As slaves were a valuable possession, bishops could no more alienate them than any other property, or only under the same conditions. This canon lays down principles generally followed in the relation of the Church toward the unfree of every sort on lands belonging to the endowments of the Church.
The bishops should possess the houses and slaves of the Church in a faithful manner and without diminishing the [pg 387] right of the Church, as the primitive authorities direct, and also the vessels of their ministry as intrusted to them. That is, they should not presume to sell nor alienate by any contracts those things from which the poor live. If necessity requires that something should be disposed of either as a usufruct[140] or in direct sale, let the case be first shown before two or three bishops of the same province or neighborhood, as to why it is necessary to sell; and after the priestly discussion has taken place, let the sale which was made be confirmed by their subscription; otherwise the sale or transaction made shall not have validity. If the bishop bestows upon any deserving slaves of the Church their liberty, let the liberty that has been conferred be respected by his successors, together with that which the manumitter gave them when they were freed; and we command them to hold twenty solidi in value in fields, vineyards, and dwellings; what shall have been given more the Church shall reclaim after the death of the one who manumitted.[141] But little things and things of less utility to the Church we permit to be given to strangers and clergy for their usufruct, the right of the Church being maintained.
(d) Apostolic Constitutions, IV, 6. (MSG, 1:812.)
Cruelty to slaves was placed upon the same moral level as cruelty and oppression of other weak and defenceless people.
The Apostolic Constitutions form an elaborate treatise upon the Church and its organization in eight books, which appear, according to the consensus of modern scholars, to belong to the early part of the fifth century. The Apostolic Canons are eighty-five canons appended to the eighth book.
Now the bishop ought to know whose oblations he ought to receive, and whose he ought not. For he is to avoid corrupt dealers and not receive their gifts.… He is also to avoid those that oppress the widow and overbear the orphan, and [pg 388] fill the prisons with the innocent, and abuse their own slaves wickedly, I mean with stripes and hunger and hard service.
(e) Apostolic Canons, Canon 81, Bruns, I, 12.
This deals with the question of the ordination of a slave. Later, if a slave was ordained without his master's consent, the ordination held, but the bishop was obliged to pay the price of the slave to his master. Cf. Council of Orleans, A. D. 511, Can. 8.
We do not permit slaves to be ordained to the clergy without their masters' consent; for this would wrong those that owned them. For such a practice would occasion the subversion of families. But if at any time a servant appears worthy to be ordained to a high office, such as Onesimus appears to have been, and if his master allows it, and gives him his freedom, and dismisses him free from his house, let him be ordained.