Philippians and Philemon - MR Vincent - 1906.pdf

1 68 INTRODUCTION
impress of Christian sentiment. The official manumission of
slaves became common as an act of piety or of gratitude to God
and sepulchral paintings often represent the master standing
before the Good Shepherd with a band of slaves liberated at his
death, pleading for him at the last judgment. Each new ruler
enacted some measure which facihtated emancipation. " No one
can carefully study the long series of laws, from Constantine to
the tenth century, in regard to slavery, without clearly seeing the
effect of Christianity. It is true that the unjust institution still
survived, and some of its cruel features remained ; but all through
this period the new spirit of humanity is seen struggling against
it, even in legislation, which is always the last to feel a new moral
power in society. The very language of the acts speaks of the
inspiration of the Christian faith ; and the idea which lay at the
bottom of the reforms, the value of each individual, and his
equality to all others in the sight of God, was essentially Christian.
But laws are often far behind the practices of a community. The
foundation-idea of Christ's principles compelled his followers to
recognise the slave as equal with the master. They sat side by
side in church, and partook of the communion together. By the
civil law, a master killing his slave accidentally by excessive pun-
ishment was not punished, but in the church he was excluded
from communion. The chastity of the slave was strictly guarded
by the church. Slave priests were free. The festivals of religion
— the Sundays, fast-days, and days of joy—were early connected
in the church with the emancipation of those in servitude. The
consoling words of Christ, repeated from mouth to mouth, and
the hope which now dawned on the world through him, became
the especial comfort of that great multitude of unhappy persons,
— the Roman bondsmen. The Christian teachers and clergymen
became known as ' the brothers of the slave,' and the slaves them-
selves were called ' the freedmen of Christ ' " (Charles L. Brace,
Gesta Christt).
Tributes to the beauty, delicacy, and tact of the Epistle to
Philemon come from representatives of all schools, from Luther
and Calvin to Renan, Baur, and von Soden. A number of these
have been collected by Lightfoot (Introd. p. 383 ff.). The letter
has been compared with one addressed by the younger Pliny to a
friend on a somewhat similar occasion. " Yet," to quote Bishop
;