tar; and this specious magnificence was supported on the solid and
perpetual basis of landed property. In the space of two centuries, from
the reign of Constantine to that of Justinian, the eighteen hundred
churches of the empire were enriched by the frequent and unalienable
gifts of the prince and people. An annual income of six hundred pounds
sterling may be reasonably assigned to the bishops, who were placed at
an equal distance between riches and poverty, but the standard of their
wealth insensibly rose with the dignity and opulence of the cities
which they governed. An authentic but imperfect rent-roll specifies some
houses, shops, gardens, and farms, which belonged to the three Basilic
of Rome, St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. John Lateran, in the provinces of
Italy, Africa, and the East. They produce, besides a reserved rent of
oil, linen, paper, aromatics, &c., a clear annual revenue of twenty-two
thousand pieces of gold, or twelve thousand pounds sterling. In the age
of Constantine and Justinian, the bishops no longer possessed, perhaps
they no longer deserved, the unsuspecting confidence of their clergy and
people. The ecclesiastical revenues of each diocese were divided
into four parts for the respective uses of the bishop himself, of his
inferior clergy, of the poor, and of the public worship; and the abuse
of this sacred trust was strictly and repeatedly checked. The patrimony
of the church was still subject to all the public compositions of the
state. The clergy of Rome, Alexandria, Thessalonica, &c., might solicit
and obtain some partial exemptions; but the premature attempt of
the great council of Rimini, which aspired to universal freedom, was
successfully resisted by the son of Constantine.

IV. The Latin clergy, who erected their tribunal on the ruins of
the civil and common law, have modestly accepted, as the gift of
Constantine, the independent jurisdiction, which was the fruit of
time, of accident, and of their own industry. But the liberality of
the Christian emperors had actually endowed them with some legal
prerogatives, which secured and dignified the sacerdotal character. 1.
Under a despotic government, the bishops alone enjoyed and asserted the
inestimable privilege of being tried only by their peers; and even in
a capital accusation, a synod of their brethren were the sole judges
of their guilt or innocence. Such a tribunal, unless it was inflamed by
personal resentment or religious discord, migh