To mark the line of development, we could compare—1. The family among the Jews and in the early Christian church; 2. The sources of relief and the tithe, the treatment of the poor and their aid, and the assistance of special classes of poor; 3. The care of strangers; and, lastly, we would consider the theory of almsgiving, friendship or love, and charity.
1. As elsewhere, property is the basis of the family. Wife and children are the property of the father. But the wife is held in high respect. In the post-exilian period the virtuous wife is represented as laborious as a Roman matron, a “lady bountiful” to the poor, and to her husband wife and friend alike. Monogamy without concubinage is now the rule—is taken for granted as right. There is no “exposure of children.” The slaves are kindly treated, as servants rather than slaves—though in Roman times and afterwards the Jews were great slave-traders. The household is not allowed to eat the bread of idleness. “Six days,” it was said, “must [not mayest] thou work.” “Labour, if poor; but find work, if rich.” “Whoever does not teach his son business or work, teaches him robbery.” In Job xxxi., a chapter which has been called “an inventory of late Old Testament morality,” we find the family life developed side by side with the life of charity. In turn are mentioned the relief of the widow, the fatherless and the stranger—the classification of dependents in the Christian church; and the whole chapter is a justification of the homely charities of a good family. “The Jewish religion, more especially in the old and orthodox form, is essentially a family religion” (C.G. Montefiore, Religion of Ancient Hebrews).
In the early documents of the Church the fifth commandment is made the basis of family life (cf. Eph. vi. 1; Apost. Const. ii. 32, iv. 11—if we take the first six books of the Apost. Const. as a composite production before A.D. 300, representing Judaeo-Christian or Eastern church thought). But two points are prominent. Duties are insisted on as reciprocal (cf. especially St Paul’s Epistles), as, e.g. between husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant. Charity is mutual; the family is a circle of reciprocal duties and charities. This implies a principle of the greatest importance in relation to the social utility of charity. Further reference will be made to it later. Next the “thou shalt love thy neighbour” is translated from its position as one among many sayings to the chief place as a rule of life. In the Didachē or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (Jewish-Christian, c. 90-120 A.D.) the first commandment in “the way of life” is adapted from St Matthew’s Gospel thus: “First, thou shalt love God who made thee; secondly, thy neighbour as thyself; and all things whatsoever thou wouldst not have done to thee, neither do thou to another.” A principle is thus applied which touches all social relations in which the “self” can be made the standard of judgment. Of this also later. To touch on other points of comparison: the earlier documents seem to ring with a reiterated cry for a purer family life (cf. the second, the negative, group of commandments in the Didachē, and the judgment of the apocalyptic writings, such as the Revelations of Peter, &c.); and, sharing the Jewish feeling, the riper conscience of the Christian community formulates and accepts the injunction to preserve infant life at every stage. It advocates, indeed, the Jewish purity of family life with a missionary fervour, and it makes of it a condition of church membership. The Jewish rule of labour is enforced (Ap. Const. ii. 63). If a stranger settle (Didachē, xii. 3) among the brotherhood, “let him work and eat.” And the father (Constit. iv. 11) is to teach the children “such trades as are agreeable and suitable to their need.” And the charities to the widow, the fatherless, are organized on Jewish lines.
