and thousands. He advises the liberation of superfluous slaves, and the education of all, that in case they should be liberated, they may know how^ to take care of themselves. He is of opinion that the first Chris- tian community at Jerusalem, in connection with community of goods, emancipated all their slaves ; ' and thus he gives his hearers a hint to follow that example. But of an appeal to slaves to break their bonds, this father shows of course no trace ; he rather, after apostolic precedent, exhorts them to con- scientious and cheerful obedience for Christ's sake, as earnestly as he inculcates upon masters humanity and love. The same is true of Ambrose, Augustine, and Peter Chrysologus of Ra- venna (t 458). St. Angustine, the noblest representative of the Latin church, in his profound work on the " City of God," excludes slavery from the original idea of man and the final condition of society, and views it as an evil consequent upon sin, yet under divine direction and control. For God, he says, created man reasonable and lord only over the unreasonable, not over man. The burden of servitude was justly laid upon the sin- ner. Therefore the term servant is not found in the Scriptures till Noah used it as a curse upon his offending son. Thus it was guilt and not nature that deserved that name. The Latin word servus is supposed to be derived from servare [servire rather], or the preservation of the prisoners of war from death, which itself implies the desert of sin. For even in a just war there is sin on one side, and every victory humbles the con- quered by divine judgment, either reforming their sins or punishing them. Daniel saw in the sins of the people the real cause of their captivity. Sin, therefore, is the mother of ser- vitude and first cause of man's subjection to man ; yet this ' Homil. xi. in Acta Apost. (Opera omn., torn. ix. p. 93) : OuSe yap tots tovto ^v, aW' eKev^fpovs iffws infrpeirov ylveaSiai. The monk Nilus, a pupil of Chrysos- tom, went so far as to declare slaveholding inconsistent with true love to Christ, Ep. lib. i. ep. 142 (quoted by Neander in his chapter on monasticism) : Ou yap ol/xai oj-ceTTji' txef Thi> (pi\6xP'<JT0v, €i5oto t^]v X^-P'-" ''"'''' t'O-vtus iAiv^epciaacrav. 120 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. does not come to pass except by the judgment of God, with whom there is no injustice, and who knows how to adj\ist the various punishments to the merits of the offenders. . . . The apostle exhorts the servants to obey their masters and to serv^e them ex anhno^ with good will ; to the end that, if they caimot be made free from their masters, they may make their servitude a fi-eedom to themselves by serving them not in deceitful fear, but ill faithful love, until iniquity be overpassed, and all man's principality and power be annulled, and