There was no idea of “equality” in that world. Things were very different for the rich and powerful — the 1 percent, as we might call them today. The 99 percent were their toys, legally speaking. The pagan world had no notion of “human rights” — no idea that a human being was a person who was somehow sacred just because he was human. So life could

Chapter 3 A Revolution in the Home

Every other nation, every other empire, every other kingdom, every other people — the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Hittites, the Greeks, the Romans — routinely killed their young. Plato and Aristotle commended abortion and infanticide. As the philosopher Seneca said, getting rid of useless children was simply the reasonable thing to do.

In Rome, a child did not achieve personhood until he was recognized by the head of the family, the father.

We have no evidence that these cults had any expectations for a member’s behavior outside the rituals in which members participated.

When we refer to the “pre-Christian” world, we don’t mean the world before Christianity came along. We mean the world before Christianity converted it — the world in which Christianity was a persecuted, illegal religion.

pagan culture, no preferential treatment was due to victims. There was no duty to protect the weak. Victims were losers,

In Roman culture at the time of the early Church, the father had absolute control over every member of his family — including power over life and death. Under the Roman Republic, a paterfamilias — the head of a household — could legally execute his son if

A Revolution of the Person The Invention of Human Dignity