CHARITY AND CHARITIES 668 Christian Church also. The Xenodocheion was the first form poverty and the duty of giving to all who ask. As to adminis- the Christian hospital both for the stranger and for the sect. _ In tration in the early Church (Acts vi. 3) we find seven deacons of the Christian community the endowment charity comes into the number of the local Jewish council; and later there were existence in the 4th century, among the Jews not till the 13th. in Rome seven ecclesiastical relief districts, each m charge of a The charities of the synagogue without separate societies sufficed. deacon. The deacon acted as the minister of the bishop Clem, to Jam. xii.), reporting to him and giving as he dictated We may now compare the conceptions of Jews and (Ap. Con. ii. 30, 31). He at first combined disciplinary powers Christians on charity with those of the Greeks. There with charitable. The presbyters also (Polycarp ^ Phil. 6 Greek, {A d 69-155)), forming (Hatch, p. 69) a kind of bishop s council, are two chief exponents of the diverse views visited the sick, &c. The bishop was president and treasurer The Aristotle and St Paul; for to simplify the Jewish, bishop was thus the trustee of the poor. By reason of the we refer to them only. Thoughts such as *ad churches’ care of orphans responsibilities of trusteeship also issues devolved on him. The temples were in pagan times depositories Aristotle’s recast by the Stoic Pametius (185-112 b.c.), and used by Cicero in his De Offlciis, beof money. Probably the churches were also. in the hands of St Ambrose arguments for the 3. Great stress is laid by the Jews on the duty of gentle- came direction of the clergy in the founding of the mediaeval ness to the poor (Maim. x. 5). The woman was to have Church; and in the 13th century Aristotle reasserts his first attention (Maim. vi. 13). If the applicant was influence through such leaders of mediaeval thought as hungry he was to be fed, and then examined to learn whether St Thomas Aquinas. St Paul’s chapters on charity, but he was a deceiver (Maim. vii. 6). Assistance was to be little appreciated and understood, one is inclined to think, given according to the want—clothes, household things, a have perhaps, more than any other words, prevented an wife, or a husband—and according to the poor man s station absolute lapse into the materialism of almsgiving. After in life. For widows and orphans the ‘‘gleanings” were left. him we think of St Francis, the greatest of a group of Both are the recognized objects of charity (Maim. x. 16,17). men who, seeking reality in life, revived charity; but to “ The poor and the orphan were to be employed in domestic theory of charity it might almost be said that since affairs in preference to servants.” The dower was a con- the Aristotle and St Paul nothing has been added until we stant form of help. The ransoming of slaves took pre- come to the economic and moral issues which Dr Chalmers cedence of relief to the poor. The highest degree of alms explained and illustrated. deed (Maim. x. 7) was “to yield support to him who is The problem turns on the conception (1) of purpose, cast down, either by means of gifts, or by loan, or by (2) of the self, and (3) of charity, love, or friendship commerce, or by procuring for him traffic with others. as an active force in social life. To the Greek, or Thus his hand becometh strengthened, exempt from ^ the at least to Greek philosophic thought, purpose was the necessity of soliciting succour from any created being.” measure of goodness. To have no purpose was,, so far as If we compare the Christian methods we find but slight the particular act was concerned, to be simply irrational; difference. The absoluteness of “ Give to him that asketh and the less definite the purpose the more irrational the is in the Teaching checked by the “ Woe to him that act. This conception of purpose was the touchstone of receives : for if any receives having need, he shall be guiltfamily and social life, and of the civic life also. In no less, but he that has no need shall give account, . . . and sphere could goodness be irrational. To say that it was coming into distress ... he shall not come out thence without purpose was to say that it was without reality. till he hath paid the last farthing.” It is the duty of the So far as the actor was concerned, the main purpose of bishop to know who is most worthy of assistance Ap. right action was the good of the soul {psyche)^; and by Con. ii. 3, 4) ; and “if any one is in want by gluttony, drunkenness, or idleness, he does not deserve assistance, or the soul was meant the better self, “the ruling part acting in harmony with every faculty and function of the to be esteemed a member of the church. The widow man. With faculties constantly trained and developed, a assumes the position not only of a recipient of alms, but a higher life was gradually developed in the soul. We are church worker. Some were a private charge, some were maintained by the church. The recognized “ widow ” was thus, it might be said, what we become. The gates of the higher life are within us. The issue is whether we will to be sixty years of age (cf. 1 Tim. v. 9 and Ap. Con. m. 1), open them and pass in. a bedeswoman and gossipy pauper often, if one may judge Consistent with this is the social purpose.. Love. or from the texts. Remarriage was not approved, and so that friendship is not conceived by Aristotle except in relation resource, which would have been adopted in an Fnglish social life. Society is based on an interchange of manor court, was not available for self-support, and to charity had to take its place. Orphans were provided services. This interchange in one series of acts we call for by members of the churches. The virgins formed justice ; in another friendship or love. A man cannot be another class, as, contrary to the earlier feeling, mairiage just unless he has acquired a certain character or habit of
- and hence no just man will act without knowledge,
came to be held a state of lesser sanctity. They too seem mind previous deliberation, and definite purpose. So also, will to have been also, in part at least, church workers. Thus round the churches grew up new groups of recognized a friend fulfil these conditions in his acts of love or frienddependants ; but the older theory of charity was bioad and ship. In the love existing between good men there is and equality of service; but in the case of practical—akin to that of Maimonides. “ Love all your continuance benefactor and benefited, in deeds of charity, in fact, there brethren, performing to orphans the part of parents, to widows that of husbands, affording them sustenance with is no such equality. The satisfaction is on one side, but often not on the other. (The dilemma is one that is all kindliness, arranging marriages for those who are m pressed, though not satisfactorily, in Cicero and Seneca.) their prime, and for those who are without a profession the reason for this will be found, Aristotle suggests, in the means of necessary support through employment. giving The feeling of satisfaction which men experience in action. We work to the artificer and alms to the incapable5 (Tp. realize ourselves in our deeds—throw ourselves into them, Clem, to James viii.). as people say ; and this is happiness. What, we make we 4. The Jews in pre-Christian and Talmudic times supported the like : it is part of us. On the other hand, in the. person stranger or wayfarer by the distribution of food (tamchui), and benefited there may be no corresponding action, and in so far strangers were lodged in private houses ; and there were mns proas there is not, there is no exchange of service or the convided at which no money was taken (cf. Jewish Life, p. 314). quently, besides these methods, special societies were formed for tentment that arises from it. The “ self ” of the recipient the entertainment of the resident poor and of strangers. There is not drawn out. On the contrary, he may be made were commendatory letters also. These conditions prevailed in
