THE WEST'S DARKEST HOUR

pages 97-107 of the December 2024 edition of Benjamin’s The Less Than Jolly Heretic:
 

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I’ve become very anti-Christian over the recent years, seeing this slavish faith-based ideology as perhaps the primary cause of European civilisational collapse, having read quite closely into the likes of Catherine Nixey’s The Darkening Age, Revilo P. Oliver’s The Origins of Christianity, Tom Holland’s Dominion, and Charles Freeman’s The Closing of the Western Mind, and some abridged translations of Christianity’s Criminal History by Karlheinz Deschner, reinforced by the historical Roman writings of Celsus, Porphyry of Tyre, and the Emperor Julian, and, as with Edward Gibbon, have considered Christianity’s responsibility for the fall of Rome (and the theocratic brutality of Byzantium and the Dark Ages that effectively ended European science for well over a millennium, torturing and exterminating those Europeans who tried to hold out against the impositions of countless generations of bloodthirsty, ignorant, perverted Christian regimes, Europe split for seventeen centuries by terrible Christian sectarian warfare).

I have also considered its post-Enlightenment transition into liberalism and that all-encompassing secular ‘Neochristianity’, in the inspirational words of César Tort. This value system has conditioned a knee-jerk egalitarianism and relativistic weakness, a morality that Friedrich Nietzsche famously derided as fit only for slaves, a racially suicidal, life-hating framework of passivity, submission, and out-group preference, in complete contrast to the master morality values of Republican Rome and the cohesive Indo-European civilisations of the ancient world.

Drawing from a translated summary of Demolish Them by Vlassis Rassias, provided in original form on the West’s Darkest Hour blog, we can chart the principal Christian moves to destroy the Classical world. It’s worth noting that Christians referred to European advocates of Greco-Roman civilisation as ‘Gentiles,’ a Semitic term, before transitioning into even more erroneous and derogatory descriptors.

In 314, after the full legalisation of Christianity, the Christian church moved to attack the Gentiles. The Council of Ancyra denounced the worship of the Goddess Artemis. In 324, the Emperor Constantine declared Christianity as the only religion of the Roman Empire. At Dydima in Asia Minor, he sacked the Oracle of God Apollo and tortured its priests to death. He also evicted the Gentiles from Mt. Athos and destroyed all local Hellenic Temples. In 326, Constantine destroyed the Temple of God Asclepius in Aigeai in Celicia and many Temples of Goddess Aphrodite in Jerusalem, Aphaca, Mambre, Phoenice, and Baalbek. In 330, Constantine looted the treasures and statues of the Greco-Roman Temples of Greece to decorate his new capital of the empire, Nova Roma (the city of Constantinople), and in 335, went on to sack the Temples of Asia Minor and Palestine and ordered the execution by crucifixion of Gentile priests as “magicians and soothsayers” including the Neoplatonist philosopher Sopater of Apamea.

In 341, Emperor Constantius, the son of Constantine, persecuted “all the soothsayers and the Hellenists,” imprisoning and executing many Gentile Hellenes. In 346, there were large-scale persecutions against the Gentiles in Constantinople, during which the famous orator Libanius was banished as a “magician.” In 343, an edict of Constantius ordered the death penalty for all kinds of worship through “idols,” and a new edict in 354 ordered the closing of all Greco-Roman Temples, some of them to be turned into brothels or gambling rooms, and their priests were executed. In various cities of the empire, libraries began to be burnt, and lime factories were built next to the closed Temples. A large part of sacred Gentile architecture was turned to lime. A further edit in 356 ordered the Temples destroyed altogether and the execution of all “idolators,” and in 357, Constantius outlawed all methods of Divination.

