Tom Holland gave an account of how the Christian Revolution forged the Western imagination at Hay Festival Winter Weekend today, as he presented his new book, Dominion.
"The impact of christianity can be felt far beyond what is obvious, far beyond what we see of the church," he argued.
"Take the cross," he began. "To the Romans, it represented the total power of the State to crucify whoever they wanted. Christianity turned that symbol on its head... Or look at the way in which we assume today that time goes from one point to another, rather than working in a cycle."
Sexuality, Holland argued is where the influence can be seen most starkly. "For us, the sexual binary revolves around whether you are male or female. For the Romans, it was whether you were master or not," he said. "It’s hard to get our heads around the degree to which the Roman world was predicated on the systematic exploitation of people who did not rank, who were not free."
So, what changed? "Paul’s teachings on marriage ate into the fabric of sexual assumptions across the Roman Empire such that when it collapsed the process of change could not be stopped... It led to our current concept of romantic love," argued Holland. "In the 60s something radical undoubtedly happens to our assumptions around love and sex, but even this revolution emerges from a Christian understanding of what love is."
Even today, argued Holland, a Christian understanding of the world is informing our most urgent issues. "#MeToo has had the power it has had because most people accept these [Christian] assumptions of sexual relations. It is a puritan movement, evidence of the most remarkable revolution in Western history, so deeply rooted that we take it for granted."
Explore the full Hay Festival Winter Weekend programme here.