But as the verb ἀνδραποδίζω, _andrapodizo_, and its conjugates, are
sometimes used to express the action of subjecting to slavery, it is
asked, how are we to know whether Paul did not mean such subjugation? It
was surely in the compass of the Greek language for Paul so to have used
the proper mood and tense of this verb, with other suitable words, and
effectually forbid the subjecting of others to slavery. But is it
probable he could have consistently done so? Such forbidding would have
been forbidding what the law prescribed. It would have been a rebellious
teaching against the laws of the land, as well as against the laws
delivered to Moses for the civil government of the Israelites. “When
thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, thou shalt proclaim
peace unto it; and it shall be, if it make answer of peace, and open
unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that are found therein
shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee,”
(וַעֲבָֽדוּךָ _va abaduka, be slaves to thee—and they shall be slaves to
thee_.) “But if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war
against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: and when the Lord thy God hath
delivered it into thy hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with
the edge of the sword. But the women, and the little ones, and the
cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt
thou take to thyself.” _Deut._ xx. 10–14.
Such, substantially, was the law of all nations at the very time Paul
wrote to Timothy. The verb proposed the making of a _slave_ in a legal
manner, reducing to the condition alluded to by the prophet. “Shall the
prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive restored?” _Isa._
xlix. 24. The verb _andrapodizo_ expressed a lawful act. If individuals,
without law, had seized upon the others with the view to make them
slaves, such act would have been called by a different name. It would
not have been a name formed from ἀνὴρ and ποῦς, (_aner_ and _pous_,)
unaccompanied by explanations. We have an example before us in _Deut._
xxiv. 7: “If any man be found stealing any of his brethren of the
children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, or selleth him, then
that thief shall die.” Here the individual stolen was not a slave,
either by the laws of God or man: and hence we find that the Septuagint
uses no word to signify slave. The passage reads thus:
Ἐαν δὲ ἁλῷ ἄνθρωπος κλέπτων ψυχὴν ἐκ τῶν ἀδελφῶν αὐτοῦ τῶν ὑιῶν Ἰσραήλ,
καὶ καταδυναστεύσας ἀυτὸν αποδῶται, ἀποθανεῖται ὁ κλέπτης ἐκεῖνος.
And had St. Paul merely in his mind the idea _man-stealing_, unconnected
with slavery, he would have used analogous language. In the passage in
Timothy, he might well have used the term ἀνθρώποκλεπταις,
_anthropokleptais_, which would have expressed the same thing,—an
unlawful act, an act forbidden in the passage just quoted,—the act of
stealing a freeman, with an intention of making him a slave, contrary to
law; and Paul would have probably added this offence, if the Ephesians
had been guilty of the crime. But Paul did not use a word even
conjugated from ἀνδραποδίζω, _andrapodizo_, but a cognate substantive,
used almost technically to mean those who stole slaves, not _freemen_.
The word used by Paul is translated into Latin, in the Vulgate, by the
word _plagiariis_, which also means those who stole slaves. It is formed
from _plagiger_, _one born to be whipped_, (the Romans were cruel to
their slaves,) and _areo_, _to be parched up_, _to be thirsty_, and
hence _plagiarius_, from the notion that he who stole slaves _coveted_
the slave with such intensity that he thirsted for the slave, and
appropriated _him_ to himself as a thirsty man does water. It originally
was a mere cant word. But it expressed the contempt the Romans
entertained for the act of slave-stealing. Hence has come our word
_plagiary_; only used now to mean the act of appropriating the literary
property of another, but still retaining, to some extent, the expression
of contempt. The learned men who translated the New Testament into Latin
well knew that Paul told Timothy that the law was made against those who
stole slaves: and so we find it, _Thou shalt not steal_. Thou shalt not
even _covet_ thy neighbour’s _slave_. (See _Exod._ xx. 15, 17; also
_Deut._ v. 19, 20.) Had Paul used the word _andrapodizo_, or some form
of it, and had he really intended to have told Timothy that he or others
should no longer, under any circumstances, subject others to slavery, or
under the Christian dispensation he should not; that Christianity forbid
it; yet he could not have been so shallow as to have added the sentiment
that it was against the law, for such addition, such part of his
instruction, Timothy would have at once known to be not true; and we
trust but few will entertain a position so full of gross consequences.
This discourse to Timothy was founded upon the fact that “some had
swerved” from the end of the law, and turned to vain jangling, desiring
to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor
whereof they affirm,—probably teaching doctrines that led essentially to
the crimes here exposed. Paul’s object, in part, was to expose their
ignorance and wickedness, to sustain the supremacy of the law, and by
his counsel to warn him against a shipwreck of faith, as in the case of
Hymeneus and Alexander.
Can it be supposed that under such circumstances he would have
undertaken to have repealed a law, or to have asserted that the law
prohibited what it sustained? In such case, he would have done the very
act himself for which he condemned Hymeneus and Alexander, and have
proved himself one of the lawless and disobedient, for whom the law was
made.
There is another consideration, which to our mind is of moment in the
review of this subject. The religion of Jesus Christ never undertook to
meddle with the civil institutions of the law. Its object was to make
its devotees happy under and resigned to its adjudications, whatever
they may have been, by reason of the greater considerations of a
hereafter; nor do we recollect an instance where either Christ or his
apostles even suggested any repeal. His kingdom was not of this world,
and therefore his followers could not act in reference to the things of
this world. Peter in his zeal smote off the ear of the slave of the
high-priest, but Christ immediately rebuked the act and restored the
injury done. Had Paul intended to have suggested that the subjecting to
slavery, as that subject then existed and ever had from the time of
Moses, was no longer to be countenanced, then, it seems to us, he would
have travelled beyond the mission of an apostle, the precepts of his
Master, and out of his kingdom into the problematical questions of civil
government.
Paul, in the passage before us, enumerates a class of the breaches of
the law which came within the view of Timothy, which breaches of the law
he pronounces to be “contrary to sound doctrine,” and “to the glorious
gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust,” having
previously notified him “that the law was good if a man use it
lawfully.” Now, one of the plain and well-known laws on the subject of
slavery was, “Both thy bond-men and thy bond-maids which thou shalt
have, shall be of the heathen that are around about you; of them shall
you buy bond-men and bond-maids. Moreover, of the children of the
strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and their
families that are with you, which they beget in your land, and they
shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for
your children after you, to inherit them for a possession. They shall be
your bond-men for ever.”
Under such a state of facts can any thing be conceived more
inconsistent, than that Paul should, under such circumstances, design to
slip in a word repealing in fact this law, and directly producing all
the other ill effects which he so pointedly complained of in others.
Whoever can believe such a thing, surely, whatever he may pretend, can
have no respect for the character of Paul, nor for his religion.
But the character of Paul remains consistent, his religion unblemished
and spotless, and the preaching of Jesus Christ in relation to the
matter vindicated and supported, by giving to the word _andrapodistais_,
as here used by Paul, its plain, legitimate, and usual meaning,
_slave-stealers_, persons who steal, or entice away from the possession
of their masters, individuals who according to the law are slaves.
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