![]() Describing just how dark the Dark Ages were, when religion was wielded with a sword, Enlightenment, by contrast, came through education and persuasion. ![]() The author has a way of making the historical passages compelling, with not a dusty morsel to be had. The chapters which move on from classical times to the Dark and Middle Ages paint a fascinating backdrop. Quoting from the legal case against Larry Nassar, an Olympic coach accused of abuse, one of his victims asked the judge, ‘What is a little girl worth?’ Scrivener says, ‘When a guttural “Everything” rises up within you, that’s your Christianity talking.’ Furthermore, Christianity brought an earthquake in sexual morality to first-century life, and its effects are still evident. Jesus, of course, saw more than that and showed compassion – a quality Romans didn’t understand. Without the Christian belief that we are all equal before God, humans are reduced to mere flesh-and-blood properties. For example, Plato would have wondered what the point was in a debate about equality, since everyone knew that lives had unequal value! To our minds, equality is sacred – note the religious language we adopt, points out Scrivener – and when, during the lockdown crisis, Lord Sumption said, ‘I don’t accept that all lives are of equal value,’ it caused uproar. The early part of the book digs into the non-biblical thinking of the ancient world in Greek and Roman times.
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