See, too, among other references, Heb. x. 34; Tert. ad Mart. i., and Apol. xxxix.
Another and special object of almsgiving pressed upon the faithful was help to other and perhaps distant Churches who from one cause or other were in want. We find this urged upon Christian congregations even in apostolic days.
In S. Paul’s Epistles to the Galatians, Romans, and Corinthians we find various appeals to the generosity of these early communities to assist the Church at Jerusalem. The deep poverty of this famous Church we have already suggested was probably owing to the attempt of the Jerusalem Christians literally to carry out the idea of community of goods.
In the Letter of Dionysius of Corinth to the Roman Church written circa A.D. 170, quoted by Eusebius, H. E. iv. 23, we find this generosity referred to as a well-known custom of the comparatively wealthy Roman congregation. “From the very first,” wrote Dionysius, “you have had this practice of aiding all the brethren in many ways, and of sending contributions to many Churches in every city ... by these gifts you keep up the hereditary custom of the Roman Christians, a practice which your bishop, Soter, has not only kept up, but even extended.” In the third century, Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, writing to Stephen, bishop of Rome, alludes to the generous help given to the poor Churches of Syria and Arabia. “To them,” he says, “you send help regularly.”—Euseb. H. E. viii. 5.
Ignatius, referring to this noble generosity of the Roman congregations as early as the first years of the second century, styles the Church of Rome as “the leader of love.”
Cyprian, in the middle of the third century, several times mentions how the Church at Carthage, evidently a wealthy community, was in the habit of sending help to other and needy communities.
But there was one department in the novel teaching pressed home by the early Christian teachers which seems at once to have riveted the attention of the listeners, and its universal acceptance at once won extraordinary, possibly an undreamed of popularity in the Christian ranks. It was an entirely new departure from any custom prevalent in the world of Rome—the injunction reverently to care for the bodies of the dead poor.
The Emperor Julian in his summary of what he considered the chief points in the hated Christian system which had won them so many hearts, especially calls attention to this. He wrote this remarkable comment here:
“This godlessness (i.e. Christianity) is mainly furthered by its charity towards strangers, and its careful attention to the bestowal of the dead.”—Letter to Arsacius, in Soz. v. 15.
Lactantius in his review of the Christian virtues urged by the great teachers of the new religion, and to a great extent practised in the early centuries, gives a prominent and detailed notice of this pious and loving custom, and strikingly writes as follows: “The last and greatest office of piety is the burying of strangers and the poor,” adding that the noblest pagan teachers of virtue and justice had never touched at all upon this inescapable duty. These had left this, he adds, quite out, because they were unable to see any advantage in it.