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History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne
A history of Morals from the peak of the Roman Empire to the reign of Charlemagne, covering the "pagan" period, the conversion to Christianity, the fall of Rome, the "Dark Ages," and the emergence of the Gothic kingdoms - setting the historical data against the background of the religious, social and philosophical creeds which influenced moral practice. A work both tremendous in scope and unusually rich in detail. Topics discussed include Utilitarian principles, the Pagan Empire, stoicism, causes of corruption, persecutions, Christianity, the position of women, and others. Includes an Index.
- GenresHistory
468 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1955
About the author
William Edward Hartpole Lecky
108 books22 followersWilliam Edward Hartpole Lecky was an Irish historian and political theorist. Born at Newtown Park, near Dublin, he was the eldest son of John Hartpole Lecky, a landowner. He was educated at Kingstown, Armagh, at Cheltenham College, and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated BA in 1859 and MA in 1863, and where he studied divinity with a view to becoming a priest in the Protestant Church of Ireland.
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June 27, 2024
Thoughts
This book was thoroughly enlightening but quite dry and dense and around 850 pages. This is partially why I have written such an extensive summary hoping to convey some of the themes that I think are important to know without just saying "read the book". When it comes to topics like morality it is easy to have an axe to grind. Lecky provides what appears to me to have been an even-handed recounting of this slice of history. This book is full of useful information and interesting context that is often lost when trying to understand the events of history. I am sure there are mistakes and misunderstandings, but there is so much else that is of value that what few mistakes there are will be dwarfed by the new perspective given to the reader. I found myself often copying large sections of the text while in other parts leaving surprised questions marks when a new fact that sounded preposterous turned out to be true. If you have the time, this book is worth it.
Summary
One of Churchill and Twain's favorite books, William Edward Hartpole Lecky sets out to trace the evolution of morality in Europe from Augustus to Charlemagne. This roughly starts his investigation around 0AD and ends around 800AD. The goal of the book is to disentangle mythologic shifts of morality and place them in their natural context. Traditionally we learn history as a string of critical events. This is necessary to gain some sense of orientation but often context is lost. This makes those critical events appear to have arisen on their own, they then can take mythical proportion in the collective consciousness slowly becoming disconnected from the facts that precipitated them. The book is split into two volumes, the first addressing the natural history of moral speculation and then investigating the Roman empire during its pagan phase. The second volume picks up with Constantine after he had just instituted Christianity as the national religion of the Roman empire. The book ends with a brief survey of how women were treated in the various eras covered.
1.1 Natural History of Morals
Before analyzing Europe's moral development, Lecky wanted to lay out what he considered to be the two main approaches to explaining the basis of morality.
Utilitarianism
Like the name implies, a utilitarian bases morality on a utility calculation. This approach bases morality on what will produce the most happiness for the acting agent. It is therefore by definition an egocentric approach to morality.
Intuitionalism
Intuitionists argue that there is an inherent moral "sense” for duty and moral obligation, which operates in many cases while ignoring the consequences that are the basis of the utilitarian's calculation.
Lecky argues that while it is possible to often come up with selfish reasons for the most apparently virtuous actions, there are three main issues with this approach that push him towards Intuitionalism. The first is that our language makes a clear distinction in how it addresses self-interested actions versus how it refers to virtuous actions. This linguistic distinction indicates a divide that is difficult to explain from the utilitarian view. Secondly, the types of actions that are considered virtuous often are considered less virtuous in proportion to the gain a person gets from them. Lastly, virtues are often diametrically opposed to the "happiness" of the acting agent. Although initially religion would appear to be on the side of the Intuitionalist, Lecky is quick to point out that often the religious ethic is merely a calculation to avoid eternal torment. Perhaps a good example of the non-utilitarian action Lecky has in mind is the mother who would throw herself into hell to spare her child. It is these types of actions that appeal to a moral aesthetic sense that is difficult to understand from a strictly utilitarian point of view.
