Chapter 7
A
History of Tithes, 2nd ed., (1894) by Rev. Henry William Clarke
Here are a few quotes to give the reader the
general trend of his arguments:
I hold strongly to the view that free-will offerings are the only
scriptural mode for the maintenance of the Christian ministry, and these are
the same kind of offerings to which Pope Gregory referred in his answers to
Augustine's questions.
...
THE first law making the payment of tithes legally imperative was
enacted in 779 by Charles, King of France, in a general assembly of his
estates, spiritual and temporal, viz., "Concerning tithes, it is ordained
that every man give his tithe, and that they be distributed by the bishop's
command." ...
l
Charles's civil law had only enforced by coercion the existing
ecclesiastical law or custom of payment of tithes; and the ecclesiastical law
was founded upon the Levitical law; but I hold that the Levitical law, as
regards tithes, was not binding on Christians. In the New Testament there is no
reference whatever to tithes to be given to the Christian priesthood. None of
the apostles claimed tithes from their followers.
What follows are most of two chapters from the
Clarke book:
CHAPTER II.
FROM THE
CHRISTIAN ERA TO THE COUNCIL OF MASÇON
IN Apostolical times the Christian ministers were
supported by voluntary contributions out of a common fund, and this practice
prevailed for four hundred years.1 Those who preached the Gospel
lived by the Gospel, but this Scriptural statement did not mean, as some assert,
that they were to live on the payment of tithes, otherwise it would have been
stated. St. Paul ordered weekly collections to be made
for the saints in the Churches of Galatia and Corinth (1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2). The
voluntary contributions of the faithful were collected and put into a common
treasure (Acts ii. 44; iv. 34). The liberality of the Christians then far
exceeded anything which could have been collected from tithes. And even if
tithes had been exacted, it is exceedingly doubtful whether the progress of
Christianity would not have been materially checked at its outset.
The
Jewish Law, as regards the payment of tithes, was not binding on Christians, no
more than the custom of bigamy and polygamy adopted by the Israelites is
binding on the Christian Church. There is no injunction in the New Testament
binding Christians to pay tithes to their ministers. And when the payment was
first urged in the Christian Church, it was supported by references to the
Mosaic Law and not to St. Paul's words, viz., " That those who preach the
Gospel should live of the Gospel."
1
Van Espen, "jus Univ. Canon," pars. ii. sec. 4. [page 5]
There was a growing habit of looking upon the clergy as
the successors and representatives of the Levites under the Old Law, and this
habit had given an impulse to that claim which they set up to the payment of
tithes by the laity.1
The
Apostolical Constitutions for the Christian Church, collected, as it is
alleged, by Pope Clement I., the successor as is said of St. Peter, first
bishop of Rome, were fabricated more than eight centuries after apostolical times.
Cardinal Bellarmine is honest enough to ignore them. But they imposed on the
credulous and were accepted without criticism as genuine, even by canonists, in
the tenth and eleventh centuries. Selden thinks they were concocted about A.D.
1000; others think in 1042. In these Constitutions tithes are stated to have
been paid by the Christians to the Apostles. Sir H. Spelman (p. 108) thinks the
first thirty-five canons are very ancient. "Dionysius Exiguus," he
says, "who lived within 400 years after the Apostles, translated them out
of Greek."
The
fifth canon ordained that first fruits and tithes should be sent to the house
of the bishops and priests, and not to be offered upon the altar. The Greek
word in the copy is not [SeKacr/xovs]. No solid argument for the payment of
tithes can be founded on this canon, for if we take the custom of the
Anglo-Saxon Churches at the end of the sixth century, which was in accordance
with that in primitive times, we find no account for the payment of tithes.
"There is no mention of tithes," says Lord Selborne, "in any
part of the ancient canon law of the Roman Church, collected towards the end of
the fifth century by Dionysius (called Exiguus or the Little), a Scythian monk
who collected 401 Oriental and African canons."2
1
See Kemble's "Anglo-Saxons," New Ed.: 1876, vol. ii. 473.
