§ 27. RESTEICriON OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM. 141
prevailing orthodox hierarchical church, and soon after the Coun« cil of jS^ice, by an edict of the year 326, expressly excluded heretics and schismatics from these privileges.' Accordingly he banished the leaders of Arianism and ordered their wi-itings to be burned, but afterward, wavering in his views of orthodoxy and heterodoxy, and persuaded over by some bishops and his sister, he recalled Ai'ius and banished Athanasius. He himself was oaptized shortly before his death by an Arian bishop. His son Constantius was a fanatical persecutor both ot idolati-y and the Nicene orthodoxy, and endeavored with all his might to establish Arianism alone in the empire. Hence the earnest protest of the orthodox bishops, Hosius, Athanasius, and Hilary, against this despotism and in favor of toleration ; ' which came, however, we have to remember, from parties who were themselves the sufferers under intolerance, and who did not regard the banishment of the i\j:'ians as unjust.
Under Julian the Apostate religious liberty was again pro claimed, but only as the beginning of return to the exclusive establishment of heathenism ; the countei*part, therefore, of Constantino's toleration. After his early death Arianism again prevailed, at least in the East, and showed itself more intolerant and violent than the catholic orthodoxy.
At last Theodosius the Great, the first emperor who was baptized in the J^icene faith, put an end to the Ai-ian interregnum, proclaimed the exclusive authority of the Nicene creed, and at the same time enacted the first rigid penalties not only against the pagan idolatry, the practice of which was thenceforth a capital crime in the empire, but also against all Christian heresies and sects. The ruling principle of his public life w^as the unity of the empire and of the orthodox church. Soon after his baptism, in 380, he issued, in connection with his weak cocmperors, Gratian and Yalentinian II,, to the in habitants of Constantinople, then the chief seat of Arianism,
* Cod. Thcod. xvi. 5, 1 : PrivUegia, quje contemplation e religionis indulta sunt, c&tholicse tantum legis observatoribus prodesse opportet. Haereticos autem atque schismaticos noii tantum ab his privilegils alienos esse volumus, sed etiam divcrau munerilbua constnngi el subjici.
' Comf § 3, above.
142 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
the following edict: "We, the tliree emperors, will, tliat all our subjects steadfastly adhere to the religion which was taught by St. Peter to the Eomans, which has been faithfully pre Ferved by tradition, and wliich is now professed by the pontiff Damasus, of Rome, and Peter, bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the institution of the apostles and the doctrine of the gospel, let us believe in the one Godhead of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, of equal majesty in the holy Trinity. We order that the adherents of this faith be called Catholic Christians / we brand all the senseless followers of other religions with the infamous name of heretics^ and forbid their conventicles assuming the name of churches. Besides the condemnation of divine justice, they must expect the heavy penalties which our authority, guided by heavenly wisdom, shall think proper to inflict." ' In the course of fifteen years this emperor issued at least fifteen penal laws against heretics,' by which he gradually deprived them of all right to the exercise of their religion, excluded them fi'om all civil offices, and threatened them with fines, confiscation, banishment, and in some cases, as the Manichseans, the Audians, and even the Quartodecimanians, with death.
From Theodosius therefore dates the state-church thcoiy of the persecution of heretics, and the embodiment of it in legislation. His primary design, it is true, was rather to terrify and convert, than to punish, the refractory subjocts."
From the theory, however, to the practice was a single step ; and this step his rival and colleague, Maxiinus, took, when, at the instigation of the unworthy bishop Ithacius, he caused the Spanish bishop, Priscillian, with six respectable adherents of his Manichaean-like sect (two presbyters, two deacons, the poet Latronian, and Euchrocia, a noble matron of Bordeaux), to be tortured and beheaded with the sword at
' Cod. Thcod. xvi. 1, 2. Baronius (Ann.), and even Godefroy call this edict which in this case, to be sure, favored the true doctrine, but involves the absolute despotism of the emperor over faith, an "edictura aurenm, pium et salutare."
' Comp. Cod. Theod. xvi. tit. v. leg. 6-33, and Godefroy's Comment^- y.
■ So Sozomcn asserts, 1. vii. c. 12,