Christians do not need to deny the failures of Christian rulers in order to defend the faith. Where Christians destroyed temples or used political power to suppress religious opponents, those actions should be examined honestly. However, acknowledging those actions does not establish that Christianity ruined civilization. That larger accusation requires evidence that the spread of the Christian faith brought about a general collapse in learning, culture, and human welfare.
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The Hellenic Council YSEE of America makes this accusation in its statement, Transition to Christianity or Crime against Hellenism? Dated January 21, 2012, the statement challenges an exhibition about the transition from the classical world to Christian society. YSEE argues that the exhibition minimizes Christian attacks on Greek religion and disguises the decline that followed. Its examples include destroyed temples, imperial restrictions on worship, and damaged religious images. From these examples, it concludes that Christian civilization failed to contribute anything of value to humanity.
As a Christian, I disagree with both that historical conclusion and the assumption that the continuation of pagan worship would have been a better outcome. I want those who worship other gods to come to Christ because I believe that the gospel is true and that salvation is found in him. Yet this conviction does not require me to defend everything Christians have done in his name. Rather, it gives me a reason to distinguish the spread of the gospel from conduct that contradicts its teaching.
Arnobius provides a useful example of this kind of defense. When his opponents blamed Christianity for the disasters of their world, he proposed that they examine the accusation: “let us test, by fairly balancing the considerations on both sides, whether that which is alleged be true” (Against the Heathen 1.2). He was defending Christianity, but his defense required the accusation to be tested against evidence. Following his approach, we can acknowledge what YSEE establishes while challenging the conclusions that do not follow.
1. Does the word “pagan” disparage Greek civilization?
YSEE’s first objection concerns the word “pagan,” which it understands as an insult to the intellectual achievements of the Greeks. Its argument appeals to the term’s Latin background and asks whether thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle should be characterized as ignorant country dwellers. However, this objection assumes that the history of a word determines its meaning in every later use. In historical writing, the distinction between pagan and Christian authors can identify religious commitments without making any claim about their intelligence.
More fundamentally, the achievements of Greek thinkers do not establish the truth of Greek religion. A philosopher may reason well about one subject and poorly about another, just as a civilization may produce remarkable art while worshipping gods that Christians believe are false. Consequently, admiration for Greek philosophy does not require acceptance of Greek worship. We should examine the arguments of Greek thinkers, learn from what is true, and reject what is false.
This distinction explains why Christians can value the classical inheritance while welcoming conversion to Christianity. The Christian claim is that people should turn to the true God, not that everyone outside the church is incapable of discovering anything useful. Thus, the intellectual accomplishments of pagan society give us reasons to study its works, but they do not give us reasons to preserve its religious beliefs as true.
2. Was Christian temple destruction the work of isolated extremists?
YSEE’s criticism has a stronger foundation when it challenges attempts to explain all temple destruction as the work of isolated extremists. Theodoret, for example, describes John Chrysostom organizing the destruction of Phoenician sanctuaries with imperial authorization and money supplied by wealthy Christian women. Because this account involves a bishop, legal authority, and financial support, the event cannot reasonably be dismissed as the activity of an uncontrolled crowd (Ecclesiastical History 5.29).
However, recognizing Chrysostom’s involvement does not require accepting his conduct as the standard of Christian faithfulness. Bishops are subject to the teaching of Christ, and their actions must be judged accordingly. A Christian defense therefore begins by asking whether their conduct was consistent with that teaching rather than assuming that ecclesiastical approval settles the question.
Arnobius supplies a relevant standard when he explains that Christians have learned from Christ that “it is better to suffer wrong than to inflict it” and that they “should rather shed our own blood than stain our hands and our conscience with that of another” (1.6). Although this passage does not answer every question about temple property, it makes the treatment of religious opponents a matter of Christian obedience. The desire to see someone converted does not make every means of pursuing that conversion faithful to Christ.
Thus, Christians should concede the institutional involvement where the evidence establishes it. But YSEE must still demonstrate the further claim that such conduct follows necessarily from Christianity. The fact that a Christian leader approved an action establishes his responsibility for it; it does not establish that Christ commanded it.
