Tom Holland on Pax: War and Peace in Rome's Golden Age

Last night we headed for Waterstones in The Galleries, Bristol to hear the author Tom Holland give a captivating talk on his latest tome, Pax: War and Peace in Rome's Golden Age. I received the book as a birthday present from my son and have just started to dip into it. The last time we heard Holland speak at the same venue he was promoting his previous work, Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind (see a report here). 

The speaker began by taking us to Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northernmost point of the Roman Empire. The Emperor Hadrian liked to visit the outposts of his vast domain, which stretched from Scotland to Arabia. The point of Hadrian's Wall was not so much to keep the barbarous Scots at bay, as to rub their noses in the fact that they had been excluded from the vast cultivated garden that flourished under Roman rule. 

Nero was the last Emperor to have descended from the great Augustus. His demise triggered the 'Year of the Four Emperors' in 69AD. Wannabes Galba, Otho and Vitellius failed to maintain their hold on power. Those who followed such as Vespasian, Domitian, Trajan and Hadrian ruled for long enough to ensure stability. That stability was the product of good PR as much as the might of the legions at the Imperial overlord's command.

The Emperors had statues erected in their honour across their domains. Coins bore the stamp of the Emperor's face. These images depicted how the Emperors wished to be seen, whether as aged throwbacks to antique virtue, or eternally young and virile rulers. Roman noblemen were usually clean shaven, but Hadrian affected a soldierly beard, which also gave him the aspect of a Greek philosopher. Holland had a suspiring amount to say about imperial barnets and beards. Otho's toupee made him an altogether unsuitable candidate for Emperor. No wonder he only lasted three months and a day in office. 

The writer described the Roman Emperors as the 'apex predators' of history. They ruled unhindered by any Christian notion of what constitutes right and wrong. After the death of his wife Poppaea, Nero spotted a slave boy who bore a passing resemblance to his dear departed Mrs. He had 'Sporus' castrated and married him. Following Nero's death, Vitellius sought to win the approval of the masses by having Sporus gang raped at a gladiator show. The poor lad only avoided this public humiliation by committing suicide. The short-lived rule of Vitellius ended when he was slaughtered by his successor Vespasian's troops. 

Holland described Christians of the time as 'Mesozoic mammals in a ecosystem dominated by dinosaurs.' But it was the little Christian mammals who won the day. The reason why we are appalled at the blood-soaked deeds of the mighty Emperors is that the 'Christian Revolution' totally transformed the moral landscape of the ancient world. How that happened is the story told in Dominion.    

The Restless Republic: Britain Without a Crown

Audibe edition, read by Lucy Tregar

Thursday 2 June 2022 marked the beginning of Her Majesty the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations. It was also the day on which I finished listening to Anna Keay's gripping account of the time when Britain was without a crown. That wasn't an act party pooping Republicanism on my part. It just happened that being on holiday gave me time to listen to the final chapters of the author's book when sitting on Tenby beach. 

And a very splendid book it is too, brilliantly read by Lucy Tregar. The period of the Republic and Commonwealth is often thought of as a drab and colourless time. Puritan killjoys draped in Bible black endeavoured to suck the joy out of life with all the relish of a wasp stinging a small child. With them in charge living in these islands was about as much fun as Afghanistan  under the Taliban. 

Well no. Those old Puritans certainly took life seriously, but life in the Republic was far from dull. Radical political ideas were put to the test. Religious diversity and toleration were allowed to thrive. Within limits, of course. Almost recognisably modern newspapers began to roll off the presses. Even the formidably stern Lord Protector of England, Oliver Cromwell was known to throw a decent party. With music and high jinx. Anna Keay depicts a vibrant and restless republic indeed.    

While the subtitle promises an account of Britain Without a Crown, it's mostly about England, with a nod to Scotland an occasional side-glance to Wales, but a good hard look at Ireland. Of course it all went pear shaped on the death of Old Noll. But when Britain had a crown again, Charles II did not attempt to wind the clock back and rule with the high handed pretentions of his father, Charles I. Monarchs would now be of the constitutional, not absolute variety. 

The author devotes two chapters each to nine characters from the period of the Republic. Some were movers and shakers, others more marginal figures. The personalities depicted span the Republican/Royalist divide. The lawyer John Bradford presided at the trial of Charles I and went on to become President of the first Commonwealth Council of State. The staunch Republican became disillusioned when the Commons-led Republic was supplanted by the rule of Cromwell as Lord Protector. While Bradford and his fellow Republicans were willing to execute a king, there were limits when it came to turning the world upside down. Gerrard Winstanley's Digger commune at St George's Hill was brutally crushed. The landowning gentry who dominated England's newfound Republic were not about to turn the nation into common treasury for all. 

How defeated Royalists fared during this period is illustrated by the poignant tale of what happed to Lord Derby and his redoubtable wife, Charlotte Stanley. They were actively involved in trying to overthrow the Commonwealth and suffered the consequences. The L’Estranges of Norfolk kept their heads down, but still faced decimation at the hands of the Republican regime. Had Cromwell and Co acted with greater magnanimity towards their defeated foes, maybe there would not have been such a clamour for Charles II to take the crown when the Lord Protector died. 

The religious ferment of the time the London-based mystic Anna Trapnel. People would hang on her words as the young woman emerged from trace-like states to utter her oracles. Trapnel's prophecies addressed political as well as spiritual matters, so the authorities kept a close eye on her. For a time she was carted off to Cornwall where she could cause less trouble. Little is said of more mainstream Puritan figures such as John Owen or Thomas Goodwin. Baptists barely get a look in. 

Marchamont Nedham was a newspaper man. Initially a Royalist critic of the Republican regime, he was imprisoned in the notorious Newgate Gaol. On escaping he did a reverse ferret and courted favour with high up figures in the Commonwealth. His publication, Mercurius Politicus  became the must-read journal of the period. Nedham was careful to maintain his loyalty to the Republic. He exploited his contacts for insider news. Nedham cultivated an array of foreign correspondents whose reports gave the paper international scope. His columns not only included news and comment on current affairs, but also adverts. Mercurius Politicus did not survive the return of the King. 

William Petty was a man of science. And by that he meant the empirical study of nature, not uncritical acceptance of the theories of the ancient Greeks. On the continent Galileo got himself into trouble with the Vatican for advancing Copernicus' heliocentric account of the solar system. The lack of a centralised religious authority in England created space for men like Petty to follow wherever the evidence of nature led them. Petty made his name by almost miraculously restoring Anne Green to health after she had been hanged for murder. Petty and a colleague were about to perform an autopsy on Green when  they noticed she wasn't quite dead. The scientist put his methodical approach to good use in charting the territory in Ireland that was due to be taken from Irish Catholic landowners and given to Protestants in their place. Cromwell's Irish campaign and the subsequent attempts at land clearance showed the Republic at its vindictive worst. As John Owen commented in a sermon to Parliament, “How is it that Jesus Christ is in Ireland only as a lion staining all his garments with the blood of his enemies, and none to hold him out as a lamb sprinkled with his own blood to his friends?”

