Social Justice and the Legitimacy of Slavery: The Role of Philosophical Asceticism from Ancient Judaism to Late Antiquity by Ilaria L. E. Ramelli (review)

Over the last twenty years, there has been a steady growth of studies on slavery in the ancient world. The majority of the newer studies have, and rightfully so, demonstrated the brutality of slavery and abuse—physical, mental, and sexual—of which slaves suffered. The emphasis on slavery as inhumane must be seen as a response to apologetic tendencies in research on slavery that arose during abolitionism and in its aftermath, and that were maintained by scholars way beyond its date of expiration, partially due to political and religious motifs. In this climate of research, Ilaria L. E. Ramelli’s Social Justice and the Legitimacy of Slavery takes a different approach to ancient slavery. Ramelli explores discourses on the legitimacy of slavery and “the relationship between asceticism and the rejection of slavery” (Preface).

The book may be described as an intellectual history on the subject of the legitimacy/illegitimacy of slavery among ancient philosophers and Jewish and Christian writers. It is arranged chronologically starting from the Greek sophists and ending with asceticism in late antiquity. The main character, however, is Gregory of Nyssa, whose opposition to slavery as an institution is, in the words of Ramelli, “eminently theological and specifically Christian” (232–33). Ramelli details that ancient philosophers debated the validity of slavery, slavery and humanity, and that they criticized excessive mistreatment but not slavery as an institution. The Stoics were more concerned about “real” slavery, that is, enslavement to vice, than social and legal slavery. Christians too were content to let slavery continue in its existence. What then led Gregory to his conclusions that human nature cannot be divided into slavery and mastery, that the elimination of slavery in the eschatological situation should set a normative template for Christians and, consequently, that they should free their slaves (188–89)?

The main thesis in Social Justice is that there is a strong relationship between asceticism and the rejection of slavery and a criticism of lavish wealth accumulated at the cost of the poor. This view was not only a moral criticism of the wealthy, but a deeply felt solidarity with the oppressed (17–20 and 251). In the wake of the abolitionism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, scholars had to explain the absence of protests against slavery whilst recognizing the suffering it caused. They emphasized that Christianity did cause social upheaval but sought to change the hearts of both master and slave. Thus emerged the myth that Christianity planted the seed of slavery’s implosion.

While Ramelli is interested in the relatively humane view on slavery in the Christian tradition, she notes that wealthy Christians maintained the status quo of slavery. The resistance to slavery came from those who rejected conventional values in the society. For instance, Philo’s account of the Therapeutae is used to support the thesis that asceticism and renunciation led to a rejection of slavery (82–96). Apparently, the radical rejection of possessions and slaves co-existed alongside the social and economic institutions that enabled the extraction of means from the poor and slavery—and without much moral struggle for those who benefitted from these structures. An investigation of these parallel Christian ethics is not pursued in this book. Altogether, it is the thoughts, ideas, and content in the writings of the Christian ascetics that shape the book.

Due to the broad historical ground that the book covers in its seven chapters and 253 pages, there are bound to be themes not dealt with at length. However, it is unfortunate that Ramelli eschews deliberations on the methodological or theoretical complications about studying ancient attitudes towards slavery. Ramelli often presents her sources in a straightforward manner. A more critical interrogation would have been welcome. The second chapter deals with the New Testament and serves as “scriptural background” for...