1.2 Pagan Empire
Lecky starts his investigation into European morals by giving a brief overview of the Greek influence. Rome conquered Greece, but Rome itself was largely an unsophisticated civilization. The Romans, upon encountering the sophisticated Greek philosophical tradition, became acutely aware of the limitations of their own provincial, agriculturally rooted worldview. Recognizing the richness and depth of Greek thought, they swiftly embraced and assimilated it into their culture. The Greek intellectual landscape was marked by a remarkable diversity of ideas, largely fostered by their polytheistic beliefs. This religious plurality naturally cultivated an environment of intellectual tolerance, allowing for a wide spectrum of philosophical perspectives to flourish side by side. As philosophical schools matured, they fostered increasingly skeptical thinkers who began to question popular legends and traditional sacrificial practices. These intellectuals were drawn to more pantheistic worldviews, that envisioned the cosmos as a unified, divine whole. This shift in perspective created fertile ground for the emergence and flourishing of Stoic philosophy. Almost at the same time, essentially atheistic material schools like those of the Epicureans were emerging creating a complicated dynamic world of thoughts for the individual to choose from. This rise of skepticism and philosophic rigor caused the morals of the philosophers to reach new heights of coherence but had what can only be described as a degenerative effect on the populace at large. Skepticism wasn't the only factor in the corruption of Rome, Romans had long held to simple traditional values like discipline, civic duty and honesty. Yet new successful conquests brought in large amounts of luxury and wealth undermining these conservative values. At the same time, many Roman emperors sank into cruelty and despotism, some, like Nero and Caligula, becoming so notorious that their names are almost synonymous with brutality and excess. This produced a large amount of disenfranchisement of the common people leading to an increase in public distrust
which revealed itself as political instability. The public’s discontentment caused leaders to make irreversibly bad decisions to keep the populace on their side, most famously with the bread and circuses. Initially intended to allay the difficulties produced by political instability or times of crisis, free bread and entertainment became a permanent fixture of the Roman empire. The consequence was a populace that didn't have any needs, creating a petulant and apathetic mood. Culminating in a possibly apocryphal tale of citizens during the sack of Rome not even leaving the arenas during the invasion. This complete societal collapse set the stage for a much-needed new psychic movement, Christianity. Christianity was able to integrate much of Stoic cosmogony and virtue ethic. More than this, it was also able to bring back the sense of reverence that had come from religious rites but had been undercut by the prevailing skepticism.
1.3 The Conversion of Rome
The first thing that strikes a historian of this era is the complete lack of "press coverage" for the developing Christian movement. Signaling that for some reason the leading philosophers like Plutarch and Pliny didn't see Christianity as something worth recording. With hindsight this was obviously a mistake, Lecky argues that the main reason for this oversight was caused by the focus of the top writers. Morality had largely been removed from the sphere of religion and instead was dictated by philosophy. Christianity's reversal of this, in the minds of the leading philosophers discredited it, relegating it to an unimportant fad that was eclipsed by what were manifestly larger issues of a crumbling empire. The next question is how did such a small movement out of a small province in a huge empire come to ascendancy? The two main approaches in this are either an over emphasis of the pre-existing alignment between Stoicism and Christianity or a reliance on the miracles being so evident that the populace quickly came to adopt the miraculous new religion on the block. Lecky finds both explanations lacking.
Pagan Religion vs Christianity
Stoicism and Christianity aren't as compatible as they might seem at first glance. In fact, Christianity's dogged emphasis on the potential rewards or punishments in the afterlife are exactly counter to Stoic and Epicurean aims. One of the main goals of Stoicism and Epicurus was to strip death of its terrifying aspects, while Christianity capitalized on them. The relationship between existing Pagan philosophy and the new Christian philosophy is fraught, riddled with plagiarism and inconsistencies. One church father would bend over backwards trying to bridge that gap between Christian texts and Platonic doctrine, while others would decry any similarities as inconsequential. The result was to sometimes steal philosophical concepts claiming them under the banner of divine revelation while other pagan concepts were thrown on the pyre as heresy.
Miracles
The spread of Christianity is often understood by theologians as verification for the miracles that were witnessed by the early apostles. The argument is as follows: Christianity claims many
miracles to have taken place, we find this incredible in the literal sense of the word, yet the people in Rome did not. Therefore, the evidence to support these miracles must have been so credible as to surpass any level of skepticism that the pagans of the time had and win them over to the Christian movement. This argument sounds plausible on its face but is made less so by its historic context. One must often keep in mind that the common Roman wasn't a skeptic from the enlightenment age. Pagan religion was full of supernatural events from omens to emperors performing miracles. Miraculous claims were not out of the ordinary nor were they the subject of rigorous investigation. Instead, they were often taken at face value. Thus, the plethora of miraculous events says less about the veracity of Christianity than it does about the culture from which it emerged.
