_THE NATURE OF ROMAN SLAVERY AND THE APOSTLE'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS IT.--A
MODERN PARALLEL._
"Let as many as are bond-servants under the yoke count their own
masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and the doctrine
be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let them
not despise them, because they are brethren; but let them serve them
the rather, because they that partake of the benefit are believing
and beloved. These things teach and exhort."--1 TIM. vi. 1, 2.
There are four passages in which St. Paul deals directly with the
relations between slaves and their masters:--in the Epistles to the
Ephesians (vi. 5-9), to the Colossians (iii. 22-iv. 1), to Philemon
(8-21), and the passage before us. Here he looks at the question from
the slave's point of view; in the letter to Philemon from that of the
master: in the Epistles to the Colossians and to the Ephesians he
addresses both. In all four places his attitude towards this monster
abomination is one and the same; and it is a very remarkable one. He
nowhere denounces slavery. He does not state that such an intolerable
iniquity as man possessing his fellow-man must be done away as speedily
as may be. He gives no encouragement to slaves to rebel or to run away.
He gives no hint to masters that they ought to let their slaves go free.
Nothing of the kind. He not only accepts slavery as a fact; he seems to
treat it as a necessary fact, a fact likely to be as permanent as
marriage and parentage, poverty and wealth.
This attitude becomes all the more marvellous, when we remember, not
only what slavery necessarily is wherever it exists, but what slavery
was both by custom and by law among the great slave-owners throughout
the Roman Empire. Slavery is at all times degrading to both the parties
in that unnatural relationship, however excellent may be the regulations
by which it is protected, and however noble may be the characters of
both master and slave. It is impossible for one human being to be
absolute owner of another's person without both possessor and possessed
being morally the worse for it. Violations of nature's laws are never
perpetrated with impunity; and when the laws violated are those which
are concerned, not with unconscious forces and atoms, but with human
souls and characters, the penalties of the violation are none the less
sure or severe. But these evils, which are the inevitable consequences
of the existence of slavery in any shape whatever, may be increased a
hundredfold, if the slavery exists under no regulations, or under bad
regulations, or again where both master and slave are, to start with,
base and brutalized in character. And all this was the case in the early
days of the Roman Empire. Slavery was to a great extent under no check
at all, and the laws which did exist for regulating the relationship
between owner and slave were for the most part of a character to
intensify the evil; while the conditions under which both master and
slave were educated were such as to render each of them ready to
increase the moral degradation of the other. We are accustomed to regard
with well-merited abhorrence and abomination the horrors of modern
slavery as practised until recently in America, and as still practised
in Egypt, Persia, Turkey, and Arabia. But it may be doubted whether all
the horrors of modern slavery are to be compared with the horrors of the
slavery of ancient Rome.
From a _political_ point of view it may be admitted that the institution
of slavery has in past ages played a useful part in the history of
mankind. It has mitigated the cruelties of barbaric warfare. It was more
merciful to enslave a prisoner than to sacrifice him to the gods, or to
torture him to death, or to eat him. And the enslaved prisoner and the
warrior who had captured him, at once became mutually useful to one
another. The warrior protected his slave from attack, and the slave by
his labour left the warrior free to protect him. Thus each did something
for the benefit of the other and of the society in which they lived.
But when we look at the institution from a _moral_ point of view, it is
difficult to avoid the conclusion that its effects have been wholly
evil. (1) It has been fatal to one of the most wholesome of human
beliefs, _the belief in the dignity of labour_. Labour was irksome, and
therefore assigned to the slave, and consequently came to be regarded as
degrading. Thus the freeman lost the ennobling discipline of toil; and
to the slave toil was not ennobling, because every one treated it as a
degradation. (2) It has been disastrous to the personal character of the
master. The possession of absolute power is always dangerous to our
nature. Greek writers are never tired of insisting upon this in
connexion with the rule of despots over citizens. Strangely enough they
did not see that the principle remained the same whether the autocrat
was ruler of a state or of a household. In either case he almost
inevitably became a tyrant, incapable of self-control, and the constant
victim of flattery. And in some ways the domestic tyrant was the worse
of the two. There was no public opinion to keep him in check, and his
tyranny could exercise itself in every detail of daily life. (3) It has
been disastrous to the personal character of the slave. Accustomed to be
looked upon as an inferior and scarcely human being, always at the beck
and call of another, and that for the most menial services, the slave
lost all self-respect. His natural weapon was deceit; and his chief, if
not his only pleasure, was the gratification of his lowest appetites.
