What attracted slaves and captives to the early Church?

It was a widespread custom in the ancient world for a person to sell himself or his children to escape from abject poverty. Victorious armies would also sell off captives taken in war as slaves, whether to the rich of their own land or of neighboring lands. Given the prevalence of the slave economy, the Church could not remain passive towards the practice, although it lacked the temporal power to issue direct orders to free slaves.

The Law of the Old Testament contains commandments that prevent masters from perpetrating violence and abuse upon their slaves, especially those of their own race; not as an endorsement of the existing system, but rather as a preliminary step towards seeing slaves as human beings and brethren.

The New Testament highlights its concern for slaves in the following ways:

First: It asks masters to show compassion towards their enslaved brothers and sisters, as fellow heirs of the eternal inheritance.

Second: It insists that believing slaves have an effective mission to win their masters — even the abusive ones — to the faith, through their obedience in the Lord and sincere love, and not by coercion. In his letter, the apostle Paul addresses Philemon about his slave Onesimus, who was a thief and a fugitive slave. He says, “I have begotten him while in my chains … receive him, that is, my own heart” (Philem. 10–12). In so saying, the apostle Paul furnishes us with a practical example of the liberation of slaves — not through violent revolt or conflict, but through the spirit of unity and love, and through shared fellowship in the new heavenly life.

Third: The Church Fathers believed that God created every person to be free, including St. Ambrose,¹⁰³⁴ St. John Chrysostom,¹⁰³⁵ St. Gregory of Nyssa,¹⁰³⁶ and St. Basil the Great.¹⁰³⁷ St. Clement of Alexandria and the scholar Origen are considered among the foremost defenders of slaves. St. Jerome¹⁰³⁸ and the scholar Tertullian¹⁰³⁹ wrote against slaves rebelling.

Fourth: The School of Alexandria began as a school for catechumens,¹⁰⁴⁰ where those who wanted to be baptized — whether Jews or Gentiles — were welcome to study the Christian faith regardless of religion, culture, social position, or age. Education there did not

1034 St. Ambrose of Milan, Letters 1–91 25 (FOTC 26:132–134).

1035 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians 22 (NPNF I/13:157–163).

1036 St. Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nyssa: Homilies on Ecclesiastes , ed., Stuart George Hall, trans., Stuart George Hall and Rachel Moriarty (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1993) 4: pp. 73–75.

1037 St. Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 20, 51 (PP 42:87–89).

1038 St. Jerome, Letters 107.8 (NPNF II/6:193).

1039 Tertullian, Apology 27 (ANF 3:40–41).

1040 The word “catechumen” is derived from the Greek word κατεχούμενος ( katēchoumenos ), which means “being taught,” and the verb means “learning verbally.” It was used in the Church to refer to candidates for baptism.

distinguish between slaves or masters; it was not the exclusive preserve of any social class,¹⁰⁴¹ at a time when slaves were cheap, bought and sold as a commodity.

Indeed, in the time of Athenagoras, there were wealthy Christians in the Church of Alexandria who owned slaves, while there were others who were poor. However, according to Athenagoras, not one of these slaves ever raised the complaint against their masters that their rights had been denied, even under pressure of torture. Around the same time, the Council of Gangra directed slaves to submit to their masters in the Lord, that they might bear witness to the gospel living within them, and to refrain from trying to escape from their masters and from using violence against them. “If any one shall teach a slave, under pretext of piety, to despise his master and to run away from his service, and not to serve his own master with good-will and all honor, let him be anathema.”¹⁰⁴²

Fifth: It teaches us to pray for the sake of captive slaves. The writings of the Apostolic Fathers¹⁰⁴³ and the texts of some ancient liturgies testify to the early Church’s concern from the earliest of times for captives, those enslaved in mines, and those in prison. St. Justin Martyr¹⁰⁴⁴ describes a collection of gifts after the liturgy for five groups of people, including those in chains. Aristides¹⁰⁴⁵ indicates that among the Christian virtues is the treatment of slaves as brothers and sisters, and that Christians collaborate to free prisoners for the sake of the name of Jesus Christ. The scholar Tertullian describes a monthly collection of donations which the faithful distributed, among others, to elderly slaves, and to those in the mines, in exile, or in prison. We find a similar account in the Didascalia . And St. Clement of Rome prays saying, “Grant us, O Lord, we beseech you, your help and protection [cf. Ps. 119:114]. Deliver the afflicted … ransom the captive, support the weak, comfort the fainthearted.”¹⁰⁴⁶

Sixth : It teaches us to strive to liberate captives. St. Cyprian sent 100,000 sesterces (an ancient Roman coin) to the churches of Numidia to redeem Christians who had been captured by certain barbarian tribes.¹⁰⁴⁷ The historian Eusebius quotes passages from the letter of Dionysius the bishop of Corinth to the Romans, addressed to Soter the Bishop of Rome at that time, saying, “For from the beginning it has been your practice to do good to all the brethren in various ways, and to send contributions to many churches in every city. Thus relieving the want of the needy, and making provision for the brethren in the mines by the gifts which you have sent from the beginning, you Romans keep up the hereditary customs of the Romans, which your blessed bishop Soter has not only maintained, but also added to,

1041 See Makary el-Souriany, Ancient and Contemporary Christian Education in the Coptic Church of Egypt: MRE Thesis (Princeton Theological Seminary, 1955): p. 78.

1042 Canons of the Council of Gangra 3 (NPNF II/14:93).

1043 Cf. St. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 6 (ANF 1:88–89) and Epistle to Polycarp 4 (ANF 1:94–95); and Pastor of Hermas (or Shepherd of Hermas) 8 (ANF 2:25).

1044 St. Justin Martyr, First Apology 67 (ANF 1:185–186).

1045 Aristides, The Apology of Aristides the Philosopher 15 (ANF 9:276–277).

1046 “The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians,” in Staniforth, Maxwell, and Andrew Louth, eds. Early Christian Writings (Penguin Classics, 1987) 59: pp. 47–48 amended.

1047 St. Cyprian of Carthage, Epistles 62.4 (ANF 5:359).

furnishing an abundance of supplies to the saints, and encouraging the brethren from abroad with blessed words, as a loving father his children.”¹⁰⁴⁸

Seeing the keen desire of the Church to buy slaves in order to set them free, in 331 A. D. Constantine granted the Church the right to liberate slaves via special procedures conducted within the church building that were in full accordance with all the requirements of civil law. He also granted the Church the power to provide sanctuary to escaped slaves. St. Clement of Rom e says, “We know many among ourselves who have given themselves up to bonds, in order that they might ransom others. Many, too, have surrendered themselves to slavery, that with the price which they received for themselves, they might provide food for others.”¹⁰⁴⁹