Section: 3A3B - Public welfare
Number of quotes: 40
A.D. 381 Heretics, Pagans, and the Dawn of the Monotheistic State
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 11 Page: 50
Section: 3A3B,3A4,3C
We know of Constantine channelling corn and oil to the poor of Alexandria through the city’s bishop, and so, effectively merging the Christian duty to help the poor with the political need to prevent unrest by feeding the volatile population. In Constantinople, the Church was ordered to organize free funerals for the poor. Bishops were given the same rights as secular magistrates to free slaves. So the status of the bishop rose steadily.Within this framework, however, tensions between and within local Christian communities suddenly became important in a different way.
….
But now there might be two or more rival Christian communities in a city, each claiming the tax exemption and patronage of the emperor. Who were the ‘real’ Christians, and who decided this in any case?
Quote ID: 186
Time Periods: 4
Cambridge Ancient History Vol. XII: The Imperial Crisis and Recovery A.D. 193-324
Edited by S. A. Cook, F. E. Adcock, M. P. Charlesworth, and N. H. Baynes
Book ID: 325 Page: 621
Section: 3A3B
Moreover, with the growth of sick wards attached to Christian benevolent institutions the art of healing became in the end separated from university teaching. At the time of the great plague in the third century the Christians exhibited a devoted solicitude for the sick, while pagans were content to cast victims of the scourge into the street.
Quote ID: 7779
Time Periods: 3
Christian History Magazine: Ordinary Saints at First Church, pp. 18-20, Issue 57 Vol. XVII No. 1
E. Glenn Hinson
Book ID: 377 Page: 18/19
Section: 4A,3A3B
The example of Christians’ high moral standards and their practice of offering charity to all, regardless of social status, also made a deep impression on unbelievers. Galen (129-199), the Greek physician, in commenting on those “people called Christians,” wrote, “They include not only men but also women who refrain from cohabitating all through their lives, and they also number individuals who, in self-discipline and self-control in matters of food and drink, and in their keen pursuit of justice, have attained a pitch not inferior to that of genuine philosophy.”
Quote ID: 8247
Time Periods: 2
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 53
Section: 3A3B,4B
The costs of pagan worship could be very considerable. Fancy offerings like an ox required a city’s purse; private offerings you had to save up for, and then you sent out invitations to the feast.Around pagan shrines it was not uncommon to find a dependent population. In good times, to which Libanius looked back regretfully in the later fourth century, the temples stood open, “and there was wealth in every one, a sort of common resort for people in need.”
The kind of generosity he remembered at its grandest appears for us in the second century, in proof of the boundless ambition of mind of a provincial millionaire, “which he would, for example, often turn to the sacrificing of a hundred oxen to the goddess (Athena) on a single day, banqueting the Athenian citizen populace at the sacrifice, tribe by tribe, clan by clan; and whenever the Dionysus-festival came around, in which the image of Dionysus descends to the Academy, he would provide drink in the Ceramicus for the city residents of all sorts, including aliens, as they lay on couches of ivy leaves.” How delightful! Of course, all this was easily brought to an end.
Or placed under new management. Judaism taught concern for poverty (and who outside that tradition in the ancient world would have been recorded on his tombstone as “a lover of the poor”?). The tradition carried forward within Christianity. As the pagan temples closed, the churches opened: . . .
Julian was right to see this transfer of function to his rivals as important to their success.
Quote ID: 1451
Time Periods: 34
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 92
Section: 3A2A,3A3B
In support, their care of the poor among them is adduced, with abundant and unchallengeable testimony; even more remarkable, though less often noticed, is their care of the plague-stricken, whether or not of their own faith and at the obvious risk of their own lives. Behold an ethic of love new, taught, and at work before one’s very eyes!But it could only be displayed from parity or strength, toward the like-minded or toward suppliant sufferers. It must never involve any cost to doctrine. Anyone who asserted wrong teachings, anyone serving the devil or his demons, earned instead an equally remarkable antagonism.
Two scenes from earlier times show a readiness for mortal animosity holding sway over great churches in the very moment of attack from outside. First is Carthage in 304, where the victims of a search of the city were thrown in jail, there to suffer from their wounds and chains but also from hunger and thirst; for the jail keepers didn’t feed you, that had to be done by your friends. A hostile crowd of Christians, however, set “whips and scourges and armed men in front of the prison gates in order, by inflicting serious hurt on persons entering or leaving, to prevent them from supplying food and drink to the martyrs.”
