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and at length as a positive obligation. The religions of antiquity, which established a separate order of priests, dedicated a holy race, a tribe or family, to the perpetual service of the gods. Such institutions were founded for possession, rather than conquest. The children of the priests enjoyed, with proud and indolent security, their sacred inheritance; and the fiery spirit of enthusiasm was abated by the cares, the pleasures, and the endearments of domestic life. But the Christian sanctuary was open to every ambitious candidate, who aspired to its heavenly promises, or temporal possessions. The office of priests, like that of soldiers or magistrates, was strenuously exercised by those men, whose temper and abilities had prompted them to embrace the ecclesiastical profession, or who had been selected by a discerning bishop as the best qualified to promote the glory and interest of the church. The bishops (till the abuse was restrained by the prudence of the laws) might constrain the reluctant, and protect the distressed; and the imposition of hands for ever bestowed some of the most valuable privileges of civil society. The whole body of the Catholic clergy, more numerous perhaps than the legions, was exempted by the emperors from all service, private or public, all municipal offices, and all personal taxes and contributions, which pressed on their fellow-citizens with intolerable weight: and the duties of their holy profession were accepted as a full discharge of their obligations to the republic. Each bishop acquired an absolute and

b Diodorus Siculus attests and approves the hereditary succession of the priesthood among the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, and the Indians. (lib. 1. p. 84. lib. 2. p. 142-153. ed. Wesseling.) The magi are described by Ammianus as a very numerous family: "Per sæcula multa ad præsens unâ eâdemque prosapiâ multitudo creata, Deorum cultibus dedicata." (25. 6.) Ausonius celebrates the Stirps Druidarum (De Professorib. Burdigal. 4.) but we may infer from the remark of Cæsar, (6. 13.) that, in the Celtic hierarchy, some room was left for choice and emulation.

The subject of the vocation, ordination, obedience, &c. of the clergy is laboriously discussed by Thomassin, (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. 2. p. 1-83.) and Bingham, (in the fourth book of his Antiquities, more especially the fourth, sixth, and seventh chapters.) When the brother of St. Jerome was ordained in Cyprus, the deacons forcibly stopped his mouth, lest he should make a solemn protestation, which might invalidate the holy rites.

d The charter of immunities, which the clergy obtained from the Christian emperors, is contained in the sixteenth book of the Theodosian Code; and is illus

indefeasible right to the perpetual obedience of the clerk whom he ordained: the clergy of each episcopal church, with its dependant parishes, formed a regular and permanent society; and the cathedrals of Constantinople® and Carthage maintained their peculiar establishment of five hundred ecclesiastical ministers. Their ranks and numbers were insensibly multiplied by the superstition of the times, which introduced into the church the splendid ceremonies of a Jewish or Pagan temple; and a long train of priests, deacons, and subdeacons, acolythes, exorcists, readers, singers, and door-keepers, contributed, in their respective stations, to swell the pomp and harmony of religious worship. The clerical name and privilege were extended to many pious fraternities, who devoutly supported the ecclesiastical throne." Six hundred parabolani, or adventurers, visited the sick at Alexandria; eleven hundred copiata, or grave-diggers, buried the dead at Constantinople; and the swarms of monks, who arose from the Nile, overspread and darkened the face of the Christian world.

III. Pro

A. D. 313.

III. The edict of Milan secured the revenue perty. as well as the peace of the church. The Christians not only recovered the lands and houses of which they had been stripped by the persecuting laws of Diocletian, but they acquired a perfect title to all the possessions which they had hitherto enjoyed by the contrated with tolerable candour by the learned Godefroy, whose mind was balanced by the opposite prejudices of a civilian and a Protestant.

e Justinian, Novell. 103. Sixty presbyters, or priests, one hundred deacons, forty deaconesses, ninety subdeacons, one hundred and ten readers, twenty-five chanters, and one hundred door-keepers; in all, five hundred and twenty-five. This moderate number was fixed by the emperor, to relieve the distress of the church, which had been involved in debt and usury by the expense of a much higher establishment.

Universus clerus ecclesiæ Carthaginiensis. fere quingenti vel amplius; inter quos quamplurimi erant lectores infantuli. Victor Vitensis, de Persecut. Vandal. 5. 9. p. 78. edit. Ruinart. This remnant of a more prosperous state subsisted under the oppression of the Vandals.

8 The number of seven orders has been fixed in the Latin church, exclusive of the episcopal character. But the four inferior ranks, the minor orders, are now reduced to empty and useless titles.

See Cod. Theodos. lib. 16. tit. 2. leg. 42, 43. Godefroy's Commentary, and the Ecclesiastical History of Alexandria, shew the danger of these pious institutions, which often disturbed the peace of that turbulent capital.

The edict of Milan (de M. P. C. 48.) acknowledges, by reciting, that there existed a species of landed property, ad jus corporis eorum, id est, ecclesiarum non

nivance of the magistrate. As soon as Christianity became the religion of the emperor and the empire, the national clergy might claim a decent and honourable maintenance; and the payment of an annual tax might have delivered the people from the more oppressive tribute which superstition imposes on her votaries. But as the wants and expenses of the church increased with her prosperity, the ecclesiastical order was still supported and enriched by the voluntary oblations of the faithful.

Eight years after the edict of Milan, Constantine A.D. 321. granted to all his subjects the free and universal permission of bequeathing their fortunes to the holy Catholic church; and their devout liberality, which during their lives was checked by luxury or avarice, flowed with a profuse stream at the hour of their death. The wealthy Christians were encouraged by the example of their sovereign. An absolute monarch, who is rich without patrimony, may be charitable without merit; and Constantine too easily believed that he should purchase the favour of Heaven, if he maintained the idle at the expense of the industrious, and distributed among the saints the wealth of the republic. The same messenger, who carried over to Africa the head of Maxentius, might be intrusted with an epistle to Cæcilian, bishop of Carthage. The emperor acquaints him, that the treasurers of the province are directed to pay into his hands the sum of three thousand folles, or 18,000%. sterling, and to obey his farther requisitions for the relief of the churches of Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania.' The liberality of Constantine increased in a just proportion to his faith and to his vices. He assigned in each city a regular allowance of corn, to supply the fund of ecclesiastical hominum singulorum pertinentia. Such a solemn declaration of the supreme magistrate must have been received in all the tribunals as a maxim of civil law.

* Habeat unusquisque licentiam sanctissimo Catholicæ (ecclesia) venerabilique concilio, decedens bonorum quod optavit relinquere. Cod. Theodos. lib. 16. tit. 2. leg. 4. This law was published at Rome, A. D. $21, at a time when Constantine might foresee the probability of a rupture with the emperor of the east.

Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. lib. 10. 6. in Vit. Constantin. lib. 4. c. 28. He repeatedly expatiates on the liberality of the Christian hero, which the bishop himself had an opportunity of knowing, and even of tasting.

The

charity, and the persons of both sexes, who embraced the monastic life, became the peculiar favourites of their sovereign. The Christian temples of Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Constantinople, &c. displayed the ostentatious piety of a prince, ambitious in a declining age to equal the perfect labours of antiquity." The form of these religious edifices was simple and oblong; though they might sometimes swell into the shape of a dome, and sometimes branch into the figure of a cross. timbers were framed for the most part of cedars of Libanus; the roof was covered with tiles, perhaps of gilt brass; and the walls, the columns, the pavement, were incrusted with variegated marbles. The most precious ornaments of gold and silver, of silk and gems, were profusely dedicated to the service of the altar; and this specious magnificence was supported on the solid and perpetual basis of landed property. In the In the space of two centuries, from the reign of Constantine to that of Justinian, the eighteen hundred churches of the empire were enriched by the frequent and unalienable gifts of the prince and people. An annual income of 6007. sterling may be reasonably assigned to the bishops, who were placed at an equal distance between riches and poverty;" but the standard of their wealth insensibly rose with the dignity and opulence of the cities which they governed. An authentic but imperfect rent-roll specifies some houses, shops, gardens, and farms, which belonged to the three basilica of Rome, St. Peter, St. Paul, and St.

m Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. lib. 10. c. 2-4. The bishop of Cæsarea, who studied and gratified the taste of his master, pronounced in public an elaborate description of the church of Jerusalem. (in Vit. Cons. lib. 4. c. 46.) It no longer exists; but he has inserted in the life of Constantine, (lib. 3. c. 36.) a short account of the architecture and ornaments. He likewise mentions the church of the holy apostles at Constantinople. (lib. 4. c. 59.)

