Edict of Galerius
by Galerius, Constantine, and Licinius

Translated by Joseph Cullen Ayer.
Source: A Source Book for Ancient Church History, §56(c), pp. 262–263; Eusebius, Church History VIII.17.
Originally published: 1913.
Rights: Public domain in the United States.
Online: https://dwalker.xyz/library/texts/galerius-constantine-and-licinius/edict-of-galerius/

Galerius, Constantine, and Licinius, 30 April AD 311. This decree permits Christians to resume their gatherings provided they preserve public order, and asks them to pray for the emperors and the state. The substantive decree appears here in Ayer’s 1913 translation of the version preserved by Eusebius, Church History VIII.17; the surrounding narrative and imperial titulature are omitted. Lactantius preserves a Latin version in De mortibus persecutorum 34.

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Amongst our other measures, which we are always making for the use and profit of the commonwealth, we have hitherto endeavored to bring all things into conformity with the ancient laws and public order of the Romans, and to bring it about also that the Christians, who have abandoned the religion of their ancestors, should return to sound reason. For in some way such wilfulness has seized the Christians and such folly possessed them that they do not follow those constitutions of the ancients, which peradventure their own ancestors first established, but entirely according to their own judgment and as it pleased them they were making such laws for themselves as they would observe, and in different places were assembling various sorts of people. In short, when our command was issued that they were to betake themselves to the institutions of the ancients, many of them were subdued by danger, many also were ruined. Yet when great numbers of them held to their determination, and we saw that they neither gave worship and due reverence to the gods nor yet regarded the God of the Christians, we therefore, mindful of our most mild clemency and of the unbroken custom whereby we are accustomed to grant pardon to all men, have thought that in this case also speediest indulgence ought to be granted to them, that the Christians might exist again and might establish their gatherings, yet so that they do nothing contrary to good order. By another letter we shall signify to magistrates how they are to proceed. Wherefore, in accordance with this our indulgence, they ought to pray their God for our good estate, for that of the commonwealth, and for their own, that the commonwealth may endure on every side unharmed and that they may be able to live securely in their own homes.