Slavery in Early Christianity Augustine

Slavery in Early Christianity Augustine is one of the most important religious philosophers of ancient times. In many of his writings he addressed the issue of God, belief, religion, and slavery. In each of his approach, his insights reveal certain considerations that bring an important contribution to the general framework for analysis of the religious exegesis. Augustine's main point is related to slavery, but not in the traditional sense of the way, as considered in the Roman Empire at the time of the Israelites.

He discusses the term from the perspective of moral slavery, more precisely related to the idea of worship. In his own view, the worship of God is similar to the adulation for every sign representing the superior force that created the world. Still, the ordinary human beings consider these signs without regard for a more powerful meaning and take for granted the basic explanations given.

Therefore, they become enslaved by an idea, and fail to "absorb the eternal light." In trying to explain his point-of-view, Augustine gives the example of the word "Sabbath," which most ordinary people void it of any religious belief and "interprets it simply as one of the seven days which repeat themselves in a continuous cycle; and on hearing the word 'sacrifice' his thoughts do not pass beyond the rituals performed with sacrificial beasts or fruits of the earth" (St. Augutine, 22).

From Augustine's point-of-view it may be considered that the act of worship without a proper understanding of its religious meaning to be an enslavement. In order to escape this enslavement, Augustine points out to the necessity of seeing beyond the signs, thus he gives credit to the Israelites for having "raised them to the level of the things of which these were signs" by sheer interpretation and not adoption of the signs. Thus, knowledge and belief must be accumulated through interpretation and analysis.

He argues that understanding the signs and proofs of belief and religiousness offers the individual the freedom an animal needs from its yoke. However, in his opinion, a free man is also the one who, despite his lack of understanding of the religious sings, is aware of their nature as signs and not as the original source of faith. Thus, "the person, who does not understand what a sign means, but at least understands that it is a sign, is not in fact subjected to slavery.

It is better to be dominated by unknown but useful signs than to interpret them in a useless way and so thrust one's neck, rescued from the yoke slavery, into the toils of error" (St. Augustine, 32). Therefore, the issue of slavery in Augustine's interpretation is overall related to the idea of interpretation and to spiritual oppression of the soul if subject to a system of values he interprets of adopts in a wrongful manner.

By comparison to Augustine's point-of-view and approach, there is the traditional sense of the term slavery, as a degrading institution for the Roman Empire at the time of its greatest expansion. Especially during the Roman domination of Palestine, the Israelites were considered to be an enslaved people; however, the perspective was more physical related, rather than spiritual. In this sense, Gregory of Nyssa draws the attention on the human inequality created by slavery, when human beings buy the freedom of other human beings (Garnsey, 1996, 82-3).

His main argument summarized indicates that "made was made in the image and likeness of God, and therefore, by his nature is both free and sovereign in the earthly sphere (...) slave-owning is to oppose God, challenge his natural law, and scupper his plans for mankind to rule with dignity and honor on earth" (Garnsey, 1996, 83). In relation to the actual physical issue.