"They Leveled that Lofty Edifice with the Ground" ~ The Destruction of the Church at Nicomedia and Commencement of the Great Persecution

Diocletian and Maximian embracing from relief found in Nicomedia in 2018.
Image borrowed from: A New Tetrarchic Relief from Nicomedia.

In AD 303 on February 23, the Christian church of Nicomedia in Roman Bithynia was utterly destroyed. In this case, by “church” I am referring to the physical building as opposed to the human beings of Nicomedia who professed the Christian faith. Their destruction would come later.

The pulling down of the church of Nicomedia marked the beginning of a violent, Roman Empire-wide repression of Christianity known to future generations as the Great Persecution. This state-sponsored attack would be the most violent, wide-ranging, and longest-lasting effort of the Roman government to wipe out the hated Christian sect. It would also be the last. The campaign was sparked by the emperor Diocletian, who was himself instigated by his Caesar (or junior emperor), Galerius.

We have two ancient accounts of this event. The first is a brief notice in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius:

"It was the nineteenth year of Diocletian's reign [AD 303] and the month Dystrus, called March by the Romans, and the festival of the Savior's Passion was approaching, when an imperial decree was published everywhere, ordering the churches to be razed to the ground and the Scriptures destroyed by fire, and giving notice that those in places of honor would lose their places, and domestic staff, if they continued to profess Christianity, would be deprived of their liberty. Such was the first edict against us. Soon afterwards other decrees arrived in rapid succession, ordering that the presidents of the churches in every place should all be first committed to prison and then coerced by every possible means into offering sacrifice." [Eccelsiastical History of Eusebius, Book VIII, Chapter 2]

The second source is a much more detailed account from a very well educated Latin-speaking Roman named Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius. Known to later history simply as Lactantius, he was summoned to Nicomedia, which served as Diocletian’s capital, in the 290s to teach rhetoric. Whether he had already converted to Christianity when he arrived in Nicomedia is unknown. Certainly, by the time the Great Persecution began in AD 303, he had already become a Christian. He likely resigned his post when it became clear that Christians would no longer be tolerated in such positions.

Even so, Lactantius was in a very good position to witness and later record the events which led up to the Great Persecution in a brief account known as On the Deaths of the Persecutors. Below is a video reading of the account of Lactantius, followed by the actual text as taken from On the Deaths of the Persecutors which was written within 10-15 years of the events described:

In this work, Lactantius indicates that the wrath of Diocletian was first incited against the Christians by pagan priests who claimed that the presence of Christians among the emperor’s retinue was inhibiting their efforts to tell the future. 

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Diocletian, as being of a timorous disposition, was a searcher into futurity, and during his abode in the East he began to slay victims, that from their livers he might obtain a prognostic of events; and while he sacrificed, some attendants of his who were Christians, stood by, and they put the immortal sign on their foreheads [the sign of the cross]. At this the demons were chased away, and the holy rites interrupted. The soothsayers trembled, unable to investigate the wonted marks on the entrails of the victims. They frequently repeated the sacrifices, as if the former had been unpropitious; but the victims, slain from time to time, afforded no tokens for divination. At length Tages, the chief of the soothsayers, either from guess or from his own observation, said, “There are profane persons here, who obstruct the rites.” Then Diocletian, in furious passion, ordered not only all who were assisting at the holy ceremonies, but also all who resided within the palace, to sacrifice, and, in case of their refusal, to be scourged. And further, by letters to the commanding officers, he enjoined that all soldiers should be forced to the like impiety, under pain of being dismissed the service. [On the Deaths of the Persecutors, Chapter 10]

This was only the first step, however. Diocletian would subsequently be bought to a more severe position with regard to the Christians by his corrupt, gluttonous and brutal junior emperor, Galerius. According to Lactantius, Diocletian “attempted to observe such moderation as to command the business to be carried through without bloodshed; whereas Galerius would have had all persons burnt alive who refused to sacrifice." [On the Deaths of the Persecutors, Chapter 11]

And so the two would plan what they hoped would be a complete and final extirpation of Christianity from the Roman Empire. Their first target was the Christian church of Nicomedia, a building which was apparently very prominent in the city—indeed, it was within view of the imperial palace itself. Lactantius continues:

A fit and auspicious day was sought out for the accomplishment of this undertaking; and the festival of the god Terminus, celebrated on the sevens of the kalends of March [February 23], was chosen, in preference to all others, to terminate, as it were, the Christian religion.

