Giving

The foregoing chapters have established that simony consists in buying or selling spiritual things—or things annexed to them—for any kind of temporal gift. This definition is comprehensive, yet Scripture is equally clear that God’s ministers are to be materially supported. Christ himself declared that “the laborer is worthy of his wages” (Luke 10:7), a principle which Paul repeated in 1 Timothy 5:18. The funding of ministry is not merely permitted—it is commanded.

A tension therefore presents itself. If every exchange of temporal things for spiritual things is simoniacal, how can the church fund its ministers without falling under that condemnation? When a congregation pays its minister’s stipend, it gives temporal things to one who administers spiritual things and on account of such spiritual labor. The exchange would appear, on its face, to have the structure of simony.

The resolution of this apparent difficulty occupied a substantial portion of the theological literature on the topic from the patristic period onward. Part of the answer lies in distinguishing the mode of provision—the relationship between the temporal thing given and the spiritual thing received. Not every flow of money from laity to clergy constitutes a purchase, and the theologians labored to articulate exactly why.

What is given to a minister may be regarded in four ways: as charity (eleemosyna), as the price of the product (pretium operis), as the price of the labor (pretium laboris), or as the sustenance of the laborer (sustentatio laborantis).¹For examples of how these categories were synthesized for later English audiences, see The Anatomy of Simon Magus, 92; Ames, Conscience, 5.230. The primary consideration distinguishing licit gifts from illicit payments is whether they are given in exchange for spiritual things or in support of the one who provides them. We will consider each in turn.

As Charity

First, one might give to a minister of God as an act of almsgiving. This notion has been rejected since the early days of the church. For example, John Chrysostom concluded from Matthew 10 that Christ forbade his disciples to go about as “beggars”²Chrysostom, Homiliae in Matthaeum, hom. 33 (PG 57:587). and regarded others as their “debtors.”³Ibid., hom. 35 (PG 57:608). Augustine remarked that a minister’s provisions are “not a matter of mendicity, but of authority.”⁴Augustine, De Opere Monachorum, 15.16 (p. 558).

Medieval theologians formalized this distinction. The minister’s stipend flows from due justice rather than charity, though he receives of alms given to the church.⁵Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 187, a. 4. The context of this citation is a defense of the religious—i.e., mendicants—but for our purposes it is sufficient to note Aquinas’s application of this principle to secular clergy. Gabriel Biel offered a reductio: A gift given not in view of a person’s need but on account of an obligation to some office or labor is not alms, but a stipend or a wage. Otherwise every tribute given to kings and princes would be alms, and so would every wage a man earns for the support of his own life and station—and consequently all such laborers would be beggars.⁶Biel, Collectorium, IV, d. 16, q. 4 (sig. ff3rb).

Later authors concurred.⁷E.g., Bullinger, Decades, V.10 (fol. 380r–v); Turretin, Institutio, 18.28.8–12. Thomas Hall, who addressed the matter at length, spoke starkly: “Our stipends, therefore, are wages, not alms. Woe to those ministers who expect their support from the people’s goodwill alone! Such goodwill will become ill-will; such nourishment will become stinginess; this something will soon become nothing.”⁸Hall, Sal Terrae, 101.

This conviction extended even to those who could comfortably support themselves and their families from their own patrimony. They should not be denied their stipends.⁹E.g., Keach, The Gospel Minister’s Maintenance Vindicated, 89–91. Ralph Cudworth wrote to the same effect: “Again, hence I gather, that those that labour in the word and doctrine, may lawfully take wages, albeit they have sufficient of their own to maintain themselves.” Cudworth, The Supplement, 543. Though they may choose to charitably give them away in their own capacity, they ought not refuse them either, “lest they appear to seek the glory of some exceptional sanctity or burden their poorer colleagues with resentment, and lest the people, enticed by this exemption, nourish their avarice to the great disadvantage of successors and the peril of the whole church.”¹⁰Turretin, Institutio, 18.28.13.

As the Price of the Product

Second, things might be given as the price of the product (ut pretium operis)—that is, the spiritual thing itself.¹¹The range of technical vocabulary used here is fairly narrow, but occasionally, “spiritualium” (“spiritual thing”) is used instead of “operis,” and sometimes instead of “pretium,” “merces” from the term for “hire” in Luke 10:7. Of course, we have already seen this argued extensively, but the legitimacy of such payments is frequently inferred from certain scriptural passages that would appear to suggest them.

