PART IV.--JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHARITY

With Christianity two elements came into fusion, the Jewish and the Greco-Roman. To trace this fusion and its results it is necessary to describe the Jewish system of charity, and to compare it with that of the early Christian church, to note the theory of love or friendship in Aristotle as representing Greek thought, and of charity in St Paul as representing Christian thought, and to mark the Roman influences which moulded the administration of Ambrose and Gregory and Western Christianity generally.

Hebrew charity.

In the early history of the Hebrews we find the family, clan-family and tribe. With the Exodus (probably about 1390 B.C.) comes the law of Moses (cf. Kittel, _Hist. of the Hebrews_, Eng. trans. i. 244), the central and permanent element of Jewish thought. We may compare it to the "commandments" of Hesiod. There is the recognition of the family and its obligations: "Honour thy father and mother"; and honour included help and support. There is also the law essential to family unity: "Thou shalt not commit adultery"; and as to property there is imposed the regulation of desire: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house." Maimonides (A.D. 1135), true to the old conception of the family (x. 16), calls the support of adult children, "after one is exempt from supporting them," and the support of a father or mother by a child, "great acts of charity; since kindred are entitled to the first consideration." To relief of the stranger the Decalogue makes no reference, but in the Hebraic laws it is constantly pressed; and the Levitical law (xix. 18) goes further. It first applies a new standard to social life: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." This thought is the outcome of a deep ethical fervour--the element which the Jews brought into the work of charity. In Judges and Joshua, the "Homeric" books of the Old Testament, the Hebrews appear as a passionately fierce and cruel people. Subsequently against their oppression of the poor the prophets protested with a vehemence as great as the evil was intense; and their denunciations remained part of the national literature, a standing argument that life without charity is nothing worth. Thus schooled and afterwards tutored into discipline by the tribulation of the exile (587 B.C.), they turned their fierceness into a zeal, which, as their literature shows, was as fervent in ethics as it was in religion and ceremonial. In the services at the synagogues, which supplemented and afterwards took the place of the Temple, the Commandments were constantly repeated and the Law and the Prophets read; and as the Jews of the Dispersion increased in number, and especially after the destruction of Jerusalem, the synagogues became centres of social and charitable co-operation. Thus rightly would a Jewish rabbi say, "On three things the world is stayed: on the Thorah (or the law), and on worship, and on the bestowal of kindness." Also there was on the charitable side an indefinite power of expansion. Rigid in its ceremonial, there it was free. Within the nation, as the Prophets, and after the exile, as the Psalms show, there was the hope of a universal religion, and with it of a universally recognized charity. St Paul accentuated the prohibitive side of the law and protested against it; but, even while he was so doing, stimulated by the Jewish discipline, he was moving unfettered towards new conceptions of charity and life--charity as the central word of the Christian life, and life as a participation in a higher existence--the "body of Christ."

To mark the line of development, we could compare--1. The family among the Jews and in the early Christian church; 2. The sources of relief and the tithe, the treatment of the poor and their aid, and the assistance of special classes of poor; 3. The care of strangers; and, lastly, we would consider the theory of almsgiving, friendship or love, and charity.

1. As elsewhere, property is the basis of the family. Wife and children are the property of the father. But the wife is held in high respect. In the post-exilian period the virtuous wife is represented as laborious as a Roman matron, a "lady bountiful" to the poor, and to her husband wife and friend alike. Monogamy without concubinage is now the rule--is taken for granted as right. There is no "exposure of children." The slaves are kindly treated, as servants rather than slaves--though in Roman times and afterwards the Jews were great slave-traders. The household is not allowed to eat the bread of idleness. "Six days," it was said, "_must_ [not _mayest_] thou work." "Labour, if poor; but find work, if rich." "Whoever does not teach his son business or work, teaches him robbery." In Job xxxi., a chapter which has been called "an inventory of late Old Testament morality," we find the family life developed side by side with the life of charity. In turn are mentioned the relief of the widow, the fatherless and the stranger--the classification of dependents in the Christian church; and the whole chapter is a justification of the homely charities of a good family. "The Jewish religion, more especially in the old and orthodox form, is essentially a family religion" (C.G. Montefiore, _Religion of Ancient Hebrews_).

In the early documents of the Church the fifth commandment is made the basis of family life (cf. Eph. vi. 1; _Apost. Const._ ii. 32, iv. 11--if we take the first six books of the _Apost. Const._ as a composite production before A.D. 300, representing Judaeo-Christian or Eastern church thought). But two points are prominent. Duties are insisted on as reciprocal (cf. especially St Paul's Epistles), as, e.g. between husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant. Charity is mutual; the family is a circle of reciprocal duties and charities. This implies a principle of the greatest importance in relation to the social utility of charity. Further reference will be made to it later. Next the "thou shalt love thy neighbour" is translated from its position as one among many sayings to the chief place as a rule of life. In the _Didache_ or _Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_ (Jewish-Christian, c. 90-120 A.D.) the first commandment in "the way of life" is adapted from St Matthew's Gospel thus: "First, thou shalt love God who made thee; secondly, thy neighbour as thyself; and all things whatsoever thou wouldst not have done to thee, neither do thou to another." A principle is thus applied which touches all social relations in which the "self" can be made the standard of judgment. Of this also later. To touch on other points of comparison: the earlier documents seem to ring with a reiterated cry for a purer family life (cf. the second, the negative, group of commandments in the _Didache_, and the judgment of the apocalyptic writings, such as the Revelations of Peter, &c.); and, sharing the Jewish feeling, the riper conscience of the Christian community formulates and accepts the injunction to preserve infant life at every stage. It advocates, indeed, the Jewish purity of family life with a missionary fervour, and it makes of it a condition of church membership. The Jewish rule of labour is enforced (_Ap. Const._ ii. 63). If a stranger settle (_Didache_, xii. 3) among the brotherhood, "let him work and eat." And the father (_Constit._ iv. 11) is to teach the children "such trades as are agreeable and suitable to their need." And the charities to the widow, the fatherless, are organized on Jewish lines.

