By Bettany Hughes
Vandalizing the Parthenon temple inwards Athens has been a tenacious tradition. Most famously, Lord Elgin appropriated the “Elgin marbles” inwards 1801-5. But that was hardly the starting fourth dimension example. In the Byzantine era, when the temple had been turned into a church, 2 bishops — Marinos in addition to Theodosios — carved their names on its monumental columns. The Ottomans used the Parthenon every bit a gunpowder magazine, thus its pockmarked masonry — the effect of an laid on past times Venetian forces inwards the 17th century. Now Catherine Nixey, a classics instructor turned author in addition to journalist, takes us dorsum to before desecrations, the devastation of the premier artworks of antiquity past times Christian zealots (from the Greek zelos — ardor, eager rivalry) inwards what she calls “The Darkening Age.”
Using the mutilation of faces, arms in addition to genitals on the Parthenon’s ornamentation every bit ane of her many, thunderingly memorable illustration studies, Nixey makes the telephone commutation signal that patch nosotros lionize Christian civilization for preserving plant of learning, sponsoring exquisite fine art in addition to adhering to an ethos of “love thy neighbor,” the early on church building was inwards fact a original of anti-intellectualism, iconoclasm in addition to mortal prejudice. This is a searingly passionate book. Nixey is transparent nigh the particularity of her motivation. The miss of an ex-nun in addition to an ex-monk, she spent her childhood filled alongside observe for the wonders of postpagan Christian culture. But every bit a pupil of classics she constitute the scales — every bit it were — falling from her eyes. She wears her righteous fury on her sleeve. This is scholarship every bit polemic. ImageA statue of Athena, decapitated past times early on Christians, who considered it idolatrous, in addition to reconstructed past times archaeologists.CreditAkg-Images/Gerard Degeorge
Nixey writes upward a storm. Each judgement is rich, textured, evocative, felt. Christian monks inwards soundless orders summoned upward heathen texts from library stores alongside a gagging manus gesture. The devastation of the extraordinary, frankincense-heavy temple of Serapis inwards Alexandria is described alongside empathetic detail; thousands of books from its library vanished, in addition to the temple’s gargantuan wooden statue of the god was dismembered before beingness burned. One heathen eyewitness, Eunapius, remarked flintily that the alone ancient treasure left unlooted from the temple was its floor.
Christians became known every bit those “who motility that which should non hold out moved.” Their laudable appeal to have-nots at the bottom of the pile, both gratis in addition to unfree, meant that bishops had a citizen-army of pumped-up, undereducated immature men gear upward to rid the public of sin. Enter the parabalini, sometime stretcher-bearers, sometime assassins, who viciously flayed hold out the vivid Alexandrian mathematician in addition to pagan philosopher Hypatia. Or the circumcellions (feared fifty-fifty past times other Christians), who invented a sort of chemic weapon using caustic lime soda in addition to vinegar so they could send out acid attacks on priests who didn’t part their beliefs.
Debate — philosophically in addition to physiologically — makes us human, whereas dogma cauterizes our potential every bit a species. Through the sharing of novel ideas the ancients identified the atom, measured the circumference of the earth, grasped the environmental benefits of vegetarianism.
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To hold out sure, Christians would non receive got a monopoly on orthodoxy, or indeed on suppression: The history of the ancient public typically makes for stomach-churning reading. Pagan philosophers likewise who flew inwards the seem upward of religious consensus risked persecution; Socrates, nosotros must non forget, was condemned to decease on a religious charge.
But Christians did fetishize dogma. In A.D. 386 a constabulary was passed declaring that those “who debate nigh religious belief … shall pay alongside their lives in addition to blood.” Books were systematically burned. The doctrinal opinions of ane of the most celebrated early on church building fathers, St. John Chrysostom — he of the Golden Mouth — were enthusiastically quoted inwards Nazi Deutschland 1,500 years later his death: The synagogue “is a den of robbers in addition to a lodging for wild beasts … a domicile of demons.”
