§ 14, KIuHTS AND PRIVILEGES OF THE CHURCH. 97
Valentin ian I. issued a similar law in 361. Under Yalentinian II. and Theodosius I. the rich were admitted to the spiritual office on condition of assigning their projjerty to others, who should fulfill the demands of the state in their stead. But these arbitrary laws were certainly not strictly observed.
Constantino also exempted the church from the land tax, but afterwards revoked this immunity ; and his successors likewise were not uniform in this matter. Ambrose, thoiigh one of the strongest advocates of the rights of the church, accedes to tlie fact and the justice of the assessment of church lands ; ' but the hierarchy afterwards claimed for the church a divine right of exemption from all taxation.
2. The enrichment and endowment of the church.
Here again Constantine led the way. He not only restored (in 313) the buildings and estates, which had been confiscated in the Diocletian persecution, but granted the church also the right to receive legacies (321), and himself made lilieral contributions in money and grain to the support of the clergy and the building of churches in Africa,'' in the Holy Land, in Nicoraedia, Antloch, and Constantinople. Though this, be it remembered, can be no great merit in an absolute monarch, who is lord of the public treasury as he is of his private purse, and can aftbrd to be generous at the expense of his subjects. He and his successors likewise gave to the church the heathen temples and their estates and the public property of heretics ; but these more frequently were confiscated to the civil treasury or squandered on favorites. Wealtliy subjects, some from pure piety, others from motives of interest, conveyed their property to the church, often to the prejudice of the just claims of their kindred. Bishops and monks not rarely used
' " Si tributum petit Imperator," says he in the Orat. de basilicis non tradendia haereticis, "non negamus; agri ecclesiae solvunt tributum, sol vim us quae sunt Caesaria Caesari, et quae sunt Dei Deo ; tributum Caesaris est ; non negatur." Baronius (ad ann. SSY) endeavors to prove that this tribute was meant by Ambrose merely as an act of love, not of duty !
^ So early as 314 he caused to be paid to the bishop Caecilian of Carthage 3,000 foUea (Tpi(TxiA.ious <p6\9^i =: £18,000) from the public treasury of the province for the catholic churches in Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania, promising further gifts tor similar purposes. Euseb. : H. E. x. 6, and Vit. Const, iv. 28
98 THIRD TERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
anwortlij influences with widows and dying pei*3ons ; tliough Augustine positively rejected every legacy, which deprived a Bon of his rights. Yalentinian I. found it necessary to oppose the legacy-hunting of the clergy, particularly in Rome, with a law of the year 370,' and Jerome acknowledges there was good reason for it.' The wealth of the church was convei'ted mostly into real estate, or at least secured by it. And the church soon came to own the tenth part of all the landed property. This land, to be sure, had long been worthless or neglected, but under favorable conditions rose in value with uncommon rapidity. At the time of Chrysostom, towards the close of the fourth century, the church of Antioch was strong enough to mamtain entirely or in part three thousand widows and consecrated virgins besides manj'^ poor, sick, and strangei's.' The metropolitan churches of Rome and Alexandria were the most wealtlw. The various churches of Rome in the sixth century, besides enormous treasures in money and gold and silver vases, owned many houses and lands not only in Italy and Sicily, bu.t even in S^Tia, Asia Minor, and Egypt.^ And when John, who bears the honorable distinction of the Almsgiver for his unlimited liberality to the poor, became patriarch of Alexandria (606), he found in the church treasury eight thousand pounds of gold, and himself received ten thousand, though he retained hardly an ordinary blanket for himself, and is said on one occasion to have fed seven thousand five hundred poor at once.^
The control of the ecclesiastical revenues vested in the bishops. The bishops distributed the funds according to tlie prevailing custom into three or four parts : for themselves, for their clergy, for the current expenses of worship, and for the
' lu an edict to Damasus, bishop of Rome. Cod. Thcod. xvi. 2, 20 : " Eccle- Bia^tici . . . viduaniin ac j)upillaiiim domos non adeant," etc.
' Epist. 34 (al. 2) ad Nepotianum, where he says of this law: " Nee de lege conqneror, scd doleo, cur meriuMimus hanc legem;" and of the clergy of his time: " Ignoininia oinni"im sacerdotum est, propriis studeic divitiis," etc.
» Chrys. Iloin. OG in Mutt. (vii. p. 658).
* Comp. the Epistles of Gregory the Great at the end of our period.
* See the Vita S. Joannis Eleomosynarii (the lioxt to the last catholic patriaixA of Alexandria) in the Acta Sanct Bolland. ad 23 Jan.