18.31. 31. Of the Authority of the Clergy under the first Race.
The priests of barbarous nations are commonly invested with power, because they have
both that authority which is due to them from their religious character,
and that influence which among such a people is the offspring of
superstition. Thus we see in Tacitus that priests were held in great
veneration by the Germans, and that they presided in the assemblies of
the people.
[61]
They alone were permitted
[62]
to chastise, to bind, to
smite; which they did, not by order of the prince, or as his ministers
of justice, but as by an inspiration of that Deity ever supposed to be
present with those who made war.
We ought not, therefore, to be astonished when, from the very
beginning of the first race, we meet with bishops the dispensers of
justice,
[63]
when we see them appear in the assemblies of the nation;
when they have such a prodigious influence on the minds of sovereigns;
and when they acquire so large a share of property.
Footnotes
[61]
"Silentium per sacerdotes, quibus et coercendi jus est,
imperatur." — Ibid., 11.
[62]
"Nec Regibus libera aut infinita potestas. Cæterum neque
animadvertere, neque vincire, neque verberare, nisi sacerdotibus est
permissum, non quasi in pœnam, nec Ducis jussu, sed velut Deo
imperante, quem adesse, bellatoribus credunt." -- Ibid., 7.
[63]
See the "Constitutions of Clotarius," year 560, art. 6.
