Protestantism and Catholicity. Balmes Jaime Luciano
themselves up the same rights as over slaves." Examples of the same kind are not wanting in modern times; we know that in China there is a great number of slaves whose servitude is owing entirely to the incapacity of themselves or their fathers to provide for their own subsistence.
These observations, which are supported by facts that no one can deny, evidently show that Christianity has displayed profound wisdom in proceeding with so much caution in the abolition of slavery.
It did all that was possible in favor of human liberty; if it did not advance more rapidly in the work, it was because it could not do so without compromitting the undertaking – without creating serious obstacles to the desired emancipation. Such is the result at which we arrive when we have thoroughly examined the charges made against some proceedings of the Church. We look into them by the light of reason, we compare them with the facts, and in the end we are convinced that the conduct blamed is perfectly in accordance with the dictates of the highest wisdom and the counsels of the soundest prudence. What, then, does M. Guizot mean, when, after having allowed that Christianity labored with earnestness for the abolition of slavery, he accuses it of having consented for a long time to its continuance? Is it logical thence to infer that it is not true that this immense benefit is due exclusively to Christianity? That slavery endured for a long time in presence of the Church is true; but it was always declining, and it only lasted as long as was necessary to realize the benefit without violence – without a shock – without compromitting its universality and its continuation. Moreover, we ought to subtract from the time of its continuance many ages, during which the Church was often proscribed, always regarded with aversion, and totally unable to exert a direct influence on the social organization. We ought also, to a great extent, to make exception of later times, as the Church had only begun to exert a direct and public influence, when the irruption of the northern barbarians took place, which, together with the corruption which infected the empire and spread in a frightful manner, produced such a perturbation, such a confused mass of languages, customs, manners, and laws, that it was almost impossible to make the regulating power produce salutary fruits. If, in later times, it has been difficult to destroy feudality; if there remain to this day, after ages of struggles, the remnants of that constitution; if the slave-trade, although limited to certain countries and circumstances, still merits the universal reprobation which is raised throughout the world against its infamy; how can we venture to express our astonishment – how can we venture to make it a reproach against the Church, that slavery continued some ages after she had proclaimed men's fraternity with each other, and their equality before God?
CHAPTER XVI.
IDEAS AND MANNERS OF ANTIQUITY WITH RESPECT TO SLAVERY. – THE CHURCH BEGINS BY IMPROVING THE CONDITION OF SLAVES
Happily the Catholic Church was wiser than philosophers; she knew how to confer on humanity the benefit of emancipation, without injustice or revolution. She knew how to regenerate society, but not in rivers of blood. Let us see what was her conduct with respect to the abolition of slavery. Much has been already said of the spirit of love and fraternity which animates Christianity, and that is sufficient to show that its influence in this work must have been great. But perhaps sufficient care has not been taken in seeking the positive and practical means which the Church employed for this end. In the darkness of ages, in circumstances so complicated or various, will it be possible to discover any traces of the path pursued by the Catholic Church in accomplishing the destruction of that slavery under which a large portion of the human race groaned? Will it be possible to do any thing more than praise her Christian charity? Will it be possible to point out a plan, a system, and to prove the existence and development of it, not by referring to a few expressions, to elevated thoughts, generous sentiments, and the isolated actions of a few illustrious men, but by exhibiting positive facts, and historical documents, which show what were the esprit de corps and tendency of the Church? I believe that this may be done, and I have no doubt that I shall be able to do it, by availing myself of what is most convincing and decisive in the matter, viz. the monuments of ecclesiastical legislation.
In the first place, it will not be amiss to remember what I have already pointed out, viz. that when we have to do with the conduct, designs, and tendencies of the Church, it is by no means necessary to suppose that these designs were conceived in their fullest extent by the mind of any individual in particular, nor that the merit and all the prudence of that conduct was understood by those who took part in it. It is not even necessary to suppose that the first Christians understood all the force of the tendencies of Christianity with respect to the abolition of slavery. What requires to be shown is, that the result has been obtained by the doctrines and conduct of the Church, as with Catholics, (although they know how to esteem at their just value the merit and greatness of each man,) individuals, when the Church is concerned, disappear. Their thoughts and will are nothing; the spirit which animates, vivifies, and directs the Church, is not the spirit of man, but that of God himself. Those who belong not to our faith will employ other names; but at least we shall agree in this, that facts, considered in this way, above the mind and the will of individuals, preserve much better their real dimensions; and thus the great chain of events in the study of history remains unbroken. Let it be said that the conduct of the Church was inspired and directed by God; or that it was the result of instinct; that it was the development of a tendency contained in her doctrines; we will not now stay to consider the expressions which may be used by Catholics, or by philosophers; what we have to show is, that this instinct was noble and well-directed; that this tendency had a great object in view, and knew how to attain it.
The first thing that Christianity did for slaves, was to destroy the errors which opposed, not only their universal emancipation, but even the improvement of their condition; that is, the first force which she employed in the attack was, according to her custom, the force of ideas. This first step was the more necessary, as the same thing applies to all other evils, as well as to slavery; every social evil is always accompanied by some error which produces or foments it. There existed not only the oppression and degradation of a large portion of the human race, but, moreover, an accredited error, which tended more and more to lower that portion of humanity. According to this opinion, slaves were a mean race, far below the dignity of freemen: they were a race degraded by Jupiter himself, marked by a stamp of humiliation, and predestined to their state of abjection and debasement. A detestable doctrine, no doubt, and contradicted by the nature of man, by history and experience; but which, nevertheless, reckoned distinguished men among its defenders, and which we see proclaimed for ages, to the shame of humanity and the scandal of reason, until Christianity came to destroy it, by undertaking to vindicate the rights of man. Homer tells us (Odys. 17) that "Jupiter has deprived slaves of half the mind." We find in Plato a trace of the same doctrine, although he expresses himself, as he is accustomed to do, by the mouth of another; he ventures to advance the following: "It is said that, in the mind of slaves, there is nothing sound or complete; and that a prudent man ought not to trust that class of persons; which is equally attested by the wisest of our poets." Here Plato cites the above-quoted passage of Homer (Dial. 8, de Legibus). But it is in the Politics of Aristotle that we find this degrading doctrine in all its deformity and nakedness. Some have wished to excuse this philosopher, but in vain; his own words condemn him without appeal. In the first chapter of his work, he explains the constitution of the family, and attempts to state the relations of husband and wife, of master and slave; he states that, as the wife is by nature different from the husband, so is the slave from the master. These are his words: "Thus the woman and the slave are distinguished by nature itself." Let it not be said that this is an expression that escaped from the pen of the writer; it was stated with a full knowledge, and is a résumé of his theory. In the third chapter, where he continues to analyze the elements which compose the family, after having stated "that a complete family is formed of free persons and slaves," he alludes particularly to the latter, and begins by combating an opinion which he thinks too favorable to them: "There are some," he says, "who think that slavery is a thing out of the order of nature, since it is the law itself which makes some free and others slaves, while nature makes no distinction." Before combating this opinion, he explains the relations between master and slave, by using the comparison of artist and instrument, and that of the soul and body; he continues thus: "If we compare man to woman, we find that the first is superior, therefore he commands; the woman is inferior, therefore she obeys. The same thing ought to take place among