AUTHORITIES:
General History, Ecclesiastical History, Councils, Bulls, etc.
Christianity appeared for the purpose of effecting a regeneration in man's moral nature; this necessarily included also his social regeneration.
The primitive Christians, apostles, and martyrs, by their words, actions, and death, taught charity, brotherly love, and equality before God; and thus slowly but powerfully undermined slavery. They consoled in every possible way their lowly and suffering brethren, and tried to inspire the slaveholders with feelings of charity and benevolence toward their bondmen; but as the apostles did not attack any prevalent social or political evil, nay, even seemed to countenance, by their silent recognition or their advice, the existing imperial despotism, so, for obvious reasons, they could not directly attack domestic slavery nor proclaim universal emancipation. They preached to slaves and slaveholders, made converts from both, and considered and treated both as equal before God and the law. The few words of apostolic consolation which have been transmitted to us as re[Pg 166]ferring especially to chattels, logically and morally contain a condemnation of slavery, for it is only misfortune and evil that inspire pity or require consolation. So that the apostles and primitive Christians, by advising slaves to bear their yoke patiently, thereby proclaimed slavery to be an evil, like any of the sufferings, losses, or misfortunes of life.
When, under Constantine, Christianity was embodied in a national ecclesiasticism, the Church watched more directly over the condition of the slaves. In various ways it tried to alleviate their condition and effect their manumission; and this it urged the more earnestly as the Christians belonged mostly to the poorer classes, and also numerous serfs and slaves.
But the Church had now become a material fact, and henceforward, beside its legitimate moral aims, it had also worldly and selfish desires. It received imperial and private donations, became a large proprietor of lands, and therefore also a holder of slaves and serfs. It could therefore take no distinct interest in emancipation, but nevertheless still continued to inspire slaveholders with a milder spirit, and tried to prevent, as far as possible, the slave traffic, at least in Christian chattels.
None of the apostles, fathers, confessors, or martyrs of the Church ever affirmed slavery to be a moral and divine institution, or ever attempted to justify it in any way. These primitive Christians and holy fathers never once thought to refer to the curse of Noah as a justification of slavery. The Biblical story[Pg 167] of Noah and his curse was first dragged into this question by the feudalized medi?val clergy, to justify the enslavement, not of black Africans but of white Europeans, among whom, undoubtedly, were the ancestors of many blatant American supporters of the divine origin, on Biblical authority, of slavery.
When the Roman empire was broken in pieces by the northern invaders, the body of the Roman Church and clergy belonged to the subdued and enslaved race. The Franks, Northmen, and Anglo-Saxons were then altogether heathen; but many of the invaders—as the Visigoths and Ostrogoths, the Vandals, Burgundians, Heruli, and Longobards—were Christians; but, being Arians (Unitarians), they were enemies of the Trinitarians, and treated the Roman clergy as they did the rest of the subdued population. The Roman clergy, however, finally succeeded in superseding the Arian dogmas by their own, and they then constituted the sole expounders of Christian doctrine. Moved then by the Christian spirit, as well as by consanguinity with the enslaved population, they never failed to impress on the conquerors, whether heathen or Christian, their duties toward their slaves. They also continued to promote manumissions by declaring them meritorious before God. These manumissions were performed at the sacred altar with all the pomp and impressive rites of the Church, and were often extorted from the slaveholding barbarian in his last agonies.
As before, so during the first centuries of the Germanic settlements of Western and Southern Europe,[Pg 168] the Church never recognized the right of one man to enslave another; but rather through the voice of Gregory the Great, bishop, pope, or saint, reaffirmed the ancient axiom of the Roman jurist: "Homines quos ab initio natura creavit liberos—et jus gentium jugo substituit servitutis." The efforts of Gregory the Great, as also those of his predecessors and successors, were directed toward stopping the infamous slave traffic, first in Christian slaves, and then in Jews, Mussulmans, and all heathen. The Roman Church and its leaders unceasingly condemned the slave-trade, and the popes menaced with excommunication the traffickers in Mussulman prisoners in Rome, Lyons, Venice, etc., as also those Germans who afterward, in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, enslaved the prisoners of war which they made among the Slavonic tribes, Christian and heathen. The popes have likewise perpetually condemned the African or negro slave-trade, from its beginning down to the present day. Gregory XVI. interdicts "all ecclesiastics from venturing to maintain that this traffic in blacks is permitted under any pretext whatsoever;" and prohibits "teaching in public or in private, in any way whatever, any thing contrary to this apostolic letter." Explicit words of this tenor, coming from the pope, were generally considered as expressing the spirit of the Papal Church. In the Roman, as in all other churches and sects, however, both clergy and laity were wont to interpret all such mandates according to their own convenience.
For reasons formerly alluded to, the various national[Pg 169] ecclesiastical councils held in countries politically reconstructed by German invaders—as Spain, France, and England—repeatedly and explicitly legislated on slavery. These councils had it constantly in view to moderate the general treatment of slaves and bondmen, and to prevent mutilation and other cruel modes of punishment. The churches were proclaimed inviolable places of refuge for fugitive slaves, and while emancipation was urged as meritorious, the enslavement of freemen was visited with excommunication.
Soon, however, the Church, that is, the priesthood and hierarchy, came to form an integral part of the feudal system. The higher clergy shared the public spoils, and had fiefs and other estates stocked with serfs and chattels. Then the fervor for emancipation abated; nevertheless, the clergy generally recommended a humane treatment of the enslaved. The Irish clergy and councils perhaps proved themselves the most disinterested at that early medi?val epoch: they were the "underground railroad" of the period—assisting in the escape of slaves from bondage; and a council held in Armagh in 1172, gave liberty to all English (that is, Saxon) slaves in Ireland. Nowadays, on the contrary, the immense majority of the Irish Roman clergy on this continent support and sanction chattel slavery.
In the course of time the clerical hierarchies, monasteries, etc., inoculated with the feudal and baronial spirit, became as zealous for the preservation of even[Pg 170] the most revolting forms of servitude imposed upon the bondmen, as the most rapacious lay barons could possibly have been. Nowhere did the clergy raise its voice for either a total or a partial abolition of bondage.
Serfdom, which had long previously vanished from Italy, was, at the appearance of Luther, on the point of dissolution in England. The father of the religious reformation of Germany rather avoided blending social with spiritual reform; but the French and Swiss reformers, as well as the anabaptists and other sects, kept especially in view the amelioration of the condition of the oppressed masses. In general, the great movements for a freer spiritual activity which characterized the sixteenth century, contributed to promote the emancipation of serfs: and this first by purifying and elevating the public conscience, and then by bringing about the secularization of church property. The state, on becoming the heir of the clergy, was everywhere foremost in abolishing servitude: the ecclesiastical corporation, on the other hand, never labored for its abolition.
Among the various religious bodies—the Quakers and the modern Unitarians excepted—the absoluteness of Christian doctrine and morals has always been greatly modified by worldly interests. Not the Episcopal nor Scottish churches, nor indeed any other denomination, can claim the merit of having begotten the noble sentiment so universal in England on the subject of human bondage. The Roman clergy[Pg 171] continues, as it always has done, to oscillate between duty and interest; and the various Protestant sects do the same. And it is a significant feature that in the American union almost every religious denomination has its pro-slavery and its anti-slavery factions.