Students beginning to study an ancient language often laugh about the unique vocabulary and themes they encounter. One popular joke characterizes the experience this way:

Learning modern languages: Hello. How are you? My name is Josh. I am happy today. Where is the bathroom, please?

Learning ancient languages: Life is long and unbearably hard. Each day barbarians slaughter another member of my family. Pirates, sailing swiftly across the wine-dark sea, have kidnapped my sister and stolen our grain. We are starving. Oh, immortal gods! Soon we all will die.

I found that this was only a slight exaggeration when I was a Greek 101 student and my early vocabulary lists starkly reflected the harsh realities of ancient life. One of the early terms on those lists was doulos, the most common Greek term for “slave.” This was hardly surprising, as ancient Greece and Rome were so dependent on slavery that modern historians recognize them as the world’s first “slave economies.”[1] Slaves were everywhere in the classical world, and I learned to expect encountering them as I worked my way through classical Greek texts.

That said, it was still mildly shocking when I began translating verses from the Greek New Testament and regularly came across the same word: doulos, “slave.” It was jarring to me, an avid reader of the King James Version who was accustomed to encountering “servants” in the New Testament, not slaves. Yet the Greek was straightforward: in Jesus’s telling of the parable of the talents, the king lauds each of the hardworking men of the story by exclaiming, “Well done, good and trustworthy slave” (Matthew 25:21 NRSV).[2] When he explains the hierarchy of the kingdom of heaven, Jesus teaches that “whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave” (Matthew 20:27). And in the first verse of his epistle to the saints in Rome, Paul introduces himself as a slave of Jesus Christ. That alternate translation of just one word led me to see dozens of verses in a different light.

Translation choices are just one of the ways in which slavery is obscured for modern readers of the New Testament: two thousand years of cultural distance have also put us at a disadvantage at spotting it in scripture. Yet slaves and slavery were everywhere in the first-century world, and New Testament authors expected their audiences to understand references to them. My goal in this paper is to equip Latter-day Saints with contextual knowledge to better recognize and understand slave-related elements in the New Testament. The first section grapples with some of the reasons modern readers miss or misunderstand New Testament allusions to slavery, while the second section examines aspects of first-century slavery relevant to understanding those passages. By better recognizing and understanding these references, Latter-day Saints will be better equipped to comprehend the characters, events, and teachings of this pivotal book of scripture.

Barriers to Recognizing and Understanding Slavery in the New Testament

One of the most significant barriers to even identifying slavery in the New Testament is language. English-speaking Latter-day Saints primarily interact with the New Testament through the text of the King James Version, and although the magisterial prose of the KJV provides a dignified rendering of the Greek text, it does not always provide the most straightforward translation for modern readers. I have already mentioned the case of the term doulos, the standard word for “slave” in ancient Greek. When doulos occurs in Greek texts outside of the Bible, it is almost always translated into English as “slave.”[3] However, the KJV (following the precedent of earlier English translations) does not translate any of the 127 occurrences of doulos as “slave” but rather opts primarily for “servant.”[4]

It is not entirely clear why KJV translators avoided rendering doulos as “slave,” especially since they use the term elsewhere.[5] Nevertheless, the use of terms like “servant” or “bondman” to convey the meaning of doulos poses a challenge for modern readers. In contemporary use, the term “servant” is generally taken to mean “a person who is in the service of another, or of a household,” with obligations that are “generally understood to be less absolute than those of a slave.”[6] It calls to mind the kind of domestic employees mentioned in Regency-era novels or depicted in programs like Downton Abbey: these are employees who receive wages, maintain bodily autonomy, and can leave their employment if desired. The word “slave,” on the other hand, is typically used to describe “one who is the property of, and entirely subject to, another person, . . . completely divested of freedom and personal rights.”[7] This understanding more accurately matches the status of slaves in the first century, who were owned as property and retained only as much autonomy as their masters permitted.

Language is not only a challenge when it comes to the translation of doulos. Other terms are also used in the New Testament to refer to slaves, and they present unique challenges: unlike doulos, which unambiguously means “slave” in almost every context, there are other terms that often mean “slave,” but whose translations are more context dependent. For example, the term pais is often used to refer to a child, but it is also frequently used to refer to slaves of any age.[8] The same is true of the related feminine term paidiskē, which even in clear slave contexts is translated with terms like “damsel” or “maid.”[9] Other terms are similarly given literal translations that obscure the slave status of the referent.[10] Of particular note is the term sōma (usually translated as “body”),[11] which is used widely in classical literature to refer to slaves. It is used in that sense only once in the New Testament (Revelation 18:13), but that one use is the only time the KJV translators opted to use the term “slave.”

Translations that obscure slave-related terms are obstacles for modern readers attempting to grasp the full meaning of texts. Using an insufficient translation—such as rendering doulos as servant rather than slave—plants a very different image in the minds of readers than what the Greek text conveys: instead of envisioning a character who is owned and wholly controlled by a master, readers may instead envision a day laborer or a wage-earning attendant. This impacts the reading of the surrounding text. Take, for example, Jesus’s teaching that “no servant [doulos] can serve two masters” (Luke 16:13 KJV). If a wage-earning servant is what the reader understands this analogy to be about, then it is a simple statement of fact: a laborer would not be hired simultaneously by separate employers. Yet many slaves lived in situations where they did have to answer to multiple masters—a predicament that Jesus may be alluding to here and which makes the analogy a reflection on struggling with competing or contradictory demands.[12] Translation also makes a difference in Luke 1:38: when the angel Gabriel tells Mary that she will bear a child, she replies, “Behold the handmaid [doulē] of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word” (KJV). Slave women had limited agency about their own childbearing: if a master wished to impregnate a slave woman himself or via another slave, she could not refuse. Mary’s self-identification as a slave here fits that understanding, while self-identification as a voluntary “handmaid” would not.

