title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Diocletian, like Augustus and Trajan before him, styled himself a "restorer". He urged the public to see his reign and his governing system, the Tetrarchy (rule by four emperors), as a renewal of traditional Roman values and, after the anarchic third century, a return to the "Golden Age of Rome". As such, he reinforced the long-standing Roman preference for ancient customs and Imperial opposition to independent societies. The Diocletianic regime's activist stance, however, and Diocletian's belief in the power of central government to effect major change in morals and society made him unusual. Most earlier emperors tended to be quite cautious in their administrative policies, preferring to work within existing structures rather than overhauling them. Diocletian, by contrast, was willing to reform every aspect of public life to satisfy his goals. Under his rule, coinage, taxation, architecture, law and history were all radically reconstructed to reflect his authoritarian and traditionalist ideology. The reformation of the empire's "moral fabric"—and the elimination of religious minorities—was simply one step in that process.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: The unique position of the Christians and Jews of the empire became increasingly apparent. The Jews had earned imperial toleration on account of the great antiquity of their faith. They had been exempted from Decius's persecution and continued to enjoy freedom from persecution under Tetrarchic government. Because their faith was new and unfamiliar and not typically identified with Judaism by this time, Christians had no such excuse. Moreover, Christians had been distancing themselves from their Jewish heritage for their entire history.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Persecution was not the only outlet of the Tetrarchy's moral fervor. In 295, either Diocletian or his caesar (subordinate emperor) Galerius issued an edict from Damascus proscribing incestuous marriages and affirming the supremacy of Roman law over local law. Its preamble insists that it is every emperor's duty to enforce the sacred precepts of Roman law, for "the immortal gods themselves will favour and be at peace with the Roman name...if we have seen to it that all subject to our rule entirely lead a pious, religious, peaceable and chaste life in every respect". These principles, if given their full extension, would logically require Roman emperors to enforce conformity in religion.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Christian communities grew quickly in many parts of the empire (and especially in the East) after 260, when Gallienus brought peace to the Church. The data to calculate the figures are nearly non-existent, but historian and sociologist Keith Hopkins has given crude and tentative estimates for the Christian population in the 3rd century. Hopkins estimates that the Christian community grew from a population of 1.1 million in 250 to a population of 6 million by 300, about 10% of the empire's total population. Christians even expanded into the countryside, where they had never been numerous before. Churches in the later 3rd century were no longer as inconspicuous as they had been in the first and second. Large churches were prominent in certain major cities throughout the empire. The church in Nicomedia even sat on a hill overlooking the imperial palace. These new churches probably represented not only absolute growth in Christian population, but also the increasing affluence of the Christian community. In some areas where Christians were influential, such as North Africa and Egypt, traditional deities were losing credibility.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: It is unknown how much support there was for persecution within the aristocracy. After Gallienus's peace, Christians reached high ranks in Roman government. Diocletian even appointed several Christians to those positions, and his wife and daughter may have been sympathetic to the Church. There were many individuals willing to be martyrs and many provincials willing to ignore any persecutory edicts from the emperors as well. Even Constantius was known to have disapproved of persecutory policies. The lower classes demonstrated little of the enthusiasm they had shown for earlier persecutions. They no longer believed the slanderous accusations that were popular in the 1st and 2nd centuries. Perhaps, as the historian Timothy Barnes has suggested, the long-established Church had become another accepted part of their lives.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Within the highest ranks of the imperial administration, however, there were men who were ideologically opposed to the toleration of Christians, like the philosopher Porphyry of Tyre and Sossianus Hierocles, governor of Bithynia. To E.R. Dodds, the works of these men demonstrated "the alliance of pagan intellectuals with the Establishment". Hierocles thought Christian beliefs absurd. If Christians applied their principles consistently, he argued, they would pray to Apollonius of Tyana instead of Jesus. Hierocles considered that Apollonius's miracles had been far more impressive and Apollonius never had the temerity to call himself "God". He thought the scriptures were full of "lies and contradictions" and Peter and Paul had peddled falsehoods. In the early 4th century, an unidentified philosopher published a pamphlet attacking the Christians. This philosopher, who might have been a pupil of the Neoplatonist Iamblichus, dined repeatedly at the imperial court. Diocletian was surrounded by an anti-Christian clique.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Porphyry was somewhat restrained in his criticism of Christianity, at least in his early works, "On the Return of the Soul" and "Philosophy from Oracles". He had few complaints about Jesus, whom he praised as a saintly individual, a "humble" man. Christ's followers, however, he damned as "arrogant". Around 290, Porphyry wrote a fifteen-volume work entitled "Against the Christians". In the work, Porphyry expressed his shock at the rapid expansion of Christianity. He also revised his earlier opinions of Jesus, questioning Jesus' exclusion of the rich from the Kingdom of Heaven, and his permissiveness in regards to the demons residing in pigs' bodies. Like Hierocles, he unfavorably compared Jesus to Apollonius of Tyana. Porphyry held that Christians blasphemed by worshiping a human being rather than the Supreme God and behaved treasonably in forsaking the traditional Roman cult. "To what sort of penalties might we not justly subject people," Porphyry asked, "who are fugitives from their fathers' customs?"


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Pagan priests, too, were interested in suppressing any threat to traditional religion. They believed their ceremonies were hindered by the presence of Christians, who were thought to cloud the sight of oracles and stall the gods' recognition of their sacrifices. The Christian Arnobius, writing during Diocletian's reign, attributes financial concerns to provisioners of pagan services:The augurs, the dream interpreters, the soothsayers, the prophets, and the priestlings, ever vain...fearing that their own arts be brought to nought, and that they may extort but scanty contributions from the devotees, now few and infrequent, cry aloud, 'The gods are neglected, and in the temples there is now a very thin attendance. Former ceremonies are exposed to derision, and the time-honoured rites of institutions once sacred have sunk before the superstitions of new religions.'


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: At the conclusion of the Persian wars in 299, co-emperors Diocletian and Galerius traveled from Persia to Syrian Antioch (Antakya). The Christian rhetor Lactantius records that at Antioch some time in 299, the emperors were engaged in sacrifice and divination in an attempt to predict the future. The "haruspices", diviners of omens from sacrificed animals, were unable to read the sacrificed animals and failed to do so after repeated trials. The master "haruspex" eventually declared that this failure was the result of interruptions in the process caused by profane men. Certain Christians in the imperial household had been observed making the sign of the cross during the ceremonies and were alleged to have disrupted the "haruspices" divination. Diocletian, enraged by this turn of events, declared that all members of the court must make a sacrifice. Diocletian and Galerius also sent letters to the military command, demanding that the entire army perform the sacrifices or else face discharge. Since there are no reports of bloodshed in Lactantius's narrative, Christians in the imperial household must have survived the event. Eusebius of Caesarea, a contemporary ecclesiastical historian, tells a similar story: commanders were told to give their troops the choice of sacrifice or loss of rank. These terms were strong—a soldier would lose his career in the military, his state pension and his personal savings—but not fatal. According to Eusebius, the purge was broadly successful, but Eusebius is confused about the technicalities of the event, and his characterization of the overall size of the apostasy is ambiguous. Eusebius also attributes the initiative for the purge to Galerius, rather than Diocletian.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Modern scholar Peter Davies surmises that Eusebius is referring to the same event as Lactantius, but that he heard of the event through public rumors and knew nothing of the privileged discussion at the emperor's private religion ceremony that Lactantius had access to. Since it was Galerius's army that would have been purged—Diocletian had left his in Egypt to quell continuing unrest—Antiochenes would understandably have believed Galerius to be its instigator. The historian David Woods argues instead that Eusebius and Lactantius are referring to different events. Eusebius, according to Woods, describes the beginnings of the army purge in Palestine, while Lactantius describes events at court. Woods asserts that the relevant passage in Eusebius's "Chronicon" was corrupted in the translation to Latin and that Eusebius's text originally located the beginnings of the army persecution at a fort in Betthorus (El-Lejjun, Jordan).


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Eusebius, Lactantius, and Constantine each allege that Galerius was the prime impetus for the military purge, and its prime beneficiary. Diocletian, for all his religious conservatism, still had tendencies towards religious tolerance. Galerius, by contrast, was a devoted and passionate pagan. According to Christian sources, he was consistently the main advocate of such persecution. He was also eager to exploit this position to his own political advantage. As the lowest-ranking emperor, Galerius was always listed last in imperial documents. Until the end of the Persian war in 299, he had not even had a major palace. Lactantius states that Galerius hungered for a higher position in the imperial hierarchy. Galerius's mother, Romula, was bitterly anti-Christian, for she had been a pagan priestess in Dacia, and loathed the Christians for avoiding her festivals. Newly prestigious and influential after his victories in the Persian war, Galerius might have wished to compensate for a previous humiliation at Antioch, when Diocletian had forced him to walk at the front of the imperial caravan, rather than inside it. His resentment fed his discontent with official policies of tolerance; from 302 on, he probably urged Diocletian to enact a general law against the Christians. Since Diocletian was already surrounded by an anti-Christian clique of counsellors, these suggestions must have carried great force.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Affairs quieted after the initial persecution. Diocletian remained in Antioch for the following three years. He visited Egypt once, over the winter of 301–302, where he began the grain dole in Alexandria. In Egypt, some Manicheans, followers of the prophet Mani, were denounced in the presence of the proconsul of Africa. On March 31, 302, in an official edict called the "De Maleficiis et Manichaeis" compiled in the "Collatio Legum Mosaicarum et Romanarum" and addressed to the proconsul of Africa, Diocletian wrote:


