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

dates of the three emperors were “also to be held in equal reverence.” 103 This is the
first time that Easter has been given as a reason for a holiday in the code.
The law reads in a functional manner with minimal rhetoric and no reference
to religion other than listing Easter as a holiday. This may be due to the fact that the
addressee, Albinus, was a pagan, along with Flavianus and therefore Theodosius may
have been unwilling to blatantly demonstrate his own Christianity and thereby risk
the possibility of offending Albinus, or Flavianus. Theodosius rejected the
phraseology contained in an earlier law regulating court days, issued by Valentinian
II’s government which referred to “the day of the sun, which our ancestors rightly
called the Lord’s Day;” a clear reference to Christianity. 104 Equally however the law
did not elevate any pagan festivals to the same status as Easter; thus in this law
Christianity has a symbolically higher status than that of other cults and religions.
Such reasons for the lack of references to religion in this law would appear to
chime with Theodosius’ manner of dealing with the western provinces after his defeat
of Maximus. He has been acknowledged to have behaved in a conciliatory manner
towards the Senate and others who had until recently been supporting Maximus;
Symmachus had publicly delivered a panegyric to Maximus, took refuge in a church
after his defeat, but after a successful intervention by the (Novatian) bishop of the
church and after delivering a speech of apology and a panegyric before Theodosius he
was forgiven and became consul in 391. 105 Equally the impetus for the law may have
come from Albinus himself. Albinus was one of a number of officials appointed to the
western provinces after the suppression of Maximus and he was appointed Prefect of
Rome when Theodosius made his adv en tus to Rome in the summer of 389. During his
prefecture, Albinus commissioned statues of the emperors in order to demonstrate his
103 Parem necesse est habere rev erentiam
104 CTh. 2.8.18 of 3 November 386: solis die, quem dom inicum rite dixere m aiores; see above.
105 Symm. Ep. 2.13; Lib. Ep. 1004; Soc 5.14
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