SLAVERY
36
SLAVERY
mutative justice and therefore imposes on its per-
petrator the obligation of restitution. First of all,
he must undo the injury of the defamation itself.
There seems in general to be only one adequate way
to do this: he must simply retract his false state-
ment. Moralists say that if he can make full atone-
ment by declaring that he has made a mistake, this
will be sufficient; otherwise he must unequivocally
take back his untruth, even at the expense of ex-
hibiting himself a liar. In addition he is bound to
make compensation to his victim for whatever losses
may have been sustained as a result of his malicious
imputation. It is supposed that the damage which
ensues has been in some measure foreseen by the
Slater. 'Manual of Moral Theology (New York, 1908); B.iL- LERiNl, Op. theol. moT. (Prato, 1899); d'Annibale, Summula theol. mor. (Rome, 1908); Genicot, Thiol, moral, instil. (Lou- vain, 1898).
Joseph F. Delant.
Slavery. — How numerous the slaves were in Roman society when Christianity made its appear- ance, how hard was their lot, and how the competition of slave labour crushed free labour is notorious. It is the scope of this article to show what Christianity has done for slaves and against slavery, first in the Ro- man world, next in that society which was the result of the barbarian invasions, and lastly in the modern world.
I. The Church axd Roman Slavery. — The first missionaries of the Gospel, men of Jewish origin, came from a country where slavery existed. But it existed in Judea under a form very different from the Roman form. The Mosaic Law was merciful to the slave (Ex., xxi; Lev., xxv; Deut., xv, xvi, xxi) and carefully secured his fair wage to the labourer (Deut., xxiv, 15). In Jewish society the slave was not an object of contempt, because labour was not despised as it was elsewhere. No man thought it beneath him to ply a manual trade. These ideas and habits of life the Apostles brought into the new society which so rapidly grew up as the effect of their preaching. As this society included, from the first, faithful of all conditions — rich and poor, slaves and freemen — the Apostles were obliged to utter their beliefs as to the social inequalities which so profoundly divided the Roman world. " For as many of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal., iii, 27-28; cf. I Cor., xii, 13). From this principle St. Paul draws no political conclusions. It was not his wish, as it was not in his power, to realize Christian equaUty either by force or by revolt. Such revolutions are not effected of a sudden. Christianity accepts society as it is, influencing it for its transformation through, and only through, individu.al souls. "What it demands in the first place from masters and from slaves is, to live as brethren — commanding with equity, without threatening, remembering that God is the master of all — obeying with fear, but without servile flattery, in simplicity of heart, as they would obey Christ (cf . Eph., vi, 9; Col, iii, 22-4; iv, 1).
This language was understood by masters and by slaves who became converts to Christianity. But many slaves who were Christians had pagan masters to whom this sentiment of fraternity was unknomi, and who sometimes exhibited that cruelty of which moralists and poets so often speak. To such slaves St. Peter points out their duty: to be submissive "not only to the good and gentle, hut also to the fro- ward", not with a mere inert resign:ilicin, lint lo give a good example and to imitate (lirist. Who also sutTered unjustly (I Peter, ii, IS, 2:i 24), In the eyes of the Apostles, the slave's condition, peculiarly wretched, peculiarly exposed to temptations, bears all the more
efficacious testimony to the new religion. St. Paul
recommends slaves to seek in all things to please their
masters, not to contradict them, to do them no wrong,
to honour them, to be loyal to them, so as to make the
teaching of God Our Saviour shine forth before the
eyes of all, and to prevent that name and teaching
from being blasphemed (cf. I Tim., vi, 1; Tit., ii, 9,
10). The Apostolic writings show how large a place
slaves occupied in the Church. Nearly all the names
of the Christians whom St. Paul salutes in his Epistle
to the Romans are servile cognomina: the two groups
whom he calls "those of the household of Aristobulus"
and "those of the household of Narcissus" indicate
Christian servitors of those two contemporaries of
Nero. His Epistle, written from Rome, to the
Philippians (iv, 22) bears them greeting from the
saints of Caesar's household, i. e. converted slaves of
the imperial palace.
One fact which, in the Church, relieved the con- dition of the slave was the absence among Christians of the ancient scorn of labour (Cicero, "De off.", I, xlii; "Pro Flacco", xviii; "Pro domo", x.xxiii; Sueto- nius, "Claudius", xxii; Seneca, "De beneficiis", xviii; Valerius Maximus, V, ii, 10). Converts to the new religion knew that Jesus had been a carpenter; they saw St. Paul exercise the occupation of a tent- maker (Acts, .x\'iii, 3; I Cor., iv, 12). "Neither did we eat any man's bread", said the Apostle, "for nothing, but in labom- and in toil we worked night and day, lest we should be chargeable to any of you" (II Thess., iii, S; cf. Acts, x.x, 33, 34). Such an ex- ample, given at a time when those who laboured were accounted "the dregs of the city", and those who did not labour lived on the pubhc bounty, constituted a very efficacious form of preaching. A new sentiment was thereby introduced into the Roman workl, while at the same time a formal discipline w;is being established in the Church. It would have none of those who made a parade of their leisurely curiosity in the Greek and Roman cities (II Thess., iii, 11). It declared that those who do not labour do not deserve to be fed (ibid., 10). A Christian was not permitted to live without an occupation (Didache, xii).
Religious equality was the negation of slavery as it was practised by pagan society. It must have been an exaggeration, no doubt, to say, as one author of the first century said, that "slaves had no religion, or had only foreign religions ' ' (Tacitus, ' ' AnnaLs' ' , XI V, xliv) : many were members of funerary collegia under the invocation of Roman cUvinities (Statutes of the College of Lanuvium, "Corp. Inscr. lat.", XIV, 2112). But in many circumstances this haughty and formalist religion excluded slaves from its functions, which, it was held, their presence would have defiled (Cicero, "Octavius", xxiv). Absolute religious equ.ahty, as proclaimed by Christianity, wiis therefore a novelty. The Church made no account of the social condition of the faithful. Bond and free received the same sacraments. Clerics of servile origin were numerous (St. Jerome, Ep. Ixxxii). The very Chair of St. Peter was occupied by men who had been slaves — Pius in the second centurj-, Callistus in the third. So complete — one might almost say, so levelling — ^was this Chri-stian eqvialitv that St. Paul (I Tim., vi, 2), and, later, St. Ignatius (Polyc, iv), are obliged to adn\onish the sla-\e and the hand- maid not to contemn their masters, "believers like them and sh.aring in the same benefits". In giving them a place in religious soeiety, the Church restored to slaves the family and marriage. In Roman law, neither legitimate marriage, nor regular i)aternity, nor even any impediment to the most unnatural unions had existed for the slave (Digest, XX.WIII, viii, i, §2; x, 10, l.'i). That slaves often endeavoured to override this abominable position is touchingly j)roved by innumerable mortuary inscriptions; but
