August 16, 2000

tithe

I was in a deep theological debate with a friend of mine when tithing came up. I know the word tithe represents 10 percent of your income, but where does it come from?

The word tithe means 'tenth' and comes from the Anglian Old English teogotha. Like ten, it derives from the Indo-European root *dekm 'ten'. Teogotha became tigethe in Early Middle English and tithe or tythe in Middle and Modern English.

Tithe can simply mean 'tenth' or 'a tenth part' and in that sense means 'a very small amount'. Shakespeare used it this way in several plays. Here is Hamlet speaking to Gertrude about Claudius: "A murderer and a villain;/ A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe/ Of your precedent lord...." Stephen says to Maggie in Eliot's The Mill on the Floss (1860): "... if you had a tithe of the feeling for me that I have for you -- it would be impossible to you to think for a moment of sacrificing me."

Benjamin Franklin wrote in his Autobiography: "I was put to the grammar-school at eight years of age, my father intending to devote me, as the tithe of his sons, to the service of the Church." Tithe here does literally mean 'tenth' (Ben was the tenth son), but it also brings us to the other meaning: his father intended to give a tithe of his sons to the Church.

The custom of giving a portion of one's income for religious purposes predates Mosaic law. The Hebrew noun that is translated tithe in the Bible is maaser. The verb is asar. Both are related to the adjective for 'ten', so the figure of ten percent is of ancient origin. Tithing is first mentioned in Genesis 14:20 where Abraham gives a tithe to the priest Melchizedek. By the time Mosaic law was set down in Leviticus, tithing was specifically ordered: "And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's." There were penalties for failing to tithe. Tithing is frequently mentioned throughout the Old and New Testaments. In Luke's Gospel, Jesus cautions people against being so rigid in following the law of tithing that they forget the laws of justice, mercy, and faith.

Although voluntary giving to the poor, to pilgrims, and to the church had been encouraged from the beginning of Christianity, payment of the tithe, being one-tenth of the annual produce of crops, stock, or labor, became part of English law, enforced by heavy penalties, by the10th century. For centuries, tithes had to be paid in kind, that is, in the actual produce of one's land, but eventually people were allowed to make a fixed annual payment of money. Tithes were used to support the clergy, to build and maintain churches, and to help the poor. France abolished tithes during the Revolution, and most other European countries did so in the late 19th century. In England, tithing did not end completely until the 20th century. Since the United States does not have a state church, there has never been a legal tithing requirement, but members of certain denominations are required to tithe, and some others do so voluntarily.

The idea of paying ten percent of one's goods for the maintenance of religion developed as part of Judeo-Christian tradition, but it seems that the custom of tithing must have its roots in the giving of offerings to propitiate the gods in primitive religions.

Georgia