# Base Wages: The Problem with Selling Labor Conley Owens *Given at doreancon 2026 — Retrieving a Doctrine of Simony. Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church, Sunnyvale, California, September 28–30, 2026.* Written alongside *The Doctrine of Simony* (https://simony.info). --- A minister is not to labor of his own expense (1 Cor. 9:TODO). Christ himself declared that “the laborer is worthy of his wages” (Luke 10:7), a principle that the apostle Paul repeated in 1 Timothy 5:18. The funding of ministry is not merely permitted; it is commanded. Yet, it’s a sin to sell any spiritual thing. How do those go hand in hand? If you’ve been a part of this community for any period of time you know the answer. Ministry is to be supported, not sold. God provides for his ministers through the faithful giving of the saints. Yet, it would be beneficial to rederive that answer by walking through alternatives, especially in light of the history of thought on the matter. So let me step back and ask the question afresh in the language of simony: If every exchange of temporal things for spiritual things is simoniacal, how can the church fund its ministers without sinning? When a congregation pays its minister’s salary, it gives temporal things to one who administers spiritual things and does so on account of his spiritual labor. This appears, on its face, to be an exchange, having the structure of simony. Many who wrote about simony labored to resolve this tension. Specifically, they sought to determine the proper *mode* of giving. We will consider four possible options. One may give - as charity (*eleemosyna*), - as the price of the product (*pretium operis*)—the spiritual thing that results from spiritual labor, - as the price of labor (*pretium laboris*), or - as the sustenance of the laborer (*sustentatio laborantis*).[^1] ## Is It Proper to Give to a Minister as Charity? First, one might give to a minister of God as an act of almsgiving. Indeed, a minister receives of that which has been charitably given, but the notion that others provide for him as a mere act of mercy 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”[^2] and regarded others as their “debtors.”[^3] Augustine remarked that a minister’s provisions are “not a matter of mendicity, but of authority.”[^4] 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.[^5] 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. So too would every wage a man earns for the support of his own life and station, and consequently all such laborers would be beggars.[^6] Later authors concurred.[^7] 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.”[^8] 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.[^9] Though they may choose to charitably give them away in their own capacity, they ought not, without special reason, 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.”[^10] ## Is It Proper to Give to a Minister as the Price of Product? Second, things might be given as the price of the product (*ut pretium operis*), that is, as the price of the spiritual thing itself.[^11] We have already seen the illegitimacy of such payments argued extensively, but their legitimacy is frequently inferred from certain scriptural passages that would appear to suggest them. For example, their defenders regularly invoke 1 Corinthians 9:14 (“those who proclaim the gospel should live of the gospel”). Thomas Aquinas handled the objection that the apostle’s language 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.”[^12] In his *Summa theologiae*, he answered the objection at greater length, and there added succinctly that “to preachers, likewise, temporal things are due for the sustenance of those who preach, not for purchasing the preached word.”[^13] 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. ## Is It Proper to Give to a Minister as the Price His Labor? Third, things might be given as the price of the labor (*ut pretium laboris*), 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 regarded payment for the labor as the proper mode of giving.[^14] But rarely did any of these weigh another mode against it, and the few who did raised difficulties with reckoning the minister’s provision as a 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 of that labor. Simon Magus could not absolve himself 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.[^15] William Swinderby forbade a priest to “sell by bargaining and covenant his ghostly travail” (spiritual labor), claiming that any who does “errs and doth simony.”[^16] Spiritual labor is itself a spiritual thing and therefore cannot be sold.[^17] As Aquinas wrote of acts that are spiritual in their principle, “no one can in any way hire out his acts without simony.”[^18] ### The Excuse of Selling Labor John Wycliffe’s language on the point admits of more than one reading,[^19] 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 alewife who serves the food and then charges only for the beer, in that one payment more than covering 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 spiritual things for money, but also those who take for money 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.