clergy from most public burdens. Among these were obligatory public services,' such as mil- itary duty, low manual labor, the bearing of costly dignities, and in a measure taxes for the real estate of the church. The exemption,^ which had been enjoyed, indeed, not by the heathen priests alone, but at least partially by physicians also and rhetoricians, and the Jewish rulers of synagogues, was first granted by Constantine in the year 313 to the catholic clergy in Africa, and afterwards, in 319, extended throughout the em- pire. But this led many to press into the clerical ofiice with- out inward call, to the prejudice of the state;" and in 320 the emperor made a law prohibiting the wealthy * from entering the ministry, and limiting the increase of the clergy, on the singular ground, that " the rich should bear the burdens of the world, the poor be supported by the property of the church." year respectiBg them (C. Theodos. xvi. 5, 2): "Novatianos non adeo comperimus praedamnatos, ut iis quae petiverunt, crederemus minime largienda. Itaque ec- clesiae suae doraos, et loca sepulcris apta sine inquietudine eos firmiter possiderc praecipimus." Comp. the 8th canon of the Council of Nice, which likewise deals with them indulgently. ' The munera publica, or Xnrovpyiai, attaching in part to the person as a subject of the empire, in part to the possession of property (munera patrimoniorum). ' Immunitas, aKetTovpyi^tria. '^ The decuriones and curiales. ^ ^ 5i § 14. RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES OF THE CHURCH. 97 Valentinian I. issued a similar law in 364-. Under Valen- tinian II. and Tlieodosius I. the rich were admitted to the spiritual office on condition of assigning their property to others, who should fulfill the demands of the state in their stead. But these arbitrary laws were certainly not strictly observed. Constantine also exempted the church from the land tax, l)ut afterwards revoked this immunity ; and his successors likewise were not uniform in this matter. Ambrose, though one of the strongest advocates of the rights of the church, ac- cedes to the fact and the justice of the assessment of church lands ; ' but the hierarchy afterwards claimed for the church a. divine right of pxemption 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 liberal con- tributions in money and grain to the support of the clergy and the building of churches in Africa,^ in the Holy Land, in Ni- comedia, Antioch, and Constantinople. Though this, be it re- membered, 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 aflbrd to be generous at the expense of his subjects. He and his successors likewise gave to the church