The prohibition of mixed marriages in ancient christianity regulation by canon law or christology?

Abstract

In ancient Christianity mixed marriages were generally prohibited by leaders of the community, the Church fathers and by the councils: they did so despite or rather because the New Testament didn’t contain any sentence prohibiting clearly for a Christian to marry a non Christian person. These interdictions, however, seem to be rather dissuasions (even though we find sometimes quite hard expressions), while the synods prefer to punish those „guilty of mixed marriage” with little punishment. The only Roman law came from 388 by Theodosius the Great, which punished with full severity that man who married a Jewish woman as a Christian or a Christian woman as a Jew: the punishment was death or complete confiscation of property, depending on his social status. The rabbinical prohibition of the time can be compared to the strictness of the latter, where the rabbinic authorities would only punish a Jewish man who married a non Jewish woman with death – if they had the right to do so. The article tries to answer the reasons for the partly permissive and partly harsly condemning position of Christians.