master and slave was quite unknown. They knelt side by side when they received the Holy Eucharist. They sat side by side as the instructions were given and the words of the Lord Jesus were expounded. Their prayers ascended together to the mercy-seat of the Eternal. While not unfrequently a slave was promoted to be the teacher; the highest offices in the congregation[1] were now and again filled by chosen members of the slave class. They suffered with their masters, and shared with them the glory of martyrdom.
The Acts of the Martyred Slaves were read to the congegations of the faithful, and the highest honour and veneration was paid to their memory. The slaves Blandina of Lyons, Felicitas of Carthage, Emerentiana of Rome the foster-sister of Agnes, the famous martyr—are names which deservedly rank high in the histories of the early heroines of the Church.
But although slavery was still recognized in the new Society which outwardly made no abrupt changes, which desired no sudden and violent uprooting in the old Society, a marvellous change passed over the ordinary conception of the slave.
An extract from a letter of Paulinus of Nola to Sulpicius Severus, the disciple and biographer of S. Martin of Tours (circa the last years of the fourth century), will give some idea of the regard so largely entertained by Christian thinkers for the slave members of the community. Thanking Sulpicius for a young slave he had sent him, Paulinus of Nola, recognizing in the slave an earnest and devout soul, writes to his friend as follows: "He has served me, and woe is me that I have allowed him to be my servant—that he who was no servant of sin, should yet be in the service of a sinner! Unworthy that I am, every day I suffered him to wash my feet; and there was no menial duty he would not have performed had I allowed him, so unsparing was he of his body—so watch-*
- ↑ Hermas, the author of the famous Shepherd, belonged to the slave class. The Roman Bishop Pius, A.D. 142-157, was the brother of Hermas. The celebrated Bishop of Rome, Callistus, A.D. 218-222, had been a slave. "The first and grandest edifice of Byzantine architecture in Italy—the Church of S. Vitale at Ravenna—was dedicated by Justinian to the memory of a martyred slave."—Lecky, History of European Morals, vol. ii. chap. iv.
