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Tag: Destruction of Greco-Roman world

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Vlassis Rassias

Criminal Christianity

White nationalists know very little about the history of the religion of our parents. This summary of Demolish Them, a book by Vlassis Rassias (pic below) published in Greek and posted on Thulean Perspective, is just a taste of the flavour of what I plan to translate from Karlheinz Deschner’s Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums. Pay special attention how evil Christians, many of Semitic background, used the word ‘gentiles’ to refer to white advocates of Greco-Roman civilisation:
 

______ 卐 ______

 
314
Immediately after its full legalisation, the Christian Church attacks the Gentiles: The Council of Ancyra denounces the worship of Goddess Artemis.

324
Emperor Constantine declares Christianity as the only official religion of the Roman Empire. At Dydima, Asia Minor, he sacks the Oracle of God Apollo and tortures its Pagan priests to death. He also evicts the Gentiles from Mt. Athos and destroys all local Hellenic Temples.

326
Emperor Constantine, following the instructions of his mother Helen, destroys the Temple of God Asclepius in Aigeai of Cilicia and many Temples of Goddess Aphrodite in Jerusalem, Aphaca, Mambre, Phoenice, Baalbek, etc.

330
Constantine steals the treasures and statues of the Pagan Temples in Greece to decorate Nova Roma (Constantinople), the new capital of his Empire.

335
Constantine sacks many Pagan Temples of Asia Minor and Palestine and orders the execution by crucifixion of ‘all magicians and soothsayers’. Martyrdom of the neoplatonist philosopher Sopatros.

341
Emperor Constas, son of Constantinus, persecutes ‘all the soothsayers and the Hellenists’. Many Gentile Hellenes are either imprisoned or executed.

346
New large-scale persecutions against the Gentiles in Constantinople. Banishment of the famous orator Libanius accused as… ‘magician’.

353
An edict of Constantius orders the death penalty for all kind of worship through sacrifices and ‘idols’.

354
A new edict of Constantius orders the closing of all Pagan Temples. Some of them are profaned and turned into brothels or gambling rooms. Executions of Pagan priests. First burning of libraries in various cities of the Empire. The first lime factories are built next to closed Pagan Temples. A large part of Sacred Gentile architecture is turned into lime.

356
A new edict of Constantius orders the destruction of the Pagan Temples and the execution of all ‘idolaters’.

357
Constantius outlaws all methods of Divination (Astrology not excluded).

359
In Skythopolis, Syria, Christians organise the first death camps for the torture and execution of arrested Gentiles from all around the Empire.

361 to 363
Religious tolerance and restoration of Pagan cults declared in Constantinople (11th December 361) by the Pagan Emperor Julian.

363
Assassination of Emperor Julian (26th June).

364
Emperor Flavius Jovianus orders the burning of the Library of Antioch. An Imperial edict (11th September) orders the death penalty for all Gentiles that worship their ancestral Gods or practice Divination (‘sileat omnibus perpetuo divinandi uriositas’). Three different edicts (4th February, 9th September, 23rd December) order the confiscation of all properties of Pagan Temples and the death penalty for participation in Pagan rituals, even private ones.

365
An Imperial edict (17th November) forbids Gentile officers of the army to command christian soldiers.

370
Emperor Valens orders a tremendous persecution of Gentiles throughout the Eastern Empire. In Antioch, among many other Pagans, the ex-governor Fidustius and the priests Hilarius and Patricius are executed. Tons of books are burnt in the squares of cities of the Eastern Empire. All friends of Julian are persecuted (Orebasius, Sallustius, Pegasius etc.), the philosopher Simonides is burned alive and the philosopher Maximus is decapitated.

372
Emperor Valens orders the governor of Asia Minor to exterminate the Hellenes and all documents of their wisdom.

373
New prohibition of all methods of Divination. The Newspeak term ‘Pagan’ (pagani, villagers) is introduced by the christians to lessen the Gentiles.

375
The Temple of God Asclepius in Epidaurus, Greece, is closed down.

380
On 27th February, Christianity becomes the exclusive religion of the Roman Empire by an edict of Emperor Flavius Theodosius, requiring that

‘all the various nations, which are subject to our clemency and moderation should continue in the profession of that religion, which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter’.

