Amid a world hardened by conquest and castes, Christianity planted the quiet seed of a moral revolution. Without insurrection or civil tumult, the gospel introduced into the ancient world the radical idea of human equality before God—a spiritual brotherhood that would, in time, erode the very foundations of slavery. It was not through legislation or revolt, but through the dignity of the soul, the freedom of the spirit, and the slow leavening of divine love that the Church began its long labor to undo the chains of man’s inhumanity to man.
Slavery in the Pagan World
The ancient world knew no universal doctrine of human rights. Classical republics—Greece and Rome alike—were constructed on the privilege of a minority ruling over a majority denied not only political voice but even full humanity. “Man” was synonymous with “freeborn citizen”; foreigners, laborers, the poor, and above all, slaves were excluded from this dignity.
Cicero himself equated the foreigner with the enemy. Whole populations were enslaved as the spoils of war: over 100,000 during the Jewish revolts alone. An expansive and ruthless slave trade operated across the Euxine Sea, Africa, the East, and even Britain. In Rome’s heyday, the bulk of humanity was reduced to brute labor, legally considered property. The system was so embedded into the fabric of domestic, economic, and political life that even the loftiest philosophers—Aristotle included—deemed it both natural and indispensable. Abolition seemed not merely improbable but inconceivable.
The Christian Response: Liberation of the Soul
Into this world came the gospel—not with sword or revolution, but with spiritual dynamite. Christianity did not attack property rights directly, nor did it incite social upheaval. Rather, it preached the unity of mankind under God, the redemption of all through Christ, and the intrinsic worth of every human soul. It taught that both slave and master were accountable to the same divine Judge, loved by the same heavenly Father, and redeemed by the same Savior.
Christianity granted inward liberty amid outward bondage. It taught that true freedom was spiritual: obedience to God, not man. This transformation of soul would, in time, awaken society’s conscience and prepare the way for bodily emancipation. The gospel did not merely redeem the spirit; it set in motion the redemption of the whole created order, culminating in the resurrection of the body and the renewal of the world.
Practical Limits and Early Testimonies
Despite this spiritual vision, the early Church—still persecuted and marginalized—lacked the political power to abolish slavery. The slave population was immense, and the Church, preoccupied with the imminent return of Christ and the battle for doctrinal integrity, placed little emphasis on earthly conditions.
Ignatius, in his letter to Polycarp, advised slaves to serve diligently, seeking heavenly liberty rather than earthly manumission. Some converts, newly awakened to their dignity, demanded release at the Church’s expense, prompting warnings against valuing earthly freedom more than divine grace.
Tertullian dismissed worldly emancipation as hollow unless the soul itself were free from sin. “The world,” he argued, “offers only illusion. A freedman is still Christ’s servant; a slave of Christ is freer than any citizen of Rome.” To embrace secular liberty while forfeiting spiritual sonship was to become once again a slave to men.
The Fathers and Gradual Emancipation
Chrysostom, in the fourth century, was the first Church Father to fully engage the issue of slavery in Pauline terms. He cautiously advocated gradual emancipation, urging believers to treat their servants as brothers. The Church before Constantine focused on moral elevation, seeking first to ennoble the slave’s condition and then to erode the institution itself through the slow force of Christian conscience.
Philosophy and imperial law began to move in tandem. Harsh Stoic views, like those of Cato—who advised working slaves to death rather than allowing them to grow old—gave way to more humane attitudes in Seneca, Pliny, and Plutarch. Their ideas, often aligned with Christian principles, softened legal codes. Under Constantine, Christianity achieved legal recognition and began to influence imperial reform directly.
In 315, Constantine forbade branding slaves on the face, honoring their creation in the image of God. A year later, he made manumission easier, requiring only a written declaration rather than a legal ceremony before Roman officials.
Slaves Within the Church
The gospel spread rapidly among the slave class. Where their condition was not too brutalized to stifle conscience, many slaves embraced the faith with zeal. Some became instruments of conversion within their masters’ households, especially among women and children entrusted to their care.
Numerous slaves died as martyrs and were canonized: Onesimus, Eutyches, Maro, Blandina, Potamiaena, and Felicitas, among others. Tradition holds that Onesimus, once a fugitive slave, became a bishop. Even the papacy was touched: Callistus, a former slave, ascended to the chair of Peter in Rome (218–223). Though Hippolytus criticized his theology, he did not scorn his origin.
Callistus permitted Christian women to marry Christian slaves, a move that scandalized pagans but demonstrated the radical leveling power of the gospel. Celsus scoffed at a religion that embraced “slaves, fools, women, and children,” but Origen rightly saw in this the greatness of Christianity—a faith that dignifies the lowest, purifies the corrupted, and calls the despised into sainthood.
Christian Liberty in Practice
Christian slaves, strengthened by their knowledge of divine sonship, often displayed remarkable fidelity—even to pagan masters—except when commanded to sin. Their virtue became a living argument for their fitness for freedom.
The martyr Potamiaena resisted the lusts of her master; others like her became icons of chastity, strength, and grace. Justin Martyr records the words of Euelpistes, a slave: “I am a servant of the emperor, but also a Christian. In Christ, I have received liberty, and I share the same hope as my brethren.”
Where slaveholders converted, relationships were transformed. At the Lord’s Table, master and servant knelt as equals. Lactantius later wrote: “Among us, there are no slaves. We call them brethren in the Spirit.” Outward distinctions remained, but the Church recognized the spiritual equality of all.
Clement of Alexandria insisted: “Slaves are men like ourselves,” and Lactantius declared: “God would have all men equal.” Righteousness, not rank, was the true measure of greatness.
Silence in the Catacombs
Christian epitaphs from the catacombs provide quiet but powerful testimony. Unlike pagan graves, which frequently note slave status or manumission, Christian inscriptions are largely silent on such distinctions. Giovanni de Rossi observed that among thousands of Christian tombs, scarcely one mentions servile identity—an eloquent symbol of the obliteration of caste in the Church of the martyrs.
Manumission as a Christian Rite
Though most early Christians were poor and rarely owned slaves, there are striking records of Christian slaveholders liberating large numbers of servants upon baptism. The Roman prefect Hermas was baptized with his wife, children, and 1,250 slaves—then freed them all. Chromatius did likewise with 1,400. The noble siblings Cantius, Cantianus, and Cantianilla emancipated 73; St. Melania, 8,000; St. Ovidius, 5,000; Hermes, 1,250.
These numbers may be exaggerated, but they reflect the Church’s moral imagination. Christian society, if ever fully realized, could not coexist with slavery. By the fourth century, manumission had become a solemn sacrament, celebrated in church, before the altar, on feast days—especially Easter. The congregation witnessed, the minister blessed, and the former slave was welcomed as a brother.
Constantine found this practice already in place and codified it in law. Later councils endorsed it. The Church, while still within Caesar’s domain, began building a kingdom not of this world, but one that would, in time, transform this world from the inside out.
