* Christianity and Slavery. No. 18 of Oxford House Papers.
By H. Henley Henson, B.A., Head of the Oxford House in
Bethnal Green. London: Rivingtons.
Some time ago I delivered a lecture in the London Hall of Science on
"Christianity and Slavery." Among my critics there was one gentleman,
and the circumstance was so noteworthy that my friend the chairman
expressed a wish, which I cordially echoed, that we might have the
pleasure of hearing him again. A few days ago a pamphlet reached me on
the subject of that lecture, written by my friendly opponent, who turns
out to be the head of the Oxford House in Bethnal Green. Mr. Henson
sends me the pamphlet himself "with his compliments," and I have read
it carefully. Indeed, I have marked it in dozens of places where his
statements strike me as inaccurate and his arguments as fallacious; and,
on the whole, I think it best to give him a set answer in this journal.
Mr. Henson's paper is not, in my opinion, a very forcible one on the
intellectual side. But perhaps that is, in a certain sense, one of its
merits; for the Christian case in this dispute is so bad that sentiment
does it more service than logic. I must, however, allow that Mr. Henson
is a courteous disputant, and I hope I shall reciprocate his good
feeling. When he opposed me at the Hall of Science, he admits that I
treated him "with a courtesy which relieves controversy of its worst
aspects." I trust he will be equally satisfied with my rejoinder.
Whenever I may have occasion to express myself strongly, I shall simply
be in earnest about the theme, without the least intention of being
discourteous. I mean no offence, and I hope I shall give none.
Mr. Henson says he is dealing in a brief compass with a big subject, but
"the outlines are clear, and may be perceived very readily by any honest
man of moderate intelligence." Well, whether it is that I am not an
honest man, or that I possess immoderate intelligence, I certainly
do not see the outlines of the subject as Mr. Henson sees them. The
relation of Christianity to slavery is an historical question, and Mr.
Henson treats it as though it were one of dialectics. However, I suppose
I had better follow him, and show that he is wrong even on his own
ground.
Mr. Henson undertakes to prove three things. (1) That slavery is flatly
opposed to the teaching of the New Testament. (2) That the abolition
of slavery in Europe was mainly owing to Christianity. (3) That at this
present time Christianity is steadily working against slavery all over
the world.
Before I discuss the first proposition I must ask why the _Old_
Testament is left out of account. Mr. Henson relegates it to a footnote,
and there he declares "once for all, that the Mosaic Law has nothing to
do with the question." But Mr. Henson's "once for all" has not the force
of a Papal decree. It is simply a bit of rhetorical emphasis, like a
flourish to a signature. Does he mean to say that the author of the
Mosaic Law was not the same God who speaks to us in the New Testament?
If it was the same God, "the same, yesterday, to-day, and for ever," the
Mosaic Law has very much to do with the question; unless--and this is
a vital point--Jesus distinctly abrogates it in any respect. He _did_
distinctly abrogate the _lex talionis_, an eye for an eye and a tooth
for a tooth; but he left the laws of slavery exactly as he found them,
and in this he was followed by Peter and Paul, and by all the Fathers of
the Church.
Mr. Henson tells us that "the Jews were a barbarous race, and slavery
was necessary to that stage of development," and that "the Law of Moses
moderated the worst features of slavery." The second statement cannot
be discussed, for we do not know what was the condition of slavery among
the Jews before the so-called Mosaic Law (centuries after Moses) came
into vogue. The first statement, however, is perfectly true; the Jews
_were_ barbarous, and slavery among them was inevitable. But that is
speaking _humanly_. What is the use of God's interference if he does not
make people wiser and better? Why did he lay down slavery laws without
hinting that they were provisional? Why did he so express himself as to
enable Christian divines and whole Churches to justify slavery from the
Bible long after it had died out of the internal polity of civilised
states? Surely God might have given less time to Aaron's vestments
and the paraphernalia of his own Tabernacle, and devoted some of his
infinite leisure to teaching the Jews that property in human flesh and
blood is immoral. Instead of that he actually told them, not only how
to buy foreigners (Leviticus xxv. 45, 46), but how to enslave their own
brethren (Exodus xxi. 2-11).
When Jesus Christ came from heaven to give mankind a new revelation he
had a fine opportunity to correct the brutalities of the Mosaic Law. Yet
Mr. Henson allows that he "did not actually forbid Slavery in express
terms," and that he "never said in so many words, Slavery is wrong."
