Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/396

 put an end to the "Persecution of Diocletian." This most extraordinary document may be read in full in Eus. H. E. viii. 17, and Lact. Mort. 34. The origin of the persecution is ascribed to the fact that the Christians had wilfully departed from the "institutions of the ancients which had peradventure been first set on foot by their own forefathers," and had formed schismatical assemblies on their own private judgment. Primitive Christianity is here meant by the phrase instituta veterum, and the edicts were asserted to have had no object but to bring the Christians back to it. But Galerius was now determined, under certain unspecified conditions, to allow Christianity once more and to permit the building of churches. In return, the Christians are told to pray to their God for the recovery of Galerius.

Thus did the dying persecutor try to pose as a kind reformer, and to lead the God of the Christians to remit his temporal punishment. "The Unknown God to Whom he had at last betaken himself gave no answer to his insolent and tardy invocation" (De Broglie, i. 207). The edict was posted at Nicomedia on April 30; he died on May 5 or 13, 311.

[A.J.M.]

Galla (5) Placidia, daughter of Theodosius I., by his second wife Galla. When in 410 Rome was captured by Alaric, Placidia was taken prisoner, but was treated with great respect (Olympiod. ap. Phot. Biblioth. lxxx.; Zos. Hist. vi. 12), and in Jan. 414, at Narbona in Gaul, married Ataulphus, who had succeeded his uncle Alaric. After the death of Ataulphus, Placidiareturned to Italy, 416, and dwelt with her paternal uncle Honorius, at Ravenna. In Jan. 417 she married Constantius. By him she had two children, Valentinian and Honoria (Olympiod. u.s.) Her influence over Constantius was soon shewn in his active persecution of the Pelagians (Prosp. Chron. s.a. 418), when, in Feb. 421, Honorius admitted Constantius to a share of the empire. On Sept. 11, 421, Constantius died. Placidia again took up her abode with Honorius at Ravenna, but their mutual affection being replaced by bitter hate, which occasioned serious disturbances in the city, she and her children were sent to Theodosius II. at Constantinople (Olympiod. u.s.). On the death of Honorius in Aug. 423, Theodosius declared for Valentinian. Valentinian being but a child, the authority of Placidia was now supreme, and among her first acts was the issue of three edicts in rapid succession for the banishment of all "Manicheans, heretics, and schismatics, and every sect opposed to the Catholic faith" (Cod. Theod. XVI. v. 62, July 17; ib. 63, Aug. 4; ib. 64, Aug. 6, 425, all dated from Aquileia), meaning especially the adherents of the antipope Eulalius, who were still numerous in Rome. These edicts were soon followed by another of great severity, directed against apostates (Cod. Theod. XVI. vii. 8, Apr. 7, 426).

In 427 the machinations of Aetius put Placidia in conflict with her tried friend Boniface, count of Africa, who, in despair, appealed for help to the Vandals, and Africa was overrun by their forces. Placidia explained matters to Boniface, and urged him to do his best to repair the injury which the empire had sustained. But it was too late; the Vandals were masters of the country, and Africa was lost (Procop Bell. Vandal. i. 4; Augustine, Ep. 220; Gibbon, c. xxxiii.).

In 449 Placidia was at Rome with Valentinian. The legates of Leo had just returned from the Robber Council of Ephesus. Leo bitterly bewailed the doings of that assembly to Placidia, who immediately wrote to Theodosius and his sister Pulcheria, intreating them to interfere in defence of the faith of their ancestors and to procure the restoration of Flavian, the deposed bp. of Constantinople (Conc. Chalced., pt. i. Ep. 26, 28, 30; Labbe, iv. 53, 55, 58). She died soon afterwards at Rome, and was buried at Ravenna (Idatius, Chr. s.a.; Gibbon, u.s.).

[T.W.N]

Gallienus P. Licinius, emperor, son of Valerian, appointed by the senate coadjutor to his father very shortly after Valerian's succession in Aug. 253. In 260 his father's captivity in Persia left him politically irresponsible.

One great act brings him into church history. On his father's fall, he was legally bound to put every clergyman to death wherever found, and to deal in almost as summary a fashion with all other Christians. [.] Gallienus had had three years' experience of the difficulty and wearisomeness of this task. The "Thirty Tyrants," moreover, were foes formidable enough to attract what little attention could be spared from pleasure. Accordingly, in 261 he issued a public edict, by which Christianity was for the first time put on a clearly legal footing as a religio licita. This edict is the most marked epoch in the history of the church's relation to the state since the rescript of Trajan to Pliny, which had made Christianity distinctly a religio illicita. The words in which Eusebius describes the edict (the text of which is lost) imply no more than that actual persecution was stopped (H. E. vii. 13), which might have been done without a legal recognition of Christianity; but Eusebius has preserved a copy of the encyclical rescript which the emperor addressed to the Christian bishops of the Egyptian province, which shews that the position of "the bishops" is perfectly recognized by the pagan government. The rescript informs the bishops that orders have been issued to the pagan officials to evacuate the consecrated places; the bishops' copies of the rescript will serve as a warrant against all interference in reoccupying. Thus formally, universally, and deliberately was done what Alexander Severus had done in an isolated case in a freak of generosity—i.e, the right of the Corpus Christianorum to hold property was fully recognized. If Christianity had not been explicitly made a religio licita, this would have been impossible. The great proof, however, of the footing gained by the church through Gallienus's edict lies in the action of his successor Aurelian in the matter of Paul of Samosata. Though Aurelian's bigoted sun-worship and hatred of the church were well known, and his death alone prevented a great rupture, the Catholics were so secure of their legal position as actually to appeal to the emperor in person to decide their dispute; and Aurelian, as the law then stood, not only recognized the right of the church to hold property, but also to decide internal disputes