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The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World

Catherine Nixey

4.04 · Rating details · 4,038 ratings · 656 reviews

A New York Times Notable Book of 2018. Named Book of the Year by The Telegraph, The Spectator, The Observer, and BBC History Magazine

In Harran, the locals refused to convert. They were dismembered, their limbs hung along the town’s main street. In Alexandria, zealots pulled the elderly philosopher-mathematician Hypatia from her chariot and flayed her to death with shard ...more

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Hardcover, 315 pages

Published April 17th 2018 by Mariner Books (first published September 2017)

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Feb 26, 2018 BlackOxford rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: british, history, philosophy-theology

Hypocrisy in Action

In my email today I received an invitation from a group called Developing a Christian Mind [DCM] to one of their programmes in Oxford entitled Seeking Wisdom. I am assured that essential issues relating to the “Humanities, Medical Sciences, Natural Sciences, Philosophy and Theology, and Social Sciences” will be addressed over a two day weekend by well-known academics. I will be informed, specifically, “How postgraduates, postdocs, and academics at the University of Oxford can ...more

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Sep 13, 2017 Tim O'Neill rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: history

Nixey's pop history purports to present some kind of new perspective on the transition from the pagan Roman world to the dominance of Christianity, but all we get is dusty old Edward Gibbon rehashed for the post-Dawkins/Hitchens age. In the hands of skilled historian this could have been an interesting book; one which explains a fascinating period and an interesting subject. A balanced and objective scholar could have made it clear that this transition was sometimes violent and that the Christia Nixey's pop history purports to present some kind of new perspective on the transition from the pagan Roman world to the dominance of Christianity, but all we get is dusty old Edward Gibbon rehashed for the post-Dawkins/Hitchens age. In the hands of skilled historian this could have been an interesting book; one which explains a fascinating period and an interesting subject. A balanced and objective scholar could have made it clear that this transition was sometimes violent and that the Christians were not the meek lambs of pious legend or Hollywood sword and sandal movies, while still maintaining objectivity and fairness to the evidence. But Nixey is a journalist, not a historian, and so what we get is blunt polemic, warped depictions of events, cherry-picked evidence and blatant distortions, all driven, it seems, by some clear biases.

Nixey has a story to tell and she does not let things like nuance, debate, counter-arguments or even contrary evidence get in her way. She is artfully selective about what she tells her readers and very good at twisting even that to suit her polemical purpose. Her story has "good guys" (the pagans) and "bad guys" (the Christians), and she makes sure she picks the evidence that supports those blunt caricatures and leaves out anything that doesn't. So, in her telling, the great temple of Serapis was destroyed by a wicked mob of Christian fanatics. Though she completely neglects to mention the temple was the base for a gang of pagan terrorists, that they were kidnapping torturing and crucifying Christian victims there, that this had led to a siege involving imperial troops and that the emperor intervened, ruling the murderers could escape but that the temple had to be torn down. *That* changes the entire episode, but Nixey decided not to let her readers know about any of it. And her book is full of this kind of omission.

She downplays the previous pagan persecutions of Christians to try to prop up her idea that the Romans were "tolerant". But to do this she has to resort to long rejected claims by Dodwell (from 1684!) and Gibbon (from 1776!) and then misstates a reference by W.H.C. Frend. She paints a picture of widespread destruction of temples and pagan shrines, but does not consult the latest archaeological surveys that, in fact, show that these events were extremely rare. She quotes Christian writers who condemned classical learning repeatedly and at length, but totally fails to note the other Christian authorities who pushed for Greek and Roman learning to be preserved and studied - a glaring omission, given that the latter *won the argument* about the value of these works.

Over and over again, her thesis depends on selective presentation of evidence, evasion of counter-examples, dismissal of alternative views, misrepresentation of information or overstatement of an idea. As a result of all these shifty tactics, her book has won praise from people with little grasp of the period or the relevant source material, but is being condemned by historians who specialise in the field. Leading expert in Late Antiquity, Dame Averil Cameron, has called Nixey's book "a travesty". And it is. This is a terrible book.

Read my full, detailed critique here: https://historyforatheists.com/2017/1... ...more

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Jan 07, 2019 Jenna ❤ ❀ ❤ rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history, religion-mythology-made-up-shit, non-fiction

(Hypatia, circa 350–370 CE to 415 CE, Philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician of Alexandria)

Knowing what I already knew about the destruction of the great Library of Alexandria and the torture and murder of the brilliant philosopher and mathematician Hypatia, I knew the early Christians weren't exactly kind to those who didn't believe as they did. I knew there was much they destroyed of the ancient world, much that is forever lost to history because they had no tolerance for those whose belie ...more

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Jan 18, 2019 Jan-Maat added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 21st-century, religion, roman-twilight

I notice many reviews of this book tend to the extremes either rating it very highly or very negatively, I feel by way of contrast that it is a very middle of the road kind of book, ok, but it pulls it's punches.

The title effectively sums up the book, the author is a journalist and maybe that is the kind of neat trick that she has picked up from her professional practise.

Putting words into her mouth, the story she tells is of the Christianisation of the Roman Empire, she goes back as far as the I notice many reviews of this book tend to the extremes either rating it very highly or very negatively, I feel by way of contrast that it is a very middle of the road kind of book, ok, but it pulls it's punches.

The title effectively sums up the book, the author is a journalist and maybe that is the kind of neat trick that she has picked up from her professional practise.

Putting words into her mouth, the story she tells is of the Christianisation of the Roman Empire, she goes back as far as the letters of Pliny the Younger but most of the book is concentrated around the fourth to the sixth centuries AD flicking forwards to the highly selective copying of manuscripts in medieval monasteries and the excavation of Pompeii from the eighteenth century onwards.

Her thesis is that Christianisation was a through going and eventually totalitarian revolution which saw extensive destruction and official intolerance in the service of the creation of a new kind of human - the Christian, a being tormented by demons and indifferent (if not hostile) to all worldly and carnal pleasures, who would react violently to any and all perceived slights to their beliefs.

This involved the destruction of temples, the burning, neglect or reuse of books, destruction of statues, and the persecution of people, at first non-Christians and eventually (although this is just mentioned in passing in the book) Christians who were considered to be heretics.

I think in terms of its presentation it is a bit of a mess (and obviously it is lacking in nuance), there is a lot of skipping about and repetition (with variation) particularly striking for a book which claims to be a 'narrative' history which might possibly lead the reader to expect more of a story. In her introduction she mentions that her original idea had been to structure the book as a travelogue, but she abandoned that because of the ongoing war in Syria. In my opinion she would have been better sticking to the travelogue - not because I would have liked her to have risked her life, but because I imagine the combination of travel to Tunisia, Egypt, Pompeii, Rome, Athens and Istanbul and the stories she has in this book of Saint Augustine, rioting monks, suicidal casual agricultural labourers, the end of the Academy in Athens and the European impact of the uncovering of Pompeii would have made for a better book - and providing it with an organising principle that it currently lacks.

On the plus side this is an ok book, it puts forward a vigorous and definite viewpoint, it does not require prior knowledge, and it has colourful stories about violent narrow minded Christians.