[^20] Therefore the excuse by which they defend themselves, saying that they sell the labor, is not valid.[^21] 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 bishop who blesses an altar requires more than the carpenter or mason who crafted it, though they did greater labor. 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.[^22] 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,[^23] with three notable alterations. First, Hus did not include Wycliffe’s preface to the parable, which frames the abuse as a matter of degree: money “inordinately” collected, “excessive” fees, sacraments sold “so dearly.”[^24] 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,” which computed by proportion to a layman’s labor would be “a halfpenny.”[^25] Third, Hus pulled Wycliffe’s inference—that otherwise any simony whatever could be excused—forward to just before the Malachi passage, making it the ground of a direct prohibition of selling spiritual labor for any price.[^26] 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. By the same line of reasoning, Hus set as a rule what Wycliffe had left 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, rehearsing the argument of Durandus of Saint-Pourçain, put the issue thus: > 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.[^27] One 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.”[^28] 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 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.[^29] In Chapter 8, we surveyed several ways one might regard what a minister receives. To construe it as pure charity does not accord with Scripture’s insistence on the laborer’s worthiness; to construe it as the purchase of his spiritual products would be manifest simony. Many then concluded that the giver pays a minister for his labor; yet we noted a strain of the tradition that found even this formulation in need of correction.[^30] Spiritual labor is a spiritual thing, so its sale does not escape the charge of simony. As was observed, no one who pays a laborer truly desires the labor itself, but the thing that labor produces. In terms of modern economic theory, we might frame these medieval observations as a subjective theory of value contending with a labor theory of value.[^31] Those who denied that one should give to a minister as a purchase of his labor argued instead that one ought to give for his sustenance. Alternatively, we might ask whether a ministerial stipend is for the worker or the work. The question so posed turns on an ambiguity in one word. The preposition “for” carries two distinct senses: it may mean “in exchange for,” as in the price one pays for a purchase, or it may mean “in support of,” as in a financial contribution to a campaign. The notion of mediated obligation supplies clarity here. To give in support of the worker is co-labor; to give in exchange for the work is reciprocity. Both may be called wages as both are in some sense payment for labor; but in the one model, these wages issue from the Lord while in the other they come directly from a human client. This was the concern of Hus, Paludanus, Durandus, and others who objected to any simple formula of selling labor.[^32] Anthony Tuckney and Benjamin Keach, for their part, granted that a minister’s maintenance might be called wages, yet denied that it could be called *base* wages.[^33] What is this distinction but a recognition of the mediated shape those wages must take? In each case the aim was the same: to deny that a people stand in direct reciprocity with their minister. Regarding the word “wages” in Luke 10:7, repeated in 1 Timothy 5:18, the Westminster divine Anthony Tuckney[^34] 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 a recompense of labor between the people and the minister, for that would bind the latter to the will of the former who makes the payment. All such sentiments are “base simoniacal chafferings.”[^35] ## Is It Proper to Give to a Minister as His Sustenance? Fourth, things might be given for the sustenance of the laborer (*ut sustentationem laborantis*).[^36] What is given to the spiritual worker, financial or otherwise, should be given in order to sustain him.[^37] The people do not give as customers purchasing a product or as employers purchasing labor, but out of an obligation to sustain the laborer in his work. Augustine explained this dynamic in a sermon on Ezekiel 34, first speculating that Paul may be indicated by the innkeeper of Luke 10:35. The Samaritan promises to repay the innkeeper on his return for whatever he spends beyond what he was given, and Paul, who chose to support himself by his own hands, would be paid at the Lord’s return.[^38] Augustine continued to explain that what ministers receive is not a price “as though the gospel were for sale,” because then they would “sell a great thing for a trifle.”