Quote ID: 1482
Time Periods: 234
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 115
Section: 3A3B
There is no reason to think that life was any easier for the urban masses once they were Christianized than it had been before cult groups, retirement [PJ: ??] and obsequies insurance societies, civic banquets, and the surplus offerings at temples were all suppressed. The disappearance of these institutions, however, left pressing needs unfilled. Thereupon the local bishop stepped forward, to the great benefit of his stature in the community.
Quote ID: 1499
Time Periods: 45
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 125
Section: 3A3A,3A3B
Christians not only refused military service but they would not accept public office nor assume any responsibility for the governing of the cities. It was, however, not simply that Christians subverted the cities by refusing to participate in civic life, but that they undermined the foundations of the societies in which they lived.
Quote ID: 4570
Time Periods: 23
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 127
Section: 3A3A,3A3B,4B
Porphyry had no such illusion; he sensed that Christianity was here to stay and he sought, within the framework of the religious traditions of the Roman Empire, to find a way of accommodating the new creed. This is why he was so threatening to the Christians of antiquity and is so fascinating to us.
Quote ID: 4571
Time Periods: 23
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 158
Section: 3A3A,3A3B
Yet Christians, in thought if not always in action, remained a people apart. They contributed little to the public life of society and by their fixation on Jesus undermined the religious foundations of the cities in which they lived.
Quote ID: 4592
Time Periods: 23
Civilizations of the Middle Ages: A Completely Revised and Expanded Edition of Medieval History, The
Norman F. Cantor
Book ID: 203 Page: 419
Section: 3A3B
The Fourth Lateran Council’s listing of marriage as a sacrament was an important step in a trend that had been gaining momentum in the previous century- demanding a church ceremony for legitimation of a marriage. In the year 1000 the majority of people in Christian Europe were not married in a church ceremony. Marriage involved Germanic-style cohabitation, frequently signified by the giving of a ring. By 1200 perhaps half the people in Western Europe, particularly among the wealthier and more literate classes, were married by a priest.…
This was a way of increasing the importance of the priesthood in everyday life.
Quote ID: 4701
Time Periods: 7
Councils: First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325-787): Their History and Theology, The
Leo Donald Davis
Book ID: 224 Page: 21
Section: 3A3B
Moreover, the Christians expressed their communion practically by taking care of their own. In times of emergency the Christian clergy was often the only group capable of organizing the food supply and burying the dead. By 250 the Church in Rome was supporting 1500 poor and widows. In 254 and 256 the Churches of Rome and Carthage sent large sums of money to Africa and Cappadocia to ransom Christian captives from the bands of barbarian invaders. It was perhaps above all this sense of community which attracted to the ranks of the Church the Roman citizen lost as an individual in a vast impersonal empire, whose ancient cities had lost his allegiance.
Quote ID: 5624
Time Periods: 34
Early Church, The
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 215 Page: 56/57
Section: 3A3B,4B
The practical application of charity was probably the most potent single cause of Christian success.. . . .
A particular service which the community rendered to poor brethren (following synagogue precedent) was to provide for their burial.
. . . .
Hospitality to travelers was an especially important act of charity:
. . . .
At first clergy stipends were paid on a dividend system (monthly in the time of Cyprian of Carthage); it was only much later that the growth of endowments made fixed incomes possible at least in many churches.
. . . .
The financial independence of each church meant that rural clergy were ill paid while those in great cities or attached to popular shrines became well off.
. . . .
bishops who preferred to spend money on rich adornments and splendid churches were generally disapproved; in any event, there was no question of such elaboration before the time of Constantine.
Quote ID: 5374
Time Periods: 23
Early Church, The
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 215 Page: 57/58
Section: 3A3B
The distribution of alms was obviously open to abuse. In the first century, the author of the Didache was already giving warnings about exploitation by false brethren.. . . .
But the distribution of alms was not confined only to believers.
Quote ID: 5375
Time Periods: 23
Final Pagan Generation, The
Edward J. Watts
Book ID: 384 Page: 152
Section: 3A1,3A3B,4B
Ambrose himself notes that this was not the career that many would have envisioned for a former governor and the son of a prefect,{16} but the resources and social obligations of a late fourth-century bishop would have resembled those available to a member of the imperial elite.….
The Christian tradition of charitable contributions further augmented the material resources a bishop controlled.{21}
Quote ID: 8317
Time Periods: 34
Formation of Christendom, The
Judith Herrin
Book ID: 225 Page: 73
Section: 3A3B
In 535-6, Bishop Darius of Milan was instructed to arrange the distribution of grain from the stores of Milan and to establish fixed prices for other commodities during the Gothic War.”
