Note 119 — Chapter VII · ANCIENT CHRISTIANITY AND ITS OPPONENTS

Theodosius I, Arcadius, and Theodosius II (379–450) successively passed laws forbidding and persecuting paganism (Finlay. i, 286; Beugnot. Hist. de la destr. du paganisme en occident, i, 350 sq.). Mithraism was suppressed in the same period (Jerome, Epist. cvii, ad Laetam, Sokrates, Eccles. Hist. bk. v, ch. xvi). It is to be remembered that Constans and Constantius, the sons of Constantine, had commenced, at least on paper, to persecute paganism as soon as their father’s new creed was sufficiently established (Cod. Theod. xvi, 10, 2, 4), and this with the entire approval of the whole Church. It was not their fault that it subsisted till the time of Theodosius II (cp. Gieseler, § 75, pp. 306–308; and Beugnot, i, 138–48). On the edict of Theodosius I see Milman, bk. iii, ch. viii; ed. cited, p. 186. ↑