In 359, massive death camps were built in Skythopolis in Syria for the torture and execution of arrested Gentiles from all around the empire. In 361, a new, non-Christian Emperor, Julian, pronounced religious tolerance and called for the restoration of the various pre-Christian cults but was assassinated in 363. In 364, the Emperor Flavius Jovianus ordered the burning of the library of Antioch, an Imperial edict ordered the death penalty for all Gentiles who worshipped their ancestral Gods, and three separate further edicts ordered the confiscation of all properties of Temples and the death penalty for participation in Greco-Roman rituals, even in private. In 365, an Imperial edict forbade Gentile army officers to command Christian soldiers.

In 370, Emperor Valens ordered a tremendous persecution of Gentiles throughout the Eastern Empire. In Antioch, the ex-governor Fidustius, the priests Hilarius and Patricius, and many other non-Christian believers were executed. All friends of Julian, such as his personal physician Orebasius, the Greek medical writer, the Roman historian Sallustius, and Pegasius, the custodian of the Temple of Minerva, were persecuted, and the philosopher Simonides was burnt alive whilst the philosopher Maximus was decapitated. In 372, Emperor Valens ordered the governor of Asia Minor to exterminate the Hellenes and all documents of their wisdom.

In 373, there was a new prohibition on Divination and the introduction by Christians of the slang term “Pagan” (from the Late Latin word pagani, meaning “peasants,” by extension as “rustic,” “unlearned,” “yokel,” or “bumpkin.”) The Greco-Roman polytheists did not refer to themselves as Pagans. The ‘Pagans,’ driven from their places of learning and religious practice and fearing for their lives, had become increasingly rural and provincial relative to the Christian population. Subsequently, Christians denigrated Paganism as “the religion of the peasantry.”

In 375, the Temple of God Asclepius in Epidaurus in Greece was closed. Again in 380, an edict of Emperor Flavius Theodosius decreed Christianity the exclusive religion of the Roman Empire, requiring that “all the various nations, which are subject to our clemency and moderation, should continue in the practice of that religion, which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter.” Non-Christians were referred to as “loathsome, heretics, stupid and blind,” and in another edict, he referred to all those who did not believe in the Christian god as “insane” and outlawed all disagreements with the Church dogmas. Ambrosius, the Bishop of Milan, began to destroy all the Temples in his area, and Christian priests led the mob against the Temple of Goddess Demeter in Eleusis and tried to lynch the hierophants Nestorius and Priskus. The 95-year-old Nestorius ended the Eleusinian Mysteries and announced a predominance of mental darkness over the race.

In 381, Emperor Theodosius removed all rights from any Christians who returned to the Greco-Roman religion. Throughout the Eastern Empire, more Temples and libraries were looted and burned down. Even simple visits to the Hellenic Temples were banned. In Constantinople, the Temple of Goddess Aphrodite was turned into a brothel, and the Temple of Sun and the Temple of Artemis were turned into stables.

Then, in 384, Theodosius ordered the devout Christian Praetorian Prefect, Maternus Cynegius, to cooperate with the local bishops of Northern Greece and Asia Minor to destroy more Hellenic Temples. From 385 to 388, “Saint” Marcellus and his armed gangs scoured the countryside, sacking and destroying hundreds of Hellenic Temples, shrines, and altars, including the Temple of Edessa, the Cabeireion of Imbros, the Temple of Zeus in Apamea, the Temple of Apollo in Dydima, and all the Temples of Palmyra. Many thousands more Gentiles were rounded up and sent to the Skythopolis death camps to be executed.

In 386, Theodosius outlawed the care of sacked Temples, and in 388 outlawed public talks on religious subjects. In 389 and 390, all non-Christian calendar systems were outlawed, and hordes of emboldened desert hermit fanatics flooded into the Middle Eastern and Egyptian cities, destroying statues, altars, libraries, and Temples and lynching the Gentile inhabitants. Theophilus, the Patriarch of Alexandria, began a heavy persecution of Gentiles and turned the Temple of Dionysos into a church, burnt down the city’s Mithraic Temple and then destroyed the Temple of Zeus, and mocked the priests as ludicrous before the laughter of the Christian crowd, before stoning them to death as the mob profaned their sacred images.

