Note (return) — Chapter XIV

he death of Boëthius 133 occurred probably about the middle of 524, and in the same year, as it would seem, Theodoric left Verona and returned to his old quarters at Ravenna. The danger from the barbarians on the northern frontier had apparently been averted, but a far greater danger, the hatred and the terror of his subjects of Roman origin, had entered his kingdom. It was probably during this same year 524 that the zeal of the orthodox Emperor Justin began to flame out against the Arians. Their churches were taken from them and given to the Catholics, and, as we hear that several Arians at this time embraced the Catholic faith, we may conjecture that the usual methods of conversion in that age, confiscation, imprisonment, and possibly torture, had been pretty freely employed. These measures, coming close after the alleged conspiracy of the Senators, or perhaps simultaneously with it, completed the exasperation of Theodoric, He sent for the Pope, John I., a Tuscan, who had been lately elevated to the Papal chair, and when the successor of St. Peter appeared at Ravenna commanded him, with some haughtiness in his tone, to proceed to Constantinople, to the Emperor Justin, and tell him that "he must in no wise attempt to win over those whom he calls heretics to the Catholic religion". The Pope is said to have made some protestations, distinguishing between his duty to God and his duty to his king, but nevertheless accepted a commission of some kind or other to treat with the Emperor on the subject of mutual toleration between Catholics and Arians.