the contrary, as a challenge to remain in their servitude, since they are at all events inwardly free in Christ, and their outward condition is of no account.' Even St. Chrysostom, though of all the church fathers the nearest to the emancipation theory and the most attentive to the question of slavery in general, does not rise materially above this view.* According to him mankind were originally created perfectly free and equal, without the addition of a slave. But by the fall man lost the power of self-government, and fell into a threefold bondage : the bondage of woman under man, of slave under master, of subject under ruler. These three relations he considers divine punishments and divine means of discipline. Thus slavery, as a divine arrange- ment occasioned by the fall, is at once relatively justified and in principle condemned. Now since Christ has delivered us from evil and its consequences, slavery, according to Chrysos- tom, is in principle abolished in the church, yet only in the sense in which sin and death are abolished. Regenerate Chris- tians are not slaves, but perfectly free men in Ckrist and brethren among themselves. The exclusive authority of the one and subjection of the other give place to mutual servnce in love. Consistently carried out, this view leads of course ' 1 Cor. vii. 21. The Greek fathers supply, with naWov xpv<^^h the word SovKeia (Chrysostom : fiaWoi/ SovXevf ) ; whereas nearly all modern interpreters (except De Wette, Meyer, Ewald, and Alford) follow Calvin and Grotius in supplying i\fv^epia. Chrysostom, however, mentions this construction, and in another place (Serm. iv. in Genes, torn. v. p. 666) seems himself to favor it. The verb ttse connects itself more naturally with freedom^ which is a boon and a blessing, than with bondage, which is a state of privation. Milman, however, goes too far when he asserts (Lat. Christianity, vol. i. 492): "The abrogation of slavery was not contemplated even as a remote possibility. A general enfranchisement seems never to have dawned on the wisest and best of the Christian writers, notwithstanding the greater facility for manumission, and the sanctity, as it were, assigned to the act by Constan- tine, by placing it under the special superintendence of the clergy." Compare against this statement the views of Chrysostom and Augustine, in the test. * The views of Chrysostom on slavery are presented in his Homilies on Genesis and on the Epistles of Paul, and are collected by Mohler in his beautiful article on the Abolition of Slavery (Vermischte Schriften, ii. p. 89 sqq.). Mohler says that since the times of the apostle Paul no one has done a more valuable service to slaves than St. Chrysostom. But he overrates his merit. § 20. THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY. 119 to emancipation. Chrysostom, it is true, does not cany it to that point, but he decidedly condemns all luxurious slave- holding, and thinks one or two servants enough for necessary help, while many patricians had hundreds