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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
service must be a voluntary one on the part of the slave, and the
master must render a just equivalent. When the water of baptism
passed over the master and the slave, both alike came under the
great constitutional law of Christ’s empire, which is this:
“Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and
whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant, yea,
the servant of all.” Under such a law, servitude was dignified and
made honorable, but slavery was made an impossibility.
That the church was essentially, and in its own nature, such an
institution of equality, brotherhood, love and liberty, as made the
existence of a slave, in the character of a slave, in it, a contradiction
and an impossibility, is evident from the general scope and tendency
of all the apostolic writings, particularly those of Paul.
And this view is obtained, not from a dry analysis of Greek words,
and dismal discussions about the meaning of doulos, but from a full
tide of celestial, irresistible spirit, full of life and love, that breathes
in every description of the Christian church.
To all, whether bond or free, the apostle addresses these inspiring
words: “There is one body, and one spirit, even as ye are called in
one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God
and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”
“For through him we all have access, by one Spirit, unto the Father.”
“Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but
fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, and are
built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ,
himself, being the chief corner-stone.” “Ye are all the children of
God, by faith in Jesus Christ; there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is
neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all
one in Christ Jesus.”
“For, as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the
members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is
Christ; for by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether
we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and whether
one member suffer, all the members suffer with it, or one member
be honored, all the members rejoice with it.”
It was the theory of this blessed and divine unity, that whatever gift,
or superiority, or advantage, was possessed by one member, was
possessed by every member. Thus Paul says to them, “All things are
yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or life, or death, all are
yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.”
Having thus represented the church as one living body, inseparably
united, the apostle uses a still more awful and impressive simile. The
church, he says, is one body, and that body is the fulness of Him
who filleth all in all. That is, He who filleth all in all seeks this church
to be the associate and complement of himself, even as a wife is of
the husband. This body of believers is spoken of as a bright and
mystical bride, in the world, but not of it; spotless, divine, immortal,
raised from the death of sin to newness of life, redeemed by the
blood of her Lord, and to be presented at last unto him, a glorious
church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.
A delicate and mysterious sympathy is supposed to pervade this
church, like that delicate and mysterious tracery of nerves that
overspreads the human body; the meanest member cannot suffer
without the whole body quivering in pain. Thus says Paul, who was
himself a perfect realization of this beautiful theory: “Who is weak,
and I am not weak? Who is offended, and I burn not?” “To whom ye
forgive anything, I forgive also.”
But still further, individual Christians were reminded, in language of
awful solemnity, “What! know ye not that your body is the temple of
the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and that ye
are not your own?” And again, “Ye are the temple of the living God;
as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them.” Nor was
this sublime language in those days passed over as a mere idle piece
of rhetoric, but was the ever-present consciousness of the soul.
Every Christian was made an object of sacred veneration to his
brethren, as the temple of the living God. The soul of every Christian
was hushed into awful stillness, and inspired to carefulness,
watchfulness and sanctity, by the consciousness of an indwelling
God. Thus Ignatius, who for his preëminent piety was called, par
excellence, by his church, “Theophorus, the God-bearer,” when
summoned before the Emperor Trajan, used the following
remarkable language: “No one can call Theophorus an evil spirit
* * * * for, bearing in my heart Christ the king of heaven, I bring to
nothing the arts and devices of the evil spirits.”
“Who, then, is ‘the God-bearer’?” asked Trajan.
“He who carries Christ in his heart,” was the reply. * * * *
“Dost thou mean him whom Pontius Pilate crucified?”
“He is the one I mean,” replied Ignatius. * * *
“Dost thou then bear the crucified one in thy heart?” asked Trajan.
“Even so,” said Ignatius; “for it is written, ‘I will dwell in them and
rest in them.’”
So perfect was the identification of Christ with the individual
Christian in the primitive church, that it was a familiar form of
expression to speak of an injury done to the meanest Christian as an
injury done to Christ. So St. Paul says, “When ye sin so against the
weak brethren, and wound their weak consciences, ye sin against
Christ.” He says of himself, “I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.”
