AMERICAN SLAVERY?
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ye the servants of men. Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God.”[1] These passages and the others in the New Testament relating to the established institutions of the time, inculcate on the disciples resignation to their earthly lot on spiritual grounds, and for the sake of a heavenly hope in which all earthly differences are swallowed up and lost. They do not inculcate social or political apathy; they do not pass, nor have they ever been held by men of common sense to pass, upon the Christian world a sentence of social or political despair. The faculties
- ↑ 1 Cor. vii. 20–24. Some commentators on this passage take “use it rather” (μᾶλλον χρῆσαι) as “use slavery rather”—“prefer to remain a slave.” They say that the general sense of the passage requires this. Why so? The passage preaches tranquil acquiescence in a man’s present state. But to exhort a man to acquiesce tranquilly in his present state is not to exhort him to refuse a better if it presents itself. The expression “care not for it” (μή σοι μεγέτω) surely does not imply that slavery is in the opinion of the writer to be considered the better state. In εἰ καὶ δύνασαι, the καὶ may very well be taken, it is conceived, as merely lending emphasis to δύνασαι, and in fact as almost pleonastic. [Cf. Soph. Aj. 1106, δεινόν γ᾿ εἶπας, εἰ καὶ ζῇς θανών] ‘If freedom is offered thee, without thy seeking, accept it.’ So just before (ver. 13–15), a believing wife is enjoined not to leave an unbelieving husband if he be pleased to dwell with her; but it is added, “if the unbelieving depart, let him depart.” The woman is not to break the bond: but she is not to cling to it if separation is offered her. When we look to the general tone and tenor of St. Paul’s teaching on these matters, so far removed from enthusiasm and asceticism; when we consider that he knew the Old Testament, in which freedom is clearly treated as preferable to bondage; and when we remember that he had himself no scruple in asserting his privilege as a Roman citizen; it is difficult to believe that he can have enjoined a Christian Slave, when enfranchisement from a heathen master was offered him, to refuse the boon. It is not however of much consequence to the present argument which way the passage is taken; since St. Paul’s precept, whatever it may be, is clearly given on spiritual, not on social or political, grounds.
