As I’ve mentioned, one of the projects I’d like to work on at some point is an Orthodox Christian-inspired approach to political philosophy and economy.
Lovely to see such attention given to this side of Chrysostom's work. However, I would say that we need to be very careful in contextualising these words within the late-antique theological context. For example, Chrysostom's assertion that slavery is unnatural and a product of sin is not claiming that slavery exists because of the sins of the slave owners but the slaves (although he would conceded that cases of sinful slave ownership existed...such as his advice that owning more slaves than necessary committed the sin of pride). Chrysostom consistently had a negative view of slaves and supported the earthly authority of their owners.
Can you share any relevant references? Whatever he says elsewhere, his treatment of Genesis makes very clear that he thinks slavery, or any coercive relationship between human beings, is inherently against the telos of creation.
I would be happy to :) I will have to dig them out but here are some from memory:
In his homilies on Philemon, JC assumes that Onesimus had stolen property from Philemon before fleeing and that he not only acted illegally by fleeing Philemon but had sinned against God as Christian slaves should always obey their masters. This is a constant theme in JC's writings that deal with slaves, in line with the attitudes of his contemporaries who see slaves as more often than not immoral and debased by nature (not all). To understand this rationale you have to appreciate the huge influence of Origen on his understanding of slavery. Origen (amongst others) taught that the soul was born into the body that it deserved, a sinful person was born into an enslaved body - I'm grossly simplifying this for brevity but essentially JC like his contemporary Christian writers links slavery with sin.
You are absolutely correct, slavery is not part of God's creation, but it came into existence as a result of sin...but sin in general, a fallen world, not simply the sin of people enslaving others. JC Hom. 2 provides this: "But should any one ask, whence is slavery, and why it has found entrance into human life... I will tell you. Slavery is the fruit of covetousness, of degradation, of savagery; since Noah, we know, had no servant, nor had Abel, nor Seth, no, nor they who came after them. THE THING WAS THE FRUIT OF SIN, OF REBELLION AGAINST PARENTS. LET CHILDREN HEARKEN TO THIS, THAT WHENEVER THEY ARE UNDUTIFUL TO THEIR PARENTS, THEY DESERVE TO BE SERVANTS. Such a child strips himself of his nobility of birth; for he who rebels against his father is no longer a son; and if he who rebels against his father is not a son, how shall he be a son who rebels against our true Father? He has departed from his nobility of birth, he has done outrage to nature."
Slave owning is very much linked to the vice of greed in JC's work, I think it is in a homily on Cor. that he berates slave owners for having herds of slaves and says that ideally you should have none, but if necessary one or two at most. It is the soul of the owner that he is concerned about here. Another instance of his fairly low attitude of slaves is in his view of the slave Hagar in Hom. 38 and 46. Hagar he maligns as being like all slaves; unable to restrain her base instincts, ungrateful, and rebellious, etc. This inability for self-control, and therefore more prone to sin, is why slaves need to be controlled. FYI this thinking was widespread, and can be seen used as an analogy in another of JC's Homily (Hom 2., recently discovered extract) "Do you see that the very reason is an indictment of their impiety and prostitution? (For he always calls their impiety prostitution.) He drove them together from all quarters into a single place for this reason: so that they would have no occasion for impiety. When a well-born and free man has a female slave who is licentious and pulls in all the passers-by for immoral relations with her, he does not allow her to go out into the neighborhood, to show herself in the alley-way, to rush into the marketplace; instead, he confines her upstairs in the house, shackles her with iron, and orders her to remain indoors at all times, so that both the spatial restrictions of the place and the compulsion of the chains will be her starting-point for chastity.[23] God acted in the very same way: the Synagogue being his licentious slave-woman, gaping after every demon..."
This is NOT to say that JC wasn't ahead of his time, he certainly railed against bad slave-ownership and masters forcing immoral acts on their slaves, and he did promote the education and salvation of slaves, it's just that his work doesn't attack slavery as an earthly institution any more than his attack on wealth was a call for a world without money.
Those are some that spring most to mind, but the work of Chris de Wet is very informative on this topic.
I have been re-reading The Name of the Rose; I had forgotten how much of the novel is concerned with poverty and economic arrangements, and whether the claim that Jesus and the Apostles lived lives of poverty was heretical.
