This is the fourth of a series of redirects from previous static web pages from which I had written book reviews. Wizard
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January 6, 2004: The Closing of the Western Mind - The Rise of Faith and The Fall of Reason by Charles Freeman.
Bear in mind while you read this review that I am an agnostic.
Charles Freeman has written a book about an extraordinarily important historical matter, one that is almost always glossed over in the history books. That question is, Why was it that Europe went through a 1000 year period known as the Dark Ages, and later the Middle Ages, between the Fall of Rome and the Renaissance?
Although I love reading history just as much as the next history buff over, I had never seriously considered what the real answer to this question might have been. For years, I assumed that a standard answer (if there is one) to this question would have been something like this: Rome was sacked in 410 A.D. (and again in 476 A.D.), and with it books were burned by a bunch of barbarians like the Huns, Goths, and Visigoths who were not accustomed to living a cultured life the way that the Greeks and Romans were. Ergo, the wealthy and civilized Roman Empire in the West faded into memory, and its cultural achievements were not appreciated by those who came thereafter, learning didn't pick up again for a 1000 years.
Buzzer goes off. AAAAA wrong!
Actually, I was kinda sorta close in a few regards. In his book, Freeman leads the reader through the classical Greek age of the competitive city states. He relates how the Greek civilization of the 5th century B.C fostered a remarkable culture and spirit of tolerating intellectual inquiry into every sphere of human interest. This went for the sciences, math, philosophy, rhetoric, religion, and architecture. Indeed, there was something of an atmosphere of one upsmanship and competitiveness amongst the Greek intellectuals which would accept the achievements of the great, while trying to improve on previous achievements.
Meanwhile, another aspect of Greek civilization and rationality asserted itself. The Greeks, especially Aristotle, denoted boundaries between what was knowable and would could not be known. They ascertained and denoted the ideas of deductive and inductive reasoning. They also tolerated inquiry while remaining pious to religious (and to remind the reader that the Greeks were pagan) tenants. There was tolerance between Muthos and Logos. This spirit of inquiry survived through the age of Philip of Macedonia and his son Alexander "the Great," and eventually spread to other areas of the classical world where Greeks eventually settled, such as Alexandria and Sicily.
The Romans picked up on this spirit of the Greeks when they conquered the Greek peninsula before the coming of Christ. I've read elsewhere the when the Romans encountered the classical Greek culture, they were definitely had their eyes opened. Some aspects of Greek life, such as participating in sporting events in the nude were abhorred, but Romans loved rhetoric (think Cicero), and added their own achievements, such as road building, public baths, and architecture. Scientists such as Ptolemy continued to make advances in fields such as astronomy.
Moreover, in the sphere of religion, the Romans were as tolerant as the Greeks about the faiths of conquered peoples. Deities were swapped and matched between faiths, and faiths such as Mithraism were widespread. However, one faith that was founded during this time was not tolerant of others - Christianity.
Freeman's book lays the downfall of inquiry and reason in the Roman world at the feet of Christianity. Mind you, it was not the teachings of Jesus Christ that were to blame for this. Jesus, being without sin, preached in his ministry the message of love, forgiveness, charity, and walked with sinners and the downtrodden. The stellar ethics of Jesus were those of Excellence. They were worthy of one whom could be a Son of God.
Freeman blames much of what turned into what we know of as Christianity today at the feet of the apostle Paul. He points out that Paul had a bit of a precarious position amongst the early Church leaders, as Paul did not have personal knowledge of Jesus the way that Peter and others had. Freeman characterizes Paul as someone who seems uncomfortable with sexuality, to which this day is still a hot button issue in both Protestant and Roman Catholic faiths. Also, Freeman believes that when Paul went on his ministry to spread the Good Word, he eventually reaches Athens, where Freeman thinks that Paul may have taken an intellectual beating at the hands of the wise and learned in the Great City. Freeman thinks that this leads to Paul articulating a strain of thought within Christianity that frowns on the thinking of human philosophers. Better to not strain the brain about the world around you. Place your trust in God as man will not profit from inquiring too harshly of the world around us. Indeed St. Augustine warns of and condemns the "dangers" of having a mind of curiosity in his Confessions, written some 400 years later.
Two other major developments warrant mention. The first is that eventually the emperor Constantine makes the decision to adopt Christianity as the state religion in the year AD 323. Freeman characterizes this decision as one of pragmatism on the part of Constantine, who is trying to keep the empire together. Indeed paganism continued to flourish for some time.
However, the early Christian Church was a church that was plagued with many internecine wars. These wars were due to the fact that an entire swath of ideas and versions of Christianity had sprung up in the centuries that followed the death and resurrection of Christ. Writings and movements, such as the Gnostic Gospels, Arianism, and Donatism all had wide followings. Eventually accusations of heresy were tossed between the followers of various Church movements, which threatened the stability of the Church and broader social stability within the Empire. Added to this potent stew of social unrest was the fact that after Christianity was adopted as the state religion, there was money to be made via patronage. Eventually, various emperors in the later days of the Empire step in to enforce their own version of orthodoxy in an effort to quiesce matters.
All of these matters combine eventually to stifle the atmosphere of tolerance that was needed to sustain the freedom of inquiry that is so crucial to progress in other forms of human endeavor. Reason was squashed in favor of Faith. In all, Freeman's book is a must read for non - academic students of history.
Addendum: In one of my earliest blog entries, I exchanged emails with Mr. Freeman, which he allowed me to publish.
Wizard.
Posted by The Mighty Wizard at December 26, 2007 11:12 AM