This analysis demonstrates the disparity between the rabbinic discours — Early Christianity

"In considering the spiritual significance of icons and other kinds of religious art, it is helpful to observe that theological reflection on art has often lagged behind practice. Early Christian murals, mosaics, catacombs and sarcophagi receive little theological comment in their time. Yet, especially after the fourth century such art was more extensive than anything one might expect on the basis of certain attacks on images by Church Fathers - attacks that we now realize ere intermittent in any case."

"Inquiry shall likewise be made about the professions and trades of those who are brought to be admitted to the faith. ... If a man is an actor or pantomimist, he must be rejected. ... A gladiator or a trainer of gladiators, or a huntsman, or anyone connected with these shows ... must desist or be rejected. ... A soldier of the civil authority must be taught not to kill men and to refuse to do so if he is commanded, and to refuse to take an oath; if he is unwilling to comply, he must be rejected. ... If a catechumen or a believer seeks to become a soldier, they must be rejected, for they have despised God."

"In this article, I have sought to re-contextualize the Roman and Christian ban on levirate marriage, positioning this legal tradition as it was viewed by the Christians of the first centuries CE. I have demonstrated the transfer of a legal tradition from its biblical origin to a new Greek and Roman setting, which reshaped it and repositioned it within a larger legal context. However, revealing the Christian remodeling of this biblical inheritance also changes our understanding of the Roman and Christian prohibition on levirate marriage, revealing the differences between the legal discourse and the theological discourse and between the legal discourse and interreligious discourse. The story of the rise of Christian legal traditions in late antiquity, following the New Testament, and their relation to the biblical inheritance, rabbinic surroundings, and Greco-Roman environment is yet to be told. In this case, the story is not one of a polemic with contemporaneous Jews who observed halakha, Jewish-Christian groups, or Christians preserving biblical law. Rather, it is the story of an inherited legal tradition that was transferred to a new world. It was restructured according to contemporaneous Greek and Roman legal concepts and used in theological discourse, even though it did not fully correlate with other Christian legal discourse or with the new laws of the empire. As such, it is a significant fragment in chronicling the rise of a unique Christian legal tradition in a world of inherited biblical traditions and contemporaneous Greek and Roman legal concepts and rulings."

"A number of books and articles deal with issues related to the question of children and childhood in the early church, for examples on expositio (exposure of children), orphans, infant baptism and upbringing . However, only a few publications focus on the way in which children were understood and how they were treated in general. The fact that nearly all these studies were published in the last decade is a clear indicator, as suggested above, of growing scholarly interest in this subject."

"Given the general attitudes toward children and their place in society in the cultural environment of Christians in antiquity, it should have been remarkable if the church fathers in general had had a heavy focus on children in their writing. There are, in fact, no writings that introduce concern for children and their needs as a subject on the theological agenda. John Chrysostom’s treatise, De Inani Gloria, comes closest to having children and their needs as a main theme. Chrysostom provides advice on child rearing, emphasizing the parents’ grave responsibility to bring up their children in the Christian faith and socialize them into a proper, Christian way of life. However, this treatise, together with sections of a couple of other writings by the same author is almost unique in its focus on children. As a rule, we have to make use of incidental comments about children and childhood in material from this period. In this respect, research on children in the early church faces the same challenges that confronted studies about women in early Christianity. Neither the role of women nor children’s place in society and the church were topics discussed on their own. Because no systematic accounts are provided by ancient sources, modern scholars have to rely on more or less accidental references in the literature."

"Pagan religions had a calm acceptance of abortion and contraception, including the use of barrier methods, coitus interruptus, and various medicines that prevented contraception or caused abortion. Early Christian leaders, distinguishing Christianity from pagan beliefs, developed ideas about contraception and abortion, marriage and procreation, and the unity of body and soul. They taught that sex even for reproduction was bad and sex for pleasure heinous. Chastity became a virtue in its own right."