emancipated five thousand, and Melanius eight thousand -that very exaggeration in the popular traditions shows the tendency of Christianity toward universal emancipation. In this view, making due allowance for the exaggeration of numbers, such instances as the following are valuable, not only as substantial facts, but as "the exponents of the spirit which animated the church at that time concerning the duties of Christian masters."* "A Roman prefect, Hermas, converted in the reign of Trajan (98-to 117), received baptism at an Easter festival, with his wife and children, and twelve hundred and fifty slaves, and on this occasion gave all his slaves their freedom, and munificent gifts besides. So, in the martyrology of St. Sebastian, it is related that a wealthy Roman prefect, Chromatius, under Diocletian (284-305), on embracing Christianity, emancipated fourteen hundred slaves, after having them baptized with himself, because their sonship with God put an end to their servitude to man. In the beginning of the fourth century, St. Cantius, Cantianus, and Cantianilla, of an old Roman family, set all their slaves, seventy-three in number, at liberty, after they had received baptism. After the third century, the manumission became a solemn act, which took place in the presence of the clergy and the congregation. The master led the slave to the altar; there the document of emancipation was read, the minister pronounced the blessing, and the congregation received him as a free brother, with equal rights and privileges. Constantine found this *Schaff: Hist. of the Christian Church, pp. 320, 321. custom already established, and African councils of the fourth century requested the Emperor to give it general force." As an indication of the tone of feeling on slavery, Lactantius, in the beginning of the fourth century, writes, "Should any say: Are there not also among you poor and rich, servants and masters, distinctions among individuals? No; we call ourselves brethren for no other reason than that we hold ourselves all equal. For since we measure everything human, not by its outward appearance, but by its intrinsic value, we have, notwithstanding the difference of outward relations, no slaves, but we call and consider them brethren in the spirit, and fellow-servants in religion." The same writer says: "God would have all men equal With him there is neither servant nor master. If he is the same Father to all, they are all with the same right free. So no one is poor before God, but he who is destitute of righteousness; no one rich but he who is full of virtues." These noble Christian sentiments and practices found expression at last in the form of law, when Constantine. embraced Christianity, and made himself the patron of the church. In the year 316, this Emperor decreed that masters wishing to free their slaves might resort to the churches, and perform the act of emancipation in presence of the congregation, with the attestation of the bishops, and that proper documents, signed by actors and witnesses, should be preserved in the church archives, for the protection of the freedman. What would those modern evangelical Christians, whose delicate consciences are shocked if the word slavery falls from the pulpit, have done in such a church, and with such a gospel! Liberty was declared imprescriptible by its own nature, and, in 322, Constantine issued a charter for the protection of freedmen, surrounding their rights with all possible means of defense. And thus, as the Duke de Broglie finely says, "the church was invested with a sort of official patronage for the enfranchisement of mankind [of whom the major part were then in slavery]. The places consecrated to the Christian faith became the asylums of liberty-the inviolable free soil. The church, at this solemn moment, accepted from God and from Constantine the task of emancipating the world without overturning it."* This imperial edict is a high and ineffaceable watermark by which to measure the elevation of humanity through the gospel. To appreciate it, we must remind ourselves again, how the later pagan emperors had imposed new restrictions upon the ancient right of manumission; how vainly one looks for anything like common human feeling in the Roman slave-law of republican times, and that of the earlier empire; how the humane and candid historian, Tacitus, commends, as a measure "both of justice and security," the decree of the Roman Senate, that "if any one was killed by his slaves, not only all his household slaves, but all under his roof who were made free by his will, should be executed for the * L'Englise et L'Empire Romain, I., 306. For these laws of Constantine, see the Code Theod. under titles. murder;" we must remind ourselves how, when under Nero, the prefect of the city, Pedanius Secundus, was murdered by a slave, four hundred slaves were adjudged to death; and when the populace threatened to prevent the execution, the Senate voted that it should go forward -Caius Cassius arguing that the mixed rabble of slaves must be restrained by the utmost terrors of the law; and through lines of soldiers awing the people, these four hundred bondmen were led to a butchery like that of Dahomey. Tacitus records this bloody holocaust of slavery, without one word of horror or of adverse criticism!* At that time, Paul, the prisoner of the same Nero, himself in bonds at Rome, dictated by the hands of Onesimus, whom he had enfranchised in the Lord, that immortal decree of emancipation-" Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a master in heaven :-there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but Christ is all, and in all.”+ Well may the skeptic whom I quoted at the outset, confess his admiration of this sublime announcement. "Antiquity recognized and valued the citizen alone; Christianity inaugurated the future of man; Paul announces a new order of things. For the first time, man has a value as such, without distinction of race or of social condition. Jesus Christ is the Saviour of humanity; all are called; the slave and the master have one God; they are brethren." * Annals, XIII., 32. Go forward now, 250 years, from Nero to Constantine-from the day when the streets of Rome were lined with soldiers to enforce the Senators' decree for the massacre of four hundred slaves in cold blood, to the day when an imperial edict makes the old basilica of despotism, converted into churches, the asylum of the slave. "Beautiful was the mission assigned to Christianity, of presiding at this act of humanity and equality; it associated with liberty a religious idea, and announced to Christians that in the bosom of the church there should no more be masters or slaves. Every judicial act was forbidden upon the Sabbath; the Sabbath; but Constantine authorized the manumission of slaves," as a religious solemnity upon the Lord's day, in the house of God.* I am far from claiming, in behalf of Constantine, an enlightened Christian consistency, and adopting the eulogy of Eusebius, that "in words, and yet more in actions, he was a herald of the truth to all mankind."+ Constantine was a sagacious but not an unselfish ruler. Living in troublous times, he looked chiefly to the foundation of his throne. He would not hazard the convulsion of his empire by a decree of universal emancipation. But, although Constantine did not abolish slavery, see what he did to ameliorate the condition of slaves ;-raising the servant from a place among things, to the position of a person entitled to the protection of the law. By an edict of 312, he declared it homicide for a master maliciously to kill his slave. He gave freedom to slaves who became Oration, Chap. xviii. *Laurent: Christianisme, p. 324. |