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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

THE

CHAKITY

PRIMITIVE CHURCHES.

HISTORICAL STUDIES UPON THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIAN
CHARITY DURING THE FIRST CENTURIES OF OUR
ERA, WITH SOME CONSIDERATIONS TOUCHING -
ITS BEARINGS UPON MODERN SOCIETY.

REV. STEPHEN CHASTEL,
OF OENEVA (SWITZERLAND).

TKANSLATED BY
G. A. MATILE

PHILADELPHIA :
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1857.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern
District of Pennsylvania.

TRANSLATORS PREFACE.

Each of the four Academies which compose the
Institute of France, holds a meeting every year to
decide upon the merits of works submitted in compe
tition for prizes offered for the best essays upon ques
tions proposed one or more years previously. One of
them, moved, no doubt, by the disturbed state of
society in 1852, proposed an extraordinary meeting on
the subject of Charity in the early ages of Chris
tianity, a subject so perfidiously perplexed and en
venomed by the heroes of 1848.
"The Academy had reason to congratulate itself
on having pointed out this subject and proposed this
work. Excellent essays on history and moral juris
prudence have resulted from it. The monuments of
early Christianity, pagan legislation, philosophy, re
ligious eloquence, carefully compared, have offered,
in answer to anarchical paradoxes, a precious tradi
tion of incontestable facts, just and true ideas, virtu
ous and powerful sentiments."
It is thus that Villemain, permanent Secretary of
the French Academy, expresses himself on the result
of the meeting. He adds :
" This subject, worthy of our times, has attracted
Berious minds. Twelve manuscript treatises have
(iii)

iv TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
long occupied the judges. Two works, especially,
have gained their approval by a profound knowledge
of the subject; a judicious and firm method; a ten
dency towards the true and the useful, inseparable
here as everywhere ; and finally, by a disgust towards
those falsifications of the past, which would bend it
to the service of existing paradoxes, and, among other
impostures, assimilate things which have tjie least
possible resemblance, namely, the severe self-renun
ciation and pure spirituality of Gospel morality,
with the intense egotism and materialism of Thomas
Paine and others."
" Of the two works considered the best, one bears for
its epigraph this beautiful sentiment of St. Augustine:
"Where charity is not, justice cannot be."
" TJbi cantos non est, non potest esse justitia."
"It is worthy of such a device. It is a learned work,
written with the feelings of a good man. The highly
interesting texts of profane and Christian literature,
of the Roman jurisconsults, and of the Fathers of the
Greek and Roman Churches, of emperors and sophists,
are there skilfully employed and everywhere referred
to or transcribed. "We may find there the full
testimony of antiquity on a grave question arranged
with the accuracy of a critic ; and sometimes the
views of a thinker, in whom science sharpens reflec
tion, and who, under forms somewhat unusual, brings
to his work studious scrutiny and unflagging interest,
with occasional displays of eloquence both in feeling
and language.
" The other work on Charity bears for its epigraph :
" To God, in the poor." " Deo in pauperisms."
" If it is less enriched by quotation from ancient au-

TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. V
thorities, and proceeds by less complete deductions, it
is written after no less profound and protracted study
of the early periods of Christianity."
" This appears even in the easier style of the
author. What he says, suggests a knowledge of that
which he omits. Familiarized by previous labors,
which have been crowned by the Academy of In
scriptions, with the history of the fall of Paganism,
and, consequently, with the establishment of Chris
tianity and its immediate and progressive benefits,
he finds his way with ease through this immense
question of Charity ; he knows it, he develops it like
a judicious antiquary, like a historian who knows its
scope, and like a friend of humanity, who is a friend
of Christ; he approaches it with the full power of
earnest, sacred eloquence ; and he opposes it to our
modern speculations and experiences, with a skill
and science analogous to that of his learned competi
tor, and in a form and by a process, different, but not
inferior." " These two works appear to us to sustain and
complete each other, and to offer a most instructive,
moral solution of the problem proposed. The de
cision of the Academy, which divides the prize
between them, will appear, we think, to every atten
tive reader but a just tribute to the rare merit of two,
between whom even esteem forbids a preference."
The Academy, consequently, awarded two equal
prizes to the two learned authors, Charles Schmidt,
Professor of Theology in Strasburg, and Stephen
Chastel, Professor at Geneva. The adjudication of
these prizes to two Protestant theologians made a
sensation in the Catholic world.
From men so eminent as those who were arbiters
1*

vi TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
in this case, such impartiality was to be expected,
even if the names of the two authors had been known
to them before the solemn opening of the sealed let
ters, bearing the corresponding epigraph on the out
side and the author's name on the inside.
" We cannot positively decide," says the editor of
the Revue Britannique, "whether the author before
us is Catholic or Protestant. Is not this in itself
a eulogy ? For it is truly to be deplored that so
many books on this Charity, which should unite us
all, should also be works of controversy. In the work
of Chastel we may love each other instead of sup
porting a thesis. The citations from the Fathers
of the Church are addressed to all religions and all
sects. The author uses these citations with perfect
fairness in reference to modern economists. It is this
erudition which has charmed us in a work which
will have also its practical utility ; it may and should
be consulted by governments as well as by charitable
societies." This is the work of which I now offer a translation
to the public, with the approbation of the author,
with whom I have the pleasure to be personally ac
quainted and on the most friendly terms. At the
same time, it is my earnest wish that, for the sake of the
great subject of Charity, the work of Schmidt may
soon be translated. These two works, which complete
each other and have received the same honors, ouffht
not to be separated in their career. I would have
myself undertaken that translation had not other
urgent business prevented me from doing so. How
gladly would I give Mr. Schmidt this mark of my
affection ! The hours I should spend with his book in
my hands would afford me pleasure like that recently

TRANSLATORS PREFACE. Vll
enjoyed in his society. I should be very happy to
bring into direct communication with Mr. Schmidt
the person who would undertake the translation of
his work.
That I might not fall too far below the difficult
task of a translator, especially when it concerns a
work written with the truth, ardor, and eloquence
which are to be found in the original, I have procured
fortunately the friendly and able assistance of W. F.
Roe, a member of the bar at Elmira.
While occupied in this work, I learned that my
author had just been translated into German by a
man whom all Germany reveres, Dr. Wichern, of
Horn, near Hamburg, whose name is well known
among us.
The idea of this translation was suggested to me
by one to whom I am bound by ties of gratitude and
affection, Stephen Colwell, in whose ample library
I met, for the first time, with the works of Chastel.
No one has studied more faithfully than he this great
question of Christian Charity, especially considered in
its relations with political economy, and no one could
judge better of the utility of the publication of Chas-
tel's work in America.
In some respects, this work is European : in so far
as it treats of the social state of the Old World, it
seeks to apply a remedy to its evils and to prevent
the return of grave crises. But what serious lessons may
not we of the United States draw from its teachings !
Doubtless we are — thanks to Divine Providence — far
from the social state of Europe, and have no cause for
present anxiety. But, is there nothing to fear for
the future ? If I have not erred in the conclusions
drawn from thirty years' historical studies, there are

viii TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
grounds of apprehension. It is true that some of
this gloom may come from the social state of Europe,
and especially of Switzerland, my native and formerly
happy country left by me on account of the political
disorders of 1848. But in this young and vigorous
country, history has still continued to occupy my
leisure, and, trusting to its light, I cannot conceal
from myself that the horizon is not as clear as it
appears to many others. Though they have entered
more recently the lists open to all nations, the United
States of North America are hastening no less rapidly
toward the end common to all ; in many respects they
have distanced their competitors, and often run with
more ardor than prudence. Ah ! could they only
remain temperate and not become intoxicated by suc
cess ! Could they profit by the career of other nations,
without boasting of advantages which they possess
over others, and glorify, not themselves, but Him to
whom they owe all. Let them reflect upon what they
would be with a population as numerous in proportion
to their territory as that of the States of Europe !
It appears to me that the Fathers of America, if
they could return to us, could not observe, without
some uneasiness, certain tendencies, certain habits
which are developing every day, and which may
become more and more dangerous in the course of
time, if not more strongly counterbalanced by the
true spirit of Christian institutions.
This work is addressed to governments as well as
to individuals, for Chastel is not only a scholar
and an erudite theologian, but a man profoundly
versed in Social Economy ; his work is full of realities.
He reconciles perfectly, with the Gospel in his hand,
the rights of the rich with their obligations, and the

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. IX
rights of masters with those of slaves ; the reader
will learn from these pages that it is only by Chris
tianizing master and slave, by teaching each his duties,
that the position of both can be ameliorated and a
way prepared for the final suppression of Slavery
much more certainly and promptly than could be
done by employing violent means, which neither
religion nor sound policy justifies. He points out
the grand social duties of the Christian in relation to
the charity to be exercised towards his fellows ; how
this charity is to be exercised in order to bring forth
the most fruit; and, while always admitting that
collective benevolence neither should nor can be dis
pensed with, dwells particularly on private charity,
the action of the individual; in a word, the duties
which devolve upon Christians to prevent misery.
All these doctrines, systematically arranged and sup
ported by historical facts, testify to great erudition
and sound criticism on the part of the author.
The reader will be convinced of the immense utility
of studying, for the interest of Christianity itself, the
annals of the primitive churches ; of turning his atten
tion more than heretofore to ancient Christian litera
ture; he will find in Chastel an interpreter worthy
of the purest Christians of that period, and in his work
a noble monument to their honor.
The volume of Chastel is, besides, an edifying work,
impregnated with the true spirit of the Gospel. The
heart warms as we proceed ; our souls are purified
and elevated ; we are filled with regret that we are
not better, and with a desire to become so. Herein lies
the success of Chastel's work, rather than in the
honors with which he has been loaded by one of the
greatest scientific bodies in the world, or in the trans-

X TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
lation of his work into two languages. It is in the
name of God that he speaks to his readers ; it is God
whom he exhibits to them in the poor, as is expressed
in the motto of his book, " Deo in pauperibus?' and
in the exhortation of the last page, which contains the
substance of the whole :
" To the work then ! The times urge, not because
of the dangers which misery could beget ; if our sole
aim were to conjure them, perhaps already it would be
too late ; the times urge, because our brothers suffer,
and it will never be too soon to relieve them.
Were the shocks which still threaten social order to
reach us to-morrow, to-day even, it is necessary to
labor for the good of the disinherited classes : we must
do for them, and for God in them, what it would be
no longer time to do for ourselves."
We heartily concur in the last thought expressed
by Dr. Wichern in the preface to his translation of
our common original :
" May the advantage which we enjoy in viewing the
monuments of the Christian charity of former ages
recall to us our destiny as Christians, and make it still
dearer to us ; may it be given us to see, beyond the
brilliant light of history, whose veil we raise, the
features of Him who presents to us the image of His
Heavenly church ; and may we behold it reflected in
that in the midst of which we have still to live out
our appointed time in this lower world!"
G. A. M.

PREFACE.

The power of charity has seldom been questioned
before our days. Most men revered in it a celestial
virtue, as efficient as admirable in its spontaneity, and
which, wherever practiced with zeal and discernment,
contributed powerfully to the relief of misery. Some
even feared that it might go too far in this respect.
Pre-occupied with certain absolute maxims of the
political economy of the English school, they charged
beneficence, by blunting the salutary spur of want,
with a tendency to relax the efforts of the poor, to
destroy in them the disposition of prudence, to
increase population beyond the means of subsistence,
and, thus, to extend the scourge by a too great ardor
for its relief. Any alms, any charitable institution
appeared dangerous to them in this respect ; at most
they spared some establishments, indispensable for
curing evils which it is impossible to foresee ; and they
would willingly have reduced charity to the opening

xii PREFACE.
of gratuitous schools for the poor, where the principles
of Malthus were to be taught to them.1
At the present day those fears seem to have been
calmed, and charity is subjected to a very different
reproach. It is no longer charged with imprudence
and indiscretion, but with impotence; it is no more
accused of doing too much, but of not doing enough;
it is pretended that, in its most ingenious, its most
heroic devotion, it can do absolutely nothing to lessen
misery. "To meet," they say, "such pressing and
multiplied wants, to fill such a gulf, what are a few
crumbs from the table of the rich ? What are a few
drops of water to calm a consuming thirst ? As long
as the relief of the poor is made to depend upon the
caprice of the opulent, nothing will have been done
for the well-being of the most numerous class. Re
course must be taken to a more efficient and less pre
carious remedy. There is no grant of a favor to be
made here, but there is a right to be recognised.
Every human being that is born has the right to live ;
society owes him either work if he has none, or a sub
sistence if he cannot obtain it by his labor. The
State must secure to him the one or the other; or,
better still, it is necessary that all the resources of

1 To be just, let us acknowledge that these ideas are less those
of Malthus himself, than of his most exclusive disciples. See
chiefly, Westminster Review, 1824, on Cliaritable Institutions. — Ex
tracts of Reports on Poor-Laws, London, 1837, pp. 180, 283, &c.

PREFACE. Xiii
society, put in common and concentrated in its hands,
should be distributed to each one according to his
needs. Then no one will suffer. The riches of the
few will no longer be seen insulting the misery of the
many; no one will have a superfluity, but all will
have what is necessary ; the unfortunate will no longer
be reduced to wait till a look of disdainful compas
sion falls upon him, till a humiliating. and meagre
alms is tossed to him by some one of the happy of
this world." 3
To appreciate the justice of this new reproach
against charity, and the value of the remedy pretended
as a substitute for it, excellent reasons have been and
can be given. But, if it is true, as we think it to be,
that in the moral, as well as in the physical sciences,
the method of observation is at the same time the
shortest and the surest,2 if experience is the true touch
stone of all social systems, nothing better can be
done to judge the assertion in question than to submit
it to this test. You accuse voluntary charity of im
potence : well, without throwing ourselves into abstract
1 " Charity," says de Melun, " has not only been depreciated, it
has been calumniated. Its works have been mistrusted, and its
sacrifices suspected. The motive which incites the strong to suc
cour the weak, has been rejected as a humiliation and a shame.''
(Annates, de la Charite, March, 1851, p. 137.)
3 Thiers, Be la PropriUi, Liv. I. a. 2. — " It is especially in the
study of the past," says De Gerando, " that we have sought rules
for the future." (Bienfaisance publique, Intro,, p. 79.)

xiv PREFACE.
discussions, wherein we always run the risk of only
seeing one side of the question at once; without
engaging in divinations regarding the future, let us
question the past ; let us examine what charity has pro
duced, wherever it has been unconstrained, and moved
solely by religious persuasion ; then, as is always neces
sary in like cases, allowing for the diversity of times
and of circumstances,1 let us judge from the effects
which it has produced, of those which it can still pro
duce under the same impulse.
These useful and conclusive researches in the past,
are what the French Academy aimed to provoke, in
its programme for 1849 ; and it was to render them
more conclusive still, that it directed them specially
upon the first centuries of our era. Christian charity,
then in all its fervour, displayed itself in an empire of
a civilization which has more analogy with ours than
that of any other of the ancient States. What influ
ence did it exert on that empire? What institutions
did it found there? With what new spirit did it
penetrate it ? What relief, what remedies did it bring
to its evils ? Such is the question, wholly scientific
in appearance, but indeed full of reality, proposed by
the Academy. It has wished to call forth, for the
instruction of the present generation, the too much for-
1 " Societies progress and transform themselves," says Passy,
" and the past does not always contain the true measure of the pos
sibilities of the future." (Journal des Economistes, Vol. XII. p. 53.)

PREFACE. XV
gotten recollections of the charity of early times ; and
that, while recalling the essential characteristics which
then distinguished this virtue, the principle from which
it came, and the spirit which animated it, its effects on
Roman society should also be related.
We believe that we have not passed the limits fixed
by this programme, in extending our researches a little
beyond the fall of the Western Empire. Besides that
the Empire of Byzantium, in the age of Justinian,
offers to us, in regard to the influence of charity, more
than one memorable and instructive example; besides
that the conquests of this prince brought back, for a
short time, under the Roman government, many pro
vinces of the west, already conquered by the barba
rians ; it is known that, even under the domination of
the latter, the civil and ecclesiastical institutions of the
Roman world had still a certain duration ; that the
Goths, the Burgundians, and even the Vandals and
the Franks made it a point of honor to maintain, for
the most part, the regime of the civilized people they
had conquered, and that it was hardly before the be
ginning of the VH. century that civil and religious
society in the west took a decidedly barbarian stamp.
Our investigation, to be complete, ought then to
embrace the first six centuries of the Christian era.
Thus it will comprehend two periods of equal extent,
but perfectly distinct, and separated from each other
by the conversion of Constantine.

Xvi PREFACE.
Not only the decline of the empire, and consequently
the multiplication of the evils to be remedied by cha
rity, date from the predecessor of this prince, but it is
from Constantine that, Christianity being adopted and
sustained by the State, the principles of charity began
to penetrate Roman legislation more directly ; so that
the epoch when this virtue became the most necessary,
was also the one in which it acquired, at least by legal
means, the most influence.
After having related the efforts and the action of
charity, in each of these two periods, we will doubtless
be indulged in drawing some general inductions there
from, relative to the part which it is called upon to
fill in modem times. It would be impossible for us,
we confess, to remain silent on such a subject. But
the lively and powerful interest which it offers to us,
will not cause us to lose one instant from view that
of historic truth. We know that if the past throws
light upon the present, it is only on condition of being
studied with impartiality, and freedom from the tram
mels of system. The Academy demanded an histori
cal work, and it is such, above all, that we have had
the design to present to it. To collect, in the origi
nal monuments of the first centuries, all the facts of
any importance connected with the influence of cha
rity—to raise ourselves to the general spirit which
sways them, thus to render an exact account of the
effects of this virtue in the Roman world— such is the

P R F F A C E . X.V11
real object which we have proposed to ourselves in
this work. Those of greater skill will doubtless find
lessons there which have escaped us, and will derive
consequences therefrom which we may not have per
ceived. The principal merit to which we aspire is to
collect from this period, with somewhat of abundance,
and, above all, with entire fidelity, the historical ma
terials necessary for the solution of one of the greatest
problems of our times, the remedies for want.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
Preface by the Translator  ?  3
Preface by the Author  7
Introduction  17

BOOK I.
INFLUENCE OF CHARITY ON THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES OF
THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
Chap. I. First Preaching of Charity by Jesus Christ  34
II. Charity in the days of the Apostles  46
III. Charity in the Second and Third Centuries  72
IV. Indirect Influence of Charity on Roman Law in
the First Three Centuries  115

BOOK II.
INFLUENCE OF CHARITY FROM THE BEGINNING! OF THE FOURTH
TO THE END OF THE SIXTH CENTURY.
Chap. I. Aggravation of Misery in the Roman World  126
II. Charitable Intervention of the Church in Favor of
the Oppressed  141
III. Exhortations of the Church in behalf of Alms.. . . 157
(xix)

XX CONTENTS.
FACIE
Chap. IV. Opinions of the Church on Alms in their Con
nection with the Rights of Property  180
V. Resources furnished by Charity  195
VI. Administration of the Funds of Charity  212
VII. Use of the Funds of Charity  223
Art. I. Almshouses and Hospitals  228
II. Monasteries  245
VIII. Continuation. — Works of Charity Independent
and Hospitals of Monasteries  253
IX. Co-operation of Civil Power in the Work of
Charity  260
X. Continuation. — Special Measures of the Civil
Power in favor of the Indigent  277

RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION.
PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
Sect. I. Subventive action of Charity  295
II. Preventive action of Charity  324

HISTORICAL STUDIES

THE INFLUENCE OF CHARITY.

INTRODUCTION.
SURVEY OF THE TIMES BEFORE CHRISTIANITY.
In forming the heart of man, God has implanted in
him, besides the instinct which makes him look to his
preservation and well-being, an instinct of sympathy,
which gives him an interest, also, in the happiness of
his fellows. Whilst the former would engage him to
live exclusively within himself, and to take himself
for the only object of his affections, the latter draws
him out of himself and forces him to live, to feel, and
to suffer, to a certain degree, in others. There is, be
tween these two instincts, the same relation that exists
between the two forces, the concurrence of which keeps
up the harmony of the universe ; on their precise equi- '
librium depends the welfare of society and the har
mony of the moral world. Who has not heard, in the
depths of his heart, the often importunate voice of
pity ? Who has not yielded to it, sometimes, even at
the expense of his own interest ? The most selfish,
themselves, are saddened by the sight of suffering; the
2 * ( 17 )

18 INTRODUCTION.
most cruel have involuntary flashes of sensibility and
compassion. Thus we learn, without surprise and without incre
dulity, the humane deeds which history relates to us
of the ancients. When it speaks to us of the generous
zeal with which hospitality was practised among them,
when it shows us, in the Island of Crete, at Athens,
at Argos, at Corinth, public halls destined to receive
travellers,1 when it extols the liberality of a Cimon
and of a Pelopidas, when it shows us the Romans,
themselves, so inferior to the Greeks in this respect,2
receiving in their own houses and waiting on the sol
diers of Fabius,3 and the wounded of Fidenaa,4 we do
not rack our minds to invent interested motives for
these generous deeds ; we do not treat them all as
bright and shining sins, and, if we refer the glory of it
all to God, who spoke in the hearts of these heathens,
we are pleased with them for having obeyed His voice,
even without knowing it.5
But with them it was with these humane sentiments,
as .with so many other natural and exalted instincts,
which their religion, far from strengthening, tended
rather to suppress, and to destroy.6 Without speak
ing of those barbarian forms of worship, even in our
' Barthelemy, Voyage en Grece, c. 34 ; de G6rando, de la Bien-
faisance publique, Vol. IV. p. 274, &c.
2 De Gerando, ubi supra, Vol. IV. p. 468.
3 Livy, Decad., I. b. 2, c. 47.
4 Tacit., Annul. IV. 63.
6 Augustine himself acknowledges among the heathen the influ
ence of those natural feelings of benevolence. Ep. CLV. ad
Maced. c. 14.
e Meiners, Gesch. der Relig., Vol. I. p. 77.

TIMES BEFORE CHRISTIANITY. 19
days, which command the forgetfulness of the most
legitimate affections, compel the mother herself to kill
her child or to give it up to the most horrible sacri
fices, deify cruelty, and even consecrate cannibalism,
every form of polytheism, even among the most civi
lized people, was little favorable to the development
of the sentiments of fraternity. To what love, to what
reciprocal services could men believe themselves
bound, who did not adore the same God, who did not
recognise the same Ruler in Heaven ? While there
were, for each of the fractions of the human race, dif
ferent protectors, different gods, what religious bond
could exist between them, or rather what free career
was there not open to national egotism ? The laws
of justice were hardly recognised between people and
people ; how could those of charity have been ? Each
nation believed itself permitted to seek its interest at
the expense of that of the others: the right of the
strongest was the common law. Had a people en
riched itself by its labor, its neighbors, like greedy
hornets, hastened to dispute with it its prize. Wars,
colored with the most honorable pretexts, generally
had no other motive than pillage. No equity for the
weak, no pity for the vanquished. When the conque
ror, moved to compassion, might have wished to spare,
religion wa3 opposed to it. "What hast thou in com
mon with this people? Its laws, its gods are not
thine. It has succumbed; let it die or let it serve
thee !" And the captive, treated as without country,
without a god, excluded from the temples, festivals,
and sacrifices,1 was, with his ^posterity, given up to the
1 Vico, Philosophy, &c. IV. 4, p. 312.

20 INTRODUCTION.
contempt and barbarity of his masters. How many
citizens were there at Rome and at Sparta, who seemed
to suspect that the slave was a man as they were.1
The slave, according to the classification of Varro,
was an agricultural instrument, which differed from
cattle only by speech. He was a vile being, protected
by no law, bought and sold according to need or
caprice, which the owner destined, according to apti
tude, to trades, arts, agriculture, beggary, or prostitu
tion; that was enchained at night in the ergastulum,
like an ox in his stall ; cared for only according to the
measure of service that might be derived from him ;
that was marked, whipped, put upon the cross for the
least offence ; that, when dead, was thrown into a den,
to the animals; but which, when old, it was deemed
preferable, generally, to sell, as Cato advised, "with
old cattle and iron," or to be sent to the island of Es-
culapius, to finish as he could.2
Had they much more regard for strangers, whom,
truly, they suffered among them, to profit by their
riches or their industry, but whom they turned off
with contempt to servile functions, and loaded down
with exorbitant taxes,3 and then, at the least fear of
famine, at the least symptom of troubles, drove out by
thousands.4 In general, in the ancient republics, man
1 Juvenal., Sat. VI., " 0 demens ! Ita servus homo est 1"
1 Wallon, Histoire de I' Hsclavage, Vol. I. & II. ; Dezobry, Rome
sous Auguste, Lett. X. XXVI., Vol. I. p. 100, 271 &c. Dureau de
la Malle, Economie politique des Romains, Vol. I. p. 410, &c.
8 Blanqui, Hist, de VEcon. pol., Vol. I. p. 25 ; Boeckh. Polit.
Econ. of the Ath., translated into French, Vol. I. p. 74, 237.
* Sueton., in Aug., c. 42 ; Dio Cass., IV. 26 ; Dureau de la Malle,
ubi supra, Vol. II. p. 246.

TIMES BEFORE CHRISTIANITY. 21
was nothing as man ; he had importance only as citi
zen.1 Religion, born with the State, united to its con
stitution, fitted to its interests and its wants, limited
itself in inculcating the love of country, obedience to
law, bravery in battle, and respect for civil obligations.2
It was not religion that pacified nations, that united
tribes, it was rather the approximation of nations and
of tribes that determined different forms of worship.
It was not she that softened manners, it was the man
ners that, in becoming refined, compelled religion to
grow more mild. Jupiter was not originally, either
hospitable or protector of suppliants ;3 these were attri
butes which he owed to the new-born civilization of
the Greeks much more than to the virtues which he
inculcated to them.4
Even between citizens, whom the sentiment ot
their common nationality should have closely united
together, religion still raised strange barriers. Each
class, each family, each gens had, in remembrance of
its distinct origin, its gods, and its domestic genii, its
particular rites,6 which it transmitted within itself from
generation to generation, and which separated it from
all the others.6 The Roman patricians, for example,
' Blanqui, Hist, de I'Econ. pol., Vol. VI. p. 48, 49 ; De Cham-
pagny, les Cesars, Vol. IV. p. 264, &c.
2 Briegleb. Comment, de moment, moralibus rel. Gr. et Rom.,
Goetting, 1799, p. 17 ; De Rhoer. Dissert, de effect, rel. Chr. in Jurisp.
Rom., Groning, 1776, p. 5 — 7, 104.
4 Therefore Rome had a temple in honor of Jupiter Depredator.
6 Sacra Gentilia.
6 Lebas, Hist. Rom., Vol. I. p. 123 ; Moreau Christophe, Du
probleme de la misere, Vol. I. p. 12, &c,

22 INTRODUCTION.
had mysterious ceremonies in which the people could
not take part ; and when it. was agitated to form alli
ances between them and the plebeians, they pleaded
against it these ancient ceremonies which they were
not permitted to profane. Thus, what a profound
separation and what a perpetual conflict of interests
between these two classes ! What desperate efforts to
wrest from each other rights, riches, and dignities!
What incessant struggles between inhuman creditors
who speculated on the misery of their debtors, and
unjust debtors who formed coalitions to frustrate their
creditors ¦? between the rich, fraudulently appropria
ting to themselves the property of the State, and the
poor, ever ready forcibly to invade the rights of private
property ! While a few patricians kept up the immense
estates which they had usurped, thousands of families,
ruined by war or by usury, dragged from province to
province a wretchedness no one thought of relieving.
The complaints of suffering were neglected, the cry of
revolt alone came from time to time to make itself
heard. Then some concessions were hastily made,
they abolished debts, they sent off colonies of proleta
rians,2 they divided conquered lands, they distributed
food to the poor citizens, and they even went so far as
to proclaim the Agrarian law. But, the danger passed,
all the concessions were withdrawn ; the old egotism,
the old barbarity regained the ascendant.3
' Naudet, Du Pr'et a interet chez les Romains, (Acad, des Inscr.
stance annuelle de 1849, p. 75, &c.
2 Dureau de la Malle, ubi supr., Vol. I. p. 234.
3 Naudet, Des secours publics chez les Romains, (Acad, des Inscr.
Vol. XIII., nouvelle serie, p. 88.

TIMES BEFORE CHRISTIANITY. 23
"Homo homini ignoto lupus est."
These words of a character of Plautus paint better
than was ever done, perhaps, the relations of men to
each other in the ancient Roman society.
Doubtless, as common interests brought different
classes together — as commerce, migrations, and con
quests mingled populations— some prepossessions were
dissipated, some prejudices effaced ; men, brought into
contact by more frequent relations, began to regard
each other with not so fierce an eye. Some, even,
over the barriers erected by customs, forms, and insti
tutions, began to see, to suspect, at least, the exist
ence of the primitive ties of relationship which united
them ; and philosophy, the depository of these new
things, the organ of these new dispositions, attempted
to give credit to more humane maxims. Socrates,
who was so great a philosopher only because, better
than all others, he knew how to listen to Nature, and
to read what she had engraved on his heart, com
pared men to the members of a body, which, far
from injuring each other, are made to lend to each
other a mutual support.1 Plato, in his book of
Laws, rejected this maxim of the Lacedemonians,
that each State, being naturally the enemy of its
neighbors, all its institutions ought to be calculated
in view of war.2 Cicero, speaking of the distinc
tive attributes of Divinity, exclaimed, "What better,
what more excellent, than goodness and beneficence ?
Is it not a grave error to qualify as weaknesses such
' Xenoph., Memor. Socrat., B. II. 3, 18.
' Plato, De Legibus B. I., transl. of Cousin, Vol. VII. p. 5, 13.

24 INTRODUCTION.
noble virtues ? Is there not, among the good, a kind
of natural charity ? The name even of love, whence
that of friendship comes,1 indicates a disinterested
affection ; for to love others for one's self, as we love
the meadows, the fields, the flocks, from which we
derive profit, is traffic, and not love. The character
istic of charity, as well as of friendship, is to be
gratuitous."2 Further, who does not know these
beautiful words of the same philosopher: "Among
human virtues nothing is more beautiful than union
among men, than this association, this rendering their
interests common, this love of the human race,3 which,
commencing with the family, progressively extends
itself abroad to parents,- relatives, friends, neighbors,
fellow-citizens, allies, and finally to the whole of man
kind."4 But all schools of philosophy did not profess such
noble maxims. Lactantius reproaches them, in gene
ral, with having overlooked the principles of sociability
innate in the human heart, in attributing the founda
tion of human societies to a simple and cold calcula
tion of utility.5 It is known that the Stoics erected
insensibility and the Epicureans egotism into a system,
and the former branded pity as a feebleness unworthy
a sage ; and the latter, as an affection of the soul inju
rious to its repose. Aristotle himself has not, in this
respect, elevated" the sentiments of the Greeks very
high ; in his view, anger and vengeance were legiti-
1 The French has the words amour, amitis.
1 Cicero, De natura deor., I. 44.
3 Caritas generis humani.
4 Cicero, Definib. bonor et malor., V. 23.
6 Lactant., Inst. div. VI., 10, p. 532, &c.

TIMES BEFORE CHRISTIANITY. 25
mate passions, without which. the human heart would
lack one of its most powerful energies.1 As to bene
volence, he saw in it hardly anything more than a
means of popularity for those who practised it, and for
the State a pledge of tranquillity, a means of prevent
ing seditions and troubles.2 To him, as to the most
of the ancients, the citizen was more than the man ;
the interest of the State prevailed over that of
humanity. "One is confounded," says M. Cousin,3
" on seeing the imperturbable coolness with which
Aristotle analyses the nature of this special property,
called a slave, as he would any object of natural his
tory, without any scruple of humanity troubling for a
moment his sad analysis, and staying his pitiless deduc
tions. The slave is, in some sort, an animated pro
perty, he partakes of reason only to the degree neces
sary to modify his. sensibility, but not enough to per
mit one to say that he possesses reason. Thus, accord
ing to him, nature makes men free and slaves, as she
makes animals and men, souls and bodies."
Even the most spiritual philosophers, those whose
admirable maxims we have just cited, did not always
know how to free themselves entirely from the ideas
and the genius of their age. Plato, who recognised
human dignity even in a slave, and who would have
others treat him with still more justice than they would
their equals, does not, however, dissemble that, if he
advises to do so, it is, above all, for the interest of the

1 Seneca, De ird, III. 3.
* Aristot., Ethic, IV. 2.
3 Cousin, (Eum-es de Platon, Vol. VII. ; pref., p. 83, &c.
3

26 INTRODUCTION.
master himself, and he accuses of imprudence rather
than of harshness those who conduct their slaves by
the lash.1 If, to avoid the reproach of a want of socia
bility, he consents to admit strangers into the State,
whom he excluded from his Republic? he forbids under
any consideration, that they should be naturalized,
and would have every beggar, even of free condition,
driven from its territory.3 Cicero, forgetting his own
principles regarding the disinterestedness which ought
to guide charity, insists upon the civil advantages of
this virtue much more than on its intrinsic excellence.
Hence, he prefers the redemption of prisoners, or the
relief of poor citizens, to expenditures for public
games.4 If, in imitation of Theophrastus, he praises
hospitality, it is because nothing -is more honorable,
according to him, than to see the house of a citizen
open to illustrious guests, the renown of his wealth
and liberality spread afar among other nations, and
his own fellow countrymen united to him in bonds of
gratitude.5 Besides, for this very reason, he advises
every one to choose well the objects of his gifts, and
in general to use much prudence and discretion in
pecuniary largesses ; " for, he adds, the inconvenience
attached to such favors is that they dry up the sources
of benevolence itself, so that the more prodigal one is
in them, the more he is deprived of the means of
1 Plato, De leg., B. VI. ; transl. by Cousin, Vol. VII., p. 361, &c
3 Ibid., B. XII., Vol. VIII., p. 356.
* Ibid., B. XL, Vol. VIII., p. 331.
4 Cicero, De offic, II. 15.
« Ibid., II., 15, 18.

TIMES BE TORE CHRISTIANITY. 27
giving them for the future." ' This is much foresight
for a virtue, which, above all, calls for unreserved
impulse. Had the philosophers used less reserve in the advo
cacy of benevolence, had they better recognised the
bonds of mutual devotedness which ought to unite
men together, they would not in this, any more than
in many other matters, have succeeded in conquering
the egotism and in destroying the prejudices of their
contemporaries. Devoted, as has been said,2 too exclu
sively to speculation, they knew little of the art of
popularising their maxims ; scarcely even did they feel
the need of it; they had not that ardor which makes
one wish, at any price, to spread around him the truth
which he possesses ; the temperate glow of their gene
rous affections hardly warmed their most assiduous
disciples who were near them, and they could not
teach others to give themselves up when they knew
so little how to do it themselves.3
Philosophy, then, among the ancients, had but a
feeble influence in ameliorating the social relations.
It doubtless enlarged the sentiments, it increased the
affections of some men, it inspired, perhaps, Terence
and Virgil with those beautiful verses, in which
vibrates the pure accent of humanity ;4 but its action
was little felt by most men. The lot of the slaves, so
unhappy in the last days of the Roman Republic, grew
1 Cicero, De offic, c. 15.
2 Troplong, Influence du Christianisme sur le droit Romain, p.
56, 57.
3 Lactant., Inst, div., II. 3, p. 126, &c.
4 "Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto,
Sunt lacrymEe rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt."

28 INTRODUCTION.
worse and worse down to the end of the first century.
The crowd was as much captivated as ever with the
cruel sports of the amphitheatre ; human life was not
more respected ; the great majority continued to be
the victim and the sport of the few.1 The people of
Rome, it is true, received its regular distributions of
provisions, the sportula was delivered each day at the
doors of the rich, the sacred repasts of the epulones, the
profusions of the generals and consuls spread frorii
time to time joy and intoxication among the lowest
orders of the people ; but benevolence had little share
in Chese gifts ; they were rather sacrifices wrested from
vanity, ambition, politics, or fear,2 tributes paid by the
rich to the poor that they might not be disquieted by
them. In all antiquity, we know only one people whose
civil, and religious institutions really were marked
with the spirit of fraternity : the people whose only
God was Jehovah. He, the Protector of Juda, was
also the Protector of Ephraim and Manasseh; each
member of each tribe found in Him not only a firm
guardian of his rights, but also a faithful supporter of
his interests, a friendly intercessor with his brethren.
In the land of Canaan, all the Hebrews were to have
an equal lot. Every fifty years each family was to
re-enter into possession of the domains, of which it had
been stripped by whatever events.3 Every seven years
'-"-Pancis nascitur gentrs hnmanum," said Csesar.
' Naudet, Des secours publics, pp. 36, 37, 38. The same hap
pened with public distributions to the people of Athens — Boeck.
Economic politique des Atheniens, transl. Vol. I., p. 351, &c, 359.
3 Leviticus, xxv. 10, 23, 24.

TIMES BEFORE CHRISTIANITY. 29
the land was to remain without culture, and the spon
taneous growth of this year was common to all.1 Each
seventh day all labor was to cease, that the slave,.
the workman, and even the domestic animal might
repose.2 Each Jew, when he cut his harvest, or gath
ered the grapes of his vineyard, was to leave the sheaf
for the gleaner, and the bunch for the indigent.3 They
were to recruit their slaves only among strange nations,4
and if any Jew was forced, by want, to engage him
self to service, he was- not subjected to the same treat
ment as other slaves ; he. became of right, free, at the
seventh year, unless he preferred to continue to serve.1
As a member of the family, he was admitted to cele
brate the passover with them. The stranger even,
who, because of uncircumcision, was excluded from
this right, was recommended warmly to the humanity
of his hosts. " Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor
oppress him, for ye were strangers in the land of
Egypt."6 Loans on interest might be made with a
stranger, but not with a Jew ;7 a pledge delivered by
the latter had to be restored to him before sun-set.
Every debt was extinguished on the Sabbatical year,
and yet every one ought to be at all times disposed to
lend to the poor.8 These precepts, and some others
like them, which may be criticised as matters of politi
cal economy, and which, in our days, would gravely
1 Levit. xxv. 6, 12. 2 Exod. xx. 8-10.
3 Deut. xxiv. 19-21. " Levit. xxv. 44-46.
6 Levit. xxv. 39, Exod. xxi. 2, 5, 6.
6 Exod. xxii. 21 ; xxiii., 9.
' Exod. xxii. 25 ; Levit. xxv., 36 ; Deut. xxiii., 19, 20,
* Levit. xxv. 36, 37.

30 INTRODUCTION.
injure credit,1 were less objectionable among an iso
lated people, exclusively devoted to agriculture ; and,
.taking the legislator's point of view, we cannot but
admire the humane spirit with which they are marked.
What solemnity in these recommendations in favor
of the widow and the orphan ! What penetrating
accent in these words : " If thy brother be waxen poor
and fallen in decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve
him. If there be among you a poor man of thy breth
ren, within any of thy gates in thy land which the
Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thy
heart, nor shut thy hand from thy poor brother. For
the poor shall never cease out of the land. Thou
shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy
poor, and to thy needy, in thy land !"2 Giving of
alms was like a sacrifice of thanksgivings offered to
God for His goodness.13 It was one of the works of
expiation for which remission of sins was promised.
" Break off thy sins by righteousness," says Daniel,
" and thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor."
"By mercy and truth," said Solomon, "iniquity is
1 Moreau — Christophe supposes that such was indeed the inten
tion of the Hebrew legislator, and that, the loan being always a
source of misery, Moses wished to prevent it by discouraging the
loan (Du problime de la misere, Vol. II., p. 39—40.) This hypo
thesis seems to us more ingenious than solid. It is contradicted
by the passages which the author quotes in the same place.
Moses had a very simple way of preventing loans, by prohibiting
them, whilst he recommended it formally. Deut. xv. 9 ¦ xxiii. 20 •
Levit. xxv. ; 36-37.
a Levit. xxv. 35 ; Deut. xv. 4, 7, 11.
3 " 0 Lord, said David, my goodness extendeth not to thee, but
co the saints that are in the earth." Ps. xvi., 21.

TIMES BEFORE CHRISTIANITY. 31
purged."1 These exhortations had penetrated pro
foundly into the spirit of the Jewish people. Old To-
bit, on his death bed, repeated them to his son.2 The
son of Sirach taught them to the Jews of the disper
sion. Job, in his misfortunes, bore witness to himself
that he had always been a father to the poor, and that
he had nourished the orphan.4 The Emperor Julian
remarked that in his times, there was not to be seen a
beggar among the Jews : and to-day the Israelite has
always an offering ready for his indigent brothers, and
the mutual support which the members of this nation
render to one another, has almost constantly preserved
it, till now, from the touch of poverty.
Let us remark, however, that the charity of the He
brew people was far from being entirely free and vol
untary. Besides the alms which a Jew was exhorted
to bestow voluntarily, there was a triennial tithe, raised
on the property of each family, for the benefit of
strangers, of widows, and of orphans, and this tithe
was obligatoryr It was the same with the first fruits
of the crop,5 and, as has been seen, the same, too, with
the precepts relative to the Sabbatical year, to the year
of jubilee, and the gratuitous loans; this was a conse
quence of the theocratic character of the Jewish con
stitution. Jehovah, the Chief and Legislator of the
nations, declared himself also to be the sole owner of
its property,6 which He gave, in lease, to the Israel -
1 Dan. iv. 27 ; Prov. xvi. 6. 2 Tob iv. 7-11, 18 ; xiv. 11, 12.
3 Eccl. iv. 1-9 &c. i Job xxix. 13-17.
• Deut. xiv. 28, 29 ; xxvi. 2, 12 ; Levit. xix. 9, 10.
6 Levit. xxv. 23. " The land shall not be sold for ever; for the
land is mine ; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me."

32 INTRODUCTION.
ites, only on certain obligations, certain rents, fixed
and guarantied by the law. Even after the Jews had
passed under foreign domination, benevolence as well
as piety preserved among them, more or less, this
compulsatory character. Ecclesiastical law, in the
absence of civil law, exacted the offering, determined
its quota, made of it a ceremonial prescription from
which the Jew, except by abjuring, could not escape.
He therefore observed the literal precept, rather, with
out the spirit of it ; his charity proceeded often from
the hand rather than from the heart, and Jesus could
reproach the Pharisees, that while they paid so exactly
the tithe of the smallest herbs, their hearts were void
of all sentiment of justice and charity.1
It was not liberty, spontaneity alone, that was want
ing to Jewish charity: above all it was breadth,
extent; it did not reach beyond the chosen people.
To have a right to it, it was necessary to belong one's
self to the posterity of Abraham, or be admitted to
reside upon his inheritance. The Eternal, although
Creator of the Universe, and King of all nations, only
protected the one with which he had contracted
solemnly a covenant. " Thou shalt love thy neighbor,
and hate thine enemy ,2 thou shalt aid those of thy
nation, thou shalt bow the others under thy yoke:"
such was the ultimate expression of the Jewish law.
David, in this respect, was scarcely more advanced
than Moses; the prophets hardly more advanced than
David;3 and, later, if the dispersion modified the

' Matth. xxiii. 23.
2 Levit. xix. 18 ; Deut. vii. 1-24 ; xxiii. 6 ; Matth. v., 43.
3 The beautiful precept of Solomon, which deserved to be repro-

TIMES BEFORE CHRISTIANITY. 33
national prejudices a little, if the intercourse of the
Jewish with the Greek mind, at Alexandria, inspired
Philo with maxims more liberal to strangers,1 if, from
time to time, this author recognised the primitive
equality of men among themselves, and their relation
ship by nature, their common mother,2 he neverthe
less exalts to excess the prerogatives of his own nation,
and, besides, is not exempt from all passion of ven
geance.3 And so the son of Sirach, who with touch
ing precepts of charity towards the Jews, manifests a
profound hatred against the Gentiles.4
And yet, the dogma, from which was to proceed the
largest, the most disinterested charity; the dogma of
the divine unity, was proclaimed in Israel. The God
of the Universe could not eternally restrain his solici
tude to one people alone ; a time was coming when he
would teach his worshippers to love, in Him, all His
children. Moses had laid down the principle : Jesus
was to derive the consequence from it, and thus to
give the signal of the greatest, of the most beneficent
of revolutions.
duced by Paul : " If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to
eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink," (Prov. xxv., 21),
applied itself to personal enemies rather than to those of the nation.
1 De Wette, Christliche Sittenlehre, Vol. II., part I., p. 90, 100, &c.
3 Philo, De Decalogo, p. 749, &c, ed. Hceschel, fol.
3 Id., De execr., p. 937, &c.
1 Eccles. xxxiii. 9, 10 ; L. 25, 26 ; De Wette, ubi sup.

FIRST BOOK.
THE INFLUENCE OF CHARITY ON THE THREE FIRST CEN
TURIES OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.

CHAPTER FIRST.
THE FIRST PREACHING OF CHARITY BY JESUS CHRIST.
It is impossible to comprehend well the precepts of
Jesus, relative to charity, if, before all things, we do
not take into consideration the end for which he
preached. This end, according to some authors, was exclusively
temporal and worldly. Jesus was a social reformer,
who had taken upon himself the mission of elevating
the suffering classes and of removing here below the
scourge of poverty. Some have even attributed to
him, in this regard, socialist views. The levelling of
conditions, a community or equal partition of pro
perty, the abolition of all distinction of rank and for
tune, such, according to them, is the kingdom of God
that Jesus came to establish upon earth.
If such is, in effect, the end which Jesus proposed
to himself, we must acknowledge that he proceeded
in a strange and inconsistent way to attain it.
Having come, as they say, to change the social orga
nization of the present world, yet he himself declares
(34)

CHAP. I. — CHARITY PREACHED BY JESUS CHRIST. 35
that his kingdom is not of this world. He affects to
call it the "Kingdom of Heaven." He affirms that
he does not wish to touch the established order of
things. "Render unto Caesar the things which are
Csesar's." 1 Having come to do away with the misery
of destitution and slavery, to call men to a state of
universal well-being, instead of making them desire
that well-being, instead of expatiating on the evils of
poverty, he commences by proclaiming blessed are the
poor, blessed are those who suffer, blessed are those
that hunger, blessed the poor Lazarus who lies covered
with sores at the rich man's gate.2 Happy ! and why ?
Because they shall be indemnified, sated here on
earth, because the spoils of the rich will fall to them?
No; but because Lazarus, after his death, "will be
carried to Abraham's bosom," and because "great is
their reward in heaven." He promises them that they
shall be indemnified in heaven ; it is there that be
invites them to lay up for themselves, treasures,
" where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where
thieves do not break through nor steal." And that
they should "take no thought, saying, what shall we
eat? or, what shall we drink? or, wherewithal shall
we be clothed ? (for after all these things do the Gen
tiles seek :) but seek ye first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness."3
Finally, this Jesus came as they say to make a more
just distribution of worldly goods, to re-establish the
primitive and natural equality, to have restored to the
1 Matth. iv. 17 ; v. 6 ; John xviii. 36 ; Matth. xxii. 21.
3 Matth. v., 3, &c. ; Luke, vi. 20, &c.
3 Matth. and Luke, ib. ; Luke xvi. 22 ; Matth. vi. 19, 25, &c, 33.

36 BOOK I.  FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
poor that which belonged to them, yet he preached
charity instead of preaching justice ; he solicits that
which he ought to exact, he asks as a favor that which
he ought to claim as a debt, and, generous to excess,
he promises to recompense the restitution of usurped
wealth. Far more ; the first time that he is required
to make a division of an inheritance, he declines, and,
instead of the arbitration expected from him, he gives
a lesson of contentment of mind, and shows himself
against the love of riches.1
But what fundamentally destroys the opinion which
we are examining, is the declaration of Jesus concern
ing the imminent ruin which' awaited His nation.2
What ! Jesus is persuaded that Jerusalem is about to
perish, that the generation he addresses will see this
great catastrophe, and it is this moment that he
chooses to change its social order ! Strange revolution
ist, who takes pains to reform that which is about to
be destroyed, and dies in order to redress abuses which
an inevitable overthrow was about to do justice to !
No ! Jesus was not this social reformer, in whom
many a humanitarian of our day complacently admires,
and pretends to recognise himself.3 He has thought
' Luke xii. 13, 15. ' Matth. xxiv.
3 Ought we take for serious the admiration of which writers of
that party show, in our times, for Christianity, or are the quota
tions which they borrow from it, under their pen, but arguments
ad hominem f They disclose too well on this point, their thoughts.
They look as if they said to their contemporaries : " As for us, we
have known, long since, what to think of those obsolete traditions ;
but as for you, who still believe in them, you, for whom the gospel
is still a law and Jesus Christ a God, listen to their evidence in be
half of our doctrines.'' Now, I doubt, if by speaking thus, any
one ever was persuaded.

CHAP. I. — CHARITY PREACHED BY JESUS CHRIST. 37
sp little of changing the established order here below,
of founding a new temporal kingdom, that it is pre
cisely for having refused that, that he was abandoned
and sacrificed by his nation. Had he proclaimed him
self king, a worldly liberator, all the people would
have been at his feet. But his aim was higher. It
was a spiritual welfare that he brought to the world.
He came to preach conversion to men, which would
lead them to the celestial kingdom. He came to show
them life eternal, and the way they should follow, and
the conditions they should fulfil in order to enter upon
it.1 What are these conditions ? The first is piety. To
live with God in heaven man must have lived with
Him on earth. He must love him, Him, the Perfect,
with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his mind.
But how love God without seeking to imitate him,
and, if God is Love, how not imitate him in his love
and goodness for his creatures ? How love the Father
and not love the children ? There is then a second
commandment like unto the first, a second condition
inseparable from the first : " Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself. This is the law and the prophets.
Do that, and thou shalt live." 2
Such is the spirit in which Jesus preaches charity,
1 Matth. iv. 17 ; Mark i. 14, 38 ; Luke i. 76—79 ; x. 25.
3 Luke x. 25, 28 ; Mark xii. 33 ; Matth. xxii. 37—38. These pre
cepts were literally inscribed in the ancient law ; but Jesus, by
borrowing them from it, gives them a higher meaning. Piety is
not only the regularity of offerings and sacrifices, it is the full gift
of the heart to God. Charity is not only the strictness and abun
dance of alms ; it is the sincere and cordial affection for our neigh
bor. Matt, xxiii. 4, 23.
4

38 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
such is the part He assigns to it. It is not a political
virtue that he comes to establish among men ; it is a
religious sentiment that he desires to teach them, and
this much less for the present happiness of those who
will be the objects of it, than for the eternal felicity of
those who are called upon to exercise it. It is piety,
the first fruit of this new birth, which alone can ren
der them worthy of the celestial kingdom, it is the
robe with which they must adorn themselves to be
admitted to the "marriage supper of the Lamb."
How pure and perfect, then, it should be! In image
of God's charity, which embraces in an equal love all
his intelligent creatures and makes his " sun to shine
upon the just and upon the unjust," the Christian's
charity ought to elevate him above all difference of
origin or condition, above all egotism and all scheming,
above all conflict of passions and of interests. " Who
is my neighbor?" asks Jesus of a doctor of the law.
" This Samaritan, whom the traditions of thy people
teach thee to curse, as well as this Jew, whom thy law
commands thee to love.1 But when thou makest a
feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind ;
and thou shalt be blessed, for they cannot recompense
thee."2 "How often," asks St. Peter, " shall I par
don my brother? seven times?" "I say not unto you
seven times, but seventy times seven. You have heard
that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor and
hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your ene
mies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that
hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you

1 L"ke x. 29-37. » Luke xiv. 13, 14.

CHAP. I. — CHARITY PREACHED BY JESUS CHRIST. 39
and persecute you. For if you love them which love
you what reward have ye ? do not even the publicans the
same ? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do
ye more than others ? do not even the publicans so ?
But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend,
hoping for nothing again ; and your reward shall be
great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest ; for
he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be
ye therefore merciful as your Father also is merciful.''1
What a pure and sublime ideal ! Who else had the
right to speak thus to men but Him who gave himself
to them without reserve, and who went on Calvary to
offer himself up for the salvation of all ?
But if the horizon of charity, such as Jesus has
traced it, is infinitely more extended than that of bene
ficence, wherever charity is, there is beneficence.
Every true sentiment expresses itself in acts. How
sincerely love our brothers as ourselves and not do for
them whether for the body or the soul all the good in
our power ?2 The love of one's neighbor once in the
heart, beneficence flows naturally from it, as a stream
from its source. It is because Jesus loved, that while
announcing the gospel of the kingdom of heaven, He
healed "all manner of sickness and all manner of dis
ease among the people."3 This same compassion,
which seized him at the sight of the multitudes that
fainted and were scattered abroad,4 moved him also
for other sufferings ; he went from place to place doing
good and leaving everywhere some testimony of his
' Matth. v., 43-48 ; Luke vi. 27, &c.
1 Matth. vii. 12. 3 Matth. iv. 23, 24. 4 lb. ix. 36.

40 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
inexhaustible sympathy.1 Among his disciples the
same sentiment ought to inspire the same deeds.
Hence the recompenses which he promises to alms
giving ; not, doubtless, to that which announces itself
with the sound of the trumpet and seeks only the
regards of men, not to those pompous tithes on which
the Pharisees counted to whiten their sins and to
excuse themselves from compassion, not to interested
favors, which call for other favors in turn, but to
modest alms, given for the eye of God alone, and pro
ceeding from a heart full of love. " Go and do like
wise," Jesus said, when relating the story of the good
Samaritan. " Give, and it shall be given unto you ;
good measure, pressed down and shaken together and
running over, shall men give into your bosom."
"Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of
unrighteousness ; that, when ye fail, they may receive
you into everlasting habitations." But wo to the ego
tist "that layeth up treasure for himself and is not
rich toward God !" Wo to the evil rich man who has
no compassion for the indigent ! 2
Beneficence prescribed by Jesus as a pledge, as a
natural fruit of charity, was so, still, for another rea
son. Cruel treatment awaited the disciples of the Sa
viour ; the persecutions which assailed him, were soon
to assail them also. Sent into the world like sheep
in the midst of wolves, they were to be seized,"deli-
vered up to the synagogues, and into prisons, being
brought before kings and rulers, hated, accursed of
all for his name's sake, delivered up even by their rela-
1 Acts x. 38 ; Matth. ix. 35 ; Mark i. 39, &c.
2 Matth. vi. 1-4 ; xxv. 23 ; Luke vi. 38 ; xii. 21 ; xvi. 9.

CHAP. I. — CHARITY PREACHED BY JESUS CHRIST. 41
tives and their friends.1 What trials for their faith !
How could it resist, if they could not count at least
upon the support of their brothers? Jesus never
ceases to solicit this support for them. In this point
of view, beneficence, a duty towards all men, became
an obligation still more strict between the disciples.
To aid, to succor, to defend them, to do good, to any
one of those who believed in Him, was to co-operate
in the work of his salvation. " He that receiveth you,
receiveth me," said he. "And he that receiveth a
righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall
receive a righteous man's reward. And whosoever
shall give to drink unto one of these little ones, a eup
of cold water only, in the name of a disciple, verily I
say unto you he shall in no wise lose his reward." 2
"Then shall the King say unto them on his right
hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the king
dom prepared for you from the foundation of the
world. For I was an hungered and ye gave me meat :
I was thirsty and ye gave me drink : I was a stranger
and ye took me in — sick and ye visited me : in prison
and ye came unto me. Be not astonished — inasmuch
as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my
brethren, ye have done it unto me."3 In the same
thought, at the moment of quitting them, he returns
with so much urgency to the new commandment, that
they should love one another. This mutual love which
should make them to be recognised by all as his dis
ciples, which was to mark them in the eyes of the
1 John, xvii. 14; Luke xxi. 12, &c, ' Matth. x. 40-42.
8 Matth. xxv. 34, &c,
4*

42 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
world with a distinctive and inimitable seal, was also
to be their firmest support against persecutions. The
world hates you "because you are not of the world.
Love one another as I have loved you. Greater love
hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life
for his friends. Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever
I command you." l
But in these critical circumstances, benevolence
was not useful only to those whom it sustained ;it
was useful, also, to those who imposed upon them
selves this sacrifice. Wealth has its dangers as ad
versity has. Those thousand bonds wherewith it
attaches us to the world — those factitious wants
with which it enthralls us — those fantastical desires
with which it fills the soul — .that ease in which it
lulls it — that vain fascination wherewith it dazzles
it — that need of enjoyment which increases with the
facility of satisfying it — that thirst of gain — that
fear of loss, which increases with possession — were
so many obstacles which closed against Jesus the
hearts of those even who were the best disposed.
How many of the rich who, after having put their
hand to the plough, looked behind them ! How
many, possessed of this idolatry, wandered from the
faith ! How many, in whom the good seed was
choked by the cares of this world, by the disquietude
of avarice, by the attractions and the seductions of
pleasure ! How hard is it for them that trust in
riches to enter into the kingdom of God ! 2 To fol-
1 John xv. 12-19.
2 Luke viii. 14; ix. 62; 1 Tim. vi. 10; Mark iv. 18, 19; Luke
xviii. 24.

CHAP. I.  CHARITY PREACHED BY JESUS CHRIST. 43
low a poor, wandering, despised, and persecuted
Master, who had not where to lay his head, and for
whom the cross was to be the bed of death — to fol
low this Master through opprobrium — to devote
one's self; under his guidance, to the most painful
of apostleships ! Even as it was necessary in ad
vance to have taken up this cross, to be ready to
abandon father, mother, wife, children, and even
one's own life, for a still stronger reason was it neces
sary to renounce one's goods, if they were obstacles
in the way of salvation — to sell all, if it were neces
sary, to obtain the pearl of great price.1 And what
better use could be made of these goods, in renounc
ing them, than to employ them in freeing* other souls
from absorbing cares, from the temptations of want ?
This is what Jesus advised the rich young man : " If
thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and
give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Hea
ven; and come and follow me."2 Here, evidently,
Jesus had in view much less the relief of the poor
than the salvation of the rich ; benevolence was here,
to his eyes, an auxiliary to renunciation. So that he
did not always demand the same sacrifice. When
Zaccheus stood before Jesus, saying, "Behold, the
half of my goods I give to the poor ; and if I have
taken anything from any man, I restore him four
fold," Jesus appeared satisfied :3 he saw the publican
cured of his avarice, and, even by that, salvation en
tered his house.4 But the rich young man, still a
1 Luke xiv. 26 ; Matth. xix. 12. 3 Matth. xix. 21.
8 Luke xix. 1-10.
4 It is the matter of a judicious observation of Clement of Alex
andria. Quia Div. Salv., c. xiii. (opp. fol. Oxon., 1715, p. 942.

44 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
slave to his wealth, could only find by its total aban
donment the courage to follow Jesus. Hence the
advice Jesus gives to him ;l and, in the same spirit,
addressing his apostles, he said to them,2 " As for you
who have forsaken all and have followed me, ye shall
sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of
Israel. And every one that hath forsaken houses, or
brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or
children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive a
hundred fold, and shall inherit everlasting life." It
is not the gift even that he promises to recompense ;
it is the devotedness, the fidelity in following him.
This is what Augustine hath very well explained
in his sermon upon the contempt of the world :
"'I have given to the poor,' thou sayest to me,
' what more have I to do ?' Give thyself, to make
the measure full. Thou hast not yet obeyed the
Master, who says to thee, ' Sell thy goods ; after
that come and follow me.' 'Follow where?' thou
wilt say. Everywhere ; where he will conduct thee ;
through torments, outrages, and opprobrium."3 So
thought Paulinus, when, after having sold all his
1 Hence, too, these declarations: "Wo unto you that are rich !
for ye have received your consolation. Wo unto you that are
full 1 for ye shall hunger," etc. Luke vi. 24, etc.
3 Matth. xix. 28, 29 ; Luke xviii. 28-30.
8 Augustin's Serm., 345, De contempt, mund., c. vi., opp. 8vo.,
V. 21, p. 269. See, too, Ep. 157, c. xxv'., V. xl., p. 264. Jesus
says not, "If thou wilt enter into the life, sell thy riches;" but
simply, " Observe the commandments." It is in order to have
him perfect, that he tells him to sell his riches and to follow him •
thus showing that it would be of no use for him to sell his pro
perty if he should not follow him.

CHAP. I.  CHARITY PREACHED BY JESUS CHRIST. 45
goods and those of his wife, opened his granaries to
the poor and discharged his debtors, he said to those
who felicitated him upon having attained the height
of Christian perfection : " Alas ! I am only at the
beginning. Like the wrestler, I have strippeckmyself
for the fight, but it remains for me to fight and to
conquer. I have left that which would have hindered
me from following my Master, now I must follow him
even unto death. I have renounced my goods, but it
remains for me to conquer my passions and purify my
heart.1" Upon the whole, it is difficult to find even one de
claration of Jesus where benevolence is presented as
having for its principal end the amelioration of the tem
poral fortune of man. When he praises and prescribes
this virtue, it is now as a pledge of the sentiments of
fraternal charity, whereon he makes salvation to de
pend ; now as the bond of the community of the faithful,
the stay of each one of them against recantation and
apostasy ; and now, finally, as a means of aiding the
rich in the. way of renunciation. But in proposing
this purely spiritual end, Jesus was to attain so much
the more surely the temporal end which is attributed
to him, and, by a contrast paradoxical in appearance,
but which it will be easy for us to explafn hereafter,
the worldly good of individuals and of nations, that
good which those who make it the sole object of their
seeking pursue vainly, was to come out abundantly
from a teaching which had for its first and principal
object the regeneration and salvation of souls.
' Paulin., Ep. 24, ad Sever, c; 7, vit. Paulin., p. 17 ; Ed. Murat,,
1736, fol.

46 -> BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.

CHAPTER II.
CHARITY IN APOSTOLIC DAYS.
The dis'ciples of Jesus showed themselves, after
him, worthy heralds of his charity. Soon it is no
more at Jerusalem alone that they preach it. Dis
persed by persecution in the different cities of Pales
tine, conducted afterwards by their zeal into the most
distant countries — into Syria, Phoenicia, Asia Minor,
Greece, Italy — everywhere, where they carried the
message of Christ, they published at the same time
his law of love. Each apostle, each evangelist, in
establishing new churches, essays to stamp upon them
this divine mark. Each, in accents peculiar to him
self, re-echoes in his preaching and his epistles the
new commandment which Jesus left as a farewell.
In writing to the faithful who were dispersed in
Asia Minor, St. Peter recommends to them to " love
one another with a pure heart fervently;" to "be all
of one mind, having compassion one of another, love
as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous. And above all
things, have charity among yourselves; for charity
shall cover the multitude of sins. Use hospitality one
to another, without grudging. As every man hath
received the gift, even so minister the same one to
another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of
God."1

1 1 Peter i. 22 ; iii. 8, etc. ; iv. 8-10, etc.

CHAP. II. — CHARITY IN APOSTOLIC DAYS. 47
St. James calls charity the royal law. " Pure reli
gion and undefiled before God and the Father is
this," he writes to the faithful of the twelve scattered
tribes, "to visit the fatherless and widows in their
affliction." He reproves those who were content
with having faith and had not works, and who said
to their brothers and sisters in need, " Go in peace,"
without giving them those things of which they had
need. He fears, above all, to see pagan selfishness
stealing over Christian communities ; he thunders in
prophetic style against the rich, who, forgetful of the
poor, only thought that they might sate themselves
as on a day of sacrifice. " Go to, now, ye rich men,
weep and howl. Your riches are corrupted, your
garments are moth-eaten, your gold and silver is
cankered ; and the rust of them shall be a witness
against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire."1
St. John, more pacific, limits himself to a repetition
of the order which he received from the mouth of
Jesus, and which, according to tradition,2 he did not
cease to the last to have upon his lips : " He that
sayeth he is in the light and hateth his brother, is in
darkness even until now. He that loveth, his brother
abideth in the light, and there is nou%..:occasion of
stumbling in him. But he that hatetfPhi's brother is
in darkness ; for how could he love God whom he
does not see, he that hates his brother whom he sees,
and who, possessing the goods of this world and seeing
his brother in want, closes his compassion upon him ?
1 James i. 27 ; ii. 8, etc. ; v. 1, etc.
3 Hieronym, Comment, in Gal., c. 6, opp. fol. Ed. Ben., V. iv.,
part 1, p. 314.

48 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
If we love God and believe in Christ, we ought
to love one another ; we ought to be ready to give
our life for our brothers, as Christ has given his life
for us."1
But it is in the mouth and under the pen of St.
Paul that the preaching of charity acquires all its full
ness and all its force. This great apostle, who, with
out having known Jesus, had so well penetrated the
depths of his thoughts, insisted upon this duty as no
other apostle had done before, and as no one after him
had done. Since he had devoted himself, soul and
body, to him whom he had at first persecuted, since he
had made the entire sacrifice of himself to the cause
of Christ, he knew no more reserve, and, if I may so
say, observed no measure in the accomplishment of
any duty ; he raised himself without effort to the most
sublime precepts of Christian morality, and with gigan
tic step attained its most difficult summits. There are
men to be seen who by the vivacity of their imagina
tion, strongly conceive and eloquently preach virtues
which they are incapable of clothing themselves with ;
there are others, who, by favor of a happy instinct,
practise virtue better than they teach it. With St.
Paul the power of the idea responds to the energy of
the sentiment. As gold in a furnace purifies and
refines itself and throws out a dazzling light, so with
this apostle, from the ardor of the sentiment springs
the vigor of the conception and the plenitude of the
thought. What elevation, what newness of views,
when, in the midst of a society divided by a thousand
1 1 John ii. 9 ; iii. 10, etc. ; 16 etc. 23 ; iv. 7, etc. ; 16, 20 ;
2 John 5.

CHAP. II. — CHARITY IN APOSTOLIC DAYS. 49
distinctions of rank, condition, and nationalities, he
shows all these distinctions to be effaced, and as if
dissipated, before God, who, after having created all
men in nature, has created them all anew in grace,
and has wished to make of the church one body whose
head is Christ, and whose bond is charity.1 With
what superiority he defines this virtue, recalls its prin
ciples, retraces the characters of it, presses the motives
for it, and derives its applications !
Like his master, he makes it, above all, a sentiment,
whose seat is in the heart, and of which no external
work could take the place. "Though I bestow all
my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body
to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me
nothing." There is no charity without the love of
God.2 A sincere faith, a pure heart, a good conscience,
these are the roots from which it comes. As to its
characteristics, "charity suffereth long, and is kind;
charity envieth not ; charity vaunteth not itself, is not
puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeketh
not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil,
rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoieeth in the truth ;
beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all
things, endureth all things, charity never faileth."3
As Its most deadly poison is pride, its most indispen
sable support is humility. It is in the sentiment of
1 Col. iii. 11-15 ; 1 Cor. xii. 12, &c.
3 It was with a view to unite more intimately these two feelings, in
order that the love for our neighbor may be tempered by the love
of God, that Paul ceases not exhorting Christians to pray the one
for the other. 1 Tim. ii. 1, 8.
3 1 Cor. xiii. 3-7.
5

50 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
his feebleness and imperfections that the Christian
finds the force to conquer resentment and hatred. As
much as his heavenly Father has pardoned him, as
much of celestial clemency as each day he stands in
need of, so much he ought himself to pardon and
endure from his brethren, that mercy may be his in
turn. In imitation of Christ, who annihilated himself
in taking the form of a servant, he ought to be always
ready to regard others as above himself, and to subor
dinate himself to them, in the fear of God. Then he
looks "not only on his own things, but also On the
things of others." :
After having thus described charity, and the senti
ments from which it proceeds, with what philosophy
and what eloquence St. Paul shows his appreciation
of it ! " Though I speak with the tongues of men
and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as
sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I
have the gift of prophecy, and understand all myste
ries and all knowledge; and though I have all faith,
so that I could remove mountains, and have not cha
rity, I am nothing." 2 Thus, he places it above all the
gifts which then conferred the most authority in the
church. Charity adds infinitely to the price of all
these gifts, making them serve for the common good
of the faithful, and to the glory of God, rather than to
the particular honor of him who possesses them. It
is equally superior to them by its duration. All the
others must have an end ; the gift of tongues must
cease ; faith itself and hope will pass, since they will

1 Col. iii. 11 ; Phil. ii. 3-7. 3 1 Cor. xiii. 1-2.

CHAP. II.  CHARITY IN APOSTOLIC DAYS. 51
be changed into sight ; charity alone will abide, and,
fortified by the eternal contemplation of Him who is
love, far from passing away or from being transformed,
it will take new life.1
From these general views upon charity, Paul,
descending to practical applications, presses by turns
the numerous duties which it embraces, the mainte
nance of peace, union, mutual support, compassion
for the feeble, kindness to inferiors, humanity to
slaves, reciprocal services between equals, hospitality,
the giving of alms ; finally, benevolence under all its
forms.2 It is the livery which the saints and elect of
God are to put on, here on earth. It is the least equi
vocal proof of the sincerity of their love. It is a sacred
debt to Jesus, who, being rich, made himself poor for
them.3 Should they be withheld by the love of per
ishable goods ? Could they fear, from sharing with
their neighbor, that they would come to need ? How
would they not rather repose their confidence in Him
who has said, "I will never leave thee nor forsake
thee." " They must enrich themselves with good
works." Through the hands of the selfish, riches
pass and flow away like water ; given to the poor, they
form a treasure, safely invested, the benefit of which
is eternal life, a sowing whose harvest shall be gath
ered in heaven. Sure as they are, concludes Paul, to
reap the fruit of their good works in due season, let
them do good unto all men, especially unto them who
1 1 Cor. xiii. 8, 13.
3 Rom. xii. 10-13 ; xv. 5 ; Gal. vi. 9-10 ; Col. i. 10 ; iii. 12, 13 ;
Eph. iv. 28, 31, 32; Heb. xiii. 1-3, 16 ; Philem., 16.
3 Eph. v. 2 ; 2 Cor. viii. 8-9 ; Heb. xiii. 16.

