Book on Christian persecution of pagans sparks debate
A chronology claims the Church dismantled pagan worship. Critics note Constantine wasn't baptized until 337.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
1994 book reignites debate on Christian crimes against pagans
A traveler stranded in an airport bought a book and took notes on a tablet while waiting. The result is a timeline spanning from 314 to 528, arguing that the Christian Church, once it held imperial power, dismantled pagan worship by force. The list includes councils condemning cults, looted oracles, priests tortured to death, and demolished temples. The author summarizes his thesis: Christianity has always imposed itself in three ways: by force, through deception, or both.
The claim quickly drew responses. Several participants recall that Constantine was not baptized until his deathbed in 337, and that he was a devotee of Sol Invictus, so executions he ordered cannot be attributed to Christianity. Others go further, arguing that the Church founded and directed the first European universities, starting with Bologna, and that medieval monks developed water clocks, eyeglasses, and the scientific method. The discussion becomes a contest over who invented what.
What does Vlasis Rassias' chronological account say?
The text initiating this topic is a sequence of dates extracted from Demolish Them, by Vlasis Rassias, published in Athens in 1994 by Anoixti Poli Editions. It begins in 314, when the Council of Ancyra condemns the cult of Artemis. Ten years later, according to the same source, Constantine declares Christianity the official religion; at Didyma, the Oracle of Apollo is looted and pagan priests are tortured to death. The list continues with Bishop Nicetas destroying the Oracle of Dionysus in Vesai in 400, the lynching of pagans in Carthage and Gaza in 401, and Emperor Anastasius ordering the massacre of pagans in the Arab city of Zoara in 515.
The final section points to Justinian, described as having Jewish maternal origins, who in 528 bans the alternative Olympic Games of Antioch and orders the execution of those practicing sorcery, divination, or magic. The gallows, the pyre, beasts, and dismemberment appear in the enumeration. This type of detail turns a list of dates into a plea.
Historians' response: Constantine was not Christian
The most repeated objection is standard. Constantine was a pagan adept of the Sol Invictus cult throughout his life and only baptized himself on his deathbed in 337. Any execution he ordered is not attributable to Christianity, they argue. The first Christian emperors were his sons, and neither they nor their successors decreed a general persecution against pagans, according to this reading. The citation brought up is from Llorca, García Villoslada, and other authors: Theodosius I issued a law in 380 declaring his will that all peoples under his scepter embrace the faith of the Roman Church, and in 392 any pagan worship was considered and punished as treason. The key date thus shifts from 324 to 380-392.
Some add a methodological nuance: a book bought in an airport and read on a tablet is not an academic source. The discussion then drifts toward credentials, where much is lost.
Did Christians destroy the Library of Alexandria?
The issue of transmitting classical knowledge occupies a large part of the exchange. One position argues that we know Greek and Roman classics thanks to the care of Christianity, which copied and preserved texts in monasteries. The opposing view responds that classical works were mostly destroyed until the Church seized all power, and surviving copies were kept as war booty. The clincher of that argument is that much of what reached Europe came via Jovenlandeses.
Regarding Alexandria, two versions cross paths: that it was not destroyed by fire during Julius Caesar's time or by Hypatia's death, but by Jovenlandeses, and that the Baghdad library later suffered the same fate. The irony of this trajectory remains unresolved.
The dispute over the Industrial Revolution and Spanish steam
One of the most concrete turns in the exchange is economic. It is claimed that the Church slowed human evolution and that, without it, the Industrial Revolution would have arrived 500 years earlier. The response is that the Industrial Revolution was only possible due to the surplus wealth from the discovery and conquest of America, and that Spain flooded Europe with precious metals, scarce in the Middle Ages. The Spanish counterargument is that the country could have been the cradle of the Industrial Revolution two centuries before Great Britain, but the Church prevented it: Jerónimo de Ayanz presented his steam engine, more advanced than Watt's two centuries later, and the consultation with Philip III's court theologians ruled it a devil's invention, though its exceptional use to move a drainage pump in the Riotinto mine was permitted.
The full calculation of that episode, with dates and names, is one of the materials that offers the most insight but is only sketched here.
The dispute over America and the role of monks
The American segment faces two narratives. One argues that Spain brought peace to a continent mired in chaos among hundreds of warring tribes, some cannibalistic and others sacrificial, and that in 300 years there were barely any rebellions in the viceroyalties. A Mexican writer is cited to affirm that upon the ruins of the pre-Columbian world, a grand historical construction was raised. The other narrative responds with the plundering of gold and silver and the question of who worked while others did as they pleased.
