Note 973 — Chapter X · THE INCOME OF THE CLERGY.

“Till toward the end of the first four hundred [years] no payment of them [i. e. tithes] can be proved to have been in use. Some opinion is of their being due, and constitutions also, but such as are of no credit. For the first, ’tis best declared by showing the course of the church-maintenance in that time. So liberal in the beginning of Christianity was the devotion of the believers, that their bounty to the evangelical priesthood far exceeded what the tenth could have been. For if you look to the first of the Apostles’ times, then the unity of heart among them about Jerusalem, was such that all was in common and none wanted, ‘and as many as were possessors of lands or houses, sold them and brought the price of the things that were sold, and laid it down at the Apostles’ feet, and it was distributed unto every man, according as he had need[a].’And the whole church, both lay and clergy, then lived in common as the monks did afterward about the end of the first four hundred years as St. Chrysostome notes[b] οὕτως, says he, οἱ ἐν τοῖς μοναστηρίοις ζῶσι νῦν ὥσπερ τότε οἱ πιστοὶ, that is, ‘So they live now in monasteries as then the believers lived.’ But this kind of having all things in common scarce at all continued. For we see not long after in the church of Antiochia (where Christianity was first of all by that name professed) every one of the disciples had a special ability or estate of his own[c]. So in Galatia and in Corinth where St. Paul ordained that weekly offerings for the Saints should be given by every man as he had thrived in his estate[d]. By example of these, the course of monthly offerings succeeded in the next ages. These monthly offerings given by devout and able Christians, the bishops or officers appointed in the church received[e]; and carefully and charitably disposed them on Christian worship, the maintenance of the clergy, feeding, clothing, and burying their poor brethren, widows, orphans, persons tyrannically condemned to the mines, to prison, or punished by deportation into isles. They were called Stipes (which is a word borrowed from the use of the heathens in their collections made for their temples and deities), neither were they exacted by canon or otherwise, but arbitrarily given; as by testimony of most learned Tertullian[f], that lived about CC years after Christ, is apparent: ‘Neque pretio (are his words) ulla res Dei constat. Etiam si quod arcae genus est, non de oneraria summa quasi redemptae religionis congregatur, modicam unusquisque Stipem, menstruâ die, vel cum velit, et si modo velit, et si modo possit, apponit. Nam nemo compellitur, sed sponte confert. Haec quasi deposita pietatis sunt.’ And then he shewes the employment of them in those charitable uses. Some authority is[g], that about this time lands began also to be given to the church. If they were so, out of the profits of them, and this kind of offerings, was made a treasure; and out of that, which was increased so monthly, was a monthly pay given to the priests and ministers of the Gospel (as a salarie for their service), and that either by the hand or care of the bishop, or of some elders appointed as Oeconomi or Wardens. These monthly pays they called Mensurnae divisiones, as you may see in St. Cyprian[h], who wrote, being bishop of Carthage, about the year CCL, and, speaking familiarly of this use, calls the brethren that cast in their monthly offerings, fratres sportulantes, understanding the offerings under the word Sportulae, which at first in Rome denoted a kind of running banquets distributed at great men’s houses to such as visited for salutation, which being ofttimes also given in money, the word came at length to signify both those salaries, wages or fees which either judges[i] or ministers of courts of justice received as due to their places, as also to denote the oblations given to make a treasure for the salaries and maintenance of the ministers of the church in this primitive age, and to this purpose was it also used in later times[j]. But because that passage of St. Cyprian, where he uses this phrase, well shows also the course of the maintenance of the church in his time, take it here transcribed: but first know the drift of his Epistle to be a reprehension of Geminius Faustinus a priest his being troubled with the care of a wardship, whereas such as take that dignity upon them, should, he says, be free from all secular troubles like the Levites, who were provided for in tithes. ‘Ut qui (as he writes[k]) operationibus divinis insistebant, in nulla re avocarentur, nec cogitare aut agere saecularia cogerentur.’ And then he adds: ‘Quae nunc ratio et forma in Clero tenetur, ut qui in ecclesia Domini ad ordinationem clericalem promoventur, nullo modo ab administratione divina avocentur, sed in honore sportulantium fratrum, tanquam Decimas ex fructibus accipientes, ab Altari et Sacrificiis non recedant, et die ac nocte coelestibus rebus et spiritualibus serviant;’ which plainly agrees with that course of monthly pay, made out of the oblations brought into the Treasury; which kind of means he compares to that of the Levites, as being proportionable. But hence also ’tis manifest, that no payment of tithes was in St. Cyprian’s time in use, although some, too rashly, from this very place would infer so much, those words tanquam Decimas accipientes (which continues the comparing of ministers of the Gospel with the Levites) plainly exclude them. And elsewhere also the same Father, finding fault with a coldness of devotion that then possest many, in regard of what was in use in the Apostles’ times, and seeing that the Oblations given were less than usually before, expresses[l] their neglect to the church with, ‘ac nunc de patrimonio nec Decimas damus:’ whence, as you may gather, that no usual payment was of them, so withall observe in his expression, that the liberality formerly used had been such, that, in respect thereof, Tenths were but a small part: understand it as if he had said, ‘but now we give not so much as any part worth speaking of.’ Neither for aught appears in old monuments of credit, till near the end of this first four hundred years, was any payment to the Church of any tenth part, as a Tenth, at all in use.” Selden on Tithes, cap. iv. p. 35 seq..

a. Acts iv. 34.

b. Hom. 11. in Acta.

c. Acts xi. 29.

d. 1 Cor. xvi. 2. Ockam, in Oper. xc dierum, cap. 107.

e. Synod. Gangr. can. lxvi.

f. Apologetic. cap. 39, 42.

g. Urban, i. in Epist. c. 12, q. 1, c. 16, i. Sed et vide Euseb. Eccles. Hist. lib. 9. cap. 9. Edict. Maximin. et lib. 10. cap. 5. Edict. Constant. et in lib. 2. de vita Constantini, cap. 39.

h. Cyprian, Epist. 27, 34: et vide Epist. 36, editione Pammeliana.

i. Papinian. de Decurion. L 6. § 1. et C. tit. de Sportulis. Et vid. Glossar. Græc. iuris in Σπορτουλα.

j. Concil. Chalced. A.D. 451. in libell. Samuelis et al. contra Iban. et videsis tom. 3. Concil. fol. 231. cap. 31. Edit. Binii penultima.

k. Epist. 266. ed. Pammel.

l. De Unitate Ecclesiae, § 23.