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Slave, Slavery (2)

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

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SLAVE, SLAVERY.—While δοῦλος is the general term for ‘a slave,’ οἰκέτης (Luke 16:13; cf. Acts 10:7, Romans 14:4, 1 Peter 2:18) denotes specifically one employed in household service or in immediate attendance upon the master or δεσπότης. Except in the latter form the institution did not flourish amongst the Jews in NT times. Field-work was done generally by hired labourers (μίσθιος, Luke 15:17; or less technically ἐργάτης, Matthew 10:10; Matthew 20:1, cf. James 5:4). In large houses, especially of a Gentile (Luke 7:2) or foreign type, there would be slaves, generally of non-Jewish or mixed blood, as also in the great establishments of the Sadducaean and priestly aristocracy. In Palestine the institution was familiar enough in experience as well as tradition to supply popular illustrations and give point to practical religious teaching; but features met with in Greek and especially in Roman usage must not be transferred without modification to the Jewish practice. Not only were the dimensions different, but the prevalent oppression and fear in the one case were replaced in the other by a general spirit of kindliness and content.

1. Jewish slaves abroad.—On several occasions before the Fall of Jerusalem, large numbers of Jews had been deported and sold into captivity. Such incidents were frequent during the wars of the Seleucids and Ptolemies (cf. 1 Maccabees 3:41, 2 Maccabees 8:21), and recur during the period of the Roman over-rule (Josephus BJ vi. ix. 3). Herod ordained that thieves should be sold to foreigners; but the enactment aroused such a degree of animosity as rendered its enforcement impracticable (Josephus Ant. xvi. i. 1). The supply of Jewish slaves was kept up almost entirely from among prisoners taken in the numerous campaigns, and the children of those who were already in captivity, with a few who lost their freedom under the laws of the foreign country or city in which they resided. Their treatment, like that of other slaves, was as a rule cruel to the degree of barbarity. Exceptions are met with, where courtesy to slaves is commended, as by Seneca (Ep. xlvii.). But the great mass of evidence is on the other side. Pallas, a brother of Felix (Acts 23:24), considered his slaves too abject to be spoken to, and would signify his pleasure to them only by a gesture or nod (Tac. Ann. xiii. 23). The slave was merely property, and could be transferred like any other property. He was incapable of contracting a legal marriage, and was not regarded as invested with any rights. On the ground of expediency, he was gradually protected against excessive cruelty. By the Lex Petronia, which may have been first enacted in the time of Augustus, a slave could not be punished by condemnation to fight with gladiators or wild beasts; and the master’s power of life and death was threatened, if not actually restricted, by Claudius. In such hesitating improvements of their condition Jewish slaves abroad would share.

The redemption of Jewish slaves was regarded in theory as a sacred duty (cf. Nehemiah 5:8); but there is no evidence of any general attempt during our period to acquire the merit of such service. The wealth of the country was chiefly in the hands of those sections of the people in whom racial feeling was not strong; and the majority were at once too poor and too much hindered by political conditions to be able to act in other than rare individual cases. The price of a slave, or of his redemption, varied with his qualities, and with the state of the market. Exact particulars for the 1st cent, are not available. Ptolemy Philadelphus redeemed Jewish captives in Egypt at the price of 120 drachmae, or about £4 each (Josephus Ant. xii. ii. 3). And Nicanor endeavoured to raise the Roman tribute of 2000 talents by the sale of Jews at the rate of ninety per talent (2 Maccabees 8:10 f.).

2. Slaves in Palestine.—Nehemiah’s influence had made it a fundamental rule in Jewish practice that no Jew should be held as a slave by another Jew (cf. Nehemiah 5:8); and as the rule obtained also in Talmudical times (cf. Winter, Die Stellung der Sklaven, 10 ff.), it is almost certain to have been observed in the intermediate period. Even thieves were not to be reduced to a state of permanent slavery; and while the disorganization of trade due to a strict observance of the Sabbatic law of Deuteronomy 15:1-11 was prevented by Hillel’s statute of Prosbol, which made registered debts always recoverable, other means were adopted of freeing poor Jews from the burden of their mortgages than that of their reduction to actual servitude. Work was accepted and required as a substitute for repayment, but as far as possible the personal freedom of the debtor was respected. In regard to females, the Talmud decides that a wife can never be sold into slavery, but that a daughter under marriageable age can; with the apparent proviso that, if she be sold again, the purchaser must not be a foreigner. Amongst the Essenes, the holding of slaves was unknown and not allowed (Philo, ed. Mang. ii. 457, 482; Josephus Ant. xviii. i. 5). In a few of the great houses of alien officials there would be the retinue usual in other lands; but even then the slaves would be chiefly of Canaanitish or mixed blood. In Jewish houses free service was the rule for men, whilst some of the girls might be servile in status, though comparatively unrestrained. By law, and even more effectually by usage and public sentiment, they were protected from many cruelties customarily practised upon their class elsewhere.

