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| Saint Augustine of Hippo (c. 1490) by Sandro Botticelli |
SAINT AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO – CONDONING SLAVERY
Christianity
has a long history of condoning slavery, if not of actually promoting it. Beginning
with Saint Paul the Apostle, Christianity was spread by acquiescing to the institution
of slavery, among other oppressive social practices, in order to advance otherworldly
messages of salvation in Christ, which constituted the core, essential doctrines.
“Were
you a slave when you were called? Do not be concerned, but rather, even if you gain
your freedom, make the most of it” (1 Corinthians 7:21). Elsewhere,
Saint Paul says, “Slaves, be obedient to your human masters with fear and trembling,
in sincerity of heart, as to Christ, not only when being watched, as currying favor,
but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, willingly serving
the Lord and not human beings, knowing that each will be requited from the Lord
for whatever good he does” (Ephesians 6:5-8).
During
the medieval period the prevailing attitude was to accept slavery as a social
institution and to support its theological justification. Gradually, the more objectionable
aspects of slavery were reformed, and religiously based exceptions were
introduced.
The
attitude of Saint Gregory the Great was characteristic. The regime of slavery was
understood to be ordained by God and therefore theologically justified. Scripture
was cited in support.
“Servants
are to be admonished that they despise not their masters, lest they offend God,
if by behaving themselves proudly they gainsay His ordinance. …The former are
to be admonished to know themselves to be servants of masters. …For to those it
is said, ‘Servants, obey your masters according to the flesh’ (Colossians 3:22);
and again, ‘Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their masters
worthy of all honour’” (1 Timothy 6:1).
“When
we offend those set over us, we oppose the ordinance of Him who set them above
us.”
See:
—World
Future Fund, Christianity and Slavery: Important
Documentary Information
The
most influential theologian of the Roman Catholic Church, Saint Thomas Aquinas,
applied the weight of classical philosophy to justify slavery.
“Slavery
among men is natural, for some are naturally slaves according to the
Philosopher (Politics I, 2). Now ‘slavery belongs to the right of nations,’ as
Isidore states (Etymologiae V, 4). Therefore the right of nations is a natural
right.”
See:
Exceptions
existed, like Saint Gregory of Nyssa.
“In
the late fourth century a lone Christian voice spoke out against the oppressive
institution of slavery in a way that none had before. Gregory of Nyssa (c.
335-394), one of the Cappadocian Fathers, laid out a line of reasoning
vilifying the institution as incompatible with Christianity in his fourth
homily on Ecclesiastes. It is considered the ‘first truly “anti-slavery” text
of the patristic age.’ [John Francis Maxwell, Slavery and the Catholic Church: The History of Catholic Teaching Concerning the Moral Legitimacy of
the Institution of Slavery (Chichester and London: Barry Rose Publishers,
1975), 32]
“His
words seemed not to have had much affect on the Church at the time, however. In
fact, it took until nearly 1,500 years after Gregory’s death for the Christian
faithful to take an unequivocal stance against slavery, and even then American
Christians continued to turn a blind eye to the suffering of slaves and to the
incompatibility of slavery with the message of the Bible.”
—Kimberly
Flint-Hamilton, “Gregory of Nyssa and the Culture of Oppression,” Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor
University, 2010
Concerning
slavery, Saint Augustine of Hippo expounded the dominant outlook of the
day. His understanding could be described as typical and conventional.
What
exactly did Saint Augustine of Hippo say? He said that slavery is inevitable
because it is punishment for sin. Directly implied is the position that slavery
must be passively accepted by those enslaved because it is their lot and the will
of God for them to be so penalized.
“The
prime cause, then, of slavery is sin, which brings man under the dominion of
his fellow—that which does not happen save by the judgment of God, with whom is
no unrighteousness, and who knows how to award fit punishments to every variety
of offence.”—St. Augustine, The City of
God, 19:15
“St.
Augustine thought that slavery was inevitable. He didn’t think that it was the
result of the natural laws of the universe—indeed he thought that in a pure
world slavery would be quite unnatural, but in our world it was the consequence
of sin and the Fall of Man.”
—“Philosophers
Justifying Slavery,” 2014, bbc.co.uk
Mattox explains Saint Augustine’s views about slavery this way:
“The state is a divinely ordained punishment for fallen man, with its armies, its power to command, coerce, punish, and even put to death, as well as its institutions such as slavery and private property. God shapes the ultimate ends of man’s existence through it. The state simultaneously serves the divine purposes of chastening the wicked and refining the righteous.”
