i.) He also enacted that ecclesiastics, who wished to be exempt from
offices which they were bound to discharge as proprietors, should be
obliged to give up their property to their relations. Cod Theodos l. xii
t. i. leb. 49--G.]

[Footnote 96: The charter of immunities, which the clergy obtained from
the Christian emperors, is contained in the 16th book of the Theodosian
code; and is illustrated with tolerable candor by the learned Godefroy,
whose mind was balanced by the opposite prejudices of a civilian and a
Protestant.]

[Footnote 97: Justinian. Novell. ciii. Sixty presbyters, or priests, one
hundred deacons, forty deaconesses, ninety sub-deacons, one hundred and
ten readers, twenty-five chanters, and one hundred door-keepers; in
all, five hundred and twenty-five. This moderate number was fixed by the
emperor to relieve the distress of the church, which had been involved
in debt and usury by the expense of a much higher establishment.]

[Footnote 98: Universus clerus ecclesiae Carthaginiensis.... fere
quingenti vei amplius; inter quos quamplurima erant lectores infantuli.
Victor Vitensis, de Persecut. Vandal. v. 9, p. 78, edit. Ruinart. This
remnant of a more prosperous state still subsisted under the oppression
of the Vandals.]

[Footnote 99: The number of seven orders has been fixed in the Latin
church, exclusive of the episcopal character. But the four inferior
ranks, the minor orders, are now reduced to empty and useless titles.]

[Footnote 100: See Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 42, 43.
Godefroy's Commentary, and the Ecclesiastical History of Alexandria,
show the danger of these pious institutions, which often disturbed the
peace of that turbulent capital.]

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

III. The edict of Milan secured the revenue as well as the peace of the
church. [101] 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, the
national clergy might claim a decent and honorable maintenance; and the
payment of an annual tax might have delivered the people from the more
oppressive tribute, which superstition imposes on her votaries. But as
the wants and expenses of the church increased with her prosperity,