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

withdraw.” 58 Previous laws on this subject had consistently been concerned with
supporting the councils against the interests of the church or the new clerics.
However this law, ostensibly at least, was concerned with guarding the personal
integrity of clerics: “indeed, it is not seemly for spirits bound by divine worship to be
occupied by desire for patrimonies.” 59 The result was of course the same; decurions
entering the clergy should not do so with their wealth intact and this may have been
the genuine intent of the law, but the sentiment as expressed indicates concern for
clerics, not councils. Equally however, this sentiment could have been a piece of
cynicism designed to negate any clerical reaction before it happened by appealing to
their own spiritual welfare (rather than the practical needs of councils). This palliative
approach might also explain why the law contained no direct orders to clerics to
surrender any, or a part, of their wealth; as well as the lack of punishments. Rather,
the law gives the impression of being a strong suggestion that they should surrender all
their wealth which was possibly as good as a direct order, but nevertheless and at least
in strict theory, it allowed them the initiative of doing the right thing.
Furthermore, this law indicates a desire by the government to involve itself
more intimately in ecclesiastical affairs. Emperors had convoked Church councils
before of course, but they had not attempted to intervene in the lives of individual
clerics to such an extent as to order that they should be poor nor to dictate of what
personal and moral quality they should be. 60 Such an intervention by Theodosius
indicates that he was well attuned to the nature of Christianity at this time which had
begun to emphasise poverty as a virtue in itself.
58
Curiales, qui ecclesiis m alunt serv ire quam curiis, si v olunt esse quod sim ulant, contem nant illa, quae
subtrahunt
59
Quippe anim os div ina observ ation e dev inctos non decet patrim oniorum desideriis occupari
60
Constantius’ CTh. 12.1.49 of 29 August 361 had ordered that the lives of clerics should be
“outstanding and pure in every virtue” but had not gone detailed the requirement of poverty which this
law does.
181