See, also, the following extracts from a letter by Cyprian, Bishop of
Carthage, to some poor Numidian churches, who had applied to him
to redeem some of their members from slavery among bordering
savage tribes. (Neander Denkw. I. 340.)
We could view the captivity of our brethren no otherwise than as our own, since
we belong to one body, and not only love, but religion, excites us to redeem in our
brethren the members of our own body. We must, even if affection were not
sufficient to induce us to keep our brethren,—we must reflect that the temples of
God are in captivity, and these temples of God ought not, by our neglect, long to
remain in bondage. * * *
Since the apostle says “as many of you as are baptized have put on Christ,” so in
our captive brethren we must see before us Christ, who hath ransomed us from
the danger of captivity, who hath redeemed us from the danger of death; Him
who hath freed us from the abyss of Satan, and who now remains and dwells in
us, to free Him from the hands of barbarians! With a small sum of money to
ransom Him who hath ransomed us by his cross and blood; and who hath
permitted this to take place that our faith may be proved thereby!
Now, because the Greek word doulos may mean a slave, and
because it is evident that there were men in the Christian church
who were called douloi, will anybody say, in the whole face and
genius of this beautiful institution, that these men were held actually
as slaves in the sense of Roman and American law? Of all dry, dull,
hopeless stupidities, this is the most stupid. Suppose Christian
masters did have servants who were called douloi, as is plain enough
they did, is it not evident that the word douloi had become
significant of something very different in the Christian church from
what it meant in Roman law? It was not the business of the apostles
to make new dictionaries; they did not change words,—they
changed things. The baptized, regenerated, new-created doulos, of
one body and one spirit with his master, made one with his master,
even as Christ is one with the Father, a member with him of that
church which is the fulness of Him who filleth all in all,—was his
relation to his Christian master like that of an American slave to his
master? Would he who regarded his weakest brother as being one
with Christ hold his brother as a chattel personal? Could he hold
Christ as a chattel personal? Could he sell Christ for money? Could
he hold the temple of the Holy Ghost as his property, and gravely
defend his right to sell, lease, mortgage or hire the same, at his
convenience, as that right has been argued in the slave-holding
pulpits of America?
What would have been said at such a doctrine announced in the
Christian church? Every member would have stopped his ears, and
cried out, “Judas!” If he was pronounced accursed who thought that
the gift of the Holy Ghost might be purchased with money, what
would have been said of him who held that the very temple of the
Holy Ghost might be bought and sold, and Christ the Lord become
an article of merchandise? Such an idea never was thought of. It
could not have been refuted, for it never existed. It was an unheard-
of and unsupposable work of the devil, which Paul never
contemplated as even possible, that one Christian could claim a right
to hold another Christian as merchandise, and to trade in the
“member of the body, flesh and bones” of Christ. Such a horrible
doctrine never polluted the innocence of the Christian church even in
thought.
The directions which Paul gives to Christian masters and servants
sufficiently show what a redeeming change had passed over the
institution. In 1st Timothy, St. Paul gives the following directions,
first to those who have heathen masters, second, to those who have
Christian masters. That concerning heathen masters is thus
expressed: “Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their
own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his
doctrine be not blasphemed.” In the next verse the direction is given
to the servants of Christian masters: “They that have believing
masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren, but
rather do them service because they are faithful and beloved,
partakers of the benefit.” Notice, now, the contrast between these
directions. The servant of the heathen master is said to be under the
yoke, and it is evidently implied that the servant of the Christian
master was not under the yoke. The servant of the heathen master
was under the severe Roman law; the servant of the Christian
master is an equal, and a brother. In these circumstances, the
servant of the heathen master is commanded to obey for the sake of
recommending the Christian religion. The servant of the Christian
master, on the other hand, is commanded not to despise his master
because he is his brother; but he is to do him service because his
master is faithful and beloved, a partaker of the same glorious hopes
with himself. Let us suppose, now, a clergyman, employed as a
chaplain on a cotton plantation, where most of the members on the
plantation, as we are informed is sometimes the case, are members
of the same Christian church as their master, should assemble the
hands around him and say, “Now, boys, I would not have you
despise your master because he is your brother. It is true you are all
one in Christ Jesus; there is no distinction here; there is neither Jew
nor Greek, neither negro nor white man, neither bond nor free, but
ye are all brethren,—all alike members of Christ, and heirs of the
same kingdom; but you must not despise your master on this
account. You must love him as a brother, and be willing to do all you
can to serve him; because you see he is a partaker of the same
benefit with you, and the Lord loves him as much as he does you.”