[^39] 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.”[^40] 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.”[^41] 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.[^42] The word “honorarium” has come down to us from the Latin *donum honorarium*, designating a gift meant 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.[^43] We have already noted that 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.”[^44] The Particular Baptist Benjamin Keach made a similar observation, rejecting such a “base” exchange in favor of “honour.” 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.”[^45] Keach expanded on the same distinction to explain that the minister’s stipend is not to be regarded as “base” wages but as “honour” because the people do not actually pay him 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 this giving is decisive. What the people give is neither charity to a beggar, nor the price of a product to a vendor, 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. Ministry is to be supported, not sold. ## Bibliography Alexander of Hales. *Summa theologica*. Edited by Collegii S. Bonaventurae. Ad Claras Aquas (Quaracchi): Ex Typographia Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1924–1948. Ames, William. *Conscience with the Power and Cases Thereof*. London, 1639. \*The Anatomy of Simon Magus: or, the Sin of Simony Laid Open.* London: Printed by W. Bowyer for Charles Brome, 1700. Aquinas, Thomas. *Scriptum super libros Sententiarum*. Vol. 13. Venice: Joseph Bettinelli, 1750. ———. *Summa theologiae*. Leonina ed. Rome: Ex Typographia Polyglotta S.C. de Propaganda Fide, 1895–1899. Augustine. *De opere monachorum*. In *Sancti Aureli Augustini opera*, edited by Joseph Zycha, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. 41, 529–596. Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1900. ———. *Sermones*. Edited by Jacques-Paul Migne. Vol. 38. Paris: J.-P. Migne, 1865. Auriol, Peter. *Commentarius in libros Sententiarum*. Rome: Ex Typographia Aloisij Zannetti, 1605. Biel, Gabriel. *Collectorium circa IV libros Sententiarum*. Tübingen: Johann Otmar, for Friedrich Meynberger, 1501. Bonaventure. *Commentaria in quatuor libros Sententiarum*. Opera omnia 4. Ad Claras Aquas (Quaracchi): Ex Typographia Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1889. Bullinger, Heinrich. *Sermonum Decades Quinque*. Zurich: Christoph Froschauer, 1552. Chrysostom, John. *Homiliae in Matthaeum*. Edited by Jacques-Paul Migne. Patrologia Graeca 57–58. Paris: J.-P. Migne, 1862. Cooke, John. *The Vindication of the Law*. London: Matthew Walbancke, 1652. Cudworth, Ralph. *The Supplement, or, Continuation of the Commentarie upon the Sixth Chapter*. In *A Commentarie or Exposition, upon the Five First Chapters of the Epistle to the Galatians*, edited by Ralph Cudworth, 476–662. Cambridge, 1604. Durandus of Saint-Pourçain. *In sententias theologicas Petri Lombardi commentariorum (Redactio C)*. Lyon: Gaspar Portonaris, 1560. Foxe, John. *Actes and Monuments*. London: John Day, 1583. Gratian. *Decretum Gratiani*. Edited by Emil Friedberg. Vol. 1. Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1879. Hall, Thomas. *Τὸ ἅλας τῆς γῆς, sive Apologia pro Ministerio Evangelico*. Frankfurt: Samuel Browne, 1658. Hus, Jan. *O svatokupectví*. Edited by Václav Novotný. Prague: J. Otto, 1907. Composed ca. 1413. Keach, Benjamin. *The Gospel Minister’s Maintenance Vindicated*. London, 1689. Luther, Martin. *Vorlesungen über 1. Mose*. In *D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe*, edited by O. Reichert, vol. 43. Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1912. Major, John. *In quartum Sententiarum (redactio B)*. Paris: Jodocus Badius Ascensius, 1516. Paludanus, Peter. *Commentarius in libros Sententiarum*. Salamanca: Andreas à Portonariis, 1552. Sclater, William. *The Quæstion of Tythes Revised*. London: John Legatt, 1623. Thomas of Strasbourg. *Commentaria in IIII libros Sententiarum*. Genoa: Apud Antonium Orerium, 1585. Tuckney, Anthony. “Sermon 38.” In *Forty Sermons upon Several Occasions*, 644–647. London: J. M. for Jonathan Robinson and Brabazon Aylmer, 1676. Turretin, Francis. *Institutio Theologiae Elencticae*. Edinburgh: John D. Lowe, 1847. Westminster Assembly. *The Westminster Larger Catechism*. London: A. M., 1648. William of Auxerre. *Summa aurea in quattuor libros Sententiarum*. Paris: Philippe Pigouchet, 1500. Wycliffe, John. *Sermons*. In *Select English Works of John Wyclif*, edited by Thomas Arnold. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1869. ———. *Tractatus de simonia*. Edited by Sigmund Herzberg-Fränkel and Michael Henry Dziewicki. London: Trübner & Co., 1898. --- [^1]: For how the schools’ distinction between the price of the work and the sustenance of the worker reached later English audiences, see *The Anatomy of Simon Magus*, 92; Ames, *Conscience*, 5.230. [^2]: Chrysostom, *Homiliae in Matthaeum*, hom. 33 (PG 57:587). [^3]: Ibid., hom. 35 (PG 57:608). [^4]: Augustine, *De opere monachorum*, 15.16 (p. 558). [^5]: Aquinas, ST II‑II, q. 187, a. 4. The context of this citation is a defense of the religious (here the friars), but for our purposes it is sufficient to note Aquinas’s application of this principle to secular clergy. [^6]: Biel, *Collectorium*, IV, d. 16, q. 4 (sig. ff3rb). [^7]: E.g., Bullinger, *Decades*, 5.10 (foll. 380r–v); Turretin, *Institutio*, 18.28.8–12. [^8]: Hall, *Sal Terrae*, 101. [^9]: E.