The Diocletianic Persecution was the last and most severe persecution of Christians in the Roman empire. In 303, Emperor Diocletian and his colleagues Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius issued a series of edicts rescinding Christians' legal rights and demanding they comply with traditional religious practices. Later edicts targeted the clergy and demanded universal sacrifice, ordering all inhabitants to sacrifice to the gods. The persecution varied in intensity across the empire—weakest in Gaul and Britain, where only the first edict was applied, and strongest in the Eastern provinces. His son, Constantine, on taking the imperial office in 306, restored Christians to full legal equality and returned property confiscated during the persecution. The persecution failed to check the rise of the church. By 324, Constantine was sole ruler of the empire, and Christianity had become his favored religion. Although the persecution resulted in the deaths of—according to one modern estimate—3,000 Christians, and the torture, imprisonment, or dislocation of many more, most Christians avoided punishment. The persecution did, however, cause many churches to split between those who had complied with imperial authority (the traditores), and those who had remained "pure". Modern historians have tended to downplay the scale and depth of the Diocletianic persecution.
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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1297:
First War of Scottish Independence: The Scots defeated English troops at the Battle of Stirling Bridge on the River Forth near Stirling. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stirling_Bridge
1709:
An allied British-Dutch-Austrian force defeated the French at the Battle of Malplaquet, one of the bloodiest battles of the War of the Spanish Succession. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Malplaquet
1789:
U.S. Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, co-writer of the Federalist Papers, became the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Hamilton
1857:
At Mountain Meadows, Utah Territory, USA, a local brigade of the Mormon militia led a massacre of about 120 California-bound pioneers from Arkansas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre
2001:
September 11 attacks: Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four passenger airliners, intentionally crashing two of them into the World Trade Center in New York City and one plane into the Pentagon near Washington, D.C. The fourth aircraft crashed in Pennsylvania after its passengers mounted an assault against their hijackers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
realm (n): 1. A sphere of real or imaginary influence. 2. The domain of a certain abstraction. 3. (formal or law) A territory or state, as ruled by a specific power http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/realm
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Although September 11 was horrible, it didn't threaten the survival of the human race, like nuclear weapons do. ... I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I'm an optimist. We will reach out to the stars. --Stephen Hawking http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking