Did Christians destroy classical culture?

[Ioulianos]

Did classical culture end by its "physical death"?Or it was Christians that destroyed it and created the Dark ages?

[Ioulianos]

In my opinion,it was the strictly dogmatic and untolerant nature of christian religion that destroyed classical culture. www.askwhy.co.uk/christianity/0780Bookburning.html

[Artemisia]

Of course the Christians destroyed it. Not only did they destroy Greco-Roman culture, they also destroyed the culture of smaller nations as well. I think Christianity was the first "melting-pot" culture in history. Blending different cultures can have many positive effects but it seems the Christians tried to encourage some and supressed others.

[Sandwich]

I agree. But classical culture is a bit of a mouthful. The Romans, even Alexander, have their detractors on this front.

Huns and Germans weren't Christian, they put in a day's work too.

On the other hand, monks did preserve what was left.

[Dienekes]

'classical culture' is too broad a term.

[HINDI]

Yes, both Christians and Muslims destroyed classical culture..

[kynikos]

Yeh, I'll go with Dienekes on this one, your term is too broad to really mean anything.

What exactly did you have in mind that "died or was destroyed"?

To my mind, the classical world was pretty much in decline by the time the Christians had anything much to do with it, anyway.

[Ioulianos]

Sandwich said:

I agree. But classical culture is a bit of a mouthful. The Romans, even Alexander, have their detractors on this front.

I'm not talking about classical period of antiquity.i've used this term for Greco-Roman culture,i thought itd be obvious.So,Alexander and Romans are part of this culture

[Ioulianos]

kynikos said:

To my mind, the classical world was pretty much in decline by the time the Christians had anything much to do with it, anyway.

Id like some details about this suppositive decline

[kynikos]

Ioulianos

Id like some details about this suppositive decline

Edward Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" is the classic text on this.

Nero of Rome was one representative example, I guess.

[symmakhos]

I agree with kynikos and Gibbon and think the sad fact is that Classical culture was already dying, with or without the help of the Christians. Moreover, without Christianity, the East Roman empire would hardly have lasted long, and without the East Roman empire, the remnants of Greek literature today would without doubt have been reduced to that which is found in Latin and Arabic translation. So, indirectly and involuntarily, I actually think Christianity helped save much. The gods work in mysterious ways...

[kynikos]

Hi Symmakhos

One also has to remember that the Roman Empire only adopted Christianity over 300 years after Christ.

During this period the status of Christians in the Empire was rather shaky, to say the least, due to their irritating habit of not worshipping the divinity of the emperor.

It was not unknown for their recalcitrance to land them in the circus, as the main course for the big cats, from which position they are unlikely to have had any significant power over the fate of Classical Culture ;D

PS. I like your last sentence - I think I'll use it as my signature...

[RebelSoul]

Although I would agree that the ancient Graeco-Roman world was pretty much in decline when Christianity emerged, it did cause a great harm to the preservance of the ancient Graeco-Roman values, literature etc. to the successor (the "West").

But one could view this as a continuum: the decline of the Graeco Roman world has started actually with the decline of Democracy (in the Greek world) and Republic (in the Roman world). When the last remnants of rebublic washed away from Rome, the eastern-type autocracy was introduced and that led to the gradual implementation of the Christian religion (a sheep-flok religion, requiring minimal or no thought by the worshippers, authoritarian as no other and as such subjective to central governmental authority - one god, one king etc.) to the Roman state as well, in order to better control the population.

There comes at no surprise that the western world managed to get back on the track of progress with the renaissance, a proccess introduced in the non-authoritarian and only superficially religious (the proximity with the Pope and his quite secular rule should be enough to sway the more creative minds in a non-religious way of thinkings anyway - if "god" is living next door, it ain't much of a myth, is it?) Italian states.

Progress in a vast continuum requires free thinking. Authoritarian regimes (and religions, instruments of such regimes) discourage free thinking and thus progress as well.

[kynikos]

the decline of the Graeco Roman world has started actually with the decline of Democracy (in the Greek world) and Republic (in the Roman world).

Good point, RebelSoul!

So the question is really what caused the demise of Greek Democracy and of the Roman Republic, since that is what seems to have "destroyed" Classical Culture, to use Ioulianos' expression.

Whatever it was, it certainly took place before the invention of Christianity, which I think we can safely leave out of the picture.

[RebelSoul]

kynikos said:

Good point, RebelSoul!

So the question is really what caused the demise of Greek Democracy and of the Roman Republic, since that is what seems to have "destroyed" Classical Culture, to use Ioulianos' expression.

Whatever it was, it certainly took place before the invention of Christianity, which I think we can safely leave out of the picture.

eh, no, not "out of the picture". Christianity was used as a tool to remove the remnants of the ancient way of thinking and introduce middle-east autocratic elements into the structure of the Roman state. So, effectively, Christianity was the means for the demise of the ancient culture.

Of course, the Christian religion did nato "destroy" the ancient world, nor did it "create the dark ages" (the second is easily refuted - why did Byzantium not experience "a dark age"?) but it surely did help alot in both aspects. So we can't "leave it out of the picture".

But we can't start structuring out the possible causes and introduce Christianity later