Bibliography: W J. Conybeare and J. S. Howson, Liie and Epistles of St. Paul, chap, xiii., New York, 1869; Schaff, Christian Church, i. 230-242, 436-444 (reviews the opinions); Neander, Christian Church, i. 180-188 et passim; M. Lauterburg, Der Begriff des Charisma, in A. Schlatter and H. Cremer, Beitrage zur Forderung chriatlicher Theo-
Charity Charlemagrne
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
logie. Giitersloh, 1898; A'L, iii. S2-89; DC A. i. 3-49-350; commentaries on Acts, Romans, Corinthians, and lOphesians.
CHARITY, BROTHERS OF (Fratres caritatis): A name common to several benevolent orders of the ^^'estern Church during the Middle Ages. It is applied especially to the society founded about 1280 by a landowner Guido at Joinville, the Freres de la Charifc de la bienheureuse Marie, to which Clement VI. gave an Augustinian rule and which took charge of the great Parisian hospital Les Billets from the fourteenth century until about 1640. In 1540, almost contemporaneous with the rise of the Jesuits, an order was founded in Grenada by the Portuguese Juan Ciudad, called John of God (b. 1495; d. Mar. 8, 1550), which was generally known under the name of Brothers of Charity. After a life of dissipation and wild adventures in the army of the Hungarian King Ferdinand I. in his campaigns against the Turks, John was converted by a sermon of the famous Juan d'Avila, and underwent the most excessive penances, on which account he was regarded as a madman. Learning by his own experience how the insane were treated in the hospitals of those days, he resolved to devote himself especially to the nursing of these unfortunates and others in special need. In the house which he rented at Grenada, and which became the first scene of his self-sacrificing work of love, he received only the sick from the poorest classes. Soon he gathered around himself and his first two associates, Martino and Velasco, a number of sympathetic laymen. After ten years' activity he died, and Martino took charge of the institution, which as yet had neither a written rule nor a monastic organization. The number of houses soon increased, especially after the establishment of the large hospital at Madrid, which was richly endowed by Philip II., to which others were soon added in different cities of Spain, Italy, and, after the seventeenth century, in France and Germany. The bull of authorization issued by Pius V. (Jan. 1, 1572) elevated the lay society to an order with the Augustinian rule, and placed their houses under episcopal jurisdiction, although the brethren were permitted to elect their directors (majores, not priores or abbales) and to present some of their number for the priesthood. A general chapter held at Rome by Sixtus V- prepared the outlines of the constitution of the order. These articles were first published in 1589, and were enlarged under Paul V., Alexander VII., and Clement XI. (cf. the final redaction dating from 1718, in Holstenius-Brockie, Codex regularum, vi. 293-362). The statutes included in their requirements a thorough medical knowledge on the part of the hospital staff. The secular head master and the chief tender of the sick had to be an experienced physician and surgeon, respectively. Of the eleven provinces in which the order is found, ten belong to the old world, one to America. The number of houses is at present about 120. (O. ZocKLERf.)
Bibliography: The early Vitce of John of God are given in ASB, March, i, 814-858. Consult the more modern treatments: L. Saglier, Vie de S. Jean de Dieu, arec Vhistoire . . . de la fondation et du developpement de son ordre, Paris, 1877; C. Wilmet, Lebenabeachreibung dea Johannes
von Gnll, Regensburg, 1860. Further, on the order, consult: Helyot, Ordres monastiquea, iv. 131-147; Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregalioncii, ii. 491-496.
CHARITY, CHRISTIAN : As distinguished from mere compassion, which may be but a transitory emotion or a desire without accomplishment, charity requires the cooperation of the will; it presupposes a permanent willingness to help one's neighbor in his need. If love comprehends the whole of Christian moral obligations (Rom. xiii. 9), charity is its manifestation toward our fellows, whether in temporal or in spiritual need. It is a permanent attribute of God (II Cor. i. 3), because human misery is always before his eyes, and has been operative in him from all eternity, in his plan of redemption. Under the old covenant, God, revealing himself as merciful and gracious, required his people to show mercy toward their needy brethren (Zech. vii. 9). It has, however, a deeper foundation in the New Testament. As the children of God by their brotherhood with Jesus Christ, the disciples could not but imitate the mercy of God (Luke vi. 36); he who failed in this regard showed that he was unworthy of membership in the new kingdom (Matt, xviii. 33; James ii. 13). The ethical organization of men is founded upon charity, and destroyed by its absence (Luke x. 37; Heb. ii. 17, iv. 15). Thus the true Good Samaritan is not only the model, but the source of all real charity, and his disciples show their fellowship with him by it (Matt. ix. 13; Rom. xii. 4—5). It is the characteristic difference between the Christian and the non-Christian world, which knows little of it. Nothing in primitive Christianity so struck the outside observer; even the emperor Julian was obliged to admit its force, while he strove in vain to imitate it. Step by step it did away with heathen customs — infanticide, removal of the weak and sickly, brutality to slaves; it built hospitals and asylums everywhere.
In the Roman Catholic Church, according to the development of ethics since Ambrose in the form of a system of virtues and duties, charity is considered under both heads. Thomas Aquinas reckons it among the so-called " theological virtues," and says that it is the highest of the virtues which go out to our neighbor. He enumerates seven corporal works of mercy (feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, ransoming the captive, sheltering the homeless, visiting the sick, and burying the dead), and seven spiritual (admonishing sinners, instructing the ignorant, counseling the doubtful, comforting the sorrowful, bearing wrongs patiently, forgiving all injuries, praying for the living and the dead).
(L. Lemme.)
Bibliography; The standard work is G. Uhlhorn, Die christliche Liebesthatigkeit, 3 vols., Stuttgart, 1SS2-90, Eng. transl. of vol. i., New York, 1883.
CHARITY, SISTERS OF: A name applied loosely to various female communities in the Roman Catholic Church devoted especially to the care of the sick and the poor. Some associations of this kind will be treated in the article Women, Congregations OF. Vov the Irish Sisters of Charity see English Ladies. It will be necessary here to