The Impact and Fate of an Eastern-Oriented Theodosian Law in the Law Codes of the Late Ancient West and the Early Middle Ages

Scholarly research accepts as a clear fact that the Edict of Milan, issued by Constantine the Great in February 313, made Christianity a religio licita, i.e. an accepted religion in the Roman Empire. The Edict of Cunctos populos, issued by the Emperor Theodosius the Great in February 380, is not nearly so clear-cut: while the majority of (scholarly) opinion holds that this law made Christianity the state religion of the empire, other scholars are more nuanced and reject the interpretation that from then on all the emperor's subjects were to follow the Christian faith.
By presenting and evaluating the different positions, this paper seeks to answer the question of the meaning and role of the Edict in the ecclesiastical politics and dogmatic history of the time, and the reasons why the idea of Christianity becoming a state religion is associated with it in the minds of the educated world. Along with the above, the paper will also seek to explore the local intentions of the law, aimed at Constantinople, and the impact of this fourth-century provision on its contemporary recipients in the eastern and western parts of the Roman Empire, through its publication in the Codex Theodosianus (16,1,2) and its central place in the Codex Iustinianus (1,1,1), in the fifth century, and 6th century pagans, heretics and Jews.