Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/62

 26 Readings in European History None but the orthodox clergy to enjoy privileges. Manichaeans to be prose- cuted. Heretical books to be sought out and burned. Various dis- abilities of the heretics. Privileges which are granted on religious grounds should be confined to those who observe the law. We will that heretics and schismatics should not only be excluded from such privileges, but that they should be subject to various burdens [A.D. 326]. Whenever an assembly of Manichaeans 1 is discovered, let their teachers be heavily fined. Those who are in attend- ance should be cast out from among their fellow-men as infamous and discredited. The houses or dwelling places in which their profane doctrines are taught should be con- fiscated by the government [A.D. 372]. Clerics adhering to the Eunomian or Montanist super- stition shall be excluded from all intercourse with any city or town. Should any of these heretics sojourning in the country attempt to gather the people together or collect an assembly, let them be sent into perpetual exile. . . . We command that their books, which contain the sub- .stance of their criminal teachings, be sought out with the utmost care and burnt with fire under the eyes of the magis- trates. Should any one perchance be convicted of conceal- ing, through deceit or otherwise, and of failing to produce, any work of this kind, let him know that as the possessor of harmful books written with criminal intent he shall suffer capital punishment [A.D. 398]. Here we find the same spirit of active and cruel religious intolerance which appears in the mediaeval laws, notably the thirteenth century. Other edicts pro- vide that certain heretics e.g. the Manichaeans should lose the right to bequeath and inherit property. Illegal bequests of heretics were to revert to the public treasury. Heretics were .to be heavily fined, and in some cases were excluded from the army. Slaves might be 1 This Manichaean heresy was revived in the later Middle Ages. See the account of the Albigenses in History of Western Europe, p. 221.