277. SLAVERY. 337
The church, as the organ of that spirit, proclaimed ideas and principles which, in their legitimate working, must root out ultimately both slavery and tyranny, and bring in a reign of freedom, love, and peace. She humbled the master and elevated the slave, and reminded both of their common origin and des tiny. She enjoined in all her teaching the gentle and humane treatment of slaves, and enforced it by the all-powerful motives derived from the love of Christ, the common redemption and moral brotherhood of men. She opened her houses of worship as asylums to fugitive slaves, and surrendered them to their masters only on promise of pardon.1 She protected the freedmen in the enjoyment of their liberty. She educated sons of slaves for the priesthood, with the permission of their masters, but required emancipation before ordination.2 Marriages of freemen with slaves were1 declared valid if concluded with the knowledge of the condition of the latter.3 Slaves could not be forced to labor on Sundays. This was a most important and humane protection of the right to rest and worship.4 ISTo Christian was permitted by the laws of the church to sell a slave to foreign lands, or to a Jew or heathen. Gregory I. prohibited the Jews within the papal jurisdiction to keep Chris tian slaves, which he considered an outrage upon the Christian name. Nevertheless even clergymen sometimes sold Christian
1 Synod of Clermont, A. D. 549. Hefele III. 5 ; comp. IT. 662.
* Fifth Synod of Orleans, 549 ; Synod of Aachen, 789 ; Synod of Francfurt, 794. See Hefele III. 3, 666, 691. If ordination took place without the mus ter's consent, he could reclaim the slave from the ranks of the clergy. Hefele IV. 26.
3 Hefele III. 574, 575, 611. The first example was set by Pope Callistus (218-223), who was himself formerly a slave, and gave the sanction of the Roman church to marriages between free Christian ladies and slaves or lowhorn men. Hippolytns, Philosoph. IX. 12 (p. 460 ed. Duncker and Schneidewin). This was contrary to Roman law, and disapproved even by Hippolytus.
4 The 16th Synod of Toledo, 693, passed the following canon : " If a slave works on Sunday by command of his master, the slave becomes free, and the master is punished to pay 30 solidi. If the slave works on Sunday without command of his master, he is whipped or must pay fine for his skin. If a freeman works on Sunday, he loses his liberty or must pay 60 solidi; a priest has to pay double the amount.'' Hefele III. 349 ; comp. p. 355.
338 FOUKTH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
slaves to Jews. The tenth Council of Toledo (656 or 657) complains of this practice, protests against it with Bible pas sages, and reminds the Christians that " the slaves were re deemed by the blood of Christ, and that Christians should rather buy than sell them." l Individual emancipation was constantly encouraged as a meritorious work of charity well pleasing to God, and was made a solemn act. The master led the slave with a torch around the altar, and with his hands on the altar pronounced the act of liberation in such words as these : " For fear of Almighty God, and for the cure of my soul I liberate thee ; " or : " In the name and for the love of God I do free this slave from the bonds of slavery."
Occasionally a feeble voice was raised against the institution itself, especially from monks who were opposed to all worldly possession, and felt the great inconsistency of convents holding slave-property. Theodore of the Studium forbade his convent to do this, but on the ground that secular possessions and mar riage were proper only for laymen.2 A Synod of Chalons, held between 644 and 650, at which thirty-eight bishops and six episcopal representatives were present, prohibited the selling of Christian slaves outside of the kingdom of Clovis, from fear that they might fall into the power of pagans or Jews, and he introduces this decree with the significant words : " The highest piety and religion demand that Christians should be redeemed entirely from the bond of servitude." 3 By limiting the power of sale, slave-property was raised above ordinary property, and this was a step towards abolishing this property itself by legiti mate means.
Under the combined influences of Christianity, civilization, and economic and political considerations, the slave trade was forbidden, and slavery gradually changed into serfdom, and
1 Hefele III. 103 ; corap. IV. 70. Balmes, p. 108.
2 Overbeck, L c., p. 219.
3 Cone. Cabilonense, can. 9 : " Pktatis est martmce et religionis intuitus, ut captivitatis vinadum omnino a Christian^ redimatur." The date of the Council is uncertain, see Mansi, Cone. X. 1198 ; Hefele, III. 92.