52 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
are of the household of faith. Then unfurling with
enthusiasm the standard of his Master, and raising in
the midst of them the cross, on which he expired :
"Walk in love," he exclaims, "as Christ has loved
us and hath given himself for us." 1
In these lively and fervent exhortations of the apos
tles, does there ever mingle, as in the ancient law, the
appearance of a constraint, the shadow of an obliga
tory precept ? No ; the new law, in enforcing, with
' the old, the sovereign rights of God, to whom all the
earth belongs,2 ever wishes to act only by persuasion.
" I speak not by commandment, and herein I give my
advice: for this is expedient for you, who have begun
before not only to do but also to be forward a year
ago. Now therefore perform the doing of it ; that as
there was a readiness to will so there may be a per
formance also out of that which ye have. For if there
be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that
a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.
Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so
let him give ; not grudgingly, or of necessity : for God
loveth a cheerful giver." And to Philemon, "Where
fore though I might be much bold in Christ to enjoin
thee that which is convenient, yet for love's sake I
rather beseech thee. I would have retained Onesimus
with me, but without thy mind would I do nothing ;
that thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity,
but willingly."'1.
Thus the apostles preached. They left each one
1 1 Tim. vi. 17-19 ; Heb. xiii. 5 ; Gal. vi. 9-10 ; 1 Thess. iii. 12 ;
Eph. v. 2. '* 3 1 Cor. x. 26.
3 2 Cor. viii. 8-12 ; ix. 7 ; Philemon, 8, 9, 13, 14.

CHAP. II. — CHARITY IN APOSTOLIC DAYS. 53
free as to the measure of his gifts, and as to the gifts
themselves. They did not order; they advised, ex
horted, supplicated ; and this preaching of persuasion,
advice, especially of example, was understood by the
Christians of every nation to whom they addressed
themselves. They extolled the favors of a Caius, a
Philemon, a Stephanas, an Epaphroditus, an Onesipho-
rus, and of many others.1 They relate how, at Joppa,
when St. Peter ascended into the chamber of Dorcas,
the widows, weeping, showed to him the coats and gar
ments which they had made for the poor ;2 how Mary
at Rome, Phoebe, a deaconess, at Cenchrese, had
assisted St. Paul and with him several brethren ; and
how Aquila and Priscilla had exposed their own lives
for him.3 It was not individual charity alone which
showed itself thus ingenious and devoted. All the
churches founded by the apostles constituted them
selves, from the beginning, into veritable benevolent
associations, and the most of them were admirable in
the exercise of this virtue.4
Let us judge of this by the portrait which St. Luke
traces for us of the-Church of Jerusalem. " All that
believed were together, and had all things common ;
and sold their possessions and goods,5 and distributed
them to all as every man had need." And elsewhere,
" and the multitude of them that believed were of one
1 3 John, 6 ; Philem. 5 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 17 ; Philip, ii. 25, 30 ; 2 Tim.
i. 16. " Acts ix. 39. 3 Rom. xvi. 1-4.
4 See the praises given by the apostles to the churches of Corinth,
Philippi, Thyatira. &c, Rom. xv. 26 ; Philip, iv. 10-18 ; Rev. ii.
19 ; Heb. vi. 10-11.
6 Kiintwta xcu, irtaplEtj
5*

54 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
heart, and of one soul ; neither said any of them that
aught of the things which he possessed were his own ;
but they had all things common.1 Neither was there
any among them that lacked ; for as many as were
possessors of lands or houses sold them and brought
the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them
down at the apostles' feet, and distribution was made
unto every man according as he had need." 2
These words, taken literally, have made many
believe that the Church of Jerusalem formed, at its
origin, a community like that of the Essenians or of
the Therapeutics, in which all individual property
was abolished, and, into which, according to Josephus
and Philo, no one was admitted if he did not, on enter
ing, give all his goods to the association and put into
the common fund the daily product of his labor.3
But the continuation of the recital of St. Luke shows
formally that this supposition is false.
In effect, when Ananias and Saphira pretended that
they laid down, at the apostles' feet, the whole price
of their possession which they had sold, of which they
really brought only a part, St. Peter did not reproach
them with having broken the rules of the community ;
so far from it that he declares that whiles it remained
it was their own, and after it was sold it was in their
power ; he reproached them only with their lie and
1 II v avtfots artavta. xowa,
3 Acts ii. 44-45 ; iv. 32-34, 35.
3 Joseph. De'bell. jud., II. 8 ; Ant. jud., XVIII. 1 (Opp. Oxon.,
1720) ; Euseb., Prcepar. evang., VIII. 11-12 (Par. 1728) ; Hist, eccles.,
II. 16.

CHAP. II. — CHARITY IN APOSTOLIC DAYS. 55
their hypocrisy.1 The Church of Jerusalem was not,
then, constituted into a strict community ; it had not
substituted property in common for private property ;
each one, on entering it, was free to keep what be
longed to him. We have even reason to believe that
many took this liberty; for if, among the seven or
eight thousand persons who already composed the
Church of Jerusalem, all those who possessed property
had sold it, would the sacred author have taken the
pains to cite one sole example, in the midst of so
many ? much more, would he have chosen for that ex
ample a Levite, who, being called to him at the altar
in this quality even, could, without grave prejudice to
his interests, sell land, which he had in the Isle of
Cyprus ?2 We see, besides, in the 12th chapter of Acts,
that Mary possessed a house, in full property, at Jeru
salem.3 It may be observed still, that, on the suppo
sition of an absolute community of goods, the com
plaints of the hellenised Jews about the inequality of
the daily distributions would not have concerned their
widows alone, but their entire families, and that St.
James would not have reproached the Church of Jeru
salem with despising or neglecting the poor.4 As for
these words, "all was in common among them," it
has long since been shown that, in a crowd of authors,
whether sacred or profane, there are analogous expres
sions, which can only be understood in the sense of a
moral or figurative community. Such, among others,-
1 Acts v. 4, 9. See on this matter the observation of Jerom.
Epist. ad Hed. 6, opp. Ed. Ben., V. IV. part 1, p. 171.
3 Acts iv. 36. 3 Acts xii. 12. 4 Acts vi. 1 ; James ii.

56 BOOK I. — FROM' JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
is this maxim of Socrates : " Among friends all is com
mon ;" 1 a maxim repeated, in nearly the same terms,
by Aristotle, who energetically rejected, as all know,
the community of goods advocated by Pythagoras and
Plato.2 In the same sense the words of St. Luke are
understood by the best commentators.3 They only see
a figurative expression of that spirit of union, that per
fect fraternity which prevailed among the Christians
of Jerusalem, and which made each one of them, in
place of enjoying his property as a personal and exclu
sive advantage, to be always ready to share it with his
brethren, and even to sell it, if necessary, for the good
of the poor. The expectation of the great events which
the Christians then considered as near at hand, made
this sacrifice more easy to them. Persuaded that not
only Jerusalem but the whole world was about to
perish, and that Jesus was about to come to judge
mankind, they thought only of securing for them
selves, by a liberal distribution of their goods, the
recompenses which he had appointed for his disciples.4
Besides, even the authors who admit a real com
munity of goods among the first Christians, acknow
ledge that it soon ceased, and that no other trace of it
¦ — .  1
' Mosheim. De vera nat. commun. bon. in eccl. hieros (Dissert.
ad hist. eccl. pertin., % V. II. p. 22, &c.) ,
3 Hdvta ta tuv fy'cKuv xowa. s Aristot., Polit., II. 2.
4 Mosheim (ubi supra, p. 43-51) shows that Luke's words have
commenced being otherwise interpreted but from the fourth cen
tury, when the propagators of monastic life, to bring into honor
that mode of living, pretended to have found this type among the
first Christians.
6 Psetz, Comment, de vi rel. chr. per 3, pr. sEecuIa, Gottingen,
1799, 4to. p. 27, 28. Stickel and Bogenhard, De moral, prim. chr.
conditione. Neust. 1826, p. 76, not., 136.

CHAP. II. — CHARITY IN APOSTOLIC DAYS. 57
was left but the repasts in common ] of which Luke
makes mention, and the origin of which we will pro
ceed to recall.
It was a custom among the Jews, on their festival
days, sometimes even on their ordinary Sabbath days,
to invite to their family repasts ten or twenty of their
relatives, neighbors, or friends. Towards the end of
the repast, there was served a bread prepared more
carefully than usual. The head of the family dis
tributed pieces of it to each of the guests; then,
touching a cup of wine to his lips, he passed it
around, pronouncing words of edification and of
thanksgiving.2 Jesus, on the eve of his death, with
unwonted solemnity celebrating a repast of this kind,
wished that thereafter his disciples should celebrate
it constantly in memory of him. In effect, they did
so, from their first meeting at Jerusalem, and every
time they assembled for worship.3 For then it was a
commemoration of the death and last farewell of their
Master ; but it was also an emblem of their senti
ments of mutual fraternity, and a means of providing
1 The assertion of Chrysostom is very express on this point.
"When Paul," says he, "addressed the Corinthians with those
words of blame (1 Cor. xi.), the primitive community had already
decayed, but there were still some traces of it. As rich and poor
began to be among them, they did not bring all their goods toge
ther (ta jitEv iavtZiv oi xatctiSeveo Ttavta It; fiisov), but they prepared,
on certain fixed days, common repasts, to which the rich invited
the poor ; then this very custom degenerated." (Chrys. horn. 27,
in 1 Cor., c. i., Opp., Vol. X. p. 240, Ed. Ben.)
3 Moerlin, De orig. agap. (Volbeding Thesaur. comm., Vol. II. p.
184. 8 " Breaking bread from house to house, and eating their meat
with gladness and singleness of heart." Acts ii. 46.

58 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
for the subsistence of their poor. From this comes
the name of agapse, by which these repasts were soon
designated. Whilst in Lacedemonia, according to
Aristotle,1 the poorest citizens, unable to pay their
monthly portion, were on that account excluded from
the common repasts, in the Christian agapae the poor
were entertained at the expense of the rich ; almoners
attended at the tables and distributed what was left,
either to the poor guests themselves, or to those whose
age or infirmities had kept them from the repast.2
The importance of these distributions may be judged
of from the complaints which the Hellenized Jews
made when they believed that their widows " were
neglected in the daily ministrations ; " complaints
which gave occasion to the election of seven new
almoners, under the name of deacons.3
From the church of Jerusalem, the institution of
the agapse easily passed into the other churches.
If it recalled the family repasts of use among the
Jews, it also recalled the repast of the tribe of
the ancient Greeks.4 So that it was admitted by
the converted Greeks and Jews with equal readiness,
but everywhere it had the same destination. Saint
1 Aristot., de Rep. II., 7, 4. In Athens, however, if we believe
the Scholiast of Aristophanes, there was always at the sacrifices
of Hecate a distribution of bread and other provisions to the poor
by the sacrificers.
3 Boehmer, De coitionib. Christ, ad eapiend. cibum (in dissert.
juris eccles. Lips., 1711, p. 237). Drescher, De agap. vett.
Christ, Giessen, 1824, p. 6, 8, 10-12, 25.
8 Acts vi. 1-6.
4 *porpia, ^»i!*ixi. Moerlin. De orig. agap. (ub. sup., Vol. II.
Part I., p. 185, etc.)

CHAP. II. — CHARITY IN APOSTOLIC DAYS. 59
Chrysostom refers to this charitable end the origin
of the agapse, or love-feasts. "The faithful," he
says, "after the holy teachings, the prayers, and the
partaking of the sacred mysteries, did not. separate
immediately; but the richest and they who were
most at their ease had provisions brought from their
homes, and invited the poor to a repast prepared in
the place of the assembly itself. This common
repast, and the holiness of the place where it was
celebrated, drew closer together their mutual union,
and from it resulted for alia great joy and an advan
tage not less great ; the poor were relieved, and the
rich, objects of the gratitude of those whom they
nourished, and of the favor of God for whom they
did it, returned to their homes charged with an abun
dant measure of blessings."1
The first epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians
informs us, it is true, that abuses contrary to the spirit
of those meetings began to creep into them. In imi
tation of what passed in certain repasts of the Greeks,2
where each one consumed alone the meats he had
brought, the rich at whose expense the agapse were
given did not always await those of their brethren
who were retained rather late by their work; they
hastened to take their repasts by themselves; the
poor, on arriving, did not always find wherewith to
satisfy their hunger, and the disciples of Christ were
no longer there to break bread in his name.3 Yet it
is probable that this abuse, and those to which Peter
1 Chrys., Horn, in 1 Cor., xi. 3 'Zvpit&aw, jutei.
• -1 Cor., xi., 20-22, 33, 34 ; Schlegel, De agap. cetat. apost. (Vol-
beding, 1., c, p. 170.)

()0 BOOK I.  FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
and Jude allude in their epistles,1 were but rare ex
ceptions, which did not hinder this institution from
bearing good fruit during the first three centuries.
That of deacons, to which it had primitively given
occasion, took further extension and stability. Doubt
less, the charity of Jesus Christ was to be manifest in
all his ministers ; and St. Paul wishes the bishop to
be "a lover of hospitality," and "a lover of good
men."2 But it was the deacons who, in each church,
were specially charged with the cares of benevolence;
and the same apostle shows the importance which he
attaches to the deaconship by the urgency with which
he traces its duties.3
In conformity to the exigencies of oriental man
ners, and in order to avoid all that could occasion
evil suspicions to the deacons, very soon were attached
deaconesses, who were charged with the same cares to
the poor and sick women which the deacons offered to
the other sex.4
Among the indigent whom the church cared for,
the most worthy of compassion, without doubt, were
those whom death had deprived of their natural pro-
1 2 Peter ii. 13 ; Jude 12. 3 Tit. i. 8.
8 Rom. xii. 7-8 ; 1 Tim. iii. 8-13.
4 Rom. xvi. i. Neander's Hist, ae VEgl. apost., French transl.,
v. I., p. 128. Lucke, Comment, de eccles. apost, p. 100. The dea
conesses were more or less confounded at that time with the
assisted widows (2>jpcu) and with the itpiepirttpas, of whom Paul
often speaks ; 1 Tim. v., 2, 3, etc. ; Tit. ii. 3. It is likely, in the
churches composed of heathens converted, that the ofiice of dea
coness was first instituted. The Jewish almoners had to the
women of their nation a freer access than Grecian habits allowed.
(Augusti, Lehrbuch der Christlichen Archasologie, Vol. I. p. 251.)

CHAP. II. — CHARITY IN APOSTOLIC DAYS. 61
tectors ; and it was they whom the apostles, in imita
tion of the old law, recommended most warmly to
Christian charity. Every widow over sixty years
of age, and who did not find sufficient resources in
her own family, was, according to the order of St.
Paul, inscribed, upon the book of the poor who were
assisted by each church,1 a list in which were also
inscribed the orphans, the destitute old men, the
infirm, and those who could not subsist on the pro
duct of their labor.
Already the bonds of charity began to unite together
churches most distant from each other.
In the forty-fourth year of our Lord, when that
famine raged in Palestine of which so many persons
perished,2 the Christians of Antioch made an abun
dant collection in favor of those of Judea, which they
sent by Paul and Barnabas.3 They were not alone,
indeed, in giving this example ; Helena, a proselyte
of the Jews, and Queen of Adiabene, in Syria, sent at
the same time, to those of her religion, wheat from
Alexandria, and figs from Cyprus, and caused these
provisions to be distributed to the poor in Jerusalem.4
But Jewish benevolence wearied before the Christians'
did. About fifteen years after, when a new famine
afflicted Judea, St. Paul, who was then founding the
churches in Asia Minor, in Macedonia, and in. Greece,
resolved to try the charity of the new followers of the
faith, and to turn it to the profit of the cause which
he preached. If his plan succeeded, not only the
'Acts vi. 1; 1 Tim. v. 1-9. 3 Sueton. Claud., c. 28.
8 Acts xi. 27, 30. 4 Joseph. Antiq. Jud. xx. 2.
6

62 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
Christians of Jerusalem would be delivered from a
cruel trial, but also, succored by converted heathens,
they would be reconciled to that principle of the
vocation of the Gentiles, which, till then, had remained
a mystery and almost a scandal. By the generous
sympathy of which they would themselves see the
object, they would recognise among their new breth
ren the fruits of a living faith, worthy of salvation.1
Paul commences, then. He solicits the Christians of
Galatia, of Macedonia, of Achaia, to give a share of
their temporal goods to those from whom they had
received spiritual advantages of a much greater price ;
to assist them this time in their famine, that they
might afterwards be assisted in turn, so that there
should be some equality.2 St. Paul knows all
that can be done by an accumulation of small
offerings; he knows that a sacrifice, which, demanded
all at once, would appear costly, even to the rich,
but if made successively, and in an imperceptible
manner, is easy to those in moderate circumstances.
He invites the faithful, then, not to await his
coming, or that of his delegates, in order to collect
their alms, but that each one should put aside, on
Sunday, the fruit of his saving, and each week to
increase this little treasure, till the moment was come
to deliver it.3
Finally, in order to leave them entire liberty, and,
at the same time, to put his ministry beyond all sus
picion, he invites them to name of themselves the per-

' Gal. ii. 10 ; 2 Cor. ix. 12-14. » Rom. xv. 26 ; 2 Cor. viii
3 1 Cor. xvi. 1-2.

CHAP. II. — CHARITY IN APOSTOLIC DAYS. 63
son who would carry their alms to Jerusalem.1 Thus
all that could make their liberality active and profit
able, all that could gain their confidence, Be exerts on
this occasion, and gives an example of zeal and pru
dence, which the apostles of charity cannot too closely
imitate at all times.
The success much surpassed his expectations. He
gives this testimony to the faithful of Macedonia, that
notwithstanding their great trials, they had given of
good heart, according to their ability, and even
beyond, and had appeared rich by their generosity.
He gives the same evidence in favor of the faithful of
Achaia and of Galatia, and the praises, which he gives
to all, do not admit a doubt that his end was fully
attained.2 Who would not admire these first prodigies of
Christian charity, which, notwithstanding the distance
of the places and the difficulties of the route, already
averted the most frightful of scourges. During one of
the three famines which had desolated Rome under
Augustus, that prince, seeing provisions in his capital
for only three days, had resolved to poison himself
rather than to fall a victim of the anger of the people.3
Later, under Tiberius, the delay of the fleet which
brought the grain from Alexandria, had almost occa
sioned a sedition. From the height of his rock, at
Caprea, the tyrant watched with anxiety the arrival of
the convoy, on which depended his life or his crown.4
Claudius had just escaped a still graver danger; in
1 1 Cor. xvi. 3-4. 3 2 Cor. viii. 1-5 ; ix. 2 ; Rom. xv. 26.
3 Dezobry, Rome sous Auguste, Vol. III., p. 93.
4 Dureau de la Malle, Econ. pol. des Romains, Vol. II., p. 248.

64 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
short, in the most prosperous times, even, the fortune
of the large cities was ever, says Tacitus, at the mercy
of the winds and the waves.1 Charity already pos
sessed more certain resources. To nourish a famished
population, it depended neither on the seasons nor on
the crops ; its granaries, its treasures, were everywhere,
wherever Christians were found ; a prayer, a word,
addressed in the name of Jesus, brought abundance to
the scene of distress.
But it was little, even in the interest of the poor, to
cause the rich to fulfil the duty of benevolence, if the
sentiment of his own obligations were not awakened
in the poor also.
A disposition of inertness, which a deplorable pre
judice kept up among so many of the pagan nations,
by other causes had been also introduced among the
Christians. The expectation of the speedy return of
Jesus on earth kept up, among many of them, an agita
tion of mind but little favorable to regular and peace
ful labor. Constantly believing that they saw the end
of time, that they heard the sound of the last trumpet,
and only inquiring after the signs that were to announce
that great day, they abandoned their ordinary occupa
tions, superfluous, they thought, for those who, from
one moment to another, might be called before their
Redeemer ; their days were passed in inaction, some
times in culpable idleness, and, when their resources
were exhausted, they counted upon the charity of their
brethren. "For we hear," St. Paul writes to the
Christians of Thessalonica, " that there are some which
walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but
1 Tacit., Annal., III., 54.

CHAP. H. — CHARITY IN APOSTOLIC DAYS. 65
are busy bodies." 1 Thus, whatever may be done, an
error the most innocent in appearance may have dis
astrous consequences. This belief that the end of the
world was near at hand, which, among some, tended
to detach them from it, if it multiplied the alms of the
rich, increased the number of the poor ; if it filled the
treasury of the church, emptied it still more promptly,
and, little by little, charity would have been weary of
having to nourish so many pious sluggards. This is
what St. Paul studied to prevent. While calming the
too ardent expectations of the faithful,2 he reminds
them of that strict obligation to labor perseveringly,
which he had not ceased to preach to them, both by
his word and by his example. " Neither did we eat
any man's bread for nought; but wrought with labor
and travail night and day, that we might not be
chargeable to any of you. Not because we have not
power, but to make ourselves an ensample unto you
to follow us. For when we were with you, this we
commanded you, that if any would not work, neither
should he eat."3 He exhorts them then to work
peaceably, not only that they might have wherewith
to live upon, but above all from a sense of duty, " for
the sake of their Lord Jesus Christ," in consideration
of their dignity as Christians, to the end that they
might have need of no one ; finally from charity for
their brethren, in order that they might have some
thing to give.4 He goes still farther. He wishes to
have cut off from the communion of the church all
1 2 Thess. ii. 1-2 ; iii. 11.
2 2 Thess. ii. 1-3. 3 Ibid. v-. ?-10 ; Conf., Act., xx. 34-35.
4 2 Thess. iii. 12; 1 Thess. iv. 9-U : Acts xx. 35.
6*

66 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
those whose conduct in this respect should not be in
harmony with these precepts. " If any man obey not
our word by this epistle, note that man and have no
company with him, that he may be ashamed. -We
command you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that
walketh disorderly and not after the tradition which
he received of us." 1 Now, exclusion from the church
brought with it, above all, exclusion from the Lord's
Supper, and, consequently, from the repast of charity,
which preceded it.2 It equally brought with it an
exclusion from all regular participation in the offer
ings of the faithful. All the benefits of the Christian
communion ceased for him who had banished himself
from it by his disorderly conduct. It was permitted
to assist him in pressing need, as one would have aided
a heathen ; but he lost all his rights to the regular
charities. The widows, whom the church assisted,
were also held to benevolent labors for the commu
nity. It was exacted that they should have done good
works, practised charity, succored the afflicted, and
sought, in a word, every occasion of doing good.3
The poor man was, in a still more solemn manner,
summoned to respect the rights of his neighbor, and
guarded against all the inclinations which might have
led him to infringe them. The duty of charity, which,
according to St. Paul, is the fulfilling of the law,4 the
1 2 Thess. iii. 6, 14.
3 1 Cor. v. 9-11. Among the Jews, he who was excluded from
the synagogue, was also excluded from the sacred repasts used on
festivals and Sabbath days, (Drescher, De agap., p. 30, &c.)
3 1 Tim. v. 10. 4 Rom. xiii. 10.

CHAP. II.  CHARITY IN APOSTOLIC DAYS. 67
duty of renunciation, of contempt for the world, was
prescribed to the poor as well as to the rich. Far
from stimulating his desires, from intensifying his
wants, from, breaking, or exasperating his spirit by a
sad portraiture of his position, far from rendering him
morose, or from making him poorer through envy, the
apostles preached to him that contentment of mind,
which, added to piety, is the greatest gain; they
painted to him the love of riches as a source of a crowd
of insensate desires, which urged the man to his ruin ;
they exhorted him to show himself as they did, con
tent in poverty, as in abundance, happy, provided he
had wherewith to nourish and clothe himself, and
eager, above all things, to secure eternal life.1 St.
James, himself, after those strong reproaches which
he addressed to the rich of his day, did not address to
the poor other lessons than those of resignation in
their sufferings. "Be patient therefore, brethren,
unto the coming of the Lord. Grudge not one against
another, lest ye be condemned. Take the prophets
who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an
example of suffering, affliction, and of patience."2
Every time that a new religious doctrine appears in
the world, provided that it seems favorable to the ill-
favored classes, it inspires them with hopes which too
often result in seditious efforts. We have only to
recall the revolts of the Peasants, and the excesses of
the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century. No doubt,
too, that, at the dawn of Christianity, on hearing the
liberty and equality of the children of God proclaimed,

1 1 Tim. vi. €-12 ; Phil. iv. 12. * James v. 7-11.

68 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
more than one slave, more than one of the oppressed,
hoped to break his chains, more than one poor man
dreamed of a better division of property here below.
The apostles hastened to dissipate these dangerous
hopes. It was not equality, it was charity which they
brought into the world. They came to abolish no
right, but to teach every one to use his own well.
They declared, no less expressly than their Master,
that they changed nothing in the organization of
society, nor in the exterior condition of persons.1 St.
Paul said to the Christians who were bent down under
the yoke of Nero, " Let every soul be subject unto the
higher powers, let as many servants as are under the
yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, and
they that have believing masters, let them not despise
them, but rather do them service because they are
faithful and beloved." 2 They did not rivet forever the
chains of the slave ; they exhorted him, on the con
trary, to recover his liberty, if he could do so accord
ing to law ; but, as long as he was not legally enfran
chised, they bound him to his duties by a new law,
that of affection, of conscience. Let every one remain,
before God, in the state in which he was when he was
called.3 Could one disavow more strongly all subver
sive tendency ? could one consecrate more formally the
' 1 Cor. vii. 24.
3 Rom. xiii. 1-7 ; 1 Tim. vi. 1-5. " Christ," says Augustine, on
this occasion, " has not made of a slave a freeman; he has made
of a bad slave a good slave; he has not said: 'Leave thy master,
who is perhaps unjust and impious, whilst thou art just and faith
ful ;' but : ' serve thy master better than ever.' "
3 Eph. vi. 5-8 ; 1 Cor. vii. 20-24.

CHAP. II.  CHARITY IN APOSTOLIC DAYS. 69
rights of each ? Seeing the apostles recognize, sanc
tion, in the name of God, a right so revolting in our
eyes, which one man exercised over other men, who
would believe that they thought of contesting that
which they exercised over things, over inanimate
objects ?
Let us pause a moment here, and, seizing, in this
relation, the spirit of the evangelical preaching, let us
see how it conciliated the mutual obligations which
spring from property ; how, over all established rights,
it spread a religious idea, which at the same time con
secrated its inviolability and regulated its use.
The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof.1
Such is, upon this subject, the starting point of the
"gospel. God is the author, consequently the Master
of all good things; and, as such, He is the warranter
to those to whom He dispenses them, but, in return,
He prescribes certain conditions to them. He says to
the rich, These goods, which thy ancestors have left to
thee, or which thou hast acquired by thy labor, are
inviolable ; no one of thy fellows has a right to claim
them from thee. But from whom do these goods
come to thee ? Who has directed events so as to
make thee possessor ? Who has caused thy ancestors
and thyself to prosper ? To whom art thou indebted
for the faculties thou dost enjoy ? Who has preserved
thy forces, thy health, and kept thee from a thousand
accidents that mar the prosperity of so many others ?
Apolloshad planted, thou hast watered ; but who hath
given thee increase ? It is I, saith the Eternal, and if
' 1 Cor. x. 26 ; Cfr. Levit. xxv. 23; Psalm xxiv. 1.

70 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
I have done it, to what end and for whom have I done
it ? In granting thee much beyond what is necessary
for thy wants, have I wished only to furnish an ali
ment to thy sensuality and thy caprices ? Have I, in
giving thee privileges, lost all remembrance of thy
brothers ? Hast thou by thyself any title to my pre
ference ? Have I renounced that universal providence
which extends even to the birds of the air and to the
lilies of the field ? In manifesting myself as thy bene
factor, have I ceased to be the common father of all
men ? No ; thy conscience and thy heart tell it thee ;
above all, that heart, in which I have made to shine a
ray of my goodness, that heart, which,, in spite of thee,
is softened by the sufferings of thy brothers. That
which I have given to thee, I have given also to thee
for the love of them ; that which I might have accorded
to them directly, I have preferred to have pass by thy
hands, I have chosen thee to be the steward unto
them, the dispensator of my favors. The less thou art
responsible to them for the use of the property which
thou hast received, the more thou art responsible to
me.1 Thou art free, without doubt, to employ it for
1 This distinction between the civil and religious law corresponds
to that which lawyers establish between the perfect or positive law
which is the province of law proper, and to which legal actions in
court, or legal sanctions or enforcements are attached, and the
imperfect law, which is exclusively of the domain of the conscience.
The latter is the only one which Troplong admits for the poor in
regard to the rich, (Esprit democr., du Code civil ; Stances de
Pacademie des sciences morales, 1850, Vol. VII., p. 312-318 ; Vol.
VIII., p. 51-62, Cousin, Justice et charite, p. 49.) De GSrando
has established the same distinction, but in a less precise manner,

CHAP. II. — CHARITY IN APOSTOLIC DAYS. 71
thyself alone, but I am free, also, to withhold the inhe
ritance a thousand times more precious, which I have
reserved for thee, and, if thou hast frustrated thy
brothers in this life, to frustrate thee, likewise, in the
life to come.
It is thus that the gospel consecrates, at the same
time, the rights and the conditions of property, in
deriving them from the same principle. God gave it ;
this is at the same time the foundation of the rights
of the rich and of their obligations; or, rather, before
this great fact disappears all other right but that of
God, and duties alone remain for men, the duty of
each one to respect the advantages which God has
given to his brothers, the duty of sharing with them
what he himself has received.1
and which might easily give place to error. (De la bienf. pu-
blique, Vol. I., p. 463^72.)
One may compare, in this respect, the duty of benevolence to
that of forgiveness, and generally to all those of which love is the
principle. Neither law nor men can require any thing from me
towards him who offends me ; but God makes Himself his lawyer
in my heart; He reminds me of my own offences, His own for
giveness, the brotherly bonds which unite me to the offender, His
paternal views towards me by suffering the injury to be done, and,
in the name of a superior law, of which He is the only arbiter and
the only guarantee, He says to me : " If ye do not forgive, neither
will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses." In
the same manner the rich owes nothing to the poor, from whom
he has received nothing ; but he owes all to God, from whom he
has received every thing, and who, in compensation of so many
graces, asks him for a little of his superfluities for his disinherited
brethren. 1 1 Peter iv. 10.

72 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
CHAPTER III.
CHARITY IN THE SECOND AND THIRD CENTURIES.
The principles which we have just seen established
in the time of the apostles, were constantly those of
the church in the two centuries which follow.
There was, doubtless, more than one attempt to
introduce different maxims into it. The same theo-
sophic schools which sought, at this epoch, to intro
duce into Christianity dogmatic elements the most
foreign to its essence — some the dualism, others the
pantheism of the East — attempted to introduce, also,
the moral principles corresponding to these two ten
dencies, and which Clement of Alexandria has cha
racterized with as much justice as precision. "The
Gnostic sects," says he,1' "are all exposed to these two
dangers ; either a culpable indifference as to morals,
or an extravagant abstinence, founded upon the im
pious hatred of the creation." These, opposing to
the Principle of Good, the Creator of the invisible
world, a Principle of Evil, to which they attributed
the creation of the material world, considered all
enjoyment of terrestrial blessings as a concession to
this evil principle. Those, identifying God and the
universe, and making consequently everything pro
ceed from God — evil as well as good — saw in a
licentious and disordered promiscuousness the sub-
1 Clem. Alex., Strom., lib. III. c. v. ; Vol. I. p. 529. (Oxon. 1715.)

CHAP. III. — CHARITY IN II3 AND IIId CENTURIES. 73
limity of wisdom. To deny one's self everything; or
to indulge in everything — such were the two ex
cesses between which the Gnostic sects were divided ;
and these two excesses resulted equally in the negation
of property. In effect, we see individual property
combated, under these two heads, on the one hand
by the dualist sects, the Marcionites and the Mani-
cheans,1 and on the other by the pantheistic sects of
the Carpocratians2, the Prodicians, the false Basili-
dians — so many branches of the Egyptian gnosticism.
But the church always repelled' such maxims. Lac-
tantius puts among the number of capital errors which
the ignorance of the true God caused Plato to commit,
the absolute community recommended by this philo
sopher. " An odious system," he says, " in whatever
concerns women ; more tolerable, but stiff unjust, in
whatever concerns property, since it favors the idle
and extravagant at the expense of the industrious and
1 " Marcio," says Clement of Alexandria, " in hatred to the work
of the- demiurge (Creator), would not allow anybody to possess
anything as his own." (Strom. III. 4; Vol. 1. p. 522.)
3 Clem. Alex-, ibid., c. 1, 2, p. 510, etc. ; Matter, Hist, du gnost,
Vol. II. p. 274, 289, 293. Epiphanes, son and successor of Car-
pocrates, published, about the year 125 of our era, a book with
this title, " Ore Justice," in which he defined that virtue as a com
munity with equality, and he consistently supported the com
munity of goods and women. In the Cyrenaic Libya, two inscrip
tions have been found — one Grecian, the other Phoenician — ori
ginating in the same sect. " The source of justice," says the one,
is to live happily in common." And the other, "A community
of goods and of women, such is the source of the divine justice
and perfect peace of those whom Zoroaster and Pythagoras, those
illustrious hierophantes, elected from the midst of the blind multi-
tude to live in common." See those inscriptions in Matter's work
7

74 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
sober man." T Clement of Alexandria, after having, in
his Stromatas, opposed to the false gnostic, imbued
with the reveries of the East, the true gnostic, an
imitator of Jesus and instructed in the holy doctrine
of the apostles, attempts, in another treatise, to prove
the legitimacy of the possession, and of the use of the
goods of this world, and to reject the exaggerations
which, in this respect, they pretended to support from
the authority of Jesus Christ. " The words of Jesus
to the rich young man should not be understood
materially, but in their profound and intimate sense ;
' Sell that which thou hast,' the Saviour said. This
is to say — what ? To cast away his wealth ? No ;
but to renounce the false ideas which he formed of it,
his excessive love for it, his avarice, and his disquiet.
The Son of God here gives a new precept. He does
not demand, then, what others had asked before, but
something greater and more divine ; that is, to purify
our heart from its vices and to extirpate radically from
it all that is estranged from Him. Already some phi
losophers have been seen to renounce their wealth, but
at the same time to increase the vices and troubles of
their souls — to become proud and contemptuous of
the esteem of other men. How could the Saviour
advise that which is fitted to ruin us still more than
to save us? Is it not better to preserve an honest
on Gnosticism (Vol. II. p. 290 ; Vol. III., plates), and in the
" Theolog. Studien and Kritiken," von 1833, where they are ac
companied with the observations of Kopp and Raoul Rochette,
(pp. 334, 335.)
1 Lactant., Epit. inst. div., c. 38, Opp. Goetting., 1736, 12mo.,
p. 864.

CHAP. III. — CHARITY IN IId AND IIId CENTURIES. 75
mediocrity and to share it with those who are indi
gent ? How share our goods with others, if we have
none ? Is it not to be inconsistent with the order of
Jesus, 'Make to yourselves friends of your riches?'
It is not well, then, to reject goods which can be
useful to a neighbor ; they are instruments of which
it is necessary to make good use. They are destined
to serve and not to command. They have not in
themselves anything good or bad. When, then, it is
ordered to sell them, that only means that it is neces
sary to renounce the passions and the troubles which
they engender."1 Certainly, we do not think that
this sense was exactly that of the words of Jesus. We
have seen that, knowing the empire of wealth over the
heart of the young man who questioned him, the Sa
viour had really advised him to make the sacrifice of
it. But if the interpretation of Clement was inexact
in this particular case, it was right in general ; and
the at least tacit approbation which it received from
the contemporaneous church proves how far it was
from condemning or denying individual property.
Cyprian and Origen, nourished in more ascetic
sentiments than Clement, adhere more to the letter
of the exhortation of Jesus. "Let those," says Ori
gen, " who, to elude the rigor of it, under the pretext
of human feebleness, have had recourse to allegory,
recall the example of the Theban Crates, who sold all
his goods and gave them to the people, saying,
' Crates, this day gives liberty to Crates.' If he did
1 Clem. Alex., quis dives salvus, c. 3, 11-14 ; Opp., Vol. II.,
pp. 337, 241, etc.

76 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
that for pagan philosophy, of how much more is he
capable who looks to evangelical perfection ! " And,
to show the possibility of this relinquishment, he
recalls the history in the first chapters of St. Luke.
So Cyprian, in his sermon upon alms.1 But both of
them soon show, by the considerations in which they
proceed to indulge, that they regard this sacrifice as a
virtue — as not of precept, but of advice — as a work
not obligatory, but only the more meritorious inas
much as it supposes a higher degree of renunciation
and of love. They praise Zaccheus, who, however,
had preserved a part of his wealth — Abraham, who,
while practising hospitality, was rich in lands and in
slaves.2 Origen himself explains to Celsus "that
Jesus, when declaring that it is difficult for the rich
to enter into the kingdom of God, does not mean to
praise all the poor, nor to condemn all the rich ; but
only those who allow themselves to be corrupted by
their riches, and cannot support their burden. Riches
are good, says he, as often as they are used for doing
good." 3
The church of that time, then, recognised unani
mously the legitimacy of wealth, not only in a civil
1 Orig., Comment in Matth., XV. 15. (Qrig. Opp., Ed. Delarue.
Paris, 1740 ; Vol. III., p. 672) ; Cyprian, De oper. et eleem. Opp.,
Paris, 1842, 8 ; p. 478.
3 Cyprian., ibid., p. 478.
3 Orig., ibid., c. 16, etc., p. 674; Cont dels., VI. 16, Vol. I.
p. 642. Hermas seems to represent riches as an obstacle to salva
tion, but only as far as they divert the rich from God's worship,
and prevent him from setting persecutions at defiance for Him.
(Herman., Past, lib. I. vis. 3, c. 6.)

CHAP. III. — CHARITY IN IIa AND IIId CENTURIES. 77
but also in a Christian point of view. It considered
wealth as the inviolable property of those to whom
God had dispensed it; and alms, consequently, as a
sacrifice entirely free and voluntary, which no one
save the Author of all good things had the right to
exact. Though charged to recall to all their religious
obligations, it did not feel permitted, in this respect,
to exercise the least constraint or to intimate any com
mandment. Justin Martyr says, " our rich give when
they wish, and what they wish." "Each one of us,"
says Tertullian, "presents his modest offering once a
month, or when he wishes, if he wishes, and if he can ;
for no one is constrained. Every one does it volun
tarily."1 Irenseus expresses with force this character
> Just. Mart., Apol, II. p. 98, 99 (Opp., Paris, 1615, fol.) ; Ter-
tull., (Apol, c. 39, Opp., Paris, 1842, 8vo., pp. 73, 74); Const.
Apost., II. 36 (Ap. Coteler, Vol. I. p. 249). These remarkable
declarations suffice to refute the consequences which some have
drawn from other passages of Justin and Tertullian. When the
latter says soon after, " Itaque animo animaque miscemur, nihil
de rei communicatione dubitamus ; omnia indiscreta sunt apud nos
prseter uxores" (ub. sup., p. 74), and when Justin Martyr says
(ub. sup., p. 61), "We, who loved before all the goods of the
earth, now we put in common (u.; xowhv tyspo/isv), and give apart
of it to all the poor (xowavwpiv)," it is evident that they do not
mean to speak of an absolute community, which would exclude
any property, consequently any gift — with much more reason any
voluntary gift — but only of a Community of interest and affection,
that lead them to contribute with all their power to the relief of
their brethren, "Animo animaque miscemur." (Stickel and Bogen-
hard, ub. sup., p. 104 ; Poetz, Comment, etc., p. 113, not.) It is
in the same sense that we must understand those words of Barna
bas' epistles, evidently borrowed from the first chapters of the Acts :
Kotyunjosis fa nam t§ rfkrjtsiov eov, oix ip«« I6ta. ("Thou shalt put
7*

78 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
of spontaneity which distinguishes Christian from
Jewish alms, and which, according to him, consti
tutes its high superiority. "There were," says he,
"sacrifices and offerings among the Jewish people;
so there are in the church, but with this difference,
that there it was slaves who offered them, here it is
free men. The Jews were bound to the regular pay
ment of tithes ; the Christians, enfranchised by Jesus,
consecrate all their property to the use of the Lord,
giving freely and heartily still more than the Jews,
because they have greater hopes." : It belonged, then,
to no one among the Christians to claim alms as a
debt;2 the poor were to wait with patience and sub
mission for the generosity of their brethren, and
testify their gratitude, first of all, to God the author
all in common with thy neighbors, and thou shalt not say that
anything belongs to thee of thine own.") Barnab., Ep., c. 19.
In Patr. Apost., (Opp., 8vo., Tubing, 1842, p. 39.) As to the pas
sage of Lucian, which, in his narration of the death of Peregrinus
(c. 12), seems to assert that at his time Christians considered all
things as common among themselves, besides that this assertion
would be completely denied by history, many interpreters, instead
of xowa, read xcpo, ^povxtftw, which agrees better with the context,
showing the contempt of the Christians of that time for terrestrial
goods. (Augusti. Lehrbuch der Christlichen Archmol,, Vol. I., p. 50.)
But the word scon/a may also be understood in the vague meaning
just above mentioned.
1 Iren., De hceres., IV. 34. These words sufficiently explain the
precept of giving all, which Irenseus seems to express somewhere
else in a more absolute manner. (Ibid., c. 27.)
3 The priest Valens, whom the Philippians had excluded from
their communion, is designated in Polycarp's epistle by the epithet
of tChiovlxTrtii, avaricious. (Polyc, Ep. ad Phil., c. 11, 12.) But
his avarice was that of Judas ; it had brought him to misuse, in

CHAP. III. — CHARITY IN IId AND IIId CENTURIES. 79
of all these favors, and then to their brothers, as for a
kindness which each one had a right to withhold.
" Let not slaves ask to be redeemed from the treasury
of the church, for fear that 'they be found slaves of
cupidity. Let them resign themselves, rather, to their
state, and serve, with still greater zeal, for the glory
of God."1 "Let the poor," says Hermas, "render to
God prayer and thanksgivings for the rich."2 The
apostolic constitutions, the first six books of which con
tained the usages and regulations in vigor in the
church up to the epoch of Constantine, likewise recom
mend to widows and orphans to receive with reverence
the aid accorded to them, and to render thanks for it
to God ; they advise that the bishop make known to
the poor the names of their benefactors, in order that
they may pray for them by name. As for widows
" envious and speaking evil, who, in place of invoking
the benedictions of God on their benefactors and their
bishop, were inquiring as to what others had received,
and were complaining of the injustice of the distribu
tors of alms," they are treated as " evil souls who
belong not to Christ."3 The same constitutions pre
scribed assistance to every poor man, not according to
his expectations, but in proportion to his true needs, (of
which the bishops and deacons were declared sole
concert with his wife, the money of the church. (Hoefele, Patr.
App. Opp., p. 201, note.)
1 Ignat., Ep. ad Polyc, c. 4 (ub. sup., p. 179.) ^
3 Herm., Pastor, III., simil. 2 (Patr. App. Opp., Ed. Hoefele, p.
291 ; Cfr. Clem. Rom., 1 Ep. ad Cor., c. 38 (Ibid. p. 83.)
3 Const, apost., IV. 5. ; III. 4, 12-14 (in Coteler, Patr. apost.
Amstelod., 1724, p. 296, 279, 288, &c.)

80 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
judges), and in the most proper manner to make sure
his temporal and moral good.1 " And you, the youth
of the church," they added, "work with assiduity to
provide for your needs, and give yourself up in all holi
ness to your work. God hates the lazy. Those then
who are poor from the faults of their conduct, from
drunkenness, or debauchery, do not merit aid; they
are not worthy even of being members of the church." 2
"Wo," says Saint Clement of Alexandria, "to those
who have and who, nevertheless, from hypocrisy and
meanness of spirit, consent to receive from their
brethren."3 Thus stimulating the efforts of the poor, thus recall
ing to him, in so express a manner, the inviolable re
spect due to rights and to property, the teachers of the
church could, all the more advantageously, preach to
the rich the spirit of devotedness and of sacrifice, which
they did, not by dryly reproducing the recommenda
tions of the apostles, as a lesson well conned, but with
a copiousness and warmth of expression proper to
them, and which, nevertheless, allies itself almost
always with an entire fidelity to their models.
Like them, it is to the great principle of the unity
of God and his universal love for men that they asso
ciate the principle of human fraternity and the love
due from man to man.
"I have just explained what is due to God," says
Lactantius, " I will now tell what is due to man, though
these two duties fundamentally form but one, since

1 Ibid, II., 27, 28 ; IV. 2, 1. c, p. 243, 295.
3 Ibid., II. 4, 63 ; 1. c, p. 217, 274.
3 Clem. Alex., Fragm. coram, in Matth. v. 42.

CHAP. III. — CHARITY IN IP1 AND IIId CENTURIES. 81
man is the image of God. God, in creating man in a
state of nakedness and feebleness, for which he has
compensated him with the gift of reason, has given
him, besides, those sentiments of sympathy which
induce him to love and to seek for his equals, and to
demand of them and to lend to them, by turns, a sup
port against all dangers. A sacred bond, which we
could not break without criminality, and, in some
sort, without parricide ; for, if we all derive our ori
gin from the same man-, whom God formed with his
own hands, we are relatives even by that, and not only
we ought to abstain from doing harm to one another,
which is avowed by the philosophers, but we ought to
be always ready to do good to one another ; we owe
subsistence to the poor and succor to the afflicted." 1
Origen says, "We are all, by nature, neighbors to
each other ; but by deeds of charity, he who can do
good becomes more particularly the neighbor of the
poor. Charity always tends, then, to God, from whom
is its origin, and regards our neighbor, whose nature
we partake. Thus, this mutual affection, due to each
other, though it admits of degrees and should be pro
portionate to the dignity and diverse merits of our
brethren, ought also to embrace all men, even to our
very enemies, — and those in the bonds of iniquity,
since the rights of relationship, which unite us to them,
exist no less." 2 " Do good to all men," said Hermas ;
give to all the poor with simplicity of heart ; for God
1 Laetant, Instil, div., VI. 10, p. 531, &c.
3 Orig., in Cant. Cant, prolog, et lib. III., Vol. III. p. 29 et 73.
Cfr. Horn. 34 in Luc, ibid., p. 972, &c.

82 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
wills that we should give of our goods to all.1 Cyprian
said, " Let us be, by our liberality, imitators of that
of our Heavenly Father, who bestoweth equally unto
all, the sun, the rain, and all common blessings." 2 It
is by following this order, in imitating God in his
inexhaustible bounty, in borrowing of him this ami
able attribute, that the Christians could the better
unite themselves to him, and testify to him, at the same
time, their admiration and their gratitude. "Who
can sufficiently praise," said Saint Clemens Romanus,
" this bond of the love of God ? Who can worthily
celebrate its beauty, its magnificence ? Who can say
to what height it raises us in inviting us to Him ?"3
"When faith shall have revealed to thee," says, in his
style full of emotion, the author of the Epistle to Diog-
netus, the greatness of the love of God for man, what
love wilt thou not feel, in turn, for Him who hath first
loved thee ? And if thou lovest Him, thou wilt become
the imitator of his goodness. And be not surprised
that man can imitate God. In effect, he can if he
will; not in seeking riches and sway, not in crushing
his inferiors with the weight of his power ; for the
greatness of God does not consist in these things, and
this would not be to imitate him ; but in loading him
self with the burdens of his brothers, in making his
inferiors share all the advantages which he enjoys, in
participating of the gifts of Providence with the poor,
he becomes divine to those whom he relieves, and is
truly the imitator of the Most High." 4
1 Herm., Past, lib. II., mand. 2, 1. c, p. 265.
3 Cyprian, de Op. et eleem., Opp., p. 491.
3 Clem. Rom., 1 Ep. ad Cor., c. 49, 1. c, p. 95.
4 Epist. ad Diogn., c. 10, Opp. Patr. Ap., p. 236, &c.

CHAP. III. — CHARITY IN IId AND IIId CENTURIES. 83
But, if such are the natural ties of relationship which
united men together, and the mutual obligations result
ing from them, how much more close and fraternal,
according to the church, are those which established
among the disciples of Christ their community of faith,
of worship, of vocation and of hope!"1 "If, in spite
of your harshness to us," said Tertullian, in his Apo
logy to the Pagans, " we are your brothers by nature,
our common mother, by how much more just title
ought those who have recognised in God one common
Father to be called brothers ; they who participate in
one spirit of sanctity, and who, from the same igno
rance, have attained the same truth and the same
light." 2 So, to the sentiment of the natural blessings
of God, was united, to excite their mutual charity, the
sentiment of the blessings of grace. Redeemed, at the
price of the blood of Christ, from the slavery of sin
and death, and not able to pay him the price of their
ransom, they were to repay it to those whose low con
dition, out of charity, he had chosen, in whose humble
livery he had been clad, with whom, in short, he had,
in some sort, identified himself, regarding what was
done for them as done for himself.3 Each Christian
1 Minuc. Fel., Octav., c. 31, p. 207, Ed. Lindn., 1760, 12mo.
3 Tertull. Apol., c. 39, p. 74, &c.
8 Hence it happened that, according to Ignatius, the Docetes,
who believed that they exalted the dignity of Jesus by denying the
reality of his coming in the flesh, his sufferings and death, were
strangers as much to the feelings of charity, as to those of Christian
piety. They were not able to imitate a devotion which they dis
regarded. He said: "Ignorant as they are of the grace of Jesus
Christ, who has come to save us, they have no compassion either
for the widow, or for the orphan, or for the captive, or for those

84 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
must see, in his poor brothers, an image of Christ suf
fering for him, and endeavor, in his turn, to comfort
him in them. "Yes," said Cyprian to those who
recommended to him the deliverance of the Numidian
prisoners, "if charity did not lead us to redeem them,
yet we ought to see in them so many temples of God
taken by the barbarians, or rather Christ himself made
prisoner, and to redeem him who hath redeemed us
with his blood." l What ! Jesus had given his life for
them, and they should give nothing for the love of
him, they would not make for him who had saved
them the least of the sacrifices which so many made
for the enemy of their salvation ! " What shame for
you," eloquently exclaims Cyprian, "and what igno
miny for your Redeemer, when, on the last day the
dsemon, accompanied by his servants, shall advance
towards Jesus Christ and dare to say to him : ' As for
me, I have endured neither outrages nor rods for these ;
I have not shed my blood nor suffered for them the
punishment of the cross, I have not redeemed them at
the cost of my life, I had not, either, a celestial king
dom to promise to them, no paradise, no glorious
immortality; and yet see what presents they have
made to me, what zeal, what devotion they have dis
played in my service ! And you, show me the trea
sures which these Christians, to whom you have given
your law, to whom you have promised celestial gocds

who suffer from thirst and hunger." Ignat. c. 6 ; p. 172. Or else,
absorbed by the vain metaphysical speculations in which they
made religion to consist, they neglected sanctification and good
works. 1 Cyprian, Ep., LX., p. 202.

CHAP. III. — CHARITY IN IP1 AND IIId CENTURIES. 85
in exchange for those that are perishable, have
exchanged for your blessings.' " ¦
However, were they ignorant that it was only thus
that they could, according to the church, appropriate
to themselves the favors of redemption ? " After bap
tism," said Cyprian, "we would have no resource to
expiate our continual faults, if the divine compassion
had not taught us works of justice and pity, as a way
of safety, and alms as a means of washing out the
stains of our vices."2 "To give to him who is hun
gry something to eat, to clothe him that is naked, to
open our houses to strangers and to those without a
resting-place, to* lend our assistance to orphans and to
widows, to redeem captives, to visit and nurse the sick,
to provide for the burial of the dead, this," Lactantius
said, "is the sacrifice truly agreeable to God, who is
appeased by the piety of his children far more than by
the blood of victims," 3 and who, as Justin Martyr
said, " does not ask that we should consume by fire
the things which he has created for our subsistence,
but that we should use them for ourselves and for the
indigent."4 But when the objector asked of Lactantius, Shall I go
and dissipate thus the riches painfully amassed by my
toil or by that of my ancestors, and see myself reduced
to have recourse to the charity of my brothers?
"Pusillanimous man!" he answered, "thou fearest
poverty, then, that poverty which your philosophers
1 Cypr., De opp. et eleem., p. 488.
3 Ibid., p. 473 ; Cfr. Ep. LIL, p. 149.
" Lactant., Epit. Instit div., c. 65.
4 Just. Mart, Apol., II. p. 60.

86 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
have praised as the most tranquil of conditions!
What thou fearest is, on the contrary, a refuge from
all disquietudes. Dost thou not know, then, to how
many hazards wealth exposes thee, too happy if it
does not cause thy death ! Loaded with the booty
which excites the envy of thy own kin, thou goest in
the midst of snares. Why dost thou hesitate to put
in a secure place that which a thief, a proscriptive
decree, or the hand of the enemy, will strip from thee
perhaps, and to trust thy treasures with God, with
whom thou hast neither thieves, nor rust, nor tyrants to
fear? He who is rich in God is never poor. Besides
you are not told to diminish or dissipate your patri
mony, but only to consecrate to a better use what thou
wouldst consecrate to things of nothingness. On that,
with which thou wouldst nourish wild beasts for the
circus, nourish the poor, redeem captives ; out of that
with which thou wouldst acquire wretches for the
sword, provide for the sepulture of the dead. From
thy perishable goods make unto God a noble sacrifice,
to obtain, in return, an eternal reward." J "A grand
and sublime deed," exclaims Cyprian, "to constitute
God our debtor."2 "A marvellous exchange," says
Hermas, "is that which is established between the
rich and the poor ! The rich gives to the poor what
' Lactant., Inst div., VI. 12, p. 548-550.
3 Cyprian, De opp. et eleem., p. 492. De habit, virg., p. 352.
" When," says Clement, " you draw water out of a well sustained
by springs, the water is soon as abundant as before. Likewise the
fund of alms is renewed soon after it has been employed ; its source
is inexhaustible, for it is the blessing of the Lord." (Clem. Alex.,
Padag., III. 7.)

CHAP. III. — CHARITY IN IId AND IIId CENTURIES. 87
he needs, and the poor, in turn, enriches him by his
prayers. Thus the vine embellishes with its branches
and enriches with its fruit the elm on which it leans." *
"0 rich man," adds Clement of Alexandria, "wilt
thou not conclude so precious a bargain ? Thou whose
salvation is each day compromitted by so many crea
tures, raise for thy safety an inoffensive and pacific
army of old men, pious orphans, and meek widows,
select spirits who conceal their nobility from the eyes
of men, wish to be holy without parade, and are here
below as if in exile, waiting for the day that is to unite
them to God. Such are the guardians which you need.
No one is idle, no one is useless ; one will pray for thy
salvation, another will sympathize with thy pains,
another will sigh for thee in the bosom of God; as
many poor relieved, so many advocates for thee, so
many intercessors for thee before the sovereign
judge."2 "Ah!" says Cyprian, "what shall be thy
glory and thy joy, in the last day, when the Master,
reviewing his people, will give to thy merits and thy
deeds the promised recompense, goods eternal and
celestial for temporal and terrestrial goods, and will
open to thee the kingdom of heaven !" 3
These eloquent exhortations, of which the pre-
1 Herm., Past, lib. III. simil. 2, ubi sup., p. 290, &c.
3 Clem. Alex., quis div. salv., c. 32-36 ; Opp., Vol. II. p. 953, &c.
3 Cyprian, De opp et deem., p. 491. The day of the eternal retri
bution was then considered as very near. Barnab., 6, Epist. c. 21,
1. c. p. 41. Cyprian, Ad Demetr., p. 434 ; De mortal., p. 471 ; De
exhort, ad mart., p. 522. Tertull., De cultu fcemin., II. 9 ; Opp.,
Vol. I. p. 295, &c, Lactant., Inst div., VII. 25, &c. ; Opp., p. 682,
4c, &c. Poetz, Comment, de vi quam, &c, p. 36.

88 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
ceding citations offer but an imperfect summary,
derived a new force from the situation of those to
whom they were addressed. Isolated amidst a hostile
and persecuting world, they felt so much the more
the need of strict union with each other, and of lend
ing a charitable support against all evils.1 Justin
Martyr paints to us the change effected in this respect
among the disciples, of Jesus. "We all," says he,
" who only lived for the goods of this world, this day
liberally divide what we have with the poor."2 Ter
tullian shows us, in his turn, the house of each
Christian and his table and his granaries hospitably
opened to all the brethren, and Christian women
eager to carry aid to the poor in all places, and to
visit the most humble roofs.3
But though these individual alms may have then
formed the largest part of the gifts distributed by
charity, they are naturally less known to us than the
deeds of collective benevolence. Consequently these
last we have carefully to retrace.
The letter of Pliny to the Emperor Trajan proves
the maintenance of the agapse, or repasts of charity,
in the churches of Asia Minor.4 A crowd of other
witnesses testifies also to the preservation of this
usage in most of the Christian communities, and
at the same time gives us precious details concerning
1 Poetz., ibid., p. 108. Vulliemin, Mceurs des Chretiens, c. 2, p.
17, etc.
3 Just. Mart., Apol, II. p. 61.
3 Tertull., ad uxor., II. 4.
4 Plin., Epp., X. 97.

CHAP. III. — CHARITY IN If' AND IIId CENTURIES. 89
the spirit which continued to preside over it.1 The
apostolic constitutions recommend to those who wish
to invite aged women to their love-feasts, to invite, in
preference, those whom the deacons would point out
to them as the most indigent.2 " The name, even,
of these repasts," says Tertullian, " makes known
their destination. By their means we relieve our
poor, not as you nourish your parasites, in selling to
them their subsistence at the price of a thousand
insults, but as beings worthy of all regard and of all
honor, whose humility only recommends them more
particularly to the eyes of the Eternal. There is
nothing immodest ; it is only after having prayed
that they sit down to the table ; they only eat suffi
cient to appease their hunger, and only speak in
recalling to mind that they are heard of God ; they
mingle with these pious entertainments the reading
of God's word and songs in His praise; and they
separate, not to run to debauchery, but to return each
one to his regular and peaceful life."3 That at times,
according to the testimony of Clement of Alexandria,
and of Tertullian himself, having become Montanist,4
the pompous vanity of some of the rich introduced
preparations which altered the primitive simplicity
and gravity of these repasts, we cannot deny ; but it
1 Const. Apost, II. 28. Minuc. Fel. Octav., c. 9, p. 58 ; c. 31,
p. 205. Tertull., Apol, c. 39 ; Opp. p. 75 ; De Bapt, c. 9, p. 414.
Episi. ad Diogn., c. 5 (ubi sup), p. 229. Lucian, DeMort. Peregr.,
3. 12 (Opp., Vol. III. p. 335). Drescher, De Agapis, p. 32-37
3 Constit. ap., II. 28 (Ap. Coteler., p. 243).
3 Tert., Apol., u. 39, p. 75.
4 Clem. Alex., Pcedag., II. 1 ; Tert., Dejejun. adv. Psych., c. 17.
8*

90 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
appears that these reproaches applied rather to the
funeral suppers, too faithfully imitated from the mor
tuary repasts of the pagans;1 as for the others, the
satirist Lucian himself recognizes their pious and
charitable purpose.2
However, at the epoch of which we speak, the
feast of charity was not celebrated every day, and the
eucharist itself, especially since the second century,
was not regularly accompanied by it.3 But even in
this case the interest of the poor was not forgotten.
The care of furnishing the bread and wine for the
Lord's Supper was in general left to the faithful, and
the usage was to offer upon the altar far more than
was necessary for the celebration of the sacrament ;
the surplus, reserved for the sustenance of the clergy
and the poor, was distributed to the latter by the
deacons. The names of those offering were inscribed
on the diptychs and read aloud in the prayer of conse-
1 Raoul-Rochette, Antiq. Chr. des Catacombes (M6m. de l'Acad.
des Inscrip., Vol. XIII. p. 132-137). One might suppose, too,
that that misuse was more frequent in the agapae separated
from or preceded by the eucharist. The guests, not being
checked by the solemnity of the sacrament, by which this feast
was usually terminated, allowed themselves to be more easily over
come by the attractions of good cheer.
3 Lucian, ub. sup. He designates them under the title of Seiuva
tioix'cKa, and mentions chiefly the agapaa that Christians celebrated
in prisons in behalf of the confessors of the faith who were confined
within. 3 Drescher., 1. c. p. 20. Thus Justin Martyr has described the
ceremony of the eucharist on the Lord's day, without mentioning
the agapae. Apol, II. p. 98.

CHAP. III. — CHARITY IN II'1 AND IIId CENTURIES. 91
cration. This gift, which bore the name of sacrifice,1
replaced, in some sort, the victims offered by the
Jews at their festivals. It was particularly abundant
when made in behalf of a friend or relative, whose
funeral was commemorated,2 and above all at the
anniversary of the death, or as they then said, of the
birth of the martyrs.3 The ideas of Christianity and
of charity were so closely united in the minds of the
faithful, that they did not believe that they could
celebrate the memory of a Christian without acquit
ting themselves, in his name, of some deed of bene
volence. Independently of these offerings, made for the
eucharist or for the agapse, by the richest of the
community, the usage was that each of the faithful
should remit to the deacon or the bishop, every week
or every month, an offering proportioned to his
means, to be distributed to the poor.4 The Apos
tolic Constitutions say, "If God has freed you from
the yoke of the ceremonial law, he has not exempted
you from the contributions to be paid to the priests,

1 ITpbf^opa, Susfa, ablatio, sacrificium. The bread which composed
this offering was sometimes in such a quantity that the altar was
overwhelmed with it, as it is said in some orations. Fleury, Mozurs
des Juifs et des Chretiens, part. III. ? 9. The communicants them
selves lay also an offering upon the altar. Cone. Eliberit, can. 28.
3 Oblationes pro defunctis. Tertull., De coron. mil,, c. 3 ; De
monog., c. 10 ; De exhort, cast, c. 11. Cyprian, Ep. LXVI. ;
Opp., p. 231.
3 Natalitia martyrum.
4 Just. Mart., Apol, II. pp. 60, 93. Tert., Apol, c. 39, p. 74.
Const. Apost, II. 25, 35 (ubi sup.), p. 238-248, etc.

92 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
nor from benevolence, to be exerted towards the poor.
Love, then, thy neighbor as thyself. Give what is
needful to the poor. Do not appear empty before
the priests, but offer thy gifts voluntarily; send to
the corban what thou canst."1 These constitutions
even mention first fruits and tithes, which many
Christians continued, according to the Jewish usage,
to raise on their crops for the support of the needy.2
When these resources did not suffice, and some
new and pressing need was felt, or there was some
great misfortune to relieve, they had recourse to
general collections, when each one gave of the pro
ducts of his toil;3 those who had nothing were
invited to fast and to give to their brethren what
they thus retrenched from their ordinary fare.4 Some
times the whole community was invited to observe
this fast.5
Finally, many gifts were made on solemn occasions,
when the church, for example, received new proselytes.
1 Const Apost, II. 36 (ub. sup., p. 248, etc.); Thomassin, anc.
et nouv. disc, de l'Eglise; Paris, 1679, fol., Vol. I. p. 336.
3 Const. Apost, II. 25. 27, 34. Origen even maintained that on
this point the precept of the ancient law had rather been con
firmed than abolished by the Gospel (Orig. Horn., XVII. in Jos.,
Vol. II. p. 438, etc.); but the nature of the obligation was dif
ferent, and we do not see any sanction, even ecclesiastical,
directed against those who departed from it. Moreover, Origen
here rather mentions the offerings intended for the support of
clergy. 3 Thomassin (ub. sup., p. 333 ; Cyprian, Ep., LX. p. 203, c. 3 ;
Orig., Horn., X. ; De Levit. Opp., Vol. II. p. 246.
4 Const. Apost, V. (ub. sup., p. 304 ; Herm., Past., lib. III. aim. 5.
5 Tertull., De jejun., c. 13.

CHAP. III. — CHARITY IN IP1 AND IIId CENTURIES. 93
Cyprian, at his baptism, sold for the benefit of the poor
all his real estate, and even his gardens which he pos
sessed near Carthage.1 Gregory Thaumatnrgus, when
he wished to go into solitary life, renounced all his
property.2 Many Evangelists, when departing for their
missions, distributed their fortunes to the poor.3 Mar-
cion, in his zeal as neophyte, had given to the church
one hundred thousand sestertii, which were restored
to him when he was excommunicated.4
We are far, assuredly, from pretending that this
charity never suffered an eclipse. It had, even in the
time of the apostles ;5 it abated ^vith still greater reason,
when the first fervor began to cool, and less severe trials
were imposed on the new proselytes. Those times
when the church enjoyed the most calmness without,
were rarely those in which she displayed the most vir
tue within. With zeal, union and charity relaxed;
the spirit of sacrifice, less called upon by circumstances,
languished ; the care of private interests began to pre
vail over the general interest. In the period of peace
which preceded the persecution of Decius, more than
one of the faithful, as St Cyprian tells, forgot the
example of the primitive church, allowed the love of
wealth to take possession of their hearts, and closed
them against the inspirations of charity, and, thinking
no longer of anything but to augment their patrimo-
1 Cypriani vita ; Cypr. Opp. p. 1.
3 Greg. Nyss., De vit. Greg. Thaum., Opp. 1562, p. 334.
3 Euseb., Hist. Eccl, III. 37 ; Ed. Vales.
4 Tert, Adv. Marc, IV. 4; De Praise, har., c. 30.
6 John, Rev. II. 4, Stikel and Bogenh., De morib. prim. Christ.,
p. 142-144.

94 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
nies, they had recourse to fraud and usury to succeed.1
v The same afflicting symptoms were renewed before
the persecution of Diocletian, according to Eusebius.2
But these egotistic dispositions, let us hasten to add,
were then rarely those of the majority ; and, even in
the days when Christian charity was the least active,
the largesses which it inspired still formed a striking
contrast with the inveterate selfishness of the pagan
world. Though each one was free to give directly to the
poor, the product of the regular contributions of the
faithful, as of the collections made among them, were
ordinarily put into the common fund.3 At this epoch,
besides, the church accumulated little. Always threat
ened with the rapine of the pagans, counting always,
besides, upon the charity of its members, it provided
largely for the present need, leaving " to the future the
care of what concerned it." After the torture and death
of Sixtus I., Lawrence, his deacon, foreseeing his own
martyrdom, also, and the pillage of his church, assem
bled all the poor that he could find in Rome, and dis
tributed to them its treasures, without sparing even
the sacred vases, which he sold to assist them. The
prefect of Rome, informed of this liberality, and not
doubting that the Christians had in reserve still con
siderably more goods, ordered the deacon to deliver
them to him. St. Lawrence asked three days ; at the
end of this term, he showed to the Prefect, drawn up

1 Cyprian, De laps. p. 364, etc. ; De opp. et eleem., p. 482, etc.
3 Euseb., Hist eccles., VIII. 1.
3 Just. Mart., Apol. II. p. 98, etc., Const. Apost, II. 27, III. 4,
(ubi supra, p. 243, 279.)

CHAP. III.  CHARITY IN IIa AND IIId CENTURIES. 95
before the church, the blind, the lame, the maimed,
and the wretched of all kinds, whom he nourished,
saying to him : "behold my treasures; profit by them
for Rome, for the Emperor, and for yourself." This
noble answer was taken for an insolent subterfuge,
and caused the holy deacon to be condemned to perish
upon the glowing embers.1
The bishop, as chief of the church, was charged with
the administration of its revenue.2 Ordinarily he
divided it into three equal parts ; one for the support
of the ministers of worship, a second for the expenses
of the worship itself, and the third for the relief of the
unfortunate. This was distributed daily and at the
domicil of the deacons, under the inspection of the
bishop,3 either to those who had need of some tempo
rary succor, or to those whose position, age, or infirmi
ties, left no other habitual resource than the alms of
the church. In order to avoid all intrusion and all
fraud, their names were inscribed in a special register,
to which, later, was given the name of matriculus, or
1 Ambros., De off. min., II. 28 ; Prud., Peri Steph., hym. 2.
3 Const Apost, II. 27 ; III. 4.
3 Cyprian's letters and the canons of the Elib. concil., make men
tion of some bishops or deacons who misused the deposits of offer
ings to make usurious loans, or to contract fraudulent bargains
(Cypr., Ep. 42, p. 131. Cone. Elib. can., 18,20.) Thus, the Deacon
Nicostratus was convicted of having taken away the money of the
poor. But Gibbon, c. 15, acknowledges, himself, that those abuses
of trust could not have been very frequent, as long as the offerings
of the Christians were free and voluntary ; and there were bishops
who, far from becoming rich at the expense of the public treasure,
supplied its deficiency by giving their own part for the relief of the
poor. This was done, among others, by Cyprian during his exile
Ep. 36, p. 106.)

