“However, we have not been able entirely to shut our eyes to the fact that certain of the magistrates misunderstood our instructions, with the result that our subjects distrusted our words and were nervous about resuming the religion of their choice. That is why, in order to do away with all disquietude and equivocation for the future, we have resolved to publish this edict, by which all are to understand that those who wish to follow this sect have full liberty to do so, and that, by the indulgence of our Majesty, each man may practise the religion he prefers or that to which he is accustomed. “It is also permitted to them to rebuild the houses of the LORD. Moreover, so that there may be no mistake about the scope of our indulgence, we have been pleased to order that all houses and places, formerly belonging to the Christians, which have either been confiscated by the order of our divine parents, or occupied by any municipality, or sold or given away, shall return to their original ownership, so that all men may recognise our piety and our solicitude.” ----- Footnote 71: _Hist. Eccles._, ix., 10. ----- The bigot must have been brought very low and reduced to the last depths of despair before he set his seal to such a document as this. One can see that it was drawn up by Maximin with a copy of the Edict of Milan before him, and that he hoped, by this tardy and clumsy recognition of the principle of absolute liberty of conscience for all men, to make the Christians forget his brutalities. Doubtless, the Christians of Cilicia and Syria looked to Constantine in far off Gaul as a model prince and emperor, and heard with joy of the steady advance of Constantine’s ally, Licinius. The latter would come in their eyes in the guise of a liberator, and prayers for his success would be offered up in every Christian church of the persecuted East. Maximin sought to repurchase their loyalty: it was too late. His absurd pretext that his orders had been misunderstood by his provincial governors would deceive no one. He had been the shrewdest enemy with whom the Church had had to cope; his edict of recantation was read with chilly suspicion or cold contempt, which was changed into hymns of rejoicing when the Christians heard that the tyrant had poisoned himself and died in agony, while his conqueror, Licinius, had drowned the fallen Empress in the Orontes and put to death her children, a boy of eight and a girl of seven. Those who had suffered persecution for ten years may be pardoned their exultation that there was no one left alive to perpetuate the names of their persecutors.[72] ----- Footnote 72: _Hoc modo deus universos persecutores nominis sui debellavit, ut eorum nec stirps nec radix ulla remaneret._—_De Mort. Persec._, c. 49. -----