Lecky's Conclusion
Lecky attributes the rise of Christianity to a few factors. First the content of the Christian message which was in many ways a reversal of previous religious claims conferring an importance to the "everyman" in a way not before seen. Secondly, the empire was catastrophically failing both politically and morally. Among other things you also had the magnetic example of early Christian martyrs which stirred the long dormant moral ideals in an uninspired citizenry. This revolution in thought was cemented by a series of high-ranking conversions leading up to Constantine who designated Christianity as the national religion.
2.1 From Constantine to Charlemagne
The focus of this section is largely on the effects that the Christian ethic had on Roman society. The most noticeable being a dramatic rise in the perceived value of life. Christianity completely suppressed the gladiatorial games and drastically shifted the perception of things like abortion and infanticide. The early Christian ethic was one of nonresistance and therefore things like capital punishment and serving in the military were discouraged. Christianity reunited religious ceremony with philosophy and morality allowing them to speak in multiple registers reaching all social classes simultaneously. While not originally taking such a bleak view of human nature as later Church fathers like Augustine did, the early shift of focus from virtuous ideal to sin and remorse set the groundwork for this later focus. The previous Roman ideal was a sort of civically minded Hercules that was proud, loyal, patriotic, and bound by his duty. The Christian ideal on the other hand was humble, charitable and completely disconnected from the world. This ideal became embodied by the hermit monk who lived in the desert fed by birds and visited by angels. It should be recognized that many of the various charitable institutions like hospitals, orphanages and poorhouses owe their conception to this era.
From the start of Christianity there were systems set in place whereby the guilty were disciplined by the clergy. This early version of a church judiciary would come to fruition in the Catholic church. Another passion that became evident from the early Christian followers was their intolerance for those outside of the faith. Their abhorrence of physical violence on this earthly plane was more
than made up for by the tortures they would imagine heretics experiencing in the afterlife. Eventually imaginations of future punishment were not enough. Instead, the church saw fit to bring the heretic a taste of their future torment in this life. Monotheism brought with it an undivided loyalty that bred a type of fanaticism foreign to Rome. The culture up until that point was largely polytheistic, this produced a spirit of tolerance that allowed each to follow "their god". Conversely, there were no room for "many ways to god" in the Christian faith. This feeling was not limited to other faiths but was also inwardly directed engendering endless division, sects, and vitriolic hatred.
The emphasis Christianity had on orthodoxy and the energy with which they crushed dissenting belief created an environment where doubts and questions were sins and things to be avoided. Where the highest virtue was to take the words of the bishop as those of a god. It is hard to imagine a more important ingredient for the subsequent dark ages. This situation was made worse by the recurrence of the ascetic ideal which was disconnected from worldly affairs. It is all well and good to be too heavenly minded for earthly good when you are the minority, but when you are the state religion the reality principle at some point must interpose. Thus imperceptibly, there was a shift in the humble charitable monk to that of the chivalrous knight. Charlemagne became the embodiment of this ideal and is where Lecky's investigations end.
2.2 The Position of Women
In the shortest and probably least rewarding sections of the book, Lecky investigates the ways that women were treated throughout the history we've been investigating. He gives a cursory overview of the evolution and changes of sexual norms from Pagan times and contrasting them with Christian times. The major takeaway is that neither culture provided a completely hospitable place for women in general. Both in Pagan and Christian times women occupied a secondary subservient class. While Pagans allowed women to reach somewhat higher in society, Christian culture provided more protections ranging from stricter penalties on profligate men to better financial safety nets for widows.
Lecky makes the argument that the station of women was the worst during "barbarous" times. In this state women were on the same level as cattle. The introduction of the bride price, which seems appalling now, was an improvement. If you could increase the investment of a man in their property, they would be likely to treat them better. The idea of monogamy further improved the "lot of women", in that it provided the material conditions for long lasting affectionate relationships to grow between husband and wife. This was undercut by the asymmetry that Greeks treated extra-marital affairs and treated women as citizens. But the rise in loving relationships eventually manifested in more calls for equal treatment as seen by later Roman legal reforms.