On the downside she cites the opinions of scholars without reference in the text to when they were writing so you need to be familiar with the literature to know if she is taking issue with somebodies current opinion or tilting at the windmill of somebody long dead or a view that is generally outmoded. She relies on Christian exemplary literature - the deaths of martyrs and the deeds of the saints which is likely to over state the destructiveness and general smiting of the unrighteous, she relies on the guesses and estimates of how many people were Christian prior to Constantine's conversion and how much non-Christian literature was destroyed, a certain amount was presumably lost through neglect (by not being copied in turbulent times) and some works may never have existed in many copies in the first place and so were inherently always at risk. Still I was struck by her account of the violence done to statues - faces and genitals hacked off sometimes crosses carved on the foreheads better that things rather than people being destroyed but I wonder at the extent of the insecurity that drives such actions, it seems a bad sign to me when a person feels threatened by an inanimate object.

For me she pulls her punches, the unasked question to my mind reading this book is are the monotheistic religions intrinsically intolerant and destructive, but then again that is a tautology. ...more

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Jan 12, 2018 Josephine (biblioseph) marked it as to-not-read · review of another edition

I love to read negative reviews of books I'm interested in. Sometimes they convince me I *must* read a book, more than any positive review probably will. However, after reading several theological negative reviews that didn't say "Christians weren't really this bad!" they were still written by theological historians or students of theology and history, I turned to finding one written by an atheist. I warn you, it's a long review, but Tim O'Neill has posted one on his blog: History for Atheists. ...more

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Jan 15, 2018 Aurva Bhargava rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: christians-under-rome

It is said that “ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS”. Hence the post-Roman era is typically called as the Dark ages, since it was the period when Christianity held absolute power, which resulted in widespread destruction and corruption of everything that it touched. However, what was it like when Christianity was struggling to acquire power ? What effect did it have during that time? These are the questions that Catherine Nixey’s new book titled “The Darkening Age” attempt to answer. And it sheds light on It is said that “ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS”. Hence the post-Roman era is typically called as the Dark ages, since it was the period when Christianity held absolute power, which resulted in widespread destruction and corruption of everything that it touched. However, what was it like when Christianity was struggling to acquire power ? What effect did it have during that time? These are the questions that Catherine Nixey’s new book titled “The Darkening Age” attempt to answer. And it sheds light on some of the facts hitherto brushed under the carpet by the historians who have told the story of the triumph of Christianity based on christian sources, and thus, presented the narrative of a decadent barbarian empire which was saved by Christianity. However, this was not the case. The tale of Christianity acquiring power over Rome is one that brought considerable amount of sorrow to the classical world. Hence, “The Darkening Age” is an apt metaphor for those times.

Early on in the book, Nixey explores the motivation of the Christians to convert the Empire. She unravels the obsession of the early christian writers with demons and the trope of using demonization to justify revolting against the empire. The ideological resistance via Pagans such as Celsus, Galen, Porphyry is presented in an elaborate manner. The use of the Maryrdom trope to "needle" the romans as well as recruit more people into the Christian cult is discussed. Nixey quotes historians such as Keith Hopkins, Candida Moss who have critically analyzed the myth of martyrdom.

Having described Constantine's rise to power and the subsequent empowerment of the church, Nixey devotes the remainder of the book documenting the destruction of the classical world that occurred with 200 years of the Christian rule. This includes the destruction of countless temples (eg: The temple of Serapis in Alexandria in 392CE), murder of intellectuals (eg: Hypatia of Alexandria in 415 CE), burning of books, vandalization of art, sculpture. Chapter 8 titled “How to destroy a demon” provides ample amount of evidences of iconoclasm and the methods adopted to achieve them. For example, there were laws which, in order to snub the pagans, declared that the portions of the destroyed temples were to be used to repair roads, bridges and aqueducts. The motivation for partial dis-figuration of statues seems to come from the Jewish tract Avodah Zarah as per which in order to properly mutilate a statue (to drive the demon out of them), one should be “cutting off the tip of the ear, or nose or finger, by battering it –even though bulk of it is not diminished — it is desecrated.” One cannot help but find similarities to the destruction of the temples in India at the hands of the Muslims, which resulted in the chipped noses and broken limbs of the statues therein. Thus, there seems to be a method in this iconoclasm madness which has been passed on as a heirloom from one Abrahamic religion to the next.

The book also discusses how the literary style of the classical world was appropriated by the Christians such as Jerome and Augustine for the service of Christianity so that the Roman elite could be converted and, more importantly, retained within the fold of Christianity.

The book ends with the tale of Damascius the aging philosopher, who is forced to flee Athens, and shut down the Academy due to the laws of Justinian passed in 529 CE which forbade "… the teaching of any doctrine by those who labor under the insanity of paganism so that they may not corrupt the souls of their disciples." thus highlighting another critical aspect of the Christian rule – the use of law to curb the Pagans way of life. My ancestors from Goa had experienced a taste of this during the Portuguese rule where such laws made it difficult for a Hindus to practice their religion thereby forcing them to either convert or flee.

The book reveals, in an engaging manner that the Triumph of Christianity and the destruction of Paganism is not a happy tale. On the contrary, it is a very sad one. The surviving works from the classical age, the literature, the defaced sculptures act as mute witnesses to this sad story. The loss of the classical world cannot be described. This becomes evident in Chapter 11 where Nixey quotes E A Judge asking, “What difference did it make to Rome to have been converted?” and answers that though cannot know for certain, something did change. As a post-christian author she focuses on the profound change in our attitudes towards food and sex due to Christianity compared to that in the Roman times where these were aspects of Kama, to be indulged in without giving in to excess. However the Christian view of both of these was evil, and hence had to be shunned as much as possible.

I agree with the Nixey that our attitudes towards these have drastically been impacted by Christianity. However, there are more important things which she could have spoken about in this chapter, but fails to. This silence perhaps answer eloquently what difference it made to Rome to have been converted. The interactions that the Romans had with the Divine, their Mythology, their Sacred arts, the ability to sacralize life, the ability to view science, arts, rituals within the common framework of things that can produce Vidya — these things aren’t even spoken about, or even considered worthy of lament. This outlook that the Romans had is not unlike the Hindu outlook, where a learned person was equally at home performing rituals to the Devas while indulging in highly abstract mathematical/computational work, and be able to describe these in through ornate poetic language. There was no fake distinction between Science, Art, Rituals that we see even in the post-christian world. Life was one unified whole where pursuit of the three Purusharthas was simultaneously sought for. While Renaissance was able to revive science & art, these were still garbed in the Christian clothing. Further, Renaissance wasn’t able to revive the Pagan religion, despite the fact that it indulged in the fruits of the Pagan religion.

Thus, the inability to understand western culture on its own terms is biggest difference that conversion of Rome has resulted in. And due to the predatory nature of Christianity, aided by colonization & later on globalization, this attitude has spread all over the world.