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: We have heard that the Manichaens […] have set up new and hitherto unheard-of sects in opposition to the older creeds so that they might cast out the doctrines vouchsafed to us in the past by the divine favour for the benefit of their own depraved doctrine. They have sprung forth very recently like new and unexpected monstrosities among the race of the Persians - a nation still hostile to us - and have made their way into our empire, where they are committing many outrages, disturbing the tranquility of our people and even inflicting grave damage to the civic communities. We have cause to fear that with the passage of time they will endeavour, as usually happens, to infect the modest and tranquil of an innocent nature with the damnable customs and perverse laws of the Persians as with the poison of a malignant (serpent) … We order that the authors and leaders of these sects be subjected to severe punishment, and, together with their abominable writings, burnt in the flames. We direct their followers, if they continue recalcitrant, shall suffer capital punishment, and their goods be forfeited to the imperial treasury. And if those who have gone over to that hitherto unheard-of, scandalous and wholly infamous creed, or to that of the Persians, are persons who hold public office, or are of any rank or of superior social status, you will see to it that their estates are confiscated and the offenders sent to the (quarry) at Phaeno or the mines at Proconnesus. And in order that this plague of iniquity shall be completely extirpated from this our most happy age, let your devotion hasten to carry out our orders and commands.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Diocletian was in Antioch in the autumn of 302, when the next instance of persecution occurred. The deacon Romanus visited a court while preliminary sacrifices were taking place and interrupted the ceremonies, denouncing the act in a loud voice. He was arrested and sentenced to be set aflame, but Diocletian overruled the decision and decided that Romanus should have his tongue removed instead. Romanus would be executed on November 18, 303. The boldness of this Christian displeased Diocletian, and he left the city and made for Nicomedia to spend the winter, accompanied by Galerius.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Throughout these years the moral and religious didacticism of the emperors was reaching a fevered pitch; at the behest of an oracle, it was to hit its peak. According to Lactantius, Diocletian and Galerius entered into an argument over what imperial policy towards Christians should be while at Nicomedia in 302. Diocletian argued that forbidding Christians from the bureaucracy and military would be sufficient to appease the gods, while Galerius pushed for their extermination. The two men sought to resolve their dispute by sending a messenger to consult the oracle of Apollo at Didyma. Porphyry may also have been present at this meeting. Upon returning, the messenger told the court that "the just on earth" hindered Apollo's ability to speak. These "just", Diocletian was informed by members of the court, could only refer to the Christians of the empire. At the behest of his court, Diocletian acceded to demands for a universal persecution.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: On February 23, 303, Diocletian ordered that the newly built Christian church at Nicomedia be razed, its scriptures burned, and its treasures seized. February 23 was the feast of the "Terminalia", for Terminus, the god of boundaries. It was the day they would terminate Christianity. The next day, Diocletian's first "Edict against the Christians" was published. The key targets of this piece of legislation were senior Christian clerics and Christians' property, just as they had been during Valerian's persecution. The edict prohibited Christians from assembling for worship and ordered the destruction of their scriptures, liturgical books, and places of worship across the empire. But Christians tried to retain the scriptures as far as possible, though, according to de Ste Croix, "it appears that giving them up...was not regarded as a sin" in the East; sufficient numbers of them must have been successfully saved, as is evident from the representative findings of "early biblical papyri" in the stream of the transmission of the text during this period. Christians might have given up apocryphal or pseudepigraphal works, or even refused to surrender their scriptures at the cost of their own lives, and there were some cases where the scriptures were not in the end destroyed. Christians were also deprived of the right to petition the courts, making them potential subjects for judicial torture; Christians could not respond to actions brought against them in court; Christian senators, equestrians, decurions, veterans, and soldiers were deprived of their ranks; and Christian imperial freedmen were re-enslaved.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Diocletian requested that the edict be pursued "without bloodshed", against Galerius's demands that all those refusing to sacrifice be burned alive. In spite of Diocletian's request, local judges often enforced executions during the persecution, as capital punishment was among their discretionary powers. Galerius's recommendation—burning alive—became a common method of executing Christians in the East. After the edict was posted in Nicomedia, a man named Eutius tore it down and ripped it up, shouting "Here are your Gothic and Sarmatian triumphs!" He was arrested for treason, tortured, and burned alive soon after, becoming the edict's first martyr. The provisions of the edict were known and enforced in Palestine by March or April (just before Easter), and it was in use by local officials in North Africa by May or June. The earliest martyr at Caesarea was executed on June 7, and the edict was in force at Cirta from May 19. In Gaul and Britain Constantius did not enforce this edict, but in the East progressively harsher legislation was devised; the edict was firmly enforced in Maximian's domain until his abdication in 305, but persecutions later began to wane when Constantius succeeded Maximian and was officially halted when Maxentius took power in 306.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: In the summer of 303, following a series of rebellions in Melitene (Malatya, Turkey) and Syria, a second edict was published, ordering the arrest and imprisonment of all bishops and priests. In the judgment of historian Roger Rees, there was no logical necessity for this second edict; that Diocletian issued one indicates that he was either unaware the first edict was being carried out, or that he felt it was not working as quickly as he needed it to. Following the publication of the second edict, prisons began to fill—the underdeveloped prison system of the time could not handle the deacons, lectors, priests, bishops, and exorcists forced upon it. Eusebius writes that the edict netted so many priests that ordinary criminals were crowded out and had to be released.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: In anticipation of the upcoming twentieth anniversary of his reign on November 20, 303, Diocletian declared a general amnesty in a third edict. Any imprisoned clergyman could be freed so long as he agreed to make a sacrifice to the gods. Diocletian may have been searching for some good publicity with this legislation. He may also have sought to fracture the Christian community by publicizing the fact that its clergy had apostatized. The demand to sacrifice was unacceptable to many of the imprisoned, but wardens often managed to obtain at least nominal compliance. Some of the clergy sacrificed willingly; others did so on pain of torture. Wardens were eager to be rid of the clergy in their midst. Eusebius, in his "Martyrs of Palestine", records the case of one man who after being brought to an altar, had his hands seized and made to complete a sacrificial offering. The clergyman was told that his act of sacrifice had been recognized and was summarily dismissed. Others were told they had sacrificed even when they had done nothing.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: In 304, the fourth edict ordered all persons, men, women, and children, to gather in a public space and offer a collective sacrifice. If they refused, they were to be executed. The precise date of the edict is unknown, but it was probably issued in either January or February 304 and was being applied in the Balkans in March. The edict was in use in Thessalonica in April 304 and in Palestine soon after. This last edict was not enforced at all in the domains of Constantius and was applied in the domains of Maximian until his abdication in 305. In the East, it remained applicable until the issue of the Edict of Milan by Constantine and Licinius in 313.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Diocletian and Maximian resigned on May 1, 305. Constantius and Galerius became augusti (senior emperors), while two new emperors, Severus and Maximinus, became caesars (junior emperors). According to Lactantius, Galerius had forced Diocletian's hand in the matter and secured the appointment of loyal friends to the imperial office. In this "Second Tetrarchy", it seems that only the Eastern emperors, Galerius and Maximinus, continued with the persecution. As they left office, Diocletian and Maximian probably imagined Christianity to be in its last throes. Churches had been destroyed, the Church leadership and hierarchy had been snapped, and the army and civil service had been purged. Eusebius declares that apostates from the faith were "countless" (μυρίοι) in number. At first, the new Tetrarchy seemed even more vigorous than the first. Maximinus in particular was eager to persecute. In 306 and 309, he published his own edicts demanding universal sacrifice. Eusebius accuses Galerius of pressing on with the persecution as well.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: In the West, however, what remained after the Diocletianic settlement had weakened the Tetrarchy as a system of government. Constantine, son of Constantius, and Maxentius, son of Maximian, had been overlooked in the Diocletianic succession, offending the parents and angering the sons. Constantine, against Galerius's will, succeeded his father on July 25, 306. He immediately ended any ongoing persecutions and offered Christians full restitution of what they had lost under the persecution. This declaration gave Constantine the opportunity to portray himself as a possible liberator of oppressed Christians everywhere. Maxentius, meanwhile, had seized power in Rome on October 28, 306, and soon brought toleration to all Christians within his realm. Galerius made two attempts to unseat Maxentius but failed both times. During the first campaign against Maxentius, Severus was captured, imprisoned, and executed.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: In the East, the persecution was officially discontinued on April 30, 311, although martyrdoms in Gaza continued until May 4. The Edict of Serdica, also called Edict of Toleration by Galerius, was issued in 311 in Serdica (Sofia, Bulgaria) Galerius, officially ending the Diocletianic persecution of Christianity in the East. Galerius issued this proclamation to end hostilities while on his deathbed, which gave Christians the rights to exist freely under the law and to peaceable assembly. Persecution was everywhere at an end. Lactantius preserves the Latin text of this pronouncement, describing it as an edict. Eusebius provides a Greek translation of the pronouncement. His version includes imperial titles and an address to provincials, suggesting that the proclamation is, in fact, an imperial letter. The document seems only to have been promulgated in Galerius's provinces.Among all the other arrangements that we are always making for the benefit and utility of the state, we have heretofore wished to repair all things in accordance with the laws and public discipline of the Romans, and to ensure that even the Christians, who abandoned the practice of their ancestors, should return to good sense. Indeed, for some reason or other, such self-indulgence assailed and idiocy possessed those Christians, that they did not follow the practices of the ancients, which their own ancestors had, perhaps, instituted, but according to their own will and as it pleased them, they made laws for themselves that they observed, and gathered various peoples in diverse areas. Then when our order was issued stating that they should return themselves to the practices of the ancients, many were subjected to peril, and many were even killed. Many more persevered in their way of life, and we saw that they neither offered proper worship and cult to the gods, or to the god of the Christians. Considering the observation of our own mild clemency and eternal custom, by which we are accustomed to grant clemency to all people, we have decided to extend our most speedy indulgence to these people as well, so that Christians may once more establish their own meeting places, so long as they do not act in a disorderly way. We are about to send another letter to our officials detailing the conditions they ought to observe. Consequently, in accord with our indulgence, they ought to pray to their god for our health and the safety of the state, so that the state may be kept safe on all sides, and they may be able to live safely and securely in their own homes. Galerius's words reinforce the Tetrarchy's theological basis for the persecution; the acts did nothing more than attempt to enforce traditional civic and religious practices, even if the edicts were thoroughly nontraditional. Galerius does nothing to violate the spirit of the persecution—Christians are still admonished for their nonconformity and foolish practices—Galerius never admits that he did anything wrong. The admission that the Christians' God might exist is made only grudgingly. Certain early 20th-century historians have declared that Galerius's edict definitively nullified the old "legal formula" "non licet esse Christianos", made Christianity a "religio licita", "on a par with Judaism", and secured Christians' property, among other things.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Not all have been so enthusiastic. The 17th-century ecclesiastical historian Tillemont called the edict "insignificant"; likewise, the late 20th-century historian Timothy Barnes cautions that the "novelty or importance of [Galerius'] measure should not be overestimated". Barnes notes that Galerius's legislation only brought to the East rights Christians already possessed in Italy and Africa. In Gaul, Spain, and Britain, moreover, Christians already had far more than Galerius was offering to Eastern Christians. Other late 20th-century historians, like Graeme Clark and David S. Potter, assert that for all its hedging, Galerius's issuance of the edict was a landmark event in the histories of Christianity and the Roman empire.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Galerius's law was not effective for long in Maximinus's district. Within seven months of Galerius's proclamation, Maximinus resumed persecution, which continued until 313, shortly before his death. At a meeting between Licinius and Constantine in Milan in February 313, the two emperors drafted the terms of a universal peace. The terms of this peace were posted by the victorious Licinius at Nicomedia on June 13, 313. Later ages have taken to calling the document the "Edict of Milan".


