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

directed against Manichaeanism. Rather than being condemned as an error, Judaism
was described as a contagium which may have had connotations of evil. But this
rhetoric was not matched by a corresponding level of punishment; other than the
invalidation of wills there was only an imprecise injunction that they “be punished
also” (quoque…pun iatur). Christians converted to paganism received no punishments
beyond the invalidation of their wills and thus through a combination of rhetoric and
punishments the law indicated that Christian conversion to Manichaeism was the
worst of the three possibilities, followed by conversion to Judaism and then finally
conversion to paganism.
Conclusion
Unlike under Valens or Constantius, under Gratian no single figure emerges
from the legislative record who appears to have had a commanding role in the running
of the state. Hesperius, the son of Ausonius, only received three laws from the
emperor, but none of these appear to have any unitary appearance to them other than
that two of them were directed against heretics. Similarly, there is no evidence that
Ambrose had a dominant position over the young emperor although Damasus does
emerge as a figure of some importance. The long letter to Aquilinus responding to
Damasus’ petition shows in vivid terms the role and importance that the bishops (at
least in Rome) had come to play in the business of ruling the empire over and above
that of the secular and traditional elite. However, that did not mean that Gratian was
a subservient tool in the hands of Damasus; the emperor was able to ignore (i.e. reject)
Damasus’ request that he be granted the supremacy and honour of being tried only by
the emperor. His request to have jurisdiction over other bishops in the empire was
granted, but qualified by the emperor so that such jurisdiction would have to include
the agreement of a council of bishops.
303 Sed ne v el m ortuos perpetua v exat crim inationis iniuria
172