This timeline is based on the book "What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?" by D. James Kennedy and Jerry Newcomb.
Throughout history, many tribes and peoples have killed their elderly, to the same extent as parents get rid of unwanted babies. The Eskimos got rid of their elderly by leaving them on the ice in the open sea. Before Christ, the elderly were treated differently depending on the specific custom. With the coming of Christ, every human life, including the life of the elderly, received its own value. But of course, it is important to note that care for the elderly was not always the same as in our time. Until about 1892, only one in a hundred people lived to be 65 years old. Thanks to modern medicine, life expectancy has increased.
Today we notice how a movement called mercy killing, or euthanasia, is gaining momentum in society. As more and more people in the country move away from God and His principles, we are increasingly taking a pagan attitude towards human life.
The position of the slave in the ancient world was catastrophic. It was a picture of the terrible tyranny and degradation of the humanistic world, not to mention the very well-known difference between a slave and a free person. In Athens there was a law that allowed the testimony of a slave to be taken in court, only under the influence of alcohol, while the testimony of a free person was taken under oath. Among the Romans, if the owner of the house was killed, then all the slaves in the house were subject to death, execution or court battles. It was considered a generally accepted sign of hospitality when the owner offered a slave to a guest for the night, like any other convenience. But before abolishing slavery, Christians tried to bring slavery into another form, where morality and mercy were present.
Thanks to Christ and His teachings, Christians began to fight hard for the abolition of slavery throughout the world. For example, you can read about the fight against slavery in the USA.
In a short book of the Bible called "The Letter to Philemon," the apostle Paul writes from prison to Philemon, a wealthy Christian slave owner. Paul sends Philemon his letter with Philemon's slave Onesimus, who was in prison with Paul. Paul, who had brought both of them to Christ, tells Philemon in his letter: "Receive him (Onesimus), no longer as a slave, but as a brother." If Christianity in the first centuries had completely rejected slavery, the gospel could not have spread as it did in the era of the early church. But once it spread, the seeds were sown for the final abolition of slavery, which came later.
But slavery in later centuries spread again thanks to the Portuguese and the Spanish. From the time they found blacks in Africa. However, this was only done when people appeared who dedicated their lives to the fight for the abolition of the slave trade. A striking example of such people was William Wilberforce, a member of the British Parliament for decades. As a Christian public figure, he led a tireless fight to stop the supply of slaves from Africa to the West Indies. After twenty years of his struggle, Parliament finally adopted his bill on the prohibition of the slave trade. After that, he continued to free slaves in the British colonies. Despite constant resistance and ridicule, he continued to do his work, perceiving it as a service to Jesus Christ.
Before the spread of Christianity, people killed each other just for fun. The shedding of human blood captivated the masses. Gladiators, who were slaves in Rome, competed to the death. After one of the gladiators defeated another and brought the blade of his sword to his chest, he looked up at Caesar, who usually gave a signal by lowering his thumb down. Then the gladiator who defeated his opponent plunged his sword into the chest of the defeated, and the crowd enjoyed it. And this was the main entertainment before the spread of Christian influence on culture.
It is also known that many Christians were then maimed and eaten by lions to the cries of a mocking crowd. Tacitus says that Nero held a feast in his gardens, at which the main entertainment until the evening was the killing of Christians by wild beasts, crucifying them or burning them alive on bonfires. However, many viewers felt pity for these Christians, realizing that this bloody orgy was "not for the common good of mankind, but for the satisfaction of one man's mania." Such was the heartbreaking life before the coming of Christ!
Ted Baer and Dr. Bonnie Harvey wrote a critical article about the film "Alive", which partially touched on the topic of cannibalism, for the film magazine "Movie Guide: A Family Guide to Movies and Entertainment". Here is what they said about cannibalism:
"From time immemorial until the advent of Christianity, cannibalism was very highly developed. In pots behind the walls of ancient cities, fragments of the bodies of the dead were kept, which were prepared to feed the poorest. For many centuries, in those regions where the gospel had not yet reached, people ate each other, being in the terrible mistake that by doing so they absorbed the strength of their enemies and became stronger than them. The Aztecs ate, in this way, tens of thousands of people in their unconditional thirst for power and strength. Nevertheless, wherever the gospel penetrated, cannibalism ceased, as people were reborn to a new life and began to see the sacredness of life."
In two centuries, the modern missionary movement spread the gospel throughout the world, creating more changes everywhere. And one of these changes is the almost complete destruction of cannibalism.
The pre-Christian world was like the Russian tundra - just as cold and harsh. Will Durand writes of ancient Rome as the leading civilization of antiquity: "Charity was of very modest proportions in this stingy society. Hospitality existed in the form of reciprocity at a time when inns were poor and far apart; but Polybius's statement that in Rome no one gives anything to anyone unless he can give it is undoubtedly an exaggeration."
