Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

Epoca întunecării: cum a distrus creștinismul lumea clasică by Dionisie Constantin Pîrvuloiu, Catherine Nixey

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informative sad medium-paced

5.0

In the version of fundamentalist Christianity I grew up in, we idolized the Early Church and Original Christianity. Somewhere between Jesus’resurrection and the formation of the evil polytheistic Catholic Church, there was a time where the Early Church did Christianity perfectly and modern Christians’ goal is to get back to that right way of Christian-ing that got lost when the Catholics got in charge. Despite this obsession with how Christianity was in this time period, though, we were never taught or encouraged to learn about actual church history. Probably to keep us from learning about this stuff, because Christians are not the good guys here.

Y’all, I am not joking when I tell you I grieved.

This book is a chronicle of how Christian attempts to eradicate “paganism” (a term that didn’t exist until they started using it to describe non-Christians) destroyed the classical world. Most of the Greek and Roman philosophy we know existed but have no copies of were lost to Christian book burnings. Some of the most beautiful specimens of statuary were smashed and defaced because they depicted “pagan gods” and were actually vessels of demons. Christians destroyed gorgeous architecture, killed prominent non-Christians, and were the ones to actually finish off the Library of Alexandria (which survived being burned).

Many proud traditions of modern Christians were evident even back then – anti-intellectualism, lust for temporal power, main goal of forcing everyone into conformity while claiming they’re just caring about their immortal souls. They destroyed so much history and literature and even an entire religious system. Hellenistic polytheism was completely eradicated, along with most documentation (if it existed in the first place) of how the religious system worked. We know the pantheon and many of the myths, but we know very little about how the actual day-to-day practice of the religion worked.

There’s so much more in this book – about martyrdom, the origins of monasticism, famous early church fathers – that I could mention in this review, but it would be easier to just read it. It’s worth it. Christians are very much not the good guys here, and that’s a narrative Christianity doesn’t want you to hear.
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