Did Constantine Protect Yahudim Who Converted to Christianoi from Retaliation?

Evidence: Codex Theodosianus 16.8 · Period: Constantine

What the ancient record says

Yes, the other side of the same legal transformation. Constantinian legislation protected Yahudim who left their community and became Christianoi from violent retaliation or harassment; later legal traditions preserve severe penalties for attacking such converts.

Matters because conversion was no longer only an internal religious dispute, the emperor's government decided which conversions received protection, which conduct around conversion was punishable, and how the state policed the boundary. Protecting a person from violence is not itself persecution, the significance is the asymmetry of the developing legal system and the increasing involvement of imperial law in religious identity; each law examined separately.

We cannot build history from slogans: "Constantine outlawed the Yahudim" is too broad; "Constantine's government did nothing to Yahudi legal status" is also wrong. The record shows a developing network of protections, restrictions, privileges, penalties, and boundary laws.