2. The sources of relief among the Jews were the three gifts of corn: (1) the corners of the field (cf. Lev. xix. &c.), amounting to a sixtieth part of it; (2) the gleanings, a definite minimum dropped in the process of reaping (Maimonides, _Laws of the Hebrews relating to the Poor_, iv. 1); (3) corn overlooked and left behind. So it was with the grapes and with all crops that were harvested, as opposed, e.g. to figs, that were gathered from time to time. These gifts were divisible three times in the day, so as to suit the convenience of the poor (Maim. ii. 17), and the poor had a right to them. They are indeed a poor-rate paid in kind such as in early times would naturally spring up among an agricultural people. Another gift "out of the seed of the earth," is the tithe. In the post-exilian period the septenniad was in force. Each year a fiftieth part of the produce (Maim. vi. 2, and Deut. xviii. 4) was given to the priest (the class which in the Jewish state was supported by the community). Of the remainder one-tenth went to the Levite, and one-tenth in three years of the septennium was retained for pilgrimage to Jerusalem, in two given to the poor. In the seventh year "all things were in common." Supplementing these gifts were alms to all who asked; "and he who gave less than a tenth of his means was a man of evil eye" (Maim. vii. 5). All were to give alms, even the poor themselves who were in receipt of relief. Refusal might be punished with stripes at the hand of the Sanhedrim. At the Temple alms for distribution to the worthy poor were placed by worshippers in the cell of silence; and it is said that in Palestine at meal times the table was open to all comers. As the synagogues extended, and possibly after the fall of Jerusalem (A.D. 70), the collections of alms was further systematized. There were two collections. In each city alms of the box or chest (_kupha_) were collected for the poor of the city on each Sabbath eve (later, monthly or thrice a year), and distributed in money or food for seven days. Two collected, three distributed. Three others gathered and distributed daily alms of the basket (_tamchui_). These were for strangers and wayfarers--casual relief "for the poor of the whole world." In the Jewish synagogue community from early times the president (_parnass_) and treasurer were elected annually with seven heads of the congregation (see Abraham's _Jewish Life in the Middle Ages_, p. 54), and sometimes special officers for the care of the poor. A staff of almoners was thus forthcoming. In addition to these collections were the _pruta_ given to the poor before prayers (Maim. x. 15), and moneys gathered to help particular cases (cf. _Jewish Life_, p. 322) by circular letter. There were also gifts at marriages and funerals; and fines imposed for breach of the communal ordinances were reserved for the poor. The distinctive feature of the Jewish charity was the belief that "the poor would not cease out of the land," and that therefore on charitable grounds a permanent provision should be made for them--a poor-rate, in fact, subject to stripes and distraint, if necessary (Maim. vii. 10; and generally cf. articles on "Alms" and "Charity" in the _Jewish Encyclopaedia_).

If we compare this with the early church we find the following sources of relief: (1) The Eucharistic offerings, some consumed at the time, some carried home, some reserved for the absent (see Hatch, _Early Church_, p. 40). The ministration, like the Eucharist, was connected with the love feast, and was at first daily (Acts ii. 42, vi. 1, and the _Didache_). (2) Freewill offerings and first-fruits and voluntary tithes (_Ap. Con._ ii. 25) brought to the bishop and used for the poor--orphans, widows, the afflicted and strangers in distress, and for the clergy, deaconesses, &c. (3) Collections in churches on Sundays and week-days, alms-boxes and gifts to the poor by worshippers as they entered church; also collections for special purposes (cf. for Christians at Jerusalem). Apart from "the corners," &c., the sources of relief in the Christian and Jewish churches are the same. The separate Jewish tithe for the poor, which (Maim. vi. II, 13) might be used in part by the donor as personal charity, disappears. A voluntary tithe remains, in part used for the poor. We do not hear of stripes and distraint, but in both bodies there is a penitential system and excommunication (cf. _Jewish Life_, p. 52), and in both a settlement of disputes within the body (Clem. _Hov_. iii. 67). In both, too, there is the abundant alms provided in the belief of the permanence of poverty and the duty of giving to all who ask. As to administration in the early church (Acts vi. 3), we find seven deacons, the number of the local Jewish council; and later there were in Rome seven ecclesiastical relief districts, each in charge of a deacon. The deacon acted as the minister of the bishop (_Ep._ Clem, to Jam. xii.), reporting to him and giving as he dictated (_Ap. Con._ ii. 30, 31). He at first combined disciplinary powers with charitable. The presbyters also (Polycarp, _Ad Phil._ 6, A.D. 69-155), forming (Hatch, p. 69) a kind of bishop's council, visited the sick, &c. The bishop was president and treasurer. The bishop was thus the trustee of the poor. By reason of the churches' care of orphans, responsibilities of trusteeship also devolved on him. The temples were in pagan times depositories of money. Probably the churches were also.

3. Great stress is laid by the Jews on the duty of gentleness to the poor (Maim. x. 5). The woman was to have first attention (Maim. vi. 13). If the applicant was hungry he was to be fed, and then examined to learn whether he was a deceiver (Maim. vii. 6). Assistance was to be given according to the want--clothes, household things, a wife or a husband--and according to the poor man's station in life. For widows and orphans the "gleanings" were left. Both are the recognized objects of charity (Maim. x. 16,17). "The poor and the orphan were to be employed in domestic affairs in preference to servants." The dower was a constant form of help. The ransoming of slaves took precedence of relief to the poor. The highest degree of alms-deed (Maim. x. 7) was "to yield support to him who is cast down, either by means of gifts, or by loan, or by commerce, or by procuring for him traffic with others. Thus his hand becometh strengthened, exempt from the necessity of soliciting succour from any created being."

