Part 44 (2/2)
Now the bishop ought to know whose oblations he ought to receive, and whose he ought not. For he is to avoid corrupt dealers and not receive their gifts. He is also to avoid those that oppress the widow and overbear the orphan, and fill the prisons with the innocent, and abuse their own slaves wickedly, I mean with stripes and hunger and hard service.
(_e_) _Apostolic Canons_, _Canon_ 81, Bruns, I, 12.
This deals with the question of the ordination of a slave. Later, if a slave was ordained without his masters consent, the ordination held, but the bishop was obliged to pay the price of the slave to his master. _Cf._ Council of Orleans, A. D. 511, _Can._ 8.
We do not permit slaves to be ordained to the clergy without their masters consent; for this would wrong those that owned them. For such a practice would occasion the subversion of families. But if at any time a servant appears worthy to be ordained to a high office, such as Onesimus appears to have been, and if his master allows it, and gives him his freedom, and dismisses him free from his house, let him be ordained.
(_f_) Gregory the Great, _Ep. ad Montanam et Thomam_. (MSL, 77:803.)
Gregory and others approved of manumission of slaves as an act of self-denial, for therein a man surrendered what belonged to him, as in almsgiving; but he and others also justified the practice of manumission upon lines that recall Stoic ideas of mans natural freedom. Yet, at the same time, Gregory could insist upon the strict discipline of slaves in the administration of the Church property.
The following is a letter of manumission addressed apparently to a man and his wife.
Since our Redeemer, the Maker of every creature, vouchsafed to a.s.sume human flesh for this end, that when by the grace of His divinity the chain of slavery wherewith we were held had been broken He might restore us to our pristine liberty, it is a salutary deed if men, whom nature originally produced free, and whom the law of nations has subjected to the yoke of slavery, be restored by the benefit of manumission to the liberty in which they were born. And so moved by loving-kindness and consideration of the case, we make you Montana and Thomas, slaves of the holy Roman Church, which with the help of G.o.d we serve, free from this day and Roman citizens, and we release to you all your private property.(142)
(_g_) _Codex Theodosia.n.u.s_, XV, 12, 1; A. D. 325. _Cf._ Kirch, n. 754.
Const.i.tution of Constantine regarding gladiatorial shows.
This edict was by no means enforced everywhere. In a shorter form it pa.s.sed into the _Cod. Just._ (XI, 44, 1), but only after the edict of Honorius had stopped these shows.
b.l.o.o.d.y spectacles are not pleasing in civil rest and domestic tranquillity. Wherefore we altogether prohibit them to be gladiators(143) who, it may be, for their crimes have been accustomed to receive this penalty and sentence, and you shall cause them rather to serve in the mines, that without blood they may pay the penalty of their crimes.
(_h_) Theodoret, _Hist. Ec._, V, 26. (MSG, 82:1256.)
Honorius, who had inherited the Empire of Europe, put a stop to gladiatorial combats, which had long been held in Rome, and he did this under the following circ.u.mstances. There was a certain man named Telemachus who had embraced the ascetic life. He had set out for the East and for this reason had repaired to Rome. There, when the abominable spectacle was being exhibited, he went himself into the stadium, and stepping down into the arena endeavored to stop the men who were wielding their weapons against one another. The spectators of the slaughter were indignant and, inspired by the mad fury of the demon who delights in these b.l.o.o.d.y deeds, stoned the peacemaker to death. When the admirable Emperor was informed of this he numbered Telemachus in the army of the victorious martyrs, and put an end to that impious practice.
(_i_) Ambrose, _Ep. 51_. (MSL, 16:1210.) _Cf._ Kirch, nn. 754 _ff._
Letter to the Emperor Theodosius after the ma.s.sacre at Thessalonica in 390.
The Emperor had ordered a general ma.s.sacre of the inhabitants of Thessalonica because of a sedition there. Ambrose wrote to him the following letter after having pleaded in vain with him before the ma.s.sacre to deal mercifully with the people. (The well-known story of the penitence of Theodosius may be found in Theodoret, _Hist.
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