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

pointer, a totemic issue upon which the Catholics could vent their opposition to the
Donatists. In all other doctrinal respects the Donatist Church was identical to that of
the Catholic, and by this stage in its development it would have been indistinguishable
from the Catholic Church to an outsider. As such, the only discernible distinction
would have been that it was, in effect, the Catholic Church, but beyond the control of
the official Catholic Church and therefore and in practice independent from the
official religion. As such, the intolerance towards the Donatists evidenced in this law
may have been more pertinent to their independence from the Catholics than to their
beliefs. But this is only speculation.
Gratian and Judaism
CTh. 12.1.99 of 18 April 383 was issued to Hypatius, Praetorian Prefect of Italy
and Illyricia; it was the only law of Gratian on the Jews. 294 It dealt with the liability of
Jewish clerics to serve on councils. Although it began with rhetoric not
complementary to the Jews, in essence it made both groups equal. It began by
referring to “the order with which men of the Jewish faith flatter themselves and by
which they are granted immunity from the compulsory public services of decurions
shall be rescinded.” 295 That order was probably Constantine's CTh. 16.8.2 of 330
which granted exemption from liturgies to “patriarchs and priests” of Judaism. The
law indicated that since not even Christians were able to enter the Church until they
had “discharged all the service due to their municipalities” 296 then neither should the
Jews. Therefore, and with language that indicated that the government regarded
Judaism as a perfectly legitimate, even comparable, religion to Christianity, the law
ordered “if any person therefore, is truly dedicated to God” he should transfer his
particular that they were not allowed to be on Imperial property. He does not indicate whether such
rebaptisms were frequent; indeed the fact that he mentions it at all may indicte that rebaptisms were not
common.
294 Flavius Hypatius 4 PLRE 1.448-449
295 iussio, qua sibi iudaeae legis hom ines blandiuntur, per quam eis curialium m unerum datur im m unitas,
rescindatur
296 patriae debita univ ersa persolv ant
168