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: We thought it fit to commend these things most fully to your care that you may know that we have given to those Christians free and unrestricted opportunity of religious worship. When you see that this has been granted to them by us, your Worship will know that we have also conceded to other religions the right of open and free observance of their worship for the sake of the peace of our times, that each one may have the free opportunity to worship as he pleases; this regulation is made that we may not seem to detract from any dignity or any religion.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: The enforcement of the persecutory edicts was inconsistent. Since the Tetrarchs were more or less sovereign in their own realms, they had a good deal of control over persecutory policy. In Constantius's realm (Britain and Gaul) the persecution was only lightly enforced; in Maximian's realm (Italy, Spain, and Africa), it was firmly enforced; and in the East, under Diocletian (Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine and Egypt) and Galerius (Greece and the Balkans), its provisions were pursued with more fervor than anywhere else. For the Eastern provinces, Peter Davies tabulated the total number of martyrdoms for an article in the "Journal of Theological Studies". Davies argues that the figures, although reliant on collections of "acta" that are incomplete and only partially reliable, point to a heavier persecution under Diocletian than under Galerius. The historian Simon Corcoran, in a passage on the origins of the early persecution edicts, criticizes Davies' over-reliance on these "dubious martyr acts" and dismisses his conclusions.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: The sources are inconsistent regarding the extent of the persecution in Constantius's domain, though all portray it as quite limited. Lactantius states that the destruction of church buildings was the worst thing that came to pass. Eusebius explicitly denies that any churches were destroyed in both his "Ecclesiastical History" and his "Life of Constantine", but lists Gaul as an area suffering from the effects of the persecution in his "Martyrs of Palestine". A group of bishops declared that "Gaul was immune" ("immunis est Gallia") from the persecutions under Constantius. The death of Saint Alban, the first British Christian martyr, was once dated to this era, but most now assign it to the reign of Septimius Severus. The second, third and fourth edicts seem not to have been enforced in the West at all. It is possible that Constantius's relatively tolerant policies were the result of Tetrarchic jealousies; the persecution, after all, had been the project of the Eastern emperors, not the Western ones. After Constantine succeeded his father in 306, he urged the recovery of Church property lost in the persecution and legislated full freedom for all Christians in his domain.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: While the persecution under Constantius was relatively light, there is no doubt about the force of the persecution in Maximian's domain. Its effects are recorded at Rome, Sicily, Spain, and in Africa—indeed, Maximian encouraged particularly strict enforcement of the edict in Africa. Africa's political elite were insistent that the persecution be fulfilled, and Africa's Christians, especially in Numidia, were equally insistent on resisting them. For the Numidians, to hand over scriptures was an act of terrible apostasy. Africa had long been home to the Church of the Martyrs—in Africa, martyrs held more religious authority than the clergy—and harbored a particularly intransigent, fanatical, and legalistic variety of Christianity. It was Africa that gave the West most of its martyrdoms.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Africa had produced martyrs even in the years immediately prior to the Great Persecution. In 298, Maximilian, a soldier in Tebessa, had been tried for refusing to follow military discipline; in Mauretania in 298, the soldier Marcellus refused his army bonus and took off his uniform in public. Once persecutions began, public authorities were eager to assert their authority. Anullinus, proconsul of Africa, expanded on the edict, deciding that in addition to the destruction of the Christians' scriptures and churches the government should compel Christians to sacrifice to the gods. Governor Valerius Florus enforced the same policy in Numidia during the summer or autumn of 303, when he called for "days of incense burning"; Christians would sacrifice or they would lose their lives. In addition to those already listed, African martyrs also include Saturninus and the Martyrs of Abitinae, another group martyred on February 12, 304 in Carthage, and the martyrs of Milevis (Mila, Algeria).


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: The persecution in Africa encouraged the development of Donatism, a schismatic movement that forbade any compromise with Roman government or "traditor" bishops (those who had handed scriptures over to secular authorities). One of the key moments in the break with the mainline Church occurred in Carthage in 304. The Christians from Abitinae had been brought to the city and imprisoned. Friends and relatives of the prisoners came to visit but encountered resistance from a local mob. The group was harassed, beaten, and whipped; the food they had brought for their imprisoned friends was scattered on the ground. The mob had been sent by Mensurius, the bishop of the city, and Caecilian, his deacon, for reasons that remain obscure. In 311, Caecilian was elected bishop of Carthage. His opponents charged that his "traditio" made him unworthy of the office and declared itself for another candidate, Majorinus. Many others in Africa, including the Abitinians, also supported Majorinus against Caecilian. Majorinus's successor Donatus would give the dissident movement its name. By the time Constantine took over the province, the African Church was deeply divided. The Donatists would not be reconciled to the Catholic Church until after 411.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Maximian probably seized the Christian property in Rome quite easily—Roman cemeteries were noticeable, and Christian meeting places could have been easily found out. Senior churchmen would have been similarly prominent. The bishop of Rome Marcellinus died in 304, during the persecution, but how he died is disputed among historians: Eusebius wrote in his "Historia Ecclesiastica" that Marcellinus was "brought away by the persecution", an obscure phrase that may refer to his martyrdom or to the fact that he fled the city. Others assert that Marcellinus was a "traditor". Marcellinus appears in the 4th-century Church's "depositio episcoporum" but not its "feriale", or calendar of feasts, where all Marcellinus's predecessors from Fabian had been listed—a "glaring" absence, in the opinion of historian John Curran. Within forty years, Donatists began spreading rumors that Marcellinus had been a "traditor" and that he had even sacrificed to the pagan gods. The tale was embroidered in the 5th-century forgery the "Council of Sinuessa", and the "vita Marcelli" of the "Liber Pontificalis". The latter work states that the bishop had indeed apostatized but redeemed himself through martyrdom a few days afterward.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: What followed Marcellinus's act of "traditio", if it ever actually happened, is unclear. There appears to have been a break in the episcopal succession since his successor, Marcellus I, was not consecrated until either November or December 308; it was likely not possible to elect a new bishop during the persecution. In the meantime, two factions diverged in the Roman Church, separating the lapsed (Christians who had complied with the edicts to ensure their own safety) and the rigorists (those who would not compromise with secular authority). These two groups clashed in street fights and riots, eventually leading to murders. It is said that Marcellus, a rigorist, purged all mention of Marcellinus from church records and removed his name from the official list of bishops. Marcellus was banished from the city and died in exile on January 16, 309.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: The persecution was firmly enforced until Maximian's abdication in 305 but started to wane when Costantius (who seemed not to have been enthusiast about it) succeeded as august. After Costantius's death, Maxentius took advantage of Galerius's unpopularity in Italy (Galerius had introduced taxation for the city and countryside of Rome for the first time in the history of the empire) to declare himself emperor. On October 28, 306, Maxentius convinced the Praetorian Guard to support him, mutiny, and invest him with the purple robes of the emperor. Soon after his acclamation, Maxentius declared an end to persecution and a toleration for all Christians in his realm. The news traveled to Africa, where in later years a Christian of Cirta could still recall the precise date when "peace" was ushered in. Maxentius did not permit the restitution of confiscated property, however.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: On April 18, 308, Maxentius allowed the Christians to hold another election for the city's bishop, which Eusebius won. Eusebius was a moderate, however, in a still-divided Church. Heraclius, head of the rigorist faction, opposed readmission of the lapsed. Rioting followed, and Maxentius exiled the combative pair from the city, leaving Eusebius to die in Sicily on October 21. The office was vacant for almost three years, until Maxentius permitted another election. Miltiades was elected on July 2, 311, as Maxentius prepared to face Constantine in battle. Maxentius, facing increasingly strong domestic opposition to his rule, agreed to the restitution of Christian property. Miltiades sent two deacons with letters from Maxentius to the prefect of Rome, the head of the city, responsible for publishing imperial edicts within the city, to ensure compliance. African Christians were still recovering lost property as late as 312.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Outside Rome, there are fewer sure details of the progress and effects of the persecution in Italy, and the number of deaths is unclear. The "Acta Eulpi" records the martyrdom of Euplus of Catania, a Christian who dared to carry the holy Gospels around, refusing to surrender them. Euplus was arrested on April 29, 304, tried, and martyred on August 12. According to the "Martyrologium Hieronymianus", the bishop of Aquileia Chrysogonus was executed during this period, while Maximus of Turin and Venatius Fortunatus mention the martyrdom of Cantius, Cantianus and Cantianilla in Aquileia as well. In Spain the bishop Ossius of Corduba narrowly escaped martyrdom. After 305, the year when Diocletian and Maximian abdicated and Constantius became Augustus, there were no more active persecutions in the West. Eusebius declares that the persecution lasted "less than two years".


