Читать книгу The rise, progress, and phases of human slavery. How it came into the world and how it shall be made to go out онлайн

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To return from this digression, the relation of debtor and creditor was unquestionably one of the direst and most fertile sources of slavery known to the ancient pagan world. Even God’s chosen people, the Hebrews, were not altogether free from it. It is true, Moses’s septennial release from debt, and the jubilee ordained at the end of every fifty years, were powerful checks upon the inroad of this form of slavery. But, nevertheless, indebtedness did furnish its contingent to slavery even under the Mosaic law; for do we not find Moses anticipating this curse in Leviticus, when he enjoins, “If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a slave or bond-servant, but as an hired servant; and as a sojourner he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee until the day of the jubilee,” &c. This shows clearly how inseparable was slavery from indebtedness under the ancient order of things, when Moses found it necessary to make provisions against its contingency, notwithstanding all the precautions he had ordained to prevent it. And Moses’s foresight is fully proved by the subsequent history of the Jews. For we learn from Josephus, that at a later epoch, to wit, under King Joram, the son of Jehosaphat, the widow of Obadias (who had been governor of King Achab’s palace) came to tell the prophet Elisha that, unable to reimburse the money that her husband had borrowed, to subsist the hundred prophets he had saved from the persecution by Jezebel, his creditors laid claim to herself and her children as their slaves. We might furnish other instances of a similar kind from sacred history; while from profane history we might cite proofs ad infinitum bearing upon the same point: but enough has been said for our purpose. The obligation of debtors to their creditors was undoubtedly one of the most grievous sources of slavery known to the positive law in ancient times. Next to war, it was probably the greatest.