43 Permission to Jewish Converts to Return to Judaism

Honorius (with Theodosius II)

24 September 416

This law, given by Honorius in his name and in that of Theodosius II at Ravenna on 24 September 416, was addressed to the Didasca- lus Annas and the Heads of the Jews.

The legislator permitted Jewish converts to Christianity to re­turn to Judaism, if their conversion was motivated by material considerations or by the wish to escape punishment, and he af­firmed that this permission followed earlier legislation, including his own laws. The only known law that dealt with this subject prior to our law was promulgated in the names of Arcadius and Hono­rius on 17 June 397 (see above, No. 26). It prohibited the conver­sion to Christianity of Jews intending to avoid, in this way, paying their debts or undergoing punishment. It contrasted with the tradi­tional theological principle that baptism imprinted an indelible character which did not allow conversion from Christianity to any other religion. The summary of this law given by the Antiqua Summaria changed its spirit, though not its content; such converts were to be obliged, rather than permitted, to return to Judaism.

Like the law of 6 November 415 (see above, No. 42), this law was addressed to the Didascalus Annas and to the Heads of the Jews. Both laws seem to indicate a continuous activity of Jewish representatives of the Western communities in the Court of Ra­venna.

Codex Theodosianus, 16:8:23, ed. Mommsen, p. 893

IDEM AA.* ANNATI DIDASCALO ET MAIORIBUS IUDAEORUM

Et veteribus et nostris sanctionibus constitutum est, cum propter evitationem criminum et pro diversis necessitatibus ludaicae religionis homines obligatos ecclesiae se consortio sociare voluisse didicerimus, 5 non id devotione fidei, sed obreptione simulandum heri.

constantia religiosae confessionis in hoc eodem cultu inhaerere perspex­erint neque venerabilis baptismatis fide et mysteriis inbutos esse, ad 10 legem propriam, quia magis Christianitati consulitur, liceat remeare.

DAT. VIII KAL. ÎÑÒÎÂ. RAV(ENNAE) THEOD(OSIO) À. VII ET PALLADIO CONSS.·

It had been ordained, in the old laws as well as in ours, that, since we have learned that convicts of the Jewish religion want to join the community of the Church in order to escape their crimes and out of various necessities, this is done not from devotion to the Faith, but as a false simulation. Let the judges of the provinces in which such crimes are said to have been committed know, therefore, that our laws are to be obeyed in such a way that those people whom they shall observe as not adhering to this cult in the constancy of their religious profession, nor to be imbued with the faith and mysteries of the venerable baptism, are to be allowed to return to their own law, for it is of greater benefit to Christianity.

GIVEN ON THE EIGHTH DAY BEFORE THE CALENDS OF OCTOBER AT RA­VENNA, IN THE CONSULATE OF THEODOSIUS AUGUSTUS FOR THE SEVENTH TIME AND OF PALLADIUS.²

NOTES

1.      Honorius and Theodosius II.

2.      Given... Palladius: 24 September 416

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Godefroy, VI: 1, pp. 263-264; Juster, I, pp. 164 n. 1, 273 n. 2; Seeck, Regesten, p. 332; Browe, p. 119; Seaver, p. 62; Vogler, pp. 42, 55, 70.