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: After a brief military standoff, Constantine confronted and defeated Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge outside Rome on October 28, 312; Maxentius retreated to the Tiber river and drowned. Constantine entered the city the next day but declined to take part in the traditional ascent up the Capitoline Hill to the Temple of Jupiter. Constantine's army had advanced on Rome under a Christian sign. It had become, officially at least, a Christian army. Constantine's apparent conversion was visible elsewhere, too. Bishops dined at Constantine's table, and many Christian building projects began soon after his victory. On November 9, 312, the old headquarters of the Imperial Horse Guard were razed to make way for the Lateran Basilica. Under Constantine's rule, Christianity became the prime focus of official patronage.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Before the end of February 303, a fire destroyed part of the imperial palace at Nicomedia. Galerius convinced Diocletian that the culprits were Christian conspirators who had plotted with palace eunuchs. An investigation into the act was commissioned, but no responsible party was found. Executions followed. The palace eunuchs Dorotheus and Gorgonius were eliminated. One individual named Peter was stripped, raised high, and scourged. Salt and vinegar were poured in his wounds, and he was slowly boiled over an open flame. The executions continued until at least April 24, 303, when six individuals, including the bishop Anthimus, were decapitated. The persecution intensified; presbyters and other clergymen could be arrested without having even been accused of a crime and condemned to death. A second fire appeared sixteen days after the first. Galerius left the city, declaring it unsafe, and Diocletian soon followed. Lactantius blames Galerius's allies for setting the fire; Constantine, in a later reminiscence, attributes the fire to "lightning from heaven".


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Lactantius, still living in Nicomedia, saw the beginnings of the apocalypse in Diocletian's persecution. Lactantius's writings during the persecution exhibit both bitterness and Christian triumphalism. His eschatology runs directly counter to Tetrarchic claims to "renewal". Diocletian asserted that he had instituted a new era of security and peace; Lactantius saw the beginning of a cosmic revolution.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Palestine is the only region for which an extended local perspective of the persecution exists, in the form of Eusebius's "Martyrs of Palestine". Eusebius was resident in Caesarea, the capital of Roman Palestine, for the duration of the persecution, although he also traveled to Phoenicia and Egypt, and perhaps Arabia as well. Eusebius's account is imperfect. It focuses on martyrs that were his personal friends before the persecutions began and includes martyrdoms that took place outside of Palestine. His coverage is uneven. He provides only bare generalities at the bloody end of the persecutions, for example. Eusebius recognizes some of his faults. At the outset of his account of the general persecution in the "Ecclesiastical History", Eusebius laments the incompleteness of his reportage: "how could one number the multitude of martyrs in each province, and especially those in Africa and Mauretania, and in Thebaid and Egypt?"