If we compare the Christian methods we find but slight difference. The absoluteness of "Give to him that asketh" is in the _Didache_ checked by the "Woe to him that receives: for if any receives having need, he shall be guiltless, but he that has no need shall give account, ... and coming into distress ... he shall not come out thence till he hath paid the last farthing." It is the duty of the bishop to know who is most worthy of assistance (_Ap. Con._ ii. 3, 4); and "if any one is in want by gluttony, drunkenness, or idleness, he does not deserve assistance, or to be esteemed a member of the church." The widow assumes the position not only of a recipient of alms, but a church worker. Some were a private charge, some were maintained by the church. The recognized "widow" was maintained: she was to be sixty years of age (cf. 1 Tim, v. 9 and _Ap. Con._ iii. 1), and was sometimes tempted to become a bedes-woman and gossipy pauper, if one may judge from the texts. Remarriage was not approved. Orphans were provided for by members of the churches. The virgins formed another class, as, contrary to the earlier feeling, marriage came to be held a state of lesser sanctity. They too seem to have been also, in part at least, church workers. Thus round the churches grew up new groups of recognized dependents; but the older theory of charity was broad and practical--akin to that of Maimonides. "Love all your brethren, performing to orphans the part of parents, to widows that of husbands, affording them sustenance with all kindliness, arranging marriages for those who are in their prime, and for those who are without a profession the means of necessary support through employment: giving work to the artificer and alms to the incapable" (_Ep._ Clem, to James viii.).

4. The Jews in pre-Christian and Talmudic times supported the stranger or wayfarer by the distribution of food (_tamchui_); the strangers were lodged in private houses, and there were inns provided at which no money was taken (cf. _Jewish Life_, p. 314). Subsequently, besides these methods, special societies were formed "for the entertainment of the resident poor and of strangers." There were commendatory letters also. These conditions prevailed in the Christian church also. The _Xenodocheion_, coming by direct succession alike from Jewish and Greek precedents, was the first form of Christian hospital both for strangers and for members of the Christian churches. In the Christian community the endowment charity comes into existence in the 4th century, among the Jews not till the 13th. The charities of the synagogue without separate societies sufficed.

Greek, Jewish and Christian thought.

We may now compare the conceptions of Jews and Christians on charity with those of the Greeks. There are two chief exponents of the diverse views--Aristotle and St Paul; for to simplify the issues we refer to them only. Thoughts such as Aristotle's, recast by the Stoic Panaetius (185-112 B.C.), and used by Cicero in his _De Officiis_, became in the hands of St Ambrose arguments for the direction of the clergy in the founding of the medieval church; and in the 13th century Aristotle reasserts his influence through such leaders of medieval thought as St Thomas Aquinas. St Paul's chapters on charity, not fully appreciated and understood, one is inclined to think, have perhaps more than any other words prevented an absolute lapse into the materialism of almsgiving. After him we think of St Francis, the greatest of a group of men who, seeking reality in life, revived charity; but to the theory of charity it might almost be said that since Aristotle and St Paul nothing has been added until we come to the economic and moral issues which Dr Chalmers explained and illustrated.

The problem turns on the conception (1) of purpose, (2) of the self, and (3) of charity, love or friendship as an active force in social life. To the Greek, or at least to Greek philosophic thought, purpose was the measure of goodness. To have no purpose was, so far as the particular act was concerned, to be simply irrational; and the less definite the purpose the more irrational the act. This conception of purpose was the touchstone of family and social life, and of the civic life also. In no sphere could goodness be irrational. To say that it was without purpose was to say that it was without reality. So far as the actor was concerned, the main purpose of right action was the good of the soul ([Greek: psyche]); and by the soul was meant the better self, "the ruling part" acting in harmony with every faculty and function of the man. With faculties constantly trained and developed, a higher life was gradually developed in the soul. We are thus, it might be said, what we become. The gates of the higher life are within us. The issue is whether we will open them and pass in.

Consistent with this is the social purpose. Love or friendship is not conceived by Aristotle except in relation to social life. Society is based on an interchange of services. This interchange in one series of acts we call justice; in another friendship or love. A man cannot be just unless he has acquired a certain character or habit of mind; and hence no just man will act without knowledge, previous deliberation and definite purpose. So also will a friend fulfil these conditions in his acts of love or friendship. In the love existing between good men there is continuance and equality of service; but in the case of benefactor and benefited, in deeds of charity, in fact, there is no such equality. The satisfaction is on one side but often not on the other. (The dilemma is one that is pressed, though not satisfactorily, in Cicero and Seneca.) The reason for this will be found, Aristotle suggests, in the feeling of satisfaction which men experience in action. We realize ourselves in our deeds--throw ourselves into them, as people say; and this is happiness. What we make we like: it is part of us. On the other hand, in the person benefited there may be no corresponding action, and in so far as there is not, there is no exchange of service or the contentment that arises from it. The "self" of the recipient is not drawn out. On the contrary, he may be made worse, and feel the uneasiness and discontent that result from this. In truth, to complete Aristotle's argument, the good deed on one side, as it represents the best self of the benefactor, should on the other side draw out the best self of the person benefited. And where there is not ultimately this result, there is not effective friendship or charity, and consequently there is no personal or social satisfaction. The point may be pushed somewhat further. In recent developments of charitable work the term "friendly visitor" is applied to persons who endeavour to help families in distress on the lines of associated charity. It represents the work of charity in one definite light. So far as the relation is mutual, it cannot at the outset be said to exist. The charitable friend wishes to befriend another; but at first there may be no reciprocal feeling of friendship on the other's part--indeed, such a feeling may never be created. The effort to reciprocate kindness by becoming what the friend desires may be too painful to make. Or the two may be on different planes, one not really befriending, but giving without intelligence, the other not really endeavouring to change his nature, but receiving help solely with a view to immediate advantage. The would-be befriender may begin "despairing of no man," expecting nothing in return; but if, in fact, there is never any kind of return, the friendship actually fails of its purpose, and the "friend's" satisfaction is lost, except in that he may "have loved much." In any case, according to this theory friendship, love and charity represent the mood from which spring social acts, the value of which will depend on the knowledge, deliberation and purpose with which they are done, and accordingly as they acquire value on this account will they give lasting satisfaction to both parties.

