Study IV.
In the course of the present study, we propose to notice the doctrine and action of the church as connected with the subject of slavery; and to examine what were the tenets and conduct of those men who claimed to be governed by the immediate teachings of Christ and his apostles.
In this investigation, we must apply to the records of the Catholic Church, although we are aware that, in the minds of some, strong and bitter prejudice may exist against these records; that some will say the canker of corruption had destroyed the very kernel of Christianity in that church.
Bower, a Protestant author, in the preface to his “History of the Popes,” 7 vols. quarto, says—
“We must own the popes to have been, generally speaking, men of extraordinary talents, the ablest politicians we read of in history; statesmen fit to govern the world, and equal to the vast dominion they grasped at; a dominion over the minds as well as the bodies and estates of mankind; a dominion, of all that ever were formed, the most wide and extensive, as knowing no other bounds but those of the earth.” Page 10, vol. i. 3d edition, London, 1750.
Mr. Bower was a very learned man, had been educated a Catholic, was professor of rhetoric, history, and philosophy in the universities of Rome, Fermo, and Macerata, and counsellor of the Inquisition at Rome. He commenced a work to prove the pope’s infallibility and supremacy. But he proved to himself the adverse doctrine. He resigned his professorships and places, removed to London, abjured the Catholic religion, and wrote the work quoted. It is a work of great labour and merit, and well worth the attention of the curious in these matters. But it is proper here to remark,that Mr. Sale, in his preface to his translation of the Koran, has made a severe, yet an unexplained attack, on the character of this writer; but whatever may have been the provocation, we have to view him through his book. It is not always possible for a just degree of merit to be awarded those who lived in former times. We cannot always learn the circumstances influencing them, nor do we often throw our minds back into their peculiar position, by which alone can we be able to give a just value to those influences.
History has handed us a few of the acts of him who lived a thousand years ago; by them we judge, as though he lived to-day, acts which prejudice may have distorted, or favour presented to the lens of time. We must look to the condition of things at the time of the act; to the probable effect under such condition, and to the real effect as developed by time.
Pope Benedict IX. ascended the throne inA.D.1033. He is very unfavourably known to history. During his time there was a very powerful faction raging against him at Rome, by which, at one time, he was driven into exile. He is said to have sold the popedom, because his debaucheries made him an object of contempt, and he wished to be free from restraint; but in 1041, four years before he abandoned the papal chair, he established, at a council in Aquitaine, theTreuga Dei, whence it has been said that, during three days in the week, he permitted any man to commit all sorts of crimes, even murder, free from church censure, &c. By theTreuga Dei, for any wrong done him, no person was permitted to revenge himself, from Wednesday evening to Monday morning: construed, as above, by some, that he might do so during the remaining portion of the week.
The facts were, all Europe was still groping in the ignorance of the darkest ages; yet Christianity had been firmly established as a system of faith. The church had always forbidden a revengeful redress of individual wrongs; and, for such acts, her priests ever threatened excommunication. But these charges had little or no effect during these still semi-idolatrous and barbarous ages.
The kings were but heads of tribes, too weak to restrain their nobles, as the nobles were their vassals: under such a state of things, each one strove to redress his own wrongs. This led to constant murders, and every kind of crime. Each state was constantly agitated by civil commotions and bloodshed. Great moral changes are advanced by short steps. The church took this evil in hand, and hence theTreuga Dei, a word used in the Latin of thatday, a corruption from the Gothictriggua, and now found in the Spanish and Italian “tregua,” and from whence our wordtruce. The curse of God was pronounced against all offenders, and death followed a discovery of the crime. It was thought to be a Divine suggestion, and hence the name. All consented to yield to it as such, and it was found to have a powerful effect. In 1095, it was warmly sustained in the Council of Clermont, under Urban II., and extended to all the holy-days, and perpetually to clerks, monks, pilgrims, merchants, husbandmen, and women, and to the persons and property of all who would engage in crusades, and against all devastations by fire. It was re-established in 1102, by Paschal II.; in 1139, by Innocent II.; in 1180, by Alexander III.; nor would it be difficult to show that theTreuga Dei, theTruce of God, of Benedict IX., was one of the most important, during the primary steps towards the civilization of Europe; such was the state of society in that age of the world. But we acknowledge that individuals of the Roman church, some of whom obtruded themselves into the priesthood, have been very corrupt men. But have not similar obtrusions happened in every other Christian, Protestant, or worthy association of men? Have we not seen, among the apostles, a Judas, betraying the Saviour of the world? Ananias and Sapphira, attempting to swindle even God himself? Of confidence betrayed among men, need we point to the tragical death of Servetus, which has for ever placed the bloody mark of murder on the face of Calvin?
And may we not find sometimes, among ourselves, lamentable instances of corruption, which, in the blackness of their character, defy the powers of the pen? Instances, where, recreant to every honest, noble, and holy feeling, individuals, hidden, as they think, beneath the robes of righteousness, have carried poverty and distress to the house of the widow, trampling on the rights—may be, the life—of the orphan, and even using the confidence of a brother to betray and rob him?
Nor is it a matter of any exultation to the broken, the wounded mind, that, in all such instances, unless the stink of insignificance shall totally exclude such criminal from the page of history, whatever may be the cloak he may wear, truth will eventually for ever convert it into the burning shirt of Nessus.
But, if you call a dog a thief, he feels no shame. Generations of enforced improvement and the grace of God alone can wipe out the stains of an evil heart. Nor can man alter this his destiny.Therefore, in all ages, and among all men, the tares and the wheat have been found in the same field. What presumption, then, if not blasphemy, in opposition to the word of Jehovah, to say, that the looming light of truth never dawned upon this night of time until the advent of Luther or Knox!
In presenting the action and records of the church and early fathers, we have freely adopted the sentiments and facts digested by Bishop England, to whom, we take occasion here to say, we feel as much indebted, as though we had merely changed a particle or deleted what was irrelevant to our subject. Nor do we know of higher honour we can do this great and good man than to lend our feeble mite to extend the knowledge of his research, his purity, and great learning; and if, in the continuation of this his unfinished study, amid the pagan superstitions and bigoted thousands of Islam in benighted Asia, the conflicts of the Cross and the Wand of Woden, during the dark ages of continental Europe, we may be suffered to feel the elevating influence of his life-giving mantle, we shall also surely feel elevated hopes of a high immortality.
