108. Ambrose, the most strenuous asserter of ecclesiastical
privileges, submits without a murmur to the payment of the
land-tax. "Si tributum petit Imperator, non negamus; agri
ecclesiae solvunt tributum; solvimus quae sunt Caesaris
Caesari, and cuae sunt Dei Deo; tributum Caesaris est; non
negatu.r" Baronius labours to interpret this tribute as an
act of charity rather than of duty (Annal. Eccles. A.D.
387); but the words, if not the intentions of Ambrose, are
more candidly explained by Thomassin, Discipline de
l'Eglise, tom. iii. 1. i. c. 94, p. 268.