If I read pagan Roman observations about life and people, they strike me as way, way more honest (sometimes brutally honest) than anything that we are used to f

If I read pagan Roman observations about life and people, they strike me as way, way more honest (sometimes brutally honest) than anything that we are used to for the last 1000 years, perhaps with exceptions like Machiavelli and some verbal jokes of the "unprintable" character. In Christian theory, everyone is a sinner, but in a real Christian society, people try to cover up their particular sins all the time, at least against other laypeople (not the priest), which leads to the opposite of honesty - hypocrisy.