96 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
ecclesiastical canon. The deacons had there to indicate
the age, sex, profession, and position of each person to
be helped, and, for this purpose, to inform himself of
these things most circumstantially and most exactly.1
In the first rank of those assisted by the church, at
this epoch, were, naturally, the generous confessors
who expiated their fidelity by confiscation, exile, or
chains. The Apostolic Constitutions particularly
recommend them to the charity of the faithful.2 St.
Cyprian, a fugitive himself, for this cause, invited his
clergy not to let them want anything in their prison,
and to assist the poor, who, having remained firm in
the faith, were persecuted for the name of Christ.3
Each one was eager to protect them in their flight, to
receive them in his house, to carry them food, to ten
der succor to them, to assist them before their judges,
to render them the last services at the final hour. The
cruel edicts of Decius, of Diocletian, and of Licinius,4
could not prevent it. It was thus that Origen, Justin,
Theodotus,5 Anastasia, and so many others, exposed
themselves to the implacable hatred of the pagans, and
devoted themselves, in advance, to martyrdom.6 Are
1 Cyprian, Ep. 38, Opp., p. 108. " Vos vicarios misi, ut . . .
estates et conditiones et merita discerneretis." The apocryphal
work of the Acts of Peter, alludes to this matriculation. (Epit. de
gestis Petr., c. 151 ; ap. Cotel. Patr. ap., Vol. I., p. 799.)
3 Const. Apost, V. I. ; ubi supra, p. 304.
3 Cyprian, Ep. 37 ; Opp. p. 107.
4 Euseb., De vita Const, I. 54.
6 Theodotus' hotel, was, says his biographer, in times of peace,
the place of meeting for the Christians, and in times of persecutions,
their place of refuge. Bolland., Acta Sanctor., ad 18th May, p. 152.
6 Euseb. Hist Eccles., VI. 3 ; Baillet, Vie des Saints, 25th Dec,
p. 308.

CHAP. III. — CHARITY IN IP1 AND IIId CENTURIES. 97
we to see in this charity, so heroic, only the ardor of
party spirit ? Let us admit for a moment that this sole
motive acted upon the Christians ; let us admit even,
with Lucian, that at times it rendered them dupes to
false appearances -1 happy humanity, when union, mu
tual devotion, party spirit, if it is preferred to call it
thus, will no longer be wholly on the side of the
wicked ; when the friends of a good cause shall know
how to understand, to aid and to sustain each other,
when love of goodness will find somewhat of the
encouragements which hardihood for evil finds !
After the confessors of the faith, the principal objects
of Christian charity were those families whom the
exile, captivity, or martyrdom of their heads left with-
out support. Nothing, assuredly, more natural and
just. "It was necessary," said Lactantius, "that the
Christians, fully assured as to the fortune of these
.pledges which they left after them, might, without
regret, brave death for the cause of truth and justice." 2
We see Origen, after the death of his father, and the
confiscation of his patrimony, received in the house
of a Christian dame, who provided generously for his
education.3 The ascetic Seleucus, before being him
self called to seal his faith by martyrdom, devoted
himself wholly to the service of the widows and
orphans of confessors, and was to them, both protector
1 Lucian, De mort. Peregr., c. 12, 13, 16.
"Lactant, Inst, div., VI. 12, p. 546.
8 Euseb., Hist, eccles. VI. 2. Felicity, a short time before her
martyrdom, having been delivered of a daughter, a Christian
woman brought her up, as her own child. Fleury, Hist, eccles.,
V. 17. 9

98 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
and father.1 In all the churches a large portion was
allowed to them from the common treasury.
Besides, all the poor or sick widows over sixty years
of age, or even younger when they did not marry and
still lived with propriety, were, by the same title, and
on the same conditions as in the days of the apostles,
inscribed upon the roll of those assisted by the church.2
So, too, with the children of those deprived of their
parents. When no private person offered to take care
of them, they were recommended to the bishop, who
was to be a father to them, and had to watch over
their conduct and education. "Bishops," say the
Apostolic Constitutions, " take care of the orphans, see
that they need nothing, give the young man the means
of learning a trade to earn his living by, and furnish
him the tools necessary for his business, that he may
support himself. As to the orphan girl, nourish her
till she is marriageable, when you may give her in
wedlock to some brother."3 But more frequently,
however, the young girls, whose poverty placed them
under the guardianship of the church, far from being
destined to marriage, were, on the contrary, encou
raged to a perpetual celibacy, and upon this condition
were inscribed on the roll for ecclesiastical aid ;4 they
' Euseb., Hist eccles., lib. De martyr. Palazst, c. 11.
3 Paetz, Comm. de vi rel. christ, p. 113 ; Ignat. ; ad Polyc, c. 4,
(Hasfele, Opp. pat. ap., p. 179 ;) Const. Ap., III. 1-12, (ubi supra,
p. 274-288.)
• s Const Ap. IV. 2, p. 295.
4 IlapffEi/oDj tfo; dvayfypo^eVaj iv *<j> tur ixxkqsiuv xayovi, Socr.,
Hist, eccles., I. 17.

CHAP. III. — CHARITY IN IId AND IIId CENTURIi:?. 99
formed a sort of clerical order,1 to live like the priests
at the altar.2
Exposed children were almost in every respect
1 At' evSeuw iv tois xXqpots tztor/fiivas : Thus they are designated
by Sozomen (Hist, eccles., V. 5.) The apostolic constitutions as
sign to them a similar rank, by assimilating them as well as
widows, deacons, and readers, to the Levites of the old covenant
(Const. Apost, II. 25, p. 241.)
3 Never did the church give herself up to the exaggerated asceti
cism of the dualists, who condemned marriage in as far as it was
instituted by the principle of evil to perpetuate a creation impure
and malignant. But though maintaining against them the legiti
macy and sanctity of marriage (Paul, 1 Cor. vii. 28; 1 Tim. iv. 1-5 ;
Clem. Alex. Strom. III., 3, 6, 7, 13, &c), she nevertheless, as
early as that time, preferred celibacy. Now, with Paul, she wished
in difficult circumstances, to spare for her members the trouble and
the afflictions of the flesh, and thus turn them more completely to
the things of the Lord (1 Cor. vii. 7-26, 32-34 ;) then, with Tertul
lian, Cyprian, Origen, and the most of the Fathers, she flattered
herself with raising them to a higher perfection ; then, again, jea
lous for herself of the consideration which the ascetic Jews and
heathens drew upon themselves, she wished to vie with them in
the palm of abstinence, she wanted to have her glorious train of
virgins and of the continent. And, who knows, but in those praises
of celibacy, there were no ideas similar to those, which in our days,
have preoccupied the economists, and which very certainly, in those
times contributed to bring into credit ascetic sects. Is it without
reflection that Clement of Alexandria and Lactantius said: "it
was better not to marry, when not able to support one's children,
than to be led to become with them homicidal." (Clem. Al.,
Strom., II. 18, Vol. I. p. 477; Lact. VI. 20, {j 25.) And when,
later, St. Jerome said to the adversaries of a religious celibacy:
"The world is full, the earth cannot longer contain us. . . . The
field is sowed but to be reaped. . . every day war and sickness
destroy us," (Hieron., adv. Helvid. Opp. ed. Ben., Vol. IV. part 2,
p. 143,) do we not think we hear one of the apostles of the prinei-

100 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
assimilated to the poor orphans.1 When they were
.presented to the church, she entrusted their primary
education, under the inspection of the bishops, to the
widows and consecrated virgins;2 gave them a trade;
instructed them in the faith, and, whilst pagan bar
barism peopled with them its ergastula, its schools of
gladiators, its places of prostitution, the church
recruited with them the fold of Jesus Christ. It is
by this kind of proselytism, the most honorable of all,
that, at all times and even in our day, she establishes
herself most firmly among the heathens.3
pie of popxdation ? Thus it seems then that upon assisting poor
widows and virgins, as long as they devoted themselves to conti
nence, the church wanted to prevent them from seeking in marriage
a dangerous support, perfidious resources, to save them from an
alternative of misery and crime, of sparing herself and society from
an increase of burdens, and of solving, finally, by abstinence and
charity, the terrible problem which the heathen world solved by
exposure and infanticide. (Tert. Apol, c. 9 ; Minuc. Fel., Octav.,
c. 30 ; Athenag., Legat, p. 33, ad calc. opp. Just Mart, Lact., Inst
div., VI. 20, 4c, 4c.)
But let us say that such considerations never overcame higher
interests ; never did the fear of favoring an increase of population
induce her to refuse an assistance to those wanting it: she never
punished by abandonment the faults of improvidence. Thus mo
thers fallen into indigence by the charges of a too large family,
were like others recommended to the charity of Christians ( Const.
Ap., II. 4.)
1 Tertullian comprehends them evidently in the category of the
" pueri parentibus destituti," who, at his time, were assisted by
the church, (Apol. c. 39.)
3 Terme et Montf., Hist, des Enf. trouves, p. 74.
3 The missionaries, in the diverse heathen countries, especially
in China, are chiefly engaged with Beekingout and bringing up ex
posed children.

CHAP. III.  CHARITY IN II'1 AND IIId CENTURIES. 101
She placed, moreover, among the number that were
assisted by her, the old men, the infirm, those who
were sick and destitute of other aid, and, in general,
all those who were not capable of working, whilst she
only granted a supplement to persons in strength,
whose labor was not sufficient to support their
families.1 Cornelius, a bishop of Rome, tells us that towards
the middle of the third century, his church sustained
ordinarily, besides a numerous clergy, "more than
fifteen hundred poor, such as widows and persons
afflicted with different evils."2 The other churches,
doubtless, assisted a proportionate number. But if,
to the evils which are the ordinary lot of humanity,
were added some extraordinary and public calamity,
the spirit of charity, increasing with the evil, coped
with these new requirements. In the third century,
following the long wars of Gallienus and the famine
which they had caused, a contagious malady broke
out in Alexandria. Struck repeatedly with so many
scourges, the pagans gave themselves up to that
blind and stupid fear, which, in a rude multitude,
excludes all other thought than that of danger. In
human by the excess of fear, they " repelled from their
houses," says Dionysius of Alexandria, " those who
began to be attacked by it ; deserted their most inti
mate friends ; threw the victims, still breathing, upon
1 It is what we may conclude from the 38th epistle of St. Cy
prian, ed. in 8vc, p. 108.
3 Cornel., Ep. (ap. Euseb., Hist, eccl, VI. 43). Pope Urban I.
affirmed that at his time not one of the Christians at Rome was
reduced to beggary. (Arnold, Erste Liebe, Leipz., 1732, p. 456.)
9*

102 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
the public square, and gave the dead bodies, without
burial, to the dogs, vainly hoping thus to escape from
the attacks of the evil. The Christians, on the con
trary, seeing in this scourge, as in all the evils of life,
a trial sent from on high to exercise their patience
and fortify their faith, regarded it with serenity and
met it with courage. Possessed of an ardent charity,
forgetful of all solicitude for themselves, a crowd of
them attended day and night and nursed the sick for
the love of Jesus. The priests, the deacons, the lay
men, and among them the most distinguished of the
company, died victims of the contagion, joyful in
sacrificing their lives for their friends and brothers.
Others, pressing in their arms the saints who had just
expired, closed their eyes, carried them upon their
shoulders, washed them, enveloped them in shrouds,
till, struck in turn, they received from the surviving
the same service."1 Some years before, under the
reign of Gallus, the pest of Corinth had brought out
a similar contrast between the Christians and pagans.
"While these latter," says Fortius, the deacon, "pos
sessed by fear and avarice, were only occupied in
avoiding all contact with the sick, and with securing
for themselves the spoils of the dead, the bishop
Cyprian confined himself to his flock, whose dangers
he shared, and succeeded, by his pathetic exhorta
tions, in sustaining the confidence and exciting the
devotedness of the faithful."2 "All," adds his bio-

1 Dyon. Alex. Ep. (ap. Euseb., Hist, eccl, VII. 22).
3 At that time he pronounced his sermon on Mortality a master
piece of Christian eloquence. "Is it not necessary, my beloved
brethren, that this plague, whioh seems to us but a messenger of

CHAP. III. — CHARITY IN II"1 AND IIId CENTURIES. 103
grapher, " felt themselves animated to follow him and
to sacrifice themselves with him, by the charity which
is due to brothers and to the members of Christ.
The employments were immediately allotted, accord
ing to the condition and resources of each one. Those
who could not give money, did more, in giving them
selves to take care of the sick. These pious deeds
of charity continued during the whole of the plague,
which still raged at the death of Cyprian.1
Another occasion had already offered itself to the
illustrious bishop to put to trial the charity of his
flock, in a calamity, which, in a certain sense, did
not affect him. In the year 253, the Barbarians,
making incursions into some of the cities of Numidia,
had carried away a crowd of Christians of both sexes,
who suffered among them all the horrors of captivity.
The Numidian bishops, not in a condition to pay the
ransom of these prisoners, addressed themselves to the
metropolitan bishop. An offer was never received
more gratefully than was this demand for help.
"Blessings upon you," Cyprian answered them, "for
having shown to us a fertile field where we can sow
seed which must yield to us an abundant harvest.
Here are a hundred thousand sestertii,2 which I have
collected among the clergy and people of this church
over which I preside. And if new perils threaten
you, we are ready to send to you new assistance.
death, tries the dispositions of every one of us, makes known if
healthy people attend the sick, if parents love each other, if mas
ters pity the pains of their servants 1 . . . ( Cypr., Opp., p. 466.)
1 Pontii, Vit Cyprian. ; Cypr., Ep. ad Demetr., p. 433.
3 About 3250 dollars.

104 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
We only ask of you, in return, the tribute of your
prayers."1 But it was not alone in the circle of a single city,
in the extent of a siugle province, that these won
ders of charity were displayed. We have seen that,
since the time of St. Paul, Christian benevolence
knew no distances. The churches, established all
over the extent of the Roman world, sustained be
tween themselves relations the most fraternal and
affectionate. Every Christian, into whatever country
he went, provided he was furnished with a recom
mendation which made him known as such, was sure
to find among his brethren the services and assistance
of hospitality.2 Every suffering church was assisted
by her sister churches. Distances seemed to approach
each other, mountains to bow down, seas to contract,
in order to favor this commerce of kindness, which
extended from one end of the empire to the other.
" What Christian," wrote Clement of Rome, to the
faithful of Corinth, "has not admired the magnifi
cence of your hospitality? You were always more
prompt to give than to receive ; no favor embarrassed
you ; you were constantly ready for all kinds of good
works."3 Later, the church of Rome received the
1 Cyprian, Ep. 60, p. 203, sea.
" Const. Ap., II. 58 ; Poetz, Comment de vi rel. chr., pp. 109, 112 ;
Vulliemin, Mceurs des Chretiens, c. 2, p. 18. Cyprian, on recom
mending to his clergy to provide in his absence for the wants of
the poor, does not except strangers, and wishes that care may be
taken of them, from out of his own portion (Cypr., Ep., 36, p. 106).
The Apostolic Constitutions recommend likewise not to neglect
strangers in their distributions (Lib. II. c. 36).
8 Clem. Rom., Ep. 1, ad Cor., c 1, 2.

CHAP. III. — CHARITY IN IP1 AND IIId CENTURIES. 105
same testimony from that of Corinth. "For a long
time," Dionysius, bishop of that city, wrote to pope
Soter, "you have been accustomed to load all the
brethren with favors, and to assist all the churches in
their wants, in whatever place they may have been
established. You thus follow faithfully the traditions
of your fathers."1
In view of a charity so impartial, so forgetful of all
diversity of place and origin, so entirely a stranger to
all the considerations which elsewhere arrested its
activity, in view of these Christians, of every coun
try, who mutually loved and aided each other like
brothers, the common pagans were stupefied and
almost scandalized. A union so intimate between
those who did not know each other must conceal some
vast conspiracy against the rest of mankind, some
secret pact, stronger than any oath, menacing all
social order ; that they should know each other thus
without having seen each other before, these Chris
tians must have carried some magical sign upon them.
"See," said they, "how they love each other; how
they treat each other mutually as brothers and sisters,
and are ready to die the one for the other." And, to
1 Dyonis. Cor., Ep. (ap. Euseb., Hist, eccles., IV. 23). Lucian
pays unintentionally the most beautiful testimony of that mutual
charity among churches. "When Peregrinus," says he, "had
been put into prison as a Christian, deputies came over from Asia
to comfort and to help him. For it is incredible to see the ardor
with which the people of that religion help each other in their
wants. They spare nothing. Their first legislator has put into
their heads that they are all brethren. . . ." (Lucian, de morte
Peregr., u. 13.)

106 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
that stupid crowd, this was the most serious of all
their complaints.1 " It is true," Tertullian answered
them, "this fraternal love has something surprising
for you, who only know how to hate each other and
to attempt each other's lives. Our fraternity astonishes
you, because it permits no bloody tragedy among us,
and we consider ourselves as brothers in the com
munity of those same interests which with you so
often break the ties of fraternal love. But when you
see in it the proof of a common and culpable hatred
against you, the sign of a conspiracy plotted against
the human race, you forget that you are yourselves
the objects of our:- charity, and that Christian love
embraces you also, and with you the whole world,
which is, to our eyes, but one vast republic. You
forget that, notwithstanding your persecutions, far
from conspiring against you, as our numbers would
perhaps furnish us with the means of doing, we pray
for you and do good to you ; that, if we give nothing
for your gods, we do give for your poor, and that our
charity spreads more alms in your streets than the
offerings presented by your religion in your temples." 2
In effect, Christian charity, though more intimate,
without doubt, among the Christians, knew how to
rise above differences in worship, and to exert itself
for the love of God even towards those who slighted
and blasphemed it. The Jews themselves, on enter
ing into the church, laid aside their exclusive and
1 Tert, Apol, a. 39, p. 74 ; Minuc. Pel., Octav., c. 9, § 2 ; Orig.,
Cont. Cels., I. c 1, p. 319.
3 Tert., Apol., c. 37-39, 42, Vol. I. p. 71-75, 79, 80.

CHAP. III. — CHARITY IN IId AND IIId CENTURIES. 107
inhuman prejudices.1 "Our religion," said in con
cert Justin Martyr, Athanagoras, and Theophilus of
Antioch, " prescribes to us to love not only our own,
but also strangers, and even our enemies."2 "If all
have affection for their friends," says Tertullian, " it
only belongs to Christians to love those by whom
they are hated." 3
During the pest at Carthage just mentioned, while
the pagans, not knowing to whom they should attri
bute the evils which they suffered, had the cowardice
to accuse the Christians of them, and made of them
a pretext for new outrages against them,4 Cyprian
exhorted his flock to render good for evil to those
madmen. "If we do good only to those who do
good to us," said he, "what do we more than pagans
and the publicans? But if we are the children of
God, who sends the rain upon the just and upon the
unjust, let us prove it by our deeds in blessing those
who curse us, and doing good to those who persecute
us." " The Christians of Carthage yielded to this
appeal," adds Pontius, "and the abundance of their
gifts was such that all had a part of them, strangers
as well as the followers of the faith."5
Under the tyrant and persecutor Maximin, Alex
andria was a prey to a pest and a famine, the lament-

1 Stickel and Bogenhard, Comment., p. 76.
3 Just. Mart, Apol, II. pp. 61, 62 ; Athenag., Legal, ubi sup.,
p. 12 ; Theoph., ad Autol, p. 126 (ad cale. Just. Mart., Opp., Par.
1615, fol.).
3 Tert, ad Scap., c. 1, p. 151.
4 Cyprian, ad Demet., Opp. p. 433. s Pont., De vita Cyp.

108 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
able details of which Eusebius has transmitted to us.1
" The rich pagans, frightened by the crowd of beg
gars, after having scattered much alms for some time,
fearing at last to see themselves reduced to mendicity,
took refuge in an inexorable hardheartedness. The
two scourges redoubled at the same time in intensity,
groans and complaints were heard through the whole
city ; it was not rare to see two or three corpses borne
at the same time from the same house. On this occa
sion the Christians alone gave proofs of a charity
truly heroic. Although they had, like those of Car
thage, to complain of persecutions recently excited
against them, forgetful in so great a calamity of the
injustice of their adversaries, some devoted themselves
to the burial of the dead, with which the streets were
encumbered;2 others, assembling upon the public
squares the unfortunate suffering with hunger, dis
tributed bread to all without distinction ; so that
their enemies themselves did not hesitate to recognize
that it was they alone who sincerely served the

1 Euseb., Hist Eccles., IX. 8.
3 The church very early placed the free sepulture of the dead
among the number of acts of charity which she recommended.
Independently of the reasons of immediate utility, which may
in this respect strike every mind, she saw a high suitableness in
having the creature formed in the image of God respected even in
its mortal remains, and its body decently given . back to the
earth from which it had been taken. Lactantius foroibly combats
those who considered such cares as superfluous (Inst, div., VI. 12).
A part of the offerings of the faithful was devoted to it ; and as
early as the third century a kind of minor order, set apart for that
office, was consecrated by the name of copaitm, grave-diggers.

CHAP. III.— CHARITY IN IP1 AND IIId CENTURIES. 109
Divinity ; and all the country resounded with their
praises."1 Perhaps it was more easy, in those times, to rise
above the differences of belief and of nationality, than
to shake off the prejudices of condition and of birth,
to find brothers to be aided and relieved among the
followers of another worship, than in those slaves
whom the law, custom, and philosophy itself, placed
below humanity. But the same Gospel which said
to the Christians, "There is neither Greek nor
Jew, Barbarian nor Scythian," said to them also,
There is neither citizen nor stranger, "bond nor
free."2 Through the apparent degradation of the
man condemned to serve, it showed to them, by the
eyes of faith, the dignity of the man come, like them,
from the hand of God, formed in His image, and
called, like them, to his knowledge and salvation.3 In
the bosom of the pagan city, where man only counted
as a member of that city, and where the debasement
of two-thirds of humanity served to sustain the dignity
of the other third, Christianity came to found a new
city in the image of the celestial Jerusalem, where
rank was marked only by virtue, where the slave
found himself sometimes the superior, at least the
equal, according to faith, of those to whom, according
1 Euseb., Hist, eccles., IX. 8.
3 Paul, Col. iii. 11.
3 Acts xvii. 26 ; Eph. iv. 4, etc., etc. ; Tschirner, De Dignitate
horn., per rel chr. adserta (Opusc Lpz., 1829, p. 51, sq. ; 66, sq.).
" There is among us no distinction of persons," say both Tertul
lian and Lactantius ; " Christian justice makes equal in our eyes
all such as bear the name of men."
10

110 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
to the world, he was a slave. Between the Christian
master and slave was no religious distinction ; they
came into the same sanctuary to invoke the same
God, to pray, to sing together, to participate in the
same mysteries, to sit at the same table, to drink of
the same cup, and to take part in the same feast.
How should this community of worship not have pro
foundly modified their mutual relations ? ] How could
the master have continued to see in his slave that
thing which the Roman law permitted him to use and
to abuse ? Also, whatever might still be the force
of habit and of manners, there were rarely seen in
the Christian houses those masters, still less those
pitiless mistresses, such as Seneca and Juvenal have
painted to us; the slave, there, had to fear neither
the cross, nor tortures, nor abandonment in sickness,
nor to be thrown off in his old age ; he had not to
fear that he should be sold for the amphitheatre or for
some one of those infamous occupations which the
church reproved, and from which she struggled, at
every price, to rescue her children.2
1 Vulliemin, Mceurs des Chretiens, p. 34-38.
3 There was an anathema not only against those who devoted
their slaves to the profession of gladiators, but also against those
who encouraged by their presence inhuman exhibitions (Tschirner,
ubi sup., p. 68). The church admitted, generally, in her bosom
no one having a profession contrary to Christian sanctity ; she
excommunicated gladiators, mimes, and actors, and did not receive
them before they had taken a more honorable way of living. An
actor of Carthage having pretended to remain in the church with
out ceasing to teach his art, under pretext that he needed it to
subsist, Cyprian insisted upon his renouncing it, engaging him to
have himself inscribed upon the roll of assisted persons unt;' '

CHAP. III. — CHARITY IN IT1 AND HP1 CENTURIES. Ill
Finally a devoted and faithful slave always had, in
a Christian house, the hope of recovering his liberty.
It was not rare, without doubt, to see Pagans enfran
chise their slaves ; some even did it from motives of
gratitude or attachment; but ordinarily necessity,
caprice, vanity, often even the most sordid calculations
alone presided over the emancipation of slaves,1 and
these miserable creatures, cast almost without resource
into the midst of a society whose free labor found so
little encouragement and employment, hardly used
their- liberty except to do evil, and went for the most
part to increase the crowd of proletarians and of beg
gars,2 so that it is not astonishing if the emperors had
attempted, though without success, to limit, by their
laws, the right of enfranchising. As to the church,
when she encouraged it, it was not as an interest, but
as a favor ; she exhorted the masters to liberate the
slave as often as he was in a state to support himself.3
had provided for him in another way, and, in case the church was
overloaded, he offered to furnish him with food and clothing him
self. (Cyprian, Ep. ad Euchrat., p. 205.)
1 Wallon, De Vesclavage, Vol. II. p. 406, etc. ; Moreau-Christ,
Du prpblime de la misere, t. I. p. 83-85 ; Dureau de la Malle,
ubi sup., Vol. II. pp. 223, 310 ; Gothofr., in Cod. Theod., Vol. V. p.
245. Many masters at Rome liberated their slaves, to share with
them, as patrons, the product of public distributions.
2 De Champagny, Les Cesars, Vol. IV. p. 58, sq. Libanius shows
us free laborers more the slaves of the fear of starvation, than the
slaves were of their masters (Liban., De Servit, Opp., Vol. II. p.
651, etc.).
3 It sometimes happened that the church herself paid for the
ransom ; she did it especially for Christian slaves or captives sub
mitted to heathen or barbarian masters. She consecrated to it

112 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
But the enfranchisement was not an abandonment ;
the Christian remained the patron, in the best sense
of that word, of those whom he had ceased to be the
master of, and, in case of misfortune, the freed man
found an almost sure resource in the aid of his brothers.
The church, which, by its moral influence, had worked
to render him worthy of liberty, continued to protect
him after he had attained it. The emancipation of
slaves at this day, would be less difficult and less dan
gerous if it was always done in this spirit.1
Now let us sum up the facts which we have just
enumerated ; let us recapitulate the works of Christian
the product of collections, or the treasure of the community.
" Out of the legitimate work of the faithful," say the Apostolic
Constitutions, " deliver the saints, redeem the slaves, the cap
tives, etc." (IV. 9, ubi sup., p. 300). Ignatius alludes likewise to
the redeemed slaves at the expense of the community (arto tov
xoivov, Ep. ad Polyc, c. 4). Finally, Clement of Rome speaks
of Christians who carrried devotion so far as to sell themselves to
redeem others from slavery (I. Ep. ad Cor. c. 55, ubi sup., p. 100).
1 The church has been thus unjustly accused of having, by the
imprudence of her emancipations of slaves, caused the plague
of pauperism. Manumission had been used with much less dis
cretion at other epochs of Roman society. The one hundred thou
sand freedmen who, as early as from 240 to 210 previous to our
era had been admitted to the privilege of citizenship, the slaves
liberated en masse by the alternating politics of Marius and Sylla,
the thousands of them who under the republic were daily liberated,
either by will, to do honor to the funeral of their master, or by
necessity, there being no food for them, or by revenge, to defeat
the eagerness of creditors ; all those freedmen, finally, who in
Cicero's times were in a majority in the urban and rural tribes
of Rome, formed elements much more threatening to the social
well-being than were subsequently those freed by charity. (Mo-
rean-Christophe, Duprobl. de la misere, Vol. I. p. 80, etc.)

CHAP. III. — CHARITY IN IP1 AND IIId CENTURIES. 113
charity during these three centuries, those gifts which
it caused to circulate from man to man, from church
to church, those numerous lists of the poor who were
relieved ; of widows, orphans, and old- men who were
assisted, of the sick that were comforted, the captives
redeemed, the slaves withdrawn from an unjust cap
tivity; let us recall those famines appeased, those pub
lic scourges partly prevented, and we will judge, with
out doubt, that it was not in vain that Christian charity
had appeared in the world. In the midst of those
Roman cities, which, by the side of an extravagant
luxury covered incalculable miseries, there arose so
manj' oases, communities, not opulent, indeed, but
where no one at least wanted for necessities, and
where all the evils of indigence were, if not removed,
at least relieved.
What unheard-of wisdom, then, one will think, had
presided over the organization of these communities !
To remove far from them a scourge against which
modern science struggles in vain, what skill was not
necessary to the founders of the church, what profound
study must they not have made of the conditions of the
material well-being of societies !
We have seen, however, that their efforts, in gene
ral, had altogether another aim. Occupied, above all,
with the spiritual salvation which Jesus had come to
bring to men, they wrought for the future world much
more than for the present, for the interests of the soul
far more than for the wants of the body, and for eter
nity far more than for time.
But it was precisely from this thought of eternity that
the first Christians derived the remedies against the
10*

114 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
evils of the present life ; the rich, the spirit of disin
terestedness which made them sacrifice perishable
goods, without regret, for their brothers, in exchange
for goods imperishable ; the poor, the spirit of resigna
tion, which made them limit in this life their desires,
their wants, and to support, in the expectation of an
eternal happiness, transient privations ; all, in short,
derived from it the spirit of charity, which they eagerly
assumed as one of the first conditions of salvation, and
which made of their society a body strictly one, a pha
lanx impenetrable to the evils of want.
This is all the art of the first Christians. This the
whole secret of Jesus and his apostles ; they secured
the present interests of humanity so much the better,
that, above all, they laid up for themselves future trea
sures. The church, founded by them for the spiritual
salvation of man, found itself in that, so much the bet
ter adapted to his temporal needs ; so true is it, that in
order to govern this world well, the point of support
must be out of this world, and that it is only by rege- '
nerating souls and tempering them with the thought
of heaven, that the happiness of societies can be
secured. "Godliness," says St. Paul, "is profitable
unto all things, having the promise of the life that
now is and of that which is to come;" but it is because
it has the promises of the future life that it has also
those of the present, according to the words of Jesus :
" Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteous
ness; and all these things shall be added unto you." '
1 " The more vigorous and extensive the social movement shall
be," says Guizot, " the less will politics be sufficient to divert
mankind in commotion ; it requires for that purpose a higher

CHAP. IV. — CHARITY AFFECTING ROMAN LAW. 115
Besides, the effects of charity extended far beyond
the bosom of the society which had proclaimed it.
Its principles began, though slowly, to penetrate even
into pagan society itself, and to enter into public
opinion, and thence to exert a real influence even upon
the legislation and administration of the Empire. It is
this that we have now to show.

CHAPTER IV.
THE INDIRECT INFLUENCE OF CHARITY ON ROMAN LAW IN
THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES.
During the period of the Roman Law which it is
agreed to call the philosophical, extending from Cicero
to Constantine, this law underwent an internal revo
lution which had the effect of tempering its primitive
rigor and of bringing it nearer to the maxims of equity.1
This was at first the work of conquest and of phi
losophy. At the same time that conquest mingled
together different people, and confounded races,
brought conquerors and conquered in contact, old and
new subjects, and forced reciprocal considerations on
power than an earthly one ; longer prospects than those of this
life; it requires God and eternity." (Delareldanslasoc.moderne,
Revue franc., Vol. V. p. 10.)
' Giraud, Eliments du droit romain., p. 338 ; Troplong. Infl. du
Christ, sur le droit civ. des Romains, p. 47, etc.

116 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
them all, Philosophy, the interpreter of these new rela
tions, introduced new forms and larger and more
genial principles of law, which, adopted by the Jurists,
insensibly mitigated the ancient rudeness of the Ro
man laws.1 But from the unanimous confession of
the historians of the Roman Law, nothing contributed
so much to bring it near to the maxims of natural
right and of equity as the silent but active influence
of the rising Church. Jurisprudence was modified by
philosophy, but the philosophy was impregnated un
consciously with the principles of charity. From the
bosom of the church, where they had been proclaimed
for the first time, these principles, like beneficent ema
nations, spread themselves farther and farther, entered
into the current of opinion, penetrated those hearts
best prepared to receive them, imposed themselves
by their reasonableness upon the intelligence of phi
losophers, and, from their minds, passed into their
discourses, into their writings, and hence into the
Pagan society, of which these distinguished men were
considered as the oracles.2 It is, indeed, impossible
not to recognize the progress which moral philosophy
had made since the time of Cicero.
As to Cicero, everything, almost, reduces itself to
the just and the honest. To injure no one, to work
1 Naudet, Secours publics, ubi sup., p. 83.
3 Troplong, ubi sup. ; Villemain, De la philos. stdique et du
Christ., (Nouv. Melanges, p. 276, etc.) "What in Christian law
corresponds to the intimate feelings of man, had taken a secret
influence before those dogmas had triumphed over idolatrous
opinions, and the heathen world, hard and corrupt, was insensibly
converted to humanity before it was to religion."

CHAP. IV. — CHARITY AFFECTING ROMAN LAW. 117
for the common welfare, which, according to him, was,
above all, that of the family and native country ; such,
in his view, was almost the whole of morality. Only
rarely, and by momentary elevation, did he rise to the
general notion of humanity.1 Seneca appears to us
more explicit and more abundant upon this point.
"Philosophy," he says, "teaches us to adore the gods,
to love man ; to revere the empire of the former, to
recognise our relationship with the latter. Man should
be a sacred thing to man.2 We are members, only,
of one great body. Nature in engendering us all, has
made us all relatives to each other, and has made a
law of mutual love for us all."3 "All men," said
Epictetus, " are brothers by nature, inasmuch as they
are sons of Jupiter." An ancient had said, " Our
slaves are our enemies ; let us leave them no respite ;
they must sleep or they must work !" And Cicero
himself when relating the cruel deed of the Prsetor
Domitius towards a Sicilian slave, had not dared to
express either blame or praise.4 Now, it is not only
the Platonic Plutarch who revolts at the barbarous
maxi ns of the masters of ancient times ; the Stoic,
also, softens and grows human. " Live with thy infe
rior," says Seneca, "as thou wouldst have thy supe
rior live with thee." "Who would dare to limit his
liberality to those who wear the toga? Nature com
mands us to be useful to men, whether they are slaves
or free, ingenuous or freed ; all are citizens of the same
country. Wherever man is, there good may be done."
1 Cicer., De off., 1, 10, III. 17 ; Troplong, De I'esp. dim. du code civil.
3 Senec, Ep., 90. 3 Ibid., ib., 95.
4 Cicer., 2 in Verr., V. 3.

118 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
Besides, he calls to mind that, " the slaves have the
same origin as their masters ; that, if they are enslaved
as to the body, as to the soul they are free ; that they
are our enemies only because we make them so;"
and he calls his own, "his humble friends."1
What a change in a few years ! How had Stoicism
been transformed since Cato ! 2 How had it become
superior in clemency, in humanity, to Platonism itself,
which, in the time of Cicero, especially, was vain of
its great pre-eminence in this regard ! Must we not
recognise here, the indirect, but evident influence of
Christianity ? Why not see, in these new maxims of
Seneca and Epictetus, a reflection of those of St. Paul,
with whom the first was, if not, as many have believed,
in literary intercourse, at least in a communication of
ideas, and whose doctrines and writings were probably
known to both of them ? 3 " Epictetus," says M. Vil-
lemain, " was not a Christian, but the imprint of Chris
tianity was already upon the world."*
Now, what such men as Seneca and Epictetus said,
was of authority for their contemporaries and their
posterity. Stoicism, such as they had modified it, was,
in particular, the most accredited system of philosophy
with the jurisconsults of the first three centuries.5 It
1 Senec, De ird, III, 31 ; De vii. beat, XXIV. 2 ; De bene/., III.
28 ; ep. 47.
3 Troplong, Influence, etc., p. 54 ; Villemain, ubi sup., p. 278.
3 On this subject see particulars in Troplong, ubi sup., p. 71-79 ¦
see also Schoell, Hist, de la litter., rom. (Panckouoke, Cduvres de
Senique, Vol. VII. p. 551).
4 Villemain, De laphil stoique., p. 279.
6 Troplong, ubi sup., p. 54.

CHAP. IV. — CHARITY AFFECTING ROMAN LAW. 119
was after Seneca that Florentinus and Ulpian said,
"Nature has established a certain relationship between
us. All men are equal as to natural right; by the
same natural right, all men are born free. Slavery is
an institution of the law of nations, by which one man
is submitted, contrary to nature, to the dominion of
another." 1 Julius Paulus, a jurisconsult of the time
of Severus and Caracalla, assimilates, as did the Chris
tian authors, infanticide and exposure to any other
murder.2 All the enlightened jurisconsults were pene
trated with the same maxims. The emperors them
selves, guided and counselled by them, were, after their
example, penetrated with the same opinions ; and they
introduced these into their laws. Like Ulpian, who,
while bringing Christians to the cross, spoke their lan
guage, which he believed to be that of stoicism,3 the
emperors, while persecuting Christianity, practised
Christianity without knowing it.4
If it is probable that policy alone determined Tibe
rius,5 as it had Augustus, to open a bank for gratuitous
loans in favor of any who could give double security,6
dictated to Claudius the decree which enjoined upon
patrons to furnish to those they had enfranchised food
1 Troplong, ubi sup., pp. 81, 82.
3 Terme, Hist, des enf. trouv., p. 62. 3 Troplong, ibid., p. 79.
4 "A singular fact in the world's history," says Villemain,
"the judge and the victims had almost the same language."
Ibid. p. 286.
6 It is hardly possible, indeed, to attribute any other motive to
a prince whose maxim was that the duty of a good shepherd is
to shear his lambs.
6 Naudet, Des sec. pvbl. chez Us Rom. (Acad, des inscr., Vol.
XIII. p. 86).

120 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
and clothing, and caused, under Nero, those distribu
tions, so dear to the Roman populace, to be multi
plied ;] and if vanity and caprice were without doubt
of much influence in the favors with which Adrian
loaded some provinces, some other ameliorations intro
duced into the Roman administration will appear to
us as more directly emanating from Christian princi
ples. It was probably under their inspiration that,
after the end of the first century, a real mitigation in
the lot of slaves was introduced.2 It would be diffi
cult, in effect, to assign another cause for this change.
The epoch had not yet come when the scarcity of this
kind of merchandise would oblige the masters to spare
it ; it was, on the contrary, in its greatest abundance.
However, we see already many efficacious measures
taken for the amelioration of slavery. Claudius de
clared free those slaves whom their masters had
exposed, during their sickness, on the island of the
Tiber, according to the ancient usage.3 Under the
reign of Nero, a magistrate was commissioned to
receive their complaints against the cruelties of their
masters. Adrian took from these latter the right of
life and death, prohibited the ergastula, only suffered
to be put to the rack such slaves as should be found
near the place where their master had been killed,
forbid them to be sold for prostitution, or the com
bats of the amphitheatre, without the consent of the
judge. Antoninus Pius punished as a murderer who
ever put them to death without grave motives. Mar-
1 Le Bas, Hist, rom., Vol. II. p. 212.
3 Troplong, ubi sup., p. 82, etc. 3 Sueton. Claud., c. 25.

CHAP. IV. — CHARITY AFFECTING ROMAN LAW. 121
cus Aurelius, during his reign, abolished, or at least
disarmed the combats of gladiators.1 Trajan esta
blished as a principle that an infant born in legitimate
wedlock of free parents did not lose its liberty by hav
ing been exposed.2 This same prince, partly from
humanity, partly from the motive of public utility
which had already determined Augustus,3 caused the
names of five thousand children to be added to the
frumentary list ; for the provinces he established a fund
in favor of poor children whose parents would consent
to bring them up ; and this institution was extended
by Adrian, Antoninus, and Marcus Aurelius.4 After
Pertinax, when the exhaustion of the treasury hin
dered the continuance of these allowances, they were
in some places supplied by private gifts. Many of
them bequeathed money to their cities or to their mu
nicipalities for the instruction or sustenance of children
and the support of the aged.5
1 Spartian., Adrian., c. 18 ; Wallon, Hist, de I'esclav., Vol. III.
p. 60-65 ; Hegewisch, Epoq. de Vhist rom'., la plus heureuse, etc.,
Paris, 1834, p. 240; Villemain, ubi sup., p. 280.
3 Plin., Ep., X. 71, 72.
3 In order to increase the free population, reduced beyond mea
sure during the civil wars, Augustus had given 2000 sestertii for
the support of every child that the parents would bring up, and
admitted to the eongiarium the children below eleven years.
* Naudet, Secours publ, loc. cit. p. 76-78. They called pueri ali-
mentarii children thus raised at the expense of the public treasure ;
" Ulpians," those raised in virtue of the edict of Trajan ; " Fausti-
nians," the young girls assisted by Marcus Aurelius, in honor of
his wife, Faustina. They estimate at 660,000 dollars the funds
created by Trajan. (See the two edicts of this prince in Hege
wisch, Essai sur Vepoque, etc., p. 186.)
6 Naudet, ubi sup., p. 78.
11

122 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
Up to the time of Adrian, the property of those
condemned for State crimes was entirely confiscated ;
Adrian adjudged one-half of it to their children ; and
even, on a particular occasion, he restored it all to
them.1 To Antoninus Pius is attributed a boundless bene
volence. Marcus Aurelius considered this virtue as
the ideal of moral perfection, and he raised to it a
temple on the Capitol.2 He was accustomed to say :
"As a Roman, I have Rome for my country; as a
man, I have the world." He has left in his writings
many maxims evidently marked with the Christian
spirit,3 and to which his administration generally con
formed ; in his efforts to repress the abandonment of
infants, he seems, like Julius Paulus, to have deferred
to the urgent protestations of Athenagoras.* Pertinax,
in order to reduce the imposts, himself submitted to
honorable privations.5 "Alexander Severus, the Empe
ror of these times who most fully recognized the en
lightenment and virtues which he owed to Christianity,
who placed Jesus among the number of the objects of
his worship, and caused one of the maxims of evange-
1 Hegewisch, loc. cit, p. 119.
2 Dio. Cassius, LXXI. p. 34; " Beneficentiae deditus, cui templum
aedificavit in Capitolio, quamque proprio quodam atque inaudito
ante nomine nuncupavit."
8 " Thou wilt love men," says he, " if thou happenest to think
that thou art their brother, that it is by ignorance that they com
mit faults, and that in a short time thou wilt be all dead." (Ville
main, de la Phil, st, ubi sup., p. 279.)
1 Athenag., Legat. (ad. calc. Just. Mart Opp. 1686, p. 38) ; Ville
main, ubi sup., p. 290.
6 Le Bas, ubi sup., p. 277.

CHAP. IV. — CHARITY AFFECTING ROMAN LAW. 123
lical charity to be engraved upon the walls of his
palace, exercised towards his subjects a liberality, some
times hardly judicious, it is true, but often as extensive
as it was appropriate. He opened free schools for the
children of poor families, and made to the poor loans
of money necessary to buy land, at a very low rate of
interest or gratuitously, He protected foundlings,
even if born in servitude, and guarded the liberty of
the free-born child who had been sold by its parents.1
Diocletian also made laws to hinder the sale of child
ren,2 and to maintain the liberty of insolvent debtors;
so much was the indirect influence of the church felt
even by the princes who persecuted it!3
Let those, then, who boast that they possess secrets
important for the happiness of humanity cease, when
they are not successful, from attributing it to the ill-
will of those in power ; let them refer it to their own
impatience, or to theinopportuneness of their reforms.
It is not right that the whole of society should be ex
perimented on continually; it has the right to exact
of those who aspire to regenerate it, a preliminary and
sufficient trial of their systems ; and, in truth, it has
never to fear this trial. Every idea truly salutary, and
which answers to a real profound need, makes its own
way in the world. It is sufficient that those who
adopt it have faith in it, and labor to realise it among
themselves. From this centre, however contracted, it
1 Naudet, loc. cil, p. 87 ; de Gerando, de la Bienf. publ, Vol.
II. p. 138.
3 Terme et Montfalc, Hist, des Enfants trouves, p. 63.
' Troplong, Infl. du chr., p. 76-79.

124 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
soon radiates and spreads ; the good it produces is its
best apology; and, opinion once for it, it soon has
power on its side also.
Thus the church proceeded in the first centuries.
She did not come to overthrow the old form of society,1
she only claimed for herself the right of existing; she
changed nothing in the old relations, but, by the side
of them, created new ones ; she prescribed new virtues,
subjected her members to new duties, made within
herself the reforms which she proposed to the world,
and, for the rest, awaited the natural and spontaneous
progress of opinion. Her expectation was not de
ceived. Feeble, abandoned, persecuted as she then
was, she however caused her influence to be felt afar
off, and to reform even the legislation in the name of
which she was oppressed.
But her charity prepared other triumphs for her.
Though in extending her gifts she wished only to con
form to a divine order, though it in no way accorded
with her views to pay for conversions, to buy prose
lytes, yet it was impossible that this spirit of benevo
lence should not powerfully aid her exterior progress.
The standard of charity ever rallies the poor and
feeble ; the unfortunate takes voluntarily for guide the
hand which comforts him, the arm which sustains him.
We read in Saint Epiphanius that Manes, wishing to
spread his errors in Mesopotamia, found the surest
way to succeed in uniting with himself a man distin
guished in that country for his extreme charity.2 The
1 Guizot, Rev. franc, Vol. V. p. 13.
3Epiph., Cont hcer., II., part 2; Haer. 66, p. 280 (Basil, 1560).

CHAP. IV. — CHARITY AFFECTING ROMAN LAW. 125
success which Manes sought in this way, was secured
habitually by the church without design. In a social
state so oppressive, every advantage ought to be for a
religion which preached and practised benevolence;
the unfortunate naturally crowded where they were
sure of finding aid and support.1 For this cause and
others of a more elevated order, the number of Chris
tians increased from day to day, and we approach the
moment when a prince, who assuredly did not want
political foresight, believed that he could, without dan
ger, and even with advantage, associate the church
with his empire.
The adoption of the Church by the State, under
Constantine, would necessarily modify, in many re
spects, the influence of charity in the Roman world.
Formerly, limited within a society not authorized
by the laws, it only acted as a private virtue. It was
only in an indirect manner that its principles had com
menced to penetrate legislation. Now the State will
lend its concurrence to the Church ; it will, itself, pro
claim the. principles of charity, professing to take it
for its guide in its administration and in its laws.
Charity will no longer be solely a private virtue, but
a public virtue also. On its part, the Church, which
till then had preached it, above all, in a religious
sense, will exult now to employ it in the service of the
State ; and, less pressing perhaps than formerly upon
1 This faGt is admitted by both friends and foes of the church.
Chrys., horn., 11, in Act., c. 3 ; horn, in Philem,, c. 3,j Julian., Ep.
ad Arsac, Gibbon,. Decline, c 15,
11*

126 BOOK I. — FROM JESUS TO CONSTANTINE.
the intimate sentiments of charity, it will recommend
more urgently its manifestations and its acts.
Here then opens for us in the history of Christian
charity a new period, which it imports so much the
more to distinguish from the preceding, as it coincides
with the epoch of the greatest disasters of the Empire,
and consequently of the most terrible ravages of
poverty. To this sad picture we must now turn our attention.

SECOND BOOK.
INFLUENCE OF CHARITY FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF
THE FOURTH TO THE END OF THE SIXTH CENTURY.

CHAPTER FIRST.
AGGRAVATION OF MISERY IN THE ROMAN WORLD.
At all times, industry and commerce were despised
at Rome ; the only sources of riches appreciated there
were agriculture and conquest.1
So long as most of the citizens were at the same
time proprietors and cultivators, and so long as they
had been occupied abroad only by short expeditions,
agriculture had flourished among them ; the space of
seven acres was judged sufficient, at that epoch, for the
sustenance of a family. But later, when more distant
expeditions detained them with the armies, those
of them who had no slaves to replace them in their
absence were obliged to leave their lands fallow ; and,
at their return, instead of the momentary plenty which
booty had secured to them in the camps, they only
found destitution and straitened circumstances in

1 Cicer., De offic, 1. 42 ; Dureau de la Malle, Econ. pol. des Rom.,
Vol. II. p. 366, etc. ; Blanqui, Hist, de I'econ. polit, Vol. I. p.
68, etc (127)

128 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
their homes. Pressed with debts which their poverty
forced them to contract, not in a condition to pay the
usurious interest which accumulated from year to year,
in order to get relief they sold their estates, or were
ejected from them.1 It was soon the same with that
portion of the conquered lands which the State had
allotted to these soldiers as an indemnity, and which be
sides was always very small.2 The greatest part of these
lands were, in effect, sold to the rich, who were alone
capable of managing them advantageously. Still
oftener, by favor of the credit which they enjoyed with
the magistrates, these lands were adjudged to the rich
for a small rent on an emphyteutic lease, which
finished by converting itself into a strict property, ex
empt from all charge.3 In vain from time to time
was it attempted to recover these usurped domains ;
for, the agrarian law was at one time eluded, at
another openly violated; the poor themselves, in whose
behalf it had been promulgated, were often the first
to abandon distant lands which they could not turn to
profit, and to which they preferred the resources and
amusements of the capital.4
Besides, at this epoch of despotism, the rich propri
etors had a thousand means of aggrandizing them-
1 Naudet, Sec. publ, ubi sup., pp. 9, 10.
3 Sismondi, Eludes sur I'econ. pol, Vol. II. p. 23.
3 Naudet, ubi sup., p. 3, etc.
" Dureau, ubi sup., pp. 430, 493. This historian, who highly
approves the agrarian law, as being destined to repair a notorious
injustice and to increase the middle and free class, which formed
the real strength of the state, acknowledges at the same time that
it was the people that, by its want of ardor in making use of that
law, annihilated its benefit.

CHAP. I. — MISERY IN ROMAN WORLD. 129
selves at the expense of their neighbors. " Some,"
says St. Chrysostom, " feigning false claims, and pre
senting a long list of credits, which they pretended to
date from their fathers and grandfathers, recovered a
house of one, and a field of another, and a slave of a
third." ' Others used all the resources of chicanery.
" His neighbor's trees cast too much shade, his house
was open to vagrants." Hence a thousand quarrels
till he was ousted. The unfortunate supported every
thing for fear of calling something worse upon him
self. Some, according to St. Basil, without any for
mality, would plough and sow the field of another ;
blows for him who resisted, injurious accusations
against him who complained ; the prison, slavery,
then sycophants at hand to institute a criminal action
against him.2 "The history of Naboth is old," says
St. Ambrose, " and yet it is repeated every day ; there
is more than one Achab ; every day a new one is born ;
every day some Naboth is forced to quit his estate,
followed by his sad family and his wife in tears, for
the rich wish to possess, alone, all the earth." 3 Some
times the poor man himself, to secure a true or pre
tended protection against the efforts of those who pii-

1 Chrys., hom., 13, in 1 Cor., o. 5, Vol. X. p. 116 ; horn., 22, in
Gen., c. 6, Vol. IV. p. 203, etc.
3 Basil. Magn., hom. in div., c. 5 ; Opp., Vol. II. p. 57 ; Cf. Greg.
Naz., Carm., I. 28; Opp. Ed. Ben., Vol. II. p. 547; Salvian., De
gub. Dei, lib. IV. pp. 188, 234 ; V. p. 274 ; see, for similar parti
culars, in Libanius, Orat. 10, in Jul. nee Opp. fol., Vol. II. p. 293.
8 Ambros., De Nab., c. 1, Opp. 8, Vol. II. p. 323, etc. ; Salvian.,
De gub. Dei, lib. IV. V, Opp. Vol. I. pp. 188, 290 ; Cf. Horat. Od.
II. 18, 23, etc.

130 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
laged, or against the exactions of the imperial trea
sury, alienated his property or his liberty.1 Thus,
because of misery and vexations, real estate concen
trated itself more and more within a few families; the
vast domains, which, in the times of the Gracchi,
already gave occasion for so many complaints, were
more and more extended every day, especially since
the reign of the Antonines;2 and in the fourth century
they already passed all bounds. The half of the Ro
man possessions in Africa, according to Plmy, was
owned by six proprietors, when Nero brought them
to death,3 and elsewhere several hundred miles were
travelled without leaving the domains of a certain
patrician or of a certain consul.
Now, upon these immense domains, what was the
condition of the population which cultivated them ?
Alas, as wretched as possible ! The rich Romans
hardly ever retained anyone upon their lands, except
the debtors whom they had ejected, and whose per
sons, attached by a lien, (nexus),4 according to the ex-
1 Greg. Naz., ubi sup.; Salv., De gub. Dei, lib. V. ; Gotbofr., in
Cod. Theod., Vol. IV. p. 173, De patroc vicor. -
3 Dureau, ubi sup., Vol. II. p. 228-230.
3 Plin., XVIII. 6.
4 Nexus. The debtor unable to pay within thirty days, was
placed at the creditor's disposal, and compelled to labor to the
amount of his debt ; he might, for this purpose, be loaded with
chains weighing fifty pounds, and confined at his creditor's.
After a new delay, the latter might sell him as a slave (Moreau
de Jonnes, Stat, des peuples anc, Vol. II. p. 402). " Slavery for
debts," says Troplong, " was for centuries the leprosy of Rome."
(See particulars entered into by the same on this subject, Seances
de Vac. des sc. mor. and pol, 2d series, Vol. I. p. 218, seq.

CHAP. I. — MISERY IN ROMAN WORLD. 131
pression then used, answered for the rest of their debt;
they arbitrarily employed these wretches, thus deli
vered to their mercy, and accorded to them, in return
for a crushing toil, only a meagre subsistence or a piti
ful salary.1 "Upon them, bent down all their lives
to their toil, they impose," says St. Chrysostom,
"insupportable burdens, and treat them like beasts,
without respite ; never do they give them the least
portion of the harvests which they lock up in their
granaries, and they leave them at the end of a fine
season as miserable as they were at its commence
ment." 2
Soon, however, the large proprietors preferred the
work of slaves, very numerous at that epoch, to that
of men whom the military service threatened each
instant to take from them. " The fields," says Mo-
reau de Jonnes, " were covered with chained laborers,
marked on the brow with a hot iron, the head half
shaved." 3 As to the free cultivators, whom these
slaves replaced, some came to Rome, to seek their sub
sistence in the public distributions, or in the suite of
some rich patron ; others, those who were not Roman
citizens, wandered sadly in the provinces, where their
families perished in inaction and misery.4
But the value of the labor of slaves for all work
1 Muller, Comm. de genio et mor., cevi. Theod., p. 19, seq. Accord
ing to Naudet, the greatest part of those wretched creatures lived
upon ten cents a day (Sec. publ, ubi sup., p. 11).
3 Chrysost, hom. 61, in Matth., c. 3, Vol. VII. p. 614.
3 Moreau de Jonnes, Eeon. dom. des Rom. (Journal des Eeon.,
Vol. III. p. 70).
4 Dureau, ubi sup., Vol. II. p. 278, seq.

132 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
which demands a little intelligence and activity of
mind, is well understood. Sismondi observes, that
agriculture has never prospered among the ancients
except where the slaves were still in feeble proportion
and only associated with their masters in their work.1
When slaves had everywhere been introduced as sub
stitutes of free workmen, the large proprietors, recog
nizing then that their lands brought them in less than
before, had recourse to another expedient. They con
verted their fields and their vineyards into pastures,
where they raised stock under the keeping of only a
few servants. This speculation, without doubt advan
tageous to them, it so economizing labor, finished by
ruining and depopulating the country ; and the deso
lation and sterility, which, in the time of Pliny, the
latifundia had already caused in Italy, was now seen
to extend over almost all the Roman empire.2
While the resources of agriculture were thus reduced
almost to nothing, what became of those of conquest?
Let us observe, in the first place, that conquest, such
as the Romans understood it, was the universal impo
verishment or rather ruin of the subjects of Rome for
the profit of one dominant city, which, after having
put them under contribution by its generals and its
legions, finished by despoiling them by its veterans,
1 De Sismondi, Etud. sur I'econ. pol., Vol. I. p. 407 ; Dureau,
Vol. II. p. 230; Moreau de Jonnes, Stat, des peuples anc, Vol. II.
p. 451.
3 Dureau, ubi sup., Vol. II. p. 223 ; de Sismondi, ubi sup., Vol.
II. p. 23, seq. All that precedes is resumed in a compact and
striking passage of Appian {De bell, civ., lib. I., Opp. fol. 1592,
p. 353, seq.). " Res in contrarium quam putarunt," etc.

CHAP. I. — MISERY IN ROMAN WORLD. 133
its publicans, and, above all, by its prastors and its pro
consuls. All the wealth which an active commerce
and industrious toil had, during so many centuries,
amassed in the cities of the east and south, came,
under a thousand names, under a thousand forms, and
by all means just and unjust, to accumulate in Rome.1
But the majority did not profit by it. Some gratifica
tions to the army, some distributions of provisions to
the poor citizens, from time to time some pecuniary
largesses, dissipated in a day of debauch, were all that
came directly to the people from the pillage of the
nations;2 the rest engulfed itself in the treasury of
the emperor, and in that of some families, richer by
themselves than all the people together.3
The evil would have been less, if from this centre
these riches, distributed by productive and intelligent
expenditure, circulating by channels wisely provided,
had nourished the prosperity of the capital and of the
provinces. Inequality of conditions is not of itself a
1 Cicer., pro leg. Man., c 22, 23 ; Dezobry, Rome sous Aug., lett.
76, 77 ; de Champagny, les Cesars, Vol. II. p. 166, seq. ; Vol. IV.
p. 206 ; Le Bas, Hist rom., Vol.. II. pp. 97, 109, etc Let us remem
ber, among others, the exactions of Cassius and Antonius in Asia.
It is thought that, within the twelve years that elapsed between
Scipio's return and the end of Antiochus' war, more than three
hundred millions of francs were brought to Rome, as well in con
tributions of war, as in precious metals plundered by the generals.
The sack of Carthage, alone, produced five hundred millions (Mo-
reau Ohristophe., Duprobl de la misere, Vol. I. p. 93, seq., 188, seq.;
du Droit a, I'oisivete, p. 43. For particulars, see Moreau de Jonnfes,
Stat, des peuples anc, Vol. II. p. 530).
3 Naudet, Sec publ, loc cit, p. 6.
3 Moreau de Jonnfes, Statist, Vol. II. p. 532.
12

134 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
source of misery ; on the contrary, like the graduated
levels on the globe, it is, in the plan of Providence, a
source of abundance and fertility. There is an em
ployment of opulence which may be a thousand times
more profitable to the poorer classes, than would be
the most equal partition. But, it is true, such is not
the ordinary fruit of wealth amassed by injustice.
That of the rich at Rome hardly profited aught but
vice and laziness. Instead of enriching labor, it ruined
it by usury.1 Instead of causing useful citizens to
prosper, it only served to nourish, for the vanity of a
master, devouring troops of slaves and clients, it made
the degrading professions of comedians, buffoons, and
parasites to flourish, paid for shows for the people, and
furnished means forthe profuse liberalities of a triumph,
or for the giddy joys of a day of installation. To the
refined if not productive luxury of monuments and of
the fine arts, had succeeded the material and ruinous
luxury of furniture, equipages, and expensive frivoli
ties,2 and soon the corruptive luxury of the table, and
brutal pleasures. In the time of the Republic, the
wife of a rich Roman was seen to expend seven mil
lions for one ornament ;3 in the fourth century there
might still be seen, according to the expression of a
Father of the Church, the subsistence of several fami
lies suspended at the ear or from the neck of a
1 Moreau de Jonnes, Statist, Vol. II. p. 533, seq.
3 Ammon. Marcell., Rer. gest, XIV. 6 ; XXVIII. 4 ; Dezobry, ubi
sup., I. p. 205, etc. ; de Champagny, ubi sup., III. pp. 43, 44 ;
IV. p. 45-49.
8 Naudet, ubi sup., p. 11.

CHAP. I. — MISERY IN ROMAN WORLD. 135
matron ;' entire fortunes were seen absorbed by the
expenses of one splendid repast, of one horse-race, or
of one combat of gladiators.2 All for the egotism and
for the sensuality, the pride or the vanity of the few ;
nothing for the real well-being of the many.
Besides, to reanimate the activity of the provinces
by the means of luxury, to permit them by industry
to regain in detail that which Rome had taken from
them, there, was necessary to them a confidence, a
security which despotism did not permit them to
enjoy. A prey to the avarice of governors, to the
rapacity of the farmers of the revenue, they had lost
courage to work and produce ; the more they were
pressed, the less was drawn from them ; the riches
devoured in Rome were not renewed ; commerce did
not repair a suffering agriculture ; the fertility of one
country supplied but slowly and with difficulty the
barrenness of another. Hence, in bad years, the
frightful famines which the avidity of monopolizers
speculated upon.3 Hence, even in ordinary years, an
excessive and ever-increasing, dearness, which Diocle-
' Chrysost, hom. 89 in Matth., c 4, Vol. VII. p. 836.
3 Basil. Magn., III. p. 46. See in Gregory of Nyssa the descrip
tion of the unbounded luxury of the rich in his time (Orat I., de
amand. paup.). They relate that Symmachus' son's installation
in the praetorship cost his father ten millions of francs, and that
the Senator Maximus, on a similar occasion, doubled that sum.
Moreau de Jon., Eeon. dom. des Rom. (Journ. des Eeon., Vol. III.
p. 61).
3 Liban., orat. 10, in Jul. nee, Opp. fol., Vol. II. p. 306 ; Chrys.,
hom. 39, in Cor., c. 8, Vol. X. p. 375; Basil., hom., in Mud: de
struam, etc., c. 5, Opp., II. p. 47 ; Greg. Naz., Carm. I. 2, 28 ; Vol.
II. p. 549, etc.

136 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
tian essayed in vain to arrest by his celebrated Maxi
mum.1 All the rigors with which he surrounded it
were powerless ; the famine increased to such a point
that to disembarrass himself of beggars, it is said, he
had a great number of them drowned.2 His succes
sors, less barbarous, but subject to the same difficul
ties, expelled from Rome, on the least appearance of
famine, not only the foreigners, but the Italians,3
"the sons of those whose tribute nourished Rome,"
says St. Ambrose, " at the risk of exposing themselves
to die of hunger."4 " Thus," says Moreau de Jonnes,
" the treasures which the Romans had acquired by
their conquests were to them what the mines of Ame
rica were to the Spaniards ; they sextupled the price
of things, and caused culture to be abandoned for
courses of pillage in distant countries."5 And, let us
boldly add, in causing the ruin of those countries, they
prepared that of Rome itself.
Finally, the resources of conquest were far from
being indefinite. Rome had, long since, derived from
them all that they could furnish. After having ex
tended its domination, in all ways, even to the limits of
1 Lactant, De morte persec, c. 7, Opp., p. 937 ; Le Bas, Hist. rom.
II., append., p. 518, seq. M. Moreau Jonnes shows, by that edict,
that substance was at that time by half, and certain necessary
objects ten or twenty times dearer than they are to-day in France
though merchants were losing, and hence ceased importing them.
(Journal des Eeon., III. p. 42.)
3 Lactant., De morte persec.
3 Amm. Marcell., XIV. 6, p. 27 ; Liban., Antiochic, Opp. fol.
II. p. 366 ; Cf. Symmach., Relat (ap. Ambros. Epp.)
4 Ambros., De off. min., III. 6, Vol. VII. p. 356.
6 Moreau de Jonn., ubi sup., p. 70.

CHAP, I. — MISERY IN ROMAN WORLD. 137
the civilized world, after having carried off the wealth
of the polished nations of Greece and the East, she now
found herself confronted with barbarous nations, among
which there was nothing to pillage, but which were al
ready disposed, themselves, to pillage and treat Rome
as she had, for so long a time, treated the vanquished.
It was no longer for her to increase her booty, but to
defend it; and how could she defend it, since now what
formerly constituted the force of the Roman armies,
the middle class, had almost entirely disappeared ? l In
time of danger, Rome armed the slaves, but the slaves
defended the territory still worse than they cultivated it.
Auxiliaries were then enrolled ; but to pay those four
hundred thousand strangers, who on all sides were to
hold in check the enemies of the empire, it was neces
sary to triple and quadruple the imposts.2 All groaned
under the scourge of the exactions of the imperial trea
sury, and the extortions of the soldiery. The dera
tions, charged at their own risk with levying the taxes,
and responsible for the sum fixed by the law, aban
doned their property to escape from their duty.3 The
debtors of the fisc, not in a condition to pay their
arrears, left of themselves their desert lands,4 and be
came beggars. The burden then fell upon the Ooloni
attached to the glebe, and upon a small number of free
country people whom the tyranny of the rich culti-
1 Dureau, ubi sup., II. p. 280.
3 Moreau de Jonn., ubi sup., p. 65 ; Stat II. p. 521, et seq. ; Le
Bas, hist, rom., II. p. 375 ; Dureau, II. p. 353, seq. ; 493.
* 3 Theodoret, Ep. 43 ; Opp., Vol. III. p. 928.
4 Peyron,/ra#ro. cod. Theod., p. 150, 153-156 ; Lactant., De morte
persec, c 7, 936 ; Salvian., de gub. Dei. V., Vol. I. p. 290.
12*

138 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
vators had spared.1 If they could not pay, they were
thrown into the State prisons; they were scourged
with the whip, and subjected to tortures,2 from which
they often did not escape except at the price of the
honor of their wives, or of the liberty of their children.3
A great number, to escape from the impost, fled among
the barbarians,4 or, becoming barbarians themselves,
under the name of Bagaudi, they devastated the pro
vinces of the empire, and retook by pillage what an
oppressive administration had taken from them.5
How paint the misery which then desolated the em
pire? Fathers were seen selling their children for
bread. The public places and avenues of the city
swarmed with beggars.6 "Go," said St. John Chry-
sostom, to a friend who complained of his misfortunes,
" go and visit the porches of our public baths, where
so many unfortunate ones, stretched upon straw or
upon filth, some even without clothing, trembling with

1 Theodoret., ubi sup.; Salvian., ubi sup., p. 284 ; Liban., Basilic,
Opp., Vol. IL p. 147.
3 Le Bas, Hist. Rom., II. p. 377.
3 Liban., Basilic, p. 146, seq., Salv., ubi sup., p. 292, seq.
4 Cod. Theod., XI. 1, De annon. et trib., I. 7, ann. 361, seq. From
the reign of Theodosius, the condition of proprietors had become
so intolerable, and the abandoned lands so numerous, that they
were left to the first occupant, on the condition of a two years'
possession. Giraud., Elem. de Droit Rom., I. p. 373.
6 Salvian., ubi sup., p. 278-80.
6 Cod. Theod., XIV. 8, 1. 1 ; Greg. Nyss., Orat. 1, de paup. am.
(in Orthodoxogr., p. 1781). Chrysostom calculated that at Antioch
a tenth part of the population was absolutely without resources,
and lived upon alms from day to day (Hom. 66, in Matth., c. 3,
VII. p. 657).

CHAP. I. — MISERY IN ROMAN WORLD. 139
cold, tormented with pain or with hunger, seek to
move the passers by with the spectacle of their wo." l
Palladius draws a still more heart-rending picture of
the beggars, lying under the porticoes of Ancyra, the
unhappy wives of whom were sometimes delivered in
the open air, in the midst of a rigorous season.2
To these evils, which had existed for a long time,
but which were aggravated from day to day, were
added, since the fourth century, others still more ter
rible. We have said that every power which only knows
how to grow and become rich at the expense of others,
necessarily and inevitably devotes itself to destruc
tion ; the term of its progress is the commencement
of its ruin. From the day that it ceases to inspire
terror, it sees resentments and vengeance fall upon
itself; from the moment when it has the world no
longer for its slave, it has it wholly for its enemy.
The Roman empire had to undergo to its very end the
consequences of its fatal policy. Its provinces, depeo-
pled of free men interested in their defence, guarded
by malcontent or ill-paid mercenaries, remained open
on all sides to barbarians. The inhabitants them
selves, far from repelling them, called them into the
heart of the empire; "For," says.Salvian, "their dear
est wish was not to remain under the domination of
Rome." 3 Then began those terrible invasions, which
continued, without interruption, from the death of
1 Chrysostom, ad Stagir., III. 13, Vol. I, p. 223.
3 Palladii, Hist. Laus, c 115, p. 205 ; Paris, 1570.
3 Salvian., ubi sup., p. 290; de Sismondi, Etudes sur Vecon.pol,
Vol. I. p. 94.

