According to D. S. Potter, Decius did not try to impose the superiority of the Roman pantheon over any other gods. It is very probable that the edict was an attempt to legitimize his position and to respond to a general unease provoked by the passing of the Roman millennium. While Decius himself may have intended the edict as a way to reaffirm his conservative vision of the Pax Romana and to reassure Rome's citizens that the empire was still secure, it nevertheless sparked a "terrible crisis of authority as various Christian bishops and their flocks reacted to it in different ways." Measures were first taken demanding that the bishops and officers of the church make a sacrifice for the emperor. The sacrifice was "on behalf of" (Latin "pro") the emperor, not "to" the emperor, since a living emperor was not considered divine. Certificates were issued to those who satisfied the commissioners during the persecution of Christians under Decius. Forty-six such certificates have been published, all dating from 250, four of them from Oxyrhynchus. Anyone, including Christian followers, who refused to offer a sacrifice for the emperor and the Empire's well-being by a specified date risked torture and execution. A number of prominent Christians did, in fact, refuse to make a sacrifice and were killed in the process, including Pope Fabian himself in 250, and "anti-Christian feelingled to killings at Carthage and Alexandria." In reality, however, towards the end of the second year of Decius' reign, "the ferocity of the [anti-Christian persecution had eased off, and the earlier tradition of tolerance had begun to reassert itself." Despite no indication in the surviving texts that the edict targeted any particular group, Christians bore the brunt of the persecution and never forgot the reign of Decius; whom they remembered as "that fierce tyrant".