Comment by candiodari | Hacker News Reader

Comment by candiodari | Hacker News Reader

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I think it'd be far more accurate to describe the New Testament's attitude toward slavery (and debts in general, but that fact is de-emphasized) would be to say that

1) they must end. It is absolutely forbidden for any Christian to own slaves or excessive debts, or to help slavery practices in any way.

2) it is, however, not for Christians to violently take other's property away. Not even slaves. A Christian should campaign for slave owners and creditors to release their charges, maybe even convince them to convert, but violently or legally freeing slaves away is forbidden.

3) Using money to achieve slaves' or debtors freedom is a specifically named virtue.

So it's a "let it die" attitude. End slavery with minimal disruption.

During the middle ages, traders from Southern Europe would often trade with muslims, and as a "good works" effort for their bosses/companies, they'd go to the slave markets of whatever city they were in and buy some slaves. They would be offered a free ride to Europe (and be paid for cleaning the deck or cooking on the way, to get some starter cash) and allowed to settle in Europe. If they didn't speak the language they'd take them to a monastery where they could often stay to learn. This worked, while islam requires slavery and slave trade (halal/wajib), it recognizes that freeing slaves is a good deed. Therefore they'd often sell slaves to be freed at a discount. The freed slaves could, but generally didn't, stay where they were, because muslims would simply capture them again (there's many such things in trade ports in Northern Africa. For instance, these muslim cities would often organize a yearly slave sports event. If the slaves won, they'd often get their freedom for that. However, more often than not, the owners of losing slaves would kill any slave that actually took his freedom).

The whole "Islam says freeing slaves is a good deed" is untrue and extremely misleading. Everyone always quotes the first part of the sentence from the Quran, but the last half is left out:

> This is a command from Allah to slave-owners: if their servants ask them for a contract of emancipation, they should write it for them, provided that the servant has some skill and means of earning so that he can pay his master the money that is stipulated in the contract.

Yeah, let the slaves go, but make sure they sign a contract such that they have to give all their earnings to their masters for the rest of their lives.

1. http://www.qtafsir.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=vie...

Islam seems to be much more specific in regards to economic issues. The Jizya is another example.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jizya

One of the best books on the subject is Prof. Mark Noll's "The Civil War as a Theological Crisis". The first part is a discussion of how different American groups understood Slavery as Christians in antebellum America. Broadly, several strands can be identified 1) Southerners generally felt content to argue that Slavery was in the Bible, and thus Christian. That Roman and Hebrew slavery was wildly different than Southern Slavery, with race as the underlying factor was not generally mentioned. Roman Slavery was done on peoples of all sorts, and not generally passed down from family member to family member, and was not conceived of as part of a racial hierarchy. There was also a lot of nonsense about sons of Ham and such. 2) Northerners generally felt that the Bible was "in Spirit" against slavery, either broadly in the sense that one should not do it (but not necessarily seek emancipation violently), or actively as many Abolitionists read it. Interestingly, Northerners sort of gave up on the literal argument, and generally argued from broad principles of the New Testament. What could be Christian about owning other men? If all Christians are brothers, how can one justify such an institution as slavery? 3) African Americans read the Bible as not only "in Spirit", but also sought a lot of specific arguments. How could Slavery be Christian when it broke up Christian marriages between slaves? Encouraged the rape of black Women by often married white Slave owners? That banned reading, and thereby prevented Christian blacks from reading the gospel? There was a lot of discussion about how Biblical Roman Slavery differed from modern Southern Slavery - Roman slaves were not racialized, nor forbidden to read by law. One particularly interesting line of thought to me is the idea that Roman slavery and Hebrew slavery, since it was not based on race, and often came from debt implied that if what Americans in 1860 were doing was Biblical Slavery, then White Slavery must be legal. Obviously, this was refused by White Americans, so something must be different. This wasn't picked up by many Whites, but one of the few who did was John Gregg Fee a really interesting preacher in Kentucky who argued that slavery must be ended, lest eventually the majority must be slaves. 4) Catholics and European protestants had a wide variety of views, which honestly I don't remember well enough to summarize here. In general though, outside of America the issue wasn't as pressing, only Brazil legally had kept around Slavery in this period.

It's a good book, and definitely well worth reading. Not that long either.

It is absolutely forbidden for any Christian to own slaves or excessive debts, or to help slavery practices in any way.

That's not what the Catholic church taught as late as 1866: https://suchanek.name/texts/atheism/slavery.html

This document seems to be a clarification of what is essentially Roman law.

It starts by stating the official position of the Catholic church. Even that translation is wrong (it should read that the Church, Christians and the Popes, past and present, pride themselves on having stamped out slavery everywhere they went). But litarally "Although the Roman Pontiffs have left nothing untried by which servitude be everywhere abolished among the nations, and although it is especially due to them that already for many ages no slaves are held among very many Christian peoples".

Then there is a sentence that should have made a world of difference in the translation of the rest of the document, which should be translated as "as long as we're NOT talking about slavery, here are clarifications about the laws concerning selling your labour/services to others in hopes of answering your questions". The word used is the same. That's because in Latin, as in the Roman empire, there is no concept of slavery. There are labour contracts and everyone providing their labour to someone else (always paid I might add, even in the cases we currently refer to as slavery). The point is, since there is no distinction in Latin between slave labor and non-slave labor, the text continues to use the word for laborer (servus, but keep in mind a slave is a servus, a cafe owner that serves you a drink is a servus, the guy you hire to redo your flooring is a servus).

Needless to say, a fair translation would have avoided the word slavery from that point forward. The English text doesn't. The text alludes to what makes something slave labor, and thus illegal : that the obligation of the laborer is either not limited in time, or wages are either not paid, or only paid in the sense that a debt is made whole (with the explicit exception of criminal debt).

It then states that one can sell one's labor, and that the resulting contract can be traded. It then keeps clarifying things about those contractual obligations, going on at length about the conditions that make labor relations non-slave labor. Firstly, there must be a time limit on the obligation (except in cases of conviction of a crime, ie. you can be convicted to serve for the rest of your life), and there must be payment, actual payment, "forgiving" a debt is not enough, although for instance valued instruction can be considered (partial) payment (in the Roman Republic and Empire it was common to train as a skilled profession (architect/doctor/lawyer/...) by training under someone, on the condition of serving as part of their company for a number of years. You still got paid, in addition to food, lodging, days off, ... but you could not start for yourself for the period specified. Initially this was limited by law to 2 years, eventually it became 20).

It then goes on that there are other conditions : no matter any contract, everyone has the right to marriage (and to not have the resulting family split up), the right to church and education (in the Christian faith, sure, but still), confession, humane treatment, ... And yes, such contracts can be enforced, even after selling/buying. There are strict conditions on the selling and buying of such labor contracts, and the penalty is always the same : if there is so much as reasonable suspicion that someone's being sold into slave labor, not only is the transaction null and void, but the labor contract itself (between the laborer and the boss) is null and void.

Did the American South abide by this letter ? Of course not.

Could you give some scriptural references please?

Leviticus 25:37-55 says that bibilical slavery is to be temporary (lasting only till the year of Jubilee which came every 50 years) but they may buy themselves or have a family member buy themselves out sooner. The fact that they could buy themselves out of slavery also strongly suggests that slaves got paid. . . these provisions make ancient slavery very different from the racialized and cruel slavery we see in modern forms of slavery.

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