In 1030, Peter, bishop of Girona, in Spain, came to Rome, and begged
leave of the pope (John XIX.) to wear the pall twelve days in the year,
promising to redeem thirty slaves then in captivity among the Saracens,
provided his holiness granted him this request. It was readily granted.
See Bower, vol. v. p. 153.
Shortly after the 30th October, 1051, Pope Leo IX., having visited
Vercelli and Augsburg, returned to Rome, and held a council soon after
Easter, in which he excommunicated Gregory, bishop of Vercelli, for
committing adultery with a widow betrothed to his uncle. The bishop was
absent when this sentence was given, but he flew to Rome as soon as he
heard of it; and upon his promising to perform the penance that his
holiness imposed upon him, he was absolved from the excommunication, and
restored to the functions of his office. On that occasion the canons
issued by other councils against the incontinence of the clergy were
confirmed, and “some new ones were added, and, in order to check more
effectually the scandalous irregularity of the _Roman_ clergy in
particular, it was decreed, at the request of the pope, that all women
who should for the future prostitute themselves to the priests within
the walls of Rome should be condemned to serve as slaves in the Lateran
palace.” See Herman, ad an. 1051; also Bower, idem, p. 183.
By one of Constantine’s laws, they who ravished virgins or stole them,
even with their consent, against the will of their parents, (with the
view to make slaves of them or not,) were burned alive. Cod. Theodos. 1.
ix. tit. 29, leg. 1. The severity of this law was somewhat mitigated by
Constantius, but he still made it a capital offence. Ibid. leg. 2. It
was upon this law, Pope Hadrian II. applied to the emperor for redress
against _Eleutherius_, who had carried off his daughter _Stephania_ by
force, and married her, although she was betrothed to another. See
Bower, idem, p. 11. We have a remarkable letter, written by Gregory
VII., in January, 1080, in answer to one he had received from
Vratislaus, duke of Bohemia, desiring leave to have Divine service
performed in the Sclavonian tongue, that is, in the language of the
country. That letter the pope answered in the following words:
“As you desire us to allow Divine service to be performed among you in
the Sclavonian tongue, know that by no means can I grant your request,
it being manifest to all, who will but reflect, that it has pleased the
Almighty that the Scripture should be withheld from some, and not
understood by all, lest it should fall into contempt, or lead the
unlearned into error. And it must not be alleged that all were allowed,
in the _primitive times_, to read the Scriptures, it being well known
that in those early times the church _connived_ at many things, which
the holy fathers disapproved and corrected when the Christian religion
was firmly established. He cannot therefore grant, but absolutely
forbid, by the authority of Almighty God and his blessed apostle Peter,
what you ask, and command you to oppose to the utmost of your power all
who require it.” Greg. l. vii. ep. ii.; also Bower, idem, p. 279.
On the subject of the above letter, it should be remembered none
spoke the Sclavonic at that day except the Sclavonians themselves;
that the great mass of that people were slaves, either to some few
individuals of their own nation, or to the other European nations,
by whom they had been captured, or to whom they had been sold. They
were a nation of slaves, and hence the Romans called their language
_Servian_, from _servus_, a slave. There is still extant among the
ancient German archives some account of the physical and moral
appearance of this people, representing them as robust, filthy,
faithless, and extremely wicked. They called themselves _sclava_ or
_sclavas_, &c., which word, in their language, implied an elevated
distinction, and was in common use as a _suffix_ to individual
names, indicating that the person was highly elevated among his
countrymen, as in this case, Vrati-Slaus—indicating the fact that
_Vrati_ was famous, elevated, a man of high and honourable
distinction. Such men often held immense numbers of their less
elevated countrymen in bondage. From the form and meaning of this
_suffix_, some modern scholars have erroneously supposed it to have
come from the Latin, _laus_. We may form some idea of the feelings
of Pope Gregory VII., upon this application, by imagining what would
have been the feelings of a Virginia legislature, fifty years ago,
had some free African, then there, petitioned to have the laws
published in _Eboe_, for the benefit of the slaves. In the above
letter, the meaning of the assertion, “in those early times the
church _connived at_ many things which the holy fathers
disapproved,” &c., at this late day is very liable to be
misconceived. He does not allude to any thing said or done by Jesus
Christ or his apostles, but to the action of his predecessors in the
pontificate on this very subject. About the year 860, Pope Nicholas
I. granted this very privilege to the Sclavonians in Moravia; and
about ten years after, the same was renewed by Hadrian II., upon the
request of St. Cyril, the apostle of the Moravians. See the Life of
Cyril, (Latin,) page 22. And John VIII., in the year 882, confirmed
the same, at the request of _Sfento Pulcher_, prince of Moravia,
calling it the _license_ granted by Pope Nicholas, “of saying the
canonical hours and celebrating mass in their native language.”