140 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
Theodosius, bringing with each new flood of barba
rians all scourges at once. In the west, nought was
to be seen but cities destroyed, provinces ravaged,
plains depeopled, and opulent families ruined and wan
dering from one end of the empire to another, or led
away into captivity. For example, let us limit our
selves to Italy. Let us consider at the time of St.
Ambrose, Bologna, Modena, Piacenza, and all the
country around reduced to a desert ; at the time of
Pope Gelasius, ^Emilia, Tuscan}', almost destitute of
inhabitants ; later, under Pope Gregory, all the popu
lation of Italy fleeing before the Lombards. Let us
consider, above all, the fate of Rome, blockaded, fam
ished, ransacked, pillaged finally by Alaric, hardly
preserved from the hordes of Attila, taken and retaken
five times under Justinian, and at each time treated
with redoubled cruelty, its senatorial families cut
down by the sword, and the rest of its inhabitants
almost destroyed by a long famine.1
It is evident that all this arose from having, from its
origin, despised the true and legitimate sources of the
wealth of nations, discouraged free labor, sacrificed
commerce, industry, agriculture itself, to war and con
quest; it was for having sought in injustice and vio
lence the sources of her prosperity and grandeur, that
Rome had at last come to the depths of misery. A
memorable lesson for those States which can still profit
by it!
1 Gibbon, Decline, etc., c 36, ad fin. ; de Sismondi, ibid. ; c. 10,
pp. 161, 199, 211 (ed. 8vo., maj.); Pelag. I., Epist. 15 (in Labbe
concil. coll., Vol. V. p. 802).

CHAP. II. — INTERVENTION OF THE CHURCH. 141
As for the Roman empire, having gone down for so
many centuries upon this fatal descent, it was no
longer possible for it to remount it. Its catastrophe
was imminent. All that could be done for its sub
jects was to break, to weaken the shocks; the evil
was without remedy. All that could be hoped was, to
find some palliatives for it.
And firstly, as one of the principal causes of the
wretchedness was the abuse which the rich and great
made of their power, it was necessary, as far as pos
sible, to protect the feeble against these oppressors.
Then, everywhere where the misery was felt, not
being able to oppose to it the only efficacious remedy,
that is, the resources of a free and fruitful labor, it
was necessary at least to do all to alleviate the evils
and privations which it brought in its train.
Such was the double task which Christian charity
had to fulfil from the fourth century. Let us examine
in what manner it undertook the task and how far it
succeeded in it.

CHAPTER II.
CHARITABLE INTERVENTION OF THE CHURCH IN FAVOR OF
THE OPPRESSED.
So many authors have occupied themselves with the
influence of Christianity in mitigating slavery, and
many in so learned and profound a way, that, after
them, it would be superfluous to enter upon long

142 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
details. We will only recall the principles of the
church in this regard.
" The doctrines of the church," says Wallon, "must
conduct to the abolition of slavery. But the apos
tles had not exacted it, and the Fathers of the
church were not in a better condition to accomplish
it ; for, after as before the public establishment of the
faith, it was always, even under the Christian empe
rors, the old society, bound by all its habits to slavery.
More than one law was necessary in order to change
such a state of things ; the change was a revolution,
and to accomplish it effectually, it was not the slave
which it seemed urgent to take from the master, but,
aDove all, it was necessary to wean the master from
slavery by the sentiment of the dignity of man. Now,
the task was long; and, besides, there was another,
more grave and more pressing; namely, the enfran
chisement of souls from the yoke of sin."1 So that
the church abstained from exciting the slaves and
from seeking their emancipation, for fear that their
efforts after temporal liberty would turn their eyes
from a spiritual liberty of a higher price. "Why,"
said St. Chrysostom, " did the apostle leave slavery to
exist ? To the end that you might learn the excellence
of the liberty of the soul ; for, even as it needed a pro
digy to preserve intact the bodies of the three children
in the fiery furnace, so there is less of grandeur and
of marvellousness in suppressing slavery than in show
ing that there is liberty even in its bosom."2
1 Wallon, Hist, de I'escl, Vol. III. p. 318.
* Ibid., p. 335 ; Chrysost, in Genes, serm., 5, c. 1 ; Opp., IV.
p. 666.

CHAP. II. — INTERVENTION OF THE CHURCH. 143
The masters then, could, without ceasing to be
Christians, keep their slaves.1 The priests themselves
and the bishops had some, which they often enfran
chised only at their death, like St. Gregory, of Nazi-
anzen,2 or like St. Augustine and the clergy of Hippo,
when they voluntarily renounced individual property
and decided to live in a community.3 This did not
hinder the church from encouraging the enfranchise
ments. "As our Redeemer," said St. Gregory the
Great, (in emancipating two slaves belonging to his
church,) "put on human-nature to break the bonds
that held us captive, and to restore us to our original
liberty, it is salutary to restore liberty, by emancipa
tion, to those whom national laws subject to servi
tude." 4 Chrysostom condemns the unbridled luxury
shown in keeping slaves. He would have preferred
that the masters should only keep the number strictly
necessary for their service, and have trades taught to
the others, that they might gain their living, so that
they might ultimately be set free. " This," said he,
" is what might truly be called charity." 5
1 The church formally condemned the Eustachians of Cappadocia,
who denied the character of a Christian to any owner of slaves,
and the Circoncelliones of Africa, who excited slaves to rebellion.
Concil. Gangr., can. 3 (Labbe concil, Vol. II. p. 415). Chrysostom
proves, by Paul's example, that people ought to forbear to take
slaves from their masters, for fear of causing Christianity to be
cursed as at enmity with established civil relations. (Chrys., in
Ep., ad Philem., argum., Vol. II. p. 773.)
3 Greg. Naz., Testament., Opp., Vol. II. p. 202, seq.
3 August., de vit et mor. cleric, Serm. 355, c. 2 ; Serm. 356, c. 3, 7,
Vol. XXI. pp. 349, 357.
4 Gregor. Magn., Ep. VI. 12 ; Opp., Par. 1705, Vol. II. p. 800.
5 Chrys., Hom. 40, in 1 Cor., c 5, Vol. X. p. 385.

144 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
But the church recommended to them, before all
and always, sentiments of fraternity which would make
them treat their slaves as, in their place, they would
have desired to be treated by them. Whilst the pagan
Libanius exhausts his rhetoric to prove that the slaves
are more free and happy than their masters,1 the
Fathers of the church show to the masters the sad
condition of their slaves, exhort them to spare them
from all excessive work, all inhuman treatment, to
show them, on every occasion, sympathy, mildness,
and a truly paternal commiseration, even in indispen
sable punishments.
Similar recommendations abound in their-discourses
and writings.2 They do not admit the poor excuses
of the masters. " They are vicious," they said ; " it is
an insubordinate and lazy race, inclined to lying,
thieving, and all vices." But what made them so, if
it was not the harshness and the pernicious examples
of their masters ? 3 And what other means were there
to correct them, but to take care of their souls and to
use more of humanity towards them ? 4 " Your female
servants are intolerable, you say, if they are let alone.
True, but there are other means of correcting them
than with the whip. Kindness will succeed better
than fear. They are inclined to drunkenness ; take
1 Liban., De servit. orat, Vol. II. p. 649-651.
' See Wallon, loc cit, p. 343-349 ; Chrys., in Ep. ad Phil, Vol.
II. p. 775.
3 Chrysostom speaks with indignation of the rapine, violence, and
infamous disorders of manners to which slaves were compelled by
some masters. (Chrys., in Ep. ad Phil, hom. 1, o. 2, Vol. XI.
p. 777.)
* Salvian., De gub. Dei, IV. p. 182.

CHAP. II. — INTERVENTION OF THE CHURCH. 145
from them the occasions for getting drunk : to liber
tinism ; marry them off: to theft ; watch them. If
this slave has faith, she is your sister in Christ. Has
she not a soul like you ? Has she not been honored
of the Lord ? Does she not sit at the same table ?
Has she not, with you, an illustrious origin ? She has
vices, you say ; have free women not vices too ? And
yet, the Gospel would have their husbands support
them." 1
The example of the holy did still more good than
their precepts. Noble Christian dames, Paula, Fabi
ola, attempted, by a touching familiarity, to edify the
souls of those whom fortune had subjected to them.2
"Lea," says St Jerome, "resembled less a mistress in
the midst of her slaves, than a servant in the midst of
her companions, so much did she bend to their con
dition by her sympathy and goodness ; she was also
respected and cherished by the most of them."3 Sy
nesius, the bishop, demands in recovery a slave who
had fled. "It is not one of mine," he adds, "fori
treat them so that they love me much more as a mas
ter of their choice, than they fear me as a ruler imposed
on them by the law."4 Such masters were well situ
ated to preach compassion and clemency unto others.
We see, then, St. Basil thank Callisthenes, who, at his
instance, had spared two slaves, whom he had sworn
to deliver up to punishment.5 Finally, when recom-
1 Chrys., hom. 15, in Ephes., c. 3, Vol. XI. p. 112, seq.
* Hieron., Ep. 86, Epit Paul,, Opp. IV. part 2, p. 670.
8 Ibid., ad Marcell de exitu Lece., Ep. 20, ubi sup., p. 52.
4 Synes., Ep. 144, Opp. Paris, 1632, p. 281.
5 Basil., Ep. 73 ; Opp., Ben., III. p. 167.
13

146 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
mendations and prayers were useless, the church
opened to the oppressed or threatened slave the refuge
of a sanctuary, and, whilst this asylum protected him
from the first transports of the rage of his master, the
bishop went to implore, and very often obtained his
pardon. Again, it was the interest of this unfortunate class
that animated the church in its efforts for the abolition
of the combats of gladiators. What fervor of charity
glowed in the monk Telemachus, when, having arrived
at Rome at the mo nent when these cruel sports were
celebrated, he threw himself into the middle of the
arena to separate the combatants, and perished, a vic
tim of the fury of the people ! But his blood was
fruitful as that of the martyrs, and the law of Hono
rius was its worthy price.1
The church equally surrounded with its protection
the unhappy coloni attached to the glebe.
" Pay to the hireling his just wages," said St. Am
brose ; " despise not the poor who consumes for thee
his life in toil, for it is to deprive him of life to refuse
the subsistence due to him. Remember that thou art
also a hireling on earth, and give to the hireling that
thou mayest, in thy turn, ask of the Lord." 2 St. Au
gustine, learning that some poor coloni were obliged
to pay to their masters the double of what they legiti
mately owed, complained for them to the magistrate
1 Prudent., in Symmach. II. 11, 21 ; Theodoret, Hist, eccles., V. 26.
In the year 404, Honorius abolished entirely the contests of gla
diators. Gothofr., in Cod. Theod., Vol. V. p. 398.
3 Ambros., De Tobid, c. 24, g 92 ; Opp., Vol. II. p. 412 ; Cf. Chrys.,
hom. 61, in Matth., c 3, 4, Vol. VII. p. 614-616.

CHAP. II. — INTERVENTION OF THE CHURCH. 147
of their province, and rendered him responsible for all
the violence that might be used against them.' Maysi-
mas, a Syrian monk, upon the same subject, addressed
remonstrances to the governor Letoius.2 The Pope,
St. Gregory, is informed that the coloni of the Roman
Church in Sicily are trampled upon by his agents, that
they exact more grain of them than is right, that many
of them, who were born free, have been claimed as
slaves ; he writes instantly to the sub-deacons of Sicily,
that they should have an eye to these abuses, and pre
serve the coloni of the church from all injustice and
oppression.3 After the condition of the slaves and the coloni, there
were none more miserable than the small free propri
etors, whom the great, under a thousand pretexts, and
by a thousand odious means, spoiled of their estates.
And with what courage did the church defend them
against these privileged thieves ! " 0 thou, who, to
rob the poor, dost bring unjust suits against him,
transport thyself in thought before the Supreme Tri
bunal, without a defender who will plead for thee
against these unfortunate creatures whom thou hast
made thy victims. 0 rich man ! of what use to thee
are thy magnificent constructions ? Even after the
death of their possessor they utter an accusing voice.
Each one, regarding them, exclaims, 'What tears they
have cost ! How many orphans stripped to the last,
how many widows reduced to despair !' ' What, again
1 Aug., Ep. 247, ad Romul, c 1, seq., Vol. XLI. p. 368.
3 Theodoret, Relig. hist, c. 14; Opp., Vol. III. p. 842. '
3 Gregor. Magn., Epp. 1, 42, 53 (Labbe, Cone, Vol. V. pp. 1055,
1064).

148 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
declaiming against the rich,' says one to me. Yes, as
you are against the poor. Against the plunderers?
Yes, like you against those whose property you plun
der. Until you cease to devour the poor, I will not
cease to cry out against you. Touch not my lamb if
you do not wish me to defend it." 1
The barbarity of usurers was treated no less gently.2
St. Ambrose describes them to us as enticing their
victim, at one time by the attraction of pleasure, at
another by that of a few days' relief, entangling him
by perfidious advances, strangling him by invisible
ties, which they draw tighter and tighter, till they
could despoil him at their leisure.3 He paints the des
pair of a father of family under the talons of one of
these vultures, who constrains him to alienate his
estate and to sell even his own children. "I have
seen," says he, " a lamentable spectacle ; children sold
at auction to pay the debt of their father, heirs of his
disasters, who should have been heirs to his goods.
And the creditor, far from blushing at such a sale,
1 Basil., Hom. in divit, c. 6 ; Opp., Vol. II. p. 58 ; Chrysost, in
Genes., hom. 30, c. 2 ; in Ps., 48, Vol. IV. p. 296 ; Vol. V. pp. 507,
523; Ambr., De Nabuth. ; Greg. Naz., Carm., lib. I., g 2, c 28;
Salv., De gub. Dei, IV., Vol. I. pp. 188, 234.
3 "Is there anything more cruel," says Chrysostom, "than to
take advantage of the poverty of one's neighbor, and under the
mask of kindness, to plunge him into an abyss ? The poor does
not come to thee in order to be deprived of the little he has, but to
be relieved of his poverty ; and thou, feigning to help him, thou
hastenest his ruin." Chrys., Cur. in Pentec, hom. c. 1, Vol. III.
p. 32 ; Cf. in Matth., hom. 5, c. 5 ; hom. 56, c 5, Vol. VII. pp. 82,
573, etc.
8 Ambros., De Tobia, c 3, seq., Vol. II. p. 364, seq.

CHAP. II. — INTERVENTION OF THE CHURCH. 149
urged its conclusion. 'They have been nourished
with my money,' he said, < let their services now reim
burse the advances I have made.' 0, the insatiable
rapacity of the usurer, worthy of Satan, of whom he is
the faithful image !" ' The rate of interest was so high
among the Romans, that to lend on legal terms with
the firm resolution of being paid, was, in some sort, to
resolve in advance on the ruin of the borrower. So
that the Fathers of the church saw scarcely any dif
ference between lending on interest and on usurj', and
renewed, in this respect, the prescriptions of the Old
Testament.2 They wished that, while refusing to the
intemperate, to the gamester, to the voluptuary, what
would only serve to feed their passions, the mise
ries of the poor should be relieved gratuitously. But
while preaching humanity to creditors, they respected
their rights ; and when they could not obtain a for
bearance from them, or an equitable reduction, they
sometimes aided a debtor to pay,3 and even did not
fear to engage themselves personalty for them. St.
Augustine wrote one day to his flock to assist him
in reimbursing seventeen solidi of gold. Having
nothing wherewith to pay the debt of a poor person

1 Ambros., De Tobid, c 8, 9, p. 375, seq.
3 Ibid., ib., c. 2, 14, p. 364, 386, seq. The doctrine of the Fathers
on this matter served as a basis to the civil and religious legisla
tion of the Middle Ages, which prohibits any interest, but which,
by this prohibition, ended only in augmenting the scourge of usury.
3 Gregory the Great orders Anthimus, his deacon, to pay in part
the debts of Maurus, and to obtain from creditors, if he could, to
discharge him for the remnant. Epp., VII. 37 (Labbe, Cone,
Vol. V. p. 1328.)
13*

150 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
who had applied to him, he had borrowed the sum
necessary, and, as he could not return it, he found
himself on the point of being prosecuted. It was ne
cessary for the church and clergy of Hippo to disen
gage him by means of a collection.1
The more elevated was the condition of the creditor,
the more profound was the misery of the debtor, which
found so much the more sympathy among these gene
rous instruments of charity. The writings of the
Fathers are full of their supplications in favor of pri
vate persons, of cities or of provinces crushed beneath
the weight of imposts. It is St. Basil who prays the
governors and the assessors of taxes of Cappadocia, at
one time to spare an old man burdened with children ;
at another to lighten the burthen that weighs upon
Csesarea; here to exempt from the oath peasants sub
ject to the tax ; there, to accord a respite in the levy
of the impost for the military equipment ; elsewhere,
to discharge from curial offices the grandson of an old
man who found himself improperly subject to them ;
and elsewhere again, to diminish the taxes which over
whelmed the peasants of the Taurus.2 It is Theodoret,
Bishop of Cyrus, who writes to the Patrician, Areo-
binde, in favor of the agriculturists visited the pre
ceding year by a famine,3 and who addresses letters

1 August., Ep. 268; Opp., Vol. XLI. p. 422.
3 Basil., Epp. 36, 37, 75, 76, 83-85, 110, etc. ; Opp,. Vol. III. rm
114, 170, 171, 176-178, etc.
8 Theodoret, Ep. 23; Opp. Vol. III. p. 917. "Have mercy,"
says he to him, "on those poor who have worked so much and
gained so little. Let the sterility of the year before you, by the
compassion you will use towards them, be the occasion of an
abundant.spiritual crop."

CHAP. II. — INTERVENTION OF THE CHURCH. 151
upon letters to influential personages, to the empress
herself, for the inhabitants of his diocese, of which, on
false reports, they had augmented the imposts.1 Pre
sented with warmth by men whose devotedness was
known, whose characters were venerated, whose elo
quence had the gift of persuasion,2 these reclamations
were almost always favorably received. St. Basil and
St. Gregory accompanied with their benedictions the
governors whom they had more than once implored,
and whose clemency they had experienced.3 Paul,
Bishop of the Novatians of Constantinople, put so
much fervor in his supplications for the debtors of the
fisc, that he almost always obtained their freedom.4
St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Pavia, obtained from Odoa-
cer an exemption from imposts, for five years, for that
city, which had been burned and pillaged by the He-
ruli; he caused the Ligurians, who had been doubly
taxed, to be relieved, and obtained from Gondebald
the redemption of the prisoners taken by Theodoric.5
When the faithful were oppressed by the powerful,
when subaltern tyrants, magistrates, governors, and
proconsuls trampled under them, without pity, the pro
vinces the administration of which had been confided

1 Theodoret, Ep. 42, 43 ; ibid., p. 926-928.
3 Greg, of Naz, upon terminating his discourse to Julian, an
assessor of taxes, reminds him of that love for eloquence, which
had always excited in him generous emotions of the heart. (Orat.
19, o. 16 ; Opp, Vol. II. p. 374.)
3 Basil, Ep. 327, Vol. III. p. 450 ; Greg. Naz, Ep. 146, Opp,
Vol. II. p. 123.
4 Socrat, Hist eccl, VII. 17.
5 Baillet, Vies des Saints, Jan. 21st, p. 270.

152 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
to them, it was, again, the charity of the Christian
ministers which protected these victims of caprice. At
one time, like St. Ambrose, like Pope Celestin, like
Domitian, Bishop of Melitenus, like St. Germain,
Bishop of Auxerre, like St. Marcel, Archimandrite at
Constantinople, they turned to profit their credit at
the court, to introduce there the complaints of the
poor and the griefs of the provinces;1 at another,
like St. Gregory and St. Basil, addressing themselves
directly to the oppressors, they sought by their severe
and yet pathetic remonstrances, to recall them to them
selves. " I should fail in the regard which I owe to
you and to the importance of your office," said St.
Gregory to the Governor Olympius, just ready to
chastise the city of Nazianzen, " if I neglected to give
you the advice which your interest and that of the
people under your administration require. Besides,
if God has confided the government of this city to you,
1 Vita Sand., Ambros., Coelestin, Ep. 12, ad Theodos., jun. (ap.
Labb, Concil. Vol. II. p. 1629) ; Baillet, ubi sup., Jan. 10th, p. 120,
and Dec 29th, p. 409. The intercession of bishops in behalf of the
oppressed was considered so precious, that, for this purpose only,
they were allowed to visit the court or the camp. Cone. Sardic,
c. 7 (Labbe, Cone, Vol. II. p. 632, seq.). "They reproach us,"
says Augustine, "with visiting the great; do not you know that
your own concerns compel us to do so against our own will ? . . .
It is for your sake that we beg for audiences, . . . that we face
affronts and refusals, and that we often withdraw with a, sad
heart," Aug, Serm., 302, c 17, Vol. XXI. p. 67. The fifth Council
of Carthage, in 399, resolved to beg the emperors to appoint " cum
episcoporum provisione," defenders of the poor, to aid the church
in maintaining the latter against the vexations of the powerful.
Can. 9 (Labbe, Cone, Vol. II. p. 1217); Bingham, Orig., eccles.,
III. 11, \ 2.

CHAP. II. — INTERVENTION OF THE CHURCH. 153
yet as a Christian and a member of the church, he* has
placed you under our spiritual jurisdiction. I owe an
admonition to you, then, and it is this : You hold your
power of God ; use it as He uses it, for the good of
men, and not like Satan, who uses power for their
injury. It is by mercy and goodness that you will
become like to God, and that you will merit, your
selves, the title of godly upon earth. Others seek to
acquire this exalted title by great deeds of devoted
ness ; you, to obtain it, only need clemency. Pardon,
that you may be pardoned. Shall I have succeeded
in interesting you, you, who more than once have
deigned to listen to me with some kindness ? Shall I
dare, in default of any request, to present to you my
whitened hairs and this long series of years passed in
the exercise of the ministry ? Should I add something
still? Well, I present Jesus Christ to you, his suffer
ings, his cross, the nails that pierced him, the blood
which he shed for you, his table where we all com
mune. I leave you, at last, in presence of God and
his angels, with this people which joins in with my
supplications. You have in heaven a Master who will
judge you as you will have judged your inferiors."1
If exhortations and remonstrances remained with
out effect, the church still persisted. At the risk of
turning upon herself the fury of the powerful, she
adopted the cause of the feeble, received their goods
on deposit, defended them as her own,2 opened her
' Greg. Naz, Orat. 17 ; Ep. 141, Opp, Vol. I. p. 322-326, Vol.
II. p. 118. On another occasion, he uses the same language with
James, Prefect of Cappadocia. Ep. 207, Vol. II. p. 174.
3 August, Ep. 252, Vol. XLI. p. 379 ; Serm. 176, c 2, Vol. XIX.
p. 494.

154 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
sanctuaries to the oppressed, and, in case of need,
resisted the oppressor. St. Ambrose insists much with
his clergy upon the protection due to the rights of
widows and orphans, and calls to mind how often he
has himself sustained, for this sacred cause, the assaults
of the great.1 The first Council of Macon ordained,
under pain of excommunication, that widows and
orphans should not be brought to judgment before
having given notice to the bishop or archbishop, in
order that he might have the opportunity of giving to
them a defender. The same Council declared that the
great and the people of the king, who arbitrarily drove
the poor from their houses or their lands, should be
anathematized.2 They were not satisfied with simple
threats. Indignant at the cruelties of Andronicus,
who, in order to tyrannize more easily over the inha
bitants of Ptolemais had suppressed the right of asy
lum, St. Synesius, after having charitably but without
success warned this wicked governor, hesitated no
longer to hurl the anathema against him. "Let no
one," wrote he to the bishops of Libya, "call Andro
nicus, who has been a scourge to all the Pentapolis, a
Christian. Let no sanctuary be opened to him nor to

1 Ambros, De off. min., II, 21, 29, Vol. VII. pp. 314, 330-332.
He quotes a fact of this kind that had just happened in the church
of Pa via.
" Cone Matise, ann. 585, can. 12, 14 (ap. Labbe, cone, Vol. V.
p. 985). So, too, the second council of Tours, in 567, pronounced
excommunication against the judges and the powerful men who
oppressed the poor, and who, in spite of the advice of the bishops,
refused to amend themselves. (Can. 26, ibid., p. 865.)

CHAP. II. — INTERVENTION OF THE CHURCH. 155
his ; let no priest dwell under the same roof with him,
or sit at the same table."1
Even the imperial power itself did not overawe these
courageous interpreters of charity. When the empress
Eudoxia, profiting by a tyrannical law, wished to have
adjudged to her the vines of some poor widows, for
which she offered, it is true, to pay the price, she found
Chrysostom on her path, who, without troubling him
self either about the law of the emperor, or the anger
of the empress, dared to resist this act of usurpation.2
Is there need to recall here his intercession and that
of Flavian in favor of revolted and repentant Antioch ? 8
In vain did Libanius attribute to himself the safety of
the city of his birth ; it is sufficient to compare his cold
declamation with the eloquent words of his rival,4 it is
sufficient, above all, to read the answer of Theodosius,
in order to judge which one, the prelate or the rheto
rician, had had the glory of bending him. " What
merit," says the emperor, "is there in me, who am but
a man, for abandoning my vengeance against other
men, when the Lord of the Universe, who had taken
upon Himself, for our sakes, the form of a servant,
and who had done only good to man, has implored
his Father for those who crucified him ?" 5 St. Am
brose would have had apparently the same success
with Theodosius, if he had known in advance of the
' Synes., Ep. 58 ; Opp, p. 201.
3 Baron, Annal. ad ann., 401, Vol. V. p. 142.
3 Theodor, Hist, eccles., V, 20 ; Sozomen, VII, Z6.
4 Liban, Orat, 12, ad Theod., Vol. II. p. 389, seq.; Chrys, ad
pop. Ant, hom. 21, Opp, Vol. II. p. 217, seq.
6 Chrys, ibid., p. 223.

156 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
chastisement reserved for Thessalonica. Unfortu
nately the crime had been consummated when the
bishop intervened ; "but, at least, by his courageous
anathema, he avenged the rights of outraged huma
nity and obtained an edict which guarded the monarch
for the future against the precipitancy of his own fury.1
Thus, the principles of the church regarding politi
cal power did not differ from its principles regarding
property. In establishing that the superior powers
came from God, in insisting upon the submission due
to them for this cause, she did not conlude that their
authority might be exerted in an arbitrary manner,
but, on the contrary, proceeding from a divine source,
it ought to be employed according to the spirit of God
himself, and for the good, of His children.2 "The
ruler," says St. Paul, "is a minister of God to thee for
good."3 This was all the politics of the gospel, but,
how elevated and rich ! What notion more salutary
could be given of power, to render it dear to those who
were submitted to it and to regulate its use among
those who wielded it ? The sincere love of rulers for
those whom they govern in the name of the Father of
men, a love which, according to St. Augustine, is recon
cilable with the most severe duties of justice,4 the re-
1 Sozom., Hist eccles., VII., 25 ; Theodoret, V, 18.
3 " Though ordained by God to serve as instruments for His
providence, malignant powers are not the less odious and cursed
to his eyes." Syn, Ep. 57, adv. Andron., Opp, p. 191.
3 Rom. xiii. 4.
* " Jesus Christ," says Augustine, " prohibits not the vengeance
necessary for the correction of the sinner, for it is an instrument
of compassion, and prevents not such as take it from bearing per
sonally many wrongs. But there is no man proper to that sort

CHAP. HI. — EXHORTATIONS TO ALMS. 157
speet and confidence of people for those whom the
Sovereign Master has invested with his power ; these
two sentiments, which cannot exist the one without
the other, but which are developed and fortified by
each other, when once they shall have been profoundly
impressed upon the heart, will they not become the
surest guaranty of the happiness and tranquillity of
States ?

CHAPTER THIRD.
EXHORTATIONS OF THE CHURCH IN BEHALF OF ALMS.
To protect the oppressed, whom the law left without
defence, to sustain the rights of widows and of orphans,
by a benevolent intercession to obtain alleviations for
people overwhelmed with imposts, milder treatment
for coloni and slaves, and respite for unfortunate
debtors, to deliver up usurers to the opprobrium of
opinion, to trouble the usurpers of the property of
the poor in their unjust possessions, to save the inno
cent, whose ruin would have brought on that of their
families, finally to combat, by pacific means, that un
checked despotism^ which, from the heights of society,
weighed upon all classes, and principally upon the
inferior ranks, this was, without doubt, to weaken
some of the causes and to lessen some of the evils of
of vengeance except the one who knows how to overcome hatred by
the power of his charity." (August, Serm. dom. inmont, I, 20,
Vol. XIV. p. 190.)
14

158 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
poverty, but it was not to destroy poverty itself. Its
roots were too deep for any one to hope to reach them.
It penetrated at all points a society in decay, an em
pire ready to fall. The dulness or rather the almost
total absence of commerce and industry, the decline
of agriculture and of all the arts, the wars and inva
sions, these are the sources of a flood of evils which
charity could neither turn aside nor prevent, and
which, therefore, it could only endeavor, with so much
greater ardor, to assuage.
We are to see, then, the church turn its principal
efforts to this. From this moment benevolence, espe
cially under the form of alms, takes a place in the
scale of Christian duties which it had never had be
fore. It is no longer only as a manifestation of fra
ternal love that the Christian orators recommend it?
but it is, above all, as a palliative to the miseries which
desolated their flocks. We would be pleased to cite
entire their admirable pleas in favor of the poor. Let
us here reproduce the principal arguments. This is
the only way to show the wholly new importance which
they had attached to this duty, and to characterize the
spirit in which they preached it. There are few sub
jects upon which the ancient Christian eloquence in
the fourth century exerted itself more.1 Perhaps our
readers will be pleased if we gather some traits of it
here, and cite some of those profound maxims, some
of those pathetic passages, those true and striking
pictures, which, after so many centuries, and in spite
of the less happy passions here and there mingled with
them, have still the secret to soften and to move us.
 *> 
1 Villemain, Tableau de I'eloq. chr., pp. 131, 181.

CHAP. III. — EXHORTATIONS TO ALMS. 159
One winter's day, as Chrysostom crossed the streets
of Antioch, to go to the cathedral, he met upon his
way a multitude of poor and beggars, more numerous
than common, whose aspect saddened him profoundly.
On his arrival it was impossible for him to confer with
his audience on any other subject, and, after having
caused the sixteenth chapter of the first epistle to the
Corinthians to be read: " My brothers," said he, "I
want to acquit myself of an embassy just and neces
sary, as well as honorable for you. Those who send
me are the poor of your city ; my titles are neither
the popular votes, nor the decrees of a senate, but the
lamentable spectacle which has just struck my eyes.
In coming here, across the public squares and the
streets near the church, I have seen lying on the cor
ners a crowd of wretched men, some crippled, others
deprived of sight, others covered with ulcers, and
showing hideous undressed wounds. A witness of so
many miseries, I would believe myself the most inhu
man being if I did not expose them to you, especially
to-day and at this period of the year. For, if it be
comes us at all times to remind ourselves of the com
passion which we owe to our brothers, we who have
at all times need of the compassion of God, never is it
necessary to urge alms more than in the rigorous sea
son. In summer, the softness of the temperature
brings some relief to the poor. Covered with the rays
of the sun, they can better dispense with vestments,
they can better lie in the open air and on the naked
earth ; they need neither wine, nor strengthening ali
ments ; some water and a few vegetables are sufficient
for them ; it is also the season when most of the work-

160 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
men, the ploughmen, the sailors, and masons can earn
their living ; but in winter, when they have need of so
many things, work fails and they cannot procure them.
To-day, then, if we find no one who can employ them,
let us at least seek compassionate souls who will com
fort them, and let us enlist for this embassy the great
patron of the poor, the Apostle Paul, in commenting
on the exhortations which he addressed to the Corin
thians." 1
Chrysostom did not fear to render himself importu
nate in insisting continually upon this duty. " Each
day they will say to me, 'you speak to me of alms.'
Yes, without doubt, and I will not cease to speak to
you of them. Were you as docile as I could wish, I
would speak to you yet again, to hinder you from
relaxing. But if you have not arrived midway even,
whose is the fault ? Is it for the unapt scholar to com
plain of the repetitions of his master? I groan when
I see that neither the experience of things, nor the
promises of God, nor the fear of the future, nor our
reiterated advice, have any influence over many of
you ; but I will not cease to warn them until I have
succeeded in dissipating this intoxication in which the
love of earthly goods keeps them immersed." 2 "I
will tell you why we insist," says St. Augustine, to
those who reproached him with the same thing, " it is
because that each time we go to church or return from
it, the poor entreat us to recommend them to your
alms, and, receiving nothing, they accuse us of work-
1 Chrysost, Serm. de deem., Opp, Vol. III. p. 248, seq.
8 Ibid., hom. 88, in Matth., c 3 ; hom. 4, in Genes., c. 6 ; Opp,
Vol. VII. p. 829 ; Vol. IV. p. 21, seq.

CHAP. III. — EXHORTATIONS TO ALMS. 161
ing in vain among you. For ourselves, we give what
we can, but can we alone satisfy their wants ? No,
without doubt, and it is for that, even, that we are
missionaries among you ; you have heard us, applauded
us, even. It is well, but these praises augment our
responsibility. They are but the leaves of the tree, we
expect the fruit." x
But, if seeking to penetrate deeper into the thought
of these illustrious doctors, we demand of them the
grounds of the duty which they preach with so much
urgency ; like their predecessors, it is to the first source
of all obligations, it is to God and his will,2 manifested
in nature and in grace, that they refer us.
They recall the bonds which the Creator has esta
blished among men, in stamping upon them all His
august image, in calling them all into being from the
same blood,3 in making them feel the evils of each
other, and in exposing them all to the same vicissi-
1 August, Serm. 61, de Script, c 13, Vol. XVIII. p. 235, seq.
3 " The first commandment is a basis to the second," says Bazil,
" and by the second we accomplish the first, since God receives
our favor in the poor." "We must," says Augustine, "refer all
to God ; in him and for him we must love all men." Gregory the
Great says, likewise, " Whilst most men love their neighbor but
for themselves, God commands us to love our friends in Him, and
our foes for the sake of Him." Bazil, Reg. fus. int. 3, Vol. II. p.
340 ; Aug., De doctr. christ., I, 22, 26 ; Vol. IV. pp. 434, 438 ; Serm.
dom. in mont, I, 41, Vol. XIV. p. 169 ; Greg. Magn, in Ev., hom.
27, Opp, Vol. II. p. 436 (Ed. Basil, 1564).
3 Chrys, Hom. de perf. car., c 1, Vol. VI. p. 288. "God having
formed the first man, wished that all should be born from him,
that we might consider ourselves all as being only one." Cf. Pru
dent, in Symmach., II. v. 585, seq.
14*

162 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
tudes ; " To love men our equals, made like us, and
whom nature herself inclines us to love, what is there
difficult in that?" says St. Chrysostom. "God him
self has put this sentiment into our souls, for our
parents, for all men. By nature we are inclined to
pity. We weep over the dead, and we feel for the
afflicted. God has wished to show thus how he had
at heart the exercise of this duty." 1 " He whom the
misery of his brothers," says St. Asterus, "does not
touch with compassion, is more cruel than the wild
beasts themselves. The wild boars and bulls, it is
said, when one of them is killed, raise plaintive cries.
The flocks of cranes, when one is taken in a snare, fly
about it, crying mournfully. And man, gifted with
reason, and to whom God himself has taught good
ness, will only be feebly moved by the evils of his
brothers!"2 By the side of this relationship, of this
solidarity, which is established among men by their
community of nature and of origin, and which God
reminds them of, without ceasing, by the mutual sym
pathy with which he has endowed them, the Fathers
have signalised, as one of the principal marks of the
will of God, the inequality with which he has shared
among them the gifts of mind and of body; so that
each one could only find a full satisfaction for his
wants in the society of his brethren, and the happiness
of each was only assured by the efficacious concert of
all. This admirable law, by which God has wished

1 Chrys, Exp. in Ps. 5, c. 2, V. p. 30; Hom. 52, in Matth. c. 5,
Vol. VII. p. 536.
3 Aster, in div., et Laz. hom. (Combefis, Bibl. patr. I. p. 10.

CHAP. III. — EXHORTATIONS TO ALMS. 163
strictly to unite all men, and at the same time to sti
mulate the activity of each of them, finds eloquent
interpreters among the Christian doctors of the fourth
century. " See," says Chrysostom, " how many natu
ral bonds God has established among us, and how, by
the variety of aptitude which he has given to us, it is
so ordered that we should each need the others. As
he has given to different countries different kinds of
productions, that there may be established among
them a continual interchange of good service, so he
has allotted to men both temporal and spiritual goods
in different degrees, to the end that they should com
municate with one another, as St. Paul exhorts them
to do." J
But, oftener, the doctors of the church, speaking to
the Christian sentiments of their brethren, remind
them of the new bonds which unite them in the work
of grace. Christ, the Brother and Redeemer of them
all, Christ, who came to save them at the pricetof his
blood, has marked them all with one seal of regenera
tion, to be in him but one body. He has established
among them a society still more intimate than human
society, the church, of which he is the head. Who
ever rejects his brothers, rejects Him. Whoever loves
them, renders to Him the most sensible proof of his
1 Chrys,-hom. 34, in Cor., c 4, Vol. X. p. 314 ; hom. de perf. car.,
e. 1, Vol. VI. p. 288. "We sail," says Gregory of Nyssa, "upon
the same ocean, exposed to the same dangers, the same tempests.
Whilst thou art navigating, having the wind for thee, give a willing
hand to the shipwrecked. Show thyself to him such as thou
wouldst find him in thy own perils." Greg. Nyss, De paup.
amand., hom. 2, ad fin.

164 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
love for Him. So it is no longer only an equal, a
brother in nature, whom they should consider in the
poor, but an image of their Redeemer, buffeted and
crucified for them. Christ, — loved, honored, assisted in
the poor, — behold the touching image which the church
offers to their regard. St. Martin of Tours, yet a sim
ple soldier and a simple catechumen, having torn his
cloak to give a portion to a poor creature pierced with
cold, and having undergone the raillery of his com
panions, saw Jesus Christ in a dream, clad with that
part of the cloak and relating to the angels how St.
Martin had covered him with it.1 "A hospitable
house," says St. Ephrem, " a house where the poor
and the orphans are received, and strangers and tra
vellers, is never deprived of the presence of Christ." ;
"Jesus," says St. Augustine, "though he may have
no need of our goods, since he is the Lord of all things,
has deigned, nevertheless, to hunger in the poor, to
the end that we might be able to prove our gratitude
and d6 something for him. So the rich ought to count
him among the number of their children, or as a
brother whom they have in heaven, and who has a
part in the distribution of their riches. He who nou
rishes his brother, nourishes Christ himself. Give,
then, to him who asks of thee, for it is Christ who
asks through him, what he has given to thee Himself,
in making Himself poor for thee." 3
1 Sulpit Sever, De vita beat mart., c. 3, p. 303, seq. ; Lpz,
1709, 12mo.
3 Ephrem, Sermo. de amor, paup., c. 1, Vol. VII. p. 132, Ed.
Caillau. 3 Aug, Serm. 60, de Script, c. 11, Vol. XVIII. p. 225 ; Serm. 1,

CHAP. HI. — EXHORTATIONS TO ALMS. 165
Following this idea, and sustaining it, besides, by
some words of the Old or New Testament, the ancient
doctors of the church had already represented alms as
one of the surest means of moving the Sovereign Judge
and effacing the sins of men. Their successors press
this motive with still more force and urgency. Less
happy than they would have wished, when they
essayed to excite a devotedness of heart pure of all
egotism, they sought at least to oppose to the vile inte
rest of the moment, an interest of a more exalted kind,
pointing to the giving of alms as the surest means of
escaping from future chastisements.
This manner of preaching alms, certainly, was not
without danger ; it was at the risk of habituating the
Christians to think only of themselves, even in the
good which they did to others, to give to acts a value,
a merit, independent of the principle which dictated
them ; perhaps, even, to harden themselves in sin from
the hope of a too easy reconciliation. The doctors of
the church understood the danger, and attempted to
prevent it. " It is for those who have reformed their
lives," says St. Augustine, " that alms are salutary. If
you give only to acquire the right of sinning with im
punity, you do not, in the poor, feed Jesus Christ, but

in Ps., 48; De discipl. ch., c. 3. And in another place: "It is
not the hand thou seest that receives thy offering; it is the hand
that prescribes thee to give." (Serm. 86, de Script, c 3.) The
same thought is continually expressed in the Fathers. See Chrys,
hom. 15, in Rom., u. 6, Vol. IX. p. 601 ; hom. in Mud: propter, etc,
c 2, III. p. 196 ; Hieronym, ep. 86, ad Eustoch., Opp. IV, pars 2,
p. 679 ; Leon. Mag, Serm. 1 and 4, de Collect, p. 4 et 5 ; Serm. 5,
p. 6 (Opp. Colon. 1546), etc.

166 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
you seek to seduce your Judge." 1 " It is one thing,"
says St. Gregory the Great, " to give alms for one's
sins, and another thing to sin under a promise of giv
ing alms. To believe that it is permitted to sin be
cause we give, to believe that in redeeming our faults
we can commit others to be redeemed, is, in giving
our effects to God, to give ourselves to the devil."2
The Fathers particularly denounced the error of those
who believed that they could legitimate acquisitions
ill obtained, by consecrating a part of them to works
of charity. "If you give," says St. Gregory of Nazi-
anzen, "give of thine own, and neither nourish nor
clothe the poor with what is not thine."3 "There
are those," says St. Chrysostom, " who, after having
pillaged another, believe themselves excused for ten
or a hundred farthings, which they distribute. Jew
ish or rather Satan's alms !" 4 " What does it serve to
give to one what thou hast taken from another? It
is he whom thou hast injured that thou shouldst aid,
in restoring to him four-fold, otherwise you remain a
debtor." "Alms given from ill-gotten wealth area
theft and a homicide." 5
The Fathers sometimes go still further ; they would
1 Aug, Serm. 39, de Script, c 6 ; Enchirid. ad Laur, I. 20,
Vol. XXVI. p. 146.
3 Gregor. Magn, Pastor, cur., adm. 21, Opp, Vol. I. p. 1288 •
Conf. Salv. de Avaritid, lib. I, Opp, Vol. II. p. 160, seq.
3 Greg. Naz, Carm. I. 28, Opp, Vol. II. p. 560.
4 Chrys, hom. 85, in Matth., c.Z;Cf. Hieron, Comm. in Ezech..
XVIII, Vol. III. p. 822.
6 Chrys, De verb. Ap: habent, etc, hom. 3, c. 11, Vol. III. p. 289 ;
Horn, in Phil, prcef. ; c 3, etc. ; Cf. Aug, Serm. 178, de Script.,
c. 4 ; Isaac, De contempt, mund. (in Orthodoxogr., p. 1627).

CHAP. III. — EXHORTATIONS TO ALMS. 167
not have attributed to the material act of giving alms
a merit which belongs only to alms given according to
God, the true characteristics of which they are careful
to define. They would have in those, no mixture of
ostentation, or of vain-glory, no desire to bind the con
science of the poor, saying that " he who, from this
motive, gives to the poor, is in no better condition than
he who gives nothing." They would have love and
humility preside over them. "The just Judge, they
say, has not only regard for the action, but also for the
motives that dictated it." 1 " When the dsemon," says
Chrysostom, " sees us nearly saved by some good work,
he seeks to make us tarnish it, to annul it by pride.
No more than fasting or prayer are alms of any avail
if not grounded in humility ;" St. Luke observed that,
"the first Christians laid their goods at the feet of the
apostles, to show with what humility they made alms,
not thinking that they conferred a favor, but that they
honored themselves in nourishing Christ. True alms
are those which are cheerfully made, and when he who
gives believes rather that he receives."2
1 Theodoret, Comm. in ep. ad Cor., c 13, § 4, Opp, Vol. III.
p. 186.
2 Chrys, hom. 31, in Gen., c. 1 ; De prof. Ev., hom, c. 2, Vol.
III. p. 301 ; De compunct. ad Dem., I. 4, Vol. I. p. 129 ; in did.
Paul, c. 2, Vol. III. p. 243 ; hom. 13, in 2 Cor., c 3 ; Ambros,
de off. min., I. 30, etc. Augustine is led to ask himself how the
precept of giving alms may be reconciled with that of glorifying
God by our alms, and he resolves thus this apparent contradiction :
"It is one thing to seek God's glory, another to seek ours. Do,
without display, deeds which, if known, will turn to the glory
of God." (Serm. 148, de Script, o. 11, seq., Vol. XIX. p. 248;
Serm. 338, in dedic eccl, XXI. p. 212.)

168 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
But, it must be confessed, if the Fathers of the
fourth century applied themselves thus to mark the
character and conditions of alms, they insisted oftener
on their value and necessity. Wholly occupied with
the assistance which an ever-increasing misery de
manded, they disquieted themselves less with the
spirit with which gifts were made than with their abun
dance, and did not cease to encourage alms by the
perspective of the heavenly recompense promised to
them. Alms cover sins, and gain heaven. This they
all preached, without exception; it is the theme to
which they ceaselessly returned, and which they
developed with an incredible fecundity. Among all
the works which then passed for meritorious, to this
they assigned the first rank. " God has no need of
vases of gold, nor of souls of gold," says Chrysostom.
" It is well to ornament the churches ; but would it not
be a derision if Christ should see his house adorned
with. gold and silver, whilst he Himself remained
naked at the door?" ! "The old law," says St. Au
gustine, " exacted offerings to God ; the King comes in
person, he also exacts presents. What? Alms.2 The
field of the Lord is watched by prayer, ploughed by
fasting, but seeded by alms.3 Virginity is nothing
without it; it is a flame, but alms are the oil which
feeds it ; it is that that was wanting to the foolish vir-
' Chrys, hom. 50, in Matth., c 3, 4.
2 Aug, Enarr. in Ps. 44, c. 27, VIII. p. 311.
3 Leon. Magn, Serm. 2, de jejun. Opp, p. 8 ; Cf. Greg. Nyss,
De am. paup., ubi sup., p. 1782; Chrys, hom. 4, in Gen., c. 7;
hom. 8, 11, etc. ; IV. pp. 30, 63, 85.; Ambr, de Nab., c. 5, | 19 ;
Basil, hom. in div., c. 3, II. p. 54.

CHAP. III. — EXHORTATIONS TO ALMS. 169
gins whose lamps had gone out, and who were excluded
from the festive halls.1 Martyrdom itself is nothing
without charity, and, of itself, it cannot make Chris
tians, while charity, without martyrdom, has made
acceptable disciples to the Lord." 2 Alms lighten and
take off the burden of sin. "They have wings to
cleave the air, cross the firmament, and transport our
prayers even before the throne of God, as witness the
alms of the centurion Cornelius. Whatever may be
thy sins, if thou givest alms, fear not, they outweigh
them all in the balance of the Judge." 3 Wealth is a
burden which it is necessary to lay aside in order to
rise to heaven, and to enter into the strait gate,4 it is
1 Chrys, De pamit, hom. 3, c 2 ; hom. 50 and 78, in Matth.,
VII. pp. 519, 751 ; Ep. 1, ad Olymp., etc. ; Aug, Serm. 93, De
Scr., c. 5.
2 Chrys., Hom. deperf. car., c 1, etc.
3 Ibid., Depcenit, hom. 3, c 1.
4 " If we wish," says Gregory of Nyssa, " to raise ourselves to
heavenly things, let us disburden ourselves of those of the earth.
By what means ? The Psalmist answers : ' He hath dispersed, he
hath given to the poor; his righteousness endureth for ever.'"
(De beat, ad fin., Opp, 1562, p. 45.) "God," says Augustine,
" has made you companions on a, journey ; thou art overloaded,
the poor has nothing ; share with him thy burden. Thou relievest
thyself by aiding him." (Aug, Serm. 61, De Script, c 12.) And
in another place : " The burden of every one is his sins. That
of the miser is his avarice ; see him, sweating, drudging under his
burden. . . . Laziness tells him, sleep ; avarice, get up ; laziness,
rest; avarice, work, cross the seas. . . • Jesus, after having carried
thy burden, teaches thee to carry thy own. What is this burden?
Faith, hope, and charity. Is it heavy ? On the contrary, they are
wings to fly to heaven. Wouldst thou take away from a bird his
wings, under the pretext that they encumber him ?" (Aug, Serm.
164, o. 4, 9.)
15

170 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
a treasure to be gotten out of a besieged city and sent
to a place of safety. It is a provision of corn, which
rots upon the damp earth, and which it is necessary
to store in granaries above. Alms are the favorable
wind which drives the ship into port ; an exchange
wholly to the advantage of the rich ; a loan upon a
mortgage of the best conditions, a usury upon God
himself, "that generous Dealer," as Paulinus calls
Him, who, for a penny which he receives, promises
to restore a hundred-fold. " God has suffered misery
to exist, to give occasion to pity ; He has preferred that
there should be poor, in order that the rich might have
the means of redeeming their sins." In this sense, the
poor are called the physicians of souls, the treasures,
the jewels of the church, the door-keepers in the king
dom of heaven, our interceders before the celestial
throne. As for themselves, moreover, it was added,
let them not think that they are deprived of the means
of redemption. Each one is rich in his manner,
every gift received from God is riches which one can
share with his brethren, consequently coin with which
he can purchase paradise.1
Alms, in a word, practised according to the power
and means of each one, are the sure but indispensable
1 Const apost, VII. 12 (Cotel. 1, p. 369) ; Aug, in Ps. 48,
Serm. 1, c 9, ep. 122, c 2 ; Serm. de Scr. 86, c 1 ; Serm. 60, c 7 ;
Serm. 61, c. 12; Serm. 164, c. 4, 7, 9 ; Caesarii hom. 15, init. 35 ;
hom. 2, de deem.; Chrys, ad pop. ant., hom. 2, c. 7 ; De pcenit,
hom. 3, c 2 ; hom. 7, c 6, 7; hom. 4, in Gen., c. 7, 8 ; Paulin,
De gazophyl, u. 5, 7 ; Prudent, Cathemer, hymn. 7, Opp, p. 215,
seq.; Greg. Nyss, Depawp. am. (ubi sup., p. 1782) ; Aug., Enarr.
in Ps. 36 ; Serm. 3, c 6, seq.

CHAP. III. — EXHORTATIONS TO ALMS. 171
passport to a place in the kingdom of heaven, which
the Fathers exacted. Chrysostom pathetically trans
ports his listeners to the other side of the tomb, and
makes them contemplate the destinies of the rich man
and of Lazarus. "Death has come," he says, "and
has changed the parts. It has been recognized who
was the rich man and who was the poor ; the rich man
has been proclaimed poor, and Lazarus rich. As
upon the stage, each one takes a part, different from
his real condition, which he reassumes at night on
laying aside his borrowed mask, so the rich man, as
soon as night, that is, death, has come, becomes the
poorest of men, and sees himself reduced to demand
of Lazarus a drop of water. On expelling Adam from
Paradise, to increase his punishment God placed him
in view of this place of delights. Just so he says to
the wicked rich man, 'I have placed the poor Lazarus
at thy gate that thou mightest find in him a teacher
of virtue, an object for thy charity. Thou hast dis
dained that means of salvation ; let it henceforth be
the means of thy punishment." '
To these exhortations, to these promises, to those
menaces, and to a crowd of other motives, the enume
ration of which I designedly abridge,2 the selfishness

1 Chrys, De Lazar., cone. 2, c. 3, 4, Vol. I. p. 731, seq. ; Greg.
Nyss, De paup. am., 1. c, p. 1785. "Whilst the rich," says
Augustine, " treated himself daintily, it was found very well ; but
it was thought differently when he was in hell, digesting what he
had eaten here below ; that is to say, iniquity." In Ps. 48, c. 8 ;
Cf. Serm. 345, De Scr., c. I.
2 The Fathers sometimes represent, as a new motive for giving
alms, the interest of the church, amidst infidels. " Let us cease,"

172 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
of former times no less than the selfishness of to-day,
opposed its cold excuses.
The rich were asked to give of their superfluity ;
but behold," according to St. Basil, " how they eluded

they say, " showing ourselves attached to the world, so as to scan
dalize even heathens. The more they will be inclined to believe,
if they see us imitating our Master's charity, the less they will be,
if they see us possessed with the same passions as themselves ;
loving money like them, and perhaps more ; like them, fearing
poverty. . . . What success would we not have with them, if we
would imitate the charity of the primitive church ! there would
not be now a single heathen." (Chrys, hom. 11, in Ad., c. 3 ;
hom. 7, in 1 Cor., c. 6 ; in Phil, prwf, c. 3.) Sometimes, resorting
to motives of a lower order, they show in benevolence the only way
for the rich to secure for themselves public esteem. (Chrys, Exp.
in Ps. 48, c 1, 6 ; Ambros, De off. min. II. 16 ; Aster, Hom. adv.
avar., ap. Combefis, 1. c, p. 46.) Sometimes, too, to assist the faith
of the feeble, they relate certain marvellous effects then attributed
to benevolence ; here, for instance, they speak of a granary emptied
for the benefit of the poor by a charitable child, and which, upon
his praying, is fuller than ever ; there, of a bishop who by a miracle
finds a sum of twelve scudi, which he had borrowed for the poor.
(Greg. Mag, Dialog. 1 ; Opp, Vol. I. p. 1342, seq. ; Cf. Sozom,
Hist, eccles, I. 11, etc.) Chrysostom himself, from the example
of Cyprian, seems to attribute the resurrection of Dorcas to the
power of alms (Hom. in Mud: propter, etc., c 3, Vol. III. p. 196,
seq.; Cf. Cypr, De op. et deem., p. 477), and to discover in that
virtue a kind of magical efficiency in preventing a violent death
and in remedying reverses of fortune. " Some, when robbed,"
says he, " hasten to call on sorcerers ; thou, give alms and relieve
the ship as is done in a tempest. Thieves have robbed thee, give
Christ the remnant." (Chrys, hom. 3, in Col, c. 6 ; Paulin, de
Gazophyl, c. 10, 11, Opp. p. 34. That monk spoke less ingeniously,
but more truly, who advised the afflicted to devote themselves to
attending on the sick, saying that nothing better appeased the
troubles of the soul than acts of charity.

CHAP. III. — EXHORTATIONS TO ALMS. 173
the precept, behold the artifice suggested by the devil.
Wishing to pass off the superfluous for the necessary,
they divided it into two parts, one for the present, the
other for the future ; one for themselves, the other for
their children ; then they subdivided the first part into
two new portions, one for actual usage, the other to
remain concealed ; the first alone must already exceed
the necessary; it must suffice for ornament without,
for external pomp, for the conveniences of travelling
and the pleasures of the house. They must have cha
riots for themselves, for their baggage, horses for the
turf, for the chase, coachmen, lackeys, slaves of all
kinds, palaces, baths in the city, and in the country." 1
In a word, rank to sustain, fatal accidents to be pro
vided for, children to raise and to establish ; such were
then, as to-day, the pretexts alleged against giving
alms. Then came the ordinary complaints of the lazi
ness, the ill-conduct, the effrontery of the poor, and
the pretended fear of augmenting their faults by ill-
placed favors.
But the Christian orators repelled far from them
such pretexts. They did not admit the convenient
maxims of our days, that " luxury is the benevolence
of the rich, that their vanity and their vices are the
resource of the indigent." 2 It did nat seem indiffer
ent to them to cause estimable families of cultivators
to live upon their estates, or to propagate in the cities
1 Basil, Horn, in div.; c. 2, Vol. II. p. 53.
2 "This is an axiom of a parasite!" exclaims Jos. Droz (Eeon.
pot, p. 330, seq.); "Morality worthy of Escobar !" adds Michel
Chevalier (Revue des Deux-Mondes, 15 juillet, 1850). " Apicius'
temperanoe would-have done more good than his gluttony."
15*

174 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
an unhappy and fatal mass of parasites, swindlers, and
idle women. Even in point of proper expenses, every
use of wealth did not appear to them equally profitable
to the poor. Without examining profoundly, as much
as has since been done, the problem in its economical
point of view, without establishing very clearly the
distinction between productive and unproductive ex
penses, they judged the question from a moral point
of view, and this is, perhaps, after all, the soundest
way of judging it. Every use of wealth which tended
to remove man from God, and from serious thoughts,
to nourish in him and in others, after his example,
sensual, vain, or selfish inclinations, every expense
relating exclusively to self, and which left nothing to
relieve the unfortunate, for that, alone, seemed to them
worthy of blame; and it was in terms the most ener
getic that they branded that frivolous and often even
extravagant and shameful luxury, which the rich
affected to consider as a duty of their position. " Thou
sittest at a sumptuous feast," says St. Chrysostom,
" when Christ is in need ; thou drinkest the wine of
Thasos, when he has not a glass of water to quench
his thirst. I do not speak to those who invite courte
zans to their table ; as well speak to unclean beasts.
But are you not ashamed, you who nourish dogs, para
sites, and vile buffoons at great expense, and who
reject Jesus Christ ? O woman, of what use is thy
gold to thee ? To make thee appear beautiful ? But
thy soul, is it embellished ?" 1 " What wilt thou an-

' Chrys, hom. 48, in Matth. ; c. 6, Vol. VII. p. 501, seq. ; in Ps.
48, c 6, Vol. V. p. 513, seq., etc. ; Basil, Hom. quod mund., etc,
c. 8, Vol. II. p. 169. Ambrose distinguishes two sorts of liberalities ;

CHAP. III. — EXHORTATIONS TO ALMS. 175
swer to thy Judge," says St. Basil, "thou who clothest
thy walls and leavest thy fellows naked, who suffereth
thy corn to rot and dost not give of it to the wretched ?
Let an unhappy one beg before thy door, thou sayest
that thou hast nothing to give ; but thy hand, that mo
tions him away, glittering with a ring of price, falsi
fies thy words. How many poor debtors might be
liberated, how many houses re-constructed, with that
ring ! Thy wardrobe would suffice to clothe a whole
people, and thou dost not blush to send away the
poor naked.1 All that exceeds need, is useless and
superfluous. To wear a shoe larger than the foot does
not aid, but encumbers the wearer. Thou wishest to
build a splendid mansion; well, but let it be in hea
ven."2 St. Asterus laughs at those magistrates who
on the first day of January ruined themselves in pub
lic repasts, feasts and shows, all for the vain-glory of
seeing their names inscribed upon the registers, and
who, at the end of all that, only found forgetfulness
and sometimes a tragic death ; whilst, by giving to the
unfortunate, they would have been inscribed upon the
book of life.3
that of the benevolent man, and that of the prodigal. The former
clothes the poor and assists the orphan ; the other dissipates his
patrimony in play and in useless exhibitions destined to captivate
popular favor, etc. (De off. min., II. 21, I 109.)
1 Basil, Hom. in div., c. 4, II. p. 55, seq. ; Aster, Hom. in div.
et Laz.,Hom. de cecon. iniq. ; Serm. adv. Catend. (ubi sup., pp. 6, 7,
31, 74) ; Ambros, De Nab., c 13, 1 56 ; Greg. Nyss, De am. paup.,
orat. 1 (ubi sup., p.- 1785) ; Gaudent, Hom. (in Orthodoxogr., p.
1839), etc.
2 Chrys, ad pop. ant, c 5, Vol. II. p. 28.
3 Aster, Serm. adv. cal (Combefis, loc cit, p. 73-75) ; Cf. Chrys.,
Exp. in Ps., III. c. 6, Vol. V. p. 285.

176 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
" Bnt.I hear," says Asterus,. " the excuses of the ava
ricious ; it is poverty that they fear. How make sure
our subsistence, if we take no care of our goods ?
Words of the foolish, who have no confidence in the
cares of Providence,1 and yet have imperishable wealth,
which will fail them at the first moment. Speak not
to me of your treasures ; nothing more deceitful ; to
day j'ours, to-morrow another's ; to-day with you, to
morrow against you ; evil guests, domestic enemies.
Why seek riches as necessary ? Nothing more neces
sary, on the contrary, than to believe them not so ;
poverty in spirit, this is true wealth. We are poor as
often as we fear poverty. He who said, ' the Lord
hath given, the Lord hath taken away,' all poor as he
seemed, was immensely rich ; deprived of his gold, but
full of his God!"2
" If I alone were concerned," answers the avaricious,
" I also could despise riches. But ought I not to pre
serve and amass for my children ?" " Your children !
The love which the gospel requires of you for them,
does not consist in leaving them so much wealth, but
in giving them a Christian education. You ask what
will remain for them ? The blessing of God, acquired
by your alms, tne capital and the accumulated inte
rest, if that capital is placed in heaven ; a perfectly safe
contract with a debtor who will return the loan cen
tupled. The riches which you wish to leave- them,
will serve, perhaps, for their ruin. Besides, is not

1 Aster., hom. adv. avar., ubi sup., p. 61.
2 Chrys, hom. 2, ad pop. ant, c. 6; hom. 34, in Cor., c. 5;
Ambros, Ep. 63, \\ 89, 91 ; August, Serm. 177, De Scr., c 4.

CHAP. III. — EXHORTATIONS TO ALMS. 177
your soul dearer still than the worldly good of your
children ? We should not prefer to our own salvation
even the person dearest to us." 1
As to the vices with which the poor were reproached,
the Christian orators recognized that, in effect, more
than one had drawn his lot upon himself, by his idle
ness or his disorders. But they did not understand
that all the poor should be put on the same footing,
and assisted with the same zeal and bounty; they
required discretion, that their alms might bear their
fruits.2 St. Ambrose, above all, recommended the
poor who were ashamed to make an exhibition of their
indigence, and placed in the last class of the unfortu
nate who required assistance, those whose misery was
caused by their disorderly ways. " There often come,"
says he to his clergy, "healthy beggars, vagabonds
who think only of putting the treasury of the poor
under contribution, and, for that purpose, use all kinds
of disguise. Let the true poor not be sacrificed to
knaves, and, if it is not always possible to refuse
importunity, let us at least avoid giving too much ad
vantage to impudence." "He," says St. Basil, "who
gives to vagabonds and debauchees, thrpws his money
to the dogs." " Give not," said Jerome, "to the false
indigent the substance of Christ, which belongs to the
truly poor."5
1 Salvian, De avar., Opp. II. p. 132, seq. ; Chrys, De verb, ap :
habentes, etc, hom. 2, c 9, in Ps. 48, c. 3; hom. 66, in Matth., c 4
(Opp, III. p. 278 ; V. p. 522 ; VII. p. 658) ; Basil, Hom. in div.,
c 7, Vol. II. p. 59.
3 Greg. Magn, Pastor, cura, part 3, adm. 21, Vol. I. p. 1287.
3 Ambr., De off. min., II. 15, 16 ; VII. p. 301, 303, seq. ; Basil,
Ep. 292 ; De deem., orat. 4 ; Hieron, ad Paulin., Ep. 49 ; IV. p. 566.

178 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
But, when the rich alleged, in a general manner,
the vices of the poor, to excuse themselves from giving,
the ministers of Christ asked them if these reproaches
could not often, with better reason, be applied to them
selves. "When a poor man .is at thy door, wanting
bread, do not reproach him with laziness, without
thinking that thou art idle too, and that, notwithstand
ing, God loads thee with favors. When, then, thou
sayest, ' I am astonished to see a healthy young man
asking for bread,' he could, in turn, say to thee : ' I am
astonished to see a healthy man doing nothing that his
Master has ordered, living in laziness, and, what is
worse, in gross debauchery.'"1 Much more; those
very vices which we reproach in them, are they not
quite often our own work? " Yes, it is our hardness,
our avarice, that makes the poor vile, impudent, and
false. He has recourse to artful expedients, because,
by complaining, moaning and wandering from door
to door, he does not find what is even necessary for
him. A horrible extremity, to which we reduce him !
Miserable creatures are seen driven to blind their
children, the misery, the nakedness of whom could
not move us. Others are seen, who, weary of lament
ing in vain, leave far behind them the jugglers of our
public squares, eating old leather, and driving nails
into their heads."
"And thou, thou laughest, thou admirest, thou dost
encourage this vile profession by thy gifts ! What
worse would Satan do ? And "him who only begs of
thee, in God's name, thou dost not even regard, but
1 Chrys, hom. 35, in Matth., c 3.

CHAP. III. — EXHORTATIONS TO ALMS. 179
sendest outraged away. God says to thee, 'give alms
and I will give to thee the kingdom of heaven ;' thou
dost not hear him ; Satan shows to thee a bead pierced
with nails, and thou becomest liberal ! And all this
takes place at Antioch, at Antioch whose inhabitants
first bore the name of Christians !" '
Finally, even if all these complaints about the con
duct of the poor had been well founded, ought they
to have abated the ardor of charity ? When so many
unfortunate, for want of finding work or assistance,
were exposed to die of hunger, was it well to make
such a rigorous investigation of theii* conduct? Was
it well, from fear of aiding a spendthrift, to risk leaving
the poor, worthy of pity, to suffer ? St. Ambrose him
self, in spite of his former warnings, cannot forbear
taking circumstances into consideration. "Charity,"
says he, " does not weigh merits so severely ; above
all, she provides for necessities." 2 In the same sense,
Chrysostom says, " Imitate Abraham, who sought out
travellers, and who, in the nets spread for them before
his house, caught angels unawares. Inquire not too
much after the morals of the poor ; he has but one
title ; it is his indigence ; ask not more. God dis
charged thee from all ulterior investigation, which con
cerns Him alone. If we scrutinise so curiously our
fellow-servants, God will do as much with us, for ac
cording as we have judged, He will judge us." The
father of Gregory of Nazianzen followed this maxim :
"He gave," his son tells us, "always with a good
' Chrys, hom. 21, ui 1 Cor., c. 5, 6.
3 Ambr, De Nab., c 8, g 40.

180 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
heart, even to the least worthy, so as not to risk doing
injury to others, remembering, as the Scriptures say,
that it is necessary to cast our bread upon the waters." '
Let us not, in our turn, judge too severely this unre
served liberality. Circumstances might occur which
would make it a lawT for us to imitate it, calamities so
general and so profound that no one eould be suspected
of reaching out the hand without a motive, nor be
repulsed without barbarity.
But, in their exhortations in favor of benevolence,
the Fathers of this epoch sometimes advanced maxims
much more strange, and the apparent opposition of
which, to the primitive liberty of Christian alms, as
well as to the rights of property, claim from us an
attentive examination.

CHAPTER IV-
OPINIONS OF THE CHURCH ON ALMS IN THEIR CONNECTION
WITH THE RIGHTS OF PROPERTY.
" To whom do I do wrong," it was objected to Basil,
" in keeping what is my own ?" " What is thy own ?"
answers the illustrious Bishop ; " of whom hast thou
received it? Art thou not like him, who, at the the
atre, considered as prepared for himself alone all the
1 Chrys, de Laz., cone 2, c. 5, Vol. I. p. 733-735 ; hom. 41, in
Gen., c 4 ; hom, in Mud : ne vidua, etc. ; c. 16, etc. ; Greg. Naz,
Orat. 18, funeb. in patr., c 20.

CHAP. IV. — ALMS AND RIGHTS OF PROPERTY. 181
places prepared for the public use ? Thus, the rich,
having the first occupied that which belonged to all,
appropriated it exclusively to themselves. In keeping
thy fortune to thyself, thou believest that no one is
wronged by thee ! Who is avaricious, if not he who
is not content with his own ? Who is the spoiler, if
not he who takes from others what belongs to them ?
On this account, art thou not a miser and a spoiler,
thou who dost appropriate to thyself what thou hast
received only to distribute? He who steals a coat
from another is called a thief; should we not give the
same name to him who, being able to cover the naked
ness of another, neglects to do it ? The bread which
thou keepest is his who is hungry, the cloak which
thou retainest is his who is naked ; the money which
thou buryest belongs to the indigent." x So Chrysos
tom says, in speaking of the rich man, " He had, I
acknowledge, done no wrong to Lazarus ; but he had
not shared his goods with him ; now this was an act
of rapine. As often as we have not given alms, we
will be punished like those who despoil others." And
elsewhere, " Let us not call the bad rich man happier
than the highwayman who conceals in his cave the
riches which he has plundered."2
1 Basil, Hom. in Mud: destruam, etc, c. 7 ; Opp, Vol. II. pp.
49, 50.
3 Chrys, De Laz., cone 2, c. 4 ; cone. 1, c 12, I. pp. 725, 733.
Also (cone 2, c 61, p. 736) : " Not to give to the poor, is to plun
der them and to take their lives ; it is to keep back not what belongs
to us, but what belongs to them." And in another place : " Let
us not be more savage than animals ; they have all in common,
and you, you often consume the substance of thousands of persons.
Is it not shameful, whilst all is common among us, both things
16

182 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
We are not less surprised at reading in the Latin
Fathers, passages like the following : " It is right that
Jesus calls the riches unjust," says Jerome, "for it is
from iniquity that all riches come; one cannot gain
but another loses ; hence the proverb, ' all the rich are
unjust, or heirs of the unjust.'"1 And St. Ambrose
says, " The example of the birds of the air, cited in St.
Luke, proves that the cause of poverty is but avarice ;
for if the birds of the air have always abundantly to
live upon, though they neither plough nor sow, it is
because no one of them appropriates to its own parti
cular use the fruits given to be the fruits of all. By
appropriating to ourselves things as property, we de
stroy common goods. The earth having been given as
an inheritance to all men, no one can call himself the
proprietor of what he has violently wrested from the
common funds beyond what was necessary for his
living. Nature has created the right of community,
and it is usurpation that has made property."2 St.
Augustine says, in the same sense, " The superfluity
of the rich is what is necessary for the poor. To pos
sess the superfluous is, then, to possess the property
of others."3 " It is necessary," said St. Gregory the
Great, " to warn those who give of their wealth, to do
it with humility, in recognition that they only dispense
of nature and things of grace, not to have the same community
of money ?" (Horn, in Ps. 48, c. 1.)
1 Hieron, Ep. ad Hedib. vid. Opp, IV, part 1, p. 170.
3 Ambros, in Evang. Luc, VII. 124 (Cf. Basil, hom. de siccit.,
c. 8, II. p. 70) ; De off. min., I. 28, VII. p. 222 ; De Nab., c. 1, \ 2 •
o. 3, § 11.
3 August, Enarr. in Ps. 147, c. 12.

