Chapter 12
Charity: almsgiving, beneficence and care for the poor and suffering; charity as the love of neighbour.
672 passages · 239 principal · Covers the 49 volumes of primary texts
Charity, in the books gathered here, names two things that are related but not identical. In one sense it is almsgiving: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the stranger, tending the sick. In the other it is love itself, the love of God and of neighbour from which such deeds are supposed to flow. William Penn keeps both senses in view. The first is commiseration of the poor and a helping hand to mend their condition1. The highest is love to God and the brethren, which Paul set above faith and hope2. It is a great idea for these books because almost every tradition they contain has something to say about it. The Psalms, the Gospels, the Koran and the Buddhist writings all speak of it, and so do the Stoic emperor, the medieval mystic, the Enlightenment moralist and the Victorian critic of the poor-rate. Two questions run through all of them. What charity is, and whether what passes for charity is the real thing.
The highest claim is Paul’s. Even giving all one’s goods to feed the poor profits nothing without love, and love is the greatest of the virtues3. Later Christian writers echo him closely. Thomas à Kempis holds that without love no faith or virtue is accepted by God4, and that giving away everything is nothing without the surrender of self-love5. Milton’s Michael calls charity “the soul of all the rest”6. Sir Thomas Browne grounds it in loving God for Himself and one’s neighbour for God’s sake7. Pascal pushes the claim furthest. He makes charity the sole aim of Scripture8 and places it in a supernatural order, so that all bodies and minds together are not worth its least motion9,10. He also sets it against covetousness, which uses God in order to enjoy the world, whereas charity uses the world in order to enjoy God11. Bacon brings the theological virtue down to earth without lowering it. Goodness, or philanthropia, is charity, and of it alone there can be no excess12,13.
Alongside this runs an older and more natural account. Confucius describes love as kindness and bounty shown to all14. For the Stoics, beneficence imitates the divine nature15. Marcus Aurelius wants it to flow from love of men as members of one body16, and says a kindness is its own reward, as seeing is the work of the eye17. Among the moderns, Rousseau roots generosity and humanity in a natural pity. This pity hurries us, without reflection, to help the suffering, and it is civilized reasoning that stifles it18,19. Only in great souls, he thinks, does it survive society20. Pope treats benevolence as self-love widened outward until “all mankind’s concern is Charity”21,22. Hobbes, more coolly, lists charity among the passions as a desire of good to another23.
The two accounts collide when the question becomes whether charity is a duty or an inclination. Browne is emphatic. Alms given out of pity or for one’s own relief are only moral charity. Christian charity obeys God’s command24. Kant reaches a similar verdict by another road. Help given from sympathetic inclination lacks true moral worth, and the command to love even an enemy must mean practical beneficence done from duty, since affection cannot be commanded25,26. Mill accepts that some acts of beneficence may rightly be compelled, such as saving a life27. He nevertheless prefers to enlarge disinterested benevolence by persuasion rather than force28. The ancient Stoic, the Christian theologian and the modern philosopher therefore agree that charity cannot rest on feeling alone. They disagree about what supplies the obligation: nature, God, or reason.
These writers also refuse to confine charity to money. Browne extends it to infirmities of soul and mind. Instructing the ignorant is a charity like the sun’s, and to withhold it is covetousness29. Its truest object, he says, is the neighbour’s salvation30. Kempis makes it patient bearing with others’ faults31. Augustine pictures charity as a mother bearing with weak Christians32, and distinguishes true pity for the miserable from theatrical pity33. Luther finds charity in sparing the weak in faith from offence34. Penn adds forgiveness, kind judgment and reconciliation35,36. Burke insists that the distressed great, as well as the poor, have wants charity must meet37. Mill counsels pity and help, not punishment, toward one who harms only himself38. Manzoni’s Cardinal Federigo shows the burning charity of a bishop toward a notorious sinner39.
On the motives of giving, the texts both promise reward and are suspicious of it. The Psalms bless him who considers the poor40. In Luke, Christ bids his hearers invite those who cannot repay, and promises repayment at the resurrection41. The Bhagavad-Gita calls pure the gift lovingly given to one who cannot return it42. Cicero holds that liberality is no investment43. More expects a good conscience and God’s eternal reward44. Luther asks that goods flow to neighbours as Christ’s flowed to us, seeking nothing in return45. Hobbes is the frank analyst of the other side. Men give for a reputation for charity, to relieve the pain of compassion, or in hope of heaven46, and small alms can dishonour the receiver47. Pliny worries that publishing his benefaction will look like boasting48. Bacon distrusts charities deferred until death, when one gives away goods that are no longer one’s own49. Bunyan’s Ignorance counts his alms as grounds for entering heaven50. Grimm’s Bearskin gives so that the poor will pray for him51. Manzoni dissects the Signora’s mixed pleasure in protecting others and in her repute for charity52. Kempis warns that apparent charity is often carnality53.
Counterfeit charity is a favourite theme of comedy and satire. Sheridan’s Joseph Surface admits that real charity is costly and substitutes cheap sentiment for it54,55. Molière’s Tartuffe makes a show of passing gifts on to the poor56, and Dorine ironically calls his seizure of Orgon’s property “Christian charity”57. Chaucer’s Prioress spends her pity on mice and lapdogs58. Franklin recalls the “verbal charity” that bids the hungry be fed without feeding them59. Carlyle calls sentimental talk of benevolence barren60. Emerson mocks “love afar” that is spite at home61. Ruskin charges his nation with making relief insulting while preaching a hollow Christianity62. The plainly uncharitable fare worse. In Homer, Antinous strikes a beggar, and a fellow wooer warns that the gods walk the earth as strangers63. Virgil places in Tartarus those who refused needy kin64. The Koran says stinginess will be a collar round the neck on the day of resurrection65. Penn calls those deaf to the distressed monstrous66, and Dana records a captain’s callous refusal to visit a dying sailor67.
