The Theodosian Code: the standing of the Jews put into law

On 15 February 438 a collection of imperial constitutions of the previous century and more was published at Constantinople. There are forty-two laws on the Jews in the code. Section XVI.8—"On Jews, Samaritans and Caelicolists"—gathered for the first time everything the empire had decided about them.

The ambivalence shows in the first lines. Judaism is called religio licita, a permitted religion; synagogues are under the protection of the law and may not be destroyed; the Sabbath is recognised, and a Jew may not be summoned to court on it. But at the same time: building new synagogues is forbidden, converting anyone to Judaism is a criminal offence, marriage between a Jew and a Christian woman is treated as adultery, a Jew may not keep a Christian slave and may not hold any office giving him authority over Christians.

The design was not expulsion but demotion. Jews were to exist and to be seen existing, in a subordinate condition; Augustine had already supplied the theological ground, writing that the Jews are the "librarians" of Christianity and therefore must not be destroyed.

The code outlived the empire: it underlies both the Code of Justinian and the canon law of medieval Europe, and through them the very restrictions that would be lifted only in the nineteenth century.