The darkening age
by Catherine Nixey · first published 2017
8mentions
4recommended by
7HN commenters
2018–2024first – last mentioned
57% recommend29% neutral14% critical
Offers a history of the rise of Christianity in the classical world that focuses on its terrible cost, in terms of violence and dogmatic intolerance, that helped bring upon the dark ages. "A bold new history of the rise of Christianity, showing how its radical followers ravaged vast swathes of classical culture, plunging the world into an era of intellectual darkness. 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
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…biblical scholars, but I (as a layperson) learned a lot about Christianity, and now understand it better - how it went from being a weird Jewish sect to the imperial religion of Rome. Just finished The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World by Catherine Nixey, which documents the destruction of statues, temples and artworks by Christians in the years 300-500AD in Europe. Also recommended!
on “What did Jesus really look like? (2015)” ↗>(for example one of the spectacle is about the christians persecutions in Rome, where the christians are the good guide, and the romans are the bad guys). A not bad alternative view on the subject. The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World Catherine Nixey
on “Why don’t the French celebrate Lafayette?” ↗You should check out "The Darkening Age" by Catherine Nixey. Once Christians became the majority, and especially after Constantine, the direction of persecutions reversed, and was then by Christians towards the remaining pagans. Many of the…
on “How Did Christianity Change the Roman Empire?” ↗…religion can be deeply perverted by the modern capitalist society - something like prosperity theology is an abomination to me. > compared to what came before Christianity was pretty great I recommend The Darkening Age[1] for a sense of just how destructive early Christianity was. > I do see nerd-culture (or tech-culture or whatever) as being broadly very dismissive of the value of religion, and generally having no…
on “Burned House Horizon” ↗The Christian revolution around that time in Europe also put civilisation back there. See “The Darkening Age” by Catherine Nixey
on “536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)” ↗> You should check out "The Darkening Age" by Catherine Nixey. Please do not waste your time: > Her publisher’s blurb informs us that Nixey’s book tells “the largely unknown – and deeply shocking – story” of how a militant Christianity “extinguished…
on “How Did Christianity Change the Roman Empire?” ↗From Catherine Nixey's The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World: > When modern histories describe this period, this time when all the old religions died away and Christianity finally became pre-eminent, they tend…
…theology is messed up though. America's weird in how it seems to have adopted capitalism as a replacement or supplement to culture in some areas, rather than as a separate social concept. > I recommend The Darkening Age[1] for a sense of just how destructive early Christianity was. I mean we all know that the Church in the Middle Ages was oppressive, I don't disagree with you there. Establishments seem to swing between…
on “Burned House Horizon” ↗