Die kaiserzeitliche Judengesetzgebung von Konstantin bis zur Veröffentlichung von Justinians Novelle 146 (553)

Abstract

This treatise, which is less concerned with canonical as with historical questions, tries to derive the development of the relationship between the elites of society and church and Judaism from the relevant legal sources. Within this process, the changes that have evolved in the view taken by research are of particular importance. In contrast to the long-prevailing negative view of imperial and church politics, the approach which has become widely established since the 1980s examines the conflicts between the secular and clerical powers, but also those prevailing within the latter. According to this research the Christian emperors, starting with Constantine, largely continued the politics of pre-Christian emperors as far as Judaism was concerned. Despite frequent anti-Jewish encroachments on the part of clerical institutions, the Christian emperors and the official church (i. e. the bishops) followed in the Pauline and Augustine traditions and basically tolerated the Jews as the only non-Catholic religious group, even after the Edict of Thessalonica of 380 banned all pagan and non-Catholic cults. A clear restriction of the legal and, above all, societal position of Jews is, however, noticeable in the period of Justinian. The more recent research tries to overcome the rather selective and one-sided presentation of former approaches and seeks a more comprehensive and balanced interpretation by differentiating between the sources available and by allocating the sources from each period of reign to the categories »legal privileges, legal protection, approximation and preservation of laws, curtailment of laws and missionary concerns.«