2
"Facts and Fictions," pp. 9, 47. [page 6]
The
monks in their cells had sufficient leisure to concoct these Constitutions, and
palm them on the credulous as the genuine production of the Apostles. The
concocted Constitutions were copied and handed down from century to century
without any attempt being made to test their genuineness and authenticity. It
seems exceedingly strange that African divines and laymen should refer to the
Apostolical Constitutions as an authority for the payment of tithes in
apostolic times, although Cardinal Bellarmine, a great champion of "Holy
Church," ignored them.1
Churchmen
like Archdeacon Tillesley, many of whom are in the receipt of tithes or
tithe-rent charges, will naturally act like drowning men, and snatch even at
passing straws to save the tithes. Could anything, for example, be more
childish and absurd than the story of tracing the payment of tithes to Adam?
And what makes the case worse is to distort Scripture so as to deceive the
people who could neither read nor write, and even those who could read had no
open Bible to consult to see for themselves whether these things were so.
Members
of the Anglican Church forget when using such weapons as the "Constitutions"
in support of tithes, that the very cause of the English Reformation in the
sixteenth century was the adoption into the English Church of the traditions
and errors of the Church of Rome, which were said to have been handed down by
the Apostles in the so-called Apostolical Constitutions, although many of them
can be shown to be contrary to the Scriptures. Archdeacon Tillesley does not
defend the whole volume of the socalled Constitutions of Clement I., but he
does that part which deals with the payment of tithes. He evidently had
forgotten the mechanical axiom, that nothing is stronger than its weakest part.
1
See the Animadversions on Selden's "History of Tithes," in 1621, by
Dr. R. Tillesley, Archdeacon of Rochester. [page 7]
"Because the early Christians," he says,
"were liberal to the Church, therefore it was reasonable that tithes in
the 'Constitutional Apostolical' were true." Nothing of the sort, because
it does not follow as a logical sequence.
After
apostolical times, monthly offerings and oblations, we are informed, were made
in all the churches, and were used for three purposes, (1) In maintaining the
clergy; (2) in supporting the sick and needy; and (3) in repairing the church
fabric. These monthly contributions were in the third century augmented by
grants of lands, which were annexed to churches, the revenues derived from
which were appropriated to the same three purposes. In A.D. 322 Constantine,
the first Christian emperor, published an edict which gave full liberty to his
subjects to bestow as large a proportion of their property to the clergy as
they should think proper. From all these sources of revenue the Christian
Church was rapidly increasing in wealth. But for more than four hundred years
after the Christian era there was no authoritative Church canon made for the
payment of tithes; and then such canon was founded upon the Mosaic Law. The
question then is, are Christians justified in adopting the Mosaic Law for the
payment of tithes? This law had no force outside Jewish territory. There is no
order in the New Testament for their payment. Among the Jews we fail to find
such anomalies, rather scandals and misappropriations, in respect to the
distribution of tithes, as are found in England and Wales. The gross amount of
tithe-rent charge is slightly over four millions per annum. Add to this the
extraordinary rent charges on hops, the corn rents and extensive lands awarded
in lieu of tithes by the large number of Inclosure Acts. Among the Jews we find
no record of lay impropriators, schools, colleges, charities and hospitals
receiving tithes. Granted, for argument's sake, that the Christian priesthood
[page 8]
as succeeding the Mosaic priesthood, claimed the tithes
according to the Mosaic Law, then it is a misappropriation of tithes to give
them to those outside the priesthood, and who perform no spiritual functions.
We must therefore go back to very early times, to the history of tithes in the
Christian Church, for the beginning of the scandalous misappropriations of
tithe endowment for spiritual purposes. In England the scandal commenced after
the Norman Conquest with the Norman monks who were in English monasteries.
