Delphic Temple as a "bank"?

[Casmin]

I have a question regarding the use of the treasuries at Delphi. It is my understanding that the treasures deposited at Delphi were either sacrificial in nature to thank or curry good favor with the gods or as a form of payment to receive a prophecy. These "deposits" of course would not be liquid assets. However, there is mention in Thucydides' "The History of the Peloponnessian War" where the Athenians propose to use the monies from Delphi to finance the hiring of sailors.

To what extent did Delphi function as a bank? It seems the evidence is quite sparse and I can only find one occasion were the treasuries were used to finance projects. Any ancient references would be greatly appreciated.

[Jona Lendering]

To what extent did Delphi function as a bank?

Usually, ancient temples were indeed banks, although not officially. If a king had some money to spare, he donated it to a sanctuary, knowing that the gods would be pleased; and because the were pleased, they did not mind when the king, when he needed money, used some of the temple property. The same, BTW, is true for medieval churches.

An interesting case can be found in 2 Maccabees 3, where a Greek official named Heliodorus wants to take money from Jerusalem. The Jews, however, used their treasure (the famous qorban) to give alms; what was normal to the Greek, was sacrilege to the Jews. According to the writer of 2 Maccabees, the problem was solved by divine intervention, but that did not happen when Pontius Pilate wanted to use qorban money to construct an aqueduct (more...).

The real issue, of course, is that hoarding is in our age recognized as an economic function, which we see as an independent part of human culture; the ancients, however, did not recognize "the economy" as something independent. Hoarding was, therefore, "embedded" in religion.

[Casmin]

Thank you very much! That really sheds some light on things.

[Casmin]

I have a few books currently being shipped to my house concerning this, however, I'm too curious to know. Was usury involved at the temples? Were the temples making a profit?

[Sergey Lenkov]

Thank you. It's very interesting information. Never thought of ancient temples that way. Though it's possible to dicuss ancient view of economy since the roots of "our" political economy including Adam Smith are in "Oeconomicus" by Xenophon and he was the very rational and in understanding of economic sphere of private life.