But, it may be well here to remark, that we have no sectarian church to sustain; that we belong to no religious order; nor have, as yet, subscribed to any faith formed by man. And while we advocate the cause of religion and truth, yielding ourselves in all humility to the influence of Divine power, we feel as certain of his final notice, as though we had marched through under a thousand banners at the head of the world. We have all confidence in the word of him who hath said that even the sparrow falleth not without his notice.
But, it is said, when disease infuses bile into the organs of sight, the objects of vision have a peculiar tinge: to blend previous, sometimes numerous, impressions into one perception, is a common action of the mind. Thus the present idea is often modified by those that have preceded; and hence we may conclude how often the mind is under the insensible influence of prejudice. Upon these facts she has enthroned her power.
But he who has schooled his mind in the doctrines of a tranquil devotion, who habituates himself to view all things past, present, and to come, through the medium of cause and effect, as the mere links of one vast chain, reaching from Omnipotence to the present action, may well rise superior to the tumult of passion or the empire of prejudice. And to the utilitarian permit us tosay, that prejudice is peculiarly unsuited to the age of moral and physical improvement in which we live. Let no one say, the spirit of improvement has a deep root, and its lofty hopes cannot be subverted; that the most penetrating philosophy cannot prescribe its limits, the most ardent imagination reach its bounds: rather let him reflect that all improvement must for ever follow the footsteps of truth; and that the peculiar province of prejudice is to set us aside from its path.
With such views, let us for a moment consider the circumstances attending the early ages of the Roman church; and let us note that, although her priests were but men, whether her records are not as reliable as if some of her peculiarities had been different, or she had been called by a different name. But we shall not quote or pursue these records down to so late a day as the Protestant Reformation. We hope, therefore, that the Protestant will say that the records we quote are, most decidedly, the records of the church.
The moral condition of man was peculiar. To a great extent the religious systems of the Old World had been analyzed by the intelligent; they no longer gave confidence to the mind. The sanctity of the temples was dissipated by the mere speculations of philosophy, and the gods of idolatry tottered on their pedestals.
The nations of the earth were brought in subjection, in slavery, to the feet of imperial Rome; and their gods, being presented face to face, lost their divinity by the rivalship of men.
Such was the condition of the moral world when Christianity was introduced to mankind.
The old religions pretended to give safety by bargain of sacrifice, by penance, and payment, but the religion of Jesus Christ taught that salvation and safety were the free gift of God.
The history of man proves the fact that he has ever been disposed to purchase happiness on earth and felicity in heaven by his own acts, or by the merit of his condition; and hence, we always find that a corrupted Christianity for ever borders on the confines of idolatry. Nor is it difficult to show how this easily runs intoall the wild extravagancies of human reason, or, rather, human ignorance; while the simplicity of truth tends to a calm submission, and a desire of obedience to the will and laws of the only true God. The one was the religion of the government of men, of show, of political power, and expediency; the other is of heaven, of truth. “My kingdom is not of this world.”
The barbarians of northern Europe and western Asia, while yet only illumined by some faint rays of the Christian light, feeling from habit the want of the external pomp and the governing control of a religious power, in a half-savage, half-heathen state of mind, were disposed to prostrate themselves at the feet of the chief priest of Rome.
In the year 312, under the pontificate of Melchiades, (by the Greeks called Miltiades,) the Emperor Constantine established the Christian church by law. Thus sustained, it became at once the pool in which ambition and crime sought to cleanse their robes. Yet, beneath its waters were priceless pearls. Torn by schism, sometimes by temporal misrule, the church languished,—but lived. For several centuries the future became a mere variation of the past. The ways of God are indeed inscrutable. A flaming meteor in the east now agitated the mind. Like the insects of twilight, thousands marshalled under the crescent light of the prophet. The disciples of Mohammed swept from the earth the churches at Antioch and Alexandria, suddenly made inroads on Europe, conquered Spain, and were in step to overleap the Pyrenees and Alps. Let us step aside, and reconnoitre their host!
The object of the Arabian, Saracen, and Moorish warriors was the propagation of their creed. The alternative was proposed to all,—its embrace, or tribute; if rejected, the chance of war. Persia and Syria were quickly subdued. Egypt and Cyprus gave way,A.D.645. The slave of Jews or Christians seldom rejected freedom in favour of the cross; if so, he was reduced to the level of the vilest brute. The free were either put to death, or, as a great favour, permitted to be slaves. Thus the Christian master and slave were often in a reversed condition under Mohammedan rule. Sicily and the whole northern Africa substituted the crescent for the Cross; and in quick succession Spain was invaded and the throne of Roderick overturned. Toledo yielded to Mousa; and Fleury, lib. xli. part 25, says—“He put the chief men to death, and subjugated all Spain, as far as Saragossa, which he found open. He burned the towns, he had the most powerful citizens crucified,he cut the throats of children and infants, and spread terror on every side.”
Italy was in consternation; the church trembled, and Constantinople was threatened. Crossing the Pyrenees,A.D.719, they poured down upon France, met Charles, the father of Pepin, and Eude of Aquitaine, who slew Zama, and compelled his troops to raise the siege of Toulouse; but, recovering confidence, their incursions were frequent and bloody; and the historians of that day announce that, upon one occasion alone, they lost 370,000 men upon the fields of France. But these reverses were the bow of hope to the Peninsula. Alphonsus struck a blow, and in one day retook many towns and released from bondage ten thousand Christian slaves. These exertions were continued with intermitted success; and, like the retiring thunder of the retreating storm, the rage of battle became less terrific and at more distant periods; but the standard of Islam still continued to affrighten the world, alternately flaming its red glare over the Peninsula to the mountains of France and the plains of Italy, and until embattled Europe, excited to Croisade, dispelled its power on the banks of the Jordan.
But, let us return. Aistulphus appears amid this flame of war. His Lombards threaten extermination, and brandish the sword at the very gates of Rome. Pepin had now usurped the throne of the Franks. He demanded the confirmation of the church; and, in return, promised protection to the “Republic of God.” Rome saw the prospect of her ruin, with searching eyes looked for aid, and confirmed Pepin in his secular power; who, in gratitude, drove for a time the Lombards from Italy, and deposited the keys of the conquered cities on the altar of Saint Peter.
