cording to the dictates of
their conscience. Their religious meetings, whether public or secret, by
day or by night, in cities or in the country, were equally proscribed
by the edicts of Theodosius; and the building, or ground, which had been
used for that illegal purpose, was forfeited to the Imperial domain.
III. It was supposed, that the error of the heretics could proceed only
from the obstinate temper of their minds; and that such a temper was a
fit object of censure and punishment. The anathemas of the church were
fortified by a sort of civil excommunication; which separated them
from their fellow-citizens, by a peculiar brand of infamy; and this
declaration of the supreme magistrate tended to justify, or at least to
excuse, the insults of a fanatic populace. The sectaries were gradually
disqualified from the possession of honorable or lucrative employments;
and Theodosius was satisfied with his own justice, when he decreed,
that, as the Eunomians distinguished the nature of the Son from that
of the Father, they should be incapable of making their wills or of
receiving any advantage from testamentary donations. The guilt of the
Manichaean heresy was esteemed of such magnitude, that it could be
expiated only by the death of the offender; and the same capital
punishment was inflicted on the Audians, or Quartodecimans, [49] who
should dare to perpetrate the atrocious crime of celebrating on an
improper day the festival of Easter. Every Roman might exercise the
right of public accusation; but the office of Inquisitors of the Faith,
a name so deservedly abhorred, was first instituted under the reign of
Theodosius. Yet we are assured, that the execution of his penal edicts
was seldom enforced; and that the pious emperor appeared less desirous
to punish, than to reclaim, or terrify, his refractory subjects. [50]

[Footnote 48: See the Theodosian Code, l. xvi. tit. v. leg. 6--23,
with Godefroy's commentary on each law, and his general summary, or
Paratitlon, tom vi. p. 104-110.]

[Footnote 49: They always kept their Easter, like the Jewish Passover,
on the fourteenth day of the first moon after the vernal equinox; and
thus pertinaciously opposed the Roman Church and Nicene synod, which had
fixed Easter to a Sunday. Bingham's Antiquities, l. xx. c. 5, vol. ii.
p. 309, fol. edit.]

[Footnote 50: Sozomen, l. vii. c. 12.]

The theory of persecution was established by Theodosius, whose justice
and piety have been applauded