Socrates critiques it. Basically it is using rhetorical tricks to win arguments dishonestly. He's calling your explanation of the turning the other cheek thing bullshit. The second half is right with Roman slapping, but Romans didn't give a shit about barbaric practices. They didn't use their left hands much because they were predominantly right-handed, which as a result was normally their best slapping hand. Think about it - what could be more insulting to a person than to slap them with your shit-wiping hand if that is what you believed. Romans didn't believe that.
The verse is, "And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also." Specifically it was a tunic and a cloak, which would render a person naked. Seeing a man naked, or worse making him naked, is meant to shame the suing party in the eyes of those around him. It is meant to give the option to the suing party either to endure the shame of doing such a thing, or to not sue for the tunic in the first place. It goes along with turning the other cheek and walking the extra mile in suggesting ways for the powerless party to use the hostile party's own morality, culture, and conscience against him in order to affect an end of abuse. It's extremely clever and extremely aggressive what Jesus is suggesting.
You're right about walking the extra mile (Roman soldiers have heavy shit to carry) and the mantle-returning idea, but the slapping is as I mentioned above. Romans would be more confused than angry at the gesture since it would be seen as unjust to attack someone who merely turned their face to a Roman. You know this is the case because Roman soldiers wouldn't hesitate to put down an uppity barbarian if he threatened him, and Roman magistrates didn't take kindly to people who challenged Roman rule.
Considering that the Romans would execute soldiers who slept on watch or practiced Decimation for bad legion behavior (drawing lots to where 10% of the soldiers were beaten to death by the spared 90%), the punishment would not be good for unjustly abusing wards.
Not really, it's about avoid conflicts you can't win. If a Roman soldier slaps you and you fight back, you end up on a fucking cross or gutted in the street as such a filthy profligate deserves. Obviously that option isn't useful, but it is also unpleasant to submit to what was seen by the Jews as unwanted foreign occupation. Jesus offers ways to fight back when you are physically and politically unable to otherwise by understanding your enemy and using their unique thinking and values to your advantage.
Jesus was a subversive and was killed for it. The only reason Christianity has any redeeming factors for Europeans today is that it was adopted by the best of Europeans and transformed by degrees into basically neo-Paganism exemplified by the Crusaders, monks, and knightly orders. Maybe it would have been better if the Romans never finagled with Christianity in the first place and adopted some evolution of classical paganism instead, but that kind of Christianity is a more useful and beneficial construct for Europeans as proven by their success through it. What is necessary is a return to a morality of virtue from the modern decadence. And because the christcuck versus paganshit stuff is useless D&C and I hate how it always turns into this shit.
Attached: A British-Roman Song, Rudyard Kipling.png (1461x1131, 2.08M)
