57 Exemption from Performance of Personal Liturgies on Holidays
Justinian(?)
The Greek version of this law, preserved only in the Nomocanon in Fourteen Titles, lacks any identification elements, either of the legislator or of its date.
It probably derived from a rescript given to Jewish petitioners who had complained about harassement from the local administration, which ignored their exemption from performing liturgies on holidays (see above, No. 40). The legislator assured them, in the present law, that the governor would see that this privilege was observed in the future. class=31 align=left style='text-align:left'>Codex Justinianus, 1:9:2, cd. Krüger, p. 61...Ό κράτιστος* του έθνους ήγούμενος ταΐς σωματικαΐς ύπηρεσίαις* τή τής θρησκείας ήμέρςι, καθ’ ήν άργειν είώθατε, μή ένοχλείσθαι ύμας προνοήσει.
The Mightiest1 governor of the province shall see to it that you shall not be harassed by personal liturgies2 on a day of worship, in which you are accustomed to do no work.
NOTES
1. Mightiest: the lowest of the six hierarchical ranks in the Byzantine nobility. Guilland is of the opinion that it was no longer in use after the reign of Constantine the Great.
See R. Guilland, “La noblesse byzantine—Remarques,” REB, XXIV (1966), p. 43. Our law should not be attributed, consequently, to Justinian but to Constantine or to one of his immediate successors. For epigraphic examples of the employment of this title in relation to public officials, usually members of the Senatorial order, in Asia Minor during the second and the third centuries, see AE, 1966, No. 471; 1968, Nos. 488, 527; 1972, Nos. 585, 586, 588, 590.2. Personal liturgies were services performed personally. Compare the distinction, common in papyrological sources, between services personally imposed on the obligated and services imposed on their properties: σωματικώς και ύποστατικώς. See H. Preisigke, Wörterbuch der griechischen Papyrusurkunden, I, Berlin 1925, s.v. σωματικός. This distinction is identical to that found in the Latin sources between ‘munera personalia’ and ‘munera patrimonii’.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Juster, II, p. 288 n. 3; Browe, p. 127; Rabello, “Tribute,” p. 225 n. 39.