STIPENDS, CLERICAL (Lat. stipewdium, tax, tribute, salary, from slips, gift. donation pcndere, to weigh nut). A general designation of the means of support provided for the clergy. There have developed in Western civilization five general methods of providing clerical support, to gether with all sorts of combinations of those methods. Those methods may be defined as those of (1) voluntary offerings. (2) tithes, (3) en dowments, (4) State aid, and (5) contracts. No country shows any one method prevailing to the exclusion of the others. Without doubt the earliest method of supporting a priesthood was by means of voluntary contributions. Tithes (q.v.) were commanded of Hebrews by revelation, and the system continued in Christian times. State aid may he con sidered as of two kinds, the direct and the indirect, the latter to be considered first, as of the greater antiquity. When the political power under the Emperor Constantine came openly to the support of the Christian religion one of the first results of the friendly corporation of the State was the legal capacity given to the churches in a corporate character to receive gifts inter virus and by bequest, and to hold the same in perpetuity. This was an indirect method of State aid. Direct State support of the clergy is a comparatively modern in stitution, which has developed since the Refor mation era. It is now in operation in those
European States of Roman Catholic allegiance which have entered into a treaty, technically known as a concordat, with the See of Rome for the support of the clergy. Such treaties came about as a return for the sequestration of the older ecclesiastical endowments in land. France, Spain, Portugal. and Austria give such direct support to the Roman Catholic clergy. The Prot estant German and Scandinavian .States furnish a like support to the Protestant ministry. Rus sia supports the hierarchy of the orthodox Church. A similar system of direct State sup port prevails in the Central and South American States for the Roman Catholic clergy, and under Spanish rule prevailed also in Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines. The fifth method, that of contracts, is essentially American. It consists first of a contract between a local church. ( in the Protestant denominations) and its minister for the payment of a definite sum for his support, and then a series of contracts between the church as a corporation and the attendants at public worship for the rental of pews and sittings. As a reaction from this method has developed what is known as the 'free church' movement, which seeks to abolish pew rentals and to sub stitute systems of voluntary contributions.