Salvian, in the fifth century, wrote: “They [the poor] give themselves to the upper classes in return for care and protection. They make themselves captives of the rich, as it were, passing over into their jurisdiction and dependence” (in oden 1986, 151). It took forty years to get the experience of Egyptian slavery out of the collective mind of Israel before Israel could be come a people and a nation. This is an expression of what Christian calls the marred identity of the poor (more on this shortly).