Would not such an address create a certain degree of astonishment
both with master and servants; and does not the fact that it seems
absurd show that the relation of the slave to his master in American
law is a very different one from what it was in the Christian church?
But again, let us quote another passage, which slave-owners are
much more fond of. In Colossians 4:22 and 5:1,—“Servants, obey, in
all things, your masters, according to the flesh; not with eye-service
as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart as fearing God; and
whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as unto the Lord, and not unto men,
knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the
inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ.” “Masters, give unto
servants that which is just and equal, knowing that ye also have a
Master in heaven.”
Now, there is nothing in these directions to servants which would
show that they were chattel servants in the sense of slave-law; for
they will apply equally well to every servant in Old England and New
England; but there is something in the direction to masters which
shows that they were not considered chattel servants by the church,
because the master is commanded to give unto them that which is
just and equal, as a consideration for their service. Of the words
“just and equal,” “just” means that which is legally theirs, and
“equal” means that which is in itself equitable, irrespective of law.
Now, we have the undoubted testimony of all legal authorities on
American slave-law that American slavery does not pretend to be
founded on what is just or equal either. Thus Judge Ruffin says:
“Merely in the abstract it may well be asked which power of the
master accords with right. The answer will probably sweep away all
of them;” and this principle, so unequivocally asserted by Judge
Ruffin, is all along implied and taken for granted, as we have just
seen, in all the reasonings upon slavery and the slave-law. It would
take very little legal acumen to see that the enacting of these words
of Paul into a statute by any state would be a practical abolition of
slavery in that state.
But it is said that St. Paul sent Onesimus back to his master. Indeed!
but how? When, to our eternal shame and disgrace, the horrors of
the fugitive slave-law were being enacted in Boston, and the very
Cradle of Liberty resounded with the groans of the slave, and men
harder-hearted than Saul of Tarsus made havoc of the church,
entering into every house, haling men and women, committing them
to prison; when whole churches of humble Christians were broken
up and scattered like flocks of trembling sheep; when husbands and
fathers were torn from their families, and mothers, with poor,
helpless children, fled at midnight, with bleeding feet, through snow
and ice, towards Canada;—in the midst of these scenes, which have
made America a by-word and a hissing and an astonishment among
all nations, there were found men, Christian men, ministers of the
gospel of Jesus, even,—alas! that this should ever be written,—who,
standing in the pulpit, in the name and by the authority of Christ,
justified and sanctioned these enormities, and used this most loving
and simple-hearted letter of the martyr Paul to justify these
unheard-of atrocities!
He who said, “Who is weak and I am not weak? Who is offended
and I burn not?”—he who called the converted slave his own body,
the son begotten in his bonds, and who sent him to the brother of
his soul with the direction, “Receive him as myself, not now as a
slave, but above a slave, a brother beloved,”—this beautiful letter,
this outgush of tenderness and love passing the love of woman, was
held up to be pawed over by the polluted hobgoblin-fingers of slave-
dealers and slave-whippers as their lettre de cachet, signed and
sealed in the name of Christ and his apostles, giving full authority to
carry back slaves to be tortured and whipped, and sold into
perpetual bondage, as were Henry Long and Thomas Sims! Just as
well might a mother’s letter, when, with prayers and tears, she
commits her first and only child to the cherishing love and sympathy
of some trusted friend, be used as an inquisitor’s warrant for
inflicting imprisonment and torture upon that child. Had not every
fragment of the apostle’s body long since mouldered to dust, his
very bones would have moved in their grave, in protest against such
slander on the Christian name and faith. And is it come to this. O
Jesus Christ! have such things been done in thy name, and art thou
silent yet? Verily, thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel,
the Saviour!
 CHAPTER V.