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Since no one below the status of governor held the legal power to enforce capital punishment, most recalcitrant Christians would have been sent to Caesarea to await punishment. The first martyr, Procopius, was sent to Caesarea from Scythopolis (Beit She'an, Israel), where he had been a reader and an exorcist. He was brought before the governor on June 7, 303, and asked to sacrifice to the gods and to pour a libation for the emperors. Procopius responded by quoting Homer: "the lordship of many is not a good thing; let there be one ruler, one king". The governor beheaded the man at once.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Further martyrdoms followed in the months thereafter, increasing in the next spring, when the new governor, Urbanus, published the fourth edict. Eusebius probably does not list a complete account of all those executed under the fourth edict—he alludes in passing to others imprisoned with Thecla of Gaza, for example, though he does not name them.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: The bulk of Eusebius's account deals with Maximinus, who took up the office of emperor in Nicomedia on May 1, 305, and immediately thereafter left the city for Caesarea, hurrying, Lactantius alleges, so as to oppress and trample the diocese of Oriens. Initially, Maximinus governed only Egypt and the Levant. He issued his own persecutory edict in the spring of 306, ordering general sacrifice. The edict of 304 had been difficult to enforce, since the imperial government had no record of city-dwelling subjects who held no agricultural land. Galerius solved this problem in 306 by running another census. This contained the names of all urban heads of household and the number of their dependents (past censuses had only listed persons paying tax on land, such as landowners and tenants). Using lists drawn up by the civil service, Maximinus ordered his heralds to call all men, women, and children down to the temples. There, after tribunes called everyone by name, everyone sacrificed.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: At some point after the publication of Maximinus's first edict, perhaps in 307, Maximinus changed the penalty for transgressions. Instead of receiving the death penalty, Christians would now be mutilated and condemned to labor in state-owned mines. Since Egyptian mines were overstaffed, mostly due to the influx of Christian prisoners, Egyptian penitents were increasingly sent to the copper mines at Phaeno in Palestine and Cilicia in Asia Minor. At Diocaesarea (Sepphoris, Israel) in the spring of 308, 97 Christian confessors were received by Firmilianus from the porphyry mines in the Thebaid. Firmilianus cut the tendons on their left feet, blinded their right eyes, and sent them to the mines of Palestine. On another occasion, 130 others received the same punishment. Some were sent to Phaeno, and some to Cilicia.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Eusebius characterizes Urbanus as a man who enjoyed some variety in his punishments. One day, shortly after Easter 307, he ordered the virgin Theodosia from Tyre (Ṣūr, Lebanon) thrown to the sea for conversing with Christians attending trial and refusing sacrifice; the Christians in court, meanwhile, he sent to Phaeno. On a single day, November 2, 307, Urbanus sentenced a man named Domninus to be burned alive, three youths to fight as gladiators, and a priest to be exposed to a beast. On the same day, he ordered some young men to be castrated, sent three virgins to brothels, and imprisoned a number of others, including Pamphilus of Caesarea, a priest, scholar, and defender of the theologian Origen. Soon after, and for unknown reasons, Urbanus was stripped of his rank, imprisoned, tried, and executed, all in one day of expedited proceedings. His replacement, Firmilianus, was a veteran soldier and one of Maximinus's trusted confidants.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Eusebius notes that this event marked the beginning of a temporary respite from persecution. Although the precise dating of this respite is not specifically noted by Eusebius, the text of the "Martyrs" records no Palestinian martyrs between July 25, 308 and November 13, 309. The political climate probably impinged on persecutory policy here: This was the period of the conference of Carnuntum, which met in November 308. Maximinus probably spent the next few months in discussion with Galerius over his role in the imperial government, and did not have the time to deal with the Christians.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: In the autumn of 309, Maximinus resumed persecution by issuing letters to provincial governors and his praetorian prefect, the highest authority in judicial proceedings after the emperor, demanding that Christians conform to pagan customs. His new legislation called for another general sacrifice, coupled with a general offering of libations. It was even more systematic than the first, allowing no exceptions for infants or servants. "Logistai" ("curatores"), "strategoi", "duumviri", and "tabularii", who kept the records, saw to it that there were no evasions. Maximinus introduced some innovations to the process, making him the only known persecuting emperor to have done so. This edict now required food sold in the marketplaces to be covered in libation. Maximinus sent sentries to stand guard at bathhouses and city gates to ensure that all customers sacrificed. He issued copies of the fictitious "Acts of Pilate" to encourage popular hatred of Christ. Prostitutes confessed, under judicial torture, to having engaged in debaucheries with Christians. Bishops were reassigned to work as stable boys for the Imperial horse guard or keepers of the Imperial camels. Maximinus also worked for a revival of pagan religion. He appointed high priests for each province, men who were to wear white robes and supervise daily worship of the gods. Maximinus demanded that vigorous restoration work be done on decaying temples within his domain.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: The next few months saw the worst extremes of the persecution. On December 13, 309, Firmilianus condemned some Egyptians arrested at Ascalon (Ashkelon, Israel) on their way to visit the confessors in Cilicia. Three were beheaded; the rest lost their left feet and right eyes. On January 10, 310, Peter and the bishop Asclepius from the dualist Christian sect Marcionism, both from Anaia, (near Eleutheropolis, Israel), were burned alive. On February 16, Pamphilus and his six companions were executed. In the aftermath, four more members of Pamphilus's household were martyred for their displays of sympathy for the condemned. The last martyrs before Galerius's edict of toleration were executed on March 5 and 7. Then the executions stopped. Eusebius does not explain this sudden halt, but it coincides with the replacement of Firmilianus with Valentinianus, a man appointed at some time before Galerius's death. The replacement is only attested to via epigraphic remains, like stone inscriptions; Eusebius does not mention Valentinianus anywhere in his writings.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: After Galerius's death, Maximinus seized Asia Minor. Even after Galerius's edict of toleration in 311, Maximinus continued to persecute. His name is absent from the list of emperors publishing Galerius's edict of toleration, perhaps through later suppression. Eusebius states that Maximinus complied with its provisions only reluctantly. Maximinus told his praetorian prefect Sabinus to write to provincial governors, requesting that they and their subordinates ignore "that letter" (Galerius's edict). Christians were to be free from molestation, and their mere Christianity would not leave them open to criminal charges. Unlike Galerius's edict, however, Maximinus's letter made no provisions for Christian assembly, nor did he suggest that Christians build more churches.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Maximinus issued orders in Autumn 311 forbidding Christians to congregate in cemeteries. After issuing these orders, he was approached by embassies from cities within his domain, demanding he begin a general persecution. Lactantius and Eusebius state that these petitions were not voluntary, but had been made at Maximinus's behest. Maximinus began persecuting Church leaders before the end of 311. Peter of Alexandria was beheaded on November 26, 311. Lucian of Antioch was executed in Nicomedia on January 7, 312. According to Eusebius, many Egyptian bishops suffered the same fate. According to Lactantius, Maximinus ordered confessors to have "their eyes gouged out, their hands cut off, their feet amputated, their noses or ears severed". Antioch asked Maximinus if it could forbid Christians from living in the city. In response, Maximinus issued a rescript encouraging every city to expel its Christians. This rescript was published in Sardis on April 6, 312, and in Tyre by May or June. There are three surviving copies of Maximinus's rescript, in Tyre, Arycanda (Aykiriçay, Turkey), and Colbasa. They are all essentially identical. To address a complaint from Lycia and Pamphylia about the "detestable pursuits of the atheists [Christians]", Maximinus promised the provincials whatever they wanted—perhaps an exemption from the poll tax.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: When Maximinus received notice that Constantine had succeeded in his campaign against Maxentius, he issued a new letter restoring Christians their former liberties. The text of this letter, which is preserved in Eusebius's "Historia Ecclesiastica", however, suggests that the initiative was Maximinus's alone, and not that of Constantine or Licinius. It is also the only passage in the ancient sources providing Maximinus's rationale for his actions, without the hostility of Lactantius and Eusebius. Maximinus states that he supported Diocletian and Galerius's early legislation but, upon being made Caesar, came to realize the drain such policies would have on his labor force, and began to employ persuasion without coercion. He goes on to assert that he resisted petitions from Nicomedians to forbid Christians from their city (an event Eusebius does not otherwise record), and that when he accepted the demands of deputations from other cities he was only following imperial custom. Maximinus concludes his letter by referencing the letter he wrote after Galerius's edict, asking that his subordinates be lenient. He does not refer to his early letters, which encouraged avid persecution.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: In the early spring of 313, as Licinius advanced against Maximinus, the latter resorted to savagery in his dealings with his own citizens, and his Christians in particular. In May 313, Maximinus issued one more edict of toleration, hoping to persuade Licinius to stop advancing, and win more public support. For the first time, Maximinus issued a law which offered comprehensive toleration and the means to effectively secure it. As in his earlier letter, Maximinus is apologetic but one-sided. Maximinus absolves himself for all the failings of his policy, locating fault with local judges and enforcers instead. He frames the new universal toleration as a means of removing all ambiguity and extortion. Maximinus then declares full freedom of religious practice, encourages Christians to rebuild their churches, and pledges to restore Christian property lost in the persecution. The edict changed little: Licinius defeated Maximinus at the Battle of Tzirallum on April 30, 313; the now-powerless Maximinus committed suicide at Tarsus in the summer of 313. On June 13, Licinius published the Edict of Milan in Nicomedia.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: In Eusebius' "Martyrs of Palestine", Egypt is covered only in passing. When Eusebius remarks on the region, however, he writes of tens, twenties, even hundreds of Christians put to death on a single day, which would seem to make Egypt the region that suffered the most during the persecutions. According to one report that Barnes calls "plausible, if unverifiable", 660 Christians were killed in Alexandria alone between 303 and 311. In Egypt, Peter of Alexandria fled his namesake city early on in the persecution, leaving the Church leaderless. Meletius, bishop of Lycopolis (Asyut), took up the job in his place. Meletius performed ordinations without Peter's permission, which caused some bishops to complain to Peter. Meletius soon refused to treat Peter as any kind of authority, and expanded his operations into Alexandria. According to Epiphanius of Salamis, the Church split into two sections: the "Catholic Church", under Peter, and, after Peter's execution, Alexander; and the "Church of the Martyrs" under Meletius. When the two groups found themselves imprisoned together in Alexandria during the persecution, Peter of Alexandria drew up a curtain in the middle of their cell. He then said: "There are some who are of my view, let them come over on my side, and those of Melitius's view, stay with Melitius." Thus divided, the two sects went on with their affairs, purposely ignoring each other's existence. The schism continued to grow throughout the persecution, even with its leaders in jail, and would persist long after the deaths of both Peter and Meletius. Fifty-one bishoprics are attested for Egypt in 325; fifteen are only known otherwise as seats of the schismatic Church.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: The Diocletianic persecution was ultimately unsuccessful. As Robin Lane Fox has put it, it was simply "too little and too late". Christians were never purged systematically in any part of the empire, and Christian evasion continually undermined the edicts' enforcement. Some bribed their way to freedom. The Christian Copres escaped on a technicality: To avoid sacrificing in court, he gave his brother power of attorney, and had him do it instead. Many simply fled. Eusebius, in his "Vita Constantini", wrote that "once more the fields and woods received the worshippers of God". To contemporary theologians, there was no sin in this behavior. Lactantius held that Christ himself had encouraged it, and Bishop Peter of Alexandria quoted ("when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another") in support of the tactic.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: The pagan crowd was more sympathetic to the Christians' sufferings than they had been in the past. Lactantius, Eusebius and Constantine write of revulsion at the excesses of the persecutors—Constantine of executioners "wearied out, and disgusted at the cruelties" they had committed. The fortitude of the martyrs in the face of death had earned the faith respectability in the past, though it may have won few converts. The thought of martyrdom, however, sustained Christians under trial and in prison, hardening their faith. Packaged with the promise of eternal life, martyrdom proved attractive for the growing segment of the pagan population which was, to quote Dodds, "in love with death". To use Tertullian's famous phrase, the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: By 324, Constantine, the Christian convert, ruled the entire empire alone. Christianity became the greatest beneficiary of imperial largesse. The persecutors had been routed. As the historian J. Liebeschuetz has written: "The final result of the Great Persecution provided a testimonial to the truth of Christianity which it could have won in no other way." After Constantine, the Christianization of the Roman empire would continue apace. Under Theodosius I ("r". 378–95), Christianity became the state religion. By the 5th century, Christianity was the empire's predominant faith, and filled the same role paganism had at the end of the 3rd century. Because of the persecution, however, a number of Christian communities were riven between those who had complied with imperial authorities ("traditores") and those who had refused. In Africa, the Donatists, who protested the election of the alleged "traditor" Caecilian to the bishopric of Carthage, continued to resist the authority of the central Church until after 411. The Melitians in Egypt left the Egyptian Church similarly divided.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: In future generations, both Christians and pagans would look back on Diocletian as, in the words of theologian Henry Chadwick, "the embodiment of irrational ferocity". To medieval Christians, Diocletian was the most loathsome of all Roman emperors. From the 4th century on, Christians would describe the "Great" persecution of Diocletian's reign as a bloodbath. The "Liber Pontificalis", a collection of biographies of the popes, alleges 17,000 martyrs within a single thirty-day period. In the 4th century, Christians created a "cult of martyrs" in homage to the fallen.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Historian G.E.M. de Ste Croix argues that hagiographers portrayed a persecution far more extensive than the real one had been, and the Christians responsible for this cult were loose with the facts. Their "heroic age" of martyrs, or "Era of Martyrs", was held to begin with Diocletian's accession to the emperorship in 284, rather than 303, when persecutions actually began; Barnes argues that they fabricated a large number of martyrs' tales (indeed, most surviving martyrs' tales are forgeries), exaggerated the facts in others, and embroidered true accounts with miraculous details. According to Curran, of the surviving martyrs' acts, only those of Agnes, Sebastian, Felix and Adauctus, and Marcellinus and Peter are even remotely historical. These traditional accounts were first questioned in the Enlightenment, when Henry Dodwell, Voltaire, and, most famously, Edward Gibbon questioned traditional accounts of the Christian martyrs.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: In the final chapter of the first volume of his "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" (1776), Gibbon claims that Christians had greatly exaggerated the scale of the persecutions they suffered:After the church had triumphed over all her enemies, the interest as well as vanity of the captives prompted them to magnify the merit of their respective sufferings. A convenient distance of time or place gave an ample scope to the progress of fiction; and the frequent instances which might be alleged of holy martyrs, whose wounds had been instantly healed, whose strength had been renewed, and whose lost members had miraculously been restored, were extremely convenient for the purpose of removing every difficulty, and of silencing every objection. The most extravagant legends, as they conduced to the honour of the church, were applauded by the credulous multitude, countenanced by the power of the clergy, and attested by the suspicious evidence of ecclesiastical history.Throughout his history, Gibbon implies that the early Church undermined traditional Roman virtues, and thereby impaired the health of civil society. When Gibbon sought to reduce the numbers of the martyrs in his "History", he was perceived as intending to diminish the Church and deny sacred history. He was attacked for his suspected irreligion in print. The contemporary classical scholar Richard Porson mocked Gibbon, writing that his humanity never slept, "unless when women are ravished, or the Christians persecuted".


