the heathen temples and their estates and the public property of heretics ; but these more frequently were confiscated to the civil treas- ury or squandered on favorites. Wealthy 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 tradendis haereticis, "non negamus; agri ecclesiae solvunt tributum, solviraua quae sunt Cassaris Csesari, et qua3 sunt Dei Deo ; tributum Cssaris est ; non negatur." Ba- ronius (ad ann. 387) 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 folles {rpt(Txt\iovs (p6\eti = £18,000) from the public treasury of the province for the catholic churches in Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania, promising further gifts for similai purposes. Euseb. : H. E. x. 6, and Vit. Const, iv. 28. VOL. II. — 7 98 THIKD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. unworthy influences with widows and dj'ing persons ; though Augustine positively rejected every legacy, which deprived a son 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 converted 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 j^ntioch was strong enough to maintain entirely or in part three thousand widows and consecrated virgins besides many ])oor, sick, and strangers.'' The metropolitan chui'ches of Rome and Alexandria were the most wealtliy. The various churches of Rome in the sixtli centmy, besides enormous treasures in money and gold and silver vases, owned many houses and lands not only in Italy and Sicily, but even in SjTia, Asia Minor, and Egypt.^ And when John, who bears the honorable distinction of the Alms- giver for his unlimited liberality to the poor, became patriarch of Alexandria (606), he found in the church treasur}^ eight tlioiisand 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.' Tlie control of the ecclesiastical revenues vested in the bishops. The bishops distributed the funds according to the prevailing custom into three or four parts : for themselves, for their clergy, for the current expenses of worship, and for the ' In an edict to Damasus, bishop of Rome. Cod. Theod. xvi. 2, 20