Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hi, John Dixon here with a quick Undeception single. I hope you're doing okay. Every now and then, people raise the question about the tax breaks churches get today.
The modern debate is something I raised in season one in the episode titled "Social Capital" if you want to have a listen to that. But where did it come from originally? Who was the first to think that churches shouldn't be taxed? And what on earth was the rationale? At the very beginning of the fourth century, 303 to be precise, the Roman government launched what historians still call the Great Persecution.
Church buildings were destroyed, any scriptures that were found were burned, and those who didn't offer sacrifices to the pagan gods, the Christians in other words, were killed. It was eight long years of devastation. But then suddenly, in the year 312, Christians woke up to the news that the most powerful man in the world, Constantine the Great, wanted to follow Jesus.
That story probably deserves its own episode, but one of the rapid decisions Constantine made was to give the church tax relief. A year or so after the end of the persecutions, Constantine dispatched a letter, quote, to Ursus, the most distinguished finance minister of Africa.
It advised that 3,000 follies, that's the equivalent of 6,000 days wages, was about to be delivered to the province to cover the expenses of the clergy.
This region, Carthage and surrounds in North Africa, had been particularly hard hit in the persecutions. So this may have been welfare or disaster relief, even restitution for damages, rather than a cash bonus for the emperor's favourite religion. The state didn't pay the stipends of clergy until much later, as they still do in Norway, by the way, bizarrely.
a small but significant financial change occurred on 3rd july 321 when constantine ruled quote every person shall have the liberty to leave at his death any property that he wishes to the most holy and venerable council of the church this law allowing untaxed bequests to churches
a thing already permitted for other corporations, would eventually have a huge impact on the church's ability to be self-sufficient and more. Over time, and of course no other organizations had more time, the property holdings of the church, because of this law, would become unfathomably large right across Europe.
What seemed like a small tax concession in the summer of 321 would become one of the church's chief sources of income, property, and a principal cause of understandable criticism. Another financial benefit was the clergy's exemption from what were called public offices.
Many middle-class citizens of the empire were required to perform government services of various kinds. We might think of this as a form of taxation. This could involve giving lodging to visiting soldiers and officials, providing supplies to the city, collecting state taxes, or even sitting on municipal councils.
These public offices were considered onerous, particularly when they involved taking time out of one's regular employment. I guess modern equivalents might be the compulsory jury duty in Australia or national service in Israel.
France recently announced that all 16-year-olds must do a month of service training in things like first aid and so on, after which they're going to be encouraged to do three months of volunteering for the public good. I like it.
In any case, in the spring of 313, just six months after the Emperor's conversion, Constantine wrote to the proconsul of Africa ordering that the clergy of the province should "be kept absolutely free from all the public offices, for when they render supreme service to the deity, it seems that they confer incalculable benefit on the affairs of the state."
Clergy were by no means the only people in Roman society to be released from these civic duties. All pagan priests, professors, physicians, and leaders of the synagogues enjoyed the same privilege. Constantine was just now extending it to Christian clergy.
Constantine's logic in connection with churches was that the activities of clergy, which included visiting the sick, distributing charitable gifts and preaching those things into existence, were already valuable public offices.
These exemptions then were formalized over the next 15 years, and they were all about letting the clergy do their good in society. One of these laws of Constantine decreed that, quote, those who are called clerics shall be exempt from all compulsory public services, whatever, lest they should be called away from divine services. Music
There was a brilliant catch in these laws benefiting the clergy. Wealthy citizens capable of performing significant public services were explicitly forbidden from entering the clergy, lest they use the church as a kind of loophole to escape this form of taxation. To quote from one of the laws,
"No decurion or descendant of a decurion, or even any person provided with adequate resources, shall take refuge in the name and the service of the clergy. And moreover, the clergy must be chosen only from among those who have slender fortunes."
This law survived at least a generation beyond Constantine and was reiterated in a law of 364, which said, We forbid altogether that wealthy plebeians shall be received as clerics by the church. Music
In this period, Roman law still had a pretty patronizing view of the church and of the clergy. Princeton's Peter Brown says, The imperial laws made clear that the bishops and clergy received their privileges not only because they prayed for the empire, but also because they looked after the poor. The bishops and clergy were privileged presbyters.
precisely because they were not expected to be the equals of the rich. Times would eventually change, and maybe I'll deal with that on another day. How do you reckon Roman citizens generally felt about these tax laws benefiting the church?
Some probably resented it, especially those who longed for the good old days of Christian persecution. They saw the admission of the church into respectable society as a kind of betrayal of traditional Roman ideals. But so far as we can tell, most Romans didn't hate Christians.
By this time, the early 300s, pretty much everyone must have known at least one Christian. And so the values of Christianity were becoming better understood. I mean, lots of people still found the Christian denial of the Greek and Roman gods sort of weird. Christians were sometimes called atheists because of this. But the general population increasingly saw the church as a harmless civic association, a unique blend of religious cult, welfare union, and a philosophical society.
It made sense then to extend these conventional Roman policies to the Christian clubs. One of Constantine's laws reveals the rationale for giving churches the privileges enjoyed by these other imperial associations.
Legislation dated 1st of June 329, 15 years after the emperor's conversion, ratifies the policy I mentioned earlier, forbidding wealthy people from ever becoming clergy. In so doing, the law makes this clear distinction between the role of the rich and the role of the church. Let me quote it.
The wealthy must assume secular obligations through their taxes and public offices. And the poor must be supported by the wealth of the churches. There it is. Well-to-do citizens should attend to matters of state, but the Christians should get on with looking after the poor.
The church was granted tax-free status in the 4th century because it was the Empire's principal charity arm. It's a law that is still on the books in almost every Western country.
Hey, speaking of financial assistance, this single was made possible by Stonebreaker Lawyers, a firm specializing in commercial and business law, as well as wills and estates. They are good people. I know them personally. And as their website says, they want to see justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. That's from the Bible.
Stonebreaker is spelt S-T-O-N-E-B-R-A-K-E-R. It's stonebreakerlawyers.com.au. We're in between seasons, as you may have worked out, but we're working hard to bring you some pretty exciting things soon. Stay safe. See ya. You've been listening to the Eternity Podcast Network.
eternitypodcasts.com.au.