The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World

Knowingly or unknowingly, the secular trope of “all religions are the same” was accepted by Indian society. Perhaps, beleaguered by centuries of invasions and infiltrations by foreigners, beguiling Bharatvarsha, forfeiting hard thinking, unwittingly began validating the sameness of the religion. Fed on the diet of pseudo-secularism to ensure religious harmony, the inherent differences between the Indic religions and Abrahamic religions were consciously overlooked.

The charade of harmony built on the foundation of faux secularism is posing a threat to the civilisational values of the indigenous populace now. The constant clash is becoming more real and apparent. Even years of accommodation by the natives have failed to bring about anticipated communal cohesion. With pluralism, the bedrock of the native civilisation suffering collateral damage, it becomes incumbent on Bharatiyas to understand and internalise the foundational doctrines of the Abrahamic religions.  As opposed to the Indic religions which are experiential, the faith-based, monotheistic religions hold a binary worldview with the instructions flowing down to them from a book.

Bharat has recently witnessed a massive civilisation reclamation. The consecration of Ayodhya Ram Mandir is a testimony to the tumultuous civilisational struggle of five centuries. This marked the onset of a civilisational resurrection that instilled a new awakening to protect our dharma from lurking dangers. As a first step in this direction, Bharatiyas must shed the wilful blindness and nonsensical validation of the sameness of religions. To comprehend the modus operandi of the monolatrous religions, one can turn to the classical example of the devastating fall of the Roman Empire with the emphatic rise of Christianity.

Catherine Nixey in her book “The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World” unabashedly brings to the fore the fanatical zealotry that has obliterated a pagan civilisation that marked an end to a specific thought process that was effectively inclusive.

Laid out in sixteen crisp chapters with an apt quote summarising the central theme, each chapter explores various facets of Christianity. The book begins with a melancholy and the trail of the destruction left behind by a “marauding band of bearded, black-robed zealots” who reduced the centuries-old Palmyra’s temple of Athena into a pile of rubble in AD 329. The swarms of thuggish men defaced tombs, pulled down the roofs, tore down the temple, and mutilated statues that stood haughtily echoing the artistic workmanship of the Graeco-Roman culture.

The imperial infrastructures which evoked admiration and amazement for the sophistry of turning hard marble into a tender human frame failed to deter the zealots from wielding a weapon to capitate them in a single stroke. In fact, not satisfied with decapitation, the attackers, smashed the statues into pieces, sliced them off arms and shoulders, fell them off from the pedestal, melted them and jeered at the non-believers. The wanton destruction of idols, temples, and statues signalled the triumph of a new religion, Christianity.

Before the advent of Christianity, the broad spectrum of cults who inhabited the planet were animists and believed in spirits and worshipped nature. They were never referred to by a specific name. With the ascendency of Christians, the idol worshippers were called Pagans and since then the slur of Paganism stuck with them.

In sermons, Christian preachers used to remind that the Pagan religion was demonically inspired. Augustine roared, “All pagans were under the power of demons. Temples were built to demons, altars were set up to demons, priests ordained for the service of demons…” Romans whom the Christians derisively deemed as pagans were religious but they weren’t dogmatic and unbending. Their Pantheon expanded to include foreign gods. Diverse worship existed together. Egyptians worshipped Zeus and Dionysus, in Arabia Ourania and Dionysus were worshipped. Other important gods in Egypt were Osiris and Isis. Pagans revelled in plurality and multiple gods existed together without discord. On the other hand, Christians worshipped just one god but splintered into countless warring factions.

Describing the destruction of the temple of Serapis in Alexandria in great detail, the author notes that one of the witnesses, Greek writer Eunapis recorded that the only ancient treasure that was left unlooted from the temple was the floor. Christians would even enter common baths, community areas and sometimes private houses to loot anything and everything related to pagan worship. They would then break the statues, mutilate them and burn them in jubilation. They believed that statues were seats of demons and hence were subjected to attacks.

Indeed, a Jewish treatise Avod Zarah even provided detailed instructions on how to mistreat a statue. Indeed, after completely destroying the temple of Artemis and temple of Apollo, Theophilus built a Church housing the relics of St. John Baptist to insult pagan gods and their architecture.

Guided by tenets that exhorted, “good Christians had a duty to vandalise false gods”, East Pediment, the temple of Zeus at Apamea and the Dendera Temple complex at the Nile were destroyed. Theodosius in 391 AD passed laws preventing the worship of ‘(false) gods and Christian treatises like Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Old Testament, stated that ‘person indulging in idolatry to be stoned to death’. Musical instruments were smashed and the famous theatres of the Romans were banned and ordered to close down. They considered music perilous saying it “might take away men’s senses and mesmerise them by whipping them into frenzy of lust and ungodliness”.

