ols; and so it remained without any conspicuous
modification until the end of the eighteenth century.' The same
interpretation of early Christian teaching is accepted by the
Protestant scholar, Dr. Bartlett: 'The practical attitude of Seneca
and the early Christians to slavery was much the same. They bade the
individual rise to a sense of spiritual freedom in spite of outward
bondage, rather than denounce the institution as an altogether
illegitimate form of property.'[5]

[Footnote 1: See Roscher, _Political Economy_, s. 73.]

[Footnote 2: _Eph._, vi. 5, 6, 9.]

[Footnote 3: _Ep. ad Luc._, 73.]

[Footnote 4: Janet, _op. cit._, p. 317.]

[Footnote 5: 'Biblical and Early Christian Idea of Property,'
_Property, Its Duties and Rights_ (London, 1915), p. 110; Franck,
_Reformateurs et Publicistes de l'Europe: Moyen age_--Renaissance, p.
87. On the whole question by far the best authority is volume iii. of
Wallon's _Histoire de l'Esclavage dans l'Antiquite_.]

Several texts might be collected from the writings of the Fathers
which would seem to show that according to patristic teaching the
institution of slavery was unjustifiable. We do not propose to cite
or to explain these texts one by one, in view of the quite clear and
unambiguous exposition of the subject given by St. Thomas Aquinas,
whose teaching is the more immediate subject of this essay; we shall
content ourselves by reminding the reader of the precisely similar
texts relating to the institution of property which we have examined
above, and by stating that the corresponding texts on the subject
of slavery are capable of an exactly similar interpretation. 'The
teaching of the Apostle,' says Janet, 'and of the Fathers on slavery
is the same as their teaching on property.'[1] The author from whom we
are quoting, and on whose judgment too much reliance cannot be placed,
then proceeds to cite many of the patristic texts on property, which
we quoted in the section dealing with that subject, and asks: 'What
conclusion should one draw from these different passages? It is that
in Christ there are no rich and no poor, no mine and no thine; that
in Christian perfection all things are common to all men, but that
nevertheless property is legitimate and derived from human law. Is it
not in the same sense that the Fathers condemned slavery as contrary
to divine law, while respecting it as comformable to human law? The
Fathers abound in texts contrary to slavery, but have w