Most of us probably see Christian doctrine as a monolithic set of ideas that emerged within a few decades of the purported death of Jesus. “Common wisdom” also maintains that Christianity transformed the world for the better, spreading a message of tolerance and love soon after the Roman emperor Constantine began promoting the new religion early in the fourth century A.D. Both of these views are exposed as myths in Catherine Nixey‘s new book Heretic: Jesus Christ and the Other Sons of God (2024; the book appears to be called Heresy in the UK).
This is Nixey’s second book, following the successful The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World, a bestseller that was translated into quite a few languages. Like Darkening Age, which I haven’t yet read, this one dispels myths about Christianity. Wikipedia describes The Darkening Age‘s thesis this way:
In the book, Nixey argues that early Christians deliberately destroyed classical Greek and Roman cultures and contributed to the loss of classical knowledge
Heretic has had mixed reviews, both glowing ones (e.g., here, here, and here), and critical ones (e.g., here and here). The critical reviews often argue that what Nixey says is well known, so she’s simply reiterating the accepted history of early Christianity while pretending she’s forged a new thesis. That doesn’t bother me too much, as I was unfamiliar with this history and thought it eye-opening regardless of its novelty. I found Andrew Copson’s review pretty fair; here’s the ending (Copson is head of Humanists UK):
In a way the strange thing is how novel the premise of the book might seem to its readers. Classicists have always known that the mediterranean world was full of god-men, miracles, and magic so why should it be shocking to read this now? A lot is down to a conspiracy of silence (Nixey calls it a ‘gentleman’s agreement’) between theologians and classicists or ancient historians is real. I once asked one of my ancient history tutors at university what he thought about the historical Jesus and he scoffed. ‘That’s myth – not history’, was his view. You might as well investigate whether Vespasian rose to the heavens as an eagle. But he never said that in print to my knowledge and certainly not in his lectures. Nixey’s book breaks an important taboo in a well-crafted and eminently readable combination of scholarship and polemic.
The book describes the many competing sects of early Christianity, some of which saw Jesus as either a magician or sorcerer (sometimes with a wand!), or a figure of fun, and followed alternative scriptures that were very different from the canonical texts we know today. In some, God is depicted as of uncertain sex (sometimes suckling Jesus), female, or even as more than one figure. Creation stories differ, and accounts about how Jesus’s mother got pregnant vary wildly.
What happened over time, as Nixey argues, is that Christianity coalesced around the present version, discarding other “noncanonical” gospels for various reasons. She argues further that there’s been a tacit agreement among Christians and theologians to downplay or erase these earlier versions, pretending that the current version of Christianity emerged sui generis as a monolith after Jesus’s death.
Now we already know that earlier gospels existed (Elaine Pagels has written at length about them), so perhaps there’s some justice in the criticism that Nixey is reiterating what’s already known. But for those of us who don’t know the history of Christianity (and that includes most Christians!), it’s worthwhile to discover how the diversity of Christian faiths has been pruned away to its present form.
Nixey’s other thesis is that the idea that earlier faiths of the Romans and others repressed the rise of Christianity is misguided and wrong. In fact, she says, it’s the reverse. Nixey gives many examples of how Christians themselves repressed other faiths, including torturing and killing their adherents and burning their books. And some sects of Christianity repressed others. Far from Christianity coming to the fore because of its message of love, it dominated via repression and the sword. I’m not a historian, so insofar as what Nixey says is true, I was edified, even if she reprised what’s already known.
One of the best aspects of Heretic is Nixey’s lively and informal prose, something unusual in books of this type. She’s an engaging writer, and I’ll give two examples. The first is in a discussion about how early Christians opposed the idea of a spherical Earth, claiming that people would have fallen off the part that was upside down (p. 246):
. . . However, the idea that a spherical earth is somehow ‘pagan’, and its opponents Christian, crops up in several other authors, too. The fourth-century Christian author Lactantius—a man whose intellect and education were rated highly enough that he was appointed as tutor to the son of the emperor Constantine—also considered the idea of a spherical earth to be pagan bunk. In a typically zesty passage, after Lacantius has laid into Socrates (‘ many of his actions are not only undeserving of praise, but also most deserving of censure’) and had a good go at Plato (his arguments are ‘impossible’ and ‘unjust’), Lactantius turns his attention to the idea of a spherical world.
And from the Epilogue (p. 279):
This is a story about how ideas are born, and how they die. It is also a story about how they survive. It is about how ancient stories linger, and divine whispers persist. It is about how religions change and change again, as they travel, and age, and spread into other lands, and other ages. It is about how long memory is, and how short. It is about what was, and what might have been. It is also about what is. And it is about why, when midwinter falls, and cribs are set out, an ox and an ass stand and watch over the baby Jesus in the manger. (p. 279).
The breezy prose does not denote a lack of scholarship: the book is heavily documented and footnoted.
I’d recommend Heretic for its combination of history and fine writing. You can find the Amazon site by clicking on the cover below. (The title, by the way, refers to the way that the dominant form of Christianity prevailed by deeming adherent to other faith as heretics.)
Here’s Nixey in 2018. She was the daughter of a monk and a nun:
Thank you so much for drawing this book to our attention. “The Darkening Age” was an eye-opener for me; although I knew some of the information, I had never seen it put together the way she did. It certainly dispelled any myths that early Christianity was a benevolent, tolerant religion.
Have you ever wondered how easily believers exclaim ‘God is Love’ without any deeper thought? An example of how the difficult bits get chipped away perhaps.
