Persecution of private gatherings for worship besides state sanctioned worship

The Novella LXVII spelled out a number of rules for clerics regarding alienation of immovable property of the church and other related matters, dating to 538 and the implications must have been a difficult situation for the papacy since the papacy had to flee at times for his life and Justinian made it illegal of anyone to leave their churches.

They had to reside in the church and could not take long trips and ask members to send them money. 

Justinian prohibited anyone to start a house-church and one can see this as the beginning of persecution of private worship movements or small groups outside the domain of the public church. 

More evidence of Justinian and the persecution of heretics are the following. In Novella CIX of 541 Justinian outlined the state’s intolerance with heretics. 

He explained his epistemology behind his methodology that permanency of his reign can only be achieved if he found favor with God. 

Therefore the laws of the state should be based upon finding favor with God like Leo and Justin did, forbidding all heretics to have a share in public employments or offices so that they cannot use that office against the church. 

This rule they have built into the constitution. Heretics are defined as “those who are the members of different heterodox sects”ν “insane Hebrew doctrines of Nestorius”, “evil dogmas”, “impiety”, “all such as are not affiliated with the Catholic and Apostolic Church of God” which “preach the true faith and ecclesiastical tradition”.

A heretic is one who does not receive the sacraments from a cleric of the Catholic Church even though they call themselves “Christians”. Those who hold and embrace the doctrines of the Catholic Church shall have greater privileges than those who do not. 

If females are not a member of the church and do not receive sacraments they “shall be deprived of all the advantages of our Constitution”.

In Novella CXXIII of 541 Justinian described aspects that one would expect to find in a church manual as part of civil law. 

Evidence Justinian and Seventh-day Sabbath-keeping persecution are the following. 

In Novella CXLIV there is an example of Sabbath persecution. 

About the Samaritans Justinian said (undated) “And if any Samaritan,

after having proved himself worthy to receive baptism, should return to his former error and be detected in observing the Sabbath, or in doing anything else which proves that he was only baptized through simulated conversion, We order that he shall be proscribed, and sentenced to exile for life”.

Justinian changed the attitude towards Sabbath keeping in 538. In his diary of 1847, Hiram Edson said “The council of Orleans, held 538, prohibited the country to labor on Sunday, which Constantine, by his laws, permitted. This council also declared, “That to hold it unlawful to travel with horses, cattle and carriages, to prepare food, or to do anything necessary to the cleanliness and decency of houses or persons, savors more of Judaism than Christianity”.

Justinian and persecution of heretics is dealt with in his sources. In Novella XXXVII the fate of heretics are given by Justinian as follows “A heretic shall not confer the rite of baptism, or discharge the duties of a public office, and a catechumen shall not circumcise anyone. No heretic shall, under any circumstances, have a house of worship, or a place of prayer.” 

The civil law has teeth on ecclesiastical matters here: It is undated Novella XLV from 535 is ruling over heretics, Jews and Samaritans that they shall not be able to testify against an orthodox Christian or the government who is considered to be favoring orthodox Christians. The persecuting power of the state is seen in these laws.

Justification by Faith

As the Reformation was “the offspring of the age,” so the leading doctrine of the Reformation, i.e., Justification by Faith, was the logical deduction from the promises laid down by the age. 

And in view of the times and the events, it is difficult to conceive any other doctrine that might properly have been the leading one. 

At the date of the Reformation, the beginning of the sixteenth century,

the papacy had, from Gregory the Great, through and Stephen III, Hildebrand and Innocent III, Alexander VI, and Leo X, reached that pinnacle of abusive power where she held the sway over this world and the world to come, and over the eternal destinies of the human race; and where she could traffic in immortal bliss, selling it for money, where, in the energetic words of another, 

The church was omnipotent, and Leo was the church.

In the exercise of that omnipotency, Leo proceeds to the sale of indulgences, covering both worlds for the past, present, and future. 

And now begins the Reformation. 

Luther resists the sale of indulgences, and the claims upon which they are sold. 

--It is plain that if both sides stand firmly to their principles, nothing else can come out of it but renunciation of the church of Rome, on the part of Luther, the adoption of Christ as Head of the church instead of the pope, and justification by faith instead of by money in the purchase of indulgences. 

For: 

1. If the pope cannot grant remission of sin by an indulgence, can he grant remission at all? 

2. If he cannot grant remission at all, can he bestow upon another the power to remit sin? 

3. If he has not the authority, and those who receive authority from him have it not, then is such authority possessed by any one on earth?

4. If it stand thus with the pope, is he head of the church? 

5. If he be not the head of the church, is not Christ alone the head of the church on earth as well as in heaven? 

6. If Christ alone be the head of the church and the one alone through whose intercession and merits forgiveness of sin can be obtained, and if this forgiveness is to be obtained from God alone, through Christ alone, without the intervention of priest, bishop, or pope, must not every one go to Christ himself, for himself, for justification? 

And therefore the logical consequence is justification by faith. 

And such was the course through which Luther was led. 

Not that Luther saw or realized it all when he began. Not at all. Had he realized even the half of it, doubtless he would have stood aghast. 

When he opposed the indulgences, he saw only the wickedness of the indulgences as ministered by their vendors, and of the manner in which Tetzel conducted the traffic. 

And as the pope persisted in this course, 

and Luther persisted in his opposition, 

this first step carried him logically to the second,and, as events shaped the course, finally to the logical consequence of all, justification by faith, and therefore the Reformation.