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

knowledge of Greek and Latin literature, he famously had to start his education from
the beginning. 143
CTh. 12.1.123 of 28 July 391 was issued before the repeal and was also
addressed to Tatianus. It dealt with obligations to the councils. 144 It is divided into six
sections, plus an introductory paragraph. The introductory paragraph recalled
Theodosius' previous legislation on the subject (CTh. 12.1.121 and 122) and indicated,
with reference to the former law, that clerics’ property was still liable to “public
assessment” if (section one) the cleric had left the council since Theodosius' consulship
of 388. The new law reinforced the earlier rulings and, in section three, closed a
potential loophole: if any decurion had given his property to another individual that
property still remained “obligated to the denarismus, or uncial tax, in that portion
which is held in the name of the author of such generosity.” 145 Evidence on the
denarismus or uncial tax is lacking, evidently it was a tax on property. However it is
likely that the name of the tax is just that and almost certainly has no relevance to the
now defunct denarius. Jones notes that papyrus records from Egypt used “denarius” as
a unit of accounting rather than to refer to actual pieces of coin, and similarly this tax
is not actually connected with the denarius as a coin, only as a unit of accounting, or in
this case, the name of a tax. 146 As instances of the use of denarius in this way come
mainly from Egypt, it seems reasonable to infer that this tax may have been the name
of a tax in Egypt and that therefore this law was directed to Egypt. Unfortunately, it
is unknown just how severe this tax was, but imposing a tax on the transferred
property was better than confiscation, which had been the requirement of CTh.
12.1.121, although that was confiscation of the defector’s own property, not what he
had transferred to someone else. So this part of the law closed a loophole and was
143 Brown (1992) 73; Ward (1975) 7-17
144 Again attributed by Honoré to his E10, possibly Aurelianus 3
145 denarism o v el unciis habeatur obnoxium in ea parte, in qua auctoris sui nom in e fuerat retentatum
146 See Jones (1964) 440-441
201