|
The UK Bible Students Website History Corner
|
BORN FREE
PART I
All Scripture references are to the King James
Version (KJV) unless stated otherwise.
‘And the chief captain
answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was
free born’
Acts 22: 28
THE
SLAVE LEADER of a rebel army, Spartacus
has become an icon of liberation. By his strength and wit he humiliated the
Roman state. From 73 to 72 B.C. his rough band of gladiators and peasants
defeated legions of trained soldiers in pitched battle. The events recorded by
the historians Appian and Plutarch two thousand years ago, and since given a
glossy Hollywood interpretation, still have the power to draw a cinema crowd
and sell comic books. It is an appealing story – the underdog, prey of a cruel
society, defeats his masters and wins his liberty. (It says much for the
morality of Spartacus: after defeating him, the Romans crucified 6,000 of his
men; afterwards 3,000 Roman captives were found, unharmed, in his camp.)
Tales
such as this are comparatively rare in the history of slavery. Subjugated
peoples have, for the most part submitted – albeit unwillingly – to their
masters. All civilisations have practised slavery to some degree. The most
detailed records are handed down to us from Greece and Rome, whose captive
workforce was fundamental to the prosperity and breadth of empire.
Despite
the folklore, it was not all hard labour – the cliché galley of hunchbacked
slaves rowing to a drum beat, whipped to the rhythm by the stocky slave driver,
is a cinematic invention. In Greek and Roman times slaves were often trusted
servants, educated and well treated. Most had lost their freedom through war or
misfortune.
The word
‘servant’ comes from the Latin servare to be ‘severed’ or ‘spared’.
Victorious Roman armies had power over the conquered to kill them or let them
live, and those chosen for servants were spared from the sword. Such
enslavement was seen as a mercy. Indeed, the Roman view was that the captive
owed his master a debt of service in return for his life. Others who fell into
debt, or were deprived of a living by misfortune, had little choice but to seek
the guardianship of another and become a servant.
Roman Law
made the servant the property of the master. This was a legal state of
ownership, not merely an obligation to render obedience. The slave’s person
was considered part of his master’s estate, and was sold or inherited as such.
The right to command and subject another’s mind and body as one pleased gave
many weak-minded men the liberty to abuse and mistreat their charges. The fruit
of this evil is given adequate testimony in the records of Rome’s decline and
fall.
Vedius
Pollio, a wealthy Roman knight and acquaintance of Caesar, was renowned for his
cruelty. Cassius Dio (also known as ‘Dio’ or ‘Dion’ Cassius) wrote of him, circa
the second century BC:
He kept in reservoirs huge lampreys that had been trained
to eat men, and he was accustomed to throw to them such of his slaves as he
desired to put to death. [fn1]
These
extremes of cruelty were not limited to the fringe of the wealthy elite. The
historian Diodorus Siculus, writing about the same time as Cassius Dio, gives
an account of slave labour in the Roman silver mines.
First
worked by single prospectors, the profits from the excavations attracted
business men, who used teams of slaves to dig for the precious ore. Siculus
describes the brutal conditions:
The men engaged in these mining operations produce
unbelievably large revenues for their masters, but as a result of their underground
excavations day and night they become physical wrecks and because of their
extremely bad conditions, the mortality rate is high; they are not allowed to
give up working or have a rest but are forced by the beatings of their
supervisors to stay at their places and throw away their wretched lives as a
result of these horrible hardships. Some of them survive to endure their misery
for a long time because of their physical stamina or sheer will power; but
because of the extent of their suffering, they prefer dying to surviving.[fn2]
This
condition of forced possession is repugnant to the modern mind, and though the
ancients were accustomed to it, they still regarded slavery as against the
natural order – in which man’s ideal state is one of libertas – the
ability to do whatever one pleases unless prevented from doing so either by
force or by law.
A slave’s
standard of living and personal treatment varied according to the dignity of
the master. An old Greek maxim held that a slave could not but be worse than
his master; that is, when one submits to another, the submission itself
necessarily defines the limits of attainment. The same principle, but from a
different standpoint, was stated by Jesus in Matthew 10: 24 (NIV-UK) –
‘A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master’; if the
Master is persecuted for righteousness, so will it be with the servants (vs.
22, 23, 25).
Harsh
indignities like those endured in the mines did not extend to all slaves. The
Mariandynians of ancient Greece are an example of voluntary submission. These
people placed themselves under the control of those of Heraklea, vowing to
serve them for ever, so long as their masters provided for them and protected them.[fn3]
The
arrangement was convenient to both parties. Perhaps outpaced by the rivalries
between the Greek city states, the Mariandynians found the Herakleans to be
capable benefactors. Their slavery freed them from economic struggles, but
confined them and their descendants to a life of service. It is a mode of
living common to all generations and successively adapted to fit the
vicissitudes of the day.
