The Darkening Age

Title: The Darkening Age – The Christian Destruction of the Classical World

Author: Catherine Nixey

Publisher: Pan Books, 2017 (First)

ISBN: 9781509816071

Pages: 305

 

When the ISIS occupied parts of Syria and Iraq for a few years since 2014, the world was forced to watch the ghastly spectacle of the terrorists blasting away remains of ancient temples that were thousands of years old. Their logic was simple – the very existence of these buildings once used to worship other gods was a blot on the landscape and culture prescribed by their holy book. But one thing was noticeable in the entire charade. The temples destroyed by the ISIS were already in a ruined shape, similarly destroyed by somebody much earlier. Whatever standing upright was due to the careful restoration work of archeologists. Who was that somebody who broke down these temples and when? This book answers this puzzle and little of what is covered in this book is well-known outside academic circles. We were taught that when Christianity spread in the Classical world of Greece, Rome and the regions where their culture held sway, the pagans who worshipped gods such as Jupiter, Zeus, Athena or Minerva simply melted away in front of the advancing Christianity. Some scholars even suggest that they were somewhat grateful to renounce their silly religion and embrace Christianity. Nothing is further from the truth. In fact, as Christianity gained hold in the kingdom, it unleashed a violent intolerance against the native religious practices. It destroyed their temples, smashed the idols to pieces, mocked the ceremonies and forbade them to practice their old religion even in the privacy of their homes. This book tells of the darkening age when Christianity subsumed the old belief systems into a strict form of monotheism. Catherine Nixey was a Classics teacher who is now a journalist working on the arts desk at The Times. She is a British Catholic and the daughter of a former nun and a former monk.

 

Medieval and modern scholars continuously harped on the theme of how Christianity preserved the classical knowledge. Christianity’s good works in preserving pagan things has been told again and again. Such books proliferate in libraries and bookshops. However, the history and sufferings of those whom Christianity defeated have not been elaborated upon. This book fills this crucial gap. It is because of this meritorious service that I grant it a five-star rating. The arrival of Christianity introduced a profound change in the nature of spiritual philosophy. Before this happened, there had been competing philosophical schools, all equally valid, all equally arguable. Now, for the first time, there were right and wrong philosophies with no scope for interpretation. People who opposed Christian dogma were destined to hell. Before it preserved, the church destroyed classical art and knowledge. During the fourth and fifth centuries CE, it demolished, vandalized and melted down a staggering quantity of art, destroyed statues, temples were razed to the ground and books were burnt. The Library of Alexandria with 700,000 volumes was burnt down by the bishop of the city. It was over a millennium before any other library would even come close to its holdings in number. To preserve the old parchment manuscripts, they needed to be re-copied but mostly, classical texts were not. Medieval monks simply scrubbed away the pagan text when parchment was expensive and reused them to copy the Bible or other prayer books. The author estimates that only a tenth survived to modern age.

 

This book provides a rich source of information on the Christian persecution of pagan religion and its practitioners. All traditional gods were demons in the eyes of Christian scholars who reminded the faithful in violently disapproving language that the pagan religions were inspired by the devil. Paganism had no structure in the sense of a modern religion. It was merely an overarching framework of various cults practiced in different parts of the kingdom. There is a striking similarity between this religion and Hinduism till the medieval period. A good Christian would spit on the altar of a pagan and blow out the incense than accidentally breathe in its fumes. Christian speakers asked their congregations to hunt down sinners (pagans) and drive them into the way of salvation as relentlessly as a hunter pursues his prey into nets. As Christianity gained adherents, it forbade people from worshipping the old gods. Eventually, it restrained anyone to dissent from its teachings. Even arguing about the precepts in public was made equivalent to high treason and punishable with death.

 

We have been served with tales of how poor Christians were forced into gladiatorial fight with lions to entertain the spectators as part of Roman persecution. Nixey finds this exaggerated. Polytheism is inherently tolerant as they won’t mind the introduction of one more god for people to worship. Even Christian observers looked on the tolerance of their non-Christian neighbours with astonishment. Augustine marveled at the fact that the pagans were able to worship many different gods without discord, while the Christians, who worshipped just the one, splintered into countless warring factions. Moreover, the Christians steadfastly proclaimed that theirs is the only true god and all others are demons. Naturally, that would hardly endear them to others in a pluralistic, multicultural society. Sacrificing to the gods and emperor was expected of every citizen and adherents of the new faith refused to perform this duty. Even then, Christians were persecuted in fewer than thirteen years in three whole centuries of Roman rule. We know of no government-led persecution for the first 250 years of Christianity with the exception of Nero. But Nero was truly wicked and persecuted everyone. Emperor Trajan specifically ordered that Christians should not be hounded. This grace and liberty was denied when Christians finally gained control. A decade after Constantine – the first emperor to accept the Christian faith – came to the throne, laws were passed to ‘restrict the pollution of idolatry’. Sacrifices were banned. Fifty years later, death penalty was awarded to one who sacrificed. A century later, any pagans who still survived were suppressed.

