ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses some of the various elements in and influences on the ethical thinking of Christians and Hindus through the ages with a view to finding out what resemblance there is between the general characters of the Christian and Hindu ethics. To quote a passage from Henson again, ‘The range and character of original Christian morality were mainly determined by three factors—the tradition of Judaism, the teaching of Jesus, and the influence of Graeco-Roman society. Christianity derived freedom from national limitations, a new and larger understanding of moral obligation, and a supreme embodiment of personal morality in its Founder. Christian ethics was theocentric in as much as it regarded the achievement of a virtuous life primarily as a gift of God, definitely beyond the powers of man without the grace of the Almighty. The most important Stoic influences on Christian ethics, perhaps, were the ethic of ascetic self-denial and the excessive stress placed on the life of reason.
