Philippians and Philemon - MR Vincent - 1906.pdf

INTRODUCTION l6$
pated slave carried into his free condition the antecedents, the
habits, the spirit, the moral quality of a slave. The time came
when the majority of the free population were either freedmen or
descended from slaves. Tacitus tells of their insolence and in-
subordination {Ann. xii. 26, 27), The slave-taint crept into the
offices of state. Labor was stigmatised and its avenues were
barred to the free poor. Almost every sphere of industry was
occupied by slaves, and the free poor became literally paupers,
dependent upon the imperial doles of bread.
The attitude of the great Christian apostle towards this institu-
tion is, naturally, a subject of much interest ; and this epistle,
which represents that attitude in a practical issue, has therefore
figured in most discussions on the moral aspect of slavery. These
discussions have developed two errors, against which it is import-
ant to guard. On the one hand, the epistle has been regarded as
committing St. Paul to the concession of the abstract rightfulness
and of the divine sanction of slavery. On the other hand, it has
been claimed that the epistle represents him as the enemy and
the condemner of slavery, and as working with a conscious intent
for its abolition by the deep and slow process of fostering Christian
sentiment. Neither of these views expresses the whole truth of
the case.
It is more than questionable whether St. Paul had grasped the
postulate of the modern Christian consciousness that no man has
the right to own another. He had been familiar with slavery
all his life, both in his Hebrew and in his Gentile associations.
Hebrew law, it is true, afforded the slave more protection than
Greek or Roman law, and insured his ultimate manumission;
none the less, the Hebrew law assumed the right to own human
beings. The tendency is much too common to estimate the
leaders of the primitive church in the light of nineteenth-century
ideas, and to attribute to a sentiment which was only beginning
to take shape, the maturity and definiteness which are behind its
appeal to us, and which are the growth of centuries. It is safe to
say that St. Paul was a good way removed from the point of view
of the modern abolitionist. If he had distinctly regarded the
institution of slavery as wrong, per se, there is every reason for
believing that he would have spoken out as plainly as he did con-
cerning fornication; whereas there is not a word to that effect