This is a polarized and polarizing book. I've appended a list of specific issues below, but the basic appeal and problems of the book can be seen briefly in two reactions to it.
The Times (London) reviewer, a Professor of Modern History, wrote, "The Darkening Age is a delightful book about destruction and despair." Nixey (pronounced NICKS-ee), he continued, "combines the authority of a serious academic with the expressive style of a good journalist. She’s not afraid to throw in the odd joke amid sombre tales of desecration. With considerable courage, she challenges the wisdom of history and manages to prevail." As the book invites us to do, he concluded that some ancient Christians were like ISIS, and perhaps going further than Nixey intended, that St. Shenoute, or St. John Chrysostom (he mixes them up), was like Pol Pot.
24 hours later, the Sunday Times reviewer, a Professor of Greek and Roman History, wrote, "The Darkening Age rattles along at a tremendous pace, and Nixey brilliantly evokes all that was lost with the waning of the classical world. ... But ... she ends up condemning the entire civilisation of the European Middle Ages as a collective fit of inexplicable narrow-minded idiocy. No doubt Augustine and Jerome are less in tune with 21st-century sexual mores than Catullus or Ovid. But intolerance comes in more than one flavour." He complained of distortions of facts.
Reactions to the book have tended to divide that way: many who don't know the period well and who share the modern boundaries of the author's sensibilities enjoy it, while those familiar with the period and more empathetic to a now-alien culture tend to find it intolerant and ill-informed, which is how it strikes me too.
A central thesis of the book is simple and unsurprising: ancient Christians destroyed art, architecture and literature they believed was harmful. Most of the literary destruction wasn't direct, Nixey says, it was from Christians not recopying what they opposed or weren't interested in.
The bulk of the book, though, is a more diffuse argument that Christians were too dull to appreciate the higher, livelier Pagan world, and violent enough to destroy it. (Pagans include not only lusty poets and Dionysian revelers but Homer, Plato and Cicero.) Nixey sees ancient Christianity as about war, about God vs Satan, and not about, as she puts it, "a balm for anxiety" or the triumph of life over death.
Nixey's mission is to portray these things in a moving, entertaining way. The book is full of imaginative narrative portraying events that actually happened, might possibly have happened, and never happened alike.
Her approach is opposite that of the general flow of scholarship, which she believes is biased. While scholars increasingly move away from simplistic, binary views and work to understand the continuities and complexities of relations between ancient Pagans and Christians, Nixey minimizes or barely hints at such things and paints largely in moralistic black and white. More problematically, the book shows the signs of prejudice. Facts are selected, exaggerated, discolored, sometimes entirely mistaken, to fit. Rhetoric is inflamed; there's sometimes a palpable anger and disgust. Things repeatedly mocked and condemned for one side are ignored, excused or even admired for the other.
If you aren't familiar with the material, you can learn many interesting things from it, for which I give it two enthusiastic stars. But unless you check the facts--for almost every page--you won't have any way to know which parts of what you've learned are true, unknown, false, or just misleading. The balance falls too much with the last two to recommend the book.
As for entertainment value, there's much sarcasm and mockery, which some find delightful, even about Christians being tortured and killed. Pagans being tortured and killed aren't amusing that way; their suffering is presented with more reverence, sometimes in over-the-top heroic terms, which some may also find entertaining.
Maybe I should add that I'm not a Christian, and I may have more in common with the Pagans, but I prefer more empathy and fairness in a book.
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For those who want some particulars, I'm appending samples of Nixey's vocabulary and mockery. Page numbering in my review copy may differ from that of the final published version.
There's a cluster of connected ideas in Nixey's terminology relating to Christians that has a strong flavor: "primitive" (xvii, xxx), "thug" (xxxiv, 142), "thuggish" (xxvii), "thuggishness" (127), "thuggery" (237), "ill-educated" (118), "uneducated" (145), "ignorance" (xxix, 158, 159, 177), "intellectual simplicity" (158), "exuberant illiteracy" (159), "stupid" (xxx), "sheer stupidity" (xxix) and "idiocy" (177). She sometimes imagines them in olfactory terms: "stinking" (118), "foul-smelling" (145), and "smell ... unspeakable" (218). When representing her own point of view, these are all terms she applies only to Christians. (Some of these and other derogatory labels for Christians also appear liberally in quotes from or characterizations of Pagan views.) Nixey acknowledge that it's believed Christians were as well educated as others. (41)
Usually Nixey's derision is more subtle, as when she mocks for lack of gratitude Christians who were said to have refused inducements to sacrifice to Roman gods, and save themselves from being (further) tortured and killed:
"The officials in martyr tales were rarely thanked for their efforts ... The prefect Maximus, who had alternately attempted to bribe and then reason the veteran Julius into living, was told that the money he was offering was 'the money of Satan' ... It is not without some sympathy that one reads the prefect's terse response: 'If you do not respect the imperial decrees and offer sacrifice, I am going to cut your head off.' Julius replies boldly but somewhat ungraciously that 'to live with you would be death for me.' He is beheaded. Non-Christians were alternately baffled and repelled by such excess." (82-3)
By "excess" she refers to the refusal to go against beliefs, not the torture and killing. There's a good deal of blaming the victims in her argument that Christians were asking for it.
