sense of Roman law.
When, therefore, the question is asked, why did not the
apostles seek the abolition of slavery? we answer, they did
seek it. They sought it by the safest, shortest, and most direct
course which could possibly have been adopted.
* See Adams' Roman Antiquities.
† Dionys. Hal. ii. 25.
CHAPTER VII.
But did Christianity abolish slavery as a matter of fact? We
answer, it did.
Let us look at these acknowledged facts. At the time of the
coming of Christ, slavery extended over the whole civilised
world. Captives in war were uniformly made slaves, and, as
wars were of constant occurrence, the ranks of slavery were
continually being reinforced; and, as slavery was hereditary and
perpetual, there was every reason to suppose that the number
would have gone on increasing indefinitely had not some in-
fluence operated to stop it. This is one fact.
Let us now look at another. At the time of the Reformation,
chattel-slavery had entirely ceased throughout all the civilised
countries of the world; by no particular edict--by no special
law of emancipation--but by the steady influence of some gra-
dual, unseen power, this whole vast system had dissolved away,
like the snow-banks of winter.
These two facts being conceded, the inquiry arises, What
caused this change? If, now, we find that the most powerful
organisation in the civilised world at that time did pursue a
system of measures which had a direct tendency to bring about
such a result, we shall very naturally ascribe it to that
organisation.
The Spanish writer, Balmes, in his work entitled “Protes-
tantism compared with Catholicity,” has one chapter devoted to
the anti-slavery course of the Church, in which he sets forth the
whole system of measures which the Church pursued in reference
to this subject, and quotes, in their order, all the decrees of
councils. The decrees themselves are given in an Appendix at
length, in the original Latin. We cannot but sympathise deeply
in the noble and generous spirit in which these chapters are
written, and the enlarged and vigorous ideas which they give of
the magnanimous and honourable nature of Christianity. They
are evidently conceived by a large and noble soul, capable of
understanding such views--a soul, grave, earnest, deeply reli-
gious, though evidently penetrated and imbued with the most
profound conviction of the truth of his own peculiar faith.
We shall give a short abstract from M. Balmes of the early
course of the Church. In contemplating the course which the
Church took in this period, certain things are to be borne in
mind respecting the character of the times.
The process was carried on during that stormy and convulsed
period of society which succeeded the breaking up of the Roman
empire. At this time all the customs of society were rude and
barbarous. Though Christianity, as a system, had been nominally
very extensively embraced, yet it had not, as in the case of its
first converts, penetrated to the heart, and regenerated the whole
nature. Force and violence was the order of the day, and the
Christianity of the savage Northern tribes, who at this time
became masters of Europe, was mingled with the barbarities of
their ancient heathenism. To root the institution of slavery out
of such a state of society required, of course, a very different
process from what would be necessary under the enlightened
organisation of modern times.
No power but one of the peculiar kind which the Christian
Church then possessed could have effected anything in this way.
The Christian Church at this time, far from being in the outcast
and outlawed state in which it existed in the time of the apos-
tles, was now an organisation of great power, and of a kind of
power peculiarly adapted to that rude and uncultured age. It
laid hold of all those elements of fear, and mystery, and super-
stition, which are strongest in barbarous ages, as with barbarous
individuals, and it visited the violations of its commands with
penalties the more dreaded that they related to some awful
future, dimly perceived and imperfectly comprehended.
In dealing with slavery, the Church did not commence with a
proclamation of universal emancipation, because, such was the
bardarous and unsettled nature of the times, so fierce the grasp
of violence, and so many the causes of discord, that she avoided
adding to the confusion by infusing into it this element; nay, a
certain council of the Church forbade, on pain of ecclesiastical
censure, those who preached that slaves ought immediately to
leave their masters.
The course was commenced first by restricting the power of
the master, and granting protection to the slave. The Council
of Orleans, in 549, gave to a slave threatened with punishment
the privilege of taking sanctuary in a church, and forbade his
master to withdraw him thence without taking a solemn oath
that he would do him no harm; and if he violated the spirit of
this oath, he was to be suspended from the Church and the
a degree of superstitious awe that the most barbarous would
scarcely dare to incur it. The custom was afterwards introduced
of requiring an oath on such occasions, not only that the slave
should be free from corporeal infliction, but that he should not
be punished by an extra imposition of labour, or by any badge
of disgrace. When this was complained of, as being altogether
too great a concession on the side of the slave, the utmost that
could be extorted from the Church, by way of retraction, was
this--that in cases of very heinous offence the master should not
be required to make the two latter promises.
