4.]

[Footnote 5: _De Civ. Dei_, xix. 14-15.]

[Footnote 6: _Ibid._]

Janet ably analyses and expounds the advance which St. Augustine
made in the treatment of slavery: 'In this theory we must note the
following points: (1) Slavery is unjust according to the law of
nature. This is what is contrary to the teaching of Aristotle,
but conformable to that of the Stoics. (2) Slavery is just as
a consequence of sin. This is the new principle peculiar to St.
Augustine. He has found a principle of slavery, which is neither
natural inequality, nor war, nor agreement, but sin. Slavery is no
more a transitory fact which we accept provisionally, so as not to
precipitate a social revolution: it is an institution which has become
natural as a result of the corruption of our nature. (3) It must not
be said that slavery, resulting from sin, is destroyed by Christ who
destroyed sin.... Slavery, according to St. Augustine, must last as
long as society.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Janet, _op. cit._, p. 302.]

Nowhere does St. Thomas Aquinas appear as clearly as the medium of
contact and reconciliation between the Fathers of the Church and the
ancient philosophers as in his treatment of the question of slavery.
His utterances upon this subject are scattered through many portions
of his work, but, taken together, they show that he was quite prepared
to admit the legitimacy of the institution, not alone on the grounds
put forward by St. Augustine, but also on those suggested by Aristotle
and the Roman jurists.

He fully adopts the Augustinian argument in the _Summa_, where, in
answer to the query, whether in the state of innocence all men were
equal, he states that even in that state there would still have been
inequalities of sex, knowledge, justice, etc. The only inequalities
which would not have been present were those arising from sin; but
the only inequality arising from sin was slavery.[1] 'By the words
"So long as we are without sin we are equal," Gregory means to exclude
such inequality as exists between virtue and vice; the result of which
is that some are placed in subjection to others as a penalty.'[2] In
the following article St. Thomas distinguishes between political and
despotic subordination, and shows that the former might have existed
in a state of innocence. 'Mastership has a twofold meaning; first as
opposed to servitude, in which case a master means one to whom
another is subject as a slave. In another sense mastership is c