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A partial list of issues and comments I made as I read the book that might be useful to others who read it. Each item is a point from the book followed by my comment.
-- Christians roared with laughter as they destroyed statues (xvii, 121): As vengeful or victorious mobs often do. Cp damnatio memoriae, a practice Nixey doesn't mention.
-- Golden Chain (xxiii, 245): A myth. There were centuries between Plato and Damascius with no Academy in Athens.
-- Hypatia flayed alive (xxv, 146): "Ostraka" could be oyster shells, pottery shards, or roof tiles to cut, beat or stone her, but there's nothing in the record about flaying.
-- Remains of Great Library of Alexandria at Serapeum destroyed by Christians (xxvii, 90+): There are five contemporary or near-contemporary accounts of the destruction of the Serapeum, none mentions books or a library. There's no clear reference to a library there for well over a century before.
-- Augustine's incitement to smash idols is said to have caused a riot with 60 deaths (xxix, 121): More the opposite. That sermon is from two years after the riot, and in it Augustine says Christians must *not* destroy others' property. The quote, also placed at the head of Nixey's introduction, is half of a promise that God will prevail.
-- Early Christian leaders were against enjoying sex, food, music etc (xxix, 192+, 208): May be Pagan influence. (Epicurus was negative about sexual love, Stoics opposed sex for pleasure, etc.) Augustine: sex for procreation good, sex beyond procreation mixed. John Chrysostom: sex beyond procreation is good too. Clement on food may not be representative. (Nixey misses his humor.) Christians were using music.
-- Chrysostom called for spying on each other (xxx, 221): Misreading of Chrysostom and Nixey's secondary source (Sizgorich).
-- Books on "magic" that were destroyed were often actually on liberal arts, often pretext for going after intellectuals (xxx, 172): Possibly but the evidence is extremely thin.
-- Augustine rigidly encouraged fear about purity, idols etc (20): He followed Paul in teaching there's no contamination with food offered to idols, encouraged nervous correspondent not to worry. Knew the hypothetical about starving would never arise.
-- Origen, a Christian, called some Christians stupid (41): Not in sense Nixey implies. It's about foolishness of Christians who "mind earthly things," not the uneducated or unintelligent.
-- Augustine favored forced conversion (49): Heretical Christian sects causing violence had a choice: the usual Roman punishments of beating and loss of property, or join Catholics. He saw this as a loving approach, which Nixey mocks. He rejects torture and execution, but she seems to prefer Pliny, who used both to force Christians (74+, 80).
-- Christian writer: Emperor "begrudged the honour of martyrdom to our combatants" (64): Context actually works against Nixey's point. The writer says the emperor tried to deprive them of honor by not killing them, but it was in vain, because Christians don't suffer for sake of honor but for truth and good.
-- Origen said there were "few" martyrs (66): In 248, before the larger persecutions.
-- Christian writer: "we spontaneously call for tortures!" (77): Tertullian was trying to persuade a Roman official *not* to persecute Christians by warning he might be overwhelmed by volunteers. He's trying to avoid torture, not seeking it.
-- A writer saw "frauds, and fornications, and adulteries" in the final hours of condemned Christians (79): Actually saw those lapses in following years, was talking about "confessors," those who confessed Christ before Roman tribunals but weren't executed.
-- Pliny didn't consider Christians wicked, wrong, or impious, didn't terrorize them, but he had to stop them from disrupting peace (80): He called it "madness," "depraved and excessive superstition," "contagious" (as though disease), language of the kind Nixey complains about Christians using about Pagans (20, 255). Torture and killing terrorizes. The crime was being Christian; recantation isn't a defense for disrupting peace.
-- Frend estimated there were 100s not 1000s of martyrs (82): That's for years 249-260. He estimated 3000-3500 in years 303-305, and there were others killed at other times.
-- For first 250 years Rome ignored or didn't hound Christians (85, cp 63): Starts Christianity early, ignores Nero, Trajan/Pliny persecutions, maybe others. (And Nero didn't persecute everyone.)
