I think it can be argued that, in doing so -- in writing the story from the perspective of the persecuted -- Christianity revolutionized how the oppressed were to be viewed.
Bingo.
Unfortunately, we have no histories written from the perspective of the generations of enslaved and abused
helots in Ancient Sparta, who were made to wear dogskin caps and "
receive a stipulated number of beatings every year regardless of any wrongdoing, so that they would never forget they were slaves."
Nor do most Jewish peasants living in a satellite state of the Roman Empire who were tortured and nailed to stakes by the occupying superpower, get a look in.
Typically, the '
strong' and elite classes were the educated, literate ones who were able live out their days into healthy old age - men like Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, Suetonius - such that they had the leisure time to write official historical accounts under the patronage of the governing authorities. The Greek historian Thucydides
(431 BC) articulated it best in his HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR, when describing the policy of the Athenian Democracy, when it conquered the Melians and "the Melians surrendered at discretion to the Athenians, who put to death all the grown men whom they took, and sold the women and children for slaves, and subsequently sent out five hundred colonists and inhabited the place themselves".
He wrote, from the perspective of the Athenians:
The Melian Dialogue
Athenians. For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretences- either of how we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Mede, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us- and make a long speech which would not be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they canand the weak suffer what they must.
As such, most of recorded human history has been the output of the 1% or those close to it - only rarely do we hear soundbites from the lower classes.
With Jesus, I do think something changes rather dramatically. His rural, fishermen disciples don't give up on him after he dies - the movement spreads and before long, gains converts like St. Paul and the authors of the Four Gospels among the literati. And so hagiographical accounts are written within 30-50 years about the life and words of this radical poor man from Galilee, on the fringes of the Roman Empire, who suffered a horrific demise as a petty criminal on charges of sedition against Rome.
And the image of the cross - and what it represents, the subversion of the power of the strong through the perseverance and undying spirit of the weak and oppressed - suddenly grips the imagination of huge swathes of the Roman public, and the authorities start to get worried that this movement isn't just another oriental cult - but represents an actual threat to the social order. As St. Paul boasted, Christ's crucifixtion had “
destroyed every rule and every authority and power” (
1 Cor. 15:24) because "
the weakness of God is stronger than men” (
1 Corinthians 1:25), "
For He was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God." — (
2 Corinthians 13:4) which means that, "
[God's] grace is sufficient for you, for [his] power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (
2 Corinthians 12:9-10).
That's the significance of crucifixion for me. And yes, I think Jesus did have to die to expose the fact that for most of settled, agricultural society - civilization has been built upon a graveyard of oppressed and victimised people by those with privilege and the monopoly on power.