In parallel, the defense of the monastic legacy lists inventions: the water clock, eyeglasses, Cistercian metallurgy since the year 1000, and the scientific method promoted by Roger Bacon. Saint Benedict of Nursia and his rule ora et labora appear as the patron of Europe and proof that contemplative life was not incompatible with intellectual work. The rebuttal is an uncomfortable question: name ten non-white Christian geniuses. The answer, in the available material, does not arrive.
Paganism as an unrecoverable religion
One of the sharpest interventions does not discuss dates, but viability. Paganism is unrecoverable, it argues: without temples, no religion is possible, and every attempt remains an intellectual pose or a crude version of the New Age. The most pagan thing existing today, it adds, is a Latin or Greek rite Mass, the cult of saints, the figure of Mary assimilated to Demeter, and a calendar coinciding with agricultural rites. The defeat was real, and persecutions are part of it, even if some are exaggerated. Before, pagans also persecuted.
That mutual recognition of violence does not close the matter; it reopens it on another plane: if paganism cannot return, the discussion about who was crueler yields no prize.
Tone of the exchange: from chronology to insult
The conversation degrades moment by moment. There are replies calling the author of the notes a Satanist, others accusing him of manipulation, and several announcing they will leave him talking to himself. Crossed accusations regarding profile names and warnings to third parties also appear. Amidst that noise, some messages provide data while others simply disqualify without argument.
The author of the chronology responds to criticisms with contempt and announces he will leave Spain with his family to watch the spectacle from afar. The phrase closes the exchange without resolving anything.
A disorienting fact remains. The chronology starts in 314, and the strongest historical objection places the key law in 380. A difference of sixty-six years. Within that margin lies the entire discussion on whether Christianity persecuted or simply inherited an empire that already persecuted.
A traveler stranded in an airport bought a book and took notes on a tablet while waiting. The result is a timeline spanning from 314 to 528, arguing that the Christian Church, once it held imperial power, dismantled pagan worship by force. The list includes councils condemning cults, looted oracles, priests tortured to death, and demolished temples. The author summarizes his thesis: Christianity has always imposed itself in three ways: by force, through deception, or both.
The claim quickly drew responses. Several participants recall that Constantine was not baptized until his deathbed in 337, and that he was a devotee of Sol Invictus, so executions he ordered cannot be attributed to Christianity. Others go further, arguing that the Church founded and directed the first European universities, starting with Bologna, and that medieval monks developed water clocks, eyeglasses, and the scientific method. The discussion becomes a contest over who invented what.
What does Vlasis Rassias' chronological account say?
The text initiating this topic is a sequence of dates extracted from Demolish Them, by Vlasis Rassias, published in Athens in 1994 by Anoixti Poli Editions. It begins in 314, when the Council of Ancyra condemns the cult of Artemis. Ten years later, according to the same source, Constantine declares Christianity the official religion; at Didyma, the Oracle of Apollo is looted and pagan priests are tortured to death. The list continues with Bishop Nicetas destroying the Oracle of Dionysus in Vesai in 400, the lynching of pagans in Carthage and Gaza in 401, and Emperor Anastasius ordering the massacre of pagans in the Arab city of Zoara in 515.
The final section points to Justinian, described as having Jewish maternal origins, who in 528 bans the alternative Olympic Games of Antioch and orders the execution of those practicing sorcery, divination, or magic. The gallows, the pyre, beasts, and dismemberment appear in the enumeration. This type of detail turns a list of dates into a plea.
Historians' response: Constantine was not Christian
The most repeated objection is standard. Constantine was a pagan adept of the Sol Invictus cult throughout his life and only baptized himself on his deathbed in 337. Any execution he ordered is not attributable to Christianity, they argue. The first Christian emperors were his sons, and neither they nor their successors decreed a general persecution against pagans, according to this reading. The citation brought up is from Llorca, García Villoslada, and other authors: Theodosius I issued a law in 380 declaring his will that all peoples under his scepter embrace the faith of the Roman Church, and in 392 any pagan worship was considered and punished as treason. The key date thus shifts from 324 to 380-392.
Some add a methodological nuance: a book bought in an airport and read on a tablet is not an academic source. The discussion then drifts toward credentials, where much is lost.
Did Christians destroy the Library of Alexandria?
The issue of transmitting classical knowledge occupies a large part of the exchange. One position argues that we know Greek and Roman classics thanks to the care of Christianity, which copied and preserved texts in monasteries. The opposing view responds that classical works were mostly destroyed until the Church seized all power, and surviving copies were kept as war booty. The clincher of that argument is that much of what reached Europe came via Jovenlandeses.
