t of soldiers or
magistrates, was strenuously exercised by those men, whose temper and
abilities had prompted them to embrace the ecclesiastical profession, or
who had been selected by a discerning bishop, as the best qualified
to promote the glory and interest of the church. The bishops (till the
abuse was restrained by the prudence of the laws) might constrain the
reluctant, and protect the distressed; and the imposition of hands
forever bestowed some of the most valuable privileges of civil society.
The whole body of the Catholic clergy, more numerous perhaps than the
legions, was exempted * by the emperors from all service, private or
public, all municipal offices, and all personal taxes and contributions,
which pressed on their fellow-citizens with intolerable weight; and the
duties of their holy profession were accepted as a full discharge of
their obligations to the republic. Each bishop acquired an absolute
and indefeasible right to the perpetual obedience of the clerk whom
he ordained: the clergy of each episcopal church, with its dependent
parishes, formed a regular and permanent society; and the cathedrals of
Constantinople and Carthage maintained their peculiar establishment
of five hundred ecclesiastical ministers. Their ranks and numbers were
insensibly multiplied by the superstition of the times, which introduced
into the church the splendid ceremonies of a Jewish or Pagan temple;
and a long train of priests, deacons, sub-deacons, acolythes, exorcists,
readers, singers, and doorkeepers, contributed, in their respective
stations, to swell the pomp and harmony of religious worship. The
clerical name and privileges were extended to many pious fraternities,
who devoutly supported the ecclesiastical throne. Six hundred
parabolani, or adventurers, visited the sick at Alexandria; eleven
hundred copiat, or grave-diggers, buried the dead at Constantinople; and
the swarms of monks, who arose from the Nile, overspread and darkened
the face of the Christian world.

Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.--Part IV.

III. The edict of Milan secured the revenue as well as the peace of the
church. The Christians not only recovered the lands and houses of which
they had been stripped by the persecuting laws of Diocletian, but they
acquired a perfect title to all the possessions which they had hitherto
enjoyed by the connivance of the magistrate. As soon as Christianity
became the religion of the emperor and the empire