81. CHRISTIAN CHARITY. 355
§ 81. Christian Charity.
See the Lit. in vol. IT. % 88, p. 311 sq. CHASTEL: Etudes historiques sur ^influence de la charitt (Paris 1853, English transl., Philad. 1857— for the first three centuries). HASER : Geschichte der chrutl. Krankenpflege und Pflegerschaftcn (Berlin 1857). RATZINGER: Gesch. der christl. Armcnpflege (Freib. 18G9, a new cd. announced 1884). MORIN : ffistoire critique de la pauvrete (in the "Memoirs de 1' Academic des inscript." IV). LECKY: Hist, of Europ. Morals, ch. 4th (II. 02 sqq.). UHLHORN: Christian Charity in the Ancient Church (Stuttgart, 1881 ; Engl. transl. Lond. and N. York 1883), Book III., and his Die Christtiche Liebesthatigkdt im Mittelulter. Stuttgart, 1884. (See also his art. in Brieger's " Zeitschrift fur K. G." IV. 1). B. RIGGENBACH: Das Armenwesen der Reformation (Basel 1883). Also the articles A rmenpflege in Herzog's "Encycl."2 vol. I. G48-663 j in Wetzerand Welte's "Kirchenlex."2 vol. I. 1354-13755 Fauptriame in Lichtenberger X. 305-312 ; and Hospitals in Smith and Chectham I. 785-789.
From the cruelties of superstition and bigotry we gladly turn to the queen of Christian graces, that " most excellent gift of charity/' which never ceased to be exercised wherever the story of Christ's love for sinners was told and his golden rule repeated. It is a " bond of perfectness " that binds together all ages and sections of Christendom. It comforted the Roman empire in its hoary age and agonies of death ; and it tamed the ferocity of the barbarian invaders. It is impos sible to overestimate the moral effect of the teachin^ and
^5
example of Christ, and of St. Paul's seraphic praise of charity upon the development of this cardinal virtue in all ages and countries. AYe bow with reverence before the truly apostolic succession of those missionaries, bishops, monks, nuns, kings, nobles, and plain men and women, rich or poor, known and unknown, who, from gratitude to Christ and pure love to their fellow-men, sacrificed home, health, wealth, life itself, to humanize and Christianize savages, to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to entertain the stranger, to clothe the naked, to visit the sick, to call on the prisoner, to comfort
356 FOURTH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
the dying. We admire and honor also those exceptional saints who, in literal fulfillment or misunderstanding of the Saviour's advice to the rich youth, and in imitation of the first disciples at Jerusalem, sold all their possessions and gave them to the poor that they might become perfect. The admiration is indeed diminished, but not destroyed, if in many cases a large measure of refined selfishness was mixed with self-denial, and when the riches of heaven were the sole or chief inducement for choosing voluntary poverty on earth.
The supreme duty of Christian charity was inculcated by all faithful pastors and teachers of the gospel from the beginning. In the apostolic and ante-Nicene ages it was exercised by regular contributions on the Lord's day, and especially at the communion and the agape connected with it. Every congre gation was a charitable society, and took care of its widows and orphans, of strangers and prisoners, and sent help to distant congregations in need.1
After Constantine, when the masses of the people flocked into the church, charity assumed an institutional form, and built hospitals and houses of refuge for the strangers, the poor, the sick, the aged, the orphans.2 They appear first in the East, but soon afterwards also in the West. Fabiola founded a hospital in Rome, Pammachius one in the Portus Romanus, Paulinus one in Nola. At the time of Gregory I. there were several hospitals in Rome; he mentions also hospitals in
1 See vol. II. § 100, p. 374 sqq.
2 They are called Xenodochium and Xenodochia (%evo6o%eiov) for strangers ; ptochium or ptochotrophium (Trrw^eZor, TrruxorpoQe'iov) for the poor; orphanotrophium (bpQavo&poQelav) for orphans; brephotrophium (/UpeQorpoQeinv) for foundlings ; houses for the sick (voffOKopela, valetudinaria) ; for the aged (yepovTOKonela} • and for widows (^porpo0em) ; in Latin hospitium, hospital*, hospitalium (corresponding to the Greek gsvodoxtiov}. See Du Cange. Such institutions were unknown among the heathen; for the houses near the temples of Aesculapius were only intended for temporary shelter, not for care and at tendance. The Emperor Julian's involuntary eulogy of the charity of the " Galilseans," as he contemptuously called the Christians, and his abortive attempt to force the heathen to imitate it, are well known. See vol. III. 50.