Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian, Augusti, to Albinus, Praetorian Prefect, for the second time.
The Emperors Issue Perpetual Legislation Against the Manichaeans on the Basis of Pope Leo’s Tribunal
The condemned superstition of the pagans — an enemy of public order and an adversary of the Christian faith — has not undeservedly stirred Our clemency to move against it. We speak of the Manichaeans, whom the statutes of all previous emperors have judged execrable and worthy of expulsion from the whole world. Their recently uncovered crimes allow no leniency. For what acts, obscene both to speak of and to hear, were brought to light through their own confession, in the judgment of the most blessed Pope Leo, before the most august senate? Even he who was called their bishop declared with his own mouth and fully set forth in writing all the secrets of their crimes. This could not escape Our notice: it is unsafe to disregard so detestable an injury to the Divinity, or to leave unpunished a crime that corrupts not only the bodies of the deceived but also their souls beyond all remedy.
Therefore, most beloved Albinus, let your illustrious and magnificent authority — serving the Augusti — know that We have established this law, destined to endure forever, and shall bring it to the knowledge of all provinces by published edicts. Wherever any Manichaean is found upon earth, he shall suffer the penalties which the laws have prescribed for the sacrilegious, enforced by the full severity of public authority. Let this be treated as a public crime, and let it be lawful for anyone to bring accusation without risk of prosecution. It is neither lawful nor safe for any person to conceal such people or to connive at their practices, since all prior imperial enactments concerning them are hereby confirmed by Us. Let all persons know, through this edictal law, that Manichaeans are deprived of military rank and the right to dwell in cities, lest any innocent person be ensnared by association with them. They may neither receive inheritance nor bequeath it, and their property shall accrue to Our treasury. What We openly forbid must not be obtained through fraud. They shall have no legal action for injuries done to them, nor shall any contracts they enter into be valid. The commanders of any military unit or civil office shall be struck immediately by a fine of ten pounds of gold — to be exacted by your authority — if they permit anyone tainted by this superstition to serve under their command. No penalty seems too severe for those whose foul perversity, unparalleled even in brothels, perpetrates shameful acts beneath the guise of religion.
Given on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of July, at Rome, in the sixth consulship of Valentinian Augustus and the consulship of Nomus, vir clarissimus.
Footnotes
- ↩ The Latin is beatissimi papæ Leonis — “of the most blessed Pope Leo.” This is the standard formal honorific used by the fifth-century imperial court for the Bishop of Rome in official legal instruments. Its appearance here, embedded in permanent imperial legislation, is not courtesy but identification: the emperors are naming Leo’s proceeding as the evidentiary occasion for the law that follows. For Leo’s own account of the Manichaean investigation, see Letter VII, where he describes the inquiry conducted before the senate and the confessions he obtained.
- ↩ Albinus is Caecina Decius Aginantius Albinus, one of the leading senatorial aristocrats of mid-fifth-century Rome, here addressed in his second tenure as Praetorian Prefect (P.P. II = praefecto praetorio iterum). An earlier tradition of editions rendered “P.P.” as standing for a different office and added the honorific patricio, but the manuscript evidence establishes his title as Praetorian Prefect. As the senior imperial official responsible for civil administration and legal enforcement in Italy, he was the natural addressee for legislation of this kind. The salutation formula parens charissime — “most beloved father” — was the conventional honorific used by emperors when addressing the most senior prefects.
- ↩ The provision stripping Manichaeans of dignitas militiae (military rank) and urbium habitatio (the right of urban residence) follows the pattern of earlier anti-Manichaean legislation, particularly the edicts of Diocletian (297) and Theodosius I (381–382). What is new here is that the occasion for the legislation is explicitly an ecclesiastical proceeding — Leo’s tribunal — rather than an imperial initiative. The emperors are translating a papal finding into civil law.
- ↩ The date is June 19, 445 AD. Some earlier translations rendered the consular abbreviation V. c. as “the fifth consulship of Nomus,” but this is a misreading: V. c. abbreviates viro clarissimo — a formal senatorial rank, not a consular numeral. Nomus held a single consulship, in 445. The proximity of this date to Valentinian III’s Novella of July 6, 445 — issued just seventeen days later and formally recognizing the Bishop of Rome’s authority over all Western bishops — is historically significant. Both documents were issued within the same period of sustained engagement between Leo and the imperial court, and both reflect the same recognition of Leo’s authority as a formal basis for civil action.
Historical Commentary