The household slave not unfrequently divided his time between pandering
to his master's passions and gratifying his own. (4) It has been ruinous
to family life. If it did not trouble the relation between husband and
wife, it poisoned the atmosphere in which they lived and in which their
children were reared. The younger generation inevitably suffered. Even
if they did not learn cruelty from their parents, and deceit and
sensuality from the slaves, they lost delicacy of feeling by seeing
human beings treated like brute beasts, and by being constantly in the
society of those whom they were taught to despise. Even Plato, in
recommending that slaves should be treated justly and with a view to
their moral improvement, says that they must always be punished for
their faults, and not reproved like freemen, which only makes them
conceited; and one should use no language to them but that of
command.[70]
These evils, which are inherent in the very nature of slavery, were
intensified a hundredfold by Roman legislation, and by the condition of
Roman society in the first century of the Christian era. Slavery, which
began by being a mitigation of the barbarities of warfare, ended in
becoming an augmentation of them. Although a single campaign would
sometimes bring in many thousands of captives who were sold into
slavery, yet war did not procure slaves fast enough for the demand, and
was supplemented by systematic manhunts. It has been estimated that in
the Roman world of St. Paul's day the proportion of slaves to freemen
was in the ratio of two, or even three, to one. It was the immense
number of the slaves which led to some of the cruel customs and laws
respecting them. In the country they often worked, and sometimes slept,
in chains. Even in Rome under Augustus the house-porter was sometimes
chained. And by a decree of the Senate, if the master was murdered by a
slave, all the slaves of the household were put to death. The four
hundred slaves of Pedanius Secundus were executed under this enactment
in A.D. 61, in which year St. Paul was probably in Rome. Public protest
was made; but the Senate decided that the law must take its course. The
rabble of slaves could only be kept in check by fear. Again, if the
master was accused of a crime, he could surrender his slaves to be
tortured in order to prove his innocence.[71]
But it would be a vile task to rehearse all the horrors and abominations
to which the cruelty and lust of wealthy Roman men and women subjected
their slaves. The bloody sports of the gladiatorial shows and the
indecent products of the Roman stage were partly the effect and partly
the cause of the frightful character of Roman slavery. The gladiators
and the actors were slaves especially trained for these debasing
exhibitions; and Roman nobles and Roman ladies, brutalized and polluted
by witnessing them, went home to give vent among the slaves of their own
households to the passions which the circus and the theatre had roused.
And this was the system which St. Paul left unattacked and undenounced.
He never in so many words expresses any authoritative condemnation or
personal abhorrence of it. This is all the more remarkable when we
remember St. Paul's enthusiastic and sympathetic temperament; and the
fact is one more proof of the Divine inspiration of Scripture. That
slavery, as he saw it, must often have excited the most intense
indignation and distress in his heart we cannot doubt; and yet he was
guided not to give his sanction to remedies which would certainly have
been violent and possibly ineffectual. To have preached that the
Christian master must let his slaves go free, would have been to preach
that slaves had a right to freedom; and the slave would understand that
to mean that, if freedom was not granted, he might take this right of
his by force. Of all wars, a servile war is perhaps the most frightful;
and we may be thankful that none of those who first preached the Gospel,
gave their sanction to any such movement. The sudden abolition of
slavery in the first century would have meant the shipwreck of society.
Neither master nor slave was fit for any such change. A long course of
education was needed before so radical a reform could be successfully
accomplished. It has been pointed out as one of the chief marks of the
Divine character of the Gospel, that it never appeals to the spirit of
political revolution. It does not denounce abuses; but it insists upon
principles which will necessarily lead to their abolition.
