Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 09.djvu/477

TITHE 415 TITHE The payment of tithe to the clergy orig- inated in the recognition of a moral and religious duty. The discharge of this acknowledged obligation acquired the force of custom, then received the sanc- tion of ecclesiastical law, and finally passed into the national jurisprudence of England and other Christian coun- tries. The first recorded instance of the pay- ment of tithe is the offering of Abraham to Melchisedec (Gen. xiv: 20) ; the second precedent is the vow of Jacob at Bethel (Gen. xx ii: 22). The consecration of a fractional portion of the produce of the land to the uses of the ministers of re- ligion formed part of the Mosaic law. The tribe of Levi were maintained from this source, not having lands assigned to them like the other tribes. Neither -pa- triarchal usage, nor precedents of Mosaic law, nor the Levitical economy were binding on Christians; but they doubt- less suggested to the clergy the precept and to the people the practice of paying tithes to the ministers of religion. The system is not specially enjoined in the New Testament, and no claim to tithes is urged by the Christian clergy as repre- sentatives of the Levitical priesthood. In the enthusiastic bounty of early Chris- tianity voluntary offerings sufficed. Some evidence does exist in the ante- Nicene Fathers that tithes were held to be due under the Gospel as well as under the Mosaic law; on the other hand, Sel- den is possibly right in maintaining that the custom of paying tithe cannot be traced before the 4th century. Whether this be so or not is immaterial. At the end of the 4th century the evidence is overwhelming ( Hilary, Ambrose, Chry- sostom, Jerome, Augustine) that the moral and religious duty of paying tithes was recognized, and had acquired the force of custom. As a moral and re- ligious custom the payment of tithes was enjoined by the public acts of councils and churches, and enforced by moral and religious sanctions (e. g.. Councils of Tours, 567; Macon, 589; Rouen, 650; etc.). The last stage was reached when the state added the civil sanction to the ecclesiastical sanction. In doing so the state recognized the already accepted cus- tomary duty, and the corresponding cus- tomary rights. It created no new bur- den ; it appropriated no part of what had hitherto been a public fund or public revenue. On the Continent the attach- ment of legal sanctions to ecclesiastical customs dates from Charlemagne's legis- lation in 779 and 787. Henceforward tithes were enforced by temporal penal- ties. Before Augustine landed in Kent (597) the custom of paying tithes had been enjoined by the public acts of con- tinental councils. As a duty the pay- ment of tithes was preached by the first missionaries; as a custom it was speed- ily established by their successors. But it was not till 785 that the custom was enjoined by ecclesiastical legislation. In 785 two Italian bishops were sent by Pope Adrian I. to recommend 29 Latin injunctions to the observance of the An- glo-Saxon church. Among them was one injunction which urged the payment of tithes as a means of securing to the payer the blessing of God. Thus the cus- tomary discharge of a recognized re- ligious duty was for the first time en- forced in England by the public act of an ecclesiastical council. This ecclesiastical injunction was sub- sequently confirmed and extended by roy- al orders in Episcopal councils, in na- tional synods, and in proclamations of peace. But it was not till 970 that the state recognized the customary duty and its corresponding customary right by adding the civil to the ecclesiastical sanc- tion. It is now agreed that the so-called grant of King Offa is an idle story re- lating to Peter's pence, and that the so- called grant of King Ethelwulf rests on a misconstruction of a document which has no reference to tithes. No law, no charter, no authentic public docu- ment exists by which the state pro- fesses to confer the rights to tithes upon the Church. But the laws of King Edgar (970) attached a legal punish- ment to neglect of the customary and religious duty of paying tithes, and pro- vided means of enforcing the corre- sponding customary right by temporal penalties. These laws were subsequent- ly confirmed by successive sovereigns, though it was not till after the Con- quest that the payment became general. The process by which tithes grew from a moral into a legal duty does not ex- plain their special allocation as the local endowments of parishes. In their appro- priation as part of the parochial system three stages may be distinguished: (1) before 970; (2) from 970 to the end of the 12th century; (3) from 1200 onward. (1) Before 970. — During the first three centuries of the Anglo-Saxon church there was in each diocese one common treasury, into which were paid the tithes and other offerings of the faithful. As to the distribution of these funds by the bishop, different usages prevailed in dif- ferent parts of Western Christendom. In the Roman dioceses the customary divi- sion was fourfold: (1) the clergy, (2) the poor, (3) the fabrics of churches,