**MILTIADES** – A Christian writer of the 2nd century from Asia Minor. A literary opponent of the Valentinians (Tertullian, *Adv.*, 5) and the Monastini (an anonymous antimonastist, in Eusebius, *Hist. eccl.*, 5, 17).
He affirmed against the Monastini the principle that a prophet should not speak in ecstasy (Eusebius, *loc. cit.*). Eusebius knew of some apologetic writings by M., a work against the Greeks, another against the Jews, and finally an apology of his philosophy (= Christianity) before the rulers of the world (Eusebius, *op. cit.*, 5, 17, 5). None of his writings have been preserved.
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**MILTIADES, POPE, St.** – The *Liber Pontificalis* states that he was of African origin. His pontificate, based on data from the Liberian Catalogue and the *Liber Pontificalis* but corrected for errors, can be fixed from July 2, 311, to January 10 (11), 314, precisely during the years that saw Constantine’s victory over Maxentius, the Edict of Milan, the end of persecutions, and the triumph of Christianity.
Already in April 311, Galerius had issued the Edict of Toleration (Lactantius, *De mort. persec.*, 34), which Maxentius, though not having signed it, applied extensively, restoring to M. through the urban prefecture the goods confiscated from the Roman Church at the beginning of the persecution (St. Augustine, *Brevic. Collat.*, III, 18, 34).
M. soon had to address the Donatist schism. When the dissidents requested Constantine to appoint bishops of Gaul as judges, the Emperor entrusted the examination of the controversy to the Pope by letter (Eusebius, *Hist. eccl.*, X, 5). M. held a council in October 313, with the participation of three Gallic bishops and fifteen Italian ones, in the palace given to him by Fausta (*in domum Fausta* in the Lateran), which recognized the regularity of the election and the validity of the ordination of Ceciliano as bishop of Carthage and instead condemned Donatus, who had succeeded the intruder Majorinus in the Carthaginian see (Optatus of Milevis, *De schismate donat.*, I, 23-24; St. Augustine, *Brevic. Collat.*, III, 12, 24 and III, 17, 32). The Donatists never forgave M. this sentence, and by the end of the 4th century they accused him of having delivered the Scriptures and offered incense during Diocletian’s persecution, or at least of indirect “tradition,” in that he had kept in the clergy and sent to receive the restitution of confiscated goods two clerics guilty of “tradition”—accusations that St. Augustine proved unfounded (St. Augustine, *De unico baptismo*, 27; *Brevic. Collat.*, III, 18, 34-46).
The *Liber Pontificalis* attributes to him disciplinary and liturgical decrees: the prohibition of fasting on Sunday and Thursday and the introduction of the custom of carrying to the various urban churches a particle of the Eucharist consecrated by the Pope (“fermentum”). Other decrees are attributed to him by Pseudo-Isidore. M. was buried in the cemetery of Callistus, and his name was inscribed in the *Depositio episcoporum* on January 10.
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