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Theodosius I ( ; 11 January 347 – 17 January 395), also known as Theodosius the Great, was Roman emperor from 379 to 395. He won two civil wars and was instrumental in establishing the Nicene Creed as the orthodox doctrine for Nicene Christianity. Theodosius was the last emperor to rule the entire Roman Empire before its administration was permanently split between the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. He ended the Gothic War (376–382), but did so on terms disadvantageous to the empire, with the Goths remaining and politically autonomous within Roman territory, albeit as nominal allies.
Born in Hispania, Theodosius was the son of a high-ranking general of the same name, Count Theodosius, under whose guidance he rose through the ranks of the Roman army. Theodosius held independent command in Moesia in 374, where he had some success against the invading Sarmatians. Not long afterwards, he was forced into retirement, and his father was executed under obscure circumstances. Theodosius soon regained his position following a series of intrigues and executions at Emperor Gratian's court. In 379, after the eastern Roman emperor Valens was killed at the Battle of Adrianople against the Goths, Gratian appointed Theodosius as a successor with orders to take charge of the military emergency. The new emperor's resources and depleted armies were not sufficient to drive the invaders out; in 382 the Goths were allowed to settle south of the Danube as autonomous allies of the empire. In 386, Theodosius signed a treaty with the Sasanian Empire which partitioned the long-disputed Kingdom of Armenia and secured a durable peace between the two powers.Simon Hornblower, Who's Who in the Classical World (Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 386–387
Theodosius was a strong adherent of the Christian doctrine of consubstantiality and an opponent of Arianism. He convened a council of bishops at the First Council of Constantinople in 381, which confirmed the former as orthodoxy and the latter as a heresy. Although Theodosius interfered little in the functioning of traditional pagan cults and appointed non-Christians to high offices, he failed to prevent or punish the damaging of several Hellenistic temples of classical antiquity, such as the Serapeum of Alexandria, by Christian zealots.
During the earlier part of his reign, Theodosius ruled the eastern provinces, while the west was overseen by the emperor Gratian (and nominally with Valentinian II, his young co-emperor). In 386, he married Valentinian's sister, Galla, the marriage arranged to consolidate Theodosius' political and military power. Theodosius sponsored several measures to improve Constantinople, his capital and main place of residence—notably his expansion of the Forum Tauri, which became the biggest public square known in antiquity. Theodosius marched west twice, in 388 and 394, after Gratian and then Valentinian had been killed and replaced by the usurper Magnus Maximus and Eugenius. Theodosius's final military victory in September 394 made him ruler of the entire empire; he died however only a few months later and was succeeded by his two young sons (and by that stage co-emperors): Arcadius in the eastern half of the empire and Honorius in the west.
Theodosius was said to have been a diligent administrator, austere in his habits, merciful, and a devout Christian. Epitome de Caesaribus 48. 8–19Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chapter 27 In the centuries after his death, Theodosius was regarded as a champion of Christian orthodoxy who decisively stamped out paganism; however, modern scholars tend to see this as an interpretation of history by Christian writers more than as an accurate representation of actual history. He is fairly credited with presiding over a revival in classical art that some historians have termed a "Theodosian renaissance". Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity, pp. 1482, 1484 Although his pacification of the Goths secured peace for the Empire during his lifetime, their status as an autonomous entity within Roman borders caused problems for succeeding emperors. Theodosius has also received criticism for defending his own dynastic interests at the cost of two civil wars. His two sons proved weak and incapable rulers, and they presided over a period marked by foreign invasions and court intrigues, seriously weakening the empire(s). However, the descendants of Theodosius did rule the Roman world for the next six decades, and the east–west division endured—until the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the late 5th century.
Very little is recorded of the upbringing of Theodosius. The 5th-century author Theodoret claimed the future emperor grew up and was educated in his Iberian homeland, but his testimony is unreliable. One modern historian instead thinks Theodosius must have grown up among the army, participating in his father's campaigns throughout the provinces, as was customary at the time for families with a tradition of military service. One source says he received a decent education and developed a particular interest in history, which Theodosius then valued as a guide to his own conduct throughout life.
