y
gluttony, drunkenness, or idleness, he does not deserve assistance, or
to be esteemed a member of the church." The widow assumes the position
not only of a recipient of alms, but a church worker. Some were a
private charge, some were maintained by the church. The recognized
"widow" was maintained: she was to be sixty years of age (cf. 1 Tim, v.
9 and _Ap. Con._ iii. 1), and was sometimes tempted to become a
bedes-woman and gossipy pauper, if one may judge from the texts.
Remarriage was not approved. Orphans were provided for by members of the
churches. The virgins formed another class, as, contrary to the earlier
feeling, marriage came to be held a state of lesser sanctity. They too
seem to have been also, in part at least, church workers. Thus round the
churches grew up new groups of recognized dependents; but the older
theory of charity was broad and practical--akin to that of Maimonides.
"Love all your brethren, performing to orphans the part of parents, to
widows that of husbands, affording them sustenance with all kindliness,
arranging marriages for those who are in their prime, and for those who
are without a profession the means of necessary support through
employment: giving work to the artificer and alms to the incapable"
(_Ep._ Clem, to James viii.).

4. The Jews in pre-Christian and Talmudic times supported the stranger
or wayfarer by the distribution of food (_tamchui_); the strangers were
lodged in private houses, and there were inns provided at which no money
was taken (cf. _Jewish Life_, p. 314). Subsequently, besides these
methods, special societies were formed "for the entertainment of the
resident poor and of strangers." There were commendatory letters also.
These conditions prevailed in the Christian church also. The
_Xenodocheion_, coming by direct succession alike from Jewish and Greek
precedents, was the first form of Christian hospital both for strangers
and for members of the Christian churches. In the Christian community
the endowment charity comes into existence in the 4th century, among the
Jews not till the 13th. The charities of the synagogue without separate
societies sufficed.

Greek, Jewish and Christian thought.

We may now compare the conceptions of Jews and Christians on charity
with those of the Greeks. There are two chief exponents of the diverse
views--Aristotle and St Paul; for to simplify the issues we refer to
them only. Thoughts such as Aristotle's, recast by the Stoic