The origin and development of the moral ideas

The chief cause, however, of the extraordinary stress which the higher religions put on the duty of charity seems to lie in the connection between almsgiving and sacrifice. When food is offered as a tribute to a god, the god is supposed to enjoy its spiritual part only, whilst the substance of it is left behind and is eaten by the poor. And when the offering is continued in ceremonial survival in spite of the growing conviction that, after all, the deity does not need and cannot profit by it,301 the poor become the natural heirs of the god, and the almsgiver inherits the merit of the sacrificer. The chief virtue of the act, then, lies in the self-abnegation of the donor, and its efficacy is measured by the “sacrifice” which it costs him.

Many instances may be quoted of sacrificial food being left for the poor or being distributed among them. At Scillus, where Xenophon had built an altar and a temple to Artemis and a sacrifice was afterwards made every year, the goddess supplied the poor people living there in tents with “barley-meal, bread, wine, sweetmeats, and a share of the victims offered from the sacred pastures, and of those caught in hunting.”302 According to Yasna, sacrifices to Mazda were given to his poor.303 In ancient Arabia the poor were allowed to partake of the meal-offering which was laid before the god Uqaiçir.304 In Zinder, in the Soudan, there are some trees, regarded as divine, to which annual offerings of bullocks, sheep, and so forth, are made, “though the poor of the country get the benefit of them.”305 In Morocco even animals which are killed as ʿâr—a sacrifice embodying a conditional curse—on departed saints or living people, with a view to compelling them to grant a request, are commonly eaten by the poor, though nobody else would dare to partake of them.

In other cases we find that almsgiving is itself regarded as a form of sacrifice, or takes the place of it. In the sacred books of India the two things are repeatedly mentioned side by side. “The householder offers sacrifices, the householder practises austerities, the householder distributes gifts.”306 Of a Brâhmana who has completed his studentship it is said, “Let him always practise, according to his ability, with a cheerful heart, the duty of liberality, both by sacrifices and by charitable works, if he finds a worthy recipient for his gifts.”307 “In the Krita age the chief virtue is declared to be the performance of austerities, in the Tretâ divine knowledge, in the Dvâpara the performance of sacrifices, in the Kali liberality alone.”308 In the Egyptian ‘Book of the Dead’ the soul, on approaching to the gods who are in the Tuat, pleads:—“I have done that which man prescribeth and that which pleaseth the gods. I have propitiated the god with that which he loveth. I have given bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, a boat to the shipwrecked.

I have made oblations to the gods and funeral offerings to the departed.”309 In the Zoroastrian prayer Ahuna-Vairya, to which great efficacy is ascribed, it is said, “He who relieves the poor makes Ahura king.”310 In the Koran almsgiving is often mentioned in connection with prayer;311 and the Zakât, or alms prescribed by law, is regarded by the Muhammedans as a fundamental part of their religion, hence infidels, who cannot perform acceptable worship, have nothing to do with these alms.312 Among the Muhammedans of India it is common for men and women to vow “that when what they desire shall come to pass, they will, in the name of God, the Prophet, his companions, or some wullee, present offerings and oblations.” One of these offerings, called “an offering unto God,” consists in preparing particular victuals, and in “distributing them among friends and the poor, and giving any sort of grain, a sacrificed sheep, clothes, or ready-money in alms to the indigent.”313 When the destruction of the Temple with its altar filled the Jews with alarm as they thought of their unatoned sins, Johanan ben Zakkai comforted them by saying, “You have another means of atonement, as powerful as the altar, and that is the work of charity, for it is said: ‘I desired mercy, and not sacrifice.’”314 Many other passages show how closely the Jews associated almsgiving with sacrifice. “He that giveth alms sacrificeth praise.”315 “As sin-offering makes atonement for Israel, so alms for the Gentiles.”316 “Almsdeeds are more meritorious than all sacrifices.”317 An orphan is called an “altar to God.”318 And

as a sacrificer should be a person of a godly character, so it is better to perish by famine than to receive an oblation from the ungodly.319 Alms were systematically collected in the synagogues, and officers were appointed to make the collection.320 So, also, among the early Christians the collection of alms for the relief of the poor was an act of the Church life itself. Almsgiving took place in public worship, nay formed itself a part of worship. Gifts of natural produce, the so-called oblations, were connected with the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. They were offered to God as the first-fruits of the creatures (primitiæ creaturarum), and a prayer was said:—“O Lord, accept also the offerings of those who to-day bring an offering, as Thou didst accept the offerings of righteous Abel, the offering of our father Abraham, the incense of Zachariah, the alms of Cornelius, and the two mites of the widow.” These oblations were not only used for the Lord’s Supper, but they formed the chief means for the relief of the poor.

They were regarded as sacrifice in the most special sense; and, as no unclean gift might be laid upon the Lord’s altar, profit made from sinful occupations was not accepted as an oblation, neither were the oblations of impenitent sinners.321 The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks of almsgiving as a sacrifice of thanksgiving which continues after the Jewish altar has been done away with.322 Like sacrifice, almsgiving is connected with prayer, as a means of making the prayer efficacious and furnishing it with wings; the angel said to Cornelius, “Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.”323 When the Christians were reproached for having no sacrifices, Justin wrote, “We have been taught that the only honour that is worthy of Him is not to consume by fire what He has brought into being for our sustenance, but to use it for ourselves and those who need.”324 So, also, Irenæus observes that sacrifices are not abolished in the New Testament, though their form is indeed altered, because they are no longer offered by slaves, but by freemen, of which just the oblations are the proof.325 And God has enjoined on Christians this sacrifice of oblations, not because He needs them, but “in order that themselves might be neither unfruitful nor ungrateful.”326 St. Augustine says, “The sacrifice of the Christians is the alms bestowed upon the poor.”327

The objection will perhaps be raised that I have here tried to trace back the most beautiful of all religious virtues to a magical and ritualistic origin without taking into due account the benevolent feelings attributed to the Deity. But in the present connection I have not had to show why charity, like other human duties, has been sanctioned by religious beliefs, but why, in the ethics of the higher religions, it has attained the same supreme importance as is otherwise attached only to devotional exercises. And this is certainly a problem by itself, for which the belief in a benevolent god affords no adequate explanation. That the religious duty of charity is not merely an outcome of the altruistic sentiment is well illustrated by the fact that Zoroastrianism, whilst exalting almsgiving to the rank of a cardinal virtue, at the same time excludes the sick man from the community of the faithful until he has been cured and cleansed according to prescribed rites.328