Quote ID: 5656
Time Periods: 6
God’s Secretaries: - The Making of the King James Bible
Adam Nicolson
Book ID: 99 Page: 24
Section: 3A3B
Should any of the poor wander into the richer parishes, particularly if they were visibly sick or weak, the churchwardens would have them taken back to the slums with which London was ringed.
Quote ID: 2518
Time Periods: 7
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 571
Section: 3A3B,4B
Victory came eventually from a combination of circumstances. The catastrophic events of the 250s and 260s seem to have shaken the faith of many in the saving power of the ‘immortal gods’. The city aristocracies, the traditional enemies of the Christians and indeed of all revolutionary sects, declined in wealth and power.. . . .
Their tradition of charitable works and brotherly self-help may have been decisive…
. . . .
The Church had become a great popular movement.
. . . .
The conversion of Constantine raised as many problems as it solved.
Quote ID: 7697
Time Periods: 34
Papal Monarchy from St. Gregory the Great to Boniface VIII (590-1303), The
William Barry
Book ID: 342 Page: 50
Section: 1A,3A3B,3G
It was a custom as early as Pope Soter (180) for the Roman Church to send assistance wherever Christians found themselves in distress. Now as then the Church fed the Roman people; to such elementary human offices had it come; but in thus stooping it laid foundations deep for the Pope’s temporal power. Gregory acted as lieutenant of the Empire though not by designation.
Quote ID: 7934
Time Periods: 267
Papal Monarchy from St. Gregory the Great to Boniface VIII (590-1303), The
William Barry
Book ID: 342 Page: 51
Section: 3A1,3A4B,3A3B,3G
He alone signs the treaty of peace with Agilulf. He insists on the freedom of soldiers who are desirous of becoming monks, although the Emperor had forbidden it. If, as Pope, he was the richest landowner in Italy, with thousands of serfs and myriads of acres yielding him a revenue, from these resources he nourished his Romans at the doors of the basilicas. Neither would he permit his coloni to be ruthlessly oppressed. He maintained the churches, ransomed captives, set up hospitals for pilgrims, and saw to it that twice in the year a corn-bearing fleet from Sicily supplied Rome with provisions at Portus.
Quote ID: 7935
Time Periods: 67
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 162
Section: 3A3B
Tertullian mentioned a “community chest,” to which each member made contributions voluntarily (Apol. 39,5). These “reverent trust funds”(deposita pietatis) were used to “feed the poor and bury them, [to provide] for boys and girls who lack property and parents, and then for slaves grown old and shipwrecked mariners; and any who may be in the mines” (39,6). Further, along with its communal focus, the common meal of the community was intended to meet the needs of the poor (39,16).
Quote ID: 8438
Time Periods: 23
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 163
Section: 3A3B
Citing Isa. 58:7, Tertullian taught that both gifts and loans should be given to those who are in need, not only without demanding repayment, but specifically given to those who obviously could never repay (Marc. IV,17, 32; Luke 6:35).
Quote ID: 8439
Time Periods: 23
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 171
Section: 3A3B
Citing the example of the widow’s mite (Mark 12:43), Cyprian both shamed the rich and challenged the poor to do all that they could see to do (15). He interpreted the parable of the Pearl of Great Price as meaning that one should “buy the kingdom” by dispersing one’s goods to the poor (7). After quoting Matt. 25:31-46, he drew two very important conclusions: (1) if giving to the poor is giving to Christ, one could not decline….
Quote ID: 8445
Time Periods: 3
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 172
Section: 3A3B
He approached the matter in two ways. First, alms atone for or make up for previous sins. The giving of one’s resources made “reparation for the guilt of sin” (laps. 35), and atoned for one’s faults rather than increased them (Hab. 11). Sins were “washed away” or “ purged” Opere. 1, 5; Laps.5).
Quote ID: 8446
Time Periods: 3
Plagues and Peoples
William McNeill
Book ID: 178 Page: 121
Section: 3A3B
Simultaneously, the rise and consolidation of Christianity altered older world views fundamentally. One advantage Christians had over their pagan contemporaries was that care of the sick, even in time of pestilence, was for them a recognized religious duty. When all normal services break down, quite elementary nursing will greatly reduce mortality. Simple provision of food and water, for instance, will allow persons who are temporarily too weak to cope for themselves to recover instead of perishing miserably. Moreover, those who survived with the help of such nursing were likely to feel gratitude and a warm sense of solidarity with those who had saved their lives. The effect of disastrous epidemic, therefore, was to strengthen Christian churches at a time when most other institutions were being discredited. Christian writers were well aware of this source of strength, and sometimes boasted of the way in which Christians offered each other mutual help in time of pestilence whereas pagans fled from the sick and heartlessly abandoned them. {63}[Footnote 63] For example, Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, VIII, 21-22.