Non-christians are called ‘loathsome, heretics, stupid and blind’. In another edict Theodosius calls ‘insane’ those that do not believe in the christian god and outlaws all disagreements with the Church dogmas. Ambrosius, bishop of Milan, starts destroying all the Pagan Temples of his area. Christian priests lead the mob against the Temple of Goddess Demeter in Eleusis and try to lynch the hierophants Nestorius and Priskus. The 95 year-old hierophant Nestorius, ends the Eleusinian Mysteries and announces the predominance of mental darkness over the human race.

381
On 2nd May, Theodosius deprives all rights of christians that return to the Pagan Religion. Throughout the Eastern Empire, Pagan Temples and Libraries are looted or burned down. On 21st December, Theodosius outlaws even simple visits to the Temples of the Hellenes. In Constantinople, the Temple of Goddess Aphrodite is turned into a brothel and the Temples of Sun and Artemis into stables.

382
‘Hellelu-jah’ (Glory to Yahweh) is imposed in the christian mass.

384
Emperor Theodosius orders the Praetorian Prefect, Maternus Cynegius, a dedicated christian, to cooperate with the local bishops and destroy the Temples of the Gentiles in Northern Greece and Asia Minor.

385 to 388
Maternus Cynegius, encouraged by his fanatic wife, and bishop, ‘Saint’ Marcellus with his gangs scour the countryside, sack and destroy hundreds of Hellenic Temples, shrines and altars. Amongst others they destroy 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. Thousands of innocent Gentiles from all sides of the Empire suffer martyrdom in the notorious death camps of Skythopolis.

386
Emperor Theodosius outlaws (16th June) the care of sacked Pagan Temples.

388
Public talks on religious subjects are also outlawed by Theodosius. The old orator Libanius sends his famous Epistle Pro Templis to Theodosius, with a hope that the few remaining Hellenic Temples will be respected and spared.

389 to 390
All non-christian calenders are outlawed. Hordes of fanatic hermits from the desert flood into Middle Eastern and Egyptian cities, destroying statues, altars, libraries and Pagan temples, whilst Gentiles are lynched. Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, starts heavy persecutions against the Gentiles, turns the Temple of Dionysos into a church, burns down the Mithraeum of the city, destroys the Temple of Zeus and burlesques the Pagan priests before they are killed by stoning. The christian mob profanes the cult images.

391
On 24th February, a new edict of Theodosius prohibits not only visits to Pagan Temples but also looking at vandalised statues. New heavy persecutions all around the Empire. In Alexandria, Egypt, the Gentiles, led by the philosopher Olympius, revolt and after some street fights, finally lock themselves inside the fortified Temple of God Serapis (The Serapeion). After a violent siege, the christians occupy the building, demolish it, burn its famous Library and profane the cult images.

392
On 8th November, the Emperor Theodosius outlaws all non-christian rituals and names them ‘superstitions of the Gentiles’ (gentilicia superstitio). New full scale persecutions against the Gentiles. The Mysteries of Samothrace are ended and priests slaughtered. In Cyprus the local bishop, ‘Saints’ Epiphanius and Tychon destroy almost all the Temples of the island and exterminate thousands of Gentiles. The local Mysteries of Goddess Aphrodite are ended. Theodosius’ edict declares: ‘the ones that won’t obey pater Epiphanius have no right to keep living on the island’. The Gentiles revolt against the Emperor and the Church in Petra, Aeropolis, Rafia, Gaza, Baalbek and other cities of the Middle East.

393
The Pythian, Aktia and Olympic Games are outlawed as part of the Hellenic ‘idolatry’. Christians sack the Temples of Olympia.

395
Two new edicts (22nd July and 7th August) lead to new persecutions against the Gentiles. Rufinus, the eunuch Prime Minister of Emperor Flavius Arcadius directs the hordes of the baptised Goths (led by Alaric) to the country of the Hellenes. Encouraged by christian monks, the barbarians sack and burn many cities (Dion, Delphi, Megara, Corinth, Pheneos, Argos, Nemea, Lycosoura, Sparta, Messene, Phigaleia, Olympia, etc.), slaughter or enslave innumerable Hellenes and burn the Temples. Among others, they burn down the Eleusinian Sanctuary and burn alive all of its priests (including the hierophant of Mithras Hilarius).

396
On 7th December, a new edict by Emperor Arcadius orders that Paganism be treated as high treason. Imprisonment of the few remaining Pagan priests and hierophants.

