Event · AD 311 · Serdica · the eastern empire

Galerius’ edict of Serdica, AD 311

Galerius’ Edict of Serdica — the persecution’s deathbed toleration

**A confession of failure issued as law, and the archive holds the text twice over.**

Galerius, dying of a disease Lactantius describes at length, issued an edict of toleration from Serdica in April 311 — **six years after driving the persecution he had pressed hardest for.**

## What the edict actually says

It is remarkable for its reasoning, and the record quotes it because the reasoning is the evidence. Galerius states that his intention had been to correct the Christians and bring them back to the institutions of the ancestors; that **very many persisted**; and that they were left **worshipping neither the gods nor their own God** — having been driven from one and not returning to the other.

**So he grants indulgence.** They may exist again, may rebuild their meeting places, and are to pray to their God **for his safety and for the state**. That last clause is the one the archive marks: an emperor who had ordered them killed asking to be prayed for.

**It is an admission that coercion did not work, written by the man who tried it.** No Christian source needed to argue that; the persecutor said it in an official instrument.

## Two independent transmissions

**Lactantius** gives the Latin in *On the Deaths of the Persecutors*, written within a few years, and **Eusebius** gives a Greek version in the eighth book of the *History*. **Two independent lines of transmission for one legal text** — which is unusually good preservation, and the record notes that the two versions can be compared.

**One caution.** Both transmitters are hostile witnesses reporting a document that vindicates them, and Lactantius's account of Galerius's disease is polemical in the extreme. **The edict's text is well attested; the deathbed framing around it is theirs.**

The sources for this event

Every source the record rests on, with what it says and what it cannot carry.

Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors 34

c. AD 315

De Mortibus Persecutorum 34

[The Latin text of the edict. Galerius states that his purpose had been to correct all things according to the ancient laws and public discipline of the Romans, and to bring the Christians back — but that **very many persisted in their determination**, and that they came to be **worshipping neither the gods nor their own God**. He therefore grants that they may **exist again and rebuild their meeting places**, on condition that they **pray to their God for our safety, and for that of the state.** ⚠ The edict text is well attested; **the deathbed framing and the account of Galerius’s disease are Lactantius’s polemic**, and the archive separates them.]

Lactantius, *On the Deaths of the Persecutors* — **held in this library**. Written c. AD 315; English in Ante-Nicene Fathers 7, public domain. ⚠ A hostile witness transmitting a document that vindicates him: the edict text is well attested, the deathbed framing is his.

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Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History VIII.17

c. AD 325

Ecclesiastical History VIII.17

[Eusebius gives a Greek version of the same edict. **Two independent lines of transmission for one legal text** — Latin in Lactantius, Greek here — which is unusually good preservation for a fourth-century imperial instrument, and allows the two to be compared. Both transmitters are hostile witnesses reporting a document that vindicates them, which the archive states.]

Eusebius, *Ecclesiastical History* — held in this library. English: A. C. McGiffert, NPNF 2nd ser. 1 (1890), public domain.

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The Edict of Toleration of Galerius

c. AD 311

The edict of 30 April AD 311, Serdica

[The instrument itself, linked because the event *is* the document: Galerius states that his purpose had been to bring the Christians back to the ancient discipline; that very many persisted; that they were left worshipping neither the gods nor their own God; and therefore grants that they may exist again and rebuild — **asking in return that they pray to their God for his safety and for the state.** ⚠ The two transmissions differ in wording and both transmitters are hostile; the archive holds the text and names the problem rather than choosing a version silently.]

*The Edict of Toleration of Galerius* — **held in this library** as its own text record. Transmitted twice: the Latin in Lactantius, the Greek in Eusebius, and the two can be compared.

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Figures in this event (6)

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