Quote ID: 3932
Time Periods: 3
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 94
Section: 3A3B
For Chrysostom, these poor belonged as if “to another city.”{125} It was by stressing their relationship with the “other city” of the poor that the bishops projected a form of authority within the city that outflanked the traditional leadership of the notables quite as effectively as Christian admiration of the monks, the illiterate heroes of the desert, outflanked their claim to esteem based upon a monopoly of paideia.
Quote ID: 4052
Time Periods: 56
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 94
Section: 3A3B
Even if it were still a minority, in the face of polytheists and Jews, a church that was seen to reach out to the distant fringe of society, as dramatically represented by the poor, had already established a prospective moral right to stand for the community as a whole.Love of the poor also provided an acceptable raison d’être for the growing wealth of the church.
Quote ID: 4053
Time Periods: 56
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 95
Section: 3A3B
Care of the poor, therefore, was a potential centrifugal force within the Christian community. It favored wealthy families and could bypass the bishop and clergy. It was by a massive gift of alms to the poor that the wealthy widow Lucilla secured the election of one of her servants, Majorinus, as bishop of Carthage in 311.{129}
Quote ID: 4054
Time Periods: 45
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 98
Section: 3A1A,3A3B,4B
The traditional solution, favored by the upperclass residents, was the all able-bodied beggars should become the slaves or the serfs (depending on their previous status) of those who denounced them to the authorities.{143} The Christian church offered a less-drastic way of stabilizing the population. It bore the cost of keeping the poor in one place. They were enrolled on the matricula, on poor rolls kept by the bishop and clergy. These rolls are referred to in cities as far apart as Hippo in North Africa and Edessa in eastern Syria.{144} In becoming the “poor of the church,” the poor were stabilized: they could not move to other cities. Begging itself came to require a permit that bore the bishop’s signature.{145}. . . .
It was perhaps for that reason (and not only to increase the appeal of Christianity) that Constantine ostentatiously fostered the expansion of poor relief in major cities. He assigned supplies of food and clothing to the poor of the churches, to be administered by the bishop alone.{146}
Pastor John’s note: Wow!!
Quote ID: 4060
Time Periods: 47
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 102/103
Section: 3A1,3A3B,3A2
By 418, the “most reverend bishop” commanded, in effect, a hand-picked force of some five hundred men with strong arms and backs, the parabalani, who were nominally entrusted with the “care of the bodies of the weak” as stretcher-beaters and hospital orderlies.{170} The massed presence of the parabalani made itself felt in the theater, in the law courts, and in front of the town hall of Aleandria. The town council was forced to complain to the emperor of such intimidation.{171}While the patriarch of Alexandria became notorious for his use of such groups, he was by no means alone. The patriarch of Antioch also commanded a threatening body of lecticarii, pallbearers for the burial of the urban poor.{172} The extensive development of the underground cemeteries of the Christian community in Rome, the famous catacombs, from the early third century onwards, placed at the disposal of the bishop a team of fossores, grave diggers skilled in excavating the tufa rock, as strong and as pugnacious as were the legendary Durham coal miners who intervened in the rowdy elections of the nineteenth century.{173} During the disputed election in which Damasus became bishop of Rome in 366, the fossores played a prominent role in a series of murderous assaults on the supporters of his rival.{174} Throughout the empire, the personnel associated with the bishop’s care of the poor had become a virtual urban militia.
Quote ID: 4062
Time Periods: 34
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 141
Section: 3A3B
Shenoute [PJ: of of Atripe] was a patron and spokesman in the grand manner. He linked Upper Egypt to Alexandria and thence to Constantinople.. . . .
In the name of Christian care of the poor, Shenoute had undertaken the feeding of the equivalent of a whole town for three months. It was what an old-fashion tropheus, a “nourisher” of the community, had once been expected to do.{111} The more tangible miracle of an imperial tax exemption for the lands of the White Monastery soon followed. It was an entirely appropriate, and traditional, return for a public service undertaken by a private person, whose scale and careful self-advertisement were worthy of the great urban benefactors of earlier times.