The Roman emperors had now long since removed their court to Constantinople. Their power over western Europe vacillated with the strife of the times. Charlemagne now appears kissing the steps of the throne of the church. Again he appears, master of all the nations composing the Western Empire, and of Rome; and, on Christmas-day, in the year 800, Leo III. placed the crown of the Roman emperors on the head of the son of Pepin. But, as yet, the act of crowning by the pope was a mere form.
Fifty years had scarcely sunk in the past, when the Emperor Basilius expelled Photius from the patriarchal see of his capital. He was charged with having been the tool of the Emperor Michael. He claimed supremacy over the pope of Rome. Hadrian had nowascended the papal chair, 867. Jealous of the bold spirit of Photius, his excommunication was recorded, and Ignatius installed in his see.
But the Greeks and Bulgarians, jealous for their native priesthood, demanded by what authority the see of Rome claimed jurisdiction over the Old and New Epirus, Thessaly, and Dardania, the country now called Bulgaria. For more than four centuries there had been occasional jealousies between these two churches; certain articles of faith continued subjects of difference; and the questions of temporal and spiritual precedence made them ever watchful. History records that, as early as 606, Phocas, having ascended the imperial throne, treading upon the dead bodies of the Emperor Mauritius, his children and friends,—Cyriacus, the patriarch, exposed to his view the enormity of his crimes, and most zealously exhorted to repentance. The supremacy of order and dignity was instantly granted to the patriarch of Rome, in the person of Boniface III. But his successors, their historians say, wisely refused, disclaimed the favour of Phocas, but claimed it as a Divine right derived from St. Peter. Thus commenced and was made final the severance of the Greek and Roman churches.
But the loss of spiritual rule in the east was accompanied by an enlargement of temporal power in the west. Upon the death of Hadrian, John, the son of Gundo, succeeded to the papal chair; and, upon the demise of Lewis II., (876,) his uncles, Lewis, king of Germany, and Charles the Bald, king of France, were rivals for the vacant throne. Charles and Hadrian were ever at variance. But, seizing upon the moment, because he was more ready at hand, or more yielding to his wishes, John invoked him instantly at Rome, received him with loudest acclamations, and crowned him emperor, just seventy-five years to a day from the elevation of Charlemagne to the Western Empire.
Upon this occasion, Pope John announced that he had elected him emperor in conformity to the revealed will of God; that his act of crowning him made him such; and that the sceptre, under God, was his free gift. This new doctrine was assented to by Charles, and ever after claimed as one of the powers of the pope of Rome. Thus the church of Rome became wholly separated from the Eastern Empire,—“freely losing its hold on a decayed tree, to graft itself upon a wild and vigorous sapling.”D'Aubigne.
Eutropius, the Lombard, informs us of the rich presents made toSt. Peter for these favours of the pope, and that the emperor ceded to him the dukedoms, Benevento and Spoleti, together with the sovereignty of Rome itself.
Thus we have seen why and how the brawny shoulders of the idolatrous children of the north elevated to the throne, thus how the Franks established the temporal power, of the popes of Rome; yet, perhaps, little was foreseen how this state of things was destined, in the course of events, to elevate the church of Rome, and the power of its pontiffs, to a supremacy of all temporal government. It could not have been foreseen how the genius of Hildebrand (Pope Gregory VII.) should, two hundred years after, carry into full accomplishment, by mere words of peace, “what Marius and Cæsar could not by torrents of blood.”
But corruption, to a greater or less extent, necessarily followed such a connection of church and state. It matters not to whom, nor in what age,—give churches temporal power, and they areliableto be corrupt.
But the church was still a fountain from which the living waters were dispensed to mankind. Instances of personal wickedness may have been more or less common; yet the spirit of truth found it a focal residence, and diffused its light to the world.
The Christian church is not the contrivance of man, whose works pass away, but of God, who upholds what he creates, and who has given his promise for its duration. Its object is to satisfy the religious wants of human nature, in whatever degree that nature may be developed; and its efficacy is no greater for the learned than for the unlearned; for the exalted of the earth, than for the slave.
It is said all nature swarms with life. But every animal, in some way, preys upon his fellow. Even we cannot move our foot without becoming the means of destruction to petty animals capable of palpitating for hours, may be days, in the agonies of death. There is no day upon this earth, in which men, and millions of other animals, are not tortured in some way, to the fullest extent of life.
Let us look at man alone; poor and oppressed; tormented by injustice, and stupified to lethargy; writhing under disease, or tortured by his brethren! Recollect his mental pains! The loss of friends, and the poison of ingratitude; the rage of tyranny, and the slow progress of justice; the brave, the high-minded, the honest, consigned to the fate of guilt!
Dive into the dungeon, or the more obscure prison-house of penury. See the aged long for his end, and the young languish in despair; talents and virtue in eternal oblivion: see malice, vengeance, and cruelty at their work, while they propagate every hour; for severity begets its kind, and hate begets hate.
Look where you will, the heart is torn with anguish; the soul is saddened by sorrow. All things seem at war; all one vast abortion. Such is the rugged surface; and the eye sees no golden sands, no precious gems gleaming from beneath the blackened waters of human suffering. These things are so; creation has grown up; and human life can never effect one tremble of the leaf on which it has found its residence.
But the Christian philosopher views these evidences of a great moral catastrophe without madness. He perceives that sin has sunk man into degradation, slavery, and death. He comprehends his own weakness, and trusts in God.
But there is a man, with all these facts before him, who rages. He makes war on the providence, and determines, as if to renovate the work, of the Almighty. Is he a man of a single idea? If not, let him make a better world; and, while he is thus employed, let us resume our subject.
Slavery, either voluntary or involuntary, whether the immediate result of crime or of mental and physical degradation, is equally the consequent of sin. Let us consider how far its existence is sustained by the laws of justice, of religion, and of God.
Our word, God, is pure Saxon, signifying “perfectly good;” “God is good.” “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold,it wasvery good.”
