That was after some years of persecution in the two fifties. But that policy of toleration all changed in the year 303 when Diocletian began issuing a series of edicts specifically targeting the church. And those edicts ordered the destruction of church buildings, the confiscation of scriptures, and the imprisonment of clergy. And that's what's generally referred to as the great persecution. So those actions of Diocletians imply that the church was a significant feature of the religious landscape in the Roman world by the early fourth century. And it's generally accepted that Christian numbers had grown significantly during those decades of toleration in the later third century. But it's also generally accepted that Christianity was still only one religion among many in the empire and unlikely to have comprised more than about 10% of the population. That's still a lot of people though. Oh yeah, yeah, if you're talking about a population for the empire of between 50, 60 million people, then if it was up to 10%, then that's, you know, five, six million people, which is, you know, no small

number. This is an important detail because there are exaggerations about the size of the church in this period. I've read some scholars say that about half the empire was Christian by this time. That'd be 20 to 30 million. Actually, I think I repeated that claim in one of my early books. Sorry about that. But there's a pretty strong consensus in the last decade or so amongst Roman historians that only about 10% of the empire was Christian by the time of Constantine. This makes it very unlikely that Constantine turned to Christianity for political reasons as if he was trying to ride the wave of some new popular movement. The fact is his conversion put him at odds with 90% of the population. Still, as Alana points out, 10% isn't

nothing.