397
‘Demolish them!’ Emperor Flavius Arcadius orders all the still erect Pagan Temples demolished.

398
The Fourth Church Council of Carthage prohibits to all, including its bishops, the study of Gentile books. Porphyrius, bishop of Gaza, demolishes almost all the Pagan Temples of his city (except nine of them that remain active).

399
With a new edict (13th July) Emperor Flavius Arcadius orders all remaining Temples, mainly in the countryside, to be immediately demolished: Si qua in agris templa sunt, sine turba ac tumultu diruantur. His enim deiectis atque sublatis omnis superstitioni materia consumetur.

400
Bishop Nicetas destroys the Oracle of God Dionysus in Vesai and baptises all the Gentiles of this area.

401
The christian mob of Carthage lynches Gentiles and destroys Temples and ‘idols’. In Gaza too, the local bishop, also a ‘Saint’, Porphyrius sends his followers to lynch Gentiles and demolish the remaining nine still active Temples of the city. The 15th Council of Chalkedon orders all christians that still keep good relations with their gentile relatives to be excommunicated (even after their death).

405
John Chrysostom sends his hordes of gray-clad monks armed with clubs and iron bars to destroy the ‘idols’ in all the cities of Palestine.

406
John Chrysostom collects funds from rich christian women to financially support the demolition of the Hellenic Temples. In Ephessus, he orders the destruction of the famous Temple of Goddess Artemis. In Salamis, Cyprus, ‘Saints’ Epiphanius and Eutychius continue persecutions of the Gentiles and the total destruction of their Temples and sanctuaries.

407
A new edict outlaws once more all non-christian acts of worship.

408
The Emperor of the Western Empire Honorius and the Emperor of the Eastern Empire Arcadius, order together that all sculptures of the Pagan Temples be either destroyed or confiscated. Private ownership of Pagan sculpture is also outlawed. The local bishops lead new heavy persecutions against Gentiles and new book burning. Judges showing pity for Gentiles are also persecuted.

409
Once again, an edict orders Astrology and all methods of Divination to be punished by death.

415
In Alexandria, Egypt, the mob urged by the bishop Cyrillus, attacks a few days before the judaeo-christian Pascha (Pesach-Easter) and hacks to pieces the famous and beautiful philosopher Hypatia. Pieces of her body are paraded by the christian mob through the streets of Alexandria, and are finally burned together with her books in a place called Cynaron. On 30th August, new persecutions start against all the Pagan priests of North Africa, who end their lives either crucified or burned alive.

416
The inquisitor Hypatius, alias ‘The Sword of God’, exterminates the last Gentiles of Bithynia. In Constantinople (7th December), all non-christian army officers, public employees and judges are dismissed.

423
Emperor Theodosius II, declares (8th June) that the Religion of the Gentiles is nothing more than ‘demon worship’ and orders all those who persist in practicing it to be punished by imprisonment and tortured.

429
The Temple of Goddess Athena (Parthenon) on the Acropolis of Athens is sacked. Athenian Pagans are persecuted.

435
On 14th November, a new edict by Theodosius II orders the death penalty for all ‘heretics’ and ‘pagans’ of the Empire. Only Judaism is considered a legal non-christian Religion.

438
Theodosius II issues an new edict (31st January) against the Gentiles, incriminating their ‘idolatry’ as the reason for a recent
plague!

440 to 450
The christians demolish all the monuments, altars and Temples of Athens, Olympia, and other Greek cities.

448
Theodosius II orders all non-christian books burned.

450
All the Temples of Aphrodisias (City of Goddess Aphrodite) are demolished and its Libraries burned down. The city is renamed Stauroupolis (City of the Cross).

451
A new edict by Theodosius II (4th November) emphasises that ‘idolatry’ is to be punished by death.

457 to 491
Sporadic persecutions against Gentiles of the Eastern Empire. Among others, the physician Jacobus and the philosopher Gessius are executed. Severianus, Herestios, Zosimus, Isidorus and others are tortured and imprisoned. The proselytiser Conon and his followers exterminate the last Gentiles of the island of Imbros, in the northeast Aegean. The last worshippers of Lavranius Zeus are exterminated in Cyprus.

482 to 488
The majority of the Gentiles of Asia Minor are exterminated, after a desperate revolt against the Emperor and the Church.

