Question I: Whether tithes are to be paid

HERETICS, according to their custom, reprehend this holy practice of paying to the Church a tenth part of fruits or of other things: Valentia reports them disp. 6. quaest. 5. punct. 1. This error is condemned in the Council of Const. sess. 8., and is the eighteenth among the errors of Wyclif; and therefore the Council of Trent sess. 25. cap. 12. declares: Those who withhold or hinder tithes are to be excommunicated; nor are they to be absolved from this crime except after full restitution has been made. Understand, however, with Navar. cap. 21. num. 32., when restitution can be made before absolution, when no necessity presses, such as death or other, in order that absolution may come first. And in the Clementina Cupientes, de poenis, Religious are excommunicated who in sermons dissuade the payment of tithes.

MOREOVER, God had instituted tithes to be paid in the time of the old law, to honor God as rewarder, and to profess faith in the Redeemer, as D. Bonav. teaches in 4. dist. 1. p. 2. quaest. 3., and for the institution of a right life.

FIRST, indeed, God the rewarder is honored by tithes, (says the holy Doctor). For the number ten is the most perfect, because it has three perfections in itself. The first is of unity, which is perfect, since it is the beginning of every number. The second of the ternary, which is a perfect number consisting of all its parts, both aliquot and non-aliquot. The third of the senary, which consists of all its aliquot parts. And these together make up the denary, in which is the state [of perfection]: for those wishing to ascend again resume counting: undenarius, duodenarius, etc., adding units to the denary up to the hundredth number, from which one sheep went astray. This is the reason of Chrysost. homil. 1. Imperf. apud Suar. c. 11. n. 5.

SECOND, tithes are ordered to the professing of faith in the Redeemer. For man is expressed by the tenth drachma that was lost; which, when found, completes the ten choirs in heaven, as Beda says in Glossa ad 15. Lucae, and at that place the holy Doctor, with the Gloss, understands by the woman wisdom; by the ten drachmas, or denarii, the nine choirs of Angels and the tenth of man, which God fashioned, hewn from His own image. Hence, they say, God commanded tithes to be brought to Himself to signify the redemption of man, and gave the ten commandments. See the holy Doctor excelling there in his distinction.

THIRD, tithes are ordered to the institution of a right manner of life; for while a tenth part is given to God, that which is the perfection of our life is referred to Him, and the remainder, which is imperfect, is left to us. See the holy Doctor.

THIS payment is indeed excellently proved by D. Bonav. ad 10. Lucae from those words: But in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they have: for the labourer is worthy of his hire.

FURTHER he proves it from 1 Cor. 9, not only by the authority but by the arguments of the Apostle: Who ever serves in the army at his own charges? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Who feeds a flock and does not eat of its milk? etc. For it is written in the law of Moses: You shall not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treads out the corn. Does God care for oxen? Or does he speak indeed for our sakes? For these things are written for us, that he who ploughs ought to plough in hope, and he who threshes, in hope to receive fruit. If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it a great matter if we reap your carnal things?

HENCE he proves it from 6. ad Galatas: Let him that is taught in the word communicate to him that teaches him, in all good things.

THE SAME is found in 1 Timot. 5: The Priests that rule well are worthy of double honour: especially they who labour in word and doctrine. For the Scripture says: You shall not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treads out the corn.

THE holy Doctor confirms it with the argument of Christ: For the labourer is worthy of his hire, which sense is also expounded by D. August. in Psalm. 146. et lib. 10. homiliarum, homil. 48., who says most beautifully: Our forefathers abounded in all riches because they gave tithes to God and paid tribute to Caesar. But now, since devotion to God has withdrawn, the exaction of the fisc has come in. We refused to share tithes with God; now the whole is taken away: the fisc takes what Christ does not receive. Valentia also uses these means disp. 5. quaest. 5. punct. 1., and Suar. tract. 2. l. 1. cap. 10. et sequent.

THE SAME is proved from the Decretals tit. de decimis. See Valentia loc. cit. and Suar.

But by what right tithes are paid.

THE holy Doctor supposes in 4. dist. 1. p. 2. quaest. 3. that tithes were introduced by the law of nature, and soon also established by Divine law; for thus all the Jews gave tithes to the Priests, and these gave a tenth of the tithes to the Pontiff, Numer. 18, and this was called the tithe of the tithe, as D. Bonav. notes ad Psal. 64.

THE holy Doctor, on the title of Psalm 93, which is inscribed quarta Sabbathi, observes that this fourth of the Sabbath is Wednesday, on which the Lights were created, and in it the brightness of the Church itself was shadowed forth; and therefore the four Ember seasons begin on Wednesday, and Lent on Wednesday. For we ought to offer the first-fruits of the times, that is, the four Ember seasons, and the tithe of the days, that is, Lent. Wherefore we give a tenth rather than a ninth or eleventh; because the tenth order of Angels fell, which is to be restored to men.

DOCTORS indeed dispute: what quota ¹, that which is the tithe itself, is still owed by Divine law to the Ministers of the Church. ¹ N. Editor's note: the print reads 'an quota partis' (hyphenated 'par-tis' across a line break), an obvious print typo; rendered as 'quota pars' (what portion) because 'partis' is ungrammatical here.

INNOCENTIUS in Rubr. de decimis, and the Gloss on cap. 1. de decimis, lib. 6., and other Jurists cited by Couar. l. 1. var. cap. 17. and by Nauarro Man. cap. 21. num. 28., think that by Divine law men are bound not only to pay something for the sustenance of the Church's ministers, but to a quota, that is, a tithe.

THE FOUNDATION of these is, that the Pontiffs in the Decretals extra, de Decimis say that tithes are to be paid by divine precept. Likewise that they were not established by men but by God: C. Parochianos, C. Tua nobis, C. Cum non sint, and C. In quibusdam.

THE TRUE opinion, however, is that the quota, that is, the tithe, is not to be paid from an old, but now from an Ecclesiastical precept. But from a Divine precept a sufficient recompense is to be given to the ministers of the Church for their sustenance. So D. Thom. art. 1., Suar. cap. 10. n. 1., Nauar., Couar. above, Valentia quaest. 5. punct. 1., who says this is common to the Theologians, whom Suar. cites. Indeed Maior in 3. dist. 37. quaest. 36. reprehends the opposite opinion as Judaizing.

This is without doubt the opinion of D. Bonav., who ad 10. Lucae and in the other places cited understands the payment of tithes in that sense alone, as is clear to the reader, and he expounds the Scriptures above adduced by the holy Doctor from the New Testament in this way.

TO the Decretals the Theologians cited by Valentia reply that an exemplary or imitative observance is meant, that is, that tithes are to be paid by Ecclesiastical law, imitating the ancient Divine precept; hence he who precepts it after the manner of the divine law asserts its greater firmness, as Suar. notes cap. 10.

I would add that those Decretals register the institution of this rite, but that the Church changed the modes and retained that in which we are still bound now that the Redemption is already accomplished, namely to pay something to God the rewarder.

From what has been said I conclude, with the common opinion, that the law of tithes as regards the quota can be abolished by a contrary custom. The reason, as given by Valentia puncto 2., is that it is a human law, which can be abrogated by a reasonable and prescriptive custom.