It is extremely difficult for us to grasp the extent to which slavery and mastery permeated the lives and minds of people in antiquity. De Wet's book takes on this challenge by showing us how slavery shaped people's views of themselves, their families, their society, and their religion. This book is particularly noteworthy for its refusal to congratulate early Christian thinkers for suggesting that slaveholders should possess fewer slaves, teach slaves about Christianity, or punish them less harshly—rather than showing signs of abolitionary thinking, they Christianized slavery and, in doing so, reinforced its place in Late Antique society.
By focusing on John Chrysostom, de Wet shows how an influential Christian's understanding of doctrine and ethics relied on the dynamics of slavery. Drawing on critical theory, de Wet addresses how slave bodies were treated, and how Christianity changed (but did not ameliorate) this treatment. De Wet's particular interest in slave bodies and sexuality covers some of the same territory as Kyle Harper's books, Slavery in the Late Roman World, AD 275–425 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) and From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2013). De Wet's focus on John Chrysostom allows him to convey the density of discussions and metaphors dealing with slavery. As a result, we can see that the same preacher could seem to challenge slavery in one or two instances, but actually reinforced the institution on a regular basis.
The first chapter, entitled “Introducing Doulology” (the first of many neologisms, meaning “the discourse of slavery”), demonstrates how slavery was part of “a set of nearly inescapable social dispositions” in Roman society (11). Chapter two, “Divine Bondage: Slavery between Metaphor and Theology,” examines the metaphorical use of slavery in Chrysostom's works. The relationship between slave and slaveholder was a model for discussions of God's relationship with humanity to the extent that salvation could be described as a slave being bought. Christ paid the price and was one's preferred master: “Salvation is here sketched as the perfect slave transaction, supposedly from the perspective of the slave” (58). Moreover, slavery as a metaphor for the state of one's soul (either enslaved to sin or to God) made earthly slavery appear relatively inconsequential and justified by God.
The third chapter, “Little Churches: The Pastoralization of the Household and its Slaves,” describes Chrysostom's vision of an ideal Christian domestic life, with the paterfamilias teaching Christian virtue and disciplining his dependents, including slaves. De Wet explains that this was less about helping slaves and more about “hierarchized surveillance” (92). Likewise, when Chrysostom advised householders to possess only one or two slaves, De Wet clarifies that this was not an admirable anti-slavery stance, but merely part of his rejection of excessive wealth.
Chapter four, “The Didactics of Kyriarchy: Slavery, Education, and the Formation of Masculinity,” focuses on the importance of the nurse and the pedagogue in the upbringing of slaveholders’ children. De Wet is particularly interested in domestic slaves’ roles in the formation of free children's masculinity and mastery (or “kyriarchy”). Chapter five, “Whips and Scriptures: On the Discipline & Punishment of Slaves,” turns to Chrysostom's advice for teaching slaves Christian virtue through punishments, rewards, and surveillance. While concern for the virtue of slaves and the desire to educate them might appear to be positive developments, de Wet emphasizes the additional regulation and violence—expectations of Christian virtue made enslavement more oppressive.
The sixth chapter, “Exploitation, Regulation, and Restructuring: Managing Slave Sexuality,” examines Christian attitudes toward sexuality, especially regarding prostitutes and eunuchs. Again, seeming improvements—the Christian belief that slaves had sexual dignity and should not be violated by slaveholders—led to additional oppression. Chrysostom and his contemporaries rejected the practice of castration, but promoted spiritual castration as an ideal. Conflicting attitudes toward eunuchs reveal confusion about conceptions of Christian masculinity and a “disturbing indifference” to the actual mutilation of slave bodies (270).
Throughout the book, de Wet uses enough neologisms to require a glossary. Some are useful shorthand for concepts central to the book's arguments, such as “doulology.” Other unusual terms, including “nosography” (76) and “aretagogy” (169), seem needlessly obscure, especially when combined together (for example, “somatography of kyriarchization,” [159]). A more significant problem arises in the analysis of Christian masculinity. While de Wet argues persuasively that ancient hierarchies, including slavery, should be interpreted as gendered discourses, he often refers to the “crisis of masculinity” in late antiquity (42, 86, 124, and others) without enough explanation. If the “fragile state of Roman masculinity in late antiquity” arose when men were “no longer able to properly regulate and master their wives and children” (140), this implies that men previously faced no challenges to their power. De Wet offers valuable insights about the introduction of new types of virtue, and thus new types of masculinity, in this period. But he does not explain whether it was a predicament for theologians, for male Christian slaveholders, for Christians ambivalent about monastic ideals, or for people in general. Likewise, the references to the “eroded” or “desperate” patriarchy (124, 126) seem to overstate the case when describing a society that remained male-dominated.
This book makes an important contribution to the study of ancient slavery and Christian social thought, especially in its discussion of how Christian ideas were formulated within a slave society and, as such, also reinforced slavery. It is jarring to realize how much Chrysostom's worldview shared with slaveholders’; even a church father known for his advocacy for the poor did not think much about the suffering caused by slavery. De Wet prevents us from giving undue credit to Christian thinkers for promoting spiritual equality; instead, their emphasis on spiritual freedom and slavery to God “suffocated any possible seeds of abolitionist thought in antiquity” (81).
