Editor says, what if a Greater Persecution had led to the destruction of the early Church? Please note that the term "traditor" refers to those Christians who were willing to comply with imperial authority. Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the March 2011 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.

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Editor says, in reality Galerius was restrained by Diocletian and did not assume power for another six years (Galerius himself would be forced to issue a Protocol of Toleration in 311).

Eric Oppen commented on 2012-02-13 01:36:31 ~ The Muslim invasions were three centuries later...and,without Christianity, would Islam-as-we-know-it arise at all? Fixed - thanks. Ed

Eric Lipps commented on 2012-02-13 11:53:32 ~ Agreed. Muhammad himself wasn't born until the mid-sixth century A.D. Fixed - thanks. Ed

Jeff Provine commented on 2012-02-13 15:37:03 ~ Christianity was fairly popular in Arabia, outside of Roman control, so Islam could very well have come to be. Its shape and rise could and would most likely be very different.

Christopher Lee commented on 2012-02-13 23:46:06 ~ I think you may be underestimating Diolcetian somewhat here. He was a truly, truly formidable man and a hugely impressive emperor. His reforms and policies brought the empire back from the very brink and probably gave Rome another century at least. The third century crisis was very deep and very profound and he was the only one able to arrest the decline. Some of his actions such as taxation in kind, state run armouries and so on were quite blunt and not conducive to classical civilisation but they were realistic to the age he lived and operated in. He was a true giant, especially for someone who allegedly began as a slave. Galerius did not definitively defeat the Persians, he did what many Romans had done since the time of Trajan and earlier, he marched down into Mesopotamia and seized the Persian capital, at this time Ctesiphon. The Persian wealth was disrupted by this but the great bulk of the empire, the heartlands of the Iranian people, the Iranian plateau was never entered by Roman troops and campaigns into the lower Caucasus (Armenia and areas around it) by the Romans never resulted in great success. Galerius beat the Persians up but did not destroy them. It had been done before and I doubt it gave him the political capital to overthrow Diocletian. As for Christianity it seems to me that it had probably achieved too much of a grip by then to be simply squashed. The idea of Christians as extremists and rare is probably more realistically true of the Neronian persecution. By the later third century you are probably talking about a very widespread group with followers in all sectors of society. Look on a couple of generations to the time of Constantius and Julian the Apostate and Christianity has a firm grip. I doubt that the possibility was there to really destroy Christianity by this stage. His refutation of persecution in 311 was surely just a recognition that this particular 'battle' could not be won. Also consider where the Christians were strong, seemingly in the cities. The word pagan of course derives from the Latin paganus, country dweller. I doubt the non-Christian elites that remained were powerful enough to impose some sort of truly effective persecution at this time. Neo-Platonism was trying to revive classical paganism by some sort of pantheistic version of paganism, but without any really great success. It's scion Julian, would be opposed and eventually killed for attempting this just a few years later, struck down seemingly by one of his Christian soldiers. Don't forget as well the muddying of the waters religiously in terms of the large number of other non-traditional sects around at the time: Mithraists and so on. These further diluted the religious system at this time and made it harder for any emperor to re-impose paganism per se. Not to mention the creeping deification of the emperors which conflated them with the gods and in such a religious firment probably did nothing to reinforce the credibility of pagan practices. Diocletian if I remember correctly conflated himself with Jupiter and so on. Earlier emperors such as Heliogabalus and Aurelian had declared themselves gods or godlike in the Hellinistic manner (they were accused of Persian decadence but Sassanian Zoroastrianism did not allow for the Shahanshah to be a god, he was merely favoured of Ahura-Mazda).