St Paul's position is different. He seems at first sight to ignore the state and social life. He lays stress on motive force rather than on purpose. He speaks as an outsider to the state, though technically a citizen. His mind assumes towards it the external Judaic position, as though he belonged to a society of settlers ([Greek: paroikoi]). Also, as he expects the millennium, social life and its needs are not uppermost in his thoughts. He considers charity in relation to a community of fellow-believers--drawn together in congregations. His theory springs from this social base, though it over-arches life itself. He is intent on creating a spiritual association. He conceives of the spirit ([Greek: pneuma]) as "an immaterial personality." It transcends the soul ([Greek: psyche]), and is the Christ life, the ideal and spiritual life. Christians participate in it, and they thus become part of "the body of Christ," which exists by virtue of love--love akin to the ideal life, [Greek: agape]. The word represents the love that is instinct with reverence, and not love [Greek: philia] which may have in it some quality of passion. This love is the life of "the body of Christ." Therefore no act done without it is a living act--but, on the contrary, must be dead--an act in which no part of the ideal life is blended. On the individual act or the purpose no stress is laid. It is assumed that love, because it is of this intense and exalted type, will find the true purpose in the particular act. And, when the expectation of the millennium passed away, the theory of this ideal charity remained as a motive force available for whatever new conditions, spiritual or social, might arise. Nevertheless, no sooner does this charity touch social conditions, than the necessity asserts itself of submitting to the limitations which knowledge, deliberation and purpose impose. This view had been depreciated or ignored by Christians, who have been content to rely upon the strength of their motives, or perhaps have not realized what the Greeks understood, that society was a natural organism (Arist. _Pol._ 1253A), which develops, fails or prospers in accordance with definite laws. Hence endless failure in spite of some success. For love, whether we idealize it as [Greek: agape] or consider it a social instinct as [Greek: philia], cannot be love at all unless it quickens the intelligence as much as it animates the will. It cannot, except by some confusion of thought, be held to justify the indulgence of emotion irrespective of moral and social results. Yet, though this fatal error may have dominated thought for a long time, it is hardly possible to attribute it to St Paul's theory of charity when the very practical nature of Judaism and early Christianity is considered. In his view the misunderstanding could not arise. And to create a world or "body" of men and women linked together by love, even though it be outside the normal life of the community, was to create a new form of religious organization, and to achieve for it (so far as it was achieved) what, _mutatis mutandis_, Aristotle held to be the indispensable condition of social life, friendship ([Greek: philia]), "the greatest good of states," for "Socrates and all the world declare," he wrote, that "the unity of the state" is "created by friendship" (Arist. _Pol._ ii. 1262 b).

It should, however, be considered to what extent charity in the Christian church was devoid of social purpose, (1) The Jewish conceptions of charity passed, one might almost say, in their completeness into the Christian church. Prayer, the petition and the purging of the mind, fasting, the humiliation of the body, and alms, as part of the same discipline, the submissive renunciation of possessions--all these formed part of the discipline that was to create the religious mood. Alms henceforth become a definite part of the religious discipline and service. Humility and poverty hereafter appear as yoked virtues, and many problems of charity are raised in regard to them. The non-Christian no less than the Christian world appreciated more and more the need of self-discipline ([Greek: askesis]); and it seems as though in the first two centuries A.D. those who may have thought of reinvigorating society searched for the remedy rather in the preaching and practice of temperance than in the application of ideas that were the outcome of the observation of social or economic conditions. Having no object of this kind as its mark, almsgiving took the place of charity, and, as Christianity triumphed, the family life, instead of reviving, continued to decay, while the virtues of the discipline of the body, considered apart from social life, became an end in themselves, and it was desired rather to annihilate instinct than to control it. Possibly this was a necessary phase in a movement of progress, but however that be, charity, as St Paul understood it, had in it no part. (2) But the evil went farther. Jewish religious philosophy is not elaborated as a consistent whole by any one writer. It is rather a miscellany of maxims; and again and again, as in much religious thought, side issues assume the principal place. The direct effect of the charitable act, or almsgiving, is ignored. Many thoughts and motives are blended. The Jews spoke of the poor as the means of the rich man's salvation. St Chrysostom emphasizes this: "If there were no poor, the greater part of your sins would not be removed: they are the healers of your wounds" (_Hom._ xiv., Timothy, &c., St Cyprian on works and alms). Alms are the medicine of sin. And the same thought is worked into the penitential system. Augustine speaks of "penance such as fasting, almsgiving and prayer for breaches of the Decalogue" (Reichel, _Manual of Canon Law_, p. 23); and many other references might be cited. "Pecuniary penances (Ib. 154), in so far as they were relaxations of, or substitutes for, bodily penances, were permitted because of the greater good thereby accruing to others" (and in this case they were--A.D. 1284--legally enforceable under English statute law). The penitential system takes for granted that the almsgiving is good for others and puts a premium on it, even though in fact it were done, not with any definite object, but really for the good of the penitent. Thus almsgiving becomes detached from charity on the one side and from social good on the other. Still further is it vulgarized by another confusion of thought. It is considered that the alms are paid to the credit of the giver, and are realized as such by him in the after-world; or even that by alms present prosperity may be obtained, or at least evil accident avoided. Thus motives were blended, as indeed they now are, with the result that the gift assumed a greater importance than the charity, by which alone the gift should have been sanctified, and its actual effect was habitually overlooked or treated as only partially relevant.