But why not? It will not do to say the time was not ripe, for Mr. Henson
admits that in Rome "the fashionable philosophies, especially that of
the Stoics, branded Slavery as an outrage against the natural Equality
of Men." Surely Jesus Christ might have kept abreast of the Stoics.
Surely, too, as he did not mean to say anything more for at least two
thousand years, he might have gone _in advance_ of the best teaching of
the age, so as to provide for the progress of future generations.
But, says Mr. Henson, Jesus Christ "laid down broad principles which
took from Slavery its bad features, and tended, by an unerring law to
its abolition." Well, the tendency was a remarkably slow one. Men still
living can remember when Slavery was abolished in the British dominions.
I can remember when it was abolished in the United States. Eighteen
centuries of Christian _tendency_ were necessary to kill Slavery! Surely
the natural growth of civilisation might have done as much in that time,
though Jesus Christ had never lived and taught. How civilisation _did_
mitigate the horrors of Slavery, and was gradually but surely working
towards its abolition, may be seen in Gibbon's second chapter. This
was under the great Pagan emperors, some of whom knew Christianity and
despised it.
"Slavery is cruel," says Mr. Henson, while "Christianity teaches men
to be kind and to love one another." But _teaching_ men to love one
another, even if Christianity taught nothing else--which is far from the
truth--is a very questionable expenditure of time and energy; for how is
love to be _taught_? Besides, a master and a slave might be attached to
each other--as was often the case--without either seeing that Slavery
was a violation of the law of love. What was needed was the sentiment of
_Justice_. That has broken the chains of the slave. The Stoics were
on the right track after all, while Christianity lost itself in idle
sentimentalism.
"Slavery denies the Equality of Men," says Mr. Henson, while
"Christianity asserts it strongly." I regret I cannot agree with him.
Certain amiable texts which he cites might easily be confronted with
others of a very different character. What did Christ mean by promising
that when he came into his kingdom his disciples should sit on twelve
thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel? How is this consistent
with his saying, "call no man master"? What did Paul mean by ordering
unlimited obedience to "the powers that be"? What did he and Peter mean
by telling slaves to obey their owners? Is all this consistent with the
doctrine of human equality? Mr. Henson simply reads into certain New
Testament utterances what was never in the speakers' minds. His abstract
argument is indeed perilous in regard to such composite writings as the
Gospels and the Epistles. Let it be assumed, for argument's sake, that
Christianity does somewhere assert the Equality of Men. Then it condemns
Royalty as well as Slavery; yet Peter says, "Fear God and honor the
King." I leave Mr. Henson to extricate himself from this dilemma.
I repeat that all this dialectic is a kind of subterfuge; at least it
is an evasion. The great fact remains that Jesus Christ never breathed
a whisper against slavery when he had the opportunity. Yet he could
denounce what he disapproved in the most vigorous fashion. His
objurgation of the Scribes and Pharisees is almost without a parallel.
Surely he might have reserved a little of his boisterous abuse for an
institution which was infinitely more harmful than the whole crowd of
his rivals. Those who opposed _him_ were overwhelmed with vituperation,
but not once did he censure those who held millions in cruel bondage,
turning men into mere beasts of burden, and women, if they happened to
be beautiful, into the most wretched victims of lust.
Let us now turn to Paul, the great apostle whose teaching has had more
influence on the faith and practice of Christendom than that of Jesus
himself. Mr. Henson says that "the Apostle does not say one word for or
against slavery as such." Again I regret to differ. Paul never said a
word _against_ slavery, but he said many words that sanctioned it by
implication. He tells slaves (_servants_ in the Authorised Version) to
count their owners worthy of all honor (1 Tim. vi. 1); to be obedient
unto them, with fear and trembling, as unto Christ (Ephesians vi. 5);
and to please them in all things (Titus ii. 9). I need not discuss
whether servants means _slaves_ and masters _owners_, for Mr. Henson
admits that such is their meaning. Here then Paul is, if Jesus was not,
brought face to face with slavery, and he does not even suggest that the
institution is wrong. He tells slaves to obey their owners as they obey
Christ; and, on the other hand, he bids owners to "forbear threatening"
their slaves. But so much might have been said by Cicero and Pliny; the
former of whom, as Lecky says, wrote many letters to his slave Tiro "in
terms of sincere and delicate friendship"; while the latter "poured out
his deep sorrow for the death of some of his slaves, and endeavored to
console himself with the thought that as he had emancipated them before
their death, they had at least died free men."
Paul does indeed say that both bond and free are "all one in Christ."
But Louis the Fourteenth would have admitted _that_ kinship between
himself and the meanest serf in France, "One in Christ" is a spiritual
idea, and has relation to a future life, in which earthly distinctions
would naturally cease.