CHAP. IV. — ALMS AND RIGHTS OF PROPERTY. 183
from God temporal subsidies, which do not belong to
them. As to those who neither take from nor give to
others, we must warn them that the earth, from which
they have been derived, is common to all, and that it
lavishes its blessings upon all in common. Let them
not, then, believe themselves innocent, who use for
themselves alone the bounty which God has made
common to all. In giving what is necessary to the
poor, we only restore to them that which is theirs, far
from giving them that which is ours ; we pay a debt
of justice rather than do a deed of mercy, and for this
reason the sacred writers designate alms by the name
of justice." J
In spite of all that these declarations present of par-^
adox, and, in some respect, of dangerous matter, we
believe it easy to prove, either by the end proposed by
their authors, or by the circumstances in which they
were pronounced, or, above all, by the general spirit
of their teaching, that they do not presuppose any sub
versive notion of the rights of property.
And first, no one will find these expressions incon
siderate or too severe, when applied to those who
ravished the goods of the poor, when, for example, St.
Ambrose addressing himself to the imitators of Achab,
exclaimed, " How far, O ye rich, will ye extend your
insatiable desires? have ye alone the right to dwell
upon the earth ? The earth was given in common to
the rich and to the poor ; why do you appropriate it
t& yourselves alone ? It would seem that the poor
man does you a wrong when he possesses something
1 Greg. Magn, Pastor, cura., part 3, adm. 21, 22, I. p. 1286-1289.

184 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
which would suit your convenience. It would seem
that all which is not yours had been ravished from
you ; that you might not have any neighbors, you would
extend your possessions to the confines of the habitable
earth."1 Certainly, it is impossible to see a more
formal homage rendered to the right of property which
St. Ambrose seemed just now to destroy. To stigma
tize the usurper of another's inheritance, to defend the
legitimate possessor against him, what was this but
the most formal recognition of that right ? 2
As to the avaricious who were guilty neither of ex
tortion, nor of rapine, in order to comprehend the
severe epithets which are addressed to them, we must
regard the times and the places. These avaricious, to
judge of them by the portrait which has been drawn
for us, had ears as dull as their hearts were hard. It
was necessary to speak loud and clear to be understood
by them. They were to be besieged in proportion to
their powers of resistance. What advocate of a good
cause, when animated with zeal, always measures his
words ? What vehement preacher, in the warmth of
improvisation, never hazards energetic hyperboles?
If St. John treated as homicides those who love not

1 Ambros, De Nab., c. 1, | 2 ; c 3, H 11, 12 ; Troplong, Esp.
dim. du code civ. (ubi sup., VIII. p. 65).
3 Chrysostom frequently addresses these rich usurpers with his
invectives. (Hom. in Ps. 48, c. 3 ; hom. 9 in 1 Cor., c 4.) One
may observe, in general, that with the Fathers, both Greek an'd
Latin, the words, avaritia, rtteovitla, as their etymology indicates,
mean more commonly a greediness, an eagerness for gain, that
leads to usurpation and injustice, than the passion for keeping,
that produces egotism and hardness.

CHAP. IV. — ALMS AND RIGHTS OF PROPERTY. 185
their neighbor, if St. Paul charged the avaricious with
idolatry, if Athanasius, Augustine, and, after them,
Bossuet and Massillon treated those as murderers who
left their brothers without succor, the preachers of the
fourth century could, without much exaggeration, treat
them as ravishers. When they expressed themselves
thus energetically, there was little danger that the
poor, taking them at the word, would forcibly take to
themselves what was refused to them. The excesses
of despotism were more to be feared then than those
of revolt. Besides, far from encouraging it, the Chris
tian orators did all they could to prevent it.1 In the
presence of the rich, they thundered against avarice;2
before the poor, they thundered against envy and mur
muring; to the rich they preached benevolence ;to the
poor, resignation. They insisted even upon this vir
tue in a manner that, at first view, one would be
tempted to regard as excessive. In exposing man to
want, God proposed much less to exercise his patience
than to stimulate his activity, and to develop his facul-
1 It is what de Barante observes to those who, in bur days,
thought themselves able to indulge in the same language in their
writings, and even from the pulpit. " The church," says he,
" addressed the rich for the poor, "and the apostles of the day
address the poor against the rich. The church wishes the rich to
be charitable ; the latter, ou the contrary, excite the poor to
sedition." (Quest, constit, Paris, 1849, p. 126. See the same
thought expressed by Guizot : De la relig. dans les soe mod., Revue
fr„ V. p. 8.)
2 Chrys, In Inscr. alt, hom. c. 2, Vol. III. p. 52. The words
of Gregory the Great, above cited, and extracted from his Pastoral
Rule, were likewise addressed to the rich through the medium of
the clergy. 16*

186 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
ties and his forces. Neither the apathy of the Hindoo,
nor the passive submission of the Mussulman, meet,
in this respect, the views of Providence. In the ordi
nary course of things, it is good for the poor man to feel
his position, in order to re-act upon it, and to struggle
against it ; but what avails it to struggle, if he has no
hope of prevailing ? Now, at the epoch of -which we
are speaking, all hope of this kind was refused to him ;
to enrich himself there were before him only illegiti
mate ways. In preaching to him resignation and pa
tience above all things, the Fathers of the church gave
him a new proof of their inviolable respect for that
right. There is nothing with them which tends to
inflame the cupidity of the poor ; nothing, on the con
trary, which does not tend to calm their passions, to
appease their murmurs, to reconcile them to their con
dition, and to make them hate sin and injustice above
all things. " Poverty and sickness are not evils, but
names of evil. Opulence with sin is the most frightful
of miseries; better, a hundred times, is sin with mis
fortune, because then, at least, it finds its remedy." 1
" The example of- Lazarus," says Chrysostom, " ren
ders the poor inexcusable who endure their poverty
impatiently ; he, so unfortunate, lying at the gate of
the rich, did not complain or murmur ; he did not say,
like so many others ; ' What is this ? Behold an evil
man who passes his life in exquisite pleasures, and I
am dying of hunger, exposed to his contempt !' No.
He did not say this ; and what proves it to me, is, that
at his death he was carried by angels to Abraham's

1 Chrys, ad pop. ant, hom. 5, c 2, Vol. II. p. 61.

CHAP. IV. — ALMS AND RIGHTS OF PROPERTY. 187
bosom. Let us cease then from saying : ' If God had
loved him, He would not have suffered him to be poor.'
But let us rather call to mind that God chasteneth
whom He loveth."1 "Let not the rich disdain the
poor," says Ambrose, "but let not the poor envy the
rich ;" and, in one of his works, he develops at length
the compensations promised to poverty.2 " Ye rich,
give," says St. Augustine, " and you, ye poor, do not
steal ; ye rich, distribute your goods ; ye poor, repress
your covetousness, and remember that the great gain
is piety with a competency. Seek for necessaries,
nothing more."3 Is this the language of men who
wish violently to change the distribution of wealth,
and to strike a level across the social system ? Far
from putting in question the notions of property, every
where, on the contrary, they consecrated its maxims.
They all zealously declare that it is avarice and not
wealth that they attack, that riches in themselves are
as little always criminal, as poverty is always holy.4
1 Chrys, de Laz., cone. 2, c 1; cone 1, c. 9, 12, Vol. I. pp. 720,
724, 727 ; in Ps. 4, c. 9, Vol. V. p. 21; in Philip., hom. 2, c. 3, etc. ;
Basil, De invidid, c 1, II. p. 91.
2 Ambros, Hexaemer, VI. 51, 52.
3 August, Serm. 85, De Script, e 6, XVIII. p. 415.
4 Chrys, hom. 83, in Matth., e 4, VII. p. 796. " What I say is
not applied to the rich, but to the avaricious, thirsting for riches."
(Cf. Hom. 9, in 1 Cor., c. 4; Salvian, De avar., Opp, II. p. 154;
Basil, Reg. brev. int. 92, Opp, II. p. 447.) " It is not riches," says
Ambrose, " but pride that has been punished in the wicked rich
man ; otherwise poor Lazarus would not have been carried into
the bosom of the rich Abraham. . . . There are beggars full of
pride under their rags, and rich men full of humility." (Ambr,
in Ev. Luc. Vin. 13 ; in Ps. 48, Enarr., c 6 ; Aug, Serm. 50, De
Script, c. 7, Vol. XVIII. p. 97.) " One thing," says Chrysostom,

188 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
All recognise that property is a gift from God, conse
quently legitimate and good in itself,1 and when the
disciples of Eustathius affected a haughty and sys
tematic contempt for it, as if worldly riches soiled their
possessor, when the disciples of Pelagius maintained
that the rich can only enter into the kingdom of hea
ven by selling all that they have, the orthodox doctors
rose against this new heresy, and declared that the rich
are no more excluded from the kingdom of heaven
than the poor, because God does not regard fortunes,
but the sentiments and dispositions of the heart.2
" is the rich, another is the avaricious. Thou art rich ; I have no
objection to it ; thou art avaricious, this is why I condemn thee."
(Chrys, De Eutrop., c. 3, IV. p. 389 ; Cf. Hieron, in Matth., Opp,
IV, part I. p. 22.)
1 " St. Paul," says Chrysostom, " never prohibited men from
enriching themselves, he never ordered them to impoverish them
selves, to deprive themselves of their riches, but only not to be
proud." "Riches are not an evil, if we use them properly. .
They are called xfy/jfia^a, in order that we may use them, and that
they may not use us ; and xtrjfiata,, in order that we may possess
them, and not be possessed by them." (Hom. 2, ad pop. ant, c. 5,
II. p. 26 ; Hom. in inse alt, c. 2, III. p. 52 ; Cf. Hom. 63 and 74,
in Matth., VII. pp. 630, 721, etc.) " When Christ," says Jerome'
"declares that we cannot serve God and Mammon, he does not
condemn the rich, but the slave of riches." (Comm. in Matth. IV.
p. 14; Conf. Ambros, Ep. 63, <5 92.) "Thou hast riches," says
Augustine, "I do not blame thee; thy father was rich, he left
riches ; thou hast by an honest labor increased thy wealth ; thy
house is full of the fruits of thy labor; there is nothing to be said
against that; only do not call them riches, for they are full of
poverty." (Aug, Serm. 113, De Scr., c. 4.)
3 Concil. Gangrens. (Ap. Labbe, Vol. II. p. 415). Like Marcio
it was by a principle of dualist asceticism, by the effect of an
exaggerated contempt (0S&i>pfta) for the material creation, that

CHAP. IV. — ALMS AND RIGHTS OF PROPERTY. 189
All the Fathers, then, of this epoch, recognised in
man the free use of what he possesses.1 All, conse
quently, proclaimed the entire independence of alms.2
Eustathius condemned the possession of riches, just as he rejected
the use of meat and marriage (Socr, Hist, eccl, II. 43 ; Sozom,
III. 14). As for Pelagius, it is possible that they attributed to
him an opinion which was not his, for want of comprehending the
rather subtle distinction he established between eternal life and
the kingdom of heaven. Be it as it may, Augustine, on refuting
him, had the chance of expressing himself very categorically on
the legitimacy of riches (Ep. 157, ad Hilar., e 23-39, XL. p. 263-
274). " Upon renouncing our riches to attain perfection," he con
cludes, " let us not charge with rebellion those who cannot do it,
just as, by devoting ourselves to continence, we must not despise
those living in marriage. The rich who make good use of their
wealth are more precious to the church than those who, for having
sold some little patrimonial estate, take occasion from that to
trouble her by their bad doctrine."
1 "The superfluity of the rich," says Augustine, "is the needful
to the poor ; but, we grant it to thee, make use of thy superfluities,
give to the poor what he needs ; use precious things, give the poor
coarse ones." . . . And somewhere else : " It is not said to the
rich, give all. Let them keep all that is neoessary, and even more
than is necessary." (Aug, Serm. 61, De Scr., c. 12; Serm. 85,
c. 5, XVIII. pp. 235, 414; Cf. Ep. 130, ad Prob-, e 7, XXXIX.
p. 470, etc.) "Let us flee," says Salvian, " too great riches. But
I agree to it ; keep them, provided you think of the poor on your
death-bed." (Salv, De avar., II. p. 258.)
3 " Thou canst not, like St. Peter, cure the lame," says Chrysos
tom ; " give at least thy gold. ... I do not compel thee to do so,
if thou dost not wish ; I would not coerce thee ; but I entreat thee
to give at least a part to the poor. God could have compelled us
to give alms ; but he preferred to obtain them from our mere will,
in order that there might be a reward. But, alas ! whilst we give
without hesitation what we are compelled to give by law, we refuse
to give what they ask of us as free men. We are at liberty to give
or not to give, says Jerome. Ananias and Saphira were punished

190 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
They doubtless wished that they might be as abundant
as possible ; in this respect they addressed to the rich
the most serious recommendations;1 but declared, at
the same time, that they would prescribe nothing as
to quantity.2 All, in a word, enter fully into the idea
of St. Paul ; and the church was so penetrated with
these maxims, that it never pronounced excommuni
cation against any one for refusing to give to the
poor,3 and yet, it often thundered its anathemas
against rich despoilers and against the powerful who
abused their power.
In what sense, then, did the Fathers of this epoch
seem sometimes to teach a community of the goods of
this world, and deny that the rich was truly the mas
ter of what he possessed ? Did they understand by
this that God has given to all rights over all things,
over the land, and the products of labor, as over the
water that we drink and the air we breathe ? So far
from that, it is the contrary that they inculcate : " You
only for having lied to the Holy Ghost." (Chrys, hom. 90, in Matth.,
c. 4, VII. p. 845 ; Horn. 9, in Phil, c 4, XI. p. 269, etc. ; Hieron,
Ep. ad Hedib., IV. p. 171.
1 " The Jews," says Augustine, " give the tenth part of their
income ; and you, when you happen to give only the hundreth,
you are pleased with that little ! . . . Why do you not propose to
yourselves rather the example of Zaccheus, who gave the half of
his possessions to the poor? . . . Why do you not lay upon your
self a permanent and fixed tax ? Do you want it to be the tenth 1
well, let it be so, though it be but little."
3 " Give to the poor anything you wish," says the same Father.
(Serm. 61, De Scr., c. 13, XVIII. p. 235 ; Conf. Chrys., De deem.,
Vol. III. p. 254-256 ; Hom. 43, in 1 Cor, c. 2, Vol. X. p. 402 ;
Theodoret, Comm. in Ep. 1 ; ad Cor., c 16, Vol. III. p. 207, seq.\
3 Bingham, Orig. ecclesiast, VII. p. 520.

CHAP. IV.  ALMS AND RIGHTS OF PROPERTY. 191
have not," says St. Augustine, " a common house with
the rich, though you have a common heaven, and a
common light with him." " God," says Chrysostom,
" has not made riches to be in common, wishing by
them to furnish us a means of freeing ourselves from
sin." J And Theodoret shows, in the inequality of
fortunes, one of the most striking evidences of the
wisdom of Providence.2 They did not, then, recog
nize in men common rights in property. According
to them, it is the destination of property alone that is
common. God has created the goods of this world
for the use of all, but he has appropriated them to a
few, only. Considered relatively to other men, the
rich is, then, truly the master of his goods, in this
sense, that no man has the right to dispute them with
him, nor to demand of him an account of their use.
Considered in relation to God, he is only a depositary,
the responsible administrator of these same goods ;
1 Aug, Serm. 85, De Scr., c 6, XVIII. p. 415 ; Chrys, hom. 2,
ad pop. ant, c. 7, II. p. 30.
3 "See," says he, "how much in this universe the variety of
detail contributes to the perfection of the whole. . . . The weak
ness of man's nature making indispensable for him the concur
rence of many diverse arts, the master and the preserver of that
universe has given to the one poverty, to the other riches, in
order that the latter might provide with his opulence the first
materials for the arts, and that the former may use in them their
robust and experienced hands. ... He made them all dependent
the one on the other; the rich on the poor, who prepare for them
necessities of life ; the poor dependent on the rich, who provide
them with advances and buy the products of their industry. . . .
If all men were equal, who would serve others; plough, plant,
practise the rudest and yet the most useful professions ?" (Theo
doret, De curd off. gr., Serm. 6, de Provid., p. 94, ed. Sylb.)

192 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
from Him he holds them, and to Him he is inces
santly accountable for them. He received them for
the advantage of his brothers, at the same time that
he did for his own. To divert them from this use, to
neglect the support of his companions in service, to
use for himself alone gifts destined for all, is to render
himself culpable towards God of the same prevarica
tion as a faithless superintendent in regard to his mas
ter; it is a theft, not according to human law, but ac
cording to divine law. Such, evidently, is the spirit
of the declarations' which follow, and which, compared
with those which we have cited in the commencement,
leave no doubt regarding the true sense of these.
" Share thy goods with thy brothers," it is said in the
Apostolic Constitutions, "and call them not thine
own, for it is a gift God makes to men in common." 1
" We believe ourselves the possessors of what we en
joy ; but nothing of what we have received is ours.
Leave then, whoever thou art, this pride of proprietor,
and take upon thyself the humble sentiments of a
simple administrator. Our limbs even, our senses are
not ours, for we cannot dispose of them at will, but
only according to the law of God. For a stronger rea
son we are but administrators of the things which we
have received from God, in whatever manner it may
be, whether by last will and testament, marriage, com
merce, manufactures, or otherwise ; it is always by the
will and with the aid of God. Thou art, then, only
administrator of them ; but in what manner oughtest
thou to administer them ? In giving to him who is
1 Const, ap., VII. 12, ubi sup., p. 369.

CHAP. IV. — ALMS AND RIGHTS OF PROPERTY. 193
hungry. Doing that, thou wilt be recompensed by the
Law-Giver ; infringing his law, thou wilt be punished.
We all who wish to make our fortune rest sure, then,
ought, like the steward of the parable, to make to our
selves friends of that which is not ours, namely, with
what belongs to God, and which He lends to us."1
No other obligation, then, than a religious one ; no
other creditor than God, no other sanction than a
divine one. So Chrysostom says : " God does not ac
cord to us the things of the earth to have them spent
in sumptuous garments, in debauchery, and in orgies,
but to have them distributed to the needy. And if we
do not do it, we are as culpable as the receiver of the
public funds, who does not distribute them according
to the will of the emperor. What the rich possesses
is not his, but his fellow-servants'. Let us, then, ad
minister our riches as being strangers to them ; let us
share them with the poor, the same as, in large houses,
the steward is to give an account of what he has received
and to distribute it as his master expects." And else
where : " Our goods are not ours, but they belong to
God; He has wished that we should be the dispensers
of them, not the masters, and it is for that, that he
gives them to some, and withholds them from others;
for art thou of better clay than they, to merit a better
share ? 2 In the same way St. Basil explains himself

1 Aster, Hom. de cecon. iniq. (Combefis, Biblioth., p. 21-30.
3 Chrys, De Laz., cone 2, c 4, 5, Vol. I. p. 733 ; Opus imperf.
in Matth., hom. 12, VI. p. 69 ; Cf. hom. 77, in Matth., c. 4, 5, VII.
p. 747; Greg. Nyss.. Orat. 1, de am.paup.
17

194 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
in numerous declarations, and so do the two Gregories,
and Salvian and other Fathers.1
Thus whatever was the force, even the exaggeration
of some of their expressions, their doctrine is, after all,
always the same as that of their predecessors, the same
as that of the Gospel ; always alms preached as a purely
religious duty, as a precept in the name of God, and
the observance of which God alone could exact.2 The
3 Basil, Hom. in Mud: destruam, etc, c 2, 7, II. pp. 45, 50.
" Let us give unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto
God the things that are God's, by giving to the poor." (Greg,
Orat. 19 ad Jul, e 11 ; Opp, Vol. I. p. 370.) "God," says Sal
vian, " has lent us our goods ; we are but the possessors of them
by a precarious tenure. In His goodness, however, He allows us
to consider them as ours, in order to add more merit to our works ;
but, at the same time, in order to prevent pride, He tells us, ' pay
thy debt.' In other words, 'Art thou grateful, give as if it was
thine; art thou ungrateful, give as if it were not thine.'" (Deavar.,
I. Opp. II. p. 146 ; Conf. Aug, Serm. 50, De Scr., c 1-5, XVIII.
p. 93 ; Gaudent, De villic iniq. ; Orthodoxog., p. 1853. etc)
This way of looking upon the source of riches gave birth un
doubtedly to a grave question : If God trusts the rich with his
goods, to share them with the poor, why does he choose so often
for his managers spendthrifts, egotists, and voluptuaries, who use
them only to satisfy their passions ? The Fathers attempt, and
often with some profoundness, to justify, in this respect, the ways
of Providence. (See Chrys, hom. 75, in Matth., c 4; Ambros, De
off. min., I. 16, \ 60, seq. ; Aug, Serm. 61, De Scr., c. 2, 3 ; Basil.,
Ep. 236, ad Amph., \ 7 ; Opp, III. p. 364, etc)
3 As to the total sacrifice of his goods in behalf of the poor, when
they preached it to the rich, it was only as a work of supererogation ;
it was, in their view, as any other act of asceticism, a virtue, not of
divine precept, but of advice, and suitable especially for those who
wished to leave the world. (Aug, Ep. ad Hilar. ; Hier, Ep. ad
Hedib., Opp, IV. p. 171 ; Ep. ad Demetriad., p. 792 ; Theodoret,
Comment, in ep. ad Cor., Opp, III. p. 242, etc.)

CHAP. V. — RESOURCES FROM CHARITY. 195
same bishops who apostrophized so rudely the mono
polist and the miser, would have been the first to have
defended them against popular injustice or violence,
as they defended from sedition the governors, whom
they most violently censured for tyranny.
We had it at heart to establish this before pursuing
the examination of the effects of charity. It was im
portant to define well the spirit in which it was
preached, to restore to it that character of liberty
which, in our days, it has been sought to obscure, to
show, in fine, that the church, by insisting more than
ever on this virtue, by no means thought to drag it
within the domain of law, but left it, as formerly, within
the sphere of conscience.
The true spirit of Christian charity thus rendered
clear, let us continue to enumerate the resources which
it offered to the Roman world for the relief of poverty.

CHAPTER V.
RESOURCES FURNISHED BY CHARITY.
When we call to mind the rapid progress made by
the church from the fourth century, when we see the
number of Christians, still so limited in the time of
Constantine, so increase, in less than two centuries, as
to form an immense majority, and soon almost the
total number of the subjects of the empire, we must
not expect to see the resources of Christian benevo-

196 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
lenee increase in the same proportion. By no means
did all those who professed conversion undergo it from
the bottom of their hearts ; in many respects, never had
the church been less Christian than since the Empire
itself had been declared Christian,1 and the instances
of rapacity, related to us of so many of the rich, the
earnest remonstrances which it brought upon them
from the leaders of the church,2 the confirmation which
these reproaches receive from the evidence of so many
contemporary authors,3 sufficiently prove to us the
resistance which the pagan spirit opposed too often,
still, to the efforts of charity.
Nevertheless, it succeeded, in many cases, in con
quering this resistance, and produced works of benefi
cence sufficiently abundant, sufficiently brilliant, even,
to merit our admiration. It is true, no sumptuous
marbles inform us of it ; the poor, who were the object
of it, could not thus testify their gratitude ; and the
church had not yet forgotten the modesty which ought
to be the ornament of charity. Let a magistrate give
a splendid festival to the people, let him leave to the
members of his municipality wherewith, each year, to
celebrate a feast in his honor; a funeral column, a
laudatory inscription was charged with eternising the
1 The most of the ancient and modern authors attest this partial
degeneration of Christian manners from the period of Constantine.
(See, among others, Chrysost. Horn. 26, in 2 Cor., Vol. X. p. 623;
Hieron, in vit. Malch., IV, part 1, p. 91 ; Fleury, Mceurs des chr.,
4th part, III. pp. 137, 143, et seq., etc.)
3 Chrys, in Gen., hom. 4, c. 6 ; Serm. 5, in Gen., c. 3 ; hom. 66,
in Matth., e 3 ; Aug, Serm. 61, De Scr., c 13, etc. ; Salv, De
avar., I. p. 128.
3 See, for instance, Amm. Marc, Rer. gest, XXVIII. 4.

CHAP. V. — RESOURCES FROM CHARITY. 197
memory of his largesses.1 Yet hardly the names of
one or two benefactors of the poor are found on the
ancient Christian inscriptions which have been col
lected at Rome.2 But evidence just as worthy of faith,
and, above all, from the enemies of the church,3 leaves
no doubt concerning the prodigies of charity. The
names of Nebridius, Csesarius, Pauia, Olympias, and
Basil, are inscribed in the memory of the church in
characters more durable than they would have been
on marble or on brass. Besides it is not a vague enu
meration of names, nor of scattered traits which here
could answer our end. Desirous of presenting to our
readers positive documents, and of a useful application,
1 See, among others, the inscription in honor to the augur
Severus, and of his son, the pontiff Torasius. (Maio, Script, reft.
coll., V. p. 347.)
3 In Maio's collection we have only found these : An inscription
discovered at Rome, in the portico of the church of St. Mary in
Cosmedin, tells that Eustathius, » deacon of that church, had
given several estates for the use of the deaconship and the support
of Christ's poor. On another, found in the church of St. Law
rence, in Tivoli, a military commander is designated as " cultor
ecclesiarum et largitor pauperum." A third is the epitaph of two
martyrs, who after having given a large part of their goods to the
poor, had shed their blood for Christ's sake. (Maio, ibid., pp. 216,
231, 441.)
3 We could not of course wish to have one more irrecusable nor
less suspicious than that of the Emperor Julian. " Why," says
he to Arsacius, pontiff at Galatia, " should we not imitate what
has made the success of the impious religion of the Christians,
their hospitality, their cares for the sepulture of the dead? . . .
Is it not shameful for us not to meet any Jew begging, and that
the impious Galileans nourish not only their own indigent, but also
ours, whilst we leave ours without assistance ?" (Julian, Ep. ap.
Sozom, Hist, eccles., V. 16.)
17*

198 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
we will successively retrace the resources furnished
by charity, the manner in which the church adminis
tered them, and the use which it made of them for the
relief of destitution.
The usage always was, at this epoch, among the
most zealous Christians, to offer to God, for the church
and for the poor, either the first fruits or the tithes of
their harvests and of the products of their toil.1 In
order that this sacrifice might be more easy and light
to them, in assuming the character of a religious habit,
Chrysostom invited them, in imitation of St. Paul, to
put aside each Sunday what they could consecrate to
alms.2 It was equally recommended to the faithful, to bring
regularly to the Supper, as far as possible, offerings
either in money or in kind, which represented the vic
tims exhibited on the altar under the old covenant,
and which, derived from that the name of oblation or
sacrifice. The names of those who offered, recorded
in the diptycs of the church, were read aloud by the
1 Const apost, VII. 29 ; VIII. 30. (It is well known that the
eeventh and eighth books of the Constitutions called Apostolio
are generally regarded as having been written subsequently to the
reign of Constantine, and as representing the government of the
Eastern Church in the fourth century.) See likewise several pas
sages in the Fathers, quoted by Augusti, Christliche arch&ol., I.
p. 314, and by Thomassin, anc. et nouv. dis., I. p. 336. Eustathius,
bishop of Sebaste, was charged by the Council of Gangres with
having appropriated to himself and his family the first fruits and
the oblations given to the church (xapHo^ofias ixxhrjomtrtixd;).
Labbe, Cone, II. p. 414.
3 Chrys, De deem, hom., e 4 ; Opp, III. p. 252 ; hom. 43 in Cor.,
c. 1, X. p. 401.

CHAP. V. — RESOURCES FROM CHARITY. 199
deacon before communion,1 and the hope of receiving
more abundantly the fruits of the sacrifice of the altar
and of the benedictions of the priest, perhaps, also
(why not confess it ?) the somewhat mundane pleasure
of hearing one's name pronounced in the church,2 con
curred in rendering these offerings productive. At
the anniversary of the funeral of a relative, and in the
commemorative service celebrated at the altar, they
made similar offerings, the product of which was espe
cially reserved for the poor.3 This usage was still suf
ficiently general for Chrysostom to regret that the
faithful did not do as much at each communion in
memory of the death of their Saviour." However, he
recognized that, at the approaches of the festival, and
when the grand anniversaries of the church recalled
more vividly the scenes and the blessings of redemp
tion, the liberality of the faithful redoubled with their
devotion.5 On certain occasions, general and regular collections
were also made for the indigent. Such were those
which accompanied the fasts prescribed by the church.
The idea of making fasting an auxiliary to benevolence
was older than Christianity. It is found among the
Jews, and even, it is said, among some of the pagans.6
1 Hieron, in Jerem., II. ; Opp, III. p. 584; Innocent, I, Ep. 25,
u. 2 ; Rheinwald, Kirchl. archozol, p. 337, etc.
3 Hieron, Comm. in Ezech., XVIII, Vol. III. p. 822, etc.; Bing
ham, Orig.. eccles., V. 4, § 1.
1 Const, ap. VIII. 42 ; Rheinwald, ubi sup., p. 390-392.
4 Chrys, hom. 27, in 1 Cor. ; hom. 31, in Matth, c. 4.
6 Ibid., in Ps. 145, c 1.
6 According to. Aristotle, the city of Samos having asked Sparta
for assistance, the latter, which had no public treasury, decreed a

200 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
The Church was far from neglecting so fruitful a
resource, and one which did not leave even to the
poorest persons a pretext for refusing their alms. At
the opening of the quarterly fasts of Ember days, she
invited each Christian to hand to the collector what
he would spare in his diet. All the sermons on fast
ing, preached at this epoch, are, at the same time, ser
mons of charity as well as acts of thanksgiving ; all
recalled to mind the favors of God, and the obligations
of charity derived therefrom, for themselves ; all emu-
lously comment upon these beautiful words of the pro
phet ; " Is not this the fast that I have chosen, to deal
thy bread to the hungry?" "God has caused your
fields and your vineyards to prosper," says Leo the
Great : " He has blessed your toil that you may aid
those who have received nothing for theirs ; so that
they may bless God with you for the fertility of the
earth. He has wished that there should be a fast upon
this tenth month in order that each one for himself
might be more temperate and more liberal to his
brothers." J
At the opening of Lent, Augustine and Csesarius, of
Aries, likewise exhorted their listeners to consecrate
the days of fasting to visiting the sick and the prison
ers, and to take care of travellers. " And let us not
omit," they added, "to nourish our brethren with what
we deprive ourselves of by fasting."2 The fasting of
fast for men and beasts for four and twenty hours, and handed to
the Samians the product of this saving. (Blanqui, Hist, de Vicon.
pol, T. p. 37.)
1 Leo Magn, Opp, p. 9.
' Ambr, De Nab., c. 5, ? 19; Caesar, hom. 18 (in Orthodoxogr.,

CHAP. V. — RESOURCES .FROM CHARITY. 201
the last week was especially solemnized by deeds of
charity. In times of public calamities, when numerous and
pressing wants were felt, the church did not wait for
the return of her anniversaries in order to proclaim
fastings and solicit collections. Her ministers pre
sented themselves resolutely before the flock, painted
with eloquence the misery of the poor, redoubled their
pathetic appeals, and, before the emotion which they
had called forth was dissipated, they often gathered in
abundant aid. During the pontificate of St. Basil,
Csesarea was a prey to a famine such as had not been
seen in the memory of man, and which the manoeuvres
of speculators aggravated still more. Basil, "who
could not," says his friend, " cause bread to descend
from heaven, was able at least, by his eloquence, to
determine the rich to open their granaries ; then, like
another Joseph, collecting the poor, he fed them each
day with bread and other provisions." J Without a
free and active commerce, the only efficacious preser-

p. 1899). Private and voluntary fastings were also for the most
pious Christians a means of multiplying their alms. Sidonius
Apollinaris says of Eutropia : " Parcimonfa et humanitate cer-
tantibus, non minus se jejuniis quam cibis pauperes pascit" St.
Basil, to have more to give, contented himself with only one gar
ment, one cloak, bread, salt, water, and a couch upon the ground.
(Greg. Naz, Or. 43, e 61.) Paula, as austere for herself as she
was generous for others, gave them what she refused to herself,
and thought fish, eggs, honey, and wine were too great dainties for
her. (Hier, ep. 86, IV, part 2, p. 679.)
1 Greg. Naz, Orat. 43 in Basil, e 34, 35, I. p. 797, seq. We
possess the beautiful oration by which Bazil effected that prodigy.
(Rom. de Siccit, Opp, II. p. 62.

202 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
vative against monopoly, the best remedy, without
contradiction, was that to which Basil had recourse.
Formerly, Diocletian, in fixing the price of provisions,
had only made them dearer. When Julian wished to
follow his example, the high price of corn soon ex
tended to all other provisions.1 Law and violence
against monopolizers have never produced anything but
famine. Basil did better ; he gained the speculators
themselves, and, by their own hands, had their grana
ries emptied and their treasures thrown open.
Independently of these occasional largesses, pro
moted by the church herself, many others were spon
taneously made by the faithful. It was almost a gene
ral usage for the Christians who were rich, or at their
ease, to bequeath a gift more or less considerable for
works of charity. The writings of the times mention
a great many of these pious legacies,2 many of which
were already conceived in the form so much used in
the middle ages.3 The parents of Gregory of Nazi-
anzen had charged their children to give to the poor
all that they should leave after them. Csesarius, the
brother of Gregory, Satyrus, the brother of Ambrose,
had expressed a similar wish, and their wills were
religiously respected.4

1 Amm. Marc, XXII. 14. 3 Sozom, Hist, eccles., VII. 27, etc.
' See one of the inscriptions above related : " Eustathius, deacon
of the church of St. Mary in Cosmedin has given for the support
of the poor . . and for the forgiveness of his sins, divers estates,
as follows," etc. (Maio, Coll script vett, V. p, 216.)
4 Greg. Naz, Orat. fun. in Cozsar., c. 4, I. p. 200; Testam., II.
p. 203 ; Basil, Ep. 32, ad Sophron., Opp, III. p. Ill; Ambr, De
excess. Satyr., I. 59, Vol. VIII. p. 25. The bishops and the priests

CHAP. V. — RESOURCES FROM CHARITY. 203
But all heirs were not equally disinterested. St.
Gregory was obliged to make reclamations against two
brothers who refused to pay to his church the legacy
which their mother had left to it.1 The patrimonial
property left by Proba to the church of Rome was
dilapidated by faithless administrators ; those of Csesa-
rius were pillaged by pretended creditors who did not
make themselves known during his lifetime.2 Many
bishops, moreover, were justly scrupulous in not
accepting for their churches inheritances of which near
relatives might consider themselves frustrated.3 The
most of them, finally, judged that gifts made for an
epoch when the enjoyment of them would be no longer
possible, manifested but little disinterestedness and
spirit of sacrifice. "You will give in your will, do
you say? I understand by that," says Salvianus,
"that you will be generous after your death. But
which are your deeds that . will be recompensed ?
who died without leaving relations, bequeathed almost always their
fortune to their church and to its poor.
1 Greg. Naz, Ep. 61, ad Aer., et Alyp., Opp, II. p. 54, seq.
3 Coelestin, Pap. I, Ep. 12 ad Theod. (Labbe, II. p. 1629) ; Greg.
Naz, Ep. 32.
3 St. Augustine was reproached for having refused some bene
ficial bequests to his church ; he gave as the reason, that they pro
ceeded from fathers who had unjustly disinherited their children,
and declared he would ever refuse similar legacies. Aurelius,
bishop of Carthage, showed the same delicacy. An inhabitant of
that city, no longer hoping to have children, had given all his for
tune to the church, and had reserved for himself but the use
thereof. Having become a father, Aurelius sent him back his
donation ; valid, says Augustine, according to human law, but
void according to the celestial law. (Aug, Serm. 355, c. 3, 4, XIX.
p. 350-2, De vit. et men: cler.)

204 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
Those done while you are living, or those which will
follow your death? Besides, how do you know that
you will have the time to make your will, or if it will
not be broken, or your estate dissipated." 1 Really to
prove love for the poor, the gifts should be made
during life ; that is the sacrifice truly agreeable to God,
because it mortifies the flesh and exercises self-denial.
If the abundance of gifts did not equal that of the
legacies, yet it was considerable.
Palladius had known at Ancyra, in Galatia, one
named Severian and his wife, both animated with so
great a charity for the poor, that they consumed all
their revenues for them. They said to their children :
" After us, all of our property will belong to you ; but
during our lives, let us distribute the income from it
to the churches, the hospitals, the poor, and the monas
teries." In a time of scarcity, their largesses were so
great that they caused many heretics, who had sepa
rated from the church, to re-enter it. Pammachius
gave, in his lifetime, a great part of his goods to the
poor, and left the rest to them after his death.2 Ne-
bridius, Prefect of Constantinople, consecrated to the
needy the salary of his office, and the presents made
to him by the Emperor.3 Olympias, his widow, ob-
1 Salv, De avarit, Opp, II. p. 160 ; Cf. Basil, Hom. in div.,
c 8 ; Opp, II. p. 60.
3 Pallad, Hist, lausiae, c 114, 121, pp. 203, 215.
3 Hieron, Ep. 85, Opp, IV. p. 2, p. 666. At an early period,
the use was established at Rome that praetors and consuls recently
elected, on their going to return thanks to God in the church of
the apostles, should give clothes and money to the poor. This is,
according to Amm. Marcell, the occasion of this custom : In the

CHAP. V. — RESOURCES FROM CHARITY. 205
tained this glorious testimony from Chrysostom:
" From thy earliest youth thou hast not ceased to nou
rish Jesus Christ, to quench his thirst, to visit him in
his afflictions, and, in our days, the ocean of thy
charity has spread to the ends of the earth." x
"Nonna," said St. Gregory, her son, "would have ex
hausted a sea by his largesses. Gorgonia, her daugh
ter, not content with enriching the churches, received
at her house all the pious, was the friend of widows,
and extended to the unhappy an assisting hand. Her
house was a hospital for all her neighbors in destitu
tion, and her goods were the common patrimony of
the poor."2
The charity of Paula and of Fabiola has been im
mortalized by St. Jerome, that of Mamertinus Clau-
dian and of Eutropia by Sidonius Apollinaris.3 But
year 367, Lampadius, giving, at his installation, magnificent exhi
bitions, "a part of the people," says Ammian, "was displeased
for their being so prodigal to coachmen and actors. Then, Lam
padius, to make himself more popular, sent for all the poor that
filled up the porticos of the Vatican, and gave them abundant
alms." This fact shows us that Christian ideas began to pervade
the people at Rome. Thus, the example of Lampadius seems to
have been followed by his successors ; and 130 years later, accord
ing to Ennodius, a senatorial decree turned the custom into a law.
(Amm. Marc. XXVIII. 3, cum ann. Ennod.)
1 Chrys, Ep. ad Olymp., c. 5, 10; Opp, III. pp. 541, 547, Chrysos
tom was obliged, however, to moderate the liberality, sometimes
inconsiderate, of Olympias, and to exhort her to give to the poor
but in proportion to their wants, that she might be able to help a
greater number of them. (Sozom, Hist, eccles., VIII. 9.)
3 Greg. Naz, Orat. 18, in Patr., c. 21 ; Orat 8, in Gorgon., c. 82,
I. pp. 225, 344.
3 Hieron, Ep. 84, 86 ; Sidon. Apoll, Epp. IV. 11 ; VI. 2.
18

206 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
how could we enumerate so many other examples
related by contemporary authors ? 1
Provided that a priest or a bishop was reputed to be
prudent and charitable, understanding the necessities
of his flock, and having at heart their interests, pious
offerings came in to him in abundance. St. Ambrose
observed that the priests who gave the most were also
those who received the most, because charitable Chris
tians, in remitting to them their gifts, were sure of
seeing them do good to the poor.2 St. Epiphanius,
Bishop of Salamis, after having given all his wealth,
after having lavished that of his church, always found
in the charity of the faithful wherewith to renew his
liberalities. "Without ceasing," says Sozomen, "he
exposed himself to the reproaches of his steward, who
accused him of exhausting the treasures of the church.
But he did not listen to him, and always gave and
always had something to give ; for those who had
resolved to bestow something on the poor, did it
through him, persuaded that he would fulfil their
1 See, among others, those of Galla, daughter of Symmachus ;
St. Eupraxia and her parents, allied to Theodosius ; St. Melania,
widow of a Roman general ; of St. Nicarete, a contemporary of
Chrysostom ; then those of Eleusius, Florentius, the bishop Sisin-
nius, the priest Constantius, etc. (Sozom, Hist, eccl, IX. 3 ; Baillet,
Vie des Saints, 5th Octob, p. 83 ; 27th Dec, p. 343 ; Bolland, Ada
Sand, ad 13 Mart, p. 266-8 ; Pallad, Hist laus., c 10, 117, pp. 33,
208 ; Hieron, Ep. 4, ad Flor., IV. P. 2, p. 4 ; Socr, Hist, eccl, VII.
26, 28; Chrys, Ep. 225 ad Const, Opp, III. p. 724, etc.) Jlany
other examples are enumerated in the work of Arnold, entitled
Erste Liebe, a. picture of Christian manners in the first centuries.
lib. III.
3 Ambr, De off. min., II. 16, \ 78.

CHAP. V. — RESOURCES FROM. CHARITY. 207
intentions better than they could themselves. One
day, at last, when nothing more remained to him, his
steward received from a person who never wished to
disclose himself nor to tell whence it came, a purse
full of gold. As it cannot be supposed," adds Sozo
men, " that the author of such a gift would have wished
to remain unknown, this must have been a superna
tural dispensation." x Strange caprice in the historian,
to admit a miracle rather than be obliged to recognize
a virtue ! Were there no longer, then, in the church,
souls sufficiently generous to encourage, even in secret,
and solely for the love of God, the saintly prodigality
of their bishop ?
And, in fact, Sozomen himself, as well as his con
temporaries, have transmitted to us a crowd of
instances of a devotedness more complete still, as they
are of Christians who made an entire abandonment of
their effects to the poor. It is true that this abandon
ment came principally, or almost solely from those who
took the vow of a monastic life.
At this epoch, when Christianity had only feebly
affected general morals, as long as a Christian remained
in the world, it was almost impossible for him to break
a multitude of ties, to free himself from a crowd of
factitious wants, of pretended duties, imposed upon
him by the tyranny of opinion. Did he wish to regu
late the use of his superfluities and to give a larger
part to the unfortunate, a thousand obstacles withheld
himi children habituated to luxury, clients to retain,
friends to attend to, relatives to satisfy, an eager crowd

1 Sozom, Hist, eccles., VII. 27.

208 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
which, in feasts and banquets, levied tribute on the
rich ; finally a pack of parasites and flatterers, whom
it was impossible to make understand such a sacrifice.
"With your rank, your fortune, such a pitiful life,
such a modest attire, so mean a service!" When
Paulinus, a Roman senator and consul, wished to
divest himself in favor of the poor, a frightful void was
made around him ; his relations, his friends, his freed
men and his slaves, even the most faithful, abandoned
him ; he was covered with sarcasms and ridicule, from
which Sulpicius Severus, his last friend, could not suc
ceed in defending him.1 It must be confessed, it
needed more than human courage to face such out
rages ; the only course that remained was to quit the
world and flee to the desert. This is what Paulinus
did. It is also what, about the same time, Paula, a
noble Roman dame, did, when in her widowhood, she
wished to consecrate herself to works of charity.
"Importuned," says Jerome, "with the movements in
her house, and the visits of the great of Rome," impa
tient to fly away, she departed with her daughter as
soon as spring came, went to visit the most celebrated
monasteries in the East, and founded several herself,
as well as hospitals for pilgrims. She was excessive
only in her liberalities ; she took God to witness that
she did all for His name, that she would have been
willing to die a beggar and not leave a single farthing
behind her, nor even a shroud for her interment. ' If
I ask,' she said, ' many will be ready to give to, me,
but if this poor man asks something of me and does

1 Paulini vita in Paulin. Opp., prcef., 22, seq.

CHAP. V. — RESOURCES FROM CHARITY. 209
not receive it, and he die of hunger, who must render
an account for his life ?' I could have wished her,"
adds Jerome, " more prudent in her domestic admin
istration ; but in her ardent faith, she only saw her
Saviour, to whom she wished to return all his favors."
At last she attained the utmost of her desires.1 The
parents of St. Melania, whom their rich friends at
Rome wished to restrain from renouncing their pro
perty, saw no other means of accomplishing their pro
ject than to retire in a cloister.2
While these generous Christians embraced monastic
life in order more freely to do good, others, animated
with a different spirit, stripped themselves of their pos
sessions in order to renounce the world more easily.
St. Anthony, the father of the Anachoretes; Pacho-
mius, the founder of cenobitic life ; Hilarion, the pro
pagator of Monachism in Syria ; Basil and Gregory in
Asia Minor; Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, in the
Island of Cyprus; Porphyry of Gaza; Alexander,
founder of the Acoemetes; Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus ;
Abraham, Bishop of Carrhse ; Isidore of Pelusium ;
Hilary and Honorius, Bishops of Aries ; St. Cloud,
priest of Paris; St. Martin, Bishop of Tours; St. Gre
gory, Bishop of Rome ; Marcellus, Archimandrite of
Constantinople; Isaiah, Cledonius, and their imitators
in embracing monastic life, from whence most of them
were afterwards elevated to the priesthood or to the
episcopate, all made a total abandonment of their for-
1 Hieron, Ep. 86, ad Eustoch., IV. P. 2, p. 671, seq.
3 Pallad, Hist, laus., c 118, p. 212.
18*

210 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
tunes to the poor.1 Illustrious laymen did the same.
Nepotian, the favorite of Gratian and Theodosian ;
Theodulus, Governor of Constantinople under Theo
dosius the Younger, and a certain officer who, after a
conversation with Macarius, renounced all worldly
hopes, distributed his goods to the poor and embraced
the monastic state. And thus, too, Pelagius ; Fabiola,
after the death of her second husband ; the virgin De-
metriada, Eupraxia, and the two Melanias, Roman
dames, who divided all their property among the mo
nasteries, the churches and the hospitals, as well in the
East as in the West.2
1 Athanas, Vita St. Ant, c 2, 3, Opp, Ed. Ben. I. p. 796 ; Hieron,
Vit. Hilar., IV. P. 2 ; Greg. Naz, Orat. 43, c. 60, I. p. 815 ; Carm.,
II. p. 1002; vit. Greg, inpraf., 55, pp. 91, 131; Thomassin, Anc.
et nouv. disc, I. p. 365 ; Bolland, Act Sand, ad 15 Jan., p. 1021 ;
4 feb, p, 468, seq. ; 26 jan„p. 18 ; 5 ma, p. 27 ; 16 janv, p. 223 ;
7 Sept, p. 101.
Some bishops made the same sacrifice without any connection
with a life in the desert or in a monastery ; thanks to the strong
wall they had raised between themselves and the world, the epis
copal palace became for them a kind of Thebals. St. Ambrose, on
his receiving the pastoral crook, distributed all his goods to the
poor, and gave all his estates to the church, reserving only the use
for his sister. Gregory of Nyssa sacrificed -for the relief of his
flock all his patrimony. St. Spiridion, bishop of Cyprus, divided
all his into two parts, one of which was for the poor, and the
other for such as might want some loan. St. Augustine, a little
after his conversion, had abandoned his house and lands to the
church of Tagaste, his native country, reserving for himself out
of this gift but a strict subsistence for himself and his son. Having
been raised up to the bishoprick of Hippone, he one day announced
from the pulpit that all priests and deacons of his church had, like
him, renounced voluntarily all their fortune for the benefit of pious
and charitable foundations. (Aug, Serm. 355 and 356, XXI.)
2 Baillet, Vies des Saints, 11th May, p. 200; Jan, p. 30; Sept.,

CHAP. V. — RESOURCES FROM CHARITY. 211
Finally, history relates to us still greater acts of
devotion ; it speaks of Christians, who, having deprived
themselves of everything for the poor, took the fancy
of selling themselves in order still to have something
to give them. Such were Paulinus, Bishop of Nola,
and Serapion, Bishop of Thmuis. In the. time of Jus
tinian, Peter, an old collector of taxes, resolved to
make amends for his former harshness by his charities,
and had himself sold - by his own almoner, for the
benefit of the indigent.1 Let us not too lightly regard
these recitals as fabulous ; if such devotedness appear
to exceed the measure of human power, one considera
tion will aid us, perhaps, in giving faith tot; namely,
the instability of fortunes then, which the tottering
empire continually threatened to involve in its ruin.
" What do we pretend ?" said two courtiers of Theo
dosius, belated one day in the cabin of a hermit, and
struck with the reading of the life of St. Anthony :
" what is it that attaches us to the court, and what can
we hope there more than the friendship of the empe
ror? And what more fragile than such a fortune?
What situation more exposed to great dangers?"
The contrast of the agitations of the court and the
peace of the desert was so strongly felt by them, that
from that day they renounced the world, their fortunes,
and their hopes of advancement, and embraced monas
tic life. Such was the effect produced each day by the
fall of so many illustrious parvenus, the Rutins, the
Stilicos, the Eutropeouses, the Ga'inases. Added to
p. 408 ; Hieron, De morte Nep., de morte Fabiol, Pallad, Hist, laus.,
c. 65, 118, 119, 127 ; Thomassin, ubi sup., p. 390, etc.
1 Bolland, Ad. Sanct, ad 23 Jan, p. 506, in vit. S. Joh. Eleem.

212 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
this, at this epoch, there was great uneasiness as to the
coming of the end of the world. At the sight of the
disasters of the empire, many Christians, as did their
predecessors, believed every day touched the fatal mo
ment, and exhibited, in thought of this, an indiffer
ence, that charity alone, perhaps, would not have been
able to inspire.1

CHAPTER VI.
ADMINISTRATION OF THE FUNDS OF CHARITY.
Tithes, first-fruits, offerings on the altar, regular or
occasional collections, legacies, partial or total dona
tions, movables or immovables ; such were the princi
pal resources furnished by charity. The church, the
1 The vestiges of this belief in the approaching end of the world
are found everywhere in the contemporary authors. See, among
others, Aug, Ep. 122, c 2, XXXIX. p. 426 ; Serm. 105, De Scr.,
XVIII. p. 581, etc. ; Greg. Magn, Epp. II. 29 (ap. Labbe, Cone,
V. p. 1114) ; Dialog. Ill, Opp. I. p. 1421 ; Chrysost, hom. 20, in
Matth., c 6; hom. 35, in JoA, VII. p. 267; VIII. p. 200; De
virginit, c. 73, I. p. 326 ; Greg. Naz, Orat. 17, c 11, I. p. 324,
etc. The conclusion of these sinister previsions is almost always
with the Fathers an exhortation for doubling one's zeal and devo
tion in works of charity. " What do people," asks St. Augustine,
" when a house is going to fall down ? they take out their furni
ture to put it in a safe place." "The end is at hand," says St
Chrysostom ; " the bridegroom is coming ; let us buy a good deal
of oil for our lamps, and let us transport by the hands of the poor
our treasures to heaven."

CHAP. VI. — ADMINISTRATION OF CHARITY. 213
depository of most of them,1 only distributed imme
diately the offerings in kind, or those of less value ; as
to the others, especially as to lands, she put them under
cultivation and employed the income, either for her
own wants or for the relief of the needy. She thus
found herself engaged in an administration much more
complicated than in the first centuries, and which
claims our attention for a short time.
It is probable, in truth, that the church had already
received in gift some real estate before the days of
Constantine. The edict of Milan, published in 313,
mentions houses and gardens, lost to the church by
confiscations, and which ought to be restored to it.2
But, doubtless, this property was not considerable.
The Roman law did not recognize in corporations the
right of possessing real estate, except when expressly
and by name authorized by the State, and few Chris
tians ventured to make donations to the church, which,
from one moment to another, might be annulled or
Beized. At. most they gave, at times, under a private
1 The very church exhorted believers to pass through her hands
what they destined for the poor, in order to secure its useful
application and its equitable distribution. Such was the advice
given by the bishop of Caesarea to Heraclidus, at the moment when
he projected the sale of all his goods. " Instead of distributing
one's self the produot, it is better," says he, " to remit it to the
administrator of the goods for the poor, in order that they may be
given only to the truly indigent, and not thrown to the imprudent."
(Basil, Ep. 150, e 3, III. p. 241.) Besides, as shall be shown,
this rule did not concern the occasional alms, which, on the con
trary, Chrysostom loved to see remitted directly to the poor. St.
Jerome praised Fabiola, who took upon herself alone the distribu
tion of her alms. (Hieron, Ep. 84, ad Ocean., IV. p. 662.)
3 Euseb, Hist, eccles., X. 5.

214 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
name, the houses which served as places of meeting,
and the contiguous land for a cemetery. Such was
that which Alexander Severus had adjudged to the
Christians of Rome, in spite of a corporation which
also laid claim to it.1 Since then Diocletian had for
bidden all kinds of donations in their favor. But, as
soon as the church had been recognized by the State,
Constantine, by a special edict, published in 321, autho
rized it to receive the gifts of the faithful.2 Hence
forth, dotations in its favor increased very rapidly.
The revenues of the church of Csesarea, in Cappadocia,
were so considerable, that, according to St. Gregory, it
was the sight of a part of its riches, transported from
Tauricus to Csesarea, that excited the envy of Anthi-
mos, Bishop of Tyanes, against St. Basil.3 In the
time of Chrysostom, the church of Antioch had suffi
cient to furnish each day the support of three thousand
widows or consecrated virgins, besides the strangers,
the sick and the impotent whom it assisted.4 But
nothing equalled the wealth of the great metropolitan
churches of Rome and of Alexandria. Besides im
mense sums in specie, and vases of gold and silver, the
different churches of Rome possessed houses and lands,
not only in Italy, Sicily, and other parts of the west,
but also in Syria, in Asia Minor, and in Egypt.5
1 Gieseler, Lehrb. d. K. geschichie, 1. p. 213. Such were still
those the property of which had been acknowledged by Gallian,
by the name of 6prjaxci(Sitioi torcoi.. (Euseb, Hist eccles., VII. 13.
2 Euseb, loc cit, X. 5 ; Cod. Theod, XVI. 2, De epise, 1. 4.
3 Vita St. Basil, in Basil. Opp, III, praef, p. 80.
4 Chrys, hom. 66, in Matth., VII. p. 658.
6 Fleury, Mceurs des chr., part 3, § 17 ; Greg. Magn, Epp. passim.

CHAP. VI. — ADMINISTRATION OF CHARITY. 215
When St. John, the Almoner, was elevated to the Pa
triarchate of Alexandria, he found in. the sacred trea
sury eight thousand pounds of gold, and received ten
thousand himself. The Church of that city, it is said,
possessed vessels, which she used for provisioning her
self with corn. It is affirmed that on one single day
it lost thirteen of them, loaded with ten thousand
bushels each. This fact, if exact, will enable us to
judge of the extent of its resources ; and St. John, the
Almoner, passes for having nourished even seven thou
sand five hundred poor at once.1
Thanks to these rich foundations, the fate of the
unfortunate whom the church assisted, assuredly
became less precarious. It had funds always ready to
meet . the caprices or necessary intermissions of pri
vate charity. But this advantage was accompanied
with detriment. The church found itself engaged in
details of administration, often perplexing, and which
had no relation to its true, spiritual commission. It
was necessary for it, whose profession was to labor
only for heaven, to devote itself to cares purely worldly.
To relieve them from these cares, all the bishops had
not, like Ambrose, or like Mamertius, Bishop of
Vienna, a brother, at the same time devoted to the
church and experienced in business.2 They were
obliged, themselves, to buy, barter, and sell ; they had
to see that the coloni and the slaves worked, to keep
and watch many stewards and overseers. Besides,
the hands which touched the treasury of the church
1 Bolland, Acta Sand., ad 23, Jan, pp. 518, 519, 526, 529.
2 " Procuratorem in negotiis, villicum in praediis." Sidon. Apoll.,
De morte Claud., Opp. lib. IV. ep. 11.

216 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
were not all equally sure. There were superintendents
of but little fidelity,1 prodigal or interested bishops,
who did not always very scrupulously distinguish the
property of the church from their own, or who too
liberally gave the enjoyment of them to their own fami
lies.2 Even the firmest integrity, the most assiduous
watchfulness did not prevent occasional suspicions
regarding this administration.3 The poor, whose de
mands were repelled or inadequately satisfied, were
ready to regard the money refused to them as badly
employed. The extent, even, of these funds, gave
occasion to unlimited expectations, not to say exac
tions, and, on the other hand, furnished a thousand
pretexts to the selfishness of the rich. When the
church insisted upon the duty of alms-giving, its trea
sures, its vast domains, were objected to it, and that it
was astonishing that, with its opulence, it could not
suffice to the wants of all the needy.4 Thus, in pro-
1 Thus, St. Isidore charged with unfaithfulness both Maro and
Martinian, managers of the church of that city. (Thomassin, I.
p. 389.)
3 An ordinance of the Apostolic Constitutions, and divers de
crees of Councils, are destined to repress that misuse. Const, ap,
VIII. 33 ; Cone Antioch, ann. 341, can. 25 ; Cone Agath., ann.
506, can. 7; Cone. 4, Aurel, ann, 541, etc. (Labbe, Concil, II.
p. 573 ; IV. p..l383, etc.)
3 The Fathers of the church sometimes make allusion to it ;
Chrysostom, for instance (hom. 21 in Cor., e 6, 7, X. p. 189 ; hom,
9 in Phil, c. 4), and Augustine (Ep. 126, u. 8, XXXIX. p. 441), etc!
Chrysostom was himself exposed to unjust charges of that kind.
(Vit. Chrys., Opp, XIII. p, 146.)
4 " They tell us, the church is wealthy. What is that to thee ?
Not her gifts, nor mine, will save thee. Art thou dispensed from
fasting and praying for the reason that there are priests fasting
and praying? (Chrys, hom. 21 in Cor., c. 6, X. p. 189.)

CHAP. VI. — ADMINISTRATION OF CHARITY. 217
portion as its fixed resources augmented, it saw its
eventual resources, those which came from offerings
and collections, diminish ; so that, if, in ordinary times,
it better knew on what to rely, it had, on the other
hand, heavier burdens, and, did circumstances become
difficult, it had means less abundant. The spirit of
benevolence, in fine, which, like all the generous sen
timents, is only developed by acts, languished from
day to day; the rich became habituated to send the
poor for assistance to the church, reserving to them
selves the privilege of indemnifying it some day by a
pious legacy.
Let us not, then, be surprised if, in view of these sad
effects, the most devoted bishops began to deplore the
day when offerings were changed into dotations, and
when the church became proprietor. Chrysostom was,
in principle, much opposed to treasuring up. He said
that, " That which belongs to the church perishes
with time or becomes a prey to ravishers, whilst that
which one gives, himself, to the poor, the devil cannot
take away." 1 He recommended that the sums amassed
should be promptly and largely distributed, to avoid
the mishap of a steward, who, having buried the goods
of the poor, bad been obliged, in time of war, to deliver
himself up to the enemy.2 "It is with you all," says
he, elsewhere, " that the treasure of the church should
be, and it is your cruelty that causes her to be obliged
t6 possess and to deal in houses and lands. You are
barren in good works, and the ministers of God have
to be occupied with a thousand objects foreign to their
1 Chrys, Hom. in Matth.
3 Ibid., De Sacerd., III. 16, Vol. I. p. 397.
19

218 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
office. In the days of the apostles, houses and lands
might have been given to them ; why was it preferred
to sell them and to give the price ? Because that was
better, without doubt. Your fathers also would have
preferred that the alms should have been given from
your revenue, but they feared that, if left to you, your
avarice would have suffered the poor to perish of hun
ger, hence the present order of things. Instead of
praying and teaching, w.e must mingle with the crowd
of those who sell wine and corn ; suffer outrages, and
receive, in place of the glorious titles fixed by the
apostles, names appropriated only to those engaged in
secular life. Occupied with harvests, vintages, sales
and purchases, we cannot walk in the footsteps of the
Lord ; we do not pray as we should, and the Scriptures
are neglected. Let your threshing-floor and your wine
press relieve us henceforth from these cares. Take
this servitude from us, and be, yourselves, the treasure
of the church. Otherwise, the poor are on your hands ;
we will nourish as many as we can, and we will leave
the others to you, to be supported on your own respon
sibility. By the grace of God, I believe that the num
ber of the Christians at Antioch may amount to one
hundred thousand. If each one of them should give
a loaf of bread daily to the poor, all would have an
abundance; and, if each would give only one penny,
we would have no more poor, and your priests might
give themselves up to the discharge of their true func
tions." l St. Augustine also desired that his flock
would take back all the funds and lands belonging to
1 Chrys, hom. 85 in Matth., c. 3, 4, VII. p. 808-810, Cf. hom.
21 in Cor., c. 7.

CHAP. VI. — ADMINISTRATION OF CHARITY. 219
the church, and would themselves take charge of the
support of the poor and of the clergy.1 If nothing
was changed, in this respect, either at Antioch or at
Hippo, let us not conclude with Thomassin, that the
Christians of these two cities recognized the injustice
of their suspicions and complaints ;2 let us not con
clude, either, that the system of charitable foundations
was, in itself, the best both for the church and for the
poor, but only that it was the most appropriate for the
wants of the times. To count upon individual alms,
which the relaxation of zeal rendered always more
rare,3 upon private resources, which the dullness of
business diminished from day to day, would have been,
for the future, to be exposed to cruel disappointments.
The funds given or bequeathed to the church were
much more productive, much more sure in her hands
than in those of their former possessors. They formed,
for the poor, a safety-fund, which, at this period of dis
asters, nothing could well replace.
We have seen that, in the beginning, the church
made three distinct parts of its revenues ; one for the
support of the clergy, one for the expenses of worship,
and the third for the poor. When, in consequence of
the extension of the Christian communities, the epis
copate became more important and was subjected to
1 Possid, in vit. Aug., e 23. 3 Thomassin, ubi sup., I. p. 357.
3 " Your avarice," said Chrysostom, " obliges the church to keep
her possessions. . . . You heap up treasures on earth, . . . and
the church must provide alone for the wants of the poor. What is
to be done, pray ? to put them out ? to close on them all access to
these harbors? Who then would remedy so many shipwrecks?
You would then hear only cries and lamentations." (Hom. 21 in
Cor., c 7, X. p. 190.)

220 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
greater expenses, particularly from the reception of
strangers who momentarily sojourned in the capital,
in order to enable the bishop to fulfil this duty of hos
pitality, a fourth part was constituted for him.1 At
first nothing determined the relative proportions of
these four parts. The bishop, the legal depositary of
the revenues of the church,2 made, according to his
disinterestedness and his charity, that of the poor more
or less liberal. When Chrysostom had been elevated
to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, he found in the
accounts of the superintendent, relative to the person
of the bishop, or to the expenses of public -worship,
exaggerated allowances, which he either reduced or
else discontinued. Henceforth he took his repasts alone,
that they might be more frugal,3 and consecrated to
the poor all that he could economise in this way.4 He
finished even, it is said, by entirely abandoning to
them his part of the ecclesiastical revenues, while
Olympias provided for his support.5 Maximian, one
of his successors, is praised by Pope Celestin for hav
ing been raised to the episcopacy by the suffrages of
the poor, and for having aspired to this post only in
order to be in a condition to do more good.6 Hono
rius, Bishop of Aries, perceiving that the wealth of
his church was injurious to clerical discipline, used it

1 Thomassin, ubi sup., I. p. 411.
3 Cone Antioch., ann. 341, c 25 ; Gelas, ep. 10 (Labbe, Cone,
II. p. 573 ; IV. p. 1196, etc.
3 Socrat, Hist, eccl, VI. 4.
4 Pallad, Dial de vit. Chrys., c. 5, 12.
6 Baillet, Vies des Saints, 17th dec, p. 250. '
6 Coelest, ep. 11 (Labbe, Cone, II. p. 1626.)

CHAP. VI. — ADMINISTRATION OF CHARITY. 221
all in charitable distributions, only reserving for him
self and his clergy what was strictly necessary for a
support.1 St. Hilary, bishop of the same city, labored
with his own hands, in order that he might have the
more to give. However, all the bishops did not follow
such laudable examples. Theophilus, of Alexandria,
too much absorbed in constructing or ornamenting
churches, often neglected deeds of charity. Isidore,
his manager, was obliged to remind him that the
bodies of the sick are the living temples of the Lord,
which, above all, are those to be repaired.2 It was to
prevent abuses of this kind that the Popes Simplicius
and Gelasius, fixed regularly the division of the eccle
siastical revenues in four equal parts;3 but, in al
lotting at least the fourth of these revenues to the
poor, it was well understood that all of the rest, not
strictly necessary for the support of the clergy, should
also be given to them. This is at least the opinion of
Thomassin and of Launoi, who observe, that, in gene
ral, according to the Fathers and the Latin Councils,
all the real estate revenues of the church were consi
dered as the patrimony of the poor, and that, only as
such, did the clergy have any part in them.4 In those
1 Bolland, Ad. Sanctor., ad 16 Jan, p. 20.
3 Sozom, Hist, eccles., VIII. 12.
* Simpl, Ep. 9 ad Flor. ; Gelas, Ep. 9, c 27 (Labbe, Cone., IV.
pp. 1069, 1195).
4 Thomassin, ubi sup., I. p. 384, seq.; Launoi, diss, de cur. pauper.,
Opp. fol. II. P. 2, p. 572, seq. In favor of that opinion they quote,
among others, a passage of St. Ambrose against Symmachus, and
another of St. Prosper (De vit contempl II.) : " Ecclesiasticas opes
egenorum patrimonia," From that principle Constantine started
when decreeing, in his law of 326, afterwards abrogated, that a
19*

222 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
cases, when the ordinary resources were insufficient
for the wants of the poor, the pious bishops had the
sacred vessels melted or sold. Thus, among others,
did Cyril of Jerusalem, during a famine ; Hilary, of
Aries ; Exuperus, of Toulouse ; St. Ambrose and St.
Augustine.1 According to a decree of the Council of Chalcedony,
every bishop had to associate with him a superintend
ent (economus), whose presence, in hindering, at need,
the dilapidation of property, would prevent suspicions
which arose concerning its use.2 The deacons and
the sub-deacons, called " the hand, the mouth, and the
soul of the bishop," were, as at the beginning, his
agents for the distribution of alms. They kept, as
formerly, a register of the families which they were to
assist regularly.3 Their number, which was very con
siderable in the principal churches,4 proves what was

rich man could no longer he admitted into the olergy ; " for," said
he, "Opportet pauperes ecclesiarum divitiis sustentari." (Cod.
Theod., XVI. 2, 1. 6.) Chrysostom likewise declared that the
church owed to her ministers but what was necessary to keep them
from starving of cold and hunger.
1 Sozom, Hist, eccles., IV. 24 ; Bolland, Acta Sand., ad 5 Mai,
p. 28; Ambros., De off., II. 6, 15, 28; Possid, Vit Aug., e 52;
Thomass, ubi sup., p. 387.
3 Cone Chalced, c. 26 (Labb, IV. p. 768).
3 Eyytypa/tjU.sVwj' ncvrjiav ; such is their designation in Chrys,
hom. 21 in Cor., e 7, X. p. 190.
4 For the cathedral of Constantinople, Justinian fixed the num
ber of deacons at one hundred, that of sub-deacons at ninety, and
that of deaconesses at forty. They were, it appears, much more
numerous formerly. (Justin, Nov. 3, c 1.)
The deaconesses were, as before, chosen among the assisted
widows ; they were to be at least sixty, or, according to the less

CHAP. VII. — USE OF THE FUNDS OF CHARITY. 223
still the importance of their functions ; though it is true
that some services connected with the duties of wor
ship had been added to them. The high-priest and
the arch-deacon served as intermediate agents between
them and the bishop, and assisted the latter in his
ministry of charity.1
Let us now examine what were the different classes
of persons assisted by means of these funds, and by
what new institutions the church prepared to assist,
out of them, the greatest possible number.

CHAPTER VII.
USE OF THE FUNDS OF CHARITY.
The Jewish law, says one of the Fathers, recom
mended benevolence towards the members of one
nation alone ; the law of grace invites the seas and the
lands to the banquet of alms. St. Paul, in recom-
severe ordinance of Valentinian II, fifty years old. (Cod. Just,
I. 3, c 2.) The Council of Chalcedon fixed for their admission
the age of forty. (Can. 15, Labbe, IV. p. 763.) The Council of
Nicea had already prohibited giving to them a sacerdotal conse
cration. From the fifth century their office was suppressed in the
West by the authority of several Councils, and was maintained
only in the East, where the separation of both sexes was more
rigorous and more absolute. (Concil. Aransic, can. 26 ; 2 Cone
Aurel, can. 18 ; ap. Labb, III. p. 1451 ; IV. p. 1782.)
1 4 Cone Carthag, ann. 398, can. 17 ; 2 Cone Bracar,, ann. 563,
can. 7 (Labbe, II. p. 1201 ; V. p. 840).