 

One drawback of the book is that it does not analyse why the pagan religion crumbled like a pack of cards against the attacks by Christians. There were powerful oratory and rhetorical literature in support of the old faith, but on the ground, there was no organisation uniting them. When the temples were destroyed in one city, people of the neighbouring cities simply watched on helplessly. Moreover, the Christian fighters were unafraid to court death while committing a religious war. Martyrdom held considerable benefits for those willing to die. Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability. Martyrs went straight to heaven and were provided an exalted place there. Their aim was to die as painful a death as possible – greater the pain, greater the gain. The similarity to modern jihadi suicide squads is striking. This book also describes how the early Christians determinedly undermined paganism. Constantine ordered the idols to be taken out of temples. All precious material was recovered from them and then destroyed. Despite the horrible destruction, little resistance was offered by the pagans as the spirit had gone out from them. His destruction emboldened other Christians and the attacks spread. The temples in many cities were destroyed and churches erected in their place. It is a shocking reminder to all multicultural societies that at the time of Constantine’s conversion and persecution of the traditional religion began, Christians constituted only about seven to ten per cent of the total population.

 

Were these destruction taking place without the knowledge of illustrious church fathers, as isolated acts of vandalism by hooligans? Nixey’s answer is a resounding ‘No’ and the author shows the early church figures red in tooth and claw. St. Martin is said to have destroyed many temples and shrines in fourth century France. These violent acts were not seen as embarrassing, but as proof of a saint’s virtue. Benedict of Nursia was a celebrated destroyer of antiquities. His first act upon arriving in Rome was to smash an ancient statue of Apollo and destroy the shrine’s altar. St. Augustine reminded his flock that destruction of temples, idols and sacred groves were the express commandment of god. In 401 CE, Augustine told Christians in Carthage to smash pagan objects because that was what god wanted and commanded. Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, destroyed the magnificent temple of Serapis and the great library attached to it which housed 700,000 volumes. John Chrysostom sent violent bands of monks to destroy the shrines in Phoenicia. Chrysostom was a stout anti-Semite too. He likened Jewish synagogues to brothels and his writings were reprinted with enthusiasm in Nazi Germany.

 

Historians mark the beginning of Dark Ages over Europe with the closure of Plato’s Academy at Athens in 529 CE. The last nail in the coffin of paganism was the result of a well-calculated move, this time by Emperor Justinian. He put forward a law that forbade the teaching of any doctrine by those ‘who labour under the insanity of paganism’ so that they might not corrupt the souls of their disciples. This law caused the Academy to close. After a century of physical annihilation of pagan symbols, Christianity turned its attention to wipe it clean from people’s minds too. We can only stare in astonishment at the brutal effectiveness and total success of this project. Centuries later, Edward Gibbon declared that the entirety of barbarian invasions had been less damaging to Athenian philosophy than Christianity was.

 

This book is very pleasing to read on account of its fine diction. The style is so easy-flowing and entertaining with caustic remarks embedded in flowery prose. The research is well done, but could have been more comprehensive. The author is a journalist and a professional historian’s rigour is not expected from her. But still, I awarded this book the five-star rating because it opened a vista that was dark to me even though I was reading books of this sort for nearly three decades now. I read this book literally with bated breath because most of the events portrayed in the book were already played out in India by colonial invaders, missionaries and the native converted flock. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Hinduism stood trembling against the onslaught of colonial Christianity like the pagan religion did thirteen centuries earlier. However, the result was not repeated as Christianity had a new competitor and they could not find a Constantine in India, even though the Jesuits tried their best to convert Emperor Akbar. Like what they did to pagan gods, the missionaries denigrated Hindu deities as demons openly till the middle of twentieth century and clandestinely even now. In that sense, Indians can easily relate to what is described in this book and hence this effort deserves a perfect ranking.

 

The book is highly recommended to all and is a must-read for Indians.

 

Rating: 5 Star