Byzantine Law and Manichaean Heresy: Some Remarks about Ekl. XVII.52

In Ekl. XVII.52 the imperial lawmaker, ordering the death penalty against Montanists, who were considered in some aspects similar to Hebrews, uses the chance to address the problem of radical heresies, by that time identified with Manichaeism, which had indeed turned into synonymous of heterodoxy. The objective of this paper is to deal with the issue that Manichees are punished together with Montanists: if it is possible to accept that Montanism, in the region of Phrigia, was sometimes a name to indicate a radical sect of the Jewish religion, we are sure about the absence of Manichaeism at the time of the Isaurian dynasty. An explanation could be given once considering in depth the character of Manichaean heresy, which had taken the place, for many reasons, of a box containing everything that appeared to be outside the orthodoxy