(3) The Christian maxim of "loving ([Greek: agape]) one's neighbour as one's self" sets a standard of charity. Its relations are idealized according as the "self" is understood; and thus the good self becomes the measure of charity. In this sense, the nobler the self the completer the charity; and the charity of the best men, men who love and understand their neighbours best, having regard to their chief good, is the best, the most effectual charity. Further, if in what we consider "best" we give but a lesser place to social purpose or even allow it no place at all, our "self" will have no sufficient social aim and our charity little or no social result. For this "self," however, religion has substituted not St Paul's conception of the spirit ([Greek: pneuma]), but a soul, conceived as endowed with a substantial nature, able to enjoy and suffer quasi-material rewards and punishments in the after-life; and in so far as the safeguard of this soul by good deeds or almsgiving has become a paramount object, the purpose of charitable action has been translated from the actual world to another sphere. Thus, as we have seen, the aid of the poor has been considered not an object in itself, but as a means by which the almsgiver effects his own ulterior purpose and "makes God his debtor." The problem thus handled raises the question of reward and also of punishment. Properly, from the point of view of charity, both are excluded. We may indeed act from a complexity of motives and expect a complexity of rewards, and undoubtedly a good act does refresh the "self," and may as a result, though not as a reward, win approval. But in reality reward, if the word be used at all, is according to purpose; and the only reward of a deed lies in the fulfilment of its purpose. In the theory of almsgiving which we are discussing, however, act and reward are on different planes. The reward is on that of a future life; the act related to a distressed person here and now. The interest in the act on the doer's part lies in its post-mortal consequences to himself, and not either wholly or chiefly in the act itself. Nor, as the interest ends with the act--the giving--can the intelligence be quickened by it. The questions "How? by whom? with what object? on what plan? with what result?" receive no detailed consideration at all. Two general results follow. In so far as it is thus practised, almsgiving is out of sympathy with social progress. It is indeed alien to it. Next also the self-contained, self-sustained poverty that will have no relief and does without it, is outside the range of its thought and understanding. On the other hand, this almsgiving is equally incapable of influencing the weak and the vicious; and those who are suffering from illness or trouble it has not the width of vision to understand nor the moral energy to support so that they shall not fall out of the ranks of the self-supporting. It believes that "the poor" will not cease out of the land. And indeed, however great might be the economic progress of the people, it is not likely that the poor will cease, if the alms given in this spirit be large enough in amount to affect social conditions seriously one way or the other. When we measure the effects of charity, this inheritance of divided thought and inconsistent counsels must be given its full weight.

The organization of the parish and endowed charities.

The sub-apostolic church was a congregation, like a synagogue, the centre of a system of voluntary and personal relief, connected with the congregational meals (or [Greek: agapai]) and the Eucharist, and under the supervision of no single officer or bishop. Out of this was developed a system of relief controlled by a bishop, who was assisted chiefly by deacons or presbyters, while the [Greek: agapai], consisting of offerings laid before the altar, still remained. Subsequently the meal was separated from the sacrament, and became a dole of food, or poor people's meal--e.g. in St Augustine's time in western Africa--and it was not allowed to be served in churches (A.D. 391). As religious asceticism became dominant, the sacrament was taken fasting; it appeared unseemly that men and women should meet together for such purposes, and the [Greek: agapai] fell out of repute. Simultaneously it would seem that the parish [Greek: paroikia] became from a congregational settlement a geographical area.

The organization of relief at Rome illustrates both a type of administration and a transition. St Gregory's reforms (A.D. 590) largely developed it. The first factor in the transition was the church fund of the second period of Christianity, about A.D. 150 to after 208 (Tertullian, _Apol_. 39). It served as a friendly fund, was supported by voluntary gifts, and was used to succour and to bury the poor, to help destitute and orphaned children, old household slaves and those who suffered for the faith. This fund is quite different from the _collegia tenuiorum_ or _funeratica_ of the Romans, which were societies to which the members paid stipulated sums at stated periods, for funeral benefits or for common meals (J.P. Waltzing, _Corporations professionnelles chez les Romains_, i. 313). It represents the charitable centre round which the parochial system developed. That system was adopted probably about the middle of the 3rd century, but in Rome the diaconate probably remained centralized. At the end of the 4th century Pope Anastasius had founded deaconries in Rome, and endowed them largely "to meet the frequent demands of the diaconate." Gregory two hundred years later reorganized the system. He divided the fourteen old "regions" into seven ecclesiastical districts and thirty "titles" (or parishes). The parishes were under the charge of sixty-six priests; the districts were eleemosynary divisions. Each was placed under the charge of a deacon, not (Greg. _Ep_. xi. and xxviii.) under the priests (_presbyteri titularii_). Over the deacons was an archdeacon. It was the duty of the deacons to care for the poor, widows, orphans, wards, and old people of their several districts. They inquired in regard to those who were relieved, and drew up under the guidance of the bishop the register of poor (_matricula_). Only these received regular relief. In each district was an hospital or office for alms, of which the deacon had charge, assisted by a steward (or _oeconomus_). Here food was given and meals were taken, the sick and poor were maintained, and orphan or foundling children lodged. The churches of Rome and of other large towns possessed considerable estates, "the patrimony of the patron saints," and to Rome belonged estates in Sicily which had not been ravaged by the invaders, and they continued to pay to it their tenth of corn, as they had done since Sicily was conquered. Four times a year (Milman, _Lat. Christ_, ii. 117) the shares of the (1) clergy and papal officers, (2) churches and monasteries, and (3) "hospitals, deaconries and ecclesiastical wards for the poor," were calculated in money and distributed; and the first day in every month St Gregory distributed to the poor in kind corn, wine, cheese, vegetables, bacon, meal, fish and oil. The sick and infirm were superintended by persons appointed to inspect every street. Before the pope sat down to his own meal a portion was separated and sent out to the hungry at his door. The Roman _plebs_ had thus become the poor of Christ (_pauperes Christi_), and under that title were being fed by _civica annona_ and _sportula_ as their ancestors had been; and the deaconries had superseded the "regions" and the "steps" from which the corn had been distributed. The _hospitium_ was now part of a common organization of relief, and the sick were visited according to Jewish and early Christian precedent. How far kindly Romans visited the sick of their day we do not know. Alms and the _annona_ were now, it would seem, administered concurrently; and there was a system of poor relief independent of the churches and their alms (unless these, organized, as in Scottish towns, on the ancient ecclesiastical lines, were paid wholly or in part to a central diaconate fund). Much had changed, but in much Roman thought still prevailed.