-- Destruction of the Serapeum (92-3): Nixey's account is selective and speculative. There are five contemporary or near-contemporary accounts. On causes, no source says Theophilus stole anything. Rufinus: Theophilus had permission from emperor to convert disused temple to Christian church, found items in it and made public display that led to riots and deaths. Pagans holed up at Serapeum, torturing and killing captive Christians, which Nixey doesn't mention. Sozomen: similar account. Socrates (historian): Theophilus had an imperial order to destroy all temples, took items from two, destroyed Serapeum, then paraded. Eunapius (only Pagan to leave an account): denies any resistance by Pagans. Theodoret doesn't cover causes.
-- Chrysostom said "as if ... I were a concert performance" (120): No he didn't.
-- Pagan statues "neutralized" to get rid of demons (122): Sometimes. Statues were sometimes publicly desecrated to show Pagans they weren't gods.
-- Augustine was contented about destruction of temples (127): Not clear. Context also mentions the day a Pagan prophecy failed, could be about either.
-- A Christian fulminated etc (131): Nixey often projects feelings this way; fulminating and thundering are favorites. It's a methodical catechism, not fulmination.
-- Cyril, in extending a copy of the Gospels to Orestes, committed "an infuriatingly ostentatious act" (144): No indication of that. Nixey's source, historian Socrates, presents it as part of a friendly effort to settle differences, portrays Orestes as stubborn.
-- Rough characters called parabalani fanned rumors that led to Hypatia's murder (145-6): No evidence parabalani did that. Much of Nixey's narrative about Hypatia's murder is creative license.
-- Cover-up of who murdered Hypatia (146): Based on a sketchy biased report generations later.
-- St. Basil taught censorship (154+): Not at all, but what he approved and disapproved of may have shaped what was preserved.
-- Chrysostom said women, laughter, etc, are "snares"; talked much more about fear than happiness (156): Wasn't against women or laughter, did oppose "untimely" laughter. His sermons include wry, satirical humor, an occasional joke. This set was during Lent while city was in fear of punishment for destroying statues of emperor, so a lot more about fear than happiness.
-- Early Christians lacked humor (157): Ha, that says more about those who miss the humor than about Christians. It's there.
-- Many hard-line clerics considered academic learning dubious (158): Many saw its value too.
-- Augustine believed "Ignorance was power" (158-9): No, but he believed Pagan learning didn't have the kind of power he sought.
-- To convert to Christianity was, in Augustine's words, to enter the intellectual world less of a Plato than a concierge (160): He was mocking such views, which he called "puffing pompous inanities."
-- Jerome felt parts of Bible were "rude and repellant," never freed himself from love of classical lit, had nightmares about it (161): Said he once felt that way, not clear he was bothered by love of classical lit when older, discounted significance of the dream (one, not plural).
-- Did Christianity cause library closures reported by Ammianus? (162): Not according to Ammianus, who blamed it on vice, frivolity, extravagance etc.
-- Augustine thought clamorous disagreement, the means of intellectual progress, was anathema (169): Not his point, which was there is no progress, only confusion.
-- Jerome likened using classical lit to mutilation and rape (174): I doubt Jerome understood the Bible verse about taking a wife that way. (When Nixey quotes Ovid promoting what we now consider sexual assault, she makes no scruple. (204))
-- A bishop (Eustanthius) was excommunicated for advising slaves to leave masters (216): No, but his followers, and he indirectly, were reprimanded.
-- Christian asceticism went further than precedents (217): Hard to say, the basic principles were similar.
-- Chrysostom taught avoiding contact with women, called fashionable women whores (220): Not even close.
-- Chrysostom opposed "tyranny of joy" (220-1): "Joy" is poor translation of Greek hedone, usually translated "pleasure," which probably refers to Epicureanism or allied ideas. Wasn't against joy.
-- Augustine said civil law must give way to the Church (225): He said there's a problem if law prevents Christian worship, otherwise Church supports civil law.
-- A monk left his hand in an oven while bells required him to stop moving, and other stories (233 etc): Don't believe everything you read in stories about ancient monks, especially if they lack a primary source.
-- Damascius et al produced works called the "most learned documents ever to have been produced by the ancient world" (246): Rather two by Simplicius were called "among the most learned [commentaries on Aristotle] to survive from the ancient world."
-- Justinian's prohibition of Pagans teaching led to closure of the Academy etc (248-9): A common view among scholars, but it doesn't entirely make sense and evidence is very thin. Alan Cameron offers less dramatic theories than Nixey's.
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