Theodosius' Code

Roman Emperor Theodosius II in Constantinople started a law compendium AD 428 and kept at it through the 430s. In the meantime Nestorius got booted from the capital. We own a contemporary and fairly-unbiased historian for it all, in Socrates Scholasticus.

Mark Cohen, in Under Crescent & Cross, there asks Is It Good For The Jews. Cohen is of mixed mind.

The Code sets out a bigoted Christian state with protections for his Tribe, but limited. It's Race Law, one might say.

Constantinople would update Theodosius, and harshen it, under Justinian a century later. But the Latin West has considered Justinian an enemy so didn't adopt much of his updates. Roman bishop Gregory (r. 590-604) defaulted to Theodosius. Even the Visigoths in Spain - no friend to the Jews - preferred Theodosius. A century after Justinian Heraclius would simply ban Judaism; thus, that Emperor didn't even try to bring Justinian's Code west. So the West didn't read Justinian well into the High Middle Ages. For us Latins meanwhile, Theodosian Law remained baseline Catholic Law, especially given the first-millennium weakness of the Roman episcopate, "Byzantine" or pornocrat.

As I see it, Theodosius II started out as a Nicene Christian moderate until "Saint" Cyril of Alexandria mobbed up his mob and forced the Empire's hand. Patriarch Nestorius, the true Nicene in Constantine's City, lost that political war. It was long noted that Arius and his "Eunomian" followers were Judaism-friendly if not -curious. Nestorius got associated with the Eunomians and, thereby, with the Jews. (Along with Chrysostom. LOL.) Theodosius in this position of weakness had to take a harsh line against "Nestorian heretics"; the Jews got caught up in that dragnet.

Saint Augustine was dead by then. Although Theodosius does not cite Augustine, and never acknowledged him as a saint; Cohen believes that Augustine's shade tempered Latin interpretation of Theodosius.