The darkening age : the Christian destruction of the classical world / Catherine Nixey.
Publisher: London : Macmillan, an imprint of Pan Macmillian, 2017Description: xxxix, 305 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), facsimiles, 1 map ; 24 cmContent type:- text
- still image
- unmediated
- volume
- 9781509812325
- 9781509816064
- Christian destruction of the classical world
- 298.705 23 N736

Item type | Current library | Call number | Status | Notes | Date due | Barcode | |
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Central Library المكتبة المركزية | 298.705 N736 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | Available | قاعة الكتب | 34613 |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-294) and index.
Prologiue: A beginning -- Introduction: An ending -- 1. The invisible army -- 2. The background of demons -- 3. Wisdom is foolishness -- 4. 'On the small number of martyrs' -- 5. These deranged men -- 6. The most magnificent building in the world -- 7. To despise the temples -- 8. How to destroy a demon -- 9. The reckless ones -- 10. To drink from the cup of devils -- 11. To cleanse the error of demons -- 12. Carpe diem -- 13. They that forsake the way of God -- 14. To obliterate the tyranny of joy -- 15. Merciful savagery -- 16. A time of tyranny and crisis.
Despite the long-held notion that the early Christians were meek and mild, going to their martyr's deaths singing hymns of love and praise, the truth, as Catherine Nixey reveals, is very different. Far from being meek and mild, they were violent, ruthless and fundamentally intolerant. Unlike the polytheistic world, in which the addition of one new religion made no fundamental difference to the old ones, this new ideology stated not only that it was the way, the truth and the light but that, by extension, every single other way was wrong and had to be destroyed. From the 1st century to the 6th, those who didn't fall into step with its beliefs were pursued in every possible way: social, legal, financial and physical. Their altars were upturned and their temples demolished, their statues hacked to pieces and their priests killed. It was an annihilation. Authoritative, vividly written and utterly compelling, this is a remarkable debut from a brilliant young historian.