Today, Christianity is not seen as a champion of women rights, but Lecky claims that in many ways it picked up the torch of gradual progress that the Romans had made and kept going. His main
arguments are that while Pagan religion emphasized what would be traditionally considered as masculine traits excepting virginity, the Christian ethic added quite a few stereotypically female virtues for women to idealize. Although this may seem a silly distinction, it is backed up by the large numbers to which Roman women flocked to the early church. It is also demonstrated by the fact that the second most important figure in Christianity is the Virgin Mary. Providing such an ideal, raised the value of women in communal consciousness moving them much closer to an equal footing than in Roman times. One large draw back Christianity had on women was the absolute repugnance the early church fathers had for anything sexual. They were so anti-sex that even within the confines of marriage the idea became permeated with shame. This did much to tarnish the relationship between husband and wife, making the ideal celebacy. As remarked earlier, the total impracticality of such ideas eventually forced a slow change in the message that the church had on marriage, but this change would take hundreds of years and many of its effects can still be seen.
This book was thoroughly enlightening but quite dry and dense and around 850 pages. This is partially why I have written such an extensive summary hoping to convey some of the themes that I think are important to know without just saying "read the book". When it comes to topics like morality it is easy to have an axe to grind. Lecky provides what appears to me to have been an even-handed recounting of this slice of history. This book is full of useful information and interesting context that is often lost when trying to understand the events of history. I am sure there are mistakes and misunderstandings, but there is so much else that is of value that what few mistakes there are will be dwarfed by the new perspective given to the reader. I found myself often copying large sections of the text while in other parts leaving surprised questions marks when a new fact that sounded preposterous turned out to be true. If you have the time, this book is worth it.
Summary
One of Churchill and Twain's favorite books, William Edward Hartpole Lecky sets out to trace the evolution of morality in Europe from Augustus to Charlemagne. This roughly starts his investigation around 0AD and ends around 800AD. The goal of the book is to disentangle mythologic shifts of morality and place them in their natural context. Traditionally we learn history as a string of critical events. This is necessary to gain some sense of orientation but often context is lost. This makes those critical events appear to have arisen on their own, they then can take mythical proportion in the collective consciousness slowly becoming disconnected from the facts that precipitated them. The book is split into two volumes, the first addressing the natural history of moral speculation and then investigating the Roman empire during its pagan phase. The second volume picks up with Constantine after he had just instituted Christianity as the national religion of the Roman empire. The book ends with a brief survey of how women were treated in the various eras covered.
1.1 Natural History of Morals
Before analyzing Europe's moral development, Lecky wanted to lay out what he considered to be the two main approaches to explaining the basis of morality.
Utilitarianism
Like the name implies, a utilitarian bases morality on a utility calculation. This approach bases morality on what will produce the most happiness for the acting agent. It is therefore by definition an egocentric approach to morality.
Intuitionalism
Intuitionists argue that there is an inherent moral "sense” for duty and moral obligation, which operates in many cases while ignoring the consequences that are the basis of the utilitarian's calculation.
Lecky argues that while it is possible to often come up with selfish reasons for the most apparently virtuous actions, there are three main issues with this approach that push him towards Intuitionalism. The first is that our language makes a clear distinction in how it addresses self-interested actions versus how it refers to virtuous actions. This linguistic distinction indicates a divide that is difficult to explain from the utilitarian view. Secondly, the types of actions that are considered virtuous often are considered less virtuous in proportion to the gain a person gets from them. Lastly, virtues are often diametrically opposed to the "happiness" of the acting agent. Although initially religion would appear to be on the side of the Intuitionalist, Lecky is quick to point out that often the religious ethic is merely a calculation to avoid eternal torment. Perhaps a good example of the non-utilitarian action Lecky has in mind is the mother who would throw herself into hell to spare her child. It is these types of actions that appeal to a moral aesthetic sense that is difficult to understand from a strictly utilitarian point of view.