“The state is a divinely ordained punishment for fallen man, with its armies, its power to command, coerce, punish, and even put to death, as well as its institutions such as slavery and private property. God shapes the ultimate ends of man’s existence through it. The state simultaneously serves the divine purposes of chastening the wicked and refining the righteous.”
—J.
Mark Mattox, “Augustine: Political and Social Philosophy,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The
influence on Roman Catholicism of Saint Augustine’s views condoning slavery should
not be underestimated. His philosophy and theology has been enormously
influential in the Roman Catholic Church. Arguably, his influence as an
individual theologian has been exceeded only by that of Saint Thomas Aquinas.
begin
It
is…a remarkable fact that the great critics, Protestant as well as Catholic,
are almost unanimous in placing St. Augustine in the foremost rank of Doctors
and proclaiming him to be the greatest of the Fathers. Such, indeed, was also
the opinion of his contemporaries, judging from their expressions of enthusiasm
gathered by the Bollandists. The popes attributed such exceptional authority to
the Doctor of Hippo that, even of late years, it has given rise to lively
theological controversies. Peter the Venerable accurately summarized the
general sentiment of the Middle Ages when he ranked Augustine immediately after
the Apostles; and in modern times Bossuet, whose genius was most like that of
Augustine, assigns him the first place among the Doctors, nor does he simply
call him “the incomparable Augustine,” but “the Eagle of Doctors,” “the Doctor
of Doctors.” If the Jansenistic abuse of his works and perhaps the
exaggerations of certain Catholics, as well as the attack of Richard Simon,
seem to have alarmed some minds, the general opinion has not varied. In the
nineteenth century Stöckl expressed the thought of all when he said, “Augustine
has justly been called the greatest Doctor of the Catholic world.”
end
—”Teaching
of St. Augustine of Hippo,” Catholic Encyclopedia
“Intellectually,
Augustine represents the most influential adaptation of the ancient Platonic
tradition with Christian ideas that ever occurred in the Latin Christian world.
…his writings were so widely read and imitated throughout Latin Christendom
that his particular synthesis of Christian, Roman, and Platonic traditions
defined the terms for much later tradition and debate. Both modern Roman
Catholic and Protestant Christianity owe much to Augustine…”
—James
O’Donnell, “St. Augustine: Christian Bishop and Theologian,” February 19, 2020,
Encyclopedia Britannica
No
doubt Saint Augustine’s intellectual influence on Roman Catholicism has been
magnified by the recognition by the Church of his holiness of life and his
elevation as a saint.
His
holiness has in large part been understood as convergent with his theological
activity.
begin
Orthodox
champion for a millennium
Guarding
the church from internal and external challenges topped the new bishop’s
agenda. The church in North Africa was in turmoil. Though Manichaeism was
already on its way out, it still had a sizable following. Augustine, who knew
its strengths and weaknesses, dealt it a death blow. At the public baths,
Augustine debated Fortunatus, a former schoolmate from Carthage and a leading
Manichaean. The bishop made quick work of the heretic, and Fortunatus left town
in shame.
Less
easily handled was Donatism, a schismatic and separatist North African church.
They believed the Catholic church had been compromised and that Catholic
leaders had betrayed the church during earlier persecutions. Augustine argued
that Catholicism was the valid continuation of the apostolic church. He wrote
scathingly, “The clouds roll with thunder, that the house of the Lord shall be
built throughout the earth; and these frogs sit in their marsh and croak ‘We
are the only Christians!’”
In
411 the controversy came to a head as the imperial commissioner convened a
debate in Carthage to decide the dispute once and for all. Augustine’s rhetoric
destroyed the Donatist appeal, and the commissioner pronounced against the
group, beginning a campaign against them.
It
was not, however, a time of rejoicing for the church. The year before the
Carthage conference, the barbarian general Alaric and his troops sacked Rome.
Many upper-class Romans fled for their lives to North Africa, one of the few
safe havens left in the empire. And now Augustine was left with a new
challenge—defending Christianity against claims that it had caused the empire’s
downfall by turning eyes away from Roman gods.
Augustine’s
response to the widespread criticism came in 22 volumes over 12 years, in The
City of God. He argued that Rome was punished for past sins, not new faith. His
lifelong obsession with original sin was fleshed out, and his work formed the
basis of the medieval mind. “Mankind is divided into two sorts,” he wrote. “Such
as live according to man, and such as live according to God. These we call the
two cities… The Heavenly City outshines Rome. There, instead of victory, is
truth.”