But why did not the apostles preach against the legal relation of
slavery, and seek its overthrow in the state? This question is often
argued as if the apostles were in the same condition with the clergy
of Southern churches, members of republican institutions, law-
makers, and possessed of all republican powers to agitate for the
repeal of unjust laws.
Contrary to all this, a little reading of the New Testament will show
us that the apostles were almost in the condition of outlaws, under a
severe and despotic government, whose spirit and laws they
reprobated as unchristian, and to which they submitted, just as they
exhorted the slave to submit, as to a necessary evil.
Hear the apostle Paul thus enumerating the political privileges
incident to the ministry of Christ. Some false teachers had risen in
the church at Corinth, and controverted his teachings, asserting that
they had greater pretensions to authority in the Christian ministry
than he. St. Paul, defending his apostolic position, thus speaks: “Are
they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labors
more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent,
in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save
one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I
suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep; in
journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by
mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city,
in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false
brethren: in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in
hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.”
What enumeration of the hardships of an American slave can more
than equal the hardships of the great apostle to the Gentiles? He
had nothing to do with laws except to suffer their penalties. They
were made and kept in operation without asking him, and the slave
did not suffer any more from them than he did.
It would appear that the clergymen of the South, when they imitate
the example of Paul, in letting entirely alone the civil relation of the
slave, have left wholly out of their account how different is the
position of an American clergyman, in a republican government,
where he himself helps make and sustain the laws, from the
condition of the apostle, under a heathen despotism, with whose
laws he could have nothing to do.
It is very proper for an outlawed slave to address to other outlawed
slaves exhortations to submit to a government which neither he nor
they have any power to alter.
We read, in sermons which clergymen at the South have addressed
to slaves, exhortations to submission, and patience, and humility, in
their enslaved condition, which would be exceedingly proper in the
mouth of an apostle, where he and the slaves were alike fellow-
sufferers under a despotism whose laws they could not alter, but
which assume quite another character when addressed to the slave
by the very men who make the laws that enslave them.
If a man has been waylaid and robbed of all his property, it would be
very becoming and proper for his clergyman to endeavor to reconcile
him to his condition, as, in some sense, a dispensation of
Providence; but if the man who robs him should come to him, and
address to him the same exhortations, he certainly will think that
that is quite another phase of the matter.
A clergyman of high rank in the church, in a sermon to the negroes,
thus addresses them:
Almighty God hath been pleased to make you slaves here, and to give you nothing
but labor and poverty in this world, which you are obliged to submit to, as it is his
will that it should be so. And think within yourselves what a terrible thing it would
be, after all your labors and sufferings in this life, to be turned into hell in the next
life; and, after wearing out your bodies in service here, to go into a far worse
slavery when this is over, and your poor souls be delivered over into the
possession of the devil, to become his slaves forever in hell, without any hope of
ever getting free from it. If, therefore, you would be God’s freemen in heaven, you
must strive to be good and serve him here on earth. Your bodies, you know, are
not your own; they are at the disposal of those you belong to; but your precious
souls are still your own, which nothing can take from you, if it be not your own
fault. Consider well, then, that if you lose your souls by leading idle, wicked lives
here, you have got nothing by it in this world, and you have lost your all in the
next. For your idleness and wickedness is generally found out, and your bodies
suffer for it here; and, what is far worse, if you do not repent and amend, your
unhappy souls will suffer for it hereafter.
Now, this clergyman was a man of undoubted sincerity. He had read
the New Testament, and observed that St. Paul addressed
exhortations something like this to slaves in his day.
But he entirely forgot to consider that Paul had not the rights of a
republican clergyman; that he was not a maker and sustainer of
those laws by which the slaves were reduced to their condition, but
only a fellow-sufferer under them. A case may be supposed which
would illustrate this principle to the clergyman. Suppose that he
were travelling along the highway, with all his worldly property about
him, in the shape of bank-bills. An association of highwaymen seize
him, bind him to a tree, and take away the whole of his worldly
estate. This they would have precisely the same right to do that the
clergyman and his brother republicans have to take all the earnings
and possessions of their slaves. The property would belong to these
highwaymen by exactly the same kind of title,—not because they
have earned it, but simply because they have got it and are able to
keep it.
