The 4th century social justice warrior

He was the first to condemn slavery, over 1,500 years ago. Gregory of Nyssa critically examined society, looking at the relationships and structures everyone takes for granted.

Ryan Gilfeather

Ryan Gilfeather explores social issues through the lens of philosophy, theology, and history. He is a Research Associate at the Joseph Centre for Dignified Work.

A mosaic shows a saint with a beard holding a bible and his hand held up in a blessing.

Gregory of Nyssa fresco.

Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

In January 2023 the Church of England committed £100m to invest in communities affected by historic slavery. Rightly so. Research since 2019 shows that the wealth it accumulated through historic investment in a slave trading company and receiving gifts from slave traders, may still benefit its finances today. This past is, as the Archbishop of Canterbury says, shameful. So, it is only right that these actions are addressed.

This story also highlights the complex relationship between Christianity and enslavement. On one hand, inspired by their faith, Christians led the fight for abolition. But on the other, some Christians supported and benefitted from the enslavement of other humans. And, the further back we look in history, the more Christians seem to accept enslavement as part of the fabric of society.

There is, however, an exception. In the late fourth century AD, Gregory of Nyssa, a bishop and theologian, critically examined this practice of enslavement, which so many others did not even think to question, and explicitly names it as a sin, about a millennium and a half before the abolitionist movements. Gregory is, in this way, a light in the darkness and an inspiration to Christians today.

He is convinced, on a fundamental level, that the domination of one human being over another in slavery is incompatible with Christian belief. In one of his sermons on the biblical book of Ecclesiastes, delivered in Cappadocia (Turkey), he calls slavery a sin.

It is a ‘gross example of arrogance… for a human being to think himself the master of his own kind’: When someone…arrogates dominion to his own kind, so as to think himself the owner of men and women, what is he doing but overstepping his own nature through pride, regarding himself as something different from his subordinates?'

It is wrong to dominate others, because all human beings share the same fundamental nature. That nature is being made in the image of God:

'God said, let us make man in our own image and likeness. If he is in the likeness of God, and rules the whole earth, and has been granted authority over everything on earth from God , who is his buyer, tell me?'

Since we are made in the image of God, we share His freedom to choose our own path, be it good or evil. When you enslave another, you take away this fundamental freedom and treat them as if they are animals, lower than the image of God:

'Why do you go beyond what is subject to you and raise yourself up against the very species which is free, counting your own kind on a level with four-footed things an even footless things?'

Therefore, Gregory says it is a shameful arrogant pride to enslave another human being, because you treat that which is made in the image of God as less than human, denying them the freedom God has given them.

We see this conviction about slavery as domination playing out in his biography of his sister Macrina. As wealthy aristocrats, his family owned enslaved people. Yet, at the heart of his narrative about his sister’s life, he explains how she began to treat her family slaves as equals:

'Weaning her [mother] from all that she had been accustomed to, she led her down to her own standard of humility, showing her how to live in equality with the whole body of virgins (slaves), that is, by sharing with them the one table, the same kind of bed, and all the necessities of life on an equal basis, with every distinction of rank removed from their life.'

Gregory does not explicitly say she freed these enslaved people, but inviting an enslaved person to share one’s table was a way of freeing them called manumissio inter amicos. In these passages, he particularly praises Macrina for undoing destructive relationships of domination, where one human treats another as less than themselves and lower than the image of God.

Gregory isn’t perfect. His condemnation of enslavement centres on the enslaver: he encourages his audience to avoid the moral pitfall, rather than expressing concern for the enslaved people. In another text he says it is good to free slaves, but he does not appear to campaign to end slavery. As we saw in the biography of his sister, he is so concerned to undo the relationships of domination of one person over another, that he is less clear if these people are free to leave. Finally, there is no evidence from his contemporary theologians that Gregory persuaded anyone else that slavery was a sin. In these ways, from our perspective today we would want Gregory to go further to dismantle slavery, or shift his perspective.

But, we don’t need him to be perfect. He offers a light in the darkness, not the rising of the sun. Gregory is an inspirational example of critically examining the fabric of one’s society, looking at the relationships and structures everyone takes for granted, and having the clarity and courage to see and proclaim that they are fundamentally incompatible with what he thinks the Bible says about the worth of human beings.

Many Christians are inspired by this way of thinking today. Even if they don’t know Gregory of Nyssa’s name, they will be drawn to charitable giving, certain professions, or activism, out of a deep desire for all to be treated with equality, because all are made in the image of God. To name one example of many. In the UK, Christians were heavily involved in the real living wage campaign. Society at large told them it was impossible to pay a wage where one did not need to choose between feeding and seeing one’s children. But, they campaigned alongside other community groups so that workers are being paid enough to live on, because they were convinced, like Gregory, that all human beings are due the same dignity and worth.

