§ 20. THE msTiTrnoN of slavery. Ill
ther encouraged. The latter emperor abolished the penaltv of condemnation to servitude, and by giving to freed persona the rank and rights of citizens, he removed the stain which had formerly attached to that class.' The sj^irit of his lawa favored the gradual abolition of domestic slavery. In the Byzantine empire in general the differences of rank in society weio more equalized, though not so much on Christian principle as in the interest of despotic monarchy. Despotism and extreme democracy meet in predilection for universal equality and uniformity. Neither can suffer any overshadowing greatness, save the majesty of the prince or the Will of the people. The one system knows none but slaves ; the other, none but masters.
l^or was an entire abolition of slavery at that time at all demanded or desired even by the church. As in the previous period, she still thought it sufficient to insist on the kind Christian treatment of slaves, enjoining upon them obedience for the sake of the Lord, comforting them in their low condition with the thought of their higher moral freedom and equality, and by the religious education of the slaves making an inward preparation for the abolition of the institution. All hasty and violent measures met with decided disapproval. The council of Gangra threatens with the ban every one, who under pretext of religion seduces slaves into contempt of their masters ; and the council of Chalcedon, in its fourth canon, on pain of excommunication forbids monasteries to harbor slaves without permission of the masters, lest Christianity be guilty of encouraging insubordination. The church fathers, so far as they enter this subject at all, seem to look upon slavery as at once a necessary evil and a divine instrument of discipline ; tracing it to the curse on Ham and Canaan." It is true, they favor emancipation in individual cases, as an act of Christian love on the part of the master, but not as a right on the part of the slave ; and the well-known passage : " If thou mayest be made free, use it rather," they understand not as a challenge tc
' Cod. Just. vii. 5, 6 ; Nov. 22, c. 8 (a. d. 536), and Nov. 7«, praef. 1, 2 (a. r 539).
' Gon. ix. 25 : " Cursed be Canaan ; a servant of servants shall he be unto hit brethren." But Christ appeared to remove every curse of sin, and every kind of Blavery. The service of God is perfect freedom.
118 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
slaves to take the first opportunity to gain their freedom, but on the contrary, as a challenge to remain in their servitude since thej are at all events inwardly free in Christ, and theii outward condition is of no account.'
Even St. Chrysostom, though of all the church fathers tho nearest to the emancipation tlieory and the most attentive to the question of slavery in general, does not rise materially above this view.' According to him mankind were originally created perfectly free and equal, without tlie addition of a slave. But by the fall man lost the power of self-government, and fell into a threefold bondage : the bondage of woman under man, of slave under master, of subject under ruler. These three relations lie considers divine punishments and divine means of discipline. Thus slavery, as a divine arrangement occasioned by the fall, is at once relatively justified and in principle condemned. Now since Christ has delivered us from evil and its consequences, slavery, according to Chrysostom, is in principle abolislied in the church, yet only in the sense in which sin and death are abolished. Regenerate Christians are not slaves, but perfectly free men in Christ and brethren among themselves. The exclusive authority of the one and subjection of the other give place to mutual service in love. Consistently carried out, this view leads of course
' 1 Cor. vii. 21. The Greek fathers supply, with fjLuWov xp^iff"', the word SovKtia (Chrysostom: /xaWof SoiKevf); whereas nearly all modern interpreters (except De Wette, Meyer, Ewald, and Alford) follow Calvin and Grotius in supplying (\fv^(pi(f. Chrysostom, however, mentions this construction, and in another place (Serm. iv. in Genes, torn, v, p. 666) seems himself to favor it. The verb use connects itself more naturally with freedom, which is a boon and a blessing, than with bondage. whica is a slate of privation. Milman, however, goes too far when he asserts (Lat. Christianity, vol. i. 492): "The abrogation of slavery was not contemplatod even as a remote possibility. A general enfranchisement seems never to hav« liawned on the wisest and best of the (Christian writers, notwithstanding the greatei facility for manumission, and the sanctity, as it were, assigned to the act by Constantino, by placing it under the special superintendence of the clergy." Comparo against tliis statement the views of Chrj'sostom and Augustine, in the text.
' The views of Chrysostom on slavery are presented in his Homilies on Genesis and on the Epistles of Paul, and are collected by Miihlcr in his beautiful article on the Abolition of Slavery (Vcrmischto Schriftcn, ii. p. 8il .■^i|(i.). Mohler Sijys that since the times of the apostle Paul no one has done a more valuable service ic glavea than St. Chrysostom. But he overrates his merit.