The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction Of The Classical World

Features of The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World

A New York Times Notable Book of 2018Searingly passionateNixey writes up a storm. Each sentence is rich, textured, evocative, felt[A] ballista-bolt of a book. -New York Times Book ReviewIn Harran, the locals refused to convert. They were dismembered, their limbs hung along the towns main street. In Alexandria, zealots pulled the elderly philosopher-mathematician Hypatia from her chariot and flayed her to death with shards of broken pottery. Not long before, their fellow Christians had invaded the citys greatest temple and razed it-smashing its world-famous statues and destroying all that was left of Alexandrias Great Library.Today, we refer to Christianitys conquest of the West as a triumph. But this victory entailed an orgy of destruction in which Jesuss followers attacked and suppressed classical culture, helping to pitch Western civilization into a thousand-year-long decline. Just one percent of Latin literature would survive the purge; countless antiquities, artworks, and ancient traditions were lost forever.As Catherine Nixey reveals, evidence of early Christians campaign of terror has been hiding in plain sight: in the palimpsests and shattered statues proudly displayed in churches and museums the world over. In The Darkening Age, Nixey resurrects this lost history, offering a wrenching account of the rise of Christianity and its terrible cost.