support of the clergy was another advantage connected with the new position of Christianity in the empire. Hitherto the clergy had been entirely dependent on the voluntary contributions of the Christians, and the Christians were for the most part poor. ISTow they received a fixed in- come from the church funds and from imperial and municipal treasuries. To this was added the contribution of first-fruits and tithes, which, though not as yet legally enforced, arose as a voluntary custom at a very early period, and probably in churches of Jewish origin existed from the first, after the ex- ample of the Jewish law.' AVhere these means of support were not sufficient, the clergy turned to agriculture or some other occupation ; and so late as the fifth century many synods recommended this means of subsistence, although the Apos- tolical Canons prohibited the engagement of the clergy in secu- lar callings under penalty of deposition.'' This improvement, also, in the external condition of the clergy was often attended with a proportional degeneracy in their moral character. It raised them above oppressive and distracting cares for livelihood, made them independent, and permitted them to devote their whole strength to the duties of their office ; but it also favored ease and luxury, allured a host of unworthy persons into the service of the church, and checked the exercise of free giving among the people. The better bishops, like Athanasius, the two Gregories, Basil, Chrysos- tom, Theodoret, Ambrose, Augustine, lived in ascetic sim- plicity, and used their revenues for the public good; while others indulged their vanity, their love of magnificence, and their voluptuousness. The heathen historian Ammianus gives the country clergy in general the credit of simplicity, tem- perance, and virtue, while he represents the Roman hierarchy, greatly enriched by the gifts of matrons, as extreme in the luxury of their dress and their more than royal banquets ; ' and ' Lev. xxvii. 30-33 ; Nu. xviii. 20-24 ; Deut. xiv. 22 sqq. ; 2 Chron. xxxi. 4 sqq. ' Constit. Apost. lib. viii. cap. 4Y, can. 6 (p. 239, ed. Ueltzen) : 'ETrfo-KOTroy ^ irpea-PvTfpos ^ StaKovos KoafJ-iKhs ^pofTiSas /utJ ayaXa/jiPavfTu- e» 5e /xij, Ko^aipeia-^w. * Lib. xxvil. c. 3. § 15. SUPPORT OF THE CLERGY. 101 St. Jerome agrees with him.' The distinguished heathen pre- fect, Praetextatus, said to Pope Damasus, that for the price of the bishopric of Rome he himself might become a Christian at once. The bishops of Constantinople, according to the account of Gregory Nazianzen,' who himself held that see for a short time, were not behind their Roman colleagues in this extrav- agance, and vied with the most honorable functionaries of the state in pomp*and sumptuous diet. The cathedrals of Constan- tinople and Carthage had hundreds of priests, deacons, dea- conesses, subdeacons, prelectors, singers, and janitors.' It is worthy of notice, that, as we have already intimated, the two greatest church fathers gave the preference in prin- ciple to the voluntary system in the