The origin and development of the moral ideas

Almsgiving, prayer, and fasting were the three cardinal disciplines which the synagogue transmitted to both the Christian Church and the Muhammedan mosque.211 According to Islam, the duty next in importance to prayer is that of giving alms.212 Muhammed repeatedly announces that the path which leads to God is the helping of the orphans and the relieving of the poor.213 “Ye cannot attain to righteousness until ye expend in alms of what ye love.”214 “Those who expend their wealth by night and day, secretly and openly, they shall have their hire with their lord.”215 It is said that “prayer carries us half-way to God, fasting brings us to the door of His palace, and alms procure us admission.”216 Certain alms, called Zakât, are prescribed by law; it is an indispensable duty for every Muhammedan of full age to bestow in charity about one-fortieth of all such property as has been a year in his possession, provided that he has sufficient for his subsistence and has an income equivalent to about £5 per annum.217 Other charitable gifts are voluntary, and confer merit upon the giver.

By Christianity charity of the religious type which we find in the East was introduced into Europe. We have certainly no reason to blame the ancient Greeks and Romans for neglecting their poor. Among them slavery in a great measure replaced pauperism; and what slavery did for the very poor, the Roman system of clientage did for those of a somewhat higher rank.218 Moreover, the relief of the indigent was an important function of the State.219 The Areopagus provided public works for the poor.220 At Rome gratuitous distribution of corn was the rule for many centuries;221 agrarian laws furnished free homesteads to the landless, on conquered or public territory;222 since the days of Nerva a systematic support of poor children was enjoined in all the cities of Italy.223 A few examples of private charity, also, have descended to us already from early times, such as Epaminondas collecting dowers for poor girls,224 and Cimon feeding and clothing the poor;225 and from the days of the Pagan Empire there are recorded several cases of individual beneficence. Charitable bequests are alluded to in the burial inscriptions; when some great catastrophe happened, relief was willingly given to the sufferers; private infirmaries were established for slaves.226 The duty of charity was forcibly enjoined by some of the moralists.

The wise man, says Seneca, “will dry the tears of others, but will not mingle his own with them; he will stretch out his hand to the shipwrecked mariner, will offer hospitality to the exile, and alms to the needy.”227 But his alms are not thrown away by chance; his purse will open easily, but never leak. He will choose out the worthiest with the utmost care, and never give without sufficient reason; for unwise gifts must be reckoned among foolish extravagances.228 So also Cicero, whilst styling beneficence and liberality “virtues that are the most agreeable to the nature of man,” is anxious to warn his readers against imprudence in practising them, “lest our kindness should hurt both those whom it is meant to assist, and others.”229

In a very different light was charity viewed by the Christians. Unlimited open-handedness became a cardinal virtue. An ideal Christian was he who did what Jesus commanded the young man to do: who went and sold what he had and gave it to the poor.230 Promiscuous almsgiving was enjoined as a duty:—“Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.”231 The discharge of this duty was even more profitable to the giver than to the receiver. There is perhaps no precept in the Gospel to which a promise of recompense is so frequently annexed as to that concerning charity. Eternal life is promised to those who feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, take in the stranger, clothe the naked, visit the sick.232 Charity was regarded as an atonement. “God,” says St. Augustine, “is to be propitiated through alms for sins past”;233 and countless times is the thought expressed, that almsgiving is a safe investment of money at good interest with God in heaven.234 Cyprian, who is the father of the Romish doctrine of good works, establishes an arithmetical relation between the number of alms-offerings and the blotting out of sins.235 “The food of the needy,” says Leo the Great, “is the purchase-money of the kingdom of heaven.”236 “As long as the market lasts,” says St. Chrysostom, “let us buy alms, or rather let us purchase salvation through alms.”237 The rich man is only a debtor; all that he possesses beyond what is necessary, belongs to the poor, and ought to be given away.238 The poor, no longer looked down upon, became instruments of salvation.

To them was given the first place in the Church and in the Christian community. St. Chrysostom says of them, “As fountains flow near the place of prayer that the hands that are about to be raised to heaven may be washed, so were the poor placed by our fathers near to the door of the Church, that our hands might be consecrated by benevolence before they are raised to God.”239 Gregory the Great announces, and the Middle Ages re-echo, “The poor are not to be lightly esteemed and despised, but to be honoured as patrons.”240 Thus it happened that even in the darkest periods, when all other Christian virtues were nearly extinct, charity survived unimpaired.241 Later on Protestantism, by denying the atoning effect of good deeds, deprived charity of a great deal of its religious attraction. And in modern times the enlightened opinion on the subject, recognising the demoralising influence of indiscriminate almsgiving, rather agrees with the principles laid down by Cicero and Seneca, than with the literal interpretation of the injunctions of Christ.