CHURCH
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CHURCH
maintenance was prtmded for partly by royal munifi-
cence, partly by the offerings of the people. The
Temple had its treasury or corbona. By Divine com-
mand, as we read in Scripture, the Aaronic clergy
received firstfruits, tithes, and other contributions
towards their support .
Apostolic Times. — Nor was there less recognition of the general principle in the New Testament. We are told that Christ and His Apostles had a common purse for the defraying of their expenses. That this information comes to us only incidentally, through the narration of an event bearing no direct relation to it, shows that the Evangelist presumes the reader to take it for granted that there was a common purse for the expenses of Christ and His disciples. The Acts of the Apostles portray to us the fervour of the first Christians, who sold their lands and laid their proceeds at the feet of the Apostles that they might employ them for the needs of the nascent Church. Along with the support of the poor and the widow and the orphan, would also necessarily be included the sustentation of the clergy and the defraying of the expenses connected with the worship of God. Christ in sending forth His disciples to preach told them to accept what was necessary for their support from the people to whom they ministered, basing it on the general principle that the labourer is worthy of his hire (Luke, x, 7); Saint Paul states (I Cor., ix) that it is Christ's command that the faithful give temporal sustenance to the clergy. While reminding the Cor- inthians that he himself has been no charge or burden to them, he takes occasion to inculcate on them the duty of supporting their pastors. "If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great matter if we reap your carnal things? Know you not that they who work in the holy place, eat the tilings that are of the place; and that they that serve the altar, par- take with the altar? So also the Lord ordained that they who preach the Gospel, should live by the Gospel" (I Cor., ix, 11, 13-14).
Connected with this contribution towards the support of the clergy, we find Saint Paul also alluding to the similar duty of helping the poor. In the fifteenth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans he states that contributions had been made in Macedonia and Achaia for the support of the poor in Jerusalem, and that he is on his way to that city to bring the contributed relief (Rom., xv, 25-28). In like manner (I Tim., v) he speaks of the Church supporting the widows. The Apostles in fact, as we learn from the Acts, charged the deacons with the ministry to the temporal wants of the poor. The Church has always been mindful of this conjoining of the support of the clergy and of church institutions with that of the poor and suffering, and hence the regulations for setting apart sonic of the income of holders of bene- fices and the employment of church moneys for the relief of the helpless and the indigent, the widows, the orphans, and the sick.
The Early Church. — From the beginnings of the Christian Church history, as we gather it from the Fathers and early ecclesiastical writers, the faithful made voluntary offerings to defray the expenses of Divine worship and to support the clergy and the poor. Though these offerings would naturally be for the must part i 1 1 money and in kind, yet we find also property sel aside for ecclesiastical purposes. Thus the Christian cemeteries or catacombs and the
"titles" or houses where Mass was offered seem very early, even in the lifetime of the Apostles, to have become consecrated to church uses. That in the course of time they passed into the possession of the Church, and became church property in the modern sense of the term, is evident from various edicts and decrees of the Roman Emperors, as, lor example, of Aurelian and Constant inc. These show conclusively that, even in the times of persecution by pagan
rulers, the Church had lands and edifices of various
kinds in its possession. Nor was this state of tilings
confined to the city of Rome, but it was practised
and recognized all over the Roman Empire.
The Endowed Church. — When peace was given to the Church by Constantine, at the beginning of the fourth century, an era of temporal prosperity for the Church set in. As the Empire gradually became Christian, the donations for religious purposes in- creased by leaps and bounds. Constantine himself set an example for the Christian rulers who followed him, when he bestowed upon the pope the Lateran palace and erected magnificent basilicas in honour of the Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Henceforth the civil power, which had been formerly adverse to the Church, became its protector. Gifts of money and land for ecclesiastical purposes were now legally recognized, and though some of the later Roman emperors placed restrictions upon the donations of the faithful, yet the wealth of the Church rapidly increased. Whatever losses ecclesiastical property suffered by the inroads of the barbarians on the fall of the Western Roman Empire, in the last quarter of the fifth century, were made up for later, when the conquering barbarians in their turn were converted to Christianity. Edifices for Divine worship, asylums for the poor and sick, monasteries and nunneries, universities and schools, cathedral and collegiate churches, chantries and precept ories, were founded and endowed in great numbers. The spirit of faith manifested itself in conferring on the Church the means for adding becoming splendour to the celebra- tion of Divine worship and for founding benefices to support the clergy. The bitter complaint made, after the so-called Reformation, that "under the papacy giving had no end" was true to a surprising extent. Landed property became as a rule the title for the ordination of clerics. A great advantage of this system was that the clergy were not obliged to make constant demands on their flocks for the means of livelihood or to sustain worship; and only those who felt impelled to give voluntarily were looked to for offerings. It is true that the Church always insisted on the Divine law that the faithful must support their pastors, yet this support was generally provided for by perpetual foundations, not dependent on the temporary generosity of the people. The wealth of the Church at this period has sometimes been made a matter of reproach to her, but while freely admitting that abuses were possible and indeed at times unquestionable, yet this was in contraven- tion of the laws of the Church. It was never the Church's intention that her clergy should acquire property or income for the purpose of leading an indulgent or luxurious life. The saying of Saint Am- brose that the Church has wealth not in order to hoard it, but to bestow it on those who are in need of it , was always recognized as a bounden duty. Hence the canonical restrictions placed upon the holder of a benefice in the employment of his income, and the duty imposed upon him of setting aside part of it for the poor. It must not be forgotten that when the Church was wealthiest, it covered Europe with asylums and places of refuge for even - form of pov- erty and distress, and that the great landed monas- teries were also noted for their hospitality to pilgrims, their generosity to the indigent, and their zeal for education. It is also noteworthy that despite the calamitous usurpations of the civil power in many countries, which reduced the clergy to comparative indigence, yet the fervour of vocations has never been chilled by the loss of endowments and pensions. The canon law contains many severe regulations against avarice and simony in the clergy. As this is not a technical treatment of the question of church property, nothing is here said specially of the laws governing its acquisition, administration, and aliena-
