During Paul’s lifetime, under the emperors Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, the practice of slavery was widespread and even those of modest means routinely owned a few slaves.9 It is estimated that out of a population of 45 million in the empire under Augustus (31 B.C. to A.D. 14), at least 20–30 percent were slaves. The majority of them had become slaves as a result of Roman military conquest. Slaves worked in private homes, on farms and estates, in factories and mines, on public projects. They were absolutely essential to the vast imperial governmental network spread throughout every Roman province, not to mention the bureaucratic central administration in Rome. In Italy the percentage of slaves was much higher, estimated as high as 40 percent of the population. Some were poor and destitute, others were quite privileged and educated, but even household slaves were provided food, clothing, and shelter of significantly less quality than family members enjoyed. Slaves were considered property and owners exercised absolute dominium or “lordship” over them. Legally, slaves had no rights, even to family or property. Children born to slaves belonged to the owner. Even though there were some laws against the extreme abuse of slaves, they could be beaten, punished, and used sexually as their owners pleased.10
There were also large numbers of ex-slaves or freedmen, called libertini, who enjoyed limited rights of voting and ownership of property after their legal manumission. Many visitors to Pompeii have marveled at the luxurious House of the Vettii, owned by the Vettius brothers, who evidently were freedmen. Cicero, the first-century B.C. Roman philosopher and statesman, had a slave named Tiro who served ably as his secretary and confidant. Cicero and his children loved him. In A.D. 53 Cicero freed Tiro when the latter was fifty years old. Tiro edited some of Cicero’s letters after he died and even composed a biography of his former master. He is credited with perfecting a form of shorthand and is thus responsible for the recording of so many of Cicero’s speeches.11
Obviously, for a slave to obtain freedom was a highly prized opportunity. Paul has been roundly criticized for condoning slavery by not demanding that Christian slave owners free their slaves. But his position on slavery, as with all issues of social and ethnic identity, is consistent. Three times in this context Paul repeats what he calls his “rule in all the churches,” namely that everyone should lead the life that “the Lord has distributed to him” at the time he or she was “invited” through the gospel (1 Corinthians 7:17). He explains:
Everyone should remain in the calling in which he was called. Were you a slave when called? Never mind. Even if you can gain your freedom, make use of [the slavery].12 For he who was called in the Lord as a slave is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise he who was free when called is a slave of Christ. (1 Corinthians 7:20–22)
In Paul’s view, even if one is a slave he or she is actually free—in the Lord. And those who are free are “slaves” of Christ—so all such differences are of no consequence. They exist but they don’t exist, depending on which “world” is one’s reference point.
Paul repeats for a third time his general rule: “So, brethren, in whatever calling each was called there let him remain with God” (1 Corinthians 7:24). His rule here is precisely parallel to what he says about marriage: “Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek marriage” (1 Corinthians 7:27). And though he does not forbid marriage, he also would not forbid that a slave accept manumission—he just prefers that everyone remain as they are since God was the one who put them in such circumstances in the first place. Paul believed that all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purposes (Romans 8:28). That means to be a slave could potentially be a good thing, since God is the one who has ordered everything.
Paul’s rule, thrice repeated here, is laid down in the context of his expectation of the impending apocalypse, so that if the “appointed time has grown very short,” no current state of life in which one finds oneself is a lasting condition. But what is more important, any “calling” one finds oneself in is just that—one that he says the Lord assigned, for his own purposes.
As with marriage and sexuality, however, the short time left before Christ returns is not as important a factor as the spiritual reality one already has in Christ. With God there is neither male nor female, neither slave nor free. On the level of what he calls “the flesh,” such matters might seem important, but from the viewpoint of those in Christ, all such states of life are transcended by the new creation, which is already here—but has not yet arrived!
Paul applied this principle of living lawfully within the society and accepting things as ordered by God even to the Roman governing authorities: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed and those who resist incur judgment” (Romans 13:1–2). Christians are to pay their taxes, showing respect and honor to those in authority (Romans 13:7). Considering that Paul’s life spans the reigns of Roman emperors of the likes of Caligula and Nero, notorious for their cruelty and ruthlessness, this instruction is really quite remarkable. One might think that Paul’s apocalyptic stance regarding the imminent overthrow of the present evil world, not to mention the Roman military occupation of his homeland, would preclude his referring to the Roman authorities as God’s servants. In Paul’s view the present economic and social configuration of society was a matter of indifference. God orders present circumstances but all is in the process of passing away.
Toward the end of his life, when Paul was imprisoned in Rome in the early 60s A.D., contemplating that he might not live to see the return of Christ, he took a much more practical approach to slavery. It just so happens that the last letter we have from him, only a page or two in length, deals with this very subject. Paul writes from prison in Rome to Philemon, one of his more well-to-do converts, who lived in Asia Minor. Paul had chanced upon a runaway slave, named Onesimus, belonging to Philemon and whom he had converted to Christianity. Roman law required that runaway slaves be sent back to their owners and anyone aiding such a fugitive could be liable for damages. Paul writes from prison that he is sending Onesimus back, and subtly hints, but does not demand, that Philemon free him to serve Paul. He even offers to pay any damages Onesimus might owe. Paul suggests that perhaps Onesimus’s running away was for some greater purpose, so that Philemon could “have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother . . . both in the flesh and in the Lord” (verse 16). Paul still maintains that one’s state of life “in the flesh” is nothing to compare to one’s “freedom” in the Lord—but nonetheless, he sees that being free in the flesh, as well as in the Lord, could have a decided practical advantage.
One might see some inconsistency here in that Paul expects the life of the flesh to go on with respect to slavery, paying taxes, and living in submission to Roman civil rule, while he seems to expect his followers somehow to transcend the flesh with respect to matters of sexuality, marriage, ethnic identity, and vocation. It is obvious that he himself is caught up in the very tensions implied by his “already but not yet” stance regarding the imminent termination of history with the arrival of Christ in the clouds of heaven, and its “delay” as the decade of the 50s passed. What he most wants to see is harmony and good order in his communities, so that within and without, peace can prevail. He is forging new ground in that he is willing to take his followers outside the parameters of Jewish culture, in which matters of life in this world and the world to come were generally balanced in favor of the former. The danger was that his form of “Christianity,” freed from the practicalities of the Torah while attempting to live “as if” this world were already passing away, led to constant confusion and conflict among his followers.