Enslavement: Voices from the Archives.

The toy blocks building trust, love and understanding

There’s a beautiful kind of hospitality, and this is it.

Belle Tindall

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen.

A baby plays with wooden toys on a carpert.

Photo by Troy T on Unsplash.

The leftovers were being gathered up, chairs being put back in their place, and happy looking people were dispersing. The last child there, his mum helping to wrap things up in the kitchen, was clinging onto a toy that I, in my imagination, like to think he makes a B-line for every time he spots it. It was an ordinary scene, but there was something undeniably extraordinary underpinning it.

Although it’s hard to articulate with words (which is admittedly not ideal when the objective of the visit was to write about it), it was immediately clear to me, I had walked right into the aftermath of something truly special. I sat down with Joey and Sarah, two of the Growbaby team, to figure out what it was.

Growbaby is an international children’s supply charity, providing clothing, equipment and everyday essentials for children up to five years old. Launched in 2003 and rooted in a local Vineyard church in Kingston Upon Thames, there are now multiple Growbaby hubs, one of which just happens to be at the end of my road in Cardiff. What started as a cupboard crammed with donated supplies is now a source of wholistic support for over one hundred families.

As requests flow into Growbaby HQ, packages are lovingly compiled and then freely given. These packages are put together on a case-by-case basis and can include anything from nappies to pushchairs, clothes to cots, formula to toys. Such support doesn’t tend to be offered from a distance, on the contrary, every Friday morning families (mothers and little ones, primarily) are welcomed to ‘stay and play’, and to subsequently receive the kind of support that can’t be handed over via a package. The aftermath of one of these events was the context for my short but ever so sweet visit.

The ways in which Joey and Sarah find themselves serving these families is constantly bursting the banks of their expectations.

The depth of relationship that has naturally built through their time together, with every Friday morning acting as a building block of trust, has meant that the ways in which Joey and Sarah find themselves serving these families is constantly bursting the banks of their expectations. The team have assisted in getting families set up with child credits and social services support, frequently acted as translators, ferried families to A&E, thrown baby showers, booked GP appointments, been birth partners, and even sought out affordable kitchen flooring on Facebook Marketplace.

Working for the well-being of these families has also involved appealing to the Red Cross to try and re-unite a Sudanese mother with her twelve-year-old son who has been unable to get out of the war-torn country. With families from Syria, Sudan, Iran, Iraq and Somalia (to name but a few), many of whom have found themselves in Cardiff as refugees, Growbaby is far more than a resource centre, it is a beautifully diverse community, the most understanding of support networks, a means of building a home away from home.

When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine last year, the Growbaby team’s minds immediately went to the Russian women within their community, those who had brought their families to the UK in search of political asylum. These women had built a home for themselves and their children here, and yet, the news of the Russian offensive was likely to make them feel as vulnerable as the day they arrived. So, the team gave each of these women a card; a small but mighty gesture that let these women know that they were seen, safe, understood and loved in the place that they now called home.

The team here are also hosting these families’ trauma and their fears, they’re holding space for their joys and their victories.

I was struck by the fact that whole lives have been enhanced in this room; friendships have been forged, babies have been celebrated, all kinds of needs have been provided for, and women who came to Growbaby for help are now the volunteers who offer it. And these stories are a mere scratching of a powerful surface, the beaming smiles on both Joey and Sarah’s faces tell a thousand more. The impact that these women have had could never be adequately squeezed into an article (again, not ideal when an article is the objective).

Stepping foot into the room that Friday morning was stepping foot into the most tangible sense hospitality one could imagine. Of course, there are the obvious, and utterly essential ways, that these families are being hosted – through resources, supplies and practical support. But the team here are also hosting these families’ trauma and their fears, they’re holding space for their joys and their victories. Each person that walks through the door of Cardiff’s Growbaby are finding a community who will welcome and host the whole of them, who will weep with them when they’re weeping, and celebrate with them when they’re celebrating.

It’s a beautiful thing.

We could be forgiven for thinking that this kind of no-strings-attached hospitality is a myth. If it ever did exist, it’s bygone, and therefore dwells only in the realms of nostalgia. So, counter-cultural is it, that we’d be suspicious if ever we were to stumble upon rumours of it.

Well, no suspicion necessary here. It truly does exist; you can take my word for it. And I can’t imagine people more in need of it than parents, the guardians and nurturers of little lives.

If you are in need of the kind of support that Growbaby can offer, you can see if there’s a Grow Baby near you by using its directory .