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Rh In the opening years of the fourth century Diocletian made a last spasmodic effort to extirpate Christianity. To the ordinary penalties were added an enactment to suppress Christian assemblies and to destroy Christian churches. This out-of-date proceeding probably hastened the advent of toleration, which was established eight years after the persecution began by the Edict of Galerius. This edict pledged the State not to molest Christians so long as they did not attack the State religion. Thus began a series of compromises, none of which gave any sure foothold. Two years later Constantine and Licinius gave the Christians "liberam atque absolutam colendae religionis libertatem" in the Edict of Milan, and conciliated both parties by defining "Divinitas in Sede Coelesti" as the object of State worship.

The chief interest of this edict consists in its being the first experiment in complete toleration based on the idea set forth by many of the early apologists—in particular by Justinus in the second century—that all religions have an element of truth in them. This idea revives again with the rise of Protestantism and in the works of men like Bodin, Hooker, Chillingworth, Locke, Voltaire, and Rousseau. The failure of Constantine's theory and practice well shows the interdependence of toleration and scepticism; and the incapacity of the age for accepting such a settlement may be clearly