Roman Emperor Diocletian Affected The Catholic Church

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In our daily lives, we all want to live like saints and don’t really want to pay attention to or learn about the bad people. Emperor Diocletian was not one of the people in history that did great things, and surely learning about his wrongdoings might make us think about his decisions and avoid the evil choices in our own lives. This essay will cover a short portion of his life, the challenges he faced, and how he affected the Catholic Church. Although this article won’t cover every details about Diocletian’s life, it will mainly focus on the period during his reign as emperor that made him what sort of a man he is. Diocletian was born Diocles in 245 CE to an Illyrian family of modest status. Like many Illyrians, he proved to be brave soldier, …show more content…

In 293, Diocletian established a government system called the tetrarchy and gave the title of caesars to two generals: Galerius and Constantius I (Byers 19). “He reserved for his own portion Thrace, Egypt, and Asia ; Italy and Africa were Maximian's provinces, while Galerius was stationed on the Danube, and Constantius had charge of Gaul, Spain, and Britain. But the supreme control remained in Diocletian's hands” (Scannell). At first, Diocletian had a tolerance for Christians but later on wanted to enhance the ancient pagan religion. By the influence of one of his caesars, …show more content…

He wanted to exterminate the fifty years of military anarchy and form a new system of the government.. Having pressure of being emperor, Diocletian had to develop a system that would keep the empire in control because it was too much for him to rule. This challenge was probably started by the praetorian prefect Aper, who murdered Emperor Numerianus and his successor in the first place. During most of his rule as emperor, he permitted the worship of Christianity because of his wife and daughter taking on the religion, but later his conscience was subdued by his caesar Galerius to start persecuting Christians and giving them one of the most troublesome era to live in. It can be said that this challenge was commenced by

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