One of the things I looked at, again, in this series on the literature of abolitionism was what the often besainted Spinoza had to say on the subject and found a grand total of nothing. His few mentions of slavery are so abstract and so general as to mean nothing about the rapidly developing chattel slavery in which his beloved Holland was a major player. Considering his fame as a prophet of secular democracy and freedom and considering the developing religious literature opposing slavery during his lifetime, his silence on the issue is an indictment of a kind generally reserved for religious figures.
But Spinoza is a figure I've never warmed up to at all. His saintliness seems, to me, to consist of merely his not being interested in personal luxury or fame. His making his living grinding lenses seems to me to be a lot less productive than Hillel's chopping wood. Hillel contributed a lot more to the real world in his ethical teaching than Spinoza, whose bizarre mathematical expositions are more admired in the realm of the mind than having any practical application in real lives. I'd like to know of any real political reforms that freed people which are directly ascribable to them. The citation of the story of the freeing of the Children of Israel from Egyptian slavery as a justification of slaves freeing themselves and agitating for the abolition of slavery is such an enormous part of that story as to make anything Spinoza, the debunker of the Mosaic tradition, said about freedom and slavery of negligible importance.
It is that mathematical form that I think led to me concluding that there wasn't anything there when I was young. The form of geometrical argument he used was sufficient to make conclusions about simple forms in an imaginary Flatland or simple solids but trying to fit morality or politics into it was bound to come up with something that could be logically consistent but which wouldn't have much if anything to do with real life exigencies as it has to be lived by real people with more complex lives than an aesthetic bachelor - lens grinder who lived mostly in his mind was likely to encounter. I have yet to encounter anything in the literature of abolitionism or civil rights that made recourse to Benedict de Spinoza. If I ever came across that in the past, it wasn't sufficiently important or striking enough to make me remember it. I do think that Spinoza's thinking is most useful for showing how mere logical coherence can be deceptive in assigning importance to something that is of such demonstrable unimportance in the world. About the time Spinoza was seven, Pope Urban VIII in 1639 issued Commissum Nobis, reaffirming the encylicals of Paul III and explicitly threatening to excommunicate people who enslaved other people. He was responding to the pleas of Jesuits in Paraguay who were in the process of trying to establish the little mentioned attempt to set up free soil on South America, the Reductions of Paraguay.
As I recall, one of the arguments Spinoza made for rejecting The Law of Moses was that it was outmoded due to its antiquity and it couldn't be relevant for his time. The same can be said of his philosophy and any philosophy from his time, if you take his argument to its logical conclusion. I think there is a real difference between words that aspire to mere logical coherence as opposed to freeing the captive. While mere words might fail to free the captive, their aspiration starts out to be higher since they deal with real lives of real people in the real world.
-------------
Here is an even earlier example, an even earlier Papal Bull. Sicut Dudum issued by Eugene IV on January 13, 1435.
Eugene, Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God,
To our venerable brothers, peace and apostolic benediction, etcetera.
1. Not long ago, we learned from our brother Ferdinand, bishop at Rubicon and representative of the faithful who are residents of the Canary Islands, and from messengers sent by them to the Apostolic See, and from other trustworthy informers, the following facts: in the said islands—some called Lanzarote—and other nearby islands, the inhabitants, imitating the natural law alone, and not having known previously any sect of apostates or heretics, have a short time since been led into the Orthodox Catholic Faith with the aid of God’s mercy. Nevertheless, with the passage of time, it has happened that in some of the said islands, because of a lack of suitable governors and defenders to direct those who live there to a proper observance of the Faith in things spiritual and temporal, and to protect valiantly their property and goods, some Christians (we speak of this with sorrow), with fictitious reasoning and seizing and opportunity, have approached said islands by ship, and with armed forces taken captive and even carried off to lands overseas very many persons of both sexes, taking advantage of their simplicity.
2. Some of these people were already baptized; others were even at times tricked and deceived by the promise of Baptism, having been made a promise of safety that was not kept. They have deprived the natives of the property, or turned it to their own use, and have subjected some of the inhabitants of said islands to perpetual slavery, sold them to other persons, and committed other various illicit and evil deeds against them, because of which very many of those remaining on said islands, and condemning such slavery, have remained involved in their former errors, having drawn back their intention to receive Baptism, thus offending the majesty of God, putting their souls in danger, and causing no little harm to the Christian religion
3. Therefore, We, to whom it pertains, especially in respect to the aforesaid matters, to rebuke each sinner about his sin, and not wishing to pass by dissimulating, and desiring—as is expected from the pastoral office we hold—as far as possible, to provide salutarily, with a holy and fatherly concern, for the sufferings of the inhabitants, beseech the Lord, and exhort, through the sprinkling of the Blood of Jesus Christ shed for their sins, one and all, temporal princes, lords, captains, armed men, barons, soldiers, nobles, communities, and all others of every kind among the Christian faithful of whatever state, grade, or condition, that they themselves desist from the aforementioned deeds, cause those subject to them to desist from them, and restrain them rigorously.
4. And no less do We order and command all and each of the faithful of each sex, within the space of fifteen days of the publication of these letters in the place where they live, that they restore to their earlier liberty all and each person of either sex who were once residents of said Canary Islands, and made captives since the time of their capture, and who have been made subject to slavery. These people are to be totally and perpetually free, and are to be let go without the exaction or reception of money. If this is not done when the fifteen days have passed, they incur the sentence of excommunication by the act itself, from which they cannot be absolved, except at the point of death, even by the Holy See, or by any Spanish bishop, or by the aforementioned Ferdinand, unless they have first given freedom to these captive persons and restored their goods. We will that like sentence of excommunication be incurred by one and all who attempt to capture, sell, or subject to slavery, baptized residents of the Canary Islands, or those who are freely seeking Baptism, from which excommunication cannot be absolved except as was stated above.
5. Those who humbly and efficaciously obey these, our exhortations and commands deserve, in addition to our favor, and that of the Apostolic See, and the blessings which follow there from, but are to be possessors of eternal happiness and to be placed at the right hand of God, etcetera
Given at Florence, January 13th, in the Year of Our Lord, 1435
That's fifty-seven years before Columbus began the invasion of the Western Hemisphere. Also that Eugene IV noted that those who enslaved and oppressed people alienated them from Christianity, something I've found was noted over and over again, up through the entire period of abolitionism and on till today. More about that this week.
Also, I have to acknowledge that his successor, Nicholas V, undid a lot of what was done in that encyclical, one in a series of popes that could be said of. The popes are no more consistent in their virtue than any other line of human beings in any area of life. In any institution that goes on for well over a millennium you're bound to get some real sleeveens, dupes of kings, especially those of Portugal and Spain (which sometimes held the papacy hostage) not to mention France (the Avignon papacies, for example) and other quite temporal despots. The supreme power of popes is largely a myth, mostly anti-Catholic but also among some Catholics. Popes have rarely been as powerful or influential among world rulers as they're alleged to have been. Which is why the encyclicals condemning slavery were about as effective as those Constitutional amendments grating equal rights to freed slaves were in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It wasn't long after those were passed that the Supreme Court began to undo them in even a merely official manner. Even today that work isn't done, here and certainly not elsewhere where people are held in virtual and miserable slavery under American and international trade laws despite official, legal prohibitions on slavery.
No comments:
Post a Comment