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

Conclusion
Modestus thus appears to have held a position comparable to that which Taurus
held under Constantius. But with his cordial links to Basil, apparently unaffected by
whatever religious differences the two may have had and beyond that which Gregory
Nazianzen records, and with his more substantial links to Libanius, he emerges as a
more powerful figure than Taurus and unlike him, Modestus appears to have used his
position at least not to the detriment of other religious groups. This may have been
easy for him as he appears to have had no strong religious inclinations himself; or
rather that whatever religious beliefs he may have had at any particular time, did not
impel him to either penalise members of other religious groups or to force them to
adopt his beliefs. The resulting picture in the Theodosian code is of a rather
benevolent individual, and hence emperor, who offered all clerics of the Church and
without sectarian divisions, greater privileges in terms of exemption from liturgies
than they had previously enjoyed. Legislation against paganism was similarly
beneficent and targeted only those practices which had previously been thought
suspicious and potentially subversive. The initial prohibition of some practices in
CTh 9.16.7 was quickly overturned by the intervention of Praetextatus. It appears
that this intransigent approach may well have been due to the combined influences of a
prefect without strong religious inclinations, but with a desire to moderate the
behaviour of his emperor, coupled with an emperor who, in the opinion of
Ammianus, was only willing to appear to be bound by the rule of law, rather than in
practice.
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