Fig. 265.—Hospitality.—Jesus Christ, represented as a Pilgrim, being received by two Preaching Brothers of the Order of St. Dominic.—Fresco-painting by Fra Angelico in St. Mark’s Convent at Florence (Fifteenth Century).
From the first days of Christianity we find the great apostle of the Gentiles recommending the giving of alms, and stimulating the generosity of the faithful. “If the amount collected,” he says, “makes it worth while, I will come myself and take it to our brethren.” The apostles appointed deacons to distribute the alms. One of those who reflected the greatest honour on this appointment was St. Laurentius, the noble martyr. He had seen his bishop, his spiritual father, led out to execution, and he became entrusted with the care of the property of his church (Fig. 266). The prefect of the prætorium said to him, “I know that you have gold and silver vessels for your sacrifices; let me have these treasures, which the prince requires for maintaining his troops.” The holy deacon replied, “I know that our church is rich; I will let you have all its most valuable contents, but you must give me three days to put everything in order.” He made use of this delay to bring together the poor whom he maintained, and divided the silver and gold amongst them. The prefect came upon the appointed day, and St. Laurentius, pointing to the crowd of halt and poor, said with a saintly pride, which he afterwards expiated by his martyrdom, “Here are the treasures which I promised you; the real gold is the divine light which illuminates these poor men, the disciples and brethren of Jesus Christ.”
Fig. 266.—Pope Sixtus II. handing to St. Laurentius, in 258, the Treasures of the Church, to be distributed amongst the Poor.—Fresco, painted by Fra Angelico, in the Chapel of Nicholas V. in the Vatican (Fifteenth Century).
Thus Christian charity began in the days of the apostles, and went on increasing even amidst persecution; but it did not reach its full expansion until the conversion of the Emperor Constantine at length obtained for the Church peace and liberty.
Helen, the wife of Constantius Chlorus, and mother of Constantine (247–328), may be regarded as having most brilliantly inaugurated the era of Christian charity in the Middle Ages. Simple and modest, kind to the suffering and to the needy, she tended and consoled the poor with maternal solicitude; her fortune was exclusively devoted to their relief. When, in her extreme old age, this pious lady went to visit the Holy Places in Palestine, she made most munificent gifts to the sick soldiers, whom the imperial government left without relief; also to the places where the inhabitants were poor; and to the religious houses and churches, whose mission it was “to succour the suffering members of Jesus Christ” (Fig. 265), according to the figurative expression which the new faith used to characterize human misery. She recalled the exiles, ransomed the captives, released from the mines the unfortunate men who had been condemned to labour underground, and obtained for them the means of living in open daylight, thus causing them to bless her name and that of her God. Her daughter Constance also devoted herself to works of charity; she was accompanied by a band of maidens whom she animated with her example—and this was, in fact, the first school of Sisters of Charity.
Despite the religious disputes of this century, Christian charity did not stop here; it received a further impulse during the reign of Theodosius, thanks to Placilla his wife, and to Pulcheria his daughter, both of whom were canonised after death. Placilla and Pulcheria were the guardian angels of the imperial palace, Placilla especially being full of compassion for all those who were in distress. She would go, without attendant, to visit the poor in their hovels; she passed whole days with the sick in the infirmaries attached to the canonical churches and convents, never shrinking from any charitable service, however repugnant it might be. Pulcheria, a worthy rival of her mother, was associated with her in all these good works by their eloquent panegyrist, St. Gregory of Nyssa. She was, nevertheless, outdone by another Pulcheria, grand-daughter of the great Theodosius, who was called augusta, and who already, at the death of her father the Emperor Arcadius, though at that time only sixteen, was a model of piety and wisdom; she established so severe a rule of life and such complete asceticism around her, that her palace was commonly “the convent” (asceterium vulgo diceretur). For forty years she reigned like a saint and a great empress, and this period was for the Church a golden age.
Fig. 267.—The Holy Brothers, Cosmas and Damianus (end of the Third Century), visiting a sick man and relieving him.—Picture on wood, by Francesco Peselli, in the Louvre (Fifteenth Century).