Historian Tom Holland's thesis here is that the Greek and Roman empires were the last in an old world paradigm based on power, domination, violence, and yes, patriarchy. It was only Christianity that changed the trajectory of what it meant to be civilized. The concept of Civilization that included morality, and with it the elevation of mercy and equality, and the value of all humanity is one that only developed as a result of a collision with Christian principles. Jesus and his apostles, especially the later teaching of Paul, forced a re-examination of what it meant to be a good person, a wise person, and a powerful state. "Humanism derives ultimately from the claims made in the Bible that humans are made in God's image. That the Son died equally for everyone, that there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. Repeatedly, like a great earthquake, Christianity has sent reverberations across the world." The concept of a division betwe...