Language is not the only impediment keeping modern readers from recognizing and understanding slavery in the New Testament: two thousand years of interpretative history also impede our ability to accurately grasp it. Take, for example, the common New Testament metaphor of being a slave to God or Christ. The implications of such a metaphor were clear to those living in the slavery-saturated world of the first-century Mediterranean. As time went on, Christians continued to use the metaphor even as slavery practices changed and (sometimes) vanished. When the scriptures were translated into English and translators favored the term “servant” instead of “slave” to express Christian devotion to God or Christ, understanding of the metaphor shifted as well. This was particularly true in the United States, where many free Christians were eager to differentiate between the “servitude” mentioned in the King James Version and the familiar horrors of American slavery.[13] As it has reached us today, the “servant of the Lord” title carries connotations that only somewhat overlap with the original meaning: it carries more of a sense of “honored agent” than “slave.” That shift in meaning can create interpretative problems when we overlay our modern understanding of a metaphor on its use in antiquity.

Even when modern readers do recognize slavery as such in New Testament texts, we still risk another interpretative pitfall. Many English-speaking Latter-day Saints are far more familiar with the slave practices of the Americas than they are with the practices of the ancient Mediterranean, and they thus risk retrojecting eighteenth- and nineteenth- century systems to the first century. While the next section of this paper will focus on what first-century slavery of the Mediterranean world was, here I want to explicitly address what slavery in that period was not and why it is important not to confuse its practices with those of more recent history.

One of the largest differences between ancient slavery and slavery in the Americas was the significance of race. While race held paramount significance in the slave systems of the Americas, it held little significance in the slave system of the Mediterranean world. Slaves could come from anywhere, and they were frequently taken from one part of the Roman empire to another.[14] This meant that, unlike in the Americas, a person could not always be identified as a slave from their appearance: while slaves could be branded, tattooed, or collared, this was uncommon, and many slaves would have been unrecognizable as such. Slaves could not always be identified by what they were doing either: they performed a wide variety of tasks on behalf of their masters. These included hard labor in agriculture or mining but also included tasks requiring extensive education, like tutoring or healing, or even managerial duties that placed them over other slaves. Because first-century slaves experienced such varied circumstances, they did not usually develop a sense of shared plight or class consciousness, and derived more of a sense of identity from their masters or occupations rather than their enslaved status.[15] Just as in the Americas, slaves in antiquity sometimes tried to escape their masters (a situation that may have prompted Paul’s letter to Philemon),[16] and they had a far better chance of blending in to avoid detection. However, unlike in the Americas, there were no slavery-free havens to run away to: slavery reached as wide as the known world. For those who remained with their masters, there was a chance for limited freedom later in life: Roman law allowed for slaves to be manumitted after age thirty[17] (often after saving up to purchase the opportunity) and become a freedman or freedwoman. These people were still in many ways attached to their former masters and obliged to render service to them, but enjoyed more autonomy. Most slaves, however, could expect to remain enslaved until death.

Perhaps the most difficult thing for people today to appreciate about ancient slavery is how impossible it was for those in antiquity to imagine life without it. While estimating ancient demographics is difficult, historians believe that 16 to 20 percent of the Roman empire’s inhabitants were slaves.[18] (In Roman Italy, the percentage may have been as high as thirty.)[19] These slaves performed tasks at all levels of society, from tending crops to managing the emperor’s household. Slavery was also practiced by Rome’s neighbors and by the civilizations that predated it (most notably the Greeks, whose culture Rome frequently emulated). Given all this, it should come as no surprise that our texts do not speak of abolitionists in the first century: it would have been hard for anyone to even conceive of a world without slaves, let alone advocate for one.[20] Many writers (including New Testament authors) condemned some aspects of slaveholder brutality, but they did not condemn the institution of slavery.[21] Most slaves likely hated their enslaved status and wished to escape it, but those who were able to become free often acquired slaves of their own. Even those slaves who took up arms and revolted in the Servile Wars (135–132, 104–100, and 73–71 BCE) were not (so far as we can tell) seeking to eliminate slavery in the empire, but rather gain freedom for themselves.[22] This is an important piece of context for modern readers not only because it contrasts so drastically with slavery in the Americas but also because it helps explain the lack of New Testament arguments against slavery.

This discussion leads us to the final barrier modern readers face when trying to recognize and understand slave references in the New Testament: simple unfamiliarity with the realities of slavery in antiquity. The remainder of my paper will explore many aspects of slavery relevant to understanding slave-related passages in the New Testament. To make this discussion as relevant as possible, I have centered it around specific aspects of slavery that either appear regularly in New Testament texts or provide fundamental context for understanding those texts.

Understanding New Testament Slavery References

Slaves worked in a variety of roles

New Testament texts reflect many of the varied roles slaves played in society. Slaves often worked in agriculture, as reflected in the parable of the tares: slaves laboring in the fields are the ones who discover unwanted weeds and alert their master (see Matthew 13:24–30). Many of these slaves who worked outdoors during the day were also expected to help with domestic chores: Jesus uses an analogy about slaves who plow fields and tend sheep having to hurry in from outdoor work to cook and serve food to their master (see Luke 17:7–10).[23] One household duty that frequently fell to slaves was guarding the door to the home. In Mark, Jesus ends his Olivet discourse with a parable comparing disciples to a doorkeeper slave who has been instructed to watch the door while the master is out (see Mark 13:35–36). We encounter two doorkeepers in the New Testament who were likely slaves. John describes a woman who guarded the door to the high priest’s home on the night of Jesus’s arrest and questioned Peter about his connection to Jesus as she let him in (see John 18:16–18). Acts also records Peter interacting with a doorkeeper named Rhoda, who in her excitement at seeing Peter arrive during the night ran to the assembled disciples without opening the door for Peter (see Acts 12:13–16).

Slaves not only performed many of the menial domestic tasks but in larger households also worked in managerial positions. Jesus describes in parable a slave whose master places him in charge of managing his household and distributing each slave’s allotment of food; the slave also has authority to discipline other slaves (see Matthew 24:45–51 and Luke 12:42–48). The parable of the unjust steward tells of a household manager (likely a slave, though perhaps a freedman or employee)[24] who incurs the displeasure of his master for wasting resources (see Luke 16:1–12). The parable of the talents shows that slaves could be entrusted with managing large sums of money for their masters—and be punished if they managed the funds poorly (see Matthew 25:14–30 and Luke 19:11–27).

