This article deals with the emotion of compassion and to what extent its conceptualization changed and developed in the different cultures, ideologies and religions that framed the birth of Christianity. Starting with a reconstruction of Aristotle’s position, the author asks whether a continuous line connects it to the Judaeo-Christian tradition. This leads to the question of the extent to which ancient Christianity refers to emotionality as relating to feelings, rather than to a constitutive feature of the character. The author goes on to discuss ancient Christian views on God’s ability to be or not to be compassionate and concludes with remarks about the role of religion in the Roman Empire.