Suppose the laws of Japan permit voluntary slavery, as did those of Moses. (SeeExod.xxi. 5; alsoLev.xxv. 47.) Suppose an African negro, of the lowest grade, destitute and naked, voluntarily finds himself in that island, where the poor, free inhabitants scarcely sustain life by the most constant toil. The negro finds no employment. He can neither buy, beg, nor steal; starvation is at hand. He applies to sell himself, under the law of the country,a slave for life. Is not slavery, in this case, a good, because life is a greater good than liberty? Liberty is worth nothing in opposition to life. Liberty is worth nothing without available possessions to sustain it. The preservation of life is the highest law. The law of God, therefore, would be contradictory, if it forbid a man to sell himself to sustain his life; and the justice and propriety of such law must be universal and eternal, so far as it can have relation with the condition of man upon this earth.
But, “What is life without liberty?” said a beggar-woman! He, who thinks life without liberty worth nothing, must die if he have no means to sustain his liberty. Esther entertained no such notion: “For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed and slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for bond-men, and bond-women, I had held my tongue.”Esth.vii. 4.
Nor has such ever been the notion of the church. Bergier says, Dict. Theo., Art.Esclava—
“That civil liberty became a benefit, only after the establishment of civil society, when man had the protection of law, and the multiplied facilities for subsistence; that, previous to this, absolute freedom would be an injury to a person destitute of flocks, herds, lands, and servants.”
“The common possession of all things is said to be of the natural law; because the distinction of possessions and slavery were not introduced by nature, but by reason of man, for the benefit of human life; and thus the law of nature is not changed by their introduction, but an addition is made thereto.”St. Thomas Aquinas, 1, 2, q. 94 a 95 ad 2.
And the same father says again,2, 2 q. 57 a 3 ad 2—“This man is a slave, absolutely speaking, rather a son, not by any natural cause, but by reason of the benefits which are produced; for it is more beneficial to this one to be governed by one who has more wisdom, and the other to be helped by the labour of the former. Hence the state of slavery belongs principally to the law of nations, and to the natural law, only in the second degree, not in the first.”
But a man having the natural right tosellhimself proves that he has the same right tobuyothers. The one follows the other. But, suppose the laws of Japan do not permit voluntary slavery for life, or, rather that they have no law on the subject; but that they have a law, that whosoever proves himself to be so degraded that he cannot, or will not sustain himself, but is found loitering,begging, or stealing, shall be forcibly sold a slave for life,—is not the same good effected as in the other case, although the individual may be too debased to perceive it himself? And is it difficult to perceive, that the same deteriorating causes have produced both cases? The doctrine of the church is that “death, sickness, and a large train of what is called natural evils, are considered to be the consequences of sin. Slavery is an evil, and is also a consequence of sin.”Bishop England, p. 23.
And St. Augustine preached the same doctrine, as long ago as the year 425. See his book, “Of the City of God,” liber xix. cap. 15. He says—“The condition of slavery is justly regarded as imposed on the sinner. Hence, we never readslave(as one having a master) in Scripture before the just Noe, by this word, punished the sin of his son. Sin, not nature, thus introduced the word.”
And St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan,A.D.390, in his book on “Elias and Fasting” c. 5, says—“There would be no slavery to-day had there not been drunkenness.”
And so, St. John Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople,A.D.400, Hom. 29, in Gen.: “Behold brethren born of the same mother! Sin makes one of them a servant, and, taking away his liberty, lays him under subjection.”
The very expression, “Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren,” most distinctly shows the sentence to have been the consequent of sin, and especially so when compared with the blessing bestowed upon the two brothers, in which they are promised theservicesof him accursed.
Pope Gelesius I.,A.D.491, in his letter to the bishops of the Picene territory, states, “slavery to have been the consequence of sin, and to have been established by human law.”
St. Augustine, lib. xix. cap. 16, “On the City of God,” argues at length to show “that the peace and good order of society, as well as religious duty, demand that the wholesome laws of the state regulating the conduct of slaves should be conscientiously observed.”
“Slavery is regarded by the church * * * not to be incompatible with the natural law, to be the result of sin by Divine dispensation, to have been established by human legislation; and, when the dominion of the slave is justly acquired by the master, to be lawful, not in the sight of the human tribunal only, but also in the eye of Heaven.”Bishop England, page 24.
But again, in the works already quoted, “De Civitate Dei,” St. Augustine says, liber xix. caput 15, that, “although slavery is the consequence of sin, yet that the slavery may not always light upon the sinful individual, any more than sickness, war, famine, or any other chastisement of this sinful world, whereby it may often happen that the less sinful are afflicted, that they may be turned more to the worship of God, and brought into his enjoyment,” and refers to the case of Daniel and his companions, who were slaves in Babylon, and by which captivity Israel was brought to repentance.
In cap. 16, “he presents to view the distinction of bodily employment and labour between the son and the slave; but that each are equally under the master’s care; and as it regards the soul, each deserved a like protection, and that therefore the masters were calledpatres familias, orfathers of households; and shows that they should consult for the eternal welfare of their slaves as a father for his children; and insists upon the weight and obligation of the master to restrain his slaves from vice, and to preserve discipline with strict firmness, but yet with affection; not by verbal correction alone, but, if requisite, corporeal chastisement, not merely for the punishment of delinquency, but for a salutary monition to others.”
And he proceeds to show “that these things become a public duty, since the peace of the vicinage depends upon the good order of its families, and that the safety of the state depends upon the peace and discipline of all the vicinage.”
This author also shows, from the etymology of the word “servus,” that, according to the law of nations at the time, the conqueror had at his disposal the lives of the captives. If from some cause he forbore to put some of them to death, then such one wasservati, orservi, that is, kept from destruction or death, and their lives spared, upon the condition of obedience, and of doing the labours and drudgery of the master.”
And we may again inquire whether, when prisoners taken in war, under circumstances attending their capture by which the captor feels himself entitled to put them to death,—it is not a great good to the captured to have their lives spared them, and they permitted to be slaves? The answer will again turn upon the question, whether life is worth any thing upon these terms? And whatever an individual may say, the world will answer like Esther. Thus far slavery is an institution of mercy and in favour of life.
We close this lesson by presenting the condition of slavery among the Chinese, and their laws and customs touching the subject.
M. De Guignes, who traversed China throughout its whole extent, observing with minuteness and philosophical research every thing in relation to its singular race, does not believe slavery existed there until its population had become overloaded, when, as a partial relief from its miseries, they systematically made slaves of portions of their own race.