Although these events are poorly documented, historians usually attribute this fall from grace to the machinations of a court faction led by Maximinus, a senior civilian official. According to another theory, the future emperor Theodosius lost his father, or his military post, or both, in the purges of high officials that resulted from the accession of the 4-year-old emperor Valentinian II in November 375. Theodosius's period away from service in Hispania, during which he was said to have received threats from those responsible for his father's death, did not last long, however, as Maximinus, the probable culprit, was himself removed from power around April 376 and then executed. The emperor Gratian immediately began replacing Maximinus and his associates with relatives of Theodosius in key government positions, indicating the family's full rehabilitation, and by 377 Theodosius himself had regained his command against the Sarmatians.
Theodosius's renewed term of office seems to have gone uneventfully, until news arrived that the eastern Roman emperor, Valens, had been killed at the Battle of Adrianople in August 378 against invading Goths. The disastrous defeat left much of Rome's military leadership dead, discredited, or barbarian in origin, with the result that Theodosius, notwithstanding his own modest record, became the establishment's choice to replace Valens and assume control of the crisis. With the begrudging consent of the western emperor Gratian, Theodosius was formally invested with the purple by a council of officials at Sirmium on 19 January 379.
In the second half of 379, Theodosius and his generals, based at Thessalonica, won some minor victories over individual bands of raiders. However, they suffered at least one serious defeat in 380, which was blamed on the treachery of the new barbarian recruits. During the autumn of 380, a life-threatening illness, from which Theodosius recovered, prompted him to request baptism. Some obscure victories were recorded in official sources around this time, however, and, in November 380, the military situation was found to be sufficiently stable for Theodosius to move his court to Constantinople. There, the emperor enjoyed a propaganda victory when, in January 381, he received the visit and submission of a minor Gothic leader, Athanaric. By this point, however, Theodosius seems to have no longer believed that the Goths could be completely ejected from Roman territory. After Athanaric died that very same month, the emperor gave him a funeral with full honors, impressing his entourage and signaling to the enemy that the Empire was disposed to negotiate terms. During the campaigning season of 381, reinforcements from Gratian drove the Goths out of the Diocese of Macedonia and Ancient Thessaly into the Diocese of Thrace, while, in the latter sector, Theodosius or one of his generals repulsed an incursion by a group of Sciri and Huns across the Danube.
Following negotiations which likely lasted at least several months, the Romans and Goths finally concluded a settlement on 3 October 382. In return for military service to Rome, the Goths were allowed to settle some tracts of Roman land south of the Danube. The terms were unusually favorable to the Goths, reflecting the fact that they were entrenched in Roman territory and had not been driven out. Namely, instead of fully submitting to Roman authority, they were allowed to remain autonomous under their own leaders, and thus could remain a strong, unified community or force. The Goths now settled within the Empire would fight for the Romans, but largely as a national contingent, as opposed to being fully integrated into the Roman forces.
Theodosius, unable to do much about Maximus due to ongoing military inadequacy, opened negotiations with the Persian emperor Shapur III () of the Sasanian Empire. According to the Consularia Constantinopolitana, Theodosius received in Constantinople an embassy from them in 384.
In an attempt to curb Maximus's ambitions, Theodosius appointed Flavius Neoterius as the Praetorian Prefect of Italy. In the summer of 384, Theodosius met his co-emperor Valentinian II in northern Italy. Theodosius brokered a peace agreement between Valentinian and Magnus Maximus which endured for several years.
Theodosius I was based in Constantinople, and according to Peter Heather, wanted, "for his own dynastic reasons (for his two sons each eventually to inherit half of the empire), refused to appoint a recognized counterpart in the west. As a result he was faced with rumbling discontent there, as well as dangerous , who found plentiful support among the bureaucrats and military officers who felt they were not getting a fair share of the imperial cake." (2025). 9780195325416, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195325416
In the beginning of 386, Theodosius's daughter Pulcheria also died.. Her funeral oration was also delivered by Gregory of Nyssa. That summer, more Goths were defeated, and many were settled in Phrygia. According to the Consularia Constantinopolitana, a Roman triumph over the Gothic Greuthungi was then celebrated at Constantinople. The same year, work began on the great triumphal column in the Forum of Theodosius in Constantinople, the Column of Theodosius. The Consularia Constantinopolitana records that on 19 January 387, Arcadius celebrated his quinquennalia in Constantinople. By the end of the month, there was an uprising or riot in Antioch (modern Antakya). The Roman–Persian Wars concluded with the signing of the Peace of Acilisene with Persia. By the terms of the agreement, the ancient Kingdom of Armenia was divided between the powers.