I would highly recommend this book, especially to Hindus who will see a glimpse of their own civilization in the classical Rome suffering at the hands of Christianity. The motives, methods & madness of the followers of this cult is similar to the other cults whose acts brought much suffering to our Hindu ancestors. The use of the legal framework to subjugate the Pagans, the deceptions, the subversion of their culture, art, science – these are things that a keen observer can identify happening in our country even to this date. ...more

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Nov 06, 2018 Veronica rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Yes, I would like to go back in time and wreak destruction on the fools who gloated in the destruction of the Temple of Artemis and send lightning bolts to strike them down! Temple-destroyers! Murderers of Hypatia! Book-burners!

In the wake of such senseless destruction, no real ‘triumph’ is possible. Christianity spread the same way as the other monotheistic religions, that is, through force and coercion. Nevertheless, it is the Greeks who will have the last laugh: in my view, the strongest writers from the Christian world were the neo-Platonists, themselves more indebted to Plato than to the Bible.

And, who in their right mind would prefer the querulous St. Augustine to Plato, to Aristotle, to the pre-Socratics? Who would prefer the dull St. Anselm to Homer? I’m afraid that Milton and Dante were mere exceptions to the rule.

Poor Symmachus—so-called pagan—whose pluralistic viewpoint was uprooted by a new cult: “We request peace for the gods of our forefathers. Whatever each person worships, it is reasonable to think of them as one. We see the same stars, the sky is shared by all, the same world surrounds us. What does it matter what wisdom a person uses to seek for the truth?”

Farewell to the learning of the pagan world, farewell to the classical ‘idolatrous’ art, to the pagan philosophy of the Greeks; instead, we were forced to endure the fractious whines of St. Augustine, and the coming age of darkness and superstition...

One day I would like to rebuild the Temple of Artemis. The destruction wreaked by the early Christians needs to be immortalized—not pushed to the sidelines of history and supplanted by grossly exaggerated stories of Christian martyrdom.

“It has been estimated that less than 10% of all classical literature has survived into the modern era. For Latin, the figure is even worse: it is estimated the only 1/100 of all Latin literature remains. If this was ‘preservation’—as it is often claimed to be—then it was astonishingly incompetent. If it was censorship, it was brilliantly effective. The ebullient, argumentative classical world was, quite literally, being erased.”

Truly, the so-called progress of history is a farce—there is no progress, just recurrent iterations of the same foolishness, again and again and again ...more

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May 04, 2018 Matthew Bargas rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I almost didn’t read this book after reading all of the negative reviews: accusations of poor scholarship, personal biases, a vendetta against Christianity. She certainly has her opinions that she supports with quotes from her sources. I did my own fact checking, and didn’t find all of the distortions of which they accuse her.

Rather than write my own review, I thought it would be apropos to present some more favorable reviews that others have presented to serve as a counterweight to all the nega ...more

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Jan 12, 2018 Emma Sea rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: paperback, non-fiction, i-own-it, history

6 stars. Heartbreaking, vivid, and wonderfully researched

If you're wondering if this book is for you, check out Josephine's excellent roundup of critiques in her review. ...more

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Jan 21, 2018 Galina Krasskova rated it really liked it · review of another edition

It is so good to read a scholarly book that presents the monotheistic destruction of the classical world accurately: as religious and cultural genocide (though she's not quite so blunt). This is an excellent book challenging all too often unquestioned ideas of christianity in general and monotheism in particular as "inevitable" and most especially as "progress." I highly recommend it. ...more

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Mar 06, 2018 David Wineberg rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

"With our faith, we desire no further belief"

Before Christianity, no one identified by their religion, says Catherine Nixey. It was not their defining characteristic. Christians imposed their beliefs on everyone else, and required everyone to identify as Christian. That is the essence of The Darkening Age. It shows how the free-for-all that was life in the Roman Empire became the dour, sullen austerity of Christendom.

The Roman Empire was about living life to the fullest. Sex was celebrated (Marc "With our faith, we desire no further belief"

Before Christianity, no one identified by their religion, says Catherine Nixey. It was not their defining characteristic. Christians imposed their beliefs on everyone else, and required everyone to identify as Christian. That is the essence of The Darkening Age. It shows how the free-for-all that was life in the Roman Empire became the dour, sullen austerity of Christendom.

The Roman Empire was about living life to the fullest. Sex was celebrated (March 17 was a national festival celebrating young men’s first ejaculations), the bathhouses were for both sexes, sex acts provided artwork on walls, floors and objects in homes. Shame was not in the culture. Fine food and wine were exalted. Every religion from the vast expanse of the Empire was tolerated. The attitude was: Believe what you will, I’m having a drink. It was actually very Christian of them.

Nixey’s argument is that right from the beginning, Christianity favored martyrs over do-gooders to promote itself. Stories became epics, the ordinary became tragic and blood became holy, as Christianity’s fame and (forced) attraction spread. Christians were all about suicide and martyrdom, because eternal life after death was the promise and the goal. Christianity’s intolerance also began early on, denigrating any other form of worship, and once in power, punishing it by death to adherents. Homosexuality and lesbianism were banned, slavery was upheld, and death sentences became routine.

It all began with Constantine’s conversion in 312. He exempted the church from taxes, paid bishops five times the rate for professors, and set about converting his entire Roman Empire. To do this, he literally demonized all other religions, claiming all of them were really demons among the good people of the empire. By 386 it was a capital crime to even criticize Christianity. Up to that point, Christianity had been considered an eastern cult with absurd myths at its center.

The Darkening Age follows the collapse of civilization (the Roman Empire) from the time of Jesus to about 500 AD. In that time, the Romans went from tolerating Christians and their fierce sect (Pliny called it a “degenerate sort of cult”), to being taken over by it. The empire went from multi-faith to one single faith, as Christians, far from loving their neighbors, destroyed all vestiges of previous civilization, including the largest repository of knowledge and history – the library at Alexandria – and forced their religion on one and all, or face execution. They implemented spying by neighbors, required bishops to monitor each other for their faith, and instituted gruesome torture and murder for anyone suspected of lack of enthusiasm for Christianity.

Throughout the book there is a heartbreaking refugee, a philosopher named Damascius. He fled Alexandria because philosophy was destroyed by Christianity. He made it to Athens, where he resurrected the Academy of ancient Greece, and it thrived once again -until the Christians took over. He fled again, this time to Persia, which was so vulgar and ignorant, he and his last seven philosophers fled back to the Roman Empire, where they faded from history.

Christians were proud of their ignorance and despised learning. They dragged the most honored mathematician in the world to a temple, stripped her and flayed her skin off with pottery shards. They managed to burn books to the point where entire centuries show no evidence of non-religious writing at all. Monks scraped parchments clean and made copies of the bible on them instead. Statues were defaced, temples destroyed and the stones used to make churches. Nixey’s research says 90% of ancient Greek and Roman artifacts were mutilated or destroyed by Christians. They hammered nipples, carved crosses in foreheads, and smashed limbs. Essentially, any and every evidence of past learning or religion was removed from the Roman Empire as 60 million were cowed into allowing it to go on.

Reading The Darkening Age is very familiar. It is exactly what Islam is going through today. Killing apostates, blowing up statuary, destroying museums, demonizing sex and regulating every movement of every resident. The fierceness and intolerance of the Islamic fundamentalists has all been seen before. Only the numbers are different, as 21st century man counts in the billions, and the entire world is Islam’s target. There are many lessons in The Darkening Age, but mostly it is a fiendishly uncomfortable and gripping read.

