Ideas: A History from Fire to Freud

81. Ibid., page 145. But see Moynahan, Op. cit., page 149 for what he says is Augustine’s denial of original sin.

82. Moynahan, Op. cit., pages 192ff, for Gregory’s administrative genius.

83. Colish, Op. cit., page 40.

84. The full moon shows the glory of perfection, to which man must aspire, and which only Jesus attained. Accurate dating of future festivals was also important because early Christians believed that to celebrate Easter too soon was sacrilegious. To do so meant you thought you could be ‘saved without the assistance of God’s grace’, hubris on a colossal scale. To celebrate too late was also sacrilegious – it meant you didn’t care, were not assiduous in the profession of your faith. The date of Easter was thus pivotal, and many other feasts depended on it. Richards, Op. cit., pages 345ff.

85. Ibid., page 350.

86. Moynahan, Op. cit., page 57, for details about the early variations in the celebration of Easter.

87. Ibid., pages 1–2.

88. There was even a tradition that the rules of the computus had been disclosed to St Pachomius, the fourth-century Egyptian monk, who had been visited by an angel. See Bauer, Op. cit., pages 152–154 for details.

89. Richards, Op. cit., page 350. Regarding the changing nature of Christianity, see, for example: Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981/1982; and R. A. Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press/Canto, 1990/1998.

90. Ferrill, Op. cit., pages 17–18.

91. Ibid., page 18.

92. Ibid.

93. Ibid., page 17.

94. Ibid.

95. Arno Borst, Medieval Worlds: Barbarians, Heretics and Artists in the Middle Ages, London: Polity, 1991, page 3.

96. Ibid.

97. Ibid., page 5.

98. Ibid.

99. Ibid.

100. Ibid., page 6. See Moynahan, Op. cit., page 152, for St Augustine’s reaction.

101. Borst, Op. cit., page 6.

102. D. Herlihy, Medieval Culture and Society, London: Macmillan, 1968, page xi.

103. William Manchester, A World Lit Only by Fire, New York and London: Little Brown, 1992, page 3.

104. Ibid., page 5.

105. Ibid.

106. Ibid., page 7.

107. Ibid., page 15.

108. Peter S. Wells, The Barbarians Speak, Princeton, New Jersey and London: Princeton University Press, 1999, page 100.

109. Ibid., page 103.

110. P. J. Geary, The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe, Princeton, New Jersey and London: Princeton University Press, 2002, page 64.

111. Wells, Op. cit., pages 107–108.

112. Ibid., page 108.

113. Warwick Bray and David Tramp, The Penguin Dictionary of Archaeology, London: Penguin Books, 1970, page 130.

114. Geary, Op. cit., page 73.

115 Ibid., page 79. See Moynahan, Op. cit., pages 191ff, for a vivid account of pagan conversions to Christianity.

116. Geary, Op. cit., page 81.

117. Wells, Op. cit., pages 116–117.

118. Ibid., page 118.

119. Ibid., pages 118 and 126.

120. Ibid., page 123 – see map there.

121. Ibid., page 114.

122. Jones and Pennick, Op. cit., page 81.

123. Ibid.

124. Wells, Op. cit., pages 163ff.

125. Ibid., page 185.

126. Jones and Pennick, Op. cit., pages 120ff.

127. Wells, Op. cit., page 256.

128. Geary, Op. cit., page 93.

129. Ibid., page 109.

130. Borst, Op. cit., page 6. Moynahan, Op. cit., page 197, describes pagan and Christian practices that existed side-by-side ‘for many centuries’.

131. Borst, Op. cit., pages 6–7.

CHAPTER 11: THE NEAR-DEATH OF THE BOOK, THE BIRTH OF CHRISTIAN ART

1. Joseph Vogt, The Decline of Rome, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1967, page 51.

2. Ibid., page 183.

3. Ibid., page 185. Moynahan, Op. cit., pages 150–151.

4. Vogt, Op. cit., page 187.

5. Lionel Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001, page 137.

6. Vogt, Op. cit., page 188.

7. Ibid., page 198.

8. Moynahan, Op. cit., page 153fn.

9. Vogt, Op. cit., page 236.

10. Ibid., page 234.

11. Reynolds and Wilson, Op. cit., page 48.

12. Anne Glynn-Jones, Holding Up a Mirror, London: Century, 1996, page 201.

13. Ibid., pages 201–202.

14. Freeman, Op. cit., page 321.

15. Richard E. Rubenstein, Aristotle’s Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Dark Ages, New York and London: Harcourt, 2003, pages 77–78.

16. Freeman, Op. cit., page 325.