Many slaves performed tasks that took them beyond the homes or fields of their masters. Several New Testament texts feature slaves as messengers or couriers: the parable of the wicked tenants has slaves traveling to collect produce (see Matthew 21:33–41, Mark 12:1–9, and Luke 20:9–16), the parable of the wedding banquet features slaves announcing the imminent start of celebrations (see Matthew 22:1–10, see also Luke 14:16–24), slave messengers meet a royal official to tell him that his child has miraculously recovered (see John 4:51–52), and Cornelius sends two slaves to summon Peter to his home (see Acts 10:7–8). Some slaves serve as pedagogues, who chaperoned household children and escorted them to and from school. Paul used these slaves as a metaphor for the Mosaic law: just as a pedagogue led children to school, the Mosaic law led Israel to Christ (see Galatians 3:24–25, see also 1 Corinthians 4:15). Paul repeatedly encountered a slave who earned money for her master by telling fortunes in Philippi (see Acts 16:16–19). Slaves working as prostitutes were also a common sight in cities throughout the empire. While not all prostitutes were slaves, most likely were.[25] Apparently numerous prostitutes believed the teaching of John the Baptist: Jesus commended them for believing John when many of the religious authorities did not (see Matthew 21:31–32).

Some slaves were well educated and did work that used that training. This included tutors, physicians, and (particularly significant for the New Testament) scribes. One New Testament letter directly indicates that it was written by a scribe: in Romans 16:22 a man named Tertius greets readers and explicitly states that he wrote the epistle. Other letters contain strong indications that they too were written by scribes,[26] and this fits with our knowledge of Roman composition practices. Scribes also reproduced manuscripts, which would have been critical for early Christians sharing texts amongst themselves.[27] While not every scribe was a slave, many were; we are likely indebted to slave scribes for the composition and preservation of many New Testament texts.

In some contexts, slaves held positions of authority. At the close of his epistle to Rome from Corinth, Paul sends the regards of “Erastus, the city treasurer [oikonomos]” (Romans 16:23). Scholars debate the specifics of what such a position would have entailed, but it likely indicates that Erastus was a slave who managed finances in Corinth’s civil administration.[28] Another powerful slave mentioned in the New Testament is “an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury” who is taught and baptized by Philip (Acts 8:26–39). The identification of this man as a eunuch likely indicates his slave status: eunuchs were regarded as particularly valuable slaves and often served in the households of rulers and other elites.[29]

Slaves were expected to be obedient

Slaves were expected to obey their masters with precision. This is reflected in an interaction that Jesus had with a centurion: when Jesus offered to come to the centurion’s home to heal his slave, the centurion expressed faith that Jesus only needed to pronounce the slave healed, and it would be so. “For I am also a man under authority, . . . [and I say] to my slave ‘Do this,’ and the slave does it” (Matthew 8:5–13, see also Luke 7:2–10). In other words, the authority the centurion had to produce obedience from his slaves with a word gave him confidence that Jesus’s authority would allow him to also achieve results with just a word.

The societal expectation for slaves to strictly obey their masters is reflected in several New Testament passages that prescribe the heed that slaves should show their masters.[30] “Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything, not only while being watched and in order to please them, but wholeheartedly. . . . Whatever your task, put yourselves into it” (Colossians 3:22–23, see also Ephesians 6:5–8). Slaves are told to “regard their masters as worthy of all honor” and to “not be disrespectful to them on the ground that they are members of the church; rather they must serve them all the more, since those who benefit by their service are believers and beloved” (1 Timothy 6:1–2). Slaves are to “be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect; they are not to talk back, not to pilfer, but to show complete and perfect fidelity” (Titus 2:9–10). Slaves should “accept the authority of [their] masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh” and endure their beatings well, whether the punishment is just or unjust (1 Peter 2:18–21).

These passages repeatedly frame the obedience of Christian slaves as a consequence of their devotion to Christ: slaves are told to “obey your earthly masters . . . as you obey Christ” and to devote themselves to their work “as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart” (Ephesians 6:5–6). Slaves should also serve well “so that the name of God and the teaching may not be blasphemed” (1 Timothy 6:1) and so that their good reputations “may be an ornament to the doctrine of God our Savior” (Titus 2:10). Enduring beatings and other hardships as a slave is cast as a way of emulating Christ: “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21). Slaves are also repeatedly promised that they will be rewarded by the Lord for service to their masters (see Ephesians 6:8, Colossians 3:24).

Slaves faced physical brutality

Both New Testament texts and other contemporary writings abundantly attest to the brutal treatment many slaves experienced. In Luke 12:42–48, Jesus’s parable of the faithful slave details blessings for slaves that serve their master diligently, but harsh punishments for those who do not: these range from a light beating to dismemberment (see also Matthew 24:45–51). Such punishments were not out of the ordinary: Roman literature relates myriad punishments for offences large and small,[31] and slave owners were usually within their rights to maim or kill slaves as desired.[32] First Peter 2:18–21 acknowledges that slaves were regularly beaten, both when slaves did wrong and when they did right. Sometimes masters left the actual labor of beating their slaves to another slave or to a hired torturer, a person with proper equipment and expertise to discipline slaves.[33] The king in Jesus’s parable of the unforgiving slave uses the service of torturers to discipline his unforgiving slave—and Jesus warns that a similar fate awaits all those who do not forgive others (see Matthew 18:34–35).

Masters were not the only people slaves feared harm from: slaves were also beaten and killed by people outside of their household. As representatives of their master, slaves sometimes suffered abuse from those who wished to insult or do damage to their owner.[34] In the parable of the wicked tenants, a landowner sends slaves to collect produce from his vineyard. The rebellious tenants of the vineyard beat or kill every slave the landowner sends (see Mark 12:1–9, Matthew 21:33–41, Luke 20:9–16). Similar violence is mentioned in the parable of the wedding banquet, when a king sends his slaves to call guests to a celebration. While some invited guests just make light of the invitation, others seize, beat, and kill the slaves (see Matthew 22:1–10, Luke 14:16–24).[35] Jesus used the abuse that slaves sometimes suffered on account of their masters as an analogy for the persecution they would encounter for his sake (see Matthew 10:24–25, John 13:16, John 15:20).