Lovely to see such attention given to this side of Chrysostom's work. However, I would say that we need to be very careful in contextualising these words within the late-antique theological context. For example, Chrysostom's assertion that slavery is unnatural and a product of sin is not claiming that slavery exists because of the sins of the slave owners but the slaves (although he would conceded that cases of sinful slave ownership existed...such as his advice that owning more slaves than necessary committed the sin of pride). Chrysostom consistently had a negative view of slaves and supported the earthly authority of their owners.
Can you share any relevant references? Whatever he says elsewhere, his treatment of Genesis makes very clear that he thinks slavery, or any coercive relationship between human beings, is inherently against the telos of creation.
I would be happy to :) I will have to dig them out but here are some from memory:
In his homilies on Philemon, JC assumes that Onesimus had stolen property from Philemon before fleeing and that he not only acted illegally by fleeing Philemon but had sinned against God as Christian slaves should always obey their masters. This is a constant theme in JC's writings that deal with slaves, in line with the attitudes of his contemporaries who see slaves as more often than not immoral and debased by nature (not all). To understand this rationale you have to appreciate the huge influence of Origen on his understanding of slavery. Origen (amongst others) taught that the soul was born into the body that it deserved, a sinful person was born into an enslaved body - I'm grossly simplifying this for brevity but essentially JC like his contemporary Christian writers links slavery with sin.
You are absolutely correct, slavery is not part of God's creation, but it came into existence as a result of sin...but sin in general, a fallen world, not simply the sin of people enslaving others. JC Hom. 2 provides this: "But should any one ask, whence is slavery, and why it has found entrance into human life... I will tell you. Slavery is the fruit of covetousness, of degradation, of savagery; since Noah, we know, had no servant, nor had Abel, nor Seth, no, nor they who came after them. THE THING WAS THE FRUIT OF SIN, OF REBELLION AGAINST PARENTS. LET CHILDREN HEARKEN TO THIS, THAT WHENEVER THEY ARE UNDUTIFUL TO THEIR PARENTS, THEY DESERVE TO BE SERVANTS. Such a child strips himself of his nobility of birth; for he who rebels against his father is no longer a son; and if he who rebels against his father is not a son, how shall he be a son who rebels against our true Father? He has departed from his nobility of birth, he has done outrage to nature."
Slave owning is very much linked to the vice of greed in JC's work, I think it is in a homily on Cor. that he berates slave owners for having herds of slaves and says that ideally you should have none, but if necessary one or two at most. It is the soul of the owner that he is concerned about here. Another instance of his fairly low attitude of slaves is in his view of the slave Hagar in Hom. 38 and 46. Hagar he maligns as being like all slaves; unable to restrain her base instincts, ungrateful, and rebellious, etc. This inability for self-control, and therefore more prone to sin, is why slaves need to be controlled. FYI this thinking was widespread, and can be seen used as an analogy in another of JC's Homily (Hom 2., recently discovered extract) "Do you see that the very reason is an indictment of their impiety and prostitution? (For he always calls their impiety prostitution.) He drove them together from all quarters into a single place for this reason: so that they would have no occasion for impiety. When a well-born and free man has a female slave who is licentious and pulls in all the passers-by for immoral relations with her, he does not allow her to go out into the neighborhood, to show herself in the alley-way, to rush into the marketplace; instead, he confines her upstairs in the house, shackles her with iron, and orders her to remain indoors at all times, so that both the spatial restrictions of the place and the compulsion of the chains will be her starting-point for chastity.[23] God acted in the very same way: the Synagogue being his licentious slave-woman, gaping after every demon..."
This is NOT to say that JC wasn't ahead of his time, he certainly railed against bad slave-ownership and masters forcing immoral acts on their slaves, and he did promote the education and salvation of slaves, it's just that his work doesn't attack slavery as an earthly institution any more than his attack on wealth was a call for a world without money.
Those are some that spring most to mind, but the work of Chris de Wet is very informative on this topic.
I have been re-reading The Name of the Rose; I had forgotten how much of the novel is concerned with poverty and economic arrangements, and whether the claim that Jesus and the Apostles lived lives of poverty was heretical.