1.2 Pagan Empire
Lecky starts his investigation into European morals by giving a brief overview of the Greek influence. Rome conquered Greece, but Rome itself was largely an unsophisticated civilization. The Romans, upon encountering the sophisticated Greek philosophical tradition, became acutely aware of the limitations of their own provincial, agriculturally rooted worldview. Recognizing the richness and depth of Greek thought, they swiftly embraced and assimilated it into their culture. The Greek intellectual landscape was marked by a remarkable diversity of ideas, largely fostered by their polytheistic beliefs. This religious plurality naturally cultivated an environment of intellectual tolerance, allowing for a wide spectrum of philosophical perspectives to flourish side by side. As philosophical schools matured, they fostered increasingly skeptical thinkers who began to question popular legends and traditional sacrificial practices. These intellectuals were drawn to more pantheistic worldviews, that envisioned the cosmos as a unified, divine whole. This shift in perspective created fertile ground for the emergence and flourishing of Stoic philosophy. Almost at the same time, essentially atheistic material schools like those of the Epicureans were emerging creating a complicated dynamic world of thoughts for the individual to choose from. This rise of skepticism and philosophic rigor caused the morals of the philosophers to reach new heights of coherence but had what can only be described as a degenerative effect on the populace at large. Skepticism wasn't the only factor in the corruption of Rome, Romans had long held to simple traditional values like discipline, civic duty and honesty. Yet new successful conquests brought in large amounts of luxury and wealth undermining these conservative values. At the same time, many Roman emperors sank into cruelty and despotism, some, like Nero and Caligula, becoming so notorious that their names are almost synonymous with brutality and excess. This produced a large amount of disenfranchisement of the common people leading to an increase in public distrust
which revealed itself as political instability. The public’s discontentment caused leaders to make irreversibly bad decisions to keep the populace on their side, most famously with the bread and circuses. Initially intended to allay the difficulties produced by political instability or times of crisis, free bread and entertainment became a permanent fixture of the Roman empire. The consequence was a populace that didn't have any needs, creating a petulant and apathetic mood. Culminating in a possibly apocryphal tale of citizens during the sack of Rome not even leaving the arenas during the invasion. This complete societal collapse set the stage for a much-needed new psychic movement, Christianity. Christianity was able to integrate much of Stoic cosmogony and virtue ethic. More than this, it was also able to bring back the sense of reverence that had come from religious rites but had been undercut by the prevailing skepticism.
1.3 The Conversion of Rome
The first thing that strikes a historian of this era is the complete lack of "press coverage" for the developing Christian movement. Signaling that for some reason the leading philosophers like Plutarch and Pliny didn't see Christianity as something worth recording. With hindsight this was obviously a mistake, Lecky argues that the main reason for this oversight was caused by the focus of the top writers. Morality had largely been removed from the sphere of religion and instead was dictated by philosophy. Christianity's reversal of this, in the minds of the leading philosophers discredited it, relegating it to an unimportant fad that was eclipsed by what were manifestly larger issues of a crumbling empire. The next question is how did such a small movement out of a small province in a huge empire come to ascendancy? The two main approaches in this are either an over emphasis of the pre-existing alignment between Stoicism and Christianity or a reliance on the miracles being so evident that the populace quickly came to adopt the miraculous new religion on the block. Lecky finds both explanations lacking.
Pagan Religion vs Christianity
Stoicism and Christianity aren't as compatible as they might seem at first glance. In fact, Christianity's dogged emphasis on the potential rewards or punishments in the afterlife are exactly counter to Stoic and Epicurean aims. One of the main goals of Stoicism and Epicurus was to strip death of its terrifying aspects, while Christianity capitalized on them. The relationship between existing Pagan philosophy and the new Christian philosophy is fraught, riddled with plagiarism and inconsistencies. One church father would bend over backwards trying to bridge that gap between Christian texts and Platonic doctrine, while others would decry any similarities as inconsequential. The result was to sometimes steal philosophical concepts claiming them under the banner of divine revelation while other pagan concepts were thrown on the pyre as heresy.
Miracles
The spread of Christianity is often understood by theologians as verification for the miracles that were witnessed by the early apostles. The argument is as follows: Christianity claims many
miracles to have taken place, we find this incredible in the literal sense of the word, yet the people in Rome did not. Therefore, the evidence to support these miracles must have been so credible as to surpass any level of skepticism that the pagans of the time had and win them over to the Christian movement. This argument sounds plausible on its face but is made less so by its historic context. One must often keep in mind that the common Roman wasn't a skeptic from the enlightenment age. Pagan religion was full of supernatural events from omens to emperors performing miracles. Miraculous claims were not out of the ordinary nor were they the subject of rigorous investigation. Instead, they were often taken at face value. Thus, the plethora of miraculous events says less about the veracity of Christianity than it does about the culture from which it emerged.
Lecky's Conclusion
Lecky attributes the rise of Christianity to a few factors. First the content of the Christian message which was in many ways a reversal of previous religious claims conferring an importance to the "everyman" in a way not before seen. Secondly, the empire was catastrophically failing both politically and morally. Among other things you also had the magnetic example of early Christian martyrs which stirred the long dormant moral ideals in an uninspired citizenry. This revolution in thought was cemented by a series of high-ranking conversions leading up to Constantine who designated Christianity as the national religion.
