A.D. 381 heretics, pagans, and the dawn of the monotheistic state ( PDFDrive )

officials. The praetorian prefect of the east, a fellow Spaniard, Maternus
Cynergius, was particularly ruthless, and appears to have destroyed Edessa and
its treasures. His vandalism unleashed the aggression of others, notably bands of
fanatical monks who delighted in the destruction of shrines.
To this day the word ‘pagan’ has the negative connotations that its early use
by Christians gave it - the word originally described an untutored country
dweller - but it is important to remember that these places of worship had been
the focus of community life and ritual for centuries. To their guardians,
Christians appeared as sacrilegious barbarians - ‘men by all appearances, though
they lived like pigs’, as one shocked observer put it. 3 In 386 the orator Libanius
bravely warned Theodosius of the devastating effect that tearing down ancient
temples in the countryside would have on peasant life. He detailed how ‘the
black-robed tribe [the monks] ... hasten to attack the temples with sticks and
stones and bars of iron ... utter desolation follows, with the stripping of roofs,
demolition of walls, the tearing down of statues and the overthrow of altars... the
priests [i.e. of the sanctuary concerned] must either keep quiet or die’. This is
one of the last pleas for religious toleration to be recorded in the ancient world.
The archaeological evidence for this destruction, in both the eastern and western
empire, is pervasive. 4
Although Libanius’ oration was addressed to the emperor, there is, in fact, no
record that it ever reached him. But Theodosius was clearly concerned about the
unsettling effect these rampaging Christians, whether officials or monks, were
having on public order. In 386, he replied to a request from Egypt that it was
better that the overseer of the temples of the province should be a non-Christian,
since it would be wrong to entrust the buildings to those whose beliefs would not
allow them to care for them. The emperor was acting to preserve temples just as
his officials were destroying them. After the death of Cynegius in 388,
Theodosius was able to confirm his distaste for this destruction by replacing him
with a pagan aristocrat, Tatianus; his son, Proculus, also a pagan, was appointed
the prefect of Constantinople. It seems that it was the lack of public order that
concerned Theodosius rather than the upholding of his own orthodoxy. A law
issued to Tatianus in June 388, and thus applicable to the whole of the eastern
empire, forbids religious debate of any kind. ‘Let no opportunity be offered to
anyone to enter a public place either to debate about religion or to hold
discussions or to bring about any kind of deliberations.’ Another ruling issued by
Theodosius in September 390 ordered monks to stay in deserts or ‘great empty