forged by a later time, yet his enactments fairly launched the great mediaeval Catholic Church upon the career which was to bring it more domination than was granted in this pseudo-charter of its power. A number of Constantine's enactments were preserved by the Theodosian Code, in which the powers and privileges of Church and clergy were portentously set forth.
The Theodosian Code freed the property of the Church from most fiscal burdens, and the clergy from taxes, from public and military service, and from many other obligations which sometimes the Code groups under the head of sordida munera. The Church might receive all manner of bequests, and it inherited the property of such of its clergy as did not leave near relatives surviving them. Its property generally was inalienable; and the clergy were accorded many special safeguards. Slaves might be manumitted in a church. The church edifices were declared asylums of refuge from pursuers, a privilege which had passed to the churches from the heathen fanes and the statues of the emperors. Constitution after constitution was hurled against the Church's enemies. The Theodosian Code has one chapter containing sixty-six constitutions directed against heretics, the combined result of which was to deprive them, if not of life and property, at least of protected legal existence.
Of enormous import was the sweeping recognition on the Empire's part of the validity of episcopal jurisdiction. No bishop might be summoned before a secular court as a defendant, or compelled to give testimony. Falsely to accuse one of the clergy rendered the accuser infamous. All matters pertaining to religion and church discipline might be brought only before the bishop's court, which likewise had plenary jurisdiction over controversies among the clergy. It was also open to the laity for the settlement of civil disputes. The command not to go to law before the heathen came down from Paul (1 Cor. vi.), and together with the severed and persecuted condition of the early Christian communities, may be regarded as the far source of the episcopal jurisdiction, which thus divinely sanctioned tended to extend its arbitrament to all manner of legal