For example, the argument regularly turns on the apostle Paul’s statements in 1 Corinthians 9:14 (“those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel”). Thomas Aquinas handled the objection that this passage justifies accepting temporal things in exchange for spiritual things: “It must be said that stipends are due to preachers for the sustenance of their livelihood, lest they be forced to abandon the word of God and become occupied with procuring necessities for themselves; however, they are not due to them as if they were a price for the preaching.”¹²Aquinas, Scriptum super Libros Sententiarum, IV, d. 25, q. 3, a. 2, qc. 2, arg. 5 & ad 5. In his Summa Theologiae, he offered both at greater length, and there added this succinct statement: “To preachers, temporal things are due for the support of those who preach, not for purchasing the preached word.”¹³Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 100, a. 3, ad 2.

The command to freely give is not abrogated by the laborer being worthy of his food (Matt. 10:8–10); the two are reconciled by this very distinction. The wages of the worker are not the price of the product.

As the Price of the Labor

Third, things might be given as the price of the labor (ut pretium laboris)—that is, to pay the laborer in exchange for his work. At least at first glance, this appears to be what is required by phrases like “the laborer is worthy of his wages” (Luke 10:7; 1 Tim. 5:18), and indeed, some spoke of the selling of labor as being the proper mode of exchange.¹⁴E.g., Bonaventure, Commentaria in Quatuor Libros Sententiarum, IV, d. 25, a. 1, q. 4 (p. 648); {Alexander of Hales}, Summa Halensis, III, P. 2, Inq. 3, T. 2, S. 2, Q. 1, T. 1, D. 5, C. 2 (pp. 644–45); Luther, Vorlesungen über 1. Mose, 23:3–4 (WA 43, 282:38–42). But rarely did any of these weigh another mode against it, and those who did typically raised difficulty in settling on the sale of labor.

Labor as a Spiritual Thing

These theologians pointed out that the matter at issue in Acts 8 and elsewhere is not one of moderation. Nor is it one that permits a meaningful distinction between the labor and the product. Simon Magus could not absolve himself of charges of the sin which bears his own name by claiming he was not looking to purchase the Spirit, but only Peter’s labor of laying on hands. The causes of spiritual things are precisely what a simoniac sets out to buy.¹⁵See Aquinas, Scriptum super Libros Sententiarum, IV, d. 25, q. 3, a. 1, qc. 3, ad 3. See Chapter 3, ↗. William Swinderby forbade priests to “sell by bargaining and covenant his ghostly travail” (spiritual labor), claiming that any who does “errs and doth simony.”¹⁶Foxe, Actes and Monuments, 5.468. Spiritual labor is itself a spiritual thing, and therefore cannot be sold.¹⁷See Auriol, Commentarius in Sent., IV, d. 25, q. un., a. 2 (p. 166b). “To sell what is spiritual in such acts, or to buy it, is simoniacal. But to receive or give something for the sustenance of those who minister spiritual things, in accordance with the ordinance of the Church and approved custom, is lawful—provided, however, that the intention of buying and selling is absent, and that it is not exacted from the unwilling through the withholding of spiritual things that are owed, for that would have a certain appearance of selling.” Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 100, a. 3. “Were he to take anything for the use of his spiritual power, this would amount not to letting out his labor—which he is bound to render as a debt of the office he has undertaken—but to selling the very use of spiritual grace.” Ibid., II-II, q. 100, a. 3, ad 3.

The Excuse of Selling Labor

John Wycliffe’s language on the point admits of more than one reading,¹⁸In his treatise on simony, Wycliffe argued for “inordinate willing” rather than “earnest desire,” in part because he believed it seemed right to exchange the work for a modest stipend, Wycliffe, Tractatus de Simonia, cap. 1 (2:13–28). However, this notion of “exchange” is not spelled out in terms that clearly indicate a sale, and elsewhere he denies that preachers may charge for their work. “And here Christ teaches openly that men should not buy this office, nor take any reward from the people for laboring thus in Christ’s name; for then they would impute to Christ that he sold the preaching of his word and gave leave to commit simony—and both these are blasphemies.” Wycliffe, Sermons, Sermon LVIII (1, p. 177). but Jan Hus, working from Wycliffe’s treatise, gave what is possibly the most complete treatment. Against those who would make such a justification for charging for their services, he wrote,

