RE: Did Christianity Cause The Dark Ages In Europe?
November 28, 2011 at 5:14 pm
(This post was last modified: November 28, 2011 at 5:24 pm by Anomalocaris.)
Roman Empired had covered a much wider area than the western European region which experienced the Dark Ages.
The economic weakness, relative cultural thinness, and military vulnerability of the western part of Roman empire that was ultimately made manifest by the fall of western empire had been structural to geography, history and democgraphy of the mediterranean world for a thousand years before Constantine. And the relative decline of the military prowess of the Romans compared to those of the northern invaders has also progressed most of the way to completion by the time Constantine made Christianity legal in the empire.
Despite happened to Rome in 476 AD there was no dark age in the Eastern Empire, christian infestation not withstanding. Greco-Roman civilization continued from constantinople right through what the west now called Dark Ages.
So I don't hink christianity destroyed the Greco-Roman civilization, and I don't think it was instrumental in the fall of the western empire.
Christianity is more like an opportunistic infection that may have hastened the death of an already terminally ill Western Empire, but which the stronger eastern empire proved able to live with. It may even have strengthended the eastern empire to some degree.
The economic weakness, relative cultural thinness, and military vulnerability of the western part of Roman empire that was ultimately made manifest by the fall of western empire had been structural to geography, history and democgraphy of the mediterranean world for a thousand years before Constantine. And the relative decline of the military prowess of the Romans compared to those of the northern invaders has also progressed most of the way to completion by the time Constantine made Christianity legal in the empire.
Despite happened to Rome in 476 AD there was no dark age in the Eastern Empire, christian infestation not withstanding. Greco-Roman civilization continued from constantinople right through what the west now called Dark Ages.
So I don't hink christianity destroyed the Greco-Roman civilization, and I don't think it was instrumental in the fall of the western empire.
Christianity is more like an opportunistic infection that may have hastened the death of an already terminally ill Western Empire, but which the stronger eastern empire proved able to live with. It may even have strengthended the eastern empire to some degree.
