§ 20. THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVEliY. 119
to emancipation. Chrysostom, it is true, does not carry it tc that point, bnt lie decidedly condemns all luxurious slave holding, and thinks one or two servants enough for necessarv help, wliile many patricians had hundreds and tliousands. He advises the liberation of superfluous slaves, and the education of all, tliat in case they should be liberated, they may know how to take care of themselves. He is of opinion that the first Christian community at Jerusalem, in connection with community of goods, emancipated all their slaves; ' and thus he gives his hearers a hint to follow that example. But of an appeal to slaves to break their bonds, this father shows of course no trace ; he rather, after apostolic precedent, exhorts them to conscientious and cheerful obedience for Christ's sake, as earnestly as he inculcates upon masters humanity and love. The same is true of Ambrose, Augustine, and Peter Chrysologus of Kavenna (f 458).
St. Augustine, the noblest representative of the Latin church, in his profound work on the " City of God," excludes slavery from the original idea of man and the final condition of society, and views it as. an evil consequent upon sin, yet under divine direction and control. For God, he says, created man reasonable and lord only over the unreasonable, not over man. The burden of servitude was justly laid upon the sinner. Therefore the term servant is not found in the Scriptures till I^oah used it as a curse upon his oflending son. Thus it was guilt and not nature that deserved that name. The Latin word servus is supposed to be derived from servare [servire rather], or the preservation of the prisoners of war from death, which itself implies the desert of sin. For even in a just war there is sin on one side, and every victory humbles the conquered by divine judgment, either reforming their sins or punishing them. Daniel saw in the sins of the people the real cause of their captivity. Sin, therefore, is the mother of servitude and first cause of man's subjection to man ; yet thia
' Homil. xi. in Acta Apost. (Opera omu., torn. ix. p. 93) : Ou5e yitp rSre tout a Tjr, aX\' fKev^fpovi iirws eTreTpeTror yivea^ai. The monk Nilus, a pupil of ChrysoS' torn, went so far as to declare slaveholding inconsistent with true love to Christ, Ep. lib. i. ep. 142 (quoted by Neander in bis chapter on monasticism) : Ou yap olfuu
120 THIED PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
does not come to pass except by the judgment of God, with whom there is no injustice, and who knows liow to adjust the various punishments to the merits of the offenders. . . . Tlie apostle exhorts the servants to obey their masters and to serve them ex animo, with good will ; to the end tliat, if they caimobe made free from their masters, they may make their servitude a freedom to themselves by serving them not in deceitful fear, but in faithful love, until iniquity be overpassed, and all man's principality and power be annulled, and God be all in all.'
As might be expected, after the conversion of the emperors, and of rich and noble families, who owned most slaves, cases of emancipation became more frequent.' The biographer of St. Samson Xenodochos, a contemporary of Justinian, says of him : " His troop of slaves he would not keep, still less exercise over his fellov/ servants a lordly authority ; he preferred magnanimously to let them go free, and gave them enough for tlie necessaries of life." ^ Salvianus, a Gallic ]u-esbyter of the fifth centur}^, says that slaves were emancipated dally.'' On the other hand, very much was done in the church to prevent the increase of slavery ; especially in the w^ay of redeeming prisoners, to which sometimes the gold and silver vessels of churches were applied. But we have no reliable statistics for comparing even approximately the proportion of the slaves to the free population at the close of the sixth century with the proportion in the former period.
We infer then, that the Christianity of the Nicene and post-Nicene age, though naturally conservative and decidedly
' De Civit. Dei, lib. xix. cap. 15.
' For earlier cases, at the close of the previous period, see vol. i. § 89, at the end
* Acta Sanct. Boll. Jun. torn. v. p. 267. According to Palladius, Hist. c. 119, St. Mfilania had, in concert with her husband Pinius, manumitted as many as eight thoiwand .slaves. Yet it is only the ancient Latin translation tliat has this almost incredible number.
* Ad eccles. cath. 1. iii. § 7 ((JaJland. torn. x. p. 71): "In usu quidcm quotidianc est, u( scrvi, ctsi non optimne, ccrte non infimae scrvitudinis, Romana a dominia libertaie doncntur; in qua scilicet et proprietatem pcculii capiunt et jus tcstamcntarium consequuntur : ita ut et viventes, cui volunt, res suas tradant, et morientcs donationc transcril)ant. Nee solum hoc, sed et ilia, qu;E in servitute positi conquirierant, ex dominorum domo tollere non vetantur." From this passage it appear* that many masters, with a view to set their slaves free, allowed them to earn 8om& thine ; which was not allowed by the Roman law.