The man who dominated the era of the Republic was, of course, Oliver Cromwell. Keay neither paints him as a 'boo-hiss' villain, or a plaster saint. Cromwell was a complex character. His conversion to Christ changed the course of his life. He was too humble to take the crown when it was offered to him. Cromwell sought to be attentive to the voice of God addressing him through providence. He could be magnanimous in victory and was tolerant of religious differences within reason. His main political aim was not to achieve a perfect constitutional settlement, but to secure a godly reformation in the land. His Major Generals worked hand in hand with Puritan pastors to achieve that goal in the face of sullen hostility from the masses. Cromwell was an uxorious husband and doting father to his children, yet he feared accusations of nepotism and was cagey about promoting his sons to high office. On the other hand, the Lord Protector could also be harsh, bad tempered and impulsive. Successive parliaments were called and then dissolved. Papist Ireland was treated most cruelly.  His providentialist view of history meant that the Lord who gave him victory at Naesby and Marston Moor must have approved of his political actions, when that isn't necessarily the case. Prosperity isn't always a sign of the Lord's favour and the lack of it a token of his displeasure, as the Book of Job testifies. 

Disappointingly, the author does not adjudicate on whether it is true that a monkey kidnapped the infant Oliver Cromwell and carried him to the roof of Hitchingbrooke House, only to deposit the future Lord Protector of England safely back in his crib. Be that as it may, when Cromwell died the Republic was doomed to collapse. It didn't help that Oliver appointed his unsuitable son Richard to succeed him, rather than the altogether more capable Henry. Cromwell's old generals George Monk and Thomas Fairfax were not Republican purists. They craved stability and concluded that only restoring the monarchy could rescue the nation from chaos. And so it was that Charles II was crowned king. The Republic was no more. 

Listening to this colorful and captivating account of life in Britain without a crown was a salutary reminder that as an attempt at securing a godly reformation, the Commonwealth era was a spectacular failure. Witness the return of 'Merrie England' with the accession of Charles II to the throne. The Puritans' Calvinist theology should have told them that only inward transformation by the Spirit can make a people godly. Political imposition by the State won't cut it. The early Particular Baptists understood this and argued for a clear separation between church and state. 

 

Given the patriotic fervor that greeted Her Majesty's Platinum Jubilee celebrations it doesn't look as though Britain will be once more without a crown any time soon. Although King Charles III could always mess up spectacularly. Be that as it may, modern Britain would not be what it is today were it not for the Restless Republic depicted here. 

Rorke's Drift: A New Perspective, by Neil Thornton

Fonthill Media, 2016, Kindle edition

Earth! render back from out thy breast

A remnant of our Spartan dead!

Of the three hundred grant but three,

To make a new Thermopylae!

Lord Byron 

Corporal Francis Atwood of the Army Service Corps was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his exploits at the defence of Rorke's Drift. As the Commanding Officer pinned the medal to his chest, he alluded to Leonidas and his band of three hundred Spartan warriors who held the pass at Thermopylae in the face of a 'great barbarian host'. He hoped that as poets had sung of Thermopylae some 2,000 years after the battle, so the 'small but intrepid band of men who fought and died, but held their ground against a savage foe' at the 'glorious defence of Rorke's Drift', would be similarly acclaimed down the ages. 

Zulu

Partly due to the 1964 film, Zulu, the events of 22-23 January 1879 are unlikely to be forgotten anytime soon. My first encounter with this 'new Thermopylae' was by means of that film. There were two cinemas in Newport, South Wales where I grew up, the Odeon and the ABC. For some reason the ABC decided to screen Zulu, which was originally released two years before I was born. I was still a kid when my parents took me to see it in all its big screen glory. In the interval I went to buy an ice cream. The film restarted before I returned to my parents. I was confronted by a the image of a massive Zulu brandishing an assegai at me. I ran back to my mum and dad as quickly as my legs would carry me. Since that startling first encounter I have probably watched Zulu more times than any other film.

I've also done a bit of casual reading about the defence of Rorke's Drift and watched the occasional documentary, so I was aware that while the film was based on an historical event, some dramatic licence was used in retelling the story. The regiment wasn't called the South Wales Borderers at the time, but the 2nd Warwickshire Regiment of Foot. The stirring 'Men of Harlech' sing off between the British soldiers and the Zulus before the final wave of attack was more Hollywood than history. 

There we are. The main aim of this book isn't simply to debunk Zulu, however, but to provider an accurate historical account of the defence of Rorke's Drift. The author, Neil Thornton alludes to Martin Luther's emphasis on sola scriptura, which took him back to the sources of the Christian faith in the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament. In Thornton's case, he determined to review the primary sources, rather than simply repeat the received wisdom found in secondary literature. His account offers fresh insight into the evacuation of the sick from the hospital at the height of the battle

 Rorke's Drift must fall?

The heroic defence of the mission station has been celebrated as one of the most illustrious episodes in British military history. The reason for British intervention in what became South Africa isn't quite so illustrious. A great game was being played by the great European powers to carve up Africa. The author neither condemns or condones British imperial adventurism. The geopolitical context of the iSandlwana massacre and defence of Rorke's Drift is sketched out simply to provide the backdrop to the military campaigns. The men who fought at Rorke's Drift admired the noble bravery of their opponents, but racist overtones are undeniable in the contemporary accounts, which speak of the British soldiers shooting  down countless assegai-wielding N******. Woke hadn't been invented back then. History is a messy business that was forged by less than perfect human beings, often acting from mixed motives, with ordinary squaddies caught up in the thick of it. Whatever we might think of British Imperialism, there are certainly things to admire about the defence of Rorke's Drift.  

 Courage

Around 150 British and other soldiers stationed at the Rorke's Drift faced Zulu forces estimated at 3,000 warriors. Some of the men of 2nd Warwickshire Regiment stationed at the mission station under the command of Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead wished they could have joined their comrades as they invaded Zulu territory in a quest to engage with the enemy. When news filtered through that a column of over 1,300 British soldiers had been cut down at  iSandlwana on 22 January, the reports were greeted with horror and disbelief. Zulu warriors who similarly had been denied their shot at glory on that field of battle were now making their way towards Rorke's Drift for what looked like a straightforward victory. 'You will all be murdered and cut to pieces!' cried a mounted messenger from the scene of slaughter. 

