Liberality in the Greco-Roman World and New Testament

In our study, we examined the ancient Greco-Roman liberality-ethos from the Hellenistic to the early imperial period. By examining the terminology of gift-giving and liberality in the ancient Greek world and the New Testament, we can discover quite a lot of analogies between the Greco-Roman philosophical ideals of liberality and the theological basis of giving in the New Testament. But despite the fact that, in terms of principles, we can discover a number of analogies between the Greco-Roman conception of liberalitas or εὐεργεσία and the theological basis of giving in the New Testament, it is the differences that are crucial. It is not the quantitative analogies but the qualitative differences that are decisive. It is particularly significant that liberality (giving) in the Greco-Roman world, respectively in the New Testament have quite different orientations, since they have different target groups in mind. It would therefore be difficult to argue convincingly that Christian liberality (giving) has its origins in the Greco-Roman ethos of liberalitas.