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Some later historians, however, took Gibbon's emphases even further. As Croix put it in 1954, "The so-called Great Persecution has been exaggerated in the Christian tradition to an extent which even Gibbon did not fully appreciate." In 1972, the ecclesiastical Protestant historian Hermann Dörries was embarrassed to admit to his colleagues that his sympathies lay with the Christians rather than their persecutors. Anglican historian W.H.C. Frend estimated that 3,000–3,500 Christians were killed in the persecution, although this number is disputed. The historian Min Seok Shin estimates that over 23,500 Christians suffered martyrdom under Diocletian, of whom the names of 850 are known.


title: Diocletianic Persecution

text: Although the number of verifiably true martyrs' tales has decreased, and estimates of the total casualty rate have been reduced, the majority of modern writers are less skeptical than Gibbon of the severity of the persecution. As the author Stephen Williams wrote in 1985, "even allowing a margin for invention, what remains is terrible enough. Unlike Gibbon, we live in an age which has experienced similar things, and knows how unsound is that civilised smile of incredulity at such reports. Things can be, have been, every bit as bad as our worst imaginings."


title: Bomb

text: A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechanical stress, the impact and penetration of pressure-driven projectiles, pressure damage, and explosion-generated effects. Bombs have been utilized since the 11th century starting in East Asia.


title: Bomb

text: The term bomb is not usually applied to explosive devices used for civilian purposes such as construction or mining, although the people using the devices may sometimes refer to them as a "bomb". The military use of the term "bomb", or more specifically aerial bomb action, typically refers to airdropped, unpowered explosive weapons most commonly used by air forces and naval aviation. Other military explosive weapons not classified as "bombs" include shells, depth charges (used in water), or land mines. In unconventional warfare, other names can refer to a range of offensive weaponry. For instance, in recent Middle Eastern conflicts, homemade bombs called "improvised explosive devices" (IEDs) have been employed by insurgent fighters to great effectiveness.


title: Bomb

text: The word comes from the Latin , which in turn comes from the Greek romanized , an onomatopoetic term meaning 'booming', 'buzzing'.


title: Bomb

text: Explosive bombs were used in East Asia in 1221, by a Jurchen Jin army against a Chinese Song city. Bombs built using bamboo tubes appear in the 11th century. Bombs made of cast iron shells packed with explosive gunpowder date to 13th century China. The term was coined for this bomb (i.e. "thunder-crash bomb") during a Jin dynasty (1115–1234) naval battle of 1231 against the Mongols.


title: Bomb

text: The "History of Jin" 《金史》 (compiled by 1345) states that in 1232, as the Mongol general Subutai (1176–1248) descended on the Jin stronghold of Kaifeng, the defenders had a "thunder crash bomb" which "consisted of gunpowder put into an iron container ... then when the fuse was lit (and the projectile shot off) there was a great explosion the noise whereof was like thunder, audible for more than thirty miles, and the vegetation was scorched and blasted by the heat over an area of more than half a "mou". When hit, even iron armour was quite pierced through."


title: Bomb

text: The Song Dynasty (960–1279) official Li Zengbo wrote in 1257 that arsenals should have several hundred thousand iron bomb shells available and that when he was in Jingzhou, about one to two thousand were produced each month for dispatch of ten to twenty thousand at a time to Xiangyang and Yingzhou. The Ming Dynasty text "Huolongjing" describes the use of poisonous gunpowder bombs, including the "wind-and-dust" bomb.


title: Bomb

text: During the Mongol invasions of Japan, the Mongols used the explosive "thunder-crash bombs" against the Japanese. Archaeological evidence of the "thunder-crash bombs" has been discovered in an underwater shipwreck off the shore of Japan by the Kyushu Okinawa Society for Underwater Archaeology. X-rays by Japanese scientists of the excavated shells confirmed that they contained gunpowder.


title: Bomb

text: Explosive shock waves can cause situations such as body displacement (i.e., people being thrown through the air), dismemberment, internal bleeding and ruptured eardrums.


title: Bomb

text: Shock waves produced by explosive events have two distinct components, the positive and negative wave. The positive wave shoves outward from the point of detonation, followed by the trailing vacuum space "sucking back" towards the point of origin as the shock bubble collapses. The greatest defense against shock injuries is distance from the source of shock. As a point of reference, the overpressure at the Oklahoma City bombing was estimated in the range of


title: Bomb

text: A thermal wave is created by the sudden release of heat caused by an explosion. Military bomb tests have documented temperatures of up to 2,480 °C (4,500 °F). While capable of inflicting severe to catastrophic burns and causing secondary fires, thermal wave effects are considered very limited in range compared to shock and fragmentation. This rule has been challenged, however, by military development of thermobaric weapons, which employ a combination of negative shock wave effects and extreme temperature to incinerate objects within the blast radius.


title: Bomb

text: Fragmentation is produced by the acceleration of shattered pieces of bomb casing and adjacent physical objects. The use of fragmentation in bombs dates to the 14th century, and appears in the Ming Dynasty text "Huolongjing". The fragmentation bombs were filled with iron pellets and pieces of broken porcelain. Once the bomb explodes, the resulting fragments are capable of piercing the skin and blinding enemy soldiers.


title: Bomb

text: While conventionally viewed as small metal shards moving at super-supersonic and hypersonic speeds, fragmentation can occur in epic proportions and travel for extensive distances. When the SS "Grandcamp" exploded in the Texas City Disaster on April 16, 1947, one fragment of that blast was a two-ton anchor which was hurled nearly two miles inland to embed itself in the parking lot of the Pan American refinery.


title: Bomb

text: To people who are close to a blast incident, such as bomb disposal technicians, soldiers wearing body armor, deminers, or individuals wearing little to no protection, there are four types of blast effects on the human body: overpressure (shock), fragmentation, impact, and heat. Overpressure refers to the sudden and drastic rise in ambient pressure that can damage the internal organs, possibly leading to permanent damage or death. Fragmentation can also include sand, debris and vegetation from the area surrounding the blast source. This is very common in anti-personnel mine blasts. The projection of materials poses a potentially lethal threat caused by cuts in soft tissues, as well as infections, and injuries to the internal organs. When the overpressure wave impacts the body it can induce violent levels of blast-induced acceleration. Resulting injuries may range from minor to unsurvivable. Immediately following this initial acceleration, deceleration injuries can occur when a person impacts directly against a rigid surface or obstacle after being set in motion by the force of the blast. Finally, injury and fatality can result from the explosive fireball as well as incendiary agents projected onto the body. Personal protective equipment, such as a bomb suit or demining ensemble, as well as helmets, visors and foot protection, can dramatically reduce the four effects, depending upon the charge, proximity and other variables.


title: Bomb

text: Experts commonly distinguish between civilian and military bombs. The latter are almost always mass-produced weapons, developed and constructed to a standard design out of standard components and intended to be deployed in a standard explosive device. IEDs are divided into three basic categories by basic size and delivery. Type 76, IEDs are hand-carried parcel or suitcase bombs, type 80, are "suicide vests" worn by a bomber, and type 3 devices are vehicles laden with explosives to act as large-scale stationary or self-propelled bombs, also known as VBIED (vehicle-borne IEDs).


title: Bomb

text: Improvised explosive materials are typically unstable and subject to spontaneous, unintentional detonation triggered by a wide range of environmental effects, ranging from impact and friction to electrostatic shock. Even subtle motion, change in temperature, or the nearby use of cellphones or radios can trigger an unstable or remote-controlled device. Any interaction with explosive materials or devices by unqualified personnel should be considered a grave and immediate risk of death or dire injury. The safest response to finding an object believed to be an explosive device is to get as far away from it as possible.


title: Bomb

text: Atomic bombs are based on the theory of nuclear fission, that when a large atom splits, it releases a massive amount of energy. Thermonuclear weapons, (colloquially known as "hydrogen bombs") use the energy from an initial fission explosion to create an even more powerful fusion explosion.


title: Bomb

text: The term "dirty bomb" refers to a specialized device that relies on a comparatively low explosive yield to scatter harmful material over a wide area. Most commonly associated with radiological or chemical materials, dirty bombs seek to kill or injure and then to deny access to a contaminated area until a thorough clean-up can be accomplished. In the case of urban settings, this clean-up may take extensive time, rendering the contaminated zone virtually uninhabitable in the interim.


title: Bomb

text: The power of large bombs is typically measured in kilotons (kt) or megatons of TNT (Mt). The most powerful bombs ever used in combat were the two atomic bombs dropped by the United States to attack Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the most powerful ever tested was the Tsar Bomba. The most powerful non-nuclear bomb is Russian "Father of All Bombs" (officially Aviation Thermobaric Bomb of Increased Power (ATBIP)) followed by the United States Air Force's MOAB (officially Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or more commonly known as the "Mother of All Bombs").


title: Bomb

text: Below is a list of five different types of bombs based on the fundamental explosive mechanism they employ.


title: Bomb

text: Relatively small explosions can be produced by pressurizing a container until catastrophic failure such as with a dry ice bomb. Technically, devices that create explosions of this type can not be classified as "bombs" by the definition presented at the top of this article. However, the explosions created by these devices can cause property damage, injury, or death. Flammable liquids, gasses and gas mixtures dispersed in these explosions may also ignite if exposed to a spark or flame.


title: Bomb

text: The simplest and oldest bombs store energy in the form of a low explosive. Black powder is an example of a low explosive. Low explosives typically consist of a mixture of an oxidizing salt, such as potassium nitrate (saltpeter), with solid fuel, such as charcoal or aluminium powder. These compositions deflagrate upon ignition, producing hot gas. Under normal circumstances, this deflagration occurs too slowly to produce a significant pressure wave; low explosives, therefore, must generally be used in large quantities or confined in a container with a high burst pressure to be useful as a bomb.


title: Bomb

text: A high explosive bomb is one that employs a process called "detonation" to rapidly go from an initially high energy molecule to a very low energy molecule. Detonation is distinct from deflagration in that the chemical reaction propagates faster than the speed of sound (often many times faster) in an intense shock wave. Therefore, the pressure wave produced by a high explosive is not significantly increased by confinement as detonation occurs so quickly that the resulting plasma does not expand much before all the explosive material has reacted. This has led to the development of plastic explosive. A casing is still employed in some high explosive bombs, but with the purpose of fragmentation. Most high explosive bombs consist of an insensitive secondary explosive that must be detonated with a blasting cap containing a more sensitive primary explosive.


title: Bomb

text: A thermobaric bomb is a type of explosive that utilizes oxygen from the surrounding air to generate an intense, high-temperature explosion, and in practice the blast wave typically produced by such a weapon is of a significantly longer duration than that produced by a conventional condensed explosive. The fuel-air bomb is one of the best-known types of thermobaric weapons.