By the end of the 380s, Theodosius and the court were in Milan and northern Italy had settled down to a period of prosperity. Peter Brown says gold was being made in Milan by those who owned land as well as by those who came with the court for government service. Great landowners took advantage of the court's need for food, "turning agrarian produce into gold", while repressing and misusing the poor who grew it and brought it in. According to Brown, modern scholars link the decline of the Roman empire to the avarice of the rich of this era. He quotes Paulinus of Milan as describing these men as creating a court where "everything was up for sale". In the late 380s, Ambrose, the bishop of Milan took the lead in opposing this, presenting the need for the rich to care for the poor as "a necessary consequence of the unity of all Christians". This led to a major development in the political culture of the day called the “advocacy revolution of the later Roman empire". This revolution had been fostered by the imperial government, and it encouraged appeals and denunciations of bad government from below. However, Brown adds that, "in the crucial area of taxation and the treatment of fiscal debtors, the late Roman state of remained impervious to Christianity".
The armies of Theodosius and Maximus fought at the Battle of Poetovio in 388, which saw Maximus defeated. On 28 August 388 Maximus was executed. Now the de facto ruler of the Western empire as well, Theodosius celebrated his victory in Rome on 13 June 389 and stayed in Milan until 391, installing his own loyalists in senior positions including the new magister militum of the West, the Frankish general Arbogast. According to the Consularia Constantinopolitana, Arbogast killed Flavius Victor (), Magnus Maximus's young son and co-emperor, in Gaul in August/September that year. Damnatio memoriae was pronounced against them, and inscriptions naming them were erased.
J. F. Matthews argues that the Emperor first tried to punish the city by selective executions. Peter Brown concurs: "As it was, what was probably planned as a selective killing ... got out of hand".Mathews, J. F. 1997, “Codex Theodosianus 9.40.13 and Nicomachus Flavianus”, Historia: Zeitschrift für alte Geschichte, 46; pp. 202–206. Doleźal says Sozomen is very specific in saying that in response to the riot, the soldiers made random arrests in the hippodrome to perform a few public executions as a demonstration of imperial disfavor, but the citizenry objected. "The soldiers, realizing that they were surrounded by angry citizens, perhaps panicked ... and ... forcibly cleared the hippodrome at the cost of several thousands of lives of local inhabitants". McLynn says Theodosius was “unable to impose discipline upon the faraway troops" and covered that failure by taking responsibility for the massacre on himself, declaring he had given the order then countermanded it too late to stop it.
Ambrose, the bishop of Milan and one of Theodosius's many counselors, was away from court. After being informed of events concerning Thessalonica, he wrote Theodosius a letter offering what McLynn calls a different way for the emperor to "save face" and restore his public image. Ambrose urged a semi-public demonstration of penitence, telling the emperor he will not give Theodosius communion until this is done. Wolf Liebeschuetz notes that "Theodosius duly complied and came to church without his imperial robes, until Christmas, when Ambrose openly admitted him to communion". (2025). 9780853238294, Liverpool University Press. ISBN 9780853238294
Washburn says the image of the mitered prelate braced in the door of the cathedral in Milan blocking Theodosius from entering is a product of the imagination of Theodoret who wrote of the events of 390 "using his own ideology to fill the gaps in the historical record". Peter Brown also says there was no dramatic encounter at the church door. McLynn states that "the encounter at the church door has long been known as a pious fiction". Wolf Liebeschuetz says Ambrose advocated a course of action which avoided the kind of public humiliation Theodoret describes, and that is the course Theodosius chose.
From the time Edward Gibbon wrote his Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, Ambrose's action after the fact has been cited as an example of the church's dominance over the state in Antiquity. Alan Cameron says "the assumption is so widespread it would be superfluous to cite authorities. But there is not a shred of evidence for Ambrose exerting any such influence over Theodosius". Brown says Ambrose was just one among many advisors, and Cameron says there is no evidence Theodosius favored him above anyone else.
