>>>>The Greeks and the Romans lived in a world where slavery was a reality, and their philosophies
of law and of justice had to reckon with the fact that some individuals were deprived of
basic rights. That they lived in a society that was fundamentally unequal that distributed
rights and privileges and honors differentially, and that in fact did so in an extreme way,
such that some people were enslaved to others. And we've seen how Aristotle, how Roman law
reckoned with this, and how Roman Stoicism is in some ways uncomfortable with the realities
of this, but never fundamentally confronts slavery as an injustice that is inflicted
on individuals. Let's turn now to Christianity a religious movement whose ethical teachings
would seem to have the resources to criticize slavery as fundamentally unjustified. Indeed
in the modern world, abolitionism, the idea that slavery is fundamentally unjust, has
deep roots within Christianity. In the ancient world, already we see that Christianity teaches
a gospel that transcends both ethnic and status distinctions. The Gospel of Luke emphasizes
that ethnic communities have little moral meaning. The Gospel of Luke teaches that Christianity
offers salvation to all, and in a way that renders ethnic obligations obsolete. In similar
fashion, just in the way that Paul teaches a version of the Christian gospel that transcends
ethnic boundaries, so his gospel explicitly transcends status boundaries. Now you see
this, in fact, in the same passages. For instance in Galatians, Paul famously says: "In Jesus
Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, free nor slave, male nor female." That is a radical
claim in the ancient world. In Jesus Christ there is no significance to these sorts of
distinctions: male-female in a world where gender relations are fundamentally hierarchical.
Jew nor Greek in a world where ethnic communities are profoundly important. Free nor slave in
a world where status distinctions are fundamental. Paul says that there isn't free and slave
in Jesus Christ, but what does that mean for a theory of justice? The Christian movement
in its first several centuries certainly encountered the realities of the Roman slave system. In
fact, even in one of the letters that was written by Paul, the Letter to Philemon, we
see the Roman slave system and its realities. In fact, a slave had fled from his master
out of fear and had come to Paul seeking intervention, seeking an advocate who would help restore
the relations between the slave and his master. So the Christians confront slavery from the
very first days of the religion, and in fact across the first several centuries of Christianity
we know that the religion included slaves as well as free persons. At the same time,
though Christianity held in store the resources which would provide a critique of slavery,
in the early centuries there is very little explicit criticism of slavery as an institution.
The Christians would teach that it had no spiritual significance, but Christianity does
little to advance even on Stoicism in terms of criticizing the fundamental injustice of
slavery. But in part, that's because Christianity is a minority movement. That is, that the
Christians are themselves somehow fundamentally outside the mainstream of this society. So
there's very little in the early Christian writings that in fact work to justify any
social arrangements or even criticize social arrangements. The Christian set up alternative
communities about which we often know very little, but that would change in the 4th century
A.D. The 4th century is a crucial historical turning point, because in the year 312 one
of the Western emperors of Rome, a man named Constantine experienced a vision in the sky
that he would come to interpret as a message from the Christian God that he was to become
a follower of Jesus. And in fact, this individual Constantine would change the course of history
by adopting Christianity as his personal religion, because now a Roman Emperor adhered to the
Christian faith. Or at least favored the Christian religion. Constantine himself had many events
in his life that no one would consider particularly ethical, and in fact, he waited until his
deathbed to be baptized, probably in some kind of belief that the conduct of the office
of Roman Emperor would require behaviors that were in fact unchristian. The conversion of
Constantine to Christianity didn't mean an immediate Christianization of the Roman government,
of the Roman state, of Roman law. In fact, Christian beliefs would be very slow to influence
various elements of Roman law. Christianity wasn't equipped it simply wasn't prepared
for an Imperial takeover, and in fact it would be generations before Christianity would truly
have fundamental effects on the way that Roman law thought about basic questions of justice.
Nevertheless, the conversion of Constantine to Christianity began a process which would
see Christianity become over the next two to three generations, a mainstream institution.