3. Treatment of slaves.—Discipline without undue laxity was recognized as the right treatment of slaves (cf. Sirach 33:24 ff., where the two prominent features are the severity to which the discipline might legally be carried, viz., ‘yoke and thong’ and even ‘racks and tortures.’ and the kindliness that was the customary rule). So in NT times the master could legally imprison or chastise a slave (Matthew 25:30, Luke 12:46 with the alternative rendering ‘severely scourge’), though the power of life and death was withheld, as also any punishment that led to the loss of a limb. An early tradition recounts a controversy between Pharisees and Sadducees, assumed to have taken place in or about our period, as to the incidence of the responsibility for an injury done by a slave (Yadayim, iv. 7). The solution of the Pharisees was that the slave himself, and not the master, must be held responsible, as the slave was capable of reasoning, and not to be classed with beasts of burden. Another regulation (Babâ kammâ, viii. 4) required the slave to make compensation on his release, and thus has clearly in view a case of temporary servitude amongst Jews, akin to those met with in the OT.

At a time when Pharisaism was predominant, such slaves as were found in a Jewish household, whether Hebrews or aliens by birth, had on religious grounds to be treated humanely. They shared the family worship, and in regard to obligations were classed with the women and children as bound to observe all religious ritual in the home, except the repetition of the Shema‘ and the wearing of phylacteries. Laws of an earlier date required the circumcision of slaves (Genesis 17:12) and their participation in feast and sacrifice (Deuteronomy 12:18; Deuteronomy 16:11). Such regulations could not have fallen into desuetude without involving the ceremonial pollution from which it was one of the first objects of the legalists of the first century to escape. The knitting together of master and slave in religious bonds supplied a strong motive for kindness and forbearance. And in later literature the life of the Jewish home is represented as united and happy, master and slave partaking of the same food, exchanging words of respect and tenderness, and mourning over the separation effected by death (Berakhôth 16b, Kethubôth 61). Altogether the condition of slavery, as far as it existed, was much less oppressive than in Greece or Rome, and was already being superseded by the freer relationships of voluntary service, which alone are in complete accord with the genius of Christianity.

4. Teaching of the Gospels.—The institution of slavery was not directly condemned by Christ, but its continuance was undermined by the new principles of social life which He emphasized. Supreme praise is passed upon service marked by absolute submission (Mark 10:44). The title of slave is appropriated to the highest usage (Matthew 21:34, Mark 12:2; Mark 12:4, Luke 20:10 f.), and sanction is thus given to the practice which had applied it to Moses (cf. Joshua 14:7, Psalms 105:26), and made it the formal style of a prophet (cf. Jeremiah 7:25, Zechariah 1:6, and the Pauline usage of the term). Redemptive love recognizes no distinctions of sex or status, but makes men of all social ranks equally responsible for their attitude towards God; and thus society becomes an organism of free men, amongst whom the only authority that is strictly imperial or beyond questioning is that of Christ. The bond-servant of Jesus Christ can be bound to no other master; and in their equal dependence upon Him disciples cease to be able to maintain artificial distinctions of grade or privilege.

Literature.—Articles in the handbooks of Jewish Archaeology, and in such Cyclopaedias as those of Hamburger, Riehm, and Herzog-Hauck; Winter, Die Stellung der Sklaven bei den Juden … nach talm. Quellen; Grünfeld, Die Stellung … nach bibl. und talm. Quellen; Brace, Gesta Christi, ch. v. For the conditions in non-Jewish districts see Mommsen, and Smith’s Dict. of Gr. and Rom. [Note: Roman.] Ant.

R. W. Moss.