El cristianismo contó a las generaciones posteriores que su victoria sobre el viejo mundo fue celebrada por todas, y las siguientes generaciones lo creyeron.

Un mártir podía empezar el día de su muerte como una de las personas de más baja categoría en el imperio y acabar como una de las más eminentes en el cielo.

Lo que aseguró la casi total destrucción de las literaturas latina y griega fue una combinación de ignorancia, miedo y estupidez. Estas armas tienen menos peso narrativo, quizá, pero cuando se utilizan sin control pueden conseguir grandes logros.

El fanatismo rara vez da lugar a buena poesía.

To oppose another man’s religion, to repress their worship – these were not, clerics told their congregations, wicked or intolerant acts. They were some of the most virtuous things a man might do. The Bible itself demanded it. As the uncompromising words of Deuteronomy instructed: ‘And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place.

Much was preserved. Much, much more was destroyed. It has been estimated that less than ten per cent of all classical literature has survived into the modern era. For Latin, the figure is even worse: it is estimated that only one hundredth of all Latin literature remains. If this was ‘preservation’ – as it is often claimed to be – then it was astonishingly incompetent. If it was censorship, it was brilliantly effective.

A papyrus fragment shows Bishop Theophilus standing triumphantly over an image of Serapis, Bible in hand, while on the right-hand side monks can be seen attacking the temple. St Benedict, St Martin, St John Chrysostom; the men leading these campaigns of violence were not embarrassing eccentrics but men at the very heart of the Church.

Tens of millions of people had converted – or were said to have converted – to a new and alien religion, in under a century. Religions that had lasted for centuries were dying with remarkable rapidity. And if some of these millions were converting not out of love of Christ but out of fear of his enforcers? No matter, argued Christian preachers. Better to be scared in this life than burn in the next.

A new era was opening. To worship another god was no longer to be merely different. It was to err. And those who erred were to be seized, struck and – if necessary – wounded. Above all, they were to be stopped.