224 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
mending, above all, the servants of the faith to the
Christians, prescribes to them to embrace both Jews
and Gentiles in their bounties.1 Jerome says almost
the same thing ;2 and we receive with pleasure from
the lips of Leo the Great, these truly evangelical
words : " Though we ought to assist the faithful before
all, we ought also to show oompassion on the unfor
tunate who are disbelievers. The neighbor whom we
are ordered to love, is every man, having a common
nature with us ; men of all ranks, just or unjust, friends
or enemies, God commands us to do good to all, even
as He does."3
Such was the impartiality with which many Chris
tians still preached and practised the duty of giving
alms. The avowal of Julian, upon this subject, is
known.4 Atticus, the Patriarch of Constantinople,
learning that a famine was felt in Nicea, sent to the
bishop of that city three hundred pounds of gold to be
distributed, as he expressly demanded, without dis
tinction of faith, among those who suffered hunger and
who were ashamed to beg.5 In the time of the younger
Theodosius, the Roman army having brought into
Mesopotamia seven thousand Persian prisoners, whom
it refused to set free, and who, deprived of everything,
were in the most deplorable condition, Acacius, the
Bishop of Amida, assembled his clergy and said to
them : " Our God needs neither cups nor plates, for
He neither drinks nor eats. Let us sell the vessels of
1 Athanas, Comm. in Gall, ed. 1518, .p. 122.
3 Hieron, Ep. ad Hedib., IV. p. 169.
3 Leo Magn, 1 Serm. de jejun. dec. mens., Opp, p, 7.
4 Julian, Ep. ad Arsae pontif. Gal. (ap. Sozom, Hist, eccles.,
V. 16). See above, page 197, note.
s Socrat, Hist, eccles., VII. 25.

CHAP. VII. — USE OF THE FUNDS OF CHARITY. 225
gold and of silver, which the church possesses, and let
us use them to ransom and feed these miserable cap
tives." It was thus that he sent them to the King of
Persia, after having abundantly provided for their
wants.1 Abraham, Bishop of Carrhse, had had much
to complain of some pagans in his diocese. Neverthe
less, he assumed the payment of a large sum to the
imperial officers for them ; and, as he had not himself
wherewith to do it, he was obliged to borrow it. This
generous trait converted them to Christianity.2
It must be confessed, however, that such traits were
more rare than they had been in the primitive church,
and became every day more and more so as Chris
tianity was nearer triumphing. The persecuted
church had extended her charity even to her oppres
sors ; the victorious church took from the pagans, the
Jews, the heretics, oftener than she gave to them.
The spirit of intolerance restricted charity,3 and it
was this that obliged the Christian sects to have each
one their own treasury for the relief of the indigent.
Between them and the established ch urch, there resulted
from this, an emulation which, if it did not promote
union, at least favorably influenced liberality. Chrysan-
thus and Paul, Novatian Bishops of Constantinople,
exhibited for their co-religionists an extremely active
1 Socrat, Hist, eccles., VII. 21.
3 Bolland, Ad. Sandor. ad 14 Feb, p. 767.
3 "Make donations to thy King," said St. Augustine, "but
make them in his church, as the first Christians used to lay them
at the feet of the apostles. Heathens, heretics, feed such as are
hungry, clothe such as are naked ; but, according to the expression
of the Psalmist, they have not found their nest, for they do it all out
of the church, out of which nothing subsists." August, (in Ps. 44,
in Ps. 83, e 7 ; VII. p. 375 ; X. p. 147).

226 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
charity which, while contributing to the prosperity of
their sect, stimulated the charity of the orthodox
bishops.1 Sometimes hypocrisy took advantage of this
emulation. Socrates, the historian, mentions a Jew,
who, pretending to embrace Christianity, went about
demanding baptism successively of the different com
munions, heretical and orthodox, and received precious
gifts from them all, until Paul, the Bishop of the Nova-
tians, discovered his fraud, it is said, by a miracle.2 It
is still to-day one of the most difficult problems, in
matters of beneficence, to leave its spontaneity to
private charity, and avoid useless repetitions, and to
mete out a sufficiency with a distribution always
equitable and judicious.
But soon, owing to the exclusive protection which
the church received from the State, she was delivered
from all inconvenient rivalry; the pagans and the
heretics, to escape from the laws of exclusion and the
penalties decreed against them, having to consent to
enter into the Catholic Church, which finished, thus,
by numbering almost as many members as the Em
pire counted subjects.
How great must have been, then, the extent of the
burthens weighing upon her ? If she had wished to
continue, as formerly, to succor individually each one
of her unfortunate children, what resources would ever
have sufficed for it ? At that epoch, above all, when
there were far fewer hands extended to give than to
receive, where could a support be found for each
widow, a protector for each orphan, a paternal hearth

1 Socrat, Hist, eccles., VII. 12, 17. 3 Ibid., VII. 17.

CHAP. VII. — USE OF THE FUNDS OF CHARITY. 227
for every abandoned child, a hospitable roof for every
traveller, an asylum for all the poor who needed one,
and nurses and phj-sieians, for each impotent old man,
for each sick person that it was desirable to have
taken care of at home ?
At the thought of such difficulties, Chrysostom, in
one of those generous but chimerical movements,
which charity suggested to him, would have been wil
ling to transform Constantinople into a sort of vast
phalanstery. After having described the pretended
community of the first Christians, he exclaims : " What
abundance among us, if we knew how to do the same !
Let me enjoy it in thought, since you do not wish the
reality. Let me suppose, then, that all would sell their
property and put it in common. How much think
you might be collected thus ? Perhaps a million of
pounds of gold, if not two or three millions. What
resources for the daily support of our poor ! Do yon
not think that this would be much more than sufficient
for the expenses of the common table ? Who does
not see that the division of fortunes, by multiplying
expenses "to excess, is a cause of poverty ? Suppose
in each house ten children with the father and the
mother; will they not need to spend much less when
together than when dispersed, since then ten houses,
ten servants, and so on, would be necessary ? At pre
sent they live in monasteries as they lived formerly in
the primitive church, and none died there of hunger." ]
It is true that as much could not be said of Constanti
nople ; but Chrysostom, in his admiration of a commu-
1 Chrys, hom. II, in Ad. ap., c. 3, IX. p. 93, seq.

228 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
nity,1 forgot the impossibility of reconciling it with the
conditions of ordinary life. His contemporaries
remembered it for him. However, repelling what was
impracticable in such a system, they began to borrow
from it whatever it had of economical and advan
tageous, the concentration of the means of succor and
association, realizing the first in their hospitals, and
the second in the monasteries.

ARTICLE I.
ALMSHOUSES AND HOSPITALS.
The construction of edifices specially consecrated to
the amelioration of the condition of the unfortunate,
forms so characteristic and so glorious a trait of Chris
tian civilization, that it is not astonishing that the
establishment of them, in the fourth century, has been
considered as the effect of a redoubled charity among
the faithful.
However, we have seen, that, on the contrary, the
spirit of charity had rather languished in the church,
since its triumph. This is the testimony of the reite
rated complaints of its chiefs ; and the foundation of
hospitals, even, proves, in one sense, that they could
1 Let us observe, moreover, that according to the idea of Chrysos
tom, such a community was to be quite voluntary ; it entered not
his mind that any power was to intervene to realize it; and the
latter part of his speech shows that he founded his hopes upon per
suasion. " Comply with my wishes," said he, at the close, " and
little by little we shall ameliorate that state of things ; and if God
gives us life, I hope we shall soon succeed." (Chrys, hom. 11, in
id. ap., c 3, IX. p. 93, seq).

CHAP. VII., ART. I. — ALMSHOUSES, ETC. 229
count less than formerly on the benevolence of indi
viduals.1 But when, from this, men have proceeded to throw
discredit upon this institution, when they have wished
to see in the creation of hospitals only the effect of a
total forgetfulness of primitive charity,2 it was a still
graver mistake. Ephraim, Basil, and Chrysostom,
figure among the number of the first founders of alms
houses, and assuredly no one dare reproach them with
having petrified charity to sacrifice to a vain show,
with having substituted for modest and devoted evan
gelical benevolence, a pharisaie benevolence, loolcing to
its ease and seeking for Sclat. Before pronouncing so
severe a judgment, it was necessary to examine if
individual charity in the first centuries, even supposing
it as active as formerly, could have sufficed for the new
wants, created either by the extension of the church,
or by the increase of misery. St. John, the Almoner,
who would have desired that the house of each one of
the faithful should have been an infirmary for the sick,
continued to have them treated in the hospitals ;3 the
ideal to which he tended did not cause him to lose
from view the necessities of the times. The founda
tion of hospitals was, before all, an economical mea
sure, commanded by circumstances. It is probable

1 Chrys, in Matth., hom. 85, c. 4; de Recalde, Abrige histor. des
hdpit, Paris, 1784, p. 7 ; de Gerando, de la Bienfais. publ, II.
p. 142 ; IV. p. 277 ; de Villeneuve, Eeon. pol. chr., II. p. 237 ;
Wallon, Hist de I'esclav., III. p. 399.
2 Moreau-Christophe, du Probl. de la misere, II. pp. 211, 236-
239 ; III. p. 527.
3 Fleury, Hist, eccles., XXXVII. 11.
20

230 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
that before Constantine, the difficulty of separately
relieving each one who, in misfortune, applied for
assistance to the church, was already felt; but how
then think of vast establishments, which would have
attracted the attention of the authorities, and excited
the ill-will or the cupidity of the enemies of Christi
anity ? What was not possible under the pagan empe
rors, became so under their successors. What would
have been simply advantageous when the Christians
formed a feeble minority, became indispensable when
the church embraced the largest number of the sub
jects of the empire.1 It was above all in these times
of great calamities that this necessity must have been
felt. The foundation of the alms-house of Edessa,
though not one of the most ancient, can here serve as
an example.
About the year 375, a fearful famine appeared in
that city, and, as is common, was followed by a con
tagious malady, which cruelly decimated the popula
tion. " Ephraim, learning that a crowd of wretched
persons, without bread and without shelter, were lying
1 In his- Histoire critique de la pauvreti, Morin attributes the
origin of hospitals to the difficulty experienced in supplying that
multitude of individuals and families whom Constantine, when he
relieved the church, called out of prisons and mines, almost all
of them poor, sick, and suffering. (Mem. de V Acad, des Inser., IV.
p. 305.) Morin assigns a very little and a very transient cause to
an institution both grand and durable. We have here to rectify
the error, pretty common, of such as refer the first creation of
hospitals to an ordinance of the Nicene Council. The 70th canon,
generally quoted on this occasion, is obviously apocryphal, as well
as all those which are interpolated in the Arabic version of the
decrees of that Council.

231
in the public square, quit his hermitage and came to
Edessa, and warmly reproached the rich, who, without
pity, left their brethren to die of hunger and misery.
Struck therewith, the rich replied : ' It is not the love
of our property that retains us, but we do not know
by whom to make the distribution ; we are surrounded
by greedy people, who would make of it a vile traffic'
But me, said Ephraim, what think you of me ? ' That
you are universally respected and worthy of all our.
confidence.' 'Well!' he replied, 'if it is thus, I will
take charge of the affair.' " Immediately, with the
sums which he received from them, he set up, in the
public galleries, three hundred beds, where he himself,
with others under his directions, took care not only of
those of the inhabitants who suffered from the effects
of the famine, but also of the inhabitants of the country
and the strangers, whom the scarcity had driven into
the city. As soon as the scourge had ceased, Ephraim
returned into his solitude, where he died soon after.1
It is probable, though the historian does not say so,
that this alms-house survived its founder. At any
rate, similar ones were established in most of the
cities, not only for transient scourges, like that which
had just afflicted Edessa, but for permanent scourges,
and above all, for leprosy, that terrible and contagious
evil, which spread such ravages in antiquity and in
the middle ages.
Those lepers, " whose flesh, as if devoured by fire,
seemed," says St. Gregory, "to be rather dead than
alive, those unfortunates, whose names alone, but not
their disfigured features, aided in recognizing them,
1 Sozom, III. 15.

232 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
abandoned by their friends and relatives, attracted to
the vicinity of the cities by the hunger which clung to
them, and soon driven off by the horror which they
inspired, warned off from the public squares and foun- .
tains, wandered everywhere, vainly essaying, with the
little voice left to them, to move pity by their mourn
ful songs." 1
In 370, Basil first conceived the thought of opening
to them a hospital at the gates of Csesarea. " It is he,"
says his friend, "who has taught us not to despise
those who are men as well as we are, not to outrage,
in them, Jesus Christ suffering. He went to these
wretched beings, embraced them as brothers, not from
a vain affectation of courage, but to excite, by his de
voted action, that of those whom he charged with
attending to them."2 In assembling them in the hos
pital prepared for them, Basil protected them from
want, and at the same time preserved society from
their dangerous contact.
The advantage of thus having attended, in one
establishment, and with an apparatus of medical assist
ance, all kinds of corporeal ills, was soon understood ;
and hospitals for the sick, known by the name of No-
socomia, were multiplied throughout the empire. It
is affirmed that, in the reign of Constantine, St. Zoti-
cus, whose memory the Greek Church reveres, founded
at Constantinople a Lobotrophium, to succor the maimed
and the impotent.3 Chrysostom, from the sums eco-
1 Greg. Naz, Orat. 43, Opp, I. p. 818. See a similar picture
in St. Gregory of Nyssa (De am. paup., or., 2).
3 Greg. Naz, ibid., e 63, p. 817.
3 Du Cange, Fam. Byzant, Const. Christ. IV. p. 165.

CHAP. VII., ART. I. — ALMSHOUSES, ETC. 233
nomized in the expenses of his bishopric, enriched or
founded many of them in this same city, and had
priests, superintendents, and physicians to serve in
them.1 His example was followed under Arcadius,
and Theodosius, the Younger, by the Patricians Flo
rentius and Dexicratus ; under Justin, the Thracian,
by Eubulus ; under Marcian, by Stephen, cham
berlain of the emperor. Others, again, founded there
a house for the poor, afflicted with incurable diseases,
which, having fallen in ruins, was re-established, later,
bj' Justinian.2 St. Augustine, likewise, founded a hos
pital for the sick at Hippo ; Fabiola, a noble dame of
the race of the Fabii, founded one at Rome, and united
with it, in the country, under the title of Villa languen-
tium, a house for the convalescent.3 There were soon
Nosocomia established in all the principal cities ; yea,
in cities of the second order, and sometimes, even, in
the country places. The establishment of these hospi
tals enabled many necessitous to be cared for, who
formerly were treated as criminals. Thus they ceased
from shutting up the insane, as before this the custom
had been, in perpetual confinement in the public
prisons." The services in these hospitals were performed by
nurses, known by the name of Parabolani, from the
devotion which they showed, and the real dangers
' Pallad., Chrys. vita, Chrys. Opp. XIII. p. 19.
2 Du Cange, ubi sup. ; Procop, De cedif. Just. 1, 2.
3 Hieron, ap. 84, ad Ocean., IV. P. 2, pp. 660, 662.
4 Moreau-Christ, Du Problime de la mis., I. p. 123, note; Vil-
leneuve, Eeon. pol. chr., II, p. 273.
20*

234 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
which they incurred in times of contagious diseases.1
They were associated with the clergy, of whom they
formed one of the minor orders, and the immense
number of them to be found in many cities, at Alex
andria, for example, proves the rapid extension of the
establishments to which they were attached.2 The
widows assisted by the charch were charged with the
same cares.3 In fine, to these retained servants many
volunteers were joined. Christianity, which teaches
to overcome evil with goodness, to divert the mind
from our own sufferings by relieving the sufferings of
others, led into the hospitals, placed by the pillow of
the sick, some, suffering with misfortune, who had
come there for a different kind of cure. . This is the
remedy advised by St. Anthony to one of his brothers,
afflicted with melancholy.4 Palladius speaks of a
young virgin, who, having yielded to the artifices of a
seducer, expiated her fault by consecrating herself
during thirty years to the relief of the sick and help
less.5 The illustrious widow, Fabiola, when founding
a hospital at Rome, had, the first, solicited the honor
of nursing the unfortunate inmates. " How often,"
says St. Jerome, "she carried them upon her
» Gothofr, in Cod. Tfteod., XVI. 2, 1. 42, p. 83.
3 The turbulence of the parobolani of Alexandria, during the
Eutychian controversies, the support they had given to the fana
ticism of some bishops, had determined, in 416, Theodosius the
Younger, to reduce their number to five hundred ; two years after,
it was necessary to increase it again by one hundred. (Cod. Theod,
XVI. 2, Deparab., 1. 42, 43.)
3 Chrys, hom. 14 in 1 Tim., c. 1, XI. p. 626.
4 Socrat., Hist, eccles., IV. 23.
6 Pallad, Hist, laus., c 140, p. 222.

CHAP. VII., ART. I. — ALMSHOUSES, ETC. 235
shoulders, and washed wounds which others could not
have looked upon. Not less generous of herself than
of her purse, she braved what would have caused others
to pause with disgust ; and believed that in the wounds
of the poor she dressed those of her Saviour.-1 Theo
doret praises the same devotedness in the Empress
Flaccilla. " She went, herself, to the hospitals, took
care of the sick, prepared their meats, tasted their
broths, and waited upon them in all the duties of a
servant ; and, when others sought to turn her from
such cares, she said, ' Let the Emperor distribute gold ;
I wish to do all this for Him from whom he holds the
Empire.'"2 Next to the care of the sick, that which, by its
extent and complication, the most required a common
administration, was the care of children deprived of
their parents. For them were established at first the
Orphanotrophia, and then the Brephotrophia for or
phans still at the breast. As for exposed or aban
doned children, it does not appear that there were
establishments founded specially for them, at this
epoch, unless the Brephotrophia may be so regarded,
and upon the destination of these, moreover, the
learned are not of the same opinion.3 The founda
tion of St. Galla, the daughter of Symmachus, who
assembled at her house the poor little children whom
she had found out, appears to have been a work of
charity wholly individual.4 A passage of St. Au-
1 Hieron, Ep. 84, IV. p. 660.
3 Theodoret, Hist eccles., V. 19.
3 Naudet in them sees hospitals of maternity : Rheinwald, hospi
tals of foundlings ; Fleury, hospitals for babes, exposed or not.
4 Thomassin, ubi sup., I. 283.

236 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
gustine indicates that often abandoned children were
received by the consecrated virgins, who, in present
ing them for baptism, exerted themselves to find some
charitable person who would charge himself with
raising them.1 In the fifth century the usage was in
troduced at Aries, at Treves, at Macon, at Rouen, and in
other cities of Gaul, of receiving them in a scollop of mar
ble* placed at the entrance of the church. The sacris
tan (matricularius) received them ; the priest inscribed
them on a register, and sought some one who would
be willing to take charge of them. H no one offered,
the church itself took care of them, and had them
brought up at its expense in the hospitals of the
orphans.2 In all cases, the monasteries were open to
them, almost without distinction, as soon as they had
arrived at a certain age.3 The first refuges of found
lings, of which history presents any traces, are that
of Treves, obscurely mentioned in a legend of the
times of Childebert ; that of Angers, in the life of St.
Maimbceuf, and that which the high-priest Datheus
founded, in 787, at Milan.4
The same economical considerations which led to
the foundation of the Nosocomia and the Orphanotro-
phia, also caused the Parthenones or Parthenocomiaf
and the Cherotrophia, for the virgins and the widows
1 August, Ep. 23, ad Bonif.
3 Terme et Montf, Hist, des enf. tr., Paris, 1837, p. 82, seq. ; de
Gerando, Bienf. publ., II. p. 142, seq. . Villeneuve, ubi sup., II.
p. 265.
3 Such was the prescription of St. Basil's rule.
4 De G6rando, Bienf. publ, Terme, p. 85, seq.
5 Greg. Naz, Orat. 43, c. 34.

CHAP. VII., ART. I. — ALMSHOUSES, ETC. 237
whom the church supported, the Ptdchotrophia or
Ptdcheia,1 for the poor whom it lodged and assisted,
the Gerotrophia or Gerontocomia for the infirm old
men, whom it took under its care.2
In short, the bishops, whom we have seen from
the beginning always ready to give hospitality to
strangers, travellers, and pilgrims, recommended by
other churches, thought, also, of simplifying this
charge, and of rendering it less onerous and more
easy through the instrumentality of special establish
ments.3 Hence the foundation of the Xenones or
Xenodochia, so common since the fourth century in
all parts of. the empire, especially in Constantinople.4
St. Jerome had laid the foundation of a similar hos
pital for pilgrims, at Bethlehem ; to finish it, he
charged his brother Paulinian to sell the rest of their
common patrimony. He himself felicitates Pamma-
chius, who had just endowed Ostia with a house of
hospitality. Pammachius, after the death of his wife
1 Or still, jftuzvv xvtayayia. (Greg. Naz, Orat. 43, c 34 ; Chrys,
I. p. 222, seq.)
' These various establishments are mentioned especially in Jus
tinian's code, 1, 2, 1. 19, 23, 24, etc. If, like those preceding, they
are not yet to be found in the Cod. Theod, the reason is that Jus
tinian's predecessors were much less than he engaged with the
details touching the ecclesiastical administration.
The Parthenones and the Cherotrophia were at an early period
confounded with the monasteries ; hence they are not so frequently
mentioned as the other hospitals. Nicephorus speaks, however,
of those which Eleusius, bishop of Cyzicus, founded under Julian's
reign. (Niceph, Hist, eccles., X. 20.)
3 Thomassin, ubi sup., p. 173.
4 They were the substitutes for the old diversorium episcopate,
irtiexortixw acoWayiiytoj/. (Sozom, VI. 31.)

238 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
Pauline, only found consolation in works of charity,
of which she herself had given him an example.
Not content with expending on the poor of Rome
the immense treasures which she had left to him,1
this noble descendant of Camillus, after having ex
changed the senatorial purple for the coarse, black
robe of the monks, had created an establishment like
that of Fabiola, but specially destined for travellers.
"I learn," said St. Jerome to him, "that you have
founded a Xenodochium at the Roman harbor, and
planted an offshoot of the hospitable oak of Abraham
upon the shores of Ausonia. Like .JSneas, you en
camp on the banks of the Tiber, and build a Beth
lehem (a house for food) upon those shores long since
made desolate by famine."2 Psesius, from the rich
inheritance which he had received from his parents,
constructed a house, where he received and took care
1 " Paulina,'' says St. Jerome, " has given us, by her death, the
children whom in her life-time she had so ardently wished for.
Rejoice, 0 Pauline ! leap for joy, 0 sterile one 1 since thou hast
brought forth as many children as there are poor at Rome ! . . .
All that was used for delights and luxury of life is used now for
virtue. That blind man who stretches out his hand, and so often
cries in the desert, has become the heir to Pauline, the joinfheir
to Pammachius 1 . . . That door, out of which went so many flat
tering clients, is now besieged by a crowd of unfortunates. Thou
relievest Christ in all of them. . . . Others spread out flowers on
the tomb of their spouses, thus seeking a balm for their grief.
Thou, thou spreadst upon the ashes of thy own the precious balm
of alms which extinguishes sin. . . . She has no longer regret for
having left here below riches that thou art spreading, according to
her desires; she rejoices, on the contrary, seeing the accomplish
ment of her most ardent wishes." (Hieron, Ep. 54 ; IV. p. 583, seq.)
3 Hieron., ibid., p. 586.

CHAP. VII., ART. I. — ALMSHOUSES, ETC. 239
of strangers. On Saturdays and Sundays he had
tables set there, to which he admitted all the poor.1
The same is told of Alethius, of Eucharistus, and of
Spiridion.2 The different hospitals, which we have just passed
in review, were sometimes distinct, especially in the
capitals ; more often they were united in one common
establishment consecrated to these different usages,
and to which the generic name of Xenon or Xenodo-
chium was given.3
That which St. Basil had founded, near to Csesarea,
and which Gregory of Nazianzen celebrates in the
funeral oration of his friend, under the name of Ba-
silias, was probably of this kind, though originally it
was destined for lepers. " Take," says Gregory,
" some steps out of the city and see that new city,
that sanctuary of charity, that treasure, where, at his
call, came the superfluity of the rich, and what was
necessary to the poor, to be deposited where thieves
and moths and envy come not. Shall I compare with
this edifice, Thebes, with its hundred gates, or the
walls of Babylon, or the Mausoleum, or the Pyra-
1 Pallad, Hist, laus., c. 15, 16, p. 39.
3 Arnold, Erste Liebe, p. 486, et seq.
3 A passage in Chrysostom shows, indeed, that the Xenones also
contained the sick (Chrys, ad Stagyr., III. 13, I. p. 222). The
choice of this word to designate charitable institutions in general,
shows the importance of such as were destined for foreigners and
travellers. Thus it is rightly that De Melun has said in his return
on the project of a law recently adopted for hospitals in France :
" The most ancient foundations, and often the riches, were des
tined for travellers and pilgrims," etc. (Ann. de la char., 31,
August, 1851.) s

240 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
mids, or the Coliseum, or those magnificent temples,
constructed with so much art, and to-day in ruins,
and all those monuments which have secured to their
founders only a barren glory ? And it is not this city
alone that he has thus endowed. All around, else
where, the chorepiseopi, and the governors, animated
by his example, vie with each other in their bounties
to the poor ;" so that Xenodoehia were to be seen in
all his diocese, and even in the country places and
hamlets of Cappadocia. "For others," continues St.
Gregory, "let them have skilful cooks, tables well
served, rich equipages, and sumptuous garments, but
as for Basil, let him have the care of the unfortunate
and infirm ; to him, as to Jesus, is the gift of healing
the lepers, by his hands, at least, if not by hi3 word." :
It is the destiny of the best institutions to find adver
saries and detractors at their origin. This one had
been decried to the Governor of Cappadocia, and
Basil had humbly to explain to this magistrate that
"to found a hospital for the poor who are sick, to
receive travellers, to assemble there, for this object,
nurses and physicians, to establish workshops in it,
in a word, to have there all that is necessary for the
support of its guests, was not to injure public inte
rests, but, rather, was to contribute to the embellish
ment and the honor of the province."2
St. Basil's example found imitators, not only in
Cappadocia but in all the empire. Marcian, grand
superintendent of Constantinople, consecrated all his
1 Greg. Naz, Orat. fun. in Basil, c. 63 ; Vita S. Basil, c. 241
(in Basi., Opp., III. prof., p. 115); Basil, ep. 143, ibid., p. 235.
3 Basil, ep. 94, ad El, IH. p. 188.

CHAP. VII., ART. I.  ALMSHOUSES, ETC. 241
property to the founding of a Xenodochium for his
church ; Saint John, the Almoner, did as much for
Alexandria and for Cyprus, of which he was a native -1
St. Marcellus, the same in Mesopotamia ; the Pope
Symmachus at Rome ; Pope Gregory the Great in the
islands of Sicily and Sardinia, and in the other subur-
bicarian provinces.2 Several hospitals had laymen
for founders ; besides the examples above cited,
Gallicanus, patrician and consul, established one at
Ostia ; Sampson another at Constantinople ;3 Belisa.
rius two at Rome, one upon the Via Lata, the other
upon the Flaminian Way ; Childebert, that of Lyons,
regarded as the first one founded in France, the
utility of which was celebrated in the Council of
Orleans.4 The most of these establishments were placed under
the inspection of the bishops, whether they had been
founded by them or not. It was the bishop of the
place who named the Magistri hospitalium, the Xeno-
dochi, the Paramonarii? the Orphanotrophi, the Brepho-
trophi, the Ptdchotrophi, in a word, the immediate

' Besides seven lying-in hospitals for poor women, he founded
several pibchotrophia and xenodochia, to which he gave daily dis
tributions of wheat (Boll, Act. Sand., ad 23, jan, p. 518).
3 Baillet, Vie des Saints, 10 jan, p. 118 ; Gregor. Magn, Epp.
III. 24, X. II (ap. Labb, Cone, V. pp. 1151,1488: August, Serm.
356, De Scr., c 10. Thomassin quotes numerous examples of it.
See also De Gerando, ubi sup., IV. p. 283, etc. #
3 Ducange, ubi sup., IV. 9.
" Fleury, Mceurs des Chr., p. 3, \ 18 ; De Gerando, ubi sup.; De
Recalde, Abr. hist, des hop., p. 47, etc.
6 Paramonarii, managers of hospices wherein travellers were
received. 21

242 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
superiors of these institutions ; the nurses themselves
and the subaltern officers, held their tenure mediately
or immediately of him.1 He had, in like manner,
conjointly with his superintendents, the management
of affairs for the support of the hospitals, at least
when the donors had not made another disposition of
them, or when he had not rendered himself unworthy
of their confidence.2 In a word, the administration
of the hospitals was considered as an affair essentially
ecclesiastical.3 It was, in the first place, an homage
rendered to religion, which gave the impulse to all the
works of charity; then, it was a guaranty of good
administration and discipline. The church, then the
sole guardian of spiritual and moral interests, dis
posed, moreover, of the means of repression, which
rendered its intervention so much the more desirable.
St. Basil refused admission to the poor, whose lives
were scandalous, into the monasteries and hospitals,
saying that the image of Jesus Christ could no longer
1 Cone Chalced, can. 8. " The clerks of the ptocheia, as well
as those of the monasteries, must remain submitted to the bishop
of the place. Labbe, IV. p. 759 ; Greg. Magn, Epp. III. 24 (Labb,
V. p. 1152); Epiph, De hcer., 75, init. Theodosius the Younger,
by his law of 416, had remitted the election of the parabolani of
Alexandria to the augustal prefect and the principals of the city •
two years afterwards, he restored it to the bishop. (Cod. Theod,
XVI. 2, 1. 42, 43.)
3 The acts of the Council of Chalcedon relate that Dioscorus,
bishop of Alexandria, irritated with not having had the manage
ment of the fortune left by Peristeria to various pious institutions,
seized upon them violently and made of them a distribution both
profane and sacrilegious.
3 Thomassin, Anc. et nouv. discipl, I. p. 174.

CHAP. VII., ART. I. — ALMSHOUSES, ETC. 243
be recognized in them.1 This moral supervision
itself turned to the advantage of charity. Establish--
ments for the poor who were truly commendable,
were more willingly sustained; funds for relief, the
good use of which appeared assured, were accorded
more generously.
Those who created hospitals, commonly assigned a
certain fund in money or real estate for their current
expenses. When these funds were found to be in
sufficient, the deficiency was supplied either by the
ordinary revenues of the church,2 or by gifts and
legacies, often very abundant, obtained in their favor.3
We repeat it, however, neither the number nor the
riches of these establishments, seems to us to indicate
in Christian charity a progress proportioned to the
extension of the church itself. The manifestation of
benevolence had rather changed its form and nature.
From individual, as it was, it had become collective.
¦ Basil, Reg. fits. int. 10 ; Reg. Brev., e 155 (II. p. 352, 467).
3 At Antioch, for instance, the church contributed to the relief
of the sick at the hospital. (Chrys, hom. 66, in Matth., a. 3, VII.
p. 658.)
3 Vid. Cod. Just, lib. I. Palladius relates that St. Macarius,
overseer of the hospital at Alexandria, having never been able to
obtain anything from a rich and avaricious lady, told her once
that he knew of a set of precious stones for sale at 500 pieces of
silver. As soon as that sum was handed to him, he used it for
the benefit of his hospital ; then he took thither the donor, and show
ing to her the sick whom he had relieved in this manner, "Here
are," said he, " your jewels ; if you are not pleased with them, I am
ready to give them back to you." Confounded by the artifice to
which he had resorted, the lady addressed her thanks to St. Ma
carius, and promised him to show more liberality in the future.
(Pallad, hist, laus., c. 6.)

244 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
If there were no hospitals before Constantine, it was,
above all, because in those times of fervor, private
charity was sufficient for the necessities, then, too,
still limited ; because Christians then did good during
their lives, not after death ; because the house of each
brother was, in turn, an asylum for strangers, an in
firmary for the sick,1 and a refuge for the orphan.
Charity was everywhere, though its advertisement
was nowhere, like those hidden springs, only detected
by the freshness and fertility which they impart to
the soil.
But we do not the less persist in believing that,
since the fourth century, the creation of hospitals was
an indispensable necessity. Only establishments
founded upon a large scale could provide for such
multiplied wants, such pervading and profound misery.
We comprehend, then, that in view of these monu
ments of charity, unknown to pagan antiquity,2 the
hearts of the Christians swelled with a just pride.
We comprehend, too, that Julian, the Apostate, envied
them this glory, and sought to transport into his
Pagan Church an institution so admired. His error
was in believing that an imperial order was sufficient
to found it.3
1 St. Paul, 1 Tim., V. 10 ; Tertull, ad Uxor., II. 4.
2 For the evidence of this fact, which has been often contested,
but which touches our subject only indirectly, we refer to the
works of Ryan, Bienf. de la rel. chr., trans], p. 194-198; of de
Gerando, Bienf. publ, IV. p. 271 ; de Villeneuve, ub. sup., II. p.
233, as well as to the special treatises of Percy, Villaume and Mon-
gez, etc. St. Jerome speaks of the astonishment which heathens
were filled with at the first foundation of hospitals, (ep, 26).
3 Julian wrote to Arsacius, pontiff of Galatia : " Built Xenodo-

CHAP. VII., ART. II. — MONASTERIES. 245
AETICLE II. ^
MONASTERIES.
Monastic life, the origin of which nearly coincides
with the foundation of hospitals, had not, like them,
the practice of beneficence for its direct object. It
was simply a new form, a new organization given to
the Christian asceticism of the first centuries. Those
who formerly had given themselves up to a life of re
nunciation and of mortification in their own homes,
now, that the world had invaded the church, felt
themselves too feeble to struggle alone against the
torrent, and to follow an isolated career of painful ab
stinence, united to undertake it together, protected
from the examples and temptations of the world, and
under a common discipline which would keep them
from backsliding. " They wished," Fleury says, " to
keep the exact observance of the Gospel, which they
saw relaxed from day to day I"1 St. Chrysostom said,
chia in all cities, not only for the use of strangers to our religion,
but of all poor travellers. For that purpose I have ordered the
delivery of 30,000- bushels of wheat, and 60,000 setiers of wine for
the whole province. Use the fifth part for the poor who are in the
service of the priests : the remnant shall be distributed to travellers
and beggars. . . . Exhort our co-religionists to contribute for this
object; accustom them to offer to our -gods the first fruits of their
fields for deeds of benevolence ; and, whilst Homer boasts of the
hospitality of Eumeus, let ub not permit any others to ravish
from us a glory that belongs to us." (Sozom, V. 16, Cf. Greg.
Naz, Orat. 4, in Jul, e 111, I. p. 139).
1 Fleury, Moeurs des Chr., part 3, jj 19.
21*

246 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
"If we call the Christians to the desert, it is to with
draw them from the pernicious examples of our cities ;
it is, in fine, that they may avoid vice, and practise
virtue."1 But, if monastic life was not directly inspired by a
principle of charity, it was still a useful auxiliary to
this virtue ; and, in more than one way, it efficaciously
contributed to the relief of misery.
Not only, as we have already seen, it enabled the
rich who wished to divest themselves of their property
in favor of the poor, to break the ties which would
have been a hindrance to it ; not only did the attrac
tion presented by these pious retreats engage many
of the rich to renounce their wealth in order to enter
therein, but also, even the constitution of monastic
communities, and the resources at their disposal,
placed them in a condition to grant many favors,
both within their own organization and without.
All who entered a monastery had to give to it, for
the benefit of the community, the goods they were
actually in possession of.2 They were pledged to
make the same disposition of all they might subse
quently obtain, whether by gift or by inheritance.3
1 Chrys, Adv. opp. vit. mon. I. 8 ; Hom. 55, 69, 70, in Matth.
3 Basil, Const mon., c. 34, II. p. 580.
3 Some parents, to maintain after their death the integrity of
their domains, contented themselves with securing such of their
children as entered the monasteries, a sum equivalent to the
expense of their support, and under pretext that, devoted to God,
they would not want terrestrial 'goods, they disinherited them from
the rest of their fortune, or left them but the use of the part of the
inheritance which would have fallen upon them. St. Basil and
Salvian especially bitterly resist such reserves, and blame likewise

CHAP. VII., ART. II. — MONASTERIES. 247
Besides, the monastic communities were enriched by
the offerings of pious persons, who, not being able or
willing to embrace the life of a monk, sought at least,
by their liberalities to those who had entered into
orders, to ensure for themselves a portion of their
merits. To the resources derived from these gifts, the
majority of the convents joined that of labor. St.
Anthony set the first examples of this. " He worked
with his hands, says Athanasius, and thus procured
not only a support, but also something to give to the
needy. The monasteries which he founded were filled
with monks, who, to reading, singing and prayer,
united labor, so that they might be in a condition to
give.1" The principal promoters of monastic life, St.
Pachomius, St. Basil, and St. Epiphanes, subjected
their disciples to the same obligation; they taught
them to disdain no trade, and principally recommended
to them the occupations of agriculture.2 Those of
Antioch ploughed, planted, and made sacks ;3 those
of Egypt, to the number, it is said, of sixty thousand,
were engaged in almost all the avocations necessary to
life. Palladius,visiting those of Panopolis, found a great
many of them occupied in divers trades. Theodosius
the monks, who, at their death, bequeathed to their relatives rather
than to monasteries, (Basil, Reg. Brev. int. 187, II. p. 478 ;
Salvian, De avar., lib. Ill, IV.) Hence we see that custom still
granted a certain latitude in this respect. Nevertheless, in most
cases, the monasteries inherited from such members of the com
munity as left no near relatives.
1 Athanas, Vit. Ant, c. 3, 44, Opp, ed. Ben, I. p. 797, 829.
' Pallad, Hist laus., c 39, p. 98; Basil, Reg. fus. tract int. 38,
II. p. 385.
8 Chrys, hom. 72 in Matth., c 4.

248 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
of Rhosus, in Cilicia, worked constantly with his own
hands at tissues of rushes, or in the cultivation of the
fields, and exacted the same labor of those who col
lected about him.1 Epiphanes condemns the Massa-
lians or Euchites who professed to live on alms and
to replace work by prayer.2 St. Augustine censures,
still more rudely, certain idle monks, who wandered
about in Africa, and when they complacently cited
these words of our Saviour, " the birds of the air sow
not, neither do they reap ; the lilies of the fields toil
not, neither do they spin," he answered with St.
Paul, he who is not willing to work ought not to eat.3
But it was St. Benedict, of Nursia, who made the
cause of labor prevail in the monasteries. Whilst the
monks in the East, in spite of the positive prescrip
tions of St. Basil, gave themselves up more and more
to a life of idleness and contemplation, St. Benedict,
reforming those in the West, placed labor among the
number of the fundamental duties of their order.
"Idleness," says he, "is the enemy of the soul. Con
sequently the brethern ought, at certain fixed hours,
to occupy themselves with manual labor, after having
consecrated the others to religious reading." Seven
hours of the day were set apart for labor, the products
of which were sold without for the benefit of the
community. The Superior prescribed to each one his
special occupation,4 and the spirit of obedience, the
invariable discipline of the monastery, the persuasion,
» Theodor, Rel. hist, e 10, Opp, III. p. 827.
2 Epiph, Hcer. 80.
3 Aug, De op., monach., 1. 33-36, XXVI. p. 519-563.
4 Fleury, Hist, eccles., XXXII. 15.

CHAP. VII., ART. II. —MONASTERIES. 249
above all, that labor was one of the conditions of sal
vation, stimulated this indispensable element of pros
perity in the convents, which, in civil society, we
have seen languishing and almost dead. Free
labor, discredited by Roman prejudice, continued to
be honored, having been ennobled by Christianity.
Finally, to the profits derived by the monasteries
from these different sources, add the economy result
ing from a life in common, and the still greater
economy from the severe regimen observed in the
cloisters,1 and the services which these communities
might render to the cause of beneficence will be un
derstood.2 Among those whom they admitted into
their bosom, and whom they supported from the
common funds, were a crowd of poor, who would
have found elsewhere no means of subsistence ;3 many
slaves set free, for whom liberty, without this resource,
would have been but misery ; children abandoned by
their parents ; the distressed fleeing from public
disasters. All, according to Basil, found there
together with what was necessary, though frugal,
truly, those mutual cares and services which brethren
well united together can render to each other. " The
sick, he said, receives there the assistance and the con
solations of his brothers. They are all at the same
time masters and servants ; all free, and, nevertheless,
subjected to each other by the sacred bondage of
charity.4 You see at their table, adds Chrysostom,
1 Sozom, Hist, eccles., I. 12 ; Evagr, id., I. 21.
3 Martin-Doisy, Hist, de la cliariti, p. 325, seq.
3 August, Reg. ad serv. Dei, e 1, XXVI. p. 573. .
4 Basil, Const monast, I 2, II. p. 561.

250 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
the maimed, and beggars; you see one attend the
wounds of the sick, another conduct the blind, a
third carry the lame." ]
Monastic charity, so attentive within, was not less
liberal without. With the surplus of their revenues,
the religious communities exercised around them a
hospitality often very generous.
During a famine which desolated Egypt, St. Pacho-
mius distributed, without thought for the morrow, all
the provisions of his monastery. While the same
scourge raged in Pontus and Cappadocia, Peter of
Sebaste, brother of St. Basil, extended his charity over
the whole sphere of his observations ; and, the wretched
sufferers, fleeing to him from all parts, his desert pre
sented rather the aspect of a city.2 St. Apollo did as
much in the Thebais, and was believed by the inhabi
tants to possess, like our Saviour, the power of multi
plying loaves. The monks of Arsinoe, united around
Serapion, to the number of ten thousand, carried
1 Chrys, hom. 72 in Matth., e 4; Aug, De moz. eccl. cath., I.
67-70, XXVII. p. 535, seq. Indeed, those were the most flourish
ing times of monastic life, still embellished perhaps by the imagina
tion of these two writers. Others have added several shades to
this picture. According to Julian Pomere, there were men who
seemed to have entered the monastery to escape spending their
patrimony by assisting the poor, or in receiving foreigners ; others
who inflated themselves with pride for their paying a pension pro
portioned to their expense, whilst the community supported monks
who had brought no money. St. Augustine, himself, points out
some laey persons who entered orders only to liv<! at the expense
of others. It is true enough, that even in the most favorable con
ditions, the system of community is exposed to great misuses.
2 Bolland, Act. Sand., ad 9 jan, p. 587. The same is related
of St John of Reome, (Ibid., ad 28 jan, p, 561).

CHAP. VII., ART. II. — MONASTERIES. 251
each of them, to this abbot, their crop of wheat,
which he distributed to the peasants around him;
sometimes he sent even to Alexandria, vessels loaded
with corn and clothes for the needy. Maysimas of
Cyrrhus, in Mesopotamia, was so devoted to strangers
and the poor, that his door was, so to say, open to
every comer; he had two kinds of provisions for
alms-giving, oil and wheat, which were believed to be
inexhaustible with him from his liberality.1 The
monks of Nitria to their convent had joined a hos
pital, where every traveller was lodged gratuitously
for eight days ; but, if he wished to sojourn longer, he
had to work like the brothers, for the profit of the
community. Their guests found with them also
medical aid ; Apollonius, a rich merchant, established
himself there for twenty months with a supply of
medicines purchased at his own expense, and passed
whole days in taking care of the sick.2 A great
number of other convents had like hospitals, which
fulfilled in the country and desert places, the part of
those in the cities. Between the monasteries in the
neighborhood of Oxyrinchus, in Egypt, reigned an
emulation of hospitality truly admirable ; and it is
assured that travellers arriving in the Thebais, some
times had their garments torn by the monks in dis
puting the honor of receiving them.3
The monasteries were also places of refuge and of
education for children ; St. Chrysostom extols the
1 Theodoret, Rel hist, c. 14, Opp, III. p. 842. See, besides,
the example of the monk Abraames, c 17, p. 849.
2 Pallad, Hist laus., c 14, 52, 76.
3 Theodoret, Rel. hist. c. 30, p. 895.

252 BOOK II — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
services which they rendered in this respect.1 Basil,
in his great Rules, strongly recommends functions so
honorable, and prescribed by the Saviour himself to
the monks. He advises that children of every age
should be received, particularly those who have lost
their parents, and that they should be brought up in
all charity, as if they were the children of the com
munity ; that those of each sex should be formed to
an appropriate kind of life, prepared for piety by
prayer ; that the histories and the maxims of the
Scriptures should be taught to them ; that a director,
at once mild and prudent, should watch over their
habits and practise them in virtue ; lastly, that they
should frequent the shops of workmen, skilful in
those arts and professions for which they seemed apt,
while still remaining under the assiduous supervision
of their protectors.2 Theodoret relates the cares
taken of his infancy by a monk to whom his mother
had confided him, and the good which two monks
from Edessa, had done in Egypt, by the schools which
they had founded there.3 The Benedictines of Mount
Cassino rendered the same service to the people of
Italy.4 Thus it was that the monastic communities pre
luded in the mission of charity and of civilization,
which they were to perform during a part of the
Middle Ages. This mission explains, andjustifi.es at
the same time, the liberalities of which they were
1 Chrys, Adv. opp. vit mon., III. 12, 17.
3 Basil, Reg.fus., int. 15, II. p. 355, seq.
3 Theod, Hist, rd., III.
4 Greg. Magn, Dial, II. 3, Opp. I. p. 1356.

CHAP. VIII. — CHARITY OUTSIDE THE HOSPITALS. 253
already the object. To give or bequeath to monas
teries, was for the future, it is true, to sow the seeds
of a degeneration, which, among many of them, was
to be but too precocious ; but, for the present, it was
to commit into industrious and charitable hands the
riches, which, otherwise, would have remained barren
for the material and moral good of the people.

CHAPTER VIII.
CONTINUATION. — WORKS OF CHARITY INDEPENDENT OF
MONASTERIES AND HOSPITALS.
The collective action of hospitals and of monasteries
by no means exhausts the catalogue of the works of
beneficence during this period. Individual charity,
though more limited, had not entirely lost its former
activity. Many unfortunates were relieved ; many
strangers received, and widows and orphans succored ;
even many sick were nursed out of the hospitals
which were appointed for them. Many alms were
given at the door of the churches, by the faithful and
the deacons, to the mendicants who had a permission
to remain under the sacred porticoes. Poor persons,
ashamed to beg, according to the charitable invitation
of Leo the Great, were discreetly assisted in their own
abodes.1 1 Leo Magn, Serm. 4, De colled., Opp, p. 6: Fleury, Mceurs des
chr., part 3, \ 18.
22

254 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
Christian women, in-doors, imitated that Peristeria,
whose prodigality towards the poor is praised by St.
Nilus, in her maternal cares for travellers, for the sick,
and for all who were victims of any suffering.1
Ephraim, the Syrian, Gallicanus, of consular dignity,
and Victor, a military count, are celebrated by the
authors of their times for the devotion they mani
fested at the bed of the infirm and expiring.2 Aetius,
chief of the Eunomians, availed himself of his know
ledge of medicine to attend the sick gratuitously.3
Paulinus says of Sulpicius Severus, that, to afford an
asylum to his guests, he was like a guest in his own
house, and that he hardly found a place there for
himself, so full was it of strangers and of the neces-
sitous.4 A protocomes, whose life Palladius recounts,
congratulates himself for having always shown a
generous hospitality, for having never sent away the
poor without relief, and for having never suffered a
stranger to depart from his house with empty hands.5
The bishops, above all, distinguished themselves by
the profusion of their alms. After the ravages of the
Visigoths in Gaul, and a war during which all the
crops had been burned, St. Patientius, bishop of
Lyons, imported, at his own expense, an immense
supply of corn, filled with it two store-houses on the
banks of the Rhone, and of the Saone, and caused it
to be gratuitously distributed to the famished popula-
1 Nili Perisler., sect. 1, e 3. (Bibl. Patr., XXVII. p. 183).
3 Sidon. Apoll, Epp. VII. 12 ; Arnold, Erste Liebe, p. 478.
* Philostorg, Hist, eccles., ed. Gothofr, p. 52.
4 Paulin, Ep. ad Sever., 24, c 3. Opp, p. 150.
R Pallad.. Hist laus., e 64, p. 158.

CHAP. VIII. — CHARITY OUTSIDE THE HOSPITALS. 255
tion of Aries, Avignon, Orange, Alby, Valence, and
Clermont. "We have seen," says St. Sidonius, who
is rendering thanks to him in the name of this last
city, " the routes too narrow for the convoys of grain
which thou didst cause to pass, more admirable still
than Joseph, since thou hast remedied a famine which
thou hadst not foreseen."1 Saint Sidonius himself,
having sold his plate and sacrificed all his revenues,
nourished, it is said, four thousand poor with the aid
of his brother-in-law, Ecdicius.2 Pope Saint Gregory,
on the first of every month? caused different kinds of
provisions, according to the season, to be given to the
poor. Every day he had distributed, at his home,
succor for the sick and infirm, and sent from his own
table, portions to those who were ashamed to confess
themselves necessitous. John, the Deacon, found in
the palace of the Lateran, a voluminous register, con
taining the name and .designation of the unfortunate
whom he habitually assisted. As soon as he learned
that any member of his flock was in embarrassment,
he caused him to be assisted by the church, in each
particular case fixing the value and duration of the
aid. More than once, Rome was indebted to his care
for escaping the horrors of famine. He received
and assisted, by crowds, the unfortunate who fled
before the Lombards.3
1 Sidon. Apoll, Epp. VI. 12, Opp, p. 134, seq.
3 Baillet, Vie des Saints, 23d August.
3 Greg. Magn. Epp. passim. ; Fleury, Hist, eccl, XXXV. 16 ;
Law, Greg. Magn, p. 135, 302, seq. St. German of Auxerre, St.
German of Paris, Exuperus of Toulouse, Gregory of Antiochia,
Domitianus of Melitene, and many others, were also renowned for
their benevolence. (Act. sand., ad 10 jan, p. 618 ; ad 31 July,
etc, Evagr, Hist, eccl, V. 6.)

256 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
Besides, there were many charitable deeds that
could not be accomplished either in the hospitals or
in the monasteries.
I might here again mention the love-feasts which
were still maintained with the charitable destination
which the first Christians had given to them.1 The
love-feasts of dedications, of funerals, and those which
accompanied the festivals of the martyrs, were still in
the days of Chrysostom and of St. Augustine, con
sidered as a means of relief to the poor.2 It was on
this account, principally, that the Council of Gangres
supported them against the excessive asceticism of the
disciples of Eustathius ;3 and for the same reason that
Julian recommended the imitation 6f them to the
ministers of the religion he had undertaken to restore.4
But it was not long, even in the church, before the
disadvantages of these festivals were recognized. They
had come to be, for most of the rich who celebrated
them, but a charity of ostentation. Then, as true
charity disappeared, sensuality took its place at these
feasts.5 Heathen dissoluteness, which got into them,
1 Drescher, De agapis, p, 37-38.
3 Chrys, Hom. in did. Paul, c 3 ; August, adv. Faust, XX. 20.
"Agapes nostrse pauperes pascunt." Serm. 178, De scr., e 4.
"I am not, sayest thou, like the bad rich; I celebrate agapae; I
support the poor." . . . Drescher, 'ub. sup., p. 130-136. Pammachius,
in the funeral agapae he gave in honor of Pauline, entertained iu
a church all the poor of Rome. (Paulin, Ep. 13, $ 11.) See,
moreover, Gieseler. Lehrb. der K. Gesch., 4th ed, I. P. 2, p. 299.
3 Cone Gangr, can. 11. (Labbe, Cone, II. p. 419.)
4 Julian, Fragm., Opp, I. p. 305.
6 Drescher, De agap., p. 39, 40 ; Augusti, Denkm. d. christl.
Archaiol., II. p. 221.

CHAP. VIII. — CHARITY OUTSIDE THE HOSPITALS. 257
gave occasion for the attacks of the heretics.1 As
early as in the fourth century it was necessary to
prohibit them in the churches and chapels, as St.
Ambrose did at Milan, Aurelius and St. Augustine at
Carthage, and several councils in the East and West.2
Since then, they ceased to form an integral part of
divine service. Soon the private celebration of them
was abstained from. The usage may be regarded as
having entirely ceased in the fifth century, and if it
was still maintained or revived in any place, as, for
example, we see under Gregory the Great, it was as a
transitory compensation for the converted pagans,
who complained of the abolition of their sacred
repasts.3 In most of the churches there remained
of these love-feasts only the custom, still in vigor in
our times, especially in Italy, of making distributions
of provisions to the poor at funerals.4
The redeeming of captives was at this fatal epoch,
a work of charity of much greater importance.
" What is more honorable, said St. Ambrose, than to
rescue men from death, and women from dishonor ;
to restore children to their parents, and citizens to
their native country !"5 Whilst Nebridius was at the
Court of Constantinople, he never solicited for any
1 See, above, the reproaches of the Eustathians ; those of the
Manichaeans are mentioned in St. Augustine's work against Faus
tus. XX. 24.
3 Cone. Laod, can. 28. (Labbe, I. p. 1501) ; Aug, Ep. 22, 64.
ad Aurel ; Concil. Aurel. 2, can. 12; cone Trull, can. 74. (Labbe,
IV. p. 1781 ; V. p. 1175.)
3 Greg. Magn. Epp. XI. 76, ad Mellii (Opp., II. p. 1176.)
4 Raoul-Rochette, ub. sup., p. 137.
6 Ambros, De off, II. 15, VII. p. 301.
22*

258 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
object but this. Chrysostom, even in his exile, con
secrated to it a part of the alms which he received
from Constantinople. It was, also, one of the acts
of beneficence to which Mamertius Claudian, brother
and coadjutor of the Archbishop of Vienna, gave
himself up with the most ardor.1 When Pavia was
taken and pillaged by the tiwops of Odoacer, St. Epi-
phanes, its bishop, ransomed the most of the inhabi
tants which they had taken.2 For the same object,
St. Ambrose,3 St. Hilary of Aries,4 Acacius of Amida,
and Pope St. Gregory sold, as we have said above,
the precious vessels of their churches.6 When the
Vandals, after the sack of Rome, made many thou
sands captives, St. Paulinus of Nola, at once redeemed
the most of them. Among those who remained in
captivity was the son of a poor widow. Paulinus,
having nothing to secure his freedom with, gave him
self up in his place. But the barbarians, seized with
admiration, freed them both, and were, after that,
much more easy in regard to the ransom of the other
prisoners.6 As to those whom the Vandals carried
into Africa, they found still more sympathy, if it is
1 Hieron, Ep. 85, IV. p. 666 ; Sozom, Hist, eccles., VIII. 27 ;
Sidon. Apoll, Epp. IV. 11.
2Baillet, Vie des Saints, 21 jan, p. 270.
3 Ambros, De off., II. 28, I 136.
4 Bolland., Act. SS. ad 5 maj, p. 28.
5 Greg. Magn, Epp. VI. 13, 35. (Labbe, V p. 1258, 1280.) St.
Gregory had received from two rich laymen the Bum of 30 pounds
of gold for the redemption of the prisoners taken by the Lom
bards ; but that sum was found insufficient because of the exigencies
of the conquerors. (Ibid., ep. 23, p. 1260.)
6 Greg. Magn, Dialog. III. Opp, I. p. 1380.

CHAP. VIII. — CHARITY OUTSIDE THE HOSPITALS. 259
possible, in Deogratias, Bishop of Carthage. Seeing
that the conquerors, in dividing these poor slaves,
separated, without scruple, husbands from wives, and
mothers from children, the charitable Pontiff sold, to
redeem them all, the gold and silver vases of the
sacred treasure ; then he caused two large churches to
be opened, where he received them, providing for
their subsistence, and taking care of them himself day
and night.1 After the taking of Jerusalem by the
Persians in 614, St. John, the Almoner, not content
with receiving with the greatest hospitality the fugi
tives who retired to Alexandria, sent several ecclesias
tics into Palestine, charged with large sums to assist
the unfortunate, and to redeem the captives.2 The
mind recalls the example of the young Angles, in the
market-place of Rome, delivered by Gregory the
Great. Such is what Christian charity did, by itself, of most
importance for the mitigation of the evils that weighed
upon the Roman world.3 In order to show of what it
was capable in this respect, we had to show it at first,
alone at the work, left to its own resources, acting
by its own proper means, and without the help of any
other power. But our talk would be incomplete if
1 Victor. Vitens, De persec. Vand., I. 8. (Autor. Hist, eccles.,
ed. 1544, p. 621.)
3 Bolland., Act. SS., ad 23 jan, p. 521.
3 We might still speak of the acts of charity for the sepulture
of the dead. We might relate yet what several bishops did for the
material welfare of their dioceses, by consecrating, as Theodoretus
of Cyrus., the surplus of the income of the church to the construc
tion of bridges, baths, and other objects of public utility and
salubrity. (Theodor, ep. 79, 115, III. p. 950, 968.)

260 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
we did not also take into account, as we have done
for the three first centuries, and for a still stronger
reason, the aid it received from the State ; if we did
not retrace what the civil power, inspired or solicited
by it, has done since the fourth century to fructify its
beneficent action. Grave questions touching public
charity may receive some light from the facts which
remain for us to relate.

CHAPTER IX.
CO-OPERATION OF CIVIL POWER IN THE WORK OF CHARITY.
As long as the church had been separate from the
State, it was only in an indirect way that the princi
ples of charity were introduced into the Roman legis
lation and administration. In ameliorating the- con
dition of slaves, of children, of debtors, and of the
poor, the first Emperors believed that they were only
the organs of the enlightened opinion of some phi
losophers, when in fact they were, without suspecting
it, the organs of a despised and persecuted religion.
Now that the church had not only acquired the
right of existing, but, besides, had caused itself to be
recognized and adopted by the State, it was no longer
unconsciously, but with deliberate purpose, that the
emperors opened a place to charity in the civil ad
ministration, no longer conducted by philosophy, but
by the direct action of Christianity, to adopt measures

CHAP. IX. — CO-OPERATION OF CIVIL POWER. 261
conformable to its spirit. Since the epoch of Con
stantine, this new element, hardly seen till then, is
observable in the Roman law, in which is perceivable
less than before, the severe harshness and inflexible
rigidity of rights ; but, on the contrary, more of the
character of a charitable sympathy; under the toga
of the legislator we begin to perceive the movements
of a Christian heart ; it seems as though Constantine
may be seen at the close of a moving sermon, of an
evangelical conversation, or at the reception of those
short but solemn lines, in which the hero of the
desert, the prince of Anachorets, exhorted the Master
of the world to the love of the poor, to justice and to
charity.1 Henceforth, then, the Emperors, as a matter of
duty, introduced into the administration of the Empire
all they could of Christian principles ; they attempted
to put their government in harmony with the maxims
of charity and evangelical purity.2 Often, without
doubt, they saw themselves arrested in their efforts ;
Roman society, originally cast in a pagan mould, re
sisted the action which its Christian masters wished
to exercise upon it, and grew rigid against the trans
formations which they wished to effect in it; and the
Empire will have succumbed ere the metamorphosis
be accomplished.3 No matter ; though slow and diffi-
1 Athanas, Vit Anton., c. 81, Opp, I. p. 856.
3 De Roehr, De effect rel. chrisi. injurisp. rom., diss. 4, \ 3, 10
et passim. ; Troplong, De V influence du chri sur le droit civil des
Rom., p. 115.
3 Troplong, ibid., p. 128 ; Giraud, Elem. du droit rom., introd.,
I. p. 338, seq.

262 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
cult, the work advances; each emperor deems it a
glory to have surpassed his predecessors in this career.
The Theodosian code already bears the evident marks
of an infusion of Christian maxims ; the Justinian
code bears the impress still more deep. Many acts,
not of the legislative department, but which have
been transmitted to us by history, equally attest the
efforts of the emperors to second the work of evan
gelical charity. In this and the following chapter, it
is proposed to describe the measures they have taken
in this regard, beginning with those which relate the
least directly to the exercise of charity properly so
called. We have seen the church, primarily, undertake a
charitable intervention in favor of the feeble or op
pressed classes ; the Christian emperors not only
tolerated, but authorized and encouraged this inter
vention, in many cases.
Struck with the evils which had followed, since
Theodosius I. and Arcadius, the momentary suppres
sion of the right of asylum in the churches,1 and with
the abuses, not less injurious, brought on by the
illegal exercise of that right, Theodosius, the Young,
thought it a duty to re-establish it, and, moreover, not
to prejudice the exercise of worship and the majesty
of the sanctuary, he extended it to the whole enclo
sure of the edifices and of the consecrated places ; at
the same time he forbade that any should be admitted

1 See the edicts of those two emperors in the Cod. Theod. IX.
45, de his qui ad eccles., 1. 1, 3, ann. 392, 398, and the comment.
of Gothofr.

CHAP. IX. — CO-OPERATION OF CIVIL POWER. 263
there who should come armed.1 Justinian, besides,
excepted those who should be pursued for the crime
of homicide, of of adultery, or rape.2 As for slaves
who sought a refuge in the sanctuary, Theodosius, the
Young, ordained that the master should be imme
diately informed of their flight and summoned to
take them home, after having pardoned them.3
It was thus, in part, to mitigate, by a just and
equitable intervention, the rigor of strict law, that
the emperors authorized the arbitrations of the bishops
in civil matters, and obliged the parties who had once
accepted it, to abide by the decisions of this spiritual
tribunal,4 " more human, even from that, observes M.
Troplong, more removed from the spirit of contention
than the official justice of the prefect of the prseto-
rium, and whose awards, disengaged from the appa
ratus of judiciary forms, brought back law to reason
and justice."5
The emperors did not pause with authorizing the
charitable intervention of the church. On more than
one occasion they solicited and required it themselves,
for example, in charging the bishops to provide in
concert with the magistrates, by regular visits and
inquests, that no prisoner should be unjustly detained
or submitted to inhuman treatment,6 to cause to be
1 Cod. Theod, IX. 45, 1. 4, ann. 431. Socrates relates on what
occasion this decree was published. (Hist, eccles., VII. 33.)
3 Justin, Nov. 17, e 7.
3 Cod. Theod, ub. sup., 1. 5, ann. 432.
1 Cod. Just, 1, 4, De epise aud., 1. 8, ann. 408, Nov. 86; Cf.
Const, apost, II. 45-47 ; Gieseler, K. Geschichte I. p. 470.
5 Troplong, ub. sup., p. 117, seq.
6 Cod. Theod, IX. 3, De custod. reor., 1. 7, ann. 409 ; Cod. Just.
I. 4, 1. 22, ann. 529.

264 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
released those who, despite the laws, had been shut
up in the private prisons,1 to protect against every
attempt at spoliation those Romans who returned
from captivity,2 to denounce the extortions of the
governors of provinces,3 to defend free women or
slaves from the infamous speculators, who would
constrain them to prostitute themselves or to go upon
the stage,4 to watch over the lot of exposed children,
the rights of persons under guardianship, of minors,5
and in general of those most exposed by their feeble
ness to acts of injustice or of tyranny. Justinian,
above all, counted much in this respect, upon the
active and charitable supervision of the bishops.
But it was futile to depend upon the church to pre
vent by its moral influence some particular acts of
oppression, if the law continued to favor them by its
complicity, or at least by its tolerance. The Christian
emperors comprehended the necessity of modifying
legislation upon this point; they applied themselves
little by little to remove from it all that could too
openly shock the principles of charity, and to intro
duce into it, as much at least as the state of morals
would permit, the spirit of the new religion.
The Romans, carried into captivity by the Barba
rians, often found on their return to their homes,
1 Cod. Just, I. 4, 1. 23, Cod. ann.
3 Cod. Theod. V. 5, De postlim., 1. 2, ann. 409.
3 Justin, Nov. 8, e 8, ann. 535.
4 Cod. Theod, XV. 8, De lenon., 1. 1, 2, ann. 343, et 428 ; Cod.
Just, I. 4, De'epise aud., 1. 12, 14, 33, ann. 534.
6 Cod. Theod, V. 7, De expos., 1. 2, ann. 412; Just. Nov, 153 ;
Cod. Just, I. 4, De episc, aud., 1. 27, ann. 530, 1. 30, etc.

CHAP. IX.  CO-OPERATION OF CIVIL POWER. 265
their property seized by the fisc, or passed into the
hands of third persons by the gift of the Prince ;
sometimes, also sold by the Barbarians to other
Romans, they were retained in perpetual slavery by
these latter in consideration of their purchase and
support. Valentinian, the First, hastened to reinstate
them in their possessions, and Honorius assured
liberty to them in consideration of the reimburse
ment of the price paid for them, or of a service of five
years longer, if they could not effect this reimburse
ment.1 The church did more in such a case ; it re
deemed the captive from the hands of his new master,
or obtained from him his voluntary and gratuitous en
franchisement ; but the law was obliged to respect ac
quired rights by offering in return an equitable com
pensation. Despite the gradual ameliorations, which, from
Nero to Diocletian, had taken place in the condition
of slaves, this condition was far from being happy.
The Christian emperors, without attempting, as in the
fourth century the usurper John had done,2 the essay,
then chimerical, of abolishing servitude, and, even
leaving to the masters the means of repression which
were necessary to ensure their authority,3 tried to
render the condition of slaves more tolerable.4 Con
stantine condemned as guilty of homicide every master
who inflicted upon them any chastisement, or any tor-
¦ Cod. Theod, V. 5, De postlim., 1. 1, 2, ann. 366, 409; Peyton,
Fragm. Cod. Theod., p. 119, seq.
3 Troplong, ub. sup., p. 111.
3 Cod. Theod, IX. 12, De amend, serv., 1. 1, 2, ann. 319, 326.
' Wallon, Hist, del'esclavage, III. last chapter,
23

266 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
ture, with the intention of bringing them to death.1
From the epoch of the Council of Nicea, and probably
at. the solicitation of the bishops who were assembled
there, it prohibited gladiatorial combats which annually
cost the lives of a great number of slaves.2 In regard
to this, Roman manners were particularly alien to the
acts of the Christian legislator. These fatal combats,
in effect, continued to the time of Honorius ; nothing
less effected their abolishment under that prince than
the devotion of a martyr.3
The religious law of the sabbath, transported by
the Christians to the first day of the week, served
among them, as among the Jews, to temper the
fatigues of the servile class. Constantine made cf it
a civil law, applicable to the whole empire. He or
dered for Sunday and festivals the suspension of all
labor in the city and in the country, except where it
would be necessary for the preservation of the crops.*
On the contrary, he permitted on these same days the
vacations of the courts to be interrupted for deeds of
charity, in particular for the emancipation of slaves.5
The same year he authorized enfranchisements in the
churches, on condition that they should take place in
the presence of some member of the clergy.6 Justi
nian abolished servitude inflicted as a punishment.7
1 Cod. Theod, IX. 12, ub. sup.
3 Cod. Theod, XV. 12, De gladiat, 1. 1, ann. 325 ; Euseb, De
vit Const, IV. 25.
3 See above, p. 146!
4 Cod. Just, III. 12, Defer., 1. 3, ann. 321.
6 Cod. Theod, II. 8, Defer., 1. 1, ann. 321.
e Ibid., De manum., in eccl, IV. 7, ann. 321.
' Just, Nov, 22, c 8, Depcen. servit, ann. 336.

CHAP. IX. — CO-OPERATION OF CIVIL POWER. 267
Already his predecessors had pronounced free, those
who by any title had enjoyed liberty for sixteen
years } He extended this privilege to every slave who
should have been mutilated by his master; declared
free him who, by the consent, even tacit, of this latter,
should have taken orders, or have entered into a
monastery ;2 he referred to the superior tribunals
every decision touching the state of persons ; accorded
legal guarantees to those whose liberty was contested ;3
abolished the restrictions which the ancient law had
placed on testamentary manumissions ;4 aud closed
several sources which it had left open to slavery.5 He
also effaced the distinctions it established between the
different classes of the enfranchised, and assimilated
them all to free persons, maintaining, however, over
them the rights which the preceding emperors had
reserved to the patron and his heirs.6 The work of
the abolition of slavery thus made incontestable pro
gress without being precipitated in an imprudent
manner. The same spirit of humanity manifested itself in
regard to the Coloni. While obliging them to fidelity,
while punishing their flight by slavery, the law pro-
1 Cod. Theod, IV. 8, De liber, caus., 1. 3.
3 Just. Nov, 123, c. 17.
3 Cod. Just, III. 22, ubi caus. stat, 1. 6, VII. 17, De assert, toll.
4 Just. Instit, I. 7, De leg. Fus. can. tollend. ; Troplong, ub. sub.,
p. 161 ; Wallon, ub. sup., p. 446.
5 Cod. Just, VII. 24, De Sen. Cons. Claud, toll, etc. ; Wallon,
ub. svp., p. 441, seq.
6 Cod. Just, VII. 5, 6, De libert. dedit et lot. tollend., Justin.
Nov, 78, prcef., e 1, 2, ann. 539 ; Cf. Cod. Theod, IV. 11, 1. 1-3 ;
Hugo, Hist, du droit rom., II. p. 282.