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. [^10]: Turretin, *Institutio*, 18.28.13. [^11]: The range of technical vocabulary used here is fairly narrow, but occasionally, “*spiritualium*” (“spiritual things”) is used instead of “*operis*,” and sometimes instead of “*pretium*,” “*merces*,” the Vulgate’s word for “wages” in Luke 10:7. [^12]: Aquinas, *In Sent.* IV, d. 25, q. 3, a. 2, qc. 2, arg. 5 & ad 5. [^13]: Aquinas, ST II‑II, q. 100, a. 3, ad 2. [^14]: E.g., Bonaventure, *In Sent.* IV, d. 25, a. 1, q. 4, ad 4 (p. 648); Luther, *Vorlesungen über 1. Mose*, 23:3–4 (WA 43, 282:38–42); Thomas of Strasbourg, *In Sent.* IV, d. 25, q. 1, a. 4, qc. 2, ad 2 (fol. 150v); cf. Alexander of Hales, *Summa Halensis*, III, P. 2, Inq. 3, Tract. 2, S. 2, Q. 1, T. 1, D. 5, C. 2 (pp. 644–45). [^15]: See Aquinas, *In Sent.* IV, d. 25, q. 3, a. 1, qc. 3, ad 3. [^16]: Foxe, *Actes and Monuments*, 5.468. [^17]: E.g., “not only can the aforesaid spiritual things not be sold, but neither can the labor.” Auriol, *In Sent.* IV, d. 25, q. un., a. 2 (p. 166b). [^18]: Aquinas, *In Sent.* IV, d. 25, q. 3, a. 2, qc. 2, sol.; cf. Aquinas, ST II‑II, q. 100, a. 3. [^19]: In his treatise on simony, Wycliffe argued for “inordinate willing” rather than “earnest desire,” in part because he held that a preacher ought to exchange his spiritual service for modest temporal support. Wycliffe, *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 denied that preachers may charge for their work. “And here Christ teacheth openly that men should not buy this office, ne [nor] take no meed [reward] of the people to travail thus in Christ’s name, for then they put upon Christ that he sold preaching of his word, and gave leave to do simony; and both these be blasphemies.” Wycliffe, *Sermons*, serm. 58 (1, p. 177). [^20]: The 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 C. 1, q. 3, d.a.c. 1. [^21]: Hus, *O svatokupectví*, 5.D; cf. ibid., 9.A. [^22]: Ibid., 5.D. [^23]: Wycliffe, *De simonia*, cap. 6 (74:3–76:13). [^24]: Ibid., cap. 6 (73:12–74:2). [^25]: Ibid., cap. 6 (75:24–29). [^26]: Ibid., cap. 6 (74:26–27). [^27]: Paludanus, *In Sent.* IV, d. 25, q. 5 (p. 319a); cf. Durandus of Saint-Pourçain, *In Sent. (red. C)*, IV, d. 25, q. 3 (fol. 315r). See also Paludanus, *In Sent.* IV, d. 25, q. 5 (p. 320a–b); contra, Major, *In Sent. (red. B)*, d. 25, q. 1 (fol. 183rb). [^28]: Auriol, *In Sent.* IV, d. 25, q. un., a. 2 (p. 166b). [^29]: See ibid., IV, d. 25, q. un., a. 2 (p. 166b). [^30]: See Chapter 8, pp. 142–47. [^31]: A labor theory of value holds that a good is worth the labor required to produce it, so that price tracks the quantity of work that went into a thing. A subjective theory holds that worth lies in the estimation of the one who values, so that the same good is worth different amounts to different people and nothing at all to one who has no use for it. [^32]: See Chapter 8, pp. 142–47. [^33]: See Chapter 8, pp. 148–49. [^34]: Tuckney 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, and question 109 “simony, sacrilege” among the sins it forbids. WLC Q. 108; WLC Q. 109. [^35]: Tuckney, “Sermon 38,” 645. [^36]: Once again, the literature varies in its vocabulary. Sometimes “stipend” (*stipendium*) is used instead of “sustenance” (*sustentationem*), and sometimes “minister” (*ministri*) instead of “laborer” (*laborantis*). [^37]: E.g., “to receive or to give something for the sustenance of those who minister spiritual things, according to the ordinance of the Church and approved custom, is lawful.” Aquinas, ST II‑II, q. 100, a. 3, corp.; cf. ibid., II‑II, q. 100, a. 2, ad 2; William of Auxerre, *Summa aurea*, III, tr. 21 (fol. 227rb). [^38]: Augustine, *Sermones*, 46, cap. 2 (PL 38:272). [^39]: Ibid., 46, cap. 2 (PL 38:273). [^40]: Ibid., 46, cap. 2 (PL 38:273); cf. *The Anatomy of Simon Magus*, 92ff. [^41]: Augustine, *Sermones*, 46, cap. 2 (PL 38:273). [^42]: E.g., the minister “can quite properly receive sustenance suitable to his state.” Auriol, *In Sent.* IV, d. 25, q. un., a. 2 (p. 166b). [^43]: For example, the English clergyman William Sclater argued on the supposition that “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, offering in the margin the Latin phrase, *non mercenarium sed honorarium* (“not as wages, but as honor”). Cooke, *The Vindication of the Law*, 3. [^44]: “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. [^45]: While the application is Keach’s own, he made it 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 his own property, such things cannot be said to be owed to ministers by the people in the most immediate sense.