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

(then) lack of both legislative records and of a religious history; a deficiency which the
Theodosian Code would partially mitigate.
The law then concluded by noting that Donatists were continuing to meet in
the countryside after they had been expelled from the churches and it ordered that the
estates upon which they were gathering should be “included in the fiscal confiscations
if they should provide secret places for the sinful doctrine.” 262 It then ordered that
Donatists were not to impart their doctrine to others: “they shall cherish the poison of
their impious doctrine to their own hurt, in domestic secrecy and alone.” 263
This law is not strong in terms of derogatory language. It refers to the Donatist
practice as an error and the effect of imposing that error was to cause m alis to the
recipient. But in contrast to this and more importantly, the law made much of the
apparent offence that the Donatists were committing against the Apostles.
Gratian addressed a letter to Aquilinus vicar of Rome in 378/9 (otherwise
unknown) entitled de rebaptizatoribus but which was a general attack on various
heresies and schisms and not just an attack on the Donatists. 264 It was a reply to a
petition from Damasus asking that the Bishop of Rome, should have the authority to
exercise jurisdiction over recalcitrant bishops throughout the empire and that the
Praetorian Prefect of Italy or the Vicar of Italy should be obliged to force any bishop
who refused to recognise such authority to attend a hearing in Rome before the Bishop
of Rome. An offence committed by a bishop outside Italy would be dealt with by the
local metropolitan unless that metropolitan was the offender, in which case he would
be brought to Rome to appear before the Bishop of Rome. This was presented as a
‘labour-saving’ procedure for the emperor; he would no longer have to deal with
262
fundorum inlicite frequentantes; quos fiscalis publicatio conprehendet, si piaculari doctrinae secreta
praebuerint
263
quod si errorem suum diligunt, suis m alis dom esticoque secreto, soli tam en, fov eant v irus im piae
disciplinae
264
Aquilinus 2 PLRE 1.91; CSEL 35.13 = Coll. Av ell 13
160