Bromhead's orders were to stand firm. Lieutenant John Chard of the Royal Engineers was supervising the building of ponts across a nearby river. As the superior officer he assumed overall command of the defence of Rorke's Drift. With the benefit of advice from Acting Commissary James Dalton Chard began to organise the defences, setting up a wall of mealie bags and stationing men to defend the hospital. 

Thornton describes the ensuing action in gripping detail from the first shots fired at the enemy by Private Hitch. The vastly outnumbered men of the 2nd Warwickshire kept the Zulu forces at bay by bullet and bayonet. While all showed great courage, some went well beyond the call of duty. Private Hook did sterling work in defending the hospital and helping evacuate the sick. Bromhead, Chard and Dalton fought alongside their soldiers, often in the most dangerous and exposed positions. Men fought on although injured and terribly weary. Defeat seemed inevitable, but the soldiers were determined to stand together and not lose their lives cheaply. 

In Zulu, the Swedish clergyman Otto Witt is portrayed as a drunk and a coward. In real life, Witt fled the scene before battle commenced to look after his family at nearby Msinga. The mission station chaplain, Reverend George Smith remained at Rorke's Drift, however. He did his bit too, making sure the men were supplied with cartridges, which earned him the nickname 'Ammunition Smith'. The chaplain moved among the soldiers offering words of rebuke and encouragement, 'Don't swear men, don't swear, but shoot them boys, shoot them!'. 

The Victoria Crosses and Distinguished Conduct Medals detailed in chapter 7 were well deserved, 

Leadership

Bromhead, Chard and Dalton showed themselves hugely capable and courageous leaders at the defence of Rorke's Drift. They thought and acted quickly to shore up the mission station's defences. At Chard's instructions a final redoubt was constructed out of mealie bags and biscuit boxes. Blind spots were covered. Bromhead led small detachments of men to reinforce the line where the battle was at it fiercest. There was no petty rivalry between the two Lieutenants. After the siege was lifted, Bromhead visited his wounded men and ensured they received the best possible treatment. After the action some higher up officers held a low opinion of Bromhead and Chard. Despite their outstanding leadership at the defence of Rorke's Drift, they were deemed to be rather ordinary men. Thrusting, ambitious types unfairly looked down on them. True leadership isn't flashy. Competence, courage and the ability to inspire confidence when it counts are the thing. 

Tragedy

Chapter 7 not only details the VCs and DCMs awarded to the men who fought at Rorke's Drift, it also shows what became of the heroes of that battle in later life. While some lived to reach a good old age, others died before their time. Some of disease, others in destitution, One man took his own life, the balance of his mind disturbed. It struck me as particularly tragic that men who had fought so hard to live should then die in such miserable ways, Ecclesiastes 9:11. 

Thornton provides a well-researched and compelling account of the action. The book loses a bit if steam after chapter 6, Salvation, where the mission station is relieved and the siege lifted. Unlike King Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans, the majority of the defenders of Rorke's Drift thankfully lived to tell the tale. There is a fair bit if repetition in chapter 7, Gallantry Recipients, which stricter editing could have avoided. Chapter 8 and a number of appendices detail the thinking behind the author's proposed two stage evacuation of the hospital. 

Highly recommended for anyone who wants to get at the truth behind Zulu. If only Richard Burton was around to narrate a version of the book for Audible. 

Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind by Tom Holland

Little Brown, 2019, 594pp

When Paul arrived in Corinth sometime in the early 50s AD, the apostle was aware of the intellectual pretensions of that great city. The rock stars of the day were not musicians, but orators. Public speakers could command a handsome fee for their highfalutin disquisitions on aspects of philosophy.  'Greeks seek wisdom' (1 Corinthians 1:22). Paul's approach was very different. "And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." (1 Corinthians 2:1-2). The apostle's message was scandalous to the Jewish inhabitants of the city and utter folly to the cultured Greeks. Everyone knew that there was nothing more shameful and degrading than crucifixion. The idea that a crucified man was the Son of God and Saviour of the world was utter nonsense. Yet some believed, and a church was gathered in Corinth. The churches Paul planted and the letters he wrote to them changed the course of history.  

Dominion is the story of how this message of "Jesus Christ and him crucified" had a transforming effect on Western culture. As a boy Holland was fascinated by ancient Greek and Roman history. In their overweening power and brutality heroes of that age seemed more like terrifying dinosaurs than mere men. Holland went on to author several bestselling books on the period,  Rubicon,  Persian Fire, and Dynasty  But as he wrote these histories the writer found himself strangely repelled by by the enormities of the great men of Greece and Rome. The Spartans despised weakness and would expose sickly babies. Julius Caesar slaughtered a million Gauls and enslaved a million more to get a name for himself and was duly acclaimed as a hero of Rome. We think, 'not so nice'. 

It dawned on the writer that he had viewed ancient Greece and Rome through Christian spectacles, or at lest through lenses that had been ground into shape by two millennia of Christian history. The Christian faith inverted the values of antiquity. Suffering not slaughtering was heroic, weakness was strength, shame was glory. For at the heart of the Christian faith was 'Jesus Christ and him crucified', the belief that the Son of God took the form of a slave and died for the sins of the world. The cross, which had been a brutal token of Roman power was transformed into a symbol of redemptive love. For Christians this Jesus, risen and ascended, not Caesar was was world's true Lord. Those who suffered with him would also share his glory. This world-upending message brought down the lofty from their thrones and exalted the lowly.

Dominion is not a work of theology. Neither is it a conventional church history. Rather, Holland has sought to identify ways in which the Christian faith reconfigured what he calls 'the Western Mind'. Fittingly enough, his account is structured to reflect the Bible's own numeric symbolism, where the numbers three and seven are of special importance. The work is divided into three main parts, Antiquity, Christendom and Modernitas, each part having seven chapters, which, in turn have three sections a piece. The chapters begin with a vignette that sets up the theme about to be explored. While Holland is an admirer of the Christian faith, he doesn't shy away from depicting occasions when believers failed to live up to their best principles. Rightly so. Reading his previous books I'd always enjoyed the author's sweeping, cinematic style and eye for telling (usually gory) detail. I sometimes wondered what it might be like if he turned his hand to Christian history; the origins of the faith and its impact on the world. Well, here goes. 

The gospel

In setting out the key elements of the Christian faith Holland doesn't begin with the Gospel accounts, but the writings of the apostle Paul. His letters, were, after all the earliest New Testament documents. For the apostle the crucifixion of Jesus was not an embarrassment to be hushed up, but the fact that he placed literally at the crux of his teaching, 'the Son of God loved me and gave himself for me' (Galatians 2:20). This was deeply personal, but also of universal significance. As a Jew who was steeped in Old Testament Scriptures, Paul believed that all human beings were made in the image of God. As a Christian he taught that Jesus had died for people of all nations. Through Jesus the God of Israel would become the God of all peoples and all peoples would become one in Christ, (Galatians 3:28).

