Christians and slavery

Early Christians did not call for abolition, and even after the empire became Christian much of the traditional Roman social structure remained in place. Yet, Hermann Dorries writest that Christianity provided Constantine and the Christian emperors who followed with “the possibility of gradual amelioration.”

Considering the central economic importance of slavery, and considering the dehumanized views of slaves widely (not universally) held by pagans, the amazing thing, Dorries says, is that “the Christian faith could dare to cut into the relation of master and man and confer upon it a moral quality.”

Augustine made the point sharply in a sermon on Matthew 5:40. Jesus says we should gladly accept being defrauded, and since slaves were considered property under Roman law, Jesus might be enjoining slave-holders to abandon their slaves without a thought. Not so, Augustine said: “slaves are not goods like any other property. Althought, therefore, a cloak or money may be given up, in the case of a slave one must consider into whose hands he will fall. Whoever gives him up has a responsibility for what will become of him, ‘because a man should love a man as he would love himself.’”

Try to find that in Aristotle.