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A Disquisition on Egyptian, Roman and American slavaery

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that Amazon has been reluctant to publish. Who knows why?

We don't know the reason the author used this pseudonym, perhaps he or she feared retribution, thought the work would not be taken seriously if the true name was given, or simply wanted to add power to the work by use of the name Onesimus. The pamphlet was published in 1831 and the use of the name shows even then the prevalence of the apostle Paul's epistle to Philemon is widely accepted among the pro-slavery on anti-slavery exponents. This is a pamphlet of 35 pages and each page is so filled with profound statements that it is hard to provide a review without the temptation of quoting the whole book. To a large extent this work could be a criticism of contemporary (that is 21st-century) political ideologues and proponents of radical religious fundamentalism.

The work begins with a condemnation of the religious right of the author's day.

"They can dwell with vehemence upon the horrors of intemperance, and concert plans to lower our national Congress into a perversion of the most inviolable maxims of our government, in order to consecrate a Jewish Sabbath, and rid our country is a crime of profanation; and they can wear out the patience of our congregations, inter alia and vague harangues upon the necessity of temperance societies, to put the drunkard to the blush, while they can shed a flood of tears over the wretchedness of his impoverished wife and children. But point them to the bleeding backs of a degraded, half starved, and naked African population around them, who are not of the rights which the God of heaven endowed them with, and immediately their tears are dried up." [p.5]

The author describes a Hebrew use of slavery or servitude, the position of indentured servant, as depicted in the Old Testament. He cites the laws of Moses concerning these Masters treatment of the servant .

In part two Onesimus provides a picture of the Roman slavery as he sees it or prefers to see it. Because the Roman slavery intrudes into the Christian era, the author examines the teachings of Christ in the influence of the apostles in the Roman world. At this time and throughout the decades to follow there would be a great debate over the meaning of the Golden Rule and our author spends a considerable amount of time and effort teaching us the true meaning of this commandment of Jesus.

"The tendency of all the precepts of the Divine Savior was to promote virtue, benevolence, humanity, charity, meekness, patience, forbearance, gentleness, etc. etc., and to suppress a spirit of pride, to any, tyranny, and oppression; and this feature, which distinguishes the religion of Christ from all others, character rises its superiority over all the systems of moral philosophy ever admired. I mean, by the teacher's so glorious an excellent, the Golden rule, 'do unto all men as you would they should do unto you.' I suppose this was reduced to universal practice, and what becomes of slavery?" [p. 19].
Onesimus predates Governor Seward's use of the "higher law" and the Reverend Hosmer's booklet of the same title with the following:
"whatever in the laws of civil government is repugnant to the constitution upon which it is built is null and void. Whatever in the epistle's is perverted and twisted so as to contradict this plain command, is also void. I say void; they're a contradiction would prove a fault in the construction; and if the construction is inconsistent with the teachings of Christ, it is good for nothing. It and other interpretation must be given more suitable to the spirit and design of a whole. Suppose for instance, but the apostles sanctioned, justified, and even encouraged slavery, as many have said, how will the case stand? Then this Savior taught them to 'do unto all men as they would they should do to them;' and conditioned them and charged them to 'teach the same things; and when they (the apostles) May disciples and all nations, they were to teach them to observe all things whatsoever he had commanded them.' Then, if they talked their disciples that they might hold their fellow men in bondage who were kidnapped, and doom them to the most cerebral drudgery, and determined that they never should taste liberty -- that they might oppress them in every way they're caprice and cruelty might suggest; -- sell them, if they pleased, to toil beneath the lash of a relentless master all their days -- I say, if they taught their disciples in their day such things as we have mentioned, they were of all men the most perfidious. If, then, the apostles taught in accordance with the instructions of Christ, (and which they must have done if they were faithful men,) they never authorized slavery." [p. 21].

This was very strong language for the day. Many religious leaders who feared aggravating or insulting their parishioners by discussing the sins of slavery took a different slant on the Golden Rule. The author takes another bold step in reinterpreting that stronghold of proslavery, the epistle to Philemon. Onesimus says if Onesimus of the epistle was truly a slave the apostle Paul would not have offered to repay Philemon for a lost labor or any objects the servant may have taken with him. The same argument is refuted by the Reverend Robert Dabney in 1888, 57 years after Onesimus published this work. "Paul remanded a fugitive slave to his master Philemon, after that slave's conversion, and although he is at the time in great need of the assistance of such a servant. And so distinctly does he recognize Philemon's lawful property in the involuntary labor of his fugitive slave that he actually binds himself, in writing, to pay its pecuniary value himself." [Dabney, Presbyterian Quarterly for July 1888.]


The author ends his work stating the hypocrisy of the Declaration of Independence, saying that neither the government nor the people believe in the inalienable right of all men to be treated as equal in nature and the law. We can assume that the author is not a member of the clergy because he doesn't seem to care what the word doulos the Greek word for slave really means in the New Testament. Impartial interpretation from the earliest time supports the fact that this word is the word for slave, not servant. This makes Onesimus's reasoning even more powerful for the use of anti-slavery forces: Whatever the word means, the Golden Rule overrules its significance.The main factor for him is that the teachings of Christ make chattel slavery a sin.