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| Against those who maintain that the Spirit is in the rank neither of a servant nor of a master, but in that of the free.
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Chapter XX.
Against those who maintain that the Spirit is in the
rank neither of a servant nor of a master, but in that of the free.
51. He is not a
slave, it is said; not a master, but free. Oh the terrible
insensibility, the pitiable audacity, of them that maintain this!
Shall I rather lament in them their ignorance or their blasphemy?
They try to insult the doctrines that concern the divine
nature1150
| 1150 τὰ τῆς
θεολογίας
δόγματα.
cf. note on § 66. | by comparing
them with the human, and endeavour to apply to the ineffable nature
of God that common custom of human life whereby the difference of
degrees is variable, not perceiving that among men no one is a slave
by nature. For men are either brought under a yoke of slavery
by conquest, as when prisoners are taken in war; or they are
enslaved on account of poverty, as the Egyptians were oppressed by
Pharaoh; or, by a wise and mysterious dispensation, the worst
children are by their fathers’ order condemned to serve the
wiser and the better;1151
and this any
righteous enquirer into the circumstances would declare to be not a
sentence of condemnation but a benefit. For it is more
profitable that the man who, through lack of intelligence, has no
natural principle of rule within himself, should become the chattel
of another, to the end that, being guided by the reason of his
master, he may be like a chariot with a charioteer, or a boat with a
steersman seated at the tiller. For this reason Jacob by his
father’s blessing became lord of Esau,1152
in order that the foolish son, who had not intelligence, his proper
guardian, might, even though he wished it not, be benefited by his
prudent brother. So Canaan shall be “a servant unto his
brethren”1153
because, since
his father Ham was unwise, he was uninstructed in virtue. In
this world, then, it is thus that men are made slaves, but they who
have escaped poverty or war, or do not require the tutelage of
others, are free. It follows that even though one man be
called master and another servant, nevertheless, both in view of our
mutual equality of rank and as chattels of our Creator, we are all
fellow slaves. But in that other world what can you bring out
of bondage? For no sooner were they created than bondage was
commenced. The heavenly bodies exercise no rule over one
another, for they are unmoved by ambition, but all bow down to God,
and render to Him alike the awe which is due to Him as Master and
the glory which falls to Him as Creator. For “a son
honoureth his father and a servant his master,”1154
and from all God asks one of these two
things; for “if I then be a Father where is my honour? and if
I be a Master where is my fear?”1155
Otherwise the life of all men, if
it were not under the oversight of a master, would be most pitiable;
as is the condition of the apostate powers who, because they stiffen
their neck against God Almighty, fling off the reins of their
bondage,—not that their natural constitution is different; but
the cause is in their disobedient disposition to their
Creator. Whom then do you call free? Him who has no
King? Him who has neither power to rule another nor
willingness to be ruled? Among all existent beings no such
nature is to be found. To entertain such a conception of the
Spirit is obvious blasphemy. If He is a creature of course He
serves with all the rest, for “all things,” it is said
“are thy servants,”1156
but if He
is above Creation, then He shares in royalty.1157
| 1157 St.
Basil’s view of slavery is that (a) as regards our relation
to God, all created beings are naturally in a condition of
subservience to the Creator; (b) as regards our relationship to
one another, slavery is not of nature, but of convention and
circumstance. How far he is here at variance with the well
known account of slavery given by Aristotle in the first book of
the Politics will depend upon the interpretation we put
upon the word “nature.” “Is there,”
asks Aristotle, “any one intended by nature to be a slave,
and for whom such a condition is expedient and right, or rather is
not all slavery a violation of nature? There is no
difficulty in answering this question, on grounds both of reason
and fact. For that some should rule, and others be ruled, is
a thing not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their
birth some are marked out for subjection, others for
rule.…Where, then, there is such a difference as that
between soul and body, or between men and animals (as in the case
of those whose business it is to use their body, and who can do
nothing better), the lower sort are by nature slaves, and it is
better for them, as for all inferiors, that they should be under
the rule of a master.…It is clear, then, that some men are
by nature free and others slaves, and that for these latter
slavery is both expedient and right.” Politics,
Bk. 1, Sec. 5. Here by Nature seems to be meant
something like Basil’s “lack of intelligence,”
and of the τὸ
κατὰ φύσιν
ἄρχον, which makes it
“profitable” for one man to be the chattel of another
(κτῆμα is livestock,
especially mancipium. cf.
Shakespeare’s K. and Pet., “She is my goods, my
chattels.” “Chattel” is a doublet of
“cattle”). St. Basil and Aristotle are at one as
to the advantage to the weak slave of his having a powerful
protector; and this, no doubt, is the point of view from which
slavery can be best apologized for.
Christianity did indeed do much to better the condition
of the slave by asserting his spiritual freedom, but at first it did
little more than emphasize the latter philosophy of heathendom,
εἰ σῶμα
δοῦλον, ἀλλ᾽
ὁ νοῦς
ἐλεύθερος (Soph.,
frag. incert. xxii.), and gave the highest meaning to such
thoughts as those expressed in the late Epigram of Damascius (c.
530) on a dead slave:
Ζωσίμη ἡ
πρὶν ἐοῦσα
μόνῳ τῷ
σώματι
δούλη,
Καὶ
τῷ σώματι νῦν
εὗρεν
ἐλευθερίην.
It is thought less of a slave’s
servitude to fellow man than of the slavery of bond and free alike to
evil. cf. Aug., De Civit. Dei. iv. cap.
iii. “Bonus etiamsi serviat liber est: malus autem
si regnat servus est: nec est unius hominis, sed quod gravius est
tot dominorum quot vitiorum.” Chrysostom even explains
St. Paul’s non-condemnation of slavery on the ground that its
existence, with that of Christian liberty, was a greater moral triumph
than its abolition. (In Genes. Serm. v. 1.) Even so
late as the sixth century the legislation of Justinian, though
protective, supposed no natural liberty. “Expedit enim
respublicæ ne quis re suâ utatur male.”
Instit. i. viii. quoted by Milman, Lat. Christ. ii.
14. We must not therefore be surprised at not finding in a Father
of the fourth century an anticipation of a later development of
Christian sentiment. At the same time it was in the age of St.
Basil that “the language of the Fathers assumes a bolder
tone” (cf. Dict. Christ. Ant. ii. 1905),and “in the
correspondence of Gregory Nazianzen we find him referring to a case
where a slave had been made bishop over a small community in the
desert. The Christian lady to whom he belonged endeavoured to
assert her right of ownership, for which she was severely rebuked by
St. Basil (cf. Letter CXV.) After St. Basil’s death
she again claimed the slave, whereupon Gregory addressed her a letter
of grave remonstrance at her unchristian desire to recall his brother
bishop from his sphere of duty. Ep. 79,”
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