I posted this on Bluesky recently:
I recently went after a pastor at Medium for his “God is love” nonsense. The god of That Book is a psychopath. Didn’t the “Almighty” call for the murder of certain newborns and infants? I’m referring to the passages about the Amalekites. That’s psychopathic behavior in my book.
“Breezy prose” is always welcome for just about any book!
While I’m here, I’d like to leave a plug for the movie “Heretic,” starring Hugh Grant. The ending is a bit much and over the top, but the bulk of the movie is about Hugh Grant raking two young women over the coals about their religious beliefs. The women play missionaries who stop by Grant’s cottage. He welcomes them in and then starts challenging them to think about their beliefs. Grant’s character is really good at this! Great dialogue writing.
And then, without giving anything anyway, the movie turns dark and sinister. No surprise there because the movie is technically a “horror” movie, but any skeptic or atheist will like the movie a lot. And given how atheistic the movie is, I’m surprised that it got made! Anyway, highly recommended, as they say in the movie biz.
I look forward to reading these books, thank you for the tip! I’m puzzled by your statement, early on, “Like Heretic, which I haven’t yet read, this one…” Is that a typo? Your piece reads like a review, especially your conclusions/recommendations, which would sound very hollow if indeed you’ve not read the book.
Yes, a typo. I’ve fixed it, thanks.
Both of Nixey’s books are excellent. While the information contained in Heretic may be common knowledge to scholars of religious beliefs, much of the book’s content was new to me. Whenever a Christian tells me that Christianity is a religion of love and tolerance I just tell them to read Nixey’s two books and get back to me.
Seconding (thirding) the recommendations for both Heresy (aka Heretics) and The Darkening Age.
Seems bizarre to criticise a book aimed at the popular market for saying things that are well known to scholars but little known by the general public. Isn’t that exactly what books like this are supposed to be doing?
See also The Myth of Persecution by Candida Moss.
I would like to see her debate Bart Ehrman, author of Love Thy Stranger. In his book he tries to show that Jesus expanded the circle of those who one should care. Not just family and friends but strangers from distant lands,whether you liked them or not. And that the care should not just be prayer but material goods or efforts that would make a difference, even if they were difficult to carry out. He himself is no longer a Christian but he actively supports causes he believes help those in need. He goes into other areas of Jesus teaching that he thinks were unfortunately changed by early Christians, such as forgiveness vs atonement. He does not whitewash the terrible things done in the name of Christianity.
I suppose Nixey would respond that, well, the “loving Jesus” we know wasn’t pruned away because the message was amiable. There were lots of Jesuses that weren’t so loving, so a debate in this case might be fruitless.
In one of Bart Ehrman’s books (it may have been “Lost Christianities”) he discusses the fact that in the early days of the faith there were multiple views of the nature of Jesus: He was a fully human man who was “adopted” by God; he was fully divine, not human at all; he was a flesh-and-blood man who had a divine spirit enter him; and he was both divine and human (the view that won out). The competing views were retroactively branded “heresies” by the winner. Ehrman calls the view that won “proto-orthodoxy” and points out that it wasn’t the only game in town.
I have not read the book, but plan to do so. Just a point about the idea that Christianity repressed other faiths: It is certainly true about Judaism in the Roman Empire. Prior to Constantine’ official conversion of Rome to Christianity, the Jewish community in Rome was tolerated. It had existed in Rome since before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C. E. Once Constantine converted and made Christianity the official religion of the empire, life became far more difficult for the Jews who began to suffer persecution. And I imagine that that was also the case for the worshipers of the Roman pantheon.
I enjoyed Nixey’s first book and I’m looking forward to Heresy now that it’s in paperback. Your closing line on Nixey’s parentage made me laugh out loud.
“A lot is down to a conspiracy of silence (Nixey calls it a ‘gentleman’s agreement’) between theologians and classicists or ancient historians is real.”
When I was deep into the historicity of Jesus debate, I remember being struck by this, and how science – a discipline of skepticism, observation, and evidence – was so very different from theology.
First principles play absolute zero part in theology – there are only sacrosanct narratives which are bolstered by endless subjective interpretations of rehashed materiel. The last thing one would see in a modern Divinity School today would be real research into Mythicism, and the last thing one would see in a Church would be an expert guest lecturer who would offer real scholarship that would undermine the homilies that parishioners take on faith.
Even to this day, Bart Ehrman – a product of a religious undergrad College and a Divinity School – shows no indication of having even read the peer-reviewed Mythicism literature.
Science does exactly the opposite – experts and specialists are constantly asked to speak to the public, and lay people are hungry to learn, especially when new research topples previous frameworks and Theories.
When I taught at a highly selective university, I was continually amazed by how little our undergraduates knew about the history of Christianity. Most of them thought that early Christians accepted something like their version of Protestantism, and had no idea that there had even been a Reformation.
I hear this frequently Mr. Cransdale and I believe it to be true.
I myself – as a (mixed) Jewish atheist don’t know much about Christianity.
I do, however, know quite a lot about Islam. Amusingly enough, lots of Muslims don’t know much about Islam, and virtually no non-Muslims know about it: I think this is a problem.
From an atheist perspective (I’m assuming with you, just b/c you’re at WEIT)… does it matter if people don’t know the precepts/history of their or other religions?
I think about that a bit.
regards,
D.A.
NYC🗽
That’s interesting. Most of the nonbelievers I know recognize that Christian theology evolved over a long time to get to what we have now. There were those who rejected the idea of the Trinity. Some thought that the god of the Hebrew bible and the god of Jesus were different: the god of the Hebrew bible being wicked and vengeful and the Christian god being kind and loving. How could they be the same god?
Even now there might be radical differences: don’t Jehovah’s Witnesses reject the Trinity? And then there are the Mormons.