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

and not to “heretics and schismatics.” 66 Constantine also ordered that such should also
be “bound and subjected to various compulsory public services.” 67
CTh. 16.5.2 of 25 of September 326 was addressed to Iunius Bassus, Prefect of
the City. 68 It concerned the Novatians, who had been one of the heretics addressed
and condemned in Constantine’s Letter to Heretics, but his attitude towards the
Novatians was more conciliatory in this law. The law stated that Constantine had
“not found that the Novatians were precondemned to such an extent that we should
suppose that those things which they sought ought not be granted to them.” 69
Therefore they were allowed to retain churches and property which they had had since
the schism (of 251), but anything which belonged to the Catholics since the schism and
had come into the possession of the Novatians should be returned to them.
Constantine ordered that they should “firmly possess without disquietude, their own
Church buildings and places suitable for burial,” 70 regardless of how such places were
acquired. These provisions are evidently a direct repeal of those contained in the Letter
to Heretics and are an effective statement of toleration.
Constantine and Judaism
When Constantinian legislation is concerned solely with Jews and not with
Jewish-Christian relations, it almost gives the impression that the state valued both
Christians and Jews equally. But Constantine's first law on Jews, CTh. 16.8.3 of 11
December 321 and issued to the decurions of Cologne 71 may be seen as an exception to
this impression and as evidence that there was a rise in intolerance under Constantine
towards the Jews. This law allowed councils to nominate Jews to their councils. But
Constantine allowed “two or three persons from each group the perpetual privilege” of
65 Corcoran (2000) 155 n 147; Dracilianus PLRE 1.271
66 haereticos…atque schism aticos
67 sed etiam div ersis m uneribus constringi et subici
68 Iunius Bassus 14, also the recipient of CTh 16.2.3
69 Nov atianos non adeo conperim us praedam natos, ut his quae petiv erunt crederem us m inim e largienda
70 ecclesiae suae dom os et loca ssepulcris apta sine inquietudine eos firm iter possidere praecipim us
71 Corcoran (2000) 104 n82, 166-7, 192 n93, 313
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