About
one-fourth of the whole tithe rent charge is appropriated or rather
misappropriated to lay purposes by laymen, many of whom are quite unconnected
with the religious duties of those parishes from which the tithes arise. Then,
again, we have a large extent of land -- formerly monastic -- which is tithe
free. There are also lands in the vicinity of large cities and towns built
upon, for which the landlords receive enormous ground rents, and when the
leases expire they take possession of the house property. But they pay nothing
to the Church for the increased value of their land, which may be one hundred
times the yearly value per acre before it was built upon.
In the
Christian Church tithes were at first given by the faithful as
spontaneous offerings, at the urgent solicitations of the clergy. "Nam
nemo compellitur," says Tertullian, "sed sponte confert." These spontaneous
tithe free-will offerings were not given in cash but in kind. Some gave a tithe
of sheep, others of wool, or of corn, etc., just according to the free-will of
the donor. This was the germ of tithes in the Christian Church, which commenced
in the fourth century, and were ordered to be paid by canon law about the
beginning of the fifth century. These canons were framed and passed by
ecclesiastics. The people who paid had no voice in the matter. The canons which
were framed [page 9] afterwards had ordered them to be paid as a right, as a
divine law of the Old Testament, and were not to be considered as free-will
offerings. Here is just that specimen of arbitrary conduct on the part of the
ecclesiastics which would only be tolerated in the dark and middle ages. Tithes
were too profitable a source of revenue to be ignored in the Christian Church.
A book entitled, "The Englishman's Brief on behalf of his National
Church," has been published by the Society for the Promotion of Christian
Knowledge. A good cause needs no fiction to bolster it up. In that book there
is quite twice as much fiction as fact. The extensive circulation of this
mixture has embarrassed many in gaining a correct knowledge of the tithe question
from the earliest period to the present time. It is written in the style
adopted by special pleaders. It gives a one-sided account of the subject. It
asks questions and then furnishes the answers. The answers are most misleading
and also erroneous, and it carefully omits a great deal which could be said on
the other side. I strongly object to this way in dealing with so important a
subject as the history of tithes in this country. To be appreciated, the
"Brief" should be impartial, which it is not. It is not my object to
review the book here seriatim, and to point out what is fiction and what
is fact. In my statements a good deal of the fiction is refuted indirectly
without reference to the "Brief." But I may just indicate one remarkable
feat of fiction which appears in it. When the Christian religion was first
propagated, the writer of the "Brief" would have us to believe that
the converted Jews transferred the payment of their tithes from the Jewish to
the Christian ministers, just as easily and as quietly as one could transfer
the payment of a cheque from one bank to another. Here is the statement,
"So that when the Jews and heathen became Christian, throwing off their
old religion and adopting the new religion of Christianity, [page 10] they
never dreamt of being less liberal to that form of religion which they loved
the more and had adopted, than they had been towards that which they had loved
the less and had discarded. Hence the transfer of tithes from the old religion
to the new religion."l We are not informed upon what authority
this statement is made. There is nothing about it in Josephus. There is no
order in the New Testament for the payment of tithes. No order of a general or
provincial council. We read nothing of this in the writings of the first and
second centuries. We read of exhortations to pay tithes in the writings of the
third and fourth centuries. We read of canons having been made for their
payment in the fifth century. But I have failed to find any evidence to support
the statement quoted above from the "Brief."
The
Provincial Council of French bishops, held at Masçon in A.D. 586, is commonly
considered to have been the earliest council which ordained the payment
of tithes. It ordained, "Ut decimas ecclesiasticas omnis populus inferat,
quibus sacerdotes aut in pauperum usum, aut in captivorum redemptionem
erogatis, suis orationibus pacem populo ac salutem impetrent." Isidore, in
his compilation of decrees of councils, makes no reference to this council.
Friar Crab is the first to have mentioned it in his edition of the councils
under Charles V.