By the time of the Thessalonian affair, Ambrose, an aristocrat and former governor, had been a bishop for 16 years, and during his episcopate, had seen the death of three emperors before Theodosius. These produced significant political storms, yet Ambrose held his place using what McLynn calls his "considerable qualities and considerable luck" to survive. Theodosius was in his 40s, had been emperor for 11 years, had temporarily settled the Gothic wars, and won a civil war. As a Latin speaking Nicene western leader of the Greek largely Arian East, Boniface Ramsey says he had already left an indelible mark on history. (1997). 9780415118422, Psychology Press. ISBN 9780415118422
McLynn asserts that the relationship between Theodosius and Ambrose transformed into myth within a generation of their deaths. He also observes that the documents revealing the relationship between these two formidable men do not show the personal friendship the legends portray. Instead, those documents read more as negotiations between the institutions the men represent: the Roman state and the Italian Church.
At least two embassies went to Theodosius to explain events, one of them Christian in make-up, but they received ambivalent replies, and were sent home without achieving their goals. Theodosius raised his second son Honorius to emperor on 23 January 393, implying the illegality of Eugenius's rule. Williams and Friell say that by the spring of 393, the split was complete, and "in April Arbogast and Eugenius at last moved into Italy without resistance". Flavianus, the praetorian prefect of Italy whom Theodosius had appointed, defected to their side. Through early 394, both sides prepared for war.
Theodosius gathered a large army, including the Goths whom he had settled in the eastern empire as foederati, and Caucasus and Saracen , and marched against Eugenius. The battle began on 5 September 394, with Theodosius's full frontal assault on Eugenius's forces. Thousands of Goths died, and in Theodosius's camp, the loss of the day decreased morale. (1989). 9780520909700, University of California Press. ISBN 9780520909700 It is said by Theodoret that Theodosius was visited by two "heavenly riders all in white" who gave him courage.
The next day, the extremely bloody battle began again and Theodosius's forces were aided by a natural phenomenon known as the Bora, which can produce hurricane-strength winds. The Bora blew directly against the forces of Eugenius and disrupted the line. Eugenius's camp was stormed; Eugenius was captured and soon after executed. According to Socrates Scholasticus, Theodosius defeated Eugenius at the Battle of the Frigidus (the Vipava) on 6 September 394. On 8 September, Arbogast killed himself. According to Socrates, on 1 January 395, Honorius arrived in Mediolanum and a victory celebration was held there. Zosimus records that, at the end of April 394, Theodosius's wife Galla had died while he was away at war.
A number of Christian sources report that Eugenius cultivated the support of the pagan senators by promising to restore the altar of Victory and provide public funds for the maintenance of cults if they would support him and if he won the coming war against Theodosius. Cameron notes that the ultimate source for this is Ambrose's biographer Paulinus the Deacon, whom he argues fabricated the entire narrative and deserves no credence. Historian Michele Renee Salzman explains that "two newly relevant texts – John Chrysostom's Homily 6, adversus Catharos (PG 63: 491–492) and the Consultationes Zacchei et Apollonii, re-dated to the 390s, reinforces the view that religion was not the key ideological element in the events at the time". According to Maijastina Kahlos, Finnish historian and Docent of Latin language and Roman literature at the University of Helsinki, the notion of pagan aristocrats united in a "heroic and cultured resistance" who rose up against the ruthless advance of Christianity in a final battle near Frigidus in 394 is a romantic myth.
On 8 November 395, his body was transferred to Constantinople, where according to the Chronicon Paschale he was buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles. He was honored . He was interred in a porphyry sarcophagus that was described in the 10th century by Constantine VII in his work De Ceremoniis.
His first wife was Aelia Flaccilla, married in 376 and dead in 386. By her he had three children:
His second wife was Galla, married in 387 and dead in childbirth in 394. By her he had other three children:Rebenich, Stefan (1985). "Gratian, a Son of Theodosius, and the Birth of Galla Placidia". Historia. 34 (3): 372–385
Emperor (king) Theodosius is commemorated in Armenian Anaphora with saint kings: Abgar V, Constantine and Tiridates.