 Even the literary works weren’t spared. Alexandria known for a staggering collection of books running into thousands of volumes sheltering unique treatises from across the world on various subjects was completely lost.  Believed to be burnt, never to reappear, a scholar Luciano Canfora observed, “the burning of books was part of the advent of imposition of Christianity”.

Christians attacked temples and libraries to obliterate all traces of Paganism. An attack against a temple was an attack on the library as books were often stored in the temple for safekeeping. What ensued was near total destruction of the classical literature and scholarly works.  In Alexandria, Antioch and Rome bonfires of books were set ablaze as they considered intellectuals heretical. They defended the acts saying books that oppose Christian doctrine have no place in Christian society.

Debate, discussion, and argumentation were anathema to the Christians who believed in the canons of the god. They censored the Epicurean philosophy that countered the Christian version of creation happened on October 23^rd,4004 BC. The works that dismissed the divine power were destroyed. The lone survivor, Democritus's atomist theory, which was contained in Lucretius's great poem in a single volume held in a German library. This work on the creation sparked great interest and influenced Newton, Galileo and Einstein.

Christianity simply lacked intellectual rigour. As Celsus notes early Christians celebrated their ignorance. He states, “Christians were able to convince only the foolish, dishonourable and stupid and only slaves, women and little children”.  The works of Arius, Porphyry, Galen, who accused Christianity of unreasonable faith were destroyed. Hypatia the gifted mathematician and philosopher was brutally lynched and killed.

The exclusivity, bigotry and intransigent nature of Christianity, striking disparate from the argumentative, observational and democratic Roman Civilisation initially caused a dissonance.  Indeed, the first encounter between the Romans and Christians was not a clash of religion but it was about a law and order situation. The Romans reluctant to inflict any punishment on Christians for disobedience and causing disorder would proffer financial incentives and persuade the Christians to sacrifice to the gods which is agreeable to them. But the defiant Christians in their lunacy for martyrdom which was meted with the greatest honour and respect would spit in the face of the Romans to covet torturous punishments. In one such instance, when a Roman officer threatened “If you do not respect the imperial decrees and offer sacrifice, I am going to cut your head off”. Julius, a Christian who was tried rather ungraciously replies that “to live with you would be death for me”. Driven by lunacy for martyrdom, Christians insolently provoked the authorities to announce harsh sentences.

Nero was the first king who persecuted Christians. A novel on the story of Christian martyrs put to death by Nero written by Henryk Sienkiewicz was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. But contrary to the popular discourse of thousands of Christians being hunted and hounded, a Christian author Origen admitted, “the number of martyrs was few enough to be easily countable and Christians had died for their faith only ‘Occasionally’”. The so called “satanically inspired emperors panting for blood of faith is Christian myth”.

Christian histories are replete with martyrdom literature  used conveniently to perpetrate a victimhood narrative. The Romans were invariably portrayed by the Christians as the oppressors with them being at the receiving end even as the imperial policy of Romans was to ignore them and that they must not be hounded. Undoubtedly, in the first few centuries of the emergence of Christian religion, religious persecutions have occurred to allow the narrative to dominate is a “gross misinterpretation” says the author.

Ironically, the so called religion of love adopted a moralising tone and hectored non-Christians to embrace their faith. This rigorously researched academic work challenges the chronicles of history written by winners. The gripping and heart-wrenching details of the book are no different from the countless tales of sufferings inflicted by the Goan Inquisition back home. The rise of a faith-based monotheistic religion in Western Asia caused the obliteration of centuries-old civilisation in the region. Centuries later, the emergence of another Abrahamic religion has emasculated even the traces of thriving Pagan culture in patches across the world.

Bharat has endured episodes of zealotry and religious fanaticism of not one but two Abrahamic religions. But unfortunately, the left Commentariat continues to portray the indigenous civilisation of Bharat as the Oppressor. With Bharatiyas making a hard push to reclaim their civilisation they must banish muddled mindset and cultivate intellectual awareness, towards the foundational concepts and end goals of monotheistic religions.

Catherine Nixey daughter of an ex-nun and an ex-monk and brought up as a Catholic for her fond respect towards pagan culture brings out this polemic which exposes the militant nature of early Christianity. This searingly passionate book written unorthodoxly and backed by rigorous research should be a must-read by every duty-bound dharmic individual. This deeply engaging and erudite book can be the best antidote for minds clogged by decadent, “sarva dharma samabhava”.

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