Tax and Converts

Quote from Letter 5,7 to Cyprian, deacon and rector of the Sicilian patrmony. October 594.

Thus the tax burden would be relieved for the convert, and Church funds would not be under pressure from a heavy expense. Nor are we doing this unprofitably, if by relieving their taxburdens we bring them to the grace of Christ. For, although they themselves come to us with little faith, even so these who are born from them can now be baptized with greater faith. Our profit therefore, is either themselves or their children. Whatever we lose in tax for Christ's sake is not a serious loss.


Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), II: 327.