The head of this confederation, observing some dissatisfaction upon
the face of the clergyman, proceeds to address him a religious
exhortation to patience and submission, in much the same terms as
he had before addressed to the slaves. “Almighty God has been
pleased to take away your entire property, and to give you nothing
but labor and poverty in this world, which you are obliged to submit
to, as it is his will that it should be so. Now, think within yourself
what a terrible thing it would be, if, having lost all your worldly
property, you should, by discontent and want of resignation, lose
also your soul; and, having been robbed of all your property here, to
have your poor soul delivered over to the possession of the devil, to
become his property forever in hell, without any hope of ever getting
free from it. Your property now is no longer your own; we have
taken possession of it; but your precious soul is still your own, and
nothing can take it from you but your own fault. Consider well, then,
that if you lose your soul by rebellion and murmuring against this
dispensation of Providence, you will get nothing by it in this world,
and will lose your all in the next.”
Now, should this clergyman say, as he might very properly, to these
robbers,—“There is no necessity for my being poor in this world, if
you will only give me back my property which you have taken from
me,” he is only saying precisely what the slaves to whom he has
been preaching might say to him and his fellow-republicans.
 CHAPTER VI.

But it may still be said that the apostles might have commanded
Christian masters to perform the act of legal emancipation in all
cases. Certainly they might, and it is quite evident that they did not.
The professing primitive Christian regarded and treated his slave as
a brother, but in the eye of the law he was still his chattel personal,
—a thing, and not a man. Why did not the apostles, then, strike at
the legal relation? Why did they not command every Christian
convert to sunder that chain at once? In answer, we say that every
attempt at reform which comes from God has proceeded uniformly
in this manner,—to destroy the spirit of an abuse first, and leave the
form of it to drop away, of itself, afterwards,—to girdle the poisonous
tree, and leave it to take its own time for dying.
This mode of dealing with abuses has this advantage, that it is
compendious and universal, and can apply to that particular abuse in
all ages, and under all shades and modifications. If the apostle, in
that outward and physical age, had merely attacked the legal
relation, and had rested the whole burden of obligation on dissolving
that, the corrupt and selfish principle might have run into other
forms of oppression equally bad, and sheltered itself under the
technicality of avoiding legal slavery. God, therefore, dealt a surer
blow at the monster, by singling out the precise spot where his heart
beat, and saying to his apostles, “Strike there!”
Instead of saying to the slave-holder, “manumit your slave,” it said to
him. “treat him as your brother,” and left to the slave-holder’s
conscience to say how much was implied in this command.
In the directions which Paul gave about slavery, it is evident that he
considered the legal relation with the same indifference with which a
gardener treats a piece of unsightly bark, which he perceives the
growing vigor of a young tree is about to throw off by its own vital
force. He looked upon it as a part of an old, effete system of
heathenism, belonging to a set of laws and usages which were
waxing old and ready to vanish away.
There is an argument which has been much employed on this
subject, and which is specious. It is this. That the apostles treated
slavery as one of the lawful relations of life, like that of parent and
child, husband and wife.
The argument is thus stated: The apostles found all the relations of
life much corrupted by various abuses.
They did not attack the relations, but reformed the abuses, and thus
restored the relations to a healthy state.
The mistake here lies in assuming that slavery is the lawful relation.
Slavery is the corruption of a lawful relation. The lawful relation is
servitude, and slavery is the corruption of servitude.
When the apostles came, all the relations of life in the Roman
empire were thoroughly permeated with the principle of slavery. The
relation of child to parent was slavery. The relation of wife to
husband was slavery. The relation of servant to master was slavery.
The power of the father over his son, by Roman law, was very much
the same with the power of the master over his slave.[30] He could,
at his pleasure, scourge, imprison, or put him to death. The son
could possess nothing but what was the property of his father; and
this unlimited control extended through the whole lifetime of the
father, unless the son were formally liberated by an act of
manumission three times repeated, while the slave could be
manumitted by performing the act only once. Neither was there any
law obliging the father to manumit;—he could retain this power, if he
chose, during his whole life.
Very similar was the situation of the Roman wife. In case she were
accused of crime, her husband assembled a meeting of her relations,
and in their presence sat in judgment upon her, awarding such
punishment as he thought proper.
