GRATIS:, GRATIOSA RESCRIPTA: Technical terms applied in the Roman Catholic Church to iescripte by which the pope, as a grace or favor, generally in response to a request, confers a dis pensation, an indulgence, a privilege, an exemption, a benefice, or an expectancy. The usual formula "Fiat ut petitur" or "Conceeaum," involves the tacit condition that the grounds adduced in the request are truthfully stated. If the grace is given in the form "Placet motu proprio," it in independent of the grounds stated and operative even if they should prove invalid.

(P. Hinschius†.)

GRATIAN, gr6'shi-an: 1. Roman emperor, 375-383; b. at Sirmium, 359; killed at Lyons Aug 25, 383. He followed his father, Valentinian L, on the throne of the Went in 375, while his uncle, Valens (q.v.), governed the East until his death in 378, when Theodosius succeeded him. In 383 Gratian was murdered in Gaul by his general Maximus, who had assumed the title of emperor and made war upon him.

The policy which Gratian pursued with respect to the Church, and which was carried still farther by Theodosius (q.v.), was of decisive consequences. Religious liberty had reigned, at leant nominally, since the Edict of Milan (313; See Constantine the Great and His Sons, L, §4), but none of the powerful ecclesiastical parties in the empire was satisfied with it, while an equal tolerance of all parties would have entailed unceasing religious wars and threatened the existence of the empire. On the other hand, paganism had already received such a blow by the most far-reaching laws that a serious and lasting resistance was not expected from it. Thus the time had come in which the rulers of the State, by elevating the confession of one of the ecclesiastical parties to the

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state religion and suppressing all others, could bring about the only kind of peace either attainable or desirable, if the empire and civilization were to be maintained. Gratian accordingly established the orthodox State Church, while Theodosius began with the systematic suppression of paganism. It is impossible to tell how far Gratian was influenced by the Christian bishops in his work, but his attachment to the Nicene faith was without doubt due largely to the personal influence of Ambrose. In 376 Gratian forbade all heretics to assemble for any religious purpose, confiscated the property belonging to their churches, and transferred the buildings to the orthodox, whom he favored at the same time by a series of laws. In the same year (376) he issued an edict concerning ecclesiastical jurisdiction. In 377 he exempted all officers of the orthodox Church, down to the ostiarii, from municipal services and personal taxes, and in 379 he even made the retail trade which the lower clergy carried on in Illyria, Italy, and Gaul free of duty. In the Roman schism Gratian took the part of Damasus (see Damasus I.), whom he appointed judge of appeal over all Occidental bishops. Nevertheless, he rejected the demand of the Roman synod of 378 to free the bishops of the cities from the jurisdiction of the State. In 381 the Council of Constantinople pronounced the anathema against all non-Nicene parties.

After the accession of Theodosius, paganism was treated with the same severity as heretical Christianity. According to his edict of 381, apostates from Christianity to paganism lost their right to make a will, this being only the beginning of a number of special edicts. Gratian does not seem to have attacked paganism with the same severity as Theodosius; but he, too, beginning in 382, issued a number of edicts for his provinces under the immediate influence of Ambrose. All sacerdotal privileges and all state support were withdrawn from paganism, and real estate belonging to the pagan temples was confiscated. The altar of victory in the hall of the senate was removed; and Gratian declined to accept the emblems of the office of ponttfex maximus. Shortly before his downfall, he issued a law punishing apostasy to paganism and Judaism with the loss of citizenship. Thus the orthodox State Church came into existence, but neither Gratian nor Theodosius created it; it was no act of deep political insight, but the necessary result of historical development.

(Adolf Harnack.)

Bibliography: Sources from the Christian side are the histories of Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, Rufinus and Sulpicius Severus, with which cf. Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman History, in Bohn's Classical Library, London, 1887. Consult: J. C. L. Gieseler, Church History, ed. H. B. Smith, i. 282-283, New York, 1868; C. Wordsworth, Chow=h Hist. to the Council of Chalcadon, vol. iii., ib.1885; Gibbon, Decline and Pall, chaps. azv.-zavii.; Neander; Christian Church, vol. ii. passim; Schaff, Christian Church, ik. 61-62; w. Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, ii. 301-303, London, 1890.

2. Compiler of the Decretum Gratiani. He was a Camaldolensian monk, teacher of canon law in the monastery of St. Felix at Bologna, and prepared his work between 1139 and 1142. Nothing more is known of his life. See Canon Law, II.