How Christianity abolished slavery

1. Slavery was an integral part of the Roman empire. As many as one third of those living in the Mediterranean cities may have been slaves, and well over 50% of the population in Rome. Aristotle defined a slave as “one who does not belong to himself,” and Cicero defined him as one who “does not have power to refuse.” As in ancient cultures, in Israel also slaves had been supplied from captives in wars, convicted thieves unable to make retribution and young girls sold by their fathers into slavery. However, contrary to the Roman scorn of labour (Cicero, De off, 1 xlii; Seneca, De Beneficiis, 18 ), the Mosaic (Jewish) Law was merciful to the slave because labour was not despised as it was elsewhere. The Law limited slavery to a maximum of 6 years, after which slaves would be returned to normal life in the Jubilee Year (Ex 21, 2; Dt 15,12-18). Yet this humanitarian legislation remained largely theoretical as is seen in the Hebrew slaves of the Babylonian siege (Jer 34, 8-22). The Old Testament codes aimed at keeping the number of Hebrew slaves to a minimum - e.g. a woman captured in war and taken as wife, if later divorced, could neither be sold nor again reduced to slavery (Dt 24, 7). 2. The Christian Difference The attitude of the New Testament to slavery was primarily religious not social. Christ and His Apostles preached principles that would logically lead to the abolition of slavery. If all are children of the same Father, no essential distinction can remain between a slave and a free man (1 Cor 12, 13; Gal 3, 28; Col 3, 11). St. Paul does not command Philemon to free his slave, although he implicitly recommends this in reminding him that Onesimus is his brother in Christ and is to be treated as such (Phlm 15-16). He also exhorts the slaves at Corinth to accept their status recognizing that they have a higher life in Christ (1 Cor 7, 21-24). Nevertheless, in the New Testament the foundations were laid for a slow but effective social reform that eventually caused the abolition of slavery in Christian countries. The Church was born in a world in which slavery was universally accepted as a social and economic institution pertaining to the very structure of society. From the beginning the Church urgently insisted on the mutual rights and duties between masters and slaves just as she emphasizes today the mutual rights and duties between employers and employees. In the Christian view, work and service are noble activities fully in keeping with true human dignity. One fact which, in the Church, relieved the condition of the slave was the absence among Christians of the ancient scorn of labour. Christ himself came on earth to do the will of His Father and to be obedient unto the death of the cross (Phil 2, 8). Converts to the new religion knew that Jesus had been a carpenter; they saw St. Paul exercise the occupation of a tentmaker. 3. Early Christian Response to Slavery Early Christians interacted with slaves as they did with freemen. Slaves communed with Christians at the same altar. In Roman law, neither legitimate marriage, nor regular paternity, nor even impediment to the most unnatural unions had existed for the slave (Digest, XXXVIII, viii, i, (sect) 2; X, 10, (sect) 5). That slaves often endeavoured to override this abominable position is touchingly proved by innumerable mortuary inscriptions; but the name of uxor, which the slave woman takes in these inscriptions, is very precarious, for no law protects her honour, and with her there is no adultery (Digest, XLVIII, v, 6; Cod. Justin., IX, ix, 23). In the Church the marriage of slaves is a sacrament; it possesses "the solidity" of one (St. Basil, Ep. cxcix, 42). The Apostolic Constitutions impose upon the master the duty of making his slave contract "a legitimate marriage."In many instances Christians freed slaves. According to W. E. H. Lecky “St.Melania was said to have emancipated 8,000 slaves; St. Ovidius, a rich martyr of Gaul, 5,000; Chromatius, a Roman prefect under Diocletian, 1,400..”(Lecky, History of European Morals). Constantine, in 315 A.D., imposed the death penalty on those who stole children to bring them up as slaves (Cf. C.Schmidt, The Social Results of Early Christianity). Emperor Justinian (527-567) abolished all laws that prevented freeing slaves. Slave martyrs were already canonized as early as the fourth century, and a slave named Callistus became Pope. Of the Church Fathers, St. Augustine saw slavery as the product of sin and contrary to God’s plan (Cf. The City of God 19.15), St. John Chrysostom (4th century) proclaimed that “in Christ Jesus there is no slave.. Buy them and after you have taught them some skill by which they can maintain themselves, set them free” (Cf. Homily 40 on 1 Corinthians 10). St. Gregory of Nyssa opposed the legitimacy of slavery in his homily on Ecclesiastes. In the West, the barbarian invasions were calamitous for the slaves, increasing their numbers which had began to diminish, and subjecting them to legislation much harder than those which obtained under the Roman law of the period Here again the Church intervened. It did so in three ways: redeeming slaves; legislating for their benefit in its councils; setting an example of kind treatment. Documents of the fifth to the seventh century are full of instances of captives carried off from conquered cities by the barbarians and doomed to slavery, whom priests, and laymen redeemed. Redeemed captives were sometimes sent back in thousands to their own country (Lesne, "Histoire de la propriété ecclésiastique en France", 1910, pp. 357-69). The Churches of Gaul, Spain, Britain, and Italy were incessantly busy, in numerous councils, with the affairs of slaves; protection of the maltreated slave, and suppression of traffic in slaves (Cf. Councils of Orléans, 511, 538, 549; Council of Epone, 517, of Paris, 615; Council of Auxerrre, 578 ..etc). By the thirteenth century slavery was virtually unknown in all Christian lands. 4. Christian Response in the Middle AgesIn the Middle Ages, slavery had been replaced by serfdom, an intermediate condition in which a man enjoyed all his personal rights except the right to leave the land he cultivated and the right to freely dispose of his property. Serfdom soon disappeared in Catholic countries. But while serfdom was becoming extinct, the course of events was bringing to pass a temporary revival of slavery. As a consequence of the wars against the Muslims and the commerce maintained with the East, the European countries bordering on the Mediterranean, particularly Spain and Italy, once more had slaves -- Turkish prisoners and also, unfortunately, captives imported by conscienceless traders. But the number of these slaves was small in comparison with that of the Christian captives reduced to slavery in Muslim countries, particularly in the Barbary states from Tripoli to the Atlantic coast of Morocco.The Trinitarians, founded in 1198 by St. John of Matha and St. Felix of Valois, established hospitals for slaves at Algiers and Tunis in the 16th century and redeemed 900,000 slaves. The Order of Our Lady of Ransom (Mercedarians), founded in the 13th century by St. Peter Nolasco, and established more especially in France and Spain, redeemed 490,736 slaves between the years 1218 and 1632. Another order undertook not only to redeem captives, but also to give them spiritual and material assistance. St. Vincent of Paul had been a slave at Algiers in 1605, and had witnessed the sufferings of Christian slaves. At the request of Louis XIV, he sent them, in 1642, priests of the congregation which he had founded. Many of these priests were invested with consular functions at Tunis and at Algiers. From 1642 to 1660 they redeemed about 1200 slaves at an expense of about 1,200,000 livres. But their greatest achievements were in teaching the Catechism and converting thousands, and in preparing many of the captives to suffer martyrdom rather than deny the Faith. 5. Slave Trade and Christian ResponseA second revival of slavery took place after the discovery of the New World by the Spaniards in 1492. The efforts of Las Casas in behalf of the aborigines of America are well known. England, France, Portugal, and Spain, all participated in this horrific traffic including using African and Native people in slave markets. England only made amends for its transgressions when, in 1815, it took the initiative in the suppression of the slave trade. The Church however always condemned slave trade. In 1462, Pope Pius II declared slavery to be "a great crime" ; In 1537, Pope Paul III excommunicated those who enslaved the Native Americans, and in 1838 Gregory XVI condemned all forms of slave trade (Denzinger 2745-46). From the 15th century, Catholic missionaries and statesmen never ceased to strive for the abolition of traffic in human beings. During the French Revolution, at the instigation of the Abbé H. Grégoire, the National Assembly in 1794 decreed the abolition of slave trade in all French colonies. Pius VII demanded of the Congress of Vienna, in 1815, the suppression of the slave trade. In 1888, Pope Leo XIII, exhorted the Brazilian bishops, to banish from their country the remnants of slavery -- a letter to which the bishops responded with their efforts, and some generous slave-owners freed their slaves in a body, as in the first ages of the Church. In 1890, Cardinal Lavigerie founded the antislave league of France for combatting slavery and slave trade on an international basis. Slavery was also outlawed in the United States in 1865. 6. Slavery TodaySlavery exists no more in Christian countries. However, slavery still exists today in Sudan. Christian organizations (e.g. Christian Solidarity International) currently buy Sudanese slaves, most of whom are black Christians to set them free. As with its stance against traditional slavery, the church today continues her effort to save men from new forms of slavery: the crypto-slavery of the modern industrial world and the dangers of a masked slavery in the post-modern globalization where technology helps giant economic powers to have a market monopoly. In an address to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, John Paul II reminded participants that globalization must be based upon the inalienable value of the human person and that it must not be “a new version of colonialism” (Vatican, April 27, 2001) What were the inherent principles in the Christian response to slavery?1. The inalienable value of every human person regardless of his social class. This is evident in how early Christians regarded all fellow people as children of God, how they treated their fellow slaves, how they freed/bought many of them to set them free, how the Church accorded all the same dignity in her sacraments, how she dignified their work, how she attempted to secure their treatment through Council canons..etc.2. The importance of saving people especially slaves. This is evident in the multitudes of hospitals and orders founded to free slaves from non-Christian slavery and domination and thus help them regain their Christian faith and salvation.3. The inherent value of work regardless of the kind of work. This is evident in the equality of all in the Church’s eyes. All received the same sacraments. Slaves not only became bishops but also popes. More significantly, they were elevated to the honour of the altar (saints and martyrs).4. Even though the Church was not the legislator in matters of social reform, she influenced the reform by her moral weight even when the civil authority, such as the French Revolution, opposed her.