The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World

In her debut, Times (UK) journalist Nixey boldly challenges the conventional narrative of the happy triumph of early Christianity by telling the story from the perspective of those whom the Church defeated. Her gripping, albeit sometimes sensationalistic, revisionist popular history calls into question the standard accounts of topics such as monasticism, the Roman persecution of Christians, and martyrdom while vividly portraying the tragedies of people such as Hypatia of Alexandria and Damascius of Athens. Nixey's overarching purpose is to provoke readers to consider the terrible cost of the rise of the Christian faith. Although medieval monasteries did indeed preserve a lot of classical knowledge, prior to that the Church demolished, vandalized, and destroyed art, statues, temples, and books and was an instrument of persecution, intolerance, and anti-intellectualism as it conquered its rivals across the Roman Empire.