While these parable accounts of violence against slaves are literary inventions, they draw on the realities of slave life and reflect the kind of treatment that slaves experienced. These stories are reinforced by historical narratives of violence against slaves. One of the few events attested in all four Gospels is an act of violence against a slave: when a group of men comes to arrest Jesus the night before his death, one of the disciples strikes a slave of the high priest and cuts off his ear (see Matthew 26:51, Mark 14:47, Luke 22:50, John 18:10).[36]

Slaves faced sexual violation

One feature of slavery that is abundantly clear from Roman literature is that slaves, particularly women and children, routinely faced sexual violation. This aspect of the slave experience is not explicitly addressed in New Testament texts, but it does provide context for some verses and raises interpretative questions for others. For example, I mentioned earlier how female slaves were usually not in control of their reproductive choices and often bore children according to the desires of their masters. This provides some context for Mary’s discussion with the angel Gabriel at the beginning of Luke’s Gospel: after being told that she will bear God’s son, Mary describes herself as a slave [doulē] of the Lord and responds, “Be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38).

Many slaves risked being sexually exploited by their masters or members of their household.[37] Many were also forced by their masters to generate income as prostitutes. Jesus noted that many prostitutes believed in the teachings of John the Baptist (see Matthew 21:31–32), and Jesus may have associated with and had disciples among slave prostitutes.[38] As Paul and other missionaries took the message of Jesus throughout the cities of the Roman world, slaves undoubtedly participated in Christian congregations. This raises a difficult question: how did slaves respond to Paul’s preaching of Christian sexual ethics? Paul emphatically taught the Corinthian saints that prostitutes and others guilty of sexual sins would not inherit the kingdom of God (see 1 Corinthians 6:9–10) and also taught that a believer having sex with a prostitute pollutes the entire body of Christ (see 1 Corinthians 6:15–18).[39] This may have been a difficult message for Christian slaveholders to hear (as Roman society viewed sex with one’s slave or with a prostitute as acceptable),[40] but as free people, they could choose to comply with Paul’s teaching. The situation was far more complicated for slaves, who were sometimes forced to have sexual relations with their masters or forced into prostitution. This coerced sex work may have led some Christian leaders to exclude these slaves from their congregations.[41]

Slaves were negatively stereotyped

Slaves faced several negative stereotypes that are reflected throughout ancient literature, including in the New Testament. Slaves were frequently characterized as lazy. In the parable of the talents, the slave who returns his talent to the master without increasing it is berated as a “wicked and lazy slave” who in the end is deemed worthless and thrown “into the outer darkness” (Matthew 25:26, 30). Jesus warns that a master who places his affairs in the hands of a slave may return to find that the slave has grown lax and “eats and drinks with drunkards” (Matthew 24:49). Acts reports that Eutychus, who was likely a slave,[42] took a nap instead of listening to Paul’s preaching, with disastrous results (see Acts 20:9–12).

Slaves were also regularly characterized as disloyal. Jesus’s parable of the unjust steward tells the story of a household manager who wastes his master’s funds and, when threatened with the loss of his position, responds by depriving his master of even more income (see Luke 16:1–12). Given this disloyal slave stereotype, it is possible that the Gospel authors purposefully describe Peter as being with and conversing with slaves as he denies Jesus: as one of Jesus’s metaphorical slaves, he is filling the slave stereotype of being cowardly and betraying his master. Cowardice itself was stereotypically associated with slaves—so much so that Paul links having “a spirit of slavery” with “fall[ing] back into fear” (Romans 8:15).

Slavery was used as a metaphor for living sinfully

Slavery was frequently used in Roman literature as a metaphor for lacking self-control. This practice finds expression in the New Testament, where authors frequently use slavery as a metaphor for living sinfully. The Gospel of John records Jesus teaching that while “everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin,” those who persevere as his disciples “will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:31–35).

Paul uses slavery as a metaphor extensively in his letter to the Romans. In Romans 6 he explains at length how Jesus’s death and resurrection have transformed believers from slaves of sin to slaves of righteousness. Before Jesus, believers presented themselves “as obedient slaves” to sin (Romans 6:16), which “exercise[0] dominion in [their] mortal bodies” (6:12). Through Christ’s death, the “old self” of each believer which was enslaved to sin has also been crucified (6:6). Paul’s metaphor here benefits from its historical accuracy: crucifixion was a dishonorable mode of execution frequently inflicted on and associated with slaves.[43] Paul then continues the metaphor, saying that Christ’s resurrection has also raised believers, who “having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness” (6:18). Paul continues to play with these contrasting metaphors of slavery to sin versus slavery to God in the following chapter as well: he talks of the struggle between his flesh, which is “a slave to the law of sin,” and his mind, which is “a slave to the law of God” (Romans 7:25). He uses similar language in Galatians, though instead of stating that sin was what held believers in bondage before Christ, he says they “were enslaved to the elemental spirits of the world” (Galatians 4:3) and could risk being enslaved by them even after knowing God if they fail to follow God’s commands (see Galatians 4:8–9).

Slavery was used as a metaphor for service to God or Jesus

Slavery as a metaphor for service to divinities has strong roots in many Near Eastern cultures, but particularly relevant for the New Testament is the frequent use of the metaphor in the Hebrew Bible and its sporadic use in Greco-Roman writings.[44] Given these precedents, it is unsurprising that the New Testament contains ample use of this metaphor. Mary, Simeon, Paul, Timothy, James, Peter, Jude, and John the Revelator all identify themselves as slaves of God or Jesus (see Luke 1:38, Luke 2:29, Galatians 1:10, Philippians 1:1, James 1:1, 2 Peter 1:1, Jude 1:1, Revelation 1:1). In some of these passages, slavery to God or Christ is linked to Christian leadership roles: Paul and Peter state that they are both slaves and apostles of Jesus. Other passages link leadership with metaphorical slavery as well: Jesus taught that “whoever wishes to become great among you [Jesus’s disciples] must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be the slave of all” (Mark 10:43–44). Second Timothy 2:24 gives advice in the context of leadership duties that the Lord’s slaves “must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, patient, correcting opponents with gentleness,” and 2 Corinthians 4:5 states that Christian leaders make themselves “slaves for Jesus’ sake.”

