The Darkening Age the Christian Destruction of the Classical World Review
 First edition (UK) | |
| Writer | Catherine Nixey |
|---|---|
| Genre | History |
| Publisher | Macmillan Publishers (UK) Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (US) |
| Publication date | September 21, 2017 |
| Pages | 352 |
| ISBN | 978-0544800885 |
The Darkening Historic period: The Christian Destruction of the Classical Globe is a 2017 book by Catherine Nixey. In the book, Nixey argues that early Christians deliberately destroyed classical Greek and Roman cultures and caused the Dark Ages.[ane] [2] Despite popular success, the volume received all-encompassing criticism from professional person scholars of late artifact and the Middle Ages, who accused it of telling a simplistic, polemical narrative and exaggerating the extent to which early Christians suppressed aspects of older Greek and Roman cultures.[3]
Content [edit]
Later on expressing the opinion that traditional historical narratives tend to describe pre-Christian Rome in an unfavorable light (chilly and nihilistic), Nixey gain to describe what she sees every bit an attack by Christians against classical heritage during Tardily Antiquity, which is a period generally encompassing the Later Roman Empire and the Early on Middle Ages. The assault she alleges is both physical and cultural, taking the reader from the murder of Hypatia in 415 and the devastation of heathen statues, to the closing of temples and destruction of books.[2]
For Nixey, these episodes of trigger-happy religious zeal are explained past a widely promoted conventionalities that pagan religions really harbored demons, and also past the powerful rhetoric Christian leaders used against the enemies of the early church. In that sense, she thinks the foundations of later on religious persecution were laid at that time.[2]
Reception [edit]
Among the general public [edit]
The Darkening Age was chosen equally i of The New York Times' "Notable Books" for 2018 and was listed on "volume of the year" lists past The Telegraph, The Spectator, The Observer, and BBC History.[iv]
Amidst scholars [edit]
Professor Edith Hall, a professor of Classics at Male monarch's College London, described the work as "Engaging and erudite... offer[ing[ both a compelling argument and a wonderful eye for vivid detail" and "a triumph" in an interview with Nixey to promote the book.[5]
Peter Thonemann, a professor of ancient history at the University of Oxford, argues that Nixey's work is problematic, and that "the statement depends on quite a chip of nifty footwork", because Nixey makes a large number of broad generalizations based on limited prove. He also states that the deliberate destruction of ancient temples by Christians "seems to take been uncommonly rare in real life" and that the Christian book-burning was e'er directed towards heretical or "magical" writing, and not towards classical literature.[6]
Professor Tim Whitmarsh of Cambridge University described it every bit "a finely crafted, invigorating polemic against the resilient popular myth that presents the Christianisation of Rome equally the triumph of a kinder, gentler politics. On those terms, it succeeds brilliantly". He also cautions that the piece of work risks being one-sided. He said information technology represented a reversion to Edward Gibbon's view of the Christians equally instigators of the fall of Rome. "In seeking to expose the error and corruption of the early Christian world, Nixey comes close to veiling the pre-Christian Romans' own vicious qualities," he said.[2]
Johannes (Hans) van Oort, a Dutch Professor of Patristics and Gnostic Studies at Radboud Academy, states that Nixey "is replaying her hand with her fierce tone and gross exaggeration" and that her book "lacks any historical structure". Van Oort also writes that Nixey doesn't sympathize some historical contexts and that she "makes some serious historical slips".[7]
Levi Roach, a medievalist of University of Exeter, states that Nixey's book "does not seek to present a balanced picture show" and that it is "a book of generalisations". He also states, "Nixey ends up endorsing the long-debunked view of the Middle Ages every bit a menses of blind faith and intellectual stagnation".[viii]
Richard Tada, PhD in ancient Greek and Byzantine history from the University of Washington, states that Nixey ventured "into areas where she is conspicuously out of her depth". Consequently, her book is "a shoddy work that fails to make the course fifty-fifty as a polemic". One of Nixey'southward attempts to blame Christians for the supposedly devastation of classical world is "just quack", where she misrepresents both master and secondary sources.[nine]
Averil Cameron, professor emerita of Belatedly Antique and Byzantine History at the University of Oxford, points out that Nixey is promoting some outdated teachings and finds Nixey'south book without dash and counter-arguments, and states that Nixey's readers would never know that in that location are academic works that contradict her narrative if they only become their information from her.[3] On Twitter Cameron called Nixey's book "a travesty".[10]
Accolades [edit]
The book won second prize in the 2015 Royal Lodge of Literature Jerwood Awards for Non-Fiction.
See likewise [edit]
- Persecution of pagans in the tardily Roman Empire
References [edit]
- ^ Hughes, Bettany (June 18, 2018). "How Christians Destroyed the Aboriginal World". New York Times . Retrieved Nov 24, 2018.
- ^ a b c d Whitmarsh, Tim (December 28, 2017). "The Darkening Age: The Christian Devastation of the Classical World by Catherine Nixey". The Guardian . Retrieved May 30, 2019.
- ^ a b Cameron, Averil (September 21, 2017). "Arraign the Christians". The Tablet.
- ^ "The Darkening Age: The Christian Devastation of the Classical World". HMH Books . Retrieved February 29, 2020.
- ^ "History Extra podcast - Christianity and the classical world on Stitcher". Stitcher . Retrieved Baronial 26, 2021.
- ^ Thonemann, Peter (September 17, 2017). "Book review: The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical Globe by Catherine Nixey". The Dominicus Times.
- ^ van Oort, J. (Feb 5, 2018). "Britse historicus Nixey vertekent de opkomst van het christendom fanatiek". Reformatorisch Dagblad . Retrieved January thirteen, 2020.
- ^ Roach, Levi (November 2017). "At Cross Purposes". Literary Review.
- ^ Tada, Richard (Baronial 11, 2018). "The Myth That Christians Destroyed the Classical Earth Dies Difficult". National review.
- ^ https://twitter.com/19Averil/status/927509564823654401. Twitter published half dozen. nov. 2017. Dame Averill Cameron. Date: December sixteen, 2019.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Darkening_Age
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