Δουλος
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:date: 2018-06-03T23:29:11
:status: draft
:category: faith
:tags: tags
In the Christian circles I live, there is an ongoing discussion
about the role of servanthood in the relationship between Lord
Jesus Christ and each individual Christian. I cannot indulge in
it fully in this article, but let me say that at least from some
part we are and we should be proper servants (Δουλος) of the
Living God.
However, there are some problems with the very concept of Δουλος,
not the last of them the fact that there is a huge uncertainty
how to actually translate it to English (or Czech for that
matter, it is the same problem). The best translation would be
probably “slave”, which most closely corresponds to the Greek
(and Hebrew) original. Unfortunately, the problem with such
translation is that for all modern readers, the term “slave”
generates an image of a Negro working on the cotton plantation of
the American South, gruesome images of whipped slaves with their
backs destroyed living without any hope, and with certainty that
any children they will have will be in the same situation
forever.
I don’t want to diminish horrible fate of millions of slaves
living in the Ancient Mediterranean who were in exactly same
conditions (work in a stone quarry in the middle of Egypt without
any explosives, without any modern technology, anyone?). There is
an idea that extremely high quality of life for some in the
Ancient Rome unparalleled in some aspects until the era of the
industrial revolution was caused by exploiting slave force in the
same manner the industrial revolution progress was driven by the
exploitation of the power of steam engine. Horrible thought.
However, use of slaves was so incredibly widespread, it was
completely taboo for a cultured Roman to do any work, because
only slaves were good for working, that the image of American
black man in the cotton fields is too limited to describe Δουλος.
For example, there was relatively non-existent middle class, most
occupations currently attributed to the middle class were done by
Δουλος.
Also, the institute of slavery varied widely in various
nations of the Mediterranean, so for example from the Ancient
Israel we know about slavery for limited time, slavery were it
was possible and common for slave to make enough money to
establish his new livelihood (we know about Jacob doing exactly
that in the Old Testament) and other arrangements.
Which is the reason why most modern translations in all languages
don’t use the word “slave” to translate Δουλος, it was inspiring
for me to watch brief discussion_ about exactly this issue by
translators of the English Standard Version.
.. _discussion:
https://youtu.be/Mx06mtApu8k
.. note::
Is this whole discussion relevant at all?
Whatever is the best translation of Δουλος, what should we do
with this relationship between Δουλος and master? Should we just
cross it out of the Bible because slavery in the modern world is
not common? I don’t think so. We can say for example that the
closest equivalent this master-servant in today’s world would be
the employment relationship. Strange thing is that we don’t talk
much about employee-style work according its prevalence in
society. We don’t talk much about the relationship between
between an employee and her boss, nor it seems to me we talk
enough about the current application of the Δουλος concept in the
current world.
One strange possible explanation of this missing teaching could
be that most people who do the teaching, pastors and similar, are
not employees. Actually, most pastors, missionaries, theologians,
are what would be in the secular world an equivalent of the
independent entrepreneurs or contractors (professors in
seminaries may be legally employees, but they usually have very
wide freedom in their action, not exactly following orders and
fulfilling tasks given to them by their bosses).
And there are some problems with this lack of Δουλος focus. For
example, there is (or there was couple of years ago) a fashion to
talk a lot about *vision* and I heard many sermons and teachings
on the verse in Proverbs “Where there is no vision, people will
perish” (Proverbs 29:18 KJV). Concept of a vision for your life
is one of those concepts which are very much linked to the life
of the current entrepreneurs. If Δουλος in the Ancient Greece
(whatever his exact legal relationship with his master was) came
to his master with his vision for his future work, I don’t think
he would be met with open arms. More likely with a strong rod and
beating. His role was to listen and obey, not to have independent
initiative. A servant should just accept and take the vision of
his/her Lord, not look for his own vision (and yes, we are called
brothers so we *know* this vision of our Master, but it doesn’t
mean that we should follow less what God orders us to do or come
with an alternative vision to the God’s one).
Similar missing understanding of the Ancient legal relationships
as with Δουλος seems to me to be in our understanding of legal
status of people who were, like us, saved from slavery, because
that is a legal status for which we have (fortunately!) no
equivalent in the modern world whatsoever. Slave who was freed
was not equal with people who were born free, but he was so
called *freedman* (“libertus” or “liberta” in Rome). Such person
was personally free, could own property, could participate (with
some limitations) in the political life of the city, etc., but
still he was living his/her life in relation and submission to
his former master, who was called his or her patron (*patronus*).
He was still more or less dependent on money and resources from
his patron. If this arrangement seems to resemble the
relationship with Don Corleone in *Godfather*, or medieval
feudalism, then I think it is more or less right. Both of these
arrangements were based on the same *patron*-centred society.
Also, our all understanding of the life of early Christians seems
to me to be severely limited (fortunately!) by our complete lack
of understanding what it is to live in the non-free situation.
Even the poorest of poorest in the modern world knows about their
human rights, and even when she has no way how to exercise them,
there are very strong (at least relatively to the situation in
the Ancient world) governmental institutions which she can hope
to get on her side in need.
There was no such thing as human rights and human dignity, no
“unalienable Rights, […] among these are Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness.” All one’s life and happiness was
completely dependent on their masters or *patron*. If the master
was good, her life was good. If the master was cruel, her life
was horrible, but there was not much to do about it and there was
no hope for improvement short of the eventual death of the master.
From the position of one used to the life of Δουλος, there was no
question we should be servants/slaves/employees of Christ, that
was all they know about. However, the great messages, was that
**this** master was good, loving, willing to sacrifice himself
for his servants. That was incredibly good news, true Ευαγγελιον.