But here they have Simon’s little cap with which they cover themselves, saying commonly that they sell the bodily labor, but not the blessing or the consecration; and also that they take money for food, but not for consecration. But that excuse is like the greedy tavern-keeper who serves the food and then charges only for the beer, recovering in that one price both the meal and the drink. That excuse is also like the tale one writer tells, of a greedy lord who came to the annual fair. Then a servant told him that in that town the innkeepers at table give very fat geese for free, but beef and veal and other dishes they charge more dearly. So the lord commanded his servants to eat the freely given food, and he himself would eat the coarser fare to which he was accustomed. And when dinner was over and the account was made, the veal was reckoned so dear that the free geese proved costly after all! Likewise the simoniacs wish to deceive the people of God with this answer, saying that they sell the labor, but give the blessing, consecration, or confirmation for free! Therefore against this cunning the holy ordinance says: Those who buy bodily things and do not buy spiritual things should by no means be called simoniacs. And immediately it continues: But the answer is: that not only those who take money for spiritual things, but also those who take money for bodily things that are annexed to spiritual things, are called simoniacs.

So says the ordinance, so that you may understand that the labor of preaching, celebrating Mass, consecrating, anointing, baptizing, hearing confession, and distributing the body of the Lord—that labor is so joined with the spiritual, that is, with God’s power and office, that it may not, and cannot rightly, be sold for money. Although people ought to sustain the priests in that labor, the priests ought not to sell that labor or set a price on it; for otherwise every case of simony could be excused by saying: “I am selling the labor!” Therefore the Lord God says through the prophet Malachi: “Who is there among you who would shut the doors and kindle my altar for nothing? I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hand.” Here Gratian, who compiled the decree [i.e., the Decretum], says that to shut the doors is not the office of the holy sacrifice, but it pertains to the spiritual office.¹⁹The idea here is that shutting the doors of the temple is a bodily act, but is annexed to spiritual things, since it is only by the doorkeeper that one would have access. See Gratian, Decretum, C. 1, q. 3, d.a.c. 1. Therefore the excuse by which they defend themselves, saying that they sell the labor, is not valid.²⁰Hus, O svatokupectví, 5.D; cf. ibid., 9.A.

Giving four examples, Hus continued to demonstrate that those who claim to sell labor in spiritual things are selling something more. First, the bishop charges more for the same labor than one who does the same work. Second, the craftsman who makes the altar does greater labor than the one who blesses it, but the bishop who blesses it requires more than the carpenter or mason. Third, the bishop’s endowment already provides for his labor, yet he requires a second pay upon service. Fourth, the same consecration costs less from a poor bishop than from a rich one.²¹Ibid., 5.D.

Almost all of this discourse—from the excuse itself, to the parable of the geese, to the citation of Gratian, to the four additional arguments—is translated directly from Wycliffe,²²Wycliffe, Tractatus de Simonia, cap. 6 (74:3–76:13). with three notable alterations. First, Hus did not include the passage which prefaces the parable in Wycliffe’s work, where the abuse is one of degree: money “inordinately” (inordinate) collected, “excessive” fees, sacramentals sold “so dearly.”²³Ibid., cap. 6 (73:12–74:2). Second, Hus did not translate Wycliffe’s sarcastic compromise on the bishop’s blessing: “Either, then, let him give it for nothing, or let him sell it justly for a fair price […] a halfpenny.”²⁴Ibid., cap. 6 (75:24–29). Third, Hus drew Wycliffe’s closing clause—that otherwise any simony whatever could be excused—up between the parable of the geese and the Malachi passage, making it the ground of a direct prohibition of selling spiritual labor for any price.²⁵Ibid., cap. 6 (74:26–27). In other words, Wycliffe’s arguments showed that contemporary bishops sold spiritual things and not, as they claimed, mere labor, but stopped short of saying that the labor itself may not be sold. Hus took the line of reasoning and set down as a rule what Wycliffe had left standing as an inference: charging anything for spiritual labor necessarily sells spiritual things.