He says, that in ancient times, “it is not believed that there were slaves in China, except those who were taken prisoners in war, or condemned to servitude by the laws. Afterwards, in times of famine, parents were frequently reduced to the necessity of selling their children. This practice, originated in the pressure of necessity, has continued to exist, and even become common. * * * A person may also sell himself as a slave when he has no other means of succouring his father; a young woman, who finds herself destitute, may in like manner be purchased with her own consent.
“The prisoners of war are the slaves of the emperor, and generally sent to labour on his land in Tartary. The judges have the power to pass the sentence of slavery on culprits such as are sold at public auction; slaves also who belong to persons whose property is confiscated, are sold to the highest bidder by public outcry.” See work as quoted by Edin. Encyc., Article, “China.”
The titles which divines and canonists have considered to be good and valid for the possession of slaves, are purchase, inheritance, gift, birth, slaves made in war, and sentenced for crime; but, in all cases, the title is vitiated when not sustained by the civil law. Yet the civil law may be repealed, or ameliorated, so that prisoners taken in war or crime may not be subject to death or servitude, in which case the validity of the title follows in the footsteps of the civil law; but these conditions primarily exist, as perpetual as the condition of man. The civil law, by its intervention, merely diverts the action during its rule.
But, in all cases of a secondary title, the validity follows the character of the previous holding, as no man can sell, give, or leave by inheritance a better title than that which he has. The question thus runs to the origin of what gives a good title, to wit, the condition that enforces one to be sold, or to sell himself, a slave, in favour of life. True, Blackstone, Montesquieu, and others of less note, contend that no man has a rightto sacrifice his liberty; and what is their argument? They make an assumption, where there is no parallel, “that liberty is of equal worth to life;” but before their argument is good, they must show that liberty is of more value than life: for surely a man may barter an equal for an equal. They cry, “God gave all men liberty.” Even that is a fiction. The truth is, God gave no man liberty, only upon conditions.
But to show that life is of more value than liberty, we need only observe that even with the loss of liberty there is hope—hope of change, of liberty, and of the means of sustaining it; and such hopes have often been realized. There is no truth in the proposition that liberty is of equal value (or rather superior) to life. The doctrine therefore is, that man, in his natural state, is the master of his own liberty, and may dispose of it as he sees proper in favour of life; that he may be deprived of it by force, in consequence of crime, or from his not being able to sustain it; and in all cases where liberty has become of less value than life, and both cannot be sustained, the one may be properly exchanged for the safety of the other. And upon this principle, in those countries where the parent had the right, by their law, to put to death his own children, he also had the right to sell them into slavery; and further, by natural law, where the parent cannot sustain the life of his child, where civil law gives him no power over its life, he yet, in favour of life, may sell him into slavery.
Natural law recognises the principle that the child, of right, is subject to the condition of the parent; and in these enfeebled conditions of man, for sake of more certainty, the civil law usually acknowledges the maternal line. It acknowledges the paternal line only when the elevated condition forms a presumption of equal certainty.
The Divine law recognises a good title to hold slaves among all people. The Divine grant to hold slaves was not an “especial permit to the Hebrews.” Abimelech gave slaves to Abraham: had his title been bad, Abraham could not have received them.Bethuel and Laban gave slaves to their daughters. None of these were Hebrews, yet they held slaves by a good title; for the very act of acceptance, in all these cases, is proof that the title was good.
Besides, the Divine law itself instructed the Israelites to buy slaves of the surrounding nations. SeeLev.xxv. 44. Can there be a stronger proof of the purity of a title, than this gives of the title by which the “nations round about” held slaves? The same law which permitted the Israelites to buy slaves of the “heathen round about,” also permitted the “heathen round about” to hold slaves, because it acknowledges their title to be good.
By an inquiry into the history of these “heathen round about,” their religion, civil condition, their manners and customs, as well as the final state to which they arrived, we may form some idea how a good title to hold slaves and to sell them arose among them; and since the laws of God are everlasting, and always applicable to every case where all the circumstances are similar, we may reasonably conclude that the same race, or any other race, then, or at any other period of time, to whom the same descriptions will apply, will also be found attended with the same facts in regard to slavery.
The conclusion therefore is, that from such a people, who have a good right to hold and sell slaves, other people, whose civil laws permit them to do so, may purchase slaves by a good title.
It may not then be wholly an idle labour to compare the history and race of these “heathen round about,” with the history, race, and present condition of those African heathen who have from time immemorial held and sold slaves.
But it being shown that the Divine sanction to hold slaves, did, at one time, exist, it devolves on them, who deny its religious legality, now to prove that the sanction had been withdrawn.
WE proceed to prove, by a variety of documents, that the Church of Christ did, at all times during its early ages, consider the existence of slavery and the holding of slaves compatible with a religious profession and the practice of Christian duties.
It is first in order to present the sermons of St. Paul and St. Peter direct upon this subject. Having heretofore quoted them,we now merely repeat the references, and ask for their perusal: See 1Cor.vii. 20–24;Eph.vi. 5–9;Col.iii. 22 to iv. 1; 1Tim.vi. 1–14;Tit.ii. 9–15;Philemonentire, and 1Pet.ii. 18–25. These scriptures distinctly teach the doctrine of the Christian church. But it remains to see what was the practice that grew up under it.
Upon the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the mind cannot well conceive how the apostles could have avoided, from time to time, meeting together for the purposes of consultation and agreement among themselves as to the particulars of their future course; and that such was the fact, we have in evidence,Actsi. 15–26, where they did thus meet, and elected Matthias to fill the vacancy in their number. Also,Actsix. 26–31, where Paul was received by them and sent forth as an apostle; but the book in question only gives us the outlines of what they did. Now, there is found among the ancient records of the church what is called “The Canons of the Apostles,” which, if not actually written by them, is still known to be in conformity with their doctrine, as developed in their own writings and the earliest usages of the church.
Among these, the canon lxxxi. is the following:
Servos in clerum provehi sine voluntate dominorum, non permittimus, ad eorum qui possident molestiam, domorum enim eversionem talia efficiunt. Siquando autem, etiam dignus servus visus sit, qui ad gradum eligatur, qualis noster quoque Onesimus visus est, et domini concesserint ac liberaverint, et œdibus emiserint, fiat.