Mr. Henson is obliged to face the story of Onesimus, the runaway slave,
whom Paul deliberately sent back to his master, Philemon. "The Apostle's
position," he says, "is practically this"; whereupon he puts into Paul's
mouth words of his own invention. I do not deny his right to use
this literary artifice, but I decline to let it impose on my own
understanding. There is a certain pathetic tenderness in Paul's letter
to Philemon if we suppose that he took the institution of Slavery for
granted, but it vanishes if we suppose that he felt the institution to
be wrong. Professor Newman justly remarks that "Onesimus, in the very
act of taking to flight, showed that he had been submitting to servitude
against his will, and that the house of his owner had previously been
a prison to him." Nor do I see any escape from the same writer's
conclusion that, although Paul besought Philemon to treat Onesimus as
a brother, "this very recommendation, full of affection as it is,
virtually recognises the moral rights of Philemon to the services of his
slave." Mr. Benson apparently feels this himself. "Christian tradition,"
he says, "declares that Philemon at once set Onesimus free." But
"tradition" can hardly be cited as a fact. Mr. Henson says "it is more
than probable," or, in other words, _certain_; yet he cannot expect me
to follow him in his illogical leap. Nor, indeed, is the "traditional"
liberation of Onesimus of much importance to the argument. Not
Philemon's but Paul's views are in dispute; and if Philemon did liberate
Onesimus--which is a pure assumption--Paul certainly did not advise him
to do anything of the kind.
Paul's epistle to Philemon does not, from its very-nature, seem intended
for publication. Why then, in the ease of private correspondence, did
he not hint that Slavery was only tolerated for the time and would
eventually cease? Instead of that he sent back Onesimus to a servitude
from which he had fled. How unlike Theodore Parker writing his
discourse, with a runaway slave in the back room, and a revolver on his
desk! How unlike Walt Whitman watching the slumber of another fugitive,
with one hand on his trusty rifle!
Mr. Henson lives after the abolition of Slavery, and as he clings to his
Bible as God's Word he reads into it the morality of a later age. Let
him consult the writings of Christian divines on the subject, and
he will see that they have almost invariably justified Slavery from
scripture. Ignatius (who is said to have seen Jesus), St. Cyprian, Pope
Gregory the Great, St. Basil, Tertullian, St. Isidore, St. Augustine,
St. Bernard, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Bossuet, all taught that Slavery is
a divine institution. During all the centuries from Ignatius to Bossuet,
what eminent Christian ever denounced Slavery as wicked? Even the
Christian jurisprudists of the eighteenth century defended negro
slavery, which it was reserved for the sceptical Montesquieu and the
arch-heretic Voltaire to condemn. Montesquieu's ironical chapter on the
subject is worthy of Molliere, and Voltaire's is an honor to humanity.
He called Slavery "the degrada of the species"; and, in answer to
Puffendorff, who claimed that slavery had been established by the
free consent of the opposing parties, he exclaimed, "I will believe
Puffendorff, when he shows me the original contract."
Negro slavery was defended in America by direct appeal to the Bible. Mr.
Henson seeks to lessen the force of this damning fact by referring to
these defenders of slavery as "certain clergymen and other Christians,"
and as "ignorant and unworthy members of the Church." _Certain_
clergymen! Why, the clergy defended slavery almost to a man, and in
the Northern States they were even more bigoted than in the South. Mrs.
Beecher Stowe said that the Church was so familiarly quoted as being on
the side of Slavery, that "Statesmen on both sides of the question have
laid that down as a settled fact." Theodore Parker said that if the
whole American Church had "dropped through the continent and disappeared
altogether, the anti-Slavery cause would have been further on." He
pointed out that no Church ever issued a single tract, among all its
thousands, against property in human flesh and blood; and that 80,000
slaves were owned by Presbyterians, 225,000 by Baptists, and 250,000
by Methodists. Wilberforce himself declared that the American Episcopal
Church "raises no voice against the predominant evil; she palliates
it in theory, and in practice she shares in it. The mildest and most
conscientious of the bishops of the South are slaveholders themselves."
The Harmony Presbytery of South Carolina deliberately resolved that
Slavery was justified by Holy Writ. The Methodist Episcopal Church
decided in 1840 against allowing any "colored persons" to give testimony
against "white persons." The College Church of the Union Theological
Seminary, Prince Edward County, was endowed with slaves, who were hired
out to the highest bidder for the pastor's salary. Lastly, Professor
Moses Stuart, of Andover, who is accounted the greatest American
theologian since Jonathan Edwards, declared that "The precepts of the
New Testament respecting the demeanor of slaves and their masters
beyond all question recognise the existence of Slavery." So much for Mr.