3. Does the suppression of pagan religion prove civilizational collapse?
The next issue is whether the suppression of pagan worship establishes the collapse of civilization. For YSEE, the destruction of religious institutions forms a central part of that argument. Such destruction could certainly cause cultural loss by damaging architecture, eliminating works of art, and disrupting communities. However, the conclusion concerns much more than the loss of particular religious institutions, so the evidence must extend beyond those losses.
For example, a claim that medical knowledge declined requires evidence about medicine. A claim that education collapsed requires evidence about schools, teaching, and the transmission of texts. Temple destruction may be relevant to those developments, but the connection must be demonstrated. Otherwise, the argument moves from documented damage in one area to an assumed decline in every other area.
The imperial laws themselves also require closer examination. The Theodosian Code orders rural temple destruction in 16.10.16, while 16.10.18 protects temple buildings after prohibited religious activity has been removed. Both provisions restrict traditional worship, but they differ in their treatment of the buildings. Consequently, the legal evidence does not support treating every restriction on pagan religion as an identical policy of cultural destruction.
Likewise, individual narratives must be used for what they actually establish. Socrates describes the destruction of the Serapeum, but the cited chapter does not establish the simultaneous destruction of a functioning library (Ecclesiastical History 5.16). The Life of Porphyry supplies another account of temple destruction, although its textual and chronological problems complicate its use. These distinctions matter because a cumulative accusation is only as sound as the particular claims from which it is built.
Arnobius identifies the underlying problem when he asks, “whence did antiquity know these names for misfortunes?” (1.3). Disasters existed before Christianity, so their occurrence in a Christian period could not alone establish Christian responsibility. In the same way, the existence of decline under Christian rulers does not explain its cause. Where Christian policies caused harm, that connection should be established. But Christianity cannot simply be made responsible for everything that went wrong after its arrival.
4. Did Christian Byzantium contribute nothing to knowledge?
YSEE makes its historical claim particularly vulnerable by describing “Byzantine darkness” and asserting that the civilization did “not produce a single work” beneficial to humanity. This is an absolute claim, so even a particular example of useful intellectual work presents a problem for it. Christian Byzantium does not have to surpass every achievement of classical Greece for the assertion to be false.
John Philoponus provides one such example. Working in sixth-century Alexandria, this Christian thinker challenged Aristotle’s explanation of projectile motion and proposed that the mover imparted a motive power to the projectile. His theory was not modern physics, but it demonstrates an effort to identify a weakness in an inherited explanation and develop a better one. Thus, the classical tradition remained a subject of investigation and correction within Christian intellectual life. (Christian Wildberg, “John Philoponus,” §2.2.)
The preservation of medical knowledge supplies another example. The Byzantine manuscript of Dioscorides made for Anicia Juliana is material evidence of the continued copying and transmission of useful learning. Although preserving an earlier work is different from making a new discovery, that preservation benefits later readers by giving them access to knowledge they might otherwise have lost. It therefore cannot be dismissed as contributing nothing. (Museo de Ecología Humana, “Medicine”.)
These examples also expose an inconsistency in the larger accusation. If the preservation of Greek learning is valuable, then the Christians who participated in its transmission contributed to something valuable. Likewise, if criticism and development of inherited ideas count as intellectual achievements among pagan thinkers, they must also count among Christian thinkers. The religious identity of the author cannot determine whether the work is allowed to have value.
5. Were debates about the Trinity intellectually worthless?
YSEE’s dismissal of Trinitarian controversy assumes that Christian theologians devoted themselves to questions unworthy of serious thought. However, the significance of those questions becomes clear when they are considered within Christian belief. If Christians worship Christ and confess one God, then they must explain who Christ is and how he is related to the Father.
If Christ were a creature, offering him divine worship would raise the problem of worshipping someone who is not God. If he is truly divine, then his relationship to the Father must be understood without abandoning the confession of one God. Consequently, the question of the Son’s nature concerns the coherence and truth of Christian worship. It is not an incidental dispute that Christians could discard without changing what they believe.
As Christians, we have an additional reason to take the issue seriously: we believe that the one we worship has actually revealed himself. The purpose of theology is therefore to understand and confess him truthfully. Someone who rejects that belief may challenge the evidence or the reasoning, but merely finding the subject uninteresting does not establish that the inquiry is worthless.
