# A pagan argument for kindness to slaves

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH06.P023](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH06.P023/#char=941,973): "a mere tenderness for men as men"

The imagined pagan master is a useful foil, but not an adequate summary of pagan moral reflection. Seneca's *Moral Letters*, 47.1 and 47.10–11, urges humane treatment of slaves precisely on grounds of shared humanity and shared vulnerability to fortune; 47.19 rejects corporal whipping. That is substantial evidence that a pagan could detach a person's human worth from legal status and conventional contempt. Yet Seneca still speaks within a slaveholding household and distinguishes characters worthy of intimacy (47.15); this is neither abolition nor an exact equivalent of Chesterton's demand to forgive criminals. The comparison narrows the historical claim without erasing the argument: Chesterton's distinctive proposal here is the simultaneous intensification of judgment against theft and kindness toward thieves. Inspected witness: Richard M. Gummere's English translation, Wikisource transcription of the 1925 reprint, whose title matter records first printing in 1918; the ancient work belongs to the first century CE. [Letter 47](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_47).

## Sources

- [Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 47, translated by Richard M. Gummere](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_47), §§1, 10–11, 15, 19
- [Moral Letters to Lucilius: title matter](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius), Volume I title page and printing statement: 1925; first printed 1918

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