Question VIII. Whether among Christians [there] are also any asylums? and which [are] they?

All [sacred places] among Christians are asylums. And among these, the chief place is held by the most-sacred Altars, and Churches dedicated [and] consecrated to the divine worship, in which the divine offices are performed — as is clear from nearly the whole title of the Decretals “On the immunities of Churches,” especially the chapter “Cum Ecclesia,” the chapter “Inter alia,” from [Causa] 17, q. 4; from the 5th book of the Capitularies; from the Council of Mainz I (ch. 39), of Tribur (ch. 20), of Lerida (ch. 8), of Toledo XII — [all] cited in that question; from St. Chrysostom’s oration against Eutropius (concerning whom [see] Suidas, and Nicephorus, bk. 13, ch. 14); [from] St. Augustine (epistle 187; bk. 1 of the City [of God], chs. 1, 3, & 4); from the history of the Patriarch Tarasius; from Victor of Africa (bk. 2, On the African Persecution). Finally, from the Civil-law title “Concerning those who flee to the Church,” especially the law “Pateant,” bk. 1 of the Code, title 12. In the next place are Churches dedicated indeed to divine worship, and in which the divine mysteries are now performed, but not yet consecrated ([Decretals] ch. “Ecclesia,” On the immunity of Churches). Some of the experts in Canon law add a Church which [is] dedicated to divine worship, and built by the bishop’s assent, but as yet neither consecrated, nor initiated by any performance of the divine Mysteries. In the fourth place are the “cemeteries”: and [these] were formerly spaces marked out around the mother [parish] Church to [a distance of] 40 paces (ch. “Sicut antiquitus,” [Causa] 17, q. 4). In the fifth place, the Archdeacon and others add, in the Canon (“Definiunt,” same q. 4), the “hospitals” [hospices] which were erected by the bishop’s authority. Sixthly, the same Archdeacon (in ch. “Quaesitum,” [Causa] 13, q. 2) thinks [that] the “most-sacred Eucharist,” when [it] is carried by a priest — whether to a sick [person], or in some procession — grants asylum and immunity even to him who flees to it outside the Church. “If the altar was an asylum,” says Gregorius Tholosanus (bk. 33 of the Syntagma, ch. 21), “much more will [it] also be [one] of the Lord’s body. For from it the altar is sanctified; and [that] which sanctifies [is] greater and worthier than [that] which has been made holy.” And among the Ethnics [pagans], if anyone were led [away] to be flogged, and he had fallen down as a suppliant at the feet of the Flamen Dialis [Jupiter’s priest], [then] on that day [it] was a sin to flog [him], as Gellius writes (bk. 10, ch. 15). And moreover, if anyone were led to death, and a Vestal virgin chanced to meet him, he escaped the punishment. Seventhly, the “Monasteries” [Coenobia], all religious [houses] and Ecclesiastical [ones] — but especially, in some places, the houses of the Metropolitans, or of the Cathedral Canons. But just as, in the first of those asylums, the opinion of all is concordant, so in the others [there] is dissent and some dispute — which, lest I be carried outside the choir [off-topic], I gladly pass over. Let [these] be seen in the cited places [of] Gregorius & Covarruvias; and likewise Anastasius Germonius (bk. 1 On the immunities of sacred [places], ch. 15; bk. 3, ch. 16; & elsewhere).