We do not permit slaves to be raised to clerical rank without the will of their masters, to the injury of their owners. For such conduct produces the upturning of houses. But if, at any time, even a slave may be seen worthy to be raised to that degree, as even our Onesimus was, and the masters shall have granted and given freedom, and have sent them forth from their houses, let it be done.
This is the first of a series of similar enactments, and it should be observed that it recognises the principle of the perfect dominion of the master, the injury to his property, and requires the very legal formality by which the slave was liberated and fully emancipated.
The slave had the title, without his owner’s consent, to the common rights of religion and the necessary sacraments. In using these, no injury was done to the property of his owner; but he had no claim to those privileges which would diminish his value to theowner, or would degrade the dignity conferred, and which could not be performed without occupying that time upon which his owner had a claim.
There are eight other books of a remote antiquity, known as “The Constitutions ascribed to the Apostles,” said to be compiled by Pope Clement I., who was a companion of the apostles. It is generally believed that, though Clement might have commenced such a compilation, he did not leave it in the form which it now holds, but, like the Canons of the Apostles, the exhibition of discipline is that of the earliest days.
In book iv. ch. 5, enumerating those whose offerings were to be refused by the bishops as unworthy, we have, among thieves and other sinners,
(Qui) famulos suos dure accipiunt et tractant; id est, verberibus, aut fame afficiunt, aut crudeli servitute premunt.
They who receive and treat their slaves harshly; that is, who whip or famish them, or oppress them with heavy drudgery.
There is no crime in having the slave, but cruelty and oppression are criminal.
In the same book, ch. 11 regards slaves and masters.
De famulis quid amplius dicamus, quam quod servus habeat benevolentiam erga dominum cum timore Dei, quamvis sit impius, quamvis sit improbus, non tamen cum eo religione consentiat. Item dominus servum diligat, et quamvis præstet ei, judicet tamen esse æqualitatem, vel quatenus homo est. Qui autem habet dominum Christianum, salvo dominatu, diligat eum, tum ut dominum, tum ut fidei consortem et ut patrem, non sicut servus ad oculum serviens sed sicut dominum amans, ut qui sciat mercedem famulatûs sui a Deo sibi solvendam esse. Similiter dominus, qui Christianum famulum habet, salvo famulatu, diligat eum tanquam filium, et tanquam fratrem propter fidei communionem.
What further, then, can we say of slaves, than that the servant should have benevolence towards his master, with the fear of God, though he should be impious, though wicked; though he should not even agree with him in religion. In like manner, let the master love his slave, and though he is above him, let him judge him to be his equal at least as a human being. But let him who has a Christian master, having regard to his dominion, love him both as a master, as a companion in the faith, and as a father, not as an eye-servant, but loving his master as one who knows that he will receive the reward of his service to be paid by God. So let themaster who has a Christian slave, saving the service, love him as a son and as a brother, on account of the communion of faith.
Ne amaro animo jubeas famulo tuo aut ancillæ eidem Deo confidentibus: ne aliquando gemant adversus te, et irascatur tibi Deus. Et vos servi dominis vestris tanquam Deum repræsentantibus subditi estote cum sedulitate et metu,tanquam Domino, et non tanquam hominibus.
Do not command your man-servant nor your woman-servant having confidence in the same God, in the bitterness of your soul; lest they at any time lament against you, and God be angry with you. And you servants be subject to your masters, the representatives of God, with care and fear, as to the Lord, and not to men.
In the eighth book, ch. 33, is a constitution of SS. Peter and Paul, respecting the days that slaves were to be employed in labour, and those on which they were to rest and to attend to religious duties.
Stephen I., who was the pontiff in 253, endeavoured to preserve discipline, and set forth regulations to remedy evils.
Accusatores vero et accusationes, quas sæculi leges non recipiunt, et antecessores nostri prohibuerunt, et nos submovemus.
We also reject these accusers and charges which the secular laws do not receive, and which our predecessors have prohibited.
Soon after he specifies:
Accusator autem vestrorum nullus sit servus aut libertus.
Let not your accuser be a slave or a freed person.
Thus, in the ancient discipline of the church, as in the secular tribunals, the testimony of slaves was inadmissible.
In the year 305, a provincial council was held at Elvira, in the southern part of Spain. The fifth canon of which is—
Si qua domina furore zeli accensa flagris verberaverit ancillam suam, ita ut in tertium diem animam cum cruciatu effundat: eo quod incertum sit, voluntate, an casu occiderit, si voluntate post septem annos; si casu, post quinquennii tempora; acta legitima pænitentia, ad communionem placuit admitti. Quod si infra tempora constituta fuerit infirmata, accipiat communionem.
If any mistress, carried away by great anger, shall have whipped her maid-servant so that she shall within three days die in torture, as it is uncertain whether it may happen by reason of her will or by accident, it is decreed that she may be admitted to communion, having done lawful penance, after seven years, if it happened by herwill; if by accident, after five years. But should she get sick within the time prescribed, she may get communion.
Spanish ladies, at that period, had not yet so far yielded to the benign influence of the gospel, and so far restrained their violence of temper, as to show due mercy to their female slaves.
It may be well to observe a beneficial change, not only in public opinion, but even in the court, by reason of the influence of the spirit of Christianity; so that the pagan more than once reproved, by his mercy, the professor of a better faith.
Theodoret (l. 9, de Græc. cur. aff.) informs us that Plato established the moral and legal innocence of the master who slew his slave. Ulpian, the Roman jurist (l. 2, de his quæ sunt sui vel alieni jur.) testifies the power which—in imitation of the Greeks—the Roman masters had over the lives of their slaves. The well-known sentence of Pollio upon the unfortunate slave that broke a crystal vase at supper,—that he should be cast as food to fish,—and the interference of Augustus, who was a guest at that supper, give a strong exemplification of the tyranny then in many instances indulged.
Antoninus Pius issued a constitution about the year 150, restraining this power, and forbidding a master to put his own slave to death, except in those cases where he would be permitted to slay the slave of another. The cruelty of the Spaniards to their slaves, in the province of Bœtica, gave occasion to the constitution; and we have a rescript of Antoninus to Ælius Martianus, the proconsul of Bœtica, in the case of the slave of Julius Sabinus, a Spaniard. In this the right of the masters to their slaves is recognised, but the officer is directed to hear their complaints of cruelty, starvation, and oppressive labour; to protect them, and, if the complaints be founded in truth, not to allow their return to the master; and to insist on the observance of the constitution.
