To the assessor in the case of monks
Letters of Basil · Saint Basil the Great
Main text
Concerning the monks, your excellency has, I believe, already rules in force, so that I need ask for no special favour on their behalf.
BasEp 284.1.3
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.
BasEp 284.1.4