David Wineberg
...more

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Dec 23, 2018 Geevee rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history-general, european-history, world-history, religion

A lively and highly accessible book that challenges the view that Christian society was a benign, accepting and accepted religion during its first few centuries.

Temples, statuary, books and other art was destroyed, vandalised, hidden and in many cases crudely "Christianised" by defacement. On the face of it, this isn't a surprise as it's a simple human trait seen throughout our history that the "good and right" will erase or change the "bad and wrong" to suit the narrative needed to "progress" a A lively and highly accessible book that challenges the view that Christian society was a benign, accepting and accepted religion during its first few centuries.

Temples, statuary, books and other art was destroyed, vandalised, hidden and in many cases crudely "Christianised" by defacement. On the face of it, this isn't a surprise as it's a simple human trait seen throughout our history that the "good and right" will erase or change the "bad and wrong" to suit the narrative needed to "progress" and keep aims and populations in line.

What however becomes clear in this well-written book is the means, methods and indeed sheer damage done by a religion that tells others it is (or rather was at the time this book covers) the accepting and forgiving religion. There are countless examples in the early Christian period in Greece and Rome as well as later with Crusades, Inquisitions, civil (and therefore often religious) wars across Europe and the middle East, but what the author does so well is to peel away the impact on the treasures, arts and also the people of ancient Greece and Rome (and wider) where Christianity took hold and flourished - after reading this book one might say it strangled and covered these ancient pagan societies like a creeping ivy or dense grass.

In the pages we read of edicts, laws and commandments - many more than 10 if you're anywhere near Shenoute, who frankly we learn is a very bad, unforgiving and murderous man - as well as demons, temptation and enemies of God. In brief alongside love of God these are all used as ways to theologise and physically create the belief in God and His power as well as the overarching righteousness and legal waiver to kill and destroy God's enemies and those who were unbelievers.

Elsewhere in the book we meet Pliny, Cicero, Ovid, Hypatia and more. These are quoted or used to highlight aspects of the story, the beliefs and writings they had as well as the loss of their works or writings because of Christian anger and destruction.

The book is not a comprehensive history; the author states this and also provides much in sources and in further reading for the interested reader or new student of this era and area. It does however show the considerable and large scale destruction and why this was wrought. It is also a hugely enjoyable book to read. ...more

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Jul 05, 2019 Stela rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I don’t know whether the beautiful province of Quebec, which has been my home for about fifteen years, now, has got the most places named after saints in North America, but it is sure you will see them on almost any plate on the road. Yet, Quebec is also one of the less religious places I know of, despite (or because of) the fact that, until just some fifty years ago, the Catholic Church was maybe the most powerful instance in the country. And if you ask the Quebecers about that period, their sm ...more

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Aug 24, 2019 Ross Blocher rated it liked it · review of another edition

I'm conflicted after reading The Darkening Age, having subsequently fallen down an online rabbit hole of critical reviews, particularly this one by Tim O'Neill for his blog History for Atheists. Catherine Nixey is an excellent writer, and her prose is a delight to read. She has set out to detail the Christian destruction of classical art and thought from the institutionalized Christianity of Constantine through the early 6th century. The question is whether that destructive force is overstated a ...more

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Jan 13, 2018 Kevin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Devoured this book in a few days. A wonderful antidote to the 'persecuted church' narrative so prevalent in today's society. ...more

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Feb 15, 2018 Andy Lake rated it really liked it · review of another edition

First off, I enjoyed The Darkening Age. It’s very well written and carries you along all the way through. And it redresses as it were a historical injustice, or at the very least a negligent oversight – and that is the coercive and persecuting side of Christianity in the first centuries after it became the religion of the Roman empire.

But – this is polemical history rather than objective history. Catherine Nixey picks up on an old theme of the greatness and glory of classical antiquity and how i First off, I enjoyed The Darkening Age. It’s very well written and carries you along all the way through. And it redresses as it were a historical injustice, or at the very least a negligent oversight – and that is the coercive and persecuting side of Christianity in the first centuries after it became the religion of the Roman empire.

But – this is polemical history rather than objective history. Catherine Nixey picks up on an old theme of the greatness and glory of classical antiquity and how it is eclipsed by the deadening impact of an austere Christianity - “Vicisti, Galilaee - Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath/ We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death…” as the Victorian poet Swinburne put it in his “Hymn to Proserpine.”

And that wistful romanticisation of the glory that was Rome, and the Graeco-Roman tradition, infuses the whole work, tinged with not a little bitterness. Even in the title there’s a nod to the discredited historical myth of the glory of Rome giving way to the “Dark-Ages” and eventually some glory restored with the revival of antiquity and ancient knowledge in the Renaissance (etc)
So how does the book lose its way? First, it is highly selective in its sources. For me, having studied this period and the growth of Christianity, it seems strange to see thinkers such as Origen and Augustine cherry-picked to find the lines that support narrow-minded thinking and oppression, when these are not characteristic of their thought as a whole.

And that selectivity is evident in contrasting the deep intellectualism of the most eminent of pagan philosophers with most boorish and thuggish manifestations of Christianity (and they are indeed truly boorish and thuggish). It would have been quite possible to write a book the other way round, up to a point. And the author’s focus is almost entirely on an intellectual elite amongst pagans, rather than the masses and their response.

I think also a modern outlook directs the author’s judgemental view of the period. She regards the statues that were desecrated and the temples that were pulled down as priceless antiquities and historic monuments. At the time, of course, they mostly were not. They were living centres of rival cults in competition with Christianity.

I have no sympathy with the destruction and murder involved, but that’s how it was. So the events could be treated with more objectivity, or a more rounded creative involvement that sees both sides. After all, the Romans were hardly averse to looting, burning and torture, or building their shrines on top of the shrines of others – as all ancient cultures tended to do. Rome, like Greece before it – did not hang back when it came to cultural imperialism.

But there is something important that doesn’t get a mention at all. The story told is of Christianity in the space of less than three centuries erasing the old pagan culture. But Christianity, like Judaism before it, was highly syncretistic. The Catholic and Byzantine Christianity that emerged were infused with Graeco-Roman culture and political organisation. Church architecture, iconography and the statues of saints owe much to the former pagan cults, and the organisation of the church owes much to the secular structures of power in Rome. Christian philosophy and theology to a large extent has foundations borrowed from Greek and Roman pagan intellectuals. BTW, the impact of eastern religious thought on Hellenistic and Roman thought (including Christian thought) in this period is almost absent from the book.

If you go to Diocletian’s Palace in Split, you can see the old imagery on the walls where a temple was turned into a baptistry. Christians just took it over, and left the reliefs intact. The old myths and legends survived in the popular imagination and in literature, right through to Shakespeare and into the 20th century even. It’s only the most recent generations that has abandoned them, in favour of online entertainment and Hollywood, perhaps. But even in the latter, the old tales of Greece and Rome emerge in new guise.

