Judeo-Christian vs. Greco-Roman worldview

[Alexand96]

Seeing as I'm in the midst of the winter doldrums, and crave some form of intellectual conversation or entertainment, I'd like to pose a question. I've discussed this issue every once in awhile with friends, and thought that it might be an interesting question or thought experiment to bring to RAT - what if the Judeo-Christian worldview, or shall we say, the Judeo-Christian code of ethics, had not become prevalent in late antiquity, and whatever was propagated to our own time was a more pure form of the Greco-Roman worldview/code of ethics? Which influences or social differences would you expect the most? What do you think would be most shocking, or perhaps most difficult to adjust to for you personally?

We so often hear, whether it be in school or on tv, that the form that most of our institutions take originate in the Greco-Roman world (which is true, of course), and that we owe them such a debt of gratitude for being so forward-thinking and ingenious. However, I personally believe that the more you delve into the ancient classical world, and the people and events that inhabit that world, you see that it is quite shockingly different in some very important ways than many would lead one to believe.

Understandably, this question could quite easily be twisted in a controversial manner, so please try to approach this idea for what it is - a playful thought experiment. Remember, there is no one history until it passes into existence; until that moment passes there exist an infinite number of possible histories. I am simply asking you to use your imagination to step into one of those alternate, yet seemingly plausible, realities and tell me what you see....

[Nathan Ross]

That's an interesting question. The ancient world does indeed look pretty alienating at times - the idea that people might benefit from watching prisoners being slaughtered by gladiators, for example, or the mass culpability of slaves for any crime carried out against their master.

The most important thing that Christianity gave to history, I think, was the belief that humanity was made in the image of God, and that the individual human body was therefore sacred - killing people is wrong, in other words. An idea honoured more frequently in the lapse, of course, but one which would change human development dramatically.

It took the 18th century enlightenment (itself supposedly a reintroduction of 'classical' thought!) to do it justice, but from the idea that all humans are made in the image of God comes the abolition of slavery, universal manhood suffrage, equality before the law, sexual and racial equality, individual human rights, representative democracy and the concept of individual liberty - the foundation of what most of us consider to be modern western civilisation, in other words.

Without Christianity, there may have been none of that - albeit it took nearly two thousand years and a considerable amount of irreligious argument for the germ of the idea to bear fruit! Then again, we don't know how the classical mindset might have developed if Christianity hadn't come along - perhaps neo-platonism or something might have come up with some more advanced moral ideas, given time?

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Representative democracy occurred in the Ancient Roman Classical world - that's why it was called the Roman republic.

I have to say though, this is an interesting topic. I enjoy both your opinions and world views, and would have to agree that Christianity and monotheism in general both played an important role in the shaping of modern society.

The Roman empire was on the fringe of major scientific advancement when Christianity was introduced - then concepts like Heliocentrism suddenly got branded as Heresy. IMO, the Emperor Julian was right in the regard that "No barbarian was as cruel as the different sects of Christianity were." I'm not putting down Christianity as a faith, but there was a lot of religion, and that included a lot of scientific suppression as a result, IMO.

The idea that if "you don't think like I do, then you're wrong" became prevalent. The true Christian mindset contributed a lot, but I think that the introduction of the Church hindered much as well.

[Urselius]

I think the greatest fault of the Judeo-Christian tradition, in comparison to the Greco-Roman, is the concept of sin. In the Ancient world sin was a not particularly well developed concept, though some acts, such as the murder of a parent, were considered abhorrent. If a person acted within whatever laws applied to them and committed no great act of impiety towards the gods then he or she could live a life relatively free of feelings of guilt. In particular the idea of Original Sin has had a profoundly distorting effect on the status of women and the relations between the sexes.

[Lyceum]

We so often hear, whether it be in school or on tv, that the form that most of our institutions take originate in the Greco-Roman world (which is true, of course)

Which is not at all true, and is a serious problem with popular scholarship. There is a lot of rhetoric about this, a lot of bullshit and quite a few people writing on intellectual history have discussed this endlessly. In fact I think even in her newest book, Confronting the Classics, discuss this issue. The origins of our culture, in so much as they lay anywhere, is certainly with those barbarian peoples coming to their own after the Western collapse. The whole notion of Europe as we have it now is directly as a result of the middle ages.

However, I personally believe that the more you delve into the ancient classical world, and the people and events that inhabit that world, you see that it is quite shockingly different in some very important ways than many would lead one to believe.

