Diocletian

Today we went over power points on Diocletian. Here are some of my notes:

• At first he didn't have a problem with them, but then he did.
• He sentenced the people of the Christian church to be burnt and killed.
• Ordered the Christians to not worship anymore in any assemblies.
• To be stripped of all of their main jobs in government.
• He didn't want them to be Christians and to terminate them.
• He is burning their scriptures and wiping out their places of worship.
• Ordered the arrest as well as the imprisonment of all bishops and priests.
• The jail was so crowded they let the  bad people go to make room for the bishops.
• Clergyman wanted to be freed, he would have to make a sacrifice to the Roman gods.
• This ordered all men and women and children to come to the public space and make a collective sacrifice together and if they refused, they would be executes.
• Bishops didn't do anything that would put a negative influence on the followers.
• the night before a battle, Constantine had a dream of God coming to him and telling him he needed to put the sign of the cross on his armies shields. 
• Constantine built up the Roman army and in order to pay for it he introduced a new gold currency. He shared the power with other emperors which were his sons, and began building a new capital. 
• Edicts are law and they come from the emperor so they need to be obeyed. 
• He ordered that the newly build church they paid for with their own money be leveled.
• He demanded that the readings were all destroyed.
• Prohibited Christians from worshiping even in the public.
• They went on the down low and went to other people's houses and began and continued to worship.
• They kept a lower profile and they had hero's.
• They didn't have open traditional services, but did their own thing.
• A fire destroyed part of the imperial palace.
• They blamed the fire on the Christian people but no responsible party was found for the destruction.
• One man was stripped, hoisted off the ground, and was lashed by whips with tacks and other sharp things on it, salt and vinegar were poured in his wounds, and was burnt over an open fire.
• This was the empires way of saying see what will happen if you cont. to practice Christianity. 
• six officials including the bishop were decapitated. 
• The government showed if they wanted to worship they would all be killed in terrible ways.