For unfaithfulness to her marriage-vow, or for drinking wine,
Romulus allowed her husband to put her to death.[31] From this
slavery, unlike the son, the wife could never be manumitted; no legal
forms were provided. It was lasting as her life.
The same spirit of force and slavery pervaded the relation of master
and servant, giving rise to that severe code of slave-law, which, with
a few features of added cruelty, Christian America, in the nineteenth
century, has reënacted.
With regard, now, to all these abuses of proper relations, the gospel
pursued one uniform course. It did not command the Christian
father to perform the legal act of emancipation to his son; but it
infused such a divine spirit into the paternal relation, by assimilating
it to the relation of the heavenly Father, that the Christianized
Roman would regard any use of his barbarous and oppressive legal
powers as entirely inconsistent with his Christian profession. So it
ennobled the marriage relation by comparing it to the relation
between Christ and his church; commanding the husband to love his
wife, even as Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it. It said
to him, “No man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and
cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church;” “so ought every one to
love his wife, even as himself.” Not an allusion is made to the
barbarous, unjust power which the law gave the husband. It was
perfectly understood that a Christian husband could not make use of
it in conformity with these directions.
In the same manner Christian masters were exhorted to give to their
servants that which is just and equitable; and, so far from coercing
their services by force, to forbear even threatenings. The Christian
master was directed to receive his Christianized slave, “NOT now as a
slave, but above a slave, a brother beloved;” and, as in all these
other cases, nothing was said to him about the barbarous powers
which the Roman law gave him, since it was perfectly understood
that he could not at the same time treat him as a brother beloved
and as a slave in the sense of Roman law.
When, therefore, the question is asked, why did not the apostles
seek the abolition of slavery, we answer, they did seek it. They
sought it by the safest, shortest, and most direct course which could
possibly have been adopted.

30. See Adams’ Roman Antiquities.

31. Dionys, Hal. II. 25.

 CHAPTER VII.

But did Christianity abolish slavery as a matter of fact? We answer, it

did.
Let us look at these acknowledged facts. At the time of the coming
of Christ, slavery extended over the whole civilized world. Captives in
war were uniformly made slaves, and, as wars were of constant
occurrence, the ranks of slavery were continually being reinforced;
and, as slavery was hereditary and perpetual, there was every
reason to suppose that the number would have gone on increasing
indefinitely, had not some influence operated to stop it. This is one
fact.
Let us now look at another. At the time of the Reformation, chattel-
slavery had entirely ceased throughout all the civilized countries of
the world;—by no particular edict, by no special laws of
emancipation, but by the steady influence of some gradual, unseen
power, this whole vast system had dissolved away, like the snow-
banks of winter.
These two facts being conceded, the inquiry arises, What caused
this change? If, now, we find that the most powerful organization in
the civilized world at that time did pursue a system of measures
which had a direct tendency to bring about such a result, we shall
very naturally ascribe it to that organization.
The Spanish writer, Balmes, in his work entitled “Protestantism
compared with Catholicity,” has one chapter devoted to the anti-
slavery course of the church, in which he sets forth the whole
system of measures which the church pursued in reference to this
subject, and quotes, in their order, all the decrees of councils. The
decrees themselves are given in an appendix at length, in the
original Latin. We cannot but sympathize deeply in the noble and
generous spirit in which these chapters are written, and the enlarged
and vigorous ideas which they give of the magnanimous and
honorable nature of Christianity. They are evidently conceived by a
large and noble soul, capable of understanding such views,—a soul
grave, earnest, deeply religious, though evidently penetrated and
imbued with the most profound conviction of the truth of his own
peculiar faith.
We shall give a short abstract, from M. Balmes, of the early course
of the church. In contemplating the course which the church took in
this period, certain things are to be borne in mind respecting the
character of the times.
The process was carried on during that stormy and convulsed period
of society which succeeded the breaking up of the Roman empire. At
this time, all the customs of society were rude and barbarous.
