When feudalism was established, society had to die of the same disease which killed it under the Caesars,--I mean accumulated property.But humanity, created for an immortal destiny, is deathless; the revolutions which disturb it are purifying crises, invariably followed by more vigorous health.In the fifth century, the invasion of the Barbarians partially restored the world to a state of natural equality.In the twelfth century, a new spirit pervading all society gave the slave his rights, and through justice breathed new life into the heart of nations.It has been said, and often repeated, that Christianity regenerated the world.That is true; but it seems to me that there is a mistake in the date.Christianity had no influence upon Roman society; when the Barbarians came, that society had disappeared.For such is God's curse upon property; every political organization based upon the exploitation of man.
shall perish: slave-labor is death to the race of tyrants.The patrician families became extinct, as the feudal families did, and as all aristocracies must.
It was in the middle ages, when a reactionary movement was beginning to secretly undermine accumulated property, that the influence of Christianity was first exercised to its full extent.
The destruction of feudalism, the conversion of the serf into the commoner, the emancipation of the communes, and the admission of the Third Estate to political power, were deeds accomplished by Christianity exclusively.I say Christianity, not ecclesiasticism; for the priests and bishops were themselves large proprietors, and as such often persecuted the villeins.
Without the Christianity of the middle ages, the existence of modern society could not be explained, and would not be possible.
The truth of this assertion is shown by the very facts which M.
Laboulaye quotes, although this author inclines to the opposite opinion.
M.Guizot denies that Christianity alone is entitled to the glory of the abolition of slavery."To this end," he says, "many causes were necessary,--the evolution of other ideas and other principles of civilization." So general an assertion cannot be refuted.Some of these ideas and causes should have been pointed out, that we might judge whether their source was not wholly Christian, or whether at least the Christian spirit had not penetrated and thus fructified them.Most of the emancipation charters begin with these words: "For the love of God and the salvation of my soul."Now, we did not commence to love God and to think of our salvation until after the promulgation of the Gospel.
1.Slavery among the Romans.--"The Roman slave was, in the eyes of the law, only a thing,--no more than an ox or a horse.He had neither property, family, nor personality; he was defenceless against his master's cruelty, folly, or cupidity.`Sell your oxen that are past use,' said Cato, `sell your calves, your lambs, your wool, your hides, your old ploughs, your old iron, your old slave, and your sick slave, and all that is of no use to you.' When no market could be found for the slaves that were worn out by sickness or old age, they were abandoned to starvation.Claudius was the first defender of this shameful practice.""Discharge your old workman," says the economist of the proprietary school; "turn off that sick domestic, that toothless and worn-out servant.Put away the unserviceable beauty; to the hospital with the useless mouths!""The condition of these wretched beings improved but little under the emperors; and the best that can be said of the goodness of Antoninus is that he prohibited intolerable cruelty, as an ABUSEOF PROPERTY._Expedit enim reipublicae ne quis re re sua male utatur_, says Gaius.
"As soon as the Church met in council, it launched an anathema against the masters who had exercised over their slaves this terrible right of life and death.Were not the slaves, thanks to the right of sanctuary and to their poverty, the dearest proteges of religion? Constantine, who embodied in the laws the grand ideas of Christianity, valued the life of a slave as highly as that of a freeman, and declared the master, who had intentionally brought death upon his slave, guilty of murder.
Between this law and that of Antoninus there is a complete revolution in moral ideas: the slave was a thing; religion has made him a man."Note the last words: "Between the law of the Gospel and that of Antoninus there is a complete revolution in moral ideas: the slave was a thing; religion has made him a man." The moral revolution which transformed the slave into a citizen was effected, then, by Christianity before the Barbarians set foot upon the soil of the empire.We have only to trace the progress of this MORAL revolution in the PERSONNELof society."But," M.Laboulaye rightly says, "it did not change the condition of men in a moment, any more than that of things;between slavery and liberty there was an abyss which could not be filled in a day; the transitional step was servitude."Now, what was servitude? In what did it differ from Roman slavery, and whence came this difference? Let the same author answer.