So – I’ve given the book 4 stars. It does what it aims to do very well. There are indeed historic misperceptions to correct, and that is the target of the polemic. And in an age where fundamentalism is growing and religious (and other) ideologues seek to erase contrary viewpoints, it is a timely reminder of the intolerance of Christianity from the moment when it gained the power to persecute rather than be persecuted. (And we can wind that forward through crusades against heretics, the Inquisitions and religious wars, rolling on through the centuries.)

It would have been a better book, though, with a little more balance and some nuance about the interplay and cultural appropriation between the competing religions and worldviews. ...more

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Sep 17, 2021 Chaitra rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

They not only despised pagans but also atheism, science and philosophy. They not only jeered at the indigenous rituals but hated even the idea of bathing! This wasn't just the spread of a world's largest religion in Europe but also the massacre of the non believers, suppression of individualism, pluralism and the silencing the very first western philosophers. It wasn't just women like Hypatia who were skinned to death but also the massive book burning and wiping out of the philosophical writings They not only despised pagans but also atheism, science and philosophy. They not only jeered at the indigenous rituals but hated even the idea of bathing! This wasn't just the spread of a world's largest religion in Europe but also the massacre of the non believers, suppression of individualism, pluralism and the silencing the very first western philosophers. It wasn't just women like Hypatia who were skinned to death but also the massive book burning and wiping out of the philosophical writings. In short, once the land of pantheism and philosophy stood no more the same but the mere rule of one God and one faith

Of course around the earlier centuries there were revolts and resistance. There was a making of Christian martyrs who rather chose to be sacrificed for their cause rather than sacrifice to the gods that were worshipped. The author does acknowledge it but I felt like it was more of a justification through the minimum number. But the author proved me wrong in the coming chapters where things began getting darker and scarier when the Roman king converted to Christianity.

The beautiful temples were brought down to rubbles, the gods statues especially the goddesses had the worst kind of ill treatment. While the non believers celebrated life through festivals and art forms, openly discussed the matters of intercourses and encouraged the balance in their performances the monks who rather chose to live in caves found it too intolerable than they'd sometimes sneak into the pagans houses and smash their idols. Idolatry they claimed, was nothing but the way into the Satanic cult. As the times progressed the rules and regulations were getting suffocating. People were forced to leave their rituals and went through horrible consequences if caught sacrificing offerings to their gods. Heaps of books were snatched out of the houses and the philosophical aspects of Cicero and others were scraped off. Unsurprisingly, the critical writings of this new religion by Celsus and Libanus were also burnt. These philosophers not only celebrated the pantheism but also took sides with atheism. There were writings which were proselyted by these 'saviours of the sinners' which somewhat shared their perspectives, rest became the feast to the fire. After the cold murder of Hypatia, once land of intelligence and philosophy, Alexandria began casting dark shadows upon all the free thinkers and philosophers that they had to flee the lands. Some watched their works being lapped up by the fire and some burnt their own works who were too philosophical and open for the new constricted cult. That doesn't mean they didn't resist back. They of course did! While they questioned why weren't this cult pleased with the fact that the pagans were ready to accept their One True Lord as one of the gods they raked through their minds at the murder of the ideology where one could choose his own path to the divine, if there's any. This classical world gave emphasis to liberal thinking, freedom in their theism, had a vast opening into the science and astronomy. They wrestled with the new ideas, they sat in the cool marble buildings spending hours discussing philosophy. Sadly, this kind of lifestyle was snatched from the ideology that rose in the East. Some of the philosophers sought refugee even in the lands of Persians only to come back to their lands and scatter slowly disappearing out of the name and fame. All the while, Athena, the goddess of Knowledge and Wisdom, who once stood with her head high with greatness, served her last days as a mere step into the prayer halls of the now triumphing believers of One Lord.

This book wasn't what I had expected. But it gave me everything I needed. Someone who always had a liking and a weird connection with past and ancient stuff especially of Greeks and Roman civilization this book threw me into the plethora of feelings. I am left with more questions than answers. I was unsure to read this book but the assurance of some readers regarding the references finally made me pick this book up. The author doesn't have a bit of hesitancy in her writings, even I felt that she was being hard. But one thing is for sure. The so called pagans celebrated and romanticised the lives you presently experience than the idea of a exuberant life after the so called sacrifice to the cause. People made their choices and as it was same with the Mayans, Incas and Sanatanis the ones who pointed out at their rights to follow their lifestyles were pushed to the horrors of intolerance and hate while the ones who were at the other end have passed down the same constricted stand which can be so visible and is being carried forward grandly even today.

About the writing style it was more poetic and figuritive. The Chapters and crisp and short and the author doesn't fail to transport to the places she writes about. Some concepts were too hard to believe and there were some chapters where I ashamedly hollered because the new cult's thinking and reasons to do what they did were belly aching hilarious. Comedy apart, this book moved my heart. I didn't know these ancient civilizations were put through so much to finally drift away from their roots. For someone who loved these civilizations, now I'm ensured, that there is so much I'm supposed to learn and understand.

Millions of people have been massacred, the works of architects and writers are wiped out of the earth only because some people who failed to realise that we all live under the same sun and extract the soothing coldness of the same moon. ...more

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Jan 09, 2021 Anonymous Hindu rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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The book is an excellent account of the conflict of Christianity and the native religions of the Roman empire, mainly the Greek and Roman traditions that worshipped many gods, had an intricate philosophy, temples and rituals. What often struck me when I was younger while reading Greek mythology, was how was it possible that an entire way of life was eradicated without a protest, especially a tradition that was at least a 1000 years old at the time of its elimination. Now, after reading this book The book is an excellent account of the conflict of Christianity and the native religions of the Roman empire, mainly the Greek and Roman traditions that worshipped many gods, had an intricate philosophy, temples and rituals. What often struck me when I was younger while reading Greek mythology, was how was it possible that an entire way of life was eradicated without a protest, especially a tradition that was at least a 1000 years old at the time of its elimination. Now, after reading this book, I realize that I was wrong. The Greeks/Romans were a proud people and did revolt, but every dissent/encounter was carefully hidden by a volley of Christian apologists publishing books, controlling media and promoting movies, financed by the church (which is also a dominant political player worldwide) that sought to present the Greeks as sinful 'pagans' (a slur) who were already ashamed of their lifestyle and readily abandoned their tradition on seeing the 'Christian light'. This is the first serious book for the layman that seeks to reconstruct the conflict neutrally without exaggerating either side's view.

