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487 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Snowden

Social service

no institutions for the reason that they were not needed. The members of the small congregations were able to fulfil their mutual duties

z. In the without institutions, and the poor who Eastern were mostly slaves were provided for Christian by their masters. These conditions Church. changed with the fourth century in consequence of the entrance of the people generally into the Church and the economic decline of the empire with its resultant pauperism. The foundation of philanthropical institutions was one of the results of meeting larger needs with larger means. They originated in the Orient not earlier than the middle of the fourth century. Basil founded near Cwsarea a large institution for the sick, and especially for lepers and strangers; and, according to his letters, poorhouses at various points in his diocese, which were administered by rural bishops. At Antioch, during Chrysostom's activity (c. 380), there existed a hospital for the sick and a house for the poor before the city for those who, suffering from elephantiasis and can cer, were forbidden to enter the city. In Constan tinople under Theodosius T. existed hospitals of the churches. Chrysostom mentions an inn for strangers, the necessary expenses for which were defrayed by the church. The assumption that the number of such institutions increased in the fifth and sixth centuries is undoubtedly correct, owing not only to their recognized value, but doubtless also to the expansion of monasticism, and Johannes Cassianus reports that the oriental monastical so cieties regularly supported xenodochia (houses for strangers); but there is no positive proof. With the growing number of institutions there naturally took place a division of labor. The foundation of Basil was at the same time an asylum for strangers, an institution for the poor, a place of occupation, a hospital, and a home for incurables. This combina tion was impossible for any length of time; and according to the rich terminology of the Codex of Justinian there was a differentiation into poor houses, foundling-hospitals, orphanages, and homes for the aged.

The Occident followed the example of the East somewhat later. Here philanthropical institutions seem to have been unknown until toward the end of the fourth century. Ambrose does not mention them and Augustine, in preaching of

3. The hospitality, clearly betrays that the Occident. reception of strangers in private houses was still necessary; but he, through one of his presbyters, erected a xenodochium. About Rome the first foundations proceeded from the circle of men and women influenced by Jerome. Later establishments are ascribed in the book of the popes to Pope Symmachus, to Belisarius, the general of Justinian, and Pelagius IT. In the let ters of Gregory T. xenodochia are mentioned several times. Beside those, Gregory the Great knoyvs also of smaller institutions of the same kind, called dear conries, i.e., houses in which deacons cared for the poor of their district. He mentions such in Rome, Pesaro, and Naples. In Gaul Sulpicius Severus is the first to be known to have founded a philan thropical institution by transforming his own house

into a hoapitium domus. The early institutions were founded and supported by the churches or by private individuals. The Church undoubtedly gathered the means of support from its members. It is not improbable that in the beginning the State for a time participated in the support; but it is certain that as early as 390, the xenodochia and kindred institutions were left entirely to the care and administration of the Church, and the State restricted its power to protect and advance them. It approved the principles of organization, complemented them with norms of administration, and granted privileges which the Church then incorporated in legislation. The Roman emperors on the whole approved the episcopal administration of the philanthropical institutions, as well as of the other estates of the churches, and invested the bishops with the duty as well as the right over the acquired bequests. Roman law considered philanthropical establishments as ecclesiastical institutions and granted them and their administrators the same rights and privileges which the Church possessed in general. Concerning the inner arrangement and especially the personnel of the xenodochia there is only incomplete information. Their administration was in the hands of officers appointed by the bishop. In the hospitals there were physicians and a great number of servants partly remunerated, such as probably the Alexandrine Parabolanoi (q.v.). More frequently the nurses seem to have been taken from the circles of ascetics. They lived after the manner of the monks. This seems to have been the case especially in the Occident. Gregory the Great ordered that only religiosi should be elected deacons in Sardinia. The conceptions of monasterium and xenodochium seem to merge together. During the political disturbances from the second half of the fourth century, which finally led to the destruction of the Roman Empire, a great number of philanthropical institutions perished; but the institution as such continued in the East and the West. The number of xenodochia in medieval Constantinople, according to C. du Cange, amounted to thirty-five. Under Gothic rule the hospital of Cwsarius of Arles was founded and the three hospitals of Symmachus were built while Theodoric the Great governed Rome. In the Frankish Empire Childebert and his wife Ulthrogota founded a large xenodochium at Lyons; the one mentioned by Gregory I. was built by Queen Brunehilde and Bishop Syagrius at Autun. Besides large institutions like these there can not have been wanting xenodochia in the country; for the Synods at Orleans (549) and at Chalon-sur-Sane (after 644) protected their possessions in the same way as that of churches and monasteries. Gregory of Tours mentions an asylum for lepers at Chalonsur-Sane; such are also said to have been at Verdun, Metz, and Maestricht (636), besides many other institutions at various places. Most widely dispersed throughout the Frankish Empire were the small poorhouses (matriculce) in the different churches. In the course of time these matriculce developed into brotherhoods of lower church servants, probably brought about by requiring of their inmates, if capable of work, small church services