486
More ‘underground’ Pagan priests are discovered, arrested, burlesqued, tortured and executed in Alexandria, Egypt.

515
Baptism becomes obligatory, even for those that already say they are christian. The Emperor of Constantinople, Anastasius orders the massacre of the Gentiles in the Arabian city Zoara and the demolition of the Temple of local God Theandrites.

528
Emperor Jutprada (Justinianus) outlaws the ‘alternative’ Olympian Games of Antioch. He also orders the execution (by fire, crucifixion, tearing to pieces by wild beasts, or cutting by iron nails) of all who practice ‘sorcery, divination, magic or idolatry’ and prohibits all teachings by the Gentiles (‘..the ones suffering from the blasphemous insanity of the Hellenes’).

529
Emperor Justinianus outlaws the Athenian Philosophical Academy, which has its property confiscated.

532
The inquisitor Ioannis Asiacus, a fanatical monk, leads a crusade against the Gentiles of Asia Minor.

542
Emperor Justinianus allows the inquisitor Ioannis Asiacus to convert the Gentiles of Phrygia, Caria and Lydia in Asia Minor. Within 35 years of this crusade, 99 churches and 12 monasteries are built on the sites of demolished Pagan Temples.

546
Hundreds of Gentiles are put to death in Constantinople by the inquisitor Ioannis Asiacus.

556
Justinianus orders the notorious inquisitor Amantius to go to Antioch, to find, arrest, torture and exterminate the last Gentiles of the city and burn all the private libraries down.

562
Mass arrests, burlesquing, tortures, imprisonments and executions of Gentile Hellenes in Athens, Antioch, Palmyra and Constantinople.

578 to 582
Christians torture and crucify Gentile Hellenes all around the Eastern Empire, and exterminate the last Gentiles of Heliopolis (Baalbek).

580
Christian inquisitors attack a secret Temple of Zeus in Antioch. The priest commits suicide, but the other Gentiles are arrested. All the prisoners, the Vice Governor Anatolius included, are tortured and sent to Constantinople to face trial. Sentenced to death they are thrown to the lions. The wild animals are unwilling to tear them to pieces and they end up crucified. Their corpses are dragged through the streets by the christian mob and afterwards thrown unburied in the city dump.

583
New persecutions against the Gentile Hellenes by the Emperor Mauricius.

590
Throughout the Eastern Empire, christian accusers ‘discover’ Pagan conspiracies. A new wave of torture and executions erupts.

692
The ‘Penthekte’ Council of Constantinople prohibits the remains of Calends, Brumalia, Anthesteria, and other Pagan / Dionysian festivals.

804
The Gentile Hellenes of Laconia, Greece, resist successfully the attempt of Tarasius, Patriarch of Constantinople, to convert them to Christianity.

950 to 988
Violent conversion of the last Gentile Hellenes of Laconia by the Armenian ‘Saint’ Nikon.

Categories
Adversus Christianos (book) Constantine Free speech / association Porphyry of Tyre

Ancient book burning

Excerpts from Roger Pearse’s review of Joseph Hoffmann’s Porphyry’s Against the Christians: The Literary Remains:
 

The sixteen-book work by the Neoplatonist Porphyry Against the Christians is lost. Constantine ordered that all copies should be destroyed; a century later Theodosius tacitly acknowledged that this had not occurred by issuing a similar edict.

Constantine_burning_Arian_books
Constantine burning Arian books

Porphyry adopted an “idiot-boy” literalism as his tool to debunk. Anything that could be made to sound discreditable, anything that did not fit with the tenor of contemporary prejudice, any statement that could be made to sound contradictory, could be presented as a reason to deride the Christians. However, such a approach is unimpressive to anyone except a believer. Such people could have their faith in anti-Christianism bolstered, and be encouraged to sneer and have gibes ready to throw. But the unconvinced reader would see easily that such statements can be made about anything, however worthy.

Instead, the essential argument is an appeal to the irrational herd-instinct of mankind and its need to conform. Many of Porphyry’s arguments consist simply of assertion that something is shameful or embarrassing, rather than rational discussion. This can only work if the flavour of the times is such that the subject is unfashionable. To look for a modern analogy, modern readers will be aware that “anti-racism” has not acquired the power it has in our society by rational argument. Instead it relies on repeated assertion and intimidation, to create a climate in which only certain ideas can be said. In the ancient world, likewise, certain ideas went without saying. The Christian ethos was not part of this; and indeed, as a novelty, was embarrassing. The idea that the poor might be important was disgusting. Porphyry simply harps on the subconscious need to the reader to conform to what he knows society expects, rather than reasoning objectively what is right.

