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The End of a Civilization and the Birth of a New World
In ancient days, the clash between Christianity and classical culture was not just a theological dispute, but a seismic shift in thought that redefined history, education, human nature, and political order.
Charles Norris Cochrane, in Christianity and Classical Culture, argues that the emergence of Christianity did not merely modify Greco-Roman civilization… it ended it. Interestingly, Cochrane was not a Christian.
Cochrane believed that more than any other thinker, Augustine symbolized this shift by dismantling the foundational assumptions of classical antiquity. What had once been an unshakable confidence in human reason, political power, and historical cycles was now recast in the light of divine providence.
By introducing a radically different vision of human destiny, Christianity brought about the intellectual and cultural death of the ancient Classical world.
The Christian Transformation of History
Classical civilization viewed history as cyclical. From Hesiod to Aristotle, from Polybius to the Stoics, the past was believed to repeat itself endlessly. Rome itself was seen as the culmination of this cycle, the final and permanent embodiment of a political order. However, Christianity shattered this assumption by introducing a linear conception of time… history was not an endless repetition but a purposeful movement toward a divine, teleological conclusion.
In The City of God, Augustine attacked the Roman idea of historical greatness by arguing that no earthly empire, not even Rome, could claim to be eternal. Unlike classical thinkers who believed that human effort could restore past glories, Augustine taught that history was moving toward an irreversible judgment.
The sack of Rome in 410 AD was not, as many pagans believed, proof that Christianity had weakened the empire. Rather, it demonstrated the transient nature of all human power. In rejecting the Roman ideal of perpetual order, Christianity introduced the revolutionary idea that history was guided not by rulers’ ambitions but by divine will.
The Death of Classical Education
First, please understand, this is not a call to take your kids out of classical education. Nope. Rather, it’s a biblical call to understand what lies beneath the surface of classical thought. Knowing what worldview was actually inculcated by classical thinkers will help any parent involved in classical education. I would simply say, with Bob Marley, “If you know your history… you would know where I’m coming from.” That said, it’s essential to know that…
Christianity actually overturned the educational foundations of the classical world. For centuries, Greek and Roman education had been built on the pursuit of human excellence through autonomous reason and rhetoric.
Plato and Aristotle believed that education should form virtuous citizens. Virtue was never defined other than a vague notion of what glorified the state. Cicero saw it as the training of orators, and Roman elites viewed it as preparation for a role in big government. The foundation of classical pedagogy was an absolute trust in human reason alone as the means to cultivate wisdom and virtue. Would you agree with Plato and Aristotle on the definition of “virtue?” If you’re a Christian, you let scripture define virtue, right?
Christianity, however, denied that reason alone could lead to truth. The Christian emphasis on faith and divine revelation meant that wisdom was not the product of rhetorical skill or philosophical speculation but the gift of divine grace. Where classical thinkers sought knowledge as an end in itself, Christian education subordinated learning to the goal of salvation and its implications.
This shift led to the decline of the classical liberal arts tradition, replacing it with monastic education, where the study of Scripture and theological reflection became the highest intellectual pursuits. The result was not only the collapse of the old humanistic model of education and the rise of a Christian vision that no longer assumed the sufficiency of human intellect, but also the rise of the university as it took form in Bologna, Paris, and Oxford in the medieval period.
Interestingly, the university was a distinctly Christian concept that brought many different academic subjects (diversity) under the authority of scripture. (uni)
A New View of Human Nature
Perhaps the most radical break between Christianity and classical culture came in its understanding of human nature itself. Classical antiquity was shaped by an unrealistic belief in human potential, whether through reason (Plato), virtue (Aristotle), or civic duty (Cicero).
The Greeks and Romans saw human beings as a bit flawed but ultimately perfectible. Stoicism, which greatly influenced late Roman thought, taught that individuals could attain moral and intellectual greatness through rational self-discipline.
Christianity rejected the classical view of human nature entirely. Drawing from Paul’s letters, Augustine insisted that human beings were fallen due to original sin. No amount of education, self-control, or civic virtue could redeem mankind… only divine grace could do that. This teaching obliterated the classical confidence in self-sufficiency and replaced it with a doctrine of human dependency on God.
The implications were enormous. The Roman ideal of the self-made man, the wise statesman, the noble hero… these became illusions. Christian anthropology declared that all human beings, from the emperor to the slave, were equal in their need for salvation.
This undermined the social hierarchies of the ancient world, where aristocratic virtue and noble birth had been considered the markers of moral worth. In the Christian worldview, even the greatest philosopher was as powerless as the uneducated peasant before God.
The Collapse of Classical Political Thought
The classical world was also built on faith in the state. From the Greek polis to the Roman Empire, political life was considered the highest form of human existence. Aristotle taught that man was a “political animal,” and the Roman ideal was that of the virtuous citizen serving the republic. Even under emperors, Rome justified its rule by claiming it embodied the highest order of civilization.
Christianity denied the state this exalted status. Augustine went so far as to call the earthly kingdom in his days… Regnum Diaboli… the kingdom of the devil. No longer could the empire claim to be the supreme source of justice, peace, or virtue. The true kingdom was not of this world. This new vision stripped the Roman state of its divine legitimacy. It replaced it with a sharp division between the “City of Man” (flawed, temporary, and ultimately doomed) and the “City of God” (eternal and perfect).
The result was that political power was no longer the ultimate measure of human attainment. The classical belief in statecraft as the highest human endeavor gave way to a vision in which salvation status mattered more than political governance, eternity more than empire. This destroyed the intellectual foundations of Greco-Roman political philosophy, which had assumed that the state was the highest expression of order. With Christianity, the state became secondary… necessary but not ultimate.
The Triumph of Christianity and the Death of Classical Thought
Christianity did not simply emerge alongside classical culture… it ended it. It redefined history, removing it from the cycles of rise and fall and placing it under divine providence. It transformed education, shifting the focus from reason and civic virtue to faith and divine revelation.
It demolished the classical idea of human nature, replacing the ideal of rational self-sufficiency with the reality of original sin and the need for grace. And finally, it shattered the political ideal of the state as the highest human institution, making it clear that no earthly empire could be the true source of justice.
Augustine’s City of God was not merely a theological work but a eulogy for the classical world. In its place, Christianity established an entirely new civilization, one that no longer looked to Rome or Athens for ultimacy or even guidance… but to God and His word. With this shift, the Greco-Roman order… its ideals, ambitions, confidence in reason and politics… was laid to rest.
In its place stood a world where faith, not pagan philosophy, was the foundation of truth.