Most other passages that use this metaphor link being a slave to God or Jesus to simply being a believer. I have already discussed Paul’s extended discussion about how Christ’s death and resurrection change believers from slaves of sin to slaves of God and righteousness. Elsewhere, Paul states that when one is called to follow Jesus, they become a slave of Christ (see 1 Corinthians 7:22). In Acts, Peter and John call all the assembled saints God’s slaves while praying for strength to spread the word with boldness (see Acts 4:29). Throughout the book of Revelation, not only prophets are described as God’s slaves, but all the saints who follow Christ (see Revelation 1:1, 7:3, 19:2, 19:5, 22:3, 22:6).

Slaves could be freed

While most slaves likely remained slaves for their entire lives, many slaves were able to obtain freedom.[45] There are several freedmen who make appearances in the New Testament. We know from other sources that Felix, the procurator of Judea who features in Acts 24, was a freedman;[46] his powerful position is a testament to how some slaves (albeit a tiny minority) could achieve wealth and prestige after escaping slavery, especially if they had been members of the imperial household. Acts 6:9 also mentions a place in Jerusalem called “the synagogue of the Freedmen,” whose attendees (presumably former slaves) clashed with Stephen. Because manumission offered a person greatly increased autonomy, it was desirable for those trying to live Christian teachings. Amid his discussions of sexual ethics and marital concerns in 1 Corinthians, Paul counsels slaves to seek to become free if the opportunity arises, likely because freedmen and freedwomen enjoyed sexual autonomy and marital rights that a slave did not (see 1 Corinthians 7:21).[47]

I have already mentioned several places where Paul talks about believers going from being slaves of sin to being slaves of God or righteousness: the believer experiences a metaphorical change of master. In other places, however, Paul talks about Jesus releasing believers from slavery entirely. In Galatians 5:1 he proclaims, “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” The repeated use of the term “redemption” by Paul and other New Testament authors draws on this metaphor of Jesus as a deliverer from slavery: the underlying Greek term, apolytrōsis, is used in other contexts to describe ransoming someone from slavery or captivity.[48] Other verses expand the metaphor by naming the redemption price Jesus paid to free believers: “his blood” (Ephesians 1:7) and his death (see Hebrews 9:15).[49] Paul also states in Galatians 4:4–7 that each disciple is not only freed by Christ from slavery but also adopted by God, making him or her “no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir.”

Slaves and free people sought unity in Christ

Amid the narratives, analogies, and exhortations featuring slavery in the New Testament, there are also several notable passages that declare the equality of slaves and free people in the church and urge unity among disciples. While introducing his analogy of the church as the body of Christ, Paul tells believers that “we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:13). This erasure of distinctions through discipleship is made even more explicit in Galatians 3:28: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Colossians 3:11 shares similar sentiments: “There is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!” Some scholars believe that these three sections may be echoing the words of an early Christian baptismal formula; if this is the case, then words like these may have been known, respected, and repeated throughout the early church.[50]

Despite the circulation of these ideas among Christians, it is unclear how they were implemented. Eliminating distinctions between slaves and slaveholders in even a limited setting like the home or a house church would have been logistically difficult. For example, shortly after Paul tells the Galatians that “there is no longer slave or free,” he commands them to correct each other if one of them falls into transgression and to “bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:1–2). Would slaves have been able to reprove masters for perceived sins? Would slaveholders have heeded such correction from slaves? And how would slaveholders have borne the burdens of their slaves, when slaves existed to bear the burdens of their masters? If there were no distinction between slaves and free people in the church, would masters have worked alongside their slaves in preparing for and serving during house church gatherings, or would slaves have been expected to serve during these gatherings just as they served during other events?[51] It is impossible for us to know if Paul’s negation of the division between slave and free tangibly impacted the earliest Christian groups or if it existed largely as a spiritual ideal. Of course, these passages bring up an even more fundamental question for modern readers: given these teachings, why did early Christians not abandon slavery altogether?

Slavery persisted among early Christians

Christians were not outside observers of a slavery-saturated world: they lived in it, both as slaves and slaveholders. As cited above, New Testament writers exhorted slaves to respect and serve their masters with the same devotion that they had for the Lord. These passages likely affirmed for Christian slaveholders their right to own slaves and expect submissive service from them, and while masters are counseled in the New Testament to be just to their slaves, they are not asked to free them or exempt them from labor.[52] These passages that uphold slavery are incredibly troubling for many Latter-day Saints, particularly because of how they clash with other verses in both ancient and modern scripture that proclaim human equality.[53] While I have briefly addressed why there was no push for society-wide abolition, the question remains: why did Christians not free their own slaves?

While a full examination of this topic is beyond the scope of this paper, the following are important points of context. Several passages suggest that some New Testament writers, including Paul, expected Jesus to return imminently and thus saw little need to upend the social order when the Lord would soon do it himself.[54] Given the ubiquity of slavery in the ancient Mediterranean world, there were likely many Christian slaveholders who did not see slavery as morally problematic, so long as they treated slaves in ways that the church and broader society deemed just. The sanctioning of slavery in the Jewish scriptures also likely reassured Christians that owning slaves was permissible.[55] On a practical level, early Christianity relied immensely on the benefaction of wealthy believers, both to provide large homes as meeting places and to provide funds for Christian leaders and teachers; such homes and wealth were maintained by constant slave labor.[56] Thus, slaves may have been viewed as essential for the work of the church to move forward. Regardless of the reasons, slavery persisted among Christians for centuries with little recorded pushback.[57] For modern readers, this issue provides an opportunity to reflect on the impact that cultural context can have on both scripture and accepted conduct among believers.

