Roman Christianity and Roman Stoicism: A Comparative Study of Ancient Morality

Christianity is commonly held to have introduced an entirely new and better morality into the ancient world, a new morality that was decidedly universal, in contrast to the ethics of the philosophical schools which were only concerned with the intellectual few. Runar M. Thorsteinsson presents a challenge to this view by comparing Christian morality in first-century Rome with contemporary Stoic ethics in the city.

Thorsteinsson introduces and discusses the moral teaching of Roman Stoicism; of...