Book 16, the final book of the Theodosian Code, treats religion. The tenor and contents of this book give us a sense of how the imperial court refashioned its own religious authority in the centuries following the legalization of Christianity. Although bishops might attempt to subordinate the imperial house to episcopal authority, the emperors still maintained their role as guardians of religious equilibrium. So emperors convoked Christian councils and legislated on religion.
Such legislation might be broad and sweeping, such as the famous 16.1.2, making “Catholic” Christianity the official Christianity (although not quite the official religion) of the empire. This law was later deemed to be so significant that it was promoted to the head of the massive law code commissioned by the sixth-century Emperor Justinian. The concern not only to recognize and proscribe, but to catalog and delimit, Christian heresies with a proliferation of labels has been adopted for legal purposes from the writings of heresiologists. But the laws do not merely codify religious biases. We see emperors attempting to define a non-Christian. At times, emperors legislate against non-Christian religious practices (animal sacrifice, public Jewish festivals) in the name of Christian loyalty, but they are also careful to protect non-Christian persons against religious violence (see 16.10.24). Imperial legislation on religion—Christian and non-Christian—thus provides an ambivalent window into the overlap and conjunction of law and faith.
Note: The year each law was issued is noted in parentheses at the end of that law’s text.
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Author: The Theodosian Code
Keywords: Church and state, state church, Theodosian Code, Code of Theodosius, Code of Justinian, Justinian code, Catholic, Roman Catholic, Catholic faith, Catholic church, heresy, heresies, persecution of heresy, persecution of heretics, church of Rome, heretic, heretics, heretical, heretical teaching, contentious, mark of the beast, ban, banishment, treason, Manichaeism, Manichaeans, Manichaean, Manichaean heresy, Manichean, Manichean heresy, Manichaeanism, dualism, Manichaeus, Manes
Bible reference(s): Rom 2:8, 1Ti 6:5, 2Pe 2:1, Titus 1:10-11, Rev 13:10, Rev 13:14-15, Rev 13:18
Source: Clyde Pharr, trans., “The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions” (Union, NJ: The Lawbook Exchange, 2001), pp. 450-63.
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