ALMS, what is given spontaneously to the poor for their relief. This word is a contraction from the Saxon aelmesse, which is generally believed tc be the Greek &ken/Loath/ derived to the Teutonic From the hints of travellers there appear to be some other species of oaks in Palestine, but their information is not sufficiently distinct to enable us to identify them.—J. K.
dialects through the Latin eleemosyna. In the English Bible, the word alms invariably represents this word in the original, Matt. vi. I being no exception, as the reading here of the text from which the A. V. was made, was 4XEThµoelp7j,.and not oircatoo-Opnv. The word does not occur in the O. T., nor had the Hebrews any word for alms.
The Syriac synonyme in the N. T. is and this is allied to the Mply of the Hebrew, and IT: the riply of the Chaldee. It is doubtful, how ever, whether these words are ever used in the sense of alms, or even of benefit, though the LXX. translates the former occasionally (comp. Deut. vi. 25 ; xxiv. IS; Is. i. 27), and the latter, in the only place where it occurs (Dan. iv. 24), by Acnitoctivn. The passages which have been ad duced to prove this are of no weight for this pur pose. Gesenius indicates two, Prov. x. 2 and Mic. vi. 5, in addition to Dan. iv. 24 ; but in all these passages the word is best taken in its proper meaning of righteousness. It may be doubted even whether the word ever occurs in the sense of kind ness, generosity, though the lexicons confidently affirm this. Certainly such passages as Ps. xxiv. 5, cxlv. 6, Prov. xi. 4, those commonly adduced, do not prove it ; on the contrary, they rather oppose it, for much of the force of the passage is lost by taking riply in any but its proper sense.
Wherever a legal provision is made for the poor, the sphere of almsgiving is necessarily contracted, and that in proportion to the completeness of the provision made by the law. It can hardly be said that by the Mosaic code such provision was made for the poor among the Hebrews, at least in the sense which modern usage would attach to such a statement. At the same time, the law recognized the possibility of poverty existing even in the favoured land, and made such provision to meet it that such a thing as destitution and beggary was probably unknown during the earlier ages of the Hebrew commonwealth. The provisions for the poor made by the law were these Every third year the second tithe, or a third tithe [TITHES], was to be distributed between the Levites and the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow which were within the gates (Deut. xiv. 28, 29 ; xxvi. 12) ;
hence these were called " the poor's tithes." 2. Whatever grew spontaneously in field or vineyard on the sabbatic year was to be left unreaped and ungathered, so as that all might have free use of it (Lev. xxv. 5). 3. In ordinary years, in reaping the harvest, the fields and vineyards were not so to lie cleared of their produce as to leave nothing for the gleaner, nor were the corners of their fields to be reaped ; these were for the poor and the stranger (Lev. xix. 9, to; xxiii. 22); it was even forbidden, should a sheaf be left in the field by mistake, to return for it ; this also was to be the property of the poor (Dent. xxiv. 19). 4. Any person was allowed to pluck and eat grapes in a vineyard, or to pluck and eat ripe grain in a field belonging to another, provided he did not carry any away with him (Deut. xxiii. 24, 25). 5. On certain festive occasions the poor were to be in vited that they might share in the entertainment (Deut. xvi. Io, rr). Besides these special enact• ments, the law inculcated, in the general, a bene volent regard to the poor, and those who were in straits (Dent. xv. I). Such provisions are cer tainly very different from the stringent enactments of a poor law ; still they placed the poor on a footing very different from that under which the duty of almsgiving contemplates such, and this may be one reason at least why the Hebrews had no word for alms. The Hebrews were thus habi tuated to regard the helping of the poor rather as what their poverty entitled them to in equity than as an act of generosity. Hence the latter usage of rip-1y among the Rabbins. The same idea appears frequently in the Koran (Jahn, Bill. Archool. Th. i. Bd. 2, p. 341). The earliest mention of beggary in Scripture is in Ps. xxxvii. 25, but there the writer speaks of it as something already well known. So in Ps. cix. Io this is imprecated as a curse, the nature of which was well known, on the wicked man who is the object of the writer's indig nation. Doubtless, as society advanced, the same causes which operate to produce beggary elsewhere, would be familiar to the Hebrews in their own land. In the days of our Lord there were many beggars in Judaea who seem to have subsisted chiefly by alms ; this they solicited sitting in the streets, or round the entrances to the houses of the wealthy, or at the gate of the Temple, and perhaps also at the doors of the synagogues (Mark x. 46 ; Luke xvi. 20 ; Acts iii. 2). The alms given was either money or food (Matt. xxvi. 9 ; Mark x. 46 ; Luke xvi. 21).