Religious Intolerance in the Later Roman Empire - Bad request ...

commissioners in an equally short and edited form. Fortunately, removing
superfluous material was as far as the editorial powers of the commissioners
extended, they had no power to amend earlier laws in the light of later, revised
legislation, but were to include such laws in order that the Code could be a
compilation for scholars and lawyers; in many ways, it was an anthology of laws,
rather than a supremely authoritative legal textbook. 9
Also, the laws themselves would almost certainly have been the products of
varying degrees of consideration and concern by the emperors and their officials
which would have varied from only a few hours of debate in the consistory (or at
some other level in the decision making process) to, conceivably, several days. Or
alternatively, it can be more simply said that some laws were more important than
others and were the results of more work by officials. Just because laws were later
placed together in a compendium and, thereby, appear to share an equal presence
and importance, does not necessarily mean that they were regarded as such at the
time. In most cases, it is not possible to even speculate as to how much
consideration may have preceded the issuing of a law. This is disadvantageous
when considering intolerance; the degree of consideration, and the importance
attached to it by contemporaries (like the degree of comprehensiveness mentioned
above) would indicate the extent of a perceived problem which the law sought to
address and hence give some indication of the degree of intolerance (or tolerance)
with which officials viewed such a problem. Furthermore, there is no indication in
the laws at to how controversial a measure may have been; the debate that
undoubtedly surrounded each law is not recorded. However, despite these
deficiencies of omission and loss, the Theodosian Code has advantages as a source,
advantages which arguably make it more useful than other written sources,
especially when considering Imperial attitudes. It may reasonably be said that the
(albeit edited) laws are indeed the official Imperial decisions on perceived problems,
or religious groups, or on whatever the subject of the law may have been, and as
such, they are a more accurate guide for determining official attitudes of intolerance
9 Against which see Turpin (1987) who argues that the Theodosian Code, as well as the Codes of
Gregorian, Hermogenian and Justinian were intended for practical court-room purposes.
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