Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

To the assessor in the case of monks.
Letter CCLXXXIV. 3243
Concerning the monks, your excellency has, I believe, already rules in force, so that I
need ask for no special favour on their behalf.
It is enough that they share with others the enjoyment of your general beneficence; still
I feel it incumbent upon me too to interest myself in their case. I therefore submit it to your
more perfect judgment, that men who have long since taken leave of this life, who have
mortified their own bodies, so that they have neither money to spend nor bodily service to
render in the interests of the common weal, should be exempted from taxation. For if their
lives are consistent with their profession, they possess neither money nor bodies; for the
former is spent in communicating to the needy; while their bodies are worn away in prayer
and fasting.
Men living such lives you will, I know, regard with special reverence; nay you will wish
to secure their intervention, since by their life in the Gospel they are able to prevail with
God.
3243 Placed in the episcopate.
To the assessor in the case of monks.
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