268 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
hibits the proprietors, by sale, or by testament, from
tearing them from the estates which they cultivated,
as well as from assigning, in the partition of an estate,
to different proprietors, Coloni, who are members of
one same family ; for, says Constantine, the author
of this law, with an accent full of humanity, "who
could endure to see children separated from their
parents, sisters from their brothers, wives from their
husbands ?"1 Honorius protected the prisoners taken
from the barbarous nation of the Scyres, against
those who wished to make slaves of them, whilst, ac
cording to the treaty, they were to be mere Coloni.2
As to the slaves and Coloni, who, to escape the
abuse of their masters, came into the large cities to
swell the crowd of mendicants,3 the emperors, re
nouncing the rude decrees of expulsion with which
these unfortunate creatures had been overwhelmed in
former times, thought, however, that they must take
measures for the public safety against them. It was
to repress their roving and their mendicity, that
Valentinian II. published, in 382, the following ordi
nance : " let all beggars who live on the city of Rome,
be carefully examined and interrogated ; and let those
who shall be found of an age, and in a state to work,
if they are of a servile condition, be adjudged as
slaves ; and if they are of free condition, let them be
1 Cod. Theod, II. 25, De comm. divid. ; Cod. Just, III. 38, 1. 11,
ann. 334. See the remarks of Baudoin, (Bald, Const. Magn.,
Basil, 1556, p. 220.)
3 Peyron, Cod. Th.fragm., p. 120-123.
s Gothofr, in Cod. Theod., V. p. 257 ; Moreau, du Probl. de U
mis., I. p. 152, seq.

CHAP. IX. — CO-OPERATION OF CIVIL POWER. 269
adjudged as Coloni, to those who arrest them. We
reserve, however, the judicial rights of masters against
those who may have favored the escape of their
Coloni, or of their slaves."1 Justinian, after having
at first purely and simply reproduced this ordinance,2
modified it afterwards in what concerned Constanti
nople. Distinguishing between beggars of free con
dition, those who were strangers in the city, and those
who were born there, he ordered the latter to be sub
jected to public works, and the others to be sent into
their provinces. As for slaves, he ordered them to be
remitted, as far as possible, to the hands of their re
spective masters.3 The law of Justinian is obviously
more humane and more wise than that of his pre
decessors. It was, however, always the same remedy
for beggary ; for let us not forget that under the
emperors, the public works were but another sort of
slavery." At any rate, these two laws, the only ones
to be found in the Roman code on the subject of
beggars,5 ameliorated, in no respect, the situation of
the indigent class. Mendicity is but one of the ex
terior forms under which poverty manifests itself.
The State can, according to circumstances, have
good reasons for suppressing it. It ought to do so, even,
when it becomes threatening to the public safety.
1 Cod. Theod, XIV. 18, De mendie, non valid., ann. 382.
2 Cod. Justin, XI. 25.
3 Just Nov, 80, De qucest, c 4, 5, ann. 539.
4 Wallon. Hist, de I'escl., III. P. 3, 4, 5.
" De Gerando, Bienf. publ. IV. p. 476 ; Moreau, du Probl., I. p.
419, 423. 23*

270 BOOK II.  FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
But in doing so, it no more remedies pauperism itself,
than an ulcer is cured by being struck in.
It is known that Roman legislation, like that of
almost all pagan people, authorized the sale, or the
exposure of new-born children whom their parents
could not, or would not support;1 those who took
theni up, or bought them, could, at pleasure, make
of them their slaves, and sometimes based horrible
speculations upon them; some prostituted them for
money, others maimed them, or mutilated them to
make beggars of them, for their own profit ; . every
one could abuse these poor forsaken creatures with
impunity.2 Diocletian had tried to put an end to this
abuse, by declaring every exposed child free ;3 but he
had not seen that this was, in some sort, to condemn
it to death, by suppressing the sole interest which
could induce men, mostly without compassion, to
preserve and support it. Constantine, struck with this
danger, returned to the edict of his predecessor. He
decreed that he who should receive and nourish an
exposed child, might, as he judged fit, treat it as his
son or his slave, without the parents, who had abjured
in regard to it, the sentiments of nature, ever having
the right to reclaim it.4 The same emperor con-
1 Dureau de la Malle, Eeon. pol des Rom., I. p. 413-417.
3 Naudet, Sec. publ, ub. sup., p. 73, etc.
3 Cod. Just, IV. 43, 1. 1.
4 Cod. Theod, V. 7, De expos., 1. 1, ann. 331. If, however, a
new-born child had been sold or given by necessity to one who took
the charge of feeding him, he could afterwards be bought back
by his father or any person, by paying an equitable sum, or by
substituting another slave. (Cod. Theod, V. 8, De his qui san-
guinol, etc, ann. 329.)

CHAP. IX. — CO-OPERATION OF CIVIL POWER. 271
demned to the punishment of parricides the father
who put his child to death j1 but exposure was not
then, in the eyes of the law, considered as a murder.
Valentinian I. ventured first to introduce the Chris
tian spirit, in this regard, into legislation, and to con
demn the father who was guilty of this crime.2 As
for the lot of the child himself, after many fluctuations,
caused by the difficulty of reconciling the interests of
humanity with those of justice,3 under Justinian, a
final return was made to the law of Diocletian, and
all exposed children without exception were declared
free, with a prohibition even to those who should
nourish them, to hold them as Coloni or slaves.4 It is
true, that at this epoch the sentiments of Christian
charity were already more prevalent, and that the
brephotrophia, established in the most of the cities,
offered a means of preserving the "life of those un
happy beings, otherwise than by reducing them to
servitude. Kidnapping, or the theft of free children and men, so
frequent among tke Romans,5 was forbidden under
pain of death by Constantine,6 who published many
1 Cod. Theod, IX. 15, De parricid., I. 1, ann. 319.
3 Cod. Just, VIII. 52, De infant, expos., 1. 2, ann. 374. " Unus-
quisque sobolem suam nutriat. Quod si exponendam putaverit,
animadversioni constitutae subjacebit."
3 See for particulars in de G6rando, ub. sup., II. p. 139, seq. ;
Wallon, ub. sup., II. p. 435, seq.; Troplong, p. 277-280; Naudet,
ub. sup., p. 79-81, etc.
4 Cod. Justin, IV. 43, 1. 1, VIII. 52, 1. 3, ann. 529 ; Just. Nov,
153, De infant, exp., e 1.
6 Mor. Christ, I. p. 68.
8 Cod. Theod, IX. 18, ad leg. Fab., 1. 1, ann. 315.

272 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
other laws against those who, in any manner should
tamper with the liberty of the subjects of the Empire.1
The same Priuee declared himself the patron of
orphans, so imperfectly protected by the ancient
Roman law. Not content with assuring the main
tenance of their rights against the malversations of
their tutors,2 he freed them from the obligation of ap
pearing in court out of their provinces, permitted
them to appeal, in case of need, to the tribunal of the
emperor,3 and accorded to them some precious ex
emptions.4 Finally a great number of decrees were
published with the intention of assuring to them a
paternal and protecting tutelage.5
Almost the same privileges were accorded to
widows.6 Debtors, who, under the republic, and in the three
first centuries of the empire, had been, according to
the vicissitudes of politics and the alternate' rule of
1 Cod. Theod, IV. 8, De lib caus., 1. 1, 2 ; V- 6, De ingen. qui,
etc, 1. 1, etc.
2 Cod. Theod, II. 16, 1. 1, 2 ; III. 17, 1. 1, tit. 19, De adm. et
peric. tut, 1. 1-3, etc, Peyron, Cod. Th.fr., p. 80.
3 Cod. Theod, I. 10, De off. judic, 1. 1, 2 ; Cod. Just, III. 114,
quando imper., etc., ann. 334.
4 Cod. Justin, IX. 24.
5 Peyron, Cod. Theod., fragm., p. 14, 82; Cod. Just, I. 4, 1. 30;
V. 28, seq., Nov, 72, etc.
As fur illegitimate children, if the laws of Christian princes
were rather adverse to them ; if Constantine, in particular, dis
played enough of rigor against them, it was the result of the efforts
of those princes to draw closer, and to strengthen the conjugal
bond and repress debauchery. (De Roehr, De effect, rel chr. diss.
4, ? 16-20.)
6 Cod. Th„ I, 10; Cod. Just, III. 14, IX. 24.

CHAP. IX. — CO-OPERATION OF CIVIL POWER. 273
parties, at one time pitilessly given up to the scourge
of usury and the harshness of their creditors;1 at
another time, freed from their obligations by other
laws not less tyrannical, saw, under the Christian em
perors, their lot adjusted, not, surely, in the most
satisfactory manner, but, at least, in a way more
equitable for the two parties. The interest of money,
which, until then, in spite of the laws of Augustus,
had always depended more or less upon the caprice or
the .avidity of the lender, was fixed by Constantine
and Theodosius, at a high rate, it is true, but which
could not be exceeded under penalty of the loss of
quadruple.2 It was afterwards lowered by Justinian
to four per cent, for the loans made by the nobility ;
to eight, for those of the merchants ; to six, for those
of other private persons. Only five per cent, could
be exacted of the peasants.3 We are far from ap-
1 As to the rights of creditors according to the ancient Roman
law, and particularly, as to the barbarous right pretended to have
been theirs, to put to death their insolvent debtor, and to partake
of their body, see the discussion in the Acad, of the moral and
political sciences, between Troplong and Berriat-St.-Prix. (Ses
sions of the Acad, ann. 1847, vol. I. 2d series.) At any rate, the
privileges of Roman creditors were exorbitant. (Ibib., V ; Memoires
de Giraud et Berriat-St.-Prix; Naudet, Mem., sur lepret a, intiret
chez les Romains, Acad, des inscript, public session of 1849, p. 75,
seq. ; Des secours publ. Mem. of that Acad, XIII. p. 29-31 ; Dureau
de la Malle, ub. sup., II. p. 201 ; Gothofr, ad Cod. Tlieod., I. p.
231.) 2 Cod. Theod, II. 33 ; De usur., 1. 1, 2, ann. 325, 386. It was
the former rate, or the centesimus by month, or the 12 per cent. ;
but previously that rate had risen sometimes as high as 36 per cent.
more ; for the loan in kind on the country, the rate was 50 per
cent. 3 Cod. Just, IV. 32, De usur., Naudet ub. sup., p. 83, seq.

274 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
proving unreservedly this intervention of the law in
the domain of private contracts; still less do we
guarantee that it was more happy or more efficacious
than it had been in other times.
Justinian was better inspired, it seems, when he
condemned to restitution those, who, taking advan
tage of the misery of the agriculturist, took a mort
gage of his land, his cattle, his sheep, and his slaves,
for the goods which they had furnished him in a time
of pressing want ;T and is very severe against creditors
who invaded with violence the domicil of the dying,
or troubled the sepulture of the dead.2 He, as well
as his predecessors, opened the asylum of the sanc
tuary to debtors too rigorously prosecuted ; but, in
protecting their persons, he did not free them from
their obligations ; and, in case of a refusal of pay
ment, he ordered that their goods should be sold to
the amount of their debt.3 The asylum of the
churches was thus, and under the same condition,
open to the debtors of the fisc.4 Already, besides,
before Justinian, many charitable regulations had
been published in their favor. Except in case of con
tumacy, it was no longer permitted, as formerly, for
every delay of payment to seize immediately the pro-

1 Let this law, adds Justinian, dictated by principles of piety and
humanity, serve as a safeguard for the indigent against an odious
and barbarous process. (Justin, Nov, 32; Ne quis mutuum, etc,
Nov. 34.)
2 Just, Nov. 60, Vt defundi, etc., c. 1, ann. 534.
3 Cod. Just, 1, 12, De his qui ad' eccles., 1. 6. It is the repro
duction of a law of Leo the 1st, decreed in 466.
4 Cod. Just, 1, 12.

CHAP. IX. — CO-OPERATION OF CIVIL POWER. 2(0
perty of the debtor.1 Acccording to an edict of Con
stantine, it was not permitted to take in pledge for
taxes either the slaves or cattle of the farmer, or any
thing useful to him for working the land.2 In case
the pledges, seized were not sufficient, instead of a
criminal prison decreed by the ancient law, instead
of a whip armed with lead, and other kinds of torture,
to which the exactors usually had recourse, Constan
tine and his successors only permitted the use of the
custodia libera? They prohibited all abuse in the levy
of imposts, and accorded to whom so ever believed
himself injured in their assessment, a full right of re
course against the collectors.4 Finally, edicts for the
alleviation, or the momentary relief from tributes of
the provinces or the cities over-taxed, abound in the
codes and annals of the Christian emperors.5
Other abuses of power were equally repressed.
Different laws, insufficient, without doubt, but dictated
by undoubted motives of charity, protected the
subjects from the extortions of advocates and the
officers of justice, from the iniquity and venality of
judges, and from the rapacity of provincial governors,
the exactions of tax-gatherers, soldiers and military
1 Cod. Just, X. 21, De capiendis, etc, 1. 1, 2, ann. 327, 354.
2 Cod. Th, II. 30, Depignor., 1. 1, ann. 315.
3 Men put in the house of a debtor in arrears.
4 Cod. Th. XI. tit. 7, De exact, 1. 1, 3, 7 ; Cod. Just, X. 19, 1.
2, etc. ann. 315, 320, 346.
5 Euseb, De vit. Const, IV. 2 ; Evagr, Hist, eccles., Ed. Vales,
III. 39 ; V. 13 ; Cod. Theod. et Justin, passim, tit. de indulg. relig.,
de indulg. debit. Honorius, among others, published ten laws for
the abatement of imposts, and Theod. the Younger, six. (Gothofr,
IV. p. 192.)

276 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
tribunes.1 The property of the wives and the children
of the proscribed, instead of being seized at the same
time with those of the guilty man, were distinguished'
and returned to their possessors.2 It was forbidden
to the magistrates to shut up any one any where
except in the public prisons.3 Such as appealed, in
civil matters, were to be exempt from imprisonment and
corporal penalties.4 In fine, we have seen that, at the
request of St. Ambrose, Theodosius, to prevent the
effects of rash judgments, prescribed a delay of 30
days before every criminal execution.
It is thus, that the Christian emperors attempted to
introduce into the law principles of charity, which,
till then, had only penetrated these indirectly, and
almost furtively. Through the texts we observe this
marked tendency of civil morals to approximate
Christian morals ; a tendency so much the more
praise-worthy, as, in general, it was in harmony with
the respect due to acquired rights. The Christian em
perors did not suppress the imposts, did not arrest the
course of justice, but they tempered the rudeness, re-
' Cod. Theod, VIII. 10, 1. 12, etc. ; II. 10, Depostul, 1. 1 ; ibid.,
I. 7, 1, ann. 331, etc. ; Evagr, Hist, eccles., V. 13, ad fin. ; Cod.
Just, II. 20, 1. 11, 12. XII. 42; IV. 61, 1. 5. Peyron, Cod. Th,
fr, p. 110, seq., etc.
2 Cod. Th, IX. 42, De bono proscr., 1. 1, ann. 321.
3 Ibid., tit. 11, De priv. care, ann. 388.
4 Ibid., XI. 30, De appell, 1. 2, ann. 314. Valentinian and Gra
tian had ordered that any confinement for a cause of importance,
should cease from Easter. This regulation, dictated less by a feel
ing of humanity than by a principle of ill understood devotion,
was not admitted in the Code Justinian. Only all prosecutions and
criminal executions were prohibited during the whole of Lent.

CHAP. X. — CO-OPERATION OF CIVIL POWER. 277
pressed the violence of their agents ; they neither
abolished debts nor servitude ; they did not force the
master to enfranchise his Colonus or his slave, nor the
creditor to discharge his debtor; they simply hindered
them from an abuse of their rights ; they prevented,
on their part, as they denied to themselves, all gratui
tous cruelty, all useless rigor, all that exceeded the
measure of severity necessary to ensure the execution
of the law ; they introduced the unction of evangeli
cal sweetness into the hard machinery of the civil
administration ; they covered feebleness and suffering
with the shield of charity.1
But it is time to examine more especially what
they did in behalf of the indigent.

CHAPTER X.
CONTINUATION. — SPECIAL MEASURES OF CIVIL POWER IN
FAVOR OF THE INDIGENT.
As soon as Constantine was converted to Christi
anity, he authorized gifts and legacies in favor of the
church, and thus secured for charitable foundations
1 The heathen Libanius acknowledges, that under Constantine
and his sons, legislation had become singularly tempered in behalf
of the low classes, and that the unfortunate had been sheltered from
fraud and violence. But he does honor for those measures only to
the personal clemency of the emperors, and does not recognize
the Christian principle, which had dictated them. (Libanius,
Basilic, II. p. 146, seq.)
24

278 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
the protection of the established laws which guaran
tied property. However, these foundations, so rapidly
multiplied, were sometimes a temptation to cupidity,
dilapidated by faithless administrators, turned aside
from their destination by prodigal bishops, or, under
pretext of nullity, confiscated by rapacious proconsuls.
The Christian emperors, then, judging that the ordi
nary laws were insufficient, believed that they ought
to take these foundations under their protection, and
provide, by special measures, that the wish of the
donors should be faithfully observed.
Whilst ordinary gifts were liable to be declared
invalid when they had not a regular and determined
destination, Valentinian III. and Marcian declared
that legacies in favor of the poor should be maintained,
even if the legatees were not designated.1 Leo and
Anthemius equally decreed that, notwithstanding the
uncertainty of persons, every legacy or fideicommissum,
made for the redemption of captives, should be in the
course of the year, consecrated to that by the bishop
of the place, unquestioned by any authority.2 Justi
nian, whilst confirming these regulations, determined
still more precisely to whom such donations were to
be attributed. Some individuals, in their wills, de
signated Jesus Christ as the heir of all or part of their
possessions, without indicating the church or chapel
which was to profit by the legacy. Justinian, to pre
vent the breaking or contesting of wills, which might
arise from this vague designation, decided that the
legacy should be attributed to the church of the place
' Cod. Just, I. 3, De episc d cler., 1. 24, ann. 452.
2 Ibid., 1. 28.

CHAP. X. — CO-OPERATION OF CIVIL POWER. 279
where the will was made, and should be employed by
the steward of that church for the benefit of the
poor.1 The private property of the bishops was to be care
fully distinguished from that of the churches which
they directed, in order that the latter might remain
entirely appropriated, particularly to the relief of
poverty.2 The stewards were obliged, every year, to
render an account of their administration to the
bishops, and to restore to the ecclesiastical domain all
that they had appropriated to themselves, in any
manner, from it. The same rule was applied to the
directors of the hospitals and houses for orphans, and
it was provided, by severe rules, that they could not
turn to their own profit, funds appointed for the
poor.3 If any one had made a gift for the construction of
a hospital, it having been commenced, was to be
finished, even after the death of the donor, by the
diligence of the steward and of the bishop of the
place. The bishop, likewise, was to recover from heirs
every pious or charitable legacy, and to transmit im
mediately the administration of it to the director
most specially interested.4
It was forbidden to the bishop and every other
person, to convert annuities constituted in favor of
1 Cod. Just, I. 2, De sacros. eccles., 1. 27, ann. 530. Justinian
settled also the case when a donation should be made in favor of a
saint, an angel, or an archangel.
2 Cod. Just, I. 3, 1. 42, ann. 528.
3 Ibid., (S 5, et non. passim in Cod. Just, I.
4 Ibid., I. 2, 1. 15 ; tit. 3, 1. 46, ann. 530.

280 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
churches, and which were secured by mortgage on
the property of the testator.1 It was equally forbidden
to alienate or exchange property given to hospitals,
and, in general, to pious establishments, which " were
to exist as long as the Christian name, that is, till the
consummation of the ages. To these guarantees,
and others like them, destined to secure the main
tenance and integrity of establishments for benevolent
purposes, the Christian emperors joined various privi
leges destined to favor their growth.
Justinian exempted from the obligation of being re
corded (intimatio in actis) all donations made to the
church, to hospitals or to the poor, which did not
exceed the value of five hundred solidi,-&s well as
those of any value which came from imperial lar
gesses. He likewise freed from the duty of inscrip
tion (lucrativorum inscriptionibus) pious donations in
general ;2 " for why, says he, should we not make a
difference in human possessions and those of God ?"
The same motive caused Anastasius and Justinian to
extend prescription in favor of the property of the
churches and hospitals to forty years.3

1 Cod. Just, tit 3, 1. 57, ann. 534; tit. 2, 1. 14, 17, 22; laws of
Leo the 1st, Anastasius and Justinian ; Just, Nov. 7, De non ali-
enandis, etc
2 Ibid., I. 2, 1. 19, 23, ann. 528, etc.
3 Justinian extended it to 100 years, (Cod. Just, I. 2, 1. 24,
ann. 528 ;) so that the church had for one century an open recourse
for the goods she thought to be hers. But, in 541, ho deemed it
proper to come back to the decree of Anastasius. (Nov. 131, c. 6.)
The church of Rome alone preserved the privilege of the centennary
prescription. (Nov. 9.)

CHAP. X. — CO-OPERATION OF CIVIL POWER. 281
Upon the reiterated solicitations1 of the heads of
the church, its possessions were freed from corvSes and
imposts, principally the extraordinary imposts, which
were levied upon all other property.2 Those who
managed them, particularly the directors of the es
tablishments for orphans, were assimilated to tutors,
protected from all vexation, and freed from all Ex
pense for judiciary formalities.3 Constance exempted
from the lustral tax, levied on the profits of commerce,
the eopiatee or grave-diggers, whom the Church of
Rome employed for the gratuitous burial of the dead ;
and Constantine, Anastasius, and Justinian, freed
from all tribute the ergasteria, or offices at Constanti
nople for the same object.4
The poor being assisted from the ecclesiastical
revenues, it was still an advantageous measure for
them, which adjudged to the churches and the con
vents the property of the priests and monks who had
1 St. Bazil and St. Gregory's epistles, among others, are full of
petitions directed to the civil authority, in order to have exempted
from taxes the charitable establishments they had founded. (Basil,
ep. 142, 143, ad percept, 284, 285, III. p. 235, 424, seq.) Basil
writes to the assessor of Capadocia: "The property of the poor,
far from being useful for those managing it, spreads itself into
liberality, and the church is always more inclined to overreach her
resources, than to reap benefit from her income." See, too, Greg.
Naz, Orat., 19, ad Jul, c. 13, I. p. 371, et Carm., II. p. 1014. . .
" If Christ," says he, " chose to be born at the time of a census, it
seems that his purpose was to teach collectors their duties of equity
and mercy." (Cf. Ep. 67 et 68, ad Jul, 98, ad percept, 211, ad
Cyr., Opp, II. p. 60, 81, 176.)
2 Cod. Theod, XI. 16, De extraord., 1. 21, 22, ann. 397.
3 Cod. Just, I. 3, 1. 2, 32, 33, 35, etc. ; Nov. 131.
4 Cod. Theod, XIII. 1, 1. 1, ann. 357.
24*

282 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
belonged to them, if they died intestate, without
leaving either relatives or patrons. This was estab
lished by the new edicts.1 In order that the part of
the poor "might be as large as possible, Justinian
limited the number of ecclesiastics who ministered in
the Cathedral of Constantinople, ordering the surplus
of the revenues of this church to be consecrated to
charitable and pious uses, specified by the donors.2
Finally, he permitted, in case of scarcity, or for the
purchase of captives, the vessels and other objects be
longing to the sacred treasury, to be given in pledge,
and even to be alienated.3
But, is this all that the Christian emperors did in
behalf of indigence? Were they satisfied with
seconding, by laws and regulations, the charitable
action of the church and of its members ? Did they
not themselves allot any funds, any donation for this
object, which they appear to have had so much at
heart ?
In the enumeration of their Christian largesses, we
ought naturally to commence by setting aside the dis
tributions already established under their pagan pre
decessors, the congiaria to the people, the donativa to
the army. The extraordinary gifts on the days of
installation, continued, as formerly, as long at least as
it was permitted by the finances of the empire.4
1 Cud. Theod, V. 3, De bon. cler. et mon., ann.' 534.
2 Justin, Nov. 3, c. 1-3.
3 Cod. Just, 1. 2, De sacros. ece, 1. 21, Nov. 120, c. 9, 10, ann. 541.
4 As an example we may quote the rich congiaria which Con-
Btantine distributed to the people of his new capital, on the wed
ding-day of his two sons, corresponding with the 20th and the 30th
anniversary of his reign. {Euseb, Devil. Const, III. 22; IV. 49.)

CHAP. X. — CO-OPERATION OF CIVIL POWER. 283
It was the same with the regular distribution of
bread and other provisions to the people of the great
capitals ; it was thought impossible, without danger,
to withhold from the turbulent citizens of Rome this
ancient tribute of prudence or of fear.1 When Con
stantine had chosen a new capital, he thought that he
could not refuse to it the privilege enjoyed by Rome ;
the inhabitants of Constantinople had their regular
rations of provisions, which, reduced one half by
Constantine, in consequence of a theological riot, were
bestowed upon them again, in full, by that emperor,
and afterwards were augmented by Theodosius.2
Finally, as most of the supplies of grain, destined for
these two cities, came from Egypt, it was necessary,
for fear of seeing them frequently famished, to assure
the same privilege to the inhabitants of Alexandria,
who, from jealousy, would not have failed to intercept
or retard the convoys. This new measure, already
ordered by Diocletian, received an extension under
Theodosius, the Younger.3 Besides, in the intention
of these princes, it was so little a measure of charity
that Constantine, anxious to see the construction of
1 After several attempts at reduction, just as useless as those
made under Augustus, this tribute was confirmed by Valentinian
the 1st. (Naudet, Sec. publ, ub. sup., p. 47.)
2 Naudet, Sec. publ, p. 48-50 ; Baldwin, Const. Magn., p. 139,
seq. ; Gothof, in Cod. Theod., V. p. 235; Sozom, Hist, eccles., III.
7, etc.
3Gothofr, ub. sup., p. 269; Cod. Theod, XIV. 26, Defrum.
Alex., 1. 2, ann. 436 ; Moreau de Jonnes, Statist, II. p. 473. On
Libanius's demand, Julian granted likewise a supply of wheat to
the city of AntioGh during a dearth. (Liban, Leg. ad Jul, Opp.
II. p. 152.

284 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
his new capital completed, caused the distributions of
provisions, which he granted to them, to be given,
not, as might be thought, to the poor without bread
and shelter, but, on the contrary, to the possessors of
houses,1 so that it was necessary, as has been said, to
be a proprietor in order to figure on this Golden Book
of indigence.
Besides, in these distributions, there was absolutely
nothing that recalled the Christian alms; neither
priests nor deacons were charged with -them, but the
magistrates ; they were made not in the hospitals nor
at the doors of the churches, but from the height of
the public places, to all citizens who were entered in
the records of the annona.2
Perhaps we must see rather a measure of police
than of charity in what the emperors did for the
gratuitous burial of the dead at Rome and at Con
stantinople. Constantine allowed the church of the
latter city the rent of nine hundred and fifty houses,
(ergasteria) destined to support the same numbers of
lecticarii or bearers for the interments. Under the
reign of Julian, George, the Arian bishop, attempted
to abolish this institution, which was re-established by
the son of Theodosius. In the fifth century Anasta
sius added one hundred and fifty ergasteria more,
with a supplementary revenue of seventy pounds of
gold ; Justinian confirmed this new donation, charg
ing the patriarch of Constantinople to see that the
interments were gratuitous for all those whose rela
tives should demand it, as well as for the institutions
1 Cod. Th, XIV. 17, 1. 1, 12, etc.
s Ibid., XIV. tit. 17, De annon. civil et pane gradili.

CHAP. X. — CO-OPERATION OF CIVIL POWER. 285
of benevolence.1 Notwithstanding this, and though
the sepulture of the dead had at all times been among
the works of charity recommended by the church, we
may believe that these measures, restricted, as we
have seen, to the two capitals of the empire, were
principally dictated by motives of public hygiene.
The marks of Christian charity are more perceptible
in the new traits which we proceed to indicate.
Eusebius shows Constantine to us from the moment
of his conversion, occupied with zeal in the relief of
his subjects, himself distributing money, provisions?
and clothes to the indigent of the provinces which he
passed through, to the beggars whom he saw wander
ing about the public squares, generously repairing, by
presents of lands, dignities and employments, the
breaches which some families, formerly opulent, had
suffered ; assisting helpless widows, acting as a father
to their children, establishing in marriage, and en
dowing poor orphans ; in a word, doing good to all
those who approached him, " shedding, like the sun,
his vivifying influence on all who were within the
sphere of his rays."2
The authors of those times speak with the same
enthusiasm of the charities of St. Helena, the mother
1 Cod. Just, 1. 2, 1. 18 ; Justin, Nov. 43 and 59, ann. 554; Cf.
Leo 1, Nov. 12 ; Baldwin, Const. Magn., p. 21, seq. This institu
tion was still existing in Leo, the Philosopher's time.
3 Euseb, Hid. eccles., X.6;De vit. Const., I. 42-43 ; III. 1 ; IV.
'28, 44. The same prince charged the bishop of Antioch with the
distribution of thirty thousand bushels of wheat in a famine. After
the war, he invited his Boldiers to clemency, and gave them a certain
sum for each enemy they saved. (Ryan, Bienf. de la rel. chr., p.
196.)

286 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
of Constantine,1 and of those of the Empress Placilla,
wife of Theodosius.2 Pulcheria, sister of Theodosius
the Younger, after having established, during her life,
many pious foundations, left her whole estate to the
poor, and this disposition was ratified by her husband,
Marcian.3 Anastasius I. and Mauritius, each made
considerable presents to the poor.4 Tiberius II. paid
to his own soldiers the ransom of the Persian captives,
whom he sent back into their own country;5 distri
buted to the unfortunate the treasure left by his pre
decessors, and replied to his mother, who reproached
him with this excess of liberality : " The treasure will
not be empty, if the poor are assisted and the captives
redeemed ; for the Lord says that such are real
treasures."6 As soon as the Church had commenced founding
almshouses and hospitals, and experience had shown
the benefits of them, the Christian emperors displayed
much zeal in enriching them and in augmenting their
number. Constance re-established, at Constantinople,
the hospital founded by St. Zoticus.7 Valens, in the
admiration which the charity of St. Basil inspired
him with, gave to him, for his infirmary, some fine
estates which he had in Cappadocia.8 The Empress
1 Euseb, De vit. Const., III. 44, 47 ; Socr, Hist, eccles., I. 17 ;
Sozom, II. 2.
2 Greg. Nyss, Orat. funer. de Plae, ad fin.
3 On the charity of these two princes, see Sozom, IX. 3 ; Evagr,
II. 1 ; Theophan, Chronogr., ed. reg, p. 65, 91.
4 Greg. Magn, Epp. VIII. 2, ad Maurit
6 Le Bas, Hist, du moyen age, III. 1.
" Ryan, ub. sup., p. 189.
' Du Cange, Fam. Byz., Const, chr.., IV. 9.
8 Theodoret, Hist, eccles., IV. 19.

CHAP. X. — CO-OPERATION OF CIVIL POWER. 287
Eudoxia founded several hospitals in Palestine. Pul
cheria had some built elsewhere, and joined Xenodo-
chia to them for strangers, and Xenotaphia, or estab
lishments, for their sepulture.1 To all the magnifi
cence of his reign, Justinian wished to add that of
charity. The Xendn of Sampson had been consumed
during the sedition of Constantinople, with all its
patients in it. He caused it to be reconstructed in
greater splendor, and augmented its annual revenue.
Near it, he founded two other similar hospitals,
ordered a place of prostitution to be destroyed ; con
veyed its unhappy inmates to a monastery of peni
tents, which he had built on the site of the ancient
palace, and joined to it a refuge2 for women whom
want might drive to shame. He afterwards re-estab
lished an old house for the poor, who were afflicted
incurably, which time had destroyed ; restored in the
same manner and endowed many hospitals (nosoeomid)
in the provinces ; had an asylum built on the road to
Jerusalem, for pilgrims and the sick; finally he
founded, in concert with Theodora, his wife, several
Xenodochia for the inhabitants of the provinces, who
came from all quarters to solicit, or to seek for fortune
in Constantinople, and who, deceived in their hopes,
and more miserable than before, wandered about in
that capital without asylum and without resources.3
Assuredly, it would have been better for Justinian
not to have overwhelmed his subjects with imposts ;
1 Sozom, IX. 1, 3 ; Theoph, Chronogr., p. 91.
2 napo4"j;)j.
3 Evagr, Hist, eccles., IV. 30 ; Procop, De cedif. Justin., I. 2,
9, 11 ; Du Cange, ub. sup.

288 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
not to have exhausted them with interminable wars ;
not to have exposed them to the barbarity of the
farmers of the public revenue -1 in a word, not to
have engendered misery to be afterwards relieved.
But all the Princes did not repair, as he did, the
faults of a bad administration ; many ruined their
subjects for quite other dotations than those of
hospitals and of houses of penitents. After him,
Justin, the Younger, Mauritius, Tiberius, and their
successors, established also at Constantinople asylums
for the sick and for the aged.2
At an epoch when the emperors disposed so arbi
trarily of the fortunes of their subjects, aud when
their own individual property was confounded, for
the most part, with that of the State, it is difficult to
decide if the fundations of which we have just spoken,
were of the domain of public or private beneficence.
We incline, however, to the latter opinion. It seems
to us, as to De Gerando, that in most of these cases
the emperors acted rather as simple members of the
church, though with the liberality befitting their
rank,3 consecrating to private deeds of charity funds
which nothing would have hindered them, had they
wished it, from lavishing upon ostentatious caprices.
But there are works of a nature more general, in
which we see them acting as heads of the State, as
administrators of the public fortune; such are the

1 Evagr, Hist, eccles., IV. 30.
2 See the enumeration of them in Du Cange, ub. sup.
3 De Gerando, Bienf. publ, I. p. 500.

CHAP. X. — CO-OPERATION OF CIVIL POWER. 289
two foundations of Constantine, of which mention
must be made.
Theodoret relates that this emperor ordered the
provincial prefects to levy each year from the revenues
of the cities, a certain number of measures of wheat,
to distribute them to the widows, to women who took
the vow of celibacy, and to those who fulfilled the
duties of the sacred ministry. " He meted out this
aid, adds Theodoret, much less according to the need
of those to whom he accorded it, than to his own
munificence." 1 Elsewhere, the historians, in relating
this decree, only mention the churches and the clergy,
among whom it is known2 that the virgins and con
secrated widows were included.3 It seems then, that
this was, on the part of Constantine, a deed of piety
as much as of benevolence ; one of those subsidies
which the empire, having become christianized, ac
corded to the church for the necessities of its worship
and of its ministers. However it may be, the allow
ance in question, soon became a subject of contention
between the different Christian parties. The bishops
were charged with its distribution: the orthodox church
alone had enjoyed it at first. The Arians of Egypt
and Libya, indignant at being excluded from it, ac
cused St. Athanasius of having appropriated to him-
1 Theodoret, Hist, eccles., I. 11.
2 4tb, Cone Carth, can. 103, (Labbe, Cone, II. p. 1207 ;) Chrys,
hom. 30 in Cor., c 4, X. p. 274.
3 Sozom, I. 8, ixxXruiaii xm xtojpoij. Theodoret himself, when
speaking of them in regard to Jovian, speaks but of churches, (ub.
sup., IV. 4.)
25

290 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
self the profits, and had decreed to themselves, by the
Emperor Constance, the privilege of distributing it
for the future.1 Julian harmonized the two parties by
suppressing the allowance. Jovian re-established it,
reduced to a third, it is true, because of the famine
which then raged ;2 but yet a considerable sum, ac
cording to Theodoret.3 It existed still in the days of
this historian, about the middle of the fifth century.4
It is, probably,5 that which Valentinian III. and Mar-
cian, in their edict of the year 454 maintained. "As
humanity makes it our duty, they say, to provide for
the necessities of the poor, and to see that the means
of subsistence do not fail them, we guarantee, in per
petuity, to the church, these subventions (salaria,)
which heretofore have been allowed to them in diffe
rent forms by the treasury."6 Justinian in inserting
this law into his code, seemed to pledge himself to a
continuation of the same aid ; however, it is observ
able, that in the enumeration of the public expenses,
which he places to the charge of the municipalities,
he makes no mention of any charitable establishment
kept up at the expense of the cities or of the state.7
1 Athanas, Apol. cont Arian., c 18, Opp. I, p. 138.
2 A new proof, perhaps, that it was an assistance granted to the
church rather than to the indigent.
3 Theodoret, Hist, eccles., IV. 4.-
4 Ibid., I. 11.
6 Such is the opinion of Godofred, (Not. in Cod. Just., I. 2. 12,
p. 32).
6 Cod. Just, I. 2, De sacros. eccles., 1. 12.
' Moreau, du Probl de la misere, I. p. 295, note. Let us add
that this portion of Valentinian's and Marcian's edict is not in the
Basilios, which contain however its first paragraph. (Fabrot,
Basilic, V. 5, 1).

CHAP. X. — CO-OPERATION OF CIVIL POWER. 291
It is probable, then, that these subventions had
already ceased, not only in the West, at the fall of the
empire, but even in the East, since the reign of Jus
tinian ; and, in general, it is known that in the middle
ages, the church counted for the support of the poor
and of the clergy, much more upon the income from
its own funds, than upon the annual allocations of the
treasury or the contributions of the cities.
The other foundation of Constantine had much
more the character of a work of charity, but it was
of shorter duration.
It has been seen, above, that some of the pagan
emperors, desirous of repeopling Italy, had estab
lished in that province, a certain fund for the main
tenance of poor children, whose parents would engage
to raise them. It has been also seen that this sub
sidy, wholly local and partial as it was, soon ceased
from a failure of resources, which it was necessary to
supply, occasionally, by private gifts. Constantine
revived this enterprise upon a more extensive plan
and with more Christian views. He saw in it, accord
ing to M. Naudet,1 less an empire to repeople, or a
population to renew, than human existences to pre
serve. He made of it the complement of his laws
against exposition and .parricide ; perhaps, even as
Gothofredus supposes, he yielded on this occasion to
the solicitations of Lactantius, whose expressions2
offer, in effect, some resemblance to those of the two
edicts of Constantine. "Let there be published in all
the province, said the emperor to the Governors of
1 Naudet, Des secours publ, ub. sup., p. 79.
* Lactant, Inst, div., VI. 20.

292 BOOK II. — FROM CONSTANTINE TO GREGORY.
Italy, a law which shall turn our subjects from parri
cide. If any parents bring to thee their children, de
claring, in view of their poverty, that they are not in
a state to raise them, speedily furnish to them food
and clothing, for assistance to new-born babes must
be speedy. We place at your disposition, to this
effect, the resources of the imperial treasury, together
with our own."1 In 322, he addressed the same re
commendation to the Governor of Africa, adding
these words, which clearly indicate the spirit of the
law: "It is repugnant to our manners to leave un
happy children to perish of hunger, or parents to re
sort to an atrocious crime."2
This kind of assistance, analogous, on the one
hand, to the poor-tax in England, on the other, to
the communal and departmental reliefs used in
France for abandoned children, like these, soon ex
hausted all the resources fixed upon to be consecrated
to it.3 The public and the imperial treasury put under
contribution," were soon unable to respond to the
demands of negligent or poor parents. In the inter
val, the wealth of the church had increased, she had
opened her monasteries, founded her brephotrophia
and her orphanotrophia ; and to her the emperors
1 " Fiscum nostrum et rem privatam." (Cod. Th, XI. 27, De
aliment., etc., 1. 1, ann, 315.)
2 Ibid., 1. 2.
3 If we, however, compare this measure to the French law of
1811 upon the same subject, we cannot forbear acknowledging that
it was superior to it in two respects. 1st. By admitting children
to public assistance, but on the presentation of their parents, it
did not make their abandonment on the part of the latter so easy.
2d. By assisting them in the paternal house, instead of having

CHAP. X. — CO-OPERATION OF CIVIL POWER. 293
henceforth referred the care of rescuing these poor
creatures from the grave. Therefore the edicts of
Constantine, cited above, were not admitted into the
Justinian Code. Public charity exhausted, abdicated
anew, and left definitively this charge to voluntary
and private charity.
It appears, then, that as to charitable institutions,
the part of the Christian emperors at this epoch, was
much less to found themselves, than to recognize, to
regulate, to guarantee, sometimes also to enrich with
their private gifts, that which the church had founded.
Every where the initiative had been taken by religious
charity. Public charity only followed in the distance,
and when it attempted to go ahead originally and
alone, it soon found that it had strayed aside, and
was constrained to withdraw.
them brought up with strangers or hirelings, it respected the bonds
of the family, bonds that are never relaxed or broken but to the
great prejudice of society itself.

25'

294 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION.
PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
Whatever portion of history we may study, it is
only by numerous facts, drawn from authentic and
contemporaneous sources, that we can flatter ourselves
that we may recall the past, to serve as a light and
guide to the present.
We proposed to do this in the preceding work.
While attempting to seize the true spirit of Christian
charity during the first six centuries, we have circum
stantially related its efforts in the Roman world, what it
did in behalf of the suffering classes, the works which it
inspired, the measures which it dictated or obtained
in their favor. We will now group the facts, which
have just passed before our eyes in detail, to enable
ourselves to form a general idea of the influence of
charity during that period, and to draw from them,
as we have announced, some summary inductions
concerning the part it is called upon to fill in our
days. It is with misery as with all the other evils of this
world which we must seek to relieve, but which above
all, and as far as possible, we must strive to prevent.
At an early hour charity undertook this double
task. By turns, it strove to relieve the privations
which spring from indigence, and to diminish or dis
pel the causes of this scourge.

SUBVENTIVE CHARITY.

We are then called upon to distinguish here, as it
is usually done, its subventive and its preventive
action, and to recapitulate separately what it did in
these two respects.

Sect. I. — Subventive action of charity.
That we may the better appreciate the subventive
action of charity, let us compare it with that of the
system of assistance in vigor among the Romans, at
the same epoch ; and, above all, let us recall the
principles which serve as the basis of each of these
two systems.
In the Roman subventive system, as in that which
it is proposed to-day to substitute for charity, all
property was thought to be held of the State,1 which
1 Troplong, Infl. du chr. sur le droit civ., p. 121 ; Giraud, Journal
des icon., II. p. 91. "According to the principles of the ancients,"
says Mr. Boeckh, " the State comprehended all interests, and ruled
over them all ; . . . all citizens were agreed that the State had
rights upon the whole of private property." (Eeon. pol des
Aihin., transl, Paris, 1828, I. p. 86.) There is nothing more
positive on this point than the following passage drawn from
Plato : " I declare to you, in my capacity of a legislator, that I
consider neither you, nor your property, as belonging to yourselves,
but to your family ; . . . and your family and their property as be
longing still more to the state." (Plato, des Lois, lib. XI. transl.
by Cousin, VIII. p. 303.) This principle established in an absolute
manner in the East, brought into credit, as just seen, among the
Greeks, received likewise, though in a somewhat mitigated form,
a sanction in the Roman world. There it was derived from
conquest. " War," says Troplong, " had given to the State the

296 PAST and future of charity.
could, at will, make use of it either directly or through
a possessor, while relieving certain classes of persons.
It was by virtue of this, that the State distributed to
citizens the conquered lands ; that it levied out of the
public funds the congiaria, or gratifications given on
certain days to the people or the army ; that, out of
the tributes paid by the provinces, it caused provisions
to be daily distributed to the poor citizens of Rome.
By virtue of this, again intervening in the relations
of patron and client, it fixed the amount of the
sportula, which they were to receive each day, and
which the patron had to guarantee to them after his
death.1 The Christian system traces the right of property
still higher; it assigns to it a divine origin.
God, the Creator of all things, was also the supreme
dispensator of all property.2 He gave it to each, upon
conditions which pleased Him ; and one of these con
ditions was, that it should be used to aid those of His
children who needed the necessities of life. But this
was not an obligation of human and positive right;
it was, as has been seen, an obligation purely religious
and moral, based upon faith, prescribed to conscience,
the observation of which was secured by no civil and
even by no ecclesiastical sanction ; whilst Roman as-
conquered territory ; the victorious army occupied it only collec
tively. It was Numa who had made the first division of lands.
But the original right of the State appeared in a multitude of in
stitutions, particularly in the system of imposts." (Troplong, de
la propr. dans le code civ., p. 12-19.) It is found also entire in the
system of Roman assistance.
1 Naudet, Secours publ. chez les Rom., ub. sup., p. 82, seq., 89.
' Troplong, Infl. du Christ, p, 121.

SUBVENTIVE CHARITY. 297
sistance was ordered and guaranteed by law, Christian
assistance was absolutely free and voluntary.
From this fundamental difference in the principles
upon which they rested, flows that of their effects in
the relief of want.
The Roman system, in creating for the poor a posi
tive right to assistance, had the inevitable effect of
excluding from their heart all sentiments of gratitude,
and, at the same time, of infinitely raising their preten
sions. Who believes himself obliged by those who
only acquit a debt? Who is not rather disposed to
believe that they do not acquit it fully enough, or
soon enough ? Never was legal assistance sufficient
for the avidity of Roman citizens; their wants in
creased with the assiduity shown to satisfy them. In
the first place, wheat was sold to them at a reduced
price ; after the year of Rome, 695, it was necessary
to give it to them gratuitously. Under Augustus, it
was distributed to them every fourth month ; after
wards, it was every month, and after Aurelian, it was
necessary to distribute it to them every day. In the
beginning, only the eighth part of the citizens domi
ciled at Rome were assisted. After Cato, the Censor,
it was the third ; Julius Caesar found that it was more
than three-fourths of them. In vain, did he try, by
sending out colonies, to reduce this frightful proportion.
Under Augustus, the number of the assisted already
amounted to more than two hundred thousand. At
first, only corn or bread was given to them ; subse
quently oil and pork were added. Under Honorius,
the distribution was for five months, four thousand
pounds of bread a day. Under Valentinian III., it

298 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
rose to more than ninety thousand.1 Was the pro
mised assistance momentarily exhausted, or was it
delayed, the people of Rome, of Constantinople, and
of Alexandria, manifested a dissatisfaction which soon
arose to dangerous fury. In 359, the convoy of
grain having been retarded a few days, Tertullius, the
prefect of Rome, was near being torn into pieces by
the populace. He escaped onty by giving his children
in hostage to them.2 We have seen that, in similar
cases, more than one emperor was in danger for his
crown, and even for his life.
Christian assistance, purely voluntary, was not ex
posed to the same dangers. Without doubt, the
funds of charity, known to be placed in the hands of
the church, gave birth among the poor to an expecta
tion which occasionally was exacting. Some of the
assisted widows, on comparing themselves with their
companions, were ready to charge their benefactors
with injustice; and Chrysostom, in his Treatise on the
Priesthood, enables us to see how their complaints
and murmurs sometimes tried the patience of the
bishop who assisted them.3 Elsewhere, however, he
renders a more honorable testimony of them; "In
spite of their misery," says he, "you never hear them
blaspheme. They often pass the night hungry and
cold, and yet they do not cease to give thanks ; they
are grateful for the least farthing that is given to
them, and are not offended with a refusal, contenting
1 Naudet, he cit, p. 19, 23, 64, seq., Moreau, du Probl. de la
mis., I. p. 348-352.
2 Amm. Marc, XIX. 10, p. 222, seq.
3 Const. Apost, III. 14 ; Chrys, De Sacerd., III. 16, I. p. 396.

SUBVENTIVE CHARITY. 299
themselves with the bread of each day." ' Elsewhere,
again, he describes the poor of the Church of Antioch,
as silently waiting for alms before the sanctuary ; and
at evening, when they had not obtained from the
passers-by the morsel of bread necessary to keep them
alive, he shows them to us importunate, sometimes
impudent, but never dangerous or malicious ; and it
was but in dreams alone that the avaricious, accord
ing to the same Father, were an object of the outrages
and misdeeds of the beggars whom they had sent
away.2 Roman assistance, in extravagantly exciting the
pretensions of the poor, was at the same time degrad
ing to them ; for, it was only granted to them at the
price of. services and acts which were unworthy of
free men. " The common people," says Cicero,
" have but one means of obliging us, or of recognizing
our good offices ; that is, to follow us in a crowd
when we are seeking honors. Let us suffer that those
who hope all from us should also do something for
us ; it would be little if they did not give us their
suffrage."3 Thus, the patron, who, in the morning
caused the sportula to be thrown to his client, counted
through the day upon his escort in the forum, and in
the evening upon his suffrage in the comitia. The
Prsetor, who, on the first day of the year, gorged the
populace at his own expense, with meats and wine,
counted, in return for this good cheer, to be promoted
to new offices. Nero, in doubling and trebling these
1 Chrys, hom. 30 in Cor., c. 4, X. p. 274.
2 Chrys, ibid., et Serm. 5 in Gen., c 3, 4, IV. p. 668-670.
' Cicer, Pro Muren., c. 34.

300 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
gratifications,1 exacted in return that the usual accla
mations should be doubled and trebled ; he forced the
people to offer incense, in his person, to the vilest
wretch Rome had produced. Those Romans whom
we have seen lately so insolent, then crouched before
the son of Agrippina; they adored that parricidal
but liberal hand. Besides, what better could be ex
pected of a people brought up in mendicity ? Nothing
could be less discreet than alms at Rome. The list
of the assisted, engraved upon brass, was exposed to
all eyes. Each day they came, their tessera in hand,
to receive the alms delivered to them from the highest
public platform. Thus, at Rome, the police of as
sistance required it.
Christian charity had more regard for the poor. It
respected, in him, the dignity of a child of God. In
aiding him, it honored him ; in relieving him, it
elevated him. Not waiting that he should come to
humiliate himself, it went about seeking the virtuous
and timid poor; while relieving his poverty, it spared
his modesty ;2 it protected in him that flower of deli
cacy which is the most precious guarantee of his
virtues, and which is never withered with impunity.
Roman assistance, accorded in the name of the
State, took no account but of the civil rights of the
assisted ; it remained a stranger to all moral conside
rations. Whether the indigent was laborious or idle,
honest or vicious, economical or extravagant, whether
his poverty was the result of his misfortunes or his
' Le Bas, Hist. Rom., II. p. 212 ; Moreau, du Probl. de la mis.,
I. p. 364.
2 Leo Magn, Serm. 4, De coll., Opp, p. 6.

SUBVENTIVE CHARITY. 301
faults, he was equally entitled to the legal subven
tions ; and, if there were any preference, it was in
favor of the intriguing, who knew how to gain pro
tectors for himself j1 of the beggar who knew how to
render himself importunate ; of the seditious, who
could make himself feared. For a long time the sad •
effect of the civic annona had been foreseen. "When
under the tribunate of Caius Gracchus, it was agitated
to distribute, each month, a bushel of corn to the
poor plebeians, Cicero says, that law was very agree
able to the people, to whom it ensured an abundance
of food without the necessity of any work ; but it
displeased wise men, because it was calculated only to
exhaust the treasury and to make the people live in
idleness.2 The event proved, that these fears were far from
being exaggerated. Alms, indiscriminately accorded
by the State, were not only an encouragement to im
providence and laziness,3 but a premium to prodi
gality and to debauchery. The Roman populace was
not only the most idle, and, as has been seen, the
most turbulent, but it was also one of the most disso
lute and the most given to debauch. Ammian paints
to us these pensioned sluggards, busy from the dawn
of day at playing dice, drinking in the taverns,
brawling on the public squares, running to the circus
1 Naudet, ub. sup., p. 42.
2 Cicer, Pro Publ, Sext, c- -48. Pericles was likewise re
proached with having by the establishment of theorical funds,
made his fellow-citizens lazy, greedy, talkative and profligate.
Boeckh, Econ.pol. des Ath., I. p. 356.)
3 "Alimenta inertias," says Valerius Maxim.
26

302 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
and the theatre, to the shows of mountebanks, and
every where where they had a chance to satisfy their
greediness or gluttony.1 Certainly, if, as Voltaire has
said,2 it was a noble usage to furnish grain to the
people through three hundred and twenty-seven
granaries, it was not at least by the nobleness of the
sentiments which this usage inspired them with, nor
the habits which it caused them to contract.
A reproach has sometimes been made to Christian
alms, of an excessive indulgence for those whom it
assisted ; even in the times of which we have retraced
the history, under the empire, of the imperious cir
cumstances which forced it to enlarge its instrumen
talities, we have seen that it did not always take a
pride in th e m ost severe discern m ent. What superiority,
however, had it not, in this respect, over the assistance
furnished by Rome ! Its most abundant assistance
was always for the unhappy, incapable of taking care
of themselves ; and if, in this category, it sometimes
aided persons but little worthy of interest, never, at
least, did it sacrifice the true poor to the shameless
beggar ; always it proportioned its benefits to merit,
and its gifts to the good use made of them. The dis
tributions made in the homes of the needy, furnished
it one of the surest guarantees for that. The deacons,
charged with these distributions, soon intimately
knew each of the families assisted, and observed care
fully the use made of the aid furnished. Later, when
the multiplicity of wants had rendered this detailed ad
ministration difficult and almost impossible; when
1 Amm. Marc, Rer. Gest, XIV. 6 ; XXVIII. 4, p. 29, 534.
2 Diet philos., Art. Charit6.

SUBVENTIVE CHARITY. 303
vast establishments had become necessary, and the
office of the deacons had been replaced, in part, by
that of the hospitalers, the Church did not cease to
exert an active oversight over the morals of those
whom it assisted. According to an ancient usage,
which Julian admired, and which he would have
been willing to have introduced among the pagans,1
it carefully distinguished the strangers and travellers
furnished with a recommendation from their bishop,
from those who were addressed to them as unknown
and not yet tried.2 It enjoined on the priests a serious
inquest on the persons whom they entered upon the
roll of widows and virgins to be assisted.3 It struck
from the roll those who, once admitted, lived in idle
ness or in disorder ; it excluded from its hospitals and
its monasteries, the vicious who would have carried
the scandal of their bad examples there ;4 it checked
and sent away the monks who only sought in the
cloister a life less painful, or a subsistence more
secure.5 In a word, it remembered that before being
the asylum of distress, it was, from God, a school of
virtue and sanctification.
But let us- pass by, if it seems well, the moral
1 Greg. Naz, in Jul, e 111, I. p. 139.
2 Letters given to persons of an established morality were called
irttsrcAwx or Hpyvixd. Those given to travellers, not fully recom
mended, (rtpoouxa iv ifio'Krfiiii) were called avetaiixd. (Cone Chalc,
can, 11 ; Labbe, IV. p. 761.)
3 Chrys, De Sacerd., III. 17 ; I. p. 399.
4 Basil., Reg.fus. int. 10, II. p. 352, seq.
6 August, De op. monach., XXVI. Pope Gregory the Great made
numerous ordinances for the discipline of monasteries. (Lau,
Greg. Magn., p. 126-131.)

304 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
effects of the one and the other system of assistance,
and let us limit ourselves to the comparison of their
positive results, their material effects.
Roman assistance, emanating from power, em
braced only those categories of persons which it
suited power to attach to itself; first, the. army which
made and unmade emperors; then the people of some
large capitals; then the slaves and the artisans en
rolled in the public workshops. One whole category
was excluded. If, upon a day of scarcity, some
sufferers came to seek in Rome the bread they needed,
a pitiless privilege closed its entry against them and
drove away, without distinction, beggars, strangers,
provincials, Italians even ; every one who was not of
the sovereign people, or necessary to its pleasures —
citizen or player.1
Exercised in the name of the Common Father of
all, Christian charity knew neither these exclusions,
nor these preferences. To its eyes there were neither
foreigners nor natives, nor citizens, nor subjects, nor
people of the capital, nor people of the provinces. It
extended over all the surface of the empire, like a
vast tissue of benevolence. There was no city, no
hamlet, which, with its church and its priest, had not
its treasure for the poor; no desert which had not its
hospitable convent for travellers. The compassion of
the church was open to all. If, by a very natural
preference, it first helped its own children, the pagans
were never, at this epoch, formally excluded from its
favors ; and often, even, especially in the first three
centuries, they shared in them abundantly,
1 Amm. Marc, XIV. 6.

SUBVENTIVE CHARITY. 305
Roman assistance, exacted as an impost, only re
lieved certain categories of persons in oppressing the
others. It was the money raised out of subjects,
tributaries, and the proscribed, which paid for the
magnificent liberalities of Augustus.1 The crops of
Sardinia, Sicily, Spain, Africa and Asia, were put
under contribution to provision Rome. Egypt alone
was taxed two hundred and seventy, then three hun
dred and twenty millions of pounds. This tribute
was still increased under Tiberius ; when it did not
suffice, wheat was bought, but at a low price and
prejudicial to the vendors.2 Thus whole provinces
were stripped, that some thousands of citizens in one
city alone might live in idleness. What a leaven of
discord and hostility in the State ! Christian alms,
on the contrary, asked as a favor, had, for him who
gave them all the charm of a voluntary sacrifice ; and,
like all the sacrifices dictated by the heart, it fortified
the sentiment that had inspired it. The Christian
attached himself to his brothers whom he relieved
with the same love one feels for a friend, on whom he
has lavished his services. The richest offerings ap
peared to him light, he gave always with joy because
he gave freely.
Exclusive and unjust as it was, did the Roman as
sistance, at least efficaciously, relieve those who re
ceived it; and did it wisely assert and proportion its
aid to the necessity ?
On. the contrary, nothing was habitually more in-
1 Naudet, ub. sup., p. 67, seq.
1 Dureau, ub. sup., II. p. 431 ; Hegewisch, ub. sup., p. 200.
26*

306 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
sufficient, more precarious. As it had no other
guarantee than the law, no other lever than constraint,
it constantly failed before the resistance of men, or
the force of events. Did a bad harvest, a war, a
sedition, or a tempest, retard or diminish the supplies
of provisions, no public resource, no individual sacri
fice was there, to supply them ; speculators, profiting
by the public misfortunes, held back from consump
tion the little wheat that yet remained ; the more
rigorous the law appeared, the more the granaries
closed, and the imperial treasury could only give that
which it disposed of itself. The misfortunes of the
empire came at last to dry up completely the sources
of legal assistance. The gratuitous distributions,
suspended at Rome during the revolt of Gildo, re
duced afterwards to five months of the year, ceased
after the definitive loss of Africa and of Sicily, and
were, for a moment, re-established by Theodoric, only
to cease definitively after his death.1 At Constanti
nople, where they had also been from time to time in
terrupted, they were entirely suppressed by Hera-
clius, and replaced by an annual subsidy of 600
pounds of gold, destined to keep bread at a moderate
price.2 These were all the traces which this institu
tion, so vaunted, had left. It was the same with the
gratuities so magnificent under the first emperors,
so mean and soon null under the last. The founda-
1 Gothofr, in Cod. Th., V. p. 229 ; Naudet, ub. sup., p. 57, 64 ;
Moreau-Christ, ub. sup., I. p. 351 ; Sismondi, chute de Vempive
Rom., c. 8; Le Bas, Hist, du moy. age, p. 45, (ed. 1839.)
2 Naudet, p. 50 ; Moreau de Jonnes, Eeon. dom. des Rom.
(Journal des Eeon., III. p. 64 :) Moreau-Chr, ub. sup., II. p. 294.

SUBVENTIVE CHARITY. 307
tions of Constantine himself, though suggested by a
Christian thought, met the fortune of the other legal
subsidies.1 As to the distributions, to which law and
usage subjected patrons, they ceased by the massacre
or dispersion of the great families, and there soon re
mained almost nothing of all the resources of Roman
assistance. Those of Christian charity were, as has been seen,
much more fruitful and much more durable. For it
was the true source ; instead of constraining the rich,
it interested them, won them over, by persuasion, to the
cause of the poor. A kind intermediarry between
these two classes, which so many barriers separated
before, it united them by a close sympathy ; it caused
to flow towards the unfortunate the treasures barrenly
heaped up in the coffers of the rich. From the heights
of society, till then frozen, petrified by egotism, it
caused to flow vivifying fountains, which changed the
face of the desert. At its word the monopolist opened
his granaries; the miser poured out his gold; the
vain woman stripped herself of her ornaments. In
its ingenious activity, charity took upon itself all the
forms required by the infinite variety of wants. By
turns it satisfied the hunger; attended the old man in
his infirmities ; sat down, and prayed atthe pillow of the
sick ; protected the widow ; received the abandoned
child ; raised the orphan ; assisted the dying ; cared for
man, and honored him, even in his inanimate remains.
Did necessities increase ; did misery threaten to in
trude everywhere ; charity was neither astonished nor
discouraged by it. It organized collections, redoubled
1 See above, Book II. c 10, 11.

308 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
its solicitations, multiplied its resources by economy
and learned to relieve, in mass, the evils which,
before, it relieved in detail ; it opened vast hospitals
where each unfortunate person found suitable aid ;
or else, taking advantage of the spirit of renuncia
tion, it sheltered poverty in the asylum of monasteries,
and there assisted it at the same time with the pro
ducts of toil and the gifts of piety. How many
miseries of all kinds were succored by these diverse
means! And how right was St. John, the Almoner,
in saying that the treasures of God are inexhaustible I1
Without these precious resources, spread over the
whole empire, without this charity, which, like a
bountiful rain, watered all its surface, where would
have ceased the sufferings of the wretched popula
tions ? What would have become of those peasants
who, according to Gaudentius, bishop of Brescia, to
escape death from hunger, had no other resource
than the alms of the church ? 2 Without the charity
of a St. Patientius, a St. Gregory, how many thou
sands more would have been cut down by the famines
of Gaul and of Italy! In fine, during the invasions
of the Barbarians, amidst the sacking of cities and of
provinces, what, without the devotedness of Paulinus,
of Deogratias, and others like them, would have
become of so many captives, whom no one would
have redeemed; of wandering families, whom no one
would have received ; of fugitives, who would have
1 Fleury, Hist, eccles., XXXVII. 11, $ 1.
2 Gaudent, Serm. de nat. dom., (in Orthodoxogr., p. 1838.)

SUBVENTIVE CHARITY. 309
found hospitality nowhere !' If it is true, as most
historians confess, that the weight of imposts, misery
and depopulation, were the most active causes of the
ruin of the empire ; and if the charity of Christians
was almost the sole counterpoise offered to so many
scourges, who can dispute with it the honor of having
not only mitigated, but perhaps retarded, for many
years, this catastrophe ?
However it may be, its influence long survived the
misfortunes of the empire. Whilst nothing remained
of the institutions of Roman assistance, Christian
charity, bequeathed to the Middle Ages, like a pre
cious palliative, its innumerable foundations, its
hospitals,2 its monasteries, without speaking of its
brotherhoods, associations of provision perhaps more
than of charity, but also instituted under the auspices
and patronage of the church.3
Unfortunately there is hardly a power in the world,
however beneficent it may be, which, when it is not
under the control of another power, or closely
watched by opinion, does not, sooner or later, abuse
the credit which it has acquired by its services. The
laws by which Justinian had provided for the main-
' St. Ambrose asked the heathens of his time, where were the
captives whom their temples redeemed, the poor they assisted, the
exiles whose subsistence they secured. (Ambr. contra Symm.)
* In the Middle Ages, Constantinople had as many as 37 hospitals
or hospices, the most of them dated from the epoch which we are
now considering. (See their enumeration in Du Cange.) In the
Xlth century, the Emperor Alexis founded a hospital that con.
tained, itself, 10,000 poor.
3 De G6rando, Bienf. publ, III. p. 61 ; Blanqui, Hist, de I'icon.
pol, II. e 19.

310 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
tenance and faithful administration of the funds of
charity, had had but little authority in the West. The
church, the patrimony of which had always been
considered as' that of the poor, continued in the
Middle Ages to receive, in their name, rich donations;
but it often allotted to them only a small part ; the
rest served for appanages to the cadets of noble fami
lies, or sometimes to support idle prelates in luxury.
The property of the hospitals, having passed succes
sively into the ecclesiastical revenues, often profited
the administrators more than the sick.1 Rich monas
teries were seen, limiting themselves, as to assistance,
to distributing at their door some rations of soup and
bread. As the spirit of charity disappeared, fanati
cism took its place. The church, forgetting its ancient
impartiality, excluded from its assistance, and even
from its pity, those who thought otherwise than itself.2
Finally, when industry began to revive in the West,
the reproach could be made to some of the religious
orders, of seeking less to favor than to paralyze the
impulse ; of fostering, by undiseerning alms, the
spirit of improvidence and of inertness ; of preferring
daily to assist beggars in rags, rather than to encourage
1 De RScalde, Abr. hist, des hop., p. 60, seq. See the grave
charges raised in France, in the XVIth century, against the eccle
siastical management of the hospitals, (edicts of 1543, 1561, 1587 ;)
Moreau, Probl. de la mis., III. p. 358, note. ; De Recalde, ub. sup.,
p. 63.
2 Hence, the remarkable development of industry and that of
mutual charity, which we observe among some sects of the Middle
Ages, among the Waldenses, the Albigenses, etc. ; Ch. Schmidt,
Hist, des Cathares, II. p. 156-161,

SUBVENTIVE CHARITY. 311
works which would have transformed them into free
artisans.1 These abuses could not fail, at length, to provoke
a lively and serious reaction.2 It was a scandal to see
property, that might have usefully stimulated industry,
buried up or squandered away. The avidity of the
clergy served for a pretext to that of the laymen.
Kings, grandees, and people coveted, emulously ap
propriated to themselves, the spoils of the church.
On the one hand, the possessions of the convents and
hospitals were united to the public domain ; elsewhere
the administration of them was secularized ;3 almost
everywhere religious authority lost the exclusive direc
tion of the foundations of charity ; from a purely
ecclesiastical affair, which till then it had been, the
assistance became an affair of administration and of
civil police.
In thus returning, under different forms, to the
Roman system, its evil consequences were soon seen
to be renewed. The poor-tax, decreed in the name
and by the authority of the State, has produced in
England what the public distributions produced at
Rome. By the side of blind largesses, the greater
part of which impudence always receives, were
measures of police, often cruel, always arbitrary and
vexatious; enormous burthens always increasing and
always insufficient, weighing upon agriculture and
property ; charity discouraged, as well as toil ; the
1 Du Chatel, De la chariti, p. 42.
8 Martin-Doisy, Hist, de la chariti, p. 145 ; Mertz, Armuth und
Christ, p. 39, seq.
3 De Recalde, ub. sup., p. 62, seq,, 69, etc.