Well yes that's rather obvious and sort of to the point isn't it? how many people are monolingual, monocultural and untravelled? Its much easier to sell the "they were just like us!" image and actually the sort of work one finds on religious and socio-cultural attitudes tends to be rather advanced anyway with few exceptions. They were massively different from us. People like things to fit into neat narratives. Most people who say "I like history" really mean "I like stories!".

I can't help but agree with Nathan in seeing importance of the Enlightenment to our modern day, however I don't really see the Enlightenment has over so much as an ongoing process. I admit I also smiled at the use of the word sacred considering what the concept means in Roman religious practice...

As for how it would have developed, I'm tempted to answer but then I have nothing really against Christianity (as it is) and I think its been well covered already, permutation of state cult to be more centralised, wider dispersal of mystery cults and certain philosophical stools, a greater tendency towards monotheistic cultures and a more streamlined system etc etc

[Flavivs Aetivs]

The origins of our culture, in so much as they lay anywhere, is certainly with those barbarian peoples coming to their own after the Western collapse. The whole notion of Europe as we have it now is directly as a result of the middle ages.

I would have to somewhat disagree with this - our concepts of Ethnicity, Race, and Nationalism certainly stem from the development of the Barbarian successor states after the collapse of the Roman Empire (I should note this did not exist during it's collapse, or at least not until the very end). However, most of their laws and culture were transcriptions of Roman laws and culture.

In their settlement in the 5th century, the Barbarians adopted the Roman system, because it was the only system. In terms of where our law and political foundations come from, it's Greco-Roman as it was preserved through codes like the lex burgundionem.

I would say that there wasn't much development of this until the Arabs came, and brought back the concepts of science and learning, and development. The Byzantines and Europe weren't backwards and "Dark" as is commonly believed, but they weren't promoting advancement either, at least not until after influence from the arabs spurred scholarships and introduced new ideas.

[Lyceum]

The origins of our culture, in so much as they lay anywhere, is certainly with those barbarian peoples coming to their own after the Western collapse. The whole notion of Europe as we have it now is directly as a result of the middle ages.

I would have to somewhat disagree with this - our concepts of Ethnicity, Race, and Nationalism certainly stem from the development of the Barbarian successor states after the collapse of the Roman Empire (I should note this did not exist during it's collapse, or at least not until the very end). However, most of their laws and culture were transcriptions of Roman laws and culture.

Not really, some of the most important important principles such as Salic law were Barbaric in origin, in fact there were several legal codes lying around from such origins. Arguably the most important legal system to date, English and Welsh common Law, is barbaric in nature. There's a massive difference in actual Roman law and Roman legal systems...as were found in the East and the hodgepodge we have in Europe proper. So that's out.

I would say that there wasn't much development of this until the Arabs came, and brought back the concepts of science and learning, and development. The Byzantines and Europe weren't backwards and "Dark" as is commonly believed, but they weren't promoting advancement either, at least not until after influence from the arabs spurred scholarships and introduced new ideas.

You...don't think there was development... until the Arabs came back? what? There were significant developments in several fields in Constantinople. We can discount Theology if you like but there was amazing work done on legal and moral philosophy, law itself, grammar, literary criticism, historiography and so on. On the technological side there's obviously agriculture, production and things like maths even before the Arabs are bringing important Indic and Persian ideas like the number systems. There was a lot of intellectual development. People not knowing their Classics doesn't = no development.

[Macedon]

Well... as i see it, very few things would be different in a Graecoroman-paganistic 21st century Western society. We would probably have reached our current level of technology maybe a couple of centuries earlier but that is all the difference I see. Judeochristian ethics, as I see it, did not add much new to what was anyways considered ethical in the pre-Christian past. Slavery continued on pretty much the same ethical basis, so did mass persecutions, mass murders, ethnic and religious purges. Maybe Christians did not enjoy sex that much, surely the concept of sin made people's lives a bit gloomier, but they surely enjoyed blood and mayhem as much as your regular pagan. They were a bit more fanatic in their beliefs, thus tolerance was rarer and pagan knowledge a priori condemned (the lost 2 centuries I mentioned in the beginning) but in the end, now that religious fervor has abated, I doubt it would make much difference if we called God Zeus and if we now and then ate roasted beef instead of bread and wine in religious ceremonies.

