16.5.5
EMPERORS GRATIAN, VALENTINIAN, AND THEODOSIUS AUGUSTI TO HESPERIUS, PRAETORIAN PREFECT.
All heresies are forbidden by both divine and imperial laws and shall forever cease. If any profane man by his punishable teachings should weaken the concept of God, he shall have the right to know such noxious doctrines only for himself but shall not reveal them to others to their hurt. If any person by a renewed death should corrupt bodies that have been redeemed by the venerable baptismal font, by taking away the effect of that ceremony which he repeats, he shall know such doctrines for himself alone, and he shall not ruin others by his nefarious teaching. All teachers and ministers alike of this perverse superstition shall abstain from the gathering places of a doctrine already condemned, whether they defame the name of bishop by the assumption of such priestly office, or, that which is almost the same, they belie religion with the appellation of presbyters, or also if they call themselves deacons, although they may not even be considered Christians. Finally, the rescript that was recently issued at Sirmium shall be anulled, and there shall remain only those enactments pertaining to Catholic doctrine which were decreed by Our father of eternal memory and which We ourselves commanded by an equally manifold order, which will survive forever.
GIVEN ON THE THIRD DAY BEFORE THE NONES OF AUGUST AT MILAN RECEIVED ON THE THIRTEENTH DAY BEFORE THE KALENDS OF SEPTEMBER IN THE YEAR OF THE CONSULSHIP OF AUXONIUS AND OLYBRIUS (= 3 August and 20 August 379)
(trans. Pharr 1952: 450-51)