The teaching of Paul's New Testament letters sent seismic shocks rippling around the world and down the centuries to this present day. Paul explained that the old covenant in which the Ten Commandments were engraved on tablets of stone had gone. Jesus had ushered in a new covenant in which the law was written on the hearts of believers by the Spirit, 2 Corinthians 3:3. Even non-Christians had the 'works of the law' written on their hearts, giving them a sense of right and wrong, Romans 2:14. Paul helped develop the idea of the conscience as an inbuilt moral arbiter, Romans 2:15. Unlike in Islam Christian's didn't demand a direct divine command for every rule and regulation in society. Man-made rules based on 'the light of nature' would suffice. This helped to pave the way for Church lawyers to develop the concept of natural law and human rights in the Medieval period. Which, in turn helped to pave the way for Western secular states, subject to the rule of human law.

Freedom for the captives 

If all human beings are made in the image of God, each with unique dignity and value and 'in Christ there is neither slave nor free' (Galatians 3:28), that makes the institution of slavery highly problematic. Yet slavery was regarded as a normal part of life in ancient times. It was rife in Greece and Rome. The Church Father Gregory of Nyssa preached against slavery in the strongest terms.  But it wasn't until the 18th century that Christians more widely began to grasp that slavery was an intolerable evil that had to be stamped out.  Did not Christ die the death of a common slave to redeem us from slavery to sin? Quakers and Evangelicals threw themselves into the campaign for the abolition of slavery, championed by William Wilberforce. 

Protestant England persuaded Catholic France to follow suit, arguing not so much from biblical principles as did the Evangelicals, but by appealing to the Roman Catholic idea of 'human rights'. This universalising tendency was extended further as British imperialists sought to pressurise Islamic countries to abolish slavery, this time appealing (with little basis) to Muslim texts. And so the idea of culture-transcending universal human rights, beloved of liberals and neo-conservatives alike was born.

Husbands love your wives 

A Roman nobleman felt himself entitled to have sex with any socially inferior woman (man or child) he pleased. Repeated rape and sexual assault was the lot of female slaves. Christians taught that women as well as men were created in the image of God and that women should therefore be treated with dignity and respect. Men and women were of equal spiritual standing in Christ, for in him there was 'neither male or female' (Galatians 3:28). Men were not to impose themselves on women, but restrain their sexual urges. Sex should only be enjoyed within the confines of marriage. Marriage between a man and woman was intended to be a picture of Christ's love for his bride, the church, Ephesians 5:22-33.

Following on from this, the Puritans of the 17th century insisted that men treat women with the utmost propriety. They took delight in the loving intimacy of marriage, but frowned on sex outside of that context. Christians held family life in high honour and regarded having and bringing up children  to be a noble calling. Weakly infants were to be cherished and cared for, not exposed and left to die. The Medieval noblewoman Elizabeth of Hungary devoted herself to rescuing abandoned babies. Apart from the value attached to women by the Christian faith it is unlikely that the struggle for women's rights would ever have got off the ground.

Reform 

The abolition of slavery and the better treatment of women are but two examples of Christians attempting to reorder the world in line with their faith. Throughout Christian history the church has been swept by reformatio movements, the aim of which was to purify the church of corruption and turn the world upside down. Pope Gregory VII was concerned that the church had come too much under the sway of earthly rulers. He asserted the spiritual power of the church over and against the secular realm. Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV made the mistake of offending Gregory, who promptly excommunicated him, thus absolving the Emperor's subjects of their loyalty. Henry had to head across the Alps to Canossa, groveling for the pope's forgiveness.

Separation between the religious and the secular can be traced back to Augustine. When the Roman Empire fell, people worried that the kingdom of God would fall with it. This prompted Augustine to write The City of God, in which he distinguished between the shifting world of the secularia, of which earthly empires were a part, and religio, devotion to God of which the church was an expression. The separation of church and state in modern democratic societies is a development of this deeply Christian way of viewing the world.

The Reformation was one of the most convulsive reformatio episodes. In this instance, rather than the papacy reforming abuses in the church, the pope himself was charged with presiding over a corrupt and ungodly system. Famously Martin Luther refused to back down at the Diet of Worms, his conscience was bound by the word of God and he would accept no other authority. The church had to be reformed according to the teaching of Scripture. Romish superstitions; indulgences, relics and masses had to go. Paul's gospel of salvation by faith alone in Christ alone was brought to light and proclaimed afresh to the people. The religious life of devotion to God was not now the preserve of priests, monks and nuns. All the Lord's people were priests and were called to serve God faithfully in their daily callings. This had the unintended effect of privitising faith as a purely spiritual matter, leaving little room for religious expression in the secular realm. It also enabled English Protestant empire builders to make a distinction between the Hindu 'religion' of India and disagreeable cultural practices, like widow burning.

Enlightenment 

Drawing upon the Reformation teaching on the witness of the Spirit to the truth of the Bible, Evangelicals in the 18th century would speak of the enlightenment of the Spirit that gave them fresh insight into Scripture. This enlightenment had a transforming effect on their personal lives and led to attempts at reforming society, the abolition of slavery being one example. A line can be traced from Medieval reform movements, to the Reformation, to the Evangelical Revival. But these were attempts to reshape the church and the world in line with the Christian faith. 

In the 18th century others proclaimed a new age of Enlightenment, not because they understood the Bible in a new way, but because they rejected it in favour of science and reason. The object of their reforming zeal was an overmighty church that had to be cut down to size so that people could be set free from oppression and religious superstition. As Holland points out, the irony was that Enlightenment rationalists had bought into the Christian idea of pulling the lofty from their thrones and exalting the lowly. They took that a little too literally in Revolutionary France. Similarly, today's woke lefties with their hierarchy of oppressed victims are, consciously or not, drawing upon a faith that has Jesus 'crucified in weakness' at its heart.

Post-Christianity 

Dominion is a meditation on the transformative effects of Christianity on Western culture. But it also exposes the dangers inherent in 'cultural Christianity', where the moral imperatives of the faith are uncoupled from the theological indicatives of the gospel of Christ. You end up with a selective appropriation of Christian morality that is devoid of spiritual power. The result both for the church and wider society is often disastrous. Holland gives the example of Elizabeth of Hungary in the Middle Ages, who submitted to horrific abuse at the hands of churchman 'Master Conrad' in an attempt to save her soul. Luther would have told her to trust in Christ. Witness also the 'Great Terror' of the French Revolution. Unwittingly #MeToo feminists are busily demanding a return to the old Puritan emphasis on respect for women and male self-restraint. The Puritans, however, would have deprecated woke identity politics with its virtue signalling and self-righteous denunciation of opponents. The old Puritans were too conscious of their own sins and too aware of their need of God's grace for that.

