CONFIRMATORY EVIDENCE. PAGE IV. On the value of the three talents and a half of gold, the annual revenue taken from the Roman Church by Leo the Isaurian V.-On Constantine's donation to the Church of Rome First question.-Is Constantine's donation authentic?. Second question.-When and by whom was Constantine's donation INTRODUCTION. HONOURS AND TEMPORAL PRIVILEGES CONFERRED ON RELIGION, AND ON ITS MINISTERS, BY ANCIENT NATIONS, AND ESPECIALLY UNDER THE FIRST CHRISTIAN EMPERORS. 1. Plan of this Introduction. THE object of this Introduction, and the nature of the facts which it relates, suggest naturally that it should be divided into two parts. The first shall give a brief statement of facts anterior to the conversion of Constantine; the second gives those subsequent to that great event. ARTICLE I. HONOURS AND TEMPORAL PRIVILEGES CONFERRED ON RELIGION AND ITS MINISTERS BY ANCIENT NATIONS, AND ESPECIALLY BY THE ROMANS BEFORE THE CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE. 1 2. Religion at all times regarded as the basis of Public Order. FROM the origin of society, religion has ever been regarded as the principal support of government and of laws, as the indispensable basis of morals, without which the wisest laws and the best governments would be of little avail. From the earliest Many interesting memoirs on this subject occur in the Histoire de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres. See especially the extract from the two memoirs of Burigny, Sur les Honneurs et les Prérogatives accordés aux Prêtres dans les Religions profanes, 4to. edit. vol. xxxi. p. 108; and the extract from another memoir by the same author, Sur le Respect des Anciens Romains pour la Religion, vol. xxxiv. p. 110. See also Petit-Pied, Traité du Droit et des Prérogatives des Ecclésiastiques, part i. Paris, 1705, 4to. ages princes and people learned from experience, that attacks on religion were in reality rebellions against public order; that men capable of setting the Deity himself at defiance could not be restrained by any law; that their example was an encouragement to disorder, and to revolt against the most legitimate authority; in a word, that the scandal of their irreligion was the scourge and plague of society. Convinced of those great principles, governments felt that they ought to deny nothing to religion, which did everything for them; that they were bound to regard themselves as the visible representative of the Deity, and to secure for him the homage of the society subject to their control; that consequently a most rigorous obligation was imposed on them, of promoting the glory of religion, of honouring the Deity in the persons of his ministers, and of repressing by stringent enactments the public excesses of impiety. 3. Honours conferred on Religion and its Ministers. This was the real motive of the honours and privileges conferred on religion and its ministers by all the nations of antiquity; thence more especially flowed the very considerable wealth, with which in every period of history we find the clergy endowed. To the wisest and most civilized, as well as to the most savage and barbarous nations, nothing appeared more natural and more becoming than to honour by rich offerings the Deity in the persons of his ministers. This liberality was generally regarded, not only as a mark of honour and respect for the august character with which the ministers of religion were invested, but also as a compensation due to them for the lucrative professions which almost invariably they were obliged to renounce, to devote themselves more unreservedly to the functions of their ministry. Natural equity, it was believed, demanded that every man whose life was devoted to the service of the public should be supported at the expense of the public; and that ministers of religion especially, consecrated by their profession to functions essential to the good of society, had a right to insist on such support as might both relieve them from the miseries of indigence, and enable them to discharge with dignity their sublime duties. From the mass of facts and authorities which ancient history supplies in support of these assertions, it is enough to cite here a few of the most remarkable. 