But once the times changed, the approach worked in reverse. It was Porphyry’s ideas that went against the tenor of the times.

Categories
Adversus Christianos (book) Ancient Rome Cicero Emigration / immigration Porphyry of Tyre Tacitus

The Roman legacy

by Manu Rodríguez (translated from Spanish)



Rome not only opened Europe’s doors to our Greek brothers, but also to the Syrians, and the Phoenicians, and Jews, and the Persians, and to the Egyptians…

It was a flood, a deluge of Eastern cults. Finally, nothing could be saved because we were not anchored onto anything solid. Uprooted, we went astray after a process of self-destruction that had even corroded our very roots, our very fundamentals (courtesy of our Cynic and Skeptic philosophers and Stoics). We navigated adrift, without a North; a wind without North. We laid at the mercy of anyone, of any clever devil. And that’s what happened to us: a clever devil caught us, and we were held captive in his cave for more than a thousand and five hundred years.

In no way did we need any morality or Eastern cult. The European natives (indigenae, born of the interior) had their own gods (indigetes, divinities of the interior), i.e., their own laws, norms, morals. We were doing well: they were the treasures of the families, the ancestral legacy. While these values were maintained nothing bad could happen to us.

It was the contempt for such symbolic significances what marked the beginning of our decline and ruin: the neglect of our being. We should have been stronger. Instead, notice our superficiality in detaching ourselves from the highest value; our folly, our decline, our stupidity, our decadence, our weakness. We disappointed our parents who are in heaven. We were perfidious, unfaithful, disloyal, infidels; unfair.

Anyone who abandons his people, his mother country, is an outcast, a bastard. Those who abandon their Fathers and their legacy, these are the true stateless. They have no country, no parents; they’re only infidels. But that was precisely our behavior. That’s what they did, by force or degree, all of our ancestors: the Romans, Greeks, Germans, Celts, Slavs… All of them disowned the Fathers during the fateful Christianization of Europe. I speak for our ancestors. Upon us falls such guilt, such error, such treachery.

We, the present generations of Europeans, have to repair such perfidy, such disloyalty. We must reclaim the thread with our ancestors, the legacy; give it life again.

♣

Here’s what we missed, what we throw overboard, what was lost of our sight. I speak of the genius of Rome, from her being and her becoming, of a living branch of the Indo-European tree that has not perished. Of her success and failure we must all learn. They succeeded in both keeping their identity, which made them strong, and their ethical significances, moral and civic, so familiar.

The symbolic significances I mention below are taken from the Atlas of World History by Hermann Kinder and Werner Hilgemann, page 88. They are slogans that provide strength and firmness, and moral courage. They were the weapons that we could have used then, and failed to do; but we can use them now. There is still time. It is time to recover what makes us strong and asserts us. Let’s see if those significances remain valid. The following is a summary.

The preservation ( disciplina potestas) of the domestic or household order is made by the father (both parents we would say today without objection), by the authority (sapientia), the maturity of judgment (consilium) and integrity (probitas). The circumspection (diligentia), the rigor (severitas), and self-control (continentia, and temperantia) define the solemn character (gravitas) of their actions, acquired by the industriousness (industria) and tenacity (constantia). The offspring are educated in adult models (mos maiorum). Humility (modestia) and worship (reverentia) are the virtues that should govern the relationship of the younger generation with the older. Young people are also demanded obedience (obsequium), respect (verecundia) and purity (pudicitia, integritas morum).

As for the training of citizens this is what it says: Valor (virtus), independence of judgment and action (libertas), glory, devotion (pietas), fidelity or reliability (fides) and propriety in public life (dignitas) constitute the ideal virtues of a Roman citizen; something that he must put in the service of the community (res publica) in order to contribute to a greater power and greatness of his people (maiestas populi romani). The common good is the highest law (salus populi suprema lex).


I also recommend the reading of the treatise De officiis (On Duties) of Cicero.

