: " Eccle- siastici . . . Tiduarum ac pupillarum demos non adeant," etc. ^ Epist. 34 (al. 2) ad Nepotianum, where he says of this law : " Nee de lege con- queror, sed doleo, cur meruerimus hanc legem ; " and of the clergy of his time : "Ignominia omnium sacerdotum est, propriis studere divitiis," etc. * Chrys. Horn. 66 in Matt. (vii. p. 658). * Comp. the Epistles of Gregory the Great at tlio end of our period. * See the Vita S. Joannis Eleemosynarii (the next to the last catholic patriarch of Alexandria) in the Acta Sanct. Bolland. ad 23 Jan. I f § 14. RIGHTS ANP PRIVILEGES OP THE CHURCH. 99 poor. They frequently exposed themselves to the suspicion of avarice and nepotism. The best of them, like Chrysostom and Augustine, were averse to this concernment with earthly property, since it often conflicted with their higher duties ; and they preferred the poverty of earlier times, because the present abundant revenues diminished private beneficence. And most certainly this opulence had two sides. It was a source both of profit and of loss to the church. According to the spirit of its proprietors and its controllers, it might be used for the furtherance of the kingdom of God, the building of cliurches, the support of the needy, and the founding of chari- table institutions for the poor, the sick, for widows and orphans, for destitute strangers and aged persons,' or perverted to the fostering of indolence and luxury, and thus promote moral cor- ruption and decay. This was felt by serious minds even in the palmy days of the external power of the hierarchy. Dante, believing Constantine to be the author of the pope's temporal sovereignty, on the ground of the fictitious donation to Syl- vester, bitterly exclaimed : " Your gods ye make of silver and of gold ; And wherein diSer from idolaters, Save that their god is one — yours hundred fold ? Ah, Constantine ! what evils caused to flow, . Not thy conversion, but that plenteous dower Thou on the first rich Father didst bestow ! " "' ^ The ■KTCi>xo'rpo(peia, voffOKOfj.e7a, oprpavoTpofpela, y7]poKoi^€7a, and ^fvoives Or ^evoSu- Xi'ta, as they were called ; which all sprang from the church. Especially favored was the Basilias for sick and strangers in Caesarea, named after its founder, the bishop Basil the Great. Basil. Ep. 94. Gregor. Naz. Orat. 21 and 30. " Inferno, canto xix. vs. 112-118, as translated by Wright (with two slight alter- ations). Milton, in his pros© wdAs, has translated this passage as well as that of Ariosto, where he humorously places the donation of Constantine in the moon among the things lost or abused on earth^'^-^- --"^i .• " Ah, Constantine ! of how much ill was cause, Not thy conversion, but those rich domains That the first wealthy pope received of thee." A^ •/U... 100 THIRD PEEIOD. A.D. 311-590. § 15. Supjport of the Clergy. 3. The better