Caius (in l. 2, ad Cornel. de sicar.) states that the cause should be proved in presence of judges before the master could pronounce his sentence. Spartianus, the biographer, informs us that the Emperor Adrian, the immediate predecessor of Antoninus, enacted a law forbidding masters to kill their slaves, unless legally convicted. And Ulpian relates that Adrian placed, during five years, in confinement (relegatio) Umbricia, a lady of noble rank, because, for very slight causes, she treated her female slaves most cruelly. But Constantine the Great, about the year 320, enacted that no master should, under penalty due to homicide, put his slave todeath, and gave the jurisdiction to the judges but if the slave died casually, after necessary chastisement, the master was not accountable to any legal tribunal. (Const. in 1. i.; C. Theod. de emendat. servorum.)
As Christianity made progress, the unnatural severity with which this class of human beings was treated became relaxed, and as the civil law ameliorated their condition, the canon law, by its spiritual efficacy, came in with the aid of religion, to secure that, the followers of the Saviour should give full force to the merciful provisions that were introduced.
The principle which St. Augustine laid down was that observed. The state was to enact the laws regulating this species of property; the church was to plead for morality and to exhort to practise mercy.
About the same time, St. Peter, archbishop of Alexandria, drew up a number of penitential canons, pointing out the manner of receiving, treating, and reconciling the “lapsed,” or those who, through fear of persecution, fell from the profession of the faith. Those canons were held in high repute, and were generally adopted by the eastern bishops.
The sixth of those canons exhibits to us a device of weak Christians, who desired to escape the trials of martyrdom, without being guilty of actual apostasy. A person of this sort procured that one of his slaves should personate him, and in his name should apostatize. The canon prescribes for such a slave, who necessarily was a Christian and a slave of a Christian, but one-third of the time required of a free person, in a mitigated penance, taking into account the influence of fear of the master, which, though it did not excuse, yet it diminished the guilt of the apostasy.
The general council of Nice, in Bythinia, was held in the year 325, when Constantine was emperor. In the first canon of this council, according to the usual Greek and Latin copies, there is a provision for admitting slaves, as well as free persons who have been injured by others, to holy orders. In the Arabic copy, the condition is specially expressed, which is not found in the Greek or Latin, but which had been previously well known and universally established, “that this should not take place unless the slave had been manumitted by his master.”
About this period, also, several of theGnosticandManicheanerrors prevailed extensively in Asia Minor. Thefanaticsdenied the lawfulness ofmarriage; they forbidmeat to be eaten; theycondemned theuse of wine; they praised extravagantly the monastic institutions, and proclaimed theobligation on allto enter into religious societies; they decried thelawfulness of slavery; they denounced theslaveholdersas violating equally the laws ofnature and of religion; they offered toaid slavestodesert their owners; gave themexhortations,invitations,asylum, andprotection; and in all things assumed to be moreholy, moreperfect, and morespiritualthan other men.!!!
Osius, bishop of Cordova, whom Pope Sylvester sent as his legate into the east, and who presided in the council of Nice, was present when several bishops assembled in the city of Gangræ, Paphlagonia, to correct those errors. Pope Symmachus declared, in a council held in Rome, about the year 500, that Osius confirmed, by the authority of the pope, the acts of this council. The decrees have been admitted into the body of canon law, and have always been regarded as a rule of conduct in the Catholic church. The third canon:
Si quis docet servum, pietatis prætextu, dominum contemnere, et a ministerio recedere, et non cum benevolentia et omni honore domino suo inservire. Anathema sit.
If any one, under the pretence of piety, teaches a slave to despise his master, and to withdraw from his service, and not to serve his master with good-will and all respect. Let him be anathema.
Let him be anathemais never appended to any decree which does not contain the expression of unchangeable doctrine respecting belief or morality, and indicates that the doctrine has been revealed by God. It is precisely what St. Paul says inGal.i. 8: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you beside that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.” 9: “As we said before to you, so I say now again: If any man preach to you a gospel besides that which you have received; let him be anathema.” It is therefore manifest, that although this council of Gangræ was a particular one, yet the universal reception of this third canon, with itsanathema, and its recognition in the Roman council by Pope Symmachus, gives it the greatest authority and in Labbe it is further entitled as approved by Leo IV., about the year 850,dist. 20, C. de libell.
Several councils were held in Africa in the third and fourth centuries, in Carthage, in Milevi, and in Hippo. About the year 422, the first of Pope Celestine I., one was held under Aurelius, archbishop of Carthage, and in which St. Augustine sat as bishopof Hippo and legate of Numidia. A compilation was made of the canons of this and the preceding ones, which was styled the “African Council.” The canon cxvi. of this collection, taken into the body of the canon law, decrees that slaves shall not be admitted as prosecutors, nor shall certain freedmen be so admitted, except to complain for themselves; and for this, as well as for the incapacity of several others there described, the public law is cited, as well as the 7th and 8th councils of Carthage.
The great St. Basil was born in 329, and died in 379. His works, called “Canonical,” contain a great number of those which were the rules of discipline, not only for Asia Minor, but for the vast regions in its vicinity. The fortieth canon regards the marriages of female slaves. In this he mentions a discipline which was not general, but was peculiar to the north-eastern provinces of the church, requiring the consent of the master to the validity of the marriage-contract of a female slave: this was not required in other places, as is abundantly testified by several documents.
The forty-second canon treats in like manner of the marriages of children without their parents’ consent, and generally of those of all slaves without the consent of the owner.
