A vice of virtue Not to discount the imporant points made earlier in the posting, but you'll have to scroll halfway down this post on Brandywine Books to get the point about how a particular virtue in the pre-Christian European word (and the world today) is actually a vice, from the Christian point of view. Brandywine writes:
One thing I’ve noticed in my historical reading – particularly my study of the Vikings – is the importance of Pride in most pre-Christian and non-Christian societies. What is for Christians the greatest sin was in most cultures the greatest virtue. (Stuff about Beowulf omitted.)...
I don’t know about the Far East, but I believe that Jesus was the first moral teacher in the Near East (and by extension in the West) to declare humility a good thing.
I'm not scholar of Eastern religion, but I would say humility probably plays an important role in Confucianism. And of course, in Buddhism, which comes later.