[Cesco]

The most important thing that Christianity gave to history, I think, was the belief that humanity was made in the image of God, and that the individual human body was therefore sacred - killing people is wrong, in other words. An idea honoured more frequently in the lapse, of course, but one which would change human development dramatically.

I partially disagree with you: the concept of man made in the image of God is already know in the classic world: greco-roman gods are antropomorphous! Cristianity is the natural consequence of paganism under this point of view

I think that the most important difference is the following: the judeo-christian is a "universalist" worldview: all people in the world should follow it (this is true for christianity and islam not for judaism)...not only from a religious point of view, but also from a political one (democracy is the only way...)
To the contrary in a greco-roman worldview other people have the "right" to maintain their cultural and political heritage.

[Timianus]

The most important thing that Christianity gave to history, I think, was the belief that humanity was made in the image of God,

I respectfully disagree. Many of the ideas that we consider to be "christian" originated from Neoplatonism. The belief system of what became "the Catholic Church" was an amalgamation of neoplatanism and various pagan tradtion. "Man made in the image of god" was a direct outgrowth of the arisitilian concept of there being "pure forms" for everything in existence. (The gnostics explored this concept to a much fuller extent).

While certainly the romans claimed to have a moral superiority due to their "inherent virtue" and the "divine favor" the gods gave them, christianity (at least the state-run, institutional version) propogated the idea that "everyone must think like us." While the romans claimed their culture was superior and gave them the authority to "civilize" the world through conquest, Christianity made widespread the belief that "killing the heretics" was moral and just. The amount of destruction, wasted lives, and wars that the early christian sects generated is quite disgusting if you look into it. Read "The Closing of The Western Mind" for more on this.

But, I beleive that had christianity not caught on, some other monotheistic religion would have. A lot has been written about the similarities between the early church and Mithrasism (not surprising as Mithras was the god of the army and christianity became a force under Constantine). IMHO, Constantine could have chosen Mithras or Sol Invictus as his personal favorite god and we would have wound up with pretty much the same thing as the catholic church, albeit named differently.

Also remember that much of the "intolerance" that came from Christianty was state-directed, as the religion was suppossed to be the force that unified the empire; therefore, no dissent could be allowed.

[Nathan Ross]

Emperor Julian was right in the regard that "No barbarian was as cruel as the different sects of Christianity were.".

Quite so! There's a fascinating-looking book about that which I've been meaning to read for ages - There is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ, all about 'religious violence' in the first centuries of the christian empire.

the concept of man made in the image of God is already know in the classic world: greco-roman gods are antropomorphous!

It sure was. I meant more in a spiritual sense though - the soul inside the body, so to speak. If all are made in God's image, then all (by extension) are equal before God. From this extends our modern concept of the individual, with equal rights and obligations, but also the concept that (for example) weakness and poverty are not contemptible, something most of us at least claim to take for granted!

Even the idea of sin - of a moral wrong that lies outside state legislation, oath or family obligation - is quite revolutionary.

Again, I'm not talking here about the effect that Christianity had on succeeding centuries - which surely had more than enough hideousness and injustice in the name of God* - but rather the way that our modern society has evolved from a combination of classical and medieval pagan and christian concepts. Most people in the world today, I think, would hold the statement killing people is wrong to be axiomatic. Something close to a natural law, in fact. But, as we know, the Romans saw things differently. And it is from this idea of the inherent value of all human life, its inherent equality and inviolability - one of the most brilliant in history, and like all brilliant ideas extremely hard to implement - that so much of our contemporary view of ourselves and our society derives.

*incidentally, Constantine was (I think) the first emperor to legislate against slaves being branded, supposedly on this same issue of the body being the image of God. Christian pacifism was known to much earlier observers, and caused problems with military service. Despite this, for some reason Roman judicial punishments got noticably more gory and visceral in the christian centuries. I've often wondered why...

had christianity not caught on, some other monotheistic religion would have... Constantine could have chosen Mithras or Sol Invictus as his personal favorite god and we would have wound up with pretty much the same thing as the catholic church, albeit named differently.

Well, quite possibly yes. Or maybe some other religion - Buddhism? - would have had a much greater influence in forming the western mind and moral system.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

I don't think Hinduism or Buddhism would have caught on.

I honestly think Atheism would have become more and more prevalent, especially considering the "Decline" of the Empire, as people's worldview became more and more pessimistic.