title: Bomb

text: Nuclear fission type atomic bombs utilize the energy present in very heavy atomic nuclei, such as U-235 or Pu-239. In order to release this energy rapidly, a certain amount of the fissile material must be very rapidly consolidated while being exposed to a neutron source. If consolidation occurs slowly, repulsive forces drive the material apart before a significant explosion can occur. Under the right circumstances, rapid consolidation can provoke a chain reaction that can proliferate and intensify by many orders of magnitude within microseconds. The energy released by a nuclear fission bomb may be tens of thousands of times greater than a chemical bomb of the same mass.


title: Bomb

text: A thermonuclear weapon is a type of nuclear bomb that releases energy through the combination of fission and fusion of the light atomic nuclei of deuterium and tritium. With this type of bomb, a thermonuclear detonation is triggered by the detonation of a fission type nuclear bomb contained within a material containing high concentrations of deuterium and tritium. Weapon yield is typically increased with a tamper that increases the duration and intensity of the reaction through inertial confinement and neutron reflection. Nuclear fusion bombs can have arbitrarily high yields making them hundreds or thousands of times more powerful than nuclear fission.


title: Bomb

text: A pure fusion weapon is a nuclear weapon that doesn't require a primary fission stage to start a fusion reaction.


title: Bomb

text: Antimatter bombs can theoretically be constructed, but antimatter is very costly to produce and hard to store safely.


title: Bomb

text: An inert bomb is one whose inner energetic material has been removed or otherwise rendered harmless. Inert munitions are used in military and naval training, and they are also collected and displayed by public museums or private parties. Typically, NATO inert munitions are painted entirely in light blue and/or have the word "INERT" stenciled on them in prominent locations.


title: Bomb

text: The first air-dropped bombs were used by the Austrians in the 1849 siege of Venice. Two hundred unmanned balloons carried small bombs, although few bombs actually hit the city.


title: Bomb

text: The first bombing from a fixed-wing aircraft took place in 1911 when the Italians dropped bombs by hand on the Turkish lines in what is now Libya, during the Italo-Turkish War. The first large scale dropping of bombs took place during World War I starting in 1915 with the German Zeppelin airship raids on London, England, and the same war saw the invention of the first heavy bombers. One Zeppelin raid on 8 September 1915 dropped of high explosives and incendiary bombs, including one bomb that weighed .


title: Bomb

text: During World War II bombing became a major military feature, and a number of novel delivery methods were introduced. These included Barnes Wallis's bouncing bomb, designed to bounce across water, avoiding torpedo nets and other underwater defenses, until it reached a dam, ship, or other destination, where it would sink and explode. By the end of the war, planes such as the allied forces' Avro Lancaster were delivering with accuracy from , ten ton earthquake bombs (also invented by Barnes Wallis) named "Grand Slam", which, unusually for the time, were delivered from high altitude in order to gain high speed, and would, upon impact, penetrate and explode deep underground ("camouflet"), causing massive caverns or craters, and affecting targets too large or difficult to be affected by other types of bomb.


title: Bomb

text: Modern military bomber aircraft are designed around a large-capacity internal bomb bay, while fighter-bombers usually carry bombs externally on pylons or bomb racks or on multiple ejection racks which enable mounting several bombs on a single pylon. Some bombs are equipped with a parachute, such as the World War II "parafrag" (an fragmentation bomb), the Vietnam war-era daisy cutters, and the bomblets of some modern cluster bombs. Parachutes slow the bomb's descent, giving the dropping aircraft time to get to a safe distance from the explosion. This is especially important with airburst nuclear weapons (especially those dropped from slower aircraft or with very high yields), and in situations where the aircraft releases a bomb at low altitude. A number of modern bombs are also precision-guided munitions, and may be guided after they leave an aircraft by remote control, or by autonomous guidance.


title: Bomb

text: Aircraft may also deliver bombs in the form of warheads on guided missiles, such as long-range cruise missiles, which can also be launched from warships.


title: Bomb

text: A hand grenade is delivered by being thrown. Grenades can also be projected by other means, such as being launched from the muzzle of a rifle (as in the rifle grenade), using a grenade launcher (such as the M203), or by attaching a rocket to the explosive grenade (as in a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG)).


title: Bomb

text: A bomb destroying a rail track just before a train arrives will usually cause the train to derail. In addition to the damage to vehicles and people, a bomb exploding in a transport network often damages, and is sometimes mainly intended to damage, the network itself. This applies for railways, bridges, runways, and ports, and, to a lesser extent (depending on circumstances), to roads.


title: Bomb

text: In the case of suicide bombing, the bomb is often carried by the attacker on their body, or in a vehicle driven to the target.


title: Bomb

text: The Blue Peacock nuclear mines, which were also termed "bombs", were planned to be positioned during wartime and be constructed such that, if disturbed, they would explode within ten seconds.


title: Bomb

text: The explosion of a bomb may be triggered by a detonator or a fuse. Detonators are triggered by clocks, remote controls like cell phones or some kind of sensor, such as pressure (altitude), radar, vibration or contact. Detonators vary in ways they work, they can be electrical, fire fuze or blast initiated detonators and others,


title: Bomb

text: In forensic science, the point of detonation of a bomb is referred to as its blast seat, seat of explosion, blast hole or epicenter. Depending on the type, quantity and placement of explosives, the blast seat may be either spread out or concentrated (i.e., an explosion crater).


title: Bomb

text: Other types of explosions, such as dust or vapor explosions, do not cause craters or even have definitive blast seats.


title: Beyond Good and Evil 2

text: Beyond Good and Evil 2 is an upcoming action-adventure video game developed by Ubisoft Montpellier and published by Ubisoft. It is a prequel to "Beyond Good & Evil", released in 2003. Its development was characterized in the media by uncertainty, doubt and rumors about the game's future. The sequel was teased at Ubidays 2008 with almost a decade of silence before being officially announced at Ubisoft's E3 2017 conference, although no release window or target platform(s) has been revealed.


title: Beyond Good and Evil 2

text: "Beyond Good and Evil 2" has been referred to as vaporware by industry figures such as Jason Schreier due to its lengthy development and lack of a release date. In 2022, "Beyond Good and Evil 2" broke the record held by "Duke Nukem Forever" (2011) for the longest development for a video game, at more than 15 years.


title: Beyond Good and Evil 2

text: "Beyond Good and Evil 2" is an action-adventure game set in an open world environment and played from a third-person perspective which takes place at least one generation before the events of "Beyond Good & Evil". It has more traditional role-playing elements compared to the first game; the player generates a character that starts the game "at the very bottom of the social system". The character can be male or female. As the player completes various tasks, they improve in various attributes, and gain spacecraft and crew members which they can also improve over time. The players visits planets that have their own societies, and by completing tasks on these planets, gain new technologies or other facets to improve their spacecraft. Its director, Michel Ancel, said that they do anticipate that there will be a narrative element that includes fixed story events, as well as events based on what decisions the player had made in exploring planets.


title: Beyond Good and Evil 2

text: The game will have single-player and cooperative player support; even as a single-player, the player can participate in a shared universe, with some events affecting all players at the same time. "Beyond Good and Evil 2" will require an internet connection to play both single-player and multiplayer.


title: Beyond Good and Evil 2

text: "Beyond Good and Evil 2" has languished for several years, and is considered to have been in development hell. The game is being developed using a new engine called "Voyager Engine", developed by Ubisoft Montpellier. Composer Christophe Héral, who scored the music for the original game, will be returning for "Beyond Good and Evil 2".


title: Beyond Good and Evil 2

text: The original "Beyond Good & Evil" game, released in 2003, was critically praised and gained a cult following, but was considered a commercial failure. Ancel explained that as he wrote out the game's universe, he found it was bigger than what he could practically include within a single game, and thus anticipated the game to be the first of a trilogy of works. However, the poor sales of this game left its publisher Ubisoft reluctant to invest in a sequel.


title: Beyond Good and Evil 2

text: Rumors about a sequel began to circulate around 2007, starting with a "Nintendo Power" interview with Ancel who stated he was working on a new project that was very personal to him, and mentioned his hopes to reuse Jade, the player-character from "Beyond Good & Evil", in a future project without changing her personality. Ancel said in a May 2008 interview with the French magazine that the "Beyond Good & Evil" sequel had been in pre-production for a year, but was yet to be approved by Ubisoft. Later that month, as part of their "Ubidays" event, Ubisoft released a trailer for the next, yet-named project from Ancel and their Ubisoft Montpellier studio, which had worked on "Beyond Good & Evil". The trailer used "Beyond Good & Evil" music assets and showed characters that appeared to be Jade and Pey'j from the original "Beyond Good & Evil". Ubisoft reported that the trailer had all been recorded within the game engine, showcasing high-resolution graphics representative of seventh generation consoles capabilities. A second, leaked trailer appeared for the game on the Internet around May 2009, showing a character that appeared to be Jade running through a crowded street. The trailer was confirmed to be authentic by Ancel, while Ubisoft denied that they had purposely released the footage.


title: Beyond Good and Evil 2

text: Since these trailers, up until 2016, the state of program with "Beyond Good and Evil 2" was unclear, with conflicting statements made by both Ubisoft and Ancel. While Ancel and Ubisoft reported several times that the game was still in development, rumors circulated that Ubisoft had put the game on hold, that Ubisoft had yet to officially announced the title and thus production was not officially started, and that Ancel had left Ubisoft Montpellier, By 2016, Ancel affirmed that they had put aside work on "Beyond Good and Evil 2" to develop "Rayman Legends" (2013) which enabled them to produce tools that would help with the production of "Beyond Good and Evil 2"; once work for "Rayman Legends" was completed, they returned to "Beyond Good & Evil" sequel. Ubisoft later noted Ancel's time was split between "Beyond Good and Evil 2" and "Wild", a title developed by Ancel's Wild Sheep Studios outside of Ubisoft.