This was precisely what St. Paul did in dealing with the gigantic cancer
which was draining the forces, economical, political, and moral, of
Roman society. He did not tell the slave that he was oppressed and
outraged. He did not tell the master that to buy and sell human beings
was a violation of the rights of man. But he inspired both of them with
sentiments which rendered the permanence of the unrighteous relation
between them impossible. To many a Roman it would have seemed nothing
less than robbery and revolution to tell him "You have no right to own
these persons; you must free your slaves." St. Paul, without attacking
the rights of property or existing laws and customs, spoke a far higher
word, and one which sooner or later must carry the freedom with it, when
he said, "You must _love_ your slaves." All the moral abominations which
had clustered round slavery,--idleness, deceit, cruelty, and lust,--he
denounced unsparingly; but for their own sake, not because of their
connexion with this iniquitous institution. The social arrangements,
which allowed and encouraged slavery, he did not denounce. He left it to
the principles which he preached gradually to reform them. Slavery
cannot continue when the brotherhood of all mankind, and the equality of
all men in Christ, have been realized. And long before slavery is
abolished, it is made more humane, wherever Christian principles are
brought to bear upon it. Even before Christianity in the person of
Constantine ascended the imperial throne, it had influenced public
opinion in the right direction. Seneca and Plutarch are much more humane
in their views of slavery than earlier writers are; and under the
Antonines the power of life and death over slaves was transferred from
their masters to the magistrates. Constantine went much further, and
Justinian further still, in ameliorating the condition of slaves and
encouraging emancipation. Thus slowly, but surely, this monstrous evil
is being eradicated from society; and it is one of the many beauties of
the Gospel in comparison with Islam, that whereas Mahometanism has
consecrated slavery and given it a permanent religious sanction,
Christianity has steadfastly abolished it. It is among the chief glories
of the present century that it has seen the abolition of slavery in the
British empire, the emancipation of the serfs in Russia, and the
emancipation of the negroes in the United States. And we may safely
assert that these tardy removals of a great social evil would never have
been accomplished but for the principles which St. Paul preached, at the
very time that he was allowing Christian masters to retain their slaves,
and bidding Christian slaves to honour and obey their heathen masters.
The Apostle's injunctions to slaves who have Christian masters is worthy
of special attention: it indicates one of the evils which would
certainly have become serious, had the Apostles set to work to preach
emancipation. The slaves being in almost all cases quite unfitted for a
life of freedom, wholesale emancipation would have flooded society with
crowds of persons quite unable to make a decent use of their newly
acquired liberty. The sudden change in their condition would have been
too great for their self-control. Indeed we gather from what St. Paul
says here, that the acceptance of the principles of Christianity in some
cases threw them off their balance. He charges Christian slaves who have
Christian masters _not to despise_ _them_. Evidently this was a
temptation which he foresaw, even if it was not a fault which he had
sometimes observed. To be told that he and his master were brethren, and
to find that _his master accepted this view of their relationship_, was
more than the poor slave in some instances could bear. He had been
educated to believe that he was an inferior order of being, having
scarcely anything in common, excepting a human form and passions, with
his master. And, whether he accepted this belief or not, he had found
himself systematically treated as if it were indisputable. When,
therefore, he was assured, as one of the first principles of his new
faith, that he was not only human, like his master, but in God's family
was his master's equal and brother; above all, when he had a Christian
master who not only shared this new faith, but acted upon it and treated
him as a brother, then his head was in danger of being turned. The
rebound from grovelling fear to terms of equality and affection was too
much for him; and the old attitude of cringing terror was exchanged not
for respectful loyalty, but for contempt. He began to despise the master
who had ceased to make himself terrible. All this shows how dangerous
sudden changes of social relationships are; and how warily we need to go
to work in order to bring about a reform of those which most plainly
need readjustment; and it adds greatly to our admiration of the wisdom
of the Apostle and our gratitude to Him Who inspired him with such
wisdom, to see that in dealing with this difficult problem he does not
allow his sympathies to outrun his judgment, and does not attempt to
cure a long-standing evil, which had entwined its roots round the very
foundations of society, by any rapid or violent process. All men are by
natural right free. Granted. All men are by creation children of God,
and by redemption brethren in Christ. Granted. But it is worse than
useless to give freedom suddenly to those who from their birth have been
deprived of it, and do not yet know what use to make of it; and to give
the position of children and brethren all at once to outcasts who cannot
understand what such privileges mean.