On lines similar to these the organization of poor relief in the middle ages was developed. In the provinces in the later empire the senate or _ordo decurionum_ were responsible for the public provisioning of the towns (Fustel de Coulanges, _La Gaule romaine_, p. 251), and no doubt the care of the poor would thus in some measure devolve on them in times of scarcity or distress. On the religious side, on the other hand, the churches would probably be constant centres of almsgiving and relief; and then, further, when the Roman municipal system had decayed, each citizen (as in Charlemagne's time, 742-814) was required to support his own dependants--a step suggestive of much after-history.

The change in sentiment and method could hardly be more strongly marked than by a comparison of "the _Teaching_" with St Ambrose's (334-397) "Duties of the Clergy" (_De Officiis Ministrorum_). For the old instinctive obedience to a command there is now an endeavour to find a reasoned basis for charitable action. Pauperism is recognized. "Never was the greed of beggars greater than it is now.... They want to empty the purses of the poor, to deprive them of the means of support. Not content with a little, they ask for more.... With lies about their lives they ask for further sums of money." "A method in giving is necessary." But in the suggestions made there is little consistency. Liberality is urged as a means of gaining the love of the people; a new and a false issue is thus raised. The relief is neither to be "too freely given to those who are unsuitable, nor too sparingly bestowed upon the needy." Everywhere there is a doctrine of the mean reflected through Cicero's _De Officiis_, the doctrine insufficiently stated, as though it were a mean of quantity, and not that rightly tempered mean which is the harmony of opposing moods. The poor are not to be sent away empty. Those rejected by the church are not to be left to the "outer darkness" of an earlier Christianity. They must be supplied if they are in want. The methodic giver is "hard towards none, but is free towards all." Consequently none are refused, and no account is taken of the regeneration that may spring up in a man from the effort towards self-help which refusal may originate. Thus after all it appears that method means no more than this--to give sometimes more, sometimes less, to all needy people. In the small congregational church of early Christianity, each member of which was admitted on the conditions of strictest discipline, the common alms of the faithful could hardly have done much harm within the body, even though outside they created and kept alive a horde of vagrant alms-seekers and pretenders. Now in this department at least the church had become the state, and discipline and a close knowledge of one's fellow-Christians no longer safeguarded the alms. From Cicero is borrowed the thought of "active help," which "is often grander and more noble," but the thought is not worked out. From the social side the problem is not understood or even stated, and hence no principle of charity or of charitable administration is brought to light in the investigation. Still there are rudiments of the economics of charity in the praise of Joseph, who made the people _buy_ the corn, for otherwise "they would have given up cultivating the soil; for he who has the use of what is another's often neglects his own." Perhaps, as St Augustine inspired the theology of the middle ages, we may say that St Ambrose, in the mingled motives, indefiniteness, and kindliness of this book, stands for the charity of the middle ages, except in so far as the movement which culminated in the brotherhood of St Francis awakened the intelligence of the world to wider issues.

In Constantinople the pauperism seems to have been extreme. The corn supplies of Africa were diverted there in great part when it became the capital of the empire. This must have left to Rome a larger scope for the development of the civic-religious administration of relief. St Chrysostom's sermons give no impression of the rise of any new administrative force, alike sagacious and dominant. The appeal to give alms is constant, but the positive counsel on charitable work is _nil_. The people had the _annona civica_, and imperial gifts, corn, allowances (_salaria_) from the treasury granted for the poor and needy, and an annual gift of 50 gold pounds (rather more than L1400) for funerals. Besides these there were many institutions, and the begging and the almsgiving at the church doors. "The land could not support the lazy and valiant beggars." There were public works provided for them; if they refused to work on them they were to be driven away. The sick might visit the capital, but must be registered and sent back (A.D. 382); the sturdy beggar was condemned to slavery. So little did alms effect. And in the East monasticism seems to have produced no firmness of purpose such as led to the organization of the church and of charitable relief under St Gregory.

