The church exerted her great moral power not so much towards the abolition of slavery as
the amelioration and removal of the evils connected with it. Many provincial Synods dealt with the
subject, at least incidentally. The legal right of holding slaves was never called in question, and
slaveholders were in good and regular standing. Even convents held slaves, though in glaring
inconsistency with their professed principle of equality and brotherhood. Pope Gregory the Great,
one of the most humane of the popes, presented bondservants from his own estates to convents,
and exerted all his influence to recover a fugitive slave of his brother.^337 A reform Synod of Pavia,
over which Pope Benedict VIII., one of the forerunners of Hildebrand, presided (a.d. 1018), enacted
that sons and daughters of clergymen, whether from free-women or slaves, whether from legal
wives or concubines, are the property of the church, and should never be emancipated.^338 No pope
has ever declared slavery incompatible with Christianity. The church was strongly conservative,
and never encouraged a revolutionary or radical movement looking towards universal emancipation.
But, on the other hand, the Christian spirit worked silently, steadily and irresistibly in the
direction of emancipation. The church, as the organ of that spirit, proclaimed ideas and principles
which, in their legitimate working, must root out ultimately both slavery and tyranny, and bring in
a reign of freedom, love, and peace. She humbled the master and elevated the slave, and reminded
both of their common origin and destiny. She enjoined in all her teaching the gentle and humane
treatment of slaves, and enforced it by the all-powerful motives derived from the love of Christ,
the common redemption and moral brotherhood of men. She opened her houses of worship as
asylums to fugitive slaves, and surrendered them to their masters only on promise of pardon.^339
She protected the freedmen in the enjoyment of their liberty. She educated sons of slaves for the
priesthood, with the permission of their masters, but required emancipation before ordination.^340
Marriages of freemen with slaves were declared valid if concluded with the knowledge of the
condition of the latter.^341 Slaves could not be forced to labor on Sundays. This was a most important
and humane protection of the right to rest and worship.^342 No Christian was permitted by the laws
of the church to sell a slave to foreign lands, or to a Jew or heathen. Gregory I. prohibited the Jews
within the papal jurisdiction to keep Christian slaves, which he considered an outrage upon the
Christian name. Nevertheless even clergymen sometimes sold Christian slaves to Jews. The tenth
Council of Toledo (656 or 657) complains of this practice, protests against it with Bible passages,
and reminds the Christians that "the slaves were redeemed by the blood of Christ, and that Christians
(^337) Epist. X. 66; IX. 102. See these and other passages in Overbeck,Verhältniss der alten Kirche zur Sklaverei, in his
"Studien zur Gesch. der alten Kirche" (1875) p. 211 sq. Overbeck, however, dwells too much on the proslavery sentiments of
the fathers, and underrates the merits of the church for the final abolition of slavery.
(^338) Hefele IV. 670.
(^339) Synod of Clermont,a.d.549. Hefele III. 5; comp. II. 662.
(^340) Fifth Synod of Orleans, 549; Synod of Aachen, 789; Synod of Francfurt, 794. See Hefele III. 3, 666, 691. If ordination
took place without the master’s consent, he could reclaim the slave from the ranks of the clergy. Hefele IV. 26.
(^341) Hefele III. 574, 575, 611. The first example was set by Pope Callistus (218-223), who was himself formerly a slave,
and gave the sanction of the Roman church to marriages between free Christian ladies and slaves or lowborn men. Hippolytus,
Philosoph. IX. 12 (p. 460 ed. Duncker and Schneidewin). This was contrary to Roman law, and disapproved even by Hippolytus.
(^342) The 16th Synod of Toledo, 693, passed the following canon: "If a slave works on Sunday by command of his master,
the slave becomes free, and the master is punished to pay 30 solidi. If the slave works on Sunday without command of his
master, he is whipped or must pay fine for his skin. If a freeman works on Sunday, he loses his liberty or must pay 60 solidi; a
priest has to pay double the amount." Hefele II. 349; comp. p. 355.