More troubling even than 'cultural Christianity' is 'post-Christianity'. Frenchman Marquis de Sade and German Frederich Nietzsche both despised the Christian faith with its bias towards the weak and downtrodden. They favoured the stance of the ancient Greeks and Romans, 'let the weak be crushed and the strong dominate'. Nietzsche pronounced, 'God is dead'. In his place was the 'will to power' that brooked no opposition from Christian scruples. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution put the accent on the 'survival of the fittest' in the natural world. Eugenicists applied the same insight to the human race. Nazi Germany put these 'post-Christian' ideas into practice. The disabled and people regarded as morally degenerate were marked out for elimination to preserve the purity of the Aryan race. Millions of Jews were consigned to the gas chambers. Against this backdrop J. R. R. Tolkien wrote his Lord of the Rings as a warning against man's urge to seek power at all costs, 'One ring to rule them all and in the darkness bind them'.

The audacity of the cross 

Holland's cinematic sweep of Christian history is full of interest as he zooms in on key characters in the unfolding drama and zooms out again to reveal big themes that recur throughout the book. The cast includes Paul, Augustine, Gregory VII, Martin Luther and Martin Luther King, John Calvin and John Lennon. Paul McCartney may have dismissed Christianity as 'goody-goody' stuff, but in singing, 'All You Need Is Love', The Beatles betrayed the their Christian influences. No other faith tells us "God is love", "God shows his love for us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us", and "love is the fulfilling of the law" (1 John 4:8, Romans 5:8, 13:10).

The historian concludes his brilliantly written account on a personal note. He confesses to having a rather fluctuating Christian faith, with perhaps one breakthrough moment. When making a film on Islamic State, Holland was close to an area where the Islamists had crucified their enemies, much as did the Romans. The cross in that context was an instrument of terror, the threat of which cowed people into submission. It was totally devoid of any Christian connotations as a symbol of self-giving love and forgiveness. That seemed to speak to Holland in a deep way, but I sense he's not quite there yet in terms of personal faith in Christ.

As the writer himself says, "To be a Christian is to believe that God became man, and suffered a death as terrible as any mortal has ever suffered. This is why the cross, that ancient instrument of torture, remains what it always has been: the fitting symbol of the Christian revolution. It is the audacity of it - the audacity of finding in a twisted and defeated corpse the glory of the creator of the universe - that serves to explain, more surely than anything else, the sheer strangeness of Christianity, and of the civilisation to which it gave birth'. (p. 524). Which takes us back to the apostle Paul and his determination to make the cross the heart of his message, "I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." 

Dominion 

Jesus called his followers to be the 'salt of the earth' and the 'light of the world'. By their words and actions believers are meant to make a difference. But Christianity is not ultimately a project of cultural transformation. Its scriptures herald a new Dominion, the kingdom of God. This dominion is different to the kingdoms of this world. It advances not by military or political power, but by the preaching of the cross in the power of God's Spirit. The American edition of Holland's work has on its cover Salvador Dali's painting, Christ the King. It depicts Jesus ruling the world from his cross. His is a kingdom in which the King was crucified in weakness, but now lives by the power of God. Cultural Christianity admires the faith for its benefits, often picking and choosing the bits it likes, while rejecting the rest. But the kingdom of God is not to be selectively admired from outside, but entered as a person is transformed on the inside. As Jesus told the Pharisee Nicodemus as recorded in the Gospel of John, "Unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3:3).

Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind by Tom Holland [mini review]

As a child the historian Tom Holland was fascinated by the ancient Romans and Greeks. Holland, who hails from Wiltshire, went on to author several bestselling books on Roman and Greek history, Rubicon, Persian Fire and Dynasty. But the more he got into the ancient world, the more morally repellent he found the ‘heroes’ of that age. It was said that Julius Caesar slaughtered a million Gauls and forced another million into slavery. Rather condemning Caesar as a genocidal war criminal, the citizens of Rome hailed him as a mighty leader whose exploits redounded to the glory of the Empire.

Holland became increasingly aware that his perspective on life was vastly different to that of the old Romans and Greeks. He realised that his idea of what’s right and wrong had been formed by a culture that had been deeply influenced by the Christian faith. In his most recent book Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind, Holland shows how our commonly accepted moral values were shaped by Christian teachings. We take it as self-evident that all people should be treated with dignity and respect. But that belief didn’t come from nowhere.

The Bible insists that all human beings are made in the image of God and are deserving of love and care from womb to tomb. The value of human life is underlined by the belief that in Jesus our Creator became one of us. He came to suffer and die on the cross that we might be forgiven and be put right with God. “It is the audacity of it”, writes Holland, “the audacity of finding in a twisted and defeated corpse the glory of the creator of the universe”.

We went to hear the author give a talk on Dominion towards the end of last year and I’ve just finished reading the book. It’s a brilliantly written account of the impact of the Christian faith on Western culture and values, covering everything from the Bible to The Beatles, Monasteries to #MeToo. Holland is not a personal believer in Jesus Christ. He calls himself a ‘cultural Christian’. But he recognises that the ‘molten heart’ of the Christian revolution is the cross of Jesus. The message of the cross turned the world upside down, exalting the lowly and humbling the mighty.

For the Romans, crucifixion was a symbol of brute power, ‘this is what you get if you mess with us’.  Since Jesus the cross has an altogether different message, ‘God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’ The love of God that streams from the cross changed the course of history and is still transforming lives today.

*Write-up for local publications: White Horse News, Trinity Magazine and News & Views. A full review can now be found here. 

Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar by Tom Holland

Abacus, 2016, 512pp 

More summer holiday reading. Still on the theme of our Rome/Venice half term break.

Ever read the second half of Romans 1 and thought, 'Hey, Paul, that's laying it on a bit strong'? I mean, all that stuff about idolatry, sexual immorality, hatred, murder and the like. Surely those old Romans weren't that bad? Worse, actually. The apostle was sparing his readers' blushes. Holland doesn't.

In his latest historical blockbuster the historian tells the tale of the House of Caesar. Put simply, they weren't very nice people. What Senneca said regarding the worst of them, Caligula, might well be applied to the rest in some measure, 'Nature produced him...to demonstrate just how far unlimited vice can go when combined with unlimited power.'

Holland unfolds the story of Augustus' dynasty with his customary flair for writing a well researched historical account that is borne along by a surging narrative flow. Full of detail and drama.