Labor Inseparable from Its Product

Some schoolmen also observed that economic reality does not permit us to divorce product and labor so cleanly in transactions. Peter Paludanus explained the issue:

For who would ever buy the labor of a worker, except for the fruit of the work? No one. And therefore it is ridiculous to say that ministers can sell their labor [labor], where they cannot lawfully sell their work [opus]: if therefore an ecclesiastical minister dispensing sacred things receives anything, he does not receive it as the price of the work or of the labor, but as the sustenance of the minister.²⁶Paludanus, Commentarius in Libros Sententiarum, IV, d. 25, q. 5 (p. 319a). See also ibid., IV, d. 25, q. 5 (pp. 320a–b); Durandus of Saint-Pourçain, In sententias theologicas (Redactio C), IV, d. 25, q. 3 (fol. 315r); contra, Major, In Quartum Sententiarum (Redactio B), d. 25, q. 1 (fol. 183rb).

The problem with a model of giving that posits a purchase of labor is that it necessitates an obligation between the giver and the receiver. The receiver becomes servant to the giver, undermining the spiritual worker’s duty to the Lord with a conflict of interest (Gal. 1:10). Thus, nothing should be given to any minister “by way of obligation and contract, but only by way of necessary assistance.”²⁷Auriol, Commentarius in Sent., IV, d. 25, q. un., a. 2 (p. 166b). The one who receives is not bound to the giver as though his labor had been bought, and the one who gives does not owe the minister as a payment for what he has received. Either would bear the mark of a “contract.” Instead, the giver is bound to render temporal things by a natural obligation of justice to support the minister in his work.²⁸See ibid., IV, d. 25, q. un., a. 2 (p. 166b).

Regarding the notion of wages in Luke 10:7 and 1 Timothy 5:18, the Westminster divine Anthony Tuckney²⁹Tuckney chaired the Westminster Assembly committee that framed the Larger Catechism’s exposition of the Ten Commandments, where question 108 names “the ministry and maintenance thereof” among the duties required by the second commandment. {Westminster Assembly}, The Westminster Larger Catechism, Q. 108. remarked on the danger of interpreting the term to entail a simoniacal exchange of money for labor and pointed to the corrective offered in the previous verse of Paul’s epistle. Addressing ministers, he acknowledged the scriptural language of “hire” or “wages,” but rejected the idea that this funding functions as wages between the people and the minister, binding the latter to the will of the former who makes the payment. All such sentiments are “base simoniacal chafferings.”³⁰Tuckney, Sermon 38, 645.

As the Sustenance of the Laborer

Fourth, things might be given for the sustenance of the laborer (ut sustentationem laborantis).³¹Once again, there is some variation in the used vocabulary. Sometimes “stipend” (stipendium) is used instead of “sustenance” (sustentationem), and sometimes “minister” (ministri) instead of “laborer” (laborantis). What is given to the spiritual worker, financial or otherwise, should be given in order to sustain him.³²See {Thomas of Strasbourg}, Commentaria in IIII Libros Sententiarum, IV, d. 25, q. 1, a. 4, qc. 2, ad 2 (fol. 150v); Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 100, a. 2, ad 2; William of Auxerre, Summa Aurea, III, tr. 21 (fol. 227rb). The people do not give as clients or employers purchasing labor.

Augustine explained this dynamic in a sermon on Ezekiel 34, first speculating that Paul may be indicated by the innkeeper of Luke 10:35: what he spends beyond what he was given, the Lord repays at his return.³³Augustine, Sermones, 46, cap. 2 (PL 38:272). He continued to explain that what a minister receives is not a price “as though the gospel were for sale,” because then they would “sell a great thing for a trifle.”³⁴Ibid., 46, cap. 2 (PL 38:273). Instead of ministers selling, “let them receive from the people the sustenance [sustentationem] their need requires, and from the Lord the reward of their stewardship.”³⁵Ibid., 46, cap. 2 (PL 38:273); cf. The Anatomy of Simon Magus, 92ff. The reward for their labor does not come from the people; they must “look for their reward nowhere but where the people look for their salvation.”³⁶Augustine, Sermones, 46, cap. 2 (PL 38:273).

Sustenance was not understood as bare subsistence. Proper maintenance included a significant measure of honor pertaining to the dignity of the person in his office.³⁷Peter Auriol seemed to have this in mind when he wrote, “For if [the giver’s principal regard] were for the dignity and sufficiency of the person, granted that it were somehow drawn from the service [rendered], it would not be a species of simony.” Auriol, Commentarius in Sent., IV, d. 25, q. un., a. 2 (p. 166a–b). The word “honorarium” has come down to us from the Latin donum honorarium, designating a gift designed to honor rather than to function as a wage.

