[Footnote 1:  Janet, op. cit., p. 302.]

Nowhere does St. Thomas Aquinas appear as clearly as the medium of contact and reconciliation between the Fathers of the Church and the ancient philosophers as in his treatment of the question of slavery.  His utterances upon this subject are scattered through many portions of his work, but, taken together, they show that he was quite prepared to admit the legitimacy of the institution, not alone on the grounds put forward by St. Augustine, but also on those suggested by Aristotle and the Roman jurists.

He fully adopts the Augustinian argument in the Summa, where, in answer to the query, whether in the state of innocence all men were equal, he states that even in that state there would still have been inequalities of sex, knowledge, justice, etc.  The only inequalities which would not have been present were those arising from sin; but the only inequality arising from sin was slavery.[1] ’By the words “So long as we are without sin we are equal,” Gregory means to exclude such inequality as exists between virtue and vice; the result of which is that some are placed in subjection to others as a penalty.’[2] In the following article St. Thomas distinguishes between political and despotic subordination, and shows that the former might have existed in a state of innocence.  ’Mastership has a twofold meaning; first as opposed to servitude, in which case a master means one to whom another is subject as a slave.  In another sense mastership is commonly referred to any kind of subject; and in that sense even he who has the office of governing and directing free men can be called a master.  In the first meaning of mastership man would not have been ruled by man in the state of innocence; but in the latter sense man would be ruled over by man in that state.’[3] In De Regimine Principum Aquinas also accepts what we may call the Augustinian view of slavery.  ’But whether the dominion of man over man is according to the law of nature, or is permitted or provided by God may be certainly resolved.  If we speak of dominion by means of servile subjection, this was introduced because of sin.  But if we speak of dominion in so far as it relates to the function of advising and directing, it may in this sense be said to be natural.’[4]

[Footnote 1:  i. 96, 3.]

[Footnote 2:  Ibid., ad. 1.]

[Footnote 3:  i. 96, 4.]

[Footnote 4:  De Reg.  Prin., iii. 9.  This is one of the chapters the authorship of which is disputed.]

St. Thomas was therefore willing to endorse the argument of St. Augustine that slavery was a result of sin; but he also admits the justice of Aristotle’s reasoning on the subject.  In the section of the Summa where the question is discussed, whether the law of nations is the same as the natural law, one of the objections to be met is that ’Slavery among men is natural, for some are naturally slaves