There was a certain punishment among the Goths which was
more dreaded than death. It was the shaving of the hair. This
was considered as inflicting a lasting disgrace. If a Goth once
had his hair shaved, it was all over with him. The fifteenth
canon of the Council of Merida, in 666, forbade ecclesiastics to
inflict this punishment upon their slaves, as also all other kind of
violence; and ordained that, if a slave committed an offence, he
should not be subject to private vengeance, but be delivered up
to the secular tribunal, and that the bishops should use their
power only to procure a moderation of the sentence. This was
substituting public justice for personal vengeance--a most im-
portant step. The Church further enacted, by two councils, that
the master who, of his own authority, should take the life of his
slave, should be cut off for two years from the communion of the
Church--a condition, in the view of those times, implying the
most awful spiritual risk, separating the man in the eye of society
from all that was sacred, and teaching him to regard himself,
and others to regard him, as a being loaded with the weight of
a most tremendous sin.
Besides the prote
ction given to life and limb, the Church threw
her shield over the family condition of the slave. By old Roman
law, the slave could not contract a legal, inviolable marriage.
The Church of that age availed itself of the Catholic idea of the
sacramental nature of marriage to conflict with this heathenish
doctrine. Pope Adrian I. said, “According to the words of the
Apostle, as in Jesus Christ we ought not to deprive either slaves
or freemen of the sacraments of the Church, so it is not allowed
in any way to prevent the marriage of slaves; and if their mar-
riages have been contracted in spite of the opposition and repug-
nance of their masters, nevertheless they ought not to be dissolved.”
St. Thomas was of the same opinion, for he openly maintains
that, with respect to contracting marriage, “slaves are not obliged
to obey their masters.”
It can easily be seen what an effect was produced when the
personal safety and family ties of the slaves were thus pro-
claimed sacred by an authority which no man living dared
dispute. It elevated the slave in the eyes of his master, and
awoke hope and self-respect in his own bosom, and powerfully
tended to fit him for the reception of that liberty to which the
Church by many avenues was constantly seeking to conduct
him.
Another means which the Church used to procure emancipa-
tion was a jealous care of the freedom of those already free.
Everyone knows how in our Southern States the boundaries of
slavery are continually increasing, for want of some power there
to perform the same kind office. The liberated slave, travelling
without his papers, is continually in danger of being taken up,
thrown into jail, and sold to pay his jail-fees. He has no bishop
to help him out of his troubles. In no church can he take sanc-
tuary. Hundreds and thousands of helpless men and women
are every year engulfed in slavery in this manner.
The Church, at this time, took all enfranchised slaves under
her particular protection. The act of enfranchisement was
made a religious service, and was solemnly performed in the
Church; and then the Church received the newly-made freeman
to her protecting arms, and guarded his newly-acquired rights
by her spiritual power. The first Council of Orange, held in
441, ordained in its seventh canon that the Church should check
by ecclesiastical censures whoever desired to reduce to any kind
of servitude slaves who had been emancipated within the inclosure
of the Church. A century later, the same prohibition was
repeated in the seventh canon of the fifth Council of Orleans,
held in 549. The protection given by the Church to freed
slaves was so manifest and known to all that the custom was
introduced of especially recommending them to her, either in
lifetime or by will. The Council of Agde, in Languedoc, passed
a resolution commanding the Church, in all cases of necessity,
to undertake the defence of those to whom their masters had,
in a lawful way, given liberty.
