Chapter XLII. Great Wealth of the Churches Is Useful to Religion and the State

§ 1. God willed the priesthood to be honored in the old law. The tithes granted made it very wealthy, and so many other things were also added that, if the Jews had observed the law of God, no tribe would have been happier than the Levitical. I shall place the matter before the eyes by an easy method.

In Numbers 3 the Levites are enumerated as twenty-two thousand three hundred. For although in verse 39 they are said to be only twenty-two thousand, the individual sums—7,500, 8,600, and 6,200—nevertheless make 22,300. But three hundred are omitted because they were firstborn and could not redeem others. The number of the children of Israel, however, was six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty. The Levites, therefore, were approximately a twenty-sixth part in relation to all Israel. But because in Numbers 3 the Levites are counted from one month old and upward, while in chapter 2 of the other tribes only fighting men from military age are counted,

it follows from this that, if the children of Israel had been counted from one month old, they would have exceeded them in a greater proportion; for the number of children was greatest in the nation which God, contending with Pharaoh, was multiplying. Therefore no one will deny that the Levites constituted a thirtieth part of Israel. Yet upon this part God conferred the greatest wealth, so that in comparison with them He left the others almost poor.

To this thirtieth part God gave not thirtieths but tenths. Since food was abundantly available to the others, certainly the tithes of an abundant people could have sufficed for a tenth part; but as it was, each of the Levites held three portions in place of one. Thus Leviticus 27:30: “All the tithes of the land, whether from the crops or from the fruits of trees, belong to the Lord and are sanctified to Him. But if anyone wishes to redeem his tithes, he shall add their fifth part.” Nor were there tithes only of crops, but also of oxen and sheep, as is contained in the same place. Thus in Numbers 18:21 He says that He gave all the tithes to the sons of Levi.

But in the matter of the tithes this also must be considered. First, the Levites were accustomed to cultivate neither fields nor vineyards, and therefore lived from the labor of the people. Hence their condition was much better than if they had received a tenth part of the fields, for labor and expense would have been necessary. Second, the Israelites had to rear the livestock; the Levites received them once weaned. Third, the tithes were not single but triple, as our Cornelius a Lapide most learnedly interprets in Deuteronomy 14:22. From this passage and from Josephus, Theodoret here, question 13, Abulensis, Oleaster, and Cajetan gather that double tithes were prescribed to the Jews each year.

The first were of all the produce of the land, the flocks, and the herds, and were given entirely to the Levites. They were not brought to Jerusalem; rather, the Levites to whom they belonged collected them through the cities near them. From these tithes the Levites in turn paid a tithe to the Pontiff and priests, as is clear in Numbers 18:26 and 28, for the first tithes are treated there.

The second tithes were those which the Hebrews separated each year after that first-mentioned tithing by taking a tenth from the nine portions remaining to them. From this, when going to the tabernacle—which had to be done three times in the year, as is clear in Exodus 23:17 and 34:23—they partly supported themselves on the journey and partly offered peace offerings, from which they ate before the Lord together with the Levites whom they invited to feast with them. What I have said concerning these tithes I say likewise concerning the firstfruits: after the firstfruits which went entirely to the Lord, each man separated something for himself as second firstfruits, which he would use when about to ascend to the Lord. I say the same concerning the firstborn of sheep and oxen: namely, that after the firstborn given to God, the Hebrews separated another animal as a peace offering. I say the same concerning vows and gifts. The law therefore speaks of these second tithes here down to verse 28; chapter 12, verse 17, also treated these.

The third tithes were tithes separated every third year and given as alms to the poor, widows, orphans, and Levites, lest they be compelled by poverty to serve Gentiles, by whom they could easily have been led into idolatry. These third tithes are treated in verse 28, where it says, “In the third year you shall separate another tithe.” Hence it is evident that this was not the same tithe as the first, as though the tithes which belonged properly to the Levites for two years were commanded in the third year to be common to the poor equally with the Levites, as certain men suppose; rather, it was another, namely the third. For thus our interpreter translates it. Thus in Tobias 1:7 it is said that in the third year he administered every tithe to proselytes and strangers. If the Jews gave triple tithes, why should Christians not give single and simple tithes to God? If the Jews fed their poor by tithes, why should Christians not do the same? I know great men in the state who give a tenth of their wealth, indeed of all their profit, to the poor and judge themselves almost bound to it by the law of charity and religion.

