In 312 AD, Constantine legalized Christianity. It that point, perhaps 10-15% of the people in the empire were Christian. In 380 AD, Theodosius proclaimed Christianity as the official religion of the Empire. By that time, a large majority of people in the empire were Christians. Prior to that time, Christians has been subjected to periodic persecutions, such as the Diocletian persecutions (303-305 AD).
Before 312 AD, worldly men would scarcely have sought out a persecuted, outlawed religion and become a member of it. Now, however, a steady stream of such men, who were more interested in earthly advantages than heavenly ones, came into the church.
Cato the Censor (234-149 BC) was a roman writer who wrote a book on farming. You can read about his farm from a previous post, here. Let’s see what changes Cato would made to his farm if he converted to Christianity.
First, slaves get Sunday off, so his productivity goes down 14%. They also get holidays off, and there goes another 6% of his slave’s work time. The Catholic Church has many feast days. On feast days, Cato would be expected to supply some of the provisions for the celebration. He would be embarrassed to supply them with his poor wines.
Cato lived in Rome. When he visited his farm, as a Christian, Cato would go to church. He would be expected to encourage his slaves to attend church, and many of them would. As there was only one denomination, Catholic*, he would attend the same church as his slaves. Everyone would see and comment on the poor quality of his slave’s clothing, so Cato would have to lay out some money for a Sunday outfit.
Charging a fee for breeding would certainly be frowned on by the priest. If Cato cares about going to heaven, he will discontinue that practice. He might need to find wives for his slaves.
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get to heaven.” Matthew 19:24
Jesus said that because there is so much that a rich man can do, and is tempted to do, to make the life of his underlings miserable.
If he wants to go to heaven, he had better do something about his slaves’ well-being. There is also a community of Christians who know what he is doing. If he mistreats his slaves, he will lose standing and prestige in the community.
None of this involves any change in the law – Cato can still buy and sell slaves, and there are still slave markets. If a slave owner must discipline a slave, he can do so. There is also debt bondage (peonage) for free men who can’t pay their debts. Slavery as an institution has not changed. There is nothing in the Bible banning slavery. Yet a decline in slavery set in with the onset of the Christian era. By the 12th century slavery was reduced to a very low level. Periodically some new form of bondage such as serfdom would arise to replace it, and then that institution would also decline.
From an economic viewpoint, Christianity, with its concern for the poor, basically raised the minimum wage for slaves. Even if a bishop or a priest said nothing, his congregation certainly would, especially if he mistreated them. Overall Christian opinion frowned on slavery. His standing in the community would depend, at least in part, on how well he treated his slaves. In effect, his slaves are more expensive to maintain. He’ll need to upgrade their clothes. If a priest visits the farm, Cato doesn’t want naked slaves in the fields in the summer, so he must buy them summer garments, as well as a Sunday outfit. Slave’s might want to marry, and the priest will support them in that wish. Christianity frowns on prostitution. His housing costs would go up, as well as feeding expenses. Cato’s overall expenses are going up, and his work force is working less (Sundays are off).
Cato’s farm management
Let’s look at Cato’s farm. His farm might seem to be efficient – to amateurs. It does not look so good in view of modern farm management.
Cato is raising many different products – wheat, other grains, beans, etc. He’s growing 10-15 different crops, but only one of them makes money: wine for the vineyard or olive oil for the olive orchard. He grows a bit of this and a little of that. He does this because he has slaves, and slaves are free labor. He gains nothing by idling his slaves, so he buys extra equipment.
Cato’s farm is too far away to profitably ship grain to Rome, but higher value crops like wine or olive oil can still make money. Cato must earn more money than previously, because slaves cost more to maintain now. How can he do it?
Any businessman will tell you that the way to make money is to specialize. If only one crop is making money, concentrate on that crop.
For example, at his vineyard, Cato keeps oxen and equipment for growing and processing several different crops such as wheat. He is spending capital on these crops, but only making money at wine-making. At the same time, he is tarring his amphorae (airtight clay jars) to prevent air from getting inside and ruining the wine. The cheap clay they are made from is porous, so air leaks through the walls. He could buy more expensive amphora that did not leak air but diverts some of this money for the purposes of growing wheat. The tar itself ruins the wine, making it a cheap product, and he can’t sell the wheat at a profit.
Cato does this because the economics of slavery hold that if a slave is idle, the owner is losing money, and the slave is probably plotting to kill the owner in his spare time. This is not a good situation. To keep slaves busy and tired, Cato invests in equipment that brings him no profit. He buys land with reed marshes, so his slaves can cut stakes for his vines. He saves the cost of the stakes at the expense of the health of his slaves (malaria) as well as the cost of the equipment to cut the reeds and make the stakes. He is paying extra for land and equipment and saving the cost of buying stakes. He does this because his slaves’ labor is already paid for, so he might as well keep them working.
The slaves themselves, because they cannot concentrate on doing a few things well, do many things indifferently. Their tools are not specialized to do a few things, but rather many things. They are jacks-of-all-trades and masters of none. His foreman looks after many different farm crops and cannot concentrate on the crop that makes money. This is especially true in a vineyard, since the foreman is worried about nearly everything, but should only be worried about the winery. A good wine sells for far more than a poor wine.
The economics are marginal for Cato’s farm, and this is reflected in the fact that Cato does not make much money. He can only make money by taking it out of the hide of his slaves. He grinds them down and spends as little as possible on them. The extra demands of Christianity would tip his farm into losses, since he can no longer mistreat his slaves.
It is certain that slavery was in decline in the ancient world. By the 3rd century there was a steady decline in slavery, and this continued for centuries. If this was due to rising costs of the slaves themselves (both price and upkeep), then slavery would certainly decline. Owners would look for ways of obtaining a more flexible work force due to economic pressure.
Readers will remember the story of St. Melania the Younger from a previous post, here. Her story included the manumission of any of her slaves who wanted to be manumitted. 8000 slaves were manumitted, but she owned over 24,000 slaves in Sicily alone, and she had many other properties. In other words, less than 1/3 of her slaves wanted to be manumitted.
Why would you be a slave and not want your freedom? Slaves, like anyone else, must assess their economic opportunities. If owners were manumitting slaves (or not replacing them) for economic reasons, then there would be an abundance of free rural labor. A slave might decide, in uncertain times, that he would prefer to belong to a rich, powerful owner rather than try the free labor market. In fact, there is evidence that free rural wages were depressed in this period.
Note that this change did not require any change in the law outlawing slavery, nor did there need to be any proclamations about the need to end slavery from ecclesiastic authorities. Everything could continue, on the surface, just as it had previously. There would only be social pressure at the parish level for slaves to be treated better. This pressure would come at least partly because owners would be expected to allow all of their slaves to attend church, and they would be seen by the parish priest.
Paganism had no comparable system of organized attendance. Only the owner would go to the temple, and he would only do so when a sacrifice was required, or a request made of the gods. He did not go to the temple on a weekly basis, and he represented the entire family.
The teachings of Christ did not outlaw slavery, but they did make slavery less profitable. Slavery steadily declined until the age of colonialism, when unholy men, lusting for wealth and power, used certain teachings of Aristotle (natural slavery) to argue that race slavery was somehow different. It is not different, of course, and we are still dealing with the after-effects of that tragic wrong turn. God willing, we will heal those wounds and move on to a better tomorrow.
Sources
1) Brehaut, Ernest, Translator, Cato the Censor on Farming, 1955, Octagon Books, Inc., New York, NY.
2) Finley, M. I., Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology, 1980, Viking Press, New York, NY, pp 123-149.
