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

Religious Intolerance in the Later Roman Empire: the evidence of
Introduction
the Theodosian Code.
In his Declin e an d Fall, Edward Gibbon gave the five reasons to which he
attributed the remarkable success of Christianity in the Roman Empire. His first
reason was “the intolerant zeal of the Christians.” Ever since that conclusion it has
often been assumed, both by scholars and non-specialists, that intolerance was, and
perhaps remains, axiomatic to Christianity, and once Christianity became the
preferred religion of the emperors during the fourth century, that intolerance,
regarded as absent from paganism, entered into the business of state as it has been
assumed to be present in the business of the Church in the three preceding
centuries. In the past twenty years or so the subject has been revisited by scholars;
however the conception that the fourth century state was religiously intolerant, for
whatever reason and motive, has largely gone unchallenged. 1
This thesis will examine one aspect of religious intolerance in the fourth
century: that displayed by the Imperial government from Constantine to
Theodosius. It will attempt to gauge the amount of religious intolerance displayed
by each emperor towards each religious group as listed in the Theodosian Code,
(i.e. heretics, pagans, Jews and apostates), through an analysis of Imperial laws, that
is statements, orders and rulings which were pertinent to each group. In order to
conceptualise the overall attitude of each regime to religious groups, it is also
necessary to examine laws issued by each emperor which affected Christianity and
1 Gibbon, E. (1909-1914) 2.3, his other reasons were (2) “the Doctrine of a future life,” (3) “the
miraculous powers ascribed to the primitive church,” (4) “the pure and austere morals of the
Christians,” and (5) “the union and discipline of the Christian republic, which gradually formed an
independent and increasing state in the heart of the Roman empire.” All at 2.57; for modern
scholars who tend to follow this belief: Armstrong (1984); Garnsey (1984); Ando (1996); Stroumsa
(1994); Stanton and Stroumsa (1998); most recently, Drake (1996) shifts the responsibility for
intolerance away from organisations and theology to politics and individuals, believing that it is a
phenomenon “found in every human group and organization.” quote at 5; his latest work (2000)
expands this considerably, assigning intolerance to both Christians and pagans 74-75, Price (1993)
convincingly goes against this trend and argues that the extent of intolerance in the fourth century,
including Imperial intolerance was highly limited.
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