November 8, AD 392

Theodosian Code 16.10.12

Theodosian Code 16.10.12 prohibits public and private pagan rites

The edict reached into the household shrine: a splash of wine, a pinch of incense, a lamp or a garland could become evidence of an illegal rite.

8 November 392, at Constantinople

On 8 November 392 at Constantinople, an imperial constitution preserved as Theodosian Code 16.10.12 was addressed to Rufinus, praetorian prefect of the East. Its transmitted heading names Theodosius, Arcadius and Honorius.

The law declared that no person, regardless of rank or wealth, could sacrifice an animal to an image anywhere, or inspect living entrails for divination.

Such divination was to be prosecuted in a manner analogous to treason, even where no inquiry about the emperor had occurred.

Lamps, wine and garlands

Its defining reach was into private household worship. Honouring the Lar with fire, the Genius with wine or the Penates with scent was prohibited, as were lighting lamps, offering incense and hanging garlands.

What it banned was the ritual use: it did not prohibit owning incense, or every figurine as an object.

Nor did it order the general demolition of temples — its sanctions were prosecution, fines and confiscation of the property used for rites.

Twenty-five pounds of gold

A person performing these rites on property he owned could lose the house or the estate to the treasury.

Someone performing them in a public temple, or on another’s property without the owner’s knowledge, faced a fine of twenty-five pounds of gold, and a complicit owner faced the same. Municipal defenders and councillors were ordered to report offences and judges to punish them, with negligent judges and their office staffs paying thirty pounds of gold each.

The language claims universal social reach, but the law was addressed to the praetorian prefect of the East; no parallel western version is preserved, and Theodosius did not then control the territory governed by the usurper Eugenius.

Sources

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What the sources leave uncertain

The date and place in the law’s subscription—Constantinople, 8 November 392—are securely transmitted.
Although its language claims universal social reach, it was addressed to the praetorian prefect of the East. No parallel western version is preserved, and Theodosius did not then control territory governed by the western usurper Eugenius.
The practical enforcement of late Roman religious laws was uneven. Repeated later legislation demonstrates that prohibited practices continued.
The law applied in principle to rites such as the Eleusinian Mysteries, but it does not mention Eleusis. Sources variously associate the sanctuary’s closure with the legislation and its physical destruction with Alaric’s invasion in 395 or 396.