16.5.54
THE SAME AUGUSTI TO JULIANUS, PROCONSUL OF AFRICA.
We decree that the Donatists and the heretics, who until now have been spared by the patience of Our Clemency, shall be severely punished by legal authority, so that by this Our manifest order, they shall recognize that they are intestable and have no power of entering into contracts of any kind, but they shall be branded with perpetual infamy and separated from honorable gatherings and from public assemblies.
1. Those places in which the dire superstition has been preserved until now shall surely be joined to the venerable Catholic Church, and thus their bishops and presbyters, that is, all their prelates and ministers shall likewise be despoiled of all their property and shall be sent into exile to separate islands and provinces. 2. Moreover, if any person should receive the aforesaid persons for the sake of harboring them as they flee from the proposed punishment, he shall know that his patrimony will be added to the resources of Our fisc and that he will incur the penalty which has been proposed for the fugitives. 3. Furthermore, We manifestly impose the loss of their patrimony and pecuniary penalties on each such man and woman, whether a private person or a dignitary, and the penalty must be assessed in accordance with their status. Therefore, if any person should be invested with the rank of proconsul, vicar, or count of the first order, unless he should turn in his mind and purpose to the observance of the Catholic religion, he shall be compelled to pay two hundred pounds of silver which shall be added to the resources of our fisc. No person shall suppose that the foregoing penalty alone can suffice for checking their design, but as often as any person shall be convicted of having joined such a communion, so often shall the fine be exacted of him, and if it should be proved five times that he is not recalled from his false doctrine by such fines, then he shall be referred to Our Clemency so that We may judge more rigourously concerning his entire property and his status.
4. We bind the remaining dignitaries, moreover, with conditions of this kind, namely, that if a senator who is fortified by no additional privilege of rank should be found in the herd of Donatists, he shall pay one hundred pounds of silver; those of the rank of civil priests shall be forced to pay the same sum; the ten chief decurions shall be assessed fifty pounds of silver; the remaining decurions shall pay ten pounds of silver; the remaining decurions shall pay ten pounds of silver if they should prefer to continue in the heresy.
5. Moreover, if the chief tenants of the estates of our household should permit the aforesaid practices on the landed estates of our venerable substance, they shall be forced to pay by way of fine whatever amount they have been accustomed to pay as rental. Emphyteuticaries shall also be bound by the same authority of our sacred imperial decree.
6. If, indeed, chief tenants of private persons should permit conventicles to be held on their landed estates, or if through their lenience, the sacred mystery should be desacrated, the judges shall refer the matter to the knowledge of the owners, whom it shall behoove, if they wish to avoid the penalty of our sacred imperial mandate, to reform those who err or to replace those who persist and to provide for their landed estates directors who will obey our imperial commands. But if the owners should neglect to make this provision, they shall be fined, by the authority of our order as issued, the amount of the rentals which they have been accustomed to receive, so that what could have accrued to their profit shall be added to our sacred imperial treasury.
7. Moreover, if the apparitors of the various judges should be apprehended in such false doctrine, they shall be held to the payment of thirty pounds of silver by way of fine; and if, after five condemnations, they should be unwilling to abstain therefrom, they shall be chastised with blows and sent into exile. 8. Slaves and coloni shall indeed be restrained by the severest punishment from such daring acts, and if coloni should be constrained by flogging but should still persist in their course, then they shall be fined a third part of their peculium. 9. Moreover, everything which can be collected from such classes of men and from such places shall be dispatched forthwith to the sacred imperial largesses.
GIVEN ON THE FIFTEENTH DAY BEFORE THE KALENDS OF JULY AT RAVENNA IN THE YEAR OF THE CONSULSHIP OF CONSTANTIUS AND CONSTANS (= 17 June 414).
(trans. Pharr 1952: 460)