“_The Sclavonian language we justly commend_,” says the pope in his
letter to the prince, “_and order the praise and the works of Christ our
Lord to be celebrated in that tongue, being directed by Divine authority
to praise the Lord, not in three only, but in all languages, agreeably
to what we find in holy writ—‘Praise ye the Lord, all ye nations, and
bless him, all ye people_.’ _The apostles announced the wonderful works
of God in all languages,” &c., “and he who made the three chief
languages, the Hebrew, the Greek, and the Latin, created all the rest
for his praise and glory._” See Johan. ep. 247.
The same privilege was granted by the _Greek_ church to the _Russians_,
who speak the _Sclavonian_ language; and they perform, to this day, as
well as the Moravians, Divine service in their native language. The
pope, however, ordered the gospel to be first read in _Latin_, and
afterwards, for the sake of those who understood not that language, in
the _Sclavonian_. (See Bower, idem, p. 37.) It is not relevant to our
subject to inquire what facts presented themselves to the mind of
Gregory VII., whereby he apprehended that the Scripture might “_fall
into contempt_,” or they “_lead the unlearned into error_.” But we have
seen, in our own day, a wide deviation from the instruction of St. Paul,
in a version of the New Testament in Romaic, or modern Greek, evidently
translated from our English version, instead of from the ancient Greek;
wherein Paul is made to say, 1 _Tim._ i. 10, _anthropokleptas_, which
indicates the stealing of a free man—instead of what Paul did say,
_andrapodistais_, which indicates the stealing of a slave. It is true,
King James’s translators substituted “_men-stealers_,” without any
further allusion that the _men_ who were to be the _things stolen_ were
slaves. It does not appear to have occurred to them that a _free man_
could be _stolen_, since in no sense could he be _property_. In said
version are other errors of equal magnitude; and we have it from good
authority that the Greek patriarch, after an examination of said
version, most strictly forbad his people to read it, and, also, to
introduce it among them. If such errors were incident to the
_Sclavonic_, Gregory VII. had at least some ground for his
apprehensions. But the Sclavonians were of the same colour and physical
formation of the northern tribes to whom they were in bondage. There was
no physical or moral degradation consequent to an amalgamation with
them; and such connection did happen to a very great extent, and at this
day has very nearly extinguished all caste between them. But in the days
of Gregory VII., and long since, the politer nations of the south of
Europe regarded those of the north, whether free or in servitude, as but
a mere grade, if at all, above barbarians; and this pope seems to have
been disposed to have fed them with “milk,” and not with “strong meat.”
_Heb._ v. 12. We may perceive how the south estimated the north at those
early times, by an incident related by D'Aubigne, vol. i. p. 96.
Reuchlin, a native of Pforzheim, had made himself a distinguished
scholar for any age. In 1498, he found his way to Rome, when
Argyropylos, a celebrated Greek professor, was lecturing on the elevated
standing in literature to which the Greeks had formerly arrived, &c.
