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

openly.” 36 “Bygone perversion” is Pharr’s quite harsh translation of praeteria usurpatio;
arbitrary, assumed or past usage may be better. 37 This law again indicates the official
and ancient abhorrence of private (and dubious) religious ceremonies, but again allows
the continuance of traditional and acceptable forms of worship.
CTh 9.16.1 of 1 September 320 38 was addressed to Valerius Maximus, Prefect of
the City, 39 and began with a prohibition against soothsayers entering the homes of
others for any reason whatsoever, regardless of any longstanding relationships that
may have existed between householder and soothsayer and this prohibition was to
include any visit, including non-divinatory ones. The law then went on to order that
anyone inviting a soothsayer into their home was to have their property confiscated
and would be exiled to an island. The soothsayer was to be burnt alive. Then
however, in the third part of the law Constantine went on to say that “persons who
wish to serve their own superstition will be able to perform their own ceremonies
publicly.” 40 The law ends with a sentence that reads almost as an afterthought to the
main body of the law and indicated that anyone who reported a violation of this
injunction would be worthy of a reward, and should not be treated as an informer
with all the contempt usually reserved for informers. This law was evidently an
injunction against even the possibility of private divination involving soothsayers and,
of course, there had long been an abhorrence of private and secretive ceremonies. But
at the same time, and quite unnecessarily, this law allowed the continuation of some
pagan practices and reaffirmed the long established acceptance of religious rites that
were performed in public and the equal rejection of rites that were performed in
private. At best, the overall intention of the law may have been that by giving pagan
35
Haruspices et sacerdotes et eos, qui huic ritui adsolent m inistrare ad priv atan dom um prohibem us accedere
36
adite aras publicas adque delubra et consuetudinis v estrae celebrate sollem nia: nec enim prohibem us
praeteritae usurpationis officia libera luce tractari
37
Corcoran (2000) 194 prefers “past usage”
38
Corcoran (2000) 15, 72 n199, 173 n12, 193 n99, 194 n100, 251 n104, 311
39
Valerius Maximus signo Basilius 48 PLRE I. 590; Barnes (1994) VII 10 lists him as a pagan, as do the
editors of the PLRE and Salzman (2002) 249
40
superstition i enim suae serv ire cupientes poterunt publice ritum proprium exercere
15