2.1 From Constantine to Charlemagne
The focus of this section is largely on the effects that the Christian ethic had on Roman society. The most noticeable being a dramatic rise in the perceived value of life. Christianity completely suppressed the gladiatorial games and drastically shifted the perception of things like abortion and infanticide. The early Christian ethic was one of nonresistance and therefore things like capital punishment and serving in the military were discouraged. Christianity reunited religious ceremony with philosophy and morality allowing them to speak in multiple registers reaching all social classes simultaneously. While not originally taking such a bleak view of human nature as later Church fathers like Augustine did, the early shift of focus from virtuous ideal to sin and remorse set the groundwork for this later focus. The previous Roman ideal was a sort of civically minded Hercules that was proud, loyal, patriotic, and bound by his duty. The Christian ideal on the other hand was humble, charitable and completely disconnected from the world. This ideal became embodied by the hermit monk who lived in the desert fed by birds and visited by angels. It should be recognized that many of the various charitable institutions like hospitals, orphanages and poorhouses owe their conception to this era.
From the start of Christianity there were systems set in place whereby the guilty were disciplined by the clergy. This early version of a church judiciary would come to fruition in the Catholic church. Another passion that became evident from the early Christian followers was their intolerance for those outside of the faith. Their abhorrence of physical violence on this earthly plane was more
than made up for by the tortures they would imagine heretics experiencing in the afterlife. Eventually imaginations of future punishment were not enough. Instead, the church saw fit to bring the heretic a taste of their future torment in this life. Monotheism brought with it an undivided loyalty that bred a type of fanaticism foreign to Rome. The culture up until that point was largely polytheistic, this produced a spirit of tolerance that allowed each to follow "their god". Conversely, there were no room for "many ways to god" in the Christian faith. This feeling was not limited to other faiths but was also inwardly directed engendering endless division, sects, and vitriolic hatred.
The emphasis Christianity had on orthodoxy and the energy with which they crushed dissenting belief created an environment where doubts and questions were sins and things to be avoided. Where the highest virtue was to take the words of the bishop as those of a god. It is hard to imagine a more important ingredient for the subsequent dark ages. This situation was made worse by the recurrence of the ascetic ideal which was disconnected from worldly affairs. It is all well and good to be too heavenly minded for earthly good when you are the minority, but when you are the state religion the reality principle at some point must interpose. Thus imperceptibly, there was a shift in the humble charitable monk to that of the chivalrous knight. Charlemagne became the embodiment of this ideal and is where Lecky's investigations end.
2.2 The Position of Women
In the shortest and probably least rewarding sections of the book, Lecky investigates the ways that women were treated throughout the history we've been investigating. He gives a cursory overview of the evolution and changes of sexual norms from Pagan times and contrasting them with Christian times. The major takeaway is that neither culture provided a completely hospitable place for women in general. Both in Pagan and Christian times women occupied a secondary subservient class. While Pagans allowed women to reach somewhat higher in society, Christian culture provided more protections ranging from stricter penalties on profligate men to better financial safety nets for widows.
Lecky makes the argument that the station of women was the worst during "barbarous" times. In this state women were on the same level as cattle. The introduction of the bride price, which seems appalling now, was an improvement. If you could increase the investment of a man in their property, they would be likely to treat them better. The idea of monogamy further improved the "lot of women", in that it provided the material conditions for long lasting affectionate relationships to grow between husband and wife. This was undercut by the asymmetry that Greeks treated extra-marital affairs and treated women as citizens. But the rise in loving relationships eventually manifested in more calls for equal treatment as seen by later Roman legal reforms.
Today, Christianity is not seen as a champion of women rights, but Lecky claims that in many ways it picked up the torch of gradual progress that the Romans had made and kept going. His main
arguments are that while Pagan religion emphasized what would be traditionally considered as masculine traits excepting virginity, the Christian ethic added quite a few stereotypically female virtues for women to idealize. Although this may seem a silly distinction, it is backed up by the large numbers to which Roman women flocked to the early church. It is also demonstrated by the fact that the second most important figure in Christianity is the Virgin Mary. Providing such an ideal, raised the value of women in communal consciousness moving them much closer to an equal footing than in Roman times. One large draw back Christianity had on women was the absolute repugnance the early church fathers had for anything sexual. They were so anti-sex that even within the confines of marriage the idea became permeated with shame. This did much to tarnish the relationship between husband and wife, making the ideal celebacy. As remarked earlier, the total impracticality of such ideas eventually forced a slow change in the message that the church had on marriage, but this change would take hundreds of years and many of its effects can still be seen.
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