Especially in the seventeenth century, a number of works made this distinction between “wages” (merces) and “honor” (honorarium), asserting that, properly speaking, ministers do not receive the former but the latter.³⁸For example, the English clergyman William Sclater contended, “my portion be not merces, but honorarium.” Sclater, The Quæstion of Tythes Revised, unnumbered, 5 pp. after p. 33. John Cooke, a Puritan legal scholar, wrote of ministers among several professions to which this principle applies, marginally offering the Latin phrase, non mercenarium sed honorarium (“not as wages, but as honor”), Cooke, The Vindication of the Law, 3. We have already observed that Anthony Tuckney required qualification for the term “wages” in 1 Timothy 5:18 in order to avoid simoniacal implications. He continued by observing that in the previous verse, “The Apostle would lift us up to higher thoughts, when he calls the Church officers’ maintenance, not wages but honour.”³⁹“All thy grace, wisdom, ability to dispense the Word and other ordinances, to govern the church, etc. are God’s gifts, which he never betrusted thee with to enjoy, or make a market of for thyself, thine own gain or applause, but for the glory of thy Master, and the service of his spouse: and therefore although the labourer be worthy of his hire, Luke 10:7. yet neither be thou on the one side ever so mercenary, as to account thy maintenance such an hire of thy labour as which thou aimest at, and puttest off the ordinances of God for: no, in this sense freely thou hast received, and therefore freely give. “Nor let the people be ever so mean as to think, when they have paid their pittance they have bought you for slaves, and like good chapmen have made a fair purchase of the Word, and the rest of God’s ordinances, which they hereupon claim as their due, and in case, though by their own default, they come short of, you shall fall short of yours. But how unworthy are such base simoniacal chafferings of thee, as thou art either a minister, or Christian? something akin to Judas selling, and the Jews buying of Christ for thirty pieces of silver: and a goodly price, wherewith I was prised at of them, saith the Lord, Zech. 11.13. The Apostle would lift us up to higher thoughts, when he calls the Church Officers maintenance, not wages but honour, 1 Tim. 5.17. to be freely honorably allowed, not as a recompense of their labour, but as an honorable testimony of our love and respect, not as the price of the Gospel, and all that either we mean to give for it, or the ministers should look at in dispensing of it.” Tuckney, Sermon 38, 644–45.

The Particular Baptist Benjamin Keach made a similar observation, rejecting such a “base” exchange and preferring the notion of “honor.” Remarking that New Testament ministers are to receive after the pattern of the Old Testament priests (1 Cor. 9:13–14), he pointed out that such funds granted to ministers are not direct payments, but given “as gifts due to the Lord, and to them from him.”⁴⁰While the application is Keach’s own, he did so by quoting Henry Ainsworth: “They were not (as Mr. Ainsworth noteth) to receive it after a base or servile manner, but as gifts due to the Lord, and to them from him: the Hebrew canons (saith he) show the Israelites were to give them their portion with honour; and it was unlawful for the priests or Levites to snatch away the heave-offering, or the tithes; yea, saith he, if they did but ask their portion with their mouth it was unlawful. […] He saith again, the priest might not violently take the gifts, nor ask them with his mouth, but he received them when they were given him with honour.” Keach, The Gospel Minister’s Maintenance Vindicated, 107–8. In other words, while the people owe material support to ministers in one sense, because the priests had no right to demand or take provisions by force as one might with their own property, such things cannot be said to be owed to ministers by the people in the most immediate sense. Keach expanded on the same distinction to explain that the minister’s stipend is not to be regarded as “base” wages but as “honor” because the people do not actually pay them as an employer might. Instead, they give to the Lord, and the Lord gives his wages to his own workers; the Lord is the employer to whom the minister is bound.

Conclusion

The prohibition of simony does not leave ministers destitute. Temporal things may and ought to be given to those who provide spiritual things—but the mode of the exchange is decisive. What the people give is neither charity to a beggar, nor the price of a product, nor wages owed to a hired laborer, but the maintenance of one whom the Lord has set apart to serve them. Their giving is directed ultimately to God, and from God the minister receives his support. The minister’s stipend is therefore not merces but honorarium—a recognition of the dignity that belongs to the office.