The first tithes, therefore, went entire to the Levites, who collected them in the cities. From the nine remaining portions the people again separated tithes and brought them or their price to Jerusalem, so that they might feast there, nevertheless inviting the Levites. Thus in chapter 14, verses 27 and 28: “And you and your household shall feast, and the Levite who is within your gates; take care that you do not abandon him.” These times were therefore times of banqueting for the Levites, yet this was not burdensome to the Israelites, since ten men, and perhaps thirty, scarcely had one Levite.

In the third year, from the portions already twice tithed, they separated another tithe at home, which they consumed with the Levites and poor. In the third year the Levites went to feast and instruct the peoples, so that in this manner they might be joined to the Lord. The effect appears in 2 Chronicles 31:8. They see the heaps, and Azariah the priest said in verse 10: “From the time the firstfruits began to be offered in the house of the Lord, we have eaten and have been filled, and very much has remained because the Lord blessed His people; and the abundance of the remnants is this which you see.” Then, therefore, granaries were made. And this concerning tithes.

§ 2. Offerings also made them wealthy. For from the sacrifices He gave the priests the breast and the shoulder which was separated by perpetual right, Leviticus 10:14. That revenue cannot appear small amid so many thousands of sacrifices which were offered three times in the year at fixed times and were slaughtered every day for various causes. Deuteronomy 18:3 assigned the shoulder and stomach. But let us see this whole class.

There were three kinds of sacrifices: burnt offerings, offerings for sin, and peace offerings. In a burnt offering all things were burned, and only the skin belonged to the priests; yet amid so many thousands of burnt offerings this was no small revenue. In a peace offering the shoulder and breast belonged to them; in the Hebrew, Chaldean, and Septuagint: the shoulder, cheeks, and stomach. Certain men interpret these as the fleshy portions around the shoulder, that is, the fourth part of the animal; but it is expressly ἔντερον, “stomach,” and σιαγών, “jaw.” However it may be, this was a great revenue; but greater when they made offerings for sin, for all the flesh of that victim belonged to the priests, so that in so great a people they appeared able to live from the victims alone. But these things were additions, as it were, to the tithes.

Further, the history of the sons of Eli demonstrates that the Israelites were not sparing toward the priests in the peace offerings, 1 Samuel 2:16: “And the man sacrificing said to him: ‘Let the fat first be burned today according to custom, and then take for yourself as much as your soul desires.’” This cannot be understood of a burnt offering, because nothing from it went to the priest, nor of an offering for sin, because the whole belonged to the priest, but of peace offerings.

To this are referred the firstfruits of all things and the firstborn of livestock and men. Concerning firstfruits: Exodus 23:19 and 34:26; Leviticus 23:10; Numbers 18:13; Deuteronomy 18:4 and 26:2, 10. Concerning the firstborn: Exodus 13 and 22:29 and 34:20; Numbers 3:13.

There were great profits from the firstfruits of all things in a most fertile region, since all things abounded in crops of every kind, wine, oil, fruits, and honey. The number of firstborn was immense. Hezekiah alone, 2 Chronicles 31:29, had innumerable flocks of sheep and oxen. Nabal had three thousand sheep and one thousand goats. Solomon slaughtered 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep; nor was that a great or difficult thing for so great a king, for in 1 Kings 5:6 he had forty thousand chariot horses and

twelve thousand stalls—an immense number if ten horses were assigned to one stall, and even if four.

The herds of livestock in Israel were therefore exceedingly great, so that in Ezekiel 36:11 the Lord promises as it were a return of ancient felicity: “I shall fill you with men and beasts.” For there were herds of beasts even in inhabited cities or their suburbs. Let us therefore suppose that in so numerous a people one hundred thousand firstborn were born each year: they furnished five hundred thousand shekels to the priests, Numbers 3. The multitude of livestock was so great that I think there were easily one million firstborn every year.

Add to these so many sacrifices for various offenses, Leviticus 3; then, if they had touched anything unclean, a man offers a ewe-lamb or she-goat, and so forth, Leviticus 5. But how often is it probable that this occurred? In Leviticus 5:17, if a man had violated the law in ignorance, he is commanded to offer a ram. What if every individual had been guilty once every year? How many hundreds of thousands of rams would have gone to the priests? The man who denied a deposit offers a ram, Leviticus 6:6. A woman offers a year-old lamb as a burnt offering for purification, Leviticus 12. For the sin of fornication with a slave woman, after both have been beaten, a ram had to be offered, Leviticus 19.

There is also added the fact that no burnt offering was offered without a victim for an offense; and then that cakes, fine flour mixed with oil, and loaves had to be offered together with the other sacrifices, as concerning the peace offerings in Leviticus 7:12. These were great supports of life granted to the priests so that they could devote themselves to the law and the sanctuary, 2 Chronicles 31:4.

§ 3. Besides these, however, other things also were assigned. For they retained inheritances in their cities, Leviticus and Deuteronomy 6. Next, the houses of the Levites could not be alienated, Leviticus 25:31. Third, they are appointed judges, 2 Chronicles 29:13.

Indeed, the chief priest had the principal dignity in judging. For since the priests and Levites were immune from other labors, they could devote their time to the study of the law and wisdom; therefore the law was sought from their mouth.

§ 4. After the Lord had furnished them with such great wealth, because He Himself was their inheritance, He also provided for their habitation. For Joshua assigned them a place, as God had commanded in Numbers 35:1:

The Lord also spoke these things to Moses in the plains of Moab above the Jordan opposite Jericho: “Command the children of Israel to give the Levites from their possessions cities to inhabit and their suburbs round about, so that they themselves may dwell in the towns and the suburbs may be for their livestock and beasts. From the walls of the cities outward, they shall extend round about for the space of one thousand paces. Toward the east there shall be two thousand cubits, and toward the south likewise two thousand; toward the sea also, which looks to the west, there shall be the same measure, and the northern quarter shall be bounded by an equal limit; and the cities shall be in the middle, with the suburbs outside.”

Let us therefore set down forty-eight cities for 24,000 Levites, so that there are five hundred in each. A circuit of one thousand paces for their livestock in so fertile a soil ought not to appear a small part of their support. It was also a great advantage to them that they received tithes of hay from the neighboring places, for they took tithes of everything which the earth produced. Although the Levites did not inhabit those cities alone, they had nevertheless been given to them and were under their dominion, which Scripture so often inculcates in Joshua 21. For in verse 10:

To the sons of Aaron, by the families of Kohath of the Levitical stock—for the first lot had fallen to them—they gave Kiriath-arba, father of Anak, which is called Hebron, on the mountain of Judah, and its suburbs round about. But its fields and villages had been given to Caleb son of Jephunneh to possess. Therefore they gave to the sons of Aaron the priest Hebron, a city of refuge, and its suburbs; and Libnah with its suburbs; and Jattir, Eshtemoh, Holon, Debir, Ain, Juttah, and Beth-shemesh, with their suburbs: nine cities from the two tribes, as was said.

Next, in the suburbs there were not only meadows within one thousand paces, but vineyards, olive groves, other cultivated places, and gardens. Third, those cities were noble and situated on fertile ground:

Most of these were situated in the most advantageous, fertile, and healthy places, so that they could appear alone sufficient for supporting the multitude. Therefore, if eternal Wisdom, in instituting a state, founded it upon the best laws and most prudently and sacredly sanctioned everything pertaining to the virtue and temporal felicity of citizens and magistrates, and nevertheless conferred such great wealth upon His priests that He conferred upon nearly one more than upon five or six of the others, it does not befit human policy to think otherwise and fashion the Prelates of religion and priests into wanderers and beggars.

There is no bond between magistrate and subjects closer than the fear of God and religion, but religion cannot flourish unless its ministers and Prelates are held in honor. Since the salvation and religion of subjects depend upon the dignity of Bishops and pastors, the Lord did not will them to be despised. In the old Testament it was said, “You shall not muzzle the ox that treads out the grain”; it was said concerning the Aaronic priests; according to Paul, it was said concerning Christians also, who likewise have the right to live from the Gospel. For if we compare our state with the people of the Jews, the more we perceive their territories to be smaller, the more we shall understand the wealth of the clergy to be greater.

I am not ignorant that the number of Levites afterward increased. For in 1 Chronicles 23:3 there were counted 38,000 from thirty years old and upward; but the children of Israel had grown in a greater proportion. For David appointed twelve commanders for the twelve months, each of whom had 24,000 under his standards and ministered to the king. And in 2 Samuel 24:6 there were from Israel eighty thousand valiant men who drew the sword, and from Judah five hundred thousand, among whom

Benjamin was not counted. Nor was even that census complete, 1 Chronicles 27:24, for Joab executed the king’s command unwillingly. Here it is pleasing to consider the immense multitude. For nearly three hundred thousand were under arms and in the service of the king, and those one million three hundred thousand were valiant men, men who drew swords, and fighters. How great, therefore, was the multitude of youths, children, old men, and others who were unsuitable for war?

I indeed establish that David made up from these soldiers of his 280,000, and, adding those who served the royal fields, olive groves, vineyards, and pastures, completed so great a number that they easily supported the Levites from tithes and offerings. But let us consider the condition of the Levites in David’s time. There were one million three hundred thousand Israelites counted negligently; add the tribe of Benjamin and they will perhaps be 1,400,000; add 100,000 veterans so as to complete 1,500,000. If these give tithes to thirty thousand men, each of those receiving the tithes will have five portions by which he will surpass those who contribute the tithes. The wealth of the Levites, therefore, was always great.

In return for the wealth, the labor was slight. David instituted their orders in twenty-four courses, so that they were occupied in the Temple for a short time. Meanwhile they occupied themselves in various affairs. Indeed, David used their service, 1 Chronicles 26:29:

Chenaniah and his sons presided over the Izharites for external works, over Israel for teaching and judging them.

And verse 30:

Seventeen hundred Hebronites presided over Israel beyond the Jordan toward the west, in all the works of the Lord and in the ministry of the king.

And verse 32:

And his brethren of more vigorous age, two thousand seven hundred chiefs of families. King David placed them over the Reubenites, Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, in every ministry of God and the king.

Behold, the Levites govern those Transjordanian tribes in the time of David. The Israelites toward the west are also governed by Levites in every divine and human affair. Certainly Benaiah the priest is one of the twelve commanders. Why, however, did David, most skilled in ruling and reigning among his brethren, especially use the service of the Levites? I find several causes. First, because they were skilled in divine and human laws. In 1 Chronicles 25 there are 288 teachers among them who taught the Song of the Lord. Second, because they were holier and more tenacious of the laws. Third, because it was especially advantageous to them that the Israelites be just and devoted to religion. For if the people were possessed by avarice, first of all they would defraud the Levites of tithes and firstfruits; if they became idolaters, they would adhere to foreign sacrificers. Hence, immediately after the calves were set up at Dan and Beth-aven, the Levites fled into Judea. Fourth, because, since they cultivated neither fields nor vineyards, were immune from the other burdens, and ministered in the Temple once in the year, they could most usefully be occupied in the honorable affairs of the kingdom. This, therefore, was the judgment of the most wise David: that the state of the people of God is best administered through the priests and ministers of God.

How honorable to that tribe, and how useful, so many prefectures were—especially since they did not have a king of their own stock—no one except a man ignorant of politics can fail to know. David used their most faithful service. Benaiah was also the strongest among the thirty and was over the thirty, 1 Chronicles 27:6; and the 24,000 whom he commanded were without doubt Levites. David found Benaiah the priest more faithful than his kinsman Joab, and therefore Benaiah also succeeded him after Joab was killed.

For in truth the affairs of the kingdom and the priesthood are so conjoined that one cannot be preserved without the other. Therefore the wisdom of those who judge that the Christian priesthood must be so suppressed that those who teach all are subject to all, and that those who ought to preserve the worship of God, the holy sacrifice, and the dignity of ceremonies are contemptible, is wicked and foolish. I have proved the wealth of priests by divine authority and from sacred Scripture; I shall also adduce the opinion of holy men in the new Testament and prove it by reason itself.

§ 5. The primitive Church had sufficiently ample riches. For Christians knew that it was of divine and natural law that those who announced the Gospel live from the Gospel, and they judged it no great thing that their carnal goods be reaped by those from whom they received spiritual goods. No prudent man will believe that those most holy men who cast all things at the feet of the Apostles, who weeping fell upon the neck of Paul as he departed, and who even wished to pluck out their own eyes and give them to Paul—to whom the Teacher of the Gentiles cries, “I have all things and abound; I am filled, having received from Epaphroditus the things which you sent as an odor of sweetness, an acceptable sacrifice pleasing to God”—supplied the Apostles and their successors with sustenance avariciously and grudgingly.

For the gifts of Christians in the Church were most liberal and ample, so that not only her ministers and poor were supported, but her precious furnishings also shone amid persecutions and plunderings. From the life of Saint Lawrence we are taught that the sacred blood was received in golden cups. Augustine, Letter 265, shows that there were silver lamps; from Optatus against Parmenian, book 1, we learn that the vessels of the Church were of great price.

It is certain that the Churches had possessions from the most ancient times. Pius I, Letter 2—who was the tenth or eleventh after Peter and lived under Antoninus, and therefore, if an old man, could have known the Apostle John—admonishes that the estates of the Church not be applied to human uses:

It has been reported to the Apostolic See that there are contentions and rivalries among you, and that certain men apply to human uses estates handed over to divine uses, and withdraw from the Lord God, to whom they were handed over, those things so that they may serve their own uses. Therefore the affront of that usurpation must be repelled by all, lest estates dedicated to the uses of the heavenly mysteries be vexed by those rushing upon them. If anyone presumes to do this, let him be accounted sacrilegious and judged as a sacrilegious man. We have heard, moreover, that those who do this persecute the clerics and priests of the Lord and defame them, so that they may add evil to evil and become worse, not understanding that the Church of the Lord consists in priests and grows into the Temple of God; and just as the man who lays waste the Church of God and plunders her estates and gifts, and so forth.

Therefore those who handed goods over to the Church act in no way contrary to the law of God. This was also practiced in the old Testament, as is established from Leviticus 27:14:

If a man vows his house and sanctifies it to the Lord, the priest shall consider whether it is good or bad, and it shall be sold according to the price established by him. But if the man who vowed it wishes to redeem it, he shall give a fifth part above its valuation and shall have the house. If he vows a field of his possession and consecrates it to the Lord, the price shall be valued according to the measure of the seed: if the land is sown with thirty measures of barley, let it be sold for fifty shekels of silver. If he vows the field immediately from the beginning year of Jubilee, it shall be valued at as much as it can be worth; but if after some time, the priest shall calculate

the money according to the number of years which remain until the Jubilee, and it shall be deducted from the price. If the man who vowed the field wishes to redeem it, he shall add a fifth part, and so forth.

Therefore we see that Christians who despised wealth and life were vehement and almost contentious in preserving the goods of the Church, because they are the goods of Christ and the goods of the poor.

Hence Constantine and others commanded that they be restored. These are the words of the law:

But since Christians are known to have possessed not only those places in which they are accustomed to assemble, but also others which belonged not privately to individuals but to the right of their whole community, that is, of the Christians, I wish you to command each person who possesses them to restore them all, pursuant to the law which we laid down above, without any controversy, to the Christians, that is, to their society and assembly.

And to Anullinus:

Therefore we will that, as soon as you receive these letters from us, if there are any of those possessions which belong to the Catholic Church of the Christians in any cities or other places, and so forth.

Just as there is a perpetual succession of Bishops, so there is a perpetual succession of the goods of which the Bishops were stewards. Nor is it necessary to adduce more concerning these things, since all authorities are full of them, not only in canon law but also in civil law: those titles On Churches, On Episcopal Hearing, Code 1, title 7, On Bishops and Clerics, On Orphanotrophs, Xenodochia, Ptochotrophia, Asceteries, and Monks, On Their Privileges, and so forth, Code 1, title 6; likewise Novels 37, 46, and 131.

Concerning expenditures, see Cause 12, question 2, chapter 27:

It is fitting that four portions be made both of the revenues and of the offering of the faithful, according as the resources of each Church permit, as was reasonably decreed long ago. Of these, let one belong to the Pontiff, another to the clerics, a third to the poor, and the fourth be applied to the fabric. Just as it will concern the priest to pay the aforesaid amount intact to the ministers of the Church, so let the clergy know that nothing beyond the sum regulated for them is insolently to be demanded. Let the evident restoration of holy places show that the things attributed to ecclesiastical buildings have truly been expended upon this work, because it is an impiety if, while sacred buildings remain destitute, the Prelate converts to his own profit the expenses assigned to them. Likewise, although he may appear about to show by divine accounts that he has distributed the portion assigned to the poor, nevertheless, according to what is written—“that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven”—it ought also to be proclaimed by present testimony and not be passed over in silence by the proclamation of good fame.

§ 6. See also Augustine, volume 10, page 521, book 1, chapter 2; page 748, chapter 2; and page 173, chapter 2, of the Antwerp edition.

Possidius relates in his life that in that time there were great possessions of the Church. Augustine was always mindful of the poor and expended upon them from the same source from which provision was made for himself and for all who lived with him, that is, either from the revenues of the Church’s possessions or from the offerings of the faithful. And when perhaps, as is customary, envy arose against the clerics themselves on account of the possessions, he addressed the people of God, saying that he preferred to live from the contributions of the people of God rather than endure the care or administration of those possessions, and that he was ready to relinquish them, so that all God’s servants and ministers might live in the manner in which those serving the altar in the old Testament are read to have shared from the same. But the laity were never willing to undertake this.

He delegated and entrusted the entire care and substance of the Church’s household by turns to the more capable clerics. He never had a key or ring in his hand; rather, all things received and expended were recorded by the same overseers of the household. At the completion of the year these were read out to him, so that it might be known how much had been received and how much expended, or whatever had not been expended or remained to be expended. In many entries he followed the fidelity of the overseer of the household rather than knowing it by tested and manifest proof.

He never wished to purchase a house, field, or estate. But if perhaps something of this kind was spontaneously given to the Church by anyone or left by title of a legacy, he did not reject it but commanded that it be received. For we also know that he refused certain inheritances, not because they could not be useful to the poor, but because he judged it just and equitable that they be possessed rather by the children, parents, or relatives of the dead, to whom those departing had been unwilling to leave them.

A certain man among the honored inhabitants of Hippo, living at Carthage, wished to give a possession to the Church of Hippo and, having executed the instruments while retaining the usufruct for himself, voluntarily sent them to Augustine of holy memory. Augustine gladly accepted his offering, congratulating him because he was mindful of his eternal salvation. But after some years, when we happened to be present personally with Augustine, behold, that donor, sending a letter through his son, requested that those instruments of gift be returned to his son; but he directed that one hundred solidi be expended upon the poor. When the holy man learned this, he groaned that the man had either feigned the gift or repented of the good work; and, with God prompting him, he said as much as he could with a sorrowful spirit to the man’s heart concerning that very refusal, namely, for his rebuke and correction. He immediately returned the instruments which the man had sent voluntarily, neither desired nor exacted, and rejected the money. Writing back, he both reproved and rebuked him as was proper, admonishing him to make satisfaction to God for his dissimulation or iniquity with the humility of repentance, lest he depart from the world with so grave a sin.

He frequently said that the Church ought more securely and safely to receive legacies left by the deceased than inheritances which might be troublesome and damaging, and that the legacies themselves ought rather to be offered than exacted. He himself did not receive anything committed in trust, but did not prohibit clerics willing to receive such things. Nor was he entangled by excessive love or cupidity in the things which the Church had and possessed; rather, suspended from and cleaving to greater and more spiritual things, he scarcely ever relaxed and lowered himself from the contemplation of eternal things to these temporal ones. When he had put down and arranged these things, as though they were biting and now troublesome affairs, he made a return of his spirit to the interior things of the mind and to higher things, so that he might either think about matters to be discovered, dictate something concerning those already discovered, or certainly correct something already dictated and transcribed. He did this laboring by day and keeping vigil by night.

The possessions of the African Church were therefore great enough to provoke envy. But Augustine, to show that envy unjust, was ready to relinquish them and live together with the clergy from the offering of the people; yet the people did not judge this expedient for the state or the Church.

§ 7. The reasons are evident. In no way is it consonant with morals or religion that the principal part of the state be the most abject; yet this will happen if no regard is had for its station. Must the Prelates of the faith, must the teachers whose office is to console, teach, rebuke, and punish, be suppliants to an insolent people and to the disdain of the wealthy? Next, how very few whose life depends upon another’s mercy will dare to offend the man by whom they are fed? Who has learned to be free so resolutely that, in receiving a benefice, he does not perceive his liberty to have been sold? Those, therefore, who praise needy preachers and Prelates of religion seek slaves of their own cupidities, not energetic censors of morals.

Third, Bishops and Prelates are commanded to be hospitable. But how will they be able to draw others by kindness

if, like vagrants and parasites, they must gnaw another’s bread? Fourth, the contempt of those who teach religion is a public disgrace to religion. “Whatever a poor man says is a lie,” someone used to say, because the same words from a different mouth do not have the same force. Fifth, the poverty of the Church impels men to various devices and sometimes unlawful ones; when endured from necessity, not voluntarily, it casts down their spirits and excludes studies and zeal for souls. Sixth, this is generally the desire even of pious parents, and often their sole and excessive care: to provide for the dignity and splendor of their children. Who among thousands will make expenditures upon the studies of his sons so that the son may preach the Gospel in poverty for his whole life? Who among the wealthy will lower himself to this, that he educate his sons for poverty?

Thus this specious devotion to Evangelical poverty overturns the whole discipline of the Christian religion. To wish to introduce into the whole clergy what belongs to a few is insane; indeed, it conflicts with the divine laws that there should be nothing in the Church from which her ministers may be supported. Seventh, for this reason sales of ecclesiastical goods were prohibited by the Council of Epaon, chapter 12, and gifts in chapter 17.

Now it is pleasing to seal these things with the opinion of the most prudent Gregory of Toulouse, book 2 of the Syntagma, chapter 28:

And therefore, when the Church’s condition had changed, Christians, frequently driven by persecutions of unbelievers, learned that the worship of God could scarcely be restored without the aid of temporal things. They therefore willed that hereafter not all things offered be sold, but that they be preserved in the Church, so that, once the persecutions had been quieted, ecclesiastical estates offered and consecrated to God might assist divine worship. Nor do all basilicas or temples where divine worship is rendered have tithes, but only parish Churches. Therefore it was necessary that other goods be consecrated to God from which those who continually served God there might be supported. For this reason Constantine the Great publicly permitted inheritances to be left to the Church and shrines to be constructed. For the tithes of a prior Church must not be withdrawn on account of new Churches.

Thus it was properly established that thereafter sacred buildings not be constructed without a suitable endowment by which each could nourish its own Levites. The Emperor of the East Manuel Comnenus established by three constitutions that the immovable goods of Churches and monasteries be untouched by the hand of the treasury, whether they were possessed with title or without title, and he confirmed this by a golden bull. Alexius Comnenus II, another Emperor of the East, sanctioned the same thing.

Theodoric, King of the Goths, writing to Ibas, an illustrious man and commander, commands that the possessions of the Church of Narbonne, occupied by any invaders contrary to the command of Alaric, be restored even by military force. Writing likewise to Adilas, he says: “We especially desire that the Churches be rendered free from every injury; while equitable things are furnished to them, divine mercy is acquired.” And in the year of the Lord 1099, war was undertaken against those who had invaded the lands of priests and Churches. Near Paris, Bouchard of Montmorency; among the people of Beauvais, Dreux of Mouchy; at Reims, Ebles of Roucy; near Orléans, Léon of Meung; and in other places, were defeated and subdued by Louis, son of the King of the Franks, and Robert, Count of Flanders. And when a man, having been admonished through envoys to restore to the rectors of those venerable places the property of the Churches which was in his power and which pertained to Churches placed under the hand of King Pepin, refused, he made war; and, having gathered forces from every side and entered Aquitaine, he declared that by war he would exact the property and rights of the Churches, and thus compelled the man to do what had been commanded.