Veritas Forum
The Great Subversion:
The Scandalous Origins of Human Rights, or Human Rights and the Slave Revolt in Morals
With the spread of Christian moral intuitions, the concept of community was decoupled from tribal or ethnic bloodlines as well as from “natural” hierarchies and was redefined as a voluntary association of individuals of all classes and ethnicities. The highest models of heroism were no longer warriors who conquered and subjugated their rivals, but Christian martyrs—both men and women, often of lowly origin—who displayed a form of courage-in-weakness that was democratically open to all. With the increasing penetration of the Roman state by believers, the rhetoric of leadership also changed. Members of the urban elite who aspired to high office were increasingly compelled to speak (whether sincerely or pragmatically) not of their own nobility, but, rather, of their great “love of the poor.”[xxxv]
Authority in the emerging Christian “social imaginary” (to borrow Charles Taylor term for the complex web of normative understandings and expectations, derived less from theoretical frameworks than from powerful images and stories, that make possible a widely shared social existence[xxxvi]) was likewise relativized in decidedly moral terms, not as dominion but as stewardship. Rulers would now be held to account by clergy and ordinary people on the basis of the subversive ideal of “slave morality”: servanthood. To be a true “lord,” following the example of Lord Jesus, was, paradoxically, to be a humble servant—indeed, a “slave”—of all.
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The new faith proved especially attractive to women, sociologist Rodney Stark has shown from a wide array of textual and archaeological sources. By all accounts, Christianity disproportionately drew in female adherents, whose status and power were significantly enhanced by entry into the Christian subculture.[xxv] Women held positions of high leadership in the fledgling church. They could marry later in life (Roman families often gave away prepubescent daughters in marriage), and they benefited from Christian condemnation of traditional male prerogatives in regard to divorce, incest, infidelity, polygamy, and female infanticide.[xxvi] Paul’s notorious statements about wives’ “submission” to their husbands must be read in full context if one is to grasp their radically equalizing message of mutual submission and reciprocity patterned upon Christ’s own agape, his selfless love. ...
However problematic these statements might sound to readers today, it is important to judge their emancipatory force in the social context of Paul’s day rather than our own. It was in fact a common slur against Christianity that it was a religion for women. Insofar as women in the ancient world very often had their dignity violated by powerful men, the slur was entirely accurate.