Quote ID: 4084
Time Periods: 45
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 151/152
Section: 3A3A,3A3B,3A4C
Hence in long letters of self-defense, Theodoret publicized his benefactions to the city of which he had become bishop. He also wrote with evident enthusiasm, in his History, of bishops who, like himself, acted as the defenders of their cities. The bishop of Erzerum (Theodosiopolis), for instance, constructed his own catapult, known to the locals as “Saint Thomas,” and presided over its firing from the walls.{163}All over the eastern provinces, the Christian bishop came to be held responsible for the defense of law and order. In the reign of Justinian, it was the bishop of Hadrianoupolis … who received imperial edicts against banditry and communicated them to the local landowners, assembled in the audience chamber adjoining his basilica.{164}
Quote ID: 4089
Time Periods: 56
Rise of Western Christendom, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 265 Page: 206
Section: 3A3A,3A3B,3A4C
In the first place, the pope was the city of Rome. The pope fed the city from “the patrimony of Saint Peter.” This patrimony consisted of over 400 estates, located, for the most part, in Sicily (where they covered over one nineteenth of the entire surface of the island). Furthermore, the pope and his colleague, the bishop of Ravenna, were the bankers of the East Roman state in Italy. Only the Church possessed the treasure and the ready money with which to pay the East Roman garrisons and to advance sums of cash to a penniless administration. It was Gregory who had to write, ceaselessly, to remind the emperor of Constantinople and those around him that Italy existed.It was Gregory, also, who had to deal with the Lombards. He negotiated constantly with neighboring Lombard warlords and attempted to contain their aggression by corresponding regularly with the newly created Lombard court of Pavia.
Quote ID: 6714
Time Periods: 67
Rome 1300: On The Path of the Pilgrim
Herbert L. Kessler and Johanna Zacharias
Book ID: 189 Page: 14
Section: 3A1,3A3B
When, in 324, he founded Constantinople – a “new Rome” at the site of the Greek city of Byzantium on the Bosphorus – Constantine left a vacuum of temporal governance in the old city that popes gradually filled. Since the departure of the imperial court, the bishops of Rome have acquired not only the property but also, increasingly, the attributes and responsibilities that had been prerogatives of the city’s pagan rulers. By the sixth century, they had begun to act as chief city administrators.
Quote ID: 4176
Time Periods: 46
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 96
Section: 2C,3A3B
Pigments and other more delicate articles of commerce were offered by him as marks of respect to citizens of rank, and so the Church came to be regarded as a source of supply for the whole community. “To 3,000 handmaids of God (called by the Greek name nuns) he gave 15 lb. of gold for bed-clothes and bestowed upon them for their daily support 80 lb. in gold.”
Quote ID: 4304
Time Periods: 4
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 96
Section: 3A3B
To those of higher rank who were ashamed to beg he sent a dish from his own table to be delivered at their doors as a present from St. Peter; and this he did before he sat down to dine himself. So not one of the faithful in Rome was without experience of this bishop’s kindness in most tenderly providing for the wants of all.
Quote ID: 4305
Time Periods: ?
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 96
Section: 3A3B
It was a charitable undertaking to protect the individuals of a class whose position had been shattered and could no longer protect its own. Under the papal aegis came not only direct charity but also the safeguarding of inheritances and legacies.
Quote ID: 4306
Time Periods: 567
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 105
Section: 3A3B,3A4B
It was to the great properties under direct papal administration that Rome looked for sustenance.The estates were divided into units called ’patrimonies’ and were administered overall by a Roman cleric, normally a subdeacon called the ’rector’.
Quote ID: 4315
Time Periods: ?
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 106
Section: 3A3B,3A4B
The central administration of the papacy was also tightened. The notaries were formed into a college under a primicerius (the chief clerk or chancellor) and a deputy (the secundicerius), and officials were appointed, as the treasurer and the accountant. All were, nominally at least, to be clergy; laymen appointed were to be tonsured and formally enrolled among the clergy. All were directly under the pope’s vigilance.The purposes behind this vast organization were the maintenance of Rome, the provision of funds for charity, and the payment of subsidies to imperial troops and peace-offerings to the Lombards.
Quote ID: 4316
Time Periods: ?
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 112
Section: 3A3B
Institutions throughout the city - and especially the orphanages, which were closely protected by the Lateran - were combed for boys with suitable voices; of future popes, Sergius II, who was orphaned of both parents at the age of twelve, was brought up in the schola.
Quote ID: 4324
Time Periods: 7
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 269/270
Section: 3A3B
Leo IV The educational system needed revision: ‘It has been brought to our notice that some places have neither teachers nor provision for pious study in letters. Therefore in every cathedral and in the subordinate parishes and elsewhere, as need may dictate, full care and diligence must be taken to establish masters and teachers who shall conscientiously instruct in letters and the liberal arts, for in these above all are manifest and made clear the divine commands.’
Quote ID: 4407
Time Periods: 7
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