Lord
Selborne considers the canon of this council as spurious, because it proves too
much, for it wanted to prove that the Mosaic Law, as regards the payments of
tithes, was regarded in A.D. 586 not only as binding from the first upon Christians,
but also as having been for centuries universally observed. This was going too
far, in his lordship's opinion, and therefore he stamped it as spurious. Selden
was the first to throw considerable doubt
1
Page 34. [page 11]
upon the genuineness of this canon at the Council at
Masçgon.1 The mistake originated in calling the offerings and
oblations tithes. The same mistake is repeated by writers at the present time.
For instance, Dr. J. S. Brewer, in his "Endowments and Establishment of
the Church of England," 2nd Edition, 1885, translates
"portiones" (quoted from Bede), tithes. Pope Gregory says in
his reply to Archbishop Augustine's question, "Communi autem vita
viventibus jam de faciendis portionibus, vel exhibenda hospitalite et
adimplenda misericordia, nobis quid erit loquendum." "But as for
those who live in common, why should we say anything now of making portions?"
etc. Brewer translates the passage thus, "As for those who are living in
common, I need give no advice about dividing tithes," etc. Now, the
Latin word for tithe is decima, and is so used in all the monastic charters.
The same writer states, and he is followed by writers of leaflets for the
Church Defence Institution, that the scriptural precept, "To live of the
Gospel" (1 Cor. ix. 14), refers to the payment of tithes. I am certain
that St. Paul never intended anything of the sort. I fully admit that the
passage may cover a tithe free-will offering, as it would any other free-will
offering, but I cannot admit that it implies a compulsory payment of tithes,
that is, to carry it to its logical sequence, a distraint on the goods of a
person who is unable or unwilling to pay tithe. Such compulsion would be
contrary to the spirit of the Gospel of Christ.
The
instances are many in which words of old authors and passages of Scripture are
not only strained but intentionally dis- [page 12]
1
"Ancient Facts and Fictions," Edition 1888, pp. 47, 48. Selden, p.
58.
torted, in order to show the early origin of tithes.
There is nothing gained, but much confidence lost, in this critical age by
distorting the meaning of, or giving a forced interpretation to, plain words of
Scripture, or of secular and religious writers.
The
Christian religion had been introduced into Britain at a very early date, and
from Britain it passed over to Ireland. Ireland was specially remarkable for
her evangelical missionary monks, who visited Scotland, England, and the
Continent, for the purpose of converting the heathen. Its geographical position
favoured a quiet, retired and contemplative life. Britain served as a buffer
for many centuries against the piratical devastations of the northern hordes.
The inhabitants of Ireland were therefore left in quiet and undisturbed
possession of their lands, churches, and monasteries at a time when the
inhabitants of Britain were driven from the east and south to the west of the
island; their lands were taken from them, their churches and monasteries were
pillaged, and then burnt down by the invaders.
...
CHAPTER VI.
THE FIRST
PUBLIC LAY LAW FOR THE PAYMENT OF TITHES.
THE first law making the payment of tithes legally
imperative was enacted in 779 by Charles, King of France, in a general assembly
of his estates, spiritual and temporal, viz., "Concerning tithes, it is
ordained that every man give his tithe, and that they be distributed by the
bishop's command." [De decimis, ut unusquisque suam decimam donet, atque
per jussionem pontificis dispensentur.]l
Charles's
civil law had only enforced by coercion the existing ecclesiastical law or custom
of payment of tithes; and the ecclesiastical law was founded upon the Levitical
law; but I hold that the Levitical law, as regards tithes, was not binding on
Christians. In the New Testament there is no reference whatever to tithes to be
given to the Christian priesthood. None of the apostles claimed tithes from
their followers.
"The
growing habit," says Kemble, "of looking upon the clergy as the
successors and representatives of the Levites under the old law may very likely
have given the impulse to that claim which they set up to the payment of tithes
by the laity."2
The
establishment of the right in England followed the same course as that in
France.
