NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works - Holy Bible Institute

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.the oversight of a master, would be most pitiable; as is the condition of the apostate powerswho, because they stiffen their neck against God Almighty, fling off the reins of theirbondage,—not that their natural constitution is different; but the cause is in their disobedientdisposition to their Creator. Whom then do you call free? Him who has no King? Himwho has neither power to rule another nor willingness to be ruled? Among all existent beingsno 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 “arethy servants,” 1156 but if He is above Creation, then He shares in royalty. 11571156 Ps. cxix. 91.1157 St. Basil’s view of slavery is that (a) as regards our relation to God, all created beings are naturally in acondition 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 slaverygiven 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 conditionis expedient and right, or rather is not all slavery a violation of nature? There is no difficulty in answering thisquestion, on grounds both of reason and fact. For that some should rule, and others be ruled, is a thing not onlynecessary, 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 ofthose 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, thatsome 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 theτὸ 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 indeeddo much to better the condition of the slave by asserting his spiritual freedom, but at first it did little more thanemphasize 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 isthought less of a slave’s servitude to fellow man than of the slavery of bond and free alike to evil. cf. Aug., DeCivit. 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 ofslavery 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 anticipationof a later development of Christian sentiment. At the same time it was in the age of St. Basil that “the210