Their morality placed ancestors, family, citizens, and nation first.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2...id#47627864)

Edit: they certainly had their own morality and it was 180 as fuck

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2...id#47627932)

Whether what Im calling "christian ethics" is a faithful reading of the NT, or the true message of Christ etc, is a debate Im not addressing.

I think its fair to say the main gist of Christian ethics is to moderate and to universalize.

It was seen as a moral good to punish criminals. Christian ethic is to moderate that punishment. Visit prisoners, etc. Important to note Christ did not seek to abolish prisons, but only that people visit prisoners. It was a moral good to adjudicate in courts. Christian ethics call judges to listen to plaintiffs who lacked social standing, like widows. Don't overthrow courts, but just have fair judges. It's seen as a moral good to abolish prostitution. Christians ethics: make the prostitute stop, but don't actually kill her, etc.

In a sense, Christian ethics don't have - or didnt have - their own content. It was just a moderating influence on Jewish and Roman ethics.

And it was always moderating towards leniency.

The other big push was universalizing obligations to family and tribe beyond bloodlines. The samaritan is your brother as much as the jew.

This is also, kind of, content-free. Its just an expansion of already formulated duties, often exaggeratedly so. "Loving your enemy" is on its face incoherent, because it undermines the meaning of the word enemy.

So, in effect, the Christian contribution was to moderate and to universalize.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2...id#47627996)

Romans thought the Christians were wild flame-branded zealots. think St Simeon Stylites

you're mixing up milquetoast 20th century suburban catholicism with Christianity as the late empire Romans would've experienced it

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2...id#47628564)

if i were to make the argument the other direction, I think it would go like this. There were core christian ethical tenets that wildly shocked romans and jews, in turn, and were definitely new content.

on the roman side, christians absolutely refused to venerate gods, even when most sophisticated romans thought it meant nothing, cost nothing, but was crucial to be a part of society. romans couldnt believe someone would die over this. they also rightly saw that if it spread, it would undermine everything

on the jewish side, christian ethics was based in the foulest blasphemy, besmirching the God whose name was inutterable by talking about the incarnation. They were also disgusted by the cannibalistic elements of the eucharist. And, perhaps most egregious, they were threatened by christians out-piousing them on things like divorce.

but a lot of this is more theological than ethical, and i still think the main push of christian ethics was to moderate and universalize pre-existing ethical codes. They were reformers more than revolutionaries

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2...id#47628747)

in fact it supports the complete opposite conclusion (that these people were revolutionaries and not reformers)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2...id#47628776)

NT ethics were explicitly about two things:

1. upholding the current moral order of the jews, but moderating their harshest consequences. Jesus did not reject the notion that the crippled man was being punished for sin, but he forgave that sin. Jesus did not seek to empower the adulteress woman, but he instructed her to stop sinning while sparing her the death penalty. Jesus did not reject the ethics of the jewish covenant or the commandments, he said it all should be followed with exactitude, but with mercy.

What makes the pharisees so contemptible in the gospels is that they used sophistry and trickery to ensnare jesus and portray him as scandalous, when a straight reading indicates that he was posing no direct threat to their ethics, only their hypocrisy.

2. Jesus universalized tribal moral duties beyond the tribe. This was novel and probably shocking. But in essence, when you expand moral obligations to include others, you are reforming, not revolutionizing. It was an instruction like this: "You already know your obligations to group X. You owe the same to groups Y and Z."

You can call that revolutionary and make an argument I guess. But I think its a losing argument

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2...id#47628807)

The cult of the family was the framework which was kind of replicated in the state religion. They were very legalistic and obsessed with “rules” at least on the face of things. Their treatment of slaves until the latter part of the empire when legal SCHOLARS and philosophers started to ascribe them basic human rights was the big departure from our modern notions of morality

Ask me more

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2...id#47627950)

the germans and northern europeans are probably descendants of those aristocrats

italy was left with mostly bottomfeeders

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2...id#47628057)

At the same time, any read of Roman history shows how violent it was, and I'm talking mainly about political or "casual" bourgeoisie violence and not the type that criminals engage in. There were 70 Roman emperors, of which 33 were assassinated. I get the sense that people didn't balk at these assassinations the way that we did at the Kennedy assassination. Conspiring to cut off the emperor's head for no reason other than you want more power for yourself would be frowned upon in today's society. If it weren't then the CIA would come out and say "Yeah we did it."

You can also look at historical events like the Crusades, where there were ulterior motives involved but the rank and file knights were basically like "we are doing this for the sake of our God imo," i.e. not for personal glory or that of an empire. It just seems quintessentially not Roman. Maybe the most quintessentially modern value that we've introduced which the Romans lacked is Hypocrisy. Discuss.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2...id#47634677)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mos_maiorum

Lol at sewer skunk millennial white women, just lol.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2...id#47628104)

I assume he was referring to something

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2...id#47628571)

The other thing was an account of Christians that stuck out to me. Deformed babies were tossed in the river and they kicked the early Christians that would go in and fish the babies out to care for them. I figure early Christians were the shit libs of the day.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2...id#47635586)

They were also obsessed with legalistic and political formalities even if on the surface. Caesar and Augustus both went through all kinds of lengths to take on offices or assume what appeared to be constitutional grants of power when in reality they just controlled the army and had power by the sword. But it was important to appear dedicated to the civic customs to the extent possible

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2...id#47636034)