Slaves in Flesh and Text

If you were to walk down the main thoroughfare of a Roman city, you would have encountered an abundance of slaves: slaves being examined and sold, slaves offering sexual services, slaves buying and selling goods, slaves shepherding children, slaves delivering messages, slaves guarding doors, slaves fetching water, slaves going out to work in the fields, slaves coming in with produce, slaves crafting pottery and textiles, slaves striking important business deals, slaves writing letters, slaves being publicly disciplined, and perhaps, just outside the city, slaves tied to crosses. Slavery was everywhere, inescapable. Similarly, as informed readers make their way through the New Testament they find themselves surrounded by slaves: narrative slaves who lose ears, guard doors, and ask for help understanding Isaiah; parabolic slaves who hide talents, discover tares, and struggle to serve two masters; metaphorical slaves who serve sin, die through Christ, then rise as slaves to righteousness; and counseled slaves, who are commanded to obey well, endure suffering, and look forward to a reward in God. My hope is that being better able to recognize and understand these textual slaves will also allow readers to better recognize and understand the messages of the New Testament, and above all, the message of Christ Jesus:

who, though he was in the form of God

did not regard equality with God

as something to be exploited,

but emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form,

he humbled himself

and became obedient to the point of death—

even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:6–8, emphasis added)

Notes

[1] S. Scott Bartchy, “Slaves and Slavery in the Roman World,” in The World of the New Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts, ed. Joel B. Green and Lee Martin McDonald (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), 172.

[2] All scripture citations are from the NRSV unless otherwise specified. I use the NRSV here because it usually translates slave-related terms more understandably for modern readers than the King James Version.

[3] Walter Bauer, “doulos,” A Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., ed. Frederick W. Danker, trans. William F. Arndt, F. Wilbur Gingrich, and F. W. Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 259–60.

[4] Of the 127 occurrences of doulos in the KJV, it is rendered as “servant” 120 times, as “bond” six times, and as “bondman” once.

[5] “Slave” appears in the KJV only twice: Jeremiah 2:14 and Revelation 18:13 (translated from sōmatōn). John Noonan notes that the earliest translators of the Bible into English “did not bowdlerize the Bible deliberately [by using ‘servant’ instead of ‘slave’]. Slavery, for them, was not a racist institution. Slavery as such was not current in England. ‘Servant’ could carry the sense of ‘slave.’ By the time of the King James translators, ‘slave’ was associated with blackness. . . .A deliberate choice may have been made to avoid the new connotation by retaining ‘servant.’” John T. Noonan Jr., A Church That Can and Cannot Change: The Development of Catholic Moral Teaching (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 23.

[6] “servant, n,” OED Online, June 2021, Oxford University Press, http://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/176648.

[7] “slave, n.1 (and adj.),” OED Online, December 2020, Oxford University Press, http://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/181477.

[8] Bauer, “pais, 3,” Greek–English Lexicon, 750. Kelly Wrenhaven argues that this reflects the Greek perception of slaves as childlike in their inferiority to free people. Kelly L. Wrenhaven, Reconstructing the Slave: The Image of the Slave in Ancient Greece (London: Bristol Classical Press, 2012), 19. The New Testament contains both passages where pais clearly means “child” (see Matthew 2:16) and where it clearly means “slave” (see Matthew 14:2), as well as places where there is some ambiguity (see Acts 20:12).

[9] Paidiskē is translated as “damsel” in Matthew 26:69, John 18:17, Acts 12:13, and Acts 16:16. It is translated as “maid” in Mark 14:66, Mark 14:69, and Luke 22:56. It is translated as “maiden” in Luke 12:45. All these references likely refer to female slaves. See Bauer, “paidiskē,” Greek–English Lexicon, 749–50.

[10] These include thyrōros (Mark 13:34, John 10:3, John 18:16–17), therapeia (Matthew 24:45, Luke 12:42), and paidagōgos (1 Corinthians 4:15, Galatians 3:24–25).

[11] Bauer, “sōma, 2,” Greek–English Lexicon, 984.

[12] Sometimes multiple masters owned ‘shares’ in a slave and fought over the specifics of the slave’s service. A set of papyri documents from Egypt describe three brothers who inherited shares in a slave named Martilla; two of the brothers sought legal redress against the third, who pledged Martilla to a creditor and led to her being violently kidnapped. Jennifer A. Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006), 108. Slaves (especially female slaves) could also be caught between the sexual demands of their master and the vindictive jealousy of their mistress. See Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity, 51–52.

[13] Antebellum abolitionists, attempting to decry slavery while also upholding the authority of the Bible, leaned heavily on the KJV’s use of “servant” instead of “slave” to argue that the New Testament did not speak of true slaves. J. Albert Harrill summarizes the argument this way: “The ‘learned and pious’ translators of the King James Version ‘never once, in the whole Bible,’ gave the word doulos the meaning ‘slave,’ but ‘servant.’ ‘If they were slaves, the translators of our Bible would have called them so.’” J. Albert Harrill, Slaves in the New Testament (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006), 167; emphasis in original.

[14] For a brief discussion on the geographic range of the Roman slave trade, see Sandra R. Joshel, Slavery in the Roman World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 89–95.

[15] See Bartchy, Slaves and Slavery, 174.

[16] Commentators have traditionally understood Paul’s letter to Philemon to be addressing a runaway slave situation: Paul is asking Philemon to accept back his runaway slave Onesimus with love rather than anger. More recent scholars, noting that Onesimus is not explicitly identified as a runaway slave, have proposed alternate readings of the letter. See Allan Dwight Callahan, “Paul’s Epistle to Philemon: Toward an Alternative Argumentum,” Harvard Theological Review 86, no. 4 (1993): 357–76.

[17] The lex Aelia Sentia, established in 4 CE, stipulated that a slave needed to be at least thirty years old before they could be formally manumitted. Younger slaves could be manumitted but did not enjoy all the benefits of formal manumission. See Keith R. Bradley, Slavery and Society at Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 156.

[18] William V. Harris, “Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade,” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 36 (1980): 118.

[19] Joshel, Slavery in the Roman World, 8.

[20] To help explain why this was the case, Orlando Patterson (a sociologist who studies slave societies throughout history) notes that slavery frequently existed on three levels: individual slaves, slavery as an institution, and slavery-dependent society as a whole. While “there was wide latitude in the moral space open to individuals in their personal attitudes towards slaves, [there was] virtually no room for moral or conceptual doubt about the institution of slavery or slave society.” Thus, while it was possible for ancient authors to advocate for more humane treatment of individual slaves (see note 25), to advocate for changing the institution of slavery or slave society as a whole “was intellectually inconceivable, and socially, politically and economically impossible.” Orlando Patterson, “Paul, Slavery and Freedom: Personal and Socio-Historical Reflections,” Semeia 83 (1998): 266–7.

