The reading of this situation depends very heavily on whether one takes a fundamentally grace view or whether you take a fundamentally damnation view.
I used to take much more of a damnation view than I thought. Now I take more and more of a grace view, as the Lord has shown ME more and more grace. Yes, the Roman organization went wrong when it EVER thought that resistance to the gospel per se must be met with the sword. That’s not what those swords were for. They were for physically defending the lives of their fellows and family in extremis, where even a martyrdom clearly did not make sense because they were dealing with not a possible gainful witness case, but pure concentrated obdurate evil murderers.
Anyhow that’s my read. YMMV but don’t forget that your fundamental world view DOES color your reading of the gospel. Be careful!
Boring personal testimony time:
My “conversion experience” was ALL about unmerited grace (redundancy alert!) and my, ahem, “walk,” since then has been a hear-and-mind led exploration/experience in line with that. For the years I had my “radio show” (years which spanned my “coming into full communion” 12/26/94, the rhetorical task I set myself was to argue starting with something that had arisen from my prayer/study of the Scripture passages for that week and ending — after a reasonable development — with “God loves you.”
I THINK our view (to use your word) is often unknown to us. Or to say it another way, one way I think of the life in Christ is to come to believe what you believe. We find there are little pockets of infection which have not yet been opened to the light.
In fact, when I go to confession I tend to view preparation as at least partially an exploration: “How have I denied or turned my back on the light this past month?”
I do think that in assessing the medieval Xtians we need to be careful not to err in the manner of those who presume to despise Washington because he had slaves. We, corporately and individually, are always uncovering (or having uncovered for us) new aspects and consequences of the Gospel.
We DO believe in a God who forgives without great folderol, requiring simple repentance (stopping the sin and acknowledging the need for help, which is an essential before the Lord)
Always providing that while we may firmly intend to stop some sin, we know ourselves to be yet so sufficiently divided that we may succumb -- even probably will succumb -- again, "and that right early." :-(
I think Ps. 130 applies:
There is forgiveness with you, therefore you shall be feared/revered.
I go to confession because I am confident I am forgiven and will be forgiven. Gods forgiveness discloses a goodness which makes my sins seem truly vile while it washes them away. (As a friend of mine said to me after she made her first confession: THAT is the best weight loss program EVER!) The sacramental enactment of that forgiveness is not merely a sort of financial transaction but a new witness and experience of the Gospel. The guy I usually go to always ends with him saying, "Gives thanks to the LORD for he is good," and I respond, "for his mercy endures forever."
Among the money-changers in OUR particular part of the temple courtyard are those who reckon up sacraments and penances like book-keepers. We can only pray that one day, at the site of the Messiah bearing a scourge, they lift up their eyes from their columns of figures and see the love-light in his eyes.