Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

70 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMfreedmen, slaves, kings, exiles. It chooses not the houseor the rent-roll, but is contented with the bare man.The world is the single parent of all: to this the firstorigin of every one is carried, whether through a splendidor sordid lineage. What is a Roman knight, freedman,or slave ? Names which are sprung out of ambition orinjustice. From the meanest corner you may rise toheaven ; only spring up, and make yourself worthy ofGod.1 It is thus that from a purely natural standpointSeneca by scientific reasoning makes out for the slavea position worthy of human nature. And he does thisat a moment when the internal economy of the countryin which he wrote was based upon slavery, and a slaveryof such a character that its victims were abused, notas if they were men, but as if they were beasts. Indescribing vividly as an eye-witness these very abuses,he exclaims, " They are slaves, nay, men ; I say, they areslaves, nay, comrades. They are slaves, nay, humblefriends: they are slaves, nay, fellow-slaves, if you considerthat fortune has as much power over you as overthem." And he writes thus in a city where shortlybefore he had seen four hundred slaves of a single household2 led to execution because their master had beenslain by one of them. " The sum of my rule," he adds," is this : To live with your inferior as you would wishyour superior to live with you. As often as you thinkof your power over your slave, think of your lord'shaving as great power over you. 'But,' you object, 'Ihave no lord.' You are young and may have one, as1 Epist. xlvii. 15 ; DC Bcnef. iii. 18 : Epist. xxxi. II.2 The death of Pedanius Secundus and the execution of his wholehousehold took place in the year 62. Seneca died in 65. The lettersto Lucilius are supposed to have been written in his last years when hewas in disgrace at Court, and retired from it. He just survived tosee the Christian persecution in the year 64.