1
Baluze, i. 141, 142; Selden, c. vi. s. 7.
2
"The Saxons in England," ii. 473. [page 34]
It is
important to give Milman's observations on the working of the above law.
"On
the whole body," he says, "of the clergy, Charlemagne bestowed the
legal claim to tithes. Already, under the Merovingians, the clergy had given
significant hints that the law of Leviticus was the perpetual law of God. Pepin
had commanded the payment of tithes for the celebration of peculiar litanies
during a period of famine. Charlemagne made it a law of the empire; he enacted
it in its most strict and comprehensive form as investing the clergy in a
right to the tenth of the substance and of the labour alike of freemen and
serf."
"The
collection of tithes was regulated by compulsory statutes; the clergy took note
of all who paid or refused to pay; four or eight, or more, jurymen were
summoned from each parish as witnesses for the claims disputed; the
contumacious were three times summoned; if still obstinate, they were excluded
from the Church; if they still refused to pay, they were fined over and above
the whole tithe, six solidi; if further contumacious, the recusant's house was
shut up; if he attempted to enter it, he was cast into prison to await the
judgment of the next plea of the Crown. The tithe was due on all produce, even
on animals. The tithe was usually divided into three portions, one for the
maintenance of the Church, the second for the poor, the third for the clergy;
the bishop sometimes claimed a fourth. He was the arbiter of the distribution;
he assigned the necessary portion for the Church, and appointed that of the
clergy. This tithe was by no means a spontaneous votive offering of the whole
Christian people. It was a tax imposed by imperial authority and enforced by
imperial power. It had caused one, if not more than one, sanguinary
insurrection among the Saxons. It was submitted to in other parts of the
empire, not without strong reluctance. Even [page 35] Alcuin ventured to
suggest that if the apostles of Christ had demanded tithes, they would not have
been so successful in the propagation of the Gospel."1
1 Milman, ii. 292, etc.
Chapter Notes
1. Publication details:
A History of Tithes, by The Rev. Henry William Clarke,
B.A., Second Edition, London, Swan Sonnenschein & Co; A History of Tithes,
2nd ed., (1894) by Henry William Clarke, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons 1894
2. Related history:
Alcuin
of York (/ˈælkwɪn/;[1] Latin: Flaccus Albinus Alcuinus; c. 735 – 19 May 804 AD)
– also called Ealhwine, Alhwin or Alchoin – was an English scholar, clergyman,
poet and teacher from York, Northumbria. He was born around 735 and became the
student of Archbishop Ecgbert at York. At the invitation of Charlemagne, he
became a leading scholar and teacher at the Carolingian court, where he
remained a figure in the 780s and '90s. During this period he invented
Carolingian minuscule, an easily read manuscript hand using a mixture of upper
and lower case letters.[2]
Alcuin
wrote many theological and dogmatic treatises, as well as a few grammatical
works and a number of poems. He was made Abbot of Tours in 796, where he
remained until his death. "The most learned man anywhere to be
found", according to Einhard's Life of Charlemagne[3] (ca. 817-833), he is
considered among the most important architects of the Carolingian Renaissance.
Among his pupils were many of the dominant intellectuals of the Carolingian
era. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcuin
Charlemagne
(English: /ˈʃɑːrləmeɪn, ˌʃɑːrləˈmeɪn/; French: [ʃaʁləmaɲ])[3] or Charles the
Great[a] (2 April 748[4][b] – 28 January 814), numbered Charles I, was King of
the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and Emperor of the Romans
from 800. During the Early Middle Ages, he united the majority of western and
central Europe. He was the first recognized emperor to rule from western Europe
since the fall of the Western Roman Empire three centuries earlier.[5] The
expanded Frankish state that Charlemagne founded is called the Carolingian
Empire. He was later canonized by Antipope Paschal III. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne
3. All things common
The Rev. Henry William Clarke has supplied some good
information in his book, but the very fact that he has the title Reverend in
front of his name, makes me a little bit suspicious when it comes to items of
speculation. He might have a tendency to favor the church receiving tithing
money if he can do so without directly contradicting known history. Quoting
from the first paragraph of Clarke's second chapter:
St. Paul ordered weekly collections to be made for the saints in
the Churches of Galatia and Corinth (1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2). The voluntary contributions
of the faithful were collected and put into a common treasure (Acts ii. 44; iv.