The conversion of the Roman empire into Christianity was not at all peaceful. There were bloody riots, witch hunts, mob lynching of Greek philosophers, destruction of temples. Contrary to what is portrayed in Indian textbooks/pop-culture, Christianity is full of hatred, fear and superstition. The early church fathers encouraged the segregation of Christian population from the rest of the population due to which there was minimal cultural interaction between the Christians and the Greeks/Romans. After achieving this, they were filled with hatred towards the Greeks/Romans by propagandizing that they were actually evil, base people who were worshipping the devil or in a pact with the 'devil'. How Christianity managed to increase its population is instructive as a case study for multi-cultural societies as in India. It targeted slaves, poor people, the illiterate, the women were targeted for proselytizing, after which they were segregated due to their self imposed isolation from the 'agents of satan'. Now, seperated from their fellow Greeks, they as well as their offsprings were available for brainwashing with hatred. Anyone who didn't agree with the church could be marked as possessed by the devil or a manifestation of the devil himself/herself. I mention the gender neutrality because a disturbing account of the lynching of one of the prominent philosophers of Alexandria, Hypatia who was lynched by the Christians, her eyes gouged out, her skin peeled while she was alive and a cross was burnt into her head. This was primarily the motivation for temple destruction too by the Christians as they after hearing hours of sermons by the church pastors had come to believe that the temples were resided by 'the devil' and they were killing devils and destroying satan's power on earth as they believed that sacrificing/offering prayers at the temple strengthened satan. Mobs would break temples in broad daylight causing resentment. These christians shunned logic (maybe that is why they fought against science too till late modernity) and equated education to something dirty that was to be despised.

Now, coming to monks, there is a huge misconception in India that a rishi/sanyasi is the same as a monk. 'Monks' were known for their reckless activities throughout the Roman empire. Contrary to self discipline, they drunk in excess, made merry, robbed houses and often indulged in orgies! The only productive thing that they did (productive by Christian definition) was vandalizing the temples and terrorizing the local population into Christianity. Most of the 'saints' were branded saints by the later church because they destroyed Roman temples and libraries, 'the seats of satan'. A famous terrorist saint in India is St. Xavier, who planned and implemented the genocide of the Konkani Brahmin community in Goa. Some of them also killed Roman officials, and ordinary people, later justified by the church officials as not really murders as these were not men, but the devil himself. Fear of hell and satan as well as God's eternal punishment in hell are key concepts that define the Christian psyche even now.
State power was instrumental to the rise of Christianity. After the coming to throne of Constantine, various laws were passed that hindered the practice of the local traditions. It was estimated that before capturing state power the Christians formed roughly 10% of the population, that was later to become 100% in a few centuries. Laws after laws were issued banning sacrifices, the celebration of Greek/Roman festivals and enforced Christianity. Later, when only a bunch of philosophers was left, they too were banished as a law was passed that prohibited 'any activity that promotes/encourages the pagan darkness'. The text also describes their journey on foot from Athens in Greece to Persia to escape persecution. However, even before the formal recognition of Christianity by the Roman empire, Christianity already formed an alternative government in most of the places. The church officials controlled what the people could think and do, and the rogue 'monks' enforced the Christian doctrine on the people, terrorizing them and vandalizing Roman buildings such as temples. Thus it is the combination of all the above factors that led to the rise of Christianity and not some 'spiritual calling' as has been mentioned till now.

Christianity thus appears to be a cloak for a communist style government whose officials (the clergy) enjoy absolute power and wealth. The modus operandi can be verified by a live ongoing crusade going on in the south of India, particularly Tamil Nadu, Kerela and Andhra Pradesh. The power of the Christian deep state is evident as pastors accused of serious crimes such as rape and murder are able to avoid prosecution by the government quite easily. The temple breaking spree going on in Andhra also must be seen in the background of this information.

This is a must read for those people who call the opposition to coerced conversion to Christianity by Hindus as communal, saying that after all how does it matter, all are human beings, etc. It is clearly highlighted in the book why it matters. Christianity has been highly sugar coated in the media and popular narrative throughout the world, especially in India as a religion of love, toleration, promoting scientific temper, progress and brotherhood. After reading this book, one cannot help but laugh at these statements. ...more

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Jan 19, 2018 Al Bità rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The beginning of the 4th century CE was a crucial and highly significant time for what was to become known as Christendom: the new Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in 312 CE, having set up his “new Rome” in Byzantium (to the increasing annoyance and chagrin of the Bishop of Rome!), and declared that henceforth Christianity would be the sole religion of the Roman Empire (albeit in a form (probably Arianism) that would soon be declared heretical).

Constantine set up the first maj The beginning of the 4th century CE was a crucial and highly significant time for what was to become known as Christendom: the new Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in 312 CE, having set up his “new Rome” in Byzantium (to the increasing annoyance and chagrin of the Bishop of Rome!), and declared that henceforth Christianity would be the sole religion of the Roman Empire (albeit in a form (probably Arianism) that would soon be declared heretical).

Constantine set up the first major church council (the Council of Nicaea) in 325 CE. The fact that this Council was convened by the Emperor is also significant, establishing that the Church was subject to the Emperor. (The theological arguments and disputations of the time were so conflicting and rancorous that Constantine insisted that they use the Council to get their act together, or else…) The result was the first draft of the Nicene Creed (refined later) and while this did not stop the haggling by theologians (I doubt whether there has ever been total consensus between them ever since!) the Church was established on firm foundations. [The subservience of the Church to the State was a reality for hundreds of years — the first eight Church Councils were all convened by the reigning Emperor at the time. The first Council that was actually convened by the Roman Pope was the First Lateran Council in 1223 CE — 898 years after Nicaea.]

Nixey’s book basically covers the 220-year period between the Council of Nicaea (325 CE) to the closing of the Platonic Academy in 532 CE, which Christians lauded as being the final triumphal victory over the “pagans” and paganism (and intellectuals decry as the beginning of the thousand-year Dark Age for Europe). From this time on, the only light Reason was required to provide was to bolster up the mono-theistic mindset of the State Religion. [Ironically, the rejection, and ejection from Europe, of the great scientific and philosophical wisdom of the past, were to make a triumphal come-back, thanks to the Arabs, during the 15th-century Italian Renaissance. This, together with the then recent technological accomplishments especially of the printing press and its power to communicate all things directly to individuals, resulted in the blazing forth of knowledge and enterprise throughout Europe in the 17th-18th centuries which we call The European Enlightenment.]

Wisely, Nixey does not get sidetracked by the internal theological battles of this time of the birth of Christianity as we know it — they are far too complex, and in many cases still “unresolved” to be dealt with here. Instead the author concentrates on the way the new universal (catholic) religion dealt with those it perceived to be its immediate and external enemies: the “pagans” and paganism.

I would argue that the core of Christianity is its emphasis on love and peace: the principles of the Sermon on the Mount; love one another; love your neighbour; love your enemies; bless them that curse you; pray for them that persecute and calumniate you; and never cease in forgiving people their transgressions. One would think that, with Christianity being declared the absolute and unopposed State Religion of the Roman Empire, the ruling body of the Church would seize the opportunity to embrace and enshrine these wonderful principles and ensure their incorporation in all matters dealing with the Faith, right? Wrong.

What actually happened (in regard to “pagans” and paganism in Europe) is clearly and very readably provided by Nixey. Her writing is not heavy at all, but lightly, though unrelentingly, sets out the increasingly ruthless and merciless activities of often murderous antipathy by the Church and by individuals and associated sects and rabid groups, either in thought or in deed, towards its perceived pagan enemies over the next 220 years. Emperors, Archbishops, and Bishops became both prescriptive and proscriptive through their leadership. The destruction of Serapis and the Serapeum in 391 CE and the murder of Hypatia in 415 CE are specific examples.

