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.