[21] One example of this is from Seneca who, in Epistulae morales 47, bemoans a perceived shift among Roman slaveholders from paternal care for their slaves to cruel tyranny over them. Passages in the New Testament admonish slaveholders to “treat your slaves justly and fairly” (Colossians 4:1) and to “stop threatening them” (Ephesians 6:9).

[22] Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity, 139.

[23] Luke notes that Jesus used this analogy when teaching the apostles (see Luke 17:5) and introduced it by saying “who among you would say to your slave” (Luke 17:7; emphasis added), perhaps implying that some of them owned slaves. See Jennifer A. Glancy, Slavery as Moral Problem in the Early Church and Today (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011), 14.

[24] The precise position of the unjust steward (described in the text as an oikonomos) is a matter of dispute. While some argue that the parable makes more sense when he is understood as a freedman (see Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity, 109), others emphasize how much his conduct fits Roman literary slave stereotypes. See Mary Ann Beavis, “Ancient Slavery as an Interpretative Context for the New Testament Servant Parables with Special Reference to the Unjust Steward (Luke 16:1–8),” Journal of Biblical Literature 111 (1992): 44–49.

[25] For a brief discussion of the evidence for this, see Jennifer A. Glancy and Stephen D. Moore, “How Typical a Roman Prostitute Is Revelation’s ‘Great Whore’?” Journal of Biblical Literature 130, no. 3 (2011): 557. They mention that “throughout antiquity, the term [pornē] was, for all intents and purposes, a virtual synonym of [doulē]” and that analysis of Pompeiian graffiti mentioning prostitute names revealed each woman mentioned was likely a slave.

[26] Galatians 6:11, 1 Corinthians 16:21, Colossians 4:18, Philemon 1:19, and 2 Thessalonians 1:17 all strongly imply Paul’s use of a scribe to record the bulk of his letters. For a discussion of these verses, see Lincoln H. Blumell, “Scribes and Ancient Letters: Implications for the Pauline Epistles,” in How the New Testament Came to Be: The Thirty-fifth Annual Sidney B. Sperry Symposium, ed. Kent P. Jackson and Frank F. Judd Jr. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2006), 215–19.

[27] Scholarly confidence on this point is based on strong evidence that “the vast majority of Roman scribes were enslaved or formerly enslaved people.” Candida Moss, “Fashioning Mark: Early Christian Discussions about the Scribe and Status of the Second Gospel,” New Testament Studies 67, no. 2 (2021): 184.

[28] While some commentators believe that Erastus’s title of oikonomos indicates a high civil position not filled by slaves, Steven J. Friesen argues based on epigraphic evidence than an oikonomos “would have been a low to midlevel functionary in the city’s financial administration, not a Roman citizen, and probably a slave. He may have had social and economic resources beyond most of the population but not nearly equal to those of the colony’s elite.” Steven J. Friesen, “The Wrong Erastus: Ideology, Archaeology, and Exegesis,” in Corinth in Context: Comparative Studies on Religion and Society, ed. S. J. Friesen et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 245.

[29] For a brief discussion of eunuchs as slaves and particularly royal slaves, see Sean D. Burke, Queering the Ethiopian Eunuch: Strategies of Ambiguity in Acts (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013), 98–103. Some commentators mention that, since eunouchos (eunuch) is sometimes used as a generic term for officials without reference to castration, Acts 8 may not be identifying this Ethiopian as a physical eunuch, which would make it more difficult to identify him as a slave. However, Brittany E. Wilson argues that contextual clues make it very likely that a literal eunuch is implied here. See “‘Neither Male nor Female’: The Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8.26–40,” New Testament Studies 60, no. 3 (2014): 405–6.

[30] These texts are parts of a particular genre of passage known as “household codes,” which appear in the writings of prominent ancient authors like Aristotle, Xenophon, Cato, Seneca, Philo, and Josephus. Household codes typically advise male heads of household on proper relations between husbands and wives, parents and children, and masters and slaves. While the New Testament household codes mirror the hierarchical expectations of other Greco-Roman codes (perhaps to make Christians appear less socially subversive), they are distinct in how they address both parties in these relationships and in how they frame proper relations around submission to Christ. See Carolyn Osiek, “Household Codes,” https://www.bibleodyssey.org:443/people/related-articles/household-codes.

[31] A few of the nonlethal slave punishments mentioned outside of the New Testament include whipping, striking with a rod, punching, kicking, slapping, gouging eyes, stabbing, shackling, sexually assaulting, depriving food, or assigning onerous labor. Slaves could provoke these punishments for doing as little as cooking poorly, messing up a master’s hair, dropping something, glaring, mumbling, being loud, coughing, sneezing, or simply being near a master in a foul mood. See Joshel, Slavery in the Roman World, 122–23.

[32] While more common modes of slave execution included crucifixion, burning, or arena combat against wild animals (see Joshel, Slavery in the Roman World, 121), other accounts mention dismemberment, drowning, and feeding to lampreys (see Keith R. Bradley, Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire: A Study in Social Control [Revue D’Etudes Latines 185; Brussels: Latomus, 1984], 121).

[33] “An inscription from the Italian city of Puteoli details the job description of a manceps, which includes the task of torturing and even executing slaves on demand. Private citizens could hire the manceps to conduct the desired torture of their slaves. The manceps would supply the necessary equipment, sparing slave owners the burden of stockpiling such hardware themselves.” Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity, 102.

[34] “Roman law stated that when a third party abused or insulted a slave, the slaveholder, not the slave, suffered the injury. Abuse of a slave was an attack on the slaveholder’s personal dignity, an injury from which slaves were immune because slaves did not possess dignity in their own right.” Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity, 12.

[35] In both parables mentioned here, the slaves are parabolic stand-ins for God’s prophets. By utilizing this metaphor of service to God as slavery here, Jesus may be implying that service to God may require one’s life and that those who attack God’s slaves are also striking at God himself.