In Eastern Orthodox Church he is commemorated as ktetor of Vatopedi and donator of Vatopedi icon of the Mother of God.
According to Armin Wirsching, two obelisks were shipped by the Romans from Karnak to Alexandria in 13/12 BC. In 357, Constantius II had one (that became known as the Lateran obelisk) shipped to Rome. Wirsching says the Romans had previously watched and learned from the Egyptians how to transport such large heavy objects, so they constructed "a special sea‐going version of the Nile vessels ... – a double‐ship with three hulls". In 390, Theodosius oversaw the removal of the other to Constantinople. Linda Safran says that relocating the obelisk was motivated by Theodosius's victory over "the tyrants" (most likely Maximus Magnus and his son Victor). It is now known as the obelisk of Theodosius and still stands in the Hippodrome of Constantinople, the long Roman circus that was, at one time, the centre of Constantinople's public life. Re-erecting the monolith was a challenge for the technology that had been honed in the construction of .
The obelisk's white marble base is entirely covered with documenting Theodosius's imperial household and the engineering feat of removing the obelisk to Constantinople. Theodosius and the imperial family are separated from the nobles among the spectators in the imperial box, with a cover over them as a mark of their status. From the perspective of style, it has served as "the key monument in identifying a so-called Theodosian court style, which is usually described as a "renaissance" of earlier Roman classicism".
It is also traditionally stated that Alexander represented orthodoxy and that, when he died, his successor, Athanasius, became the representative of orthodoxy. In reality, “Nicene apologists … turn ‘Arianism' into a self-conscious sect – as if the boundaries of Catholic identity were firmly and clearly drawn in advance. But the whole history of Arius and of Arianism reminds us that this was not so.”Williams, Rowan, Arius: Heresy and Tradition (Revised ed.). Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. (2002), p. 83 (RW, 83) The Arian Controversy "is not the story of a defence of orthodoxy, but of a search for orthodoxy."Hanson, Richard Patrick Crosland (1988). The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy, 318–381. T. & T. Clark. pp. xix–xx
Arius asserted that God the Father created the Son. This meant the Son, though still seen as divine, was not equal to the Father, because he had a beginning, and was not eternal. "The controversy had spread from Alexandria into almost all the African regions and was considered a disturbance of the public order by the Roman Empire." (Eusebius of Caesarea in The Life of Constantine)
Constantine had tried to settle the issues at the Council of Nicaea, but as Arnold Hugh Martin Jones states: "The rules laid down at Nicaea were not universally accepted". (1986). 9780801833540, Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9780801833540 After the Nicene Creed was formulated in 325, many in the church reacted strongly against the word "Homoousion" in the Creed, and therefore Councils at Ariminum (Rimini), Nike (southeast of Adrianople), and Constantinople, held in 359–60 by Emperor Constantius II, formulated creeds that were intended to replace or revise the Nicene Creed; in particular, to find alternatives for "homoousios." These councils are no longer regarded as Ecumenical Councils in the tradition of the Church; their creeds, which are at odds with the Nicene Creed, are known as Arian creeds.
During this time, Athanasius was at the center of the controversy and became the "champion of orthodoxy" after Alexander died. To Athanasius, Arius's interpretation of Jesus's nature (Homoiousian), that the Father and Son are similar but not identical in substance, could not explain how Jesus could accomplish the redemption of humankind which is the foundational principle of Christianity. "According to Athanasius, God had to become human so that humans could become divin ... That led him to conclude that the divine nature in Jesus was identical to that of the Father, and that Father and Son have the same substance" ( Homoousian). Athanasius's teaching was a major influence in the West, especially on Theodosius I.
On 28 February 380, Theodosius, along with Gratian and Valentinian II, issued the Edict of Thessalonica, a decree addressed to the city of Constantinople, determining that only Christians who believed in the consubstantiality of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit could style themselves "Catholicity" and have their own places of worship officially recognized as "churches"; deviants were labeled heretics and described as "out of their minds and insane".