That day, the harbinger of death, arose,
First cause of ill, and long enduring woes;

of woes which befell not only the Christians, but the whole earth. When that day dawned, in the eighth consulship of Diocletian and seventh of Maximian, suddenly, while it was yet hardly light, the prefect, together with chief commanders, tribunes, and officers of the treasury, came to the church in Nicomedia, and the gates having been forced open, they searched everywhere for an image of the Divinity. The books of the Holy Scriptures were found, and they were committed to the flames; the utensils and furniture of the church were abandoned to pillage: all was rapine, confusion, tumult. That church, situated on rising ground, was within view of the palace; and Diocletian and Galerius stood, as if on a watchtower, disputing long whether it ought to be set on fire. The sentiment of Diocletian prevailed, who dreaded lest, so great a fire being once kindled, some part of the city might he burnt; for there were many and large buildings that surrounded the church. Then the Praetorian Guards came in battle array, with axes and other iron instruments, and having been let loose everywhere, they in a few hours leveled that very lofty edifice with the ground. [On the Deaths of the Persecutors, Chapter 12]

The next day, February 24, AD 303, Diocletian and Galerius made their attack on the Christians a matter of law. They published an edict “depriving the Christians of all honors and dignities; ordaining also that, without any distinction of rank or degree, they should be subjected to tortures, and that every suit at law should be received against them; while, on the other hand, they were debarred from being plaintiffs in questions of wrong, adultery, or theft; and, finally, that they should neither be capable of freedom, nor have right of suffrage.” [On the Deaths of the Persecutors, Chapter 13]

Apparently, not all the Christians were cowed by this edict. Lactantius records that one man, incensed by the actions of the emperors, tore down the public document and shredded it to pieces saying “These are the triumphs of the Goths and Sarmatians.” Unfortunately for him, he was apprehended by the imperial authorities, tortured and burned to death. In this way, Diocletian and Galerius made it clear that they would enforce their anti-Christian edict to the full and tolerate no opposition.

Relief from the Arch of Galerius in Thessalonika showing the imperial family
offering sacrifice. 

A short time thereafter, the imperial palace in Nicomedia caught fire. Hearkening back to the original persecution 250 years before under Nero, Galerius blamed this fire upon the Christians and declared them public enemies. He convinced Diocletian to put his own domestics to torture to discover who the perpetrators were. Dioceltian did so without result. Lactantius hints that Diocletian may have found the evidence he sought if he had tortured Galerius’s domestics as these were the ones who had started the fire at their master’s command. [On the Deaths of the Persecutors, Chapter 14]

After a second fire broke out in the palace, Galerius fled the city saying that he didn’t want to be burned alive. At this point, Diocletian flew into an unbridled rage. Lactantius details what happened next, hinting that even members of Diocletian's immediate family may have been Christians:

[Diocletian] began by forcing his daughter Valeria and his wife Prisca to be polluted by sacrificing. Eunuchs, once the most powerful, and who had chief authority at court and with the emperor, were slain. Presbyters and other officers of the Church were seized, without evidence by witnesses or confession, condemned, and together with their families led to execution. In burning alive, no distinction of sex or age was regarded. And because of their great multitude, they were not burnt one after another, but a herd of them were encircled with the same fire; and servants, having millstones tied about their necks, were cast into the sea. Nor was the persecution less grievous on the rest of the people of God, for the judges, dispersed through all the temples, sought to compel every one to sacrifice. The prisons were crowded; tortures, hitherto unheard of, were invented; and lest justice should be inadvertently administered to a Christian, altars were placed in the courts of justice hard by the tribunal, that every litigant might offer incense before his cause could be heard. [On the Deaths of the Persecutors, Chapter 15]

From this point forward, the persecution spread throughout the Empire, burning with greater or lesser intensity depending on who was in charge of a given region. In the dioceses of Gaul and Britain, the edict was enforced only upon buildings as opposed to people, thanks to the comparative clemency of the junior emperor of the West, Constantius Chlorus. His son, Constantine, would later put a final end to the age of persecution, and Lactantius would, in his old age, be assigned as tutor to Constantine’s son, Crispus. He would later be included among Saint Jerome's 5th century catalog of great Christians known as On Illustrious Men.

The rest of Lactantius’s work, On the Deaths of the Persecutors, is a singularly important historical source which contains a multitude of facts recorded nowhere else. As such, it makes for excellent reading if you are interested in this period.

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Also of interest with regard to the Great Persecution is the recently published work, I Am a Christian: Authentic Accounts of Christian Martyrdom and Persecution from the Ancient Sources which is a collection of some of the best ancient sources on the persecution of the early Church. This book includes numerous ancient martyrdom accounts drawn from the Great Persecution, including a few which have been detailed on this blog such as the following:

• "I condemn Agape and Chionia to be burnt alive." ~ April 3, AD 303 
• Saint Crispina, Martyr, AD 304 
• "The Oblivion of a Silent Age" ~ The effort of Diocletian and Galerius to wipe out Christian literature during the Great Persecution 
• "Why are you delaying, executioner?" ~ The martyrdom of Saint Agnes according to the ancient sources 
• “The Scriptures Destroyed by Fire” ~ An official Roman transcript from the Great Persecution of AD 304 
• "Isis, Apollo, Venus, all are nothing; Maximian, too, is nothing." ~ The Martyrdom of Saint Eulalia of Mérida, Spain
• "He bade the lapsed weep for their crimes" ~ The ancient sources for Pope Saint Marcellus who died AD 309