Book Review: Slavery in Early Christianity

BOOK REVIEW: SLAVERY IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY Student’s name Course Date Overview of the Text Jennifer Glancy’s Slavery in Early Christianity explores early Christian texts to offer the reader a reality of the institution of slavery in the early church. The book paints a horrible picture of slavery, opening the reader's eyes to the violence that characterized the lives of the enslaved in the Roman Empire. In the introduction, Glancy highlights the complexity of examining primary sources such as letters since they provide only a glimpse of what transpired during the reign of the Roman Empire. Furthermore, Glancy emphasizes the insufficiency of the sources as they were mostly written from the perspective of slaveholders, meaning they are devoid of the voices of the enslaved. Nonetheless, the author pieces together an elaborate description of how slavery transpired and manages to convince the reader that the institution was not only ubiquitous but also marked by violence against the bodies of the enslaved.[BIBLIOGRAPHY \l 1033 Glancy, Jennifer A. 2002. Slavery in Early Christianity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4.] Glancy begins her book by narrating the horror of slavery, describing how the enslaved were “vulnerable to physical control, coercion, and abuse” in both public and private places. Female slaves and young male slaves were sexually exploited by the slaveholders as the author points out that they had unrestricted sexual access to them. Given that the slaves had no control over their bodies, they acted as surrogate bodies, with which the slaveholders could perpetrate different forms of abuse. The slave bodies’ vulnerability was even inscribed in law. Female slaves were particularly valuable due to their reproductive and lactation capabilities. Not only did they give birth to more slaves but they were also wet nurses. As for male bodies, they were permanently treated as boys, which meant they could not mature into manhood or fatherhood.[Glancy, 9] [Glancy, 12] [Glancy, 19] In the second chapter of the book, the author examines how slavery occurred in the Pauline Churches, with Paul being described as encountering slaves not only in homes but also in public places. As an urban phenomenon, Pauline Christianity intertwined with urban slavery. Glancy points out that in Philippi or Corinth, there would have been prostitutes, craftspeople, and domestic slaves as opposed to urban miners or agricultural laborers. With slaves being found in almost every occupation in Roman-Greco cities, slavery was normal in Pauline Christianity. In essence, Glancy points out that slaveholders played a key role in the Christian body “that derived not from a gift of the spirit but from their secular status.” This implies that within the Church, the slaveholders had a higher profile compared to the enslaved. This begs the question if Paul had included the enslaved who had no control over their bodies, would it have threatened the clear boundaries for the Christian body?[Glancy, 40.] [Glancy, 49.] In Chapter 3, the author explores the functioning of the slavery system in the Roman Empire. Positioning of slaves as bodies was integral to the smooth running of the slavery system in the empire. A major source of slaves for the body shop described in the book is that they were born to enslaved women. Infants who were not acknowledged by their fathers were abandoned in the open air and were rescued and raised as slaves. Other key sources of slaves included war captures and body snatching. An interesting source of slavery was self-sale, where one would choose to become a slave.[Glancy, 73] Chapter 4 explores the sayings of Jesus as described in the gospels to u...