In 391, a new edict of Theodosius prohibited visits to Temples and the crime of merely looking at vandalised statues. In Alexandria, Gentiles led by the philosopher Olympius revolted, and street fights broke out before they locked themselves inside the fortified Temple of the God Serapis. Following a violent siege, the Christians occupied the building, demolished it, burnt its famous library, and profaned the Greco-Roman cult images.

In 392, Theodosius outlawed all non-Christian rituals as “Gentile superstitions.” The Mysteries of Samothrace were ended, and their priests slaughtered. In Cyprus, “Saint” Epiphanius and “Saint” Tychon destroyed almost all the Temples of the island and exterminated thousands more Gentiles. The local Mysteries of Goddess Aphrodite were ended. An edict by Theodosius declared, “The ones that won’t obey Pater Epiphanius have no right to keep living on the island.”

In 393, the Pythian Games at Delphi, the Aktia of Nikopolis, and the Olympic Games were outlawed as “idolatry,” and Christians sacked the Temples of Olympia. In 395, two new edicts led to the persecution of Gentiles. The Emperor Flavius Arcadius directed hordes of baptised Goths led by Alaric and the Christian monks to sack and burn the Hellenic cities, including, among others, Dion, Delphi, Megara, Corinth, Pheneos, Argos, Nemea, Lycosoura, Sparta, Messene, Phigaleia and Olympia, and then slaughtered and enslaved the inhabitants, burning all Temples. They burnt down the Eleusinian Sanctuary and had all its priests burnt alive, including the hierophant Mithras Hilarius. In 396, Flavius Arcadius declared Paganism to be treated as high treason, and the few remaining priests and hierophants were imprisoned. Then, in 397, Flavius Arcadius ordered all Temples still erect to be demolished.

In 398, the Fourth Church Council of Carthage prohibited the study of Gentile books by all citizens, their bishops included. Porphyrius, the bishop of Gaza, demolished almost all Temples in his city, leaving only nine to continue functioning. In 399, a new edict from Flavius Arcadius ordered the last of the Temples, almost exclusive now to the depths of the countryside, to be immediately demolished, and, in 400, bishop Nicetas destroyed the oracle of God Dionysus in Vesai and baptised all Gentiles living in the area. In 401, the Christian mob of Carthage lynched Gentiles and destroyed “idols.” In Gaza, the new “Saint” Porphyrius sent his followers to lynch Gentiles and destroyed the remaining nine Temples still active in the city. The Fifteenth Council of Chalcedon ordered all Christians who still retained good family relations with their Gentile relatives to be excommunicated (even after the death of these relatives).

In 405, John Chrysostom sent hordes of grey-clad monks armed with iron bars and clubs to destroy the “idols” in all the cities of Palestine and, in 406, collected funds from rich Christian women to financially support the demolishment of Hellenic Temples. The Temple of Goddess Artemis was destroyed in Ephesus, and in Salamis in Cyprus, “Saint” Epiphanius and “Saint” Eutychius continued the total destruction of Temples and sanctuaries and the persecution of Gentiles. A new edict in 407 once more outlawed all non-Christian acts of worship.

In 408, the Emperor Honorius of the Western Empire and the Emperor Flavius Arcadius of the Eastern Empire came together and ordered all Temple sculptures destroyed or confiscated. Private ownership of the statues was outlawed. The local bishops led new book-burning persecutions, and any judges showing pity for Gentiles were also persecuted. In Alexandria, a few days before the Judaeo-Christian festival of Pascha-Easter, bishop Cyrillis ordered the mob to attack and hack down the beautiful Neoplatonist philosopher Hypatia. The Christians paraded pieces of her body through the city and burnt them together with her books at a place called Cynaron. A fresh persecution started, and all Hellenic priests in North Africa were crucified or burnt alive.

