understand precisely what the later doctrine was; and, moreover,
the close analogy which, as we shall see, existed between the Church's
view of property and slavery, throws much light on the true nature of
both institutions.

Although in practice Christianity had done a very great deal to
mitigate the hardships of the slavery of ancient times, and had in
a large degree abolished slavery by its encouragement of
emancipation,[1] it did not, in theory, object to the institution
itself. There is no necessity to labour a point so universally
admitted by all students of the Gospels as that Christ and His
Apostles did not set out to abolish the slavery which they found
everywhere around them, but rather aimed, by preaching charity to
the master and patience to the slave, at the same time to lighten the
burden of servitude, and to render its acceptance a merit rather
than a disgrace. 'What, in fact,' says Janet, 'is the teaching of
St. Peter, St. Paul, and the Apostles in general? It is, in the first
place, that in Christ there are no slaves, and that all men are free
and equal; and, in the second place, that the slave must obey his
master, and the master must be gentle to his slave.[2] Thus, although
there are no slaves in Christ, St. Paul and the Apostles do not deny
that there may be on earth. I am far from reproaching the Apostles for
not having proclaimed the immediate necessity of the emancipation of
slaves. But I say that the question was discussed in precisely the
same terms by the ancient philosophers of the same period. Seneca, it
is true, proclaimed not the civil, but the moral equality of men;
but St. Paul does not speak of anything more than their equality in
Christ. Seneca instructs the master to treat the slave as he would
like to be treated himself.[3] Is not this what St. Peter and St.
Paul say when they recommended the master to be gentle and good? The
superiority of Christianity over Stoicism in this question arises
altogether from the very superiority of the Christian spirit....'[4]
The article on 'Slavery' in the _Catholic Encyclopaedia_ expresses the
same opinion: 'Christian teachers, following the example of St. Paul,
implicitly accept slavery as not in itself incompatible with the
Christian law. The Apostle counsels slaves to obey their masters,
and to bear with their condition patiently. This estimate of slavery
continued to prevail until it became fixed in the systematised ethical
teaching of the scho