[319] Ibid. iv. 8.
[320] Addis, in Encyclopædia Biblica, i. 119.
[321] Uhlhorn, op. cit. i. 135 sqq. Harnack, History of Dogma, i. 205.
[322] Hebrews, xiii. 14 sqq. Cf. Addis, in Encyclopædia Biblica, i. 119.
[323] Act, x. 4. Cyprian, De opere et eleemosynis, 4. St. Chrysostom, Homilia VII., de Pœnitentia, 6 (Migne, Patrologiæ cursus, Ser. Gr. xlix. sq. 332).
[324] Justin, Apologia I. pro Christianis, 13.
[325] Irenæus, Adversus hæreses, iv. 18. 82.
[326] Ibid. iv. 17. 5.
[327] St. Augustine, Sermo XLII. 1 (Migne, op. cit. xxxviii. 252).
The objection will perhaps be raised that I have here tried to trace back the most beautiful of all religious virtues to a magical and ritualistic origin without taking into due account the benevolent feelings attributed to the Deity. But in the present connection I have not had to show why charity, like other human duties, has been sanctioned by religious beliefs, but why, in the ethics of the higher religions, it has attained the same supreme importance as is otherwise attached only to devotional exercises. And this is certainly a problem by itself, for which the belief in a benevolent god affords no adequate explanation. That the religious duty of charity is not merely an outcome of the altruistic sentiment is well illustrated by the fact that Zoroastrianism, whilst exalting almsgiving to the rank of a cardinal virtue, at the same time excludes the sick man from the community of the faithful until he has been cured and cleansed according to prescribed rites.[328]