Henson's "certain clergymen."
Mr. Henson also argues that the Northern States were "the most
distinctly Christian," and that they were opposed to Slavery. History
belies this statement Harriet Martineau, when she visited America and
stood on the anti-slavery platform, says she was in danger of her life
in the North while scarcely molested in the South. When William Lloyd
Garrison delivered his first anti-slavery lecture in Boston, the classic
home of American orthodoxy, every Catholic and Protestant church was
closed against him, and he was obliged to accept the use of Julian Hall
from Abner Kneeland, an infidel who had been prosecuted for blasphemy.
It was not "the true spirit of Christianity" which abolished Slavery
in the United States, but "the true spirit of Humanity," which inspired
some Christians and more Freethinkers to vindicate the natural rights
of men of all colors. Even in the end, Slavery was not terminated by the
vote of the Churches; it was abolished by Lincoln as a strategic act in
the midst of a civil war, precisely as was predicted by Thomas Paine,
who not only hated Slavery while his Christian defamers lived by it,
but was more sagacious in his political forecast than all the orthodox
statesmen of his age.
"A movement headed by Clarkson and Wilberforce," says Mr. Henson,
"could be no other than Christian," But why? Were not the slave-owners
also Christians? Was not the strength of Freethinkers, from Jeremy
Bentham downwards, given to the abolition movement? Were not the
Freethinkers all on one side, while the Christians were divided? And why
did the abolition movement in England wait until new ideas had leavened
the public mind? Had it been purely Christian, would it not have
triumphed long before? The fact is there was plenty of Christianity
during the preceding thousand years, but the sceptical and humanitarian
work of the eighteenth century was necessary before there could be
any general revolt against injustice and oppression. No perversion of
history can alter the fact that, in the words of Professor Newman, "the
first public act against Slavery came from republican France, in the
madness of atheistic enthusiasm." Mr. Henson sees this clearly himself,
and therefore he pretends that all the best ideas of the French
Revolution were borrowed from Christianity. Shades of Voltaire and
Diderot, of Mirabeau and Danton, listen to this apologist of the faith
you despised! Voltaire's face is wreathed with ineffable irony, Diderot
contemplates the speaker as a new species for a psychological monograph,
Mirabeau flings back his leonine head with a swirl of the black mane and
a glare of the great eyes, and Danton roars a titanic laugh that shakes
the very roof of Hades.
Now let us turn to the old indigenous Slavery of Europe. Mr. Henson
appeals to "the witness of history," and he shall have it. He
undertakes to prove "That among the various causes which tended to
assuage the hardship and threaten the permanence of Slavery, the most
powerful, the most active, and most successful was Christianity"; also
"That when the barbarian conquests re-established slavery in a new form,
the Church exerted all her energies on the side of freedom."
That Christianity "threatened" the permanence of Slavery is, of course,
purely a matter of opinion. Mr. Henson takes one view, I have given
reasons for another, and the reader must judge between us. That it
softened the rigors of Slavery is a very questionable statement. When
Mr. Henson says that "Roman Slavery was, perhaps, the most cruel and
revolting kind of Slavery," he is guilty of historical confusion. Roman
Slavery lasted for very many centuries. In the early ages it was brutal
enough, but under the great emperors, and especially the Antonines,
it was far more merciful than negro Slavery was in Christian America.
Slaves were protected by law; the power of putting them to death was
taken from the masters and entrusted to the magistrates; and, as Gibbon
says, "Upon a just complaint of intolerable treatment, the injured slave
either obtained his deliverance or a less cruel master." Compare this
with the condition of serfs under the Christian feudal system, when, in
Mr. Henson's own language, "the serf was tied to the soil, bought and
sold with it, the chattel of his master, who could overwork, beat, and
even kill him at will."
The phrase "re-established Slavery in a new form," seems to imply that
Christianity had abolished Slavery before the barbaric conquests. But it
had done nothing of the kind. Nay, as a matter of fact, Constantine and
his successors drew a sharper line than ever between slaves and freemen.
Constantine (the first Christian emperor) actually decreed death against
any freewoman who should marry a slave, while the slave himself was to
be burnt alive!
Much of what Mr. Henson says about the manumission of slaves by some of
the mediaeval clergy is unquestionably true. But who doubts that, during
a thousand years, a humane and even a noble heart often beat under a
priest's cassock? These manumissions, however, were of Christian slaves.