4. Opinions of Ancient Legislators on this point. Every one knows the importance attached by the most famous lawgivers of ancient times, even in pagan states, to the support of religion and of public worship. Lycurgus, Draco, and Solon, in regulating the first and most famous republics of Greece, made religion the basis of their institutions.1 Romulus and Numa followed the same principle in the laws which they prescribed for their infant state. In times more recent, Zaleucus and Charondas imitated these great authorities, placing at the head of their codes a series of maxims, which may be regarded as the foundations of religion and of morality.3 5. Doctrine of the most celebrated Philosophers. The doctrine of the most celebrated philosophers was in conformity with the principles of these illustrious lawgivers. Aristotle and Plato, though widely differing in other points, agree in representing religion as the indispensable basis of government, and the principal source of the happiness and tranquillity of states; maxims from which they inferred that a wise government must ever make divine worship the first object of its solicitude.1 The respect due to the Deity requires, they main P. 481. Voyage d'Anacharsis, vol. ii. ch. xxi.; vol. iv. ch. xliv. ; vol. v. ch. lxvii. 2 See Mémoires de Burigny, cited above, p. 1, note. Histoire de la Jurisprudence Romaine, part i. § 2. › Voyage d'Anacharsis, vol. v. ch. lxii. towards the end. "Quàm multæ autem sint res sine quibus civitas esse nequeat, videndum est. Primum igitur victus seu alimentum suppetere debet; deindè artes ;.... tertio loco arma ;...deindè aliqua pecuniæ vis et copia ;...quintò, quod etiàm primo loco ponendum est, rerum divinarum curatio, quam sacerdotium appellant."-Aristoteles, De Republicâ, lib. vii. cap. 8. Plato establishes, or supposes, manifestly the same principle in several passages. See especially De Republicâ, lib. iv. p. 391, 2nd col. near the end. De Legibus, lib. iv., ix. et x. pp. 535, 578, 589. Lyons edit. 1657. On the doctrine of Plato with regard to this subject, see Dacier, Euvres de Platon, vol. i., Discours prélimin. p. 87. tained, that his ministers should enjoy a distinguished position in the commonwealth, and that ordinarily the priests should be selected from the most respectable class of citizens.1 Plato, moreover, required that private individuals should not be allowed to adopt gods of their own choice, nor to pay them divine honours privately in their own houses; but that all should follow the religion of their country, and fulfil its rites publicly with their fellow-citizens; finally, that the government itself had no right to regulate religious matters, but was bound to carry into execution the regulations made on that subject by the oracles of the gods. He would have the magistrates, moreover, enact severe laws against crimes of impiety, especially against sacrilege and atheism, which should, he thought, entail in certain cases the penalty of death, and the privation of honours of interment.3 1 "Nobilis quoque esse debet sacerdotum ordo; neque agricola, neque illiberalis artifex sacerdos instituendus est; à civibus enim deos coli oportet."Aristot. De Republicâ, lib. vii. cap. 9. Plato, in his treatise entitled Politicus, sive de Regno, p. 148, 2nd col., cites, and strongly approves, the custom of the Egyptians, which was adopted by many Grecian cities, and especially by Athens, of investing the chief magistrates with the priesthood. Apud Ægyptios," says he, non licet regem absque sacerdotio imperare. Quin immò, si ex alio genere quispiam vi regnum usurpet, cogitur post regni assumptionem sacris initiari, ut rex denique sit et sacerdos. Præterea in plurimis Græcorum civitatibus, apud vos præsertim, reperies præcipua sacra à magistratibus summis institui." 66 2 "Sacella nemo in privatâ domo habeat; cùm verò animum quis ad sacrificandum induxerit, ad publica sacrificaturus accedat, et sacerdotibus hostias præbeat, qui curam harum rerum castissimè gerunt, quibuscum et ipse oret, et quicumque cum eo simul orare velit."-Plato, De Legibus, lib. x. p. 597, col. 1. "Quid præterea restat nobis de legum constitutione (dicendum)? Nobis quidem nihil; Apollini autem Delphino maxima, præclarissima, prima instituta. Quænam ista? Templorum constitutiones, et sacrificia, cæterique deorum et dæmonum atque heroum cultus, sepulchra præterea et funera defunctorum, et quæcumque sunt ad eos placandos ministeria subeunda. Talia profectò neque ipsi scimus, et in ordinandâ civitate nulli credemus alteri, si sapiemus, nullove alio utemur interprete nisi patrio (deo); hic nempè deus, in rebus hujusmodi, cunctis hominibus patrius interpres, in mediâ terrâ super umbilicum sedens, exponit."-Plato, De Republicâ, lib. iv. p. 391, col. 2. 3 "Si quis fortè sacrilegium committere audeat, legem de hoc feremus, quamvis onerosam nobis atque molestam.... Qui deprehensus in sacrilegio fuerit, si servus peregrinusve erit, in facie ac manibus calamitate ipsius litteris inusta, verberatus prout judicibus videbitur, nudus extra fines pellatur; fortè enim hoc supplicio continentior factus, evadet denique melior....Si verò civis quispiam aliquid tale in deos, aut in parentes, aut in patriam perpetrare, et ad maximam injuriam induxisse animum deprehendatur; hunc judex, quia ex puero benè doctus educatusque à maximo scelere non abstinuit, sanari non |