Among many other things, Augustine of Hippo’s extensive attacks on the “pagans” recommended action against them as being God’s will; he also believed that forced conversion was an honourable and righteous thing to do. Martin of Tours apparently had a great time overseeing and participating in the destruction of pagan temples wherever he went. The inherent anti-semitism of the New Testament is given full throat in the fiery sermons of John Chrysostom. And so it goes.

Nixey’s many references are incontestable; and when one adds the odium theologicum or “hatred of theologians (for one another)” one cannot help but think that this antipathy and bellicosity, possibly enhanced by the sense of increased power and authority provided by intellectual “conquest”, and the potential in that power for the further acquisition of immense riches and properties, and hence great influence, all played a part. Hypocrisy, corruption, ambition, ruthlessness and intolerance are always found in all great monolithic organisations, and are still to be found there today.

Nixey’s timely book is a reminder that these qualities were also there at the very birth of Christianity: it’s in its DNA.

Lest we forget... ...more

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Jan 10, 2020 Murtaza rated it liked it · review of another edition

One simple thing that is of enduring interest to me is the fact that the world was very different in the past. The transition from the classical to the Christian world was one of the greatest moral revaluations of all time. It was a change not of mere material circumstance but in the inner lives of mankind. This book is a highly partisan, unnuanced account of this shift. It is polemically anti-Christian and almost feels as thought it was directly written by an indignant classical "pagan," or at One simple thing that is of enduring interest to me is the fact that the world was very different in the past. The transition from the classical to the Christian world was one of the greatest moral revaluations of all time. It was a change not of mere material circumstance but in the inner lives of mankind. This book is a highly partisan, unnuanced account of this shift. It is polemically anti-Christian and almost feels as thought it was directly written by an indignant classical "pagan," or at least one of their representatives. While it purports to be a historical account, it's more like someone had an axe to grind and did not care to be bothered with counterarguments. I found this a bit insulting as a reader. But while the book cannot be taken as a definitive word on this subject, it still has merits.

Nixey is a brisk writer. She provides translations from many key classical and Christian writers who were living through this epochal shift in values. You do get a feel of how the world was changing and how it might have looked from the perspective of those who did not welcome such change. The strepitus mundi, the roar of the world, was announcing a new set of values, what Nietzsche would later deride as "slave morality," while the voices of those who saw things differently were being stilled. There were some stunning differences in moral and sexual values that Nixey touches on but doesn't go into great detail, other than suggesting that things were much better before the Christians arrived. Their monotheistic idol smashing reminded me a lot of early Islam.

The book is structured as a number of episodes, usually relating to some key Christian outrage. According to Nixey, the Christians were literally "dumb" and suffered from "idiocy," while the pagans were conciliatory, humane and brilliant victims of the lesser hordes. I suspect this is not the whole story, but she has certainly structured the book to make it seem like it is. The book is good and could have been great if some minimal effort had been taken at balance. As long as you don't take it too seriously you will still learn something. ...more

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Feb 03, 2018 Keith Scholey rated it did not like it · review of another edition

A dreadful Horrible History for (childish) adults - except HHs are better written, not selling a political agenda and well researched. One star is more than this piece of crap deserves.

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Dec 23, 2017 Frederick Gault rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history, nonfiction, political, atheist

The Christians of the period right after Constantine declared it the Roman religion around 310 AD were violently opposed to the worship of the traditional Roman gods. So they organized armies of thugs who defaced temples, statues and works of art that had survived a thousand years. These were not nice people. They took Hypatia of Alexandria, a polymath philosopher and flayed her alive - because, you know, God loves us. If you a church goer beware - if you read this you may never be able to see C ...more

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Apr 25, 2018 Heather Brooks rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Loved the book. So sorely needed when history has glossed over the brutal rise of Christianity.

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Jan 08, 2019 Kusaimamekirai rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recently I’ve been mining YouTube for the debates of the late, great Christopher Hitchens. As Hitchens more often than not eviscerated the biblical scholar they put in front of him, one of his most repeated arguments was in regard to the legacy that Christianity has left the world. Beautiful cathedrals, yes. Incomparable religious art, yes again. Yet, Hitchens asked, is any of this worth the trail of blood Christianity has left in its wake? Is it worth the destruction of the temples and art tha Recently I’ve been mining YouTube for the debates of the late, great Christopher Hitchens. As Hitchens more often than not eviscerated the biblical scholar they put in front of him, one of his most repeated arguments was in regard to the legacy that Christianity has left the world. Beautiful cathedrals, yes. Incomparable religious art, yes again. Yet, Hitchens asked, is any of this worth the trail of blood Christianity has left in its wake? Is it worth the destruction of the temples and art that preceded it?
Catherine Nixey’s “The Darkening Age” would answer these questions with a resounding no. Beginning with Christianity’s innocuous rise as a fringe cult at the start of the 3rd century, it would within a few hundred years overtake the Roman Empire and carve out a swath of destruction. Temples to previous gods were razed, statues smashed or defaced, and whole libraries burned.
While the thoughts of Roman and Greek philosophers of the age about the destruction of their cities are fragmented at best (the Christians were startlingly effective at erasing history they were uncomfortable with) we do have quite a few of the Christian theologians of the day describing in detail what happened. Such as Clement:

“The Lord himself had said that: ‘I will sharpen my sword . . . and I will render justice to mine enemies, and requite those who hate me. I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh from the blood of the wounded.’” This was not a mark of God’s cruelty but of love. ‘Censure,’ the author reassured his reader, ‘is a mark of good will, not of ill will.’”

It was, Clement and other Christians like him believed, a necessity to cleanse people of their dangerous thoughts and idols. If people had to die in the process (which they did) then it was God’s will.
One particularly interesting point Nixey raises is that prior to Christian dominance by the end of the 4th century, there were selective persecutions of Christians. Nixed however tends to downplay them. They were in the “hundreds” not “thousands”. Christians were given the option of just offering up some incense to the gods and they would’ve been safe, so why didn’t they? Christians just wanted to be lunatic martyrs so no matter what the Romans said or did, the Christians were going to throw themselves off a cliff or set themselves on fire. The Romans didn’t want to kill Christians and when they did, they did so reluctantly.
Nixed offers some letters between Roman functionaries to illustrate her points and yet one finds it difficult to be sympathetic to her arguments. It’s indisputable that what the Christians did to unbelievers in the form of murder, torture, and the destruction of their culture is worse than anything the Romans did to them. Yet, Nixed apologia for Roman atrocities ring hollow. How does one argue that because you killed 1,000 but your enemy killed 10,000 that you really weren’t so bad.
Reading about what Christendom did to the culture of 4th and 5th century Rome, Greece, and Syria will anger you. It was a tragedy at the time and a horrible loss to posterity. One wishes however only that Nixey would be able to see persecution for what it is, regardless of who was inflicting it. ...more

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Jul 08, 2018 Darcia Helle rated it it was amazing

Shelves: religion, history, review-copies, nonfiction

History is written by the victors. It stands to reason, then, that the history of Christianity's rise in power is also written and handed down to us by its victors. Historians, particularly in ancient times, wanted to, or perhaps were required to, put a positive spin on events. And so the history we're taught, whether in school or in church, is typically edited and shown in a pretty light. With this book, we take off those rose-colored glasses and examine the whole truth surrounding Christianity ...more

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Sep 04, 2019 Patrick Peterson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: political, history, science, philosophy, sense-of-life, thriller, journalism, religious

2021-08-23 I just came across this excellent article that uses Nixey's book as the focal point for a critique of various present day trend! Don't miss it. https://symposium.substack.com/p/our-...