Nor does violence surrounding a theological controversy invalidate the question being debated. The conduct of those involved must be judged, and their arguments must also be examined. Confusing those judgments allows wrongdoing to become an excuse for avoiding the theological issue itself.
6. Does explaining damage to a pagan statue excuse it?
The dispute over the altered head of Aphrodite concerns whether a Christian interpretation of an object excuses its mutilation. YSEE objects to descriptions of Christians attempting to “sanctify it.” If an interpreter means that damaging the object became good simply because Christians did it, then the objection has force. Christian intention alone does not establish Christian faithfulness.
However, a description of the intention may serve a different purpose. A historian can explain that Christians attempted to incorporate an object into their religious world while also judging that their actions damaged it. In that case, the explanation identifies what the actors thought they were doing without endorsing their judgment. To determine whether the interpretation excuses the damage, one must examine more than the description of their purpose.
For Christians, the larger issue is what the alteration accomplished. Putting a cross on an object does not by itself demonstrate the conversion of the people who used it. Because Christian conversion involves faith in Christ, the visible assertion of Christian control cannot simply be treated as evidence that the gospel has achieved its purpose. This gives Christians a reason to question the celebration of such acts without accepting YSEE’s rejection of Christianity.
7. Does grief over the loss of pagan religion prove that Christianity was a disaster?
YSEE closes with Palladas as a witness to Hellenic suffering. Such testimony helps explain how the loss of religious standing could be experienced by those who remained committed to the old religion. Yet the experience of loss does not by itself establish that the beliefs being displaced were true or that the religion replacing them was harmful.
This is where the disagreement becomes explicitly theological. From a Christian perspective, a person’s voluntary abandonment of pagan worship for faith in Christ is a good outcome, even if others regret that change. Christians cannot accept the assumption that the survival of every religious tradition is preferable to its adherents becoming Christian. We believe that conversion matters because the truth about God matters.
Nevertheless, voluntary conversion must be distinguished from the injury suffered through coercion. Grief at another person’s conversion and grief at the destruction of one’s place of worship may occur within the same historical account, but they raise different questions. The former does not establish that conversion was wrong, while the latter requires an examination of the actions that caused the injury. Making this distinction allows Christians to defend the spread of the faith without excusing every exercise of Christian political power.
Conclusion: Defending Christianity by telling the truth
YSEE is right to challenge accounts that minimize organized Christian participation in religious destruction. The involvement of bishops and imperial authorities cannot always be explained away as the behavior of isolated extremists. However, its larger accusation fails because the evidence of suppression does not establish that Christianity rendered civilization barren. The intellectual work of Christian thinkers and the transmission of useful knowledge must also be included in the judgment.
For Christians, that historical defense belongs within a larger conviction about the truth of the gospel. We do not defend Christianity merely because some Christians preserved manuscripts or contributed to philosophy. We defend it because we believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and that people should turn to him. Cultural achievements can answer a charge of intellectual barrenness, but the truth of Christianity must ultimately be considered through its claims about God and Christ.
Thus, an honest Christian answer can acknowledge the failures of Christian rulers while rejecting the conclusion that the world would have been better without Christianity. Where Christians contradicted the teaching of Christ, their conduct should be corrected by that teaching. Where critics attribute universal decline to the faith, their accusation should be tested against the evidence. Following Arnobius in this way does not require us to become neutral about Christianity. It requires us to defend the faith truthfully, with the hope that those who oppose it will come to know the Christ we confess.
Quotation note: Arnobius is quoted from the public-domain nineteenth-century translation reproduced by New Advent, with book and section references. Brief quotations from the YSEE statement are verbatim; the remaining account of its claims is paraphrase.
Sources
- Arnobius, Against the Heathen 1.2–7.
- Hellenic Council YSEE of America, “Transition to Christianity or Crime against Hellenism?”, statement dated January 21, 2012.
- Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History 5.29.
- Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History 5.16.
- Life of Porphyry: translation and editorial discussion.
- Theodosian Code 16.10, especially laws 16 and 18.
- Christian Wildberg, “John Philoponus,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, especially §2.2.
- Museo de Ecología Humana, “Medicine,” on the Dioscorides manuscript.
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