Today
most are bound to a 9-to-5 job, earning a wage in exchange for their time and
often in debt to a bank for the land on which they live. In the Middle Ages,
the mode of service was a fiefdom, where the vassal served his lord in return
for protection and maintenance. The vassal was a tenant on the lord’s land and
paid tribute from the proceeds of any farming or business in which the land was
employed. The lord, in an oath of fealty, or loyalty, swore to defend his
tenant’s livelihood and rights – necessary in a time of roving bandits and
border skirmishes.
The
mediaeval feudal arrangement was a grand hierarchy, in which tenants had
sub-tenants, and lords had lords. At the top of this pyramid, pope and emperor
were considered vassals of God. To be free from any bond or service was rare.
Civilisation
was not always this way. When the Celtic tribes spread westward over Europe
they divided the land among the families and clans proportionately, and every
man was free to sustain his life according to his own industry. The later
Angles and Saxons followed the same pattern. To be a freeman implied a definite
legal status; that of a servant, another. In fact, freedom was the reason these
nations migrated and settled in foreign lands. The same pattern can be seen in
European migration to North America beginning in the seventeenth century.
The
society of these early peoples, loose-knit and free, stratified after their
first liberties became eroded and entangled in debts of loyalty. The various
fortunes of each freeholder saw some prosper and others fail. A poor harvest, sickness
or accident, would lead to one family borrowing from another. Wars and border
disputes accelerated the loss of liberty, as in the time of King Alfred who,
preparing to repel the Viking invasion, divided his kingdom into three groups –
working men, praying men, and fighting men. Maintaining an army often required
some to be freed from husbandry of the land and others to labour harder to
support them. (The Levites were a ‘praying’ class, who owned no land and who
were supported by the nation of Israel by a system of tithing (Numbers 2: 33;
18: 23, 24)).
The
development of a nation establishes the organs of government and consequently
increases the mutual obligations of free men. Those elected to power and
relieved from a life of self-sufficiency, are duty-bound to work for the good
of those who support them. While those who by their taxes fund the state have a
duty to abide by the laws and customs arranged for their good. It is inevitable
that as society advances, the intricacies of sharing a common living space
reduce the liberties of men and women compared to what they might choose were
they without personal or social obligations.
It is a
neat paradox. The freedoms lost in an ordered society through submission to the
law, the payment of taxes, and an orderly deference to the state, are
substituted with rights which bring other freedoms – healthcare, education,
social welfare, housing, free access to the marketplace, legal aid – and so on.
Those tired of the ‘rat race’, and who yearn for a return to Eden – be it in
the ‘hippy’ movement of the 1970s, or in the ‘green’ movement of the 1990s –
must weigh the loss of these rights against the individual liberties offered by
independence.
In Tranquility
of the Mind, the Roman philosopher, Seneca, echoes this condition of the
restless spirit captive to the State:-
We are all fettered to fortune. For some, the chain is made
of gold, and is loose, for others it is tight and filthy – but what difference
does that make? All of us are surrounded by the same kind of captivity, and
even those who hold others bound are in bonds themselves, unless you happen to
think that the handcuff the guard wears on his left wrist hurts less than the
prisoner’s. Public offices hold one man captive, wealth another; some are
disadvantaged by high birth, some by humble birth; some have to put up with
other people’s commands, some with their own. Some have to stay in one place
because they’ve been exiled, others because they’ve been appointed to a
priesthood – all life is slavery.
Seneca
states his maxim bitterly, but the truth of it is plain – all seek the freedom
of self-determination. No man is an island, and an uncertain world forces each
one of us to make some unfortunate alliances. In binding himself to another,
each individual becomes prey to his fellow, rather than Nature. In an ordered
society, self-interest makes even the lightest bonds chafe.
In the
Bible, the land of Egypt stands as a figure – or type – of the world at large,
man’s corrupt society. Founded upon the fertile flood-lands of the Nile delta,
Egypt is considered by many historians the first civilisation. Her pyramids,
temples, canals and advanced agriculture were the classic markings of a
structured society. Pharaoh was at the head, and he hand-picked officers for
his government from noble families. Under his authority they enforced laws
which encouraged trade and so made Egypt rich.
Joseph
The story
of Joseph in Genesis illustrates how a wealthy Egypt provided for the
surrounding nations in a time of famine. Such hospitality is a hallmark of an
advanced nation. The Egyptians peacefully accommodated Jacob’s family and
evidently the benevolence and civil order was sufficient for these seventy
souls to remain and prosper within Egypt’s borders. After a few hundred years,
Jacob’s descendants numbered at least two million. (According to Exodus 12: 37
there were 600,000 men, in addition to women and children).