[36] John is the only account to identify both the attacker (Peter) and the victim (Malchus). It is unclear what role this slave played in the arrest party, but he may have been singled out for this treatment due to his slave status. It is noteworthy that Jesus condemns this act of violence against a slave.

[37] This is graphically reflected in a graffito from a barracks in Pompeii: “Take hold of your servant girl whenever you want to; it’s your right.” J. P. Toner, The Ancient World: Ideas in Profile (London: Profile Books, 2015), 20.

[38] The Synoptic Gospels (particularly Matthew and Luke) frequently mention Jesus associating with “tax collectors and sinners.” Exactly who those sinners are is not defined, but in Matthew 21:31–32 the phrase is instead “tax collectors and the prostitutes.” The woman mentioned in Luke 7:36–50 is frequently identified as a prostitute, though that is not stated in the text.

[39] It should be noted that “[t]he slave’s lack of moral responsibility for sex initiated by a free man was implicit in Roman law[.]” Carolyn Osiek, “Female Slaves, Porneia, and the Limits of Obedience,” in Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue, ed. David L. Balch and Carolyn Osiek (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 263. Likewise, Latter-day Saint theology recognizes that victims of sexual violence are not in any way guilty of sin.

[40] “The assumption seems implicit in Roman society that intercourse with a slave, who had no moral responsibility and no choice, was morally neutral for the free initiator.” Susan Treggiari, Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), 301.

[41] For an extended treatment of this question, see Jennifer A. Glancy, “Obstacles to Slaves’ Participation in the Corinthian Church,” Journal of Biblical Literature 117, no. 3 (1998): 481–501.

[42] While Eutychus is not explicitly described as a slave, several elements in his story mark him as a likely slave: his name (meaning “Lucky”) is a common slave name, he is described as a pais, and he fits Roman stereotypes for comic slaves. See Ben Witherington III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 607.

[43] Peter Hunt describes crucifixion as “a punishment reserved for slaves and non–citizens and called ‘the servile punishment.’” Ancient Greek and Roman Slavery (Newark: John Wiley & Sons, 2017), 201.

[44] For a brief discussion, see I. A. H. Combes, The Metaphor of Slavery in the Writings of the Early Church, Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series 156 (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 42–48.

[45] For a good discussion of manumission, see Bradley, Slavery and Society, 154–64.

[46] See Rainer Metzner, “Felix,” in Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception: Essenes–Fideism, ed. Eric Ziolkowski et al. (Boston: De Gruyter, 2010), https://www–degruyter–com.erl.lib.byu.edu/database/EBR/entry/MainLemma_6720/html. It is important to remember that Felix is among the most fortunate of freed slaves: his extraordinary rise in station was made possible only through his relationship to the emperor.

[47] Paul’s meaning in 1 Corinthians 7:21 is not entirely transparent, and scholars disagree over both how to translate the verse and how to interpret it. I lean toward J. Albert Harrill’s understanding of the verse: “You were called as a slave. Do not worry about it. But if you can indeed become free, use instead [freedom].” J. Albert Harrill, The Manumission of Slaves in Early Christianity (Tübingen: JCB Mohr, 1995), 122.

[48] “Although rare, ‘set free’ ([apolytrōsis]) has a consistent meaning: ‘setting free for a ransom.’ In Greek literature, captors exact a ransom fee for freedom of an individual (Plut Pomp 24; cf. [apolytroō]: D. 12.3; Pl Lg 919a). In Josephus, King Aristaeus ‘sets free’ ([apolytrōsis]) a group of slaves, who were captured in war and sold into slavery (Ant. 12.2.3 § 27)[.]” Herbert W. Bateman IV, Interpreting the General Letters: An Exegetical Handbook, ed. John D. Harvey (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2014), 107.

[49] In addition to the verses mentioned here, other verses that use apolytrōsis include Luke 21:28, Romans 3:24 and 8:23, 1 Corinthians 1:30, Ephesians 1:14 and 4:30, Colossians 1:14 (in some manuscripts), and Hebrews 11:35.

[50] See Shelly Matthews, “Galatians 3:28,” https://www.bibleodyssey.org:443/en/passages/related-articles/galatians-3-28.

[51] John Barclay brings up these insightful questions as a way of illustrating how “it is hard to imagine masters and slaves being able to pretend that they were of equal status.” John M. G. Barclay, “Paul, Philemon, and the Dilemma of Christian Slave-Ownership,” New Testament Studies 37, no. 2 (1991): 177–80.

[52] While some commentators read Paul’s letter to Philemon as a request for Philemon to free his slave Onesimus, others argue that Paul’s intentions are ambiguous, and the letter clearly does not advocate for widespread manumission: see Barclay, “Paul,” 170–75. And while Revelation 18:13 refers disapprovingly to the Roman slave trade, it does not address the issue of Christians owning slaves.

[53] See Romans 2:11, Galatians 3:28, 1 Nephi 17:35, 2 Nephi 26:33.

[54] A section likely demonstrating this line of thought is 1 Corinthians 7:17–31, where Paul encourages the Corinthians to “remain in the condition in which you were called [to follow Christ],” whether that be as a slave or as uncircumcised or as an unmarried person, because “the appointed time has grown short” and “the present form of this world is passing away.”

[55] For a brief survey of scholarship on Jewish slavery, see Jonathan J. Hatter, “Slavery and the Enslaved in the Roman World, the Jewish World, and the Synoptic Gospels,” Currents in Biblical Research 20, no. 1 (2021): 107–11.

[56] See Barclay, “Paul,” 184.

[57] Two noteworthy exceptions are found in the Shepherd of Hermas, where believers are exhorted to use their wealth to free slaves or others in distress (Similitiudes 1.8, 10.4) and in Ignatius’s letter to Polycarp, where Ignatius implies that some Christians have been using church funds to purchase freedom for slaves (4.3). More substantive Christian critiques of slavery do not appear until the fourth century, starting with Gregory of Nyssa’s Homilies on Ecclesiastes. For a brief discussion, see David Bentley Hart, “The ‘Whole Humanity’: Gregory of Nyssa's Critique of Slavery in Light of his Eschatology,” Scottish Journal of Theology 5, no. 1 (2001): 51–69.