In 416, the inquisitor Hypatius, “The Sword of God,” exterminated the last Gentiles of Bithynia. In Constantinople, all non-Christian army officers, public employees, and judges were dismissed. In 423, Emperor Theodosius II declared that all Gentile religion was nothing more than “demon worship” and ordered those who persisted in practicing it to be imprisoned and then tortured. In 429, the Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens, holding the Temple of Goddess Athena, was sacked.

Then, in 435, a new edict of Emperor Theodosius II ordered the death penalty for all “heretics.” Judaism was considered the only legal and non-heretical non-Christian religion. In 438, Theodosius II’s new edict incriminated Gentile “idolatry” as the reason for a recent plague. Between 440 and 450, the Christians succeeded in demolishing all Temples, altars, and monuments in Athens and Olympia, and Theodosius II ordered all non-Christian books burned, and all the Temples of the city of Aphrodisias (the city dedicated to Goddess Aphrodite) were demolished. All libraries were burnt down, and the city was renamed Stauroupolis, “City of the Cross.”

Between 457 and 491, among others, the physician Jacobus and the philosopher Gessius of Petra were executed, whilst the Roman politician Severianus of Damascus, the Greek historian Zosimus, and the Greek mathematician and architect Isidorus of Miletus were tortured and imprisoned. The proselytiser Conon and his followers exterminated the last Gentiles on the island of Imbros in the North-East Aegean. The last worshippers of Lavranius Zeus were exterminated in Cyprus. The majority of the Gentiles of Asia Minor were exterminated, despite a desperate revolt against the Emperor and the Church between 482 and 488, and more Hellenic priests hiding ‘underground’ were arrested, publicly humiliated, and tortured, then executed.

By 515, baptisms had become obligatory, even among those who professed to already be Christian. The Emperor Anastasius of Constantinople ordered the massacre of Gentiles in the Arabian city of Zoara and the demolishing of the Temple of the local God Theandrites. In 528, Emperor Jutprada outlawed the alternative Olympian Games of Antioch and ordered the execution by fire, crucifixion, tearing to pieces by wild beasts, or cutting by iron nails of all who practiced “sorcery, divination, magic, or idolatry” and prohibited all teachings by “…the ones suffering from the blasphemous idolatry of the Hellenes”, then, in 529, he outlawed the Athenian Philosophical Academy and had all its property confiscated.

In 532, the fanatical inquisitor-monk Ioannis Asiacus led a crusade against the Gentiles of Asia Minor, put hundreds of Gentiles to death in Constantinople, and bloodily converted them to Christianity in Phrygia, Caria, and Lydia and in 556, inquisitor the Emperor Jutprada ordered Amantius to go to Antioch, to find, arrest, torture, and execute the last Gentiles and to burn all private libraries down. In 562, mass arrests, public humiliations, tortures, imprisonments, and executions were conducted in Athens, Antioch, Palmyra, and Constantinople. Within 35 years of Asiacus’ crusade, 99 churches and 12 monasteries had been built on the sites of demolished Temples.

Between 578 and 582, Christians tortured and crucified almost all the Gentiles around the Eastern Empire and exterminated the last Hellenes of Baalbek, now named Heliopolis. In Antioch, a secret Temple of Zeus was discovered and attacked, causing the priests to commit suicide. The captured Gentiles, including Vice Governor Anatolius, were tortured and sent to Constantinople to be fed to wild beasts and crucified when they were not devoured alive, their mutilated corpses dragged through the streets by Christians, and then thrown unburied in the city dump. Emperor Mauricius conducted further persecutions in 583, and in 590, Christian accusers ‘discovered Pagan conspiracies’ throughout the Eastern Empire, and a new wave of torture and executions erupted.

In 692, the Penthekte Council of Constantinople prohibited the last remains of Calends, Brumalia, Anthesteria, and other Hellenic Dionysian festivals. By 804, the last Gentiles living in Laconia in Greece had still resisted all attempts by Tarasius, the patriarch of Constantinople, to convert them, but they were, in the end, violently converted between 950 and 988 by the Armenian “Saint” Nikon.

