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

property. Like that previous law, this law was retrospective; it effectively nullified
wills made before it was issued. However, unlike the previous law, it did not seek to
justify itself on the basis of the outrageous behaviour of the targets; evidently, once the
disinclination to pass retrospective had been overcome for one group of heretics, it
became easier to do the same to another. This law also differed from the anti-
Manichean law by ordering that no one, heretical or otherwise, was allowed to receive
any property from a Eunomian eunuch, instead, it would be confiscated to the
treasury and this is severer than CTh. 16.5.7.2 which had allowed children of
Manicheans to inherit property of their next of kin if they were not Manicheans
themselves. The severity of the law may be further evidence that it was indeed
directed against actual eunuchs. As is already known eunuchs were widely reviled in
late antiquity and therefore a particularly harsh, and even unconstitutional law against
them, which did not seek to excuse itself, may have been though to be perfectly
acceptable and proper. 226
CTh. 16.5.18 of 17 June 389 was issued to Albinus, Prefect of the city of Rome
by Theodosius whilst he was in Rome. 227 It was directed against the Manicheans. Like
the previous law issued by Theodosius, it was relatively short and equally
comprehensive; it was also more rhetorical. It ordered that if “any person should
disturb the world under the name of Manicheans, they shall indeed be expelled from
the whole world, but especially from this city, under threat of judgment.” The
sentence ordering expulsion from the whole world would read as a reference to the
death penalty were it not for the reference to “this city [of Rome].” The law then
ordered that the Manicheans “shall not have the force of testaments” as the latter law
had stated and also that “the property itself shall be confiscated to the people, nor shall
it be lawful that any property be left through them or to them.” The last sentence of
226 For eunuchs see Kelly (2004) 166-167 and Hopkins (1963) 64-69 and 78-80
227 Ceionius Rufius Albinus 15 PLRE 1.37-38; also attributed by Honoré (1998) to his E9, Virius
Nicomachus Flavianus
240