title: Beyond Good and Evil 2

text: In late 2016, Ancel used social media to post images from the game, showing a younger Pey'j, hinting that "Beyond Good and Evil 2" may be a prequel. Ubisoft shortly followed by officially announcing the game. Ubisoft showed the first new trailer for "Beyond Good and Evil 2" during their E3 2017 conference and was announced as a prequel to the first game. During E3 2017, Ancel confirmed that the 2008 and 2009 trailers were from initial work as a narrative sequel to "Beyond Good & Evil", but during development they opted to change direction and make it a prequel, and thus the work previously shown was from an effectively different game.


title: Beyond Good and Evil 2

text: The platforms for release have not been announced. There had been rumors that it would have been released as a timed exclusive for the Nintendo Switch (under its codename NX) in the prior year, but Ancel confirmed this was not the case. The "Space Monkey Program" lists the game for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, however Michel Ancel stated that the platforms have not been announced yet, and that the listing was due to a bug. Ancel later told "Kotaku" that the game is designed to run on many platforms.


title: Beyond Good and Evil 2

text: When Ancel announced his departure from Ubisoft in September 2020, he stated that both the project and "Wild" were in capable hands. The French newspaper "Libération", which have been following on Ubisoft's troubles with mid-2020 series of sexual misconduct allegations raised against many high-level members of the company, learned that members of Ancel's team found Ancel's leadership on the project to be unorganized and at times abusive, causing the game's development to have many restarts and accounting for the delay since its 2010 announcement. The Montpellier team had reported these concerns to leadership of Ubisoft as early as 2017 but Ancel's close relationship with Yves Guillemot prevented any major corrections to occur until the 2020 internal evaluations that led to Ancel's departure. Ubisoft stated that Ancel "hasn't been directly involved in "BG&E2" for some time now" when he left the company.


title: Beyond Good and Evil 2

text: In July 2021, Ubisoft stated in a financial report that development was "progressing well" but did not answer a question about its release date. In 2022, "Beyond Good and Evil 2" broke the record held by "Duke Nukem Forever" (2011) for the longest development for a video game, at more than 15 years.


title: Beyond Good and Evil 2

text: Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot stated that "Beyond Good and Evil 2" will be made more accessible to the new generation of players, in an effort to make sure the sequel does not suffer the same commercial failure the original did. Guillemot clarified that statement later on, saying that they do not intend to make the game more casual player-oriented.


title: Beyond Good and Evil 2

text: A core element of the game is the ability to explore several different planets via space travel. To power this, Ancel and the Ubisoft Montpellier team started building a solar system simulation tool about three years prior to the E3 2017 reveal to be used in the game's own engine called Voyageur. This tool uses a combination of designed elements and procedural generation to assemble those elements for a given planet. The development team completed the preliminary work on the tool just before E3 2017, allowing them to start building the rest of the game around it; at that point, Ancel considered that they were only at "day zero" of the game's development.


title: Beyond Good and Evil 2

text: "["Beyond Good and Evil 2" will] be in continuity with the first game, with a big variety of levels, lots of emotion in the gameplay, and characters we care about. This time we are dealing with the planet's future, and the relationship with animals..."


title: Beyond Good and Evil 2

text: On April 3, "Eurogamer" published a translated interview with Ancel talking about the inspirations behind "Beyond Good & Evil" and its sequel:


title: Beyond Good and Evil 2

text: "It was a mix of experiences. It was a phantasm to create an adventure game, a universe too. It was the game I wanted to create for a long time. [...] There were a lot of inspirations: the Miyazaki universe, my own inspirations, politics and the media; the theme of September 11 – the CNN show with army messages and the fear climate. And it was a mix from other universes."


title: Beyond Good and Evil 2

text: "Yes! But it is better to discover that when you play, ha ha! But it is clear we want to continue the story – we won't create characters, story. The story continues and we'll react on important events of the first."


title: Beyond Good and Evil 2

text: However, in June 2017 narrative director Gabrielle Shrager said that the game would be a prequel with the action taking place "about a generation before Jade was born". Ancel indicated that the characters from the previous game will be referenced in some way: "You don't play them, but they are in the world, and they are key to making this world unique... the DNA will be there."


title: Beyond Good and Evil 2

text: Ancel also talked about the sequel being more immersive and complex compared to the original, largely because of the possibilities of current-generation hardware, but as a result will take longer to develop.


title: Beyond Good and Evil 2

text: "We'll conserve the spirit of the first game, but the form will change. For ["BG&E"], we wanted to create a more cinematographic game, but we didn't have the technical ability to do that. So we simplified. It was fun, because I remember we had to work for Sony to demonstrate how original our game was in order to get the development kit. We wrote "BG&E" like we were in a film. After, we understood it would be very tricky to reach that immersion on that console! But now, with the next-gen consoles, we feel it is possible to develop the game we thought of for the first. [...] It is very difficult to answer [when the game's going to be released]: there is an unknown aspect."


title: Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War

text: On October 3, 2022, Viz Media announced that the series would stream on Hulu in the United States and Disney+ internationally outside of Asia. Viz Media's English dub of the series began streaming on Hulu on November 4, 2022.


title: Amin al-Husseini

text: who trace their origins to the eponymous grandson of Muhammad. Husseini received education in Islamic, Ottoman, and Catholic schools. In 1912, he went to pursue further studies in Cairo's "Dar al-Da'wa wa al-Irshad", an Islamic seminary under the tutelage of Salafist theologian Muhammad Rashid Rida. After studying there for two years, he went on to serve in the Ottoman army in World War I. At war's end he stationed himself in Damascus as a supporter of the Arab Kingdom of Syria. Following the Franco-Syrian War and the collapse of Arab Hashemite rule in Damascus, his early position on pan-Arabism shifted to a form of local nationalism for Palestinian Arabs and he moved back to Jerusalem. From as early as 1920 he actively opposed Zionism, and was implicated as a leader of the 1920 Nebi Musa riots. Al-Husseini was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment for incitement but was pardoned by the British. In 1921, Herbert Samuel, the British High Commissioner appointed him Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a position he used to promote Islam while rallying a non-confessional Arab nationalism against Zionism. During the 1921–1936 period, he was considered an important ally by the British authorities.


title: Amin al-Husseini

text: His opposition to the British peaked during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. In 1937, evading an arrest warrant, he fled Palestine and took refuge successively in the French Mandate of Lebanon and the Kingdom of Iraq, until he established himself in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. During World War II he collaborated with both Italy and Germany by making propagandistic radio broadcasts and by helping the Nazis recruit Bosnian Muslims for the Waffen-SS (on the grounds that they shared four principles: family, order, the leader and faith). On meeting Adolf Hitler he requested backing for Arab independence and support in opposing the establishment in Palestine of a Jewish national home. Upon the end of the war he came under French protection, and then sought refuge in Cairo to avoid prosecution for war crimes.


title: Amin al-Husseini

text: In the lead-up to the 1948 Palestine war, Husseini opposed both the 1947 UN Partition Plan and King Abdullah's designs to annex the Arab part of British Mandatory Palestine to Jordan, and, failing to gain command of the "Arab rescue army" () formed under the aegis of the Arab League, built his own militia, . In September 1948 he participated in the establishment of an All-Palestine Government. Seated in Egyptian-ruled Gaza, this government won limited recognition by Arab states but was eventually dissolved by Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1959. After the war and the 1948 Palestinian exodus, his claims to leadership were wholly discredited and he was eventually sidelined by the Palestine Liberation Organization, losing most of his residual political influence. He died in Beirut, Lebanon in July 1974.


title: Amin al-Husseini

text: Husseini was and remains a highly controversial figure. Historians dispute whether his fierce opposition to Zionism was grounded in nationalism or antisemitism, or a combination of both. Opponents of Palestinian nationalism have pointed to Husseini's wartime residence and propaganda activities in Nazi Germany to associate the Palestinian national movement with antisemitism in Europe.


title: Amin al-Husseini

text: in Jerusalem, the son of the mufti of that city and prominent early opponent of Zionism, Tahir al-Husayni.


title: Amin al-Husseini

text: The al-Husseini clan consisted of wealthy landowners in southern Palestine, centered around the district of Jerusalem. Thirteen members of the clan had been Mayors of Jerusalem between 1864 and 1920. Another member of the clan and Amin's half-brother, Kamil al-Husayni, also served as Mufti of Jerusalem. In Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini attended a Qur'an school (), and Ottoman government secondary school ("rüshidiyye") where he learned Turkish, and a Catholic secondary school run by French missionaries, the Catholic Frères, where he learned French. He also studied at the Alliance Israélite Universelle with its Jewish director Albert Antébi. Antébi considered al-Husseini his pupil, and refers to him in a letter.


title: Amin al-Husseini

text: In 1912 he studied Islamic law briefly at Al-Azhar University in Cairo and at the , under Rashid Rida, a salafi scholar, who was to remain Amin's mentor till his death in 1935. However, he did not adopt his teacher's Islamic fundamentalism. Though groomed to hold religious office from youth, his education was typical of the Ottoman effendi at the time, and he only donned a religious turban in 1921 after being appointed mufti.


title: Amin al-Husseini

text: In 1913, approximately at the age of 16, al-Husseini accompanied his mother Zainab to Mecca and received the honorary title of Hajji. Prior to World War I, he studied at the School of Administration in Constantinople, the most secular of Ottoman institutions.


title: Amin al-Husseini

text: With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, al-Husseini received a commission in the Ottoman Army as an artillery officer and was assigned to the Forty-Seventh Brigade stationed in and around the city of Izmir. In November 1916 he obtained a three-month disability leave from the army and returned to Jerusalem. He was recovering from an illness there when the city was captured by the British a year later. The British and Sherifian armies, for which some 500 Palestinian Arabs were estimated to have volunteered, completed their conquest of Ottoman-controlled Palestine and Syria in 1918.