34). The liberality of the Christians then far exceeded
anything which could have been collected from tithes. And even if tithes had
been exacted, it is exceedingly doubtful whether the progress of Christianity
would not have been materially checked at its outset.
He references 1 Cor 16:1-3:
1 Cor. 16:1 Now
concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches
of Galatia, even so do ye.
2 Upon the first day of
the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him,
that there be no gatherings when I come.
3 And when I come,
whomsoever ye shall approve by your letters, them will I send to bring your
liberality unto Jerusalem.
4 And if it be meet that
I go also, they shall go with me.
I don't have any specific history on that exact point, but
I read those verses differently than he does. I read those verses as being part
of an effort to send charity supplies to Jerusalem where presumably they are in
need of assistance. This sounds like a one-time charitable event, having
nothing to do with any required on-going communal behavior. He also cites Acts
2:44, 4:34:
Acts 2:44 And all that
believed were together, and had all things common;
...
Acts 4:32 And the
multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said
any of them that bought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they
had all things common.
33 And with great power
gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great
grace was upon them all.
34 Neither was there any
among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold
them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold,
35 And laid them down at
the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he
had need.
There is some embedded New Testament history that can help
us reach a different interpretation of these words and events. I have
previously researched this issue, and here is what I found:
Acts 8:1 tells us
that because of persecution, all the saints except the apostles left Jerusalem
shortly after the death and resurrection of Christ. First, they fled to other Judean and Samarian
cities, and then on to Cyprus, Antioch, Damascus, and Alexandria. This had essentially been accomplished
before the conversion of Saul. The Bible
chronology tells us that Saul's conversion occurred in 35 A.D. If we use the date of 33 A.D. as the year of
the death and resurrection of Christ, then the large growth spurt of the Church
and the exodus from Jerusalem all took place within two years. The Ananias and Sapphira episode occurred
somewhere during that time, probably near the beginning of the two-year period.
[Notice that Joseph Smith provides a very different interpretation of the
Ananias and Sapphira episode, which will be explained in detail later.]
The persecutions
would mean that people would have to flee their homes and lands to avoid
imprisonment or death. Selling those
possessions where possible would be the most sensible thing to do. ["Use
them or lose them."] The money received could be used to help finance a
trip to a new location and the establishment of a new home and occupation. Part of those funds could go to assist those
who had no means, perhaps because their belongings had been confiscated or
destroyed. Brigham Young's United Order, p.108.
I will provide other fascinating evidence later on, but I
see no reason to imply some rigorous set of rules, a return to the law of Moses
and an ending of the maximum religious freedom of the New Testament, simply
because the term "all things common" appears in the text. That term
can be true if everything is done on a totally free-will basis. It does not need
to imply some administrative overlay to reach a certain predetermined result.
Clarke also speaks of
The liberality of the
Christians then far exceeded anything which could have been collected from
tithes. And even if tithes had been exacted, it is exceedingly doubtful whether
the progress of Christianity would not have been materially checked at its
outset.
I disagree with both of his speculations here I don't know how he could possibly know that
the Christians' liberality greatly exceeded 10%. I don't know of any
appropriate individual accounting records from that time period that have
survived. And I happen to believe that requiring tithing would have damaged the
infant church a great deal. Just making that a formal requirement would be a
direct return to the law of Moses, adding the temptation of a self-seeking paid
ministry, etc., etc., greatly accelerating the almost inevitable apostasy.
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