Recent scholarship has tended to reject former views that the edict was a key step in establishing Christianity as the official religion of the Empire, since it was aimed exclusively at Constantinople and seems to have gone largely unnoticed by contemporaries outside the capital. For example, German ancient historian writes that the Edict of Thessalonica was neither anti-pagan nor Antisemitism; it did not declare Christianity to be the official religion of the empire; and it gave no advantage to Christians over other faiths. It is clear from mandates issued in the years after 380 that Theodosius had made no requirement for pagans or Jews to convert to Christianity. Nonetheless, the edict is the first known secular Roman law to positively define a religious orthodoxy.
According to Robinson Thornton, Theodosius began taking steps to repress Arianism immediately after his baptism in 380. On 26 November 380, two days after he had arrived in Constantinople, Theodosius expelled the Homoian bishop, Demophilus of Constantinople, and appointed Meletius patriarch of Antioch, and Gregory of Nazianzus, one of the Cappadocian Fathers from Cappadocia (today in Turkey), patriarch of Constantinople. Theodosius had just been baptized, by bishop Ascholius, during a severe illness.
In May 381, Theodosius summoned a new ecumenical council at Constantinople to repair the schism between East and West on the basis of Nicene orthodoxy. The council went on to define orthodoxy, including the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, as equal to the Father and 'proceeding' from Him. The council also "condemned the Apollonarian and Macedonian heresies, clarified jurisdictions of the bishops according to the civil boundaries of dioceses. and ruled that Constantinople was second in precedence to Rome."
There is evidence that Theodosius took care to prevent the empire's still substantial pagan population from feeling ill-disposed toward his rule. Following the death in 388 of his praetorian prefect, Cynegius, who had vandalized a number of pagan shrines in the eastern provinces, Theodosius replaced him with a moderate pagan who subsequently moved to protect the temples.Trombley, Frank R. Hellenic Religion and Christianization, c. 370–529. Netherlands, Brill Academic Publishers, 2001. During his first official tour of Italy (389–391), the emperor won over the influential pagan lobby in the Roman Senate by appointing its foremost members to important administrative posts. Theodosius also nominated the last pair of pagan consuls in Roman history (Tatianus and Symmachus) in 391.
Earlier scholars believed Cynegius's actions were just part of a tide of violence against temples that continued throughout the 390s. Grindle, Gilbert (1892) The Destruction of Paganism in the Roman Empire, pp. 29–30.Gibbon, Edward The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. 28Catholic Encyclopedia (1912) article on Theophilus, New Advent Web Site. However, recent archaeological discoveries have undermined this view. The archaeological evidence for the violent destruction of temples in the fourth and early fifth centuries around the entire Mediterranean is limited to a handful of sites. Temple destruction is attested to in 43 cases in the written sources, but only 4 of them were confirmed by archaeological evidence. Trombley and MacMullen say part of what creates this discrepancy are details in the historical sources that are commonly ambiguous and unclear.Trombley, F. R. 1995a. Hellenic Religion and Christianization, c. 370–529. New York. I. 166-8, II. 335–336 For example, Malalas claimed Constantine destroyed all the temples, then he said Theodosius did, then he said Constantine converted them all to churches. There is no evidence of any desire on the part of the emperor to institute a systematic destruction of temples anywhere in the Theodosian Code, and no evidence in the archaeological record that extensive temple destruction ever took place.
The Theodosian Law Code has long been one of the principal historical sources for the study of Late Antiquity.Lepelley, C. 1992. "The survival and fall of the classical city in Late Roman Africa". In J. Rich (ed.) The City in Late Antiquity. London and New York, pp. 50–76. Gibbon described the Theodosian decrees, in his Memoires, as a work of history rather than jurisprudence.Roland Quinault, Rosamond McKitterick. Edward Gibbon and Empire. United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 2002. p. 25 Brown says the language of these laws is uniformly vehement, and penalties are harsh and frequently horrifying, leading some historians, such as Ramsay MacMullen, to see them as a 'declaration of war' on traditional religious practices. (1981). 9780300029840, Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300029840Brown, Peter. "Christianization and religious conflict". The Cambridge Ancient History 13 (1998): 337–425. It is a common belief the laws marked a turning point in the decline of paganism.