The Pagan slaves--such as the Sclavonians, from whom the word _slave_ is
derived--were considered to have no claims at all. Surely the liberation
of fellow Christians might spring from proselyte zeal. "Mohammedans
also," as Professor Newman says, "have a conscience against enslaving
Mohammedans, and generally bestow freedom on a slave as soon as he
adopts their religion." Manumission of slaves was common among humane
owners under the Roman Empire; indeed Gibbon observes that the law had
to guard against the swamping of free citizens by the sudden inrush of
"a mean and promiscuous multitude." Clerical manumission of slaves in
mediaeval times was therefore no novelty. On the other hand, bishops
held slaves like kings and nobles. The Abbey of St. Germain de Pres,
for instance, owned 80,000 slaves, and the Abbey of St. Martin de
Tours 20,000. The monks, who according to Mr. Henson, did so much to
extinguish slavery, owned multitudes of these servile creatures.
The acts of a few humane and noble spirits are no test of the effects of
a system. The decisions of Church Councils are a much better criterion.
They show the influence of _principles_, when personal equation is
eliminated. Turning to these Councils, then, what do we find? Why that
from the Council of Laodicea to the Lateran Council (1215)--that is,
for eight hundred years--the Church sanctioned Slavery again and again.
Slaves and their owners might be "one in Christ," but the Church taught
them to keep their distance on earth.
Civilisation, not Christianity, gradually extinguished Slavery in
Europe. Foreign slavery, such as that in our West Indian possessions,
is an artificial thing, and may be abolished by the stroke of a pen. But
domestic slavery has to die a natural death. The progress of education
and refinement, and the growth of the sentiment of justice, help to
extinguish it; but behind these there is an economical law which is no
less potent. Slave labor is only consistent with a low industrial life;
and thus, as civilisation expands, slavery fades into serfdom, and
serfdom into wage-service, as naturally as the darkness of night melts
into the morning twilight, and the twilight into day.
Mr. Henson throws in some not ineloquent remarks about the abolition
by Christianity of the gladiatorial shows at Rome. He himself has stood
within the ruined Colosseum and re-echoed Byron's heroics. Mr. Henson
even outdid Byron, for he looked up to the dome of St. Peter's, where
gleamed the Cross of Christ, and rejoiced that "He had triumphed at
last." "If only Mr. Foote had been there!" Mr. Henson exclaims. Well,
Gibbon was there before Mr. Henson and before Byron. What he thought
in the Colosseum I know not, but I know that the great project of
_The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ took shape in his mind one
eventful evening as he "sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol,
while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of
Jupiter." Yet I suppose Gibbon's fifteenth chapter is scarcely to Mr.
Henson's taste. Had I "been there" with Mr. Henson, I too might have had
my reflections, and I might have thrown this Freethought _douche_ on his
Christian ardor. "Yes, the Cross _has_ triumphed. There it gleams over
the dome of St. Peter's, the mightiest church in the world. Below it,
until the recent subversion of the Pope's temporal power, walked the
most ignorant, beggarly and criminal population in Europe. What are
these to the men who built up the glory of ancient Rome? What is their
city to the magnificent city of old, among whose ruins they walk like
pigmies amid the relics of giants? This time-eaten, weather-beaten
Colosseum saw many a gladiator 'butchered to make a Roman holiday.' But
has not Christian Rome witnessed many a viler spectacle? Has it not seen
hundreds of noble men burnt alive in the name of Christ? When Rome
was Pagan, thought was free. Gladiatorial shows satisfied the bestial
craving in vulgar breasts, but the philosophers and poets were
unfettered, and the intellect of the few was gradually achieving the
redemption of the many. When Rome was Christian, she introduced a new
slavery. Thought was scourged and chained, while the cruel instincts
of the multitude were gratified with exhibitions of suffering, compared
with which the bloodiest arena was tame and insipid. Your Christian
Rome, in the superb metaphor of Hobbes, was but the ghost of Pagan Rome,
sitting throned and crowned on the grave thereof; nay, a ghoul, feeding
not on the dead limbs of men, but on their living hearts and brains.
Look at your Cross! Before Christ appeared it was the symbol of life;
since it has been the symbol of misery and humiliation; and in the
name of your Crucified One the people have been crucified between the
spiritual and temporal thieves. But happily your Cross has had its day.
St. Peter's may yet crumble before the Colosseum, and the statue of a
Bruno may outlast the walls of the Vatican."