red into discipline by the tribulation of
the exile (587 B.C.), they turned their fierceness into a zeal, which,
as their literature shows, was as fervent in ethics as it was in
religion and ceremonial. In the services at the synagogues, which
supplemented and afterwards took the place of the Temple, the
Commandments were constantly repeated and the Law and the Prophets read;
and as the Jews of the Dispersion increased in number, and especially
after the destruction of Jerusalem, the synagogues became centres of
social and charitable co-operation. Thus rightly would a Jewish rabbi
say, "On three things the world is stayed: on the Thorah (or the law),
and on worship, and on the bestowal of kindness." Also there was on the
charitable side an indefinite power of expansion. Rigid in its
ceremonial, there it was free. Within the nation, as the Prophets, and
after the exile, as the Psalms show, there was the hope of a universal
religion, and with it of a universally recognized charity. St Paul
accentuated the prohibitive side of the law and protested against it;
but, even while he was so doing, stimulated by the Jewish discipline, he
was moving unfettered towards new conceptions of charity and
life--charity as the central word of the Christian life, and life as a
participation in a higher existence--the "body of Christ."

To mark the line of development, we could compare--1. The family among
the Jews and in the early Christian church; 2. The sources of relief and
the tithe, the treatment of the poor and their aid, and the assistance
of special classes of poor; 3. The care of strangers; and, lastly, we
would consider the theory of almsgiving, friendship or love, and
charity.

1. As elsewhere, property is the basis of the family. Wife and children
are the property of the father. But the wife is held in high respect. In
the post-exilian period the virtuous wife is represented as laborious as
a Roman matron, a "lady bountiful" to the poor, and to her husband wife
and friend alike. Monogamy without concubinage is now the rule--is taken
for granted as right. There is no "exposure of children." The slaves are
kindly treated, as servants rather than slaves--though in Roman times
and afterwards the Jews were great slave-traders. The household is not
allowed to eat the bread of idleness. "Six days," it was said, "_must_
[not _mayest_] thou work." "Labour, if poor; but find work, if rich."
"Whoever does not teach his son business or wo