Stylus Productions

THE STORY OF THE CHRISTIANS

Volume IX: The Twilight of the Gods

Our task in The Story of the Christians is not to undertake a full-scale analysis of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire but to try and ascertain if Christianity played any role in that decline and fall, to assess Christianity’s contribution to either the preservation or the destruction of imperial rule in the western half of the Roman Empire.

In Volume IX we describe the waning days of the Roman Empire in the west, and highlight the political, social, economic and military developments that contributed to its fall to the Germans. We examine various developments in the story of the Christians against this backdrop: the continuing Christological and theological controversies; the challenges to the growing power and majesty of the Church; the task of translating scriptures to meet the needs of a huge Latinate population; and the reality that, despite official support for the orthodox-Nicene Church, continuing competition and animosity persisted between Christians and Jews. And the old religion of the pagan gods steadfastly refused to die.

The western Roman empire fell to hostile invaders (who were, in fact, Christians themselves), and, at the same time, Christianity became the dominant religion and survived that fall. One of our tasks in Volume IX is to explore to what extent these phenomena are related during the twilight time when the old gods, whom generations of Romans had intrinsically regarded as responsible for their protection and greatness, were giving way to the new.

Chapters in VOLUME IX:

1.The Fall of the Western Roman Empire

2. The Demise of Donatist Christianity

3. Arianism and the Subsequent Christological Controversies

4. Retreat to the Desert: Monasticism

5. The Christian Apocrypha

6. Jerome and the Latin Bible

7. Original Sin, Grace, and Salvation: Pelagius and Augustine

8. The Jews in a Christian Roman Empire

9. The Twilight of the Gods: The Fall of Mount Olympus

10.Christianity and the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Edward Gibbon was said to have famously declared that the fall of the Roman Empire was the “triumph of barbarism and superstition.” His actual quotation was the “triumph of barbarism and religion” The transformation of the quotation in popular historical literature started in the late 1950s but oddly enough reflects quite accurately Gibbon’s prejudice. By “barbarism” Gibbon meant the Germans and by “religion” (or “superstition”) Gibbon meant Christianity. Gibbon’s assessment of the decline and fall is the starting point of every subsequent historian’s analysis of Rome’s demise, whether they agree with Gibbon or not.

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