books and not hand them over to a public official in order that they should be burnt.[1]
Such were the principles which were laid down in the Byzantine state for dealing with heretics, but in practice the penalties were not always strictly enforced, and the law often slumbered unless some special stimulus set it in motion. A couple of years after Justinian's accession his zeal for Orthodoxy inflamed him with a desire to encompass a general conformity in religion throughout the Empire. He issued a decree, therefore, that all heretics of the flagrant type would lie under the extreme penalties of the statutes unless they accepted Christianity within three months.[2] As a result, many votaries of polytheism were discovered in the capital, and several high officials were dismissed from their posts.[3] At the same time, a numerous body of inquisitors pervaded the provinces in order to enforce the edict, whereupon many conformed through fear, whilst others who were fanatically attached to their belief fled to distant regions or even committed suicide.[4] Among the most insensate devotees of the latter class were the Montanists of Phrygia, who shut themselves up in their churches and then set fire to the buildings, so that all perished together.[5] Prior to this decree Jews and Samaritans had enjoyed the ordinary protection of the law in their own communities, and only suffered the disabilities of heretics when legally opposed by Catholics; but now the latter sect was included among those upon whom the State religion was to be enforced. In their case the measure was carried out with the greatest harshness, and their synagogues
