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

monasticism. In its introductory paragraph it referred to Manicheans fleeing “the
company of the good under the false pretence of the solitary life” and choosing “the
secret gatherings of persons of the lowest classes.” Anyone who did so would be
regarded as “a profaner and corrupter of the Catholic discipline, which we all revere.”
Such persons would not, as consistent with earlier legislation, be able to give anything
to other Manicheans during his life or at his death; not to “such unworthy persons, but
he shall restore all his possessions to those persons who are akin to him, not by
character, but by nature.” In the absence of “statutory successors” or of next of kin his
property would be sequestrated to the treasury. This section of the law concluded
with a dismissive, “so much for the hermits.” 188
The next paragraph left the Manicheans proper and directed attention to other
heretics, some of which were on the fringes of Manichaeism. The Encratites were a
“monstrous appellation, together with the Saccophori and the Hydroparastatae” and
once convicted in court “betrayed by crime, or discovered in a slight trace of this
wickedness” then they were to be punished with the “supreme penalty and with
inexpiable punishment.” This presumably meant torture followed by death. The law
also reinforced the provisions “with respect to their goods” of an earlier law which
presumably refers to CTh. 16.5.7 of ten months earlier, i.e. these named were not able
to give away their property in life or, presumably, upon their rapidly approaching
deaths. 189
In the final paragraph the law detailed what actions Florus was now to take.
He was ordered to “appoint investigators” in order, presumably, to identify Manichean
188 quisquis m anichaeorum v itae solitariae falsitate coetum bonorum fugit ac secretas turbas eligit pessim orum ,
ita ut profanator atque corruptor catholicae, quam cuncti suspicim us, disciplinae legi subiugetur, ut
intestabilis v iv at, nihil v iv us im pendat illicitis, nihil m oriens relinquat indignis, om nia suis non m oribus, sed
natura restituat aut proxim is, si deerit legitim a successio, m elius regenda dim ittat, fisci dom inio deficiente
agnatione sine fraude m olitionis intellegat obligata. haec de solitariis
189 Ceterum quos encratitas prodigiali appellatione cognom in ant, cum saccoforis siv e hydroparastatis refutatos
iudicio, proditos crim ine, v el in m ediocri v estigio facinoris huius inv entos sum m o supplicio et inexpiabili
poena iubem us adfligi, m anente ea condicione de bonis, quam om ni huic officinae im posuim us, a latae dudum
legis exordio
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