Nefarias

5a5f1791d6634edff46ddd5f365745dd
Francisco de Goya, El Aquellare (1798)

Impp. Valentinianus et Valens AA. ad Secundum pf. p.
ne quis deinceps nocturnis temporibus aut nefarias preces aut magicos apparatus aut sacrificia funesta celebrare conetur. detectum enim atque convictum competenti animadversione mactari perenni auctoritate censemus.
dat. V. Id. Sept. divo Ioviano A. et Varroniano coss.
interpretatio: quicumque nocturna sacrificia daemonum celebraverit vel incantationibus daemones invocauerit, capite puniatur.
(Codex Theodosianus 9.16.7)

Emperors Valentinian and Valens Augustuses to Secundus, Praetorian Prefect.
Hereafter no person shall attempt during the nighttime to engage in wicked prayers or magic preparations or funereal sacrifices. If he should be detected and convicted of such practices, We decree by Our everlasting authority that he shall be stricken with a suitable punishment.
Given on the fifth day before the ides of September in the year of the consulship of the sainted Jovian and of Varronianus. (September 9, 364)
Interpretation: If any person should celebrate nocturnal sacrifices to the demons or should invoke the demons by incantations, he shall suffer capital punishment.
(tr. Clyde Pharr)

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: