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| Constantine enacts a Law in favor of Celibates and of the Clergy.
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Chapter
IX.—Constantine enacts a Law in favor of Celibates and
of the Clergy.
There was an ancient Roman law,
by which those who were unmarried at the age of twenty-five were not
admitted to the same privileges as the married;1086
| 1086The Lex Papia Poppæa. For its origin under
Augustus, see Tacit. Ann. iii. 25; Eus. V. C. iv. 26.
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amongst other clauses in this law, it was specified that those who were
not the very nearest kinsmen could gain nothing from a will; and also,
that those who were childless were to be deprived of half of any
property that might be bequeathed to them. The object of this ancient
Roman law was to increase the population of Rome and the subject
people, which had been much reduced in numbers by the civil wars, not a
long while before this law. The emperor, perceiving that this enactment
militated against the interests of those who continued in a state of
celibacy and remained childless for the sake of God, and deeming it
absurd to attempt the multiplication of the human species by the care and zeal of man (since
nature always receiving increase or decrease according to the fiat from
on high), made a law enjoining that the unmarried and childless should
have the same advantages as the married. He even bestowed peculiar
privileges on those who embraced a life of continence and virginity,
and permitted them, contrary to the usage which prevailed throughout
the Roman empire, to make a will before they attained the age of
puberty; for he believed that those who devoted themselves to the
service of God and the cultivation of philosophy would, in all cases,
judge aright. For a similar reason the ancient Romans permitted the
vestal virgins to make a will as soon as they attained the age of six
years. That was the greatest proof of the superior reverence for
religion. Constantine exempted the clergy everywhere from taxation, and
permitted litigants to appeal to the decision of the bishops if they
preferred them to the state rulers.1087
| 1087Constantine makes mention of this law in his Epistle
to the bishops of Numidia, in Baronius, A. E. a.d. 316; n. lxiv.; Eus. H. E. x. 7; Cod. Theod. i.
27, de episcopali definitione, 1; xvi. 2, de episcopes ecclesiis et
clericis, 2.
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He enacted that their decree should be valid, and as far superior to
that of other judges as if pronounced by the emperor himself; that the
governors and subordinate military officers should see to the execution
of these decrees: and that the definitions made by synods should be
irreversible.
Having arrived at this point of my history, it would not
be right to omit all mention of the laws passed in favor of those
individuals in the churches who had received their freedom. Owing to
the strictness of the laws and the unwillingness of masters, there were
many difficulties in the way of the acquisition of this better freedom;
that is to say, of the freedom of the city of Rome. Constantine
therefore made three laws, enacting that all those individuals in the
churches, whose freedom should be attested by the priests, should
receive the freedom of Rome.1088
| 1088Cod. Theod. iv. 7, de manumissionibus inecclesia,
1.
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The records of these pious regulations are still extant,
it having been the custom to engrave on tablets all laws relating to
manumission. Such were the enactments of Constantine; in everything he
sought to promote the honor of religion; and religion was valued, not
only for its own sake, but also on account of the virtue of those who
then participated in it. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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