their inhabitants; for we are taught by Holy Scripture, to wit that
through these acts cities have perished with the men in them.... It is
on account of such crimes that famines and earthquakes take place, and
also pestilences."

Before Justinian, both Constantine and Theodosius passed laws against
sexual inversion, committing the offenders to "avenging flames." But
these statutes were not rigidly enforced, and modern opinion on the
subject may be said to flow from Justinian's legislation. Opinion, in
matters of custom and manners, always follows law. Though Imperial
edicts could not eradicate a passion which is inherent in human nature,
they had the effect of stereotyping extreme punishments in all the codes
of Christian nations, and of creating a permanent social antipathy.

II.

VULGAR ERRORS.

Gibbon's remarks upon the legislation of Constantine, Theodosius, and
Justinian supply a fair example of the way in which men of learning and
open mind have hitherto regarded what, after all, is a phenomenon worthy
of cold and calm consideration. "I touch," he says, "with reluctance,
and despatch with impatience, a more odious vice, of which modesty
rejects the name, and nature abominates the idea." After briefly
alluding to the morals of Etruria, Greece, and Rome, he proceeds to the
enactments of Constantine: "Adultery was first declared to be a capital
offence ... the same penalties were inflicted on the passive and active
guilt of paederasty; and all criminals, of free or servile condition,
were either drowned, or beheaded, or cast alive into the avenging
flames."[1] Then, without further comment, he observes: "The adulterers
were spared by the common sympathy of mankind; but the lovers of their
own sex were pursued by general and pious indignation." "Justinian
relaxed the punishment at least of female infidelity: the guilty spouse
was only condemned to solitude and penance, and at the end of two years
she might be recalled to the arms of a forgiving husband. But the same
Emperor declared himself the implacable enemy of unmanly lust, and the
cruelty of his persecution can scarcely be excused by the purity of his
motives. In defiance of every principle of justice he stretched to past
as well as future offences the operations of his edicts, with the
previous allowance of a short respite for confession and pardon. A
painful death was inflicted by the amputation of the sinful instrument,
or the insertion of sharp r