Slavery in Early Christianity.(Book Review)

by Jennifer A. Glancy (Oxford: Oxford U.P., 2002; pp. 203. 30 [pounds sterling]).

This book is primarily a fairly dry survey of the operation of slavery in the Roman empire which concentrates on the New Testament writings as sources. Many of these Christian texts illustrate information already familiar to many secular historians that slaves suffered painful beatings if they were held to be delinquent or deficient in their duties and the fear that such whippings naturally engendered was a motivating force in producing virtues. One might expect someone before Gregory of Nyssa to have demanded the ending of this system. In pagan society without argument a slave was taken …