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

Conclusion – Theodosius
As has been noted, Theodosius' legislation concerning paganism appears to
have two separate phases. On the first phase, which extended from CTh. 10.1.12 of 17
June 379 to CJ 7.38.9 of 3 July 387 and in which Theodosius appears to have been
accommodating towards paganism, two of the laws were issued to Christians (CTh.
16.10.9 to Cynegius and CJ 7.38.2 to Dexter); none of the other four laws is known to
have been issued to a pagan. The law to Cynegius was probably uncontroversial as it
was concerned with divination, whereas that issued to Dexter was thoroughly
accommodating and fair to paganism. The second phase however, during which
Theodosius is supposed to have become more intolerant of paganism, begins with
CTh. 16.10.10, addressed to a pagan, Albinus. That law appears to have been specific
not only to Rome, but also to the officials administering Rome, rather than to the
population as a whole. Moreover, it was probably only designed to apply to Rome
practices that had already, without legislation, become common in the rest of the
empire. This interpretation reinforces the hypothesis that Theodosius issued it at the
end of his time in the west in order to reinforce his authority, that is, to make Rome
(in Valentinian’s half of the empire) do the same as was also done in Theodosius' half
of the empire.
However, if the law was indeed passed for essentially non-religious purposes, it
still indicates a degree of intolerance on Theodosius' part in that he wanted the whole
empire to conform to certain practices. But it should be emphasised that that would
not primarily indicate religious intolerance since the underlying motive would have
been essentially political.
CTh. 16.10.11 extended such provisions to Egypt, but it probably dealt with
only very occasional and unusual instances of sacrifice which may have been
controversial in any circumstance. The same cannot be said for CTh. 16.10.12 which
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