Regarding Alexandria, two versions cross paths: that it was not destroyed by fire during Julius Caesar's time or by Hypatia's death, but by Jovenlandeses, and that the Baghdad library later suffered the same fate. The irony of this trajectory remains unresolved.
The dispute over the Industrial Revolution and Spanish steam
One of the most concrete turns in the exchange is economic. It is claimed that the Church slowed human evolution and that, without it, the Industrial Revolution would have arrived 500 years earlier. The response is that the Industrial Revolution was only possible due to the surplus wealth from the discovery and conquest of America, and that Spain flooded Europe with precious metals, scarce in the Middle Ages. The Spanish counterargument is that the country could have been the cradle of the Industrial Revolution two centuries before Great Britain, but the Church prevented it: Jerónimo de Ayanz presented his steam engine, more advanced than Watt's two centuries later, and the consultation with Philip III's court theologians ruled it a devil's invention, though its exceptional use to move a drainage pump in the Riotinto mine was permitted.
The full calculation of that episode, with dates and names, is one of the materials that offers the most insight but is only sketched here.
The dispute over America and the role of monks
The American segment faces two narratives. One argues that Spain brought peace to a continent mired in chaos among hundreds of warring tribes, some cannibalistic and others sacrificial, and that in 300 years there were barely any rebellions in the viceroyalties. A Mexican writer is cited to affirm that upon the ruins of the pre-Columbian world, a grand historical construction was raised. The other narrative responds with the plundering of gold and silver and the question of who worked while others did as they pleased.
In parallel, the defense of the monastic legacy lists inventions: the water clock, eyeglasses, Cistercian metallurgy since the year 1000, and the scientific method promoted by Roger Bacon. Saint Benedict of Nursia and his rule ora et labora appear as the patron of Europe and proof that contemplative life was not incompatible with intellectual work. The rebuttal is an uncomfortable question: name ten non-white Christian geniuses. The answer, in the available material, does not arrive.
Paganism as an unrecoverable religion
One of the sharpest interventions does not discuss dates, but viability. Paganism is unrecoverable, it argues: without temples, no religion is possible, and every attempt remains an intellectual pose or a crude version of the New Age. The most pagan thing existing today, it adds, is a Latin or Greek rite Mass, the cult of saints, the figure of Mary assimilated to Demeter, and a calendar coinciding with agricultural rites. The defeat was real, and persecutions are part of it, even if some are exaggerated. Before, pagans also persecuted.
That mutual recognition of violence does not close the matter; it reopens it on another plane: if paganism cannot return, the discussion about who was crueler yields no prize.
Tone of the exchange: from chronology to insult
The conversation degrades moment by moment. There are replies calling the author of the notes a Satanist, others accusing him of manipulation, and several announcing they will leave him talking to himself. Crossed accusations regarding profile names and warnings to third parties also appear. Amidst that noise, some messages provide data while others simply disqualify without argument.
The author of the chronology responds to criticisms with contempt and announces he will leave Spain with his family to watch the spectacle from afar. The phrase closes the exchange without resolving anything.
A disorienting fact remains. The chronology starts in 314, and the strongest historical objection places the key law in 380. A difference of sixty-six years. Within that margin lies the entire discussion on whether Christianity persecuted or simply inherited an empire that already persecuted.
Also available in: Deutsch
Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (110 replies).
More summaries
-
Mexico City's Birth Rate Plummets: 0.8 Children Per Woman, Benito Juárez Hits 0.4
Mexico City records 0.8 children per woman, Benito Juárez only 0.4, the lowest in Mexico. The global birthrate decline is accelerating...
-
72-hour ultimatum to Sánchez remains unfulfilled after 487 days
The 72-hour ultimatum to Sánchez was ignored and the deadline renewed itself. The timeline of failed predictions of his downfall goes back to 2014.
-
Trump cancels plans: Is a major crisis looming?
Donald Trump's decision to skip his son's wedding has sparked debate over whether a geopolitical crisis is imminent or if it is merely a distraction.
-
Alsina urges Moreno to pact with the left as Spanish right fails
Carlos Alsina calls on the PP to reach agreements with the left, sparking debate over whether the two-party system is ending or if PP and PSOE are identical.
-
The hidden economic costs of evangelical immigration in Spain
An analysis of the real impact of evangelical immigration in Spain, focusing on insurance claims, absenteeism, and productivity losses.
-
Spanish families switch from subsidized to private schools as costs rise
Families in Spain are leaving subsidized schools for private education, facing monthly costs of €1,900 per child due to changing classroom demographics.