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

Heretics appear to have been the groups most discriminated against, (CTh.
16.5.4) but the authorities were apparently only concerned with their assembly places
whereas the Donatists were more roundly condemned for their doctrines, but with
little substantive action taken against them. The Church, on the whole, benefited
from Gratian. Clerics emerged wealthier (CTh. 16.2.24 and 13.1.11), although their
rights in court appear to have been limited (CTh. 16.2.23). The Christian faith and
sacraments were protected and enhanced (CTh. 15.7.4, 8 and 9), though that process of
enhancement for the Church went in conjunction with a corresponding enhancement
for the Imperial office as evidenced in CTh. 15.7.8 in which it was assumed that the
emperor had the power to judge who should receive the sacrament. That
‘sacralisation’ was continued in the language of the Easter amnesty of that year which
had little to do with Easter, but much to do with the emperor.
Perhaps the most interesting law is the relatively short one on the liabilities for
Jewish clerics to serve on councils (CTh. 12.1.99). Although it placed them on an
equal status with Christian clerics, it did so in such a manner as to strongly imply that
that which made good Christian clerics would also be that which also made good
Jewish clerics. Christian values were being applied to other faiths and that indicates
the extent of Christianisation by this period and consequent with that is shown (in the
case of this law) a partial disregard for whatever existing means of clerical selection that
the Jews may already have had.
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