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The Revolution Already Happened
How Christianity Demolished Ancient Religions and Revolutionized the Framework for Modern Western Minds
From The Ancient City, by Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges:
“from the single fact that the state no longer had its official religion, the rules for the government of men were forever changed.”
I’ve thought about this a lot, especially since reading about the origins of the separation of church and state in Tom Holland’s book, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World. There is a particular portion in which he describes the effect of Christ’s words to the Pharisees:
“Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things which are God’s” (Matthew 22:21)
It’s hard to both explain and understate the consequences of this idea. In The Ancient City, Numa does exactly that, or at least contributes to my understanding of how pivotal that concept was in our history.
This combined with the universality of one God completely changes the mind of humanity in relation to other humans.
“The divine Being was placed outside and above physical nature. Whilst previously every man had made a god for himself, and there were as many of them as there were…
