The tithe

by Elmer Bryan Stewart

I have also met this objection. Circumcision and polygamy were universal, and your argument would establish them. In the first place circumcision was never universal, and even if it had been, we have numerous statements in the New Testament denying its further claim and a seal of the covenant, as I believe, clearly revealed which was to supersede it. As to polygamy, it may be safely affirmed that it never was divinely commanded, it is contrary to a definite law of God, announced to our first parents, and reaffirmed in the New Testament.

With sacrifice all the rites of ceremonial significance and the retinue of priests and Levites which administered them came to an end. All moral obligations, however, were not abolished, but many of them were more strictly interpreted. The Sermon on the Mount reveals a higher conception of moral obligation and requires a purer motive than any precept of the Old Testament. The laws of home relationship are made more binding. The bill of divorcement is swept away and only the great principle recognized, namely, faithlessness to the universal law, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Even in the case of ritual offering this is true. Take an example. While incense is abolished, that which is symbolized, the great heart beat of humanity which we call prayer, is not abolished but is enlarged to a precept of exceeding broad scope, “Pray without ceasing.”

Now we demand some word of fair implication at least, or some example to show that the universal obligation of the tithe has been set aside in the general shaking up of the earth. It was not removed as being one of “the things that are made,” but, as I believe, it remains as one of “the things which cannot be shaken.” This statement is borne out by the evidence afforded from its history. “These thing ought ye to have done” is a word that justifies our conclusion.

Fourth: Not Being Abrogated When the Old Testament Economy Ended, it is Universally Binding in the New Testament Dispensation.

Notwithstanding all that has been written to the contrary, I am firmly persuaded that this was recognized by the early Church. The quotations cited are abundantly sufficient to prove this statement, if fairly interpreted. And this leads me to enter a protest against the unfair presentation of this evidence on the part of many writers. This can be illustrated by the case of Irenaeus who is invariably, so far as I have seen, set down as on the side of the abrogation of the law of the tithe, because he said in one place as quoted on page 17 “instead of the law enjoining the giving of tithes, (He told us) to share all our possessions with the poor.” Certainly nothing could be found, nor is found, more explicit than that statement. Yet any one who reads the whole context will see that Irenaeus is contending for just the opposite thing. He classes the tithe, not with the ceremonial things, but with the natural precepts, by which he means the moral law as is clearly shown. To argue that Irenaeus is abrogating the tithe, is to argue that he is doing away with the law of adultery and murder, for he mentions them in exactly the same language. The same thing would be true of the commandment to love our neighbors. But why should we debate this point when Irenaeus distinctly says, “all these precepts, as I have already observed, were not (the injunctions) of one doing away with the law, but of one fulfilling, extending, and widening it among us.”

Now I should like to know how it comes that all these learned men who speak so surely of Irenaeus have always neglected to quote Irenaeus as to what he really meant? Personally, I am willing to stake the whole case on Irenaeus. For I do not know a better presentation of the whole question than he makes. When he includes tithing under the head of the moral precepts of the law and then says emphatically “that the Lord did not abrogate the natural (precepts) of the law,” I am sure that he stated the whole truth in respect to this subject. That he enlarged their scope and raised the maximum of moral requirement, he rightly affirms. When that is understood there is no more room for debate.

