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Handout #57 |
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From Religious liberty to state religion |
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imperial decisions were collected at several stages in Codes. The most
important are the Theodosian Code (which takes its name from the emperor
Theodosius II, in 438 A.D., and the Justinian Code (from the name of the
Emperor Justinian, in 529 A.D.). The names of the authors of the laws have
been kept. From 392 A.D. onwards the term religion was synonymous with
Christianity.
The Emperor Constantine in 319 A.D. Theodosian Code IX 16,2 We prohibit soothsayers and priests and those persons who are accustomed to minister to such ceremonies to approach a private home or to cross the threshold of another person under the pretext of friendship. We have provided punishment against them if they should disregard this statute. But you who think that this art is advantageous to you, go to the public altars and shrines and celebrate the rites of your custom; for we do not prohibit the ceremonies of a bygone perversion to be conducted openly. The Emperor Constantius in 356 A.D. Theodosian Code XVI, 10, 6 If any persons should be proved to devote their attention to sacrifice or to worship images, We command that they shall be subjected to capital punishment. The Emperor Theodosius, Edict of Thessalonica in 380 A.D. Theodosian Code XVI, 1, 2 It is Our will that all the peoples who are ruled by the administration of Our Clemency shall practice that religion which the divine Peter, the Apostle, transmitted to the Romans, as the religion which he introduced makes clear even unto this day. It is evident that this is the religion that is followed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria ... We command that those persons who follow this rule shall embrace the name of Catholic Christians. The rest, however, who we adjudge demented and insane, shall sustain the infamy of heretical dogmas, their meeting places shall not receive the name of churches, and they shall be smitten first by divine vengeance and secondly by the retribution of our own initiative, which we shall assume in accordance with the divine judgment. The Emperors Theodosius, Arcadius and Honorius in 392 A.D. But if any person should venerate, by placing incense before them, images made by the work of mortals ... or should bind a tree with fillets, or should erect an altar of turf that he has dug up ... this is a complete outrage against religion. Such person, as one guilty of the violation of religion, shall be punished by the forfeiture of that house or landholding in which it is proved that he served a pagan superstition. Translations from The Theodosian Code, ed. Clyde Pharr, Corpus of Roman Law 1, Princeton 1952. |
