to the communities (conventiculis, says the text of Lactantius), so that the Christian communities are recognized as entities capable of possessing.
Given the celebrity of the imperial document, to which Christian writers attributed a greater scope than it has, leaving in the shadow both the edict of Galerius and the participation of Licinius in order to confer on Constantine alone all the merit of the provisions favorable to the Christians, it is understandable how among the critics of the last fifty years a reaction has arisen. Some have exaggerated by attacking the entire document as a Christian falsification; which cannot be, because the two writers who report it are contemporaries of the events, and if they had invented an act of the imperial chancery, they would have exposed their writings to victorious refutations. Others, less radical, are closer to the truth: O. Seeck has demonstrated that the preserved text cannot be called an edict; H. Grégoire has added the demonstration that the act was not promulgated at Milan, but at Nicomedia in June and not in Feb. of 313. And he wished to draw from this the consequence that it is due not to Constantine, but only to Licinius, to whom a priority in the provisions favorable to Christianity should be recognized. Which is perhaps too much, and has been rebutted by J.-B. Palanque.
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Roberto Paribeni