Another anti-slavery measure which the Church pursued with
distinguished zeal had the same end in view, that is, the pre-
vention of the increase of slavery. It was the ransoming of
captives. As at that time it was customary for captives in war
to be made slaves of, unless ransomed, and as, owing to the
unsettled state of society, wars were frequent, slavery might
have been indefinitely prolonged, had not the Church made the
greatest efforts in this way. The ransoming of slaves in those
days held the same place in the affections of pious and devoted
members of the Church that the enterprise of converting the
heathen now does. Many of the most eminent Christians, in
their excess of zeal, even sold themselves into captivity that they
might redeem distressed families. Chateaubriand describes a
Christian priest in France who voluntarily devoted himself to
slavery for the ransom of a Christian soldier, and thus restored
a husband to his desolate wife, and a father to three unfortu-
nate children. Such were the deeds which secured to men in
those days the honour of saintship. Such was the history of
St. Zachary, whose story drew tears from many eyes, and excited
many hearts to imitate so sublime a charity. In this they did
but imitate the spirit of the early Christians; for the apostolic
Clement says, “We know how many among ourselves have
given up themselves unto bonds, that thereby they might free
others from them.” (1st Letter to the Corinthians, sect. 55; or
chap. xxi., verse 20.) One of the most distinguished of the
Frankish bishops was St. Eloy. He was originally a goldsmith
of remarkable skill in his art, and by his integrity and trust-
worthiness won the particular esteem and confidence of King
Clotaire I., and stood high in his court. Of him Neander
speaks as follows:--“The cause of the gospel was to him the
dearest interest, to which everything else was made subservient.
While working at his art, he always had a Bible open before him.
The abundant income of his labours he devoted to religious ob-
jects and deeds of charity. Whenever he heard of captives, who
in these days were often dragged off in troops as slaves that were
to be sold at auction, he hastened to the spot and paid down
their price.” Alas for our slave-coffles! there are no such
bishops now! “Sometimes, by his means, a hundred at once,
men and women, thus obtained their liberty. He then left it
to their choice, either to return home, or to remain with him as
free Christian brethren, or to become monks. In the first case,
he gave them money for their journey; in the last, which
pleased him most, he took pains to procure them a handsome
reception into some monastery.”
So great was the zeal of the Church for the ransom of un-
happy captives that even the ornaments and sacred vessels of
the Church were sold for their ransom. By the fifth canon of
the Council of Macon, held in 585, it appears that the priests
devoted Church property to this purpose. The Council of
Rheims, held in 625, orders the punishment of suspension on the
bishop who shall destroy the sacred vessels FOR ANY OTHER
MOTIVE THAN THE RANSOM OF CAPTIVES; and in the twelfth
canon of the Council of Verneuil, held in 844, we find that the
property of the Church was still used for this benevolent
purpose.
When the Church had thus redeemed the captive, she still
continued him under her special protection, giving him letters of
recommendation which should render his liberty safe in the eyes
of all men. The Council of Lyons, held in 583, enacts that
bishops shall state, in the letters of recommendation which they
give to redeemed slaves, the date and price of their ransom.
The zeal for this work was so ardent that some of the clergy even
went so far as to induce captives to run away. A council called
that of St. Patrick, held in Ireland, condemns this practice, and
&nb
sp; says that the clergyman who desires to ransom captives must do
so with his own money; for to induce them to run away was to
expose the clergy to be considered as robbers, which was a dis-
honour to the Church. The disinterestedness of the Church in
this work appears from the fact that, when she had employed her
funds for the ransom of captives, she never exacted from them any
recompense, even when they had it in their power to discharge
the debt. In the letters of St. Gregory, he re-assures some per-
sons who had been freed by the Church, and who feared that they
should be called upon to refund the money which had been
expended on them. The Pope orders that no one, at any time,
shall venture to disturb them or their heirs, because the sacred
canons allow the employment of the goods of the Church for the
ransom of captives. (L. 7, Ep. 14.) Still further to guard
against the increase of the number of slaves, the Council of
Lyons, in 566, excommunicated those who unjustly retained free
persons in slavery.
If there were any such laws in the Southern States, and all
were excommunicated who are doing this, there would be quite
a sensation, as some recent discoveries show.
In 625, the Council of Rheims decreed excommunication to all
those who pursue free persons in order to reduce them to slavery.
The twenty-seventh canon of the Council of London, held 1102,
forbade the barbarous custom of trading in men, like animals;
and the seventh canon of the Council of Coblentz, held 922,
declares that he who takes away a Christian to sell him is guilty
of homicide. A French council, held in Verneuil in 616, esta-
blished the law that all persons who had been sold into slavery
on account of poverty or debt should receive back their liberty by
the restoration of the price which had been paid. It will readily
be seen that this opened a wide field for restoration to liberty in
an age where so great a Christian zeal had been awakened for
the redeeming of slaves, since it afforded opportunity for
Christians to interest themselves in raising the necessary ran-
som. At this time the Jews occupied a very peculiar place among
the nations. The spirit of trade and commerce was almost
entirely confined to them, and the great proportion of the wealth
was in their hands, and, of course, many slaves. The regulations