Jesus set a great example of helping the poor, caring for the needy and oppressed. He requires His followers to do the same. One of His most famous parables is that of the Good Samaritan, a vision of a man who stopped on his way and took care of a stranger who needed help. At that time, neither the priest nor the Levite offered to help the Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). This parable had a profound impact on Western civilization. So did His parable of the sheep and the goats, in which Christ says, “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40). This teaching introduced the new concept of “beggars for Christ’s sake,” and those so called were treated as if they were Christ Himself!
Early Christians changed the course of history by their generosity to both other Christians and non-believers. Yale historian Kenneth Scott Latourette wrote that “by beginning to use money for the common good, Christianity introduced five significant innovations.” The first of these innovations, according to Latourette, was the necessity of doing good deeds to all who entered the ranks of Christians, regardless of their poverty or wealth. As for the motive, it was also new: now it was necessary to do good deeds out of love for Christ, since Christians taught that Jesus was rich, but became poor for our sakes, so that we through his poverty might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9).
Another innovation of Christian charity, according to Latourette, was that it was not limited to members of the church. They also did good deeds to non-Christians, so much so that the Roman emperor Julian, who tried to eradicate the Christian faith, was surprised at how much Christians loved even the pagans - their enemies, as researched by Dr. Richard Todd, professor of history at Wichita State University. Historians one after another testify to the same thing: the early Church helped the poor a lot. Will Durand says that the early church attracted people to its ranks by offering a contrast to the Roman callousness of heart.
Fox also notes the contrast between pagan charity and Christian charity: "Whereas in pagan cities grain was distributed exclusively to the poor, and usually to the well-to-do, Christian charity was given to the most needy."
Furthermore, Fox notes that while in rare cases some pagan emperors before Constantine may have had programs to help the less fortunate, these programs were very meager and clearly intended for those who would later serve in the military. The first Christian emperor, Constantine, expanded the scope of charity.
Will Durand also notes that the church's charity towards the poor reached "new heights" in the later Middle Ages.
The prophets of the ancient god Baal and his wife Astarte customarily sacrificed children during their service in the temple. Early in this century, the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago excavated several sites in Samaria (considered "the cultural center of Ahab's time") and unearthed the ruins of the temple of Astarte there.
In Rome or Greece in those days, abortions were rampant. Newborn babies could be thrown into the forest, or left on a mountain, where they were then eaten by wild animals, or they could die of hunger, or they could be picked up by people who walked at night and then did whatever they wanted with the children. Almost all children with birth defects were abandoned. Girls were often abandoned in this way, because women were considered inferior.
In addition, children who survived remained the property of their father, who could kill them if he wanted, sell them into slavery, deprive them of his property. Only about half of those born lived to be eight years old. Other causes besides infanticide were disease and starvation.
The book "Third Time Around" tells how the church successfully fought against abortion twice in the past and how it is leading the fight against it again today. In it, George Grant deepens our understanding of how little value human life had in ancient Rome:
"According to the centuries-old tradition of paterfamilias - the tradition of honoring the father as the head of the family - the birth of a Roman was not recognized as a biological fact. Newborns were accepted into this world only with the consent of the family. The Roman did not have to have a child, he took it. If immediately after birth the family decided not to raise the child, in other words, in this case literally "raise it above the ground", then it was simply abandoned. Special elevations or walls were built on which the baby was placed and left to die."
But after the coming of Christ, the situation began to change. Jesus said: "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them." (Matthew 19:14) His words gave children an unusual importance for that time, stipulating a worthy attitude towards them. After Jesus said that God is our Father, it not only radically changed the relationship of parents to their children, but also fatherhood itself took on a completely different form.
Since then, Christians have treated life as sacred, even the life of a newborn child. In ancient Rome, Christians saved many Roman babies and raised them in the faith.
Today, there are about 3,000 centers in the United States, where Christians help thousands of pregnant women through a network of anti-abortion centers, despite the blockade from the media.
Before the spread of Christian influence, a woman's life was also valued cheaply. It was believed that a woman was the property of her husband. In Greece, Rome, India and China, it was believed and openly declared that women could not or were not capable of living an independent life on their own. Although there were cases of rape in Rome, especially in the 3rd century, some upper-class women fought for their independence. Aristotle said that a woman was born somewhere between a freeman and a slave. The life of a slave was worthless in ancient times. Baby girls were left to die much more often than boys, and their murder solely on the grounds of their sex was not unique to ancient Rome.
Adam Smith, in his book "The Wealth of Nations", written in 1776, describes that in all the large cities of China several newborns are thrown out into the street every night or drowned in water like puppies. This was only two hundred years ago, and before the influence of Jesus Christ and His teachings began to penetrate into China.
In the last two centuries, thanks to the modern missionary movement, the lives of women have improved greatly in dozens of countries and hundreds of tribes since the Gospel took root in these cultures. Take India for example. Before the spread of Christian influence in India, widows were burned - voluntarily or forcibly - with their dead husbands: this terrible custom is known as sati. This word literally means "good woman", and indicates that the Hindus considered a good woman to be one who followed her husband to the grave. Christians who came from the West were of course very shocked. Moreover, infanticide, especially the murder of female children, was widespread in India before the arrival of the great missionary William Carey.