2. The sources of relief among the Jews were the three gifts of corn: (1) the corners of the field (cf. Lev. xix. &c.), amounting to a sixtieth part of it; (2) the gleanings, a definite minimum dropped in the process of reaping (Maimonides, Laws of the Hebrews relating to the Poor, iv. 1); (3) corn overlooked and left behind. So it was with the grapes and with all crops that were harvested, as opposed, e.g. to figs, that were gathered from time to time. These gifts were divisible three times in the day, so as to suit the convenience of the poor (Maim. ii. 17), and the poor had a right to them. They are indeed a poor-rate paid in kind such as in early times would naturally spring up among an agricultural people. Another gift “out of the seed of the earth,” is the tithe. In the post-exilian period the septenniad was in force. Each year a fiftieth part of the produce (Maim. vi. 2, and Deut. xviii. 4) was given to the priest (the class which in the Jewish state was supported by the community). Of the remainder one-tenth went to the Levite, and one-tenth in three years of the septennium was retained for pilgrimage to Jerusalem, in two given to the poor. In the seventh year “all things were in common.” Supplementing these gifts were alms to all who asked; “and he who gave less than a tenth of his means was a man of evil eye” (Maim. vii. 5). All were to give alms, even the poor themselves who were in receipt of relief. Refusal might be punished with stripes at the hand of the Sanhedrim. At the Temple alms for distribution to the worthy poor were placed by worshippers in the cell of silence; and it is said that in Palestine at meal times the table was open to all comers. As the synagogues extended, and possibly after the fall of Jerusalem (A.D. 70), the collections of alms was further systematized. There were two collections. In each city alms of the box or chest (kupha) were collected for the poor of the city on each Sabbath eve (later, monthly or thrice a year), and distributed in money or food for seven days. Two collected, three distributed. Three others gathered and distributed daily alms of the basket (tamchui). These were for strangers and wayfarers—casual relief “for the poor of the whole world.” In the Jewish synagogue community from early times the president (parnass) and treasurer were elected annually with seven heads of the congregation (see Abraham’s Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, p. 54), and sometimes special officers for the care of the poor. A staff of almoners was thus forthcoming. In addition to these collections were the pruta given to the poor before prayers (Maim. x. 15), and moneys gathered to help particular cases (cf. Jewish Life, p. 322) by circular letter. There were also gifts at marriages and funerals; and fines imposed for breach of the communal ordinances were reserved for the poor. The distinctive feature of the Jewish charity was the belief that “the poor would not cease out of the land,” and that therefore on charitable grounds a permanent provision should be made for them—a poor-rate, in fact, subject to stripes and distraint, if necessary (Maim. vii. 10; and generally cf. articles on “Alms” and “Charity” in the Jewish Encyclopaedia).
If we compare this with the early church we find the following sources of relief: (1) The Eucharistic offerings, some consumed at the time, some carried home, some reserved for the absent (see Hatch, Early Church, p. 40). The ministration, like the Eucharist, was connected with the love feast, and was at first daily (Acts ii. 42, vi. 1, and the Didache). (2) Freewill offerings and first-fruits and voluntary tithes (Ap. Con. ii. 25) brought to the bishop and used for the poor—orphans, widows, the afflicted and strangers in distress, and for the clergy, deaconesses, &c. (3) Collections in churches on Sundays and week-days, alms-boxes and gifts to the poor by worshippers as they entered church; also collections for special purposes (cf. for Christians at Jerusalem). Apart from “the corners,” &c., the sources of relief in the Christian and Jewish churches are the same. The separate Jewish tithe for the poor, which (Maim. vi. II, 13) might be used in part by the donor as personal charity, disappears. A voluntary tithe remains, in part used for the poor. We do not hear of stripes and distraint, but in both bodies there is a penitential system and excommunication (cf. Jewish Life, p. 52), and in both a settlement of disputes within the body (Clem. Hov. iii. 67). In both, too, there is the abundant alms provided in the belief of the permanence of poverty and the duty of giving to all who ask. As to administration in the early church (Acts vi. 3), we find seven deacons, the number of the local Jewish council; and later there were in Rome seven ecclesiastical relief districts, each in charge of a deacon. The deacon acted as the minister of the bishop (Ep. Clem, to Jam. xii.), reporting to him and giving as he dictated (Ap. Con. ii. 30, 31). He at first combined disciplinary powers with charitable. The presbyters also (Polycarp, Ad Phil. 6, A.D. 69-155), forming (Hatch, p. 69) a kind of bishop’s council, visited the sick, &c. The bishop was president and treasurer. The bishop was thus the trustee of the poor. By reason of the churches’ care of orphans, responsibilities of trusteeship also devolved on him. The temples were in pagan times depositories of money. Probably the churches were also.
3. Great stress is laid by the Jews on the duty of gentleness to the poor (Maim. x. 5). The woman was to have first attention (Maim. vi. 13). If the applicant was hungry he was to be fed, and then examined to learn whether he was a deceiver (Maim. vii. 6). Assistance was to be given according to the want—clothes, household things, a wife or a husband—and according to the poor man’s station in life. For widows and orphans the “gleanings” were left. Both are the recognized objects of charity (Maim. x. 16,17). “The poor and the orphan were to be employed in domestic affairs in preference to servants.” The dower was a constant form of help. The ransoming of slaves took precedence of relief to the poor. The highest degree of alms-deed (Maim. x. 7) was “to yield support to him who is cast down, either by means of gifts, or by loan, or by commerce, or by procuring for him traffic with others. Thus his hand becometh strengthened, exempt from the necessity of soliciting succour from any created being.”