It may not be improper now to take a more particular view of the civil world, its condition, and of those wars at the instance of which it had been, and then was, flooded with slaves. As an example, we select the middle of the fifth century:
Attila, to whom the Romans gave the sobriquet, “Flagellum Dei,”Scourge of God, was driven by Ætius out of Gaul in the year 451; and the following year, pouring his wild hordes down upon Italy, conquered Aquillia, Pavia, Milan, and a great number of small cities, and was in the attitude of marching on Rome. The Emperor Valentinian III., who was a weak prince, panic-struck, shut himself up in Ravenna; and his general, Ætius, who had been so victorious in Gaul, partook of the general fear when invaded at home. The destruction of Rome and its imperial power, the slaughter and slavery of the Roman people, and the extinction of the church appeared probable. Under such a stateof things, the emperor and his council prevailed on Leo the pontiff himself, supported by Albienus and Tragelius, men of great experience and talent, to undertake an embassy to the enemy’s camp, then on the banks of the Minzo. This embassy was accompanied by a most grand and numerous retinue—a small army—armed, not with the weapons of war, but with the crosier and crook. Nor did Attila attempt to hide his joy for their arrival. The most profound attention, the most convincing demonstrations of his kindness to them, were studiously displayed by him.
The terms proposed were readily accepted, and Attila and his army, a tornado fraught with moral and physical ruin to Rome, the church, and the civilized world, silently sank away far behind the Danube.
Nor is it strange that the great success of this embassy should have been attributed to some intervention of miraculous power during the dark ages that followed;—and hence we find that, four hundred years after, in one of Gruter’s copies of “The Historica Miscella,” it is stated that St. Peter and St. Paul stood, visible alone to Attila, on either side of Leo, brandishing a sword, commanding him to accept whatever Leo should offer; and this is quoted as credible history by Barronius,ad ann.452,no.47–59, and has been painted by Raffaele, at a much later period. The idea was perhaps poetical, and this piece alone would have immortalized the artist. But it is truly singular that this appearance of Peter and Paul should have gained a place in the Roman Breviary, especially as it is nowhere alluded to by Leo, nor by his secretary, Prosper, who was present at that treaty, nor by any contemporary whatever. The facts attached to Attila, in connection with this treaty, were:—His army was extremely destitute, and a contagious and very mortal disease was raging in his camp; in addition to which, Marcian had gathered a large army, then under march for Italy, to join the imperial forces under Ætius, while, at the same moment, another army, sent by Marcian long before, were then ravaging the country of the Huns themselves: of these facts Attila was well advised. These were the agencies that operated on his mind in favour of peace with Valentinian. To us the idea seems puerile to suppose Jehovah sending Peter and Paul, sword in hand, to frighten his Hunnish majesty from making slaves of the Roman people.
Would it not be more consonant with the general acts of his providence to point Attila to his diseased army; to their consequentwant of supplies, and to the threatening danger of his being totally cut off by the two armies of Marcian, saying nothing of the possibility of a restored confidence among the then panic-struck Romans? Besides, it has been well ascertained that, at the time of Leo’s arrival, he had been hesitating whether to march on Rome—or recross the Alps. SeeBower, vol. ii. p. 202; also,Jornandez Rer. Goth.c. 41, 49.
But, we acknowledge the intervening influences of the Divine will, in this case, as forcibly as it could be urged, even if attended with all the particulars and extravagancies of the poetic painter’s fancy. We have alluded to this particle of the history of that day, as it stands upon the records, in order that, while we quote, we may not be misunderstood as to our view of the providences of God.
But to return to our subject:—Upon a review of these times, we may notice the distractions of the church by means of the various heresies which imbittered against each other the different professions of the Christian faith. How the followers of Arius, for more than half a century, spread confusion and violence over the entire Christian world:—How, crushed and driven out by Theodosius, thousands took shelter among the pagans, whose movements they stimulated, and whom we now perceive in progress of the gradual overthrow of the Roman Empire:—How, upon the partial or more general successes of these hordes, their Arian confederates, with a fresh memory of their late oppressions and the cruelties inflicted on them, retaliated with unsparing severity and bloodshed upon their Nicene opponents; while, among all these savage invaders, the Arian creed supplanted and succeeded the pagan worship:—How this wild Attila swept the banks of the Danube and the Rhine, carrying death or desolation to the followers of Pharamond, and to the Goths, who had then already established themselves in the strongholds of ancient Gaul and of the more modern Romans. True, his career was checked on the banks of the Rhone, but, like a hunted lion, he rushed towards the Mediterranean, and, recruiting his force in Pannonia, directed his march to Italy; and to-day, after fourteen centuries, it is said that Aquillia still stands the monument of his barbarity. We have this moment noticed the extraordinary manner in which, it is said, by the monition of Leo, his path of ruin was suddenly directed to the ice-bound fortresses of the north. But the captives made on both sides, in these desolating wars, greatly increased the number of slaves of the whiterace, which otherwise, from operating causes, would have been diminished.
Up to this time in these regions, and, as we shall see, to a much later time, slavery was the result of that mercy in the victor, whereby he spared the life of the conquered enemy. Its condition did not depend on any previous condition of degradation, of freedom or slavery, nor upon the race or colour of the captive,—and the wars, for ages, which had been and were so productive of slavery, were almost exclusively among those who, in common, claimed a Caucasian origin. Instances of African slavery were rare. The Romans derived some few from their African wars, valued mostly by pride, because they were the most rare.
Thus we read in the Life of Nero, by Tacitus:—“Nero never travelled with less than a thousand baggage-wagons; the mules all shod with silver, and the drivers dressed in scarlet; his African slaves adorned with bracelets on their arms, and the horses decorated with the richest trappings.” But these times had passed away. Yet we find in the Life of Alphonso el Casto, that, upon his conquest of Lisbon, 798, he sent seven Moorish slaves as a present to Charlemagne. And also, in Bower’s “Lives of the Popes,” that in 849, “A company of Moors, from Africa, rendezvoused at Tozar, in Sardinia, and thence made an incursion, by the Tiber, on Rome. But they were mostly lost in a storm before landing. Of those who got on shore, some were killed. in battle, some were hanged, and a large number were brought to Rome and reduced to slavery.”
Yet the great mass of slaves were of the same race and colour of their masters; and at this age, a most important fact with the Christian, if they were pagans, was their conversion to Christianity.
For the first three hundred years, we may notice how Christianity had threaded her way amidst the troublous and barbarous paganisms of that age. But, at the time to which we have arrived, Christianity had ruled the civilized world for more than a century. And had Providence seen fit to have attended her future path with peace, human sympathy might have fondly hoped that the mild spirit of her religion would have been poured in ameliorating, purifying streams upon the condition and soul of the slave, and like a dissolving oil on the chains that bound him.