On rereading my review below and noting that I only gave the book 3 stars, I changed the rating to 4 stars, which seems more in keeping with how good the book seems to me.

4 Sept. 2019
I finished this yesterday.
Very powerful. Very sad.

Answered a question I had had since my high school history class days t ...more

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Mar 05, 2018 J.S. rated it liked it

Shelves: vine, history-european, religion-other

At the end of the Introduction, Catherine Nixey says the following:

One final note: many, many good people are impelled by their Christian faith to do many, many good things. I know because I am an almost daily beneficiary of such goodness myself. This book is not intended as an attack on these people and I hope they will not see it as such. But it is undeniable that there have been — that there still are — those who use monotheism and its weapons to terrible ends. Christianity is a greater and a

At the end of the Introduction, Catherine Nixey says the following:

One final note: many, many good people are impelled by their Christian faith to do many, many good things. I know because I am an almost daily beneficiary of such goodness myself. This book is not intended as an attack on these people and I hope they will not see it as such. But it is undeniable that there have been — that there still are — those who use monotheism and its weapons to terrible ends. Christianity is a greater and a stronger religion when it admits this — and challenges it.

After finishing this book (and waiting a couple of weeks to write my review) I think that statement must have been forced upon her by her agent or the publisher. It’s hard to see this book as anything but an attack on Christianity. Not that she doesn’t have a point: the persecutions of non-Christians after Christianity was adopted by Rome was shameful, and I agree that it lead to what we refer to as “the Dark Ages.” However, the author’s attempts to appear balanced fall flat.

Nixey is a journalist rather than a historian, but she covers the period of roughly 300AD to 500AD quite well and in a readable manner. The narrative leans toward sensationalism and is frequently repetitive, but for the most part it works. Also, it doesn’t follow a chronological timetable, but the chapters focus on various aspects of Christianity, such as martyrs, monks, destruction of pagan temples or texts, or unique beliefs. And in spite of a rather salacious description about murders of pagans, there’s actually very little of that in the text. Instead, Nixey seems to take personal offense at the destruction of statues and art, which were seen as idols by early Christians. However, she says the worst persecution was the neglect of pagan writings, which in a time when texts were often erased to reuse the paper for something else was actually an understandable action. (Nonetheless, Nixey is right that much was lost, and Western Civilization was set back because of it.)

I appreciated that Nixey includes much information about the Greeks and Romans that I hadn't seen elsewhere. And while that information is frequently very unflattering, it’s also presented in an entirely benign manner. And yet her portrayals of similarly unflattering aspects of Christianity are shown in the worst light. One section that particularly bothered me was about the writings of Celsus, a Greek intellectual around 170AD. Apparently, the only record we have of his writings is through a rebuttal written by a Christian writer about 80 years later, yet Nixey spends over a dozen pages telling us of Celsus’ witty criticisms of Christianity, many of which show a rather poor knowledge of the subject on his part. She says “It is clear that... Celsus knows a lot about [Christianity]. He has read Christian scripture - and not just read it: studied it in great detail. He knows about everything... It is equally clear that he loathes it all...” And yet Celsus claims the Resurrection was only seen by “a hysterical female” and one other in contradiction to what the New Testament actually says, to give just one example.

At any rate, the book was rather interesting but not balanced in the least. Nixey takes great joy in putting down the Christian church and mocking its beliefs and customs. She is correct in saying that Christians should be stronger for facing the actual history, but her attacks go far beyond that. And I’m not sure how monotheism is any more to blame for historically unjust actions than polytheism, or in more recent history, atheism. An alternate book I would recommend is Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence. (A personal note: in all fairness I want to acknowledge that I consider myself a follower of Jesus Christ although I'm not a Catholic. My church believes there was an “apostasy” or falling away from the truth [2 Thessalonians 2:3 among other references] and that the Christian Church had ceased to resemble anything Christ had established within a hundred years of Christ’s death and needed to be "restored." Nonetheless, I felt awful for my Catholic friends as I read this attack on the early days of their church.) ...more

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Apr 03, 2020 Erik Graff rated it liked it

Recommends it for: Christians

Recommended to Erik by: James DeVoto

Shelves: religion

This was given me by a retired university professor and former colleague at Loyola University Chicago. Raised Catholic himself, his fields of study--astronomy, the classics, ancient history, Greek and Latin--and educational background at religious institutions led him to develop some antipathy towards the faith. Knowing that my own background was more in the history of the early Jesus movement(s), this gift was a natural.

Unfortunately, there was little within new to me. What was different was pe ...more

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Feb 17, 2018 Alex Sarll added it · review of another edition

Opening with an account of Palmyra's devastation by bearded zealots, but not the ones you think, aaaah, this polemical history makes its position clear from the off - the supposed 'Triumph of Christianity' at the close of the classical age was in many ways identical to the rise of Da'esh, except worse because more widespread and not so soon reversed. Fortunately, I entirely agree with that assessment. If this book was going to have a problem for me, it would be that just as I didn't read Fire an ...more

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Dec 29, 2018 AnnaG rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, history

This book sets out its mission to be an objective look at the Christian "triumph" over paganism focusing on the destruction involved, the author admits that this wasn't her original goal - and that really shows.

The book waffles around without a clear structure, jumping from anecdote to anecdote. Barely half the chapters seemed to cover the period she was supposed to be writing about - we frequently digress to Victorian visitors to Pompeii or the writings of Celsus (second century AD Athens' ans ...more

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About Catherine Nixey

Catherine Nixey

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Catherine Nixey is a journalist and a classicist. Her mother was a nun, her father was a monk, and she was brought up Catholic. She studied classics at Cambridge and taught the subject for several years before becoming a journalist on the arts desk at the Times (UK), where she still works. The Darkening Age, winner of a Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award, is her first book. She lives in Lon ...more

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“It wasn’t just the fact that Christians were ignorant about philosophical theories that annoyed Celsus; it was that Christians actually reveled in their ignorance.” — 13 likes

“One day in March AD 415, Hypatia set out from her home to go for her daily ride through the city. Suddenly, she found her way blocked by a “multitude of believers in God.”32 They ordered her to get down from her chariot. Knowing what had recently happened to her friend Orestes, she must have realized as she climbed down that her situation was a serious one. She cannot possibly have realized quite how serious. As soon as she stood on the street, the parabalani, under the guidance of a Church magistrate called Peter—“a perfect believer in all respects in Jesus Christ”33—surged round and seized “the pagan woman.” They then dragged Alexandria’s greatest living mathematician through the streets to a church. Once inside, they ripped the clothes from her body and, using broken pieces of pottery as blades, flayed her skin from her flesh. Some say that, while she still gasped for breath, they gouged out her eyes. Once she was dead, they tore her body into pieces and threw what was left of the “luminous child of reason” onto a pyre and burned her.34” — 10 likes

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