Reuchlin, highly delighted with the lecture, visited the professor, and
addressed him in Greek. Argyropylos, perceiving him to be a German,
says, “Whence come you, and do you understand Greek?” Reuchlin replies,
“I am a German, and am not quite ignorant of your language.” He took up
Thucydides and read; when Argyropylos said, in grief, tears, and
astonishment, “Alas, alas, Greece cast out and fugitive, is gone to hide
herself beyond the Alps!” But the funeral fire of Greece and Rome
illumed the extreme north, and by its light the savage freeman and his
more savage slave were taught their religion, civilization, and science.
“It was thus,” says D'Aubigne, “that the sons of barbarous Germany and
those of ancient Greece met together in the palaces of Rome; thus it was
that the east and the west gave each other the right hand of fellowship
in this rendezvous of the world, and that the former poured into the
hands of the latter those intellectual treasures which it had carried
off in its escape from the barbarism of the Turks. God, when his plans
require it, brings together in an instant, by some unlooked-for
catastrophe, those who seemed for ever removed from each other.” This
improved condition of the northern nations was foreseen, perhaps already
felt, by Innocent IV., in 1254, when he permitted Divine service to be
performed in the Sclavonic language, which is noticed by Bower, vol. vi.
p. 254. At the close of his remarks on Pope Innocent IV., he says—“We
have a great number of letters written by this pope on different
occasions, and a decree allowing the _Sclavonians_ to perform Divine
service in their mother tongue, contrary to a decree of Gregory VII.” We
beg to notice Pope Gregory IX.; for, “by this pope was confirmed the
religious order of _St. Mary de Mercede_, as it is called, an order
instituted to make gatherings all over the Christian world for the
redemption of Christians taken and kept in _slavery_ by the infidels.”
Bower, idem, p. 236. This order was instituted by James, king of
Arragon, about the year 1223, and was confirmed by Gregory on the 17th
of January, 1230. The general of this order resides constantly at
Barcelona, where it was instituted by the king of Arragon, under the
direction of _Raimund de Pennefort_, then canon of that city. See
_Oldoinus in notis ad Ciacon. Bullarium in Greg. IX. constit. 9_. About
the year 1312, charges of the most wicked and gross nature were had
against the _Knights Templars_. Their chief persecutor was King Philip,
who suspected them to have encouraged an insurrection during his war in
Flanders. Through his influence the whole order were arrested, not only
in France, but in all Christendom. Pope Clement V. took charge of their
prosecution. But it appearing that thousands of them had and were ready
to defend the Christian religion at the expense of their lives, and that
many of their order were then in _slavery_ among the Saracens, from
which they might redeem themselves by repudiating Jesus Christ and his
religion, yet they preferred rather to live and die in chains than to
purchase freedom at so high a price, their judges considered these facts
to overbalance the evidence against them. But through Philip’s influence
the order was suppressed. See Bower, vol. vi. p. 39. By the laws of
Moses, when the Hebrews found it necessary to make war and subdue their
enemies in battle, they were directed to put all the men to death, and
to make slaves of the women and children. See _Deuteronomy_ xx. 13, 14.
The milder treatment of the women and children was in mercy, predicated
on the presumption of their being more tractable and less unalterably
sunk in sin. We perceive the same state of facts when the Lord commanded
the Hebrews to put the Canaanites to death. “Thou shalt smite them, and
utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show
mercy to them: neither shalt thou make marriages with them,” &c. _Deut._
vii. 2, 3. Whereas the adjoining and kindred tribes were only devoted to
slavery. “Both thy bond-men and thy bond-maids which thou shalt have,
shall be of the heathen that are round about you: of them shall ye buy
bond-men and bond-maids.” _Lev._ xxv. 44. It is, and ever has been, the
universal rule to destroy from the earth, whenever sin has sunk its
votary so low in the depths of crime that there is no longer even hope
of reform. Whereas, for a less degree of depravity, mercy intercedes for
the reformation of the victim, by placing him someway in surveillance,
either for life or for a term of years. On the same principle is founded
the distinction of punishment between homicide attended with
premeditated malice, and that which is not so attended.
“Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree, and
find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? And he answering,
said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I may dig about
it, and dung it: and if it bear fruit, well; and if not, then after that
thou shalt cut it down.” _Luke_ xiii. 7.
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