1 Corinthians 7:23

23. Bought Carrying out the metaphor of the slave; but it is still used to show that, as purchased by Christ, they are wrongfully bought and sold and owned by men.

Be not ye By any consent of your own. If slaves you are by compulsion of men, the crime is that of men, not yours. But whether you are compulsory bonds-men or not, be in soul so completely the liege of Christ that you are freemen as to men. There is every reason to believe that slaves formed a large part of the first Christian Churches. Says Mr. Withrow, in his Catacombs of Rome, p. 487.

“The condition of the slave population of Rome was one of inconceivable wretchedness. Colossal piles built by their blood and sweat attest the bitterness of their bondage. The lash of the taskmaster was heard in the fields, and crosses bearing aloft their quivering victims polluted the public highways. Vidius Pollio fed his lampreys with the bodies of his slaves. Four hundred of these wretched beings deluged with their blood the funeral pyre of Pedanius Secundus. A single freedman possessed over four thousand of these human chattels. They had no rights of marriage nor any claim to their children. This dumb, weltering mass of humanity, crushed by power, led by their lusts, and fed by public dole, became a hotbed of vice in which every evil passion grew.”

Yet how Christianity ignored degrading distinctions is thus shown by the records on their tombs. “Out of eleven thousand Christian inscriptions of the first six centuries, scarce half a dozen make any reference to a condition of servitude, and of these, as Dr. Northcote remarks, two or three are doubtful. Yet of pagan epitaphs at least three fourths are those of slaves or freedmen. The conspicuous absence of recognition of this unhappy distinction is no mere accident. We know that the Christians were largely drawn from the servile classes, but in the Church of God there was no respect of persons.” Catacombs, p. 485.