Actions were extreme because paganism was considered non merely a psychological but a physical miasma. Christianity appeared on a planet that had been, for at to the lowest degree 70,000 years, animist. (Asking the women in addition to men of antiquity whether they believed inwards spirits, nymphs, djinns would receive got been every bit strange every bit quest them whether they believed inwards the sea.) But for Christians, the nutrient that pagans produced, the bathwater they washed in, their really breaths were thought to hold out infected past times demons. Pollution was said to brand its means into the lungs of bystanders during creature sacrifice. And ane time Christianity became championed past times Rome, ane of the most militaristic civilizations the public has known, philosophical discussions on the nature of adept in addition to evil became martial instructions for purges in addition to pugilism.
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Triumph Of Faith Christian Martyrs In The Time Of Nero past times Eugene Romain ThirionCreditPrivate collection/Photo © Bonhams, London, via Bridgeman Images
Still, reverse to Nixey, at that topographic point was non verbalize but rather partial devastation of the classical world. The vigorous debates inwards Byzantine cultures nigh whether, for example, magical texts were demonic advise that these plant continued to receive got influence inwards Christian Europe. The stuff civilization of the fourth dimension also lends nuance to Nixey’s story: Silverware in addition to dining services inwards Byzantium were proudly decorated alongside images of the “Iliad” in addition to “Odyssey.” And patch ninety per centum of all ancient literature has been lost, paganism even so had a foothold on the streets.
In Constantinople, the spiritual headquarters of Eastern Christendom, the seventh-century church building was even so frantically trying to ban the Bacchanalian festivities that legitimized cross-dressing, mask-wearing in addition to Bacchic adulation. I read this mass patch tracing the historical footprint of the Bacchic cult. On the tiny Greek isle of Skyros, men in addition to children, fifty-fifty today, clothes every bit one-half human, one-half animal; they vesture caprine animal masks, in addition to trip the low-cal fantastic in addition to potable on Bacchus’ festival days inwards honour of the spirit of the god. It seems that off the page at that topographic point was a piddling to a greater extent than continuity than Christian regime would similar to admit.
But the spittle-flecked diatribes in addition to enraging accounts of gruesome martyrdoms in addition to persecution past times pagans were what the church building chose to save in addition to promote. Christian authorization of academic institutions in addition to archives until the belatedly 19th century ensured a messianic slant for Western instruction (despite the fact that many heathen intellectuals were disparaging nigh the boorish, ungrammatical nature of early on Christian plant similar the Gospels). As Nixey puts it, the triumph of Christianity heralded the subjugation of the other.
And so she opens her mass alongside a strong description of black-robed zealots from xvi centuries agone taking atomic release 26 bars to the beautiful statue of Athena inwards the sanctuary of Palmyra, located inwards modern-day Syria. Intellectuals inwards Antioch (in ancient Syria) were tortured in addition to beheaded, every bit were the statues around them. The contemporary parallels glare. The early on medieval author known every bit Pseudo-Jerome wrote of Christian extremists: “Because they dearest the mention martyr in addition to because they wishing human praise to a greater extent than than divine charity, they kill themselves.” He would receive got constitute shocking familiarity inwards the word of the 21st century.
Nixey closes her mass alongside the description of some other Athena, inwards the urban gist of her name, beingness decapitated around A.D. 529, her defiled trunk used every bit a steppingstone into what was ane time a world-renowned schoolhouse of philosophy. Athena was the deity of wisdom. The words “wisdom” in addition to “historian” receive got a mutual ancestor, a proto-Indo-European word pregnant to run across things clearly. Nixey delivers this ballista-bolt of a mass alongside her eyes broad opened upward in addition to inwards an attempt to convey low-cal every bit good every bit oestrus to the sorry story of intellectual monoculture in addition to religious intolerance. Her sympathy, corruscatingly, compellingly, is alongside the Roman orator Symmachus: “We run across the same stars, the heaven is shared past times all, the same public surrounds us. What does it affair what wisdom a someone uses to seek for the truth?”
Bettany Hughes is the author of “Istanbul: Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 Tale of Three Cities.” Her latest film, “Bacchus Uncovered,” was late broadcast on BBC World. She is currently making a documentary nigh the worship of war, “Mars Uncovered.”
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