A Law for the Unmarried and for the Clergy

There was an ancient Roman law under which those who were still unmarried at the age of twenty-five did not enjoy the same rights as the married. Among its other clauses, it laid down that those who were not the very nearest relatives could receive nothing under a will, and that the childless were to lose half of any property left to them. The purpose of this ancient Roman law was to increase the population of Rome and of the subject peoples, which had been greatly reduced by the civil wars not long before the law was made. The emperor saw that this law worked against the interests of those who remained unmarried and childless for the sake of God. He also thought it absurd to try to multiply the human race by human care and effort, since nature always grows or shrinks by the decree from on high. So he made a law that the unmarried and the childless should have the same advantages as the married. He even gave special privileges to those who took up a life of continence and virginity. Contrary to the practice that held throughout the Roman Empire, he allowed them to make a will before they reached the age of puberty, for he believed that those who devoted themselves to the service of God and the pursuit of philosophy would in every case judge rightly. For a similar reason the ancient Romans allowed the Vestal Virgins to make a will as soon as they reached the age of six. That was the greatest proof of their high reverence for religion. [a]

Constantine exempted the clergy everywhere from taxes. He allowed people with lawsuits to appeal to the judgment of the bishops, if they preferred them to the civil magistrates. He decreed that the bishops’ verdict should be binding and should stand as far above that of other judges as if the emperor himself had pronounced it; that the governors and their military officers under them should see that these verdicts were carried out; and that the decisions of synods should be final.

Having come this far in my history, I would be wrong to pass over the laws made in favor of those who had received their freedom in the churches. Because of the strictness of the laws and the unwillingness of masters, there were many obstacles to gaining this better freedom, that is, the citizenship of the city of Rome. So Constantine made three laws, decreeing that all who were set free in the churches, with the priests as witnesses to their freedom, should receive Roman citizenship. [e] The records of these pious regulations still survive, since it was the custom to engrave on tablets all laws dealing with the freeing of slaves. Such were the laws of Constantine. In everything he sought to advance the honor of religion, and religion was valued not only for its own sake, but also because of the virtue of those who then practiced it.