I'm still drafting away on my book on the difference Jesus' ethics made on the moral conscience of the West, and one thing I'm ruminating on is whether Christian emperors were more ethically  conscious (in a way moderns would recognize) than their pagan predecessors. Here's a first draft of  my discussion of the matter.

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With the Christianization of the empire there were to be sure major beneficial effects on wider society and sometimes these came not from the actions of church leaders in providing material assistance to the poor, hungry, orphaned, widowed, homeless, elderly, and outcast, but on occasion from the imperial government itself. This started already with the first Christian emperor, Constantine, who converted to the faith in 312 CE.   In some ways Constantine's new religious commitments affected his interventions in social problems rampant throughout the empire.

Infanticide had been practiced since time immemorial, especially in cases where an unwanted child was born to a family that simply could not afford it.  In 315 CE Constantine passed legislation that applied to all the cities of Egypt proscribing infanticide and specifying that parents who lacked the means to raise the child be provided with food and clothing from the state in all the cities of Italy. Later he addressed a comparable issue: parents being forced to sell children into slavery for funds to the rest of the family. In legislation directed to the Roman administers of north Africa, Constantine instructed them stop the practice by providing support for the families from state owned warehouses. In the legislation itself he gives the reason
"For it as variance with Our character that we should allow any person to be destroyed by hunger or to break forth into the commission of a shameful deed."

The emperor intervened in other situations as well, on a thorough ad hoc basis. The church father Athanasius reports that Constantine provided the large city of Alexandria an annual grain supply for widows, and possibly for others living in poverty (Athanasius, Second Apology); and on the occasion of a church synod called in Jerusalem in 335 CE, he provided funds and clothing to those who were destitute. thus Eusebuis . Life 4.44)

It should not be thought, however, that the Christian emperors beginning with Constantine worked to create a “kinder and gentler” nation, or that they actively sought, as a rule, to implement Christian morality as reflected in the teachings of Jesus.  Quite the contrary.  It may be difficult to fathom, but Christian emperors after Constantine legislated against the masses of the impoverished even more harshly than their pagan predecessors.  Late rin the fourth century Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius I,the one who made Christianity the official empire of the state, passed laws against beggars that drove them into quasi-slavery.

One of the most interesting and unexpected studies of morality under the Christian emperors over the course of their first hundred years is called "What Difference Did Christianity Make?" In it, Ramsey MacMullen, a professor of ancient history at Yale looked so see if the advent of Christianity played any role at all in improving lives for slaves, changing sexual mores, or banning or diminishing public interest in the excessively violent and bloody gladiatorial games (or expressions of pity for the bloodied or killed victims). No, the new faith appears to make no difference at all in any of them.

One area where Christianity did make a difference was in judicial penalties.  But it was not that the system was Christianized, made more merciful, leaning toward forgiveness or at least reformation of criminals instead of retribution. No, penalties became far more harsh and torture became more common. This happens already with laws passed during the reign of the Christian Constantine. The following are a few examples

The guardians of a girl who was seduced were to have molten lead poured down their throat .Bureaucrats who abused their office were to have their hands cut off .Tax collectors who abused women delinquent in their payments were to be "done to death with exquisite tortures." Slaves who informed on their masters were to be crucified; For a variety of crimes involved having the convicted tied into a leather sack with snakes and tossed into body of water to drown.

We all may have difficulty accounting for the heightening of judicial violence.  MacMullen himself postulates a Christian source.  He points out that the rise of cruel punishments occurred just at the time that Christian readers began to be drawn to books that falsely claim to be written by Jesus' apostles known widely today as "apocryphal apocalypses," which routinely describe, often in graphic detail, the torments of hell reserved for sinners for their crimes against God. MacMullen calls this set of books: "The only sadistic literature I am aware of in the ancient world." If God inflicts these kinds of tortures on sinners, shouldn't his representatives on earth?

MacMullen also plays with the idea that Christian rulers were in particular open of this kind of judicial justice, as opposed to their pagan predecessors.  As he explains one of the key contrasts between paganism and Christianity: There was also a major difference: pagan beliefs left daily morals to philosophy. For pagans, only correct cult mattered.  Christian zeal in contrast was directed over all of daily life.  Hence, threats and torture, the stake and the block, spread over many new categories of offense.   

On any account, the Christianization of the Epire was a mixed bag when it came to public and private morality. It is all too simple to take sides on the matter.  Many devout Christians insist that morals were brought into the ancient world, or at least radically improved, because of the advent of this new faith, a faith of love, charity, and forgiveness, teachings that made the world and many people in it better.  Anti-Christians often insist the opposite, that without Christianity we would not have had religious wars, inquisitions, crusades, and pogroms against Jews leading to the Holocaust. Who is right?  Maybe the better question is, Is either of them wrong?

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