Constantine and the Edicts of Toleration

The Great Man Theory of history is discredited but sill influences popular History, and with no one is that more apparent then Constantine.  Both people who like Constantine and people who hate him love to paint him as a singular nexus point for why the centuries following him seem so different from the centuries preceding him.

The AD 313 Edict of Toleration wasn't made by Constantine alone, it was co-authored with Licinius, Constantine didn't rule the East, where most of the persecution was happening, till a decade later.  Licinius would be accused of backing off on this toleration later but most historians now view that as propaganda, he actually possibly became a Christian himself at some point, that's Absolutely the impression Lactantius gives in his account.  Also there is no Evidence of Licinius being worshiped as Pharoah in Egypt even though he controlled Egypt for over a decade directly succeeding Maximinus Daza from Egypt's Perspective.

But more then that the actually more important Edict of Toleration was the one issued by Galerius on April 30th AD 311.  Galerius was one of the chef architects of The Great Persecution to begin with so it making him synymous with how it ends is pretty awkward.  But this edict was made over a year and a half before the Battle of Milvian Bridge.

After Galerius died Maximinus Daza revived Persecution in the East, but he didn't rule all the East, it was shared with Licinius, exactly who controlled the Province of Asia is hard to determine with sources I can easily find online.  And claims that Maxentius persecuted Christians are even more provably false then Licinius, Lactantius in Of the Manner in which The Persecutors Died in chapter 43 refers to Maximinus Daia (what he calls Daza for some reason) as the only adversary left even though Maxentius was still in power in Rome at the time referred to.

Galerius seems to have genuinely believed in the Christian God in some capacity when he made his Edict.

"Wherefore it will be the duty of the Christians, in consequence of this our toleration, to pray to their God for our welfare, and for that of the public, and for their own; that the commonweal may continue safe in every quarter, and that they themselves may live securely in their habitations."

There is evidence some regions were on the way to booming majority Christian already before the Diocletian Persecution started.  And Paganism still thrived in certain regions into the fifth century.  One ruler's fixation alone would never be enough to entirely change a nation's religious destiny.  Akhenaton tried to completely change Egypt's religion and it failed utterly with everything he built falling apart as soon as he died, same with Aurelian's Sol Invictus protect in the 3rd Century.