Die juk van askese: Slawe in kloosters en kloosterlike huishoudings in die sendeling Johannes van Efese se Commentarii de beatis orientalibus [The yoke of ashes: Slaves in monasteries and monastic households in the missionary John of Ephesus's Commentarii de beatis orientalibus ]

The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between slavery and the monastic life in the comments of the Syrian Church of John van Ephesus (507-589 AD)'s Commentarii de beatis orientalibus ( the lives of the Eastern saints , abbreviated as Comm .b.orient ). The study gives a brief overview of John's life, his writings, and the socio-historical context in which he writes. Attention is then given specifically to the terminology that John uses when referring to slaves and also to hired workers. Slavery works in three ways in this paper. First, we see that slaves serve as signs of the wealth and luxury lifestyle of the rich. Secondly, we see that monks and monasteries could also keep slaves, but not in such large numbers as the rich. John believed that Christians should keep their slaves and laborers in their service, and that the slaves and servants, together with the women and children of the house, should dedicate themselves to the monastic life. Finally, and of the utmost importance, the insight is that, like Christian monasticism, slavery did not abolish, the state of slave was neither a barrier to the monastic life. For John, slavery does not represent a crisis within society, but an institution that has to be "proclaimed" and thus be able to employ a society that is at a crisis.