Though Christianity, as a system, had been nominally very
extensively embraced, yet it had not, as in the case of its first
converts, penetrated to the heart, and regenerated the whole
nature. Force and violence was the order of the day, and the
Christianity of the savage northern tribes, who at this time became
masters of Europe, was mingled with the barbarities of their ancient
heathenism. To root the institution of slavery out of such a state of
society, required, of course, a very different process from what
would be necessary under the enlightened organization of modern
times.
No power but one of the peculiar kind which the Christian church
then possessed could have effected anything in this way. The
Christian church at this time, far from being in the outcast and
outlawed state in which it existed in the time of the apostles, was
now an organization of great power, and of a kind of power
peculiarly adapted to that rude and uncultured age. It laid hold of all
those elements of fear, and mystery, and superstition, which are
strongest in barbarous ages, as with barbarous individuals, and it
visited the violations of its commands with penalties the more
dreaded that they related to some awful future, dimly perceived and
imperfectly comprehended.
In dealing with slavery, the church did not commence by a
proclamation of universal emancipation, because, such was the
barbarous and unsettled nature of the times, so fierce the grasp of
violence, and so many the causes of discord, that she avoided
adding to the confusion by infusing into it this element;—nay, a
certain council of the church forbade, on pain of ecclesiastical
censure, those who preached that slaves ought immediately to leave
their masters.
The course was commenced first by restricting the power of the
master, and granting protection to the slave. The Council of Orleans,
in 549, gave to a slave threatened with punishment the privilege of
taking sanctuary in a church, and forbade his master to withdraw
him thence, without taking a solemn oath that he would do him no
harm; and, if he violated the spirit of this oath, he was to be
suspended from the church and the sacraments,—a doom which in
those days was viewed with such a degree of superstitious awe, that
the most barbarous would scarcely dare to incur it. The custom was
afterwards introduced of requiring an oath on such occasions, not
only that the slave should be free from corporeal infliction, but that
he should not be punished by an extra imposition of labor, or by any
badge of disgrace. When this was complained of, as being altogether
too great a concession on the side of the slave, the utmost that
could be extorted from the church, by way of retraction, was this,—
that in cases of very heinous offence the master should not be
required to make the two latter promises.
There was a certain punishment among the Goths which was more
dreaded than death. It was the shaving of the hair. This was
considered as inflicting a lasting disgrace. If a Goth once had his hair
shaved, it was all over with him. The fifteenth canon of the Council
of Merida, in 666, forbade ecclesiastics to inflict this punishment
upon their slaves, as also all other kind of violence, and ordained
that if a slave committed an offence, he should not be subject to
private vengeance, but be delivered up to the secular tribunal, and
that the bishops should use their power only to procure a
moderation of the sentence. This was substituting public justice for
personal vengeance—a most important step. The church further
enacted, by two councils, that the master who, of his own authority,
should take the life of his slave, should be cut off for two years from
the communion of the church,—a condition, in the view of those
times, implying the most awful spiritual risk, separating the man in
the eye of society from all that was sacred, and teaching him to
regard himself, and others to regard him, as a being loaded with the
weight of a must tremendous sin.
Besides the protection given to life and limb, the church threw her
shield over the family condition of the slave. By old Roman law, the
slave could not contract a legal, inviolable marriage. The church of
that age availed itself of the catholic idea of the sacramental nature
of marriage to conflict with this heathenish doctrine. Pope Adrian I.
said, “According to the words of the apostle, as in Jesus Christ we
ought not to deprive either slaves or freemen of the sacraments of
the church so it is not allowed in any way to prevent the marriage of
slaves; and if their marriages have been contracted in spite of the
opposition and repugnance of their masters, nevertheless they ought
not to be dissolved.” St. Thomas was of the same opinion, for he
openly maintains that, with respect to contracting marriage, “slaves
are not obliged to obey their masters.”
It can easily be seen what an effect was produced when the
personal safety and family ties of the slaves were thus proclaimed
sacred by an authority which no man living dared dispute. It
elevated the slave in the eyes of his master, and awoke hope and
self-respect in his own bosom, and powerfully tended to fit him for
the reception of that liberty to which the church by many avenues
was constantly seeking to conduct him.
Another means which the church used to procure emancipation was
a jealous care of the freedom of those already free.
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