"See Justinian. Novell. 123. 3. The revenue of the patriarchs, and the most wealthy bishops, is not expressed: the highest annual valuation of a bishopric is stated at thirty, and the lowest at two, pounds of gold; the medium might be taken at sixteen, but these valuations are much below the real value.

See Baronius. (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 324. no. 58. 65. 70, 71.) Every record which comes from the Vatican is justly suspected; yet these rent-rolls have an ancient and authentic colour; and it is at least evident, that, if forged, they were forged in a period when farms, not kingdoms, were the objects of papal avarice.

John Lateran, in the provinces of Italy, Africa, and the east. They produce, besides a reserved rent of oil, linen, paper, aromatics, &c. a clear annual revenue of twentytwo thousand pieces of gold, or 12,000l. sterling. In the age of Constantine and Justinian, the bishops no longer possessed, perhaps they no longer deserved, the unsuspecting confidence of their clergy and people. The ecclesiastical revenues of each diocess were divided into four parts; for the respective uses, of the bishop himself, of his inferior clergy, of the poor, and of the public worship; and the abuse of this sacred trust was strictly and repeatedly checked. The patrimony of the church was still subject to all the public impositions of the state."

The clergy of Rome, Alexandria, Thessalonica, &c. might solicit and obtain some partial exemptions; but the premature attempt of the great council of Rimini, which aspired to universal freedom, was successfully resisted by the son of ConstantineTM

IV. Civil

IV. The Latin clergy, who erected their trijurisdic- bunal on the ruins of the civil and common law, have modestly accepted as the gift of Constantine, the independent jurisdiction, which was the fruit of

tion.

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P See Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. 3. lib. 2. c. 13-15. p. 689–706. The legal division of ecclesiastical revenue does not appear to have been established in the time of Ambrose and Chrysostom. Simplicius and Gelasius, who were bishops of Rome in the latter part of the fifth century, mention it in their pastoral letters as a general law, which was already confirmed by the custom of Italy.

9 Ambrose, the most strenuous asserter of ecclesiastical privileges, submits without a murmur to the payment of the land-tax. "Si tributum petit imperator, non negamus; agri ecclesiæ solvunt tributum ; solvimus quæ sunt Cæsaris Cæsari, et quæ sunt Dei Deo: tributum Cæsaris est; non negatur." Baronius labours to interpret this tribute as an act of charity rather than of duty; (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 387.) but the words, if not the intentions, of Ambrose, are more candidly explained by Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. 3. lib. 1. c. 34. p. 268.

r In Ariminense synodo super ecclesiarum et clericorum privilegiis tractatû habito, usque eo dispositio progressa est, ut juga quæ viderentur ad ecclesiam pertinere, a publicâ functione cessarent inquietudine desistente; quod nostra videtur dudum sanctio repulsisse, Cod. Theod. (lib. 16. tit. 2. leg. 15.) Had the synod of Rimini carried this point, such practical merit might have atoned for some speculative heresies.

From Eusebius (in Vit. Constant. lib. 4. c. 27.) and Sozomen (lib. 1. c. 9.) we are assured that the episcopal jurisdiction was extended and confirmed by Constantine; but the forgery of a famous edict, which was never fairly inserted in the Theodosian Code, (see at the end, tom. 6. p. 303.) is demonstrated by Godefroy in the most satisfactory manner. It is strange that M. de Montesquieu, who was a lawyer as well as a philosopher, should allege this edict of Constantine, (Esprit des Loix, lib. 29. c. 16.) without intimating any suspicion.

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