Patterns of slavery and freedom in a changing world. Chrysostom's commentary on Paul's epistle to philemon revisited

Abstract

During his Antiochian Period, St John Chrysostom gave three homilies on the Letter to ‎Philemon, which reveal the Saints standpoint from slavery, a deep-rooted institution in ‎Antioch and the Eastern Roman Empire of that period. The political system in the region was ‎changing into the Byzantine Era and Christianity was expanding progressively in the city. ‎However, it was not easy for Chrysostom to move his audience to foster the liberation of ‎slaves and to deal with all humankind with equity. A task that had been already difficult for ‎the Apostle Paul was still so for Saint John. Nowadays, several forms of slavery still blight ‎our global and local society, a fact that challenges Christians again to engage for freedom ‎and equity all over the world. This paper studies the three homilies searching for the Pauline ‎fundamentals as detected by Chrysostom in order to define modern patterns to fight against ‎all forms of slavery, including forced labor and human trafficking.‎.