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

“smitten first by divine vengeance and secondly by the retribution of our own
initiative, which we shall assume in accordance with the divine judgment.” 15
This law therefore appears to show a marked change in the government’s
attitude to the personal religious beliefs of its peoples; hitherto laws on religion were
invariably of the format ‘thou shalt not,’ now however there was, apparently, an
undeniable element of ‘thou shalt.’ However, exactly what the law prescribed may
plausibly have been open to doubt. Its brevity may have made it more dramatic, but
that did not necessarily enhance its clarity. The law has been taken to indicate that the
official faith of the emperor and of the empire was now, or should be, Catholic. 16
It has been noted by modern historians that CTh. 16.1.2 did not produce the
results that might have been expected from such a dramatic law; i.e. heretics continued
being heretics, as did pagans and Jews. King believes that once the noise of the
“trumpet blast” of the law was over “nobody paid any attention” to it. Rather, it was
simply a token of Theodosius’ intent that had to be tempered as Theodosius
“conformed to the ways of thought” of the east. King also believes that Theodosius'
proclamation as emperor would have had an enormous impact on his mind and
attitude to the job. 17 Ehrhardt has a complex and unconvincing argument suggesting
that Theodosius was attempting to harness eastern dislike of the (Arian) Goths
through CTh. 16.1.2. Ehrhardt believes that Theodosius, unable to keep the Goths
15 reliquos v ero dem entes v esanosque iudicantes haeretici dogm atis infam iam sustin ere nec con ciliabula eorum
ecclesiarum nom en accipere, div ina prim um v indicta, post etiam m otus nostri, quem ex caelesti arbitrio
sum pserim us, ultione plectendos
16 The law is often regarded as Theodosius' “election manifesto” commitment on religion, King (1961)
29: similarly Hanson (1988) 703: “Theodosius, on acceding to the imperial throne of the East, has soon
declared himself unequivocally in favour of the pro-Nicene cause.” Hanson 804, also exaggerates the
importance of 16.1.2 by stating that it made the “pro-Nicene doctrine of the Trinity…the official
doctrine of the Roman Empire.” Williams and Friell (1994) 53 attribute it to his zealous Catholicism;
Matthews (1996) 122 says Theodosius “imposed upon all peoples under his rule an allegiance of strict
western orthodoxy.” Others, notably King (1961) seem to believe that 16.1.2 was the sort of legislation
that one should expect from a good Catholic emperor.
17 King (1961) 29-30; such “brash western ways” would have “made hopeless” his “task of bringing peace
to the church.” all quotes at 29
166