Whoever
the pharaoh was that favoured Joseph, there came to power one of an opposite
disposition. This pharaoh enslaved the Israelites, probably for political
reasons, exploiting the widespread jealousy and fear of the rapidly-multiplying
Hebrews. The Egyptian citizen would no doubt assert his or her rights above those
of the interlopers and come to resent the foreigners (not unlike the current
debate in Britain over immigration).
This deft
manoeuvre by Pharaoh to insinuate that Jacob’s descendants were a fifth column,
intent on usurping Egyptian sovereignty, would have united public opinion
against the Israelites. The lines of race and tradition were clear enough that
the Hebrew families could be singled out and forced into slavery. Egypt, once a
nation that welcomed immigrants, had fallen into a corrupt and selfish
patriotism.
Why was
there no Israelite rebellion, or no Egyptian movement of compassion? As the
Bible goes on to show, to be another’s servant was not considered unjust, or
even extraordinary. Indeed, Moses, the one who had delivered Israel from
Egyptian bondage, later instituted laws which governed the buying and selling
of servants, their treatment and their liberation. Moses delivered the
Israelites from the cruel treatment, not from service.
Under
Mosaic law, a servant’s term of service was limited to six years. Both master
and servant were bound by the Ten Commandments and sundry regulations governing
their fair treatment of each other. An evidence of the benign nature of the
relationship is indicated in Exodus 21: 1-11. Verses 5, 6 allow a servant who
loved his master to voluntarily continue in service beyond the end of the
statutory six years. Such an arrangement was marked by the servant’s ear being
prepared for an earring – the sign of an indentured servant – by boring it
through with an awl.[fn4]
The
liberated thinker who casts aside the Old Testament because he mistakes service
for slavery, and slavery for cruelty, is robbed of a precious truth. Today’s
free society, born out of the twentieth century’s political renewal and a
retrospective view of the tumult of four centuries of enlightenment, believes
all that is old is worn out or broken. And in a world in which you can
‘be your own boss’ it is considered unambitious and degrading to be servant to
another. This approach is more permissive than liberated, for the end of it is
competition and anarchy. No great work can be achieved by a wholly selfish
pursuit of one’s own interests.
From Democracy to Dystopia
The
scroll of history records civilisations of every hue, from democracy to
dictatorship. Human nature is malleable enough to be fashioned to extremes of
meekness and tyranny. Since all nations are constituted of the same material,
how can such different organisations arise? One explanation is that these
apparent opposites – democracy and autocracy – are but the early and later
developments of the same thing – different ages of the same body. Mankind’s
intentions start out well, but after a time, and by degrees, the system goes
rotten. Tyranny and dictatorship often follow
if the more liberal form of government has failed. For example, the Roman
Republic preceded the autocracy of the Caesars. In the beginning, people will
choose fair government through consensus and council. Then, as the group dynamic
proves slow and ineffectual, a crisis often puts the power into the hands of a
special few to ‘get the job done’. One need only reflect on the abridgement by
government of certain civil liberties in our own country, a response to the
duress created by threats to national security and perceived social disorder.
This is not to suggest that Britain has become an autocracy, but to illustrate
the tendency for an impatient world to favour expediency over liberty.
To Be Continued
________________
NOTES
Citations to Web pages are correct as of the
dates retrieved, but sites may expire or be moved.
[fn1] Cassius Dio, Roman History (Loeb, 1917).
The text is taken from volume 6
of the Loeb Classical Library edition and is in the public domain, available
online here: -
<
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/54*.html#23.5 > (retrieved 7
November, 2010).
[fn2] Thomas Wiedemann, Greek
and Roman Slavery: A Sourcebook (London and New York: Routledge, 1981),
177.
[fn3]
Thomas Wiedemann, Greek and Roman Slavery: A Sourcebook (London
and New York: Routledge, 1981), 81. Wiedemann quotes the Greek Stoic
Poseidonios from book 11 of his Histories. Athenaeus, another Greek,
quotes from the same in book 6 of his work The Deipnosophists –
available online here: -
< http://www.attalus.org/old/athenaeus6d.html#263 >
(retrieved 7 November, 2010 ).
[fn4] ‘Indenture’ was common
in other historical settings as a contract of fixed term, between three to
seven years, in which one party voluntarily committed himself in servitude to
another. This resembles the more modern practice of the apprenticeship. It may
also refer to the ancient contract written on one sheet, which was then cut in
two in an indented fashion. One half was kept by each of the contracting
parties. The matching indentations confirmed the validity of the document and
served to guard against fraudulent duplication.
_______________
Article copyright August 2010 by
ukbiblestudents.co.uk
You are free to reproduce any or all of this material, but please let us know if you do.
