Beyond Intolerance

313 ad is generally considered a “turning point” in religious and political Western history. The meeting of Constantine and Licinius in Milan and the subsequent “edict” not only gave Christians the right to assemble and practice their faith, but opened the way to the Christianisation of Roman imperial structures and, finally, to the declaration of Christianity as the only religion allowed in the Roman Empire.

The papers collected in this volume tackle this complex historical phase from a number of perspectives (from Church history and theology to political and juridical history), following a strongly multidisciplinary approach. The chronological schope, stretching from the decades preceding the meeting of 313 to the reign of Julian the Apostate, sheds light on the cultural, political and juridical premises of Constantine and Licinius’s decisions as well as the way those premises affected a number of aspects of everyday life within the Empire up to Julian's pagan “restoration” and afterward.