Heretics, Roman legislation against

The legislative intervention of the Roman government in Christian intersectarian disputes obeyed the traditional conception of the emperor as the general curator of the relations between divinity and the empire, tasked with ensuring the correct practice of religion. Heresy, however, was not an original category of Roman law: emperors relied on the expert knowledge of bishops, whose influence often shaped imperial legislation on religion; bishops, meanwhile, relied on the support of the secular arm, which continued, so to speak, the work of heresiology. Anti-heretical legislation included an assorted catalogue of penalties, sanctions, and restrictions imposed on clerics and laypeople.