Yet, many contemporary scholars such as Lepelly, Brown and Cameron, question the use of the Code, a legal document, not an actual historical work, for understanding history. One of many problems with using the Theodosian Code as a record of history is described by archaeologists Luke Lavan and Michael Mulryan. They explain that the Code can be seen to document "Christian ambition" but not historic reality. The overtly violent fourth century that one would expect to find from taking the laws at face value is not supported by archaeological evidence from around the Mediterranean.
An increase in the variety and abundance of sources has brought about the reinterpretation of religion of this era. According to Salzman: "Although the debate on the death of paganism continues, scholars ...by and large, concur that the once dominant notion of overt pagan-Christian religious conflict cannot fully explain the texts and artifacts or the social, religious, and political realities of Late Antique Rome". Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome: Conflict, Competition, and Coexistence in the Fourth Century. United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 2016.
Scholars agree that Theodosius gathered copious legislation on religious subjects, and that he continued the practices of his predecessors, prohibiting sacrifices with the intent of divining the future in December of 380, issuing a decree against heretics on 10 January 381, and an edict against Manichaeism in May of that same year. (1996). 9780853239314, Liverpool University Press. ISBN 9780853239314 Theodosius convened the First Council of Constantinople, the second ecumenical council after Constantine's First Council of Nicaea in 325; and the Constantinopolitan council which ended on 9 July. What is important about this, according to Errington, is how much this 'copious legislation' was applied and used, which would show how dependable it is as a reflection of actual history.
Brown asserts that Christians still comprised a minority of the overall population, and local authorities were still mostly pagan and lax in imposing anti-pagan laws; even Christian bishops frequently obstructed their application. Harries says, "The contents of the Code provide details from the canvas but are an unreliable guide, in isolation, to the character of the picture as a whole". Previously undervalued similarities in language, society, religion, and the arts, as well as current archaeological research, indicate paganism slowly declined, and that it was not forcefully overthrown by Theodosius I in the fourth century. The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity. United Kingdom, Oxford University Press, 2015.
Maijastina Kahlos writes that the fourth century Roman empire contained a wide variety of religions, cults, sects, beliefs and practices and they all generally co-existed without incident. Coexistence did occasionally lead to violence, but such outbreaks were relatively infrequent and localized. Jan N. Bremmer says that "religious violence in Late Antiquity is mostly restricted to violent rhetoric: 'in Antiquity, not all religious violence was that religious, and not all religious violence was that violent'". (2025). 9781108849210, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108849210
The Christian church believed that victory over "false gods" had begun with Jesus and was completed through the conversion of Constantine; it was a victory that took place in heaven, rather than on earth, since Christians were only about 15–18% of the empire's population in the early 300s. (1996). 9780691027494, Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691027494 Brown indicates that, as a result of this "triumphalism," paganism was seen as vanquished, and Salzman adds that judging by the sheer number of laws, heresy was a much higher priority than paganism for Christians in the fourth and fifth centuries.
Lavan says Christian writers gave the narrative of victory high visibility, but that it does not necessarily correlate to actual conversion rates. There are many signs that a healthy paganism continued into the fifth century, and in some places, into the sixth and beyond.Boin, Douglas. A Social and Cultural History of Late Antiquity. United Kingdom, Wiley, 2018. According to Brown, Christians objected to anything that called the triumphal narrative into question, and that included the mistreatment of non-Christians. Archaeology indicates that in most regions away from the imperial court, the end of paganism was both gradual and untraumatic. The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity says that "Torture and murder were not the inevitable result of the rise of Christianity." Instead, there was fluidity in the boundaries between the communities and "coexistence with a competitive spirit." Brown says that "In most areas, polytheists were not molested, and, apart from a few ugly incidents of local violence, Jewish communities also enjoyed a century of stable, even privileged, existence."
While conceding that Theodosius's reign may have been a watershed in the decline of the old religions, Cameron downplays the role of the emperor's 'copious legislation' as limited in effect, and writes that Theodosius did 'certainly not' ban paganism. In his 2020 biography of Theodosius, Mark Hebblewhite concludes that Theodosius never saw or advertised himself as a destroyer of the old cults; rather, the emperor's efforts to promote Christianity were cautious, 'targeted, tactical, and nuanced', and intended to prevent political instability and religious discord.
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