Philemon and the Morality of Slavery

[00:00:01] Philemon and the Morality of Slavery written by Bart Ehrman Read by Ken Teutsch Here are a few more comments about the short letter of Paul to Philemon, whose major themes and emphases I discussed yesterday. It may indeed seem a rather peripheral letter. It's a private letter about a slave returning to his master, not about Paul's great theological views or highly informative discussions of his life. [00:00:30] But even so, this brief one pager can provide us with some important insights into Paul's view of his apostolic ministry and even more about the role of social justice in his ministry. Specifically, does he condone slavery? [00:00:47] One thing to observe is that Paul's reciprocal relationship with his converts in this letter. In his other letters, he occasionally appears to be the all knowing and all powerful apostle who makes his demands and expects people to follow them. On certain points that he feels strongly about, such as what his congregations believe about his apocalyptic message and how they treat the Jewish law, he is altogether adamant. But on other issues he falls short of making demands. In the present instance he expresses his desire as a request, although to be sure, he phrases it in such a way that it would seem impossible for Philemon to turn him down even here. That is, while claiming not to assert his apostolic authority, Paul in fact appears to be doing so. See verses 17:19. [00:01:38] A more important point to be gleaned from this letter relates specifically to its subject matter. It may come as a shock to modern readers that Paul did not use this occasion to lambast the evils of the institution of slavery. Not only does Paul fail to condemn slavery in general, but he does not denounce its practice among Christians. In particular, he never commands his convert Philemon to manumit his brother in Christ, Onesimus, let alone set free all of his other slaves. Was Paul not concerned for the plight of the oppressed? [00:02:13] Throughout his letters, Paul shows a remarkable lack of concern for the social inequities of his world, a lack that is from a modern perspective. Despite his views that all people are equal in Christ, Jew and Gentile, slave and free men and women Galatians 3:28 Paul evidently did not see the need to implement this egalitarian ideal in the workings of society at large. He maintained that slaves should stay enslaved, that men should continue to dominate women, and that Christians as a whole should stay in whatever social roles they found themselves. [00:02:49] See especially 1 Corinthians 7:17 24. [00:02:54] But isn't this a bit short sighted for us today? It may indeed appear short sighted, but for Paul it was based on the long view this evident lack of concern for a person's standing in society was related to his notion that the history of the world as we know it was going to soon come to a crashing halt when God entered into judgment of it. Soon the wrath of God would strike, annihilating the forces of evil and bringing in his kingdom in which there would be no more pain or suffering or injustice or inequity. The equality that Paul sought was not one to be affected by social change. It was one to be brought by God himself when he destroyed this evil age and set up his kingdom on earth. [00:03:40] Little did Paul know that readers would still be around over 20 centuries later to ponder his words. [00:03:47] But what about this business of slavery? [00:03:50] Does he implicitly condone it? [00:03:53] Many people who read the Book of Philemon simply assume that Paul wrote the letter to urge Philemon to set his slave Onesimus free. After all, slavery is and was a horrible institution, and surely the apostle would have done everything in his power to abolish it, right? [00:04:11] Unfortunately, when you look closely at Paul's letter, you will not find a word against slavery as an institution or any instruction for Philemon to set his slave or any of his slaves free. [00:04:22] How could that be? [00:04:24] As it turns out, slavery is mentioned in numerous early Christian texts, a handful of times just within the New Testament, and is never condemned. Philemon was not the only Christian to own slaves, and so far as we know, none of the others who did so was ever urged to set them free. In Acts 12, 13, 16, we learn that the mother of Mark had a slave girl, Rhoda, who is simply assumed to be required to take care of her household duties. In Colossians 3:22 4:1 and Ephesians 6:5,9, slaves are instructed specifically to obey their masters in everything. And the masters who must have been Christian, otherwise the authors would not be writing to them, are not told to set their slaves free, but to treat them fairly. [00:05:13] This tradition of Christian slave owning continues on in other Christian literature outside the New Testament. In the Didache, for example, see chapter 27. Slaves are instructed to obey their masters as if they were a replica of God himself. [00:05:30] How could Christians not only allow such a cruel system as slave owning, but even condone and support it? Didn't they know it was wrong? [00:05:39] Why do they never condemn it? [00:05:42] The reality is that in the ancient world, almost no one condemned slavery as an institution. [00:05:49] Slaves, of course, almost universally hated being enslaved, but we have no record of them condemning it as an institution. [00:05:57] Hating being a slave is not the same as opposing the institution of slavery. An interesting irony from the modern perspective is that even slaves could sometimes own slaves. [00:06:09] Did slaves condemn it? Off the record, we have no way of knowing. [00:06:13] We have very few writings from slaves. I'm trying to think of any. [00:06:18] We do have some from former slaves. Epictetus, the great Stoic from around Paul's time, and one of my favorite ancient philosophers, was a freedman, that is a former slave. But he too never condemns the institution of slavery. [00:06:36] All that is hard for us to get our minds around. [00:06:39] My sense is that slavery was so much a common feature of ancient civilizations that it simply appears to be never or almost never questioned. How could ancient people be so heartless? Even the great moral philosophers, Plato, aristotle, cicero, seneca, etc. [00:06:58] Good question. [00:06:59] One thing to reflect on, to put it into a bit of perspective, is that in 200 years, lots of people will likely be condemning us with respect to some moral issue or other that we take for granted and simply never realize is a huge problem. [00:07:15] Most people don't think so, of course, and that's what every age has thought so far. [00:07:22] Every age has been wrong.