One
other front Augustine had to fight to defend Christianity was Pelagianism.
Pelagius, a British monk, gained popularity just as the Donatist controversy
ended. Pelagius rejected the idea of original sin, insisting instead that the
tendency to sin is humankind’s own free choice. Following this reasoning, there
is no need for divine grace; individuals must simply make up their minds to do
the will of God. The church excommunicated Pelagius in 417, but his banner was
carried on by young Julian of Eclanum. Julian took potshots at Augustine’s
character as well as his theology. With Roman snobbery, he argued that
Augustine and his other low-class African friends had taken over Roman
Christianity. Augustine argued with the former bishop for the last ten years of
his life.
In
the summer of 429, the Vandals invaded North Africa, meeting almost no
resistance along the way. …In the third month of the siege, the 76-year-old
Augustine died, not from an arrow but from a fever. Miraculously, his writings
survived the Vandal takeover, and his theology became one of the main pillars
on which the church of the next 1,000 years was built.
end
—“Augustine
of Hippo: Architect of the Middle Ages,” 2020, Christianity Today
Condoning
slavery during the medieval period meant that the Roman Catholic Church in
effect encouraged the practice of slavery.
Although
the record of the Church is mixed, we will find ready evidence in canon law, as
well as in the words of and in the actual ownership of slaves by clergy and
religious, including popes, that the Church co-opted the status quo.
Consider the following:
Consider the following:
“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 honour, let him be anathema.”
—Synod
of Gangra, c. 340 C.E.
“With
regard to the Brabanters, Aragonese, Navarrese, Basques, Coterelli and
Triaverdini, who practise such cruelty upon Christians that they respect
neither churches nor monasteries, and spare neither widows, orphans, old or
young, nor any age or sex, but like pagans destroy and lay everything waste...
On these and on all the faithful we enjoin, for the remission of sins, that
they oppose this scourge with all their might and by arms protect the Christian
people against them. Their goods are to be confiscated and princes are free to
subject them to slavery.”
—Canon
27, Third Lateran Council, 1179 C.E.
“Slavery
itself, considered as such in its essential nature, is not at all contrary to
the natural and divine law, and there can be several just titles of slavery and
these are referred to by approved theologians and commentators of the sacred
canons. …It is not contrary to the natural and divine law for a slave to be
sold, bought, exchanged, or given. The purchaser should carefully examine
whether the slave who is put up for sale has been justly or unjustly deprived
of his liberty, and that the vendor should do nothing which might endanger the
life, virtue, or Catholic faith of the slave.”
—Instruction
20, Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, June 20, 1866
See:
In
America, Shannen Dee Williams writes:
“As
a historian, I am always happy when more Americans, especially Catholics,
become aware of the church’s history as the first and largest corporate
slaveholder in the Americas.
“…The
evidence of slaveholding among nuns is not new knowledge to historians of
slavery and the American church—and it is not new to many black Catholics.”
—Shannen
Dee Williams, “Religious orders owning slaves isn’t new—black Catholics have
emphasized this history for years,” America,
August 6, 2019
It
is documented that in the seventeenth century, Urban VII, Innocent X, and Alexander
VII were all personally involved in the purchase of Muslim galley slaves.
See:
Maureen Fiedler and Linda Rabben, eds., Rome
Has Spoken (1998), page 83
To
make a long story short, over time and by the present day the Church eventually
assumed a firm, unequivocal, and authoritative position condemning slavery.
“By
the 20th century there was no more arguing. The Second Vatican Council listed
slavery as ‘especially contrary to the honor of the creator.’
“It
was left to Pope John Paul II to put a stamp of finality on the discussion. In
his 1993 encyclical Veritatis Splendor,
he spoke of certain acts that are incapable of being ordered to God, that are
always and everywhere intrinsically evil. Among these he listed slavery along
with genocide, homicide, and abortion. There can never, ever, said the pope, be
an excuse for such actions.”
—Robert
McClory, “Dissent: Lessons from slavery,” October 10, 2011, NCR Today
One
among many important historical figures of Christianity, Saint Augustine of Hippo played
an influential role shaping the long, meandering, and tortured history of the
Roman Catholic Church in support of the practice of slavery.
“Saint
Louis IX of France – Sowing the Seeds of the Holocaust,” third in the series:
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