The Slaves of the Churches: A History by Mary E. Sommar

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Slaves of the Churches: A History by Mary E. Sommar Michael Flexsenhar III Mary E. Sommar The Slaves of the Churches: A History New York: Oxford University Press, 2020 Pp. 280. $34.95. The opportunity to read about Christians in the Roman Empire and Christians in the early Middle Ages, both in a single volume, is rare and welcome. The enduring human practice of slavery has unfortunately made that reading possible. Mary E. Sommar's sweeping book, The Slaves of the Churches, brings together an abundance of texts from the first to the fourteenth century and beyond in order to trace "the church's own norms concerning ecclesiastical unfree dependents and the evolution of these norms over time, with attention to how they were affected by the social, economic, political, and legal developments of the larger society" (2–3). The book analyzes mainly "canonical texts," that is, "all of the canons of the 'ecumenical' councils" as well as the "synodal material" up to the ninth century and the "normative canonical material from the twelfth-and thirteenth-century 'classical' period of canon law" (7). Included is also a "random sample" of letters, charters, sermons, and royal proclamations from the "various societies" (7). That massive collection of writings related to slavery in Christianity is the book's primary strength. The approach is Catholic church history—perfectly understandable for a medievalist whose "scholarly home turf" is western canon law (1)—but it is difficult to find any canon law before the ecumenical councils, if not later. As a result, an approach focused on "[t]he early Christian church" (27) before any institution existed to enforce a nominal "orthodoxy," is thorny, and anachronistic, when applied to the New Testament (Chapter Two) or even the patristic writings (Chapter Three). Scholars of the New Testament and early Christianity may find this early portion of the book wanting. It succeeds in compiling and discussing a wealth of passages dealing with slavery, but sacrifices depth for breadth. In a book that queries church leaders and authorities about their "ecclesiastical servile dependents," [End Page 302] it is also curious that Katherine Shaner's Enslaved Leadership in Early Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2018) is referred to only once and in brisk passing as "an intriguing perspective on the ideas about slavery found in 1 Timothy" (35n92). Philologists and lexicographers might be disappointed as well that throughout the book, the Greek word for "slave" is displayed with an umlaut (δοϋλος) rather than with a circumflex. Slavery in the imperial church (Chapter Four) relates the key issue of the church's inalienable property (res ecclesiae) and the regulations over how to properly manage it, including the servi ecclesiarum. The outcome: "there was almost no way to escape ecclesiastical servitude" (103). Within these pages, the discussion of freeing slaves by means of a church ceremony (manumissio in ecclesia) was particularly intriguing, although the book does not describe how exactly the ceremony unfolded or the impact that ritualizing manumission had in the long run (77–83). Sommar discusses Augustine's views of slavery (85–89), but Gregory of Nyssa receives a more robust analysis than any other figure in the chapter, since Gregory "has often been hailed as the only one of the early church teachers to speak out against slavery" (99; also 65, 103–4). Sommar concludes, however, that Gregory clearly saw slave ownership as normal, even for those who embraced the ascetic life (102). While the chapter challenges the idea that Gregory opposed slavery, it does not actually spar with any scholars who hold that idea. Sommar only twice cites Chris De Wet's recent books on slavery in early Christian thought (30n68 and 65n4), but does not integrate De Wet's analyses, whether on Nyssa or on John Chrysostom (64–65), either of which would go a long way towards explaining the formation of the "norms" that Sommar seeks to trace out. Equally perplexing, Ilaria Ramelli's Social Justice and the Legitimacy of Slavery (Oxford University Press, 2017) is entirely absent from this book, even though Ramelli's work dissects texts from ancient Judaism to late antiquity—including several of Gregory's—and investigates specifically early Christian authors' own...