Each of these Latin terms has a wider semantic field that expresses the translation (that I copied from the original). The auctoritas had a sense of moral standing, as when we say “so and so is an authority in a particular science or branch of knowledge.” The sapientia is both the wisdom, knowledge as intelligence, sanity. Pietas is the devotion we owe to the manes or Parents, the elder (mos maiorum) and to the res publica, the mother country. Sacrae patria deserere and deserere patriam were Roman expressions that designated desertion of the Fathers and the adoption of a foreign religion. Gloria is precisely fame, good reputation, be renown; reaching general and public honors after a cursus honorum full of merit, in the service of my people, for the greater glory of my people.

These values can be reclaimed today with dignity and without any demerit.

I remind my fellow citizens this past story because presently Europe (and the Magna Europe) runs a similar risk to that loss in the ancient world. This time it will be much worse because it is foreign people and foreign to our being what will dominate us. That was a purely ideological domination; this will also be a demographic domination. We will be clearly disadvantaged on earth and in heaven.

♣

The decline was soon shown in Greece (since the Alexandrian period) and Rome (since the Carthaginian wars): corruption, despotism, injustice, immorality, treachery—in all areas of life. Polybius and Cicero warned in Rome, and Columella and Sallust, Tacitus, Persius and Juvenal. Everyone noticed it and pleaded: “Go back to the sources, Roman: return to the Fathers, purify and recover the aura, the prestige (auctoritas), the majesty.” All in vain. The echo of that failure still resonates today.

No, it was not the alien cults, nor the Jews or the Christians… It was us, our indifference and our nihilism, the cause of our destruction. There laid our weakness. We were not up to par. We failed to respond adequately to the Christian apologists, for example. There was no Demosthenes, no Cicero in the first Christian centuries. We watched them destroy our foundations. The philosophical schools provided arguments to the Christian propagandists (criticism of our gods, traditions and customs, our values). We weakened the security and confidence in ourselves, in our science, knowledge and powers. The future lords of Europe had little to add.

Doesn’t this story sound familiar to you, European? Behold our times. Haven’t we for more than two centuries been destroying ourselves? Which result we get from our current nihilism, our skepticism, our relativism, our political, moral and cultural indifference; our profound boredom? We repeat that history. We make the same mistakes. Again, we will be defeated.

Categories
Ancient Rome Art Christendom Civilisation (TV series) Constantine Free speech / association Kenneth Clark Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums (books) Zeus

The fall of Rome

“But the advances made by Jewish theology were more dangerous than the disorder of the streets and the robber.”

—Theodor Mommsen, in Provinces of the
Roman Empire, from Caesar to Diocletian


1.

Constantine the Great, also Saint Constantine (Emperor from 306 to 337 C.E.) has been described as a monster even for the standards of the ancient world. Catholic historian Paul Johnson wrote about him: “Constantine had no respect for human life, and as emperor he executed his eldest son, his own second wife, his favorite sister’s husband.”

The Roman Emperor inaugurated the Christianization of public life. He sanctioned with death penalty, instead of the traditional exile, those who published anonymous libels. His dispositions for death penalty were extremely severe, and I would like to know if it is true what I have read in a book: that under Constantine tortures such as pouring molten lead into the mouths of some women who had violated certain laws accompanied death penalty.

In 330 Constantine condemned the Neoplatonic School. Sopater of Apamea, a distinguished Neoplatonist philosopher was one of many who were put to death by Constantine.

Under Constantine’s reign pagans were referred to as “foolish,” “people without morals,” and their religion “a hotbed of discord,” “a fatal error,” “empire of darkness,” and “madness that has ruined whole nations.” However, while Julian said that Constantine was a “destroyer of ancient and venerable constitutions,” throughout the centuries Constantine has been much praised by Christian apologists.

Constantine was the first Roman Emperor who ordered the destruction of the intellectual work of Porphyry, the best mind of his age, whose work I briefly discussed in a recent entry. During his campaign of looting of the sculptures and shrines, Constantine did not even respect the famous tripods for the pythia of the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi. The historian Kornemann notes that this was “a larceny of works of art never seen in Greece before.”

After Constantine’s death, his sons Constans and Constantius shared the empire of their father for some time, and only aggravated the all-out, state-sponsored assault on the Hellenic culture.

Under Constans the first destructions, not only loots, of the temples themselves were perpetrated, albeit sporadically. Under Constantius, who appears well described in Gore Vidal’s novel, the most fanatic Christians attacked the altars and temples. The deacon Cyril of Heliopolis, for example, became famous with his actions. The Arethusa in Syria, the priest Marco demolished an ancient shrine. At Caesarea in Cappadocia, the Christian community razed a temple of Zeus, the patron of the city, and another of Apollo.

Under the reigns of both Constantius and Constans, Firmicus Maternus preached the looting: “Out of all pagan temples ornaments! The mint and the crucible with the metal of the idolatrous statues, melt them in the heat of the flames!” In one of his pamphlets Firmicus incited extermination of the pagan cults, including those of Dionysus-Bacchus and Aphrodite.

But most of the temples of the classical world were still upright. The Christian agitator declaimed: “Take away without fear the ornaments of the temples! Melt the figures of gods and coin your money! The Lord has called to the task of annihilate all temples!” Always invoking the god of the Jews, this Sicilian lawyer from upper nobility claimed being an heir of biblical hecatombs as no Christian had done before.

In a subsequent post we shall see what happened to our civilization after this war of cultural extermination inspired by the cult that repudiated the Greco-Roman Gods, and adored instead the zealous, “no other gods before me” god of the Jews.

(Source: Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums, Vol. I, 1986, by Karlheinz Deschner)

2.

“In discussing Barbarism and Christianity I have actually been discussing the Fall of Rome.”

—Edward Gibbon

All Roman emperors after Julian would be Christians. Theodosius “the Great” and the subsequent emperors only completed the destruction of the Greco-Roman spirit that had started with Constantine and his sons. Not only the magnificent temples of worship of antiquity were destroyed almost everywhere, irreplaceable buildings of artistic value that transmitted like nothing else the soul of Hellenic culture, but even until the tenth century the fanatical worshipers of the god of the Jews continued smashing the statues that depicted the divinity of Man like no other art before.

But the most tremendous destruction occurred in the field of education. From the time of St. Paul at Ephesus, church censorship was devoted to the burning of books. After Julian the flourishing book trade disappeared in antiquity, whilst the activity of the monasteries was purely receptive. In the universities the hypertrophy of Aristotelianism aborted any possibility of independent research. In the Middle Ages what I call “real history” was completely unknown, and the sciences were drowned.

With this knowledge I venture to answer a question that has perplexed historians since the Enlightenment: What caused the fall of Rome?

German professor Alexander Demandt published a collection of two hundred theories on why Rome fell. Everything has been postulated—from lead poisoning and environmental degradation to Toynbee and many others’ diverse economic explanations—except the most obvious explanation. The simple truth is that the spirit of an alien, Semitic god undermined the soul of Classical Antiquity. After all, Gibbon himself assigned a major portion of the responsibility for the loss of civic virtue in Rome, and the ensuing decay of the Roman Empire, to the influence of Christianity. I would go further and claim that those unfamiliar with this work, which remains a literary landmark, lack the framework to understand why the Jew-god worshipers and their secular offspring are responsible for the ongoing Fall of the West. (Yes: I am blaming the Christians and the secular Christians who tolerate the Jews far more than I blame the Jews themselves.)

It is true that Rome’s eastern half survived almost a thousand years, until the Muslim conquests. But it was already a thoroughly petrogenic culture under the Medusan spell of Christian dogma. In fact, with its mongrelized citizens the population looked very different from the Latin Rome of the Republic.

3.

“The Skin of our Teeth” was the very first chapter of Kenneth Clark’s 1969 Civilisation. About the loss of historical consciousness, in the first chapter of Civilisation, Clark said:

Civilized man, or so it seems to me, must feel that he belongs somewhere in space and time; that he consciously looks forward and looks back. And for this purpose it is a great convenience to be able to read and write.

For over five hundred years this achievement was rare in Western Europe. It is a shock to realise that during all this time practically no lay person, from kings and emperors downwards, could read or write.

St. Gregory, who looks so intensely devoted to scholarship on a tenth century ivory, is credited with having destroyed many volumes of classical literature, even whole libraries, lest they seduced men’s minds away from the study of holy writ. And in this he was certainly not alone. What with prejudice and destruction, it’s surprising that the literature of pre-Christian antiquity was preserved at all. And in fact it only just squeaked through. In so far as we are the heirs of Greece and Rome, we got through by the skin of our teeth.

(Page 17 of the printed, Harper & Row book.)