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

However, the specifics of this case which are dealt with in this law may be
peculiar to this actual circumstance, that is to a particular problem that had occurred in
the Imperial weaving establishment and therefore its implication with regards to any
overall change in Imperial attitudes to Jews may be limited. But this law does allow
for similar action against Jewish proselytisers to be taken in the future, at least in
relation to the “Imperial weaving establishment.” In Valentinian’s CTh 10.20.3 of 28
June 365 it is indicated that Imperial weavers were slaves, or at least the law says that
they belonged to a con tubern ia, a slave union. If the Imperial weavers of Constantine’s
reign were slaves, then this law may have been more pertinent to the issue of Imperial
control over its personnel and therefore property in this establishment and ensuring
that it’s production of cloth was not disrupted, than it was to religion per se. But if the
status of the workers was the same under Constantius as we know it was under
Valentinian thirty years later, then this law would be a good indication of the
opprobrium which could be directed against a religion for what were essentially non-
religious reasons.
The second half of the law issued to Evagrius in 339 and preserved in the code
at CTh 16.9.2, concerned slavery and the purchase of slaves by Jews. Any slave who
was a member of “another sect or people” 111 (i.e. not a Jew) and was bought by a Jew
was to become the property of the Treasury. The punishment for a Jew buying and
then circumcising a slave was that the owner would be “penalised not only with the
loss of the slave, but he shall also be visited with capital punishment.” 112 A Jew would
lose all his Christian slaves if he bought a slave who was a member of the “venerable
faith” 113 i.e. a Christian. The details included in this law seem to suggest that every
possibility has been considered and future action for each possibility laid down, leaving
no scope for ambiguity. This law could simply have said that a Jew may only have
Jewish slaves who were already Jews when the owner bought them (which is what it
111 m ancipium sectae alterius seu nationis crediderit
112 si v ero em ptum circum ciderit, non solum m ancipii dam no m ultetur, v erum etiam capitali sententia
puniatur
113 v enerandae fidei
29