Another movement of the Byzantine period was the establishment of the endowed charity. The Jewish synagogue long served as a place for the reception of strangers--a religious [Greek: xenodocheion]. Probably the strangers referred to in "the _Teaching_" were so entertained. The table of the bishop and a room in his house served as the guest-chamber, for which afterwards a separate building was instituted. In the East the Jewish charitable inn first appears, and there took place the earliest extension of institutions. There was probably a demand for an elaboration of institutions as social changes made themselves felt in the churches. We have seen this in the case of the [Greek: agape]. Similar changes would affect other branches of charitable work. The hospital (_hospitalium_, [Greek: xenodocheion]) is defined as a "house of God in which strangers who lack hospitality are received" (Suicerus, _Thesaur._), a home separated from the church; and round the church, out of the primitive [Greek: xenodocheion] of early Christian times and the entertainment of strangers at the houses of members of the community, would grow up other similar charities. In A.D. 321 licence was given by Constantine to leave property to the Church. The churches were thus placed in the same position as pagan temples, and though subsequently Valentinian (A.D. 379) withdrew the permission on account of the shameless legacy-hunting of the clergy, in that period much must have been done to endow church and charitable institutions. In the same period grew to its height the passion for monasticism. This affected the parish and the endowed charity alike. Under its influence the deacon as an almoner tends to disappear, except where, as in Rome, there is an elaborate system of relief. Nor does it seem that deaconesses, widows, and virgins continued to occupy their old position as church workers and alms-receivers. Naturally when marriage was considered "in itself an evil, perhaps to be tolerated, but still degrading to human nature," and (A.D. 385) the marriage of the clergy was prohibited, men, except those in charge of parishes, and women would join regular monastic bodies; the deacon, as almoner, would disappear, and the "widows" and virgins would become nuns. Thus there would grow up a large body of men and women living segregated in institutions, and forming a leisured class able to superintend institutional charities. And now two new officers appear, the _eleemosynarius_ or almoner and the _oeconomus_ or steward (already an assistant treasurer to the bishop), who superintend and distribute the alms and manage the property of the institution. (In the first six books of the _Apost. Constit._, A.D. 300, these officers are not mentioned.) In these circumstances the _hospitium_ or hospital ([Greek: xenon], [Greek: katagogion]) assumes a new character. It becomes in St Basil's hands (A.D. 330-379) a resort not only for those who "visit it from time to time as they pass by, but also for those who need some treatment in illness." And round St Basil at Caesarea there springs up a colony of institutions. Four kinds principally are mentioned in the Theodosian code: (i) the guest-houses ([Greek: xenodocheia]); (2) the poor-houses ([Greek: ptocheia]), where the poor (_mendici_) were housed and maintained (the [Greek: ptocheion] was a general term also applied to all houses for the poor, the aged, orphans and sick); (3) there were orphanages ([Greek: orphanotropheia]) for orphans and wards; and (4) there were houses for infant children ([Greek: brephotropheia]). Thus a large number of endowed charities had grown up. This new movement it is necessary to consider in connexion with the law relating to religious property and bequests, in its bearing on the rule of the monasteries, and in its effect on the family.

The sacred property (_res sacra_) of Roman law consisted of things dedicated to the gods by the pontiff with the approval of the civil authority, in turn, the people, the senate and the emperor. Things so consecrated were inalienable. Apart from this in the empire, the municipalities as they grew up were considered "juristic persons" who were entitled to receive and hold property. In a similar position were authorized _collegia_, amongst which were the mutual aid societies referred to above. Christians associated in these societies would leave legacies to them. Thus (W.M. Ramsay, _Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia_, I. i. 119) an inscription mentions a bequest (possibly by a Christian) to the council ([Greek: synhedrion]) of the presidents of the dyers in purple for a ceremonial, on the condition that, if the ceremony be neglected, the legacy shall become the property of the gild for the care of nurslings; and in the same way a bequest is left in Rome (Orelli 4420) for a memorial sacrifice, on the condition that, if it be not performed, double the cost be paid to the treasury of the corn-supply (_fisco stationis annonae_). No unauthorized _collegia_ could receive a legacy. "The law recognized no freedom of association." Nor could any private individual create a foundation with separate property of its own. Property could only be left to an authorized juristic person, being a municipality or a _collegium_. But as the problem of poverty was considered from a broader standpoint, there was a desire to deal with it in a more permanent manner than by the _annona civica_. The _pueri alimentarii_ (see above) were considered to hold their property as part of the _fiscus_ or property of the state. Pliny (_Ep._ vii. 18), seeking a method of endowment, transferred property in land to the steward of public property, and then took it back again subject to a permanent charge for the aid of children of freemen. By the law of Constantine and subsequent laws no such devices were necessary. Widows or deaconesses, or virgins dedicated to God, or nuns (A.D. 455), could leave bequests to a church or memorial church (_martyrum_), or to a priest or a monk, or to the poor in any shape or form, in writing or without it. Later (A.D. 475) donations of every kind, "to the person of any martyr, or apostle, or prophet, or the holy angels," for building an oratory were made valid, even if the building were promised only and not begun; and the same rule applied to infirmaries ([Greek: nosokomoeia]) and poor-houses ([Greek: ptocheia])--the bishop or steward being competent to appear as plaintiff in such cases. Later, again (A.D. 528), contributions of 50 solidi (say about L19, 10s.) to a church, hostel ([Greek: xenodocheion]), &c., were made legal, though not registered; while larger sums, if registered, were also legalized. So (A.D. 529) property might be given for "churches, hostels, poor-houses, infant and orphan homes, and homes for the aged, or any such community" (_consortium_), even though not registered, and such property was free from taxation. The next year (530) it was enacted that prescription even for 100 years did not alienate church and charitable property. The broadest interpretation was allowed. If by will a share of an estate was left "to Christ our Lord," the church of the city or other locality might receive it as heir; "let these, the law says, belong to the holy churches, so that they may become the alimony of the poor." It was sufficient to leave property to the poor (_Corpus Juris Civilis_, ed. Krueger, 1877, ii. 25). The bequest was legal. It went to the legal representative of the poor--the church. Charitable property was thus church property. The word "alms" covered both. It was given to pious uses, and as a kind of public institution "shared that corporate capacity which belonged to all ecclesiastical institutions by virtue of a general rule of law." On a _pia causa_ it was not necessary to confer a juristic personality. Other laws preserved or regulated alienation (A.D. 477, A.D. 530), and checked negligence or fraud in management. The clergy had thus become the owners of large properties, with the _coloni_ and slaves upon the estates and the allowances of civic corn (_annona civica_); and (A.D. 357) it was stipulated that whatever they acquired by thrift or trading should be used for the service of the poor and needy, though what they acquired from the labour of their slaves in the labour houses (_ergastula_) or inns (_tabernae_) might be considered a profit of religion (_religionis lucrum_).

