What do you think happened to Europe when the Judeo-Christians took over?
Here are some examples of what happened, in different areas. The text below has in its entirety been cut and pasted from this blog.
«Architecture
Stone buildings that had been built extensively for private and public purposes were now limited to military and ecclesiastical structures. Existing public buildings (forums, libraries, odeons, theatres, museums, stadia, hippodromes, circuses, schools, gymnasia, temples, baths, Roman amphitheatres etc.) were often vandalised or destroyed. Many building techniques were forgotten.
Education
Where even the poor had been taught to read and write in pagan times, and the rich had been expected to build public schools, education became a Church monopoly, and was denied to all except prospective priests and sons of the rich. The syllabus was restricted to Christian indoctrination.
Dance
Dance was prohibited as pagan and tending to promote lust.
Democracy
Democracy was condemned as un-Christian, since the Bible presupposed kingdoms.
History
Factual history was replaced by fabrications and propaganda (such as “legends”), except for sympathetic chronicles that did not reflect badly on the Church. Unsympathetic or objective histories were “lost”.
Law
Law was converted from an instrument of justice to a system featuring trials by ordeal, frequently serving the interests of the Church and denying the principles of natural justice. Inequality was a fundamental principle of ecclesiastical law.
Literature
All literature, including the Bible, was banned to the population at large. The few who were allowed to learn to read were restricted to prayer books and Christian Legends presented as fact. Other books were generally destroyed or hidden away in monasteries.
Mathematics
This was limited within the Church to the arithmetic necessary to calculate the date of Easter. Otherwise it was treated with suspicion or hostility.
Medicine
All medical progress was halted. Illness was considered to be a punishment for sin. Hygiene and public health were abandoned as unchristian.
Music & Singing
Music and singing were periodically restricted to Church music. Otherwise they were regarded as satanic. Classical opera died out under the Christian hegemony — it was re-introduced in the sixteenth century.
Natural history
The study of nature, popular in the ancient world, stagnated until the Enlightenment. Research was suppressed until then because the Church insisted on a literal interpretation of the Bible and its infallibility as a handbook of all world knowledge.
Painting and Art
All representation was first banned, then restricted to religious themes from the fifth century. Existing non-Christian art was destroyed. The rules of perspective, known in ancient times, were “lost” until rediscovered by Brunelleschi at the dawn of the Renaissance. In 1563, the Council of Trent confirmed Art as a conformist naturalistic propaganda tool.
Philosophy
A Church monopoly was established. The subject was then reduced to scholasticism. Existing philosophical works were destroyed. Genuine philosophers were censored, persecuted and sometimes killed. No significant progress (except by “heretics”) was to take place from the murder of Hypatia until Cosimo de” Medici revived ancient philosophy with his Platonic Academy in Florence.
Public Service
The charitable endowment of public buildings (schools, libraries, theatres, sports stadia, baths, horse racing cources, etc.) ceased almost completely when the Church enjoyed total control. Almost every village in Europe has a medieval church, generally built in better materials than any other local building. A vanishingly small number have comparable church built schools, hospitals or other useful public buildings. The first modern public library was founded by Cosimo de” Medici, “godfather” to the Renaissance.
Sculpture
Non-religious sculpture ceased to be produced. The best examples from antiquity were “lost”. Inferior material was produced for the Church, generally for propaganda purposes. Nothing comparable in quality to classical work was produced until the Renaissance.
Sport
Sports were suppressed, along with international sporting events. They were replaced by various kinds of animal torture and pastimes too local to be controlled by the Church.
Theatre
Acting was banned, except for propaganda purposes: religious ceremonies, mystery plays and morality plays.
Public Health
Public baths, sophisticated aquaducts and sewers were all destroyed or allowed to fall into desuetude (the only exception being baths which were preserved in monasteries for the use of monks).
Infrastructure
Streets and viaducts were used but not maintained. They survived into secular times only because they had been so well built.»
If you ever wondered, this is one of the reasons why I wrote posts like this and this. HailaR WôðanaR!