By his victory at the decisive battle of Philippi, Gaius Octavius brought an end to the civil wars that followed the assassination of Julius Caesar. He then  claimed for himself the  ultimate prize in Rome. While Augustus (as Gaius became) paid lip service to the traditions of the Republic, he accrued to himself the powers of an absolute monarch. Anyone who stood in his way was eliminated. Plotters and would-be rivals were ruthlessly dispatched. Those who succeeded him; Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero followed suit.

You think the jostling for position among leading Tories after the Brexit vote was sharp elbowed; Gove and Johnson and all that? Playground fisticuffs compared with the deadly goings on in the House of Caesar.

Holland's work could be read as a meditation on human nature. An extended commentary on the saying, 'Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.' That certainly rings true for the Caesars. Not even their nearest and dearest were spared. Brothers had their sisters murdered, uncles their nephews and nieces. In the case of Nero, he had his own mother bumped off and in a fit of temper battered his pregnant wife, Poppaea to death. To say nothing of how they treated their enemies.

Ovid, for ever wanting to push the boundaries of taste and decency said, 'We always want what we're not allowed'. A profound commentary on human nature. Augustus passed a law against adultery, and yet demanded that his sexual appetites be sated by a steady supply of nubile young women. Tiberius posed as an upstanding embodiment of old Roman virtue, yet spent his last days living out his depraved sexual fantasies. Caligula openly reveled in excess of all kinds. Nero tried to replace the wife he murdered with a male eunuch.

Ovid was right. In his Letter to the Romans Paul wrote, "Now the law came in to increase the trespass" (Romans 5:20). The divine 'thou shalt not' provokes the response 'why shouldn't I?' Paul testified to own experience of this, "Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet.'” (Romans 7:7).

But hang on a minute. Augustus and co didn't exactly have the Ten Commandments inscribed on their villa walls. How can they be said to be deliberately transgressing the law? A clue may be found in Ovid's statement cited above. His 'allowed' suggests moral force. Paul in Romans 1:18-32 argues that pagans knew right from wrong, and yet deliberately chose what was wrong; idols over God, unrighteousness over righteousness, what was unnatural over the natural etc.

The apostle elaborates in Romans 2:12-16. God had 'by nature' written the law on the hearts of Gentiles and their consciences bore witness to that law, accusing or excusing them accordingly. The problem wasn't that Ovid and Caligula didn't know any better when it came to immoral conduct. Rather, the very prohibitions of the 'light of nature' provoked them to want what they were not allowed. That is part and parcel of the perversity of human sinfulness. The history of the House of Caesar, indeed all human history bears witness to that sad fact.

That is why placing too much power into the hands of one person is always a recipe for disaster. Political systems need checks and balances in order to rein in the worst excesses of human nature. The period of the Roman Republic was hardly a Golden Age of love and peace, but at least the system that Augustine and his line supplanted had some checks and balances.

Dynasty is great background reading for the New Testament period. Holland references Jesus and his teaching and describes the persecution of Christians under Nero. The text is sprinkled with Bible references. Spookily, Holland brings his account to a conclusion with a nod to Revelations 17, which sprung to mind when reading Peter Ackroyd's Venice.

This is not a book for the faint hearted. Sometimes you feel like you are wading through blood and guts. Holland doesn't flinch at detailing the seamier side of Roman life either. A kind of 'Horrible History' for grown-ups, 'The Dreadful Dynasty'?

What made Augustus and his line so dreadful was the rampant power of human sinfulness let loose. The Caesars styled themselves as lords of their people and sons of a god. They attained their elevated status by ruthlessly grasping for power and keeping hold of it at all costs. Paul visited Philippi, site of the famous battle and planted a church there. Roman soldiers were given the right to settle in the city, which became a colony of Rome. Members of the church were both citizens of Rome and citizens of heaven. As citizens of heaven they acknowledged another Son of God, Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, Philippians 3:20-21. Jesus showed an altogether different attitude to power and prestige to that of the Caesars, Phil 2:5-11. He who was in the form of God took the form of a slave to die for his people. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place of honour in the universe.

The apostle wrote to the believers in Philippi that they were to, 'Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus'. They were to eschew selfish ambition and seek honour through humility and service, Philippians 2:3-4. For the Caesars, especially Caligula and Nero, overweening pride came before a terrible fall. The Christian gospel turns the world upside down by teaching that down is the only way up. As Jesus taught, "The meek shall inherit the earth." (Matthew 5:5).

As he wrote his letter to the Romans, Paul sensed the vulnerability of the Christian community under Nero. What chance did they have against the brutal princeps of Rome? Yet he assured them they they were held in the grip of something more powerful than the spite of the Emperor. Nero might label them as enemies of mankind and have them thrown to the lions, doused in pitch and set alight, but nothing would be able to "separate them from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:35-39).

The House that Caesar built lies in bloodsoaked ruins. Its legions have long perished. Its monstrous deeds stand condemned by history. The kingdom of the wolf is no more. The Lamb is in the midst of the throne. 

Ten Cities that made an Empire by Tristram Hunt

Ten Cities that made an Empire, 

Tristram Hunt, Allen Lane, 514pp, £25.00 

These days Tristram Hunt is probably best known as Labour's Shadow Secretary of State for Education. He considered putting himself forward for the Labour leadership election, but was unable to garner enough support from fellow MPs. Of the 'Blairite' right, he has thrown his support behind Liz Kendall. Who knows whether Labour will in fact opt for the leftist Jeremy Corbyn, and in all likelihood consign itself to electoral oblivion? As an historian Hunt knows full well that no institution is bound to last for ever. The impregnable seeming British Empire had its rise and fall. It remains to be seen whether the British Labour Party has a future, or will soon be consigned to history. If the worst comes to the worst politically, at least Hunt will be able to return to his old day job, so it's just as well that he continues to publish historical works. And very good ones at that.  

Horace Walpole affected amazement at how in founding world-spanning empire, 'a peaceable, quiet set of tradesfolks' had somehow become 'heirs-apparent of the Romans'. It kind of just happened, who knew how? But, contra Walpole, it took considerable effort, ingenuity and brute force to create, develop and sustain the British Empire. The distinctive feature of Hunt's account of this story is that he shows the effect of empire on ten key cites and explains how those cities in turn helped shape the direction of British imperial expansion. A chapter is devoted each city; Boston, Bridgetown, Dublin, Cape Town, Calcutta, Hong Kong, Bombay, Melbourne, New Delhi and Liverpool.

