Ambrose the bishop to the most blessed prince and most clement emperor Valentinian Augustus.

 

The letter is a response to the Relatio Symmachi (included in the collection of Ambrose's letters as no. 17a) for the restoration of the altar of Victory to the senate and, more generally, in defence of the traditional cults. In what follows, Ambrose refutes the claim of the pagans that their priests and ministers are maltreated economically:  

 

13. They also complain that public food allowances are not paid to their priests and religious officials. What a noisy storm of words this has produced! But recent pieces of legislation denied us the right to inherit even from private individuals, and nobody is complaining. For we do not think it a wrong, because we do not grieve over the loss of money. If a Christian priest were to seek the privilege of exemption from curial duties, he would have to give up all possession of paternal and ancestral goods, and in fact all property. If the pagans had this grievance, just imagine how they would protest that a priest must buy the leisure he needs for his religious duties with the loss of his entire patrimony, that he must purchase the occupation of serving the community at the cost of all his private possessions. But as he professes to keep vigils for the salvation of all, let him find consolation in the reward of private poverty, because he has not sold his services but has gained grace.

14. Compare the two cases. You want to claim exemption for a decurion, when the Church is not allowed to claim exemption for a priest. Wills are written that benefit ministers of temples. Nobody is disqualified from inher- iting because of his impiety, no one even of the humblest condition, no one who has wasted his reputation. Of all men, only the cleric is excluded from this common right, though on behalf of all men, he alone offers up communal prayers, and shoulders communal duties. He is allowed no bequests, not even from sober widows, and no donation. Though no fault is found in his way of life, a fine is inflicted on his office. What a Christian widow bequeaths to the priests of a temple is valid, what to the ministers of God is invalid. I have made this point not in order to complain, but so that the pagans understand why I am not complaining. For I would rather have us poorer in money than in grace.

15. But they argue that what was donated or bequeathed to the Church in the past has been left inviolate. True, but let them also say whether anybody has seized donations from temples? This is something which has been done to Christians, so that even if it had been done to pagans, it would be retribution rather than injustice. But now at last they appeal to justice, and demand fairness? Where was that sentiment then, when after plundering all Christians of their possessions, they grudged them even the breath of life, and denied to them what has never been denied to the dead, a congregation for the last rite of burial? Pagans flung the bodies into the seas: the seas returned them. That they should now be reviling the deeds of their ancestors is a victory of our faith. But, alas, what logic is there in petitioning for gifts made by persons whose actions they condemn?

16. In fact nobody has deprived the temples of their donations, or the college of soothsayers of its legacies. Only estates have been confiscated, and this, for the reason that they did not use them in a manner worthy of religion, though they defended their possession by right of religion. They cite us as a precedent, why did they not also copy our sense of duty? For her own benefit, the Church owns nothing, except her faith. These rents and these revenues (to which they refer) the Church gives away. The possessions of the church are expenditure on the poor. Let them count up how many captives their temples have ransomed, what nourishment they have offered to the poor, to how many exiles they have given resources for a livelihood. That is why their estates have been taken away, but their legal rights have not.

[...]

  

(trans. Liebeschuetz 2010: 85-86)