Lactantius, Porphyry, and the Debate over Religious Toleration

Did the events surrounding Diocletian's persecution of 303–311 launch a debate over religious toleration? The first suggestion that they did occurs in Porphyry's Philosophy from Oracles, a defence of traditional religion and theology in three books. Writing before the persecution, the celebrated Neoplatonist philosopher from Tyre, a man whom several Christian emperors and church councils would soon condemn, asked the question that stood at the heart of the persecution:How can these people [i.e., Christians] be thought worthy of forbearance (συϒϒώμη) ? They have not only turned away from those who from earliest time are referred to as divine among all Greeks and barbarians … and by emperors, law-givers and philosophers—all of a common mind. But also, in choosing impieties and atheism, they have preferred their fellow creatures [i.e., to worshipping the divine]. And to what sort of penalties might they not justly be subjected who … are fugitives from the things of their fathers?