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ID
ER 2132
The Emperors Arcadius and Honorius issue the law which allows decurions who are bishops, presbyters, or deacons, to leave service in the municipal council providing that he has a replacement or transferred his property to the council. Clerics of lower grades should remain in the municipal service. The law issued on 11 December 399, included in the Theodosian Code published in 438.
XII.1.163
 
IDEM AA. EUTYCHIANO P(RAEFECTO) P(RAETORI)O. Si qui ex secundo divi patris nostri consulatu curiam relinquentes clericorum se consortio manciparunt, si iam episcopi vel presbyteri diaconesve esse meruerunt, in sacris quidem et secretioribus dei mysteriis perseverent, sed aut substitutos pro se curiae offerre cogantur aut iuxta legem dudum latam tradant curiae facultates. Residui omnes, lectores subdiaconi vel ii clerici, quibus clericorum privilegia non debentur, debitis mox patriae muneribus praesententur. DAT. III ID. DEC. THEODORO CONS.
 
(ed. Mommsen 1905: 702)
XII.1.163
 
The same Augusti to Eutychianus, Praetorian Prefect.
If any man has deserted his municipal council after the year of the second consulship of Our sainted father [Theodosius the Great, in 388] and has delivered himself to the association of clerics, he shall remain employed in the sacred and secret mysteries of God, provided that he has already obtained the rank of bishop, of presbyter, or of deacon, but he shall either be forced to provide a substitute for himself to the municipal council or, in accordance with the law formerly issued, he shall deliver his property to the municipal council. All remaining clerics, such as lectors, subdeacons, and those clerics to whom the privileges of the clergy are not due, shall be immediately restored to the compulsory public services that are due to their municipalities. Given on the third day before the ides of December in they year of the consulship of the Most Noble Theodorus. December 11, 399.
 
(trans. Pharr 1952: 359)

Discussion:

The emperors are named in XII.1.140.

Place of event:

Region
  • East
City
  • Constantinople

About the source:

Title: Codex Theodosianus, Code of Theodosius, Theodosian Code
Origin: Constantinople (East)
Denomination: Catholic/Nicene/Chalcedonian
The Theodosian Code is a compilation of the Roman legislation from the times of the Emperor Constantine to the times of Theodosius II. The work was begun in 427 and finished in autumn 437 when it was accepted for publication. It was promulgated in February 438 and came into effect from the beginning of the year 439.
 
The compilation consist of sixteen books in which all imperial constitutions are gathered beginning with the year 312. Books 1-5 did not survive and are reconstructed from the manuscripts of the Lex Romana Visigothorum, i.e. the Breviary of Alaric, the legal corpus published in 506 by the Visigothic king, Alaric, containing excerpts from the Theodosian Code equipped with explanatory notes (interpretationes), post-Theodosian novels and several other juristic texts.
 
A new compilation was undertaken during the reign of the emperor Justinian. A committee of ten persons prepared and promulgated the Codex in 529. It was quickly outdated because of the legislative activities of the emperor and therefore its revised version had to be published in 534. The Codex together with the novels, the Pandecta, a digest of juristic writings, and the Institutes, an introductory handbook are known under the medieval name "Corpus Iuris Civilis".
Edition:
Theodor Mommsen and Paul Martin Meyer (eds.), Theodosiani libri XVI cum constitutionibus Sirmondianis et leges novellae ad Theodosianum pertinentes, 2 vols., Berlin 1905
Paul Krüger (ed.), Codex Iustinianus, Berlin 1877
Gustav Hänel (ed.), Lex Romana Visigothorum, Leipzig 1849
 
Translation:
The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions, a translation with commentary, glossary, and bibliography by C. Pharr, Princeton 1952
Bibliography:
(all those entries with extenstive, recent bibliography)
 
 

Categories:

Described by a title - Presbyter/πρεσβύτερος
    Described by a title - Clericus
      Public law - Secular
        Economic status and activity - Indication of wealth
          Equal prerogatives of presbyters and bishops
            Equal prerogatives of presbyters and deacons
              Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: M. Szada, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER2132, http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=2132
              Record by: Marta Szada
              last edited: 2019-08-12 10:22:08
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