Editing Maximinus Daza (section)

==Persecution of Christians==
[[File:Ubekendt, Skægget, yngre mand, tetrarch, KAS2252, Statens Museum for Kunst.jpg|thumb|Re-cut colossal tetrarchic portrait from [[Anatolia|Asia Minor]], potentially depicting Maximinus.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://laststatues.classics.ox.ac.uk/database/discussion.php?id=754 |website=Last Statues |publisher=Oxford University |id=LSA-382 |first=J. |last=Lenaghan |department=Discussion |title=Re-cut colossal portrait head of Tetrach. Probably from Asia Minor. Late third to early fourth century.}}</ref>|left]]
Maximinus has a controversial name in [[Christianity|Christian]] annals for renewing their persecution after the publication of the [[Edict of Serdica|Edict of Toleration by Galerius]],{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} acting in response to the demands of various urban authorities asking to expel Christians. In one [[rescript]] replying to a petition made by the inhabitants of [[Tyre, Lebanon|Tyre]], transcribed by [[Eusebius of Caesarea]],<ref>[[Church History (Eusebius)|Ecclesiastical History]], IX, 8-9; Eng. trans. available at [http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250109.htm]. Accessed 2 August 2012</ref> Maximinus expounds a pagan orthodoxy, explaining that it is through "the kindly care of the gods" that one could hope for good crops, health, and the peaceful sea, and that not being the case, one should blame "the destructive error of the empty vanity of those impious men [that] weighed down the whole world with shame". In one extant inscription ([[Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum|CIL]] III.12132, from [[Arycanda]]) from the cities of [[Lycia]] and [[Pamphylia]] asking for the interdiction of the Christians, Maximinus replied, in another inscription, by expressing his hope that "may those [...] who, after being freed from [...] those by-ways [...] rejoice [as] snatched from a grave illness".<ref>{{cite book |first=John Granger |last=Cook |title=The Interpretation of the New Testament in Greco-Roman Paganism |location=Tübingen |publisher=Mohr Siebeck |year=2000 |isbn=3-16-147195-4 |page=304 (footnote 175)}}</ref>

After the victory of Constantine over Maxentius, however, Maximinus wrote to the Praetorian Prefect Sabinus that it was better to "recall our provincials to the worship of the gods rather by exhortations and flatteries".<ref>''[[Church History (Eusebius)|Ecclesiastical History]]'', IX, 1-10</ref> Eventually, on the eve of his clash with Licinius, he accepted Galerius' edict; after being defeated by Licinius, shortly before his death at Tarsus, he issued an edict of tolerance on his own, granting Christians the rights of assembling, of building churches, and the restoration of their confiscated properties.<ref>''[[Church History (Eusebius)|Ecclesiastical History]]'', X, 7-11</ref>
[[File:Daza01 pushkin.jpg|thumb|Plaster cast in the [[Pushkin Museum]] of a [[Porphyry (geology)|porphyry]] bust of a tetrarch from [[Athribis]], now in the [[Cairo Museum]]. The bust is labelled as Maximinus, but this cannot be confirmed.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bergmann |first=Marianne |date=2012 |title=Life-size porphyry bust of Tetrarch. From Athribis (Augustamnica). 284-305. |url=http://laststatues.classics.ox.ac.uk/database/discussion.php?id=1208 |access-date= |website=Last Statues of Antiquity |id=LSA-836}}</ref> It probably depicts [[Galerius]] instead.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Weitzmann |first=Kurt |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=efLuB7QPDm8C&pg=PA12 |title=Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Ar |date=1977 |publisher=[[Metropolitan Museum of Art]] |pages=12–13|isbn=9780870991790 }}</ref>|219x219px]]