13. They complain, also, that public support is not considered due to their priests and ministers. What a storm of words has resounded on this point! But on the other hand even the inheritance of private property is denied us by recent laws, The law of Valentinian, de Episcopis, of which St. Jerome says [Ep. LII. ad Nepotianum, vol. 6, p. 92, of this series]: “I do not complain of the law, but I grieve that we have deserved a statute so harsh”…“yet even so,” he adds, “rapacity goes on unchecked.” With the conversion of Constantine the world entered into the Church, and bishops becoming great personages, ambition and worldly passions gained a hold on many, and the scandals and evil of succeeding centuries seem likely to last, till the world once more turns against the Church of God. (Comp. Fr. Puller, Primitive Saints and the See of Rome, chap. iv.) and no one complains; for we do not consider it an injury, because we grieve not at the loss. If a priest seeks the privilege of declining the municipal burdens, Exemption had been granted to the clergy from municipal offices by Constantine, but in consequence of abuse the privilege had been restrained. (See note on Ep. XL. § 29.) he has to give up his ancestral and all other property. If the heathen suffered this how would they urge their complaint, that a priest must purchase the free time necessary for his ministry by the loss of all his patrimony, and buy the power to exercise his public ministry at the expense of all his private means; and, alleging his vigils for the public safety, must console himself with the reward of domestic want, because he has not sold a service but obtained a favour.