As for whom charity should serve, the poor come first. Job swears he never ate his morsel alone or let the naked go unclothed68, and that he was eyes to the blind and father to the needy69. Browne finds in the beggar a sharer of a common soul, and says giving to the poor is lending to the Lord70. Pascal sees Christ poor in the poor71. Widows and orphans are God’s special charge in the Psalms72. James’s definition of pure religion, as Penn quotes it, is visiting them in affliction73, and Lincoln makes the soldier’s widow and orphan the nation’s charge74. Strangers have their own claim. Dido shelters the shipwrecked Trojans75. A merchant captain in the Thousand and One Nights refuses reward, since such things are done for God’s sake76. Goethe’s Hermann sees the good moved by heaven to feel a suffering brother’s distress77. Sancho’s compassion for a galley convict78 and Burns’s appeal for the imprisoned79 reach the captive. On the order of charity, Penn would prefer kindred when need and desert are equal80. Manzoni’s Bortolo thinks God gave him wealth to share, beginning with kin81, and Luther condemns pilgrims who leave their families in want82. Yet Luke commands love of enemies83, and Marcus asks benevolence even toward those who hate him84. Paré records the Duke of Guise having enemy wounded fed and treated85. Browne questions whether “charity begins at home” is not a cold maxim86.
Care of the sick gives charity its most heroic form. More’s Utopians tend the sick tenderly and sit with the incurable87. Goethe’s peasants honour Faust and his father for treating the plague-stricken88. Manzoni’s Capuchins nurse the plague-stricken in the Lazzaretto and die in the work89,90, and his Cardinal braves the plague to console the sick91. Manzoni also contrasts the benevolence that “goes in search of” the afflicted with hired service92. Whitman dresses soldiers’ wounds in the hospital tents93. Longfellow’s Evangeline tends the dying poor in the almshouse94. Consolation is a gentler extension of the same care. Herbert, like the good Samaritan, will not pass a day without comforting a sad soul95. Hood pleads that the drowned outcast woman be lifted “Loving, not loathing”96. Woolman accepts his own hardships as a way of feeling what others suffer97.
On the manner and measure of giving, the widow’s two mites outweigh the gifts of the rich, which come from their surplus98. Paul praises Macedonians who gave out of deep poverty, and says God loves a cheerful giver99,100. Browne calls the mite the noblest charity101. Renzo gives his last pence to starving beggars102. Buddhist teaching carries giving furthest, making the perfection of alms a giving of everything, like an overturned jar103; its hare offers its own flesh to a hungry suppliant104. Against this stands a long tradition of prudence. Bacon warns against drying the fountain by feeding the streams105. Luther and Harrison condemn idle and counterfeit beggars106,107. Franklin thinks teaching a poor youth to shave worth more than guineas108. Huxley praises help for those who will help themselves109, and Federigo gives country beggars a coin and a sickle110. Emerson, most bluntly, grudges alms to poor strangers with whom he has no spiritual affinity111. Tact matters too. Lessing’s Minna gives so as to spare the receiver humiliation112. Thackeray faults Swift for flinging his gifts insultingly113. Manzoni’s Marquis pays double for a property in order to help delicately114, and Walton praises charity given without a witness115.
Wealth, on this view, is a trust. Confucius urges a disciple to give surplus grain to his neighbours116. Lear in the storm confesses he took too little care of houseless wretches and bids the powerful shake the superflux to them117. Gloucester prays that distribution undo excess118. Penn reckons that superfluities given away would leave more almshouses than poor119, and calls hoarding idolatry120. Donne audits his revenue yearly as a steward of God’s bounty121. The Gospel’s demand to sell all122,123 converts Antony and moves Augustine124. More denounces rich men whose hoarded grain could have saved the starving125. Mill, however, observes that Christians profess these precepts without acting on them126.
The question of institutions changes most sharply between ancients and moderns. Paul organizes a collection that must be a free gift127. Athens publicly dowers Aristides’ daughters128, and Cimon feeds needy citizens daily129. Dante laments the papacy’s lost bounty to God’s paupers130. Luther recalls Lawrence calling the poor the Church’s treasure131. He also proposes that each town feed its own poor under an overseer and abolish begging132,133. Harrison describes parish collections134 and insists that endowed schools and almshouses show charity undiminished since the Reformation135. Adam Smith traces how parish rates under Elizabeth replaced monastic charity136, while noting that ordinary needs are met by self-interest rather than benevolence137. Burke prefers free-will charity to compulsory political benevolence138. Franklin, by contrast, shows charity organized by subscription and matching grants139,140. More imagines a commonwealth with no beggars at all141. Ruskin cites a man starved on one loaf of parish relief142, and demands that the poor-rate’s dispensers act as generous almoners143. Emerson144 and Lowell145 judge hospitals and missions merely palliative.
Several questions remain open at the end. One is whether charity is nature, duty or grace. Another is whether it should discriminate or give to all who ask. A third is whether it belongs to the person or to the state. Manzoni’s account of the famine sharpens the difficulty. Federigo’s wonderful private charity proves inadequate to the famine’s scale and is forced to make distinctions146. Yet the same narrator can still exclaim “So powerful is Charity!” over Borromeo’s conduct in the plague147. Between that inadequacy and that power lies most of what these books have to say.
Introductory essay written by Claude Opus 5.5 from the outline and the notes on every passage below; quotations are checked against this edition.
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