of the active operation of the enemy of mankind.
The heresy which was looked upon as the most dangerous and abominable of all was that of the Manichees, which it would be truer to regard as a rival religion than as a form of Christianity.109 It was based on a mixture of Zoroastrian and Christian ideas, along with elements derived from Buddhism, but the Zoroastrian principles were preponderant. This religion was founded by Manes in Persia in the third century, and in the course of the fourth it spread throughout the Empire, in the West as well as in the East. Augustine in his youth came under its influence. The fundamental doctrine was that of Zoroaster, the existence of a good and an evil principle, God and Matter, independent of each other. The Old Testament was the work of the Evil Being. Matter being thoroughly evil, Jesus Christ could not have invested himself with it, and therefore his human body was a mere appearance. The story of his life in the Gospels was interpreted mystically. The Manichees had no churches, no altars, no incense; their worship consisted in prayers and hymns; they did not celebrate Christmas, and their chief festival was the Bêma, in March, kept in memory of the death of their founder, who was said to have been flayed alive or crucified by Varahran I. They condemned marriage, and practised rigorous austerities.110
The laws against the Manichees, which were frequent and drastic, began in the reign of Theodosius I. The heresy was insidious, because the heretics were difficult to discover; they often took part in Christian ceremonies and passed for orthodox, and they disguised their views under other names. Theodosius deprived them of civil rights and banished them from towns. Those who sheltered themselves under harmless names were liable to the penalty of death; and he ordered the Praetorian Prefect of the East to institute “inquisitors” for the purpose of discovering them.111 This is a very early instance of the application of this word, which in later ages was to become so offensive, to the uses of religious persecution. When the government of Theodosius II, under the influence of Nestorius, made a vigorous effort to sweep heresy from the world, the Manichaeans were stigmatised as men who had “descended to the lowest depths of wickedness,” and were condemned anew to be expelled from towns, and perhaps to be put to death112 (A.D. 428). Later legislation inflicted death unreservedly; they were the only heretics whose opinions exposed them to the supreme penalty.
Arcadius, at the beginning of his reign, reaffirmed all the pains and prohibitions which his predecessors had enacted against heretics.113 In most cases, this meant the suppression of their services and assemblies and ordinations. The Eunomians, an extreme branch of the Arians, who held that the Son was unlike the Father, were singled out for more severe treatment and deprived of the right of executing testaments. This disability, however, was afterwards withdrawn, and it was finally enacted that a Eunomian could not bequeath property to a fellow-heretic.114 Thus there was a certain vacillation in the policy of the government, caused by circumstances and influences which we cannot trace.
The combined efforts of Church and State were successful in virtually stamping out Arianism, which after the end of the fourth century ceased to be a danger to ecclesiastical unity. They were also successful ultimately in driving Nestorianism out of the Empire. The same policy, applied to the Monophysitic heresy, failed. Marcian’s law of A.D. 455 against the Eutychians was severe enough.115 They were excluded from the service of the State; they were forbidden to publish books criticising the Council of Chalcedon; and their literature, like that of the Nestorians, was condemned to be burned. But in Syria, where anti-Greek feelings were strong, and in Egypt, where national sentiment was beginning to associate itself with a religious symbol, all attempts to impose uniformity were to break down.
The severe measures taken by the State against the Donatists in Africa were chiefly due to their own fanaticism. Donatism was not properly a heresy, it was a schism, which had grown out of a double election to the see of Carthage in A.D. 311, and the question at issue between the Catholics and the Donatists was one of church discipline. We need not follow the attempts of Constantine and Constans to restore unity to the African church by military force. The cause of the Donatists was not recommended by their association with the violent madmen known as Circumcellions, who disdained death themselves, and inflicted the most cruel deaths on their opponents. The schismatics survived the persecution. At the death of Theodosius I the greater number of the African churches seem to have been in their hands, and during the usurpation of Gildo they persecuted the Catholics. When Augustine became bishop of Hippo, where the Donatists were in a great majority, he set himself the task of restoring ecclesiastical unity in Africa by conciliation.116 He and the Catholic clergy had some success in making converts, but the fanatics were so infuriated by these desertions that with their old allies the Circumcellions they committed barbarous outrages upon the Catholic clergy and churches; Augustine himself barely escaped from being waylaid. Such disorders demanded the intervention of the secular power. Some injured bishops presented themselves at Ravenna, and in A.D. 405 Honorius condemned the Donatists to severe penalties by several laws intended “to extirpate the adversaries of the Catholic faith.”117
The Donatists rejoiced at the death of Stilicho whom they regarded as the author of these laws, and disorders broke out afresh.118 When Alaric was in south Italy threatening Rome, the Emperor revoked his decrees and soon afterwards, at the request of the Catholics, he convoked a conference of the bishops of the two parties which met at Carthage (A.D. 411) under the presidency of Marcellinus, one of the “tribunes and notaries” whom the Emperors employed for special services. Marcellinus was empowered not only to act as chairman but to judge between the rival claims. The appointment of a secular official to adjudicate did not mean that the civil power claimed to settle questions of doctrine. The controversy, which originally turned on a dispute about facts, had throughout concerned the government not in its ecclesiastical aspect but as a cause of grave disorders and disturbances. But the commission entrusted to Marcellinus shows that the bishop of Rome was not yet recognised as possessing the jurisdiction which in later times resided in his see. At the end of the discussions, Marcellinus decided against the Donatists; they were allowed a certain time to come into the Church.119 Some were convinced, but others appealed to the Emperor, who confirmed the decision of his deputy and enacted a new law against the schismatics, imposing heavy fines on the recalcitrants, and banishing the clergy.120 Two years later they were deprived of civil rights.121 These strong measures, which Augustine defended, alleging the text “Compel them to come in,”122 broke the strength of the schismatics, and though the Donatist sect continued to exist and was tolerated under the Vandals, it ceased to be of importance.
It must be allowed that if the government had been perfectly indifferent and impartial in matters of religion, it would have had ample excuse for adopting severe measures of repression against the fanatical sect who disturbed the peace of the African provinces and persecuted their opponents. The penalties were severe but they stopped short of death. It should be remembered to the credit of the Emperors that, in contrast with the Christian princes of later ages, they never proposed, in pursuing their policy of the suppression of heresy, to inflict the capital penalty, except in the case of the Manichaeans, who were regarded as almost outside the pale of humanity.123 The same may be said for the leading and representative ecclesiastics, all of whom would have recoiled with horror if they could have foreseen the system of judicial murder which was one day to be established under the auspices of the Roman see.124 Martin of Tours did all he could to stay the persecution of the Spanish bishop Priscillian, who, rightly or wrongly, was accused of heresies akin to Manichaeanism. Priscillian was put to death by the Emperor Maximus (A.D. 385), but he was tried before a civil tribunal for a secular offence.125 It may well have been a miscarriage of justice, but, formally at least, he was not executed as a heretic.
Under the Christian Empire the Jews remained for the most part in possession of the privileges which they had before enjoyed.126 The Church was unable to persuade the State to introduce measures to suppress their worship or banish them from the Empire. They were forbidden to possess Christian slaves,127 and a law of Theodosius II excluded them from civil offices and dignities.128