As the Empire touched on these cities it transformed their buildings and streets and impacted upon both the colonised and colonists. Hunt introduces us to tales of ambitious empire builders, audacious land grabs, rapacious traders and well-meaning social reformers. He guides us though the burgeoning cities of empire, with all their grime and grandeur. The author is not one to moralise, but the less savoury aspects of empire are laid bare, the barbarity of the slave trade, the casual racism endemic in British Raj, Hong Kong and the Opium Wars and so on. While the empire may have bestowed benefits on the lands it colonised, there was always a price to pay. A salutary reminder that 'British Values' haven't always been all love and light.  

The British Empire was touted as the one on which the sun never set. But the sun did eventually come down on the Empire and when it did, that had just as much an effect on Liverpool as an imperial port, as it did New Delhi. But Liverpool, which fell so low during the 1980's as a result of imperial decline is now being transformed once more as a result of massive Chinese investment in its infrastructure. A case of reverse colonisation, perhaps? Payback time for 'borrowing' Hong Kong.

Hunt writes well, packing in a mass of detail, but without leaving the reader feeling overwhelmed by the fast-paced narrative. His city-by-city approach to the story of empire enables him to blend intimacy with the big picture. The work is a reminder of the historic importance of world-shaping cities. In his book, Center Church, Tim Keller notes, "In 1950, New York and London were the only world cities with metro-area populations of over ten million people. Today, however, there are more than twenty such cities — twelve of which achieved that ranking in the last two decades — with many more to come." [Keller, Timothy; Keller, Timothy (2012-09-04). Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City (Kindle Locations 4259-4260). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. The emergence of global cities]. 

Keller reminds us that ministry to these global city ministry is of strategic importance for world mission. "If Christians want to reach the unreached, we must go to the cities. To reach the rising generations, we must go to the cities. To have any impact for Christ on the creation of culture, we must go to the cities. To serve the poor, we must go to the cities." [Keller, Timothy; Keller, Timothy (2012-09-04). Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City (Kindle Locations 4514-4516). Zondervan. Kindle Edition]. The mission of the Church is not neo-imperial adventurism, however, but that of proclaiming the world-changing good news of Jesus to the people of all nations.  

Pride of man and earthly glory,
Sword and crown betray His trust;
What with care and toil He buildeth,
Tower and temple fall to dust.
But God’s power, hour by hour,
Is my temple and my tower.

*I am grateful to the publishers for sending me a complementary review copy. 

God's Philosophers by James Hannam

God's Philosophers: 

How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science,

by James Hannam, Icon Books, 2009, Kindle edition, £4.79. 

In an article entitled Even Christianity is not really Christian in Saturday's edition of The Times, A. C. Grayling weighed in to the 'Christian Nation' debate sparked by David Cameron's sudden conversion to the virtues State-sponsored evangelism. It's one of those 'What has Christianity done for us?' pieces. While writing with an air of grave expertise, Grayling's use of the historical evidence is, in fact as selective as a bag of good of Woolies' Pick & Mix. He trots out the tired old cliché that the Early and Medieval Church suppressed learning and inquiry with the effect that scientific progress was retarded and human ingenuity stifled. Grayling alleges that Christianity banned study of Greek and Roman philosophy, and so plunged Europe into a Dark Age that only ended with with the rediscovery of the classical wisdom at the Enlightenment. The writer opined, "There was little learning worth the name in the first seven centuries of Christian dominance because it had suppressed inquiry". 

However, as Hannam shows in God's Philosophers, if anything, the Medieval world wasn't held back by its ignorance of Antiquity, but by too much deference for the philosophers of old. It was only when Medieval medics began to question Galen's four humours-based quackery that medicine began make progress. Early natural philosophers tended to accept Aristotle's ideas without question, not realising that many of them were incorrect. Aristotle argued that that a heavier weight will fall faster than a lighter one. That was empirically disproven by John Philoponus in the sixth century. Even then, some chose to believe Aristotle rather than the empirical evidence. Early Merton Calculator Thomas Brawardine (c.1290-1349), propounded a theoretical basis for what Philiponus had discovered experimentally, thus blowing Aristotle's theory out of the water. 

In an odd section Grayling argues that because words such as medicine, technology and telescope are derived from Greek and Latin that the ideas and inventions they describe also derive from that culture. But since when had etymology been a sound guide to the origin of concepts? Anachronistic, or what? The telescope was originally invented by Hans Lipperhey of Holland (d.1619) and further refined by Galileo. But Lipperhey and Galileo would have got nowhere had not spectacles been invented in Venice in the 1300's. As Hannam points out,

the people of medieval Europe invented spectacles, the mechanical clock, the windmill and the blast furnace by themselves. Lenses and cameras, almost all kinds of machinery and the industrial revolution itself all owe their origins to the forgotten inventors of the Middle Ages. Just because we don’t know their names, this does not mean that we should not recognise their achievements. (Hannam, James (2009-08-07). God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science (p. 5). Icon Books. Kindle Edition.)

Grayling of course mentions the case of Galileo, claiming that the Church shut him up for championing the heliocentric view of the universe propounded by Copernicus as contrary to Scripture. Hannam offers a fair and nuanced account of the trial of the great man at the hands of the Inquisition. Contrary to Grayling's article it was not so much the teaching of the Bible that was at stake, as the Roman Catholic Church's deference for the Greek philosopher Ptolemy's vision of an earth-centred universe. Once more, it is a reminder that while classical civilisation had much to offer in terms of Pythagoras' mathematical theories and so on, the ideas of Greece and Rome could sometimes be an impediment rather than a stimulus to the advance of scientific understanding. 

Now, Hannam doesn't pretend that what used to be called the Dark Age was in fact a glittering Golden Age. The Church wasn't always an ally of progress. Medieval natural philosophers were often as interested in magic and astrology as exploring the wonders of nature. But the Christian belief that God created an orderly universe encouraged natural philosophers to explore and understand the world in which they lived. In doing so they laid the foundations of modern scientific inquiry. Theology was a friend rather than an enemy of natural philosophy. As Hannam writes,

However, the most significant contribution of the natural philosophers of the Middle Ages was to make modern science even conceivable. They made science safe in a Christian context, showed how it could be useful and constructed a worldview where it made sense. Their central belief that nature was created by God and so worthy of their attention was one that Galileo wholeheartedly endorsed. Without that awareness, modern science would simply not have happened. (Hannam, James (2009-08-07). God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science (p. 336). Icon Books. Kindle Edition). 

Grayling doesn't seem to appreciate that point. In fact his understanding of Christian theology is as lamentable as his grasp of history. He alleges that Paul taught that the faithful dead will "see no corruption", but will sleep in their graves until the last trump and the resurrection of the dead. Quite the contrary. Paul believed that Christ uniquely saw no corruption while he lay in the tomb prior to his resurrection (Acts 13:35-37). But of the believer the apostle wrote, "the body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption" (1 Corinthians 15:42). 

