Edict of Milan: a Source Analysis on the Results of the Document

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Emperor Constantine was the key to a major religious change in the Roman Empire. Paganism was the religious practice of the early empire, and while paganism was publically expressed those who followed Christianity were persecuted. These Christians had their property and pride ripped away from them if they did not recant their religious views. This was a harsh life for those who followed Christianity until Emperors Constantine and Licinius meeting in Nicomedia to create the Edict of Milan. The edict, created in the year 313, proved to be a major change in the religious culture of the Roman Empire by granting religious freedom to Christians and all other religions practiced in the empire; not only were Christians now able to freely practice their beliefs but all property, land, and belongings that were once stolen from them were to be returned. Given their new freedom Christians began to become more public and had different branches all with separate views on how the religion should be practiced. The Edict of Milan gave rise to the freedom of Christianity, however what was not intended by the edict was that as the popularity and diversity of Christianity rose this gave birth to the beginning of Christian wars; the first war was that of Christians versus the Pagans and the second, more violent was that of the Christians versus each other.
The initial thoughts of the Edict of Milan were kept with Emperor Constantine. The conclusion of the Battle at the Milvian Bridge between Constantine and his rival emperor Maxentius had displayed Constantine’s strong views towards Christianity for it was when he had won the battle the emperor attributed the victory to the God of the Christians. Between this and Constantine’s building and funding t...

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The Christian wars were the result of the Edict of Milan allowing such a broad range of religious freedom and not having a way to protect against it. With any large amount of religions, all with different views, in the same area there are bound to be disagreements between the different factions. These disagreements are what caused the different groups to not be able to live peacefully together and also what had caused the period of self-destruction in Rome between all of the different Christian groups. The edict was a good plan that was created by Emperor Constantine; however he and Emperor Licinius should created a section of the edict to standardize how Christian practices would take place. Having been standardized the fighting between the different factions would not have happened, because all of the extra factions would have not had the power to exist at all.

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