The analytical philosopher Peter Geach remarks in his book, The Virtues, “The profane habitually say (I read it recently in a school textbook of my daughter’s) that the Law of Moses was not given by God but cribbed from the code of Hammurabi:  They never seem to have noticed that the code of Hammurabi systematically discriminates between gentlemen and commoners, whereas the Divine Law lacks the very notion of a gentleman.”

We might add that the same sort of thing is said about the New Testament haustafeln or "household codes” – the rules for husbands and wives, parents and children, and masters and servants.  The profane habitually say that St. Paul wasn’t inspired by God but cribbed them from the domestic handbooks of the Stoics:  They never seem to have noticed that the Stoic household codes systematically subordinate the low to the high, whereas the Apostle commands both low and high to “be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.”  The form that submission takes is different for high and low, but a greater burden is laid on the high.  Husbands, for example, are to lay themselves down for their wives as Christ laid himself down for the Church; wives only have to obey.

Nothing like this appears in Stoic teaching, where the aim is not mutual submission, but submission.