heretics, and the embodiment of it in legis- lation. His primary design, it is true, was rather to terrify and convert, than to punish, the refractory subjects.' From the theory, however, to the practice was a single step ; and this step his rival and colleague, Maximus, took, when, at the instigation of the unworthy bishop Ithacius, he caused the Spanish bishop, Priscillian, with six respectable adherents of his Manichsean-like sect (two presbyters, two deacons, the poet Latronian, and Euchrocia, a noble matron of Bordeaux), to be tortured and beheaded with the sword at ' Cod. Theod. xvi, 1, 2. Baronius (Ann.), and even Godcfroy call this edict which in this case, to be sure, favored the true doctrine, but involves the absolute despotism of the emperor over faith, an " edictum aureum, pium ct salutare." * Comp. Cod. Theod. xvi. tit. v. leg. 6-33, and Godefroy's Commentary. ' So Sozomen assert.-^, 1. vii. c. 12. § 27. KESTKICTION OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM. 143 Treves in 385. This was the first shedding of tlie blood of heretics by a Christian prince for religious opinions. The bishops assembled at Treves, with the exception of Theognistus, approved this act. But the better feeling of the Christian church shrank from it with horror. The bishops Ambrose of Milan/ and Martin of Tours,'^ raised a memorable protest against it, and broke off all communion with Ithacius and the other bishops who had approved the execution. Yet it should not be forgotten that these bishops, at least Ambrose, were committed against the death penalty in general, and in other respects had no indul- gence for heathens and heretics.^ The whole thing, too, was iiTegularly done ; on the one hand the bishops appeared as accusers in a criminal cause, and on the other a temporal judge admitted an appeal from the episcopal jurisdiction, and pro- nounced an opinion in a matter of faith. Subsequently the functions of the temporal and spiritual courts in the trial of heretics were more accurately distinguished. The execution of the Priscillianists is the only instance of the hloody punishment of heretics in this period, as it is the first in the history of Christianity. But the propriety of violent measures against heresy was thenceforth vindicated even by the best fathers of the church. Chrysostom recom- ' Epist. xxiv. ad Valentin, (torn. ii. p. 891). He would have nothing to do with bishops, " qui aliquos, devios licet a fide, ad necem petebant." ^ In Sulpic. Sever., Hist. Sacra, ii. 50 : " Namque turn Martinus apud Treveros constitutus, non desinebat increpare Ithacium, ut ab accusatione desisteret, Maximum orare, ut sanguine infelicium abstineret : satis superque sufficere, ut episcopali sententia hteretici judicati ecclesiis pellerentur : novum esse et inauditum nefas, ut causam ecclesiae judex saeculi judicaret." Comp. Sulp. Sev., Dial. iii. c. 11-13, ajid his Vit. Mart. c. 20. ' Hence Gibbon, ch. xxvii., charges them, not quite groundlessly, with incon- sistency : " It is with pleasure that we can observe