But why such dreadful alarm over this tithe law? Why, for example, should the writer in Smith and Cheetham’s Dictionary try to minimize all this testimony of the Father’s? He is anxious to prove that “the evidence belonging to this period would seem to show that payment of tithe was first regarded as a duty soon after A. D. 350. By that time the idea generally prevailed that the priest of the Christian Church had succeeded to the office of the Levitical priests, and consequently to their rights and privileges.” His bogy comes to light in the following: “Cyprian (Epist. 1:9, Ed. Erasmus, 66 Pamel.) writes to dissuade a presbyter from accepting the position of guardian on the ground that the clergy are separated from all secular business. The tribe of Levi had no inheritance but was supported by tithes, that they might devote themselves entirely to divine service; ‘the same plan and form is now preserved in regard to the clergy’ that they may not be diverted from their sacred duties, but ‘receiving as it were tithes may not depart from the altar.’ Here the phrase tanquam decimas is decisive against the payment of tithe as a fixed legal due, for decimae paid as legal dues could not be tanquam decimae. There is analogy, not identity in the method of support.” The word “legal” is the key to all this twisting and trembling. This will be explained, perhaps, when we recall that he is an Englishman, and comes of a race that has suffered much from enforced tithing. Uhlhorn’s Christian Charity in the Ancient Church is marred by the same tremendous anxiety to kill off any hope of this legal monster ever getting loose again. Hence it seems that it is now time to say that the tithe never was in Bible times, the legal monster that it afterward became. Under Old Testament teaching and practice, the tithe was voluntary. No hand of force was used to collect it, but as in the time of Hezekiah, the people brought in the tithes willingly and abundantly. It was a moral precept, enforced by appeals to the conscience. Hezekiah does not reckon on the tithes in a way that indicates that he would compel them to be brought in, but expresses his gratitude when he finds that so much was brought in by the people. The appeal of Malachi to the nation that had robbed God is a moral appeal and is based upon the same thought that we find in all such appeals of Scripture. That the Pharisees by their traditions had reduced it to a burdensome legal requirement need not be questioned. So did they weigh down every moral precept that the Lord ever laid upon the conscience of men. The advocacy of the tithe in this country is always on the voluntary basis, so far as I know. I feel that it would be a calamity were it put on any other basis, and I know that all who are working in this line, so far as I have become acquainted with their work, have the same feeling. What we believe is that this is God’s standard of giving, a minimum below which one cannot fall and be entitled to a claim on God’s rich promises of blessing to those who give money for His work. The maximum claim is the one of which the Fathers so often speak. Matt. 19:21. “Sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven.” Between these two claims love finds its field of operation and its measure of perfectness. This is our view and the view which I think prevailed in the early Church.

Clement’s Letter to the Corinthians, the nearest writing to the inspired books of the New Testament, says: “Those who present their offerings at the appointed times are blessed; for inasmuch as they follow the laws of the Lord they sin not.” (See page 14.) The context clearly shows that he has in mind the laws governing the offerings to the priests and Levites. The Teaching speaks of “giving according to the commandment,” which must mean the Levitical commandment, or one similar to it. Justin Martyr first says that they put what they “have into a common stock” and later says “they who are well-to-do and willing, give what each thinks fit,” and in both cases seems to intimate that what is contributed is given to the dependent. (See page 16.) His last instance of giving as each one thinks fit, may be a description applicable to those who sought to follow the law of the free-will offering which is laid down in Deut. 16:10, 17, and reaffirmed by the Apostle in I Cor. 16:2. A special contribution to the poor would be made now on the same basis in any of our churches and does not touch the subject of the regular support of the Church. Yet many ministers who ought to know better, insist on saying that this is the New Testament law of giving. It is most decidedly not a New Testament, but an Old Testament law, confirmed by the New Testament, and by common sense apart from any question of Scripture authority.

If Justin meant to affirm that this regulation was in force, well and good. But if he meant to say, as some would have us believe, that the Church had thus early gotten on the basis of every man doing exactly as he pleased, then all we have to say is that from our modern experience with that sort of teaching, we cannot commend his judgment or the practice of the Church of which he was a part, for no such principle, ever had, or ever can have, the sanction of God. Again how this can be reconciled with the statement that they have put all into the common stock is more than I can see. How could men be well-to-do who had sold all and put it into the hands of others? It may be for convenience of his argument that he describes in the first case what some few have done, perhaps himself among the number, and that in the Church service, he is telling of either the observance of the rule of the free-will offering, or else is letting us into a state of anarchy respecting the proper teaching on the subject of giving, which led to the difficulties of the later centuries. The same comment may be made on the statements of Tertullian. It will be noted that he does not tell how the aggressive work of the Church is to be supported, but only of what is secured for what we commonly call charitable purposes.

It may be that the reason we begin to hear of shortcomings in giving as early as in the time of Origen and Cyprian, is that this every-man-do-as-he-thinks-fit teaching is bearing its legitimate fruit and that now there must be some heroic measures taken to offset its fatal influence. From what these witnesses tell us, the Church of the third century was reaping the fruit of some erroneous teaching and practice in respect to the giving of money. From that time on the call is to a recognition of duty, as all the extracts go to show. The gift of the maximum had been made by the few. The many had followed their own will and the result was disastrous to the Church, and we are not surprised that the later writings abound in appeals to the people to meet even the minimum demands of the tithe, if they ever expected to exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees.