«Was not the labour problem the same everywhere». «Homo ad laborem nascitur et avis ad volatum»! (Prolegomena per uno studio del diritto del lavoro tra Bibbia e letteratura)

The purpose of this research is to catalogue the biblical texts - notably in a first phase those which are in the first (or old) testament of the Christian Bible - which contain both prescriptive structures and pathways designed to protect the position of social weakness of the "worker", understood in its broadest sense and in its various and diverse facets: worker, salaried employee, servant, even slave, and so on. The starting point and most immediate objective of this work is therefore to find the biblical sources - and to get ready one first critical apparatus - which refer, directly or indirectly, to work in a broad sense, that is a personal relationship in which one of the two subjects is in a position of weakness, comparable to that which the Bible considers typical for orphans, widows, the poor and in some respects also foreigners: in one word the Weak.