Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

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
1156 Ps. cxix. 91.
Against those who maintain that the Spirit is in the rank neither of a servant…
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 ab-
olition. (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 anti-
cipation of a later development of Christian sentiment. At the same time it was in the age of St. Basil that “the
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