The Christian church would become a majority religion. Christians, who had once been a
persecuted minority setting up committees outside the mainstream, would now become increasingly
the mainstream itself. The Christian church would become a powerful institution. This
created many paradoxes, because Christianity is a religion that teaches utter pacifism,
turning the other cheek, but now has to be reconciled with the reality of administration
and power and war. And so the 4th century is a period when for the first time generations
of Christian thinkers and Christian leaders are trying to reconcile the teachings of Jesus
with life in the world, with a government, with a state, with being a part of the mainstream
of society. And this process of becoming a powerful, wealthy, mainstream institution
would also provoke some of the most extraordinary social thought in all of the history of Christianity.
So the 4th century is a period of extraordinarily fertile social thinking and one of the most
remarkable artifacts of these generations is a text that comes from the middle of the
4th century that was written by a Christian who is deeply learned in Greek philosophy,
who in fact had studied at Athens, who was as learned in the traditions of Plato of ancient
philosophy as anyone in his age. A man named Gregory of Nyssa. So when you think of Gregory
of Nyssa who's one of the most holy fathers of the Eastern Orthodox Church, think of him
as a philosopher who's steeped in the traditions of thinking about justice, as a Christian
who inherits the gospel legacy, and as a Christian at a particular moment in the generations
after the conversion of Constantine, as Christianity becomes a mainstream institution, and part
of this process that invokes fundamental thinking about what Christian doctrine means for the
practices of society. "The Fourth Homily on the book of Ecclesiastes" by Gregory of Nyssa
is one of the most remarkable artifacts in the history of political thought because in
this sermon which Gregory gives as "A Homily on Ecclesiastes", the book of the Jewish Bible
the Old Testament, Gregory preserves for us in this text the most ancient criticism of
slavery as an institution which we have. Now there were surely others who in various ways
had criticized slavery, probably those who had been slaved developed some forms of opposition
to slavery, certainly as practice. But these are lost to history, and they may well have
been limited. For instance even the ancient slave revolts that we know about only through
other sources, not through the slaves who were revolting themselves, probably didn't
aim at abolition. Probably didn't aim to overthrow the institution of slavery. They were simply
a way of escaping from slavery. Gregory's "Homily" is the oldest surviving text which
says fundamentally, slavery is wrong. And as you read this text, think of it as one
outcome of the ethical teachings of Jesus about the nature of justice, a one encounter
of Christian doctrine with the realities of the world. This is a text that goes well beyond
even Stoic uneasiness with the institution of slavery. Stoicism says that every person
has a kind of common dignity, but it's willing to accept legal and institutional forms that
exist in this society. Gregory explores an argument in his "Homily on Ecclesiastes" that
says slavery is inherently unjust. He says, all humans are created in the image of God.
And this is very much a sermon about what that means, that all humans are created in
the image of God. Gregory says not only does this mean that all humans have dignity, but
that that has institutional ramifications. And that's a remarkable leap, to go from the
claim that all humans are created in the image of God and have a certain kind of dignity
to seeing that that has ramifications for the order of rights, privileges, and powers
in a society. Gregory says that what this means that all humans are created in the image
of God, is that all people have moral reason. All people have the faculty of moral reason.
And see how different this is from Aristotle, who says that some people lack the full capacity
for moral reason to deserve their freedom. For Gregory it's essential that all people
have the faculty of moral reason with the consequence that they deserve institutional
freedom. Gregory says the way that slavery is practiced is inherently degrading, and
it violates the basic dignity of the individual. In fact, he says, how many obols, that's a
common Greek coin, how many obols did you pay for the image of God? How can you write
up a contract that says that you own another human being? For Gregory that's fundamentally
an injustice. There is no exchange that can justify the individual's enslavement. It fundamentally
violates their individual dignity. Now it's one of the tragedies, one of the sad chapters
of history, that this beautiful brilliant sermon exists and yet seems to have had no
consequence. There's never a political movement in Roman law, in Roman politics to abolish
slavery. Gregory's sermon doesn't translate into a political program. And indeed, it seems
to have been little noticed and uninfluential, but nevertheless, the arguments that he makes
we can see as one way of reasoning from Christian doctrine to a theory of justice one that would
a thousand years later begin to have an impact in a new world.