Thus grew up the system of endowed charities, which with certain modifications continued throughout the middle ages, and, though it assumed different forms in connexion with gilds and municipalities, in England it still retains, partially at least, its relation to the church. It remained the system of institutional relief parallel to the more personal almsgiving of the parish.

Monasticism, in acting on men of strong character, endowed them with a double strength of will, and to men like St Gregory it seemed to give back with administrative power the relentless firmness of the Roman. In the East it produced the turbulent soldiery of the church, in the West its missionaries; and each mission-monastery was a centre of relief. But whatever the services monasticism rendered, it can hardly be said to have furthered true charity from the social standpoint, though out of regard to some of its institutional work we may to a certain degree qualify this judgment. The movement was almost of necessity in large measure anti-parochial, and thus out of sympathy with the charities of the parish, where personal relations with the poor at their homes count for most.

The good and evil of it may be weighed. Monasticism working through St Augustine helped the world to realize the mood of love as the real or eternal life. Of the natural life of the world and its responsibilities, through which that mood would have borne its completest fruit, it took but little heed, except in so far as, by creating a class possessed of leisure, it created able scholars, lawyers and administrators, and disciplined the will of strong men. It had no power to stay the social evils of the day. Unlike the friars, at their best the monks were a class apart, not a class mixed up with the people. So were their charities. The belief in poverty as a fixed condition--irretrievable and ever to be alleviated without any regard to science or observation, subjected charity to a perpetual stagnation. Charity requires belief in growth, in the sharing of life, in the utility and nobility of what is done here and now for the hereafter of this present world. Monasticism had no thought of this. It was based on a belief in the evil of matter; and from that root could spring no social charity. Economic difficulties also fostered monasticism. Gold was appreciated in value, and necessaries were expensive, and the cost of maintaining a family was great. It was an economy to force a son or a brother into the church. The population was decreasing; and in spite of church feeling Marjorian (A.D. 461) had to forbid women from taking the veil before forty, and to require the remarriage of widows, subject to a large forfeit of property (Hodgkin, _Italy and her Invaders_, ii. 420). Monasticism was inconsistent with the social good. As to the family--like the moderns who depreciate thrift and are careless of the life of the family, the monks, believing that marriage was a lower form of morality, if not indeed, as would at times appear, hardly moral at all, could feel but little enthusiasm for what is socially a chief source of health to the community and a well-spring of spontaneous charitable feeling. By the sacerdotal-monastic movement the moralizing force of Christianity was denaturalized. Among the secular clergy the falsity of the position as between men and women revealed itself in relations which being unhallowed and unrecognized became also degrading. But worse than all, it pushed charity from its pivot. For this no monasteries or institutions, no domination of religious belief, could atone. The church that with so fine an intensity of purpose had fostered chastity and marriage was betraying its trust. It was out of touch with the primal unit of social life, the child-school of dawning habits and the loving economy of the home. It produced no treatise on economy in the older Greek sense of the word. The home and its associations no longer retained their pre-eminence. In the extreme advocacy of the celibate state, the honourable development of the married life and its duties were depreciated and sometimes, one would think, quite forgotten.

We may ask, then, What were the results of charity at the close of the period which ends with St Gregory and the founding of the medieval church?--for if the charity is reflected in the social good the results should be manifest. Economic and social conditions were adverse. With lessened trade the middle class was decaying (Dill, _Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire_, p. 204) and a selfish aristocracy rising up. Municipal responsibility had been taxed to extinction. The public service was corrupt. The rich evaded taxation, the poor were oppressed by it. There were laws upon laws, endeavours to underpin the framework of a decaying society. Society was bankrupt of skill--and the skill of a generation has a close bearing on its charitable administration. While hospitals increased, medicine was unprogressive. There were miserable years of famine and pestilence, and constant wars. The care of the poorer classes, and ultimately of the people, was the charge of the church. The church strengthened the feeling of kindness for those in want, widows, orphans and the sick. It lessened the degradation of the "actresses," and, co-operating with Stoic opinion, abolished the slaughter of the gladiatorial shows. It created a popular "dogmatic system and moral discipline," which paganism failed to do; but it produced no prophet of charity, such as enlarged the moral imagination of the Jews. It ransomed slaves, as did paganism also, but it did not abolish slavery. Large economic causes produced that great reform. The serf attached to the soil took the place of the slave. The almsgiving of the church by degrees took the place of _annona_ and _sportula_, and it may have created pauperism. But dependence on almsgiving was at least an advance on dependence founded on a civic and hereditary right to relief. As the _colonus_ stood higher than the slave, so did the pauper, socially at any rate, free to support himself, exceed the _colonus_. Bad economic conditions and traditions, and a bad system of almsgiving, might enthral him. But the way, at least, was open; and thus it became possible that charity, working in alliance with good economic traditions, should in the end accomplish the self-support of society, the independence of the whole people.