Did Rome Legally Stop New Synagogues While Allowing Existing Ones to Remain?

5th c. · Theodosian legislation

What the ancient record says

Yes, deserves its own card because the distinction reveals how legal restriction worked. A law need not say "burn every synagogue"; the government could say existing buildings may remain but you may not build new ones.

Over time that matters: a growing community, changing neighborhood, an unusable synagogue, a new community elsewhere, if new construction is forbidden, institutional growth is legally constrained and the effect compounds. Repairs/reconstruction were addressed by different laws and circumstances (why the history cannot be one sentence): some provisions protected existing synagogues from mob destruction, others prohibited new construction, other periods restricted rebuilding, not perfectly static.

This makes the history more accurate, not less important: Roman law could protect a synagogue against illegal mob seizure while legally prohibiting construction of another, not contradictory, but regulated inequality.