The Greatest Story Never Told

The Australian's currently on a 'Bring back the Bible!' binge.

Or, as columnist Angela Shanahan in today's edition, puts it: "To understand fully the beauty of Western culture, children need to know the Bible." (Greatest stories ever told bring a spark to young minds)

Opines Angela:

"Knowledge of the principal foundation documents of our own culture, found in the biblical texts, especially the Gospels, is necessary for understanding the evolution of the Christian world. The emergence of Christianity from the classical world, into the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, has shaped our culture. Within their education, children need to know just the stories, which are beautiful, dramatic and exciting, like the foundation myths from Genesis, but to have the great themes of the Old Testament explained to them."

Notice how seamlessly, in Angela's telling, Christianity emerged from the classical world? Except that this was anything but a smooth transition. What ever happened to the Dark Ages (476-800)? An inconvenient truth for today's propagandists of 'Judeo-Christianity' apparently.

Here's a reminder:

"The evidence from surviving manuscripts is clear: at some point, a hundred or so years after Christianity comes to power, the transcription of the classical texts collapses. From AD 550 to 750 the numbers copied plummeted. This is not, to be clear, an absolute collapse in copying: monasteries are still producing reams and reams of religious books. Bible after Bible; copy after copy of Augustine is made. And these works are vast. This was not about an absolute shortage of parchment; it was about a lack of interest verging on outright disgust for the ideas of a now despised canon. The texts that suffer in this period are the texts of the wicked and sinful pagans. From the entirety of the sixth century, only 'scraps' of two manuscripts by the satirical Roman poet Juvenal survive and mere 'remnants' of two others, one by the Elder and one by the Younger Pliny. From the next century, there survives nothing save a single fragment of the poet Lucan. From the start of the next century: nothing at all.

"Far from mourning the loss, Christians delighted in it. As John Chrysostom crowed, the writings 'of the Greeks have all perished and are obliterated'. He warmed to the theme in another sermon: 'Where is Plato? Nowhere! Where is Paul? In the mouths of all!' The fifth century writer, Theodoret of Cyrrhus observed the decline of Greek literature with similar enthusiasm. 'Those elaborately decorated fables have been utterly banned,' he gloated. 'Who is today's head of the Stoic heresy? Who is safeguarding the teachings of the Peripatetics?' No one, evidently, for Theodoret concludes this homily with the observation that 'the whole earth under the sun has been filled with sermons'. Augustine contentedly observed the rapid decline of the atomist philosophy in the first century of Christian rule. By his time, he recorded, Epicurean and Stoic Philosophy had been 'suppressed' - the word is his. The opinions of such philosophers 'have been so completely eradicated and suppressed... that if any school of error now emerged against the truth, that is, against the Church of Christ, it would not dare to step forth for battle if it were not covered under the Christian name'.

"A slow but devastating edit of classical literature was taking place. It is true that the appalling loses of knowledge that followed were not usually the result of dramatic, discreet actions - the burning of this library, the fury of that particular abbot - though these played their part. Instead, what ensured the near total destruction of all Latin and Greek literature was a combination of ignorance, fear and idiocy. These weapons have less narrative heft, perhaps, but when left unchecked they can achieve a great deal.

"Much was preserved. Much, much more was destroyed. It has been estimated that less than ten percent of all classical literature has survived into the modern era. For Latin, the figure is even worse: it is estimated that only one hundredth of all Latin literature remains. If this was 'preservation' - as it is often claimed to be - then it was astonishing incompetent. If it were censorship, it was brilliantly effective.

"The ebullient, argumentative classical world was, quite literally, being erased." (The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World, Catherine Nixey, 2017, pp 165-66)