St. Paul tells the slave that freedom is a thing to be desired; but
still more that it is a thing to be deserved. "While you are still under
the yoke prove yourselves worthy of it and capable of bearing it. In
becoming Christians you have become Christ's freeman. Show that you can
enjoy that liberty without abusing it. If it leads you to treat a
heathen master with disdain, because he has it not, then you give him an
opportunity of blaspheming God and your holy religion; for he can say,
'What a vile creed this must be, which makes servants haughty and
disrespectful!' If it leads you to treat a Christian master with
contemptuous familiarity, because he recognizes you as a brother whom he
must love, then you are turning upside down the obligation which a
common faith imposes on you. That he is a fellow-Christian is a reason
why you should treat him with more reverence, not less." This is ever
the burden of his exhortation to slaves. He bids Timothy to insist upon
it. He tells Titus to do the same (ii. 9, 10). Slaves were in special
danger of misunderstanding what the liberty of the Gospel meant. It is
not for a moment to be supposed that it cancels any existing obligations
of a slave to his master. No hint is to be given them that they have a
right to demand emancipation, or would be justified in running away. Let
them learn to behave as the Lord's freeman. Let their masters learn to
behave as the Lord's bond-servants. When these principles have worked
themselves out, slavery will have ceased to be.
That day has not yet come, but the progress already made, especially
during the present century, leads us to hope that it may be near. But
the extinction of slavery will not deprive St. Paul's treatment of it of
its practical interest and value. His inspired wisdom in dealing with
this problem ought to be our guide in dealing with the scarcely less
momentous problems which confront us at the present day. We have social
difficulties to deal with, whose magnitude and character make them not
unlike that of slavery in the first ages of Christianity. There are the
relations between capital and labour, the prodigious inequalities in the
distribution of wealth, the degradation which is involved in the
crowding of population in the great centres of industry. In attempting
to remedy such things, let us, while we catch enthusiasm from St. Paul's
sympathetic zeal, not forget his patience and discretion. Monstrous
evils are not, like giants in the old romances, to be slain at a blow.
They are deeply rooted; and if we attempt to tear them up, we may pull
up the foundations of society along with them. We must be content to
work slowly and without violence. We have no right to preach revolution
and plunder to those who are suffering from undeserved poverty, any more
than St. Paul had to preach revolt to the slaves. Drastic remedies of
that kind will cause much enmity, and perhaps bloodshed, in the carrying
out, and will work no permanent cure in the end. It is incredible that
the well-being of mankind can be promoted by stirring up ill-will and
hatred between a suffering class and those who seem to have it in their
power to relieve them. Charity, we know, never faileth; but neither
Scripture nor experience has taught us that violence is a sure road to
success. We need more faith in the principles of Christianity and in
their power to promote happiness as well as godliness. What is required,
is not a sudden redistribution of wealth, or laws to prevent its
accumulation, but a proper appreciation of its value. Rich and poor
alike have yet to learn what is really worth having in this world. It is
not wealth, but happiness. And happiness is to be found neither in
gaining, nor in possessing, nor in spending money, but in being useful.
To serve others, to spend and be spent for them,--that is the ideal to
place before mankind; and just in proportion as it is reached, will the
frightful inequalities between class and class, and between man and man,
cease to be. It is a lesson that takes much teaching and much learning.
Meanwhile it seems a terrible thing to leave whole generations suffering
from destitution, just as it was a terrible thing to leave whole
generations groaning in slavery. But a general manumission would not
have helped matters then; and a general distribution to the indigent
would not help matters now. The remedy adopted then was a slow one, but
it has been efficacious. The master was not told to emancipate his
slave, and the slave was not told to run away from his master; but each
was charged to behave to the other, the master in commanding and the
slave in obeying, as Christian to Christian in the sight of God. Let us
not doubt that the same remedy now, if faithfully applied, will be not
less effectual. Do not tell the rich man that he must share his wealth
with those who have nothing. Do not tell the poor man that he has a
right to a share, and may seize it, if it is not given. But by precept
and example show to both alike that the one thing worth living for is to
promote the well-being of others. And let the experience of the past
convince us that any remedy which involves a violent reconstruction of
society is sure to be dangerous and may easily prove futile.
FOOTNOTES:
[70] _Laws_, 777 D.
[71] Tacitus, _Ann._ xiv. 42-45; iii. 14; comp. ii. 30 and iii. 67.