312 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
rich generous against their will, cursing in secret
those whom they were forced to assist ; the poor, un
grateful, discontented, improvident, dissipated, in
clined to all kinds of vices, and capable of all kinds
of excess ; a swarming, miserable population, with
held only by force, and constrained to work only by
the loss of liberty; finally, a frightful pauperism, daily
growing worse, and extending like a leprosy over the
whole country ; such, in England, are the fruits of
public assistance.1 If it had not had the same effects
in France, it is, as has been well explained,2 because
the aid has not been given like a debt ; because the
laws do not yet recognize the right of the poor to be
nourished by the State;3 because, up to the present
1 See, on this matter, Reports on adm. and oper. of the poor
laws ; Lond, 1833 ; McFarland, Recherches sur les pauvres, c 7,
(Duquesnoy, Rech. etc., V.;) Chalmers, christ. and civ. eeon.,
1821, II. c. 10; Du Chatel, De la chariti, p. 157, seq.; Naville, de
la char, lig., etc, etc. The fatal effects of the poor-tax have un
doubtedly been tempered by the poor-law amendment act of 1834,
which grants an assistance to valid indigents, only on the condi
tion of an absolute seclusion in the workhouses. (See 2d Ann.
Report of the poor-law commissioners, Lond, 1836.) But that con
dition, which was just for the idle only, has been found rigorous
for such as were involuntarily so. The rule of workhouses has
been softened ; and it has been done with so little circumspec
tion, that such houses ceased being an object of avoidance ;
hence, pauperism and the poor-tax have again risen in esteem.
(Moreau, ub. sup., III. p. 19, seq., etc.)
2 Du Chattel, ub. sup., p. 287 ; Journ. des Eeon., X. p. 124 . De
Gerando, ub. sup., I. p. 3, 454, seq. ; Villeneuve, ub. sup., II. p.
413-419. 3 There are, however, several exceptions to be made on this
general observation, especially as to foundlings. To cover France
with public hospitals destined to receive them, as decreed in the

SUBVENTIVE CHARITY. 313
time, the public good sense has rated at their true
value the disastrous principles of 1793, and 1848;
because the funds consecrated to relief are raised only
ordinance of the 19th Jan. 1811, to place without distinction to
the charge of the Departments and Communes, all those deposited
in them, to spare those leaving them by means of revolving boxes
(tours), from the shame of being known ; was this not, as observed
by De Gerando, to say to the public : " Whoever will get rid of
taking care of his child, by giving the charge thereof to society,
is invited to deposit it here, and will be dispensed from any justi
fication." Was it not, in one word, to consecrate the right to assist
ance, and, what is worse, the right to libertinism 1
It is undeservedly that, to support that state of things, they lean
on the authority of two great names. The boxes have an Italian
origin. St. Vincent de Paul was not their inventor ; when he recom
mended to private charity poor children, starving almost with
hunger, he meant assuredly not to encourage unnatural parents
to remit theirs to the charge of the public. As for Napoleon,
he could, with much convenience, multiply the hospitals and
boxes ; he always knew what to do with the children sent in ; no
one called him to account for the blood shed on the battle-field.
But why Bhould France, in time of peace, be loaded with such a
burden ? One hundred thousand foundlings on the hands of the
State ; just the treble of those in Necker's time ; one million of
foundlings of all ages, all deprived of their civil and family con
dition, though at least one-tenth are born legitimate ; is it not for
the country an immense load, and at the same time a serious
danger ?
It is feared the suppression of boxes would multiply infanticides.
Remade has proved, by the most plausible reasons and the best
stated facts, that, in this respect, their influence is more dangerous
than useful. But, suppose that the presence of the boxes should
diminish the cases of infanticide, would it not increase, in a
much stronger proportion, the cases of abandonment? Is the dis
tance so great between two crimes ? If the former inspires more
horror, is it a reason to give bo much encouragement to the latter ?
Now, experience furnishes here the most positive results. At
27

314 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
partially and indirectly from the tax-payers; in a
word, because public charity, there, has put on, the
least possible, the character of legal charity. Who
does not perceive, however, all the defects of the
best administered official charity ? If it possesses the
advantage, often illusory, of centralization, who does
not perceive all that it lacks of delicacy, discernment,
Mentz, where formerly only 30 exposures took place within 13
years, there were 516 during the four years under the system of
boxes, and scarcely one a year since their suppression. In the
52 departments, which, on the authority of the government,
suppressed their boxes in 1834, the number of exposures fell
suddenly from 35 to 26 ; from 1834 to 1845, the numbers of ex
posed children diminished in France by more than 30,000,
though there was an increase of the whole population by 2,000,000.
In such departments as never had open boxes, the proportion of
foundlings is but 1 to 896 inhabitants, whilst it is but 1 to 291
in the departments which have one or more boxes. It is im
possible not to take account of such results. It is agreed,
generally, therefore, now to require the gradual suppression of
boxes, their replacement by offices of admission, offering securities
for secresy, for the cases in which secresy is necessary ; finally, as
much as possible, the conversion of support in hospices, into an
assistance at home, granted to unmarried mothers, or to poor or
sick parents, up to the entrance of the child into the asylum. A
prefect has succeeded, by such assistance, judiciously given, in re
ducing in his department the number of exposed children from 124
to 5, from which four have been withdrawn by their mothers.
See on this question, Terme et Montfalcon, Histoire des enf
trouvis, Lyon, 1832 ; Remacle, des Hosp. d'enf. tr., p. 227, 234
seq., 260, 341, etc. ; De Gerando, Bienf. publ, II. p. 301, et pas
sim; De Watteville, Statist, des itabl. de bienf, 8-12; Annuaire de
Vicon. pol, of 1851, p. 166 ; la Mothe, Nouv. itud. de ligisl. char. ;
p. 28, seq. ; 43, 106, seq. ; B. Delessert, Discour. a la ch. des
Dip., 27th of May, 1836, and 30th of May, 1838 ; Rapet, Journ.
des Eeon., XIII. p. 51, 54, 64, 195 ; Revue des 2 M., 1846, etc.

SUBVENTIVE CHARITY. 315
and true efficaciousness ? Who does not deplore the
dangerous pretensions to which it gives place, and
the inevitable abuses which it engenders ?1
Shall we conclude that, from this moment, the State
ought to free itself from the cases of benevolence,
arid refer them entirely to voluntary and private
charity ?
Such is not our opinion. The habits of a people
cannot be changed in a day. The true way once
abandoned, it is not easy to return. Charity, like re
ligion, for a long time sustained by the State, could
not, without detriment, be suddenly deprived of this
patronage. The State, besides, here has obligations
of more than one kind to fulfil. Having become, by
the effect of political and religious revolutions, the
possessor of the ancient funds of charity, it ought to
consecrate them in part, at least, to their destination,
until some other provision is made. In despoiling
the church, it has inherited a part of its duties. '"Its
position is, in this respect, the same as that of the
ancient Roman government. When the poor citizens
of Rome found themselves frustrated of their part of
the Ager publieus, it was necessary to supply it by the
1 See in the Journ. des Eeon., (X. p. 263 ; XXII. p. 153,) the sad
particulars given by Vee and Villerme, sen, as to the manner in
which assistance is given and received at Paris in the ofne$3"of_.
benevolence. Cf. Dufau, Lettres sur la chariti, p. 255, etc. I^irtz'
and Schmidt gave analogous particulars on the effects of public
assistance in Germany. L. Naville, on its effects in Switzerland
and elsewhere. (Mertz, Arm. and Christ, p. 39-50, Stuttg, 1849 ;
Schmidt, Ueb. Verarm. in Deutschl, 1837, p. 10 ; Naville, de la
chariti legale, etc.)

316 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
daily distributions.1 Just so, when the lower classes
in England found no longer their subsistence in the
interior or at the door of the convents, it was neces
sary, to stop their vagabondage and their revolts, to
establish the poor-tax;2 and to-day, however heavy
this charge may be, and to whatever abuses it may
give occasion, there is not a sensible man who would
dare to demand its immediate abolition.3 In France,
even where the misery is far from being so intense,
and where the revolution of 1789, in passing the
property in mortmain over into the domain of the
State, has, by a happy compensation, opened to all
classes an access to property, the sudden suppression
of bureaux of charity and of the public houses of
benevolence, would give occasion to regrets and per
haps to grave dangers.
But, if public assistance is one of those institutions
which ought not to be touched, except with much
circumspection and reserve, the preceding considera
tions authorize us to maintain that, far from extend
ing, in this respect, the part of civil authority, it is
necessary, on the contrary, to labor continually to re
strain it, and to tend unceasingly towards a state of
thingsfin which private charity, of itself and from its

1 Dureau, Eeon. pol. des Rom., II. p. 308.
2 Blanqui, Hist, de I'Econ. pol, I. p. 326-331.
3 Chalmers himself was far from claiming it ; he proposed
transitory means, of which he had made an attempt in a parish
in Scotland, and by which the poor-tax could be, according to
him, suppressed without inconvenience, after one or two genera
tions. (Chalmers, Chr. and civ. eeon., II. c. II, p. 89, 94, seq., 113,
seq. ; Du Chattel, de la Chariti, p. 167, seq.)

SUBVENTIVE CHARITY. 817
own resources, can alone provide for the necessities
of the indigent.1
1 By confounding, as it was too often the case in this question,
human society in general, with civil society or the State, collective
charily has been likewise confounded with public charity. From
the fact that benevolence, as all human works, must be practised
in society, it has been wrongly concluded that it belonged neces
sarily to the province of civil society, and thus was one of the at
tributes of government. (De Gerando, Bienf. publ, II. p. 498; H.
Say, Journ. des Eeon., X. p. 124, seq. ; Moreau-Christophe, ub. sup.,
III. p. 524; Lamothe, Legist, char., pref, § 6, p. 91; Marbeau,
du Paupirisme, etc.) We think, on the contrary, that in this re-
speot, as well as in many others, the more the spirit of association
will extend itself, the more the intervention of the State will be
come superfluous ; that the State is, in our days, engaged in so
many affairs, only because private associations do not occupy
themselves with them, and that its action, necessarily coactive,
always more or less alters the works it concerns itself with.
Is there any fear lest resources of private charity should be in
adequate to the wants of it ? It is easy to show, with Chalmers,
that their inadequacy oftenest proceeds from reposing upon the
State the care of filling up its deficiencies. These resources are,
however, very extensive. McFarland states, that at Amsterdam,
they collect often in a single charity-box from 1,000 to 2,000 liv.
st a day ; that, in the boxes of Hamburgh and Leipzig, some
times up to 200,000 liv. st. have been received in certain years.
(Recherches sur les pauvres,, in the Recueil of Duquesnoy, V, p. 186
213, etc.) In certain counties of Scotland the product of boxes
sufficed fully for the wants of the poor. (Villen. icon. pol. chr., II.
p. 433.) In England, in spite of the tax, they_ valued in 1828, at
more than one million sterling, the income of the establishments
of private charity. (Buret, de la Misere, etc, II. p. 305 ;) it has
been- since that time increased by more than one quarter, and to
day it is said, to amount to 37 millions of francs. (Moreau, III.
p. 200, not.) In France, the private gifts to officers of benevolence
and to hospices, after constantly increasing since 1800, arose for
the 26, last years up to nearly 75 millions. (A. de. Melun. Rapp.
27*

318 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
Thus, for the evils that are hopelessly unavoid
able, and consequently to be relieved of necessity, in
place of at once turning our eyes towards the State
and regarding it as a second Providence, let us each
examine what we can do individually ; let us provide,
each one of us, according to our means, for the un
fortunate whom we know, and who are near us ; let
us each, like the first Christians, have our sacred
treasure enlarged by a part of our savings, and from
which we draw in favor of the necessitous.1 Then,
for the evils which call for a larger display of re
sources, let us address ourselves to a collective, but
always private and voluntary charity. Let each
sur les hospices, Ann. de la charit6, 1851, p. 9.) For Paris only,
the donations and legacies officially known have gone up in 1843
to 158,000 francs, and 5000 francs of rent. (De Watteville,
Journ. des Eeon., X. p. 136.) There are now in Paris nearly eighty
private institutions of benevolence, the yearly resources of which
are valued at two millions. (Moreau, III. p. 466, not. ; Dufau,
Letires sur la chariti, p. 49.) Finally, the subscriptions, in cases
of extraordinary disasters, amount sometimes to a considerable
Bum ; that for these made orphans by the cholera has pro
duced 1,000,000 for Paris only. (Dufau, p. 103 ; Moreau, p. 530,
not.) In Germany, private charity has founded in the space of
one year only, (from 1848-1849,) more than forty institutions for
orphans, or for abandoned and vicious children. (Mertz, Arm.
and Christ.) In presence of these figures, how can we despair of
private charity ? How doubt but she will succeed in filling up the
void which public benevolence will leave by withdrawing little by
little ?
' With private and free charity," says Duchatel, " one may fear
useless repetitions, the want of ensemble and proportion. . . . But
let each one look round himself and relieve the misery within his
reach ; this is a complete organized system." (De la chariti, p.
211, Cf. A. E. Cherbullier, Des causes du pauperisme, e 8.)

SUBVENTIVE CHARITY. 319
church, each parish, each religious or benevolent as
sociation, assist from the product of the offerings of
its members, the indigent within its sphere.1 These
churches, these different associations, will then know,
let us hope, how to unite in case of need, either to
relieve, by means of general collections, evils more
extended, or to sustain, in common, general establish
ments of benevolence, dispensaries, hospitals,2 houses
for orphans' foundlings, for the deaf and dumb, the
blind, the infirm or the sick who cannot be taken
care of in their own families.3
1 L. Naville, in his Mimoire sur la chariti, crowned in 1834 by
the Academie frangaisc, after signalizing the inherent misuses in
public charity, traced the plan of a system of private associations,
bound to each other by a narrow connexion, embracing by their
various committees, the whole group of charitable works.
Among the modern associations devoted with the- most success
to the practice of charity, we shall mention that of the "Friends
of the poor," at Hamburgh, under the direction of Miss Sieveking,
and about thirty others, founded in various places, after the same
pattern ; then the numerous societies of benevolence which the
work of the interior mission has brought out recently in all Ger
many, a work created for the welfare of the poor, under the impul.
sion of Wicheren, the director of the institution at Horn, near
Hamburgh. See the Fliegende Blatter which he has published
since 1843, and his work on the interior Mission, 1849. See too
the reports (TJeber die Leistung d. Weiblichen Vereins, Hamb,
1832-1851), of which an interesting extract was published in
Geneva, in 1844, and of which a more extensive analysis has been
published. . ¦', _', ..t.
2 We except" military hospitals, the support of which belongs to
the State alone ; it is.but just that it should provide, at its own ex
pense, for^hose who expose in its service their health and their
life. 3 To pretend to do without those establishments of charity collec
tive, and to limit one's self in all cases to the cares of individual

320 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
As for the organization of these collective subven
tions, doubtless it can vary much. The institutions
of the primitive church may be imitated.; new ones
may be established, or ancient ones appropriated to
our times ; the care of them can be entrusted to ec
clesiastical, lay, or mixed administrations ; they can be
sustained by means of foundations or annual subscrip
tions. In all that, regard must be had to time and
place, to the character and genius of the people, and
it would be rash to pretend to fix any general rule.1
charity ; or, as it has been said, to the primitive deaconship, is, in
our opinion, a mere Utopia, the mere attempt of which would in
volve grave losses of time, and a great superfluous expense.
Public hospitals have been, undoubtedly, much misused, and are
now misused. A great number of poor old men, for instance, ad
mitted there without distinction, would be more conveniently,
more economically, and for themselves, more happily assisted at
home. But those misuses would be easily reformed, if hospitals
again became institutions of private charity ; but, it seems to us
impossible, not to acknowledge for many cases, especially of sick
ness, the necessity of hospitals. (Droz, Eeon. pol., p. 318 ; A. de
Melun, Rapport sur le projet de lol relatif aux hospices, Ann. de
la chariti, janv. 1851, p. 10; Dufau, ub. sup., p. 159, etc.) As to
the improvements to be made in the management of hospitals and
hospices, see Lamothe, Nouv. itud. sur la lig. char. etc. ; Watte-
ville, Essai statist, Annuaire de V Eeon. pol, 1852, p. 150, etc, etc.
1 Like Chrysostom, however, we do not hesitate to prefer the
system of occasional donations, or else, that of periodical sub
scriptions, to that of fixed foundations, and especially of dotations
of real estate. Among other advantages, this system had the advan
tage of less increasing mortmain, less of exciting the expectations
of the poor; of keeping up the benevolence of the rich ; of offering
less attraction and advantage to cupidity ; finally, of better yield
ing to the diversity of circumstances and the chances of want.
How much more would the hospices and the funds assigned to

SUBVENTIVE CHARITY. 321
Besides, the mode of organization has only a second
ary importance in things of this kind. What is es
sential is, that those who preside over them and co
operate in them, bring to them suitable dispositions
of head and heart.
To be personally sure of the reality of the necessi
ties ; to watch over the use of the succors ; to with
hold them as soon as they will be no longer needed ;
never to render the assistance sufficient for it to tempt
those who might dispense with it ; never to raise it
above the level of the resources which the poor can
provide by his work ; never to enter into obligations
with him for the future, so to relieve him "that he will
never lose sight of his personal responsibility, and
will always feel the consequences of his errors and
faults ; to abstain from those perfidious aids, which,
by nourishing vices, perpetuate misery ; these, among
many others, are rules dictated by simple good sense,
and from which the organs of benevolence ought
never to depart1
But what is still more essential to the efficacy of
this virtue, is the purity and elevation of the motives
from which it emanates.
The history of the first centuries is before us to
testify to this : in order that charity may produce its
them be more equally divided in France, if the system of fixed
dotations had'not prevailed in their respect? How many founda
tions, very beneficent in their origin, which, in the course of time,
have been found useless or displaced, and which, under this pre
tence, have become the prey of revolutions ?
1 De G6rando, Le visiteur du pauvre ; Duchatel, de la chariti;
Naville, Mimoire sur la chariti, dc

322 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
best fruits; it is not enough that it should be- volun
tary, it must flow from a religious principle, the love
of God must have inspired it.
Alone, Christian charity is truly profitable, because
it proceeds from motives perfectly disinterested and
pure. The poor rarely deceive themselves concerning
the motives which move their benefactors, and they
are always tempted to make an abuse of the favors
which are not dictated by the heart. When, in place
of a true interest for their lot, they perceive motives
of vanity, of prudence or of fear, in those who
assist them, they only think of freeing themselves
from the burden of gratitude, and of using, in behalf
of evil passions, the sentiments, hardly honorable,
under the influence of which they have been assisted.
Alone, guided by the true desire of doing good,
religious charity does it, when, and as it is needed.
It chooses with discernment the object of its gifts; it
relieves, not the evils which are spoken of the most,
but those most deserving of sympathy ; it carries as
sistance where no one sees it; it penetrates into
hovels where worldly charity never enters; it invests
its favors with a delicacy of regard that raises the
poor in his own eyes, but it adds also exhortations
and good advice to them, loving rather to serve than
to please, and doing good without ever flattering the
passions.1 1 "To act morally upon men," says Guizot, "one must love and
reform them, inspire them with trust by love, and respect by
severity. Severity and love are the two efficient powers upon the
heart of men ; for men have the instinct of their moral wants, as
well of those which are heavy upon them, as those which please

SUBVENTIVE CHARITY. 323
Inspired by the love of God, it also inspires with
the same love those whom it assists. Its presence in
the abode of the poor, spreads there a perfume of
piety which calms pain. By the good which it
manifests, the poor feels that it is God who sends
him ; and if, at times, misery had veiled to his eyes
the idea of a beneficent Providence ; if, by stress of
suffering, he had come to turn to heaven only looks
of reproach and doubt, at the sight of the charitable
friend who visits him, he recalls the compensations
which God provides to misfortune, he lives again to
faith, to hope, and applies himself to his task with
courage, in expectation of Him, who will crown his
efforts. Alone, finally, by the sublimity of the model which
it proposes to itself, by the extent of the sacrifices of
which it is capable, Christian charity is always equal
to the necessity. Whilst the State has never been
able to dispense with its concurrence, it has for ages
alone sufficed for the relief of indigence. For the
State disposes of only a limited treasure, all the more
readily exhausted ; since, to fill it, it has recourse to
means of constraint; whilst Christian charity holds
the key of the heart, that is, of an inexhaustable
them. They are troubled, profoundly troubled with their imper
fection, and they want to be relieved. Love felt and inspired, is
both their most beautiful and their liveliest joy ; they want to love
and to be loved. To require much of them in virtue ; to give them
much in love ; the great empire, I speak of the moral empire, is
given on that condition." (Guizot, de Vital des dmes, Meditat,
Paris, 1852, p. 4.)

324 PAST AND FUTURE OF. CHARITY.
treasure, and which, as one of the Fathers has said,
finds there, where there is nothing, something still to
give.1 Sect. H. — Preventive action of charity.
Positive privations, material sufferings, are not the
only, nor the greatest evils which come in the train
of poverty. The most deplorable, perhaps, are those
which strike the attention the least ; that state of de
pendence in which the poor is placed in the eyes of
his equals ; that precarious condition which deprives
him of all security, all confidence for the future; that
constant preoccupation of material wants, which
hinders him from engaging in the noble occupations
of the intellect; finally, when this situation is pro
longed or aggravated, when poverty becomes in
digence, when indigence degenerates into misery,
then, the temptations, to which it exposes a being
always in care for the morrow; it is the continual
alternative in which it places him of needing bread
or of obtaining it at the price of virtue and honor; it
is, finally, the state of degradation in which we see so
many thousand human creatures plunged, less by
their fault than by the misfortune of their position.
In view of all these evils, engendered by poverty,
1 " The poor," says St. Augustine, " is rich by his charity alone,
and thus he has the means of giving to infinity. He gives what
he has ; has he nothing, he gives his affections, an advice, if he
can, an assistance, if he can ; and if he has no advice nor support
to give, he gives a wish, a, prayer." (Aug., Enarr. 2, in Ps. 36,
VIII. p. 83, seq.

PREVENTIVE CHARITY. 325
who can believe it enough to soften momentarily its
privations, to give some provisions to those who were
without any, to dissipate for a moment some cares, to
appease some sufferings which will reappear the next
day ? Who does not, on the contrary, recognize that,
if it is good to relieve misery, it is better still to pre
vent it or to cause it to disappear ; to suppress, as far
as possible, the causes of impoverishment ; in fine, to
place the indigent in the way of ameliorating his
condition, of elevating himself by his work and
economy, to that state of independence and security,
which is one of the most precious privileges of a life
in easy circumstances ?
In this new point of view, it appears to us to be
superfluous to pursue the parallel, which we have
already established. It is well known that before the
appearance of Christianity, the Roman government
had done nothing for the extirpation of poverty ; that,
content with nourishing from day to day the popula
tion of Rome, it had not sought to raise the proleta
rians from their sad condition, and that its measures
had rather swollen than dried up the sources of
misery. The same reproach has not failed to be made to
charity. Because it merited it sometimes in the
Middle Ages, it has been too readily concluded that
it gave the same occasion for it in the 'first centuries.
But this conclusion seems entirely contradicted by
the faets which we have cited.
What, in effect, was this protecting tutelage, with
which the church surrounded the feeble in the name
of charity ? When it rose up against the excesses of
28

326 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
monopoly and usury ; when, at the risk of incurring
disfavor with the powerful, it censured their abuse of
power ; when it resisted Andronicus and Eutropius,
Theodosius and Eudoxia; when, from the height of
the Christian pulpit, it thundered against the modern
Achabs; when it undertook the defence of the widow
and the orphan, against unjust governors and faithless
tutors; when it made itself the guardian of their
deposits and extended over their threatened goods
the mantle of ecclesiastical immunity ; when it caused
his house and his domain to be restored to the captive
returned to his home, and to the poor debtor the in
struments of his labor; when it protected the Colonus
against the exactions of his master, the small pro
prietor against the barbarity of his tax-gatherer;
when, raising its reclamations even to the throne,
causing the maxims of charity to penetrate the
hearts of sovereigns, it obtained from them protect
ing laws for these oppressed classes; was it not to
struggle as efficaciously as possible against one of the
principal causes of poverty ; was it not, as far as its
nature would permit, to hinder a crowd of Roman
subjects from falling into the class of proletarians,
or, lower still, into that of beggars by profession ?
Several precepts and regulations of the Ancient
Church, still prove the importance which it attached
to preventive means. We have seen that the Apos
tolic Constitutions, in prescribing alms-giving and
hospitality to the bishops, also prescribed to them to
secure the prospects of orphans; to have them taught
a trade to enable them to gain a living; to procure
for them the instruments of their trade, in order that

PREVENTIVE CHARITY. 327
they should not need the assistance of others. We
have seen St. Basil recommend to his monks to busy
themselves ceaselessly in the education of youth, and
to cause each child to be instructed in his profession.
St. Ambrose reminded the faithful that good advice
is often of greater worth than a favor,1 and Chrysos
tom, that alms " are not given alone in money but in
deeds, by patronage, and by the influence one lends
to the unfortunate."2 It would be impossible to
speak or to act more favorably for the true interests
of the poor.
But these efforts, well directed as they were, were
to fail before the difficulties of the times. Charity, it
must be acknowledged, and it is one of the lessons to
be derived from this historical study, charity cannot
suffice, alone, for the destruction of misery. By its
influence it aids to a more equal division, to a better
employment of riches ; it encourages, seconds the
virtues which create them, but it cannot create them
itself; it is to intelligence and labor that God has re
served this power. Agriculture, which multiplies
the products of the soil ; manufactures, which fashion
them for the use of men ; commerce, which enriches
each country with the productions of all the others ;
the arts, in a word, and the civilization which make
them fruitful, these are the sources of the prosperity
of a people ; labor and saving, these are the means
by which each man assures to himself a lasting part
in this prosperity. Where these elements are wanting,

1 Ambros, De off min., II. 15, Opp, VII. p. 303.
2 Chrys, hom. 25, in Act, c. 3, IX. p. 205.

328 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
however active charity may be, then, necessarily,
deprivation and embarrassment exist.
Now, from the fourth century, Roman civilization
was in full decline ; and, as to labor, in vain had the
church sought to revive it; in vain had it lavished
encouragements upon it;1 hardly did it succeed, ex
cept in some religious communities, to give it any
impulse ; everywhere else, discredited by prejudice,2
ruined by usury, paralyzed by despotism, crushed by
the competition of servile labor, free labor disappeared
in the wars and invasions which desolated the empire.
No jnode offered itself to the poor for escaping from
his condition ; slave or beggar, such was his only
alternative. Instead of that ascendant movement
which, in prosperous States, raises, one after another,
the different classes above their primitive level, a
general languor ruined the social body ; commerce,
industry, agriculture, all perished; poverty, like an
hereditary cancer, transmitted itself fatally from father
to son; it was a yawning gulf, a fathomless abyss,
which charity was condemned to labor ceaselessly to
fill, but ever without hope.
Are the circumstances to-day more favorable to the
1 This beautiful passage of Chrysostom is known : "Let us not
be ashamed of mechanical employment ; let us not despise hand-
labor; let us rather despise idleness and laziness. If it were
shameful to work, Paul had not worked with his own hands, and
would not have gloried in it, he would not have forbidden such as
will not work to eat. Sin alone is shameful; now sin originates in
idleness ; idleness is a fertile source of iniquity." (Chrys, Hom.
in Mud: salutate, etc., c. 5, III. p. 178-180.)
2 Blanqui, Hist, de I'Econ. pol, I. 40, seq. Moreau-Chr, du
Droit a I'oisiveti, pref. p. 1-12, p. 201, etc.

PREVENTIVE CHARITY. 329
extinction of misery ? The extinction of slavery and
the other conquests of modern civilization, do they
tend to render the action of preventive charity more
easy at the present time ?
In one respect it might be doubted.
Every birth is laborious, that of liberty more than
any other, and it is not in precipitating it that its
dangers are diminished. It has been with the eman
cipation of labor as with so many other forms of
liberty, which, from not having been sufficiently pre
pared and provided for, have caused dangerous pertur
bations in the fortune of nations.1 Like the Roman
freedman, who, thrown upon the streets without a
peculum, was reduced to beg; like the negro of the
colonies, whom a stroke of the pen declares free,
but at the same time renders tributary to hunger ;
the workman, quitting the tutelage of his master, has
found himself burdened with the care of his subsis
tence, and often in no condition to provide for it;
the -artisan and the manufacturer, pushed, without
capital, into the lists of universal competition, has found
himself dismounted in the first encounter; the
law has freed him, need has put him into dependence ;
he is obliged to hire out his services, and to harness
himself to the car of all-compelling industry. There,
during some time, his condition seems prosperous,
heavy salaries invite him to enjoy ; delivered from all
control, he enjoys without measure, and marries
without foresight. But suddenly a crisis comes on ;
1 "The most critical situation for man," says Sismondi, " is the
passage from the state of servitude or serfage to independence."
(Etud. d'icon. polit, intr, p. 35.)
28*

330 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
a distant war or a neighboring revolution breaks out ;
markets close ; consumption diminishes ; capital is
called in; ruined by a disastrous competition, the
manufacturer suspends production, or else a newly
discovered machine replaces the hands of the work
men, whom the division of labor has transformed
into machines, and who find no more employment
for their forces. Thousands suffer with hunger by
the side of the products accumulated by their labor.
When, to the joyful shouts of the people, modern
society abolished the last remains of serfdom, could
it have been foreseen that it would have suffered so
soon from the excesses of liberty ? When the gigan
tic progress of industry has been applauded, could it
have been foreseen that the class which would concur
the most directly in it, would receive the least of its
fruits, and that the profits of these pacific conquests
would go, as formerly those of war had gone, to con
centrate themselves in the hands of a small number?
But while regretting that the enfranchisement of
the workmen has not been effected with more pre
caution and more gradually, let us not, on that
account, fail to recognize the blessings of liberty. To
it we owe the prodigious development of commerce,
the wonderful success of all the arts. Favored by it,
the products of agriculture, those of mechanical
activity especially, have been multiplied beyond all
expectation ; the poor to-day procure at a low price
the comforts, and even the enjoyments, formerly
unknown to the rich. Everywhere the working classes
to-day are better lodged, clad and fed, than they have
ever been before; the average length of life has

PREVENTIVE CHARITY. 331
notably increased ; now are rarely seen to rage those
famines which, so frequently, periodically desolated
the ancient world, and swept down especially the in
ferior ranks. As consumer, the workman has incon-
testably gained by the present state of things. He
has hardly gained less as producer. The profit of
him who farms on shares, which, under the Romans,
was only the sixth or the eighth of the product of the
soil, to-day is more than half; wages for work by the
day have risen almost as much. The rate of interest,
on the contrary, has fallen more than two-thirds.'
Finally, if liberty has its dangers, has it not also its
sweets ? If it has its rude combats, has it not its
crowns ? Can the temporary subjection which springs
from want be compared with the servitude, conse
crated, riveted by the law ? Is it nothing to the
artisan, that he can choose his master, dispose in
some manner of his lot? Is it nothing to see a
career open before us, which formerly had been shut, to
be able, by skill and labor, to attain a position here
tofore inaccessible to the most persevering efforts ?
1 Thiers, on Property, p. 121, 137. But, it is not necessary to go
back to the times of the Romans, to find a perceptible improvement
in the state of the inferior classes. In comparing it with what it
was in France half a century ago, we observe already a very ad
vantageous and striking alteration. Thiers, ibid., p. 136 ; de
G6rando, Bienf. publ, I. p. 175, seq., 458 ; des Progres de i'lndus-
trie1 2d ed, p. 12 ; Leon Faucher, Journal des Econom., XXI. p.
347 ; Th. Fix. Observ. sur les cl. ouvr., ibid., X. p. 18, seq. ; XII.
p. 107.; Marbeau, du Paupir., p. 190, etc. It is thought, in par
ticular, that agricultural wages have almost quadrupled in France,
since about six years, and have risen by one-fifth in the last
thirty years. (Journ. des Eeon., 15th Oct, 1850 ; Moreau de Jonnes,
Ann. de Vioon. pol, ann. 1851, p. 378.)

332 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
As to the obstacles, assuredly still great, which the
poor yet find upon their way, the recent progress of
civilization tends each day to remove them. Intima
tions may be seen of an epoch, when, provided by
instruction with new resources, they may offer to
society more precious, and hence better remunerated
labor ; when they will no longer have to struggle
painfully against the competition of machinery;
when, from the elevation of intelligence they shall
have been able to attain, they can defy that deluge
of mechanical force, which everywhere to-day dis
putes the ground with them.1 The spirit of associa-
1 Plato, Aristotle and Cicero, thought mechanical labor to be
humiliating for a citizen, and it was in order to spare him from it,
that they wanted legions of slaves. " To the slaves, they said,
come all that requires the use of corporeal power, to the citizen,
what demands the practice of intelligence, except war to defend
the city, and agriculture to support it." I confess, I feel for man,
the same susceptibility which those philosophers felt for the
citizen : I am jealous for the time spent by my fellow-creatures in
labor that a beast of burden or an engine could perform better
than they ; I would like to. see their strength, little by little, re
placed by mechanical agents, and applying themselves, in a
manner more worthy of them, to what claims the co-operation of
reflection and thought ; I would like to see man having the com
mand over engines, rather than struggling with them ; I would
like to see him, while inanimate slaves would execute his most
rudest toil, engaged in. higher occupations and nobler leisure ; and
is it not for this very purpose that God has given him the empire
over matter? Is it nqt one of the traits of the perfectibility that
distinguishes our kind ? and is it not in that sense that the
material progress of modern times must serve the spiritual
interests of mankind ? Let us forbear to curse and to paralyze
this movement, both salutary and providential, which momen
tarily wounds the interests of the working class, only because our
institutions have not yet enabled them to bear it

PREVENTIVE CHARITY. 333
tion, in developing itself, will furnish them with new
aid, will lighten their toils, facilitate their economy,
will give a new value to their savings, perhaps will
permit them to unite' the benefits of capital to those
of labor,1 the advantages of cultivation on a large
1 People have complained for a long time of the considerable
profits capital levies upon labor, and of the discouragement which
results therefrom. It is in order to free it from that state of de
pendence, that in the year 1830, associations of workmen were es
tablished, with the view of working for their own account, and
afterwards partaking of a part of the profit, whilst the rest was to
be capitalized. We do not speak here of those associations which
were formed in 1849, with the aid of a subvention of the State, and
which almost all have fallen, as soon as they were deprived of
that resource. (Reybaud, Rapp. k l'Acad. des sc. mor. See
Journal des Eeon., July, 1852.) Even those established spon
taneously, though they have had more persistence and vitality,
have not answered the hopes founded upon them. The difficulty
they feel in the division of profits, in taking account of the relative
skill of workmen who are upon a, footing of equality, of maintain
ing among them the discipline and the unity of views necessary
for the regulation of the work, of finding among simple mechanics
the knowledge, the perception, the activity of mind, indispensable
qualities for a good agent; finally, of striving with a small capital
against enterprises powerfully sustained ; such are the principal
dangers, which they meet upon their way, and against which
several have stranded. (Reybaud, ibid.) Experience shows, how
ever, that such difficulties are not insurmountable ; we have
reason to believe, that for manufactures they do not require a
great deal of money, a certain number of honest laborious work
men, sufficiently acquainted with each other, commencing their
concern on a modest footing, but pursuing it with perseverance,
would have, in the course of time, a chance of success. The prin
ciple of association, by itself eminently salutary and fertile, will
become more and more so, in proportion as instructiou and
morality progress among the working classes.

334 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
scale with those of small estates.1 Property itself,
rendered more accessible to the laboring classes, will
secure to them a less precarious position, will protect
them against the effects of industrial crises, and pro
mote among them a spirit of foresight and of moral
constraint, which is vainly preached to the proletarian
and simple day-laborer.2 Agriculture, now too much
Several modern economists have traced plans for the organiza
tion of industrial associations. See, among others, the works of
Ott (Eeon. soe, p. 308-326) and of Feugueray, (V Association
ouvriere, Paris, 1851.) We regret that those authors, the views
of whom are praiseworthy in so many respects, admit the fatal
principle of a momentary subvention from the State.
1 In answer to the detractors of small estates, Passy has set forth
the advantages of the small farming. He has showed that a
country possessing sixty farmers could support a population of
140, whilst if it numbered only 30, it could nourish but a popula
tion of 100. Even he has maintained that small farming, deduc
tion made of the expense of production, yields, extent of land and
productions being equal, the largest net income. (Mem. de I' Acad.
des sc. mor., V. p. 708, seq., 728.) It cannot, however, be denied
that the want of workmen, farming tools, and beasts of burden,
is on small farms the source of many disadvantages, loss of time, .
often also, loss of crops. But why should they not imitate in the
farming of their estates, what they do in the driving of their
cattle, and in the manipulation of their milk? Why should not
the possessors of adjacent small lots associate to till them in com
mon ? (Buret, de la Misire des classes lab., I. p. 241 ; II. p. 129 ;
Rossi, Cours d'icon. pol, II. p.. 117, seq.) The principle of associa
tion, already applied with success to mutual assistance among
workmen, to the economical purchase of goods, to the building of
cheap houses, might be extended with the" same advantage to the
common use of farming tools, investments working out in
common, and to a multitude cf other objects. (Revue' Brit,
March, 1852, Assoc, des cl. lab. en Angleterre.)
2 Whoever has tasted the advantages of property and the comfort
it gives, wishes to leave the same advantages to his children.

PREVENTIVE CHARITY. rfd5
separated from mechanical and manufacturing pur
suits, will- one day be more closely associated with
them.1 A happy system of land-credit, will fer-
Parental love, self-love itself, if need be, tell him more in this re
spect than all sermons on foresight. But the workman, who lives
from hand to mouth, has no scruple in bringing forth children,
condemned to the same kind of life ; he follows his instincts, eats,
drinks, procreates without thinking of the next day. The most
wretched populations are those which propagate most ; it is a fact
acknowledged by all economists. Malthus, himself, says that
nothing multiplies so much as misery. (Montesquieu, Esp. des
lois., XXIII. 11 ; Sismondi, Etud sur I'icon. pol, I. p. 129, 193 ;
Rossi, ub. sup., I. p. 400; III. p. 182, etc, etc.)
As to the advantages of the free division of estates, see, besides
the Memoire of Passy, above mentioned, De Gerando, Bienf. publ,
I. p. 235 ; Sismondi, ub. sup., I. p. 203, seq. ; De Villeneuve, Eeon.
pol. chr., I. p.' 304, 416 ; Droz, ub. sup., p. 98, seq., etc. It has
been shown in a manner equally peremptory and eloquent, that
the distress will not cease in Ireland, that even in England
pauperism will diminish, but by a change in the distribution of
landed property, a change which may be effected without a revolu
tion, without violence, by the simple abolition of the substitutions,
and of the legal privilege of primogeniture. (Beaumont, de
I'Irlande, II. p. 189-234.) Then it will be necessary to facilitate
the mutation and the fractioning of landed property, by simplifying
the formalities, so long and so complicated, of deeds. This change
is indeed in a way of being realized in England, by the associations
for acquisitions, which unite a small capital to buy large estates,
which the purchasers afterwards divide among themselves ; and in
Ireland, by the commission of the Parliament, charged with
authorizing and making easy the sale of mortgaged properties of
ibe nobility. Already, more than one million of acres have been
sold, it is said, in this manner to industrious farmers, who come
to fill up the voids made by the Irish emigration.
1 The profits of the farmer are small but sure ; those of manu
facturing are precarious but higher. If the manufacturer would
invest his savings in real estate securities, and the farmer in manu-

336 PAST AND FUTURE OF -CHARITY.
tilize the soil, and, at the same time, secure the
facturing concerns, the advantages of the two classes would be
thus usefully combined. But agriculture and manufactures can be
united in a manner much more direct and salutary. In propor
tion as communications become easier, it would be desirable that
manufactures should transfer themselves from cities to the country,
as it has happened in some parts of Alsatia, where the working
man, brought up amidst an agricultural population, finally leases
for a long term a property which he pays for with his savings,
and which he cultivates in his leisure hours and transmits to his
children. (De Gerando, ub. sup., I. p. 219 ; Th. Fix, Observ, etc..
Journ. des Eeon., XIII. p. 43 ; De la Farelle, du Progr. soe 2d
ed, p. 210, 279 ; Griin, de la Moralisat. des classes labor, p. 35,
seq., etc.) A change, still more desirable, wherever it would be
possible, would be that labor, now concentrated in manufactures,
to the great material and moral prejudice of populations, should be
disseminated into rural districts. In Tuscany, in some parts of
the Vosges,. in some 'places of Normandy, some valleys of Switzer
land, etc, every peasant family had its loom, its weavers, its em
broiderers, its watchmakers, its engineers, who, in the winter
leisures, or in the intervals of field-work, get the means of com
pensating for bad crops, of buying, or making fertile, new lands.
"In the Canton of Apenzell, where embroidered muslins are
manufactured, each family," says Zuber, " is at once agricultural
and manufacturing, and especially well-educated, sober and re
ligious. . . The workman in Apenzell, notwithstanding his strength,
spends but twenty-five cents a day, and earns ten-fold." (Journal
des Eeon., XIII. p, 43, note.) The contractors and manufacturers,
for whom those industrial agriculturists are working, find, on
the low price of hand labor, more than the equivalent of the
savings which would result for them, from the coming together of
their workmen on the same spot; and, moreover, what an advan
tage for the latter, who are thus left to their simple and peaceful
habits, to the intimacy of family life, who are kept sheltered from
bad influences, temptations and wants, in a word, far from those
centres of poverty and corruption, found among the most of
manufactures ! (Audiganne, des classes ouvrieres en France,
Revue des 2 Mond., 1851, 15th Nov, p. 737, 747 ; 15 fev, 1852, p.

PREVENTIVE CHARITY. 337
gains of the working class.1 Free trade, rendered
more complete, will make each nation profit by
the abundance of all the others, at the same time
that it will permit each one to give itself up entirely
to the kind of production in which it is the least ex
posed to see itself supplanted.2 Finally, by the
facility, already so marvellous, of the means of trans
port, the moment will come, we doubt not, for colo
nizing so many fertile and still uncultivated countries,
of pouring into them the surplus population of our
old world, of securing employment there for so many
inactive hands, and of opening to Europe new places
for the supply of provisions, and new markets for its
industry.3 670 ; De Gerando, des Progris de I'ind., p. 35, 36, note, 84, seq. ;
note; Griin, Moralis. des cl labor., p. 39, seq. ; de la Farelle, du
Prog, soe, p. 279.)
Moreover, under whatever form the union of agriculture and
manufacturing be operated, we do not hesitate to see in it, as well
as in that of labor and of property, one of the elements the most
essential, henceforth, for the destruction of indigence.
'The Land-Credit (credit fonder) established in Prussia and
Poland, in about the middle of the last century, and long since
demanded for France, as a means of disencumbering the soil, has
been decreed by Louis Napoleon. (Journ. des Eeon., March
and April, 1852.)
2 On the advantages of free trade, and the fatal results of pro
tection, see the works of Dunoyer, Blanqui, M. Chevalier, etc., etc.
3 They complain of the excess of population, and they do not
ponder, says Thiers, that in Europe, the three-fourths, in other
places, nine-tenth, on the whole globe, 755% of the land, are
still uncultivated. (De la Propr., p. 129), and among them, some
of the most fertile countries of ancient times. As to the difficulties,
which have hitherto prevented their colonization, and have hindered
the efforts of so many emigrants, those difficulties, already partly
removed, will be so more and more.
29

338 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
These are some of the resources to be expected
from the actual and future progress of civilization ;
they will permit each day's struggle"wifh misery
to be more successful.1
It is for the science of economy to hasten the de
velopment of these resources and to turn them to
profit, especially for the good of the laboring classes.
But would science believe itself able to dispense
with the co-operation of charity ?
Where, then, would it find the motive for its re
searches? In an investigation which has for its
object the greatest possible good for the greatest
number, what more powerful motive than the love
of man could animate and encourage its labors ?
Besides, to what more enlightened guide could it
apply? What more trustworthy light could direct
the researches of economists ?
Dr.. Chalmers, somewhere,2 deplores the division
which he observed in his times between charity and
science. This complaint can be conceived of only in
regard to a false science or a false charity. Where-
ever there is good to be done, what better guide could
be invoked than love? With equal intelligence, is
not the most devoted friend the safest adviser ? and
the most tender mother, is she not also the most
vigilant? One can be deceived, without doubt, in
loving; but, it is much easier to be deceived in not
loving. He whom a true sympathy for his equals
animates, who sighs from the bottom of his heart
over their sufferings, will seek with anxiety for the
1 Thiers, ub. sup., p. 422.
2 Chalmers, Chr. and civ. eeon., I. p. 3.

PREVENTIVE CHARITY. 339
means of relieving them, will receive from all sides
the light of experience, and call all true science to his
aid ; and, if he possesses a clear and accurate mind,
it will be he who will discover the true remedy. Let
us believe that, if till now this has been sought in
vain, if so few steps, or rather, if so many false steps
have been taken in the solution of this important
problem, it is because, heretofore, politics have had
more to do with it than charity. In the sufferings of
the poor, some have seen only a danger for the rich,
and for their only remedy, have said to the poor,
"resign yourselves, abstain;" others have seen only
an occasion for overturning, for their own advantage,
all social order, and have raised and armed the poor
against the rich. Some, wholly occupied with the
multiplication of production, have excited wants in
order to stimulate activity, and encouraged all to
enjoy, for the purpose of stimulating labor. Others,
seeing in cheapness of production the sublimity of
economical science, have, above all, exalted vast es
tablishments, large farms, without thinking of the
thousands of cultivators discharged and perishing of
hunger in honor of the net product.1 Here, the sub
sistence of the poor has been rendered excessively
dear in behalf of the interest of proprietors or manu
facturers; elsewhere, it has been proposed to rob the
capitalist for the advantage of the workman. Always,
in a word, as with the pagans, one portion of the
1 Sismondi speaks of a noble Scotch lady, who, in the space of
nine years, out of speculation, turned out 15,000 inhabitants from
her estates, and converted her fields into pastures for sheep.
(Etudes, I. p. 213.)

340 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
human race sacrificed to the other portion, always the
good of some sought in the ill or the ruin of others !
Is it believed that these iniquitous or disastrous
remedies can, for a moment, sustain the regard of
charity ? By this one word : " Love thy neighbor as
thyself, whatsoever ye would that men should do to
you, do ye even so to them ;" it causes all false sys
tems to fall, unmasks all sophisms, and tracks out,
under all their disguises, the egotism of castes and the
injustice of despoilers. Charity would not coldly
condemn one part of the human race to hopeless
privations ;' nor would it teach the poor to seek their
1 The reproach we apply to Malthus, in the practical part of his
work is, not having recommended celibacy to the workman till
he be able to bring up a family ; the advice in itself is good, and
many wise men, even Fathers of the church, had given it before
Malthus. We reproach him with having stopped there, and with
not having sought other preservatives against poverty. What
would we think of a physician who, called to see a sick person,
would prescribe only diet for him, without endeavoring to cure the
disease which made diet necessary for him ? Why ? The most of
your fellow- creatures are in » situation which condemns them to
the sadest isolation, and in your extensive book you have nothing
to say, but, that they must submit? You do not examine if a
better economical system, a wider development of the spirit of as
sociation, a more extensive liberty of trade, a better constitution
of work, an easier access to property ; finally, to say the word, the
destruction of manifest abuses, monopolies and unjust privileges,
would not make the situation of the workman better? Pessimist,
to the excess in regard to population, you show the most complete
optimism in respect to the rest ! You are surprised at your system
having been found inhuman ! You are astonished at having been
considered as the advocate of the rich, rather than of the poor 1
That there may be an exaggeration in the reproaches addressed to
you, that your intentions have been calumniated, this is beyond

PREVENTIVE CHARITY. 341
happiness at the expense of the rich ; it knows that
lasting, real good is never obtained by injustice.
Rome, enriched with the spoils of nations, was, in its
turn, ignominiously stripped of them ; the same
fortune to-day awaits the classes of society who
would think to elevate themselves upon the ruin of
others. With whatever colors spoliation may be
decked, let it be disguised under the names of com
munity, progressive impost, right to credit, right to
work ; let violence, that no one would dare to propose
doubt ; but a system capable of bruising so many generous souls,
of wounding the most delicate and the purest feelings, must be
altogether false in some part.
But, truly, Malthus had an excuse that the most of his disciples
have not ; he was an Englishman, and he wrote for England, for
a country wherein all situations are occupied upon the soil, and
where the most part of the inhabitants live upon the wages of
some manufactory, constantly glutted with their own products.
But how does it happen that a system suggested by quite local
circumstances, has found such blind admirers on the continent?
Let us, however, except the city of the pontiff, odd contrast! In
our days, Rome, endows and marries poor girls, whilst Protestant
England preaches celibacy! Is it not that each of these countries
suffers with the exaggeration of its proper principle, and tries to
remedy it by an exaggeration, in a contrary direction? France
will do better, we think, if she follows, in this respect, the maxims
so sound and so just, of some of her economists. . . Man, says
Joseph Droz, should aspire to marriage; as to the situation
the most suitable to his nature ; but he must first make himself
worthy of it; and this thought may become a powerful vehicle for
the young workman in his labor. When opinion excites to mar
riage, it increases a, wretched population ; it wxrald also have
results, but happy ones, if it would teach the working class that
marriage must be the reward of labor and economy. (Droz, Eeon.
pol, p. 311, seq. ; Cf. De Gerando, du Progres de I'industrie, p. 81,
seq., note.) 29 *

342 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
in his own name, be proposed in the name of the
State; all that would be gained would be by the de
struction of labor, one common level of misery.
"The savage," says Montesquieu, "cuts down the
tree to gather the fruit;" this is the image of the
prosperity which socialism promises : to-day pillage,
to-morrow famine. Such is not the counsel of charity.
Animated by a universal benevolence for men, it
holds an even balance between them all; from their
union, not from their mutual hostility, it makes them
expect their common advantage ; it teaches that it is
by the good of all that the good of each must be
sought. It knows, also, that the temporal good of the poor
is never attained at the expense of his morality. Far
from it, those doctrines, which, under the pretext of
animating industry, discourage economy and tem
perance, excite in the poor man an extravagant thirst
for enjoyments, which, long before satisfaction, may
turn him aside from all his duties ! Without exhorting
him to asceticism, a virtue of another age, a necessity
of an epoch of suffering and destitution, without
prescribing abstinence for the sake of abstinence, pri
vation for the sake of privation ; on the contrary, in
showing ease and well-being in the future to him as
the legitimate reward of his labors, it recommends to,
him, meanwhile, the moderation of his desires,
sobriety and economy, which establish on a firm basis
the prosperity of individuals and of families.
If it desires to see the riches of a country multiply,
it desires still more to see the general comfort pro
moted. It protests against those narrow systems

PREVENTIVE CHARITY. C43
which look only to the abundance of production,
without regard for their distribution.1 Splendid
castles surrounded by desert fields, immense manu-
facturies peopled by miserable and wasted laborers,
please it less than the shop of the workman at his
ease, or the farm of the happy cultivator. It aspires
less to augment the opulence, to swell the superfluity
of a few, than to render a state of well-being acces
sible to the greatest number ; and, as has been said,
" to enlarge the circle of those who are invited to the
legitimate enjoyments of life."2
It is for it, the true and impartial friend of man, to
direct the science of economy for his true good, to
point out to it its dangers, and to preserve it from
deviating from its true end ; - in short, if there is any
where an efficacious remedy against indigence, it is
for charity to discover it, or, at least, to recognize it
among the dangerous specifics, the. trial of which has
caused so many evils.
That remedy, whatever it may be, will require,
always and above all, the co-operation of the poor.
It is, then, upon the poor, that it is necessary to act,
in the first place, to engage him in the way in which
he will find the amelioration of his lot.
Nothing, to appearance, more easy; nothing, in
reality, more difficult. There is nothing which men,
ordinarily, are less able to comprehend than their
1 "Upon reading certain economists," said Joseph Droz, "one
would believe that productions are not made for men, but men for
productions." (Eeon. pol, p. 73-76.)
2 Blanqui, Hist, de Vicon. pol, I. p. 25 ; II. p. 146 ; Sismondi,
Etudes, pref.

344 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
true interests. Ignorance, obstinacy and prejudices,
scatter on the way of goodness a crowd of obstacles,
which only charity can always surmount. She alone
finds in the consciousness of her intentions and in
the fervor of her zeal, the persuasive accents which
triumph over prejudices and disarm distrust; the
patience which waits for, seeks and finds at last, the
favorable moment, the perseverance stayed by no
cheek, that sacred tenacity, to which alone that of
routine yields. "The greatest of all powers," said
Turgot, in his Memoir to Louis XVI., " is the proved
desire to do good." And that great minister would
have proved this himself, had it not been for the re
tirement and premature death which deprived France
of him. But, to limit ourselves to more modest ex
amples, it is by the power of his charity that Oberlin
drew his parishioners from the apathy into which
misery had plunged them, and obtained from them
works which, in less than fifty years, transformed a
wild valley, lost in the depths of the Vosges, into a
fertile and prosperous country, capable of nourishing
in ease, a population five times more numerous than
formerly.1 But, if the amelioration of the fortune of the poor
man depends, above all, upon his own energy ; if, in
the intentions of Providence, he must be the master-
builder of his own prosperity, it is by no means true
that he can always succeed by his own efforts. Who
has not seen families laborious, honest, economical,
poor, yet full of virtue and of courage, who, never
theless, have not been able to rise out of their con-
1 Notice on J. Oberlin, Paris, 1826.

PREVENTIVE CHARITY. 345
dition? How many artisans who, with true talents,
have vegetated all their lives ! How many whose toil
has been smitten with sterility, or who, upon the eve
of success, have seen their savings, painfully amassed,
all engulfed ! They needed only an advance, a pro
tection, an advice, and this resource failed them at
the decisive moment.
It is here that the devotedness of charity becomes
particularly necessary. It is she that, in this struggle
against poverty, in this painful ascent to the promised
land, faithfully attends the indigent, who, without
ever substituting her efforts for his, encourages and
sustains him, removes obstacles from before him, aids
him in difficult passes, lends a hand where he fails,
raises him when be falls, and never forsakes him till
he arrives at the end. When each man, in the
sphere of his relations, will exercise about him a
beneficent patronage ;x when the master will show an
affectionate care for the interests of his domestics;
when the manufacturer, regarding himself as the
father of his workmen, will never separate his advan
tage from theirs, will of himself offer them the most
equitable conditions, and will have constantly before his
eyes their moral interest and their advancement f when
the rich proprietor, instead of wasting his income in
1 On the benefits of patronage, see Cherbulliez, (Des causes du
Paupir., Paris, 1853.)
2 Several great manufacturers in France, are renowned for the
exact discipline they cause to reign on their manufactories, as
well as for the paternal care they have for their workmen. (De
Gerando, du Progr. de I'ind., p. 83, 97 ¦ Revue des Deux-Mondes,
15 fev, 1852, etc.)

346 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
some capital, where his presence attracts a crowd of
adventurers and rogues, shall prefer to remain
upon his estates, and, by his example, keep his culti
vators there ; when, instead of making a vain display,
he will employ his leisure and his fortune in advan
cing some useful science, in developing some branch
of industry, in propagating the best methods of cul
ture, in caring for the interests of his poor neighbors,
in founding and directing institutions profitable to
all; these would-be inestimable services rendered to
the indigent.
We live no longer at a time where the rich man can
believe that he has acquitted himself towards society,
solely because he manages his own fortunes, spends
his revenues and agreeably employs his leisure. No ;
I trust, in this, the wisdom of the ancients more than
that of our age ; all luxury is not a gain for the order
of society.1 Have not a first, and a second experience,
sufficiently convinced us ? For some workmen, whom
your pomp supports for a time, for some frivolous oc
cupations, which your fashions sustain for a day and
destroy the next, your example spreads around you
the contagion of vain and sensual tastes. That arti
san, to whom you seriously think you are doing
good, asks himself why he is not, himself, the idol
who is to be adored under those festive garments,
why his palate is not to relish those delicate meats
and exquisite wines. All his gains are consumed in
aping your expensive pleasures ; he works no more
1 On the principle which should direct the rich in the use of his
fortune, see the wise reflections of Joseph Droz. (Eeon. pol, IV.
1, p. 323, seq.)

PREVENTIVE CHARITY. 847
from a sense of duty, he works to shine, to enjoy.
But if he could enjoy and shine without work! Thus
covetousness is inflamed, temptations rise, one vic
tim more drawn into the gulf of misery, one torch
more for the fires of revolution. 0, what gifts of
Providence, which might be in the hands of the rich
a fruitful source of prosperity, and which have been
but a source of ruin !
As for charitable offices, just as for alms, nothing
can replace individual action ; the good one does,
about himself and in full intelligence of it, is by far
that which profits most. But the poor do not all find
enlightened guides and generous protectors at their
doors ; and, among the services which their condition
needs, many require time and care which few of the
rich can bestow. It is here, then, indispensable, as in
regard to subventive charity, to unite the action of in
dividuals and of associations.
Hence, the numerous establishments created by
collective benevolence; infant and other asylums,
gratuitous schools for infants and adults, institutions
for orphans, societies of apprenticeship, agricultural
colonies,1 intelligence societies, societies of patronage
for prisoners aud the discharged,2 for young work
men, workshops, refuges, houses of Providence,
peoples' banks, savings' banks,3 and family banks,
' De Morogues, du Paupirismeet de la mendiciti. On the colonies
of foundlings established in Algeria, see Ann. de la chariti.,
Avril, 1851.
2 Consult the works of Tocqueville, Beaumont, Charles Lucas,
Moreau, etc.
3 On the origin and the progress of that admirable institution,
see the Report of M. Navier, in the session of the fourth classes

348 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
provisional and retiring funds, &c, there are so many
institutions by which efforts have been made to aid
the labor and the economy of the poor, and thus to
prepare for him an access to a happier state.1
Among these institutions, which only need to be
more extended to produce all the happy fruits that
are expected of them, those which appear to us,
above all, to claim a new development and a direction
more conformable to their end, are the establishments
of instruction.
We have seen that the question is, to give, at last,
to the laboring classes that education which, in the
natural order of things, should precede their emanci
pation. The question is, since no one is charged
with conducting them, to put them in a condition to
conduct themselves, to use well, for themselves and
for society, the liberty which they have acquired. It
has been said, " among the causes of misery, the most
active is the insufficiency of the intellectual and moral
forces of the people."2 The lot of the laboring man
of the Institute, 24th of April, 1850 ; the notice of A. de Can-
dolle, Geneve, 1834. The Annual Reports of Benjamin Delessert;
the notice neorologique on this philanthropist by A. de Candolle.
(Bibl. univ., 1847, p. 546, 558 ;) the Annuaires of polit. eeon, etc.
1 A more complete enumeration will be found in the following
works: Dufau, Lettres sur la chariti; De Watteville, Ess. Stat sui
tes etabl. de bienf, Paris, 1847 ; Moreau, du Probl. de la mis., III.
p. 201, seq. ; 491, seq., etc.; Villeneuve, ub. sup., II. p. 364; De
Gerando, Bienf. publ, pass, and for more recent institutions, Ann.
de la char., 1851, p. 95, seq., 281, 344, etc. For the institutions
of preventive charity founded in Germany and in other protestant
countries, see the Wicheren's, Fliegende Blatter.
2 Passy (Journal des Eeon., XII. p. 50) ; Gamier (Ibid., XV. p.
105 ;) M. Chevalier, Th. Fix (Ibid., xiii, p. 121 ; x, p. 41) ; de la

PREVENTIVE CHARITY. 349
will not he efficaciously guaranteed, he will not obtain
advantageous conditions from his master except in
proportion to the intelligence and fitness which he
can manifest in his service, and the perfection of the
work which he can offer to him -,1 he will not be pro
tected from the dangers of being unemployed, ex
cept in as far as he can appreciate the causes which
stimulate or retard the movements of labor, and, by
the development of his inventive faculties, shall be
able to pass easily from one occupation to another ;
when one branch of industry fails him, to create new
ones and secure' new sources of profit2 The elemen
tary instruction, then, which he receives in our
schools, is not enough. It is necessary, without scien
tific apparatus, but with a wholly practical clearness
Farelle, du Progr. social p. 41 ; E. Buret, ub. sup., etc. Buret
calls education "the moral baptism of man." The Academie
Franchise has long since proclaimed the same truth. (Ree des
Discours, ann. 1834, p. 714, etc.)
1 In our days, the working-man, the most honest clerk, the most
intelligent, is frequently associated in the profits of his employer.
In Prussia, the overseers of estates often receive as an encourage
ment, besides their fixed salaries, a certain part on the neat product.
In other places, manufacturers secure for their most recommend-
able workmen premiums taken from the annual profits. It is from
the extension of those various usages that man can, until a solid
establishment of industrial associations be founded, hope for the
progressive emancipation of the working class, the reconciliation
of capital with work. "In proportion," Bays Rossi, "as intelli
gence is more required in works, salaries tend to be converted into
profits." (Cours. d'ieon. pol, III. Stances del' Acad, des sc. mor,
1851, p. 326. Journal des Eeon., XII.- p. 242. See the example
of the company at Orleans, quoted by M. Chevalier, Organ, du
Trav., p. 276.)
2 Rossi, ub. sup., I. p. 319.
30

350 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
and precision, to teach him the general principles of
domestic and social economy,1 and the technical
knowledge proper to render him skilful in the
exercise of his business.2 It is necessary, above all,
by a good method of instruction, to develop in him
the habits and the faculty of reflection, to form in
him, by this means, a sure judgment which will guide
him in all the circumstances of his life, make him
healthily appreciate his position, foresee and avoid
the chances which threaten him, calculate the conse
quences of his determinations, and discern good from
evil counsels.3 But what is more necessary than all
that, is, to prevent in him, by education, the vices en
gendered by misery,4 to inculcate in him the virtues
of his estate, marked with the seal of religion : labor,
the foundation of all the others; probity, which
claims confidence ; justice, the indispensable bond of
associations ; temperance, which preserves to the
1 Journ. des Eeon., pass, Rossi, ub. sup., p. 397 ; Willm, Educ.
dupeuple, c. 5, \ 14, 15 ; de la Farelle, II. 4, etc, ub. sup.
2 Locke had already insisted upon this point and proposed the
foundation of working-schools. Following his maxims, the indus
trial schools in England, known by the name of Mechanic's Insti
tutions, the imitation of which is strongly recommended in France,
were instituted. (Revue des Deux-Mondes, March, 1850 ; de la
Farelle, ub. sup., p. 310, seq.; Th. Fix, Journal des Econom., XII.
p. 296 ; XXIII. p. 30, etc.)
3 It is especially for that purpose that Pestalozzi has established
his system of teaching, the appreciation of which, under this point
of view, was put up for competition by the Acad, of mor. politic
and sciences. See the. Report in the Compte Prendu of the
Sessions of that Academy, ann. 1850.
* " Misery," says M. Chevalier, " will lose ground only on con
dition that morality will gain it."

PREVENTIVE CHARITY. 351
workman his faculties and his forces ; economy, which
makes him free by the creation of a capital ; prudence,
which leads him to proportion his expenses to his
resources ; the just desire of ameliorating his position,
with the fixed design of tending to it only by legiti
mate ways ; submission to inevitable privations, with
the elasticity which ever urges him on to perfection.
Such is the direction which private charity ought to
strive to impress upon the instruction in the schools
which it creates for the people.1
As for the State, we do not pretend to deny the
part which it may claim in popular instruction. It
can, in still other respects, second the action of
charity. It can, in times of extraordinary crises,
employ on the public works the workmen thrown out
of employment. It can, as a means of regeneration,
and at the same time of repression, found agricultural
colonies for discharged prisoners, and workhouses for
beggars. It can exercise a useful oversight over ap
prenticeships as well as over the work to which
children are held in manufactories.2 It can, again, in
default of sufficient private associations, constitute
itself, provisionally, the depository and guaranty of
the savings of the working man, the treasurer of
assurance for families.3
1 See on this subject the reflections of Griin, de la Moralisation
des cl labor., Paris, 1851.
2 See the law of 1841.
3 It is in that spirit that the most of the measures proposed by
the Commission de Secours, and adopted by the National Assembly,
have been conceived. (See the Reports of Thiers, Moniteur of 27th
Jan, 1850, and of Melun, Ann. de la chariti, March, 1851 ;) par
ticularly the funds of retreat and insurance for working-men,
created by the law of the 18th of June, 1850.

352 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
But, in general, for all the methods within the
province of benevolence, an indirect action is that
which appears to us best suited to the State. Let us
recall again, here, the experience of the first centuries.
As much as the Christian emperors failed, when they
attempted, by positive and direct measures, to relieve
or banish misery, so much was their action salutary,
when they limited themselves, in the sphere of their
functions, to the repression of injustice, the protec
tion of the feeble, the support of right, the retrench
ment or restraint of abuses which endangered the
prosperity of their people.1
Let the Christian governments work to-day in the
same spirit. With all necessary prudence, but with
an indefatigable perseverance, let them apply them
selves to the destruction of the .abuses which per
petuate misery, to the suppression of injurious re
straints, unjust monopolies and ruinous protections;
let them cease from lavishing in puerile festivities,
from consuming in the struggles of ambition or of
false points of honor, the resources of their subjects.
Let the imposts, reduced to what the indispensable
services of the State require, weigh less heavily upon
the indigent. Let the machinery of society be sim
plified, the fiscal laws modified, so as to render
property more accessible to those most capable of
turning it to profit, and, thus, less tributary to the
1 "Fraternity," says Troplong, "tempers the character of legis
lation, and brings mankind into precepts ; it inspires the power
with benevolence and equity ; it wants it to have justice as a
principle, and the general welfare as an end." (De la propr.
d'apres le Cod. Civ., p. 66.)

PREVENTIVE CHARITY. 353
government and lawyers.1 Let the savings of the
workman be a sacred treasure, against which, under
pain of public execration, no one dare lift a hand.
To see to security, internal and external, to protect
the rights of all, to guarantee the property, the liberty,
and life of each citizen, such is the object of civil
society, the end for which governments are established.
Let them fulfil this mission with a scrupulous con
stancy ; let them hold in check evil passions, and it
is not to the rich only that their firmness will be of
profit; under favor of the public confidence which
they will promote, capital will circulate, industry
will flourish ; labor will have all its energies ; the
pbor, himself, assured of gathering and transmitting
the fruits of it, and, at the same time, protected from
the temptation and the hope of political subversions,
will expect his prosperity only from his own good and
loyal efforts ; he will give himself entirely to his task,
and will close his ears to those who flatter him with
views other than his happiness. -
It is thus that I understand the action of govern
ments for the gradual extinction of misery. Let us
not charge them with more extended cares. They
will do enough for charity if they solidly establish the
reign of justice; they will make enough rich, if they
make no poor, do enough good if they hinder evil.
But does any one think that this course, to be em
braced with courage and achieved with perseverance,
exacts, especially in our days, less of devotedness, of
1 Sismondi, Etud. sur V icon pol., I. p. 106; M. Chevalier, (Rev.
des Deux-Mondes, July, 1850 ;) Villeneuve, Eeon. pol. chr., I. p. 314.
30*

354 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
self-denial, of charity, in a word, than the most of the
deeds to which this title is habitually reserved ?
Charity under all its forms, in all its manifestations,
has, then, a great mission to fulfil in the present.
Alone, it is insufficient ; we have acknowledged it ;
but, seconded by civilization and labor, it can do
much more to-day than in the first centuries. Its in
fluence was reduced then to a more equal distribution
of resources, which diminished from day to day. Now
by exciting and directing the researches of science, by
placing the poor on a way which ought to conduct
him to a state of well-being ; in lending to him the
co-operation of its proper individual and collective
activity, in removing, little by little, the obstacles
which come from the social system, charity can suc
ceed in always circumscribing, and in insensibly
destroying the scourge of misery. It is with joy that
we see this truth better and better recognized in our
times. To-day charity is worthily avenged of the
disdain of its detractors. It is no longer the preachers,
the moralists who proclaim its necessity, and extol its
benefits; it obtains the suffrages even of the econo
mists ; it sees, inscribed in the list of its admirers, the
names of the most distinguished men of science.1
" Yes," some discouraged spirits will say, " Christian
1 Duchatel, De la char., p. 335, seq. ; Sismondi, Etudes, intr, p.
10, seq. ; Villeneuve, Eeon. pol. chr., intr, p. 88, III. p. 583 ; Droz,
Pensies sur le Christ, p. 134 ; Cousin, Justice et Chariti, p. 66 ;
Thiers, de la propr., p. 318, etc. " The part which fraternity has
played in the world is immense," says Chevalier ; " that left to her
is magnificent. There is more virtue for the amelioration of the
existence of the feeble in these words: 'Love each other, like
brothers,' than in any capital created or to be created." (Revue
des Deux-Mondes, July 15th, 1850.)

PREVENTIVE CHARITY. 355
charity, doubtless, has great secrets, and is capable
of great things ; but, where is it, to-day ? It has dis
appeared with faith. Never was it more necessary,
and never more rare. Attempt, to-day, with the
eloquence of a St. Cyprian and of a St. Basil, to
obtain the least of the devotedness which they for
merly obtained."
Let us not confound the motives of charity with
charity itself. Each age has its means of persuasion,
its principles of action which are peculiar to it. True,
we can hardly expect, in these days, to see rich men,
persuaded that the world is about to be destroyed,
seeking to redeem their past faults by the entire
abandonment of their property. That even is hardly
to be desired. But, if some of the motives, which
formerly animated charity, have lost their influence,
others, even by their sublimity, are destined to obtain
still more than they ever had. God, the father and
protector of all the human race ; all men united in
Him by the bonds of a close fraternity; the love of our
equals, inseparable from the love of God ; our present
and future happiness, proportioned to the energy of
this double love ; beneficence, the necessary conse
quence, the natural expression of all lively and
sincere charity ; these are truths which, for being
ancitent, have lost nothing of their certainty, and
which furnish an unshakable basis to this duty. Pro
claimed by the greatest Author of Revelation, sealed
with his blood, shown upon the cross, confessed by
all eminent minds and elevated souls for eighteen
centuries, dear to the Christian, recognized by all
true philosophers, in accordance with the dearest
notions of our intelligence, and with the noblest in-

356 PAST AND FUTURE OF CHARITY.
stincts of our hearts, confirmed by all that experience
and sane reason reveal to us of the designs of Pro
vidence, far from having anything to fear from the.
progress of the age, they are destined to shine with
an ever-increasing brightness, as men become en
lightened. The only thing, then, is to cause these
truths to enter deeply into the mind of the people.
Let public and private education inculcate them to
youth ; let the ministers of religion give them em
phasis in their instructions ; let the learned, whose
influence has contributed but too much to enfeeble
them, apply themselves to make them evident
Finally, let all those who have the happiness of re
cognizing them, confess them openly and manifest
them in their deeds ; and, if charity no more effects
the same prodigies as formerly, it will work out still
more marvellous, and, above all, more fruitful and
more durable ones ; to it will be due not only the
relief, but the elevation of the suffering classes, their
attainment to an increasing state of ease, of well-
being, of independence and of morality.
To the work, then ! The times urge, not because
of the dangers which misery could beget ; if our sole
aim was to conjure them, perhaps already it would be
too late; the times urge, because our brothers suffer,
and it will never be soon enough to relieve them.
Were the shocks which still threaten social order to
reach us to-morrow, to-day even, it is necessary to
labor for the good of the disinherited classes: we
must do for them, and for God in them, what it would
be no longer time to do for ourselves.
THE END.

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