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Eusebius of Caesarea, NPNF II.1
Book 10, The Exemption of the Clergy. Copy of an Epistle in Which the Emperor Commands…
“Greeting to thee, our most esteemed Anulinus. Since it appears from many circumstances that when that religion is despised, in which is preserved the chief reverence for the most holy celestial Power, great dangers are brought upon public affairs; but that when legally adopted and observed1 it affords the most signal prosperity to the Roman name and remarkable felicity to all the affairs of men, through the divine beneficence,—it has seemed good to me, most esteemed Anulinus, that those men who give their services with due sanctity and with constant observance of this law, to the worship of the divine religion, should receive recompense for their labors.
Wherefore it is my will that those within the province entrusted to thee,2 in the catholic Church, over which Caecilianus presides,3 who give their services to this holy religion, and who are commonly called clergymen, be entirely exempted from all public duties, that they may not by any error or sacrilegious negligence be drawn away from the service due to the Deity, but may devote themselves without any hindrance to their own law. For it seems that when they show greatest reverence to the Deity, the greatest benefits accrue to the state. Farewell, our most esteemed and beloved Anulinus.”
Notes
- ἐνθέσμως ἀναληφθεῖσαν καὶ φυλαττομενην
- i.e. the proconsular province of Africa (see above, chap. 5, § 18).
- i.e. the Church of the entire province; for the bishop of Carthage was the metropolitan of the province, and indeed was the leading bishop of North Africa, and thus recognized as in some sense at the head of the church of that entire section of country.