AND CHARITIES 13 or million sesterces, as security for the debt. The interest Between them it was natural that a relation, partly on the14emperor’s money at 5 per cent, was paid into the municipal hospitable, partly charitable, should grow up. The clients treasury, and out of it the children were relieved The hgures who attended the patron at his house were invited to dine seem small; at Yeleia 300 children were assisted, of whom 36 girls. The annual interest amounted to nearly £204, at his table. The patron, as Juvenal describes him, dined were divided among 300 gives about 13'6s. a head. Ihe figures luxuriously and in solitary grandeur, while the guests put which suggest that the money served as a charitable supplementation of up with what they could get; or, as was usual under the the citizens’ relief in direct aid of the children. Apparently the empire, instead of the dinner (ccena recta) a present of scheme was widely adopted. Curators of high position were the
- procurators acted as inspectors over large areas ; and
food was given at the outer vestibule of the house to clients patrons qucestores alimentarii undertook the local management. Antowho brought with them baskets (sportula) to carry off ninus Pius (a.d. 138), and Marcus Aurelius (a.d. 160), and their food, or even charcoal stoves to keep it warm. There subsequently Severus (a.d. 192), established these bursaries for was endless trickery. The patron (or almoner who acted children in the names of their wives. In the 3rd century the fell into disorder. There were large arrears of payments, for him) tried to identify the applicant, fearing lest he system in the military anarchy that ensued it came to an end. It might get the dole under a false name; and at each and is of special interest, as indicating a new feeling of responsibility mansion was kept a list of persons, male and female, towards children akin to the humane Stoicism of the Antonmes, entitled to receive the allowance. “ The pilferer grabs the and an attempt to found, apart from temples or collegia, what dole ” (sportulam furunculus captat) was a proverb. The was in the nature of a public endowed charity. sportula was a charity sufficiently important for state Part IV.—Jewish and Christian Charity. regulation. Nero (a.d. 54) reduced it to a payment in With Christianity two elements come into fusion, the money (100 quadrantes, about Is.). Domitian (a.d. 81) Jewish and the Greco-Roman. To trace this fusion and restored the custom of giving food. Subsequently both practices—gifts in money and in food—appear to have its results it is necessary to describe the Jewish systein of charity, and to compare it with that of the early Christian been continued. _ church,’ to note the theory of charity in Aristotle as reIn these conditions the Roman family steadily decayed. presenting Greek, and in St Paul as representing ChrisIts “ old discipline” was neglected ; and Tacitus (a.d. 75), tian thought, and to mark the Roman influences which in his dialogue on Oratory, wrote (c. xxviii.) what might moulded the administration of Ambrose and Gregory and be called its epitaph. Of the general decline the laws ot Western Christianity generally. Caesar and Augustus to encourage marriage and to reward In the early history of the Hebrews we find the family, the parents of large families are sufficient evidence. clan-family, and tribe. With the Exodus (probably about The destruction of the working-class family must have 1390 b.c.) comes the law of Moses (cf. Kittel, fj t, e rew been finally achieved by the. imperial control of the Hist, of the Hebrews, Eng. trans., i. 244), the charity. collegia. central and permanent element of J ewish thought. In old Rome there were corporations of craftsmen for common We may compare it to the “ commandments ” of Hesiod. worship and for the maintenance of the traditions of the crait. These corporations were ruined by slave labour, There is the recognition of the family and its obligations. The and becoming secret societies, in the time ol “Honour thy father and mother”; and honour included help collegia. Augustus were suppressed. Subsequently they were and support. There is also the law essential to family unity. reorganized, and gave scope for much ot the kindly charity of mutual help. They often existed in connexion with “ Thou shalt not commit adultery ”; and as to property some great house, whose chief was their patron and whose house- there is imposed the regulation of desire : “ Thou shalt hold gods they worshipped. The guilds of the poor, or rather of not covet thy neighbour’s house.” Maimonides (a.d. 1135), the lower orders {collegia tenuiorum), consisted of artisans and true to the old conception of the family (x. 16), calls the others, and slaves also, who paid monthly contributions to a support of adult children, “after one is exempt from common fund to meet the expenses of worship, common meals, and funerals. Under Severus (a.d. 192) the collegia were ex- supporting them,” and the support of a lather or mothei tended, and more closely organized as industrial bodies. I hey by a child, “great acts of charity; since kindred are were protected and controlled, as m England in the 15th entitled to the first consideration.” To relief of the century the municipalities affected the cause of the craft guilds stranger the Decalogue makes no reference, but m the law and ended by controlling them. Industrial disorder was thus prevented : the Government were able to provide the supplies it is constantly pressed; while the Levitical law^ (xix. 18) required in Rome and the large cities with less risk and un- first applies a new standard to social life : “ Thou shalt certainty ; and the workmen employed in trade, especially love thy neighbour as thyself.” This thought is the outthe carrying trade, became almost slaves. In the 2nd come of a deep ethical fervour—the element which the century, and until the invasions, there were three groups of cnlleaia * (1) those engaged in various state manufactures , (2) Jews brought into the work of charity. In Judges and those engaged in the provision trade ; and (3) the free trades, Joshua, the “Homeric” books of the Old Testament, the which gradually lapsed into a kind of slavery If the members Hebrews appear as a passionately fierce and cruel people. of these guilds fled they were brought back by force. Parents Subsequently against their oppression of the poor the had to keep to the trade to which they belonged ; their children had to succeed them in it. A slave caste indeed had been formed prophets protested with a vehemence as great as the evil was intense; and their denunciations remained part of of the once free workmen. As a charitable protest against the destruction of the national literature, a standing argument that life children, in the midst of a broken family life, and without charity is nothing worth. Thus schooled and increasing dependence and poverty, a special afterwards tutored into discipline by the tribulation ot Puerl institution was founded (to use the Scottish the exile (587 b.c.), they turned their fierceness into a allmen- worcG f0r the “alimentation” of the children zeal, which, as their literature shows, was as fervent m In the taril ' of citizens, at first by voluntary charity, and ethics as it was in religion and ceremonial. services at the synagogues, which supplemented and afterafterwards by imperial bounty. wards took the place of the Temple, the Commandments Nerva and Trajan adopted the plan. Pliny (Ap. vii. 18) refers to it. There was a desire to give more lasting and certain help were constantly repeated and the Law and the Prophets than an allotment of food to parents. A list ot children, whose read; and as the Jews of the Dispersion increased in names were on the relief tables at Rome, was accordingly drawn number, and especially after the destruction of Jerusalem, up and a special service for their maintenance established. Two the synagogues became centres of social and chai ita e instances are recorded in inscriptions-one at Yeleia, one at Beneventum. The emperor lent money for the purpose at a co-operation. Thus rightly would a Jewish rabbi say, low percentage—2^ or 5 per cent., as against the usual 10 or 12. “On three things the world is stayed: on the J-horab, At Yeleia his loan amounted to 1,044,000 sesterces about £8156 and on worship, and on the bestowal of kindness.” Also and 51 of the local landed proprietors mortgaged land, alucd at
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CHARITY