There are many more examples of this barbarity, but this provides a basic overview of why I hold my perspectives. The most important factor, beyond the beautiful architectural physicality of their Temples and statues being defiled and destroyed, and the amassed wisdom of their many libraries lost forever, is that the Europeans referred to as “Gentiles”, those massacred throughout this violent centuries-long campaign of anti-European terror—conducted by their fellow European citizens and their leaders from within the same civilisation under the same race of people—methodically severed the European citizens from their Aryan Gods and instead subjected them to a forced conversion to this god of a foreign enemy, and the holy teachings and writings originally compiled by that enemy.

The gospels were originally written by Jews after all, much as the entire Old Testament is a Jewish mythology, that Judaic archetype of Jesus subversively inverting the European values to the values of their racial enemy, and the additional values they designed ‘for export only’, so the newly radicalized cult of Europeans could further impose these alien values among their own race by obscene brutality and blind torments and misery, these traitorous egalitarian submission and pacifism values held now near-unanimously by Europeans in the 21st Century, and held subconsciously, unaware that, though they have—in the general public understanding—dropped that god for atheism, their unthinking moral axiology and puritanism is still entirely Christian (and it certainly is unthinking beyond any rationalizations they can attribute in aftermath), an ethical framework of far more profound significance than the standard assumption by atheist progressives that by Christian ethics we mean merely an organised opposition to pornography, abortion and homosexuality as displayed by American conservative evangelicals, and irrespective of a liberal humanist’s scepticism over the existence of the supernatural and of the divine aspects of Christian monotheism.

The arbitrary value shift has been subsumed, and now, when one talks of being ‘good,’ or ‘moral’—or specifically obsesses over the moral value of an act at all, as Friedrich Nietzsche reminded us in his Twilight of the Idols—we can take it as read that they are in alignment with the morals presented to us in the Ten Commandments, and by the incoherent single-source literary subversions of a radical millenarian cult-leader archetype, the inverse of an Eliot Goldstein creation, this revolutionary fiction—as if morality had no other value-system, and as if nothing worthy had come before, or had been a mere barbarity of its own!—with us only able to view the pre-Christian Greco-Roman civilisation’s societal codes and cultural drives through a 2000-year post-revolutionary Christian moral lens, in unthinking retroprojection—our definitive modern paradigm—the Greco-Roman world now appearing alien to us, or somehow cruel.

As with the writings of Richard Carrier, David Fitzgerald, and David Skrbina, I am convinced that the character of Jesus is mythological, a subversive creation of Paul—and otherwise missing from the historical record (one cannot trust Flavius Josephus as a single external to the Bible source due to the likelihood of forgery)—invented for the purposes of irreversibly undermining an already weakened Roman Empire and to impede the maintenance of its grasp on Judea, manipulating the fundamental attitudes of his hated enemy to the point that their society would fall apart in revolution from the ground up, the universal egalitarianism of the Judaic doctrine of Christianity moulding the slave-classes into furious zealots, violently intolerant of the ‘paganism’ of the Greco-Roman tradition and the accepting pluralism of Roman religious belief, and their centuries of rational philosophy, mathematics, and analytical science, with their statues and sculptures vandalized and smashed, their ancient temples and monuments looted and destroyed, and their vast libraries holding centuries of accumulated wisdom and knowledge burnt to the ground, the precious works and advancements contained in them lost to history, and the people now weakened, tradition and social coherence obliterated, vulnerable to increasing miscegenation and the predations of hostile foreign outsiders, or to Christian-orchestrated purges and bloody mass executions. Ramsey Macmullen and J. N. Hilgarth elaborate on this violent, forced transition of Europeans to Christianity in the fourth to eighth centuries following Emperor Constantine’s proclamation that Christianity was now the one official religion of Rome.