Creating Christ: How Roman Emperors Invented Christianity

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The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful.

-Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Introduction

Religious fanatics from the Middle East are waging an assault on Western civilization and have just struck a demoralizing blow to the very capital of foreign “decadence.” Leery of war with an entire people, the West acknowledges only advocates of peace to be “true” followers of the terrorists’ religion. Indeed, Western leaders proclaim that their attackers’ own dogma commands peace.

The year: 66 CE. The civilization under attack: the Roman Empire. And the terrorists: an ancient fanatical sect of Judaism.

Today, religious intolerance is readily associated with Islam. Before the last two or three centuries, however, Christianity was used to justify the same practices: heretics were burned alive, holy inquisitions tortured and executed those suspected of deviant beliefs, priceless books were lost to posterity, pagan temples and art were destroyed, and sacrilegious sex acts were punished with death. For many centuries Europe was plagued with brutal and bloody wars waged decade after decade merely between different sects of Christianity. On a scale of sheer insanity, those atrocities equal any committed in the name of Islam today.

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