If we compare the Christian methods we find but slight difference. The absoluteness of “Give to him that asketh” is in the Didachē checked by the “Woe to him that receives: for if any receives having need, he shall be guiltless, but he that has no need shall give account, ... and coming into distress ... he shall not come out thence till he hath paid the last farthing.” It is the duty of the bishop to know who is most worthy of assistance (Ap. Con. ii. 3, 4); and “if any one is in want by gluttony, drunkenness, or idleness, he does not deserve assistance, or to be esteemed a member of the church.” The widow assumes the position not only of a recipient of alms, but a church worker. Some were a private charge, some were maintained by the church. The recognized “widow” was maintained: she was to be sixty years of age (cf. 1 Tim, v. 9 and Ap. Con. iii. 1), and was sometimes tempted to become a bedes-woman and gossipy pauper, if one may judge from the texts. Remarriage was not approved. Orphans were provided for by members of the churches. The virgins formed another class, as, contrary to the earlier feeling, marriage came to be held a state of lesser sanctity. They too seem to have been also, in part at least, church workers. Thus round the churches grew up new groups of recognized dependents; but the older theory of charity was broad and practical—akin to that of Maimonides. “Love all your brethren, performing to orphans the part of parents, to widows that of husbands, affording them sustenance with all kindliness, arranging marriages for those who are in their prime, and for those who are without a profession the means of necessary support through employment: giving work to the artificer and alms to the incapable” (Ep. Clem, to James viii.).
4. The Jews in pre-Christian and Talmudic times supported the stranger or wayfarer by the distribution of food (tamchui); the strangers were lodged in private houses, and there were inns provided at which no money was taken (cf. Jewish Life, p. 314). Subsequently, besides these methods, special societies were formed “for the entertainment of the resident poor and of strangers.” There were commendatory letters also. These conditions prevailed in the Christian church also. The Xenodocheion, coming by direct succession alike from Jewish and Greek precedents, was the first form of Christian hospital both for strangers and for members of the Christian churches. In the Christian community the endowment charity comes into existence in the 4th century, among the Jews not till the 13th. The charities of the synagogue without separate societies sufficed.
We may now compare the conceptions of Jews and Christians on charity with those of the Greeks. There are two chief exponents of the diverse views—Aristotle and St Paul; for to simplify the issues we refer to them only. Greek, Jewish and Christian thought. Thoughts such as Aristotle’s, recast by the Stoic Panaetius (185-112 B.C.), and used by Cicero in his De Officiis, became in the hands of St Ambrose arguments for the direction of the clergy in the founding of the medieval church; and in the 13th century Aristotle reasserts his influence through such leaders of medieval thought as St Thomas Aquinas. St Paul’s chapters on charity, not fully appreciated and understood, one is inclined to think, have perhaps more than any other words prevented an absolute lapse into the materialism of almsgiving. After him we think of St Francis, the greatest of a group of men who, seeking reality in life, revived charity; but to the theory of charity it might almost be said that since Aristotle and St Paul nothing has been added until we come to the economic and moral issues which Dr Chalmers explained and illustrated.
The problem turns on the conception (1) of purpose, (2) of the self, and (3) of charity, love or friendship as an active force in social life. To the Greek, or at least to Greek philosophic thought, purpose was the measure of goodness. To have no purpose was, so far as the particular act was concerned, to be simply irrational; and the less definite the purpose the more irrational the act. This conception of purpose was the touchstone of family and social life, and of the civic life also. In no sphere could goodness be irrational. To say that it was without purpose was to say that it was without reality. So far as the actor was concerned, the main purpose of right action was the good of the soul (ψυχή); and by the soul was meant the better self, “the ruling part” acting in harmony with every faculty and function of the man. With faculties constantly trained and developed, a higher life was gradually developed in the soul. We are thus, it might be said, what we become. The gates of the higher life are within us. The issue is whether we will open them and pass in.