Also, Grayling is wrong to suggest that early Christians borrowed the idea of an immortal soul from Plato as a way of getting around the inconvenient truth that the bodies of believers did in fact return to dust in their graves. In the New Testament the language of immortality is reserved for the resurrection body, 1 Corinthians 15:53-54). That is about as un-Greek as you can get. Plato believed that that physical matter was evil and the body a prison house for the soul, of which it is well rid at death. The idea of bodily resurrection made no sense at all in the world of Greek philosophy. Note the reception that Paul received when speaking to intellectuals at Athens, Acts 17:31-32. The resurrection of the body makes perfect sense However, in the Judeo-Christian worldview, where God created the spiritual and material realms and declared them very good. Jesus came not simply to 'save our souls', but to rescue complete human beings from sin and its deadly effects. In Christian teaching eternal life means not simply the soul of the believer going to heaven when they die, but the resurrection of the body to immortal glory at the return of Christ.

Having said all that, I agree with Grayling that Britain today is not a Christian country. David Cameron was wrong to suggest that it is (see here). But it is foolish to deny that the Christian faith has had a positive impact on world history. As David Bentley Hart has shown in his Atheist Delusions, the Classical world wasn't quite as full of light, love and virtue as Grayling suggests. Many of our most cherished values such as the unique dignity and personhood of every human being were Christian in their origin, not pagan. Moreover, Hannam's God's Philosophers decisively puts the lie to Grayling's claim that, "There was little learning worth the name in the first seven centuries of Christian dominance because it had suppressed inquiry". Hardly. 

Millennium by Tom Holland

Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom,

 by Tom Holland, 2008, Abacus, 476pp

Tom Holland's Millennium was my 'big read' for the summer hols. I managed to stow the weighty tome in my EasyJet hand baggage without exceeding the airline's limits. Most of the book was read airport departure lounges or on one or another of the Algarve's wonderful beaches between dips in the sea to cool off after baking in the heat. 

Holland is an acknowledged master of narrative history and his skills were well deployed in telling the story of what happened in the period that spans a hundred years either side of 1000 A.D. He traces the development of Christendom from the conversion of Constantine in 312 to the capture of Jerusalem in the First Crusade in 1099.  Along the way he describes the repeated attempts on the part of rulers from East and West to recreate the glories of the old Roman Empire, and the rise of the papacy as the dominant force in Christendom. Holland introduces his readers to some of the big players of the time including Charlemagne, Rollo the bloodthirsty Viking 'convert' to Christianity, Fulk Nerra, the Godfatherish Count of Anjou, an assortment of Ottos and Henrys. Then there's 1066 and all that. All the familiar elements of Medieval history are here. Want to know how knights first won their spurs? Why power hungry potentates started building castles? Maybe it's blood-spattered battle accounts that you're after? Look no further. 

Now, in the period leading up to the end of the first Millennium, folks in Christendom weren't looking forward to big parties and fireworks displays, all set to a Robbie Williams soundtrack to mark the advent of the year 1000. Rather, it was feared that the dawning of the 1000th anniversary of Christ's birth might mark the end of the world, or at the very least, the coming of the Antichrist. When neither happened, attention was fixed instead on 1033 A.D., the 1000th anniversary of Christ's death and resurrection. Augustine of Hippo (not to mention the Bible) warned believers of the folly of predicting when the End will come, but people will never learn. That apocalyptic visions had such a hold on the Medieval imagination is only one of the ways that makes the so-called Dark Ages seem so different from our own. However, as Holland points out in his preface, we who live at the beginning of the third Millennium are not without our secularised doom laden scenarios, such as the threatened devastation of human life by global warming. 

There is much that could be said in response to reading Holland's work, but what especially struck me was just how spectacularly wrong-headed the was the whole notion of 'Christendom'. It began with the conversion of Constantine, with the Roman Emperor attempting to Christianise his realm. In its origins Christendom was Erastian. Yeah, yeah, that's an anachronism. Thomas Erastus was a sixteenth century man. But it's the Swiss theologian's name that's associated with the view that the church should be a servant of the state. After Constantine successive 'Holy Roman Emperors' meddled in church affairs, appointing bishops, removing popes and so on. Figures such as Charlemagne, the Ottos and the Henrys believed that they had been specially  anointed as priestly-kings to defend Christendom and rightly order the church in their domains. But over time the papacy developed big ideas of its own. Gregory VII claimed that the Bishop of Rome had absolute power not only over the church, but also the right to remove emperors'should the need arise. And when it did, Henry IV had little option but to grovel before him a Canossa.

In the preface, Holland argues that Canossa was a watershed moment in history, when church and state first began to divide into distinct realms in the West. The thought is not developed later in the book and I'm not sure that it can be justified by the evidence. If anything Canossa represented at attempt by the church control the world of politics. But having the pope lord it over the emperor was as bad as the church being treated as the plaything of earthly potentates. Church and state are two distinct institutions, ordained by God for two very different ends. The two should not be confused or conglomerated. The power of the state is political and may legitimately include the use of force to uphold the law and in defence of the realm. The power of the church is solely evangelical. State power must not be used to advance the mission of the church. Her weaponry is not carnal but spiritual, a lesson that the Medieval Church tended to forget. And so to the crusades, an account of the first of which brings this book to an end. 

Not even the Magisterial Reformers were clear on this point, hence their title, meaning that they were willing to utilise the power of the Magistrate to further and defend the cause of Reformation. English Separatists such as John Greenwood and Henry Barrowe had a better insight into the New Testament's teaching on the relationship between church and state. Rather than waiting for the Elizabethan state to reform the church Erastian-style, they argued for Reformation Without Tarrying for Anie and paid for their principles with their lives. The church may be called upon to die for it's beliefs, but she should never be prepared to kill for them, or ask others to do so on her behalf. Christendom with its 'Holy Roman Emperors' bearing their 'sacred lances' into battle and lordly popes preaching up the crusades tragically ignored the words of the Prince of Peace before Pontius Pilate, 'My kingdom is not of this world.' (John 18:36). I'm not saying that the Church of the Middle Ages was totally devoid of gospel light, but as Holland's narrative of the period demonstrates, there was far too much of 'this world' and far too little of Christ in Christendom.

To conclude, Millennium is an absorbing and instructive read. But the book also served another vital purpose when we were on holiday. I used it to squish the pesky mosquito that had been greedily gorging itself on my blood during the night, leaving me covered in nasty bites. Kind of a fitting use for a book oozing with the guts and gore of ancient battles.

Highly recommended. Mosquitoes beware.