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Aristotle calls the slave a living tool with whom no friendship or justice is possible. Colossians echoes the same social hierarchy when ordering slaves to obey but promises them a future reward and warns wrongdoers will be judged.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 8:31
Classical
But in the deviation-forms, as justice hardly exists, so too does friendship. It exists least in the worst form; in tyranny there is little or no friendship. For where there is nothing common to ruler and ruled, there is not friendship either, since there is not justice; e.g. between craftsman and tool, soul and body, master and slave; the latter in each case is benefited by that which uses it, but there is no friendship nor justice towards lifeless things. But neither is there friendship towards a horse or an ox, nor to a slave qua slave. For there is nothing common to the two parties; the slave is a living tool and the tool a lifeless slave. Qua slave then, one cannot be friends with him. But qua man one can; for there seems to be some justice between any man and any other who can share in a system of law or be a party to an agreement; therefore there can also be friendship with him in so far as he is a man. Therefore while in tyrannies friendship and justice hardly exist, in democracies they exist more fully; for where the citizens are equal they have much in common.
Date: 350-325 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Colossians 3:22
New Testament
21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, so they will not become disheartened. 22 Slaves, obey your earthly masters in every respect, not only when they are watching—like those who are strictly people-pleasers—but with a sincere heart, fearing the Lord. 23 Whatever you are doing, work at it with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not for people, 24 because you know that you will receive your inheritance from the Lord as the reward. Serve the Lord Christ. 25 For the one who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there are no exceptions.
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Notes and References
... the New Testament codes are derived from the Hellenistic discussion 'concerning household management' (peri oikonomias), especially as outlined by Aristotle, Politics I 1253b 1-14. This Aristotelian text outlines relationships between a) three pairs of social classes b) which are related reciprocally, and c) it argues that one social class in each of the three pairs is to 'be ruled.' ... The structured discussion of the domestic relationships of three pairs is found not only in Aristotle, Politics I 1253b 1-14 and Nicomachean Ethics VIII 1160a 23-1161a 10 and V 1134b 9-18, but also in pseudo-Aristotle, Magna Moralia I 1194b 5-28 and in the (pseudo-Aristotelian?) work Concerning the Association of Husband and Wife. It is not surprising that Seneca, Epistles 89.10-11 knows that such philosophical 'economics' is Peripatetic ...
Balch, David L.
"Household Codes" in Aune, David E. (ed.) Greco-Roman Literature and the New Testament: Selected Forms and Genres
(pp. 26-27) Scholars Press, 1988
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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