First traces of Christ
As the stench of senescent evil blends the White House with the Kremlin, let's revisit the mind of the gentle Jewish prophet from whom Christian theocrats say they receive their moral guidance
This is Who made our minds?, my Thursday essay probing the greatest, cruellest and most beautiful minds of the past 5,000 years, inspired by my book, The Soul: A History of the Human Mind (Penguin 2024).
Next Thursday: Christ the Teacher and Prophet (the 2nd of several essays on Christianity)
ROMAN AQUEDUCTS, baths, walls and roads survived the Roman Empire. Their religion did not. The great English historian Edward Gibbon compressed the triumph of Christianity over the Roman pantheon in one unparalleled sentence:
‘While that great body [the Roman Empire] was invaded by open violence, or undermined by slow decay, a pure and humble religion gently insinuated itself into the minds of men, grew up in silence and obscurity, derived new vigor from opposition, and finally erected the triumphant banner of the Cross on the ruins of the Capitol.’
That pure and humble religion promised eternal life to all who followed its founder, a Gali…